#katieth

1.

People had eventually joked that Lance had more luck getting other people in relationships than he did in getting into one himself, since he had bumped into (or pushed, depending on the perspective) Keith, causing him to fly into Pidge and kiss her during training.

Yeah, their lips may have come awfully close to their future significant others’ chin/forehead, but no contact had been made. Sure, both were secretly wishing for accidental contact, but none happened.

No one really believed them on this, and they didn’t really care because they knew the truth.

2.

“What’s that?” Keith asked as he sat next to Pidge, who was working on notes on her computer.

“Oh, this? It’s notes from Rover… I’m trying to rebuild him. Of course, he’s going to look different since we don’t want to risk having what happened on Arus again,” she said before looking up. “Hey, may I kiss you?”

His eyes widened, although she wasn’t sure if it was due to her question or the alarms that had started blaring and Allura yelling for them to get to their lions.

3.

After finishing the battle, Keith and Pidge ran towards each other and embraced, forgetting for the moment that their friends were also there in the euphoria and adrenaline. The two of them leaned in, about to kiss when Lance squawked in surprise, causing them to fly apart.

“Did I hit my head back there or were Keith and Pidge about to kiss?” he said.

“No, but it would be nice if they had gotten a room first - wait. Did anyone else  know about this?” Hunk said.

Shiro sighed. “I knew they had crushes on each other, but I figured that nothing came of it.” He gave them a steely look that reminded Pidge of her dad and Keith of one of his foster moms. “How long?”

“We’ve been dating for four months,” Keith said.

“Actually, we’re closer to five,” Pidge corrected.

“And exactly how long were you planning on waiting before telling us?” Shiro asked as his gaze intensified. Perhaps it was this that caused them to kick at the suddenly very interesting pebbles. Perhaps they simply hadn’t ever really thought about it.

“Seriously?” Lance asked. “If I were dating someone, I’d tell everyone immediately.” A chorus of “we know” and “that is why you’ll never get a girlfriend” echoed among the other Paladins, two of them thankful the scrutiny had been turned away from them.

4.

“You, you idiot,” Pidge berated as she dragged Keith’s lifeless but breathing form through the tunnels of the planet they had gotten captured on, thankful that there were no hostile aliens because it would be quite annoying to fight them off while carrying the dead weight, but he wasn’t dead. He couldn’t die. Not yet.

“You could have stood there and let me dodge that bullet, but no, you had to make yourself a human shield for me. Except it turns out that you’re not quite human because it contained a poison that apparently only works on Galra and why didn’t you tell me? Does anyone else know? When exactly were you planning on showing your true colors? Or maybe it’s a poison that both Galra and humans are affected by and they’ve simply never encountered us yet. Yeah, that’s right.”

She bit her lip as she dragged him onto the Green lion. Yes, this was dangerous, taking a possible enemy on board, but he wasn’t a Galra. That was a crazy idea. Perhaps those aliens had been working for Zarkon, and had wanted to cause a rift within Voltron. It was all an act. It had to be.

“Guys? You there?” she called out.

“Pidge? That you? We’ve been so worried!” Hunk replied almost immediately. “Why haven’t you answered earlier?” Lance asked.

“Our helmet’s coms were damaged - Keith’s with me, but he’s unconscious and poisoned!” she said.

“I’ll get Red. Take Keith back to the ship and get him to the pods. We’re pulling out,” Shiro said.

It was the fact that they were retreating that caused the feeling of dread in her stomach. That had to be it.

She kept sneaking glances back at her boyfriend out of fear. She felt guilty that the fear wasn’t fully due to the fact that he was poisoned, but because of how it was only supposed to only affect Galra.

When she touched down, she immediately put her head to his chest, confirming that there was a weak but steady heartbeat. She nearly pressed a kiss to his forehead, but reminded herself that time was of the essence and instead ran with him to the waiting pod.

5.

The pod next to Pidge opened, waking her from her sleep. Time to face the music. She caught the drowsy Keith and nearly kissed him out of relief when she saw the lavender peach fuzz surrounding his blinking golden right eye. Her shock must have shown on her face when his eyebrows drew together and ears pressed down in concern. “Pidge, what’s wrong?”

She hesitated for a moment. “You really need to see your reflection.” Coran had revealed to them that Keith was nearly half Galran (there were other species thrown in but they were likely insignificant aside from him apparently be a very tiny bit part Altean), that the castle had detected it just as it had detected her gender when their identities had been scanned. The pod had found something… off about him. It had something to do with his Quintessence? She supposed it was what had kept him looking human.

He took a step back, staring at his fuzzy, clawed hand before glancing at his reflection in the glass. If she had this on video, she could probably tell the exact moment he woke up and began to break down.

“What… what did they do to me? What was in that bullet?” he asked, shaking violently.

“The bullet contained poison that only works on those of Galran descent. There was something making you look fully human, but the pod healed both that and the poison,” she said.

“So I’m a monster.”

She pulled him into a hug. “No, you’re not. And I don’t really care who your family is or what your genetics might say because you’re not them. I still love you.”

+1.

Before she could lose her nerve, Pidge brushed her tongue against her boyfriend’s lips. He gasped, although didn’t pull away. As his soft purr increased slightly in volume, she eased her tongue into his mouth, intent on mapping it out well enough that she could make blueprints, just as she did for other things she had reverse-engineered. The biggest difference would be that she wasn’t planning on creating anything out of them.

She yelped in pain, breaking the kiss. Keith’s eyes flew open, a look of fear on his face that only grew as he realized that he could taste the smallest hint of blood.

“I’m sorry, did I hurt you?” he asked.

“Yeah, but it’s okay,” she said. “I guess I should just be more careful of your fangs next time.”

He shrank slightly, purple fur disappearing and ears moving downwards. When he opened his mouth, there were no fangs. “Or next time I’ll pull back long enough to change forms and that way there’s no chance of you getting hurt.”

"Lance, if you're so desperate to get a girlfriend, then you have got to do something other than bragging and stupid pick up lines," Pidge said to him as the two of them and Hunk loitered in the training room, waiting for Shiro to get there, while Keith contented himself with fighting invisible enemies. "Let's face it, you can't flirt."

"Oh really," he replied. "What, can you do better?"

"Yeah, no offense Pidge," Hunk added, "but unless you manage to woo someone by your fighting or hacking skills, Lance has got you beat."

She glared at them before yanking off her helmet, flicking back her hair in the process as she looked at them through half-closed eyes. Her hand went further than her hair, as if she had done it many a time before she had joined the Garrison. It had, after all, been quite a while since she had been to class, She hoped she still had her splits.

Her lashes fluttered as she brought her other hand back to caress her cheek before going back down to pause in front of her heart. She repeated this as she strutted and jazz walked around them in between pirouettes and small chassés, earning her rather surprised stares. She finished with a final hair flick, smirking at Lance and Hunk. "All that without a single word."

"Yeah, well," Lance said, trying to come up with a change of subject that didn't give away his lack of dance skills. Over Pidge's head he noticed something... odd about Keith, who was completely still aside from slowly blinking in their direction. "Hey, Keith! Are you trying to only shift your cheeks or are you just not doing it right?"

The half-Galran's ears suddenly quirked up. "Wha-what?" He raised one of his hands to his face, feeling warm skin underneath his fuzzy fingertips. His eyes narrowed. "Lance, not funny. It's skin, so I'm not shifting on accident. I think."

"No really, well it's going away now, " he said, walking over to his rival. "That was odd... Wait, your blood is lavender, right?"

Keith was about to answer yes when Lance pinched his cheek. "Hey! What was that for?"

"Oh, just testing a theory. Well Pidge, I guess you're more talented than we thought." Hunk chuckled softly as Shiro entered the room. Lance grinned. "It turns out that Keith blushes purple when Pidge flirts with him!" he called out, earning a glare from the arms.

The cyborg merely blinked in confusion for half a tic as lilac and scarlet began to tinge the faces of the respective paladins.

"I did not!" they both yelled as Pidge slammed her helmet over her head. They nearly met the others eyes before very pointedly not-looking at each other as the flush overtook their faces and snickers came from their fellow paladins.

There was something wrong with Keith.

Whenever he looked at Pidge, he found himself feeling... different. Not necessarily a bad different, but it was still different. This had been happening for a while now. There hadn’t been any chance for her to have been replaced with a body double, so he doubted that it was some sixth sense warning him of a possible danger. (Of course, Green probably would’ve clued the into it as well.)

Groaning, Keith deactivated his bayard and walked out of the training room, trying to ignore the fluttering feeling in his stomach. He needed help.

The person he chose to get help from was not perhaps someone who would be best qualified to help him, but it was the person least likely to leak the information to Lance or, worse, Pidge.

“Shiro,” he began as he checked and double checked to make sure that not even the mice were in earshot. Hopefully no one would hear. “You’re aromantic, right?”

The eldest paladin set down the glass of water he was drinking. “Yeah, why do you ask?”

“Is it possible for someone like us to get a crush?”

“Are we talking romantic or sexual?”

“I’m ace. That isn’t up for debate.”

“Okay, so aros don’t get crushes, we get squishes.”

“How can you tell the difference?”

“Well, how do you feel about them?”

“Um…” Keith said, stalling in embarrassment as blood once again decided to flee to his cheeks. “If I were to want to kiss Pidge and hold her hand, do you think it would affect our ability to form Voltron?”

“Honestly you’re going to have to ask Allura or Coran about that. As for your earlier question, have you considered the possibility that you might be demi or gray romantic?”

“I… that actually makes sense. So what do I do now?”

“What you think is right,” Shiro said. He shook his head as Keith walked after giving a mumbled thank you. These kids were growing up so fast. For once, it wasn’t too fast.

“Hey Pidge? Can I talk to you?” Keith asked as he walked into the lab, thankful that he had passed by Hunk in the hallway mere minutes earlier. They would be alone, which was good since it would help to not have any onlookers.

“Huh? Sure,” she replied, meeting his eyes only momentarily before darting them away as she stood up, setting aside the Galra gun she was likely trying to reverse engineer.

He took a deep breath before speaking. “I’d rather not actually say this, but  I’m hoping that not keeping this a secret will do less damage to our combat abilities than what I’m about to tell you. I understand if you don’t feel the same way, but I think I have a -” he swallowed “- a crush on you.”

Her eyes widened, and he felt panic set in that was not helped by the swarm of butterflies that chose to gather in his stomach as she grinned. “Really! You do?” He began to stiffly nod, but she was already rambling on. “I am so glad because it’s totally annoying when my demi-romanticism decides to act up because I spend all this time building up a friendship and then I suddenly have feelings for them and it feels really awkward and -” She paused for breath, moving her hand to take his, pausing right before they touched. “So, does this mean you’ll be my boyfriend? Or would you prefer significant other?”