"I'm outta here! I said I wouldn't cry!"

In the short few phoebs he'd been in space, Lance had already seen plenty of things he had a hard time believing: sentient robotic lions, flying cosmic castles, living planets, giant terrifying robots, giant awesome robots, cat people, space malls and humungous sphinx creatures (to name just a few), but one of the things he didn't see coming was Keith, who blindly tore around the corner in the hallway leading to their respective quarters. The Red Paladin slammed into Lance with the full force of his agility and his body armor.

"What the actual fuck?!" Lance exploded the moment after he'd landed hard against the floor. The anger quickly fizzled away when he saw the look of absolute shock on Keith's face, along with the incriminating streaks of tears.

"Shit." the Red Paladin offered a hand down to Lance, who took it. Back on his feet again, Lance ignored the dull throb in his backside and turned his attention to the black-haired man.

"You okay? You look like that hurt you more than it did me."

"I'm fine." Keith replied bluntly, not wanting to look Lance in the eyes. "Sorry for knocking you over." he added, before he began to move away. Lance watched with more than a bit of confusion as the current pilot of the Black Lion marched to his quarters. Frowning, Lance took off after him, although he wasn't fast enough to beat the doors before they closed.

"Keith?" the Blue Paladin called out. When his teammate didn't respond, Lance knocked against the metal of the door several times and waited for a response. "I know you can hear me, these doors aren't very soundproof, despite the fact they're made from super-futuristic ancient alien metal."

The silence dragged on, and Lance let out a frustrated sigh. "Keith, buddy, open up..."

"Go away!" Keith's muffled voice responded.

Lance perked up at the reply. "Not happening, Samurai. I'm not going anywhere so you might as well let me in."

There was a moment of silence, and then the door slid open. Keith was stood to one side, looking redder in the face now, and really making an effort to not look at Lance. It was obvious that he'd rubbed the streaks away as best as he could, but it was still evident he'd been crying.

The Blue Paladin slid into the room and plonked himself down on the floor beside Keith's bed, wincing slightly as his posterior was still tender. Settled, he patted the spot next to him, but Keith just continued to stand by the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.

"What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Keith."

"Lance." the raven-haired man responded petulantly.

Lance frowned, but he made extra effort to let his frustration go. "Take it from somebody who is a master of bottling stuff up; it isn't good to keep it in."

"I know that."

"Then talk to me, mullet, you can talk to me." although he'd used 'mullet' as an insult in the past, Lance hoped the infliction of his voice made it sound more like the friendly tease he'd intended it to be.

"I'd rather talk to Shiro."

A jolt of disappointment shot through Lance, and he unconsciously registered that disappointment and hurt on his face for a brief moment, before narrowing his eyes.

"I'll get him if you really want me too... but seeing as I'm here, what's the harm?"

Keith rubbed at his eyes again, before letting himself expel an agitated groan. "Fine." he took a moment to compose himself before he began. "I was recording my vlog with Coran, and... it brought some stuff up. Stuff that I thought I had a better handle on."

Lance nodded, remaining silent as he waited to hear more. When Keith didn't continue, his expression shifted to one of puzzlement.

"And?"

"And what?"

"It had to be some pretty heavy stuff; I don't think I've ever seen you cry before."

Keith shifted self-consciously in the corner by the doorway. "I don't like people seeing me cry."

"Why?"

"Why? Do you like it when people see you cry?"

Lance's hand fiddled with the teeth in the zip of his jacket. "I'm not thrilled by it, but... it's a normal human emotion-" his thought process took a momentary fumble over his choice of words; it still wasn't a very long time ago that Keith had come out to them as part-Galra. "It's a normal emotion to have when you're upset. I'm not afraid to cry."

"Easy for you to say, you wear your emotions on your sleeve."

"Maybe it is easy for me to say it, but I don't always wear my emotions on my sleeve... and I don't know what you were taught when you were younger, but it's okay to cry if you want to." At the look on Keith's face, which Lance wasn't sure he could easily categorize: sadness? Skepticism? Uncertainty? -he felt the need to plunge further. "There are too many assholes out there who'll say something like 'crying's for sissies', 'crying's for girls', 'crying's for whiny little bitches', 'crying's for fa-'..." Lance's rant skidded to a sudden, horrified halt at what he was about to say.

Keith no longer looked upset or annoyed, he now looked apprehensive. "What were you going to say?"

Lance let his eyes drop to the floor. "Don't ask me to say it. Please."

A silence descended between the Red and Blue Paladins for a few ticks, before Lance resumed his train of thought. "There are plenty of dickheads out there who will gladly tell you that crying makes you weak, but they're macho hijos de puta with puta madre egos that're bigger than their steroid-filled muscles." he idly scratched an itch on the side of his face. "You feel the need to cry? You fucking cry."

A further dobosh passed, and Keith sat down to Lance's right.

"You were bullied in school." it was a statement from Keith, rather than a question.

Lance shrugged. "A lot of people were."

"...you don't have to act like it didn't mean something to you."

Lance looked up at Keith, he could feel a bristle of irritation, but he tried to ignore it. "I don't want it to mean anything to me, it sucked but I lived through it. I didn't have it as bad as some people did."

"But they still called you... that."

How had this happened? He'd come here to give Keith some support, now he was the one getting the focus, the sympathetic voice. "Yeah, they did? And so what? It's just words."

"They aren't just words." Keith countered, picking at the edge of the plating on his arm. "They're meant to hurt."

"Yeah."

"I... I've been called that." Keith admitted hesitantly. Lance was unsure of the right words to say, so instead he gently knocked his right knee against Keith's left.

"You didn't deserve it."

"Neither did you." Keith pointed out, his voice then turned hesitant again. "But... they weren't exactly wrong, with me... I mean."

Oh. Lance's brows rose a little. Feeling like he owed Keith an equal sign of trust, he ventured in response: "they were half right with me."

Keith didn't appear as surprised as he'd felt when Keith had come out to him, but maybe he just had a better poker face... or maybe, maybe Keith was just more on his wavelength than he'd given him credit for.

"You can cry if you want to, and you're not going to get any shit from me, or Shiro, or Pidge or Hunk... hell, Hunk would probably refuse to stop hugging you until you've cried it all out. Coran or Allura wouldn't think less of you if you did. Badass samurais cried, don't you dare tell me otherwise."

"Fine, I won't."

"And try not to bottle it up all the time, okay? Fine, you don't want to talk to me, but at least talk to Shiro."

Some more ticks of silence stretched out as a contemplative look spread across Keith's face.

"I could talk to you, if you're not busy." he suggested.

Lance turned his head to face him, feeling a bit of a relief at the breakthrough. "Good." he nodded. "And you know I'm good at talking."

For the first time since he'd been run into, Lance saw Keith smile. "Don't get me started."

Lance smirked back. "There we go." the smirk then softened to something fonder. "You should smile more often, it's kinda cute."

The crimson rush across Keith's face was worth it, and the brown-haired man smiled a little smugly as he rose to his feet. Adopting a more laid-back air, Lance ambled leisurely over to the door, and paused just before the sensor detected him and opened up the passage.

"Feeling better now?"

Keith nodded, running his hand across his cheeks one final time to remove any lasting traces of tears. "A little."

Lance let out a snort. "We'll work on it." his voice was devoid of any malice however, and there was a friendly smile on his face.

"Thanks. And sorry for knocking you over earlier."

Lance made a dismissive noise. "I'd had worse from Ulaz, or the Gladiator on the Training Deck, or you in training."

Keith let out a quick, soft laugh. "That a fact?"

"Yeah, that's a fact." Lance agreed. He fired off a quick mock-salute, before stepping into the range of the door sensor. The hallway felt cooler, less intimate, and he released a breath of relief as he walked off to join up with Hunk and Pidge, which was where he was going to go before he'd literally been bumped into by Keith.

He'd learned some new things about their resident hot head, and although he hadn't gone into detail about what had set him off, maybe Keith would open up more to him in the future, because as examples of opening up to someone else went, the Red Paladin had already made a pretty big step.

Keith had lost track of how long he'd been sitting on the floor of his room, he'd been left with plenty to think about, and even more to maybe bring up and question Lance about at a later date. Their talk hadn't lasted for very long, they'd argued back and forth for longer in some instances, but much like the time Lance had come to that room to admit his concerns over who piloted what Lion, their talk here meant so much more than the vargas they'd spent bickering. It wasn't a talk between rivals, but a talk between friends.

"I'm... I'm not afraid to cry." he tested the words. "It's okay to cry."

He felt fresh tears well a little, as if saying the words out loud had unlocked something within him. The verbal admission wasn't going to instantly salve the negativity and rejection he'd experienced for most of his childhood and teenage life, but if it helped him get to a better place sometime in the future, then that was something to look forward to.

And he was grateful to Lance for getting him started.

The End