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Lance’s mom used to tell him that he had the eyes of Neptune, the skin of Jupiter, and the spirit of a true Caribbean. When he was seven, she would sit on his bed at night and tell him stories about far-off countries, and when he would grow bored of the same descriptions every night, she would move on to the planets.
She would begin with Mercury and make her way to Pluto (when it was still considered a planet), and describe each planet with such vivid detail that Lance sometimes thought that she had gone there herself. In truth, she researched the internet about each planet’s environment. No one could say that Lance’s mom was anything but dedicated to her children.
That was why Lance listened to her. Every single time that his mom sat on his bed, he would lay in silence as she gestured at the solar system hanging from his ceiling. His dad sometimes passed by his room and joked about how this was the only time in the day when Lance would shut up, and his mom would give Lance a knowing look.
For the life of him, Lance could never deny what love he held for the stars.
So now, Lance sits in the control room of the Altean castle, looking up at stars and planets that he only ever dreamed of. There’s irony in the fact that, at last, Lance is traveling outer space and seeing the universe from the same place as the stars, but all he can think about is his mother’s voice as she talked to him until sleep fell.
Lance sighs, and pulls up the hologram of the universe. He swipes for a good few moments before reaching his own solar system, and just stares. Nostalgia is something that plagues him more and more every day. Even if he can’t hear his mother’s voice as she describes everything to him, this was the nearest thing he had to her.
Lance stares at a cluster of stars in front of him, trying to make a constellation out of them. How had his mom made it seem so easy?
He drags a fingers across the hologram, watching the stars twinkle out and on as he runs hands through them. Lance makes a line from one star to another, following it and ending up with Ursa Major. With a roll of his eyes, he plops down on the floor. There is only one time of day when he allows himself to feel sad, and this is it, but it was getting ridiculous.
Lance is in Voltron, and he should consider himself so lucky. More than three-quarters of the Garrison would have killed to get the spot that Lance is in, to be chosen by an intergalactic police force, and to sit in the piloting chair of the lions. So why is it that Lance feels so upset all the time? Half of the day, Lance feels like someone scraped up all his inner organs and dumped them in a trash can. The other half he feels the subtlest of aches in his chest, but it’s there. He can always feel it.
Lance blows air out of his mouth, laying down on the floor and looking up at the hologram. He needs to get a grip.
He lays there for a second longer, staring at the stars and attempting to make a constellation. Any constellation. His eyes cross and Lance groans, standing up and walking out of the control room. He shuts the door behind him.
What Lance needs to do is let off some of his pent up emotions. Listening to music hasn’t worked that well for some time, as the only things he has are the same things he left with from Earth. Sleeping can only do it’s job for so long before Lance wakes up again only to register the same feelings embedded in his body. That leaves one solution.
With any luck, he’ll be alone.
Lance walks into the training room only to be met with Keith skidding past him, sword clutched in hand. He takes a moment to register that Keith is not running to him, he’s running away from him, and then Lance looks up to see the training robot rushing his way. It takes him a second to realise the danger of the situation, but in that time Keith shouts his name and shoves him out of the way as he continues to fight with the robot.
Lance blinks, having been pushed down on the floor. There’s a dull throb in his elbow, but he can ignore that. He can only stare as Keith wrecks the robot, wipes sweat off his forehead, and glances at Lance before saying, “What are you doing here?”
“I was going to train?”
Keith eyes him, “You never train voluntarily.”
“Eh, you know, better late than never.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll train with you, if you want.”
Lance stares at Keith unblinkingly, then says, dumbly, “Okay.”
Keith takes Lance’s hand and pulls him up like he weighs next to nothing. They settle in the center of the training room, hands made fists that cover both their faces and their stomachs. Lance and Keith circle each other before coming to a rest right across from each other. He can feel his emotions bubbling up to cloud his vision, so Lance lashes out with a shout.
Keith swivels and punches out, but Lance turns out of the way at the last moment. Now they can both feel the loose anxiousness in the air, each of them preparing for whatever comes next. Lance kicks out, Keith punches, Lance dodges, and Keith blocks.
They continue to throw hits at each other, sparring session lasting up to a minute before they realise that the other is barely attempting to make contact. Both still for a second, chests heaving and sweat glistening on their faces. Keith furrows his eyebrows, and Lance sticks out his tongue.
Keith startles, grin breaking through before he lashes out with lighting speed and punches Lance’s gut. Lance heaves, doubling over, but Keith only lets out a chuckle as he watches him.
“You’re evil,” Lance breathes.
“And you’re gullible. You need to keep your defense up when fighting with your opponent, or else they’ll use your distraction to their advantage.”
“I thought this was friendly sparring,” Lance says, gingerly straightening up.
“You said you wanted to train,” Keith shrugs. “What good does it do you to do some half-assed training?”
“Fair enough.”
Lance sits down on the floor, knees loosely up and elbows resting on them. He yawns widely, and closes his eyes for a moment before he hears Keith speak, “Why did you want to train, anyway?”
“Google Earth is always taking pics. I need to keep in shape for the cameras.”
Lance feels Keith rolling his eyes more than sees him. Then, a warmth spreads through his side, and Lance opens his eyes to see Keith sitting down next to him. They remain in companionable silence before, again, Keith interrupts it.
“I mean it, Lance. What’s wrong?”
Lance glances at Keith, who is wearing one of the most worried expressions he’s ever seen on him. His heart skips a beat for a second, momentarily losing its rhythm before regaining it again. It’s one thing to know by deduction that Keith cares for him, and if not for Lance in specific, then for the blue paladin partly responsible for creating Voltron. It is an entirely different thing to witness the care manifest itself for Lance to see.
Lance lays down on the floor, hands on his stomach. “I miss home.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“...What do you miss about it?”
“Everything. My family, my mom, my friends, good food, the ocean, my hometown, even the Garrison on particularly bad days.”
“Is this a bad day?”
“I think so.”
Keith lets out a little sigh through his nose as he lays down with Lance, hands stretching up over his head as far as they can go. “If you ever feel this bad again, just tell me. I could use the extra practice.”
“Wow, the empathy is oozing out of you today, isn’t it, Keith?”
“Shut up,” Then, “I tried.”
Lance clenches his eyes, “I know. I’m sorry.”
There’s a tense silence before Keith says, “When I was little, I used to be switched around so many orphanages that some of them just became a blur. I was always hoping for a family to adopt me and make me their son for the rest of my life, but it never happened. There was always this underlying anger in me because I had never been truly happy back on Earth. Voltron was pretty much the best thing to happen to me. But sometimes I also miss it, if not for the people, then for Earth itself.”
Lance tries hard not to make any comments on how this is the first time Keith has opened up to anyone in the team, apart from maybe Shiro, and the first time Keith speaks more than a few sentences to Lance. It feels momentous.
“It was beautiful, wasn’t it?” Lance closes his eyes again, but this time it’s against tears.
“It still is beautiful, Lance. Earth isn’t gone.”
“Sometimes it feels like it is.”
Lance feels arms pulling him toward Keith, and they lay there, sweaty and disgusting, hugging each other. It’s probably the best hug Lance has ever gotten from anyone other than his mother. He feels his chest swelling, but in that is a sadness so profound that the tears only come out faster.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Keith whispers. “You’re okay.”
Keith’s arms tighten around him, so resolute and insecure at the same time that the only thing Lance can do is stare up at Keith with glistening eyes and murmur, “Kiss me.”
Keith searches Lance’s face for a moment, one that feels long and that makes Lance question whether he read wrong into all their bickering, all the fights, and now, the hugging and the confessions. That’s all knocked out of his head when Keith sneaks a hand in Lance’s hair and clutches gently at the strands.
Lance’s breath hitches when Keith kisses him not on the lips, but the corner of them. Then his cheeks, his nose, both of his eyes with enough care that Lance tears up again, and his temples. Finally, Keith stops to look at Lance’s bloodshot eyes and whispers, “Okay.”
They kiss, and for a second Lance forgets about the ache ever-present in his chest cavity. And it feels like old times and new, where Lance has no gaping hole in his soul and he believes everything will work out.
“Like that?” Keith asks when they part.
Lance can only nod before pulling Keith back in.