zesstie!!

-

A marriage proposal from a complete stranger in the middle of a top-secret alien spy base was, surprisingly, not the strangest thing to happen to Lance in the past 24 hours.

Luckily, Keith is.

He rolls out of bed immediately — he’s fully dressed, he hadn’t bothered sleeping last night — and walks stiffly to the door. He pauses for a moment, when his gloved hands touch the cool metal of the doorbell, taking a deep, long breath, steeling himself.

Shiro stands behind the door, hands clasped sombrely in front of him.

“You ready for this?” he asks quietly.

Keith nods once. “Yes.”

Shiro softens at the trepidation in Keith’s voice, reaching out a hand to rest on Keith’s shoulder. He tries for an encouraging smile. It falls flat, but Keith appreciates the encouragement nonetheless.

“We’ve got this, kiddo,” Shiro says. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as Keith. “We can do this. We know the risks. We’ve been training for weeks.”

“And where has that gotten us?” Keith murmurs. He feels bad for making Shiro’s face fall again, but it’s the truth. They’ve been training for weeks, yes, but it’s only yielded them failure. Now time is up, and they’ve got nothing to show for it but tattered hope.

“We have to try.”

Keith takes another deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opens them again, he’s determined, straightening his spine in a display of what he hopes is confidence.

“Okay. Lead the way.”

As silently as they can — they can’t wake up the rest of the team, because any one of them will try to stop them — they creep down the halls, freezing every time they so much as hear a creak. They stay crouched low to the ground, ducking in and out of shadows, breathing so silent and shallow Keith is half sure they’ve stopped entirely.

There’s no sense of relief, when they finally reach their destination — they may be free from their concerned teammates stopping them, but now they must face their bigger challenge. The biggest they’ve ever faced. An impossibility, if Keith’s being pessimistic.

They exchange a wary look, fists clenched at their sides, and step into the kitchen.

“Fire extinguisher ready?” Shiro asks.

Keith pats the contraption, strapped to his utility belt (the Altean version are much more effective and compact). “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Shiro snorts. “I’m not sure how much hope I have left. You grab the ingredients, I’ll grab the equipment.”

Keith pats Shiro’s back, then heads off to do as asked. He rifles through the cupboards for sugar and flour, grabs the milk and eggs from the fridge.

Baking. Their mortal enemy. The one thing, out of everything either of them has ever attempted, that has completely eluded them; has proven well beyond their skills and capabilities.

Well, not tonight. Tonight, they are going to bake cupcakes. Successfully. They’re going to show the team that they can be trusted in the kitchen without causing a fire, thank you very much, and not only that, but that they can make something delicious.

“D’you get the red food dye?” Shiro asks.

“Shit, I forgot.”

“How did you forget the red for red velvet cupcakes?”

“I’m stressed! These have to be perfect! Let me live!”

“Alright,” Shiro says, chuckling. “Go get it, goober.”

Grumbling, Keith does, slamming the little bottle on the counter next to the mixing bowl.

“Red velvet’s basically just chocolate, anyway. I dunno why we’re making it all stupid and fancy. We can’t even do the regular stuff right!”

“Hey, you’re the one who insisted on making cupcakes on Valentine’s Day,” Shiro says. He smirks. “Although I’m sure that has less to do with proving ourselves and more to do with a certain lanky rival of yours —”

“Moving on,” Keith says loudly. He’s sure his face is as red as the stupid dye. Shiro snickers, but he doesn’t make any more comments, carefully measuring out the dry ingredients and tipping them into the bowl. He goes painfully slowly, and as much as Keith wants to tell him to get a goddamn move on, he knows better. (That was the catastrophe of Attempt #4. Somehow neither of them had considered what would happen if they dumped several cups of carefully measured flour in the mixing bowl, and had been left with both a dust explosion that had taken them four hours to clean, and what was essentially cake soup since the measured flour did not make it into the batter and the ratios were all off. They will not be making that mistake again. Sometimes Keith still finds flour in weird places when he’s bothering a cooking Hunk, and has to wipe it off when the man is distracted.)

They manage to avoid repeating any of their previous catastrophes for the entire creation of the batter. No eggs end up exploded (attempt #7 — don’t microwave eggs because the recipe said room temperature and you forgot to take them out of the fridge in time), no skulls end up cracked (attempt #11 — if you spill butter on the floor, clean it, or else someone will trip and you’ll need an emergency healing pod), and no batter ends up coming to life (attempt #2 — avoid using weirdo space ingredients you don’t recognize). After thirty minutes of careful measuring and even more careful mixing, they’re left with a beautiful, bright red cake batter, not too thin, not too thick, and it tastes delicious.

“Leave some batter for the actual cupcakes, you brat,” Shiro admonishes, wrenching the spoon out of Keith’s hand. “Also, stop double dipping. That’s disgusting.”

“I actually have a theory about that,” Keith says around a mouthful of batter. “You know how Lance and Hunk and Allura use the same recipe when they make cookies, but each of them tastes just a little different?”

“Frankly, I’m afraid to say yes.”

“I think that might be their saliva —”

“Gross!”

“—because since everything else is the same, the only thing that changes is the mouth that licks the spoon —”

“Keith, I am going to vomit if you don’t shut the fuck up.”

“—and I don’t think they’re, like, spitting in the batter or anything —”

“Ew! Nasty! Stop talking!”

“—but I do think that trace amounts make a difference! It’s the only explanation.”

“I hate you,” Shiro says. “Not joking.”

Keith places his hands under his chin and grins innocently, batting his eyelashes.

Shiro rolls his eyes. “You spend too much time with Lance.”

“I do not,” Keith says, flushing. “I spend — a regular amount of time with Lance. Same as you.”

Keith considers smacking the smug look off Shiro’s stupid face. He considers it very hard. Maybe he’ll wait until Shiro’s done pouring the batter into the tins and then pinch him.

“Uh-huh. Sure. That’s why you want to make Lance’s favourite cake on Valentine’s Day, and why you spent four space mall trips looking for a heart shaped cupcake tin.”

“It’s — they’re cute! The pan is cute and the cupcakes will be cute! And — I love Lance! I love all the team! Platonically! We are good pals! Pals for whom I would like to bake successfully so I can be unbanned from the stove!”

“Right. Okay. Sure.”

“Good! Glad you agree!”

“Yes, totally.” Shiro slides the now-full pan into the oven, triple-checking the timer and temperature (Keith doesn’t think he needs to explain why they know to do that now), then turns to Keith with a smirk.

“Sure, Nick Carroway. Real close friends you two are.”

Keith grinds his teeth, cutting Shiro a sharp glare. “I hope you burn yourself when the cupcakes are done.”

“I’ll be sure to get on that. Now, make the frosting. Did you want to make chocolate frosting, so it matches Lance’s eyes?”

Keith says nothing, because that is what he wanted to do, actually, and there’s no coming back from that one. He’s grouchy the whole time he makes the stupid chocolate frosting because Shiro spends the whole time laughing.

(Shiro does actually burn himself a little when he takes the cupcakes out, which brings Keith joy. Ha. Karma.)

———

“I can’t believe we actually did it,” Keith says, awed, an hour and a half later. The cupcakes are cooked to perfection, and iced to — well. There is icing on the cupcakes and it is not melted. Keith feels like he still gets a point for that one, even though some of the frosting genuinely looks like a pile of doodoo.

He throws some sprinkles on them. They now look like doodoo with pink sprinkles.

Oh, well.

“They look…rustic,” Shiro decides.

Keith laughs. “Is that what we’re going with?”

“Yep. If we look enthusiastic enough, everyone will feel too bad to make any sort of comment.”

“That works for me.”

“Excellent.” Shiro checks his watch, then claps his hands together. “Well! It’s a quarter to four, so that only took us a few hours. We still have time to go back to sleep. You ready to get out of here?”

“You go ahead,” Keith says hesitantly. He looks pointedly away, fixing his gaze on the doodoo cupcakes. “I, uh, have to do something.”

He’s expected teasing, for Shiro to make another stupid literature reference to mock him, or something along those lines. Instead Shiro pauses, turns around, and nudges Keith gently.

“Hey. Look at me.”

Keith does.

“You planning something?”

“I was,” Keith admits. “I had flowers and shit. I dunno. All that gooey stuff. I wrote him a letter.” He looks down again, kicking the ground. “But I don’t think I’m going to give them to him.”

“So much for platonic cupcakes, huh?” Shiro teases, but it’s much softer. He wraps an arm around Keith’s shoulders and squeezes gently.

“It’s okay to be nervous, you know. You’re doing something vulnerable. That’s scary.”

“What if he hates it? I don’t — I just don’t think it’s worth the risk. I don’t have to tell him. I’m cool with wallowing for eternity.”

“That’s a good idea, actually.” Shiro drags him to the table, sitting him down and handing him a doodoo cupcake. “Not the wallowing. The question. What would happen if Lance didn’t return your feelings?”

“Some pep talk,” Keith grumbles, unwrapping the cupcake and shoving it in his mouth in one bite specifically to watch Shiro wince. “Hey, these are actually good.”

“Just humour me,” Shiro insists, trying to ignore Keith’s chewing. “Imagine you give Lance your letter, the flowers, the knife.”

“I didn’t say anything about a knife.”

Shiro levels him a look. “I know you, Keith. You made him a knife.” He pats Keith condescendingly on the hand. “That’s how you show affection, you feral desert child. With weaponry.”

“I’m taking back the knife I made you.”

“You can take it from my cold, dead corpse. Anyway. Talk me through it. Say you give Lance your gifts, and he doesn’t return your feelings. What would happen?”

As much as he loathes to admit it, Shiro’s thought exercises actually have helped him work through things before, so he takes a moment to actually think about his answer. What would happen if Lance read the note Keith wrote him, and he didn’t feel the same way?

“He’d be honest about it,” Keith admits. “Tell me the truth right away. And he would be gentle about it.”

Shiro hums. “And then what?”

“He’d…probably ask me what I need. Like, do I want space or whatever.”

“And once you’ve had your space?”

Keith lets the barest smile cross his lips. “He’d go on being as annoying as possible. Possibly even more frustrating.”

“Right,” Shiro says, smiling. “You two are friends, kiddo. You’re also disgustingly down bad for each other — seriously, it’s kind of hard for the rest of us to watch — but you guys have a solid relationship. You’re going to be fine. This is Lance we’re talking about, remember? The guy who cried when we passed a supernova because it was a star dying? He’s not going to hurt you.”

Keith smiles a little, remembering. Lance had made everyone have a moment of silence for the star, and for the system it had potentially sustained for thousands of years. That had been the first moment where Keith had looked at Lance and just thought: oh. I love this boy.

“Okay,” Keith says quietly. “I’m — I’ll tell him.”

“Good,” Shiro says. He smiles proudly. “I can’t wait to hear about it, kiddo. You’re going to do great.”

———

Knocking is the hardest part, right? It has to be. There’s no other reason why he’s been standing here for ten minutes, flowers clenched in his hand so tightly he’s probably ruined the stems, staring unblinkingly at the white door of Lance’s room.

Y’know, his room is two steps away. He could just give up. Giving up is always an option.

He screws up his eyes, forcing himself to untense a little. It’s fine. This is fine.

This is Lance.

Before he can talk himself out of it again, he knocks on the door. His signature knock — one single knock, because he’s his own target audience and that’s hilarious.

It takes him three milliseconds after he knocks to realise hey, dumbass, it’s four in the morning. Lance is not fucking awake. Obviously you’re not going to get an answer.

Only just as he’s about to step away, the door is inched open, revealing Lance sitting by the floor of his bed, leaning over so far he’s practically bent in half in an attempt to open the door without getting up.

“Hey, Keith,” he says, without looking away from his game. “I’m almost done this level, you wanna join? I could use your help because Pidge said the next level is hard as —”

Keith knows the exact second Lance finally looks over and takes Keith in completely, not because they make eye contact, but because Lance freezes, controller falling from his hand and cracking on the tile floor.

Lance doesn’t even glance down at it.

“…Keith?”

“Your face is shaped really well,” Keith blurts, and immediately wants to throw himself out the airlock. “Wait. No. That’s not what I —”

Lance laughs quietly, ducking his head. The tips of his ears are red.

“C’mere,” he says, patting the spot next to him. “Take a breather. Tell me what’s going on.”

Keith does, sitting down carefully so he doesn’t drop anything. He thinks back to Shiro’s pep talk.

This is Lance.

“These are for you,” Keith says, when he’s finally got ahold of himself. He hands Lance the flowers — and, yes, a dagger he made — then sets the cupcake on the floor between them. “For — Valentine’s Day.”

Nothing could prepare Keith for the grin that lights up Lance’s face. It’s the brightest thing he’s ever seen. It’s blinding.

“Really?”

“Yeah, Lance,” Keith says softly.

Lance covers his face with one hand, the other still holding his flowers. The knife rests in his lap. His cheeks are ruddy, and he’s very giggly.

“I love them,” he says. “Thank you.”

Keith clears his dry throat, but it doesn’t do much. “There’s a note. In the flowers. For you.”

Carefully, Lance nudges aside the buds to find the envelope, unfolding the note. Keith watches as his dark eyes flit over the page, and the smile on his face only grows.

For the first time tonight, Keith lets himself get excited. He lets himself believe that this is going to go well. He lets himself believe that Lance may very well like him just as much as he likes Lance.

People who don’t have crushes don’t react like that to romantic gifts, after all.

After a minute of reading — Keith’s note really isn’t all that long, because after four or five tries of trying to fit everything he was feeling into one letter, he gave up and just got to the point — Lance carefully sets down the note and the flowers, shifts so he’s facing Keith, and leans forward.

“Keith,” he says, very seriously. “I am going to kiss you know. Thoughts?”

Keith opens his mouth, then closes it again. Lance smiles wider.

“I’d be down with that, yeah.”

“Great,” Lance says, and there’s not even a second of pause before he’s leaning in and pressing their lips together.

At first it isn’t much of a kiss — both of them are smiling too hard to kiss properly — but after a bit both of them melt into each other, hands reaching out to touch, hesitant but determined.

“I’m so glad I spied on you and Shiro,” Lance mumbles. “Y’all should be suspicious more often. Especially if it means we get to kiss after.”

Keith huffs in amusement. Of course the various creaks he and Shiro heard when sneaking to the kitchen weren’t just the castle settling. Hunk may be the nosiest person on the team, but Lance is probably the sneakiest.

“Did you really watch the whole time?”

“No. I left when Shiro asked you about the fire extinguisher. I figured you were well-equipped at that point and I could leave without waking up to a fire.”

“Oh. So you didn’t hear me talking about you?”

Lance grins, resting one of his hands on the flowers. “No. This was — I didn’t see this coming.” His smile turns sly. “You should tell me all the mushy shit you said, though.”

Keith snorts, reaching over to grab Lance’s hand and press a kiss to the back of it.

“Not on your life.”

———

“I can’t believe you and Shiro actually managed to make decent cupcakes, by the way. Holy shit.”

“The frosting kind of looks like doodoo.”

“Well, yeah, but still! I’m gonna go to the kitchen and eat the rest of them.”

Lance shoots awake in a panic.

He should not be feeling sunlight on his skin right now.

He takes a half second to wake up fully, taking in the clean white sheets tangled around his hips, the sterile boringness of the room, the giant window with a sparkly view.

Oh, right. They stopped on what was essentially a Vegas planet yesterday to get a specific part for one of the castle’s reactors, and then he, Hunk, and Pidge convinced Shiro to let them hit the casinos for a bit.

The rest of the night is a blur.

“What the fuck did I do last night?” Lance mumbles, shifting around to stretch a bit. His hip bumps into a lump in the bed — a person-sized lump — and the movement makes him suddenly aware of a soreness in his rear.

His face heats up.

Oh.

That’s what he was doing last night.

Makes sense, he supposes. Drunk Lance is either extremely affectionate or extremely horny, so it was really only a matter of time. He rubs his eyes, then drags his hand down his face. Fuck. He’s gonna have a helluva time explaining this one to the team.

Fuck!

With a renewed panic, he throws himself out of the bed, tripping out of the sheets and looking around desperately for his clothes. Fuck fuck fuck! He is supposed to be on the castle right now!

He finally manages to locate his boxers, yanking them up his legs as he checks his watch. 5:13. Okay, not ideal, but no one’s usually awake before seven, so if he grabs some coffee or something on his way in he should be able to make it without making anyone suspicious —

“Lance, please shut the fuck up,” mumbles a grouchy voice, tinged with sleep, and Lance’s heart drops to his throat.

“Keith?!”

Keith drags himself upright, black hair a rat’s nest around his head, and glares heavily, shielding his eyes from the sun.

“What part of shut the fuck up do you not understand, God, it’s like your voice is actively bashing into my head —”

Lance registers the exact second Keith awakes fully, because his eyes widen and he yelps, yanking the sheets up his chest.

“Oh my God!”

“Oh, drop the fucking sheet,” Lance snaps, face flaming. “It’s obviously not something I haven’t seen before.”

Keith thankfully does let go of the sheet, using his hands to yank on his hair instead.

“Fuck,” he says, turning panicked eyes to Lance. “Oh, we fucked up, we fucked up good —”

“Why, thank you, Keith, that’s oh so lovely to hear from you in this situation —”

“Fuck, we gotta call Shiro —”

Lance abandons his search for pants and lunges towards Keith, yanking the comm out of his hands and throwing it randomly behind him.

“Are you cracked in the fucking head,” he hisses.

“My comm!” Keith cries. He throws off the sheets and stumbles in vague direction Lance threw it, ass fucking naked.

“Put some goddamn pants on!” Lance shouts, whipping a pillow at Keith’s chest and frantically looking away, pretending his did not just get and eyeful and that said eyeful was not an objectively kind of a nice one.

“Piss off,” Keith snaps, face red, but dutifully locates his pants and puts them on before continuing. “I’m calling Shiro now.”

Resisting the urge to tackle the thick-headed dumbass to the ground, Lance forces himself to stay where he is.

“Do you want to be lectured for three straight days?” he demands.

That makes Keith pause. “It won’t be that long.”

“Sure, but then what? He’s going to be mad, Keith. Or at least disappointed. And you know we’ll be assigned the most boring missions possible until he forgets about it, and who knows how long that will take?”

Keith hesitates a moment, then sighs, giving up on his search for his comm and flopping back on the bed.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, face muffled in a pillow. “This sucks. And my head hurts.”

Lance reaches out, pressing his hand to Keith’s forehead — it’s definitely a little hot. Keith groans, wrapping his hand around Lance’s wrist and holding tightly.

“God, your fingers are freezing. Do not move them.”

Despite the situation, Lance smiles, brushing his fingers carefully through Keith’s fringe.

“Let me go. I have painkillers and peppermint oil in my jacket pocket, it should help.”

“Mmf. Fine.”

As soon as Lance’s hand is relinquished, he pulls away, hunting around the mess on the floor for his clothes. He finds his jeans first, but can’t find his shirt — only Keith’s black one, and a white shirt with some text on it.

“Keith?” he calls, pulling it on and tilting his head down to read it. “Why has my shirt been replaced with one that reads ‘SEAT RESERVED FOR DILFS’ with an arrow pointing to my face?”

Keith props himself up his elbows, squints at the shirt, and then winces.

“I may have,” he says reluctantly, “the faintest memory of throwing up on your shirt. So. I imagine you replaced it.”

Lance pouts. “Aw, man. I liked that shirt.”

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault. You are getting me a new shirt that I can wear without getting mocked, though.”

“Noted. What’s the ETA on that advil, by the way?”

“Coming, Mr. Impatience,” Lance mumbles, finally locating his jacket. (Thankfully Keith didn’t throw up on that, or Lance would have to kill him.) He digs around in his pockets, finding the peppermint oil where it usually is, but not the advil. He flips his other pockets inside out, and thankfully the bottle comes tumbling out, along with two slips of paper. He hands to pills to Keith, along with a bottle of water and the oil, and then reads the papers curiously.

His eyes widen.

“Keith,” he says, voice strained, “I have some very good news, and then some very bad news.”

“Good news first,” Keith says immediately.

Predictable.

Lance hands Keith the smaller slip of paper. Keith squints again, harder this time, bringing the paper close to his face.

Lance rolls his eyes.

“Coran had reading glasses made for you, you know. Months ago. How many times have I told them to bring them with you places?”

“I don’t need them,” Keith insists, paper perhaps an inch from his face. “I’m just — hungover.”

“Okay, dumbass.”

It takes Keith a second to read it — really, Lance might start carting around his glasses for him — and then his eyes get just as wide as Lance were.

“That’s a lot of zeros,” he says quietly.

Lance snorts. “Sure is. Apparently we’re very good at card games when we’re drunk. Or very lucky at one game.”

“Apparently,” Keith agrees. He looks back down at the paper, whistling. “You’re gonna have a hard time finding bad news bad enough to beat this, I think.”

Lance grimaces. He glances down at the bigger, fancier paper, then hands it to Keith.

“I really don’t think so.”

This paper is a lot easier for him to read — it would be hard for him to miss the giant ‘CERTIFICATE OF MARRIAGE’ printed in bold at the top of it.

“Oh, shit,” he says weakly. He glances at Lance’s hands. “I guess that explains why you’re wearing my dad’s ring.”

Lance stares at his left hand in horror, where, on his fourth finger, shines a red stone inlaid in heavy gold — Keith’s father’s ring, that he’s never once taken off his pinky in all the time Lance has known him.

“Fuck!” Lance exclaims, immediately taking it off to give back to Keith. He knows how much that ring means to him.

Only — the ring isn’t coming off.

“I can’t get it off,” Lance says, looking at Keith in a panic. Keith looks back, just as freaked.

“It’s stuck?”

“No, it’s not — it’s not tight, I can move it and my fingers are narrow, but it’s not coming off!”

“How is that even possible?”

Lance pulls on the ring until it hurts, twisting it every which way and shaking his hand roughly. “I don’t know!”

“Here, just — stop freaking out,” Keith orders. Lance freezes, heart pounding. Keith slowly reaches over and wraps his left hand around Lance’s wrist, right hand on the ring. Lance has a sudden, vivid memory of their hands in the exact same position, stood in front of an alien with bright pink hair and dressed like fuckin’ Elvis, because of course they were, only in the memory Keith is sliding the ring on instead of trying to pull it off.

“Okay, that’s weird,” Keith says, finally giving up after pulling hard enough to make Lance wince. “It must be the marriage ritual in this place, or something. Alien magic, I dunno.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Lance says, snatching back their marriage certificate — their fucking marriage certificate, dear God — and reading it over carefully.

“Here!” Lance points out a tiny block of text near to corner, then reads aloud for Keith’s benefit. “Klent City State 347th Union Office.”

Keith sighs in relief. “Oh, thank God. We’ll just explain the situation to them, and boom. Annulment. Problem over, we rush back to the castle before anyone else wakes up, and then we never speak of this again. Perfect.”

Lance nods, swallowing around the sudden bile in his throat. “Yeah. Perfect. Get dressed, Mullet. We have a divorce to attend.”

Keith snorts, rolling back off the bed and digging around for his dumbass go-go boots and jacket.

Once he looks away, Lance allows himself a pained wince, pressing his fingers to his eyes and scrunching his shoulders up to his ears.

“Lance? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Lance says, pulling his hands away and straightening himself out. “Just — I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Keith, obviously, does not do that, because he is incapable of following instructions. He presses his hand to Lance’s forehead in a mirror of what Lance did earlier.

“You hungover, too?”

Lance shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. I don’t get hungover.”

Keith raises an eyebrow.

“Seriously,” Lance insists. “I drink lots of water when I drink, and besides that, I never really have enough alcohol to get hungover in the first place. I am essentially a toothbrush bristle, Keith. I get drunk off, like, two drinks.”

Keith snorts. “You had a lot more than two drinks last night, if I’m remembering correctly.”

Lance flushes. Keith is remembering correctly. Lance hadn’t even intended to drink last night — he wanted to have fun and be sober — but he’d gotten bored watching Hunk and Pidge demolish the slot machines, and he didn’t feel like helping Shiro and Allura supervise Coran, so he went to go find and bother Keith. Unfortunately, he found Keith leaning close to some guy, laughing brightly, his hand on Keith’s bicep, and he’d tipped back an entire line of shots before he could convince himself not to be a dumbass.

Not that Keith needs to know that. Not that it even means anything.

“I got bored,” Lance says instead, which isn’t even technically a lie. “But, no. I’m not hungover. I’m just — um, it was a big night last night. Lots of light and sound. I’m a little overwhelmed and oversensitive.”

“Oh.”

“Mhm.”

A minute later, something is being placed on his head. Lance looks up in surprise at Keith, who just smiles sheepishly.

“No idea why there is a sparkly pink ball cap with my clothes, but you need it more than me.”

Lance laughs brightly. “Oh, I remember this one! You remember when we were first running away from everyone else? Hunk was on our tail at some point, so I decided to steal your hair band and shoot him with it to distract him. Then you were moping about your hair in your eyes, though, and you grabbed the hat right off some dude’s head.”

Keith’s jaw drops. “I did not.”

“You really did, dude,” Lance says, grinning. “Clean off his damn head. Then you walked off like it was nothing.”

Keith shakes his head at himself, snorting. “Whoops. Sorry, Random Alien Dude.” He pauses for a minute, checking his watch. “Hey, we still have a little over an hour before everyone else gets up. Do you think we can grab some food on the way? I’m starving.”

“Shocking,” Lance says drily, but makes no argument. He could go for some shitty fast food too, honestly. They make their way out of the hotel, both of them wincing at the brightness when they finally make it outside, and head to the nearest brightly lit sign that offers grease and salt.

“Good thing we’re billionaires now,” Keith teases. “We wouldn’t be able to afford this otherwise, because your drunk ass was losing at every game we played.”

“I was not!” Lance says indignantly, but Keith pays him no heed.

“You were so. You only started winning when I was blowing on the dice.” He smiles smugly, poking Lance in the cheek. “You suck at poker, dude.”

Lance huffs, reaching over and stealing one of Keith’s fries as revenge.

“Hey! Paws off! You have your own!”

“You’re being a dick, and you upchucked on my favourite shirt last night,” Lance points out. “I deserve at least half of your fries.”

Keith inclines his head. “Yeah, alright, fair. But if it makes you feel any better, I couldn’t find my boxers and these pants are tight as hell, so I promise I am also suffering.”

Lance eyes, without his permission, glance down at the front of Keith’s pants. He flushes.

“That does make me feel better.”

Because Keith is suffering. That’s why.

…Whatever.

“Hey, by the way,” Keith says, swallowing his last bite of food. “How come you’re limping?”

Lance could smack him. Honestly.

“Why do you think, dumbass?” he snaps. “I’m not…used to this kind of thing. Or whatever.”

It takes a moment for Keith to clue in, but when he does, his eyes go wide and he freezes in his tracks.

“Please tell me I did not just take your fucking virginity.”

He looks so genuinely horrified that Lance can’t help himself, so he rears back and punches Keith in the arm as hard as he can.

“Ow!”

“I don’t buy into that shit, so don’t flatter yourself,” Lance says harshly. “It’s the most dumbass idea I’ve ever heard. So what last night was my first time? It doesn’t — don’t be an idiot about it.”

Keith glares at him for a moment, rubbing his arm — in hindsight Lance could have probably held back a little, he’s definitely going to bruise — but then sighs.

“Yeah, sorry,” he relents. His face turns slightly teasing. “I just — I guess I just didn’t expect that from you, Loverboy.”

Lance scowls. “It makes perfect sense! I bet your first time was some rushed and unsatisfying bullshit on a random couch in an unsupervised room.”

That makes Keith frown, looking at Lance strangely. “There’s no possible way you know that.”

“Of course I know that, because it was the fucking Garrison, man. That’s what everyone did. I have no interest in that garbage. I want it slow and on a nice bed or I don’t want it at all.” He flushes up to his ears, realising what he said. “Or — I did want that. Whatever.”

Keith is quiet for a long time as they walk, and the tension is so thick that Lance almost considers giving up and calling Shiro despite his whole tantrum earlier.

“I hope it was like that,” Keith says quietly.

Lance thinks back to all he can remember last night — it’s not much, but he does remember it, remembers them clumsy and drunk and laughing and affectionate. He remembers how Keith had kissed him softly, pressed him gently into the mattress, how the skin of his hands had been rough under his gloves, tangled with Lance’s beside his head. He remembers how Lance’s ring — Keith’s ring, Keith’s ring, they’re not really married — had glittered in the dim light of the room, how the same soft glow had been reflected in Keith’s indigo eyes. He remembers feeling so loved his chest hurt with it.

But Keith doesn’t remember — ‘I hope it was like that’, he’d said. He doesn’t know.

And it doesn’t matter, anyway.

“I don’t remember,” Lance lies. The words burn his mouth.

Both of them are quiet. Bitterly, Lance wonders if their relationship is ever going to be the same, or if everything they’ve ever built is ruined. If Lance ruined everything. Fuck, and he and Keith worked so hard, too. They both put so much fucking effort into their relationship. And Lance cherishes it — he really does. He likes having someone who’s just as competitive as him, grinning at him as they train, teasing and taunting as they spar. He likes having someone to look just as lost and confused with when Hunk and Pidge start talking tech. He likes having someone who will strike goofy superhero poses behind Shiro’s back whenever the man says something particularly Captain-America-ish. He likes having someone sit carefully next to him on the observation deck on bad nights, asking him to tell stories of his family to ease the hurt.

He likes being Keith’s friend. He hates that he ruined it with his stupid, stupid feelings. He should’ve just let Keith flirt with the alien dude. He should’ve stuck with Hunk and Pidge. Hell, he should’ve let Hunk bust out the Drunk Lance Backpack Leash —

He startles when a warm hand grabs his, tangling their fingers together.

“Keith?”

“Alien marriage magic,” Keith says, looking straight ahead.

“Huh?“

“I keep getting — urges,” Keith explains. His cheeks are red. “I keep wanting to — touch you, or whatever. It must be the bonding magic.”

Lance swallows roughly, looking away. He should really pull away. He’s only making things worse for himself. He should let go, maybe even sidestep away.

Instead he tightens his grip, and steps even closer.

“Must be.”

Lance can’t bring himself to look at Keith for the rest of their walk. There’s no point in making things even harder for himself, after all. Eventually Keith is going to let go, and their going to get their wrongful marriage rightfully annulled, and Lance is going to give back his ring — not his fucking ring, God, why has he become so possessive over it already? It’s only been one night, and barely! — and they’re both going to go home and pretend this never happened. Just like Keith said.

Except it did happen.

And Lance won’t forget it.

“We’re here,” Keith says quietly, jutting his chin at a flashing neon sign.

“Real tasteful of us,” Lance mutters as he looks at it. Keith snorts.

“Practically a destination wedding,” he agrees. Despite himself, Lance smiles.

Keith lets go of his hand to push open the doors. Lance does a very good job of not crying about it, which is excellent. Point to Lance for that one.

“Hello, there,” greets a woman, smiling kindly. “Come to get married?”

Lance winces. He wonders how he looks at Keith for her to assume that.

He’s taking back that mental point he just gave himself. He does not deserve it.

“Uh, opposite, actually,” Keith says. He clears his throat, embarrassed. “We got drunk and hitched last night? And now my dad’s ring is stuck on his finger. So. We were wondering if you could fix that.”

The woman looks a strange mix of pitying and amused. “Yes, that would be the bonding spell. Interesting that it worked on you both, if you were as inebriated as you say.”

Lance furrowed his eyebrows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing important,” she says, waving a dismissing hand. “If you wish to annul your union, I can do that for you.”

“That would be great,” Keith says.

Lance says nothing.

“Alright, then. Hold out your hands and close your eyes.”

Both of them do. Lance feels something ticklish and breezy wrap around his hands, and something glows brightly enough that he can feel it even with his eyes closed.

“Now, all magic bonds work on two things: consent, and desire. The breaking of those bonds is very similar. Both of you must envision your ties together, specifically those of marital union, and then use your desire to be unmarried to envision those ties broken.”

Lance squeezes his eyes shut tighter, trying to envision his bond with Keith. He’s not one hundred percent sure what that means, so instead he tries to picture Keith, just as he is. He thinks of sly smiles showing the barest peek of crooked incisors, of a strong hand on the small of his back when Lance gets overwhelmed, of a gravelly voice whispering ‘I bet they’re waiting for you, Lance, and when you come back to them it’s going to be great,’ of the scent of pine and sandalwood, somehow, even in space. And then he envisions Keith’s panicked face when he woke up, when he saw that it was Lance that he spent the night with. He envisions the steadiness in Keith’s voice as he asked the woman for their annulment.

The glow burns brightly, strong enough to hurt his eyes through his eyelids, and then there’s nothing.

“Did it work?”

“If you both followed the instructions, yes.”

Lance opens his eyes, glancing over at Keith’s expectant face. He swallows the lump in his throat, and forced himself to wrap his fingers around his ring — not his fucking ring — and pull.

It doesn’t move.

“It’s still stuck,” Lance says desperately. He pulls harder on the ring, more and more panicked by the second.

“Shit, Lance, don’t hurt yourself —”

“I’m — I’m pulling, and I followed to instructions, I envisioned the broken bonds —”

“Both of you followed instructions?” the woman interrupts.

“Just as you explained,” Keith says. “Our bond, and then envisioned it breaking.”

She raises her eyebrow. “Hm. That’s strange. I’ve never seen the ritual fail for two willing parties before.”

“Fuck,” Keith whispers, dragging his hand down his face. “This is bad. Did it maybe not work because we’re human? Well, I’m half-human, but still.”

“We’re a largely tourist-oriented planet,” the woman explains. “Most people who come to this office are not native here. There is no reason your species should have affected the spell.”

“Yeah, I get that, but humans have never been to space before, so maybe —”

“It’s my fault,” Lance blurts. He shrinks back at their questioning looks. He looks down at his hands, twisting his ring — fuck — around his finger.

“Lance?“ Keith asks quietly.

“I don’t want to get divorced,” Lance admits. He’s ashamed to feel tears welling up in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not fair, I’ll try to ignore it, but —” He looks down at his feet, voice small. “I don’t want to get divorced.”

“Oh, thank God,” Keith says, and before Lance can even process, Keith strides towards him, cradling his face in his hands, and kisses him soundly.

“Wha —” Lance mumbles against chapped lips, confused and scared and unable to shake the hurt built in his chest quite yet. “You —?”

“So long,” Keith whispers, pulling away and then pressing back in again like he can’t help himself. “I — I’ve loved you for so long, Lance.”

Lance feels the tears leak finally from his eyes, dripping onto Keith’s cheeks. “Really?”

Keith pulls away for real this time, resting his forehead against Lance’s and laughing softly. “You have no fucking idea. You’re just — you are everything I’ve ever wanted. When I woke up this morning and saw my ring on your finger I thought I was still dreaming.”

Lance’s hands loosen their grip on Keith’s shirt, resting open-palmed on his chest. “But you wanted the annulment.”

“I wanted you to be happy,” Keith corrects. “I want you to be happy. Ideally with me, but — you were so panicked, this morning. I don’t want you to be tied down with someone you don’t want.”

“I want,” Lance says quickly. “I have — I love you, too. Always. Since the Garrison, probably.”

Keith grins. “Even when we were rivals?”

“We’re still rivals, Mullet. If you think I’m going to stop kicking your ass just because you’re my husband then you’re solely mistaken — oh my God. You’re my husband.”

“Yeah, hopefully.”

“No, Keith —” Lance pulls away slightly, so he can look up at Keith with the appropriate amount of panic. “What are we going to tell the team?”

But instead of freaking out like Lance expects, Keith is totally calm. Amused, even. He slides his hand down from Lance’s face to his hand, pulling it up to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss just below his knuckles, right above his — his! — ring.

“That I went to space Vegas and married the love of my life,” he says. He shifts slightly, turning Lance’s hand to press a kiss to his wrist.

“That I gave him the ring that I got from my father and he got from his grandfather and I’m happy I did.” He pulls up Lance’s sleeve, kissing the middle of his forearm.

“That I don’t regret it for anything, and would do it again in a second.” Three kisses, slowly, one after the other, up his bicep.

“That I look at him and every day is brighter. That even drunk me looked into those gorgeous brown eyes and couldn’t think of anything but being with him forever.” A lingering kiss to his shoulder, then a trail of them to his neck, where Lance can feel him smirk.

“That I got hitched and then spent an amazing night after doing more than just kissi—”

“Okay,” Lance interrupts, pressing his hand over Keith’s mouth and going red. Keith presses a kiss to his palm, eyes sparking in amusement. “I got it, Gomez. We’re telling them the truth. Maybe cool it a little.”

“For now,” Keith agrees, muffled.

Lance shakes, pulling his hand back and looking away. After a second or too he rolls his eyes at himself — why the hell is he holding back? — and presses a another long, lingering kiss to Keith’s lips.

“Ditto, by the way. With — all that mushy shit.”

Keith snorts. “Poet, you are.”

“Roses are red, violets are blue, shut the fuck up.”

That makes Keith laugh outright, pressing their lips together one last time before pulling away. He turns toward the officiant woman, who thankfully looks amused.

“Uh, sorry for wasting your time.”

“All is well,” she says, smiling slyly. “That was the most entertainment I’ve had in a long time. Enjoy your day, boys.”

Smiling like fools, they duck out of the office, giggling as they stumble back in the direction of the castle.

“Shiro is going to give us so many chores,” Lance says brightly.

“So many,” Keith agrees.

“And Hunk and Pidge are going to tease us for eternity.”

“Mhm.”

“Allura too, probably.”

“Most likely.”

“Coran’ll be on our side, though.”

Keith stops, wrapping his arms around Lance’s waist and dipping him before kissing him again.

“You’re a sappy loser,” Lance informs him.

“You love me so much you couldn’t even pretend to want a divorce,” Keith shoots back.

Lance sighs happily. “Not even a little.”

Coran & Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, 1k Words

Summary: Lance is having a shitty day. Coran always knows what to do.

—

As much as Lance misses Earth and home, he can’t deny he’s grateful to no longer be at the Garrison. For lots of reasons, obviously — no shitty cafeteria food (although alien food can be… off-putting, at least most cooks in space use fucking spices), he doesn’t have to share a bathroom, he is literally a space knight, et cetera. Lots of excellent reasons. But right now, he’s extra grateful to be out of the hellhole that is the Galaxy Garrison Junior Military Institution because he never knew how to handle days like this when he was there.

On days like this, Lance’s brain and body fight him a million times harder than usual. Most days, if the feeling of socks on his feet was Horrible, he could remind himself that he would be able to take the socks off soon and the feeling was temporary. Most days, sudden loud noises would make him flinch or shudder, and then he could move on. Most days, he could tolerate bright lights for a few hours. Most days, he could talk just fine. Most days, most days, most days.

Today, everything was horrible. He could feel every stitch on his clothes and they were all Itchy. His socks made him want to surgically remove his feet. Every noise made him want to cry, and the lights made him wish he’d stayed in bed.

And don’t even get him started on the fucking talking.

All he seemed to be capable of were hums and shrugs. And it wasn’t like people portrayed it in movies or books or whatever — he didn’t feel a blockage in his throat, he could come up with perfectly fine answers in his head, but every time he was supposed to speak it felt like his tongue no longer obeyed his commands. His mouth just didn’t want to make any words. At the Garrison, these days would be horrible. He’d either find some holy strength and force himself to speak, and want to cry after, or he’d get detention for insubordination. Everything sucked. But in the castle…

The people up in space with him were beyond understanding. If he answers questions with hums and vocalisations and avoided eye contact more than usual, everyone took it in stride. No one yelled at him, no one talked down to him, everyone just engaged with him as normal and treated him exactly the same. It was great. Or, at least, it would be great, if his dickhead brain got with the fucking program. Instead, he got to feel like the world’s biggest burden. Objectively, he knew his brain was distorting facts. Objectively, he knew that his friends didn’t hate him, didn’t think less of him, didn’t wish he was normal.

Unfortunately, knowing the truth and believing the truth were two different things. Luckily for him, he is surrounded by people who are happy to show him just how loved he is.

—

He’s not sure what he’s going to do if no one’s there. He doesn’t have a lot of emotional energy today — honestly, if no one’s in the rec room, he might just go back to bed. Maybe tomorrow won’t suck as bad. But he promised Shiro that the next time he was feeling like shit he’d as least try to seek out some friendly company, and he’s not a liar, so.

He opens the door, not sure if he wants it to be empty or not, and is kind of shocked by his own relief when he sees Coran reading on the couch. Upon hearing the door open, Coran looks up from his book, and smiles warmly when he registers who’s at the door.

“Lance!” he exclaims. Lance hums in response, flashing a quick peace sign.

Coran’s smile softens. “One of those days, my boy?”

Lance nods.

Coran shifts over a bit, lifting up his arm. Lance gets the point, and feels a knot of emotions burrow in his heart as he quickly makes his way over to the Altean, tucking himself into his side. As soon as he’s settled, Coran shifts forms slightly, making himself stronger, and tightens his grip around the teen.

Lance sighs, tension flooding out of his body. He didn’t realise how much he needed to be squeezed until it happened.

God, Coran always knows what to do.

Coran turns back to his book, grip never softening, idly turning pages every few seconds. Lance watches, not really reading along, but feeling some of his bleh mood alleviate. It’s hard for his brain to tell him he’s hated by everyone around him when he’s actively being cuddled.

“Did you know,” Coran says conversationally, after nearly an hour of comfortable silence, “that Hunk and Pidge argue over who gets to sit next to you during meals?”

Lance makes an aborted half-choking nose, staring at Coran in shocked incredulity. No way is that true!

Coran laughs, rubbing his hand up and down Lance’s arm. “It is true! They argue every morning before you come in. Keith has staked his permanent claim on your left side, of course —" Lance can’t hold back another noise of surprise. Of course? — “but Hunk and Pidge fight over who gets your right side once a day. Shiro tried to have them come up with a turn system, but it was futile!”

Lance can feel tears prick in the corners of his eyes, and for once doesn’t bemoan his inability to speak, because he’s not sure if he could ever verbalise what he’s currently feeling. Do his friends really love him so much? That they fight over who gets to sit closer to him? Lance doesn’t know how to respond to that, other than the strong urge to burst into tears and love his friends four billion times more than he already does. If that’s even possible.

Pidge snorted derisively. “Har-har,” she said. “That’s funny.”

Lance shook his head. “No, I’m serious! I —”This time, it was Keith who interrupted him.

“Lance, you called me Mr. Impulse the other day. What are you talking about?” he asked with a raised brow.

Lance huffed, irritated and defensive. “If you guys would let me explain,” he said, looking frustrated. Shiro waved his hand, gesturing for him to continue.

“No, you’re right. Sorry, Lance. We’ll listen.”

“Thank you. Okay. Yeah, maybe Keith does the most impulsive things comparatively. But, Keith, I’m pretty sure you also feel the most impulses. Like, dude —” he turned to Keith, imploring; “How many times a day do you get the urge to hop into Red and fuck off into space?”

Keith blinked, processing the question, and then exhaled deeply, closing his eyes. “Hourly, holy shit. You cannot begin to imagine.”

Lance lit up, gesturing wildly. “See? No one else feels that strong of an impulse so often! Keith has to deal with a staggering amount of pressure to do whatever pops into his head, all the time. And I would say he resists those urges a good 80% of the time! Right, Keith?”

Keith was already nodding, looking… seen. He looked like he’d been trying to explain something for hours and finally gotten through to someone. “Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. I feel like I’m constantly fighting my own brain.”

Lance gestured pointedly to Pidge, who looked shocked. “Exactly! Keith is the most controlled in the same way Hunk is the bravest.”

Hunk opened his mouth, looking ready to protest, but Lance barrelled on. “Think about it, buddy! You’re fighting your anxieties twenty-four seven. All sorts of things scare you, more than anyone else, but you do them anyway. That’s the definition of bravery, isn’t it? Doing things that need to be done, even if you’re frightened?”

Lance put his hands under his chin, beaming at Pidge, who continued to glare at him, although the corner of her mouth was twitching.

“The universe just loves me, Pidgey! She knows how cute I am and realises that bad things shouldn’t happen to cute people. So I don’t need to prepare for anything!”

Shiro furrowed his brow. “There’s no way that’s true, Pidge. Don’t discredit Lance’s work just because you can’t see it,” he admonished. Hunk was shaking his head before Shiro even finished his sentence.

“Nah, man, it’s true. I spent five weeks studying for the Garrison entry exam. I made colour-coded binders and everything, and I was still stressed that I didn’t spend enough time on the material. I want you to guess how much time Lance spent on that thing.”

Shiro pursed his lips, thinking. “It’s a pretty big test, and I can’t imagine not spending a lot of time on it, but based on your tone I’m going to assume it was not that long. A week and a half? Two weeks?” he guessed. Hunk shot Lance an exasperated look.

“Tell him, Lance. Tell him what you did.”

Lance grinned sheepishly. “Test was at 0800 hours on a Monday, so I downed a few Redbull 24 hours beforehand and crammed. Took the test at the right time, went home, and slept for a couple days, basically. Wasn’t fun, but it was only a couple days,” he shrugged again, “So I think it was worth sacrificing a night of beauty routine.”

Shiro gaped at him. “Twenty four- you spent a collective - did you actually -”

Hunk patted his shoulder. “The worst part is that the only person to get a better score than he did was Keith. That was what bothered Lance about the ordeal. The rest of us were fuming about everything else. I cannot count on my hands how many times his mother gave him shit about studying, telling him he’d regret wasting time, and he didn’t. It was so annoying.” Now it was Pidge’s turn to gape.

“Shit, I knew you didn’t prepare much, but did you seriously only spend twenty-four hours studying and you scored second best in the whole fucking test pool?” she demanded. Lance sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. ‘If you had studied like a normal person you would’ve done better’,” he said, using air quotes, “Blah blah blah. But hey! Second place isn’t that bad. Besides, studying never works for me, okay? I get bored and then I can’t retain anything. It feels like I can only prepare when a deadline is breathing down my neck, so that’s what I do!” His shoulders had tensed during his tirade; he’d gotten defensive.

Dear god. Did he think that they were giving him shit about second-place? That wasn’t it at all! “Lance,” Pidge said slowly, “That is insanely impressive. It’s absolutely bonkers that you scored that high with only a day of prep, frenzied or not. You’re wicked smart.”

Lance looked at her, confused. “What? No I’m not. I just get lucky is all. Like I said, the universe likes me.” He shot her a small smile. “I’m not taking the genius position of the team anytime soon, bud, don’t you worry.”

Pidge blinked at him. “No, Lance, that’s not what I-” she huffed, frustrated. She looked at Hunk. “How do I drill this into his skull?” she demanded. Hunk shrugged.

“I’ve been trying to tell him for fifteen years. Let me know when you’ve figured it out.” Lance looked back and forth at the two of them.

“What are you two talking about?” he asked. Pidge sighed.

“One day,” she said, patting his arm as she got up to leave. “One day I will get through to you. Mark my words.”

“Okay? I’m still so confused?” Pidge pointed her finger in the air, gesturing angrily to the heavens.

Which really only served to remind Lance how different Keith was now. More mature. More open. He was still Keith- Lance knew this- but he just wasn’t.. the Keith Lance knew. 

The Keith Lance knew panicked over what an appropriate response would be, panicked over shows casual affection, his social battery died quickly, he rushed into things and Lance was always there to bring him back down to Earth. Now… He just. He wasn’t. 

He’d worked through all the problems he was having without Lance. Problems he was working through with Lance. 

And he wasn’t there for it. Lance wasn’t there for it. Not for two whole years. 

But, I guess this is kind of hypocritical coming form Lance. He wasn’t really the Lance Keith knew anymore, either. 

Keith lost- or gained?- two years to his weird space whale adventure. They fight Lotor in the quintessence field, and find the team as a whole lost four years. 

That’s six years (counting the two in space, minus Keith, the teams spent fighting the Galra) Lance has been away from his family. Nadia and Sylvio were probably in middle school by now- Hell! Lance wouldn’t be surprised if Marco and Lisa already popped out two or three more gremlins. 

And Lance wasn’t there for it. 

“What about you Lance?” Keith nudged him with his elbow. 

Casual touch. Keith used to hate it. Lance used to be so good at it. 

Lance blinked once before he got control over his expression. “Haha, sorry! Zoned out there for a second! What’re we talking about?” Lance grinned easily, nudging Keith back. 

Just because Lance was having some.. difficulties, didn’t mean he had to force them onto his team. 

He could sort through them. 

On his own. 

When Keith was little, Texas would put him to bed with Galra legends and tales of Voltron. Texas also kept all of Krolia's illustrations of things in space. One of those illustrations included a rough map of where the blue lion was.

When Texas died, Keith inherited a box with his knife, the letter, and Krolia's drawings. It was locked but Keith's also a menace and picked the lock at 14. He never told or showed a soul what was in that box.

That was until the night he saved Shiro. Keith was prepared. Nobody else understood what was going on and Keith did not slow down to explain.

I'd also really like to see Keith's face when he learns that the bedtime stories that he was told from about ages 1-6 were true and that Princess Allura is alive.