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It's All In the Foundations, Part One

"Whoa," came Hunk's professional opinion. "It's pink."

Granted, the statement summed up the least of Lance’s problems about the situation quite nicely. But still, it sucked, and Hunk—oblivious to the void opening beneath Lance’s feet like a damnation—squinted out across the glassy sheet that spanned the distance and opened his mouth again. “And I mean, really, really pink. Oceans aren’t supposed to be pink. Right? I mean, have you ever—okay, yeah, I’m pretty sure they don’t come in—“

“No, Hunk, but thank you for that sterling observation!” Lance was sulking; he knew it, and if he didn’t make himself walk away from this right now it would eat at him for the rest of the day, and Hunk—kind, smart, better-than-you Hunk—would be there to bear the brunt of his bad mood. And Hunk didn’t deserve that; he’d weathered enough of Lance’s hissy fits, or at least the important ones, but he couldn’t help it. The ocean was pink! Like sprinkles, like something artificial, something out of a bottle; like the gum Jessica Mendoza was blowing in sixth grade, as she peered down at him from the lifeguard’s seat with her sharp dark eyes and saw him emerge butt-naked from the surf, his shorts lost at sea; her eyes rounding with mirth and her laugh—

Pop! went the gum, terrible and pink, pink.

“I trusted you, Jess,” Lance whispered, petulant, and there was no salty breeze to catch it. He felt himself withering. The ocean—could he even call it one? It had no waves, hence no surf, hence no use. It was a pool at best: an unused, thousand feet-deep pool jacked with poisonous acidic compounds that could kill a human being within moments of contact. And yes—it was also, as Hunk made glaringly clear—pink.

Lance sat himself down on the shore. It was gray, like concrete, and speckled with washed out corals, and there was an acrid, concentrated smell that scraped his throat each time he breathed. There were only a few feet that separated them from the water, but it didn’t worry him; the tide was dead, as Hunk explained—or dying, like every last cell in his body the longer they remained here.

“Hey, man, I’m sorry,” Hunk said, somewhere above him, and clapped him worriedly on the shoulder; he had to crouch down to do it. “I know how excited you were. I mean, even I was. You kept going on and on about this trip, and then…”

Lance swatted the apology away. “Well, our galactic tour guides have been asleep for a thousand years, so I get how their memory could’ve gone a little funky. But hey! At least there aren’t any hostile parties around to worry about, am I right? Some good ol’ peace and quiet, is all this noble paladin needs.”

Hunk went silent at that, but Lance knew he could read it on his face. They both knew it: if all he wanted was quiet, he could’ve taken Blue and jetted far, far away from this chaotic mess, easy; adios Zarkon, not today and never again. Could’ve taken the easy course, because convenience assured him; could’ve turned the ship around while everyone was asleep. But that’s not—not really—

“Aw, c’mon on, Hunk,” Lance sighed and turned to him. “You’re killing me.”

“Dude, I didn’t say anything.”

“Just,” and Lance dragged a hand through his hair, let himself hunch into himself, finally, “just go back with the others, find something to cook for dinner that isn’t poisonous fish, I don’t know? I’ll be fine.”

Hunk levelled a skeptic’s stare at him that itched like hell; they both knew each other too well. “Are you sure? You won’t get all weepy without me?”

“Yes, I’m sure—hey, I don’t go weepy!” Lance chucked an alien coral at him; it was serrated and pink and it missed his target terribly; Hunk stuck his tongue out. “Now go on, go. Get outta here, you big sap.”

For a while Hunk lingered, but then his face moved with understanding. “Fine, but you keep your helmet close, okay? And just—stay there. No touching anything, or getting poisoned by alien aquatic life. Okay?” and Lance banished him with another put-upon groan of assent, and then Hunk was turning on his heel without a second glance and walking back to the castle camped a couple hundred steps behind them.

Lance watched him disappear. He’d thank him for this, later. Talking exhausted him, sometimes, and Hunk knew it; how his own words grew out of him like vines, heavy and choking.

He turned back to the water.

It burned his eyes after a while, so he grabbed a stick-shaped something he found by his feet and began doodling shapes into the fine sand instead. When he grew bored of that, which he did quickly, he began writing nonsense in his bold scrawl, immortalizing anything that floated to the top of his consciousness on a nameless stretch of alien beach.

i-A-M-T-H-E-B-E-S-t

V-O-L-T-R-O-N

G-E-T-R-E-k-t-K-E-I-T-H

Time—it flew by him without warning; Lance sought for it in the sky but couldn’t tell whether he’d been idling there for five or fifty minutes. Above him, the planet’s three half-moons bared their teeth from their perch in the sky, unmoving and unchanged from the moment Allura landed them here. Lance huffed, rubbed at the crick in his neck, then looked down at the crisscrossing lines he’d made all around him; his throat jumped when his gaze landed on it: his mother’s name, right beside his helmet, rendered in large, looping lines.

“Yikes,” he said, breathlessly at himself, and hastily dragged sand over it.

It's All in the Foundations, Part Two

See, the thing was, the thing that really sucked? The godawful, cry-at-night, crisis-imminent-holy-guacamole-i-am-feeling-a-thing thing was? Lance couldn’t forget.

That was made Shiro a great leader, and Lance—okay, correlation ending, never gonna admit that. But the forgetting bit. That was the core of it, the fuel that landed him smack dab in the middle of this whole vexing shebang.

A fact, from their very limited knowledge: Shiro had gone through hell, only to pick himself up and dust his hands and walk away from the whole situation as if it had just been a minor altercation on the road instead of the speeding truck they all knew had wrecked him through and through.

Follow up fact: Pidge still liked to disappear, post-rescue mission when the reality settled that her family was not among the lucky ones, again, and have not been, since the time she sheared off her hair and slid into the shoes of world defender. They still felt too big for her bones, sometimes; but come next mission she was at it again, back ramrod straight and eyes fierce and fists at the ready as if she was made to last, made to stand the storm.

There was Allura, Coran. Hunk. Keith. They found ways to stay. Ways to keep moving, to keep looking ahead.

But Lance didn’t; he only knew how to look back.

That was the Thing™.

It was terrible as it was persistent, and if he shut his eyes for one careless moment and let it drown him from the inside, he could see it, almost—the unfettered sky, the rippling back of the sea, blue as the day he was born; his sisters chasing each other down the beach, kicking sand behind them, while his aunts flitted up and down the patio, swatting at mosquitoes and exchanging stories; on a good day, his uncles would have the grill set out front, cold beer doled out from a cooler, the collapsible tables lined on every corner, heaping with pizza and frita and boliche on the porcelain his mother loved—blue rim with three small red fish swimming happily around it. There were exactly ten plates, a good even number—minus one, when Lance was thirteen and swiped it accidentally to the floor with his surf board in his haste to set out to sea, and when his mother came bearing down on him with the kind of righteous fury everyone knew to steer clear from, he’d panicked and lied and pointed at his sister. But when she’d flashed him a look of betrayal and began to tear up in earnest he took it back immediately, then let himself be sent out to gut his father’s catch as punishment, a task he did penitently; he’d been doing it since he was eleven, and his body moved like clockwork: knifepoint into the belly then right up under the chin, then it was all gut, scale, and fillet from there—all the unwanted bits into a plastic bag, and if he was lucky they’d have the good bits for dinner. He never did find a replacement for the plate, what with the company going out of business a few years back, but that was okay; once in the garrison, he’d go fighter class and then promoted with his own team, and what happened after was anyone’s guess. Either way, he’d be able to afford his mother a brand new collection, no sweat, in whatever pattern she so desired; stripes or shrimps or heck, even Saint Andrew and Peter, for luck. And they’d take it out, all shiny and special, and use it for every meal, just because they could, and everyone knew anything his mother made was a miracle of God and holy quiznak, what he’d give just to be able to—

“What are you doing,” Keith said, somewhere behind him, and Lance choked on the imaginary tres leches he’d shoved into his mouth. The sweetness of it was torn out of him, and he opened his eyes and grasped feebly to gather his bearings—the acidic neon of the planet hit him like something physical, and when he blinked, Keith was there, breaching his line of sight beside him with a look of concern under his dark bangs.

“Can’t the noble man grieve his loss in solitude,” Lance groaned, but then he was sitting up straight, letting his head clear; Keith’s presence drew that out of him. He gestured dramatically at the sand around him. “I’m grieving, see. Grief, Keith. This is what it looks like.”

Keith pulled off his helmet then tucked it under his armpit, his hair falling in clumps over his eyes. There was a messy grace only he possessed, and Lance bristled all over; Keith ignored him, his eyes moving shiftily to the empty spot next to Lance, to where he’d unconsciously scrawled the other paladin’s name.

Lance coughed, embarrassed, and, “Well?” he prompted, messing up the letters before Keith saw what else he’d scribbled. “What do you want?”

“You haven’t reported back to the ship since we landed,” Keith pointed out, looking peeved. “Hunk said to leave you alone, but you’ve had everyone worried. You’re affecting the team’s mood again, as usual.”

“Yeah, well. Can’t a defender of the universe enjoy the view every now and then? You know, smell the flowers?”

“Uh, flowers don't grow in this planet?”

“Clearly, Captain Obvious,” Lance snapped irritably. “I can see that!”

Keith regarded the ocean, undeterred. “And some view,” he remarked after a while, in a quieter voice, and Lance wanted to punch him, and then himself; he wanted to punch many things at the moment.

“Why are you like this, Keith?” Lance groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Why won’t you leave me alone? I’m a good person.”

There was no answering quip, so Lance craned his head back to see what had happened and saw the way Keith’s face warred with itself. “I just—“ and Keith looked away, expressions shifting undecidedly, and said, instead, “You know, if it were you, if you were in my place—you’d never leave me alone.”

Lance mumbled, “Well, yes, I do pride myself in being very persistent.”

“You’d just keep coming back. Until you got what you wanted.”

“A paladin of Voltron mustn't exude any less, of course.”  

“Like a cockroach,” Keith finished.

“Yes—no, no. What the hell, man?” Lance glared at him, finally. “Are you trying to make me feel better or what? Because it’s not working!”

Keith pinched the bridge of his nose with an explosive huff—the gesture wasn’t unfamiliar, particularly through Lance’s video feed in the midst battle—and his mouth pressed itself into an unhappy line; an agreement, Lance realized belatedly, and the thought chased the last stubborn dregs of anger into a place he soon forgot.

“Look,” Keith said, and then he was sitting down next to him and planting his helmet by his feet and narrowing his eyes stubbornly at Lance. “You’re obviously—disappointed. I could sense your terrible mood for miles; it’s annoying, to say the least, and now you’ve decided to run off to be a grumpy child all by yourself.”

“Yeah, uh hate to break it to ya man, but if it wasn’t before, it’s definitely not working right now—“

“Do you ever shut up? Look; all I’m saying is, all I’m trying to—I can’t say I know how it feels,” he said, and the last part was said a rush, like it had been pushed through his teeth. “But we’re a team now. We practically live in each other’s pockets. We literally pilot five lions to form one giant magical cat…robot. That—must mean something, right?”

Keith had crossed his arms, and was now looking purposefully off at one suddenly interesting point in the distance; he didn’t move from his spot, and didn’t seem to be, anytime soon. Lance’s head was spinning.

“Holy quiznak,” he muttered, and a surprised chuckle shook itself loose from his throat. Lance looked at him. “Keith, you—is this happening? Are you being nice to me?”

Keith frowned; the light from the ocean softened the harsh lines of his face, and once again a phantom urge to hit made itself felt like fingers scrabbling inside Lance’s gut. “It’s not like I go out of my way to piss you off,” Keith answered, and then added, flippantly, “Not that it’d be hard. Your ego bruises too easy. It’s almost funny, really.”

“Okay, don’t ruin it buddy,” Lance advised; he almost believed it, how much he wanted to keep wanting Keith to stay. How his presence grounded him, impossibly. He turned to the ocean in front of him—miles and miles of it like something straight from a dream, and he couldn’t even swim in it—then back at Keith, who he now had for company on the worst beach trip of his life; space was strange. Lance looked at him then, really looked at him, and said, “Wait, okay, so. You never been to a beach then?”

“Only once,” Keith replied, after a measured beat. “It was raining. There was a tsunami.”

“Jeez.”

“Yeah,” and he looked wryly up at the sky as if he just found the humor in it, too, or lack thereof; then he was turning back to the sand around him and pulling fistfuls of it. “Though this stuff right here’s what I’m more used to.”

“God, you’re so edgy,” Lance teased, conjuring the golden stretch of the desert and Keith, cutting right across it like a comet. “Bet you had a bike and everything. Sand everywhere—in the leather seat, in your big, bad-boy boots. Bet it got into your stupid hair all the time.”

“That’s… not untrue,” Keith admitted.

“Oh shit; the boots or the bike?”

“…The bike.”

“Ha! And the hair?”

Keith jabbed a finger crudely into the sand. “Wasn’t meant for that kind of extreme weather,” he grumbled, in every manner of the defeated, and Lance could feel his pores clearing; what an unexpected miracle, this day. What a gift, truly, truly!

“Keith, my dude. My guy.” Lance was grinning. He leaned his elbow over Keith’s plated shoulder feeling like he’d just broken past the surface of something dark and heavy and asked, genuinely curious, “Okay, okay, but—don’t you miss it?”

“Miss what?”

“You know—home?” Lance pulled his arm back to gesture vaguely at the sky. “The desert, where you spent a year brooding all by your lonesome, I don’t know? Remember that?” and suddenly he knew he’d said something wrong, or at least inadvertently opened the metaphorical and equally unwanted can of worms, because Keith’s shoulders were stiffening, like he was bracing for impact.

“And if I said I don’t?” Keith’s voice was a cold stone, but his body betrayed him; his left leg, which was crossed on its side, jogged up and down in an anxious, incessant rhythm Lance could hear. Lance knew that quirk, knew what it meant; for all his purported self-assurance, a small part of him was still that sixteen year-old caddy stuck with cargo duty, watching the shape of Keith’s back disappear down hallways. Lance kept quiet, thought: I know that quirk. “I mean,” Keith was saying, gesturing with his hands in that awkward way of his, “I guess I do. I mean—I think about it, from time to time. It was my place; I made it mine, but. It was time to go, so.” Keith regarded his own glove. “So.”

Lance turned that over in his head for a moment. “Okay, so you’re not sentimental, that’s—that’s fine, I guess. No judgement, bro,” and he bared his palms at Keith, who scowled. “But, well. Huh. That’s interesting. Because you were out there for like a year; there must’ve been something that made you stay, right? Because that’s basically what a home is, buddy. Something that makes you stay. Or something that stays with you. Uh.”

Keith snorted, turning to him disbelievingly. “That was deep.”

“Cram it, Mullet,” he said, but felt heat creep into his neck. He’d gone and done it; he’d cracked open the gates, and now frightful things were clambering out, seeking light, and then he was blubbering, his eyes clouding over, “God, it’s just—what I’d give just to see it again, you know? Just a—a fucking taste of it. You ever think about that? All these planets, and not one feels even a little bit like Earth. Not even a teeny bit.”

“You’re just biased,” Keith said helpfully.

“No, no,” Lance said, his voice edging into a whine. “No, you don’t—ugh. Why am I even—? You haven’t even been to a real beach. Not your fault, of course,” he added, tossing Keith a look, before melting back into the lap of his daydreams. “It’s like, you live in the best place on Earth and you can’t even see it, because you’re in goddamn space! Fighting aliens! Because there’s an intergalactic war that’s apparently been going on for, I dunno, a thousand years! Give or take. Ah, there’s the rub,” Lance trailed off into a murmur; he had to claw into the meat of his palm to keep himself from blathering on about the Other Things; like, how his family probably thinks he’s dead, for one! He swung his head back and sighed, let his spine sag into the sand. “You can’t even begin to imagine, Keith—once you get a taste of paradise, there’s just no going back—“

“Okay, I get it. Don’t cry,” Keith said, with empty savagery. His leg had stopped bouncing.

“Concept,” Lance announced suddenly, slicing an arm through the air, because he could still see it, in his mind’s eye. “Zarkon and his goons are vanquished, and peace has finally returned to universe, thanks to its five, brave, brilliant defenders.”

“Let me guess,” Keith smirked. He affected his Lance voice, which was nasal and wrong, ”But thanks especially to the brave and heroic blue paladin, right? Oooh, how could we ever have done it without him?”

“Handsome. Buddy, you forgot handsome.”

“Right, of course. Sincerest apologies.”

“I accept your apology,” Lance grinned brightly at him, feeling his good mood return like a dawn breaking through the trees. He sighed dreamily, scrunched his eyes shut, and raised a palm like he was about to signal, “Dude, just picture it: there’s a homecoming party for us—‘course there would, we mcfreakin’ saved the world! Worlds, plural; damn, keep forgetting that. It’s on Varadero, obviously, the only place to party. We’re standing there in our battle-worn armor basking in what dreams are made of: cool waves, sweet, sweet blue skies, and all the babes, oho, they be lining up to get a piece of—“

“Pass,” Keith said.

“Boy, do they know how to party.” Lance sniffled, and he lifted both hands to frame the image reverently in the air, holding it up over the ocean as if to blot it from existence. “Hunk’s passed out on the volleyball court, Allura and Coran’s chatting up some local folks and Pidge is—left with her pineapple shake; y’know, the one with the little flag and the little piece of fruit on the rim? Because she’s with her family, and they won’t let her drink because she’s, like, eight. My mom’s keeping ‘em company though, so s’all good,” he assured Keith; it was an important detail. “Even Shiro—he’s over there on the platform, giving a speech Allura helped him write. We couldn’t have done it without the power of friendship. It’s a classic; it’s on the papers the next day. People are crying. I’m crying.”

A smile passed Keith’s mouth, small and unexpected. “I could see it,” he said.

“See? And there’s so much food—and none of that space gunk Coran keeps shoving down our throats. All the girls are just tripping over themselves to feed me. With their hands! Easy, ladies, easy,” he cried, to the air, “I only have one—oh shit!”

“What?” Keith said anxiously.

“This is so good, Keith, you have to try this.” Keith blinked at the hand Lance had shoved under his nose, fingers pinched around an invisible—something. “Taste it!” Lance urged, wholly enthused.

Keith stared at it dubiously, his hand stilling on the sandcastle he’d been one-handedly building front of him; without moisture it was a crumbling pile at best. For one, crippling second of embarrassment Lance thought about drawing his hand back, but then Keith was reaching out and taking it between his fingers. His eyes regarded it, slowly, from all angles, then crawled up Lance’s face.

“It’s gonna change your life, just wait for it—ay!” Lance cried, and Keith froze midway from putting the invisible thing away in his mouth. “Careful, you heathen! That shit’s hot—you’re gonna burn a hole right through your tongue if you just—you gotta—“ and then Lance was leaning in and blowing air across Keith’s fingers shaped around it, grabbing his wrist to keep him in place. “There,” he said, when he was satisfied, and pulled back with a flourish. “Enjoy.”

Keith ran his tongue over his dry lips, which curled in his own brand of disdain. “You,” he began sincerely, “are really weird,” but then he was playing along and biting down and chewing slowly, with all the finesse required of Lance’s favorite childhood dish, and Lance’s heart made a knifelike, sideways motion in his chest; Lance was cutting himself on his own insides.

Later, back in the engineered solace of his room, he’d realize that Keith was being kind. How little he spoke and bit back despite the multiple tender openings Lance provided was testament to this. Would realize, too, that Keith looked a little—sad, maybe. Was he? He couldn’t say yet. But Lance had brimmed and brimmed over with things he couldn't hold any longer, and Keith had sat there and let him; Keith had cupped it in his hands like rain.

“Concept,” Lance said, his voice heavy and gutted with the ache of it; he caught Keith’s gaze and smiled wide, for show. “The war’s over. We’re back home. All the things we love in one place.”

Keith’s hand descended to the sand. He said nothing.

“Too soon?” Lance let his hands hang over his thighs. He stared up at the sky, chuckled low and parched-dry. “Yeah. Yeah, I hear ya.”

It's All in the Foundations, Part Three

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Lance stared. “Keith, there’s literally only two of us here,” he said. “Pretty sure I heard something.”

A sigh scraped itself from Keith’s throat, propped steel back into his spine, and then he was turning to Lance with tempered stare and growling,” I said—we’re here, aren’t we? We have something different now. It’s not the same, but it’s something.”

Up close, Keith’s ears were splotchy; Lance’s felt winded at the sight.

“What the cheese,” he articulated, then to the ocean: “What the heckin’—Keith,” and he was grinning, the shape of it ballooning in his face, “Tell me you weren’t gonna say something like, we’re your new family now, or something cheesy like that. Please, tell me it ain’t true, or my body’s gonna go into shock, I swear to—”

“You’re the one who started this whole dumb—whatever this is! We’re a good team!” Keith parroted, quoting at the air angrily. “Home is what stays with y—“

“Oh my god.” Lance’s head was reeling; he was falling into the ocean, he was choking on toxic seawater. “Yep, going into shock.” And then he was laughing.

“Shut up!” Keith knocked over his pile of sand as he went to smother him. Lance brought his hands up and laughed, and laughed—at the sharp, confused lines on Keith’s face, at his dumb, sweaty helmet hair, at the whole, unbelievable mess that was the both of them, co-existing. The ocean was pink.

Lance clutched at his sides, catching his breath. “You nerd!” he ducked out of a swipe. “You cheeseball!”

“Shut up before I make you!” Keith gave up on strangling him, and decided to chuck clumps of sand instead; the lob broke apart at the space Lance had been, and he laughed, again, now a good five feet away. Keith growled, “I will toss you into the water and watch the toxins break your body into basic components, don’t think I won’t.”

“Don’t worry, buddy, I won’t tell anyone you’re helplessly attached to me. It’s not your fault.”

“Oh, you thought I was joking? You could drown right now and I wouldn’t even blink.”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Lance’s voice smoothed itself out, reassuring. “I know your feelings for me can get a little overwhelming—“

“That's it—“

“Still, I can't believe you don’t actually hate me! That’s—something.”

Keith’s hand loosened around his bayard, and he eyed Lance crossly. “Like I said—“

“Concept,” Pidge’s voice jumped on their comms, wry and loud and sudden between them. Lance yelped, and Keith groped around for his helmet, looking distraught, “you guys save your hopeless banter for another unbearable day of pretending to hate each other, and get your butts here so you can be useful. How’s that sound?” Lance could hear traces of exhaustion in it, and also: regret. “Shiro and I have been scoping the planet for signs of a previous Galra attack, and Hunk and Allura and Coran have been trying to keep us alive. We could really use a little help here.”

Keith cursed, already dusting himself off. “Yeah, sorry, on our way,” he apologized, as he clicked his helmet back into place and slid fluidly into his feet. Then he turned, got two steps out, and looked back down at him.

“Shit, yeah. Okay,” Lance mumbled, feeling the world go askew around him; it was in his voice. Something—he couldn’t place. He pushed himself up, discovering heat in his neck like scorch marks, deep in his belly, and together, they began weaving their way back out of the clearing.

“Also, um. Sorry about the beach, Lance,” Pidge said suddenly. Her voice was all crumpled up in pity, and Lance bit his lip, cracked a mindless joke out of it. Tried to ignore Keith’s eyes on him all the way back.

It'll Be Different Once We Put Things Up On The Walls, Part One

Days after their departure from the unfortunate planet to disappear into another cloud of stars, Pidge walked up to Lance’s spot as they gathered for their first meal and dropped a black metal box into his lap.

“It was Hunk’s idea,” she explained, eyes roving on every surface of the room but Lance himself; her eyes were shot with exhaustion, and every hour she’d neglected showed glaringly on her face. “He said it was a good idea, but, like, whatever, you know? It’s just something I put together real quick. Heh. No big.”

Lance brought it close to the light, then jerked it away from his face like it was something vile. “Is this a prank?” He eyed her dubiously, then Hunk, who sat beside him, and then Keith, who merely quirked his brow across the table and turned wordlessly away.

“What? No!” Pidge scowled, which rumpled her appearance even more. Behind her, Shiro slipped into his seat and smiled at him reassuringly. Pidge slid her glasses up the bridge of her nose, preened, and said, “It’s a portable transgalactic simulator.”

Lance put it to his ear and shook it. “Yeah, what?”

“Just open it, man,” Hunk suggested, and Lance frowned at him; he looked too excited, for this not to be a prank. He hoped it wasn’t a prank. Things always escalated badly, especially when Allura was involved, and she always did, in the end; Lance’s feelings for her were complicated.

Allura, too, was smiling at him sagely now, her face propped on her chin from her seat at the head of the table. Standing next to her, Coran gave him a thumbs-up—a little something he learned from Lance himself—and peered through his own little box.

“Wait, is that a camera?” Lance squinted.

Pidge groaned. “Just open it, Lance!” she snapped, awash with nervous energy.

“Geez, alright, alright,” and he looked at it now, took it between his fingers, and realized Pidge wasn’t lying; it did look like a projector—small and lightweight and shaped like a wedding ring box, almost. There was the lens on one side the size of a penny, then the focus ring; on its belly, an adjustable foot. He fumbled with it until Pidge took pity and swiped it from his fingers.

“The button’s over here,” she explained, patronizing, and pressed against the surface until it slid sideways with a pop to reveal a blue button underneath. “You just point it at any surface away from you and—“

“I wanna press the button,” Lance insisted, hopping to his feet, and Pidge rolled her eyes like he was a child she couldn’t bear to have around, but put it back in his hands anyway. Then she backed up, clearing a generous amount of space for him on the floor, until she was nearly crowding Shiro’s lap.

Slowly, Lance glared at her. “Don’t lie to me, Pidge. Are you sure this isn’t a prank? Because we all know what happens—”

“Press the button!” That was Keith.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” he said, and actually wouldn’t have, just out of spite. But the button was right there and it was blue and just begging to be pressed.

Lance pressed it.

The room burst into color. Lance knew that color; knew it like the shape of his own name, knew it because it crept so often into his dreams, demanding and refusing to be forgotten—

“So I know you’ve been down lately, we all do. Sorry to break it to you, but you’re not as… inconspicuous about it as you think you’ve been. We thought maybe this could help?” Pidge was saying, but Lance could barely decipher the words, could barely hear himself thinking. “Anyway, so Hunk had this great idea about grabbing satellite information to simulate authentic waves from our planet. And I thought, hey, why not do an entire beach as well, right? Problem was—and you may already be fairly acquainted with this information—we’re too far off our own galaxy to detect any of our own satellites. But apparently, as long as you know the exact coordinates, it doesn’t really matter—“

Wordless, tongue lodged in his throat—Lance watched the waves ripple all the way from the edges of the room before folding into his feet, frothing around his ankles; above their heads, slivers of white clouds drifted behind a backdrop of blue, blue sky.

Ten seconds into it, Lance was crying.

“Oh,” Allura said.  

“Do you like it?” Pidge asked, her voice pinched with anxiety, and Lance laughed, couldn’t help it; it spilled out of him, a braying sound that shook his whole body and drew the tears from his eyes, and as he turned in place the box flew from his hand with a whirr and hovered there—his eyes went everywhere, immediately, drinking it in thirstily, and now there was sand beneath the table, starfish dotting the jagged line in the middle of the room where the surf crashed endlessly into it. In the distance, the spired silhouettes of fishing boats sank into the sun. A seagull flew overhead.

“—still working to get it to full sensory capacity. And the connection’s honestly a little spotty, so I wouldn’t say we have a real-time simulation in our hands, since most of what you’re seeing right now had to go through some—or a lot, I should say—of creative liberties, but the base is pretty much Varadero all the—“

“Do I like it? Pidge,” Lance said, his voice wrecked. He held the gift in his hands like his own heart. “Pidge, I would die for you.”

There was a beat, then Pidge’s face was breaking into a cheeky crooked grin, sharp with relief. “I guess that’s a yes then,” she said, clapping her hands once. She coughed, “But none of that dying bit, please.”

“No, you don’t understand,” and he was closing the distance between them and dragging her into his arms, and Shiro too, because why not? “God, I love you, Pidge. Pidge, thank you, thank you,” he said wetly, and then he was mussing up her hair and pressing his cheek against hers like he did with all his sisters and she shrieked with surprise and was laughing, too, “Pidge, I love you so much right now, I could marry you.”

“No thanks.” She shoved his jaw away only to draw her hand back, now damp with salt. “Ugh—Lance!”

“Hey, I want in on that too!” and then Hunk was throwing himself around them and nearly tipping them over the table, and Lance made sure to rub his tear-streaked cheek on him, too. “Hunk, my guy, my bro from from the start—thanks, man, I love you, too,” he cried, and Hunk, not to his surprise, was tearing up as well, saying, “Already know it, man; already know it.” And Shiro, struggling to keep them upright, piped up, “I’m glad you like it, Lance; they sure spent a lot of time on that thing. I just wish I could’ve helped someway,” and Lance assured him, squeezing his good shoulder, “I’m just happy you’re here, man. Love you lots,” and Allura chuckled at that, and the series of clicks behind them told him Coran was having a field day with his pictures, but Lance couldn’t find it in him to care; he felt rearranged right now, like something new—his whole body taken apart and put back together, pumped full of helium, full to bursting.

“It’s so interesting how you all just—go for it! All lumped together like a pack of—“

“Coran, I’m having a moment right now, and I demand you be part of it. You too, princess!” and Lance squeezed around to peer between the clumsy mesh of an embrace and see who else was missing. “Hey! Keith! I’m talking to you!”

“I,” Keith began, sitting stiffly from his spot on the table, “I’m good,”

“Get your butt over here, you emotionally constipated idiot!”

“Keith helped us get the coordinates.” Pidge, tucked under Hunk’s armpit, seemed wickedly happy to announce this information. “It was data from his travels. We couldn’t have done it without him.”

A grin split Lance’s face. “Keith, I—“ he touched his chest, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Oh, shut your face.”

Allura rolled her eyes, taking pity on both of them; she strode purposefully over to where Keith sat pale and unmoving across the room and dragged him by the hand. “This seems like an excellent bonding activity,” she said, with a note of confidence, and that was the end of that.

Hunk’s cheer was infectious as Keith was absorbed reluctantly into the group, and Lance grinned, thought about rubbing his face all over Keith’s, too, but then stopped, because that felt weird; all prickly and strange on the inside, so he asked, instead, voice cracking, “Did you? Really?” as the addition of Coran sent them bumping, their noses nearly colliding, and Keith rolled his eyes in answer. “Knew you were an ugly crier,” he said, but it came with a smile that slanted his mouth, wrinkled his cheek, and Lance felt his body rearrange itself again; he felt—immeasurable, and when he looked up, there was a sky roofed above him, blue like the day he was born.

It’s not the same, Keith’s voice echoed in his ear, like the tide. It’s not the same—

 
It’s not the same, but—

It'll Be Different Once We Put Things Up On The Walls, Part Two

They were all already gathered when Lance chose to grace the room with his presence; they’d been making such a sacrilegious noise in the middle of his sleep routine, a routine he had to forego completely when someone let out a screech that shook up and down the palace walls. He’d had to shuck off his robe and towel off the rejuvenating citrus face mask prematurely as he left. He kept the slippers on though; they would stay.

“What's going on?” he asked, as he strode in. The room was abuzz with noise, and chatter rattled up into the high ceiling. Pidge was at the center of it all, bent over her laptop on the floor as the rest either sat peering over her shoulder or stood off to the side, watching with expressions of matching rapt attention. She tapped away fiercely on her laptop, ignoring him; the three monitors that bracketed her front beeped like something living.

Keith met his eyes as he joined the circle. He was sitting on one of the chairs he’d dragged in from the kitchen and was scrubbing some extra-planetary gunk out of his boots, his socked feet against the tiles. Typical. Lance raised his chin sharply in greeting and was only mildly surprised when he got one in return; it was their thing now, apparently—this not-pretending-to-hate-each-other thing. The reality of it sprang up in odd moments and left Lance feeling winded at the progression. He liked Keith; he was man enough to admit it now. Keith was an okay guy. Tolerable. Great pilot. Nice reflexes. Why he was always the first to break eye contact, Lance didn’t want to delve into; or why their usual banter left him feeling like he was teetering over something he was too terrified to name, well—he’d push it aside, for now. Or maybe for all eternity. That sounded like a great idea.

“Holy smokes!” Hunk exclaimed, turning to meet him, and Lance let it pull him back, grateful for the distraction. He listened to him babble over the wall of noise around him for a good few seconds until he couldn’t anymore. “Hunk,” Lance stopped him with a hand, “in English. No technobabble is allowed in this house.”

Hunk took a steadying breath. “Okay. Okay, so you know how we’ve been having problems with the castle’s comms? Well, Pidge and I’ve been trying to fix the static that keeps messing with our signal so Allura can properly communicate with other planets so they don’t, you know, think we’re Galra ships trying to subdue them. And—this is gonna sound crazy—but just a few minutes ago we accidentally tuned into what seems to be rogue a space station blasting intergalactic tunes,” he blurted the last bit in a rush, in doubt himself, and when he saw how Lance’s moved to that he shook his head in sympathy and said, “Yeah, I know. It’s pretty wild.”

“Whoa, hold up,” Lance said—realizing, suddenly, that the godawful noise he’d been hearing was music; he strained to divine it—the garbled vowels, the growling voices that shifted at high-speed, the offbeat percussion that sounded like a hundred kids pitching pebbles into a pond at random. Like opera, but the kind you wouldn’t pay for. Lance’s head began to throb; no wonder he couldn’t sleep.

“Pidge, can you tell us what’s happening now?” Shiro uncrossed his arms as he knelt beside her, the light from the monitors deepening the lines on his face; he was a perfect mirror opposite of Pidge like this, whose hair grew out and curled barely along her shoulders, framing the youth on her face. There was a tiny braid in that nest of hair, somewhere, courtesy of himself.

“I’m not entirely sure,” she admitted, eyes moving across the screen. “My best guess? I think they pick up intergalactic signals, or hack into a database of some sort that keeps record of historically broadcasted music, then reflect it back in some kind of compact frequency. Coran says he recognizes this song.”

“You betcha I do!” Coran said. Behind him, Allura paced the deck in contemplative silence. “It’s a Vulturan lullaby. Quite famous, actually. There’s an Altean version of it I’m quite fond of, it goes like—“

“That's a lullaby?” Keith balked.

“But where are they coming from?” Shiro asked, just as Allura stopped and added, “More importantly, who could be behind it? And why?” There was a knot between her brows. ”Music, under the Galran rule is—“ She cut herself off; the wrinkle on her forehead deepened.

“I can’t trace it,” Pidge said, sounding a little—lost. “All I’m getting are ghost coordinates. The signal’s so faint it’s basically a signal within a signal within a signal; it’s a miracle we found it at all, actually. They’re coming from everywhere, and—nowhere.”

Hunk made an impressed sound. “So, hiding in plain sight.”

“Space DJ,” Lance articulated, gasping; he was wide awake now. “You’re telling me that there’s an actual space DJ out there? Holy shit. Like a literal—what’s his DJ name? I need this information now, people, pronto—”

“You said intergalactic,” Shiro interrupted. “How did you—?”

“Ten minutes ago they were playing a ceremonial Balmeran thanksgiving song.” Pidge tapped her glasses into place. “I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you how far we are from that zone.”

“Ten thousand light years, give or take,” Hunk supplied, and immediately deflated after saying it.

Pidge fiddled with the topmost monitor and pressed something that brought the beeping chart to the full screen. “We haven’t managed to keep a stable connection with Shay or any of the Balmerans since the last star cluster so—honestly? I’ve no idea how this guy’s doing it.”

"I don't know, I'm getting an intergalactic music aficionado type of vibe, here," Hunk offered. "Traveling the worlds, curating a bomb collection to preserve dying cultures all over the galaxy, stuff like that."

"But Zarkon despises music, fears what it can do," Coran said. "Any kind of music wouldn't have survived under the Gal—"

“Space DJ,” Lance expressed, again, and whistled. “Holy shit, that’s dope. You think they take song requests?”

“Lance,” Shiro narrowed his eyes at him, as Allura announced, like it was good idea, “I want to talk to them.”

Shiro worked his mouth open, then closed, and they all watched, waiting for him to tell her otherwise; he didn’t. Surprise, surprise.

“I highly advise against it, princess,” Pidge said, the true voice of reason—second to Hunk—and they all turned to her. “You sending out that signal is the basic equivalent of you sending out a mass email to everyone in the galaxy who wants us dead directions on how to find us. And may I remind you that, um, there a quite a significant number.” Hunk made grand, approving gestures at this. “Besides, we don’t even know who the heck these guys are! Or why they need to cloak their signal! Doesn't that spell out trouble for you?”

Allura considered this as she paced the floor. “Yes, I understand that. But something tells me that they’re not harboring any ill intent. Sometimes, there is good reason for disguises. It doesn’t always mean treachery.” Then she smiled at her, with the kind of warming trust that unravelled anyone it touched. “And I’m sure you know a thing or two about that,” she added, and winked. Pidge was gone, just like that, and began to set about her task in a flurry.

The harsh lullaby reached its end somewhere in the middle of it, and when Keith dropped his spent brush and exhaled with a weary satisfaction, the sound was loud in the room. His boots gleamed with a clean shine that wasn’t there this morning; the last planet they’d orbited into had a predilection for gunk-spewing fauna, and when a particularly threatening one nearly bowled the castle over it was up to them to shoo the creature away. In the end, it was Keith who did it, the scene stealer—but not without getting himself drenched in the process. Lance couldn’t shut up about it. Comedy gold, it was. The goo smelled like day-old sweat and was tracked all over the floor until it disappeared into the confines of Keith’s room. The stuff was in his hair.

But—mostly, Lance talked shit about it to mask how cool he thought Keith had worked with a sword to take it down. God forbid he ever admit any sort of praise, but Keith possessed that kind of effortlessness that commanded respect. Expect for the hair. And the face; it was a good face, but what kind of guy gets blessed with full eyebrows and a perfectly shaped jaw and doesn’t show it at least a bit of TLC? Lance knew an atrocity when he saw one. He was thinking of offering the sorry guy some face mask samples, free of charge, before he broke out right between the eyes where his sweaty bangs accumulated dust and grime and other horrid elements. Lance's benevolence astounded him, sometimes. Also, it was a good face, okay.

“Here you go, princess.” Pidge handed her a mic, which was attached to the monitor for translation. “You can talk now. Guys, pipe down, okay?”

Allura reached for it. Then she glanced at Coran, a look they knew now was her drawing strength. She brought it before her mouth and spoke, loudly over the noise from the speakers: “Hello? Hello, greetings. My name is Allura, princess of Altea.” She paused, searching for words. “I came across your station and was touched by the diversity I found in your music. May I ask how to call you? I mean no ill will. I just wish to know the name of those sharing such wonderful music to the galaxies.”

Lance leaned into Hunk's ear. “That’s not how you make a song request."

“Quiet,” Keith snapped.

Still, the room bristled with the bad opera. The monitor displays moved steadily, unchanged.

Nobody talked back. For several ticks, there was nothing.

And then—an abrupt cut, a three-heartbeat pause, and then: a high note, barely there. Like a mosquito buzzing behind your ear, blade-thin and shrill, and then—

Music. Crashing down, all at once. The room erupted with it.

They all turned to Allura.

“That’s—” she began, after she’d managed to get her mouth working; the knot in her forehead had resurrected, and talking seemed like an impossible effort, “that’s an old Altean wartime song. My father, he—he would sing it for us, for the army, after we lost a battle. I’ve never—”

Shiro was moving to her, reaching for her elbow; his touch was tentative, barely there.

Coran was sitting down; Keith had given up his seat the moment he saw him try to walk by with uncoordinated steps.

“What are they saying?” Keith asked gently, walking into the circle.

Allura turned, and there was a tremble in her cheek. And then she smiled at him, a proud line, and none of them were surprised when her eyes brimmed with the ghosts of the war that chased her, all the way to the new world. A soft chuckle, and then a shake of the head, like all this was too strange for words, and she raised her chin at him and said: “We will build anew.”

“Signal! I’m getting a return signal!” Pidge cried, in mad scramble on the floor; she nearly knocked over her laptop in her excitement. She grabbed the top monitor with both hands and watched the lines emerge into existence. “Are you guys getting any of this?”

The vowels were clipped and bold, the beat reminiscent of a march, and Lance strained to hear the burr of it. He saw Coran mumbling, his face in his hands—only to realize, a few beats later, that he was humming along. Lance swallowed. “They’re…. talking back?”

Hunk was kneeling beside Pidge. “Did you uncompress the message?” he asked, and Pidge nodded. He went on, “Uh, what about our translators? Did you put it through?” and she paused, her face brightening, and went to it. Suddenly, her glasses sparked with a light, as the monitor jumped from the input.

“Allura—“ There was an edge to her voice now. “Allura, you need to see this—“ and Allura immediately swept close for a look, her dress pooling as she crouched. On the screen, were the lines:

Greetings Lost Princess

We Dedicate This Song To You In Time For Your Arrival

To Have Lived Long Enough To See Your Return Is An Honor

What To Call Us Is Unimportant But

If You Must Know Our Name

Is Faith

When they looked at her, her head was tilted down, her back small and tight—until she turned and swept her eyes across the room, and when they landed on Coran her face twisted impossibly and the bow of her mouth crumpled, and then she was rising on her feet, and the both of them were going to each other like the only two people in the room; pulling into a desperate embrace that broke apart with laughter—broken, uncontainable, breathless laughter.

“Princess,” Coran babbled. His nose was running.

“I know,” Allura said, clinging to him. “I know. Oh, I know.” And she was turning to her paladins with a hundred suns bright in her face and saying, “Do you know what this means? It means nothing was in vain.” She turned back to Coran, like she couldn’t believe it. “Nothing. None of it, it all meant—what we did—Altea—my father—“

“Oh, m’dear princess.” Coran soothed her back.

“There are people out there who haven’t—they haven’t—they still—” She was struggling to keep up with herself. “All this time, I thought—but of course, how could I have thought otherwise? There will always be—always. People who believe. We were never—“

She was sitting down; Coran had offered her Keith’s chair.

“Everything all right?” Shiro asked hesitantly, his smile soft and fond.

Coran grinned tearfully. “It has been ten thousand years since we last heard this song,” he explained, and it drew a sharp peal of laughter from Allura. Lance watched them and wondered if this was how they’d been, before. He felt his stomach clench into fists, even as his happiness for them filled him out, tugged a smile from his lips; felt it winding along with the others’ smiles and broadened the lungs in his chest until he could breathe deeply, and it felt like—hope, this thing that was flowering around them. Like nosediving into the ocean and finding a pearl in its depths—this small, quiet patch of peace in a time of war.

Theirs, a voice reminded him, and the hollow in him vanished. Lance glanced around the room, and the people that occupied it, and believed it.

It'll Be Different Once We Put Things Up On The Walls, Part Three

“Let’s hear it,” Lance said.

“Alright. If I had one last song to listen to before I die,” Hunk said, low and immediate, “it’ll be Carly Rae. And I don’t care what you say. She’s a blessing in every universe.”

“Something classic, maybe. Tchaikovsky, perhaps?” Pidge tilted her head in thought. “The classics have always been a family favorite. Beauty, precision, order—”

Lance, who'd jammed himself in the minute space between her and Hunk on the floor, snorted loudly. “Oh please, Pidge. We all know you head bang to sweaty punk bands from middle school when you think no one’s around.”

“Oh my god, Lance!”

Hunk’s hand shot out between them to shield the boy from Pidge’s blunt nails; Lance loved his friends deeply. He turned his head back lazily. “What ‘bout you, Keith?” he prompted.

“No preference,” Keith replied, crossing one leg over the other. “Whatever’s on the radio.”

“Yawn,” Lance drawled, but was hyperaware of the careless way Keith’s leg stuck out, the slender length of it; this was space fever, he was getting sick, is what this was. He forcibly ejected the thought, swiped the mic on the floor and, before anyone could protest, was clearing his throat, “Okay, my turn! Ayo there, DJ in space. I’m ya boi Lance, here with my friends from a blue planet called Earth. We were thinking maybe you could play us some Earth tunes, you know, liven the place up a bit, make our dreams come true? We just found your station, and we think what you’re doing is hella fantastic.”

They waited expectantly for the speakers to crackle, like it had done for Allura before. There was no response; the monitors cycled through its regular pulse.

Lance frowned. “Hello?” he said into the mic, then knocked experimentally on the side of the monitor. “You still there?”

Blissfully, the station continued to play its complicated music.

Hunk crowded the monitor. “I think it only works on princesses.”

“No, I think it's because Lance talks like an idiot,” Keith said.

“Hey! You're an idiot,” Lance shot back creatively, and turned back to the blinking screen with a huff and a frown.

“Let me try.” Hunk grabbed the mic from his hands. “Hi, buddy,” he began. “I’m Hunk, and—ignore what my friend Lance said, please—because to be honest? What we really wanted to say was just—thanks, man. Or lady. Or alien-whoever. Listen, wherever you are, keep it up. We’re listening.”

“Saaap,” Lance called out, then yelped when Pidge managed to land a scratch on his arm.

And then:

“Guys!” Pidge cried, because the song ended, and now—here was the miracle of space—Elvis was on the speakers, flooding the Castle of Lions with its magic, and Lance’s body twitched like a live wire; he knew that song, grew up with that song, knew it because his mama probably sang it to him in the womb.

“I know this song,” Lance said, because everyone had to know. “I know this song! What!”

“Is this a wartime ballad as well?” Allura asked, curiosity piqued.

“No,” Pidge said. “I’m afraid not.”

“Is anyone not freaking out about how a some DJ is playing hits from the 80s in outer space?” he said, because Lance was; Lance was freaking out badly, and Hunk, too, but not as much as Lance was freaking out. He turned to Keith, who sat looking bored, and threw his hands at him, his voice going high, “No?! Just me?”

Keith pursed his lips. “Does it matter? Pidge said it was an intergalactic station.”

“Does it matter?” Lance parroted back, baffled beyond belief. “It’s Elvis! The King! In space!” and Lance’s face shifted with the realization. “No. Don’t tell me you don’t know—especially this song. No? Not even?”

Keith twitched again. “Lance, I literally could not care less.”

“He admits his crime!” Lance gasped, throwing his hands in the air. “It was a film, for god’s sake!”

“Lance, not everyone has had the same childhood as you,” Shiro scolded, somewhere behind them, and Lance stumbled like he was shot.

“Well, yeah, obviously! But some things are just…inescapable. Universal, even. Dude,” Lance said. “I mean, even in my young days as a—ohhhhhh, it’s lit!“ he yelled, because the guitar solo was coming up, and he curved his hands around his air guitar and rocked it out with Hunk, who leapt next to him and sang like it was his birthright. They kept at it until the end, cultivating Keith's discomfort, and when it was over he was a grinning, sweating, blissed out mess.

DJ Faith never replied like they did with Allura, but they did keep blasting out Earth tunes: More Elvis. KC and the Sunshine Band. Spice Girls. Elvis. It seemed like they had a genre.

And, later:

“What are you doing,” Keith hissed.

Lance pumped his hips to the beat, and turned to move at the sound of his voice, and saw the way Keith's eyebrows shot comically up into his hairline.

“Stop,” Keith commanded weakly, his fingers clenched in the sides of his seat.

“I’m not ashamed of who I am,” Lance said, jutting his chin, shimmying his fine, fine booty every which way. He met Keith’s eyes in fierce challenge. “Are you? Huh, Keith? Can’t take it? Can’t take the heat?”

Keith’s expression, which had been flustered in disgust, sharpened in a matter of seconds. Then he was kicking off his chair, closing the distance between them, and aggressively grabbing Lance’s waist.

“Wha-aaat,” Lance said, the edge of it breaking off, falling pathetically to the floor. He was so in control.

“D-dance, fucker,” Keith said.

“O-oh my god.”

It'll Be Different Once We Put Things Up On The Walls, Part Four

“Fantasy, dream about me—“

Shiro’s hand whipped out to grap Lance’s wrist. “Get off the table. Now.”

“But—I was just gonna show Keith my spli—”

“NOW.”

It'll Be Different Once We Put Things Up On The Walls, Part Five

A few days later, Pidge had lost track of them.

“I can’t find them anymore,” she said, staring uncomprehendingly at the monitor's dead pulse. “They’re just—gone.”

“Maybe we’re just too far off,” Allura tried.

They weren’t. The truth was that they were still in the same galaxy, and one day, there was music, and in the next, there was not. There was only this: the silence of the deep, of the cold north, nestled in every corridor of the castle. Lance didn’t think space could get any quieter, until now.

Nobody talked about it, about the possibility of a Galra attack, or how the station was a thinly veiled solitary rebellion, off on its own like a satellite without moorings. Lance was halfway into delivering a joke about it until he saw the way Allura’s eyes were lost in the stars, as she sat next to Pidge in the main deck as she broke open the detector to build it bigger, better. He shut up then; nothing funny about mortality, after all.

The next day, Lance sat slouched in the common room. The warmth of Shiro’s hand was a comfort on his back that left him too soon as the man himself left to his own quarters. Now it was even more quiet, and there were no battles to call them out and fill the days with clamor. The castle’s hum was the only thing left.

Keith chose that moment to emerge from one of the doors. He stopped walking, but didn’t seem to be surprised to see him sitting there. Lance looked up, and paused mid-verse—he’d been humming the first ghost-heavy refrain of the song he couldn’t shake off; it was his parents’ theme song, and it clung to him like his own skin—then resumed, sadly, looking back down at his hands, pointedly trying to ignore Keith moving to sit on the bench across him.

The trumpet part was coming up, and Lance readied himself emotionally for it, until Keith opened his mouth and supplied it for him—Lance’s head whipped up at the sound of his voice, eyes wide, and slowly, Keith met his gaze and smirked. Lance was pleasantly surprised; Keith could carry tune. And he remembered it.

Strange, how the song sounded, coming from Keith. Even stranger: the calm that rushed into him, now that Keith was here.

And stranger still: the clarity that he brought out of Lance, just by walking into the same room. Lance smirked back, and realized with a jolt that he was glad for Keith's presence. He didn’t hate Keith right now; he hadn’t hated Keith for weeks.

Lance spoke: “I still can’t believe you haven’t heard of The King,” and then groaned inwardly at himself; why was his first instinct always to take a jab at Keith? Why did he always ruin good things when he had them?

“I’ve heard that song before,” Keith replied casually, returning none of the sting. He slung an arm behind the bench and regarded his glove. “Once. In the desert, the signal wasn’t exactly the best, but there was one station that wasn’t too awful. I heard it then, I think. They called him that, too. The King.” He quirked his brow at Lance.

“So you aren’t completely ignorant." Lance nodded approvingly. “This is good, this is good. Do you know why they call him that? Think fast.”

“Uh,” Keith began, frowning, “he’s…secretly of royal birth?”

“Ding dong, you are wrong. But!” Lance leaned forward, raising a finger, and grinned, letting it all show on his face this time; this time— “Because I’m such an awesome friend, I’m gonna stage an intervention. We’re gonna do this right, and you’re going to thank me later.”

“Uh, yeah. No. Maybe next time, Lance.”

“Nuh-uh, nope. You walked in here, your fault. We begin with Music History, lesson one. Now sit tight, and let me tell you a thing…”

It's All in the Foundations, Part Four

The song ended, the choir bowed, and people began to stand and file slowly out of the chapel. His mother’s hand was a small, warm thing on his back. They emerged outside, where the grass was damp with dew. This morning was a cold one.

Lance clutched at his mother’s’ dress, as his younger sister clutched at his shirt. The padre’s homily today struck him strangely; he could recite it word for word. He tried it out, and it made him feel better instantly, like he could grow ten feet tall, just by thinking it.

“Do you believe that, hijo?” his mother asked, smiling down at him.

Lance said it, again, and he felt bigger than his bones. If you wait, and pray, and have faith, it’s already yours. He smiled back. “Of course I do, mama,” he said.

“I’m glad.” His mother rubbed circles in his back. And don’t forget—you are never alone. As long as you know that, you are bulletproof; no storm will wreck your home. Her fingers curled in the soft hair on his nape, and she pulled him close. His mother was the warmest thing he knew.

She cupped his cheek. “Good. Because that is the most important.”

The Trick Is To Make New Habits, Part One

“—and maybe lay low, who knows if they suddenly come to life under all that rubble, right? I mean, I, for one, am not gonna take any—jesus christ, stop, stop!—“ and Lance had to grab Keith around the waist to hold him back from kicking through the blockade of stone that rose around them like something definitive. Keith relented, thankfully, and scowled as he pulled free; he could barely see the expression in the soundless darkness that eclipsed them, but Lance knew it was there, could feel the edge of it. He moved in, jabbed his finger in Keith's chest. “I knew you’d do that. I knew it! We just survived ten horrible minutes of a tectonic earthquake underground, and you pull that shit! I thought we’d agreed to swear off any premature deaths while we’re young!”

Keith made a frustrated noise. “Well, what do you suggest we do, genius? Stay cooped up here and suffocate to death? Wait for another quake to kill us?"

“No, obviously, no, but do I have to explain to you how we’re trapped under a delicate maze of underground caves that no amount of kicking through anything will fix? One wrong move, one, and this thing'll go London Bridge on us. We’ll be flattened, Keith. That means death. That’s what’ll happen.”

But Keith was already pacing the edge of the stone pile on their end, peering through the gaps—a wordless dismissal. “Yeah, whatever,” he said.

Lance’s eyes followed his back. “You didn’t listen to the brief, didn’t you,” he accused, voice bending with awe, and Keith’s spine made an imperceptible spasm. It was all the proof he required; after one year with a guy in close quarters, Keith's body language could tell no lies. “I can’t believe this." Lance threw his hands in the air. "This is just—fucking peachy, this is. You're twenty, right?"

"How is this—“

"Twenty years," Lance wondered out loud, then bared his teeth. "You know, I'm honestly surprised you managed to get this far without accidentally getting yourself killed!"

"You didn’t answer my question,” Keith snapped, rounding on him. Grime caked his cheek, dragged its fingers over his one eye. Blood or—something—whatever it was, Lance didn't want to know.

“Well, as I was saying, before you nearly got us crushed to death like that Galra team," Lance said spitefully, as Keith crossed his arms and pressed his lips into a stubborn line, “that I might have a plan. An honest-to-God plan. Like, an actual plan, that may actually work, and if you actually listen—“

“Jeez, I’m listening, okay!”

“—I was gonna say that I think there’s a hole up there that leads to the room we were kept in a while ago. If you listen closely you can hear the river. It’s really faint, but—see?” he dropped his hand after pointing; it was too dark for sight up there, and their suits were ill-equipped for nocturnal trips like these, save for casting a five foot glow around them. “So one of us crawls up there, gives the clear, and the rest of us get our asses up there as well. Then, we follow the river upstream—“

“—and we get the hell out of here,” Keith continued. The idea looked to be sitting well with him. ”And then we get our lions back."

“Aaand we get our lions back.”

“And get the fuck back home.”

“And—yes.” Lance grinned at the word, and Keith grinned crookedly back.

“And if the river’s buried too?” he added, the cynic.

“If the river’s buried, then you can destroy your goddamn wall. Go crazy,” Lance replied easily. “But someone needs to get up there and check our route first. It’s too risky, either way, so it’s best to weigh our options.”

Keith huffed, rolling his shoulders. “Fine. Let's get this over with.”

“Knew you’d like the plan.” Lance grinned at him. “Okay, so, remember the guard that—“

“Damn, it’s pretty high,” Keith observed.

“Huh?”

Lance paused; Keith was craning his neck to regard the escape route Lance had pointed, eyes going past his shoulder and above. “It’s about a forty feet climb.”

“A forty what?”

Keith turned his gaze on him skeptically. “I thought you saw it?”

“Well—no, because visibility’s a bitch in an underground cave. I can hear where it could be, but—" he followed Keith’s line of sight, leaning in and jostling his shoulder. "Dude, how can you even tell?”

“You can’t see it?”

“No, because, my eyes don’t have night vision—unlike yours do, apparently?” Lance squinted, grasping to hear the distant rush of water above to lead him to the hole; he didn't think it was that far out. “Okay then,” he said sarcastically; he couldn’t see the damn thing. “So you can see in the dark, and our only hope of escape is impossible. Just—just great.”

“Stop whining,” Keith said. “Someone’s gotta do it.”

Keith moved past him, safely away from the stone pile and stopped at the base of the wall opposite. He smoothed a hand over the surface, finding leverage, and began to pull up onto a rock jutting out like a misplaced bone; Lance yelped and grabbed his shoulder. “Okay, Sasuke—first of all: chill out. Second of all: chill out. Third of all: who said you were gonna do it?”

“I did?” Keith said.

“Overruled. Now scoot.”

“Excuse me?” Keith stayed stubbornly where he was, one foot already braced against the wall. “My boosters aren’t broken.”

“Yeah, well my arm isn’t either.” Lance looked at it now, saw the odd way Keith held it close to his body when he moved, and felt his mouth flood with the worry he’d been masking with irritation; once this was through, he was shoving Keith in a pod, and then himself, post-mission shower be damned. “Look,” he said, “with your weight, your booster can probably only take you halfway up, anyway. If you hadn’t barged into battle without me, maybe we could be doing this different. Hm?”

Keith gritted his teeth and turned his head away sharply, which was a good sign of defeat as any; this mission was really doing a number on them both. “Fine!” he said, eventually, pulling his foot back and letting it drop to the ground, losing patience and fast; this damp, stifling place was making him antsy, and Lance couldn’t blame him. “Who's supposed to go up there, then?” He pointed off to the side with his good arm. “Him?”

They both turned to the figure that sat sulking against the opposite side of the enclosure. Mr. Runaway Prince stared right back, bristling, eyes defiant behind the knees he’d pulled into his chest.

“Actually, yes,” Lance concluded, and Keith gave him a look. “What? The guy has wings!”

“We’re supposed to be protecting him, not putting him into danger,” Keith argued.

Prince—Lance had long given up on pronouncing his actual name, what with the human tongue being a few millennials short of evolving for it—seemed to agree with this statement greatly. He opened his mouth to speak, which was only when Keith talked: “I will not go,” he said; his vowels were all squashed together. “I remain here. There danger lurks for me. I do not deserve to die like frail humans yourself.”

Lance’s face jolted; jeez, sassy, this one. They’d saved him, as was the mission parameters, simultaneously from Galra capture and his own self exile from the kingdom he was due to rule. But Lance had felt it from the moment they saw him: the young prince didn’t want to be found—or saved, for that matter, or be returned to his family, who had desperately asked this of them. Bring him back, his mothers had begged; bring him home. And here he was, hiding. Cowering.

Lance couldn’t comprehend it; he wouldn’t.

“Oh, absolutely,” he agreed sweetly, turning to him with an equally cloying smile, “you’re completely right, Your Highness, a hundred percent—but, see, thing is? If we don’t do anything, if we stay here—we’re dead. No joke. If the Galra won’t get us, the aftershock will eventually, and—”

"Dismissed," Prince said, turning his head to the side.

Lance’s cheek twitched, but he pushed a chuckle past his teeth. “Aw, c’mon, buddy,” he tried, needing to stop thinking about the temptation to rip those antenna right out of his spoiled— “don't be like that."

Prince remained where he was. “Reject."

"You'll see your parents again?"

"Unfavorable."

Lance made a choked off sound. ”Well! Well, well, well—someone clearly wasn't raised with proper manners! Maybe if you weren't such a ginormous, royal—“ and Lance shut that line of thought right away; he was supposed to be used to insufferable pricks like these, he’d had a lifetime of dealing with them, and he was a paladin, for god’s sake. His sister, when she was seven and discovered the power her vocal chords possessed… this was nothing, nothing. ”Okay, y’know what?” He slapped the smile back on. “I'll do it. I'll go.”

“What?” Keith said.

Lance turned to him. “When I get up there, he’ll finally realize how cool am, and he’ll be dying to be my pal,” he explained. “It’s foolproof!”

“Right,” Keith said, in doubt. Then, he sighed, expression frayed. “Don’t fall.”

“Me? Fall? Psh, buddy, who do you think you’re talking to?” Lance grinned, folding over to stretch his calves, then folded back to pop his tailbone. ”I was the vice president of my high school gymnastics club, I’ll have you know.” He latched onto the wall, traced his foot across the surface for an edge. “That’s right. Me. Bendy Lance, they called me.”

“Uh, wall climbing and gymnastics are hardly the same thing,” Keith said. “Besides, that’s the same thing you said last time you tried to do a barrel roll in Voltron—”

“One time!” he bemoaned, and was glad for the dark that shrouded his embarrassment. “We just didn't warm up enough—“

"Lance," Keith said, now from below him. "I'm serious. If you fall, I'm not catching you.”

Lance heaved himself over another protruding rock, letting the soft haloed light from his suit illuminate the finger-holds in the wall. When his hands pulled away they were coated with the same mildly foul-smelling grime on Keith’s cheek. Lance made a full-body shudder.

"If I fall," he said, weak and groaning, "tell Allura I'm sorry I ruined our future together.”

There was a snort. ”Tell her yourself.”

Grip, anchor, there was the foothold—then push, up into the dark, and then again. He panted, ”And that I'm sorry she won’t find a paladin for Blue as fine as me.”

"Sure, Lance,” Keith said, switching tactics. “Anything for you. You will be missed. Greatly.”

Lance gritted his teeth, mumbling. His breath fogged into moisture in his skin, and his scalp grew humid under the shell of his helmet. Barely ten minutes in and his arms were trembling with the effort, the inside of his stomach rattling like a bag of sticks. Damn, after all this was over, he needed to ask Hunk for strength building tips; he wondered about him, hoped his mission with the rest was going as wonderfully as theirs was. Scratch that—they were probably having a blast, just by rule of thumb. It was just how things went; whenever they were split into two teams, one of them was bound to go into deep, deep shit.

Lance theorized it could be them.

"You okay down there?" Lance hollered, a time later. He was drenched in his own sweat, fingers slipping once, twice, before he remembered this wasn’t a simulation and latched on with his whole life.

“I should be the one asking you,” Keith called back, and the sound of it tugged the grin back on Lance’s face.

"The Royal Pain—I mean,” Lance pretended to sound sheepish. “The Prince? How's he holding up?"

“He’s—“ There was a jumbled, indistinct sound, and then silence. Keith's voice jumped out: "Still doesn't want to come with us.”

The harsh wet exhale of water above was growing closer with each step. “Too bad,” Lance said, and with a final push, was pulling up into the blessedly horizontal rocky platform and scraping his suit further as he dragged the rest of himself up. He chuckled roughly, rolling into his back; his heart thundered in his ears. “Because I guess we're getting out of here!”

His voice bounced back at him in pieces; just as he thought, their escape route extended through the dark like an elongated mouth to his left, and the sound of the river rushed distantly in its depths. God, Keith wasn't lying about the whole forty feet thing; Lance felt boneless and spent. Now, he just needed to clear their route, then look for rope or something to help Keith up. The Galra soldier that twisted Keith’s arm, Lance remembered, had a grappling hook clipped to his belt; all the soldiers did, probably, now that he thought about it. He just needed to check under the rubble where the roof caved in.

Keith’s voice came back to him. ”You know, I'm honestly surprised you managed that.”

“Everyone's a critic,” Lance tutted, pulling himself to his feet and craned his head back down to see how far he'd come. “Dude, I told you. Just like high school gymnastics—“

The stone he’d just stepped on gave with a crack, and Lance felt himself slide down, down; his mouth dropped open, and he tipped forward until his hands caught the jagged floor behind him, scraping painfully against his lower back. The rest of his torso dangled precariously over the edge like a black hole; his blood rushed in his ears.

All around him, his own scream reverberated in pieces.

"LANCE," Keith hollered, panicked. Below, there was another dull crack as the rock fragment collapsed on Keith's shield.

“Shit, shit, shit," Lance gasped, scrambling back to safety.

“LANCE, ARE YOU AN IDIOT—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, shut up already!” he yelled back, and didn’t open his mouth again the whole time he sifted through the rubble.

The river had been buried, as it turned out—pushed under slabs of rock that had been the ceiling of the prisoner's’ room the Galra kept Prince in when they heard of his little Houdini act. There was no contesting his discovery; being heir to the throne of one of the handful of untouched, still-resisting planets in the empire made one an obvious target—plus, the gold wings were an instant, unmistakable giveaway. Still, the water rose between the cracks and slipped past the stalagmites and other pieces of petrified rock, moving in thin, cool sheets down the main tunnels, and the three of them followed its direction in a trance. Prince walked between them, head down, with Keith in the lead and Lance guarding their tail. Lance didn’t know what Keith had done to convince him to come along, couldn’t imagine it, but it worked, and they picked their way across with the silence of the weary. There was a foot, sticking out under a pile and covered with soot, and they stepped over it gingerly. It could’ve been them, could’ve been their bodies trapped here forever, just as easily; the thought stopped the humor from reaching Lance’s mouth.

“Hey,” Lance called out, because Keith was moving ahead with abandon, his back slipping in and out of the dark. Then, louder: “Hey,” as he sped up, grabbing the curve of the grappling hook slotted in Keith’s belt. “Dude, wait up. You’re going too fast.”

Keith stopped as he was tugged in place. He looked back and blinked, his face coated in a sheen of sweat.

“Geez, pal,” Lance quirked his head. “Your eyes even glow in the dark. What’s up with that? It’s kind of terrifying, but also—kind of pretty. Yellow, like piss.”

Keith’s nose flared, and he swept the damp hair from his eyes. “You know, for someone who nearly died, you keep talking shit.”

“Quit living in the past," he groaned, said, “besides, I resent that, coming from you,” pushing the other paladin onwards with a squeeze on his good shoulder; Keith’s eyes dropped to the Prince before he resumed his march at the front lines, settling for a manageable rhythm to his steps.

“You holding up okay?” Keith asked, voice low, and Lance was about to open his mouth to reply before he realized it was for the Prince, who made a made a short, clicking sound. It didn’t seem very enthusiastic, but it was a response nonetheless, and it was more than anything that Lance had tried to draw out of him.

“No way to go spelunking with that attitude,” he said dejectedly; he hated when people played favorites. Then he yelped, nearly cutting his head on a stalactite that hung like an incisor tooth from above.

“Shut up and focus,” Keith grunted, moving across like he never knew injury. “The longer we stay focused, the faster we get out of this hell hole." Then, after a beat: “Here’s another one, watch your head."

Lance ducked exaggeratedly, but did as he was told; admittedly, the maze simulations were bearing fruit. "Hey, I hear ya,” he huffed. "Can't wait to tell the others about this mess."

The next tunnel Keith led them into was narrow. Prince stepped into the gap easily, but he and Keith had to flatten themselves against the wall to move through, dragging their armor between the pockmarked barrier. When they emerged from the other side, Lance knew they were close, immediately—the air was fuller, his lungs were expanding with ease, and the churning of the river was a clear, immediate sound in the distance ahead. Here was where where the waters converged and rose heaving up into the surface, making the floor beneath them shudder as it gurgled up from between the cracks. And there was Blue—Lance could feel the anxious press of her against his skull, the burr of it in his chest as she lingered outside the cave’s mouth. Soon, he thought, just a little longer, buddy.

He saw Keith shift, felt his agitation spike in the line of his back, and he grabbed for him instantly. “Hey! Don’t you dare take off.”

Keith froze. “It’s just at the end of this hall,” he reasoned, an almost-whine, then paused, realizing the problem. “I wasn’t gonna leave you guys behind.”

“Sure you weren't!” Lance shot back; Keith’s anxious tick had returned in the form of a full-body clamor, and he couldn’t stop moving now; Lance felt a surge of something for him, wanting to pull him close, sweep the pallor from his face, kind of. “Look, I know you’re antsy as—”

“We are at exit?”

Lance looked down at the Prince, who’d suddenly spoken;. “Hell yeah, little buddy,” he said, grinning for him. “Just a few more steps and we’re outta here.”

A shadow passed through his face. “No,” he said, low. “No, I will stay. I will stay, and you must go ahead.”

Lance frowned; ahead, Keith stopped walking. “What? Uh, bad idea pal, no offense. We’re not leaving you here.” Lance squared his shoulders, trying out his Shiro voice. “Nice to know you’re grateful and all for us taking care of those guys, but we also kind of promised your people to bring you back alive? Kind of a package deal here, man.”

“I cannot rule,” Prince said. Then, he looked up, and there was real shame there as he met Keith's eyes. "I am sorry," he continued, his antennae drooping like two delicate stems. "I cannot do it."

Keith's face hardened—all the way from the line of his brow to the cut of his jaw and down to the shape of his clenched fist. He stepped closer, eyes flashing. “They asked us for help. Your mothers. They’re at our ship right now, waiting for you to return.” Lance watched him, torn between letting him speak and slapping a hand over his mouth this instant; he knew, from experience, how Keith rarely said the wisest things when he felt cornered and stifled like this. “Before they found us, they looked everywhere. Everywhere. For you. Infiltrating Galra ships, going undercover in subdued planets. They thought you were fucking dead.”

The wings on Prince’s back spasmed, like the equivalent of a flinch.

Lance wanted to stop this. “Okay—“

“And here you were, all along,” Keith said, not so much an angry accusation as a gradual picking apart of a body. “You left your planet completely vulnerable. And now, when you have an easy way out, you won’t take it?”

There was a strangled silence. ”It is too late,” the Prince said, eventually; his head drooped, his wings fluttered sadly. “It is too late for me. They will not take me back. Not after this.”

“They will,” Lance ground out, surprised himself, and Keith’s eyes flicked to him. He went on, feeling the surety of it engulf him, “They will, and that’s a McClain guarantee, my buddy. Wanna know what I know about mothers?” he smirked, voice dropping to a whisper as he went down on his knee to say it; the Prince tilted his head, slowly. “They can never resist their own kid.”

Lance met Keith’s gaze, and Keith smiled hesitantly back. It felt like it had been years since he last saw it; Lance felt the tension in his body dissipate, inexplicably.

“Look, Prince. I hear ya. I won’t say I know exactly what you’re going through, or why you’ve upped and left your own home planet, but—I don’t blame you, okay? We don’t blame you. Being forced into something this big sucks, I gotta say; it’s scary intimidating, and I get why you’d want to leave.” He placed a hand on his small shoulder, felt the tremor there. “If you really don’t want to rule, we’ll help you talk to your folks, okay? You’re not in this alone anymore. But—buddy—in the meantime, how about you come back with us first? We’ll talk it out, then, I promise. How’s that?”

He glanced up at Keith, and felt his mouth dry; there was something oddly soft in the way Keith was looking at him. “So,” he continued, ripping his gaze back to the Prince. “Whaddya say? You trust us, right?”

And—surprise—Prince was unraveling; he felt solid under Lance’s touch, like he was coming back to life. Prince nodded, his smile small and sheepish. “Okay,” he said.

“There he is!” Lance took both of his shoulders and shook them enthusiastically. “Atta boy!”

Prince looked up and beamed at Keith, and Keith’s own was smile was approving. “You’re brave,” he said simply, nodding his head, and there it was again, that secret private link between them that Lance didn’t even have a second to be jealous of, because the wings on the Prince’s back began to buzz; the thrum was slow at first, like an engine starting, until the sound of it was loud in the cave.

“Oh no. Nonono,” Lance heard himself say. “Not that. Something bad always happens when you do that.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is it another quake?” he asked, catching Prince’s eyes.

“I—“ the Prince’s antennas had jolted up, twitching. “Perhaps. I feel—something close—something big—“

“Big? Like big quake like before? Like big, big quake that nearly crushed us to death back there?”

“Bigger,” the Prince said, and Keith cursed.

“Shit, Keith, we—“

Keith tucked his arm safely into his chest as he broke into a jog ahead. “C’mon!”

They followed Keith in a frantic daze as he mapped their way out in the dark. Lance left his mouth behind and let his shield materialize into a comforting weight at his side.  “Here,” Keith decided, panting openly, as he paused before a plateau-shaped stalagmite that rose from the ground. He bent and pressed himself against it and gestured for them to crouch down next to him. Lance followed, tried to get the Prince between them, but his wings were still a gold blur that made it impossible for him to fit; he opened his mouth—

There was only one warning: a small jolt, like entire floor beneath them was stirring to life.

Then, the whole world was shaking.

“We get it, you want to kill us, please fucking stop already!” Lance yelled, bracing his body against the floor for stability, but it was useless; his shield knocked into Keith’s elbow, and he hissed, face crumpling in pain. Lance cursed and drew back; Prince’s wings had calmed, but now his entire body had locked up as he stared wide-eyed around him. Lance pushed him against Keith and kneeled in front of them, bringing his shield over their heads. Keith’s face was shadowed under Lance’s silhouette, but he could draw how fatigue looked like on him from memory alone, could tell how it cloaked him in an ugly, splotched expression.

Lance tried for a grin, the only thing he could offer. “Hey, Keith, if—shit—if I don’t survive this—you can have all my face masks! I’m entrusting them to your care! Your beauty will be—god, fuck—your beauty will be my legacy!”

“Lance,” came Keith’s voice, hoarse and miraculous in the darkness; good, Keith, needed to keep talking, just like that. “Honestly, shut the fuck—“ his face twisted with effort, as the cave tried to kick them out. Keith craned his neck, his eyes wandering frantically along the ceiling; Lance followed his gaze in time to see how the stalactites above them chattered like teeth. “Lance!” Keith said, voice sharpening, “we need to move!”

Lance quite honestly didn’t need to be told.

They tore themselves from the floor on all fours, Lance’s arm winding around Keith's waist just as he was about to stumble. It was harder to move, now with the ground lashing out at them with every step; every spired rock that bore out of the darkness seemed to want to impale them. They hobbled along, as Prince stutter-stepped ahead; fifteen steps ahead, the stalactites behind them groaned and collapsed with a crack into the place they had just been. Lance cackled, mad with relief and their sheer, unbelievable luck.

It was short-lived; Keith, his arm around Lance, pitched the both of them forwards and dragged Prince along, and they stumbled ahead into the darkness and were sent sprawling across the floor. There was another crack behind him just as they fell into their elbows—there was a chorus of them now, crack crack crack, all around him like a rock shower, and Lance was utterly blind, and Keith was urging them on their feet again, yelling, “Move, move, move!” and there was no time to register the numbing gash in his cheek, no time to think, to breathe. They picked themselves up, arms moving for each other, and they were off again. The cave rocked and groaned and crumbled like it was slowly being crushed under a giant foot, and with Prince’s slow gait hampering their speed even more they were moving too slow, they were moving too slow—

“Prince,” Lance gasped, gripping Keith tighter around the waist. “I know you don’t like to use your wings because of tradition or whatever, but you need to fly out right now.”

The Prince looked out at the exit he couldn’t see, then back at him. “I can’t—“

“Yes, you can! You need to! If you don’t leave now, you’ll never see your mothers again!” Lance said, and the Prince hesitated, wings moving erratically, and that was all the time Keith needed for him to grab him by the small of his back and—intergalactic diplomatic laws be damned—toss him down the end of the tunnel, where he shrieked, but picked up himself midair as expected, bobbing up and down on his wings.

“GO!” Lance roared, when Prince hesitated. With one last, terrible look, he was off.

“Finally,” Keith murmured. He looked even paler than before, as each step jostled the strain in his arm. “Now we—“

“Are you okay?” Lance said, bending down to peer up at his face; Keith’s breaths were rabbiting away from him, and there was a sickly tinge to his neck, under his eyes. “Fuck, Keith, are you, like, literally claustrophobic too, because—“

“We need keep going,” Keith grumbled, tucking his arm normally at his side, which he should not be doing, but Lance picked up the alarm in his voice and let it spur him on.

“Shit, okay,” he was saying, arm sliding back around his waist as they stumbled along, almost crouching, eyeing the line above their heads. The whiplashing motion was petering out, but here and beyond the path was wrecked even more—fissures ran up and down the sides of the cave’s mouth as water sloshed down to one side where most of the ground gave in. Debris was littered everywhere, and there were bodies here, too—

Lance cursed, hopping to regain his balance; he’d tripped over a still torso and nearly bashed Keith's skull in.

“The ground—“ Keith gasped, because the shaking stopped without warning; but there was something else that replaced it, something distantly ominous. “What’s—“

Lance could hear it. “I think,” he said, turning to meet Keith’s eyes, “it’s trying to tell us to get the fuck out of here, quick!”

They were running now, pulling apart with wordless agreement and gathering distance as fast as they could. Some part of him was clapping himself on the back for getting Prince out safe, but the rest of it was screeching with alarm at the knowledge of something giving beneath them, something huge, like the entire mountain itself had decided to hollow itself out; Lance could the feel deep, ancient rumbling of the walls in his own stomach, could feel the floor beneath them go soft, coming loose even as they pulled ahead, a current of cold air bellowing behind them like a giant’s waking exhale—

They leapt ahead, felt the last rock he’d stepped on give, as the entire floor behind them caved into indeterminable depths below. They rolled along, hands out grasping for leverage, as Keith grunted in pain. They came up panting, and there was one last might crack as the rock landed somewhere below, rattling along their teeth—the sound echoed around them, made them turn wide-eyed at each other. Behind them, was a deep, black mouth where the floor had been.

Lance laughed very, very weakly.

“Okay,” he called up into the tunnel, as he fumbled to his feet, “if you got more of those things, now’s the time. I’m sick of surprises, sick!”

“Uh,” Keith began, because, surprise—there were faint purple lights crowding the distance, coming closer; there was a pair of Galra soliders, a strange mirror to the both of them—worn and ragged and shouting insistently at them. Lance cursed loudly and planted his knee as he summoned his rifle—then cursed again; his head was still spinning, and it was a struggle just to keep one of them in the crosshairs.

“Prince isn’t with them,” Keith said, wisely switching his sword for a shield on his good arm. “Lance, they’re—“

“I know, I know,” Lance groaned; the light was growing ahead, a telltale sign of a cannon preparing fire. His arms kept shaking, and panic flooded through him. “Shit, c’mon!“

Keith brought his shield up over them at the last second, and the beam sliced through the air and barreled right into their shield, and Lance felt the impact behind his eyeballs. Keith grunted, holding out for a few seconds before his feet couldn’t brace themselves anymore, and then they were punched violently back with a twin yells, airborne in the dark. Lance felt his breath leave him as he was sent rolling, his rifle disintegrating, and then—with a horrible lurch, felt the ground beneath him disappear—

Rushing gravity—he was falling, this was the sensation—

And there was Keith, snatching his wrist from the air.

Lance watched his legs dangle into the dark mouth of the collapsed cave; hundreds of feet below, steepled rocks glinted in the gnashing water. Belatedly, he screamed.

“Shit, Lance, they’re still—“ Keith gasped; he was on his stomach, his head craned over his shoulder to peer at them. “Fuck off!” he yelled, as they towered over him. One of them raised their sword high—

Lance shot him in the chest; with a grunt, the soldier toppled right over Keith and dropped behind Lance, whooshing past as his armor sizzled. The one with the canon lumbered closer with an enraged yell, giving himself away, and Keith kicked him in knee hard; the canon clattered to the ground as he cried, and Keith cracked his heel on his other knee, sending him to his feet and teetering down the hole after his partner. His screech of pain followed him all the way down.

Lance didn’t want to think about the sound he made as he hit the floor.

“Holy shit,” Lance breathed. “That was—“

“Close,” Keith agreed hoarsely; the entire day had been a gamble with death. Their eyes met, and small relieved grins curled their mouths. Then, Keith’s face was clouding with pain.

“Shit, your arm!” Lance realized. It was braced palm down against the floor, keeping Keith from slipping into the hole himself, and Lance could only imagine the strain that was rippling through his ball of his shoulder, where he knew the pain radiated the most. “Can you…?”

Keith’s eyes pinched shut, his breath rushing out from his nose—he was preparing himself. Then, with a grunt he pulled Lance up, leaning heavily on his wrecked arm—then stopped, going slack at the elbow. “Fuck,” he muttered, breath ragged. His forehead bumped the floor. "Fuck."

“Okay, stop, stop. I'll just, okay, shit, I’ll—“ Lance put away his rifle, then tried to reach up for the ledge with his free hand. He gritted his teeth as he stretched and stretched—then missed, each time; his fingers kept grasping slippery stone. His nails scraped against the rock. “C’mon, please!” He tried to use Keith's grip as anchor to swing his body up, but the sudden jolt caused Keith to slip a bit further into the edge, and then Lance was yelling, panicked, “nope, nope, nope!”

Keith managed to stop sliding. "Don't," Keith gritted out, his face was awash with pain and sweat, "do that again."

"I won't," Lance promised; he flinched at the sight of each of Keith's purpling, white knuckles. "Shit, I won't. Fucking hell. There must be some way to—hey, how deep is this behind me, anyway? Actually, don't—"

“Pretty deep,” Keith said, and Lance groaned. “Just—don’t move okay? Goddammit. I'm gonna—“

Keith tried again, putting pressure on his shoulder as he tugged, then ultimately stopped halfway as the pain flared too brightly. Lance couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, from the way Keith was gripping his wrist. Lance stared at his face.

“Keith,” he began, realizing. “If you keep holding on to—“

Keith snapped back, realizing too, “I’m not gonna fucking let go, alright, so shut your—“

“Well, I’d like that very much as well, okay, I’m just saying that—“

“Lance, shut the fuck up."

His mouth snapped shut. Then:

“Fuck,” Lance whispered, feeling the panic throbbing through him numb over. “This sucks.”

It hurt, the pull on his shoulder, and Keith’s face was growing paler and more discolored by the second, more animal-like in its desperation. Lance’s hand was slipping from Keith’s grip.

“F-fuck,” Keith echoed. With every second his body was inching closer to the edge from their combined weight. His breaths were louder than Lance's, ugly and labored between them, and his eyes flashed as the pain dug its claws into him.

Two things flew through his mind simultaneously. First: how funny this whole scenario was, how eerily familiar an imitation of what had transpired between them back at the ship, with only Keith’s hand tethering him from getting lost in the abyss of space. And second: a not-so-happy thought—about how maybe only one of them was gonna make it out of here, after all.

“Keith,” Lance said, as Keith flashed him a look that almost made him swallow his words back down, even as his torso slid further past the edge. But Lance mustered up a smile; in his haze of pain and desperation, he was glad it would be Keith. “Look, man, there's really only one way this thing can go; it’s either you let me go or we both—“

“Shut,” Keith said, “your,” his chest dropped flat on the ground as he tore his bad arm from its braced position and reached down, “your goddamn,” he gripped the groove in Lance's back armor and yanked him up with a strength they both knew Keith didn’t have, “mouth,” he gasped, and next Lance knew he was sailing over Keith's pale face and thrown to the side, his momentum making them roll together. He landed on top of Keith, legs bracketing his, limbs sprawled everywhere.

“Holy shit,” Lance gasped intelligently; Keith’s mouth was panting against his forehead, his eyes closed, and Lance held on to him for dear life, even though he knew he safe now. “I thought I was gonna—I thought that was it, thought I was done for—“

“Me too,” Keith said, and Lance could smell the fear there, choking him, dizzying them both. Keith’s whole body was trembling from it.

"Jeez fuck, I—“

“Yeah.”

They panted together. Keith pressed against him, close, skin to skin, chafed armor to armor. There was a heavy weight behind Lance's back that pinned them together.

That made him realize. “Your arm—“ Lance’s eyes went wide.

“It’s fine," Keith dismissed.

Lance reached to cup his face, which had colored strangely. "Oi," he urged, thumbing absentmindedly at the wrinkle between his brows, "are you okay? And what the hell was that? How’d you—”

“Adrenaline, I guess,” Keith said, and it surprised a laugh out of him. "We were slipping, and I couldn't—you nearly—" and Keith opened his eyes to look at Lance, and the sudden proximity of their faces was strangely giddying. Their hearts thudded in sync, the weight on Lance's back solid and heavy, and Keith gazed past his ear to look at in a dazed kind of wonder.

“Some fucking adrenaline rush,” Lance noted, allowing them to stay plaint like this, a little while longer. “You look like shit.”

“So do you, idiot,” Keith said. He reached up and thumbed at the gash with a prickle that was now slowly coming back to life. "You're bleeding."

"Buddy, after all that, it'd be a miracle if there wasn't a part of me that wasn't beat up for even a little bit," he said. "I think I died, to be honest. We're dead, now, right? Is this heaven?"

Keith snorted. His breathing was evening out, but he wasn't taking his hand off of Lance's cheek, and Lance didn't care. They could lay here for the rest of their lives, for all he cared. "So this is your heaven?"

"Nah," Lance decided. "But I could really use a fucking shower right now."

Keith laughed tiredly. Lance allowed the sound of it to calm him, and almost completely missed the trails of sunlight spiking through the chinks ahead. And then, in the distance, a small voice, full of relief, and the flutter of wings.

Keith’s heartbeat, solid and strong and different from his own.

Lance smiled. Then he turned his head, feeling the familiar rumbling press against his thoughts.

“Thanks for waiting, Blue.”

The Trick Is To Make New Habits, Part Two

Lance did dream, but they were never like this, like the world itself turned inside out, hung dangling on a string as he sat and watched it turn like a mobile, always dancing out of reach. Fever dream, fever dream—except this felt real, like it had happened yesterday, even, and he wasn’t sick, was he? They were in a hot air balloon, and up here the air was cool and clean; the world was sprawled beneath them like mismatched socks. Allura and Pidge were sharing a watermelon, and Hunk was a cloud that drifted beside them. Lance could see himself dangling over the basket, gazing at rows and rows of houses, their copper roofs disappearing in the green. He wanted one for himself—wanted it with an ache so terrible his teeth chattered with it; he’d been homeless for so long.

He was sick of flying, so he reached for the house that drifted beneath their shadow, and next he knew he was pitching forward, falling, falling. Shiro called for him as he fell, his face twisting on the balloon, but it didn’t stop his descent, nothing could. He crashed, headfirst into the roof, and when he looked up, shaking the debris from his hair, Keith was there, in the room with the open door twenty feet away. Keith, sitting on a chair, scrubbing gunk out of his boots, cool as hell. Keith, Keith, Keith. The dirt wasn’t coming off. Lance wanted to be in that room, but Keith was busy, couldn’t talk to him, not right now, not when the stain was inching up his leg and then his torso and swallowing his neck like a vice.

The door shut, trapping Keith behind it. But when he opened his eyes there he was himself, in the same room, but Keith was not; Keith was standing outside the window, and there was the tsunami, dragging all the water from their house—from the sink and the pond and even the emptying pool from beneath Keith’s feet; piling and piling endlessly as it loomed closer. Not there, he yelled, slamming his hands on the window, but his voice became birds that flew away from him. Keith stood unmoving, standing half in shadow and half out of existence. Keith did not belong outside, he wasn’t made for it. Keith belonged here, inside their cramped whittled house with the dripping ceiling in the second floor, and the shingles that whistled too loud when the wind blustered by every morning, and the white picket fence that wasn’t so white anymore. Lance wanted to tell him this but, inconceivably, Keith had always seemed like there was someplace else he needed to be; Keith always seemed to do badly with moorings.

Lance called out his name one last time, and his voice became a dark chute that he slipped and fell into—a long, winding rabbit’s hole of his own making, and when he emerged, stumbling out of the dream with a shout and both fists in the sheets, he found that the desperation had followed him back; he didn’t want to keep running in circles anymore. He was done with it, done with the pretending and the waiting and the tomorrows he’d tricked himself were his to keep. He was tired and sick to the bones of it—of the lines he’d drawn in the sand, waiting for storms to destroy all he’d built, waiting to lose, waiting to say it, waiting to say it, say it, why won’t you say it, Lance?

He felt like he’d been sleeping for days, and when he pulled himself to his feet and made his first round through the main corridors, the walls were quiet and cloaked with anticipation. Lance felt like a walking ticker, each step jolting him awake, more so than he’d ever been; he knew what to do, now.

He passed the kitchen, and then the commons, and when he turned to the corridor on the right that led to their quarters, Keith was there, stepping briskly out passageway in his casual clothes and nearly colliding into him.

“Oh,” Keith said.

Funny, how, in the face of death, the truth didn’t seem so scary anymore.

Even funnier: the speed it took for all clarity to come swirling down the drain at the sight of him, leaving him cold, and small, and very, very afraid.

“Keith,” he heard himself say, his voice breathless and thin with fear.

“Lance,” Keith replied. He pulled back into himself. He was wide-eyed and panting, like he’d been kicking doors open, and Lance was drawn to the bead of sweat that unclipped itself from his brow. He said, hesitant, “I was looking for you.”

“R-really?” Lance said. He laughed, again, said, “I mean, cool, because, I was looking for you too, kind of.”

Keith’s face flickered. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said; his mind was blank, stupidly blank, and his heart was too big for his chest and Keith was here. Keith was here, right now. The potency of his desperation for rawer than yesterday, when he'd first stumbled out of the pod minutes before Keith came out of cryogenic sleep. “Uh,” he tried, “how’s the arm?”

Keith blinked, then regarded it, like it was something he picked up from the floor. “Better,” he decided.

“Nice,” Lance remarked. His feet shifted. “So. Some mission, huh?”

“Well, we nearly died.”

“Touché,” Lance agreed; he was dying, now, too. The hallway seemed to shrink around them, and Lance felt choked, trapped. did you see him? that's keith kogane! just a greenie and already an ace pilot! can you believe it— Lance crumpled the memory and kicked it under the carpet; this was different now. He was different.

Keith was looking at him, hard. “Uh,” he began, again. “And you?”

"Alive," Lance said, and Keith snorted. He remembered, suddenly: "Where’s the rest of us?"

Keith’s eyes roved behind Lance, as if he was waiting for something to pop out of the walls; Lance’s old courage, maybe? "Debriefing with Allura. They're okay—a little banged up like us, but otherwise alright. I was just talking with Shiro," Keith said, and then his eyes dropped to the bow of Lance's mouth before going to examine the floor.

"Yeah?” Lance said, tried to go for teasing, because that didn't happen; that would've been—weird. He waggled his brows. “Talk about your feelings?"

Keith froze. "Something like that," he said finally. And then he looked up, and was regarding Lance openly now.

Lance blanked out. He felt naked under that stare, pried apart, butterflied, deep fried; Keith’s gaze was new and fierce and unrelenting.

“So,” Keith said; there was a spike of frustration that rippled underneath it, “you were looking for me?”

Lance swallowed; then, his mouth moved, shaped itself around a smile it learned to make time and time again; muscle memory. An intake of breath, a couple of empty words—

The sirens blared.

They both jolted. Lance felt it like cold water pulling his head under; he looked at Keith, stricken, and was surprised to see the same pinched expression on his face. It could happen again, the thought said, in his voice, and the water was flooding his mouth, rushing in his hears; it could be your last day, it could happen again—

Lance was tired.

“Keith, I just wanted to say,” Lance began, bringing his voice over the wailing, as he took one step closer, “I think you’re really cool and—“

There was a gloved hand behind his nape, and then Keith was dragging him in, crushing him against his chest and Lance felt every point of his body press against him. “Don’t die,” Keith whispered raggedly into his neck, and Lance felt it all—the heat of his stomach, the flutter of his eyelash against his cheek, the quiet desperation in it. “Fight good.” Keith pulled away, hand sliding to rest on each shoulder, his smiling eyes trailing up to meet his, proud and fighting; Keith had always been fighting, Lance recalled, kicking his walls down. “Kick ass," he said fiercely, one hand coming up to thumb sharply at his left cheek. "Idiot," Keith added, for good measure.

And then Keith was pushing away. Keith had pushed him away and Lance felt as if he'd scraped away all of his insides with him, too.

Lance choked, and grabbed his wrist; the gall of the guy, honestly!—dropping a bomb like that only to turn tail to his Lion, without a word? "Y-you too," he stuttered, as Keith turned back at him, wide-eyed and a little pink in the neck. "You better kick some serious ass out there, because we're coming back together. You hear me?”

Keith's expression of surprise settled into something soft that Lance was quickly beginning to learn the name of. "Didn’t have to say it," he said, and with one final glance they both turned and dashed to their hangars, didn't look back.

The Trick Is To Make New Habits, Part Three

The drones had bracketed them from all sides, and Lance laughed, picking up Hunk’s woeful moan of ay pota, as Shiro commanded them to dive right into the fray of it, where the chaos was thickest.

In battle, Lance allowed what Keith taught him spur him on: how to fight without words, how to bite back your fear, how to position their favorite cat-man robot for the perfect punch, good and hard and fast. How could he lose, now? When he had the warmth of Keith’s skin on his, when he had Shiro’s voice like surety against their backs, when he had Hunk and Pidge and Allura and Coran, all fighting to bring him home, their thoughts a converging, constant chorus of not you, as they pushed him to dodge bullet after bullet, not you, anything but you.

There was no universe out there where he didn't choose this. It was clearer now; he liked this, liked saving the world. If this universe asked him to do this a little more, he’d do it. Hopefully not forever, but.

Wait a little longer, he prayed. I’m doing well here. I'm being taken care of.

The Trick Is To Make New Habits, Part Four

When he summoned the twin pistols on the same day, he couldn't really explain it.

"HOLY SHIT?" Lance yelled stupidly; he was stupid all over, stupid in his chest, in his bones full of air. Hunk and Pidge's screams of delight were so loud through the comm it was as though they were right there with him in the cockpit.

"Dude, how long have you been keeping that from us? Like—?"

"Twin pistols!"

“That's… new,” Shiro said.

“ARE YOU SEEING THIS? HOO BOY, ARE YOU SEEING THIS?”

“Nice aim, as always,” Keith said, his voice low and pleased.

“Well," Lance replied; it was beginning to hurt, his face, from all the stupid, "that uppercut wasn't too shabby,”

There was silence; there were two smoking trails in opposite points in the sky.

“Okay, what happened,” Hunk said. “Clearly, something happened.”

"I win," Pidge declared. "You hearing this, Allura?"

Shiro came to their rescue. “We’ll talk about it after we beat this thing, alright?”

After—a strange concept that Lance clung to. He reached for it, and fought like never before. He kicked and they didn’t keel over. Nothing scraped by Voltron’s armor after that. Not even once.

But There Are Chinks in the Ceiling, Part One

They were battle-worn (again) and aching (again) and Pidge broke a bone (her first; oh our baby girl, our darling child, we're so proud— ) after they'd dove in clumsily to push a Galra battleship out of range of the village beneath as it came sailing down from the sky. The local watering hole wanted to thank them personally—even if the falling battleship was their fault to begin with—and so here they were, with their drinks overflowing like the good cheer that came from near-death, swathing everyone in the room like a salve. Allura and Coran had gone ahead to the party the main village had put up for them, but Lance had fully intended to show his fellow earthlings the benefits of a great alcoholic drink, or two. Or three, if he was going to be honest here.

By the time Hunk had showed off his neat juggling trick to practically every alien who'd passed their table, they were all warm and loose and Keith's hand kept brushing Lance's thigh under the table every time he broke out a joke. The owner had come by sometime then—she was blind and had stringy pale hair that covered her dark skin, and she went around the table offering to read their heartlines—which, from what Lance gathered, was something akin to fortunetelling. What it actually was, she explained, was a venerated art passed down through generations of reading the shape of ones inner self, what it was like, in physical form; that was the wildest thing Lance had ever heard in his life, and he demanded one immediately, after they'd traced a line from Hunk's elbow to the tip of his forefinger and announced that his was the vastest heart she’d ever seen; you could throw anything into it and Hunk’s heart would just swallow it all up.

“My turn!” Lance said, pounding on the table excitedly, making their glasses sway.

The owner smiled, across him. Pidge and Shiro scooted their chairs a bit to the side so she could move in and reach across for his palm. "Open," she commanded, showing him how; Lance imitated the gesture—palm up, flat against the table, thumb crooked inwards.

“So, which part of the giant human are you?” She drew several ciphers on his palm and grinned, baring her missing her front teeth; Lance felt strangely endeared.

“Oh, I’m the leg, I pilot the Blue Lion,” he answered, then turned to Keith next to him with a devilish grin. “Only the best, of course."

“There are only two legs, Lance.” That was Hunk.

“Uh, yeah, and I’m the best?" he said, and then, “What?” when Keith rolled his eyes, but kept his palm on Lance's knee. It was vaguely distracting.

"Don't mind what he says," Shiro said.

The owner with the frizzy hair hummed, and Lance felt a tingle go through his stomach, then cloud in his chest, like he'd just slipped into a warm, warm bath. "Interesting," she said, and hummed again. The feeling trickled down to his elbow and then to the center of his palm, where they scratched a final symbol and traced a line to his forefinger. Lance squinted, peering to see what she saw; when he glanced at them their blind eyes were open, and looking right at him. “Interesting," she repeated.

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“You boy are a builder. But your heart has scratches,” she said, eyes unblinking and steady on him as their hand drew more lines into his palm. “Many, many scratches. Like a house well-loved. You have opened the doors many times, even when you know it will only bring destruction. But you still open them, and let many in."

"Sounds like Lance," Pidge snickered.

"Hey!" he cried. Then he turned to the owner skeptically. "So, builder, huh? I don't know about that... Hunk's more of the engineer if we're really talking—"

She continued, like he hadn't even spoken, "There are many people in your house. They are making many scratches, all over the old ones. Oh, they are making such a mess," and then she laughed, as if this knowledge was particularly pleasing. She swept their eyes across the table. "There is new occupant, making the most mess—it was a great effort for you to let them in. Quite a strange fit, too. But it works. Your house has never been bigger.”

“A new—” Lance began, not following. And then, the realization: “Oh,” he said again, grinning toothily at Keith. “I wonder who it is.”

Keith's eyes narrowed, betraying the small smile on his lips. “Gee," he drawled, "me too.”

Pidge was making some very convincing gagging sounds. Hunk blanched behind his untouched drink.

"It begins," he said, horrified.

“I take it back," Pidge said. "Please, please go back to being oblivious idiots again. I will pay in money."

"Did you hear that? My heart's a house, bitch." Lance swaggered all over his friends, and Shiro shoved at him, as Keith snickered. "Sorry, it's just—force of habit, asshole cousins, y'know—yeah, yeah, I won't say it again."

The tavern owner's hand stilled on his palm. Their eyes grew sad, as they reached up and patted his ear. “I hope you fill those missing rooms soon.”

Lance's mouth grew dry. Then, he smiled back. “Thank you. I hope so too, ma'am.”

He felt Keith squeeze his thigh, and Lance offered his grin to him, too.

He was thankful when a pair of aliens passed by their table to gratuitously offer their thanks; they smiled back, raised their glasses, and seemed increasingly vocal when Shiro shook their hand. It wasn't long before each table in the place were imitating their gesture, raising their glasses in their direction and chanting Voltron's name. Lance lapped it all up, even when Shiro eyed him disapprovingly in the corner of his eye. As they settled down, a man by the entrance caught Lance’s attention; the tattoo—that was what he was drawn to first, crawling all over the entire left side of his face. He was sitting alone, his eyes down; his glass was untouched on the table. Then they sat down and Keith's thigh pressed against his and he forgot about it, right after.

“Keith's turn!" Hunk urged, pounding the table. "Keith next, Keith next!”

Keith rolled his eyes when Pidge and Lance joined him. "Fine," he grumbled, and stuck out his hand.

"Oh, this gon' be good." Lance grinned. "Can’t wait to see how much of your heart is just full of this McClain.” He turned to the owner as he slung an arm around him. “This guy right here pilots the Big Red. Also my guy, my moon and my stars. Also the right arm of Voltron. He’s quite the handful, if I do say so myself.”

Lance waggled his brows, as Pidge groaned. Keith's cheek twitched, but he managed to keep his smile polite.

“I apologize for him,” Keith said, but didn't shake Lance off. She laughed, baring their wonderful teeth, or lack thereof. Then she obliged him and reached for his extended palm, and began tracing the same lines she made on Lance's hand. Her eyes dropped close, as she hummed happily, and then, suddenly—she was screaming, again and again, the sounds ripped from their throat, and she flung Keith's hand away like it burned her. The sound of it fractured the peace of the tavern, and now the place had gone quiet, each head to them. Lance slid out from his seat in a panic, as did the others; she had collapsed on the floor, eyes wide but unseeing. Keith stumbled back, stunned.

“They found me,” she was mumbling; someone was rushing to them, a friend, trying to steady her, but her face was staring right at Keith, their hands covering her face. “They’re here! They found me! They found me, oh, please. Oh, please, please—”

The rest of them were like Keith, all shocked into wordlessness. Except for Shiro, who recovered quickly. “Ma’am—” he began.

“Please,” said the friend who'd knelt beside her; her eyes were pained and haunted. “Please leave. I’m sorry, my mother. She—in the war—”

“I understand,” Shiro said, nodding instantly. “We’ll leave immediately.”

Keith was working his mouth open. “I’m—”

Lance reached for his wrist and squeezed, sliding down to grab his hand. “Shit, Keith,” he was whispering."Shiro's right, we gotta...."

For a moment Keith was rooted to the spot, rendered speechless and silent. Then, he bowed deeply, and let himself be dragged out. As they moved to leave, passing the tables and staring passers-by, the tattooed man Lance had seen was still there, one eye on Keith. Lance pulled them out faster.

Outside, Shiro led them to a shadowed corridor behind the tavern. Distantly, the music of the celebration rumbled. Keith's hand was shaking in Lance's own.

Hunk, who was the last to follow them out, saw and knew, immediately. “Hey, uh, me and Pidge’ll go ahead and find Allura and Coran, alright?” He patted Keith gently on the shoulder. “Hey, Keith? You’re good. We’ll wait for you there okay?” And then they turned to leave, Pidge reaching out to touch his elbow once. She shared a worried look with Shiro, then Lance, then reluctantly trailed out after Hunk.

It was just the three of them now; Keith was still trembling.

“Hey,” Shiro prompted. “Hey, Hunk was right. You’re okay. You didn't do anything. It’s not your fault, Keith. The Galra have destroyed too many homes. Trauma like that isn’t—"

Keith was nodding; they'd seen them do it, after all, but Lance didn’t like the way he looked: cornered and eyes blown, shoulders hunched. Lance felt scared, and angry, so angry for these people, who didn’t deserve it. He remembered the tavern owner, with the goofy smile and the missing teeth. Lance felt sick.

Shiro leveled Keith with a smile. “We’ll fix it. No matter what it takes. We’ll fix it. Won’t we, Lance?”

Lance slung an arm around Keith, brash and smiling. "Fuck yeah we will."

Keith shifted under his arm, melting. "Yeah. I know."

“Hey, you know what’ll make you feel better?” and Lance went on before Keith could suggest something illegal, like blowing things up (again), "sparring."

Keith's expression was patronizingly fond. "I always take you down after the second round.”

“You take that back,” Lance gasped. “Or I’m filing for divorce!”

“Lance,” Keith said, voice low and eyes wide and ears suddenly filling with color. “We aren’t even married.”

“Well, obviously, but you gotta admit we also kind of are—”

“Sorry, but no one’s coming back to the ship ‘til the party’s over,” Shiro said, crossing his arms at them both. “I know it’s asking a lot, especially right after a battle, but these people need us. They’ve been under Galran rule for so long, they need assurance that this all isn't a dream. You understand."

"Yeah, yeah," Keith said, groaning.

“Later,” Lance promised, and offered his hand. Keith took it.

It was a small village, so when they finally came over, which did not take too long, the tables were already set, and everyone who had a house nearby were gathered, eating, dancing, painting each other’s left palms with different hues as a sign of belonging. Allura waved a red palm at them as they approached their table. Pidge was smiling, getting her hand painted by a small crowd of children gathered around her. Hunk was with Coran, inspecting the architecture.

“We’d just finished pitching plans on how we can redirect the river to this area," Allura said in greeting. "Since the farm was destroyed, it's only natural we help them fix it."

“Good idea, princess,” Shiro said. Lance scoffed; every idea was a good idea for Shiro, as long as the princess was behind it.

“How as the party?” she asked.

"It was..." his face did something complicated that Allura understood, immediately; Keith did, too, and scowled, sitting himself down on one of the wooden benches. "It was something."

"I see," was all Allura said, eyeing each of them, but dropped it right after. The three of them relaxed, simultaneously.

“I’ll stay here,” Keith said, when Lance tried to pull him on his feet because Hunk wanted to explore the rest of the village. Their trees had edible leaves! Sap was an alcoholic drink!

“What?” Lance looked taken back. "No, Keith, we talked about this! No party pooping and being generally antisocial during post-victory parties, remember?"

"Lance," Keith warned, his patience fraying. "Just go, okay? I'm tired."

Lance recognized the tone and let Keith's hand flop back to his lap. He leaned it, watching the side of Keith's face closely. "Will you be okay?"

Keith gave him a look.

"Right, of course," Lance scoffed, and bumped Keith's shoulder, just because. "Nearly forgot. I'm talking to the Ultimate Edgelord Sandfucker. Well, babe, better not cry when you start to miss me. Hasta la later."

When they came back, Lance had sampled the leaves and the sap and had his left palm painted a bright blue. It was funny, how they went about the tradition; you were supposed to go around slapping people’s painted hands, mixing your colors; and the darker your hand was, the more people it meant you knew. Needless to say it was fun, high-fiving total strangers.

When he found his way back to the table alone, he was mildly surprised to find Keith striking up a conversation with someone seated next to him. He had a smile on, and he looked relaxed as he listened to his companion talk, a total stranger—more importantly, said stranger was the same guy from the pub, the side of his face weathered with markings.

“Heeeey,” Lance said, interrupting.

They both paused. Keith turned, and when the man saw Lance standing there, he smiled, too. That was strange; it was Hunk's kind of smile: open, warm, friendly.

“Another paladin of Voltron, well I'll be damned. That's twice today,” the man said, and rose out of his chair. Lance stared at the hand shoved under his nose. “Please, tell me I’m doing this right?”

The stranger sounded pleasantly enough; Lance pushed the doubt back an inch and took the hand. "Firm," Lance noted, shaking. "Dry and strong. I like your technique, man."

Keith snorted. “This is—”

“Chaban," the stranger grinned, easy and human.

“Oh, hey there, Chaban,” he said. “I’m—”

“Lance,” Chaban said, and jerked his chin at Keith. “I've heard much of you.”

“Oh?” Lance said, taking his hand back and grinned crookedly at Keith, who sighed. “You a native here as well?"

“Oh, no, me? Nah, I’m just a traveler."

Lance rubbed his chin. "Oh. So where d'you come home to then?"

"Lance," Keith said disapprovingly.

Chaban smiled assuringly, shaking his head. "Ya, it's alright. My family perished in the war, so I'm an orphan, just like how Keith here is. Now I'm a just a humble mechanic, slash inventor," he said. “I often stop by this planet; it’s almost like a second home."

"Uh, damn, man." Lance scratched his head, tossing a sheepish look at Keith. "I'm really sorry about what happened to your family. That really blows."

"Well," Chaban said, "When you're a wanderer like me, ya just gotta keep going. There are plenty of places to find for yourself among the stars. Endless. Even in a time plagued by war.”

"Hey, y'know, it won't be too long before this'll all be over," Lance assured. "We're just glad to be of service. "One planet at a time, right?"

Chaban was still smiling amiably, but there was something off about it. “Oh, of course. It is great to have another ally like Voltron on our side, although unnecessary I admit. We are grateful nonetheless."

"Uh," Lance said, trying not to frown. "What do you mean? Unnecessary?"

Chaban rubbed sheepishly at his neck; up close the tattoo on the left side to his face looked liked it masked a scar. "Ya, well, after a ten thousand year rule under the Galra, there are bound to be others like ya. I’m pretty sure the universe didn’t just sit and wait like ducks for a savior right?” he laughed, then added, “Please tell me I'm using that phrase correctly."

Lance shared a look with Keith; this guy's met some humans before. But it was strange, because he wasn't hiding it, or didn't seem to.

"Perfectly," Lance decided, and smiled too late.

Keith looked between them. Chaban clapped his back.

“Great to hear, man. Listen, I have to go. Was nice meeting ya; it was delightful,” and then he glanced back at Keith and smiled. "See ya around, Keith. Won't be too long, right?"

When he was out of sight, Lance rounded on him.

"What an ass! What were you doing talking someone like that?"

Keith leaned his hand on his hip. "We were actually having a good conversation. Until you came."

“No, no; did you not hear a word of what he said? He hates us! He totally hates Voltron!"

"Oh, don't be dramatic, Lance."

"I've seen that look, Keith! I've seen cadets who think they're hot shit look down on me with that look! Don't tell me I'm being dramatic!"

Keith's eyes grew soft. "But you heard the guy. His family's gone. People just...grow jaded in war."

“Wow,” Lance whistled; Keith knew right where to hit him. “I cannot believe you just used the family card on me. Look at you! You're just—defending him left and right. Over your boyfriend!" He whipped his head at the people who'd passed them, watching them argue back and forth. "Yeah, that's right, this guy chose some stranger over me! His boy—"

Keith clamped a hand over his mouth, dragging him away. "Fucking hell, Lance."

"You're into him, aren't you?"

"Don't be an idiot."

Lance made mournful sounds. "You didn't deny it; it's true! I can't believe it. What did he even say to get you so smitten over a douche like him?"

Keith rolled his eyes, then smiled, voice dripping with sarcasm: “He said I had a cool knife.”

But There Are Chinks in the Ceiling, Part Two

Lance brought his sword up, feeling Keith shift mid-swipe for a blow carving fast and heavy from above. There was a twin clang as their edges scraped, a high metallic, agonizing sound; Lance cringed, and knew right then it was over. One moment Keith's smirking face was inches from his nose, and then in the next, it had disappeared. As soon as Lance blinked Keith was coming out of a crouch below with dizzying speed and sweeping Lance's legs off balance. That was where Lance found himself again, on the floor with his own breath displaced, cursing every saint and god he knew for Keith's existence.

“Cheater,” Lance griped, as the other paladin’s shadow eclipsed him; Keith grinned down at him, sharp and pleased. God, Keith did like his swords; they made him happy and reckless and fierce and tugged all the foolish smiles from his mouth. Lance groaned; he was whipped, he was so whipped.

“I never cheat,” Keith said into his mouth, looking mock-offended; he flung his sword to the side carelessly. “I only win. And I did. Again.”

"Rematch!" Lance demanded. Lance liked to fight his battles from a distance, but he'd be damned if he'd ever admit defeat. He banged the floor beneath him. "I demand a rematch!"

"Nah, I'm good." Keith pulled himself back to settle his weight on Lance's hipbones. He quirked a smile down at him. "I like you better like this."

“That’s really—” Lance began, as Keith rushed in to kiss the words from his mouth. “Gay,” he continued, murmured soft against his lips.

Keith chuckled against his mouth. "You're always so surprised," he said, and moved in to kiss him again, this one quick and chaste.

Lance pulled back and groaned, let his head thump back against the floor. “You suck, Keith. I hate you and your face.” He scrunched his nose, then bucked up to get Keith off his waist. “Ew, you reek! And like, that’s even more than usual. When was the last time you took a shower?” and then, Lance stopped him. “Actually, yup, don’t answer that. That's real mature, Keith. And by that I mean, really unhygienic and gross. What have I done to deserve you?”

Keith rolled off him, suddenly. He brought his eyes to the ceiling as his limbs sprawled.

"I lied," Keith said.

Lance cocked his head. “What?”

“That wasn't all he talked about."

“Dude, uh, a little context please? I have no idea what you're saying,” he said, and then Keith was sitting up, crossing his legs, then rifling through his pocket. Lance watched him as he pulled out a small silver stick, the size of a thumb. Slowly, Keith looked at him.

“He gave me this. Chaban. Back at the party.”

“What is it?” Lance frowned, feeling something ugly grow in his gut.

“It’s—” and Keith’s face warred with hesitation, before deciding. “He said it was a tracking beacon.”

Lance shot upright. “Dude!” he cried, making a grab for it.

Keith brought it out of reach. “He said, if I—if Voltron’s in any kind of trouble,” and Lance’s eyes zeroed into that stutter, “I just have to press this button.”

“Why, whoop de do, what a great idea!” Lance seethed. “And then what? What’ll he do? Huh? Bust in with an army of his own or something?”

“I don’t know, Lance!” Keith gritted out. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you!"

"Keith, Keith." Lance was almost speechless with the incredulity of it. "How blind can you get? How can you not see how sketchy this is? Strange alien guy hits on you, offers you a completely unsolicited—"

“He wasn't hitting—"

“—ng beacon, and you just accept it? That is not a thing you're supposed to do, Keith! For all we know, he’s part of some underground freedom fighter thing!"

“Congrats, Lance! You got it!"

Lance paused. "What?"

"That’s exactly it. You hit the jackpot." Keith rolled his eyes. "That’s because he is.”

“He told you that?”

"It was implied.”

Lance made confused faces at him.

“It makes sense," Keith continued, bringing it out of reach again as Lance made another grab for it. "Maybe he can't tell us outright. Maybe he’s trying to keep it secret. And considering how Zarkon has too many ears trained on us, it makes sense. Don't you see? This could be his way of offering us help—”

“He must really, really like you.”

Keith shoved his shoulder. “Did you not hear anything of what I just said?"

“Oh, I've heard enough,” Lance huffed. “Do you like him? Were you interested?”

“No!”

“Does he actually hate Voltron?”

“He just—disagrees with our methods, I guess. Listen—”

“Is he tracking us right now?”

“No! You still have to activate—don’t you know how—look, Lance, I don’t know this guy, I just met him. Okay? But he gave us this—this thing—which means he’s on the same side  as us in this war. I’m keeping this, because it's dumb to reject allies. Don’t be a baby.”

“Oh yeah? Fine, but we’re telling Allura.”

“Fine.”

“Fine,” he parroted. Keith frowned down at him.

“You’re so dumb,” he decided. “What's got you so bothered?"

“Psh, me? Bothered? I ain't bothered,” Lance insisted. And then, in answer, closed the scant distance between their mouths, just because, and Keith melted right into him; they haven’t touched like this in weeks, and the need to feel Keith's skin had thrashed wildly inside of him until it melted now, too, into this lulling warmth. Lance would have liked to keep kissing him like this, but there were things to do, planets to save, and the universe couldn’t wait for them. He wondered, too, if there were other things Keith was hiding. They brought the beacon to Allura's attention only for her to remark the ordinariness of it—standard tracking beacon the armies used to communicate with other battalions, back when most universe was still intact and fighting. Keith promised not to mess with it, but he held on to it, kept it somewhere in his Lion. Things between them grew strange after that; one day after a particularly long battle where Lance was nearly torn to shreds after a reckless dive, Keith had refused to open his video link all the way back. Lance knew he was upset, but the kind of carelessness he displayed wasn't out of the ordinary and couldn't compare to Keith's own, anyway. Still, he couldn't get him to look at him even after they'd left the hangars. Lance had slept by himself, but sometime during the night Keith had crawled in his bed and pressed himself against Lance’s back, only to pull back when Lance stirred. Keith had shook his head and smiled softly, when Lance asked what was wrong. Everything seemed to be wrong lately, and not just with the war but also with Keith, with how he touched him less and less and scurried off into his room after particularly rough battles, dodging Lance's touch, and later, when Keith disappeared—

But There Are Chinks in the Ceiling, Part Three

When Keith disappeared—

But There Are Chinks in the Ceiling, Part Four

“Please talk to us,” Allura said. "If there's anything—anything at all."

Lance was on the porch, he was in the belly of the castle, he was standing in a house, listening to the patter of water that dripped from the ceiling; he was dangling down the mouth of a cave, with Keith’s hand tethering him to life; he was airborne, four minds melding against his own, he was under the covers, the shape of Keith’s body curved against his, he was alone—he was—

“Please. Lance,” Hunk said, weakly.

He was limping and bleeding, a speck on the battlefield watching the Galrans emerge like shadows from every crack in the ground; his hands were steady on the rifle: pull aim, fire fire fire—each shot flying true, each target going down, only for another one to take its place. His one eye tracked Keith’s body flitting towards the chaos, noticed the way he grew more and more rigid each second, like he was turning to ice, and suddenly he was pushed far away to the edges of his vision. Lance could see the entire breadth of the field, could see Keith knocking down two more, motions lagging, could see the soldier on the other end of the field raising his own rifle, could see Hunk barreling out of nowhere to push Keith out of the way while Lance lifted his own rifle—blam, right between the eyes. The threat was gone, but the soldier's shot had rang out, and Hunk was going down and Keith was sent tumbling across the grass like a doll from the force of his shove, his helmet skidding off; Lance ran out of his cover with his heart in his mouth, but then Hunk was pushing to his feet and diving right into fray again, he was okay, thank the stars, he was okay—but Keith was still on the floor, his face in his hands.

“Any event you can pinpoint that might have pushed him to this? Anything you might recall?”

Remembered: collapsing on the ground next to him, hands going everywhere; Lance, Keith said, grabbing Lance’s wrist before it moved to touch his face—half of it was drawn and pale and twisted in fear, and the other half—the other half—

"There must be something. I'm sure you'd have noticed."

Keith's name was brittle thing in his throat, and Lance didn't understand until he did: as the face he knew cowered from him and the eyes he'd thought he'd known stared right back, wide and pupil-less, but Lance knew that touch on his wrist, would know it in the dark—

“Did...did he tell you anything?”

And, the end: Shiro booming his name behind him in wild panic, rushing in and slicing a hand through the air between them, the edge catching Keith's cheek, as Shiro grabbed Lance and pulled him behind his shadow. Remembered: Hunk opening fire, a canon beam bursting through the air and disintegrating the space where Keith just stood and—a breathless second of his eyes widening, then the terrible, terrible expression hatching on his face, and it was like something essential cracked in him. Lance barely able to shout for him to stop, stop, pulling Shiro back as he yelled, Shiro, enough, it's—he's—but it was too late; Keith was turning tail and running and running and running, disappearing off the edge of the field—only to emerge in his Lion and pulling straight ahead, where they couldn't catch him, as he weaved past asteroids and alien moons; keith kogane was the best pilot of his generation—and they chased him for too long until—a glittering ripple in the air, like a black hole, and then the sky was tearing itself open, bending the light around it, and Keith, pulling right ahead into it—

“Did you know?”

No; Lance didn’t know anything, he was a fool, for thinking things would go as smoothly for someone like him. What did he know? He was just a boy from earth; some nameless cargo pilot, forced to be hero.

“We’ll find him,” Allura said, finally; Lance was one foot in the conversation and one foot out. “We will. We'll find him, and we'll make things right.”

Lance looked up and smiled at her wearily.

But There Are Chinks in the Ceiling, Part Five

Keith was dramatic like that, kissing him and disappearing.

Months after he'd left, there were whispers, rumors of civilizations turning the tide and regaining what they've lost. Ripplings of a rebellion that had been growing in secret, overthrowing Galran rule from the inside. All the while keeping secret, leaving no trace.

The strategy, when Allura broke it down, was simple: break the empire from the inside, moving under the all-encompassing shadow of Voltron. Get them chasing the wrong tail, get them going in circles, while you dismantle things from the inside.

When the Red Lion returned to them one day and Keith wasn't in it, Lance decided that Keith officially had the worst sense of humor, ever. Hands down. They found Red on auto-pilot swooping around the castle's spire like a lost cat; inside the cockpit gleamed like it had been cleaned, the dirty stashes Lance had known hidden in the cracks picked out.

Find someone else, it seemed to say. Lance laughed and laughed and laughed. And Keith called him the drama queen.

Then, when he grew tired, he sat on the pilot's seat and stayed, long after everyone else left. He closed his eyes, tried to find the scent of him, a trace that Keith was here at all; he didn't find it.

But There Are Chinks in the Ceiling, Part Six

Out of all of them, Shiro was faring the worst. They could still from Voltron, after Allura seamlessly took the helm of the Red Lion. But the dreams came and went and the shroud around Shiro grew colder and thicker still. The stars on the main deck were abundant, and that was where Lance found him, staring out at all of them he couldn't name. Lance knew he couldn't sleep; sleep was a sly little thing that evaded them for weeks.

“Did you see his face?” Shiro said, without turning. “I knew it was him—there's a part of me that always remembered him. Even after Haggar and—what they did. But my body—you saw, didn't you? I hurt him. I did."

"You didn't know," Lance said, tiptoeing around the name. "No one did."

Shiro was shaking his head. "I'm supposed to. I'm the leader, I can't afford to—" he shuddered. "My body isn't mine. Not anymore. If I see him again, I'm... terrified of what'll happen.”

Seeing Shiro break felt like the final splintering of Lance's foundations. Now, he was small and every inch he was the gangly boy from Earth, and god, he wanted Keith here. He wanted Keith here and safe and and he wanted everything to come back to the way it was. Not this ruin. Not everything he knew in shambles.

“Leave me, Lance,” Shiro said, and Lance obliged.

Try Doing Something Scary Every Day, Part One

The weeks proceeding crawled over each other, until Lance learned to see space as what it was—a groundless stretch of nothingness, where people perished, where they were tethered by nothing but the ships they'd foolishly believed would last them. They had infiltrated another nearby Galran battleship and were fighting like clockwork, freeing prisoners of war left and right. Lance couldn't stop moving on his feet; in this cramped prison space there was no place for him to look for cover from a distance, so he was forced to rely on  close combat skills, swiveling out of hits and blocking punches with his rifle. He and Hunk bracketed Pidge on either side, who was crouched on the floor with her laptop as she grabbed as much information as she could on the rounds Galra ships made through the galaxies; she worked fast and silent, with the knowledge that her family wasn’t among the lucky ones, again. Shiro and Allura were in the south end, herding prisoners into their ship.

The commander of this ship had been tall and looming and elegant; Lance watched him now, hacking blood on the floor with his robes dirtied, and wondered when he'd grown used to the sight. He couldn't remember his name; didn't bother too. They were all passing by too quickly—all dying, dead.

The commander spat at Lance's feet, then looked up with the blood bright over his jagged teeth. “You are too painfully naive, I almost want to save you from it." He fought another cough, hands smoothing back his darkening fur as he pulled himself to a sitting position; Hunk and Lance knew he was gone, already, but they stood, weapons at the ready. “Look at you; fighting like you can win. As if you aren't the only ones left fighting against us in this war. You will reach your time soon."

There was an intended cruelty to it that made his breath catch.

“Says the guys who've been breaking apart from the inside,” Lance growled. “How does it feel to be betrayed by your own kind? Even Galrans like yourself know how fucking shitty you are."

Behind him, Pidge called out, “Keep him talking, guys, this might take awhile."

Lance's frown deepened; the commander's shoulders were shaking, until dark laughter tumbled out of his mouth. "Your ignorance astounds me. Truly, truly."

"What are you talking about?" Hunk said.

"You honestly do not know?"

Lance pointed the butt of his rifle between his eyes. "Spill."

The commander licked his bloodied lips. He smiled. “The rebellion has lost. Emperor Zarkon has cleansed the ranks of the filth that has seeped among us unnoticed. My dear contemporary Sendak has led the discovery of the rebellion's hideaways and rounded up the rest of them—their dishonorable lot, soiling the purity of Galran blood by—"

His head snapped back, and Lance realized, belatedly, that he’d swung his rifle across the commander's head. His fingers loosened around his rifle; he was breathing hard, trembling at the fingertips. “Where are they,” Lance managed.

The commander inspected his nose. "Does it matter? They are going to die. Emperor Zarkon has weeded—"

“Keith,” Lance said hoarsely, dropping to his knees and grabbing a fistful of his charred coat. “Where’s Keith?”

He smiled. “I’m afraid I do not know what you’re—"

"Don't you give me that—"

Hunk held Lance back, as the commander doubled over and bled what little of his life was left on the cold floor of the ship. Pidge had stopped typing to watch the scenario with sad eyes. Lance knew it was part of their code to attack only when necessary, and to let nature run its course; but the need to destroy made itself known in him like vines growing through him, wrapping around his throat, choking—

“Tell me! Tell me you—"

"Just wait a second, Lance, he's—"

The commander had gone still; he'd died with a smile on his lips.

Allura's voice startled them on their comms. “Lance, Hunk, Pidge—we’ve escorted all the prisoners to the ship; are you clear?”

Lance was breathing harshly, his rifle a dead weight by his side. When Hunk felt him slacken, he let him slide to his feet. Slowly, Lance turned and met his gaze; Hunk knew, too. Of course he did; Hunk knew him too well. Behind them, Pidge was about to put it together.

“Hello?" Allura said urgently. "Are you alright? What’s your status, please?”

“Does this mean—" Pidge began, and Lance shot her a quieting look.

 Hunk stared hard at Lance. “We’re fine, we’re heading back,” Lance said quickly, as he brushed by them, and didn't speak a word until they got back.

Try Doing Something Scary Every Day, Part Two

“You shouldn’t be awake,” Hunk said, and Lance was so surprised he jumped nearly twice his height.

“Holy quiznak," Lance gasped, steadying his chest. “What the absolute hell, Hunk?” he cried, because Hunk was in his armor, too, like he knew it was Lance's plan to sneak out when everyone else was asleep and—fuck.

Hunk was crossing his arms, almost intimating as he filled out the hallway. "Damn it, man! I knew you were up to something! I should’ve told Allura right away."

Lance leapt and put a hand over Hunk's mouth. "No, no, bad idea. We are definitely not telling Allura, and you are definitely not going to walk back to her room right now and—"

Hunk was walking back to Allura's bedroom. Lance grabbed him by the arm and dug his feet in.

"Hunk, no! Stop it! You're interfering!"

Hunk did stop, but now he turned on his heel and glared righteously at him. "Do you have any idea of what you're trying to get yourself into?"

“Yeah, and you can’t stop me." Lance met his gaze stubbornly. "I’m going. I have a plan."

Hunk snorted. “Yeah, sure, just fly right in Sendak's warship by yourself and try not get killed. Sure, Lance. Oh, and just in case you didn't get that, I mean that it's a horrible, horrible idea—"”

“Hunk,” Lance said, his voice wavering. “Please. Please, please, please. I'm begging you here, man. I need to—I gotta—”

Hunk looked pained. “Fine,” he decided after a moment, and his face twisted with it. He squared his shoulders. “But I’m coming with you.”

“What?" Lance said. "No, no nonono. You definitely not, what the heck? It’s too risky. Also, the more Lions we bring, the bigger our chances of—oh, I don't know, just thinking out loud here—getting them captured. Ring a bell, Hunk?"

“Look, I'm coming with you to your suicide mission, deal with it," he said. "You always used to pull this shit back at the Garrison; always leaving me behind to clean up your messes. You’re so selfish, Lance. Don't you think about the people who worry for you?”

Lance groaned, pressing his palms into his eyes. "Why do you have to make it so complicated Hunk? It's my fault! This is my mess, okay? So I'm fixing it. I don't want other people getting caught in the crossfire."

"Dude, what the hell are you talking about? It's no one's fault, okay? So maybe, like... stop? No one has to get hurt. No one has to sneak off into enemy battleships to retrieve their runaway boyfriends. There are other ways to go about this. Hey—are you listening? Look, if we go and tell Shiro now, maybe—"

"That's a worse idea than telling Allura, dude. You know what'll happen when we tell Shiro... you can imagine it, right?," he said, and was satisfied with the blanched expression on Hunk's face. "Okay, fine, big guy. Here's the deal. I'm not gonna go all out and try to beat a whole armada for kicks or try my hand at freeing some prisoners—I just—I want to talk to him. You know? Now that we finally have a clue to where he could be... I can't walk away from this, Hunk. I just gotta hear what he has to say."

“Sure, Lance, just go talk to the guy who left the six friends he's been with for nearly two years for a super secret freedom fighter club when he found out he was part Galra because of some guilt issues and who never bothered to make contact with us ever since. Gee, why didn't we think about doing that months ago? I wonder!"

"It's gonna be different this time, okay?" Lance said, annoyed. "I'm wasting time—Hunk, I’m going, you’re not telling Shiro or Allura, and that’s that.”

"I say fine, but I'm going too, and that's that."

“No, you’re not!”

“Yes,” Hunk stepped closer, using his full height, “yes, I am.”

“UGH!” Lance said, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Fine!”

Pidge chose that moment to step into the corridor.

“I predicted this would happen,” she said in explanation, tapping away at her tablet. She too, like Hunk, was in her suit.

Lance glanced between them. Finally, he turned his eyes to her gravely. “No. Pidge, no.”

“Pidge, yes," she grinned, and, when Lance was about to open his mouth, continued, sliding her tablet into a hidden pocket, “It’s a stealth mission. You need me. It’s common sense.”

Hunk was wholeheartedly nodding.

“Besides,” she added. “for that stunt, I reserve the right to personally punch Keith in fucking face.”

“Fine!” Lance said; he was thinking of it, too. “But we’re riding in Blue!” he started down the hall, turned back. "And no one's punching my boyfriend but me, you hear?"

Try Doing Something Scary Every Day, Part Three

When Sendak's ship showed up bleeping on the dashboard, it was closer than they’d imagined it to be. Blue swept in fast, cloaked in the dark glimmer of space itself that Pidge installed in her, too.

“Where are the other ships?” Pidge asked, peering out that the sheer vastness of the ship, and the strange lack of anything around it. Lance watched it hover like a sleeping beast, lone and quiet.

“Uh, am I the only getting the warning signs? This is obviously a trap.” Hunk visibly tried not to tear at his hair. “This is clearly, obviously a—"

“C’mon guys. We’re already here! If Keith’s captured—” Lance pushed through the knot in his throat. “Then he'd want to be found. Don’t you want to kick his dramatic mullet-loving ass for leaving?”

They were silent, until Hunk hummed.

“OK, just for the record: I still think this is incredibly reckless, but,” Hunk touched Lance's shoulder. “Part-Galra or not, he’s the Red paladin. He’s our friend. I honestly couldn't care less about the rest.”

“Dude, I was trying to keep it chill, why'd you have to ruin it?” Lance said. "Don’t cry.”

It was too late. “I just miss him, alright?" Hunk gasped through the tears. "Gago pare, ang sakit.”

“Oh, for—”

Then Pidge touched his arm with a soft, knowing smile; Lance was trembling, he realized, his hands on the controls, his cheek, his lips—he was so close, Keith was—

“Me too,” she said simply, and touched Hunk's arm as well. Then her gaze sharpened. “We’re approaching the west airlock.”

Lance pulled Blue into a slow descent, pulling her into a backwards roll so she landed on the ship's underbelly. His stomach was tight with anticipation, but there was no warning signal, no proof to show that they were seen. There was a small jolt as her giant feet connected.

“Okay,” he said, commanding Blue to open the hatch. “Plan's the same. I’ll come and check it out first, then you guys guard my tail and follow me when I give the clear.”

“Yeah, about that—I highly suggest Pidge to go in first, you know, what with your tendency to be, well," Hunk shrugged, "the way you are. No offense.”

“No, I’m going in first,” Lance asserted, already sliding out of his seat and summoning his bayard. He strode purposefully past him, with Pidge trailing behind, where Blue was leading the way out.

“I don’t see the point of this,” Hunk pointed out.

“Fine,” Pidge said behind him, as they stepped out and kicked their way directly to the surface of the ship, "it's your boyfriend." She summoned her bayard, sliced a clean circle on the belly. “Please don't die right away," she said as Lance moved in, feet first. "It's barely been a minute."

"Hardy har har," Lance said, then hopped all the way in, and she slipped out of sight. He emerged into a dimly lit hallway, his boosters aiding him as he landed with soft feet. He knew exactly where he was; each Galra warship had the same structure, and he'd long memorized it from the countless times they spent infiltrating them.

He walked in a circle; it was clear.

“Visual?” Pidge’s voice crackled on their comms.

Lance summoned his bayard and began walking down the corridor, sticking to the shadows. He felt for Blue, felt her receptive purr against the back of his head, and breathed out.

“Hey, Lance? You there?”

“Sorry guys,” he said. There were surprised cries that rang in his comms as Blue swiped them both back into her mouth from outside. There was a distant rumble of Blue revving up, and then a blue streak past the hole Pidge had carved, then a loud exhale of the engine burning.

“LANCE, YOU LITTLE SHIT—"

“Putang ina! Lance, what the hell?” That was Hunk, who's scream was jarring from the earpiece. Lance flinched as Pidge joined the noise.

“Stop, stop,” Lance heard himself say, remembering to whisper, “Pidge, stop banging the dashboard, you’re hurting her. And don’t even try, you can’t hack into a living thing. I’m her pilot, so obviously you can’t—"

“Lance, don’t you dare,” Hunk said. “Don’t—"

“Don’t do this, Lance!”

“I’m sorry, okay! But I couldn't risk you guys too—"

"Are you insane?”

“Just—sit back. I put Blue on autopilot; she’s gonna take you on a nice long trip around the galaxy. There are food rations there somewhere, don't worry, I ain't a monster, I won't starve you. Jesus, Hunk, you too, stop hitting the—"

“You better stay alive, Lance,” Hunk said, and his voice had taken on a desperate edge. “And you better come back with Keith. Alive. Or else, or else—"

“Else I'm gonna kill you myself,” Pidge promised. “I’m gonna bring Shiro, and-and-and—he’ll kill you! And then Allura will be there and you'll be double dead!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Lance said. "You better be wearing your seatbelt, Pidge."

"You're such an idiot," Pidge said, but her voice was small and frightened and Lance felt sorry, almost. He stopped by the intersection of the next corridor and pressed his back against the wall, rifle at the ready, breathing out.

"Jeez," he said, "tell me something I don't know."

“Bring him back,” Hunk said.

Lance nodded. “See ya later,” he said, smiling. Then, he severed the comm link.

Try Doing Something Scary Every Day, Part Four

Lance knew where the dungeons were, because they were all the same, all kept in the same compartment of the ship where it was darkest and hardest to get out. He cut across each cell with silent ferocity, peering through each one—here: empty. A fierce whisper: hello, anyone? Nothing, nothing. No sign of it having been occupied, like it had been that way for ages. There were no guards in sight making rounds. The quiet chill crept across the floor.

Could this have been a trap? Well, now that Lance was here and seeing what he was seeing, it could very well be. He consoled himself with the thought that at least he was prepared for this to happen; Pidge and Hunk would be safe, and they knew about Keith, too. If he didn't make it out of this—

Keith. If he wasn't here, where else could he have been kept? He racked his head for a name of the other commanders who ruled in any of the neighboring galaxies; they were dead, or MIA, or undetected as of late, as much as Lance knew. There were four cells left—Lance pressed his nose against the slit of a window and saw an empty room stare back at him. He cursed, pushed away towards the next one; nothing. Last three. His breath fogged the glass. Nothing. Last two. Nothing; he banged futilely on the door. Last one, please, let him—

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

He was prepared for a trap, but what he wasn't prepared for was this: the searing grief and desperation, clawing eagerly into him.

He pressed himself flat against the wall of that last cell, breathing deep to gather the frayed ends of his will: gather a hard ball of air in your gut, slow and steady, just like Shiro taught him how. Then, he darted into the next corridor, which opened into the main deck, vast windows gazing out into the endless cloak of space. And, standing in the corner, face turned to the stars—was Keith.

He'd recognize that mullet anywhere.

Keith turned; Lance was falling.

The sheer vastness of the deck seemed to swallow his form. Starlight cut harsh lines into his Galran armor, as he stood regal and kept and looking like no way he’d been taken prisoner. Still, his presence was a pull he could not resist, and as Lance wordlessly treaded the distance between them, he couldn't look away. And, oh, his face—his face—

“Lance?” Keith was frozen, all the way through; he looked like he was falling, too. “You’re—why are you here? How—"

Lance's steps echoed loudly as he crossed the last few feet, and then he saw his own fist fly through the air and connect solidly against Keith's jaw. Keith’s face snapped to the side, and Lance's knuckles throbbed; it felt like punching stone, and when Keith whipped his head back to stare dazedly back like it was nothing, Lance was pulling him in, touching him for the first time in months and Lance felt something in his chest snap. Keith was a different shape in his arms, solid and bigger and strange, but he was here, he was here.

“—ing idiot,” Lance croaked into his neck, and then he shoved Keith back, brimming with the anger he thought he'd long forgotten. “You fucking idiot! Of all the dumb things you've done, this is by far, the worst, Keith! And by your standards, that's really saying something!"

Keith was stared at him with waking eyes, as if he was the first thing he'd seen after a thousand-year sleep. And then: "Who else is here?"

“Just me, but wait just a goddamn minute." Lance held his palm out. “I know now why you left—okay, well, I have an idea. Three months stuck in my own head, and I think I might have a solid theory.”

“Lance," Keith hissed, grabbing his arm, and Lance flinched, but it was not because of the terrifying strength in its grip. "You can't be here. You need to get out of this ship.”

Lance shrugged his hand off and frowned. “Uh, no way, man. Aren’t you happy to see me? That's no way to treat your boyfriend who'd looked all over the galaxy for your ass. Hey, I know it was you, okay? Leading those battles in the rebellion to victory. I knew you wouldn't stop fighting,” he said, and Keith’s face flickered. He closed a palm over Keith's hand on his arm and smiled cheekily. “Don't worry, you didn't miss much. Allura’s piloting Red now, by the way—yeah, don't give me that face, it's Allura, she's probably compatible with any of the Lions, y'know? And yeah, I know you think you can’t be with us because you’re half alien and whatever bla bla bla—but guess what!" Lance grinned brightly, patting both of Keith's shoulders in his hands. "We’re over it! You can come home now!”

For a moment, something danced in Keith's eyes, but his voice kept steady. "That doesn't matter anymore, Lance. It's not just about me anymore."

"Uh, what?" Lance said, feeling wretched; he couldn't understand why Keith didn't want him. "I'm here, aren't I? I've come to take you back."

"I can't," he said, and closed his eyes at the flinch that cut across Lance's face. He continued, “You don’t get it. This is all bigger than what you think. You need to leave before—”

“Stop talking in riddles, man!” Lance moaned, looking betrayed as he danced out of Keith's grip. "What are you talking about? What's bigger?" And then his eyes widened. It's not just about me. “Keith, where’s the rest of the rebellion?”

Suddenly, Keith wasn't looking at him anymore.

Lance took a step closer. “Keith?”

“Lance, you need to leave now," he said, again, his voice hard; his yellow eyes flashed threateningly. “Right now, Voltron can’t—I don’t think we can win yet, with the way we are now."

Lance bristled. “What are you saying?"

"I've seen the things they've done—what they can do. Lance, you—this isn't a game where can just start over again. This way—this way I can save people, at least."

"What way, what're you—? Keith, what way?"

Keith's mouth formed itself around a retort, before his ear twitched up, and then his eyes were widening as they gazed openly past Lance's head. Lance turned and felt his body go cold. The last time he'd seen Sendak on his feet he was half in and half out of a coma-induced state, and he'd shot him in the back. The Galran was smiling as he emerged from the entryway, his arm prickling with sheer energy as he walked over to them. Lance's fingers seized desperately for the weight of his rifle now, but seeing Keith's expression made him freeze.

“Ah,” Sendak said, calm. He stopped and regarded them with a cool smile. He turned to Lance. “The Blue Paladin. And the others?’

Lance opened his mouth to speak, when Keith grabbed him by the back of the neck and threw him on the ground. “Say nothing.” Keith said, his voice the barest of whispers against Lance's temple, before he straightened to his feet and glowered down at him by Sendak's side, like he was nothing.

Lance blinked through the shock, but did as he was told; he understood—Sendak would never know of his friends.

“No?” Sendak cocked his head to the side, amused. “I recall you were quite the loudmouth. Just as well. I expected you to come, nonetheless."

Lance burned through the ends of his patience. “Where are the rest of them?" he yelled, and Keith's glare shot back at him hotly. "I know you’ve captured members of the rebellion! Even their families! Where are they?"

Sendak put his arms out and smiled condescendingly. "Clearly, they are not here."

Lance spluttered, then he looked to Keith; he wasn't meeting his gaze still. Then he felt his arms go weak, as the realization seeped through him. “You set us up," he thought out loud. "You... you spread out the rumor, knowing we'd come, and—and Keith—" Lance looked at him, again, desperately, and frowned; the pieces didn't quite fit yet. "You captured him. Instead," he decided.

Zarkon was grinning widely now, the curve of it baring powerful teeth. “Captured?” he looked absolutely pleased. “Nonsense. He is a guest.”

Keith stiffened.

Slowly, Lance pushed up on his arms and sat back.

"This is a waste of time," Keith ground out, voice harried. "Let's leave him."

"Oh, surely we can make time for your friend who came all the way here to see you?" Sendak crooned.

"The fuck are you talking about?" Lance exploded, finally. Pushed up on his knee, wobbled, "Guest? You took him!"

“He is here, where he belongs," Sendak simply said. He moved to Keith's side, gripped his shoulder and smiled, approving. “He's made the better choice. We are the winning team.”

Lance sought for Keith's eyes, but he kept his pinned to the side, standing stiffly.

“Emperor Zarkon is not a fool to look over such potential. He's chosen to forgive our brother here for his past mistakes. Because he's come to us so willingly, we will not touch the rest of his little rebellion. They were nothing without him, either way," he scoffed. Then, something else jumped into his smile. "It is too bad the rest of our pure-blooded brothers have refused to repent of their wrongdoings; even my contemporary, Thace. Quite shame, indeed. Don't you think so?" His hand went around Keith's shoulder, patting meaningfully. Keith was trembling, trembling. Sendak drove his eyes into Lance. "Keith is here to stay. This is where he's meant to be. After all, just look at him! It's quite obvious, isn't it?" He laughed.

Lance tried to recall everything Allura had said about the Galra; they tell lies, they know the human weakness and will not shy away from exploiting it, they tell lies, they tell lies, they—

“Liar,” Lance growled. He staggered on his feet. “You're lying." Then he was chuckling, voice high. "Keith, c'mon, tell him. That's dumb, you wouldn't—"

Keith wasn't looking at him; why wasn't Keith looking at him?

Sendak clucked. His big hand curled on Keith's nape, brushing the hair there. “This is where you belong, right?” he whispered low into his ear.

Slowly, slowly—Keith nodded.

"Say it," Sendak said.

"Yes."

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Keith!" Lance pointed at him, feeling his legs shudder.

“It's the truth. He is our most loyal brother, and he's come back home."

Lance summoned his rifle. "Shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up! Don't fucking touch him!"

Sendak breathed out, bored. "I do believe we've spent enough time here. I expected more of you, but—" suddenly, his eye gleamed. "This might do just as well. Now, brother, will you kindly eradicate this spindly little weakling in front of me."

Keith came to life then, regaining his words. "I don't think that's... necessary."

“Oh but it is." Sendak circled Keith, came to his other side. "Think of the rebellion. You promised them, remember?" And it was like he'd flicked on a switch that made Keith quake just like that. "Now, as I said," he began, walking towards the control panel opposite the windows, his steps echoing off the high ceiling. "Eradicate him. Prove your loyalty." Lance watched as he punched a button and turned with a sickle-smile. "The Emperor is watching.”

The wide screens lit up, displaying Emperor Zarkon idling on his throne, with his personal soldiers on either side.

Lance's rifle was suddenly too heavy to hold. He watched Keith's back as he struggled to breathe. And then, slowly, slowly—his chest settled. His right arm lifted, and his bayard materialized in his hand.

When he turned to face him, his sword was ready.

"Hey," Lance said weakly, "buddy."

Behind them, Sendak watched approvingly. "I wonder what the rest of Altea's poor paladins will say once they find one of them perished from their own?" Sendak wondered out loud; then, to the screen. "Behold, as our brother truly learns what it means to be Galra."

Keith approached Lance, eyes impossibly bright. He raised his sword, tip flashing.

"I’m not fighting you," Lance said, letting the other paladin close into him. He summoned his bayard, then let it clatter to the floor. He bared his palms. “Keith, c’mon, this is just—we can beat this guy together if we team up—"

"Pick up your weapon," Keith commanded.

Lance's face contorted. "No. What the hell, you're not my enemy, Keith." He kicked the bayard to the side and glared. "C'mon, man. You're family—"

Keith lunged with a shout. Lance drew back, dodged the first slice that was meant for his jugular. Keith yelled again, and Lance rolled forward. He heard the thump of the sword as it collided against the floor behind him, then he moved back, eyes wide, creating distance between them. He knew how Keith fought, and this was not how; this Keith was clumsy and loud, clearly giving away his next move. Keith turned to him and lunged again. Something glinted from the floor—his bayard. Instinctively, Lance slid and swiped it as Keith swung where his head had been. In the next heartbeat Keith was on him again, fast, faster: left, right, two quick jabs, then a kick to the knee. Keith fought ugly, but Lance knew this sequence, had memorized its rhythm from the hours spent together the training room. He could block each blow with his eyes closed.

"Keith," he gasped, as they broke apart, panting. "Don't do this. C'mon, this is dumb—"

"Fight back!" Keith hollered. Sendak watched them from behind, coolly.

Then, in a blink, Keith was on him—Lance barely registered the numbing pain in his side as Keith launched a kick, then a backhand that drove him to the floor. Keith was too fast, had always been too fast. A blur above him, and Lance summoned his rifle fast enough up to block, before grabbing Keith's ankle with his free hand and pulled him down. They rolled together, until Keith caught him from beneath and, two feet under his stomach—kicked up, vaulting him to behind Keith. His breath was punched out of him as he landed hard on the floor. His rifle bounced feebly away from him, before blinking back to its neutral form.

The world was a haze. Lance's eyes blurred with pain, and his stomach throbbed. Then, Keith was standing above him.

His bayard dropped beside his head. "Pick up," he said, "your weapon."

Lance coughed as he sat up. He rose to his feet, tonguing at the blood behind is teeth. "No," he spat.

Then, Keith grabbed him by the arm and flung him back against the wall now behind him. Lance's eyes flew wide at the impact, as he saw Sendak and the Emperor, silent spectators to this. A blade was at his throat.

"Last chance," he whispered, and Lance saw the private way his face crumpled, the first ripple behind the mask.

"Hey," Lance urged, mustering a smile frayed with desperation. "Hey. Keith. Keith. Don't do this to me."

Then Keith's face smoothed over. His eyes had emptied of all light. He pulled his sword back only to shove the tip deep into the floor. Then he punched a button beside Lance's head, and held onto the hilt.

There was a shrieking beep behind him, and then—

The whole world blew open, tugging him into its vast mouth.

Lance screamed, grabbing at edges that were creaking open. Keith held on to his sword, his hair flying wildly around his face. Lance yelled and strained for him, and then Keith's hand was reaching over and for one blissful second of disbelief Lance could think this was all a dream, and when he'd wake up Keith's constant shape would still be there, warming his side. But then Keith's hand was wrapping around his own, something cold pressing into his palm. The gate was stretching, and strangely Keith's hand was slipping, slipping.

"Go home," Keith said, voice flayed into the stars spinning behind him.

And then Lance was falling, falling, tumbling into space—Keith's eyes stayed with him as he fell, and Lance screamed and screamed as his fists clenched in terror and then the object in his hand was twitching—deep into the blackness, and the ship was out of sight so quickly, or maybe Lance had lost all sense of time here after all, here where he was nothing but a body in motion and Keith was gone, Keith was gone—

A light burst between his fingers, and Lance knew no more.

The Secret is That There Is No Secret (Maybe Demolition), Part One

The world filtered itself in pieces.

A control panel. The cold, seeping into his skin. A small window, where he was trapped behind. A clamoring voice, a demanding lack—

Keith, it said, and his chest began to rise; his voice felt raw, like he'd been screaming for hours, but his whole body spasmed with want, insisted: Keith, Keith, where’s—

Easy, a voice said, coming through the glass. Lance blinked into a face belonging to the a figure that had been unmoving over the dashboard. Lance jolted with familiarity; he'd heard that voice. And that tattoo—

Ya, sorry about the bumpy ride, he said, knocking the glass before returning to his seat; Lance watched the side of his face. But hey, beggars can't be choosers, right? he laughed. Did I use that right?

Oh, Lance thought.

You’re dead, Chaban explained. Well, at least that’s what we want Zarkon to think, right? Else, we're all dead. But hey, dontcha worry. We all have this great plan in motion. Too bad ya can't be part of it now, though, he added emphatically. Then he straightened, gazing out a window Lance couldn't see; his skin felt too heavy for him, and all he wanted was sleep. A second screen slid over him slowly, encasing him in a humming darkness. He registered the bands secure across his front.

Yikes, look at that face. Don't worry, I fixed this baby up right, and alllll her other functions. I hear this ship was pretty popular among ya paladins, once.

As the screen finally shut around him, music began to filter in, soft and familiar as a summer breeze.

You'll be fine, see? There ya go. Keith said you were partial to Elvis. Gotta say, guy’s good. Makes me wanna ditch this whole war and just settle down, ya know?  He paused, then burst into a laugh. Ha! I'm just fucking with you! What am I even saying. Well kid, for your sake, I hope these coordinates Keith gave me are right.

It was warmer here in the pod. The darkness was lulling Lance to sleep.

So, blue planet, huh? Chaban whistled. Haven’t seen that in ages.

Lance was so tired. His eyes were drifting, his thoughts chasing the comfort of dreams the color of blue, blue, blue. Back where he could sleep, where he belonged.

Well, this is your stop, he said, like a finality. There was siren that shattered the quiet. See ya never.

For I can’t help—

falling—

He was on his back, and something was tugging at his legs, then receding, then tugging at them again. If Pidge had broken into his room just to pull the sheets from under him again, he was so gonna be pissed. Lance pushed against the last curtain of sleep and woke with a gasp; darkness was all around him, and his lungs had difficulty expanding until the bands on his front broke free as it sensed him moving. He felt like he was in a coffin, as the darkness shifted and an impossibly bright light speared through his cocooned solace. Lance flinched, moved his arm to cover his eyes and realized he couldn't; his whole body felt like one giant broken bone, and his suit was smoldering from the inside and he couldn't breathe—he fought for air, and the smell of something sharp and salty hit him like a collision.

Lance's eyes cleared.

It can't be.

He sat himself up, bit by bit, as each broken bone screamed at him to stay still.

His own breath rushed out of him.

Blue. Blue skies. Blue waves, rising up to meet him. White clouds, white sand. Fragments of long-lost language, wafting in like the breeze that swept against his skin, carding its fingers through his hair. Here, where he'd know it anywhere, with his eyes closed. Here, like a dream.

“You fucker,” he said, looking up at the sky as the memory flooded back; he was weeping now, pitching out of the pod and crumbling into the sand, pulling fistfuls of it to rub against his face; remembering the warmth and the coarseness of it. "You goddamn fucker," he gasped, running headfirst with abandon to meet the surf halfway, collapsing into its arms. The water was cool and healing though it stung at each open cut, and he pushed up for air only to pull back under, screaming, and then laughing, and then sobbing brokenly as the water rushed up into his nose and out his mouth. And then when he'd had his fill, he stood up, and drunk everything in, feeling hollow for all he'd lost; but now his mind was racing, working like it never had before. He pulled himself back ashore, peeling off the broken pieces of his wetsuit and thought about the fastest commute to see his family—wondered, too, about where he could scavenge for spare parts to build an intergalactic communicator, maybe haggle some industrial-grade tools without being tracked by the Garrison, and calculate the breadth of time it'd take before he could finally make his way back home.

The Secret is That There Is No Secret (Maybe Demolition), Part Two

 fin.