Tag: Lance

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. 

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.

“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.”

It begins after a battle that leaves the red lion’s cockpit torn open, and a piece of debris from a Galran ship stuck where Keith’s stomach would have been.

Would have, almost, just a second later, death deathdeath, Lance thinks and pushes him against the wall of the corridor when they’re supposed to be leaving for their rooms to recover, but he can’t, can’t go to bed, not when Keith’s eye is swollen and his jaw is bruised black-purple (Galra darkness blooming on his skin, no, no) and he opens his mouth to say something to Lance.

“Shut the fuck up,” Lance growls.

Keith watches him. He’s in sweatpants and a loose shirt, his uniform was burnt through from the explosion and he’ll need a new one because somehow he crawled out of the cockpit before the piece of debris could – before it – 

Keith reaches, touches his cheek, says his name: “Lance”, like it’s something strange and sweet on his tongue, sounding like a miracle that he breathes out.

“You could have,” Lance chokes out, “you almost. I hate you, you can’t just…”

“But I didn’t, right? I didn’t.”

God, and Lance wants to slap him, grab his collar and scream his pain-roaring heart out at this boy, because they all need him and his lion and the carefully hidden protected smile that he’s given them the first time when Lance accidentally called their team his home, the night where Keith had taken his hand and squeezed it before running off to his training.

Lance lets his knees give in. Keith slides down with him, back to the wall, legs sprawling out around Lance until he’s wrapped in them, until Lance can crawl against his body in the cold corridor and press his ear to Keith’s sharp ribcage. There’s a heart beat, too fast, but loud. It’s there, clear and wonderful and Lance closes his eyes so he can cry into Keith’s shirt.

Keith puts a hand into his neck. “Lance.” His nails are blunt, small pale half-moons that Lance wouldn’t ever be brave enough to kiss unless he gets permission. “Lance.” Another hand is around his waist, grips him so tight that he could bruise, wringing a sob out of him that he made the last time when his little sister – 

But Keith isn’t like her yet. His breath is soft against Lance’s forehead, and he says his name, over and over again, until Lance looks up at him and he stops.

“I’m alive,” Keith tells him quietly.

“I know.” Lance reaches out. He grabs Keith’s hand, putting his fingers right where Keith’s bayard rests during battle, where it’s now empty and healing from the angry red burns. “And I swear I’ll fucking keep you that way.”

Lance has no idea how Keith’s parents died.

Keith doesn’t talk about it, the team doesn’t ask, and it’s one of the few unspoken taboos in the sarcastic quickfire that Keith and he ricochet between each other on the ground, in space, between training sessions and unmentioned touches of shoulders.

It’s a routine mission, and the last thing Lance hears before his lion is taken down and the pretty aggressive allies of Voltron’s arch enemy drag him into their base is a static-garbled wail of his own name. It becomes the only thing he clings to, that skewed echo of his five letters in Keith’s voice, as the aliens bore things into his skin and brain and try to reach his mind.

Two days later, he’s in Shiro’s grip on the floor of the castle, Pidge screaming and Hunk crying and Keith, eyes blown into liquid darkness with angry tears smeared on his cheeks. There’s a cracking burst of noise every other moment – oh, that’s Allura, firing at the aliens who’d tried to hold a paladin and didn’t think about the consequences.

Lance stares at the ceiling of the castle. Someone (softtinyhandsPidge?) touches his wounds, rubs wetness against them, a sting of antiseptic in his nose. Keith is there. Keith, Lance tries to say, ends up spitting blood.

“No. No, no,” Keith shakes his head, cradles Lance’s face with nails digging into his jaw like a painful thread to reality, and Lance is awake, can’t die, won’t.
“Not you too. Promise, you fucking – you have to, I’ll make you – please. Tell me they didn’t break you. Not you too. Not you. You’re not them, you hear me, you’re not breaking.”

That’s how Lance learns how Keith’s parents went.

It’s the same day that he swears his first oath.

He swears, with Pidge’s fingers patching him up, Hunk stuffing a blanket under his head, Shiro gripping him like he could vanish, and with Keith’s trembling forehead by his shoulder, that he’s not going to become another broken bond.

They all know that Lance misses Earth. His family is there, memories of a life that ended when he went to become a pilot, and he has nothing of them with him, no pictures like Pidge or even the tiniest note, no message or anything.

Keith has made himself forget what it’s like to miss someone, but this is different for him. It’s better not to remember if they’re dead. Lance’s family, however, is alive beyond the endless horizon of stars and burning gas planets.

When Allura sends out an order to one of the planets they’d liberated, asking for food and material, Keith goes to talk to her. He shuffles his feet when she smiles and asks, “Why do you want me to order that?”

“It’s not for me,” Keith says. The blush crawling up his face is too warm for any lies. “Just. Please?”

Two days later, Allura knocks at his room.

The same evening, Lance finds a small pot filled with earth on his desk. Within the earth, the tiniest three plants are just beginning to peek out in a flash of green. There is a note, Latin scribbled on it, and the dried petal of a pink flower is placed where a signature should be.

Lance doesn’t look up what kind of plant the Latin names belong to. He takes the petal and goes to Keith’s room, vision blurred with tears. Keith can barely open the door after a harsh knock before Lance tackles him to the floor, calls him an idiot in a cracked voice, how much did that cost you even, no don’t answer that, until Keith hugs Lance and lets him cry gratitude and the shy blossom of something new into his shoulder.

The tiniest plants grow into thick leaves a month later. When sixteen weeks have passed since Lance cried, a pale pink flower sits on the plant’s crown one morning, but it’s not noticed until noon comes around and two warm bodies move out of the blanket nest that’s not longer a bed for just one.

Voltron’s Bond.

It’s Pidge who initiates the whole thing without even wanting to.

They’re all exhausted. The team building exercises did nothing for them, they still can’t assemble Voltron again, dinner tastes like slimy slippery goo and it’s so quiet except for the sound of their spoons against the bowls that Pidge can’t bear with it anymore. “I’m done for today. Night. I’ll be in my quarters.”

Everyone looks up, but nobody does anything to keep Pidge from leaving the table. They just watch, young eyes dark and tired, as a thin frame disappears through the door, outworn and hunched over like all of them.

Hunk is the next to stand up, five minutes after. “Pidge’s right. I’m done, too. See you guys tomorrow.” Then he stomps off. The silence around the table thickens, and it’s no surprise to Allura that the rest of the food stays untouched until one after another, the boys get up and nod at her. 

It’s Keith next, quiet and with gritted teeth, fists curled by his side. It’s Lance, not even cracking a joke at her, worrying his lip between his teeth. And after he’s stacked the rest of the bowls and mumbled a quiet “thank you for the training today”, Shiro follows after them, having stayed for over an hour since Pidge vanished.

The night has fallen over the planet when Coran steps to stand by Allura’s side. She’d been watching the virtual model of the galaxy, counting planets that needed saving, but turns her head to him. “I don’t know how to get them to bond. They’re so young. They’re scared, and I can’t make their fate easier.”

Coran tilts his head and, for some reason, smiles. “You should see this.”

And she really should. Coran leads her to Pidge’s room, at the very end of the corridor, the door carelessly open. Allura prepares for a lecture about safety in one’s quarters and underestimating the enemies’s stealthiness, but Coran simply points into the room… and Allura can’t help but smile, too.

In a pile of blankets and pillows, the five paladins of Voltron are asleep. 

Pidge lies in the middle, legs stretched out long, glasses somewhere on the floor because Hunk’s big hand cradles that fragile jaw and pulls both close against another. They had been drawn here, one by the other – Keith next, legs tucked to his own chest and curled up so tightly that he’s a tiny fraction of his usual temper and red-hot wildness. His nose touches Pidge’s back, and the strong arm around his waist that belongs to Shiro seems to be what holds him together. And there’s Lance, wedged somewhere by Shiro’s hip, head on his stomach and Shiro’s fingers calm in his hair. 

Allura turns and closes the door again. She says good night to Coran, walking to her room in silence. She thinks about the paladin’s slow breaths. She thinks about Pidge’s fingers gripping Hunk’s shirt, Shiro’s fingertips reaching against Pidge’s back just below where Keith looked vulnerable. She thinks about Lance, looking in place, belonging, safe.

“Bonding, huh,” Allura whispers to the stars outside the castle. “I see.”