Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The air was flat and suffocating yet it still filled Keith's lungs with a taste that didn't sit right in him. The flavor wrapped its sticky fingers around his throat and clenched as tight as it could without breaking him apart from the neck down. His nose was drowned in a mucus sensation that made it hardly plausible to even confirm it was still attached to his nearly beheaded body. His lips were chapped and numb, cracking like the floor tiles in his old house back on earth. If it was any other scenario he could consider comparing it to sculltrite lenses that would break in two easier than ripping apart a sheet of printer paper. But now all he could think about was earth. His old house, his friends, Shiro, even the galaxy garrison. He remembered the dizzying feeling of peering down at his fathers blurry tombstone, feeling a familiar hand rub his back as he stared down at the uneasy sight. He still wonders about his mother, if she is alive, if she even knows he is- barely. Hanging on by a thread would be sugarcoating the situation. He drifted in and out of death, something he wasn't accustomed to and didn't yearn to be. Death never had scared Keith before, but he had never been so close. He could feel the heat of welcoming flames but also the sincereness that he would make it past the clouds. Was this purgatory? That might be a fate worse. He had never questioned any path he had picked until now. The past two years of his life, every choice he made led up to this moment. There was no very beginning, no one moment that sparked an option, nor a life or death scenario. His chest warily shifted up and down, feeling like lifting bricks with his pecs, yet everytime he would exhale the weight would double. He was ready to give in, he had been fighting for hours, minutes, seconds, anything. But he couldn't stop breathing, he just couldn't let himself take that final breath in, let the darkness overcome him, or the light. The light itself was standing above him, the light that had shined on his untanned face for two years. He still fought to stay alive, to hold onto the piece of clarity that was holding his teammates hand. He would always be his teammate, friend, fellow paladin, buddy, he couldn't bear to think of all the nicknames he had said for the last time without knowing it. The hand gripped his tighter but the sensation of the gloves wouldn't budge. He was slipping into the dark bottomless pit that was lifelessness. What was death? Was it a great escape or was life the sequence of running away from the unavoidable? Was he still running? He was slowing down for sure, his legs would give out. He already couldn't feel his toes, he knew from trying to wiggle them. They didn't budge, he had never felt so out of control, he hated it. He was trapped in his skin without the willingness to do anything about it. He wouldn't hear Allura's accent when she spoke lightly, the way she hauled a positive attitude around even though she fought for something she knew would never return. She did not fight to avenge her father, she fought to make sure no one ever would have to feel the way it felt for her. Keith would never wake up in the middle of the night to hear Hunk pacing the halls, he always did that when he worried. Most of the time he had some dessert in his left hand while he scratched his head with his right. The form of breathlessness he couldn't escape now wasn't the similar one he got from when Pidge hugged him too tight. It wasn't like when she would wrap her arms around his armored torso and cling on like a magnet. Her glasses would poke him in the stomach and just about fall right off her face. Her hair would flatten at the front and she would take a second extra to fluff it back up before heading back to her lab station near the bridge. Coran would think of King Alfor whenever he looked at the red lion, Keith knew that. He wasn't mad. Shiro would sleep in Keith's room a few nights after, longing for even his scent or maybe crossing his fingers the stupid red jacket would still be hanging up. He would reflect on the memories they had over the past almost decade and relive every mistake he made. Only though, when he stepped in Keith's barrack he would find the sheets messed up and the pillow unfluffed. Lance had slep-

“KEITH!” Lance held onto either of Keith's shoulders, shaking him awake.

Keith woke up like a flash of lighting, sitting straight up and clocking Lance right in the chin. Lance's hand flew to his face to hold the damaged area.

“Lance” Keith's voice broke over the ‘a’, a warm feeling came over him as he took in a deep breath.

“Dude are you alright, I could hear you from the other side of the wall, I thought these things were soundproof.” Lance put his hand flat on the wall, Keith watched in dismay.

“You could h-hear me?” he gulped, frazzled at what he possibly could have been saying. He hardly even remembers what was happening in his dream

“Yeah you were… yelling.” Lance hesitated

“Yelling?”

“Well not like screaming but, you sounded like you were dying it was really weird.” Lance sat on the edge of Keith's bed, reaching his arms behind him to prop himself up, stretching out his spine.

“Must have had a bad dream or something.” Keith said, still dazed.

“Allura told me to come check on you, we were worried.” Lance said into the air, which was much clearer than Keith had gotten used to.

“Holy shit how loud was it?” Keith ran fingers through the top of his hair, fluffing it up.

“She called you down but you didn't respond so we assumed you were just getting ready.”

“For what?”

“Some bonding exercise, I thought we wouldn't do those again but since we had trouble forming Voltron during the battle yesterday she is worried our relationships are falling apart. You not showing up probably worried her more.”

It was just then that Keith noticed Lance was in his paladin armor, the bed sunk near his own feet which made sense from the extra weight. “Fuck, she already hates me. She is probably gonna blame the whole incident on me.” Keith pulled his hands down his face, dragging his lips until he let himself fall back onto the pillow.

“Relax man, she will let it go. I could just tell her you have a migraine and that's why, she might think you’re brain damaged but it wouldn't really surprise anyone honestly.”

“If you dont leave now im gonna get a migraine either way, no reason to have to lie.” Keith smirked from under his shaggy mullet.

“Ha-ha, very funny.” Lance tried to hold back a smile from sarcasm. “Just come down to the training deck soon.”

“What are we even doing? Maybe I could milk this concussion and avoid it all together.”

“Ugh, it's so boring, we are doing the mind reading thing while someone is talking to us, like a buddy system. I wish I got to skip too.” Lance groaned, standing up off of Keith's bed.

“Just stay and pretend that I needed help or something.” Keith offered, yawning and getting out of bed.

“Help with wha-” Lance trailed off, watching Keith strut to his bathroom in his signature black shirt paired with black boxers. His shirt hugged his back muscles when he lifted his arms above his head to stretch. His calves became more defined with each step before he closed the door to the bathroom. Lance sat back down on Keith's bed until his back touched the wall.

Keith's head poked out of the bathroom, “Tell Allura we will be down in like ten minutes.” the door shut again.

Lance cleared his throat before turning on his comm and informing Allura about their situation

“Take your time, Coran is…eager to be a part of the bonding.” Allura responded, her voice tired and wary already.

“Sounds great, you should join in too, it might be fun.” Lance offered.

“I am not a paladin of Voltron.” Allura responded, her tone fair

“Neither is Coran, you can't keep excluding yourself. Hunk would probably be happy to be your partner.” Lance sighed, coaxing Allura into participating.

“I suppose.” Allura said begrudgingly, a long exhale escaped with the cut off of her intercom. She was prone to assume everyone thought of her as the princess and not an equal, she was treated with the equality of a friend but the respect of a princess, sometimes they went interchangeably to her disadvantage.

Lance took off his helmet and set it on Keith's pillow. the sound of struggling echoed from the small crack under the bathroom door.

“shit.” a small voice whispered under its breath.

“You okay in there Keith?” Lance called out, hearing louder clangs he began towards the door, pressing his curious ear against it.

“I’m… fine” Keith said breathlessly, more grunting came shortly after

“...are you sure? you sound like something's wrong?” Lance wasn't buying it, he knew Keith well enough to know he would never admit if he needed help

“this stupid chest plate would click in place!!” Keith admitted, halfway embarrassed but mostly irritated.

“Want me to help?” Lance was cautious with his words. If he had phrased it as a command; ‘let me help you.’ He would've been shooed out of the room.

“...”

no immediate rejection? No yelling?

“...yes.” it was a flat response, but the door unlocking with a delayed click was invitation enough

Lance didn't give Keith enough time to change his mind before swinging open the door and hopping inside. Keith stood in partial humiliation and lack of chest plate. The black undersuit hugged his torso tightly, defining the puff of his muscles and indents of his shape. The chest shell was sitting on the countertop with Keith sulking over it in frustration, he couldn't seem to shake the dream out of his head. Lance grabbed the hard shield and instructed Keith to hold his arms slightly up and out. He obliged and tilted his head for the best angle. The chest plate was stubborn and didn't go on after multiple tries from different angles, positions, nothing would work.

“Okay hold still im gonna try and force it.” Lance declared, bracing himself to put his whole might into this shove.

“How am I supposed to get it off then!” Keith screeched.

“Thats a problem for later, Keith! Hold still!” Lance, being one for dramatics, might've been blowing the urgency out of proportion. Nevertheless, Keith stood still and squeezed his eyes shut, scrunching his nose bracing for impact.

Lance stood on his tip-toes and grunted, pushing the item over Keith's head, making it almost past his shaggy mullet before his feet slipped, toppling both of them over. Keith hit his head on the shower door with a bang followed by a curse under his breath. Lance flailed on top of him, his limbs falling loosely over his body. They were both breathing heavily, recovering from whatever fall damage they had just taken. It wasn't soon after that they realized their… position. Lance awkwardly cleared his throat and stood up, brushing himself off after being back on two feet. He held a hand out for Keith to grab onto, which he ignored. It took them another moment to realize the chest plate was, in fact, over his head and attached to his upper body.

“Told ya it would work.” Lance smirked, receiving a much deserved eye roll from his friend.

“Shut up.” Keith turned away fast enough to hide the smile growing on the corners of his mouth. Lance pretended not to see it so it wouldn't ruin his pride.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Peanut butter, peanut butter cookies, peanut butter and chocolate…” Coran said repeatedly, trying to distract Pidge. Her intergalactic headbands showed a hologram of the green lion, it glitched every few seconds. Her face visibly disturbed every time it would hitch.

“Coran, you are supposed to be distracting. Those are things she likes!” Alllura gibed

“We are getting the basics down.” Coran argued, his mustache puffy to match his aggravation.

“Try to trip her up once and awhile.”

“alright…peanuts!”

The picture faded immediately, Pidge grumbled and opened one eye, mentally flipping the bird. She had quickly found out the middle finger in Altea had no meaning therefore making it overall pointless to use when someone got on her nerves, which most of the time was Coran. She was determined to find an alien gesture with the same effect.

Hunk and Shiro were struggling, Shiro was telling Hunk a child's tale he had read in the Altean library hidden on the castle ship. It was most comparable with Hansel and Gretal, except there was no witch or house of candy.

“Then she children would leave Beizd crumbs as a trail for when they would return hom-”

“Wait a second.” Hunk was missing the point of the exercise by flipping his eyes open and scratching his chin, “What's Beizd? Is that like bread? Or some type of cake?”

“Hunk, focus.” Shiro was getting tired, anxious for the return of Keith and Lance.

“alright fine, keep going.” Hunk closed his eyes again.

“...return home, but just then a Tunple-”

“Okay, what are these words!” Hunk flung his arms in the air, exasperated that he wasn't very good at this practice.

“You're missing the point, you need to clear your head of these distractions. try to tune me out next time." Shiro was kind, showing compassion when he was truly enraged at the insubordination of his teammates. He was hesitant to ask Coran if they could switch partners.

Allura sighed watching her peers interact, they were all sitting in a stalemate, waiting for the two boys to arrive.

like magic, the doors to the training deck slid open, lance was in the middle of some story about his nephews back on earth and keith was sporting an annoyed expression, same old lance, same old keith.

“Keith.” There was joy and relief in Shiro's voice, as if saying finally

“Keith, are you feeling any better? How is your head?” Allura reached her hand up to hover above Keith's head before he awkwardly ducked out of the way.

“Good, Lance helped me get back on my feet after a weird dream.” Keith gave credit, also in the process trying to shift the attention onto his friend. It did not go to plan.

“aw Keith! you lovable little dork!” Lance wrapped his arms around Keith in adornment.

“get off me.”

“Paladins, now that you all are here,” Allura brought the attention back to the task at hand. “we need to discuss the next plans to defeat Zarkon and the Galra race.” a small shift of eyes led in keith's general direction. God, it stung everytime they did that. “the evil Galra race, the ones working for Zarkon. We can use help from the Blades and our allies.”

“Does this mean…” Pidge stood up, a light reflecting off her glasses didn't hide the sparkle in her iris.

“We are finally going to defeat Zarkon.” Shiro finished.

“This is huge. Does that mean we will be able to go home?” Hunk's voice was yearning, it broke Allura's heart to think of being so far from home, she tried to have empathy and be grateful the paladins had offered her a place on their home planet. Coran too, obviously.

“I know not when or…if we will return to Earth. what i am aware of is that it isn't a completely out of bounds idea.” Allura wasn't one to lie to the paladins, especially about such a sensitive topic such as the thought of going home.

“We shouldn't get our hopes up.” Kieth chimed in. He could've worded it differently and more…hopeful but what else would anyone expect from him?

“We take it step by step, focus on the task at hand, like Allura said.” Shiro shot her a glance, a content smile washes across both their faces.

“so…what's the first step?” Lance spoke up, eager to see his family again.

“We need to go to Altea.”

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry, Princess, I..I must have misheard you. We need to go to Altea?” Shiro chuckled, laughing off the awkward silence that had quickly overtaken the filled room. Even Coran had wide eyes.

“Altea doesn't exist anymore, Zarkon blew it up thousands of years ago.” Pidge said, half-asking, just to confirm her facts.

“This is true, which is why we need to go back… ten thousand years.” Allura looked towards the ground, not exactly wanting to see the paladin's reactions to the idea.

“Wait hold on- WHAT!” Lance yelled, making Keith jump.

“Are you implying time travel? Why haven't you brought this up before?” Pidge seemed offended if not anything else.

“Im not implying, I'm saying it bluntly, we need to travel back in time ten thousand years.” Allura confirmed.

“Its not like we haven't done it before.” Keith spoke up, drawing every pair of eyes to him, making him blush. “Well we all haven't, but Allura and Coran did during the endless black hole after all the lions got lost a while ago… does nobody remember that?”

“Oh that's right, I forgot about that. It seemed irrelevant up until now.” Hunk chimed in, connecting the dots.

“That was all a coincidence, you couldn't control it, Allura it made your powers meaningless.” Pidge pushed her glasses up with a finger, “is there something, some way to make it pliable for our advantage?”

“There is… one way…” Allura adjusted random parts of her clothing, trying to fidget to ease the tension settled on her.

“Go on.” Pidge raised an eyebrow, a bit annoyed that nobody else was as adamant on learning more.

“There is something I have been hiding from you all.” Allura confessed, with a sigh.

“Are you keeping secrets from us?” Lance gasped, putting a hand to his heart, “im hurt Allura! You should kiss me to make me forgive you.”

A simultaneous eyeroll from just about everyone in the room.

“The issue is I don't know how it works. I didn't think it was ever needed until now and the occasion hadn't been brought up before but… I don't see another way to do this.”

“Goddamnit Allura, won't you just tell it to us straight instead of dropping hints and being all dramatic, you're acting like Lance.” Keith's headache would come back if someone didn't explain themselves within the next 30 seconds.

“Father built a time machine when the first war with Zarkon started, in hopes he could go back and fix their alliance. Unfortunately it didn't work and just made the overall discord so much worse. It's in my room under my bed, it used to be in the library but it needed to be where nobody would find it after the battle.”

“Why didn't you want anyone to find it?” Lance asked

“Probably because some paladins have sticky fingers and would zap up a million years in the past.” Keith grumbled.

“Altean cavewomen babes doesn't seem all bad.” Lance shrugged.

“Anyways,” Allura interjected, trying to keep the conversation on track, “Hunk and Pidge can help rewire it, Coran will run the networks and try to find an open outlet for travel. Shiro, I need you to bond with your lion, it seems like every since your return the connection has been unstable. That might be a partial reason voltron have been so difficult to form recently.”

“Yes princess.” Shiro agreed, already planning on doing so later.

“What about us?” Keith asked, pointing his thumb at Lance.

“You two will be the guinea pigs.” Pidge walked towards them slightly, “or the victims, however you would prefer it.”

“Whoa whoa whoa! I didn't sign up for that.” Lance wiggled a finger in Pidge's face.

“Me neither.” Keith agreed.

“Well we don't exactly have anyone else to fill the position, besides you two don't have anything better to do. Do you?”

“I uh… I think Keith's headache is coming back, it's really bad too!” Lance rushed towards his friend, trying to help amp up his performance.

“Oh- uh- yeah… owchhh” Keith was never good at theater.

“Uh-huh, yeah right. It won't be ready for a while so you have plenty of time to practice your acting skills.” Pidge clicked her tongue as she walked into and past the sliding doors.

. . . . . . . .

Keith thought Lance has matured and didn't act as childish as he had in the past, but based on recent events his mind has reverted back to his original thought process. ‘Recent events’ included the conversation immediately following the instructions that they would be the test subjects for literal time travel.

“I can't believe I'm supposed to travel to ten thousand years ago with you!” Lance yelled, walking back to the barracks. “It's gonna be just me luck and we are going to be stuck there for decades until we come back to this timeline! Ill be stuck with you forever, i would rather kill myself than do that!”

“I distinctly remember you saying I'm 'like the future’ on that game show, or was that just my imagination…?” Keith glared.

“Uh, the future. Emphasis on the f-u-t-u-r-e, not the past. Or do you need me to spell that one out for you too?”

“Ten thousand years with you would be hell on earth.” Keith shook at the mental picture.

“You really are dumb, we aren't on earth.” Lance rolled his eyes.

“Catch a metaphor once and awhile wont you!”

“Im the sharpshooter, not the sharp… catcher!”

“Guys!” a voice shouted from in front of them. It was Shiro -no surprise. “We can hear you bickering all the way from the lion's hanger, cut it out.”

“Its not my fault Keith is an-”

“Lance!” the voice boomed again.

“-asshole!” Lance whisper-yelled at Keith.

“I'm not an asshole, you're ignorant!” Keith did the same.

“Whatever, dropout.”

“Almost three years ago, let it go. You're welcome anyways, if i didnt drop out then you would still be picking trash off the uni floors.” Keith scoffed.

“As if! I was never doing that!” Lance said, as they both approached the barracks. They got increasingly louder again. They were luckily too far away from Shiro to be scolded for the fifth time that day.

“A simple thank you would be the most appreciated answer.”

“As if!” Lance said, reaching the door to his room.

“Whatever… idiot”

“So original, you have the brain of a paper airplane.” Lance shot

“You stole that line from me, you also didn't even say it right!” Keith groaned, somehow managing to slam the automatic door behind him. Lance did the same, but with some flair- or as he would call it ‘Razzle Dazzle’ which just meant an extra huff right before it shut.

Keith got to the middle of his room before remembering that his chest plate was deemed ‘a problem for later’ was now an issue. It was later. He groaned, annoyed at past Keith and lance, so foolish to assume they would have the energy to yank it off. Maybe he would just take his nap with it on.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The red lion was quickly overheating, the control panels had steam rising out of them. A faint smell of flames roamed the cockpit, infecting Keith's nostrils. A repetitive beeping began, the same rhythm as his rapidly increasing heartbeat. He struggled to repair whatever damages he could reach without escaping his seat, his arms couldn't reach the flashing red light behind him. His black undersuit became damper, his sweat sticking to it with more ease. the underside of his knees, armpits, and back was soaked, his forehead beginning to perspire as well. The dog stung his eyes, his head beginning to ache and a burning felt in his throat like a warning. He panicked, pulling off his helmet and leaning to the side of his console. The heat bubbled up farther and higher until it was all over the floor. A tired string of spit was wiped away with his sleeve as he shifted back to his regular position. His head still spun with the new smell of hot vomit circulating the cockpit. His ears rang, tuning out the yelling of his teammates.

“Keith! Keith! Do you copy?” The bone chilling fear in Shiro's voice was heavily concerning.

Keith, too weary to speak, just gave a pained moan through his lips. The heat was overcoming him, his eyes were closing, as was his airway. There that funny feeling was again, breathing. Or really the absence of. He couldn't breathe, he just… couldn't. He gasped but all that he inhaled was the toxic fumes coming from the space growing. It felt like great force was pushing down on his lungs, down on his chest, down on anything else it took for a human to function at minimum.
He couldn't breathe, he cannot breathe, he isn't breathing, im not breathing, i cant breathe i cant breathe i cant breathe i cant breathe i cant breathe i cant-

He woke up.

He still couldn't breathe, the weight was still on his chest, the bricks. He couldn't puff his chest up enough for a real breath. He tilted his head down to see the culprit of why he couldn't breathe. The damned chestplate was suffocating him. He stood straight up and clung his fingers under it, trying to lift it up his head, then down, then up, trying to find any angle for it to slip off. But it just wouldn't.

“Shit shit shit!” he felt more sweat, everywhere, he felt claustrophobic and cramped in his own skin, and of course, the armor that would slowly kill him he felt if he didn't get it off now.

He panicked, rushing out of his room and knocking on lances with the toe of his shoes, still attempting to escape it when he opened the door.

“Keith?” Lance cocked his head, but after about 0.5 seconds of context clues it clicked for him, “oh shit!” He pulled Keith into his room by the neck and got to work pulling the armor off. They both cursed under the breath, pushing and pulling and tugging and yanking the heavy metal off his esophagus.

It felt like 20 years, but it finally fell to the floor with a clang. Keith was sweating like he had just jumped into the upside-down Altean pool. He was breathing like he had too. Once he was freed and grabbed onto lances shoulders, fully embracing. The contract shook lance, he knew Keith wasn't a big fan of physical touch, so the sudden tight hug was rattling. So was the way Keith was grappling onto him, he couldn't be pried off easily, luckily Lance didn't try to. He hugged under Keith's shoulder blades, comfortingly. Soft whimpers escaped past Keith's lips.

“Hey man, are you okay?” Lance pulled back, as did his friend. He grabbed onto Keith's chin and tilted it downwards, trying to get a good look in his eyes. He had never seen him so distressed.

“I couldnt breathe, that stupid fucking chestplate almost killed me.” Keith was enraged at the inanimate object.

“It's off now, it's okay. You don't have to worry about not breathing anymore. See how you're breathing now?” Lance shushed, trying to calm down whatever was internally flipping out inside his teammates brain.

Keith put his head in the crook of Lance’s neck, trying to catch his breath to make up for the recent loss. Lance put his arms back around Keith and began to giggle.

“What's funny?” Keith asked, pissed off that Lance was probably laughing at him.

“Look who's being cradled in whose arms now.” Lance remarked snarkily.

“Shut up.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Under here?” Pidge rested her hands on her hips.

Allura brought Pidge and Hunk into her bedroom and they were now all staring at her bed. Well, Allura and Pidge were. Hunk was keeping his eyes entertained by letting them explore the room. It was heavily decorated in pink flowy fabrics and smelled like a strawberry shortcake. There was a long maybe 10ft mirror in one of the corners that reflected her bed, which was also tall, almost the same height as Pidge.

“Yes, we might not have to move any of the decorative pillows and blankets, we can shift the bed out of the way.” Allura answered.

“Shift it? That thing probably weighs a ton!” Pidge looked bewildered.

Allura held her arms out and moved the bed using her unexplained Altean magic, perfectly making way for a trap under the furniture.

“Or… that works too.” Pidge scoffed, crossing her arms to look back at Hunk who was paying zero attention.

“Is that a door? I expected something like a device under the bed. I didn't know you meant it was that big.” Hunk moved closer.

“Its not that big, really, around the same size at that console Pidge and Lance bought at the space mall a while back. It's in the room under here. I haven't been in there for… many years.” Allura's voice got quiet, cracking ever so slightly.

“Like ten thousand years?” Hunk looked over at her, seeing her in distress he put a hand on her thin shoulder, "don't worry princess, we’re here too.”

Allura responded with a smile and crouched down at the door, opening it. Pidge hadn't really thought about the lack of dust in space but after so many years one would think at least a few flies or dust bunnies would run out of there. But nope, it still looked as pristine as the day it was created, however long ago that was anyways. The door opened to a long flight of stairs, a light turning on with each step down.

“Is it a basement?” Hunk observed as they all tentatively walked down each step. Allura had always put off venturing down there but the time would eventually come up, she just wished it wasn't today.

“Me and father would play down here, there's probably lots of junk down here-” allura was cut off after reaching the floor, all the lights were dimly lit in a blueish white. Her breath was even shakier now than ever.

“Princess?” Pidge watched as allura walked towards a lowly bookshelf and picked up something from the short stack. She opened it, holding gently to the spine of the thick pages. It looked like an old scrapbook.

“It feels so recent.” Allura said flatly, thin warm tears flooded down her solemn face.

“What does?”

“Fathers passing, it doesn't seem like it's been ten thousand years, not even a few months.” allura continued, “It's so familiar, I can still smell him in these pages.” she brought the book up to her nose and sniffed it softly, not wanting to use up all the scent.

“Allura, I know this isn't a good time to interject but we have a mission down here. Memory lane can wait.” Hunk reminded her, she was secretly grateful.

“Your right, Hunk. it should be somewhere over here.” allura walked to a chest, it looked like something that pirates would steal deep in some cave in the unfortunate shape of a skull or animal.

“Start digging.” Allura grunted, pushing nostalgic objects out of the way to the bottom. She was both dreadful and eager to go through all these pieces of memorabilia later.

“Is this it?” Pidge grabbed a heavy object that looked like exactly what she had pictured; an old gaming console-typewriter mix.

“Yes.” Allura whispered, her hands shaking as she grabbed it from Pidge’s clutches. “This is it.”

Chapter Text

Keith shot straight up in bed, his hair was dripping from sweat, a dark wet stain on the back of his shirt was mirrored on the sheets. He stuck his hand up near his neck, clutching to make sure he was still alive, and also breathing enough to form a full thought in his head. A pounding sensation pulsed in the front of his forehead, sending shockwaves through his body.

“Fuck.” he whispered after finally getting his heartbeat back to a somewhat steady pace. He sniffed and got out of bed, his muscles ached and his vision blurred, dark spots flickered in his pupils until he fell back to the ground. He accepted defeat and leaned against the bed, letting the blood flow to his brain until the room stopped spinning in endless circles.

He dozed off finally when Allura's voice boomed though the comms located in the corner of each room.

“Paladins!” it shook everyone awake in their rooms, “we have unlocked the first step into the mission! Come down to the bridge immediately!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“So what's this big news?” Lance scratched the back of his head. If Keith wasn't in such a tired, shitty mood he would say some snarky one liners about Lance wearing an avocado facemask and drinking green tea this early in the morning. Not to mention the gown of a robe and blue lion slippers.

“Yeah, I was having a dream about a lasagna planet that I am really wishing to go back to.” Hunk said accusingly.

“I am aware no one wants to be up this early, neither do we. In fact we haven't slept all night so I don't want to hear any complaining.” Allura said sharply, as if the paladins couldn't tell she had been up for vargas.

“Whos ‘we’?” Keith asked, stretching his neck forward in confusion.

As if rehearsed, Pidge walked through the elevator door, holding wires in a specific way to prevent them from getting tangled.

“I put the network into the-” Pidge stopped in her tracks upon seeing the full room. “Oh hey, good thing you all are here we have BIG news!” she hopped a little in her step on the ‘big’.

“Pidge and I spent all night figuring out how this thing works, most of the issue was that it didn't have the right cables… the mice chewed through them at some point.” Allura said embarrassingly.

“The other part was that it didn't have the right network for this section of the galaxy, therefore no universal codes were able to break through.” Pidge explained, setting the wires down on her pilot chair, which was where most of the workplace was.

“English please?” Lance asked flatly, and a bit annoyed.

“It's like space wifi,” Pidge turned to look at him, “but without the internet. Like remember back on earth when you would facetime someone when you were at home with four bars, but they might've been on a beach or mountain with no internet? And how the call wouldn’t go through because only one side had a usable network? It's the same thing, everyone else had the internet except for us.”

“What's everyone? Like planets?” Hunk yawned, still confused about the big picture.

“Dimensions, time categories. Statistically, this seems to be almost a million years old, Allura said it was one of the first most advanced pieces of Altean tech, which is to our advantage. We can't travel through the wrinkles in space without this. If this had been invented after the war with Zarkon and Alteas… explosion, then we wouldn't be able to go back.” Pidge said, using her hands as gestures as she often did.

“Gotcha, so is it like a teleporter instead of a travel machine? When you said time machine I pictured an old delorean with-” Keith began, but was cut off.

“No no no, it's like a wormhole, but smaller. Smaller doesn't necessarily mean less intense though. It's actually the opposite, same level of power but compacted into a smaller vessel.”

“So, when do we try it out?” Lance said, eager to be the first human to travel through time AND discover past space exploration.

“We haven't exactly built it yet…” Allura stepped into the conversation.

“Is that not it?” Keith nodded to the machine on the floor that Pidge had been busying herself with.

“Thats only a fraction of it, we need to install it into the control board to even form the wormhole.” Pidge pushed her glasses farther up her nose as she stood.

“It might take a few hours but it should be up and running by early tomorrow, which is when we will test it.” Allura said, shifting her body towards Lance and Keith.

“Test it? That sounds like an experiment.” Lance's eyes widened.

“It just means you two will go back a few hundred years at first, eventually the intended time will be 10,019 years, right when Zarkon and King Alfor formed an alliance.” The paladins hadn't even noticed Coran sitting under the control desk, messing with the settings until he spoke up.

“Why does it have to be us?” Keith groaned.

“Becasue Shiro is trying to bond with his lion, im keeping track of it cause im the only one who understands to schematics, and Hunk would vomit.” Pidge sighed

“What about Allura? Or Coran? Don't you want to go back to Altea, princess?” Lance asked

“As much as I would adore to return, Coran and I cannot go back since we were alive in that timeline, we would revert back and it would go south entirely. It is safest for you two so that neither of you goes alone.” Allura chimed in.

“Would we use an escape pod?” Keith asked, not particularly wanting to use a lion on the journey.

“You will use the red lion.” Allura responded

“Why can't we use the blue lion!” Lance felt offended, throwing his arms to his sides.

“Yeah, I don't feel comfortable bringing red into an entirely different dimension of time.”

“I understand, but the red lion is the only one that would be able to withstand whatever the worm hole would throw its way.” Allura explained

“What if we are spotted, won't they ask what the vessel we traveled on is?” Lance crossed his arms, still tempted to ask again for the blue lion.

“You will hide the lion which brings me to my next point, you will be undercover.”

“Undercover? How?”

“You will look like an Altean commonfolk, I have some ideas and of course, memories of what Alteans 10,000 years ago wore, come with me later to decide your fashion.”

“So we disguise ourselves?”

“Correct, but not for the test mission, you must wear your paladin armor… just in case.”

“In case of what!” Lance screeched.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Allura found herself back in the ‘basement’ of the ship under her bed. She purposefully went alone, even though Pidge had offered company she politely declined. So far she had come across the Altean version of a snowglobe, more sappy scrapbooks, some trinket filled jars and chests, and her old stuffed animals. They all smelled like Altea; lemon grass, minty fresh air, and her fathers apple pie cologne. Her breathing stammered after every treasure she discovered. The scrapbooks were full of photos (obviously) but there were also plants and other momentos taped in, making it heavy and also very messy. A page she kept flipping back on was where she and King Alfor had painted their fingerprints in the paper. The paint was scratchy, making it a challenge to resist rubbing her finger against the 3D print.

“Alfor wouldn't want you to be sad, Princess.”

Allura gasped, not knowing that Coran had followed her.

“How long have you been down here?”

“A few minutes only, but I hate to see you so upset.” His voice was sympathetic, as if he was holding back tears in his throat.

“It feels all so recent, even though I haven't seen him in over ten thousand years.”

“It was only a few years ago for us, it would be impossible for our brains to recollect the time we lost whilst asleep. Don't beat yourself up, I miss him too but I can't even imagine how you feel.” Coran sat criss-crossed next to Allura, looking over her shoulder onto the scrapbook in her lap.

“Here is when we all went to the museum together.” Allura giggled, pointing to a faded photo with her, Alfor, Coran, and her mother standing in front of a sign that had been too damaged to be readable, but Allura remembered the day.

“You look so young in that, you’ve grown into a marvelous young lady.”

Allura sniffed, leaning into Coran's shoulder for comfort, which he was always good at.

“Oh, Princess.” He sighed, moving her hair out her face.

“We need to get this time machine up and running fast, Zarkon will pay for this.” Allura grimaced, determined.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Keith should've been asleep hours ago, his eyes were droopy, his brain was foggy, his body was warm and exhausted. But he was scared, he hated being asleep, he hated knowing he would have a horrible dream, knowing he would wake up still in it, still heaving. He rubbed his ankles together under the blanket and tried to find a comfortable position so he wouldn't be able to stay awake. It was almost like a subconscious reflex to stay awake, or maybe a defense mechanism his brain had automatically created; sleep equals nightmare which equals dream death which then equals waking up unable to breathe which finally means real life death. It makes sense I guess. He hasn't told anyone that this had been going on for a few weeks, they get more vivid every night, more surreal, he swears he wakes up sometimes with the burning feeling on his crisp skin. Lance was on the verge of figuring it out, after that chestplate incident recently he's been acting off. Asking Keith if he's doing okay more often, shooting concerned looks, just making it more awkward for both of them as a whole. If anyone should know about this it should really be Shiro or even Allura, she might have some magical remedy and he wouldn't have anything but leadership/brotherly wisdom. And what good would that do?

He gave in, it was the midnight of the universe and the entire ship was asleep, even Pidge which was exceedingly rare these days. Keith stood up, and made his way out of his room and down the hall a bit, only a few steps since his room was parallel to Lances. He lifted his balmy fist up and knocked slightly, enough that it might wake him up but still not cause everyone else to. He also thought the walls were soundproof until a week ago.

Lance had just fallen asleep when he heard the eerie clanging on his locked door, he thought it was a dream at first but then it repeated a bit louder, it was definitely real that time. He flung the covers off and walked cautiously to the door. It hissed open at his presence to reveal-

“Keith? What are you doing here?” Lance yawned, his eyes were puffy and tired.

“I- um I mean i-” Keith didn't think to rehearse what he would say to Lance if/when he actually opened the door for him.

“Whats wrong?” Lance put his hand on Keith's shoulder, making him jolt, which was only more concerning.

“I can't sleep.” half a lie, half the honest truth. Keith could sleep but he wouldn't, not without company.

“i thought you had sleeping pills?” Lance rested his head on the doorjamb

“i do, they haven't been working.” Keith scratched his elbow behind his back, why wouldn't Lance just get the hint already, he had too much pride to forwardly ask if they could sleep in the same bed tonight.

“i have an idea!” Lance pumped his fist, his eyes suddenly not sleepy, but almost ecstatic.

. . . . . . . . .

Lance's grand plan ended up being muffins. muffins with some odd Altean herb that was supposed to emulate melatonin. Hunk and Allura had created the recipe together near the beginning of their life in the castle, along with some other dessert remedies for the stomach bug, headaches, and foot pains. Lance laid out the ingredients, already creating a mess in the kitchen so late at night.

“if those are what I think they are then you can forget about this whole thing.” Keith ran his thin fingers through his tangled hair.

“the oats?” Lance raised his long eyebrow.

“what else would I complain about? the sugar?.... Yes Lance, the oats.” Keith sighed

“oatmeal raisin cookies are a delight, especially with Chef Lance behind the apron.”

“raisins too? yeah, i'll just hit my head on the wall until it knocks me out.” Keith stood up from the barstool he had been resting on. Lance leapt over the marble counter to grab his wrist and pull
him back.

“c’mom Keith, just try it.” his eyes were pleading, “plus you woke me up too, so this is payback.”

“Fine.” Keith grumbled, oddly persuaded easily

“yesss! okay then, help me find the measuring spoons.”

“Have you ever made these before?” Keith said, watching Lance rummage through the drawers noisily

“nope!”

. . . . . . . . . .

the cookies turned out… burnt to say the least.

“i am not eating those.” Keith's voice cracked with a chuckle, dodging the black cookie Lance was forcing at his face. he ducked under counters, scurried in circles but Lance was very persistent.

“Keith! this is going to help your sleeping problems!” Lance was belly laughing chasing Keith around the castles kitchen

“No way! I'd stay awake forever before even coming close to that!” Keith held his rib cage from his giggling.

“compromise! I'll eat half and you’ll eat half!” Lance suggested.

a few moments of silence.

“Fine.” Keith held his hand out for Lance to shake, instead Lance put half of a sorry excuse for a cookie in his palm.

“to our horrible sleep schedules!” Lance raised the cookie up, mocking a toast.

“shut up you goof.” Keith sighed, unable to stop smiling.

The bite Keith took just above broke his front teeth with a crack! Lance took one at the same time but went about it by shoving a small piece near his back teeth.

“shit!” Keith yelped

“holy quiznak!” Lance fanned his mouth, breathing heavily

“Lance, this is awful!”

“you helped make them! it's your fault too!” Lance shoved Keith farther away from him.

“God, they don't even taste like oatmeal raisin… Lance this tastes like…” Keith hesitated, taking a good look at the cookie that was quickly falling apart in his grasp.

“like what?” Lance said, taking another bite of the monstrosity

“whiskey almost.” Keith had a sour expression looking back up Lance.

“shit your right, it really does.”

“Are you sure you did the recipe right?” Keith coughed, the cookie ash in this throat

“im pretty sure.” Lance ran back to check in the book, he compared each ingredient to what container was on the counter. “fuck.” he said flatly at the realization.

“oh my god what did you do?” Keith groaned, preparing for whatever foolish mistake his friend had made.

“I added kzuuli instead of kzoolu.... which is the equivalent to like… a shit ton of alcohol."

“So what does that mean?”

“We won't get sleepy, but we sure as hell are gonna get drunk… based on the amount listed on here, it might be fast acting.” Lance gulped.

Keith lunged towards Lance, grabbing him by the collar of his pajama shirt, briefly lifting him into the air.

“Lance let me get this straight…” he began, “we are going to time travel tomorrow… like for the first time ever…”

Lance nodded

“and we are going to do it,” Keith took a sharp breath in, “hungover, possibly even still wasted considering how late it is.”

“...yes?” Lance's feet twitched, hovering in the air before Keith slammed him back on the floor, still keeping tight onto his shirt.

“that's so fucking funny oh my god.” Keith surprisingly broke out into a very out of character wheeze, head butting Lance chest to keep his composure

“oh quiznak it's already setting in.” the corner of Lance's lips were upturned, he was right. It was setting in.

So instead, they went to Lance's room to try and suffocate the sounds of drunken laughter.

“i can't believe you went into the belly of a big space worm!” Lance jeered

“shut up!” Keith groaned, stifling a giggle

“and you escaped by letting it fart you out!”

“go to hell!” Keith pushed Lance off his own bed.

“I'm sorry!!” Lance said through a laugh as he fell on the hard floor with an “oouf!”

“You've done some embarrassing stuff too!” Keith hiccuped, trying to come up with something on the spot

“Oh yeah? like what?” Lance giggled, sitting up.

“like how you are constantly flirting with every hot alien girl you see just to get rejected by them. damn. time.”

“Okay, two things!” Lance raised two fingers in front of Keith's face, “numero uno, I don't get rejected every time. and second of all I don't exclusively flirt with the girls.”

“name one time you've not been rej- wait. what was that second part?” Keith scowled, trying to understand if he had heard Lance correctly.

Lance crawled closer to the bed, putting his chin on the mattress, just inches away from where Keith's head was laying.

“i said… I don't just flirt with the alien girls.” Lance said in the softer tone

“you flirt- you flirt with… guys sometimes?” Keith gulped, noticing how close Lance was.

“yeah, sometimes if they are hot.” Lance was basically whispering at this point

“like who?”

“rolo, some mermaid on that underwater planet. There's also this galra who is super sexy.” Lance hissed sultry

“a galra?” Keith's eyes widened

“partially galra.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“Well, he had deep purple eyes, like really purple like a gemstone that no one has ever heard of. and their skin is like porcelain. It's so clear and pale. and their hair is-” Lance stuck a limp hand in Keith's hair, tangling it between his fingers “- is soft and thick like a black fountain of misery.”

“You're drunk. You don't know what you're saying.” Keith reassured

“You're drunk, you're letting it all happen.” Lance giggled.

Before either of them could stop each other Lance moved his head closer until his lips were grazing Keith's.

“im drunk.” Lance whispered

“im drunk too, we won't remember this.” Keith hummed

“i really really want to remember this though.” Lance said into Keith's mouth

“Me too.”

Keith leaned closer to Lance and helped him off the floor and onto himself where Lance would straddle him, covering his lips and neck with wet sloppy kisses. Keith cursed under his breath, overstimulated and sort of annoyed at how good of a kisser Lance was. Lance moved his hips back and forth slowly, this was when Keith broke away.

“don't- please I don't want to do anything when i'm not sober.” his maturity was showing

“Okay, is this okay?” Lance put one hand on Keith's bicep, squeezing it, feeling the hard muscles.

Keith nodded, Lance giddily got back to work planting kisses over his… friend?

Chapter Text

Keith and Lance woke up in a daze, tangled in each other's limbs with a raging headache. Keith grumbled awake in relief, one of the first nights in a long time he had woken up and felt like he could inhale successfully. The second thing he realized was that he was in Lance's room. In Lance's bed. In Lances arms. What the actual shit was going on. He sprang up, moving Lance's wrist off his shoulder, and uncrossing their legs.

“Lance?” he said, fearful in his tone.

“Five more minutes, ma.” Lance groaned, still dozing off

“Lance!”

“What!” Lance's eyes shot open, looking directly in Keith's dark irises.

“What happened last night?” Keith was practically desperate for Lance to reply that he had sleepwalked or maybe this was still a dream, it would be a pretty bad one.

“i dont know…” Lance gulped, sitting up in front of Keith.

“Did we…” Keith scratched the back of his head, Lance watched his cheeks turn a pink shade

“God, no!” Lance yelled

“Well how was i supposed to know! I don't remember anything from last night after the space vodka bread!” Keith said accusingly.

“Oh what, you think that i get drunk and suddenly have the urge to fuck you!” Lance stood up, standing in front of his friend.

“Im not sure, maybe a good hint would be waking up cuddling each other with my head nuzzled in the crook of your neck! Do you think if i got drunk my first thought would be to screw you?” Keith used his arms for big gestures, throwing them up and down as he spoke.

“I don't know!” Lance sighed, holding the bridge of his nose, “so what… did it happen?”

“Im pretty sure we just kissed and went to sleep in your bed.” Keith guessed

“All we did was kiss?” Lance confirmed, beginning to pace in circles

“We were drunk. It didnt- it didnt… mean anything.” Keith was halfway asking, wondering to himself if Lance thought it meant nothing.

“Yeah, obviously! I have taste.” Lance crossed his arms and smirked.

“Yeah. Besides, who would want to kiss you?” Keith scoffed, the awkwardness had worn off thankfully quickly.

“Very funny, mullet.”

“Call me mullet all you like, but that can't change the fact that you were running your fingers through it all night.”

‘Why did I say that?’

Lance mentally took a step back, what Keith had said was a normal Keith sentence, but the way he said it was… seductive? Sexy Keith should've worn off by now. Now Keith should be the annoying dropout that was going on the journey with him to defy the laws of time.

“Whatever.”

Really? ‘Whatever’? That was his best line?

Allura's voice came through on the comm (Thank God) interrupting the boys… riveting conversation.

“Lance and Keith to the bridge, we are almost ready. Come in your paladin armor, your journey to Altea begins now.” Her voice was hopeful, Lance could hear the smile in it.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“All booted up and ready, princess. All we need are the guinea pigs for this experiment.” Pidge rubbed her eager hands together devilishly

“Maybe call them that to their faces.” Hunk advised, shaking his head

“Fine… are our victims almost here.” Pidge smirked, her glasses flashed at the reflection of the crystal.

“They should be down soon, I'm still worried that this will not work out.” Allura bit her nails.

“Whats the worst that could happen?” Hunk shrugged.

“Well-”

“It could blow up.” Pidge responded flatly. Hunk tried to speak again

“Or just-”

“The wormhole would close halfway and the Lions would be in two and the toxic space air would seep in, killing them both to be lost in the vast universe forever.”

“I-”

“Zarkon could attack while they are in which means we wouldn't be able to form voltron which also means that we would die and then they wouldn't have a safety to come back to, the Lions would shut down and overall they-”

“Pidge!” Hunk yelled, steam coming out of his ears.

“I mean… nothing will happen! It'll be fine.” Pidge just noticed Allura's wide, fearful eyes peering down at her.

“It better not.”

Pidge turned her head to see Keith and Lance standing in the elevator. “Hey guys! You didn't happen to hear anything I said before that did you, heheh….?”

“No, don't repeat or else I'm backing out of this entirely.” Keith grumbled, walking near the group.

“Whats wrong with your face? You look exhausted. You should've gotten a full eight vargas in preparation.” Allura scolded, putting her hands on her hips.

“We did, believe me I would know.” Lance said stupidly, receiving an eyebrow raise from a suspecting Pidge.

“Lance drugged us both.” Keith sighed.

“Hey!” Lance nudged Keith hard on his side, “why would you say that?”

“It's the truth…”

“Focus paladins! This is crucial information!” Allura clapped her hands together, literally grabbing the boy's attention, “Pidge ran every possible occurrence that could go wrong, you're both safe. Here is the run down.” Allura waved her hand over the Pidge, getting everyone's attention back to her.

“Okay, you are going to Olkarion around a hundred years ago through this,” a hologram of a wormhole appeared before them. The image was pink instead of the dark purplish navy a wormhole normally was. “You might feel a slight shock going in, it should take less than ten seconds to transport you. Your comms should work, if they dont i made a little brochure of how to get back without us. When you get there take this,” Pidge handed Lance what looked to be a camera, “find anything to prove you actually went back in time. Try your best not to interact with anyone, we don't have your costumes for Altea yet. The red Lion is ready for you two, Keith will obviously be flying it and Lance in the chair behind. We attached an extra seat buckle for safety, although I'm pretty sure neither of you use one anyways, perhaps consider it.”

“Anything else? Is there a distinct mission?” Lance said, examining the device that had been handed to him.

“Be there less than a varga, come back safe, don't talk to anyone. That's the mission.” Allura said, arms crossed and serious.

“Yes, princess.” Keith nodded his head in respect and clicked his helmet on, taking a deep breath before walking with Lance back to the elevator.

“Keith, I'm scared.” Lance waited for the doors to close before confessing. He and Keith were standing parallel in the elevator, previously in silence

“What do you want me to do about that?” Keith didn't move his eyes towards Lance, they were still fixed on the door.

“Be more considerate and try to make me feel better.” Lance grimaced.

“Im not here to soothe you, im here you send us into an uncharted pink wormhole that may just be the bane of our existence.”

“You're making me feel worse describing it that way just so you know.” Lance pivoted his heels to wag a finger in Keith's straight face.

“You think I'm not scared too?” Keith's lip twitched, this made Lance go quiet. “We could die, Lance.”

Lance stood in shock, Keith had turned his neck to gLance at him, his eyes were wet and puffy.

“Do you think I want to die? I didn't sign up to do this. I didn't sign up for any of this!” Keith's voice was breaking, a direct reflection of how he felt on the inside.

“Hey hey hey, buddy.” Lance pranced to be in front of Keith who currently had let his head fall into his hands to suffocate his sobs. “It's gonna be okay, I'm sorry I made you feel upset.”

“God, I'm such a wimp. All I wanted was to get Shiro back that day. I never should've investigated that stupid Blue Lion. I'm the reason we are all into this mess!” Keith banged his palm against his forehead.

“If you hadn't found out about that Lion then Zarkon might have come to earth and destroyed it, you basically saved the universe when you began your research.” Lance stroked Keith's forearm.

“Dont lie to me, Lance.” Keith sniffed, lifting his head up.

“I wouldn't lie to you Keith. I love you.” Lance appeared so empathetic, he never thought he would see Keith break down like this.

“I-”

The elevator doors opened with a ding, revealing the red Lions hanger. Keith took a deep breath.

“Lets do this.” he said, his voice quivering a bit still. He had never sounded so unconfident.

Chapter Text

It was an understatement for Pidge to say it would feel like a slight shock entering the worm hole.

Lance and Keith damn near got electrocuted.

“Holy shit!” Lance yelped behind Keith as the Red Lion began to pass through the hot pink portal, “Pidge!”

“What's wrong? What's happening?” Pidge's distorted voice rang in their ears.

“A ‘slight shock’ my ass! I feel like I'm swimming in a lake of electricity!” Keith groaned, gritting his teeth.

“You should be out in a few seconds! Hang tight!” Pidge rushed around the control panel, making sure they wouldn't genuinely explode.

Sure enough, within the next moment they were successfully on the other side. Olkarion , 2194. Exactly one hundred earth years behind, but that's not why Keith and Lance gawked at the view.

The Olkarion that they were familiar with was extremely high tech, nature bound, and… sort of secluded. The Olkarion that they see now is… busy. Busy in the way a mall is on Black Friday. Busy in the way a group of moths are when you shine a bright lantern. It was almost chaotic, although none of them seemed to notice the great flying Lion above them.

“Can they see us?” Lance looked over Keith's shoulder. He had been wondering the same exact thing.

“‘Im not sure, let's assume they do and not experiment to test it, if they are just ignoring us we wouldn't want to draw more attention to ourselves.” Keith advised, hands shaking on the steering. “Try to contact the others.”

Lance got right on it, holding down his comm, “this is team purple, castle do you copy?”

“Team purple?” Keith raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah cause red and blue!” Lance smiled like a child on Christmas.

“No, I understand. You just couldn't think of anything cooler than purple?” Keith chuckled

“Oh what? What name would you give us? Captain Loverboy Lance and co-captian Mullet?” Lance tossed his imaginary hair off his shoulder.

“Captain Red and the other one.” Keith huffed.

“You're gonna be Captain Dead if you don't look where you're leading us!” Lance suddenly blurted out- pointing head at a tall building Keith had zoned out on.

“Shit!” Keith swerved out of the way just in time, causing Lance to shift and fall out of his seat, "should've listened to them and worn your seatbelts.”

“Shut up, dropout!” Lance grumbled as he stood up off the floor.

“Did anyone answer?”

“No one. I think we are on our own.” Lance sighed, reluctantly putting on his buckle.

“Find that camera doohickey and see if you can spot a newspaper or something with the date on it.” Keith commanded, circling the building, looking for clues himself.

“Okay i- did you just say doohickey? How unprofessional.” Lance snickered, mock lecturing.

“Blame it on this hangover.” Keith groaned, reminded of the headache.

“I didn't expect you to be so lightweight. I mean, I'm over it already and I'm pretty sure I had the full cookie when you had a bite.”

“Are you bragging that at the ripe age of eighteen you can down the equivalent of four shots of straight tequila and be fine ten hours later?”

“Yes, actually. That just means when we get back to earth, if we ever go to a bar together I would win against you in any game!” Lance said triumphantly.

“...why would just you and I go to a bar together?” Keith asked after about a minute.

“Wait!” Lance scrambled, suddenly aware of what it sounded like, "I didn't mean it would just be us! Hunk and Shiro could come too!”

“Besides, you mean if we get back to earth, it's not when.” Keith ignored Lance's babbling. He was still locked in on finding something with the year on it.

“Dont have that attitude, man. We are getting back to earth I swear. I'll make sure of it if it's the last thing I do.”

“With the current situation, it wouldn't be surprising if it is.”

“THERE!” Lance's outburst startled Keith's calm mind.

“WHAT?” he shouted back, whipping his head around.

“That looks like a newspaper!”

“Lance there are no newspapers in-... oh shit yeah that is a newspaper.” Keith flew down closer to what looked like a government headquarters in the middle of nowhere. He crossed his fingers that they wouldn't be spotted.

They hopped out of the Lion cautiously, no one was around… that they could see. Lance went up to a tree log kiosk that held a little twig woven basket full of rolled thick parchment. Her stuck his hand in and pulled one out, unwrapping it revealed the closest reflection of earth they had seen in space yet; a newspaper. And sure enough it read 2194 in the top right corner.

“Hell yeah! That took like no time at all. This is awesome!” Lance held his hand up for a high five as his friend walked towards him, Keith ignored it completely, his gaze stuck on the paper.

“Give me that.” he commanded, snatching it from Lance's hand.

“Dude, no high five? That's messed up.” Lance sulked, he watched Keith's eye trail over the articles. “Are you reading the newspaper, I should've known you were that type of guy. I can see it now; early in the morning on your old texas ranch, Keith Kogane sits in his rocking chair on a porch with a hot cup of black coffee in one hand, and the newspaper sitting on his lap as tumbleweeds pass by him. Typical- but can't forget the hair in his unwashed hair stinging his eyes.”

“I wash my hair.” was all Keith had to say about the mental image.

Lance walked closer to Keith to inspect his head for proof, “then why is it so greasy?” he asked, smirking.

“Becasues it's a goddamn milLion degrees out here.” he crumpled the paper, throwing it back to Lance's middle. “Take the stupid picture so we can leave.”

“Oh that's right, I forgot you're scared.” Lance mocked, taking a snapshot of the date.

“Shut your quiznak before I leave you in the past.” Keith but his cheek to hide the smile that was growing

“I don't think you're using that word correctly!” Lance yelled playfully, jumping onto Keith's back.

“Let go of me!” Keith groaned with a slight giggle.

“Dont leave in the past Keith! Then we will never see each other again!” Lance chortled.

“Well then I definitely will!” Keith teased, Lance fell off his back from them both laughing too hard.

“Can we go back to the present now? I'm freaked out thinking of if anyone sees us and recognizes the Lion.” Lance suggested.

“Yeah I guess we…. Wait a second.” Keith's smile faded, looking down at the newspaper.

“What is it?” Lance gulped

“Can we take the paper with us? It's from the past anyways so it wouldn't matter.” Keith offered

“That might be a bad idea, we shouldn't change anything… not yet anyways.” Lance advised, worried about the weight a single newspaper would have on the present day.

“What harm could it do?” Keith persisted.

“We don't know, that's why it's so dangerous. Besides, we got the photo and that's all that matters.”

“Fine.” Keith dropped the idea and started walking back to the Lion.

Once they were both double buckled into their seats Keith took a deep breath and ran his fingers over the control buttons.

“Can you hand me the brochure Pidge gave us if we couldn't contact them?” Keith reached his hand back behind him towards Lance for the folded paper.

“Yeah sure… uh…” Lance became quiet. Too quiet.

“Whats wrong?”

“I don't have it… I thought you did.” Lance admitted

“Pidge gave it to you! Why would I have it?” Keith screeched.

“I don't know! I guess I lost it!”

“You idiot! Did you even bring it?” Keith sighed

“I don't know! Fuck!” Lance rolled his eyes at his own stupidity.

“Okay… it's okay, we can figure this out on our own.” Keith took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He could hear Lance behind him doing the same.

“Do you have any memory of what Pidge did when we were leaving? How did she activate it?” Lance bit his lip asking, his leg was bobbing up and down.

“She installed the software somewhere in here, I'm looking for the download on this thing.” Keith scrolled through the hologramed computer on the main controls. “Stupid thing, she couldn't have bookmarked it or something?” he muttered to himself, forgetting Lance was literally not even two inches away and could hear everything he was saying.

“Its Pidge, she probably color coded it- actually no, im certain she did. Look for some neon green in the main settings.” Lance pointed to a button where sure enough there was an arrow and inbox.

“Good thinking,” Keith said before leaning closer to read what the message said. “ ‘Dear Keith and Lance, you guys are idiots for leaving the instructions here. I'm assuming that's what happened because I can't think of any other reason you would need this,’....” Keith turned to look at Lance, embarrassed.

“She knows us so well.” Lance sighed.

“ ‘the chip to open the portal is in the compartment of the Lions that is rarely used, its in the same region a glovebox would be in a car, just click on it and set the coordinates to where the castle is and press go, i made it super simple for your combined seven brain cells to understand.’ “ Keith found the compartment and the chip. He had written the castle's location on his palm before he left just in case. It's a good thing it's impossible for him to lose a hand… Shiro’s ability is a different story.

“Okay, press go.” Keith handed the chip to Lance

“Why do I get to press it?” Lance wondered, holding the object like it was a fragile newborn baby.

“Becasue if it all goes wrong it will be your fault.” Keith answered bluntly, that was the plan after all.

“Okay.” Lance shrugged, pressing the button of doom. Surprisingly, it worked and the jump point opened for them, creating the perfect amount of time to get close enough to it before it began to shrink. “Hurry!” Lance called out, nervous they wouldn't make it in time.

“Relax, we are gonna make it.” Keith said, rushing through the hot pink circle, bracing himself for the impact.

The shock on the way back wasn't as intense, maybe their bodies were still numb and recovering from the first one. When they arrived they heard a cut off of a message from the ship.

“-do you come in?” it was Pidge's voice.

“Just got back, safe and sound with proof.” Lance said gleefully.

“Incredible!” Allura shouted, clapping her hands together.

“Meet us in the hangar.” Keith said, castle in sight.

“Alrighty then! Castle Ship codename, over.” Pidge held her green helmet up to communicate.

Keith smiled, the nerves were gone now. They had completed their mission, “team purple, over and out.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“What all did you explore? What did you find!” Pidge's eyes were sparkling as she ran up to Keith and Lance coming out of the Lion.

“It was honestly really boring and uneventful.” Keith said through a poker face.

“Oh.” Pidge stopped in her tracks, mildly disappointed.

“I'm kidding Pidge, we time traveled. Of COURSE it was exciting!” Keith giggled, watching Pidge's face light up again.

“Do you have the photo?” Allura rushed in, eager as well to see the boys.

“It should be in here.” Lance handed the camera back to her and watched her flip through the pictures of the newspaper.

“That's insane! Guys! You just went back in time one hundred years! That's crazy!” Hunk was in awe of their bravery. “You know what would happen if I tried to do that?”

“You would vomit, probably.” Lance remarked.

“Yes! But I was going to say I would chicken out and stay in the castle! You guys are amazing, this is perfect for defeating Zarkon.”

Keith and Lance had completely forgotten about defeating Zarkon. Honestly, while they were on their journey there wasn't any purpose to it, they were laughing together. Sophomore year Keith and Lance wouldn't even dare walking down the same hallway. Now they were alone in the middle of a huge planet back in time… giggling at Lance's stupid jokes?

“Yeah I guess you're right, Hunk.” Keith finally managed, he had been reminiscing about the time on Olkarion . He also stood in regret of all the times he and Lance had been rude to each other. Every time they had pushed the other aside or made a rude comment, Keith probably punched him at some point.

Now Keith could look over at Lance and smile without even being provoked, they had come such a long way.

“Now we can move to Stage Two!” Allura announced

“... that was only Stage One?!” Lance yelped

“Stage Two is going back ten thousand years to Altea, of course!”

“What are we going to do there, again?” Keith crossed his arms

“We are still finding out the best way to go about it.” Pidge chimed in, she was now holding the camera, inspecting the image. “But I guess I find Zarkon's weakness.”

“Wait hold on, are they not going to stop Zarkon completely? Wouldn't that fix this whole mess together.” Hunk said, utterly confused.

“If we stop Zarkon from ever doing anything bad- that would break time in half. Because then Alfor would still be here, Zarkon would be dead, and the Lions would be safe, which means that we never would've found the Blue Lion and never gotten here. If we never got here then we couldn't have stopped him. Its an endless loop of impossiblities!” Pidge explained.

“Thats one of the most confusing things I think you have ever said.” Hunk stared blankly.

“To put it simply- NO, we are not stopping Zarkon from doing anything.” Pidge scoffed, she was just about sick of being the only person with common sense and decent intelligence.

“Are we just going to watch it all happen then?” Keith furrowed his brows, still not getting the full picture. To be fair though, nobody was.

“Find his weakness, take note of it, and then come back so we can destroy him.”

Chapter Text

“Does Zarkon even have a weakness?” Lance asked Keith. They were both sitting in the kitchen, Lance was trying to baLance an apple on a fork and Keith watched while sipping his coffee.

“I don't know, we have to figure it out apparently.” Keith groaned, dreading seeing prime Zarkon.

“What if he doesn't have any? He could just be all powerful.” Lance suggested, not giving up on the apple-fork tower.

“If he was all powerful then he wouldn't have let the Lions escape and get hidden in the first place, maybe his weakness is being dumb sometimes.” Keith was saying the first things that popped into his head, too tired to actually make any guesses.

“You're right, maybe he does have a weakness that we can find, or maybe just something that isn't his strong suit. Like he's awesome at fighting but what if he's really shitty at a debate?” Lance considered

“How intimidating could anyone be in a debate?” Keith scoffed, he wished he knew how Lance s' brains worked sometimes. He was grateful that he didn't most of the time though.

“I can be very intimidating, I'll have you know. I was on the debate team in school and got an A+ on a mock trial when I was only fourteen! I'd like to see Zarkon try to beat me.” Lance said it like it was his main monologue, such triumph and pride in his voice.

“Really?” Keith wasn't impressed.

“You got any better ideas?” Lance sulked back down.

Keith opened his mouth to speak when out of nowhere the entire castle shook, the alarm went off and red lights flashed across every room.

“Whats going on!” Lance yelled over the sirens

“I don't know! I think we have been hit!” Keith ran to the hangars where Pidge , Hunk, and Shiro were already in their Lions, ready to form voltron.

“Hurry up, Keith!” Shiro yelled from inside his Lion.

Keith complied and ran into Red, rushing them both outside of the castle to see a huge Galra Main ship. He was certain Zarkon was on it. He gulped in fear, his visor was foggy from his warm scared breathing, his palms sweat and he was shaking.

“Keith focus!” Shiro yelled from the comms.

Keith had zoned out, and as soon as reality came back to him he saw a bright flash of purple hit his Lion, sending him spinning upside down. He came back to his senses after the blow and hit full speed towards the ship aimlessly, another bright flash, this time it was up close. It came straight for him when it-

“Keith!” Lance yelled, throwing a bucket of cold water on Keith's face, jolting him awake.

“What!” Keith sat straight up, Lance knew to duck away this time

It had been another dream.

“Are you okay? You were making those struggling sounds again.” Lance put the bucket down.

“Yeah, and now I'm freezing!” Keith snapped

“Well at least you're awake!” Lance smiled cartoonishly big

“Im gonna strangle you.” Keith said, determined to let the prophecy come true he put his hands near Lance's neck.

“No!” Lance ran out the door, leaving Keith soaking wet with the metal bucket rolling on the floor.

“Great start to the day.” Keith huffed.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Pidge, Hunk, and Allura were all busy improving the machine, tweaking it and making sure it would be safe for such a drastic pull back of time. They had all already told Keith and Lance it would take the whole day, so they had a day to be free and do as they wished.

Lance, of course, decided to spend it listening to classical music and doing his skincare routine. It was his time of peace, it helped him connect to his sense of self that was on earth. Plus the air in space is drying and isn't good for his pores, so this was long overdue.

And Keith, of course, was spending his free time on the training deck. He went for the purpose of fighting the bot simulator but ended up just fighting with himself. He had been on the same level for a whole month, he wouldn't let himself forget it. He wasn't good enough for his own standards. It didn't matter what anyone else thought, in his eyes; he was too little of a man to be fighting the most powerful beings in the universe.

“Keith!” a voice echoed in the large room, startling Keith who was sweating like a pig. His jacket had been flung somewhere across the room around an hour ago.

“Shiro?” Keith yelled back, sure enough Shiro came further into the room.

“Training to defeat Zarkon or just having fun?” Shiro teased.

“Killing sweet time.” Keith answered none of the above.

“Want to fight something real? These bots can only do so much.” Shiro raised a brow

“Something real?” Keith smiled, catching on.

“Yeah, I mean… can a bot do this!” Shiro's left fist flew through the air, Keith ducked away and grabbed it, twisting his wrist and causing Shiro to falter. That gave him enough time to swoop under him in preparation to glide under his feet as he came back down.

However, Shiro was always one step ahead and didn't let himself fall where Keith expected him too, he landed with one leg behind the other, completely avoiding the trap that had been set.

Then it was really every man for himself, they threw punches, swung kicks, headbutted and bodyslams, you name it. They had a good time though, laughing at each other's terrible form and encouraging the other if they made a hit.

In the end there wasn't a winner, they both got tired and laid flat on the ground to catch their breath, they ended up just laying there for a few minutes after they were breathing normally.

“So, you're traveling through time now.” Shiro acknowledged, looking over at his brother.

“Yeah, its crazy to really think about isn't it?” Keith smiled, it was sort of a big deal that he was literally one of the only humans to ever have that ability.

“I wish the Galaxy Garrison could see you now. The kid who flunked out; saving the universe through time travel and piloting one of five gigantic mechanical Lions. All those victories on the simulators back then couldn't have gotten you as far as you have now.”

“I guess, I don't think about the Garrison that often. I don't even remember which eye Iverson still has.” They both laughed at Keith's comment.

“I think it's the left one.” Shiro grinned, “are you glad you went anyways? Even though it ended up being a bad experience?”

“What are you talking about?” Keith looked at Shiro in total disbelief, “that was one of the best things I've ever done. I met you, Shiro. I never would've met you if I hadn't been for the garrison. Heck, I probably wouldn't know how to pronounce your name, Mr. Takashi Shirogane. It wasn't a bad experience. I regret not taking it seriously. But now, I wouldn't have it any other way.”

“Im glad.”

“Do you think… Do you think we can actually defeat him?” Keith knew Shiro would be honest with him, which only meant he was more scared of the answer.

“We need to believe we can, it doesn't matter the statistics, as long as we have hope in ourselves, the other paladins, Allura and Coran, then we can do anything. I think I can do it, or at least be a part of defeating him. I also believe that you can be a portion of the help. You're stronger than you make yourself out to be, Keith. Maybe with some more confidence you can finally see what I see.”

Shiro stood up and walked out of the room, acting as if he hadn't just spat out the best piece of wisdom known to man. But he did that often, he let his words sit with you, until you really know the full meaning of it. Keith and Shiro had adapted to the way each other functioned over the years, which made them exceedingly closer than they ever would've been.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Allura wasn't in her usual attire; the long white gown with lavender accents, she was wearing a very casual outfit. She had a tight pink long sleeved shirt and a white skirt, of course she did however have many accessories and a detailed hairstyle. She was sitting criss-crossed with Hunk and Pidge connecting wires and programming. Allura had apparently been hiding her skills at working with electrical tech, it also helped that her father was an absolute genius along with being a great leader. She proved to have gotten those passed down in her genes.

“I think we need more power, maybe even double for it to open twice.” Pidge groaned, her posture resembled a shrimp from how hard she had been hunched over for hours on end. She twisted around to grab a tool and her entire spine popped, providing sweet relief on her lower back and shoulders.

“We could reboot it after they go through the first time, we could use the recycled power.” Allura suggested

“I guess that's true, but we should have a bit extra in case a portion of the field fails, it's good to have a backup.”

Hunk then walked through the large silver door with a metal tray and oven mitts, "I made pastries!” He was helping the process in his own cool way.

“Thank you, Hunk.” Allura said with a smile as she grabbed one off the tray and took a bite, “is this a raspberry?”

“And chocolate!” Hunk grinned with pride.

“Genius!”

“Allura!” Pidge's voice echoed in the tall room, “can we focus please, this is important.”

“So is a snack break.” Hunk argued

“Snacks can wait until actual progression.” Pidge snarled.

“I think a pastry would make you feel better.” Hunk nudged the dessert close to Pidge's shoulder before she reluctantly took it and bit into it.

“This is pretty good I guess.” she admitted, “but we can't get distracted, this needs to be safe 100%.”

“You seem stressed, Pidge.” Allura put a hand on Pidge's shoulder to help soothe her.

“I just-” she hesitated, “I'm scared this won't work, and we will have made no progress and we will fall behind.”

“Dont doubt yourself, I have faith in us.”

“Thanks Allura but… I can't seem to have faith in myself.” Pidge took off her glasses and brought her knees close to her chin.

“I have enough hope for both of us, and if it's not safe by tomorrow then we can put it off another day, Zarkon won't know we were ever behind schedule.”

Pidge smiled and took another bite of the pastry before getting back to work on the project.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lance had finally washed off his skincare, thrown away the cucumbers from his eyes, and splashed his face with cold water when he heard a familiar knock on the door. He tied the sash of his robe and shuffled on his Blue Lion slippers as he headed for it. Although, he knew exactly who it was purely from the knock. It was the tune of a nursery rhyme lance had heard a few times in his youth.

He let the doors open before him where he saw Keith with his head towards the floor.

“Cant sleep again?” Lance sighed sympathetically

Keith nodded pathetically, accepting defeat

“We could try to make those cookies.” Lance offered

Keith responded with a sudden chuckle, “hell no, im never trusting you in the kitchen ever again.”

“Then what do you need my help with?” Lance smiled thinking of their past adventure in the kitchen so late.

“Well, after we made the gross laced cookies last time I fell asleep and slept really well. I didn't have those nightmares.” Keith began

“Okay? How does that include me?” it wasn't clicking for Lance, which normally he was really good at catching hints.

“I slept with you- not like that but, in your bed. And I think that helped.” Keith gulped

“Oh, are you inviting yourself in?” Lance chuckled awkwardly, it wasn't like he didn't want Keith to have a good night's sleep he just didn't want it to be weird for them if they suddenly started cuddling or just sleeping or whatever shit they would even do.

“Guh- no! I mean, we could go to my room. Or you dont- you dont have to help me i was just… asking i guess. You are kind of my last resort.”

“Well gee thanks, that makes me feel great to know I'm the last option for you. What was the first?” Lance crossed his arms sarcastically

“Hitting my head on the wall until it knocked me out cold.” Keith responded, the response was familiar too.

“Gotcha, well I like this idea better.” was- no way- was Lance… blushing??

Chapter Text

Today would be the day

The day that would determine whether or not Team Voltron could actually defeat the universes’ worst enemy. Keith and Lance woke up in each other's arms again, this time it was less startling. Getting out of bed felt like time was moving in slow motion, every movement was achy and draining. Neither of them wanted to do this- but they had to, and they were determined to make the most of it. They would be heroes, their names would be in history books on possibly different planets, schools and textbooks. They could see it now; ‘Lance McClain and Keith Kogane, Saviors of the Universe’. It had quite a nice ring to it. Allura had given them disguises for when they arrived, which they thought was unnecessary but they assumed that she knew best, she is a princess so what she says goes.

Lance was given exact instructions to wear a garment that was a traditional Altean commonwear… whatever that meant. It was what appeared to be some fancy beige slacks, a blue sort of tank top underneath a whimsical shawl and lots of jewelry to cover the rips and tears from ten thousand years ago.

Keith was sporting something similar, shorter slacks that resembled more of a sweatpants type of fit and a large deep purple shaded shirt. And of course jewelry and even a little makeup on the bridge of his nose. No matter how much convincing though, Keith refused to let Allura pierce his ear for a diamond stud. He drew the line at anything too feminine, he was already worried people would think he's a girl based on his hair length and the fact he had nose contour on.

Allura said they looked “decent” which was good enough for them to step into their Lion with their itchy clothes and do their best to find out the deep dark secrets the past centuries have been hiding.

This was the moment they had all waited for, they were on the edge of their seats. Allura bit her nails, Hunk was stress eating the rest of the pastries, Keith closed his eyes, anticipating the ‘okay’ signal, Lance prayed to every god he had ever been exposed to in the past, and Pidge took a long, deep, shuddering breath before twisting a knob to set the time back 10,019 years.

“It's ready.” Pidge’s voice was stern, she blinked slowly, waiting for the wormhole to appear.

When a hot pink sparkling portal formed outside the bridge she sighed in relief, however only one part of the plan had worked so far, she watched as the timer clicked, the jump point would close in exactly a minute.

“Coordinates are set, we are ready to jump.” Keith's voice was far shakier than Pidge’s, which made sense since Pidge wasn't the one who would be jumping into a possible void with barely any mental preparation and a hell lot of trust in their team mates.

“To Altea we go, I guess.” Lance inhaled sharply as they passed through the wormhole, his joints felt like they had snapped in half, his body shook and he felt static overcome him temporarily. After a few seconds he felt normal again, like it had never happened. “You okay up there?” He called to Keith.

“All in one piece so far.” That was just about the best honest answer he was able to give.

After a few seconds of searching both of their jaws dropped, their eyes grew the size of golf balls and they watched a planet become larger in their vision. The planet was a light blue with green islands scattered. A long cloudlike aura surrounded it, resembling Saturn’s rings. The planet was as bright as a lightbulb, radiating light and reflecting its sun beams like the Earth's moon.

“Is that it?” Lance unbuckled and stood out of his seat, his eyes fixated on the planet up ahead.

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure.” Keith felt the same way, he hadn't seen something so beautiful before in his entire life. It was odd to think that it was destroyed, barely a decade after this moment it would have exploded into a destruction zone. It is completely unsafe and…dead. But now? Now it was thriving, it was healthy and vivid and just pure magical. It was inspiring.

“It kind of looks like earth.” Lance wiped a tear out of his eye before it got the chance to escape.

“I miss it.” Keith didn't let himself cry, he wouldn't forgive himself to bruise his massive ego if he cried by just looking at the same random old planet.

“Poor Allura… this is her home. It's completely destroyed now. There is nothing to come back to.” Lance's breathing was shaky, “what if that happens to earth?”

“Lance,” Keith turned around to look at his friend, “you cannot think like that, don't even imagine it. It's not going to happen, earth will be fine and pretty soon we will all go back and it will be peaceful.”

Lance didn't look convinced.

“I promise?” Keith tried to seem more confident like Shiro had advised him to.

“You can't promise that, you're not in control of it.” Lance sniffed

“I promise to give my all, ensure that nothing like that ever happens to us.”

“U-us?” Lance swallowed

“Us… us as in like… humans? Earth?” Keith stammered

“Oh right! Yeah sorry ha.” Lance sat back down in his seat and buckled as they descended closer to land.

They approached Altea fast, they were both eager to explore it. They landed the lion in a remote field with some odd looking cows and some pink lilies, at least they appeared to be lilies.

“Lance.” Keith fidgeted with his costume, picking at the loose threads.

“Yeah?” Lance picked up the camera, hiding it under his shawl.

“Take a lot of pictures for Allura.” Keith swallowed the lump in his throat, he needed to be braver than this.

“Of course,” Lance whispered.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“They made it.” Pidge muttered, almost emulating pure shock. The doubt yesterday had almost overcome her. She turned around to sneak a gLance at Allura, who was already looking at her with pride. Allura was right, she had enough hope for the both of them.

“I knew they would.” Allura didn't break her eyes away from Pidge.

“So what now? Do we just wait until they get back?” Hunk put his feet up, ready to take a nap to help the time go by.

“We prepare, reboot the generator so we can have the most amount of power to get them back.” Pidge stood up and brushed her knees off.

“Might want to resend that chat about how to get back too, I have a feeling they have already forgotten everything.” Coran said, typing in random buttons into the main control.

“What are you working on, Coran?” Allura turned her head in an attempt to get a better look.

“Trying to get a look on how far Zarkon is by now. I can't exactly track him but our allies have sent updates annually. Pidge, can you get a read into our coordinates?” Coran was frantically searching for clues

“I have them in a note somewhere, I write it down each morning.” Pidge pulled out her journal, flipping through the pages. Before she could get a hold on the coordinates something fell out of it, the photo of her and Matt outside the Galaxy Garrison. She hesitated before picking it up and shoving it back into her diary. Hunk pretended to not notice the twitch of her lips downward when it triggered the memory. “Here it is.” Pidge handed the page to Coran who lifted the page with his fingers to type it in the machine.

“Approximentaly eight vargas since he was seen, a few light years away from us.” Coran sighed.

“How much time is that?” Pidge was too exhausted to do the math in her head this time.

“Around five days if he keeps this pace, maybe six if we are lucky.” Coran fluffed up his mustache and returned to the spinning chair Hunk and Pidge had made him a while ago for his birthday. Despite being 10,033 years old he was very easy to shop for.

“That cannot slow us down, I don't want to live like we are in constant danger but i dont want to be sitting ducks when he does arrive. It can't catch us off guard, that's how he gets us and we wormhole away. We mustn't run away next time. We are team Voltron, we must fight back.” Allura crossed her arms and lifted her chin up, blinking away her wet eyes.

Pidge and Hunk ran off to the hanger to grab the rest of the tools and supplies for the generator when Coran approached Allura, putting a hand on her bony shoulder.

“Alfor would be so proud of you.” he sniffed, Allura was practically glowing in her dazzling confidence. She knew it too, she knew her father was smiling down on her.

“Thank you, Coran. I can't help but think he would be proud of you too, stepping up to take on the mature role that he always was for you. You know you are like a second father to me, but you are filling that position for the paladins as well from my perspective. You can tell from the sparkle in their eyes when they speak to you. Thank you.” Allura's voice broke as she wrapped her arms around Coran, who humbly welcomed the embrace.

. . . . . . . . . . .

“Where do we go from here?” Lance asked his partner as they walked into the city center of Altea. It was a small secluded area with many kiosks and pop up shops. The smell of everything was potent but not overwhelming, it stung Keith’s nostrils just enough. The fresh dough, fruits and flowers, a little gathering near the end of a lake had ladies doing the laundry with a faint scent of lavender soap. There was no conflict, or visible conflict from what they could tell, everyone got along perfectly. The sound of laughter flooded their ears, small talk and puppies barking was a positive edition. Some small children looked up at the two of them with big eyes even though they blended in very well. Allura was spot-on with the costumes.

“I guess we look for the king.” Keith shrugged, a young woman turned around at the mention of the king.

“Are you talking about King Alfor?” she asked, her eyes sparkled bright and she clasped her hands together.

“Yes!” Lance nudged past Keith, he knew that he would be better at getting on people's good side than Keith whose specialty was always violence and suspension before peace. “Do you know where he is?”

“Hes with his daughter in the garden over there, I wouldn't interrupt if i was you though, they seem to be very content with just the company of the other.” the lady, who was wearing a light blue dress and a neon yellow pair of earrings pointed to a flower field and the silhouettes of two people, one being much bigger and taller than the other.

“Oh my god.” Keith whispered to himself at the sight.

“Thank you so much, we will keep it in mind to not interrupt them!” Lance shook the woman's hand and guided him and Keith out of the fray and near an alleyway.

“What do we do now, you heard her; we shouldn't interrupt and mess with the past. This could be a big bonding moment for them.” Lance hadn't realised how cramped the alleyway was until he noticed him and Keith's knees touching under the thick slacks.

“What would we even say?” Keith scratched the bridge of his nose, who was going to inform him that makeup is itchy?

“I don't know, we could just… watch?”

“Yeah if the goal was to look like total creeps.” Keith scoffed

“You think of something better then!” Lance groaned

“I'm trying to, now shut up!” Keith crossed his arms and turned his head to the side, giving Lance a level view of his side profile and jawline, an earring would look pretty nice on his ear now that he thought about it.

“We might consider getting a persona, pretending to be royalty.” Keith suggested

“Where would that get us?” Lance wished Keith would look back at him instead of letting his eyes wander over his neck.

“Didnt Allura say something one time about some feast Alfor had to speak about his new inventions? New invention being the Voltron Lions?” Keith explained.

“I think you're right now that I think about that. But we can’t just pull off being fake royalty, anyone could try doing that, we would need to make a plan with everyone else back in the future.” Lance liked the idea, but they didn't have enough time to really go through with it.

“Should we bring everyone with us next time? Or at least Allura?” Keith asked, his voice was vulnerable, like he was asking a personal question instead of a business one.

“Why would we bring Allura?” Lance cocked his head.

Keith turned his face back to Lance, dumbfounded, “Have you not been paying attention? Look.” Keith bobbed his head towards the flower field.

Lance watched the scene, King Alfor and Allura playing and dancing in the gardens, if they were extra quiet they could hear her adolescent laughter.

“We should go back now.” Keith said suddenly, his eyes were dreadful, he hated this. He didn't want to see a flash back of the princess’ life, he was never meant to see it.

“You're right.” Lance said before snapping a photo of the King and Princess.

They had both agreed to leave but neither of them moved, they weren't even looking at Alfor and Allura anymore, just staring into each other's eyes.

“You look strange with the makeup on, by the way.” Lance remarked

“You look strange without anything having to be different.” Keith smirked.

“Shut up, I know that I'm gorgeous.” Lance playfully nudged Keith, which just pushed him into the wall he was barely leaning against, Lance was stunned, his eyes grew wide and he didn't move his arm. Which might have made it worse. He was holding Keith's shoulder, digging him into the cobblestone building.

“What are you doing?” Keith broke the silence

“Im not sure, we should head back to the Red Lion now.”

“Good idea.” All Keith could do was pray that Lance couldn't tell how fast his heart was beating.

Chapter Text

The trip back to the future was quiet to say the least. Keith was focused on getting out of there safely and Lance was chewing off his fingernails in the backseat, the photo he had snapped of Alfor and Allura was laying in his lap. They made it through the portal and found the castle ship within minutes. Keith was practicing what he would say after they arrived in the hanger. He planned on pretending to be exhausted so he could go to sleep without having to remember anything that had happened. He was jealous, honestly. Jealous that he saw Allura and her father laughing together. He held his envy in, determined not to make this about him. No one else would ever have to know how he felt watching a healthy parent and child interact.

Lance wished they didn't leave Altea, he ached to tell Keith to turn around and go back to that time. That beautiful, carefree time where there were no enemies and the streets were full of love. He also regretted not purchasing a lily for Allura or a biscuit for Hunk in the market.

Keith landed back in the ship and stood up abruptly, facing Lance who looked utterly confused.

“Say that we are tired and want to take a nap or something. We aren't in the mood to talk.” Keith said through gritted teeth.

“Are you okay man? What about Allura, won't she want the pictures?” Lance stood up and held the camera in between them

“Just hand it to her when we pass by.” Keith put his hands in fists

“Keith, what's wrong? We can stay in here and talk and just go later. They can't get in the Lion without us coming out.” Lance was kindhearted, Keith did his best to not lash out at him, he didn't deserve that.

“Just hand allura the damn camera and say we are going back to our rooms.” Keith was tired of repeating the instructions.

“Are we… going to the same room?” the question hovered in the air openly, Keith didn't know how to answer. After what lance *accidentally* did in the alley the invite felt… different.

“No. I need a shower or something." Keith said flatly, he wanted to take the words back as soon as they came out.

“Want my help taking off the chest plate? I know it gets stuck sometim-”

“Lance! Stop asking me goddamn questions, please! This isn't hard!” Keith yelled, watching Lance's eyes widen and restrict.

Lance turned around without a word and walked out the Lion, putting on a brave face as he met the others outside.

“How did it go?” Shiro spoke first, a kind grin lighting up his face.

“It was fine.” Keith brushed their shoulders together as he walked past him. His expression was lacking any emotion at all.

“We took these for you.” Lance's voice wobbled as he handed Allura the camera and watched her eyes reflect the images.

“Lance.” she said, astonished. She leapt and wrapped her arms around his neck, tears fell down her face, thick ones filled with love. “Thank you.” she whispered.

Coran was given the camera next and gawked at the photos. Pidge watched Keith solemnly walk out of the room.

“Is he okay?” She asked Lance nervously

“Oh, yeah he's just tired and said he wants a shower. There were a lot of people so he's tuckered out.” Lance said through a forced smile. On the inside he was very worried about Keith, he didn't have a clue why he acted erratically in the Lion. He was going to find out soon though.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Keith felt bad about ignoring Shiro but not bad enough to apologize anytime soon. He needed alone time. He stomped to his room and slammed the door behind him. His helmet hit the ground with a metallic thud, next was the thigh and calf pads, followed by the arms and shoulders and he finally slipped off the chest plate easier than he remembered and peeled off the sweaty black undersuit. The shower water was cold and the pressure was weak but it felt better than rotting in the Altean sun. his wet locks of raven mullet curtained his eyes as the water trailed down his spine and the back of his legs.

His tired bones ached and creaked with every step towards his unmade bed. He put on his black tee and some red pajama pants before flopping onto the mattress and preparing for the best nap of his life.

“Keith?”

Perfect. Just as he was finally relaxed someone was coming to barge in.

“Who is it?” he groaned, sitting up to set his feet flat on the ground before walking to the door.

“Lance… Can I come in or are we going to just talk through the door like strangers?” Lance scratched the back of his head.

“I hadn't considered the second option, but I think I like that better. What's up?” Keith leaned against the door and slid to the floor, sitting criss crossed with his back turned to Lance's voice.

“What's up with you? You were randomly super defensive in the Lion when we got back. I get that you didn't want to go on the mission but… you seemed pretty content when we were there. I dont know, i just feel like i never understand what's happening in your brain, which is annoying… like almost infuriating actually. You never express your feelings but you expect us all to read your mind.” Lance brought his knees to his chest and sighed, it was relieving to tell his friend how he really felt.

“I don't expect people to know how I feel. Hell, I don't even know how I feel most of the time. It's a guessing game for all of us.” Keith pathetically laughed it off, hoping Lance would hear the little chuckle between sentences, “anyways, I didn't want to go back to Altea but I’m glad I did, I think I was just tired and overwhelmed when we got back. I just want to sleep. Im- I’m sorry I ‘infuriated’ you with my mixed emotions.”

“I chose the wrong words, I didn't mean to say that it made me mad at you. I just thought I knew you better.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well everything feels different after we kissed that one night.” Lance gulped, he never thought it would be brought up again, he was shocked at his own words, they were all just spilling out now.

“Lance we… We were drunk. I don't know what you want me to tell you. I barely even remember it, or WHY we did it. I think my head was spinning and i wasnt… I dont know. It's all so confusing.” Keith started tying bows in his pajama pant strings, he also wasn't expecting Lance to say anything about that night. It was all such a blur, it didn't feel real.

“I remember it, my head was spinning, yeah sure but I still remember everything that night.” Lance's vision was blurring, he let his head fall onto his knees.

“What do you remember?” Keith asked, genuinely curious.

“I remember you were laying on the bed, I was sitting on the floor. I remember your breath smelled like shit, those dumb oatmeals cookies you never wanted to eat in the first place. And how you scooped my face in your hands before kissing me.” Lance could've mentioned a lot more things. He could've explained how Keith's sullen eyes looked into his, how soft and plump his lips were, how his hair fell in his face so delicately. He could describe perfectly their synced breathing patterns.

Lance pressed his ear against the door and heard Keith's deep, shaky breaths.

“Keith?” Lance asked into thin air, he hoped his friend hadn't fallen asleep in the middle of the conversation.

The door latch hissed open, letting Lance inside to see Keith holding onto the doorframe, his head facing the ground.

“Lance I-”

“I shouldn't have brought it up.” Lance didn't give Keith a second to speak before rapidly cutting him off.

“Wait what?”

“I'm sorry, It didn't mean anything. I honestly didn't intend for the conversation to lead that way; it was just the first thing that popped into my head. I hope you didn't take it the wrong way, any of it.” Lance swallowed, biting the inside of his cheek anxiously. “But… What were you about to say?”

“Oh… just the same thing you said basically, it was just a mistake. We were drunk after all and nothing good ever comes from that. Just a lot of mixed signals. Glad we… glad we cleared the air.” Keith said flatly, he did however manage a forced smile.

Lance grinned back, “Okay, cool heh… I’ll see you tomorrow for the big meeting?”

“Meeting? What meeting?”

“Oh, right, you left too soon. Allura said she wanted to hear our major plan… y’know about pretending to be royalty? She was really interested. I was going to stay up and make a bullet-pointed plan, so I’ll let you sleep.” Lance began to turn around when Keith flung his arm out and put his hand on Lance's shoulder, prohibiting him from moving any farther.

“Wait!”

“Yeah?”

“Can I come with you? It's better when I sleep and you’re near.”

Lance gave a real smile this time, and grabbed onto the hand on his shoulder, “Of course.”

Chapter Text

Allura and Coran took the meeting very seriously, putting on their typical Altean royal robes and demanded it be held in the main dining area. Everyone obliged obviously, it was out of the ordinary for them to gather like this when it was just the seven of them. Hunk was 90% sure that the last time he was even in the dining area was when they were landed on Arus. Although, when traveling in space on the constant lookout for some evil mob of aliens that are legitimately trying to kill you and your people, there isn't really a sense of normalcy. Pidge was annoyed that there weren't snacks involved in the assembly. “It's a dining hall, there should be food!” she argued.

Lance had stayed up later than he intended making the layout for his big plan that he had hyped the entire ship for. Keith had slept in Lance's bed, drifting off to the sound of Lance’s pencil scratching his notebook aggressively. Eventually Lance joined the bed next to him, allowing Keith to nuzzle his head in his chest subconsciously. Because Keith, the tough fighter full of rage, is of course going to be the little spoon.

Shiro, Allura and Coran were the first to gather and be seated at the table, all were slightly intimate by the thought of Lance having a ‘Big Plan’, nothing good normally came from his wild ideas. Hunk and Pidge showed up in their pajamas and heavy eye bags, seemingly having forgotten the whole thing until the last few minutes. But it wasn't that big of a deal considering that Keith and Lance, the masterminds, actually showed up last… around ten minutes after their intended time was.

– five minutes earlier –

Lance woke up on the floor, he assumed he rolled off of his bed in his sleep. He was still drowsy and thought it was too early to get ready but he checked the clock anyways. But in reality he should've been in the dining room already.

“Oh shit! Keith! Wake up dude!” he scrambled to get off the floor before yanking the blanket off of Keith, knocking him off the bed too in the process.

“Whoa! Lance! What are you doing??” Keith yelped after hitting the ground with a thud.

“We slept in! It's late! We’re late! Get dressed, hurry!” Lance ran into the bathroom and started getting undressed. He had left his casual clothes on the bathroom counter for the next morning so he would be able to get dressed without waking Keith up… turns out that wouldn't be a worry anymore.

Keith ran out of Lance's room into his own and threw some sweatpants on and combed through his messy bedhead. Good thing Lance didn't have enough time to snap a picture of his crazy hair before rushing out.

Keith had just slid a fresh shirt over his head when Lance hastily knocked on his door repeatedly.

“One sec!” Keith yelled.

The knocking didn’t stop

“Lance!” Keith groaned, approaching the door, it was only when he opened that Lance complied and brought his arrogant fist down, only to grab Keith's wrist with the same hand a moment later to begin dragging him down the elevator.

And now they were running into the main dining area, Keith still being flung by the wrist through the door, yelling through his laughter to be let go.

“SOOO sorry we are late!” Lance said, out of breath as he sat down at the head of the table, Keith sat in the seat next to him on his right hand side.

“Its all Lance’s fault, he didn't set an alarm.” Keith cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Did you two sleep in the same room?” Pidge raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

“Shhh Pidge, we have important business to attend to.” Lance hushed.

“Whats your big plan, we are quite anxious to hear about it.” Allura was impatient after having to wait an excessive amount of time.

Everyone turned their eyes to Lance, who was suddenly flustered to give the grand reveal. Keith noticed and snatched the paper from Lance's clammy hands.

“When we were at Altea we were talking about King Alfor and a lady turned around to listen, she said that he was with his daughter,” Keith took a moment to gLance over at Allura, who was listening intently, “Which made me and Lance notice that the King was very casual to be so close to the commonfolk. I’m not entirely sure how it is- …was on Altea for the royal family, but usually on Earth the royalty is very secluded and isn't near the peasants. It made us form the idea that maybe we could get closer to the King easier than we thought.”

Allura took advantage of Keith catching his breath to interject, “In Altea it was customary for the royals to walk to cities, and act like normal civilians. It was honestly rare for us to go a day without strolling the streets.”

“Right, so, we thought that we could disguise the Lion… or take a cruiser and act like we were royals who came to see the King and the others on the royal guard as a surprise. We would get invited to the castle and pry him to talk about the Lions. We haven't really discussed the details deeper than that… we didn't want to waste time if any of you don't see the potential for the plan.” Keith put the paper down and let people tell their input.

“I think this could work, like Keith i dont have a lot of knowledge of how Altea worked statistically but from what I do know, this might be a winner.” Shiro spoke up first, as usual.

“I know my father, he would welcome royal travelers, inviting them to dinner wouldn't be unexpected from him either. It would be worth it to dig deeper into the details and see how it would pan out.” Allura stood out of her seat, announcing her feelings. “On one condition.”

“Yes?” Lance responded, eager to hear her thoughts

“I go too.”

“W-what?” Lance was dumbfounded, as was everyone else

“Princess, what are you saying?” Shiro stood up as well

“You heard me, I want to go back to Altea.”

“You… you can't, you were already in that timeline, isn't that how it works? Also wouldn't they recognize you if we went further into the future?” Keith wasn't grasping the concept Allura was bound to

“I need to see Altea again, I need to see father again. I will do anything for it to work. I can go in disguise. I need to see other Alteans, even though I know they aren't here anymore, I can't describe it. None of you know what it's like to not have seen any of your people for ten thousand years, just me and Coran.” Allura was right, Pidge hadn't seen her dad and brother in five years. Keith never knew his mom and his dad had passed away around a decade ago. Shiro was never tight with his family, but he didn't have them at some point. Allura had gone literal centuries without any contact to loved ones, she had to learn to adapt to it. She was stronger than any of them emotionally.

“What time would we go back to? When did he start making the Lions?” Pidge asked, she was silent up until now, she wasn't one to keep her feelings to herself usually.

“He began creating them when I was around twelve, so maybe 10,025 years ago, if that's correct.” Allura calculated in her head.

“Who would go?” Hunk piped up, “Cause I've never traveled back in time, well i haven't traveled to the future either but I want to. Could I go?”

“We would need at least two people to stay behind and open the jump points for us.” Allura reminded

“I don't have any connection to leaving this timeline.” Pidge added.

“Really?” Shiro raised a brow, “That surprises me, Pidge. You seem like you would love to explore different times.”

“Not really, I think it's cool to see you guys do it, working the mechanics of it is my calling.”

“I can stay too.” Shiro smiled down at her before looking back up, “everyone else should go. Coran, Allura, I hope you both enjoy seeing your home again.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pidge sat in her room, she recently set up a sort of gaming console and attached it to a monitor to play some old video games. She put some makeshift headphones over her ears and rewinded a recorder with her favorite old music from Earth. She and Lance had bought a gaming setup at the space mall about a year ago and she was yet to find a way to connect it to what she had created. She assumed it would be a good idea for his birthday gift… right after she figures out when his birthday actually is. Before she could really focus on her game she heard a few inconsistent rhythmic knocks on her barrack door. She stood up and opened it with hesitation, everyone knew this was her quiet time so any interruptions had to be an emergency. They had all learned this the hard way when they came to chat about something casual and got yelled at for interrupting her “me time”.

“Oh, hey Shiro. Is everything okay?” out of everyone that Pidge could've guessed would've been outside her door, Shiro was like, the fifth most likely. Not that she had a calculation sheet of who was most likely… definitely not.

“Can we talk about Keith and Lance’s plan for a minute? I know this is ‘Pidge Time’ but it's kind of important.” Shiro asked tentatively.

“Uh… sure? What is there to chat about? I thought everything they said was pretty well explained. Is this about how the machine works? I would be super inclined to tell you all about it but now i just want to-”

“Why don't you want to go back in time? I was almost positive this was something that interested you.” Shiro shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Oh.” Pidge's eyes fell into a more somber shape, “It just doesn't interest me to go to Altea, that's all. I mean, sure, it would be outrageously cool to be able to boast about literally going back in time but… Altea isn't what I would dream of travelling to.”

“But if we were on earth, would you like to go back then?”

“Pfft, yeah of course. Have you even thought about how insane that would be? Seeing your ancestors, famous scientists and astronauts. Imagine seeing the moon landing from the tv in 1969!”

“I thought you believed the moon landing was fake?”

“Uncomfirmed.”

“Gotcha, but I think you're limiting yourself here. Altea is fascinating, didn't you learn part of the Altean language?” Shiro asked, trying to convince Pidge to not miss out on this possibly life altering opportunity.

“Yeah, I know the words for ‘fox’ and ‘panda’, that won't be any helpful. Allura said most of them speak English anyways, that's not even the point.” Pidge crossed her arms, her mind wasn't changing no matter what.

“Fine, but I think you should put more consideration into it. Hunk decided he didn't want to go cause he would get sick, so a spot is open. Just think about it.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it. I'm not saying I'll change my mind.” Pidge watched Shiro smile and the door closed behind him. She wasn't easily moved but Hunk deciding not to go and opening a seat made her feel better about it.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Meanwhile, Lance and Allura were flipping through her closet, searching for more disguises for the rest of the crew. Lance set a sky blue set on the chair next to him and claimed he got first pick since “finders keepers.” Allura was insistent to wear her usual garb because it was official. Allura was in charge of finding an outfit for Coran, and Lance was stuck with looking for something that Keith wouldn’t absolutely hate.

“Do you think you can convince him to get that ear piercing? Just say it's a sign of royalty?” Lance whined, persistent and very annoyingly asking Allura for the impossible.

“He was pretty against it, Lance. I'm not even sure I have enough power for that big of a task.” Allura scoffed, her last attempt was a pretty weak one but the way Keith crossed his arms and shook his head with such determination gave her all the information she needed.

“Please! Just say you're the princess, and what you say goes. He can't compete with that.” Lance stuck out his bottom lip in a plea.

“I don't want to be arrogant!”

“Just give me a sewing needle, I can pierce it while he's asleep!”

“Lance! Do you even know how to do that?” Allura looked stunned at the idea.

“Pfft, sure I do! When I was in the tenth grade I pierced my older sister's bellybutton and it only got infected twice. Trust me, I'm an expert at that type of thing, I just need ice to numb it beforehand.” Lance boasted

“He will not be able to sleep through all that, I can lend him a clip-on if that's really what you want.” Allura sighed, partially accepting defeat at the truce.

“Yes!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hunk and Keith weren't normally a duo you would see often together alone, but if you were to, it would be in the kitchen. Hunk was stress baking, and Keith was stress eating; a dangerous mix. Hunk was head to toe in a chef's costume to ‘get him in character’ as he pulled out a third tray of wafers from the Altean oven. Keith dunked the wafers in his hot coffee cup and chomped a bite off.

“I don't know how you manage to make these taste exactly like the shop at the Garrison’s with the weird alien ingredients but I am not complaining one bit.” Keith said, chewing

“Lots of practice and hatred for the green food goo.” Hunk shrugged and took off his oven mitts

“So, you really aren't going with us?”

“No,” Hunk sighed, “I don't think it's for me, I would vomit in the controls again just like the Garrison simulator.”

“C’mon, you have flown a lion upside down and under water, isn't that enough to desensitize you to all that? Plus think of the food that Altea will have, the side shops in that market me and Lance saw looked incredible.” Keith suggested

“I don't know, you could bring me back a cosmic brownie though if you insist!” Hunk laughed, “There will be other opportunities for me. I know there is an open seat but I won't take it on the convincing of others, it's my decision.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Keith and Lance were sparring in the training room 2v1 against an Ai gladiator. Keith and Lance weren't winning. The machine had them on their ass, a generated sword pushing at Keith's blade, its pointy foot holding Lance down by his chest on the cold floor.

“Damnit Keith! Do something!” Lance's voice cracked. This was their fourth try at this level, they were both frustrated and had sweat dripping down their faces.

“Dont you think I'm trying?” Keith yelled back, his elbows shaking as they buckled under the robot.

“Urg! Disable training sequence!” Lance yelled into the speaker near the corner of the room. And like a flash, the fighter disappeared, allowing Keith to let his arms fall with a groaning exhale.

“What the fuck? Lance!” he stood up, groaning more at the immediate soreness in his arms and knees.

“What! You were about to burst a blood vessel, either that or it would've actually killed you. Dont think i forgot you turned off almost all the safety features.” Lance scolded

“I almost had him, I was rebuilding my stamina. And- I didn't turn off ALL the safety. It wouldn't have slit my throat or anything. I could've gotten it and we could finally move onto the next level.”

“Just cool your jets for a second, would you? Take a breath?” Lance said, his hands on his knees as he breathed heavily. His hair was sticking to his forehead and there was an embarrassing puddle of sweat pooling on his back and underarms.

Keith glared at him before huffing and yelling up to the ceiling, “initiate training sequence. Lance, feel free to sit this one out if you need a rest.” Keith's words were thoughtful but his tone was gibing.

“No way! Turn it off, just us two. Now.” Lance rolled sleeves up, trying to somehow intimidate the grown up version of a kid who would beat up his bullies in seventh grade. He didn't want to make the mistake of underestimating Keith's strength with little to no holding back.

“Fine then, I won't go easy on you though. So watch your back.” Keith warned before leaping to Lance, landing right on him. He wasn't pointing his blade to Lance, just using it as a shield against his fists.

Lance grunted and managed to push Keith off his chest, not fully pushing him to the ground, but letting him stumble his footing. Lance could've sworn for a split second Keith's eyes flashed a yellow before he ran back towards him, throwing his knife skidding across the floor. He wrapped his fingers around Lance's neck. Lance retaliated, digging his nails into Keith's shoulder, gulping hard with the meek ability to swallow.

“Get… off.. Me!” Lance choked, sweeping his feet under Keith's ankles, tripping him completely this time. Unfortunately, his quick thinking didn't remind him his hands were still wrapped around his neck. So when Keith plummeted to the ground, so did he.

They landed with a thud that would definitely leave a bruise. Lance was on his back, Keith's hands had left his neck but were lingering on his throat. Keith climbed onto Lance, attempting to let his palms reclaim their position when Lance caught them mid air and held them above his head.

So there they were, breathing heavy at the tail end of a duel. Their fingers intertwined, pushing against each other with all the force they had left in their tired bodies. Keith straddled Lance, unknowingly, of course.

“Shit.” Lance accepted defeat, letting go and letting Keith's hands win, letting them both fall to the floor.

“Giving up-” sharp intake of breath, “that easily?” Keith tried not to chuckle, he fell over beside Lance.

“Why are you giggling now? This wasn't supposed to be funny.” Lance crossed his arms

“This is so stupid, we shouldn't be fighting- or practicing, whatever you want to call it. We should be learning proper royal table manners and curtsey etiquette. That's what we are really going to be doing on this dumbass mission.”

“Dumbass mission? It was your idea. Plus, I really don't want to learn the difference between a salad fork and a regular fork, so I think I'm content fighting.” Keith closed his eyes, finally catching his breath.

“Who all is going?”

“I know for sure the two of us, Allura and Coran, and Shiro aren't. It's between Hunk and Pidge.”

“Who do you want to go?” Lance raised a brow.

“Are you asking me to choose between my friends?” Keith opened his eyes.

“No, just… who would appreciate it more I guess?”

“Hunk would appreciate the delicacies and he would enjoy meeting the old pilots of the lions. Pidge wouldn't let anyone else have a chance to speak with all her tech questions. I'm not sure, but I was almost positive Shiro would want to go. Although he might resent every version of Zarkon. Even before everything happened.”

“I thought Pidge would be pushing her way through to be on the trip. It surprises me that we aren't all going. Should I not go… so that they both can?” Lance said quietly, as if he was really considering sitting it out.

“What are you talking about? That's the dumbest idea you have ever had. You're going, no exceptions.” Keith insisted.

“What if I don't want to go?”

“Then I'm not going.” Keith said flatly, no hesitation.

“Are you limiting yourself… to my expectations?” Lance raised an eyebrow.

Keiths face turned red, “no im just- i- shut up.”

“Why?” Lance laughed

“Becasue, if im stuck with Allura and Coran it would basically be like i traveled to hell, I can't deal with them on my own.” Keith lied. He really didn't care if Coran and Allura were annoying or persistent. He just didn't want to go without Lance, he wanted to go everywhere with Lance.

“Fine, ill go. But only because you insist.”

“I do insist. It wouldn't be any fun without you.” Keith was now sitting up, watching Lance do as well in the corner of his eye.

“Missions aren't really supposed to be all fun.”

“God, you're so argumentative aren't you? We never agree on anything do we?”

“We agree on some things.”

“You just contradicted yourself.” Then Keith smiled, a real pure smile. It made Lance forget about the sweat mark he had left behind him. It actually made him forget about everything that wasn't Keith.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Twas the night before the trip, and all through the castle… nobody was able to sleep. Allura and Coran were tip-toeing around the basement. They were going through phases of crying over mementoes, and becoming giddy at the idea of seeing Alfor and Altea again. Allura clutched to the photo Lance had taken a few days ago.

Hunk and Pidge were having a sleepover, watching old movies with popcorn and Altean soda. They had a stack of 1990s horror movies, stuck on the ‘Scream’ saga. They loved to compare how they thought they would've survived. Hunk's grand idea was to flee the country. Pidge thought more critically- which meant to be strapped and shoot anyone suspicious. She could also guess a plot twist within the first ten minutes of any program. It drove Hunk nuts.

Shiro paced his room for hours on end. He didn't bother wandering outside his room, knowing that he wouldn't ever come back to his room if he ventured outside it.

Keith and Lance were chewing on some sleep cookies, they had hopefully made correctly this time. They sat criss-crossed on Lance's bed playing some old classic sleepover games. Lance offered Spin the Bottle before realizing it was only the two of them. He was the ‘party goer’ of the group so it was normal for that to be his first thought. Truth or Shot was his next offer, Keith wasn't totally against that one.

They snuck back into the kitchen to find that weird whiskey again and little cups before making their way back to Lances barracks.

“Okay, okay my turn!” Lance giggled, already a little tipsy.

“Let me think…” Keith was… more than tipsy. He had lots of walls up so it made sense for him to be four shots in after only ten minutes. “How many people have you kissed in the past five years?”

“Boring!” Lance laughed, pushing Keith's shoulder playfully, “like… seven? Including you, eight.”

“Eight!” Keith's eyes grew wide.

“Hey! This is a safe space! Anyways, what about you?”

Keith became quiet, his face softening and his nose tinted pink.

“What?... okay fine, ten years?”

“One.” Keith answered meekly, embarrassed.

“One?” Lance was almost shocked, no, he WAS shocked.

“Including you.” Keith looked away, his entire face was red.

“Oh my god! Was it your first kiss!”

“Fuck off!!”

“Holy shit, there is no way! I thought you would've had a whole roster!” Lance let himself laugh hard.

“Go to hell, man. I was off the grid for a while.” Keith crossed his arms.

“I'm not making fun of you. Just blame it on the drinks.” Lance paused before continuing, “was… was it any good?”

“Yeah, I mean I think.” Keith looked back into Lance's eyes.

“You think?” Lance let his voice get low, seductive.

“I don't have any other experience so yeah? You were really good at kissing me.” This was uncharted territory for Keith, any type of affection like that was out of the ordinary… but discussing it over and over again? He didn't want to just kiss when he was drunk though, he wished he could kiss regularly.

“So you liked it?” Lance hissed, crawling closer.

“Yes.” Keith just about whispered, it didn't matter, Lance was close enough to hear it.

“Yeah?” Lance was so close, he felt Keith's breath tingle on his lips.

“Yeah…” Keith eliminated the distance between them, clashing his lips onto Lance’s aggressively. Before Lance could even assess the situation, Keith pulled away and turned his head. “Fuck, sorry- i know im not a good kisser, i dont know what im doin-”

Lance was too eager to let him finish before he pulled Keith's head towards his, forcing his tongue between his lips. Keith sunk into it and hummed, his eyes closed quickly but gracefully, his eyebrows were upturned. Lance tasted like a honey, his saliva was a thick sensation too. He hoped his mouth was as pleasurable as Lances was.

It definitely was. Lance knew they weren't sober. He was aware this was a drunk makeout. This wasnt a smooth headspace… but fuck, Keith was a really good kisser. Maybe he practiced with his pillow or something because if he hadn't outright told him he didn't have any experience, Lance would've assumed he was a total slut to have these absurd tongue tricks.

They got a total of two hours of sleep before the galactically annoying alarm clock rang to wake them up. So much for those melatonin cookies.

Chapter Text

“Wake up, Keith.” Lance groaned, rolling out of bed and placing his clammy feet flat on the cold metal floor.

“ergg noooo.” Keith whined, his face still suffocated in Lance's pillow from the night before. Nothing had really happened that night, just some kissing and cuddling. And of course lots of reading from Lance about Keith not having ever kissed someone else.

“gotta make sure your hair looks good for Altean royalty ten thousand years in the past. I'm not sure if mullets were invented back then, hopefully not so you can finally cut your goddamn hair.” Lance said, picking at his face in the mirror.

“oh very funny, you'll find any excuse to make fun of my hair. Just don't forget you were running your fingers through it last night like a touch starved teenage girl.”

“Mmm, how could I forget that? I can't wait to tell everyone you're a little spoon who enjoys being coddled.”

what Lance said sent a bolt of terror up Keith's back, “you're not gonna tell anyone are you? about anything? I don't want them to think we are a thing. It's just…when we get tipsy.”

“Of course I'm not telling anyone Keith, what do you take me for? even though I would bask in everyone knowing this incriminating information, I would also expose myself in the process.” Lance explained, walking back towards the bed. “ten minutes though until we are supposed to be on that ship.”

“shit.” Keith scratched the back of his arm before lifting his shirt over his head and walking to the bathroom where he could rinse off and change before doing God knows what in a tight cockpit.

Lance tried his best not to stare at Keith's shoulder blades as he walked past him, but it got the better of him. Lance followed each slight movement with his eyes, subtly tilting his head to get the full experience. Keith was hot even without the alcohol involved.

“Lance!”

shit.

“Why is there a piercing in my ear!!”

“what are you talking about?” Playing dumb was a first instinct for Lance.

“don’t act stupid, what the fuck!” Keith stormed out of the bathroom

“Allura put me up to it!”

“And you went along with it? Help me get this out!” The stud was a black circle that blended in with his hair almost perfectly. However they would have to change it into a little diamond when they arrived at Altea.

“you need to look like a local, or important at least. I'll help you when we get back.” Lance giggled, playing with Keith's free earlobe in a taunting way

“Shut up, we both know you're enjoying this way too much to be serious. get it out. now.” Keith demanded

“You're so pushy, fine.” Lance caved, tucking Keith's locks behind his ear before grabbing onto the earring back gently

“ow! shit.” Keith grimaced “be gentler that hurt.”

“I'm being as gentle as possible, you have thick ear lobes. It took me a lot of tries last night.” Lance struggled

“Did you wait until I was asleep to do this?” Keith felt betrayed

“....maybe. but in my defense-”

“hell no, you don't get a defense.” Keith crossed his arms and waited for Lance to get the piece of junk out of his ear.

. . . . . . . .

The costumes were itchy to say the least. The final decision was that Pidge would accompany them on their journey to Altea. She was eager and already had a list of questions and critiques for Alfor. Allura had a disguise to not look, well, like herself; the princess Allura of Altea, daughter of Alfor.

Coran backed out at the last second due to a “stomach ache” that everyone was convinced he was faking. He never was one to embark on long journeys, he stayed behind. He always has, he needed to keep the ship safe; that was his excuse. The real reason was he couldn't bear to see Alford again. He couldn't be himself, he couldn't hug him like he hadn't seen him in many years. He would just have to stand on his right.

“Is everyone strapped in?” Lance said, putting on his best professional voice. He was in tune with a persona of being a director or maybe a tour guide. He would reconsider his future careers when he gets back to earth. But for now, Altea 10,000 years ago it is.

“Yes!” Allura's voice was shaky but excited. Her hands quivered inside her gloves. Her scalp itched and her head pounded. She was nervous to go home, she feared she wouldnt ever want to come back to the future.

“Aye aye!” Pidge saluted, although no one could see her. The lineup of chairs was one right in front of the other. A long line with Lance at the front, conducting the lion. Behind him was Keith, then Allura and Pidge was the caboose.

“What about you mullet? I'm not hearing confirmation that you won't fly out of your seat mid-wormholing.” Lance said smugly

“I don't think that's a verb.” Keith crossed his arms, his voice was tired and the bags under his eyes confirmed the unspoken lack of rest.

“Just say yes!” Lance's eye twitch from the driver's seat

“Yes!” Keith yelled back, aggravated.

“Keith gets easily irritable when he hasn't slept.” Pidge announced, a small hum at the end just to get on his nerves

“Shut it! I'm tired, these pants are itchy, and Lance tried to stab me this morning!” Keith bit the inside of his cheek, trying to calm himself down.

“Ready for takeoff!” Lance declared, loud enough to drown out the bickering behind him.

Suddenly, the lion jolted forward, the lights flickered and everyone held on tight. A bright pink ray of light illuminated the inside of the cockpit as he passed through. Allura was enchanting, tilting her head to the side to get a better look. Her pupils dilated, her breathing stopped, and everything slowed down. It felt unreal, even the idea of going back home felt so out of reach but now, they were really doing it. She sniffled a few times before an arm snaked around hers. Pidge had reached forward, hearing Allura sob quietly to conjoin hands. Allura accepted the gesture and intertwined her fingers with Pidges and gripped tight, taking one deep breath before her electric shock induced.

“Holy fuck!” Pidge yelped, it was a lot worse than she thought it would be.

Allura seemed… oddly unfazed, Lance and Keith grimaced but by now they were just about used to it. Pidge could compare it to an electrical chair torture-death sentence. She struggled in her seat, trying to find a position to shift the shock out of her head and towards her legs where it wouldn't feel like her brain was being twisted.

“Just a few… more… seconds!” Lance grunted, locking his joints and gritting his teeth. Keith was behind him, his eyes shut tight and hands fisted.

They made it out of the portal and into what looked like present day space, all the stars looked familiar, the void was just as black. Except for one difference.

“Oh my god.” Allura remarked, standing up in her seat upon seeing her home planet.

Lance heard her buckle unhook and began to warn her to sit down before Keith wrapped his hand around his mouth and pushed it back into the seat, shutting him up. He wouldn't let Lance interrupt this moment for her.

Allura's eyes glistened the reflection of Altea, its fog, the bright islands and waters. A slight baby pink could be seen of the lush flower fields and vivid colors. Her helmet hissed as she lifted it off her head, putting a hand over her mouth to suppress her sobs. It felt like seeing a part of her she had been missing, because it was. She wasn't the same without Altea, now she was back.

“Princess?” Lance asked quietly, his voice soft and empathetic, on the verge of tears himself just from looking at her in such an emotional state, “we are going to land in a sec… you should sit back down.” Lance advised, he didn't want to discourage her from watching them approach, but safety first was more important. She understood that.

“Right.” She used her sleeve to wipe a tear before sitting back in her seat and clicking the buckle tight.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“We made it!” Lance announced with his hands set proudly on his hips as he stepped out of the lion.

“Yeah, barely.” Keith was hunched over, prepared to vomit. Allura should be grateful Lance told her to sit back down, his landing wasn't exactly up to par. If he landed like that in a Garrison simulator, Iverson would've suspended him on the spot.

“Hey, it wasn't all bad.” Lance scoffed, puffing out his lower lip.

Just then, Pidge came running out the beast with a hand covering her mouth before reaching a blooming bush and coating it with a thick layer of what she ate for breakfast. “NOT. BAD?” she yelled, “Lance, I went to the same training school with you for years and I have never seen you land so terribly!” she gagged again, regretting coming on the trip. “And on top of that, why didn't anyone else react to the electric shock? I didn't know it would feel like I'm literally dying!”

“We are used to it by now.” Lance boasted, hanging his arm over Keith's neck who nodded while still double over.

“I turned off my pain receptors until you stopped screaming.” Allura said calmly, receiving odd looks from everyone else, “did I not tell you I can do that?” she said innocently.

“Nope!” Keith groaned, exasperated that he wound up back in Altea with little real planning, speaking of; “whats the plan here anyways. Specifically for you,” he pointed at Allura, “are we just gonna pretend that she has always had a twin sister or something? Because there is already an Allura in this timeline, just a few years younger.”

“I hadn't thought of that.” Lance scratched the back of his head.

“I have.” Allura said from behind them. When they all turned around they didn't see Allura, they saw an Altean with Allura's voice. “Rememebr on that mission when I shifted into a Galra appearance to fit in with the suits? I learned how to do it more complexly.” She was proud of herself, as she should be. Her hair was a brown, her eyes grey, and a few other features were altered.

“So you can turn off pain receptors, and shapeshift? What else are you hiding?” Pidge came back from the bushes and examined Allura, taking in the magic.

“You are just full of surprises.” Keith was impressed, he said it like he was impressed at least. Lance noticed. He didn't like it, he didn't like Keith speaking to Allura like he was impressed. Lance felt….. Jealous maybe?

“But- back to Keith's point, what IS the plan here?” Pidge asked, pushing her glasses up her nose for emphasis.

“The plan is to say we are coming in from some made up land and boom! The King invited us in for dinner!” Lance said as if it was that simple.

“Allura? What's the plan?” Keith sighed, shifting his gaze back to the princess. Lance got that heat in his face again, he didn't like Keith acting that way towards Allura. Maybe it was her new look? Was he infatuated by grey eyes and brown hair? Lance had brown hair and grey(ish) eyes… Why didn't Keith look at him that way?

“We found a Kingsguard and told him we were passing through and wanted to discuss allyship with father and asked to see him. I know for a fact he isn't busy these days and then when we get to the castle we ask to speak to him and Zarkon both, since they are the head of the operation. Then once we get that far we subtly ask Zarkon about his personal life, his struggles and find out anything else we can about the black lion. Maybe we could get it to turn on him.” Allura explained.

“Sounds good but maybe don't refer to Alfor as ‘father’, might blow our cover.” Keith advised, smirking. Lance bit down on his lip, aggravated that Keith would smirk at Allura in that way.

“Are you all ready?” Pidge said, her eyes glittering. She was excited but wouldn't admit that she once was against the idea of it all.

“Ready.” the remaining three said in unison.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They approached the castle, scouring for knights or any other royalty. They depended on Allura to speak in traditional Altean courtesy. Allura knew everyone by name, Pidge had done research so she also knew who to look for… Lance and Keith stayed behind and waited for one of the other two to speak up.

“Over there!” Allura pointed towards a man doing laps near the small body of water. Everyone followed her, adjusting their posture to be as upright as they could.

“Excuse me?” Allura addressed the soldier, clearing her throat

“Yes?” the knight smiled brightly, spooking Keith and Lance, who were used to authority figures being intimidating.

“We are travelers from Feyiv, we are looking for the King. I am princess… Celestia and these are my apprentices; Keith, Lance, and Katie. We were hoping we could speak to his royal highness about a treaty, or allyship and discuss his new inventions he is currently building.” Allura spoke with confidence but Pidge noticed her fingers picking at her nails nervously.

“Of course! I will tell the King straight away he has eager visitors. He is free for dinner tonight at the grand hall if that interests you four?” the knight was excited, he retreated back to the castle after Allura gave a curt nod.

“Looks like we have our evening set, anyone want to shop around?” Allura turned around with a smirk, successful.

“I want to see what books they have on the wildlife and plants! Maybe an encyclopedia!" Pidge bit her lip and ran to the market, leaving a trail of dust behind her skidding feet.

“What about you two, im going to the flower field to reconnect with the planet, are you going shopping with Pidge?” Allura asked, her eyes still glassy.

“We might indulge a bit.” Lance smiled back at the princess before she bowed and turned away.

“What are we going to indulge in, exactly?” Keith raised a brow when Allura left, he wasn't a big browsing person.

“You don't want to explore a bit, last time we were here we had to rush, but now we have all the time in the world until Allur- Celestia calls us for dinner.”

“I am not going to explore with you.” Keith said flatly.

“Yes you are! Or I am going to explore and drag you around really.” Lance smiled cartoonishly big, making Keith's cheeks pinken after he turned his head away. It was rather cut when he grinned like a small child.

Lance was dead-set on buying a token of memorabilia for his shelving. Maybe a snow globe, or trinket, or an action figure. Anything from Altean culture would look stunning in his room. Plus it would be a rarity! He did in fact drag Keith around with him. He pursued mini stain glass window panels, funky pins, plushies, potted plants, odd candies and accessories. He was infatuated with a pressed flower petal inside a frame.

“How is it still healthy after being separated from its stem… and the ground?” Lance asked the shop owner curiously.

“It is still spiritually connected! The petal has a special bond with its limb- or the stem and it stays interlinked with it until the root dies, which is rare for that specific flower. But most of these petals-” the shop owner gestures to the other merchandise on the table “-are from the same flower, so that every petal has a brother and sister, and other siblings that other people have in their own homes. It is a symbol that a family can stay healthy and connected even over long distances and time.”

“Wow, we will take two.” Lance handed the shop owner some money and grabbed two frames, giving one to Keith.

“Why did you get me one?” Keith asked, utterly confused.

“Cause I wanted to, it's a good symbolism.”

“We live in rooms next to each other and lately you've been sleeping in your room? There isnt a long distance between us.” Keith scoffed, honored on the inside that Lance didn't hesitate to thank him.

“Im glad though, but if we ever get back to earth then-”

“Hey, we talked about that. It's when we get back, not if.” Keith cut him off, reassuring him.

“Right- WHEN we get back to earth, we can have them.” Lance didn't notice he had been holding his friend's hand until he looked down. He didn't know whether he grabbed Keith's hand or if he had placed it there himself. Either way, neither of them let go.

That is, until Pidge came running around the corner with her arms completely full, urging them to take her back to the lion so they could drop off their new belongings.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Allura sat in the flowers delicately, being careful not to squash more than necessary. She stroked the petals and breathed in deeply, taking in her home. She let the tears fall without resistance, she did not hold them in, nor did she wipe them away. She allowed them to dampen the neckline of her shirt and stain streaks on her neck and cheeks. Her nose reddened and her hair let loose in the frizz of the heat but none of it mattered. In a ship her hair wouldn't tangle, her underarm wouldn't sweat, there was no sun to tan her skin, no flowers to smell. She took it for granted 10,000 years ago, she didn't want to do it again.

. . . . . .

The four of them were beckoned by one of the guards of the castle and escorted to the royal gardens near the castle while they prepared the meal. One of the squalors promised that the King would come greet them once they arrived and a few ticks before dinner. Allura fidgeted with her nails, Keith crossed his arms and blew his bangs out of his face, Pidge inspected the nature and topiaries and Lance anxiously shook his leg. he really didn't want this mission to flop, he was prone to being the one to screw up a mission by his dumb insights and lack of thinking before he speaks. The mere idea of the mission going wry was bone chilling considering how close they were to finally getting to a good checkpoint. Keith inhaled heavily every few breaths to count the minutes. They had been burning in the Altean sun for twenty minutes before anyone said a word, it ended up being Lance breaking the silence.

“so…when's the King getting here?” he chuckled nervously, obviously bored

he was met with silence.

“Seriously guys? lighten up, we can't do this if we are going to be stiff the entire dinner. Should we make alibis? Allura, do you have our whole story laid out in your mind?” Lance continued, trying to coax any of them into the idea of responding or making the most of their adventure.

Allura nodded robotically

“a-are you-... what are you agreeing to? I asked ten questions.” Lance stammered, dumbfounded by her vagueness

“You asked three questions.” Keith corrected, not moving his eyes from his feet planted on some clovers and lush grass.

“can it, dickwad.” Lance huffed

“the fuck did you just call me?” Keith let his arms fall as he turned his head towards the blue paladin

“what I said was-”

“Father.” Allura whispered, softly enough that it could only be heard within a two foot radius.

Keith and Lance locked eyes, father meant Allura a father. Alfor had arrived.

“welcome guests to Altea!” the King was very prompt, he looked just as he did in the holograms Allura had carried, just more real this time.

allura felt tears well in her eyes but she was quick to sweep them away and take a deep breath before curtsying, stunning the paladins with how well she could hold herself together. “Thank you, your highness, we are honored to meet you in person. We have heard of all you are doing for the sake of the universe and we're inspired!” her hands twitched harder now that he was holding it, bowing and kissing the knuckle as a show of gratitude

“is that the reason for your visit, princess celestia?” he raised a brow

“It was an excellent starter for our proposal to have you as our allie in the inevitable fight of galaxies and treaties.” Allura choked on her words, that 'inevitable fight’ wasn't expected to last over 10,000 years.

“wonderful! Come inside, the feast is prepared for you. Who is this with you?” the King shifted his eyes and gestured to Lance, Keith, and Pidge.

“oh! These are…Katie, Lance, and Keith. Lance and Katie are my advisors and…Keith is my husband.” Allura sputtered

Keith tried his hardest not to let his eyes fumble over in confusion and exasperation at Allura's quick thinking. It made sense but…she couldn't have thought of anything better?

“Ahh esteemed guests, welcome welcome.” Alfor gathered them all into the dining area and sat them in accordance to a prearranged seating chart. Alfor was -of course- seated at the head of the table, with Allura to his left and Pidge next to her. Keith and Lance were on the opposite side of them with Keith to Alfors right. their knees awkwardly knocked a few times which reminded him to straighten up and lock his knees under the table.

Pidge bored everyone besides the King with her questions and comments. He looked rather amused but still glad to answer, her questions were layered and in detail. It was possible he had never been asked a handful of the few she picked out to go first. Allura then began to explain why they should team up for the upcoming war, which bored the two boys again. Keith was chowing down on his lamb chop and Lance was picking apart every piece of Alfor that resembled Allura. the way his nose curved, his kind but assertive eyes, the face shape. It was hard to get a clear side by side considered Allura disguise.

The table went quiet after an apparent agreement between nations and Alfor glanced over to Keith. “so, husband to the princess.” he smirked

Keith smirked back, maybe even a bit of pink faded on his nose, “best…years of my life!” Allura hadn't prepared him properly for this type of conversation. not everyone at the table had taken Altean improv classes.

“one day you will be King.” Alfor continued, only making it harder for Keith to answer properly.

“im very excited, I hope I can be as great of a leader as you someday, your majesty.”

Alfor was pleased with this answer and smiled before taking a big bite of his meal. Pidge watched in horror as he choked down an entire animal in less than five minutes.

“how DO you become such a great King? It's almost impossible to have such a peaceful and loving planet. and somehow you make it perfect.” Keith was really sucking up to Alfor.

Lance pushed his tongue against the back of his teeth. He felt out of place with Keith kissing ass, Pidge secretly petting a roach on the chair, and Allura having some mislabeled family reunion.

He allowed for the conversation to become fuzzy and inaudible to him. He did hear some praising banter behind him however.

“excuse me.” he interrupted, rudely.

“yes?” Alfor grinned kindly

“Where is the men's room?”

“just behind that corner there and down the left hall.” Alfor instructed

“swell. let's go, Keith.” Lance stood up, grasping Keith's wrist on the way

Alfor looked puzzled

“uh… it's a- culture thing at… ffff-” Pidge began to try her best to explain

“Feyiv.” Allura smiled halfheartedly.

Keith was thoroughly confused but he let Lance drag him to the bathroom.

“What?” he sighed after the heavy door slammed shut behind them. The bathroom was completely vacant besides the two of them.

“what do you mean ‘what?’?” Lance sputtered “what the hell are you doing out there?”

“What are you even talking about? I can be sociable.” Keith scoffed

“That's not what I'm talking about, I'm referring to you kissing Alfors ten-thousand year old ass, and purring over Allura.” Lance crossed his arms

“I'm making conversation. How am I purring over Allura?”

“you are smirking, blushing, giggling, being practically overjoyed at being assumed as her husband. I mean c’mon don't play stupid for me; ‘you are just full of surprises, Allura.’.” Lance mocked Keith's raspy, sultry voice

“I didn't say it like that. Plus it IS impressive.” Keith said defensively

“Shut up! Is it her new cute look? Because I can look like that.”

“huh?”

“the brown hair she got, a light bronze skin tone? Why are you attracted to her and not me? we look the same now!” Lance threw his arms in the air in exasperation.

“Lance…. Do you want me to be attracted to you? but also i'm not attracted to Allura. you know that right?” Keith was downright confused, his eyebrows hurt from straining them in a scowl

“I can't be sure anymore! fuck,it's just.. the way you look at her makes my heart just singe.” Lance wrapped his arms around his nape, pacing back and forth in frustration

“What about the way I look at you, Lance?” Keith pleaded, hoping he hadn't sent mixed signals

“You don't look at me in any specific way. It's just eyes.” Lance complained. God, he WISHED Keith looked at him in some specific, sexy, vulnerable way.

“fuck, Lance. just eyes? we sleep in the same bed, you rub my hair in your daziness, we have kissed multiple times, and you're complaining about my eyes?”

“i thought the kisses meant nothing to you! dont fucking complain that i'm confused when you set that system up! I don't know what you think, but it meant something to me, all of them did!” Lance's voice broke and that was all. He crumbled into his own composure. He wrapped his arms around himself for closure and prayed that Keith would give him some sort of clarity on what was going on between them.

Keith gave in, rushing towards Lance, eliminating the feet between them in a second. He reeled Lance in, turning their heads to the left and kissed him like it was second nature. Lance fell into his wet pillowy lips and pressed firmly against them. Keith wiggled his tongue past the barrier of Lance's lips and dipped tentatively into his mouth, letting his tongue explore it. Lance did the same, humming into Keith's throat, vibrating and sending a jolt of heat through his adrenaline powered body. Lance let go of his rib cage and caressed up Keith's torso and shoulders and neck, all the way up to his scalp where he tugged his hair from the roots. Keith groaned into the kiss at the sudden yank, sighing deeply with ease when Lance released and continued to run his fingers through the raven mullet. Keith's hands were settled happily on the divot of just above Lance's hips, pushing his fingers into the flesh and pulling his pelvis toward his own. The irony of drunk delicate pecks in comparison to the sober steaming makeout made it so much hotter, especially for Lance knowing Keith didn't have any experience so this was purely instinct.

and Keith was a damn good kisser.

It made Lance jealous that Keith was so skilled for a beginner. Lance had his first kiss at the age of 15 when he still had braces and didn't know the first thing about locking lips. It made him that much more possessive of him. No one else deserved to feel Keith's lips. This was a pleasure reserved for him and him only.

Keith didn't think about all the manwhores and curvy girls Lance had probably done this with before. The important thing was he was doing it with him now. This time it was without the red solo cups and faint smell of beer induced vomiting.

Keith's legs were tired of standing up straight, he peeked over Lance's shoulder to find the wall being closer to them than expected

perfect.

he giggled and pushed Lance into the rose Altean shell tile. Lance grunted on impact, snarling at Keith for being so cunning and using his surroundings to his advantage. Keith's legs got relief when he plainly laid on Lance's chest standing, his right knee pushed between Lance's legs, the left went limp but no matter; Lance's embrace was so tight it kept him upright perfectly.

“You are thirstyyy.” Lance teased, letting go of the kiss to get a look at Keith's swollen lips and flushed face, “you’re sure that I'm the only person you have ever kissed?”

“fuck off and put your hands back.” Keith instructed, waiting for Lance to place his fingers in his sweaty hair, he didn't.

“We can't, we have to go back to dinner. They are gonna think something is wrong if we are just in here for a little while.” Lance sighed.

“Let them think something is wrong, I just want to keep kissing you damnit.” Keith complained, scowling again

“Later, we are most likely gonna stay the night anyways, it's already dark out.” Lance gripped Keith's biceps as he explained his reasoning

“Fine.” Keith huffed, walking out of the bathroom and back towards the dining hall where he could faintly hear conversation. It was only bits and pieces within earshot but it seemed… dry and…off. He turned the corner in distress, hoping he was hearing incorrectly.

his face dropped when he saw Pidge and Allura in cuffs, surrounded by Altean guards.

“Welcome back, prince of Feyiv. that is, as if that was where you are actually from. Feyiv doesn't have any royal family, it actually has barely a civilization. your friends here-” Alfor gestured to Allura and Pidge, “- refuse to say where you are all actually from, so you will stay in the Altean prison located here in the castle and you four shall be individually interrogated until one of you fesses up.”

Lance turned the corner just a second later

“what's going on?” he asked obliviously

“Lance, we are DEFINITELY going to stay the night here.” Keith frowned

Chapter Text

as pretty and hospitable as Altea was, the prison wasn't full of flowers and magic. In fact, there were two separate cells. Princess Allura and Pidge in one… Lance and Keith in the other. They remained cuffed with a threat of their ankles being tied as well if they attempted to escape. The cells were right next to each other so it was easy to have conversations through the protective walls built by Alfor himself. Lance laid on the single bed in his cell, leaving Keith sitting criss crossed behind him. Pidge was coming up with riddles and trying to entertain Allura with them while she did her best to communicate with Keith.

“how did he even find out?” Keith massaged the bridge of his nose, keeping himself calm.

“i can't be sure, one of the guards came up and whispered something to him. he looked suspicious from the start” Allura sighed, discouraged

“Well this sucks!” Lance yelled, loud enough to echo and reverberate off the castle walls and back

“we know, quit whining.” Keith seemed fed up. He was mostly fed up that Lance was interrupting his daydream where he was currently replaying their time in the bathroom over in his head. Lance's honey taste lingered on his lips and he wasn't about to take it for granted

“no! I won't quit whining! We are in JAIL, Keith. JAIL!” Lance pushed Keith's shoulder aggressively

“We need to make a fake story to get us out.” Allura unsighted

“Yeah, as if that worked so great the first time. This whole mission is a blow. We didn't learn anything about Zarkon or the lions, we wasted fuel and back in the future we are running off precious time. This is the worst mission ever and no one else is as aggregated as they should be! someone give me a satisfying reaction for once!” Lance got as close to Allura's face as he could

“You want a satisfying reaction?” Keith had steam coming out of his ears, biting his lip and balling his hands into angry fists. “this is fucking horrible, fine! this is one of the worst situations we have EVER been in, no possible way to get Coran or Shiro from the castleship because, guess what? we are IN the castle ship. Pidge is spiraling, Allura is depressed, and you're the first one to crack! They are doing this on purpose so one of us talks. That's why they put you and me in the same cell, they knew one of us would go crazy and spew at the other! and it's working pretty damn well because, holy shit, you are so annoyingly persistent!” Keith was out of breath, but it felt good- so. fucking. good. to finally get that off his chest. Lance didn't even look hurt, just more frustrated

if Allura and Pidge weren't looking intensely, Lance would probably pull Keith in for an angry, sloppy kiss but alas, they were waiting for him to speak and maybe that wouldn't be the best reaction. “we need to come up with a plan then.” he said in a steady voice, calling himself down. “Allura, any ideas?”

. . . . . .

“they've been gone awhile, is there any possible way to track them?” Shiro stood with his hands on his hips, leaning over Coran shoulders to get a better look at the control panel, he was met with sterile confusion, everything was in Altean- or just plain complicated. He had flown countless ships and simulators but…. they were all in english and not a foreign language that barely exists anymore.

“i fear not, it's not that they are out of range they are just…wait a tic, I might be able to.” Coran began typing furiously, “while there is no way for us to time travel, it's completely possible to turn the ship clock date back thousands of years. more or less, reverse update so it thinks we are still at Altea. quick, look at Pidges journal- what are the coordinates they landed on?” Coran instructed, Shiro was more than up to the task.

Shiro explained the coordinates and time, calculating how long they had been gone for exact seconds- or ticks.

“I see them- oh quiznak… they are in the Altean prison here.” Coran pointed to where two sets of double heat signatures pulsed near the bottom back of the ship.

“what?” Shiro kept closer, his eyes concerned and wary.

“i turned the clock a few hours earlier as well, they have been there for a bit now. we can't even manage to try to communicate or interfere. There is no way to help them without putting ourselves in danger.

“so… Is there a way to help them?” Shiro raised a brow

“well- i-” Coran stuttered nervously, “yes but-”

“Then we do it.” a gentle reminder that Shiro IS the leader when Allura is absent.

Coran was irritated but complied without a word. he spun a knob cautiously, feeling Shiros breath on his upper arm, watching and waiting.

“This should do the trick.”

. . . . . . . . . .

“I'm gonna go ahead and say ‘no, that isn't going to work’.” Keith said flatly, watching Pidge and Allura try their hardest to make a portal using her magic and the bed springs.

“That was my last idea.” Allura sighed, defeated.

After about an hour of brainstorming all they had figured out was how to get the cuffs off. Lance was sprawled on the single bed, getting his well needed beauty rest. Although he was snoring and forming a puddle of drool under his open mouth. Keith exhaled and pushed Lance off the bed, watching him thump onto the floor in a single motion.

“ouch! what the hell?” Lance woke up at the thud, his head spun on impact.

“My turn, you keep watch.” Keith slumped onto the bed, taking up all the space on the shitty mattress and thin sheets.

“keep watch of what?” Lance groaned, irritated at the interruption

“anything, make sure Pidge doesn't kill herself or Allura trying to escape.” Keith instructed, his eyes now closed and calm

“Allura can do that just fine, move over.” Lance whined, still sleepy

“no.” Keith wouldn't budge

“C'mon dude, I'm tired.” Lance persisted.

“mm.” Keith didn't move, Lance knew he would most likely keep that position for at least another hour. He would have to take matters into his own hands.

“Fine, but you asked for it.” Lance smirked and got on top of the bed, even though Keith was laid flat over it. Lance was straddling Keith in front of Pidge and Allura, laying on his lap with his legs on either side. It was definitely a sight.

“What are you doing, Lance?” Keith's eyes flashed open in bewilderment

“shhhh.” Lance put a finger over Keith's mouth to shut him up, “I'm sleeping, dimwit. Now hush.”

Keith accepted it, he knew he wouldn't move and neither would Lance. their position was inevitable; might as well make the most of it. He smirked at his own thoughts. He opened his eyes and moved his hands closer to Lance, closer to his knees where he massaged them slightly before sliding them up his thighs.

“w-w-what are you doing?” Lance jolted up, looking down at Keith, making the image more suggestive.

“nothint… oh, you mean this~?” Keith shifted his hands near Lance's pelvis, gliding them farther from his hips and moving his thumb near his inner thighs.

“Keith!” Lance whisper yelled, trying to avoid calling attention from Allura and Pidge, who were currently occupied

“They aren't looking, c’mon Lance, let's have some fun.” Keith bit his lip seductively. Lance gulped, shocked and maybe even turned on. Keith was acting outrageously bold for someone with zero experience, this was raw thinking on the spot, reflexes.

“fuck, your so hot from this angle.” Lance breathed heavily, his eyes flashed up from Keith to the princess and Pidge every few seconds to make sure they weren't looking in. “Has your brain always had these types of ideas? who were you saving them for?”

“You're the one sitting on top of me.” Keith turned his head slighting, his perfect nose and sharp jawline getting its limelight for Lance's viewing pleasure. His hair fell on the pillow tasseled, his bangs flopped over his nose like how only a renaissance painting could portray.

“that's true I guess.” Lance pushed himself onto Keith, chuckling into a kiss. The sudden heat of the moment distracted from the chance of Pidge and Allura catching sight.

Keith whimpered softly into the kiss, his hands massaging Lance's muscular thighs and the curve of his ass. Lance jolted his hips at the motion, opening his mouth heavier into the kiss, breathing warm and fulfilling air.

“wait stop-stop” Keith tapped Lance's leg.

“what?” Lance was concerned, had he done something wrong?

“this is gonna turn into something else that we can't do here… they'll notice.” Keith's face was flushed, making it easier to see the pink tint growing on his nose. He was suddenly shy and hesitant.

“oh? someone is nervous.” Lance teased, yet he did help himself off of Keith.

“shut up, you would know all too much about this type of thing.” Keith scoffed, his stomach was cold in Lance's abandonment.

Lance smirked, ignoring the verbal jab and sitting on the floor next to the bed. He was pleased that he had flustered THE Keith Kogane. might even be one of his best accomplishments in space so far.

allura and Pidge were blissfully oblivious to what had been going on behind them. They were busy exploring the force field strategically built around the base of the prison.

“is there a way to penetrate this?” Pidge asked

“Oh my goodness! I'm a total idiot!” Allura was aggregated with herself as she stood up and lifted her hands near the clear wall, making them glow a pale blue. The field fell, slowly dispersing from sight and existence. Pidge grinned and stepped out of where the wall previously sat. Allura made her way to the boys’ cell and took down their walk as well.

“Now what?” Keith said, standing up from the bed to face the rest of them.

“We leave. We cannot continue this mission, it isn't worth it. They think we are fugitives, we need to get back to the lion.” Allura placed her hands on her hips, ready to run past the guards.

“So this was all for nothing? how much time did we lose on this?” Lance asked, stunned at the pure waste of energy they had spent.

“it was a learning experience… I should've never touched that time machine.”

“dont beat yourself up, this couldn't be predicted.” Pidge put a hand on Allura shoulder.

Then they fled the castle, making a beeline to the lion.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Coran and Shiro held their breath, waiting to see a confirmation flash of light beam from the control panel. Coran had successfully hacked into the castleships date and time settings and set it way back to ten thousand years ago, exactly where the four volunteers were placed. Four heat signatures confirmed that.

The next checkpoint for them would be to unlock every cell in the castle and take it off lockdown.

The doors to the castle opened, letting the four of them out of the castle with ease.

. . . . . . . . .

Pidge was bolting in front, the location of the lion tracked on her advanced watch. Lance was behind her, then Keith. Allura trailed in the back, her eyes primarily looking behind her to make sure no one was following. That was when she got a glimpse of a familiar white beard and stopped in her tracks. She had spent her time being professional, not breaking character. Not even in front of Alfor

She could do it now. take off the disguise and act like herself, just pretend it wasn't her all along. She ached to run up to the King and hug him around his chest and smell his long forgotten cologne. She yearned to bury her head in the royal robes he always insisted on wearing. She remembered how she would get on her tiptoes to hug him so her head would fit in the crook of his shoulder and neck. Her arms twitched and her toes wiggled, begging to run across the mossy grass and into their fathers arms. ten thousand years without an embrace from her father. ten thousand years without hearing his voice speak her name, his eyes look into hers, or his arms wrap around her shoulders. Her heart felt weak and limp, tethered to the memory of her father. Yet here he was, in real life, no hologram or memory. Her eyes filled to the brim with salty tears. She couldn't wait any longer, it tore her insides to wait. She bolted.

she ran as fast as her tired legs could carry her. She let herself shift back into herself, the brown hair faded into the white and in a blink her eyes adjusted. she was Allura, Alfors daughter and princess of Altea.

Lance was faster than her though. So when she slipped in the mud and fell, he was already by her side and ready to catch her. She grunted, attempting to get up before he could stop her. He knew what she was trying to do and held her waist to stop her, she struggled relentlessly.

“Allura you can't!” he pleaded, his own eyes getting wet from the scene

“father-” Alluras voice broke

Lance slapped a hand over her mouth, silencing her cries. “He can't know!”

Keith ran up behind them, “what's going on? Pidge is basically to the lion by now.”

“Allura’s trying to reach Alfor but we don't have time, and he can't know what we escaped somehow, it'll mess with the trajectory of time if we can't get back in time!” Lance explained, removing his hand from Allura's mouth after she stopped trying to rip it off herself.

“who's that next to him?” Keith squinted, trying to put a name to the unfamiliar face

“Zarkon.” Allura announced sharply, her tone turned from hurt to violent. Her throat graveled with bloodlust over that evil man that would betray her father within the year.

“What are we waiting for then? let's get hom now?” Keith's eyes widened and he pulled out his bayard.

“Keith, Allura, no. you know this will just rip a hole in time. It's a very bad idea, I thought we had discussed this.” Lance reminded them

“Lance, this is our one chance, why can't we take it?” Keith said through his teeth, physically restraining himself

“i just told you, if Zarkon is dead then we won't have ever come to space, it's a circle. killing him now will just kill us all in the process.” Lance covered the bayard with his hand, the other still restraining the princess

“I'll do it then, only I'll die.” Keith shrugged

“You're not a hero here, that isn't even how it works. Even if it was, I wouldn't let you sacrifice yourself.” Lance was becoming aggregated at everything, he just wanted to go home.

“Then just let Allura see her father, even a hug or something.” Keith was insistent

“no, we don't know how that will change the future, OUR current time.” Lance sighed

“it won't! God, Lance, don't be so bitchy about this- if it was your mother wouldn't you want to see her after ten thousand years?” Keith crossed his arms, “put yourself in her shoes.”

Lance swatted a hand across Keith's face, trying to knock some sense into him, “Fuck off, Keith! The answer is no, I'm being mature and making a healthy decision for the sake of… everything!”

“You fuck off! Why cant-”

“there they are!” a voice faintly yelled in Allura's direction

“shit.” Keith grimaced, hearing the grass shuffle under guards feet

“Well it looks like no one is having any family reunions on this mission.” Lance groaned, partially relieved that the argument was over. For now. He grabbed Allura's hand to help her up before they all ran to the lion in distress.

Keith was last in line, meaning he was an easier target for the guards with their chosen weapons. The ones closer to him held a bow and arrow that was currently strung tight, ready to be shot. he didn't turn around, he didn't notice until-

“FUCK!” Keith shouted, falling to the ground in a second. Lance heard the thud behind him and saw Keith on the ground.

“Keith! What happened? Allura, keep running to the lion!” Lance instructed, running towards Keith. The guards were far enough away from him to do so.

“An arrow hit my ankle. shit.” Keith moaned in pain, rolling to his side to show Lance his shin, which was punctured on the side, rendering his achilles useless for the time being.

There wasn't time now to inspect it, Lance lifted Keith bridal style effortlessly and carried him the rest of the way to the lion, which wasn't that far away in hindsight. he carefully sat him in one of the seats, warning that his foot should stay on the side to avoid it getting tousled under the seat.

The ride back through the wormhole lasted not five minutes and they were back on the castle ship. Keith still refused to put any weight on the leg. He also refused to even look at Lance.

. . . . . .

Lance approached Keith's room, lifting his fist up to knock before sighing and bringing it back down. It had only been an hour since they got back to the ship so his temper might still be sizzling. he scooted back to his own room and let the door hiss open. To his surprise, Keith was sitting in his bed, laying over the comforter with his legs on top of each other. His right was over his left, which had a makeshift cast wrapped around it. He had let Hunk in to bandage it, Lance knew how to as well but he didn't want to ask for help from him.

Lance had his feet planted in the doorway, waiting for Keith to turn and yell at him. For some unknown reason,Keith didn't budge. His upper half puffed up and down steadily but he didn't shift or even wiggle into a different position. Lance crept towards him slowly, looking over his covered shoulder. His eyes were closed and calm, his lips slightly pursed and chapped.

Lance could only hope he was sleeping soundly.

Chapter Text

lightning crashed, citizens scattered, the King was rushed into the royal bunker to hide from the storm. Pidge, Allura, Keith and Lance were some of the few people left in the outside world. Lance recalled Coran reminiscing about some falling rocks from the sky, the Altean version of rain, right now though Lance was praying he had remembered wrong and those ‘falling sharp rocks’ were really soft jell-o cubes. Harsh thunder shook the ground, knocking loose cobblestones out of place, unsteady roofs caved into the kingdom's buildings and houses, along with the faint sound of glass shattering in window sills.. Keith stared at the sky, the dark illuminated clouds reflected in his stardust eyes, appearing that much more intimidating. He was always one that never really got to the ‘fight or flight’ of it all, he froze in place. He was physically unable to move no matter how much the ringing voice in his head yelled ‘run! What the fuck are you doing! Move!’. Was this how it was supposed to end? He didn't see a high road or any escape. In fact, he couldn't see anything… except a silhouette of something, someone… familiar? It grew closer and closer, still unrecognizable from the thick fog of dust.

A cold hand gripped onto his arm like a magnet.

“Keith, we need to get back to the lion!” Lance warned. Keith had never seen him in such distress. His entire being was shaky, his voice croaked and the corner of his eyes had a smeared red hue. Chances are that Lance had made it halfway to the lion and remembered Keith, based on how hard he was sweating. As if Keith was just baggage maybe.

Keith nodded hesitantly and went with him through a tight forest. The woods were overflowing with twigs, broken branches, and outstanding roots, making it nearly impossible not to trip and fall at least a couple times. Keith did so under his two left feet, slowing him and Lance down, who helped him up quickly every time, even offering to carry him out of the woods. A tree caught fire with a bolt of lightning as Keith was pulling himself up from the ground after a particularly slippery patch of moss made him its victim.

“shit.” Lance said under his breath, watching the flames spread to the ground and grass, inching closer to where they were.

“we need to keep going!” Keith yelled, his limbs shaking from exhaustion. He assumed Pidge and Allura had made it to the lion by now and were waiting on them; he had not seen them since they had escaped the prison.

The ground was soggy from the rain, rendering it unreliable that it wouldn't sweep them back down. They made it into the clear moss from the trees. The blue lion made its way into view as well as Pidge and Allura approaching it, they stopped in their tracks, leaving dust behind their ankles at their speed of halting. Lightning struck the lion and it fully exploded. Scraps flew all over the woods, miles from the explosion. The flashing lights reflected in Pidge's glasses, only magnifying the damage even through her glossed, teary eyes. They burned from devastation and the unforgiving warmth crawling into her iris. The rubble was crumbling under each hurried step, making it progressively easier to fall on underfoot. Every force of nature was against them. Keith's voice cracked,

“Lance!”

Keith sat straight up, the pain in his leg felt like a bleeding wound but yet when he grabbed the cast and it was bone dry, only pain inflicted was the grip from his hands.

“what!” Lance whipped his head around from the seat at the vanity-desk

Keith caught his breath, clutching a hand to his chest for closure “holy shit.” he gasped. The dreams were back, they felt worse this time around.

“what happened?” Lance got closer to Keith, gently lifting his chin up with his index and middle finger. He inspected Keith's wet dazed eyes, dilated pupils and weak lids, the terror still lingered.

“Why didn't you wake me?” Keith turned this head away, he didn't want Lance to see him so vulnerable and meek. He felt small and he hated it. It wasn't necessarily wrong for Lance to be the bigger, more mature, stronger one out of the two… but it felt almost infuriating for Keith to know that deep down, Lance was stronger, more mature. Better.

“You were sleeping softly, I didn't think anything was wrong.” Lance explained, guilt weighing heavy in his chest.

Keith sniffed, keeping his face away from Lance. Shit. Now he was an asshole too, along with being weak and immature.

“was it another one of your dreams?” Lance asked tentatively, sitting on the edge of the bed now, comforting Keith in any way he could think of.

Keith nodded, embarrassed. This was humiliating.

“This might not be the best time, but I asked Allura a few minutes ago to come and try to heal your injury. She might be here soon…” Lance gulped, gesturing to the poorly wrapped wound. Keith sighed, he really didn't want a crowd now.

But he was right, just a tick after he stood back up and brushed himself off there was gentle knocking on the door. Keith wiped his face and pulled himself together so the princess wouldn't be concerned, or ask questions. Please, no questions.

“unwrap it.” Allura instructed. She sat on the edge of the bed, it was still warm from where Lance had been previously. Keith preferred Lance's warmth over Allura. She stayed mostly silent, looking down and inspecting Keith's ankle with the sick wound, picking the calf up with her hand, twisting it to get better angles. She eventually set it down and closed her eyes, her hand facing just above the bare wound. It was pretty nasty to look at.

the space between Allura's palm and Keith's shin glowed a pale teal. It sizzled Keith's skin, burying itself into the meat of his leg.

“fuck.” he winced, his hands gripping the fabric of the sheets and blankets, his face scrunched, trying his best to hold it together. If he had been any weaker he would've yelped from the pain, whatever allura did made it feel fresh, but now it just felt odd. Not good, but better.

Allura removed her hand, the wound was still there but not quite a scar. Keith hesitantly looked down at it, groaning.

“That's all I can do. the arrows were coated with Altean magic, I can't counteract but it should heal itself normally. You'll be left with a rather large scar on your leg.” Allura said sympathetically

“thanks.” Keith said, grunting and adjusting to the feeling of tight skin around his bone. He knew he should be grateful that that was the only injury he received. He mentally crossed his fingers that the ten thousand year old magic would do the equivalent of expire soon enough.

Allura left and Lance took his place back on the bed, Keith bit down a smile.

“Anything I can do to make you feel better?” Lance asked, he was closer to Keith than Allura was, but his presence was comforting in a way Keith hadn't felt before. His breath- didnt smell… great- but it was warm in the way that you could only feel if the other person was less than a foot away. If their lips were less than a foot away.

Keith stared at Lance, into his small eyes full of love and caringness, serenity and peace. Lance was selfless and never put himself first in serious situations. Keith was certain that if Lance had his leg cut off, he would put a bandaid over someone's papercut before tending to his own needs. Not to mention that his skin was soft and holdable, especially his hands and right under his jawline. Keith had become wonderfully accustomed to having his hands scooped underneath Lance's jawline, his thumbs gently rubbing the apples of his cheeks. They fit like they were meant to be there, or sculpted into it. Lance would come up with a pun, causing Keith to swallow a laugh and he could make horrible dad jokes on command. Lance didn't care that Keith was weak sometimes, he was there for the strong too. Lance didn't view their attributes as a competition, even if he did he wouldn't care enough. It was about time he really knew. It was about time he knew how Keith really felt, in words. Actions speak louder than words… but sometimes it can be very confusing without the,

“i-” Keith began, he choked on spit, causing him the cough therefore hesitated saying it at all.

“Hm?” Lance almost snapped his neck at how fast he turned his head, almost certain he would turn to see Keith choking on something by the sound that came from him.

“I think I'm like… totally in love with you.” Keith blurted. shit, that wasn't how he meant to say it. But he couldn't take it back. The only thing that surprised him more than the fact that Lance wasn't shocked, was that… he didn't even react. Sure, he smiled, but he was already smiling. Confusing little fucker.

“wasn't that…. clear?” Lance giggled awkwardly, his eyes still shimmering.

“what are you talking about?” Keith said with genuine confusion, did he mispronounce something?

“Well I mean, the Altean bathroom… the jail… everything? isn't this like a confession or something?” Lance scratched the back of his head “I guess I just… figured you liked me.”

“it would help if you said it back, y’know.” Keith swallowed a laugh, Lance was also incredibly stupid sometimes. Most of the time, actually. He was just slowly getting better at hiding it.

“oh right,” Lance cleared his throat, “Keith Kogane, I am hopelessly in love with you.”

“ugh, you announced it like this is some big musical number, don't you dare break out in song.” Keith mocked-gagged, outdone with Lance's dramatic performance.

“shut up.” Lance pushed his shoulder

“so…what are we then?” Keith asked, he didn't know how any of this worked. The question gave him goosebumps, he had never really imagined he would be asking that to anyone. He assumed that he would live in that cabin for the rest of his life, researching. Now his ex-rival was in his arms. They both pretty much hated each until maybe a year ago, and now they were… whatever they were. Lance still hadn't answered the question.

“Wow, you're overwhelmed aren't you? That's normally a third date type of question.” Lance giggled, nuzzling his nose to Keith's, subtly getting closer.

“Seriously, I told you before that I don't know anything.” Keith smirked softly, his nose turning pinkish again, from blushing, not the friction of nuzzling

“Fine, we are a mess. That's what we are. But the answer that you're looking for is whatever you want us to be. Whatever makes you happy to say. Heck, you could say we were enemies and i'd be okay. as long as you're MY enemy, and I'm yours. exclusively.” Lance rubbed Keith's elbow with his pinky finger from where his hand was resting on his arm.

“How are you so good at this- actually I don't want to know.” Keith retracted.

They both giggled and fell into a kiss. Lance was laying on Keith, his arms holding them up on either side.

“this feels…familiar…” he smirked

“i thought I told you to shut it?”

“you also said- in the prison- that you didn't want this to turn into something else.” Lance began to stand back up. but Keith held his forearm, pulling him back in

“that's when Pidge and Allura were there… now it's just us.”

“Just us?”

“yeah.”

. . . . . . .

Keith slept well that night. Lance slept with his arms around Keith, holding him tightly and praying softly that he wouldn't have those nightmares again. Even if it was just for tonight. They both deserved a calm sleep in each other's company. they had earned it.