A Howling Gray

by heavily_caffeinated

Summary:

“And?”

Keith didn’t mean for his voice to sound so cold. But it came out cracking like a whip.

Lance winced, looking over at Keith in a way that caused Keith to know that he was right.

That Lance was about to blow a hole through him.

“And,” Lance licked his lips. “Well. There’s this girl.”

Keith’s heart collapsed in on itself.

 

***

Keith has spent the majority of an intergalactic space war making peace with his feelings towards Lance. He has a pretty good handle on it, actually, until Lance begins dating a beautiful princess of a nearby planet. As Keith struggles with his jealousy, Lance grows distant. It is only when the Galra strikes that Keith realizes that there was far more to the galaxy's new star couple than what meets the eye.

Notes:

HOLY SHIT IM FINALLY BACK.

GOD IT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS LONG.

I have been so miserably busy with work. So busy that this fic has been a labor of love for SIX. MONTHS. When I wrote A Rioting Blue, I was so curious to try the same template with a fic more Keith-oriented. I have been so desperate to share with you that it is currently 2 AM but I could not wait any longer, I had to post it nOW

Sooooo here we are. I'm obsessed.

I've missed you all and we are so mf back.

(Also, for any Mighter Than The Sword fans, peek the note at the bottom of the fic ;))

I 

 

Keith had spent a lot of time thinking about Lance’s smile. 

There was a variant of emotions attached to it, a timeline of feelings that chronicled the past four years as comrades in an intergalactic war. 

There was, naturally, that initial annoyance. That grimace of a grin when they couldn’t stand each other. Lance probably thought that Keith was too arrogant for his own good and Keith couldn’t get over the fact he got himself locked into the same spaceship with such an idiot. 

Such an idiot that had intolerably blue eyes and a brain that was cleverer than he would admit. 

Because Voltron started to make a name for itself. Started to be depended on. Started to be celebrated. 

And God, how Keith loved making Lance squirm in the fanciest of ceremonies.

He would watch the way Lance’s lips tightened around his teeth, flashy in the facade. Keith would say something stupid in front of allies and Lance would laugh, tight and clipped, sling an arm around Keith’s shoulder, and excuse his Earthen bluntness. 

It was probably around that time when Keith started to realize that Lance was hot. 

Keith started to get greedy. He wanted to see more than just the forced smiles of acquaintances. 

So he pulled back a little. Soothed the barb of his glare and bite of his words until Lance could relax. Could loosen up and let that forced smile get a little lazy.

It tilted up and revealed dimples and a sort of innocence that someone could probably bottle up and use to power a solar system. One of Keith’s more pathetic life missions became keeping that smile on Lance’s face. 

This caused Keith to become inherently acquainted with it. 

How Lance’s teeth glinted in the sun. How his tongue peeked through his front teeth when he was fighting back a laugh. How his grin still dropped into a strained, mildly self-conscious, smile when it was directed towards Allura. A side-effect from an unrequited crush. 

Keith had memorized it all. The divots and turns and curves.

Nowadays, Keith spent a lot of time wondering where it had gone. 

(You may have expected for a couple more years to pass until Keith identified the ache in his stomach as affection. But Keith was always a bit too self-aware for his own good, especially when it came to the twinges and squirms of his heart.

So, yes, Keith was just barely scraping eighteen years old and was suddenly the possessor of a giant pilotable cat and a big, messy crush on Lance McClain. 

You can imagine the distress.) 

Lance wasn’t all that good of a liar. 

At least to people he cared about. 

He could make up utter bullshit to a stranger or, better, an enemy. Keith had seen him convince a bunch of plunderers that they had the wrong castle before. 

But whenever Lance tried a single white lie in front of his friends, he crumpled immediately. His eyes would scan the top of their heads, the bottom of their fingers, their kneecaps, anything but their eyes. 

He looked away. 

Any lie that caused guilt to rise up his throat, he couldn’t bear to meet their gaze. 

***

 

Ten days ago, Lance went on a diplomatic mission. 

This wasn’t all that unusual. When a planet wouldn’t be swayed by Allura’s title or Shiro’s level head, Lance was sent in. 

He was the last resort. A heaving rush of charisma and charm. He had talked budding dictators out of their regimes, had turned even the cruellest of Galra sympathizers to their side. 

The Blue Paladin. The man that could charm venom out of a snake. 

It was all quite an impressive production. 

He would flip and fling through their stratosphere in Blue, earning enough attention before sailing gracefully into the planet’s docking quarters. He would follow all the customs with grace. He turned over any weapons, changed into any clothes they offered, and took any lodgings with an excited smile. He would have spent the month prior learning the most he could of their language, tangling it with the ones he knew that were similar enough to clone as theirs.

If it was last minute, Lance would fall back on the solar system’s middle tongue. If all else failed, the aliens always preferred the rich rush of Spanish over blunt English. 

Any situation, any issue, Lance would come out on top. 

Because Lance was smart. Lance was clever. 

Keith thought people talked up Shiro or Allura or even himself a little too much considering all Lance did for them. 

Reduced to the loverboy just because his smile was his best weapon. 

It pissed Keith off most days, a sick conglomeration of jealousy and want. It would probably drive him insane one of these days, his body stuck in a perpetual lapse of wanting to throttle Lance and kiss him until he tasted blood. 

Anyways. 

Ten days ago, Lance set off towards the planet Sarafrax. A gorgeous world almost completely covered in water. The inhabitants were even prettier than their planet. They were tall, just as tall as Galras, with skin the faintest tinge of orange and hair that gleamed like spun gold. Their facial features were distinctly humanoid, the only difference being their slit pupils and distinctly sharp canines. They were, by all standards, unbelievably attractive. 

Lance had made sure they all knew that, the moment he dropped to his knees and gasped at the screen. 

The Sarafraxians had sent out a message to meet with the paladins, asking for help getting out from under the Galra’s boot. It was a sea-soaked planet, with most of their finances coming from cargo shipments by boats. Their seas were filled with Galran fleets, pillaging any product that the Sarafraxians attempted to pass along. Sailors were dying, the economy was plummeting, they clearly needed help. 

It took one look at the small series of islands, awash in sun and sand, and it was obvious that Lance would be their representative. 

Off he went. With a smile and a wink and a promise that he would return even more sunkissed than before.

Ten days.

Ten fucking days that Keith spent pacing the ship and wondering what the Sarafraxians thought of Lance’s Spanish. 

He thought he would go crazy. He had sent several messages to Kolivan, begging to be sent to another planet just to get away from the waiting. 

But Kolivan remained annoyingly silent to Keith’s pleas.

And then, finally, Lance returned. 

And Keith immediately clocked the downturn of his lips, the furrow in his brow. Whenever Lance came back from a diplomatic mission, he was all smirk and tease, ensuring they all knew how much the aliens loved him. 

But this time, he was unnervingly quiet, seemingly lost in thought as he accepted Coran’s help to take his knapsack and bayard. 

He looked tired, worn down, but not upset. Not angry.

Just a little lost. 

Later, Keith would think that he looked more like someone who signed away their soul. 

 

There was that one time that Keith and Lance nearly got themselves killed.

It was a stupid mistake, borderline idiotic. 

They were stuck on a miserable planet, more humid than the swampiest days on Earth. Pinned down by Galra ships surveying the jungle floor, Keith and Lance were crammed into a wad of stout trees. Leaves larger than Shiro’s wingspan dripped condensation down the back of their flight suits. Keith could barely swallow, his spit congealed in his mouth from the thick air. Lance was fidgeting next to him, just as eager to move.

That was another thing.

Keith had spent the past hour trying to focus on the impending cargo shipment and not the fact that Lance was pressed against him, the two of them nearly huddled into each other’s laps.  

“Remember Soaba?” Lance murmured, his breath hot against the side of Keith’s neck. 

It took Keith a moment to place it, too preoccupied with Lance’s arm brushing against his as he reached for his canteen. 

“Um,” Keith swallowed hard against the humidity. “That planet with all the volcanos?”
“Mhm.”
“Is that the one where you lost your shoe in the lava pit?”
“Mhm,” there was a smile in Lance’s voice. “I’d do a cannonball into that pit before I sat in this again.”
Keith chuckled and caught a glimpse of the proud smile behind Lance’s visor. 

Time stretched on, Keith’s muscles spasming and begging to move. They were waiting for a truck with a specific ID plate to drive by. They were ordered to plant a tracker in the cargo and retreat, waiting to see where it would end up. 

This planet had been reporting a heavy loss in their embargo. They had asked Voltron to investigate and see if the Galra were pillaging. 

Truck after truck passed with no sign of the ID tag. Lance was just as eager to move as Keith was, his thigh and arm constantly knocking against Keith’s. This in turn drove Keith crazy, considering he preferred to keep himself as far away from Lance to stop himself from doing something crazy like blushing or kissing him.

He opened his mouth to tell Lance to kindly remove his hand from Keith’s thigh guard when Lance snapped to attention. 

“There it is!” He hissed, eyes honed in on the truck rolling down the path. 

Normally, one of them would be the voice of reason. One of them would remind the other of their training of how it was important to wait and think. One of them would remind them that the Galra were catching on and realizing the paladins were quite clever.

But they were too desperate to escape and Keith just needed air that wasn’t thick with humidity and Lance. Without hesitating, they broke into a dead sprint towards one of the Galra’s best traps. 

 

Okay. So now Lance was avoiding him. 

Keith was certain of it. 

Lance had missed three of their morning sparring sessions that week and spent far too much time in his room, doing something. 

Keith had heard Pidge banging on Lance’s door multiple times in the past week, hollering for him to stop hogging the best datapad and that if he was using it for porn, they would be pissed.

Rather than rising to the bait, Lance had been disturbingly silent. 

He wasn’t unkind. Keith thought that was probably impossible for Lance. 

He still helped Pidge with carrying computer supplies, still organized rusted machine parts for Hunk, still sparred with Keith when he could, still listened obediently to Shiro’s plans, still followed Allura’s ideas, still laughed at Coran’s jokes. 

But there was a distance to him, something that Keith felt they couldn’t break through. 

And Keith swore that he sometimes heard Lance talking when he passed his door. Talking softly and then laughing. 

A theory had already begun to nestle into Keith’s gut. Something that made him panicky and curt when he thought too hard about it, so he wiped it from his mind. 

Until they all sat around the dinner table two weeks after Lance returned from Sarafrax.

“Okay,” Lance said quietly, looking up from his plate. “I need to tell you guys something.”

Keith swore he felt his heart between his molars. 

“Because tomorrow I’m going to do something, and it’s going to be everywhere,” he let out a low breath. “It’s going to be a media nightmare.”

Allura stiffened and Keith couldn’t blame her. 

The last time they had a publicity catastrophe was when Allura had spent a night longer than expected at a royal court. One picture of her with an eligible duke in a meeting and Voltron had been defaced for weeks. 

Lance hesitated. “I’m going back to Sarafrax.”

Everyone at the table relaxed. Pidge let out a groan of relief, pressing their hands to their eyes and muttering something about datapads and private browsers.

Hunk smiled goodnaturedly at Shiro as he sighed and Coran clasped his chest with relief. 

But Keith didn’t move. Keith continued to swallow back a rising heartbeat because Lance was smart. If he thought something would hit the media hard, then it would. 

“And?”

Keith didn’t mean for his voice to sound so cold. But it came out cracking like a whip.

Lance winced, looking over at Keith in a way that caused Keith to know that he was right. 

That Lance was about to blow a hole through him. 

“And,” Lance licked his lips. “Well. There’s this girl.”

Keith’s heart collapsed in on itself.

 

This felt wrong. 

The thought slipped through the adrenaline pounding in Keith’s system. Lance was next to him, sprinting towards the cargo transport and they were so close to the truck and it all felt a little too easy. 

It had all been. 

They snuck onto the planet without a single intervention, getting to the cargo warehouse was almost boring. 

Now the exact transport they were looking for was rumbling towards them without a single guard stationed on it? The Galra could be egomaniacs, but they weren’t stupid.

They had started to take Voltron seriously as an adversary.

Why were they dangling this over Voltron? As if tossing a rat to a snake.

Lance ran ahead of him, readying his bayard to intercept any guards.

But there wouldn’t be any. 

Because Keith and Lance weren’t the snake.

They were the rat.

Keith lunged forward, grabbing Lance’s arm and hauling him back. Lance cried out from surprise but Keith ignored him, yanking him back until he had two decent grips on Lance’s chestplate.

He shoved the two of them away, turning his back to the cargo and kicking Lance’s legs out from under him.

The two of them fell hard, chestplates knocking into each other. Keith’s chin smacked against Lance’s cheek. Keith bit down hard on his tongue and Lance wheezed out a swear. 

He fumbled on his belt while doing his best to burrow him and Lance deeper into the ground. He managed to unlatch the round disk, flicking it on. There was a hum to life and an ionic shield ripped out.

“What the hell are you—.”
Everything turned bright and hot and loud. 

 

 

 

Princess Niraxi of Sarafrax. 

The crowned inheritor of the planet once her parents passed, a woman of immeasurable power. She was twenty years old in Earthen years and was famously one of the most beautiful aliens in the galaxy. 

Keith had remembered seeing her on the front of those stupid gossip magazines the last time he joined Hunk on a trip to the space mall. She was incessantly harassed, paparazzis and reporters from all over the solar system far too interested in what she was doing or who she was dating. 

It seemed the answer to both those questions was Lance. 

Keith’s palms had crescent indexes from his fingernails as he pushed his fists into the sides of his chair, trying to keep himself from fleeing the room. 

Niraxi, Raxi according to Lance, had been his ambassadorial guide when he landed in Sarafrax. They had spent most of their days together. 

And then their nights, Keith assumed.

Lance wouldn’t tell them that, he was too much of a gentleman. 

But Keith noticed how Lance wasn’t looking at them, eyes pinned to the table with a shy smile on his face. 

He had never seen Lance look like this. He wondered if this was what it looked like to be besotted.

Lance went on, explaining how they had kept in touch using the datapads that he had been hogging, that they kept it secret until they were sure it was strong enough to withstand the publicity. 

Keith listened to it all with a mouth full of blood, unable to stop biting on the inside of his cheeks. The skin was ragged and stung but it kept him from doing something stupid like leaving the room or throwing himself into Lance’s arms.

He did anything but look at Shiro, who was doing a pretty shitty job of hiding his pained glances towards Keith. 

As a dull ringing took over in Keith’s ears, he idly wondered why he was even surprised.

He should have just been shocked that it took this long. Every inch of Lance was devastating. He was undeniably gorgeous, smarter than he let on, kinder than anyone would believe. 

Keith knew better than to think that he would have a lifetime of shared smiles and looks that caused something to stir in his chest. 

He thought about all the times that he had dared to wonder, had been stupid enough to dream, and realized that the only shocking thing about this reveal was that he allowed himself to get his hopes up. 

 

 

 

Lance wheezed under him. 

Keith couldn’t hear or see anything. It was all disjointed light and sharp ringing. He could feel Lance under him, clumsily moving his hands up and down his body and checking for injuries. 

Eventually he felt Lance’s hands move to him. Strong, gloved hands shakily testing Keith’s thighs, hips, chest, arms. 

They settled on Keith’s neck, thumbs gripping Keith’s jaw. Keith could feel Lance’s chest hitching under his and could feel that Lance was trying to talk to him. 

But Keith couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t hear Lance, and that was when he started to panic. He could feel his breathing getting clumsy as he blinked over and over, trying to clear his vision. 

How bad was it? How hard had the explosion rattled them? Were they the only two stupid enough to get that close? Or were they surrounded by dead bodies? 

Keith shook and wheezed and he felt himself spin. He realized Lance was rolling them, hands tight on Keith’s face. Keith’s shoulders hit the ground and Lance’s hands moved from his face, only to press hard on his chest plate.

Keith gagged out a breath, but the pressure was gone before he could swat it away.

Until it returned again, two hands pushing his chest. 

Keith batted at Lance’s hands until he realized the timing of the pushes. 

Lance’s hands were steady and even, pushing a tempo that Keith found his lungs starting to follow. 

He breathed in time to Lance’s hands and wondered if he could do it forever. 

 

When Lance departed to Sarafrax the next day, at least no one had the guts to say anything to him. 

He was perfectly happy to try to break both his arms in the training room rather than endure a therapy session. 

He let the training bots run him ragged, desperate to keep himself from imagining what the galaxy’s news feeds would look like in only a few hours. 

Loverboy Locked Down: Voltron’s Sharpshooter’s New Romance! 

Cosmic Royalty: Paladin and Princess.

The Blue Paladin: Soon To-Be Royalty? 

Just the thought of it sent Keith’s teeth on edge. And that only made Keith angrier because, again, what was he expecting? Why did he ever think that Lance wouldn’t end up with anyone less than an intergalactic princess? 

Keith felt stupid and he hated the feeling.

He threw his bayard hard into the training bot, igniting a jolt of sparks as the bot went down with a crash. 

He should check the news feed.

No, he shouldn’t. 

Why delay the inevitable?

Maybe it would be worth a few more seconds of peace.

As if the universe was laughing at him, a stack of datapads filled with training regimes began to buzz.

Everything in the castle that collected data was hardwired to collect anything said about Voltron. 

Keith debated throwing them out the airlock. 

 

 

“We are idiots,” Lance said the moment Keith woke up. 

Keith grunted in agreement, grimacing at the bright light hanging above him. “Total idiots.”

Lance huffed what sounded like a watery laugh. 

Keith’s vision adjusted and he realized he was in some kind of medical camp. His chestplate was gone, revealing several rows of gauze wrapped around his torso. 

His ribs ached as he pushed himself into a sitting position. The camp was empty, aside from some aliens in the corner nursing burn wounds.

It looked as if Keith got the worst of the explosion. 

Keith closed his eyes in relief. “Thank god.”

A strange sound came from the back of Lance’s throat.

Keith opened his eyes to see Lance watching him, face twisted with something that looked a bit like grief. 

“What did you do that?”

”Do what?”

Blue, blue eyes bored into him. “You shielded me.”

Keith shifted despite the uneasy creak in his chest, growing uncomfortable. “Oh.”

Lance chewed furiously on the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, oh.”

 

 

If the rumors are to be believed, releasing the photos of Lance and Niraxi hugging outside the Sarafraxian palace broke at least three dozen servers in the solar system. 

Hundreds of thousands of aliens reporting their thoughts on the matter. Keith wouldn’t be surprised if it had reached Earth at this point. 

Lance took it all in with grace. He didn’t bring it up, but there was a constantly overwhelmed tilt to his smile whenever Keith saw him. 

But those times were growing rarer by the day. 

Lance seemed to spend more time on Sarafrax than in the castle at this point. Keith would bring it up to Shiro, suggesting it as a work management issue considering they were supposed to be busy saving the world, but he had started to avoid Shiro and his pitying looks. 

Keith dove into work with the Blades, taking any job offered. But even those seemed to grow less constant. Three weeks into Lance’s repeated absences and his silent Blade comm, Keith was beginning to feel twelve again. 

He was angry and anxious and abandoned. The bite of nostalgic pain made him panicky. He could feel himself in the mindmeld whenever they formed Voltron, prickly and coarse while Lance felt soft and relaxed. 

It was horrible.

The pictures continued to flood in of the new couple. Lance and Niraxi walking along the palace grounds, visiting an animal rescue center, playing in the Sarafrax ocean. 

And Lance was just in paradise. When he wasn’t raving about Niraxi, he was gushing about Sarafrax. He was talking about their beaches, their water, how their toilets are the closest to Earth toilets he’s encountered, how their food tastes like home, on and on until Keith was sure his ears would start to bleed. 

It was all driving Keith a little insane. 

Once, when he managed to catch Lance in the kitchen, he asked Lance what caused him to approach Niraxi in the first place.

He didn’t know why he asked. Why he was so desperate to hurt himself further and know exactly what drew Lance’s eyes to her rather than him. 

Lance smiled dreamily. 

She looks like a sunset, he told Keith. 

Keith was sure she did. Considering she was always looking at the sun. 

 

 

They sat in silence for a moment. 

Keith stared at his dented knee pads and wished that the explosion had knocked him out a little harder. 

Lance was waiting, unnervingly patient for once. There was a moment when Keith, tired and cranky and hurting, debated giving in. Turning to Lance and grabbing a fistful of his flight suit and telling him that he shielded him because he had to. 

Because it would be harder living without him than living at all. 

But that was too loud, too big for a medical camp in a smoldering trap laid for them, and Keith stayed silent. 

He stayed silent until Lance took mercy on him and sighed.

”That’s it, alright?”

Keith blinked. “What?”

Lance fixed him with a firm gaze, bending forward until Keith was forced to meet his eyes. 

“We are done being impulsive idiots,” Lance said. “We are thinking things through for now on, alright? Together.”

Just the thought of it brought a sappy warmth to Keith’s chest.

“Alright,” he managed a small smile. “Together.” 

 

“It’s okay.”

Keith had to hand it to himself. He had managed to avoid Shiro’s casual attempts to talk to him for almost four weeks. It was a new record.

Keith stared hard at the training bot.

“It’s okay,” Shiro repeated. 

Keith lowered the machete, arm trembling from strain. “What is?”

Shiro offered an easy shrug. “Whatever you’re feeling.”

Keith rolled his eyes, turning away. “Jesus.”

“You’re doing a good job of hiding it, but—.”

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

“But,” Shiro repeated firmly. “You aren’t going to be able to hide it forever. You’re going to explode.” 

“I’m fine.”

He wasn’t. He wasn’t and he was sure it was obvious to everyone but a certain lovestruck loverboy. Because Niraxi had started to spend nights in the castle. 

The first time Keith had seen her in the flesh, he wanted to laugh. 

Her beauty was doubled in person. Under the castle fluorescent lighting that sometimes made Keith’s skin look ghoulish, she gleamed. Her hair, perfect blonde waves that fell to the small of her back, smelled like expensive perfume. Her slitted pupils should have been intimidating, but there was an endless kindness that made even the most alien of her features look approachable. 

She looked soft to the touch. She looked gentle and warm. 

Keith felt like barbed wire next to her. 

The others grew accustomed to her quickly. She wore a translator device in her ears to help her communicate. She was shy and quiet, but had a smile wide enough to rival Lance’s. She walked into rooms like they awed her. Every moment was gushing with gratitude and humility. She was a fucking Disney princess. 

And Keith couldn’t bear to dislike her. It would be like hating a puppy for finding a bone. 

His temper frayed apart more and more every day. Hunk and Pidge had started to avoid asking him questions. Allura was more than happy to take on his attitude, but even her snaps back at him had a distinctly empathetic edge to them. 

Coran found the whole matter entirely too fascinating. Keith had caught him on more than one occasion muttering about the intricacies of Earthen courtship.

“Keith,” Shiro’s voice was beginning to fray a little from desperation. “I see how you look at him.” 

“Stop it.” The weapons rack rattled as Keith angrily rehooked the machete on it. “I don’t need to hear how obvious I am.”

“You’re not,” Shiro said quietly as Keith picked through the weapons, lifting up a spear and testing the weight. “But I know you. I know what you look like when you’re in—.”

“For fuck’s sake, Shiro!” Keith snapped, whirling around to face him. “What are you trying to do?”

“I don’t want you to just bury this.”

“And what should I do instead?” Keith demanded. “Cry? Scream? Confess? He is dating a fucking princess, Shiro. He obviously has a type.”

Shiro winced. 

“Stop feeling bad for me,” Keith’s voice felt brittle. “I’m the dick in this situation. I’m the bad guy. I’m making everyone miserable and causing them all to walk on eggshells around me.” 

“You aren’t making everyone miserable.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Please, Hunk hasn’t looked me in the eyes in days. The mindmeld is a fucking mess. The only person who hasn’t noticed I’ve become a total asshole is a little preoccupied.”

“Don’t do that,” Shiro said quietly. “Don’t make yourself into something you’re not.”

“I’m not, I’m just—.”

“You’ve got a good heart, Keith,” Shiro said softly. “Treat it like you would someone else’s.” 

 

 

Ever since the explosion, Lance and Keith were careful. 

They waited more in the next month than they had in the entire three years they had been working together. They listened to each other’s theories and concerns and thought through each of their ambushes before they moved.

And, God, they were unstoppable. 

They were something to be feared, quick and smart in each of their moves. They covered each other’s blind spots with a grace that felt akin to telepathy. They moved as if they shared a single body, sliding and spinning in a dance that no one else could follow.

They created a new tempo in their hesitance. 

It was something new. Something great. Something Keith never wanted to stop. 

 

One night, Keith was in the kitchen. 

He had come home late from a Blades mission and couldn’t remember the last time he ate. He had flown through too many solar systems that day and still wasn’t really sure what time it was.

All he knew was that the rest of the castle was asleep. 

He preferred it that way, not having to hide the winces as he rummaged through the kitchen. A Galra ship had caught up to the transport Keith had been guarding. Their ion blasters had done a number on Keith’s ship, sending them into brief freefall. 

Keith’s shoulders and wrists already ached from hauling at the steer. His knees were sore from knocking hard into the control board and he had a bitch of a headache.

He was ready to shove something edible in his mouth and sleep for at least twelve hours when the hallway light clicked on and there was a soft squeak behind him. 

Keith turned and immediately wondered who was playing a prank on him. 

What karmic upset had caused him to deserve seeing Niraxi in the dim kitchen lighting, gorgeous and mussed and in Lance’s shirt. 

Keith didn’t really know what to do, too exhausted to do anything but blankly stare at her. 

Her hair hung in free waves down to her hips. Lance’s shirt was large on her shoulders, sliding over to reveal the perfect jut of her collarbone. She was wearing what looked like Lance’s shorts as well, her legs long and gleaming even in the dark in the kitchen. 

She was otherworldly, so dazzlingly beautiful that, for a blink of time, Keith couldn’t even find it in himself to fault Lance.

But then he remembered all the tiny, horrible parts of himself and felt an envy so starved of reason that he had to turn away. 

She said something in that beautiful lilt of her language and Keith wasn’t sure if not understanding her made him happier or angrier. 

He took pity on her and turned on the translation device in his Blade uniform, nodding for her to repeat. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as he opened the fridge. “I’ll— um— I was hungry.”

Keith bit back the evil idea to ask her how exactly she worked up the appetite. 

“Do you eat sandwiches?” He asked instead.

“Um, yes?”

“Perfect,” he tossed a loaf of bread onto the counter. “You assemble.”

He could feel Niraxi standing frozen in the hallway, unsure if it was a trap. But Keith was hungry and tired and too used to the feeling of a broken heart. If this woman was going to get Lance, the least she could do was improve the speed of him collapsing into bed. 

Finally, he heard the sound of the bread bag unrolling and felt his own shoulders relax.

He pulled out some random cold cuts and cheeses from the fridge, along with a mysterious green condiment that made everything taste a bit like pizza.

By the time he turned around, Niraxi had four slices of bread ready on two plates. She was watching him expectantly, aiming to please.

Keith offered a nod of approval. 

He began to chip away pieces of the cheese while Niraxi neatly positioned the cold cuts. His work was messy from his aching shoulders. 

The longer they worked in silence, the more Niraxi began to follow the distinctly awkward way Keith was holding his arms.

“May I?”

Keith felt childishly possessive of his cheese, before relenting and sliding it her way. 

She began to slice neatly, adding them to their sandwiches. 

“Thanks.”

“You all have been so kind to me,” she offered him a particularly beautiful smile. “I want to be helpful.”

“I’m sure Lance finds you very helpful.”

It was mean. So fucking mean and unfair and Keith hated the words the second they left his mouth. But Niraxi didn’t even blink, either accepting his cruelty or not understanding it in the translation. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Long day.”

“No need to apologize,” Niraxi offered him a small smile. “Here I am, intruding on your long day.”

Her kindness made Keith feel even worse. 

Once they made their sandwiches, Niraxi ate it as if it was the most delicious thing in the world. She let a little bit of her ladyship slip, taking eager and large bites. 

“Your Earthens create the most delicious food.”

Keith snorted. “If you think this is delicious, you should try Hunk’s chili sometime. It made Lance cry.”

Niraxi looked stricken. “From sadness?”

“No, well, maybe,” Keith shrugged. “His cooking always makes the others a little homesick.”

“But not you.” 

Niraxi was watching him closely. 

Keith cleared his throat, looking away. “No. I don’t have much of a home to miss. Not until—.”

He trailed off, finding it pointless to continue because he wasn’t sure what homesickness felt like until he saw Lance find something beautiful on a foreign planet. 

“I see,” something shifted in Niraxi’s expression. 

Keith realized with a start that it was guilt. 

“What?”

She hesitated, her slitted pupils studying him. “Keith. I—.”

She trailed off, chewing hard on the side of her lip. Keith felt his heartbeat quicken because this was new. They had hardly spoken before, but now here she was, looking close to confession. 

“I think,” she paused, starting again. “I’m not supposed to say, but I think you should know—.”

“No shot I’m missing a kitchen party.”

The two of them whirled around to see Lance standing in the kitchen, dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants and grinning broadly. 

Niraxi smiled brightly, holding up her plate.

”I see you’ve discovered a sandwich,” Lance grinned at them, armed with his own translator comm. “I hope Keith was a good ambassador.”

Something passed between Lance and Niraxi, a switch of expression that Keith was too tired to follow. 

He made excuses as fast as he could, ducking out of the kitchen before he could see Lance get closer to the princess.

He imagined that if whatever Niraxi intended to tell him was important, then she would tell him later.

But she didn’t. 

She never got the chance. 

 

Four days later, they would all go to the control room, preparing for a monotonous day of sifting through reports and calls for help from civilizations under the Galra. 

Lance walked in a pace after them, face set and eyes locked on Keith. It startled Keith, he hadn’t seen Lance’s eyes that wild in years. 

But before Lance could get to him, his dashboard chimed. 

None of them expected to see Lance’s dashboard blinking with several alerts.

None of them would expect Lance to watch a few seconds of a video and plunge his bayard through the screen. 

 

 

 

II

 

They all stared at Lance’s bayard, a gleaming dagger stuck fast in the flickering monitor. 

Lance was turned away from them, hands curled into fists at his sides. 

He didn’t move, shoulders to his ears and trembling.

Keith looked between Shiro and Allura, unsure of what to do, what to say. 

“Fuck.”

It was such a harsh whisper, raw with venom. Keith wouldn’t have believed it came from Lance’s mouth if he didn’t say it again. 

And again. And again and again until it was a roar. Until he was ripping himself away, pacing and clawing hands through his hair. He spun, marching forward and ripping out his bayard from the monitor so quickly that it made Coran and Pidge wince. 

Lance’s face was twisted in rage, eyes pinned into slits. 

Keith had never seen Lance like this. 

It was like he was torn apart, a raw wound as he spun to his control desk. He began to flick through the screens like a madman, eyes wild and desperate. 

The rest of them stood in silence, paralyzed in the news. 

Hunk was the first to dare to step forward. “Lance.”
“Don’t,” Lance’s voice was like shattered glass. 

His fingers flew along the keys, typing in coordinates and data codes that Keith couldn’t parse through. 

“What are you doing?”

“Raxi and I made a plan if this ever happened,” Lance said quickly. “She had trackers sewn into her corsets.”

Keith could imagine Lance coming up with that. The two of them curled together, Lance’s arms wrapped around her as he tried to think of the best way to keep her safe. The intimacy of it made Keith a little sick to his stomach. 

Error codes flashed on the screen. Lance’s jaw tightened.

More typing. More errors. Pidge and Hunk joined him at the monitor, beginning their own onslaught of typing. Shiro was now standing behind Lance, for once doing a good job of not looking at Keith. Allura and Coran were clearly communicating wordlessly, eyes worriedly darting from each other to Lance. 

Keith watched it all, staring at the screens, already knowing what none of them were willing to admit. 

The trackers weren’t working. 

However Niraxi had been taken, she had been ordered to change. 

Something thick and sour rose up his throat as he took a step forward. “Lance.”

“Shut up.”

Keith swallowed. “Lance.”

“Don’t,” Lance snarled, hands flying over the controls. “Don’t fucking say it, Keith.” 

Slowly, Pidge and Hunk pulled their fingers from the controls. Lance didn’t say anything, brow furrowed and teeth locked as he continued to search. He was mumbling nonsense under his breath, time zones and ship speeds and air locks. 

Pidge and Hunk were watching Keith. Finally, Shiro looked over at him as well. 

There was an unspoken expectation, let the hothead break the bad news, but Keith didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to break into this panicked trance. He watched Lance frantically search and wondered if this was what it looked like to lose someone you love.

He knew that this would undoubtedly get ugly and mean and, with a snap of realization, he realized he would far prefer Lance taking it out on him than the others. 

Keith already felt the blades pushing in. He may as well dig them deeper.

“Lance,” Keith rounded around the control board. “She’s not wearing her tracker.”

“You don’t know that,” Lance spat. “There could be a signal error or an interference of some kind—.”

With a long sweep of his fingers, Keith cleared away Lance’s coding. 

Lance whirled on him with teeth gritted and a reared fist. Keith caught it, hands wrapping tight around Lance’s wrists and pinning them between the two of them. 

This close, Lance was torture to look at. 

His eyes were wide, pupils dilated in fear and bouncing back from Keith and the control board. He was shaking, his breathing coming out in hot, angry bursts.

“She’s not wearing her tracker,” Keith repeated firmly. “They had her take it off and disable it.”

Lance stared at him, mouth drawn in a stunned horror.

“So,” Keith said evenly. “What do we do next?”

“It’s my fault,” Lance whispered, the anger chipping off his voice like old paint. “Fuck, Keith, it’s my fault.”

“I didn’t ask that. What do we do next?”

The control room was silent, everyone watching the two of them.

Lance squeezed his eyes shut, hissing out a tight breath. “I don’t know.”

“Think,” Keith could feel Lance’s heartbeat fluttering in his wrist. “Come on, Lance. We aren’t being impulsive idiots anymore. Think.”

Emotions flooded Lance’s face. First, his anger only grew, the white of his teeth glinting as he snarled at Keith. He was furious that Keith was pointing out the obvious, sidestepping feelings to force him to focus. Then it faded into a hurt realization, knowing that Keith was right. 

He searched Keith’s gaze, hands trembling in his hold, and then his eyes went somewhere far away.

He sucked in short, scared breaths as he thought.

Despite it all, Keith couldn’t help a little rush of affection as he watched Lance. He had always loved watching Lance think. It was so different from his typical ease, the effortless way he moved through the world. 

Thinking kept Lance’s brow pinned over his eyes, blue irises dark and latched onto something in the distance. His mouth was tight and jaw hard, giving the problem all the focus he could summon.

The others waited, holding their breaths. 

Keith squeezed Lance’s wrists. “Give me the first step.”

”We,” Lance swallowed, “we call Alim.”

“Okay,” Keith nodded. “I don’t know who that is, but they sound important.”

“She is the head of Raxi’s security,” Lance was turning out of Keith’s hold, fumbling for his controls again. “She’ll help, if she doesn’t kill me first.”

“Kill you?”

“Yup,” Lance’s face had grown slightly waxy. “No one cares for Raxi like she does.”

Anyone would have taken Lance’s words to mean something different. 

That Alim was family to Niraxi, maybe even a best friend. 

But there was a grim certainty in Lance’s words. And an undeniable cut of guilt on his face. 

Keith stared at him, a little stunned and a little raw, and realized that he hadn’t been the only one gritting his teeth through this relationship. 

There was someone else. Someone who envied Lance just as much as Keith envied Niraxi. 

Lance’s hand wavered over the dial command. 

Keith realized that they would be about to listen to someone lose the love of their life.

The realization came like a slap in the face, the kinship a knife in his back, and he was turning to the others before he could think. 

“Give him the room.” 

The others stared blankly at him, confused, but he didn’t slow as he ushered them out. 

If it had been him, if it had been Niraxi calling him to tell him Lance was gone, he would rather die than have the conversation overheard.

He had Shiro and Hunk by their arms and was hipchecking Pidge towards the door when Lance’s call connected.

“Alim?” Lance’s voice wavered. “Ali— can you hear me?”

There was a rip of static, then a confused sound that Keith couldn’t decipher. 

“Alim.” Lance’s voice broke. “I—I’m sorry.”

They made it to the doors just in time, the doors sliding shut behind them as Lance apologized again and again. 

 

Keith found Lance on the observatory deck later that night. 

He was sitting alone, curled up with his knees pulled to his chest and studying the stars as if they had all the answers he needed. 

After hesitating a fraction of a second, Keith joined him. 

Lance didn’t acknowledge him, which was probably for the best. Keith felt far too unsure in his place now. Things hadn’t felt this unsteady between them in years. He didn’t know what to do, how to help in something so far removed from him. 

But it wasn’t removed, was it? 

Keith had spent the afternoon scrambling through himself, trying to see if there was any of him that felt happy over Niraxi’s disappearance. He couldn’t find any contentment, but he couldn’t be sure. It was like examining a healing wound. After all the love and attention he had received from his team over the years, would the lonely darkness still peek through? That possessiveness that came from a world that loved to strip everything from him?

There was a small, scared part of him that wondered if he had done this. Was this all a karmic upset from something a sick pit in him had wished for?

He wondered, if Lance knew how he felt, if he would blame him? 

He wondered if the blame would be better than the feeling of a secret threatening to rip itself out of him. 

Was he coming to care for a friend? Was he coming to pick up the pieces and put together something that would look at him like he did Niraxi? He didn’t know anymore, he had no clue where the envious part of him ended and the sincere began. 

As he tapped his fingers against his knees, he heard the click of Lance’s swallow. 

“Alim is sending out parties to search the quadrant,” Lance said hoarsely. “They are dividing the space around the planet and seeing if they can catch any emission trails from the ship.”

It was smart. Galra ships weren’t made to keep space clean. Their speed caused them to pollute.

”Will you join them?”

“Maybe in a few days, once Alim is less likely to kill me.”

Keith slid his pointer finger along his thumbnail. “She’s in love with Niraxi, isn’t she?”

Lance looked over at him, surprised. “How did you figure that out?”

Keith wanted to say because birds of a feather flock together. He decided to shrug instead.

“Lucky guess.”

Lance regarded him curiously for a moment. Then he sighed, lowering his head and pushing the palms of his hands hard against his eyes.

”What will you do?” Keith asked. “Until you join the search.”

“I have a couple ideas,” Lance said into his hands.

“I’m sure,” Keith leaned towards him. “Lance. How much was the ransom?” 

Lance sighed. 

“You’re the only one who saw the video. Pidge and Coran couldn’t recover the footage.”

“I’m not pulling you into this, Keith. This is my mess.”

“How is your girlfriend getting abducted your mess?”

Lance hesitated. “It just is. You would get it if you were in my place.”

It was stupid. Keith was being stupid. He shouldn’t have gotten angry. But he felt it rip up his lungs, explosive and unforgiving. 

He probably would get it. He probably already did because he had seen what he would do when Lance was in danger and it involved Keith throwing himself on top of him. 

“Don’t shut me out because I’m single, Lance.”

Lance twitched. “That’s not what I meant.”

”Isn’t it?” God, he couldn’t breathe. “Don’t excuse whatever stupid decision you are about to make with my loneliness.”

Lance’s face went hard. “That’s not fair.”

“None of this,” Keith countered angrily. “And we can either continue to yell at each other or you could let me help. How much is the ransom, Lance?”

Lance didn’t look at him. He glared up at the stars. 

“It’s manageable.”

”What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I can pay it.”

Before Keith could ask any more questions, Lance got to his feet. 

Keith realized, as he sat in the dark observatory, that Lance hadn’t looked at him as he left. 

And that gnawed at him. 

It picked and prodded as Keith tried to sleep that night. 

He had fitful tangles of dreams, of blue eyes and turned cheeks and lies. 

In those blurs of reality and sleep, Keith replayed the conversation. He analyzed the times that Lance looked at him and the times he didn’t. 

He thought about Lance plunging his bayard into the monitor, remembering that burst of anger over and over again. 

It had ruined the footage, even Pidge wasn’t able to recover it. It was so unlike Lance. It felt more like something Keith would do. 

Lance wasn’t that impulsive. He thought too quickly to make stupid mistakes like that, especially if there were important parts to the footage. 

Keith flung himself awake, gasping for breath. 

And then he stumbled to the door. 

 

“You destroyed it on purpose.”

Keith found Lance fully dressed in his paladin gear, standing at the airlock that led to the lions. He didn’t have anything, not even a knapsack for food or weapons. 

It made Keith want to cry. 

Lance turned. His blue eyes dropped up and down Keith’s T-shirt and boxers and Keith felt so cruelly vulnerable that his heartbeat quickened. 

“It’s you,” Keith fought through a dry throat. “You’re the ransom.”

Lance didn’t say anything for a long moment. 

But he held Keith’s gaze, something old and sad in his eyes, and Keith found he preferred it when Lance couldn’t bear to look at him. 

Sometimes lies were better than reality. 

“You didn’t want us to know,” Keith’s chest was tight. “You planned to leave without telling us.”

“Keith,” Lance said quietly. “I’m sorry. I know this is not my best idea but—.”

“Not your best idea?” Keith’s voice rose. “This is insane, Lance! You— you can’t do this!”

“I can’t just let her die!”

“You are a fucking paladin, Lance!”

“And she is a princess!” Lance snapped back, eyes hard and cold. “And in this mess because of me. They want me.”

”Everyone wants you!”

Keith hadn’t meant to say it. Hadn’t meant for the words to be so heavy with too much. There was no denying the want wrapped around them, the pain fermenting them. They were bitter words, ugly and jealous sounds that Keith had let knock against the back of his teeth until now. 

And there had been a reason for that. Because Lance looked like he was beginning to unravel a secret that he wished he didn’t know. 

“What,” Lance looked at him, aghast. “What are you doing right now?”

Keith felt something in his hindbrain jolt to attention. “I— nothing.”

“No, what is this?” Lance demanded. “Why are you being a fucking asshole right now?” 

“I’m not!”

Lance’s face was hard. “Yes, you are.”

Keith could feel his face getting hot, his pulse leaping to attention in his wrists. This was it, he was going to be caught. His heart was stuck in an arrow and he was bleeding everywhere.

He had a choice. Stay the asshole or be honest.

“I—,” Lance’s face was angry and angular and as handsome as normal as Keith tried to summon the words. “I—.”

Lance raised his eyebrows. 

“Fuck,” Keith’s voice wavered. “Don’t make me say it.”

Something must have crossed Keith’s face then. A bandage peeling off an open wound. Because Lance’s eyes narrowed and then widened and his face crumpled. 

“Shit,” Lance hissed through his teeth, taking a step back. “Shit, Keith.”

Keith tasted a mix of tears and bile in the back of his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do this to me,” Lance shoved his hands into his hair, expression twisted. “I can’t believe this is happening right now.”

Keith wasn’t sure if he had ever been this mortified in his life. He had spent an embarrassing amount of time imagining what it would be like to confess to Lance. He had spent most of that time reassuring himself that if Lance were to reject him, he would at least be nice about it. He would be awkward and sheepish and genuinely sorry that it wasn’t reciprocated. Somehow, Lance would be the one apologizing by the end of it. Keith would manage an escape and bury himself in his room for at least two days and then they would move on. It would be okay. 

Keith was quickly realizing he was an idiot. 

Because Lance looked anything but okay. He was gaping at Keith like he had spoken in a foreign language, blue eyes wide with shock. 

“Fuck,” Lance whispered. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith said again, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. 

Lance tore his gaze away, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. ”Fuck, Keith. Why is this happening right now?”

”This isn’t just happening right now,” Keith croaked. 

Lance refused to look at him. 

“You’ve known,” Keith pushed on no matter how much the words burned in his mouth. “You’ve known since the explosion. I know you have.”

Lance’s hands twitched, both of them remembering sitting in that quiet infirmary, Lance staring into Keith and seeing far more than he would like. 

“You can just play dumb again,” Keith whispered. “Forget it and we will move on and it will all be fine.”

“I can’t just move on,” Lance sputtered. “I’m about to fucking stage a rescue mission for my girlfriend and you are confessing your feelings for me?”

Lance spat out the words like they were sour. 

Keith was beginning to get angry. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like the feeling of his heart bleeding out. 

“Sorry,” Keith’s voice was cold. “But since it seems like you are off to get yourself killed, it felt like a good time.”

”That’s not fair.”

“Is that not exactly what you are doing?” Keith snapped. “You haven’t planned, you have no clue who you are going up against, but you are still packing your bags. You are on a suicide mission for a girl you met two months ago!” 

“Don’t be cruel, Keith.”

“I could ask the same of you.” 

Keith hated the waver in his voice. It caused Lance to falter, appraising Keith with something other than panicked anger. He looked, as the shock faded, terribly sad. 

“I have to do this,” Lance said hoarsely. “I have to. Do you understand that?”

”Starting to,” Keith looked away. “Here’s a question. While you are off getting killed, what’s the plan for Voltron? For the rest of the fucking galaxy that we swore we’d save?”

“Keith.”

“You promised!” Keith’s voice was getting loud and desperate. “You fucking promised me that you would be careful. We promised each other that we would stop being impulsive idiots and think things through. Together.”

“I’ve thought this through.”

Keith’s eyes were beginning to burn. “Then you are far more selfish than I thought.”

Lance watched him for a long moment. 

“Keith,” Lance hesitated. “Keith, you have to understand that— if you knew—.”

“If I knew what?”

Lance chewed hard on the inside of his cheek, staring at Keith with something that had to be grief. 

Then he turned away, and left the room. 

 

Once the rest of the team woke up, Lance’s disappearance wasn’t well received. 

Hunk and Pidge had taken turns yelling at Keith, shouting alternative versions of why the fuck didn’t you wake us up and you should have just started screaming and fuck Keith, what the hell happened? 

Keith couldn’t summon up the courage to tell them everything. 

That he had confessed and Lance turned away. He had ripped himself apart to make Lance see him a little more clearly and the mess didn’t feel worth cleaning. 

He sat through their tirades until Shiro cut them off. 

He said that until this was sorted, they were not to leave the castle. Shit was hitting the fan and they needed to wait for the dust to settle. There was no chasing Lance until they knew where he was going. 

In clearer terms, they were on house arrest.

No access to airlocks or robot lions. 

(Keith tried getting to Red the second Shiro turned his back, only to pound on a locked door.) 

If Keith could go back, he would have done it all differently. 

He would have begged for Lance to let him come. For the two of them to do it together. He would have kept his mouth shut and continued to pine in a desperate silence. He would have dealt with it and zipped his lips.

But he had panicked and ruined everything and it had been two days since any of them had heard from Lance.

Then three days.

Then four.

Then a week. 

Then two.

And Keith thought he was going to go crazy. Keith thought that he might prefer it. 

Because the alternative was waiting with a clarity that every day felt like a step closer to a graveyard. None of them could sleep, keeping vigil with the passing time. 

Hunk kept on trying to talk to him while Pidge refused to speak to him. The two friends were entirely unsure what to do without Lance. 

Keith spent most of his time staring at his Blades comm, desperate for a mission, or working himself to death in the training room. 

They didn’t bother going on missions, not without Lance and his clever diplomacy. They were like a ladder missing a rung without Lance, stuck and waiting. 

Keith was beginning to wonder if it was worth breaking Shiro’s command and sneaking out. 

He was close to packing his bags fifteen days after Lance left, sitting in the control room and staring blankly out into the galaxy.

Somewhere to his left, Pidge’s console rang with a notification. 

Then there was the sound of them staggering to their feet, a chair hitting the ground, and a long, jagged scream. 

 

He couldn’t read the language pasted over the ransom video. 

Lance was tied to a chair, bloodied and bruised in a Blades suit. He was tugging viciously at his bonds, yelling obscenities through the gag digging into his teeth, angry and hurt and so vulnerable it made Keith’s stomach flip. 

He couldn’t look at Lance, couldn’t look at the furious fear on his face, could only stare at the text at the bottom of the screen and realize he couldn’t read it. 

Pidge was scrambling over their console, sobbing and pounding out translation codes and Keith had only a second to think fuck, they are only eighteen before he was pushing them to the side and yelling for Shiro to grab them. 

Pidge was dragged back, not before they got a good hit across Keith’s shoulders, shouting that they could do it, they can handle it. 

But they were already sagging in Allura’s arms, face drained of blood. 

Hunk joined Keith, hands reassuringly steady as he flicked through discs of language codes. 

“You translate, I’ll track.”

Keith nodded, happy to be told what to do. 

Keith kept looking at Hunk’s hands, the clever, strong fingers flying over the keyboard. He was holding his breath, he realized, his chest locked in a silent scream. His ears were ringing with Pidge’s yells and Coran’s sharp orders and Allura’s soft reassurances. 

His head was spinning and he hadn’t released the air in his lungs yet. He didn’t think he could until they knew what the text said. 

The video was silent but Keith knew that the foulest shit must have been leaving Lance’s mouth. There was a shadow in the corner that was getting angrier, judging by the stiff hold of broad shoulders.

Lance was taunting them, sneering and biting insults like they were venom, angry and gorgeous and foolish. 

Keith felt himself waver, knees threatening to buckle as the shadow swooped forward and hit Lance hard across the face. 

He was glad that Pidge had been pulled away, even Hunk’s face took on a certain green tint at the sight of Lance’s head snapping to the side. 

Keith couldn’t break the code. Every time he managed to cut through the footage coding enough to find a translator, it was all shuffled again. 

“Fuck.” Keith didn’t think he had ever heard Hunk swear before. “Fuck!”

He looked at Shiro, lips wavering. 

“It’s live.”

The blood in Keith’s ears roared. 

“It’s live?” Shiro repeated. “The footage is live?”

“That’s why I can’t track them,” Hunk whispered. “They are moving.”

“This is Lance right now?” Shiro joined them at the monitor. 

“Keep trying,” Keith said sharply. “At least find a solar system they are near, a planet, something.” 

Hunk’s hands had stopped moving. His eyes were on Shiro. 

“I can do that,” Hunk said slowly. 

“Then do it!” Keith snapped.

”We have a choice,” Hunk said to Shiro. “Translate the text or try to track them.”

“That’s not even a question!” Keith barked. “We are doing both.”

“The coding is more complex than you can get through,” Hunk said, voice beginning to waver. “It’ll take the whole server. We have to choose.”

“Fuck that—.”

Shiro was already walking towards Keith. “Hunk, translate.”

Before Keith could think to react, he was being tugged back. 

Keith swore viciously, digging at Shiro’s hold around his chest. 

“Fuck you, let me go!” 

“I’m sorry, Keith,” Shiro whispered. “But we have to know what they want.”

Hunk swooped into his place, fingers flying over the keys. Keith writhed in Shiro’s grip, howling shit he really hoped Shiro would elect to forgive.

His adrenaline was scorching, he thought he would burn from the inside out. 

“Who cares what they want?” Keith hollered. “Fucking find him!”

“I’m almost through!” Hunk called. “I’ve got most of it— they want—.”

Hunk froze.

Lifted his hands from the keyboard and just stared. 

“They don’t want anything.”

Keith went still in Shiro’s hold. Shiro nearly dropped his hands entirely.

“What?” Pidge choked out. 

Hunk looked like a ghost. 

He spun the monitor to face them. Keith forced himself to not look at Lance’s scarily still body, head drooping with a bloody nose. 

The text was now translated into English. 

The Galra Empire sends this as a message to the paladins of Voltron. Let this be a lesson to leave our diplomatic matters be. 

And then, the screen went dark. 

For a moment, none of them spoke. 

“Diplomatic matters?” Allura whispered in disbelief. “Lance was just rescuing his lover.”

An uncontrollable flinch went up Keith’s spine. 

Shiro squeezed his arm in apology before letting him go. 

Keith swayed, gripping hard to the nearest desk. 

It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. 

“This is your fault.” Pidge’s voice was like an icepick.

Slowly, Keith turned to face them. Their face was white, chin trembling. 

Keith felt vaguely as if the world was ending. His fingernails felt too tight and his tongue too large and he was pretty sure that his heart would rip itself free from his chest any second now. 

Because Lance was taken and hurt and his friends were looking at him as if he had something to do with it. 

He wanted to tell them that maybe they were right. That he was sorry because he should have pinned Lance to the floor and screamed until someone came to help him. 

He was sorry, sorry, sorry. He was so fucking sad that it felt like he was bleeding out. 

But Keith on his best days felt like a cornered animal and on his worst he was ready to bite. 

And this was a bad day. 

“My fault?” Keith hissed.

“Guys,” Shiro stepped forward, holding out his hands. “Don’t do this.”

“You should have pounded on our doors when you realized where he was going,” Pidge pushed out, throat thick with tears. “You should have woken us up and maybe all of us could have convinced him to wait, to stay—.”

“Nothing was convincing him, Pidge,” Keith’s voice was like iron. “Trust me.”

“Trust you?” They snarled. “You let him walk out the front door!” 

“Pidge,” Hunk said warily. 

“You know if it was you,” Pidge said in a vengeful whisper, “he would have never let you leave.”

Keith couldn’t feel his face. “Pidge, if it was me, he would have opened the door himself.”

“That’s not true,” Pidge said, red faced and furious. “He wouldn’t let any of us—.”

”Drop your fucking standards, Pidge,” Keith growled. “Lance isn’t a saint. He made this decision all on his own.” 

“Explain it to me then,” they pushed out, eyes narrowed into slits. “Explain why he left.”

Keith felt like he was being pried open. 

“Leave him alone,” Shiro ordered. “Let’s all take a beat and breathe—.”

“I just don’t understand,” Pidge said desperately. “What happened? What made Lance walk out that door? Why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you beg—.”

“I did!”

His voice rang through the room. 

“He chose her!” He continued, the words rushing out of him. “I stood here and I begged him to stay and he looked at me like he knew everything and he chose her. Not us.”

His voice felt like it was caving around the weight of the truth. 

He looked at Shiro, watching the realization crest on the older man’s face, and felt like crying. “Not me.”

And Pidge shut up.

They watched Keith, stunned. Allura and Coran looked similarly thunderstruck, appraising Keith like he was a stranger.

He supposed he must have looked so unlike himself. Wide-eyed and upset and lovesick. He wondered what was on his face. Was it the rage? The unrivaled fury that Lance made this choice? Was it the grief setting in? Was it embarrassment, fear, guilt? Was it all of it? Was it gruesome, watching him unravel? 

Keith felt his chest start to tighten. His breathing started to leave in short hiccups, staccato and strangled. 

“I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t wake you. I didn’t think I would need—.”

His voice broke but they all knew what he stopped himself from saying.

I thought I would be enough.

And then Pidge was hugging him, tears soaking into his shirt, and Keith felt something deep inside him break open. 

 

Later that night, Keith went to Lance’s room. 

The second he opened the door, his eyes burned. 

It still smelled like him. Like toothpaste and sea salt. 

With his heart in the back of his throat, Keith walked further into the room. Over the years, Lance had covered the walls with memories. There were posters from space malls, gadgets from planets they saved. His room felt like an embrace.

Slowly, Keith sat on the bed. 

He smoothed careful fingers over the blankets, wondering if he was pathetic enough to sleep here tonight. 

He debated it as his fingers trailed up and down, drifting lower to the edge of the bed. 

His thumbnail brushed against something misshapen.

Keith frowned, repeating the motion. He felt it again, a disjointed part of the metal bed frame. He ran his fingers over it, groping the edges until he was able to wiggle it free.

He pulled out the sliver of the bed frame and something hard hit the floor. 

For a moment, he sat there. 

Lance, the most open book Keith had ever met, had hidden something in his room. 

Hating himself a little for invading Lance’s privacy, Keith lowered his hands and fumbled along the floor until he found a small black tablet. 

And suddenly, Keith knew exactly what he was holding. 

He had one that was almost identical aside from scratches and dents after years of use. Lance’s was pristine, freshly delivered. 

Heartbeat ripping up his throat, Keith flipped the communication device over and clicked open a hidden panel. He dug his fingernail into the red groove, feeling the entire comm vibrate. 

The distress signal was otherwise silent, meant to be turned on in a cell or interrogation room. 

Keith wondered what they would think, zeroing in on the signal to find it in the Castle of Lions.

He couldn’t wait to find out. 

 

There was nothing anyone could have done to stop Keith when he rounded the corner and saw Kolivan in the control room. 

His vision went white, red, and then he had his superior’s chestplate in one hand and reared back the other. 

There was shouting and a hand, maybe Hunk’s, made a grab for his fist. But there was nothing anyone could have done. 

Because Kolivan had trained Keith well these past few years. He wasn’t a scrawny eighteen-year-old anymore. He was twenty-two and as much Galra as he was human, as much Blade as he was paladin, and he could throw one nasty punch. 

He heard a crack as his fist plowed into Kolivan’s mouth, could feel the snap as Kolivan’s hard teeth dug into his knuckles. His right arm, his best arm, was already throbbing with a quick onset of pain, but he didn’t care.

There was nothing anyone could have done because Lance was gone and it was Kolivan’s fault. 

Keith told him as much, screaming it in between curses as Hunk finally got a good grip around his chest and hauled him back. Keith howled and swore and spat in a bastardization of English, Korean, and the alien languages he picked up over the past four years. 

Shiro was shouting over him, ordering him to calm down while Pidge and Allura were assessing Kolivan’s injuries. The Blade was waving them off, casually swiping away the blood that glistened around his mouth. 

Galran blood was similar to human’s. It was just a little thinner, a little darker, running in fast lines down the hard grooves of Kolivan’s face. 

The paladins were scrambling as Keith writhed in Hunk’s grip, still confused, still not getting it. 

So Keith would just make it a little clearer, grabbing Hunk’s arms hard, hanging his weight over them, and yelling. 

“It was a Blades mission!” Keith roared. “He made Lance a fucking Blade!”

 

III

 

The room went quiet. 

The paladins looked between Keith and Kolivan. 

Kolivan straightened, watching Keith with hard eyes. 

Shiro looked at the Blade. “Is that true?”

“Lance had a Blade comm in his room,” Keith said breathlessly, nails digging into Hunk’s hold. “Why do you think he’s here?”

Kolivan’s eyes narrowed in understanding. “It’s against the Blade code to falsely activate a distress signal.”

Keith’s face felt cold. “It’s also against Blade code to send a rookie into a suicide mission.”

He turned to his team. Shiro looked torn between shock and anger. Allura’s mouth was open and parted in surprise. Pidge looked close to tears and Hunk didn’t seem to be understanding at all. 

Keith couldn’t blame them. They weren’t used to the grit of the Blades. The passing out of sacrificial lambs. 

“I don’t know what he did. I don’t know how it happened, but Lance was recruited for a Blades mission. I’m sure of it.”

Realization was dawning on their faces and a sick part of Keith wanted to laugh because, yes, it was just that obvious when you looked back. Why Lance had been so aloof. He had been more secretive in the past few months than he had been in the six years Keith had known him. 

That was what joining the Blades did. It locked you up better than any vault.

Keith would know. 

Allura looked at Kolivan. “Is that true?”

Kolivan looked at the princess for a moment. “It’s confidential.”

A breath whistled through Shiro’s teeth. Hunk’s grip loosened around Keith before dropping entirely. 

Keith took that as permission to go after Kolivan, taking two long strides until Allura beat him to it. 

One hard shove and Kolivan stumbled back, dropping into a chair with a surprised grunt. 

Allura looked unrecognizable as she stalked towards the Galra, towering over him with an expression twisted in rage. 

“I didn’t take kindly to you recruiting one of the paladins, even while aware with his indoctrination,” the Altean hissed, voice like steel. “How did you think I would take another being recruited without so much as a warning?”

Kolivan licked his lips. “Apologies, my lady. But he was in a special position that proved very helpful to us.” 

The Galra Empire sends this as a message to the paladins of Voltron. Let this be a lesson to leave our diplomatic matters be. 

Keith closed his eyes. “You needed intel on the Sarafraxians.”

“It’s confidential.”

“What will make it not confidential?” Pidge spat.

Kolivan was quiet for a moment. 

When Keith opened his eyes, he found his superior’s eyes on him.

The castle’s control room felt too big and too cold. Keith stiffened, lifting his chin. 

“You didn’t come for the distress signal.”

Kolivan nodded. What he did come for became very obvious. 

Shiro rolled back his shoulders. “Absolutely not.”

“There’s been an issue in the operation.”

“An issue?” Pidge hissed. “You got one of our own abducted!”

“I’m not giving you another friend to lose,” Hunk snapped, and Keith would’ve felt touched if he wasn’t trapped in Kolivan’s gaze.

“What’s the mission?”

“No,” Shiro stepped between them. “No. We aren’t discussing this.”

His face was hard as he turned to the Galra. 

“Kolivan, I respect you as a leader and an ally, but this is far past alliance. You’re using my team as bait and I won’t stand for it.”

“Respectfully, Paladin, it’s not your decision.”

The control room turned stifling. Keith’s tongue felt too large in his mouth as he looked at his team. At Pidge, who was watching him with large, worried eyes.

At Hunk, who was chewing anxiously at his lip. I’m not giving you another friend to lose. At Allura, who was glaring at Kolivan. At Shiro, who was watching Keith with a look akin to a desperate resignation.

Shiro always could figure Keith out. 

He had figured out how he felt about Lance who knows how long ago. Keith could still remember the kind pity on Shiro’s face.

You’ve got a good heart, Keith. Treat it like you would someone else’s. 

Keith thought about Lance. Thought about the past two weeks since his disappearance and all the things that could have happened. All the things he could have felt, all the ways he could be hurting. 

He thought about Lance’s smile, that tiny private one that Keith only saw on special occasions. On the nights where everything felt a little loose, a little easier.

With a vicious ache in his chest, Keith realized exactly what he would do to see it again. 

Keith licked his dry lips. Cleared his tight throat.

“What’s the mission?” He asked again.  

 

Princess Niraxi of the Sarafrax empire had reached out to the Blades of Marmora a year prior. 

From what Keith could ascertain from the uncomfortably small file on the operation, their correspondence could be summarized easily. 

The princess had caught on to her parents, the Sarafraxian sovereigns, and their allegiance to the Galra. Despite the facade of protest they put on, they were secretly aligned with the Galra to guarantee protection. The Galra empire was steadily plucking through their solar system, and they wanted immunity. After all, the Galran fleets were already hunting the Sarafrax cargo in their seas. It was suspected they were trying to find a way to quietly resolve the pirating, without letting their people know they were bending to the Galra. 

The best way to guarantee gold-plated immunity was to rid the Galrans of their most meddlesome opponent. 

Voltron.

Niraxi had stumbled upon the notes from a closed door meeting, the sovereigns and their highest advisors planning to send a distress message to Voltron. They would lure the paladins into their kingdom and do anything they could to kill them. 

What they didn’t expect was for the paladins to only send one. 

One that was quickly swept away and informed of the betrayal moments after he landed. 

Keith’s hold on the datapad tightened as he read further, seeing Kolivan’s matter-of-fact recollection of Lance’s inclusion into the team. He never called Lance by his name, just INFORMANT. 

INFORMANT reported friendly conversations between Niraxi.

INFORMANT shared that the princess is more than willing to help them and the two of them will further discuss how to best dismantle the sovereigns’ intentions.

INFORMANT reached a decision on how to stay involved in Sarafrax. It only made sense, what with his reputation and how the entire galaxy spoke of him. Loverboy. 

INFORMANT would enter into a mutually beneficial relationship with the princess. They would use the courtship as a way to get Niraxi off the planet whenever they could while also helping INFORMANT inside. His mission was to find proof of the sovereign’s correspondence with the Galra and get it out of Sarafrax. 

A faint buzzing took over in Keith’s ears. He dropped the datapad onto the table, pressing his fingers hard to his mouth. 

It had all been fake. 

It was all just a ploy to get Lance inside and Niraxi to a safe ally. 

It was fake. 

Keith moved his hands to cover his eyes, trying to think through the past months. Lance and Niraxi had held hands, hugged, kissed once or twice, but only in front of expectant crowds. They hardly touched inside the castle. Keith had always thought it was out of respect for Lance’s friends. 

And the way Lance talked about her, it was never about her beauty or their connection. It was her intelligence, her humor, her kindness. The things a friend would rave about.

And when she was discovered missing, his rage wasn’t that of a lover. Not if you looked closely. It was fury over losing someone and feeling like it was your fault. 

Lance had known the danger Niraxi was in, that’s why he tried to get her to the castle as often as possible. But she had still been taken. 

And when Lance had looked at him after Keith’s confession. His shock melting into frustration, demanding to know what was going on. Asking Keith over and over why, why, why now?

Why now. 

Keith sat up straight, heart thudding to attention. 

Keith, you have to understand that— if you knew—.

If I knew what?

Had Lance been about to tell him about the mission? 

Had he been about to tell him to wait? 

Keith pressed the heels of his hands hard into his eyes, wondering and wishing, wishing and wondering. 

 

“I don’t like this.”

Keith grunted in acknowledgement. 

Shiro sighed, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. 

For a moment, he just watched Keith continue to pack. 

Keith wasn’t bringing much. He had packed his Blade suit and dagger along with a couple other essentials and weapons.

Shiro shifted his weight. “We could be useful. We could help.”

“We are already involving too many paladins,” Keith muttered, pulling his knapsack shut. “It’s too risky to involve you.”

“This is already far too risky.”

Keith fixed Shiro with a hard stare. “Don’t go there.” 

“I see,” Shiro started slowly, “we are not involving Voltron.”

Keith didn’t respond, but Shiro was right. 

He wasn’t a paladin on this mission. He was Galra. 

“You realize what you are doing, right?” Shiro asked. “You are doing the exact same thing he did.”

Keith didn’t bother denying it. He wondered if he looked as crazed as Lance did, wracked with fear and guilt as he packed his bags and set off into likely numbered days. 

“I’ll be fine.” 

“You don’t know what you are walking into,” Shiro countered as Keith slung his pack over his shoulders. “This could all be a trap. They wanted to kill us.”

“Well, I’m not going to let Lance die just because we are afraid it’s a trap.”

“Keith—.”

“Shiro—.” Keith countered sharply, turning to face him. “I’m going, alright? I have to. You know I do. If I left him, then I would drive myself insane not knowing.” 

Shiro fixed him with a hard stare. “Promise me you will go into this not as a Blade, not as a paladin, but as Keith. Don’t overthink, don’t be self-sacrificial. Think and focus and get him back.” 

Keith’s grip on the bag tightened. “I will.”

“Good,” Shiro uncrossed his arms, turning to leave. “I look forward to kicking both your asses once this is finished.”

 

 

By the next morning, Keith was walking into one of the Blades’ main information databases. Kolivan didn’t look surprised by his entrance, barely glancing his way as he worked at the main server. 

Other Blades acknowledged him, sending him formal nods as he passed their monitors. Wylax, a Blade who was always easy to get along with considering he was half-Galra as well, even dared to smile at him. It wasn’t too long ago when none of them bothered looking at him. It had been a long journey to earn their respect, but it was worth it.

Keith was already mentally cataloguing which favors he would ask those most willing to help him when he reached Kolivan. 

“You’re late.”

“According to the time zone of the planet quadrant we are flying over, I’m early.”

There was a cough behind them, Wylax hiding a laugh. 

“Cute,” Kolivan brooded even harder. “Listen carefully.”

Keith knew when to be quick. He had his datapad out and was ready for notes before Kolivan’s next breath. 

“McClain went after Princess Niraxi at 0300 hours in last week’s rotation,” Kolivan said, sliding a series of flight reports along his screen. “He was following intel on a Galra ship seen near the Sarafrax system during the princess’s abduction. Our intel seemed correct.”

When Kolivan’s monitor flicked to a surveillance video. 

It was grainy, but Keith knew Lance when he saw him. Even in the shitty footage, Keith’s mouth went a little dry seeing Lance in the Blades uniform. 

It had taken Keith at least a year to get comfortable in the skin-tight uniform, but Lance looked like a natural. He slipped in and out of the shadows, careful to keep the gleaming bayard tucked against his side. 

“We intercepted this security footage before it was sent to the motherboard of whatever fleet this ship belongs to,” Kolivan glanced at him. “Our efforts were in vain. They found him on the ship.”

Keith’s throat went tight. “How do you know?”

Kolivan watched him. “We received this footage two days after his disappearance.”

Keith’s face went hot, then cold. Pinpricks of shock raced up his arms. 

“Twelve days,” his voice felt detached. “You’ve known Lance was abducted for twelve days.” 

If it weren’t for Wylax’s sharp throat clear, Keith would have swung at Kolivan again. But then Keith saw the carefully impassive expression on Kolivan’s face and realized he was being tested.

Kolivan wanted to see if Keith would lose his temper. 

Knowing that showing a loose hold on his anger would cost him the mission, Keith bit his tongue. 

Kolivan’s gaze finally moved back to the footage. “Suffice to say they know he’s a paladin. They likely plan to torture them and then kill him. Probably in front of an audience.”

The inside of Keith’s cheek was bleeding again. ”What do you need me to do?”

Kolivan looked over at him. “Easy enough. I need you to take his place.”

Keith arched an eyebrow. “Lance was playing a besotted soldier.”

“Right.”

There was a sardonic twitch to Kolivan’s lips and Keith himself had to fight back a sort of incredulous laugh. 

“Right,” Keith repeated. “Shouldn’t be that hard.”

 

The Sarafraxians woke up the next morning to a bang. 

Or more of a crash.

Red groaned against Keith’s rough landing. He murmured an apology as he shook out the jolt of the collision from his fingers. 

As he pushed open the door and squinted against the expanse of sparkling water, he could see that his obnoxious landing had the desired effect.

Sarafraxians were sleepily peering out of their windows, rubbing their eyes and muttering curiously to each other. 

No guards were moving to arrest him yet, so there was that.

“Alright, Red,” he muttered. “If anyone tries to fuck with you, fire up the lasers.”

He felt a vibrating growl in agreement. 

Keith walked down the ramp quickly, making a show of looking around frantically. He reached the first Sarafraxian and painted his face in urgency.

”Is he here?” He asked quickly after flicking on his translator. “Is Lance here?”

The woman stared cluelessly at him. 

People were beginning to surround him, more curious than frightened. It was a bright side to their galactic stardom. Everyone knew to not fear a giant robotic cat and whatever came out of it. 

“The Blue Paladin,” Keith said loudly. “He must be here. He has to be. Please. Tell me you’ve seen him.”

The aliens were beginning to murmur to each other. Keith continued to play the part, flitting through the crowd, asking each newcomer urgently if they had seen the Blue Paladin. 

Kolivan’s instructions had been clear.

Go to Sarafrax. Act as if there was no ransom video. Pretend like Lance has taken Niraxi in a scandalous, romantic affair. Do not give the Galra the panic they want. And find out everything Lance knows.

It was a long list, but Keith was a chronic overachiever. 

He had stirred up the crowd enough, his translator catching snippets of their whispers to each other. 

The Blue Paladin is missing? 

I heard the princess had been taken, but maybe she is with the paladin? 

Have the two simply eloped? 

If the other paladins do not know where he is, he must not want to be found. 

Keith felt an exhilarated thrill rise up his chest. It was working. The Sarafraxians were beginning to shift away from their fear, eagerly diving into the scandal. 

The crowd was beginning to get excited, hissing theories explicit enough to make Keith suck in his cheeks to hide a smile. 

Asshat that he was, Kolivan was undeniably clever. 

He regarded the aliens, now sold on his performance. 

“Well,” Keith told the aliens. “Take me to your leader.”

 

Keith could admit that there was something quite lovely about being able to finally lose his absolute shit. 

He marched in front of the Sarafraxians, snapping his teeth at any of them that tried to get too close. 

He threw open the doors to the throne room, earning several surprised gasps and unsheathed weapons from the guards. It was packed, at least two dozen Sarafraxians sat at a grand marble table. His outburst would be public. 

Excellent. 

At the head of the table were two aliens that were just as unbelievably beautiful as Niraxi. 

Keith felt a snap of anger seeing the sovereigns. Here they were, playing innocent while their daughter and Lance were trapped as the Galra’s playthings. He debated drawing his weapon. He could probably resolve his revenge before a guard stopped him. 

But that would do nothing but start a war. And Kolivan had in no uncertain terms forbidden that. 

Do not give the Galra the panic they want. And find out everything Lance knows.

“Well?” He demanded. “Where is he?”

There was a moment when he could see terror on the Sarafraxian sovereigns’ faces. 

For being traitors to the galaxy, they had awful poker faces. Niraxi’s parents looked at each other, a sort of accusing panic on their faces. Keith let them linger in it for just a moment, allowing them to think that he knew that they were working with the Galra, that he knew everything and then—

“Oh God,” Keith groaned dramatically. “Don’t tell me they are already married.”

And that got all the eyes in the room on him quick. 

The sovereigns stared at him blankly, wildly confused. 

“Come on,” he snapped. “Niraxi and Lance are missing. It’s obvious that they’ve gone off to be lovesick idiots somewhere.”

There was some bristling amongst the royal court, but no one moved towards him. He was probably dancing a little too close to the line of heretical disrespect, but the sovereigns didn’t look angry. 

They were watching him, mouths open, clueless as to how he didn’t know that both had been kidnapped by the Galra. 

Keith watched their faces change. Watched them think that it had worked, that they had gotten away with it, and that the paladins that were supposed to save the world were complete fucking idiots. 

But Keith had them trapped. They couldn’t disagree without revealing their alliance. They were forced to follow his story. 

“Look,” Keith tugged a hand through his hair, trying to look particularly annoyed. “Just take me to Lance’s room so I can see if I can figure out where they went.”

The look of victory began to fall from their faces. 

“The chambers have been cleaned already. We did not find anything.”

Keith arched an eyebrow. “A paladin is missing. I expected your full compliance with this. Especially considering how quickly we responded to your distress signal.”

The sovereigns were beginning to look a little queasy. The royal court was beginning to shoot confused looks their way. Because why wouldn’t they help? It was truly the least they could do for the paladins that seemingly got the Sarafraxians out of the Galra’s crosshairs.  

But the sovereigns were sitting there thinking of all of the things that Lance could have hidden in his room, growing paler and paler. 

Keith tried to keep his face in check. Got you. 

 

 

 

Keith got a full cohort of guards on his ass the second he left the throne room. He tried to keep the vague impatience on his face, all the while trying to think of how to get into Lance’s room alone. 

He was marched down three hallways with enough precious metals studded into the furniture to feed the rest of Sarafrax for a year. 

“So,” he looked around at the guards. “You guys going to follow me into the bathroom, or—.”

Either his translator had stopped working, or they were ignoring him. 

He was escorted down another row of halls before he was stopped in front of a door with simple wood paneling. 

Keith glanced at the guards. “Right, thanks.”

They didn’t move, all watching him with eerily impassive faces behind their armored helmets.

“Wow,” Keith was beginning to get annoyed. “I didn’t know I would get a battalion of guards stationed outside my door. That’s sweet of the sovereigns.”

No one was looking particularly amused.

Nice. 

Well. 

How bad could Sarafraxian prison possibly be? 

He opened the door as casually as he could, stepping in and looking around. 

It was relatively unassuming, all clean pale linen and shining marble. Keith allowed his eyes to sweep once, twice, trying to think of all the places Lance could have possibly hidden something. 

Then he took one more step into the room, kicked the door shut, and bolted it. 

The result was instantaneous, the guards immediately hollering and pounding at the door. 

Keith moved fast, ripping off his gloves and marching towards the bed.

He figured he had about two minutes before they would get the door open. He flicked on his Blades comm, listening to the transmitter go off as he swept his hands over the sides of the bed. 

It took too long before Kolivan picked up. “Yes?”

“How far are you from Sarafrax?” Keith asked as he felt the sides of the bedframe from any notches or divots.

Kolivan sighed heavily. 

“I’m probably about to be arrested,” Keith dropped to his knees, scanning under the bed. “I’m going to really turn on the charm, so things may turn around.”

“You plan to be executed, then.”

“Lovely,” Keith turned to the drawers, ripping open each one and testing for fake bottoms. “I’ve got about ninety seconds until I’m in space prison and you are making jokes. That’s awesome.”

Kolivan sighed again. There was the definite sound of Wylax laughing in the distance.

“How much do you expect your bail to be?”

The door was visibly shaking at the guards’ pounding.

“In Earth money? At least half a million.”

Keith turned to the closet, flicking through hangers, tuning out Kolivan’s disapproving lecture as he tried to think. 

There was no way Lance ever got off Sarafrax without being searched. He had to have planted something in here. Somewhere that cleaners or nosy sovereigns wouldn’t think to look. 

Somewhere stupidly clever. Somewhere familiar to Lance. Something Lance was smart enough to mention to others, ever so casually. 

Keith thought about it, then groaned.

He hurtled to the bathroom right as the door flew open. He slammed the bathroom door shut, hollering something about bad turbulence sickness, and locked it. The guards were shouting at him as he spun to the toilet, the very toilet that Lance waxed the most ridiculous poetry about. 

It was, by all standards, a completely normal toilet. Those had become incredibly hard to come by in the past few years, considering all the wildly different anatomical shapes aliens tended to have. 

“Keith?” Kolivan’s voice was dangerously calm. “Have you been arrested yet?” 

“No.” As quietly as he could, Keith took off the back lid of the toilet. “But I’m probably about to do something even worse.”

Kolivan groaned. Wylax laughed harder. 

Keith stuck his fingers into the water tank, blindly groping along the sides of the toilet, the lever, the silicone plug until he felt something tiny and hard.

The door was beginning to crack along the hinges when he ripped out a tiny flashdrive, barely larger than his thumbnail.

He stared at it, eyes wide, wondering what the fuck Lance could have possibly found worthy enough to hide in a toilet.  

It was waterproof, immediately humming to life when Keith pressed on the miniscule button on the side. 

“Holy shit,” he breathed. 

“Keith,” Kolivan’s voice was testy. “Status update.” 

Keith was busy holding the flashdrive under the running sink faucet. “God, I’m going to kill him for this.” 

Keith held up the flashdrive, hated Lance with every fiber of his being, and stuck it into his mouth.

He tucked it into the pocket of his cheek, feeling the blunt edges dig into his gums.  

“Get me the fuck out of here,” Keith said as the door flew open. 

 

 

 

Sitting through what looked like the fakest trial of his life with a toilet flashdrive in his mouth was hell. 

Keith had lost his translator and comm in the arrest, so he spent the time staring at the wall with no clue what the aliens shouting about his future were saying. 

He just hoped he could get out of here before he would be forced to swallow the flashdrive. 

The handcuffs were too tight and only worsened Keith’s bad mood. Everyone in the room looked eager to get rid of him. The sovereigns kept glancing his way, faces unreadable, trying to figure out whether he had found anything. The judge was on his tenth monologue and Keith wasn’t sure if the Sarafraxian next to him was his lawyer or his guard.

Everyone seemed about ready to throw him in a cell and lose the key except for the guard standing near the judge.

They were staring at him, face unreadable. Keith wasn’t sure if he liked the look of it. 

He wondered if Kolivan was even remotely in a rush. 

He should have called Shiro. He would have bailed him out, even though Keith would have gotten a hell of a lecture for it. 

Suddenly, he was being tugged to his feet by the alien next to him who was definitely his guard, not a lawyer. A slice of panic snapped through Keith as he was walked towards a set of doors.

It was clear that the trial had not gone his way and he had no place to put Lance’s information. 

Keith had lowered the flashdrive onto his tongue and was hoping that he could manage to get it down his throat without choking when the judge’s guard was in front of him. 

They took over in his handling, grabbing him with a strong arm and hauling him towards the exit. Keith stumbled after them, holding the flashdrive tightly with his teeth. 

This close, Keith could see that the guard was female, her cheeks and chin more pronounced than the male Sarafraxians. 

She had a hell of a grip— hauling at him and snapping things in her sharp language.

Keith could barely focus on walking, too preoccupied with keeping the flash drive steady in his mouth. 

She barked something at him, entirely fed up, and then leaned close. 

“Give me it,” the guard hissed in a very labored English.

Keith let out a sound of protest. How did she know? And more importantly, why was she keeping it a secret? 

“You are about to be stripped, searched, and walked through a screening that can tell what you’ve eaten for the past week,” the guard hissed. “Give me whatever you are hiding.”

Keith was quickly realizing he had no choice. 

He waited for a chance. It came quickly, the guard snapping at him again and lodging her knee into his stomach. He ducked over, smacked his face into the guard’s waiting palm, and shoved the flashdrive out of his mouth with his tongue. 

The guard was quick, tucking it into the sleeve of their armor with a flick of their wrist. 

Someone snapped to the guard in an unfamiliar language. But Keith could parse one syllable out. 

Alim. 

He went still, recognizing the name and remembering how it sounded on Lance’s lips. Keith didn’t bother fighting the guard’s grip anymore, looking up at her with shock. 

“You’re—.”

“Don’t.”

Keith had no clue where she was leading him. They walked farther from the courtroom, the air turning into a stale cold. She herded him down another hallway, one that was far darker than the rest of the sunbleached planet. Cells came into view, filled with pitiful aliens murmuring their words for water or help. It was cold and dark and smelled like old iron. 

Keith’s stomach flipped.

So this was the underbelly of Sarafrax. This was the ugly that the Galra wanted and Lance and Niraxi tried to expose. This was the hole that Keith was about to be thrown into.  

”Do you see?” Alim hissed in his ear once they were alone. “Do you see why you need to stop being stupid?”

Keith did. 

“You are being detained until you can be escorted off the planet,” she told him. “You’re lucky they can’t afford for a second paladin to disappear in their solar system, otherwise it would be a different story.”

Keith felt his mouth go dry.

”They are going to make sure you didn’t take anything,” Alim muttered. “I’ll give you the drive when I can leave patrol without suspicion. Go to an adjacent solar system and wait. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Keith was pretty sure he hadn’t said that to a woman in a decade. 

But with her commanding stature and lucky ability to save his ass, he felt like she deserved it. 

She walked him into a room with two surly guards that looked both annoyed and a little scared of him. Alim left without a word, leaving him to a search that was so lackluster he probably could have gotten away with the drive. 

The guards were clearly not thinking about the fact that Keith had locked himself into a public enemy’s old room, too preoccupied with not looking at Keith too directly.

It took him a second to realize that the adrenaline of the past couple of hours had caused his fangs to drop lower than his canines and his eyes to morph into a hard slit. 

Whoops. He was actively going Galra in front of these guards.

He felt a little sorry for them, tugging his flight suit down to his waist with little resistance. 

The one attempt they made to search any further was met with a snap of his teeth. 

He was stuck in a cell for another miserable handful of hours before being released. 

And when he was brought up to the light to see who bailed him out, it wasn’t Kolivan. 

It was Shiro. 

 

Shiro thankfully waited until they reached the Black Lion before detonating. 

The doors had barely closed behind them, hiding the prying eyes of the aliens, before Shiro whirled on him. “What the hell, Keith?”

Keith winced. “How did you know?”

“Kolivan called me,” Shiro glared at him. “He can’t bail you out. That would reveal that you were on a Blades mission.”

Dammit. 

Keith dropped into the seat with a sigh, listening as Shiro furiously readied for takeoff. 

“I leave you for a day—no, twenty-two hours— and you get your ass arrested?”

“Apparently, I was just detained—.”

“Shut up, Keith.”

Keith shut up. 

Shiro hurtled Black forward with a tight jaw. Keith sat silently as they spun into the air, eyeing Shiro’s tight grip on the steer cautiously.

”Lance has been abducted,” Shiro said through gritted teeth. “I need you to think. Patience yields fo—.”

“Shiro, there’s no time to think!” Keith snapped. “For all we know, Lance could be dead!”
His throat felt like it split at the mere idea of it, at the look of horror on Shiro’s face, but he couldn’t stop now. 

Not with the dam breaking. Not with his adrenaline pounding in his ears. Not with Lance gone. Not with Shiro looking as if it could be like this forever.

“He’s dead or, worse, being tortured!” Keith snarled. “Because that’s what they do to Blades, Shiro. They fucking torture them. They pick them apart and find what secrets are worth plucking free and whatever they piece back together won’t be Lance. Not if we don’t find him. Not if we aren’t fast enough.”
His heart was roaring, something ugly and sour growing in the back of his mouth. His face was hot and his eyes felt heavy with the threat of tears and he didn’t know what would be worse, crying in front of Shiro or holding it back. 

“I can’t think,” Keith said, voice cracking. “Thinking slows me down. Thinking will make me panic or remember Lance being tied to that chair and I might go crazy if I have one more nightmare about him dying so, yes, Shiro. I was an idiot and got myself arrested but I found something. I found something, alright?” 

Shiro blinked at that, his somber expression rising into something hopeful. 

“You found something?”

Not trusting his voice, Keith nodded.

“Is it any good?”

Despite everything, despite the exhaustion weighing in Keith’s bones, he smiled.

“Knowing Lance, it’s priceless.” 

 

 

Shiro and Keith sat awkwardly in Black for about three hours until a tiny space shuttle whirled towards them. 

After a tedious alignment with airlocks, Alim was standing in the bay of Black, arms crossed and thoroughly unimpressed with the whole situation. 

“You’re lucky it was me who found you,” she said. “If they found that flash drive, you would have been killed before you could think of an excuse.”

At Shiro’s stern look, Keith nodded solemnly. “Thank you for taking it.”

He reached out towards where the flash drive was hidden under her armor. Alim didn’t move. 

“I want to trade. Information for information.”

“We will tell you anything,” Shiro promised. 

Alim’s face was forcibly impassive. “Niraxi. Is she dead?”

Keith could see right through her stone expression. She had kept on her guard helmet, hiding her eyes from them. He could only see the strong press of her lips, a fight to stay in control. 

“We don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I can promise you this. Lance is more clever than he lets on. If he finds her, he will do anything he can to bring her back.”

Keith had a feeling Alim was watching him closely. Wondering if he was in the same awful drag she was, watching Lance and Niraxi and wondering if it was worse to pine after someone who was taken or hurtfully single. 

Keith cleared his throat. “The relationship. It was fake.”

If he had blinked, he would have missed it. But Keith just barely caught the sliver of a smile that crossed her lips. 

She handed him the flash drive and Shiro quickly took it, taking fast strides towards the monitor on the wall. 

He pulled out a keyboard and carefully inserted the drive. 

For a second, there was nothing, and Keith was worried that the toilet water or his spit had finally broken the waterproof seal. 

Then, the monitor sprung to life. Document after document filled the screen, so many papers and so many languages that Keith could barely follow. Shiro leaned forward, eyes moving quickly, extending a hand towards the screen. 

“Those are numbers,” he murmured, pointing to a series of runes written down the right side of a document. “High amounts.” 

Alim leaned over both of them, watching the documents with that unreadable expression. 

“These are ship manifests.”

Keith leaned forward to get a closer look. 

Alim extended her hand, sliding it down the index. “These are Sarafraxian ships. It’s their cargo loads and their travel plans. Coordinates and estimated arrivals and all that. See this column? The Sarafrax work in a grid. There is a certain segment and a number designated to each—.”

Alim trailed off. 

She leaned even closer, her helmet almost knocking against the screen as she studied the column.

“This,” she lined up her fingers, sweeping them down the letters and codes. “This is a manifest for a ship that went down over two lunar cycles ago.”

Soon, she was sweeping quickly through the documents, an urgency behind her fingers. 

Keith and Shiro exchanged glances as the alien worked. She murmured numbers and coordinates in her own language, comparing documents and then swiping to new ones. 

Alim, in all her tall and glorious stature, stumbled. 

She staggered back, ripping off her helmet to reveal a shock of blonde hair and wide blue eyes. She was beautiful in a hard way, all sharp angles and lines in her cheeks and chin. She was gorgeous even with the betrayal that split through her expression. 

“The Galra ambushes,” Alim whispered. “All of the ships that were sieged, all the sailors that were murdered. It was all a trade. It was all for the Galra.”

A sort of savage fury was beginning to cross her face.

“The sovereigns knew about it all,” she whispered. “They haven’t been trying to stop the sieges. They were planning them.” 

Keith was beginning to feel sick. The entire mission was under the impression that the sovereigns were forced to help the Galra to keep their trade and people as safe as possible. But it had never been to protect their planet. It had been to feed a tyrant. 

Shiro looked at the screen in wonder. “And this proves it?” 

Alim was still staring at the documents with horrified wonder.

“Stars above,” she whispered. “It damns them.”

IV

 

Sarafrax reminded Lance of home. 

He knew that it wasn’t. The sand had a vague purple tint to it and the ocean was so clean it was almost clear. But it smelled like salt and sea and his heart felt like it was tearing open the moment that he stepped out of Blue. 

He inhaled deep, allowing himself a precious second to think about Varadero Beach. He thought about laughter and crashing waves and the steady bass of someone’s music. He thought about popsicles and sandwiches and his family tucked together under an umbrella.

His homesickness felt like a sunburn. 

Lance pushed on, channeling the pain into his focus, reminding himself why he was here. Why they were doing any of this. 

They had people to save.

He took a step forward, studying the planet.

It had the cleanest air he had breathed in a while, the sand banks tidy and unpolluted. There were buildings off in the distance, neat and white and humming.

Lance studied the Sarafraxian skyline, the way the buildings pulsed with energy that felt organic and clean. 

Maybe there was more to the Galra’s interest in them than they thought. 

As Lance unclasped his helmet, his welcome party arrived.

And they were even more gorgeous in person. 

Gleaming hair and flawless skin, the Sarafraxians looked how Lance hoped he did back in his lifeguarding days. They were dressed in crisp robes and gowns, all sewn with a gauzy cream fabric that fit well with the beach that surrounded them. 

The Sarafraxians apparently were once Galran. But eons had passed since their kind coupled with other aliens and now the only Galra in them that Lance could see was the height and distinctly feline look to their face.  

They had large eyes, larger than humans with slitted pupils. The aliens closest to Lance smiled, revealing long, polished canines.

The alien fiddled with something around his ear and Lance did the same, tapping the small metal device tucked around his ear and turning on the automatic translator. 

“Master Paladin,” a male Sarafraxian bowed. “We are so happy to have you.”

His voice was a little disjointed, the translator a second behind the movement of the alien’s lips, but it was easy to follow. 

Lance flipped the switch. 

It felt like putting on a well-molded glove, the way that Lance grinned and dipped in a bow that perfectly mimicked the alien’s.

“Please, the pleasure is all mine.” He could hear polite hums of approval at his display. “But don’t stay out in this heat on my account.” 

“Oh, we planned to wait for your fellow paladins.”

Lance’s smile tripped ever so slightly as he straightened. He was quick to brush it off, sometimes the planets he visited didn’t check their missives and expected all of them.

“Unfortunately, I come on my own,” Lance dipped his head in apology. “The rest of Voltron sends their utmost apologies for both missing this visit and leaving you to deal with me.”

The first sliver of a joke. As Lance expected, it earned laughs of delight from the aliens. 

All except the one who greeted Lance. His smile tightened, working fast to replace disappointment with diplomacy.

”Of course,” he nodded Lance forward. “Shall we bring you to the palace?”

 

”Paladin.”

Many people probably would have screamed if they heard a voice from the bathroom. Most would have likely expected Lance to as well. 

He didn’t even flinch, spinning towards the voice and powering up his bayard with a flick of his wrist. It snapped to attention, morphing into a handgun with a polished silencer. Lance had dealt with an attempted ambush once or twice on these trips; it was never fun to deal with the havoc that came from half the royal court hearing gunshots. 

“Announcing yourself immediately?” He asked the dark bathroom. “That’s a pretty shitty assasination attempt.”

A shadow slid together, heavy footfalls of a man caught. It had to be a Sarafraxian, judging by the height and how they even managed to get into his room. 

”You seem familiar with assasination,” the shadow mused. 

Lance let out a cold laugh. “Yeah, well, they are a constant evil in diplomacy. Bit of a thorn in my side, to be honest.”

A low rumble of a hum. “I’m impressed.”

The shadow emerged and it had to be the last person that Lance would ever expect in his bathroom. 

Kolivan, captain of the Blades of Mormora, walked into the room. He studied Lance’s steady hand with interest.

”Wow,” Lance deadpanned, not lowering his bayard. “Did you get your paladins confused?”

Kolivan blinked at him, unimpressed.

”Keith’s the one who signed up for your little MI6 fan club. About my height, perpetually grumpy, but annoyingly talented with a sword? Same outfit but in red?” 

“Lower your weapon.”

“Not gonna happen. Not until I know why you are inserting yourself into a diplomatic mission. You and I aren’t allies on every planet, Kolivan.”

Kolivan watched him for a moment. 

“You have more of a spine than I expected.”

Lance scoffed. “Says the man hiding in a bathroom.”

He focused on keeping his bayard trained on a nonlethal shot, rather than drifting to Kolivan’s forehead or, better, his crotch. He debated it, considering Kolivan’s surprise supremely pissed him off. 

Lance had grown so tired of people underestimating him. Sure, he could be a goofball. Had made a total fool out of himself more times than he could count. But that was when he was a teenager, thrust into an intergalactic space war that felt so overwhelming and horrible that he just had to crack jokes to stop himself from tearing his hair out. 

Now, he was twenty-one, capable of more than what most imagined, and found most of this all a lot less funny. 

“I, how do you humans say it, come in peace.”

“Nice. Find Keith,” Lance’s hold on his bayard tightened. “He’s a bit more willing to listen to your bullshit than I am.”

“I’m not here for Kogane,” Kolivan said, golden eyes locked on Lance. “I’m here for you.”

“Lovely. Nice seeing you. Bye.”

Kolivan watched him, unnervingly calm. It was beginning to piss Lance off because, frankly, he didn’t like the guy. He didn’t like the sacrificial expectations of the Blades, didn’t like how they treated allies, didn’t like how they treated Keith.

He, in fact, blamed this asshole in front of him for making Keith feel so distant. 

He was the one who got Keith almost killed on multiple occasions. He was the one who had Keith stuck on a space whale for almost two years. He was the one who made Keith have that distanced look in his eyes when he fought. That look that showed a willingness to sacrifice himself that scared Lance. 

And, through a threading of connections, that made Kolivan something to be afraid of. 

So Lance really wasn’t interested and opened his mouth to say exactly that. 

“Don’t condemn a planet just because you don’t like me,” Kolivan said. 

And in that moment, Lance hated him. Mainly because he knew he was right. 

 

Princess Niraxi of Sarafrax was undeniably gorgeous.

Lance’s mouth went a little dry when he saw her, all tan skin and light blonde waves. She looked about his age, smiling with a flash of dimples that were so endearing Lance found he would already fight anyone who tried to mess with her. 

She introduced herself with a sweet lilt of a voice, took his arm, and smartly walked him away from the offered glasses of alien alcohol. 

“Death by poison would be horribly embarrassing for a paladin,” she said under her breath. “I assume you’ve been briefed?” 

Lance was liking her already. 

Through the elaborate gala welcoming him, Niraxi told him what she knew.

She had walked into the wrong meeting almost a year ago. It was held in one of the back rooms of the palace, where they kept the seasonal linens.

She was helping the maids prepare for an autumn feast, checking in all of the storage closets for the correct decor. 

Only to walk into what was a meeting with her parents, their war leaders, and two unmistakable Galra.

Niraxi had reacted well, used to folding back her expression in a most princess-like manner, and had acted like nothing was wrong. She had walked over to the storage closet and left the room with a heaping pile of linens, all of the traitors staring at her with wide eyes. 

Lance was impressed. Her calmness had probably been what kept her alive. Niraxi hoped that her parents had assumed she didn’t recognize the others as Galra, and they all hastily moved on. 

But Niraxi was well aware of what she had walked in on. She knew betrayal when she saw it. 

And so she began looking for a way out, how to free her people from what looked like an ongoing alliance with the Galra.

And now, here they were. 

“Well,” Lance murmured to her as they watched dancing partners sweep past them. “You’ve been busy.”

Niraxi chuckled. “I’ve never been one to stand still.”  

They watched the dancing for a moment.

“I don’t think it’s entirely malicious,” Niraxi whispered to him. “The Galra have been picking off our cargo for years. They are pirating our seas and our economy is on the brink of collapse. The Sarafraxians would never yield to the Galra. Submitting to tyrants is not thought of kindly here.”

“So you think they are just trying to manage peace?”

Niraxi nodded. “Cowardly.” 

The rest of Lance’s trip was a whirlwind. 

He couldn’t snoop like he was craving, like he knew Kolivan wanted him to. There were eyes on him every second, a mix of curiosity and suspicion that made him a little uneasy.

So he played the part. He frolicked among the events, the ribbon-cuttings, the balls, the tours. He attended war councils, well aware they were all bullshit, and lied through his teeth. He wasn’t about to tell the sovereigns how he would deal with their Galra problem, especially considering they would likely turn and tell the Galra directly.

And when he wasn’t gliding along the royal grounds, Niraxi led him through the city below. 

And it had to be the fuckest coolest place Lance had ever been. 

While the rest of Sarafrax was pale and tidy, the lower city exploded with color. The cottages were painted with every color Lance could imagine. He walked under turquoise roofs and orange carpets and examined the markets of gossamer fabric and glittering jewelry. The streets were filled with music and laughter. 

At first look, it would look like they were ignorant of the Galra closing in. But there was an undercurrent to their happiness. They were determined to speak and dance and laugh and live. 

There was a genuine kindness to them. They were kind and caring and happier because of it. 

Niraxi would look back at him in these moments. They would share a private smile and Lance could feel the strength of her resolve.

See? That smile of hers would say. Do you see why I must protect them?  

He kept on trying to find a pocket of time to sneak away, to investigate the supposed Galran alliance. But every time he dared to look over his shoulder, there was the bored look of a guard that had picked the short straw.

By the time he reached the end of his stay, it had been less than fulfilling. He felt as if he was leaving only more confused. 

But at least he knew that his cover was still intact. He charmed the hell out of the Sarafraxians up until Niraxi, ever the dutiful guide, walked him to the city gates. 

Blue hummed to life, readying for take-off. 

“Well,” Lance let out a breath. “That was interesting.”

“Yes,” Niraxi managed a smile. “We are caught in quite the trap, aren’t we?”

She was working hard to keep a smile on her face, but there was a definite glint of fear in her eyes. 

“They are hiding it well,” Lance agreed softly. “I wish I could have found something.”

“They are clever, my parents.” 

For the first time since he met her, Niraxi looked scared.

She hid it well, throwing on a wobbly smile. “I’ll be fine.”

He frowned, taking a step towards her. “Princess.”

“Please,” she waved him off. “It’s dangerous for you here.”

“And probably just as dangerous for you.”

”I’ll manage,” she smiled sweetly. “Besides, it’ll look suspicious if you linger.”

She was right. The guards were already doing a poor job of hiding their suspicion. Several armored Sarafraxians were shifting uncomfortably near Blue. 

Lance had overstayed his welcome. 

But there was so much more to do. He could feel the tide shifting, the whole of Sarafrax holding its breath and waiting to see whether it would rise above or fall apart. And Lance could do something about it. 

He could help. 

He thought about the lower city, about the fight in their color and glee. 

“What can keep me lingering?”

Niraxi looked at him for a moment, chewing hard on her lip.

Then, she took his hand.

 

The rest of it fell into place very quickly after that. 

Whispering over comms, they came up with a plan. If they acted like a couple, then no one would suspect Lance returning to Sarafrax. 

No one would suspect Niraxi leaving her home either. Sure, it wouldn’t be the best for her reputation, Lance was certain that the media would do anything to put a woman rising in power down. But being deemed a lovestruck princess is better than being a dead one. 

Lance looped Kolivan in. If the Blade was impressed with Lance’s ingenuity, he didn’t let on. But he allowed it, as long as they could be convincing enough. 

Lance knew they could. They were already becoming fast friends, and no one would expect a princess and a paladin to get too scandalous in the public eye. It would be mostly holding hands and the occasional embrace, maybe a kiss if they really needed to sell it. 

Lance was quite proud of it all. It was one of his more brilliant plans. 

Until Kolivan added an addendum.

The other paladins couldn’t be told the truth. 

And if that wasn’t a slap to the face. Because Lance had been banking on them knowing, on them helping the charade. He was pretty certain that it would be impossible without them knowing, because that meant the act would have to go on in the castle, around his friends, around Ke—.

Okay. This wasn’t good.

But he had thrown Niraxi a liferaft, a way to get her away from the mess that was her monarchy, and he couldn’t back out now. 

Even when he felt his hands sweat and his heart rate quicken at the thought of looking at his friends and lying to their faces. 

He wasn’t a good liar. Not with them. 

Not with—.

He couldn’t back out. He would just have to grit his teeth, push through the maze of hopelessly confusing feelings about a certain someone that had kept him up for at least five years at this point, and get a grip. 

But that didn’t make telling them any less difficult. 

Lance had more told the table than told them, unable to risk looking any of them in the eye.

They had seemed excited for him, eager to meet her, eager to know more. 

All of them except for Keith, who seemed determined to meet Lance’s gaze. Big gray eyes, wide and searching, desperate to catch his eye. 

Lance wasn’t sure if he could ever look at Keith again. 

 

The charade went off without a hitch. 

The entire galaxy was delighted. They were beautiful together, nobility incarnate. Niraxi fit so perfectly into Lance’s side that the photographers swooned. They held hands and Lance lifted up the hem of her skirts when Niraxi went up stairs and Niraxi clutched his arm when she was excited.

Everyone was reacting exactly like how they expected.

The two of them hopped back and forth from Sarafrax and the castle, decidedly inseparable. Whenever they were in Sarafrax, they pushed their luck with their security guard. They wanted to see what they could get away with, what they could attribute to affection over espionage. They learned that the two of them could shut approximately one door for five minutes before the guards would get nervous. It was a toss up as to whether their concern was for Niraxi’s virtue or exposing trade secrets. 

But slowly but surely, Lance and Niraxi were able to pry. Tease out buried records, check data logs for coded messages. It was tedious and long work. Sometimes, Lance would spend days in Sarafrax and not find anything at all. 

Despite their actual agenda, the pair were still a famous intergalactic couple and always had a ridiculous amount of events to attend. 

Lance’s cheeks would get sore from smiling and he had a feeling he would develop carpal tunnel from waving over shooting with his bayard. It was exhausting how chipper they were expected to be. He didn’t know how Niraxi did it, always smiling and waltzing around a traitor’s throne. 

His sympathy for her only grew when he began to notice how her gaze lingered on the captain of her security, a tall and unforgiving woman named Alim. 

The first few times Lance interacted with Alim, he had been certain that she was envisioning the best way to disembody his corpse. Once he noticed the way the two Sarafrax women orbited around each other, he couldn’t blame her. 

After all, if he had been watching Keith walk around with a beautiful alien on his arm, he wouldn’t be willing to be fast friends either. 

It felt poetically awful, the two of them trapped in an artificial relationship but unable to disclose the truth to anyone they cared about. 

They tried to escape to the castle as often as they could, sometimes to report back to Kolivan in the privacy of Lance’s room, mostly to lay around quiet and unperceived. 

The others in the Castle of Lions gave them a wide, respectful berth. Lance tried to be just as respectful, dropping the facade with Niraxi as soon as he could. But they had their orders, Kolivan reminded the two of them plenty of times that coming clean about their mission could be deadly. So while Lance would love to make their relationship appear as platonic as possible, his friends would catch on too quickly. 

Pidge and Hunk had already begun to look dubious, eyebrows high as they watched Lance and Niraxi dance around each other. Lance thought about all the times that he had drunk too much Nunvil and waxed poetry about raven hair and gray eyes to them. He was, frankly, impressed that neither of them cornered him and began demanding answers.

The paladins of Voltron were walking on thin ice around each other and Lance hated it. 

But they had a job to do. 

Even if Niraxi was beginning to get restless. She handled lying even worse than him, her hand spasming in his as they walked past all those who trusted him. She would flinch at the hurt Alim worked hard to hide from her face. She would stare longingly at her parents, always wondering if they knew the mess they were in, if they were truly so scared of the Galra they would let its empire eat them alive. 

“Do you ever feel too small?” Niraxi once whispered in the dark of Lance’s room. 

Lance hummed, pulling himself from sleep. 

They were tucked in Lance’s bed, Niraxi’s long legs curled between Lance’s. Sleeping together had become normal, a sliver of comfort in the stress of the operation. He liked the warm rise and lower next to him, reminding him that he hadn’t accidentally gotten her killed yet. 

Her words had the distinct lilt of electronic translation from her comm. 

“Like,” he could hear the sounds of her fingers sliding along the hem of his pillowcase, trying to find the words. “Like you are inconsequential. Like nothing you do would change what is happening around you.”

Lance let out a soft chuckle. “All the time.”

The sheets shifted. There wasn’t much light in his room, but he could see her shoulder trembling. 

“Just find one person,” he whispered. “One person that you have the control to save.” 

She hummed, considering.

“You’ll grow a little each day,” he made a point to shift his legs in their tangle with hers. “But if either of us grow any more, we will have to find a new place to sleep.”

She laughed, her voice lighter than it had been in days. 

“Thank you, Lance.”

“Of course.”

“No,” she looked over her shoulder at him, slitted pupils big and reflective in the dark. “Not for this. For everything. We would be lost without you.”

Lance felt heat reach the tops of his ears. “You would have figured it out.”

“No,” she shook her head, settling back into their intertwined arms and legs. “No, we wouldn’t have.”

 

 

 

“So,” Niraxi’s big blue eyes studied him during a gallery opening one night. “You and the Red Paladin.”

Lance nearly choked on his Nunvil. His throat spasmed and he coughed, eyes watering.

“What about him?”

Niraxi blinked at him, a little unimpressed. “You two are together, yes?”

Lance sputtered uncontrollably for about thirty seconds. 

But the time he got himself under control, Niraxi’s expression looked closer to pity. 

“Oh Lance,” she sighed heavily. “I wouldn’t have done any of this if I knew.”

“Raxi,” he leaned into her. “It’s alright. We aren’t together. We just—.”

Lance faltered, unsure how to even describe him and Keith. They were close and knew each other inside and out. Lance had made peace with his attraction towards Keith about seven years ago while still at the Garrison. He had always liked stubborn assholes and this was just another to add to the list. 

But now, Keith was different. He was still prickly and abrasive, but he had grown thoughtful. He cared more openly and had a willingness to be vulnerable. It had all made him far more attractive and on his weakest nights, Lance would think about the swamp planet and Keith protecting him. 

He remembered the feeling of Keith throwing the two of them down into the mud and scrambling to cover them the best he could. He remembered the panic of waking up in the infirmary and seeing Keith unconscious on the bed next to him. He remembered sitting at his bedside and thinking about how stupid they had been, replaying their brash decisions over and over in his head until guilt threatened to swallow him whole. He remembered Keith waking and not daring to ask his questions, to voice why he had thrown himself in front of Lance.

And Lance had backed off, realizing with a sharp snap of fear that he wasn’t ready to hear it either. 

They had sat in that moment, the cliff’s edge, and decided to back away.

Sometimes Lance regretted it. Most days he wished he hadn’t brought it up at all. Because now Keith’s big gray eyes would follow him and Niraxi through every room. His jaw was always tight and there was a clear pang of hurt in his eyes and Lance realized that he hadn’t been the only one that thought maybe it was time for them to brave the jump. 

Denial was better than realization. 

Lance wasn’t sure what was happening on his face, but it was enough to make Niraxi look away. 

“First, we trick Alim. And now we hurt Keith.”

“And we will fix it,” Lance said firmly. “Once we fix Sarafrax first.”

 

 

 

There was one time when they were nearly caught. 

After weeks of trying to find information on Sarafrax, they found an opening. A very clear coded wall in the past year’s records of oversea shipments. This was unusual, Sarafrax was so reliant on sea trade that the cargo transports were left moderately open between the different regions. Niraxi felt confident she could break it, as long as they made sure that no one could tell it was her. 

So the planning began. 

A week later, they had their shot. 

They were in one of the main halls and had put on enough of a charade to make any alien in their near vicinity uncomfortable. Lance had his hands far lower on Niraxi than anyone should have on a princess in public. The two of them were deep in each other’s space, giggling and acting as lovestruck as possible. 

Niraxi’s parents were expecting a diplomatic visit from the king of the islands an ocean away. Lance had been invited to add a little more celebrity to the event. He had done his research, their guest was notorious for a stick shoved far up his ass.

With Niraxi and Lance dutifully ignoring any attempts to subtly break them apart, the royal court was becoming more frantic. The king was expected to arrive at any minute. Lance and Niraxi were scandalous enough that the guards were focused on not making a scene, ushering the two of them into a quiet office and slamming the door shut behind them. 

The moment they heard the footsteps fade away, Lance and Niraxi broke apart, racing towards the data center in the corner of the room.

“Are you sure we can use this computer?” Lance asked breathlessly. 

“Yes,” Niraxi sat down quickly, leaning towards the closest monitor. “It’s better than using my own.”

She quickly typed in a passcode and the screen flickered on. Lance watched the door nervously as Niraxi searched through the cloud of files. 

He swore he could hear people approaching. “Raxi.”

“I know,” she was chewing on the corner of her lip. “I know. There are encrypted walls blocking years of information. I just need to—.”

There was a loud, obvious footstep turning into their hall. 

Niraxi looked at him. “Distract.”

Lance sputtered. “Distract?”

“Yes,” she was hardly paying attention to him anymore, fingers flying over the keys. “I’ve heard you are quite good at that.”

“That is a gratuitous overstatement,” Lance was already winding around the desk, marching towards the door. “I can manipulate. I can charm. What I can’t do is hide the two of us attempting to crack a—.”

The harsh knock on the door reverberated through his fucking soul. 

“Fuck,” he hissed, hurrying towards the door. “Fuck. How much time do you need?”

“One minute.”

It would be a lifetime.

Lance swallowed his heartbeat and opened the door. 

The guard immediately pushed at it, but Lance stopped it with his foot. Despite the guard’s attempts, he couldn’t get the door open wide enough to see anything other than Lance’s eye. 

“Paladin, open the door.”

“Right,” Lance hoped the guard couldn’t hear Niraxi’s typing behind him. “I think it would be a better idea to not do that.”

The door dug into Lance’s foot.

“Niraxi’s had a bit of an incident,” he cleared his throat. “She— it’s— um— her gown!”

The guard blinked at him. Niraxi’s typing stopped.

“It’s,” Lance swallowed, decided that a night in prison for sullying a princess would be worth keeping his head on his shoulders, and soldiered on. “It’s ripped.”

Lance couldn’t see the expression on the guard beyond the helmet covering the alien’s face, but he had a feeling it was priceless. “It ripped?”

“Yes, I— well, I got a little carried away.”

He willed his face to not go red. This was awful. He was horrible and would probably get arrested.

The guard wasn’t budging. “I need to see the princess.” 

“With a ripped bodice?” Lance managed a laugh. “The sovereigns would string you up before you even caught a glimpse.”

“You ripped the bodice of a Sarafraxian gown,” the guard verified dubiously. “The strongest linen in the dozen nearest solar systems?”

He was so, so screwed. “Humans have strong hands.”

The guard was momentarily stumped at that.

“So unless you want the stuffiest king in the galaxy to see us leave this room properly indecent,” Lance hissed. “I suggest you find her an alternative.”

The guard was beginning to look a little amazed.

Once Lance managed to get him turned around and towards Niraxi’s chambers to find a lady-in-waiting, he slammed the door shut. 

He leaned against it, sucking in a shrill breath.

Niraxi was staring at him, stuck between a look of horror and laughter. 

“We need to get you off this planet before my parents have your hands cut off.”

 

 

So, they had to be more careful after that. 

Niraxi had managed to break through the wall, but only that. They had an open door into the Sarafrax’s secrets, but no way to tell if it had triggered any bells and whistles. 

They didn’t dare to do anything for a week, attending every event they were invited to in order to ham up the charade. 

They spent more time at the Castle with the other paladins. And if that wasn’t a kick to the teeth.

Because Keith was there. Stuck between Blade missions and wondering why. He looked hopelessly bored and like there was a sting that he couldn’t quite identify and Lance wanted to tell him everything. 

He wanted to tell him that Keith’s Blade comm was quiet because Lance’s was ringing off the hook and that Niraxi dreaded holding Lance’s hand just as much as he did hers and that he remembered the explosion and the feeling of Keith pressed against him and the promise they made to not be stupid and he was so fucking sorry he wasn’t holding up his side of the bargain. 

He had seen the difference Keith had made. He had grown over the years and started to work out problems from the beginning to the end. He was careful and worried about others while Lance had begun to feel a bit like a match dropped in gasoline. 

He wondered what it would feel like when things started to truly spiral out of control as if he would notice when they did. 

Niraxi was just as desperate to stop their relationship, perhaps even more so judging by the desperate way she watched Alim. He was worried she would crack, too pure-hearted to stomach all the lies, and figured they had only a few weeks left until she broke. 

So they started to get reckless. Overconfident. 

Surely, they would have been arrested by now if they left a trail. 

Once the fanfare from the latest diplomatic visit settled, Lance returned to Sarafrax. Niraxi was essentially on house arrest from their latest scandal. It was all on Lance to return to the office with the cracked computer. 

He waited until the castle was asleep and slipped out of his room to go to that same office. 

He followed Niraxi’s path, knowing enough about technology from Pidge to safely navigate to the open field of files. 

His jaw dropped when they began to load on the screen. There had to be thousands of files, spanning over the past ten years. 

It was an encrypted mess, opening any of them could risk bringing a whole wave of malware to the computer. 

The best he could do was download it all onto a drive, a miniscule black device given to him by Kolivan. 

He hid it on his person, taking it everywhere, even to the next gala that he was invited to alongside Niraxi. They were now rarely allowed to spend private time together, all the guards too traumatized to leave them alone. 

So Lance watched the revolving couples, studied the guard patterns, and waited until the perfect slip of eyes and ears near him to tell her. 

He kept a glass of Nunvil over his mouth as he leaned towards her ear. “I’ve got the files.”

Niraxi, to her credit, didn’t react in the least.

“Without an intergalactic incident, I surmise?”

“Yes,” he worked hard to move his lips as little as possible. “But it needs to be decoded.”

Niraxi thought this over, large eyes studying the dancing across the room. “We can’t do that anywhere without them tracing us.”

“Not necessarily.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“Our location would be pinpointed,” Lance agreed. “And we would be fucked if it was the Castle of Lions or somewhere on Sarafrax. But what if we weren’t at either?”

Niraxi peered up at him. “You mean to tell me that you have a system strong enough to decode a decade’s worth of files in the middle of space?”

Lance grinned. “Raxi, you vastly underestimate the power of a magical robot lion.” 

 

Once they entered, Blue sprang to life like a pet waiting at the door.

“Hi honey,” Lance cooed as he walked to the main controls. “I missed you too.”

Niraxi had been in Blue countless times, but she seemed to look over the lion with new, impressed eyes. 

“This could really break the code?”

“She’s stubborn,” Lance agreed readily as he flicked on the controls. “She’s got the power for it. The monitor is to the left.”

Niraxi sat, hastily strapping herself in as Lance fired up the engine. 

They had made countless excuses to get themselves alone. The best deal they had gotten was Alim allowing them to go on a brief night flight. The guard always tried to keep the hurt out of her expression, but Niraxi had looked especially pained at relying on her for a favor. 

“We had less than thirty minutes,” Niraxi said as she inserted the drive. “We need to be fast.”

“Got it,” Lance patted Blue’s console. “Come on, baby, just keep us moving for thirty minutes while processing through thousands of coded files. No biggie.”

Blue let out a vibrating creak that sounded a lot like grumbling. 

They lurched up, the controls sensitive and ready for Lance’s command. Niraxi let out a little squeak of surprise, steadying herself before beginning to type. 

They had barely made it off the planet before they had at least two guard ships following them at a careful distance.

“Jesus,” Lance grumbled. “With all this surveillance, you would think they thought I was trying to get you pregnant.”

“Well, that’s probably exactly what they think,” Niraxi drummed anxiously against the arm of her chair. “This is loading too slow.”

Lance fired up the engine, flying faster. The more quintessence he poured into the lion, the better she would work. It was a trick the paladins had found years into controlling the lions. It was exhausting and could be dangerous, but the reward far outweighed the risk.

“Better?”

Niraxi didn’t respond, but her feverish typing had to be a good sign. 

He had flown past two planets and done just enough spins to look like he was showing off when she let out an excited sound.

“Some of them are downloading!” She said excitedly. “Once I translate the file names, I can narrow the search.”

Lance watched the guard ships in the distance, wondering if their scopes were good enough to tell that Niraxi wasn’t sitting next to him. 

His stomach tightened with nerves. “Hurry, Niraxi.”

“I will,” Niraxi was typing again. “Do whatever you need to throw them off.”

Lance did just that. He twisted and whirled and rolled and spun. He hoped that it looked like a couple of adrenaline junkies letting off some steam. He kept watching the tailing ships, praying that they weren’t suspicious. 

Niraxi continued to unearth more and more, letting out the occasional hum or murmur of surprise. Lance stopped asking quietly, focusing on steering Blue. 

They were getting horribly close to Blue’s limit. Lance could hear the engine overworking, the steer burning from the heat of the machine. Sweat poured down his face. He had already turned back towards Sarafrax, running on borrowed time, when Niraxi gasped.

“No.” There was more typing. “No.” 

Her breathing was growing more shrill.

“Raxi?” Lance called. “Raxi, talk to me.”

“It’s,” she choked back what sounded like a sob. “It’s been them all along.”

“What? Who?”

“My parents,” she whispered.

Lance felt a chill go down his spine. 

“The ships,” Niraxi’s voice broke. “The ships that were plundered. All of these files are their exact coordinates, cargo, and passenger information being sent to the Galra.”

“Raxi, that—.”

“They didn’t betray Sarafrax to save it,” Niraxi breathed. “They betrayed it to give it as a gift.”

Lance could barely keep his grip on the burning steer with Niraxi crying behind him. 

There was a distinct sinking feeling in his gut. He thought about the distress signal they sent out, how Niraxi reasoned that the only reason her parents aligned with the Galra was to stop the pirating. 

This changed everything. The Sarafraxian monarchy wasn’t trapped under the Galra. 

They were the Galra.

Lance felt sick. “We need to call Kolivan.”

He pounded on the comm system, but Blue was too overworked to respond. 

“Shit,” Lance stared with horror at the looming Sarafrax. 

They had no choice. Blue was too worn out to go anywhere other than back to Niraxi’s castle. Besides, he had too many incriminating things in his room to tuck tail and run. He thought about the Blades comm in his fucking pillowcase and swore.

They had been so stupid. 

Lance tried to think.

Blue was always scanned through a million feeds when it returned to port. There was no way they could hide the drive in the lion. Niraxi couldn’t take it either, not with her ladies-in-waiting likely hovering ready to prepare her for bed. 

And with the way the ships behind them were looming closer and closer, Lance was about to be either arrested or kicked off the planet. 

“Niraxi,” Lance fought hard to keep his voice under control. “I’m sorry, alright? I’m so fucking sorry. But we are five minutes from being chaperoned by guards and I need you to act normal. I need you to act like you just had the time of your life and there is nothing else you know.”

Niraxi was swallowing deep lungfuls of air, trying to calm down. 

“I need the drive,” Lance said quickly. “I’ll figure out somewhere to hide it and then we need to get you off this planet.”
Niraxi’s tearsoaked face was pale as she watched Lance lower Blue closer to her home. 

The second Blue was locked into the port, Lance hurried to Niraxi. He mopped her face with his own sleeves, gripping her cheeks tightly. She looked a million miles away, shell shocked through every line in her face.

“Raxi, come back to me,” Lance could hear the workers and guards hurrying to the entrance of the lion. “Raxi, I need you to be normal, alright?”
He ripped out the drive and hid it in his shoe. It was a shitty hiding space, but it would have to work until he could get somewhere. 

Niraxi had come to, nodding quickly in agreement once Blue’s entry hissed open. 

By the time Alim and two other guards reached them, Niraxi was smiling. It was the fakest smile Lance had ever seen, fake enough to make Alim’s gaze linger on her, but it would work. 

“Sorry,” Niraxi said sweetly. “We got carried away with the spins. The blue lion is amazing to fly in.”

Lance puffed his chest, hoping that his bravado didn’t look as fake as it felt. 

“Princess,” Alim was still watching Niraxi. “Are you alright?”

“Of course,” Niraxi said breathlessly. “Just a little motion sick. I think I’ll retire to my chambers for the night.”

Yes. Good. They could go to their chambers and wait until it was late enough that Blue recovered and they could get the hell out of here. 

Lance ignored the glares of the guards as he helped Niraxi to her feet. He didn’t get far holding her. With a sweep of her armored arms, Alim had Niraxi and was escorting her away. Lance couldn’t blame her. 

Niraxi looked over her shoulder at Lance, pale and scared. 

“Let’s go,” Lance got a hard shove to his shoulder. “The sovereigns have instated a curfew for the princess.”

Lance scoffed. “Did the princess’s age regress without me noticing?”
That earned him another hard shove. 

As he was walked back to his room, he could feel his heart racing. He tried to recall as much of the castle as he could. What would be the easiest way to get back to Niraxi’s room? How could he get her out without alerting the guards? Could they trust Alim? 

Once they pushed him into his room and shut the door behind him, Lance froze. He scanned the room, wondering if there were cameras or listening devices. He had been lucky enough to not be searched leaving Blue, he doubted he would be that lucky for much longer.  

Where could he hide the drive? What would not get searched the instant he left?

His eyes locked on the bathroom door. 

Trying to bring an easy swagger back to his gait, he walked into the bathroom and locked it. A cursory look proved few places to hide a mic, none to disguise a camera. He turned to the toilet, the beautiful, boring toilet. 

As quietly as he could, he lifted the toilet lid and peered down. It was just like an Earth toilet, down to a sleek, dark silicone plug. He pulled out the drive, verified that it was waterproof, and shoved it into a crevice of the plug. 

He prayed to every star in the galaxy that someone on their side would be stupid enough to stick their hand inside the back of a toilet. 

Right when he placed the lid back on, there was a knock on his door. 

His heartbeat spiked again, roaring in his chest as he stood in the bathroom, listening hard.

It was too sharp to be Niraxi, too gentle to be a guard ready to take him to the gallows.

After a long moment, he left the bathroom and opened the door. 

Alim stared at him, face impassive under her helmet. “The princess would like you to leave.”

Lance’s heart dropped. 

“No, she doesn’t.”

“She does,” Alim raised her head. “This is a personal order for you.”

Lance felt panic soak through his bones. “She— no, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t ask me to leave like this.”

“I’m afraid she insists, Paladin—.”

Lance pushed past her, a little rougher than Niraxi would have liked. He vaulted down the hall, breaking into a sprint, hurtling down the same exact path he had planned to sneak through that night. 

Guards were shouting after them, Alim bellowing for them to not shoot, that’s a paladin, you idiots and Lance figured he could at least get to Niraxi’s room without his head getting blown off. 

He skidded down the hallway and sucked in a breath. 

“Raxi!” 

He sounded half out of his mind. It was probably for the best, continuing to play the part of a lovestruck fool as he stumbled down the hall. 

A grand set of doors opened, revealing Niraxi, pale but resolved.

Lance stopped in his tracks, the guards on either side of her doors readying their weapons.

“Don’t,” Niraxi ordered the guards. “I’ll dismiss him.” 

Lance stood, trembling, as she walked to him. It was loud despite the blood pounding in his ears. There were too many people around them, too many guards ready to tear them apart. 

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

“Lance,” Niraxi offered a wobbly smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to tell you to your face.”

“Maybe we can talk about it.”

Niraxi shook her head. “Best we didn’t. Goodbye, Lance.”

Lance bit down hard on his lip. 

So this was how she planned to end it. Send him off to save himself. 

“No,” Lance tried to reason, his own voice beginning to shake. “No, Raxi. I really think we need to talk about it.”

Niraxi laughed. “In front of half my security detail? I thought a gentleman never tells.”

Lance’s hands were going cold. So that was it. She wouldn’t be alone, maybe for years. Or until they found a way to get rid of her. 

“I thought Alim made it clear that you had to go,” Niraxi’s words were rife with code. 

Trust Alim. No one else. 

A lump was growing in Lance’s throat. “I’m not leaving, Raxi.”

The guards around them stiffened. Niraxi let out a weak laugh.

“That would be read as a threat, darling. Off you go.”

Lance had to get control of himself, or he would start crying like an idiot. But he felt his hold dissolving. He was exhausted and scared and watching one of the bravest people he knew throw herself to the wolves. They were so close to exposing the Sarafraxians, he just needed to get both of them off this planet. 

He remembered all those weeks ago, when he had told Niraxi to find a person to save, to control one thing to feel a little less inconsequential.

And judging by the tiny, sad smile on her face, it had been him. 

It was him she had chosen. Him she was protecting. 

“Bye, Lance.”

Before he could do anything, she took a step forward and kissed him. 

They had only kissed a handful of times, enough to make their facade convincing. Niraxi’s lips trembled against his. 

“Save us,” Niraxi whispered into his mouth. “Not me. Us.”

Us. The Sarafraxians. The lower city that danced. The royal court that hid. Everything and all of it and all the people that didn’t deserve it half as much as Niraxi did. 

Then, he was torn away and Niraxi was back in her chambers and Lance wanted to scream for her until his voice gave out. 

He was hauled down the hallway, whisked away to where his body was scanned over and over, ensuring he had nothing on him before he was shoved into Blue. 

Alim leaned as the door slid close. “You will be killed if you return, got it?”
Lance sank back. 

He wondered when the arrest warrant for him would be enacted. Was it already enacted and it took all the favors Alim and Niraxi could manage to get him out alive? Or did they shove him out in the nick of time? 

Blue was still almost completely fried, no comms available. Any use of his Blades comm was fruitless. Lance didn’t remember the ride home. He didn’t remember walking through a blessedly dark and empty castle. He couldn’t feel his face as he stumbled into his room. Adrenaline felt like it was searing holes through his skin. He couldn’t stop shaking as he fumbled with his gloves, ripping his hands free. He tore off his armor and flight suit, sucking in air into cramping lungs.

He staggered into his shower, turning the water as cold as he could to try and shock him back into his system.

He didn’t know if he had ever been that scared in his life. 

His teeth were chattering and water was tracing icy lines down his skin before he could breathe without carefully ordering himself to do so. 

He wanted to tell someone. He needed to tell someone. 

He wanted Keith. 

And with that, Lance was crying. 

Tears slid down his cheek, burning against the cold water. His face was too stunned still to sob, unmoving as the tears flowed.

He could do it. He could walk across the hall and bang on the door until Keith woke up and then fall into his arms. 

Keith would know what to do. He had done missions even harder than this with the Blades. He would be able to get into communication with Kolivan and get Niraxi as far from that fucking planet as possible. He could fix the massive fucking mess Lance made.

Lance leapt out of the shower, tugging on his clothes and walking out into the hall. He knocked hard on Keith’s door, for no one to respond. 

He was breathing heavily, pounding on the door, before his skewed inner clock clicked back and he realized it was early morning. 

The team would be in the main room, reviewing reports. 

Lance found them, the adrenaline shakes returning. He felt like he hadn’t slept for days, frantic and scared until he saw Keith. Yawning and sipping coffee as he boredly scanned his own monitor. 

He looked so at ease, so comfortable in his own skin, that Lance felt his knees begin to buckle from relief. 

Keith looked over, eyebrows tilting in curiously. 

Lance took three steps towards him, feeling his chest already beginning to loosen, until his dashboard let out an alert.

Lance glanced at it distractedly, swiping open a video feed.

He must have watched it for three seconds. 

It felt like years. 

He stared at Niraxi, curled up and shivering in chains, her face and arms bloody, staring up fearfully at whoever was recording. He looked at the text at the bottom of the screen and the rest of his body went numb. 

The princess will be traded for your life. 

He spent a lifetime thinking in those three seconds. He went through a hundred different ideas, dismissing each as reckless or idiotic. He thought it through forward and backwards and spun it around and over and, with a hand that now had an expiration date, plunged the bayard through the screen. 

 

You know the rest.

You know how Lance blundered through. 

You know how he called Alim, telling her everything he could manage. You know how she must have cried, cursing Lance for being so foolish, for dragging Niraxi into something so big that Alim had only begun to find the beginning of it. 

You know how Keith found Lance up at the observatory, how he tried to wheedle his plan out of him. You know how he left Keith at the airlock, mouth still dropped open from a rip of confession, eyes wide and damp. You know how Keith stood there, frozen and more hurt than he thought he would ever be. 

But you don’t know how Lance left.

Screaming and pounding at Blue’s console, clawing at his hair and ripping at his hands, howling about how stupid he had been, how far he had fucked up and how it was all his fault. 

He thought about Keith’s heartbroken face, how scared he looked once he finally took the jump. He wanted more than anything to turn around, to collapse in front of Keith and tell him everything. 

But he thought about how Niraxi had smiled at him. She seemed so content with her decision to throw herself to the wolves. 

And he had to get her out. 

He called Kolivan. 

Found the hovering Galra ship in the star system above Sarafrax. 

And the rest is about as depressing as expected. 

 

Lance hit the metal platform hard enough to rattle his back molars. His groan tasted like blood and he wondered if he could feel a tooth coming free when the Galra punched him again. 

He nearly bit off part of his tongue, blood pooling into his mouth as his head snapped to the side.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only swallow iron and listen to Niraxi crying and gasping in pain behind him. 

This had already gotten so massively out of hand. 

He didn’t know why he expected it to be that easy. Why would the Galra ever release the princess that could pull an allying planet right out from under them? He should have taken time to think through the exhausted panic. 

Keith’s words rang bitterly through his head.

We were going to think things through.

When he had been dragged to the main flight deck, Niraxi had been doing a good job keeping a strong front. Her dress was dirty and torn and she had a nasty cut on her temple. She looked like she was falling apart, but she wouldn’t dare to let her chin tremble. Her eyes remained defiantly dry. 

Until the Galra soldier got the first good kick in between Lance’s ribs. 

At this point, Lance had lost count of how many times he had been hit and Niraxi was on the ground, screaming for the soldier to stop with tears streaming down her face. 

“Look,” he managed through the blood. “Look. You have me, alright? You have me. You have the Blue Paladin. I’ll sell for half a space system. Just take me back and leave her—.”

Lance’s bargain was cut off by a Galra soldier grabbing Niraxi with a strong handful of her hair and that’s about when Lance lost it. 

“Nevermind, fuck you,” he snarled. “Fuck you. I swear I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and resurrect you for a trial for your fucking treason and kill you again. Get your hands off her or I’ll—.”

A gloved hand the size of a dinner plate smacked around Lance’s mouth, clamping his jaw shut and hauling him back. 

Niraxi was screaming, dark green blood sliding down her temples from her scalp and Lance thought he would rather die than see someone that scared. 

The fear had yet to catch up to him. He was too angry to think, thrashing in the Galra’s hold. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

Niraxi and him were going to expose the sovereigns and send this traitorous dump into the graveyard of stars. They were going to get off this ship and get Niraxi to Alim and Lance was going to find Keith. 

He was going to crawl through any solar system he needed to in order to find Keith and beg for his forgiveness. He was going to tell him everything and apologize in between each word because he never wanted to see the look of hurt on Keith’s face ever again. He was going to thank him for taking the jump, but he was already falling. 

The moment he had turned away from Keith and left to find Niraxi, he had promised himself that he would fix it. It was the only thing that caused him to get through the airlock and leave Keith behind. 

Now, realizing that he would die before Keith ever knew the truth of things, caused him to fight. 

He thrashed and kicked and swore. 

He got a hard elbow to the face and felt his nose break. He sputtered against the blood and called the Galra enough foul names to have his mother twitching fifteen light years away.

”You’re an angry little soldier, aren’t you?” The Galra soldier crooned. 

The Galra’s glove, sticky with blood, dug into Lance’s scalp. 

He hoped he would pass out soon, even just to get away from the Galra’s breath. 

“Look at you, throwing a temper tantrum over your girl,” the soldier laughed. “And to think, there are thousands of rumors throughout the galaxy that you preferred the taste of half-breed.” 

Keith’s tearstained face flashed through Lance’s mind. 

“Fuck you,” Lance mumbled around the blood in his mouth. 

The Galra laughed. “I’ll make this easy for you, boy.”

He tightened his hold on Lance’s hair and Niraxi let out a hiss of protest.

”One of you found some secrets of ours,” he hissed in Lance’s face. “We would like them back.”

Lance stared at him blankly. Secrets? He couldn’t mean—. 

And then Niraxi started to laugh. 

It was high-pitched and strained, but genuine. She seemed truly delighted, grinning with teeth green from her blood. 

“The drive?” She asked. “You want the drive of the files? It’s gone, you fucking fool.” 

The Galra soldier holding her growled. 

“It’s so far out of your reach it’s not even funny,” Lance said wryly. “It’s the one fucking place you can’t get to.” 

He watched the alien realize.

If it was still on Sarafrax, there would be no point in trying to retrieve it. They would just expose the secrets that they were trying to hide. If Lance was lucky enough and someone in the rebellion coalition already found it, then they would be publishing the messages within hours of finding it. 

Watching the Galra’s face split into barely controllable rage made Lance a little less sad about dying. 

His grin only widened as Niraxi continued to laugh. It felt so ridiculous. Weeks of watching their every move, only to finally laugh in the face of the very people they had been afraid of. 

In the haze of pain and relief, it was hard to remember why he had been so scared. 

“Get the girl out of here,” the guard snapped. “Don’t kill her, yet.”

Lance sobered as Niraxi was tugged to her feet. She looked stronger now, more focused. She met his look with a short nod, stumbling away from the Galra’s hold. 

And that left Lance with an extraordinarily pissed Galra. 

He swung on Lance. 

“If the reports are true,” the Galra’s breath was hot and sour against Lance’s face, “then you’ve got a little rescue mission after you.”

Lance’s pulse leapt through the pain.

“One of your paladins is leading the charge, if the rumors are to be believed.”
Lance would have felt relief, if he didn’t feel the tough skin of the Galra’s hand wrap around his chin and cheeks. 

“Let’s make sure you don’t spoil our fun,” the Galra murmured. 

The Galra jerked his hand back and there was a crack that rang through Lance’s skull. Lance only had a moment to realize that his jaw felt both loose and wrong before the pain tore him in two. 

The agony made him heave and the heave made him black out. 

He was back too quick, too fast for his brain to comprehend, spinning out and in as he was hauled down another corridor and could only understand that he was badly hurt and couldn’t talk. 

It took him trying to cry out and only moaning through too-still teeth that he realized. 

The motherfucker broke my jaw. 

 

Days passed. 

Lance counted through the dull alarm that rang through the ship. He quickly figured out that the alarm was a signal for meal time and started keeping track of them right after he heard one for that first day’s dinner. 

Lance laid in a haze, too hurt to really think, unsure of what to do but lay still. His mouth lit up in pain every time he did so little as breathed. 

He tried to reset his jaw, but the one time he got close ended with him fainting and waking up an indeterminable time later.

He couldn’t eat, only managing to pour water into his ajar mouth. 

He felt horribly empty by the fifteenth alarm, certain that he would waste away before he could even think about escaping. 

He just hoped Niraxi was better off. If she managed to get her shit together, he prayed that she wouldn’t bother trying to find him. He would just be dead weight. 

Twenty alarms and he was dragged from his cell again. 

The travel to his final destination was a little spotty, considering his jaw was so fucked at this point he came in and out of consciousness every time he moved. By the time he was truly alert, he was back on the flight deck with the same Galra peering down at him. 

“Right,” the alien rasped. “You’re going to tell me exactly where you put the drive.”

Despite his exhaustion, Lance managed a smirk. 

“How?” He managed through his supremely fucked mouth. 

The hit came fast and left Lance in a glorious, painless black for a moment. He came back with a groan and a pissed Galra all up in his face. 

He had a silver device in his hand and it took Lance a couple of blinks to focus and see that it was a mindmeld. 

For the first time in days, he felt the sharp stab of panic. 

The second it was shoved on his head, Lance made sure he thought of nothing else but home. 

He thought about sand and sea salt and popsicles and his parents and nothing that had to do with anything with space, not even— nope— nothing but home, in fact, he would recite every planet he had been on. Earth, Sarafrax, shit, Soaba, Valari, System 53, System 54, System 55—.

“Well done,” the Galra crooned. “Normally, people in that much pain aren’t able to control their thoughts this well. Your girl certainly couldn’t.” 

A spike of fear laced through Lance. 

System 73, System 190, Reina, Lowki, Walaxi—. 

“Let’s make you a little more distracted.”

Lance blinked back to see the Galra holding a syringe full with a silver liquid. Lance’s hands spasmed. 

“Silverwine always makes a tongue a little loose,” the alien grinned. “Especially right before it kills you.”

With that, the syringe was plunged into Lance’s forearm. 

The pain that followed was impossible to describe. It was as if Lance was being burned, frozen, and cut in half. He couldn’t breathe, choking on the agony, going in and out of consciousness quick enough that he couldn’t tell the difference. 

He felt his body writhing, his mouth screaming, making the pain even worse. 

“Again,” the Galra hissed. “Where is the drive?”

Lance focused on the pain, not on the drive, not where it was— nope, fuck, no— he focused on the pain because this was probably the last thing he was going to feel before he died and he wanted to find something in his last few minutes of living. 

There was blood in his eyes, he must have hit his head because now he was on the floor and something was wrong, everything was wrong, and he could hear the Galra asking him questions but, jokes on him, he didn’t exist before this pain and he probably would never again. 

He peeled his eyes open and realized that he must have been unconscious for longer than he thought because the Galra looked even angrier than normal. 

The pain was still choking him but he was slipping into delirium. 

He had to be hallucinating because right before he fainted again, he saw Keith standing behind the Galra with his bayard outstretched and an unrecognizable look of fury on his face. 

 

Gentle fingers probed his jaw, sending a white hot flash of pain arching through his teeth. 

Lance flinched, groaning and batting back the hand. 

Someone hushed him, grabbing his upper arms and pinning them to his sides.

“Stop, stop it, Lance. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

There was something familiar about the voice. But Lance could hardly hear around the roar of the ship and adrenaline had his lungs seizing with unrelenting panic. 

He thrashed and writhed and his head spun from the pain in his mouth and in his bones he heard other voices around him and a very familiar irritated huff. 

“Stop it, Lance!” 

Two knees slid on the outsides of his thighs, pinning his legs together and pushing him still. 

“Lance, Lance, I’ve got you, alright?” 

The ringing in his ears began to clear.

“You’re okay, Lance,” a tentative sweep of fingers against his shoulders. “I’ve got you.”

Lance froze. 

“Be still, alright?” 

He forced himself to sit quietly as fingers, fingers that he had memorized from years of staring, brushed back his hair from his blood-slick brow. The Silverwine roared in Lance’s blood and he knew that he needed to tell Keith, he had to explain, to warn him. 

But he had been hurting for so long and this was the gentlest he had been handled in what felt like years. 

He waited, breathing sharp and haggard through his nose, as thumbs wiped through the blood in his eyes. 

It took too long for his vision to clear, to blink through the red and see gray.

A howling gray. A wild and unrelenting storm that Lance sank into like a doorway. 

“This is going to be hard, but I need you to not talk.”

Lance’s vision was clearing even faster, tears of relief burning his ears. 

“They wrecked your jaw,” the fingers combed and combed through his hair. “Let me guess, you wouldn’t shut up?”

Lance would laugh if it didn’t hurt so much. The tears wouldn’t stop, shock and fear and pain and relief crashing through him. 

It was alright. Everything would be okay because he could see again and his hearing was starting to come back and Keith was here. 

Keith was here and his eyes were like thunder. 

 

 

V

 

Keith hoped Alim was having better luck than he was. 

The Galran ship was a maze. 

They had spent too long searching through the decoded files to find it in the first place. They had been far too preoccupied calling in every favor they had to Sarafrax. The sovereigns were traitors and they had proof. They were to be abdicated from the throne once Voltron had the upper hand. 

Now, they just needed to find their successor. 

It was a miracle Shiro even noticed the same ship name in the manifests. By the time they snagged its location, Keith was itching for a fight. 

Alim looked the same, gripping her small arsenal of weapons with the air of a woman ready to get some things off her chest.

Kolivan sent a handful of Blade ships in the next star system over to help. Shiro messaged the rest of Voltron, who were an uncomfortable distance away. It would be an hour before they could get there. 

But an hour could be the difference between life or death. 

So they studied the blueprints they managed to find, deduced which empty rooms of the ship to sneak through, and went off. 

They were divided into two groups. Alim led a small cohort of Blades to find Niraxi. Shiro and Keith led those after Lance. Keith personally thought that he didn’t need the help. Shiro and him were plenty capable of finding wherever Lance was and ensuring that his captor’s head was removed from his shoulders.

But Shiro caught the hungry look in Keith’s eyes and was shaking his head before Keith could even voice it. 

The Galra ship was larger than any of them would have liked, but at least it made their entrance less noticeable.

They slipped in like ghosts.

Sawed a neat little hole into an airlock forgotten in a corner of the blueprint. It was all hopelessly easy, replanting the steel and welding it back to a messy, albeit intact, mirror of what it was.

“Keith,” Shiro muttered as they crept further into the cool hallway. “Stay cool.”

Keith bristled. “If you say patience yields focus one more—.”

“I commend your insane ability to follow your impulses and not get killed,” Shiro cut in quietly. “But you need to prepare yourself.”

They reached the fork of a hallway. Keith pressed himself against the wall, peering down the hall. Once he saw it was clear, he waved the Blades behind them forward. 

“Lance is here somewhere,” Shiro said quietly as they brought up the rear. “Probably hurt. Likely being hurt. Someone may be hurting him when we find him.”
Keith’s stomach twisted.

“Lance is strong,” Shiro murmured. “Stronger than a lot of people give him credit for. I promise you, unless there is a gun to his head, he will survive long enough for you to pause and think.”

Keith knew Shiro was right. 

He knew that it was essential for him to take his time with this. This was no longer frantic recon, it was a rescue mission. 

He wondered if Alim would treat finding Niraxi the same way. 

Before he could suggest radioing Alim and asking her to not commit mass genocide first thing either, the hot blast of a laser ripped by him. 

Keith swore, spinning around to see three Galra soldiers marching towards them. One was already lifting his hand towards his earpiece.
“The comms!” Keith roared.

He threw his sword, catching the soldier’s hand. The soldier cried out in pain right before Keith was on him, ripping his sword free from the Galra skin and dragging it through his neck. 

The guard crumpled along with the pair behind him, crashing into each other from two Blade hits. 

Keith ducked down, listening hard for the static of any activated comms. 

“We would know if they alerted the others,” Shiro raised his eyes to the ceiling. “There would be alarms loud enough to burst our eardrums.”
Keith wiped the blood off his bayard. “Great. We have that to look forward to.”

 

 

They made it an impressively far distance before it all went to shit. 

Alim had suspected that any prisoners would be kept close enough to the main quarters to be kept under a close watch. Especially captives as precious as a princess and a paladin. 

The closer they climbed through the ship, the sooner they would be seen. 

They already had a few close calls. 

Keith would probably have a hole lasered through his forehead if it weren’t for Shiro noticing a lone guard rounding the corner. Thankfully, Shiro had the Galra on the ground with a single, glowing snap of his wrist. 

It was always a little strange to see Shiro fight. They all had grown their own fighting styles. Pidge and Hunk were methodical, Lance and Allura were quick and decisive, and Keith was admittedly a little ruthless.

Shiro was almost graceful, strangely in tune with the twists and turns of alien battle. He slipped in and out of the fleet of Blades like he belonged there, his face set in a determined press. He was often the first to notice the sounds of an incoming opponent and would have them on the ground in seconds. 

Keith had gotten so used to Shiro as a leader that he forgot he knew how to fight like hell. 

But they were dropping bodies. A lot of them. 

It was only a matter until they were found. 

So, on the southeast of the fourth floor, Keith wasn’t all that surprised when the alarms started blasting.

A jumble cacophony of sound slammed into them, guaranteed to wake any Galra in their bunks.

Even through the din, there was the distinct clap of boots on steel. 

“Scatter!” Shiro bellowed just as they were surrounded.

Fifty Galrans were advancing towards them. 

Keith turned and barely caught an approaching blade with his own. A Galra twice his size snarled down at him. Keith snarled back. 

He ripped back his sword and lashed forward, his blade squealing against the other’s. 

The Galra fought hard. His blows against Keith’s sword were strong enough that Keith felt the rebound in his shoulders. Just as he wound back with a cry, ready to get on the offense, another guard joined the fight. 

He was spinning back and forth, parrying two blades, feeling the twinge in his arms, the beginning of soreness creeping up his wrists. 

Suddenly, everyone was on their own. Keith couldn’t keep track of himself, let alone Shiro and the others as he fought back the soldiers. 

The sound of battle roared in his ears, people trying to shout commands, yelling for help, crying out in pain. He heard armor hitting the ground and ionic guns firing. 

He didn’t dare to look behind him. He couldn’t afford to see carnage, it would only slow him down. 

His gloves were sticky with Galra blood and a blood that looked a lot like his. It made his stomach twist as the smell of burned skin and iron filled the corridor. 

Shiro screamed his name and Keith turned with a snap of fear.

Shiro was unharmed, save for blood dripping from a cut on his forehead. His hair clung to his forehead and his teeth were gritted in determination. 

“Your six!” Shiro shouted. 

Keith followed Shiro’s directions, turning towards a corridor that had the majority of Galra swarming to fight them back. The corridor looked different from the others. It was well lit and heavy with security. 

The Blade closest to breaking through was grabbed by the scruff of their neck. A blade ripped across their neck and they were tossed carefully to the side.

Keith’s stomach felt like it was clawing out of his ribcage.

If Lance and Niraxi were anywhere, it would be down there.

Keith tightened his grip on the sword. He thought about blue eyes and that special, small smile. 

He sucked in one, two, three breaths and charged. 

 

Keith should have stopped to think about what Shiro said. 

He should have remembered that Lance could survive and could afford the time Keith needed to think. 

But then he saw Lance writhing on the floor, choking out pained hisses through a disjointed jaw. He saw the tears slipping into Lance’s hair and the fear on his face and the way the Galra peered down at him. 

And things got murky. 

One moment, he was staring at the tear tracks on Lance’s cheeks and thinking how they looked a little bit like silver, the next he had the Galra on the floor. 

His bayard laid forgotten on the ground next to him and his hand was bleeding heavily. But that didn’t stop him from throwing his fist back into the face of the Galra, over and over, his knuckles stinging and singing and slick with blood. 

He felt a little dazed, a little shocked, a little off his fucking rocker because he didn’t know if he had ever seen Lance look that small and scared and would rather die than see it ever again. 

Keith couldn’t get rid of that stupid Galra smirk in his mind and couldn’t release the anger, couldn’t breathe even if he tried—. 

A strong arm wrapped around his chest and he was being hauled away. Keith was spitting, Keith was snarling, right until he was pinned against a wall and met with another mouthful of fang in his face.

Wylax was in front of him, familiar and firm. 

It was enough to make Keith stop, because Wylax had been assigned to Alim. 

He blinked out of his stupor of rage as Wylax gripped his shoulders. 

Wylax was already talking to him. 

He was telling him something was wrong. 

That this wasn’t torture, this was interrogation and that the Galra had been close. Close enough to get sloppy and desperate and now Niraxi wouldn’t wake up. 

Keith was slipping in and out of his panic and adrenaline and catching words like they were syrup. His gaze pinned and dilated on Lance curled on the floor. 

He pushed past Wylax and hurried to Lance. 

The closer he got to Lance, the more his heart clenched. 

It looked like he had been torn apart and put back together. Cuts and rips littered his flight suit and his face was bludgeoned and bloody. The left side of his jaw was bruising green and yellow. Keith wondered if he would even be able to talk. 

He slid a gentle finger along Lance’s jaw, his chest tight and hot. 

“Lance?”

Lance didn’t stir, even as Keith tugged him closer, pulling his legs over his lap to get him close and shielded from the fight beginning to echo down the halls.

“Lance. Lance.”

Desperation made Keith gentle, cradling Lance’s jaw and carding his hand through his hair over and over. He felt a primal fear unlock, something that felt older than him. 

“Lance!” He squeezed him tighter. “Lance, fuck, Lance please—.”

Lance stirred, groaning and unintelligible but Keith let out a sob of relief. 

But Lance was hurt and blinded by blood and panicked. 

It took too long for Keith to coax him down, to get him calm enough to listen. By the time Keith got an arm under Lance’s concerningly thin shoulders, they had a battle on their heels. 

They took one step and Lance nearly crumpled, a frayed cry of pain leaving his busted mouth.

“I know,” Keith whispered. “I know, I’m so sorry, Lance, but we have to move.”

Lance was hardly there but he listened, grinding his pain into his teeth as he moved with Keith. 

There was something wrong, Lance doubling down or crying out every second step. He was hurt, badly where Keith couldn’t see, and panic was making Keith scared. 

“I know, I’m so sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry, Lance.”

Lance was leaning heavily into him, smelling like blood and salt. 

“Just a little further. We just need to get back to the ship.”

Keith’s heart felt like it would explode out of his chest. They stumbled down the hallway and Wylax lead them down, shouting for the other Blades to follow. Judging by the sounds of the alarms, the ship was going down hard and fast. 

Keith’s throat was a knot. “We are so close, Lance.” 

Lance let out something that sounded like either a groan or a gag. 

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I know it hurts, but we are going to get you out, alright?”

Keith was downright babbling at this point, saying anything that he thought of, tripping over apologies and reassurances. 

Lance had his hand twisted into the collarbone of Keith’s suit, mumbling urgently something through his teeth. 

“I’m sorry, Lance, I—.”

Lance buckled completely and the two of them hit the ground hard. Keith let out a cry of pain as his knees slammed into the steel. Something ground together and something snapped out of place and Keith didn’t know if he could get the two of them back up again. 

He combed Lance’s hair out of his face again, so scared out of his wits that he could barely think.

“Lance,” he cupped Lance’s unharmed cheek, trying to get the rolling blue eyes back to him. “Lance. What’s wrong? Lance, baby, where are you hurt?”

Wylax was running back to them, shouting something, but Keith didn’t bother listening because Lance’s breathing was growing shallower and shallower. 

“Where?” Keith demanded shrilly. “Lance, I need to know. Baby, where is it? Where are you hurt?” 

Lance fought for his eyes to go back to Keith. 

Then, Lance was gripping Keith’s forearm, digging his nail in.

“Keith!” Wylax hollered. “We have to go!” 

Lance dug and dug until Keith hissed from the pain.

“What? What are you—?” 

He realized with a start what Lance was trying to tell him.

Panic seized Keith, white hot then ice cold. He fumbled for Lance’s flight suit and ripped up the sleeve.

 

 

Keith didn’t remember getting back to the castle. 

He didn’t know how Shiro managed to find them or how much of the Galra ship had to be blown through to get Niraxi and Lance out. 

All he knew was that he had Lance and Alim was following them with Niraxi and Shiro was driving faster than Keith had ever seen him. 

Lance was beginning to convulse by the time they landed, spittle and blood slipping from his lips. Keith clutched at him, keeping his neck as steady as he could manage as Shiro swooped down. 

“He’s been poisoned,” Keith gasped out the second the doors hissed open to reveal his horrified friends.

“With what?” Coran demanded. 

“I don’t know,” Keith panted. 

There were hundreds of poisons used by the Galra and at least half of them were equipped specifically for painful interrogation. All the possibilities opposed each other, an antidote to one could kill for another, one could save, one could ruin. 

Keith felt like he couldn’t breathe as they ran into the main foyer, all of his friends asking questions. 

Keith tried to answer them, but he felt a little like he was caving open. He didn’t know how many times to explain that Lance’s mouth had been broken, he couldn’t speak, Keith had no clue and unless they planned to read Lance’s mind—.” 

Keith choked on the realization. 

As questions flew at him, he spun and ripped open a nearby desk. He moved to the next, digging through pockets and crannies until he found what he wanted. 

He felt the beginning sour of guilt rise up his throat, but he had no time to think, no time to regret. 

He slipped the familiar device over his head. 

“Keith, what are you—?” Shiro trailed off, eyes widening in realization just as Keith slipped the mindmeld over Lance’s temple. 

It felt like Keith’s head would split in two. 

A scythe of pain and fear and rage split through him. It was impossible to get through, terror wrapped around his throat while his legs stuck in fury. He couldn’t breathe and felt himself fall to his knees in the control room. 

The cool tile felt galaxies away as he pressed his palms hard against the ground, trying to steady himself. 

The voices of the others were muddled, as if talking through a closed door. He could hear the concern and worry of a few, and then the reassuring rumble of another. Something pressed into his shoulder, cutting through the white hot tangle of anxiety and pain.

He could feel it was Shiro. Steadying him. Keeping him focused.

So he paid attention to the heat of the mindmeld. Tried to organize the emotions and find what they needed. 

Keith imagined his mind growing fingers. Careful hands that could tease through the panicked knots. 

Finally, a thought slipped free.

Keith could taste the salt of sea air, the juice of popsicles sliding down his chin. Kids shrieking and adults laughing and suddenly Keith felt small. 

Something in his chest jolted. He felt like an intruder that strayed too far.

Everything crashed in on him again and he was afraid and angry, dreading and defiant, anything and everything until Shiro’s grip on his shoulder tightened.

Keith dove in again, holding his breath in the salt water until it turned so clear it was blinding. He stood on purple shores and Niraxi grinned at him, eyes sparkling.

They were holding hands but it didn’t feel particularly noteworthy. Keith was watching her hands and thought about how soft they felt. They had never seen battle. Had never wielded a dagger. 

Then Keith thought of himself, but in a new way, a way he had never quite imagined. He was in a T-shirt and sweatpants, sweat clinging to his chest and temples as he panted, twirling his dagger and slipping into a sparring stance.

There was a playful glint in his eyes, a twitch in his lips that Keith didn’t think was possible for his face to create. He looked happy and teasing and handsome. 

It was so different from the glower Keith caught in the mirror. He couldn’t parse through it, couldn’t understand how someone could fashion a Keith like this. 

Until he saw his own hands. 

Tan and strong and wrapped tight around a blue bayard.

He was Lance. He was Lance looking at Niraxi’s hands and thinking of Keith. 

The air got knocked out of him and he was drowning in the meld again. He flipped and turned and twisted in the memories, wincing at an onslaught of unexpected sunlight and choking down the iron of blood and everything was too cold and too hot and then Shiro’s hands were on both his shoulders, squeezing him, orienting him.

Keith could feel his fingers again, curled against the castle floor, and thought about Lance seizing and frothing. 

He dove in again. 

It was easier to swim deeper, shifting through the vague hints of memories and thoughts until he found another with Niraxi. He was kissing her and she tasted like Sarafrax berries and mint and they kept their lips pressed together until the photographers were waved away. They broke apart, laughing. 

“Alim is so going to kill me,” Keith told her in Lance’s voice. 

She smacked his arm, an orange blush rising up her chest and cheeks.

Keith shuffled through more. The charade of their love affair. The hand-holding and embraces and how they fell apart into laughter and teasing. How Niraxi stared at her guard, a dreamy look on her face. How they timed their entrances and exits to the visits of other ambassadors in attempts to make their relationship convincing. How Niraxi, almost as tall as him, felt tiny in Lance’s arms. How she whispered her fears in the dark, how she was worried her parents were evil and whether Sarafrax could survive it. She told him other things, private things that made Keith frantically swipe away and into a new memory.

Niraxi was staring at him. “You and the Red Paladin.”
Keith choked and asked her what she meant. Niraxi looked at him with pity. 

He searched further and further, dove deeper and deeper until he was staring at himself again. 

But this Keith was wrecked. His eyes were wide and glassy, face devoid of all color, and mouth twisted down into a look of abject horror. 

“Fuck,” the other Keith’s voice wavered. “Don’t make me say it.”

Keith stared at him, stared at this other Keith as he searched his gaze. For a moment, he refused to understand what he was saying. He refused because it was impossible. He wouldn’t be this unlucky.

“Shit,” Keith hissed in Lance’s voice. “Shit, Keith.”

The other Keith looked sick. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do this to me.” Keith felt like he couldn’t breathe. “I can’t believe this is happening right now.”

The first thing he felt was rage. A wave of thick anger that felt impossible to survive. It was all so unfair. He had a part to play, an act to finish, but this was what he had wanted for years. He had spent so long agonizing over Keith’s disinterest in him. He had been so sure that Keith couldn’t have cared less about him. What would Keith even see in him? He was decent with a gun and could think himself through most problems, but other than a good hand and a clever brain, what did he have?  

What could he possess that could match Keith? Keith, who was arrogant and impulsive but would double back to save anyone. Keith, who was handsome in a way that most would find devastating. Keith, who had spent years trying to crack himself open wide enough to let others inside. Keith, who had a smile that rivaled the Varadero sunsets. Keith, who he wanted to bring home someday. 

Keith, who was now crying in front of him. 

Keith felt himself jolt, tearing back in bewilderment, losing focus of himself and this other Keith, the Keith who confessed to Lance and had his heart broken. But here he was, in Lance’s mind and heart and felt it break as well. 

The other Keith shifted again, a red haze settling over Keith’s eyes as panic seized him. He was Lance and Lance felt like he couldn’t breathe, sucking in fractured lungfuls through a locked jaw. The other Keith was watching him, murmuring reassurances with eyes so gray he heard thunder.

He wanted to tell him everything, how sorry he was, how he wished things were different, how he hated how he had to save him again, how he wished that he hadn’t been stupid enough to get caught on the Galra’s blade. 

But he did, and now he could feel the heat of poison in his bloodstream and shuddered to think about the silver dripping off the blade—

Keith jerked back, ripping up his hands and digging his nails into where Shiro was gripping his shoulders.

Shiro followed the cue immediately, hands moving up through Keith’s hair and ripping off the mindmeld and suddenly everything was too quiet.

Vertigo spun through Keith and he dropped back to his hands and knees, retching. 

He shook as he vomited, gasping out incomprehensible words as he tried to find his way back into himself. It felt so strange to be in his own thoughts. His terror wasn’t as sharp as Lance’s, more like a rising pressure than a knife wound. But it felt like it would crush him as he settled back, shivering and sucking in air. He kept opening and closing his jaw, certain that it was broken like Lance’s was.

Blood was dripping onto his hands and Keith realized his nose was bleeding.

“Silverwine!” Keith’s own voice sounded like a stranger’s. “S-Silverwine. It’s a Galra po–poison.”

He collapsed, rolling onto his side to fumble for the invisible lining in his pocket. He could hear Coran rushing to the monitor, typing quickly. 

“Do you remember the antidote?”

“I have one–,” Keith choked out, digging clumsy fingers through the suit. “I have one, all Blades do, we–.”

Pidge dove forward, batting Keith’s trembling hands away and ripping open the pocket. The second he caught the tiny vial in their hands, Keith dropped back against the ground, swallowed another lungful of air, and fainted. 

Keith dropped out of the pod like a stone. 

He felt arms catch him and a familiar grunt in his ear. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled as Hunk carefully helped him down. 

He felt awful. His vision was blurry and his skin was stiff with dried blood. That was never good, it meant that they had to get him in the pod before even taking the time to wash the blood off him. 

He looked down at his hands, at the crimson under his fingernails, and remembered that the blood wasn’t his. 

He jolted, gasping as his chest seized. “Lance.”

“He’s alright,” Hunk said kindly. “You just beat him.”

Keith gripped Hunk, turning to see the pod next to him was humming and frozen over. If he squinted through his blurry gaze, he could just barely make out the slope of Lance’s neck.

“We didn’t expect either of you to come out until tomorrow,” Hunk helped Keith to a chair. “I got the graveyard shift.”

Keith’s body felt like he had been thrown through an asteroid field. Every inch of him was sore and tight. 

“Your antidote worked,” Hunk sat next to him with a sigh, squeezing his knees. “Just in time, judging by the queasy look on Coran’s face.”

Keith was feeling a little nauseous too just thinking about it. He could still feel the panicked heat of Lance’s body, the feeling of a body that was too close to the edge. His blood had been practically boiling trying to work the poison out of his system. 

And then Keith remembered the mindmeld. The memories that had felt so real, like Keith had been superimposed in someone else’s shadow.

He thought through it all. The way that Lance’s mind had looked at Niraxi, at the others, at him. The stress, the pain, the confusion. The hurt. 

Hunk sat quietly next to him, waiting for him to process.

Keith closed his eyes and swallowed against a dry tongue. “How long?”

“Oh, Keith,” Hunk’s voice, though not unkind, was cruelly matter-of-fact. “You’re too smart to ask that.”

Keith managed another gulp, swallowing a tough pill. “Since the beginning?”

Hunk watched him. “It depends on where you think the beginning is.”

Keith put his head in his hands.

“That’s impossible,” Keith said in a tiny voice. “It couldn’t have been— I mean, the Garrison? That Keith? The one that was a fucking dick to everyone? That was the one Lance—.”

He couldn’t bear to say it.

“Well,” Hunk said mildly. “He always liked passionate people.”

Keith bit back a self-deprecating remark. Back then, he was only passionate about being an asshole. He was so pissed and ugly to everyone. How could he have gotten Lance’s attention then? 

“It doesn’t matter when,” Hunk continued. “The only thing that matters is that you know now.”

 

The next day, Lance woke up. 

They were all sitting in the control room, doing their best to not stare at the pod. Allura and Coran were attempting to keep busy fielding updates from Sarafrax. Pidge had their nose in a datapad and Hunk and Shiro were on their thirteenth game of Go Fish. 

Keith had done little other than pace and stare at the wall. He had spent the whole night imagining the moment Lance came out of the pods. 

He would help Lance out of the pod and get him whatever he needed and tell him that Niraxi was alright and that he knew Silverwine stung like an old memory and, speaking of memories, he was so sorry that he had to look through his. He was so sorry that he shuffled through Lance’s most private moments like a record collection and that he would spend the rest of his life making it up to him. 

And so he paced and he planned it all in his head. 

And the pod hissed. 

The pod hissed and Coran and Hunk rushed and just barely caught Lance when he fell out of him. 

Keith dug his nails hard into his palms and watched the others rush over. Lance clumsily pawed at Hunk and Coran, unsteadily finding his feet. His face was still bruised and his jaw was swollen enough that he winced as he tried to open his mouth. 

“Not yet,” Pidge said gently. “It’s going to take a couple pod stints to fix your jaw, Lance.”

“Just breathe for now,” Shiro grasped Lance’s shoulder. 

Lance settled for a nod, taking Shiro’s offered hand. He seemed to be coming back slowly, his moments groggy as they helped him towards a chair. 

And then blue eyes swept the room, looking for something. 

And Keith’s breath caught.

Because he had seen that same look so many times. Lance was always scanning the room, always seeming to catch Keith in the most vulnerable of moments. Keith used to hate the feeling of Lance watching him. 

But now, knowing what it felt to be behind those blue eyes, Keith felt like he knew a secret someone planned to die with.

He felt guilty and the cowardice came quick. 

Before his eyes caught Lance’s, he fled the room. 

 

Lance managed to corner him the next day. 

Keith was a little impressed. 

When he opened his bedroom door, Lance was there, waiting with an annoyed look on his face. Before Keith could get a word out, Lance grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back into his room. 

“Are you planning to just avoid me forever?” Lance asked, marching further into Keith’s room and spinning to face him. 

It was hard to even look at him. Despite too long in the pod, Lance’s eyes were still heavy with exhaustion and his jaw was still swollen. He was pale and devoid of a lot of quintessence and looked like every step hurt. 

“Yes,” Keith said honestly. 

Lance rolled his eyes. “We have to talk about it, you idiot.”

Keith pressed his lips together. 

He thought about suggesting that they forget it all. It wasn’t worth this mess because he would rather have Lance in his life as a polite acquaintance as long as he was in his life at all. 

But Lance had the same look he did after the explosion all those years ago and Keith felt a lump grow in his throat.  

“I’ve ruined everything,” Keith croaked. “Haven’t I?”

He knew it was true. He had blundered through his confession, staged an intergalactic scandal, and rifled through Lance’s memories the way one looks for a missing sock. 

He had hurt Lance in ways he would probably never understand, though he figured it had to be close to the pain seizing in his chest.

Lance looked at him, brows furrowed. “Keith—.”

“I’ve fucked it all up,” Keith choked out. “You should hate me.”

Lance, if anything, looked confused.

”You,” Lance stopped, blinked, and started again. “You saw my memories, right?”

Just Lance bringing it up stung. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“I—,” Lance looked even more bewildered. “Then you know I’m crazy about you.”

Keith stared at him.

Lance held his gaze, oddly patient. 

“Don’t—,” Keith’s throat closed shut. “Don’t do this.”

He felt twelve and he felt twenty. He didn’t know what to do with how Lance watched him because Keith was far too sharp for such a gentle smile. 

“Don’t make me think it’ll be this easy,” Keith croaked. 

Lance laughed a little at that. “Keith, babe, nothing is easy with us.”

The petname send a wave of hot goosebumps down Keith’s arms. He was pretty sure he was blushing to his ears. 

“Don’t you think we deserve something to be a little easy?” Lance asked gently. “A little break from all this awful shit? Let’s be happy, Keith.”

Keith’s throat was screwed shut. 

Lance offered a small smile. “It’s going to take more than a little meddling in a mindmeld to scare me off.”

“You need to sort out your priorities.”

A look of insult crossed Lance’s face. Then, he blinked and let out a laugh. 

And then he was laughing, harder and harder, leaning against the wall for support while Keith stood, stunned, with shocked tears still burning his eyes. 

“You, you fucking dick,” Lance fought out through his laughter. “You pause your profuse apologizing to insult the fact that I still like you?” 

Keith opened his mouth to retort, only for it to hang open. 

Lance had a point and was still giggling. 

“Take the win, you idiot!”

It was so ridiculous, so outwardly and hideously them, that Keith couldn’t stop himself from cracking a smile. 

“It’s only natural that I would want the best for you.”

And that set Lance off again, doubling over and clutching his stomach. 

“And we both know I’m not it.”

Lance was wheezing and Keith couldn’t stop a chuckle. 

“This,” Lance paused to wipe tears from his eyes. “This is the fucking stupidest confession I’ve gone through.”

“Stupider than me confessing to you while you had a fake girlfriend?”

Lance let out a honk of a laugh, getting a snort out of Keith.

Keith would have been embarrassed if it hadn’t caused the hugest grin to cross Lance’s face. 

Lance looked indescribably fond of him as he slid his fingers through Keith’s hair. A ripple of goosebump arched down Keith’s spine as Lance stepped forward. 

“I’m still mad at you,” Lance said softly. “And we have a hell of a conversation in front of us.”

”But?” Keith breathed, all too aware of how close Lance was.

“But,” Lance echoed, his smile sliding into something wanting. “That can wait.”

When Lance kissed him, it tasted like laughter. 

And when he kissed him again, it tasted like a promise for more. 

 

The next time they visited Sarafrax, it was in bloom. 

There was color everywhere. Murals on the pearly white buildings, cobblestones polished with every metal, deep jewel tones in the linens the townspeople wore. The trading posts were safe and the market flourishes, each province sharing a bit of each other. 

It felt like the lower town had boiled over, sweeping up into the starch and stiff royal court. The pavilions and gardens smelled like honey and cinnamon and Lance could hear the laughter even through the ripple of music. 

“Wow,” Keith leaned into Lance. “I can’t believe how different it looks.”

“Shocking what a lesbian couple can do to a planet.”

Keith snorted. 

They walked along the purple beaches that reminded Lance of sea salt and popsicles. He thought about the last time he was on this planet. How scared he had seen. How he had been drowning in secrets. How deeply he had wanted to come clean, how he wanted to look into gray eyes without being afraid of what they would see.

Lance looked up then, over to where Keith was doing a horrible job of acting as if he hadn’t been staring at Lance. 

“How long do you think it will take for us to see the queen?” He asked, dark eyes slipping to Lance’s mouth. 

“Hm,” Lance grinned. “Considering that Alim told us that her and the Queen are quite preoccupied, I’d say we have some time.”

“I guess the two of them are making up for lost time.” 

“I know the feeling,” Lance told him. 

Keith blushed at that, clearing his throat and looking away. 

Lance’s grin widened.

He reached over and took Keith’s hand. “Want to take the long way up?”

Keith’s eyes found him again, watching him with the ease of a man who had gotten all he wanted. 

Lance smiled and held on tight. 

Notes:

we are so mf back.

While I've been working on this, I've also been piecing together "Down the Hollow". After finishing Mightier Than The Sword, Keith's story really stuck with me. I wanted to follow that story, and it seemed like a lot of you wanted to as well!

I will be posting chapters on my Substack account, which you can access here! The prologue is out now!

https://open.substack.com/pub/downthehollow/p/freedom-is-a-paper-house-destiny?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

I'm so excited to share the next step of my writing journey with you all. Thank you for being patient with me <3

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of The Eyes of the Beholder Duology