A Human Thing

by PaperKayak

When Lance began to forcefully tug Keith from one end of the Unilu space mall to the other with the promise of a "surprise", he had the best of intentions. (In which Lance's plan to cheer Keith up goes awry, and Pidge gives the boys a vocabulary lesson. AroAce!Keith)

When Lance began to forcefully tug Keith from one end of the Unilu space mall to the other with the promise of a "surprise", he had the best of intentions.

Every member of the Voltron team had taken the disappearance of Shiro hard, but Keith seemed to have come out of the situation worse than any of them. Keith had never described the nature of his relationship to Shiro to the other paladins – and good luck trying to ever get the hothead to answer any questions about – but they all knew that it was a close bond that stretched back long before they had taken up their roles as paladins, even before the Kerberos mission. Going through the loss a second time can't have been easy.

What was more, Keith hadn't exactly been given much time or opportunity to get back into a decent state of mind. Between taking on the responsibility of team leader, a role that he took to like a fish to desert, and keeping up with threats both new and old in the battle to defend the universe…

Well, bottom line, Keith was stressed.

So, when Coran needed to return to the space mall for supplies, an excursion seemed like it could be a nice respite for the red paladin. And after plenty of coaxing from the other paladins, as well as Coran's fervent insistence that the events from their last visit had been forgiven and forgotten by the mall security, he reluctantly agreed.

Not that he'd done a very good job of making the most of the trip. When they split to explore the mall, and the rest had eagerly darted to every store that struck their eye, Keith walked through the place almost at a shuffle, fidgeting restlessly whenever he stopped to look into a shop window but not enter the store itself. He had the air of impatiently waiting out the clock until he could return to the castle.

Lance wasn't having it. Keith had been even moodier than usual as of late, and Lance felt determined to find some way to get him to loosen up and lighten his mood here at the mall before Keith became so surly he could never bounce back.

He had kept an eye out in different shops, in case he came across anything that might strike Keith's interest, but he wasn't quite sure what Keith's interests were. Knives? He had his own knife and seemed perfectly content with it. He considered dragging Keith over to see what appeared to be a shiny Unilu variation of a motorbike on display, but figured that seeing it and not being to touch or ride it would be worse for him than not seeing it at all. There was a clothing store toward the back of the mall whose wares were exclusively black and red, but Keith might think Lance was just making fun of him if he took him there.

It finally came to him when he got a snack – that is to say, goo, of course – in the food court and sat himself at a table across two Unilu girls who seemed to be around his age, or whatever the Unilu equivalent of his age was. Lance introduced himself and started up a chat immediately. Takvi, the taller of the two with bright round eyes and a shock of spiked electric-blue hair, couldn't seem to get enough of the paladin, hanging onto every word and asking question as he described his daring feats in battle and laughing at every joke, even the ones that weren't that funny. (Oh, who was he kidding – they were all funny.) The other, Drexla, who wore her violet hair long and straight and whose eyes were heavily lidded in such a way that she always looked sleepy, was quieter and more reserved, but still smiled along occasionally and blushed upon receiving compliments.

It occurred to Lance in the middle of the conversation that this was the most fun he'd had at the space mall today. And there was no way anyone else wouldn't enjoy it too.

"Hey, listen," he said, turning to Drexla. "I have this, uh – " Friend? He wasn't quite sure. "I have this guy, great guy, he's here in the mall with me and I think you two would get along. You, uh, you seem like his type. Would you mind if I went and got him? Have you meet him, maybe make this a double date?" He nodded toward Takvi, who, considering that he could feel her tickling at his ankles with her feet under the table, already seemed to have claimed Lance as hers.

"We'd love that!" Takvi replied brightly, nudging her friend with her elbow and grinning broadly. Drexla nodded and answered with a soft, "All right."

"Great!" He smiled in return and got up, kicking his chair back. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be back in a tick."

He had a pretty good idea of where Keith may have ended up by now, and sure enough, when he reached the little plaza toward the mall's exit filled with spots for shoppers to rest their feet, Lance found him, sitting on a bench with his feet on the seat and looking half-asleep and bored out of his skull.

With a grin, Lance strode to the bench. "Hey, Keith! Get up!"

Keith sat up a little straighter and turned to face source of the voice that had brought him back to alertness. "Are we leaving?" he asked, starting to rise from the bench.

"No, no, not yet. I need you to come with me, I wanna show you something."

Keith drew his brows together but otherwise didn't move. "Show me what?"

"It's a surprise," Lance said, grin widening.

Keith's eyes narrowed. "Lance, if you and the others are trying to play a practical joke or something – "

"We're not, don't worry," Lance interrupted with a wave of his hand, and at Keith's skeptical stare, added, "I swear. Paladin's honor. Come on, you'll love it, pretty promise."

Keith sighed, but he finally said, "Fine," and started walking. Lance sped the process along by grabbing Keith's upper arm and yanking him along in a rapid march, ignoring the other's yelp of protest.

He didn't let Keith have his arm back until they had reached the food court, where he finally released his grip. The moment they stopped, Keith shook Lance's hand off of him, scowling. "You know I don't like being grabbed!" he snarled, looking around the food court. "Is the surprise some kind of food? I'm not hungry, Lance."

"Nope." Lance led the way to the table, Keith still glancing around suspiciously. "All right, Keith," he said when they reached the table, and with a flourish of his arms he continued, "I'd like you to meet Takvi and Drexla." Takvi waved eagerly, Drexla demurely, with an indigo tint seeping into her, which Lance had been interpreting all this time as a blush. "Drexla, this is Keith. She's awfully excited to meet you," he addressed Keith with a wink.

Keith furrowed his brow. "Why is – ?"

"Come on, sit down, sit down!" Lance pulled out the chair beside Drexla and shoved Keith into it before taking his own seat next to Takvi.

"Would you, um, like to share?" Drexla asked, sliding the paper dish she'd been nibbling from toward Keith. The contents might have been tater tots if it weren't for their bold shade of chartreuse.

Keith shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he said. Drexla's smile shrank just a little, but she shrugged it off and ate one herself instead.

Lance cleared his throat. "So. Keith. The ladies and I know each other well already, but Drexla here really would like to get to know you better. So go on, tell her about yourself."

"Um, okay." Keith turned to Drexla, whose eyes were bright in anticipation. "I'm Keith."

"… And?" Lance prompted when Keith didn't continue. "What else?"

"Oh. Right. I'm Keith Kogane," he corrected himself.

Lance rolled his eyes. Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was something else, but clearly Keith had no clue what he was doing. Lance was going to have to hold his hand the whole way, wasn't he? "Keith is a paladin of Voltron, like me. In fact, he's the pilot of the black lion. Meaning he is the leader of team Voltron. Impressive, huh?"

"Very," Drexla said. "That's so cool, Keith. You must be, like, an amazing pilot, right?"

Keith shrugged. "I guess, yeah."

"You guess?" Lance said increduously. "He is the very definition of an ace pilot. He was basically famous back at the Galaxy Garrison – the school, where we studied space travel. Keith was top of the class and must hold at least half the records there."

Keith stared at Lance, looking baffled. "Since when did you start complimenting my piloting skills?"

Lance forced out a laugh. "Come on, Keith, I'm just being honest. Not to mention helping you make a good first impression on Drexla here, although really, you could do that on your own merit."

"Oh, don't worry," Drexla said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Her eyes were scanning Keith all the way from head to foot. "He's made a great impression so far." Keith squirmed in his seat.

"Well, um," Lance said. "You know, I've been telling these two about some of our little quests as Voltron. They love a good story."

"Oh, yes, and you're a wonderful storyteller, Lance," Takvi said, beaming from ear to ear at him. "And they're fantastic! Like, you saved a whole undersea planet from a monster all by yourself? Isn't that something! You're a hero!"

"I thought Hunk was with you for that," Keith said.

Takvi tilted her head. "But Lance said – "

"Hey, let's let Keith talk about something for a bit, okay?" Lance said, hastily and too loudly. "Keith, how about you tell a couple of your stories?"

"Like what?" Keith asked.

"How about the time you took on the emperor of the Galra one-on-one and lived to tell the tale? That's a good story."

"I – I don't want to talk about… battles with the Galra," Keith mumbled, dropping his gaze to the table. Drexla pursed her lips sympathetically.

"Oh." Lance chewed uncertainly at his lip before smiling again. "Well, there's still plenty of other stories to tell! I mean, come on, there's no end to the planets and species we've helped and saved with Voltron."

"Wow," Takvi sighed. She reached one of her four slender hands out to take Lance's and held it. "You paladins must be awfully brave, aren't you?"

"Well, I hate to brag," Lance said, proudly lifting his chin. "But yeah, we really are."

"That's such a great quality in a man," Drexla said. Taking a cue from her friend, she reached out too, to place her hand gently on top of Keith's. He didn't even look in her direction; he simply pulled his hand out from under hers and dropped it into his lap, leaving Drexla frowning, looking stung.

Thus began what turned out to be what felt like the longest date in Lance's life. He hadn't figured that a double date with Keith would be the most fun event in the world, but he at least thought they could enjoy themselves a little. Lance tried his best to coax and prompt him, he really did, and even Drexla helped him along; at one point, when Lance told them about Keith's work on his hoverbike, she made a remark about how good he must be with his hands, in a tone no creature in the universe could have mistaken for innocent, but Keith just shrugged and said he likes bikes. And when Takvi rested her head on Lance's shoulder, Drexla attempted the same, but Keith leaned away. They kept throwing him lobs, and he would never swing.

Naturally the point came when Drexla clearly had grown tired of trying, and instead of trying to continue flirting with Keith, she simply watched Lance and Takvi, chin in her hand, fingers drumming against the table, and wearing an almost comically exaggerated pout. It was only when she started repeatedly clearing her throat that Takvi finally tore her eyes away from Lance to acknowledge her friend.

"Takvi, we really should be going," Drexla said.

"Aw, come on, do we have to?" Takvi whined. "I'm having fun."

"Yeah, but we've got that thing we need to go to, remember?"

"What are you talking – ?" Takvi stopped short as Drexla gritted her teeth and gestured with a tilt of her head toward Keith, who had spent the last three minutes watching a food rotisserie in silence and didn't seem like he was going to finish any time soon. "Oh. Right. I'd nearly forgotten."

Lance grimaced as the girls rose from the table. "You sure you have to leave? We could – "

"Yes, we're sure," Drexla cut him off curtly. "Can't be late."

"Thanks for the good time, Lancey!" Takvi said, blowing him a kiss and waving goodbye.

"Yeah, thanks for – " Drexla glanced at Keith. "The time. See you."

Lance sighed. "Yeah, see you." He watched forlornly as the Unilu girls left, Takvi half-skipping to keep up with Drexla's stiff and purposeful march. Once they were out of sight, he picked up the paper dish that had been left on their table, crumpled it in his hand, and threw it at Keith's head.

"Hey!" Keith scowled as he finally turned back to the table. "What was that?"

"What the hell is your problem, man?!"

Keith's scowl deepened. "My problem? You're the one who's throwing trash around!"

"God, here I was trying to do a nice thing for you," Lance said. "Help get you out of whatever stupid funk you've been in, and you – damn, if you weren't interested, you could have at least been polite about it instead of giving her the cold shoulder the whole time, acting like a total jerk."

The scowl fell away a little, enough to make room for confusion, his brows arching quizzically. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your little performance there with Drexla! You were basically ignoring her the whole time! And you know, she liked you. I talked you up ahead of time, you were already gold when you showed up, see, 'cause I was playing wingman, and I tried to help with – "

"Wait, wait," Keith said, holding up his hands. "What do you mean, she 'liked' me?"

"I mean she found your fan page on Facebook," Lance replied, rolling his eyes. "She liked you, idiot. I don't know how many ways you can interpret that. Come on, you can't possibly have failed to notice that she was flirting with you like it was her job."

"She was flirting?"

Lance actually dropped his jaw at that. "Wha – yes, she was flirting!"

"Why?!"

"What the hell else would she do on a date?"

Keith pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. "And I repeat: what are you talking about?"

"You – you seriously didn't even realize that?" Lance asked increduously. Keith shook his head. "So, when I told you I had a surprise for you, sat you down next to a pretty girl, told you how excited she was to meet you, and winked… you didn't put that puzzle together?"

Keith's scowl was returning, but this time it was accompanied by a pink hue spreading over his cheeks and ears. "I don't know," he muttered. "I kept waiting for you to announce that they were scouts for a militia seekng an alliance or something."

There were several seconds of silence before Lance let out a snort that quickly turned into full laughter. "Oh my God, that's – that is – wow, Keith."

"Why is that funny?" Keith demanded.

"'Cause I knew you were oblivious but, damn, I didn't think you were that bad!" Lance said through his laughter. "Wow. You are so lucky I am here, man. Let's face it, you'd be hopeless on your own. Okay, so." He slapped his hands purposefully against the table like he was calling a meeting to order. "That performance was crap, but now that you know what's going on, we can try again, yeah?"

"Lance – "

"I mean, this is a mall, it's not like there's a shortage of girls here," he continued, looking around and peering into the entrances of the shops near the food court. "I thought Drexla was your type, had sorta that quiet, mysterious thing going, but of course we might want to look for full-on manic pixie dream girl if we're ever going to loosen you up."

"Lance!"

"What?"

Keith shook his head, and Lance noticed that he'd starting running his thumb along the side of his forefinger on the hand curled into a fist on the table, something he and the other paladins had recently begun to recognize as a sign of agitation. "I don't want to go on a date with some girl."

Lance's brow furrowed. "Look, if you're worried about having to make a commitment or something what with the whole, uh, intergalactic war going on, there's no need to, it's just for fun. I won't push you into anything crazy, you know. We'll aim for first base and a heartfelt goodbye, all right? Won't be hard to find a girl who's up for that."

"No, Lance, would you just listen to me?" Keith snapped. "It doesn't matter what any girl's up for, it's not about commitment or anything like that, I'm just not interested."

Lance frowned at him, as if Keith had spoken in a code he now needed to decipher, and then his eyes widened in a sudden realization. "Oh. Oh. Shit, man, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just assumed – this is totally on me. And it's not a problem, okay? I get it, one hundred percent. In fact, you know normally I prefer the ladies, but I've batted for the other team a couple of times, and things went fine, so don't worry, you can trust my taste."

"Your taste in what?"

"Guys."

Keith raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"That's what you were saying, right?" Lance asked. "You're not interested in girls. You're gay, right?" He smiled. "You didn't have to hide it all this time, buddy, it's no big deal."

He was fully prepared for Keith to have some sort of big reaction here, but to his surprise, the other paladin's expression wasn't alarmed or grateful or angry. It was just baffled. "What? No, that's – I'm not gay."

"Keith, you know you can totally tell me if you're gay."

"That's fine, and if I was, I would."

Lance let out a breath. "Okay, so you – you go for the middle of the spectrum then? Like, what's it called, non-binary?"

Keith shook his head. "No. No, that's not it. It's not – I don't – " He sighed, although, in signature Keith style, it came out sounding a little like a growl. "Look, can we just drop this?"

"No way! You're not making sense, Keith. I've exhausted all the options here, haven't I? What's left?"

"I don't know, I – " He dropped his head to press the heel of his hand against his forehead. "Nothing! Nothing's left! Okay?!"

There were a few ticks of silence between the two, as Lance stared across the table at Keith, who was gritting his teeth and stubbornly refusing to look up. "Nothing?" Lance repeated, as if it were a word in a foreign language he was hearing for the first time. "You just… you're not into anyone?"

Keith answered only with a small grunt of affirmation.

Lance leaned back in his chair, chewing the inside of his cheek in thought. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Do you think maybe you, like, feel attracted to people, but just didn't realize that's what it was?"

"I think I would know full well if I'm attracted to someone, Lance," Keith snapped.

"Okay, geez, I'm just asking, just trying to figure this out. Maybe – maybe it's like, you've got that whole lone wolf, antisocial thing going on, so maybe it's just that dates and stuff make you nervous or something? What with all the, you know, the talking and commitment and all. You more of a one-night stand kinda person?"

Keith actually grimaced and shuddered at the suggestion. "God no," he said.

"Really? Not even – huh. That's – wow. So, uh, has this been like, always?"

He was answered with the tiniest of nods, but Keith still refused to look at him, and instead affixed his gaze on his thumb, which he was rolling back and forth along his forefinger with renewed vigor. "Yeah, I guess," he answered quietly. "I never, um, never had – like, back in middle school it was all anyone ever talked about, and I kept waiting to feel it, but I just… didn't."

Another silence between them, this one stretching longer than before. The sounds of activity in the surrounding shops buzzed distantly as Keith watched his hand and Lance stared at nothing as he tried to wrap his head around this.

At long last Lance broke the silence, when he cautiously looked back toward Keith and, softly and after a moment's hesitation, asked, "Do you think it might be a Galra thing?"

Keith finally looked back up at Lance, his eyes wide and the red in his face fading into ashen white. "What?"

"I'm just thinking, like, you ended up with some traits from your Galra side, right? Like your fighting style? Maybe – just a theory, but maybe that's what this is? The Galra we've met never exactly seemed like the romantic type, so maybe…" He shrugged. "It's possible, right?"

Keith didn't answer, remained still and silent for long enough that Lance wondered if Keith had somehow managed to zone out and hadn't even heard him. Just as he was opening his mouth to repeat himself Keith slammed his hands against the table and stood up with enough force to knock his chair to the ground. "I'm heading back to the castle," he said flatly, and turned to leave.

"Wait, Keith, I didn't mean to upset you," Lance said hastily, reaching out to hold Keith back by the hem of his jacket. "It was just a theory. I didn't – "

But Keith apparently had no interest in listening to another word from Lance. He tore his jacket out of Lance's grip and knocked his arm away as he rounded on him. "I told you, I don't like being grabbed!" he shouted, and the livid glare on his face couldn't quite negate the way his voice cracked on the last word.

He turned back around and stormed off, and Lance made no attempt to stop him this time. He was suddenly very aware of all the eyes on him; apparently Keith's outburst had attracted the attention of everyone in the food court. After shooting an apologetic glance toward the onlookers, he bent down to right the chair that had been toppled and gathered the trash left on the table to toss out.

As much as he may have been tempted to chase after Keith and confront him, his common sense won over. It was never a good idea to invade the personal space of an angry Keith – Lance was pretty sure Keith had never actually stabbed someone in response to such a slight, but he didn't want to risk it. So, instead, he tried to go back to his exploration of the mall. It did nothing to occupy his mind. The enthusiasm he'd had for the myriad strange wares of the space mall had evaporated, and after wandering through several stores and realizing that he hadn't so much as paused to look at a single thing, he resigned himself to packing it in and heading back to the castle.

Keith wasn't in the paladins' lounge when Lance entered the castle, which was a relief, although, it wasn't as if Keith spent a lot of time in the common areas in the first place. Instead, the only occupant was Pidge, bent over her computer and typing away, tongue poking out of her mouth in her concentration.

Lance flopped onto the couch beside her. "You beat me back," he commented.

Pidge nodded. "I wasn't there long. Found what I wanted to buy pretty quick, so there was no point in sticking around. Check it." She held up what must have been her purchase, a solid rectangle that was stark black save for a blinking blue light on one edge, connected to her laptop by a thin cable. Lance had absolutely no clue what it was, but Pidge was beaming proudly, so he nodded and gave her an impressed whistle.

"Nice. So you've been here a while then? You haven't, uh – " He reached up a hand to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck. "You haven't seen Keith come through here, have you?"

"Yeah, I did, little while ago," Pidge said, turning back to face her computer.

"Did he seem… pissed off?"

"It's Keith."

"More pissed off than usual, I mean?"

Pidge shrugged. "Wasn't really paying attention, actually, more of a corner-of-my-eye thing. Why?"

Lance sighed and sank into the couch. "We kinda got into it back at the mall. He was just about ready to bite my head off when he left."

Pidge rolled her eyes. "What did you do, Lance?"

"Why are you assuming that I'm the one who did something wrong?"

"Past performance is the best indicator of future results."

Lance flipped her off, but the effect was lost when she was looking at her computer screen instead of at him. "I was trying to do something nice for him, as a matter of fact. I figured, since we were all on sort of a break right now, I'd try and help him unwind a bit, you know? So I set him up for a date with really cute Unilu girl, just a casual thing, just for fun."

"A Lance McClain specialty gift if there ever was one," Pidge said in a deadpan.

"Shut up. Anyway, he sucked at dating, major disaster, and it turned out he hadn't realized that's even what it was, so I suggested we find someone else and have another go at it, and he wasn't up for it, which, fine, he'd just had one bad date, I guessed he was worried about a second one. But then he said he wasn't into girls at all, and I was like, well, who are you into then? And he got all quiet and said that he's not into anyone, or anything – dating, sex, any of that. I asked a couple questions, he was getting defensive, and I asked if maybe this was a Galra thing. And he exploded and walked off."

By the time he'd finished speaking, Pidge had turned away from the computer, and her eyes were wide, her jaw agape. "So he – he said he's not – "

"Yeah. And I was only asking because, I mean, I was curious, right? That's – it's weird, isn't it? Sure, people can kinda change which team they bat for, but no team at all? I thought it might be his Galra side causing it. That makes sense, doesn't it? It's as good an explanation as any."

Pidge continued to stare at him, and her brows slowly drew downward to change her expression from stunned to angry. "You are such a jackass."

Lance blinked in confusion. "What? How am I a jackass?"

"God, Lance, you actually said – you actually asked Keith – ugh!" She let out a growl of frustration and grabbed Lance by the arm, yanking him off the couch. "Come on. You're apologizing to him right now."

She dragged a spluttering Lance along behind her as she marched purposefully out of the room. Her grip on his arm was iron – Pidge definitely had one of the most impressive strength-to-size ratios Lance had ever seen. But that didn't stop him from trying to tug his arm out of it. "Look," he said. "I seriously didn't mean anything bad by it. I only – "

"Shut up," Pidge snapped, and he obliged, remaining silent for the rest of the walk to Keith's room. When they got there, Pidge pounded on his door with her fist and yelled, "Hey, it's Pidge! Open up!" They waited, and after getting no response, Pidge pressed her ear against the door. "Don't think he's in there," she muttered. "All right, training deck then." She wheeled around and pulled Lance along the opposite direction down the hall.

Second time was the charm. When they entered the training room, there was Keith, battling it out with a training bot, his back to the intruders. Lance wasn't sure precisely which difficulty setting he was practicing on, but Keith and the robot both appeared to be giving it their all, and the back of Keith's T-shirt was darkened with sweat, so he assumed it was a high one.

Pidge raised her voice to ensure she could be heard over the clanging of Keith's sword against the robot. "Keith!" she called. "Lance needs to talk you!"

"I'm busy!" Keith shouted back. He avoided a strike to the gut from the robot by a hair's breadth, and jumped back. "Don't distract me!"

"It's important! He wants to talk about – "

"I know what he wants to talk about!" He brought his sword down onto the bot in a two-handed slash, and the reverberation from the strike when it connected sent vibrations out that even Lance could feel from where he stood. "And I'm done talking about it! I'm Galra, I'm fucked up because of it, end of story! So just drop it!"

"Keith, that's not what – "

Keith cut her off with a roar as he dove past the robot and whipped around to attack it from behind, and the other two paladins could finally see his expression. Lance had seen this look of pure fury on Keith's face on only a couple of occasions in the past, but as far as he could recall, this was the first time he'd seen it with the addition of the violet eyes being rimmed in red. "I've come to terms with it, all right?!" he yelled in a tone which clearly conveyed that he hadn't come to terms with anything at all. "It fits with everything else, doesn't it?! All of that, every goddamn thing that makes people human, it's not for me! I know that! I know I don't get to have family – " He punctuated his words by throwing his whole body into a slash of the sword that sent a loud clang! echoing through the training deck. " – or friends – " Clang! " – or anything resembling a normal goddamn life – " Clang! " – and I was stupid enough to think at least, at least, I could still have something! And I'm done making that mistake!"

He launched toward the robot in a full-body attack, thrusting his sword downward through the bot all the way to the ground – from the force of that attack, Lance was honestly surprised that the sword didn't puncture its way right through the floor. For a moment, both Keith and the bot remained still, until Keith broke the silence with a terse, "End training sequence."

The bot dissipated, and Keith caught his breath and straightened up. Now that the adrenaline had run its course, the inferno that had been in his eyes was extinguished, and Lance could see how hard he was breathing, and that his hands were shaking. Without a word, Keith strode across the deck to the entrance of the training deck, but he didn't leave. He just grabbed a water pouch from the top of the stack the Coran kept stocked next to the door. He jammed the straw through, leaned against the wall, and sank down to sit on the floor, eyes closed.

Neither Lance nor Pidge made a sound. For what might have been a dobash, might have been much longer, the only noise or movement came from Keith sipping at the water, until finally he spoke up. "I'm sorry," he said softly.

Lance shook himself out of whatever shock he seemed to have been in now that Keith had broken the silence. "For what?" he asked.

"For – for that," Keith said gesturing with a wave of his hand toward where he and the bot had been fighting. "I just… lost my temper. Wasn't thinking. I shouldn't – I shouldn't have said that stuff."

Pidge moved then, walking toward Keith with far more delicate a gait than Lance ever would have thought her capable of. Once she reached him, she lowered herself to the floor and sat cross-legged by him. Lance, suddenly feeling awkward being the only person in the room standing up, hastened to join them, and did his best not to stare at the watery streaks gleaming below Keith's eyes. When they were both settled, Pidge spoke: "It's not a Galra thing."

Keith opened his eyes and peered at Pidge, uncomprehending. "What?"

"It's not. First of all, Coran's talked to us before about Galra with spouses, and they have kids and all, so I know it may seem from the Galra we've encountered that they're not really suited for any of that, but they are. So it's not a Galra thing."

With a groan, Keith thumped his head back into the wall behind him and shut his eyes again. "So you're saying I'm even more hopeless than the Galra."

"I'm not saying that at all. Keith, have you ever heard of the term 'asexual'?"

Keith shook his head, eyes still closed. Lance, however, scrunched his face up in confusion. "Wait, you mean like a sp– "

"Lance," Pidge interrupted. "If the next word out of your mouth is 'sponge', I swear to God I will slip poison into your next meal. I can do it. Don't test me."

Lance sheepishly dropped his gaze. "Well, uh, what is it then?"

"Pretty much what it sounds like. Learn your Latin roots, Lance. It means you don't have any sexual attraction to other people. And, hey, bonus, there's also another term, 'aromantic'. Same gist. No romantic attraction to other people."

"So like a sponge," Keith muttered.

Pidge huffed. "No, forget the stupid sponge thing. I mean like people. You want the stats? About one percent of people are asexual, and about a quarter of those are aromantic. Do the math, and that makes tens of millions of people in the exact same boat. And you're looking at one of them."

That got Keith's attention. His eyes shot open and he stared at Pidge as if she had just transformed right in front of him. Lance, for his part, dropped his jaw, eyes as wide as saucers. "So you – you're – "

"Asexual," she said flatly. She lifted her arms to make sarcastic jazz hands. "Ta-da."

Lance spluttered incoherently for a few ticks before blurting out, "How come you never told us?! And don't say it's because we didn't ask!"

"Well, you didn't," Pidge said with a shrug. "But mostly, I'd already revealed that I was a girl, and that nearly broke your brain. I was legitimately worried that I'd give you an aneurysm if I threw anything else in on top of that."

"You wouldn't have," Lance insisted. "I just – I need a moment." He brought his hands up to grip either side of his head.

Keith, meanwhile, was staring at Pidge, still as stone, expression unreadable. "So…" he said, so softly it was barely audible, "It's… not a Galra thing?"

"Nope," Pidge answered. "It's a human thing."

"I – I hadn't even known that was a, um, a possibility."

"Yeah, not many people do, I guess. Although Lance here probably could have handled it with a bit more tact." She shot Lance a stern gaze, and he had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Right," he said. "I, uh, I need to apologize for that, Keith. I didn't know, and I didn't mean to hurt you or anything, but I shouldn't have been, um…"

"A jackass?" Pidge supplied.

Lance sighed. "I was going to say 'insensitive', but yeah, that's more fitting."

"'S'okay," Keith mumbled. "You didn't know."

"Still. I really am sorry."

"Yeah, I know."

They went quiet again. Lance had apologized, Keith had forgiven him, but there was still a cloud looming over the paladins as they sat there in the training deck. "What was that you were saying earlier?" Lance asked. "While you were fighting the bot?"

Keith grimaced. "Nothing. Sorry. I was just mad, saying stuff I didn't mean."

"You sure sounded like you meant it," Pidge said.

Keith's only reply was a shrug, so Lance pressed onward. "What you said about, um, how you couldn't have family or friends…"

"That was stupid. I didn't – it didn't mean anything. I lost my temper, didn't know what I was saying."

"Keith," Pidge said, and she was stern again, sounding like a teacher trying to wring an answer from a student. "We're your team, remember? Whatever's wrong, we can help you as best we can, and in return, you need to trust us."

She folded her arms and waited. Keith brought his hand up onto his knee and began fiddling with his thumb, back and forth along his forefinger, and he kept his gaze on that as he quietly answered. "I just meant that I don't – I don't have that, I guess," he said. His voice was tired and dry, and every word sounded like it took enormous effort to form. "I mean, I suppose I had family at some point, sort of? But Mom left real early on, and Dad died, and the foster families I was with always seemed like – like I was kind of a chore or something. I dunno."

He took a deep, shuddering breath and brought a hand up to wipe his face. Lance noticed that he practically made a show of wiping the sweat from his forehead before hastily sweeping the hand back across his eyes. That was fine. If Keith wanted to pretend it was all sweat, no tears, that was his call.

"Things got better with Shiro around. He was kinda my first, um… he was good to have around. Up until he, you know, vanished. Both times. And it's not his fault. I know that. I know. I don't blame him, that would be stupid, just plain wrong. But even when he was around, it was never – " A deep breath, another swipe of his hand across his face. "It was never just easy. I – I see the way you two and Hunk are together, and it's – it's easy. You've got all your jokes and your high-fives and your rituals with each other and it just fits. You all sort of click. You make sense. And I just… I never really had that with anyone."

For an instant, Lance's mind went back to Drexla, recalling how when he told her about Keith, he had decided against referring to him as a friend. He hadn't really given it half a thought at the time, but now, so long after the fact, it was leaving an odd weight in his stomach.

After letting out a long, slow exhale, Keith's voice faded so soft that Lance had to strain to hear him as he finished, "Like I said, it's stupid. Let's just pretend I didn't say anything."

Well. This was all news to Lance. In fact, to his recollection, Keith hadn't let himself show even a fraction of the openness and vulnerability – a strange word to associate with the unreadable, hot-headed, do-or-die guardian of fire Lance knew, but one that was suddenly fitting – at any other time since they'd become paladins. He made a mental note to keep that in mind to test later; maybe Keith was always more prone to dropping honesty bombs while cooling off from a flared temper.

"I, um," Pidge began after a moment's hesitation, "I didn't know you, uh, felt that way."

"And you don't have to," Lance piped up. "I mean, you're a paladin of Voltron, remember? You've got friends. We're a team, Keith – we're basically family."

Keith snorted. When Pidge and Lance looked affronted, he said, "Oh, come on. Pidge and I barely ever say two words to each other, and Lance hates me."

"I don't hate you!"

"Lance, you once literally said the words 'I hate you' right to my face."

"Oh. Yeah." Lance sighed. "Okay, look, maybe I did hate you, a little, at first – "

"There you have it."

"But I shouldn't have," he continued. "It was a mistake. I'd thought we were rivals in school, and I guess in hindsight that was pretty one-sided. And you got under my skin sometimes, but who doesn't, right? But I hadn't, um, I hadn't realized it bothered you. I always sort of thought you were just a loner, didn't even want friends in the first place."

"Yeah," Keith said. "I get it. Pretty much everyone thinks that. Not your fault."

"It is my fault," Lance said. "I'm the one who just assumed, and I guess I'm kinda the one who started this – this whole thing between us. So, um, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for – well, for being a jackass." He chuckled drily. "I ought to get that printed out on a card to carry around. Save myself some time in the future."

"Well, it's not entirely on you," Pidge said. "It's not like I was going out of my way to act like a friend either. I didn't know." She turned back to Keith, her gaze intense. "But now I do. Keith, this is day one of the rest of your life as a paladin. From this point forward, I'm gonna show you that we're a family even if it kills me. And, hey." She smiled. "Guess we have something to bond over now. Both asexual. Ace for short – I'll have to start teaching you all the terminology. I prefer just using 'ace'. Aro-ace if you throw the aromantic part in as well." Still grinning, she scooted up so she was sitting right beside Keith and elbowed him playfully. "And take my word for it, family love beats romance any day of the week. I'll prove it. And Lance, he's gonna show you too. I'll make him."

"Hey, you don't need to force me," Lance said, holding his hands up. "I'm totally up for Operation Space Family."

Keith still didn't look entirely convinced but it still appeared Pidge had gotten through to him – his eyes were dry and he hadn't made any protest against her elbowing. "So, um." He turned to Lance. "Does this mean you're gonna lay off the insults?"

"Not until you get a haircut," Lance answered with a little laugh. "Seriously, though, I'll try and tone it down. But just so you know, Pidge and I rib on each other and Hunk all the time. You're gonna have to take a little bit of sibling bickering if you're gonna be my little brother."

Keith tilted his head. "Lance, I'm older than you."

"Barely. More importantly, I'm taller than you."

"Barely."

Pidge rolled her eyes. "Wow. For a second there, I actually thought you two were gonna have a real moment instead of playground squabbling."

"You overestimate us," Keith said, and Lance snorted.

The three of them lapsed back into silence again, but it was a different silence than before. The tension in the room wasn't entirely gone – too many breakthroughs here in too little time; they needed a while to absorb – but it had moved to the background, making room for the contentment that came with taking a big step forward. It was a comfortable silence, an easy, unassuming silence.

Still, Lance couldn't resist the urge to break it just once. "Hey, Keith," he said.

"Yeah?"

"You know how back at the Garrison, the commanders called you an ace pilot? I guess, retroactively… that was kind of a pun, wasn't it?"

Keith smacked him lightly upside the head, but for the first time in far too long, he was smiling.