Lance rested his head in his palm, staring out the window of the castle at the unblinking stars. It felt as if it was just yesterday when he was dragging a timid Hunk behind him as they snuck through the halls of Garrison. Only yesterday that they had discovered the blue lion and the castle, Voltron and the Galra. At the thought of the Galra Empire, the soft smile that had been resting on Lance's lips faded, settling into a grim line. His eyes started unfocusedly into space, and a look of almost disbelief came over his face. He still wasn't quite sure how to cope with it all, as it was as if someone had suddenly dumped a bucket of freezing cold water on him, and he was still in shock.
The sound of footsteps should have alerted the brunette to the presence of another person, but he was so lost in thought he didn't notice. He certainly wasn't expecting it when they person leaned over, placing their mouth next to his ear. He didn't even register the tickling of their breath on his skin before they spoke, but the one word was enough to snap him out of his trance.
"Boo." At the foriegn noise, Lance jumped, eyes widening in shock. After quickly regaining his composure, he turned to see which member of the team had scared him. Much to his surprise, it was Keith, who stood their with a smile that held something Lance couldn't quite place. Masking his surprise, Lance managed to get out his fellow paladin's name.
"K-keith!" Still staring at the long-haired teenager standing in front of him, Lance couldn't quite grasp the idea that the red paladin had been the one to scare him. Keith gave a small laugh, eyes glinting as he spoke.
"What are you looking at?" The question, although genuine, was somewhat awkward, as Keith wasn't quite sure how to go about talking to the other boy. Giving a small shake of his head, a look of confusion settled over Lance's face, but he replied anyway.
"Nothing. Just...thinking," he stated lightly, not quite sure how to take Keith's calmer demeanor towards him. Normally, they were somewhat passive-agressive, but lately that atmosphere had faded away. This time, there was no trace of the old atmosphere, and Lance was struggling to figure out how he felt about it. Keith tentatively came closer, seeming to ask Lance for permission to come over. Lance looked fully at him, giving a small nod before turning his eyes back to the stars. Keith sat down across from him, awkwardly looking just past the Blue Paladin, not quite directly at him bit in his direction. Lance sighed, glancing at Keith. Trying to break the awkward feel that had entered the air, he spoke.
"I'm thinking about home- my family is probably worried sick. I've been gone for a few months now..." Lance trailed off, remembering that Keith didn't have any family to speak of back on Earth. He fell silent for a second, blood rushing to his face as he grew embarrassed at his forgetfulness.
"Sorry, I forgot," he said apologetically, looking away from the dark haired boy. Mentally, he cursed himself for making such an insensitive mistake- Keith was his teammate and friend, and he didn't want to cause any problems between them. Keith grunted in response, and Lance stole a tentative glance at him. He was staring at the ground, eyes out of focus as he thought about something. Not wanting to say anything else stupid, Lance resigned to just sit there in silence, letting their presence be more of a comfort. They could both sense that the other had a lot on his mind, and they both respectfully decided not to intrude any further.
The Paladins gathered in the control room later as they entered a field of spores, which Pidge immediately set to analyzing.
"What are they?" Lance asked, a quizzical expression on his face as he leaned slightly toward the floating blue blobs outside the window.
"Spores. They seem to be programmed with some sort of distress signal though." Pidge replied, their fingers flying over the keys as they looked into the origins of the odd objects.
"I've never heard of someone doing that before. It is it possible to do such a thing?" Allura narrowed her eyes at the spores as she thought, asking Pidge the question in an odd manner, as she hadn't quite been listening. "Yes, apparently so. The spores coordinates at leading us here." Pidge glanced up at the now projected image, adjusting their glasses.
"Well then, we should set course for the planet and see what we can do." Shiro spoke up, voice serious. The team murmured their agreement, and. Coram and Allura set off to do so.
The Paladins dispersed, looking for activities to keep the busy as they traveled to their destination. Pidge and Hunk soon found entertainment in working on a side project, and Shiro disappeared to his room. Keith immediately made his way down to the training deck, which was here Lance also found himself after wandering the castle for a while.
When he arrived, he noticed Keith training and stayed silent as the boy fought the bot. He watched with interest, intrigued by the boy's ferocity with the training exercise. It was almost like a dangerous dance, and actually, it was the more Lance bought about it. Keith doeg d r on side to side, swinging his sword in a wide ark or short, swift chops. He stood in the doorway and just watched for a while, entranced by the other paladin. He didn't know why he was finding it so interesting, but he couldn't bring himself to stop watching. As Keith defeated the bot and stood, panting, he finally noticed Lance. His eyebrows knit together as he looked questioningly at the boy, too winded to speak at the moment. Lance waved, walking over to the exhausted man.
"You should save your energy, you know. We might have to fight once we get there," Lance remarked, hands in his pockets. Keith looked at him for a second, chest still heaving.
"You're actually right about that for once."
At the insult, Lance frowned. "Hey! I'm right about other things too!" He retorted, but he didn't take the insult personally. He knew at this point it was just gentle teasing, and wasn't truly into starting a right over it. The two boys stood there for a a few moments as Keith regained his breath, before making their way out of the training deck.
As they walked down the halls, Lance glanced at Keith. He had changed out of his sweaty shirt and into a nearly identical one, and put his usual cropped jacket back on. His face was slightly flushed , his lips parted, hair tousled from the workout. Lance felt his face grow slightly warm as he looked at Keith, and he quickly looked away, looking at the ground with a mixture of confusion and concern. What was that feeling? Shaking his head to clear the weird feeling from his mind, he realized he had fallen a bit behind Keith. Jogging to catch up, he opened his mouth to speak.
"Paladins, suit up. We are almost to our destination." At the sound of Alurra's voice over the coms, the two boys looked up towards the noise. When she finished, Lance gave a small wave to Keith as they reached his room and he began to jog away.
"See you in the control room!" He called, already down the hall a ways. Keith help up his hand in response, surprised by Lance's goodbye. He stood there for a moment, before entering his room to get ready to go.
Poor Lance! He doesn't understand his feelings quite yet!
Hello, author here! Just to clear things up, this starts right about season two, episode four. I've obviously added a few non-canon moments to this, and changed up the script a bit to fit my needs. I'll do this a lot, but for the most part I will stick close to the canon line.
Also, it do admit Lance seems to have developed feelings of a sort quite quickly based on what I have down, but to avoid confusion I'll explain here. i know I didn't write this in, but in this storyline Lance and Keith have been interacting more, and as sorta friends, they're a bit closer now. They understand eachother's feelings to some extent, but aren't crazy close. But, Keith is making more of an effort to be friendly with Lance, and vise versa, as they still do squabble occasionally over trivial things. They honestly do want to be friends now, but Lance is subconsciously admiring Keith, and it's starting a bit of a crush.