#clone!lance

For a lone wolf, Keith hated loneliness. With a passion.

He learned how to deal with it, yes, he spent quite a long time in exile that he forced himself into. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

News flash: He didn’t.

Not one bit.

News flash: He also had no idea how to solve that.

Childhood? He had no idea how to be social.

Teenager years? He had no idea how to be social.

There was a time he truly believed he would have no idea how to be social in adulthood too.

And he had been okay with that. He was fine with being, as Adam used to say, a “social-weirdo”. He could deal with the loneliness. He had Shiro and Shiro’s weird ass friend and Shiro’s cool fiancée. Keith could deal with it all. He was fine, truly.

Then a boy with blue eyes, loud voice and louder personality appeared. And suddenly Keith wanted to be social.

Only with the boy, but still.

Keith wanted to be social.

(Let that sink in.)

Adam had laughed enough for an entire year the day Keith told him that.

The he gave Keith the very helpful advice of “Take your time, but don’t wait too much. I know that boy; he won’t disregard someone trying to be friendly”, which Keith was glad because he really didn’t want to hear the “just tell him” bullshit he was sure he would’ve gotten with Shiro… Or Shiro’s weird ass friend.

Keith could take his time just fine. The problem was the “not too much” part.

The problem was the glow the blue-eyed boy emitted.

The problem was the shine of his bluest blue eyes.

The problem was the brightness of his smile.

The boy was made of light.

And Keith was a “shadow gremlin”, as Shiro’s weird ass friend used to call him.

Light made him run.

And run he did.

Until they met again. Until the boy—Lance, his name was Lance—shone brightly in front of him once more. And he brought with him the chance of belonging.

Belonging somewhere.

Having a family to call his.

And Keith would be forever grateful for that, no matter how much he would deny if someone asked. He would be forever grateful for Lance.

Falling in love with Lance only made that feeling ten times stronger.

If before he wanted to be social, after he fell—hard, I might add—, he wanted to be a constant in Lance’s life.

And, yes, that maybe sounded a tad creepy, but he couldn’t help himself.

He wanted to be part of Lance’s life just as much as he wanted Lance to be part of his life.

Then Adam’s advice came to bit his butt. “Take your time, but not too much”. He took too long, go figure, and when he was finally ready to confess to Lance those feelings of his, Lance was taken away.

Now, Keith wasn’t a religious person.

(If God existed, Keith wasn’t sure They liked him very much, and the feeling was mutual.)

But if that was how Hell felt like, he could understand why people ran from it their entire lives.

That was something he wished to no one… Other than Haggar. And Zarkon too, but mostly Haggar.

When they found Lance, he was happy, more than happy, he was ecstatic!

Except something screamed at him, something deep within him. And it was screaming “wrong, wrong, wrong” at max volume.

And that something didn’t stop, no, it stayed and it screamed and he was going crazy. It seemed to have a particular dislike for Lance, which was weird… Unless something really was wrong with Lance, which wasn’t the case for Lance had been acting like himself. Sometimes he got that pained look in his eyes, talked aloud with himself, or would lose himself inside his mind for hours to no end, but, hey, you try to survive being kidnapped and experimented on by Haggar and come back without at least some weird mannerisms.

Thankfully, and maybe a bit creepily, Coran noticed how bothered Keith was.

Coran had been acting weirdly around Lance. Still treated him with kindness, but he seemed to keep some distance. It was very, very odd, as Coran saw Lance as his son—there was a debate if Coran saw every one of them as his children and, in Keith’s opinion, Coran saw them more as nieces and nephews than his own kids like he did with Lance and Allura—and would usually be the first to jump in an opportunity to get Lance alone so they could clean the Castle—again—and talk. After they rescued Lance, Coran was hesitant in approaching the boy. And the oddest part is that Lance looked alright with it?

Like he expected and respected Coran’s uneasiness?

Nonetheless, Coran gave Keith help in the form of a book. A book about Galra biology.

Keith had the feeling the man was trying to tell him something.

News flesh: He was right.

Coran gave him a book with a marked page. A marked page about senses and mating.

To say Keith took some time to muster enough courage to read that page is an understatement.

(You can’t just give a book like that to a disaster child, Coran, the quiznack?)

Keith would never admit it, but the book was of great help. Closing it, the Red Paladin sighed. Thinking back to everything that happened, Coran’s question after they told him how they rescued Lance.

“Is that so?” The uneasiness in the man’s voice was subtle, but there. Coran was staring at the Blue Paladin sandwiched between Pidge and Hunk with a faraway look in his face, one hand nervously fidgeting with his mustache.

Keith left the book on his bed, finally understanding that subtlety was not his forte and if he wanted some answers, he would have to ask. With determined steps, he left his room, doing a beeline to Lance’s room. Pieces of the book echoing inside his mind.

“Once a Galra finds a suitable mate, they will develop a sensitivity towards said mate. Their senses will attune with the mate, so the Galra can provide the chosen one with whatever is needed. While it is more common for that to happen to only one or two of their senses, it is not impossible for all five of them to suffer the change. Some Galra have reported some sort of sixth sense, the ability of feeling the energy of their mate, but it’s unclear if it’s something on its own or a result of the mating bond, as it is a mental connection.”

He didn’t need to be a Pidge to understand what that meant. He had recognized Lance as a suitable mate—another thing he wouldn’t admit any time soon—and his senses had attuned with Lance. All five of them, by what he could understand. That said, for his senses to respond to Lance that way, he could think of only two possibilities. One was that there was something very wrong with Lance, wrong enough to bother Keith’s senses and distance Coran. The other was… That Lance, the Lance they had with them, wasn’t their Lance.

Keith didn’t knew which one was scarier. Each brought their own set of problems and their own headache.

With a deep intake of air, Keith knocked on the Blue Paladin’s door.

“Come in.”

Time for the truth.

“Keith?”

“Who are you and where is Lance?”

Okay, maybe he could’ve said something—anything—else, preferably something that didn’t make him sound like a suspicious lunatic, but Keith was well aware of his non-existent people skills, as discussed before. Usually he would let Lance do the talking, seeing as the Cuban boy could easily control a conversation and had a better understanding of people, emotions and social cues.

Anyways, Keith already expected Lance to react strongly to his curiosity, even more after how he worded it, but he didn’t expect for the boy to sigh silently and close his eyes.

Wait, did it mean he was right and that boy wasn’t his Lance?

“Galra senses, he did alert me about them.” Lance looked at him with hollow eyes. “Shit down, Keith—”he gestured to the bed he’d been sitting on even before the Red Paladin came in—“I’ll explain everything.”

“So, you’re a clone made by Haggar from Lance’s hand that she cut off?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re connected to him because of that?”

“Somewhat.”

“Lance is with Haggar, who thinks he’s her son and is training him to be a weapon for the Empire?”

“Yes, well. She used the whole “son” thing to make Lance loyal to her, but by what he told me, she’s being swallowed by her own lie.”

“He’s planning on bringing the Empire down from the inside by gaining Haggar’s loyalty, killing Zarkon and taking his place so there won’t be a lack of power that could bring someone just as bad?”

“Yes.”

“And he told you to stay here with us?”

“Yes. I was supposed to be programmed by Haggar to destroy Voltron, but the danger of making a perfect clone is that it will act the way the original would.”

“You’re not acting like Lance.”

“I am not Lance.”

Silence, heavy and deafening.

“I will understand if you feel the need to beat me, Keith. In fact, please, go ahead.”

Keith choked on the air going to his lungs. How could that boy—that thing ask that?! Didn’t it have instincts or something? Was it out of its mind?

“It’s hard, you know. Because I’m not him, and you guys love me as if I was and I want the love, I truly do, but… But I’m not him. I want the be loved for me. I want the laughs and the smiles and the affection to be directed at me, not at Lance.”

Tears were running on its cheeks. Keith’s heart clenched. No matter what it was, that face was still Lance’s and wasn’t suited for anything that wasn’t satisfaction and happiness. Don’t get him wrong, it was still beautiful with the trails left by the salty water and the dark blue of bluest blue, but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right.

It wasn’t right.

“But Lance promised me, he promised me I would be free to be. To be whoever and whatever I wanted. And I’ll do anything for that to happen. So please, Keith, please don’t tell them!” Begging, it was begging. “Please, let Lance work his plans! Please let me keep this hope!”

The clone startled when Keith’s fist hit the mattress near it.

Damn it, Keith wanted to punch something.

Getting up hastily, the Red Paladin hurried to leave the room, but stopped at the entrance. If the situation was different, if things were different, he would’ve stayed and dried the tears, hugged the fears, soothed the pain. He would’ve done everything and then some more for his Lance, but that wasn’t his Lance.

“I won’t tell them yet because I trust Lance and his plans.” In and out, slow calming breaths. “But if you do anything that I don’t like, I won’t hesitate to throw you into an airlock.”

“Understood.” Too soft, its—his voice was too soft. Too damn soft.

But it wasn’t his Lance’s voice. It didn’t make his heart go crazy or a whole zoo run a marathon inside his chest.

“You’re not the one I’m going to beat up.”

With that he left, promising himself to punch Lance—his Lance, the real Lance, the one his heart adored—as soon as possible.