Chapter Text
“Do you ever think about Earth?” Lance asked, breaking the peaceful silence which had fallen over the near-empty room.
Halfway across the couch, Keith shrugged. “Not really.”
“You don’t miss it?” Lance looked away from the wide window, watching the colours of the nebula outside play slowly over Keith’s face.
“Nothing to miss.” Keith didn’t take his eyes off the stars outside, his face unreadable. “Well, maybe my bike, but Red’s got a cooler one.” he turned his head slightly, and his eyes fixed on Lance. “You?”
“Everything.” Lance sighed, looking back out the window. “But right now? I miss the constellations.” The nebula which filled the left half of the massive window was beautiful, but also so very alien. Even after all the wonders he’d seen as a Paladin, part of him still longed for the familiarity of home.
“Which ones?” Keith asked, sounding sincere.
“All of them.” Lance replied after a moment. “Mami taught astronomy at a college, so I could find constellations blindfolded growing up. Didn’t take long to learn how to do it at the Garrison, either.” he grinned, though it faded fast. “But out here, we keep moving, and the stars keep changing. There’s no pattern to them anymore.”
“Says who?” Keith frowned in Lance’s peripheral vision. “There’s plenty of patterns. You just have to pick them out.” he lifted a hand, and drew a squiggle in the air. “There, I just made a Voltron constellation.”
Lance snorted. “Voltron? Really?”
“Let’s see you do better.” Keith huffed.
Lance scooted closer along the cushions, and after a moment dragged his finger between a set of twelve bright dots near the uppder edge of the window. “Queen of the Stars.” he said theatrically, waving his hand at the thick glass and recalling the stories Mami told while he sat on her lap and looked through the eyepiece of her telescope. “Fairest maiden of all her people.”
“Maiden?” Keith snorted.
“You have no appreciation for storytelling.” Lance rolled his eyes.
“Allura’s not a maiden, she’s a politician.”
“No. Appreciation.” Lance punched Keith in the shoulder, and received a punch in return.
“What else do you miss?”
Lance knew an out when he saw one, and he wasn’t too proud to take it. “Oh, plenty of things.” he shrugged, lifting his arms and resting them on the back of the couch. “Rain, wind-surfing, girls.”
“There are two girls on this ship.” Keith said skeptically. “Not to mention all the alien ones you hit on.”
“I mean human girls.” Lance slumped against the back of the couch. “And Pidge barely counts.” he let his head tip back, and shut his eyes. “There was this one girl back home, Tanya. She was a babe. Tall, curvy, could probably kill a man without breaking a sweat.” he grinned, recalling the way her curly hair had come loose from its tight, elegant braids after the fifth time she fell off her wind-surfer. “So far out of my league.”
“I bet.” Keith said dryly. Lance blindly swatted at the Red Paladin’s shoulder.
“Shut up.”
“Seriously, though, you miss girls?” Keith sounded like he was either skeptical, or about to laugh. “You’re hopeless.”
Lance shrugged, cracking an eye open. “Dating pool’s pretty small out here.”
“Like you’ve actually dated anyone.” Keith rolled his eyes.
Lance sat up straight. “I have!”
“Riiight.” Keith drawled, grinning like a smug asshole.
“Tanya and I went on, like, three dates.” he insisted, choosing not to mention that all of those were him teaching her to wind-surf and after the third she went out with Fernanda for a solid two weeks. “And there was Juan, too. We dated for almost a year.” admittedly they were all movie dates, and it was more makeout-friends than anything else, but it totally counted. “And that thing with Nyma was totally a date.”
“Right up until she cuffed you to a tree and stole your Lion.” Keith gave Lance a smug smirk, not even looking straight at him. Asshole.
“Okay, that was in no way my fault.”
“Riiight. She just wanted to steal Blue, that wasn’t a date.”
“She kissed me before cuffing me to the tree, so it counts.” Lance blustered. So maybe that wasn’t strictly true, but Keith had no reason to disbelieve Lance’s word.
“She did not.” Keith almost laughed, and yeah it was true but Lance still felt offended by the disbelief.
“She did! I’ll have you know I’m a very good kisser. Ask anyone I’ve dated.”
“All two of them?”
“There were one-off dates too.” Lance huffed. “And Hunk. I kissed Hunk once on a dare, and he said it was the best kiss he’d ever had.”
“Did not.” Keith turned to face Lance, disbelief written clear on his face.
“Did too!” Lance retorted, realizing belatedly that he sounded exceptionally childish.
“There’s no way you were the best kiss Hunk’s ever had.”
“I was.” Lance repeated. “And I’ll prove it.”
“What?”
“I’ll kiss you, right now.” Lance shifted closer to Keith on the couch, sitting right next to the paler boy. The colours of the nebula outside painted his face, catching in his dark eyes, and he leaned in as Lance closed the distance between them. Lance rested his left hand on Keith’s hip, and lifted his right to tangle in the Red Paladin’s messy black mullet. Keith, quite obviously, had no idea what he was doing. Lance tugged on his hair gently, and prompted him to open his mouth a bit.
When they pulled apart, Keith’s cheeks were flushed and his breaths were coming fast and shallow. Lance grinned, and loosened his grip on Keith’s hair. “Best kiss you’ve ever had, right?”
“Well, yeah.” Keith said slightly breathlessly. “First one tends to be.”
“I can make your second even better.” Lance breathed, and leaned in close again. Keith hesitated for a moment, the colourful light of the nebula outside dancing in his eyes, and Lance wondered if he’d get punched for asking about making this a regular thing. Then Keith closed the last little space between them for another kiss, and Lance stopped thinking about much at all.