Chapter 10: The Both of Us

29/10 - 06.03am

PM from BlackLion007 to PrincessOfAltea

BlackLion007: Hello?

BlackLion007: Princess?

BlackLion007: I hope you're doing well. I haven't heard from you in a while and no one of your other paladins has either. I don't mean to pry but I'll admit I was concerned for your wellbeing.

BlackLion007: I hope your absence is indicative that you are healthy and too busy to write.

BlackLion007 has signed out.

09.29am

PM from PrincessOfAltea to BlackLion007

PrincessOfAltea: I'm terribly sorry, BlackLion. I didn't intend to miss your arrival.

PrincessOfAltea: I have been sleeping much longer recently and as such have found myself missing my usual early morning wake-ups. I do find that I miss them. They're a good way to start the day.

PrincessOfAltea: But I appear to have missed you in turn. I hope you're doing well. You've moved back into your old apartment, have you not? That's wonderful! I am so pleased for you.

PrincessOfAltea: You must be doing very well yourself for such an impressive development. Please, tell me, how are you? And how is everyone else? I haven't had much of a chance to speak with them either. I'm not sure if I simply miss my opportunities of unfortunately – or fortunately, given its connotation – Voltron is less active than usual.

PrincessOfAltea: Either way, I hope to hear you are well soon.

PrincessOfAltea has signed out.

10.47am

PM from BlackLion007 to PrincessOfAltea

BlackLion007: It appears we've missed each other once again! I'm sorry, I took myself to the shops and I forgot my phone. I believe that Pidge would be horrified with me. Living life through the phone is his primary mode of functioning, did you know?

BlackLion007: I'm sorry, I meant DiffWizard. I see so much of them these days, as much as they can each manage, that it seems almost strange to consider them as anything but their real names sometimes. But as for your question, I will tell you.

BlackLion007: Everyone is doing well. Very well, actually. After our first meeting – which was a little rocky, I'll admit – I think we've all become grateful for one another's company. I see most of them every few days, which is very nice as I have found I truly enjoy spending time with them. They're a great group of kids, although I think Lance would be somewhat indignant if he heard me calling them kids again. "Seven years older doesn't mean you can call us kids," he says. I think he considers it funny more than annoying, though.

BlackLion007: Pidge has come out of his shell a little – and I apologise for the confusion, but I most often refer to him in the gender of which I've last spoken to him. But he's grown and become a little more comfortable with himself, I think. Or more so than he was before. He says he never really has a whole lot to do with other people and that we're the only ones he really likes. That's how he says it. Always a little sarcastically, that is. He's quite a persistently sarcastic person for that matter, though not cruelly so I don't think. He's very smart too, and well beyond his years academically. I do enjoy his company, and for all that he acts hard he's proved to at times be a very affectionate person.

BlackLion007: Hunk appears happier these days too. I don't think he used to get out that much and he's told me he never spends time with his old school friends, but he's taken to visiting my apartment with his mother every so often. I think he's always a little nervous being away from her and dislikes leaving her with his grandmother as he thinks it places the responsibility to heavily on another person. He's a very sweet young man, and I enjoy it when he comes to visit. I believe he's considering my suggestion that he and his mother spend the evening at my apartment in the future. It's always nice to have people come for a visit; the place always did feel too big just for myself.

BlackLion007: Lance tends to come around when he can too, and with Hunk as much as he can. With Keith too, for that matter. He seems to have taken a liking to Keith, and Keith a little bit to him as well, which is nice. They're a positive influence on one another, I think, and after the upheaval that's going on with Keith

BlackLion007: Sorry, this will only be a brief divergence, but I don't know if you've heard. I wasn't sure if you had, but I thought to just inform you that I asked Keith if he would like to move in with me when he turns eighteen. I hope he'll consider it. Lance seemed rather adamant that he accept and he seems to be more inclined to listen to Lance most of the time, even if he does a little begrudgingly agree to my suggestions. Lance is a very persistent person. I believe he would be difficult to ignore.

BlackLion007: But anyway, we are all well. As well as can be. But I'd like to hear from you, Princess, if possible. All of us are concerned for you and it would be very heartening to know if you are getting back upon your feet again.

BlackLion007: I know you were still in hospital last time we really spoke. Have you perhaps checked out again? That would be wonderful.

11.11am

PrincessOfAltea has entered into the chatroom.

PM from PrincessOfAltea to BlackLion007:

PrincessOfAltea: BlackLion! Did I perhaps finally catch you in time?

BlackLion007: Princess! How nice to hear from you :)

PrincessOfAltea: And you, my friend. I'm so grateful for your most recent message. It sounds as though you are all doing swimmingly.

BlackLion007: I like to think so, yes.

BlackLion007: But what of you? We haven't heard much from one another of late. How have you been? Have you possibly checked out of hospital?

PrincessOfAltea: Ah, that is good to hear. It makes me so happy to hear as much.

PrincessOfAltea: But me? No, I'm afraid I'm not out of hospital just at the moment unfortunately. I fear it might be quite some time before I'm afforded the opportunity to return home.

BlackLion007: Oh. That's terrible news. Are you alright?

PrincessOfAltea: Not so terrible :) Simply routine, I should hope. I find myself very tired of late and can't seem to keep up my normal pace!

PrincessOfAltea: But hopefully I shall be on my feet soon enough once more. It has happened before.

BlackLion007: I'm so sorry to hear that.

PrincessOfAltea: Don't be. Truly, I'm fine.

BlackLion007: Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all? I have nothing much but free time on my hands at the moment.

PrincessOfAltea: That's very kind of you, BlackLion. I appreciate your offer, but it's unnecessary as I don't find myself needing anything. Your updates and those of the rest of the paladins are more than I could ask for.

PrincessOfAltea: I fear I am all but useless at present. The most I can really do is listen rather than offer true support, so I will listen to the very best of my ability.

BlackLion007: Now, I don't believe that. I think you undermine just how helpful you have been. You're probably just overlooking that which you are good at for seeing only what you consider as being inadequate. Never underestimate the power of listening and simply replying.

PrincessOfAltea: Thank you, BlackLion.

PrincessOfAltea: That truly means a lot to me.

PrincessOfAltea: Thank you.

BlackLion007: You're very welcome. Any time.

There were many things that Keith wasn't good at. In his opinion, those things often outweighed what he actually could do. He was smart, he acknowledged, but he wasn't a genius and he was terrible at his English studies. His conversation skills were appalling, he knew, which was something that he'd never really cared about for being inadequate at. He was fit enough and adept at a number of sports he'd attempted, but he couldn't function particularly well in a team of strangers or even classmates, and working with others frustrated him. He wasn't empathetic or even particularly sympathetic, could never understand people very well from simply reading their expressions, and when it came to being a 'nice person', Keith felt he fell somewhat short.

As a general rule, Keith had always accepted that he simply wasn't a people person. He'd never wanted to be – or at least he hadn't for years – because people were, by and large, dangerous. Risking spending time with them and getting to know them opened him up to accumulating vulnerabilities that could be abused. It had happened before when he was younger. His first foster family he'd been convinced he was going to stay with forever until they were forced to send him back for administration reasons. Then he'd been betrayed by Tomas and the D'Ascartes, and that had broken something within him that he hadn't tried or even wanted to fix.

Keith was always going to be alone. That much he'd accepted. The paladins of Voltron, however, seemed to have other ideas.

After his incident with the near-hospital experience, something that still caused him to shudder slightly to consider how close he'd come, everything had changed. Everything, and it started when Shiro moved back to his apartment. It started when they all visited Shiro's apartment together.

Keith hadn't felt comfortable staying at Hunk's house. Truthfully, he'd never felt comfortable staying at anyone's house, but he felt he was abusing Hunk's misplaced trust by using the stepladder of their knowing one another from Voltron. Hunk couldn't say no when he'd been asked to put Keith up in a bed, and that made it unfair. Keith didn't like unfairness. He never had.

Hunk was a good person, he'd discovered. The kind of person raised to instinctively do what was right rather than what was easy. It was probably why he'd let Keith use his guest room for nearly a whole week when Shiro asked in his way that was almost an order yet somehow wasn't at all. In that short time, Keith learned a lot about Hunk. He learned he was a good-natured person and it would take the weight of heaven and earth to make him truly angry. He was affectionate and utterly doted upon his mother, despite her unresponsiveness to absolutely everything. He was…

Hunk was a good person. That made abusing his goodness even worse.

It was the same with Shiro. Shiro was a good person, though Keith didn't think he quite accepted his own goodness. He was generous and compassionate, seemed to wholly think of those around him rather than himself, and never had a bad word to say about anyone. More than that, he was a man of action. Keith wasn't quite sure why he'd remained at the hospital for as long as he had – he hadn't even known that Shiro was staying there – but after the incident that had drawn him to Hunk's house that first night he'd been nothing but efficient in his actions. Signing out of hospital, moving into his own apartment and –

And asking Keith if he wanted to move in with him. That was something unexpected and Keith still didn't quite know how to respond. He'd never been asked to move into a house before. Every other time he'd simply been told where he was going.

DiffWizard – or Pidge as he liked to be called regardless of whether he felt he was a girl and a boy at the time – was something else too. Small and younger than Keith was by three years, he'd always seemed reserved at the meetings at the youth centre. Keith had hardly been able to reconcile him with him online persona for their vastly different personalities. Except that when he was around them, around his fellow paladins, he was different to how he'd been when Keith first saw him at the youth centre. He was DiffWizard.

Keith found that he liked Pidge more when he let himself be DiffWizard, or DiffWitch when such arose. Pidge seemed to make a point of meeting up with them as much as possible, just as Hunk did whenever he could, and often with his mother in tow. Just as Shiro did too.

Keith wasn't used to such frequent company. It was unhinging to have people want to spend time with him. To want to almost constantly spend time with him, and want to simply be around him. It was strange. Uncomfortable, even, and he wasn't sure if he disliked it or if it was simply that he'd never experienced anything even resembling such enthusiasm before. Had Keith his own choice on the matter, he probably would have left them all at the earliest opportunity. His leaving would have been even more likely after they'd all but exploded into unfathomable distress when he'd told them his plans for his eighteenth year. Withdrawing, retreating into the comfort of his isolation that was as self-imposed as it was forced upon him, had always been a step towards safety he'd assumed.

Keith would have, except Lance wouldn't let him. Lance and Shiro both, primarily, but whereas Shiro was respectful and at times hesitant to offend by impressing his company upon Keith through messages and their now less frequent discussions on Voltron, Lance had no such qualms.

It started when Keith first took himself back to the Tulson's house. Or more correctly, it kept going. Keith had been living at Hunk's for nearly a week and, though returning to the Tulson's wasn't a much better prospect, it was an improvement upon imposing himself on someone Keith was slowly and tentatively maybe growing fond of. He couldn't let himself do that. Shiro asked if he'd like the company on the way and Keith had declined the offer.

Lance hadn't asked at all.

"What are you doing?" Keith said as, heading towards the train station from Hunk's house, Lance fell into his usual springing step alongside him.

Lance flashed him a grin, his usual wide, cheek-splitting grin that Keith had been afflicted by so much over the past few days that it was almost customary to see him wearing it. No matter how many times he saw it, however, Keith could never quite look away. Lance looked natural smiling, and it morphed his entire face into something spectacular. His eyes sparkled and his dimple flashed and though it shouldn't have been possible, the simple act of his toothy grin appearing was entirely captivating. Keith had never seen someone smile like that before.

"I'm coming with you," Lance replied easily.

Keith paused in step in the middle of the sidewalk. He stared at Lance because he could only stare. "What?"

"Me. Coming. With you." Lance raised his hand and made a frankly indecipherable series of gestures in the direction they were headed. On the busy path where they were, rapidly flooding with people even before they'd left Hunk's street, he nearly whacked two passers-by with his gesticulations.

Keith blinked. "No you're not."

If possible, Lance's grin widened further. "Actually, I am."

"You're not coming with me."

"Don't tell me what I can't do, Red."

"Why do you call me that?" It was perhaps the thousandth time Keith had asked, and despite his confusion he was almost used to the name being used after days in Lance's company. Lance had been by Hunk's every afternoon after school, even when he'd gone to his father's barbershop, and he always stayed until later than he should have.

Lance shrugged. "It's a nickname."

"I'm not that stupid. I know what it is."

"Then don't ask stupid questions. And don't deflect from the conversation. I'm coming with you."

Shaking his head, Keith edged backwards slightly to allow another pedestrian to pass between them. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would you do that? I don't need an escort, Lance."

Lance pursed his lips, propping his hands on his hips. "I didn't say you did, but I'm serious about what I said at Shiro's, Keith. You're not just going to up and disappear again. We're friends, right?"

Keith stared at him for a long moment once more. Friends. Friends was… Keith didn't have friends. He didn't really need them and regardless of how Lance and Shiro and Pidge and Hunk thought of him, it was easier if he didn't. But Voltron had always been different. Keith had never quite understood what had possessed him to sign up to the chatroom in the first place but it was the same reason he kept returning over and over again, even after fleeing from prying questions. It was why he kept his phone on hand when he was at school, why he stayed up to all hours talking to the faceless correspondents Sharpshooter and BlackLion.

Maybe it was because it was safe to talk to those he would never meet in reality. But then how did it explain that, even when he'd met them, Keith didn't feel quite so inclined to disregard them and 'disappear' as Lance had termed it? He'd never had people that he wanted to be around before. Not really. Not besides Tomas, but Tomas was…

Shaking his head, Keith turned and started at a stride along with the flow of pedestrian traffic once more. "Whatever. Do what you want."

"Really?" Lance actually sounded surprised as he picked up his own feet and trotted alongside him. "You're not going to, I don't know, order me to go away or something."

Keith glanced towards him sidelong. Lance's smile had faded slightly to be replaced by raised eyebrows and a wide-eyed blinking. He scooted in a crab-like step to watch Keith as they walked. "You sound very confident for someone who thought I was going to tell them to go away."

Lance's grin returned in full with his words. "Well, confidence is half the battle, you know. Act confident and everyone just assumes you're entitled."

"So it's all an act, then?"

"For me? No. No it's not."

"You're not making any sense. You just said that –"

"I meant for other people," Lance emphasised. "I'm different."

"Of course you are," Keith muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, but now I definitely want to know. What was it? Hm? Hm?"

Lance's company certainly made the trip back to the Tulson's house more interesting. He morphed what Keith would otherwise have experienced as a journey of introverted silence into a bubble of noise and enthusiasm. How he remained so incessantly enthusiastic about absolutely everything Keith didn't think he'd ever know, but he managed long after Keith had ceased contributing equally to the conversation and seemed content to monologue about whatever crossed the surface of his thoughts. Strangely enough, as strange as it was to have a constant conversationalist at his side, Keith couldn't find that he hated it. It was almost like having Sharpshooter buzzing his phone with activity every other second. Different, but almost the same.

Keith hadn't expected Lance to accompany him the entire way to the Tulson's house. He certainly hadn't expected him to step up alongside him as Keith approached the front door to let himself in. More than that, Keith wasn't prepared for Lance introducing himself to the family that Keith himself had as little to do with as possible.

Sara was there. So was Clyde, and Olly, and they all flowed into the entry as Keith slipped silently into the house followed by a not at all silent Lance. Sara almost stumbled as she hastened from the dining room into the entry, blinking in surprise and apparently rendered mute.

"But it doesn't even matter, am I right?" Lance was saying about something or other that Keith hardly attended to. "I mean, if she wanted to go so badly I didn't care if she came along – oh." Lance cut himself off as he was suddenly made aware of his audience. He glanced briefly towards Keith as though seeking instruction before turning back to Sara. "Hello. Sorry to intrude. I hope you don't mind. I'm Keith's friend."

Sara had never been a loud person. She'd never been pushy or sought to intrude upon Keith's withdrawal. As Keith kept to himself, she generally let him, with only a feeble attempt at conversation every now and again, offering a tentative hand just as rarely that she quickly dropped when it wasn't grasped. When Sara glanced between Lance and Keith, however, it was apparent that she wouldn't let the situation lie unremarked upon. "Keith's… friend?"

Keith knew where Sara's confusion arose for he'd never before even mentioned a friend, let alone been seen with one. Taking one to the Tulson's house was unthinkable. Lance didn't know that, however, and nodding he made to continue speaking. Keith barely spared him a moment of his attention, however. He saw the instant Sara noticed the bruise that still coloured his face, her hand flying to her mouth. "Oh, Keith. What happened to you?"

Whatever Lance had been going to say was silenced by her words. He turned slowly towards Keith, glanced back to Sara, then whispered, "I thought you said you called them."

"I did," Keith said and, in an attempt at casualness, crouched to remove his boots. The Tulson's had always had a habit of removing their shoes at the front door. It was one that not all of his foster families had, but Keith was used to adapting himself.

"You didn't tell them about the… the…" Keith glanced up towards Lance in time to see him gesture at his own face before making another series of gestures as indecipherable as always that Keith assumed was meant to refer to the rest of his injuries.

Shrugging, Keith dropped his gaze. "No. It wasn't necessary."

"It wasn't necessary?"

"No." For it wasn't. Why would the Tulson's need to know about what had happened? Clyde would likely be satisfied for the fact, Olly wouldn't understand enough to care, and Sara and Peter would worry because he was their responsibility. Why did he have to tell them anything?

"Keith, are you alright?" Sara said, shuffling forwards a step. Her hand was still raised to her mouth.

Keith rose to standing once more. He very deliberately didn't reach towards the bruise he knew still darkened his cheek. It didn't really hurt all that much anymore and likely looked worse than it was. Most of his injuries were the same, his sprains on the mend, ribs healed enough that it no longer hurt should he cough, and the cuts on his belly all but wholly sealed closed. Of course they were, for Shiro likely wouldn't have let Keith leave Hunk's house if they weren't.

It should have annoyed him that Shiro was so demanding. It should have annoyed him that all of his friends were pushy in their concern. It should have… but somehow it didn't. Not really. Not at all. And that was strange.

Nodding in reply to Sara's words, Keith kept his expression blank. "I'm fine."

"What… will you tell me what happened?"

Lifting a shoulder in a shrug, Keith edged slightly towards the stairwell. The room allocated to him in the Tulson's house had never felt like his, but it was the most 'his' place in the entire house. Keith didn't want to talk to the Tulson's. He didn't want to remain in Clyde's unblinking and a little bit shocked sights or before Olly's open-mouthed staring. "It doesn't really matter."

"Keith…"

"Mrs Tulson, is it?" Lance abruptly broke into the awkward exchange, stepping towards Sara with a hand outstretched. "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm Lance. And you don't have to worry about Keith; he just had a, um... a fall! Yeah, he just fell over a bit and tripped right onto his face. But he's alright now."

No one with half a brain would have possibly believed Lance's feeble explanation – a fall that ended with a shiner and nearly a week of absence? Unlikely – but Sara didn't comment. She simply blinked up at Lance, hesitantly took his hand and, after darting a glance towards Keith, she nodded. "I see. It's nice to meet you, Lance."

Lance smiled his usual disarming smile, for all appearances entirely comfortable with the situation. Maybe he really was. "My pleasure. I can't say I've heard a whole heap about you – Keith doesn't really talk all that much about himself, you probably know – but he's one of my best friends so I guess it's probably a good thing that we met." Then he laughed easily, as though to say such a thing was the most natural thing in the world.

As he descended into what was a progressively easier introduction with Sara, even introducing himself to Clyde and Olly who seemed nothing if not warily reluctant to meet him, Keith could only stand at the base of the stairwell and stare at him. Not because Lance was befriending the Tulsons, for he didn't care unduly for that. No, it was because of what he'd said. That Keith was… that he was…

He hardly even knows me. How could he say that we're best friends?

And yet he had. Just like that, Lance neatly inserted himself into Keith's life and what he shared however distantly with the Tulsons. And after that first day, it became something of a common for Lance to come over to the Tulson's house of an afternoon and simply spend time with him. Keith didn't know why. He didn't really understand what Lance wanted. And yet, in spite of that, he didn't mind.

There were few things that Keith truly recognised he liked. He had always been fond of the colour Red; it reminded him of his mother and her own favourite colour, was one of the few things he still recalled of her. He liked the necklace he always wore that was just about the only thing he still had of his parents. He liked swords and sword-fighting and had always vaguely wanted to try it himself for reasons even he couldn't fathom. He liked the simple act of scrolling through newsfeeds and websites too, absorbing information of any variety that piqued his interest. Just as much as that, he liked his privacy.

Paradoxically enough, however, Keith discovered that he quite liked Lance's company. The rest of the paladins – Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, the Princess who was the only one he hadn't met – were all the same. He liked being with them and talking in a way that he hadn't had with anyone in years, if ever. Keith didn't know why, but he did. They met on a frequent basis, as a pair or a group, and most often at Shiro's apartment or Hunk's house. It was… comfortable. Easy, even, just as Pidge had once called it, and even more so after the demands for Keith to look after himself and take it easy had gradually died. Keith found he liked their company even more when he wasn't the centre of their attention.

Lance, however, was different again. Keith couldn't quite fathom – at least initially – why he felt the urge to actually want to spend time with him. He would walk home with Lance sometimes, despite Lance living more than an hour and half a city away. They would spend at least part of the weekend together, and when they weren't Keith would always find himself exchanging messages every other second. Not through Voltron so much anymore, but simply messaging.

Keith had grown accustomed to speaking to Lance almost every hour of the day, and Lance always had something to say. Even when he was at home with his family, because Keith knew he always felt guilty spending time away from them, or when he was at his father's barbershop and supposedly working, Keith received messages from him. Almost constantly at times.

It didn't take him long to realise why. He wasn't an idiot and rational thinking was something that he was actually good at. And Keith rationalised that he liked Lance. That he really liked him, and in a different way to how he liked the rest of the paladins.

It was strange, because Keith didn't like people. He didn't really like anyone, and understanding that the paladins of Voltron were an exception was unhinging as it was. To realise that he liked Lance in another way entirely… Keith hadn't really liked anyone like that before. No one besides Tomas. He didn't think he would, either, because that wasn't right. It was dangerous to like in that way an made him vulnerable.

But rationalising, understanding, perceiving – Keith knew he wasn't an idiot and that was what it was. Maybe it was wrong of him to think in such a way, but it was. It definitely was.

Why Lance was the exception – why anyone from Voltron was the exception – Keith didn't know. Maybe it was because they'd slowly but surely edged into his everyday life and he'd come to know them before he knew them. Maybe it was for who they were, because none, with no exception, were anything but incredible people. Even in their workaday lives, even in their struggles, Keith could see they were incredible. They were special. Maybe that was why; Keith simply felt drawn to being a part of what they were.

Keith had never been a part of anything before. Ever. Memory of Lance's words on his first day in Hunk's house rose to the forefront of his mind often after he'd met the paladins and begun to realise just how much he liked them. Lance had said that forced company wasn't wrong if the receiving party wanted that company in turn.

Did Keith want it? He hadn't thought he did but… maybe. Maybe he really, really did.

Strange. So much had happened since entering Voltron that was strange.

It was with that revelation that Keith fully came to accept that Lance in particular was rapidly becoming a permanent fixture in his life. He grew to know him, to familiarise himself with his quirks and grow accustomed to the babbling sound of his voice. To perhaps even understand him in a way that Keith had never taking the time to understand anyone else before. It was for that reason, that reason in particular, that he finally decided to take a step in Lance's direction for himself.

Waiting at the train station as was usual for him, Keith leaned distractedly on the glass window of the bus shelter that had become his and Lance's usual meeting point for the past weeks. Around him, the roiling noise of passing traffic, the gaggle of students waiting for their buses, the occasional outburst of laughter, resounded almost deafeningly.

Keith had never been fond of overwhelming noise and he never much liked the thickness of the city at five o'clock in the afternoon. Still, he made the exception because Lance had asked him to. When Keith thought about it, he considered that maybe there was something a little wrong with him for doing that, so he didn't consider it.

He was flicking and barely seeing the site he scrolled through – something about the late Joseon Dynasty in Korea dotted with a plethora of interesting if admittedly grainy black and white pictures – when he felt Lance appear at his side. Felt almost more than saw, even, though hearing was the most obvious distinguisher for his arrival.

"Red! Sorry, I kind of got caught talking to Henry when he dropped all his crap on the ground and I swear, he was taking forever to pick it up because you know he carries folders too and, like, three pencil cases? So," with a huff, Lance paused at Keith's side and adopted his usual wide grin as a token of greeting. "Hi."

Keith lowered his phone, raising his gaze to blink up at Lance. He shrugged as he shoved his phone into his pocket and folded his arms. "I don't mind. I wasn't exactly waiting a long time."

"Were you bored?"

"Bored? Lance, it was all of ten minutes."

"It's alright, you're allowed to admit you miss me." Slinging an arm around Keith's shoulders, Lance smirked. "Sorry to make you wait but you can't rush perfection."

Keith shook his head as they started in the general direction of the wherever Lance had chosen. It was always like that; Keith didn't spend enough time simply wandering the city to know any places to go to simply 'hang out', so he led Lance lead him. He hadn't always been comfortable with Lance all but throwing himself on him, the casual gestures of an arm around his neck or a hand on the wrist, but it was something instinctive enough for Lance that he was forced to either live with it or keep a full three feet between them at all times.

Keith didn't do that. He wouldn't. Besides, strange and unfamiliar as it was, he'd come to quite like the warm weight of Lance's arm across his shoulders. Contrary to his personal beliefs, Lance wasn't truly all that much taller than Keith if he was taller at all, but the slight awkwardness of their positioning didn't make it uncomfortable. Not in Keith's opinion, anyway.

Besides… Keith quite liked it when it was Lance. It felt nice to be close to him in a way that Keith hadn't ever experienced before. Unfamiliar, foreign even, but… nice.

"There, you should do that more often," Lance said, breaking into his thoughts and away from whatever he'd been chattering about but seconds before.

Keith didn't even sure what he'd been saying. He glanced at Lance sidelong. "Do what?"

"Smile." As responding contagiously, Lance grinned himself. "You've got a really nice smile. Drag all the ladies' attention, I'd bet. You should definitely do it more often."

Keith shook his head. He'd been all but forced to accept such comments from Lance as well, even though they'd made him uncomfortable. Initially, anyway. "Is this your attempt at a compliment?" He asked.

"It's not an attempt, man. That's what I'm doing. No shame."

"You wouldn't have any."

"There's nothing wrong with complimenting a pretty face," Lance said, reaching up with a smirk to poke Keith's cheek.

Keith rolled his eyes. "You don't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"I'm not compliment-starved, Lance. You don't have to tell me I'm pretty every other second."

Lance's smirk only grew more pronounced. "Who says I'm complimenting for your sake? It's called flirting, Keith. Surely you've heard of it before."

Keith rolled his eyes once more. Once, such a comment would have confused him. He would have been disconcerted to have anyone compliment him, let alone openly admit they were flirting. But Lance was different. It never really seemed genuine with him, especially given that he did just such a thing with almost everyone. Keith tried not to let that bother him too much, even if it was a little disheartening to see after he'd reached the conclusion that he maybe, just a little, liked Lance. Maybe Lance was simply teasing him because he'd realised, but that didn't make the situation feel any better. Keith had never felt such a thing before, but it didn't feel particularly good.

So Keith simply ignored it. Or at least he tried to.

"Are you going to your father's shop today?" He asked instead as they wove their way past the bus shelters and onto the strip of sidewalk peppered with students, businessmen and women ,and the occasional non-working adult. "You didn't go yesterday either."

Lance shrugged, an awkward motion considering he didn't drop his arm from Keith's shoulders. "No, not today. Tomorrow I'm going to spend the whole afternoon there."

"Oh. Okay."

"You can come with me," Lance suggested. "I don't know why you avoid my offer so persistently. It's a nice shop, if I do say so myself."

Keith knew why. Of course he knew why, and it had very little to do with the shop itself. The thought of meeting Lance's father, someone important to him that he would have to make a good impression with as Lance's 'friend', terrified Keith just a little. It wasn't only because he'd realised he liked Lance, either. He was fairly sure he'd be just as nervous if Shiro had asked him to meet his father.

Which he wouldn't. Shiro's situation with his father was sensitive to say the least.

"It's not that," Keith muttered.

"I know, I know," Lance said with a dramatic sigh. "But I swear, I'll do a good job of it. I'm not bad, really. Actually kind of a professional."

"You're not qualified enough to call yourself a professional barber," Keith reasoned. "And no, I don't want you cutting my hair."

"Why not?" Lance asked, reaching his hand up to tug at Keith's fringe. He had something of a fixation with hair, Keith had noticed, and he didn't think it was just because he worked at cutting it. He was always fiddling with Keith's hair. It was kind of weird. "I won't cut it all off."

"I happen to like it just how it is at the moment."

"Not that long hair doesn't suit you, because I don't think many people could pull it off quite like you do, but there's this thing called styling." Lance raised a pointed eyebrow at Keith that slipped into a smirk when Keith regarded him sidelong. "Have you ever heard of it?"

Biting back the smile that had been increasingly afflicting Keith in recent weeks, he shrugged beneath Lance's arm. Lance might just be throwing away an offhanded compliment that didn't mean anything, might even be teasing Keith with his casual flirting, but it was nice to hear all the same. "I might have just."

"Oh, hallelujah, we have a miracle!" Lance cried and actually broke out into laughter.

Keith snorted but he didn't protest. He liked it when Lance laughed, too. His brightness always seemed to redouble when he did.

It was cool that day, the afternoon chill of encroaching November creeping upon them as the temperature dropped below fifty degrees. Keith was almost appreciative of the persistent weight of Lance's arm; his own jacket was warm enough but he wouldn't complain about the extra warmth provided.

They found themselves at a café they'd frequented before, one which Lance claimed made "the best cappuccinos in all of New York". Keith didn't particularly like coffee himself, but he appreciated the warmth that swept over him as they stepped through the door. Blessed heat flooded him with every inhalation.

The café itself was buzzing with murmurs of conversation and clustered with people, which wasn't exactly ideal for Keith, but he'd grown used to it over the past few weeks. It was impossible not to know Lance, to befriend him of a sort, without being surrounded by people most of the time. Regardless of whether Keith chose to be around Lance, he was more often than not shadowing Keith and where Lance went noise and people followed.

"What do you want?" Keith asked as they fell into line behind half a dozen others gradually easing from their cold-induced tension and hunched shoulders.

Lance glanced towards him and scrunched his nose in that way that was growing almost ridiculously familiar to Keith. Maybe he really was spending too much time with Lance. Though it was mostly not of his own intention, it was happening regardless. "I can get my own coffee, Keith."

"I know you can," Keith said, already pulling out his wallet as they shuffled forwards in the stunted queue. He stepped sideways slightly until he brushed into Lance to avoid the press of a passing body. "What do you want? Or should I even ask? It's always the same."

Lance opened his mouth to reply but paused and pressed his lips together a moment later. Keith knew why. He knew enough about Lance's situation from their past weeks together to understand where the controversy lay. Lance's family wasn't well off. More than that, they were struggling for every dollar, and despite anything Lance might wish to – and did – do, they didn't seem on the verge of climbing out of that struggle any time shortly. Keith never mentioned it, even if he wasn't blind enough to overlook something so obvious. It would be crude to do so, and Lance wouldn't appreciate pity. He likely wouldn't even appreciate sympathy.

He wouldn't appreciate Keith so flatly refusing to let him buy something as simple as a coffee either, but then Keith didn't have to tell him why he was doing it. There was no harm in simply accepting a favour.

"Are you making fun of me?" Lance finally asked as they shuffled forwards another step.

"No," Keith said.

"So you're not making any untoward insinuations?"

"No."

A pause, and then Lance was frowning slightly as he said, "Is that sarcasm?"

Keith blinked. "No. Why?"

Sighing, Lance shook his head. "Sometimes I feel like I'll never be able to pick it with you." He didn't protest further when Keith ordered their coffee, however, only thanking him when he did.

They stood to the side in wait alongside their similar clients and fell to idle conversation. Or, more correctly, Lance talked and Keith contributed when he felt it was necessary to reply. Unlike Lance, Keith didn't always feel the need to comment at every possible opportunity. Maybe it was a habit maintained from his years of voicelessness. Lance, on the other hand, had something of a habit of talking. A lot. About anything. He seemed to have an opinion on every subject under the sun.

When their number was called, Lance was the one that jumped forwards and started across the room towards the girl that slid a pair of paper cups towards them. Naturally, despite the girl being in a visible hurry, Lance caught her in a moment of conversation, bright smile spread and tone audibly joking from a distance. Even if his words were muffled, Keith knew from his casual, slouching stance that he was flirting. In an instant, he had the girl laughing, shaking her head with a mirroring grin plastered on her face.

She was pretty, Keith thought. Unfortunately.

Lance was at his side in an instant, sparing a glance over his shoulder for the girl before they started from the café and into the cooling evening. He handed Keith his coffee wordlessly as they started down the street, weaving through pedestrians.

Lance talked. He always talked and seemed unable to hold his tongue sometimes. Or at least that was how Keith saw it. But this time Keith wasn't quite so inclined to reply. He was confused, as he so often was when he saw Lance like that. The girl had been pretty, and he wasn't so oblivious as to think that Lance wasn't flirting with her wit just a little sincerity. Lance flirted with just about everyone, after all. It was simply what he did.

Still, it didn't feel any better to watch for knowing what it was that he was doing. Not at all.

"… can definitely score as a leftie as well, but he doesn't think he's got the talent, and you're not even listening to me, are you?"

Catching the tail end of Lance's words, Keith glanced up from where he'd been unconsciously frowning at the sidewalk before him. "What?"

"You weren't. You really weren't. And about something that's so important to me." Lance shook his head with false solemnity. "Keith, I'm hurt. Truly hurt."

"What were you talking about?" Keith asked.

"Nope, the moment's gone." Pausing as they divided around a young family with a stroller trundling between them, Lance fell back into step at Keith's side. "What's got you bummed, Red?"

Red. How often in a day Lance called him such Keith couldn't even count. He didn't know why and hadn't particularly liked having the nickname used in real life at first, but like everything with Lance it had somehow grown upon him. How, he didn't know, but maybe Lance was right. Maybe persistence really did pay off. Maybe Lance was onto something.

Shaking his head, Keith took a deliberate sip of his coffee. "Nothing."

"It's not nothing. You weren't listening to me and you were frowning."

"And not listening to you is a crime now, is it?"

"You were frowning, too."

Keith glanced back towards him. It was hard not to look at Lance most of the time. He was bright. He was so expressive it was like a screenplay danced across his face every second he spoke. His smile was infectiously good-humoured and there was simply something about the way he looked at Keith that made it impossible at time to turn away from him. Keith had thought at first, perhaps a little foolishly when he'd first realised he liked Lance, that it had been something. He hadn't wanted anything, not with anyone, not after what had happened with Tomas six years ago. He'd all but sworn not to get close to anyone, but Lance made it very hard to cling to that commitment.

Why Lance was the exception, Keith didn't know. Maybe it was simply because he refused to be anything other than exceptional.

"It's nothing," he repeated, but with little hope in bypassing the conversation this time.

Predictably, Lance hummed his discontent and nudged Keith with an elbow. "Why don't we just skip all this dancing crap and have you tell me, yeah? You know you're going to."

"I don't think so."

"You are."

"You're very confident in yourself."

"I'm always confident. It's a gift."

"A gift of stupidity, maybe."

"Keith. Please tell me."

The way he said it… it was impossible not to reply. Keith wasn't used to opening up to people, but Lance forbade Keith's 'dancing crap' that he so called. Keith wasn't aware of any dancing on his part but apparently his unconscious inclination to deflect was a well-practiced work of art.

"It's just…" Keith detachedly bit his lower lip, frown deepening. His gaze dropped to the sidewalk as they continued into the slowly darkening evening. "You were flirting with that girl."

Lance was silent for so long that Keith couldn't help but glance towards him. When he did, it was to see his eyebrows raised so high they nearly disappeared into his hairline and his mouth fallen open slightly. "What?" He asked dumbly.

"Weren't you?" Keith asked

"I… what?" Lance seemed to struggle for perhaps the first time in his life to produce words. "What are you talking about?"

"You were, weren't you?" Keith repeated. He felt something like annoyance welling within him, unexpected and unappreciated, and didn't know how to get rid of it. He didn't even know where it came from. Keith wasn't quite sure how he knew he liked Lance, or that it was in a way that was different to the friendship he had with Shiro or any of the rest of the paladins. He'd never had much to do with either kind of liking, had never wanted much to do with either, but this… Lance was different. Keith had always had difficulty with hiding when he disliked something. This was just another thing.

Lance visibly swallowed, eyes blinking rapidly. "I guess. But I flirt with everyone. So what?"

Keith turned his gaze back to his coffee cup and slowly shook his head. He kept his mind focused on the deliberate act of stepping one foot after the other. "I don't know."

"Keith? What is it? Is it embarrassing you? Because if it is, I'm sorry, man, but it's in my genes and I can't not –"

"I guess jealousy probably wouldn't be the right word, but it kind of feels like that."

Keith spoke more to himself than to Lance but Lance's words stuttered to a halt nonetheless. When he managed to continue, his voice was choked. "W-what did you say?"

Keith glanced at him sidelong again and was surprised to see him absented. Pausing in step, Keith turned to find him stopped in the middle of the sidewalk a few feet behind him. "What?"

"You just – how could you just -?" Lance's mouth was hanging open again. "How can you say something like that so bluntly?"

"Like what?"

"Like that?" Lance said, waving a hand at Keith in an entirely inexplicable gesture.

Keith frowned. He wasn't entirely sure what Lance was talking about but… "Aren't you the one that flirts with everyone?"

"That's different to just saying something like what you did."

"What did I just say that's so weird?"

"That you were jealous!"

Lance's words were an exclamation, almost indignant, and several passers-by glanced briefly towards him. Keith didn't care. He found himself growing only more confused. "I said it probably wasn't jealousy. Probably closer to envy, actually."

"Envy?"

"I mean, I don't have a right to be jealous because it's not like we're dating or anything."

Lance was staring at him as though he'd just spouted that aliens existed and one was most likely his parent. Keith was surprised that he hadn't dropped his coffee for the laxness of his fingers. Pedestrians flowed around them, all but ignored, and the chill of the surrounding wind had settled upon Keith by the time Lance finally continued. It wasn't in the manner Keith had anticipated, either. "Keith, do you like me?"

Keith frowned again. What kind of a question was that? If something that was so foreign to Keith was so obvious even to him, surely Lance would have noticed too. If he really didn't like Lance, he wouldn't have kept speaking to him in the first place.

Acknowledging what was disliked was one thing, but what he liked? To do so would invoke that horrible vulnerability and Keith didn't like doing that. Just like he wouldn't have let Lance stick around and force his company upon him no matter how hard he tried if he didn't want it at least a little bit. Keith's own words of weeks before, in Hunk's little kitchen and in the midst of idle conversation, resounded once more. About forced company. About it sometimes, just sometimes, being okay.

Keith had never wanted company before and yet with Lance… he didn't not want it. He didn't not want it at all.

"Of course I like you," he finally said.

"No, but – I mean like me," Lance said, taking a slight, shuffling step towards Keith. "I mean as more than a friend."

Keith blinked, nodding slowly. So he realised it to? How wasn't it obvious to him? Surely he'd noticed that Keith thought of him differently to how he did other people. Surely it was obvious. Wasn't it? "Yes? I thought you knew that."

Lance shook his head just as slowly as Keith had nodded. "No. I really didn't."

"I thought you knew and were just teasing me when you flirted with me."

"You realised I was actually flirting with you?" Lance asked. He was so dumbfounded that even Keith recognised it. "I thought you were oblivious."

Keith folded his arms indignantly, a geture somewhat inhibited by his coffee cup. "I'm not that clueless. You're pretty obvious. But – you mean you seriously didn't realise I liked you? I thought that was obvious."

"Well, it wasn't."

"I thought it was a little uncharacteristically cruel of you to flirt with other people too if you knew, but…" Keith trailed off. Now he was even more confused. Was Lance the oblivious one? "You don't like me the same way, do you, Lance?"

Lance stared at him for a long pause, frozen in the middle of the sidewalk. It was so long that Keith actually felt himself grow uncomfortable with the silence, which was so unexpected and unfamiliar to him that he almost didn't recognise his discomfort for what it was.

Then a smile stretched long and wide across Lance's face and despite his unfamiliar unease Keith felt himself ease just a little. Lance shook his head. "Look, I didn't know that, but if you do…" Crossing the distance between them, Lance reached for Keith and, before Keith knew quite what was happening, Lance grasped his free in his own. "I think this might just be the best day of my life."

Keith didn't know what Lance meant by that. Not really. He could guess, though that guess seemed a little far-reaching. Except that Lance curled his fingers around his own and, as strangely unfamiliar as it was, as so many things were with Lance, Keith couldn't draw his hand away. It felt different to how he usually poked at Keith, to how he slung his arm around his shoulders or even how he plucked at his hair every so often. It felt different in a good way.

And when Lance grinned at him more widely than he'd ever beheld and dragged him down the street after him at a rapid step, Keith couldn't quite help but smile back. Just for a moment, everything felt right. It probably wouldn't last long because Keith knew nothing really did, but… just for a moment

A word from the moderator:

Greetings, members of Voltron. I would like to speak a word of thanks to each and every person who has participated in this program – you have made it possible to rise from the ground where it once lay.

However, due to recent complaints of invasions of privacy and the abuse of the regionalisation of members into specific chatrooms, we the moderators have reached the regretful decision that Voltron must shut down. Action to proceed with this decision will occur one week hence from the delivery of this message.

We apologise for any distress or anger this may cause, but given the repeated incidences of this program and the reports that have been received of a concerning nature, we the moderators have decided that such dissolution of Voltron is the most appropriate action to take.

We appreciate the time invested for your participation and regret that we were forced to resort to such measures. It has been a pleasure affiliating with you all.

With regrets,

Goodbye.