Lance and Keith's favorite place was under the stars. They were in space so under the stars was basically everywhere, but there was one room in particular in the castle that was covered floor to ceiling in windows that had the best view. This was their favorite place not only for the view but also because it held so many things for them: their confession, their first kiss, their quiet times just getting to know each other. It was where they fell in love.
Most nights would find them curled together on the floor, Lance's arm behind Keith's neck and Keith's head resting on Lance's shoulder.
Tonight, Keith was gesturing wildly as he explained to Lance one of the many conspiracy theories he held to while Lance just stared at him with a soft smile on his face as Keith got more and more animated.
When Keith turned to face him to ask his opinion, he just smiled wider and said softly, "I love you."
Keith stilled for a second, stunned, before he turned and buried his face deeper into Lance's shoulder. He stayed like that for a second before pulling back and looking at Lance with a concerned look on his face. "I-I love you too," he said quietly.
Lance sat up, pulling Keith with him. "What's wrong," he asked as he rubbed a finger over the furrow in Keith's brow.
Keith gave a weak smile. "Nothing, I'm really happy," he said, "It's just-no one has ever said that to me before."
Lance looked at him in shock for a split second before wrapping his arms around him and crushing him to his chest. He leaned down to whisper into Keith's ear, "I love you, I love you, I love you," repeated like a mantra, "I love you, I love you, I love you."
They stayed there until Keith believed the words that were said so sincerely into his ear.
-0-
One lazy morning a few months later, before anyone else in the castle was up, the time when Keith was usually practicing with the gladiator, he was instead lying content in Lance's bed with his head resting on Lance's chest, just feeling Lance breathe.
He laid there, no other sound but the thumping of Lane's heart and the occasional snore that filled the room.
The serenity of the moment was broken when the alarms sounded throughout the castle. Keith jumped up from Lance's chest and was headed for the door when he turned back and saw Lance still sleeping soundly even through the sound of the alarm. He rolled his eyes and made his way back into the room to wake his boyfriend.
They made it to the control room several minutes later with lazy smiles on their faces, but immediately dropped them when they saw the look on Allura's face.
"I don't have time to give you a speech right now, but be warned there will be one when you get back," she said sternly.
Lane and Keith both ducked their heads in embarrassment as Allura continued on to explain the mission.
"We discovered a civilian distress signal from a planet we had assumed was unoccupied and so we are going to have a look," she said, "There haven't been many Galra spotted in this area, but keep your guards up."
Shiro nodded solemnly. "Let's head out, team," he said.
They made their way to their lions and once they were all in position, headed towards the unknown planet.
"Hey babe," Lance said.
"Don't call me that," Keith said with a smile on his face.
Lance rolled his eyes. "Whatever, cariño," he said, "I was going to say that I bet I could beat you down to the surface of the planet."
Keith's smile turned into a smirk. "You are so on"
"Guys," Shiro said, "I think we should stick together. We don't know what's down there."
Lance just scoffed before putting his lion into full throttle and blasting off with a burst of laughter.
Keith was laughing too as he tried to catch up. "Cheater!" he yelled as he started gaining on Lance's lion.
As they were hurtling towards the ground, Keith happened to glance towards the crash site where the distress beacon was coming from and saw a crumpled heap of a ship. It looked like any other crash site might, except he saw it flicker for a second before sitting normally again.
"Lance," he said, pulling up, "I think we should head back and stick with the others."
"Worried?" Lance asked in a taunting tone of voice, still going full throttle.
"I just think we should check it out before barging in this head first," he said as Lance got closer and closer to the downed ship. Keith stated heading down again, trying to catch up to Lance.
"It's just a normal old ship," Lance said as he pulled up just in time to miss there ground and land neatly beside the ship. "It's probably just a little old space lady needing some assistance," he said as he exited his lion, "and guess who's going to get the credit for-"
Lance cut off with a quick shout and Keith watched in horror as the crashed ship once again flicked like a hologram and a fully in tact Galra ship was sitting neatly in its place. He made it to the ground just in time to see Lance desperately try and fail to avoid a blast sent from the hands of a druid woman that was standing in the mouth of the ship.
"No!" Keith yelled as Lance was thrown to the ground by the blast.
"Keith, what's going on?" Shiro asked as Keith got out of his lion as fast as he could, bayard already drawn.
Keith tried to find Lance once he was on the ground, but sentries were on him in a second and he was lucky not to be skewered. "It was a trap," he said into his helmet, "Lance is down and I can't find him. It was the druid, she-"
Shiro interrupted him. "Keith calm down," he said, "We are landing now. Pidge and I will join you while Hunk finds Lance and gets him to safety."
Pidge and Shiro were there in what seemed like an instant and the fought the sentries together.
"Uh, guys," Hunk said, "He's out cold, but there don't seem to be any major injuries on him, just cuts and scrapes, but I'm going to take him back to the lions."
"Okay, Hunk. We are just finishing up here, but I don't see the druid anywhere," Shiro said.
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, the Galra ship burst to life and started taking off and as Pidge hacked the last sentry down, the ship was a speck in the sky.
Shiro and Pidge were standing catching their breath, but Keith had already taken off in the direction of the lions. Hunk had already loaded Lance on his lion and was starting to take off towards the castle.
"How is he, Hunk?" Keith asked as he made it to his lion and started following Hunk's lion to the castle.
"He's still unconscious," he said, "No change."
"Pidge, lets head back to the castle, there's nothing more we can do here," Shiro said, "We just need to make sure Lance is okay."
It was a short silent trip back to the castle and once everyone had made it back, Lance was already placed in a healing pod as Coran examined him.
"It seems that the druid cast some sort of mind altering spell over him," Coran said, "I can't be sure of the exact effects until he wakes up."
Shiro took a deep breath a laid a hand on Keith's shoulder. "It looks like there's nothing that we can do but wait," he said, "how about we grab a late breakfast and try to relax." He squeezed Keith's shoulder before letting go and exiting the room.
The others followed, but Keith stayed behind and sat beside Lance's pod. "Idiot," he whispered.
Coran stopped his soft humming and paused where he was fiddling with the controls of the healing pods. "What was that?"
"Nothing," Keith said as he laid a hand on the cold glass.
-0-
Since he wasn't very much physically injured, Lance was out of the healing pod in less than an hour and by that time everyone had made their way back into the room.
When the healing pod finally opened up, Keith was standing by to catch Lance as he stumbled away from it.
Lance held a soft hand up to his head as he tried to open his eyes wide enough to take in his surroundings.
"Hunk," he said, having caught his eye first, "What happened, where am I?"
Hunk stepped forward and grabbed Lance's unoccupied arm to help support him as he wobbles a little bit.
"You're in the infirmary, that druid hit you with something that knocked you out," he said.
Lance looked confused. "This isn't the infirmary," he said, "And what is a druid?"
Hunk's eyes widened and he gasped but Lance interrupted him.
"Hey Pidge, how ya doing, man?" He said with a nod in Pidge's direction, "And who is-" he broke with a shocked gasp. "You're Shiro, the pilot from the Cerberos mission, you're like my hero!"
"Oh no," Shiro said.
Suddenly Lance looked over and paused for a second before he wrenched himself from Keith's arms. "What are you doing here?" he demanded as Keith looked at him in dawning realization, "I thought you dropped out or something."
Coran then decided to step over. "It appears that Lance is suffering from an acute form of memory loss," he said, "Probably due to the druid's attack."
Lance was now staring at Coran with a look of awe on his face. "You-you're a-you're an alien," he said before turning to Hunk, "Please tell me I'm not going crazy."
"Just listen to Coran," Hunk said, "He will explain everything.
"Coran, right," Lance said skeptically before turning to Coran. "I'm assuming the alien is Coran."
Coran grinned brightly. "You would assume right!" he said, "I'm afraid you are suffering from memory loss due to an attack from a sort of magical space monster thing we like to call a druid."
"Wait a second," Lance said, holding up a hand, "Are we in space right now?"
"Ah yes, you are aboard the Castle of Lions, home of the paladins of Voltron," Coran said with an elaborate wave of his arm.
"Lions...paladins...Voltron...?" Lance mumbled in confusion.
Hunk stepped between Coran and Lance. "How about I catch him up on the things he missed since he remembers me," he said.
Shiro nodded. "I think that is a great idea," he said, "You can show him his room and talk in there."
"Will do," Hunk said as Lance gave Shiro a sloppy salute and they turned to leave the room.
Keith bit his lip as he stared at their retreating backs before walking forward and grabbing Hunk by his shoulder. He whispered something into his ear while Lance glared impatiently, before he let go and Hunk gave him a confused look.
"Just don't," Keith said softy, "Please."
"Okay. I don't like it, but it's your decision," Hunk said before turning bak around and leading Lance from the room. "It all started like a year ago when we were sneaking out of the dorms right before lights out and we saw Pidge sneaking onto the roof-"
The door closed behind them and the room was washed in silence.
Keith cleared his throat and addressed the rest of the room. "I asked Hunk not to tell Lance about our relationship," he said.
Shiro walked up to him and put comforting hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure?" he asked.
Keith took a steadying breath and said, "Yes, I'm sure. At this point he still basically hated me and I don't think it would do him well to have to deal with that without having been through what we've been through."
Shiro set his jaw. "I don't like it, but if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm always open," he said.
Keith just nodded before turning to leave the room. "I'll be training if anyone needs me."
-0-
Come supper time, Lance was mostly caught up to speed on what he had missed.
While they were all seated around the table, Lance was loudly explaining to the rest what he thought of their team.
"We are so awesome," he exclaimed, "Like space cops or space super heroes. My lion is so cool, she's so big and awesome, I haven't tried flying yet but I bet to comes naturally to me, unlike Mullet over there." He gestured over to where Keith was sitting by Shiro.
Before Keith could retaliate, allura swept into the room and scanned the room until her eyes found Lance. "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you earlier, I was trying to find something that could help us get you back to normal," she said, "How are you feeling?"
Lance smirked, "Better now that you're here, beautiful," he said.
Allura's eyes immediately shot over to where Keith was sitting staring forlornly at Lance and he shrugged weakly. She looked bak over to Lance who was now waggling his eyebrows at her. "None of that," she scolded, "I'm in a very happy relationship with your leader, now eat your goo."
Lance turned around with a pout on his face and stared at his plate. "I actually eat this?" he asked skeptically.
Shiro rolled his eyes as Allura sat down on his other side. "It's an acquired taste," he said, "You've already went through this once."
Lance whined but stuck his spork in and took a small bite. His face went through a series of expressions before settling on disgusted. "The taste isn't bad, the worst part is the texture," he said with his mouth full of goo.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Keith said automatically from across the table.
Lance turned to look at him. "Okay, mom, whatever you say," he said as he started putting more of the goo in his mouth and continued talking, "Just say the word and I will obey you, dropout. You are fully in charge of my actions-"
Hunk nudged Lance's side as Keith stared down at his food. "Dude, be nice," he said, "Also, gross."
Keith shoved his chair back with a mumbled, "Not hungry," before heading from the room.
Lance just shrugged and kept chewing the bite he was on. Without Lance talking, the room was quiet except for the sounds of silverware hitting the plates.
"Are you starting to remember anything, Lance?" Allura asked, trying to relive the silence.
"Nothing yet," Lance said, "I just know what Hunk told me."
"You're memory might start coming back more if you start doing what you would normally do," Coran started, "Routine might help."
Shiro cleared his throat. "Right now, we will be postponing missions and focus on Lance getting his memory back, that is our priority," he said, "We need to be careful, though, I think the druid's plan in taking Lance's memory was to stop us from being able to form Voltron so we will have to keep our guard up."
"That is an excellent idea, Shiro," Allura said, "I will take the castle to a relatively safe location so that we can help Lance."
"Okay, it's decided," Shiro said, turning back to his goo.
-0-
Over the next couple of days, Hunk and Pidge took Lance around and did most of the things that they would usually do. They bothered Coran and messed around in the castle, normal things. Keith tried to stay out of their way because whenever he got close, Lance was rude and distant towards him like he had been before everything had happened.
Keith tried not to care about how Lance was treating him, but missed the casual teasing and the secret smiles shared. He missed the affection Lance showered onto him when they were alone and the soft "I love you's" after sweet kisses. He missed his Lance and this Lance didn't even know to miss him.
It all came crashing down one lazy afternoon. Keith had been upset since breakfast, when Shiro asked him how he was doing and Lance made some dumb joke about his hair that he had made a million times before ignoring him for the rest of the meal.
Keith's bad mood persisted and so he tried to vent his frustrations by training, but he just ended up sweaty and tired and even more upset.
By the time he had taken a shower and made it to the common room, feeling a little more relaxed, Pidge, Hunk, and Lance had somehow managed to find an Altean version of a board game. The pieces were giving off a strange sort of electric jolts as they were being set up and Keith didn't think it looked very safe or fun and he told the trio as much.
"No one cares about you," Lance said with a flippant wave of his hand, not even looking up from the game.
For a second everything stopped for Keith and then a ragged gasp tore from his throat as Lance's words hit him. He knew Lance didn't think anything of it, but for Keith it felt like an end.
He heard Hunk shout Lance's name to scold him, but he had already turned on his heel and fled the rooms that no one could see the tears starting to fall down his cheeks.
He tried to get away from that room as quickly as possible, but as he rounded a corner, he ran right into Allura and Shiro. He immediately turned around to keep them from seeing his tears, but Allura caught his arm and spun him around to face them.
"Are you alright?" She asked in a concerned voice.
He wanted to say yes, play it off, try to cover it up, but when he opened his mouth no words came out,, he just let out a desperate noise and flung himself onto her chest and cried.
Allura gasped in surprise, but rubbed a soothing hand across his back as Shiro laid a hand on his shoulder and he just let his frustration and grief out.
"He doesn't love me anymore," he said over and over again like a mantra, "He doesn't love me anymore."
-0-
Lance was confused. Hank and Pidge were tearing him a new one about what he had said to Keith. It wasn't like he hadn't said it before, but for some reason this time Keith had taken it differently.
Hunk was in full lecture mode while Pidge just glared at him in disapproval. Lance was just gearing up to roll his eyes and tell them to calm down when Allura stalked into the room with Shiro hot on her heels.
She didn't stop until she had marched right up to Lance and grabbed him by the from to the shirt and pointed a finger right in his face.
"You," she started, "You are the most inconsiderate, insensitive person I have ever met! You walk around all high and mighty and never stop to think how your actions might affect others!" She took a breath. "I could punch you in the face right now for acting like this!"
Lance just threw his hands up in surrender. "Whoa! At least tell me what I did before you jump all over my case."
Allura's eyes widened further in outrage. "You men to tell me you don'y even know?" She asked. Lance just shrugged helplessly and Allura let go of his shirt with a frustrated shout. "He doesn't even know!"
Shiro stepped in between them. "What Allura is trying to say is that you really hurt Keith with what you said earlier," he said softly.
Lance snorted. "Its nothing I haven't said to him before," he said defensively.
"Yeah, maybe before you started dating," Pidge said under her breath.
Pidge slapped her hands over her mouth as the whole room got quiet, all of them staring at Lance in anticipation.
He laughed derisively for a second before he took in everyone's stunned state and he felt his heart jump in his chest. "What?" He whispered desperately. "You're joking, no way me and Keith were..."
He dropped off as the ret of the room remained sitting in horrified silence as Lance let the idea tumble around his head.
"We were dating and nobody told me?" He all but screeched.
The others flinched at his tone and Shiro laid a calming hand on his arm. "Keith told us not to tell," he said, "You didn't remember and he figured you would freak out if you found out. He was thought it would help-"
"How long?"
"What?" Shiro asked, confused.
"How long had we been dating?" Lance asked with a shaking voice.
Hunk spoke up, "About nine months."
Lance just stared in shock. "Nine..." he trailed off before looking at the rest of them, all trying not to meet his eye. "I'm going to find him."
Hunk made as if to stop him, but Lance just shrugged his hand puff his arm and left the room.
Lance didn't really pay attention to where he was going, he just knew he needed to find Keith. Lance's mind was reeling, he remembered how much it had hurt after his high school girlfriend had broken up with him after seven months, and Keith didn't even get dumped, he got forgotten.
Lance stopped at an unfamiliar doorway on the other side of the caste. He felt like he had been here before, so he decided to trust himself and open the door.
He stopped to gawk for a second after the door swished open. The room was just windows on every wall and through these windows he could see an so many stars it was breathtaking. He just stared at the stars until a small sniffle broke him out of his wonder. He scanned the room until he found the source of the noise.
Keith sat curled into a ball with his head resting on his knees as he shivered and sniffled. Lance felt a rush of guilt go through him as he made his way over to sit beside Keith.
"I don't want to talk, Shiro," he said as he lifted his head with a glare. He stopped and quickly faced the other way when he saw who it was. "Please go away," he said weakly.
Lance just pulled his legs in and sat cross-legged with his hands fiddling in his lap. "The others told me," he said, "about us."
Keith stiffened but didn't turn back around. "I told them not to," he said.
"Yeah, they told me," Lance said before taking a deep breath, "I'm sorry for what I said, okay, if I had known, I would have been more careful with your feelings because I'm not a total jerk."
Keith finally turned back to face Lance and rested his cheek on his knee. "It's okay, you don't remember so it's not your fault," he said with another sniffle, "You know I didn't expect anything from you, right."
"What?" Lance asked, "of course I don't think you would."
"Good."
They sat in silence for a few seconds before Lance spoke again.
"I was actually going to suggest that you maybe start doing things we used to do together. I figured we didn't hang out much, but apparently I was wrong," he said with a soft laugh.
"We used to just sit here and look at the stars," Keith said softly.
"Okay," Lance said, "Then that is what we will do."
-0-
It became a routine. Every night after they ate supper, Lance and Keith would go to the room and stargaze. They started off just sitting near each other mostly in silence, but steadily they scooted closer and closer and they talked more and more.
One night as they sat pressed together, Lance said in a soft voice, "Tell me about us."
For a second Keith was confused and then it dawned on him. He glanced quickly over at Lance. "You confessed first on accident," he said, "You assumed I didn't speak Spanish and one night while we were sitting here, you just all the sudden started ranting in rapid-fire Spanish about how beautiful my eyes were and how great a pilot I was and so on and then you stopped when you noticed me turning red-"
"Kind of like you are right now?" Lance asked.
Keith swatted Lance's leg. "Quiet, I'm telling a story," he said, "anyway, you were all like 'what's wrong with you' but you were still speaking Spanish and I answered in Spanish and you freaked out and tried to run away, but I told you I liked you too."
"Then what?" Lance asked.
"Then you just sat down beside me and grabbed my hand and we sat the rest of the night holding hands and watching the stars."
Lance just started giggling as soon as Keith finished his story. "We are such dorks," he said.
Keith started laughing at that too and before long they were both laughing together until their sides ached.
When they had finally calmed down, Lance slowly moved his hand until it was resting on top of Keith's. Keith glanced over at him, but he was deliberately staring ahead. When Keith twined their fingers together, Lance just said, "Tell me about our first kiss."
Keith laughed and said, "Now that was all me."
-0-
They ended up curled together on the floor, Lance's arm behind Keith's neck and Keith's head resting on Lance's shoulder. Keith was gesturing wildly as he told Lance one of the many adventures they had been one while Lance just stared at him with a soft smile on his face as Keith got more and more animated.
When Keith turned to face him, Lance just smiled wider and then the world seemed stopped as memories came flooding in.
Lance sat up, pulling Keith with him.
"What's wrong," Keith asked as he wiped a tear from Lance's cheek.
Lance gave a bright smile as he said, "I remember."
Keith looked at him in shock for a split second before Lance wrapped his arms around him and crushing him to his chest. He leaned down to whisper into Keith's ear, "I still love you, I still love you, I still love you," repeated like a mantra, "I still love you, I still love you, I still love you."