Gotta do what you can, just to keep your love alive
Head Flight Instructor Commander Lance McClain was thinking that for no one else but Keith would he be sitting in this seedy bar, in the wrong side of town. He had spent the day on the flight deck getting to know the instructors and cadets he would be training. After the first day he already had voluminous notes about the overhaul he was going to do with the program. The good thing about the job he rationalized was that it would keep him busy, and he liked the work. It wasn't flying a lion, and it meant dealing with Wade, but if that was what it took so be it.
Lance prided himself on his pragmatism about life, and what it took to get the job done. He was from an old, wealthy South Carolina family who had served their country and their planet for generations. His father was head of the Galaxy Security Council, while his mother was a distinguished history professor. In her spare time, under a nom de plume she wrote lurid historical romances that made the best seller list routinely. Several had been made into movies, which became blockbusters.
Lance looked at his watch, and wondered where Keith was, as it was almost fifteen minutes past when he should have been here. Since the man was always five minutes early for everything, Lance was getting worried. He ordered another bottle of beer, not trusting the cleanliness of the glasses in the joint. He had on some old jeans, scuffed up shoes, and a faded shirt, hoping to fit in the place. Lance was a cloths horse, and even his old stuff still looked better than what everyone else had on.
"Thanks for meeting me here, Lance." Keith's voice was low in his ear, and he turned around on the bar stool to face his friend. Keith had circles under his eyes, and he looked like he had slept in his clothes. Lance was now very worried about his friend, because while Keith was no style icon, his clothes were always clean and sharply pressed.
"Buddy, you are starting to scare me. What the fuck is going on?" Lance asked almost angrily, trying to process why they were in this dive, and Keith looked like he did. The whole cloak and dagger thing was almost too much for him at this point. He had spent three years winning a war, only to find out that his actions didn't matter. He saw what a confederate ancestor of his had said, in an old journal; you can be right but still be on the wrong side of history.
"Lance, I can't do it! I can't take the job; I have to go find Black!" Keith divulged, stating out loud what he had been thinking since yesterday. The meeting with Allura that morning had only affirmed his conviction that he needed to do this. Keith also didn't appreciate Allura ordering him to do something in her queen voice, as the team called it.
"Good god, we have been all over this, Keith! You as ADC will be in the best position to get the information we need; it is even more critical now that Black is gone." Lance was aghast at what Keith was going to walk away from. His best friend had been offered the plum job, but was being too squeamish to take it. He wondered whether it would be bad form to tell his friend to grow a set of balls, and man up.
"Lance, I am the one best suited to find Black, you know it. He is my lion, and he is part of me. Pidge can use his hacking skills to get more information than anything I might see while working for Wade. You will also be better at being buddies with the man than I would be; he makes my skin crawl." Keith explained, and went on to lay his whole plan out to Lance.
"Have you talked to Allura, Pidge, and Hunk about this? We are a team you know." Lance stated, bowing to what Keith wanted to do. He knew his best friend very well, and while the plan might not make sense to anyone else, for Keith it did. However, Keith had a responsibility to the team and Lance was not happy that the man seemed to be willing to turn his back on that.
"Allura came by my office this morning, after I let the Embassy know that I would not be escorting her to the ball tomorrow night." Keith answered, after a too long pause. That whole conversation had been ghastly, both with what she had said, and how she had said it.
"Pray tell me how that conversation went? I see that she didn't rip your head off – yet!" Lance shook his head, wishing he had been there to witness what had been said. If Allie had felt the need to visit Keith in person she must have been pissed as hell. He chuckled silently, thinking about what she looked like when she was mad.
"She informed me that I was turning my back on the team, Voltron, and Arus, as well as not doing my duty. She then ordered me to escort her to the ball tomorrow night." Keith finished, and Lance wanted to slap the man. He also wanted to give Allie bonus points for throwing that dig in there, about duty. They all knew how important that was to Keith, which was part of the problem.
Lance was aware that Keith was in love with Allura, because he was also in love with her. He kept his feelings hidden better, knowing the crush that she had on their fearless leader. Lance was her best friend, the person she told almost everything to, and the man who knew well. That, plus the fact that Keith was his best friend, were the reasons why he had never spoken to her about his feelings.
He looked at Keith and thought about slapping him up the side of the head. If the man had any sense he would have taken Allura into his arms at that moment and kissed her, which would have solved the whole problem. Well, some of it anyway, Lance mused to himself before he came back to the discussion.
"So all that she knows is that you don't want the job, and you aren't going to take her to the ball. When are you going to tell her that you are leaving?" Lance inquired, fake politeness dripping from his words. He was starting to see where this was going, and didn't like it one bit.
"Lance I thought that you could tell her, after the ball. You are her best friend, and I think you will explain it better. I will talk to Pidge and Hunk after I'm gone, via the old RF codes we used when we first went to Arus." Keith asked, holding his breath as he did so. Leaving Allura was hard, but for the best; leaving her with Lance was a worry he didn't want to think about. His best friend was a notorious ladies man, and he hoped that Lance would respect Allura's innocence.
"In what fucking world do you think I would do that for you? Are you aware of what Allura is going to think when she finds out that you slunk out of town without saying goodbye to her?" Lance was horrified at what Keith was asking of him. He also didn't want to think about Allie's reaction when she found out what Keith had done.
"Lance, please, do this for me! I can't tell her, she won't understand, and she won't listen." The anguish in Keith's voice was easy to hear, and Lance almost, but not quite felt bad for his best friend. His overall feeling though was dislike right now, as he thought of what Keith wanted him to do, and what it was going to do to Allura. He peered at his friend, wanting to be convinced that Keith really understood the ramifications of what he was about to do.
"Are you aware that you will be branded a fugitive? Wade is a vindictive bastard; look at what he did to Hunk and Pidge! He will put a bounty on your head so large everyone in the galaxy will be hunting you. How will you survive all that?" Lance's words were clear and precise, delivered in a very serious tone that he hardly ever used.
Keith heard everything Lance was saying, and how he was saying it too. He knew the meaning behind that tone, and he understood what Lance was trying to do. Keith though had already thought it all out, and he told Lance that now. When he was done with the explanation, Lance had to give Keith credit for what he'd come up with so far, and said as much.
"Keith, fine I'll go along with the plan, and I will tell Allura as best as I can. I just want you to be perfectly clear that you are responsible for the consequences of your actions." Lance declared, taking a deep breath. He knew that this would probably the last time, for a long time, that he would see his best friend. Instead of feeling sadness though, he was feeling disappointment and dislike with Keith, because of what the man wanted him to do. They parted after another around of beers, with Keith promising to be in touch.
"Good luck Keith, I think you're going to need it!" Lance exclaimed, before Keith walked out of the bar. Lance decided to hell with whether the glasses were clean or not, and ordered a double of what the bar said was Irish whiskey. He figured the alcohol would sterilize the glass.