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The war is over, but Keith doesn't feel peaceful at all.
He crashes with Shiro at the Garrison campus, but he doesn't plan to stay long. He occupies the guest space for only a few weeks before the itch to get off Earth and back into the stars begins to crawl under his skin again. He can tell Shiro wants him to stay because he keeps dragging him to the Garrison to sit in on some meetings just to "observe."
The latest Galaxy Alliance meeting is droning on—something about trade routes in the localized sector, and Keith is roughly three seconds away from chewing his own arm off to escape. He sits between Shiro and Iverson, spinning a stylus between his fingers so fast it's a blur.
Then, his phone buzzes against the metal table.
Keith usually ignores it during official business, but the screen lights up with a generic Garrison ID. He frowns, thumbing the answer button and keeping his voice low.
"Kogane."
"Is this Keith Kogane?" A frantic voice crackles on the other end. "We have Lance McClain in the infirmary. You're listed as his primary emergency contact."
The stylus snaps in Keith's hand.
Shiro stops mid-sentence, looking over, but Keith is already shoving his chair back, the metal legs screeching against the floor.
"Is he alive?" Keith demands, ignoring the sudden silence of the conference room.
"Yes, but he's—"
Keith hangs up. He doesn't wait for dismissal. He doesn't even look at Shiro. He just sprints.
The doors to the Garrison Medical Wing hiss open, and Keith bursts through them like a hurricane in a crop top. The receptionist, a poor first-year cadet with pink hair who clearly drew the short straw, barely has time to look up from her datapad.
"Sir, you can't just—"
"Where is he?" Keith barks. His chest is heaving, panic clawing at his throat.
"Name?"
"Lance. Lance McClain."
The cadet types frantically. "Bed four, but the doctor is still—"
Keith is already moving. He rounds the corner, his boots squeaking on the pristine tile, and skids to a halt at the curtain marked 4. He rips it back.
Lance is sitting on the edge of the bio-bed, shirtless. His left arm is wrapped in a thick layer of bacta-gauze, and there is a nasty, purpling bruise blooming across his ribs. He looks battered and tired, and he smells faintly of ozone and singed hair.
He also looks up and grins the moment he sees Keith. "Took you long enough."
Keith lets out a breath he's been holding since the phone rang. The panic instantly curdles into anger. He stalks forward and flicks Lance's good ear.
"Ow! Hey!" Lance yelps, recoiling. "I'm the victim here!"
"You're an idiot is what you are," Keith hisses, though his hands hover anxiously near Lance's shoulder, unsure where to touch without causing pain. "What happened?"
"Training sim," Lance says, waving his good hand dismissively. "Turns out the Level 8 Gladiator bot has a mean right hook. Who knew?"
"I knew! Because I programmed it!" Keith shouts, throwing his hands up. "Why were you fighting a Level 8 without backup?"
"I wanted to impress—" Lance blurts out, then immediately freezes. His eyes widen, and he looks everywhere except at Keith. "Uh...impress the...recruits. Yeah. Those guys."
Keith stares at him. The tips of Lance's ears are turning a shade of pink that matches the scrape on his cheek.
"You almost got concussed trying to impress recruits?"
"They look up to me! I'm a war hero!"
"You're a liability."
A nurse bustles in, checking the monitors behind Lance. She looks between the two of them, Keith, fuming and vibrating with anxiety, and Lance sitting like a kicked puppy with a charming smile.
"I see the emergency contact has arrived," she says dryly, checking Lance's pupil response with a penlight. "Good. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. He refused the pain meds because he said he needed to keep his wits sharp."
Keith glares at Lance through gritted teeth. "Take the meds."
"I don't need them. I'm tough."
"Lance, you're wincing every time you breathe."
"That's just style points."
Getting nowhere, he turns to the nurse instead. "Drug him. Please."
"Traitor," Lance mutters, slumping back against the pillows as the nurse injects a hypospray into his shoulder.
The tension in the room finally breaks as the nurse leaves them alone. Keith drags a plastic chair over to the bedside and collapses into it, scrubbing a hand over his face. He watches Lance's eyelids start to droop as the meds kick in.
"Why am I your emergency contact?" Keith asks quietly.
It's been bugging him since the call. Not Shiro. Not Hunk. Not his mother or Veronica. Hell, even though they've broken up, Allura would've made more sense. But instead it's Keith.
Lance blinks slowly, a lazy, lopsided smile spreading across his face. "Well, Veronica would kill me, Hunk would cry, and Shiro would lecture me about responsibility."
"And me?"
"You?" Lance hums, his head lolling to the side to look at Keith. He takes a deep breath. "You'd just come get me."
Keith feels that familiar warmth rise in his chest, the one he's getting worse and worse at ignoring. He reaches out, carefully taking Lance's hand—the one not hooked up to the monitors. Lance's fingers curl around his instantly.
"Yeah," Keith whispers, squeezing gently. "I'll always come get you."
Lance is drifting off now, the pain lines smoothing out on his forehead. "Plus," he mumbles, eyelids sliding shut. "It looks cool on the forms."
Keith snorts. "So, you think I'm cool now?"
But Lance is already snoring softly, drooling slightly onto the pillow.
Keith sits there for a long time, staring at their joined hands, terrified and thrilled all at once. He stays right there until the nurse kicks him out three hours later.
The days bleed into one another, marked not by strategy meetings with Shiro but by the slow, rhythmic beep of monitors and the shifting of sunlight across the infirmary floor with Lance during his recovery.
In this stillness, the distance between them evaporates completely. Keith finds himself acting as a silent sentry, bringing trays of food that go half-eaten and adjusting pillows with a tenderness he would have once punched himself for possessing.
Through scribbled games of tik-tak-toe passed back and forth on napkins or the simple, exhausted look in Lance's eyes, he conveys a truth that Keith is only just beginning to understand. Lance is shedding the layers of expectation like a second skin.
He confesses, in hushed tones during the twilight hours, that since the breakup with Allura and the stripping away of the identity of a paladin, he is finally unearthing the person underneath. To him, the world feels different now. It's quieter, bereft of the constant hum of war, yet heavy with the monumental task of rebuilding not just the universe, but himself.
He learns that much like Keith, Lance has been haunting the Garrison hallways unsure of what to do next as a retired paladin.
"It's like, I dunno man, since the lions left, I feel sort of…lost? Aimless?" Lance tells him over a game of cards. He's quickly regaining the use of his arm, enough to hold the deck with both hands and prevent Keith from cheating. Not that cheating would help Keith, as the plastic tray table vibrates precariously from the unnecessary force Lance uses to slap down the Jack of Hearts.
"War," he declares, eyes gleaming with a competitive fire that has absolutely no place in a game played with a sticky, dog-eared deck found in the nurses' station waiting room.
Keith sighs, flipping over his own card. It's a pathetic three of clubs. "You're cheating. I don't know how, considering I shuffled, but you're cheating."
"I'm a man of many talents, Keith. Card shark is just one of them." Lance grins, sweeping the pile of cards toward his side of the bed. But the smile doesn't quite reach his eyes; it flickers and dies out too quickly, like a bulb with a loose connection.
He shuffles his winnings, his gaze dropping to his lap. The silence stretches, heavy and thick, until the rhythmic beep-hiss of the heart monitor seems to fill the entire room.
"She asked me to go with her, you know," Lance says suddenly. He doesn't look up. "To New Altea."
Keith freezes, his hand hovering over the deck. He doesn't need to ask who she is. Though it seemed impossible at the time, Allura managed to endure the ordeal of mending reality after Honerva by sacrificing Voltron and the lions. As much as Keith loved being a paladin, he would give up that war machine a thousand times over if it allowed Allura to be able to survive to rule her people.
"Why didn't you?" Keith asks, his voice carefully neutral. He forces himself to focus on the fraying edge of the playing card in his hand, terrified that if he looks at Lance, his relief will show on his face.
"Because..." Lance pauses, picking at a loose thread on his hospital blanket. "Because when I looked at her, standing there in her robes, ready to rebuild a whole civilization, I realized she didn't need a paladin anymore. And she definitely didn't need a total goofball from Earth who doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up."
"You're not a total goofball, Lance."
"I know, I know. I'm a sharpshooter. A hero." Lance finally looks up, his blue eyes tired and unguarded. "But with Allura...I think I was just a comfort. Someone to hold onto while the universe was ending. Now that the war is over? We don't make sense. She needs someone on her level, who knows politics and diplomacy."
Keith can't help but gag. "That sounds awful."
"It really does," Lance chuckles, a dry, humorless sound. "I realized that if I went with her, I'd just be The Queen's Consort. I'd spend the rest of my life being that or the Red Paladin, or the Blue Paladin. I'd never just be Lance."
He flips a card over absently. It's the King of Diamonds.
"So, I broke it off," Lance whispers. "I told her I had to figure out who I was without a giant robot lion telling me I was special. I couldn't do that in her shadow. She understood because she's the best, and I'm glad we can still be friends."
Keith watches him, his heart hammering against his ribs—a traitorous, frantic rhythm. He wants to reach across the tray table. He wants to grab Lance by the shoulders and tell him that he shines bright enough to cast his own shadows, that he doesn't need a lion or a crown to matter.
But the old fear chokes him. The voice in his head reminds him that he is just the emergency contact, the friend who picks up the pieces, not the one who gets to keep them.
Instead, Keith clears his throat, shoving the emotions down into that dark, pressurized box in his chest. He flips his next card—an Ace of Spades.
"For what it's worth, I couldn't have been her king either."
"Well, yeah, Keith, you're gay."
"Besides that! I mean that you made the right call by ending it," Keith says, his voice rougher than he intends. "You're worth more than being a footnote in someone else's history book."
Lance blinks, startled by the intensity in Keith's tone. A slow, genuine smile spreads across his face, softer this time.
"Thanks, man," Lance says quietly. He picks up his card and tosses it onto the pile. "Okay. I win again. Your turn to shuffle."
Lance, usually a storm of noise and energy, settles into a contemplative quiet, his need to perform fading along with the bruising on his ribs.
The discharge process is less of a medical formality and more of a jailbreak. Lance vibrates with impatient energy as he sits on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs while Keith signs the final release forms at the nurse's station.
"Free at last!" Lance crows the moment the wristband is snipped off. He rubs his wrist, grinning like he's just escaped a Galra prison block rather than a two-week stint in a climate-controlled Garrison medical wing. "I thought I was going to die of boredom. Do you know how many times I counted the ceiling tiles? One hundred and forty-two. And three of them are cracked."
"You're welcome," Keith mutters, handing the clipboard back to the nurse. He tries to sound annoyed, but the corner of his mouth betrays him, twitching upward.
"Come on," Lance says, grabbing Keith's sleeve and tugging him toward the exit. "I need real food. If I see another cup of lime Jell-O, I'm going to riot."
They walk out into the bright, sterile hallways of the Garrison, stepping back into the flow of cadets and officers. But instead of parting ways at the intersection—Lance to the barracks, Keith to Shiro's faculty apartment—Lance sticks to him like a burr.
In the days that follow, the dynamic shifts. It isn't just about recovery anymore; it's about survival in a world that has moved on without them.
Keith watches as Lance attempts to hang around Pidge, but she's buried deep in the robotics lab, making new reality discoveries with Matt, their rapid-fire chatter a language nobody else can translate. Then they try to visit Hunk, but he is already knee-deep in flour and schematics, frantically planning his catering business and muttering about supply chains.
Eventually, they start pairing off together: just two lost souls drifting through the corridors, trying to figure out what the hell to do now that they don't have a giant robot to co-pilot.
It starts small. Lance shows up at Shiro's door at odd hours, claiming boredom or hunger, and Keith, whose few weeks of crashing have quickly grown to months at this point, lets him in every time.
They become fixtures in the common areas and spend hours wandering the campus perimeter, kicking rocks and complaining about the humidity. They invade the mess hall together, criticizing the synthesizer meatloaf while reminiscing about space goo. It feels easy. It feels terrifying.
"You know," Lance says one afternoon, sprawling across the other end of the couch in Shiro's office while Keith sharpens a blade he definitely isn't supposed to have on campus. "I think we're actually getting good at this."
"Good at what?" Keith asks, pausing his whetstone.
"This," Lance gestures vaguely between them. "Not trying to kill each other. Being friends."
"Yeah," Keith says, his voice rough. "I guess we are."
"Don't sound so surprised," Lance teases, throwing a balled-up paper napkin at him. "I'm a delight."
Keith catches the napkin with his reflexes, still sharp from the war, and throws it back. Lance laughs, and the sound settles in Keith's chest, heavy and warm. Lance is bright and loud and alive, and he is right there, constantly within reach.
They drift together, inseparable and anchorless, waiting for the gravity of their new lives to finally take hold.
Meanwhile, deep inside his chest, the crush Keith swears he buried is scratching at the coffin lid, growing louder each day.
The faculty lounge is suffocatingly beige, the silence only punctuated by the rhythmic thwack of a rubber ball sailing through the air. Keith catches it with a snap of his wrist and tosses it back; Lance catches it and returns the volley. It is a mindless loop, the activity of two soldiers who have forgotten how to sit still without a war to fight.
It's a mindless repetition that fills the silence until Lance breaks it. He catches the ball and pauses, holding it against his chest rather than throwing it back.
"Wanna go out?" he asks.
Keith freezes. The air leaves his lungs in a rush. He has spent the last few weeks violently stomping down any feelings he may or may not still have for Lance, finally reaching a fragile state where he can exist in the same room as the guy without feeling like he is going to scream. He stares at Lance, panic seizing his throat.
Instead of screaming, he manages a strangled grunt. "Like...on a date?"
Lance snorts, the sound sharp and amused. "No, you loser. I mean to town. Maybe see a movie or something?"
The adrenaline crashes out of Keith's system so fast it leaves him dizzy, replaced instantly by a hot wave of mortification. "Oh," Keith says, fighting the heat rising to his ears. "Uh...sure. Okay."
Lance throws his head back and laughs, the sound bright against the dull walls of the lounge. "Wow, don't sound so excited. You may give me a complex."
Keith rolls his eyes but follows Lance out into the sunlight to rent a truck. The cab of the vehicle is cramped, smelling faintly of old upholstery and dust. They fight over who gets to drive, but Lance wins rock-paper-scissors, claiming the driver's seat with a smug grin.
The drive is chaotic; Keith complains about Lance's driving the whole time, gripping the handle above the door, while Lance just cranks the radio volume louder to drown him out.
"You're so irritating..." Keith grumbles, slumping against the seat. "I dunno why I ever liked you."
"Huh?" Lance yells over the thumping music. "What'd you say?"
Heat rushes to Keith's face. "I said you're irritating and I don't like you!"
Lance rolls his eyes, keeping his gaze on the road. "Oh yeah? Well, I don't like you either."
Keith huffs, crossing his arms tightly across his chest as Lance drives them into town. When he finally parks, the engine cuts out, leaving a ringing silence. Lance hops out, circles the truck, and comes to Keith's side of the door, opening it with an exaggerated, theatrical bow.
"M'mullet ~"
Keith shoves him aside, and Lance laughs at his own dumb joke. The town isn't big at all, mostly small buildings lining a main street. Lance points out where he and Allura had worked to clean up after Sendak's occupation while Keith was still recovering from his coma. The scars of the war are fading, replaced by fresh paint and the bustle of civilians.
"Where should we go?" Lance asks, looking up and down the street.
Keith groans. "I don't know, this was your idea."
"Yeah, to come here. Now what?"
Keith spots a pub on the corner called The Bar, its windows dim and inviting, and starts walking. Lance follows him until they reach the entrance. Lance hesitates at the door.
"Uh..."
"What now, Lance?"
"Not to be a nag, but like, are we like...even legal?"
Keith raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Seriously?"
"I'm just asking!"
"What are you, Hunk? Just get in, geez."
Inside, the air is cool and smells of stale beer and wood polish. It is the middle of the day, so the bar is empty. A few stools are filled with old-timers, their eyes glued to a soccer game playing on the TV in the corner. Lance weaves through the space to grab a table while Keith drops his jacket.
"I'll grab us drinks since you're nervous," Keith teases. He turns to walk to the bar but stumbles slightly over his own feet.
"Oops," Lance says, batting his eyelashes innocently with his leg stuck out. "Didn't see you."
Keith flicks him the bird and heads to the counter to open a tab.
They spend way longer than planned in the dim comfort of the bar. They catch up on life—or the lack thereof—between rounds of pool and old-school pinball. Keith is terrible at pool, constantly misjudging angles, but he discovers he is excellent at pinball.
"Woah! You're like the Pinball Wizard!" Lance gasps as the machine lights up with Keith's latest high score. A small crowd of regulars has gathered around them, the blinking lights and digital sounds reminding Keith of when he first passed the Garrison simulator.
"Pinball what?"
"Dude...The Who?"
Now Keith is getting irritated, the reference flying completely over his head. "The...who what?"
"Oh my god, they're a band, you uncultured hermit!" Lance throws his hands up dramatically, acting like Keith is being insufferable—which, to be fair, he is. "I'm playing them on the jukebox."
"Have fun."
"I will!" Lance snags some change and marches over to pick the songs.
The opening chords crash through the bar speakers, and Keith's face lights up in recognition. "Ohh! You meant Tommy!"
"Dude, nobody knows it as Tommy, only Pinball Wizard."
"Well, I know it. My dad always played that record. It's a rock opera."
Lance stares at him, and for a moment, Keith can't read his expression. Maybe Lance doesn't realize he is staring, or hes just caught off guard by the glimpse into Keith's childhood.
"Your face is a rock opera," Lance finally says. It is a dumb comeback, but it's enough for Keith to drop it for now.
Still, Keith shakes his head, physically pushing down whatever warm feeling is bubbling in his chest. Just heartburn from the cheap beer, he tells himself. Nothing else.
The Bar becomes their place. It isn't intentional, but in a world still rebuilding from the ashes of occupation, it feels like the one spot where Keith and Lance can plant some roots. They know the regulars by name. Lance gets very invested in the soccer matches on TV, which inevitably means Keith gets invested too.
They learn the owner's name is Maggie. She is a widow; her husband was killed in one of Sendak's labor camps. The familiar twist of guilt hits Keith's gut hard—the reminder that if only they'd gotten back to Earth sooner, maybe they could've stopped this tragedy before it started.
"Keith's mom is a widow too," Lance says one afternoon when the three of them are chatting, tilting his head toward Keith. "His dad died before the war, but it's never easy to lose someone."
"No, it's not," Maggie sighs, resting a comforting, weathered hand on Keith's shoulder. "If your Mama wants, we have a little community here. Sorry, kid."
Maggie walks back to the bar to clean glasses. Keith frowns at Lance over the rim of his beer.
"Why did you do that?"
Lance shrugs. "It could be nice for your mom to meet people who don't wear knives as accessories."
"I doubt Maggie would be thrilled to meet her."
"Why not?"
"Lance, my Mom's Galra!"
"Yes, Keith. I'm aware. You had a whole coming out to the team. It was very touching."
"Stop being an ass," Keith hisses, kicking Lance under the table. "Sendak murdered Maggie's husband. She won't want to hang out with my mom, who's also a Galra warrior."
Lance leans back in his seat, his brows furrowed in confusion. "Dude...your mom wasn't part of that. She was so against what Sendak stood for that she risked her life multiple times to stop it. Hell, she left YOU just to keep Zarkon away from Blue!"
Keith sighs sadly, staring at the condensation on his bottle. "Maggie won't care about that."
"Not if you don't give her a chance," Lance replies softly, nervously scratches the label off the side of his beer bottle, stripping away the paper. "It may not be easy. I remember how Allura reacted to your news, even though I told everyone you were weird."
"You just thought that because I didn't get your references."
"Dude, I still think that because you don't get my references."
Keith kicks at Lance again, but this time softly. Playfully. It pulls a chuckle out of Lance that sounds almost like a giggle. The sound makes Keith's veins run warm, but he tells himself it is probably just the alcohol.
Probably.
Definitely.
He is not falling again. No way. That crush is dead and buried deep beneath the soil of war.
"Anyway, wasn't the whole point of us being Defenders of the Universe or whatever to trust people to make their own decisions?" Lance shrugs, still picking at the label. "If kind people like Maggie can't see that not all Galra are bad and not all humans are good...did we really win the war?"
Keith listens, mesmerized and terrified. Seeing this raw, stripped-back version of Lance—uncertain, vulnerable, and honest—makes fighting the attraction nearly impossible. He wants so desperately to reach out, to close the space between them with a kiss, but he keeps his hands clenched in his lap, white-knuckled and aching.
He realizes, with a sinking dread, that the fortifications around his heart are trembling, and feels a terrifying, familiar warmth clawing its way up his throat. It is the same heat he spent years suffocating. He tries to chalk up his racing heart to anxiety, but the lie tastes like ash.
The feelings aren't just returning; they're surging back with the force of a high tide, threatening to drown him the moment he lets his guard down.
Keith suddenly stands, causing his chair's legs to scrape loudly against the sticky wood floor. Lance blinks and looks up at him in confusion.
"I gotta go pee," he blurts as a flimsy excuse. Before Lance can respond, he makes a mad dash to the bathroom.
Inside the small, tiled room, it is just him, thankfully. Keith leans over the sink, taking a deep breath until his racing heart slows. He washes his face with cold water and stares into his own eyes in the mirror.
"Not again," he growls at his reflection. "We're not doing this shit again. We're just friends. We're just his emergency contact."
Keith's reflection remains silent, and in frustration, he punches the wall.
For the rest of the weekend, Keith ignores Lance's texts and mopes on Shiro's sofa. He lies and texts Lance that he's sick, but really he is just fighting his own denial—fighting the fact that the feelings he has fought so hard to squash are slowly coming back, rising like high tide in his heart.
Lance:🤧🤯💣
Keith frowns at his phone, trying to translate the string of emojis, as if he is deciphering hieroglyphics. Meanwhile, Shiro is doing that hover thing he always does when Keith is in a mood, and it is driving him nuts. Eventually, Shiro flicks the lights on, and Keith pauses the low-grade horror flick he is mindlessly watching to flop further into his blanket burrito.
"What are you doing?" Keith nearly hisses, but Shiro doesn't budge. He never does, and it is annoying.
"I could ask you the same question."
"I'm watching a movie," Keith replies, flopping back. He can feel how greasy his hair is against the pillow; he needs a shower. "Or I was."
"Really? Because it looks like you're brooding."
Keith snorts. "I'm not brooding. What am I, twelve?"
"I knew you when you were twelve, and this is how you brooded."
Keith raises his head from the blanket to glare at Shiro, but a floating robotic arm drifts into the living room and pokes at him.
"Ow!" he flinches, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders. The glare he meant for Shiro is now temporarily diverted to the annoying machine hovering inches from his ear. "Shiro, call it off!"
"I will when you tell me what's bothering you."
"Nothing is—OW! Is it poking harder?!"
"I can do this all day."
Keith swats Shiro's metal arm away, the prosthetic humming faintly as it retracts, but the irritation on his face crumbles into something far more miserable. He stares at the ceiling, unable to look his brother in the eye.
"It's... back," Keith admits. The words feel like pulling teeth—painful, unnecessary, and leaving an ache that throbs in his jaw.
Shiro remains quiet at first, leaning back against the cushions. His expression shifts from playful annoyance to a softer, recognizing look that borders on pity. It's the gaze of someone who has witnessed this specific disaster before and understands where it's headed.
Keith glares at the ceiling fan, sensing the shift. "Don't say it never left."
"I don't have to," Shiro says simply. His voice is maddeningly neutral, carrying the weight of a thousand I-told-you-sos without uttering a single syllable.
Keith lets out a groan of frustration, dragging his hands down his face. "I need to get over him, Shiro. I can't do this again. I can't go back to watching the back of his head or analyzing every joke he makes for hidden meaning. It was exhausting enough when we were fighting a war. I don't have the stamina for it now."
"Keith—"
"Is there anything I can take?" He interrupts, turning to look at Shiro with frantic, desperate eyes. "Something really strong to make me forget it all now that it's back—like powerful sleeping meds so I can sleep through a year until he's with someone else and I've moved to a nebula?"
Shiro stares at him, unimpressed. "You want to medically induce a coma to avoid a crush?"
"It's not a crush," Keith mutters, flopping face-first into the throw pillow to muffle his following words. "It's a tactical error."
"Now you sound like Pidge."
Keith screams into the throw pillow.
Shiro leans casually across the back of the sofa. "Want me to set you up? Curtis has some friends."
Keith frowns and lifts his head. "Who the fuck is Curtis?"
"Comms officer on the Atlas," Shiro says, inspecting his nails in the fakest attempt at casualness Keith has ever seen.
"Is that the guy you keep bringing home?"
Shiro delivers a firm punch to his arm. "We've dated for weeks! How have you not noticed?"
"Sorry, I don't keep a detailed itinerary of the dudes you bring home!"
"You're a horrible brother and an even worse house guest."
"Well, you're stuck with me for the first one," Keith sighs, leaning back into the cushions. "And the second, at least until I get my shit together."
"It's been a while since you had a chance to relax. You'll get through it," Shiro reassures, reaching out his non-robotic hand to tousle Keith's messy hair and his nose crinkles at the grease. "But first, you need to shower.
Keith sits up. "Fine, but I'm getting right back here after."
Shiro watches him leave with gentle eyes. Keith sighs, picks up his blanket, and carries it down the hall to the guest bathroom. Shiro gets up, clears his throat loudly, causing Keith to groan.
"Let me brood in the blanket, Shiro!"
Shiro grabs the blanket back. "Have you thought of just telling Lance?"
Keith crosses his arms, feeling exposed without the blanket. "He's not into me."
"How do you know?"
"He dated Allura."
"So? He's single now."
Keith shakes his head. "We're just becoming friends...like actual friends. I don't want to mess that up."
"You've been friends, you just didn't want to accept that," Shiro says, leaving the hallway to throw the brooding blanket into the wash. "I'm staying out of this unless you need me, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
Keith wants to believe Shiro, but can't. Not yet.
Keith knows he shouldn't be surprised when the door opens.
He told Lance he was sick to avoid precisely this kind of interaction, but Lance has never been particularly good at taking a hint or following rules. The only reason he's not thrilled to see him is that he has spent the last forty-eight hours trying to suffocate the feelings that have been keeping him awake.
"What are you doing here?" Keith asks from the sofa, looking disheveled.
Lance toes off his shoes and flops onto the floor, placing a box of donuts on Shiro's coffee table like he owned the place. "Figured you could use some company since you're such a social creature and all that."
Keith glares suspiciously at the box.
Lance grins. "Dude, it's a donut, not a hand grenade. It won't hurt you."
Keith keeps glaring, debating the merits of kicking him out versus the effort it would take to stand up. Luckily, Shiro walks past and catches sight of them.
"Oh, hey, Lance. Didn't see you come in."
"Keith told me about the spare key you leave under the gnome, so I let myself in," Lance replies casually. "Donut?"
"Don't eat them, they're probably pranked," Keith warns.
Lance flicks him in the arm. "They're not, Keith is just the fun police."
"I'd love one, but I'm actually on my way to meet someone for dinner," Shiro says, shrugging on a nice sports jacket.
Lance squeals. "Is it a dinner date?"
Shiro flushes, and Keith blinks. He has never seen Shiro look so flustered. Not even when they were on the Castle of Lions, and a round of Truth or Dare got too personal.
"I totally hit the bullseye. Aw, Shiro! Look at you getting all handsome!" Lance gushes, climbing onto the sofa next to Keith. "Is your date Curtis?"
Keith scoffs. "How do you know Curtis?"
"Uh, he's friends with my sister, and everyone with eyes can see the way he and Shiro look at each other," Lance says, raising an eyebrow at Shiro. "Is this supposed to be on the DL or something? Because it's absolutely not."
"Nope, Keith is just dense."
"I am not!" Keith protests, though Lance seems to be holding back a laugh. Shiro is already laughing. "Don't encourage him!"
"Dude, you live together, and you didn't know he was dating Curtis?"
"Oh my GOD," Keith groans, turning back to the TV and raising the volume to drown out his own humiliation.
"Alright, I'm off," Shiro says, checking his phone. "Lance, feel free to crash here tonight if you want. I probably won't be home until late."
Lance wiggles his eyebrows. "Or not at all, hmm?"
"Lance, I swear if you make one more sex joke about my brother..." Keith threatens.
Shiro leaves with a wave, and Lance collapses back onto the couch. Keith groans, shifting in his blankets, trying to maintain some distance now that they are alone. "Do you HAVE to be here too?"
"Don't have your guest sit on the floor, Keith. It's rude.
"Fine...pass me a donut.
Lance winks. "I knew I'd break you one day, Kogane.
They spend the rest of the night watching trashy TV and eating pizza. It is comfortable—too comfortable. Keith watches Lance burrow deeper into the sofa cushions, noticing a tension in his shoulders that hasn't gone away.
"Keith?"
"Hmm?"
"Did you stay home this weekend because I was getting to be too much?"
They're pressed together on the surprisingly cramped sofa, under a shared, slightly threadbare fleece blanket, static clinging to the edges of the cushions.
Keith's fingers tighten on the remote, the soft click of the mute button echoing louder than he intends in the small living room. The sudden silence, a heavy blanket of its own, replaces the low drone of the late-night news anchor. He doesn't need to look at Lance to know the other man is watching him; he can feel the weight of his gaze.
His presence, warm and solid beside him, is the only thing anchoring Keith to the moment. The cushions groan softly beneath their combined weight as Keith turns his head slowly, meeting Lance's eyes over the curve of the navy blue fleece.
"What?" Keith finally asks. That single word feels heavy.
Lance looks caught, like a deer in the headlights. "I...sorry, forget it."
"No!" Keith is adamant. He needs Lance to understand this. "You're not too much," he clarifies in a gentler tone. "You're never too much, Lance. Why would you ever think that?"
Lance falls silent, and Keith leans forward, crowding him on the sofa. "Did someone...say you were?"
Lance bites his lip. "It's not something people have to say," he admits, wrapping his arms around himself. "I'm just used to it happening. I get that I can be annoying."
"Yeah, you can be," Keith says, and Lance glares.
"Geez, thanks.
Keith shrugs. "You annoying me isn't you being a lot, though."
Lance frowns. "Is this supposed to be one of your cryptic bits of advice? Like when you told me to leave the math to Pidge when I was worried about the lions?"
"No—wait, how was that cryptic? I told you not to count lions so you can focus on Red. It was straightforward!"
"THAT was straightforward?!"
"What did you think I meant?" Keith's voice cracks. "Never do math again, cause Pidge is better at it?"
"Well...yeah? Kinda?" Lance sputters. "Because then you fucked off to be a Space Ninja for months, so I figured that was you letting me down easy. Like, 'don't worry, you'd be out soon'"
Keith blinks slowly. "Oh. I meant it more that you'd always have a place on the team. I'd never let you go, Lance. We were partners."
Lance looks nervous. His eyes dart back and forth. Every muscle in his jaw is clenched, his breathing shallow and quick, like a man teetering on the brink of panic as he awaits a sentence he can't escape. Eventually, Keith relents.
"But...I guess in hindsight that probably wasn't very clear."
"Oh, you think so?!"
Keith feels the laughter bubble up in his own chest as he finally sees Lance's eyes crinkle.
"You're such an idiot," Lance giggles.
"Takes one to know one," Keith counters, chuckling softly. He extends his hand over the blanket, patting Lance's knee. "You're a pain in the ass, but you aren't too much. If you were, I'd tell you."
"Promise?"
Keith smiles. "I promise."
Lance returns the smile, and Keith feels bold enough to explain himself. "Sometimes I just get overcharged when I'm out. It drains me, and some weekends I just need to turn my brain off and not talk to people. Usually just me and Kosmo."
"Lone wolf time?"
"Sorta?"
Lance frowns. "So, am I crashing your recharge time right now?"
"Yeah, but I don't mind," Keith shrugs. "You don't drain me as much as other people. At least when it's just us like this. I like your company. It's nice."
"Aw, Keith!" Lance bats his eyelashes. "Am I the exception to your rule?"
"We make our own rules. Don't make me regret this."
"Too late, no takebacks!"
"And now I'm regretting it."
They settle back on the sofa, and Keith feels lighter, but there is one thing that has been gnawing at him for two days. "Something has been bugging me, though."
Lance winces. "What is it?"
Keith pulls his phone from his pocket and pushes the screen into Lance's face. "Why did you say I have bomb sneezes?"
"When did I say that?"
"Your emojis. You sent me sneezing, explosion, bomb?"
Lance looks at the text, then back at Keith, fighting back a laugh. "What?!"
"Dude, those were just bullshit emojis to mean feel better soon. Were you rereading that all weekend?"
Keith feels the heat flood his face, a flush running from his nose to his ears. "Well, not...not all weekend."
Lance doesn't just laugh; he detonates.
The sound erupts out of him, sudden and sharp, doubling him over until his forehead hits his knees. It isn't a polite chuckle or a cool, practiced smirk—it is a full-body wheeze that shakes the entire sofa. He clutches his stomach with one hand and slaps the cushion with the other, gasping for air between cackles.
"You thought—" he wheezes, tears of mirth already gathering in the corners of his squeezed-shut eyes. "You thought—bomb sneezes?!"
He throws his head back, letting out a loud, uninhibited snort that would be embarrassing if he weren't already too far gone to care. His face turns a blotchy, delighted red, and he looks so genuinely happy that even Keith's humiliation softens around the edges.
Keith kicks him under the blanket. "Shut up! I didn't know, okay? You should've just said 'feel better'! It doesn't need to be complicated!"
Lance can't stop laughing, even when Keith throws a pillow at him to shut him up.
Keith resigns himself to his situation: his feelings for Lance are unavoidable, and he won't sacrifice their friendship. It's simply his reality now—spending nearly every day with Lance, whether at the Garrison, their usual bar, Lance's farm, or in Shiro's living room.
They are together constantly. It gets to the point where folks figure if they find Lance, Keith isn't too far behind. And if you tell Keith something, chances are Lance already knows. Even Kosmo answers to Lance. They are attached at the hip, neck-and-neck. Keith has never felt less lonely in his life.
That is, until Kolivan comes to Earth.
When Shiro calls on him, and he spots his mother and Kolivan in the conference room, he isn't surprised to see them. They've been working on rebuilding Daibazaal and decentralizing the Empire to a representative Galaxy Alliance.
He IS surprised to see Allura there, though.
"What happened?" Keith asks when the door slides shut behind him, sealing them in.
Allura frowns. "Why is your first instinct that something bad has happened?"
"Because historically,y when I've been in a room with you, Shiro, and Kolivan, something bad happened."
Shiro shrugs. "He's not wrong."
"It's not bad," Krolia assures, motioning to the chair next to her. "Take a seat, Keith."
Keith follows and eyes the three of them suspiciously. "Okay, so what is it?"
Allura explains: "As you know, after I used the lions to create this singular reality, we discovered the reappearance of Altea and Daibazaal. Coran and I have been working to develop a more modern government, with my role as Queen being more diplomatic than legislative. Daibazaal is as well."
"What does that have to do with me?"
Allura pauses. "With Lotor...no longer with us, unlike Altea, there isn't a clear successor to take on this role for the Galra. The Emperor's throne is empty."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"When the Emperor is Zarkon or Honerva, then yes."
Keith's blood freezes, and he knows what Allura is going to ask. She has the same face Shiro had when he told Keith that he wanted him to become the Black Paladin. Something he never wanted. Just like this.
"No," Keith says before Allura can utter another word. "I'm not doing it."
Shiro sighs. "Keith..."
"No! I'm not becoming...a Galra Emperor!" Keith turns to his mother. "You can't be serious."
"We're dead serious. It's why we are suggesting this." Kolivan meets his eyes. "Daibazaal has one chance at this, and it can easily go to a Sendak supporter."
"Isn't that your job to deal with?" Keith argues. "I'm not involved; that concerns your and Krolia's roles as representatives in the Galaxy Alliance."
"Seems like very little has to do with you since the war ended," Kolivan spits, and Keith's temper spikes.
Shiro, luckily, reads the room.
"Hey, hey... that's enough," he interjects, making his way to where Keith is sitting to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Guilt isn't the way, and this is Keith's decision. We can find someone else."
"There is no one else," Allura argues. "It must be Keith."
"Says who?"
"You flew the same lion Zarkon did, and helped save reality," Allura says. "Even as half-Galra, you would not be the first Emperor in that position."
"And what happened to the last one?" Keith snipes, and Allura freezes. "Exactly. This isn't a birthright for me, my answer stays."
The room falls into an awkward silence until Kolivan clears his throat. "Can we at least request that you consider it?"
Keith sighs, standing to leave. "My answer won't change, but I'll sleep on it only because Allura made the trip here. That's all."
Allura nods. "Thank you."
When Keith enters the campus recreation building, he is nearly smashed in the face by a basketball. He lets the ball hit his back with an OMPH before watching it bounce away across the court.
"Dude, what happened to those ninja reflexes?" Lance jokes and jogs over. "I yelled and everything!"
Keith shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets. Today is Tuesday. On Tuesdays, he plays basketball with Lance. That's different than Wednesday when he goes to the movies with Lance, Thursday taco night with Lance, and Friday Bar night with Lance. A lot of Lance. And he likes it.
Lance frowns, slowly dribbling the ball. "So, did everything go well with Kolivan?"
Keith shakes his head, and Lance frowns, eyes resting on the ball. "Scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being us stuck in that elevator together, how bad?"
Keith can't even laugh at the joke. "A 12."
"Quiznack!"
Keith sighs, shaking his head. "I don't really want to talk about it now. Is that cool?"
"Yeah...yeah it's cool," Lance gives him a half smile. "C'mon, I'll kick your ass and give you something else to mope about."
Keith laughs at this and follows Lance to the basketball court. They play HORSE, and Keith keeps the conversation to himself. He misses his chance to tell Lance after their movie night, as Lance is preoccupied with a theory about the inevitable sequel. Keith also decides against bringing it up on Taco Thursday, not wanting to ruin the fun.
By Friday, it has been so long. Does it matter?.
"I saw your mom by the training deck with Acxa and Kosmo," Lance says after Maggie drops off their usual cheap beers. "Didn't realize she was visiting."
"Hmm," Keith nods, taking a swig.
"I waved, but I don't think she saw me. But Kosmo ran over though, cause I'm his favorite." Lance frowns. "Now I know something's up because you always defend Kosmo's love for you. What's going on?"
Keith stares at his beer. "It's nothing."
"So it's something?"
"It'll be nothing, don't worry about it."
"Definitely worrying about it."
Keith groans. "Lance, c'mon."
"You've been weird ever since you spoke with Kolivan. And now your mom is here with Acxa. Is this some Galra bullshit?" Lance squints. "Is it?"
Keith presses the heel of his hands against his eyes. "I really don't want to talk about this. Can't you just leave it?"
"You're upset, man. Just let me help you."
Lance meets Keith's eyes. They are kind and earnest. It hurts to see. "Please," he begs softly. "I promise to listen. Give me a chance."
Keith looks away when he says it. "They want me to be the new Emperor of Daibazaal."
Lance stares like Keith just hit him with a 2x4.
"There, you happy?" Keith groans, grabbing his beer. "They need someone for diplomacy shit or whatever - like what Allura is doing, I guess? But for a race I don't even know on a planet I've only been to once."
"So you said no?"
"Of course I did!" Keith scoffs and then catches Lance's stare. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Lance shakes his head. "I'm not looking."
"You're absolutely looking," Keith argues. "You think I should take this on, don't you?"
"I didn't say that."
His voice is soft. Distant. Cold. Keith feels his temper flare.
"So what are you saying?"
Lance doesn't say anything. He still won't meet Keith's eyes, and Keith is growing more irritated by the second.
"Seriously, Lance? Are you really going to stay silent about this? Really?"
"You're a good leader, Keith," Lance finally says. "Better than you give yourself credit for."
Bar patrons are staring now, but Keith is too mad to care. Not that he would usually, to be honest. But Maggie will kick them out if they look like they're gonna start a rumble. Keith swallows hard, his throat tightening.
He was so sure that when he told Lance about this, he'd find it funny. Laugh at the very idea of him leading anything again—especially an entire planet. Maybe call him Emperor Furry or something. But support it? He doesn't want that. He wants Lance to fight against this. To fight for him to stay.
"I cannot believe you," Keith hisses. "I thought if anyone would understand where I'm coming from, it'd be you."
Lance winces. "I do! But we've been through this before—"
"WE?" Keith blurts, his fury all-encompassing now. "WE didn't do shit, Lance. It was I who had to fly Black, not you. I left so the team could work better to form Voltron. I always have to fix everything!"
He hits the table, but Lance doesn't jump. "I'm the one who's supposed to know what to do next but instead I'm just... I'm just..."
"...wasting time here with me," Lance finishes.
And Keith stops. Realization washes over him. The last 30 seconds rewind in his mind like an old VHS tape. Desperately, he reaches across the table. "Lance...that...that isn't what I meant."
Lance pulls away, shakes his head. "You don't say things you don't mean, Keith."
"But it came out wrong. I shouldn't have—"
Lance raises his hand. "Don't, man. Just don't, okay?"
He throws cash on the table, and Keith notices how his hands are shaking. Lance is always so steady—the hands of a sharpshooter. The world breaks between them like cracked ice. Keith doesn't know what to do, so he watches Lance throw his jacket over his shoulder.
"Didn't realize what a failure it was to hang with me," Lance says, grabbing his keys off the sticky table. "I thought you promised to tell me if I was being too much, ya?"
"Lance, please—"
"Look, whatever decision you make, stand behind it with enough confidence so you won't need to blame someone else when it gets tough," Lance turns to the exit. "A stupid jackass with a bad haircut once told me it's important to be worth more than just a footnote in someone else's history book."
Keith watches Lance go and feels like crying, but he's too scared to speak.
He's officially ruined the best thing that's ever happened to him.
Sleep is a lost cause.
Keith lies awake, staring up at the nondescript ceiling of Shiro's guest room while Kosmo snores softly at the foot of the bed, a heavy, warm weight against his ankles. He has checked his phone forty times in the last hour. No notifications.
Sometime in the gray haze of the early morning, Shiro brought Curtis over, and given the low, muffled sounds currently filtering through the thin drywall, Keith has absolutely no desire to be present when those two finally emerge for coffee.
Not wanting to be part of that particular morning-after interaction, Keith decides escape is the only option. The moment the first rays of deep orange sunlight spill through the blinds, he nudges Kosmo awake and heads out for a walk.
The Garrison campus is eerily quiet, the air crisp and still, but as Keith rounds the corner of the faculty office, he notices the lounge that used to be his and Lance's haunting spot.
The Garrison lounge is hollow without the constant stream of chatter, the terrible jokes, and the aggressive rustling of snack bags; the room feels like a vacuum sealing tight around Keith's chest.
He throws his phone on the coffee table and sits on the lumpy beige sofa (the one Lance always complained was bad for his lower back) and stares at the empty cushion beside him. In his hand, he holds the rubber ball they used to toss back and forth for hours. He throws it up toward the ceiling, catching it on the descent with a sharp snap.
Thwack. Snap. Thwack. Snap.
It's a rhythm of one. A solo act. It's miserable.
Kosmo whines from the floor, resting his heavy chin on Keith's knee. The space wolf blinks up at him, his bioluminescent markings dim and sympathetic. He seems to be looking for Lance, too, waiting for the familiar scratch behind the ears.
"I know, buddy," Keith murmurs, dropping the ball onto the cushion next to him. It rolls into the crevice where Lance used to sit. He scrubs a hand over his face, letting out a ragged sigh that echoes in the empty room. "I really fucked up this time."
Then, his phone buzzes.
Keith scrambles for it, nearly dropping the device under the couch.
Lance: I'm a big dumb idiot.
Keith frowns, his brow furrowing. That doesn't sound like Lance. Lance is usually more poetic with his self-deprecation, or at least uses more emojis. Before Keith can type a question mark, a second text comes through.
Lance: We need to talk. Please.
Keith doesn't bother replying. He grabs Kosmo, and is blinked across the planet before the screen even goes dark.
The McClain farm is a different world compared to the sterile metal of the Garrison or the harsh lines of space. It smells like damp earth and grass, organic and soft. Keith feels distinctively out of place in his scuffed boots and biker jacket, like a piece of shrapnel left in a garden. He stands on the porch, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
He knocks.
The door swings open, revealing Lance. He looks disheveled, wide-eyed, and terrified. But he's there.
"Hey," Keith says, managing a small, tentative smile.
"Hi," Lance breathes out, closing the door behind him to shield them from the house. He looks around Keith's legs. "No Kosmo today?"
"He's out chasing whatever you have living here." Keith scrunches his nose, listening for a distant squawk. "Chickens? Cows?"
Lance laughs softly, and the sound unknots the tension in Keith's chest. "Yeah, we got those. It is a farm."
"Right."
"You...uh, wanna sit on the swing with me?"
"Sure," Keith nods. "I can swing with you."
He follows Lance to the wooden swing at the end of the porch. They sit close enough that their thighs brush, and Keith focuses on the rhythmic creak of the chains to steady himself.
Lance sighs, looking down at his hands. "I guess you could tell that Veronica sent those texts from my phone?"
Keith smirks. He knew it. "You mean you don't usually call yourself a big dumb idiot and beg me to visit you so we can talk?"
"Dick," Lance laughs, flicking Keith on the arm—the contact burns, warm and welcome. "I am those things, though. It wasn't cool of me to make you feel pressured into..."
"Leading an entire planet?"
"...yeah, that."
Keith looks out at the fields, the darkness stretching toward the horizon. "Where they'd call me..." He wrinkles his nose, the very words tasting like ash. "Emperor Keith? Or even King Keith?"
"Stop! I'm sorry, okay?" Lance puffs out his cheeks, looking miserable. "I should've listened to you instead of adding pressure."
"I'm sorry too," Keith says, turning to face him fully. He needs Lance to understand this. "I lashed my insecurities out on you when you were trying to help. It was shitty."
"You are a good leader, Keith," Lance points out, his voice firm. "I won't take that back!"
Keith feels the heat rise in his cheeks, but he pushes through it. "Well, you aren't a burden or someone I'm stuck with. And I won't take that back either."
"Fine."
"Fine!"
They stare at each other for a beat, the intensity hanging in the air before Lance cracks a smile. "...Are we arguing over our apologies?"
Keith shrugs, feeling a laugh bubble up. "Probably. It's us."
"Yeah," Lance hums happily. "It's us."
The silence that follows is comfortable, but Keith knows he has to bridge the final gap. He has to offer something real—something that isn't a throne he doesn't want, but a future he actually desires.
"I'd rather eat broken glass than ever lead a planet, but...what you said got me thinking."
"Oh?" Lance tilts his head. "I got the gears under that mullet working overtime?"
"Not a mullet," Keith argues automatically, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "I wanna bring back the Blades."
"Your ninja crew?"
"I want to use them to help people on planets that need it. Places the Galaxy Alliance overlooks or is still recovering from Zarkon's Empire," Keith says. As he speaks, he feels the old spark return—not the burden of duty, but the thrill of doing what's right. He meets Lance's eyes, hoping the amethyst in his own conveys everything he is too scared to say out loud. "And...I want to do that with you, Lance."
"Me?" Lance points at himself, genuinely shocked. "You want me to be a space ninja?"
"You're the one who calls them that," Keith groans.
"But I'm not Galra!"
"So what? We're starting it from the ground up. We can make our own rules! Do our own thing!" Keith disputes, his voice rising with excitement. He needs Lance to see this vision. He needs Lance to see them in it. "I want to do this with you. We were partners before, and having you by my side feels right."
He watches Lance's throat bob as he swallows. "You mean it?"
"I don't say things I don't mean, right?" Keith extends his hand, covering Lance's. The leather of his glove meets the warmth of Lance's skin, and Keith squeezes. "We make a good team."
Lance looks down at their hands, then back up at Keith. His expression shifts from shock to something softer, something that looks dangerously like hope.
"Ah, screw it," Lance laughs, gripping Keith's hand back. "I'm in!"
Keith feels his heart soar, lighter than it has been in years. His eyes shine. "You are?"
"I am," Lance tugs his arm, dragging Keith off the swing. "Now let's get going."
"Uh, we don't need to leave right now."
"Not that, you dope."
"Then where are we going?"
"We have lots of planning to do," Lance says, leading Keith toward his ship parked in the field. "And it's Friday, which means there's a booth at Maggie's with our names on it."
Keith laughs, following him without hesitation. They board the ship, Kosmo materializing to join them, and as they fly across the sky, leaving the farm and the heartache behind, Keith never lets go of Lance's hand.
The lighting in their ship's small quarters is dim, casting long shadows against the metal walls as Keith fumbles with the magnetic clasp at his collar. It refuses to snap shut, his gloves making the fine motor movement clumsy.
"Stop fighting it, you're going to break the seal before we even leave the hangar," a voice teases from behind him.
Keith drops his hands, watching in the reflective panel as Lance steps into view. The breath catches in Keith's throat.
Lance is wearing his own suit. It is cut from the same sleek, impact-resistant material as Keith's, dark and lethal, but where Keith's is stark and shadowy, Lance's is accented with lines of deep, oceanic blue stitching that trace the line of his shoulders and down his ribs. It fits him differently than the bulky Paladin armor ever did; it is leaner, built for speed and precision. He looks dangerous. He looks perfect.
"You're staring," Lance smirks, though he looks pleased as he steps up behind Keith.
"I've never seen you in..." Keith gestures vaguely at the reflection. "Stealth gear."
"It's slimming, right? Makes my legs look miles long." Lance winks, then reaches around Keith's neck. His gloved fingers make quick work of the stubborn clasp, snapping it into place with a satisfying click. "There. Now you're sealed in."
Lance doesn't step away. He rests his hands on Keith's shoulders, his chin hovering just above Keith's. In the reflection, they look like a matched set—dark and light, red and blue, two halves of a new whole.
"We don't look like paladins anymore," Keith says softly.
"No," Lance agrees, his gaze serious as he meets Keith's eyes in the mirror. "We look like us. Finally."
He spins Keith around. The movement is gentle but firm, forcing Keith to look at him directly rather than through the safety of the reflection. Up close, the reality of what they are doing hits Keith full force.
They're leaving everything behind to start something entirely their own. It's terrifying, but looking at Lance—standing tall in his own uniform, shedding the weight of anyone else's legacies and the war's expectations—Keith feels nothing but certainty.
Lance runs his hands down the front of Keith's chest plate, smoothing the material. "So...partners."
"Partners," Keith echoes. His heart is hammering against his ribs, a frantic rhythm that has nothing to do with the mission and everything to do with the way Lance is looking at him.
Lance's gaze drops to Keith's lips, then flicks back up, wide and searching. The playfulness bleeds out of his expression, replaced by a raw vulnerability. God, he wants to kiss him so badly.
"I still think we need a rule book," Lance whispers, stepping closer until the chest plates of their suits bump with a soft thud. "Because I really, really want to do something that might be against regulations."
Keith's breath hitches. He thinks about the years of rivalry, the months of silence, the hand-holding on the swing, and the way Lance looked at him in the infirmary. He reaches up, his hand finding the back of Lance's neck, his thumb brushing against the short hairs there.
"We make our own rules," Keith breathes out. "Remember?"
"I remember."
Lance closes the gap.
It is their first kiss, but it doesn't feel tentative. It feels like an inevitability finally catching up to them. Lance's lips are warm, contrasting with the cool air of the ship, and he kisses with the same steady focus he uses to line up a shot. Keith melts into it, his fingers curling into the material of Lance's new uniform, pulling him closer until there is no space left between them.
When they finally break apart, breathless and flushed, Lance rests his forehead against Keith's. He keeps his eyes closed, a small, amazed smile playing on his lips.
"Okay," Lance whispers, his voice shaky. "Best mission ever. And we haven't even left the ground yet."
The moment is broken when a ping dings from Keith's pilot chair. Leaning over, the soft blue glow of the datapad illuminates Keith's face as he sits on the edge of the pilot's chair.
"You interrupted our makeout to brood at a spreadsheet," Lance sighs, flopping down and spinning his own chair around to face him. "I didn't think that was possible, but you're defying the odds."
"It's not a spreadsheet. It's the final registration for the new Blade unit," Keith corrects, grabbing Lance's hands, though he doesn't look up. "Shiro said I had to update my personal file if we're going to be an officially sanctioned independent corp."
"Bureaucracy," Lance groans, throwing his head back. "The true enemy of the universe."
"Yeah, well, I had to make a change."
Keith finally looks up, turning the datapad so Lance can see the screen. It's scrolled to the bottom section, the block of text highlighted in amber.
Primary Emergency Contact: Lance McClain.
Relationship: Partner.
Lance stares at the screen, his teasing grin fading into something softer, more genuine. He traces the name on the glass.
"You swapped out Shiro?" Lance asks, his voice quiet.
"Shiro has Curtis to worry about. And Krolia is...well, she's usually in a different galaxy," Keith says, shrugging as if it's no big deal, though his heart is hammering a traitorous rhythm against his ribs. "Besides, I remember someone telling me that it looks cool on the forms."
Lance huffs a laugh and whispers, "It really does."
He reaches out, taking the datapad from Keith's hand and setting it aside on the console, dismissing the bureaucracy entirely. He interwines their fingers instead, pulling him forward until their knees bump.
"It means you're stuck with me, you know," Lance warns, though his thumbs are stroking the back of Keith's knuckles gently. "If I get the call, I'm coming to get you. No matter where you are. I'll fight through hell itself for you, Kogane."
"I know," Keith laughs, the sound bright and free, and pulls Lance back in for one more second of stillness before the galaxy calls. "That's why I picked you."
Lance leans in, closing the distance between them again. The kiss is slow and deliberate, devoid of the frantic energy or the desperation of a battlefield goodbye. It's a steady sealing of a contract far more binding than the digital form Keith just submitted.
When they pull apart, Lance rests his forehead against Keith's, grinning.
"Okay, Space Ranger Partner," Lance breathes. "Let's go save the universe."
My emergency contact
Want a love like that
No sweat 'cause I know you got my back
Call me whenever, I'll be there
- corook – "emergency contact"