Work Text:
Maladaptive daydreaming – that’s probably what Pidge would’ve called his experience in the Quantum Abyss. A never-ending nightmare is closer to what it feels like for Keith. The universe having one giant laugh at him. Not for the first time, Keith points the biggest metaphorical middle finger its way.
It takes them a few days to finally figure out what they were experiencing. Keith may not have been the best student, and it’s been several years since he’d had to sit through any sort of theoretical physics lecture, but the several rundowns Pidge and Hunk had given them over the past – year? two years? – on spacetime continuity gave him at least some base understanding to work with.
In the crudest way, Keith and Krolia determined that there was some kind of pulsating force of gravity sending shockwaves through spacetime. That, paired with the fact that they were going much slower than the Blade pod would, meant their journey would take a lot longer than expected. The worst part was that they didn’t know how long. So, they just set a timer that would count the number of passing quintants and hoped their lifespans could withstand the trip there and back.
The first time Keith experienced a flash was in his sleep. It gave him a glimpse of a memory from months ago, before he joined the Blade of Marmora.
He and Lance were sitting side by side in the control room, shoulders overlapping and hunched over a mountain of reports and battle plans. Keith, in his state of sleep-deprived delirium, had said something about how they had an astronomical pile of work to do, and it made Lance burst into loud laughter, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes as he folded himself in half, gasping for breath. It was the first time he realised just how in love he was with him.
Keith startled awake, clutching at his ribs. A remnant of that same jolt of something simmered under his lungs, burning just enough to be noticeable, but not to burn. At the time, he’d thought that it was just his psyche teasing him again. He’d dreamt of Lance and the team many times during his time at the Blades, just never this vividly. He could almost reach out and touch him.
It wasn’t until a few days later, when the next flash hit him while he was awake this time, that he realised what he was actually experiencing were memories. Or, more accurately, events through time.
Then, things got…funky. The flashbacks would play through like normal, but Keith could’ve sworn some things were just a little off, and it usually had something to do with a certain blue-red paladin. For every time Lance yelled at him, there was an apology and gentle touch afterwards – things that never actually happened.
He saw them holding hands through the Castle’s halls late at night and Lance cuddling him close as Keith told him stories about growing up with Shiro. Keith saw them kiss on balconies at fancy galas and do much more intimate things after particularly close calls. He couldn’t make eye contact with Krolia for three days after the first time they saw one of those.
For two years, he saw the evolution of their relationship. He saw their past riddled with different endings and their futures always leading to a white-sanded beach, surrounded by friends and family as they meet each other at the altar. So, really, you can’t blame Keith for getting a little confused.
Keith drops out of the Altean pod to the pleasantly familiar pull of the Castle’s gravity. He feels a little unstable on his feet, and he doesn’t know if it has something to do with his muscles atrophying on the space whale or with his nerves making his knees shake.
He doesn’t get the chance to really ponder on it, though, because as he swings his head towards his friends – his family – his gaze catches on Lance. He’s wearing his paladin uniform, looking broader around the shoulders as he squares them towards Keith. His eyebrows rise to his hairline, and he stares at their entourage with wide eyes, slack-jawed.
Keith feels his feet move on their own. He stumbles forward, drawn in by a nameless force. As if affected by the same pull, Lance takes a few steps forward, meeting him in the middle.
“Are we sure this is the real Keith and not his cooler, bigger, grizzled older brother?”
Immediately as the words fall out of his mouth, Lance wants to slap himself. But he’s stuck on the sharper angles of Keith’s face, how his rounder cheeks have hollowed out, somehow making him look older, more serious. It doesn’t seem that long ago that they last saw each other, but Lance can’t help but feel like the guy standing in front of him now is not the same person that left just a few months ago.
He steps closer unbidden, as if wanting to map out the differences up close, but he doesn’t get the chance to, because Keith is suddenly leaping forward. For a split second, Lance’s hand twitches on his hip for his bayard. Nice to know his instincts still work.
Just as quickly, though, he stills. A deep rumble fills his mind – the Red Lion, roaring a protectiveness over her former paladin. There’s no doubt that this is Keith. So, as much as his body itches for a weapon, he forces himself to stay still.
Keith crashes into him with a force that nearly knocks them both off their feet. His arms wind tightly around Lance’s waist. It’s overwhelming. Lance tries to take a breath with whatever limited space his lungs have to expand and is overcome with the distinct smell of Keith. His eyes start burning against his will.
“I missed you so much,” a choked whisper against his neck. Keith’s chest plate presses against his with a creak.
“Can’t…breathe,” Lance struggles out. His arms hang still by his sides.
Keith relents just enough to let him take a full breath but doesn’t let go. After a minute, he finally pulls back. From up close, Lance can see the deep bags under his eyes. There’s something troubled in his gaze, and it makes Lance’s heart rate spike with unease.
“Lance…”
Keith lifts his palms to cradle his face, desperately searching his eyes. Then, he pushes forward and kisses him.
It takes a moment for Lance’s brain to catch up with what’s happening, but by the time it does, Keith is already pulling away.
‘What are you doing?’ he wants to yell. ‘Since when?’ is another thought running through his mind. And the biggest, most prominent: ‘Why now, after you left me?’
He lets out a pathetic little sound instead. And of course, because Lance can’t use his fucking words, Keith takes it as an admission in itself. He brings their foreheads together, not kissing him again, but just holding him close.
“I know, baby,” he whispers against his lips.
You don’t.
Lance pushes him away sharply, causing him to stumble a couple of paces back. He ignores the hurt look he gets in response.
“You don’t know, Keith. You weren’t here.” His fists clench, and his hands shake. He can’t just waltz in here, looking like that, kissing him on the lips, and expect Lance to just forgive him.
“I–“ Keith starts, but a taller Galra woman descends from the ramp and slowly approaches him from behind.
This time, Lance draws his bayard at lightning speed, pointing his gun at the woman.
“Don’t move! Who are you?”
She eyes him for a moment, then turns to Keith.
“Keith, we don’t have time for this. The princess is in danger.”
The room gets a degree colder at the words. Shiro steps forward.
“Tell us everything.”
They don’t get a chance to talk about it. Between Keith running off to fight Shiro’s clone and coming back with a sexy facial scar, and them sacrificing the Castle of Lions in the rift, Lance simply doesn’t have the time to be dealing with boy troubles right now. Especially if that boy is Keith Kogane.
He’s been dutifully ignoring the puppy dog eyes Keith is giving him from the opposite side of the room, where they’ve been discussing a mutually beneficial exchange with some planet leader for food and resources.
To put it simply, they’re broke as hell, and they’ve already been rejected by three different planets, who were too butthurt about Voltron’s disappearance to cooperate. And, okay, it’s a valid gripe to have when your only saviour against a tyrannical empire takes an indefinite holiday. But that isn’t Voltron’s fault! And they won’t be able to save anyone if they starve to death first.
“All we’re asking for is a movement’s worth of supplies,” Allura repeats for the third time that day. She’s composed, as always, but Lance can tell by the twitch of her cheek that she’s trying hard to hold back her frustration. “Just enough for us to fly to the next planet to get more.”
The gills on the planet’s leader frill in irritation.
“Do you know how many of my people have perished at the hands of the Galra?” he gurgles. “And where was Voltron during that time?”
Allura sighs. “As I’ve said, the dimensional rift–“
“I don’t give a ??? about your dimensional rift!”
Lance winces. Sometimes, their automatic translators can’t identify certain words. Usually, it’s slang that’s evolved over the last ten thousand years, but sometimes, like now, they dutifully censor what he can only guess is alien swearing. This really isn’t turning out to be a productive conversation.
He clears his throat loudly. All four eyes of the planet leader shift to look at him, along with his team. Lance swallows against the attention, then straightens.
“You experienced a tremendous loss, Ruler Arkin, and for that, we are sorry.” Lance bends down with a complicated movement of his arm and hopes that the pose he’s observed castle staff making is one of respect and not an alien ‘fuck you’.
Arkin stares at him for a long moment, then shrills something in the back of his throat. Lance takes that as his cue to rise. From the corner of his eye, he sees the rest of his team look at him in surprise.
“Our planet is also under threat from the Galra Empire. We have family there, friends we haven’t seen in years as we’ve been fighting this war.” Lance rounds the table to stand right in front of the alien. “But we also have allies who will help us defeat Haggar and bring an end to the Empire once and for all. For that, we need your help to get us home.” Lance flicks his gaze between all four of Arkin’s eyes. “Please, the universe is relying on you.”
It’s a long, tense moment, where no one says anything. Then, Arkin releases another noise, and one of his advisors brings over some sort of writing apparatus.
“Very well. But I have conditions.”
Allura instantly relaxes and rushes to sit down beside him.
“Of course, the standard Coalition agreement…”
Lance stops listening. His neck prickles as the hairs on his skin stand on end. He whips his head around to find none other than Keith staring at him with an unreadable expression. The lack of identifiable emotion is creepy to Lance, who was always used to Keith wearing a scowl to represent every spectrum of emotion. He turns away.
It’s a long time before they’re able to fully hash out the agreement with Arkin, and Lance feels dead on his feet by the time they get out of the meeting, despite barely participating. As he approaches the Red Lion to, hopefully, catch a few z’s while she flies on autopilot, he realises he’s being followed. When he turns around, Keith is shuffling uncertainly behind him, nervously rubbing his hands together.
“You wanted something?” Lance asks neutrally – the same tone he’s been using with Keith since his return.
“Yeah, I just…” Keith starts, then pulls his shoulders back, his signature spark of confidence returning. “You did well back there. Good job.”
If Lance had heard those words three months ago, he’d be ecstatic, lungs constricting with the feeling of Keith praising him for his paladin work. But today, Lance just glares at him.
“I don’t need your approval, Keith. I’m just doing my job,” he says through clenched teeth.
Keith takes the smallest step back, all of his certainty dissipating as fast as it had appeared.
“You know that’s not what I meant. I just wanted to say that I’m proud of you.”
Boy, does that do something to Lance’s heart. But he’s chosen his stance, and he’s sticking with it. He turns on his heel, starting up the ramp.
“Thanks,” he says flatly. Then, he walks away, instantly feeling better once he’s put distance between himself and Keith’s pleading eyes.
The next week passes in a similar manner – Keith will extend an olive branch, and Lance will cut it down before it takes root. Old Keith would’ve given up by now, but there’s something fragile about this new Keith that keeps reaching out, and it, frankly, makes Lance nervous.
He’s jumpier than usual when he gets a knock on the wall of the cockpit. The door opens automatically, so the wall is the next best thing to knock on when you want to invade someone’s privacy uninvited. It doesn’t reverberate well and barely makes a noticeable sound, but it startles Lance awake regardless. It’s probably the dormant PTSD. Gone are his days of white noise machines and sleeping eye masks.
Lance sits up from his cot, positioned beside the console, hand inching towards the bayard under his pillow on instinct. He opens his eyes and sees Keith hovering by the entrance, an expression of curiosity filling his features as he glances around the room. Lance can’t exactly blame him. Red has changed a lot since he was her pilot, and she now adorns all sorts of random crap Lance has collected over their travels.
“I see you really made the space your own,” Keith says, leaning over a photograph taped to the wall.
Lance blushes and looks down at the floor.
“She is my lion,” he mumbles.
In the low lighting of the cockpit, Keith stares at him.
“Yeah, she is.”
Silence falls over them for several seconds. Lance has to force himself to refrain from fidgeting. He’s never been good with silence. He clears his throat.
“So, is there a reason you woke me up in the middle of the night, or are you just here to watch me sleep? Because I gotta say, that’d be super creepy, even for you.”
“Even for m–? You know what? Doesn’t matter. I wanted to show you something.”
Lance glances down at his Blue Paladin pyjamas, then at Keith’s bodysuit. Does he really sleep in that? That can’t be comfortable.
…
Oh, who is he kidding? Of course Keith would do that.
“Right now?” he asks a little incredulously.
They’re parked on a small, mostly deserted planet for the night. There’s not much to see out there aside from dry desert and the occasional pond with fish-adjacent creatures living in it.
“Right now,” Keith confirms with a nod of his head. He looks determined, if not a little awkward, but that’s just Keith’s standard.
Lance hesitates before pulling himself to his feet. He grabs the robe hanging over the back of the pilot’s seat and drapes it over his shoulders, wrapping himself up in it as if it’ll protect him from whatever emotional turmoil Keith’s sure to cause. It’s not even cold, but it comforts him, nonetheless.
Keith silently leads them out of the lion and into the sandy expanses of the planet’s surface. There’s no moon to shine their path, so they have to rely on Keith’s handheld flashlight to illuminate the way. The way to where, you ask? Lance has no idea. His chest pangs with a bolt of anxiety, because impromptu escapades in the middle of the night usually mean trouble. Or that Keith’s going to kill him. God, he really hopes Keith’s hasn’t been replaced with his own Project Kuron counterpart while he was fighting Shiro’s clone and is now set on eliminating Voltron from the inside, one paladin at a time. That would suck. A lot.
After a few minutes of walking, they reach a large, leafy tree. No, Lance doesn’t know how it survives in this climate, but he doesn’t have to. That’s more Coran’s area of expertise.
“We’re here,” Keith announces.
‘Here,’ as it turns out, is a neatly sprawled blanket, which Lance recognises as one of the throws from the Castle’s rec room, at the foot of the tree. A small bonfire lights up the space, making Lance sweat under his robe. A few severed flowers are lying nearby, collected from the previous planet they visited, which was lush with greenery and all sorts of colourful plants, along with two juice pouches. Lance blinks at the scene. This looks an awful lot like a–
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Keith starts, sheepishly scratching the back of his head, “but it’s the only thing I could scrounge up with what we’ve got. Come, sit.” Keith guides him down on the blanket with a hand on the small of his back.
Lance can’t collect the words to ask what the hell is happening right now, so he just stares, and stares, and stares. Finally, after a good minute of Keith staring at the crackling fire and Lance staring at him, he finds his voice.
“Keith, what is this?”
The man turns to him, eyes glinting a faint purple in the dim light.
“It’s an apology date?” Keith phrases it like a question, brows scrunched together in that adorably clueless way he does when he’s trying to understand a joke. He shakes himself out of it and puts a warm palm on Lance’s knee. “I know it’s not the usual calibre of our dates, and I’ll make it up to you, baby, I promise, but not talking to you these past few days has been torture and–“
“Wait, wait, wait, hold on.”
Lance’s brain finally jumps into motion, and he shifts away from his touch. His heart is beating like crazy, threatening to make him dizzy.
“Since when are we dating?!” he shrieks, a little too loud, but he thinks he’s allowed to be a bit dramatic right now.
Keith frowns at him but dutifully moves his hand away.
“Is this a joke? That night in the kitchen, after we spent all day looking for Shiro, you…” He trails off, brows scrunching together. Suddenly, a look of pure horror floods his face. “Oh no. No, no, no, this can’t be happening. Fuck.” He curls in on himself and drags his hands over his face, shaking his head minutely as if that’ll explain anything.
Lance seethes with frustration.
“Keith, tell me what the fuck is going on right now or so help me, I’ll–“
“I’m so, so sorry, Lance,” Keith mumbles. He lifts his head, and Lance can see pain etched into his gaze, eyes brimming with moisture. “This isn’t how I wanted it to happen,” he whispers cryptically.
Before Lance gets the chance to question him again, Keith is already on his feet and speedily walking away. Lance watches him go, too astounded to yell after him. He sits on the blanket, surrounded by the warmth of the fire, assesses the various items scattered about and thinks.
He doesn’t get much sleep that night.
Keith’s plan to avoid Lance for the rest of time falls through pretty quickly.
“Keith, on your left!” Allura warns through the comms.
The Black Lion shudders as a blast hits one of its hind legs. Keith’s reaction speed is too slow. He needs to get it together.
“Keith!"
Something creaks in the hull of the lion, making the metal groan, then Keith is painfully pressed against the restraints of his seat as Black gets thrown to the ground. The whiplash rattles his brain around in his skull. Thankfully, he’s wearing his helmet, so he narrowly avoids a concussion this time. It would certainly be inconvenient if he were rendered useless by a minor brain injury.
“Get up, Red, what’s wrong with you?” Lance yells at him.
The nickname sets something warm and guilty in Keith’s gut, but he ignores it. He rights his lion and pushes on.
When the battle’s finally won, Keith slumps backwards into his seat. He watches the clean-up crew move out onto the battlefield. Now comes his least favourite part – removing the bodies. Each planet has a slightly different way of disposing them, he’s noticed. This one lays them in a giant pit, performs a ceremony and burns them, kind of like how they did during World War II. These are the kinds of war technicalities you don’t really think about until you’re in it.
Once they’ve determined their work there is done, and Allura has convinced the planet’s leader to join the Coalition as gratitude, they make their way to a patch of empty land to assess the damage. Keith feels as if his whole skeleton has been put through a blender, but other than that, nothing feels like it’s bleeding or broken. He counts that as a win.
The same can’t be said about his lion, though. Warning lights flash all around his console, indicating various insecurities in its hull. He stands up from the pilot seat with a groan, stretching his banged-up muscles, and heads outside. There, Pidge and Hunk are performing checks on each lion with their scanners. When Pidge gets to the Black Lion, Keith watches in silence until she’s determined the structural damage. He grabs her arm once she finishes, preventing her from walking away.
“Can you, um, check the inside, too? I’ve been getting warnings on the internal hull,” he asks nervously, glancing back at the rest of his team. None of them paid him any mind.
Pidge adjusts her glasses.
“Well, the scanner is pretty comprehensive. It’ll see if any internal structures are–“
“Please,” Keith says, boring his gaze into hers.
Her expression shifts to understanding.
“Of course.”
Only once they’re securely in the cockpit does Keith lose his composure.
“I need your help,” he demands without preamble.
She analyses him carefully, crossing her arms.
“Okay…with what?”
“I need you to scan my brain, or something. I’m losing touch with what’s real and what isn’t.” He pulls at his hair, breathing heavily.
“Dude, calm down. Just explain it to me from the beginning,” Pidge says evenly.
She’s really grown up since he last saw her. She points at his cot and urges him to sit down. Keith does, taking a full breath before talking.
“I didn’t tell you everything about the Quantum Abyss before.”
This gets Pidge to perk up, and she sits down next to him.
“I’m listening.”
Keith looks at his gloved hands, breathing a little steadier than it was a minute ago.
“We didn’t just experience time dilation on the space whale. We were stuck in between the fabric of spacetime itself, I think.”
He looks over to see Pidge already jotting things down on her handheld.
“Every few days, we’d experience bits of memories, like a flashback. It was only ever things from my or my mom’s experience. I even saw myself fighting Shiro’s clone before it happened.”
Pidge is nearly vibrating in her seat now, and he can tell she’s also holding back for his sake. Weird time shit always gets her excited.
“Once we got closer to the Altean colony, the flashes would come daily, sometimes multiple times a day, but the memories weren’t the same. Something would be just slightly wrong each time. And I guess it–it really messed me up, you know? I can’t tell the difference between my real memories and the ones I witnessed in the abyss anymore.”
He doesn’t mention that a big portion of those memories involved a certain Red Paladin. He’d never hear the end of it.
“Fascinating,” Pidge gasps with a twinkle in her eye. She pushes up her glasses and leans back. “What you’re experiencing can be equated to something called ‘dream delusions’. There haven’t been many studies on it, but it’s typically found in people with sleep disorders like narcolepsy. The source of their memories gets confused between stuff that happened in a dream and real life. I guess you could say you’re experiencing something similar.”
Keith doesn’t pause when he asks, “Well, how do I stop it?”
“You can’t. At least, not so easily.”
Keith’s heart sinks.
Pidge continues more sympathetically, “The best you can do is have someone who knows you confirm that your memory is real.”
Oh. Great. So, he’s screwed.
The only person he trusts enough to know that much about his past is Shiro, and his memories aren’t the most reliable right now either. And unfortunately, the next person on that list is Lance. Fuck. He’s going to have to tell him everything, isn’t he? Things used to be so much simpler, back when he didn’t have a right-hand man to report to.
“But,” Pidge reanimates and starts tapping something on her handheld, “the more interesting question here is why were the memories changing? Was it some kind of hallucination? Wait, no, that can’t be right if you both experienced the same scene. So, maybe, a glimpse into alternate timelines? Twenty-four to the power of… Yes, that could work…” She continued to mumble nonsensical science to herself as Keith tuned her out.
Well, that was a complete bust. What does he do now? He really, really doesn’t want to crawl back to Lance after that humiliation for him to help decipher between Quantum Abyss-induced psychosis and reality.
In his dreams, he sees possibilities. Oceans of them. Enough to fill several leather-bound tomes with stories of the future. Having Lance is tangible in his dreams, solid, like there’s nowhere he could possibly go that’ll leave Keith behind. Those dreams are always the hardest to wake up from.
Keith opens his eyes to coldness under his palm where the warmth of another body should be. Is Lance not sleeping again? He used to do that a lot, wander around the Castle when he couldn’t sleep– oh.
Keith squeezes his eyes shut to dispel some of the brain fog. Right. They’re not together in this reality. He rolls onto his back with a tired sigh, one that rattles his ribs from the inside. Is this his fate now? For his mind to keep dangling what he can’t have right in front of his face?
After many minutes of staring at the intricate ceilings of the castle they’re inhabiting for the night, he decides that he’s not ready to fall back into the delusion just yet, so he springs out of bed and heads out into the hall. Kosmo lifts his head curiously at him as he walks past, but Keith orders him to stay.
He wanders through the hallways, catching several guards napping at their posts. Keith scoffs to himself. Amateurs. He turns a corner into an area he doesn’t recognise, but judging by the significant lack of ornate mosaics on the wall, this must be the staff wing. He creaks open the first door he sees on his left and is welcomed by the sight of Lance, sitting under pale candlelight with a steaming cup of tea.
“Oh. Hi,” he greets, glancing at Keith once before making intense eye contact with his mug. “Thought I’d take advantage of the stocked kitchen while I have the chance.” He chuckles awkwardly as he takes another sip. A second of tense silence passes between them before Lance points at the chair opposite him. “Stop standing there all creepily. Have a seat.”
Instead of taking him up on the offer, Keith takes a step back.
“Uh, that’s okay, I wasn’t really looking to–“
“Keith,” Lance gives him an unwavering look, “have a seat.” This time, it isn’t a suggestion.
As if his legs are filled with lead, Keith slowly shuffles to the opposite side of the table and sits down. He feels like a dog about to get chastised for eating human food again. He rubs his thumb against his finger nervously and waits. After a long moment, Lance sighs.
“So, would you like to tell me what’s going on?” he asks with no lack of sarcasm.
Keith doesn’t look at him when he answers, “No.” When he glances up, Lance looks ready to argue, so Keith hurries to add, “I don’t want to, but I will. Space ranger partners, right?” He smiles uncertainly and delights in the light blush that rises on Lance’s cheeks.
“Right,” he answers quietly.
“Okay,” Keith nods to himself resolutely, feeling his heart rate pick up.
He knows he’s catastrophising. This is just Lance, who already knows way too much information about him anyway. Like how his favourite animals are hippos and how he has one tucked away securely in his shack back on Earth – a stuffed toy gifted by his father. As far as he knows, Lance has never told anyone any of his personal business, even though once upon a time it would’ve been prime blackmail material for their “rivalry”.
Against all odds, Keith trusts him. He just hopes he can trust him with this, too.
“This is going to sound really weird,” he starts. Lance listens intently across from him. “I’m delusional.”
A scoff escapes Lance.
“I could’ve told you that, dude.”
“No, I– shut up, I’m serious.” Keith fights down his own chuckle. Lance always knows how to break down a tense situation.
“Sorry, sorry.” He raises his hands in a yielding gesture. “Go on.”
Keith releases a slow breath through his nose.
“Pidge said they’re dream delusions. They make my brain think that what I saw on the space whale actually happened.”
“So, what, like a Mandela Effect?”
Of course Lance remembers his affinity for conspiracy theories. God, Keith loves him so much.
“Yeah, kind of like that, I guess.” He clears his throat. “That’s why I was acting…unusual with you when I came back. For years I experienced rewritten memories where we…”
He worries his bottom lip with his teeth, still feeling the ache and embarrassment of getting things so wrong. Does it still count as a breakup if they were never together in the first place? It certainly feels like a breakup to Keith.
Lance doesn’t look surprised, but his jaw hinges open as he processes the information.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers with pain in his eyes as he circles the rim of his mug with a finger.
“For what?” Keith blinks, stunned.
“Well, it must’ve been hard to see your…partner…push you away like that. I certainly didn’t make it easy on you.”
“I deserve it.”
Keith startles himself with how easily the words tumble out. The guilt piling up over his decision to leave was only made worse by his reunion with Lance. He knows he messed up. He knows he shouldn’t have left.
“You don’t,” Lance cuts through his wandering thoughts. The finality in his voice leaves no room for Keith to argue, so he doesn’t. They sit in companionable silence until a small quirk graces Lance’s mouth. “So, how was it, being in love with me?”
Cold washes over Keith, and he freezes where he was previously drawing patterns into the table with his fingers.
Ignorant of his internal freakout, Lance continues curiously, “They must’ve been some pretty realistic visions if they convinced you to date me.”
It shouldn’t hurt. It’s expected, really. Lance wants to dilute the awkwardness around them caused by Keith. He already knows that Lance barely tolerates him as a friend, that their closeness only developed due to Shiro’s disappearance. So why does it feel like a chasm opening in his chest?
“Yeah,” Keith swallows harshly, “they were very realistic.”
When Lance looks at him next, it’s filled with intrigue. Keith can feel him attempting to piece the puzzle pieces together, and it terrifies him to think that he’d be able to see right through him.
“What did you see?”
Keith stops the rhythmic drumming of his fingers. He looks at Lance. Beautiful, smart Lance, who shares his whole heart with the universe and wreaks havoc on those who harm the people he cares about.
“Everything,” Keith whispers breathlessly. “I saw everything.”
Lance blinks attractively and tilts his head.
“Like what?”
Taking a deep breath, Keith decides that it doesn’t do him any good keeping all of this inside.
“I saw the first day we met. Your hair was awful, by the way.”
“Hey!” Lance chuckles. “Yours wasn’t any better. That’s where my hatred for the mullet started, you know.”
“I know,” Keith says softly. That confession was told to him after one countless night together in bed, bathing in the moonlight together on a planet he didn’t yet recognise. “I saw our first kiss,” he continues. “Our first date. Our first…” he trails off, fighting the stuttering of his chest. Lance takes in a sharp breath.
“And it was–“ Lance clears his throat with a rough cough. “You said these moments were written into stuff that actually happened?”
“Yeah.” Keith scratches the back of his head. “Like, you admitted to remembering the bonding moment instead of pretending like you forgot.”
“I did forget!”
“No, you didn’t. I know you didn’t.”
Lance’s eyes widen. He shifts in his chair, looking nervously off to the side.
“How early do these rewritten memories go?”
“I don’t know,” Keith admits quietly. “I need you to tell me.”
“Me?”
“You’re the only one who can confirm whether a memory we share actually happened the way I think it did.”
Gaze distant and uncertain, Lance stares somewhere behind Keith’s right shoulder.
“I’m losing my mind here, Lance. I need you.” And boy, isn’t that the truth. And then some.
Finally, Lance looks him directly in the eye.
“Okay.”
“Really?”
Lance scoffs and crosses his arms.
“Yes, really. I’m curious to know how you think things happened.”
Dread drops into his stomach like an anvil. Keith swallows. He has no choice.
“Okay.”
“Hey, Lance. How’s it going, buddy?” Hunk pokes his side with a socked toe.
Lance groans from the hiding spot he’s made out of his arms. There’s a dull ache forming behind his eyes that he wants to bury away.
“Care to share with the class?” Pidge pipes up nearby, typing away as usual on her computer from the opposite side of the cockpit.
He’s halfway sprawled on the floor, legs resting on the passenger bench as the rest of his body hangs off. Hunk is leaning over him with a concerned look that Lance won’t meet. He whines dramatically again.
“Is this about Keith?”
Lance abruptly shoots up, steadying himself against the wall as all the blood rushes out of his head. The pounding in his skull intensifies.
“W–what? Why would it– who would even– pshaw!” He hikes his shoulders up and petulantly looks away, grumbling half-phrases under his breath.
“Oh, are we still pretending we didn’t all see you guys make out?” Hunk asks innocently.
Lance can feel his ears glowing a bright red.
“We did not ‘make out’,” he air-quotes with his fingers.
“Then what was that, dude?” The part of Hunk that yearns for drama slips out as he sits down beside him on the bench.
Lance wraps his arms tightly around his own torso.
“Nothing.”
“Keith thinks they’re dating.”
Lance whips his head to where Pidge is still staring at her laptop screen, unbothered.
“What?!” Hunk yelps, then sees Lance glaring and clears his throat. “Um, why–why do you think that, Pidge?”
She finally looks up at them.
“He told me.”
Lance gapes.
“He did?”
“Yeah, he wanted me to do a space lobotomy on him so he’d stop getting his memories mixed up.”
“Oh.”
Lance didn’t realise it was that bad. He knows Keith was probably embarrassed over how everything played out, but he didn’t think he’d go to that extreme.
“Did you?”
Pidge looks at him like he’s grown a second head.
“Of course not! Lobotomies didn’t work even back when they were considered a legitimate medical practice, let alone on abyss-induced hallucinations.”
“Right, right…” Lance frowns as he considers Keith’s strange behaviour. “Did he say anything else about what he saw?”
“Well,” Pidge’s lenses on her glasses glinted as she nudged them up her nose, “he didn’t actually tell me anything, just begged me to fix his brain. I deduced the rest myself.”
Lance grunts angrily, “And who made you so smart anyway?”
She smiles.
“My parents.”
After no one says anything for a minute, Lance starts to get restless again. He taps his foot against the floor, mind racing. His headache grows.
Curiosity killed the cat, blah, blah, blah, but Lance is vibrating in his skin, waiting for Keith to come to him for help. It’s been a few days since their chat on that planet, and aside from the occasional slip-up, Keith seems to be faring well against his false memories on his own. Or, at least, he’s good at keeping them to himself, which is the opposite of what Lance wants. Sue him for wanting to know the lore behind his fake relationship with Keith.
He wants to ask questions like, ‘How did we confess to each other?’ and ‘What did we do on our first date?’ and ‘In your memories, do we share the same bed?’ In some vaguely masochistic sense, he wants to know what he could’ve done differently for them to be dallying around in a (presumably) happy relationship right now.
He’s yanked out of his thoughts with the familiar beep of an incoming call on the dashboard.
“O-o-oh, look who’s calling,” Hunk singsongs while batting his eyelashes.
With a speed that’s sure to make him lightheaded again, Lance dashes to the screen. He collapses heavily into the pilot seat, watching the name Team Leader flash in big white letters. As his finger lifts to answer, he hears snickering from behind him and whips around to glare at his friends.
“Leave.”
“No, no, I want to hear this,” Pidge says with a Cheshire grin.
“Get out, both of you.”
“What did I do?” Hunk whines with a pout.
Lance will not fall for his cuteness manipulation tactics. He points towards the door.
“Out, or I’m sending Kaltenecker after you.”
His friends groan, and only after he’s sure they’ve left the lion does Lance answer the call. Keith’s face lights up the screen, looking dishevelled and tired. None of them have been faring well during their space road trip, but Keith looks like he’s one second away from passing out.
“Hi ba– Lance.” Keith clears his throat, blush rising on his cheeks. “Sorry.”
Lance graciously ignores the slip-up.
“Dude, you look like shit.”
The comment brings a familiar glare to Keith’s expression.
“Thanks,” he answers dryly. “So…”
“So?”
“Do you remember that swap moon we were on last year? The one that had that vendor with all the knives?”
“Sure,” Lance confirms, curious to know where this is going.
“You spent all day charming aliens with cheap magic tricks for GAC because I didn’t have enough for the blade I wanted.” He smiles. “You wrapped it up and put it in my room that night.”
Lance’s mouth falls open.
“How– I never told you I did that.”
Keith frowns.
“You did, when we were–” The blush comes back full force. “Oh, sorry.”
“Stop apologising.”
“You look awkward, though.”
Lance knows he is, but that won’t make Keith feel any better, so he doesn’t point it out.
“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me,” he says instead.
Keith sits back in his seat with a roll of his eyes.
“Sure, love.” His eyes widen. “Sor–“
“Why’d you call?” Lance interrupts. He watches Keith snap his jaw shut and sheepishly look off to the side.
“I wanted to ask if you’ve seen it. It was in my room when I left for the Blade, but I couldn’t find it when we were packing up our stuff.”
Lance holds up a finger and leans over to the right side of the console. Underneath, he pushes open a panel that reveals a small cubby. Nestled in among various snacks sits the knife, still snug in its holster since the day it was bought. Lance fishes it out and holds it up by the hilt.
“You left it in your lion.”
“Oh, thank god.” Keith deflates, taking a relieved breath.
Lance scrutinises it in his palm, twirling it around and watching the pearlescent shine of the blade catch the internal lighting of the cockpit.
“It really means that much to you?”
“Of course. You gave it to me.”
When Lance looks at the screen again, Keith’s facing him with a soft look in his eyes, something unmistakably fond. Another sharp pang pierces his forehead so hard that he winces.
“Migraine?” he hears Keith ask, but the pain only gets worse, and soon, he’s applying pressure to the sides of his temples to dispel some of it. It doesn’t work very well. Keith watches him struggle through it for a second, then says, “Hold on,” and hangs up.
Lance doesn’t get the chance to really gawk at the screen because the feeling inside his skull sharpens. It’s only when the cockpit door opens that he turns around and, through bleary eyes, sees Keith sauntering through it with a determined look on his face. He walks right up to him, wedging himself between the pilot seat and dashboard. He gently takes Lance’s hands away from his face and replaces them with his own, feeling around the top of his head with his fingers. They glide down and stop to rest at his nape, each applying its own pressure point. After a few seconds of searching, he presses down tactfully, and the pain that’s been ricocheting inside Lance’s skull slowly begins to fade. He melts against the seat, taking Keith’s hands with him, and sighs.
“How’d you know how to do that?” Lance mumbles blissfully, still enjoying the gentle massaging motions of Keith’s fingers.
“I know you, Lance.”
Lance just hums and enjoys the small reprieve Keith gives him. A minute goes by in blissful silence before Lance cracks his eyes open again.
“Did you know I get migraines?”
Keith doesn’t stop his massaging motions as he nods.
“You used to get them at the Garrison a lot. They got better for a bit once we got to space, but after the Omega Shield,” Keith looks down somewhere in the vicinity of Lance’s chin with a deep frown, “they came back. It took us years to figure out your triggers and what works against the pain.”
“Wow, that’s…” Lance trails off. He feels embarrassed over the fact that Keith seems to know every little thing about him now, while he barely knows anything about Keith. Beyond his favourite animal, that is. Hippos. Who would’ve thought?
Keith glances down at him uncertainly and slowly pulls his hands away. Lance panics for a second before realising that the pain has mostly subsided, even if the dim lights emanating from the dashboard still seem blinding.
“Sorry. I know things about you that you haven’t actually told me. I feel like I’m indirectly invading your privacy.”
Subconsciously, Lance tugs at the bottom hem of Keith’s shirt.
“Hey, if it helps, then no harm done, right?”
Something adoring passes through Keith’s expression that Lance has to close his eyes to. He only opens them when he feels a hand bury itself in the hair at the back of his head.
“Did you run out of that yellow conditioner you like?”
Lance tries to hide his surprise behind sarcasm.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t on my list of must-have items to take when the Castle was exploding.”
“Wow, you’re losing your edge,” Keith smirks as he twirls a strand with his finger. “The Lance I know would’ve caused a fit by now over his haircare.”
“Yeah, well, a lot has changed,” Lance says weakly, turning away.
The air between them gets wistful, like there’s too much left unsaid. Keith’s eyes burn him with an emotion Lance can’t place.
“Yeah, I guess it has.” Keith removes his hand from his hair and straightens. “I’m going to check on the others.” He starts moving towards the cockpit door but stops right before the threshold. “And Lance, if you ever need anything, just call.”
Lance can only watch his retreating form in wonder.
Welcoming Keith by his side again happens so naturally that Lance almost forgets what things were like before the space whale. Almost. He still doesn’t quite know how to handle Keith’s softer moments. Moments where he absentmindedly guides him through alien rainforests with a hand between his shoulder blades or grabs an extra mug of fake coffee for him without having to ask.
Keith spent two whole years learning how to be the perfect partner for Lance, and it’s killing him.
As the weeks passed, Lance found it more and more difficult to remember why he was ever upset with Keith in the first place. Of course, the pain of him leaving just when they were starting to develop something between them never went away, but it dulled to a barely-there hum beneath his ribs. And with every brush of Keith’s pinkie against his as they walked side by side, that pain soothed over.
“This is hurting my brain, dude.”
Lance flops forward over his knees where he sits on a large box. Keith lays a comforting hand on his back from beside him. They’d rearranged the storage crates in Black’s lower hull into a makeshift office, which is really just three metallic crates aligned in a triangle shape, meant to mimic two chairs and a desk. They’re working with what they’ve got, okay?
“I know, but we’re almost done, sweethea–“ Keith stops himself, looking guiltily off to the side. He’s been doing a lot of that, too, recently.
“You know,” Lance straightens, “you don’t have to hold yourself back with the pet names. I don’t mind.”
Keith’s gaze snaps back to his in an instant. His hand stays firmly on his back.
“You don’t?”
Lance swallows back the enthusiastic response that wants to burst out of him and settles on something more subdued.
“It’s not like you’re cursing me out.” He rolls his eyes. Then, on an impulse of bravery, he puts his palm on the soft fabric of Keith’s sweatpants, squeezing gently. “Plus, it’s kind of…nice?”
He watches Keith stare at him with wide eyes, then his face melts into a smirk.
“Oh, is it?”
Immediately, Lance flushes down his neck and turns away, snatching his hand back.
“Stop.”
“No, no. You’ve said it now.” He leans into his space. “You can’t take it back, sweetheart.”
Covering his face with his hands, Lance lets out a long-suffering groan.
“You’re evil.”
Keith bursts out laughing, loud and carefree. It fills Lance’s chest with warmth and an insatiable desire to kiss him.
Oh. Wow. Lance really wants to kiss Keith right now.
As if floating through a trance, Lance catches the hand that’s slid off his back and returned into Keith’s lap, covering it in a light grip. Keith’s laughter dies down instantly, alternating between staring at him and staring at their intertwined hands.
“Lance?” he calls quietly, like he’s afraid to disturb whatever moment is forming between them right now.
Lance leans in and–
A blaring siren goes off. They jump apart as the room fills with a flashing red light. Keith whistles for Kosmo, and before Lance is whisked away back into Red, they share a look that Lance can only interpret as later.
Keith startles awake. It takes him a second to get his bearings on where he is, even though he’s been spending most of his time in the Black Lion for the past several months. But he’s just had another one of his Lance Dreams, as Shiro likes to call them. Keith really shouldn’t have confided in him about this.
The dreams always left him feeling strangely floaty, like half of his consciousness was still stuck in it. It was another abyss vision. Not everything he saw there had been sunshine and rainbows. He’d seen moments where they were hospitalised, divorced, even dead. Those were always set in the future, and Keith had always bet on those visions being possibilities rather than premonitions. It didn’t make it any easier to watch, though.
It’s only after he feels something tickling his cheek that Keith realises he’s crying. He knows it’s stupid, but he loves that boy so much. The thought of losing him, even though he doesn’t have him in this reality, twists something sharp in his stomach. He sniffles pathetically, and it’s only then that he sees Kosmo’s glowing form slowly approaching his cot from where he’s been napping in the corner. He noses into Keith’s arm, huffing in a way that probably means, you’re being stupid.
Keith silently agrees and cards through the fluffy fur on his head with a sigh.
“What am I going to do, Kosmo?”
The wolf’s ear twitches as if registering his voice. But then, Keith blinks, and suddenly he finds himself in a familiar bed, but distinctly not his own. The lump he’d ungracefully landed on yelps, and they scramble to opposite ends of the cot with tangling limbs. Kosmo teleports away from them with a bright flash, resuming his previous sleep position in the Red Lion’s cockpit now.
“That damn wolf,” Keith grumbles, then finally meets Lance’s eyes. “Sorry, I had no idea he was going to do that.”
Bewildered, Lance lets out an incredulous chuckle.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“I wasn’t really sleeping yet.” Lance scratches the back of his head.
It’s the first time they’ve really spoken to each other since that moment in Black’s cargo bay. The air sits dense around them.
“Were you crying?”
Keith lifts his hand up to swipe at the tears he didn’t get the chance to fully rub away before.
“Oh, I, uh, I had a nightmare. I’m fine,” he quickly dismisses, wanting more than anything for Kosmo to teleport him back to his own lion. But the wolf is dozing soundly on the other side of the room, and Keith knows that if he wakes him up now, he’ll just growl and refuse to cooperate.
Lance hesitates for just a second, then crawls over to where Keith hunches in on himself on the other side of the cot. Slowly, as if waiting to see if Keith will push him away, he brings his hand up and brushes a couple of strands away from his face, then gently cradles his cheeks, rubbing away the remaining salty tracks with his thumbs.
“What was the nightmare about?” he asks softly, continuing the soft touches.
With an ease he’s grown familiar with, Keith closes his eyes and breathes out steadily through his nose.
“You died.”
Lance watches him carefully.
“And it upset you enough to make you cry?”
Keith bristles.
“Of course it upset me! What kind of question is that?” he barks, batting the hands away from his face.
“Wait, I didn’t mean it like that,” Lance says a little desperately. He tries scooting closer again, but Keith doesn’t let him.
“Don’t you get it, Lance? I love you. You’re it for me. Maybe I can get over never having you the way I want to, but I can’t imagine losing you.” His voice quiets towards the end, leaving him feeling drained. Emotionally, he’s just taken too many hits these past few weeks.
“You won’t lose me,” Lance whispers. A palm drifts upwards and lands delicately in the centre of Keith’s sleep shirt. “You’re it for me, too.”
It takes a moment for Keith’s brain to register Lance’s lips pressing softly against his own, but when it does, his core explodes in a chorus of delight. He’s missed this.
Unable to contain himself, Keith pushes forward until Lance is collapsing backwards into the sheets with a surprised sound. He doesn’t take his lips off of him for a second, though, coaxing them open with insistent swipes of his tongue. His hands roam the familiar curves of Lance’s body like he’s done countless times in his visions, and finally, finally, Keith feels things clicking into place.
At some point, he is pushed away so Lance can take a breath, but Keith isn’t mad about it, if only because he gets to see the messy, ruined look on Lance’s face.
“Where the hell did you learn that?” Lance gasps, chest heaving.
Keith smiles slyly.
“From you.”
Lance chuckles with a shake of his head.
“I should’ve known. I’ve taught you well.”
Keith hums in agreement, bending down to mouth at his jaw.
“What else– ah –have I taught you?”
Keith’s lips curl over his pulse point. He drifts over to the right side, into the space where his neck meets his shoulder and bites down with his fangs. Not enough to bleed, but enough to leave a mark. Lance’s reaction is immediate – his whole body jolts and seizes, and he lets out a loud moan. From the corner of his eye, Keith sees Kosmo teleporting away. Good.
“Keith,” he whines breathlessly. “What else?”
“I’ll show you, baby.”
In the afterglow of their night, Keith and Lance wake up tangled in each other. Keith has fully glued himself to Lance’s back while Lance has curled Keith’s arms as tightly as he possibly can around his own torso. He rolls over to face Keith once he feels him moving, blinking his eyes open slowly.
“Hi,” he rasps.
“Hi,” Keith replies with a lovesick smile.
Lance leans forward and kisses him languidly, uncaring of their unbrushed teeth. The kiss deepens with Keith’s hand on the back of his neck, and he can already feel himself getting riled up again when someone loudly clears their throat. They jump apart.
“Hi, Lance. Hi, Keith.” Shiro stands in the doorway, looking wholly unamused. With a squeak, Lance hides his naked chest with the blanket.
“So, you finally talked?” Shiro looks at Keith.
Keith glares back at him.
“I told you so,” Shiro says and, with the smuggest expression Keith’s ever seen on him, walks away.
Keith facepalms with both of his hands and groans until the sound echoes through the hollow cockpit.
“We are never living this down.”
With a pink blush dusting his cheeks and a fond smile, Lance pecks him on the nose, and Keith thinks maybe it was worth it, after all.