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Three Days After the End of the War
At the center of the fanfare, the Paladins of Voltron—defenders of the universe, heroes of Earth, bravest of all—are silent.
They smile and wave as they’re carried along the parade route. Lance blows kisses while Pidge rolls their eyes. Shiro returns salutes from soldiers on the sidelines, and Hunk does stereotypical hero poses to the delight of cheering children. But Keith, ever the one who can’t hold back his emotions, digs his nails into the Garrison vehicle’s seats.
Because of all the colors on their almost identical celebratory outfits, pink is the only one missing.
When Keith’s father had died, he learned the cost of helping others. Keith had been curled up on his couch while he flipped through TV channels, hoping his father would return soon so they could watch the jet races together. Instead of his father’s booming voice, though, he was greeted by flashing blue and red lights.
At first, Keith had hated him. His father had run into a burning building for a stranger and left him behind. However, on one of Keith’s first missions, he’d done the same for a family of aliens with names he’d never been able to pronounce. Allura had scolded him for his recklessness, but did so with a gentle hand on his shoulder and a look asking, “Are you okay?”
He wishes he could ask her the same.
He may have negated his importance to his team in the early days of their unification—back when all he wanted was to escape the dry desert heat and believe in miracles. Now he acknowledges his role in the war. It still doesn’t quell how insignificant he feels when compared to Allura. She was a hero. She saved every universe in every reality. He was only one soldier amongst millions, albeit equipped with a sentient alien robot lion.
Keith glances at Lance, examining the crescent-shaped markings just beneath his eyes. Keith’s own facial mark—a heat burn spanning from his jaw and along his cheek—is a reminder of the most heart-wrenching fight of his life. Lance’s aren’t so different.
Lance catches his eye and grins. To an outside observer, it’s lazy and relaxed. To Keith, it’s as calculated as his battle strategies.
“You doing okay there, space cadet?” Lance quips.
Keith shrugs. “Not one for crowds, earthworm.”
“Oh, come on,” Lance scoffs. “We chase enemy Galra all the way out of our solar system, save all realities from extinction, and you can’t even enjoy it for a second?”
Keith prepares a sharp retort, but it dies when he processes the tone of Lance’s voice. Those words aren’t for Keith. They’re for himself.
Keith can’t count how many celebrations they’d attended where he almost reached out and clasped Lance’s hand in his. He’d always balked, but assured himself there was always another day, always another chance.
Then Allura fell in love with Lance.
Even with her gone, Keith can’t bring himself to disrespect her memory. He can’t take advantage of their grief—his and Lance’s—and justify making a mess of an already fragile atmosphere.
The world is a desert without an oasis.
“You do remember I chose to live in a shack in the middle of the desert, right?” Keith jokes, pulling a wry smile.
And he rides on the only way he knows how.
Three Months After the End of the War
It’s only a few months before Keith leaves Earth behind and is donning his Marmora gear. The Black Lion stays behind as well, to the chagrin of many of his comrades. If he’s the Black Paladin, shouldn’t he bring his most powerful weapon to help them? He ignores the whispers, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t hear them.
Depthless sinkholes, blistering winds, and freezing tundras return to being his normal. Instead of attending celebrations on Earth, he supplies children food to eat and houses to live in. Instead of relaxing in an expensive house the Garrison pays for, he patrols outside the barracks to ensure no one suspicious is tiptoeing in the darkness. He prefers it here.
He receives a call one night as he’s settling in bed. The dawn is just breaking over the alien horizon and he considers ignoring it or yelling at whoever decided now was the right moment to call. He takes a deep breath.
“This is Kogane.”
“Wow, Keith,” an amused voice says, “you sound all official like that.”
He hasn’t heard his voice in what feels like years now. He made a point not to see or call him. He can’t allow himself to. His brain swirls with a million emotions and at the center of the maelstrom, the one man he can never have opens his arms wide and seems to say, “There’s nothing stopping you now.”
“What do you want, Lance?”
Lance laughs. He hates that laugh. “What? I can’t just call my favorite Marmora operative at any time of—wait, what time is it there?”
“Dawn,” Keith pinches the bridge of his nose, “and I was just going to sleep, so make it quick.”
Those are the wrong words and you know it, he chides himself.
“Jeez. Someone really does get cranky without his beauty sleep.” Keith sighs, but his lip quirks at the corner. “Don’t give me that. But anyway, you’re taking care of yourself, yeah? We all know Hothead Keith has a tendency to run into danger without consulting us first and we’re kinda not there to save your ass so...you’re okay, right?”
Keith wants to assure him. He wants to tell him the truth. He wants to throw his communicator against the wall to watch it shatter into a thousand pieces so he’ll have an excuse not to hear Lance’s voice for as long as it takes them to supply him a new one.
It takes them a week.
His friends die a lot in his nightmares, but it’s never the same one and never the same way.
Pidge is thrown off a cliff without their jetpack.
Hunk’s blaster malfunctions and he’s accosted by a sea of flying creatures Keith isn’t sure he’s seen before.
Lance is shot and the rest of the team ignore his croaks for help.
Shiro never wakes up.
Allura walks into the light.
He wishes he could replace them in each and every scenario, but he’s never been able to control his dreams. Never been able to control much of anything, really.
Six Months After the End of the War
Back when Shiro spent half of the year in space and Keith remained on Earth, Keith began habitually washing dishes by himself. He cleared the table, rinsed, scrubbed, and dried over and over again. It was his chore, his routine.
Now they both stand in front of the sink as he scrubs and Shiro dries.
“You’re kinda breaking my routine here,” Keith says, picking at a stubborn remnant of food that won’t relinquish its hold.
“What? I can’t help too?”
“You’re terrible at drying dishes. How did Adam put up with—” Keith stops himself. “Sorry. Bad joke.”
Shiro laughs, but it echoes weakly in his tiny kitchen. “No. It’s okay. He definitely wouldn’t let me in the kitchen either.”
Keith exhales. Landmines. Always landmines. “Then why should I let you in here either?”
“Can’t a guy just dry dishes in peace?”
Keith raises an eyebrow, but keeps at his task.
“I just…” Shiro pauses long enough for Keith to need a look. In the beginning, Shiro’s stark white hair made him look more heroic or like an anime character as he commanded the Atlas.
But what looks right in battle looks wrong in a kitchen. His posture is too straight, his eyes too wary. No one has attacked them in ages, especially not on their own planet. Keith pretends Shiro will calm down eventually, but part of him knows he’s lying to himself.
Shiro continues. “I just want to be here for once.”
Keith finally puts the plate down and crosses his arms. “Shiro, what are you talking about? You’ve always been here.”
“No. I haven’t.” Shiro grips the counter, squishing the dishrag between it and his prosthetic. “I should’ve been checking in with you while we were up there. I forgot. I forgot you were a kid. You still are. I should’ve watched out for you better and I’m not watching out for you now and just…”
Shiro looks down at Keith. All the sadness the two of them were too busy fighting a war to express collects at the corners of his eyes.
“Let me help you with the dishes, at least.”
Keith nods. “Okay.”
Keith dreams of shimmering quintessence, a tinkling giggle, and a waterfall of white curls trailing down a woman’s back. She doesn’t die in this one. She doesn’t disappear or curse him for letting her down. She crouches in front of him where he kneels on the ground and takes his face in her hand.
“Now that’s not the Keith I know,” she says.
He wakes with a start and immediately jumps out of bed, grabbing a jacket on the way out of his front door. The hammock he’d hung on his front porch sways in the desert breeze. He thanks his past self for putting it up. It creaks under his weight as he settles into it, but it holds fast.
He stares at a star-filled universe and begins counting. Humans before and even after the war consider only their galaxy, even if the threats of the last couple years came from galaxies and galaxies away. They’re only ever thinking of their homeworld, because they have the luxury to do so.
So Keith keeps counting. If someone on the outside were watching him, his hands clasped together, they might think he’s praying.
One Year After the End of the War
The fifty foot tall statue of Allura strikes Keith as both too gaudy and not enough. Her eyes lack strength and her smile is too serene. Where is the woman he fought alongside on the battlefield? She doesn’t exist here. It’s possible she doesn’t exist anywhere.
He throws that thought away.
The other Paladins greet each other as if it’s only been a few weeks since they’ve seen each other. It’s likely true in everyone else’s case. When each of them reaches Keith, their eyes tell him what their mouths cannot.
Finally.
I missed you.
You’re here?
You have no idea how relieved I am you came.
Lance won’t look at him, but Keith hears his thoughts anyway.
Nice of you to show up.
Dinner can’t be called tense, but it isn’t without its moments. Keith remains silent as much as possible, only answering when asked a question and even then his answers are terse. Each of the Paladins tries not to stare openly at him, but from time to time they forget themselves and he has to meet their gaze to make them stop.
At dinner’s end, he tells them he’s going to take a walk through the juniberry fields even though the scent tends to make him nauseous if he’s around it for an extended period of time.
“Hey, wait up,” a voice calls behind him.
He trudges ahead, but footsteps crunch in the grass and finally catch up to him.
Lance smacks his arm with the back of his hand. “I’m starting to think you’re deaf, because not only do you never hear your communicator ringing, but you also can’t hear my real voice.”
“I can hear you just fine.”
“Can you? Because that’s not what I’m sensing.”
Keith scoffs. “Seriously, do the rules of gravity even apply to you? Because I swear you don’t know how to drop things.”
The footsteps stop. “Are we really doing this?”
Keith grits his teeth. “Doing what?”
“Keith, please.”
Keith’s instincts kick in. Sometimes they’ve saved him from getting blasted by droids. Sometimes they’ve even helped him take down an entire Galra fleet. But sometimes…
Keith rounds on him and their proximity is closer than it’s been since they returned to Earth. “Please what? Please talk? Please express myself? I can’t. I’m not like you guys. You guys are the ones who can handle feelings and I can handle throwing punches. I’m sitting here wondering when the hell I’m going on my next mission and whether or not it’s too dangerous for Kosmo to potentially put his life in danger, not what I feel. I just can’t, Lance. I can’t…”
Tears stream down his cheeks and his breaths come in ragged gasps. Lance approaches him, eyes wary but confidence apparent. Who did he learn that from? Keith thinks.
Lance brushes away some of the tears with his thumb and smiles. “Now that’s the Keith I know.”
Keith drops to his knees and wails.
He’s barely aware of Lance’s arms around him. They only leave him once to wave something off, but the world Keith sees is nothing more than hazy smudges. Lance rubs his back and coos assurances into his ear.
“It’s alright. I’ve got you. I’m here. You’re safe.”
He grips Lance’s jacket as he sobs into his shoulder. The scent of her funeral flowers accosts him even more now. He remembers the lack of weight in her empty casket. He remembers the way Pidge sat at the edge of one of the pews, knees pulled into their chest, and stared at nothing the entire service. He remembers the way he had to chase Hunk out of the church because he’d started hyperventilating in the middle of his speech.
Then he remembers the way Allura’s voice would become high-pitched when she accidentally messed up during a training drill. The way she’d wrinkled her nose when they’d explained the concept of milking a cow. The way she whooped as she rushed into battle.
Pain and elation blend together until he’s not sure they weren’t always the same emotion. He expels them through tears until he completely relaxes into Lance’s gravity. He never drops him.
They kneel in the field together until the Altean sun begins to surrender to the moon. Keith wipes his eyes and nose on the back of his hand. His lips curl in disgust when a trail of snot follows suit. Lance chuckles and lifts Keith’s shirt. Keith blushes and goes to ask what the hell he’s doing, but before he can, Lance removes the rest of the snot with it.
Keith groans. “Are you kidding me?!”
Lance is sprinting toward the others before Keith can grab onto him. All those years of training really put them on par with each other after all. He jogs in place halfway between him and the statue of Allura and calls out, “You coming or what, Mullet?”
Keith, with his legs slightly wobbly from sitting for so long, stands and strides toward Lance, his friends, and the woman he’s tried so hard not to face all this time.
Two Years After the War
Keith and Lance talk about her almost every day. Some nights they laugh about how she threw Lotor across the room and how he bounced twice before landing. Some nights they cry as they recount how she joined a group of dancing children and acted like she was one of them.
“I miss her,” Lance whispers into the communicator.
Once, this may have broken Keith’s heart and reminded him Lance was never his. He never could be. He’d lost his chance. But this time he smiles and nods even though Lance can’t see. “I miss her, too.”
“Sometimes I dream about her and it’s like...it’s like she’s really there and then she just...leaves me. Leaves us.”
Keith hums into the phone and squeezes his eyes tight. He can still see the remnants of his last nightmare, bright white and ethereal. “Me too. She talks to me. In the dreams. And I’m never sure if I want her to stop, or keep going so I can hear her again.”
“Her voice was the best.”
“Yeah.” Another tear slips out. “It really was.”
They remain in silence for a time, but they never hang up until one of them prompts it. More than enough times, one of them falls asleep and their communicators stay connected until one of them wakes up and ends the call. It happens nearly every time now.
“Hey,” Lance says, “Can I ask you something?”
“Mhmm.”
“That day when I was searching for you everywhere and I found you on top of the Black Lion. Do you remember that?”
Keith’s heart pangs. The day he and Allura had become official. He recalls the words he meant to say and the way he’d instead decided he couldn’t ruin their date. They would’ve been happy together. They were supposed to be happy together.
“Yeah.”
“Can I say something terrible?”
Keith doesn’t answer, but Lance goes on anyway.
“I wanted you to stop me.”
It takes a moment before Keith remembers how to breathe. “You...what?”
Lance laughs derisively. “I told you it was terrible.”
“No. Lance no it’s not...terrible. It’s just…” Why?
“I loved her. You know I loved her, but…” Lance sighs softly. “Don’t hate me for this, okay?”
“Never,” Keith promises.
There’s hesitation, but he opens up eventually just like the Blue Lion does for Keith whenever he’s seeking a pouting Lance. “If you told me not to go that day, I would’ve done whatever you wanted. I hated that about myself and I felt guilty so many times, but…”
“Keep talking,” Keith says, breathless.
“But Allura and I were happy,” Lance continues. “That time we got to spend together was one of the best times of my life. She never felt like a second choice and she was the one I wanted by my side, but–” there’s a sharp intake of breath. “Sorry—this is so selfish and fucked up.”
Keith snickers despite himself. “Probably.”
“Hey!”
Keith laughs, deep and genuine. “You said it, not me.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting you to–”
“Keith. Shut up.”
Keith peeks over at Acxa in the other bunk. “You really wanna try that with me?”
She narrows her eyes. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Hey Lance, is Vero around by any chance?”
Acxa groans, gets out of bed, and grabs her pillow and blanket. “You two are so fucking annoying.”
Lance cackles on the other end of the communicator.
Three Years After the End of the War
It starts with Lance brushing his fingers along Keith’s thigh at the dinner table. Their nervous laughter settles into fond smiles, as Lance’s family welcomes him to their home for the first time since they’d all returned to Earth. Keith considers grabbing Lance’s hand, but he doesn’t. Not yet.
In the kitchen, hands make their way onto waists, arms, and shoulders. They linger long enough to make their presence evident, but not long enough to satisfy the desire in Keith’s bones. He wants to stay for the possibility of more. So he does.
They don’t even make it past Lance’s bedroom door before Keith’s lips are on his. When they were still 18 and arguing at every opportunity, he used to imagine chapped lips and the accidental clacking of teeth as they fought for dominance over each other. However, they’re in their 20s now. Instead of an explosion of the heat of bygone days, warmth seeps from his head and his heart along his spine and to the rest of his body until it fills him up.
Finally, he thinks. Finally it feels right to love you.
They giggle as boys do as they trip their way through the dark. Lance yelps when his knees buckle and he falls backward onto his bed. Keith shushes him from where he straddles him, but even he can’t help snickering.
The pounding rain on the rooftop becomes their shield. The war never happened. The Galra aren’t real. The pain doesn’t exist. Just for the moment, all they need is to hold onto each other. For now, they are the only two people they can bother to remember.
Clothes are removed slowly, goosebumps trailing the slide of fabric. Their eyes adjust to the darkness and they see each other as they are without pretenses or half-truths. Keith chokes up, but the tears don’t threaten to fall.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, pressing a kiss to Lance’s forehead.
Lance hums in contentment. “Are you going to compliment me to orgasm or are you–”
He doesn’t say much after that.
Eventually the rain becomes a steady drip, but no longer an outright downpour. As their shared fog clears and their breathing slows, they curl into each other. Keith cards his fingers through Lance’s hair while he plays with the fingers of Keith’s other hand.
“You have a mission starting tomorrow,” Lance says. It’s not a question.
“Yeah.”
He brushes his nose against Keith’s. “How long this time?”
“Two weeks, I think.”
Two weeks of mud, desert, or some other inhospitable environment where Lotor or Sendak sympathizers still lie in wait. Maybe this time they would just deliver food to war-torn cities or to refugees from planets across the universe. Maybe he would have to put his blade to good use.
Two weeks of sleepless nights, hoping the Blades aren’t attacked in their sleep. The combination of general silence with the intermittent snap of twigs or howl of wind suffocating them all.
Two weeks of missing Lance when he isn’t sure how much it would take to shatter what they now have.
“What if…” Keith licks his lips. “What if you stayed at my place from now on?”
Lance shifts to his side and props himself up on his elbow. “You mean your shack out in the desert?”
Keith scoffs. “It’s not a shack anymore.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Lance says with a coy smile. He places a hand on Keith’s waist and rubs circles into his hip. Keith closes his eyes and focuses on the soothing sensation.
“Regardless, is it something you would hate?”
Lance grows quiet, but he doesn’t stop his motions. Keith opens an eye to see furrowed brows and quirked lips.
“Can I think about it?” he says finally.
Keith nods. It’s enough for now.
After a restless night, dawn’s hue creeps into the sky. Keith pulls on his Marmora gear, the purple glow of his breastplate eventually waking Lance who stares at him blearily.
“Are you leaving?” he mumbles, voice heavy with sleep.
Keith kisses his forehead, followed by his nose and lips. “I’ll be back.”
Lance falls back asleep almost immediately. Keith chuckles.
Before he puts his mask on, he places a silver key on Lance’s nightstand. He’d gotten it cut weeks ago on the off chance he’d have a chance to give it to him. Hopefully he hasn’t already missed his chance for acceptance.
Keith cuts off his speeder’s engine. As the vibrations cease, the dust settles and tiny pebbles tuck themselves in shallow cracks in the packed dirt. All of the shadows of the world seem to recede until they fall behind his one-bedroom home. From where he stands, however, his own shadow inches for his home. Longing. Yearning.
He swings his mission bag over one shoulder and lets the sunrise push him along from where it peeks over the plateaus behind him. A scalding shower and non-military-issued blankets await within. They’re basics to some, but luxuries to him. Kosmo darts ahead, likely craving specialty food as a reward for the last two weeks, but then he pauses at the porch steps with a happy bark and a thumping tail.
Keith’s feet stop.
So does his heart.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night when the desert loses its silence and instead adopts the sound of his father’s bygone laughter, he finds himself curled up in the cot hanging above his front porch. Somehow, the inside of a home filled with photographs of loved ones feels lonelier than the affirmation that, yes, no one else is crazy enough to live out here.
Occupying his usual place is Lance, a blanket thrown across his legs and a dime novel clutched in one of his hands. The sun trails across his form just as he laughs at the puppy-like dire wolf nosing for attention. He pats his lap and is assaulted with licks and snuggles. And Keith…
His heart constricts. He takes a shuddering breath before dropping his bag and sprinting. The crunch of his footsteps nearly startles him after so much time spent traversing foreign swamps and plains silently, but he doesn’t stumble. He is sure his feet will carry him to exactly where he needs to be.
When he finally stands feet from Lance, he slows his breathing so as not to break the little silence they have left in these early morning hours. Lance’s smile douses Keith in elation, in pride, and in safety. The hands running through Kosmo’s fur are ones worn from both combat and planting, taking and giving. They are meant to protect, meant to nurture. They’re hands Keith has taken hold of a million times, but rarely in the selfish way he’s always wanted to. There are perks to being a wolf over a human at times.
“Enjoying the view?” Lance asks, an easy smirk finding its way onto his face.
Keith nods sincerely. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Well,” Lance boops Kosmo on the nose, “I am.”
“How long?”
It’s the right question. It’s the wrong question. It’s not enough of a question.
“When’s your next mission?”
Keith racks his brain, trying not to look away during his mental search. “Not for another month.”
Lance smiles. “Then I guess I’ll be here for at least the next month.”
Keith takes a step forward. “You...mean it?”
“I mean, it’s not easy to get out here and the nearest mall is half an hour away, but...yeah. I mean it.”
Kosmo looks between the two men, his head tilted to the side in slight confusion. Before Keith can more than register the crackle and glow of quintessence, Kosmo teleports him to Lance’s side.
Lance chuckles and holds out his arms. Keith dives into him. The only thing keeping him from crushing Lance is Lance’s own healthy strength. He tucks himself in the crook of Lance’s neck and exhales. The heady scent of juniberries on Lance’s skin cradles ancient memories of their youth, but the grounding aroma of the cactus flower on the windowsill reminds Keith that only downpours can replenish long-thought withered souls.
Keith squeezes tighter. “I’m home, earthworm.”
“Welcome home, space cadet.”