#I just think it’s insulting and weird to basically insist everyone should dumb down their reading comprehension

[arte072]

Op was talking about the Stark girls but the problem with this take is that Sansa calls Arya ugly AND would also never die for her lol. In fact, she actively risked Arya’s life/safety multiple times be it the Trident incident, telling the entire court that Arya has traitor’s blood while she herself was a “good girl”, telling Cersei about Ned’s plan, etc etc. and never reflects upon it. She still blames Arya for Lady’s death in A Clash of Kings 😭

I’m sorry but Sansa’s dislike of Arya runs deep. Far deeper than any negativity that might be felt in reverse lbr. And it may not be as bad as say, Cersei and Tyrion, but it also doesn’t have to be for it to still be considered negative.

I’m just so baffled by the insistence that this fundamental aspect of their relationship be denied.

Name one moment of Sansa being selfless for Arya or standing up for her in any way. Name top three moments of Sansa saying or thinking anything positive specifically about Arya! (Vaguely remembering her existence in her idealized memories of Winterfell doesn’t count btw) They both care about each other as family, sure. But where’s the actual love y’all keep talking about?

I think the biggest evidence of the sheer dearth of positivity between these girls is the fact that Arya and Sansa are both POV characters with some of the highest chapter counts in the series, they’ve interacted with each other both in their own chapters and in other’s, and have thought about each other multiple times even after they’ve gone their separate ways. Yet the most ““positive”” quote this fandom has of them is Ned’s “sun and moon” comment. (And for context, this quote was said by Ned after Arya was angry at Sansa for victim-blaming Mycah for his own murder so…..lol)

In the combined 50 something chapters these girls have, the fact that the “Stark sisters LOVE each other!!!! 🤬” crowd has just that one quote spoken by their dad who was basically giving his daughter a lecture and nothing from the girls themselves is just…. sad tbh. Imagine if we were constantly told of the strength and love between Jon Snow and Arya’s relationship and the only evidence was Theon’s “Lord Stark’s sullen bastard has always been fond of his half-sister Arya”.

Sad.

There used to be this trite, overused comeback made by Sansa/Stark Sisters fans that went:

“Umm if Arya knew you were saying anything bad about Sansa she would fucking HATE you!!!!!”

and maybe so! Arya’s very empathetic and has been shown to defend Sansa and get upset on her sister’s behalf multiple times! But would the reverse be true?

Would Sansa hate me if I said negative things about Arya? And if so, where are the textual evidence for this? Because Ned’s “sun and moon; you share dna” is not cutting it I’m afraid 😔

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Top 5 Missed Opportunities in 400 Days

Hey, remember when TWDG Season One ended and we were a group of emotional messes? Remember when Season Two was announced and we were gonna get a DLC to bridge S1 and S2 together and we were extra excited for everything to come? Because I do. 

To be fair, I truly did enjoy 400 Days when it first came out years ago, and it’s not like I hate it now or anything... I just can’t help but look at it and see wasted potential on every level-- the characters and their development, the stories, the impact our choices made for the future...

The concept of 400 Days-- a collection of stories that follow different protagonists and the situations they find themselves in within the zombie apocalypse that eventually connect to one another-- is a great one. I love the idea of mini-episodes that are all connected, and one choice you made in one episode affects the next episode you play... so what happened? Why does it fall flat now when we look back on it?

Well, a major reason for me is the fact that all four seasons of the main game are complete. When 400 Days came out, we didn’t have S2, so we didn’t know what our choices meant. That lead to us theorizing about what would happen if we got everyone to go with Tavia, or what would happen if no one but Bonnie went. Why was Bonnie the only one who agrees no matter what? What could that mean?

And we have those answers now, and it’s a let down... especially when it could’ve been so much better. That’s what I wanna talk about today. I wanna talk about what I think are the biggest missed opportunities in 400 Days. 

5. Giving Shel and her dumb sister actual personalities

Of all the stories you can play in 400 Days, Shel’s episode is probably the worst due to the fact that she and her dumb sister lack any memorable qualities or personalities.... which is such a shame because this story also has one of the more interesting moral dilemma’s. 

In this story, you play as Shel who is surviving in the diner/gas station with a group that consists of some of the cancer patients from S1. Remember them? They were with Vernon and helped him steal out boat? Yeah, they got away and apparently Vernon died and the group feel apart over the damn boat, but you don’t get much more than that. 

Shel has this dumb sister who I can’t be bothered to remember her name because she’s that bland. Her sister is basically Shel’s personality. Take away her sister, and you’re left with nothing. 

They’re going for the “Oh man, I don’t know what this world is doing to my dumb sister, it’s changing her, I don’t want her to have to do things like murder, I want her to have a normal childhood,” but that falls flat when they don’t give me a reason to care about them in the first place. 

Like I said, the moral dilemma for this one IS interesting-- They catch someone who tried to steal from them. The man is injured pretty bad, and he can’t speak English, so there is no way for them to communicate with him. Roman, the dude who acts as the leader of our group, says that they can’t keep him here but they can’t send him back out there... and that means killing him. 

So what do you do? Do you risk it by giving this man a second chance, give him some food and send him on his way and hope he doesn’t come back and do more harm? Or do you kill this man so that there is no risk in him coming back to do harm? 

And you as Shel are the swing vote. That’s not an easy choice to make, plus you gotta think about how that choice is gonna affect your dumb sister?

Except it doesn’t really matter.... at all. No matter what you do, Roman still cracks down and wants to murder another member of the group who tries to escape, Shel’s dumb sister is still a brat who talks big but never does anything, and Shel is still a stale piece of white bread. 

If they wanted us to care, then give Shel something other than her sister. Maybe they could’ve had her be someone who doesn’t really have a backbone, she tries to avoid conflict and is intimidated by Roman, she doesn’t speak up even when she should, and then her dumb sister could be the opposite-- Loud, take charge, wants to get more involved with protecting the group, isn’t afraid to stand up to Roman which causes him to take her under his wing and wanna turn her into a murder baby... which Shel definitely doesn’t want so what could she do to keep her dumb sister away from him? 

If they wanted to tell the story of a woman worried her sister is going to grow up cold and ruthless because of the world around her, then tell that story. Show us that story, show us what happens when you agree to kill the man and now her dumb sister genuinely believes that murder is an easy solution to their problems, so when it comes to the woman who escaped, the dumb sister volunteers to kill her and Roman lets her... and you as Shel gotta decide if you wanna fight that by running away or just let it happen. 

I dunno man, but Shel’s story is my least favorite of the bunch because I have no reason to care about either of them, and that’s a waste. 

4. Nate’s a shithead so they should’ve used him more

Well, hello again, Nate... we meet once more here on T5F. 

So yeah, I’ve talked about this crazy bastard on a previous list about characters no one likes, so you’re probably wondering why I’m saying that he should’ve been around more.

That’s the thing, I hate Nate. He’s gross, he’s brutal, and he’s uncomfortable with those crazy eyes of his... but he would’ve made for a fun antagonist in more of 400 Days, as well as in S2. 

Depending on what episode you play first, Nate can either first appear in Wyatt’s story, or Russell’s. In Wyatt’s story, Nate is chasing down him and Eddie after Eddie accidentally killed a guy who was with Nate, and Nate here is chasing them down for some revenge. He eventually finds them, and who ever is left in the car as no choice but to flee, leaving the other behind. 

Nate plays a more active part in Russell’s story, picking him off the highway and chatting with him on the way to the diner/gas station, and y’know how Shel has no personality? Well, I think I know where all the personality went because Nate’s got quite a bit of it. He’s one of the more memorable parts of 400 Days for a reason. He has a weird charisma about him, but then he starts talkin’ gross and almost gets Russell’s face eaten off by a walker and you get the idea that this man isn’t quite right, y’know?

Then we make it to the diner/gas station where they get shot at, and Nate insists on finishing this... as in, let’s go in and shoot whoever is shooting us. They sneak in, and the old man there says Nate is back to finish the job... which isn’t great. Nate acts like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but then suggests they kill the old couple using a line from the story Russell told her.... y’know, the story that’s kinda triggering for Russell. 

At this point, Russell can either tell Nate off and leave, or he can stay where Nate will kill the couple right in front of him and claim that Russell is his boy and it is not great.

We know that either way, Russell gets away from Nate. We never see him again so he could be dead, turned, or alive. All I can think about is the fact that they created the beginnings of a compelling antagonist who could’ve bled over into S2 at Howe’s or even afterward. Like if we showed up at Howe’s and were locked up, only to find Nate locked up with us. Or maybe instead of Arvo, Nate could’ve been the one who stumbled upon Clementine and Jane and was overpowered and threatened by them... only for him to stalk them and confront them about what happened. 

Either way, there was a missed opportunity to do more with Nate. 

3. Focusing on the wrong things within Bonnie’s story

Alright, everyone’s favorite: Bonnie. 

Bonnie is the only character in 400 Days who actually matters in terms of S2... and even then, her story doesn’t matter too much...which is dumb. 

For me, Bonnie’s story is such a waste... like okay, right from the start they establish that Bonnie is a recovering addict, and I’m intrigued. The idea of an addict surviving in the apocalypse while trying to kick the stuff is interesting as hell.... but the story kinda just glosses over it unless Dee is insulting Bonnie by calling her a junkie. 

No, the story we got was Bonnie breaking up a marriage. Great. 

There’s this dude Leland who has a wife, Dee, but he and Bonnie are getting awfully snug with one another... so that’s real nice. Dee eventually finds them giving each other the look and breaks it up in a passive aggressive way before revealing she found a bag of supplies. This happens to be a bag that she “found” at the diner/gas station where Shel’s group is currently staying. 

An argument breaks out between Leland and Dee with Bonnie in the middle and it’s not compelling at all. You can just sit there and do nothing and it doesn’t matter, they continue to fight until Shel’s group spots them and they gotta run. 

Bonnie ends up shot and falls behind, and we do get a cool scene where she has to make her way through this cornfield without getting caught. I do like that bit, it’s fun. 

But then she gets away, grabs a weapon, and hits someone walking up on her... that someone happened to be Dee. Whoops. Dee calls her a junkie, saying she killed her, and then dies.

Now comes the big choice: Do you tell Leland the truth or lie to cover your ass?

While this is an interesting choice on paper, it doesn’t matter. Leland isn’t with Bonnie in the end no matter what, and Bonnie will always agree to go with Tavia. 

Personally, I wanted the fact that she was a recovering addict to be more front and center. Throw Leland and Dee away, have Bonnie travelling on her own. Have her going through withdrawals, show us her struggle of still being hooked on drugs while surviving in the zombie apocalypse... have her stumble across Shel’s group and from a distance, she sees they have medical supplies. She’s so desperate that she sneaks in at night and steals as much as she can, but gets caught. 

We could still have her running away through the cornfield with the drugs, she can still get shot and everything... but maybe she’s so desperate for them that she ends up killing one of Shel’s group members, and she sees just what she’s willing to do in order to get these drugs, and you can make a choice of abandoning the drugs and quitting, or taking the drugs and running away... and it could actually affect Bonnie in the ending and into S2. 

Plus, her killing one of Shel’s group would help add to the debate in her episode, y’know?

I just... I wanted that story... not what we got. 

2. The past is more interesting than the present

This goes hand in hand with #3, but applies to almost everyone else. 

All of these characters that we get to play as have more interesting backstories that I was more compelled by than what they’re actually going through in their stories. 

The first time we meet Vince, he straight up murders a dude who is pleading for his life, saying he doesn’t even know Vince’s brother. Like... okay, what the hell happened here? What happened to Vince’s brother that made her commit murder like that? 

How about Wyatt and Eddie? They’re running from Nate after Eddie killed the guy he was with. They’re panicking, Eddie is covered in the dude’s blood, Wyatt doesn’t know if Eddie meant to shoot or not. You can tell they’re known each other a long time, too. They’re a couple of stoners who got themselves into hot water. 

Oh and Russell? His story is interesting as hell! He was in a group where the main guy kept going on about how seven if the perfect number for a group, ya can’t break seven, and this group eventually started killing so they could steal, so Russell got away and is now on his way to find his grandmother’s place. 

Once again... Bonnie is a recovering drug addict in the apocalypse. 

The only one without an interesting backstory is Shel... which I guess is fitting. The boring character doesn’t even get a fun backstory, she just exists. 

It’s not a good sign when I’m more interested in the past, y’know? Vince’s I can give a bit of a pass to because he killed that guy before the apocalypse broke out, and his dilemma takes place right at the start, and it’s done pretty well. 

Everyone else though? I already explained Bonnie’s, but what about Russell and his seven group? We could’ve gotten that story of a group that starts out good, the guys gives his philosophy on the dumber seven, Russell meets that one girl... but then things start to grow dark when the group starts to become desperate enough to murder and steal, the guy keeps going on about the number seven so they can’t invite anyone in, and they can’t let anyone go... so Russell has to sneak away or something. 

Wyatt and Eddie? Show ‘em there when Nate and his buddy show up. Give us the tension of “are these guys chill or are they planning something?” when Eddie gets into a fight with the other dude and ends up shooting him, Nate gets pissed, and they gotta flee. Wyatt doesn’t know if Eddie shot him intentionally or not, it’s a whole, thing and they can still hit the cop and do that whole thing, too. 

I just... I think problem is the stories were a bit too compact and short, not giving the characters a chance to develop or the stories enough compel to them. 

1. It doesn’t matter who goes to Howe’s or not and that’s dumb

Sigh..... so yeah, obviously this is #1. 

My biggest problem with 400 Days is that is doesn’t affect much. Even Bonnie’s story doesn’t affect what she does in S2.

As for the rest, if you only got Bonnie at Howe’s, then the rest and their fate’s are unknown. But if you do manage to get everyone to go with Tavia, they are at Howe’s... the problem is, they show up in small cameos that literally do nothing. 

Ya got Wyatt who walks past Clementine like “Dude you better hurry, Bill doesn’t like to wait” like.... what, am I just supposed to get excited and point at him like “oooohhh I know him! I know him! That Wyatt! Hehehehe!” because I didn’t do that...

Or Vince randomly showing up to catch Tavia smoking, or Shel and her dumb sister making a comment about Sarah, it’s just dumb. 

And then Howe’s falls and their fates are left unknown anyway.... so it didn’t matter. 

I’ll just say what most of us were thinking.... Why weren’t they the cabin group? No, seriously, why weren’t the 400 Day’s crew the cabin group? Because it was too hard given the fact that there are so many combos? That’s fair, but if that’s the case, then what was the point of 400 Days?

Did they just want to tell a bunch of smaller stories within this world but never actually planned on using them outside of fun cameos in S2, with the exception of Bonnie? That probably is the case... and I think my disappointment in 400 Days does stem from being in the fandom at the time and getting hyped to see what they would do with these characters, only for it to be this. 

Not only that, but then I started to think about how they could’ve done with game but with the actual cabin group from S2. Luke, Nick, Pete could’ve had their own story dealing with Nick’s mom getting bit after they took in a bite victim. 

Rebecca and Alvin could’ve had a story about their marriage kinda falling apart despite them trying hard, and this could help make her affair with Carver make more sense. 

Carlos and Sarah could have a story that explains Carlos’ over protectiveness and as well as explore Sarah as a character. 

Hell, give Mike a story. 

Give JANE a story about her and Jaime so that her appearing outta no where isn’t jarring, and develops her and the reasons she treats survival the way she does.

There was so much they could’ve done with this idea... and to be honest, if we ever get another game in this series, I would love it in this style but expanded into a season where each episode follows a different character and tells a different story, but in the end they all end up connecting. There is SO MUCH you can do with that!

But alas..... 400 Days for me is full of missed opportunities and I wish it wasn’t. 

---

Honorable Mentions

-Eddie only appeared in Wyatt’s episode and then disappeared until his death in S4.... Eddie’s great, should’ve been around more. -Would’ve been nice if the cancer group from S1 was expanded on, give more context to what the hell happened to Vernon and the boat, y’know? -a bit more development for Tavia would’ve been nice, as well... she just kinda shows up at the end and recruits who she can. 

---

So what are your thoughts on 400 Days? Do you agree with these missed opportunities, or have any to add? Lemme know, it’s always fun to chat.

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

Next week’s T5F Top 5 Reasons Gabe’s Pretty Great, Y’all Are Just Mean

[kinetic-elaboration]

March 19: 2x11 Friday’s Child

Finally watched this week’s TOS. This was a hard day again and I’m tired and basically as soon as the ep ended my mood deflated again but I think I can write up a few notes and then crawl right back into bed again.

Another episode about negotiating for a mining treaty, huh? (I’m keeping track of all of these, roughly, for my own Nefarious Purposes).

The aliens are seven feet tall and they wear silly outfits.

Wow, what a dumbass red shirt. You’d think Starfleet would train people NOT to just randomly draw their weapons in diplomatic situations.

I honestly forgot there were Klingons in this.

DC Fontana wrote this!! I forgot that too.

Lol Kirk just drops the deceased red shirt. And then keeps holding his hands out like ‘what am I to do now?’

“They want to negotiate for our rocks. Our stupid, useless rocks. Everyone wants our rocks! So weird.”

I’m actually kind of surprised DC Fontana wrote a Klingon ep but like... I guess it’s not that surprising given this guy doesn’t even have a name and is also really dumb lol. At least he’s not in brownface.

When Kirk and Spock disarmed I didn’t realize they were throwing down their communicators and I was a little confused as to why they had to carry so many phasers each.

Kirk’s pretty upset about the crewman’s death, which I get, he always goes feral when one of his people dies and I appreciate that about him... but that guy really did fuck up lol.

I like seeing Scotty in command.

Oooh mood lighting in the tent. And Spock is meditating I think.

Emotion is “inefficient and illogical.” No wonder Kirk thinks they can never be in love!!

And yet jealous is also inefficient and illogical and I detect some of it in Spock when the blonde Cappellan comes in.

“They consider combat more pleasurable than love.” Hmm sounds like someone else I know.

... Honestly I wish the Grounders had been like this. I feel like there’s more thought in creating this society in one episode than in creating that one over 7 seasons.

I love Bones in this and his role as cultural translator.

The Federation believes in self-determination.

“The sky does not interest me.”

I really do dig the world building here. There’s so much going on in this one ep, even just in part of an ep, and you really get the sense that this is a whole world with its own rules and customs and values, and its own complex political machinations that our mains have really just wandered into.

Also the soundtrack today is NOT messing around. TV composers just don’t go this hard anymore, sorry.

Oooh now the Klingon’s afraid at the prospect of fighting Kirk.

The Enterprise just walked into a coup I guess.

Lots of fighting! Kirk must be having fun.

Scotty is so commanding! I feel like he and Uhura were already friends at this point. Like whenever he’s in command she seems really comfortable just wandering up to his chair all the time.

Also why are they ALWAYS signing stuff?

Yessss silent triumvirate communication.

“To live is always desirable.” I mean she’s not wrong but so much for being willing to die without a fuss lol.

It’s kind of wild how this ep started out being about a mining treaty and drama with the Klingons and all of this alien political drama and then basically becomes all about saving one (1) pregnant widow (and themselves) from huge, ,hostile aliens in funny feather boas.

Sulu insulting Scotty’s knowledge of ships lol. Not smart.

Can’t believe the Klingon couldn’t get his weapon back but Kirk got his communicators back no problem. Who is the smarter alien?

They’ll find us BY SCENT ALONE what a detail to just throw in there!

Lol this whole scene with McCoy and Eleen is hilarious and ridiculous in equal measure. Like I can’t entirely blame her for not wanting to be touched intimately by a strange alien man (rude!!) but also I do enjoy McCoy’s gruff insistence that he WILL care for his patient. This is what AOs didn’t get about “Grumpy Bones.” He’s not mean, he’s just...not up for niceties when he has a healing to do. He WILL care for you dammit!

And he has soft hands.

Spock is loving this.

Kirk’s subtle reverse psychology. “Well if you don’t think the communicator plan can work” and then Spock like “I didn’t say that exactly...”

They aren’t human, they’re humanoid!

And again, the subtle taunting/goading of Bones: “Well if you can’t do it...”

I’m a doctor, not an escalator! One of the best lines.

Detective Scotty. Kind of ridiculous how he solves the case of the taunting Klingons luring them away from the planet...but then sticks around a bit more just in case.

The child is McCoy’s!

Spock is so uncomfortable with this giving birth thing. “Oh look Captain, vegetation!”

“Just repeat ‘The child is mine.’“ “Yes, the child is yours.” Lol.

Arts and crafts with Kirk and Spock! I love that this is a McCoy ep with subtle space husbands in the background.

Favorite moment though is McCoy trying to teach Spock how to hold a baby. “I would rather not, thank you.”

“Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on...won’t get fooled again.”

I love that Chekov is consciously messing with them about everything being from Russia.

Also the absolute GALL of the Klingons trying the exact same ship luring technique a second time.

Can’t believe that Bones wants to go off and have fun with the boys and just leave the baby alone in the cave. You’re a dad now McCoy!! Be responsible!

“Small patient.” Yes very small!

Cool little robot battle station unfolding at the helm.

I feel like when Kirk and Spock have that exchange about cavalry coming over the hill and Spock says "if by that you mean..." Kirk should have answered, "I thought I just said that." But then that wouldn't be very Kirk of him. He never makes fun of Spock.

This Klingon is not having a good day!

Scotty and the redshirts here to save the day.

I guess Maab wasn’t so bad after all. And Elaan is perhaps a little confusing, but I admire her desire to both save herself and adhere to her people’s traditions, even if those are incompatible desires.

Spock absolutely IS going to consult linguistics about baby talk. Probably Uhura specifically.

LEONARD JAMES AKAAR. Absolutely one of the top 5 final bridge scenes. They really missed an opportunity to return to the planet in a later movie or series and interact with the Teer.Captain Picard meets Leonard James Akaar.

This was a good ep! I really only remembered the Bones and Elaan parts with the baby, so I forgot all of the political machinations and stuff in the beginning of the ep. It’s a pretty solid world building episode and of course, lots of McCoy, can’t go wrong with that.

I actually think it makes a lot of sense for Bones to be the child’s “father” tbh. Like, I know everyone thinks it’s funny but like... in our culture, we assign pseudo-parental roles to people who aren’t blood relatives of children based on the adult’s relationship with the child’s blood relative and that’s arguably weirder. Like you can be a kid’s step father by marrying his mom even if you really don’t have any relationship to him, so why shouldn’t McCoy, who saved Leonard’s mother’s life and delivered him, and convinced her to actually desire to raise him, be considered his “father”? ESP given that this society seems to have no place at all for fatherless children. They just can’t conceive of such a thing. So “father” has to encompass something other than, or not strictly limited to, biological father. She was so quick to assign McCoy fatherhood status, I have to assume this happens a lot, that people take on that role for non-bio children.

Not a lot for Spock to do today but I think he had fun. He got to explode some rocks and make some bows and shoot some arrows. And Kirk got into a lot of fights so I think he enjoyed himself.

I don’t know if I believed the Cappellans were 7 feet tall but they did look broad and alien so I will give them that.

It was nice to see Scotty in command again. I’m so mad at AOS still for making him comic relief. I think he’s actually quite a serious person. Talking with my mom, I’ve decided that the crew can be grouped into ‘cracks jokes through a crisis’ and ‘generally gets very serious in a crisis, reserves humor for calm moments’ and while Sulu, Chekov, and Spock are in group 1, Scotty is definitely in group 2 with Kirk and McCoy. (Uhura seems generally lighthearted and fun loving but not funny per se so I don’t know how to group her.)

Also this is one of the early filmed Chekov episodes (as you can see by the hair) and he spends it, again, at Spock’s station. It’s so obvious he was introduced as Spock’s protege, not as the navigator, which I think is very interesting. Like I want to hear the backstory on that.

Next week’s episode is The Deadly Years, which I remember as being very solid.

[cdelphiki]

Bewildered was the only word Damian could use to describe how he felt.

Because just that morning, he hadn’t expected anyone to acknowledge what the day even was. But now, after he’d spent the morning playing video games with Jon, chatting with his Father on the phone, and then having a rather lovely lunch, people were showing up at the apartment.

Lots of people.

People Damian knew.

That he’d call family, if pressed.

...Plus Drake’s insufferable friends.

Which was just weird. Kon and Stephanie were there among the attendees, right along side Jason, Cass, Duke, and Alfred. 

So yes, Damian was bewildered. Or befuddled. Or just plain old confused.

Alfred he understood, of course. Even if the two of them had barely spoken since Damian got whisked away to the Kent’s, Alfred had always been one to remember things. And despite their relationship’s rocky start, Alfred had always been someone stable and supportive in his life. So, actually, he thought himself stupid for not realizing Alfred would actually remember.

It was the rest of these people that startled him.

He’d felt off kilter ever since he’d answered the door, an hour before, at Jon’s insistence that “it’s for you, D.”

Which, that was just annoying. The x-ray vision. The flagrant use of powers within the privacy of the apartment. Damian wasn’t used to it. Clark and Jon just…. casually floated around, sometimes. Used heat vision to heat things up. Speed to get chores done in a blink. And x-ray vision to look at and find things.

Damian was becoming progressively more amused by the exasperated glances Lois shot him, though, whenever one of them forgot that the rest of them couldn’t just look through the fridge door to see how many eggs were left.

It usually made him grin, actually. And he’d caught himself giving her the same look, a few times.

When Damian opened the door, however, he kind of wished he did have x-ray vision. Just so he could have had those precious few seconds to prepare himself.

Because on the other side of the door was Tim Drake. Just standing there. Holding a neatly wrapped gift with a card on top, and surrounded by all those people.

“Uhh,” Damian had stammered, a horrid habit he’d acquired from Jon, no doubt.

“Hey,” Tim had said, offering a lopsided grin as he pushed the gift at Damian, “Happy Birthday, gremlin. Gonna let us in?”

So Damian did, and it’d been a literal party ever since.

Which was what was so bewildering.

He’d never had a birthday party before.

Not like this.

They had cake and ice cream, as a group, and suddenly it made sense why Lois and Clark had made such a large cake. Before Damian was allowed to blow out his candles, he had to listen to the group sing him a ridiculous song, and it made him nostalgic for that first birthday he'd had away from the League.

Back when it was just him and Grayson and Alfred.

Grayson had sung this same song, all off key and squeaky, entirely on purpose, just to annoy Damian. But it’d been that gentle teasing, The kind Damian had come to associate with Dick Grayson. The kind that made him ache for his older brother, wishing beyond hope that the man would just hit his head and suddenly remember everything. Even though he knew that was not how brain injuries worked.

But just as the song had done on his 11th birthday, it made Damian feel warm inside on his 14th. It filled, just a little, that empty spot in his chest. The one that so often burned, with a soft almost…. happiness he had a difficult time describing. But damn was he going to cry again today. Especially not in front of all these people.

It was one thing to cry in front of the Kents, but like hell would he make such a mistake in front of the Bats.

“Clark,” Damian asked, once everyone had finished their cake and Clark and Lois were gathering the plates to wash, so they could ‘open presents,’ as Jon had shouted so enthusiastically. Brat probably knew whatever Damian got would be stored in their room, and therefore was basically his, too.

At least, that had been his reasoning, a few weeks back, when Damian caught Jon using his nice markers to draw the most horrific drawing of his dad he’d ever laid eyes on. ‘A school project,’ he had said, ‘we have to draw our favorite superhero.’ Damian had just scoffed and criticized both his misuse of the expensive Copics, as well as his predictable selection of his own father as his favorite superhero.

‘Isn’t Batman your favorite,’ Jon had said, to which Damian scoffed, ‘Yes, but Bruce Wayne is not.’ It had effectively shut Jon up. And relaying the price of each marker had also caused Jon to hand them back over, not wanting to replace any by ruining them.

“Yeah, bud?” Clark asked, smiling as he rinsed off each plate at lightning speed, even while he spoke to Damian. They were alone in the kitchen, and even though it was an open concept apartment, the group was being loud enough that Damian was confident in their privacy.

“Did you invite everyone?” he asked, resisting the urge to look away or pull his hood up. He hated his tells, and he tried his best not to show them.

“No,” Clark said easily, now drying the dishes off and putting them away in the cabinets. Why have a dishwasher when you have a Clark, Lois always said. “Tim did, actually. This entire party was his idea.”

“Tim Drake,” Damian asked incredulously. Because that made no sense. Damian had just been curious whether he should thank the Kents or Alfred for the party. It had never even crossed his mind that Tim might be the culprit.

Because what the hell??

“Is there more than one Tim?” Clark asked, clearly amused, now just leaning back against the sink to chat.

Well, yes, there was more than one Tim, Damian thought, but it was true that he didn’t personally know another Tim. It’s just, never in a million years would he have expected Tim Drake to be the one to do something so…. thoughtful. To be the reason Damian felt at peace for once, in a world without Dick Grayson, that is. And without Father around.

“But… Tim hates me?” Damian whispered, failing to prevent his shock from showing on his face, “Why would he….”

When Damian trailed off, Clark just frowned. “I don’t know what all has gone down between you two,” Clark said slowly but softly. In that same tone he always used when comforting Damian. He kind of hated that he liked it so much. “But I can tell you this: He does not hate you. I’d venture to say he actually loves you.”

All Damian could do was shake his head. Because no. No no no no no. That wasn’t right.

That couldn’t be right.

Tim Drake did not love Damian. Tim was the one who always rolled his eyes whenever Damian started speaking at family meetings. He was the one who groaned whenever Damian crashed one of his cases. When he had to team up with the Teen Titans, and Damian was there. When Father assigned them to patrol together. When he just remembered Damian existed, in general.

And it’s not like Damian didn’t deserve it. He realized, now, how wrongly he had treated his ‘brother’ from the beginning. Pushing him off the dinosaur had been unforgivable, he now knew. The fact Tim even tolerated him enough to simply groan and roll his eyes at his presence was more than Damian deserved, after breaking so many of his bones for no good reason.

So, no, Tim Drake did not love Damian. It was impossible. If their roles were reversed, Damian would never forgive Tim. Ever. Would be glad to be rid of him after this whole thing went down between Father and the rest of them, pulling Damian out of Gotham and Tim away from Father.

“Damian,” Clark said, wrapping his arm around Damian’s shoulders and pulling him in a little, “whatever is going around in that head of yours is wrong, okay? Tim cares about you, pal. Otherwise he wouldn’t have reached out weeks ago to make these plans. All those people over there care about you. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t, okay?”

Resting the side of his head against Clark for a second, the only acceptance of the half hug he’d show, Damian looked at the group of people sitting in the living room, carrying on and laughing about whatever dumb thing Jason had just said.

Steph noticed he was staring, and she smiled brightly and called, “Come on, birthday boy. Come open your presents, and be prepared to be amazed by my awesome gift. Everything else on this table pales in comparison, I promise.”

“Shut up,” Jason said, tossing a chip at her for the comment, “I’ll have you know my gift is very thoughtful and incredible. The demon will cry I tell you. Cry.”

“Pfft,” Tim said loudly, “Mine’s the best. Kon already confirmed it.”

“That’s cheating,” Steph screeched, “You can’t use powers like that!”

It just devolved into chaos from there, as the lot of them continued arguing. Clark squeezed Damian’s shoulder and said, “Go on. I don’t think they’ll stop until you open them all and declare a winner.”

“Tt,” Damian huffed, even though he was smiling a little, “it is not proper to play favorites with gifts. It is the thought that counts, I have been told.”

“There’s the Alfred in you,” Clark said fondly, pushing Damian toward the living room.

The gifts were all incredible. Well, some more-so than others. Jason got him a gift card to one of the local art supply chains, as well as a copy of one of his favorite books. Alfred got him a set of teas, all of his favorites from when he was living in the manor. Steph got him a cartoon-style Robin figure, which was just insulting and kind of hilarious.

But when Damian opened Tim’s gift, he make sure to pay attention to his brother’s face, without making it obvious he was doing so. Tim’s expressions were carefully blank, but Damian could tell he was doing that to cover up for anxiety and excitement for whatever he had gotten Damian. And once the item was fully unwrapped, all Damian could do was gawk.

Because in Damian’s hands was a set of extremely rare natural pigments. He actually hadn’t even heard of half of the pigment sources, that was how obscure they were. But they were some of the most vibrant colors he’d ever seen. Bright purple, rich orange, dark blue, deep red, just to name a few of the colors he saw.

They were…. incredible.

He actually could not wait to mix some of them up and try them out.

“I got them in the gem world,” Tim explained, “a lot of those are made from materials not found on earth.”

When Damian realized what that confession meant, he almost did cry. Because at some point, months ago, before this entire fiasco had even begun, Tim Drake had seen a set of pigments while stranded in another dimension and thought ‘hey, Damian would like those,’ and then got them. Stored them away and waited for his birthday, and then planned an entire party when he realized the Bats were not doing one.

Just that realization threatened to set him over the edge again, but instead he just smiled.

He smiled and started to think that, yeah. Maybe Tim didn’t hate him.

Damian definitely didn’t hate Tim.

[philosophiums]

I asked @ravenvsfox for some klance inspo post-season 7, and she gave me this really great prompt:

Oh shit dude I want to see some wholesome lance Coming To Terms™️ w his sexuality with the help of Keith looking like That and also certified gay advice-giver Shiro, I’m talkin heart to hearts I’m talkin confessions

...and then I didn’t really write it klsjbksdjfb

But what I did write is this 7k mess that’s also on AO3 for people who want an easier platform for reading (it also has a dope title hell yeah).

The Garrison’s training room is hot, humid, and not as advanced as the one on the Castle of Lions. But it’s out of the sun, and it’s familiar - the curve of the floor mat, the setup of the weights and the targets on the far end the equipment lockers. None of it’s changed in the years since Keith got kicked out of the Garrison for bad behavior, still perfectly shined and perfectly clean. Of all the things to not fall into disarray during the war, this is certainly an odd room to survive. Maybe Iverson spent so long yelling at them all to shape up and keep the place tidy that the room itself started following orders.

Keith swings his Marmora blade, practicing his precision over and over again by stopping each swing just before it can hit its mark. It’s a skill he’s not that good at - stopping an action when he’s already fully committed. Maybe this will help push muscle memory into place, even if it won’t be able to completely rework Keith’s brain to stop him from barreling headfirst into situations. He’s better at it now, but he’s still not perfect. He’s best when Lance is around, which is really shit luck on his part, considering that Lance is barely around at all anymore.

Keith hasn’t seen Lance since... since the battle for Earth ended with them all crashing back to the surface, unconscious and in drained lions. But even that wasn’t really... seeing Lance, and Keith knows that and feels it like a missing bone, something vital that used to be there and hasn’t grown back. But he hasn’t sought Lance out, even though he’s had nothing else to do except work on patrols with his old classmates and hang out with Kosmo. He figures that Lance wants to spend time with his family, and that he’ll come back around when he’s ready.

He isn’t prepared at all to see Lance now, but the doors open halfway through Keith’s next swing, and Lance steps through. Their eyes lock, and Lance comes to a jarring halt, and Keith’s sword slices clean through the dummy he’d been practicing with. The head and shoulders roll, but Keith doesn’t care. Lance looks... lost. Like he hadn’t come here on purpose but isn’t really startled to find himself here. Startled to find Keith here, maybe, but definitely not himself.

“Hey, man.” Keith lowers his sword and takes a step towards Lance, who seems to tighten up before walking closer.

“Hey, Keith.” Despite his posture and the empty fog look in his eyes, Lance’s tone is normal. “You can’t sit still either, huh?”

He really can’t - not that he’s ever been able to. But lately... doing anything at a speed that isn’t full tilt leaves him shaking. Everything’s calmer now, with the battle won and clean-up the forefront of everyone’s concerns. But the war is still raging, and Keith is gnawing to get back into the fight again. Every time he takes a step, his body wants to tip forward into a sprint, even with the security of the Garrison trying to reteach him how to take a day off. But it’s hard. Every time something heavy clatters to the ground, or a person walks by too fast, Keith is reaching for his bayard or his knife. Luckily, he hasn’t drawn either weapon on anyone yet, but the fear that he will is what’s pushed him into the training room today.

“Feels like I shouldn’t,” Keith says, watching Lance closely as he comes to a stop a few feet away. There’s a light in his eyes that Keith hasn’t seen in a long time, and he thinks it’s because they’re back on Earth, but the rest of Lance is… wrong. Off-balance and out of sorts and distant. “Do you want to… talk about anything?” He can’t imagine Lance sought him out, seeing as no one knew Keith was in here, except maybe a few people he passed in the hall, but he figures he should extend the offer anyway. “Or train?”

A cocky grin is quick to slap itself onto Lance’s face, which Keith would bet money has more to do with Keith’s extended concern than the training, despite Lance’s next words.

“Eager to have your ass kicked, Keith?”

Maybe he shouldn’t just roll with it. Maybe being a good leader and a good friend means that Keith should insist on talking if he thinks there’s something bothering Lance. But he doesn’t insist. He scoffs. “As if. Besides, I was thinking we could test out that thing Pidge made. Work together, you know?”

Lance tips his head, all confusion. “Pidge made something?”

Oh, right. Lance hasn’t been around anyone in a while, so he wouldn’t have known. Keith so desperately wants to get to the bottom of this, to shake Lance by the front of his shirt if he has to and figure out what’s wrong with him because he’s worried, but he just throws back a grin of his own. “Yeah. Shiro asked if she could make something similar to the training room on the Castle. There was a lot of technobabble, but I think it basically boiled down to Pidge is so busy working on other projects that she had to settle for making a crude device instead of the magnificent thing Shiro was imagining.”

Keith leads Lance over to the gun range, a separate room connected to this one, where the walls are thicker, and guns line the walls instead of the close-range weapons that were in the main room. There’s also a huge container of recycled Galra drones against the far wall, which Pidge has connected to her new training device. Keith doesn’t care about the science of it – all he knows is that if he hits a couple buttons, some of the drones power on. “Pick your weapon, I guess.”

Lance only looks at the wall for a moment before he holds out his hand and stares at his palm. Keith’s about to ask what the hell he’s doing when – “Holy shit.”

“What?” Lance looks up at Keith, fingers closing around the red bayard. “You said pick my weapon. I figured we were using alien weapons since you have your blade. Was I wrong?”

“No, Lance, I just.” He doesn’t know how to phrase this without it coming out sounding like an insult, but the fact of the matter is that he’s fucking astounded. Without his flight suit on, Lance just summoned his bayard, and it came to him. Keith’s never managed to do that, nor have any of the other paladins, to his knowledge. He can feel himself smiling, and it’s soft and tender and stupid like the smiles Adam used to give Shiro when he pulled off a reckless trick in a fighter jet. “You and Red must’ve gotten close.”

A hint of a blush seeps into Lance’s cheeks, but instead of preening at the compliment or saying something dumb about having a “way with the ladies,” Lance just looks embarrassed, and that’s… weird. “I guess we’ve been through a lot together,” he says. Keith thinks that’s an understatement.

For a moment, a silence that’s nothing but awkward slips between them. Keith stares at Lance and his bayard and wishes suffering wasn’t a requirement for forging such a deep bond with the lions – and maybe it’s not; maybe things would be different if they hadn’t fallen flat on their faces into being paladins in the middle of a war.

He notices Lance’s eyes on him, too – moving from his sweat-damp shirt up to his neck, which Keith knows is still at least a little flushed from training. Lance is quick to look away, though, when Keith pushes a hand through his hair and gestures with his blade at the device on the wall. “I suppose we should train.” Guns aren’t exactly the most effective in close quarters, but he’s seen Lance produce a pistol before, which is better than a rifle at this distance.

Keith walks over to the wall, and Lance follows. “So… how does it work?” Lance asks, poking at the metal box.

“Pidge explained it really fast, but basically, you flip the switch and you tell the thing how many drones you want, and how fast you want them to move. They start out lighted green, and you only supposed to attack them when they turn purple. Oh, and I guess they also shoot at you when they turn purple.”

“Wait, what?”

Keith flips the switch before Lance can freak and figure out a way to back out of this. “How many do you want?”

Still visibly unsure of this new development, Lance shrugs and wiggles his hands, body twisting so that he can look at the container of drones. After a moment he says, “Eight?” Really, it’s not all that different from the simulator on the Castle. You’re not motivated if you’re not in danger, and Altean training equipment never had a problem handing them their asses on a regular basis.

Immediately, eight green-lit drones lift out of the container. Keith sets a speed – not as fast as possible, but pretty damn fast – and together, he and Lance make their way to the center of the room.

They set themselves back to back with space between them. Keith hears Lance’s bayard materialize and feels Lance shift to accommodate the balance of holding a gun. The drones circle the room, taking up the whole space, their patterns unpredictable. Eight is a lot – too many, maybe, but Keith is up for the challenge. “You ready?”

“I got your back, buddy,” Lance says, voice steady. Lance has always been the calculated risk with something to prove to Keith’s reckless dive with nothing to gain.

Out of the corner of his right eye, Keith sees a drone clip to purple, and he lunges.

It’s like a dance. Keith is so focused, as always, ducking and diving, his brain morphing scenarios and pieces of previous battles until he forgets that this is just a training exercise. For the moment, as far as he’s concerned, he and Lance are alone and vulnerable, pinned down with only themselves for backup. He slices through a purple clone and rolls as another shoots at him, but Lance is on it, covering him like he always does, pistol perched in his palm like a kiss or a punch or both. Keith grins wild, and Lance returns it, and this is the most connected they’ve felt in so long it’s as breathtaking as the first time Keith got in a real fighter jet.

And then a drone zips in behind Lance and flips purple. “Lance! Behind you!”

The knowledge that the lasers are at most going to give a little shock flies right past Keith. It doesn’t matter what his brain knows when all he can see is Lance in danger, and he’s too far away to do anything about it.

Lance doesn’t even blink – Keith knows because he’s watching, because all he can see are those deep blue eyes looking back at him, and they’re dead already. There’s nothing there but a hard acceptance that he tripped up, and now he’s got to fix it. This isn’t the Lance who was pushed into war – this is the Lance the war spat out.

The bayard shimmers, and in between one second and the next, Lance’s pistol elongates into a sword, and Lance swings around. Keith’s already running at him, not giving himself even a second to comprehend or ask questions, because the drone is already winding up the energy to fire, and Lance can’t quite figure out where his body is in relation to the sword.

Keith has no idea what order things happen in, because his pulse is in his ears and every nerve ending is in his feet against the floor and all of his concentration is focused on Lance, on his torso, on the freeze-frame jumpy way his breath hitches up the second before everything happens. All Keith knows is that the drone fires, Lance’s blade hits its mark, and Keith’s shoulder connects with the soft spot under Lance’s ribs, and then they’re both on the floor, the shot from the drone impacting the ground away from them.

“Is that all of them?” Keith pants, fingers curled into his palm and pressed against the floor, torso still draped over Lance’s.

His bayard whirs, back to being a gun, and Lance raises his arm to shoot. A second later, metal clatters to the floor. “It is now.”

“Oh, thank god.” After pushing his blade away a couple of inches – which, yeah, probably should have done that before tackling Lance – Keith pushes himself up to his palms. For a moment, he’s suspended over Lance, his hair dangling in a curtain down his forehead and sticking uncomfortably to his nape. They’re both lost for breath, lips parted and teeth bared because they’re feral and alive. Keith notices Lance staring maybe before Lance realizes he’s doing it, and the pressure of Lance’s gaze is a fingernail trailing the curve of his Adam’s apple down to the dip of his collarbone and back up.

The urge to kiss Lance rises with the tidal force of a tsunami he should have seen coming, and Keith pushes hastily away, uncoordinated as he tries to put space between them without making it seem like that’s exactly what he’s doing. He can’t kiss Lance – he’s… Lance isn’t meant for Keith.

He clears his throat, opens his mouth and works his tongue before words collide out from behind his teeth. “So the uh… the sword’s new.”

Lance bounces back. He always bounces back, which is so damn admirable even if it can sometimes be a little annoying. “Pretty cool, right?” There’s that cocky smile curving up Lance’s face, pulling light and mischief into his eyes even when it perhaps doesn’t want to be there. “Allura said it’s an Altean broadsword, and her dad used to wield one.” He sounds proud of himself, like for once in his life he did something that might actually be cool, and on the one hand, Keith is so fucking happy to hear that, he could cry. But on the other hand….

Allura. Right. Of course she knows about this, has known about this. Of course Lance would have told her. It’s cool, it’s neat, it’s a new development in the bayards and in Lance’s fighting style, so it makes sense to tell her. But they’re also dating, probably, or something, so of course Lance would tell her because of that, too. There isn’t another explanation Keith can come up with, and he’s been through every scenario, every instance where he did something different. Inevitably, it seems as if Lance was going to end up with Allura from the start, if only because that’s how it always works.

“Pretty cool,” Keith echoes, and even to his own ears it sounds flat. Something in him has shifted – maybe his bones rearranging to make up for the one that’s missing – and he’s lost all desire to train anymore. He’s hurting and hollow, and maybe a shower and a long pointless walk will fix things.

Keith pushes to his feet and holds out his hand, helping Lance up as well. He holds on a little longer than he should, because he can’t shake this grade school crush and his want to just be around Lance as much as possible. He doesn’t feel balanced when he’s anywhere else.

But Lance lets go, holding out his bayard. They both watch it form back into a sword, nearly as long as Lance is tall. “Do you think you could give me pointers, maybe?”

…What? “Pointers?”

Lance frowns. “Don’t be an ass. I’m asking for help, okay? I haven’t used it since I found out about it because I don’t know how to… use it, really.”

Keith had noticed that, the incongruity between Lance’s body and the sword, two partners out of step in a dance that isn’t meant to be complicated.

He lets out a breath and pushes his hair out of his face, trying to force his body to cool off faster than it seems willing. “Sorry, Lance. I… not today.” He’s running away from this. All he wanted at the start of training was to spend more time with Lance, and now he’s running away because the thought of Lance and Allura together hurts. “Soon, though. Next time.” Keith tries to smile, even while Lance’s face falls. Fuck. “Tomorrow,” he promises, and Lance looks a little better at the clarification. “Same time, alright? I’ll teach you. I just. Can’t right now.”

Lance shrugs, and this time when he smiles, it’s a little softer, but at least he doesn’t look heartbroken anymore. “I’ll be here.”

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

Post-battle, Keith is a hero, and that’s something he’s never been in his life before Voltron, and it’s something that’s never hit home until now. He’s one fraction of the team that saved Earth from total destruction, and people he doesn’t even know stop him in the hallways to make sure he’s aware that they’re grateful. And Keith… appreciates it, but he doesn’t know what to do with it. There’s too much gratitude for him to hold on to, but he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to put it down. Maybe that’s part of the burden of being a hero – learning to see the horrors you took part in as something good. Learning to understand that the lives you took made sure that the lives around you are still breathing.

Learning to not see yourself as a monster.

Keith doesn’t have a destination in mind. He’s out of the shower, into clothes that aren’t Garrison uniforms, and his knife is tucked away against his back where it feels like home. But Lance was right – Keith can’t sit still.

He rounds a corner, taking a turn he hadn’t meant to take to avoid a large group of civilians walking his way, and Kosmo pops into existence against his side. Keith’s gotten so used to the cosmic wolf showing up unannounced and whenever he wants to that he doesn’t blink, but a couple of nearby Garrison pilots skitter against the wall. A smirk pulls itself across Keith’s mouth, and his hand drops to settle on Kosmo’s head. “You been sleeping all day?” he asks, teasing because he knows the wolf hasn’t been.

There’s a pressure in Keith’s head, the one he always feels when Kosmo’s about to tell him something, and then he’s flooded with something that’s similar to denial as Kosmo tips his head back and blinks up at him.

It’s been this way from the start – or nearly the start. After that first night, with Kosmo curled up against his back, Keith learned that he could more or less communicate with the wolf. It’s why he never named him. But Kosmo doesn’t seem to mind his name new paladin-approved name, even when Keith had asked him about it later. He hasn’t told anyone else about the connection because what’s the point? His mom knows, if only because Keith asked her if it happened to her, too, and she denied it.

They keep walking, Keith still having no destination in mind. He’s been pretty useless lately, shoving himself into patrols and going out with others to deliver supplies to survivors when they can, but right now the Garrison’s focus isn’t on war, it’s on rebuilding. Which means that Pidge, Hunk, Allura, and Shiro are up to their elbows and probably not sleeping, and Lance and Keith don’t have much to do.

Kosmo whines and bumps against his thigh as they walk. “It’s alright,” Keith reassures, fingers curling where they’re buried in Kosmo’s blue fur. “Why don’t you show me where you’ve been today?” It’ll give them both something to do, and it’ll hopefully stop Keith from thinking about how bored he is, and how much he’s maybe starting to miss war right about now.

There’s another pressure in his head before something that feels like a mental shrug, and then Keith is standing in the desert. In the first few seconds, all Keith knows is the blinding sun, the heat soaking into the bare skin of arms that haven’t seen a real sun – his sun – for more than three years. And then his body adjusts, and he starts to take in his surroundings.

Confusion and longing and recognition war within him. “You came here?”

The pressure in Keith’s head this time is comfort, which is the only thing that makes Keith realize how upset he is. This is his home – or what’s left of it. The house had collapsed long ago, in the years between his dad’s death and his expulsion from the Garrison. But the shack had survived those years, had been the last piece connecting Keith to his father and to his life here on Earth. It’s just a pile of wood now, sheltered from the swirling dust by the one wall left standing.

“How’d you even find this place?” How does Kosmo do anything, really? Maybe he tracked Keith’s scent out here, or maybe some cosmic force told him that this place was important. Maybe Kosmo had been privy to Keith’s memories in the abyss, too.

He feels like he should walk into the rubble. There are memories buried here, photographs and documents, items that used to belong to his parents or that he salvaged himself and called his own. But he doesn’t move. “You should bring Mom here,” he tells Kosmo, looking once more at the rubble and then lowering his eyes to his wolf. “This isn’t my home anymore.”

Keith blinks, and they’re back in the Garrison. He recognizes the launch bay of the Atlas immediately, the huge ship taking up most of the room, with the MFEs tucked off to the side. What Keith doesn’t know is why Kosmo brought him here. At least until he spots Shiro across the room. Shiro and Lance. They’re sitting down on a couple of supply crates, Lance’s arms wound tight and uncomfortable around his torso, Shiro looking like the dad he was born to be.

“What are they -?”

Kosmo teleports them, a needle weaving a thread through the fabric of time, and they’re suddenly so much closer to Shiro and Lance – close enough to hear what they’re saying and close enough to be spotted.

He ducks fast behind a stack of supplies, Kosmo winding around him until they’re both tucked up out of sight.

“I can’t tell you what to do, Lance,” Shiro says, and that tender older brother voice throws Keith back to his Garrison days. “It’s your life. It’s a part of you. This isn’t about Allura or Keith, or whether you’ve known for twelve years or six months. It’s about what feels right to you.”

Keith frowns, completely lost. What are they talking about? What is Lance supposed to have known? Hot and unwanted, the memory of finding out about Shiro’s sickness curls up Keith’s spine. The situation is similar enough that Keith feels like he’s there, outside the office and confronting Shiro on the tarmac simultaneously. Is Lance…? No. No, he can’t be. Keith won’t accept that.

“But you think we work well together, don’t you?” Lance asks, something in his voice that might be hopeful or defiant or shy or all three. The question slingshots Keith’s thoughts out of orbit, leaving him spinning in space. Work well? So he’s not sick then, probably. Not dying. That’s… such a relief that Keith feels it physically.

Shiro sighs, and for a long moment, Keith is left in the silence, staring across the room at parts of Atlas and grey walls and boxes and boxes and boxes. Finally, Shiro pulls in a breath. “There’s a reason you pilot the red lion, Lance. You and Keith balance each other in ways the others just don’t. You’re all a support system, and you’re a team who’s learned to work in unison, but there’s a reason the red and black lions form Voltron’s most powerful wings. There’s a reason the red lion is Voltron’s right hand.”

“Are you saying that Keith and I are destined to be together or something?”

Whoa what? What the – where the fuck is that coming from? Keith looks at Kosmo, eyes wide, but of course the space wolf only tips his head a little to the side and stares unblinkingly back. There’s no emotion from him this time.

“No.” Shiro sounds like he’s giving Lance a weird look, and that judgement radiates all the way over to where Keith is crouching, making him want to laugh. “I’m saying that you two are close. That you have a bond. What you do with that bond is up to you.”

The space around them falls quiet again, the only sound a shift of clothing and a soft sigh that’s probably Lance’s. “Okay.” Definitely Lance. “Thanks for listening, Shiro.”

“I’m glad you felt you could trust me enough to tell me.” Shiro’s voice sounds different when he smiles – sounds just like that.

“Heh. Yeah.”

Keith smiles at that while he stares at his nothing, the sound of Lance’s awkward closing to the conversation fuzzing up his head. Why the fuck is he so cute and why the fuck can’t Keith get over him?

After a weirdly spaced moment, there’s a shift, and then a pair of footsteps starts walking away with a tempo that’s purposeful – not rushing, but still brisk. The problem is that’s it’s only one pair.

A door closes, and Shiro says, “Keith,” in his disapproving dad voice. Of course, Kosmo chooses that moment to pop off somewhere else, leaving Keith to face down Shiro’s frown alone. He pushes to his feet and folds his arms over his chest, defensive before he’s even heard an accusation. “Listen, Kosmo brought me here. I didn’t ask him to. I didn’t know Lance was here. I couldn’t just leave once I was here. I -”

Shiro holds up a hand, and Keith falls silent. “I know. I just need to make sure you’re not going to confront Lance about this.”

“I don’t even know what you guys were talking about,” Keith says, because he doesn’t know without thinking about it, and thinking about it sounds dangerous – like it could get him hurt just as fast as a dull knife.

One of Shiro’s eyebrows pulls up perfectly in the middle. “Don’t you?”

Ah, fuck. He’s going to make Keith think about this. About the mix of emotion when Lance was asking Shiro’s opinion on their dynamic, about the way the word “destined” sounded when it spilled out of Lance’s mouth, about the blush on his cheeks that Keith can so perfectly place even though he didn’t see it when Lance couldn’t figure out what to say to Shiro thanking him for honesty and trust.

Keith’s arms uncross, hands dangling useless and awkward at his sides. His head tips down, though his eyes stay trained on Shiro, and he worries his lip between his teeth before he asks, “Does he… does he like me?” Oh, god, and Keith has worked so fucking hard his whole life to hide the insecurity that shoves its way to the front of his throat, packing itself into those words like punches.

“You two have a lot more in common than either of you seem to realize,” is all Shiro says, and his expression is soft. “I don’t know what he’s going to do, Keith. But just let him come out to you at his own pace.”

And just like that, Keith’s frown is back in place, hands shoving themselves into his pockets. “I’m not going to force him to do that, Shiro. I’m not that much of a fucking dick. The fuck? It’s not like I think that just because I’m gay it means I can push people out myself.”

“Keith. Keith, oh my god, calm down.” Shiro drags his hand down his face, looking out at Keith from over the top of his fingers before he drops his hand again. “All I’m saying is that he might come out to you tomorrow or next week or never, and you just need to be okay with the ‘never’ part if that’s what he decides he wants.”

“I…” Keith deflates again. “I know.” Because in the end it comes down to Lance’s comfort and Keith’s desire, and the former is always going to come first for Keith. Always.

Shiro smiles, and his everything softens around it. “I know you do.”

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

Waiting for Lance in the training room feels like a risk on Keith’s part, which is so fucking stupid, but his anxiety is all-consuming and so physically present that his stomach hurts and it’s hard to breathe through each of the positions he puts himself in to stretch and remind his body for the millionth time how it feels to hold a sword.

Lance likes him. Keith had thought Lance and Allura were already an item, here to find out that Lance likes guys, too.

And how goddamn stupid of them both to not say a thing to each other about it while stuck in the void of space for several years. Looking back, there were so many times that Keith could have said something, should have said something. But the moments always went on too long, and Lance either ruined them with his insecure brand of cockiness, or Keith ruined them by building his walls right back up again.

The door opens. Lance walks in with a purpose, though the mask he’s wearing is one that Keith has unfortunately become familiar with. It’s the “everything is shit but I’ll make a joke so people don’t worry about me” face, and Keith hates it. He admires the selflessness and the resilience, but he hates it.

“Hey, man,” Lance says, rolling his shoulders as he shrugs out of his jacket and summons his bayard. Keith still thinks that’s fucking neat, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little jealous.

After a small flip of his blade, Keith tucks the knife away and moves towards Lance. “Hey. Ready to practice?”

Lance tips one shoulder up and gives Keith a wicked grin. “Eh. I guess I can put in some effort today. Show off these guns. Or, well… swords, I guess.” As he says it, the bayard shimmers and elongates, the large red broadsword from yesterday dominating the room.

Down to business then. Probably for the best, considering, well, yesterday. Keith knows things he shouldn’t know now, and while that makes him near giddy with relief, it also makes him anxious as fuck that he’s going to slip up somewhere and spill what he knows all over the floor. So the plan is to focus on training, to keep his mind occupied on helping Lance succeed instead of on… Lance in general.

“How’s the weight of it, then?” he asks, reaching out to adjust Lance’s grip. “It’s a broad sword, so you’ll need to use two hands. You tend to be right-hand dominant, so right hand on top, left on the bottom.”

“Two hands? It’s pretty light.” Despite his protests, Lance leaves his hands where Keith puts them.

“Oh, well that’s good, at least. Most broadswords are heavy. You still need two hands, though. Because it’s long and double-edged, you need one hand for power and the other for manipulating the blade, like,” he thinks he knows what he’s talking about, “the motor and rudder on a boat. When you get good with two hands, we can work on a one-handed grip.”

Lance hums and shifts his hands around, adjusting his grip on the pommel until he’s comfortable. “That makes sense. Okay, so now what?”

Keith talks him through it, everything from the correct stance to how much of Lance’s weight should be on which foot to provide maximum range and stability. It’s slow-going for both of them – for Keith because it’s been so long since he’s had to think about the technical side of wielding a sword, and for Lance because he’s never done it before. Swords are an extension of Keith’s body in the way guns are an extension of Lance’s, but the bayard wouldn’t have turned into a sword if it didn’t think Lance was capable of using it.

The problem with the basics taking ages to teach and learn is that it’s exhausting, with minimal signs of improvement, and it doesn’t take long for Lance to start losing focus. Keith starts noticing it when he has to repeat himself more than once just to get Lance to do one thing, and then Keith’s frustration builds, and his patience gets shorter, a fuse burning itself to an explosion, until he finally has to stop before he ruins this.

He backs away, frustrated, and has to physically stop himself from yelling by gritting his teeth and clenching his stomach muscles. But there’s just no stopping the snap in his voice, the hidden blade cutting up his mouth when he says, “What’s wrong with you today?”

“I like guys,” Lance blurts, almost before Keith finishes speaking, as if the words had been rattling behind his teeth, trying to break free from the moment Lance walked in.

Keith’s fuse fizzles out, and his whole body just sort of… freezes. Not even his prior knowledge gained via snooping space wolf can stop him from blinking in surprise, his stance shifting to allow for him to cross his arms, but he shuts the action down. He’s not going to build walls up, not when Lance is coming out to him and – holy shit Lance is coming out to him.

“I mean, I don’t only like guys. Girls are super cool, too, and no way would I have kept flirting with them if I hadn’t like… wanted their attention, you know? Or maybe that’s just something I thought I wanted? Because I mean, now that I have Allura’s attention I don’t really want it.” The introspection doesn’t derail Lance at all, and it only sticks around long enough to pull Keith off his balance before Lance is going off again.

“I like you, Keith. Not just guys as a concept but you.” Here Lance blushes, and Keith watches, enraptured, as the rosy glow spreads across Lance’s face. He doesn’t want to put a halt to this just yet, curious what all Lance will tell him if Keith doesn’t interrupt. “I mean, I’ve liked other guys before, I guess. But I’ve liked you for a long time, and no one else that I liked ever seemed to be… you? I used to hate myself for it, you know. Because you didn’t notice me, and you just had this stupid fucking attitude, and it was obvious that you were close to Shiro. Like I was jealous of you big time, but I never wanted to be you, I just wanted to be with you, so I made up some stupid rivalry so that none of my friends would figure it out. I didn’t know how to tell anyone, and I didn’t – it was all just so dumb. And then space happened and you were there and you were brilliant and abrasive, but the longer we were together the more obvious it became that my crush on you wasn’t gone, and you’re really intimidating and you’re kind of scaring me right now with how quiet you’re being so please say something.” Despite saying that, it still looks like it takes a lot of effort for Lance to stop talking, his body now thrumming with an energy that says he’s seconds away from either bolting or – actually, probably just bolting.

So Keith smiles. “I like you, too.” He tries to shrug it off, but there’s something so very grade school about the words “I like you” that it’s impossible for Keith to not feel a little giddy when he says them. “For the record, I don’t like girls. And I guess aside from a few celebrity crushes, I haven’t thought about liking anyone else.” Which is also a weird thing to say, but Lance deserves to hear it, even if the words feel awkward and uncomfortable on his tongue, like sannakji only moments after it’s been served.

For a moment, Lance just stares at him. “Oh.” He frowns, which makes Keith’s stomach drop right to the floor, but then he grins, and so much of Keith’s blood rushes to supply the blush on his face that he feels dizzy for a moment. “Guess we’re both kind of dumb then, huh? For not… just talking about it.”

Keith scoffs. “As if either of us are the type of person to just talk things over.”

“Yeah… we should work on that.”

“Probably.”

Lance shifts on his feet and looks around the room. When he looks back, his eyes are focused, the blue in his irises dark and glittering like the middle of a star-dotted deep space. “So… how come you never brought it up?”

Oh boy. “I thought you were dating Allura,” he admits.

“Wait, what? Really?” Lance’s face is having a war with his emotions, not quite sure which to settle on. “You thought I was…?” Keith’s blush flares so much he’s afraid it’ll cement itself permanently to his face, because obviously he was wrong, and Lance is going to – yep, Lance is laughing. But it’s such a giddy, delighted sound that Keith can’t help but laugh a little too, even when Lance pulls his hands away to cover his eyes and hold in his stomach.

“Yeah, okay, it’s not that funny,” Keith tries, feeling self-conscious now. Yeah, sure, he should have known better. Maybe. No, fuck that, how was he supposed to know? “Lance, oh my god, shut up.”

Lance’s laugh hiccups, and when he drops his hand from his eyes, there are tears flowing freely over the smile on his cheeks. “Oh. Oh, wow, we’re messes,” he says. “Way to be heteronormative, Keith.”

A frown takes over Keith’s expression, but the blush is still there. Lance is right. About a lot of things, usually. Keith’s not going to tell him that. Not… right now, at least. He looks at Lance’s hands expectantly, the bayard back in its original form. “Are you more focused now that that’s… been said?” He’s not good at this. Friendships are hard enough, but admitting to liking someone? What the fuck is he even supposed to do with that? “You were paying attention, right? Use your sword. I want to see what you remember.”

“Oh, I bet you do.” Lance winks and shoots finger guns at him, which makes Keith roll his eyes and shove at Lance’s shoulder. But Lance just laughs and grabs Keith’s wrist, pulling him in until they’re inches away, breaths away. “Kiss me first?”

“You haven’t earned that yet.” But Keith’s caught. He’ll be the first to admit it. He could break Lance’s hold, but why bother when Lance is warm and soft and looking at him with pouty lips and eyes that are open waters.

“Aw, c’mon. It’s not fun without a little foreplay.”

Keith shoves at Lance’s shoulder again, backing him up until he knocks into the wall, until there’s something solid in the equation to keep them both from sliding to the floor. “You’re the fucking worst,” he breathes, and then catches Lance by the jaw and pulls him in for a kiss.

It feels like everything he’s missed his whole life. That hollow space, that missing bone, fills in and grows back with every second their lips touch, and it doesn’t hurt the way he imaged it might – it’s just a huge fucking relief. He grabs onto Lance’s shirt and pushes his fingers into Lance’s hair, and his whole body jolts when Lance touches him back, fingers kneading at Keith’s sides, his hips, pulling him in a breath closer.

Keith pushes and Lance pushes back, and it’s a fight to get as close as possible and to keep themselves from getting too close too fast. It’s hotter than he thought it would be, and neither of them can fucking shut up in between motions. Each slide of Lance’s fingers is the first time Keith’s felt truly alive, and each tug to Lance’s hair is an arched back and biting teeth and the best, most desperate noise in the whole world.

It’s a surprise to Keith when he pulls away first, Lance’s whine of complaint perfectly echoing in the space around them and perfectly mirrored on Keith’s lips, but someone had to do it before they ended up on the floor, half undressed, to be found by some poor cadet. “I always knew that would be a bad idea,” he murmurs, kissing down Lance’s neck so that the words don’t come off as a bad declaration. “Never want to stop kissing you, now.”

Lance laughs, and his grip tightens. “I’m not going to complain.”

“Oh, no. You’re not getting out of training that easy.” As much as Keith would love to throw the rest of the day’s productive energy at learning everything there is to know about Lance and his body, that’s just not going to happen. It’s too fast, too rushed, and it’s going to end in as sloppy of a crash as the first time Keith got emotional in the cockpit of a fighter. If this is going to be something that works, they’re both going to have to slow down.

“But Keeeeeith,” Lance whines, body going lax enough in complaint that Keith has to decide whether to catch him or let him fall. He chooses the former.

Keith grunts, pushing Lance up by the shoulders until he’s more or less vertical. “Would you stop being such a baby? It’s not like we’re going to war tomorrow. Do you know how long we have to kiss each other now? So long, Lance. Which means that you can give me another hour or two of your time until you get the basics right.”

Lance groans, and whines, and groans a little more just to be dramatic, but he does put his weight on his own two feet and slips past Keith to the center of the room. “Teach me then, fearless leader,” he says, taking up the fighting stance in a way that’s almost perfect. Keith can’t not walk over and correct it immediately, because really, as great as Lance already is, Keith knows he has it in him to be even better.