The sand is warm against his back, still holding the day's heat even after the blazing glory of a binary star system sunset has faded from the sky leaving only far-distant stars overhead. The only sounds are the hush of gentle waves against the shore and the rustle of a subtle breeze as it passes through the nearby treetops.
A gentle touch against his cheek has him turning his head to face his companion, meeting the gently smiling gaze of Keith, regarding him with a thoughtful expression.
He feels a smile of his own stretch his cheeks in response. "What are you thinking about so intensely?"
A faint blush dusts the red paladin's cheeks and he ducks his head slightly as his smile widens. "How pretty your eyes look with the stars reflected in them."
He groans, dragging his hands down his suddenly burning face. "Quiznack, Keith, you can't just say things like that, oh my god…"
"Say things like what?" Keith's voice is a teasing purr and suddenly the other young man is rolling over on top of him, bracing his hands into the sand on either side of him and his chest warm and solid against his own as he straddles him. "Thing like how you're the most handsome man I've ever seen? Like how incredibly strong and brave you are, whether your opponent is an Empire commander or a laser crab-"
"Hey, now those things are vicious! Shiro needed bandaids and everything!"
"-or like how I want to kiss you senseless under the stars right now until you never, ever forget how much I love you?"
He falls silent, staring up at Keith with wide eyes. The other's eyes are black as ink in the dim light of the stars, not the milky way but some other galaxy an uncountable distance across the universe, gazing at him with that same burning passion that the red paladin turns towards everything that matters to him. His response dies unformed in his throat, and he reaches up to wrap his hands around the other, pale skin soft under his touch as he pulls him down. Chapped lips meet his as if laser guided, tasting of dry heat and salt and sand when he runs his tongue across them.
Keith kisses him until he sees stars that have no relation to the ones in the sky and they're both panting for air when he finally pulls back. The other male's hair hangs loose and dishevelled around his face and he looks thoroughly pleased with himself for having already wrecked him so completely.
He's given barely a moment to catch his breath, though, before Keith leans in once more, and he doesn't realize the red paladin's hand has moved until he's gasping into his boyfriend's mouth at the sudden firm contact. He groans, bucking as the touch continues and digging his nails into the firm muscles of Keith's back as he lets out a soft, pleading whine in the back of his throat.
Everything turns to heat and lightning on sensitive nerves after that, confident hands and rough mouth and fingers tangled in soft hair and Keith's eyes like black liquid fire burning into his soul just before his vision goes white, until they both collapse in a shuddering heap into sand gone cold under their warm bodies and fall asleep together under the stars.
Lance's eyes snapped open, his heart pounding in his chest as forcefully as it had been in the dream he'd been having.
It wasn't the first time he'd had an inappropriate dream about Keith, far from it. But this time the Keith in his dream had looked older, with longer hair and more scars scattered across his body. Which meant it hadn't been Keith in his dream at all, but Kurogane, and god if that wasn't the most embarrassing, horrifying thing he'd ever done in a life that had included a decent number of embarrassing, horrifying things, having a sex dream about his time-travelling older self's romantic life partner who was also an older version of the boy he himself was very much interested in.
Pushing himself upright and trying very, very hard to ignore the uncomfortable tightness in his pajama pants, Lance cast a quick look around. Alejandro and Kurogane were nowhere to be seen, although he could faintly hear fading footsteps in the hallway, and Keith was still sound asleep just like everyone else, thank god. He didn't know what he'd have done if any of them had been here and awake, there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to look any one of those three in the eye for weeks without spontaneously combusting.
Somehow managing to get to his feet without disturbing any of the others, he made a hasty escape in the direction of the living quarters. He needed a very long, very cold shower.
00000000
"I thought we agreed being a social recluse was my thing?" Pidge was pleased to see the blue paladin jump as she pulled herself up over the curve of Blue's shoulder and onto her back. He obviously hadn't been expecting anyone to try to intrude on his self-imposed solitude, especially not all the way up here, but hey, curiosity was one of her aspects and she didn't have a grappling hook for a bayard for nothing. "Because seriously, warn a girl before you steal her gig."
Lance huffed in annoyance, drawing his knees up to his chest. "I am not being a social recluse. I just didn't feel like being around people today."
"Mm, fair, I get that." She acknowledged, moving to sit beside him but still giving him space. "It's been pretty hectic lately, with all the missions and everything. I don't think anyone would blame you if you wanted to stay back at the Castle for a quiet day since we don't have anything planned."
"It's not that, actually. I've been doing pretty okay lately. I just...wanted to be alone for a bit."
She squinted at him. Were his cheeks red? "Did something happen between you and Keith? You've been hardcore avoiding him today."
"I have not!" Okay, that was a definite lie, and wow were this boy's cheeks on fire now at the mention of his crush. She was definitely onto something.
Pidge grinned mischievously and pushed her glasses up under her visor. "Totally have. You always sit next to him at breakfast, but this time you sat at the far end of the table and you wouldn't even look at him. Poor kid looked like you kicked his dog." Her description was rewarded by a flash of guilt across the older teen's features, although the darkening of his cheeks didn't lessen any.
"I am not avoiding Keith."
"Totally are. Have you even spoken to him at all today? Or did you just climb up here as soon as we switched ships?" Lance grumbled something in Spanish under his breath that probably would have gotten him a swat across the ear from his mother, but Pidge didn't even bat an eye. "Also, you bailed on breakfast so fast you didn't get to see Alejandro's giant-ass hickey when he and Kurogane finally showed up. Pretty sure he was walking funny, too, no wonder it took-are you okay?" She looked over in concern. Lance had gone so red he was nearly purple, and was making a very odd choking noise. She studied the blue paladin carefully, taking note of the way he seemed on the verge of spontaneously combusting. "...Did you walk in on them or something? Is that why you bolted when you heard them coming?"
"I did not walk in on them!" Lance shrieked, his voice oddly high-pitched and his face turning a fascinating variety of colours before he hid it in his knees with a small whining noise.
Pidge shot him a frankly disbelieving look. "Then why are you acting so weird today?! Obviously something happened this morning that you're all freaked out about."
There was a long pause before the blue paladin mumbled something very quietly into his knees.
The green paladin sighed, shifting closer to him. "What was that? I couldn't hear you."
"I said," Lance lifted his head once more, and she was surprised to see how genuinely unhappy he looked under the mortified blush, "I had a dream about Kurogane. An inappropriate one."
Pidge fixed her teammate with a deadpan stare. "Really? Is that all?"
The blue paladin spluttered, staring back at her with wide eyes. "What do you mean is that all?! I had a sex dream about Keith's future self who is very, very much committed to my future self! That's, like, beyond not cool, bro!"
She sighed, smacking her face into her palm exasperatedly. God save her from these hormonal boys. "Dude. It was a dream. You don't control what you dream about, Lance. Trust me. I mean, you think you and Alejandro and Kurogane and Shiro choose to have nightmares all the damn time? Hell no! Therefore you obviously didn't choose to have a sex dream either, much less who it was about. Ask Matt about Iverson in hot pants sometime, prime example." She laughed. "He has the best reaction when you bring it up."
"Um. Yeah. I'll pass." Lance looked a bit ill at the mental image. "Although I can see your point."
"Good. So get your head out of your ass and go talk to Keith." she ordered, pushing herself to her feet. Honestly, how had those two ever gotten together by the time they came back in time? She felt a pang of sympathy for her other self and having to deal with the endless amounts of pining Keith and Lance always seemed to be directing at each other. "Maybe take him somewhere nice as an apology, like the hydroponics deck or something. He always seems so fascinated when we go to worlds with lots of plants."
Without waiting for a response Pidge pulled out her bayard, launched it to hook around Blue's ear, and kicked off the Lion's shoulder, swinging in a wide circle as she lowered herself slowly toward the distant hangar floor. As she dropped, however, the green paladin was already turning the conversation over in her head.
First Lance had had a nightmare about the Weblum's Breath and the destruction of Earth, at least according to Hunk. Then he'd admitting to have dreamed about the fight with Haggar where she'd taken control of Shiro and used him to hurt Kurogane. Neither of these were totally unreasonable things for him to dream about, given how much those events been discussed. The amount of detail in the dreams he'd described, however, was enough to give her pause and make her wonder.
And now he'd apparently had a sex dream about Kurogane the same night his older self had admitted to dreaming about happier times for once when she'd been teasing him relentlessly about the love bites on his neck.
By the time her feet hit the hangar floor, Pidge was more convinced than ever that something strange was going on involving the two blue paladins, something they didn't even seem to be aware of themselves. Keith hadn't mentioned experiencing anything like this, but then Kurogane hadn't had an active Lion bond when he came back in time, nor had his Lion been the one used to come back. The two time-travellers were the only ones who knew anything about how the process worked, and that was practically nothing, so who knew what kind of weird side-effects there were? Was Alejandro experiencing any sort of strangeness too, or was Lance for some reason the only one affected?
Green purred as she went in search of the older man, intent on finding out more.
0000000
"You aren't subtle, Pidge!" Lance yelled after the green paladin's disappearing back. Huffing, he crossed his legs and slouched unhappily on Blue's back. He could feel his Lion's intense amusement at his embarrassment, as well as her approval of the younger's suggested course of action. "Neither are you, for that matter. Does everyone know I like Keith except Keith?" Her rumbling purr of laughter was accompanied by the mental impression that yes, they most definitely did, even before his older self showed up joined at the hip to Keith's future counterpart. "Oh, shut up."
Sighing, he stretched, twisting his joints this way and that until they cracked and popped. Pidge had made some good points about the dream he'd had at least. Yeah, it was embarrassing, but it wasn't his fault. And as long as the nosy brat kept her mouth shut, no one ever had to know. Her suggestion of taking Keith somewhere to spend time with him, under the guise of an apology, was also appealing. The red paladin wasn't the only one who'd disliked not sitting together at breakfast.
Rubbing thoughtfully at a scuff on his armor, he considered her idea. A hydroponics deck? Keith liked plants even if he didn't seem to know what to do with them after growing up in the desert. It'd be the next best thing to taking him to a botanical garden back on Earth, with the added bonus of alien plants. Who knew what kind of funky stuff they'd see?
As if sensing his intention even before it was fully formed, Blue crouched low to the deck, turning a huge drop into a manageable slide over her side. Laughing, Lance patted her shoulder. "Okay, okay, I'll find Keith and take him to look at the plants! Geez!" He could feel her purr through his armor as he slid carefully off, hitting the floor with a loud clang. "Can you at least give me a hint about where he is? Speed things up a little?" There was a pause, during which Blue purred aloud and Red growled back from the far end of the hangar, before he received an impression of a large open training deck filled with aliens of all shapes and sizes. "Right. Ask a stupid question. Wish me luck, beautiful!"
00000000
"Dammit, Blue, stop laughing! This isn't funny!"
Keith pretended to blow on his hands for warmth to hide the fact that he was actually using them to muffle his own laughter. The blue paladin didn't seem to know whether to throw up his hands in frustration or wrap them around himself for warmth as he shivered in the frigid air that seemed to cut right through their undersuits in a way that the vacuum of space never did.
"Blue, seriously, I'm freezing my underwear off in here! Just tell Yellow to tell Hunk we-Blue!" Lance sputtered indignantly, turning to face Keith with a highly offended expression. "She shut me out!"
That was the last straw as Keith doubled over laughing at the look on the other teen's face. He knew the situation was no laughing matter, but the other boy's dismayed expression was so comical he couldn't help himself. "I-I guess she thinks her paladin should be able to handle a little snow?" He wheezed as he tried to get himself under control.
Lance, whose cheeks seemed to be going pink even under the sealed visor of his helmet, huffed and turned away as he wrapped his arms tighter around himself. "Then she should have chosen a paladin who wasn't from quiznacking Cuba! Who even puts a freaking glacier inside a ship?!"
"Icebringers, apparently." Keith joked. The whole situation was rather ridiculous, he had to admit.
After the way Lance had steadfastly avoided him all morning and for a good chunk of the afternoon, Keith had been wracking his brain trying to think of what he'd done to push the other away. Had he crossed a line with something he'd said the night before? Been too clingy in his sleep again? Had the blue paladin figured out he liked him and been weirded out and uncomfortable? Eventually he'd made himself so worked up mentally that all he could do was try to distract himself with training, sparring anyone who was willing to go a round or two with him until exhaustion forced him to take a break.
As it turned out though, he'd been worried for nothing. Lance showed up in the middle of his third attempt to convince a muscular Altean that just because he wasn't on the other's list of approved sparring partners didn't mean they couldn't train together anyway. The blue paladin had pulled him aside and awkwardly apologized for being distant, saying that he'd had a lot on his mind that morning, and would he like to go check out the hydroponics deck with him to make up for it? Keith had to sternly remind himself that this wasn't an offer of a date, just hanging out as an apology, but that didn't stop him from eagerly accepting the offer.
The hydroponics deck was huge, separated into climate-controlled sections with motion-sensor airlocks between them. One section was arid, somewhere between Texas and Arizona in climate, with alien cousins of cacti and palm trees clustered in tanks full of dry sandy soil. Another was tropical and so humid they could hardly breath, and Keith half expected to find rain pouring down on them before they made it to the far side.
As they walked, he found himself often grabbing Lance's hand and dragging him over to examine some interesting plant. He let go as soon as he realized what he was doing, but the blue paladin didn't seem to mind, and he would occasionally do the same in return. And if the darker teen forgot to let go once or twice while leaning down to examine a tiny flower or colourful bush, well, Keith sure as hell wasn't going to complain about that. As an added bonus, he got to yank Lance backwards into his arms when an innocent looking flower surrounded by what were probably numerous warning labels in various scripts nearly took the blue paladin's nose off.
In retrospect, they probably should have taken note of the design of the warnings, and recognized them on the wall before they entered the last section of the deck.
The moment they'd stepped out of the airlock, they'd been chilled instantly by brutally cold air that had them scrambling to seal their helmets. Unlike the other areas of the hydroponics deck, where the plants had been confined to tanks and trellises in neat orderly rows, this area seemed more like a miniature habitat, with snow crunching underfoot and walls painted a pale blue-grey that made judging the distance to the far wall almost impossible. Scattered through the area were tall trees that bore a distinct resemblance to Earth evergreens, with downward-sloping branches and triangular needles for leaves. The whole place was bitterly cold, with a steady artificial wind that seemed to cut right to the bone.
It was also secured from the inside by a bioscanner. One that, when they tried it, did not recognize humans.
So here they were, trying to figure out how to get out of this locked, frigid room. None of their teammates were answering their coms, and Blue apparently found the whole thing too funny for her to actually help her paladin.
"It's weird, though." Keith continued, glancing around now that he'd managed to get his laughter under control. "Why is this one locked from the inside? None of the other areas were." He frowned, studying the disposition of the trees beside him. "And it's so spread out, too. Almost reminds me of a zoo habitat. Don't you think?" He glanced up when the other didn't answer. "Lance?"
The blue paladin had gone very still and pale, staring at something behind Keith from his place by the door. "I think…" he said, his voice very soft and nervous "...that that's exactly what it is."
There was a loud crunching noise of crackling ice behind him, and a whuffing noise that instantly put the red paladin in mind of angry farm bulls back in Texas. He whirled.
Four dark eyes equally spaced around a massive head stared down at him. Wide flat horns with up-curved tips stretched far to either side of the skull with its short, flattened muzzle. Six massive triple-jointed legs ended in viciously serrated hoof-like structures that dug easily into the ice. And steam puffed from several nostrils as the thing whuffed again just inches from his face.
Staring up at the creature towering over them, Keith abruptly remembered. H'ress were insanely fast, incredibly agile, armed with many sharp teeth and claws, and were roughly the size of Earth horses. But they still hunted in packs.
"Lance…" Keith whispered, backing up very slowly to stand beside the blue paladin. They were caught between an enormous, aggressive animal and a locked door, not a pleasant position to be in. "Don't move. Maybe if we stay still and quiet it'll leave us alone."
The animal snorted again, staring them down. Then it reared onto its two rear pairs of legs, freeing the foremost set of hooves for kicking, and shrieked.
"Or not! Run!"
Keith grabbed Lance's hand and pulled him sideways as a hoof lashed through the space the blue paladin's head had occupied a moment before. The other teen didn't need to be told twice, slipping and stumbling on the icy, uneven surface behind him as they sprinted along the edge of the chamber. He could hear ice cracking behind them under the thing's hooves and ran faster, pulling Lance along behind him. The red paladin felt suddenly ten years old again, running from the neighbour's bull when he accidentally strayed over the property line of that foster family who lived fifty miles from anywhere and into the field guarded by a particularly aggressive longhorn. He'd faced down Galra soldiers, druids, and Zarkon himself, but this? This was how he was going to die, gored to death by pissed-off alien cattle.
Abruptly he realized that the crashing and shrieking behind them had stopped and the only sound was their own laboured breathing and their boots scraping against the ice. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he realized that the massive creature had broken off the pursuit and was now well behind them amongst the trees..
Keith finally slowed his headlong plunge, grinding to a stop and slumping against the wall to catch his breath. Lance was leaning over with his hands on his knees as he panted harshly inside his helmet. "What the quiznack was that?" He gasped out, glancing back the way they'd come.
"I don't know." The red paladin huffed back, pressing a hand to his aching chest, "and as long as it's nowhere near us I don't care."
The other teen sighed and dropped down to sit in the snow for a moment before flopping down on his back and pressing his hands over his visor. "Some apology walk this turned into." He muttered miserably. "I got us locked in a giant icebox and we had to run screaming in terror from the abominable snowman's pissed off guard-cow."
Keith blinked, then started to laugh again. That was a fairly accurate description of the thing. "Don't you know?" He wheezed, sliding down the wall to sit on the cold ice underneath them. "Running for your life together is the best bonding exercise there is."
Lance stared back up at him for a moment, cheeks darkening before he burst out laughing as well. For several minutes all the pair could do was howl with amusement, the terror of their desperate sprint giving way to slightly hysterical relief. Eventually, though, it subsided, Keith sighing tiredly as he plucked at piles of snow and loose ice chips on either side of him. He knew they should probably work on figuring out how to get out of here-the temperatures were obvious not suitable for humans and for some reason their suits seemed to work better in the vacuum of space than in extreme environments on the ground-but for now he was just enjoying Lance's company. Even if he was the one who got them into this mess.
"Hey Keith."
"Hm?" Keith hummed the question lazily, drawing little lion designs in the snow with his fingertips.
"You know what this kind of reminds me of?"
He squinted at the design he was drawing. Those ears were really uneven. "What?"
There was a brief silence, Lance not answering. Confused, Keith looked up-and promptly received a faceful of snow plastered against his visor. Yelping, he jerked backwards into the wall, eliciting delighted cackles from the blue paladin. The red paladin growled as he wiped the snow off his helmet, exposing the sight of the lanky teen grinning at him from several feet away. "Oh, I see how it is." He smirked, scooped up a handful of snow from either side of him, and lunged, sending Lance scrambling for cover with a shriek of dismay.
They dodged in and out of the trees, hurling snowballs and slipping around on the ice as they tried to avoid return fire. Keith couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed this much, but something about Lance always seemed to do this to him, make him feel happier and more at ease than he ever had in the rest of his nineteen years. It was one of the many things he loved about the other teen, no matter how hard he tried to squash his feelings and keep them under control. But even if they never became anything more, he couldn't deny how grateful he was to be able to consider Lance a friend.
At one point their mock battle took them uncomfortably close to another of the massive animals that had attacked them near the door and they had to beat a hasty retreat, still laughing breathlessly, but this one seemed more interested in stripping bark off the central trunk of one of the trees, using its wide flat horns to lift branches out of the way, than in the strange noisy little creatures running through the trees nearby.
Keith wasn't sure how long it had been before his helmet com suddenly crackled to life. "Keith? You there, buddy?"
Holding up a hand to halt the latest round of their snowy battle, and earning a disappointed pout from Lance that looked so unfairly cute he had to fight not to blush, Keith tapped his own com. "I'm here, Shiro, what's up?"
"Where are you? Is Lance with you? You guys are late for dinner and we were getting worried."
Late for dinner? Had they been here that long? No wonder Shiro sounded so concerned. As if in response to the new information his stomach rumbled loudly and his cheeks burned in embarrassment. "Yeah, Lance is with me. We were exploring the hydroponics deck and we got trapped in the last room. The one with the snow that's got a biolock on the inside."
"Why is there-nevermind, I'm sure I'll find out later. Sit tight, I'll send Pidge to get you out of there." Keith could hear the exasperation in the black paladin's tone and couldn't help but feel a little bad for him, having to be in charge of the rest of them. He must feel like he was herding cats some days. No pun intended.
"Alright, thanks, Shiro. See you soon." Breaking connection, Keith looked up at Lance with a wry smile. "Rescue is on the way. We should get back to the door."
He wasn't very good at reading faces, never had been, but for a moment Keith thought Lance looked almost disappointed at the news.
They took their time making their way back toward the door, walking side by side at an easy pace as they wound between clusters of trees. As the metal portal came into sight, they could see Pidge in the open doorway waving them over. The green paladin smirked up at them as they approached, looking quite smug. "I see Lance decided to take my advice about making it up to you for being all awkward today." She drawled, drawing an embarrassed squawk from the blue paladin.
"Yeah. It was a good idea. Thanks, Pidge." Keith grinned as Lance's cheeks flared abruptly crimson and he looked away. "I had a really good time." He added, trying to reassure the blue paladin that there was nothing wrong with having taken advantage of his teammate's suggestion.
Lance seemed to struggle for words for a moment before muttering "Glad to hear it." and striding through the doorway ahead of them. Unsure what to make of the other's sudden shift of mood, the red paladin raised an eyebrow at Pidge, who simply smirked wider and turned on her heel to follow Lance.
Glancing over his shoulder at the wintery wonderland hidden inside the bowels of the ship, with two sets of human footprints tracking back into the trees, Keith smiled to himself and followed the other two in the direction of the dining hall. He definitely didn't mind Lance being awkward around him sometimes if it meant he made it up to him like this.