Lance felt awful. His legs were so sore. He knew he shouldn't have overdone it with the squats. His thighs were practically jelly.

"You alright there, buddy?"

Lance turned to find Hunk exiting his room. "Yeah." He answered. "Just gonna hop in the bath and try to soothe my abused muscles."

Hunk gave him a pitying look where Pidge would have laughed at him. Such a good friend. "You want me to give you a quick massage?" Excuse, Lance. Hunk was the best friend.

"Please!"

Hunk laughed at his friend's desperation. "Alright. Go take a shower and I'll meet up with you in your room with the lotion."

Striking a victory pose, that made Lance's legs threaten to give out on him, the young man hobbled over to his room.

When he'd finished his relatively quick shower, he pulled on a robe and stumbled over to his bed. He took a moment to breathe before he stood on shaky legs and went to his dresser. His legs throbbed as he squatted to grab a clean outfit.

He shakily pulled on his briefs and loose shorts before he tugged a loose blue t-shirt over his head.

Feeling a little better, Lance went to his door to open it for Hunk. He found his one, true friend leaning against the wall with a bottle of unscented lotion. With a small smile, Lance waved him inside.

"You can just settle on the bed there."

Not needing any further prompting, Lance hurried as fast as he dared over to the bed. Hunk barely stopped himself from laughing at his friend's suffering.

With a groan, Lance leaned back as he sat on the bed. His anticipation for relief growing at the prospect of the impending massage.

He wasn't disappointed. Hunk's warm hands slid smoothly up and down his legs with the use of the lotion.

"How come it isn't cold?" Lance asked after he sighed in pleasure.

"You have to rub the lotion in your hand a bit to warm it up. That's like… massage 101 right there." Hunk chuckled.

Lance returned with a breathy laugh of his own. "I'm not gonna lie, Hunk. That feels amazing."

"Glad I could help." Hunk smiled and Lance returned it with a smile of his own. Hunk continued to gently pull on Lance's legs in order to soothe the muscles.

"You know? I didn't think it would do much good to massage my calves… since it's my thighs that are jelly right now, but this is making my entire body relax." Lance remarked as he noted his muscles slowly untensing.

"Yeah, there's these things like… pressure points all over your body. They say if you have a headache sometimes massaging your hand will help ease the pain. I don't know how it works. I just know that it does." Hunk answered as he continued his ministrations.

Lance hummed noncommittally in response. He leaned back and allowed Hunk to work in silence. He was worried that he might slur his words if he tried to speak at the moment.

Hunk moved to his feet and Lance felt his already relaxed body go completely limp. He didn't notice when he began to doze off, but Hunk did as he stopped with a laugh.

"What are you doing? Don't stop." Lance whined.

"You're going to sleep! Why don't you just curl up and take a nap?"

"If I take a nap now I am going to sleep until the next wake cycle!" Lance pouted but he still crawled into his bed and under the covers.

"Then sleep until the next wake cycle. No one's gonna judge you." Hunk huffed as he stood and wiped his lotion covered hands on his pants.

"I judge myself." Lance confessed as he turned his back to Hunk and began to doze off again.

Hunk's quiet chuckle was followed by the sound of Lance's door sliding closed.

When Lance woke up, he felt more rejuvenated than when he would come out of the healing pod. Excited by this prospect, he decided to learn the art of massage therapy.

He wandered around the castle for his first victim…er, test subject…no, wait. Uhh, willing participant. Yeah. That sounded much better.

He found Hunk sitting down to eat his breakfast and decided to ask him first.

"Oh, that's okay, Lance. I do meditation and yoga in order to keep my body relaxed. So I really don't have need of a massage." He laughed before he began to eat his alien-looking meal. Lance slumped with defeat before he moved on.

He found Shiro, Pidge, and Allura sitting around in the control room. One of them was sure to let him try on them.

"Hey, guys! Who wants a massage from this guy?" Lance asked as he used his thumbs to indicate he was talking about himself.

"Ew."

"No, thanks."

"Would you quit flirting with Allura?"

Lance had expected Pidge's response… disgust. Allura seemed polite enough. And Shiro…

"I wasn't flirting with her. I just asked if any of you wanted a massage." Lance defended himself.

"Yeah… sure you did." Was Pidge's sarcastic reply as she tinkered with whatever her newest project was.

"I'm serious. I even asked Shiro!" Lance argued.

Shiro looked at him with disbelief. "Oh…" he looked down for a moment, ashamed that he'd given Lance a hard time when he genuinely wanted to give someone a massage.

"Well… I guess you could." Shiro begrudgingly agreed. Lance's bright smile was worth it.

"Alright. Take off your pants while I go grab my lotions." Lance turned to skip out of them room but was stopped by Shiro's voice.

"My pants?" Shiro sounded like he couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. He looked at Lance and continued with a sharp, "No." It had a tone of finality.

"What? Why not? You just said you would." Lance whined.

"I didn't know I would have to take off my pants." Shiro explained.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Shiro looked down and avoided everyone's eyes. "It just does."

The rest of the room's occupants stared at Shiro incredulously. Shiro hardly ever let people know of his insecurities. Respecting that fact, even if he thought it was odd, Lance dropped the subject.

"You don't want a massage. That's fine. I get it." Lance didn't really get it. "But I want an explanation about the pants thing one day… alright?"

Shiro gave him a considering look, "We'll see."

With that Lance left to continue his search of finding someone to massage.

The next person he found was Coran. He was tinkering with the healing pods before Lance interrupted him.

"Coran, my man!" Lance greeted.

The orange mustached man straightened from where he worked to fix Lance with a suspicious stare. "Lance who wears pants, what can I get for ya?"

Going for casual confidence, Lance leaned against one of the other pods. His efforts were in vain when the shoulder of his shirt lost traction and sent him stumbling to the floor.

After a quick recovery, Lance stood and dusted himself off. "How would you feel about getting a massage?"

Coran hummed in thought. "I suppose that would be acceptable. Let me finish up here and you can get started."

"Awesome!" Lance cheered. "When do you think you'll be done?"

Coran turned his attention back to the healing pod and continued tinkering as he answered, "Shouldn't be too much longer. I just have to reconnect the-" Whatever he was about to say was lost in a cloud of smoke from a small explosion.

When he pulled back, his mustache was slightly singed and his face was covered in soot. With a cough, Coran gave Lance an apologetic stare. "Never mind. This is going to take me an entire quintant to get working right!"

"How long is a quintant?"

Coran returned to his work once more, "Considering which Quadrant we're in, about twenty vargas."

"I'm assuming vargas are hours." Lance guessed.

"Depends… how long is an hour?" Coran asked.

"Uh… well it is typically sixty minutes. A minute is sixty seconds. A tick is a little longer than a second. So…" He did some quick multiplication. "About three thousand and six hundred ticks."

"Sounds like you have the math all figured out." Coran admired with his face still inside of the machine.

"Yeah… but at the risk of having to calculate some astronomical number I can't keep track of, I am just gonna take your word for it and leave."

"Alright, Lance. See ya in a few vargas!" Coran called as Lance retreated before he could dig himself deeper into the time conversion hole.

He went looking for Keith, on the off chance maybe he wanted a massage, and found him in the training room.

Not wanting to interrupt him, Lance leaned against the wall and waited. After a time, he realized how creepy that was, and that he was about to offer a massage so… double the creep. With a sigh, he did some light stretches to make himself seem less inconspicuous.

Since Keith was the only interesting thing to look at as he did some lunges, Lance found his eyes drawn to his form as it danced around the training bots. Keith was a moving work of art. He was in a tight-fitting black tank top that seemed to enhance his abs. His lithe muscles rippled as he swung his blade and sliced through the droids.

Lance noticed that Keith's movements were not as fluid as they usually were. His feet landed more heavily and it was clear that Keith was sore. He kept up the pace with the robots though, and sliced through them, careful not to permanently destroy them.

He jumped away from one of the robots' blasts and barely avoided it. He raised the hand clutching the bayard to dispatch the one responsible but was struck from behind by a different one.

After grunting in pain, Keith tensed before spinning in a full circle that destroyed every robot unfortunate enough to be within the radius of destruction. The robots were going to need intensive repairs before being operational again.

"End simulation!" Keith ordered tersely. He seemed frustrated with himself as much as the robot that had hurt him.

Without glancing in Lance's direction, Keith began to limp over to his water with a pained hiss as he clutched at his back where he'd been struck.

"You okay?" Lance asked with concern.

Keith startled before whipping around to find Lance mid-stretch near the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Uh… stretching?" Lance gestured down at his current position and didn't miss the way Keith's eyes followed his hands' movements before he averted his gaze.

Keith picked up his water with a muttered, "Whatever." He took a few generous gulps before he limped to the door. It was clear he was trying to hide his pain though.

"Ya know… I asked you a question." Keith paused so Lance continued, "Are you okay?"

Keith, without turning back, answered, "I just need to rest for a bit."

Curious, Lance asked, "How long have you been at it?"

"Since five." Was the short reply. Lance looked at his Earth watch to check the time.

"But it's only four." Lance pointed out.

"Since fiver this morning." Keith corrected.

"Oh, shit." Lance winced with sympathy. "Why do you feel the need to be so hardcore at everything?"

"I'm not being hardcore, as you put it, I just want to be the best leader of Voltron I can be." Keith huffed as he turned to face Lance and crossed his arms. He winced when it pulled the muscles of his arms and shoulders.

Remembering what he'd searched for Keith for originally, Lance perked up. "You want me to give you a massage?"

Keith seemed confused. "What?"

"Ya know… a massage. It's free of charge." Lance offered with a singsong tone.

Keith gave Lance a critical look as he judged the authenticity of his words. He wouldn't admit it, but his body was really fucking sore. With no small amount of hesitation, Keith accepted the offer.

Lance's bright smile was worth it.

"Alright! Go take a shower and I'll meet you outside of your room." Lance ordered as he left with a bounce in his step back to his room.

"Ookaayy." Keith stretched the word before he shook his head and limped back to his room for a shower.

Lance went to his room and grabbed some of his nice lotions for the massage. Hunk had used some unscented one, but Lance didn't see why he couldn't massage someone and smell pleasant things while he worked.

He took his time on the short walk to Keith's room and stood outside of his door for a few minutes. Keith was apparently more adept at showering than Lance because he was done in a tenth of the time it took Lance to take one.

The door slid open and Keith seemed ready to search for him, if his surprised look when he found Lance outside of his room was any indicator. He was dressed in a loose tank top and gym shorts.

"That was fast." Lance remarked.

"You gotta take quick showers in the desert. Water isn't really a luxury I could afford… it just became a good habit to take as little time and water as possible, I guess." Keith shuffled awkwardly.

"I think it's pretty great. Not that I could do that." Lance admitted. "I like my nice, long, hot showers."

Keith hummed in acknowledgement. The two stood there in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments longer.

"You wanna come in… or?"

"Oh. Yeah!" Lance answered too loudly before he gave Keith a sheepish look. "I mean… yes, thanks."

Keith hummed as he stepped aside to allow Lance enough room to pass by him into his sleeping quarters.

Lance stood in the middle of the room a little lost before he turned to Keith and motioned to his bed. "If you could just take a seat there, I can get started."

With a stiff nod, Keith limped over to his bed and settled on the edge. The moment he was off of his feet, his entire body sagged with relief.

Lance smiled to himself as he watched Keith's eyes shut as the other sighed. He knelt in front of the other and noticed that he was wearing the tank top he'd gotten him for a gag gift. The inside joke of, "Red is the new black" had double the meaning. Not only was Keith the new black paladin, but that he seemed to have a fascination with wearing either red or some variation of black clothing, made the shirt too perfect to resist.

He let out a quick laugh that had Keith's eyes cracking open to give him a questioning look. Lance shook his head in response as he opened the citrus-smelling lotion before he rubbed it in his hands to warm it, like Hunk had done.

He grabbed Keith's smooth, shaved leg and began coating it in a layer of the lotion.

Keith cleared his throat awkwardly before he explained. "I got tired of the body suit pulling on my body hair so… I got rid of it."

Lance raised a brow, "Not judgin' you, dude. I was shaving long before I was even in the Garrison." He finished with a laugh.

Keith nodded and looked away again. Mostly so he wouldn't have to look down and see Lance kneeling in front of him. It made his stomach flutter and he didn't want to make this more awkward than it already was by popping a boner. Keith felt a shiver of mortification course through him as he imagined how that scenario would play out.

Unaware of the inappropriate thoughts going through Keith's head, Lance began to lightly pull at Keith's calves down to his ankles to restore normal circulation. Keith winced the first couple of times, but it wasn't long before he was sighing and slumping in relief.

Not wanting to ruin the moment, Lance hid his pleased smile and refrained from saying anything. He marveled at the joy that filled him at being able to help someone. The fact that it was Keith he was helping was just an added bonus.

Lance continued his ministrations for a while in silence before Keith let out a hum of contentment. When he looked up to see Keith's face, he found him leaned back on his arms with his eyes closed. His face seemed so relaxed Lance could have sworn he was asleep.

Feeling encouraged, Lance moved down to massage Keith's feet. He was glad that they didn't make him squeamish like his sister back on Earth. He wondered how his family was doing.

As he worked on Keith's feet, the man groaned before laying down completely. Lance felt a laugh bubble out of him without his consent, but he quickly sobered and refocused on his task.

Having knelt for so long, and not being used to the position, Lance leaned forward a bit to relieve his feet and restore some of the blood flow. He only planned on staying in this new position for a minute before returning to kneeling.

He had no way of knowing that this new position caused his warm breaths to puff over Keith's crotch. The new black paladin didn't notice anything at first. It was a few moments before he noticed the temperature increase. And he definitely felt something stirring down below. He was about to sit up and ask Lance to stop but the other returned to his previous position.

Keith let a sigh of relief slip passed his lips. He really didn't want Lance to stop just yet, but he would have to prevent any awkward tenseness in their relationship. Not when they were doing so well now.

He felt a sudden coolness over his groin that he hadn't noticed until Lance's breath had warmed the air around it. It was still a pleasant sensation, but not as bad as the heat itself. He felt Lance's magical hands work over his feet and a sudden image of something else he could be massaging flitted through his brain.

Keith's brow wrinkled as he shooed the inappropriate thoughts from his mind.

It didn't work. Grumbling, Keith pressed his palms against his eyes and tried to scrub away the image of Lance's hands wrapped around something other than his foot.

"Okay, Lance. You can stop now." Keith's voice was strained even to his own ears.

Lance paused before he pouted. "You don't like it?" The new red paladin had discovered massaging others was very soothing. He also felt needed, which was nice.

"I like it very much. But you have done more than enough for me, Lance."

Lance answered playfully, "Well, duh! You can't do anything without me."

"You're right."

Lance's eyes shot up to find Keith's. The other was looking down at him with such sincerity that Lance felt his face heat up.

"You're just saying that so I'll rub your feet again." Lance accused as he tried to play off how flustered he was.

Keith's expression didn't change as he responded, "So what if I am?"

Lance laughed. "All you gotta do is ask and I'd be on my knees with…" Keith's spluttering interrupted him. "What? What did I… oh. Oh. No… not. Not like that, though. I just meant-"

"I know what you meant, Lance… just." Keith sighed. "Pretend this didn't happen?" He offered.

"Pretend what didn't happen?" Lance answered cheekily.

Keith didn't understand the tone so he responded with a serious. "The fact that you said you'd get on your knees any time I asked-"

"KEITH!" Lance shrieked. "Do you not understand sarcasm?"

"You were being sarcastic?"

"Yes!" Lance hid his face from the other to hide how red it was.

"O-oh…" Lance peeked out to find Keith's expression was as serious as ever. "Well then, I guess we're agreed."

"Just. Please stop talking, Keith."

"What did I say now?" Keith looked mildly offended.

"Nothing. You're just an idiot sometimes. And while I usually love that about you, now's not the time."

Keith 404 not found. After he recovered his short-circuited brain cells, he asked, "You love me?"

Lance's blush returned full force. "What? Out of everything I said… that is what you're hung up on?"

There was a long pause between them before Keith answered. "Yes."

The silence was deafening in the next long minute as they stared at each other.

"Do you?" Keith asked.

"Do I what?"

"Love me?" Keith elaborated.

If Lance's hands weren't covered in lotion, he would have scrubbed at his hair to try and steady himself. He settled for taking a deep breath. "…Of course I do, you idiot! I love everyone on this ship." There. Noncommittal.

Keith smiled brighter than Lance had ever seen. "I love you too."

has stopped working.

"I… I…. I…." Lance was reduced to a stuttering mess.

Keith sighed and put a hand over his heart like he'd unburdened some heavy weight. "Glad I could get that off of my chest." He looked at Lance with his serious face and eyes that Lance knew so well. "I wanted to tell you for a while now, but I didn't want to scare you off so… I waited for you to make the first move." He gave Lance a fond smile that had jumpstarted Lance's thought process.

"I don't know what to say." Lance confessed.

"Well, you already said you loved me so…" Keith looked down and fiddled with his shirt nervously, "I wouldn't mind hearing that again."

Lance flushed. "You know, you could always say it too."

"Fine." Lance found Keith's eyes again. "I love you." Keith felt confidence resulting from feeling incredibly relaxed from the massage and his brain was a little loopy from the exhaustion.

Lance felt a swell of self-assurance as he answered. "I love you too."

Keith's face looked like he was on cloud nine. He sighed and leaned back against the bed once more.

Lance tried to stand up, but his legs were asleep so he stumbled and ended up leaning against Keith's bed.

Keith grabbed his arm and the two looked at each other.

Lance looked into Keith's eyes and found them asking for something Lance wasn't too sure about. He hesitantly nodded and Keith pulled him down with a smile.

They readjusted until they were lying next to each other comfortably.

"So now that we've established we love each other…" Keith didn't finish.

"Yeah?" Lance prompted, feeling his face heat up again. There was no way this amount of blushing was healthy.

"Does this mean you'll give me as many massages as I want?"

Lance spluttered with laughter before he accidentally snorted. He immediately wailed and hid his face. "No! I snorted!"

Keith smiled and hesitantly pecked at the hands covering Lance's face. "That's fine. I still love you." It was like he couldn't get enough of saying those words.

Lance hummed as he settled down and answered with a wide smile. Just for Keith. "Yeah... you can get as many massages as you want."

Keith began to smile.

Then Lance continued, "But you gotta give me some in return."

Keith laughed, and Lance felt a burst of possessiveness that this was all for him.

"Alright."

Bonus:

"Ow!" Lance hissed in pain. "Ow… just stop, Keith!"

"But I thought you wanted a massage?"

"I did! You aren't massaging me though. You're just trying to crush my shoulders!" Lance accused.

"I am not!" Keith answered, offended.

Lance was not swayed. "Just stop." He ordered.

Keith stopped with a huff. "Well… if you won't let me massage you, what do you want?"

Lance smiled and placed a comforting hand on Keith's shoulder. "It's okay, Keith. If I want a massage I can always ask Hunk."

Keith's expression instantly soured. "No, the hell, you cannot."

"But…" Lance protested.

Keith looked at him pleadingly. "Let me try again?"

Lance was a sucker for that lost puppy look. "…Fine."

Keith gently rubbed Lance's shoulders and back. While it was not massaging him in the least, it was a lot nicer than before. Lance slowly relaxed into the petting.

"Is this better?" Keith asked self-consciously.

Lance gave him a lazy smile. "Much."