Chapter Text
Keith's head moved up. He heard Lance's steps; he should enter the teacher's lounge any minute. The man waited, and it sounded like Lance had finally found his keys to open the heavy red door, separating the tired teachers from their eager students.
The metall screeched, and the colorful pendants of Lance's keychain tinkled just a bit too loud, making Keith feel like his eardrum was ready to bust any second now. Nonetheless he got up to greet his boyfriend and coworker, pulling him into a hug right after he had entered the room.
"Hello to you, too, random citizen", Lance laughed, swinging his arms around the other man:"Carino, you're alright?"
"Yeah, why?", Keith frowned:"Am I not allowed to hug you?"
Lance sheepishly placed a kiss on the other's cheek. He was a bit flustered, cheeks painted rosy, not being used to the PDA.
"Of course you are, baby."
Suddenly, Keith's gaze moved towards the heavy door again.
"Did I forgot to close it?"
"No, I think Shiro's coming."
Lance just raised an eyebrow at him, but Keith proved to be right: Shiro indeed entered the room, mere seconds later. He looked groggy, his legs carrying him towards the coffee machine in an instant.
"Damn, you're a wizard, Keithy."
"I think you should've been more attentive during stealth-combat-training, sharpshooter", he bickered:"Especially Shiro is so loud."
Lance shrugged:"Maybe I'm just slowly getting deaf because of all these kids screaming all the time."
"Oh God, I heard them. Definitely lead to this damn headache", his boyfriend sighed, running his hand through his pale face, resting over his dark eyes for a brief second.
"Poor boy. Can I help you somehow?", Lance wiggled with his eyebrows:"Maybe kiss it better? A massage?"
"Did you two already forget that I've entered this room like a minute ago?", Shiro chimed in:"I just need to chuck down my coffee, then I can leave. Five minutes."
"Oh, yeah. Sorry", the tan man said awkwardly:"So, how's your day been?"
"I might have to shoot myself, if I have to substitute for a bunch of 7th graders one more time", the professor sighed:"Seriously. They're freaky! And these random memes, or vines, I don't even know anymore. They're making me feel old-"
"I mean, you're already graying, grandpa", Keith provoked, earning a chuckle from his boyfriend and a death stare from his older brother.
"I will drink my coffee outside. Have fun, boys", the teacher then huffed, taking the full mug of hot brew:"You know a good hiding place from these monsters?"
"Oh please, stay. We'll behave. I'm keeping an eye on this mean fucker", Lance softly patted the head of the implied man, who only rolled his eyes:"I need complete silence anyway. Gotta correct these tests and everything is somehow irritating me today."
"Isn't everything always irritating you?", Lance offered.
"No, just you", he replied helpfully.
"Love you too, mi amor", a quick kiss ended their light bickering.
Ten minutes had passed. Keith had been looking up one or two more times, as if he had heard someone at the door again, but not a soul had neither entered nor knocked. The man had rubbed his temple, trying to somewhat massage the slowly growing headache away, before staring at the page in front of him once more.
How can someone write so much bs like this? As if they had never entered a building of education at all. He could swear that this student even got their own name wrong. They definitely miswrote his.
Then, Keith noticed how his coworker had grabbed another sheet of his tests.
"What are you doing?"
"Working, I guess."
"Don't you have your own things to do?", he questioned. And Lance's bag indeed supported his assumption.
"Not really", he shrugged, already reading through the first paragraph.
Keith chose to move on, finally finishing the horrible incident that was disturbing his peace:"Was there any good, at least? I feel like none of them even attended any of my classes."
"Yeah, either that, or you're just a horrible teacher", Lance led out an exaggerated sigh, hinting at the irony behind his words:"No, there were actually some smart answers between them. But we seriously shouldn't pick the same test next time. I am a bit bored over here."
"Ha ha, Lance."
The two were sharing this class. They had agreed on Lance developing the test and Keith correcting it - they had taught the same stuff together anyway and understood each other blindly. So, no problem there.
"How about you take a quick break, carino? You look tired", Lance then whispered:"Actually, have you taken any break, today? Ate something? How much did you drink today, Keith?"
"It's okay, I am fine", he waved it off:"Just feeling a little off today, not a big deal."
His boyfriend sighed:"That's not really answering my questions, querido."
"I don't know. I ate an apple or two, I guess", Keith sighed, trying to concentrate on another sheet of an almost empty test instead of continuing this conversation.
A tan hand grabbed the paper away from him:"Then eat. And don't forget to drink. And I mean water, not coffee. Maybe your diet is slowly catching up on you."
Keith reluctantly opened his bag to reach for his lunch and the unopened water bottle. He turned away and opened the cap as quietly as possible, so he would avoid Lance's commentary.
Too late. Lance had a perception like no other. And the cap cracked just a little too loudly.
"Are you just opening that?"
"No?", Keith tried to lie, then chugging down like half a bottle:"See? It's almost empty."
"No wonder you're having a headache, Kogane", Lance lectured him motherly :"And I guess you haven't eaten today either?"
Keith showed his emptied lunchbox off:"Hell I did."
The Cuban let out a tsk.
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Coming back to earth, staying with Lance in Varadero, had made things... Difficult, to say at least.
Leaving had somehow always been easy, but this time, it had been the hardest decision Keith had ever made. Sure, he had left his newfound family once, his first time working with and for the Blade of Marmora - in exchange to learn about his heritage and more importantly, getting to know his mother. He thought, leaving again would be just as easy as it had always been all his life - that either he would work things out with Lance, or, what he thought was rather the case, that they would separate; it would be inevitable, because this would be the best for Lance. This man deserved only the best in life, a loving partner, a family of his own in his own home, far from all the evil of this universe, from all the pain and hurt and death that it had already brought over them.
But Lance made him realize that it wasn't as easy for him anymore, to just leave.
Now, he made him realize who he was and what was important. Lance made him who he was, Lance was what was important. He was the missing fragement in his messy life. Everything had always been a variable in this term called existence, Lance had been his constant throughout. And he couldn't bare to lose the only good thing happening to him.
Keith had always assumed that he would end up as a soldier, an armored pawn for the Garrison - later on for the Blade of Marmora. He had always felt reduced to his blant skill to fight and survive, his missing discipline inevitably leading to him loosing his life in a rather pointless way in a pointless war, to end up being just another number on the fields, doomed to be forgotten by the few people who ever knew him.
Through Lance he saw that this wasn't what he wanted to happen. He dared to hope that he could live a normal life, even after all the fighting, all the war and all the death he had to face, they had to face. So he - well, they, Lance playing a big part in it - fought one last time, fighting for Keith to be able to stay. To leave all this violence behind, to build up something greater, something quieter.
And in some kind of ironic and twisted way, they ended up back in the Garrison.
Lance had put his mind onto graduating, getting his degree and following the path of becoming a serious professor, putting use of his past war trauma and experience to help forming generations preventing past mistakes and failures, maintaining the galactic peace they had lost so much for, fought so much for.
But you don't just become a professor like that. You need more than just experience, you need some serious education and training.
That's how they ended up as being 'just' some generic teachers at the most serious military school in America.
A short crashcourse, a whole year of going to school again, preparing classes, tutoring additional courses and substituting for official professors like Shiro or Adam had been their everyday lives in the past, leading to were they were now:
Lance and Keith, sharing this English class together. Lance, teaching Spanish, as this was his mother tongue and the Garrison needing someone to seriously teach a language their new recruits would definetely need; as the numbers of new cadets from Southern and Latin America were skyrocketing.
But he wanted to put more focus on peace and diplomacy relations, teaching aspiring pilots on how to navigate through foreign relations, cultures that might be too strange to understand. He wanted to show that every race had some connections, some familiar understanding of something somewhere, that you would just have to detect. He wanted to brighten the knowledge on how to succesfully build up relations to new beings, build up and support coalitions and bonds through negotiation and serious diplomacy, not through fights, victims and sorrow.
Keith had been assigned to train the pilots, in a literal sense. Due to his past as the pilot prodigy and the former leader of Voltron, he had been strongly adviced to train not only cadets, but rather the upcoming soldiers and graduates, intensivying and optimizing their flight ad fighting skills. Strategy and diploacy had been heavily assigned to him too, but everyone knew, or at least sensed, that this was Lance's cup of tea - he, as his former right hand man, had ultimately led him to make the right decisions. Keith had been too impulsive, too heated to lead, Lance was the one cooling him down, pointing into the right directions and contain Keith's impulsive actions.
And maybe, when he feels like fueling Lance's ego, he might even confess that.
For now, Keith could only do what he was told, already having asked for so much and too much. Even returning to this school had been crazy, Keith had been always been a rebel and dropout, and everyone knew that. Still, they had accepted him, after long discussions, debates, and after not only Shiro, but also Adam vouching for him.
Everyone wished for Keith to take on a leading role in the relations between the Human race and the Galra, being the only Human-Galra hybrid they're yet knowing of. The first hybrid ambassador that had been fighting for both sides, connecting both tightly to one another, to win a war one race had been fighting forever, had been born into, the other one not even being aware of until recently.
The role of an ambassador had led to him having to leave planet earth and Lance - who he would rather call his home than any planet, any ship, or anything else - more than he would have ever liken to.
After long talks, discussions and a certain someone almost pulling Keith down back to earth at his earlobe by himself, Keith was allowed to led down his position on the long run.
Kolivan had first opposed the idea of Keith letting down this big of a position for 'just' a normal life. But he realized, especially through the most feared, respected and strongest woman he had known, Krolia, that Keith shouldn't have to follow the path that the Galran woman had had to follow so many years ago.
Krolia had given up her life, her family and everything she had loved, for the greater good, giving her life for everyone else. She never wanted her son to step into her footsteps, sacrificing himself for other people in a war he should have never been a part of. And yet, she met him in between shots and wounds, hidden in uniform and shadows. The greater good couldn't save everyone, destroying the lives of a few. The few, that mattered.
And so she fought, Lance fought, Keith fought, that he could live the life she had to leave behind, that she had longed for in every breath and every cell ever since she had seen her little cup in the arms of her mate, seen him crawling into his dreams, how he might've grown up to, until finally seeing him in front of herself, seeing the undeniable mixture of his father and his mother.
Kolivan had valued her as the most brave, as the strongest of them all. Having made the biggest sacrifices, fighting the strongest, giving her life up with the one she had bonded for life, the one she had beared alive and given life to, only to protect them all the same. Many Galra had lost their loved ones, their bonded ones, their children. They had been fighting to avenge, but especially to avoid this fate. It must never meet other Galrans as well - other fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. Krolia could have been one of the luckiest, her cup and partner closer to her side than some could ever imagine, further away from a war than ever imaginable. Yet she had been the courageous, the resilient and the most stubborn. She chose to leave them behind, joining a fight greater than herself or anyone, following other Blades in their cause. Kolivan didn't want her fight to be all for nothing. Keith had been fighting long enough, hard enough, gaining his respect through all his actions, his fearlessness and selflessness.
He was a mirror of his mother.
Yet, to Keith's demise, he couldn't leave all his obligations wired strongly to his heritage behind.
He somewhat still followed his duties as an ambassador. He still strung to meetings, still made efforts to deepen the understanding of Galran culture, but also Human culture, as far as was aware of them himself, at least. He still attended lectures, spoke in front of far too many people for his liking, explaining and offering all of his knowledge. But he also had to give some of his life, his body and soul, to science. His heritage had him clung closely to researchers, doctors and noisy savants; especially during their first years of return. Being the first Human-Galra-Hybrid led to people wanting to basically take him apart cell for cell, to study and test him in every way possible.
But to his luck, ethical questions were raised, work from every damn side had asked too much from him, Lance had thrown himself between Keith and everything else, like a shield.
He was able to avoid at least the worse things. Sometimes, he would have to show up to run stupid tests, letting his mutations being analyzed, DNA and blood being dissassembled bit by bit, reflexes and physical, as well as psychological reactions being caught on way too many devices for Keith's liking. But, he didn't have to live and die a laboratory rabbit.
And he was allowed to live a more or less peaceful life with his love, so he shouldn't complaining all too much.
That all thanks to Lance backing him up whenever he could.
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Keith had decided to correct the rest of these papers tomorrow.
The headache was still killing him and he had fought Lance, who had tried to take over his tasks.
He immediately tossed his bag besides the door and headed to the fridge, to warm up the leftovers from yesterday. Lance was getting the dishes besides him ready and sometimes, he just seemed to notice how well they have been working together: Lance read his moves and emotions without any words, and vise versa. Years of fighting against each other had turned into fighting against the one evil during the time in space. They noticed how similar they were, after Shiro, Hunk and everyone had told them seperately for years - and especially, after Keith had to step up to become the leader of Voltron, and Lance became his right hand man. That sealed the deal: Lance, cooling Keith's firey soul just like the elements they had represented. He heated the rocky heart of Keith and smoothed out his flaws, his stoic and fierce approach of things.
They were meant to be a team.
At the table, Keith couldn't do anything but stare at the man in front of him: Blue, tired eyes. Wavy, but smooth hair shining under the soft light of the warm lamp.
He couldn't help himself but notice the slight curve on his rosy lips, chin rested on his arm, his lanky fingers gripping the fork leisurely.
"Take a picture, it'll last longer, babe", his eyes turned into a quick wink, the curve of his lips strengthening.
"Huh?", he had been staring at his lips, not listening to his words.
"You're lost case, mi amor. Just go to sleep", another lighthearted, teethy laugh.
How can someone be so perfect?
His laugh still made Keith's heart stutter.
Keith sighed. He was tired, yes. A headache fed by his students and the one's from the class besides his, then the test his students had been working on.
He caught one student trying to cheat before the test. A glare luckily solved the problem quickly, making the student give up on his try and handing his real phone to him. He should've denied him the attendance for today.
Lance had made him soft.