#i'm just vomiting my emotions at this point ya'll

[starlightments]

until we get there

Sometimes his mind is cruel. He’ll wake in the dead of night, drowning in his sweat, choking on his tears. He’ll clutch at old bedsheets until his knuckles fade to white. He’ll shiver in the darkness, and the light blue marks beneath his eyes will start to burn, and his lungs will heave, aching for a breath that just isn’t there.

And sometimes Keith comes to visit.

Those are the best days, Lance thinks.

Those are the days when it’s easiest to breathe.

rating: T  |  klance  |  canon-divergent(ish) with HEAVY S8 SPOILERS!!  

His days are marked by warm afternoon drizzles, the hazy glow of rose-gold sunsets, and sprawling green pastures that stretch across an endless horizon.

And it’s strange, he often thinks, how willingly he has stumbled into this way of life after everything they’ve been through. He stares up at the sky on cloudless nights, counting all the stars that he once knew so intimately. He sheds his soldier’s armor like a second skin, revealing all his fractures and scars, a frayed script of war. Days pass slowly now — the nights even slower — and time is no longer measured by the galaxy’s wicked whim.

Sometimes he spends every waking hour outside, drenched in daylight. He’ll sit in the middle of the field. He’ll welcome the tickle of soft grass blades beneath his bare feet. He’ll grow drowsy to the sound of a whispering breeze, carrying with it the sweet scent of dew, and juniberrys, and her, and he’ll say to himself: this is enough.

Sometimes he believes it.

Sometimes his mind is cruel. He’ll wake in the dead of night, drowning in his sweat, choking on his tears. He’ll clutch at old bedsheets until his knuckles fade to white. He’ll shiver in the darkness, and the light blue marks beneath his eyes will start to burn, and his lungs will heave, aching for a breath that just isn’t there.

And sometimes Keith comes to visit.

Those are the best days, Lance thinks.

Those are the days when it’s easiest to breathe.

He’ll show up to the farmhouse in between missions with that small, tired grin on his lips — the one that has Mrs. McClain dragging him into the kitchen for a proper meal. Nadia and Sylvio swarm him like tiny gnats, demanding his attention, and demanding every single detail of his latest cool alien adventure. He’ll be ushered onto a threadbare couch, in front of a crackling fireplace, and his muscles will unfurl for the first time in weeks. His heart will dance like the flames before him, and feel so full that it threatens to spill over, and Keith will say to himself: this is enough.

For right now, this is enough.  

And then Lance will come in from the backyard. His hair will be untidy, and he’ll look pale — paler than Keith remembers — but his lips will spread impossibly wide, splitting his entire face in two when his gaze falls on Keith. And then he’ll bound forward, crashing into him like a tidal wave. Lance will squeeze him, and Keith will squeeze back, and he’ll notice how the crook of his neck smells like freshly cut grass, and sunshine.

“Hey, man,” Lance will whisper. “Glad you could make it.”

“Yeah,” Keith will say in return, fingers curling into the back of Lance’s shirt. “Me, too.”

The dinner table is always booming and boisterous. They bombard Keith with questions about the relief efforts, and he answers them all with the calm, calculated patience that, sometimes, still feels as unfamiliar in his veins as a foreign language on his tongue.

“What’s new with you, Lance?” Keith eventually gets the chance to ask.

And Lance glances up slowly from his plate of half-eaten food, offering something almost secretive in his lopsided smile as he says, “Oh, y’know. Same old, same old.”

Keith just nods.    

Sometimes Lance brings him to the field, right as twilight fades to dusk. Keith with his legs stretched out in front of him, and Lance with his back pressed against Kaltenecker’s belly as she lazes beneath the setting sun. Keith loses track of how long they’ve been out here, talking circles around the very topic that still nips at Lance’s raw edges. But then the stars start to glow overhead, and the crickets start to sing in the distance, and Keith speaks so low that he can barely be heard over the melancholy chorus.

“Lance,” he says. “What are you doing?”

The absent-minded scritch-scratch of fingernails behind the cow’s ear comes to a harrowing halt.

“I’m sharing a private moment with Kaltenecker, obviously. Which you’re totally ruining, by the way,” Lance huffs in amusement, burying his face against the animal’s snout. “Isn’t that right, gorgeous? Pay no mind to our broody third-wheel —”

“Lance,” Keith says again, more solemn. “I mean… what are you doing — here?”

Lance goes rigid, his entire body bristling when the sweeping undercurrent of Keith’s words registers inside his head.

“I’m living my life, Keith,” he answers flatly.

“Are you?”

His blue gaze burns, cutting through what’s left of the dim sunlight, and Keith’s own eyes pin him there, unrelenting.

“I’m home. I’m with my family,” Lance says with bite. “What more do I need?”

Keith barely recognizes his own voice as his lips give way to a very blunt, very succinct, “Happiness.”  

Lance tenses his jaw, but says nothing. Then he’s looking away, squinting into the deep-red horizon, and Keith watches as his freckles turn bronze.

“I can see it, Lance. Every time I come here it’s like… you’re a little less yourself. A little less… bright. And it —”

It kills me, it kills me, it kills me, Keith’s mind chants desperately.  

“— it’s not what she would want for you,” he finishes instead. “I know it’s not.”  

The grass rustles and Kaltenecker stirs as Lance shifts around, throwing his wild, red-rimmed eyes on Keith with a snap of his neck. His long lashes gleam, coated with dampness, and Keith’s hands twitch with the impulse to reach out, and wipe them dry.

“Quit acting like you know anything, Keith,” Lance snarls with a viciousness that one can only learn in the frontlines of war. “You’re not in charge anymore. You’re not in charge of Voltron, and you’re sure as hell not in charge of me.”

Keith holds his breath as Lance’s shoulders immediately collapse in on themselves. Regret? Pain? Keith used to be able to tell the difference.

“It’s — over,” Lance rasps weakly, gaze falling into his lap. Small tears dapple the worn denim of his jeans, and Keith feels that knowing simmer at the tips of his fingers. “It’s all over.”  

Keith’s thoughts have drifted elsewhere by the time Lance clamps down on the tremble of his bottom lip. He thinks about all the time that has passed — far too long for any heart to bear the painful burden of loss. He thinks about all the emails that bounce between the paladins — all the unanswered ones that probably still sit in Lance’s inbox. He thinks about all the sleepless nights. All the ones that Keith has missed. All the times Lance must wake up alone and afraid, and all the times Keith should’ve been there to chase away the nightmares.  

“We all miss Allura. You most of all. I get that,” he says at last.

Her name has Lance’s eyelids fluttering to a close.

“But just know that I —” Keith pauses, catching himself, and pointedly amends, “— we miss you, too.”

And, really, that’s all it takes for Lance to break, to crumble like he’s been on the brink of shattering for longer than he lets on. When his eyes creak open once again, they’re as glossy as polished moonstone, and the tears run hot and heavy over the round pinkness of his cheeks.

“I’m scared,” he admits, a shivering whimper into the quiet of nighttime. “I’m scared that one day I’m gonna wake up and… forget how it feels to love her.”  

Lance gasps for air, but his lungs still feel empty.

“And I can’t —” he sobs into his wet palm. “—I can’t do that to her —”

And then it’s the urgent curl of fingers around his wrist as Keith pulls his hand away from his tear-stained face, and the frantic patter of Lance’s heartbeat as both of their palms lay flat against his broad chest, one atop the other, solid and warm.

“You won’t forget,” Keith tells him so firmly that it sounds like a promise. “It’s a part of who you are.”

Lance stares, lips parted, heart still pounding.

Keith’s gaze suddenly goes honey-like, seeping into every crevice and crack that Lance has yet to stitch up, and he adds, soft, “But it’s not all you are.”  

All at once, like the sun finally sinking beneath the skyline, Lance melts into him. He lunges forward, wobbly limbs be damned, and clings so mightily that Keith almost topples onto his back. He sways, steadying their conjoined weight, and then he’s surrounding him, going lightheaded from that earthy, Lance-like scent again.

Keith holds him until he stops trembling. Until he’s certain that the stars will burn out, and the sun will start to rise anew. Until the silence rings in his ears, and he’s muttering, so low that it rumbles in his ribcage:

“Come with me.”

Lance stiffens, and pulls away from the side of Keith’s neck with a dazed, “What?”

“Come with me, Lance. With the Blades. We can always use the extra help,” says Keith.

But Lance just shakes his head, overwhelmed. “I don’t —”

“I want you with me,” and the realization of it has Lance shivering again. Keith can feel it where his arms are still wound around his waist. “You need to get back out there. You need to start flying again, Lance, you were born to fly.”

“Right,” Lance sniffs, dabbing his nose with the back of his hand. “I know it’s been a while, but don’t get it twisted, dude. You’ve always been the prodigy around here.”  

As if calling out in response, a proud, animal-like roar ripples through the catacombs of Lance’s chest, distant yet bone-deep, and he heeds the cry, back straightening.

Keith smirks. “Red doesn’t seem to agree.”

“She’s here?” Lance whispers, perhaps on the verge of tears again.

“Of course. She wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to see you again,” and then, a chuckle. “You know how she gets.”

They wander across the field, back to where Keith had landed earlier. He leads Lance by the hand, fingers woven together, and neither even bothering to question it. And when Lance spots her up ahead, in all her bright, brazen glory, Keith can hear him gasp, and he can feel his grip squeeze tighter. Lance’s blood is boiling with excitement, no doubt, as he picks up the pace until he’s charging forward, past Keith, making a straight shot for Red’s giant paw.  

A short, incredulous laugh bubbles up his throat, and hiccups right past his lips as he splays his palms over her smooth crimson exterior. “Hey, girl,” he greets. “Lookin’ good.”

Red lets loose a ferocious growl, eyes glowing to life like twin moons, and then she’s lowering her head, inviting him into her enormously gaping maw.

And Lance doesn’t need to be coaxed before his legs are taking off, sprinting up the ramp, and barreling into the cockpit where the color red tints everything before his eyes. She’s thrumming with life, and Lance feels it, even now, like a second pulse. Her dashboard blinks and flickers, beckons him closer.

“You should do the honors,” Keith’s voice comes up from behind, following him into the cockpit, and motioning toward the pilot’s chair.

Lance blinks, dumbfounded. “You sure?”

“Positive.”  

Red’s controls burn beneath Lance’s grip, strong and omnipotent, just like they used to whenever they’d chase down the stars or glide along endless streams of nebula, as if the galaxy were their own glittering playground. He pushes his hands forward, and Red gives a sudden jerk that has Lance yelping in surprise, and Keith staggering to the side.

“Shit, Lance —”

“I know, I know, sorry — just a little rusty,” he groans, and then, softer, only for Red, “Easy, girl, easy.”  

Something settles, then. A soothing prickle ghosting along his surface, pebbling his skin down to his toes. Red obeys, purring quietly, and straightens to her full height.

“So,” grins Keith, kneeling beside the pilot’s chair. “Where to, sharpshooter?”

“Let’s just ride,” Lance says. “And see where she takes us.”

Adrenaline plummets into his stomach as Red shoots off the ground. Lance’s back presses into the leather upholstery of the pilot’s chair, and the world disappears below them in a shadowy blur, and Keith is here by his side, right where he belongs, right where he hopes he’ll stay, and Lance says to himself: this is enough.

And this time, with great certainty, he believes it.