"Found you!" Lance startled Keith out of his thoughts.
After getting bored in his room, Keith had taken to wandering about the ship hours ago, avoiding all the common areas he might find one of the others lurking and sticking to the smaller hallways with lights that were rarely turned on. His feet had brought him to the observation deck, a room devoid of anything but a huge window that bubbled in place of the outer wall. It was so large he couldn't take in all the pinpricks of light at once. It was perfect.
He had lay there picking points in the sky and imagining what it might be like to be there. Take the brightest blue light at the far right of the window. Blue stars tended to be giants with hardly any metals, which in this case just means any elements other than hydrogen and helium. If a star like that has any planets around it, they're more than likely all gas giants. They had never been to any gas giants before, they just pass them by. He wondered if that was because nothing could live in that type of atmosphere with such high gravity or if life there was just so different it was pointless to try interacting with them. He imagined enormous, hulking creatures, not quite like ocean creatures, not quite like birds, swimming through thick, billowing clouds. Maybe the storms would be too loud, so they'd find another way to communicate with each other. They could be bio-luminescent, able to produce light at a wavelength that can pierce through layers of tan and yellow gases.
He and Shiro used to play this game all the time back before Shiro left for his first mission. He never failed to impress Keith with new space trivia, and Keith learned even if he didn't share interest in the same way. Shiro always made space into a place of pure wonder and awe.
So, Keith was just a bit perturbed when Lance barged in and interrupted his sentimentality. "I thought Hunk had you restrained," he commented.
"Unfortunately for you, I escaped Hunk hours ago!"
"Coran wants all of us to stay separated," he reminded, not bothering to move from his place basking in the center of his view of the heavens.
"Yeah, well I don't give a shit!" Lance yelled, looming over him with his fists on his hips.
Keith sat up and scooted around, cross-legged to face Lance. "Can we not do this right now?"
"Do what?!"
"This!" Keith gestured between the two of them. "You always do this!"
"Do what?!" Lance repeated.
Keith stood so that they were almost at eye level. "Whenever I think we're getting along, whenever I think we might actually be friends, whenever I start to fell happy, you have to pretend like nothing positive ever happened between us, or you have to get mad for no reason like today!"
"I— I haven't done something like that!" he blabbered.
"Oh really?" Keith raised an eyebrow in challenge. "'Cause I can make a list."
"No you can't—" Lance started to deny.
"Remember that time I saved Shiro but then you showed up and started arguing about who was saving him? I didn't even know who you were back then!"
"But—"
"That time after Sendak almost killed you. I was worried and then relieved that you were okay, but as soon as you were healed you pretended not to remember anything! You don't care about how I feel, you only care about maintaining this boundary between us that you invented!"
"I do care about how you feel—"
Keith interrupted again. "Or take anytime I've saved you or you've saved me in battle. No matter what, nothing really changes, no progress can be made, because you treat them like points on a score board!"
"You treat them that way too!" Lance protested.
"Only because that's the only thing you let me treat them as! Anytime I try to do anything else you find some way to ignore it or turn it into an argument or you just pick a fight with me! If you hate me, then why not just leave me alone? Wouldn't that be better for the both of us?"
Lance had the gall to looked shocked. "I— I don't hate you," Lance spoke like it was a confession.
After a track record like theirs, how was Keith supposed to believe him?
"Then why are you here doing our same routine all over again? You yell at me so that I'll yell at you! How else would we maintain the status quo?" he mocked.
"This isn't like those times!" Lance burst out.
"Really?" Keith crossed his arms in doubt. "Then what is this about?"
Lance's face went deadly serious and the furrow in his brow let Keith know that this was what he was pissed about. "What's going on between you and Allura?"
No way. Keith had enough foresight not to look outwardly shocked, he only blinked at Lance. Inside, it took him a while to reprocess what he thought he'd just heard. Turning it over in his head only led him to one conclusion. What the hell?
"Seriously?!" Keith shouted. "All of this is because you're jealous!"
"What?! I'm not jealous!" Lance looked confused for a split second but it was quickly covered with defensiveness.
"You like Allura, right?" Keith got straight to the point.
"Yes!" Lance answered so quickly that it made Keith suspicious. But everyone on the ship knew Lance liked Allura, so he dismissed the strange feeling without putting anymore thought into it.
"Well then, you've got nothing to be jealous of. Allura asked me to be her friend. Just friends." he emphasized. "Besides, I've never felt that way about anyone, so there's no need to get nervous."
"Wait!" Lance held up a hand to stop him. "You've never had a crush on anyone? Not in your entire life?"
Oh, why did Lance have to ask about that? Why did he always have to be so curious? Topics like this made Keith uncomfortable, let alone discussing them with Lance. But Keith hadn't told the whole truth and now that he was being asked directly... He hated lying.
"There... was a time when I thought I might be able to feel that way about someone, but in the end, I couldn't," he explained with caution.
Lance looked Keith up and down and eyed him like he was trying to figure Keith out. Keith really didn't want Lance to figure anything out. At all. Ever.
"Okay. Well, I've been trying to tell you, that's not what this is about." Keith felt instant relief and surprise when Lance dropped that so quickly. He had expected Lance to pester him for more details like he did when Pidge or Hunk wouldn't readily confess something to him.
"Has Allura apologized to you?" Lance continued with that same tight expression back on his face.
"What?" was all Keith could say.
"Has she apologized to you?" Lance repeated.
"For what?"
"For the way she treated you, obviously!" Lance burst with a fury and frustration that was venomous in nature. It made Keith recoil. He had a pretty good idea what Lance meant now, but this was not something he wanted to discuss with anyone.
Shying from Lance's blazing eyes, he turned away to stare at the blackest void swallowing up the stars. "You don't have to worry about that," he said softly, just barely above a whisper.
"Of course I do!" Lance refused to simmer.
"But she didn't do anything."
"Yes she did! As soon as she found out you were part Galra, she would hardly look at you! She acted like you weren't in the room and she'd talk directly to everyone but you unless it was absolutely necessary! You were a paladin the same as us, you were supposed to be her friend the same as us, but she treated you with suspicion and acted like you were a threat!" he revealed what Keith already knew they were truly talking about. But Keith had long since arrived at a conclusion on this topic.
"So what?" he asked. "I already told you, Allura and I are friends now. Real friends. So it doesn't matter what she did or didn't do before."
"Yes it does!" Lance argued back, trying hard to convince Keith. "You're letting her get away with it!"
"If this has been bothering you this whole time, why haven't you said anything before now?! Why get mad about it now after acting like everything was normal up to this point?!" Keith yelled at Lance's dim reflection in the window. He wasn't sure if Lance had noticed his gaze. He appeared to be looking at Keith's back and he seemed to finally fizzle out.
"I thought that if you didn't say anything, Shiro would. Shiro always took care of you especially, so I didn't think he'd let something like this go. I thought it wasn't my place to say anything, but now that Shiro isn't... here," he sounded way more gentle, "I can't let it go."
With that, Keith couldn't really be angry. Recently, it was hard for him to maintain anger for very long. He just felt... empty. He focused his eyes back on the darkness that reached and stretched and reached.
"Shiro never said anything," he began to admit. "And neither did I because... maybe Allura was right to be wary of me. Maybe this part of me that I can never seem to control is inherited. Maybe I'll never control it, can't control it."
There was a moment of silence and then, "What?!" Lance grabbed Keith by the shoulders and forced him to turn around to look at Lance. "You can't believe that's true! You of all people should know that isn't true! Remember Ulaz? He helped Shiro escape because he knew what the Empire was doing was wrong! When we met him you chose to trust him before most of us did and you were right! He sacrificed himself to save us! And Thace! He spent years undercover to give the rebellion information and he died just to give us the chance to defeat Zarkon! And Kolivan runs an entire organization of thousands of Galra dedicated to ending Zarkon's reign of oppression. The only reason he and Allura were able to forge an alliance was because of you!" Lance implored.
Keith had to look away, he cowered in shame at the earnestness in those dark blue eyes. It was too much for him.
"Lance, I'd willing die if it meant the rest of you would live. I'd die if it meant Shiro could be brought back to life. Maybe that's an inherited trait too."
"Keith!" Lance moved his hands from Keith's shoulders to his upper arms and squeezed them so hard it hurt. "No matter what, you can't sacrifice yourself! We'll always find another way, so don't even think about it!"
"But isn't that what we're supposed to do? As Voltron we're supposed to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the universe. Isn't it inevitable?" he argued back with no heart.
"No, it's not! You— we all matter! We can't forget about our own lives for the sake of everyone else's! Keith, we have a responsibility to stay alive so that we can keep fighting for peace. Every life is important for a rebellion. Our first mission is to stay alive, all other missions come second. We'll find a way, no matter what," he asserted.
It was in moments like this when Keith missed Shiro the most. If Shiro had said these words to him, then maybe he could believe them, whether they were really true or not. He wanted to believe Lance, but there was something in the way. Something that kept his blood from flowing properly, that kept the joy of life from chasing his veins and returning to his heart.
"I don't know..." he trailed off. He didn't even know how to finish what he wanted to say.
"Keith," Lance called again, grabbing his face to force him to look at Lance. "Just say that you'll find a way," he urged.
Keith looked from one eye to the other trying to understand if there was any hidden meaning. Lance wasn't always honest with him, so it could be hard to see what Lance really wanted. This time though, Keith was sure Lance was genuine.
"Fine." Lance won this time. Keith was hopeless to fight him now.
Lance squinted and studied Keith's face, probably trying to tell if Keith had just lied. Keith hated lying.
"Good," Lance gave a nod, taking Keith at his word. Lance released Keith's face and took a step back, giving them both some space. Lance looked like he wanted to say something more but he wasn't speaking.
"What?" Keith asked.
Lance still looked hesitant and opened his mouth a few times before starting. "I still say Allura needs to apologize to you."
Keith gave an annoyed sigh. "Why should she?"
"Because if you let her get away with it, she won't change!"
"She has changed! She asked me if we could be friends and I said yes because I'd actually like a friend for once!"
"She has not! You saw how she reacted to finding out the Galra have a Prince!" Lance completely ignored the last part of what Keith had said.
"Is it really that unreasonable for her to be cautious? She agreed to wait until we found out more information about him!"
"Aghhh!" Lance made an exasperated sound. "Why do you keep defending her?! She doesn't deserve it!"
"She didn't deserve what you and Pidge said to her! And yet she didn't say anything cruel back!"
"That's only because you kept stopping her!"
"Exactly! She listened to me!"
Lance stopped for a second making Keith thinking he had proven his point to him. A little less angry, a little more restrained, Lance tried again, "She makes exceptions for you and the Blade, but her actions prove she still hates all Galra broadly." Lance sighed a very weary sigh, like he was about to do something really difficult. "Please, Keith," he asked in a tight sort of way.
Keith didn't know how to respond. He couldn't remember if Lance had ever said please to him before. If he had, it wasn't anything like this. He couldn't figure out why this was so important to Lance. Why did it matter if it didn't affect Lance directly? Lance wasn't part Galra, he had nothing to worry about. It just didn't make sense.
"I'll think about it," Keith yielded as much as he could.
Lance didn't look quite satisfied but he seemed to conclude correctly that that was all he would get from Keith. He sighed again. "Fine."
There was a stretching silence between them. Lance looked like he felt awkward now that there wasn't something to fight about. If this moment truly were awkward, it was only so for Lance, Keith didn't care enough about what other people thought to feel awkward. Keith watched Lance fidget as he thought about asking him to leave. If they weren't going to keep talking, if Lance left he wouldn't have to feel awkward anymore.
"I don't hate you," Lance said suddenly.
Ah. "I know." Keith could tell that much by now. He was sure Lance meant what he had said. But there was still something he wondered. "Do you hate Allura?" he dared to ask.
"Of course, not," Lance answered easily and calmly. "I can like someone and not like everything they do," he explained.
Wow. Lance was a lot less black and white than Keith had thought. There was more to him, he was complex. Keith might not understand him still, but he gave Lance more credit in his own mind.
There was another silence but Lance looked less uncomfortable. He took in the view behind Keith while Keith continued to stare at him, analyzing and cataloging all of his features.
"Have you eaten anything?" Lance surprised Keith by asking.
"Not yet."
"Wanna go to the kitchen with me?"
Now Keith was doubly surprised. "You willing to bet Hunk's not gonna be there?"
"No, he probably will be," Lance looked to Keith with a grin. "If he is, we can take whatever he's cooking and run for it."
Keith blinked. "How is it that this kind of behavior makes you friends?"
Lance smirked. "You know nothing of social norms." He pointed to the door. "You coming?"
"Sure," Keith shrugged as he went on ahead of Lance.
Lance jogged to fall in step beside him. They had a long walk to the kitchen as it was almost directly opposite the observation deck and they silently agreed to listen for anyone else roaming about the Castle once they started getting closer to the main areas. After a while though, Keith noticed Lance starting to fidget with his fingers again. He was starting to figure out that that meant Lance either wanted to say something and didn't know how to say it, or that he wanted to say something but couldn't think of anything to say.
Still, Keith was so mesmerized by Lance's fingers tapping each other in turn, crossing each other, or separating and coming back together one at a time that he forgot Lance would probably actually say something.
"So, is red actually your favorite color?"
"What?"
"Well, I was thinking about how even though I'm the blue paladin, my favorite color isn't actually blue. You seem kind of like a red person, your jacket is red. But then I thought that could be just because you look good in red, which doesn't necessitate it being your favorite. I also thought you could like black since you have that whole lone wolf bad boy vibe going on."
Lance always managed to baffle Keith.
"I thought for sure your favorite would be blue," he said instead of answering Lance's question. "Aren't you always talking about how much you miss the ocean?"
Lance grinned and raised an eyebrow. "So you do listen to my conversations with Pidge and Hunk when we're all in the same room. I couldn't tell since you never say anything, you just lean against a wall."
"So?" Keith defended even though he wasn't sure he needed to.
"That means you know way more about me than I do about you."
"So what?"
"So, answer the question. Is your favorite color red?" Lance asked again.
"No."
"And?" Lance tried to get more from him.
"What's your favorite color if it isn't blue?" he dodged again.
Lance seemed a bit annoyed but took it in stride and demonstrated what he wanted from Keith like it was easy. "It's green. The Garrison is in the middle of a desert and I was used to having green plants everywhere all year round. My parents house is surround by green trees, green bushes, green grass, and for whatever reason, my mom insisted on painting the house green. When I think of green, I picture that house and I'm home. There's no where else in the entire universe with that house. That house means more to me than even the ocean." He looked to Keith with challenge in his eyes. "So? Color."
Keith decided to just go for it. "Brown."
Lance stopped in his tracks and stared at Keith with wide circles for eyes. "Are you color blind?"
"No!" Keith felt offended.
"Are you positive?" he asked dubiously.
"I also liked purple but... now I feel a little weird about that," Keith admitted.
"Purple... purple's nice. But why brown?"
"This is ridiculous!" Keith grumbled, taking off back down the hall.
"You're ridiculous!" Lance sounded all too amused, catching up to Keith. Then, "Hey, race you to the kitchen!"
"On!" Keith sprinted ahead, leaving Lance behind as quickly as he could.
Lance chased after him. "Wait! I didn't say go!" he called as he tried to catch up.
"Too late!" Keith laughed and oh, how long had it been since he had last laughed? It opened up his chest and he suddenly felt like he hadn't been breathing properly for months. What surprised him most though was when he heard an echoing laugh from Lance just at his heels.
As Lance caught his arm they neared the kitchen doors and Keith had to fight to keep Lance from pulling him back. Lance kept laughing and pulling and trying to trip him until they were stalled right in front of the doors in what was now and grappling match on the floor. Keith was enjoying every minute of it, to the point where he couldn't help the smile on his face. This was the type of thing he knew how to handle, less talk, more action. This was what helped him understand people.
Suddenly they were interrupted as Allura's voice came over the Castle's speakers. "Paladins! To the bridge! We're going after the Prince."
They looked at each other with serious expressions. Lance's face looked strangely grim, but when Keith met his eyes, he couldn't help feeling a little that way himself.
Never a moment's rest.
A/N: Sorry this chapter took me forever guys! I had been writing this chapter on my phone and I was almost finished when my phone glitched and deleted the chapter... It took me quite a while to rewrite it because I was a bit demoralized and then I actually moved. At least that's done now! But I actually think this chapter turned out better than it was the first time, which was my goal.
Also, Lance's birthday was yesterday on my side of the world, so happy birthday to Lance! This chapter kind of works for his birthday, Lance is a good guy.