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“Mine,” Lance says, and his mother tells him no. It feels like his entire world is breaking apart, all good forgotten and all bad streaming down his cheeks in tears, because he can’t have it. Lance is three years old and he wants that toy, he’s ten and yells that he wants a pet and not another brother, he’s eighteen and says “I want to be a pilot, and this time he ignores his mother’s no.

"Be careful what you wish for, treasure,” his mother says sometimes. Her mouth smiles, but her eyes are dark with worry. “You may get it one day.”

Voltron is his life now, and the paladins are his family. All but one. Lance tries everything. He hides and lies to them and himself, learns to grin wider and laugh louder and builds his walls from bolts and ice. And still, he thinks and begs to the stars: I want him to stop hating me.

After one mission, Keith almost crushes him in a hug. Lance stands there, listening to his own treacherous heart beat, fingers gripping tight into Keith’s back.

“Don’t you dare die on me.”

Lance can’t stop through words from coming put. “Look who doesn’t hate me anymore. They all fall for my charm in the end. Lost your heart to me, huh?”

There’s a ridiculous, tiny flare of hope in his chest when Keith suddenly pulls back. “I don’t hate you, idiot. I haven’t for a long time.” He’s laughs, lets go of Lance to pat his back.

“So to you, I’m- ”

“God, you’re a friend, alright? Just like all of them. You’re my friend now.”

“Yeah. I – yeah. I am.”

Lance closes his eyes and listens to Keith’s steps growing quiet. When they’d first become Voltron, Keith had looked at him with a blaze of heat, and a blood-curdling storm of emotion had swept Lances’s mind into chaos of what, how can he, he’s infuriating, don’t get hurt, mine.

Careful, he thinks.

Too late. His mama had been right.

It’s three days until Pidge wakes from the coma, and Lance returns from the alien planet they spent their free time on with a bandaged thigh. Shiro is the first to see, when all of them are in the training room exhausting themselves with weights and sparring so they don’t have to think about the scar tissue healing on Pidge’s waist where there’d been a bullet wound days ago.

“Did you get hurt?” Shiro is immediately by Lance’s side, pulling up the leg of his shorts, his eyes shining dark with panic. “What happened? The planet is supposed to be friendly, they welcomed us into their town – “

“You fucking idiot,” Keith interrupts roughly. His worry is anger, always is.

But Lance slaps their hands away, even Shiro’s (it hurts a bit less than when it’s only Keith’s), and grins for some reason. “Relax. It’s only a tattoo.”

There’s no training after that, because Hunk is there too and demands to see and Shiro starts a scolding about responsibility and being able to go into battle, but then Lance carefully peels off the bandage – and Keith turns around. He leaves without looking back. Lance wouldn’t want him to see. It’s not his right. They’re a team, but he isn’t Hunk, not a friend, isn’t the faithful leader either.

Two weeks later, Keith realizes that it was just the beginning. Hunk is buried under an avalanche of rocks, still in his lion, and they only get him out because Lance systematically freezes the rocks and they splinter them apart bit by bit. It’s a quiet night after that. Keith should be glad, which he really is, but knowing that Lance sleeps in Hunk’s room that night has something dark and ugly growl in his chest. He shoves it back into his stomach. He has no right. Lance leaves the next day and comes back with a bandage on his arm.

After that, Shiro. Nobody knows what happened, but they find him after three days in the spaceship that had kidnapped him. Everyone on board is dead. Shiro doesn’t speak for a week. It takes a month for him to laugh again. Lance’s new bandage is on his lower back. Pidge says it’s the first black one.

And a month after that, he and Lance don’t talk anymore. Keith doesn’t apologize. It was the right thing to push Lance out of the way, take the knife to his chest instead. Barely past his heart, Allura had said. You almost died, I hate you, I hate you, Lance had screamed when Keith had woken up with blood in his mouth and hope in his chest. He doesn’t know how to fix this, can’t bring himself to regret. But they’re a team, fuck this, he goes to Lance’s room and knocks and sure thing, within a few sentences they’re yelling at each other.

“All of you,” Lance roars at him, grabbing his collar and slamming Keith against the wall so hard that his muscles protest, “you have to stop almost dying! I hate this, and you – you of all people, you’re strong, fuck, that’s why… why I put us together, you’re so – look. You need to understand what I feel – that I, you.”

Keith is still motionless against the wall when Lance steps back to pull his shirt off. He hoists up the leg of his pants, whirls around, “fucking look at me.”

Never has Keith obeyed faster.
The serval cat on Lance’s thigh is a vibrant green, the spots on its fur shaped like the silhouette of cells. On his arm sleeps a golden tiger, giant paws crossed peacefully, the claws out and sharp. Across Lance’s lower back is a shadow, a lion in ink-black with stars gleaming on almost real fur, eyes soft and head high with pride. And –

“God,” Keith breathes when Lance turns around, and he drags them into a kiss that’s raw and desperately final.

Over Lance’s heart, curved like the crescent moon, lies a red jaguar. 

The realisation comes crashing down on Hajime just as he’s one step into his apartment. There’s no time to think though, because Tooru slams the door shut and Hajime against the wall and their lips together in one fluid, flawless motion.

God, Hajime says inside his own head, we won, we’re going to the Olympics, we – his mind attempts to go on, but Tooru’s mouth breathes heat against his lips and Hajime’s too busy melting away, gone, game and set and he’s no match for him.

“The way you looked,” Tooru says, teeth scraping roughly along Hajime’s mouth, leaving a trail of pressure that’ll be soft red-purple tomorrow, and everyone will think it a bruise from the game. Hajime lets them believe. Volleyball leaves traces on him, marks Tooru up as well but nothing is better at painting their bodies in choked breaths and bruises than each other’s bites.

“What – fuck, what about it?” His knees feel like he’s going to collapse. They’re still in their uniforms, hell, Tooru’s cheek is wet when he slides it against Hajime’s neck, desperately clutching at Hajime’s shorts. His nails are blunt, tiny half-moons of ache dragging over his skin. “I need to,” Tooru presses out. He looks up at Hajime again, eyes drinking in his body like he’s hungry, like Hajime is laid out for him to have. And he is. He’s not easy by far, has never been, but Tooru’s always had him inside and out and now Hajime is burning up, salt on his lips and the game’s adrenalin pumping through his veins.

Tooru slides his hand deeper. “Let me,” he whispers, gives a soft lick to Hajime’s mouth, groans like a man starved when Hajime surges to press their tongues into slick-hot touch. “Hajime. I need to, god, thought about you on the court, knew we’d win. I have to, please, let me make you feel good.” 

His throat works heavily when he swallows. “Yeah,” Hajime finally says. He brings his fingers into Tooru’s hair, suddenly tight and I have you, I know you need me to lead, “you can, you can, don’t have to ask me.”

Tooru grins at him. He’s not trembling anymore, hands gone calm where they’d fumbled impatiently at Hajime’s waistband moments ago. “You know I always do. ‘s not like you don’t do the same.” And that’s true, Hajime thinks, he can’t imagine to not at least brush his fingers through Tooru’s hair, to search his glance for a yes. He wants to snarl something back, doesn’t get to do it.

The sight of Tooru sinking to his knees never fails to crush the air in his lungs. How Tooru looks graceful with his nose brushing softly along the dark hair above his shorts, how he’s able to love Hajime in his mouth so much that he swallows him down as soon as the fabric’s out of the way, Hajime can’t understand. He closes his eyes, lets go. Tooru smiles around him, lets a dark moan hum through Hajime’s lower body that sets him ablaze, and he needs this so badly that he could cry.

Tooru, as always, breathes carefully and gives.

He lets Hajime jolt his hips forward, nuzzles into the hard grasp that Hajime has on his hair. He licks the sweat away that’s musk and salt and the burn of Hajime’s skin. The corridor’s quiet until Hajime drops his head back and whimpers, lets out that terribly vulnerable noise from the back of his throat, his knees giving in beneath him. Then Tooru’s hands snap to his hips, his mouth twists in a wicked, sweetly dangerous way, Hajime slides into searing heat and deeper and Tooru holds him up the wall as he comes.

He stays boneless for minutes after. Tooru doesn’t seem to mind. He’s licking his lips with tiny noises as he settles in Hajime’s lap, sweat-dripping forehead making a mess by Hajime’s shoulder. “Not enough,” Tooru decides after a bit of silence. “I still can’t believe we won. I wonder when it’ll kick in.”

Hajime doesn’t let him ponder over it. He gently shoves Tooru off, cutting his attempt at a wail short by lifting him with both arms. “Stop thinking,” Hajime tells him quietly. Tooru looks up at him, then, and lets his head fall against Hajime’s chest. His smile is a tiny, hidden thing. “I’ll try.”

“You’ll believe it tomorrow.” For now, I’ll catch you, Hajime thinks and gets both of them to the bedroom.

Keith enters the kitchen at five-thirty in the morning. The computer in his room had told him that he’d slept for six and a half hours, which Keith deemed enough. He’d left the bed, got dressed, roughly pushed his hair into a mess of two hairties around each other on the back of his head. Then he’d tucked the blanket back around the softly breathing human bundle in his bunk and went off.

The thermos flask on the table steams when he screw the lid open. A rich flood of spices curl into his sleepy mind, cardamom and cinnamon swaying with the scent of raspberry that Keith has been associating with wide grins and darker-than-his-own hands for months. He drinks the tea slowly, hums at the taste.

There’s a note when he lifts the little dome covering his breakfast.

‘eat up. don’t think you can trick me, i’ll know if you skip breakfast and put it back into the fridge.
the sunrise is gonna be beautiful today.’

Keith allows himself a smile, shy even with nobody watching. He eats everything, recognises the burnt edges on the sunny-side-up egg that speak of Lance’s clumsy fingers trying his best. Hunk cooks far better than him. Keith would never tell.

He finishes his meal and looks outside at the sky. The sunrise is just starting, and Keith remembers the note. There’s crimson and royal purple crawling at the horizon, and Keith’s feet move. He’s at the highest level of the castle after a few minutes, the glass dome above his head giving a breathtaking view of the cosmos. Keith exhales, inhales, repeats it. His muscles tense. He begins.

It feels like only a few minutes passed when the automatic door to the dome plateau slides open. Keith stills mid-motion. His foot comes down to the floor a second later, heel landing softly where it was kicking at invisible enemies just moments ago. Lance doesn’t hesitate. He walks over, hands around a mug of tea, and Keith feels warmth crawl through his chest when he recognises the shirt that Lance is wearing as one of his own.

“You ate,” Lance says when he sits down. 

“Yeah.” Keith lets him settle, then finds his own place against Lance’s shoulder, forehead carefully nestled into his neck. Lance is warm still, his skin singing with not enough sleep. “How many hours?”

“Four after you went to bed, one during your training. Allura awake yet?”

Keith mumbles a no. They sit together in silence until the sun warms Keith’s face. When Lance reaches for his hand, his fingers are hot from the mug, chapped and battleworn. His thumb finds rest where Keith’s pulse beats. 

In half an hour, they’re paladins again. Until then, Lance watches the morning sky, and Keith breathes by his side.

keijisthighs:

this is a MESS but i drew braces!hinata because @moami‘s writing makes me want to draw and @kkumri‘s art also makes me want to draw

(ft. freckles hina because i am weak)

[braces!hinata comes from this fic and this art]

I made a soft, tiny gasp at ths. Look at this beam of sunlight! His eyes are so beautiful, I’m dying, and his freckles are precious. I think Hinata would definitely choose that hue of orange for his braces. Thank you so much for this, I’m happy to receive this fanart. ♥

so you failed at something. it happened, it’s over, can’t be fixed or taken back.
cry. sob your eyes out. slam your fist against the wall, again, both of them, press your face into something soft and yell. scream, loud and wild and disappointed, until your throat hurts and you want to hate the world. tell yourself or someone else how unfair, terrible and mean the world is. lie on your bed. drown your mind in pity until your mouth is full of sadness and everything is salt and cold water. when the room has gone silent around you, take a breath, deep, slow.
good.
raise your head.
find the horizon.
and walk.

moami

there will come the day that you can breathe again. not just because you’re able to, but because you will. you will, you will, even after the smoke has rot-smoldered your cells into darkness you thought couldn’t be rebuilt. you will, with your eyes drinking in the sky until cerulean hums in your neurons like a symphony from hundred years ago, you will with your nails out like claws and dry lips that have tasted fire but still, you breathe, breathe, in and forward and out. there will come the day where your old veins fall into their components, when carbon and oxygen snap into new bounds, ions chasing your blood.

maybe it takes time to get your lungs used to the new scars on you. but they’re made from you, after all, woven from cells and born from your dna, and nothing could be more essentially you than that. breathe, and know that you are.

“Lance, have you seen my – oh what the fuck. Tell me you didn’t.” Keith pinches the bridge of his nose. This is not his responsibility. He has not been trained to deal with this. The proper reaction would be to turn around and walk away. He should leave Lance’s room and ignore how he’s perched on the floor, cooing to a bundle of something in his arms until a moment ago.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Lance says, trying for innocence in his voice and failing spectacularly. “Nothing suspicious is going on. You should just leave again and not say anything.”

Sadly, Keith hasn’t been proper for a day in his life.

“What is it this time?” The door slips shut behind his back, and the fishy-looking pile of blankets in Lance’s lap jolts at the sound.

“Uhm,” Lance tries weakly. “Surprise?”

Keith forces himself to take deep, slow breaths. “Tell me it’s not carnivorous. Please tell me it doesn’t grow up to be bigger than three meters.”

Lance’s face brightens. “Don’t worry, I looked it up! They’re omnivores and really friendly and this one was abandoned and screaming for its mama, seriously Keith, do you expect me to leave a baby behind? He was crying, okay, and I’m a strong and resilient man but we all have our limits -”

Keith interrupts him by slumping down on the floor before him and reaching for the blanket. “You can’t keep bringing orphaned animals with you,” he starts, but his rant doesn’t even gain any heat because a tiny furry paw wiggles out of the blankets and touches his hand.

And the bundle moves, Lance coos softly – “Don’t worry, he’s not gonna hurt you, he looks really grumpy but is actually pretty chill if he cares for something” – and Keith’s heart leaps in his chest.

“It’s so small.”

“Mhm. Don’t tell Allura until we’re away from the planet. I’ll take care of her, I promise.”

“She’s – it’s a girl?”

A warm smile curves Lance’s mouth. He cradles an otter-like creature in his arms, tucked into his blanket, letting it suckle on his thumb. The Shtarwott is barely bigger than Keith’s hand, his finger looking gigantic when he strokes its (her?) grey fur. It was white cloud-spots all over, like a reverse snow leopard, with six legs and three black eyes and Keith is utterly lost when he watches the gentleness of Lance’s fingers holding that small head.

Keith swallows. “Fine. I won’t tell her. Just, just don’t let her distract you.”

Lance tilts his head at him. He squints, studying Keith’s face for a moment, before a grin spreads over his face. “Aww, are you jealous? Don’t worry, you’re still my favourite.”

“Oh shut up. Did you feed her yet?” Keith is already up on his feet before Lance can even open his mouth. “Yeah, thought so. I’ll go find something. Make sure she’s warm, and don’t think that you can skip out on training because of this.”

Lance’s smile could illuminate the entire castle. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Like I’m gonna miss out on kicking my boyfriend’s ass.”

“You’re such a loser,” Keith tells him on his way out. He ignores Lance’s laughter, just quietly saves the sound in a nook of his memory that’s tiny and fragile still.

When he comes back later, food goo and some fruit and meal worms (stolen from one of Hunk’s experiments) in his arms, Lance has curved his body into a circle on the ground, the cub awake and gnawing at his ear.

“I know,” Keith sighs. He sits, takes the creature, and tucks the blanket around Lance before pulling out a worm. “He’s kind of great.”