by starspecters
link here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7416370
“Do you ever think about what will happen… after?”
It’s late. Lance isn’t quite sure what prompted his asking, but that’s his excuse if Keith decides to use it against him. It’s late, and they just won a battle against a fleet of Galra ships after hours of strenuous fighting, and Lance’s body feel heavy without the adrenaline response. His mind is still a little fuzzy at the edges. He can’t remember how he ended up here, collapsed next to Keith in front of a thick pane of glass that separates them from the vastness of space, but he decides he can appreciate the company.
“What?” Keith blinks at him slowly, seemingly having forgotten that Lance was there. Lance is worried momentarily because he looks kind of irritated, but he reminds himself that Keith always looks kind of irritated. “What do you mean by ‘after’?”
“You know,” he gestures with his fingers vaguely, as if the question will be answered at the way his index and thumb splay lazily in the air. “Like, when we’re done with all this Voltron stuff.” Lance thinks briefly about trying to blow it off but decides his curiosity outweighs his pride. Besides, it’s not like it’s a weird question or anything.
There’s a beat of silence even after he clarifies, which is pretty odd. It’s a simple yes or no question and Keith is sitting there, brow furrowed, looking like he just wandered into Honors French III instead of English Lit. Altean Castle to Keith, he thinks. Come in, space-boy.
“Uh,” Keith says, seeming unsettled. If that’s what Lance was waiting all those five precious seconds for, he is not impressed. “Not really?” He shrugs one of his shoulders, seeming almost apologetic. “Sorry. Just never really crosses my mind.”
Lance is kind of disappointed but not surprised. “Really? It seems like I’m always thinking about home. I miss my family. I miss the beach.” He thinks, eating salted caramel ice cream on the boardwalk and watching my siblings grow up, but he spares Keith the intimate details.
Shifting awkwardly, Keith finds something interesting to examine in the ridges of his gloves. It’s strange. He seems almost embarrassed, and it’s not a look on him that Lance is accustomed to. “I guess… I don’t really understand what there is to look forward to. This isn’t exactly what I trained for, but it’s where I’m useful.” He doesn’t say that there’s nothing left for him on Earth, but Lance wonders if that’s what he means anyway.
Deciding to break the moment, Lance simply shrugs and stands. Offering a hand to Keith, Lance says, “To each his own and all that, I guess. I’m going to bed before Shiro or Allura finds us and rips into us for being awake. You coming?”
Blinking at him outlandishly for the second time that night, Keith looks pointedly at Lance’s outstretched hand and seems surprised from just the smallest gesture. He guesses that kind of makes sense. He does go on all the time about hating him. Whatever, Lance thinks. It’s late.
“Not yet.” The starlight paints the edges of Keith’s features into something softer, and under the glow, he seems a lot less like his hotheaded, irritating rival and a lot more like just another teenage boy. He looks away.
“Suit yourself,” he says, and heads back to his room feeling strangely melancholic.
--
“I can’t believe you called me because you were too scared to climb out of a damn tree.” Keith’s voice is heavy with disbelief and amusement. If his attention wasn’t fully required to be focused on his white-knuckle grip of the tree trunk, Lance is sure he would have been able to look down and see a dumb smirk plastered all over that fucker’s face. Disgusting. He hates him.
“I’m not scared, I’m practical.” He’s scowling into the rough wood of the tree, pretending it’s Keith stupid face. “If I get gravely injured, how will we all form Voltron? I’m such an essential and handsome part of the team, and I keep up the good spirits! I’m just trying to look out for everybody!”
“If you were ‘gravely injured,’ we would just stick you in a healing pod for a few—“
“And,” he plows on, taking deep satisfaction in the audible click of Keith’s teeth snapping shut. “I didn’t have any choice in calling you. You’re the only other one on the planet, and as much as I’d love to be rescued by Allura and carried off into the sunset, I was trying to remain realistic. It was a necessary sacrifice. I have to piss.”
“Of course you do.” Keith sounds irked that Lance interrupted him, but it seems as though his good cheer from finding Lance stuck in a tree dulled the edge of his anger. Pouting, Lance shifted uncomfortably around the branch. That kind of ruined the fun. “We fly in space, Lance. We are constantly thousands of miles above the ground, and you’re afraid of heights?”
“God, shut up, mullet-head! Don’t you have a puddle to drown in or something?”
“Not being able to swim is not the same thing at all!” Lance can’t help the way his mouth turns up at the corners at how Keith’s indignant voice cracks. Serves him right.
“You know…” Keith says, and Lance immediately frowns. He doesn’t like that contemplative tone at all. “I could just leave you here.”
Eyes widening, Lance almost loses his balance in his instinctive rush to reach for Keith, despite him being miles away. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m sorry.” Lance risks a glance down below to see Keith cupping a hand to his ear. “What was that? I can’t hear you from all the way up there.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I’m taller than you, shortcake.” He slaps a hand over his mouth. “Wait, no! Shit! Keith, get me down from here!”
“Bye, Lance.” Horrified, Lance is forced to watch as Keith turns his back on him and actually walks away. He even manages a hand wave without looking back. Bastard.
“Keith!” he shrieks, dignity out of the window, the planet, the entire whole of space. Futilely kicking his legs in the air, Lance scrambles aimlessly against the tree in an effort to do anything at all, and still somehow fails. “Keith! When I make it out of this tree, you’re dead!”
He might be imagining it, but he thinks he hears a cackle.
--
There’s another food fight. Honestly? It’s practically part of their training at this point. Coran will sludge up something disgusting, and they’ll find that the food is far more useful as a weapon than anything remotely edible.
They break up into teams without much thought: Pidge and Hunk VS. Lance and Keith VS. Shiro and Allura. Coran referees.
Lance pops his head over the table briefly, trying to catch a glimpse of the others’ tactical setup, but he feels a hand grip the back of his neck roughly and pull him back down. Goo splatters unappetizingly on the wall behind him.
“Hey!” He frowns, glaring at Keith. “I could have avoided that.”
Keith just rolls his eyes at him. “I wasn’t willing to take that chance.” The hand is still there, right at the edge of his hairline, so Lance shrugs him off.
“You’re the worst,” he says, just to appease himself. “We need a plan.” Hearing the squishing sounds of the other teams’ food-weapons a few yards away is starting to make him nervous.
Keith’s expression says duh plainly. He huffs. “We could just go in there, guns blazing. We might take them by surprise.”
Lance blinks at him incredulously. “Really? That’s your plan?”
Keith shrugs and opens his mouth to respond, only to be drowned out by various battle-cries across the room and Coran’s voice shouting cheerily, “Pidge and Hunk are out!”
Lance groans and claps a hand over his eyes. “We’re so screwed.”
Feeling Keith shift next to him, Lance looks over to see an insistent hand on his shoulder. “Look,” Keith says. “There’s only two of them now, and it’s Shiro and Allura. That’s practically the Think Before You Act command center. They won’t be expecting it if we rush them.”
It’s against Lance’s better judgement -- he hates to follow Keith’s lead -- but his gaze is pinned to the fingers clamped around the line of his shoulders, and without thinking about it, he mumbles uncertainly, “Uh. I guess?”
Even Keith seems stunned for a moment, eyes widening almost imperceptibly – but then he’s back into easy confidence. His mouth quirks. “Good.”
Lance regards him seriously, and clamps a hand around Keith’s arm – which is surprisingly toned, what the fuck, why is he always trying to one-up Lance – and says, “It’s been an honor serving with you. Godspeed.”
And in some kind of miracle of God, Keith actually smiles at him, almost fond, before nodding roughly.
Lance counts to three on his fingers, and they charge.
Shiro and Allura positively slaughter them; Lance is forced to take one of the longest showers of his life trying to clean all the space goo, but somehow, it still feels like a victory to him.
--
Lance has this habit of noticing things really, really late. Like when Pidge came out as a girl, and then a maybe not-so girl later, and everyone – even Keith – just smiled and nodded their heads like they knew the whole time, while Lance’s mouth caught flies and his eyes bugged out. He doesn’t feel like it’s indicative of his intelligence or anything; he’s just a go with the flow kind of guy. Things slip by him when they seem to fit with his natural order of things.
That being said, it’s not until one morning, vision still blurry with sleep and eye mask pushed lazily into his hair, that he comes to the shocking realization that he and Keith are friends. Like, he was probably going to hang out with him today like he does with Hunk and Pidge, kind of friends. And the realization is so earth-shattering, so groundbreaking that there’s only one thing he can do.
“Pidge,” he whines, fist pounding on the door. “Don’t pretend like you’re not awake. You can’t fool me. I know you don’t sleep.”
The door slides open, released in an ominous whoosh of air, and Lance is left staring down at an extremely disgruntled-looking Pidge, bedhead in full force and pajamas hanging off of them loosely.
“Lance,” they say, and their tone is disconcertingly even. A light reflection slicks the surface of their glasses and obscures their irises, and Lance is suddenly unsure about this idea. “Why are you banging on my door this early on our one day off of training?”
If he wasn’t so worked up about his morning discovery, Lance might find it in himself to be bashful for once in his life. Instead, he splays his hands expressively on either side of the doorway and spits, “Keith and I are friends.”
Silently, Pidge stares at him, clearly unimpressed.
And continues staring.
Moments of silence pass.
Fidgeting, Lance suddenly discovers how entertaining and distracting the zipper on his jacket can be, and he wiggles it uncertainly.
Finally, Pidge says, “I’m going back to sleep,” and begins to slide the door closed.
“Wait!” Lance jams the door open with his hands. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you’re an idiot.” Still, they cross their arms and gesture for him to continue.
Satisfied, Lance slips into Pidge’s room for Optimum Confidentiality. “I don’t know how it happened, but I actually like hanging out with him now. And we do that now, too! Like, all the time!”
Pidge sighs, long and unrushed, before leaning against the nearest wall and letting their head fall back with a muffled thunk. “Yes,” they say with thinly veiled patience. “I know what you mean by friends, Lance. There are only six other people on this ship, so I’m pretty familiar with what you all get up to in your spare time.”
“And?”
“And what? You want me to give you advice on something that’s a valuable asset to our team? What do you even expect me to say, Lance?” They fix him an even stare. “What do you even want?”
“Uh,” Lance says intelligently, because he’s actually… not sure. Does he want to be friends with Keith?
It kind of shocks him how easily he answers his own question. Of course he does. Ribbing him is fun, and they’re fighting hasn’t exactly gone away, it’s just less... vitriolic. The thought of not being friends with Keith is just kind of boring. And it kind of hits him, all at once, how much his rivalry with Keith has actually led him to bettering himself, his abilities, and their friendship is no different. The transition from one into the other was seamless – natural.
He looks at Pidge, whose mouth was quirked in a sour expression but who ultimately just looked tired, and he bets they had spent all night working on some modification or programming thing-y, and he feels kind of bad.
“Thanks, Pidge,” he says in lieu of an answer. He doubts he needed to give one anyway; Pidge was pretty intuitive, in their own way.
“Yeah, yeah,” they say, but the tense line of their mouth relaxes into a small smile. “Just get out of my room already.” They’re already pushing him out the door. Right before it closes completely, something flashes in Pidge’s eyes, and they say, conversationally, “Go hang out with your boyfriend or something.”
“UM—“ he starts, mouth agape and alarms blaring wildly in his head, but the door is already shut. His face feels sunburned. “He is not my boyfriend!” The hall is empty, but it still feels good to say. Stupid Pidge. He takes back his intuitive comment.
He hesitates momentarily, but decidedly turns on his heel in the direction of the training deck.
--
“You’re still doing it wrong.” Keith sounds pissy as usual, and Lance is unsure what is was about himself that made Keith think he was going to be able to just pick up and master a sword – or a pretty long and sturdy stick in this case, and Lance has been dying to make jokes that would go completely unappreciated in current company - in a couple of days. He’s hardly built or anything; they’d be better off using Lance himself as a javelin. Throw him into enemy lines and he’s guaranteed to knock out at least a couple of the baddies. “Again.”
Lance groans loudly and tilts his head towards the heavens in a silent plea. Just strike me down. I’d rather it be you than Keith. Sweat provides a natural adhesive and glues the collar of his shirt to his neck. “Come on, can’t we take a break? It’s so hot and the only sights I’ve been able to see on this planet are the sights of me on my ass and your sword about to slice open my neck.”
Stabbing his sword into the ground, Keith frowns at him. “This was your idea, dumbass.”
“And I want to genuinely apologize to both you and to myself for that one. I mean it.”
“It’s a good idea, though.” Practically feeling his ears perk, Lance swivels his head towards Keith. It’s not often he’s given a compliment, even in the most backwards sense. “Knowing how to fight with multiple weapon types will put you miles above your opponents. Someday, you might not have the luxury of your bayard.” Seeming embarrassed, Keith drags a hand through the back of his hair. “Look, if you’re hot, just take off your shirt. I want you to at least be able to execute this move correctly before we break.” And then, almost like he was patiently showing Lance a How-To, Keith carefully slides his shirt over his head and tosses it to the ground next to them.
Lance huffs and follows suit, feeling embarrassed but appeased by Keith’s little spiel. Not that he would admit that. Once his t-shirt is off his head and discarded to the side, he watches as Keith… uh.
“Are you putting your hair up in a ponytail?”
The corners of Keith’s mouth turn down around his wristband, teeth dragging it over the wrist of his spare hand. Almost in a trance-like state, Lance watches the way Keith twists the band around his hair easily, like he’s done it a million times. Couple of months into a space voyage, and he thought he knew everything about his teammates, but he guesses not. The sight of Keith with his hair up sets something inside of Lance distinctly off-kilter for a reason he can’t place.
“Uh… yeah?” Keith seems confused and maybe a little defensive, like he’s just waiting for Lance to misstep, so he could brutally kick his ass again in sparring. Not like he isn’t going to do that anyway.
“Right, duh, of course you are.” Obviously that’s what he was doing, idiot. Way to put speak first, think later. “It’s nothing. You ready to go again?”
Shrugging, Keith pulls the sword out of the ground, and it reminds Lance of those old Zelda games he used to play when Link would pull the Master Sword out of the pedestal. Dude, focus. He really wishes he could get his mind in gear sometimes.
The countdown begins and ends, and just like that, they’re fighting.
Lance is actually not terrible at sword-fighting, despite what Keith might say to the contrary. When he was a bit younger, before he was shipped off to the Garrison to become a pilot, he and his siblings would spar a little in their backyard with whatever they could find. And sure, they were all completely inexperienced – although, while his mom never joined them in their sword-fighting antics, he does remember the one time she made an exception and totally whooped all of their asses – it does mean that he’s pretty familiar with the feel of the stance and the rhythm of the whole ordeal.
That being said, he struggles to keep up with Keith - and it takes him swallowing every last bit of his pride to admit that to himself -, so he’s pretty surprised when he actually manages to attack without leaving his left open – a major issue he’s been having with this particular move since the beginning. And hey, while he’s surprised, it’s still a little insulting to see that feeling mirrored on Keith’s face.
“You did it,” Keith says rather obviously, and Lance feels less bad about his earlier observation.
“Of course I did.” He puffs his chest out proudly and grins with all the confidence he does not have. He’s still wondering how the hell he pulled that off. “You gave me a good incentive.”
“Wouldn’t think that someone with an IQ as low as yours would know the meaning of that word.”
“I’m going to overlook that because I am awesome and not because I’m too exhausted to get into it with you. You’re welcome.”
Keith doesn’t respond, but he does smile - which is honestly better, in Lance’s opinion - and Lance starts to worry that maybe he should have applied more sunblock when the tips of his ears grow hot.
--
“Shit,” he mumbles, ducking his head as far down as is humanly possible. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.” He stops verbalizing it, but the colorful mantra continues on in his head as the cursing fades into Spanish.
This is not good. This is the very definition of Not Good, so Not Good that the situation should have that very phrase trademarked so that no other situation can possibly try to claim to be as Not Good as this one is.
He’s with Keith. There’s that, at least. But the others are gone, stuck in other parts of the planet in other fights, and their comms have somehow been jammed. Pidge would know why. Hunk too, probably. But they just had to be diplomats, to let this alien race who claimed to be friendly – and hey, to be fair, their stomach mouths and all the teeth that went with it seemed a lot less threatening an hour ago - split them mostly up for one reason or another, and now here they are, quite literally between a rock and a hard place. Oh, and behind that rock was a cliff of some kind. So, thoroughly fucked.
“Dios Mio,” he moans, clutching his bayard to his chest like a lifeline. In a way, he guesses it pretty much is at this point. “We’re screwed. I’m going to die. I haven’t even had my first kiss yet, and I’m going to die.”
“God, do you ever shut the hell up, cargo pilot?” A few months ago, that would have stung, but now it’s just an acknowledgement of their history together and the things they’ve been through. Lance has more than proven himself on the field. Keith jostles him as he peeks over their cover – a wall that had been broken in half sometime before they got there; Lance doesn’t know how, but he’s not sure he wants to find out.
“Whoa there, buddy, pal!” Lance grabs him by the collar and hauls him back down. He hears a blaster fire and sees an impressive hole in the boulder behind where Keith’s head was nearly instantaneously.
“I didn’t need you to do that. I would have avoided it myself.” He’s scowling at him, but Lance can tell when his anger is sincere by now. Instead, he seems more… nervous. Shit, Lance thinks again.
“At least let the guy with the long-ranged weapon worry about that stuff.” Patting his gun absent-mindedly, he adds, “You work on the plan.”
Huffing, Keith settles down against the wall, chewing at his lip with a viciousness that left Lance wincing. Note to self, he thinks. Get Keith some gum. Or a dog bone.
“We don’t have a choice. We have to go on the offensive.”
Lance frowns and continues firing at the aliens – and fuck, there are a lot of them. You’d think half the species was standing there, just a few yards from their cover. For some reason, they haven’t advanced any further, but he doubts it will last. Wrinkling his nose, he watches as one of them smacks the lips on their stomach, and wonders what biological reason left the aliens’ stomach spit looking like road tar. “I thought we’d finally moved past your ‘Act First, Think When You’re Dead’ plans. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we aren’t really in a position to do much more than die in a pretty sorry excuse for a ‘blaze of glory.’”
But when he ducks back down, Keith simply gestures to the rock behind them – or, rather, where part of the rock used to be. “They’ve got blasters with a pretty decent radius of attack. We don’t necessarily need to rush and kill them all – we just need one of their guns. If the two of us both have a long-ranged weapon, then we stand a way better chance. We should be able to keep them at bay long enough to haul ass out of here and regroup with some of the others.”
If the resigned look on Keith’s face doesn’t indicate how serious the situation is, then Keith actually suggesting to run from a fight sure as hell does. Lance gulps.
“Okay, okay. That’s… not that bad of a plan.” Keith somehow manages to convey his irritation with the slightest twitch of an eyebrow. “What? If you want me to sound less surprised, stop being shitty at combat strategies!”
Before Keith can respond, more of the rock behind them explodes.
“Lance, we don’t have time to argue, so I need you to just agree with me. I’m going to rush out there and grab a weapon alone. I need you to cover me, got it? I have a shield.” He clutches Lance wrist. “It’s our best shot.” Absently, Lance notices the rings of golds port-holing Keith’s irises, and thinks that this is the most eye contact they’ve ever had.
“Fuck,” Lance says, a little breathless maybe. There’s no point in even trying to argue with Keith at this point; he’s too one-track minded and stubborn. Besides, it’s not like he’s wrong or anything. It’s just… “Fuck, yeah, okay. Got it.” The sky overhead is illuminated by star clusters and constellations he doesn’t recognize, and he’s been surrounded by space for too long to appreciate it, but he’s reminded of that night with Keith in the observation deck. He’s reminded that Keith is just a boy, that he’s fragile like anyone else is. He swallows around the heart in his throat.
Not for the first time, he wonders if they’ll ever see their own Sun again.
Because he’s feeling nostalgic – and maybe starting to consider himself dead already, like the week before your birthday when you start calling yourself a year older before it’s technically ‘official’ -, Lance squeezes his fingers tight around Keith’s arm and says, “It’s been an honor serving with you. Godspeed.”
This time, Keith doesn’t smile – and Lance is kind of disappointed because he’s willing to admit that it’s a pretty nice smile – but then he leans forward, hesitantly, and kisses Lance softly on the lips. And it’s not rushed, or just a peck, like a nervous middle schooler. It’s savoring, like eating the last cookie, like not knowing when you’ll be able to indulge again, like Keith is just as afraid he’ll die as Lance is. He tastes like gunmetal.
When he pulls back, he’s blushing, but hell, Lance probably is, too. Keith coughs. “Um. For the first kiss thing and all.”
“Dios Mio,” Lance repeats. He almost pulls him in again – which is a new feeling he’ll have to examine later when he’s not feeling the effects of adrenaline because holy shit he wants to kiss Keith -, but before he has the chance, Keith is straightening and adjusting his weapon.
“You ready?” Keith says, so Lance pulls himself begrudgingly out of his daze and back into the real world.
“Yeah,” he breathes. Adjusting his gun, he rises into a crouch. And because he can’t help himself, he adds, “Y’know, there are a lot of other firsts I haven’t gotten around to yet. It’d be a shame if we weren’t able to get around to them.” Lances winks at him, terribly exaggerated, but he still hears Keith choke.
“Noted,” he says gruffly. “On three.”
“One.” Lance takes a deep breath to steady himself, air tasting metallic when it hits the back of his tongue.
“Two.” The next time he sees Hunk, he’s going to give him a giant ass hug, and he’s going to demand he makes them a feast for dinner, something fitting and celebratory. He’s going to tell Pidge he appreciates them for everything they do for the team, for him, and he’s going to take a more active role in helping them find their dad and their brother.
Everyone deserves to see their family again, even if it’s just to say goodbye.
“Three!” God, he hopes he can see his family again.
Lance takes aim, and fires.
--
They survive. They survive, and they make it out of the planet, and when they’re hundreds of miles away, Lance grins at Keith, bright and unfiltered, and says that very thing. “We survived.”
“Of course we did,” Keith says, and he tries to scowl but it melts and drips off his face like salted caramel ice cream on the beach. Lance stomach flops.
Hunk cooks them something magnificent that night, just like he wanted him to, and the atmosphere feels warm in a way Lance has never even noticed before.
In one of his more sentimental moments, he looks around at Allura and Coran, at the Paladins, at his fingers twined with Keith’s under the table, and thinks, I guess I did get to see my family again, in a way.
--
“I changed my mind,” Keith says out of the blue, and if Lance is supposed to be following what he’s trying to say, he has some unfortunate news for Keith.
“Wah?” He says around his waffle cone. Frowning, he swallows hard and tries again. “About what?”
He hopes Keith isn’t about to kill the mood. After months of dating, he’s learned there’s nothing that guy is better at than taking an amazingly romantic situation – say now, for instance, strolling down the boardwalk of some alien beach (not quite home, but close) - and attacking it with such directness that it left him with blunt force trauma. Except for maybe that thing he can do with his tongue which, granted, Lance greatly prefers.
“One time, you asked me if I had any plans for after the whole Voltron thing.” Keith sticks his hands in his pockets and decidedly does not look at Lance. “I said there wasn’t anything worth looking forward to on Earth. I guess… I was wrong.” Sunrays skim the water in front of them and reflect off the high points of Keith’s face softly.
Lance puts a hand to his chest, ignores the fact that it actually is beating pretty wildly, and says, “The Keith? Admitting that he’s wrong? Do my ears deceive me?” And okay, yeah, maybe he’s a little guilty when it comes to ruining a moment, too, but he could hardly let the opportunity pass him by.
Groaning, Keith punches his arm lightly. “I hate you so much.” Like he’s Atlas, and he’s just been given the task of holding up the sky – like Lance is some impossible burden.
“You love me.”
“Wanna bet?” And now Keith is looking at him, maybe a little wildly, and it’s good. It’s them. To know that they can have gross feelings at sunset and kick ass the next feels incredibly natural.
Not for the first time, Lance is relieved Keith is not something he noticed too late.
“Bring it.”