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Turns out, fighting in a 10,000 year war for a few years can really drain someone, especially if you had to go through enough shit to hospitalize an elderly person with IBS. Battle beaten and extremely traumatized, as soon as Honurva died Voltron made a bee line to Earth as fast as they could.
The universe wasn’t magically fixed, and there were still things to be done, but at least now they can take a sorely needed break.
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The team was spending a few months action-less to recover from their fight after finally winning the war after six long years.
Relaxing in the Garrison common room, the sudden sound of a door opening made the group snap out of their daze, moving their gaze on the sudden intruder.
Coran grinned, greeting the room,
“Hello you little florbian sniffers! I have a new development that I need to inform you all of immediately!”
Looking up from his phone, Lance groaned,
“Nooo Coran, I thought we were still on vacation! I was literally discharged from the medical unit like, last week. I can NOT handle any training right now!”
“You weren’t able to handle any training before either, you twig,” Pidge laughed, pointing a finger at Lance's annoyed face.
Coran snapped his fingers to bring attention back to him,
“While it may be training, Number Three, it’s not the kind you’re thinking of! It has come to my attention that though the rest of the galaxy is aware of Voltron, Earth hasn’t the slightest clue about their saviors! Hence, from today onwards, you all are going to be put through media training and such to promote the Voltron brand to your Earthling peers!”
Hunk slouched further into the pile of pillows he had accumulated from Lance and Pidge using him as a heater in the middle of their ‘Blanket Burrow’. Hunk sighs, ignoring Pidge's squawk from him moving their position,
“Coran can’t we just say “Hey guys we saved Earth and a bunch of other places” and leave it at that?”
Allura tilted her head in thought, “I do think that some proper introductions to Earth would be needed, as for now we would most likely be seen as more as a public figurehead than just warriors.”
Keith lifted his head from where it was buried in a pillow, “But Voltron is already well known, Earth at least knows about it from the news stuff covering us after we defeated Sendak.”
“In our last Voltron show, it was around two years ago, not to mention Keith was absent. We need to spend this period of peace to take advantage of our time on earth to build a reputation for Voltron as a whole.”
His gaze sweeps across the room, his heart swelling in pride,
“All of you have grown so much and words can’t explain how proud I am of each of your developments. But, the people we are protecting don’t know much about us, and we need to establish that we are more than strangers behind the controls of an alien war fighting machine. Doing this will help us with spreading word about Voltron not only on earth but throughout the galaxy as well.”
Nodding their heads, the group listened intently to the plan being detailed to them.
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“I’m about to barf, get me out of this place NOW,”
Hunk, Keith, Lance, Allura, and Pidge are all currently standing outside of a set for their first interview.
Clinking his forearm armour on Hunk’s, Lance reassures him,
“Calm down man, you’ve literally fought to the brink of death multiple times, a random person asking you what your favorite color is isn’t going to kill you.”
Hunk smiled at the reassuring words, looking back at the set as they were called to get in their places.
Settling into their seats, they look at their host as the cameras begin rolling.
“Hello folks! I’m Adaline Walker and I'm here today with the Paladins of Voltron! As y'all may remember, they happen to be the group of selfless people that saved our planet not long back! Would you all like to introduce yourselves?”
“Ah wait, yes,” Keith coughed out, not realizing he should’ve been the one to start,
“My name is Keith Kogane, and I’m the black paladin and the leader of Voltron.”
“Hi everyone! My name is Lance McClain and I am the red paladin and co-leader of Voltron!” Lance grinned.
Allura slipped into her formal voice that she always used for meetings,
“Greetings to all of you, My name is Allura Altea, I am the blue paladin and Princess of the planet Altea.”
Pidge smiled, “You can call me Pidge, and I’m the green paladin and the tech guy for Voltron.”
Finally getting over his stage fright, Hunk waved, “Hey guys, my name is Hunk Garrette, I’m the yellow paladin of Voltron and the mechanic!”
After getting through all of their introductions, Adaline pulled out a little booklet, getting ready with her questions,
“Well for starters, what is Voltron? Is it a group? An entity? Or perhaps something else entirely?”
Allura started, her tone confident,
“There are the five lions, Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Black. Each of them are, in a way, war ships that all have their own unique powers and roles they play in battle alongside their paladin. While each of the lions is very powerful on their own, when the time is right, they come together to form Voltron, the defender of the universe,”
“Thank you for your explanation, Princess Allura! Now, I’d like just to start with some simple questions to help us get to know each other!
Our next question is, what is your favorite dog breed?”
Surprised with how casual the question was, they all sat in silence for a few seconds until Lance shot his hand up to answer.
“Me personally,” He gestured to himself, “I love those weiner dogs, especially the ones with those big eyes. They are absolutely adorable and I would’ve had one right now if I didn’t happen to have a high risk job”
“My favorite dog breed is a bull terrier, we already have a family dog named Bae Bae! She’s so cute and helpful.” Pidge chirped.
Allura was lost in thought until her head snapped up straight as she remembered something,
“I remember reading an Earth booklet about dags-”
“Dogs.”
“Yes, dogs, thank you Keith, and I saw the most adorable little creature. I believe it was called a pomaran-”
“Pomeranian.”
“Pomeranian, thank you, Pidge, and they were just perfect! I too would get one as a companion, but as Lance said, our duty as paladins comes first.”
“I love golden retrievers, they’re a bit basic but they are the best dogs for a fluffy buddy!” Hunk responded.
Lance tapped Keith’s shoulder, “Hey dude, answer the question,”
Snapped out of his stupor, Keith answered swiftly,
“I like wolf dogs.”
Adaline moved through basic questions like it was the first day of school, slowly revealing the personalities of each paladin through their answers and their interactions with one another.
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“Great news team!” Coran greeted the room,
The garrison meeting room had the paladins, with the addition of Shiro and Coran. The group was there to discuss how the interview the other day went and future plans.
“We’ve received a great ton of feedback from the interview, and we are scheduled for a Q & A meeting later this week!”
Keith leaned his head on his hand while staring at Lance, who was sitting next to him. Lance’s hair had grown out a bit since they first arrived on earth, and Keith was waiting for the exact moment he could start calling it a mullet.
Busy staring at the ends of Lance’s hair, it took a long moment for Keith to realize that said boy was calling his name,
“-ieth? Keith!” Lance smacked the back of Keith’s head.
“Ow!”
Scoffing, Lance sighed, “Welcome back space ranger, we were talking about if we were good with going to that Q & A interview. You’re the last person who needs to say their input.”
“Oh okay, I’m good with whatever you think,” Keith shrugged.
Side-eyeing Keith suspiciously, Lance turned back to the others,
“Okaaay… Then it’s confirmed! Interview number two is this Sunday!”
While leaving the meeting room, Lance stopped Keith at the door as the others left,
“Keith, are you okay? I feel like you’ve been a bit out of it during today’s meeting and I just wanted to make sure you’re good.”
Keith’s face burned in embarrassment, “I’m fine Lance, I’ve just been thinking.”
Lance crossed his arms and grinned smugly, “About what? Maybe about how awesome I look? Or perhaps my big strong muscles.”
Laughing, Keith shoved Lance as they started moving to the mess hall,
“Shut up, jackass, if anything I’m the one with the big strong muscles.”
“Shhhhhut your mouth mister,” Lance spoke with a southern twang, “If this rowdy behaviour continues I’ll have to speak to your mother!”
“What did I even do!?”
“Everything!” Lance laughed, bumping his shoulder to Keith's.
Keith grumbled, but then broke out into a grin, “Okay then, how could I ever make up for my many years of abuse to you?”
Blinking up to look Keith dead in the eyes, Lance states, “You could pay me $200 and I’ll consider not bringing you to court.”
“Go to Shiro for your financial troubles, I barely have $50 in my savings until the government pays us.”
“What the hell could you have been buying that caused you to only have $50??”
“Living essentials like food and water Lance,”
Keith watched as Lance's face dropped as realization hit him like a truck.
“I was an unaccompanied orphan living in a shack in the middle of the desert before we got shot into space.”
“OmygodImsosorry,” Lance rushed out, placing a sympathetic hand on the other’s shoulder.
“I thought you knew this? I clearly remember you making a joke about it a few times.”
“That,” Lance started, “was when I was a stupid teenager, I’ve gone through so much character development and now I am a responsible adult!”
“You calling the war we’ve been fighting your “character development” just proved to me that you’re still a stupid teenager,” Keith laughed.
“At least I’m not a bajillion years old, you senior citizen.”
“I’m a year older than you.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I’m a young, carefree, beautiful smooth skinned twenty three year old and that you’re an old, wrinkly, crusty twenty SIX year old!”
Keith starts walking faster in front of Lance, too tired to keep on arguing about a dumb topic that might end up with him getting too mad,
“I’m not talking to you right now.”
Laughing, Lance rushed to run next to Keith as they reached the mess hall for lunch.
-----------------------------
The paladins were back in the studio they were interviewed at last time, except unlike the last time where there was a host they were now sat lined up in front of a black table that had a box filled with slips of paper. The pieces of paper held questions that were submitted by viewers and various people that wanted to ask or say something to Voltron after their first interview.
Unlike the first interview where they were wearing their armour, they were wearing casual clothes that were still each of their color schemes. After introducing themselves, they each started taking turns picking a note out of the box.
Lance quickly took his chance to start, already pulling a note out of the box,
“I’ll go first! Okay so it says ‘Hello voltron are you real and also Pidge you’re my favorite character okay bye’. First of all, yes we are real, second of all Pidge is your favorite?? I’m literally right here.”
“Why would you be their favorite? I’m clearly the better option,” snorted Pidge.
Lance rolled his eyes as Allura chose a piece of paper,
“‘Are Keith and Allura really aliens or is it just costume design and lies? Keith also just looks like a normal person and Allura only looks like an alien because of her hair, ears, and face markings. You all might as well be lying about this ‘defending the universe’ junk’.”
Looking over the note to make sure she took in the word vomit in correctly, Allura took in a deep breath to calm herself.
“Hello, whomever could’ve sent this, might I say rude, message. I am not exactly sure why Humans and Alteans look so similar, though it may be because of our similar planet conditions and climate. Keith looks ‘normal’ because he is half galra, and his human part is just more dominant. We are clearly not lying about our roles in making sure the universe is safe because Earth was quite literally under severe attack by the Galra barely a year ago. Thank you for your question, we will be moving on.”
Grabbing a piece of paper out of the box, Hunk shivered at how serious Allura’s tone was,
“This note says, ‘How old are you guys and how old were you all when you first went to space?’ Good question! Lance and I are 23, Pidge 21, and Keith 26. When we first went to space we were 17, 15, and 18 respectively! Keith’s age is weird because he went on a solo mission once where it caused us to have drastically different ‘time zones’, I guess, in our first or second year in space!”
Pidge squinted at the slip in her hand, appalled at the poor handwriting,
“‘Hi is space cool do they have minecraft’” Pidge sighed, “Hi, yes space is pretty cool, no they don’t have minecraft unless you find a space mall that had an earth memorabilia shop that had it. No, I didn't make up ‘space mall’.”
Keith read his note aloud, “Keith looks like an edgy Gerard Wa- WHAT!? Okay, this- this isn’t even a question! I’m not emo!”
“Are you sure? You’re not beating any allegations with that black mullet and your ‘mysterious aura’,” Lance goaded.
Keith scowled at Lance’s grin, silently cursing him out in his mind. He made a mental note to not go easy on Lance during their next training session, he could handle it.
-----------------------------
Keith was sitting next to Lance, who had Romelle next to him too, with Hunk, Pidge, and Allura opposite from them. They were all gathered in the mess hall for breakfast, conversation flowing freely as they ate.
Romelle was explaining a story from her childhood, acting it out with her arms, explaining in full detail,
“And then Bandor, you wouldn’t believe it,” She giggled, “he ran throughout the whole village in the rain just to find the toy, only for me to find it under his covers! He was so tired at the end that he just flopped and collapse on top of it like a fresh caught humming feisher!”
Hunk laughed with her, “What is up with you and Coran with those similes?"
Chuckling, Lance was going to add onto the conversation until he heard his name being called by someone.
Nadia called Lance over, “McClain! I need to ask you something!”
“I’m coming! See you guys,” He replied, stuffing a mini muffin into his mouth before running to where Nadia stood.
Keith watched him run off, staring at his back as Lance greeted the pilot.
“God you’re pathetic,” Pidge commented, causing Keith to look back at her, snapping him out of his daze.
“No I’m not, I’m normal.”
Hunk swallowed his bite before looking back at Keith with a tired expression,
“Dude, like, every time Lance is with you, you stare at him! And whenever he leaves you keep on staring in the direction he left!”
Allura giggled, tossing another fade at him, “You aren’t very good at hiding your affections Keith, I’m sure everyone is aware of your crush on Lance by now.”
“I’m not that obvious!”
Allura gave Keith a look before his attention was brought to Romelle,
“What do you even think about when you stare at him?” she wondered aloud.
“He’s probably thinking about one of his sick, gay fantasies,” Pidge coughed to cover her smile,
“Oh Keith,” they started, speaking in a comically high pitched voice, “Thank you for saving me with your big, strong, grizzled muscles, I don’t know what I’d ever do if you weren’t here to protect me!”
Hunk laughed before playing along, lowering the pitch of his voice,
"’Don’t worry about it Lance, I just saved you cause I’m cool and awesome like that.’ Then, BOOM a big explosion happens and they make out or something.”
Pidge cackled, shoving Hunk, “Eww! Don’t put that image in my head!”
Keith buried his head in his hands, praying that Lance didn’t hear any of the conversation,
“Why do I even know you guys,” He groaned out in embarrassment.
Allura was about to answer his question before Lance jogged back to his seat, looking around the table before diverting his gaze to Keith.
“Hey guys! Random question but why is Keith going through his midlife crisis?”
“Well actually it would be closer to his quarter life crisis,” Pidge answered.
“Well erm ashully maybe you should stop being a smart ass.”
“Erm, actually just get good, stupid.”
Before the bickering could devolve into a full blown argument, Keith uncovered his face to answer Lance,
“It’s nothing, Lance, I just remembered that Shiro said that we have a meeting later and I forgot to look over what it’s supposed to be about.”
“We are meant to discuss our ‘past internet presence’, whatever that could be,” chimed in Allura.
Lance and Hunk’s faces drop as they turn to each other, both sending the other pleading looks.
Pidge looked between the two of them, eyeing them suspiciously,
“Why do you guys look like that..?”
Hunk’s mouth opened, but before he could respond to Pidge a hand slapped over it.
“DON’T. Don’t worry about it Pidgeon,” Lance coughed out.
Pidge side eyed the two before turning back to their breakfast, “Okaaaay..”
When leaving the mess hall, Lance pulled Hunk aside,
“Did you delete the account??” He whispered aggressively,
“NO?? The last time I saw it was when we were 17!” Hunk barely whispered.
Taking a deep breath, Lance patted Hunks shoulder, starting to move towards the meeting room,
“It’s okay, they probably won't be able to find it anyway. Probably.”
“Yeah, probably.”
-----------------------------
On the large screen projection in the Garrison meeting room, a tiktok page with the username “CrunchwrapOnMySupreme” with a glowing Baja Blast as the profile picture was displayed. The videos were mostly of 0.5’s of Hunk to various music while he was doing something, but others varied from clips of late night karaoke to Lance ranting about whatever drama he was involved in while Hunk was in the background eating whatever while nodding along to his friend’s opinions.
Lance slid further down his chair and Hunk buried his head further into his knees as Pidge clicked on one of the videos,
Hunk and Lance were sitting across from each other in a Denny’s booth, a plate consisting of four pancakes, a pile of hashbrowns drenched in hot sauce and two eggs sat in front of them.
A shot of the meal with some glimpses of Hunk holding his fork already was shown with the background commentary from 17 year old Lance.
“TODAY me and Hunky are going to use our last ten dollars to get Denny’s before we enter senior year hell!” Lance yelled in the background before it cut to a side shot view of the two eating the food in a timelapse.
Lance covered his face, groaning loudly, “Oh my god this can’t be real.”
Laughing, Shiro reached over the table to pat Lance’s shoulder, “Don’t be embarrassed, I think this is hilarious!”
Keith looked over to Lance, who was still wallowing in his own self pity alongside Hunk,
“It’s not that bad. Could've been worse.”
“Gee thanks Mullet.”
“No problem,” Keith shrugged.
Lance glared at him as Pidge spoke,
“My question is why is it Taco Bell themed??”
Hunk piped up, having just finished psyching himself up,
“I had a job at a Taco Bell for like a year right, so Lance would come to most of my shifts to order a Crunch Wrap Supreme and a Baja Blast, and we used to share it ‘cause we were always broke. It ended up being our ‘thing’ and when making the account it was during one of the times we ate that together.”
Allura smiled at the story,
“That was strangely sweet, thank you for sharing that Hunk!”
Lance sat up properly, facing Coran,
“Why do we need to go through our past social media presences anyways?”
“Well Number Three,” Coran answered, “I was in a very interesting conversation with Lieutenant Kinkade when he had mentioned that if we wish to move forward with social media we would have to make sure that none of you are associated with anything negative from the past!”
The meeting was spent going through each of their profiles online. Pidge’s tumblr blog from when they were a tween where they posted and reblogged posts about coding and technology discourse was shown. She felt so embarrassed that she considered saying sorry for laughing at Hunk and Lance’s tiktok account earlier.
Shiro’s Instagram account where he shared simple photos of his trips, job, and him and Adam together. There was a post that had a picture of young Keith passed out on a couch that had caused the team to go into a fit of laughter.
Keith’s face had a firm scowl as Lance gripped his shoulder to help steady himself while bent over laughing.
Keith’s childhood youtube account was found, and the only video was from 14 years ago. Ten year old Keith walking throughout the desert exploring, recording with a shitty camera. You could hear him talking in the background, explaining what plant or creature they were looking at. There was no editing, making the video around an hour long where in the end you can hear a deep voice calling him home.
“That was.. So cute dude,” Hunk sniffed, others at the table nodding along, agreeing with his statement.
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The Voltron crew are all sat in a half circle, each of them sitting on color coded bean bags and wearing pajamas. Sitting on the far left is Anika Chai, the host of the popular podcast “Tea Bags”, which has Voltron as their guest today. The environment is very cozy with the walls decorated with various posters and photos taken with past guests, and the center tapestry, which changes every episode, has a retro style image of the Voltron lions flying in formation. Everyone is relaxed in their pajamas and bean bags and the entire floor is more than covered with blankets and quilts of various patterns and colors.
“Hi Sugar Cubes! I’m your faithful host Anika Chai and welcome back to another episode of Tea Bags! Today our guests are no other than the epic alien fighters themselves, Voltron!” Anika excitedly gestured to the rest of the room, the guests all waving and saying hi in various tones.
The conversation flowed easily between Anika and the Paladins, jokes and banter being tossed around constantly, making for a very entertaining podcast episode.
“So,” Anika grinned, “Edward or Jacob?”
“JACOB!” Lance screamed.
Allura gasped loudly, looking at Lance with betrayal,
“How could you say that! Edward was clearly the better option for Bella! Edward and Bella belonged together and they ended up getting married anyway!”
“Edward literally stalked Bella just because he couldn’t read her mind! Plus, Jacob is way better looking than Sideburns over here!”
“Jacob is a wet drooling dog, he hardly has half of the elegance Edward had! No matter what Edward is obviously better than Jacob.”
Lance crossed his arms huffing in annoyance, “God forbid a guy likes them tall, dark and handsome!”
Allura threw a sharp look towards Keith, before turning her glare back to Lance, “Yes, god forbid. I genuinely don’t understand your taste, Lance.”
Pidge looked over at Lance and Allura,
“Grown adults arguing over which Twilight character is better.”
Anika laughed at the argument, waving her hand, “My fault for bringing up something so controversial! Now I have a more personal question, if you don’t mind answering, Keith, do you have a special someone in your life?”
“Uh..” Feeling awkward from the sudden question, Keith lowered his head, “Not really, no.”
Before Anika could push further, Lance cut in,
“Cut him some slack, Keith would rather beat up the training bots than scroll through tinder!”
“Oh! I’ve been meaning to ask about that, how do the ‘training bots’ on the Castle-ship work? I was pretty curious about that when you last mentioned it earlier!”
Grinning widely, Allura took her chance to explain in full detail along with Pidge how the Altean robots worked. As the three spoke, Keith shot a grateful glance towards Lance, who had smiled kindly in return.
The podcast interview ended with a total success, both the Paladins and Anika enjoying their time together and having fun but also answering questions that the small voltron community on earth wanted answered.
While they were finishing up sharing good byes with Anika and her team, Keith gently pulled Lance aside.
“Hey, I just wanted to thank you for diverting the conversation earlier, I was getting kind of worried that I’d end up messing up the episode.”
Lance’s previously concerned face melted into a smile,
“Of course man, I know how uptight you get when people ask questions like that. Plus, it’s not like I wasn’t telling the truth!”
Keith rolled his eyes before smiling back at the brunette boy,
“Don’t act like I didn’t just have to listen to you rant about how ‘cows should be lactose intolerant’ while being recorded for a podcast that’s helping to represent us.”
“Shut up! You know my argument would've been completely reasonable with the data we got from Kaltenacker!”
Punching him on the shoulder, Lance started walking away from Keith towards the others. But before he walked even three steps away he looked back to Keith, gesturing with his hand to beckon him over. Keith walked up next to Lance before they fell back into easy conversation. Keith mused the thought of younger them rather beating each other up with their bayards before allowing themselves to be like this.
Keith eyed Lance with a fond look as he excitedly explained who knows what. The surrounding chatter melted away as they fell into their own little bubble. Keith’s gaze lowered to Lance’s lips before snapping back up, a new determination forming in him.
He took a deep breath, looking straight at Lance,
“La-” But before Keith could say anything, he was interrupted by 256 pounds of fur appearing out of nowhere and falling right on top of him.
Kosmo was eagerly licking Keith’s face, completely on top of the man and in turn suffocating him. Keith’s attempts to push the wolf dog off proved futile until the dog’s attention was turned to Lance, who had his phone out taking pictures of the whole ordeal.
“Hi Kosmo!” Lance giggled, speaking in a high pitched tone as he crouched down to play with Kosmo, who was barking excitedly while licking Lance’s cheeks.
Keith was pulled up by Hunk, who had been laughing quietly to avoid getting the former more embarrassed.
“You okay dude?” Asked Hunk, who tried dusting off some of the fur off of Keith.
“I’m fine, just realized that I should be training Kosmo more to not tackle me whenever he teleports,” Keith groaned, though it was quickly turned into a smile as he watched Lance and Kosmo play together, Allura cooing over the dog with Pidge watching from a safe distance (Kosmo once tried to eat their phone, never again).
He couldn’t stop looking at the two until his focus broke by Hunk,
“You’re doing it again!”
Keith’s face flushed in embarrassment as his neck snapped to look at Hunk,
“Doing what? I’m not doing anything!”
Hunk sighed, “Look man, it’s fine if you don’t want to confess or anything right now but everyone knows. I just want to let you know that I’m here if you ever want to talk or anything! I know me and Lance are close but so are us! Don’t feel scared to share things with me dude!”
“Thanks Hunk, I’ll try to be more open,” Keith smiled.
“AWWW of course Keith!” Hunk pulled Keith into a tight hug, squeezing him until he deemed him hugged enough, letting him down.
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Allura fixed a camera to a tripod, smiling widely as she started recording.
“Hello all! My name is Princess Allura of Altea, and today I have been tasked with recording our first video for Voltron! I am going to first try to find the other paladins and then members of the Voltron coalition so you all can get to know them more and what the Garrison is like!”
Walking through the halls, Allura greeted whatever cadets and Garrison officials as she searched for her first victim.
As she rounded the corner, she spoke to the camera,
“Currently I am on the hunt for Pidge not only because I need to ask them to also help me with editing this video, but also because she always seems to know where everyone is.”
Allura entered the green house room, moving the camera around to pan over the area as Colleen Holt spotted her,
“Hi Princess Allura! Do you need something?”
“Well, I would like to know where Pidge could be, say hi to the camera!”
Colleen laughed before waving at the camera,
“Hello, my name is Colleen Holt, Pidge is my youngest kid. I’m pretty sure she’s lurking around the break room somewhere, good luck finding them,” She answered.
“Thank you Mrs. Holt!”
Allura swiftly left the green house and found the break room, inside she could see Shiro and Adam speaking to each other on the loveseat sofa.
“Hello you two! I was wondering if you know where Pidge could be!”
Midway through his wave, Shiro’s face changed expressions from cheerful to nervousness. He covertly pointed to a section of the break room that had a large blanket draped on top of a figure and stretched across to other objects under it, a faint green light emitting from the spots that weren't covered.
Allura carefully walked to the blanket, lifting it up gently to reveal a very tired and coffee high Pidge.
“AGH! Allura! Put the blanket down!” Pidge hissed, shielding their eyes from the blinding light from outside.
“Pidge! It is nearly time for dinner! Why are you staring at your computer?”
“I… Need to lock in.. I have so much work Llura.. So much……” Mumbled out Pidge, her eyes drooping and eye bags made more obvious with the harsh white Garrison lights.
Kneeling down next to them, Allura was about to shake their shoulders (gently, of course), before Pidge promptly collapsed onto the Princess.
Allura made a shocked noise, which changed to silent giggles at Pidge's drooling face.
She looked up to Adam, who was walking over to where they were,
“Don’t worry Allura, I called Matt a moment ago to get them. Already twenty one and she can’t even manage to have a proper bed time.”
He looked up, just now noticing the camera she held.
“Is that for that Voltron channel you guys are trying to do? Takashi was just telling me about what you all were doing earlier.”
“Yes! Would you like to introduce yourself to it?”
Adam chuckled before looking into the camera.
“Hello, my name is Adam Wright, I’m a teacher at the Garrison.”
Allies pointed the camera towards Shiro, who was still sitting on the sofa watching with an amused expression. He raised the metal arm in a wave,
“Hi! My name is Takashi Shirogane and I’m the current Atlas commander and the former black paladin of Voltron!”
Allura quickly said goodbye, giving the two men and Pidge a hug before rushing out of the room now in pursuit of Hunk.
“I’m sure that Hunk will be in the kitchen helping the cooks with dinner right now! He is always a great help and I am also in dire need of a snack,” Her stomach grumbled before she even finished her sentence.
She entered the cafeteria and peaked inside of the kitchen, watching the chefs scurry around until she spotted a yellow uniform in the far corner.
“Oh! Excuse me!” Allura yelped, trying to avoid a large pot of soup being carted around.
She maneuvered around the people, swinging the camera around, until she reached the spot Hunk was.
“Hello Hunk!”
“AGH!” Hunk squealed, almost dropping the hot pan of cookies.
After quickly setting down the tray, he turned around to face Allura,
“Allura! Jesus, all of you have got to get better at not sneaking up on me in the kitchen. I almost just dropped this on you!”
“Oh! Rainbow sprinkles! Could I take one?” Allura asked, eyeing the tray with anticipation.
“Okay, but let them cool-” But before Hunk could even finish Allura snatched one immediately, the cookie still emitting steam.
Hunk grumbled under his breath as he watched Allura eat the whole thing in two bites,
“Frick you Alteans and your heat tolerance..”
Her eyes swiveled back to Hunk as she reached for a second cookie,
“That is so racist Hunk! This is merely just a part of my biology,” The last part was muffled by the Princess stuffing another cookie into her mouth.
“And,” Hunk slapped Allura’s hand from taking a third cookie, "Frick Lance for teaching you about using racism as a joke.”
Allura attempted to rub her hand dramatically, but it proved to be difficult with the tripod still held in her other hand. She settled for a simple ‘Ow!’, as she remembered her reason for coming to Hunk in the first place,
“Hunk, would you like to introduce yourself to the camera?”
“Of course! My name is Hunk and right now I’m baking cookies for the Garrison bake sale!”
“They have a Garrison bake sale?” Allura questioned.
Hunk shrugged, turning back to the oven to pull out the second tray,
“Nah I’m just joshing you, I just wanted a reason to bake.”
“Just joshing me…” Allura muttered silently in confusion, then coming back to her normal volume, she asked,
“Who is going to eat all of these anyways?”
“Oh, um..” Hunk tilted his head in thought before he dropped his shoulders and groaned,
“I honestly don’t know, I’m probably just going to leave them in the break room and let them have a free for all of them. I know Pidge is going to try to hoard them, but then Keith will come in the middle of the night just to finish all of them anyways. And then Lance will come the next day to see no cookies and then come to me begging for more and then I make more and when I’m done he’ll forget to get them and I’ll forget why I made cookies in the first place and then I’ll just leave them in the break room and. . .” Hunk sighed heavily, “It’s a never ending cycle.”
Allura nodded her head in a faux understanding, before sneakily snatching another cookie and running off, yelling her goodbyes to Hunk and the rest of the kitchen crew.
She traversed the sterile white hallways before spotting a pair of blond pigtails striding through.
Allura sped up, taking a leap as she collided with Romelle’s back and wrapped her free arm around her.
Romelle let out a tiny oof from the impact as she turned around to be greeted by Allura’s shining grin,
“Allura! You have no idea how glad I am to see you, I was just on the search for you!”
Pulling her arm back around to face Romelle properly, Allura smiled, though she could feel the tips of her ears redden from their close proximity.
“What did you need me for?”
Romelle shoved her phone, gifted by Pidge, in Allura’s face, its various added charms jingling with the phone's movement.
“I have just received a message from Veronica that Keith and Lance are currently in a heated battle of ‘Shooty the Gun III’!!”
Allura was confused as she checked her phone, also gifted by Pidge, only to see a mass sent message from Veronica,
Commander Veronica McClain:
If you are complete with your duties, and ONLY if you are completely free, you are welcome to come to the lounge to watch Paladins Lance McClain and Keith Kogane have an online shooting game tournament. There already is a betting pool.
Best wishes,
Veronica McClain
As Allura finished up reading the message Romelle noticed the camera held next to the Princess,
“Are you recording a vudeo?”
Giggling at the messed up pronouncement, Allura corrected the other girl,
“It's video, Rom, and yes! I am doing a ‘Voltron Vlog’! Would you care to share your name?”
Allura lifted up the camera, making sure to focus onto Romelle’s face.
“Hello all!! My name is Romelle! Now Allura, we mustn’t wait much longer, I’m sure they have already finished at least one round by now!”
As they walked to the lounge, the sounds of shouting could be heard clearly from down the hall.
When they entered the room the two girls were greeted by the sight of a decent sized group all gathered around the sofa in the center.
Sitting on the sofa was Lance, his legs folded in a crisscross, holding the controller, and Keith next to him bent over with his arms resting on his knees clutching the controller like it’s his life line. Both boys are staring at the tv with the same focus they would have on the battlefield, beads of (very dramatic and un-needed) sweat falling down.
Allura and Romelle quietly entered, Allura lifting the tripod higher up and turning it from the tv to the two paladins as the tensions increased.
Lance was going through the game easily, but grew more and more annoyed as he watched Keith’s side of the screen where he constantly missed and cursed out in frustration.
After one more “Shit” fell out of Keith’s mouth, Lance turned to him and snapped,
“YOUR AIM IS SO FUCKING ASS!”
Watching Keith’s surprised expression at the outburst, he took a deep breath,
“I’m sorry, what I mean to say is that you’re not very good. At aiming, I mean.”
Turning back to the screen and straining his eyes to aim better, Keith muttered under his breath,
“Oh Keith, let's play a shooting game. It'll be sooooo fun. No Keith it’s fine that you’re bad at playing shooting games I believe in you,” He sarcastically mumbled.
Despite his own annoyance, Keith couldn’t help himself from smiling at Lance’s grin as he scored another point. Eventually, the tournament ended, and Allura approached the sofa holding the camera to show both guys as they greeted her.
“Hi Allura!” “Hey ‘lura,” The two said as they spotted the Princess.
“Hello you two! Congrats on your win Lance, and good effort Keith!”
“Thanks Princess, but I knew that I would’ve lost anyways. Playing a shooting game with Lance is like trying to cook better than Hunk,” Keith responded.
“Do not fret Keith!” Romelle chirped, “I believed in you fully!”
Lance laughed, purposefully hitting Keith’s face as he flipped around to drape across the sofa upside down,
“That’s nice of you Rom but it’s a good thing you two came after Vero finished taking bet money, you would’ve been broke!”
He pointed to behind the sofa where Veronica was counting a very large wad of bills that she got after betting on her younger brother.
“Is this.. legal..?” Allura asked tentatively.
“As long as no one snitches it is,” Lance shrugged.
Allura held the camera back up to clearly show Lance, who was still sitting upside down, and Keith sitting on the sofa, both with confused faces.
“I’m recording our first Voltron vlog! Say hi and your name!”
Before Keith could open his mouth, Lance shoved his socked foot in his face so that he could speak first,
“HI FANS! My name is Lance and I just DEMOLISHED this guy at ‘Shooty the Gun III’! This loser’s name is Keith by the way.” He fake gagged when saying Keith’s name.
“Wow I’m so happy you think so highly of me Lance. Hi, my name is Keith Kogane, the Black Paladin.”
Allura continued to record for the rest of the day and ended recording after dinner, saying goodbye to the camera.
-----------------------------
“Allura..” Pidge sighed, “Half of this footage is shaky.”
“And I have no doubt that you can salvage it and help me to make this the very best vlog ever!”
Pidge looked from Allura to back to her computer, hunching over it once more,
“Okay, but you HAVE to make sure to protect the cookies from Keith later. I can’t afford losing out on those again..”
“Of course!”
“Also if you see him, tell Keith to go fuck himself. Haha. Don’t tell Shiro I said that.”
“Okay!”
-----------------------------
Thanks to the vlog and the amount of interviews and growing popularity, Voltron became a complete hit online. Large communities finding the group to be funny and entertaining online started treating them as if they were celebrities. Even though they were relatively famous before, being saviours of the universe and such, they had grown more in the public as people that have their own unique personalities than just a face-less group that happened to save Earth.
They were all sitting in the lounge until Lance shot up from his seat on his bean bag, (that they invested in after the podcast (Lance begged Shiro to get one)) and screamed,
“We’re POPULAR!”
Pidge looked over from their spot next to Keith on the sofa,
“We’ve been popular, did you just notice?”
“Yeah but-” He sped walked over to where Pidge and Keith sat and shoved his phone in both of their faces, “We have like, ‘Voltron acting like a family’ compilations and ‘Voltron Vlogs funny moments’!! We have an actual following now!”
Keith took the phone from him, scrolling through the #Voltron tag with Pidge looking over his shoulder,
“Holy shit you’re right, there's even like people using photos of us as their profile pictures.”
“Gimme that,” Pidge snatched the phone and read out some of the captions of the videos to Hunk and Allura who were watching with interest,
“Okay there's a little edit of Hunk with yellow and gold glitter around him, here’s one that says “Allura is my favorite” with a collage of her spinning in the background. And this one says- oh!”
“What do you mean ‘oh’!?” Lance asked nervously.
“This is a video of you and Keith captioned ‘Klance’,” They answered.
“What??” Keith grabbed the phone from Pidge as Lance squeezed into the space next to him.
On the phone was a video that switched between different clips of Keith and Lance interacting and being next to each other from various interviews and the vlogs. The video had 128k likes and over 2 thousand comments.
“Pidge, why are people saying Klance, what does it mean??” Keith’s face was nothing short of confused as he stared at the more tech savvy person.
Lance smacked his arm and took his phone back, “Are you slow? It’s obviously a mix of our names. Wait, lemme read the comments.”
He opened the comments, still not relenting the phone fully to Keith, only allowing a glimpse as he read the top comments out loud,
“‘Keith and Lance are so cute together!’ ‘I know they are the Black and Red paladins but their clothes are so red and blue coded!!’ ‘No two straight men stand that close next to each other they’ve definitely explored eachoth-,” Keith grabbed Lance's mouth to make him stop reading out the comments, his face burning red in embarrassment.
“Oh my god. People think you two are TOGETHER,” Pidge clutched her stomach as she bent over laughing, falling off the couch as a result.
Allura giggled as she watched the two boys grow more and more red,
“It seems that our community thinks that you two are courting! I must tell Romelle this instant!”
As she pulled out her phone to message Romelle and presumably every other girl in the Garrison, Hunk carefully walked over to Lance and Keith, speaking with a practiced caution,
“Hey guys,” He said, drawing out the ‘guys’, “Are you feeling okay..?”
Lance stood up, cheeks still pink, “I’m feeling great! On a completely unrelated note I'm just going to go to my room right now.”
Hunk watched as Lance practically ran out of the room and turned back to Keith, who was still slumped over with his head in his hands, face completely red.
“You okay Keith?”
Keith collapsed onto the floor on his back, grabbing a pillow from the couch and screaming into it.
Pinching his nose bridge, Hunk internally groaned at the thought of what he’d have to deal with for who knows how long.
-----------------------------
Shiro watched Keith pace around his bedroom from where he was seated on the edge of his bed. Some part of him felt sympathetic towards his little brother but the other part was laughing at the situation that Keith had gotten into, feeling some sort of relief that there was some sort of push for Keith and Lance.
“So let me make sure I’m getting this right. People online are ‘shipping’ you and Lance together? Like there’s a few people out there that think you two are dating?”
“Not just a few people, Shiro!” Keith snapped, “There’s like, thousands of people that think Lance and I are in love!”
“They’re not wrong about that, you are in love. ” Shiro beckoned Keith to sit next to him.
Sitting next to Shiro, Keith sighed, “Yeah, I know that I am but I have no idea if Lance is. He could be completely straight for all I know!”
Shiro dead panned at him, “First of all, Lance is definitely not straight, and second of all he definitely likes you! Enough that people are dissecting your interactions online just to prove you two are dating.”
“But still Shiro, I don’t know what to do, I’m scared that he’s going to be weirded out by this. I don’t know what I’d do if he started distancing himself.”
“It’s okay kid, Lance would never do that, if he was that uncomfortable he’d tell you. Things will be fine!”
Keith let out a small laugh, "I'm not a kid Shiro.”
Lifting his bionic arm, Shiro ruffled Keith’s hair, “Keep telling yourself that squirt.”
They sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments until Shiro opened his mouth, toying with the gold band that sat on his ring finger,
“Do you remember how I asked Adam out at first?”
Keith snorted at the funny memory, “Yeah, you spilt coffee on the both of you then asked for his number while he was cleaning it. He’s never letting you live that down by the way.”
Shiro shoved him, making Keith fall on his side,
“I know that, punk, but what I want to say is that even though I thought I messed things up with us and thought that he’d never want to hang out with me things still turned out good! I mean, we’re married so I’d hope that he likes me at least a little bit.”
Keith sat back up, laughing a bit more,
“No, he actually told me the other day that he hates you and is plotting to pour three gallons of coffee on you when you least expect it.”
“Oh noo what will I do, my little brother and husband are conspiring against me! I guess I have no choice but to lay down and end my very short and painful life,” chuckling, Shiro slumped over on top of Keith, restricting his movement and effectively trapping him.
“Get off me Shiro!! You’re too old and heavy to be acting like this!”
“Wow. Now I’m being body shamed, I’m hurt Keith, hurt.”
Shiro eventually got off after hearing Keith struggling to get up on his own for a little while. As they both sat up, Shiro rested a comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder,
“Don’t worry Keith, Lance won’t start hating you and ignoring you for no reason just because of some silly internet thing. And I’m always here if anyone decides to give you trouble.”
Keith smiled at the support, glad to have his older brother's comfort, “Thanks, Shiro.”
–
“Where in the world could he be..” Hunk grumbled as he searched throughout the Garrison for Lance after finding out that he wasn’t in his room. He entered the hanger to see Lance sitting idly on the Red Lion’s paw.
Hunk sat next to Lance, and settled in on the cold metal of the robot as he leaned back. He turned to his best friend, who had been staring blankly at the sad gray walls of the Garrison hanger, which had to be recently renovated to fully fit all five lions, including the Atlas.
“How are you doing man?” He asked.
Lance did a quiet scoff, not moving his eyes from the spot they were fixated on,
“I’m doing great Hunky, just thinking.”
“‘Bout what?”
Lance’s cheeks reddened as he answered Hunk with a bashful expression,
“Nothing! Y’know just about those edit things.”
His face softening at Lance’s nervous voice, Hunk wrapped an arm around his friend, pulling him into a comforting side hug.
“If you think about it, it’s not all that different from that time the people on Weaildom thought we were married because I hugged you.”
Lance chuckled before sighing, “Yeah but that’s different, you’re my best friend!"
“Keith is also your friend!“
Lance hummed noncommittally, lolling his head to the side.
Pulling him closer, Hunk squeezed Lance around his arm,
”This thing shouldn’t cause a rift between you two, some people are just too parasocial. At least it’s Keith, not some rando we’ve never met.”
“You’re right, at least it’s not Coran,” They both shivered at the thought before bursting out in laughter.
Resting his head on the other's shoulder, Lance grew a small smile,
“Keith’s not the worst person that I could get stuck with..”
“Don’t act like you’re not a bit happy about this, being shipped with ‘bigger, grizzled’ Keith,” Hunk snickered.
“SHUT UP! I thought we agreed to never talk about that again,” Lance hissed, squeezing Hunk’s cheek in annoyance.
The two sat together after some laughter, enjoying each other's company in the soft buzz of the lions around them.
-----------------------------
Lance watched from the doorway of the meeting room, looking at a very tired and slightly disheveled Keith who was surrounded by various papers and three different pens scattered about.
He approached the leader, taking the seat next to him, causing Keith to notice and greet him,
“Hey”
“Hey man, need help here?”
Keith dropped his head onto the table, making a very loud thump sound against the metal surface,
“Yes, absolutely, Kolivan and Allura dumped all of this on me last minute and I know for a fact they’re plotting my downfall with this much paperwork.”
Lance laughed as he took his own stack of papers and a pen, reading through and working diligently on them alongside Keith, who had gone back to the other papers.
After a few moments of working silently, Keith turned his head towards Lance, taking a deep breath before speaking,
“Lance, about those videos,” Before he could finish his carefully planned out words Lance interrupted him,
“Don’t worry about it Keith, I’m sorry for walking out earlier, I was just confused for a bit about why people would make stuff like that about us.”
Keith felt his heart drop a little hearing Lance speak with that tone towards the thought of them being together, until Lance spoke again,
“But, I do understand why people would do it, we’d totally make such a hot couple!”
“What!?” Keith snorted, surprised.
Keith calmed down his face, shaping it into a more serious expression as he tried to address the elephant in the room,
“Lance, I’m so sorry if you feel uncomfortable about this, I should've been more careful with how I approached you whenever we were being recorded or posted somewhere.”
Putting down his pen, Lance turned fully to see the other boy,
“It’s fine Keith, this isn’t anything new! We’ve probably experienced something like this on multiple planets before, and probably to a higher degree.”
“Yeah but-”
“But we know it’s not what’s actually going on with us. The only difference from this than on other planets is that we’re at home and that we actually understand what people say about us. We know what’s real, not some show’s host, not whatever influencer that cares too much about two guys, and certainly not randos online. And what’s real is that we are friends, and that we are the best paladins ever! Besides Hunk, Pidge and Allura of course.”
Keith’s worry lines smoothed out as he listened to Lance’s confidence and optimism, smiling warmly at the boy who had only grinned wider seeing Keith’s expression.
“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Lance.”
“Anytime!” Lance checked his phone before standing up,
“Ugh, Iverson just emailed me that I have to help train junior cadets. I’m not even getting paid for this!”
Chuckling, Keith waved Lance off as he started leaving the room,
“Get to your class, Mr. McClain, before your students start skipping.”
Halfway out the door, Lance smirked at Keith, waving to him as he left,
“You would know a thing or two about skipping, wouldn't you Kogane?”
Still feeling the warm presence of Lance next to him even after he left, Keith snapped out of his smitten daze when he realized a key detail in Lance’s small speech.
“Did.. I just get friend zoned..?”
His smile got swiftly replaced with a scowl as he hit his head on the metal table,
“Fuck,” He muttered against the papers spread around him.
-----------------------------
Coran gathered them into the meeting room once more to speak about a new plan. Including the paladins and Shiro, the addition of the MFE pilots, James, Ina, Ryan and Nadia were also present.
“Because of our growing success, I’ve decided to set up another Voltron show here on earth! Visitors from our allied planets and more have already agreed to come here to see it!”
Nadia shot her hand up, eyes sparkling with curiosity,
“What is a Voltron show anyways? A live action remake of the cartoon series??”
Coran smiled warmly as he addressed the fighter pilot,
“Good question, back in the past a few deca-pheobs ago we performed a little show across the galaxy with the help of our close friend Bi Bo Bi! We only had the Paladins last time but we thought that including you MFE pilots would be a good way to show the Garrison in this new show!”
James crossed his arms, confused, “Like a play?”
“Kinda, we also did Voltron on Ice and other random stuff,” Lance answered.
Pidge giggled under their breath, “Yeah, stuff like Lance’s rope dancing.”
“WHAT THE HELL PIDGE!” Lance screamed, his face turning pink.
“What do you mean rope dancing??” Keith questioned, unknowing of this because of his absence and only knowing snippets of the show from passing conversations.
Lance turned to Keith, his face turning red, and quickly rambled out before he could get interrupted,
“First of all, it’s NOT fucking rope dancing. Second of all, it's basically nothing like I didn’t even do anything. Pidge is just making shit up to embarrass me okay so don’t ever ask or bring this back up okay got it, you got it.”
Allura couldn’t stop herself from laughing a bit as she suggested something,
“Perhaps we could play some parts of Lance’s performance along with other clips so that Keith and the others know how our past show went!”
Before Lance could even begin to protest, Coran had already made up his mind,
“Good idea princess!”
Lance watched with horror as the video was pulled up on the screen, not expecting to get publicly humiliated today.
As the video played, besides a few scattered giggles around the room it was mostly quiet. Once the video had ended there were a few beats of silence until Nadia opened her mouth, smirk on her face,
“Woah McClain, I didn’t know you could move like that!”
Ina spoke, her ever present monotone voice landing another punch to Lance,
“Your flexibility is admirable, especially with how you maneuvered on the rope at such a height."
With Ina’s genuine compliment but unknowing addon into Lance’s embarrassment, Pidge couldn’t stop herself from cackling, almost falling down if it weren’t for Hunk pushing her back up.
Keith eyes lingered at the screen for a few more moments before looking at Lance, trying to calm down his red face to comfort the embarrassed boy,
“It wasn’t that bad Lance, I thought it was cool.”
Lance blinked at Keith’s face, trying to find some comfort in his words, but watching the older boy’s shifty eyes and pink cheeks, his face contorted back into a frown.
“You’re lying to me!”
“What!? No I’m not!” Keith felt a scowl form at the accusation.
Lance pointed an accusatory finger, “Yes you are! You’re totally on the verge of laughing right now!”
Before Keith could even begin with trying to defend himself, an annoyed voice spoke from the other end of the meeting table.
“Could you two finish your little lovers spat and let us finish the meeting?” Ryan had long grown tired of the commotion, making a crack into his normally aloof demeanor.
The two briefly blushed before moving away from each other, heads turning back at the screen as Coran pulled up another clip.
The video was from one of their smaller shows,
They ran around a fake enemy, just some poor guy in a costume, as Lance called out to Allura,
“KEITH I NEED BACK UP!”
“I GOOT IT!” She shouted back, all very preformative and dramatic as they fake attacked the enemy.
Various other videos and clips from the shows play, Coran making sure to point out the specific differences and things they did for it.
After watching the clips, Keith turned his very confused stare at Allura,
“Why is everyone calling you Keith? You’re Allura?”
Chuckling, Shiro explained, “While you were gone it was just when Allura became a paladin, right? So we needed people to recognize her while also showing you as a character because you were still a part of Voltron. Sooooo we maybe, kind of, made her play you..”
Keith turned his head back to Allura, “And you’re just okay with this??”
“Well,” She sighed, “I had tried to protest, but Coran told me my faux ‘lone wolf energy’ was matching yours perfectly..”
“Then who played Allura?”
Out of nowhere, Coran whipped out a long, slightly frizzy, white haired wig, similar to Allura’s natural hair with the exception of a more gray tint to the color.
“You see, Keith my boy, I did!”
He pulled on the wig haphazardly over his head, barely adjusting it as he clasped his hands together and spoke in a scratchy high pitched voice,
“I am Princess Allura of Altea!”
The old man’s terrible performance brought a light fit of laughter throughout the room, helping to lift the spirits of the young adults around the room.
After taking off his wig and smoothing down his own hair, Coran clapped his hands together, bringing the full attention of the room back to him,
“Okay team! Let’s talk about game plan!”
-----------------------------
When Coran had been talking about the Voltron show being popular, he hadn’t thought that it’d be this popular.
The Super Bowl sized stadium was filled to the brim with people, various races and species of aliens alongside a vast amount of humans bustling around the rows and rows of seats gave a constant background buzz as Keith tried to remember what was even going on.
Okay, he tried to think, pacing around the back stage area, First, Pidge is going and making a drone show. And then I go to do a fighting match with a gladiator bot. Hunk is going to be making a giant cake for the later catering as a show. After the halftime show Lance is doing a long range target and Allura goes after him with a speech. Then we have to perform a stage play as Voltron with the Atlas. Okay, that’s easy, that’s good. I practiced, I trained, I AM RE-
Keith’s train of thought was cut off by a large piece of blunt metal hitting the back of his head. As he turned he was met with a disoriented Rover, who was spinning wildly in the air until a pair of small hands grabbed and steadied the drone.
“Rover! I told you to not speed around in small spaces!”
Keith looked down to see the top of Pidge’s head, who was messing around with Rover before they finally looked up and noticed the leader,
“Oh, hey Keith, are you ready for your fight thing?”
Grumbling slightly at the fact that the younger person completely glossed over the attack that just occurred, Keith replied,
“Hi Pidge, yeah I’m ready. It won’t be any different than training, but I guess now I have an audience. You ready for your light show?”
Pidge’s face lit up as they excitedly answered, absent mindedly fidgeting with the drone in her hands,
“YES! Oh my gosh, you know how much funding the Garrison gave me to make a ton of light and camera drones and to get the tech?”
Keith did in fact know how much funding Pidge had received for her part of the show. The nerd couldn’t stop squealing about it in the first week of show prep, and he would occasionally find them passed out in front of god knows how many wires and bits of metal in the middle of the night.
“AND-” She continued, “I don’t even have to sit out there with everyone staring at me! I just get to sit back and control everything from the side lines!”
Keith lightly laughed as he ruffled the other’s head, Pidge smacking his hand in protest,
“Lucky, if I’m being honest I’m still nervous. I didn’t know so many people would come to Earth just to watch this.”
Pushing his hand off with a huff, Pidge offered a comforting smile,
“Don’t worry, it’s just the Gladiator bot, you’ll do great! Plus, I’m pretty sure that some of the aliens that came here originally thought it was a fighting ring between us five so..” They trailed off, "You're definitely going to be a major hit with those people.”
Keith smiled back at her before Coran’s voice rang throughout the speakers around the stage and stadium, informing that there was 10 minutes until the first show began.
“Well I guess that’s my cue to leave!”
Pidge ran past Keith, waving her hand goodbye,
“BYE KEITH GOOD LUCK ON YOUR FIGHT!”
He turned around and waved back,
“BYE PIDGE GOOD LUCK ON THE DRONES!”
Watching the girl exit the stage, Keith took a deep breath as he secured on his helmet, knowing his part of the show would be coming soon.
Pidge’s light show was amazing, their hard work hadn’t gone to waste as the drones made images and such of Voltron moving and fighting in the air, the bright colors contrasting against the fading night sky. The crowd watched in awe as the lights above them told a story of the fight against Zarkon, and for peace.
Kids screamed in delight when the light drones would swoop down, closer to the people in the stands and on the ground, and shone in the five colors of Voltron, purple (in place of black), red, blue, green, and yellow. Around the stage, the Lions were positioned to be sitting up high so that everyone could see them in all their glory. The lights bounced around the lions, making them look more fantastical and bright.
-
Sitting in one of the benches in front of the door to the small arena, Keith rubbed his thumb over the smooth metal of his sword. The outside cheers grew even louder with Coran’s announcement of the fight, and alongside the outside screams Keith could feel his heart beat louder. The dull pain in the back of his head throbbed with the pressure of his helmet squeezed around his head. Keith pulled off his helmet in a hurry, the pain becoming borderline unbearable.
He could feel his senses become overloaded with an annoying buzz inside of his head, but before he could fully spiral a hand was placed firmly over his armoured shoulder.
Keith turned his head up, his eyes meeting deep blue ones when he noticed the mouth below them moving. Blinking a few times, and with the support of the comforting weight on his shoulder, Keith finally realized that the person who was in front of him was Lance. Lance, who had seemingly been talking for the past minute, not realizing Keith hadn’t heard a word.
“Um,” Keith sheepishly asked, “Could you repeat, like, everything you just said?”
Lance’s face fell as he groaned, then lightly shoving Keith to sit in the space next to him, legs and arms pressed up next to each other. He unfortunately didn’t have a full understanding of personal space, especially when it came to the black haired boy that was currently next to him.
“C’mon man, you could’ve at least told me that before I just said the best part!”
He looked at Keith, who stared dumbly, before letting out an almost silent sigh and dropping his head on Keith’s shoulder,
“Okay so like, I was in the middle of setting up the targets for my thing later right? And then Bii Boh Bi told me that HE could be one of my targets, which is like, crazy right??”
Nodding his head along to whatever Lance was saying, Keith noticed that the buzz was gone, and his mind felt clearer. He rested his head on top of Lance’s as he listened to the music and cheers outside, providing a nice background noise to the story the taller boy was still reciting.
“-And when I went to Hunk to see what kind of cake he was making he said diurnam berry! Like, I know statistically it’s the most popular flavour across the galaxy, but couldn’t he have just made vanilla or chocolate?”
Keith chuckled, slightly smiling at Lance’s eventful day, “To be fair, diurnam berry is pretty good, it’s just you who doesn’t like it.”
Lance laughed, about to reply before Coran’s voice could be heard making another announcement. The two stood up, Lance putting both of his hands on Keith’s shoulder and shaking him back and forth gently.
“Good luck Samurai, I’ll be in the stands with the others. Pretend that robot is Zarkon and beat its ass!”
Keith’s laugh came out wobbly with the shaking, putting away his bayard before resting his own hands on top of the other’s shoulders to steady himself.
“Thanks, I’ll make sure to make you proud with my awesome sword skills.”
Lance threw his head back in a laugh, pulling Keith in for a firm hug,
“Don’t worry about how many people are out there, okay? You’re going to do great! I’ll be watching.”
Keith mumbled out a thanks against Lance’s shoulder, ignoring the way the uncomfortable metal pressed against his face, the discomfort was completely masked by the simple fact that it was Lance holding him and no one else.
With one last squeeze, Lance pulled back, much to Keith’s dismay, and smoothed down his long hair, his fingers brushing through Keith’s bangs before reaching for the helmet that still sat on the bench. Keith could feel Lance’s hands maneuver around his head, sliding on the helmet on him and tucking in any loose strands of hair.
“There,” Lance dropped his hands to his side, “Perfect.”
Keith couldn’t help but feel his face warm, already knowing that his face was completely red by now. He prayed to whatever deity that could be out there that his helmet visor and hair was able to cover most of his blush from Lance’s gentle gaze.
Hearing Coran beginning to announce his imminent entrance, Keith started moving towards the door. He looked back to Lance as his hand reached the handle, the mentioned boy mouthing out go with a grin on his face solidified his self confidence for his upcoming fight.
Keith’s fight went great, better than that even. The crowd screamed every time he landed a hit on the bot that would’ve been fatal on a living person, and watched with intent every time a round ended and the difficulty raised higher. The final fight ended on level 45, where it had originally started at level 15.
He had successfully entertained the people that had come for violence, if the ecstatic shouting coming from a section of the stands filled with Galra and some other alien races had said anything. The Galra shouting Vrepit Sa with an unnatural glee on their faces at seeing one of their own fight so valiantly, even if it was a half Galra.
-
Keith carefully slid into the part of the stands that the others had settled in, taking his seat next to Lance to watch Hunk make a 15 layer cake. Giant cranes carefully place down each layer, Hunk scurrying around with what looked like a fancy floating ladder, putting on various toppings, decorations, and fixing any mistakes.The cake was colorful, with each layer being a different color and shade.
Still tired and slightly beat up from his fight, Keith rested his head on Lance’s shoulder with a heavy sigh. Lance didn’t think much of it, still staring at Hunk’s cake show while leaning closer towards Keith to provide more support.
From the corner of his eye Keith spotted Pidge and Allura looking between the two boys and laughing among themselves. Shooting the evilest glare he could muster up at the moment, Keith mentally tucked away a reminder to mess with them later before settling into Lance more.
As the two shared a moment, they were unknowing to the fan who had snapped a picture of them from a distance. The teenage human girl giggled as she showed it to her new friends, a young Puigan girl and an older Olkari boy, all of them bonding over their shared interest of Voltron.
The half time show was a very much needed break for the paladins, all of them tired already from all of the preparations and their actual shows so far.
Hunk slumped in his chair, groaning,
“I am NEVER doing that again, and if I ever change my mind and say that I will? Shoot me.”
They were sitting in a make-shift break room, a few chairs and a small sofa sitting in the back with a shitty coffee machine that was definitely ‘borrowed’ from the Garrison.
Lance patted Hunk’s shin from his position laying on the floor, then gently shaking it in support,
“Don’t worry Hunky, I’ll do it in the fastest and least painful way possible, I gotchu.”
“Thanks man.”
“Ofcourse man.”
Pidge slightly cringed, still looking at their phone but directing their voice towards the blue and yellow duo across from her spot on the couch.
“Have I ever told you two how much you guys talk like dude bros that trauma bonded over frat house hazing?”
Lifting his hand, Lance waved her off, “Probably, I feel like I can recall those words being said to us at one point. What about you, dude?”
Not bothering to open his already closed and weary eyes, Hunk replied quietly,
“I think they did say that to us once, like maybe two years ago.”
“Awesome memory, dude.”
“Thanks dude.”
Pidge made an annoyed sound as Allura gently patted their head from her spot next to them, looking down at Pidge’s phone to watch whatever she was scrolling through.
The princess tried to sit peacefully, but couldn’t help herself from letting out a soft sigh,
“I terribly wish that Romelle was here with us, she should be considered an integral part of Voltron alongside us!”
Keith laughed from his spot across from her on the couch, his eyes gleaming with a teasing shine at Allura’s confession,
“Awww, the little princess misses her girlfriend.”
An array of ooooooooooo’s rang through out the room as Allura moved her head up with an angry look, huffing in annoyance,
“You absolutely cannot be talking Keith!”
Her statement made the room freeze, with the exception of Lance, who was looking at the nervous faces of his friends and Keith’s panicked expression.
“Um, he can’t be talking about what?” He looked around them, his face turning more nervous, “Is there an inside joke I’m not aware of?”
The question was interrupted by Coran’s abrupt entrance,
“Hello Paladins! I have terrific news!”
The uneasy tension in the room eased up more with Coran’s news that the beginning of the show had been a major hit. They were receiving major positive feedback from the fans and even with over half of the show left people were talking about it and spreading videos and posts about it online.
Coran urged them all, especially Lance and Allura, to make sure everything was ready as there was roughly 20 minutes until the half time show was over, causing everyone to leave the room and split up to their respective duties.
Leaving the room, Lance turned around to see Keith already walking down the opposite side of the hall. His back was to Lance and he walked stiffly, almost mechanical, his hands firmly at his sides with tightly curled fists.
After one last look at the retreating figure, Lance turned to go make sure everything was fully ready, silently wishing that Keith had at least said good luck. But he knew that wish was taken and crushed under the boot of the Black Paladin.
It’s okay, this isn’t the first time something like this happened. He can just ask him about what happened later, if he can even remember to.
-
Keith was staring with a focus that Shiro could’ve only begged him to have for meetings at the stage before him. Lance was surrounded by targets, some stationary and some moving, and was able to shoot them all with scary accuracy. His bayard was switching between sniper rifle and the energy blaster depending if he was staying in one place or moving around.
The normal targets and moving ones were already pretty fun to watch, but the cheers from the crowd grew louder when aliens of the same species as Bii Boh Bi arrived. Each alien held a fruit above their head, some stayed still while others ran around, shaking the fruit they held. The fruits ranged from pineapples to limes, and they were all shot exactly in the center.
While watching Lance, Keith heard Pidge’s voice next to him,
“You’re drooling, Kogayne.”
He brought his hand up to wipe around his mouth, only to realize there was nothing on his face, and glowered at the green paladin.
She shrugged, teasing smile on her lips,
“You might as well have been, it’s not like you’re not being obvious enough already.”
“Fuck you, ass.”
They gasped dramatically, a small habit picked up from Lance, and tried to make her face look as innocent as possible.
“You said two whole bad words! I’m gonna tell Shiro!”
Keith tried desperately to keep at least some focus on the show in front of him but decidedly turned fully at Pidge to point a threatening finger at them,
“If you tell him I’ll tell Shiro and Matt that the reason why the Buzz Ballz Choco Tease flavor keeps on running out is because you sneak one once a week.”
She leaned back into her seat, crossing her arms in defeat,
“Touche, you got away this time.”
He smirked before fixing his full attention back to Lance, almost screaming along with the crowd as he shot a small mandarin right in the bullseye.
Keith felt horrible about leaving Lance in the dark about what had happened in the break room, and he felt even worse about not even saying a proper goodbye. He only realized once he was in the stands that he hadn’t even given Lance a good luck speech or even just a hug before his part of the show.
Allura had already apologized profusely to Keith, realizing too late that the subject of his crush was listening into their banter when she had almost exposed him. Obviously Keith had accepted the apology and tried to calm down the Princess, no one could really stay too mad at her for long, especially for such a trivial issue compared to what they’ve argued about in the past.
Lance’s show went perfectly, people screaming at the end when he dramatically bowed before retreating into the back stage. Allura left the stands, Lance joining back shortly after, sitting quietly next to Keith.
Listening to the bustle and chatter around them, Keith tentatively reached out a hand, resting it on Lance’s armoured forearm.
“Hey,”
Hearing no response from him, Keith continued,
“I’m sorry about earlier, you did amazing. I think that was the first time I’ve ever seen an apple get blasted mid air.”
Lance turned his head to look at him, offering a wry smile,
“Thanks, it was my first time shooting an apple mid air.”
The atmosphere around them lifted, though still carried a heavy feeling. But that was enough for Keith, it was enough for now.
The lights dimmed with Allura’s entrance on stage, Keith could still see the features on Lance’s face being outlined by a distant blue light somewhere. He tugged Lance closer, making the other lean his head on Keith’s shoulder. He couldn’t help but feel proud of himself as he felt Lance’s body relax against him, pressing closer. A silent forgiveness. Keith was never good with words, but he was pretty okay with actions. At least, that’s what he told himself.
-----------------------------
One month until they have to go to space.
The past year had gone by faster than anyone would’ve liked, and eventually duty ended up calling. Busy with spreading word of Voltron and doing coalition work and meetings, Keith hadn’t even noticed the time running out until Lance had proposed an idea.
They were all eating dinner in the Garrison dining hall when he had been struck with a thought.
“Guys,” Lance looked over at his friends, who were either talking about something or engrossed in their meal,
“Since we have a month left I was wondering if we could maybe go on a vacation! I mean I know not constantly fighting counts as a vacation I guess but I mean a real vacay, y'know?"
Keith swallowed his bite, looking back at Lance, “We only have a month left?”
Putting down his cup, Hunk answered, “Yeah dude, we literally have the departure date on the shared digital calendar.”
“Sorry,” Keith mumbled, “I’ve been so swamped with work I haven't even noticed how much time is passing by.”
“Me too, I keep on getting called to work on improvements to the Atlas, can’t they just ask my dad or brother to deal with that at this point!” Pidge grumbled, stabbing their fork into a piece of chicken to punctuate her point.
Lance waved his hand towards the green and red duo,
“See! Getting an actual vacation can be the break we need!”
“A vacation would be fun,” Allura hummed.
Romelle looked up from her hands, which were currently busy with winding Allura’s hair into a thick braid. Her face broke out into a smile,
“I’ve been reading some earth books and I greatly wish to see a beach! They sound so beautiful!”
Allura clapped her hands, “Beach it is then!”
Lance watched the two chatter between themselves, already making plans without outside input. He thought about how cute the two were together, they started dating a month ago and Lance didn’t know he could ever feel as jealous as he did now.
Of course he was happy for them! They were two of his closest friends, and he also was very invested in Allura’s late night stories about what Romelle had done, said, or even wore (Which would almost always be the chicken orange Garrison uniform, not that she cared), and Lance felt like he was watching a beautiful romance grow right in front of him.
Though any other ugly feeling he had towards them was immediately dwarfed by his joy over their relationship, he distantly wished that he could have the same with someone. Ugh, maybe the “Lover Boy Lance” persona Coran made for him when they were younger started getting to him more after the Voltron show.
His train of thoughts were interrupted from an elbow nudge from someone next to him,
“You good with going to the beach?” Keith asked, nudging him more after not receiving an immediate answer.
Lance snapped out of his stupor to answer the insistent boy next to him,
“Yes! Of course, I love the beach! Good choice, Rom!”
She looked over from her conversation with Allura, her grin widening,
“Yay! Thank you for agreeing with me Lance!”
He chuckled, knowing if he even tried to oppose the idea he would be met with pissed off Allura that would make them go wherever Romelle wanted to go anyways.
Lance thought for a moment before opening his mouth once more,
“We could visit my family house in Cuba, it’s next to the beach so we don’t need to worry about a place to stay and my family would love to see you guys! Plus, Vero is going back home for a few days soon too so we can go together!”
“Good idea Lance, I’ll make sure to tell Shiro and Adam so we can all pack for it,” Keith smiled, his face warming at Lance’s grin.
-
Arizona was hot, especially when the place you stayed at the most was in the middle of a desert, but this was another type of hot.
Obviously it would be hot, but mixed with the ocean air and the blazing sun it was almost unbearable.
“It is so humid, how are you weirdos not even sweating that much,” Pidge gestured her free arm towards Lance and Hunk, her other hand holding a mini fan to her face. Their bangs were pulled back with a green head band and her hair was pulled into two tiny pig tails.
Lance laughed, a cocky grin spread across his face, “Because we are just built better, clearly.”
“How far away is the house again Lance?” Keith desperately asked. Much like Pidge, his bangs were pulled back with a claw clip and his hair tied back into a low ponytail. It did nothing to help cool him though, he wasn’t as prepared as Pidge to have packed a fan.
Turning around to look at Keith, Lance could barely contain his giggles at seeing the other’s red face,
“Don’t worry dude, just up this path and we’ll see it.”
They walked up the path, and got greeted by a fairly sized house. It was painted a fading blue, the paint chipping off in the edges. It looked worn, but clearly loved.
Lance sped up faster to move a bit farther ahead, Veronica not too far behind him. He rang the door bell twice, then knocked on the door for good measure. Voices could be heard from behind the door before the door knob jiggled, then finally opening to show a 9 year old boy.
“UNCLE LANCE! AUNTIE VERO!” Silvio’s eyes widened at the sight, his blinding grin widening more when Lance moved forward to give the boy a hug.
“Hi bud! Where’s your sister?”
“Nadia is coloring right now, she thought you were the delivery man.”
Lance couldn’t hold back his laugh hearing his nephew talk, Veronica moving her hand to ruffle the little boy’s hair.
“Hiya Silvs, you know where your Abeula is?”
“She’s with Pop Pop in the living room,” He looked behind them, “Are you here with your friends?”
“They sure are!” Hunk answered as he arrived behind them, hauling both his and Lance’s luggage.
Silvio ran past Lance and Veronica and straight into Hunk, who dropped the bags to lift him up into a hug,
“Uncle Hunk! I am SOOOO excited to play with you guys! Nadia is going to be so jealous when she finds out I got to say hi first!”
-
The next day, after having breakfast and spending time with the McClain family of course, it was time to visit the beach.
They all scrambled to get ready, Romelle, Lance, and Hunk being the most excited ones, rushed to get ready before leaving the house to go to the beach. Soon after they left, Allura finished getting ready after a long conversation with Nadia, who was asking her a million questions about being a princess. Pidge waited for her to be done talking before leaving with her, not wanting to endure the heat without at least one person to complain about it to.
Keith was the last one to get ready, turns out to go swimming in the beach you need a swimsuit, something he forgot to pack. Lance had lent him a pair of bright red board shorts with a white cross on it from his life guard job from when he was 16. ‘Mami made me buy two sizes bigger because she was convinced that I’d be a life guard every summer until I was 30,’ He answered when Keith questioned how it was able to fit him.
He was mainly delayed though by Lance’s mother calling him to sit on the porch before pouring a generous amount of sunscreen into his hands. While he was rubbing it into his face and torso she had suddenly started spraying him with bottled sunscreen, convinced that the amount he was already putting on wouldn’t protect him.
This devolved into him becoming absolutely drenched in it after Silvio and Nadia came, curious on why he was still there, and getting the bottle from their grandmother to spray more on him as if he was an ally wall and the bottles of sunscreen were spray paint.
Keith finally finished putting on sunscreen, and now knowing for a fact that he would be safe from the sun’s rays for a few hours, Mrs. McClain finally let him go.
He walked down the sandy path to the beach, carrying an 8 pack of Pepsi that Pidge begged him to carry, but he also didn’t want to burden Hunk anymore as he was bringing all of the stuff for their lunch there.
As he approached the beach, Keith spotted a figure in the distance. Before he could prepare himself, the said figure was running at full speed towards him. Keith was suddenly hugged, and then let go just as quickly before he could even comprehend what just happened.
He almost dropped the soda at the sight before him.
Keith had seen Lance shirtless before.
In the locker rooms back in the Castle after battle when they’d change from armour and suit to pajamas and casual clothes,
When Lance would get injured severely enough for the healing pod, causing Keith to watch Coran or sometimes Hunk help change the boy into the pale gray suit that always managed to wash him out and make him look half dead,
In the middle of battle, a moment of calm being used to pull out shrapnel that embedded itself into the parts the armour didn’t cover with nothing but the accuracy fingers could provide when the rest of the team was too far, only having each other for support,
Even when they’d gone to the pool back at the Castle, back when they had just been thrown into space and made to fight just to have to deal with the confusing Altean pools.
Okay, point is, Keith has seen Lance shirtless before, so why is he suddenly buffering at the sight?
Scars stretched across his body, ranging from gashes, bullet holes, and the large explosion scar on his back to small nicks. The swim shorts he wore were blue with some sort of floral pattern on it, and his hair was already wet from being in the ocean already, strands of curly brunette hair stuck to the back of his neck and forehead with some of it already drying from the yellow sun.
Being on Earth had definitely made Lance seem more alive, and being in his home country on the sand he was raised on definitely brightened him more up than how he would’ve been staying in the cold metal walls of the Garrison.
Keith suddenly felt a need to go on his hands and knees and thank Romelle for bringing up the beach vacation as an idea, and maybe even Allura for enforcing it immediately.
“Hey there, hotshot,” Lance glanced down to the red board shorts, “You here to make sure I don’t drown?”
Keith tried to suppress his blush with a smirk, “You and I both know you don’t need help, Shiro on the other hand?”
“Yeesh, you’re right, we both gotta make sure he doesn’t drown today. Adam would kill you.”
Nodding, Keith replied solemnly, “That he would, and he wouldn’t even hide the body.”
Lance shaked his head, sharing with Keith’s false solemnity, “You’re right, I miss you already. What funeral theme would you like?”
“Moo Deng the hippo, she would mourn me properly.”
“Consider it done.”
The two stared at each other for a moment before bursting out in laughter, unable to contain it from the look on each other’s faces.
Lance coughed out the last few laughs before regaining back his composure,
“C’mon red, Pidge’s been begging to pop a cold one for ages now.”
Lance grabbed the wrist that wasn’t holding the 8 pack of Pepsi and dragged Keith to the beach where everyone was. Hunk was already floating on his back in the water, completely blissed out and unaware of the water gun fight Pidge and Romelle were in the middle of.
Allura sat on a towel under a large umbrella, watching what was happening before she spotted the two co-leaders approaching,
“Hello you two!” She waved leisurely, then turned back to the others, shouting out to them, “Pidge! Your drinks are here!”
Keith and Allura sat side by side in the sand, Shiro and Adam under their own umbrella, watching Hunk, Lance, Pidge, and Romelle play Chicken Fight in the water. Lance was on Hunk’s shoulders and Pidge was on Romelle’s,
“It’s not fair! Why do the two tallest people get to team up?!” Pidge exclaimed, nearly shaking in rage.
“Do not fear, Pidge! I have just the trick,” Romelle manipulated her height to make her and Pidge taller than Hunk and Lance combined.
Lance looked up at a very smug Pidge and drew out a long sigh,
“Gosh darnit.”
The chicken fight quickly devolved into violent splashes of water, neither side willing to give up. It ended in a tie, all of them losing balance and falling into the water.
Keith watched the whole ordeal, lightly amused, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off of Lance. He was grinning so big it looked like it hurt and his eyes were squeezed shut in an attempt to not let any salt water in. The sun had warmed his skin, Lance was practically glowing.
He broke his eyes away to reach for a twin pop, breaking it in half and offering the other part to Allura, who accepted it immediately. Keith turned his gaze back to Lance and the others when he noticed the princess giving him a knowing look.
“What,” Keith asked, already knowing what she was going to say.
Allura took a large bite, eating half of the pop before answering,
“I think today would be the perfect time to tell him,” She tilted her head towards where Lance was in the water, now rough housing Pidge and Romelle with Hunk as backup.
Keith scoffed, turning his head towards the sand,
“How would you know that?”
“Well,” She lightly sighed, pushing her sunglasses on and laying down into her pink floral towel, “First of all, Lance is extremely happy today. I haven’t seen him this happy since we first started traveling space.”
She wasn’t wrong, Keith felt like it’s been years since he’s seen Lance this happy about anything.
Allura looked over at Keith, who hummed in response. Noting that he wasn’t going to speak anymore, she began speaking once more,
“Secondly, this is the perfect location! Serene waters, beautiful sky, close to his home, it’s practically begging for you to confess to him.”
Keith glanced at her, his voice carrying a more playful lilt,
“When did you suddenly become my romance guru?”
“Since I was actually able to get into a relationship with my love, obviously,” she replied with a flip of her hair.
He was about to give a retort before he saw Lance running towards them, completely drenched in sea water, and not slowing down at all.
Keith was afraid he would fall on top of him until Lance broke into a roll and laid down in the sand. He got up, quickly making his way to the cooler to search for a popsicle. Looking for something specific, Lance looked up to see the popsicles held in Allura and Keith’s hands.
“What the heck! I was saving that twin pop, it’s literally blue too!”
Looking between his barely touched pop and Lance’s disappointed face, Keith made the decision to offer his to the solemn boy.
“Here, have mine.”
Lance looked at the popsicle, then at Keith’s sincere expression,
“Aw, thanks man, you’re literally the best! Curse you Allura, you non-compassionate ice queen…”
Allura shrugged, just chewing on the blue tinted popsicle stick as she relaxed in the sun.
Lance took the popsicle, waving goodbye as he left to go out and play more with the others.
Once he was absolutely out of ear shot, Keith immediately turned to Allura,
“See! How can I confess to a guy that constantly calls me man or dude all the time!”
She lifted her hand lazily, waving it around,
“Hunk is the same, I’ve heard him call Shay bro and dude on multiple occasions. Poor girl is too smitten to realize that it may be something people in relationships don’t tend to call each other."
Keith huffed out a laugh, “Then I guess me and her are the same, she may be a little bit more far gone than I am though.”
Peaking through the gap under her sunglasses, Allura gave Keith an amused look,
“I have an inkling that may not exactly be the case.”
Keith gave her a tired glare, but immediately turned back to Lance. He couldn’t help himself, how could he when this might be the last time for a while he’d get to see the red paladin so happy?
-
The sun was about to set, which meant it was time to go home and decompress after a full day on the beach.
Keith watched as the others started leaving, getting up to leave with them when Allura had suddenly spun around, somehow sensing him following them. She waved her hand behind him, where he saw Lance still sitting in the sand near the tide.
When he turned back around Keith saw Allura mouthing ‘stay’, then winked at him. She turned back around with a wave of her hand, gesturing to Keith for him to go to Lance as she fell into a conversation with a very excited Romelle.
Watching them leave, already becoming little colorful blurs in the distance, Keith turned around to look at the lonesome boy.
Lance was dragging his fingers through the wet sand, drawing nonsensical figures when he noticed Keith approaching. His neutral face grew a smile seeing the black haired boy shuffle into the space next to him.
He knocked his knees to Keith’s, automatically moving closer,
“Enjoying the waves?”
Keith turned to fix his eyes onto Lance’s face, “Something like that.”
Hunk was right, Keith definitely had a staring problem.
God, he was so far gone. Twenty six and he was still the love sick loser that he was at eighteen, constantly butting heads with Lance and arguing over stupid reasons.
Lance was still staring out into the ocean, his eyes fixed on a random wave. Keith could see every shift in his expression in the vivid orange light from the sunset. His eyes shone with nostalgia, no doubt reminiscing about his childhood.
“How long are we staying in space this time?”
Startled by the sudden question, Keith thought for a moment before answering,
“My guess is around 1-3 years, but that could change any time.”
Lance let out a deep breath, “And we can’t visit Earth during that time, right?”
“Maybe, but we’re unsure when we can,” Keith’s heart hurt for him, “We can still send messages to family back home, and we have the mini teladuv to send items to and from Earth too.”
He watched as Lance pulled his knees up, covering half of his face in his arms. Keith took the initiative to wrap an arm around Lance’s shoulders, pulling him in gently.
Keith could definitely feel his heart beat increase, especially with Lance barely hovering near his heart. PULL. YOURSELF. TOGETHER. He mentally slapped himself, remembering that he should be comforting Lance right now, not freaking out over them being next to each other just because they both happen to be wearing just their swim shorts.
He spoke softly, squeezing Lance’s shoulder to provide more support,
“Veronica’s coming with us, and of course the others and I are always with you. I’ll make sure Pidge pirates a ton of games we can play.”
Lance let out a short laugh, “Prepare to get your ass beat on Super Smash Bros.”
“You probably main Sonic, he’s not that good.”
Letting out a loud gasp, Lance quickly sat up straight, glaring at Keith,
“What the hell! Sonic is OP. Who do you even main anyways?!”
“Link, he’s op,” Keith replied.
“Link!” Lance turned to the imaginary camera, “He says Link! Out of every character they have, of course you choose LINK!”
Keith goaded Lance further, “Link solos Sonic by the way.”
“Why I outta..” Lance’s scowl changes into a mischievous smirk, an idea popping into his mind.
Having barely any time to react, Keith realized that Lance pounced on him, pushing him into the ground as he felt the sand scratch against his back.
He laughed as he fought back, the two playing fighting in the sand as if they were still kids. On summer break rather than a work leave from war.
Keith stared at Lance’s face, flushed and grinning wide with grains of sand stuck to his cheek. His laugh was loud and boyish, a reflection of his younger self.
He wished that they could stay like this forever, stay happy forever.
-----------------------------
“No we can not ‘dispose of’ every Galra we see just because they are Galran!”
Keith nearly growled at the Garrison official, this new guy named Daniel who recently got promoted and immediately thought his unsavory ideals should be pushed into space.
The man replied, “I don’t see the problem, if the only ones that are causing all of this shit is all one race, we should just eliminate them all and get rid of the problem from its roots.”
Feeling more and more aggravated, Keith retorted back,
“We are trying to disband and remove ZARKONITES peacefully, not the entirety of the race! There’s millions upon billions of Galrans that live throughout the galaxy that are all innocent!”
“Don’t act like you don’t have any blood on your hands, Black Paladin. You and I both know you’ve killed thousands of Galra, or even others, while sitting in that big metal cat of yours. You fucking alien.”
Keith froze, his anger boiling and bubbling up in a way it hasn’t since he was a teen. A tiny voice in his head whispered,
Patience yields focus.
One more week until lift off.
“I need a breather, that was a pretty tense meeting,” Hunk mumbled.
Hunk, Lance, and Keith were all walking through the Garrison hallways, leaving the meeting room.
Lance tiredly slouched against Hunk, walking slower than he normally would’ve,
“Tell me about dude. That Dan guy was a dick, he’s hopefully going to get fired, who just says that in the middle of a meeting, in a room of aliens and to the leader of Voltron!”
Keith stayed silent as the two friends talked, a headache forming already just from the meeting. Thank god Lance and Allura took over after his spat with the new guy, he was a second away from decking that asshat in the face.
Looking at Keith, Lance was about to try to talk to him before he felt his phone buzz. Taking it out he saw that he had a reminder to say good byes to the cadets he’s been training for their final class with him.
“Shit! I’ve gotta go, bye Hunk! Bye Keith!” He broke away from their trio, making a run for it towards the school campus.
With just the two of them left behind, Hunk awkwardly turned to Keith,
“Hey man, wanna come with me to the kitchen? I’ve been trying to make whatever I can before we leave Earth.”
That’s right, they only have barely seven days until Earth is nothing but a blip in space.
Keith gave Hunk the best smile he could muster up, “Sure.”
Keith sat at the counter while Hunk moved around the empty kitchen, watching him pour and mix ingredients like a pro, when he realized he should ask something,
“Hey Hunk?”
Hunk turned to look at Keith, whisking a bowl vigorously,
“What’s up!”
“Um,” Keith scratched the back of his neck, face turning sheepish, “Do you know what Lance would like if someone, like, maybe, confessed to him..?”
Nearly dropping the bowl, Hunk’s eyes brightened up and his smile widened, and put the bowl to the side,
“OH MY GOD! IT’S HAPPENING! FINALLY!” He cheered, before coughing, and turning back to Keith, his smile not leaving.
“Forgive my language, you just don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this. Okay, so, Lance is a big romantic, so get him something nice. Like flowers, or maybe a trinket he’ll like!”
Keith silently nodded, mentally taking notes on what to do,
“-Also, romantic gestures! He is such a sucker for those romance movies where the guy brings the girl to a movie or plans a romantic picnic.”
“But both of us are guys?” Keith voices.
Hunk sighed with a fond expression, “Okay, the one that initiates the dating thing brings the other to a movie or plans them a picnic.”
After a few minutes of talking, Keith stood up, about to leave,
“I need to ask some more people, but thank you Hunk, this was really helpful.”
Smiling, Hunk pulled Keith into a hug, before pushing him out, holding his shoulders stiffly,
“No problem man! But remember,” His voice took a more menacing tone, “If you break or even hurt Lance’s heart a bit you are a dead man. Got that?”
Keith nodded quickly, sweat dripping down his face in fear.
Hunk’s face changed back to his normal smile, as if he never threatened his leader in the first place, and clapped Keith’s shoulder,
“Good! Now go talk to whomever you gotta ask to make sure you confess successfully!”
Keith was gently pushed out of the kitchen, stumbling into the halls while the door shut behind him, people passing by staring in curiosity.
After a few humiliating moments of trying to regain his composure, he walks down the hall like a man on a mission.
Finding Allura and Romelle was way easier than what Keith originally thought. He assumed the Princess would be working on perfecting the flight route to their first few planets, but instead he found her and Romelle sitting next to each other on the communal bean bag in the lounge room.
Romelle was still in her pajamas, clearly having just woken up, while Allura was still in her pink Garrison uniform. They were both watching something on the T.V. when Keith had approached them.
Allura noticed Keith’s looming presence, her eyes moving away from the screen they were just focused on,
“Keith! Would you like to join us in watching the Conjuring?”
“Why are you watching the Conjuring at 11 am??”
“Tonight I have a meeting with the Blade and Garrison, so I’ve decided to do our movie night now!”
Keith’s face grew more confused looking at Allura and Romelle, then remembering why he had sought them out he took a seat on the floor next to them.
“Can I have some advice? Please.”
Hopping up from the bean bag to sit across from both Allura and Keith, Romelle smiled as she settled her legs crisscrossed.
“Of course! What type of advice?”
Romelle stared at Keith’s face as it grew more bashful,
“How did you guys confess to each other?"
Gasping, Allura whipped her head around in a way that probably should’ve resulted in neck pain, her eyes wide and mouth dropped,
“ARE- *cough*” Her voice cracked in surprise, “-are you telling Lance!? Now!? Tonight? Tomorrow? Do you know what to do?”
Keith let out an exasperated sigh, “No, that’s literally why I’m here in the first place.”
He doesn’t think that he’s ever seen someone smile so wide till they had tears in their eyes until now, looking at Romelle with thinly veiled worry.
“Keith,” Romelle sniffed, “I am so proud! I cannot wait to see you and Lance share each other's joy once you tell him!”
Keith smiled at her, patting her arm while she used her other hand to wipe away tears,
“Thanks, Rom. But seriously, I need help.”
Allura tapped her finger against her chin, as if trying to recall a far away memory, clapping her hands together as it came to her,
“When I was a child, and tensions were still all well and good between Daibazaal and Altea, my mother and father had brought me to a movie theater to watch the epic romance between an Galran and an Altean. I remember when it came to the confession scene, the Galran had killed the greatest enemy of her lover, and brought the heart to her. The Altean was so touched she married her instantly, and they lived happily ever after!”
Elbows on his knees and a hand rubbing up and down his weary face, Keith gave the princess a tired look,
“Allura, I don’t think I can really do that right now.”
“My point is that you should do something touching! It’s as they say, words are empty without action!”
Keith thought for a moment before getting up,
“Thanks guys, enjoy your movie.”
-
Keith left the room more unsure than when he entered, who was Lance’s greatest enemy?
Zarkon, maybe, but he’s already dead. Same with Lotor and Honurva.
There was certainly a point in time when they were younger when it would be he who was Lance’s biggest enemy, without Keith even knowing.
He shook his head, he didn’t have enough time to kill someone with the approach of the launch, especially since everyone here is a friend, not foe.
Actually, scratch that. Daniel is definitely a foe, but he’s more of Keith’s enemy than Lance’s, and even though Lance doesn’t like him either, killing him would be selfish of him. But it would be fun to let Dan see how much of a ‘fucking alien’ he really was.
He’s getting off track.
Keith stalks down the hallway, unintentionally irritating himself at the thought of the prick, before sighting the break room. He saw through the thick windows the backs of Shiro and Adam.
He enters the room, the automatic door opening with a woosh.
Noticing the sound, Shiro turns around, a smile growing at the sight,
“Hey Keith! Do you need something?”
“Hey Shiro,” Keith took a seat at the small sofa, followed by Adam and Shiro sitting on the loveseat couch across from him.
“I have a question.”
“Shoot me!”
For the third time that day, Keith felt another wave of embarrassment,
“I need help telling Lance I like him, please help.”
Shiro and Adam’s face’s softened, both of them moving from their couch to sitting on either side of Keith, making for a tight squeeze.
“Okay,” Shiro started, “First things first, you gotta woo him.”
Keith stared at Shiro with both confusion but also disappointment. He knew that Shiro was old but not bad dad advice old.
Shaking his head, Adam brought Keith’s attention to him,
“Ignore him, Keith. When you want to tell someone you like them you should tell them why you like them. Don’t do that um I like you please date me crap, list out or say the reasons that made you love them in the first place. It not only shows you care but also how dedicated you are to that person.”
After a few beats of silence while he thought, Keith stood up and went to leave the room.
Shiro waved excitedly, “GOOD LUCK!”
Again, standing awkwardly in the hallway, Keith was met with the stares of the onlookers walking and hanging in the hall, including the amused snickers from Kinkade and Nadia.
If there weren’t so many people Keith would’ve definitely shouted something unkind back to Shiro into the room, but he still contemplated if the trouble he would’ve gotten into would be worth it.
-
Keith walked throughout the hallway, in search of his last, and probably least helpful, friend.
He peaked his head into the ship hanger after a full 10 minutes of mindless wandering around the halls, spotting Pidge sitting in front of the Green Lion’s paw.
Walking to stand directly in front of her, Keith shifted his weight from foot to foot as he tried to greet the Green Paladin.
“Hey, Pidge…”
They looked up from their computer, raising an eyebrow in suspicion,
“What do you want Keith?”
“How to confess to a boy?”
Pidge let out a loud and over exaggerated sigh, eyes moving back to the computer,
“Did you already search something like that up online?”
Keith’s face burned, looking to the side in embarrassment,
“Maybe…?”
“Then I won’t be able to help, go look for Hunk or Shiro.”
He sat down across from her in a crisscross, burying his head in his hands,
“I already did, I also did Allura, Romelle, and Adam.”
Pidge didn’t bother looking away from her screen, Keith could see Geometry Dash in the reflection of their glasses.
“Did you ask your mom?”
No, asking her completely slipped his mind. In all honesty he was going to go to Kosmo for advice, Krolia didn’t even come as an option when he was thinking of who to ask.
“No, not yet.”
“Then you have your next person to ask. Now go away, I’m really busy right now.”
Leaving the hanger, he could hear the blast sound effect coming from the computer immediately followed by a curse word.
-
Keith stood nervously in front of the door to Krolia’s room. He’s pretty sure that she was in there, he didn’t see her at all around the training areas and in the small Garrison gym. A short conversation with Acxa led him here, standing in silence, too scared to knock.
He wasn’t scared scared, but he was not sure if he would be met with open arms or an uncomfortable silence. At least he took after his mom in that matter.
Taking a very deep and prolonged breath, he knocked hesitantly, calling out,
“Krolia? If you’re there can I come in?”
The automatic door opened, revealing his mom sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing the blade uniform that she seemed to never take off.
“What’s wrong Keith? Did something happen?”
The motherly tone sounded foreign in her mouth, and even more strange to Keith’s ears. It was clear both of them were not yet fully used to having a son or mother, but over time they’ve made a clear bond between the two of them. But the main thing that mattered is that they tried, hence the warm tone that he’s heard Krolia try to use more around him after meeting with Coleen and the other paladin’s mothers.
Sitting stiffly next to Krolia, Keith fidgeted with the edge of his fingerless gloves as he spoke,
“When you knew that you liked dad, how did you tell him?”
Krolia’s shoulders tensed at the mention of his father, her eyes widened for a moment before landing on Keith’s scrunched up face. She let out a silent breath as she dropped her shoulders, the corners of her mouth lifting into a barely noticeable smile.
“I had already stayed with your father for roughly a deca-pheob at the time, and he had somehow been able to deal with me for so long with little complaint. When I was a child, I was frequently told that my future partner would have to have the ‘soul of a saint’, as Texas would have said. Turns out, your father had exactly that. He was able to help me learn about Earth and its life and culture while also helping me rebuild my ship and watch over the Blue Lion. Whenever I was confused, or mad, or too stressed, he grounded me. I knew that I had feelings for him, but I wasn’t sure if he reciprocated, let alone if possible. But, one day,”
Her smile grew slightly, thumb rubbing over her ring finger, as if searching for something that used to be there,
“- he brought me out early to see the sunrise. It was one of the most beautiful things that I’d seen at the time, but the look on his face in that lighting wins over any sunrise I will ever see in my life. My confession itself was quite lackluster, seeing him in the morning sun made me say it out very plainly. I told him I loved him, and to my luck and joy he felt the same. He made me a crude but still beautiful ring out of some spare metal from my ship. I was told it was human custom to share matching jewelry when in a dedicated relationship.”
Krolia’s small smile turned into a frown,
“I unfortunately lost the ring on a mission. Next to leaving you and Texas, not being able to have it with me will forever be one of my life's many regrets.”
She turned to face Keith, placing a hand on his cheek, giving him a sad smile,
“I am very proud of you, Keith. You have grown into a strong warrior and a kind man. You remind me very much of your father.”
Keith smiled back, leaning into his mothers touch ever so slightly, “Thanks, mom.”
Krolia’s smile grew at the name, then shifted into something more sly,
“Are you asking me this so you can tell the blue one you like him?”
“Yeah,” Keith replied sheepishly.
“That’s good, he is skilled on the battlefield and has good character and heart. This is a wise choice for a life partner.”
“I know.”
He gave his mom a short hug before leaving, thankful for what she told him. In the past, Keith would’ve had to either beg or wait for a vulnerable moment from his mom to learn more personal memories about his dad.
-
Keith couldn’t avoid the knowing looks his friends threw at him at dinner, he knew he asked for help but that doesn’t mean he was going to tell Lance now. But with every joke, smile, and laugh that came from the unknowing boy next to him just served to lower Keith’s self control more and more until it was about to burst.
He was a soldier! He was the leader of Voltron, a treasured member of the Blades and a pioneer of the new era of peace in space, so why is he being such a loser about this! He should just suck it up and tell Lance right here, right now.
But Lance deserves better, Keith wants to give him better.
-----------------------------
The day before take off.
As much as he wanted to just relax and enjoy his last moments planetside, Keith was whisked away to meeting after meeting, more and more ‘urgent’ paperwork being stuffed into his already full folder.
It wasn’t until evening when things died down, the pressure of the impending departure of the Atlas settling over the Garrison like a thick blanket. Everywhere Keith looked, he saw tearful hugs and hushed, private conversations.
Leaving Earth came easier to him, because everyone he cared about was coming with him, and anyways, space always felt more homely than the dry deserts and cacti.
But there was still something bittersweet about visiting the shack for one last time.
Standing in front of the small house, the door hinges threatening to fall with every gust of wind and a strange creaking sound coming from inside, Keith patted Krolia’s arm before turning around back to his hover bike.
“Come on mom, it’s getting late”
Tearing her gaze away from her old home, she turned to Keith with a lightly confused expression.
“Late? The sun is still out, night won’t be for a few hours.”
Keith sighed, “I know, but I have something I need to do.”
After a short beat of silence, Krolia nodded her head as if she knew exactly what he was going to do.
A small, amused smile made its way on her face as she crossed her arms, “You go on then, I have my own vehicle, I know the way back.”
With a curt nod, Keith kicked hard off of the dusty ground and drove off, taking his time winding through familiar paths.
Then, with a final glance, she turned back to the shack and gave one last comment as Keith sped off.
“Good luck, Keith.”
-
Finding Lance was harder than he thought it’d be, and after already spending an hour getting ready, it took him another just to spot the Red Paladin.
Stepping onto the roof of the Garrison, Keith spots Lance perched on the ledge, legs swinging as he stared out onto the desert sunset. He distantly remembers Hunk mentioning how it was there that he, Pidge, and Lance had spotted Shiro.
For a few moments, Keith stood there silently, admiring the vivid orange highlights against Lance’s form. He was dressed in what seemed to be pajamas, he was probably planning on sunset watching for a bit before having an early night. The gentle breeze carried Lance’s hair, flyways dancing like flames in the lighting.
With careful foot steps so as to not scare him, Keith called out to Lance.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Hey, Keith,” Lance spoke, looking up slowly, “Just watching the- woah! Jeez, what party are you going to, samurai?”
Keith suddenly felt embarrassed under Lance’s scrutinizing gaze in the outfit he chose, a reddish mauve button up with black dress pants. One arm was hidden behind his back, keeping something out of view.
Noticing Lance’s hand waving him over to sit down, Keith spoke as he jogged over to settle onto the roof ledge.
“No party, just felt like dressing up nice for once.”
Leaning back on his arms, Lance tossed an easy grin, “And you’re wearing this for your ‘fake party’ why…?”
And, this is the part where Keith would’ve loved to say that he gave back some sort of witty or sarcastic remark, maybe even a joke to keep the conversation going! But, we all know that he isn’t exactly the best with words.
“Lance, I’m in love with you.”
The speed of which Lance’s mouth dropped could rival bullet trains, his eyes wider than flying saucers. A deep red spread over his cheeks in an instant, running to the tip of his ears down to the base of his neck.
“And,” Keith swallowed a gulp of air, pulling out the bouquet of flowers he hid behind his back like he was un-sheathing a sword, settling with one knee on the ground and the other propped up, “I’ll tell you all the reasons why.”
“You- huh, wuh?” The Red Paladin of Voltron, known for his never ending chattering and being unable to keep his mouth shut, had been officially rendered silent.
“I love when you talk,” Keith started, “even when you ramble about something that doesn’t make sense, I can listen to you speak all day.”
Lance let out an embarrassing squeak, turning redder than the roses in the mixed bouquet, which held a combination of red and blue flowers, accented with Baby’s Breath and Daisies.
Holding his surprisingly steady gaze, Keith continued on, “I love it when you trust me, when you lean on me and let me lean on you. I love when you fight, and you use your aim to shoot mandarins mid air, I love how you’re kind and open your heart to any and everyone, and teach those Garrison kids about the new future we’re building. I love when you drag me and the others into doing our skincare, and make sure we all take care of ourselves.
I love your smile, sometimes it’s the only thing keeping me going on hard days.
I love how meticulous you are about cleaning Red, even though you don’t have to worry that much.
I love how you play with Kosmo and put up with his slobber even when it gets in your hair.
I love-”
His speech got cut off unexpectedly when a hand twisted itself into Keith’s shirt collar and pulled him forwards into a kiss.
Never in Keith’s life did he reciprocate something so fast, nearly dropping the carefully arranged flowers to instead wind his arms around Lance while feeling nimble fingers intertwine themselves into his combed hair. The lips against his own were soft, and the tug Lance had on his hair felt almost addicting, Keith couldn’t get enough.
When they separated, Keith watched through lidded eyes as a very flustered Lance stared at him with blown out pupils.
“I can’t believe you,” Lance says after a beat of silence.
Staring at the confusion on Keith’s face, he continues,
“You come here, looking all perfectly and handsomely made up, with flowers and a button up, and tell me how much you love me, while I’m in my PAJAMAS!”
The mortification on the boy’s face is clear in the shriek of his voice, “Keith! This is,” he sniffled, “perfect! But why couldn’t you have told me beforehand!? I look like a hot mess right now!”
Keith gave him a quick once over, his expression soaked in sincere truth, “I think you look good right now, you always look good.”
What came out of Lance’s mouth could barely be called a wheeze, his face still burning with swarms of blush.
“Shut up,” he mumbled, throwing a weak punch at Keith’s chest.
One of Keith’s hands came up to hold the fist that was pushing at his middle, holding Lance’s hand in a soft grip as he spoke.
“So, does this mean you accept? Maybe…?”
Lance laughed at the hopeful look in Keith’s eyes, looking more like a puppy dog than Kosmo, and pressed a small kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“Maybe,” he grinned.