The paladins and Coran are gathered around the protective barrier that is currently casing the blue crystal.
Keith is inexplicably distraught at the sight of his friends scrutinizing the stone, which had lost its glow for a while now. He doesn't know how, but he knows it doesn't pose a danger to anyone. He dares not say it out loud however; neither does he say that he doesn't like to be separated from it.
"You had it with you all this time," Shiro says.
Keith knows he is disappointed, he can see it in the thin line forming between his brows, and in the frown he is trying to hide. The man is too considerate for his own good, and Keith can't help but love him for it.
"Why didn't you say anything Keith?" he continues, brows raised and palms open. "You would be the first to get suspicious about an unidentified object. And you say you found it where the druid fell."
"It doesn't give off any alarming signals," Pidge says as she leans in to take a closer look at the stone. "It is not broadcasting our location, or sending any sort of information to any recipient." She pulls up the diagnostics screen and hums. "I don't know how you got it to glow like it did, I exposed it to any element I could think of and it still didn't react."
"It is not a toy!"
Every head in the room turns to Keith. He realizes he has raised his voice and unclenches his fists, but doesn't back down.
"If you think it might be dangerous, why did you let her experiment with it?" he asks accusingly, looking at Shiro and Allura.
Shiro crosses his arms over his chest and Hunk opens his mouth in Pidge's defense, but the green paladin is already in Keith's face.
"You don't think I know what I am doing?" she hisses. "You are the one who potentially endangered everyone on this ship by bringing it here and not saying anything!"
"It is not dangerous! I had it for weeks and no harm came to anyone!"
"Except making you go all Gollum about it! Maybe it has telepathic abilities, affects your mind slowly. Wouldn't really be a surprise, considering what the druids are capable of. What if it is a failsafe for Haggar? How could you even risk her coming back?"
Her words are thrown at Keith like tiny but sharp blades, and defense is not his strongest point. If he is being attacked, Keith would attack back; this is how he operates.
Honey colored eyes behind the large glasses hold a stubborn challenge, one Keith is familiar with. She is not the enemy, he reminds himself.
"Since when are you a conspiracy theorist?" he asks.
Pidge draws back. "Since my father and brother were taken and everyone lied about the whole thing," she says. "How are you not one?"
Keith feels guilty at that, he knows she has a point. He knows getting her family back doesn't automatically erase trauma and make her into a trusting individual. He imagines it would be scary, when you have a brilliant mind like Pidge's, a mind that can consider a million dark probabilities.
Still, he can't bring himself to take a step back. It is almost like they are ganging up on him, all of them as a unit, and him on his own. Somehow it makes him feel so very lonely.
"I—"
Allura's eyes meet Shiro's and she lets out a defeated sigh. "Paladins please," she says, getting between Pidge and Keith. "I know we all have been under a lot stress lately, but we shouldn't take it out on each other." She looks at the crystal, which gives off the illusion that blue lights are swirling inside it. It is just a piece stone, it doesn't really look like anything special; but Allura has to admit something about it is quite pretty, and she almost understands Keith's attachment to it.
"Coran," she says as the orange haired man flitters around the barrier, trying to view the stone from different angles. He bends over and leans in close enough for his nose to be plastered against the barrier, blinking.
"Do you have any idea what this could be?" Allura asks.
Coran straightens up in one theatrical jump. "Seems like a regular piece of crystal," he replies, "but regular stones don't glow like that of course. I've only seen glowing crystals in the caverns of Pollux' smallest moon when King Alfor sent us on a top secret recon mission! It would have been a great success, if only we weren't attacked by horned crimgleflabbers, and they are the most vicious of all crimgleflabbers I have to say, especially when it is the 5th quintant of—"
"Coran," Allura says sweetly with a murderous look in her eyes. "The crystal?"
"Ahem. Yes, those crystals glowed naturally, not like this tricky little one here which only glows when it pleases."
"So we got nothing," Hunk says. "Maybe it needs to be next to a sleeping person? And did it do anything, other than glowing? I mean was it warm, or making sounds, anything other than emitting light? Did you feel anything weird when you saw it?" Question is directed at Shiro, who shakes his head.
"I mean," he says after a moment, "It was… nice."
Now all eyes are on him, waiting for an explanation. He glances away as he sees Keith looking at him with wide eyes.
"I don't know guys," he says. He wasn't planning to mention this, but now it seems significant. "It was like the feeling you get when you go home after a long trip? Calm and safe... I don't know."
Hunk turns to Keith. "Is that what you felt too?" he asks.
Keith slowly shakes his head. "When I keep it on me, it is like a part of me," he says. "But when Shiro found me, and it was glowing," he pauses. He is not good with expressing things like this, it is personal and somehow admitting it feels like a weakness. He glimpses at the crystal and sighs. "I had the same feeling I used to get when my dad came home after work," he finishes, avoiding eye contact.
Pidge's expression softens. "We don't have any data suggesting it is malevolent," she says. "Maybe we should observe it again, like Hunk said, it could be triggered by sleep."
Keith catches her eye and gives her a weak smile. "I volunteer?" he suggests.
Oriande watches Lance walking on the railings of the bridge leading to the castle of lions, trying to keep balance with his arms stretched out to the sides. He looks at her and she gives him a smile.
Lance closes his eyes, looks up, takes a deep breath and lets himself fall backwards.
He finds himself on his childhood bed, in the little room he shared with his brother Marco. The ceiling is covered with glow in the dark stars, posters hanging on the walls, books and clothes thrown haphazardly on the beds and all over the floor. He wonders if Marco had it all to himself in this altered reality, and if he still bumps his leg against the corner of their small desk every time he is making his way to the wardrobe.
"Hey Oriande?" he calls; and she is sitting at the desk, lavender eyes roaming around the room.
Lance sits cross legged on the bed and hugs himself. "Since you found me," he begins, "I can't forget. I can't forget anything, anyone. Why is that?"
Oriande does not reply, but her eyes soften with sympathy. "Tell me about the boy," she says instead.
Lance tightens his arms around himself. "It hurts," he replies. "It hurts to talk about him. About any of them. It hurts to remember." He looks around, spotting as single sock on the floor with milky way pattern. A birthday gift from Rachel. "It hurts to be here," he whispers. "It makes me angry, Oriande. I don't want to be angry, I just want them safe."
"I know."
"I thought I would disappear. That's what Haggar said. That I would not exist." He exhales and gestures to himself with both hands. "This kinda feels like existing to me."
He stands on the bed and peels one of the stars off the ceiling. Oriande reaches out, and he places it in her palm.
"Is it really because of him? Because he won't let go?"
Oriande holds the star between her thumb and index finger. It glows, and she smiles.
"Partly," she says, but doesn't elaborate further. Lance doesn't ask her to either.
It is a silent understanding, because they both know hope can be cruel.
"Can you tell me about you?" he asks.
Oriande smiles brightly and throws the star in the air. Lance looks up to see countless stars, and he is among them, swimming in the night sky. Maybe he is one of them.
"They called us the lifegivers," Oriande says. Lance is sure he heard this word before. "The mortals," Oriande continues. "Our kind was few, in comparison. But we always were. Not like them, who had beginnings and ends, transformations.
"So when mortals first came to be, there were huge discussions around meddling, interfering with different life forms. But we were all fascinated." She extends her fingers and moves her hands as if she's playing an invisible piano. "One of us more than others."
Lance follows the movement of her fingers, to see the constellation she painted with the stars. It looks like a lioness.
"She was always the impulsive one," Oriande says, then winces and corrects herself, "She is."
Lance smiles, now both of them wearing the same wistful expression. He has some experience with impulsive ones himself.
"She didn't understand why we wouldn't ease their pain when we easily could."
They are now walking down a path, lined with purple bushes at both sides. The path is a glossy black like some kind of glass, but Lance realizes it is actually soft, kind of like walking on a carpet. He also notices that some of the bushes have flowers on them, which could be close relatives of juniberries. Lance suspects they are the reason why the air smells so sweet.
"Altea could be very black and white sometimes," Oriande adds.
"The planet?"
"The person."
Keith is at the Garrison, sitting at his desk, his head resting on his crossed arms. Other cadets start arriving, and he can hear the chairs being pulled, the chatter, the small chaos before their instructor comes in.
One dramatically high pitched voice catches his attention, as it always does. Lance McClain.
The unintentional class clown.
The paladin of the Blue Lion.
The paladin of the Red Lion.
Keith's self-proclaimed rival.
His friend, his constant, the keeper of his damaged heart.
Keith tries to lift his head, but it feels very heavy. He opens his eyes, but his vision is blurry, like he's looking through a fogged up glass. He can't move his body, and his pulse starts quickening with dread. Help, he wants to say, but no sound comes out. Lance.
He is falling. Keith can't move, he can't speak and he can't see, but he knows Lance is falling.
He desperately tries to reach out, tries to grab a hold of his arm so he can pull him back in, he can say "I got you," like he has so many times before.
But he hasn't got him. Lance falls. Lance walks into the light. Lance chooses to disappear.
I love you.
Keith finds his voice, and he screams.
He is startled by a hand on his shoulder. He opens his eyes, blinks and throws a punch at the face before him before he collapses to his knees.
Lance rubs his cheekbone, opening and closing his mouth to test his jaw, surprised he can still get physically hurt. He guesses it must be because he expected it to hurt. Apparently he is not great at letting go either.
He helps Keith up and says, "Yeah, I missed you too."
They look at each other, both stunned and a bit awkward. It is like it has always been, neither of them ever sure where they stand with each other, no matter what they have been through. Lance thinks maybe this is why sometimes their kisses kept feeling like a first kiss, all over again. They would have gotten there eventually. Probably. If only they had more time.
But things being as they are now, it always takes one of them to make a move, to jump start the connection again. And that's where they never fail. One of them always makes a move.
This time it is Lance. He tentatively cups Keith's face and leans in, takes his upper lip between his. He savors the softness and the warmth that surrounds his mouth as Keith responds.
The way Keith knows him is in the way he kisses him. It is a reassuring mess, as if he can't decide where to start, because he wants all parts of Lance equally. It is as if Keith designs his kisses to make sure that Lance knows just how wanted he is.
And Lance knows. He also knows how much Keith hates him and loves him at the moment. He understands. He would too, if it had been Keith who made the sacrifice.
He had thought he would spare them the pain. But Keith has always been one stubborn dumbass.
How strange it is that they would end up in each other's arms, and how strange it is that against all odds, it feels so right.
Lance has noticed Keith before.
He is the weird, angry kid with no friends. Lance doesn't pay him any mind, instinctively staying away from the boy just like everyone else does.
It is not until Takashi Shirogane shows up at the Garrison that Lance and everyone else take notice, and not all in a good way.
Lance runs the simulator, and while he is not the best, he believes he did alright. He's feeling good about himself.
Then Shiro asks Keith to give it a try, so Keith does.
Lance watches as Keith completes level after level, without breaking a sweat. His heart in his throat by the end of it, and his hands balled into fists. He feels nauseated. His eyes are stinging. He is so, so angry.
Yes, some others also have done better but Lance knows he can close those gaps easily.
In Keith's case however, he sees exactly where he is. He sees no amount of practice will get him to where Keith stands.
This is everything he wants, everything he works for, and some kid with bad attitude is just gifted with this innate talent for his passion. It hurts.
He just envies, his insides twisting. Why him? Why couldn't that be Lance?
Being a cargo pilot is just as important, his mom says. Lance isn't old enough to detect the guilty relief in her voice. Maybe they are not at war, but it is still military and her baby won't be in the thick of it if worst comes to worst. Cargo pilots are just as essential. They are just as much needed.
Like toilet cleaners, Lance's self-deprecating mind supplies. It is true, they are needed. Lance just wishes he was needed on a fighter class craft's cockpit instead.
It all makes him feel so small, so insignificant and invisible.
Well, he thinks. I guess I'll have to make myself visible.
The 14 year old Lance doesn't understand how lucky he is. He is unconditionally loved and supported. He has his safety net in place, his family, somewhere he can fall back to if everything else crumbles down around him.
He takes it all for granted, because he is a teenager and that's what most teenagers do; unless they have a reason not to.
-o-o-o-
Keith is familiar with those reasons. He has been familiar with them since his dad talked about his mom. He never took his father granted, but it still didn't keep him from leaving. Dying. Leaving. Sometimes it all feels same.
Keith is in the class, in his seat by the window, watching the sky and not paying attention to the instructor. Shiro is gone. He doesn't know what to do. He is lost, and he is terrified.
The annoying cargo pilot's laugh gets him out of his head. He looks at the boy, whose head is thrown back as he half-laughs-half-howls, baring his smooth tan neck.
The girl next to the boy pokes him and points to the instructor, now coming his way. He regains composure and gulps, blue eyes widened and hair messy.
"Cadet McClain," the instructor says, voice unamused.
Keith goes back to watching the skies as the boy clumsily tries to charm his way out of the situation.
McClain, the name echoes in Keith's mind. For a brief moment, he thinks how it would be like to be him.
Loud and obnoxious, without a care in the world.
But Shiro is gone. They say he is dead. They say it was his fault.
'Pilot error.'
Shiro does not make pilot errors.
Keith doesn't take things for granted. He knows what's important. Yes, he loves flying, and Shiro's words still ring in his head from time to time: 'What you decide to do with this potential is up to you.'
He wants to fly away. To discover what's beyond, to leave it all behind. But if he had wings, he would break them, tear them off himself it meant he could get Shiro back.
And that's precisely what he does, albeit metaphorically, when he starts making his way to Iverson's office later, ignoring all the eyes on him.
-o-o-o-
Lance is talking to the cute engineer with chocolate skin in the hall, grateful to Hunk who had introduced them.
They chat idly about their instructors, how tough their classes are, Lance makes jokes and she laughs. It is so effortlessly nice.
Then her gaze drifts off, distracted, and Lance follows it to see she's looking at Keith. He moves like a force of nature, wearing his usual pissed off expression, stomping his way across the hall.
Lance's mood sours immediately.
He is about to say something to the girl, snap at her more like, along the lines of 'so, the mullet does it for ya?'
But the girl huffs, shaking her head. "What a weirdo," she says.
Lance asks her out.
-o-o-o-
Keith punches Iverson in the face when he doesn't get the answers he's looking for. He knows when he is being lied to. It is a skill gained growing up in the system.
He is promptly expelled.
Nowadays when Keith thinks about that specific slice of time, he admits maybe there could have been other ways to get what he wanted.
Take Pidge, for instance. She was right under their noses the whole time, fooling the Garrison, using their own resources against them.
But then again, if the person he is now was lied to about Shiro's disappearance, Keith is pretty sure his reaction would have been the same. Ah well.
Some things just don't change, he guesses.
-o-o-o-
Lance's fling with the engineer girl doesn't last long. Turns out she is not that into bitching about Kogane, who got very publicly kicked out and almost forgotten a week later.
Lance is relieved when it is over with Jenny. He knows he had liked her, he had felt the butterflies when she was around; but he is also aware that the fluttering had vanished when they saw Keith that day in the hall. The day he was gone.
He has no idea what to make of that.
Keith wakes up with a gasp. He is lying on a bed in the medical bay, next to the healing pods.
Everything is blue. The crystal is in his hand.
When the blue starts fading and his vision clears, he sees Pidge sitting on a bed across his, wiping her eyes. Has she been crying?
Before he can ask, Pidge cuts him off.
"Who's Lance?" she asks, as the others come in. "You kept saying the name in your sleep."
They hold each other's gazes for a moment, and Keith opens his mouth.
He has nothing. He lets out a shaky breath, and Pidge deflates.
"I don't know."
He turns around and searches the other faces in the room. All look blank, but then he spots Coran, the Altean's eyes darting between him and the crystal.
"Never heard the name," he says, "but I can dig into the old archives, see if there's any mention of a correlation between crystals and lances!"
"Coran—" Allura starts, but he is out of the med bay before she even gets to the second syllable.
"So, what the cheese was that about?" Hunk asks, staring after Coran as Shiro sits next to Keith on his bed.
Pidge shrugs, but still seems distraught. Keith takes a mental note to ask her about that later.
Allura lets out a loud, exasperated sigh.
"I suppose I should find out."