Keith won't admit it upon pain of death, but being alone for that year out in the desert sort of... well he doesn't like being alone as much as he used to, was probably the simplest way of putting it.

Before, he had preferred to spend the majority of his time on his own. People were frankly baffling at best and obnoxious at worst. Being alone was always preferable. The worst thing about being a pilot at the Garrison had been having to always work with a team. No one had ever tried hard enough, been focused enough, or had been determined enough in Keith's mind. Every mechanic and navcom had always been a disappointment. And even when it hadn't been a failure, Keith had always left simulation flights wishing he could just work alone. Before he'd graduated out, Shiro had always been gently exasperated with him, trying to encourage Keith to be a little more patient with the other students. Shiro hadn't gotten it: everyone always tried their hardest when they were paired with him. With Keith it felt like everyone was spending half their time keeping their eye on him instead of doing their job.

Then Keith got kicked out of the Garrison and spent the better part of a year in the desert. He'd felt like he was going insane when he'd been at the academy. In the desert it felt like he was still going insane, but for different reasons. The desert was dead and empty, just him and a bunch of rocks and an endless, irritating supply of sand.

The first week he had relished in the quiet and the space alone, after years of living in the pockets of dozens of other students.

The second week he hadn't liked it as much, but he'd still found things to enjoy- like getting hot water before it was used up, not being teased for how much time he spent on training, the bathroom not being a complete sty.

But by the third week, whenever he couldn't bring himself to do any more research or even to train, he found himself pacing. Through his little cabin, outside around the building in endless laps, and eventually even rambling, directionless paths that carved their way through the barren wilderness.

One night, when he'd heard coyotes or some other type of desert predator and knew it wasn't safe to wander outside in the dark, he'd dug aimlessly through his few belongings, not quite sure what he was looking for. At the bottom of a box of clothing too heavy to be needed often in the desert, Keith had found Shiro's sweater.

He'd forgotten he'd had it.

One night Shiro had dragged Keith out to a restaurant to meet Samuel Holt, since Keith had never been formally introduced to the man Shiro would be spending several months in space with. It had been an unseasonably cold night and Shiro had brought a spare sweater for Keith, knowing his habit of forgetting to check the weather and being too stubborn to admit he was cold.

Begrudgingly, Keith had deigned to borrow it. He had meant to return it to Shiro, but never had gotten around to it before the Kerberos mission started. He'd always assumed there would be time to give it back when Shiro returned.

Keith pressed it to his face, inhaling deeply. Keith didn't think people smelled altogether that different from each other, but Shiro's sweater had smelled like a fancier laundry detergent than Keith ever bought and, more faintly, a little like Shiro's preferred brand of aftershave.

After that night, whenever he felt like he was about to vibrate out of his own skin in the desert alone, Keith would put on Shiro's sweater. Only a week after re-discovering it, the Shiro-smell of it faded, and it just smelled like all of Keith's other clothing. Keith tried to convince himself the reason he switched laundry detergents was because he liked the smell, and not because he sometimes would try to pretend the sweater had only been forgotten in his possession days previous, not months.

Keith wasn't very good at lying to himself.


Lance came from a huge family. Grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and even farther flung relatives orbited in and out of Lance's life ever since he could remember, even when he moved out to become a pilot when he was twelve. Belongings were less set in stone personal possessions, and more of a communal thing with his family. Unless you kept it in your room and/or licked it, it was almost guaranteed to be loaned to someone.

In the winter whenever he went anywhere, Lance would just grab the first coat and boots he founds, rather than trying to track down wherever his own things had ended up. It was just how his family did things.

It was strange, living in the dorms. His own things were almost always where he left them, or neatly set aside nearby if his roommate had needed to get at something and had needed to move whatever clothing Lance had left lying in the way.

His clothing only ever smelled like his own laundry soap, and never got mysterious stains from make-up or wine or other things Lance didn't touch, and they were never stretched out from bodies shaped differently than his own.

It was kind of nice since it meant he rarely lost clothing, or had to get lipstick out of his hoodies, but for the first year, it was definitely a bit of a lonely reminder of how far away from home he was.

His first year, he'd had to change roommates twice because Lance slipped up and accidentally borrowed their stuff multiple times without asking permission. He'd gotten better about not doing that after the second roommate change. But years later, Lance would still find random pens and things stuffed in his pockets from cases of accidental kleptomania.

Hunk had been his most understanding friend when it came to Lance's accidental clothing stealing, and would often leave his big, cozy sweaters with Lance to wear on days when he knew Lance was trying to hide his homesickness, which plagued him even years later.

Once Voltron is formed, Lance kind of forgets to keep an eye on his little bad habit. In his defence, unexpectedly becoming a defender of the universe was a pretty good reason to accidentally start stealing clothing again, Lance figures.

The funny thing is though, it's only Shiro's things Lance steals.

For obvious and very different reasons Lance's subconscious doesn't latch on to any of Allura's or Coran's things. (Allura because she'd probably throw Lance out an airlock if he tried and Coran because he'd probably give him an enthusiastic speech about friendship and comradery and Lance still wasn't entirely sure his brand of crazy wasn't contagious via contact with personal belongings).

Keith never left things laying around for Lance to accidentally borrow, always keeping all of his belongings in his own room and never allowing anyone inside. Lance sometimes wonders what the inside of his room looks like and guesses it's either a) painfully, military neat with zero personality or b) a complete disaster with stuff thrown everywhere and his bed a literal nest of clothing. As entertaining as the second option is, Lance has a sinking suspicion that it's the first.

Pidge, on the other hand, Lance had no idea why his brain didn't ever latch onto their clothing. Especially since they were notorious for absentmindedly leaving a trail of discarded shoes, socks, sweaters, scarves, and technological detritus in their wake whenever they were lost in thought or in the middle of a project. Lance figures it must be because a) Pidge is too small for Lance to conceivably borrow anything from and b) also looks the youngest of them all and Lance would feel a little bad about accidentally stealing things from them and c) kicks mega hard and could probably break Lance's shins if they were pissed off enough with Lance.

Shockingly enough, Hunk is also spared Lance's usual magpie ways. It takes him a while to figure out why, but it makes sense in the end. At the academy, Hunk had always worn cozy sweaters that could swallow Lance whole, or sweet knitted scarves Hunk's mom mailed on a near-monthly basis, bimonthly in the winder. In space, half of Hunk's clothing is constantly covered in oil and grime from the endless repairs he does on the lions and the castle itself, not to mention the sweat from the training the paladins do together. Lance is seriously glad his subconscious is nice enough to not make him steal Hunks's gross space laundry.

But Shiro. Poor, poor Shiro. A few months into their tenure as defenders of the universe, Lance realizes he's sort of been stealing every article of clothing that belongs to Shiro that he can get his hands on. And not giving them back. Ever. Whoops.

This realization comes in two parts.

The first comes one morning, while everyone's at breakfast. Shiro shows up, wearing a shirt that is so sinfully tight, Lance is pretty sure moving his arms in any way would cause the thing to burst, hulk style. Lance has to bit his own tongue to stop himself from asking Shiro to do a push-up contest or something. For science, of course.

Lance is sort of a bad person. But no court could find him guilty in this instance. Shiro's biceps had to be somehow illegal.

"Pidge, is there anything weird going on with the laundry bots?" Shiro asks, ears going red when everyone turns to stare at him. Or, more specifically, the region between his hips and chin.

"I haven't noticed anything unusual," Pidge says, eyebrows raised. "Why?"

"A lot of my clothing's gone missing, I thought maybe the laundry bots were forgetting to give it back after washing them," Shiro explains. "Thanks for loaning me a shirt," he adds to Keith, who shrugs, but is a little pink around the edges.

Lance realizes that this means the painted on shirt Shiro is wearing belongs to Keith. He's hit by the simultaneous feelings of 'that is adorable' and jealousy. He wants Shiro to be wearing his shirt, even if it would probably be even smaller on Shiro, to the point of discomfort.

Shaking his head at his increasingly weird thoughts, he goes back to eating their breakfast space goo. It's pink instead of green and tastes like what Lance imagines the baby between a lemon and a bag of cinnamon would taste like. It's not the worst thing he's ever put in his mouth, anyways.

The second part comes after breakfast, when Lance goes back to his room to change into more training appropriate clothing and realizes that he's wearing a shirt that is probably not his own, given how baggy it is. Also, his room contains a lot more clothing than it ought to. All of his drawers are stuffed to bursting with clothing, and there's still sweaters and shirts strewn all across the room and draped across every piece of furniture. His bed has no less than four sweaters on it, all black, and none of which belong to Lance.

"Well, shit," Lance says.


Operation Return Shiro's Stuff Without Being Caught begins well enough. Lance realizes that suddenly having all of his clothing magically reappear in his room would probably make Shiro more suspicious, not less, so he starts leaving Shiro's stuff in the laundry room, just a few things at a time. Shiro stops wearing Keith's clothing which is both a relief and a travesty- on the one hand Lance stops walking into walls, doors, and people accidentally, but Shiro is wearing normal sized shirts. Ones that fit. It's terrible.

When Lance is about halfway through his plan, the paladins are sent plantside for a mission. The planet is uninhabited, supposedly, but a bunch of old Galra tech supposedly crash landed a few years back, and Allura and Pidge figure they might be able to get valuable information from them. They're sent out in pairs to scour the planet, but the sensors are mildly inaccurate, meaning the paladins have to get out and search on foot once a general location is found.

It's a jungle planet with millions of teeny tiny volcano things that shot flames, superficially like the fire swamp in The Princess Bride . Hunk and Lance had shot quotes back and forth nonstop until Pidge had snapped shut up, you warthog faced buffoons! Hunk and Lance had been shocked into silence for the rest of the trip down.

After only minutes planetside, Keith and Lance had given in and stripped the tops of their armour off in vain attempts to avoid overheating. Despite this, Lance notices that Keith doesn't take off his giant black sweater, like the dumbass he was.

Lance and Keith find some of the galra tech with only mild squabbles erupting before Keith catches on fire.

Later, Lance swears it's Keith's own fault, and that Lance hadn't known the tiny volcano was about to erupt when he'd elbowed Keith towards it it. Lance had just been trying to wipe that irritating smirk off his face, not set him on fire.

When it happens, Keith, like the dumb mullethead he is, simply stands there and looks shocked to find himself on fire and does nothing, like he's never heard of the phrase stop, drop and roll or something .

Lance tackles him to the ground and forcibly smothers him into the dirt until he's no longer on fire, ignoring the flailing limbs Keith tries to hit him with.

"Are you an idiot?!" Lance shouts, internally marvelling at the fact that it's him shouting that at someone else, not him being yelled at by Allura or one of the other paladins. It's a truly glorious feeling. No wonder someone yells it at him on a near daily basis.

Keith doesn't respond, just picks at his now ruined sweater mournfully. Keith had managed not to get more than a little singed, but his sweater was completely unsalvageable, nearly falling off of him in sad chunks of charred wool.

"Are you okay?" Lance asks, feeling a little flat footed. Normally shouting at Keith resulted in being shouted at back. But Keith just sits there and stares at his ruined sweater in what Lance can only assume is sadness.

Only. Lance recognizes that sweater. It looks almost identical to one that he sneakily left in the laundry room three days previously. That's Shiro's .

"Dude, why are you wearing Shiro's sweater?!" Lance blurts out before he can stop himself. "Did you steal it?"

Keith turns a dull red and glowers at Lance.

"This is mine. Shiro lent it to me," Keith mutters, not meeting Lance's gaze. After a pause, he begrudgingly adds. "Before he went on the Kerberos mission."

"Dude, that was like two years ago," Lance replies. "Why didn't you give it back?"

Keith's eyes narrow. "How did you realize it's Shiro's? It's just an ordinary black sweater," he demands instead of answering Lance's very legitimate question.

"Uh. You know. It just looks like a Shiro-y sweater. Because it's black. And uh. Big. Yeah."

Lance is shockingly bad at lying. Unsurprisingly, Keith doesn't seem terribly convinced.

"You're the one who was taking Shiro's clothing!" He accuses, pointing a finger at Lance.

"You stole his sweater first!" Lance snaps, a little shrilly, and slaps the accusatory finger away.

"It was only one sweater! You stole all of his clothing! He had to borrow my shirts!" Keith replies.

"You know, I'm really not seeing the downside there," Lance says, eyes going distant in fond memory. "Besides it was an accident. And I'm giving them back."

"How do you accidentally steal clothing?" Keith asks. But he doesn't look like he's blaming Lance. In fact he looks... jealous? Why would Keith be jealous of Lance's mildly embarrassing accidental stealing of Shiro's- oh.

"Do you want to borrow one of Shiro's sweaters?" Lance blurts. "I haven't given back all his stuff yet. He's got a lot of clothing. So it's no big deal."

Keith frowns at him, but then says slowly. "I'd only be borrowing it."

"Yeah. It's just borrowing," Lance agrees, purposefully not thinking about how he still has approximate a quarter of Shiro's clothing in his room. He's just trying to give them back stealthily, that's all. Yup that is the only reason he still finds himself cuddling up with Shiro's sweaters.

Keith and Lance exchange a speaking look. This is totally more than borrowing. Frankly, it's kinda might be a little weird. Well, it really, really is weird. But if one doesn't say anything, the other isn't either.

They complete the mission more or less smoothly, the only snag being when they discover the planet actually isn't uninhabited and the locals are pissed about their visitors and think they're avatars of their death god, and Lance is nearly sacrificed on a ceremonial bonfire and Keith has to marry one of their priests to appease their gods. So nothing terribly unusual. It's the third time that month Keith has had to marry someone. Lance has all of the paladins beat, having married no less than thirteen alien individuals of various genders. So far, the paladins have been lucky and all of the marriages had been performed with both parties knowing it would be entirely symbolic. Lance still feels bad for the single alien Shiro had ever married for the sake of a mission. They had looked so sad when Shiro had left with the other paladins. Me too, purple alien pal , Lance had thought at the time , me to.

Back at the castle, Lance covertly gives Keith one of Shiro's sweaters. Keith glances into Lance's room and eyes the neat stack of clothing Lance has piled against one wall, a stark contrast to the rest of the disaster of a room. Keith doesn't say anything and hugs the sweater to his chest. As he turns away, Lance swears he sees Keith push his face into the folds of the sweater for a moment.

Lance has to be seeing things. Because that can't have happened, right? That is just to darn adorable to have happened.


"You know, you aren't that terrible," Lance slurs, flinging an arm across Keith's shoulders. Keith sways a little and then leans into Lance's side.

All of the paladins had been enjoying the space alcohol they'd been given by some very appreciative aliens as a gift for saving them from the Galra ships attacking them, but it had been a long day, and one by one, they'd left the common room. Only Keith and Lance were left, the bottle of mysterious alcohol between them. Lance would mourn it's near emptiness, but given how the room is swaying, Lance is pretty sure he's had more than enough.

Keith has definitely had way more than enough. Drunk Keith was a lot more fun tha normal Keith, though there wasn't too much of a difference. Drunk Keith was pretty quiet, he'd sit quietly and listen rather than talk, but would practically purr at any sign of physical affection, and would smile rather than smirk at Lance, even when Lance started busting out his worst pick up lines around shot number three in an attempt to make Allura crack a smile. She'd finally broken into reluctant giggles when Lance had said Are you wearing moon pants, because you're out of this world and had wriggled his eyebrows at her. Keith had spat out a mouthful of space alcohol all over himself and had had to put his head between his knees to get his breath back.

Lance is mid-story, with Keith a welcome warmth against his side, when he yawns widely for what has to be the fifth time in as many minutes, and has to admit defeat.

"Alright, time for bed for me," Lance says, and starts to stand up, slowly, mindful of how much of that mysterious alien booze is now inside him.

"No," Keith says and roughly yanks him back down by the belt.

"Uh," Lance says, more than a little startled. Keith has all but climbed into his lap by this point and kind of looks like an angry cat on the verge of hissing. "Sorry dude, I'm ready for bed, I'm about to fall asleep on you here. Did you need something?"

Keith sighs, like Lance is the worst person he's ever had to deal with, which is patently untrue given how many galra forces they've met in person along with Pidge in the very early morning after a late night session of defending the universe.

"Fine," Keith mutters, eyes downcast. "It was stupid anyways."

He sounds like a grumpy toddler. A grumpy, mighty sloshed toddler. It's adorable. Lance barely stops himself from clutching at his own chest.

"It's cool, you can tell me," Lance assures him and rubs his back lightly. "I swear I'll only make fun of you if you need me to get something off a high shelf for you."

"You're only half an inch taller than me!" Keith snaps, but it's clearly automatic. "I just. I just don't want to be alone. That's all. Go to bed."

Lance does not, in fact, go to bed after that little heart wrenching bomb has been dropped. He stays right where he is and settles back into the couch so Keith's boney knees stop stabbing him in the thigh so hard.

"Nightmares?" Lance asks, since he knows all of them are dealing with at least a few. Being part of Voltron is the most fulfilling thing Lance has ever done. That doesn't mean that some of the horrible things he's seen while in space don't haunt him.

"No. Not now anyways," Keith says with a deep sigh. "I just... don't like being alone much, is all."

"Didn't you like spend a year in the desert by yourself in your crazy person conspiracy hut?" Lance asks, tilting his head in confusion. I probably could have phrased that better , he thinks when Keith shoves away from him, scowling.

"That's why," he mutters, mostly under his breath.

Yikes, way to break Lance's heart.

"Right. Sleepover time!" Lance declares and gets to his feet, dragging Keith to his room without leaving him room to protest.

They end up on Lance's bed, slumped together, draining the last of the bottle. One of Shiro's shirts has escaped the orderly and very slowly dwindling pile, and is draped across the head of Lance's bed. He has no idea how that happened. Nope. None. He totally didn't have a terrible awful nightmare about Zarkon and his witch lady ripping Shiro out of his lion because Lance couldn't get there fast enough. He totally didn't have to stop himself from waking Shiro up in the arbitrarily designated night-time in the space castle ship and then cuddle up with a Shiro-smelling shirt to remind himself that Shiro was alive and totally fine and like four doors down from his room. Lance has no clue how that shirt came to be on his bed, for serious.

"We should steal more of his clothing," Keith mumbles, eyes on the stack of Shiro's clothing.

"It would be his own fault for being so damn attractive," Lance agrees. "And he'd wear your clothing again."

"Maybe he just won't wear any," Keith says and then starts giggling like a child and it is the most adorable thing Lance has ever seen, Lance gives in and literally clutches at his chest.

Oh no, he thinks.


They had fallen asleep in Lance's bed, curled around each other innocently, like sleepy little kids at their first sleepover.

Lance wakes up to Keith's sleepy-soft face about three inches away from his own- eyes open, but breathing slow and deep like he was still sleeping and expression the most relaxed Lance has ever seen it. The room feels almost fragile in the early hours, and Lance can't bring himself to say anything and ruin it like he always seems to, usually by saying the completely wrong thing all the time. So he stays quiet.

"Hey," Keith says softly. He smiles slowly. His eyelashes look shockingly dark against his skin.

"Hey," Lance replies, equally soft.

It's not really a conscious decision on either of their parts. One moment they're just laying there, breathing in sync, eyes half open, the next moment they were kissing. It's soft and slow like everything else about that morning and when they part, Lance can't hold back a disgustingly soppy sigh of contentment. Luckily, going by Keith's face, it's a mutual feeling.

Things change after that, but a lot less than Lance would have thought. They still squabble over the dumbest shit, but now halfway through Lance's eyes will always meet Keith's and it will suddenly be the hardest thing not to either burst out laughing at how stupid they both are, or to grab Keith by his dumb 90's anime mullet and make out with him.

The biggest difference is when Keith will trail after Lance to his room after they've cleaned up from a mission. They usually end up laying on Lance's bed, sometimes making out, but often making out and then talking. Mostly about Shiro. Lance isn't really sure how that keeps happening, but it does.

"He's just so damn pretty!" He all but wails one night.

"I know, right?" Keith replies, just as seriously.

Neither of them are drunk, but it was a long, brutal couple of days dealing with space witches and Zarkon fuckery so Lance is left feeling almost inebriated from the lack of sleep and the aftermath of a surplus of adrenaline.

"I just like want to like- climb him like a tree sometimes," Lance says, and then feels kinda embarrassed. It's one thing to say he thought Shiro was attractive- literally everyone in the universe up to and probably including Zarkon (probably) thought that- but it's another to say he wanted to like do things to Shiro when Lance's tongue had been in Keith's mouth less than two minutes previously.

Luckily, Keith doesn't seem to take offence. In fact, he replies, "Honestly I sometimes zone out when he's talking about teamwork or something since he always runs his hands through his hair and it's... distracting."

Hoo boy does Lance know what Keith means by distracting.

Lance somehow ends up on a tangent about how lickable Shiro's dumb, muscle-y torso is, and at some point his eyes meet with Keith's and they end up make out. Like a lot. Like Lance is now a proud owner of a hickey on his neck that his paladin armour is never going to be able to cover.

Frankly, Lance knows he should probably find it weird that the hottest thing to ever happen between him and Keith comes after they were talking about how sexy another person is, but honestly? Lance fights in a giant space robot cat. This is a lot less weird than that.

What is weird is the part where it keeps happening. Like a lot. Lance has no idea how it does, but one moment he's folding up more of Shiro's clothing to sneak back, or wrestling with Keith over something stupid or telling a joke even he thinks is lame and the next thing he knows, either he or Keith is grumbling about how attractive Shiro is and then they're making out.

Lance feels like he should be more alarmed by this turn of events than he is, but he really can't bring himself to regret anything. Because it's all harmless, sey fun, really.

Until it isn't.


The funny thing is, Lance and Keith weren't really fooling around when Shiro catches them. They were wrestling on Lance's bed, which for them is like 50% actual trying to pin each other and 50% flirting.

"Hey Lance, I need-" Shiro says, opening the door without knocking or anything.

The single thing Lance's panicked mind manages when Shiro's eyes land on the pair of them is, how fucking rude, were you born in a barn, dude? Followed by internal screaming. A lot of the second one.

"Is that my shirt?" Shiro demands, eyeing the shirt Lance has mostly pushed up Keith's chest. "And my... pants?" he adds when Keith all but rips his hands off of Lance's hips.

"Uh," Keith says.

"Shit," Lance says.

"It's not what it looks like?" Keith tries, without conviction.

"That the two of you are the reason my clothing keeps going missing?" Shiro asks, voice bone dry.

"It's exactly what it looks like," Lance announces, because reality is much more awkward than what Shiro had just said.

Conveniently, the castle's alarm goes off.

"God bless Zarkon!" Lance shouts and leaps off the bed, nearly kneeing Keith in the junk in his haste to escape the fuck out of there.

"Don't think this is over!" Shiro snaps, stabbing a warning finger at them, and then leaves the room at a sprint.