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loveafterthefact · 4 years ago

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A Deleted Scene

Thanksgiving results were in about a month ago (oops), and you guys wanted a deleted scene, so here you go.

This one is also pre-Daibazaal, but is post-Frost Ball, and was inspired by all those tiktoks of people brushing their cats with we toothbrushes.

I just couldn’t resist.

Lance peers at his spouse, who’s lounging on the couch in front of the fireplace. He’s reading a novel on his datapad, nibbling on some snack or other. Narrowing his eyes, Lance readies weapon of choice carefully hidden in his pocket.

He looks back down at the video on his datapad, something Allura sent him, involving Lotor and his beloved cat, Kova. This prince is cradling the marsupial animal like a baby, cooing as he scratches her under her chin. Apparently the little feline is Allura’s greatest competition for the Lotor’s affections.

At any rate, Lotor’s discovered something interesting, and the couple immediately informed Lance of the groundbreaking development. Thus, it’s time to run a science experiment.

Keith scrolls along, enraptured in his story. He really is so much like a cat, with the fluffy ears, slanted pupils, pointy teeth… the tail curling back and forth over the floor in irritation…

“Can I help you?” Keith asks, giving Lance a side-glare, clearly annoyed by the Altean’s silent, intermittent staring.

“I was just wondering… How come Galra don’t groom themselves? You have that weird tongue like cats do, so-”

“Because I’m not a cat! And we have baths! Why would I choose to lick myself clean when I can just take a bath?”

“Well yeah, but you’re similar to a cat in a lot of ways. Don’t you ever wonder what other things you might have in common?”

“What other things I might have in common with a common Altean house pet?” the Galra asks in a low voice, staring at his spouse, a silent dare written all over his face.

It should be noted that Lance has few, if any survival instincts. Presumably because they’ve been bred out of him over generations of spoiled, cushy nobles. Perhaps this is why he chooses to continue with his current track.

“...Yes?”

Judging by the ever-so-slight-but-still-terrifying shift in Keith’s features, Adam has probably sensed Lance’s imminent death from the other side of the castle and come running in the hopes of saving his life.

“I’m actually gonna kill you,” Keith breathes, seemingly in awe. “I’m gonna be executed for regicide.”

The Altean reaches over, tugs on the end of Keith’s braid.

“Hey, beloved. That’s not what I meant. Just hear me out.” So maybe Lance has some survival instincts. “I just want to see something. Do Galra groom their babies?”

“Like with our tongues?” At Lance’s nod, Keith sighs. “When they’re very, very little. It’s a bonding thing.”

“That’s adorable. Seriously. A little gross, licking your kids, but hey, whatever works, right?”

“... I suppose? What’s this got to do with anything?”

Lance smirks, all cockiness as he leans over the back of the couch, getting closer and closer until the tips of their noses are almost touching. “Do you trust me?”

“Not at all.” Keith knows better than to trust anything with that sort of glint in it’s eye. Even if he can’t suppress an amused smile.

“Wow, you didn’t even stop to think about it. That hurts, beloved.”

Keith stares at his spouse, sighs in surrender. “If I agree to whatever weird shit you're about to do, will you pick up your dirty clothes off the floor?”

“Absolutely. It’s a deal!” Lance vaults over the back of the couch, landing in Keith’s lap, arms wrapped around his neck, beaming as he kisses Keith’s cheek. “Whoops! Wait one second!”

And the Altean is gone, hurrying into the bathroom of all places.

“If you come out naked, I’m eating you!” he calls, shaking his head at his spouse.

“Ancients, I’d love that, but no.” Lance pads back into the room, sitting back down next to Keith, who sticks his tongue out in disgust. “So apparently, if you brush the top of a cat’s head with a wet toothbrush, they really like it because it makes them feel like tiny babies again. Or something. I want to try it on you.”

“Absolutely not.” It’s more a reflex than anything else, resisting something so absurd.

“Oh, come on! Please? Pease?” Lance flops back into his lap, blue-and-pink eyes wide and pleading. “Please? I’ll be the big spoon tonight.”

“You’re almost always the big spoon.” Keith stares for a long moment before giving into Lance’s continued begging. Scoffs even as he surrenders. “Sure. Fine. Whatever. It can’t hurt, so go ahead.”

Lance grins, holds out a soft brush glistening with water. Hesitates.

“There a problem?” Keith grumbles. He really just wants to get back to his reading.

“It won’t make you sad, will it?”

Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” At Lance’s continued hesitation, Keith sighs, smiling with a heart full of fondness. This man is ridiculous, but he’s his. “It’s okay. Let’s just see what happens, and if it makes me sad, you’ll be here to make me feel better, right?”

“Y- Yes, of course. Okay.”

Lance gently drags the wet brush over the top of Keith’s head once, twice, three times. At first, nothing happens. Then, his pupils dilate wide, overtaking his eyes. His ears dip down to the sides. A soft mewl escapes him.

He feels… so safe. Warm. Loved. Like a little kit again, held in his father’s arms.

He misses his father so much…

“Aww, Ke-eith.” Lance pulls him into his lap, tucking him against his chest. “You’re adorable, you know that?”

“It does. It does remind me of them. My dad especially.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, beloved.”

“No, it’s okay. Makes me think of the good things.” Keith smiles. “Makes me feel safe again.”

It’s been so long since Keith’s felt safe. But here he is, in Lance’s lap, back in those first few decaphoebs of life.

“Would you like me to continue?” Lance murmurs.

Keith nods. “Yes, please. Just for a little while.”

Lance strokes him with the brush again, letting him settle in, nostalgia washing over him.

“Thank you,” Keith whispers.

“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” Lance replies. “Not ever.”

Keith doesn’t respond except to curl closer and let the memories of home wash over him.

“I stand by the fact that you’re adorable, though.”

“You know I’ve killed people before, right? Killing you would be nothing.”

“Yeah, but I like to think you’re too fond of me to actually kill me. Rough me up a bit, maybe-”

“I have a sinking feeling you’d enjoy that.”

“Hm. You’re right.”

“Gross.”

“Shhhh… Go back to missing your childhood.” Lance starts brushing the top of his head again.

“I hate you. So much.”

“No you don’t.”

Lance pulls him closer, and Keith settles in. He doesn’t hate this silly Altean at all. But that doesn’t mean he can let the man win. “I’m gonna get you back for this. Just you wait.”

“I don’t doubt it at all.” The Altean sets the brush aside, kisses the top of his head. “What are you going to do, huh?”

“I’m thinking… Get your dick hard and then just up and leave at the least convenient moment.”

“I don’t believe you could pull that off, but-”

“I’ll bide my time. One day, in a few phoebs, I’ll blue ball the fuck out of you.”

“I look forward to seeing your satisfied grin when you do.”

Keith laughs, kissing the corner of Lance’s jaw before tucking his head under his chin. He can live with that, with Lance goofing off with him the same way he goofs off with Lance.

It’s a good feeling. With that in mind…

“Should I be concerned that you seem oddly excited at the prospect of being denied an orgasm?”

“Mnh. Probably. I’m sure you’ll make sport of it, though.”

#LoveAftertheFact #LAtF #klance #galtean au #catswithtoothbrushes

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draconida · 6 years ago

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Shance Fic Recs (Part three)

More Shance! With Kuro and Sven too.

82- Mysteries Become Reality by FullmetalDude1 [M/M/M/M, Sven and Kuro]

The world is full of mythical creatures that are slowly but surely being integrated and accepted into society, but a couple of hate crimes and BS still happens.

Lance is a human in this world, doing his best to help Mythics out even if he's got a bad history.

Then he meets 4 super hot Mythics in collage and he is gone, but he'll never admit that.

At least, not until he's been held for ransom by a gang of haters.

83- i don't have too much but i know enough by quiddative

Lance shot a panicked look at Keith but the asshole just laid there uselessly. “Don’t look at me like that,” he snorted. “They’re your kids, after all.”

What?

“What?” Lance and Allura yelled.

Allura turned to Kolivan with narrowed eyes. “Explain,” she demanded.

Kolivan looked very much like he wanted a drink. “The two of them appear to be the Red and Black Paladins’ children from the future.”

(Or: Lance and Shiro's children appear from the future and emotions ensue.)

85- Remember Me by boredomsMuse

Back before Kerberos, Lance and Shiro had been close. Boyfriends, type close. Boyfriends who'd meet each other's parents, all of them, type close.

Except, none of the Paladins know that. Not even Shiro.

86- Starlight Starshine by stirlingphoenix

'He’s beautiful', was the only thought Shiro’s mind could process as he watched Lance in person for the very first time. Those two little words repeated themselves on a loop over and over, making sure he’d never forget this moment. He’d always thought Lance to be exceedingly attractive, but seeing him in real life, as opposed to the TV screen or a movie poster nearly blew his mind.

Shiro had every intention of getting out of there before he ended up doing something embarrassing. Nevermind the fact that Lance wouldn’t know who he was, he still wasn’t too keen on potentially making a fool of himself. But just before he could make a beeline for the exit, the sound of his proper last name echoed throughout the air, forcing him to stop dead in his tracks.

“Excuse me, Mr. Shirogane?” The nervousness that plagued his caller’s voice hit Shiro’s ears wrong, yet it was still oddly familiar to him, as if he’d heard that same tone over a hundred times before.

As it turned out, he had, just never like this. Turning around, he came face-to-face with the lead of the production, the one and only Lance McClain himself, standing before him with a curious, perhaps even anxious expression covering his face.

87- Hi by Nevermoree

"in a world where you have your soulmates’ first words tattooed in your skin, he, obviously, has… well, that."

88- Te prefiero a ti by Nevermoree [Explicit and only spanish]

Lance has been in love with Shiro since he can remember, so when he have the opportunity to spend the night with Shiro, he have decided not to waste it. It's supposed to be a one-night deal, but things do not always work out the way you plan.

89- How to get a hot, shape-shifting dragon-man to fall in love with you by charlotteXOyates [Explicit]

Discovering a new species is a dream every reptile expert can relate to, so Lance's excitement upon meeting Shiro, a man with scales and a dragon tail, is understandably through the roof. What's less understandable, however, is Lance's sudden desire to help the dragon-man with his rut…

90- Daycare, Toddlers, and a bit of Love by starryrosez

Lance falls in love with the father of a boy he looks after in daycare.

91- Claws by AshesTheTerrible [Explicit and omegaverse] Lance had clawed his way through the Galra military ranks. This was the most important day of his entire existence. He was being assigned to a commander. One of the most ruthless commanders in the Empire. He had to make a good impression.

It would be just his luck that he'd be stricken with the beginnings of a ruthless heat. He knew the suppressants made him sick, but he took them anyway. Anything was better than a fucking stupid heat. He couldn't very well look strong with his heat boring down on his shoulders.

But puking at the feet of your new commander doesn't exactly make you look like a model Galra either… hindsight Lance supposes. 92- Lance's Guide on How to Embarrass Yourself in Front of Your Insurance Adjuster by Eilera

“This is for my mama, Hunk. She was so worried about this whole thing. They just finished renovating. I’m not gonna let her down. If my name isn’t Lance fucking Hernandez Martine-holy fuck he’s gorgeous.”

“Oh no. No. Lance do-“

Lance didn’t even hear him because there was a fucking gorgeous god walking up the path to the front door.

(In which Lance is helping his mama with an insurance claim and he was not prepared for the smoking hot insurance adjuster.)

93- designated drivers anonymous by kalakauuas

"It’s halfway through his sixth attempt at a puppy-filter pic that the bathroom door whooshes open wider than Lance’s mouth trying to prompt the puppy tongue onto the screen. Right when Lance screeches in surprised terror, he takes the picture.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know it was occupied,” says the person who threw the door open, his hands rushing to cover his eyes quicker than Lance would run from his mom’s chancla.

The good thing is, aside from vaguely humiliating selfie poses, there’s nothing to see here."

Lance and Shiro meet through a shared hobby, if you consider hiding in bathrooms during house parties a hobby.

94- Tris for Guys by quiddative

“Um, my name is Lance McClain-Reyes and I have a personal training session,” Lance said, though it came out as more of a question than a statement.

The girl hummed and typed something on the computer. “Ah, right on time,” she said. “Looks like you’ve been paired up with Shiro. If you’ll just take a seat, he should be out in a few minutes.”

Shiro?, Lance thought as all the gears in his brain suddenly screeched to a halt. I must have heard wrong. There’s no way—

“That’s okay, Pidge, I’m already here,” said a deep and familiar voice just behind Lance.

(Or: What do you do when the guy you've been crushing on turns out to be your personal trainer for the day?)

95- easier to lose by quiddative [Explicit]

Shiro is at the peak of his NHL career. Unfortunately, being famous has its downsides, particularly when it comes to dating. And that’s on top of the fact that he’s still in the closet. However, a chance meeting with college student Lance, who seems to be the only person in the entire city who doesn’t know who he is, gives him hope that maybe he won’t die alone after all. Just as long as he can keep his identity a secret.

96- A Halloween Tail by Cathwren

Lance just wanted to have a fun Halloween night, but when homophobic idiots give him trouble he makes a new friend in the dashing young knight that swoops in to save the day. Secrets are shared and Lance can easily say he got a night to remember...and maybe even a boyfriend.

97- 13 stories for Halloween by liddie [Explicit]

A collection of 13 Shance stories for the month of October featuring (but not limited to): vampires, kitsune, werewolves, demons, cursed scarecrows, ghosts, merpeople, oni and whatever else comes to mind!

98- Head Start by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit]

Werewolves. If there was one scent Lance knew above all else, it was Werewolves. Being born from a werewolf father and a human mother Lance knew werewolves. So when he got to the Galaxy Garrison and smelled werewolf in his class his first thought was to make peace with the other wolf.

Sure, Lance was only a half blood, and the closest to transformation he'd ever gotten was sharpened canines and claws during a full moon, but he was still wolf. As such, wolves should stick together. He left his family pack behind to come to the Garrison, maybe he'd be able to form a new pack here.

99- Forgotten Gods and Scales Like Jewels by keir [Explicit and Dubious Consent]

Lance has spent his entire career searching for the elusive and forgotten god of war and lust, a god made of part man, part snake. The pieces are there, and once Lance puts them together, he and his team discover the long forgotten temple dedicated to the naga god, but more lies in store for Lance than he could have ever dreamed of discovering.

100- Of God's and Fae's by MommaVanillaBear

A fae of the ocean, casted aside and alone made the dangerous trek to the festival of lights, and though the way back should have been easy, his steps become lost and the ocean he searches for is replaced by thick foliage and towering trees. Caught by a creature that claims to be an Earth fae, the one of the ocean must spend a month living in the forest or else the God who watches the forest will become aware of him. And there was no way the ocean fae could fight or hope to escape the wrath of a god.

101- Pornstar Lance by Ryuani [Explicit]

Lance used to work as a pornstar but space kinda stopped that.

102- Take a Chance by nuuuge [Fem!Shance]

Lance really just wants the hot Basketball prodigy to notice her.

103- Yearning Touch by CirqueBordello (CircusTalia) [Explicit and Sven]

Sven volunteers to be part of an experiment. But when that experiment makes a change in his body, Lance is there to support him but also realizes he likes the new Sven.

104- The Shirogane Triplets by MermaidLance [Explicit, Trans Lance and the title]

Three Boys

One Lance

He's in for an adventure.

105- Next Time, Pack Them Separately by Quiddity

“So, uh, you in Detroit on business?” Lance asks. The guy glances at him and for a second Lance thinks that he’s terribly misread his mood and he’s about to be snubbed in the worst way. Then he notices the dark circles under his eyes. The man’s totally exhausted. “No,” the man says, shuffling together his papers and securing them together with a wicked looking alligator clip. “I’m headed to New York.” Lance perks up. “Oh! Me too! I’m headed there to meet up with- uh…” Lance is cut off when his neighbor unbuckles himself, stands, and pushes into the line of passengers with a muttered apology. Lance sits there, dumbfounded as the man opens the overhead compartment and pulls down his- Nope. That’s Lance’s bag he’s strapping over his shoulder. That’s his palm tree name tag, that’s his laptop, that’s his senior film project he’s been working on for the past six months and his external hard drive with only back up of three hundred hours of work just shambling down the aisle and off the plane. Oh no.

106- The Knotty Omega by keir [Explicit, omegaverse and little All/Lance]

Lance never saw himself doing porn, but the opportunity fell in his lap with a wicked smile and the smooth talk of Lotor, a producer. The omega finds himself at the center of attention for many horny alphas as he does the most taboo and engages in heat sex for the camera.

107- Double Trouble by liddie [Explicit, Kuro and Shiro]

When Lance agreed to help out at his grandma's flower shop during summer break, he didn't know that it meant managing the shop singlehandedly for months while she went adventuring off to Europe.

Sure, he needs to practice his magic with living things...and yes, plants are a good way to do that without bodies stacking up if something went wrong. But Lance can't even keep a dandelion alive to save his life, so how the hell is he going to keep the entire stock of his grandma's enchanted flower shop alive and healthy for four months?

The answer is simple. He's going to summon himself some help using the dusty old spell book he found in the attic.

It's too bad Lance's handwriting looks like chicken scratch on a good day…

108- To Drown In You by Val_Creative [Explicit and Trans Lance]

Humans are a fearful race, unable to conjure anything other than simpler, volatile emotions, or so Shiro’s mer-clan has taught him. Lance’s compassion and his openhearted empathy deepens Shiro’s need for more. And he’s only know Lance for the turn of a moon.

109- How Deep is the Love We Think We Know by mizufallsfromkumo [omegaverse]

It had been a considerable while since Shiro nested.

So long in fact he didn’t even realize he was doing it.

Until he yanked one of the Castle’s lounge couch cushions out from behind Pidge. No regard for the fact that she was using it. He just knew he needed that one because it was the softest of all the other cushions. Pidge’s surprised squeak as she toppled to the side didn’t even register with him for a moment.

Or at least not till Keith called him out.

110- Repayment by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit and omegaverse]

“I need you to do me a favor Coran.”

“Anything for you, son.”

Lance stepped forward, digging his wallet out of his pocket and slamming it down on the desk in front of him. “There is a man here, an alpha named Shiro. He lost his arm in a car accident.”

“Yes, Takashi Shirogane. It’s a shame what happened to him.” Coran looked away sadly.

“I want you to take this credit card and give him everything he needs. The best, top of the line products.” Coran looked down at the credit card pressed between Lance’s hand and his desk then back up at Lance. “Please?”

111- Dream a Little Dream by thinkpink [Explicit]

Shiro is an adult- he knows how feelings work. He definitely knows his own feelings. Right?

112- Telltale Blush by thinkpink [Explicit and Dubious Consent]

“So why don’t we just skip the part where you throw lines at me and I pretend not to be interested, and you can suck my dick instead.”

113- Dress to Impress by thinkpink

How did Shiro even get sweatpants in space? And why are they so god damn thin!

114- A Dragon by liddie [Explicit]

On the day of his wedding, Prince Lance is carried away by a fearsome creature of old. The remote island is a prison and the dragon his keeper, although Lance is not completely alone. A mysterious man named Shiro is also a prisoner of the dragon, but as Lance learns just who he is, he comes to realize there is more to Shiro than he first thought.

115- In Flagrante Delicto by gwendy1

in flagrante delicto (adverb)

Definition of in flagrante delicto: 1 : in the very act of committing a misdeed : red-handed 2 : in the midst of sexual activity

116- Black's Deal by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit and little Klance]

I’ll give you what you need to get what you want, but you only get two quintent. Do you agree?

“Yes.”

Or the story of Shiro taking over Keith's body in the time of his disappearance between seasons 2 and 3.

117- The Beast Of Pirate's Bay by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit and Major character death, but don't scary you. Happy ending]

A loud shriek filled the air, causing him to fall back onto the damp metal of the ship floor. “I’m sorry.” He whimpered, covering his ears as the sound continued to ring out.

As instant as the sound came it quickly disappeared, leaving Lance to tentatively uncover his ears. “Please,” he begged, tears escaping his eyes as he looked over the side of the boat again. “I won’t even enter your territory if you just bring me a juniberry flower!”.

118- The Lion, The Witch, and the Cursed Ghost by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit]

When lance goes to Kogane forest in search of the cat he saw plastered all over the news he ends up with a lot more than he bargained for. But he's not complaining.

The ghost floated up, arms crossed as he looked over the trees. “I’ll make you a deal.” Lance’s eyes brightened, he knew his excitement was obvious. But, he didn’t care. “If you can find me in this forest before the sun sets, I’ll take you to see Shiro. If not, you will leave this forest without a fight.” He turned and lowered down to Lance’s level again, holding out his transparent hand. “Do we have a deal?”

Shiro must be the cat.

Lance reached out, taking the hand, surprised when he actually felt contact. “Deal.” Before he could even shake the hand properly it was gone, along with its owner, only the flutter of leaves in the air showing he had even been there. Snatching up one of the leaves, Lance grinned. This ghost vastly underestimated him.

119- That's not a phone by CrypticGabriel [Explicit and Trans Lance]

Lance had a part-time job at the movie theater. During his job, he liked ogling at a frequent flyer named Shiro. But he never expected to catch him doing the unthinkable while watching a movie. And no. It didn't involve a phone.

120- Let's Play A Game by liddie [Explicit]

About to leave for a little vacation time at his grandfather's seaside cottage, Shiro gets a text from Allura asking if he can drop her friend Lance off at the beach on his way. He agrees, but is entirely unprepared for everything that Lance is.

121- How Do I "Casual"? by The_Busy_Beee

Sometimes Lance loves living in the same building as his best friends.

Sometimes he hates it with a passion.

Usually only when Keith's involved, however.

Or:

Lance brings home a guy and isn't sure how to handle the "morning after" situation. Keith is exhausted and thinks Lance has murdered somebody.

122- Spilling Secrets by The_Busy_Beee

Everyone knows the past never stays in the past.

Or:

Shiro finally meets the Blue Lane crew, Lotor is a shit, and Lance really just wants today to go well.

123- Good Girl by strawberrylovely [Explicit and Fem!Lance]

Shiro hears Lance masturbating in the team bathroom. He’s not sure whether to help or run away, so Lance makes the decision for him.

124- Beautiful Breed by Blue_Queen662 [Fem!Lance]

Kept in captivity for years, Lance had not had any contact with others like herself in a long while.

Shiro had been gone from the sea for years. From being separated from his pod for a long time, he had forgotten how it feels to be loved by a mate.

Shiro has been chosen to be Lance’s mate. For his strangth, speed and intellect; it was decided amongst guests at a dinner party that the Champion will mate with Zarkon’s prize pet.

125- my boyfriend's back (and you're gonna be in trouble) by heavenlyrare

The Galra and the Alteans haven't been at each other's throats, thanks to Prince Lance's and Commander Shiro's relationship.

Unfortunately, the rest of the universe doesn't seem to know that.

126- Missing Pieces by AshesTheTerrible [Explicit]

Shiro comes back from two tours overseas a changed man. He has one less arm and a lot more nightmares. His best friend Keith convinces him Yoga is the perfect form of meditation to help with his PTSD and he's skeptical at best....that is until he sees the instructor and is instantly in love.

127- Full Moons and the Mornings After by Impetus

Lance really needs to stop letting stray wolves into his apartment.

128- My Best Friend's Brother? How Cliche by orphan_account

Lance has been pining after Shiro since he was 14, and the last time he saw him before Shiro left to go to veterinary school had been embarrassing as hell. But, things were different now. 3 years had passed, Shiro was back, and Lance was a new and improved version of himself. This time, Lance wasn't afraid to do what he wanted to.

OR that one where Lance hasn't seen Shiro in years but when he goes to drop some food off at Keith's house he walks in on Shiro working out.

129- How To Use a Long Rest by avoidingavoidance [Explicit]

In which the team's game of Monsters and Mana isn't actually a game, and Lance takes good care of Shiro. Several times.

130- Just Take That Breath in Your Lungs by mizufallsfromkumo [Omegaverse]

When Shiro was younger, and freshly presented as an Alpha, he use to think about how things would be when he claimed his mate for himself.

Ideally it would be their wedding night, but it wasn’t a necessity. Shiro was fine with whenever moment arose and felt right. And when his intended mate would find it, Shiro would turn on soft music. They’d maybe dance a little, or speak soft words of love. Then the night would progress in a slow, gentle, and loving path towards claiming.

Because yeah, Shiro was a hopeless romantic at times.

Sue him.

But that was the furthest thing that was happening, Shiro thought as he and Lance flopped into the nest both of them had constructed over two weeks ago.

131- Can You Find the Path that Leads Back to My Heart by mizufallsfromkumo

Lance was just left to sulk in the cockpit. And wonder just where his relationship stood with his mate, who had his soul transferred and fused into a clone's body. A clone Lance had just continued on courting like nothing ever happened, because he didn’t know his mate had even died in the first place.

Lance never thought going to space would be filled with so much drama.

Much less, drama that made his life sound like really bad telenovela plot line.

132- Some Good Shooting by AshesTheTerrible [Explicit and Trans Lance]

Lance and Shiro had been nothing but a hurricane of spats and frustration since the switching of lions. And then quite suddenly...they weren't anymore. Hunk couldn't figure out what had changed between the blue and black paladins but the rest of the team just seemed happy the two were working together. Maybe a little too well in fact.

Unbeknownst to the others, really all it took to change the two paladin's attitudes toward each other was one hard kiss in the hangar doors.

Parts 1 / 2 / 3

#shance #fic rec #vld #voltron #shiro/lance #vld sven #vld kuron #vld kuro #takashi shirogane #lance mcclain #svance #kurance #kuro/lance #sven/lance

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yellowmechanicalcat · 6 years ago

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fic: Take It Easy (plance, gen)

what up guys have a non-queued post! This fic takes place after Chapter 3 of Waiting, Wishing but can be read as a standalone. Set sometime between Seasons 3 and 4, it features one-sided (...for now) Pidge/Lance, platonic Kidge, dubious skincare techniques, and awkward bonding experiences, but everything turns out okay.

Summary:

Lance flashes finger guns at her and jogs off, leaving her standing in the middle of the corridor in her dust-covered armor, beads of sweat dripping down her face, trying to figure out what she’s gotten herself into. Oh, right. The conversation at breakfast the other day. The face goo. She’d agreed to try it.

Which means, apart from the weirdness of putting the substance she regularly consumes for nutrition on her face, that it’ll be the two of them. Making conversation, the way she’s tried her best to avoid ever since their little heart-to-heart on Olkarion. And it’s fine. She can do it.

Find it on AO3 or below the cut.

Take It Easy

Allura clears her throat with just enough authority that the team automatically turns towards her as she leans across the table and gently but firmly places a hand on Lance’s arm.

“Lance, what is wrong with your face?” the princess asks.

Simultaneously, they all stare at Lance as he guiltily looks up from his breakfast goo and – yeah, okay, Lance’s skin is practically sparkling, which is definitely not normal.

“N— Nothing’s wrong with it!” Lance sputters, flushing red. Somehow, blushing only makes his skin shimmer more brightly. It’s like he’d morphed into a human disco ball overnight. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Keith says from the end of the table, letting his spork clatter into his empty bowl. “You look like you rolled around in glitter. Like a chinchilla, or something.”

Shiro looks faintly alarmed at the prospect of Lance having somehow located enough glitter to do so. He sneaks a side-eyed glance at Pidge and quirks an eyebrow, like he wants to find out whether she knows anything about it but isn’t brave enough to actually ask. Pidge just shrugs, because she definitely doesn’t keep track of all the weird things Lance does in his free time, thank you, Shiro.

“You’re a chinchilla,” Lance grumbles half-heartedly.

Keith rolls his eyes at him but Lance doesn’t notice. He’s too distracted by the fact that Allura’s hand is still resting on his arm. This is the longest they’ve ever touched outside of training in probably ever, give or take a few doboshes.

“Do you mean you did this to your face on purpose?” Allura clarifies. In his dazed state, it takes him a moment to process what she’s actually asking, but Lance eventually nods. Satisfied, Allura pats his arm and returns to her breakfast.

“That’s fine, then. I thought you might have contracted a Glass Virus,” she says cheerfully. “That’s when the skin on your face slowly cracks open because the layers underneath have solidified. It looks a bit like glass before everything starts to, ah, leak.”

Shiro finally finds his voice. “Allura, that’s awful.” Allura shrugs. “No worse than your— what do you call them? ‘Pimples.’” “Not that I don’t love learning about gross alien diseases while eating, but I’d like to know why Lance is sparkly,” Hunk interrupts.

Lance groans. The blush is starting to fade but he’s still obviously flustered. “It’s not a big deal. I was trying out a new face mask last night, it’s probably just some residue or something. But it worked great, check this out!”

Expectantly, Lance angles his face towards Hunk and waits until he reaches over and pats his cheek, his skeptical expression giving way to awe. “Whoa, smooth.”

“I know, right?” Lance says smugly. “I grabbed some of the junk you and Pidge brought back from that rando market you found last week, the one that’s kind of like cinnamon?”

Hunk frowns. “What junk— wait, that brown powder? Lance, I got that for eating! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find spices that are actually edible?” “Calm your pants, I didn’t take that much. Anyway, the one I used was more yellow-ish–”

They’ve all gotten used to seeing Lance walk around the Castle with a blend of Altean goo slathered on his face. He’d grilled Coran about its nutrients long enough to conclude it’d be just as good for the outside of a body as it was for the inside. Incorporating secondary ingredients into his face masks is new, although from his impromptu speech about Altean food goo’s seemingly extended-release hydrating properties, he’s clearly put a lot of thought into it. For someone who frequently claims to have slept through every single one of his science classes, Lance understands a lot more chemistry than he thinks he does.

“I still can’t believe you were willing to put all that stuff on your face,” Pidge says once Lance has finished.

“Don’t knock it ’til you try it,” Lance sniffs. He shoves a sporkful of food goo into his mouth.

And Pidge, much to her own surprise, says, “Fine.”

Lance looks up at her with suspicion. “Fine? What doesh ‘fine’ mean?” he says through a mouthful of goo. “It means I’ll try it.”

The room goes awkwardly silent for a moment as the others pretend they aren’t all staring at them. Pidge makes sure to keep her expression perfectly neutral, even though she’s dying inside because she knows that any moment someone’s going to make a big deal out of it.

Lance swallows, considers it, then nods. “Okay, cool.”

And… that’s it. Everyone starts talking again and breakfast goes on, like nothing unusual had happened.

Voltron’s sent to a volcanic planet to scout out a Galra base that is less of a base and more of a campground. The place appears long abandoned. Allura attempts to put a positive spin on it by pointing out that at least they’ve discovered a planet the Galra are not currently occupying, but even that doesn’t do much to raise morale. The air is full of ash and everything is bone-dry. Their helmets filter out most of it, but not enough. By they time they get back to the Castle, they all feel like their mouths are full of dirt and dust.

Lance loudly announces to the team that his skin is in need of some serious downtime after being exposed to such harsh conditions and leaves first, ostensibly to go back to his quarters for said downtime. Pidge ends up trailing behind him because there’s really only one way back, although she tries to maintain enough distance that it won’t seem like she’s following him, because she isn’t– and just for the record, she’s getting very tired of having to put so much thought into every single one of their interactions.

Lance looks back at her and she stops in her tracks. “Oh, hey, you still in?”

She isn’t sure how to respond to that, so she nods. Lance’s face lights up with excitement.

“Sweet! We’ll have a mini spa day, it’ll be fun. Meet me in the kitchen in a varga!”

He flashes finger guns at her and jogs off, leaving her standing in the middle of the corridor in her dust-covered armor, beads of sweat dripping down her face, trying to figure out what she’s gotten herself into.

Oh, right. The conversation at breakfast the other day. The face goo. She’d agreed to try it.

She can’t do it.

“‘Nooooo, Pidge, you are definitely overthinking it. Seriously, this is all we ever talk about anymore! Can you please just put a lid on your emotions instead of letting them ooze all over the place?’ …I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what he’d say. And that’s why I can’t ask Hunk,” Pidge concludes, switching back to her normal voice as she peers around her trash sculpture of Hunk.

Her audience, nestled in junk-Shiro’s hair, is not impressed. The blue space caterpillar chirps.

Pidge frowns down at them. “Excuse you, my impressions are great.”

She flops onto her back and stares up at the ceiling, cataloguing her options. She can’t think of a good reason to cancel on Lance that wouldn’t make him suspicious and she’s running out of choices to ask for backup. She’s already ruled out Hunk, and she’s not sure about asking Allura or Shiro–

That’s when it hits her. Well, technically, her sweatshirt hits her, right in the face, because the caterpillars have just dropped it on her, but it coincides with figuring out the solution. She pulls her sweatshirt over her undersuit and shoves her feet into her boots, because being half-changed is as good as it’s going to get.

“Thanks for your help, guys!” she tells the caterpillars, hurrying out of her room.

Pidge catches Keith in the hallway. ‘Catches’ is not an exaggeration because she actually latches onto his arm to make sure he doesn’t get away. It’s taken her nearly half a varga to track him down, and she’s nearly out of time.

He looks down at her, clearly startled, and still in his paladin armor. “Uh, what’s up?”

She levels him with a hard stare. “You owe me.”

He doesn’t get what she’s talking about right away, but embarrassment is contagious. She figures if she keeps staring at him long enough, he’ll eventually remember what she’s talking about and she won’t have to rehash the whole awkward event.

It works.

Keith’s eyes widen before his face settles into a mildly pained expression. It sort of reminds her of the time they’d guessed his birthday and gotten Shiro to confirm it and spontaneously decided to celebrate at dinner. Coran had made them all wear silly hats he’d dug out of some storage cube because he remembered hearing about Earth traditions and party hats and he’d forced Keith into wearing the most ridiculous one. Once he’d realized there was no escape, Keith had sat through dinner with that exact same expression.

“… okay, and?” says Keith.

“And I’m cashing in. So I told Lance I’d try his face mask thing, right, and he invited me to do a spa day but there’s no way I can do it alone because things have been so weird since Olkarion but if I bail it’ll make it worse, and that’s why I need you to come with me.”

It’s more information than Keith probably needed and he has to close his eyes as he processes everything. She watches as he takes a deep breath, muttering something under his breath that sounds a lot like ‘patience’, then opens his eyes again.

“This isn’t really a good time, Pidge. I’m leaving for a mission with the Blades first thing tomorrow and I have a lot to do before I go–”

If there was anything that would convince her to back down, the reminder that sometimes Keith left their team for another one was definitely not it. She tightens her grip on his arm.

“Don’t worry. This won’t take long, I promise,” Pidge lies, tugging him in the direction of the kitchen.

Lance had changed back into his civilian clothes. His eyebrows raise questioningly when he sees Keith trailing behind Pidge, and the boys’ eyes meet as silently, Keith dares him to say something, anything, just to pick a fight and give him an out–

Until Pidge slugs him in the arm, breaking his focus.

“Keith was just telling me how he’d been dying to try this stuff too, weren’t you, buddy?” she says blithely. “So I brought him along. Hope that’s okay, Lance.”

Lance looks skeptical but shrugs. “Sure, I should have enough. Let me grab another cup.”

Keith glares daggers at Pidge the moment Lance turns his back to them. She smiles sweetly at him in response.

Lance’s spa day supplies are lined up on the counter, covered by a blanket. Before they begin he makes them swear they won’t reveal his Top Secret methods to anyone. This is apparently something he genuinely worries about, because, as he tells them with the utmost seriousness, what they are about to experience will change their lives forever.

Pidge thinks this is dumb, and tells him so. “Seriously, who would we even tell?”

“Just swear!” Lance insists, scowling.

Keith huffs impatiently. “Fine,” he says, clapping one hand over Pidge’s mouth before she can say anything else and raising the other hand in an approximation of a Scouting salute. “We swear.”

Lance waits until she, too, raises her hand in an actual three-fingered salute, but seems satisfied. “A little sloppy, but I’ll allow it.”

Pidge tilts her head up slightly and blinks up at Keith. “Lemme go or I’ll bite you,” she says through Keith’s hand. Keith releases her in a hurry.

Lance pulls the blanket off with dramatic flourish and animatedly gestures to the setup on the counter. “Okey-dokey, here we go! Just three easy steps for guaranteed results: Steam, scrub, and soothe. Nothing to it!”

There’s a covered basket, the corner of a towel peeking out; a tea kettle and cups; a couple small containers, one of which contains something that like goo; and two short Puigian scarves that Lance holds out to them.

“You and Keith can use them,” Pidge says.

Lance looks doubtful. “You sure?”

Pidge quirks an eyebrow at him, a wordless reminder that she specializes in finding solutions to the most challenging situations, and this is far from challenging. Who does he think he is to question her ingenuity?

Lance’s mouth twists wryly in response, but he offers one scarf to Keith, who just stares at it.

“Why do I even need this?”

“Watch and learn,” Pidge says grandly. She pushes her bangs back with one hand then slides her glasses up to rest on top of her head. Matt’s old glasses are surprisingly sturdy. This isn’t the first time she’s used them as a makeshift headband.

“That works,” Lance says, looking impressed as he knots the other scarf behind his head.

Reluctantly, Keith copies him. “This is weird,” he mumbles.

Pidge goes to stomp on his foot, but Keith slides both his feet out of the way before she can reach with her unfortunately shorter legs. Lance notices their scuffle, glancing from Pidge to Keith.

“For someone who ‘really wanted’ to try this you sure are unenthusiastic about the process, dude,” Lance says dryly.

“Not unenthusiastic, just tired,” Keith says, poker-faced. It’s hard to argue with that, considering the morning they’d had, so Lance drops it.

They pull out the multipurpose chairs from under the counter, unfolding the legs, and settle in; they’re more like stools than real chairs, but their low backs made it safe to tilt back without collapsing.

The covered basket turns out to hold heated cloths. Lance instructs them to drape a cloth over their faces, something about preparing their skin for cleansing by steaming away ‘toxins’, a term he seems to believe is defined as ‘gross space dirt’.

But Pidge can’t even bring herself to argue with him right now because Lance’s cloth trick is magic. She can feel her sinuses clearing as pressure lifts from her head; she hadn’t realized just how much the dust had affected her. She makes a happy little noise of contentment, settling into her chair.

“This actually isn’t so bad,” Keith says in mild surprise, voice muffled under the cloth.

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of the whole point,” Lance sniffs. “Skincare: it’s actually not so bad.”

“Shut up,” Keith says amicably, leaning further back in his chair so he can prop his feet up on the edge of the counter.

They sit there until the cloths on their faces start to cool. Then they all have hot tea, because apparently they need to steam the toxins out of their insides, too. Lance fusses about the amount of sweetener Pidge puts in her tea because it isn’t healthy or something and before Pidge can argue that space sugar doesn’t count, Keith points out it isn’t even real sugar so it’s probably fine. Lance complains about the two of them ganging up on him, but she can tell he isn’t actually that upset about it, so she sneaks some more sweetener into his tea when he’s not looking.

Once they’re mostly done with their tea, Lance pulls out a small container, twisting off the lid to reveal something similar to glue, or maybe wax.

“This is for exfoliating. Just, uh, don’t ask me what it is, Coran explained it to me and it made my head hurt,” Lance says. He smears some on his forehead and around his nose. “Anyway, you wait about thirty ticks and then peel it off. It works great on blackheads.”

He demonstrates, holding out the used strip as proof. Keith declines to look, but Pidge leans in closer. Whatever the exfoliant is made of is definitely effective.

“Gross,” Pidge says appreciatively. Lance beams at her.

She dips her hand into the adhesive and manages to cover half of Keith’s nose before he squirms away, baring his teeth at her like a cat in a bath. He sulks his way through the thirty ticks, at which point Lance has to help Keith peel the stuff off his nose because Keith apparently can’t manage it on his own and Keith nearly punches him when Lance tells him not to be such a baby before Pidge intervenes.

In the end it takes all three of them to get the exfoliant up because it turns out that Keith really wasn’t joking about it not coming off.

“Are you crying?” Lance says incredulously, eyes wide.

“No,” Keith snaps, hands protectively cupped around his nose.

Pidge takes it upon herself to settle with science whether the exfoliant was really that awful or if Lance was bizarrely immune to its effects. She dabs some onto the sore spot on her chin as the boys watch closely and peels it off with the same results Lance had. Bonus: one less zit.

Lance grudgingly concludes that he should probably test his skincare routine efficacy more thoroughly before trying to patent it. Keith is overwhelmed by the idea of Lance ever patenting anything. While they bicker, Pidge seizes the opportunity to examine the exfoliant, having noticed that the jar actually has two separate compartments and that Lance had only opened the lower one.

She twists open the top lid and peers inside, but she doesn’t see much before the lid slams shut as Lance unceremoniously plucks the jar from her hands. “Nope, nuh-uh, bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Told you, it’s Coran’s, and you really don’t want to know any more. Trust me.”

It’s probably the worst thing he could have said, because even if Pidge wasn’t already curious, it pushes Keith’s suspicion to an all-time high.

“Let me see that.” Keith grabs the jar from Lance, ignoring his indignant yelp of protest. He twists open the lid just enough for something to tentatively wiggle its way out before hastily pulling back as Keith slams the lid back down.

“It’s alive!” he chokes out.

Exasperated, Lance throws his hands in the air. “I tried to warn you!”

Finally, Lance unveils his piece de resistance. His latest concoction of face mask goo is a muted lavender color instead of the familiar green. He pushes the bowl towards them and tells them to cover their faces, demonstrating proper technique on his own. Dubiously, they copy him until their faces are all not-quite-Galra purple.

“Now what happens?” Keith asks, mask applied.

“Now we wait,” Lance says, reaching for the kitchen timer and setting it. “Twenty doboshes, then you rinse it off. I usually listen to music but I only have the one set of headphones.”

“Imagine that,” Pidge says dryly, because he seems to have forgotten that they’re her headphones and at some point she does expect to get them back.

Lance ignores her. “So. Ideas, anyone?”

Much to their surprise, Keith does. “We could play that game.”

The game is a slightly more competitive variation of Twenty Questions mixed with Rock, Paper, Scissors. The rules are simple: Everyone has to answer, and more rules can be added at any time. None of them remember who’d come up with the game in the first place, but it’s ended up being both a good way to kill time and a much less invasive bonding experience than the Altean mind-meld gear. They haven’t been able to settle on a points system yet, so no one’s ever officially won.

Pidge and Keith shoot for the category, her rock crushing Keith’s scissors. She ends up going with ‘favorite things’, even though it’s kind of a cop out choice because it’s so vague.

She and Lance shoot next; paper covers rock, Lance wins. He does a drumroll on the table.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the first topic of the evening iiiiis: Halloween candy!” he announces with entirely too much enthusiasm.

Keith looks confused. “Didn’t we do this one already the other day, with Hunk?”

“Nah, that was… food, I think? Favorite foods? Totally different concept.”

Keith shakes his head. “I don’t get why people are so into Halloween. It just seems so– so over-commercialized.”

“Maybe because it’s fun, you weirdo? Also, free candy. Anyway, you’re up, Pidge, loser answers first,” Lance decides arbitrarily. He nudges her with his elbow, which wouldn’t have been a problem if Pidge wasn’t also downing the last of her tea.

“Really, Lance?” she chokes out, coughing furiously.

Lance thumps her back sympathetically. It doesn’t help. “My bad.”

They wait for her to finish hacking up her lungs before continuing with the game. Admittedly, it is not her finest hour. Then again, they’re all sitting around the kitchen with food goo smeared on their faces, so at least she’s in good company.

She clears her throat. “Um, I like peanut butter cups. Matt and I used to fight over who’d gotten more whenever we went trick or treating and I usually ended up stealing his.”

“Same for me,” Lance says cheerfully. “Lucky for me, no one else in my family liked them that much, so I never had to fight for them. Remind me never to go trick or treating with you. Keith?”

“Sour gummy worms,” Keith says, without elaborating. “Point of order, are we shooting for every topic?”

‘Point of order,’ Pidge repeats, silently mouthing the words, because trust Keith to be extra-formal with what is the world’s least formal game.

Lance bares his teeth in a fierce grin. With the face mask, the effect is slightly terrifying. “Bring it.”

The boys shoot. Keith’s scissors win.

“Favorite pet,” Keith decides. “Or pets, I don’t care. Go.”

Pidge zones out as Lance continues to ramble about a giant goldfish he had when he was nine years old and wonders whether she should pick the space caterpillars. She’s not sure they count as pets, though; they’re self-sufficient enough that they’re more like freeloading alien roommates.

Lance still hasn’t settled on his answer by the time she tunes back in. “—although we already had a turtle and two finches and sometimes a cat by the time I was born and they were all pretty cool, so I’m torn–”

“Wait, how do you ‘sometimes’ have a cat?” Pidge interrupts, frowning.

“Julio was his own man, he liked to do his own thing. Kind of like Keith, actually,” Lance adds unnecessarily, much to Keith’s displeasure. “Anyway, Julio visited lots of people around town. I’m pretty sure we were his favorite family because my sisters gave him cans of tuna.”

“So he wasn’t actually your cat, he was just a stray,” Pidge clarifies. “That shouldn’t count as a pet.”

To their surprise, Keith disagrees. “Actually, I think it should. We had a cat like that too. Technically it had us, I guess, because it’d been living out back before we moved in. Ours was just called Cat, though. He’d have been my pick.”

Lance looks faintly impressed by Keith sticking up for him. “Gotta say, I never would have pegged you for a cat person.”

“We fly giant robot lions. I think that makes us all cat people,” Keith deadpans, much to Pidge’s delight. She offers him a high five that he returns after a split second of hesitation, while Lance loudly groans at the pun.

Pidge turns her attention back to Lance. “I know I’m going to regret asking, but what actually happened to your goldfish?”

Lance heaves an overly-dramatic sigh, putting a hand to his forehead in an obvious pantomime of Tragedy. “My sister Rachel fed him to Julio when we were out of tuna fish. Anyway, now that I’ve shared my tale of woe with you all, it’s Pidge’s turn.”

“Well, we have a dog, so I guess it should be her…” Pidge trails off when she realizes with a sudden pang that there’s no way to know if Bae Bae is even alive anymore and tries her best to ignore the thought. “…but I’m going to have to say that Kaltenecker’s my favorite.”

Lance’s face falls. “I should have said Kaltenecker! Can I change my answer?”

“Too late,” Pidge says smugly as she and Keith face off again.

Keith wins once more, this time playing paper to her rock instead of scissors, and grimaces as he realizes he’s stuck picking the topic once again. “Uh… movies?”

Lance leans forward, already on the edge of his seat with anticipation, and Pidge rolls her eyes at him because she’s pretty sure she already knows what movie Lance is going to pick.

“…that don’t have a sequel,” Keith adds at the last moment, which means Pidge’s selection is also null. Her face falls.

“What? No!” Lance complains, slamming back in his chair. “That’s hard!”

“What about remakes?” Pidge asks anxiously. “Do remakes count?”

Keith lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Sure, remakes are fine.”

“Yessss,” Pidge and Lance say in unison.

“Team Remakes!” Lance crows, holding his hand up for a high five. It’s ridiculous, but she slaps her hand against his anyway.

“Team Remakes!”

The Castle alarms go off before they can finish. “Galra cruisers spotted near the Balmera. They’re moving into attack formation, the Balmerans need us to head them off while they prepare their defenses,” Shiro announces over the Castle’s comms. “Everyone to your Lions! Wormhole opening in ten doboshes.” Keith’s yanked off his headscarf and is already halfway to the door by the time Shiro’s done talking, face mask and all. “On our way, Shiro.” “Hold up!” Lance hollers at him. “At least wipe the mask off, you’ll get your helmet all messy—” Keith pauses and turns, holding out a hand to catch the towel Lance is already throwing to him before Lance is even fully in his line of sight. Their motions are perfectly synced. It’s kind of impressive. “Thanks. See you guys out there.”

Lance passes Pidge another towel as he pats at his own face. “Remember to wash your face when we get back, okay? That way you’ll at least get something out of it.” She nods, face already half-buried in her towel, and rushes back to her room to collect her armor, grimacing when she remembers she hadn’t fully cleaned it after that morning’s mission, but there’s nothing she can do about it now.

By the time she gets to the Bridge, her face is mostly clear of goo. She jams her helmet on on the way, leaving the visor flipped up. The others have all reported in as en route to their Lions – all except Lance, who’s standing by the doors with his helmet tucked under his arm, like he’s waiting for something.

Or someone?

His eyebrows raise when he sees her and he taps his cheek. “Hey, you missed a spot.”

“So did you,” Pidge points out, looking up at him.

“Hold still.”

Lance reaches out and catches her chin to swipe at her face, his thumb gently brushing her cheek before he lets go. It’d be an intimate gesture, under different circumstances, and Pidge isn’t entirely comfortable with how frequently she’s thought about what that might be like.

Her hands are already moving before she realizes it and she carefully brushes a smear from his nose. She can’t help grinning when he goes crosseyed to try to see what she’s doing.

“Much better,” she teases, poking the tip of his nose.

It isn’t actually much better. Their faces may be slightly cleaner, but now they’ve both got purple goop on their hands and it’s going to get on their gloves.

An unreadable expression flickers across Lance’s face and his shoulders drop forwards. “Look, Pidge, I don’t know how to say this…”

Seeing him so serious wipes the grin from her face and makes her stomach clench. Her emotions are oozing again, and her mental version of Hunk is displeased.

“Can it wait? We really need to get going.”

“I know, I know, just give me a tick,” Lance says. He reaches up, scratches the back of his head with his free hand. “I wanted to tell you that I had fun hanging out with you today. We usually end up doing stuff you like, but this was the first time you actually wanted to try something that I’m into. And that was cool. So… yeah. Thanks for that.”

He flashes her a small smile and heads inside before she has a chance to process what had just happened.

Then Coran’s voice is in her ear reminding her to get a move on, wormhole opens in one dobosh, and soon all her attention turns to the fight.

Pidge heads up to the Bridge for debriefing, Keith’s quick footsteps echoing half a step behind her. They aren’t the first ones back; Hunk’s already deep in discussion with Shiro about how many consecutive layers of metal the Yellow Lion’s armored claws could cut through while Coran checks in with the Balmerans. Pidge removes her helmet, shaking out her sweat-damp hair.

Hunk’s back is to the doors, so Shiro spots them first. He nods in greeting, then squints at them.

“What happened to you two?” he asks suspiciously, which is a bizarre question from someone who’d observed the entire fight.

“Shiro?” Keith says questioningly.

Shiro holds up a hand to stop him. There's a funny expression on his face. “Actually, never mind. I think I’m going to let Hunk handle this one.”

Shiro claps a hand on Hunk’s shoulder before striding off to join Coran at his station. Hunk turns around, clearly perturbed by his sudden responsibility.

“That was weird,” Pidge comments. Keith grunts in agreement.

Also weird: Hunk is staring at them.

“Did you know that you both have a little bit of, uh, something? On your faces? It’s red,” Hunk informs them. “Oh! Not like blood or anything, it’s more of a… marinara sauce kind of red? Or maybe more like a sunburn? Hang on, let me pull up a feed real quick.”

Hunk helpfully activates the camera in his gauntlet and aims it at them so they can see themselves.

There’s a moment of silence.

Finally, Keith speaks up. “I have no idea what this is.”

Keith looks like someone shoved a very runny cherry pie in his face. Pidge’s face is mostly solid red, except for a curved line running down her cheek that’s about the size of someone’s thumb. It hadn’t been visible through their helmets’ visors, but there was no mistaking it now.

“I do,” Pidge says grimly. “It’s Lance’s face mask. There must have been a dye in whatever he mixed into it, and we probably rubbed it into our skin when we were wiping them off earlier.”

The video feed abruptly cuts off as Hunk triumphantly slams a fist into his palm. “I knew he took the brown powder!” he says excitedly. “I’m pretty sure it’s more like beets than cinnamon ’cause it stains like crazy. Great substitute for food coloring, though. It really only glitters when you mix it with water, which… actually, that’s how you’d rinse off a face mask, isn’t it? Huh, that explains a lot.”

“This stuff stains?” Keith demands, voice cracking. He buries his head in his hands. It doesn’t do much to conceal the fact that the the tips of his ears are turning a shade of red that very nearly matches his face.

Pidge takes a slow, deliberate step away from him, just in case he decides to blame her for their unfortunate new makeovers. Keith’s only embarrassed now, but that’s not to say he won’t be mad later.

“Is it permanent, Hunk? Please tell me it isn’t permanent.”

“It isn’t permanent,” Hunk replies immediately, looking increasingly sheepish as he twiddles his thumbs. “Probably.”

“Probably?” she echoes in disbelief.

“Well, it’s hard to say. I haven’t had enough free time to work with any of the new spices enough to know for sure...”

From behind her, Keith speaks up, his tone low and warning. “Pidge.”

She rounds on him, scowling, because this is definitely not her fault.

“What?” she snaps defensively.

“Red is really not your color.”

A pause.

She stares at him, not sure she heard him correctly. Keith stares back coolly.

She narrows her eyes and looks closer, studying his splotchy red face. And– there. The edge of his mouth is twitching, like he’s trying to hold back a smile. There’s a glimmer of mirth in his eyes.

He’s teasing her.

Pidge lets out an incredulous bark of laughter, breaking into a wide grin as Keith starts to laugh, too. It turns out laughter is even more contagious than embarrassment, because once they start they can’t seem to stop laughing.

“‘Three easy steps for guaranteed results!’” Pidge quotes, imitating Lance, jazz hands and all.

Keith snorts. “Yeah. Guaranteed to look ridiculous.”

“I’m sorry about your nose. Does it still hurt?”

“Nah. The mask thing actually made it stop stinging.”

“… I can’t believe I ever agreed to do this.”

“Well, I can’t believe you dragged me into it!”

“Well, I, for one, hope Lance learned his lesson and doesn’t steal from me again,” Hunk adds with affected sternness, arms crossed, and that only sets them off again.

They barely manage to pull themselves together when Lance and Allura finally get back. They’re both in full armor, deep in conversation until Lance pulls off his helmet and Allura abruptly cuts off mid-sentence.

Half of Lance’s face is a bright, solid firetruck red. The other half looks like an abstract painting. There’s a pale stripe along the bridge of his nose with a larger dot right where Pidge had poked him.

Allura looks over at the others; Pidge and Keith wave. Hunk shrugs.

Without a word, Allura turns on her heel and heads over to join Coran and Shiro, leaving a bewildered Lance behind.

“What’d I do now?” he says plaintively to the room at large.

Hunk coughs. Lance looks up and finally notices Pidge and Keith, identical smirks on their bright red faces, Hunk standing behind them and unsuccessfully trying to hide his own amusement. Lance’s hands fly up to his own face as he realizes, with dawning horror, that something has gone very, very wrong.

“Aww, quiznak,” he mumbles.

After a long shower, Keith heads back to his room. His face is back to its normal color but still faintly shimmers under direct light, which Lance and Hunk both promised would fade within the next day. Keith can’t really bring himself to be that annoyed about it because his skin does actually feel pretty good, although he’ll never admit it. Even so, he’s immeasurably grateful for the full coverage of his Blade mask. The less to explain, the better.

There’s a piece of paper attached to his door, some kind of drawing. He pulls it down and tries to figure out what he’s looking at. It looks like a humanoid shape in red with one foot on the Black Lion and one foot on the Red Lion, like it’s waterskiing through a sea of stars. Which is impossible. Keith squints at it and realizes it’s probably supposed to be him. Huh.

Below the doodle is a note in Pidge’s familiar scrawl:

Thanks for helping me break the ice today. I think everything’s finally back to normal, and it wouldn't have happened without you. You’re a really good friend.

She’s signed it with her usual self-portrait, the one she likes to embed in her code, except she’s colored her face in red.

Keith bites back his smile and folds the note neatly, stashing it in his pack to take with him.

I believe that we're in this together.

- Mika

#plance #vld fic #platonic kidge #voltron fic #lance #pidge #keith #sarah forms voltron things #sarah forgets her own tag system whoops

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novarasalas · 6 years ago

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Second Look Review: Shadows

I love a good villain origin story, especially one that doesn’t feature the heroes in any way, except mentioned in passing and with disdain. And this episode certainly delivers.

This piece is actually coming off as more meta than review. Also, there’s a lot about Honerva and Lotor that I’ve talked about in the past and reference here. Click through my “Honerva” tag and you should find all of it, mostly in the form of answered asks. (psst..is Tunglr still fuxing with links? I want to direct link to things, but...you know.)

This one's for you, Honerva anon. Please never change.

Let’s get started.

Bringing on the Heartache

Once again, I have to say, every time I see pre-corruption Honerva and Zarkon, it breaks my heart.

These two loved each other so much.

And Lotor was so wanted.

What a tragedy.

- -

Blood Sacrifice

And here we have flashbacks.

This whole sequence isn’t very clear, actually. It moves from the present and into flashbacks without much preamble. On my first watch-through, this threw me a bit, taking me out of the moment as I struggled to figure out what was going on.

Given this these disjointed transitions, and the fact that it’s never explained, it took me a bit to figure out what was happening, what Honerva was doing.

At first, I thought that as she was draining people’s Quintessence, she was getting glimpses of her past as Haggar, but now I've realized that the flashbacks were only for our benefit.

Her actions at the Kral Zera were twofold: she meant to undo the Empire by killing the remaining warlords vying for the throne, and also to gather enough Quintessence to connect with Lotor to find him.

And the last thing she needed for that, I’m assuming, was to sacrifice something that meant a lot to him.

Goddammit.

This is continuing with the idea that Honerva is willing to sacrifice everything to save Lotor. And entire planet, her husband, even her cat for god’s sake...no one is safe.

Also, I just realized that she’s taken the flame Lotor lit at the Kral Zera. His cat and his flame, then..the only two things left of him.

Also, we’re solidifying the fact that the Galra, or at least the Empirical Galra, are as vampires. And it’s still meant to contrast nicely with the Alteans, who are said to be “life-givers.”

…...that felt really bad to type out.

- - -

Deification of the Son

Can I admit something?

I’d forgotten that the Alteans on the colony were said to have worshiped Lotor. It seems like so long ago at this point, and so much has happened in the meantime.

Romelle: And over time, the Alteans came to worship Lotor as their savior.

Romelle: [This was the world I was born into,] one of unquestioning devotion to a supposed messiah.

But this brought it all back to me.

Honerva:[speaking of the Galra] Your ways weakened a god.

Now this? This is interesting.

I get that the Alteans may have felt this way about Lotor. For generations they’d been told about how he’d saved them, protected them, cared for them. And given that he’s been alive all these years...yeah. I can see why they’d see him in a godly manner.

But why would Honerva feel this way? Why deify him herself?

Well...it’s not actually about Lotor. It hasn’t been since she entered the rift.

Lotor’s feats of alchemy are impressive, if you completely ignore the fact that he’s not the one performing them. He didn’t “pierce the veil”, Allura did. He didn't give Sincline it’s powers, Allura did. He only orchestrated it.

But by elevating Lotor to a god, she elevates herself further. In her speech to the gathered warlords at the Kral Zera, she says:

This flame represents Lotor, son of Zarkon, prince turned emperor, emperor that pierced the veil.

And my Altean blood coursed through his veins.

What a statement.

You see, Lotor is her’s. She created him. And if he’s a god, than she is the creator of a god. A flawed god, but one who’s best qualities he most certainly got from her.

Don’t get much better than that, huh?

And I feel like the Alteans of the colony agree.

Merla: We pledge our allegiance to you, Honerva, mother of Lotor.

And that statue was there in Lotor’s time. He knew that they worshiped him. I guess he had no problem wit that. Like mother, like son I suppose.

Ya know, it’s kinda weird watching an actual cult being formed.

Honerva: May the light guide you.

Yikes.

- - - -

The Exile

It’s hard having the father that refuses to be happy with anything you do. When you grow up like that, you waste so much time trying to please them, to get them to love you. And it’s usually all for nothing.

We all learn this the hard way. It uh...it’s not typically as hard a lesson as Lotor learns here.

By all accounts, he’s done everything right. He’s done what his father wants, and exceeded all expectations. But he didn’t do it the way his father wanted it done, so he may as well have done nothing at all.

It’s..a familiar feeling. This scene got me real good.

The rush of adrenaline you get as you stand up to your asshole dad for the first time is nearly intoxicating. You know, deep in your heart, that you’re right. You know that he’s being unreasonable. And you’ve had enough, so you say your piece.

And then, as it all comes crashing back down, and you realize how much power this man still has over you, and how your retribution is swiftly coming...well, it’s enough to make you sick.

But it’s no good. The damage has been done. You face your punishment.

Yeah...this still gets me real good. Added bonus of enabler mother, too.

….I keep feeling like I’m telling you all too much, but I really want you to understand where I’m coming from.

I feel for Lotor, I really do. He tried so hard, but there was no getting through to Zarkon at this point - there really hasn’t been much of Zarkon left since the rift incident. He’s only base instincts at this point, all power mad and unfeeling.

And now I”m going to say a few things about Lotor because, well...he doesn’t really show up again, does he?

My first point is that I wanted so desperately to see him come back, to start making up for the things he’d done.

He’d obviously picked up on his parents worst habits. In season 3, he was very much a threat; maybe not as much as Zarkon had been, but he was certainly far more clever.

I wanted to see him acknowledge these things in himself and work to rid himself of them once and for all. It would have been cathartic for me, because that’s something that I had to work on myself.

So to that end, I’m very upset that I didn’t get to have that; that neither of us got to have that.

With that said…

Lotor did some terrible things. He wasn’t some soft, baby; a poor, helpless abuse victim. He’s been an adult for a long time now. And when you’re an adult, you have to begin taking responsibility for the things you say and do.

I spent so long with my bastard dad that, even though I tried very hard not to, I picked up some of his personality traits. For a while, I was just the worst. But eventually, I came to realize these things in myself and I had to decide to make the change. I found my own redemption.

When we meet Lotor, he’s conniving. He has no problem torturing Throk. He has no problem luring Voltron into a situation where they might be killed.

He killed Narti.

Now, I do have to say, watching him do that, I was thinking “I understand the impulse”. I was surveilled too. My father's been know to show up where I am when I’m out with friends. Cameras in the house were not an impossibility. It makes you crazy, being watched like that all the time.

But he killed Narti. That’s, ya know...not ok.

I don’t think, in the end, that he was just using Allura. I’m not ever sure that at the beginning of his time with them that he was just using her. But he was keeping secret the fact that he had an entire colony of her people out there. Her people that he was using for energy production, against their will if Bandor was to be believed.

These things are not ok. I’m not sure if you can truly be redeemed from some of these.

I’m not here to judge, though. I just wanted him to have the chance to realize these things and do better, just like I had to.

I say this because, as I’d mentioned, I’ve written quite a bit on Lotor. I keep seeing all these other posts about how he’s done nothing wrong, and as an abuse victim, he can’t be held accountable.

That...has not been my experience, and it’s not a good way to look at things.

I take responsibility for the things I’ve done and said. Occasionally, someone will try to tell me that I wasn’t so bad, not really. But I was, and accepting that is part of the healing process. You have to break the cycle, and there’s no other way to do it.

Lotor didn’t get that chance. Everyone should get that chance, should they need it.

- - - - -

Well, that got needlessly personal. Let’s get to the stuff that didn’t fit elsewhere.

This guy is Macidus, Keith’s biggest fan.

I only noticed this time around because I have the subtitles on. This show really has a problem with that. Merla is named in the subtitles in this episode as well, even though her name is only spoken once, and in the second to last episode I think.

This is something I enjoyed.

Through the flashbacks, we see that it took a long time to build Zarkon’s base.

Here, before the scene with very small Lotor.

And here, with grown up Lotor.

I’d seen somewhere someone post about how Haggar was wearing the same cloak she was in when she was dead. I believe they said it was her funeral clothes, probably something about how metal that was.

Well, I’d like to offer a different idea: She’s been wearing her maternity clothes the entire time.

-------------

In Summary:

Well, that was an episode. Things got explained fairly well, and we got some good backstory. Honerva has gone off the rails and has convinced the other Alteans to follow her.

What did you think? Did I miss anything important? Was I amazingly wrong about some things?

Sorry for all the...personal stuff up there. I wasn’t going to write all that at first, but it’s been on my mind. And hey, what’s the point of having a blog I you don’t use it as your own, personal confessional?

Next Up: ….wait, that’s it?

#second look review #voltron season 8 #honerva #haggar #lotor #romelle #zarkon #voltron #voltron legendary defender

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lilflowerpot · 6 years ago

Note

What are the Galra’s favorite method of entertainment? Do they make and enjoy music? If so, what does that music sound like? In the same vein, do they enjoy dancing? If they do dance, is it only in special circumstances or is it more casual? Sorry for the bombardment of questions lol, your world building is just so good I can’t get enough of it!!!!!!!

Surprising absolutely nobody, the Empire’s most popular pastime is going to one of the many amphitheaters to watch various Galra and other alien species rip each other to pieces! Gladiatorial combat is popular, of course, but aside from revelling in the mortality of various sentient beings from across the universe, Imperial amphitheaters are used for:

Hoverbike Races

Not only must you be the first rider to lap the arena 100 times, but you must do so while avoiding melee attacks from your fellow competitors! Guns / other ranged weapons are not allowed. Decapitation and other forms of deliberate dismemberment are strongly discouraged. No tampering with other participants vehicles. Do not, under any circumstances, tell Keith that this is a thing, because he would absolutely want to participate.

Venationes

This is a type of public spectacle that features an animal hunt, usually in tandem with a Gladiator fight. Traditionally, the aim would be for the participant to slay the beast, however more recently it’s become popular to see if one can subdue the animal without killing it, as this is arguably more difficult and therefore more impressive. Upon perfecting her first robeast, Haggar pitted it against a rising Champion to test its strength. Though the creature tore off one of the challenger’s limbs, and gouged out his eye, he was ultimately victorious, and this impressed Zarkon so much that he had Haggar heal the challenger, provide him with the finest military-grade prosthetics available, and then promoted him to the rank of Commander. This was Sendak.

Executions

I think this is self-explanatory. Usually, those sentenced to death are simply cast into the arena and forced to fight until they’re killed, but if the individual in question was of rank within the Empire, and found to be a traitor, their execution is long, painful, and very deliberate. This is the fate that would have ultimately befallen Thace, once discovered as a Blade of Marmroa.

Theatre

On a far lighter note, historical dramas are exceedingly popular. Great conquests, comedies, tragedies… even romances! Do most of them have a meticulously choreographed battle sequence in the final third? Yes. Do the performers occasionally get a little lost in the moment and spill blood? Absolutely. But that’s all part of the art form.

Sports

Various forms of non-lethal combat (shooting, archery, swordplay) as well as physical strategy games, and assault courses for teams and individuals alike.

Festivals!

Imperial amphitheaters are vast open spaces designed to host thousands of people. They’re ideal for large social gatherings and celebrations: the whole place can be decorated and filled with market stalls, an abundance of food and sweetwine, competitive games (both for the adults and children), traditional dances flawlessly performed by professionals, traditional dances stumbled through by tipsy amateurs, shadow puppetry, live music, bonfires, and everything else you could imagine!

Which leads me on to your last couple of questions - yes they do have music, and yes they love to dance! Galra music tends to have a strong underlying beat, and the most popular songs are lively and empowering with a deep bass. Their ears are sensitive, so they’re not terribly fond of high-pitched, whistling noises (wind instruments such as the flute are used sparingly, but when well-done can greatly enhance the experience and those who can play such things are considered very talented), but percussion and string instruments are common. Dance, being another form of physical expression, plays well into the general Galra disposition as a people who would rather be doing things than sitting around. Traditional Imperial dances tend to be comprised of swift, sharp movements and strong poses, and when performed well they almost seem as much a battle as they do an art. Dances can be casually performed, but it’s certainly more common - if not expected - to see them at some sort of social event (if only because many of them require a partner, and sometimes a series of partners).

#NEVER APOLOGISE FOR ASKING ME THINGS #all I ever want is for people to give me a reason to ramble about my headcanons for this AU #I love how enthusiastic and genuinely interested you are <3 #thank you!!#Ao3 Little Blade #sa screams back #galra history & culture

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tragedy-machine · 7 years ago

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it’s been 3 days and I still can’t believe s6 happened

In particular I can’t believe that these things happened:

“I love you”, I still have an out-of-body experience every time I rewatch this scene

Kuron’s reaction to the “I love you”

The whole fight scene between Keith and Shiro and animation in ep5

Haggar actually recognized Shiro’s and Keith’s relationship as extremely close and decided to use it against voltron/Keith

And it worked because Keith chased after Shiro instead of her (he even yeeted himself from voltron to go after him)

Keith was ready to die with Shiro’s clone instead of trying to save himself

Shiro actually died after s2

Pre-Kerberos flashbacks and Krolia’s flashbacks

So many good Takashi Shiroganes went to waste, can’t believe Keith didn’t jump after them too

Keith screamed “Shiro” so hard he astral projected

Keith got his face scar because of Shiro

Baby clone’s consciousness probably died

Black Paladin Keith

Keith's galra features became visible when he was high key distressed

Keith just hanged out with his mom and his dog for 2 years and he’s now 21 and buff and has beautiful anime hair

Keith cradled Shiro in his arms (and then left him on the ground so he could deliver a “we’re going home” one-liner, but ok)

Lance actually proclaimed he likes Allura like he’s never liked anyone before

Lotor and Allura kissed and she threw him on the floor so hard he bounced not once, but twice and both in the span of 2 minutes

Lotor went mad and died (or did he)

Lotor’s generals went unemployed for like the fifth time

Coran used some old ass altean alcohol to save the day

The paladins are going to Earth!!

And last but not least

this fucking scene

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theredpaladin101 · 7 years ago

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Buckle Up Nerds

This isn’t really a theory post, more like a post on something I wish would happen in the show because fuck I would pay DW to let me animate this

Okay so last night I was letting my mind wander for once while trying to read some good ol’ fanfiction and a thought struck me - what did that fight between Keith and Shiro do to Keith?

Just listen to me

For a show about war, it shouldn’t be a surprise to have the characters experience PTSD like Shiro did. Considering the show hasn’t touched up on any of the other characters’ mental states except Shiro - who went through a lot of shit throughout the entire show, including fucking dying - something really bad would have to happen for the show to go into their mental health.

Soooooooooo what about Keith?

You know, Keith - the guy who had to fight the man he looked up to and put his trust into for most of his life? Who had to do everything he could to keep the Shiro clone from killing him while also trying to not hurt him?

No seriously, the only point in which Keith tries to hurt Shiro is when his Galra features show. The first time he technically lashes out at the clone is when he tries to punch him - so basically trying to hurt the clone without the weapon he has in his hand. The second time he lashes out is with his weapon, and his Galra features come out. The second his Galra features go away, he;s back to running and blocking the clone’s hits.

Throughout the entire fight, Keith is trying to talk sense into the clone while trying to not attack him. Even after everything the clone did, he obviously still wants to save Shiro because he was the only family he had as a kid.

So basically what I’m trying to say is - this entire scene right here had to do something to Keith’s mental state. No one can go through that and walk away all fine. They’d have nightmares and/or PTSD from having to do something like that. Really, there’s quite a few fanfics with Keith having nightmares over this fight, and honestly I love them because they’re so well written and show what that fight could’ve done to him.

Now, why am I talking so much about Keith having PTSD? Well, my good friends, because this would honestly be a great scene/episode for the season, even if they don’t touch on it later. I’d be satisfied if they just had something like this about Keith’s problems (mostly cause he’s my favorite and I love him)

In my head, I’m seeing Keith having a nightmare about the clone Shiro coming for him, and when he wakes up, he doesn’t really remember where he is or anything and freaks the fuck out. He probably would grab his Marmora blade and run out of his room, and what would be an interesting scene is Keith seeing a bunch of clones just surrounding and going to attack him.

The thought about Keith sometimes being cautious towards Shiro now because of what he experienced helps this idea. He would probably fear the clones coming back and trying to kill everyone for Haggar.

So when a clone grabs Keith, he probably doesn’t hesitate to attack the clone. He doesn’t want his friends and family hurt, and will do anything to protect them. In his head, he can only see the many clone Shiros coming to kill him.

But the clone disarms him and keeps calling out his name, and Keith realizes he’s hallucinating. The clone dissolves into someone else, and honestly it could be anybody.

Imagine if it was Lance who found him and was trying to snap him out of it. Klance shippers would go fucking nuts because anytime these two interact, we fucking loose it. Gotta get that Klance content, even if it isn’t canon.

But it could also be James, so the two finally have a scene and make amends for their time in the Garrison, cause honestly they probably fought a lot. James would calm him down and they could talk about life and shit. The Jaith/Jeith shippers would thrive on something like this (including me holy shit)

Or it could be Hunk for more Hunk and Keith content, cause the part of my heart set for Heith cried over that episode where Keith was trying to help Hunk. Hell, even Pidge could be the person cause we don’t have enough scenes with Pidge and Keith.

Honestly, this idea would be perfect for some Keith bonding moments with any character. Maybe it could spark a talk between Shiro and Keith about the fight to help Keith get through with it. Maybe James or Lance could get Shiro, or Hunk could help Keith back to bed, or Pidge could distract him with some tech. Considering it would fit with the show since Keith did have something very traumatizing happen to him (cause I don’t think the show would just have Lance or Hunk have nightmares over the war in general cause they lame like that (i’m sorry DW don’t shoot me))

Even if something like this didn’t happen (which it 99% won’t happen cause when does anything I come up with happen on this show) I would probably make a comic or an animation of this in the future cause this idea is just too good to waste (in my opinion at least) cause it has a touch of angst and some good ol’ bonding.

Hell, someone write a fanfic about this with any ship they want cause I can just see the potential this one scene could have - and it could work with any ship

if you can’t tell i love angst

Honest to God, if this somehow made it into the show, even a part of what I just said, I would probably die. Literally. I will see the scene, and never be able to finish the series because something I thought of happened.

Buuuut yeah there you go - been thinking about this all day and finally was able to type it out. You can scream with me or at me - or even add on to this idea cause I’m lovin’ it

#hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh #dw do me a favor and just bless me with something like this #i love shows that dive into mental states #don't ask why let me live #keith #keith kogane #should i tag ships?#eh i'll tag ships #klance #jaith #jeith #sheith #heith #kidge #yay have fun shippers #voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron season 8 #voltron season 8 idea

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ticklefits · 6 years ago

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i’m still cryin to bud it’s okay :,) so the prompt is- keith and lance are basically best friends. not in a relationship, not in love, just great friends. then allura sacrifices herself. lance is messed up over it and doesnt leave his room for god knows how long. keith visits once and, seeing his friend in this state, becomes scared for the boy. without thinking he turns into his galra form without knowing and lance just tickles him and smiles cause he’s purring and gigglin andit makes his day

sorry it took so long to get this done , i was in the middle of moving and figuring things out with my job but ! here it is , hope u like it ! and thanks again for the prompt sweetie c’:

AO3 LINK !voltron | keith & lance ( platonic ) | words : 1363

“How many times have you listened to this song, Lance?”

Despite the encasing darkness of the bedroom, the same Bebe Rexha song lulling from the stereo sitting on the nearby desk and Lance’s closed, strained eyes, it was easy to depict who’s slightly accusatory voice played in his ears. He doesn’t bother lifting his body, aching and fatigued from having been an immovable object under the covers for what felt years.

“…Don’t worry about it. What’re you doing here..?”

Keith scoffs lightly, having expected that sort of answer. “Don’t I get a hello first?”

“You didn’t give me one.”

“Fair. Rachel let me up. Told me that our sharpshooter still isn’t really feeling like his old self.”

It was Lance’s turn to scoff, complete with a tired roll of his eyes. Sharpshooter, huh? He sure didn’t feel as cool and badass as his old nicknamed suggested he was. In fact, he probably couldn’t have felt worse.

“I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.”

It was one of the saddest lies Keith’s heard Lance try on him so far and truthfully? It caused his heart to sink. Through all of their experiences, Lance was one of the people he was the most proud of. He had blossomed so much from the beginning of their journey: from a mouthy, pride-laden, overconfident amateur pilot to someone trustworthy, intelligent, and cares so much for his team. And while it took Keith awhile to really see the development of these qualities in Lance, he is definitely one of the people that’s come to cherish him and appreciate what he’s done for them. It’s also why he’s here now, taking a break from the blade’s affairs in order to help his friend. Whether he wanted him to or not.

“Lance… C'mon buddy, just talk to me.” Keith takes a slow stride to the bed, settling on the edge of it gently so as not to startle or disturb Lance too much.

There’s silence and then a small sigh as Lance finally forces his drained frame to rise, just a little bit, so he can turn towards Keith and meet his gaze and what Keith witnesses only furthers his own distress. Even in the darkness ( perhaps thanks to his Galra genes ), he can clearly make out the bloodshot whites of his eyes & how dulled the sapphire color has become. There’s a bit of dried drool on the side of his lips and his hair’s a total mess; this is all worse than Keith could’ve imagined.

“–Hey…”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Keith. You.. already know.”

So his suspicions were confirmed. He is still torn from what happened with Allura. “Lance… I’m so sorry about Allura, we all are. But, you’re worrying people.”

“I'm… worrying people?” The tone of the query comes off a tad more .. aggressive, than Lance probably meant it to be, but he couldn’t help it, not with subtle agitation already begin to bubble in his chest.

“Well, yeah – I mean, all of us, we know you’re upset about Allura, but you gotta understand that moping in your room.. in the dark.. isn’t doing you or anyone else any favors. You’re wallowing. And if you keep going like this, you’re gonna end up.. –”

“End up like what exactly? Like you when Shiro disappeared? Obsessive and reckless and biting people’s heads off? Well, newsflash Keith, I’m not like you. Besides, who’re you to tell me how I should or shouldn’t feel? You never stopped looking for Shiro or gave up hope that Shiro would come back, even when everything seemed lost… and in the end, you got him back. I don’t get to have that luxury, you understand? I have to deal with that fact that Allura said goodbye, right in front of me! Without her… without her, Shiro wouldn’t be alive, I wouldn’t be alive!”

At that point, Keith’s hoisted himself from the bed, slamming a gloved palm down on the blanket that surprisingly seemed to have enlarged a bit.

“You don’t think I know that, Lance?!” Keith nearly growls and Lance can swear he notices fangs elongating as he barks back at him. “Allura did so much for us, for all of us! Each and every person on Earth owes everything to her, but do you really think this is what Allura would’ve wanted you to feel, would’ve wanted you to be, about her passing?”

Okay.. now his skin’s painting over itself in a shade of purple. Lavender, maybe? No, no.. too dark for that.. maybe royal purple…

“–Keith–”

“No, seriously Lance! It’s not fair that me and everyone else here are trying to go about our lives, like Allura wanted us to with her sacrifice, but you just want to sit in the dark and sulk instead of being the greatness she saw in you! That we all.. see in you– ah!”

His statement is abruptly disrupted by something of a squeaky yelp as he felt curious digits stroking at new appendages atop his head; Lance might have gotten distracted by the Galran features that have decided to show themselves during Keith’s own outburst.

“.. Dude,” the brunet begins, soft awe and bewilderment replacing the anguish within oceanic sight, “when… did you start growing Galra ears?”

A sigh pulls from slightly flared nostrils, cheeks flushing as Lance’s fingers refuse to rest from touching him. “It’s.. not something that I can fully control. Yet. A-anyway, that’s not the point he–hehehere!” A palm swiftly raised to cover his mouth, but the giggle already did the damage. Within seconds, there’s a familiar sparkle of mischief glimmering in Lance’s eyes, the corner of his lips perking into something of a half smile as he shifts his weight to lean further and softly tickle along the shell of ears, vibrating from the rim towards the inner tenderness. The reaction is almost instant.

“L-Lance! No, knock it ohohohoff!” Keith squirms, attempting to shove the other back and away from his sensitive ears, but Lance anticipates this and quickly swerves to avoid the hands, only to better put his own to work. He migrates between small spots that he notices gives off more prominent reactions and before he realizes it himself, he’s grinning brightly and even releasing a giggle here or there.

“Keith, you feel like a teddy bear, man. This is ridiculous.” But the joy in his tone & beam of his expression is enough to keep Keith from cursing at him for teasing him like this, no matter how abashing.

“Sh-shut uhuhuhup!” He retorts, squeaking and un-intimidating despite growling underneath those words.

Wait… that’s not a growl..

“Ohhh my god, you’re purring now too?” He is way too amused by all of this new information, but he can’t deny how much fun he’s having. Keith discerns this as well and though it’s obviously at his own expense, he doesn’t find himself in real disdain at the situation.

“Lance! Aahaa– stop, stohohop already!” Even Keith didn’t realize how ticklish his Galran ears would be… and now this goofball has that knowledge too. He can only cringe at the future ordeals this was bound to bring; however, he feels Lance’s fingers start to slow and eventually, halt altogether. Blessed with a moment of fresh breath, Keith glances up towards his friend, studying his face to catch any signal of emotional relapse. He flushes with relief when Lance still bares that sweet smile of his.

“… Thanks Keith. Seriously.”

Keith’s own lips lift into another smile, genuine in his subtle delight. “Don’t mention it, Lance. We’re a team. Always will be.”

“So, does that mean you’ll let me tickle you whenever I need a pick-me-up, teammate? ‘Cause that was pretty funny.”

“Not on your life, buddy.”

It was Lance’s turn to let out a laugh, soft and almost timid as it was.

“But… for real man. Allura’s still here with us. Still watching over us and.. The whole universe. She’ll always stay with us. You know that right..?”

Lance turns, moving to push aside the curtains of the window just above his bed, permitting illumination to wash over the both of them from a gorgeous sky painted an array of pinks and baby blues.

“Yeah… Yeah, I know.”

#voltron #tickle fic #keith kogane #lance mcclain #tickle prompt #fic #Anonymous #jay writes.

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xanderuwu · 7 years ago

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for whom it may concern; here’s a letter

i wrote this long fucking rant about voltron, enjoy (click here to view on google docs)

My name is Alexander, I’m 23, and here is my sob story. I’m a bisexual trans man who grew up in a tiny village where people believed that being LGBT+ was just as bad as being a child molester. I spent the first 20 years of my life hiding my truth because of the fear & shame that was ingrained in me as a child; I was disgusted by myself. I have never gone a week in my‬ ‪life without contemplating suicide - I’ve tried to kill myself 9 times, the first time was when I was 8.‬

‪One of the main things that kept me afloat during my childhood & teen years were stories in any medium; film, TV, books, I swallowed them whole & they kept me sane. But they never made me feel goof about myself or my life. I didn’t experience the impact of good representation until I saw the first season of Glee in 2009 when I was 14 (that show went downhill as it went on too, wow). One of the main characters on Glee was gay & had an arc in the first season where he came out to his father, & his father … embraced him.‬

‪… I remember crying in bed, watching the coming out scene over & over in shitty quality on the Youtube app on my old iPod. I had never seen anything like it. Sure, I’d seen LGBT+ people in media before, but they were always either stereotype-ridden jokes, or they led miserable lives & never got a happy ending. & in so so so many cases … they died. Or their partner died. Or they got AIDS. Or they were framed as disgusting degenerates.‬

‪I’d never seen a parent accept & embrace their gay child. I had never seen a gay character who “made it” with loving friends & family. It gave me courage, it made me hopeful.‬

‪Hope is the most powerful powerful tool we have when it comes to suicide prevention within the LGBT+ community. Every day, thousands of people toe the line between life & death, & THAT is why our representation is so important. Yes, it helps normalize LGBT+ people to the cisgender & heterosexual audiences, but you have no idea how much hope & joy can blossom in the hearts of vulnerable LGBT+ people from good representation that shows LGBT+ characters being embraced & loved, finding partners, falling in love, getting that happy gay ending we so rarely get to see in media. I’m certain that that gay kid from fucking Glee of all things, saved me from the brink a few times.‬

‪In December of 2014, when The Legend of Korra made Korra & Asami the romantic endgame, I cried. Cried for all the LGBT+ kids who would, perhaps for the first time, feel good about themselves. I also cried for the child in myself who still struggles with the shackles secured around his feet from a childhood of isolation & self-hatred, because he needed it too. & then we got record-breaking amounts of well-rounded LGBT+ representation on Steven Universe, a show that not only features same-gender romances, but also explores gender & challenges toxic masculinity. & last year, Disney Channel, the fucking DISNEY CHANNEL, had a character on Andi Mack come out as gay! Freakin’ DISNEY, man! & Korra was on Nickelodeon, Steven Universe is on Cartoon Network - those are all huge traditional television broadcasters where shows have to be assessed by a whole lot of boards in order to make sure they’re suitable to broadcast.‬

‪Netflix, on the other hand, has more freedom. Many of their live-action shows have had explicit LGBT+ representation. Watching as more & more mainstream TV shows & films with prominent LGBT+ characters get released makes me believe in the change, from when i was a kid in the early 00’s to now.‬

‪I first encountered Voltron: Legendary Defender in the form of gifs, fanart, & screencaps on Tumblr. The first thing that caught my attention was Allura’s design; she’s gorgeous & I’m weak. I found out that she was from the Voltron reboot which, not gonna lie, sounded kinda dumb to me at first. I watched Voltron: Defender of the Universe as a kid, not because i’m old enough to have been a child in the 80s, but because we were a family with six mouths to feed & no disposable income that could be spent on cable TV. So we got public service television, & they ran a lot of cartoons from the 80s because they were cheap to license I guess.

Anyways, I was obsessed with VDOTU (we’re using abbreviations now because this is getting stupidly long & typing is hard) as a wee lad, Allura was my favourite character because she had long hair & a pink uniform - as I said, I’m weak for pretty people. So in late June of 2016 I watched the first season of VLD & I was so pleasantly surprised. VLD is animated by Studio Mir; one of my favourite animation studios, & the show has writers & producers who have also worked on Korra, so that, in addition to the show being distributed by Netflix, made the possibility of clear-cut LGBT+ characters & storylines seem more plausible. ‬

‪I loved the first season of VLD. I very quickly latched onto Keith & Allura, but as I kept watching I found myself adoring the whole team. Having Pidge be a girl was cool, & I was so excited when I found out that she was voiced by a gay actress! & whoever came up with the idea of making Allura, Hunk, & Lance brown deserves a high-five. ‬

‪(We’re getting to the real meaty LGBT+ rep rant soon, just stick with me here because I wanna talk about some other gripes I have with this show first).‬

‪So, we had a show with a diverse main cast of characters, good writing & pacing, a good balance between character & plot, & gorgeous animation. I was excited to see the second season.‬

‪However, the second season was when some of the show’s main flaws popped up for the first time. That nice balance between character & plot from the first season seemed to have driven right off its tracks and straight into a bio-hazardous lake. In the first season, each character got a fair amount of attention, but in season two Hunk & Lance were just … barely there? Keith is my favourite character & I liked the Blade of Marmora stuff, but Keith’s amount of screentime came at the expense of other characters, especially Hunk & Lance. Having Keith’s entire arc in season two pretty much only involve himself & Shiro did every character a disservice. & the reveal that Keith was Galra was so underwhelming. We only saw two characters react to Keith’s alien heritage. The episode with Keith & Hunk in the Weblum was lovely, but we haven’t really gotten team bonding episodes like that since season three so :/ And oh God, the whole subplot of Allura, a black-coded character, being “racist” against the Galra is a WHOLE other mess that I don’t think I can adequately explain. Just, why. ‬

‪Season three was good, the balance between character & plot seemed to be getting back on track & the lion switch-up made for some good character development, especially for Lance & Allura. Episode four was a mess though like y'all could’ve been just a liiittle more sensitive with that kind of stuff. Also it is embarrassingly obvious that in the first two seasons, Allura was portrayed as being around Shiro’s age & the two of them shared moments that seemed to be hinting at a future romance - until, suddenly in season three Allura is at the same maturity level as the other paladins? What, is it because that was when you decided to have Shiro be gay because you weren’t allowed to kill him after season two, & so instead of doing Shiro/Allura you started pairing Allura with Lance? That’s just absolutely stellar mate.‬

‪Season four - character/plot balance swings off the rails once more & to this day it hasn’t been recovered. This was the season where y'all’s plot became way too fucking convoluted & too damn big! The plot takes so much room, OF COURSE character development suffers! Season five had the same problem, & whoops Allura has a new love interest! It’s Lotor, a grown-ass man! Great! Totes loved it!‬

‪Season six had some good moments but again, y'all’s plot left no fucking breathing room for the characters! Also, Lance’s crush on Allura is suddenly True Love now? At this point you need a fucking Excel sheet to keep track of the plot & subplots. Lotor was an asshole all along & betrayed Allura? BITCH WE BEEN KNEW! Lotor’s betrayal could be seen from miles away. Bad.‬

‪SEASON FUCKING SEVEN HERE WE GO.‬

‪You ruined Keith’s entire character. Plain and simple. Keith & Shiro’s backstory was the highlight of the entire season. And in those flashbacks we see Shiro’s BOYFRIEND! Shiro is GAY! Shiro being gay & having a partner was revealed at San Diego Comic Con in July, & fans were so fucking happy. Remember at the start of this monstrosity of a letter where I talked about LGBT+ representation in media igniting hope? That was what you saw from fans after SDCC; pure joy & hope. It was amazing, people cried because they were so happy! & the showrunners said we’d learn more about Adam & get to meet him, shit I was so hyped!

Was Shiro, the character who has struggled the most in the show, going to get a … happy ending? As a gay character? With his partner of the same gender?‬

‪…‬

‪Y'know,‬

‪There’s still probably hundreds of thousands of LGBT+ kids who are growing up in a similar environment to where I grew up. They feel the same way I felt. That … indescribable loneliness that pierces through your bones, the self-hatred & hopelessness that weighs too much, you are the deer and the headlights is every person whose approval & love you need most. ‬

‪& then you see someone like you in a story, & they are happy, they aren’t alone, because people like us aren’t destined to be tragedies.‬

‪It gives you hope.

‪VLD could’ve given that to people y'know? And maybe that’s the saddest part, that instead they chose to kill the man Shiro loved, & thus put their only remaining confirmed LGBT+ character through even more suffering. ‬

VLD killed 50% of their confirmed LGBT+ characters. ‬

‪Imagine if they’d killed 50% of their female characters.‬

They killed Adam to show the gravity of the situation, to show that with war comes death. But LGBT+ viewers don’t need that reminder. We die every day. We know war, we know that war walks hand in hand with death.‬

‪And we didn’t even really have any feelings about Adam aside from “Shiro’s boyfriend!!!” We only got a tiny snippet of his & Shiro’s relationship. From a basic storytelling standpoint, killing someone like Colleen or Sam Holt would have been so much more effective because we know a lot more about Pidge’s relationship with her parents than we know about Adam & Shiro.‬ Adam’s death fell flat because we never knew him or his & Shiro’s relationship.

‪So why did they decide that the gay characters had to lose? VLD could have made something beautiful, something that would help people. But you didn’t.‬

‪Why didn’t they?‬

‪And why, in the same season, did they suddenly make Allura show signs of returning Lance’s feelings, despite her having shown zero romantic interest in him for over a third of the series? Why did they push Keith & Acxa together, two characters who had never spoken before this season? ‬

‪They take away the prospect of a same-gender romance, & then shove some half-assed straight relationships in our faces? It’s as if they’re doing this to be intentionally cruel.

‪Even if Adam somehow returns, that doesn’t repair the anxiety & hurt they caused their LGBT+ fans. With this season, VLD gave us the same age-old tale we’ve been told since we could understand words.‬

‪Happy endings belong to straight people. Gay people are doomed to live through tragedy after tragedy until we die young.‬

‪I believed in this show. I honestly thought the slow-burn romance would be Keith & Lance. Already in season one they had the “bonding moment” that was a textbook example of how to convey romance through visual storytelling. In that scene, Lance said “We are a good team” to Keith, & that was supposedly just bros being bros? But in season six, Lance says the exact same phrase to Allura as a flirty line, so what’s the deal here?

Are Allura and Lance the slow burn? Allura had never shown interest in Lance before now, when she suddenly noticed that Lance is … nice? What … is this? Honest to God, what is happening? VLD really decided to do the guy-likes-girl-girl-doesn’t-reciprocate-but-if-guy-keeps-trying-she’ll-like-him-back-eventually thing? Ah yes, If you flirt with a girl & she ignores your advances, you shouldn’t stop & move on, you should keep pushing, that’s how VLD staff want people to treat women I guess.‬

‪Keith & Axca … looked at each other three times & now they’re in love. Very good slow burn, I cried, 11/10.‬

‪Had the straight romances at least been well-developed I might’ve been slightly less angry. But no, you killed the man Shiro loved & then presented us with some gourmet heterosexual nonsense - no really, where are your Michelin stars because this hetero bullshit is top notch, truly.‬

‪I’m not saying this as a bitter shipper. I’m saying this as someone who invested so much time into your show, only to be severely let down. VLD has had some incredible episodes, but season four & onward was a massive display of incompetent storytelling. It’s as if seasons one through three were created by a different team!

Not to mention the showrunners themselves, who have consistently been dismissive of valid concerns from fans, & when given chances to confirm that Keith & Lance’s relationship was strictly platonic, they instead remained vague, instilling hope in fans - giving people false hope to string them along so they’ll keep watching your show is cruel.‬

‪There are so many other things I could say here, but I’m running out of time.‬

‪Y'all could’ve done extraordinary things with this show & these characters. You could have made something amazing, your show could have been remembered as a trailblazer. But instead, it’ll only be remembered as a clusterfuck & as an example of what not to do, for future creators to learn from.‬

‪I don’t know how or why y'all ended up turning your show into a damn mess. I don’t really care. I just wish you hadn’t exploited the fragile hopes of LGBT+ people.‬

The only thing that can save y’all now is if season eight makes me physically shit hundred dollar bills so I can buy a fucking boat, sail to the middle of the ocean, and just scream for a good six years or so.

Thanks.‬

#xander.txt #queue #voltron

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puppetmaster55 · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on s8

Boy, this one got long.

Alright. It’s been like a month, and I feel detached enough from my initial emotional responses that I can finally get this out. My thoughts on the final season of vld. All I can say is, I urge you to read beyond the first sentence, because I will be diving into it and picking it apart as best I can.

So… here it is.

I liked the season.

I know, I’m surprised too. I didn’t go in expecting to like it like I did, I just expected to at most, Not Hate the season.

But I liked it, and perhaps not for the reasons that anyone else could say.

The throughline of the season, the narrative tying all 13 episodes together into one, was very clearly there. I liked that. Compared to season 7, where I still believe that it was written as two separate seasons (the road trip arc, and the earth arc) where season 8 culminated felt like the place that it was leading to when the season began.

I liked maybe two of the episodes, while the rest were middling or passing, and a couple had me staring in confusion trying to understand what was even happening at times.

The best episode of the season, honestly, was Day 47. Kinkade and Rizavi are the most interesting of the MFEs to me, and getting more of them was really nice. Getting a peek into the day-to-day life aboard the atlas was also really nice.

An episode that should have been great, but fell short because of its final lines? Battle Scars (you know, the one with Olkarion? Yeah that one). Up until those final lines, I really did love that episode, because we finally got the answer the unspoken question: why is Voltron necessary to win, to stop the bad guys?

That episode did wonders, to me, in answering that question. We got to see the tragedy and destruction that happens when Voltron isn’t there, when the robeast arrives and attacks and everything that is used to combat it fails to work. Every other time, Voltron swooped in to save the day at the last minute, and while that is excellent storytelling, seeing this, seeing what happens when Voltron isn’t there for that last minute save… that was really powerful.

There was really good lore, some that build upon lore from long ago (the astral plane, anyone? We got more of that), and others that had me staring because who let these writers into my home and into my notes.

And then there’s what I didn’t like.

Lotor had an arc, that much was clear, and he was obviously lingering throughout this season like a ghost. What that means, or what that doesn’t mean, is for another discussion digging up and reconstructing the skeleton by which the series itself was built upon.

Like two paragraphs ago, I talked about Olkarion and how much I really loved that episode. Here, I talk about why I didn’t: because of the handwave at the end. Those final lines, about how these innocent lives died so our heroes could have the information to save others, and that their deaths were noble and not in vain?

I hated that.

I hate when unfair death has all the weight and tragedy removed by saying “they gave us important information that can save the lives of billions” as if they needed to die for that to happen, as if they gladly were soldiers in battle and not civilians safe at home.

So, I would have loved the episode, had it not said that the horrifying and tragic death of Olkarion was, in the end, a Good Thing and that this entire planet, this entire culture, that is dead should not be mourned but celebrated for the death that was forced upon it. That this genocide (and it was genocide, make no mistake) should be celebrated for advancing the knowledge of… yeah.

…….I did not say that this would be without bias. There is no way to speak of this without having some sort of emotional bias.

There are many things I could talk about, from the strangeness of the pacing (Day 47 and Clear Day are about as filler as filler ever gets in this series, and that they’re back to back this season baffles me now as it baffled me when I first watched them) to the ways that characters have their personalities altered (Lance doesn’t feel matured, he feels like he’s had everything that made him a likeable personality stripped away, and y’know what, that’s my next paragraph).

So. Lance. I loved Lance in the early seasons, I loved Lance even as far as season 7. Lance was fun, he had a big personality and made some jokes but was brilliant in his own way and grew despite everything. I didn’t recognize that Lance in this one. Having Allura call him sharpshooter, he should have been preening, and instead he sounded like he didn’t want it, he sounded like someone who was going through the motions. Lance in season 8 was devoid of the personality that he had, stripped away until there was only the ghost of it that appeared maybe three times in all of this season.

Hunk had one moment, when he was making the Altean food and getting the captured Alteans to open up, and that was it. I feel glad, almost, that he didn’t have focus simply because he managed to evade the things that happened to everyone.

Keith… I grew distanced from him in the space between seasons 2 and 3 because of how vibrantly the fandom was chanting for him. I think I grew to become neutral to him from the way he was always centered as The Protagonist. Weirdly, I felt like I recognized the ghost of early seasons Keith (him from the first two seasons, who I actually felt I could grow to like) in this season.

I entered this season resigned to seeing Big Keith Moments, and there were like five in three episodes in a row in the first half, and after that? I didn’t see the season centering itself around Keith as much as I feared it would. This actually made me take a step back and see some good moments for him and remind me that I actually might have grown to like him, that I actually could still.

If there’s one thing that this season let me down on, it’s that Lance did not end up in handcuffs. I’m so let down by that, honestly, it was one of the only things that could be reliably counted upon for each 13-episode set, and he wasn’t in handcuffs at all.

Allura was annexed practically from the start, slated to perform a massive sacrifice that made me hurt even as I watched it happen. She was still in love with Lotor, even as she clung tighter to Lance. For that, among too many other reasons, I cannot say that I enjoyed the romance.

And the romance? If it felt weirdly done in season 7, having it be a throughline in season 8 made it hurt all the more. Lance and Lotor deserved more than to be Allura’s love interests. Lance deserved more than to be stripped away until that was all that he was.

Allura’s end, too, felt awful. I didn’t like it, I still don’t like it, and if this had been the series that was meant to end that way, I would be fine with it. But it wasn’t, and so I didn’t. I figured, though, that she was going to die or something similar when she brought the dead park back to life. I also figured, apparently foolishly, that Lance’s declaration that the team was her family would be something that would stop her from making that sacrifice.

I wanted Allura to live, dammit, and see peace and see the formation of a New Altea.

Pidge was there, too, but she didn’t have any stakes or anything. Pidge was there, and got to taker her whole family (including the dog) out into space. That she got some bonding time with Allura was good, but beyond that there was about as much for her to do in this season as there was for Hunk.

Shiro… honestly? Shiro wasn’t even in this season. I don’t know who that person was that wore Shiro’s face, but the Shiro of the past seven seasons was more of a Shiro than whoever this person was. Yes, even the empty Shiro of season 7 was more Shiro than whoever this Shiro was. He was stripped of his rank of Paladin, stripped of his personality, stripped of everything that made Shiro… Shiro. He even had his status as a main character torn away from him, as he didn’t appear in every episode, and those that he did appear in barely featured him.

God, but Shiro deserved better.

And Kuron, but that’s for another time.

I didn’t expect to get any answers from Operation Kuron, but I at least held out some hope of getting answers regarding the second colony. Dead hope, perhaps, but hope still. I never got the impression that the alteans there were dead, despite all the season 6 dialogue that talking about thousands of Alteans dying by Lotor’s hands.

Looking back, I guess we were supposed to take everything being said at face value. There apparently was no deeper secret, the little stuff that said that we didn’t know everything (even the characters themselves saying that they didn’t know the full picture) meant nothing. Lotor did a bad thing trying to do a good thing, and for that he was sentenced to death.

And even then, after getting shown and told repeatedly that Lotor is an Evil Villain, we’re given his backstory at long last, where he’s shown as a tragic figure who wasn’t an evil villain at all, simply someone who was desperate, and in that desperation turned to methods that were wrong and that he was trying to atone for throughout the entire time he was in the series. So what was it, then, that we’re supposed to feel for Lotor? Are we supposed to feel sympathy for him, or are we supposed to condemn him?

God, but Lotor deserved better.

Everyone deserved better, really.

Two plot threads that I didn’t expect to see closed out, were that of the quintessence monster that Ranveig experimented on, and Zethrid. And honestly? I wasn’t expected Zethrid to make a return. That was a delightful surprise.

The quinessence monster being some late-stage retcon of simply being a monster from the cosmic abyss felt sad, when it could have been simply what it was introduced as: something that was mutated by the quintessence into the monster that it became.

Beyond that, I almost liked the things that Lahn brought up. What right should the Galra have, to submit to Voltron when Voltron is responsible for all that happened was a direct result to Voltron’s actions. They got rid of Lotor, and with his removal there were intense consequences that they cannot simply pretend didn’t happen.

As for Zethrid? The original script was there, with Zethrid’s lines making it clear that Ezor was dead and she was taking revenge on Keith and Acxa. Changing it so that instead it was that Ezor was alive was a good move, since it unkilled a lesbian, but I think it also undercut Zethrid’s arc and made Ezor into some heel-face turn away from violence. I never got the impression that Ezor wanted something different than violence, since she was always one of the bloodthirstier of the generals.

Still, it was a nice enough addition.

And now we reach the yelmore of this season: Curtis.

I love Curtis, honestly, and I love his marriage to Shiro. With how we’ve seen the writers handle romance already, I’m perfectly fine with not getting the tale of how they went from existing on the bridge together to being happily married. I love that we got that, that DreamWorks drew a line in the sand about where they stand on representation and that it was with the first mlm wedding (if not also kiss) in western animated media.

Really, the only thing I can critique is that the original plan had confirmation that Zethrid and Shiro are lesbian and gay, respectively, and they both were originally to end up alone with dead lovers. That is literally all my negative say on the matter.

And all this brings me to… Honerva.

Oh, Honerva. You were, honestly, a more fascinating villain when you were Haggar. You were a scientist, a high priestess, with the backstory of someone who wasn’t afraid to step into the purview of the gods to gain the knowledge you desired. And you ended up as someone who apparently only ever wanted to be a mother. That your whole entire plan, the one that was meant to be the culmination of this entire series, was to destroy all realities until you found the one where you could be a mother to your child, is… quite something.

Under a different approach, I could understand it perfectly.

Under this approach, it was clear with how you commodified Lotor even after regaining your memories that you were going to be the same way with this Perfect Reality Lotor.

I dunno, maybe it was my expectations playing against me, but I expected Honerva to retain her status and desires as a scientist above that of being a mother. Even before she went into the rift, even before it began to affect her, she was more concerned with the science than with much else. Yes, she loved, and yes, she lost, but she and Zarkon both were reduced down to the evils they were deep down: Zarkon, the ruler, and Haggar, the scientist. Learning she was a mother to Lotor didn’t feel like it should have changed her desires for knowledge or caused her to abandon them entirely.

Which isn’t to say that Honerva was a terrible villain here, simply that she became a different kind of villain than who I expected her to be.

As a final season, I didn’t get the impression that we were concluding storylines begun way back in the first season. I didn’t get the impression that we were seeing the end of the journey that we started down. Honerva’s final approach as a villain didn’t feel like the culmination of the path begun at the start.

Quite honestly, season 8 felt like the ending to a different series.

Maybe it isn’t though. Maybe I went into it expected a shonen series but around half a dozen characters instead of one single character, and instead got a weirdly done series with questionable to horrific themes and lessons. Others have written about those better than I ever could.

Or maybe it is, and the series we were sold at the start isn’t the one that we were ultimately given.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

#puppet gets salty

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loveafterthefact · 5 years ago

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Love After the Fact Chapter 57: Wasting Time with a New Friend

Lotor makes some new friends. Together, they discover that word of Lance and Keith's union has reached video game developers in the worst, best way.

Featuring Leakira in the role of comic relief (Not to offend Leakira fans, this is meant to be a fun, happy place. I just thought it might be funny little detail) XD

First Previous Next

Lotor finds them sleeping in a hallway. A much-needed distraction.

More specifically, it’s an adolescent Olkari with orange feelers, dressed in green and white garb stained with red dust. They’re incredibly small, even for a smaller species. Pretty adorable, like a wolf cub.

So obviously he nudges them with his foot.

“Can I help you?” the kit growls, amber eyes glaring up at him.

“You’re sleeping in a hallway.”

“And? What’s your point?”

“... You know what? I’m not really sure.”

With a groan, the kit sits up, tugging on their feelers. “So what are you up to, Mr. Prince?”

“Oh not much. Wandering around, looking for trouble.” He’s actually looking for a distraction, but that’s almost the same thing as trouble.

“Trouble, huh?” The Olkari smirks. “I’m Pidge. Lance’s resident tech genius and vent crawler- I mean spy.”

“Ah-haha, I see. You’re one of his ‘associates’.” Lotor grins, helps Pidge to their feet.

“Yes. Working for Lance usually involves some level of trouble. What are the princes up to today, anyway?”

“Lance is with Allura. She’s having a hard morning. Keith is with Thace, our emergency medic and reproductive specialist.”

“Oh, really? Making sure his junk works?”

“That’s the idea. Why?”

“It’d be awesome to have some dirt on Keith. He’s just so perfect.” Pidge skips down the hallway, a curious prince following behind them. “The worst thing he’s done is drink a bit too much, find his happy place at a party, and get really snuggly with Lance.”

Following Pidge into what should have been an old, empty storeroom, Lotor’s eyes widen in surprise. The typically ignored room is set up with monitors and a work table covered with Balmeran crystals and a few other tools.

“Where did you get some of these tools?” he asks, eyeing a choice laser of Galra design.

“I crawled through the tunnels underneath the actual labs and stole them. I’m welcome in the labs, of course. I just don’t want to share my work with them. The field of science is rife with thieves.”

“You found the tunnels already?” Lotor stares. There are tunnels all under the mountain, his ancestors making the massive peak into an insect hive. There are escape tunnels and hidden caches and underground pools and even a forge made of volcanic glass that he discovered as a small boy.

He still likes to go down there on the rare occasion he can find the time. Someday, he’ll take his children down there, and tell them all about the stories carved into the ancient walls.

“Yep! Anyway, let’s see if I can hack into Thace’s equipment. And by that I mean give me like, thirty ticks because I can definitely do it.” While Pidge types away on their computer, Lotor sits himself on the floor, eyeing a faint square cut into the stone. Most people don’t notice, don’t know to look for the fine edges carved into the floor. “Ooh… Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Lotor asks. “Is Keith okay?”

“You really care for him, don’t you?” Amber eyes smile at him, intuitive.

“Of course I do! He’s my cousin! And my friend!” And he has more than his fair share of health problems. Lotor himself was not a healthy kit, so he understands the worries that his cousin might have.

“Aw-w. You’re just a big ol’ sweetheart, aren’t ya?” Pidge turns back to their computer. “What’s interesting is that Keith is… surprisingly healthy. His weight and body mass index are good… Thace is optimistic about a successful pregnancy.”

“Why is that interesting?” Lotor scratches his head, frowning a little.

“Because our boys requested contraceptives, probably due to health concerns.”

“Miscarriage risks are higher for him. That’s partially due to his sex, and partially due to his condition. Do you think they’ll use contraceptives?”

“Pfft. No. They’re young, they’re stupid, and they both want pups. I doubt Lance can keep it in his pants.”

“What about Keith?”

“He’s shy.” Pidge shrugs like that explains everything. It kind of does. Keith’s priorities are probably more of the cuddling variety than the ‘aggressive hugging’ variety. “Can I have some of your blood?”

“Hm? Uh… How much blood?”

“I dunno. A few vials? Maybe I’ll swab your cheek too? It might help with my experiments.”

“And what might those be?”

“I’m trying to invent Altean-friendly prosthetics. It’s not going well. Alteans are stupid inside and out.” Pidge gathers their tools to stick him, and Lotor stares. This tiny little Olkari is far more than they appear. “Who do you think will kill Lance for getting Keith pregnant? Krolia or Shiro?”

But they're young, still playful and carefree.

“Hm… My money’s on Krolia. Or the creepy friend.”

“Adam? Oh, he’s softer than he looks. More likely he’ll live vicariously through their children and terrorize anyone who tries to mess with them.” Pidge sticks a swab in his cheek as they fill a second vial with his blood. “Your fangs are adorable.”

“Thanks?” Lotor regards them. “So you do science, you do people… What don’t you do?”

“Relationships.” Pidge cleans the crook of his arm, bandaging the spot where they bled him. “And genders. Those are for more primitive individuals.”

Lotor laughs. “More highly evolved, are you?”

“Exactly. Unlike Alteans. Stupid, scaley assholes with stupid, cranky cells.”

“I don’t get it. What exactly is the problem?” Lotor peers over Pidge’s shoulder as they examine his cells under their microscope.

“Not sure, but Alteans have some odd properties that make their biology incompatible with metal, coral, bone, wood, and other prosthetic materials. When used, the Altean’s cells refuse to accept the forgein material, even if it’s biocompatible. Hence, their cells are stupid.”

“So it would seem. How are my cells?”

“Hm… I'll have to run some of my own, secret tests. I may try to culture your skin cells to figure out how it all works.”

“Have at it. Can I interest you in a secret?”

“Always!” The young Olkari’s eyes shine, eager to learn. To know. A person after his own heart.

“Most of Altea’s technology is rediscovered. Thousands of decaphoebs ago, there was what’s known as The Forgetting. The Altean’s powers were quite suddenly drastically altered, and their society descended into chaos. Much of their technology was lost, then rediscovered within the last few milophoebs.”

“No fucking way!”

“Way. This includes their lauded Teludav technology.”

“Those fakers! How have I not heard of this?”

“I know! It’s their best kept secret. Also, beneath Mount Sil’brana is a petrified forest.”

“Oh, that’s so cool!” Pidge makes a note on their datapad. “I wonder… I don’t know if I could interface with that or not. Probably not, since it’s no longer organic, but then again perhaps I could reach the echo?”

“Echo?”

“All organic life leaves behind an echo. Sometimes, I can reach that echo. I’d be great at solving murders!”

“Well, if ever I am murdered, do find my killer. I’m sure my wife would appreciate it.”

“Unless she did the murdering,” Pidge snickers.

“Some days, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. She’d say it’s my fault, but…”

“Pregnancy.”

“Yeah. How do you think Keith will be when he gets pregnant?”

“He’s relatively mild-mannered as long as Lance keeps him happy, so either unbelievably psychotic or unbearably sweet.”

“He is really sweet. I honestly didn’t expect it when he first arrived. Lance is a little… He’s reserved, but also high-strung at the same time?”

“He definitely can be. But he can also be very playful. Those two are either quiet and reserved together, or cutting up and goofing off together. But Lance is the high-strung one, for sure. Keith just wants to know whose head to crack open. Lance wants to know every single little detail about everything.”

“So he’s a control freak.”

“Little bit, yeah. We’ve all got our thing.” Pidge smiles. “But Lance gave me a home when mine was lost. He had no reason to do that. He didn’t know what I was capable of.”

“I had assumed you were on Altea for research?” Lotor's curious, but won't push.

“No. Though I do enjoy research. For example, I have the new Phantasm Killbot game. I just got to the first visual novel part where they introduce the characters and their little side plots and all. Wanna help me out? For research?” The Olkari holds up a controller.

“Yeah alright. Anything for research.” Lotor takes the controller, waits for the character introduction screen. He’s played this game before. “Player one… Leandro.”

“Player Two… Akira.”

The screen loads.

“Uh… That’s… Interesting. Is that- Does that look like Lance to you?” It really does, at least to Lotor. The only difference is that ‘Leandro’ has brown hair and his scales are a very pale blue.

“Wow, that’s weird. Okay. Let’s see where this goes- Oh my fuck, this is going to be good.”

Lotor can’t help but agree, staring at a screen of a smirking ‘Leandro’ lounging with a wide-eyed Galra presumably named ‘Akira’. The Galra has purple hair and golden irises, dressed in what might loosely be referred to as clothing.

It’s exceptionally weird, even weirder given that Akira is the name of Keith’s father, Lotor’s uncle.

“I cannot wait to tell my cousin about this,” Lotor breathes, coming to the realization of exactly what’s before him.

“Yes! We have to! Right now!” Pidge stands, tugs on his arm.

“Well, let’s not be too hasty.” Lotor stares at the screen, that mischievous part of his brain clicking and whirring. “I mean, we have to do our research, right?”

“You know…” Pidge taps their chin. “You might be onto something.”

“I mean it’s just courtesy, right? Making sure we can give them all the information we possibly can?”

“You’re absolutely right. Okay, so you get first choice for dialogue and it looks like Not-Keith has a prompt for us.”

“Oh, gods. Okay, I am so sorry, Keith… Let’s see, here.”

…

Akira: We can’t keep meeting like this. What if people find out?

Leandro: I’m a prince, my sweet. I do what I want.

Akira: But you could be killed!

Leandro: You’re worth dying for.

Leandro: It’s my fault, anyway. I just couldn’t resist you.

Akira: It’s not your fault. I let you have me.

Leandro: You should let me have you again.

Akira: Please… I need it…

*Kiss Passionately*

Leandro: Oh, my sweet. You’re in season!

Akira: Make love to me, and I will give you a son.

…

“I feel dirty,” Lotor mutters. “This is what’s passing for entertainment right now?”

“It’s so bad! I love it!” Pidge snickers.

“Lance is going to be mortified.”

“No, he won’t.” The two new friends turn to see Adam leaning in the doorway, smirking.

“And why, pray tell, is that?” Lotor asks, one eyebrow almost reaching his hairline.

“Lance is bigger than that. He’ll be filled with a sense of… well-being.”

“Oh, gross! Adam!” Pidge chucks a wrench at the Altean’s head, the trio laughing as he dodges, then retrieves it for them. “I don’t want to hear about my friend’s dick!”

“Am I wrong?”

“No, and I hate it.” Pidge drags Adam to the floor, sits in his lap. “Okay, you can help us. What should Leandro say next? ‘A daughter would be fine’ or ‘Honor me with the gift of your flesh’?”

“Who the quiznak wrote this?” Adam mutters. “And we want ‘Honor me with the gift of your flesh.’”

“I don’t know, but I will find out. And kill them,” Lotor mutters.

“Easy on the instincts, Mr. Prince.” Pidge continues to the next cut scene.

“It’s nothing to do with instincts! I just hate that I had to read that!” Lotor sighs. “At least that cut scene is over. Now we have… Brothers, Sven and Kuron? Lots of new characters for this one.”

Adam blinks, gaping at the screen. “What. The fuck-”

...

Allura sighs, running a hand through her loose curls. It's been a rough morning, one that doesn't promise to get easier. A howling chorus of laughter cuts through her stressed thoughts. Cracking open a storeroom, she spies her husband, Adam, and Pidge laughing away at a video game.

"I wOuLd DiE fOr AkIrA," Pidge mocks, cackling.

"Leandro, please!" Lotor laughs, cutting through a false simper as he pretends to swoon. "I couldn't live without you!"

"That's such a toxic sentiment, honestly." Adam shakes his head, but his eyes are glittering bright.

Shaking her head, Allura leans in the doorway, settling a hand on her slightly protruding stomach. Life is never perfect, not for anyone. But seeing her husband playing around and having fun with their friends -his new friends- suggests that everything might still turn out alright. Or at least, not as awful as it sometimes seems.

#LoveAftertheFact #LAtF #klance #galtean au #altean lance #galra keith #adashi #altean adam #galra shiro #voltron legendary defender #vld

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astrodances · 6 years ago

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In the Dead of Night

Adashi is awesome and I love them! It was an honor to be able to write for the @confirmedloverszine! Check out the free PDF download of the zine here, and if you want to support The Trevor Project by purchasing some optional merch, you can do so here!

Really proud of all the amazing and talented contributors that I got to work alongside with for this zine! Great job everyone!

Summary: Some things can only be said in the dead of night, when everyone else is asleep...and you're millions of light-years apart...

Shiro paced back and forth in his quarters, his sometimes-glaring stare never losing sight of the little alien recording device perched on the edge of his bed. His thoughts kept oscillating between wanting to use the device and wanting to chuck it in the air and slice it with some fiery-hot robot-hand action.

Just pick it up already! his thoughts yelled at him. Record now, decide later.

With a sigh, Shiro began to reach for the recorder, but his hand fell short and he dropped it against his leg with a smack as he groaned.

He wanted to do this, but at the same time, he so did not want to.

It’s not that he was nervous about recording or anything—he was the leader of Voltron; he didn’t get stage fright. It’s just that the potential viewer of the recording made him nervous. And a whole other mix of emotions, too. Regret being at the forefront of them.

They’d been fighting so much when he left...

At an impasse, Shiro settled onto his mattress and buried his head in his hands.

Everything he wanted to tell Adam was on the tip of his tongue, and now he had a chance to tell him without actually telling him. None of the other Paladins knew he had a recording device. The only other person who would even know would be Sam, and that was just because Shiro needed him to deliver his message to Adam. It was a perfect set-up all around, so why couldn’t he just pour his heart out already?

A beep at the door broke his internal debate, and he welcomed the newcomer with a frustrated, “Come in.”

Coran entered after the doors parted for him. Shiro side-eyed him expectantly.

“Ah, Shiro, there you are! Lotor wanted me to give you this report.” He held out a holographic tablet, which Shiro took with a quiet thanks and placed on the bed next to him. Silence ensued, broken only by Coran asking, “Something wrong?”

Shiro eyed the advisor again, not really wanting to get into it with him. Yet he found himself asking, “Do you ever...wish you could go back and tell someone what you really feel about them? Before...it’s too late, I mean?” His eyes grew wide at his choice of question, but it was out there now and he couldn’t take it back.

Coran looked confused as he processed the question, before realization dawned on him. “Ah, is this about the recordings everyone is making for Sam to take back to your planet?”

Shiro shot up like a tree as he stuttered, “What? No, I-I mean, I only meant...what gave you that idea?”

Coran held up a hand to stop him before walking over to sit down next to him on the bed, pushing the tablet further back towards the wall and crossing one leg high over the other knee. He nodded past Shiro as he finally answered, “You have a recorder right there next to you.”

“Oh. Right...” Shiro reddened at the obvious giveaway.

Coran watched him before turning his stare to his hands on his leg, his voice softening. “I do wish I could though, yes. There wasn’t much time, but if I could go back, and tell King Alfor everything I wanted to before...” He took a steadying breath. “...before he left to face Zarkon, I’d do it in a tick.”

A chill ran down Shiro’s spine. When he thought about it, Coran and Alfor’s situation was similar to his and Adam’s, in its own way. Only he supposed he was in Alfor’s position, having gone on to fight Zarkon himself. “I’m sorry you didn’t get that chance,” he nearly whispered.

Coran shook his head. “Don’t be.” He placed a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “Just promise me you’ll use the chance you have, alright?”

Shiro picked up the recording device and gripped it in his hand.

“I promise.”

Click. Begin recording.

His first words were awkward as hell.

“Heeeeeey, Adam... Good news, I’m not dead!”

Shiro shrugged nervously towards the recorder held up in his hand as he scratched the back of his neck.

It was the middle of the night now, and everyone else was asleep. He’d taken station at the foot of his bed, his legs crossed underneath him and his back leaning slightly against the wall. He needed to relax; the talk with Coran had helped, but now he had to actually record the message.

“Sorry I couldn’t see you the last time I was on Earth. Iverson and then Keith beat you to the punch.”

He laughed a little, feeling some of the tension dissolve from his muscles as he imagined Adam groaning at his sense of humor.

“So, I’m not dead, as I’ve established, and...I’m still in outer space! Like, way, way, way out there. Out here, I should say. Kiiiiiind of been fighting an intergalactic war against an empire of purple aliens, the Galra...” He let that thought settle at the back of his tongue. Never would he have guessed that his boyhood dream of spaceflight would end up like this.

Shiro shook his head, plastering on the biggest smile he could manage, as if it could hide everything he’d seen, everything he’d been through. But the moment he started to speak again, the smile began to unravel.

“Sam will explain the war to everyone, but before I came back to Earth, I was their prisoner, along with Sam and Matt. I don't know what you heard, but–" He sighed as he looked away from the recorder, his eyes falling closed with the sound. He whispered his name, "Adam..."

He was alone. He could let his guard down just this once.

"Th-they took my arm."

The pain in his voice surprised him. He'd come to terms with what the Galra had done to him, and had even come to appreciate his arm's weapon capability in battle. But ever since his last imprisonment by the Galra after the fight with Zarkon, he'd felt confused, and hurt. The pressure was building, but there was no one he could turn to. He had to be the team leader.

But he could tell Adam. Even if he didn't understand, he could tell him.

Switching hands on the recorder, Shiro brought his right hand into view, wiggling his robotic fingers for emphasis. He then stared at it as he continued, his fingers curling into a ball.

"They made me fight. They made me kill just to survive, and they treated it like a sport. They were using me and I think they were trying to make me into some sort of weapon for them and they kept doing experiments on me and I couldn't move and-" He sucked in a choked sob, forcing himself to stay grounded in the present even as the tears fell freely. "I-I just wanted to see you again in those moments and get away from the pain and tell you I'm sorry. I thought that was going to be my last thought every single time and just...I'm sorry, Adam! I'm sorry I left and I'm sorry we fought and the worst part is, I'm sorry I would still leave if I had to do it all over again!"

His frustrated cry echoed in the nook of his bed as he slumped forward in exhaustion, his hands holding his head up against his knees as the recorder fell to the mattress, the lens now focused on the ceiling and the very tip of Shiro's hair.

That really was the worst part. Knowing what he knew now about the universe and the war and his role in Voltron, he would do it all over again. Except for one thing.

Through strangled breaths, he whispered, "Only this time, I-I would let you know how much you mean to me...before I did..."

Eventually, Shiro's sniffles subsided into silence, and he dried the tears from his face before picking the recorder back up with a tired, awkward grin.

"I've got a headache," he announced. He'd been having a lot of them lately, but this one felt even worse. "I'm going to go get some water, but I'll give you a tour of the Castle of Lions at the same time."

Shiro got up and shuffled into his Black Lion slippers and tied his Paladin robe around his waist, then went to the door. He poked his head out with a quick glance either way to make sure no one else was out and about. The last thing he needed besides someone catching him with his own recording device, was someone catching him with tear stains on his face in the middle of the night. Luckily, the coast was clear.

As he made his way to the kitchen, Shiro quietly relayed a summary of how they had found all the lions and formed Voltron, and how he was the Paladin of the Black Lion, the leader. He explained how they met Allura and Coran in the Castle, how they now had an alliance with the former emperor's son, and how the tides of the war were finally turning their way.

After getting a cup of water in the kitchen and taking a nice, slow sip, he noticed the food goo wall panel, and his eyes lit up as he grinned towards the recorder.

"Oh, you'd love this!" he insisted as he took the nozzle out. "The Alteans have what's known as 'food goo.' It might sound gross at first, but it's actually pretty good, and best of all-" He blasted a shot of food goo into his mouth as if it was a can of whip cream. "-there's no cooking involved! Perfect for me, eh?"

Shiro tiptoed through the rest of the Castle, showing off various rooms and features, including the Black Lion's hangar. The Black Lion purred for him when he gave a loving pat on her paw, making him smile through a wince at the noise she was making.

"Pretty loud, right?" he asked the recorder proudly.

The final stop was the observation deck, arguably Shiro's favorite room in the whole Castle.

He took a moment to pinpoint the general direction of the Milky Way and Earth on a star chart, then turned and crouched so he was facing the recorder with Earth's position just over his shoulder through the window. He pointed to the spot and said, "You're somewhere right about...here. So if you're out looking at the stars, give a little wave our way!"

Straightening out and turning back towards the window himself, Shiro took a moment to take in the raw beauty of space and, without thinking, reached his free hand out towards Earth, his fingers settling against the Altean glass.

"I wish you were here..." he confessed to the darkness. His face fell with a sigh but his gaze never strayed from his home planet. "I really do. I...I miss you, Adam. I think about you all the time and I don't know when we're coming home, but when we do, I...I just really want to see you again, okay?"

He looked back at the device in his hand, ready to end the recording. There was just one more thing he wanted to say, but given how they'd left things off before the Kerberos mission, he wasn't sure if Adam would want to hear it.

Still, there was no point in keeping the truth to himself. He just wished he didn't feel like he was saying it for the first time all over again when he finally did say it. At least Adam would probably get a kick out of the goofy, hopeful grin plastered on his face, if nothing else.

"I love you."

Click. End recording.

Shiro didn't bother sleeping for the rest of the night, or what little remained of it. Instead, he paced quietly outside the quarters of the one man he knew would be up before anyone else, the recording device tucked safely into the pocket of his robe.

Sam was set to depart for Earth that morning in an Altean pod. Everyone would see him off, and he’d get everyone else’s recordings then, which was why Shiro needed to give him his now. He didn’t want or need anyone else finding out about this.

When the doors to the quarters finally opened and Sam let out a surprised, “Shiro?,” the man in question stumbled in his footsteps before straightening himself out with a barely-dignified salute and a rushed, “Commander Holt, sir!” He’d been in the middle of a daydream of days past at the Garrison, when he and Adam would go for late-night strolls around the grounds. In his dazed state, it felt like Sam had caught them sneaking out. Perhaps he should’ve gotten some sleep while he had the chance.

Coming to his senses, Shiro shook himself out of it and offered an apologetic, tired grin. “Sorry, sir– Sam. Just got caught up in some thoughts. But good morning.”

Sam watched him, then relaxed into a smile of his own and answered, “Good morning. Can I help you with something?”

"Ah– yes." Shiro walked over to Sam and reached into his robe pocket, running his thumb along the device's edge. He pulled it out and stared at it in his palm, then thrusted it out towards the commander nervously. "Can you please...give this to Adam when you get back to Earth? Y-you know, if he wants it?" he rambled.

Sam peered at it until understanding dawned on him, and he glanced up at Shiro with gentle eyes. "Of course." He took the device and pocketed it, then placed a hand on Shiro's shoulder. He'd seen how he'd missed Adam during the Kerberos mission, how their final days on Earth had followed him out into space, even if he thought no one else had noticed. And here he was, still thinking about him. Sam wanted to chuckle at how sweet the sentiment was, but right now he knew the man needed a distraction. "Come on," he prompted. "Why don't you join me for my last breakfast in space?"

Shiro nodded and let Sam's arm loop around to his other shoulder as they headed to the kitchen. With the device out of his hands, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders. Sam would deliver the message, and whether or not he actually watched it, Adam would have it.

All Shiro had to do now was get back to Earth himself.

A knock against Adam's open office door tore his attention away from his computer, and he did a double-take when he saw his guest.

"May I come in?" Sam asked with a cheery smile.

"Commander Holt!" Adam immediately stood up from his desk chair and saluted. He'd heard of Sam's return to Earth and the Garrison, but hadn't gotten to see him yet. "Of course, sir! And welcome back."

"At ease, Adam." Forgoing all formalities, Sam rounded the corner of his desk and pulled Adam into a hug. Despite how he'd gone with Shiro into space after their fighting, Sam still saw Adam as the man Shiro had brought to family dinners before anything else. To him, he was family. "And thank you. Grateful to be back."

As they pulled away from the hug, Adam's throat burned with a thousand questions, all of which were silenced as Sam reached into the pocket of his uniform and pulled out a shiny metallic device.

"Listen, I'd hate to hug-and-run, but I have a presentation to prepare for you all. I just wanted to say hello and give you this. It's a recording from Shiro," Sam explained, offering it to him.

Adam's hand froze mid-reach. "Shiro? He's...still alive?"

Sam nodded, and Adam felt a tidal wave of emotions roll over him. All the hurt and betrayal he'd felt when Shiro took off for Kerberos mixed with a sense of relief coupled with fear. What did Shiro have to say to him after all this time? Was he mad? Adam wanted to be mad himself, but the anger drowned underneath everything else.

His hand fell to his side, his fingers numb.

Surprised, Sam stepped back and placed the device on the corner of his desk, and cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, if you do want to watch it, just press the button on the side. I've gotta go, but Colleen and I would love to have you over for dinner one of these nights."

Adam hummed some sort of agreement, eyes glued to the device now.

As he left, Sam paused in the doorway and looked back. "He still cares about you, you know."

Once alone, Adam felt a stab of selfish guilt enter his thoughts.

If Shiro has survived all these years, does that mean he's okay?

He felt terrible for thinking it, but it almost felt like they had a blank slate. He'd missed Shiro, of course he had, but the notion of Shiro risking his life by going into space in his condition had been too much to bear, and he'd forced himself to get away before they both got hurt, which had done little in the end.

But if Shiro was still alive, if he was okay, did that mean...they could be okay again?

Sam's parting words finally caught up to his brain. He still cares about you.

That was all the push Adam needed to shut down his computer and pack up for the day, keeping the device close to his heart as he hurried to his quarters. Locking all the doors and turning off the lights, he kicked off his boots and settled onto the couch.

He had no idea what was on the device, but a glimmer of hope sparked him to push the button on the side, and suddenly Shiro's face was floating right in front of him on a holographic screen.

He's okay.

“Heeeeeey, Adam... Good news, I’m not dead!” the recording played.

Adam choked out a laugh of relief through the tears welling up in his eyes. "Hey, Takashi," he heard himself say.

Shiro wasn't dead, and perhaps their love wasn't either.

#Confirmed Lovers Zine #Voltron #Voltron: Legendary Defender #VLD #Shiro #Adam #Coran #Sam Holt #my fanfics #hopeful angst

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hearmyvoiceoftreason · 6 years ago

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standing by and waiting by your back door || chapter 4

A/N: HI. SO.

it’s been a year but i hope ya’ll have been patient.

also, the part i featured in the snippet was moved to the next chapter.

anyways, here we go!

The afternoon sun was just about to set when Katie reached the streets of the neighborhood she shared with Shiro.

Contrary to popular belief, the times when both of them went to school and came home in the others’ company were few and far in between.

Shiro was an athlete -a star athlete at that- and that only meant he spent his mornings jogging before going to school in his family’s pickup truck and going home late after practices. Pidge never really had it in her to be an early riser and had way too much to do at home to stay at school too long after hours, so the bus was the only way to go for her, and maybe the occasional rides on Keith’s bike or even with Hunk and Lance if they had the time.

Her front lawn was already in view. Almost there, she thought.

Katie walked into her house and welcomed the comforting smell of freshly mown grass with open arms as she tiredly trudged the rest of the way.

Even if she wasn’t actually on the field with her boys, practice that day wasn’t any less strenuous for her.

This time she kept her laptop in her bag and instead had a pen and notebook out, ready to note down any flaws during practice and other player specialties she didn’t already know about to incorporate into the final strategy.

Official member or not, Katie was willing to do her part in beating Galra High.

And at last, she arrived at the door.

“I’m home!” Pidge called as soon as she entered.

Of course, the first to respond was Gunther, who immediately dashed to the door at the sound of her voice.

Smiling, Katie knelt down to stroke him between the ears, just like how he liked it. “Missed you too, boy.”

Excitable as he was, Gunther was a heavy sleeper and wouldn’t even as much as move when Katie left in the mornings or spent her nights in the living room binging away.

If she had to be brutally honest, she both cursed and thanked the fact that she and Shiro got to spend time together without being interrupted by Gunther’s barking.

“Hey, Baby Sis!”

Katie turned to Matt’s voice, finding him on the living room couch. “How are the Lions doing?”

From her peripheral, she noticed that her brother’s normally tall figure was hunched, most likely bent over his laptop and other schoolwork he had scattered all over the coffee table and couch cushions.

She stood up. “They’re doing pretty well. I only just barely laid out a flexible strategy they can use against Galra.”

“But?” he asked absent-mindedly.

“But it’s not foolproof.” She made her way to lean her forearms on the sofa backrest. “Still have to review all the past footage to see if there’s anything else they could do to counter their defense.” Pidge took the moment to scrunch her nose at the mess Matt had created. “By the way, Shiro said he’ll text you.”

“Got it.” Matt turned to his sister with a nod. “Thanks, Katie-cat.”

She wrinkled her nose again at the childhood nickname.

“Speaking of Shiro,” Katie started as she walked over to the unoccupied easy chair. “We’ll be powering through Hell Week here this Sunday.”

She didn’t miss the brief narrowing of Matt’s eyes in her direction. “By we do you mean just the two of you?”

Katie tried her best to feign nonchalance as she flopped onto the seat. “Nah, we got Hunk, Lance, and Keith with us this time.”

“Good, good.” Matt shifted as he moved his papers around. “Remind me to clock Shiro the next time I see him? Haven’t seen the guy in ages.”

“Hey, you know he’s just as busy as you. Maybe even more so.”

“Yeah but somehow he managed to find the time to binge watch all of Defenders of the Universe with you.”

Katie stiffened as her brother scowled at her.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”

And just as easily relaxed when he dropped the look. Relieved to find Matt not intending to question more into the topic, she stuck her tongue out. “That’s what you get for working late shifts with Dad.”

“Hey, I need the job experience!”

“Right.”

“Still though.” Matt leaned back. “Shiro rarely ever showing his face here yet somehow always squeezing in the time for you. There something you’re not telling me, Pidge?”

She shook her head. “No, Matt.”

Nice try.

While Matt may have known about her not-so-subtle crush on Shiro ever since her last year of middle school, he had yet to discover the fullest extent of her feelings.

This included the quiet pining which lead to her more recent slip-ups and her current… emotional dilemma.

She watched as her brother turned back to his laptop.

Matt didn’t know a thing and Katie planned to keep it that way. It was one less person to keep a hawk’s eye on and Pidge was going to take any blessings she was gonna get.

“You know he’s dating Allura.” She added easily.

Matt seemed to buy it just as quickly. “Oh yeah.” He briefly looked up from his work, as if mulling the thought, then looked back down. “Would’ve thought Shiro would marry into the family someday.”

Katie fought back how her body suddenly stiffened.

With a click of her brother’s tongue, she relaxed.

“Shame, Mom and Dad would have loved having him as an in-law.”

“ You marry him then. Pretty sure he’d say yes in a heartbeat.”

At this, Matt looked up with a snort. “Yeah, and we could be bros for life.”

“ Bro.” Pidge joked, “Tell the whole world that we’re bros. Why’d you whisper? Coz you’re my whole world, bro.”

“Bro.” she and Matt chortled in unison before dissolving into a fit of laughter.

Matt put up a serious face. “Shiro, would you be my bro, forever and always?”

Pidge reached for her phone in her pocket to open her messenger app.

“I dare you to text him that right now.”

“Doing that right now.” She said with a grin and hit SEND. She and Matt often had their moments of being in perfect sync.

Holt sibling telepathy, Katie mused.

But then again there were some things Matt had yet to know about Katie and vice-versa, so maybe it was more of a coincidental happenstance.

Damn, Katie thought. Allura’s vocabulary has really been rubbing off on me lately.

Her phone beeped.

Shiro: Pidge what the fuck

She hadn’t expected Shiro to respond so immediately, much less curse while he was at it.

Katie didn’t bother to stop the onslaught of cackles that erupted from her mouth.

“ Bro!” she laughed again.

Matt moved his laptop to the coffee table so he could turn to face her. “What’d he say?”

The resulting chortle from her brother as she read the text out loud for him was more than expected.

“Don’t be fooled Baby Sis, he’s totally considering the idea.”

“I can hear the bells already. But seriously though.” She paused to pocket her phone. “I don’t think he’d ditch his girlfriend for anyone, Matt.”

Especially not me. The thought was quick to voice itself in her mind and she was just as fast to shove it back.

��Nope, Shiro and I successfully and dutifully live by the Bro Code.”

Katie let out an unladylike snort. “What, to delete the other’s browser history in case one of you dies?”

“No, Katie-cat, bros before hoes.” He shifted to gesticulate. “Pals before gals. Friends, dudes, and playahs before Lady Lunafreyas.”

“Isn’t that from-“

“The point is, Baby Sis, is that Shiro would always put friends first. If he had to choose between his best friend and his girlfriend, the best friend would always come first.”

Innocent as the statement was coming from her oblivious brother’s mouth, the words still end up stunning her like a direct contact with a live wire. Her already overworked mind began to flurry a scenario, and Pidge had to fight back a wince as she shot it down.

No.

Matt didn’t mean it that way.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Okay.

“You doing okay, Pidge?”

“I’m alright. Just remembered I have some things to finish up due tomorrow.”

“Oh okay. I’ll yell for dinner.”

Pidge didn’t even bother giving her brother a second glance before trudging up the stairs with her backpack and heading straight into her room.

Read the rest on AO3 here -> x

#shidge #takatie #shatie #is this still a thing??? idk #and in this episode of bee has no concept of time #fic: sbawaybd #fanfic #mine

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roggling · 7 years ago

Note

Acxa is not used to the cold, she hates it, but she didn't know Earth could be so cold so she is not prepared for it at all. When Keith touches her he notices that she is freezing and covers her with a hat, gloves, scarf and a million jackets cause he doesn't want his crush getting sick. Acxa wanted to protest that she could handle it (LIES) but no one had cared so much about her in such a long time that she accepted her fate as a galra burrito. Also her crush is touching her and she is 🙃💜

So, like, I just...I guess this was some sort of an experiment for me? Kacxa really hasn’t had much romantic feelings (I still love the ship to pieces tho) so I tried? And it came out pretty long? Whoops? Enjoy? Read under the cut?

When Acxa arrived on Earth, she had no idea just what she was getting into. It was primitive compared to many planets she’s visited, but, when finding of how old the planet was, she realized that Earth will be more advanced than anything she’s ever seen.

That’s the people of Earth, the planet itself is beautiful. Keith and the Paladins had shown her around in their free time, taking her to some of the most beautiful places she has ever seen and building up their bond from acquaintances to friends. But a wacky thing about Earth is that it has a strange climate.

In the daytime, the temperatures are fairly warm in the desert; it isn’t as hot as some other planets she’s visited.

In the nighttime, however, the desert drops to extreme cold weather. Some of the coldest she’s been in.

This, she learned on the ride to the Kogane residence for the Holidays. The Paladins all went to their families, Allura, Coran, and Romelle tagged along with the McClains for the holidays, for the seasonal celebrations for the first time since their return.

Since she had no family, the Paladins actually made plans to celebrate the holidays together the following day to pass time with her and as friends. Krolia, however, stepped in and invited Acxa to their shack for Christmas, Keith almost immediately agreeing to the idea.

He totally got teased for it by Pidge later on.

Acxa sped through the desert sand on the dirt bike the Garrison lent her and she sped her way to the coordinates Krolia gave her. The sunsets in the desert were beautiful, some of the most beautiful she’s ever seen on a planet. Sure, it was nothing compared to the sunsets multiple suns at the same time, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Her hair swooshed behind her as she sped faster and faster and Acxa felt the air cool exponentially as the sun descended under the horizon. She shivered and attempted to pull at the cloth at her neck to cover more skin. It didn’t work, but she didn’t mind it that much and she shrugged it off.

After a while, Acxa finally saw the shack in the far distance and she slowed the bike, swinging her feet off the seat as she approached the steps. She leaned it against the porch’s banister and she shivered when a chilly breeze nipped at her nose.

She let out a shaking breath and she gasped when a puff of white flowed out of her mouth, her eyes widened and she cupped her mouth and whispered to herself, “What the quiznak?”

Acxa then felt a warmth from her breath and she sighed, starting to blow into her hands, the warm breath ricocheting back onto her face.

She took the two steps to the house’s porch, her shivering getting more intense

with each second she spent outside. The warm glow of the house’s light coaxed her to walk faster and she mustered up the courage to knock. She lifted her hand to knock on the door at the same time as the door opened. Her hand fell back to her side and her eyes widened when she stood face-to-face with Keith.

His lips curled up in a small smile and he greeted, “Umm. Hi.”

Acxa smiled and returned the greeting, “Hi.”

They just stood there awkwardly, both adults avoiding each other’s eyes trying to hide their blush, before they both heard pounding footsteps approaching them. Krolia stood behind Keith, her entire form bundled in multiple jackets, scarves, and sweaters.

They both looked over Keith’s shoulder to look at Krolia and the older Galra smiled, “Acxa! You made it just in time! Come, I’m making something called “hot chocolate”.”

Keith blinked and his eyes jumped from between Krolia and Acxa, a horrified look on his face and…blush? No, that must be from the cold. Keith doesn’t blush. Heck, he rarely smiles outside of Team Voltron.

Acxa smiled and stepped into the threshold when Krolia pulled herself and Keith away from the door. She sighed in relief that it was slightly warmer in the house than it was outside, but her breath was still iced and she was still puffing.

Krolia went ahead and headed back into the kitchen to let the young adults talk. Keith stuffed his hands in his pocket and gestured to the couch, “Uh, sit down.”

Acxa slowly sat down, surprised to find the seat much more luxurious than anything she has ever sat on before and she sunk into the couch’s soft, cold cushions.

Keith looked down at the shivering girl and he immediately shrugged off his jacket and offered it to her. Acxa looked up confused and Keith elaborated, “Take it. I guess mom forgot to tell you how cold it gets down here.”

Acxa took it hesitantly, her claws brushing Keith’s knuckles, and she shrugged it on. Keith left her to put it on, Acxa fighting off a deep sigh when the warm fabric immediately warmed her up. She crossed her arms and dug her head deep into the high collar, a faint masculine smell filling her nostrils with its soft scent.

Keith then came tumbling back inside wearing a new jacket and carrying three other articles of clothing in his hand. Acxa looked up owlishly and Keith ordered, “Stand up.”

Acxa followed the orders obediently, although she didn’t know how he’s gained so much power over her, and stood. Keith then proceeded to lead her arm into another jacket, his warm hand holding hers sparking more heat in her body than both jackets combined.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she stuttered.

“You’re cold. Galrans are more sensitive to cold than humans are. You need these,” he explained.

“I can put on a jacket myself,” Acxa argued.

Keith chuckled, “I know. I still want to.”

Acxa tried to look at his eyes, but he hung his head low and his bangs partially covered his violet eyes. His raven hair started brushing her nose as he took a step closer to put another jacket on her. Now, his nose was just a hair’s breath away from touching her own and their hot breaths are mingling together, the only sound coming from their breathing.

Then, when Keith tried to put her right hand in its sleeve, he couldn’t get it around the two other jackets. Keith looked up sheepishly and smiled nervously, “Uh, could you, twirl around?”

Acxa twirled around and she felt Keith slide her arm up into the sleeve. However, when she turned back to face him, she tripped on the rug under the couch and she clashed into Keith, his hands immediately placing themselves on her waist to steady her. Her head landed on his chest and she immediately balanced herself.

Yet, she still doesn’t know why she’s still holding on to him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered almost inaudibly.

“It’s fine,” Keith responded just as quietly.

“There’s a mistletoe above your heads,” Krolia added loudly, making both adults jump, though still not letting go of their embrace.

Both looked up with wide eyes and, sure enough, there was a mistletoe plant hanging from the ceiling from a red ribbon. Acxa went red in the face once she recognized the plant from Lance’s jokes in the Garrison.

From her understanding after Lance explained succeeding to catch Allura under the mistletoe when one is caught under the mistletoe, they need to kiss the person

they’re with or they get fed to the klanmürl. Or something like that.

She felt the blood rush to her face and her eyes widened. Before she could look at Keith’s eyes, she took interest to the floor and glued her gaze onto the very interesting rug.

Keith, however, had none of that.

He took her chin between her thumb and middle finger and lifted her face to look up at him.

Her eyes looked up into his purple eyes: his first feature she was intrigued by. They were kind. They were intense. They were passionate. They were caring. They were powerful. They were wise. They were the windows of his soul. And right now, she’s scared to identify the look he’s giving her now; it makes her feel warm, makes her feel safe. It’s doing something to her, she doesn’t know what. All she knows is that she likes it.

“I’m just…going to give you two some privacy,” Krolia added, immediately dashing out of the room after she sees the tension between the two.

They don’t even react to the interruption; their gazes are glued to the other’s eyes.

Her eyes are like magnets, Keith decided; they lure him to her. Those eyes were hidden from him the first time they met, hidden by a mask meant to hide her from him. Those eyes were angry with him the second time they met, both of them held at a standstill in their first encounter as enemies.

Those eyes were glaring at him the third time they met, but it was right after she saved him from an attacking Galra. Those eyes were attacking him the fourth time they met, him having returned from the abyss and her fighting on the opposite side again.

The fifth time, though, was the first time he truly thought about her eyes. The fifth time, they fought on the same side for the first time. The fifth time, they connected in a way he never has with anyone before.

After that, he couldn’t keep track of the times he’s been mesmerized by her eyes, heck, he couldn’t count the times he’s been mesmerized by her period.

And now really shouldn’t be the time to do an introspection of their relationship. Not when she is in his arms and her breath hitting his neck. Not when she’s looking like that while looking at him like that.

“We don’t have to-,“ Acxa swallowed her words down when Keith pushed his lips

on hers. The two of them kissed each other ravenously, eating each other up and pulled themselves closer than they had ever imagined.

Keith’s hands gripped onto Acxa’s top-layered jacket and pulled her flush against him, the jacket balled up into his fist as he feverishly moved his mouth against hers.

Acxa moved her hands to Keith’s jaw, her fingertips gently brushing the skin right under his ears, smiling when Keith kissed harder with each brush of her fingers in that area. When Keith would pull away for air, Acxa barely gave him breathing time before smashing her lips on his again and sliding her tongue into his mouth. That roused out a noise out of him that she just found more delicious

After some…tongue maneuvers…the two ceded and kissed themselves out of their high. Their once-long kisses shortened to short, cute pecks on the lips, nose, neck, and forehead until the two finally calmed down enough to be able to form words in their head.

Acxa smiled up at Keith and he returned one equally warm and the two stood in a comfortable embrace before breaking out in hysteric laughter.

“That was…” Acxa began, her giggles dying down.

“Unexpected…” Keith finished, wiping a tear from his eyes.

“…Late seemed more appropriate for my situation,” Acxa corrected.

“Well, it’s only been a few months for me,” Keith justified.

“Three years, Keith. I’ve been waiting for you for three years,” Acxa teased.

“You did not wait for me that long,” Keith argued, the two adopting an unusual teasing tone.

“I did too. I don’t just let anyone escape from my clutches. Nor do I save just anyone from losing in a fight,” Acxa smiled, her eyes wrapping around Keith’s neck again.

“Really?”

“Yes. They have to have the flippity hair,” to emphasize her point, Acxa brushed her fingertips on his forehead and moving his bangs aside.

Keith smirked, “Shut up. You fell for this flippity hair.”

He didn’t give her time to respond before he started kissing her again.

“You see that Tex?” Krolia asked the air, a smile playing on her face as her son exchanged kisses with the sweet girl in the living room.

She didn’t wait for a response. She wasn’t expecting one. He was long-gone before she could do anything, but she still felt him there with her.

“We made that.”

Outside, the snowflakes dancing in the night sky danced faster, hitting the wind chimes out their door.

Krolia smiled. “Merry Christmas, Tex.”

#kacxa #my works #kacxa fics #kexa #keith x acxa

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