jiangyanlissidepiece · 10 months ago
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Where are all the Voltron fics where earth gets destroyed before they can return to it
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Inspired by @mdoodlerfandomart 's Coalition Lance AU.
~~~
The Voltron team was in a somber mood as they made their way back to Earth. Pidge a bit less so, because she was so looking forward to seeing her mom and dad, but even that only served to remind her that one of their own wouldn't be coming home to his family. The Voltron team had a Lance shapped hole in their ranks and everyone was feeling his absence.
Coran missed the incesant chatter from the coms which Lance had usually initiated, and Allura missed their gossip beauty sessions. Shiro had an immense amount of guilt over Lance's capture, despite technically not having been there when it happened. He contantly wondered if his clone had somehow set Lance up in an ambush, and hated that his memories of that time were disjointed and blurry at best.
Pidge busied herself by radioing every ship and planet within distance to ask if they had seen a man, tall, brown skin and blue eyed, but everyone she could get in contact with said no. (On the plus side of this process, though, they did discover that the Coalition seemed to be in good hands, so that was a relief, at least.)
Hunk kept a small notebook where he drafter hundreds, if not thousands, of ways in which he might have to break the news to Lance's family that their son, brother, cousin, uncle, etc., was MIA, likely presumed dead. None of them were completed because Hunk inevitably broke down in tears every time before he could finish any of them.
And Keith... well, Keith kept holding onto hope that Lance was alive, somewhere in the wide universe. He simply refused to believe that Lance was dead. The team kept telling him he was in denial, but it was the only thing that kept him going. Otherwise he didn't think he'd be able to function. He often played with one of Lance's necklaces that Keith now wore and wondered about his whereabouts.
If he was in a good mood, Lance had escaped to a planet of peaceful aliens and awaited rescue. It was his greatest, most indulgent daydream that they defeated the Galra once and for all and Keith led a rescue mission to find Lance, found him and brought him home. However, if he was in a bad mood, he tended to imagine progressively worse case scenarios that left him on the verge of a panic attack and spiralling. It was the uncertainity that got to him and wore him down.
As the Earth finally appeared in front of them, Red and Blue picked up speed and went ahead of the rest to spearhead the formation. It was a bit unusual, but the Paladins didn't have the energy to question it. There were a lot of mixed emotions in the group and they were absolutely exhausted in every way that mattered. The comms were quiet. Each Paladin was lost in their thoughts, and their missing Paladin weighed heavily in their minds.
Suddenly, as they entered the Earth's athmosphere, the comms began to crackle.
"Earth to Voltron, do you copy?"
Every single one of the Paladins startled in their seat and their eyes widened in disbelief. They turned on their comms and cameras. They all looked at each other as if they had seen a ghost. Hunk was the first to break the silence.
"Was that...?"
"Earth to Voltron, do you copy?" the voice repeated and this time Keith yanked the radio out of its base as his heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest.
"Lance?! Voltron to Earth, we copy. Lance, is that you?!" Keith yells into the receiver.
"Keith?! Oh my gosh, you're alive!" Lance exclaimed on the other side.
"What do you mean I'm alive? You're alive!" Keith retorted and he couldn't help the smile on his face or the tears in his eyes.
Just then they received a notification of an incoming live transmission that Pidge immediately accepted. A new screen popped up in front of them and there he was, alive and breathing, the one and only, Lance McClain.
On the screen, he laughed incredulously as he wiped at his eyes and said, "Hey guys, it's been a while."
What followed was chaos: everyone began talking at the same time, raising their voices to be heard above the others, and asked all sorts of questions wanting to know how Lance ended up on Earth, how he escaped the Galra, was he okay, he he seen their families, were they okay and the cockpit descended into pandemonium as Lance valiantly attempted to answer all of them.
Keith, however, was quietly taking in and just looking at his boyfriend after years of holoscreens and memories. Lance was no longer a lanky, awkward teen. He'd filled out: his shoulders broadened and, while still thin, he seemed to have gained a lot of muscle. His face had sharpened and Keith could see a bit of stubble on his chin and cheeks. He had a few new scars, too. He was also wearing a Garrison unifform, with a few medals in it.
"Keith?" Lance asked, and Keith realized he'd just missed most of the conversation. Keith smiled.
"Hey, sharpshooter," he replied. Lance sent him a flirty smirk in return.
"What? Did you miss me?"
"You have no idea," Keith answered and didn't care if he was being sappy in front of the Paladins and however many people were in the command center. Lance chucked wetly and his gaze softened.
"We're ready for you to land. Unfortunately, our hangars aren't anywhere near large enough for the lions, but there's an open field right outside. Crew members will be waiting for you in their vehicles to bring you to base. There are some people here who can't wait to see you guys!"
Keith raised an eyebrow. Lance looked, and sounded, so mature... so professional. It was hard to believe he was the same goofball he fell in love with.
"How come you're at the helm?" he asked. Lance smirked, but it was Pidge who answered.
"If you hadn't been so busy making oogly eyes at him, you would have heard that he's the head of the coalition. You know, the one we've hearing about," she snarked with a shit-eating grin on her face.
"Wait, for real?!" Keith exclaimed.
Lance gasped and grabbed his chest in a wounded gesture, "You heathen! Can you sound a little less surprised? Do you really have so little faith in me? You wound me!"
Someone out of shot of camera in the command center said something to Lance that the Paladins didn't manage to catch. Lance's reaction, though, was telling enough. He scoffed in mock offense and replied, "You take that back!"
Keith laughed. It was nice to see his Lance in this new, grown version of him. He asked, "How did that even happen?"
Lance scoffed again and rolled his eyes, "Again, it's a very long story and I don't want to clutter the frequency. You're welcome to come for dinner at mine's and I'll tell you all about it." Lance winked.
"Fine," Keith relented.
"Transmission over," Lance said and his screen disappeared. Only then did Keith pay attention to the looks of awe and joy in the rest of the Paladins. Hunk was even openly crying and babbling about how glad he was that Lance was okay. Keith felt the same.
It was as if a stone had been lifted off of his chest and now he could breathe! Liquid fire poured through his veins and, for the first time in a long while, he felt like he could battle a hundred cruiseships and win! Red purred in his mind, and Keith was transported back to the very first time he flew red, before the war and their losses had worn down his excitment and passion for flying a sentinent lion in space. He smirked.
"Race you," he said, and sped down towards the Earth at full speed. Red happily obliged.
"You cheat!" Pidge yelled and gave chess.
Hunk followed with an indignant, "Hey!"
Allura, Shiro and Coran laughed joyously and tried to catch up.
Keith didn't care all that much, to be honest. He had a very pressing reunion to get to, after all.
~~~
I hope you liked it! It's just a scene, and it doesn't encompass a lot of events but I wanted to focus on the characters. I'd like to explore other scenes, perhaps later, from Lance's POV on Earth or maybe Keith's POV when he first finds out Lance is missing until they exit the time dilation worm hole thingy.
Let me know what you think!✌🏼
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autisticlancemcclain · 1 year ago
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“You want us to what.”
Lance doesn’t give a flying fuck how angry he sounds. Potential diplomatic crises be damned. Hell, he wants to cause a crisis. Wants to raise some hell.
The dignitary sniffs derisively. “The beast is a dangerous pest, Blue Paladin.”
“Not the blue paladin,” Lance growls, because he isn’t, “and I am not murdering an animal in cold blood just because you can’t deal with it properly.”
“Lance,” Allura hisses, but he has no problem ignoring her.
“Can’t deal with it properly — do you hear your paladin!” the dignitary sputters, waving an angry hand in Lance’s direction.
Shiro closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, before plastering on a tight smile and visibly trying to salvage the situation. Now, usually, Lance would hate to cause Shiro any stress at all, and would do whatever he could to reduce that stress.
This time, Lance is going to dig his heels in. He is not going to let a living being be needlessly exterminated. Lance isn’t anti-animal death, or anything — he has no problem with others eating meat, or using animal products. He thinks using animals as gifts and not letting any part of them go to waste is very wise, and he has a lot of respect for people who manage to do so successfully. Sport hunters, on the other hand, or people who kill without good reason? Therein lies his problem, and he’s beyond happy to make a big stink of it.
“Could you describe the beast?” Shiro asks.
“Happily,” the dignitary grumps. “I’m eager to describe its horror to you, Oh Great Leader of Voltron.”
Shiro visibly tries very hard not to roll his eyes. Lance refuses to take any joy in the reaction, even though he would usually laugh.
“The beast is as large as half our royal castle. Its teeth are larger than our tallest soldier, and sharper than a luxite blade. Its fur is rough and coarse, enough to sand the paint clean off the walls it brushes by. Its roar shakes the very foundations of our city. It walks on four legs but stands on two, right before it rears up to smash our buildings to dust. It is a menace, a pest, and a danger besides!”
“So you have a grizzly bear problem,” Lance snaps. “Close your garbage cans at night and quit complaining.”
“Lance, please,” Hunk mutters, but Lance will not back down. Not when a life is at stake.
“Has it actually…hurt anyone?” Keith asks.
Lance shoots a grateful look at Keith.
At least someone is on his side.
“Yes!” the dignitary cries.
Keith shoots a look back at Lance — a well, I tried if Lance has ever seen one — but that is not good enough. Lance glares at him.
Traitor.
“Explain,” Lance demands.
The dignitary frowns, looking down his nose at Lance and shaking their head. “I’m not talking to you.”
“Would you mind explaining,” Pidge deadpans, barely refraining from rolling her eyes.
Lance knows Pidge well enough to know that she’s not on his side, exactly — she threw a bolt at him when he started insulting the dignitary initially — but there’s nothing that pisses her off more than someone talking down to her family. Even if she doesn’t agree with said family. She’s loyal, like that.
“Fine, since you asked so nicely,” the dignitary says, cutting a look to Lance, who makes a very crude gesture with his hands in response and ignores the four (4) tired sighs from assorted teammates and co around him.
“The beast easily and ruthlessly took down several of our soldiers as soon as they opened fire on it. And it further still injured many of our knights when we sent them to its cave! It is a mindless, killing machine, and must be exterminated immediately.”
Lance throws his hands up in exasperation. “No shit it’s defending itself! What do you expect it to do, stand there while you shoot at it?”
“If it didn’t want to be shot it shouldn’t have ventured into the city in the first place!”
“It’s an animal! How the hell is it supposed to understand city limits and boundaries?”
“That’s not my problem,” the dignitary says coldly. “It has posed a threat to our people, and so it must die. And if Voltron wishes for our signature in the Coalition, you will come to our aid, or else you can count yourself down one planet’s alliance.”
Allura stiffens. “You would really risk your people’s protection over a difference in opinion?”
“Your blue paladin —”
“I am not the blue paladin, you brainless amoeba —”
“Your blue paladin,” the dignitary repeats, pointedly and icily, “has insulted us greatly. The situation is no longer up for debate. If you wish to sign an alliance, the paladin must handle the problem himself. That is our final stipulation.”
With that, the dignitary ends the call, cutting off Shiro’s pleas for him to wait.
All eyes turn to Lance.
“I am not killing an innocent animal,” Lance snaps. “Forget it.”
Keith sighs. “Lance —”
“No.” Lance clenches his fists, glaring at his team, chin raised and shoulders set. Beside him, Mr. Snuggles spreads his fangs and hisses. The mice — currently resting on his head — scramble to their feet, presumably also tensing up. Ivy — a venomous vine he picked up on a planet a few missions back — winds up his arms. “I am not just being ridiculous. You heard that idiot. They’re provoking it. It’s not doing anything wrong.”
“Lance —” Keith tries again, but Lance is not willing to hear it.
“I will not take an innocent life to buy an alliance. And if you do, I swear to God, I will never forgive you.”
With that he stomps out of the bridge, ignoring the dozens of calls of his name and pleas to “wait a goddamn second, Lance, c’mon.”
Lance stomps all the way to his room, muttering about stupid careless dignitaries and team members who won’t listen to him and how everyone is going to make him grey early and he is not Shiro, lord above, so he can’t pull that garbage off. Ugh.
He slams his door behind him and flops on the bed, and is marginally surprised to find his tears stinging his eyes.
“This is a stupid reason to cry,” he announces to no one, voice muffled in his pillow. “Why must I cry about stupid things. Why can’t I cry about regular things. This is dumb.”
There’s a clicking sound accompanying a gentle bump to the leg hanging off his bed. He drags his head off the pillow, sniffling, to see Mr. Snuggles sitting to the side of his bed, fangs clicking. The mice sit on his head, as they are wont to do (which, understandably considering the natural predator of mice, used to scare the shit out of Allura. But Mr. Snuggles has never been anything but gentle with them, even when they roughhouse on his back or play tag under his leg and accidentally trip him. He seems to be quite protective of them, actually. It’s very sweet. Lance thinks it might be a microhylid frog-giant tarantula situation, even though Mr. Snuggles can’t lay eggs, and it amuses him greatly). Ivy uncoils from his bed frame, wrapping a vine around his ankle and tugging carefully. Blue and Red both loudly mother him in the back of his mind.
It’s nice.
Lance sighs, wiping his tears and sitting up against his headboard.
“This sucks,” he says to his assortment of companions, all who seem to agree with him. Mr. Snuggles and the mice crawl up the leg of the bed to sit in front of him, and Ivy makes her way around his shoulders.
None of them can talk to him, obviously — how fucking cool would that be, though — but each one of them is an excellent listener (even the mice, who like to gossip, but Lance preemptively forgives them).
“It’s just —” Lance huffs, frustrated. “I get that the planet is probably tired of being lightly terrorized by a giant beast, sure, but is murder really the answer? Plus, have they even tried talking to it? Maybe it’s very reasonable! I’m sure I —”
Lance shoots up, startling poor Ivy, but holy shit.
Holy shit!
“That’s it!” he shouts, grin nearly splitting his face in two. He leans over, just barely managing to grab his holopad, and starts sketching out the plans.
“Now if I just — and it shouldn’t be too hard — I’ve done more in less time — hell yeah!”
He’s startled out of his fervour by urgent squeaks, and when he looks up, he sees the mice waving to get his attention.
“Yes?”
At his acknowledgement, they scurry into formation, laying together to make a question mark with their little bodies.
Lance snorts. He may not be able to speak their language, but they have no problems making themselves clear.
“I can’t tell you,” he scolds, “you’re going to snitch to Allura.”
They mice squeak sadly, but Lance knows better. Last time he gave in to them, Allura knew within the minute.
“I’ll be back soon, okay? Don’t wait up for me. Platt, Chulatt, Plachu, Chuchule — there’s some of that fancy grain you like in the cupboard. Mr. Snuggles — here.” He opens up space youtube, quickly opening up a horror movie reaction compilation for the fear demon. “That’ll keep you fed for a bit.” He props the holopad up on his pillow, scrambling to his feet and heading to the door. On the way out, he pulls the string on his special blue sun lamp — “That’s for you, Ivy!” — and then he’s out the door, plans in hand, to find Coran.
Luckily for Lance, he runs straight into him.
“Lance, dear, I was just coming to look for you,” Coran says, right outside his door.
Lance grins. “I can see that.”
Coran narrows his eyes. “You’re… remarkably chipper, Number Four.”
“Mhm.”
He holds up a hand for Coran to pause. He strains his ears, and smirks as he just barely picks up on the sound of near-silent footsteps behind a closed door. He makes pointed eye contact with the advisor, then inclines his head at Keith’s door.
Coran gets the point.
“Well, if you’re really feeling so much better,” Coran says loudly — too loudly, but Lance doesn’t have much in the subtlety department either, so he can’t complain — “would you mind helping me recalibrate the fabricator?”
“Absolutely,” Lance says, dragging the advisor by the hand in the opposite direction of the fabricator.
“Will you speak plainly, now?” Coran asks, once they’ve put some distance between them and Keith’s eavesdropping ass. (That is, however, probably an unfair reaction. Keith was likely listening in to try and find a way to help, in his own awkward way. If Lance wasn’t currently feeling just a smidge betrayed, he would feel touched.)
“Okay, so. I have a Plan.” Lance puts emphasis on the word so Coran knows it’s Capitalized, because this isn’t just a regular plan. This is a rescue mission. It’s espionage. A heist, even.
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes!”
Coran sighs, dragging a hand down his face.
“Lance,” he says warningly, but Lance won’t hear it.
“C’mon, Coran! You trust me, right?”
“That is a manipulative question —”
“You trust me! You said so yourself!”
“Fine, child. Yes, I trust you.”
Lance claps his hands together. “Excellent! So. I refuse to be a murderer, as you may have heard.”
“That would have been very hard for me to miss,” Coran says drily.
Lance gracefully ignores the comment. “And since I will also go apeshit if anyone else becomes a murderer, I have come up with a plan!”
“Lance. Number Four. My dear. Time is not our current luxury. Please share your plan.”
“Right. Okay.” Lance rocks back on his heels, shooting Coran a guileless smile. “How well do you think you can imitate my mannerisms?”
———
part two
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seldomscilence16 · 21 days ago
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Whumptober Day 10;
Blow To the Head
Slurred words | Passing out from pain | “I can’t think straight.”
Fandom: Voltron
(I couldnt not after seeing the quote)
...
The mission had gone wrong almost immediately in Lance’s opinion.
They let the planet leaders give the orders, that was their first mistake, and though Lance had gone to object- quietly, to the side- he had been shut down with a look before a word had even formed. Instead the team had agreed to whatever was said, like they hadn’t learned this lesson several times over, but then again, Allura and Coran hadn’t been present to head the diplomatic side of things- their second mistake. With Allura sick- some space, quintessence, something rather flu- and Coran tending to her and the castle, they’d gone ahead with the alliance meeting to keep themselves on track with whatever schedule it was they were trying to keep- they changed it so often Lance just referred to Pidge’s program rather than try and remember it.
Mistake number three, not telling the team exactly what they should be doing down here. Instead, the team seemed to have taken it as a challenge to land this planet all on their own. And while Lance loved these losers, he’s pretty sure the shared brain cell is sick with Allura.
Long story short, the team had been split up, the cliche ‘we must test you before we join your coalition’, each being sent to a different area to find something that the leaders wanted. They were assured that their own people did quests like this all the time, and that they were sure ‘The Great Defenders of the Universe would be able to pass them with ease, certainly?’ So of course Shiro and Keith were ready for the team to prove themselves, and Pidge didn’t like being looked down on. Lance hadn’t liked the look in the leaders’ eyes, like they knew something more, like this was going to simply be an entertaining little show. It had twisted his stomach with anxiety, and Hunk had been the only one even slightly on his page- though it had been more of an uneasiness of going alone than anything.
Lance had been sent to a mine of some kind, to find a ‘large gem of immense beauty’. Everything had sounded rather trivial in Lance’s opinion, he had hoped it would be easy and quick and they could just get out of here- even if he knew that wasn’t how it was going to go.
He had gotten to his location first, the others still trekking as complaints and comments were passed over the comms- the only thing keeping Lance's heart in his chest. He’d entered with caution, the lone winding path was rather strange for a mine, no branching passageways or alcoves to speak of, simply a long tunnel with only his own wrist light to guide him. The banter is pleasant background noise, a comfort in the otherwise uneasy situation, but his shoulders remain tense, and his bayard ready.
“Ugh, how far is this stupid swamp?” Pidge bemoans for the umpteenth time.
“The planet didn’t look this big from above.” Hunk agrees with a puff of exerted air.
“Just keep going guys, Lance hasn’t complained so you guys can stick it out.” Keith’s exasperated response has little bite, but perhaps Lance is only hearing as such because he’s so focused, usually this is where they argue and throw insults.
Lance doesn’t.
His eyes are on the glowing thing in front of him.
“Lance?” Shiro’s voice is concerned, but he barely registers it.
“S’not a gem.” He gets the statement out, but despite his raised blaster, the blow across the back of his skull is hard and quick.
His world goes dark to the shouts of teammates and the glowing eye the last thing he sees.
.
“..wear to Gods Lance, if you don’t respond-”
“..Don freatenme…” It sounds off to his own ears, past the ringing and aching pounding.
“Oh thank goodness, Lance, buddy, how you feeling?” Hunk's voice comes as if through water, but Lance would know that anxious lilt anywhere.
“M’fine…” He pushes himself onto his elbows slowly, head swimming- ha, that's where the water came from… wait, there's no water…
“Lance, focus on our voices kiddo, what happened?”
“Nottaflippingem.” The mumble turns into a groan as he fully sits up, trying to focus his eyes enough to see.
“He’s not thinking straight, I can’t understand a thing.”
“Ayenever thhhink ssstraight.” Lance tries to sound proud, but at this point he sounds ridiculous to his own ears.
The silence lingers past the buzzing, his eyes slowly taking in the dark walls around him, thankfully sans a glowing eye. He brings a hand to the back of his head, feels the tacky wetness and cringes. Coran would probably insist on a pod… ugh.
“Lance, Hermano, now's probably not the time you should have come out.”
“Yeeer prbably rrright…. H’ve to gettoutta the darrk closset firssst…”
Lance scrunches his lips upwards, wasn’t his best analogy, but he thinks he has a pretty good excuse.
“You’re still in the mine then?” Shiro brings them back to topic, a breathless quality to his voice like he’d been running.
Lance examines the rock closest to him, finding the same drury and rough surface he’d been surrounded in since he’d begun the journey.
“Prbably.” He pushes back against the wall, getting slightly trembling legs to cooperate and push himself upwards. “Crrful uf the eyye… i’sss mean.” He groans as his head spins, “Stoopid plan… buut nnoonnee lissstens to Laannnce…” He mumbles grouchily under his breath, swaying a bit before he raises his wrist to try the light.
Spots dance in his vision at the sudden brightness, but he supposed there wasn’t much to see anyway. Rocks and rocks and rocks and darkness… he swallows thickly, looking up slowly like every horror movie ever told him not to, finding a hole in the ceiling but no movement. Great.
“Are you saying you’re not alone down there Lance?” Pidge’s voice comes through for the first time, breaking the silence that had befallen them again. Lance didn’t typically like silence, but he was having a hard time noticing it right now.
“Thaa gem, wassn’t a gem.” He declares again, a little annoyed at having to repeat himself so often. “Waas an eeyyye.”
“We’re almost there Lance, can you find your way out of there?”
Lance has been sluggishly making his way down the passage, having picked a direction with disturbance on the ground as his sign of his previous whereabouts, but as the path splits into four, he wonders if he’s been turned around.
“Harrderrr th’n aye th’ght…”
“It's a little glitchy, but I have you on my map.” Pidge starts, a grunt interrupting her that has Lance’s brow furrowing, “I can use it to feel our way to you, but there's no actual mapping lines on it, the mines aren’t showing up properly.”
Figures… He hears something shift behind him and tenses up.
“M’ght wanna hurrry…” He mumbles, as something wraps around his ankle and he’s sweeped off his feet.
The small passageway leaves little room to go anywhere, the long vine-like thing swinging him around and slamming him from one rocky surface to the next. From his peripheral he spots the gem like glowing eye, he reaches for his storage compartment, willing his bayard to his hand. The light glows for only a moment, a small handheld gun not unlike a pistol, a familiar weight in his hand. Despite how he's thrashed around, how his head rings and his vision spots, he takes aim as best he can.
The shot goes off, there's an ear piercing screech, Lance goes flying.
The air is knocked from his lungs, no sound reaches his ears as pain burns in raging waves, he impacts with the floor, struggling to inhale. As spots dance in his vision once again, and twitching limbs only worsen his ailments, his last thought is only of the team.
“You sent us on fools errands!” Keith seethes.
“Paladins, we were only testing-”
“This was no test! If we were to make it to our own destinations, danger would have been waiting for us too! Were you trying to kill us, or did you have some other sick motive?” Pidge spits the accusations, her scanner bleeping its warnings from her scans of their intended destinations.
“How insulting! If this is how you act-”
“This is how we respond, to one of our teammates being sent towards their death. You’d do well not to anger us further.” Allura glides into the room, skin still paler than usual, but a regal anger about her as she passes the Paladins, eyes set only on the Leaders of the planet.
“Y-your Majesty!”
“This transgression will be reported to the coalition, everyone will know how you treat potential allies and guests. We will be taking our leave now.” The promise is said with a snarl on her lips, already turning to leave.
“Wait! Please! We-”
“Paladins.” Her eyes are still set straight ahead, a cold shoulder if they’d ever seen one, but they know better than to bring it up after this end note.
“Yes Princess.”
They turn as one, glares still set in hard lines on their faces, the fumbling leaders of the planet pleading futilely. The ride to the Castle is silent, Allura fuming at the wheel, not sparing the team a glance. They share uneasy looks, and wisely choose to keep their mouths shut.
When they land in the hangar, the Princess stalks from the ship without a word, the team following with faltering steps of unease. It's only when they reach the infirmary and she sees Lance’s pod that she falters, slumping heavily into the nearest chair. Coran titters about the room, quickly checking Alluras temperature and placing a cooling cloth around her neck before moving back to the pod to check the readings again.
The tension in the room is thick, Allura leaning her head into her hands as she lets a sigh pass her lips.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, so I will ask for an explanation, despite my own hunch. One of you will speak, lest my headache worsens further.” Each word is picked carefully, said distinctly, they wonder if it's part of royal training to sound so in control despite being ill.
The team looks at Shiro, and his shoulders sag with the weight leadership has burdened him with.
“The leaders were welcoming enough, but they insisted on testing us- which wasn’t out of the ordinary- and it seemed like trivial enough tasks… so I agreed. It sounded like an easy enough challenge for us to complete-”
“Mistake number one.” Allura stops him, rubbing at her brow, “Did you ask your team if they agreed to the challenge and get a consensus from everyone, Black Paladin?”
“Well…” Shiro really thinks about it and frowns, “I… might have shut down Lance when it looked like he was going to interrupt the discussions…”
“And throughout the tests, did you notice anything odd?”
“Lance was… quiet… Until he was attacked.”
“Then I suppose one mistake may have been mine.” She says with another weary sigh.
“What do you mean?” Pidge asks with furrowed brows.
“Apparently unbeknownst to you all, Lance has been taking diplomacy lessons from Coran and myself, though he was quite adept before that. I made the mistake of assuming his team would listen to him should he have concerns about a mission that was already tremulous as it was. Lance likely was going to bring up how splitting up on a foreign planet at the behest of its suspicious leaders was unwise. Instead he was shut down and followed his orders, and look where it got him.”
Their eyes can’t help but drift towards the pod, where Corans exhausted face is creased further in worry as he stares at it,
“He is not a fan of the pods…” The advisor mumbles dishearteningly.
“He will make a recovery from his physical injuries.” Allura turns her glare on the group once more, “I expect a team effort in healing the rest of him.”
“Yes Princess.”
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pbjamie17 · 1 year ago
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Voltron AU‼️‼️
(Lots of Coran and Lance bonding because Coran is the best uncle :))
When Lance was 10, he was locked out of his first room in the castle. It was his parent's–King Alfor & Queen Melenor–office. He'd been caught by a maid scribbling family portraits on very important legal documents.
Allura thought it was hilarious. She knew her twin brother was a trouble maker, but she never thought he'd actually get banned from a room. Melenor believed he had it coming, but that didn't mean she wasn't a twinge upset that her son wouldn't be bursting into the office sharing whatever strange fact he learned that day, usually regarding unique Galra behaviors.
The next thing Lance is banned from is meetings. Well, just the meeting room in general. He was 15, and it might've effected him more than he'd ever admit to his father. Or his mother. Or even Allura.
But the one person he did admit it to was Coran. His father's right-hand man. His best friend, his- well, Lance wasn't exactly sure what they were, but he didn't press it.
After he'd been kicked out of meetings, Lance had been sentenced to a constant monitor to make sure he wasn't causing any problems. That monitor was Coran. At first, Lance hated it. He hated being babysat like he couldn't take care of himself.
But it didn't take long for Coran's helicopter parenting to calm down. Eventually, he'd just wander around the castle, blabbering on about how much things had changed since he was younger, and despite the pulling feel in his stomach to wander off, Lance followed. He helped Coran with repairs, and even had his interest in Galra etiquette renewed when the older Altean mentioned them.
His happy days didn't last more than a few months, though. After Lance was banned from two more things.
First, it was family photos. After a particularly infuriating photo shoot, where Lance had refused to make a straight face, Alfor pulled him aside and announced that he didn't want Lance in the photos until he could learn to behave himself. So, never.
Hearing his father's words made Lance want to break down, sobbing and begging for his forgiveness, but he didn't. Instead, he made a sarcastic comment and ran off before the king could see how hurt he was.
Unfortunately for King Alfor, banning his son had the opposite effect of what he'd hoped for. Lance began acting out more instead of less, and his stunts became more and more chaotic.
Rumors about the Royal Alteans began to spread, and after an especially great show involving a lot of illegal drinks and a public appearance from the prince, Alfor knew he had to step in.
He approached Lance about a week before the twin's birthday. Lance was told that at the end of the birthday party, the king would make an announcement.
At the end of the day, Lance would be sent to a border patrol ship at the edge of Altea's reign. Which was a far distance from the atmosphere itself.
Lance almost laughed. Sure, he'd been a bit of a handful as of late, but he didn't think that it was that bad. But the king made it clear his mind was made up. He said that Lance could return to the ground as soon as he proved himself.
So, on his 16th birthday, Lance was banned from one final place.
His planet. His home. The Castle of Lions.
♡⑅*˖•. ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙·̩̩̥͙*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .•˖*⑅♡
Sorry, this probably sucks ass, but I had time on my hands and an AU in my head.
I'll probably update more about this, and maybe even upload it on Ao3 at some point, but just so you know, in this universe the war starts a few months after Lance and Allura turn 19, and Lance still hadn't returned to the castle by that point, but yada yada we'll get into that later. ;)
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icypantherwrites · 6 months ago
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Fic Update: Here, Chapter Six
“Allura, it’s not real,” Shiro’s hands were tight on Allura’s shoulders as she shook in his hold, tears streaming down her face that had crumpled in despair as she stared at the monitor.  “It’s not real.”
God, please don’t let it be real.
If, if Coran had just…
God.
It had been so fast.
Shiro had known to expect speed on Lance’s end but that…
That had been…
He still wasn’t even sure what weapon Lance had found to use, but…
But Coran…
Allura’s scream had echoed on the bridge as Lance had drawn it across Coran’s throat, blood flinging itself into the air.
It was fake, Shiro chanted to himself.
It was a trick.
Coran had said he could shift, he could protect himself.
It was a trick.
“He, he promised,” Allura gasped, overbright eyes lifting to meet Shiro’s. “He pr-promised.”
Shiro shifted his arms from her shoulders to wrap around her back, drawing her in close and shielding her from the grisly sight on the camera as Lance pilfered Coran’s pocket for the remote.
He was glad the others were in position and hadn’t seen.
Fake or not…
That had been…
“He promised,” Shiro said quietly, squeezing her tight and trying not to wince as Allura returned the embrace with more force than his ribs could take. 
Read it here
(not yet posted on AO3)
Summary: [Third and final part to the Sniper trilogy] Voltron has rescued Lance but the person with them now is not the same boy they once knew. Even outside the Galrans’ influence Lance believes himself to be Sniper, an assassin to the Galra Empire with his final mission to eliminate Voltron. It’s going to be a long, difficult journey that they know won’t end even when Lance does remember them as then he’ll also remember all of the horrors he committed as Sniper and have to come to terms with what he did. But they do know they’ll be there for him every step of the way because Lance was gone, he’s been found and now he’s here, with his space family, to stay.
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rorimoon9597 · 1 year ago
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Pt 1
---------
Keith doesn't find out for a while. It slips his mind briefly when Shiro disappears. He doesn't have the time to think about it. Not when he's trying to find his brother.
He's reminded after Black chooses him.
"I can't be the leader. I- I'm not-"
"Keith," Lance says. He puts his hand on Keith's shoulder. It's comforting, distracting him from his tears enough that he doesn't immediately start to cry.
Keith looks up at Lance and into his eyes. They were brown this time. A deep, rich brown, like the earth after rain, with flecks of gold in them. Keith thinks that he likes Lance's eyes when they're brown, not blue.
"The black lion has chosen you to be its Paladin. I respect it's choice, and you should too," Lance tells him. Keith nods, unable to say anything because he truly thinks that he'll cry.
Keith can feel Red and Black in his mind. Black is much calmer than Red, who often burned like fire did.
She was saying goodbye, that she enjoyed having him as her Paladin but that he was truly meant to be Black's Paladin instead. Red's fire slowly disappeared, leaving him with Black, who pressed comfort into his mind.
Everyone separates after they congratulate Keith on the promotion, each person going to do what they need to do. Keith goes to the training deck, needing something to keep him occupied.
He takes down bot after bot, not caring about how long it's been, loosing himself in the comfort of being able to take out his frustration and anger on something that wasn't alive, but that he could still cut down without mercy.
Shiro wasn't there to stop him, to remind him to take care of himself, so he continued to train.
"End simulation." The program obeyed the voice. Keith turned to glare at the person who had cut his training short, only to be met with Lance standing there, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.
"What do you want, Lance?" He asked. Lance was silent for a few ticks.
"You need to take a break," he simply said when he did speak. Keith rolled his eyes.
"As if I need you to mother hen me," Keith snapped. Lance just sighed.
"Your movements have been getting slower, so has your reaction time," he pointed out.
"So?"
"So, knowing you, you've been training non-stop for hours without a break, and I now have to drag you out of here kicking and screaming, so that you can shower and eat." Keith scowled.
"I'm fine," he insisted. When was Lance so observant of him?
Another sigh from Lance.
"Please, Keith. You're our leader, now, you need to be well rested so that you can carry out leader duties," Lace reasoned. Keith's Bayard changed from a sword to its simplest form.
"I never asked to be the leader. I can't... I can't lead you guys like Shiro," he said. The admission had him turning away from Lance, staring at the floor. He hadn't meant to tell Lance that, but there was something about Lance that made Keith feel comfortable enough to open up to him.
"Keith," Lance said. A hand came to rest on his back, gentle and comforting. "The point isn't to be a leader like Shiro was. The point is to step up and fill your role, even if you don't want it. Black chose you. If she didn't think that you could lead us, then she would have chosen someone else, like Allura."
"I just... This is the second time, Lance. The second time I've lost my brother. I- my mom left me when I was a baby, and then my dad died and I was left alone in the fucking foster system, then I met Shiro and he decided to give me a chance, and then I lost him when he left for Kerberos and- it hurts." The last two words were quiet. Keith realised bleakly that there were tears on his face.
Lance pulled him in for a hug.
Keith held onto him like he was his lifeline, the only thing keeping him tethered in the endless expanse of space.
"Pidge knows how you feel," Lance reminded him when he'd calmed down enough. Keith just nodded.
He left the training room behind. When he showered, he just stood there, under the water, feeling numb while Black pressed comfort into his mind. He went through the motions as if he were a robot, washing his hair, his body, and then stepping out and drying himself and getting dressed.
He didn't have anything to do, so he just... Walked. He didn't have anywhere he needed to be, so he just walked.
He ended up finding Pidge sitting in Green's hangar, typing away on something.
"Hey, Pidge," he said.
"Hey, Keith," she replied. She continued to do whatever it was she was doing.
"Mind if I sit here?"
"Go ahead, as long as you're not going to annoy me like Lance does." Keith gave a small smile at that and sat on the floor near Pidge. They were silent for a while. "It sucks, doesn't it?" She asked randomly.
"What does?"
"Shiro," came the reply. Easy and simple. Keith nodded.
"Yeah. He's... He's my brother, and this is the second time I've lost him," he told her. Pidge stood up and sat on the floor with Keith, resting her head on his shoulder. Keith rested his head on hers.
"It sucks so, so much. I just- I just want to find them. Matt and Dad." Keith understood what Lance was getting at earlier.
Go talk to someone who knows your pain, who can sympathize with you.
Keith wrapped an arm around the youngest of the group and hugged her.
"We'll find them. All of them. Shiro, Matt, your dad. We'll find them, we'll bring peace to the universe, and then we can go home and just live our lives," Keith said.
"I hope you're right." Pidge curled up further into Keith's side.
He hoped so too.
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Pt 3
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haryuusart · 7 months ago
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NEW CHAPTER POSTED ✨
FINALLY had the time to post!!
This one is very precious because it's all about Lance's birthday, so I really hope you'll like it 💞 for those who haven't read this yet, if you'd like to please check out my fic! :) Here's the summary:
At this point, Keith can’t take it anymore and starts cackling like crazy, his voice slightly raspy. Lance declares it the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. He’s never seen Keith laugh so hard, and it always feels so good knowing he’s the cause, in a good or bad way.
“Can you ever shut up?” Keith manages to utter between snickers.
“I can, I just don’t want to! What are you going to-”
Keith huffs and grabs his face, squeezing his cheeks to stop him from talking.
“Lance, close your fucking mouth and kiss me!”
Keith is a pianist haunted by dark thoughts and an even darker past. He attends Altea's Music Academy, but has never performed in public before; that is until his brother Shiro, who's a piano teacher, decides to promote the school with concerts at the Paladin's, the trendiest pub in town. His colleagues and friends, Pidge and Hunk, are excited: he can finally meet their best friend, Lance!
Their first encounter is... not good.
No one expects Keith and Lance to fall in love at first sight. Not even them.
(They also dance Single Ladies together. You're welcome!)
There's angst, fluff, comedy, past relationships, eventual smut (VERY SOON), music, love, friendships... Everything you could wish for!!!
If you'd like to, please consider leaving a comment ❤️ I post this because I love to, but your support is super helpful and gives me inspiration to continue writing! 
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justaz · 1 year ago
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wait. wwwwwait.
allura bringing lance back from the dead by sharing her quintessence with him and changing his dna to be altean and altering his quintessence to give him similar abilities and powers to allura’s. lance who is incredibly self sacrificial and has self worth issues switching places with allura when she was trying to sacrifice herself for the universe.
lance doing it bc he was supposed to die a while ago, allura shouldn’t have brought him back and this was the universe demanding balance. he was brought back without sacrifice and this was the universe correcting itself. lance doing it bc he had nothing left to offer. what was he going to do after the war? return to life as normal? pretend like nothing was wrong and that there was no responsibility on his shoulders? turn his back on those in need or go up into space and turn his back on his family?
this way lance could save everyone and his life would have meaning, this is why he was chosen, he was a lamb raised to be slaughtered. he wasn’t made for war or fighting. his soul always yearned for home and for peace. he’s always been the one taking hits for his friends and family. he’s always been the one to take the ire of his commander instead of his little mouthy friend, to take the brunt of an explosion instead of a man he knew all of two days, to take the force of thousands of volts of electricity coursing through his body rather than his teammate. he should be the one to give his life in exchange for quadrillions of lives he’s never met but who deserve a chance to live.
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tom-the-tortoise · 2 years ago
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autisticlancemcclain · 1 year ago
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“You want us to what.”
Lance doesn’t give a flying fuck how angry he sounds, potential diplomatic crises be damned – hell, he wants to cause a crisis. He wants to raise some hell.
The dignitary sniffs derisively. “The beast is a dangerous pest, Blue Paladin.”
“Not the blue paladin,” Lance growls, because he isn’t, “and I am not murdering an animal in cold blood just because you can’t deal with it properly.”
“Lance,” Allura hisses, but he has no problem ignoring her.
“Can’t deal with it properly — do you hear your paladin!” the dignitary sputters, waving an angry hand in Lance’s direction.
Shiro closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, before plastering on a tight smile and trying to salvage the situation. Usually, Lance would hate to cause Shiro any stress at all, and would do whatever he could to reduce that stress. This time, Lance is going to dig his heels in. He is not going to let a living being be needlessly exterminated. Lance isn’t anti-animal death, or anything — he has no problem with others eating meat, or using animal products. He thinks using animals as gifts and not letting any part of them go to waste is very wise, and he has a lot of respect for people who manage to do so successfully. Sport hunters, on the other hand, or people who kill without good reason? Therein lies his problem, and he’s beyond happy to make a big stink of it.
“Could you describe the beast?” Shiro asks.
“Happily,” the dignitary grumps. “I’m eager to describe its horror to you, Oh Great Leader of Voltron.”
Shiro visibly tries very hard not to roll his eyes. Lance refuses to take any joy in the reaction, even though he would usually laugh.
“The beast is as large as half our royal castle. Its teeth are larger than our tallest soldier, and sharper than a luxite blade. Its fur is rough and coarse, enough to sand the paint clean off the walls it brushes by. Its roar shakes the very foundations of our city. It walks on four legs but stands on two, right before it rears up to smash our buildings to dust. It is a menace, a pest, and a danger besides!”
“So you have a grizzly bear problem,” Lance snaps. “Close your garbage cans at night and quit complaining.”
“Lance, please,” Hunk mutters, but Lance will not back down. Not when a life is at stake.
“Has it actually…hurt anyone?” Keith asks.
Lance shoots a grateful look at Keith.
At least someone is on his side.
“Yes!” the dignitary cries.
Keith shoots a look back at Lance — a well, I tried if Lance has ever seen one — but that is not good enough. Lance glares at him.
Traitor.
“Explain,” Lance demands.
The dignitary frowns, looking down their nose at Lance and shaking their head. “I’m not talking to you.”
“Would you mind explaining,” Pidge deadpans, barely refraining from rolling her eyes.
Lance knows Pidge well enough to know that she’s not on his side, exactly — she threw stuff at him when he started insulting the dignitary initially — but there’s nothing that pisses her off more than someone talking down to her family. Even if she doesn’t agree with said family. She’s loyal, like that.
“Fine, since you asked so nicely,” the dignitary says, cutting a look to Lance, who makes a very crude gesture with his hands in response and ignores the four (4) tired sighs from assorted teammates and co. around him.
“The beast easily and ruthlessly took down several of our soldiers as soon as they opened fire on it. And it further still injured many of our knights when we sent them to its cave! It is a mindless, killing machine, and must be exterminated immediately.”
Lance throws his hands up in exasperation. “No shit it’s defending itself! What do you expect it to do, stand there while you shoot at it?”
“If it didn’t want to be shot it shouldn’t have ventured into the city in the first place!”
“It’s an animal! How the hell is it supposed to understand city limits and boundaries?”
“That’s not my problem,” the dignitary says coldly. “It has posed a threat to our people, and so it must die. And if Voltron wishes for our signature in the Coalition, you will come to our aid, or else you can count yourself down one planet’s alliance.”
Allura stiffens. “You would really risk your people’s protection over a difference in opinion?”
“Your blue paladin —”
“I am not the blue paladin, you brainless amoeba —”
“Your blue paladin,” the dignitary repeats, pointedly and icily, “has insulted us greatly. The situation is no longer up for debate. If you wish to sign an alliance, the paladin must handle the problem himself. That is our final stipulation.”
With that, the dignitary ends the call, cutting off Shiro’s pleas for him to wait.
All eyes turn to Lance.
“I am not killing an innocent animal,” Lance snaps. “Forget it.”
Keith sighs. “Lance —”
“No.” Lance clenches his fists, glaring at his team, chin raised and shoulders set. Beside him, Mr. Snuggles spreads his fangs and hisses. The mice — currently resting on his head — scramble to their feet, presumably also tensing up. Ivy — a venomous vine he picked up on a planet a few missions back — winds up his arms. “I am not just being ridiculous. You heard that idiot. They’re provoking it. It’s not doing anything wrong.”
“Lance —” Keith tries again, but Lance is not willing to hear it.
“I will not take an innocent life to buy an alliance. And if you do, I swear to God, I will never forgive you.”
With that he stomps out of the bridge, ignoring the dozens of calls of his name and pleas to “wait a goddamn second, Lance, c’mon.”
Lance stomps all the way to his room, muttering about stupid careless dignitaries and team members who won’t listen to him and how everyone is going to make him grey early and he is not Shiro, lord above, so he can’t pull that garbage off. Ugh.
He slams his door behind him and flops on the bed, and is marginally surprised to find his tears stinging his eyes.
“This is a stupid reason to cry,” he announces to no one, voice muffled in his pillow. “Why must I cry about stupid things. Why can’t I cry about regular things. This is dumb.”
There’s a clicking sound accompanying a gentle bump to the leg hanging off his bed. He drags his head off the pillow, sniffling, to see Mr. Snuggles sitting to the side of his bed, fangs clicking. The mice sit on his head, as they are wont to do (which, understandably considering the natural predator of mice, used to scare the shit out of Allura. But Mr. Snuggles has never been anything but gentle with them, even when they roughhouse on his back or play tag under his leg and accidentally trip him. He seems to be quite protective of them, actually. It’s very sweet. Lance thinks it might be a microhylid frog/giant tarantula situation, even though Mr. Snuggles can’t lay eggs, and it amuses him greatly). Ivy uncoils from his bed frame, wrapping a vine around his ankle and tugging carefully. Blue and Red both loudly mother him in the back of his mind.
It’s nice.
Lance sighs, wiping his tears and sitting up against his headboard.
“This sucks,” he says to his assortment of companions, all who seem to agree with him. Mr. Snuggles and the mice crawl up the leg of the bed to sit in front of him, and Ivy makes her way around his shoulders.
None of them can talk to him, obviously — how fucking cool would that be, though — but each one of them is an excellent listener (even the mice, who like to gossip, but Lance preemptively forgives them).
“It’s just —” Lance huffs, frustrated. “I get that the planet is probably tired of being lightly terrorized by a giant beast, sure, but is murder really the answer? Plus, have they even tried talking to it? Maybe it’s very reasonable! I’m sure I —”
Lance shoots up, startling poor Ivy, but holy shit.
Holy shit!
“That’s it!” he shouts, grin nearly splitting his face in two. He leans over, just barely managing to grab his holopad, and starts sketching out the plans.
“Now if I just — and it shouldn’t be too hard — I’ve done more in less time — hell yeah!”
He’s startled out of his fervour by urgent squeaks, and when he looks up, he sees the mice waving to get his attention.
“Yes?”
At his acknowledgement, they scurry into formation, laying together to make a question mark with their little bodies.
Lance snorts. He may not be able to speak their language, but they have no problems making themselves clear.
“I can’t tell you,” he scolds. “You’re going to snitch to Allura.”
They mice squeak sadly, but Lance knows better. Last time he gave in to them, Allura knew within the minute.
“I’ll be back soon, okay? Don’t wait up for me. Platt, Chulatt, Plachu, Chuchule — there’s some of that fancy grain you like in the cupboard. Mr. Snuggles — here.” He opens up space youtube, quickly opening up a horror movie reaction compilation for the fear demon spider. “That’ll keep you fed for a bit.” He props the holopad up on his pillow, scrambling to his feet and heading to the door. On the way out, he pulls the string on his special blue sun lamp — “That’s for you, Ivy!” — and then he’s out the door, plans in hand, to find Coran.
Luckily for Lance, he runs straight into him.
“Lance, dear, I was just coming to look for you,” Coran says, right outside his door.
Lance grins. “I can see that.”
Coran narrows his eyes. “You’re… remarkably chipper, Number Four.”
“Mhm.”
He holds up a hand for Coran to pause. He strains his ears, and smirks as he just barely picks up on the sound of near-silent footsteps behind a closed door. He makes pointed eye contact with the advisor, then inclines his head at Keith’s door.
Coran gets the point.
“Well, if you’re really feeling so much better,” Coran says loudly — too loudly, but Lance doesn’t have much in the subtlety department either, so he can’t complain — “would you mind helping me recalibrate the fabricator?”
“Absolutely,” Lance says, dragging the advisor by the hand in the opposite direction of the fabricator.
“Will you speak plainly, now?” Coran asks, once they’ve put some distance between them and Keith’s eavesdropping ass. (That is, however, probably an unfair reaction. Keith was likely listening in to try and find a way to help, in his own awkward way. If Lance wasn’t currently feeling just a smidge betrayed, he would feel touched.)
“Okay, so. I have a Plan.” Lance puts emphasis on the word so Coran knows it’s Capitalized, because this isn’t just a regular plan. This is a rescue mission. It’s espionage. A heist, even.
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes!”
Coran sighs, dragging a hand down his face.
“Lance,” he says warningly, but Lance won’t hear it.
“C’mon, Coran! You trust me, right?”
“That is a manipulative question —”
“You trust me! You said so yourself!”
“Fine, child. Yes, I trust you.”
Lance claps his hands together. “Excellent! So. I refuse to be a murderer, as you may have heard.”
“That would have been very hard for me to miss,” Coran says drily.
Lance gracefully ignores the comment. “And since I will also go apeshit if anyone else becomes a murderer, I have come up with a plan!”
“Lance. Number Four. My dear. Time is not our current luxury. Please share your plan.”
“Right. Okay.” Lance rocks back on his heels, shooting Coran a guileless smile. “How well do you think you can imitate my mannerisms?”
———
Lance has no idea how powerful he truly is.
Seriously. Completely oblivious. He’s convinced that he’s the only one on the team who’s not powerful — and Keith knows this because those are the words Lance said with his own mouth. He’s so convinced that power is Shiro’s strength, Pidge’s intelligence, Hunk’s wit and compassion, Allura’s regality, and Coran’s wisdom. He’s even completely sure that Keith has power in his speed and initiative.
Somehow, though, the heart of Voltron does not know how he holds everyone in the palm of his hand. He does not see the picture of terror he makes; jaw clenched, brown eyes flashing with determination, back straight and shoulders set, demonic spider at his side, telepathic mice gathered on his head, poisonous, sentient vine wrapped around him — and the spirts of two lions, red and blue, growling in tandem behind him as he swears that no harm will come to the beast by Voltron’s hand.
Lance did not see the fear in the dignitary’s face. He did not notice his team staring at him with wide eyes, leaning far away from him and his own army. He did not see the pure, concentrated power rippling from him in waves.
If Keith’s being totally, completely honest, it’s kind of hot.
But it’s also a pain in the ass. As much as Lance’s greatest strength is in convincing people to listen to him, when he sets stubborn eyes on a task, the Universe herself cannot sway him. Keith has a snowball’s chance in hell of managing either.
“Just try,” Shiro pleads. “Please. Attempt to convince him that, as much as it sucks, killing the damn beast is the easiest way to secure this alliance and move on.”
“Shiro, your braincells are spilling out your ears like loose marbles if you think that I can convince him to even listen to the words I will attempt to say.”
“Holy idiom, there, cowboy,” Pidge teases, and Keith breaks away from the intense stare-down with his brother to stick his tongue out and shoot her the finger.
“That’s a normal idiom. Sorry that you grew up in Michigan where the most interesting insult you ever hear is someone saying please with a little more passive aggression than usual.”
“…Alright. Point to Keith.”
“Mhm. That’s what I thought.”
“Paladins!” Allura snaps, ignoring Hunk’s smartass comment that she is also, actually, a paladin, and as such is included in such snappish remarks and thus has lost a good chunk of ethos. “Focus! Stars, it’s like I have to do everything around here. Keith. Put your big boy pants on.”
Shiro chokes with laughter, desperately trying to pretend it’s really a cough, but it fools no one.
God, those two need to stop hanging out together. Shiro is dragging Allura down to his level. Poor woman.
“Talk to Lance,” she continues. “He only really listens to you.”
Keith looks at her incredulously. “Listens to me — have I missed something? I asked Lance to lead a briefing yesterday and he asked me what deity died and made me king of the jungle. He doesn’t listen to a goddamn word I say.”
Allura raises an eyebrow. “Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Lead the briefing yesterday?”
Keith deflates. Because, well. “Yeah,” he mutters.
“So you’re just being a pussy, then,” she summarizes – why does Pidge insist on teaching her modern slang and why does she like it so much – and this time Shiro doesn’t even pretend he’s coughing. Hunk and Pidge also lose their shit.
“I resent that,” Keith says haughtily, denying nothing.
“Yeah. Okay. Off you go. Convince him to at least attempt to hear us out.”
Keith sighs, but does as asked, making his way to his and Lance’s rooms. He decides to take a minute and gather his thoughts — see, he’s learning, look at how not-impulsive he’s being — and heads to his room first.
When he gets there, he spends a few meditating beside his bed — he’d rather stick a hot iron through his eye than admit it, but Shiro and Black may be a little, teensy, itty-bitty bit correct about taking time to gather up thoughts and reflect or whatever.
Just as he’s about to get up and knock on Lance’s door, he hears Coran’s heeled boots click down the hallway.
Oh, fuck yes. If Coran talks to Lance, he might actually listen without argument! Lance has no issue following Coran’s instructions!
…On the other hand, Coran’s just as much of a — and Keith says this with all the fondness in his heart, believe him, if he didn’t find it so damn endearing he would not be spending his nights imagining what will happen when he finally grows enough of a pair to ask Lance on a date — tree-hugger as Lance is. He won’t be happy about the beast killing either.
But, hey. Coran’s a wise guy. It’s probably fine.
Just in case, though, he gets up as quietly as he can — he knows Lance’s goddamn bat ears will hear him if his fucking heart beats too loudly — and leans against the door to hear their conversation.
“Lance, dear, I was just coming to find you,” Coran says.
So far, so good. If Coran was already trying to find Lance, it was probably to try and gently convince him that saving the beast might not be the best option, right?
Keith heart sinks a little as a new thought worms into his brain: maybe, Lance isn’t just being stubborn, and he’s actually upset. Maybe Coran is going to make sure Lance is feeling okay, like a good person.
…Yeah. That’s more likely. Keith kind of feels like a jackass.
He startles out of his thoughts as Coran’s voice, notably louder than before, speaks again.
“Well, if you’re really feeling so much better, would you mind helping me recalibrate the fabricator?”
“Absolutely,” Lance says, and he does sound remarkably happier than he did when he stomped out of the bridge.
Huh. Maybe Lance convinced himself…?
As he thinks it, he knows it’s not true. But it might not be best to bring it up now, then. He’s only just gotten into a good mood, it will probably be better to bring it up over dinner, or something, when the good mood has enough time to settle properly.
Keith nods to himself. Yeah. That’s totally not an excuse because he doesn’t want Lance to look at him in complete betrayal again when Keith attempts to convince him that saving the beast is not an option, or anything.
Right.
Totally.
———
Lance is feeling remarkably better at dinner. Coran wasn’t sure about the plan, at first, but Lance was very convincing, so he relented. It helped that Coran also is not fond of needless animal murder, which is why he’s Lance’s favourite.
(Well, currently. Usually everyone is tied for his favourite, but no one else had his back today at the meeting, so they’re all currently tied for second-favourite. But they’ll have a chance to redeem themselves after this mission is over.)
He and Coran are the last to arrive to dinner, predictably, so Lance doesn’t waste a second.
“I am now on your side,” he announces as soon as he walks through the door. “You’re all correct, we should get this alliance at all cost, and murder the beast in cold blood. I am completely on board with your plan and happy with all the innocent blood about to be on my hands.”
The team, also predictably, stare at him in shocked silence. Lance sits primly in his chair, accidentally-on-purpose elbowing Mullet in the head, and immediately shoves food goo in his mouth so no one can ask any follow-up questions.
Also predictably, that does not work.
“…There were a lot of contradicting words in that announcement,” Mullet says. (Lance is currently very mad at him and as such he has been demoted from fond nicknames and even his regular name so he will be Mullet until Lance wants to bite him — angrily, angrily, not the way he usually wants to bite him — less.)
“Ooooh, SAT word,” Lance responds, just to be a jackass.
(It works. Keith reaches over to attempt to flick him, but unluckily for him Lance is very used to that reaction to his particular brand of annoying, and so Mullet falls off his chair due to Lance kicking it out from under him before his flick lands).
“So,” Lance says, as Mullet curses at him from the floor, “does anyone else have any comments or concerns?”
There is a very heavy, loaded silence, before Shiro, Allura, and Hunk sigh in tandem.
“Yeah, you’re not going to be leaving my sight,” Hunk says.
“Agreed,” Shiro mutters, head in his hands. “Sorry, buddy, but at the moment I can’t trust you not to go rogue. I was going to let you stay on the castle with Coran, but I no longer think that’s viable. You’ll have to stay with me for the mission.”
“That’s fine,” Lance says, working very hard to shove the smugness out of his voice. He thinks he does a pretty decent job. “You’re all dead to me anyways, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Christ,” Pidge mumbles into her goo.
Allura pinches the bridge of her nose. Lance hears her muttering ‘I signed up for this’ over and over under her breath.
The rest of the meal passes in tense silence. When Lance finishes, he stands up abruptly, tucking his chair back in with enough force that he might as well have thrown it, and washes his dishes with such vigour that he actually has to slow down so they don’t break. He then stalks to the door, pauses, and faces the team (except Coran, who is visibly fighting back a smile and avoiding eye contact — hehe, Lance knew he’d get him fully on board eventually).
“I am going to go to bed, for my final night as a man with a soul,” he says. “I’m sure the rest of you soulless individuals will have no problem going right to sleep tonight, but I will be tossing and turning for the whole time, as I ponder how many of my moral codes I will be breaking tomorrow, so I’m going to get an early start so I can squeeze out as much rest as possible. Have a wonderful rest of your evening.”
He walks calmly out of the room until he’s out of eyesight, then sprints full speed to Coran’s room, resisting the heavy urge to jump on the man’s bed to expel some nervous energy. Instead, he meticulously reorganizes the advisor’s bookshelf. (He gets pretty into it, honestly. Coran has a veritable rainbow of colours decorating the covers of his collection, and Lance loves to go ham with the colour coding. That’s the best part of the ‘tism, he reckons.)
“I had those ordered in a specific way, you know.”
Lance practically jumps to his feet at the teasing remark, turning to face Coran so fast he makes himself a little dizzy.
“Did it work?! Are they suspicious?! Are they ready to velcro me to one of them so I can’t run off?!”
“It did work, you evil mastermind. They’re all convinced you need to be under constant surveillance. They’ve even created shifts so you’re always being watched.”
Lance cheers.
See, his plan is really quite simple. No matter what he says or does, the team is never going to fully trust him with this mission. And understandably so — Lance has made his position quite clear. It would be foolish of them to think that Lance wouldn’t try anything. No matter what, they’re going to be wary of what Lance is doing.
But Lance was counting on that, you see.
He fully expected to be under watch. He also knew that they expected him to fight them, tooth and nail, the whole way. But if he subverted their expectations, just a little — if he said he was on board with the plan while making it very clear that he had no intention of following anyone’s orders — well, now they’re paranoid.
And if there’s one thing paranoia does, it’s make you sloppy.
Tomorrow, they’ll be so focused on watching Lance, so focused on thwarting whatever potential mutiny that they think he has cooked up, that they’ll be forgiving if Lance’s mannerisms are a bit… off. They’ll expect it, even. And they’ll spend so much energy on watching Lance and planning for his acting out that they won’t notice if Coran, up in the castle, isn’t sending a constant barrage of cheery check-ins on the comms.
And, most importantly, they will not be investigating the beast very closely at all.
The actual plan is very simple, with all that information in mind. All Lance has to do tonight is record and set up some of Coran’s regular check-ins to sound off during the day. Then Coran is going to exercise his shapeshifting ability — he’s going to turn into Lance for the day, as shifty and suspicious as possible.
And Lance? Lance is going to sneak out the castle after everyone’s already gone, find the beast before they do, and solve the problem his own damn self.
After all, that’s what the stupid dignitary wanted.
If you wish to sign an alliance, the paladin must handle the problem himself, the dignitary had said. Lance smirks to himself.
That’s not a problem.
Not a problem at all.
———
The first emotion Keith feels, immediately upon waking, is intense dread.
And if that doesn’t sum up the day he’s about to have. Fuck’s sake.
He already feels pretty guilty about yesterday. Besides the fact that Lance is his right hand man — they’re supposed to have each other’s backs, and Keith definitely didn’t have Lance’s, because even though Lance wasn’t in the right he wasn’t in the wrong either — and they’re supposed to be leading this as a team, Keith knows part of the reason things fell apart so quickly is because he didn’t talk to Lance last night. He probably couldn’t’ve convinced Lance to kill the beast, obviously, but they could have definitely explored some different angles together. By letting things fester, Keith pretty much ensured that Lance was going to come up with some elaborate, dangerous scheme that was going to cost them an alliance, and worse, possibly get Lance hurt or killed. (Lance had a good track record with dangerous animals, sure, but this is a beast. The thing sounded like a mix between a polar bear and a dragon. There’s only so much Lance can do, uncanny abilities or not.)
But what’s done is done. Keith can’t very well redo yesterday and make Lance un-mad at him and everyone else, so he’ll have to make do with what he’s got.
And what he’s got is first shift on make-sure-Lance-doesn’t-mutiny-duty.
Fuck, Keith thinks as he makes his way out of his room, this is going to be the Actual Worst.
As usual, Keith is one of the first people on the bridge. Unusually, Lance is next. (Usually he is last, and also late).
“Hey, Lance,” Keith says, trying to muster up a smile.
Surprisingly, Lance beams right back. “Hello, Numb — uh,” his smile falters. “I mean, hi there, Mullet.”
Keith slumps. “I’m still Mullet, huh.”
Lance nods.
“You reckon I’ll work my way back up to Keith, soon? I’ll do anything, you know I will. I’ll even try your horrible face mask with you.”
To his further surprise — Lance must have actually slept well, or something — Lance smiles again, and this time it’s soft even to Keith’s eyes.
“Really? You would do that?”
“I’d do anything for you,” Keith says, and it’s more than he means to.
Lance frowns, and Keith’s heart sinks for the millionth time in just a few hours.
“Except help me save an innocent animal’s life,” he says, and there’s nothing Keith can say to that.
They sit in tense silence until the rest of the paladins arrive.
Shiro counts them once they do, like they’re kindergarteners and he’s a very tired EA, and furrows his brow when he finishes.
“Six. Including me. Who are we — where’s Coran?”
“He said he’ll be here in a few dobashes,” Lance says. “A calibrator broke down in the control room somewhere — nothing urgent, but he wants to get it fixed to get it out of the way. He’ll be back before we’re gone long.”
“That’s fine. Thank you, Lance,” Allura says, transparently trying to ease the tense line of his shoulders, a little.
It does not work. Lance sets his jaw and looks away.
Allura sighs. “I’m sorry, Lance,” she tries. “I know this is hard for you. If it were possible, and we had more time, we’d find another way.”
“Whatever.”
Keith decides that enough is probably enough. Allura and Shiro look genuinely dejected and apologetic, and both Pidge and Hunk look upset.
“Look, Lance, this situation sucks for everyone, okay? It sucks. We’re going to do what we can. If we get to the situation in question and we can actually manage to fix things without killing the beast, then that’s what we’ll do, okay? We’ll do our best.”
Lance exhales, shoulders slumping. He looks… guilty, and his guilt certainly does nothing to appease Keith’s.
“Sorry,” Lance mutters. “I know this is hard for everyone.”
Keith swallows the lump in his throat. He genuinely can’t remember the last time a non-major battle mission sucked so unequivocally for everyone involved, but Jesus Christ.
“Let’s just go,” he says, and everyone nods before following him off the castle and to the wet, humid heat of the planet.
———
Lance wants to bolt the second they step out of the castle, but he knows better than that. So he waits, watching them carefully from the windshield (he’s got no better word for it, okay) of the bridge until they’re itty bitty specks. Then he throws on his backpack, grabs his scanner, waves to his pets, and runs in the direction the beast was last seen.
He keeps up a pretty quick pace for a while, not bothering to muffle his footsteps — he doesn’t want to startle the poor thing — and keeps his ears peeled for the sounds of a large animal making its merry way through the woods.
By ‘large’, he means ‘unfathomably gigantic’, because everything on this planet seems to be. Every tree is as wide as four Hunks, and taller than the castle. The various small woodland critters he’s seen running around have been at least the size of Pidge. Idly he wonders how the hell the evolution on this planet even worked, because all the flora and fauna seems to be gigantic, but the people here aren’t much bigger than humans.
He eventually starts to hear the sound of running water, and wastes no time following it. If he’s correct — and he truly thinks he is, as does Coran — this beast will be sitting carefully by the river’s bank, waiting for fish to swim close to it.
See, Lance is almost sure this beast is the planet’s equivalent to a grizzly bear.
And he’s positive it’s injured.
It’s the only thing that makes sense! He did some light research last night, and discovered that the planet is right in the midst of their springtime. He also discovered that, over the winter months, the planet’s city limits had expanded pretty dramatically, cutting into a large chunk of the forest. Lance believes the new city limits bled into the bear’s hunting grounds, and when the bear woke from hibernation in the spring and went looking for food, it ran into the new neighbourhoods. Startled, of course, it got defensive, only further terrorizing the people. Lance thinks that the bear was dazed enough to be hurt by the city’s armies, and now the bear is in pain and full of anger towards the new animals in its territory.
Of course it’s attacking.
Now, if only the team stopped a goddamn second to listen, and I wouldn’t have this problem, Lance thinks to himself, but pushes the thought away just as quickly, scowling to himself.
He forces himself to pause the reflection and save it for later, because it’s not the right time. He’s on a mission. He doesn’t have time to feel sorry for himself, let alone have time to be mad at the team.
It’s just as well that Lance pulled himself out of his thoughts, because straight ahead, looking at him warily, is the bear.
And oh, what a beast it is.
The dignitary — not to give him any goddamn credit, the bastard — was barely exaggerating. The bear is huge. It’s definitely not bigger than a castle, sure, but it’s big enough that Lance knows to keep a respectful distance, and right now the bear is sitting. He can’t imagine how scary it would be on a rampage.
For the first time, a tiny tendril of guilt crawls up his spine. The dignitary might be a pompous dick, but Lance is starting to realise that’s coming from a place of genuine fear, for themself and for the people they represented.
(Lance is still not going to kill the bear, obviously. It’s not the bear’s fault that it’s scary. But Lance is willing to admit that he did not handle the situation with the dignitary like an adult, and especially not like a paladin, and probably owes them a bit of an apology.)
“Hey, there,” Lance says softly, slowly swinging off his backpack and setting it down in front of him.
The bear growls in warning.
“I know, I know, you like your space. I’ll stay over here for now.”
Without looking away, Lance crouches down, blindly searching around the bag until his hand wraps around the two objects he’s looking for. He slowly takes them out and carefully sets one of them — a back of Altean-style dehydrated wild berries — on the ground in front of the bag. With his other hand, he pours a steady stream of water on the pouch, and he and the bear both watch as the pile of berries gradually grows in size until it’s the size of Lance himself.
Lance sits next to them, criss-cross-applesauce, with his backpack on his lap.
“These are for you,” he says, tone even. “I figured it might be pretty hard for you to forage or hunt right now. You must be hungry.”
Logically, it should be impossible for the bear to understand him. But it must like his tone, because slowly — ever so slowly — it uncurls, keeping a careful eye on Lance as it limps over to him and the berries next to him.
Its legs are the size of Earthen tree trunks. Its head alone is bigger than Lance. Its teeth —visible now that its mouth is open, tongue hanging out, salivating in anticipation of the wonderfully juicy berries — are sharper than any razor.
Lance should be afraid.
He’s not.
“Oh, you’re a beautiful thing,” he coos as the bear leans forward and takes a tentative bite from the pile.
The bear side-eyes him — a look that so clearly says ‘bitch, please’ that Lance can’t help his laugh.
“And you take no shit, huh?”
The bear grunts, apparently deciding the berries are safe, and then digs the hell in. It devours the pile so quickly that it’s there in one second and gone in the next.
Once the pile is finished, the bear turns to look at Lance expectantly.
Lance holds his hands up. “I got nothing!”
The bear huffs — no, really — and ambles closer to Lance. It lowers its great head down, and with a nose bigger than Lance’s head, starts sniffing Lance’s backpack for more.
Lance laughs again. “There’s nothing in there, you silly creature. No food, anyway.”
The bear finally decides he’s telling the truth — or, more likely, doesn’t smell any more food — and flops to the ground, looking to Lance in what he can only describe as petulance.
“I have no more food,” Lance says again. He reaches out hesitantly, slowly, and carefully rests his hand in between the bear's cute little ears when it makes no move to stop him. “But I might have more help for you, though.”
The bear rumbles. Lance takes this as an indication to continue.
“I noticed you were limping. Your front right leg. You’ve got some matted blood on there, too. If you’ll let me, I can clean that wound, stitch it right up, and you’ll be as good as new. That sound okay?”
The bear doesn’t make any more noise, but it does flop over on its side, leaving its right side up for access.
Lance takes a deep breath.
“Okay, big guy. Let me fix you up.”
He gathers up his bag and walks over to the wounded leg in question. He inspects it, but can’t really see the wound under all the blood.
“I’m going to clean it first, okay? I’ll get some river water first. That’ll be better than antiseptic.”
The bear grunts.
Lance grabs a clean cloth out of his bag — really, it’s a queen-sized sheet, but in comparison to the bear looks as small as the tiniest of rags — and soaks it in the frigid river, ringing it out as best as he can with his tiny human hands.
He walks back over to the bear and begins gently wiping away the nasty, coagulated blood from matted fur. It takes a while, but he’s eventually able to see the wound.
He does not like what he sees.
The wound starts cleanly, like it was a cut, but then looks torn, like the flesh was ripped. Lance isn’t sure what weapon may have caused it — that’s more of Keith’s thing — but knows it was certainly no natural cause.
“I’m going to need to apply quite a bit of antiseptic,” he tells the bear, even though the bear most certainly does not know what that is. “It’s going to hurt, but I need to do it, because it already looks a little bit infected.”
He opens his massive tub of antiseptic and holds it out for the bear to sniff. Its giant nose wrinkles, and then it looks pained, but it carefully lays its head back down on the ground and tenses its muscles.
Lance takes that as permission.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry,” Lance babbles as he pours the horrible chemical over the wound and the bear roars in agony. “I know, I know. I know. It’s okay. Let it out. It’s done, now, once the sting fades.”
The sting must fade eventually, because the bear quiets, although it breathes heavily and remains tense.
“It’s okay,” Lance whispers, petting the first patch of uninjured fur he can reach. “It’s alright. The worst part is over, okay? That hurt so bad that you’ll barely even feel the stitches, okay? Just the smallest pinch.”
The bear whines, high and long, and Lance bites back tears.
This could all be avoided if people just used some compassion, for fuck’s sake.
He closes his eyes and swallows roughly. That’s not fair. It’s unlikely that anyone meant for this to happen, and it’s unfair for Lance to blame people. Sometimes life just sucks.
But it’s his job as a paladin to make it suck marginally less, and by God, he is going to do his job.
“Ready for the stitches, big guy? It’s the second-to-last step.”
Lance reaches into his back again and digs out the absolutely giant suture needle, so big it’s basically a weapon, and the beast-sized sutures. He gets to work carefully stitching up the wound, applying every ounce of Abuela’s sewing lessons into his furrowed brow and steady hands.
It takes a while, but eventually the wound is closed up neatly.
“Almost done,” Lance assures the bear. It makes an almost purring noise in response, which makes Lance beam in delight.
He takes two last things from his pack — some Altean antibiotic numbing ointment, and a mummy’s amount of bandages.
“This’ll be cold,” he warns, before spreading a generous amount of the ointment onto the wound. The bear audibly sighs in relief, slumping further into the ground as its muscles finally un-tense.
Lastly, Lance carefully wraps the wound in the bandages until it’s completely covered, then stands back, hands on his hips, to access his patch job.
“I think you look okay!” he says with a grin. “Try standing.”
The bear gets up using its three unharmed legs, then gingerly applies weight to the injured one once it’s balanced.
It blinks.
It applies more weight.
Suddenly it roars, in delight this time, and ducks its head to nudge Lance gently in thanks. Lance laughs, petting the creature everywhere he can reach.
“You’re welcome!” The bear makes that almost-purr noise again, and Lance sighs. “Now all we gotta do is convince this whole damn planet that you’re a big, giant softie.”
The bear pulls its head away, making Lance pout, and stares at him for a moment.
“What? You have any bright ideas? I, unfortunately, did not plan this far. I kinda thought something would come to me on the way.”
The bear grunts. Then it opens its great jaw, reaching for Lance, but it doesn’t eat him — it carefully hooks Lance’s hoodie in its teeth, lifts him up, and tosses him gently on its back.
Lance blinks.
“Well this is a — development.”
The bear grunts again, pawing at the ground. It starts off down the river, but not in the direction where Lance assumed its cave to be.
It’s headed to the city.
“What’re you — oh,” Lance cries, and is a little embarrassed to be outfoxed by a bear.
“That’s a great idea! If the people see you treating me gently, then won’t be so scared, and I’ll be able to explain. You’re so smart!”
If Lance didn’t know better, he’d think the bear seemed smug.
But he does know better, so he gets comfortable, organizes his pack, and starts planning what he’s going to say to make this whole crisis blow over.
———
“See! There it is again! It is going to attack us, we must act immediately!”
Keith wonders how badly it will make everything worse if he feigns a heart attack. He thinks he could be pretty convincing.
“Animals make noises,” Keith says tiredly. “The roars are not getting any closer. How did the previous attacks go? Was there some sort of roar-increase?”
The dignitary hesitates. “Well, no. The first time it happened the beast seemed startled, and then it was angry.”
“Shocking, that,” Lance says, and this time no one fights him.
The longer this debate has been going on, the clearer and clever it has become that Lance was correct.
Before they decided to go after the beast, the team decided it would be best to get as much information from the dignitary, security team, and royal family of the planet as possible. They expected it would take maybe half a varga to go over a couple reports, make a plan, and go after the beast – and hopefully manage to subdue it rather than kill it, to solve the problem on as many fronts and please as many people as possible.
Of course, because the universe finds their endless struggle amusing, it did not go that way. Instead, they’ve been here for the past four vargas at least, trying to get as much information as possible from the scattered reports and eye-witness accounts they could gather, all while half-watching Lance in tense silence (who, to be fair, has mostly stayed in one place and ignored everyone except for making the occasional bitchy comment).
They are getting nowhere.
It turns out the royal family and many community leaders are not nearly as fond as the dignitary and the soldiers of killing the beast. No one can agree on anything, not a plan of attack, not a plan to avoid attack, nothing. Keith has been listening to the same circular arguments ever since he got here, and as the not-black-paladin, he’s expected to contribute, so he has to pay attention. And usually that’s tolerable – it’s not the first time he’s expected to participate in a meeting that has gone on forever and done nothing productive, nor will it be the last – because he’s got Lance next to him, with a running commentary and joke stream that makes the whole thing easier to bear, along with a steady hand on his arm when he gets mad and often even a solution to wrap the whole thing up.
But, obviously, Lance is furious with him and everyone, right now, and is sitting as far away from Keith as he can manage, doodling on his holopad.
It’s miserable.
“I simply feel like there are more options that we should consider,” someone says diplomatically. Since that is literally the ninth time that exact sentence in that exact tone has been said in this meeting, Keith does not get his hopes up. He’s honestly half prepared to die and be buried in this stupid meeting room.
As the room descends into arguing once again, with absolutely zero new conclusions or changes, Keith finally gives up on paying any further attention. There’s nothing he’s missing, there’s nothing he’s contributing, and, he will admit it, doing meetings without Lance on his team is genuinely more than he can handle. He has no idea when he reached this level of codependency – because he can distinctly recall a point in time where doing meetings with Lance so much as in the same room would have them at each other’s throats in seconds – but he is in no place to handle it now. He lets himself drift, staring out the window across the table from him and deliberately thinking of anything except the flash of hurt in Lance’s eyes before it settled into fury, last night during the call.
As he observes the pretty scenery in front of him, rolling hills of yellow grass and an off-blue sky, he notices something strange along the backdrop of a pretty countryside. Along the edge of the far-off forest, there is a dark spot, out of place from its surroundings. He squints his eyes, leaning forward to try and figure out what it is. His posture piques the curiosity of the others at the table, and soon everyone is looking at the spot, watching with growing concern as it seems to get bigger, significantly bigger, and starts even to take shape.
“It has come again,” the dignitary says, hushed. They have genuine fear reflected in their eyes, which softens Keith slightly towards them. Maybe they aren’t just being a stubborn dick.
It takes a second to process, but soon the room descends into chaos, because for all that they have been discussing for hours, no plans have been made. Time is up, though. The beast as come to them, and now they must plan on the fly.
“Ready the guards,” says the queen. “Be vigilant and prepared. I would have appreciated more time, but there is none. We must be prepared to protect ourselves and our people. Last time we managed to scare it off with –”
“Wait!” Pidge shouts, the only one still sitting and facing the window. There is command in her voice, the likes Keith rarely hears from her, and her fingers twitch like they do when she’s calculating something in her head, solving a problem none of them even considered. “Nobody move!”
All the gathered officials in the room stand in tense silence, half watching Pidge and half watching the rapidly approaching beast. As it gets closer, it becomes apparent that it’s not approaching on its own. The beast, which Keith can now see resembles a truly gigantic bear, has a carefully bandaged leg, more than is capable for an animal, and is guided forward but someone sitting on its back, tiny in comparison to its head but visibly determined from even this distance.
“I knew it!” Pidge crows, springing up from her seat and pointing at Lance with manic glee in her eyes. “I fucking knew it! Your posture is way too good!”
Lance stares at her for several moments, eyebrow raised, and then sighs. Keith watches with a dropped jaw as he grows several inches taller, as his hair gets redder and his face gets bushier, until Coran sits in the place where Lance just was.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Shiro mutters, dragging his hand down his face. “I’m going back to the astral plane.”
Coran shrugs. “Lance’s plan simply had more research and direction. Also, I’ve not been out on a mission in too long. I will admit that played a role in my decision.”
“Well, Jesus, Coran, do you think we maybe could have –”
“Hey, guys, not to interrupt, but the giant beast is getting closer, people are aiming fire at it, and my dumbass best friend is currently riding on its back, so,” Hunk says. “Can we maybe worry about that first?”
The seriousness of the situation hits them all pretty quickly, and they adjust their attitudes accordingly. Lance is approaching faster by the second, no longer a shadow in the distance but a distinct figure, waving his hands like a dumbass and either completely oblivious or completely apathetic to the myriad of weapons, poised to fire, pointed in his direction by a horde of soldiers. The team rush outside with the rest of the officials, calling out for people to hold their fire, although it doesn’t do much, and the great beast swerves several times to avoid getting blasted.
“Stop! Stop! Don’t shoot! That’s a paladin!”
“Fire away!” the dignitary shouts over them, fury lighting their features and stubborn set to their jaw. “The insolence of their paladin does not negate the risk the beast poses!”
The paladins and the dignitary, along with several others on their side, glare at each other. The team may not approve of Lance’s methods, and there will be some serious discussion later, but that doesn’t change the fact that their fucking friend is out there being shot at, and they’re not going to stand back and let it happen.
“I swear, if you hurt him –”
“If he wasn’t trying to be hurt he shouldn’t have –”
“Hold on!” Lance shouts, finally close enough to hear. “Everyone – cool it for a sec! Hold on!” 
There’s still a lot of fear on a lot of faces, and a lot of anger, and a lot of weapons raised. But when a guy riding a fucking giant beastly grizzly bear the size of a house tells you to cool it for a sec (Jesus fucking Christ, Lance),  then you cool it for a sec. There’s a kind of inherent authority demanded. 
Lance pulls gently on the beast’s when he reaches a respectable distance, and it stops. (Keith knows, at this point, with the demon spider and the poison plants and just…everything else, he shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow he still is). He leans down and kisses it right between the ears, which causes several gasps and, if Keith is hearing correctly, a couple fainting bodies to hit the floor, before hopping to the side and sliding to the ground. His slight smirk suggests to Keith that the show of friendliness with the beast was an intentional one.
He keeps on hand on the beast, but he turns toward the gathered crowd of people, searching until he finds whoever he’s looking for – who, it turns out, is the dignitary. 
“I have come to apologise,” he says solemnly. His tone and posture give no indication of sarcasm, and in fact, he has softened his entire face considerably, looking to the dignitary with more grace and understanding than anyone has, so far, let alone the person who not twenty four hours ago was flipping them off and calling them a brainless amoeba.
“I give up,” Allura mutters after a moment of shocked silence, throwing her hands up and sitting heavily on the ground. “I rescind my position. Hunk, you’re in charge now.”
Hunk pats her delicately on the head. Lance easily ignores the both of them. 
“I really am sorry,” he says to the dignitary, which Keith thinks might be a hard case to make with the giant beast of controversy not two feet behind him. “I didn’t…I think there was some miscommunication here.”
The dignitary sniffs derisively, keeping one wary eye on the beast. “If by that you mean you refused to communicate with me at all, then yes.”
Lance holds his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, fair. I didn’t handle this well. But there was something off, here. If you’ll allow me to explain?”
For a moment Keith thinks, somehow, everything is going to go smoothly (for once). The dignitary seems to be genuinely considering Lance’s offer, and from experience Keith knows how convincing Lance’s earnestness can be. Besides that, this whole alliance is rocky, and the tension is coming to a head – a civil agreement could end this whole thing. Lance, although still among the most stubborn here, is offering something of an olive branch. 
But all at once, the dignitary’s eyes harden. They open their mouth, stubborn set to their shoulder, and Keith’s hand tightens on his bayard. Lance, sensing the incoming fallout, does what he does best:
He talks. 
“Corduroy was as scared as you were!” Lance blurts. The absurdity of his statement gives everyone pause – who the fuck is Corduroy – and he takes that opportunity to steamroll right on, talking so fast it’s difficult to keep up but impossible to look away. “You guys expanded your city limits in the winter, right? An increase of the entire perimeter to compensate for new growth and new projects. You’ve been planning for it for years, replanting a forest farther out to prepare for what you have to cut down. But Corduroy’s hunting ground was all the way to the edge of the first.” He looks back at the bear, who Keith can only assume he has named Corduroy, and smiles at it. It makes a rumbling noise in the back of its throat and limps forward, causing several scattered shouts of fear and raised weapons, but the beast only stares at them in what can only be described as judgement before nosing gently in Lance’s hair. 
Keith’s jaw drops. Lance has had, what, four vargas with this thing? Five? And it already treats him with the same quiet affection that Blue or Red do, covering him in affection when he comes buzzing into their hangars, a bundle of enthusiasm. Only this bear is wild, and untameable, and apparently scared and injured besides. 
The Blue Paladin is the Paladin of empathy and fluidity, indeed.
“Corduroy didn’t intend to attack anyone,” Lance continues softly. One of his hands reaches up to stroke the flank of the beast, as high as he can reach – which is not high. He doesn’t even reach up to the bear’s shoulders. “But if you woke up from a month long nap to try and find some food only to find other people taking residents where you used to live and hunt, and all of those people were screaming and running and making a ruckus at you, you’d get defensive too, I think. In fact you did! Understandably. This whole thing was just fear from all sides.”
The queen clears her throat. “The beast,” she says. “Corduroy. It…you have subdued it?”
“Not subdued,” Lance corrects. “It was just hungry. And hurt. And a little distrusting, I think, but it seems to understand reason pretty well.”
The queen hesitates for a moment, then nods to herself. She takes a step forward, her people parting for her instantly, until she is inches away from the beast. The beast watches her warily, but does not bear its teeth, nor does it growl at her closeness. 
“Don’t, your majesty,” the dignitary begs. There is genuine fear in their voice. Keith wonders what has made them so afraid, if it was just the up-close struggle with the beast itself or if there is more to it. He figures it’s not his place to ask. “Just because one inane individual has somehow earned the beast’s trust does not make it trustworthy. Remember the pain it has caused.”
“And look at the pain we have caused it,” she murmurs. The bear snorts, injured leg pawing carefully at the ground. Slowly, giving the beast ample time to turn away, she extends her hand. The air itself feels like it’s holding her breath. Her hand finally stretches out as far as it can go, and she rests it on the bear’s great snout as it bends its head to meet her. The touch seems to loosen her shoulders instantly, and with her relief the rest of the crowded people exhale, tension that has been building finally coming to a head and leaking out.
“I can’t say I approve of your methods,” the dignitary says begrudgingly. “But I suppose I did ask you to solve the problem yourself, didn’t I.”
Lance beams. “Yes! I was very smug about it!”
Keith hears a snort behind him. When he looks, Hunk and Shiro are looking deliberately at the ground.
“The important thing is that I think this matter is as good as solved,” Coran interrupts smoothly. His face is a mask of pleasant professionalism, and Keith suddenly remembers that Coran has been managing disastrous diplomatic affairs for longer than toilets have been invented on earth, so. Maybe they should be asking him along for way more missions than they do. “I trust, your majesty?”
The queen nods. “Yes, I think so. If you’ll return with me to the meeting room, we can outline final arrangements for the alliance, and then you may return to your ship.”
“Indeed,” Coran says, cutting a glance back at the rest of the gathered team. He meets eyes with Keith, then glances at the stubborn way Lance distances himself from the rest of them, and purses his lips. “We have some matters of our own to settle, I believe.”
———
The walk back to the Castle is silent, and endlessly, endlessly tense.
Lance expected it to be. Well, kind of. He didn’t expect it to be easy. He’s grateful, at least, that he was allowed to say goodbye to Corduroy, to bite back his tears and hold the great beast tightly. He’s grateful at least that the team gave him that kindness, before this strainedness, the discomfort, the side-eyes and significant looks.
Coran isn’t mad at him, which is better than nothing. Coran slung his arm around Lance’s shoulder the second they left to the castle, the way Lance does to Hunk when he’s anxious, and walks next to him merrily humming to himself.
“You did the right thing, child,” he whispers as they climb the steps, lagging behind everyone else. “Were there things you could have done more gracefully? Yes. But you made the best choice and worked with what you had. I’m proud of you.” He presses a kiss to Lance’s hair and squeezes his shoulders gently, allowing Lance a moment to shudder an exhale and compose himself, before letting go and walking off, knowing Lance can handle himself.
Lance straightens his spine. He can handle this.
Everyone stops just inside massive front hallway of the castle entrance. Lance considers just marching forward to whatever room he likes and making them follow him, but he doesn’t quite have that much confidence. As unlikely as it may be, some part of him hopes that no one is even going to bring up this whole…thing. He hopes Shiro is going to clap his hands and say ‘great job, team’, and they’re going to split off to unwind as they always do after missions.
But of course not.
“So are gonna head to the briefing room, or…?” Hunk asks, wringing his hands.
For whatever reason, the idea of locking himself in the briefing room to sit at a table and discuss the matter as they usually do makes him want to throw up. The idea of going anywhere, or waiting even one half second longer to talk about the situation makes him feel like he’s going to explode.
“You promised that we were a team,” Lance blurts. He’s not sure who he’s addressing, and he’s not facing anyone, eyes trained to a random spot on the wall, but the words bubble out of him, as warbled and hurt as he feels. “But you left me.”
Lance can feel his eyes begin to burn, and the humiliation of it makes him hunch, makes the surety of Coran’s earlier words fade to the back of his mind. He can feel the lump in his throat grow larger and larger, feel the unsteady pound of his heart, but he can’t bring himself to move, to look around the room, to meet eyes with his teammates. He forces them open and keeps his gaze locked on the wall, unblinking, terrified to let the water he feels building start to drop, because he can’t afford to look weaker than he already does.
“I try—” He can’t quite manage to choke down the tears, and his voice comes out weak from the failure of it, not quite raspy but reedy, almost. “I try so hard. I know that’s not enough, but —”
“It is.”
Lance looks over, startled at the same choked quality the words have to his own, and finds Hunk in a similar state, cheeks wet and eyes blurry. The rest of the team, upon further inspection, do not look angry with him but distraught, and it shocks Lance, truly, because he knows that they love him, obviously they do, but then why was he less important? Why was his position the wrong one to have? Why was he not consulted with the same seriousness as a random dignitary from a not-yet-allied planet, if not moreso?
“You guys don’t trust me enough to make real team decisions,” he whispers. “I’m not — I’m not smart enough for you.”
Every face looks stricken. Coran, even, looks at Lance wide eyes.
But it is Keith who makes a strangled noise, a sound caught in his throat, and says “No, Lance, that’s not —”
— and something in Lance, that has been bent since yesterday, cracks in two.
“I trusted you the most,” he chokes out. He doesn’t say the words so much as flings them in Keith’s direction, barbed and pointed. “You’re my — you said I was your right hand. You said you couldn’t lead without me. You said there’s no one else you trust more to have your back.” His face twists. His next words are near silent, but nonetheless ring through the hall. “You lied.”
Keith’s hand, extended halfway between them, remains frozen, unmoving, as still as he is. The only part of him that moves is his chest, rapidly swelling and flattening with his quick breaths. Lance’s breathing is just as quick, heartbeat only racketing with every inhale, but none of it is actually managing to carry any oxygen to his lungs, and his vision begins to blur, limbs start to feel heavy.
“I just want to be your equal,” he manages, before his legs begin to give out from under him and he stumbles to the floor, barely managing to catch himself in a sitting position. He sees Shiro twitch out of the corner of his eye, either a startled jump or a reflex to catch Lance does not know, but ultimately he doesn’t move; none of them do, frozen in their spots.
For a while Lance sits there. At one point he puts his head between his bent knees, breathing heavily, blinking the spots out of his eyes. It takes his lungs a long time to start working properly, for every inhale to actually bring in air, but even then it’s shuddering. All the strength and stubbornness, and maybe even adrenaline, that has kept him up through this mission has leaked out of him. He is too weak even to stand.
He feels when someone sits down heavily in front of him. The floor vibrates slightly with the force of it, tingling at his palms flat on the floor.
“You make me nervous,” Keith says quietly. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“That’s a stupid cliche.”
“You’re a stupid cliche.”
Lance’s head is still between his knees, but he can almost feel the intensity of Keith’s wince, the force at which he cringes in on himself. It unfortunately makes him smile.
“…Sorry. Reflex.”
It’s not okay, really. But he’s getting there.
“It’s okay. You’re still learning how to express your big boy feelings.”
Keith kicks him gently on the ankle, and this time Lance looks up, meeting his wry smile.
“I really am,” he says softly. He holds Lance’s gaze for a moment, then his expression shifts to something more troubled, eyebrows creased and mouth turned down, although his indigo eyes hold the same softness.
“You do things…I’ve never seen anyone do what you do. No one can come close. No one else can coo at a fear demon spider, no one else can befriend man-eating vines, no one else can scoop up a scorpion. No one else can tame a grizzly bear the size of a house. That’s all you, Bug Boy.”
Lance’s breath hitches. Keith’s use of the nickname is deliberate, evident in the slow and careful way he said it, and it is a risk. He knows the history behind the name, and Lance’s history in general. Further still he recognizes the precocity of the situation they’re in.
But for the first time since Lance learnt what that nickname really meant, since he learnt how most of his peers felt about him, the name doesn’t sting. In fact, something like pride blooms in his chest, if cautious and surrounded by doubt.
“Then why didn’t you let me try my way? Why were you — why was everybody — so dismissive?”
Keith shrugs. “Honestly? I was floundering. I was completely out of my element and I was stressed out and I just chose the easiest option.”
“The option that was the least fair to you,” Allura summarizes, taking a seat next to them. “And I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Hunk says. Pidge and Shiro quickly follow suit, earnest nods and leaky eyes, all coming to join Lance on the floor. On even footing. Coran’s hand comes to rest gently on his head.
“We will do better next time,” Shiro promises. “You have very distinctive strengths, Lance. I’ll be remiss to forget then again.”
“Ditto!” Pidge says, solemnly holding her hand up.
Lance considers making them squirm and really beg for it, but tears are actively streaming down his face, and also his mouth keeps trying to smile without his permission, so he decides to let it slide.
“I’ll hold you to that,” he threatens.
Keith grins at him. “Good, you Snow White-ass heart attack inducer.”
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seldomscilence16 · 1 year ago
Text
Voltron in "The Little Mermaid" Part 2!
Alright so I wanted to get 2/3 of it out in July cause ya know Julance, so it may be a little rushed but im having fun so thats nice. And this one comes with burnt out art! (By that I mean I gave up half way cause drawing is hard but its still cute.) Once again, thank you to @paracosm299 for being the backbone to this fanfic. And I hope everyone else likes it too! If I ever find a laptop that doesnt hate me and tumblr I'll link the three together. Until then, hopefully my tags might work for ya'll...
Also, if ya'll havent listened to the music from all three versions (cartoon, live action, broadway) youre missing out and they are referenced in this part. So minor spoilers for the Live Action! ("Shes in love" OBC is a bop I do so recommend it)
~~~~~~~~~
Lance sprawls across one of the many rocks, chest heaving as he tries to slow his heart rate. His eyes roam what he can see of his collection, that familiar ache hitting him hard.
He just didn't understand. 
Here, in the waters he's always known, he should feel a sense of home. And yet at every corner, he simply feels trapped, unable to even breathe without the threat of punishment for doing it 'wrong'. Instead of love and encouragement, he is crushed under rules, expectations, and this pressure to do something, but with no idea what that something is. He has a vague recollection of a woman, with deep brown eyes- the only real feature he can recall- saying so earnestly, it was almost prayer-like, that he was their future. 
He still couldn't fathom what she meant. Lance, the future? Should he somehow outlive the Emperor, Lance would be taken down immediately, by those vying for the Triton. Sendak may drill his lessons and expectations into him daily, but Lance doubted very much he'd ever actually hold any power. The only future Lance can see, is either forever a decoration to the Emperor, or a trophy given to another. The very thought makes him shudder, but it's a reality he's long since acknowledged. 
Lance was no future. Lance was not free to be a future. Lance was simply... a dressed up prisoner. 
For every gadget, gizmo, whosit, whatsit, and thingamabob Lance found, for every glimpse of wonder, a longing grew. He wanted more than this, he wanted...
To be where the people are. To see them dance, to walk around on those... those... feet! To run along streets, to stay all day under the sun's warm rays, wandering free... was it so much to wish to be up there with them? He hasn't much to give, but he wonders idly, if he were offered a chance, would he give what was asked in return readily? To live out of these waters, for even just a day to spend warm on the sandy beaches. 
Coran has since crawled from his own little crevice, watching him with worried eyes,
"I bet you up there, they understand, that they don't reprimand your every move, that they see you for who you are. Im... I'm sick of swimming with an anchor strapped to my fin. I want to stand, free... is that so much to ask Coran?" 
"No child, to be free is not something that you should have to pay for." And the emotion in the man's voice has tears of his own burning in Lance's eyes. 
"I want to know everything, ask them my questions and get some real answers. Like, whats a fire and why does it, what's that word?? Burn! When will I be allowed to do something for me?" Lance swims through his treasures, towards the small hole at the top, reaching towards the surface he's forbidden from breaching, "I'd love to explore that world up above... out of the sea, I just... I wish I could be a part of a different world... I know that makes me terrible, but... I'm so tired..."
Lance stares at the barest glimpse of the moon before it's covered, casting a shadow that's dispersed by bursts of colored light. 
"What in the Seas?" 
"Wait, Lance my boy, it's not safe up there, not tonight!" 
But Lance ignores the octopus, for probably the first time, making his way towards the surface before he can stop himself, breaching it fully for the first time. Loud popping sounds assault his ears, and debris splashes around him, before him a little ways, is a large ship with joyous music playing. Lance looks around, maybe for a sign to turn back, but finds none, something almost seems to be... pulling him, calling him, towards the Ship. He navigates past the debris, until he comes to the side of the ship where smaller ones hang. It takes him a moment to pull himself up and into it, arms straining as he tries to remain quiet. 
There's a small gap that allows him to see the occupants, and a smile graces his face as he watches them dance. They throw each other around and slam their feet, and play instruments and drink. And just when Lance thinks it can't get any better, they start to sing. 
It wasn't as melodic as the songs of his people, or as hypnotic or power filled as the royal siren songs. And yet, Lance couldn't look away. To think that just as his people feared and hated humans, Humans too, feared his people. They were so different, but at the same time, not so different at all. 
One of the humans, seemingly younger than the rest, was on the edge of their celebration. The bright- and loud- lights in the air illuminated his face, eyes shining just so, like where water and sky meet. He's pulled aside by a taller man, who has a scar over his nose and a tuft of white hair laying on his forehead. They come close enough for their voices to drift to Lance's position, and he ducks away from the opening until only his eye is seen. 
"Keith, you know we have to go back." The taller one says, sounding apologetic. 
"Shiro it's my birthday, please let me have this one day not to think about that place." The shorter one- Keith- responds. 
"You know Kolivan will be coming over to lecture you soon. The late King-" 
"Wanted me to be trapped inside the castle for the rest of my life, isolated on our island home, never to do anything new because he had some crazy notion that that would keep us safe." He sighs, leaning heavily on the railing and staring off into the distance, the furry creature lays at his feet, staring at Lance curiously. He buries a hand in his fur with a smile. "I feel like the ocean is calling to me Shiro, I'm not afraid of it, I want to explore." 
Lance feels a sort of resonation, like he's looking in the mirror once again instead of at a human. Someone who sees a future, and is ready to make it himself...
A crack of lightning lights up the sky, violent and sudden as the ocean rises up and crashes against the ship. 
"Storms coming in fast! On your toes!" 
Lance jumps into the waves before he can hear more, he needed to leave, there was no telling if this was Posiedon or Sendak-
"Keith!" 
Lance's eyes flash back to the ship, to Keith holding the fluffy creature and throwing him as the ship is alight and collapsing. Lance curses in his head, diving below again to help, guiding him to the calls of the people in the little ships. When he comes up again, he sees no sign of Keith and a panic he can't describe grips his heart. 
He dives again, dodging wreckage as the ship sinks, swimming through the harsh currents in search for a splotch of red. His distress rises with each moment, movements quick and jerky, until finally, finally, he sees it. Unmoving except for his slow descent, arms raised like even in unconsciousness he's reaching for something. As Lance draws closer he sees the cut along his jaw, the ripped clothing, smaller injuries, and he's sure bruising will form. 
Hooking his arms under Keith's own Lance drags him to the surface. It's an effort to keep the human's head above the waves as the storm rages on, but Lance wont let him drown, not while he can do something about it. He heads inland, praying to any God that will listen, that the human survives. 
Even if it means his own demise when he returns to Atlantica. 
...
The sand is dry and coarse, but warm under the morning sun's rays, as he tugs the waterlogged human far enough from the lapping waves. His hand shakes as it hovers over the still form, the cut on his cheek still leaks blood, his pale skin taking on a sickly pallor, before he can really think twice, his voice rises from somewhere deep. A careful melody fills the air around them, a glow encompassing his own form as he finally places his hand to Keiths chest. 
It takes longer than he'd like for color to return to his cheeks, one now marred with a scabbing scar. A groan leaves his lips and Lance's relief is palpable, despite the exhaustion that settles into his very bones. He wants nothing more than to lay here, but he knows better. Shouts reach his ears, and with a reluctance he cant place, he returns to the sea, hiding behind a rock a ways off. 
He watches as a group of humans surround Keith, who seems at least semi-coherent now, watches as they make off towards their own settlements. 
"I don't know what this feeling is. I don't even know how I know, but... something changed. I've found the world I want to be a part of..." 
Lance watches until they've vanished from view, a pull stronger than ever before, calling him towards a human with inky hair and deep eyes, to a future he'd never thought of. 
If he lived past sunset that is. 
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...
Allura practically falls on his head, Coran wrapped around his arm only a second behind. 
"Lonce! Where have you been!?" Allura is scanning his face, claws hovering, "Coran told me about the… thing… and then there was a storm and you were gone! We've been worried sick!" 
"Im sorry, I just-"
"Don't even think about lying to me Lonce!" 
Lance swears shes on the verge of tears, and he lets out a reluctant sigh,
"I…" he rubs his free hand over the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact, "Rescued a human…" he mumbles.
"You did WHAT!?" 
"No one saw me!" Lance is quick to defend, admittedly a little petulant. 
"Shhhh!!! Sendak can not know about this!" Allura looks around in a panic, her voice hushed.
"Know about what?" A new voice asks from behind, nearly scaring Lance right out of his scales. 
Flipping around Lance sees someone he hadn't in several years,
"Rachel?? What are you doing here? I thought you all weren't allowed at the gatherings anymore!" They clasp arms, exchanging smiles.
"Well, he wants info on our territory then someone has to come." Her grin turns sly, and Lance thinks there's more to what she says, but then again, it always seems like there's more when it comes to them. "So what's this I hear we aren't telling?" 
"Nothing. Seriously guys, I'm already gonna get a lecture from Se- my father, I really don't need this right now." 
He sees a bunch of Mers heading towards the reefs, decides that's a good way to delay the inevitable, and follows. Though of course he has company cause they dont give up that easily. And to continue his declining luck, four more mers to add to his growing entourage. 
"Wow, look how big you've gotten!!" Lisa exclaims, looking close to pinching his cheeks like a Grandma- though Lance only knew this through observation of their pod.
"Lance has a secret!" Rachel blabs, leaning over his shoulder with far more excitement than necessary. 
He groans, pushing her away as he joins the other mers in cleaning up the reef, a twinge of guilt in his gut despite the cause of the storm being from someone else's power. 
"Oh, what, does Grumpy blob have a crush or something?" Marco teases, elbowing Luis beside him. 
Lance grumbles as he fumbles with the debris hes moving, internally cursing himself at the gasps around him. 
"So! You're acting fishy because you're up to your gills in love!" Rachel swoons backwards into Marcos waiting arms. 
"Oh Dios Mios." Lance would love for a cavern to open up, right now, beneath him, please. 
The only Mers who don't treat him like Sendak's property and he wants to throttle them. 
"I see it now!" Luis exclaims, never one to miss out on a tease, the traitor, "he's dizzy, dreamy, head up in the foam! His eyes have got a gleam in them, like there's no one home." 
"Someone get this boy a coastal shelf to mope on!" Lisa instigates, laughter in her eyes. 
"He's moody as a snapper! As sure as a dogfish bites, someone’s made him lose his head!" Marcos' grin is as lopsided as he is, floating above Lance's head, he shoves him away, wondering if he should just retreat. 
"Seriously guys flip off, it's not gonna happen." Lance heaves a larger piece off the side as gently as he can, frowning at the coral beneath, it would take a lot of song and time for these poor things to come back. 
"Come on tell us who the deep-sea hunk is!" Rachel leers at him, eyebrows dancing, behind her Lance glimpses Coran and Allura, one has a look of concern, the other… well Lance can't quite identify Alluras look. 
"There's no deep sea hunk." Lance turns away, seriously debating finding that shark again.
There's a long pause, but Lances hope of them giving up is crushed when Veronicas panicked voice breaks the silence,
"Oh no. Please, please no. Lance please tell me you didn't go and," She cuts herself off, looking around frantically before coming in closer with a low hiss of, "seduce a human?" 
Lance gives an indignant squawk,
"I did not, seduce, anyone!" 
"But there is a human??? Lance, what are you thinking? Liking human stuff is one thing, but this- Lance what are you thinking??" With hands on his shoulders to hold him still, Veronica levels him with a desperate look. 
"Ronis right Lance, the human world is no place for us." Luis, like everyone else, has taken on a serious face. 
And those expectations are back. Those heavy looks, so much weight pressing into his chest, and yet no clue what it is they want from him. What it is they think he needs to do. 'Youre the future, Lance.' 
"I don't know what it is you think is up there Lance, but just take a look around you! Life under the sea is better than anything they got up there." Lisa takes on a lighter tone. 
Lance knows what's coming, knows because he's been told before, has tried to convince himself, but something always comes to remind him why he wants to escape. 
"I mean seriously, what more are you lookin for? Up there they work all day-'' Lance pointedly looks at the debris he's clearing and Marco is quick to continue, "they're slaving away under the sun's hot rays. While we get to float around down here all the time, nice and cool."
Lance wonders what they do in their territory, for all of Lance's collection, it's taken him years of little moments of free time to gather stuff, and honestly half of it was Coran and Romelle gifting him stuff. 
"And you know what they do to fish on land, they're either in a bowl or," Rachel runs a finger along her throat with a harsh click sound, "on the plate. Just imagine what they'd do to us!" 
"Not to mention, they can't possibly beat our rhythm." Luis sports a confident smile, but Lance remembers the song he'd heard on that ship. 
As if on cue however, the reef comes alive with song. Healing waves of energy that quickly distracts the mers before him, and Lance takes his chance and bolts with them none the wiser. 
He heads towards his grotto, needing some peace and quiet before his inevitable summons. He liked the McClain pod, they'd been around as long as he can remember, but they always left him feeling like he was missing something. Not that they weren't missing some major parts to his story too, but Lance didn't want them to know either. 
He enters his grotto with a tired sigh, running on no sleep and brain still too busy and anxious for it to come anytime soon. He takes in his collection, hoping for some comfort or peace of any kind. Anything to stave off what's to come-
"So you've finally returned."
Lance flips around fast enough to make his head spin, there looming in the shadows of the entrance, Triton now glowing with power,
"My. son." 
Keith stalks through the halls of the palace, determined to find a ship, or a carriage, something so he can search himself. To find the boy who saved him, the one whose song rings in his head, the one who risked their own life to get him home alive. 
"You aren't supposed to be out of bed yet." 
He turns to see his mother, standing tall and regal, like the Queen she is, in the doorway to the dining hall. She eyes him, the bandage on his head, the scaring mark on his jaw, the unsteady walk of a sailor on land- and a waterlogged man who should probably be resting, maybe.
"I don't need rest, I'm fine." Keith wants to leave it at that, but of course,
"Join me for breakfast." She turns without his answer, not that he could turn her down. 
They sit, eating quietly, but Keith is tense. He knows she wants to say more, but she takes her time, figuring out exactly what she wants to get across. After so many years away, only to return after news of her husband's passing, the two knew very little of interacting with each other. It was Kolivan and Shiro that kept them from having a bigger rift than they did. 
"I don't want you going out there again. You need to be here, preparing for the throne." 
Keith takes a breath, before he'll say something he'll regret,
"The boy who saved my life is out there. I'm going to find him-"
"Keith-"
Keith stands, chair falling behind him,
"I don't want to be king. I never have. I belong on the water-"
She slams her hands on the table, silencing filling the room,
"You are grounded. There will be no sailing, you will stay here and heal." 
He stares at her, the woman who never cared to stay, who left his father to raise him. The woman who knew next to nothing of him, who wanted to trap him to this existence of walls and nothingness. He turns and storms out of the room, heading for the cliffs, anything to get away.  
All he'd ever wanted, as a boy born on a ship but raised on an isolated island, was the open sea and sky, freedom that seemed so far from his reach. He was only able to grasp some semblance of happiness sailing on excursions to learn and trade, his brother- in all that mattered- right beside him. 
And now, his soul tugs again, towards something- not quite new- but foreign in a way he'd never thought of. He's haunted, thinking only of a blurry memory of someone leaning over him, more of a feeling really, and a song he sings. A song  that takes him, to places beyond his wildest dreams, to uncharted waters miles beyond the seas he knows. 
Keith had been sure he was darkness bound, destined to drown at sea and never return home. Then, miraculously, he’s saved, pulled above the stormy seas and all the way to land, before being left alone, to stand on the shoreline while his mind remains lost at sea. He wishes only for him to be found again, so he can stop wondering about who he is, where he’ll be next, and to hear his song from the source rather than this echoing in his head. Someone somehow stronger than the undertow, yet able to glow silhouetted by the rising sun, to return him to land in only a night's time. 
He won’t be able to get over this mystery, something- someone- so intriguing, there was no way he’d give up before it was solved. Somewhere, beyond where man can see, with eyes that outshine the horizon line, where they can face the unknown side by side. Whether on the shoreline where he was left, or where no compass or map can guide him, Keith would find this mystery boy, no one would stop him. It’d be easier, he’s sure, for this boy to find him once again, right where he was left, but good things aren’t always easy are they?
Throw whatever you have at me, wild uncharted waters, he’d face it all.
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miss-writes-a-lot · 1 year ago
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I wrote a small one shot for my friends' Pride Picnic 2023 Collab! Go give it a read if you're interested!
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icypantherwrites · 5 months ago
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Fic Update: Here, Chapter Seven
“I,” Lance’s voice, quiet  as it was, sounded like a gunshot and Shiro was not the only one who startled as this was the first time Lance had spoken to them, as he looked up at Coran. “I killed you.”
“You tried to,” Coran gently corrected, not giving any indication he was thrown by both Lance’s sudden bout of speech nor his dark words. “But, and correct me if I am wrong, I do not think you wanted to do so.”
Lance’s jaw clenched and he looked down.
“I,” his throat bobbed, “I don’t know.”
“What does your heart tell you?” Coran asked softly.
Lance tensed but didn’t answer.
He was trembling again, Shiro noticed. 
Next to him Hunk made a soft sound and carefully laid a hand on Lance’s shoulder…
And Lance relaxed ever so at the touch.
It gave Shiro hope.
Read it here
(not yet posted on AO3)
Summary: [Third and final part to the Sniper trilogy] Voltron has rescued Lance but the person with them now is not the same boy they once knew. Even outside the Galrans’ influence Lance believes himself to be Sniper, an assassin to the Galra Empire with his final mission to eliminate Voltron. It’s going to be a long, difficult journey that they know won’t end even when Lance does remember them as then he’ll also remember all of the horrors he committed as Sniper and have to come to terms with what he did. But they do know they’ll be there for him every step of the way because Lance was gone, he’s been found and now he’s here, with his space family, to stay.
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rorimoon9597 · 1 year ago
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Tw for mentions of inhumane experimentation and murder.
_______________________________________
They'd been fighting the Galra as they usually did when it happened. They were being overwhelmed and growing tired, so Allura opened a wormhole to get them to a safer galaxy.
Apparently, one of the cruisers they were fighting had a Druid on board, and had corrupted their wormhole. Again.
"Shiro!" Pidge called out, frantic as she lost all control of Green and thrown out of the wormhole. Yellow followed, and all Shiro heard of Hunk before his comms cut out was his screaming.
"What do we do?" Lance said, just as frantically as Pidge. Blue and Red were thrown out as well, so Shiro didn't have time to reply.
Black was also thrown out of the wormhole, right into the atmosphere of a planet that he didn't know anything about. Desperately, he tried to gain control of Black, but she wasn't responding.
They crashed into trees which were, for some reason, blue. Shiro didn't have time to think of the scientific reasons behind it, because he was busy trying not to get a serious injury.
When everything stopped moving, he opened his eyes and started to move his body, bit by bit. Nothing was broken as far as he could tell, so that was good. He'd definitely have bruising and maybe a concussion, but he was rather lucky that nothing was broken.
"Guys? Are you there? Allura? Lance? Keith?" No reply. Sighing, Shiro got out of his seat and climbed out of Black.
The forest was dense, and there were so many sounds. It was spooky, being there alone. Shuddering, Shiro decided to get started on a camp. The others would come soon enough. He just had to wait.
So he walked through the forest, taking note of his surroundings so that he would be able to make it back to Black when he was done doing... Whatever it was he was doing.
Because he didn't know why, but he felt as if something was off. It was so strong, that he had to investigate.
The answer to his question came soon enough when he saw a Galra base hidden under the canopy of trees. The black of the metal and harsh purple of the lights made the place stand out like a sore thumb.
He went in, managing to bypass the guards outside. Carefully, he made his way to what he assumed was the control room. Making sure that no one was there, he went up to the console and put his Galra arm on it, downloading the information for Pidge to look through once he was back at the castle.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" One of the facility personnel asked. Shiro barely thought. He ran at them and pinned them to the wall, hand glowing dangerously.
"What are you doing here?" He asked.
"I won't-"
"Tell me or it's your life," he threatened. He pushed back the memories of the gladiator pit, grounding himself in the present.
"We- we're working on an experiment here."
"Tell me about this experiment," Shiro ordered. The Galra eyed his arm, still glowing purple and dangerous, before replying.
"We're working on a secret experiment that Zarkon doesn't know about. We want to surprise him with a weapon, but unfortunately the weapon has to be grown from a baby for the experiment to work."
"Do you have a baby?" Shiro asked, voice deadly.
"Y-yes. Project Altn-251."
He had enough.
The Galra slid to the floor, neck sliced open.
He allowed for himself to turn off his mind, to go berserk on the Galra scientists. His body acted on instinct born from being forced to fight to survive, hand glowing purple.
He came back to himself, he was covered in blood. He swayed on his feet for a few moments, before going and finding the bathroom. He scrubbed off the blood, scrubbing his Galra arm as if it were the one he was born with.
When he was done, he took some deep breaths and went to find where the test subject, Altn-251, the Galra had called it, lived.
It was fairly easy to. He placed his hand on the scanner and opened the door. He walked into the room, unsurprised when he saw a crib. He walked up to it and looked inside.
"How the fuck-"
_______________________________________
Ch 2 Ch3
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foolinafable · 3 months ago
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v. i miss you, i'm sorry
SYNOPSIS: He doesn’t know how to love. You know this and yet you would still give everything just to be with him- even for just a moment. Or the story of how you and Keith finally get together. PAIRING: Keith Kogane x Altean reader WORD COUNT: 5.4k TAGS: Slowburn, Angst, extreme cannon compliance, fighting SERIES LINK: a love as cold as ours
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NOTE: edited this tipsy and with Grammarly so don't mind mistakes!
You were focusing on trying to heal Shrio's new body in hopes it would encourage it to fully accept Shiros conscious using skills you had learned from the white lion on Oriande. Not daring to look up to face the eyes of the two galrans who both watched your every move with intrigue.
Allura was also helping, trying to take off as much of the burden as her powers would allow leaving you both exhausted as the hours ticked by.
You were sat by Shiro’s body hand held up eyes closed as you tried to focus on the feeling of Shiro’s consciousness within the body trying to pull it further inwards when Allura spoke
“I’m afraid the clone’s body is rejecting Shrio’s consciousness” 
“There must be some way you can help!” Keith pleaded and it hurt you for him to sound so distressed opening your eyes to see him staring right you in despair 
“I don’t think there's anything more we can do” you confessed “I can feel him slipping away” voice hoarse as you looked away from the black paladin unable to watch his heartbreak, jumping when he banged against the glass separating you from Shiro 
“Shiro please” he begged as he banged against the glass again “Please fight!” as he began to sob making your heart clench “You can’t do this to me again” he continued when a faint coughing was heard from inside the pod you all quickly looked up at Shiro as the encasing disappeared Keith called out to him quickly when he eyes opened 
“Keith- I was dreaming” he spoke delicately in between breaths “You saved me” he confessed looking at the boy as he hugged him 
“We saved each other” Keith corrected 
You simply looked to Allura and smiled tiredly but before anything else could be said the rest of the paladins along with Coran and Romelle finally returned all looking shocked as they saw Shiro up the three paladins running towards him in glee
“Shiro’s looking better! Alright!” Lance exclaimed 
“Where were you guys? We couldn't get a hold of you?” Keith asked 
“Well, we were shrunk by a magic skunk, but we ended up using that sparkly dust that makes electricity bigger or whatever” Lance tried to explain but the five of you just looked at him confused “So ready to charge up the lions?” Lance continued clearly unphased by your lack of understanding. Shiro simply sighed before laughing to himself
 “It’s good to be back.” 
── ✧
“Why are you tired” Lance probed as he walked towards you causing you to open your eyes to look at the Cuban boy from your position lying on Shiro's metal shoulder- the only part left of his mechanic arm
“I dunno maybe it’s from saving all your arses and transferring Shiro’s conscience into a new body?” you replied dryly as Shiro rubbed your shoulder with his working hand in thanks. At the same time, you gave Lance a pointed look with a small drowsy smile on your face that made him falter in his teasing realising that you were in fact not joking, still looking a little worse for wear even after you finally healed the large gnash on your forehead from Shiro's clone.
You closed your eyes again as you felt his violet ones staring you down clearly trying to get your attention but you ignored it- what more could he possibly have to say to you? More reasons why you aren't capable you nearly scoffed at the idea but simply pursed your lips trying to feign sleep when Shrio nudged you to open your eyes as Pidge approached, she sat on the other side of Shiro when the older man questioned
“Where you able to get into contact with Earth?”
“No luck,” the smaller girl replied glumly. “The low power levels are probably affecting our broadcast distance but I'll keep trying as we get closer to Earth.” 
“I can't believe we’re finally going home” Lance admits softly looking down at the ground almost in thought
“I’m going to hug my parents and never let go.” Hunk claims as he hugs himself imaging how it would go
“I can’t wait to see how dad integrated Altean and Earth technologies together” Pidge exclaimed seemingly in a better mood just thinking of going home. You smiled at her excitement but it didn't reach your eyes as it reminded you that your home was gone and after the war was over you didn’t have a family to come home to- rather Voltron was your family. Shiro seemed able to sense your thoughts looking to you with a sad smile as he once again rubbed your shoulder with his working arm in comfort.
“And my mom” Pidge continued before stopping to think her face suddenly becoming cloudy with apprehension “She is gonna be so mad I ran away, I hope I’m not grounded” 
“How long do you think it will take us to get home?” Keith finally tired of being ignored by you turned towards Coran who was seemingly already doing the numbers in his head
“I was just calculating that now” the altean admitted “Without the luxury of a wormhole and with diminished power cores, let me see-” he started mumbling to himself “if I carry the one” staring at his fingers as he did the maths “oh, it’s going to take us 150,000 earth years,” he replied nonchalantly you quickly sat up from your position on Shiro’s shoulder as everyone gasped in shock 
“One-hundred-and-fifty earth years?!” Keith exclaimed 
“Coran, I think your finger counting is a bit off” Pidge stated “It’s going to be 1.5 years” causing everyone to groan in annoyance 
“Oh right I didn’t carry the three” Coran realised 
“Well you never said you were good at finger counting” you replied to ease the annoyance he caused in the group
“And it’s not an exact science anyways” he defended and you swore it gave you deja vu
“It's going to be a very long and difficult voyage, but It’s our only chance at replacing the Castle of lions” Allura concluded  
“There were times where I thought I would never see Earth again” Shiro admitted “To be able to go back-” 
“Well, what are we waiting for guys!” Lance quickly interrupted, “Let's hit the space road!”
“I suppose we need to figure out who’s flying with whom,” Krolia announced and she was right.
You weren't really looking forward to it. You were already so exhausted you were unsure you would be able to handle certain people for the time being and hoped that whoever ended up with you would give you some peace to recharge. 
“And what about the animals?” Coran reminded you all
“What about them?” Pidge questioned
“Well the wolf can't go with Kaltenecker, wolves eat cows and the cow can’t be in the same area as the mice because aren't cows scared of mice?”
You nodded at his words they made complete sense to you 
“No, elephants are afraid of mice.” Lance corrected 
“Elephant?” you mumbled in tired confusion
“Yeah, They’re giant grey animals with long noses that grab things,” Lance exclaimed trying to show what an elephant looked like by pinching his nose and using his other hand to act as its snout 
“Giants with long, gabbing noses? Earth seems so strange” Allura echoed your thoughts out loud what a preposterous creature that must be. 
“The wolf is riding with me” Keith decided “That means Hunk will have to take the cow” as he had the second biggest cockpit so was able to fit the cow easily.
“Me with the cow? Not a good idea” Hunk protests 
“Hunks right” Lance decides “Keith, you're keeping the cow. Someone else is gonna have to take the wolf” Everyone looked to Pidge 
“Not me. I am allergic.” 
“I’ll take the mice” Allura exclaimed clearly not wanting to take the wolf
“How come you get the smallest passengers?” Keith questioned arms crossing over each other in annoyance to which Allura just pulled a face
“I say we go old school and draw straws” Hunk decided 
“Or I can just take the wolf” you commented breathlessly honestly just wanting to get into the sky, the quicker you get going the quicker you can be left alone. 
“But I am terrible at drawing” Allura sulks causing you to laugh as Coran agrees “She really is” 
“Guys you’re all overthinking this. I know exactly where everyone should go.” Lance decides and for some reason, maybe to stop the arguing, everyone lets him place them into the ships.
── ✧
This decidedly in your opinion was the worst idea ever, why did you let Lance decide who went whereas you were stuck for who knows how long in your lion with Keith's mother- Krolia.
To say it was awkward was an understatement but you guess you got what you wanted as it was quiet. But you could cut the tension with a knife.
Clearly the woman wished to speak with you but she didn’t say a word as if she wanted you to initiate conversation. But you have no idea what to say to her.
It’s not as if you can be honest ‘oh hi Keith’s mum yeah no I totally don't have a massive unrequited crush on your son who would probably rather be stuck by one of Haggar’s spells than even think of me that way’ and what if he told her about your argument during the kral vera so she knows you as the one who believes her son is according to your own heated words a ‘cold excuse of man.’
You shudder at the thought of the stoic woman hating you. The idea only makes you feel even more anxious being left in a ship with her for 1.5 earth years.
Luckily the other paladins don’t seem to be faring much better with Allura shouting at the wolf, Romelle trying to touch all the buttons on the spaceship leaving Lance annoyed, and Coran trying to teach Keith and Shiro the altean alphabet by singing a song that haunted your dreams as a little girl. 
“Keiths told me a lot about you during our time in the quantum abyss” Krolia commented clearly aware that she would get nowhere if she waited for you to start a conversation 
“I can only apologise for whatever you have heard from him, I assure you-” you began damage control only imagining the lovely choice of words he must have had to say about you, especially after your disagreement when she cut you off
“You are much more pretty than he described” was all she said causing a flush to creep up your cheeks as you turned away from her 
“Thank you” you whispered in confusion, eyebrows furrowed as she continued to speak 
“He seems to have underplayed a lot of things about you. But I am glad my son has found someone like you- you are quite similar to his father, willing to give everything to others” she spoke softly at the mention of her lover but you were sat shocked facing forwards, her words ruminating in your mind.
Clearly she liked you- approved of even which made no sense because why would she feel the need to approve of you- someone who isn't even really friends with her son. Not anymore. And with the mentioning of you being similar to his father- it didn’t make any sense!
Lance’s voice cut into the comms before you could think on her words further 
“Guys, I think I did a bad job choosing the passengers” only took him this long to notice. Why on earth would he split up Keith from his mother? Lance’s logic was beyond you and now clearly himself 
“I think he thought by choosing the pretty altean he could charm her and have an easy time” You voiced your thoughts to Kroila who was watching Lance through the comms link and she laughed slightly
“Clearly that is not the case” she agreed humorously and you simply smiled in reply as Keith turned on his comms so everyone could hear Coran’s rendition of the altean alphabet upon hearing it Romelle joined in which just as much enthusiasm causing you to chuckle as you sang along under your breath not noticing how a certain black paladin was watching your screen like a hawk having a not so nice hand gestures and eye conversation with his mother when she caught him staring at you with a soft smile at your antics.
Eventually the singing and not knowing what his mother was saying to you got too much for Keith. Her smirks at him made him extremely nervous as he screamed
“That’s it we are changing passengers!” to which Allura agreed quickly 
“I second that!” clearly fed up with the wolf drooling everywhere even though Keith told her he likes to drool several times.  
“Agreed” Lance called out trying to keep Romelle away from the buttons again
“Whatever you guys want” you called out trying not to seem rude towards the older woman 
“Hey guys, why haven't we heard from Pidge?” Hunk announced   
“Yeah. Wait, who’s in her lion again?” Lance questioned 
“No idea” is all you said
“Yeah Lance, you’re the one that came up with this grouping” Keith added to your point 
“Well, she must have– no, they're with Keith. And the wolf is with Allura and I have the mice” You suddenly laughed as you realised what's happened 
“She's all alone” you spoke laughing a hand covering your mouth as the others quickly realised that you were in fact correct.
 The team quickly used the wolf's transportation techniques to transfer all the passengers into Pidge's ship except for Shiro and Krolia who were now on Keith’s ship.
“Oh come on guys this isn't fair!” Pidge complained but you all simply ignored her amused by her suffering.  
── ✧
Krolias voice sounded out from the comms
“This is the Klii-Nyn System. There’s a Blade of Marmora rally point located on a moon here. We should check in with them and get an update on their operations.”
“Team, we're going to make a quick stop. Everyone follow me” Keith called out and you followed closely behind.
You all landed on the moon with Krolia unable to make any contact with the base so you all quickly got out of the lions to check it out as something clearly wasn't right.
Allura used her strength to open the door allowing Krolia to go in first as you hovered into the base. It looked completely empty, dark and decrepit with no sign of life at all within its walls.
“It doesn't look like anyone’s been here for years,” Keith commented while Pidge tried to press buttons on the control panel
“The system won’t boot. Looks like the power has been out for a while” She agreed with Keith's observation the place had already been deserted a long time ago. 
“If the Blade of Marmora abandoned this place, that means something really bad must have happened” Hunk theorised 
“That's impossible” Krolia admitted “This base was still fully operational during my last check-in with the Blades.”
“It doesn't make any sense even if they left within the last three days it wouldn't look like this” you exclaimed, twirling around and looking at the area it just looked old, not destroyed but before you could voice anything else a large explosion was heard from outside causing the area to shake.
“Enemy ship! Incoming!” Coran called out 
“Everyone back to the lions” Keith commanded as you all flew back towards the entrance you quickly came back to your lion and flew off with the rest of the team noticing the galran ships surrounding the area 
“It looks like a small fleet. Mostly Galra fighters” Keith commented 
“That's good. We should be able to take them out pretty easily” Lance responded
“Yeah, but remember, we’re not flying at full power” Pidge warned 
“Pidge is right” Keith announced “everyone stay sharp.”
You flew quickly trying to avoid the blasts
“Keep an eye out” Lance reminded you all “Where there are fighters there’s usually a cruiser nearby” 
“Some of these ships look like they belong to Lotor’s fleet” you heard Romelle shout out from Allura comms making you pull a puzzled face wasn't she in Pidge’s lion?
“How did you get in here?” Allura asked confused you were about to voice your own concerns when a blue light appeared behind you in the cockpit to reveal Keith's wolf who quickly bounded up next to you to give you some support 
“Thanks, buddy” you whispered nudging your head against the world slightly causing him to push back in happiness for some attention before you grunted as a beam nearly knocked you off your path sending the wolf down with you “Sorry, it’s not going to be an easy ride”
“We need to get out of here” Keith called out warningly as more and more fighters seemed to appear out of nowhere 
“We’re getting our quiznacks handed to us. We need to do something.” Lance complained “we need to form Voltron”
“Okay” Keith agreed “everyone in formation”
You tried to form Voltron but the depleted energy cores made it impossible.
You tried to escape but they backed you into a corner with the pirates behind you, crystals surrounding you and a cyclone at the exit. 
“We have no choice” Keith decided “Everyone into the cyclone”
After formatting a plan you quickly left the cyclone trying to take your way towards a nearby unstable ice planet in hopes it could grant you the upper hand.
You descended onto the planet with the fighter ships right on your tail using the landscape to the best of your abilities to lose the pirates, weaving around geysers, and flying through underground tunnels but it still wasn't enough as soon as you made it out the cave without any of fighters pilots following behind you were immediately captured by a large magnet pinning the lions to the floor- there was no escape.
── ✧
You were quickly taken into a holding cell, arms bound by handcuffs, you were sat next to Allura with Keith right above you, none of you saying a word as Lance pranced around the cell pulling faces.
“What are you doing?” Hunk asked annoyed
“I’m feeling for secret passages” Lance responded as if it was the most sane idea ever, you looked up at him incredulously- was he serious
“You’ve watched too many movies, Lance. There’s no secret passage.” Keith complained 
“And why on earth would they put one where they keep the prisoners” you questioned the Cuban boy still in disbelief that he wasn't joking 
“Oh really?” he questioned moving to the middle of the cell “Then how do you explain this?” he quickly hit the side of the cell with his foot before whimpering in pain- clearly not an area for a secret passage you simply rolled your eyes at him not failing to notice how Keith smirked at your reaction making your eyebrows furrowed in confusion as to why he seems to care so much about you now. 
“Will someone shut him up?” Krolia asked after Lance hit his other foot on another area that he thought would be a secret passage but wasn't now holding his foot for dear life as he tumbled around in pain.
“There's only one guard patrolling out there.” She observed “If we can get this door open, we can overpower him” 
“What happened to Coran?” Hunk questioned 
“He must of managed to hide when we were captured” Krolia guessed
“At least we have one ally out there still able to fight for us” Allura spoke relieved 
 “Are you saying our fate rests in Coran’s hands?” Pidge asked, causing you all to look down in worry.
“I will help you look for that passage” Pidge comments to Lance clearly believing his idea would have a better shot at getting them free than Coran ever could. 
Your head snapped up at the sound of the door opening when two very familiar faces appeared from behind their guards leaving you all shocked it was two of Lotor's generals
“Look who's here. It’s Voltron” Ezor mocked 
“We’re going to have a little talk” cackled Zethrid 
“Hey you’re the guys that Lotor shot into space” Lance stated the obvious clearly not reading the room
“And the ones that were trying to kill us” Pidge finished off for him
“Yeah sure, but we're all friends now right?” Hunk questioned and you started at him 
“I don’t think they would’ve captured and locked us up if we were friends Hunk” You tilted your head at him as he gawked in understanding 
“I’m glad one of you has a brain,” Ezor smirked. “Makes it so much more fun when we torture you!”
“Where have you been all this time? And what happened to Lotor?” Zethrid questioned 
“What are you talking about” Shiro responded cooly 
“We’re talking about your little disappearing act.” Ezor clarified 
“Disappearing act? We followed Lotor into the quintessence field and then came back out not long after” you replied confused “Not sure how that counts as disappearing” 
“Answer the question!” Zethrid seethed, clearly not impressed by your answer “How did you survive that explosion?” she continued 
“Don’t you know? You were there.” Hunk questioned cautiously 
“I think there’s a little confusion about how the ‘we ask questions, you give us answers scenario works.’” Ezor commented
“Enough of your games. Where is Lotor” Zethrid asked 
“Lotors dead. We left him in the Quintessence field” Keith answered
“Yeah that doesn't really add up. Why aren't you dead?” Ezor probed 
“Because of the power of teamwork?” Hunk responded unsure of himself 
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” Zethrid challenged “and then we are going to have to take a more extreme approach. What happened to Lotor and where have you been all this time?”
“How many times do we have to say it to get it through your thick skulls? We haven't been anywhere and Lotor is dead:” you shouted in annoyance.
“Fine” Ezor replied 
“You leave us no choice but to apply pressure” Zethrid commanded 
“Who is the first victim?” Ezor asked excited 
“How about the smart loudmouth witch Lotor was always telling us about, let's see if she is really worth all his praise,” Zethrid responded, clearly referring to you. Ezor started to make her way towards you when Lance tried to attack her from the side
“Don’t you touch them!” He shouted as he swung his joined together hands as Ezor who quickly dodged his attack sending him to the ground with a kick a guard with a gun was placed in front of him before he could make another move
“Your defence is adorable and so very misguided” Zethrid comments with a laugh 
“Leave us alone” Pidge shouted which resulted in Ezor slapping her with her hair and wrapped it around your hands dragging you to her Hunk called out your name in worry as Ezor’s hand went around your throat as you groaned and thrashed trying to get away 
“Let her go!” Keith commanded but was stopped by a soldier with a gun before he could try anything 
“Answers” Ezor commanded as she held you up against the wall a deadly tight grip on your throat barely leaving enough room for air 
“We told you, he’s–” Keith began to answer them his voice pleading when a large boom rattled the area and alarms started blaring making them all need to leave to check out the security breach.
Ezor quickly let go making you fall to the ground hard, you groaned in pain as you were held up leaning against Allura for support as the rest of the paladins watched her leave. Keith quickly helped you up, eyes looking alarmed as they assessed your neck clearly it looked as bad as it hurt but Krolia started talking before he could say anything much to your relief
“This is our chance, the next time that door opens, overwhelm the guard.” she strategies you'll quickly go on either side preparing yourselves but when the door opened no guard came in, you all looked to the door to see the mice who had taken down the guard 
“Hello little friends” Allura spoke crouching down to them they spoke to her and she gasped “Coran is trying to rescue us and he’s got help- Axca” She turned towards Keith whose eyes lit up with recognition 
“What” was all he could muster.
You all quickly ran to find Coran quickly finding him fighting this large soldier purple and barely conscious from his efforts Lance and Keith quickly grabbed him helping him move along as we made our way towards the hanger that our lions were kept in while Keith went after Axca.
Once you were all inside the lions Keith called out to shoot on his location which you all quickly did resulting in a massive explosion that Keith and Axca fled and ran into the black lion's cockpit then the team quickly made her get away following Axca directions to one of her safe houses. 
── ✧
You were all sitting in her cave, a fire brewing as she turned to speak to you “I don't know what Ezor and Zethrid were on about with Keith because you're my favourite paladin.” you smiled at her compliment 
“Well not that you are up against any tough competition but you always were my favourite of Lotors generals- the only level-headed one” you joked back hitting her with your shoulder as she laughed back
“You're not wrong there” you continued to banter with the galran when Hunk came back with more firewood causing you to halt the conversation but both of your eyes twinkled with the idea that you were far from done speaking.
“I just looked at the lions and they’re in worse shape than ever.” Hunk worries
“We should probably give them some time to recharge before we head back on our way” Shiro decides
“Wow a lot has changed over the past few weeks” Lance comments
“Weeks?” Axca questions “what are you talking about?” 
“The last time we saw you. You were fighting alongside Lotor” Allura responds confused 
“That was three deca-phoebs ago” Axca tells you “No-one has seen you since your fight with Lotor.” 
“That impossible” Kieth stated 
“It’s true” Axca declared “After Lotor jettisoned us, we managed to make it to cover a meteorite. There we saw both Voltron and Lotor disappear. Eventually, Voltron re-emerged… alone. But, then there was an explosion and after that… nothing. That was three deca-phoebe ago”
“So, as far as everyone else in the universe is concerned, Volron has been gone for three deca-phoebe?” Allura clarifies 
“That would explain the discrepancies in the star charts in our lions.” Pidge realised “I thought they were off because of our inter-dimensional jumping which I guess they were in a way- because if you think about it, that must have been the cause of the time slip between our experience and that of the rest of the universe.”
“So how did you end up here, helping us?” Keith questioned the girl 
“Zethrid, Ezor, and I were stationed on the meteoroid for days. Finally, a Galra ship came to investigate Lotor's last known whereabouts. We took it over. With Lotor gone, it was clear that there was a power vacuum in the Galra Empire. Zethrid and Ezor wanted to exploit that for their own gain but I knew I had to find my own path. And it led me to you.” she replied gesturing to the team 
“Thank you for saving us” Keith smiled 
“I hope that this makes up for some of the wrongs I’ve done.” she clarifies you grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze as you smiled
 “We understand” gesturing to you and Allura “How easy it is to believe in him” 
“I realise now that Lotor wasn't the man I thought he was. He preached unity, but in the end, he sought only power.” Axca continued “I’ll do everything I can out here to help the Voltron coalition.”
“Wow, so everyone that was helping is thinks we’re dead” Hunk thought aloud 
“Wait” Pidge called out in a panicked voice “I haven't been able to get ahold of my dad on Earth or Matt and the rebels. What's happened to them in the last three years?”
“And if Ezor and Zethrid became warlords in that time… what else has changed?” Allura questioned.
The revelation that you had been missing for three deca-pheobes settled deep within you all as you sat in silence trying to gather the courage to speak- worry clearly covering all of your faces.
You quickly stood up looking down at your feet as you left Axcas cave and made your way towards the lions sitting on the edge of the cliff they were stationed on trying to steady your breathing as you began to spiral at the idea of all the coalition being gone, all the people that Voltron had let down as you were presumed dead.
You could the lions humming in your brain quieter than last time thanks to their run-down state trying to ease your discomfort- it was still a new feeling every time you closed your eyes you could feel them- like your life force was now integrated with their own, your pain was there and their discomfort yours just as Alfor prophesied. You hoped he was proud- that it was all worth it.
The buzzing of the lions in your head was probably what made you unable to hear his footsteps as they approached you only noticed him when he came to sit next to you the lion’s voices leaving you alone when your eyes stared into his violet orbs echoing your pain of lost time a feeling your sure he is a lot more familiar with. You turn away from him after a moment eyes going to your feet as they dangle from the cliff 
“How do you do it” you mutter to him unsure of how to ask for comfort from him now, after everything
“Hm?” He prompted trying to seem as calm as you for the first time since the Kral Vera started a conversation with him sacred if he said too much it would send you further away than you already where
“Forgive yourself for not being there, for not being able to protect the people you promised I guess” you replied eyes welling up as your throat tightened 
“I think” he took a deep breath as you looked up at him “you just need to remember that there was nothing you could do that could’ve got yourself there, we can’t go back in time” he explained voice soft as he took in your features as you sat there staring at the boy in silence the guilt and remorse finally caught up with you at all the things you had said that day- none of it was true, not to you any way she wasn’t  a sorry excuse of a man rather he was everything you ever wanted and while he may have been cold at times he never was to you- the scene right now proving it, even more, he never turned you away as you did to him that day
“M-sorry” you muttered “for what happened during the Kral vera it wasn’t true- not to me” you began when he interrupted you similarly to how he did that day 
“It’s okay” he smiled a little “I mean you were right I was being overprotective and cold- I had a lot of time to think about it when I was stuck in the quantum abyss with my mom” 
“I don’t want to fight” is all you said, almost whispering 
“I know” he grabbed your hand as you both looked forwards “It’s okay” he repeated squeezing your hand “We’re okay” 
Maybe you were okay but your mind couldn't seem to stop thinking about his words ‘you were right’ a thought you also had these past few months but rather about what he had spoken about you.
You knew what you had said was wrong you even told him that but he hadn’t taken his words back. So that still must be how he thinks about you. Clearly you need to listen to what he said and then continue as you have been barely speaking- anything to avoid his ire and keep him as he is now- content.
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