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Keith can tell it’s going to be one of the bad days when he comes down to breakfast and Hunk is there at the table, looking half-asleep as he listens to Pidge ramble about something or other, without Lance by his side.
Now, to be fair, Lance has never really seemed to be much of a “morning person”, as far as Keith can tell, but he’s usually not one to skip out on breakfast. Allura had insisted they share one meal a day as a team, and Pidge and Lance had both been adamant in keeping dinner on a flexible basis to suit their night-owl tendencies, so this had been the compromise. And, while Lance had seemed a late-riser that first week or so in the castle, once they settled into a semblance of a daily pattern, Hunk had fallen into the habit of waking up his fellow leg-of-Voltron paladin in time for breakfast.
Or… back into the habit, more like, Hunk had admitted to the rest of the team a couple weeks after the little morning pattern of the two developed. Apparently Lance had been a late-night worker most of his life, and Hunk had been dragging him out of bed in the mornings since they were children.
That had been another little factoid Keith hadn’t picked up on until then. Though, looking back, Hunk and Lance’s odd habit of picking up and finishing each other’s trains of thought, particularly the ones that seemed incomprehensible to the rest of them, had made more sense with the realization that they had, in fact, grown up together.
Still, Keith supposes it wasn’t entirely the fault of his own personal lack of social awareness that had prevented him from guessing that. They had all learned significantly more about one another as they each became more comfortable living in the castle and opened up more of their personalities and tendencies as their time in space grew longer.
They were not, astonishingly enough, as a whole the sums of how they seemed those initial first couple weeks aboard the Castle of Lions.
Shiro, of course, hadn’t held too many surprises for Keith beyond the habits his time with the Galra had caused him to develop— Already knowing a person for years beforehand would allow that. But the others… The others were where Keith had stood to be surprised.
Pidge was more than a face illuminated by a computer screen and vengeance for their missing family. Hunk was more than oddly specific knowledge about food and tech babble. Coran was more than odd statements and inexplicable but extremely useful skill sets. Allura was more than barked orders and icy, regal grace.
And Lance?
Lance was… complicated. For all that Keith has slowly begun to figure out the others aboard the ship, Lance remains much of a mystery to him.
This? Case in point.
“Where is he?” Keith says with a sigh, not even bothering to move beyond the doorway to the dining hall as he addresses the occupants at the table. Or, more specifically, the person responsible for making sure Lance comes down to eat.
Hunk glances up, noticing his arrival, and winces slightly. “The control room, but Keith—“
He takes off back through the door, ignoring Hunk’s calls for him as he heads for the control room. Admittedly, if it’s a bad enough day that even Hunk can’t coax Lance out to socialize, then Keith probably won’t be able to do anything either, but he can’t help at least go check on Lance, a low, queasy feeling in his stomach emerging at the thought of leaving the other alone.
It’s something like worry, he supposes, as much as he’s loathe to admit he occasionally may or may not worry over Lance— Or perhaps curiosity. Lance is such an emotional person. He thrives on social interaction and close, intimate bonds with other people, like his friendship with Hunk. To Keith, who’s spent most of his life alone and been fine with that, and for whom Shiro is the closest thing to family he has, the lines between friend and surrogate parent blurring a long time ago, someone like Lance, who needs people, needs family, to survive, is an enigma.
Keith doesn’t understand Lance, and perhaps that’s what makes him so fascinating.
He finds Lance curled up at the foot of Allura’s control panel, resting his back against it and arms hugging his knees as he watches the stars outside one of the large windows— Projections? Keith isn’t really sure how the control room works, the science of it going well over his head every time Pidge asks Allura about it.
Forgoing formalities, Keith walks up and drops to the ground next to Lance, crossing his legs and watching the other out of the corner of his eye. Lance doesn’t even startle, sparing Keith a single quick glance that suggests he already knew Keith was there before turning his gaze back to the window. His face is expressionless, which is a troubling enough look on Lance as it is, given how expressive he is, especially in comparison to Keith himself, and his eyes are tired, distant.
“…Nightmares?” Keith asks, already knowing it’s likely not the full answer. They all have nightmares, it’s a part of the job description really, and by this point they’ve all mostly learned how to lock the memories of them away and pretend they don’t happen, as unhealthy as that likely is. Lance responds with a noncommittal hum, tilting his head slightly, and Keith sighs. Yes to nightmares then, but not the reason why Lance is hiding away at this particular moment.
Homesickness, then.
Which, for all that Keith is poorly equipped to deal with being an emotional support period, is possibly the worst thing for him to try to help Lance with, simply because it’s something he can’t sympathize with. He doesn’t miss Earth, not like Lance, or Hunk, or Pidge, or even Shiro. He can’t. Sure, there are aspects of life on Earth he misses— The heat of the summer sun, the sloping hills of the desert, the thrum of his hoverbike below him, but that’s about it. In a way, he almost has come to prefer the wide reach of space, and all its possibilities.
The difference, Keith thinks, likely lies in the fact that he doesn’t have anything to go home to. He doesn’t have a family to miss, unlike Hunk and Lance, or a mother to worry about, like Pidge. His fellow paladins are the closest bonds with other people he’s had for most of his life. Being here, with people to keep him company and Shiro back from the dead, Keith feels more alive than he has in years.
And yet, he knows, it’s not that way for Lance.
It’s beyond confusing, but, for whatever reason, Keith wants to understand. He can’t figure Lance out, and that holds his attention. Demands it, almost.
There’s a burning itch, just below the surface, that crawls through Keith’s skin, an indescribable, insurmountable urge, a need, to take Lance apart and study all the little pieces and figure out how he ticks… one that’s been there a long time. Maybe not initially, back when Lance was just another face in a classroom of strangers and Keith was just another lost, angry soul mourning the loss of the one confidante he’d had, but certainly one that had developed, Keith thinks, when Lance had shoved his way back into his life with a brazen re-introduction and a demand for attention, when they had found Blue and Lance, without any of the pre-explanation or knowledge the rest of them had later had in approaching their lions, heeded her call without hesitation.
A slow, steady itch that had been almost unnoticeable— Until Sendak, until Lance, for all his bluster and insistence over their rivalry, had shot to protect their team, to protect Keith, and had shown relief at the idea that they could, in fact, work together.
And from there, the desire to understand Lance McClain, flirt and friend and perhaps, in a way, just as much a lost soul as Keith himself is, had only grown.
Which leads to times like this, when Lance is closed off, different from the usual, in a place not even Hunk can reach him, and Keith, despite knowing he has no place in solving this, solving the enigma of Lance, seeks the other out and tries to anyways.
Because, god, he wants to. He wants so badly when it comes to Lance and he’s still not entirely sure what the full weight of that means.
For now though, Keith contents himself to watch, to learn. Lance hasn’t shoved him away yet, has allowed him to stay, and so he waits, observes, looks for the ways things might change, how he can bring them to change. Keith’s not a passive person, especially when there’s a more direct route to solving whatever problem lies in front of him, and becoming a paladin has not changed that.
He’s never been able to alleviate Lance’s homesickness before, but things are always changing, shifting rapidly, between them, and everyone on the ship, as each day longer on the castle passes, which always opens a new opportunity, and it never hurts to try.
He watches the stars outside the control room windows, the shapes of the small grouped scattering of planets they’d settled in orbit around, a set of worlds untouched by the Galra and largely uninhabited, but several abound with breathable atmospheres and plentiful resources for them to stockpile, and then glances at Lance, the other still leaning against the control panel, head tilted back and eyes closed, thin brows furrowed slightly.
He thinks of the things he personally misses about Earth, about sounds, smells, tastes, and about Lance, and in the corner of Keith’s mind, an idea begins to form.
Because he can’t bring Earth to Lance, but just as he can understand missing aspects of their home planet, perhaps he can bring aspects of Earth to Lance.
“C’mon.” He says, rocking to his feet and nudging Lance’s side with his knee before he really stops to think about it— He’s always been more of an “act first, second-guess later” person, something Lance laments frequently when it gets them into trouble.
Lance blinks, startling slightly and glancing up at Keith with a vaguely annoyed expression. “…Why?”
“Allura sent me to get you.” Keith chooses, opting for the first excuse that comes to mind. “She needs us to do a thing— Er. Mission.”
Lance tilts his head, considering, and Keith can almost see the moment he decides to go with it, a wide, borderline-sleazy, and bluntly fake grin stretching across his face. “Well, if the lovely lady requests it…” He stands up and allows Keith to pull him out of the control room, pace pointedly lax as Keith grips his wrist and practically drags him along the corridor in an attempt to get him to speed up. “What’s she need us to do then?”
“Uh.” Keith winces, racking his brain. “Routine check on one of the planets in the system. Wants to make sure everything’s fine before we wormhole somewhere else.”
“…Okay?” Keith can hear the doubt in Lance’s voice, and resolutely ignores it, opting to instead peek around the corner of the doorway to the flight deck to check Allura and Shiro aren’t there to catch them, and then shoving Lance into the room. “Just us? No Shiro? No Pidge or Hunk?”
“No.” Keith says, dragging Lance to the entrance to the drop system to the red lion’s hangar and slamming the button to open the doors to the elevator with a little more force than necessary. “Get in.”
Lance raises an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I take Blue?”
“We don’t need two lions.” Keith growls, shoving Lance into the elevator and then stepping in himself before hitting the button to start the descent. Assuming Shiro or Allura gets an alert over a lion departing the castle without authorization, better it be Red, and Keith take the brunt of the lecture or punishment, than have Blue also shown to have left without permission and get Lance in trouble too. This is his stupid idea after all.
“You sure Allura authorized this?” Lance says, crossing his arms and sounding vaguely amused as he watches Keith. Glaring, Keith turns away and ignores the embarrassed flush on his cheeks. As much as Lance being amused over him and his obvious fibbing is more than a little annoying, he still prefers this version of Lance to the forlorn one from before— This is the Lance he knows, in all his frustrating, annoying glory.
“Yes.” He says between gritted teeth, and Lance clucks in disbelief. The doors open, the handle to what Keith has reluctantly come to acknowledge can only be a zipline hanging there waiting. Stepping forward, he avoids Lance’s searching eyes in favor of grabbing onto the handle. “Come on.”
“…You’re serious.” Lance says, and Keith hunches his shoulders, waiting for Lance to laugh, to be angry, to demand Keith take him back up to the flight deck because honestly what was he thinking—
And yet, instead, Lance steps forward, going with it despite having bluntly seen through Keith, and awkwardly loops his arms around Keith’s shoulders, yelping loudly when Keith pushes off the platform immediately after. Lance’s arms tighten around him as the rush of air from the zipline speeds past them, and Keith can’t help the involuntary shiver he lets out at the line of body heat hugging behind him. Lance, though, seems less than pleased, whining in discomfort as he hangs onto Keith and quickly wraps his legs around Keith’s waist, clinging to his back like a koala.
“Holy fuck that’s fast. How the hell did Nyma do this and act so calm?”
Keith can’t help but snort slightly, pointedly wiggling his shoulders and grinning at Lance’s terrified shriek, his fingers digging into Keith’s arms as he scrambles to get a better hold.
“Stop that you asshole!”
“You’ve done this a hundred times, calm down.”
“Not with someone else as the only handhold, I haven’t!”
Keith rolls his eyes, and then winces slightly as Lance’s fingertips scratch across his shoulders. He’s bordering on grateful when they finally fly off the end of the zipline and into the go-kart thing (as Pidge had taken to calling it) that leads to the cockpit.
Or, he is until Lance flies off after him and lands in his lap, sitting up and glaring at him immediately after with no apparent regard to their positions. Keith doesn’t hesitate to shove Lance off him, sending Lance crashing to the floor with a surprised, and frankly ear-splitting, screech.
“What the fuck, Keith?” Lance groans, bringing a hand up to rub at his head where he whacked it against the edge of the seat.
“Shut up.” Keith says, scowling and turning his head away as he tries to ignore the heat in his cheeks. Lance grumbles, crossing his arms, but otherwise stays quiet, pointedly looking away from Keith as they’re delivered into Red’s cockpit. As Keith settles into his pilot seat, running a hand over the dash and watching the controls light up as Red wakes, he wonders not for the first time why the Alteans, masters of technology millennia before humans, decided on such an overly complex system for getting from the flight deck to the lions— Wouldn’t a simple elevator down to the hangars been faster?
Idly, he glances over at Lance, watching him trace a hand over the wall of the cockpit. “Hello pretty lady.” He coos, and Keith feels Red’s pleased rumble resonate deep inside his bones.
“Stop trying to play favorites with my lion.” He mutters, trying to focus on starting up Red’s flight sequence.
Lance squawks, feigning outrage as he very deliberately hugs the cockpit wall. “I’m not playing favorites, Keith. I’m showing respect! There’s a difference! Isn’t there, Red?”
Rad rumbles again, conveying her amusement to Keith, and he scowls as Lance hums sagely behind him. “Ah, yes. Agreed, Red. I do think he’s kidnapping me.”
“Excuse me?” Keith yells, turning around in his seat, and Lance snickers. “…You’re not… actually talking to her, are you?”
Lance sniffs. “Of course I am! I can’t understand her like Blue, but I can get a rough idea of her feelings on things, can’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but…” He waves a hand at the dashboard. “I’m her paladin. It’s not like I can get anything from any of the other lions.”
“Really?” Lance’s grin turns smug, and Keith sighs lowly. “Well obviously you’re not listening properly, then.” He saunters up, leaning an elbow on the back of Keith’s seat. “Don’t worry, Keithy-boo. I’ve always been a little ahead of the game with this stuff.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t it take me getting kicked out for you to make fighter class at the Garrison?” Keith says, grinning at Lance’s outraged splutter as Red’s controls hum to life, and he eases her out of her hangar and into the dark, star-lit void of space.
xxx
“So why are we really here?” Lance asks as Red lands on the planet Keith had picked out, silently checking with Red over their mental link beforehand that it did indeed have what he was looking for, and they clamber out of the cockpit and onto a sandy dune. “I know Allura didn’t send us.”
“You’ve bought the idea of Allura asking you to do much stupider things in the past.” Keith mutters, and Lance raises an eyebrow, staring at him pointedly.
“Yeah, from Pidge. Who, no offense dude, is a much better actor than you.” Keith winces, and Lance sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Seriously, Keith. I indulged in your little sneak-around secret trip…. thing but I honestly have no idea what we’re doing here. It was funny but I’m— It’s been a weird morning and I don’t have the energy to play Mr. Bond all day.”
“…What’s a ‘Mr. Bond’?”
“…James Bond.” Lance says, and then throws his arms up in exasperation when Keith just blinks in confusion. “Keith!”
“Okay, okay!” Keith shouts, holding up his hands. “Calm down, I’ll show you.” Grabbing Lance’s wrist, he drags him around the edge of the sand dune, losing his grip on Lance’s wrist when the other stumbles and stops, gaping at the sight in front of them.
“Keith…” Lance’s voice is cracked and hushed, as if trying not to disturb a sleeping beast in front of them at risk of it waking up and running off, and Keith shrugs awkwardly, crossing his arms and kicking at the sand.
“You talk a lot about the ocean and the beach near your home on Earth so I thought…” He sighs, gesturing vaguely out in front of them. “I can’t give you back Earth, but maybe I could give you back a piece of it?” Looking out at the beach in front of them, similar enough to an Earth one, but with sand that’s thicker and darker than that of Earth, and water a few shades of blue too light, Keith begins to wonder what the fuck possessed him to do this. “It was… stupid.”
Lance shakes his head, pressing a shaking hand to his mouth, and Keith feels a stab of panic when he sees tears in the corners of Lance’s eyes. “Shit.” He curses automatically, staring at Lance. “Please don’t cry— I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… This was a bad idea.
Lance frantically shakes his head again, seemingly unable to talk as he sobs lightly against his hands and closes his eyes, tears spilling down his cheeks. After a long moment, he draw his hands down, curling them against his chest, and looks at Keith, dark blue eyes holding him in their gaze. “You came up with this… all on your own? For me?”
Keith shuffles his feet, looking down. “It was really… kind of spur of the moment so…” He’s cut off when a heavy weight slams into him, and he stumbles as Lance wraps his arms around his shoulders, pressing his face into Keith’s neck and hugging tight. Freezing, Keith feels himself flush, and carefully circles his arms around Lance’s waist in turn, resting his chin on Lance’s shoulder.
“Thank you.” Lance murmurs, a rush of warm breath against his neck that tingles pleasantly, and if Keith wasn’t blushing before, he definitely is now.
“…You’re welcome?”
Laughing wetly, Lance pulls away, wiping his face on the back of his sleeve before grabbing Keith’s hand and dragging him towards the water. Keith stumbles, digging his heels in as Lance, in a surprising show of stubborn strength, pulls him forward. “Lance, what the fuck.”
“It’s the ocean, Keith!” Lance shouts, reaching the water’s edge and grabbing onto Keith’s wrist with a second hand, leaning back to put all his weight into yanking Keith forward. “You can’t come to the ocean and not swim! Were you raised by heathens or something?!”
“Lance.” Keith says, trying to sound firm, before Lance gives one last tug, and he loses his footing, tripping over sand and falling forward onto Lance, knocking them both into the water. Keith only has a moment to regret all his life choices before his face smacks into the surf, water clogging his nose and blinding his eyes before he finally gets his hands on the ground and pushes up, coughing and pushing his wet bangs out of his eyes to see Lance floating below him, grinning giddily as Keith squawks, face burning as he flails away from Lance, falling back and hitting the sand of the edge of the beach, knocking the wind out of him.
Lance giggles, singing something about getting Keith in the water after all before diving back under, disappearing and then resurfacing a few feet away, splashing water around him with a delighted look on his face.
Leaning back on his elbows, he watches Lance idly, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips as his eyes follow Lance floating on his back a little ways away. He looks so peaceful— Much better than he did earlier, more like the Lance that he…
The Lance that he—
Well.
That was an internal crisis for another day.
He’s so caught up in watching Lance he doesn’t notice time passing, the twin suns of the planet dipping below the horizon, until Lance swims back to him, joining him on the edge of the shore with his sopping wet hair and clothes dripping into the sand around him.
“You’re a mess.” Keith deadpans, prompting Lance to grin crookedly at him, and he feels his heart lurch. Without thinking, he reaches out to push Lance’s wet hair off his forehead, and freezes, his hand still cupping the side of Lance’s face as the other stares at Keith with wide eyes. Pulling his hand back quickly, Keith turns away, pointedly watching the water in front of them. Next to him, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lance pull his legs up, wrapping his arms around them and resting his chin on his knees, staring out at the sunset contemplatively.
“Thank you for doing this.” Lance says quietly, after a moment. “I didn’t realize how much I needed it.”
Keith shrugs, fighting not to look at Lance. “Everyone needs a break every once and a while.”
Lance hums in agreement, and glances at him, forcing Keith to meet his eyes in turn, and Lance smiles tiredly. “I uh… Realized this morning that it’s near Christmas, back on Earth, and it kind of… I dunno, threw me off.”
“…Is Christmas important to you?” Keith asks cautiously, and Lance tilts his head, considering.
“I suppose— More like it’s a big thing for my family. Big Catholic family, Christmas is kind of a big deal, y’know?” He glances at Keith. “Over the last couple years, especially since I started at the Garrison, it’s become one of the few times we’re all together to see each other, and this… is the first year I won’t be there. They’ll spend Christmas not knowing where I am, if I’m even alive.”
“…You’ll see them again.” Keith says after a moment, unsure of what else to say.
This… This is the enigma of Lance, the thing he can understand in theory but not in practice— This intense love of family, of togetherness, of having people to return to every year. It’s so foreign to Keith, and yet it’s what draws him to Lance, the quest to understand this, understand Lance, stripped down to the wires, the pieces that make up the whole.
“That’s the thing, though.” Lance says with a broken laugh, ducking his head. “What if I don’t? It’s not just about me and surviving this, it’s about them too. My grandparents are old, my mother’s… sick, has been for years. Accidents happen. Any day something could happen to one of my sisters, my cousins, my niece and nephew, and I wouldn’t know because I wouldn’t be there. I’m just— I— “
“Lance.” Keith says lowly, reaching out and firmly grabbing Lance’s hand. “Calm down. Breath.”
Shakily, Lance nods, closing his eyes and drawing in deep breaths. “Sorry, you’re right. I… sorry.” Slowly, his breathing relaxes, evens out, and he opens his eyes, looking at Keith, and then back out to the ocean, sighing quietly.
“…I have an older sister in the Marines.” Lance murmurs, eyes downturned. “She’s been serving for years, since I was like… twelve. She says it makes her feel like she’s doing something meaningful. But I… I worry. My whole family does. It’s not about fretting over possible freak accidents for her. Things happen out there, everyone knows it. This Christmas, she had leave to come home and visit. It was going to be the first time I’d seen her in over a year. And now…” He sighs. “What if I get back home and this is the time a bullet doesn’t just miss her? What if being out here means I missed my last opportunities to see her?”
Keith frowns, watching Lance as the dimming sunlight lights up his face, illuminating pale scars and freckles along a pointed nose and sharp cheekbones against tan skin. Lance is, in this moment, Keith decided, beautiful. “Lance, I don’t know your sister, but… If she’s anything like you, I think she’ll be just fine. The rest of your family too.”
Lance sniffles, glancing at Keith in surprise. “…Really?”
“Yeah.” Keith says quietly. “I know I poke at you a lot but… You’re a good paladin, just as much as any of us. Maybe you’re not the strongest or the fastest or the… Pidgiest, but you’re you. You’ve got amazing intuition and the closest bond with your lion out of any of us, hell, apparently you’re good enough to even play house with the other lions too, and you have survival skills that would put a cockroach to shame.”
Lance snorts, flushing and looking away. “Gee, thanks. You’re… not too bad either, I guess… mullet.”
Keith grins, ducking his head as the smile stretches across his face. “Good to know.” He pauses. “Seriously though… You’re good at what you do, and you’re not alone, you’ve got all of us fighting with you too. You’ll make it home to your family, all your family. That’s a promise.”
“…Yeah?” Lance asks hesitantly after a moment, hand twisting out of Keith’s grip to intertwine their fingers, palms pressed together in what feels to Keith a much more intimate gesture than his grabbing Lance’s hand earlier as a means of reassurance.
“…Yeah.” He breathes out, and savors Lance’s pleased smile as he squeezes their hands together, Lance turning and ducking his face into Keith’s neck as the suns set.
Perhaps… His thoughts on what Lance was to him didn’t need to be delayed after all.
Keith felt like he’d begun to find his answer.