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It’s early in the morning on the Castle of Lions when an ear-splitting scream pierces through the silence of space. Lance, passing by the kitchen on his way for a swim, immediately doubles back to find the source of the sound. Sure enough, it came from the kitchen: his eyes are immediately greeted with the sight of Pidge, pale-faced and standing on a chair with her bayard activated and pointed at . . . something.
Lance squints. The quiznack? he wonders. “The quiznack?” he says aloud.
“Lance,” Pidge says, voice tinged with panic as she flicks her gaze up to him. There’s something akin to relief in her expression now that someone else is here, alongside visceral desperation as she tells him, “Lance, you have to help. You have to kill it before it destroys the castle.”
“Woah—back up a minute. Kill what?” Lance blinks at the green paladin in confusion. Pidge’s response is a series of frantic hand motions and high-pitched gibberish, before she finally gathers herself enough to point down at the kitchen table.
Lance follows her gaze, and blinks again. There appears to be some sort of . . . black dot on the table. Huh, he thinks, that’s kinda weird. And then the dot moves.
Oh, he realizes. Yeah, that’s definitely weird. He pads further into the room to take a closer look, and it’s only when he’s right next to Pidge that he looks down and realizes the black dot is actually a spider.
And that’s—unusual. Completely unexpected, actually, here in space. Lance hasn’t seen a spider since they left Earth. And sure, spiders were never really Lance’s favorite animal, but the fact that there’s one sitting on his kitchen table doesn’t necessarily mean it deserves to die. In fact, as he looks at it, he realizes it look almost exactly like an Earthen tarantula, only black. Peculiarly, though, it only has two beady purple eyes, instead of eight black ones.
It’s . . . kind of cute. Lance tilts his head, and only barely resists the impulse to say: aww. He has the sneaking suspicion that Pidge would turn her bayard on him if he did.
“Okay, let’s think about this rationally,” he sighs after a moment. Lance hates having to be the rational one. “Before we go killing innocent creatures that totally don’t deserve it, maybe we should ask ourselves where it came from. How did a spider get onto the ship? What kind of spider is it? What does it need to eat and live contently?”
“A spider breaks into our home, and you want to just give it room and board?” Pidge demands, her voice high-pitched enough to grate unpleasantly in Lance’s ears. He winces as she continues, “Who cares where it came from? It’s a spider, and it’s going to kill us all if we don’t take action. Actually—you know what? You wait here and guard it. I’m gonna go find some gasoline.” Pidge hops down from the chair and makes like she’s going to sprint for the door. Lance brings a hand down onto her shoulder to stop her.
“Wait,” he says slowly, in the diplomatic way he’s watched Shiro and Allura use countless times on fussy political leaders. “No, no. Arson is not necessary, Pidge. Look, I will handle the spider, okay?”
Pidge eyes him suspiciously. “Does that mean you’re gonna kill it?” she asks. Hopeful, but still suspicious, like she already knows the answer.
So Lance decides not to give her one. “I will handle it,” he repeats firmly. Then he shoos Pidge out of the room to go work on nerdy computer stuff. After a few minutes of staring at her screen, she’ll have completely forgotten about their little arachnid intruder.
Speaking of. Lance turns back to said arachnid intruder, taking note of how it’s stayed still throughout his conversation with Pidge. The way it’s still now beneath Lance’s gaze, even as he leans closer to get a better look at it. Something about it feels uncannily— familiar, like he’s seen it before, even though he’s definitely never seen a spider that only had two eyes. Maybe, he thinks, it’s just the concept of seeing any kind of spider at all that’s bringing up such a strong feeling of recognition.
And if it’s a tarantula . . . Lance hesitates. Tarantulas aren’t venomous. But cute or not, he has no idea if this little guy is.
“Hey, buddy,” he says calmly, even as he looks around for something he could maybe transfer the spider onto. “You must be lost, huh? You’re on quite the adventure, let me tell you . . .” Aha. His eyes land on a plate of space toast—undoubtedly Pidge’s, before she’d fled the scene. He plucks up the toast as he slides the plate across the table to himself, deciding that yes, this will do. He hovers the edge of the plate right against the edge of the table and says, “You want to go for a walk with me?”
To his surprise, the spider seems to actually understand the question, somehow. Or maybe Lance is just projecting, and his question has nothing to do with the way the spider immediately crawls across the table onto the plate at all. But the spider does what Lance had hoped it would nonetheless, scuttling into the very center of the plate and then staying there dutifully. Lance smiles in quiet victory as he stands, carefully lifting the plate with him so he won’t jostle his new friend.
“Something tells me we’re going to get along really well,” he says to the spider. Then he leaves the kitchen to go find Coran.
_____
“Hmm,” Coran says, stroking his chin as he peers down at the spider. They’re in the medbay, which also doubles as their science lab when they need it to. Lance’s newly-acquired arachnid sits beneath the microscope-like scanner Coran had placed it on, being far more obedient and calm than Lance ever has been on trips to the doctor. Or . . . scientist.
“Well, the scans tell me that this— tarantula, as you call it, is not venomous. But its bio-readings seem a bit . . . jumbled. I admit, it’s a bit perplexing. I’ll have to look into it some more to determine exactly what is going on with it. For the time being, though, I think it’s safe to assume your little friend will not be causing any harm.”
Lance breathes out a quiet sigh of relief. He really didn’t want to have to kill it. “Well, that’s good. But where did it come from?”
“That is a question in itself,” Coran says. “But I truly have no idea, Number Three. Perhaps you should ask Shiro or Allura. Considering all of the planets we’ve visited recently, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that it climbed onboard as a stowaway. Maybe they could tell you which ones were most likely to host arachnid life.”
That actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Lance nods gratefully. “Thanks for your help, Coran.” Then he extends his palm to the microscope, hoping the little spider will do the same thing it had done before with the plate. Now that he knows it’s not venomous, he kinda just wants to carry it around and keep it in his pocket forever.
To his quiet and absolute elation, the spider scuttles into his hand after only a moment of hovering in anticipation. It’s a strange sensation, the feeling of little furry legs settling into his hand, but it’s far from the most unpleasant one he’s had. Once its settled, it seems content to just sit there in his palm, so Lance smiles again, says bye to Coran, and makes his way out of the medbay.
“Shiro actually just got back from a mission with Keith late last night, so we’ll go ask him about it later. I kinda want to let him sleep in right now, though,” Lance explains to the spider as he walks. “And last I checked, Allura’s still in the middle of her morning training session, so like quiznack am I going to interrupt that. So I guess I’ll show you my room.”
Lance wonders if it makes him a little bit insane, talking to spider like there’s any way it actually understands him. Then again, he used to do the exact same thing with his cat, Garlic Knot, back home, and no one ever thought anything was weird about that. Lance wonders why it’s so much more conventionally acceptable to talk to your pet cat or dog than it is to talk to your pet spider. That doesn’t seem very fair.
Not, of course, that this spider is his pet. Lance is not going to get attached, for obvious reasons.
“I’m going to see what I can do about getting you back home safely, okay buddy?” he says as he presses the button to open his bedroom door. “But for now, you’re welcome to mine—and here we are. Home sweet home.”
He steps inside and flicks on the lights. Strangely, he finds himself a little embarrassed by the mess of clothes and knick-knacks scattered all over the floor, even though the only company he’s entertaining is a spider. “Uh, sorry for the mess,” he apologizes anyway. “Maybe you should stick to high-up surfaces until I find somewhere safe to put you. I wouldn’t want you to get lost and squished on the floor.”
Lance sets the spider on the one clean patch of space on his dresser, still rambling even as he turns to see what he can find to turn into a temporary terrarium. “I swear I’m not usually this messy. It’s just, y’know, today’s supposed to be cleaning day, but now you’re here, so I dunno how much cleaning I’m actually going to get done. And the reason for all the cosmetics on the dresser and in the bathroom—not that you can see the bathroom—is because a couple nights ago we went to this party on a planet called Kalkiikuu and, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I am the pretty one of the group. But sometimes my beauty takes some effort and dedication, ya feel?”
The spider does not reply. Lance decides to pretend that it’s because it agrees with him, and nods like it’s just said something insightful. “Yeah, see, I’m glad you get it. The others are all like, ‘Lance, stop taking forever to get ready, just hurry up and pick one highlighter,’ as if that’s humanly possible. I mean, I guess I could understand with Keith, since he’s half-alien, but—oh man,” he turns to the spider, eyes going wide as the thought occurs to him. “Could you imagine Keith wearing highlighter? Well, okay, I know you can’t, since you haven’t met Keith yet, but trust me, it would be such a gift to the universe. I’m not sure my heart would be able to handle it.”
He sighs, fully aware of how infatuated he sounds, but it’s fine because he’s alone except for his new spider friend, and who’s his spider friend going to tell? Keith?
Lance finally locates a clear container he was using to store small, random bits of Voltron merchandise, dumps it all out on his bed, and decides that yes, this will do nicely. He nods to himself, knocks off a bunch of miscellaneous junk from his nightstand, and sets the container down on the newly cleared space. Then he frowns thoughtfully, trying to remember what exactly is supposed to go in a terrarium. Marco had a tarantula at home for a little while, but Lance was only five when he moved out and took his spider with him.
But Veronica had a lizard for a while, and lizard terrariums are practically the same, right? For the sake of his new friend, he has to hope so.
“Okay, so we need . . . some kind of soil. And plants. But where on the castle are we gonna find—” Lance stops speaking abruptly as an idea occurs to him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t stop speaking because he’s had the sudden revelation that he’s a genius. No, he stops speaking because he’s realized that though he is a genius, he may also have a death wish.
“Shit,” he says, then turns to where the spider sits, still weirdly obedient, on his dresser, and sighs. “You’d better be glad that I have a soft spot for living creatures.”
The spider, again, says nothing, but when Lance holds out his hand, it crawls right back into his palm. “Time for another adventure,” he says, “and hoping that I don’t die. Because if I die, like it or not, you’re going down with me.”
_____
Lance glances surreptitiously to the left, and then to the right. Feeling uncannily like a character in a spy movie, he reaches out with the hand not holding his little spider and presses the button to open the door of one of Pidge’s greenhouses.
Now, this is a task that only the bravest of paladins would even attempt. Considering how sacred Pidge’s plants are to her, he was expecting to immediately be bombarded by booby traps and a wailing alarm system that would release Pidge’s own personally programmed droids to attack him. But when the doors slide open—nothing happens.
“Huh . . .” Rather than making Lance feel relieved, he grows even more suspicious. “Alright, then . . .”
He slips into the room, taking in the meticulous rows of greenery that stretch out before him. There are countless types of flowers, along with vines that hang from the ceiling and spider-plant-like plants. There’s a small copse of trees along the back wall that appears to have some sort of fruit on them. Undoubtedly, that’s where Hunk gets the produce for their space smoothies.
What Lance’s eyes catch on, though, is the row of potted alien succulents directly in front of him. He carefully peers around, just to make sure there are no cameras directly in his sight line. He doesn’t see any, and though that doesn’t mean they aren’t there, he takes the risk anyway and darts forward.
He sets the spider in the soil close to the edge of the row, whispers, “Stay there,” and then goes to town, carefully scraping soil into the ziplock bag he’d stolen from the kitchen. When that’s full, he shoves it into his jacket pocket, then unearths the second ziplock bag. And this is the riskier business, because even though there’s only a slim chance Pidge will notice some soil missing from the tops of her succulents, there’s a considerably larger chance that she’ll notice one of her actual succulents is missing.
He glances over to check on the tarantula and finds that it is still loyally sitting where he left it. “I’m doing this for you,” he tells it. Then he slowly, carefully deracinates the succulent, complete with its small root system, and slips it into the second bag.
“Okay,” he whispers, not daring to breathe a sigh of relief until they’re safely back in the comfort of his room. “Let’s go.”
He picks up the spider again and makes like one of the trees in Pidge’s greenhouse: meaning, he scurries down the hallways like the devil himself is after him until he reaches his room, darting inside and leaning back against the door to catch his breath. “Who needs battles with Zarkon when you can just do that and get the same amount of adrenalized terror?” he mutters as his heartbeat slows down to a normal pace. His hands still feel weirdly jittery, so the spider is probably relieved when he sets it back on the dresser.
“Alrighty then. Let’s decorate your new habitat,” Lance says, clapping his hands together as he finally settles back into himself. He plucks up the terrarium and sits down on the floor, taking out the bags of goods he’d embezzled.
A couple minutes later, the clear container is filled with a nice, comfy layer of soil, and he’s replanted the succulent in the shallow dirt. “Sorry that I couldn’t get you any more—but hopefully this is okay for now,” he says to the spider, who, as expected, does not reply.
Lance sets the newly decorated terrarium on the nightstand, and then places the tarantula into it. It begins to climb the wall immediately, and Lance frowns as he observes it. “I don’t have a lid for this box. You’re just gonna have to be good and stay there, so you don’t get lost. Okay?”
The spider, for the first time, shows signs of a rebellious streak. It keeps climbing, until it’s right on the rim of the container.
“No, no, no,” Lance mutters. “Quiznack. This was not my finest idea. Okay, look . . .” He plucks the spider up again, and sets it carefully but firmly back on the ground by the succulent. “Look, it’s a pretty plant. Don’t you want to just chill with the pretty plant?”
The tarantula does not want to chill with the pretty plant. It begins to climb again.
Lance tries to adapt the spider three more times to its new environment before giving up. “I should call you Keith two-point-oh,” he says, “You have the same mulish personality. You tell him one thing, he goes out of his way to do the opposite.”
Peculiarly, this is when the tarantula finally decides to calm down and stop with the spider gymnastics. Once again, though, it’s right at the top of the container. With a sigh, Lance extends his hand, and lets it crawl back onto him.
“Okay, fine. I get it. I’m pretty irresistible,” he acquiesces. “At least one Keith can see that, I guess.” What he wouldn’t give to have human Keith all over him, honestly.
With another sigh, Lance sits down on his bed, then flops down onto it. He sets Spider Keith on his chest and stares at the ceiling for a moment.
“I gotta say, this isn’t how I thought this morning was going to go,” he says conversationally, “but I’m pretty glad I met you, Spider Keith. And I imagine you’re glad to have met me, too. I mean, if you hadn’t, you’d be dead right now, probably. I never would’ve pegged Pidge as an arachnophobe, but I guess we’re all full of surprises, huh?”
Spider Keith says nothing, but he’s settled comfortably onto Lance’s chest, so he decides to believe Spider Keith is listening.
“Like Keith,” Lance goes on, because okay, he can’t help himself. Usually the only person he rants to about Keith is Hunk, but even that’s risky and rare, because Hunk is an incurable gossip. It’s a miracle the news hasn’t gotten about about Lance’s embarrassing, gigantic crush on the red paladin by now. Especially to the red paladin. Lance is pretty sure he would die if that happened, though.
“Keith is probably the most confusing person I’ve ever met,” Lance confesses to Spider Keith. “Like, at first, he comes off as all angry and unfriendly, and yeah, he can be that way sometimes. But when you get to know him, he’s super nice. Like, almost Hunk-levels of nice. You could probably ask Keith for the shirt on his back and he’d give it to you.” And isn’t that food for thought. “Not to mention, he’s unfairly smart and gorgeous. I used to be really jealous of him, but now that I actually know him it’s like . . . he’s one of those people you want to hate, but just can’t, y’know? Because he’s just that perfect.
“But that brings up another problem,” Lance goes on, because now he’s on a roll. He lifts a hand to express his frustration. “I used to want to punch him all the time, you know? And now, I still want to punch him—but with my face. It’s horrible, Spider Keith! Like, do you know how hard it is to hide your secret crush on your teammate when he literally links minds with you half the time through the power of space robot cats? It’s very hard. And so embarrassing. Can you imagine how awkward it would be if he knew? I would die.
“The worst thing is, he’d probably be super nice about it,” Lance laments. “So I wouldn’t be able to feel bitter over him not reciprocating my feelings. It’s a lose-lose situation, and honestly, the most distressing thing about my life.”
Through all of this, Spider Keith has remained loyally calm on Lance’s chest. He exhales slowly, bringing down a finger to rub over the spider’s little body. It feels almost like petting a very tiny, eight-legged cat. “Thanks for listening, Spider Keith. It’s nice to get that off my chest.”
Spider Keith predictably says nothing. Lance smiles, closes his eyes, and takes a nap.
_____
Lance wakes up to a knock on his door, and Hunk’s voice saying: “Hey, Lance, you up? It’s dinnertime.”
Dinner. Lance’s stomach rumbles in excitement. Then he notices there’s something very warm on his face.
“Spider Keith,” he sighs fondly. “ Why are you sleeping on my face?”
Spider Keith’s legs twitch sleepily when Lance picks him up. “Oh, sorry, were you napping too?” Spider Keith’s movements are sluggish as he settles into Lance’s palm and rests there, like he’s about to go back to sleep.
“No, no,” Lance says, though his voice hushes so he won’t disturb him. “I have to go to dinner. I can’t take you with me though, because Pidge would probably explode. Here—sleep in here for a little while, okay?” He gently lowers Spider Keith into the terrarium. Spider Keith crawls slowly out of his hand, settles into the soil, and doesn’t try to escape for once. Lance exhales a quiet breath of relief.
“Okay. I’ll be back soon. Sweet dreams,” he tells Spider Keith. Then he goes to dinner.
At dinner, everyone is already present except for Keith. Lance doesn’t think much of it, taking his seat beside Hunk and helping himself to the large pasta dish in the center of the table. “So, how’s everyone’s day been?” he starts conversationally.
“Pretty nice,” Shiro says, with a content sigh. “I enjoyed my day off. Especially after the mission yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lance plucks up a piece of garlic bread and starts applying a layer of pasta to it. “How was that, by the way? Meet any cute alien babes?”
Shiro shivers, shaking his head around a bite of pasta. “Definitely not. The planet was ruled by spiders. Giant spiders. Normally, I try not to be creeped out by aliens, but . . . they were huge spiders. The size of bears.”
Lance freezes, his garlic-bread-pasta creation halfway to his mouth. “Spiders?” he says.
Pidge, also, pauses mid-chew. “Spiders?” she repeats. She cuts an obvious glance over to Lance. Shiro squints at them both.
“Yeah . . . why?” Shiro says. “Why are you exchanging suspicious looks like that?”
Lance sets down his garlic bread. “I rescued a spider this morning,” he announces. Pidge scowls at him.
“I knew you weren’t going to kill it. I can never trust you again.”
“Hey, I never said I was going to kill it,” Lance throws his hands up in defense. “You know I can’t do that, Pidge. Besides, he’s cute, okay? I’m weak for cute things.”
Pidge grumbles unhappy, unintelligible complaints as she goes back to shoveling pasta into her mouth. Lance turns to Shiro.
“Speaking, of, though,” he says, “I was actually going to ask you about where he might’ve come from, so it’s good that we know. Listen, we have to go back there so Spider Keith can go home. A castle spaceship is not an adequate environment for a tarantula. He needs to be with his people.”
Shiro’s mouth twitches. “You named him Spider Keith?” he asks.
This is when Lance realizes: he quiznacked up.
“Uh . . .” His brain proceeds to malfunction and forget how to form words. Luckily, Hunk steps in to the rescue.
“Where is Keith, anyway?”
Shiro frowns, successfully distracted. “I . . . don’t know. I haven’t seen him since we got home last night.”
“Neither have I,” Allura says with a frown of her own. She glances around the table. “Has anyone seen him?”
Everyone slowly shakes their heads, uneasiness beginning to descend over the table as they realize how unusual that is. Keith is generally not the best at socializing, but he isn’t antisocial. Usually, at least one of them runs into him throughout the day. Sometimes he finds Lance during the afternoon and they’ll go for a swim together, or he seeks out Allura for one-on-one training, or he wanders into the kitchen when Hunk is making experimental batches of space treats and he and Pidge become his guinea pigs.
And even on days when he doesn’t feel up for being around people, he still always makes a point to find Shiro and let him know he needs to recharge.
It’s a rare day when none of them see him at all. In fact, Lance doesn’t remember the last time that even happened.
Meaning that since it has happened—something is probably, definitely wrong.
Shiro abruptly pushes away from the table to stand. “I’m going to go check on him,” he says, brows creased in unvocalized concern. They all watch him go, similar concern tensing their shoulders. Lance finally takes a bite of his pasta, but Hunk’s normally delicious creation tastes flavorless on his tongue.
Only a couple minutes later, Shiro bursts back in, visibly panicked now. “Keith isn’t in his room,” he says frantically, “or on the training deck, or in Red’s hangar. He’s missing.”
Lance’s heart drops into his stomach. Allura, visibly uneasy herself, raises a hand and tries to stall the mounting panic in the room. “Hold on, Shiro. We don’t know that for certain. You said he was with you when you got home, correct?”
“Yeah,” Shiro says, wringing his hands. Allura nods.
“Then that means he must be somewhere on the castle. Let’s all head over to the bridge. We’ll run a scan of the castle’s heat signatures. We will locate him,” she promises Shiro, and he nods, slowly calming down.
“You’re right. I . . . sorry. Of course, you’re right, Allura.”
“Of course I’m right,” Allura says, though her smile is understanding as she gets to her feet. She claps her hands together, looks to the table at large, and says, “Well, team, we will resume dinner shortly. Who is accompanying us to the bridge?”
All of them accompany Allura and Shiro to the bridge. They all gather around as Allura pulls up a holoscreen, tapping a few buttons and sequences before stepping back to let it load. They all wait anxiously as the screen renders, and then finally pulls up a display of the heat signatures on the castle. Six colored dots appear on the bridge—the four paladins and their corresponding colors; pink for Allura; orange for Coran—and the red dot that symbolizes Keith . . .
Is in Lance’s room?
“Um.” Lance blinks. “What the quiznack is Keith doing in my room?”
“I don’t know,” Shiro says, though there’s visible relief smoothing out the lines on his face, now. “I’m just glad he’s here. Let’s go.”
So off they go again, back down the halls to the paladins’ quarters. Lance is the first to his door, typing in the passcode and then stepping inside immediately as it opens. But Keith is nowhere to be found.
“Where is he?” Shiro is right behind him, and the poor guy sounds like he’s getting a nasty case of whiplash from his emotions getting jerked around so much. He’s beginning to worry again. “Keith!” he calls, like that will suddenly cause his younger brother to materialize out of thin air.
Keith does not appear out of thin air. But Lance becomes aware of movement in his peripheral vision. He turns to follow it, and finds Spider Keith crawling to the top of the terrarium again.
Several thoughts clash against each other in Lance’s brain at once. Shiro saying: “The planet was ruled by spiders.” Finding little Spider Keith on the kitchen table this morning. Coran noting that there was something strange about his bio-readings. Finding out Keith’s been missing all day, and then discovering that his heat signature is emanating from Lance’s room. The same room as Spider Keith.
Lance’s throat dries up with sudden, heart-crushing horror. “Keith?” he whispers. He feels everyone’s eyes on his back as he walks up to his nightstand, holding his palm up to the edge of the container. Spider Keith . . . Keith . . . crawls right into his palm.
“Oh quiznack.” Lance feels suddenly lightheaded. “Oh, no. I confessed my love for Keith to Keith. This is a nightmare.”
Admittedly, Lance is aware that that is not the biggest issue, here. Still, in the moment, his brain is just trying to process everything.
“What?” Shiro demands. “Lance, what are you talking about?”
Lance turns back to him, cradling Keith close his chest, fighting back the nervous, terrified laughter building up in his throat. “This is Keith,” he says, words sounding strangled in his effort to remain calm. “Spider Keith. Keith got turned into a spider.”
The room falls into complete, pin-dropping silence. And then, when Lance is right on the verge of losing the battle against the anxious laughter, Pidge speaks up.
“Oh, quiznack,” she says, face pale, horrified. “I almost killed Keith.”
No one seems to know what to say to that. Lance finally loses his composure, one hysterical laugh falling right after another and ringing in the stunned silence.
_____
Some time later finds them all in the medbay, anxiously watching as Coran scans Spider Keith a second time. Coran has Keith’s normal scans up beside it, so when the screen lights up with all of Spider Keith’s data, they’re able to see perfectly clearly that it matches Keith’s exactly.
“Well, it appears that Lance is right,” Coran says, “This spider is, in fact, our dear Keith. How troublesome . . .”
How troublesome is the understatement of the decaphoeb. “Well, how do we fix this?” Shiro demands. “He can’t just stay a spider forever. We have to change him back.”
“One moment,” Coran says, almost irritatingly calm. He taps on the holoscreen a couple times, and the data is replaced with an X-ray. “If you look here, you’ll see something I missed earlier. It appears there is some sort of non-toxic venom in Keith’s bloodstream. It’s non-toxicity is undoubtedly why I missed it earlier—Lance asked me to look for potentially harmful venom, but this here doesn’t appear to be hurting Keith. The spider venom just appears to have mixed peculiarly with his human-galra blood in a . . . think of it as a sort of allergic reaction. A rash, even.”
Sure enough, there does seem to be some sort of green . . . goop, showing up on the screen inside of Spider Keith’s veins. Shiro makes a strangled noise.
“You’re equating my brother being turned into a spider to the same level of concern as a rash?” he says, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “What does any of this mean? Coran, how do we get him back to normal?”
“The way I see it, we have two options,” Coran says. He closes out the holoscreens and turns to face them. “We could either let the venom simply run its course through his bloodstream and let him return to himself naturally—which, I confess, could take quite some time . . . or we could extract the venom ourselves and expedite the process. I admit, that is the riskier of the two options. There is a slight chance that we could cause injury to him. But I suppose that you, Shiro, as his brother, know best which option Keith would want.”
Shiro goes silent for a long moment, gaze locked on Spider Keith as he thinks. Finally, he says, “I think Keith would want to speed up the process.” There’s hesitancy in his face, uncertainty scrunching his brows together. “But I—I don’t want to hurt him. At the same time . . . we can’t afford for Keith to be stuck like this for a long period of time. I know that Keith would never want to put Voltron at risk by being out of commission for longer than absolutely necessary . . . and you say the venom isn’t hurting him, but what if it has long-term effects? What if he gets stuck like this? There’s just . . . there are too many variables that I don’t want to leave to chance,” he says, now determined as he appears to make a decision. “I think . . . I think we should go ahead and extract the venom.”
Part of Lance worries that Shiro is making the wrong choice, but he knows, ultimately, that Shiro is right. Keith probably hates being stuck in the body of a spider. And they do kind of have that universe-saving gig, which they can’t pause any time one of them decides to turn into an arachnid for an uncertain period of time.
“Then that is what we will do,” Coran says with a nod. Turning to Allura, he says, “Princess, I am going to require your assistance. We may be here for a while . . .”
_____
Everyone but Coran, Allura, and Shiro are sent out of the room while they conduct their emergency operation on Keith’s spider form. Hunk paces up and down the hallway while Pidge sits with her head in her hands, visibly upset by this whole situation. Lance plops down on the floor next to her and settles a comforting hand onto her shoulder.
“Keith’s going to be okay, you know,” he tells her. “If anyone can come back from being turned into a spider, it’s him.”
Pidge sniffles, unexpectedly wet, then looks up at him with wide, watery eyes. Lance feels his heart crack in half at the sight. So much of the time, Pidge tries to disguise or ignore her emotions, and Lance has gotten used to that version of her—the version she wants them to see, the robot-her. But the truth is, Pidge feels a lot, and she cares for them all in a deep way that sometimes, even Lance forgets. Out here in space, they’re the only family they each have. And he knows that of all of them, Keith is the one Pidge most considers to be a brother-figure. So of course this is messing up her emotions a little bit.
“I almost killed him,” she says, voice thick, amber eyes welling up as she glares down at her knees. “And I didn’t even know. I should’ve . . . I should’ve known it was him.”
“Hey, no,” Lance gently admonishes, “You can’t blame yourself like that. There’s no way the thought ever would’ve occurred to you that Keith could be a space spider. It never would’ve occurred to any of us.”
“It would’ve to Keith,” Pidge sniffs again, more harshly this time. “He would’ve figured it out immediately. Not try to smash us with a plate like I did. Do you think . . . do you think he’s going to remember that?”
Lance considers it for a moment. There’s a part of him that wants to say: I certainly hope not, but the truth is, he really doesn’t know. It’s not like they have any past data to go off of, here. “I . . . don’t know, Pidge,” he confesses with a sigh. He rests his head against the wall and closes his eyes. “But hey, on the bright side, if he does remember being a spider, he’ll most likely be more traumatized by my unknowing love confession than your murder attempt.”
Pidge sniffles again, but this time it’s intercepted by a wet laugh. “Your what?”
“I pretty much waxed poetic about how I have a crush on Keith and was definitely, never going to let him find out about it. That backfired so bad.”
Pidge laughs again. Then she starts to snicker, bringing up a hand to cover her mouth. And then she’s full-on giggling, there in the hall, saying through her laughter, “This whole thing is so dumb.”
Lance can’t help but agree, and neither can Hunk, evidently, because soon, all three of them are sitting on the floor, laughing until the tears that spring to their eyes are from dubious humor instead of guilt or stress.
A while later, Allura peeks her head out of the medbay and gestures them inside. “Keith’s human again,” she announces, “We’re just waiting for him to wake up.”
They all follow her back inside. Sure enough, Keith is fully human again, unconscious in one of the infirmary beds. Even now, just recovered from being turned into a spider, he’s unearthly gorgeous. It’s extremely unfair.
Shiro’s sitting in a chair pulled right up to Keith’s bedside, looking tired but relieved. “Hey, guys,” he says in a hushed voice.
“Hey,” Pidge replies. She scurries over to Keith the fastest, gently settling herself at the foot of his bed. “How was the venom extraction?”
“Successful, as you can see. But . . . really weird,” Shiro says vaguely, and leaves it at that. They all decide not to ask any more questions.
They’re all gathered around Keith’s bed when he wakes up, sitting in chairs they’ve pulled up while they waited. He stirs, subtly at first, then fully, groaning softly as he brings up a hand to his head. “Ugh,” he mutters, lashes fluttering as he blinks his violet-indigo eyes up at the ceiling. Then, seeming to sense the six pairs of eyes on him, he turns his head and is immediately met with the sight of Lance, Hunk, and Allura. “Uh . . .” He blinks again, propping himself up on an elbow as he glances around, realizing that everyone is present. “Hi?”
“Keith!” Pidge cries, and bodily throws herself onto him, arms latching around his neck like an affectionate bulldozer. “I’m so glad you’re okay! And I’m so sorry I tried to kill you, and I promise I’ll never try to kill another spider ever again. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Um,” Keith eloquently replies. Hesitantly, he brings a hand up to settle on her back, patting reassuringly. “It’s . . . it's alright?”
“Oh, quiznack, do you even remember?” she says, pulling away to blink bright, inquisitive eyes at him. “You were turned into a spider. None of us know how.”
Keith blinks again, as if he’s still trying to come out of a daze. “You mean that . . . wasn’t a weird dream?”
“It was not a weird dream,” Pidge confirms. Keith nods slowly, processing this.
“Well, then, yeah, I remember. And I think I know why it happened, too.”
They all blink at him, waiting for him to elaborate. When he doesn’t, Lance presses, “Well?”
He regrets opening his mouth immediately. Keith turns to look at him, eyes sparking curiously when they land on him. There are a thousand words those eyes seem to be saying, but Lance can’t read a single one.
“Keith, what happened?” Shiro says, effectively breaking their unspoken staring contest. Keith turns to look at him, then nods again. “Right . . . well, uh. So you remember when we were greeting the Xruthans, and I was shaking hands with the one ambassador guy?”
Shiro squints. “No,” he decides after a moment.
“Well,” Keith continues anyway, “Turns out, he had no idea what handshakes were, but when I explained, he said ‘oh, we have something like handshakes too. May I show you?’ And I was like, ‘sure, I guess.’ And then he bit my hand, and when I woke up this morning I was a spider.”
They all blink at him again, completely baffled. Whatever they were expecting—it wasn’t that. It wasn't something so . . . dumb.
“Why . . . why didn’t you tell me?” Shiro says, and proceeds to pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. Keith shrugs, looking sheepish now.
“I thought . . . I mean, I assumed it wasn’t a big deal. Tarantulas aren’t normally venomous.”
“But these aren’t normal tarantulas, Keith. They’re space taran—actually, you know what?” Shiro sighs. “Never mind. Let’s just . . . focus on the positive. You’re human again, and safe, and that’s what matters. But next time an alien decides to bite you, please, for the love of Voltron, let someone know immediately. Deal?”
Keith says nothing for a long moment. Shiro cuts him with a withering look, the same kind Lance’s mamá always used to give him and his siblings when they were misbehaving. It honestly holds the same amount of crippling power. “Deal?” he repeats.
“. . . deal,” Keith begrudgingly mutters. Shiro breathes a sigh of parental relief, and nods. It appears they can now put this series of events behind them, to later be looked back on and share laughs about. Lance has a feeling that now that it’s over, there are going to be many, many laughs had over this.
Lance kind of wants to disappear before any of those laughs can be had at his expense, though. So while everyone else is hugging Keith and gushing over his health and celebrating his return to humanity—Lance takes his chance to skedaddle out of there.
_____
It’s that night that a series of quiet, calm knocks greet Lance’s door. He pauses in the middle of brushing his teeth, heart freezing as he thinks he definitely, absolutely knows who it is. Still, he keeps his voice as calm and intelligible as he can around his toothbrush, yelling: “I’ll be right there!”
He finishes brushing his teeth, rinses his mouth, and takes three long, deep breaths. Then he goes over to answer the door.
Sure enough, it’s Keith. Human Keith, all messy-haired and dark-eyed and impossibly handsome. Lance’s heart starts beating again, knocking at his ribcage as if he needs the reminder: hey, look, it’s the most perfect guy in the universe, and he’s standing at your door! Time to freak out!
“Hey,” Keith says calmly, in his smooth, musical voice. Lance begins to ramble over him before he can get out anything else, though.
“Listen, let’s just totally forget about anything that might have been said when you were in arachnid mode, alright? It’ll save me the embarrassment and humiliation, and you the awkwardness of having to politely turn me down . . . it’s just better for all of us, all around, if we never bring it up again, okay? Seriously, I’ve made my peace with the fact that you’re entire solar systems out of my league, and it’s seriously fi—”
“Do you want to go out sometime?” Keith blurts, in the middle of Lance’s rant. The words in his throat choke off at once.
“I— what?”
Keith charitably repeats himself, more slowly this time. “Do you want to go out sometime? On a date? With me. Human me, I mean. I mean, I think that was probably obvious, but still. Just in case you needed the clarification.”
Infuriatingly, Keith doesn’t sound condescending, in spite of his word selection. He just sounds like himself—hopelessly awkward, but hopefully optimistic, completely guileless.
“Uh . . .” Lance’s brain glitches. “I mean, I dunno . . . Spider you was like, a million times more charming . . .”
Quiznack. Why does Lance say things?
Keith’s mouth twitches like he’s biting back a smile. “Well then, I guess that just means I’ll have to work a little harder, huh?”
And that’s when Lance realizes that oh, he’s actually serious. And suddenly he’s biting back a smile of his own. “I mean, sounds like that might be kinda difficult,” he says, “Are you sure you’re up for the task?”
“For you? Yes,” Keith says, unabashedly blunt. Lance’s heart might explode then and there. “Please just say yes, Lance.”
“Well, I mean, I guess . . . because you said please,” Lance says, and finally stops fighting his smile. It stretches, sappy and sickeningly happy, so far across his face that it aches from the strain. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go out with you.”
Keith grins back at him. And then, before Lance can even blink or, you know, enjoy it, Keith leans in to press a quick, zero-point-two second long kiss on his mouth.
“Uh . . . what was that for?” Evidently, the zero-point-two seconds is still long enough to short out Lance’s brain cells. His lips are tingling like they’ve just received an electrical shock.
“For saying yes. And this one,” Keith settles a hand beneath Lance’s jaw, leans back in so he can kiss him longer this time—long enough to set off fireworks in Lance’s heart and melt all of his bones into a gross, gloopy puddle. “Is for saving my life,” he finishes, as he regrettably leaves Lance’s space before he can pull him in for a third universe-spinning kiss.
“Oh. Well, I mean, you’re welcome,” Lance fumbles. He feels like his face is on fire. “I would’ve done it for anyone, you know.”
“Yeah.” Keith’s smile is soft, and sappy, and—something Lance doesn’t know how to describe. “I know,” he says. Then, “So I’ll . . . see you at breakfast?”
“Yeah. Yes,” Lance confirms, with an embarrassing little nod. But at least Keith mirrors it, suddenly bashful as he nods back, shoves his hands into his pockets. “Well . . . alright then,” he says, “I guess this is goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Lance repeats. He watches as Keith turns to walk back across the hall, and then, right before Keith can disappear behind his door, he blurts, “You’d better still be human in the morning. However cute you may be, I refuse to kiss you if you turn back into a tarantula. You can forget it right now, Kogane.”
Keith’s laughter is musical, and lilting, and bright. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he promises. Then he steps into his room, the door shutting behind him, and Lance stands there for an embarrassingly long moment, trying to remember how his feet work.
When he finally figures it out, he spins back around to face his room, heart still beating a mile a minute as he leans back to rest against his door. He finds that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t stop smiling.
That is, until a mind-blowing thought occurs to him as he’s climbing into bed.
“Holy quiznack,” he whispers, eyes going wide at his sudden revelation. He’s going to have to ask for Pidge’s professional scientific opinion in the morning, but for now, he settles for asking the universe at large, in the hopes that maybe his dreams will somehow answer him: “Does this mean I'm dating real-life Spiderman?”