In Lance's opinion, Mylos is one of the most unnerving battlefields he's seen in the years he's been a paladin. The planet is cloaked in thick, foul-smelling mist, and the ground is almost entirely covered in a spongy, moss-like plant that provides unsteady footing. The only cover is outcroppings of rock that both sides occasionally duck behind. Laser fire lights up the mist like St. Elmo's fire, and eerie forms flicker back and forth. Something about the mist also plays hell with sound so that every shout, every scream, echoes as if they were fighting in a cave and not in an open field.
The field is cupped by the massive caldera of what Allura assures them is a long-extinct supervolcano, and the paladins have been backed into a huddle behind a rock formation in the looming shadow of the encircling cliffs. Lance and Hunk have their bayards, while Keith and Pidge have borrowed Mylin guns. Somewhere out there, Shiro and Allura are searching for what this battle is all about: the legendary Key of Mylos, a universal de-encryption and data retrieval device that would make their hunt to patch up ten thousand years' worth of gaps in knowledge incredibly easy.
When the tall figure in paladin armor stumbles out of the mist, poor visibility and the figure's height make Lance think at first that it's Shiro. But as the person draws closer, now obviously clutching at a wound in their side, he can see that the armor is white and red — Keith's colors.
Lance nearly rises to his feet to make sense of why the hell Keith would be out there when he's currently pressed all in a warm line (which Lance doesn't dare think about too hard) against Lance's left side, but thankfully Hunk quells that bad decision by placing a firm hand on his other shoulder.
Then, the figure finally loses his footing and crumples to his knees, and Lance knows he's now little more than a tasty appetizer on a silver platter for the Galra.
Indeed, a new collection of approaching vague shadows sharpen into the dark mask and armor of a Galra soldier. Lance grits his teeth and readies his rifle, but to his shock the soldier suddenly finds himself speared in the chest by a bolt of blue fire from another direction. It is, Lance thinks with just a tinge of envy, a perfect shot, a sniper's dream.
The shot had come from over their heads, in the direction of the sheer cliffs, and the paladins all turn to try and pinpoint its source. After a long minute, they are answered when someone comes sprinting out of the mist.
Lance experiences a sudden jolt of déjà vu, because this person is wearing paladin armor as well — his own armor, blue and white. They're even toting what looks like a sleeker, deadlier version of Lance's bayard.
Lance's lookalike completely ignores the gaping paladins to crouch by the red-armored person. After checking for the former's pulse, they sling their arm around their shoulders and start dragging them back to safety.
As the two of them come closer, it's a remarkable tableau that puts Lance in mind of the Battle of Ilibin, just three months ago, when Keith had gotten badly wounded and Lance had had to shoot and extract.
It's just as Lance is thinking how lucky they had gotten at Ilibin that another Galra takes advantage of the fact that they're all distracted and shoots the Lance lookalike in the back. They jerk in a long twist of pain, before falling in a tangle with the Keith-double, but at least the responsible Galra falls to Pidge's return fire in the same moment.
The paladins barely have to exchange a glance before Keith and Lance are up on their feet, Hunk and Pidge covering them, and sprinting for the crumpled figures in blue and red.
Lance takes his double, Keith his, and together they lurch back to the others.
Once they've gotten back to safety, Lance pulls off the helmet that is twin to his own — and nearly drops it in shock.
The face lolling against the outcropping is his. Oh, there's a scar bisecting one eyebrow and another under his jaw, and his hair curls longer at his temples, but he could be Lance's clone. His skin is the same nut-brown and his slitted, pain-fogged eyes the same blue. It is Lance's face, tempered by years of fighting he hasn't seen yet.
But — that's not possible, is it?
Hands shaking around the presumed older-Lance's helmet, he turns to look at — at Keith's own future self. (He spares a moment to cry what the fuck in his head; why is the universe like this?) The others are staring in shock as well, and no wonder. This Keith has longer hair, strands falling out of a ragged ponytail, and an ugly scar stretching from his left temple to his jaw. Through the fall of hair, Lance can see that the tip of his right ear is gone, a stubbly scarred mess that reminds him of bitter old cats.
What the hell happens to them in the future?
Of course, that's the moment that Shiro and Allura come bounding out of the fog, each gripping the handle of a bulky black box between them. Judging by the Galra pursuing, and by the exhilaration visible in their faces as they get closer, they've succeeded in obtaining the Key of Mylos. Time to get the hell out of here.
When they get back to the castle, Allura immediately wants to examine Lance and Keith's future selves, so they all gather in Blue's hangar to watch Allura gesture excitably about the two paladins slumped against the lion's foot.
Something about the way their future selves unconsciously lean together against Blue, the vulnerable paleness of future-Keith's eyelids and the scant distance between their fingers, makes Lance's stomach clench.
As Allura crouches in front of his future self, Lance steals a glance at his own Keith. The other paladin is staring at his double intently, eyes dark and his grip on his helmet tense.
Keith suddenly turns his head, locking gazes with Lance; Lance feels his ears flush and hastily looks back to Allura.
He tries not to think about the flash of emotions he'd seen in Keith's eyes — had there been a hint of longing there? — as she claps her hands and says, "We'll run scans to make sure, of course, but I believe you are correct in guessing these are your future selves!"
Dinner is silent and awkward that night. Lance pushes his food around his plate as Coran and Allura try to figure out how the hell twenty-nine year old Lance and Keith have appeared in their time.
Shiro interjects something about temporal storms, and Pidge is listening attentively, but Lance has retreated into his own head. He can't stop thinking about the fact that he's still fighting this fucking war ten years down the line, still alone in space millions of lightyears from Earth, still nearly dying every week in someone else's war.
Hunk seems to have noticed Lance's turmoil, for he sends Lance worried looks every now and then, but Lance just shrugs and points his fork ambiguously at the goo on his plate.
Keith is conspicuously absent, his plate and chair still and silent; Lance doesn't blame him, honestly.
Minutes pass, some of the slowest of Lance's life, and finally, he can't take it. He pushes his chair back with a loud screech that abruptly halts all talk, and gives Shiro a tight-lipped smile as he takes his plate and leaves.
Lance doesn't quite know where to go, so he just wanders through the endless cavernous halls and dusty rooms in a pattern indiscernible to him. That is, until his wandering feet bring him to the infirmary.
He lingers in the doorway for a moment, observing the steady rise and fall of future-Lance and future-Keith's chests in their beds, then pads over to future-Lance. Lance stares at the laugh lines, at the scars, at the hair — all clues to a life Lance hasn't lived yet. As he bends closer to squint, as if future-Lance's sleeping face will suddenly reveal his future in its entirety, his eye catches the gleam of a necklace.
Ever so carefully, he hooks a finger under the chain and lifts it out from under the shirt, then nearly drops it as the pendant hangs, winking in the starlight.
Lance currently wears a little cross necklace — formerly a much-begrudged gift from his mother, but now one of the most precious things he owns out here in the lonely depths of space. He is not a stranger to necklaces. But this — this is a different kind of necklace altogether. Because the thing hanging from the delicate gold chain is a ring, an obvious wedding band at that. It's simple: shining silvery metal and a tiny inlaid trio of rubies.
"What's that?" The voice comes from behind him, and Lance drops the necklace to whip around as his other hand goes to where his bayard normally hangs.
It's Keith, leaning against the doorframe with arms crossed. His hair is damp, as if he's just showered, and despite himself Lance notices that Keith's wet hair curls at the ends, inky against the base of his neck and around his ears. His traitorous heart gives a wayward thump before Lance manages to swallow and kick himself into an admittedly poor response: "None of your business, Keith."
Keith just raises an eyebrow and detaches from the doorway to join Lance. "You look like you just found out Santa wasn't real," he says. "What's the deal?"
Lance finds that he has no particular retort; he isn't quite certain how to feel about the knowledge that he's married in ten years — probably less, judging by the band of paler skin on his future self's left hand. He knows he should be happy that despite the war, despite everything, he'll find that person with whom to face the rest of his life.
But who could that person be? he wonders. Who would be able to handle a paladin as a husband? Who could calm his night terrors, laugh at his jokes, preferably have his back during battle? Who could he settle down with so solidly? (Who do the rubies signify?)
A slow feeling of heaviness coils in the pit of his stomach; the pieces are assembling into a picture he doesn't quite want to confront.
"Lance?" Keith says, and the way he sounds — almost concerned? — suggests he's said it once or twice already.
Lance blinks away his suspicions and refocuses on the (current) red paladin. Irritated for a reason he can't name, he snaps, "What?"
He immediately regrets it when Keith jerks back, hurt settling in his eyes. "You weren't responding," Keith says finally. "Is there something up with your future self?"
"I—" The words stick in Lance's throat, and he clears it. He and Keith are in a strange lull right now; they've long since abandoned their rivalry, but there's a strange new weight in the air when they interact that neither of them really knows how to handle. And Lance has no clue what, "I have a vague suspicion we might be married in the future," will do to their delicate peace.
"I'm—in the future, I'm married," he says eventually, fingers twisting anxiously together as he lets it out. For some reason, he keeps rubbing at his ring finger, as if searching for something that's not there.
Keith's eyebrows jump. "To who?" he asks immediately.
"I don't know," Lance says, and it's the truth — mostly, anyway. Aiming for levity, he adds, "Guess I've got game even out here in space."
He tries not to smile too much when Keith rolls his eyes, more fondly than anything. But the nascent smile smooths out when Keith turns suddenly serious, and Lance feels the weight of his starlit gaze tug somewhere under his breastbone.
In the same moment as Keith opens his mouth to speak, two things happen. One, Lance sucks in an involuntary breath as the realization he'd been trying to avoid suddenly hits him with full clarity: shit, I'm married to Keith Kogane in the future. Two, the comm device on his wrist pulses the signal to gather in the briefing room.
As he wrenches himself away from this conversation and they head towards the briefing room in silence, Lance realizes that the emotion curling in his chest like creeping vines is disappointment — he hadn't gotten to finish his conversation with Keith.