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Lance groans for the twentieth time in two minutes, filling the chamber with echoes of his pain. It’s a struggle not to reach up and touch the wounded flesh just above his heart. He knows going anywhere near it will only exacerbate the pain that’s now settling into a dull constant ache, but he really didn’t think it would hurt this badly.
Next to him, Keith shifts on his back and lets out a strangled moan. It’s clear that he’s in an equal amount of pain, but he’s trying to play the tough guy as always.
“Stop being such a big baby, Lance,” he grunts. “It’s wasn’t that bad.”
Lance turns his head away from the ceiling of the dingy place and towards Keith on his right, managing a look of smugness even in his current state.
“Keith, there were literally tears streaming down your face while it was happening. You don’t get to talk.”
Keith huffs and attempts to fold his arms, then yelps as his forearm brushes over the red, puffy skin.
“It’s not my fault,” he responds through gritted teeth, moving his arms so he can sit on his hands and prevent himself from touching the inflamed skin any further, “that I have a lower pain tolerance than you. At least I’m not moaning every two seconds.”
Lance drinks in the sight of Keith on his back—bare-chested, brow furrowed, face scrunched up, hands under his butt, his entire body language reading absolute restraint as he tries not to release vengeance on what’s causing his current pain: the tattoo of Lance’s paladin symbol on his left breast.
As his gaze rakes over the two deep blue chevrons pointing at each other, lined with a dash on either side, a heat of what can only be described as fondness steadily spreads over Lance, like he’s pulling the fuzziest of blankets over him.
He’s not really sure if the concentrated ache in his chest is due to the warming of his heart or his own fresh tattoo.
“How much longer did the big alien guy say we have to stay here?” Lance asks, glancing over at the rusted steel door of the joint. “I feel like I’ve been laying here for hours.”
Keith hoists himself up by his elbows, surveying the questionable parlor.
“Considering that I couldn’t really understand what it was saying, I’d say that...I really don’t know.” The other paladin glances back at Lance and shrugs. “Wanna say ten minutes and then we’re out of here?”
“It’s like you read my mind, sweetheart,” Lance replies, grinning, and Keith rolls his eyes before laying back down on his back.
Lance lets out a deep breath, brings the tip of his chin to the base of his neck in an attempt to get a peek at his inflamed tattoo, and catches himself smiling at the dark red, crude, caveman-esque drawing of fire—Keith’s paladin symbol.
He can practically hear Keith’s protest in his head: “It’s not a caveman drawing! It’s...an interesting artistic perspective.”
Lance snorts, again out of pure, unadulterated fondness for his boyfriend, when Keith speaks up next to him.
“It probably wasn’t a good idea to rush into the first tattoo parlor we came across on an unknown planet to get chest tattoos, was it?”
Looking back over at Keith, Lance runs the entire scenario back through his head, settling on the fact that yeah, sure, hindsight here really was 20/20.
“Eh, probably. Most likely. Yeah, definitely,” Lance says. Then he reaches out with his right arm, hand grasping at Keith’s bicep, forearm, and pulling his wrist out from beneath him. He uses his spindly fingers to pry the other’s palm open and thread his way through the crevices between Keith’s own gloved fingers.
“But,” he continues, thumb tracing absentminded patterns across the back of his boyfriend’s hand, “I’m really glad we did it anyway.”
Keith curls his fingers, gently squeezing Lance’s, and gives him that once-in-a-lifetime smile.
Or, in Lance’s case, the once-every-fifteen-minutes smile.
“Yeah, me too.”
They don’t tell the rest of the team right away. Not because they’re hiding it or anything, but because it feels nice to have this one thing between themselves. It’s similar in the way that you don’t really share your honeymoon with everyone who came to your wedding.
Still, it’s been difficult to keep it all on the down low.
Sometimes it’s at the dinner table, Keith sitting across from Lance, when Keith’s eyes flicker over to the spot on Lance’s chest, just above his heart, where he knows his symbol—the image of everything he is—is permanently inked in.
It’s enough to make him melt on the spot, and he can’t really tell what’s more goo-like—the green gloop being served for dinner or him.
These situations usually end up with the team complaining about the sudden, intense game of footsie that ensues.
Sometimes it’s on the training deck, Keith sparring with the gladiator and Lance practicing on long distance targets, when Keith missteps while lunging backwards. The gladiator knocks its blunted sword against his chest, throwing him on his back, and leaving him grunting out of pain.
Lance witnesses the whole thing and panics because their tattoos are still fresh. The last thing he wants is for Keith to be in pain because the gladiator’s blow aggravated his still-healing skin.
He’s about to rush over when his targets, whom he’d forgotten all about, continue to retaliate with their lasers. The distraction is costly, and he, too, finds himself on his back shortly after.
These situations end with Allura pulling the two of them over and giving them an earful about how she’s glad that they care for each other, but they can’t pull stunts like this in an actual battle and need to practice more vigilance.
Sometimes it’s after a draining battle, Keith and Lance just having finished their respective showers as Shiro and Hunk head over to take theirs. They’re sitting on the locker room benches opposite each other, freshly dressed in a pair of sweatpants, with Lance tending to Keith’s split knuckles.
“You’ve gotta stop going ham on your control panel when there’s five Galra fighters after you, dude,” Lance says, his tone laced with concern and frustration. “I swear, your knuckles are gonna be beyond repair one day, and when that day arrives, don’t come crying to me.”
His words only vaguely register with Keith, however, because he’s too busy absorbing the sight of Lance in front of him. His eyes are lined with shadows, cheeks and chin dotted with small scratches here and there, dark skin painted with painful looking bruises and splotches all up and down his arms and abdomen. Yet, here he is, fussing over Keith’s busted knuckles.
“They’re not even that bad,” Keith protests with a huff. He lifts the hand Lance isn’t currently working on to try to help with the bandaging. “You’re the one who’s got bruises everywhere.”
Lance swats his hand away and looks up, dark hazel eyes swimming in a mixture of worry, caring, and perhaps love.
“Keith,” he responds, voice steady. “Let me fucking bandage your hands.”
As he looks back down, Keith purses his lips in an attempt to hold back the smile that’s threatening to wash over his face. Instead, he lets his gaze wander down the pattern of bruises on Lance’s body, stopping just short of the cotton and gauze padding taped over his heart.
Keith’s breath hitches, and he reaches out with his free hand, fingers skimming over the gauze that he and Lance had both decided to put over their tattoos as protection during the battle.
“Is it--?” he asks softly, wondering if his own has fared well through the chaos. There’s a small ache in his chest, but nothing major.
Lance follows his gaze down to his own chest, then releases the hand he was bandaging to gently remove the tape and cotton-gauze padding.
The rugged, maroon symbol of a flame is revealed, the ink and the skin around it completely intact, not a single blemish tainting it.
Keith’s heart soars just looking at it.
“What about yours?” Lance questions, gesturing with his head towards the spot on Keith’s left breast, marked with its own cotton-gauze padding.
Mimicking Lance, Keith carefully coaxes the tape off of his skin and removes the padding, unveiling the blue paladin’s symbol, completely unmarred as well.
Lance leans over and traces the image over with the barest of touches, then meets Keith’s eyes and grins.
These situations end with Keith closing the distance between them and pulling Lance by the back of his neck into a passionate post-battle kiss, while Shiro and Hunk emerge from the showers, grab their clothes, and leave the locker room as quietly as possible.
Hunk just can’t keep a secret. It’s either that or he can keep a secret, he just told Pidge—which is completely warranted—and Pidge is the one who can’t keep a secret.
Either way, the news that Lance and Keith got each other’s paladin symbols tattooed over their hearts quickly reaches everyone within the next week. Not that it’s super surprising or anything, considering there are only seven of them aboard the castle, and there aren’t a whole lot of gossip options, but the honeymoon period does end a little more quickly than Lance would have hoped.
Then again, everyone knowing has its perks. For example, Lance can now reach over and idly touch the spot where the other’s tattoo is during the team’s movie night. Which he does. A lot.
“Okay,” Pidge says one night, pausing Dirty Dancing, “I need someone to arrest them for excessive Public Display of Affection, ASAP.”
Lance, who has his left arm around Keith’s shoulders and his right lazily lounging across Keith’s chest, tosses an incredibly peeved look over at Pidge.
“Excuse you, we are but humble boyfriends exercising our right to be affectionate in public,” he answers haughtily. “Shouldn’t you be watching the movie instead of us anyway?”
“Well, that’s a little difficult to do when I’m sitting right next to you two, and you’re busy fondling each other’s titties,” Pidge responds, folding her arms indignantly.
A loud snort—probably Hunk—comes from the couch to the left of where they’re sitting. Lance ignores it.
“Well, it’s a little difficult not to do so when my boyfriend’s got my symbol tattooed on his left titty. So.”
“How about we just ban the word ‘titty’ from all future conversation,” Keith interjects, his face coated with a healthy shade of pink, though he tries to appear as deadpan as possible. “Also, I guess in all technicality, excessive PDA isn’t really illegal in space, so.”
Pidge shoots Keith a look of betrayal and receives a shit eating grin from Lance.
“I still don’t understand why you two got tattoos of each other’s symbols,” Allura says from where she’s sitting next to Hunk. “Is that a thing you Earthlings do often?”
“Not often, I guess,” Hunk replies, looking pensive. “Though, considering people tattoo each other’s names in really tacky hearts on their arms, it’s not really that big of a stretch.”
Allura furrows her brow, bright eyes also entering a contemplative state as she absentmindedly reaches for her thick braid of silver hair that’s cascading over her shoulder.
“That’s still really odd, though,” she says, fingers combing through the strands sticking out at the end of the braid. “On Altea, when we wanted to publicly show our affections for someone, we’d wear something like a bracelet or a hair pin in the other person’s family colors. Nothing as permanent.”
It’s after she says this that Lance notices the details of her intricate French braid, and how there’s a jet black ribbon woven all the way through it. Interesting.
“Well, sometimes people do ridiculous things when they’re in love,” Shiro offers. He’s sitting on the floor, back against the sofa that Lance, Keith, and Pidge are sharing. “Like, they’ll get matching tattoos, or trip on absolutely nothing and faceplant into the custard goo pie that they’re carrying.”
Lance raises both of his eyebrows and glances over at Keith to see his expression mirrored on the other’s face. Interesting.
“That’s oddly specific, Shiro,” Pidge comments.
Shiro merely shrugs and clears his throat loudly.
“I’ve seen it happen. Un-pause the movie, Pidge.”
Pidge eventually complies, and everyone turns their attention back towards the screen, but not before Lance catches Allura’s lips twitching in the same way Keith’s does when he’s trying to stifle a blush.
Later, when they’ve finished the movie and all head their own separate ways, Lance settles into a thoughtful hum as he walks alongside Keith, their fingers intertwined, as they make their way back to their—previously Lance’s—room.
“Ten bucks says Shiro and Allura are gonna hook up in the next week,” he says.
Keith looks over at him, smug and determined.
“You’re on. Shiro has the grace of a baby penguin when it comes to crushes, and Allura’s too duty driven to act on hers.”
“Fuck, you’re right,” Lance replies after considering it for a moment. “Wow, you’d think for two headstrong leaders, they’d be so much better than that.”
“Says the guy who kept insulting my hairstyle cut just because you were completely smitten by how good it looks on me,” Keith shoots back, the smugness on his face growing.
“That’s actually false,” Lance retorts. “I insult your hair because...it frames your face really badly. Yep, that’s it.”
“Mmmhm, okay sure,” Keith responds, full on grinning as he leans forward to peck the corner of Lance’s mouth.
Lance makes sure to hold his grudging pout for as long as he can before another thought hits him.
“Keith, hear me out,” he says, stopping them both in their tracks. “What if I pitched an armor modification to Coran where there’s a portion cut out around our tattoos. It’d still be fortified with bullet proof glass, or whatever, but they’d be out for everyone to see.”
Keith just looks at him skeptically.
“Lance...”
“And, wait, Keith hear me out, we could call them...titty windows.”
Keith just stares back at him incredulously, jaw falling open.
“You say ‘titty’ one more time, and I’m breaking up with you. We are not calling them ‘titty windows,’ Lance.”
“Oh come on,” Lance says, squeezing Keith’s fingers between his own. “You’ve got to admit, it’s still a cute idea.”
Keith stays silent for a minute, mulling the idea over in his head.
“Well, what if you just called them like, I dunno, heart monitors or something?”
It’s Lance’s turn to gape at the other, heart melting like it’s been set afire—which it kind of is, metaphorically, because of Keith’s fire symbol over it. The point is, sometimes his boyfriend says things that are too tender for him to handle, and he has to take a few seconds to repair the short circuits in his brain.
“Oh my god, Keith. Come here,” he manages finally before grabbing the other boy by his black t-shirt and pulling him into a kiss, letting his back hit the wall of the hallway as he does so.
Homesickness is a struggle Lance has to battle at some point every day aboard the castle. It’s part of his routine now, just like how meeting the team on the training deck just before breakfast, or cleaning the healing pods, or freeing Galra-colonized planets are.
It’s never easy, and some days, Lance thinks he’ll never win the war against his homesickness. He remembers when it used to consume his every thought, causing his fingers to shake as he pulled the trigger on his rifle and stealing hours and hours of sleep from him.
The ache for Earth and his family never truly leaves him, even on the days that he’s most content. But, nowadays, it’s started to become a dull vibration in his bones instead of a constant pain.
In the mornings, he does his normal stumble into the bathroom, turning on the faucet and drowsily picking up his toothbrush. He stares sleepily into the mirror above the sink, waiting for his brain to truly wake up as he runs the toothbrush through the usual, mechanical motions across his teeth.
It’s around this time that his eyes wander to his bare chest and the tattoo over his heart. His hand with the toothbrush pauses in his mouth as he outlines the crude flame with his eyes, drinking in every inch of it.
A familiar warmth spreads like lazy lava through his veins, thick and comforting, warming every inch of his bones. The customary homesickness that he wakes up to is washed from its place in his throat and lungs, and subdued until it’s no more than a tolerable buzz.
Seeing the tattoo reminds him of who he is and what he’s doing here. It reminds him that he’s the blue paladin, a member of the legendary force meant to free the universe from the suffering it’s been subjected to for so long. It reminds him that he’s a part of a team, one-seventh of a group of friends. It reminds him of the home he’s built here, and how it’s possible to have more than one home, and, therefore, Earth isn’t his only one.
It reminds him of the shelter he’s found in Keith, the boy who jumps into fires without thinking, busts his knuckles on his control panel when he’s in the heat of battle, rests his head on Lance’s shoulder when he’s trying not to fall asleep during the team’s game night, and falls asleep curled against Lance’s chest.
How could Lance possibly feel homesick when he has all of this?
Smiling at the reflection of it all, Lance takes one last look at the tattoo in the mirror, spits out his toothpaste, and continues with his morning routine.
Keith steps out of his boots, wiggling his sock covered toes to relish the freedom of his feet. He soon peels off his socks as well, tossing them over to the corner of the room that is now their designated laundry area, and proceeds to hunt for his sleep clothes that he probably threw on the ground somewhere earlier that morning.
Lance is already lounging in their now-shared bunk, letting out giant and obnoxious yawns in an attempt to guilt Keith into picking up the pace and joining him quickly. Keith merely rolls his eyes at his boyfriend’s dramatic ways and pulls on his customary pair of sweatpants.
When he finally finds his grey, cotton sleep t-shirt, he hears Lance call out,
“Keith, hurry up, I’m freezing.”
Keith doesn’t tear his eyes from his shirt, a sudden idea forming in his head.
“Give me two seconds,” he calls back before heading into the bathroom and fishing out a pair of Lance’s eyebrow trimming scissors.
He emerges a few moments later, proud of his accomplishment, and maneuvers to turn off the light switch before finally slipping into bed next to Lance. As soon as he does so, he’s enveloped by his boyfriend’s body heat, an arm and a leg draping over him more than the comforter is. Keith settles into it quickly, shifting until his head it’s just below Lance’s shoulder, face fitting perfectly into the crook of it.
Keith presses a kiss against Lance’s throat and murmurs a goodnight, closing his eyes as Lance squeezes him gently in his arms and says the same. However, Keith doesn’t allow himself to sleep just yet, waiting for what he knows is the next part of Lance’s nightly routine.
A few moments pass before he finally feels the arm around him retreat, and another few moments before that very hand lays itself flat over Keith’s heart. Then Lance’s fingers curl, realizing something is different, and spread out to investigate. Keith shivers slightly as Lance’s fingertips dance over his bare skin.
“Keith,” Lance mumbles. “You know there’s a hole in your shirt, right?”
He nods. “Yeah, I know.”
The other boy pulls away just enough for him to look down at Keith and inspect his shirt. As he blinks to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he frowns in confusion.
“Keith, why is there a hole in your shirt?”
Keith raises his hand to meet Lance’s, fingers overlaying the other’s as he looks up into Lance’s eyes.
“I cut the hole out over the tattoo. See?” he says, moving Lance’s hand away from the gap in his sleep shirt. And there’s his tattoo of Lance’s paladin symbol, out in the open, framed by the oval shaped, jagged cut in his cotton t-shirt.
“I know it’s hard for you to sleep at night sometimes,” Keith explains, voice falling to just barely above a whisper. “And I know you wait until you think I’m asleep to put your hand there like you’re making sure the tattoo is still there. This way you know that it always is, and that I’m always here for you, too.”
Lance studies him for a while, a mixture of emotions coloring his face, all of them blending into a flush on his cheeks like he’s been caught red-handed with his hand in a cookie jar.
“I know you do it too,” he retorts, fingers curling against Keith’s skin. “On the nights that you can’t sleep. Except you also count out loud for some weird reason.”
It’s Keith’s turn to feel the heat rise to his cheeks, and he’s grateful that the lights are off so Lance can’t see just how red his face probably is.
“That’s because counting your heartbeat helps me fall asleep,” he says defensively. “It’s like counting sheep.”
There’s a pause between them, both of them still gazing at each other, before Lance finally breaks the silence.
“God, we’re so gay.”
And he quickly follows Keith’s lead the next night, cutting a square out of his own night shirt where his tattoo is. He makes certain to point out that his is cut in a square, a much more artful execution than Keith’s oval-ish circle.
Keith’s had his fair share of wandering. He’s never been able to stay put in one place for very long, and he’s never really felt compelled to try. The thought of staying still bores him out of his mind, and it’s what drives most of his impulsive decisions—leaving home to join the Garrison, getting kicked out of the Garrison, rushing into a burning village, going out to fight Zarkon.
So, of course, waking up in the same castle, going through the same routines every single day, he’s bound to feel an insurmountable sense of claustrophobia. He feels like he’s been aboard the castle longer than he’s ever managed to remain in one place in his whole lifetime, and sometimes, chic, minimalistic walls make him want to bang his head against them until he can bust a hole and escape.
But, nowadays, that feeling is beginning to fade, as if it’s being gently eroded over by the steady stream of, well, something. He first starts to notice it when he wakes up, pushes himself out of bed, and realizes he’s looking forward to eating breakfast with the team. He then notices the way he allows himself to be pulled into team hugs, then tosses himself into them all on his own.
He notices it when he’s stripping himself of his paladin armor in the locker room, the sound of steaming showers filling the air, mist coating his hair and skin. As he pulls off his breastplate and shirt underneath, his eyes wander down to the inked image of the blue paladin’s symbol etched into his chest.
Keith’s heart skips a beat, then skips another, and then skips one more. Suddenly, he’s never felt so still, so firm in his life. Looking at the tattoo, he’s reminded that he has a purpose here, that he’s not merely floating through life’s timeline. He’s reminded of his new family—Shiro, Allura, Coran, Pidge, Hunk, Lance—that seems to be his anchor, the force that’s grounded him, even while they’re all suspended in zero gravity.
Seeing the tattoo reminds him of the stability he’s found in Lance, the boy who grins in the face of uncertainty, turns every instance into a competition, pushes himself out of a coma to save his friends, sings at the top of his lungs in the shower, blushes when Keith is the one who initiates a kiss.
How could Keith possibly feel restless when he has all of this?
Beaming to himself, Keith pulls off the last bits of his armor and under clothing, runs a hand through his sweat-slick hair, and heads towards an open shower stall.
Lance gasps as though his gut is on fire, which it very well may be. Two meters in front of him, Keith falls to his back, letting out a startled yell of pain as he hits the ground. His armor’s breastplate is steaming from where the Galra’s gun has shot him, and Lance knows there’s no way that burst of plasma energy didn’t penetrate it all the way through.
A knot forms and settles in Lance’s throat, making it difficult for him to breathe, and all he wants to do is rush over to where his boyfriend is lying, unconscious, and scoop him up and out of there. Except he can’t, because Galra are impeding upon him from every crevice of the mine, forcing him into a corner.
Lance holds his rifle as steadily as he possibly can and continues to shoot, compelling himself to look away from Keith’s body. He’s a solid shot, rarely ever missing his targets, but it isn’t enough to hinder the swarming Galra.
The explosion that rocks the walls comes in at just the right time. Pidge has detonated the explosives they’d set to collapse the mine, and it’s Lance’s cue to get the hell out of there.
The Galra scatter, cowering to protect themselves from the falling rocks, and it takes Lance a few seconds to catch his bearings. He knows he needs to evacuate as soon as possible, but the only thing on his mind right now is Keith. Swallowing, he lurches forward and sprints in the direction of where he saw the other paladin fall, dodging the avalanche of rocks and Galra soldiers as he goes.
When he finally reaches Keith’s body, he finds Keith crumpled under the body of a fallen Galra warrior, which is ironically protecting him from the collapsing mine shaft. Sending a quick thank you to God on high, Lance channels all of his remaining strength and adrenaline to push the Galra off of Keith, and hoist the other up as best as he can. Keith’s breathing, but only just, and Lance forces himself to suppress the panic that stirs within him. His priority, right now, is to get the both of them out of there as quickly as possible.
Recalling the team’s escape plan, Lance squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath, and proceeds to carry Keith out of the mine.
It’s two days before Keith regains consciousness and stumbles out of the healing pod. Lance, as soon as he hears Allura knock on his door, rushes as quickly as he can to the healing station, heart pounding like a bass drum in his chest.
Keith greets him with a tired smile. His skin is two shades too pale, his cheeks a little hollow, the bags under his eyes dark and puffy. But he’s alive, and Lance doesn’t realize he’s tearing up until he starts pelting Keith’s face with kisses, and Keith remarks,
“Lance, you’re getting my face all wet.”
“Well, you almost died on me,” Lance fires back, cradling Keith’s fatigued face in his hands. “So you can shut up and face this minor inconvenience.”
Keith rolls his eyes, but smiles all the same before Allura comes up and places a hand on Lance’s shoulder.
“You should go actually get some sleep now, Lance. I know you haven’t rested since you got back from the mission,” she says. “We’ll run a few more tests on Keith to make sure he’s completely healthy, but you can rest now that you know he’s fine.”
Lance opens his mouth, ready to protest the idea of his leaving Keith’s side, when Keith lays a hand over one of his, gently squeezing in a reassuring manner.
“Go sleep, Lance,” he says gently. “Or else I’ll hog the bathroom in the morning for, like, an hour for the next week.”
Lance scoffs. “Please, your morning routine lasts for, like, five minutes. There’s no way you’d be able to keep the bathroom for a whole hour.”
“Watch me,” Keith replies, now grinning.
“Lance,” Allura orders. “Bed. Now.”
Lance finally concedes and returns to his room. As soon as his head hits his pillow, he’s out for a good twenty-four hours.
Keith’s health returns to normal within another day of his regaining consciousness, and the team finds themselves settling back into their normal routines. They celebrate his recovery with a marathon of the Shrek movies, much to Allura and Coran’s amusement and horror. Hunk whips up an experimental, yet delicious dessert made of who knows what, and Shiro treats the gang to his ability to burp the ABCs. He’s quickly outshined by Allura, however, as she demonstrates her prowess to burp the ABCs backwards and twice as quickly.
That night, Lance pulls on a night shirt with a square cut out of it—one of many in his wardrobe now—and drapes himself over his and Keith’s bunk, impatiently waiting for his boyfriend to join him.
“Keith,” he calls out lazily, “hurry up.”
He gets a sock tossed at him in response.
Before he can unleash his indignant response about how utterly rude that was, Keith turns off the lights and hops into bed beside him, leaning in to kiss the tip of his nose.
“And they tell me I’m impatient,” he teases.
“I’m only impatient when it comes to you,” Lance replies, sidling up to the other boy, greeting his body heat. “The fact that I have any patience to deal with you is really a testament to my virtues.”
“Tomorrow morning, I want you to look up the definition of virtue,” Keith retorts with a smirk. “You might be mistaking it with arrogance.”
Lance huffs, an argument sitting ready on the tip of his tongue, when Keith closes the space between them and pulls him into a gentle, but meaningful kiss. The blue paladin is instantly subdued.
It’s funny, he thinks, fire subduing water. It defies the rules of nature. Then again, he and Keith are probably the worst when it comes to following rules.
Chuckling to himself, Lance brings a hand up between both of their bodies, fingers searching for the cropped window to the other’s chest and tattoo.
Suddenly, he freezes in horror. Then he quickly leaps up, hurdles his way out of the bed, switches the lights on, and rushes back to Keith, who’s frowning.
“Lance, wha—“
“Your tattoo,” Lance says, breath shallow. “It’s—it’s—“
He doesn’t complete his sentence. His fingertips are wavering over the area where the tattoo should have been. But, instead of the deep blue chevrons lined with the two dashes, there is only dull, red scar tissue.
Why this feels so wrong, he doesn’t know. But he can’t ignore the trembling in his veins and the heaviness in his bones. The part of him inscribed onto Keith’s body that Keith cherished with his whole being had been destroyed by the blast that hit Keith in the mine shaft.
The tattoo was like a promise, a promise that Lance would always be there with the other no matter what. Seeing it distorted and burned makes Lance wonder if it’s an omen for worse things to come.
“Lance,” Keith urges. “Lance.”
Two calloused palms reach out to caress Lance’s jaw, lifting his head up to meet Keith’s deep, brown eyes.
“I know what you’re thinking, Lance,” Keith says, voice firm and steady. “And don’t you dare go down that road. The tattoo may be gone, but I’m still here. You’re still here. I don’t need the tattoo to know that you always will be. You already show me that every day.”
It’s hard to find the right words to respond with because, gazing into Keith’s eyes, Lance can feel a warm, honey-like sensation melt the dread that was threatening to eat away at his bones. It’s true. He’s still here. Keith’s still here. And he never knew that he’d one day be so inexplicably grateful for the latter.
So he strings together the first three coherent words that come to mind.
“I love you.”
He’s pretty sure that Keith says it back, but the words get swept away by the fierce kiss that he pulls Keith into. The two of them drown in each other, red and blue, fire and water, as nature watches on, helpless as two forces that should never have collided in the first place intertwine in the purest of harmonies.
Keith gets the tattoo redone about two weeks later, this time on a known planet and at a much more official looking parlor. Lance sits by him the whole time, holding his hand, ready to supply a handkerchief in case his boyfriend starts to tear up again.
This happens to the dismay of the rest of the team, who now have to witness Lance and Keith appearing at the table for breakfast in their night shirts with holes cut out in them, tattoos on display for all to see.
“Really, you guys?” Pidge asks, eyebrow raised. “Are you seriously gonna be that couple?”
“Pidge, if you’re gonna call me and Lance out for showing off our tattoos,” Keith responds cooly, “you should also point out that Allura is wearing black earrings and Shiro’s dyed his white streak pink.”
At this, Lance, Pidge, Hunk, and Coran all raise their eyebrows and look over at Shiro, who is sitting at one end of the table, to Allura, settled at the other end. The two of them flush pink—Shiro running a hand through his hair and Allura self-consciously fondling her earrings—as Keith and Lance take their seats at the table.
Life continues as it always does for the seven of them. Except, somewhere along the way, Lance stops waking up to the whirlpool of homesickness in his stomach. Instead, he wakes to comfort and belonging, to home within his arms.
Somewhere along the way, Keith stops feeling like the castle’s walls are closing in on him. Instead, he treads the hallways like they’re open archways, full of possibility, adventure intertwined with his fingers.
The tattoos, unfortunately, have a hard time surviving the wear and tear both Lance and Keith experience during the numerous battles they encounter. The two of them have to get the ink redone and retouched several times throughout their years together, but it doesn’t bother them anymore. Because after every battle, every hardship, every life-threatening challenge they find themselves in, the two of them are still there at the end of it all.
Keith with Lance, Lance with Keith, two humans who stubbornly refuse to leave the other’s side, refuse to exist without the other.
Two forces, having left their mark on each other, setting out to mark the universe.