#before klance

So Lance does like chat to alien girls on their missions and he goes on dates with them (in my head I don't think the Paladins should be strictly confined to only ever being in the castle, like they can make friends and call people and visit planets and shit)

So they have a mission where they are tasked with protecting an alien Prince and Lance is assigned to be his main body guard and throughout this Lance kinda notices how handsome the Prince is and the Prince seems to be flirting with him. Throughout this they bond a lot and after a few days of this and an attack from the people trying to assassinate the Prince, it kinda becomes clear that the Prince quite likes Lance and Lance quite likes the Prince back.

The Prince thanks Lance for being his bodyguard and as the other lions are flying back to the castle, the Prince stops Lance and leans down a little to kiss him on the cheek and he gets super flustered and says he can't wait to see him again. When Lance gets into the lion, he realises the comm is screeching at him to respond and the others are asking him what's taking him so long. He says nothing but Pidge and Hunk clock that he's nervous and complain about how he could've possibly had the time to get distracted by a girl.

Later coran comes up to him to let him know that the Prince sent him his call details for Lance and initially he's quite nervous but coran says he won't say anything but not because he quite understands the human context sexuality being difficult to talk about but cause he thinks the others will never let him live it down if he starts dating a Prince.

So, as a side plot to this, Keith has galra hearing and has spent most of the show so far that he can hear everything Lance does in his room (mostly cause Lance sings a lot in his room at ungodly hours) so soon after Lance starts having call dates with the Prince, Keith hears it and feels bad that he's listening in on some pretty romantic and serious convos so he asks for ear plugs from Coran. Coran briefly worries about how much Keith knows but realises his concern seems to just be invading Lance's privacy and leaves it alone.

As the secret relationship continues, Lance begins to feel guilty for not telling anyone on the team. His fear is not that they'll reject him, most of the group identify as queer. But even thinking about telling them makes him feel nauseous. Coran tries to implore Lance that telling them won't end badly.

Lance begins acting more withdrawn from the group as a result.

Hunk is worried about him and gets in his head about it, getting Pidge to check out the call logs he has. He doesn't know who's on the other end cause he's not willing to push that far but they theorise its a girlfriend. But this seems to be the longest he's had a relationship so far and he's never hidden girlfriends from them before and they're concerned but also a little hurt themselves. Shiro finds out they've snooped and gets Allura to block their access and sits them both down for a talk about not snooping but talks with Allura about this because he's also pretty concerned about Lance too. She states its probably not for them to pry but maybe make a concerted but very obvious set of interactions of Lance that are like "well because you know you can ALWAYS CONFIDE IN US right Lance?"

It begins to affect their ability to form Voltron and as a fight is coming to a close and everyone is super frustrated and bickering it all comes out, started with Hunk blurting that this is cause Lance is hiding his secret girlfriend from everyone.

They're all yelling and putting pieces together (with Keith chipping in with a quiet and very confused ".... wait what?")

Lance goes to storm off and hide in his room, Pidge and Hunk realise they've messed up pretty bad and made things worse and Shiro and Allura don't know what to do.

A knock on Lance's door makes him yell to go away and that hes not telling them about his "secret girlfriend", but instead Keith opens the door, holding Lance's and his dinner and sets it down next to him before shutting the door again.

"I know you don't have a secret girlfriend, Lance, I know it's the Prince."

Lance is shocked but Keith goes on, explaining that he realised after he heard them talking through the wall and got earplugs to give them privacy but he realised that this was maybe something he hadn't come out about yet when he realised nobody but Coran knew.

Keith talks to him about when he came out to Shiro and how nervous he was, not because he feared shiro and his boyfriend would reject him for being gay, but because it felt like it'd change the way Shiro thought about him. Shiro would know he thought about relationships and had crushes and people he liked and it freaked him out.

This prompts Lance to explain that he's frustrated because he thought he knew who he was and what he liked. What's gonna happen if he's different from who he thought he was again? He can't even tell his family about any of this cause he figured it out away from Earth.

Keith says he isn't sure how to help, but that he's sorry he didn't realise they were snooping, but that for what it's worth, it just sounds like they were worried about how withdrawn he'd become recently, possibly resulting from him feeling guilty about hiding this. This is a side of Lance he's not used to seeing and this is a moment that contributes to Keith's later crush on Lance returning.

Keith let's him have his privacy about his food and once he's done he decides to come to the dining room to tell them about the Prince. Before he does, Hunk and pidge pauses him and both apologise and explain. They were worried but also let their hurt feelings get in the way and be a justification for prying into his private business and that they should've just talked to him and that he doesn't have to tell them anything or feel pressured to, because if he's not ready to or even if he just doesn't feel like it, then he shouldn't.