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When Keith heard knocking on his door in the middle of the night, he was not expecting to find Lance standing in the hallway. His eyes were red, stray tears falling down his freckled cheeks.
“Uh.. Hey?” Keith leans against his doorframe, “What’s up?”
Instead of responding to Keith’s question with words, Lance half hugs half collapses into Keith.
“Woah, okay. Uh,” Keith’s arms slowly find their way around Lance, supporting him as best they can, “Do you wanna come in?”
Lance nods, a small movement compared to the rapid heaving of his chest. Carefully, Keith brings Lance into his room. He has never seen Lance like this, has never seen the Blue Paladin so sad, a far cry from the usual charming, outgoing personality that Lance seems to effortlessly carry himself with.
Keith sits Lance on his bed and finds himself shocked when Lance continues to hold onto him.
“Please,” Lance whispers, “I don’t want to be alone.”
“I wasn’t gonna leave. I just want to sit down too.”
Lance sniffles as he releases Keith, although he keeps a hand steadily on Keith’s forearm and, when Keith sits down, Lance is quick to once again cling onto him. Lance, somehow, still has his sleep mask situated on the top of his head, robe silky soft.
Silently, Keith wonders if Lance always looks this beautiful when he cries.
“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” Keith asks.
This isn’t the first time that Lance has come directly to Keith for comfort. It wasn’t too long ago that Lance had knocked on Keith’s door to speak with him about the lion assignments. Keith had been surprised that Lance went to him for that, but then again it made sense since Keith was the Black Paladin.
But this? This is something else entirely.
“I miss home. I miss my family and the beach and— and I’m so sad that my niece and nephew are going to grow up without me being there. What if they forget I exist? What if we never make it back to Earth? What if–”
“Lance, you are spiraling.”
“I know! But I can’t help it, there is so much unknown..”
Keith wasn’t expecting Lance’s arms to pull him into an embrace once again, and he was certainly not expecting the way that Lance laid down in Keith’s bed, bringing the man along with him.
Okay.. So they are laying down in Keith’s bed together now. Cool.. Cool, cool..
It takes every drop of Keith’s strength to not ask: “What the fuck?” He knows how it will come off. He doesn’t want to scare Lance off. Not when things have been going so well between them.
“Can I ask a question?”
“Do I have the option of saying no?” Lance asks.
“No. Why did you come to me and not.. I dunno, Hunk. Or Pidge.”
“Pidge is.. They are very… I don’t know how to say this nicely.”
“Then say it mean.”
“It’s not mean!”
“Then why is it not nice?”
“Pidge isn’t always the best at… emotional discussions.”
“Uh-huh,” Keith finds himself brushing a stray strand of hair out of Lance’s face, pausing when he realizes what he did, then hopes that Lance didn’t catch the hesitation. He doesn’t want to make Lance feel worse.
“And Hunk.. I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like he isn’t actually listening to me, y’know?”
“I thought you two were close,” Keith isn’t sure why he sounds bitter.
“We are. I.. Hmm..”
“What?”
“I just… Sometimes I like talking to you because it feels like you’re actually listening to me.”
“How am I better at emotional discussions than Pidge is?”
“You just are. You aren’t analytical about everything.”
Keith’s hand moves to fix his own hair, wondering how bad his bedhead is. Lance reaches out and holds Keith’s hand in his own, a shy look crossing his face.
“You tell it how it is. Usually,” for the first time all night, Lance smiles.
“What changed between us? Why do you suddenly trust me more?” Keith asks. He hasn’t quite processed the fact that he is holding hands with Lance. He almost wishes that his gloves were off so he could feel Lance’s skin against his palm.
“You showed that you cared about me. I trust you because I know I’ll be safe with you..”
“Is this tired, sad Lance talking or..”
“I’m being serious, Keith.”
“Why?”
Lance sighs, wiping away tears with the hand that isn’t holding Keith’s. He is silent for longer than Keith was anticipating as Lance stares at a wall. Slowly, he takes a deep breath before saying, “You make me feel like I have a place on this team.”
“Of course you do, Lance, don’t act we–”
“Keith, listen. When I doubted myself and my worth as a Paladin of Voltron, you were the one who made me feel like I mattered to the team. Even when you are being hot-headed and, honestly, a little mean.. You never really made me feel like I didn’t belong.”
“That’s because you do belong on the team.”
“I’m not an engineer, I’m not a super smart awesome hacker. I’m just… me. I’m just Lance..”
“I wouldn’t want you to be anyone else.”
Lance’s eyes drift to meet Keith’s, his hand tightening just slightly around Keith’s, “That can’t be true.”
“It is.”
“Keith..”
“Lance, this team would not be what it is without you. This entire situation is awful, yeah, but there are.. things everyday that make it worth it.”
“I didn’t realize you could be sentimental,” Lance teases.
“There’s a lot about me you don’t realize.”
“Like what?” Lance seems to have finally fully calmed down, stray tears no longer dripping onto the pillowcase below his head.
If Keith wasn’t feeling so tired, he would have thought that Lance moved to be closer to Keith.
“Uh..”
“I didn’t know you slept with your jacket and gloves on,” Lance notes, waving their intertwined hands in front of Keith’s face. Keith is mesmerized by how right it feels to be holding Lance’s hand. Just like it feels right to watch him charm people from across the room, to stare at every detail of Lance’s face until Lance calls him out for scowling at him (Keith was never scowling. He was entranced by the beauty that Lance McClain radiates).
Just like it felt right to carry Lance in his arms, telling him that everything was going to be okay as he rushed to the healing pods. Although Lance might have forgotten that moment, Keith will never be able to wash away the mental image of Lance that day.
It is here, in this gentle silence, that Keith realizes he is in love with Lance.
But Keith can’t tell Lance that, not yet at least. So, instead, he says, “I have a hippo stuffed animal back on Earth. I miss her.”
“That’s cute. Did you name her?”
“I.. did name her. She was a gift from Shiro and Adam when they first adopted me.”
“What’s her name?”
Keith glances away from Lance, “Hippo..”
“You named your hippo stuffed animal… Hippo.”
“Yes,” Keith mumbles.
“So you are the type of guy who would name his cat Cat”
“Maybe,” Keith is still avoiding Lance’s face, head tilted ever so slightly away.
“What else do I not know about you?” Lance asks.
“A lot.”
Lance scoffs before resting a hand on Keith’s cheek, forcing him to make eye contact with Lance once again. His hand stays there, the warmth of Lance’s hand overwhelming Keith’s senses. One hand on his cheek, the other interlaced with his own.
It isn’t news to Keith that Lance is… quite the touchy friend. He sprawls out on couches with his head and legs resting on Hunk and Pidge, initiates hugs after a mission has gone well. Keith wonders if it comes from growing up with as much family as Lance did. He seems so comfortable with physical affection.
Keith isn’t the same. The only people he would let hug him for years were Adam and Shiro. He would flinch when someone would place a hand on Keith, even if it wasn’t leading up to an act of violence. And even now the only person he feels truly comfortable having any sort of positive physical affection would be Shiro, the man who raised him and took care of him when no one else would. Keith trusts Shiro with his entire heart. That man is his brother, so it makes complete sense that Keith would be comfortable with that touch.
But if all of this is true, then why is Keith so comfortable with Lance’s touch?
“Keith Kogane: The man of many mysteries.”
Lance McClain, Keith thinks to himself, the man who found his way into my heart.