'Man,' Hunk whined, throwing his hands up so batter flew against the walls. 'Just let it go.' He set the bowl aside and pulled in a breath, looking at the ceiling. When he looked back at Lance, his face was a picture of seriousness. 'I mean, have you considered maybe he's not worth all this… energy?'

'Hunk…' Sitting with legs crossed on the work-top, Lance was aghast.

'No, no,' the unofficial chef protested. 'I mean like… Maybe he's changed. Maybe this whole thing has changed him, and he doesn't want to see us anymore. No point chasing down a guy that doesn't want to be found. If he comes back, he comes back. If not…' Hunk picked up the bowl and began mixing again. 'Then I'm not going to drag him here. I don't have the emotional goods anymore, man. I'm tired. We're all tired.'

Lance bit his lip and considered an empty chair at the table. A chair where just months ago, Keith sat; quiet but present. Serious always, but sometimes sparing a smile. 'It was never like this when he was here. We were never this bare. It all feels wrong .'

Another shrug from Hunk. 'Not your job to fix it, Lance.'

Hopping down from his place on the countertop, Lance fixed Hunk with a stare. 'That's the thing, Hunk. I think it might be.'

OoO

It was weeks later when the sleek marmora pod docked at the castle ship and Kolivan strode out, a smaller figure tight behind him. The crowd of assembled paladins drew a collective breath. Keith, their Keith, was here. He flanked the marmora leader silent as before, but with his mask still activated. Lance itched in place to walk up to Keith and punch him full in the face. Or shake him. Or hug him. Every line of the former Red Paladin's body, however, said: stay away. He offered no hello, just a single cursory nod to Allura and Shiro. He was dismissed with a wave from Kolivan, slipping out by a side door.

Lance peeled away from the group, anger eating at him from the bottom of his belly to the boiling mess of his head. He marched into the corridor, his eyes fixed dead ahead, bearing straight for Keith's old room. This ends now, he thought.

He didn't waste a second, elbowing the door panel with enough force to pop the lock. He dragged the door open with one tug, ignoring the shuddering noise of straining gears.

'Hey!' he yelled to the dark figure frozen in the centre of the lightless room. Keith's blade was drawn but dormant, held lightly in one outstretched hand. With a deft flick of his wrist he could bury that blade in Lance's forehead, he knew. But whatever. Fuck him. Fuck this selfish excuse for a paladin.

Through exertion or anger, Lance was panting. He licked his lips, trying to catch his breath. Scant light slipped into the room over his shoulder and caught something in Keith's eyes as they pinned him in place at the door; like a film or some strange cataracts. They flashed creamy yellow, but in the next instant were dark again.

'What the fuck, man?' Keith demanded, slipping his blade into its sheath. 'I could have killed you. You can't just come barrelling in wherever you like. This is still–'

'I'm sorry.' The words were out before Lance even knew he wanted to say them. He gawped in the wake of them. Well, that was a surprise.

The shock was equally apparent on Keith's face. 'What?'

'I'm sorry,' Lance repeated. 'I'm sorry I was a jerk. I'm sorry about how we treated you after we found out you were part galra. I'm sorry we made you feel sad, or left out, or judged. I'm sorry you lost your marmora team-mate. I'm sorry I don't remember his name. I'm sorry we didn't do something nice for Ulaz or Thace or Antok. I know you liked them. I know what they stood for and what they did.' He inched into the room. 'I'm sorry we didn't listen to you when we lost Shiro. And I'm sorry we didn't listen to you when we found him again.' He took a deep breath, but it shook in his throat. Keith regarded him with his same earnest, open face and Lance's heart broke for having waited so long to tell him how important he was. How could they have never said it? How could they have waved goodbye and let him venture into space without them; into possible, probable death. 'And I'm sorry we let you go. We shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry.'

'Lance.'

'But please come back. We miss you. We need you. I'll stop being a jerk. I'm sorry, Ke–'

'I can't come back.'

'You can.'

'Turn on the light.'

'Whu…'

'Lights!' Keith commanded and the room was thrown into the washed-out yellow glow common to the castle ship. Lance swiftly covered his eyes with a hand, then withdrew it as they adjusted.

'Fuck,' he whispered.

Hunk was right: Keith had changed, but not in any way they could ever have anticipated. Under the yellow wash, the alterations were obvious, and Keith, resigned to letting himself be examined, choked out a bitter, 'Happy?'

His blade suit was pulled down to his hips, exposing violently mottled skin in tones of purple that were lighter about the chest. The yellow Lance had seen before appeared to belong to a third eyelid that slipped across Keith's violet eyes intermittently. Darkly felted ears drew back in sharp points that ended in impressive tufts, lynx-like and elegant. The well-toned body they'd seen weeks before in Keith's room was harder still and wrong somehow. Longer in the arm, joints looser. The same blossoms of purple ran up and down his arms and peaked out from under the suit at his feet. His feet. The toes were…

'Keith…' Lance shook his head, trying to puzzle it out. At first glance, it appeared as bad bruising; a trick of the eye. But on closer inspection, it was clear the middle three toes of each foot had rotted to blackened stumps. The remaining two were swollen and the nails enlarged and deeply embedded.

'They say it's the quintessence. We're finding so much of it now.' He seemed to remember something, face pained. 'Things don't always work out. The canisters leak. Or smash.'

Lance hissed, pressed a fist to his mouth.

Sighing, Keith ambled over to the bed awkwardly and dropped down into an incongruously familiar slump, hands dangling between his knees. Lance could see now that each finger was tipped with a coarse, black claw. 'Kolivan says it probably started in Red– in the lion. He could already see the signs when I joined the blades, apparently. I was having trouble coordinating. My ears kept popping. Lots of stuff, I guess.' His uncanny eyes drifted up to Lance. 'We're all exposed, but when you have a certain composition…' He gestured at himself and huffed through his nose.

Lance shifted towards the bed and eased himself to sitting. 'Is it sore?'

Keith checked the open door, considered whatever it was Keith tended to consider, and shrugged again, mumbling a non-committal 'ahn'oh'. He coughed. 'I guess. Sometimes. Like an ache.'

From this angle, Lance could see that the dramatic changes to Keith's ears had distracted from more changes still. His breath caught in his throat. Running from within Keith's pitch hair was a coating of black opal feathers that gleamed iridescent in purples, blues, greens. Smaller, round feathers spotted his upper back and spine, while longer ones swept across his shoulder blades and onto his arms.

'Adolescent galra develop according to their environment.'

Lance nodded, eyes still drawn to the thick coat of feathers that dressed Keith's shoulders like a cloak.

'Apparently I've lost bone density too. I'm faster is what they say: Kolivan, the others.' He flexed his shoulders and the flight feathers stood to attention. 'Resistance when landing from a height.' They flattened, 'Speed.' He tutted and shook his head. 'I guess galra biology doesn't account for us wearing suits.'

Again, Lance could only nod, dumbstruck by his friend and rival; the laundry list of changes he'd experienced. All of this had been happening, and they'd had no idea. What had Keith thought as he lay in bed changing, galaxies away from them? Had he been scared? Lance couldn't imagine.

Beside him, came a sob.

'I can never go home.'

And then Keith was crying, quietly and viciously, into the knuckles of his right hand. Fat tears spilled down his cheeks and splashed to the ground.

'Hey, hey,' Lance cooed, scooting closer and ever-so-gingerly laying one arm across Keith's shoulders. The feathers were like warm satin beneath his fingers.

Keith shook his head and spoke with a voice thick with tears. 'How much more am I going to change?' he cried. Distraught, he pulled in a stuttering breath.

Lance ran his hand up to brush against a thinly furred ear until his fingers were buried in Keith's hair. A few fine quills brushed against his palm. He pressed Keith's head against his breastbone and lay his lips against the crown of his head. 'It's going to be okay,' he said softly. 'It's going to be okay.'

'You don't understand. I can never go home, Lance. Who- who would want me? This…' He trembled in Lance's hold. 'Nobody. Nobody.'

The errant feather that had tumbled from Keith's towel all those weeks ago burned in Lance's pocket. He reached up to take Keith's tear-drenched hand, uncurling the fingers until his soft palm lay open. He pressed the feather into it and closed the fingers with his own.

'I'm here,' he said.

OoO

When it happened, or how it happened, he didn't know. Lance opened bleary eyes to a thicket of black hair and the curve of a warm back against his chest. The strange quills were like fine china against his skin, the down impossibly soft. Evidently, at some point he'd lost his shirt. He craned his neck and saw it crumpled together with Keith's blade suit. Keith was totally naked beneath the thin sheet that bunched around his thin waist. The door was closed, the lights off. They'd cried themselves out apparently. Lance's eyes were still hot coals and his face felt tight from dried tears. He cleared his throat as quietly as he could, adjusting himself until Keith's smaller frame was flush against him. Keith shifted, a strange but contented-sounding chitter issuing from somewhere deep in his throat. These changes: what must Keith be thinking? Or feeling? He'd stayed away from them because he was scared. And worst of all, Lance understood. He scrunched his eyes closed, remembering every slight, every insult he'd tossed Keith's way.

'Keith?' he whispered. One ear twitched but the former paladin slept on. Lance pushed his nose behind the shell of Keith's greatly altered ear, nuzzling at the soft felt. He smelled scalp and charcoal-like soap. 'You're so soft,' he said, disbelief clear in his voice. And he'd always been, Lance understood now. The crossed-arms and darting looks, the absences and reluctance to mix. Keith was a paradox of savage power and a timorous selfhood constantly threatened by every blow and abandonment. I care about him. Deeply. Lance chuckled, I guess I've changed too.

Keith grunted and drew in a long, deep breath, stretching luxuriously against Lance's chest. A few bone-deep pops suggested that Keith was correct; he wasn't done changing. He twisted in place. Dark eyes met Lance's. Even in the low light, Lance could see the pupils blown to all-black discs. Veils of shimmering gold closed and opened again in a beat. Alien, beautiful.

'Lance?' Keith asked.

Lance smiled. 'The one and only.'

Keith scoffed. 'You're so cheesy.' Then, 'You stayed.'

His expression was full of the kind of openness and hope Lance had been blind to all these months. His heart had started hammering in his chest. Lance swallowed, suddenly shy. 'Keith,' he said. 'Can I kiss you?'

The briefest flicker of surprise danced across Keith's face, but in the next moment he closed the space between them, soft lips bowed in a smile.