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There’s some sort of vibration under his face. A rhythmic thud, thud, thud that seems to get closer before it gets farther away, and that’s when Lance opens his eyes. The room he’s in is poorly lit, little strips of lighting on the walls and ceiling making the whole place a dark, eery purple. The floor is cold, metal, and Lance gets the distinct impression that he’s been kidnapped. More important, he realizes, is the fact that he can’t remember anything at all.
Well. Mostly anything, he supposes. He sits up, staring at his hands, and yeah — he recognizes those. And he’s knows that he’s Lance, obviously. English, Spanish, math, history — yep, all there, good and sound in the ol’ noggin. Which means that he’s only missing pretty much everything relevant to who he is as a person. Still bad, but objectively not as bad as it could be, right? Like, he could not remember what Twitter is. Or that cats are real. Or any number of things, really.
Right. Is it normal to realize that you probably have amnesia when you have it? He figures it must be pretty normal. How often do you suddenly wake up and realize that you don’t really know who you are, where you are, or what the hell you’re supposed to be doing? That’s gotta be the first sign that your brain is going a little bit haywire.
Lance’s first instinct is to panic — because, hello, what the fuck is going on — but he shoves that instinct down in favor of a more specific brand of panic. Because even though he can’t remember who his parents or friends are or, jeez, how old he is, he’s still pretty sure that he’s been kidnapped. The creepy lighting and the sleeping on the floor seem like obvious signs for that kind of thing. And if he’s been kidnapped, that means that figuring out who the fuck “Lance” even is can take a back-burner to escaping from this situation in the first place. Somehow.
If he has amnesia, it probably means that his captors knocked him out. And, presumably, if Lance had a good life and good people in his life, then there are probably people looking for him. His name is likely on all the news stations. Missing posters, cops on high alert, the whole nine yards — hopefully.
He tries to take stock of the situation. Like the fact that he’s wearing the most absurd outfit known to man. It seems to be some kind of armor — a black, tough undersuit covered by hard, heavy pieces situated on his chest, arms, and legs. And there’s a funky looking belt with a glowing center on his waist. The outfit certainly isn’t all that comfortable, but that’s not really his biggest problem at the moment.
The thudding starts up again — guard patrols? — and Lance stands, making his way to what he assumes is the door. The strips of light are disrupted here, at least, and a crack in the metal indicates a place where the door could open. He waits for those footsteps to get closer, and then he knocks on the metal.
“Um, hello?” he calls. “Kidnappers? Did you hit me really hard in the head, by chance?”
“Shut up, paladin!” a voice growls back.
Lance blinks. All right, weird nicknames here, but whatever.
“Right, yeah, definitely,” he says. “I just have a few quick questions!”
A series of beeps issue from outside the door, and then it slides open. Score! That was way easier than Lance thought it would’ve been, even if the guards are just coming to pummel him into shutting up. Before they get the chance, though, Lance stumbles back a step, more freaked out by the guards than his lack of memory.
“You’re purple,” he blurts. The monster — alien? — grunts, and the guard beside him raises some type of gun, which charges with light and a low thrum and holy shit, that’s totally a laser gun, what the fuck is going on—
Lance reacts out of panic. Or instinct. Or some otherworldly possession of his body, maybe, because apparently anything is possible and furry, purple aliens exist. But one second he’s standing there, contemplating exactly how little he understands about himself and the world and his situation, and the next he’s standing above the two guards, holding the laser gun in his hand and blinking down at his throbbing fist, his knuckles split from having punched one of the dudes way too hard in the nose.
“Ow,” he says, shaking out his hand. Holy shit! Where’d he learn to do that? Neither of the guards answer him, and Lance realizes that they’re honestly, truly out cold, and then he sneaks out of the room feeling some mix of trepidation and awe.
The hallway is long, stretching endlessly in both directions, and the floor and ceiling and walls are covered with more of those strips of light, albeit brighter ones. The gun is a heavy but oddly familiar weight in his hand, and Lance tightens his hold on it imperceptibly.
He picks a direction at random and starts walking. He slinks around the building, peering around corners, and this weird calm comes over him. This should definitely be a situation that calls for panic — every factor is there, come on — but despite that, Lance feels weirdly comfortable. Sure of himself.
“Hey, you!” someone shouts, and Lance whips around and fires the gun before he knows what he’s doing. It barely has any kick, and a bright laser shoots out and smacks some alien in the chest. It goes down with a groan, and Lance is left there panting, his hands shaking slightly. Did he even aim that thing? It didn’t feel like he was trying to. His body just twisted and his arm raised and he pulled the trigger a moment too soon, allowing the alien to run into the laser rather than shooting the spot that the alien would've vacated by the time the laser actually got over there. What the fuck.
“Good one, Lance,” says a new voice. Lance stiffens, spinning on his heel and managing to not shoot the first human he’s seen. An attractive human. Shit.
Lance is still trying to gather his thoughts — who are you, how do you know me, who am I, are you single — when the dude keeps talking, apparently oblivious to Lance’s state of memory loss.
“There are six more Galra down the hall, we better go back in the direction you came from. I already got the datachip, so Pidge shouldn’t have anything to complain about.” He strides off past Lance, and Lance falls in step behind him automatically, his mind reeling.
“Our bayards are in some sort of storage closet, by the way. I overheard the guards talking,” he adds with a glance over his shoulder. Lance nods. When’s the best time to mention that he has no idea who this guy is, he wonders? “Have you seen any of the higher ups yet? I don’t know why, but this ship seems emptier than usual.”
Ship? Fucking ship? Are they in the middle of a freaking ocean?
“I don’t know,” Lance says.
The dude scoffs. “Keep your eyes peeled, I can’t be the only one noticing things.” He abruptly turns down a random hallway, navigating the ship like he’s familiar with it. He leads them down another two hallways, swiftly avoids a group of patrolling guards, and stops beside a random door.
“Shit, I didn’t grab a keycard,” he hisses, staring at the panel beside the door in dismay. “Think you can pick it?”
Lance blinks. Stares at the keycard reader, which he doesn’t even think is something that can be picked. And then he shoots it.
His companion gapes at him, looking at Lance like he’s utterly insane, and then the door slides open. He shuts his mouth. “You’re lucky that worked.”
It’s the storage room that he was talking about. It’s small, but it’s filled with all kinds of junk. He picks up some small, handheld kind of device and holds it by the side of his belt, where it then disappears from existence. Cool. Magic apparently exists.
Lance grabs a matching — although, blue instead of red — device and holds it by his own belt, where it, too, disappears. Then he accepts the helmet that the dude hands him and slides it over his head.
“That’s better,” the dude says. His voice comes from both directly in front of Lance as well as some sort of speaker in his helmet. Wow, are they deep sea divers, or something? “Okay, should we do this the old fashioned way, or come clean and tell Allura we got captured?”
“Old fashioned way?” Lance guesses.
A grin. “Good,” he says. “I’d rather not get yelled at for fucking up the mission.”
Lance laughs, because when in doubt, just laugh and nod along, right? He’s only knocked out two aliens and maybe-probably killed a third in the last thirty minutes. What could possibly go wrong?
He lets the dude take the lead again. He retrieves his thing from his waistband — bayard, did he call it? — and it turns into a sword, because of course it does. Lance thinks about immitating him, then decides to stick with his stolen gun, because at least he knows how the hell it works.
“Dude,” Lance says, and the dude gives him a weird look, but doesn’t question it.
“What?”
“I think I hear something.”
They both pause, right there in the middle of the hallway, and Lance strains his ears. It comes again, a low murmur, and the dude shoots Lance a wide-eyed look, nods, and then starts walking in the direction of the voices. Uh, the fuck? Lance was hoping they’d turn the other way and avoid the pirate aliens, but all right.
They turn the corner, and then it’s chaos. Lance’s new, recklessly brave friend dives headfirst into the fight, engaging half a dozen of the purple weirdos with his sword alone. Lance stands there and panics for a second before figuring that he shouldn’t leave this guy to do all the fighting by himself, and then he joins in.
The dude is slashing aliens left and right, sparring and dodging and skewering. Lance spares a moment to hope that the two of them are actually the good guys in this situation before taking aim and letting his body fall into a rhythm that its apparently familiar with. He ducks blows and twists and shoots lasers at the baddies trying to murder him and his buddy, and it’s all going well and great, honestly, when a new voice pipes up through the comms in Lance’s helment.
“Lance! Keith! Where the quiznak are you?” some girl says.
“That’s a funny word,” Lance mutters.
“We don’t have time for you jokes right now, Lance,” a new voice mutters, clearly annoyed.
“Shit,” says Lance’s battle buddy. Keith, presumably. He gives Lance a look that seems to say, ugh, busted, and then rolls his eyes. “We’re just… on the ship,” he says.
“On the ship?” says the first voice, sounding dangerously low. “You do mean the ship on the ground, right?”
Neither of them answer. Lance, because he has no idea whether they’re grounded or out in the middle of the ocean, and Keith, probably because they’re not on whatever ship this stranger wants them to be on.
“Jesus Christ,” the second voice says, apparently drawing an answer out of their silence.
“Hey, we got your datachip,” Keith says. “So you really have nothing to complain about.”
“Is that so?” says the first voice again. “Because to me, it seems like two of Voltron’s paladins went AWOL and decided to take this mission into their own hands!”
“Everything's fine,” Keith says. Lance glances around the hallway, trying to decide if this is true. All the aliens are dead — should he be freaking out about this? — and Keith is shaking blood off his sword casually. He gestures and Lance follows.
“Fine? Fine?”
“Allura—” Keith says.
“How is abandoning your team fine?” Allura growls. “Need I remind you that Lance left Hunk and Pidge at the mercy of six Galra generals?”
Keith stops in place, turning around to gape at Lance.
“You said you hadn’t seen them!”
“Um.”
“Please, explain to me your thought process,” Allura says, sounding terrifying. Lance is sure that even if he did remember his excuse, he'd still be quaking in his boots.
“We’re fine, by the way,” the other person adds. Pidge, Lance thinks, because Keith mentioned that datachip earlier.
“Okay, is now a bad time to mention that I don’t know who I am or who you guys are or where we are?” Lance says. “Because I don’t know who I am or who you guys are or where we are.”
“Lance!” Keith snaps. “Did you eat the fucking berries?”
Lance throws his arms up. “How should I know?” he says. “I don’t even know what a Voltron is!”
“Get your asses back to this planet immediately,” Allura hisses. The comms go out, and then Lance is left with a glaring Keith in a hallway.
“Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”
“It didn’t come up?” Lance tries. Keith makes a sound like a growl, and then he snatches Lance’s hand and starts dragging him through the ship at a run. “Hey, I can fend for myself!” he says. “I totally knocked two aliens out cold earlier! They are aliens, right?”
“Jesus,” Keith said. “How the hell did you eat those berries, we were specifically warned not to eat the berries—”
“Nice to meet you, by the way, your sword skills are totally badass. I didn’t even know I could shoot a gun, much less a laser gun—”
Keith makes a frustrated sound. They emerge in a giant room. It’s filled with all sorts of futuristic looking planes and even more enemies. They shout in alarm when the two of them burst into the room, and Keith immediately shoves Lance behind a stack of crates. “Fucking shit. Stay here, idiot.”
He launches out from behind cover, then, and starts fighting the enemies closest to them. Lance — not one to listen to stupid directions or leave a new friend utterly defenseless — jumps up and starts fighting, too. He picks off the aliens farther in the room, taking out the ones on the upper balconies, first. Keith doesn’t notice until long after the enemies have started to dwindle, at which point he sends Lance a frustrated look.
“What don’t you get about stay here?”
“The part where I let you fight a room full of aliens alone?” Lance counters. “Hey, what berries did I eat, anyway? Do we have a cure for them? ‘Cause I’m kind of lost in the sauce right now, dude, not gonna lie.”
Keith stabs an alien with a shout — one that literally was already dying, thanks to Lance shooting it — and then the room is free of enemies. “Come on,” Keith says, and he sprints across the room only after Lance starts running toward him.
Together, they board one of the planes. Keith straps in at the pilot’s seat and Lance takes the one right next to him, gaping at all the instrument panels.
“Jeez, this shit’s high tech,” he mutters. “Wait, what year is it?”
“I’m gonna kill you,” Keith mutters.
Lance purses his lips. “Did I read this wrong? Totally got the feeling that we were friends.”
Keith hits a series of buttons, yanks at a few levers, and then starts flying the plane straight toward a wall. At the last second, the wall slides out of the way, and then they’re shooting into—
“Holy shit!” Lance shouts, leaning forward in his seat. “We’re in space?”
“I’m dating an idiot,” Keith mutters. It registers in Lance’s brain several moments later, because he’s still flipping his shit because they’re in space, but then—
“Wait, did you say dating?”
Keith just glares even harder out the window, meanwhile Lance keeps gaping at the attractive guy by his side because, seriously, are they actually dating?
“Dude, did you say dating?” Lance repeats. “Because my first thought when I saw you was that you were hot. Holy shit.”
“How is this my life,” Keith says, but Lance can see his cheeks growing pink underneath his helmet.
Keith refuses to answer Lance’s questions as they fly back to whatever planet they came from, insisting that he’ll remember everything soon enough anyway. Still, Lance can’t stop pestering him about space and their apparent missions and whatever Voltron is and the fact that they’re dating. He’s still running off at the mouth by the time they land, emerging into a crowd filled with just a few humans, a couple human-looking non-humans, and several dozen aliens (but not the purple kind. No, these ones are see-through, like those fish that you can see the insides of).
“You’re in so much trouble,” the human-looking non-human says to him. Allura! He recognizes her voice.
“I’d like to reiterate that I have no idea what’s going on,” Lance says.
“Paladin Lance! Not to worry,” an alien says quickly, rushing forward. She’s holding some kind of vial filled with blue liquid. “Honestly, it happens to our young here all the time. If you’ll just let me administer this…”
None of the people surrounding Lance — his team, he assumes — moves to stop the alien, so he figures it’s okay.
“Hah,” the person beside him says, their voice recognizable from the comms. “She called you a youngin.”
And then the alien grabs his arm, injects the drug, and Lance blinks at her a few times, waiting for it to kick in.
It does. It happens all at once, like a punch to the gut, and Lance groans and doubles over as his head floods with memories. The lions and Voltron and the universe and their missions and the Galra and his friends, his family. Keith, who he kissed when he genuinely thought he would kick the bucket almost a year ago, and has been dating ever since. And, of course, the berries.
The fucking berries.
“Oof,” Hunk says, rubbing his back. “That looks painful.”
“I have an excuse,” Lance groans, straightening up carefully. “I’m not an idiot, I swear.”
Keith scoffs. Still, he looks concerned when Lance looks at him, and relief floods his face when Lance sends him a quick grin.
“Those generals cornered me, Hunk, and Pidge during the battle,” Lance explains. “Hunk and Pidge were already knocked out, and I had to think quick on my feet. So, I ate a berry.”
“What the fuck,” Pidge says.
“Language,” Shiro says, though he gives Lance a disapproving look.
“How is that thinking quick on your feet?” Keith demands.
“They were freaked out!” Lance says. “They thought it was some kind of magic berry, or something, and they all immediately ate them too. Then I ran off, and they chased me. You’re welcome,” he adds, turning to face Pidge and Hunk.
“Yes, thank you for leaving us unconscious on the battle field,” Pidge says dryly.
“Please, you were in a forest,” Lance says, waving his hand. “Well away from the fighting.”
“Then you found me,” Keith realizes, obviously putting the story together himself.
“Yes! I managed to give the Galra the slip, and I found you, and—”
Keith groans. “And I convinced you to sneak off to get the datachip with me.”
Lance frowns. “Yeah.”
“Why would you do that?” Allura says. “Why not tell him that you ate a berry? Or that that was a stupid idea?”
“Not a stupid idea,” Keith mutters.
“I think I was already forgetting,” Lance realizes. “The berry didn’t even cross my mind. And I think once we were on the ship, I forgot why we were there?”
Keith nods. “You kept turning down the wrong hallways. I thought you just didn’t realize where the chip would be.”
“And then some Galra snuck up on us, and we were knocked out,” Lance concludes. “I woke up and had no idea what was going on.”
“Regardless, you’re still in trouble,” Allura says. “You shouldn’t have intentionally poisoned yourself. Nor should you two have ignored the plan for the mission.”
“I think the real lesson here is that I’m a badass,” Lance points out. “I didn’t know anything and I was still taking out Galra like a boss.”
Keith pinches the bridge of his nose, looking pained, but Lance just grins even wider. “And I totally was trying to think of pick-up lines when I first saw Keith. Couldn’t seem to remember any, though.”
“You two are disgusting,” Pidge says, sounding far too cheerful.
Lance just grins, reaching out and grabbing Keith’s hand. They’ll probably be stuck on clean-up duty for the next month, at least, but that honestly doesn’t sound too bad. Besides, the mission was a success!
“C’mon, babe,” Lance says. “Let’s get out of here before we give Allura an aneurysm.”
“It’s too late for that,” Allura mutters darkly. Still, Lance can tell that she’s relieved — and trying hard not to look amused — when Lance drags Keith behind him and slips into the crowd of celebrators for probably their last night of freedom.