The astral plane is a cosmic burn against his skin. Fragile and composed, it breathes a cloud of thought and intent, shining from point to celestial point. Pulsating like something living, it beckons.

In time with the universe, he wakes. A breath, stolen from his concaved chest, shudders at the thrill of slipping past a cage of muscle and bone. Stagnant freedom, watched from eyes already opened and barely aware. A trickle of feeling, counting down the notches of his spine with aching precision until he remembers that the body is his to control.

Then, without prompting, he moves. His hand rises, pressing flat to the mirror of his own existence, trying to find himself. Time cracks and splits and he sees beyond what is linear. Cause and effect, a wave upon space itself, asking who are you? Years regress and years progress, eternal, and he, only a footnote in this bigger story, is unsure of which direction to go. For there are a million paths and a million more endings, a finite choice within infinite possibilities.  

At the end of the universe, he stands, wondering. Wondering of what he left behind and if maybe — just maybe, he could go back. 

But something stops him from turning. A force, omniscient, slipping past his guard and suspending him upon a cross weaved from thorns. It pushes and a third eye opens, tattooed with the glowing marks of a dead culture, waiting to claim what doesn’t belong. Powerless to the touch that drags over him, he cries out; from navel to heart, it cuts, tearing him wide open and letting the fears crawl out. From his body, a chasm forms, and it slithers in, sinking claws into his consciousness with a raspy croon.

Submit, it demands. Submit to me.

A silent cry strikes the barrier of thought as the force presses upon him, a shattering presence. Broken glass punctures, sinking into his flesh; it liquifies and percolates, filling his veins until they burst. All his scars bleed golden, oozing in kindle for the fire that consumes him, burning until he tastes his own ashes. Lightning travels up his legs, straightening his spine with pure electricity that revives the burnt crisp of flesh and mind he has become. His head snaps back, eyes wide and sightless in the feeling, and he lets loose a noise somewhere between a whine and a yell.

He is fire and magma splattered across a dark canvas, specks of gold and white flaring like a string of city lights around his neck. A firestorm, wild and explosive. Embers pop and sizzle, arching high in the swing of a blade, landing with the intent to consume. Distorted and warped, the Red Lion stares from underneath his skin, hot thunder for blood and suns for pupils. 

Anger, once dormant in his chest, wakes. 

His reality cracks like radio static, getting louder and louder until it consumes. A canon, booming, sounds off at the end of a funeral march, leaving only the sizzling ruins of self, corrupted by dark magic and an unforgivable science. He is less than what he was, hollow and despondent and mindless, following the strings that bind him. Transparent and tight, the strings go taut. He flexes.

A sword held in his grasp sings, deadly and craving action.

Something cold touches him and he hisses in surprise. Forced to pull back or suffer frostbite, he stares down the silhouette that shines bright in his split vision, outlined hand still hovering between them. The sight has the strings pulling tighter. 

Kill, the voice inside his head says and he feels the desire burn in his chest. Feels it stain his hands a bloody red with intent, wrapped around the throat of mercy and squeezing until it is no more. The violent thought drives away his sense, making him something wild; a wolf, foaming at the mouth, with slits for eyes and fangs bared. A monster, through and through. 

The silhouette stumbles away, dodging the swing of his sword with a cry of distress. 

But he doesn’t stop— can’t stop, prowling forward and leaving scorched earth in his wake. Another swing, arc wider and accompanied by his own yell, barely missing its mark when his opponent ducks to the left. Step, swipe and stab. It is the mantra of his existence, the only thing worth knowing, fury condensed along the edge of his sword and the blood rushing through his veins. Carnage in the making.

Schwing.

—the blade in his hand is parried.

A sword, accented red, glinting in the cosmic light. It is a threat previously unseen, held in the grip of someone who knows how to use it. Longer than his own blade, its tip skims the ground as its wielder straightens into a fighting stance. A challenge.

Sparks erupt when they clash, metallic tongues hissing, only to quiet again when they separate; choreographed by the notes of war, they dance to its solemn tune. Every step is calculated, careful and precise. One wrong move and the curtain will fall, hefty in the sound of thunderous applause, draped ostentatiously over shut coffins. Falling into each other and in range, they pivot and deflect, graceful only as dancers are, light-footed and sure.

Their swords bisect, sliding until cross-guards meet.

This close he can see his own reflection in the other’s eyes— dark hair curling around a snarling face, a shadow of self shrinking within in a dilating pupil. The sight strums at the strings that guide him, letting out a confusing twang, reminiscent of a time before. It’s not a good feeling, churning uncomfortably at the bottom of his stomach; he wants it gone. 

A twist of his wrist and it has the other’s sword flying.

He kicks out, watching as his opponent’s body falls and rolls across the ground with the force of it. And that should be the last of it, submission given to the victor, but it’s not. For armored arms go to lift themselves up, head rising so clear eyes can look up at him through sweaty bangs, jaw clenched with a stubbornness that has the fire inside him flaring up.

Angry, he stalks forward and stabs the point of his sword into the jut between breastplate and shoulder pad. It draws out a scream of pain, gutted and raw, and he pushes it deeper. Deeper until blood trickles over shining armor and onto the ground, causing red to ripple across its once pristine surface. Deeper still when those eyes look to his, clouded with pain, unbudging as he looms and goes for a chokehold. 

Fingers scramble for purchase, weakening as the moments drag on and he exerts more pressure, twitching in time to the wheeze of air stolen from lungs. 

A leg wraps around him and they roll over, a tangle of limbs. The ground is hard against their backs as they fight for the upper hand, his sword and helmet discarded somewhere along the way, leaving him with nothing but the dirt underneath his nails and the taste of rust in his mouth. They are evenly matched like this, stripped of their names and drenched in their own desperation. It’s a struggle that’s been a long time coming, though he does not know how he knows that, but it sits heavy at the base of his chest.

Clear gems dislodged from the ground follow them in their struggle, cutting into skin left unprotected. One must get underneath them and dig into the other’s wounded shoulder because he shudders violently, losing his grip and surrendering the leverage he held. Victory taken and victory given.

Kill, the voice in his head repeats when he’s got the other pinned down, breathing hard and once again looking at his own image splattered across the canvas of a pupil. His blade is back in his hand, poised at the ready. Kill him.

His world flickers as gloved fingers brush against his ear, making him recoil instinctively, thinking it another attack. Still, it persists, moving until it curls at the back of his neck. Gentler than any of its predecessors, it vibrates with the heavy pound of his heartbeat, taming the monster into a lull of compliance. Small pricks of pressure guide his head down, down, down, until foreheads meet. Then, softly, words he cannot hear are whispered into the sliver of space between them just as a muzzle of a gun is pressed into his stomach.

Seams splitting, he falls apart, the world folding in on itself. It pulls, bends—

To the end of the universe and back.

—and breaks.

Transparent daggers rake against the sheet of ultramarine that makes up this plane, ripping claws of red across a celestial sky. It coerces the fear in his chest to slip out, dripping toxic black through the gap of his ribs. Feeling returns in the form of bruises spanning the entirety of his body and more than one gash peeking out from behind cut cloth and discarded armor. Blood, which had been rushing through his veins with the kick of adrenaline only moments ago, is weeping from wounds sustained, sluggish and steady.

Underneath him, a body shivers, going limp with exhaustion.

It comes to him then, what he’s done— what he nearly did— and a different kind of pain develops. The shock has him dropping his bayard, watching the heat of his fingerprints fade from the hilt as it clatters to the ground, soundless. Something loosens inside him and, suddenly, everything is too much. The air is too thick, time too slow, his suit too tight and the universe too vast; he is a speck, insignificant and powerless, and it is just too much. 

He flings himself back, away from the corpse that almost was and the murderer he almost became, and starts shaking his head. It doesn’t help and he is left there, fists clenched and mind battered, suffocating in silence. For there is something stuck in his chest, a tumbleweed whose thorns pierce and shred and destroy. Like the brittle wood of a dead tree, he snaps and breaks under the pressure, knees failing and leaving him a heap of kindle on the floor. He takes a labored breath and it attempts to spark a dead fire.

“Keith.”

But there is nothing left to burn. Only smoke and ash.

“Keith, look at me.” A touch to the back of his hand and he flinches. “Keith, please.”

A shudder and charred woods crumbles. He follows the line of ash as it scatters in the wind, dark gaze meeting that of blue.

Lance is nearly transparent, a mirror of water that glistens. Shooting stars fly through his veins, pulsing with every heartbeat; they die just as quickly as they are born, dreaming of adventure even as they fall. A look down and he can see beads of constellations knit around his ankles, twinkling like chimes.

A smile, honest and hesitant. “Hey, buddy.”

He makes to move away.

“Wait, no. Don’t do— come back.” Weak willed and feeling numb, Keith lets himself be pulled in. His body falls into the curve of the other boy’s arms; he doesn’t phase through like he imagines he would, but stays firm, properly cradled. His temple is pressed against the cool material of a breastplate and his hand trails down to fall, limp, in his lap. “You’re okay. It’s over now and you’re okay.”

Listeless, he speaks, “I… I almost…”

“Hey, no, no, no. That’s not— you stopped, okay?” Lance shifts awkwardly, shoulder slumped at an odd angle, and then there’s an arm wrapped around him and a hand taking his, soothing the burning touch of corruption. Planet rings circle thin wrists like bangles, matter vibrating when they divided and merged back into one another lazily. “I’m fine, see? Fine and still breathing, all because of you.”

“I didn’t mean to…”

Their faces are close enough that Keith can see the exact moment Lance cracks; the slight tremble of a lower lip, translating in the wobble of his next words. “I know you didn’t. I know you would never— not now, not after everything. We’re a team, remember? And I’m still here— always gonna be here.”

The words are from a long, lost dream and Keith jolts at the memory of them. It causes him to lift his head and stare up at the boy who holds him, to take in everything all at once: the gash that cuts through his left eyebrow, the pinpricks of tears at the corner of his eyes, the way his lips part when he breathes. It is a mural of a future passing him by, honest like the flashes promised.

“Oh,” he breathes out in understanding. Relief rushes through him, almost immediately followed by frustration. “Allura was right. I should’ve just let them come.”

The abrupt change in mood startles Lance, tears chased away before they can properly settle. “What?”

“Nothing. I…” To think, that he would have foreseen all this if he had just taken the time to properly dissect his flashes rather than throw them aside out of misguided cynicism. So focused on the future he didn’t believe he deserved, he had forgotten about the present that might become it. “I’m just so dumb. Dumb to think I could…” He sits up and runs a hand through his hair, putting it into disarray. “God, it’s all a mess and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Not everyone has the answers.”

“Well, I’m—”

“Yeah, you’re not everyone. I know. I’m sure everyone and their mom knows who you are. Keith Kogane. Flying protégée, golden boy of the Garrison and pilot of the Black Lion.” Words go unspoken, an echo of a past they share; two boys, one with a head in the clouds and another with his heart on his sleeve. They lie dormant between the lines, waiting to be heard. “But just because you’ve got all that under your belt doesn’t mean you’re immune to life, and sometimes life is confusing. Sometimes you don’t know what to do or where you fit. It happens, okay? All this just makes you…” Lance pauses. “Makes you human.”

Something new and unfamiliar coils in his chest.

“And that’s fine. You’re allowed to not know,” Lance continues, taking a deep breath. His eyes are clear now, staring intently at Keith. “It sucks— trust me, I know, but life’s like that sometimes. We just gotta push through and hope we find what we’re looking for.”

Keith blinks. “That was— wow, um, pretty wise.” 

Lance looks away and down, readjusting the bend of his knees. “Yeah, well, I had a lot of time to think about this. Life’s kinda slow when you’re stuck in space.”

“Well, thanks… It’s nice to hear, that I’m not alone in all this.”

“No problem, man.”

He frowns at the response. It’s hard to place, but the words, though casual in delivery, seem almost dismissive in nature. As if what Keith said is merely obligation and not fact. “Seriously,” he says, willing him to understand. “I wouldn’t know what I’d do without you. I’d probably be rotting in some alien jail cell halfway across the galaxy if it wasn’t for you.” “I’m sure you would’ve gotten yourself out eventually.”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t need to with you there. I wouldn’t even be in that situation in the first place. You keep me in check when I get out of hand. I have never been… the most logical of people, especially when I get stuck in my head, but you always bring me back to what’s important. So, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that. That’s just what friends do.” Lance smiles. “And we’re friends.”

Keith smiles back. “Yeah, we are.”

Their surroundings have finally settled into something more tranquil, receding from the violent reds and disturbed yellows into a more manageable spectrum. It soothes the nerves that had been previously fried, realigning synapses and extending sheaths, making every sensation new and goosebump inducing. He tilts his head back, watching the distant skyline sink under the surface of this plane. Up above, two adjacent stars stare back. 

His hands fall to his sides and curl into the seam of his undersuit, feeling the patterns of the stockinette. Slowly, he breathes out. 

Next to him, Lance does the same and says, “This place is crazy, right?”

Keith turns just in time to see his fellow paladin wiggle his fingers in front of his face, eternally fascinated at the way the gesture slows down and leaves a stop-motion shadow trailing after it. Further intrigued, he reaches out to touch Keith; the boy holds himself stone still, lips parting in a sun flare of surprise. Sparks erupt from the place where the pads of his fingers brushed along the crest of a cheek, a blotch of violet. 

“Yeah, it’s… it’s something else. Different than when we project from the lions.” Keith inhales sharply. “I wonder what brought us here.”

“Well, if I had to guess, I’d guess that.”

Keith angles himself to where he points, jerking in surprising when he spots a ball of… something floating in the air a few feet away from them. It’s pitch black, fuzzy at the edges, with tendrils of violet lightning striking the air around it every few seconds. It makes no noise, silent as it bobs between this universe and the next in everlasting limbo, but the way it quivers makes Keith think it’s holding in a scream.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Lance shifts close enough that their shoulders brush when he shrugs. “It just— came out of you. One minute you were all crazy and attacking me, and the next, this thing popped right out of your chest and you were fine. I’m kinda afraid to touch it. Like, what if it infects me or whatever? I’d rather not fight you again. That was a bit too intense for my tastes.”

Only remembering certain snippets of feelings, albeit in gruesome detail, Keith nods. 

Lance continues, talking through his thoughts. “Maybe this has something to do with the colony and why they’re apples and bananas for Honerva. It could be that they’re brainwashed, like you were. Though if that’s the case, then we should bring it back to the Atlas as a sample. Allura would want to analyze it, to see if it could be reversed.” The boy hums, looking behind and at the great expanse of nothing around them, tapping his fingers against his knee. “We’d have to get out of this place first. Usually, the lions would just bring us back, but I don’t think this place is where we usually go when we connect in Voltron. Maybe it’s a copy that Haggar made.”

“Maybe,” Keith agrees, unconsciously picking at his lip as he thinks it over. “But it won’t be safe on the Atlas, not with it traveling across the universe. Earth won’t be good either, not after the war. Kolivan might have a place for it— an old base possibly, or even one of Lotor’s abandoned labs. I can take it with me when I go.”

A pause, long and stagnant. Then—

“What.” Lance’s voice is flat. 

Keith looks up, confused. “What?”

“You’re… leaving?”

“I mean, yeah. Not now, but someday. Soon, maybe— I don’t know.” It’s been the topic of a few late night talks with his mother, vague as most things dealing with the future are, gaining shape as more time passes. Faster even, when the flashes had intensified and he hadn’t wanted to be taunted by them any longer. “When this war is finally over, someone is going to have to help put the universe back together. And with no leader, the galra are going to need someone to take charge and get them on the right track. A new planet and a new ruling system.”

“And what? That’s gonna be you?”

“No, of course not. I’m just gonna help them get back on their feet. They have to change if they want to be part of Coalition and, well, I was talking with Acxa and—”

“Acxa? You’re gonna run off with Acxa? The girl who tried to kill you— all of us, on more than one occasion? A girl you and Hunk found in some space worm’s stomach? Your ditching us for her? You don’t even know her!”

“I know her enough,” he bites back. “And she’s helped me— us, out. She’s changed. And I’m not ditching you guys for her, okay? I just think that I’ll be more useful out there. It’s not like you guys are gonna need me on Earth once everything is finished. There’s nothing left for me there.”

“Useful? Nothing left? What are you even talking about?”

Not wanting to continue the conversation, Keith makes to get up and stalk away, hissing quietly when his injuries cry out. Lance ignores the implications of the action and follows after him.

“You’re just gonna leave it. Just like that? But Earth… it’s our home— your home.”

He scoffs. “Earth has never been my home. Not like it is to you.”

“So… so you’re running away?”

That has him turning back. “I— that’s not— I’m not running away.”

“Yes, you are. You’re running. Just like you always do. Were you even gonna say goodbye when you left? Or were you just going to leave and maybe see us in a few years?” Keith opens his mouth in rebuttal, but Lance doesn’t let him. The words come pouring out of his mouth, saturating the air between them with wild honesty. “You’re always pulling away, like you’re afraid— and don’t say you aren’t, because you are! And that’s fine, you know? Cause everyone gets scared. But, man, you’ve got to stop letting it decide everything for you.”

A bitter taste enters his mouth, thick enough to lodge his throat when he swallows. Bitter because Keith has never been one to allow fear to rule him. Even from a young age he had learned that the world doesn’t care about boys who are afraid of the dark, for night still falls regardless on whether he wants it to or not, and that if he wanted to get anywhere in life then was going to have to learn to sleep with one eye open.

Lance plants an uninjured hand on his shoulder, trailing high to palm the slope of his neck, and it’s a contradicting action; his fingers are transparent, made up of the stars that surround them, but they feel solid and real, staining his existence a deep purple when he moves the other to hover hesitantly under a padded elbow. “You can try all you want, okay? Put an ocean between us— an universe even— but it won’t work. Won’t work because no matter what you do or think, we’ll be here. Earth… it doesn’t have to mean anything to you, but we— me and the team, we should. Home is what you make it.” Thin brows furrow as blue eyes flicker away, hesitation clear in the way his lower lip is sucked under his front teeth. “You can have your place with us, but I can’t make you want it.”

You can’t give up on yourself, whispers a memory, bruised but hopeful.

“A—And I can’t force you to stay, but I can say that I’d be sad if you don’t. I would miss you.” The fingers at his throat twitch. “We all would.”

Something gets stuck in his throat. “I would miss you too.”

“Then don’t go. Stay, please. Promise you’ll come back home.”

He’s run all his life. It started when he stepped away from the graveyard where his father lies six feet under and he had never stopped. For he makes loneliness into something that can be achieved rather than forced. A self-inflicted exile. 

But lions are meant to be in prides.

The thought has tears springing to his eyes. Unheralded, they come, slipping past the slope of his cheek until they bead together at the point of his chin, dripping when his emotions become too heavy. He sniffles and the sudden sound has Lance’s gaze snapping back to his face, eyes going wide with surprise as he takes in Keith’s blotchy skin and scrunched up nose.

It’s been years since the last time he had let himself cry. Not even when Shiro had first gone missing had Keith wept, merely going hollow when Adam had been presented with the notice by an impartial field officer, crumbling the envelope in misguided anger when he had read the words assumed dead and sorry for your loss. Stone-like, he had become, chipped where the Garrison had stabbed a knife into his back. For there was no kindness spared for little boys who cried or the men they grew up to be. 

Lance’s own chin wobbles. “Keith, no, don’t… don’t cry. You never cry… and, and if you cry then I’m gonna cry. I didn’t mean to make you— and oh god, there I go.” He blinks rapidly and takes some deep, erratic breaths. “It’s okay. We’re good. We’re fine. Just— just let it out.”

So Keith does. He cries for his father, his mother, his brother, and his friends. Cries for himself— both the nine-year old sitting outside of child services as his first foster parents rage about broken windows and the sixteen-year old stumbling through a desert after being kicked out the one place he thought he belonged— for what was and what could have been. Cries for today and the tomorrow he wants after.

The feeling bursts from his chest like a monsoon in a jar, glass cracked and glass shattered. He stands in the middle of it, letting the high winds take him to the distant cliffside with its crumbling rock and rogue waves, looking to the lighthouse that sits atop its crest. A shining beacon, guiding just as a hand curls around his own, tugging to a place just beyond due north.

Eventually, his tears slow down and he shifts out of his bowed posture, blinking away the salt and noticing that his nose is pressed against the sharp turn of a jaw. Brown hair tickles the bridge of his nose, moving away when Lance does, and suddenly he’s looking straight into red-rimmed eyes. A thought, fleeting and inexplicable, crosses his mind, profound in how such a soft oh can have his heart missing a beat. It’s weird and Keith clears his throat awkwardly, knowing that the moment has branded him— them, different than what they were.

Lance blows a raspberry. “Wow, that was intense.”

Keith wipes the fresh tears from his eyes, chuckling weakly. “Yeah… It kinda was.”

“It fine, right? We just had a lot of feelings to let out. Nothing wrong with two dudes crying over some feelings. Totally natural.”

“It’s— yeah, we’re fine. Better than fine, thanks to you.”

This time Lance doesn’t shrug off the praise. Merely nods and watches as Keith attempts to compose himself, shameless of the tear stains that track his own face. It’s an open expression, devoid of the boy’s usual carefully sculpted mask of confidence and revealing the things that lie underneath— a quiet conviction and compassion that melts even the coldest of hearts, alluring in the light of sincerity. Even now as he purses his lips, looking for all he is someone trying to decode a puzzle, face just shy of impassive even as blood drips sluggishly from the cut above his eye.

“You’re hurt,” Keith says stupidly, watching the blood smear when his companion absently goes to wipe it away and blinks in surprise when it comes back stained red. It’s nothing compared to the mess that his shoulder has become, hunched over itself and twitching with every muscle spasm. “You must’ve gotten that when we were…” 

“One of the rocks must have nicked it,” Lance finishes, studiously ignoring how that was most definitely not what Keith was going to say. “It’s fine, though. Doesn’t even hurt.”

He bites his lip. “Looks like it’ll scar.”

Lance gives a small shrug with his uninjured shoulder, as if he doesn’t go to great lengths to keep his skin absolutely flawless with his many moisturizers and exfoliators. As if the new scar and how he got it is inconsequential. As if him and the team don’t notice the way he tenses whenever the gaze of someone snags too long onto the discolored skin of his back. As if it is really all fine, cast aside with a lopsided smile and the words, “I don’t mind. Plus, now we match.”

Keith starts and then settles. He side eyes the other boy, hand automatically coming up to brush against the puckered skin that cuts across his right cheek. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

And then the blue paladin is moving on, doing what he does best— talk. “But you know Hunk is gonna have a field day over this. Encountering a druid and getting trapped in some knock-off astral plane was so not part of the plan— he’s gonna take one look at us and then the next thing you know, we’ll be drowning in I told you so’s. Gosh, it almost makes me not wanna go back."

“I’m not even sure we can go back,” he murmurs truthfully.

“Yeah, if our usual mumbo jumbo with the lions was gonna work, we’d be out of here already.” He combs through the hair at the back of his head. “We might have to wait for the rest of the team. I hope they’re alright. Who know what they’re going through right now, who they’re up against. At least Hunk and Pidge have each other, but Allura went off by herself.”

Just as the words leave his mouth, there’s a mighty tremble that goes through the ground beneath them. It shakes Keith to his core, separating soul from body for a frightening second, and it’s only because the two are already holding each other that they don’t fall over. He looks up, trying to pinpoint the danger, and feels the breath leave his lungs.

Above them are celestial hands, reaching out. 

They part the clouds like some second coming, ripping the heavens apart with divine rule and showering judgement upon that which lies in the face of its power. It is a saving grace, worshipped just as is feared, and Keith likens the image to those seen in stained glass and carved marble, untouchable in every sense.

“Allura,” Lance whispers and there is a reverence in the name.

But the hands stop just shy of them, hanging as if they’ve reached the end of their string and can go no further. A bridge of space lies between them and salvation, ominous in how it grows dark and empty, stark against the bright sheen of altean magic. A pulse ripples across cosmic skin and then fingers are curling, pushing against the force that keeps them at bay. But there should be nothing capable of such a feat, the plane empty save for the two paladins and—

“The orb,” Keith declares once it connects, already halfway to turning around and forcing Lance to do the same. “It’s stopping her. We’ve gotta get rid of it.”

True to his suspicions, the dark orb has gotten closer during their time of inattentiveness. Shaking like a diseased animal, it floats mere feet away from them, hiding in a nest of dark matter. Desperate, it swallows itself whole, birthing anew from the remains only to fall prey to its own hunger again in an endless cycle of greed.

Almost immediately, he draws his bayard.

“Wait,” Lance says before he can even begin to think about starting an assault, the pressure at his elbow keeping him in place long enough to catch the look in the boy’s eye. Clear and determined. “Together.”

Another stolen heart beat and Keith is nodding.

Lance moves in closer until their breast plates scrape against one another, sliding his hand over Keith’s on the grip of the weapon. Almost immediately, it glows. Glows as its shape changes, molding around their intertwined hands and shifting into something that makes them both draw in a deep breath. A gun, accented black and larger than anything Keith has ever wielded before, activated with a simple touch. Lance’s touch.

It means something, he knows it does.

“Ready?” Lance asks.

“Ready,” Keith answers.

Together they lift the weapon, aiming its wide barrel at the ball of energy. As if sensing their intent and it’s impending doom, the thing starts pulsating. Crackles of black lightning claw at the air, growing berserk even as plasma builds up and light begins to illuminating their profiles. Keith almost shuts his eyes when their fingers squeeze over the trigger and the shot is made, powerful enough that it has their bones vibrating.

But they stand their ground as the shot makes it mark. Dark matter screams as its engulfed, ripped apart piece by piece, until it is no more.

Then Keith knows no more.

Ready?

Eyes meeting across a room, catching, tugging until there is no space between them. Golden lanterns burn, casting a spell that turns porcelain into shining bronze. It embellishes just as it emboldens, issuing a challenge that new hearts seldom refuse; nerves spark when his hand braces at the dip of a spine, giving it weight with a languid roll. A siren’s song, quiet and alluring, grazes the shell of his ear. 

Ready.

When consciousness returns to him, it is a fleeting affliction. 

Cold air pricks his skin; dry, crisp, and filtered enough that it leaves his sinuses stinging. For a wild moment he thinks he’s back on the castleship, with its high ceilings and sloping archways, swathed in brocades and regal paintings, but stumbles back into reality when a delicate hand pushes his hair back and away from his face. He blinks rapidly, mind foggy and lagging, unable to determine his exact whereabouts; his body rebels, heart rate skyrocketing and muscles seizing in a panic just as blind as his eyes. There’s a quiet murmur from somewhere to his right and then the lights piercing his retinas dim, allowing room for his senses to readjust and notice the touch of strong hands to his biceps. The buzz in his head clears incrementally and he blinks Shiro into sight.

Relief settles in the curl of his smile when he sees Keith is awake. “Hey there, bud. You feeling okay?”

“Head hurts,” he answers automatically, mouth numb and slurring the words. 

“Yeah, getting mind controlled by a space witch will do that to you.”

For a moment, Keith doesn’t understand; blissfully ignorant, he squints at his friend, until, finally, it comes to him. Time catches up and fills in the space left empty from exhaustion and morphine, dragging him into the present by the chains of the past. The feel of falling, glowing eyes set in a shadowed face, blood dripping down steel and, finally, a mouth forming his own name.

Alarmed, he sits up straight. “Lance. Where is he?” he demands, voice rising enough to have a nurse pop her head in the doorway. But he refuses to acknowledge the stranger, mind focusing on one fact and one fact only. “We were stuck in the astral plane together, and— we have to go back for him. He’s hurt— I hurt him and… and I need to know that— he, he is… Where is he?”

“Relax,” Shiro soothes, shooing away the nurse with a wave of his robotic arm. “He’s safe— you both are. See for yourself.”

Keith follows the direction of the finger pointing toward his right and feels his body exhale in relief. There, slumped in the seat closest to his bedside, is Lance. Dressed in a standard hospital robe and looking a little worse for wear, the boy is sound asleep, head settled in the crook of one elbow and just barely grazing the edge of Keith’s pillow. Bandages peek out from the collar of his rumpled shirt, disappearing over one shoulder and spotted a faint pink. Three stitches break the streak of his left eyebrow, a permanent reminder.

Movement by his legs catch his attention and Keith looks down only to see Pidge curling tighter against his hip atop of the blankets. Her glasses are skewed and there’s drool clinging to the corner of her mouth, giving her kittenish snores a nasal quality. One of her legs hangs off the edge of the bed where he can just see the back of Hunk’s head, lolled and dead to the world.

Shiro follows his line of sight, sighing out in exasperation and fondness. “Those two been here since you were allowed visitors five days ago. Lance has been off bed rest since yesterday, but he joined the camp out almost immediately. They’ve been driving the staff nuts— Allura too.” He nods to the chairs lining the wall where Allura and Romelle lean against each other, sharing a thin blanket as they sleep. “Still, no one’s willing to say no to the defenders of the universe. Not after they saved all of existence.”

His gaze snaps back to his mentor. Breathless, he asks, “We did it?”

Shiro smiles and it’s like the olden days, carefree and hopeful. “Yeah, we did.”

An exhilarated laugh leaves his lips and he flops back down, careful not to disrupt Pidge as he sinks into the cool comfort of the pillow. He looks at the unassuming ceiling, gray and tiled, and lets himself feel. Feel the relief and the fortune and the euphoria, because, wow, they did it. They really did it. It’s all over, the war is won and they’re still here, alive and together. 

The sun sets today, only to rise again tomorrow.

“Get some rest,” Shiro orders in that brotherly tone of his, chuckling when Romelle lets out a loud snore and Hunk grumbles something incoherent when Pidge accidentally kicks him in her sleep. He pulls the blanket higher over his chest, tucking him in just like his dad used to do. “We’ll all be here when you wake up. I promise.”

Keith believes him. Trusts him so fully that he lets his head tilt to the side and his eyelids slip shut without hesitation. Trusts in the thought of after so much that he lets his fingers uncurl and smooth over the sheets, finding a home under Lance’s slack hand. 

He dips back to sleep to the sound of Shiro’s thoughtful hum and the deep breathing of his teammates.

It takes the IGF-Atlas two months to make it back to Earth and Keith spends a majority of the time bedridden. He’s prodded and poked by the medical staff, psychoanalyzed by more than one on-call therapist until any remnant of Honerva’s dark touch is brought to light. It’s a necessity that Keith wholly supports, not wanting to lose the control he had fought so hard to reclaim, but as the days turn into weeks and Keith, now coherent and able to stand on his own without getting dizzy, is still prohibited to leave his room in the hospital ward despite no lingering effects being found, it becomes considerably less tolerable.

Left to only his thoughts and the obscure flashes that come and go when they please, things come to a head when Keith decides he can’t take it anymore and just rips out the IVs connecting him to the machines around him. More than one alarm goes off as he stumbles into some scrubs, getting only as far as the hallway before nurses and doctors alike rush him, fussing over his person like he is something fragile and on the verge of collapse. It only serves to frustrate him more. Overly helpful hands try to steer him back to the bed-turned-prison and he fights them the whole way, causing such a scene that it summons Lance from his own room. The boy huffs like a mother hen and Keith huffs right back, their bickering only ending when his legs suddenly give out and he has to be carried back to bed.

His saving grace is his team, who take it upon themselves to ensure that Keith is almost never left alone. Pidge lugs her laptop over and they laugh over the dumb Voltron show, arguing loudly over whose character is more inaccurate. Hunk sneaks in home-cooked food whenever he visits, looking overly suspicious when he dramatically checks the room for bugs before unearthing the tubberware from underneath his shirt. Lance brings sketchbooks and colored pencils, shoving Keith playfully as they play tic-tac-toe and compete in who can draw the other the ugliest. Allura comes bearing news of the ship’s going-ons, braiding his hair in styles he’s assured are peak altean fashion but mostly just look like something a third-graded might do. Shiro comes around with a book or two, teasing him about how easily he melts over the romance subplots. And someone must comm his mother because a few days after he wakes, she’s also there, arms wrapping protectively around him as Kosmo knocks things over in his eagerness to get up on the bed.

It’s then that Keith hears secondhand what happened while he and Lance were trapped in the astral plane. 

Pidge and Hunk tell the story, complete with exaggerated gestures and loud gun noises, of how Team Punk shut down all of Oriande; how the two had found themselves on the temple-ship’s lower deck with a battalion of altean soldiers guarding a crystal-based powerhouse, Hunk keeping them at bay while Pidge snuck by and hacked into the tempe-ship’s mainframe. There’s more to what they tell him, but it includes technological jargon that would only have Keith’s brain splitting open, so he’s happy enough to let them playfully argue over things like, “neuro-headsets” and “Lorenz attractor.”

Then comes Allura’s part.

Legs crossed and hands clasped in her lap, the princess speaks of encountering Honerva at the ship’s nav deck. Her words are tentative when recounting the scene she had stumbled upon: the bodies of misguided alteans sprawled across the floor, drained of life at the expense of the witch’s endeavours, and Honerva herself, crazed and weakened from mind-controlling Keith, standing at the helm as if the dead were wilting flowers in a garden. She tries her best to describe the moment the older altean had split open the world and transported them to the point of existence, struggling to find words when talking about how Honerva had carelessly destroyed universe after universe.

“It was awful,” she tells him. “I could feel them all— so many lives, lost.”

“What happened then?” he asks. “Did you…?”

“No.” She looks off to the side. “She did not die from my hand.”

“Then, how?”

Finally, a smile. “I had help. My father and the paladins of old, trapped within Honerva’s mind but freed once we were beyond the limits of our universe. We attempted to reason with her and we nearly succeeded, but she was so overcome with grief that she would not listen. Not until…” She swallows and the smile is more brittle, but still very much real. “It wasn’t until Lotor, called from Oriande’s core, showed up that she stopped. He convinced her destroying all of existence wouldn’t take away the pain— and that they had not lost each other, not entirely, and could start again.”

Allura absently brushes her lips and Keith can only wonder on what else Lotor had said.

She shakes herself from whatever memory had brought on the wistful moment, reaching out to adjust Lance’s homemade Get Well card and the vase of flowers sitting on his bedside table. A present from Coleen Holt, they look to be a cross between sunflowers and tulips, glittering a fiery orange when the light hits them just so. “None of them could return with me to this universe and I could not ascend with them in good faith, not when I have so much to do here. I had promised to bring peace to this universe and I intend to see it through. My father understood, so we restored what we could and said our goodbyes.”

Sensing there was more left unsaid, Keith sets his hand atop hers. “You’ll see them again.”

Her eyes water a bit as she takes a deep breath and gives him a thankful smile, exhaling a soft, “I will, and I’ll have so much to tell them when I do.”

In the days following Allura makes good on her promise. For as soon as she is able, she takes the restoration effort into her capable hands, spearheading the movement with steely-eyed determination and the hulking figure of Voltron at her back; it is slow progress, carried on the backs of the survivors, but eventually the Coalition expands into a living, breathing network of change. Dignitaries come together, treaties are signed and planets restored. By the time Keith is finally discharged from the hospital ward the gears are already set in motion and he’s left to bask in awe of what she’s done.

But the biggest shock hadn’t come until he turned down one of the ship’s many hallways and had run straight into the princess’s new entourage.

Allura had talked of the colony quite extensively, disclosing her relief when the survivors had stumbled out of Oriande following the fight, shaken from their Honerva-induced haze, and had come to her seeking answers. Answers that led them to follow her aboard the IGF-Atlas, meek-like as they circulate around the very people they had once tried to destroy. course set to the newly reborn planet of Altea, of which was waiting for its lost children and princess to return. A dead civilization, resurrected by magic and shaped by the memories of those who once knew it.

It is for that fact that Coran becomes so important in the time after the fight. He is the last of his kind, a remnant of an old age, and those from the colony hang him among the stars because of it. A treasure cove of knowledge, they flock to him, eager to hear every word, song and anecdote— immortalized with each captivated listener. Never before had Keith seen the older altean so happy, so hopeful. 

Even Romelle, once ostracized, becomes an integral part of the species’ rehabilitation. The universe is different than what it was when the colony first went into hiding hundreds of years ago and she makes it her mission to better accumulate the colony to the changes. She gives them a tour of the ship, starting with a stop at the catrine to try one of Hunk’s many culinary delights; introduces them to the crew, to Acxa and the MFE pilots; sits them down and discloses the fate of planet Olkarion; talks of her adventures with team Voltron and nearly being crushed by a rampaging yalmor; laments about her lost family and gushes about what’s planned for New Altea. Slowly but surely, they find their place.

The alteans recovery brings into glaring detail Keith’s own miscalculation. For in all the time spent thinking about after and how much he wants it, not once had he considered his actual part in it.

(Late at night he lays in bed, listening to the quiet hum of the ship and his own steady heartbeat, lost in half-formed thoughts of tomorrow. The clock reads late but his mind will not rest, unaccustomed to the stillness of peace and unsure what will become of things if it lasts.

“What do I do now?” he asks the world at large, expecting no answer but frustrated all the same when it doesn’t come.)

The next chapter of his life is coming and coming fast, and so far Keith is stuck looking at a blank page. It’s a problem that his friends don’t seem to have, falling into niches the world has made specifically for them. The alteans have a culture to revive and Shiro has an entire crew to lead, while Hunk, Pidge and Lance have families waiting for them. It makes Keith nervous watching them move on from Voltron so effortlessly, mostly because they had been brought together by a war and had forged something real in the wake of trauma shared, but now that that variable is taken away— what’s to keep them from drifting apart? 

It’s that alarming thought that has him relishing the time spent aboard the Atlas those final weeks, knowing that their time together might come to a close soon and greedily taking all they can give in the time left. Days are spent glued to his friends’ sides, absorbing everything their company can offer, micro-expressions and quirks and all. He commits to memory Pidge’s high-pitched cackle and Hunk’s dubious side-eye, Allura’s luscious hair and Lance’s obnoxious smirk. His friends don’t seem to mind, more than happy to stick around when he asks; Lance in particular seems to enjoy the extended hang outs, smiling whenever he sees him and always with an idea of how to spend the day, like racing their lions to the nearest gas giant of whatever galaxy they reside in or setting up in one of the many observation decks to stargaze. 

He must not be as subtle as he thinks he is because the day before they’re scheduled to reach Earth he returns to the compound he shares with his mother and Shiro, and finds them waiting for him.

“Keith,” Shiro greets and he knows that tone. It’s the we need to talk tone. “Come sit down with us.”

He sits and immediately his mother is leaning over and combing through his hair, clawed hands light in how they detangle and smooth over black strands, pushing it out of his face. It’s one of the few things concerning physical contact that Krolia indulges in, making up for all the years she lost, and Keith lets himself enjoy the gesture.

The two don’t say anything, waiting for Keith to start. He knows it’s pointless to try and deny anything, so he doesn’t. Just gets straight to and ventures a gruff, “You know I love you, right?”

The sentiment is easily returned, no hesitation in breathing love back into his cold body. Simple as shifting to press himself into the crook of his mother’s arm, a shape that is distinctively Keith in nature, and feeling Shiro’s calloused hand rubbing soothing circles over the hunch of his back. It’s a needed reminder of the fact that no matter where he goes, to the farthest corners of the universe and back a million times over, he will always have a place here, with them. Always.

It's this understanding that brings his thoughts back to the place he had just spent the last few hours trying to expel from his mind. It makes him frown into the folds of his mother's jacket. “I…” he starts, his voice a notch above a whisper, “don’t know what to do.”

They keep quiet, letting him piece together his thoughts, and for that, he’s grateful.

“I’ve never actually thought of what would happen after the war was over. Just kinda assumed that I would move on to the next fight— ‘cause it’s what I’m good at, you know? I mean, I’ve been trying to get as far away from here since I was a kid, looking for answers…” He bites his lip. “Never thought I’d want to stay.”

“Oh, Keith.” Krolia sighs and it doesn't erase the ache of his invisible scars, but it soothes their phantom touch into something more bearable. If there’s anyone who would understand, it was her. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to remain close to those you love. I would’ve given anything to stay with you and your father all those years ago.”

Shiro’s touches the back of his arm. “No one’s forcing you to leave either. And of course all of us want to remain as close as possible, and we will. We can travel halfway across the galaxy and still come back to each other.”

He inhales deeply, shoving his face further in his mother’s warm embrace. “Lance said something like that too.”

“Lance is a smart guy.”

“Yeah… he is.”

Something touches his ankle and he peers down to see Kosmo shuffling closer, back legs dragging on the ground as he pushes his snout under the buckle of his boots insistently; when the wolf sees Keith looking, he whines and wags his tail. The boy can’t help but smile at his furry friend. A quick pat and the animal is jumping into his lap, shoving his big head under Keith’s chin and forcing both Krolia and Shiro to lean away with a chuckle. And just like that, his stormy disposition is cleared and he’s left to enjoy the sunshine.

The cushions shift as Krolia asks, “What’s got you worrying over this? Did someone say something to you?”

Knowing how overprotective the two can be and to what lengths they would go to keep him happy, Keith hurries to clarify, “No one said anything. It’s me. I’m the one that’s being weird. Please don’t try and strong-arm some poor corporal.”

While Shiro opens his mouth to probably say how he would never do a thing like that, Krolia just shrugs and scratches Kosmo under his chin. The wolf enjoys the attention and closes his eyes in pleasure.

“I’m not sure what exactly happened, but it just hit me— everyone will be going their separate ways. Hunk’s been talking about opening an intergalactic culinary school alongside the coalition, and already has a line of people ready to sign up. The Holts are literally on their way in creating the next generation of defenders. And Lance, Lance could do anything he wanted— the alteans love him and want him as Earth’s ambassador, the Garrison’s practically begging him to teach the new batch of recruits, the Olkari offered him one of their ships to help search for a new planet— whatever he wants.” He takes a breath. “And I know I want to go with the Blades, to help fix what the empire broke. But now… it’s not the only thing I want.”

They lapse into silence again, processing what he said and what he’s left unsaid.

“I know what I want, but I don’t know… how do I get it?” His heart beats fast and if there was any confusion on what exactly they’re talking about before, it’s dispelled by what he says next, “And what if he doesn’t want it too?”

Neither of them seem surprised at his words regardless of the fact he’s never mentioned anything on the topic before. They take it in stride, blinking in unison as he sinks deeper into the couch and tries to hide his face in fluff of Kosmo’s mane.

Eventually, Shiro clears his throat. “Have you tried telling him what you want?”

“No,” he mumbles.

“Well, that might be the first step. You’ll never know if it’s… mutual, not if you don’t try.”

He sighs and clings to blue fur. “It might make things weird.”

“Maybe,” Shiro acquiesce. “Or maybe it’ll make it better.”

“Keith, if this is something you really want, then you should seek it out.” His mother’s gaze is unwavering, intense as it usually is concerning him. “You deserve love as much as anyone else and I know there is a limit to what I can provide for you, but this boy… he would be lucky to have someone as amazing as you as a partner.”

None of them have spoken his name and Keith’s not sure what that means, or if he’s ready to say it into existence yet. All he knows is that it’s real and his.

“There is nothing to fear in this,” Krolia continues to assure, Shiro nodding along, and there’s no reason not to believe them. Because he knows their history, has seen it— the throes of love, breathtaking and dangerous, whittling to a tragic end before it has even begun— how it took and took and took, and still they survived. “It is a new chapter. One that our time in the abyss foretold and that is something to be celebrated.”

He can see Shiro’s brows furrow in puzzlement and quickly stutters out a, “N-no, no, mom. I don’t think— don’t think that’s it.”

Thankfully, his mother decides not to elaborate and Keith is spared the act of having to explain anything more; he’s already contemplated the flashes and their connection to this new development on more than one occasion, and he’s not about to hash it out now with an audience. One heart-to-heart is enough and they don’t need a round two on this emotional rollercoaster.

“Thanks for listening though.” He snuggles closer to Kosmo, enduring the wet lick to his jaw. “I appreciate you— both of you.”

Shiro and Krolia smile. “We’ll always be here for you. Whenever you need, whatever you need.”

And Keith knows it’s true.

That night, while he sleeps, a flash hits him.

Bedded in an hourglass cradle, time sifts through his fingers and on the wind; it’s the veil of transparent impression following the fall of a blink, infinite as he lets the feeling of it overtake him. Deeper and deeper it takes him, sinking into the unconscious, to a place where he keeps all he holds dear, unlocked and open for the taking.

There, a light. He follows it and walks through the door to a room he doesn’t yet recognize, lit up by the warm glow of a table lamp. Boots lay at the foot of a bed, hidden under the lazy sweep of a shirt hastily thrown, and a flashing tablet sits precariously on the edge of the queen bed. But he ignores it, for something more compelling is spread over gray sheets.

Two bodies, entangled in a private moment. One of which he recognizes.

It's Keith and it isn’t Keith.

This version of himself doesn't balk at the contact, but, rather, shifts closer. His hands smooth over a naked chest and broad shoulders, one curling at the nape of his partner’s neck while the other flutters down to reposition a tan arm more securely around his waist. Space between them dwindles into nothing as their lips connect, igniting a fire so bright that Keith feels as if he is embracing the sun.

He watches himself sigh, eyelashes fluttering and softening the once sharp angles of his face, jaw and neck; a stretch and a flower blooms in an ode of love, pale fingers climbing the vine of a muscled back and pressing the blunt of his nails there to keep from falling from that shakespearean balcony. 

Hips arch and bow in an impossibly slow rhythm, rolling to a melody Keith has never danced to before— has only seen on tv or in dark hallways, hidden away from his flushed gaze. But this is different, different than anything he’s ever known. Different because he can feel it, the pressure to his pelvis and mattress against his heels. Different because it’s his body and his moans and his desire painted on the landscape of sheets before him.

It’s different and he’s mesmerized, stepping closer and watching how hands— his hands, gloveless and callused and purposeful— reach down to cup his future lover’s backside, spreading wide to squeeze as much as possible through tight denim and bearing down just as hips twist. A flash of yellow sclera, pupils dilated in primordial arousal, and a bite to brown flesh.

“Keith,” he hears, causing a shiver to slip down his spine. No one has ever said his name like that. “Keith.” Never like that. “Keith.”

The body above his moves, coiling in such a way that tells of a soldier’s dedication and a lover’s experience, muscles twitching as the grinding becomes more profound. A grunt and the rustling of fabric, loud in the wake of a tanned hand sneaking down his front, exploring, searching and— oh.

Heat travels up his spine, flooding his veins and curling his toes. It collects at his chest and rises up, crawling the tendons of his neck and finding a place at the tip of his ears and apples of his cheeks. Bubbles of magma fill the cage of his ribs and he squirms, trying to pop them. They burst and he burns anew.

His earlier dream-memories had all been nondescript, vague scenes of a movie he doesn’t recall watching, viewed through a smudged screen in slow motion. They leave room for the mind to wander, filling in the blanks as he sees fit, and so far Keith has had no problem in leaving it well enough alone.

Because love had always been something of a fantasy for Keith, a boy who grew up running in the hopes someone might catch him, but still too afraid to slow down. It had been his father’s coat, slung over his tiny shoulders just hours before a kitchen fire burnt it to crisps. It had been his mother’s knife, bandaged to hide the truth about his own abandonment. It had been in the eyes of a fellow foster boy, olive green shining emerald when he waved Keith goodbye as he left with his new family. It had been the light laugh of his mentor turned brother, fading away as he joined the stars. It had been a dream better left forgotten.

But not anymore.

For he recognizes the face belonging to the body pressed flush against his. It’s a face that skims the surface of a great many memories. Past, present, and future. It’s pudgy cheeks slimming to sharp edges, glinting in the sun after a hard battle won and a ridiculous challenge issued. It’s the face of a friend.

The confirmation comes in the form of his own mouth parting open, red-kissed and curved in passion, uttering a single word. A single name.

A voice spears through the air and he looks up into dark eyes centered in an angular face; they are dark blue and clash with Keith’s almost immediately, tacking onto him with such vigor that it makes his skin itch.

“Uh, the name’s Lance,” the boy says when questioned, head tilted and eyebrow arched high.

Finally, his heart says, cradled in the hands of another. 

“Hey man,” Lance greets when he opens the door at around one in the morning, casual where Keith is tense. The moment is preceded only by an impromptu text sent fifteen minutes prior when he had had enough of the silence of his empty room, thrown one of Adam’s hand-me-down jackets over his shoulders and had made the journey to the blue paladin’s living quarters. “What’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

A silent nod and he’s stepping through the threshold. The compound is similar to the one he shares with his mother and Shiro, but not. There are personal touches that he does not recognize, jars and potted plants from a place he has never been. There’s a bow window that takes up the entirety of a single wall to his right, framing the sight of infinite space and twin moons, a nest of cushions that looks recently sat upon settled on the ledge there. A couch and two armchairs take up the majority of the main room, worn and angled to face the television sat atop a stand stuffed full with DVDs and books, some with english covers and others with alien ones. Two doors cut into the remaining walls, one leading into a dimly lit hallway and the other into what he believes to be a kitchen. A table already cluttered with paper and odd knick-knacks stands to their far left, chairs pushed out from its undercage; photos span the bulletin board above it, overlapping and showcasing smiling faces in their polarized frames. His own closed-mouth smile peers back at him, framed by his team and the lions in a worn picture pinned right next to a family portrait.

Even this space, so newly made, has the sense of coziness. It reminds him of the glimpses of the house he sees in his flashes and the thought makes his skin buzz because people call this place home and mean it. It’s a reflection of what he has always wanted, authentic and steadfast, a place to belong. To want and be wanted in return.

“Keith,” Lance says at the prolonged silence, gaze steady and clear where the world is not. “Is something going on?”

“No” he says immediately. The lie is bitter and Keith grimaces at the taste of it, feeling foolish for even thinking that this was a good idea. The feeling twists unpleasantly in his stomach and he, in an effort to remedy this, immediately turns to shoulder his way back outside, to leave before being sent away.

“Hey now.” Lance’s voice is soft, contradicting to the solid grip that catches his wrist, effectively stopping his departure; it brings to mind the feeling of a sea breeze, uplifting the spread of a bird’s wingspan as it takes flight. It suits the boy, ever earnest and agreeable. “Let’s not— you obviously didn’t just wake me in the middle of the night to say hi. If something is bothering you—”

“I just,” he interrupts, frustrated over what is and what could be, and how he doesn’t know how to ask for it, “wanted to tell you that I think— that you— that we make a good team.”

The boy blinks, visibly caught off guard. “You came here… to say that you think… we make a good team?” 

His heart beats fast. “Yeah.”

“Oh, um.” And for the first time in a long time, Lance doesn’t seem to know what to do. He wets his lips, gaze flickering to the side and then back to Keith’s face, confused but determined. “Okay, well, I think we make a good team too.”

“You do?”

“Uh, yeah, I, uh, I do.”

Hearing those words makes something inside him burst, undoubtedly shining through in the look he gives the boy. Lance blinks again before offering a bashful smile and Keth would be foolish not to return it.

They stare at each other and Keith can feel strips of reality peeling away, leaving behind something entirely too raw. It is personal and frighteningly intimate, new like the uncharted belt of galaxies yet to be discovered. It is a trust fall, a dive into the deep abyss of suppressed feeling and incomprehensible thoughts.

But Keith has always been a bit adventurous, boldly stepping forward where others would balk. It has always given him this edge on others, constantly pushing forward with the simple intent of experiencing life and then rolling with the punches that were swung his way when the world rebelled against his aspirations. Like a rubber band, he snaps back after every impossible twist and bend, ready to stand at the very edge and dare the world to take him on. 

Maybe that's why he doesn't hesitate to take this plunge.

“Can I stay here tonight… with you?”

“Okay,” Lance says, no hesitation.

Then a hand, palm heavenward and fingers curled, is offered. And Keith, hanging between misguided trepidation and desperate longing, grabs onto it like a sinner to a cross; redemption comes in the form of skin on skin, solemn and genuine, like only things in the AM can be. 

Lance takes a step back and Keith follows. Past the photographs and discarded shoes and closed doors. The heavy footsteps of his combat boots are displaced in the quiet, clumsy and rigid, nothing like Lance’s barefooted grace; it’s almost like a flash, the subdued ambiance of the moment vast enough to sink into, but rather than being pulled into its depths, he willingly dives into it. The hallway ends and they reach a door, half open, and Lance guides him through it.

There are no words as they enter Lance’s room or when he’s pushed to sit atop a bed with rumpled sheets. No words, just the lull of night filling the space between them as the blue paladin tugs off his jacket and kneels to relieve him of his shoes; it’s unnervingly intimate, socked feet wiggling against the chilled surface of the tiled floor, privy to this alcove away from the world. A cuban flag clings to the wall, surrounded by maps of the world and constellations he grew up with peeling at the corners. A gaming console collects dust next to a small tv, cartridge of some obscure video game still inserted and waiting to be resumed. The small desk pushed to the corner is crammed with figurines and unfinished books and paper airplanes alike, an organized mess that remains in an odd shrine of Lance-ness.

The boy who calls it his is crawling over the bedspread, tugging at Keith’s shirt until he follows his lead and tucks himself under the covers. They lay on their sides, facing each other, staring— waiting.

“What did you mean,” Keith asks, voice just below a whisper as he indulges in a stray thought, “when you said a home is what you make it?”

Just as the words leave his mouth, a waking flash hits. Transparent hands frame his face in the stillness of night, growing more real as the moments pass. Sleep is a missing lover but these hands try their best to fill the void, thumb brushing over the discolored skin on his cheek, careful, like he is a constellation newly discovered. Like he is something to be cherished, invaluable despite the scars that mark him.

(Like someone worthy of being loved.)

“Home can be anything, you know,” Lance says in lieu of a conversation starter.

Slivers of moonlight filter through the blinds above their heads, casting lines of truth across the sheets. Lance tilts his head forward and a band slides over his eyes, catching the ocean in them and drawing Keith into their rolling tides. And as distracted as he is, he doesn't put up a fight when a hand clasps his own, reeling them heartward.

“Home is just something you can come back to.” His knuckles brush against the soft fabric of a nightshirt, the v-neckline falling loose to reveal a sharp collarbone, and Keith feels his breath hitching. “Something that keeps you grounded.”

A symphony erupts from his breastbone, piano notes curling around their bodies in an ode to the feeling. It surrounds him— blue, blue, blue.

“A place.”

It could be an empty shack in the middle of the desert or a grand castle floating amidst the stars. It could even be the mystery home in his dreams, with its creaky floorboards and happy atmosphere. 

“A moment.”

It could be now, their voices mere whispers in the silent night. 

“An object.”

It could be the braided thread wrapped around Lance’s left ankle, beads of white and silver making indents in skin where it presses against Keith's lower calf. It could be the borrowed shirt he's wearing, the sleeves just a smidge too big and smelling of detergent.

“A person.”

It could be the body next to him, familiar and lean and warm. It could be the sound of a heart beating in tandem with his own, a beacon to the life they live even in the suffocating silence of the dead of night. It could be the words that pulls answers from him, voice light just as it can be sharp. It could be the arm thrown over his shoulder during movies or the playful scuffle of feet under the dinner table. It could be the back pressed to his in the heat of battle or the relieved smile that greets him as he stumbles out of a healing pod.

“Home is whatever you make it to be.”