A Lake Between the Sun and Moon

by Sofysicist

After a misadventure on their way back to Earth, Keith and Lance end up stranded on a tidally-locked planet. It will take all of their strength and wit just to survive in this unusual and unforgiving environment. And time might be running out for Lance to say something he's wanted to say for a long time...

A Lake Between the Sun and Moon

A Voltron: Legendary Defender fan-fiction by Sofysicist

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Thank you for reading my first-ever fan-fiction! Enjoy!

Note: The M rating is for language only.

---

"Ninety nine squapples of glook on the wall, ninety nine squapples of gloooooook!"

Keith was going to go insane.

"What's the next line again? This translation would really be easier if we still had the Castle of Lions…"

Coran's voice had been squawking non-stop through his comm for what seemed like decaphoebs. The mute button blinked invitingly, but Keith was the leader of the Paladins of Voltron, the pilot of the Black Lion, back from the Quantum Abyss older and wiser and more experienced. His team was stranded, at least a decaphoeb's travel from Earth, the Lions were at half power, and they needed something to keep them together on this long journey. This long, frustrating, boring journey.

"I don't really think a squapple is the right word here," Allura considered, her high, clipped voice just adding to Keith's nascent headache. "I mean, squapples cannot possibly hang on a wall, and on ancient Altaea they were only used for the aging of nunvill."

"Hey, team," Keith tried, attempting to distract Coran from the song in any way possible. "I know it's a long way off still, but maybe we should review our plans for when we arrive at-"

"Ahh, chill, Keith, let us have a break," Lance drawled. "Maybe you should join in – might get the ants out of your pants."

Keith fumed silently.

"Mmm, no, squapple doesn't make sense at all then," Hunk chimed in, bringing the conversation back to Allura's comment. Because of course everyone was on board with this, instead of doing something useful with their time. "On Earth, in the production of beverages with-"

"Ninety nine quibloks of glook on the wall!" Coran butted in again, somehow even further off-key than before. Hunk sighed into the mic, his culinary lecture interrupted and forgotten.

"Quiblok, squapple, glook, you've got to be pulling my leg," Lance complained. "You're totally just making those up!"

"Altaean has been around for longer than your species has known how to make fire!" Coran exclaimed.

"For a human that speaks two Earth languages fluently, you are being rather judgmental, Lance!" Allura sniffed, obviously offended. Keith snorted. Lance, having strong and poorly thought-out opinions that everyone within earshot was going to experience? Wow, what a concept.

"NiNeTy NiNe SqUaPpLeS oF gLoOk" monotoned his comm panel in a bad, 21st century Earth-style robotic voice. He heard Pidge snickering over the awful metallic tones.

"Pidge!" Shiro called through the comm. "Can you please refrain from hacking our comm systems?"

"CaN yOu PlEaSe ReFrAiN fRoM hAcKiNg OuR cOmM sYsTeMs?"

"Ninety eight quibloks of glook on the wall, ninet-"

Keith hit the mute button and stormed out of the cockpit.

---

Keith breathed in, circled his right foot behind his left. Breathed out, stretched his arms forward, felt the weight of the Galra dagger shift on his hip. Breathed in, shifted his weight. Breathed out, spinning heel kick, tight and controlled in the small storage bay.

The Marmoran exercises were clearing his head. Mostly. He felt this urge to take the Red Lion, and run the agile beast far away. The Black Lion was also wonderful, he thought, sending a soothing undercurrent to his erstwhile robotic partner. But it was stoic and strong, not lithe and free-willed like Red, and it sent him nothing in response. He almost missed Red's unpredictable stubbornness and watched Lance fly it with a certain sense of envy.

Breathe in, pivot. Breathe out, lower towards the ground. Breathe in, extend into a plank. Breathe out, kick himself into a handstand.

He missed his cabin back in the desert – the freedom of one man alone, exploring, his decisions as free as flowing water. No need for the consideration of the thoughts and feelings of the rest of his (chatty and stir-crazy) crew. No need for difficult choices that have life or death repercussions on the rest of the universe. No need to pilot the Black Lion, to be chained as an intergalactic symbol of leadership and freedom.

Just him and Red.

He overbalanced in his next pose and stumbled, the fluidity of the combat form broken. He cursed softly.

A cheerful ding from the wall panel alerted him to an incoming message from the Green Lion. He did not feel like dealing with Pidge and her snarky hacking right now. He ignored it and tried to remember his place in the Marmoran form.

"Keith, it's me." Shiro's voice startled him out of his attempts at ignoring the incoming communication. He had forgotten that Shiro was flying with Pidge today. He considered continuing to ignore the message, but eventually decided that was the sort of pettiness that he could've gotten away with decaphoebs ago. But not anymore. He sighed and answered at the comm.

"What do you want, Shiro?" Keith was a little taken aback by his own irritated tone and felt a flash of remorse. Shiro, his face projected on the panel from what was probably another storage bay in the Green Lion, paused for a second, and then answered.

"The others noticed you leaving. You've been more distant and harsh than usual over the past few days, and the gossip has started." Shiro didn't mince words when he felt something was unjust, Keith thought, wincing at the former Black Paladin's criticism. "It's not a healthy dynamic, Keith, especially with how many more months of flying are still ahead of us."

"I just needed some time to myself, Shiro. I can't get behind on my training," Keith said, knowing that he was making excuses.

"I know this journey has been hard on you," Shiro said, in a calm and collected voice that both reassured Keith and annoyed the hell out of him. "It's been hard on all of us. But now more than ever, you need to show that you're strong and in control."

Keith felt a flare of anger, but stomped it down. He didn't hang up, even though he wanted to. He took a deep breath and pushed through his misgivings to confide in the man that he looked up to.

"Shiro, I can't seem to command discipline from the other Paladins right now. Hell, I can't even command discipline from myself right now! I don't want discipline any more, I just want to be alone and free and back on Earth. I keep having these daydreams about just taking Red and flying away. My bond with Black feels weak and I can't seem to find enough time to myself. I just… want to be alone right now." Keith's frustration boiled up inside him as he spoke, and he ran out of words as a feeling of dissatisfaction and restlessness overwhelmed him.

"Have you considered that you might have it backwards?" Shiro asked. Keith glared at the comm screen, confused. Shiro continued, undaunted.

"On the Castle of Lions, we had a large space filled with only a few people, but we still spent mealtimes together and gathered in the bridge or the mess hall between drills and missions."

"And oddly-frequent crises," Keith muttered under his breath, kind of wishing for a crisis to take away the boredom. Shiro ignored him, pressing his point.

"Have you really talked to any of the other Paladins lately, in a non-commanding capacity? Have you spent any time in the same Lion as any of them in the past month?"

Keith opened his mouth to reply, then realized that apart from Wolf (who teleported in and out according to its own whims), he hadn't shared a space with anyone recently.

"Believe me, I do not need to hear another verse of 'ninety nine squapples of glook' in person," he said dryly. But something writhed in his gut, and he didn't want to think about it.

"Just consider it. And if you need me, I'm here. You're doing a great job, Keith – leading Voltron is not an easy task."

Ah yes, you're doing a great job. That's why I'm here telling you to stop doing things wrong. Keith snorted and finally ended the communication.

He started doing pushups on the floor of the storage room, hoping that a strenuous workout would keep his mind off of things. No such luck - the monotony and exertion just gave him an even better space to think.

The Paladins had become his family, in a way. Krolia was wonderful of course, but it was still a very new experience to actually have a mother, and the Paladins had been with him for far longer. He'd known Lance since his first Academy days, even if he hadn't put the face to the name until an embarrassingly long time later. He thought about Pidge and Hunk obsessing about optimizing the "electromagnetic superconverters" to speed up the engine, as he handed them screwdrivers and sprockets. He thought about Allura and Coran's delight at teaching them Altaean words and culture.

And he thought about the time he and Lance had an absurd misadventure trying to get to the Castle's pool. After that they never talked when they ended up swimming at the same time, but in the deepest part of his heart, he admitted that he only pretended to being grouchy about sharing the space. Just having another person there made Keith feel content. And if pretending to be grouchy made Lance shut up for a few minutes and made him focus on his strokes more (he was surprisingly graceful in the water) and on the fact that Keith wasn't a particularly talented swimmer less, well, that was just a bonus.

Keith shook his head and stood up, sweat dampening the back of his neck. Shiro's words and his workout reverie had actually given him an idea. He took the stairs two at a time, racing to get to the bridge.

---

"Okay, first of all, when did you get ahold of those psychedelic wormy-doos that Coran got that one time? Second of all, can I have some?"

Keith groaned. This had gone much better in his head. Why was real-life Lance so difficult?

"I am not on psychedelic 'wormy-doos'," Keith protested, marking Lance's ridiculous terminology with air quotes. "I just…" He struggled for words as Lance stared at him with a skeptically raised eyebrow. "Ugh, never mind," he moved to close the transmission, having a belated realization that he didn't really want to discuss this with Lance.

"Woah woah woah," the angular paladin's dark eyes went wide as he saw Keith reaching for the comm and he flailed his arms in protest. "I didn't say it was a bad idea." Keith hesitated, and stared at Lance's growing smile. "I just thought every sense of fun or rebellion in you had been steamrolled by Captain Shirogane and the Blades of Marmora," Lance dropped his voice ridiculously low, pantomiming Keith's mentors in overdramatic seriousness.

"No," Keith stated flatly, feeling mildly offended.

"Seriously though, you wanna kidnap Allura and take the Lions for a joyride? You know I'll kidnap the princess any day, but-"

"Okay," Keith cut in, annoyed. "We are not kidnapping the princess. We're just going to move her to another Lion temporarily so you can fly Blue again and I can fly Red again. Also, that's a weird thing to say."

"Whatever," Lance dismissed, waving a hand over his head. "I'm in, when are we doing this?"

"Just like that?" Keith asked, surprised.

"Uh, excuse me, who filled Commander Iverson's boots with whipped cream and got away with it?"

Keith thought back, trying to remember, and shrugged. Maybe this was after he'd dropped out. Lance blinked at him in disbelief.

"Me, you dumbass!"

"Um, okay," Keith responded, irritated. How was he supposed to know that?

"I'm losing my edge, my reputation! A little joyride is just what I need. And I miss Blue's ice beam."

"Only for a little while, though. We can't spend too long away from the team."

"Yeah yeah yeah."

He was torn between flattered gratitude towards Lance for being his partner in this harebrained scheme… and calling him out for not thinking anything through enough ever. Then he mentally kicked himself – a non-commanding capacity, Shiro had said. Well, Lance tended to fly by his instincts, and maybe Keith would do well to practice that again himself.

"Alright. Here's what we're gonna do."

---

"WOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!" Lance yowled, jetting in front of him with a burst of Blue's leg boosters.

Keith was smiling wildly, adrenaline coursing through his veins, and he urged Red forward to keep up. Their stunningly simple plan had gone perfectly. Just an I thought about what you said Shiro, we're gonna have a meeting in the Black Lion from Keith, and a simultaneous message from Lance to Allura, a few teleportation hops from Wolf, and Blue and Red were free. Keith was sure that Shiro and Allura wouldn't mind spending some time in Black with Wolf – hell, maybe they'd finally get together and then Lance would stop his constant mooning over the Altaean princess.

He didn't want to go too far, so they had scouted out a nearby system with a thick debris disk full of forming planetesimals. The rocky environment would provide a great obstacle course, Keith thought, flying a quick loop around the Blue Lion just to grind Lance's gears a bit. To his surprise, Blue wasn't where he expected as he pulled out of the maneuver. A sudden, loud clank from above and a lurch downward accompanied Lance's boyish laughter.

"Can't keep up with me, mullet?"

"In your dreams, cargo pilot," Keith shot back. But there was a giant grin on his face - his misgivings about taking Lance seemed to be unfounded. He was glad that no one could see him in such a goofy headspace. It was amazingly freeing not to have to be 'the serious one'.

His comm panel dinged constantly with messages from the Yellow, Green, and Black Lions; he was sure their pursuit would start soon enough. Keith had a fleeting feeling that this was not really what Shiro meant by his fatherly heart-to-heart, but he waved it off. Not everything could be solved by deliberation and introspection.

The Red and Blue Lions danced and twirled, almost as if their pilots were intentionally putting on an airshow. They were nearing the outer edge of the debris disk, where clumpy icy bodies mingled with baby gas giants leisurely sucking up everything in their path. Keith grinned wickedly and landed Red on a Lion-sized comet, jerking the control levers in a quick and practiced pattern. Red's claws dug into the ice, sending up sparkling plumes of icy shards. With another few pulls and button presses, Keith had executed a dizzying front-flip, tossing the comet into Lance's path.

The Blue Lion dipped under the incoming projectile, but didn't fully escape its path, getting an ignominious bonk on the head, that (by Lance's cursing over the comm) had knocked the Blue Paladin out of his seat. Keith snickered in response.

"Ohhh, you're asking for it now, dropout!" Lance shouted.

"Aw, look, he's angry," Keith teased, feeling strangely lighthearted. He quickly maneuvered Red up next to Blue.

"Eat my space dust!" Lance yelled, and blasted off at the maximum speed the Lions could sustain right now.

Which was still pretty fast, Keith realized, struggling to keep eyes on Lance as the tanned Paladin expertly threaded into the cloud layers on the nearest ice giant. He pursued Blue through the clouds, diving and climbing in frantic motions every now and then to dodge bursts of freezing light that cut from improbable angles through the blue haze. The Blue Lion's agility was unmatched, putting Lance's incredible piloting skills on display.

But he couldn't beat Red in pure speed, thought Keith, urging his mech onwards. He felt a rumble deep in his spirit as Red thrummed in harmony with his request. He shot from the cloudy atmosphere with a roar (him or his Lion, it was unclear). Trailing a red ribbon of afterimages, he rocketed towards the inner, rockier part of the disk, knowing that Lance was right on his tail. The boy was competitive, Keith would give him that.

"Aight, show-off, but can you do this?" Lance crowed, voice clipping through the comm. Five asteroids in front of Keith exploded in rapid succession with five precise laser shots leaving trails in his vision. Not one to back down from a challenge himself, Keith slowed Red, targeted and fired. And again, and again, until six asteroids were destroyed.

His flash of pride was followed by a flash of guilt – should they really be out here? He had a job to do. But he was actually having fun. Besides, Red and Blue didn't seem to mind!

"Seven!" Lance called, striking down two more as he piloted Blue to jump over Red and into the lead. Keith accelerated, one hand guiding the Lion and the other acting as targeting and trigger. He settled into his battle calm and took down another series of asteroids in a satisfying burst of fragments.

"Ten!"

"Fifteen!"

"Twenty seven!"

They were approaching the central star now, a dim, obscured, reddish thing. Keith vaguely thought that Pidge would be able to tell them the type, but almost all of his physical and mental energy was devoted to the battle with his opponent.

"Thirty five!"

Keith checked his periphery, frustrated that Lance was ahead of him again. He just needed a few more shots, but the density of the disk was dropping as they neared the seething surface of the star.

Thirty three, thirty four…

There were two more asteroids, the last two large ones before the inner edge cutoff of the disk. Keith was aware of the Blue Lion gaining on him, knew he needed to make both of these shots to overtake Lance…

A searing flash of light and heat.

Slamming into Blue.

Tumbling uncontrolled.

The star another mote in the celestial sphere.

Darkness.

---

Lance woke up to pain. It was radiating up his right leg, hurting so much that his breath hitched as he fuzzily returned to consciousness. The pain was making him too nauseous to open his eyes, so he took a minute to take stock of his surroundings with his other senses. His ears were filled with a quiet wash of static. More concerning was the faint smell of smoke.

No wait, his leg was definitely more concerning than that.

Or the soul-sucking chill of the metal on the floor? That was pretty concerning.

The lack of any Lion's presence in his mind. No, that one took the cake.

With a jolt of panic, Lance opened his eyes. He felt a wave of relief as he recognized the dim shapes of a Lion's cockpit. Cool, not a Galra prison. Always a bonus. This was Blue's cockpit, he realized. Suddenly, his misadventures came back to him.

Keith!

An overpowering fear for the moody Paladin struck Lance, burning through the rest of his tilt-a-whirl of emotions upon waking. He yelled Keith's name, but heard only the soft white noise in his headset. The cockpit was entirely dark, even comms must be out, so paging Red was out of the question. Grabbing the freezing arm of the pilot's chair (why did everything have to be made of metal?), he levered himself upright, almost collapsing again as he thoughtlessly put weight on his right leg.

Shit. He blinked tears out of his eyes as the pain sawed through his lower leg. He recognized the awful feeling from the time he'd fallen down a hill when playing soccer with his siblings. Something down there was definitely broken.

Okay, pain's just pain. Focus.

There didn't seem to be any fires anywhere, luckily, belying the smell of smoke. Maybe some sort of electrical fault in Blue's wiring? His helmet had auto-closed while he was unconscious, but a quick glance at his (still functioning, thank goodness) HUD indicated that it was more to conserve heat than because the atmosphere wasn't breathable. It was a little low on oxygen, but manageable. Like Earth at high altitudes.

Now that's a good point – where was he?

It was very dark, and very cold, and the view out of the cockpit window seemed to be a snowfield of some sort. He needed to get out there and find Keith. Besides, it didn't look like Blue's life support was on, so it wasn't going to be that much warmer inside. He double-checked that the red bayard was on his hip and looked sadly at the dead panels once more; he wasn't going to get any help that way. Nothing for it. He hopped to the wall and then used it to support him as he moved awkwardly out of the cockpit.

The last thing he remembered before he awoke was a tremendous impact and a flash of light. Something must've whacked them onto this… planet? This was probably a planet. Space was lousy with them. Suddenly something cut through the rush of static on his headset.

"…ance?"

"Keith!" Lance yelled, almost collapsing back to the floor in sheer relief. His heart ached with happiness. "Keith, are you okay?" He hurried his hobbling, swinging himself down onto the ladder towards the back exit through Blue's stomach.

"…ce I'm ou… Lio…"

"You're coming through real poorly, bud. Let me just, get, outside, and then, I'll find you," Lance replied, grunting with the effort of climbing down the ladder on one leg. His arms were burning once he hit the bottom.

"La… side…our…"

"Yes yes yes, working on it," Lance grumbled, almost tripping in his hurry. "Whatever it is. Just give me a sec…" The door to a storage closet in the hall screeched angrily as he yanked it open (the automatic doors were predictably not functioning). Lance began to rummage for something to serve as a makeshift crutch. If all else failed, he could form the bayard into a sword and use it to support him, but that was begging for disaster. Luckily, a correctly sized piece of pipe caught his eye, and he was soon making much better speed towards the rear door.

"…ce, repeat what you said, plea…"

"It wasn't particularly important!" Lance called back, laying a hand onto the door and bracing himself to push.

"Lance, I'm outside your…"

The door slid open without resistance as Keith shoved it open from outside.

"…Lion," he finished lamely, staring at Lance. He didn't get a chance to say anything else, because Lance pulled him into a desperate hug.

"Keith! I'm so glad you're okay. Are you hurt? What happened? Where are we?" Lance fell back into a relieved ramble. The Red Paladin had been still to start (reasonable, Lance thought, as he'd basically thrown himself at Keith), but now wrapped his arms around Lance in return. Lance mentally blocked the frisson that ran through his body at the contact. He needed to sort out his complicated emotions towards the Red Paladin eventually, but this was not the time.

"In order: no, we appear to have crash-landed, and a very odd planet," Keith responded tersely, in typical Keith fashion. He pulled away from Lance (sigh) and then gave him a long second look, taking in the crutch.

"What happened to you?"

"I think I got tossed into the console when we got hit by whatever-it-was. My leg is probably broken, which is less than ideal." Less than ideal was perhaps a bit generous – he knew that some of the pain was showing through in his voice. Keith seemed to catch that and frowned.

"Well, we need to get somewhere warmer - Red is entirely unresponsive."

"Blue, too," Lance confirmed grimly.

Keith nodded, incorporating this new information.

"So I've been looking at the stars," he continued.

"Didja divine my horoscope?" Lance joked. He didn't need Keith's face to be fully visible under his helmet to catch the other boy's irritated look.

"They aren't moving over time, Lance. That bright one has been sitting on the horizon since I woke up, which has to be at least thirty doboshes ago." Lance was starting to follow Keith's train of thought and hoped he wasn't misremembering his Academy astronomy.

"So this planet is not… rotating?"

"Or if it is, it's rotating very slowly," Keith confirmed, beginning to pace in the snow outside the door. "Which means it's probably tidally locked to its star. Which means if we need warmth…"

"We're fucked," Lance finished, heart sinking. Of course they'd landed on the side of the planet in perma-winter. He hated the cold.

"No!" Keith countered, pointing a finger at Lance in a good rendition of his Lion-aura-sensing-conspiracy-in-the-desert-days. "Or, not necessarily," he amended. "The horizon to the left of us there, do you see it?" He pointed out, a little beyond the view through the doorway. Lance limped outside of the Lion to take a look at the sky. It was brighter in that direction, like it would soon be dawn, outlining the distant, blocky silhouette of what must've been the Red lion. "It is lighter, right?" Keith asked him, a touch of desperation in his tone.

"Yeah, you aren't wrong, I see it too. Pretty clearly, actually," Lance replied.

"Then that's where we have to go. First priorities are warmth and shelter. I have enough rations from Red to last us awhile – I can scavenge some from Blue as well. Food goo replicators are down, so our supplies are limited. We can use the suit's reclaimers and the snow around us for water. You and I seem to be able to communicate fine at short distances. Once we're safe, we can figure out how to contact the rest of the team." Lance admired Keith's no-nonsense practicality – he was having trouble thinking over the steady shooting of his leg, but even then, he'd definitely be panicking if it weren't for the steady presence of the survivalist loner at his side. An unpleasant thought struck him.

"So we're leaving the Lions," Lance stated flatly. It wasn't a question.

"I have faith in them." Lance could hear the strength of that belief in Keith's tone. "Right now they're unresponsive, but there's nothing you or I can do to fix that with what we have available. They will recover, and when they do, they will find us."

"Just because you're right doesn't mean I have to like it," Lance grumbled. He took a deep breath and looked towards the horizon. It was a good deal lighter in the direction Keith had pointed. The journey wouldn't be too long… he hoped. Well, they had to play the cribbage hand they'd been dealt, as his auntie used to say.

"So… onwards and sunwards?"

---

The stars judged them silently as they trudged ever onwards towards the dawn. The going, given Lance's broken leg, was extremely slow. The snow was an untouched canvas, so they were forced to forge a treacherous new path. Keith blazed the trail, walking in front of the injured Lance to try to smooth the way on the thankfully flat ground. He had to measure his walk to stay near the Blue Paladin, who began to struggle as the endless night went on. Keith could see that Lance was too prideful to ask him to slow down or ask for help. Lance's grating, careless chatter eventually ended as the tall Paladin made the decision to save his breath.

The icy crust atop the snow gave way below Keith at every step, and he panted as he stomped forward in frustration. He found himself missing Lance's ramblings - his personal radio show, he thought, amused. It wasn't like Lance to shut up, so he had to be in pretty bad shape. Keith finally turned back to him and offered Lance a shoulder, and while the other Paladin had been too proud to ask for it, he was (to Keith's relief) no longer stubborn enough to refuse it.

Despite vargas of halting progress, the disk of the alien sun was not yet visible on the horizon. But the quality of the sky had approached a pre-dawn appearance, so they knew that their original assumptions were sound. The constant wind hadn't lost its dangerous bite, though, and Keith was worried. Supporting Lance's weight for miles and miles wasn't easy and he knew they'd both have to rest soon. He could feel the numbness beginning in his boots – the space suits offered some environmental protection from the cold, but they couldn't maintain full life support for extended periods of time.

Keith had bet that some form of plant-like life would make itself known as they trekked towards the terminator, and breathed a quick "thank you" when he saw the first shrub-like mass appear, with more standing out starkly against the snow in the distance. Another varga of progress brought them to an upthrust spire of rock. Lance stumbled and couldn't suppress a pained cry, and Keith decided that the spiky boulders would have to do as shelter for now.

They harvested some of the shrubby plants with Lance's bayard, taking the dry kelp-like leaves to a small alcove hidden amongst the boulders. Keith would've preferred a cave or alcove with a roof to keep heat in, but they'd have to manage. At least they were out of the wind.

It wasn't a guarantee that the kelpbush (Lance's invention, of course, but Keith didn't argue it) leaves would catch fire, and it turned out that they made a very smoky, smelly, subpar fuel source. The bayard's laser weapon form managed to coax some heat out of the leaves as they angrily turned into a purple, spitting fire. Frustrated and worried about the small amount of heat they'd managed, Keith sullenly ate some rations. With a guarantee that Lance wouldn't fall asleep on first watch, Keith curled up by their sad excuse for a fire and immediately sank into sleep.

---

Lance glanced across the purple fire, listening to Keith's steady breathing. How the heck did he fall asleep so quickly? The Red Paladin looked peaceful, his face gentle behind his helmet, his lean body scrunched near the fire. He looked flawless in the purple light – the angry scar on his face became little more than a dark line and his pale skin shone as if under a blacklight, contrasting with his fine raven-black hair that drifted over his eyes. But then again, Lance found it hard to imagine a time where Keith wasn't flawless.

With the object of his attention asleep, he gave himself some space to be emotional (because damn if he hadn't earned it after a day like this!). He didn't know when he'd developed these feelings for Keith. Maybe it was the worn, devil-may-care attitude of the best pilot in the Academy, who'd never used his fame for anything and never known Lance's name. Maybe it was the conflict they always had, the way he always got riled around Keith, like he had something to prove, until the teasing and the irritation and the affection were all the same thing. Maybe it was the calm self-assuredness that Keith had returned with after his reunion with his Galra mom, Krolia, the knowledge that he was two decaphoebs older now, that was weirdly irresistible to the immature, lanky, goofy, Lance.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. But one thing was for sure – they were both getting out of this alive. There was no maybe about that. And then he would finally tell Keith how he felt. Why did that have to be so much harder than the casual flirting that he'd made his reputation?

Because you mean very little to him, but he means a lot to you, the dark voice in Lance's head whispered. You've never meant anything to him. That's why he's so attractive – he's never shown the slightest interest in you. He's unattainable.

"Yikes, me, you didn't have to say it like that," Lance grumbled to his thoughts. Keith's eyes fluttered open halfway.

"Did you need me?" he mumbled.

"Nope nope nope, carry on," Lance said apologetically. Keith's eyes drifted shut again and Lance sighed, staring out the rest of his watch into the fire.

---

The snow started falling while Keith was asleep, and by the time he awoke for his watch, shivering violently, it had turned into a veritable blizzard. He was extremely thankful for the protection of the rock walls around their fire, but the temperature had dropped and their already pathetic fire was burning lower and lower. Lance snored (loudly, of course) on the ground, eventually picking up a blanket of snow. Keith winced at the visible blood on the pant leg of Lance's spacesuit. Keith had taken a closer look at Lance's leg earlier, and was not happy about the look of the wound. The break seemed to be somewhere in Lance's ankle, but whatever strong impact had caused it had also caused a nasty slice and a lot of bruising. He was worried about the possibility of infection – though the cold environment should help, they couldn't give the wound space to breathe at these temperatures.

Lance will fine, he told himself. The Blue Paladin was strong and they were in this together. Keith wouldn't let him down.

The snow started to die down a few vargas later, and Keith's worry and impatience got the best of him. He shook Lance's shoulder, leaving a snowy handprint.

"Can't we wait for morning?" Lance harrumphed, yawning. He nevertheless sat up, causing a small avalanche as he dusted himself off.

"Morning is that way," Keith told him, "so let's get going."

They gathered up their few belongings (there wasn't much of a camp to break) and clambered out of the stone hollow. And that's when Keith realized his mistake.

The entire sky was dark – not with stars, but with clouds. At least, that's what Keith assumed. Away from their dying purple fire, they were totally blind without the starlight. He couldn't make out the snowfield or the shapes of the rocks behind him.

"Okay, I didn't want to do this, but I'm gonna turn on the helmet lights," he told Lance. "Hopefully we won't need the energy for anything else." He clicked a button near the bottom of the helmet to activate the built-in headlamp. The beam from his helmet brilliantly illuminated a column of falling snow, eventually tapering out into the distance. The yawning darkness surrounding them would've felt isolating, if they hadn't been flying through empty space for months. Funny how it felt so familiar.

"Not to harsh your vibe, genius, but which way is morning?" Lance pointed out.

Quiznak. No stars.

"We can just follow our-"

"Please tell me you weren't about to say footprints," Lance butted in. "Because you know what happens to footprints in the snow? When it snows?"

Lance paused.

"They fill in!" He gestured widely out to the sides, knocking some snow off of the nearest boulder in protest. In the glow of Keith's headlamp, it almost looked like Lance was on a stage.

Keith thought for a moment. "Well, the rocks were on our left when we started, and then this entrance was clockwise about ninety degrees…"

"Ohhhh, no," Lance stopped him. "We're not playing this game. Keith, this is stupid."

"Well do you have any better ideas?" Keith snapped, irritated.

"Uh, stay here and wait for rescue with our nice warm fire? How about that one?"

"Lance, this isn't going to work! If you hadn't noticed, our fire sucks! Look at you! Your lips are as blue as your Lion!" And as the words came out of his mouth, in the bright light, Keith realized that they were true. Lance was dangerously cold. He probably was too, if he was too numb to notice anymore. He whirled back into the snow, frantically trying to come up with a solution.

"Well we can't just wander out into a snowstorm like idiots!" Lance yelled at his back, grabbing his arm and giving him a yank that caught Keith off-guard. Keith's temper flashed and he wrenched Lance's hand away. They glared at each other, brown eyes meeting gray behind their helmet visors.

"I'm not going to sit and wait for death," Keith snarled.

"No there's too much Galra in you for that," Lance shot back. His eyes widened, as if he realized that he'd gone too far, and Keith had shoved him down into the snow before his mind had a chance to catch up with his body. He remembered Lance's broken leg too late, and registered the tears of pain in the taller boy's eyes as he was kneeling down to… what, apologize? What the hell were they doing?

They stared at each other again. Both pairs of eyes were hiding fear.

"I'm sorry," Lance said, sitting up and breaking eye contact. "I know I crossed a line there, I didn't mean it like that and I shouldn't've said it in the first place and-"

"And I shouldn't've shoved you into the snow like an asshole. I'm sorry as well. We're even."

"Oh, okay, even?" Lance started, not ever content to let things lie. "Don't you think shoving the kid with the broken leg is a like a teensy bit worse?"

"Fine," Keith admitted, feeling a worm of guilt in his stomach, "we're not even. Punch me later, if we get out of this alive."

"We're not going to die, Keith," Lance told him. Keith couldn't read the expression on his face. "I will not let us die. You have faith in the Lions, right? My faith in you and I, and our ability to survive this, is… like that. I think. I mean, I don't claim to know what your faith is. But I'm not afraid."

I am, Keith thought, running mentally over his recent actions. But Lance kept talking without waiting for him to comment on it.

"But anyway, we're too smart to- wait a minute, never mind we're such idiots! Help me up!"

"Uh, okay," Keith replied, bemused. He followed Lance as the lanky Paladin hobbled back into their makeshift campsite.

"We are the dumbest space heroes in the history of space! How the hell did we not think of this earlier?! Our brains are like beans, Keith, space beans. Maybe we've been zapped by space radiation for so long-"

"Get to the point, Lance," Keith prompted, sensing that the Blue Paladin was getting distracted by his own monologue.

"My bayard! We're surrounded by rocks! You know what happens when you shoot high-powered lasers at rocks? The rocks absorb the energy! And then they'll reradiate it! AS WARM."

"I think the word is heat," Keith mumbled, but he'd already started running the calculations in his head. "We'd have to make sure to start at the lowest setting and dial it up from there, I don't know how this particular rock will react and we don't want to melt it or blow it up, but…"

They did exactly as Keith suggested, trying it on small chunks of rock at first. Lance's plan worked perfectly, with the small pieces of glowing red rock serving as a much better heat source than the grumpy kelpbush leaves. Eventually, they became greedy and sat back-to-back at the center of their hollow, periodically passing the red bayard back and forth to sweep its laser over the entire hemisphere of rock they watched. The walls glowed red, and the temperature increased to that of a comfortable room. The boys removed their armor to set it out to dry, comfortable in just their black jumpsuits.

The fear evaporated just like the snow in the hollow, and Keith felt a weight lift from him, at least temporarily.

"Hey Lance," he asked. He felt the other Paladin shift against his back as he turned.

"Yeah, Keith?"

"Where does the energy in the bayard come from?"

"Some questions, my dear Watson, you just don't ask," Lance replied contentedly.

"What did you just call me?" Keith questioned, confused.

"Don't worry about it," Lance said, laughing. Lance's laughter was contagious (even if Keith didn't get it) and he smiled. "Are we taking watch again?"

"Nah," Keith decided. "I haven't seen any animal life here, I think the sleep is more valuable at this point."

"That was the answer I was hoping to hear!" Lance exclaimed. Lance fell to one side, causing Keith to lose his balance. Keith gave Lance a dirty look, but subsided as the other Paladin pressed his back against him again in an almost apology. It wasn't quite as comfortable as before, but given the circumstances, he could make do.

"Goodnight, Keith."

"Night, Lance."

---

Lance awoke slowly, more rested this time. It helped that he wasn't being bothered by a stir-crazy Keith. In fact, the Red Paladin seemed to still be asleep. Lance guessed this from the soft rise and fall of Keith's back pressed warmly against his. The ground was lumpy, he was sore, his leg felt itchy and hot and throbbed sullenly, the hollow was dropping in temperature again (the boulders no longer cherry red), and oh yeah, they were still marooned on a tidally-locked planet… but somehow, he didn't want to be anywhere else.

Oh please. He was a romantic, but he wasn't dumb. This same scenario, but in his old bed at the Castle of Lions (with Keith in his bed? His cheeks heated a bit at the thought) would be way better. But the fact remained that for these precious few moments, sharing this pre-dawn silence with his sleeping crush was enough to bring him a sense of peace and giddiness. Keith was shorter than Lance was, but the Red Paladin's shoulders were broader, and they even felt more muscular, although that had to be his imagination because how much information could he get just from his back?

Nevertheless, Lance didn't move and contentedly enjoyed the contact… until he began to hear the scraping sounds from far outside the hollow. With a hint of regret, he edged away from Keith, but he was suddenly much more alert. Weird sounds in the night will do that to you.

He grabbed his bayard and felt it rumble in his hand, as subtly as if he imagined it. He tried to will it into its laser rifle form, but instead it formed a sword. Ah, quiznak. Looks like these things didn't have infinite energy after all – at least not when they were away from their Lions with no conceivable other energy source and no Altaean magitech in sight. Worse than that, Keith had been right.

He used the sword as a temporary crutch to get to his pipe. He'd sworn to drop the damned thing many a time on the Universe's Worst Three-Legged Race that they'd done to get here, but Keith had insisted that he keep ahold of it. Right again, dammit.

Luckily for Lance, the snowstorm had ended and the sky was clear. The starlight was sufficiently bright to see by – they must be in some system near the center of this galaxy, because the views of the night sky here would've beaten the darkest skies on Earth by a lightyear. Lance stopped to listen. He had barely picked up the faint sounds when lying down, but they seemed louder now. Great. Lance wished he'd had the laser rifle, because he doubted he'd scare anyone by trying to wield his sword in his left hand, broken leg aside. But it was better than nothing. He army-crawled up the shallowest boulder that marked a wall of the hollow, extremely careful not to make too much noise with his various implements. The scraping noise seemed to be coming from a different direction now. Or… directions? He sighed. This was getting better and better. It almost sounded like the sound a sled made going down a hill…

Lance peeked his head over the edge of the hollow and stared in amazement. The snowfield shone mutely in the bright starlight. And against the faint white of the snow, serpentine forms arced in and out of the ground like mythical sea-serpents in water. They were very long and sinuous, more like snakes than dolphins, but something about their movement almost reminded Lance of the playful Earth mammals. The creatures seemed to have silvery scales, shining cheerfully in the moonlight. Some of them had orange phosphorescent stripes running down their sides, while others had purple ones. They were coming from right-of-dawn and headed to left-of-dawn (hallelujah, dawn was visible again!), in a school that was keeping a wide berth from their hideout. Perhaps something about the rocky terrain made it difficult for them to navigate, Lance theorized.

A few more moments of watching made it clear that something special was happening. Some of the orange snow-serpents were performing acrobatic flips and writhing in dizzying patterns as they migrated. The purple snow-serpents weren't participating in the games, but every now and then, one of them would fly out of the snow and twine itself around an orange one, taking it hostage and disappearing under the snow.

Oh! He was watching some sort of mating display! Despite their dire surroundings, Lance had to smile. Regardless of how long he'd travelled with Voltron, there were so many wonders he'd yet to experience in the universe.

Keith had to see this, it was incredible!

"Keith," he whispered into his helmet's communicator. "Silver snow-snakes at three o'clock. Not hostile. Sky is clear. World is beautiful. Over."

"I'm right here, doofus."

Lance nearly jumped out of his skin. The Red Paladin had crawled up next to him on the rock without him noticing. "Dude! Give a guy a warning next time!"

"Sorry."

"How did you even do that?!"

"You don't spend months training with Galra assassins without picking up a few tricks," Keith replied, non-committal. But he had a smug expression on his face and Lance hmphed loudly before turning his attention to the amazing alien creatures that were flowing past their campsite.

Together, Keith and Lance peered over the ridge at the dancing migration of the snow-snakes. Even Keith seemed taken by the display, and the two boys watched in silent agreement that, whatever else happened, this moment was too special to miss. But all too soon the performance was over; the school of snow-serpents had swept past their location and disappeared into the horizon. Lance gave a small sigh.

"So your bayard is out of laser energy, yeah?" Keith ventured, regretfully bringing their focus back to their current predicament.

"How did you know?" Lance asked, surprised.

"When the hell would you choose a sword over a rifle?" Keith observed.

"Is that a compliment or an insult? Because I'm really not sure." Keith gave Lance a droll look and refused to let the conversation get derailed.

"We've gotta keep moving, Lance." As if to illustrate his point, Keith, agile as ever, precisely hopped his way down the rocks to the campsite. The distance had looked a lot greater when Lance had been struggling up it. "I think we should be able to make it to sunrise before we set up our next camp. Then we can stop worrying about hypothermia and put more energy into getting back to the other Paladins." Lance remembered how he'd callously disregarded Keith's point about the bayard's energy source. He began the painstaking scramble back down to their campsite, deciding to own up to his mistake as he climbed down.

"Sorry I didn't listen to you before we went to sleep. We should've rationed our energy better."

Lance could feel Keith's eyes on him from the bottom of the slope, and for a moment, interpreted the silence as a judging stare. Then he realized that Keith was watching his movements to act as a spotter to his one-legged bouldering endeavor. He felt a blossom of warmth in his chest and doubled his caution as he picked his way down the slope.

"We both really needed to thaw, we made the decision together," Keith eventually responded. "It was nice. Besides, regret won't solve our problems."

Lance touched onto the rocky ground and Keith walked away, satisfied that his partner-in-marooning was safe for now.

It was nice, Lance thought. And then he shook his head and moved to continue their journey towards sunrise.

---

Oh, what Keith would give to rewind time back several vargas. Lance's condition had gone downhill far, far too quickly, he thought back, shouldering the Blue Paladin in a fireman's carry. He was near the end of his strength, his back ached, he couldn't feel his feet, he wanted to collapse… but almost there, almost there, he was not giving up yet, not when Lance's life depended on it… One foot in front of the other.

It started innocently enough. A comment about how warm this tundra was. An increased leaning on Keith's shoulder. Some stumbling steps. But they were approaching a glorious sunrise, the sky hued in orange and red – the star itself wasn't visible yet, but it couldn't be that far? Then they'd make a fire and a proper camp, they could air out Lance's wound and rest and regroup. One foot in front of the other.

Then another "seriously, how hot is this place?". A dead serious confession that Lance's leg felt all wrong. Violent shivering that Lance tried to hide. Keith knew he was seeing the signs of a dangerous infection, and there was nothing he could do about it except continually curse whatever god-forsaken alien bacteria managed to live on the anti-stellar half of a tidally locked planet. Probably barely hanging onto its stupid alien bacteria life just long enough to infect his crewmember.

One foot in front of the other.

Lance had collapsed a few vargas ago. It happened so suddenly. One moment, they were struggling along through the warming air, and the next, Lance mumbled an apology and dropped to the ground. This wasn't like any illness Keith had dealt with before. Lance's heartbeat was steady and strong, and his breathing was regular for now, thank god. But he was flushed with fever and entirely unresponsive to Keith's frantic pleas. So Keith walled away his fear, even though, for some reason, it was harder this time than in his battle to save Shiro. He picked up Lance, and he walked onward. One foot in front of the other.

And now, just over this ridge, then he'd rest, it was warm enough now to be safe, he just needed some shelter…

Keith tripped, landing hard on his knee and scraping his palm as he awkwardly tried to protect the lanky boy balanced on his shoulders. He paused, so tempted to stop for just a moment, to let it go. If the other Paladins hadn't found them by now, if the Lions hadn't awoken, if they were out here much longer in this alien wilderness… A bony knee was pressing into his face, irritating him into looking up. Typical Lance had to be annoying even when he was unconscious. Damn him and his leggy figure. Keith would make sure Lance heard no end of grief from him when this was all over with. He stood up again, joints popping in protest.

Just over this last hill. One foot in front of th-

Keith's mental mantra was interrupted by the view as he finally crested the summit of the seemingly endless ridge.

He immediately ducked his head, squinting, at the brilliant lightshow in front of him. The star was finally visible as a beautiful sunrise on the horizon, and Keith could feel the warmth of its direct rays even through his visor. In addition to the direct sunlight, his eyes were dazzled by an additional, much larger light source – the vermillion reflection of the sun off of a giant lake. And around the lake, hard to see against the spots in his overexposed eyes, a forest of dark vegetation. The lake and forest seemed to stretch infinitely towards left-of-dawn and east-of-dawn but he could see the far edge of the oasis from his position on the ridge. Not that Keith particularly cared – a dry, warm wind blew from the direction he faced, and he immediately felt a surge of energy. Maybe their situation wasn't so hopeless after all.

---

The trees were nothing like those on Earth. They were tall and deep blue, entirely lacking branches. The tops were fan-shaped, and the entire purpose of the trunk appeared to be to best position the face of the fan towards the half-circle of life-giving energy on the horizon. The effect, seen from far away, might've been that of a bunch of eager faces looking down at a gladiator in an arena.

Keith blinked a few times. His mind was wandering again. He could barely keep his eyes open, he was so tired, but he wouldn't rest until The Problem was fixed.

The Problem wasn't the temperature, anymore. Down near the lakeside, the climate was warm and humid. Keith was able to take off his armor, and even eventually work Lance out of his. Keith's left pinky toe still felt numb, and he was mildly worried about frostbite having caused permanent damage. Altaean magitech could fix many things, however, and if some temporary numbness was all he had to deal with, he'd count that as a victory.

The Problem wasn't shelter. Keith had finished his marathon trek at the lakeshore, where the changing of water levels over time had eroded a few overhangs near the water. One of them was deep enough to give considerable protection from rainfall and hostile creatures and, after sweeping it free of debris and checking it for any nasty alien critters, Keith had settled Lance in the most protected corner.

The Problem wasn't food or water either. The lakewater was drinkable once filtered through the purpose-made valve on their helmets. And they still had a few days of rations left, although hunting would be an easy task if it came to that. Small camouflaged creatures played out their parts in the ground-based ecosystem and the trees and the waters were full of bird and fish analogues. After the sterile snowfields, the fluttering ecological diversity came as a shock to the eyes. And a shock to the ears - the environment was objectively loud with screeches, clicks, whistles, hums, and occasional disconcerting screams.

The Problem was Lance.

Keith almost laughed at that. The Problem (capital P) was always Lance. His drama with Allura, his occasional carelessness, his flippant flyboy attitude and never-thinking-before-speaking motormouth. Lance had been Keith's problem from day one. But never before like this.

The Blue Paladin was still unconscious. His breathing was shallower now. He was slicked in sweat from head to toe, and his skin had a pallor that looked uncomfortable on the naturally brown Paladin. His eyes flicked restlessly behind closed lids. And his leg was… well… gross.

Keith had cut away the jumpsuit leg from the wound, and the sight was not pretty. The fabric had been crusted with pus and blood, and Keith felt awful, giving ironic thanks that Lance had been unconscious for the procedure. The deep cut continually oozed, and the skin around it held an unhealthy greenish hue. There was no doubt that this was the cause of Lance's illness.

Keith pounded the ground in frustration, staring intently at Lance as if he could awaken the boy by sheer willpower alone. Keith didn't know any medicine. Would he need to amputate the leg? Would that fix the problem? That seemed like an awfully dire solution, the problem wasn't that bad yet.

…right?

He was feeling more stress and uncertainty than a lot of his decisions as leader of Voltron had required of him. At least then he'd had resources, he'd had other opinions, he'd had flying Lions that formed into a giant fucking robot. Here he only had his worry and the thoughts in his own head, which were starting to make him sick.

Lance couldn't die. Not like this.

"Alright, flyboy, listen up," Keith growled, crawling closer to the supine form of the Blue Paladin. "I really, really need you right now, and I don't know what to do. If we're going to get out of this we're going to need to do it together."

He slapped Lance across the face. Maybe he should've been a bit gentler, but he could apologize later.

"Okay? I can't do this without you. Please, wake up."

Still nothing.

He let out a frustrated yell, and the surrounding forest went briefly quiet in alarm. But then, in the stillness, an idea came to him.

He took Lance's hand and focused, the way he did when they formed Voltron. The gaping hole in his consciousness from the lack of the Red and Black Lions was disorienting. He continued meditating, directing his gaze inward, focusing on his breathing. Eventually, he felt the hole close and his mental landscape rebalanced. Then he began to search the black, empty space for Lance's telltale blue-fire aura. It usually didn't become visible to him unless they were in combat, but if he was directly searching for it, just maybe he'd be able to find Lance and bring him back.

"Lance?" he called out, internally. He sent out a wave of his own essence, hoping that maybe Lance would feel it and come to him. It propagated through the void, a restless, tumbling purple and red. Nothing returned to him.

He didn't try to move – one didn't move, spatially, in this energy-spirit plane. But he quested, sending an inquiry far out into the emptiness. Nothing came to him.

"Please come back to me. I know you're still in here," Keith tried again.

He searched for the blue-fire. It was hot and felt like standing under a waterfall, liquid, it sounded like distant laughter, it smelled like cumin and gunpowder…

Keith's connection wavered for a second as he realized that he knew the feel of Lance's spirit almost as well as his own. It surprised him – he hadn't consciously picked up those details. But he knew them now, and he was going to use them!

"Lance, you are my best friend and best pilot and you are not dying on my watch, you hear me?!" Keith yelled into the void. He heard his voice murmur it back in reality as well.

A few sparks of cerulean dripped in and out of the darkness. Keith breathed the faint smell of fireworks. Then a burst of blue-white flames and an intense, double-vision intimacy flooded Keith and he jerked back into reality with a start. Lance was looking at him, sidelong, with this snide grin on his sickly face.

"Loud and clear, dropout," he mumbled.

"Okay, that is not fair!" Keith exclaimed, exasperated. "I carry your ass across miles and miles of wilderness, through snow and jungle and over mountains, and you don't do a thing, and I accidentally say one nice thing about you and that wakes you up?! Now that you're all comfy and safe? Goddammit!"

Lance's eyes unfocused and Keith's free hand went to tap his face.

"Woah there Lance, stay with me."

"I'm totally with you," Lance claimed, even though he was obviously drowsy. "100%. With you like hot glue. See what I did there?'

"Uh-huh," Keith humored him.

A touch-and-go couple of doboshes ensued, with Keith helping Lance with food and water, trying to keep him from sliding back into his comatose state. Luckily the water in particular seemed to revive the Blue Paladin, and eventually he levered himself upright into a sitting position. Keith kept a close eye on him, but felt comfortable enough to scavenge some nearby driftwood for a fire. The driftwood had a strange consistency, more like a dry sponge, but it caught much better than the kelpbush leaves when introduced at close quarters to tinder lit by sparks off of Keith's dagger. The flame it produced was still purple, for reasons Keith was sure Pidge and Hunk would have a great time explaining to each other in chemistry jargon. Keith wasn't too concerned about the color though – he stretched out by the fire and daydreamed of never being cold again. The daydreams almost became real dreams and Keith reluctantly realized that he needed to make sure Lance was alright before falling asleep. He opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) to see Lance studying him closely, still covered in that sheen of sweat.

"Your best pilot, huh?" Lance asked casually.

"Uh, yeah?" Keith said. Lance looked unconvinced. "Who do you think it is?"

"You, duh," Lance replied. Keith gave him a disbelieving stare, but the Blue Paladin seemed serious.

"Thirty four to thirty five," Keith admitted.

"What?" Lance questioned, not following.

"That was the final score in our asteroid game. I never hit those last two. You won." There was a pause, and then Lance laughed weakly.

"I guess the math doesn't lie then," the Blue Paladin agreed. "Even you can't find a way to twist that around."

Keith furrowed his brow, sitting up despite his weighty exhaustion.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Lance looked surprised and a little guilty, like he'd been caught in a lie.

"Uhhhh, guess you won't accept 'don't worry about it'?" he tried.

"No," Keith stated flatly. Lance swallowed and there was a long pause as he seemed to assemble his thoughts. Keith felt strangely on edge.

"When we first met, Keith," Lance began, "I was just some cargo-pilot wanna-be. I only got into the Academy because you dropped out. And like, I always pretended we were rivals and all, but I know you don't even remember me from your Academy days. Why should you? I wasn't very good and I wasn't focused. And now, if I am the best pilot on the team, that's gotta be annoying to you. I'm just a pain in the ass all the time. I'm always making mistakes and goofing off, and you're there trying to be serious and carry all of these burdens. I always assumed you kind of… uh… looked down on me. Didn't want me on the team. Didn't respect me, y'know? And when I was in the Academy, I thought being a good pilot would fix stuff like that... but now I'm not so sure." Keith wasn't sure if Lance stopped because he ran out of words or because of the expression on Keith's face.

"Wow, way to assume my ego is as big as yours," Keith quipped. It came out a little harsher than he intended, but his mouth went on autopilot while brain was still processing what Lance had said.

"Yikes," Lance commented, wincing.

"How could I not respect you, Lance?" Keith asked, voice full of emotion. He was hurt by Lance's words, but some quick self-reflection was forcing him to admit to himself how easy it would be to interpret his stalwart bearing and his moods in the way that Lance just had. "We've spent decaphoebs in space together! You're my right hand! We've saved each other's lives countless times! Don't get me wrong, you're annoying as hell-"

"Aw, thanks Keith."

Keith shot him a quelling look. "But there's no one in the universe I'd rather be trapped on a planet with."

A small, gentle smile grew on Lance's face.

"Same right back atcha, buddy," Lance replied.

They both stared into the fire for a little bit, a comfortable silence falling between them. Keith felt bad that he'd made Lance feel that way, and he wanted to address it… but his eyes begin to droop again. Lance's voice jerked him out of his sleepy stupor.

"I'm actually feeling wide awake right now and you look like a walking nightmare, so get some rest. I won't fall back into a coma while you're gone."

Keith eyed his feverish-looking companion with some skepticism.

"I promise," Lance said, some heat behind his words even though he was rolling his eyes. That was good enough for Keith, who laid his head back down, finally gave his willpower permission to relax, and fell asleep almost immediately.

---

How unfair was it that he had to get chills now of all times and couldn't enjoy the nice toasty warmth that he could see with his eyes because apparently the universe hated him. Lance poked at the fire with a spongey stick, irritated, trying to coax it into being better at its one job.

There was too much going on in his head to sort out easily. Luckily, he had nothing else to do for a few hours, except apparently shiver and ache and try to ignore the swollen mess that was his lower leg. Yet, perhaps because of the infection, he found it hard to think. His eyes kept drifting to Keith, asleep next to the fire, and his chest kept tightening in that annoying-pleasant way.

Lance almost died. Let's start there.

There was no guarantee that he wouldn't die anyway – he was sick with some sort of infection, and they were marooned on a planet with no escape in sight. But it wasn't a good feeling that, if it hadn't been for Keith's spirit-plane energy and support, he wasn't sure that he would've pulled out of his coma. It's not like they didn't experience dangerous situations almost regularly, but he always felt sort of invincible. They were the heroes, and heroes didn't just die. They were fighting for justice and freedom! If he was going to die, it would be in a glorious, world-saving sacrifice, not from some annoying cut he got on an anonymous planet in the astronomical boondocks. Plus he usually had his Lion and the other Paladins and their unlikely friends and allies to protect him, so he never really felt at risk.

Speaking of which, he couldn't resist thinking about it any longer: Keith had carried him all the way to this cave thing. 'Saved his life' didn't even cut it. And Keith respected him. Best pilot. Best friend. There's no one in the universe I'd rather be trapped on a planet with. Lance experienced a lightheadedness that he was reasonably sure wasn't related to his illness. He played the words back in his head, re-lived the honesty in Keith's true-gray eyes.

He'd meant to tell Keith how he felt eventually, but there was always something coming up. Galra cruisers appearing out of nowhere. Planets to free from oppressive rulers. Speeches and celebrations and parades in their honor (Lance missed those). Forming Voltron relied on a strong bond between the Paladins. And if it went all wrong and he fractured their bond with petty drama, leaving the entire universe to suffer for another 10,000 decaphoebs under tyrannical Galra rule… Well, that would be pretty embarrassing.

So he'd kept it a secret. He'd honestly kept it a secret even from himself for a long while. But eventually he noticed that his light-hearted flirting with cute aliens was just for fun, and he wondered why he never felt anything more. Meanwhile he argued with Keith, purposefully needled him, soaked up his rival's attention like a sponge, just wanting to get a reaction. Joke was on him – it took a romantic dream featuring the moody Red Paladin to cue him into the fact that his extraterrestrial flirting wasn't going anywhere because his heart was already set on someone else.

But now, he and Keith were here on a planet that they might never leave. Lance's health was as bad as it had ever been. And Lance had his long-dreamed-of confirmation that Keith, at the very least, enjoyed his company. Their bond felt strong enough that even if Keith didn't feel the same way, it probably wouldn't ruin everything. And he sure as hell wasn't going to die before taking this chance!

…

Fuck, he was actually going to do this.

When Keith awoke, Lance promised himself, he'd tell the Red Paladin how he felt.

---

"Keith, we've got trouble."

Keith sat bolt upright, taking in his surroundings immediately. Lance had crawled over to his side and was holding the red bayard in rifle form. Keith felt relief that the bayard was back in working condition. The fire was still quite bright, and outside their overhang reddish light streaked the ground in ever-present sunset.

Keith flicked his Marmoran dagger into his hand, kicking his legs under him so he was crouched at the ready.

"What kind?" Keith asked quietly, seeing nothing immediately amiss.

"We're being watched by some sort of creatures. See, there's one off in the shadows by the beach, there, and another to the left of the entrance."

Keith stared hard at the locations Lance had indicated, trying to catch sight of anything out-of-the-ordinary. Finally, he saw it – something exquisitely camouflaged in a red-black mottle, watching him with what he was quite sure was a single, chameleon-like eye. It was the size of a large dog, sitting entirely still.

"How many?" Keith asked, unsure what the creatures' purpose was. Were they intelligent? Did they live in this overhang? Did they want to eat Keith and Lance for dinner?

"Not sure – at least three? They're really hard to see."

A single click emanated from the creature on their left.

"Maybe it's saying hello?" Lance suggested hopefully. Lance clicked back with his tongue, and Keith elbowed him.

A wave of clicks followed in a rush, left to right across the entrance.

"Well that seems-" Lance began.

The creatures charged forwards in a spidery patter of limbs, faster than Keith could blink. He dove backwards as the first of the onrushing creatures jumped at him, opened a fang-filled mouth.

Ah. Carnivores.

He swept his dagger up as he fell backwards, hearing the creature screech and feeling a warm spray of purple alien blood as he made contact with its abdomen.

Keith had a panic-filled moment as he realized that there had been far more of these creatures than they'd originally seen. Their overhang was swarming with six, eight, ten of them? The lizard-spiders seemed to be converging on Lance – maybe it was his blood and illness that had drawn them here in the first place. Lance picked off two of his oncoming attackers with precise blasts of laser energy from where he knelt, but he was about to be overrun by four more.

Keith charged in, safely swathed in his adrenaline. This pack of unlucky lizard-spiders picked the wrong prey. Keith smashed his boot into the head of the nearest creature, which had gotten too close to chomping on Lance's foot for Keith's liking. It spun off to the side as Keith danced through the rest like a culling scythe. He burned with righteous, primal, intoxicating battle fury.

"HEADS!" Lance yelled. Keith dropped like a stone, landing on palms and toes. The creature he'd shoved earlier flew through the air in the space where he'd just been, fanged mouth gaping. It spun off to the side a final time as Lance threaded it with white lasers.

Keith spun into a kick from where he laid on the ground, connecting with a nearby enemy in a satisfying thump.

"Keith!" Lance yelled frantically. The Blue Paladin was transforming his bayard into a sword, but had been knocked onto his back. A creature perched on his chest, about to lunge for Lance's throat. Keith launched himself across the small space, feeling a searing streak across his arm as he cut through the airspace above the fire. He crashed into the creature in a full-body tackle and screamed as he stabbed the ugly beast. How dare it try to kill Lance?! Keith felt the creature's blood spatter his arms and heard the metallic screeches of the remaining creatures turn to fear. They had finally gotten the message.

Another burst of disorienting pattering and the creatures were gone again.

"And don't fucking come back!" Keith howled after them. He dashed out to make sure they were truly fleeing. A few flashes of movement far in the forest and then they were gone.

Keith stood at the entrance for a moment, breathing heavily. He felt the adrenaline drain from his system, letting the heady violence fade. Maybe there is too much Galra in me, he thought, remembering Lance's words spoken in anger.

Keith shook his head. Until this war was over, until the universe was truly safe and free, his physical fitness, his pure competence in fighting, and his training for combat were invaluable. And if he felt oddly exhilarated in the heat of the moment? Well, he could deal with the consequences of that later.

---

Okay, well, Lance decided that he shouldn't bring up the whole "I think I love you" thing while they were clearing out alien corpses. And then Keith was cleaning off his dagger and Lance was feeling achey and exhausted again. But maybe his fever was breaking? At any rate, Keith told him to rest and took on the task of finding more firewood and sweeping the area. Lance let out a sigh. It was always something!

Keith returned with the firewood, but didn't say much to Lance as he banked the fire back up to its original strength. Lance kept opening his mouth and closing it again. He wasn't often lost for words, but somehow, he couldn't get out a single squeak. Eventually, Keith dusted off his hands and stood up, heading for the water. Lance snagged the pipe from beside him on the rock and limped his way to the lakeshore, joining the Red Paladin.

"I'm gonna wash up," Keith told him. "But first, let's take care of your wound, yeah? I want to wash it out, then maybe we can rebandage it."

"Sounds good," Lance said, his voice definitely not higher than usual.

"Let's get out there," Keith pointed to a boulder a little ways into the lake. "Then you can sit on it and dip your leg in the water."

Keith offered a shoulder to help Lance out to the rock. Lance took it, somewhat trapped in the flow of the moment. This was really special, and he didn't want to ruin it. The cool water lapped at their feet, and then, once they were in up to their thighs, Keith boosted himself onto the rock in a single fluid motion.

"You're not usually this quiet, Lance," Keith remarked, offering a hand to help Lance onto the boulder.

"It happens sometimes," Lance replied vaguely, heart pounding as he clambered onto the rock. He knows, some irrational part of him insisted. Of course Keith didn't know. Keith was… Keith. "Just thinkin' deep thoughts, you know?" Lance winced internally at the words his brain was supplying to his mouth.

"Mm, right," Keith acknowledged skeptically. He took Lance's foot gently in his hand, tisking. "It still looks like a mess, but I think it's better than it was. How did you even do this, again?"

"I think I smashed my leg into the control panel when the impact happened? Not totally sure, but it was probably on one of the metal support struts underneath the panel." Lance's voice was casual, but he was very distracted by Keith's firm grip on his leg. Keith thankfully let go, making Lance's self-assigned task marginally easier.

"Well, it's gross. Soak it in the water for a bit, and rub off some of the blood." Lance spent a moment focusing on dipping his leg back in the water, and when he looked up again, Keith was stripping off his jumpsuit.

A wave of conflicting emotions tumbled through Lance. About 75% of his brain was tied up in Keith's gorgeous body, his broad chest, the way his muscles were moving in the red light as he bent over to step out of the legs of his jumpsuit, clad in only his under-shorts. 15% of him was noting with embarrassment and despair that this was going to make his confession really fricking awkward. The remaining 15% was tied up in the stinging of his wound as he assiduously cleaned it, pretending to be absolutely not staring at the very handsome man who was almost naked beside him.

Keith kicked out his feet and arced into a shallow dive, splashing Lance. Hmph. Keith could work on his technique. The Red Paladin then swam back to the rock to grab his jumpsuit. Lance's eyes followed him as he made his way back to waist deep water, working the purple alien blood out of the futuristic fabric before it dried.

There was a pause as they each worked on their respective tasks.

"I- I have something on my mind, Keith," Lance said, words coming out before he could stop them.

Keith looked up at him, waiting for the next sentence.

Well, there was no turning back now.

"You know when I was unconscious," Lance began, heart rate picking up again. "I honestly wouldn't've found my way back without you. From our connection through Voltron, I've grown really familiar with the way you feel in the spirit plane. You smell like steel and ozone, you look like this red and purple spirally thing, you taste like cinnamon and feel like sandpaper and… well, maybe you're wondering how I know your aura so well.

"Keith, I think you're pretty amazing. You've always been a fantastic pilot. You're dedicated and you've grown into a really caring, careful leader. I've always looked up to you. And recently, I've started to do more than that.

"I think I love you, Keith."

"I think you're handsome, and I love spending time with you, and I really wish I could show you that you don't have to face all of your challenges alone. I wasn't going to tell you until this… universe-saving stuff was all over with, but I realized that I might not have that luxury. And I didn't want to go to my grave without ever telling you how I feel about you."

Lance swallowed in fear, letting his final words hang in the air. Halfway through Lance's speech, Keith had stopped cleaning his jumpsuit and gone stock still, staring at Lance with wide gray eyes.

"I thought you loved Allura," Keith said, tone unreadable.

"She's a gorgeous kick-ass alien space princess, man. Cut me some slack," Lance laughed nervously. "But no, I enjoy spending time with her and I have fun being a flirt… but I don't love her. It wouldn't work out anyway – she's way too mature for me, and everyone knows it." Lance laughed again, self-deprecating.

"And I'm not?" Keith asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Uhhhhh," Lance tried to figure out the right answer to that question. Keith broke eye contact and ran a hand agitatedly through his wet hair.

"Listen, Lance, I just need some space to think, okay?"

Lance's heart fell. He didn't know what else he was expecting.

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Lance replied quietly.

Keith gave him a final wide-eyed look and then waded out of the water, breaking into a run once he hit the lakeshore. Lance wasn't expecting him to take that statement quite so literally. He put his head in his hands before having a belated realization.

"Are… are you going to get me off of this rock? No? Okay, that's cool."

---

Lance loved him? Lance loved him? Lance loved him?

No part of this was making sense in Keith's brain. He kept running the words over and over with different emphasis, not sure which part of the sentence was the most stunning. He kept running in real life too, again making that mistake with respect to repetitive exercise and unwanted thinking, as if he could sweat his problems away. His Problem. Capital P. Lance.

A wave of memories came to him, unbidden, as he weaved through the rubbery blue trees. Lance throwing himself at Keith with a look of pure relief after they'd crashed. Lance's back, warm against his as they slept in the snowy hollow. Lance's gentle smile when Keith told him that the Blue Paladin was his best pilot.

It had probably been pretty obvious, if he had been looking for it.

But it felt so shocking. He heard Lance's snide tone saying drop-out and mullet and, when he was really being an ass, Galra. He remembered their constant arguments, their always trying to one-up each other, Lance's heavy flirting with gorgeous aliens.

Keith had never had to deal with a situation like this before, though, so maybe he just didn't understand it. He slowed down to a walk, breathing heavily. He'd dropped his jumpsuit by the water in a rather questionable decision, so now he was in the middle of the forest in only his under-shorts. The sunset rays weren't particularly good at drying his still-damp body, and he frowned at his rash decision to run off. It was just too much at once though. He wasn't very good at dealing with people. People were complicated and irrational and subtle in ways he never fully understood. In the moment, with Lance looking at him that way, he wasn't sure how to react. He'd never seen such pure affection directed at him before.

Keith replayed Lance's expressions in his mind. The words had been amazing, of course, but something about the imagery was tugging at him. He pictured Lance's slouching figure, silhouetted against the red sky. He thought about how Lance had spent most of the conversation looking away from him and then, at the end, looked him directly in the eyes with this emotional palette of pride and fear and honesty and acceptance. And then it struck Keith – when he'd come to the realization of what Lance was saying, he had suddenly viewed the Blue Paladin in a totally different light. It was like a paradigm shift. For the first time, he'd seen Lance as someone that he could have as more than a friend. And somehow, that had a visual effect in his memory.

Now, he was replaying their other interactions with that filter. Keith listened affectionately to Lance's delighted, contagious cheering as they raced through the debris disk. He carried Lance all the way to the terminator of this planet, driven onwards with fear for his friend when fear for himself wouldn't've been enough. He hadn't lied – Lance was his best friend in the universe, despite their constant bickering. And now he could no longer pretend to himself that he'd never cast an eye towards Lance's lean, sinuous form that looked so natural in the Castle pool.

Even though everything else in that interaction had been too complicated to parse in the moment, Keith had felt relief when Lance had said that he didn't love Allura.

It had probably been pretty obvious, if he'd been looking for it.

He'd never considered that perhaps his fondness for the Blue Paladin was a little different than that of a captain for his best pilot. But now, he had. The question now was how to proceed.

Keith was struck by the sudden stillness of the forest around him. Something was trying to kill him. Pure instinct caused him to launch into a spin heel kick, and it connected with a massive, scaly head, throwing Keith to the ground with the recoil. The beast let out a two-toned roar and shook its mane. If the lizard-spiders before were coyotes, this thing was a cosmic wolf. It was easily as heavy as he was. Keith's eyes were having a hard time focusing on it – it had some sort of shifting, chameleon skin that made it appear to melt into its environment.

No weapons, no clothes, no backup. This would be a really dumb way to die.

The beast seemed a little thrown by his resistance, as if it was used to sneaking up on its prey and dispatching them without a fight. Its giant, raptor-like claws and fanged mouth probably helped with that. It began to silently circle him, blurring into an alien tree trunk in a wave of deep blue and then out of it into a red and black dapple. Keith weighed his options as he warily kept his distance.

Fight or flight.

Let's see how well the stealthy bastard runs.

Keith edged around one of the large tree trunks, and then whirled and bolted for his life. Before, his running had been impulsive but steady, he'd wanted distance not speed. Now, he catapulted through the forest at a literally breakneck pace, only the lack of undergrowth saving him from an injury far worse than Lance's. He heard a two-toned howl behind him, an underlying drone and a high whistle, and the chase was on.

Keith originally thought about darting and weaving to lose his pursuer, but the openness of the alien environment made that impossible. He pumped his legs as hard as he could, flying through the forest at the edge of control of his balance. He didn't look back, he didn't have to. He could feel the predator's closeness prickling the back of his neck.

Keith had been heading for the lake, under the half-baked assumption that maybe, just maybe, this thing couldn't swim as well as he could. But he heard the wheezing breaths of the beast right behind him and realized that he'd never make it.

Time to fight.

Keith dove to the side in an exceedingly dangerous forward roll and felt the skin on his shoulder tear on contact with the rocky ground. Shielded by adrenaline, he pivoted to see that his maneuver hadn't thrown the creature as far off-balance as he'd hoped. A quick dodge saved him from a mauling via razor-sharp claws, though he felt one of them slash his chest as he spun away. Fuck. This thing was fast.

The smell of blood, even if it was red Earth blood, seemed to embolden the beast. It came at Keith again. This time, he was ready. Like the smaller creatures earlier, this ugly thing had only a single, lizard-like eye in the middle of its forehead. Keith ducked its claws, this time avoiding injury, whirled, and slammed a practiced elbow directly into the creature's eye.

The creature emitted a metal-rending screech and thrashed out in its agony. This time Keith wasn't so lucky. The beast nailed him in the knee with a flailing limb, Keith's leg buckled, and he fell. He scrambled backwards, trying to protect himself from the whirlwind of claws and limbs.

A lancing line of fire and the whirlwind immediately stopped.

Keith remained on the ground, shaking and bleeding and gasping for air. The beast was dead. Keith looked to the direction the shot had come from, but there was nothing in the forest as far as he could see. He knew, in the small part of his brain that wasn't trying to process his near-death, that Lance had made that shot. But he had to wait a long, long time for proof before finally the Blue Paladin emerged from in between the trees, bayard in one hand and pipe under his shoulder.

"Keith, you're a fucking idiot!" Lance yelled, limping to where Keith lay.

Keith didn't really have a response to that. He struggled to his feet, lightheaded from his pell-mell sprint. He dabbed a hand against his stinging shoulder and it came away red with blood. His chest was also oozing blood from a long claw-mark, but neither wound was that deep. Keith had been lucky.

Lance stopped right in front of him, visibly uncertain, then seemed to come to a conclusion and pulled Keith into a hug, heedless of the blood seeping into his jumpsuit. Keith hugged him back, resting his head on the taller boy's chest. As he listened to Lance's heartbeat he was hit by an overwhelming wave of gratitude and caring. Underneath that, there was a banked fluttering, an unfamiliar yet delightful emotion that made him want to hold on for longer. Instead, he pulled away.

"You're right, I am a fucking idiot. And… I think we have something to talk about. But let's go back to camp first. I miss my dagger."

---

Lance couldn't suppress his nervous energy. He whistled on their trek back to the overhang, until Keith told him to quit calling out for more lizard-beasts to come eat them. He felt like a coiled spring; Keith obviously had something to say, but he'd also obviously never thought about Lance in the way that Lance thought about him. Lance had braced himself for an entire spectrum of rejections, but he was in the dark about which one was about to happen. Keith had always been hard to read.

Time seemed to run way too slowly, but also, way too fast. Like the time when he'd tripped and dropped a giant, open bag of flour in front of his mother, having plenty of time to watch gravity pull the bag to the floor and take in his mother's horrified expression, and yet not enough time to actually do anything about it. He and Keith said little to each other as they made their way down to the lakeshore, and before he knew it, they were back by the ashes of their fire.

Lance sat down hard, feeling the mixed weight of his aching body, his uncertainty, and the aftershock of the absolute terror he'd felt as he'd watched Keith almost become alien predator food. That last one was going to be a doozy to emotionally digest. He'd had maybe a foot of clearance between a couple of the bluish tree things. Keith had been a hundred yards away. The battle had happened so quickly and Lance's arms had been trembling with exhaustion from the infection. He was definitely going to play it off as all in a day's work when he told the story in the future… but deep in his gut, he knew that he'd had a fifty-fifty chance of hitting Keith with that shot. But it was that or watch him have a 100% chance of dying, and he knew he'd never forgive himself if he hadn't tried.

His hands tapped an anxious calypso beat on his thighs. It all worked out in the end, so he was going to deal with that one later. Keith had gotten dressed in his jumpsuit and now sat cross-legged, staring into the purple flames. He was sitting near enough for Lance to reach out and touch him – that was a good sign, right? Lance felt like he had an Olkarion web-frog in his throat.

"Nice weather we're having, huh?" Lance said, too loudly. It at least broke Keith out of his musings in the fire. The Red Paladin gave him a sharp glare and Lance felt a twinge in his chest at Keith's attention. He was such a sucker for having Keith's full attention.

"Lance… I've never been in this situation before," Keith began.

"Bullshit," Lance interrupted. He immediately clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to suppress his natural tendency to talk more when he was nervous. But Keith exhaled sharply in an almost-laugh and didn't call Lance out for it.

"Is that so hard to believe? I've never really had friends, Lance."

"You're telling me you've never had anyone tell you they liked you?" Lance persisted, incredulous.

"At the Academy, I was dealing with a lot of anger. I knew how to fly a ship, sure, but I didn't know how to connect with people. I didn't really understand that being a pilot was more than just drilling the training sims until I was perfect. I had no interest in anyone else, and I think people sensed that. No one ever expressed interest in me.

"And then I dropped out and spent a long time out in my cabin in the desert. And since then we've been running across the universe trying to overthrow Zarkon and fight the Galra. I haven't had time to get to know anyone well enough. Hell, there haven't even been that many people around to get to know."

Lance nodded. The isolation of space, the distance from his friends and family, was hard for him to overcome. Keith's face was (as usual) inscrutable.

"Except you."

Lance was flooded with an icy rush of adrenaline.

"I obviously did a pretty shitty job of showing it, if you thought that I didn't respect you, but I trust you Lance. With my life. And these days, okay, that's not so special. Everyone and their space mouse has saved my life, and in these circumstances you've just gotta take that trust where you can get it.

"But I also trust you with my small unguarded moments. In the Castle pool, and in Monsters and Mana, and through the asteroid belt. And I trust you with my feelings. And okay, I don't really know what that means yet, but I know that you know more about me than anyone in this universe, and I like that.

Keith was saying so many words. All in a row. And they were not the words Lance expected to hear. Lance kept waiting for the "but".

"I'd never considered a relationship or love or anything before you told me how you felt. I'd never felt anything like that for anyone, actually. I think it's probably because I never opened myself up to anyone before. Well, except Shiro, but that's different.

"But-

Oh, there it is.

"I'm considering it now."

Considering what? Lance thought. Oh, right, "a relationship or love or"- holy shit.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I can't make any promises. I've never had a boyfriend before. But I think I'd like to try? I think your heartbeat sounded really nice and being the leader of Voltron is really hard, and I want to try something new, something different than being alone all the time."

"How about being alone like 50% of the time? We could do a timeshare."

Wow, it's a good thing Lance's brain came up with witty quips on autopilot, because he was way too dazed to be piloting right now. Keith smiled, which was rare enough, but Keith was smiling at him. Lance had never seen that expression on Keith's face before and it was absolutely stunning.

"You're really pretty," Lance blurted out.

Aaaaand this is why we still have pilots.

To Lance's astonishment, Keith snorted in amusement.

"Glad you think so," Keith replied. He scooched over to where Lance was propped against the wall and put a head on Lance's shoulder, being careful not to disturb his broken leg. Lance barely dared to breathe. What kind of fever dream was he having, and could he stay infected? "Is this okay?"

"It's perfect, Keith," Lance replied quietly. And for once had nothing else to say.

And for a long while, they stayed like that. The warmth from the fire and Keith, pressed against his shoulder, lulled Lance into a giddy trance. He cherished every single breath, felt each rustle of the wild-haired boy at his side, and just existed, fully in the present in a way he hadn't been for a long, long time. Eventually, he worked up the courage to put an arm around Keith in return. The Red Paladin tensed briefly, causing Lance to flinch back, wondering if he'd gone too far. Keith raised his head.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump, I'm just not really sure how this works," he confessed. Lance's heartbeat sped up as he gazed down at Keith's face, inches from his own.

"That's totally fine, we can figure it out at your pace. I'll do whatever you're comfortable with," Lance tripped over his words with his desire to let Keith know that they'd figure this out together.

"Thanks, Lance. You can put your arm back. I just need to take it slow, I think."

Lance did so, gently and a little gingerly. But Keith was still looking at him.

"So, we're dating now?"

"Um, I mean, that sounds great," Lance stuttered, flustered, "but I thought that you might want to just explore for a bit, see if you were actually interested or whatever. We don't have to apply a label right away."

"I'm definitely interested," Keith said. And kissed him. Lance's eyes flew wide open. Keith's lips were kind of rough and chapped and he couldn't believe this was actually happening and then he surrendered to the insanity of the moment and closed his eyes and returned the kiss. It was slow and simple, kind of a clumsy first kiss, but there was a power and pressure behind it that suggested more. Lance knew his cheeks were flushed even through his dark skin. With some regret, he was the one that pulled back.

"I thought you wanted to take it slow?" he accused, knowing that his tone and response would tell Keith that there was no disagreement from him.

"Isn't this what boyfriends are supposed to do?" Keith pointed out innocently, evidently not seeing a problem. Lance didn't really have a response. He didn't want to accidentally scare Keith away if it was too much, too fast. The innocence on Keith's face morphed into something more wicked and Lance felt a wave of heat pass through him.

"Oh c'mon, hotshot, I'm doing this 'cause I want to," Keith ribbed him, gray eyes dancing. Lance let out a strangled sound that wasn't completely unlike the squeaky whistle of the lizard-creature. Keith smirked, obviously delighted with his new ability to get the upper-hand on Lance. Lance kissed him again, harder, to shut him up.

"Bastard," Lance mumbled around his lips. Keith laughed against him and moved a hand to the back of his neck, and that was the last coherent thought Lance had for a long while.

---

An indicator light flipped on in Pidge's control panel and she instantly cried out.

"Guys! I've got something!"

A string of relieved babble flowed through her speakers, but she tuned them out. Romelle and Krolia were peering over her shoulder, but she ignored them. She needed to focus. Pidge flipped to her tracking algorithm and did a quick test to determine the signal's directionality.

"Looks like they're a few parsecs ahead! I'm getting a ping from both the Red and Blue Lions!"

Pidge pulled on her control lever and got pressed back into her chair as the Green Lion accelerated. She could see Hunk piloting the Yellow Lion and then watched the Black Lion jump into the lead as Shiro joined them. It was hard to say which of them would be the most excited to have Keith and Lance back - they'd all been taut with worry for days. Pidge's stomach had ached with stress as she'd worked day in and day out (according to the clock on her portable, which often felt like a lie in the emptiness of interstellar space) to find the two Paladins.

As usual, it felt like all of the burden was on her. Just code up a Keith and Lance finder, they said, without any appreciation for the awful environment imposed by that young M-star or the issues of transmission through the interstellar medium or the signal to noise issues created by the vast distances between the stars. Pidge huffed in annoyed remembrance, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.

And then, as she tried to create a program to find any hint of the missing Lions, she had to deal with the others' conspiracies, which got more and more paranoid over time.

They've been possessed by mentally enhancing space worms! Coran cried dramatically.

They could've been taken hostage by a rogue Galra element, Shiro proposed, tone grim.

My father used to say that pilots could go space-mad if they went too long without going planet-side, Allura remembered.

At least Allura had been actively searching for the Lion's energy signatures in the spirit plane. The rest of them had been just twiddling their thumbs as Pidge had worked.

They'd tried to chase Keith and Lance when the boys had first pulled their teleportation switcharoo, but catching up to their two best pilots after a rather disorienting start to the chase had proved impossible. Pidge had managed to track them to an angrily flaring M-star with a debris disk. After that, though, there were no clues to where they'd gone. They'd stayed put for several vargas, searching the debris disk, but finally they decided to branch out to other systems. They stayed together in case whatever had happened to Keith and Lance could happen again. But they'd had no luck.

One of Shiro's later guesses was that Keith and Lance had pulled a stunt just for the fun of it, and that they'd come back when they were ready. Pidge would expect that from Lance any day, but it surprised her that Keith would've gone along with it. She wondered why Shiro had brought it up, but the idea bugged at her. She'd have a much harder time finding the boys if they were trying not to be found.

This newest revelation seemed to rule out the joyride scenario, though. The system that was the source of the Lions' signal was around another M-dwarf, but a considerably more evolved one (in an elliptical like this there wasn't room to swing a cat without hitting an M-dwarf).

As they approached, Pidge took in the single, tiny, planet making its lonely orbit around its host star.

"Signal is coming from that planet," Pidge reported. She proudly watched as her algorithm fed her ever-refining best guesses to position as they neared the planet. She sent a quick screen-share to Hunk, knowing he'd at least appreciate her handiwork.

She frowned as she noticed a strange repeating signal lying on top of the Lions' beacons. Her fingers flew across her keyboard as she isolated it, curious.

"What's with that weird moon?" Hunk asked. Pidge pulled her nose out of her signal processing to look out the view-screen. Some highly reflective spherical body was glinting from refracted light, hidden in the exact center of the planet's shadow.

"That's no moon," Pidge murmured with a half-hearted snort. But as she thought about the problem more, she realized her gut-reaction joke was right. The object was sitting at the sun-planet L2 point – there was no way it could be stable there without some sort of stationkeeping!

"What did you say?" Krolia asked her. Pidge jumped – she hadn't realized she'd been muttering to herself.

"That thing near the planet isn't a moon," she explained. "It has to be some sort of artificial satellite."

"Pidge, does it have anything to do with our missing Paladins?" Shiro asked, deferring to her expertise. "And is it dangerous?"

"I don't know, and…" Wait a minute. The triangulation results were showing her that this thing was the source of her mystery signal. She threw the signal through a universal translator program that had come with the Castle of Lions software (a truly majestic treasure trove). Suddenly, her speakers began broadcasting a message, causing Romelle to jump in surprise.

"We are here. We wish for only peace. Greetings from Meizzeia. Please reply."

The message just repeated, over and over.

"It seems like it's just a beacon of some sort, Shiro. It's only purpose is to play this message... maybe forever?"

Pidge felt a brief wave of melancholy. The surface of the planet seemed uninhabited. Who were the Meizzeians? Where did they go? Would she ever get to tell them that this was a brilliant idea, that she'd thought of the transit Schelling Point beacon and she'd always wanted to see it done in practice?

She sighed, pushing her unruly brown hair out of her eyes. There were so many mysteries she'd yet to solve in the universe. Most of them weren't even part of their struggle against the Galra; they just existed out here, scattered through space. She wondered if, one day, she'd have a chance to come back and solve them all.

Suddenly, two moving objects appeared on her radar.

"We've got incoming!"

"It's Keith and Lance!" Hunk exclaimed. Hunk's vision was far better than hers, but a quick enhancement over her view-screen showed her that indeed, the Red and Blue Lions were flying towards them from the planet's surface.

A cheer came through her speaker as Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro maneuvered the Black, Yellow, and Green Lions to meet the Red and Blue ones. Pidge felt a wash of relief and took off her glasses to wipe her forehead. She wasn't teary-eyed. You're teary-eyed.

Lance's face came up onto the view-screen. He looked pale and sweaty and his jumpsuit showed traces of blood, but he was grinning like a maniac.

"Greetings, fellow Earthlings," he grandstanded. "What brings you out to these parts?"

"Are you and Keith okay?" Shiro cut in. "What happened?"

Keith's face appeared in a separate box next to Lance's.

"We're just fine, Shiro. We had… a bit of an adventure, but we're okay. Allura, Lance's leg is going to need some healing."

"It's nothing your touch can't fix," Lance said, wiggling his eyebrows. Allura sighed.

"We'll tell you all about it at rendezvous," Keith promised.

---

Lance closed out of the other communications and opened a private channel to Keith.

"Well, maybe not all about it," he suggested.

Keith just winked at him and closed the communication.