#also team star is extremely based and have done nothing wrong in their entire lives. i am fighting the school board about it.

[moe-broey]

Ran out of answer spaces but! I felt it was important to split off Team Plasma since there is a significant ideological difference between them (as far as I remember each ideation of Team Rocket has the same goals/beliefs, Giovanni himself just stepped down and changed his mind)

That said! This is less about favorite gen and more about believing in the beliefs -- especially interesting to consider if you align with the Main Villain and their outlook, or if you believe in the so-called "cause" that may or may not be true, or have some truth to it (like, if you wanted to help Pokemon like og Plasma and Aether Foundation).

Sorry to lump Yell and Star together, I was going chronologically!! You'll have to specify which and why in the tags haha (if you want to that is!)

And honestly that goes for any choice, sell it to me. Why should I join Your team?

[katsidhe]

could you share the descriptions of the answers? I'm bad at answering these quizzes cause I always get like 3 answers that fit but in different circumstances so I like seeing all of the descriptions

Yeah sure! I too wish uquiz gave an option to see all the result descriptions... alas. 

anyway here’s a wall of text, go nuts. 

DEAN-CODED DEAN GIRL

You might just be the hero of a YA fantasy novel or an action movie, because you have Big Protag Energy. You’re self-centered and extremely giving at the same time: you expect and demand absolute loyalty, just as you provide the same. Your love can move mountains, but if you’re not careful that same love can be suffocating or controlling. You’re volatile: you’ll cut a bitch and you don’t care who knows it. You’ll kick their ass. You’ll kick their dog’s ass. You’ll kick your own ass. You have a one-liner for every occasion. Your friends like you but would describe you as “a lot.” You’re magnetic: your charisma and sheer bull-headedness mean you stand out in every room. You’re polarizing, and you know it, but that doesn’t bother you: you know you’re right, and even when you’re wrong, you’re at least entertaining. You’re very “do as I say, not as I do:” you’re a bit of a hypocrite, but, like, in a fun way.  

Holotypes include: Dean Winchester (Supernatural), Thomas Jefferson (Hamilton), Sirius Black (Harry Potter), Kathryn Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager), Katara (ATLA), Vriska Serket (Homestuck)

DEAN-CODED SAM GIRL

You are a charmer and a people-pleaser. You’re charismatic to a fault, when you want to be: whether consciously or not, you have a razor-keen sense of how others see you, and you mold yourself to expectations. You can either talk circles around most people, or you come across as so fundamentally honest that you gain everyone’s trust without trying. Your affable persona is built on a rock-solid sense of purpose. You have a steadfast, deadset fixation on your goals, which you know in your heart to be worth any cost and any sacrifice. Armed with iron conviction, you’re a rebel with a cause. Is it paranoia if they really are all out to get you? When you inevitably win, the whole world will know your name. Your strong sense of self will carry you through any hardship. Your friends look up to you, but they don’t always “get” you. 

Holotypes include: Lucifer (Supernatural), Eponine (Les Mis), Count Olaf (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Prince Zuko (ATLA), Samwise Gamgee (LOTR), Karkat Vantas (Homestuck)

DEAN-CODED CAS GIRL 

Like all Dean-coded people, you are charming and affable, and you talk a big game. You might be the class clown or a popular athlete, or otherwise one of them cool kids, but underlying that public persona is a certain quiet idealism. You keep your strong convictions close to your heart, even when far from home or beset by strife. You’re fiercely loyal and you crave being around people, but you can see when your friends need space, and you can get along okay on your own. You’re not afraid to change your opinions if new information comes to light. Strangers find you easy to get along with: you tend to go along with the group, and you’re a team player no matter what needs to get done. Your chill-to-pull ratio is sky-high.

Holotypes include: Ahsoka (Star Wars), Meg (Supernatural), Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson), Ginny Weasley (Harry Potter), Boromir (LOTR), Jon Snow (Game of Thrones)

SAM-CODED DEAN GIRL

You come across as level headed, but you’re never more than an inch from going off the rails. Your highest values are love and personal loyalty, but you’re pragmatic about it, and you try very hard not to put unfair expectations on other people, with varying degrees of success. You spend a lot of time dealing with expectations; it’s something you either grapple with, or lean into to use to your own ends. You value your own sense of identity, but that identity can get subsumed by your loyalties. You can easily get pulled in or suborned by strong personalities. You keep secrets, both from yourself and from others. Who you want to be is at odds with how you see yourself. People meeting you for the first time might say you’re aloof. You have lots of strong opinions, but you usually keep them to yourself… unless provoked. Careful; you bite. 

Holotypes include: Mary Winchester (Supernatural), Harry Potter (Harry Potter), Aragorn (LOTR), Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars), Julian Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games) 

SAM-CODED SAM GIRL

Gifted kid (diagnosis). You were and maybe still are an outsider, and because of that you’ve had to learn to be self-sufficient and confident in your own abilities. You’re a fiercely independent overachiever, and you’ve fought hard for every inch. Somewhere inside you is a hot, long simmering rage born from the injustice of the world, but it’s buried very deep. You’d be more than content to be alone for long periods of time. You have sometimes crippling perfectionism: if you aren’t succeeding, it’s your fault for not trying hard enough. You’ll pick every kind of intellectual fight and throw yourself into playing devil’s advocate just to improve your understanding: you see the gray areas in everything. You’re aggressively big-picture. You want to, no, you MUST change the universe, but you don’t need to take credit for it. Your few friends might describe you as callous, but you know you’re just being realistic: you’ve got a harsh, clear-eyed sense of the world. No pain, no gain, and really, if you do the math, no single individual is all that important in the grand scheme of things.  

Holotypes include: Kevin Tran (Supernatural), Jean Valjean (Les Miserables), Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars), Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter), Frodo Baggins (LOTR), Dirk Strider (Homestuck), Luke Castellan (Percy Jackson)

SAM-CODED CAS GIRL

You have a strong sense of how the world ought to be, but you have no overriding vision or big master plan: you take life day by day to fix the little things you can. You have very few close relationships, but those you have you treasure dearly. You support your few friends unconditionally, but you tend to be emotionally distant with acquaintances. You may be a bit of a pushover. You often find yourself put in the position of mediator. You loathe conflict, so you avoid it unless absolutely necessary--but once you’re truly angry, you’ll stop at nothing to see justice done. You’re a diplomat and an advocate: you are deeply idealistic, but you’re nevertheless strongly grounded in a pragmatic sense of achieving what you can. Philosophy is action, action is philosophy; you like meditation and self-improvement and have probably done at least one juice cleanse. Both friends and strangers describe you as quietly dependable. If you can’t see the trauma, the trauma can’t see you! That’s just science!

Holotypes include: Sam Winchester (Supernatural), BJ Hunnicut (M*A*S*H), Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Aang (ATLA), Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Nico di Angelo (Percy Jackson)

CAS-CODED DEAN GIRL

Much of your identity is tied up in a set of core beliefs - to the point where those beliefs might be strong enough to override your identity. You’re not beholden to any outside system. If you’re comfortable serving a larger common goal, it’s because you believe in it wholeheartedly. You’re action-oriented: you act first, and think later, or possibly never. You judge your friends solely based on what they do, and you tend to hold people accountable for any unforeseen consequences of their choices. You have strong personal loyalties. You’re not at the center of your social circle, but your friends trust you implicitly and the leader of your group tends to confide in you. You don’t seek power, but you’re also not afraid of taking charge, and you may find power thrust upon you. If you do find yourself in a position of leadership, you struggle with going too far or taking your friends in an unexpected direction. Whether you’re fighting in a war or making yourself a sandwich, you go hard in the motherfuckin’ paint.

Holotypes include: Castiel (Supernatural), Javert (Les Miserables), Captain Rex (Star Wars), Kanaya Maryam (Homestuck), Worf (Star Trek), Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter)

CAS-CODED SAM GIRL

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you’re a bit weird. You are spacey or odd or otherwise out of step with how people think you should act, but that’s fine. It doesn’t matter what they think, because if you’re sure of one thing, it’s that you should never mold your unique identity to other people’s expectations. You live internally: you’re all about grand, world-changing concepts, whether they be philosophical, artistic, or mathematical. You are grounded in the reality that you are one person and one viewpoint among many others, but that doesn’t stop you from writing your nine-hundred page thesis on the topic you’re passionate about. You can justify just about anything by the virtue of your personal convictions arising almost entirely from within yourself. Your identity can get swept up in your big ideas. You’re easier to sway with logic than with emotion, but you don’t feel the need to confine yourself with such terms: you operate on both vibes and flowcharts. You move through the world with the assurance that you are the master of your own fate, and you are unburdened by worrying about the opinions of others. You won’t let yourself feel pinned down by one social group; you float in and out comfortably, depending on how you’re feeling. Friends and strangers describe you as “spooky.”

Holotypes include: Azazel (Supernatural), Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter), Aaron Burr (Hamilton), Princess Azula (ATLA), Yoda (Star Wars), Jadzia Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Terezi Pyrope (Homestuck)

CAS-CODED CAS GIRL

You are chaotic and excitable. You’re swayed by the drive to explore: the greatest good is to understand the universe and your place in it. You’ve got big ideas, and you’re drawn to new experiences, but you don’t necessarily understand what’s going on. You might be a part of a bigger social machine, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be defined on its terms: you’ll self-actualize if it kills you. You identify new objects by licking them. You can see the strings of the world; what will you choose? You’ll take the reins and see where they take you. You say you’re following your own path. Your friends say you don’t know what you’re doing. Pragmatism? Never heard of her. A dream is a vision is a reality; ideas are the world writ large. You might be a prophet or a visionary. With your head in the clouds, you’re sometimes divorced from both reality and consequences. You’re usually on the outside looking in, and you don’t want to be. People think they understand you, but they definitely don’t. Your friends and enemies describe you as impulsive and mysterious. 

Holotypes include: Raphael (Supernatural), Uncle Iroh (ATLA), Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter), Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars), Gandalf (LOTR)

[the-golden-ghost]

Tell Me for Goemon and Jigen?

There was something wrong with Jigen.

Goemon prided himself on his ability to observe his lovers well. When someone had three, they had to. Knowing and being able to predict their every movement was, of course, essential in a fight or on a mission, but it also made for a good living situation, and Goemon preferred that sort of thing over the alternative. Lupin was in his typical spirits - recovering from a pretty bad injury he’d gotten on a heist three weeks before, and frustrated at being unable to go in for a second try just yet - but other than that, seemingly unbothered. Fujiko was a little more amiable than normal with all three of them, which made Goemon think she might be up to something. Goemon was keeping an eye on them both, but neither of them gave him worry.

Jigen was the one who was acting unusually. It wasn’t abnormal for him to be a little cagey or quiet but he was almost entirely closed off these days. He was barely sleeping, either, as Goemon noticed when he got out of bed night after night to go for a walk. Where he would normally be engaged or at least attentive to Lupin’s plans, now he just listened to them with an air of bored disinterest, not responding. And he was drinking... excessively. It was a habit with him even at the best of times, but not like this.

Goemon wasn’t sure what the trouble was. Either Jigen was upset about the mission, annoyed with their lifestyle, just plain sick of being stuck here with the other three, or something else that Goemon couldn’t guess.

Maybe he just didn’t want Fujiko around so often?

But that didn’t seem to be it. Usually when she was around Jigen just complained and grumbled but took it in stride. He didn’t lose sleep over it.

The few times Goemon tried to subtly ask Jigen if he was all right, he got brushed off. So he tried asking Fujiko.

“I think he’s okay,” she said, looking hesitant for a split second. “You know how he gets sometimes. He’s just in a mood. He’ll snap out of it.”

So Goemon turned to Lupin.

“Jigen? He’s doing good! He’s just mad that we’ve been stuck here so long. But don’t worry. Once we’re back out on the road he’ll be back to normal.” His words were casual and confident, but the flicker of worry in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed. Something was definitely amiss, but none of them knew what.

So Goemon just did his best to ignore it and spent his time snuggling with Fujiko and sleeping next to Lupin and wishing Jigen would come in and hold him like he used to. On the nights when Goemon slept alone, he would awaken sometimes to find Jigen pacing listlessly around, smoking and staring out the windows like he was looking for something. He was beginning to wonder if he’d done something that pissed Jigen off, but he couldn’t think of a single thing that would have done it. And anyway, it wasn’t just Goemon that was getting shut out. It was all three of them.

This went on a few nights more until Jigen just got up one day and left. Goemon caught him leaving with a bag of spare clothes, bullets, and whatever else he usually carried with him when he needed to make a hasty exit. “Where are you going?”

“I need a break,” Jigen’s reply was brusque, and he didn’t turn to look at Goemon.

“From what, exactly?”

Jigen shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Dunno.”

“And where are you running off to?”

“Don’t care. And it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll be fine. Hey -” he turned to Goemon for the first time, but his face was obscured and unreadable. “Take care of him, okay?”

“Who?”

“Lupin. Look out for him.”

“When don’t I?”

“...Yeah... Yeah, you always do.” Jigen paused, keeping one hand on the door. Then, in a sudden gesture, he came over to Goemon and bent to kiss him on the cheek. Goemon started in surprise. Jigen hadn’t done anything like that in almost a month, but before he could respond, Jigen muttered, “Bye,” and headed out just as quickly, closing the door behind him.

Goemon had been with them all long enough to know when they were asking to be loved without really asking. When Fujiko enticed him to do something drastic and against his own ethics, she really wanted to know do you love me enough to support me? When Lupin threw himself into the thick of it and expected Goemon to be there, it was a question of do you love me enough to rescue me?

Jigen rarely asked anything like that of anyone. But this latest action was clear. Do you love me enough to find me?

Goemon didn’t need to think twice.

~

Jigen had clearly wanted to be found. The whole team knew how to truly hide in a pinch, but Jigen had just taken off to the nearest safe house and left the lights on. Goemon had given him fifteen minutes head start, but even with that, it had taken Goemon less than an hour to track him down.

Goemon waited patiently on the roof for a good time to enter the building. He figured he’d at least give Jigen some time to cool off before he confronted him. He actually had no idea what he was going to say, but maybe it wouldn’t matter. It wasn’t like he knew what the problem was yet, anyhow.

When the sun was low in the sky and night was coming on, Goemon knocked on the door.

At first there was silence, which meant that Jigen was deciding whether or not to pretend the house was empty. But the lights were on, which meant that in another second he’d threaten whoever was knocking, and he did.  “Leave this place. I’m armed and I’ll shoot.”

Goemon could picture him with his hand on his gun ready to fire at anyone who tried to force entry. Not that any such thing would work on Goemon, but he hadn’t come for a fight. “It’s me.”

Another pause. When Jigen responded this time, he sounded exasperated. “The hell do you want? I told you, I need a break.”

“I’m not here to bring you home. I just want to know why you left and then I will go.”

There was a string of muffled curse words from behind the door and then the clicking of bolts. The door swung open. “Well, get in,” Jigen muttered.

He’d picked one of the worst safe houses; it had electricity and running water but the heat was faulty and there was barely any furniture. Luckily it wasn’t wintertime and he was here alone. Goemon sat on the floor and watched. He could already tell Jigen had been drinking by the way he moved - it wasn’t always easy to tell with him, but there was a slight waver in his step, and his movements, which were ordinarily extremely deliberate and careful, were faltering. Goemon was glad he’d arrived sooner rather than later. “...So.”

“Why’d you stalk me?” Jigen flopped back into the only chair in the room.

“You seemed like you needed it.”

Jigen snorted. “I really didn’t. Thanks for the concern, though.”

“Why did you leave? Are you mad at us?”

“Nah. Not at you,” Jigen fished into his pocket for a cigarette and lit it. “Not at any of you really. It’s just a lot to explain, and I don’t really want to say what happened. Besides, it’s nothing to do with you.”

Goemon fought back a flash of irritation. “It seems like if the man I love leaves without saying anything, it has a lot to do with me.”

That seemed to get his attention. “I...” he paused. “I guess I didn’t think about it like that. Shit, Goemon.” He sat up straighter, sighing. “All right, come on. I’ll tell you, but you’re not gonna thank me for it when you find out. Let’s go up on the roof. It’ll be more comfortable than this hole.”

Outside, the stars were coming out, and the sky was clear and warm. “Pretty night,” Jigen commented. He’d brought his whiskey bottle and drank from it straight, not bothering with a glass. This house probably didn’t have any that were clean.

Goemon sat and watched the stars, waiting. They spent a long time together like that, in silence, but it was an easy silence now. When he looked over, Goemon could see Jigen’s face clearly up close for the first time in a long while. He looked exhausted, with a strained look around his eyes like he’d been hurting somewhere and was just trying to weather it out until it finally faded.

“So you thought I was mad at you. I guess that makes sense, but no,” Jigen said at last, quietly. “I don’t want you to ever think that I don’t love you. You don’t have the first idea how much I do.”

That was surprisingly reassuring, on Goemon’s part. He tried not to doubt his partners’ affections for him as a rule, but hearing it clearly stated was nice. But Jigen was dodging the issue. “You did not bring me out here to tell me that,” he said.  

Jigen shifted, uncomfortable, and continued. “So. You remember Cancun.”

It had been their last heist; gone sour. “Yes.”

“You remember how Lupin got hit with that stupid ray thing.”

Goemon nodded. That part had been the reason they left early. They’d actually managed to get part of the loot, but not all of it, since the safety of Lupin came first. “I stayed behind to avenge him for his pain,” Goemon had taken quite a thrill in that aspect of it. Less so when he had to ride the bus back to their base covered in blood. Ketchup, he told the pair of nervous old ladies sitting next to him.

“Yeah. Well. There’s part you don’t know and it was pretty bad, Goemon. I didn’t want to tell you cause...” Jigen sighed. “I guess I didn’t want to freak you out. I dunno.”

A bit too late for that, Goemon reflected. But he waited for him to go on. He did, after a little. “So it wasn’t a friggin’ “death ray” or whatever it was supposed to be, it wasn’t any sort of supersonic mega-powerful beam of concentrated anything. All it was was electricity. Just an electric shock. And when we figured that out, we thought we could get past it no problem, you know? We figured neither of us would get hit, and even if we did, what then? So he was doing his usual stupid “get out at the last second” thing, and he took a blast and went down,” Jigen’s voice faltered just a bit. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to shoot the thing earlier. Would’ve been so easy, but we were being dumb and arrogant. Anyway I dragged him out of there quick but there wasn’t anything I could do before his heart stopped.”

There was a long pause with nothing but Goemon trying to make sense of the situation and Jigen’s rapid, unsteady breathing. The rest didn’t take much to piece together, but Jigen went on anyway. “I tried what I could to bring him back. But I’ll never know if it was me or if he just wasn’t all the way dead or if God Almighty took one look at him and went ‘I’m not putting up with this guy today’ and threw him back.”

“But he came back.”

“Yeah. I swear though, Goemon, it was his freaky luck. That man -” Jigen shook his head. “If I had an ounce of whatever god-given fortune he’s been handed - but I don’t. I don’t. All I know is there was about five, ten minutes where I was sure he was gone.”

“He is alive,” Goemon said. “He’s at home as we speak.”

Jigen put his head in his hands. “I don’t understand it. I can’t tell you how many deaths I’ve watched and how many I’ve caused. It’s nothing to me now. He wasn’t my first dead friend, he wasn’t the first person I’ve held in my arms when I lost them, and I don’t understand why this one shook me up so much. There’s no reason I can think of. I love him so much it hurts, but it’s not like I don’t imagine every day what it would be like to lose him. It’s not like I don’t know.”

“You have not lost him,” Goemon said.

“I know, dammit, but I will. Sooner or later - I can’t tell you how much I want to be the first one of us to die. I can’t stand the thought of losing you two. I swear it’ll drive me out of my goddamn mind but the way fortune is, with us -” he broke off, laughing bitterly. “Oh, God. He’s the lucky one. It’ll be him, I just know it.”

Goemon didn’t nearly have Jigen’s knack for pessimism. Lupin’s lack of self-preservation was probably as much a part of what would get him killed as fortune, and Goemon didn’t agree with Jigen’s assessment that an untimely death was necessarily a lucky outcome. If anything, Lupin was just as likely to live to be one hundred and die peacefully, an old man and triumphant, if luck was the determining factor in his fate. He wasn’t sure any of that would help Jigen, though. Because in truth, neither one of them knew what was going to happen.

“So that’s why I left, anyway. I can’t look at him now without thinking of what’s coming and I just can’t handle that. I’m just a hired man. I wasn’t really cut out to be a lover.” His hand shook on the bottle that he turned over and over in his palm. “I shouldn’t have let it go this long or get this bad but I did. Stupid of me. And I know I’ll have to tell him at some point but...”

“Is it not worth it?” Goemon asked. “Suppose I die tomorrow, for a certainty. Would you give me this last night?”

Jigen shook his head fiercely. “No. I couldn’t. I know I’m a piece of shit but I couldn’t do that. I’d have to leave.”

“But what would that spare you? You’d still suffer either way.”

Jigen didn’t seem to have a good response to that. He just sat there, tense, his breathing ragged. He was still holding together, but barely. Goemon didn’t know what to say to him. He had no doubts that Jigen was a strong man, but he was also one who needed, at times, to be treated gently, and gentleness was not something that came naturally to Goemon at all. He usually didn’t touch Jigen - didn’t initiate it, at least - because he simply had no idea how.

The best he could do was put his hand on Jigen’s shoulder and sit with him out under the stars at night. Love was scary. Goemon knew that. He wasn’t used to loving even one person, let alone three. But he did it because however it had happened, these three depended on him, and much as it sometimes bothered him to admit, he depended on them as well. And that explained the relief he felt when Jigen relaxed - just a bit - and came to lean against Goemon, letting himself rest a little.

“You know what really kills me?” Jigen said after a few minutes.

“What?”

“Without Lupin, I wouldn’t have you, either. We’re Lupin’s men, but without him bringing us together we wouldn’t have a place in each other’s lives.”

“That is not true. I would call you when I needed you.”

“Yeah, and so would I. But you’re a samurai, Goemon. You’ve got ambitions - potential. Eventually the time would come when we’d just stop seeing each other. Other priorities, you know?”

Goemon bowed his head. It was true, and the truth of it rang hollow in his chest. He loved Jigen with his whole heart but they were together by circumstance, not fate. There was no place for Jigen in his life outside this team - he couldn’t take him home, he was too much. Lupin knew how to carve out a space in his life for a difficult, temperamental gunman but Goemon didn’t have the first clue. And wherever Jigen went when he wasn’t with Lupin - if he even HAD a place - Goemon had no desire to stay there.

“We could try,” he said at last. That was the only comfort he had to offer. “And for now, we do not have to worry about that. We can save that for when it happens.”

Jigen nodded. Trying would have to be enough. Trying, and hoping that the day of that trial would never, ever come.

Goemon wanted to ask when he would be returning. But after all, it didn’t feel quite right to ask. Jigen would return home. He’d said he would, and Goemon trusted that it was so. He just needed time. And thankfully for them both, they still had plenty of that.

[yourperfectflaws]

HYDRA’s Pet ; 03

Pairing: James Bunchan Barnes x HYDRA!Reader, Avengers x Reader (Platonic/ Familial)

Series Summary: As HYDRA’s favorite experiment, you were trained to follow orders perfectly. But, when you’re taken from the only home you’d ever known by the Avengers, you find yourself more lost than ever. However, out of all the things that could have happened to you, you’d never expected him to be one of them.

Chapter Summary: Your sexy ass is introduced to the team and then scheduled for reprogramming. 

Warnings: Adult Language

Word Count: 1.5k (sorry this one was so short. T^T)

Author’s Note: Again, don’t worry Bucky is coming soon! (nextchapterperhapsahhhh)

Prologue // Previous Chapter // Next Chapter (Coming Soon!)

January 18th, 2017 ; Avengers Compound

After coming back in to check on you, Steve told you that you’d have to stay the night in the compound and then you’d be introduced to the rest of the Avengers in the morning. And when you woke up, you saw him standing in front of the door with a pair of shiny, metal cuffs in his hand. You looked at them and then back up at him with your heart pounding in your ears. 

“They’re just a precaution, don’t worry,” he assured you as he put them on your wrists, as if he was calming a rabid animal. But you weren’t even mad because it was working. “It’s because we have a few members of the team who aren’t sold on you just yet.”

He brought you out of the cell— which did have a key pad on the wall next to it— and into an elevator that took you up to the ground floor of the building. There you walked up a flight of stairs and into a lounge area where the entire team was waiting for you. 

When you walked through the door, you felt the heat of their stares boring through you. You tried to present yourself with confidence, but it was rather hard considering you were in handcuffs. Among them, you recognized the redheaded woman and the man with the bow. They looked at you without a hint of malice, which surprised you. You would have thought that they would be the ones that opted for you to be cuffed. 

Then, a dark haired man approached you with an insincere smile and shook your cuffed hands. Your fought the urge to bring them down on his head.

“Hello... Y/n, was it?” He asked more to Steve than you, who nodded. You recognized his voice as the man in the iron suit. “It’s nice to formally meet you, my name is Tony Stark and though I don’t appreciate you trying to murder my friends, it seems that this ‘star spangled ding dong’—” he threw his arm over Steve’s broad shoulders. “—sees some potential in you.” 

“Okay, Tony, that’s a little harsh,” said a man with graying, dark hair, like Tony, but a softer voice. He approached you, along with another man, who had dark skin and extremely short hair. “My name is Dr. Bruce Banner, it’s nice to meet you, Y/n.” He shook your cuffed hands with a warm smile. 

“And I’m Colonel James Rhodes,” the black man said with a firm nod of his head. This prompted the rest of the team to introduce themselves as well all while Tony was giving you threatening looks. You were starting to get the feeling that maybe he didn’t like you. But you also didn’t really care. 

The redheaded woman was named Natasha Romanoff and the man with the bow was named Clint Barton. There was also Sam Wilson, Thor— who was, by far, the most likable—, and Wanda Maximoff. They had mentioned that there were a few members missing who were too busy to meet you that you’d see from time to time. You didn’t really care as long as they left you alone. 

“I have a question,” you asked as they had begun talking among themselves. They turned to you, a few with surprised faces, and waited for you to ask what was on your mind. “What is this thing?” You pointed to the metal collar around your neck. 

“Oh that’s Wakandan tech. It’s a strength suppressor, I think.” Tony answered while engrossed in his tablet. He seemed to remember something because he looked up at you and quirked an eyebrow. “Speaking of Wakanda, I’m going to let you know for safety reasons we’re sending you there for rehabilitation.”

You felt your heart drop. They were going to do what? You took a few steps back. Steve noticed your distress and placed a warm hand on your shoulder. 

“We’ve got to get whatever HYDRA put in your head out of it,” he clarified. “Don’t worry, they’ve done it before.”

You didn’t say anything but let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Your nerves ignited at the possibility of more tests. You could practically smell the sanitation solution. The sticky bed. The sharp tools. 

“Hey, look at me,” Steve crouched down so he was at eye level with you. You hadn’t realized it but you were staring a hole in the carpet. “You’ll be back in no time, I promise.” 

You stared at him for a few long seconds. As much as you desperately wanted to, you couldn’t feel any hatred or animosity for him. It irked you to think that you were actually starting to like him. Them. 

“Okay, the ship is here,” Tony announced. Well, maybe not him. 

Steve turned to you. “Alright, let’s go—“

“Actually, can I take her up? I’d like to have a private conversation with her.” Natasha forced herself between the two of you. You watched as Steve’s eyebrows knit together and his mouth formed a light frown. “Not anything to worry about, Steve. Just a friendly conversation between women.”

Though he could tell that she had ulterior motives, he was in no place to argue with her. So, all he could do was watch as you left with his friend. 

As you walked along the pristine corridors, you admired the architecture. It was extremely beautiful but you couldn’t help the jealously that stirred within you. You had lived in a dirty, rusty base your whole life and their compound was so spotless and pleasing to look at. You couldn’t help but imagine yourself wandering these halls every day. 

All of a sudden, Natasha stopped in the middle of the hallway, breaking your train of through. You tilted your head when she swiftly turned to you. Her face was hard and you could tell that she’d been suppressing her anger. 

“I know you’ve got the rest of the team all wrapped around your finger, especially Steve, but I don’t trust you.” She pointed her finger in your face. You stepped back to avoid a potential attack. “Why don’t you have a life before HYDRA got to you? There’s nothing but a number in their system.”

“HYDRA is my parents,” you said in the same robotic and monotonous voice. Natasha’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. 

“You’ve said that already. Do you mean that they raised you?”

Something inside you desperately wanted to get on her good side. To be vulnerable in front of someone. It was extremely strange and you’d never felt anything like this before. 

“I was told they took me in as a baby and raised me in the base. They’re all I know. They gave me purpose,” you explained. Then you realized something. “Now that I’m here, I don’t have one anymore.”

Her eyes softened. “How about I give you one then?” She suggested, which surprised you. “Your new purpose is to go through this rehabilitation and come back a new person, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Though it seemed she hated you, she was being undeniably sweet. It wasn’t her sweetness that surprised you, but your reaction to it. You could feel your chest lighten and it scared you. The thought of living with these people was becoming more and more appealing and you didn’t know what to do. 

“Hey, what’s wrong? You’ve been staring off into space for two minutes, Y/n.” She placed a soft hand on your shoulder. 

Realizing that you appreciated her words, you stood and gave her a firm salute. “Thank you.”

“What?” She took a sharp step back, eyes wide. 

“Thank you for giving me a purpose, Natasha.” You smiled genuinely for the first time since you could remember. Your rising chest felt strange and almost unnatural. 

“You’re welcome, Y/n.” She returned the smile. “I hope that when you come back, we can both be friends.”

“Me too,” you said without thinking. It surprised you how easily you said that. 

“We should get going, they’re probably wondering what the hell’s taking so long.” She laughed and you both resumed walking towards your destination. She took you into an elevator and down another hallway. At the end you could see a steel door. 

Outside the door was a large, Wakandan ship. The steely metal gleamed in the sunlight and nearly blinded you as you both approached it. A handsome, dark-skinned man met the two of you halfway and smiled. His expensive looking clothes were as handsome as his face. 

“Hello, you must be Y/n. I am king T’challa of Wakanda. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He bowed to you and you returned the gesture, though your movements weren’t as graceful or elegant as his were. “My sister is waiting for us back home.” He then turned to Natasha. “I can take her from here, thank you.”

Natasha nodded and said her goodbyes. You watched as she left through the door, which made a loud click when it shut. 

T’challa placed a polite hand on your back and walked you to the gleaming steps. You walked up in front of him, the wind blowing right through you, and into the strange ship. You began to wonder what on Earth would be in store for you this time. 

-----

I apologize for not updating as quick as I wanted to but I accidentally deleted my draft and I had to write the whole thing all over again. Not to mention that I have online school and am working on a WEBTOON. 

REBLOG IF YOU’D LIKE TO BE ON MY TAGLIST

Anyways, I hope you liked this chapter! Have a great day and stay safe!

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@stressedandbandobessed7771​

[freudsghost]

I’m not sure how much personal stuff I want to share on this blog but venting about some stuff helps me process. 

So in light of EB 224 I wanna share a bit about what it was like growing up in the south/bible-belt (Texas) and being who I am (a bisexual, Jewish woman) and my experience with Evangelical Christianity and CRU. 

Forewarning: this is not a happy story. these are not glory days. it’s dark. trigger warnings for gas-lighting, manipulation, mental, physical, and emotional abuse, corrective/date rape and semi-forced/coerced marriage, dissociation, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and alcohol. Read at your own risk.

I grew up without much religious influence in my life, my dad wasn’t Jewish (he was agnostic) and my mom is Jewish but not overly concerned with religious beliefs. My grandparents were/are Jewish as well and were WAY more involved in religion, but having survived the holocaust were private about their culture/religion. 

At 17 I was accepted on a full scholarship to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. And if there’s one thing Lubbock is known for is being one of the most religious cities in Texas. Predominantly Evangelical Christian. 

My first semester, I lived in the women’s architecture honors dorm and quickly made friends with most of the other girls, one in particular I became fast friends with and we studied for almost every test together and were studio partners for almost every project. I’m still friends with her almost 20 years later (its been rough and complicated) so, to protect our friendship and privacy I’ll just call her Mandy. 

Mandy was from a small town up north and her father was an Evangelical pastor and her first priority when getting to uni was to find a bible study group. I was NOT in any way involved in that, because I had no interest in christianity. Some time during Spring semester she started leading her own bible study group and invited me to come with her. I knew she was possibly trying to convert me and I resisted. At 18 I wasn’t very good at confronting people on their motivations but I’ve since talked with her about this and we’ve moved passed it with minimal damage.

I was super focused on my school work and sports and she stopped bringing up the bible study. For a while...

That all changed when she brought a few male friends back to the dorms for a calculus study group before midterms. During the study session I really hit it off with one of the guys. He was a year ahead of me, super smart and I thought he was charming and cute. And it turns out he was the leader of Mandy’s bible study. I’ll call him Vick.

Mandy knew I had a bit of a crush on him and got me to finally come to her bible study, with promises she wasn’t trying to push her beliefs on me but just wanted me to get to know Vick. 

She also said that their group was welcoming to people of other faiths and were open to other perspectives and wanted me to talk about being Jewish and The Torah. Which was weird, being put into a group where no one else was like me and I was the token Jewish person, having to represent everyone from a large diverse culture. I tried to explain I wasn’t the right person to do that but she insisted it would be fine because I was charismatic and outgoing. 

I should also mention that at this point of my life I was extremely outgoing, I had been in many leadership roles and actively sought those things out. I was very comfortable in front of large crowds and at this point I still had the dream of being a musician. 

Mandy knew this, and during her time visiting me over the summer asked me if I would be interested in joining the leadership team. I initially said no because I wasn’t at all interested in the religious aspect of their group, but thought that another leadership position would look good on my resume. So I reconsidered and talked with a couple of my long time friends who said I should go for it. It would put me on stage and I would possibly get to be musically creative. And of course I could always quit if I was uncomfortable. 

And that’s how I, a bisexual Jewish woman, became the leader and emcee for the Texas Tech Branch of Campus Crusade for Christ, or TTUCRU. 

During this time I had grown a lot closer with Vick. We talked on the phone all summer (yes this was before texting and iPhones) and when I returned for fall semester, we started to date. He was the perfect attentive boyfriend. He came across so charming and mature. He was romantic and sweet. Everything I had ever wanted in a partner. By the time my birthday came around in December we were pretty serious about our relationship. I knew he was the kind of man I could fall in love with.

He was also extremely helpful when I had the new pressure to write and coordinate large meetings for a group of people I knew I had VERY LITTLE in common with. I knew I was bisexual. I knew I was Jewish. But most people didn’t know that about me and there was a bit of an unspoken rule that I NOT mention any of those things. Vick suggested I not tell anyone, and it was easy enough to not say anything. I had a good christian boyfriend, everyone assumed I was a straight christian girl. But the whole time I felt like I was being shoved back into the closet not only when I led the group, but every time I was around CRU members. Which was 24/7. CRU became my only social outlet. It consumed most of my free time. It was stressful. 

Other things in my life began to suffer, at this time I was still a collegiate athlete (track and field), and I was majoring in not only one or two but three majors and an unnecessary minor and had to maintain above a 3.8 to keep my scholarship. I was constantly stressed, I started having issues with anxiety and didn’t know how to cope. I had a large public position on campus, because TTUCRU was The Organization to Follow for many students. I had to coordinate with other student organizations and get involved with student politics. I felt a constant weight on my shoulders not only to be a star athlete and student but I had to look The Part. 

This is where things get really dark.

(I should mention before I continue that I also had a traumatic childhood. It’s a long story but to sum it up, my mom bullied me into an early eating disorder. She treated me (and my father and brother) poorly and abused us all mentally and abused me and my brother physically. It’s left me with a lot of unprocessed trauma I wasn’t even aware of until I was an adult.)

It also left me as an easy target to be manipulated.

I’m not really sure how to explain how it happened and I’m not sure I ever will be, but after a few months I realized that I was a powerless bystander in my relationship with Vick. I felt like something was wrong and that I had no control over my own life. I couldn’t pinpoint anything, and if I mentioned this feeling to anyone I was usually dismissed as being stressed. Everyone loved Vick. He had been CRU’s Most Eligible Bachelor. I was constantly reminded this by other members, that I should count myself lucky to have a man like him, no matter what.

Looking back its because I know that he was manipulating me. He was charming and could talk his way into and out of things without anyone even knowing he was doing it. He talked me into things I would have not normally done at that time. Including how serious our relationship was. I felt like big parts of me were becoming less and less important, things that had once been very important to who I was as a person were becoming less and less visible. Like I was losing myself entirely. He used our relationship and his ties to religion and used our membership in CRU to manipulate me. By the time I turned 21 our relationship was nearly inseparable from our positions on the leadership team. He controlled what I said during meetings, he controlled my speeches and my prompts. He had offered to organize all our media and sound. 

I remember wanting to leave, but I knew if I mentioned it to Vick he would leave me and my identity had been so entangled with him, our relationship and CRU I knew I couldn’t. I was convinced I would be nothing without him, without CRU. There were always subtle reminders of this from the culture of the organization. How women are property. None of my accomplishments were ever my own, everything I did was because of Vick or because I was ‘given the opportunity’ by a man. I was also constantly criticized for my appearance. What I should and shouldn’t wear. The size of my jeans. Comments from full time coordinators about how my ass looked too fat. I looked pale and my hair wasn’t right. Vick enforced this. He encouraged me to lose weight and eat less. My already negative body image issues developed into a really unhealthy mindset about eating. I was determined to not be the girl who “gained the freshman 15″. And every time someone “Wow you look so great!” it felt amazing so I just kept not eating. 

Somehow a headstrong outspoken rebellious teenager who didn’t give two fucks about other people’s opinions had changed into a 21 year old whose identity was entirely based on the validation and judgement I got from standing on the stage in an auditorium filled with strangers and people I had very little in common with. But all that started to break down right before finals the spring semester of my junior year. 

I had moved into a house off campus and I was home alone with Vick keeping me company and we had been horsing around, playing with my dog and out of nowhere he snapped at me and rage I had only seen turned on other people was suddenly focused entirely on me. I still don’t know what sparked his rage and it doesn’t matter. All I know is that he grabbed me and shoved me, picked me up and threw me on the hard concrete floor. After months of treatment and several x-rays and MRIs, I found out that I had two herniated discs that had resulted in nerve damage causing chronic pain, migraines and muscle damage.

I had to quit playing almost all sports after this injury because between disordered eating, weight loss and this new injury I was trying to recover from I couldn’t physically handle the rigorous training. I also got put on some heavy opiates to deal with the pain and doctors at the time had no problem giving me prescription after prescription for heavier and heavier pain killers. Pain killers like Oxy and Vicodin left me in a pretty vulnerable state to be taken advantage of in many ways. Over spring break that year I went on a couples vacation with Vick where we were going to spend one weekend together hiking and meet up with friends to go sightseeing and to an amusement park. 

(this part is extremely hard for me to recall both because of being drugged and traumatic processing) The Saturday we spent alone ended with us going to get drinks at a martini bar that was recommended to us by a friend. I don’t remember having too many drinks or having anything beyond one drink at all. I had purposely not taken any pain medication because I knew it could be dangerous. I heavily suspect Vick drugged my drink. All I can recall fuzzy memories of being carried to his car, being carried and half dragged into our room, and Vick roughly taking my clothes off me and holding me down to sexually assault me. I remember being scared and confused. I remember asking him what he was doing. And I remember saying no. 

He did this after years of insisting to me that he was waiting for marriage to have sex. He enforced his belief system on our relationship, no questions allowed. I remember waking up Sunday morning the day we were going to meet our friends and feeling sick, sicker than I’d ever felt before in my life. I remember wanting to hide and not see anyone ever again. I shoved myself into the tightest darkest corner in our washroom and cried before calling one of my friends we were meeting with later to prepare her for the conversation I knew I needed to have with her. 

She didn’t believe me. 

No one did. 

I was shocked and humiliated. People’s reactions ranged from “Vick wouldn’t do that he’s an upstanding member of CRU” to “You were asking for it by (drinking)(being on drugs)(being a tease)(dressing like that)(you consented by just being his girlfriend)” 

I confronted him about it and told him that I knew what he did. He didn’t even try to deny it. He said he had been drinking and couldn’t control himself. I was certain it would be the end of our relationship. But in the storm of all of this, the two full time coordinators (two older adult men in their 40s/50s) of CRU called me in for a meeting mid-semester. They sat me down for lunch and fired me because they heard the rumors that I had been having premarital sex with Vick and they couldn’t allow someone like me lead their organization. They then used my sexuality and religion they had previously been aware of against me. They called me a whore and a heathen and dismissed me. 

I felt alone. I couldn’t turn to my family because they’ve never been supportive. My boyfriend had just done something unthinkable to me and I couldn’t trust him anymore and most of my friends thought I was a liar or a whore. Rumors started. I got the most judgmental amounts of hate I’ve ever had in my entire life from people who had previously been my friends. 

(somehow in the midst of all of that I managed to keep my grades up and not fail or drop out lol)

My friends told me if what I said was true, if I had sex with Vick the only right thing to do was to stay with him. They cherry picked bible verse after bible verse, a book I didn’t even believe in, to prove that I was trash unless I was committed to him. That I had to be his wife (property) forever. And Vick refused to leave me. Seeing him made me sick but after refusing to leave over and over again I gave in when he begged for us to go to couples counselling. 

(spoiler alert: going to a therapist your rapist has hand picked with them, isn’t a good solution) 

The ‘therapist’ was not-shockingly associated with CRU and the church Vick attended. He made it very clear what my role should be and that even if what I said happened, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t rape. It couldn’t be and that I needed to ‘process what it meant to be a good wife’ so I would be a proper woman for Vick. He used words like immature and selfish to describe my emotional upset.  

I remember leaving our second and final session crying and angry. I went home and felt even more alone. I felt pathetic. Vick kept trying to salvage our relationship but he ‘warned’ me that time was running out because he was leaving for an internship over the summer and we wouldn’t see each other. 

I was right. I had the whole summer to focus on me and getting into graduate school. I was writing my undergraduate dissertation and finishing up important studio classes to graduate a semester early that fall. I remember having this feeling that I needed to run away and wasn’t sure why. But I didn’t use any of my time alone to process what had really happened. I kept denying it. I was filled with so much self hatred, guilt, and shame. 

When Vick came back in the Fall he proposed to me and laid it out like an ultimatum. I either had to marry him or we had to break up. He knew how scrambled my brain was, and used everything he could against me. He promised me that I wouldn’t have anything if I said no. I wouldn’t have him, I would loose all my friends that I was lucky to still have and no one would respect or want me ever again. I was terrified and stressed and still on and off pain medication. I had no support system and no support from my family and no real friends. 

I remember going home with the ring and bawling my eyes out. I had a full on panic attack and cried for hours. My mom told me to ‘control myself’ because I was overreacting. She loved Vick and told me what a lucky girl i was to have  such a good and supporting man in my life. Told me that I was a stupid girl if I said no. So I said yes. We were engaged for over a year and a half. I kept putting off the wedding and I let him plan it all with my mother. 

Vick insisted we take time to go thru CRU recommended engagement counseling and seminar after seminar. I forced me to pray with him constantly. He said I needed to ask for forgiveness for what I had done. He started getting more and more jealous and would accuse me of “mentally cheating” if i looked too long at anyone. He would corner me and force me to confess my “adulterous” feelings. I remember believing him during this time. That looking at anyone, strangers or friends, men or women, was horrible and that I was betraying him if I had any thoughts about anyone else. I felt like a shell of a person. I gave up control over most of my life. I had given up trying to end things and decided to make the best of the inevitable.

I knew I didn’t love him. I knew I wasn’t a christian. I knew I didn’t believe in any of it. And I knew I couldn’t love him after what he did. And I knew before we got married he wasn’t the kind of man who could love me back. 

We got married on my birthday and I remember crying for hours beforehand. I insisted I was just nervous and stressed. The only person who ever asked if it was what I really wanted was my dad. An untimely question seconds before I was getting married. I never answered him. I wanted to say no. I should’ve said no. I wished I had listened to the gut feeling telling me to run.

That’s where I’m ending my story because the rest is a bit inconsequential to what I wanted to vent about. I left him after eight months of marriage. I had to reach out to friends finally, despite the guilt and shame. I still deal with a lot of internalized bullshit to this day because of him and the brainwashing (I don’t have a better term, sorry) I got from CRU and his church.

As an aside, I just want to say that this is MY story. These are MY feelings and no one else’s. I know ‘not all christians’-- I have friends and family who are christians. But I wanted to share this because I needed to. For personal reasons. And I know there are tons of other stories out there.

If anyone has any questions or wants to DM me just to talk, feel free! I probably won’t be posting public replies or asks about this though. It’s still kind of hard to talk about publicly. <3

[muthaz-rapapa]

StarPre Ep 29: Planet Saaman, the Frontier (??)

Alternatively,  “YEARSH, MOAR LALA!!”

Sooooo many things to discuss about this episode (yay!) as I expected as much with going back to Lala’s homeland.

Therefore, I should go through everything efficiently (ahahaha~). 

*cracks knuckles* Let’s begin!

1) Saaman, a world ruled by AI + Lala, the anomaly

I believe by now, most of us have consumed enough media to understand that a utopia run completely by a computer is NOT the ideal world it paints itself to be.

While there are certain perks in efficiency, the lack of freedom, authenticity and most importantly, the limit on a person’s individuality and true potential (among many other things) are so alarmingly concerning that such a reality is not worth it.

However, Saaman is just that. Its citizens not only thrive on their reliance of the AI, they are also super (!!) content with a machine deciding every single aspect of how they live.

Which suggests that Saaman’s current social infrastructure and foundation must have lasted quite long already (probably centuries) for the entire population to rarely, if ever, question the decisions that AI “Mother” made for them.

Save for one. Our lovely Lala-chan.

I mean, can you blame her for not going along with the norm like her family and fellow Saamanians do? 

AI Mother’s evaluation of her determined that she was most suited to investigate garbage.

After everything we’ve seen her done, how much she’s experienced and grown on this journey, of course, she can never be satisfied with that!

Lala deserves SO👏MUCH👏 FRIGGIN’👏MORE👏 (give her the galaxy!) than to sit hours upon hours sorting through junk!

Unfortunately, given the longstanding situation and culture of her planet (again, a reminder that the people of Saaman have no problem with this lifestyle), it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to actually voice their opinions of disagreement with Mother’s decisions.

Especially Lala, whose parents are big shots in Saaman and older brother is the poster child/epitome of Saamanian values.

When the majority of your family is so ensconced in societal conventions, it’s not surprising that they would push the “lesser” relative to be more like “everybody else”.

Please don’t make the mistake that this means they don’t love and care about Lala because it doesn’t. It’s so obvious that they worry for her and only want the best for her.

BUT! It’s also obvious that they don’t really know Lala nor can they be considered close to her (she calls her parents by their given names instead of simply “Mom” or “Dad”, for stars’ sake!). 

Lala’s family doesn’t understand her or her unhappiness with her assigned role on Saaman. They’re so content with their own jobs that they fail to see anyone else can feel differently about theirs. So the only solution they can think of to “help” Lala is to push her further into it, believing that eventually she’ll become content.

It’s something that happens to a lot of people and perhaps the reason why Lala left Saaman in the first place. She couldn’t exactly rebel so she ran away from the pressure on her spaceship. Maybe she didn’t intend to be away for an extended period of time but still, she left hoping to search for something that Saaman could not, would not, give her.

Then she fatefully bumped into Prunce and Fuwa running away from the Notrayders, met Hikaru, became Precure and the rest was history (or rather, destiny~).

At least, that’s how I see it.

2) Madoka relates

Y’know, at first, I thought Madoka empathizing with Lala’s discomfort was based on their similar upbringings.

Despite how close Lala and Hikaru are with each other, it’s Lala and Madoka who have the most in common out of all the other members of their team and I’ve been waiting for the writers to touch on that for some time now.

From birth or early childhood at the very least, everything was already decided for them. What they will be when they grow up, what their routines will be every single day, what expectations they’re supposed to fulfill, etc. 

It’s a suffocating position that doesn’t leave a lot of room for argument and what shaped these two girls into having very detrimental perfectionist outlooks before that changed after meeting Hikaru and becoming Precure.

And now that Lala finds herself under stucky circumstances with her family, unable to enjoy the same openness with them as she does with her friends, I thought Madoka was going to try to encourage Lala not to let that get to her. She’s going through the same thing with her own father, after all, so if anyone can tell Lala’s going through a hard time, it’d be Madoka.

But turns out, that’s not quite the case here as the issue lies with them keeping their Precure identities and duties secret from their families instead.

Which is fine because at least Lala still has someone who can understand her on that.

Anyways, it’s a problem because being the upstanding, honest and serious types they are (majimeko) and both coming from families with high reputations, it’s really difficult for Lala and Madoka to not tell the people who are important to them about another part of their lives that is very important to them.

For Madoka, she feels that she’s betraying her father by hiding the fact that her friends, the very first and truest friends she’s ever made, are either aliens or helping the aliens avoid being caught.

For Lala, she’s torn between her duties as a Saamanian and wanting the acknowledgement of her family and community against the desire the protect her friends from the consequences of acting on the former.

And they are right when they suspect things would probably be worst off if they were to reveal that they are Precure.

Sure, they can probably expect to receive some more substantial support from the officials of their home planet (more from the Starscape Alliance than Earth’s government, sorry Madoka)...but at what cost?

The Star team can operate and travel smoothly throughout space precisely because nobody else is aware of who they really are. If they reveal their identities, there���s no doubt they will be targeted to be controlled.

Because sadly and not to get too political or anything, that’s just what governments do. They have to control the situation, they have to think about the interests of their own countries and more often than not, they extremely suck at it and turn everything into a huge mess (and this is just massively simplifying the general for length).

If they let other people get involved, the team’s balance and even their friendship will likely absolutely be affected and strained because no way will the universe at large care about a bunch of girls getting along as much as they do about using them for its own needs.

Which I’ll get more into on Point #3 below.

But for certain, that’s one of the reasons why Lala and Madoka are unable to tell their families about being Precure.

Yes, it makes them very uncomfortable to keep this huge secret...a secret.

But at the same time, it feels even more wrong to expose it because once that happens, nothing will be the same. Nothing can stay the same.

Even if they avoid all the worse case scenarios, the ones who will definitely suffer the most will still be the girls.

Perhaps that sounds selfish because they’re putting their friends above everything else but it’s not like the Star team isn’t also doing their best to keep the villains at bay while trying to save the universe at the same time. And they’re already doing an exceptional job without anyone breathing down their necks about it.

*cough* Sorry, getting off track a bit.

Anyways, the point is, they’re following their instincts this time which is a BIG deal for people like Lala and Madoka who have tendency to lean more towards logic.

After meeting Hikaru, after letting Hikaru teach them about valuable things they didn’t know before, both Lala and Madoka learned that there is much more to the world than the structures built around them.

Sometimes, the right answer doesn’t lie in the data or the rules, cold and fair in judgement.

Sometimes, simply trusting what you feel is just more correct.

Nobody ever said doing the right thing will be easy (in fact, many times, it never is) but the heart can never lie to you after all. And it’s even more dangerous to ignore it and live through the regrets afterwards.

So which would you choose?

Going with what you feel and doing everything you can to get the best outcome? Or choosing the opposite, knowing that doing so, the best outcome becomes more impossible to achieve and you can only hope for the best of the worse?

Eh..my phrasing isn’t very good but you get what I mean, right?

Anyways, it’s just very meaningful for Madoka to be the one to say these words to Lala.

I wouldn’t say she and Lala have completed their personal journeys yet (we still have like 20 more episodes to go after all) but I do believe that this particular moment marks a very significant point in their arcs.

Having been exposed to more of the world out there beyond their own, they would never go back to being the same Lala and Madoka from the beginning.

They are still unsure about whether their choices will lead them to what they’re looking for but they both know there’s no point in looking back. They can only move forward, trusting in what they feel as right.

Which it will be and not just because this is Precure but because it will leave a very bad taste in my mouth if I wrote all that and the right doesn’t end up prevailing. :P

3) The next step...

I’ll give you a straight up “NOPE!” to that, Pops!

Apologies for letting some of my RL views seep into this post (though can you blame me when it’s been disaster after disaster out there?) but I’m positive that “joining” the Starscape Alliance (their terms, not Precure’s), no matter how well-intentioned they are, will hurt the Star team more than benefit them.

Again, cuz it will allow busybodies to unnecessarily butt into their affairs and make things harder for the girls than they already are.

Moreover...

This is just Lala’s boss being an incompetent ass-for-brains idiot but if the Starscape Alliance is anything like him or even thinks remotely like him, then the Star team coming under their control spells doom for all.

Seriously, this is another level of messed up stupid. They just got terrorized by a flamboyant tengu woman and the person he accuses of trying to steal the Princess pen is Lala?! Even though the wrecked video footage is NOT enough sufficient evidence to point her as an accomplice to Tenjou? Even though Lala’s safely holding onto the pen in the aftermath, is noticeably NOT running away with it and showing concern for her boss?

WHAT THE SERIOUS FUCKING FUCK?!?!

D:<

That said, I hope that in midst of all the chaos of next week’s episode, Lala’s family will at least refuse to believe Lala is a thief and try to find a way to talk to her to know what’s really going on.

Because if they can’t even do that and join the chase to jail their own daughter, then I have another concern to worry about and will immediately fly to Saaman, lay waste to it, take Lala home with me and file to adopt her as my own child (don’t laugh).

But seeing how Lala fought so hard, despite her awkward relationship with her family, to make sure Lolo’s efforts weren’t for nothing, I’m sure it’ll be alright.

Having both her parents and Lolo come to understand Lala would be ideal...but if not, then either one or the other. I’m banking on Lolo atm since he’s her twin but he can be the type who chooses the system over his own kin, too, so... 

The screentime we were given just wasn’t enough for me to grasp where each of Lala’s family members stand on their respective relations with her so I can only hope for the best. :/

Ooo, and also, Cancer Star Princess gets revived next week! Yay~! :D 

[theysaywhatasadsight]

Wedding Bells, Part One (Steve Rogers x Desi!Reader)

A/n: *Slides up to you* Good Evening (technically its morning hehe) but this fic was made possible by Amy (some may know her, she was formerly @thelazypangolin ), by @messy-random-bitch and @officially-tonynat-shrine who listened to my crazy headcanons and gave me amazing ones. @nasarogers is the clueless American I would die for (love you bby) and @shurisneakers and @chillingbucky wanted to be tagged. Technically this is a desi au, so translations are right next to the sentence and some pop culture references are in the glossary. The story is based in Delhi so if any of y’all live there don’t come for my head skkssk. (P.S.: IDK if the ‘person sitting in the lap of another person in a car’ is technically illegal here or not? Imagine my surprise when I went to Europe and found out it’s illegal there RIP. So ignore the “is this actually allowed?” question, please and thank you.

Warnings: Floof, some violence and blood, swearing (well it’s in another language)

"Agent (L/N), thoughts?" The post mission debrief was often long and complicated but this time, one of her many gods had clearly smiled upon her as it was over in an hour. Most of the junior agents had cleared out of the room, leaving behind a few of the senior ones and the director of SHIELD. "Don't let Richardson go next time; all he does is whine and make extremely bad decisions. Our job is to provide assistance to the Avengers, not to be heroes ourselves. Let's keep ourselves a bit on the down low." "Agreed." Smith piped up. There were nods around the table. "I'll talk to Richardson, push him on a desk job for a while." Everyone stood up and filled out. Walking beside Nick, YN grabbed his tablet for him. "Always working, Sir." "Unlike you, Agent (L/N). A whole month for a wedding? It's not you that's getting married is it?" He looked completely serious but she could see the glint of mischief in his eye. "What? I haven't taken a single holiday in a year. Besides,its my cousin's wedding; they're pretty close." "I suppose you're not joining us for the Islamabad mission?" "Not really, already I get called unpatriotic too much. Good luck!"

She handed off the debrief files in the Avengers' living room. A few were lazing around, some off to shower or maybe nap. She herself wanted one, not wanting to wrestle with a saree and a suitcase. "So I hear you're not showing up for the next month?" She handed the file to Natasha while Tony looked up from his phone where he was declining with Pepper and Morgan who were away to Chicago for a meeting and visiting Pepper's family. After Ultron, it was always better to have physical copies of files. "Yeah, cousin getting married." "Oooh, with the number of days you were leaving I thought it was yours." "Don't, Fury already made that joke. And besides, wouldn't I invite you lot to my hypothetical wedding?" She smiled as she sat down on the sofa next to him, grabbing an apple from the coffee table. "Considering it was Steve's wedding too I would think we would already be invited, I did call you all to mine." He smirked. Y/N nearly choked on her apple. "Wait, what?!" "Darling, we know you've been hooking up. Or planning to." Natasha sighed and glared at Tony. "So much staring at each other on missions. You always covering his ass, and might I remind you of the time he went into a coma after a mission and you nearly ripped the place apart?" "Clearly, your super senses are gone because there is nothing there. Nada. Zilch. There is absolutely no potential there. We're just colleagues." "Colleagues who hooked up once? Last new year's you two were slobbering over each other. You left Bucky and Me dancing alone to that...what was it called again?" "Sheila ki Jawani*?" "Yes! Amazing song, by the way. Movie didn't make a lick of sense but then again, which heist movie does?" Glad at the change of topic, she smiled. "Do you need more movie recommendations?" "Nope, Bucky and I still have your old list to go through." "Call me if you need explanations. Only WhatsApp calls though, I'm not shelling out a fortune to explain the reincarnation of Shanti Priya* to you."

Hungry, jet lagged and extremely fatigued she landed at the Delhi airport, hoping against hope that the crowd assembled at the pick up was for the Tik Tok star that was also on her flight and not because her whole clan hadn't seen her for 3 years. But when was she ever lucky? When she had left the army to join SHIELD everyone had been very disappointed in her. Not that any of them knew. For immediate family, she was in HR for Stark Industries and for the rest she was in 'Amreeka, doing something or the other'.

When they told her she would be sleeping alongside her younger cousin who was training to be a doctor she just sighed. The nerd would probably study the whole night and keep the light on. Maybe she could do some pending work; jet lag would keep her awake anyway. Work, yes. Work would keep her awake. Definitely not daydreaming about a pair of blue eyes that wouldn't go away; the owner of whom was the biggest fattu (coward)  she had ever seen.

He missed Y/N. It had barely been 4 days since she was gone. He should ideally know better. Fraternising among agents wasn't good. Her job would be in danger if anyone found out. He never really had a thing for rules though. "Good God, Rogers, stop moping about and give her a call." "I-what?" "Yes." Natasha frowned at him from where she was leaning against the countertop. He was crushing the cardamom, trying to figure out if it went after the chai was done or before. "Ask her when the cardamom goes in. I think it's before the whole thing boils." "I, uh, I'll look up a recipie." "Care to tell me why Steve Rogers, who loves coffee as black as his soul is trying to replicate YN's sweet as hell chai? Couldn't you get some from Starbucks?" "That's no chai,that's just tea and milk. She had it once and almost threw it at the barista's head...Nat, why are you looking at me like that?" "Nothing, nothing at all."

"They're no longer in Islamabad." "What?" "Someone leaked the details of the raid to them. They're moving it to India now, possibly to the capital. They have enough contacts to pull it off, even HYDRA's helping them." "New Delhi, isn't that where Agent (L/N) is now?" "Fury, she's on vacation; besides she's not picking up any of her calls." Natasha glared at Nick. "A radioactive gas that can take out the entire subcontinent and a dude who's not stopping at anything to further his our-return-to-the-dark-ages agenda? Pretty sure it beats all weddings. Send someone with the briefing and gather your team. We’re sorting this shit out, fast."

"No. Absolutely not. I'm not going to show up at her door asking her to cancel her family commitments and go back to work." "Really, the concern you two have for each other is extremely sweet and nauseating; but you have to do it. Get in, get recon and get back in contact. If the rumour is true we'll have to assemble the whole team." The former assassin rolled her eyes at Steve's aghast face. "I got her address off an old file; I'll ask her to pick you up. And please, don't get lost somewhere; we really don't have any spare agents to track you down." "I've been outside the States before, Widow. And using confidential information for personal purposes? Nefarious." "This is the reward I get for being a good wingwoman. Fine, don't come crying to me when you're invited to her actual wedding." As he set about packing he daydreamed about jumping off the top of the compound and wondering if his feet would still work to escape into the surrounding forest.

She got the text the minute Natasha assumed Steve's plane took off. "Your boyfriend is headed towards Delhi. Introduce him, be the black sheep you are and for the love of God read the files and make a plan." The rest was just code saying the plans had changed, the expected mission derailed. When her family began pestering her, saying that her turn at the altar was next and asking about boyfriends, she had blurted Steve's name by accident, the fact that it made a perfect cover was a different matter. That's what happens when you space out while talking to Sunita Chachi*, woman has a tongue sharper than Gordon Ramsay's knife. Her mother had just smiled sadly and asked two of YN's younger cousins to share a bed when told another guest would be joining them.

30 minutes after the plane landed he immediately wanted to go back. What he was used to was executing secret and well-coordinated missions, not the actual planning and coordinating. Sam argued he was growing soft. He just liked listening to YN's voice. And now he was in an unfamiliar land with no foreseeable end to his stay and a wedding to attend, apparently. YN smiled at him at the receiving line, smiling as a lover receiving a spouse after a long separation. She walked up to him and whispered "You're my boyfriend from work, you know zero hindi and Natasha introduced us." She embraced him and leaned forward for a kiss. It lasted shorter than he would've liked. She continued whispering as she grasped his hand and lead him to the car which already had three people in it. "Did you pick up more guests?" "Nope, they just wanted to see you first." Opening the door as Steve tossed his bag in the back she yelled something at the assembled children and got in the right. Was the kid in the front supposed to drive? "Do you need an invitation?" One of the kids yelled out.

He had judged wrong. There were not only three teenagers, there were two more kids who had been too shy to outright stare at him like their elder siblings (he assumed) had. One sat in his lap, staring outside the window. The others chose instead to glare at him unnervingly. YN drove, swearing at everything. One of the younger ones laughed at something she said and immediately had his ears covered and shushed."Didi* don't teach Gudiya bad words!"

"Arey baba sorry, tu toh janta hai traffic kitna bura hai; akele chalane ki adaat ho gayi hai bhenchod. Sorry."  (“You know how bad traffic is, I’m used to driving alone, sisterfucker” Basically the reader’s saying the traffic is the worst and how she’s used to driving alone and hence swears often while driving; also people from Delhi apparently like to attach swears to everything.)  She grinned as her cousin gasped again. She was at the moral, change-the-world stage. YN missed that.

“So, change of plans?” Pinky grinned at Y/N as she looked up from a complicated looking textbook. The kid had somehow made it to medical school without losing her mind or her calm demeanour. “I’m only gonna switch places at night, right now let me study Anatomy.”Sighing at her cousin’s confused stare, she glared back.  “Arey you’ll want to sleep next to your boyfriend na?” “Uh, yeah, I mean, thank you, but it’s no problem. I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me.” “Calm down. If we get caught sneaking around in the middle of the night its worse for the two of you. I got into MBBS, I can basically get away with murder now.” she smiled. Y/N wondered whether her cousin would be a sociopath or a leader later. She went about chalking up the updated plan for the recon, only hoping her family would behave themselves around Steve. She caught some part of her wishing it was the real thing so that the poor guy’s suffering wouldn’t be in vain.

Hey bhagwaan (oh God), I need gangajal* and a stiff drink. Also a lobotomy.

“How did that idiot even cross the border this quick? And how are we getting informed this late? This is going to be a logistical nightmare, the government is going to put the pressure on us.” “Maybe someone exposed him or he got pushed back down on the social hierarchy. It’s a mess.” On the pretense of sightseeing, Y/n had dragged Steve away from her nosy relatives to get details for the now completely changed mission. "Can I try that?" He gestured to the bowl of chaat* in her hands. "Don't cry if you find it too spicy then. You couldn't even tolerate my butter chicken; even my youngest cousin can eat that." "My tongue is really not fond of burning and not being able to taste anything for a fortnight." "Oh? What is it fond of then?" His answering blush made her smile. "I-uh, we need to report within three days, Nat is busy getting everyone together and ready for the mission." "The engagement is in 2 days! How are we even going to get out?" "How much do you like this cousin anyway?" "How. Dare. You. Rahul is one of the few I actually like." "Yeah, how many are there? I lost count at 13." She punched his arm and snorted, earning a smile from him and a glare from the chaatwala*.

YN truly regretted coming back here. The never ending taunts, the upcoming solo recon mission (that she would have to give Rahul’s engagement a miss for, he was one of her favorites too) and the fact that the guy she had been thirsting over the past few months was suddenly her so-called boyfriend. Massaging her temples as she got up to get ready, she hoped desperately the recon would not involving fighting. She already had thinning hair due to the stresses of being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, her hair being yanked out while pins were still attached to her hair wouldn’t help the cause.

"Mummy!" She yelled over the din of the loud, jarring music. Her mother was smiling and gossiping with her sister-in-law. "Thoda kaam aa gaya; Delhi wale office Jana padega." (Some work popped up, I’ll have to go to the Delhi office) "Itni raat ko? Uss gore ko lekar?" (So late? With the foreigner in tow?”) "Are kuch nahi hoga, bohot important hai, warna nahi jaati." (Nothing will happen. It’s too important, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone.) "Wapis aa jaiyo jaldi, raat ko ghumne safe nahi hota." (Come back quick, It's not safe to roam at night.) "Pakka." (I promise)

"MADARCHOD!" (”MOTHERFUCKER!”) She grunted as she ducked, the bullet nearly embedding in her collarbone. She fired back two shots, one at a goon's head and one at his accomplice's knees. Whipping her head at a noise, she gasped as Steve has a bullet graze him as one of them took a lucky shot at him. He only winced. The goddamn lehenga* got in the way of her running after the idiot who could run like fucking Milkha Singh* even after being shot in the knees. They both chased. The recon turned ugly after someone spotted the tent she was wearing that was pretending to be a skirt. If they somehow got out alive, she'd burn this thing. By the time she caught up to Steve, who had left her long behind, she came upon a sight that gave her a heart attack. The men (apparently some were laying in wait for them) all lay dead in various poses, with Steve in the middle grunting and struggling to get up. Firing at someone who awoke, she leaned down, cradling his head in her hands. "Steve. Hey, whoa. Don't die on me. Where are you hurt?" He was bleeding all over her skirt. "Knife to the ribs. Two or three times..may...maybe. Hurts like a bitch." "I'm getting you up. We're going home, okay?"

This was a terrible situation. Somehow supporting the huge, burly figure of an extremely injured Steve, she set him down, leaning against the bike they had zipped around on and somehow escaped on, looking for her phone in the carrier attached. She lived this bike even when she lived here; it belonged to her uncle who would give the keys to only her. The sagaai* had clearly ended an hour or so ago. People still milled about, probably the men from the tent house they had booked for the whole tamasha*. “Shobhit, neeche aa. Garden ke side. Aur Bunty aur Puneet ko bhi leke aaiyo.” (”Shobhit, come downstairs, to the garden side. Bring Bunty and Puneet with you.") “Itni raat ko kya kar rahi ho bahar? Khatam ho gaya aapka office ka kaam?” ("What are you doing out so late, is your office work done?") “Are tu neeche aa, sab samjhaati hu.” ("You come downstairs, I’ll explain everything" )

“Samjhaana agar shuru karti toh achha hota.” "It’ll be good if you start explaining now." Shobit muttered as all three of her cousins stared at the crumpled figure of Captain America on the ground, to their cousin wincing in pain, her lehenga covered with blood, again to Steve. “Isko uthake Pinky ke kamre tak jaane mei meri madad kar. Yeh marr warr gaya toh naukri gayi meri.” "Help me pick him up and take him to Pinky’s room. If he dies, I’m losing my job."

“First of all, I’m not a doctor. Yet.” Pinky also did her fair share of staring at everyone. Y/N could feel her eye twitching. Whether it was out of anger, stress, or the false eyelash that had ripped from her lash line as she drove like a madwoman in the traffic, no helmet or gloves. Steve screaming like a grandma as he held on for dear life was a tiny bit amusing though. Endearing maybe, Nope, definitely not endearing.

“I should tell you that because I have very, and I mean very little experience in sewing. Particularly sewing up bodies professionally. If he dies, I am not responsible.” She yawned once, extremely sleepy. “That being said, someone get cotton, Dettol, and uh my sewing kit is in the left front pocket of my backpack. Jija*, there’s no anesthesia, but I suppose you don’t need it, super strength and all. Didi*, aisa muh mat banao (don’t make that face), just because none of the oldies know who he is doesn’t mean we’re stupid too.” Y/N shut her gaping mouth.

“He’ll live.” Pinky said as everyone in the room collectively sighed. The suture had been painful to witness, Y/N biting her lip so hard she tasted copper. Steve seemed okay now. When he had taken that guard’s knife to the stomach, Y/N’s heart had stopped. The fear she felt, that was no general fear at seeing someone stabbed or even a friendly fear (was there even such a thing or was 3 AM her just rambling?). The panic she felt was heartbeaking. “Make those self realisation faces later, Di. I’m tired and I just want some sleep.  “Jija ko unke kamre tak chodke aa. Koi raaste mei mile bol dena bike bhid gayi thi, hospital se aate hue late ho gaya tha.” (Jija is the hindi word for sister’s husband. Pinky’s telling him to drop him to his room and if anyone asks to tell them he had an accident, the bike hit something and they were late coming from the hospital.) “Tu sabko heart attack dilayegi kya?” (Do you want to give everyone a heart attack?") “Aur koi bahana mile toh batao.” ("If you have any other excuse then tell"

As everyone scattered, Y/N shut the door to change. Her cousin just lay down on the bed, semi-asleep. She cracked one eye open when Y/N reached out her hand to switch off the light, whispering “So you are a secret agent?” “Nope, I sell veggies with Captain America.” “Ugh, way to thank me for saving your boyfriend’s life, with terrible puns.” “He’s not my...leave it. Good night. Oh, and PInky?” Pinky hummed. “Thanks.” “So jao.” (Go to Sleep)

“Tell Romanoff we’ll need backup. They clearly planned ahead for the move, the facility is impossible to get into, and now they know we’re coming. Also, Steve is injured." “Very well, we’ll invite ourselves to the wedding. Take care if your boyfriend until then."Natasha sounded worried but her tone was light. “Bring a gift, I’m not keeping strangers in my family home without payment.”

Glossary *-Sheila ki Jawani is a pretty popular Bollywood Item Song. Played at every wedding /party since 2010 *-The Reincarnation of Shanti Priya is a reference to the film Om Shanti Om where the leads get resurrected after having an unhappy ending *Chachi- Father's younger brother's wife; aka yn's aunt *Gangajal- Water from the river Ganges that Hindus consider sacred, its used for purification purposes (guess why Y/N wanted it *wink wink*) *Didi- Elder Sister *Chaat: some spicy-sweet snack, it's a general term; desis feel free to imagine your favourite. *Chaatwala: the person who owns the chaat shop *Lehenga: a crop top and floor-length skirt outfit worn at weddings and traditional functions *Milkha Singh: famous Indian athlete, also known as "The Flying Sikh" because of how fast he was. *sagaai- engagement *tamasha- a sarcastic way of saying how over the top the whole wedding is.

[artemisegeria]

Vision v. Yon-Rogg

I have seen comparisons between Vision and Yon-Rogg. I was going to leave it alone as I try to do with most fandom things I disagree with, but it’s been bothering me too much. So I am going to attempt to explain why the entire contexts of their relationships with Wanda and Carol, respectively, are completely different.

In order to be totally transparent, I’d like to note that I am biased toward Wanda and Vision’s relationship and Vision as a character. Therefore, there’s a certain amount of confirmation bias at work in my analysis, but that does not erase the text of the movies in question.

Let’s start from the beginning. Wanda and Vision do not have the most auspicious introduction. At first, Wanda is terrified of Vision and tries to stop his birth because of what she saw when Ultron’s consciousness was being downloaded into his body. Once Vision is born, that fear quickly gives way to a mutual fascination and intrigue. We can see this from the way that they look into each other’s eyes and Wanda continues to stare at Vision during the following scene. They go on to fight side by side against Ultron. They do not work together directly, but they are fighting toward the same end. Then, Vision flies in to rescue her.

When Yon-Rogg meets Carol, he and his comrades shoot her plane down. He seems prepared to leave her unharmed, though based on everything we know about him anything he says could be a lie, if she does not interfere with his plans to take the core. When she does not back down, he is prepared to kill her until she absorbs the core’s energy, and he sees a use for her. As Carol says later, Yon-Rogg steals her from her home and her family.

From their introduction, we have Wanda and Vision who are thrust into a new world of the Avengers. They are both separated from the others by birth and history. While they may not be on a completely equal footing, they are both outsiders who are struggling to adjust to their new lives. They are connected by the Mind Stone and the struggle to understand the full extent of their powers. On the other hand, we have Yon-Rogg who from the very beginning seeks to control Carol’s powers and lie to her about their origin.

Moving on to Civil War, roughly a year has passed since the end of Age of Ultron, and Wanda and Vision are more used to being part of the team. I’d like to start with the scene where Vision phases into Wanda’s room, which many see as a gross invasion of Wanda’s boundaries. That is not the only reasonable interpretation. One way to read it is that a previous conversation about phasing into her room was limited to when the door was closed. Also, Vision is quick to point out that Steve wanted to know when Tony arrived, so because Steve was already in her room, he could have thought it was ok to go in, which may still be an error in judgment but not a malicious disregard for Wanda’s feelings.

Next, we see them sitting next to each other in the conference room and the lounge during the discussions of the Accords, which is a small thing but still a sign of their closeness. Vision expresses a desire to protect Wanda.

In contrast, the next scene we see of Carol and Yon-Rogg, first in movie time, second in chronological order, shows that Yon-Rogg is still doing everything in his power to control Carol and convince her that she owes everything to him. They do seem to have grown somewhat close because Carol seeks him out in the middle of the night/early morning for a sparring session and the dialogue suggests that this is not the first such occasion. He immediately focuses on her weaknesses, pointing out how he knocked her down and calling her emotions a distraction. He then goes on to make threats that her power could be taken away and she needs correction from the Supreme Intelligence.

Next, we go to the kitchen scene in Civil War. Here, we see Vision making an attempt to comfort Wanda by giving her a piece of her homeland. He understands that she is still feeling guilty over what happened in Lagos and tries to make her feel better using something that is special to her. We also see that he is happy to step aside and bow to her expertise when she offers to help with the paprikash. When she goes to taste it, he nervously waits for her approval. Vision expresses confusion when she says that he used the wrong spice, but he does not question her.

Then, there is the discussion of their powers. It starts with the “no one dislikes you,” emphasizing that Vision has not fully gotten the hang of human expressions and may not be the most skilled at saying what he really means. Then, he goes on to say that people’s fear of Wanda is involuntary, which also might not be the most tactful thing to say, but it again adds to the fact that he may not always express himself the best, but is genuinely trying to comfort Wanda. Then, Vision suggests that he is not afraid of her or her powers. We see Wanda’s uncertainty about herself and her powers when she hesitates on the words, “I’m still me I think.” Then, she says that no one else sees her the same way. I think it is fair to infer that she still fears her powers somewhat.

Vision then draws the connection between the Mind Stone, Wanda’s powers, and himself. Wanda asks him if he is afraid of the stone. He talks about trying to understand the stone that powers him and not knowing its true nature. With the connection between the three already laid out, this implies that Wanda can gain greater control and understanding of her own powers and that she is not alone. But Vision does not say that she should not use her powers.

Finally, we come to the reveal that Vision is keeping Wanda at the compound without her knowledge or consent. It seems clear that it was originally Tony’s idea to keep Wanda in the compound, which Vision went along with. Vision implies that Tony fears Wanda using her powers in public and causing an incident (which requires several inferences for that fear to make sense, but that is another story). He distances himself by saying “Mr. Stark would…” This does not completely absolve him, but it suggests that he does not feel the same way.

I am not defending Vision’s willingness to confine Wanda. I do feel that it was a breach of trust in what I see as a close friendship. This has come to be one of my biggest problems with Civil War because I feel like a simple conversation with Wanda and the team slightly earlier in the movie, being honest about why they think she should remain in the compound for a while, would have easily avoided most of the conflict in the movie.  

Anyway, seeing as this is the movie that we have, Vision’s agreement to keep her confined is something that would require forgiveness, time, and making amends to overcome. But this is an aberration in what we see of the rest of their relationship. While it was wrong and misguided, this failure does come from a genuine place of concern over Wanda’s well-being, as shown by the overall context of the conversation of his wanting to cheer Wanda up and show her that she’s not alone, despite the literal words “not yours [safety].” When Wanda figures out what is going on, he makes no attempt to pretend or lie to her. He immediately admits that he agreed with Tony to keep her inside. We see that Vision hates lying to her and confining her. The way he ducks his head and his voice goes very quiet suggests his doubt and remorse. He goes on to say that he wants people to her as he does and not to be afraid of her.

The next major confrontation between Carol and Yon-Rogg occurs in Mar-Vell’s lab, after she has learned the truth about her powers and Yon-Rogg. Despite her new knowledge, Yon-Rogg still tries to convince her that she owes everything to him and the Kree and use the Supreme Intelligence to brainwash her. He traps her and confines her with the Supreme Intelligence’s tendrils. There is absolutely no repentance. He is still just trying to use Carol as a weapon, as his weapon.

Returning to Wanda and Vision, we get to the scene where Clint comes to take Wanda from the compound. See this post for a good explanation of why Vision might have thought that Wanda didn’t want to leave. When Vision comes back from handling Clint’s distraction, he tries to get Clint to stop and fights with him to prevent him and Wanda from leaving. When he has Clint in a headlock and Clint says Wanda can overpower him, we see Vision’s hurt and surprise, but he does not appear to make any attempt to fight back against Wanda. He does say, “If you do this, they will never stop being afraid of you.” I am also not defending that statement because from their earlier conversation, Vision would know that it is something Wanda fears. In a different context, his using that against her, along with the earlier implication that he is the only one who is not afraid of her, could be extremely problematic. However, given that at the time he said it, Wanda had taken control of the stone that powered him and was making his body super dense in order to push him deep into the ground, I feel like he should be given some slack. Along with the aforementioned failures to say what he actually means.

This brings us to Carol’s final confrontation with Yon-Rogg, after she has already defeated Star Force and scared away the Accusers, when Yon-Rogg has seen her conviction in herself and her powers. He still has not changed at all. He still makes a last-ditch effort to convince her that she has to fight him on his terms and prove herself to him. He also makes the poisonous assertion that he is proud of her, subtly trying to take credit for the increase in her powers and her ability to master them, when he has done nothing but try to stifle her and keep her from her full potential.

Going back to Wanda and Vision, we next see them at the airport fight, where they do not engage each other at all. When Wanda is hurt by Rhodey’s sonic blast, Vision immediately goes to her side and apologizes to her, which she returns. Now, they both wronged each other in ways that require more than a simple apology to heal. I imagine they had more in-depth conversations on the subject during their two years of stolen moments. You can criticize the writing choices for not showing any of that and skipping ahead, but as I will discuss, it seems clear that forgiveness and atonement did occur. To be fair, they are minor parts of a huge story; if they did not leave some of these pieces to the imagination, you’d have 10-hour movies.

Then, we see Wanda in the RAFT, clearly traumatized, and Vision pondering things over the chessboard. Now, I have adopted the popular headcanon that Vision helped rescue everybody from the RAFT. This theory is admittedly based on nothing concrete and not stated in the text of the movie, but to my knowledge, nothing contradicts it either. In my mind, this would be an important part of Vision beginning to make amends for confining Wanda and allowing her to be imprisoned. Wanda would still have to make amends for her part, but that was clearly achieved as well.

This brings us to Infinity War. When we see Vision and Wanda again, they are clearly very comfortable with each other and in a relationship. They are in sleep/loungewear, the pillow on the other side of the bed has an indentation in it, they touch each other without hesitation, and they look at each other like they’re the only two people in the world. Vision asks her to go into his mind and the stone without showing any fear. They have clearly had other conversations about the stone when Wanda asks if it’s bothering him again. When they’re in the street and Vision asks Wanda to stay with him, he immediately backs down when she hesitates. This shows a true respect for her feelings and boundaries. He continues to put aside his own feelings when he starts to go back to New York after they see the news.

During the fight with Proxima and Corvus, they both work to protect each other. Vision pushes her out of the way of Proxima’s attack, attempts to cushion her fall into the train station, and tries to get her to run away for her own safety. Meanwhile, Wanda rescues Vision from Corvus, cushions his fall when he crashes into the street, and prepares to defend him in the train station. This whole fight shows the mutuality of their relationship, unlike Yon-Rogg’s relationship with Carol where he is constantly trying to stay ahead of her and keep her thinking that she relies solely on him. Instead, Wanda and Vision are always looking out for each other.

Later on, the distinction between Vision and Yon-Rogg becomes even clearer. When they talk of destroying the stone, Vision acknowledges Wanda’s powers. He points out that Wanda is the only one who can destroy the stone. When they’re in Wakanda and he asks her to destroy the stone again, his sole focus is on reassuring her that she’s not hurting him and letting her know that he loves her.

In conclusion, on the one hand, we have Yon-Rogg, who tries to control Carol consistently throughout the whole movie, takes credit for her successes, and never changes or expresses any remorse about what he’s done. On the other hand, we have Vision, who is still learning about being human, befriends Wanda, wrongs her by trying to confine her without talking to her first, almost immediately expresses remorse and apologizes, and is ever willing to acknowledge Wanda’s strengths and power.

It is a triumphant moment at the end of Captain Marvel when Yon-Rogg’s persuasion does not work and Carol understands that her power comes only from herself, sending him back to the Kree with nothing more than a message that she is coming for them. Wanda, however, does not need to escape a man who truly loves and appreciates her in order to unlock her full potential.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fic: An Internal Affair - Chapter 12 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: Leonard Snart, the CCPD Captain of Internal Affairs, is known as Captain Cold for a very good reason: He hates corrupt cops with a merciless vengeance, and once you’re on his list, you’re in serious trouble.

His next target?

A CCPD lab tech named Barry Allen who’s developed a suspicious habit of disappearing at random intervals.

—————————————————————————————————

There's a closet at the end of the hallway on the other side of the top floor from Barry's lab. It's little more than a glorified broom closet that sometimes gets used to store samples and evidence that's still being analyzed.

It's small, and dusty, and dark, but it's just large enough to have a small stool big enough to sit on inside (primarily used for going through samples because doing that while crouched over is hell on your back) and that makes it the perfect place to go have anxiety attacks in the middle of the day, if one were so inclined.

Barry is currently so inclined.

The last week or so has been crazy.

Just - legitimately, unbelievably crazy.

First there'd been the whole issue with Hartley Rathaway, who they'd barely stopped from destroying STAR Labs with his sonic weaponry a few weeks back. He should've been locked away safely, but he'd managed to trick Cisco into letting him escape from his cell in the Accelerator, and, despite Barry's best efforts to scour the city for him, they'd totally lost track of him after that.

At least he didn't seem intent on re-offending imminently, so there’s that, if nothing else.

That'd been bad enough, but what followed less than two days later..?

Insane.

Just.

Insane.

Where does Barry even start thinking about it?

At the beginning, he supposes: Iris returning from one of her fact-finding missions with the Anti-Flash Task Force with the news that Clyde Mardon, the first meta Barry ever defeated and which Joe had to shoot down, apparently had a brother named Mark Mardon, and that Mark Mardon was planning something in revenge. Something aimed specifically at Joe.

Iris had also been really weird around Joe but refused to explain why, just saying she was processing some stuff and would tell them both later once she figured out how she felt like reacting about it. Joe thinks it's just her reacting to there being a threat on his life, but Barry's not so sure about that.

(At least whatever it is wasn't Iris discovering the Flash thing, thank God - she assured Barry in private that whatever was bugging her didn't involve him and was entirely about Joe. He shouldn’t be as relieved by that as he is, but give him a break, he’s not a saint. Man, she is going to kill him when she finds out about the Flash thing, and he's going to deserve it.)

Either way, the CCPD took the threat seriously and began to take actions to protect Joe and guard the waterfront, except their actions weren't anywhere near enough because it turns out that Mark Mardon, like Clyde Mardon, is a weather-controlling meta.

A weather-controlling meta who decided that he was going to get back at Joe West by attacking his precious city, which he did by creating a freaking tsunami using the river.

A tsunami!

In Missouri!

What the hell, man; that's just wrong.

Barry’s never recommended therapy to a soul in his life, particularly after his own negative experiences as a kid, but seriously, if the choice is between talking through your issues with a therapist and trying to process them with a tsunami, go with the therapist!

He’s pretty sure Mardon didn’t expect for the tsunami to get as big as it did, judging by the expression on his face, but whatever he meant to do, what he did end up doing was creating a wave large enough that, if not stopped, would undoubtedly sweep through the entire city and destroy huge swaths of it.

Including the parts that had Iris and Joe and Len and Cisco and Caitlin in them.

Everyone had been utterly frantic, seeing no way to either stop the wave or evacuate the city in time. Based on a crazy last-second suggestion, Barry tried to create a counter-force by running as fast back-and-forth as he could, pushing himself past his limits, but he knew even as he forced himself into pain and beyond that it wasn’t going to be enough.

He wasn't going to be able to stop the tsunami.

And then – he did.

No, not with the counter-force idea; once he had a chance to think about it for a second he realized that it was an incredibly stupid idea to begin with. That didn't work.

What did work, though, was grabbing Mark Mardon out of his hiding place in Keystone City and putting him in the Accelerator before he ever had a chance to launch the tsunami.

Because apparently when Barry runs that fast, he went fast enough to go back in time by a day and stop the whole thing before it ever started.

Mardon problem solved.

Barry just doesn't know what to do about it.

It, of course, being the fact that he somehow actually traveled through time.

Backwards, that is, rather than the usual leisurely forward minute-by-minute progression he and everyone else normally does.

...holy crap, does that mean his "speed" powers might actually be a form of time manipulation? That he's not running "faster" than people, but rather that he's running at regular speed while time slows down around him?

No, that can't be right - Cisco routinely talks to him via the comms while he's running, which would be impossible if time had slowed down. Unless the time-slows-down effect is extremely localized, explaining why people immediately around Barry are moving too slow to "talk" but Cisco, at a distance, isn't...

Yeah, this whole focusing on trivial details or abstract questions isn't working to effectively distract him from the overarching point at issue here.

He ran backwards in time.

He ran backwards in time!

He ran.

Backwards.

In time.

Nope, no matter how many times Barry says that, it doesn’t get any less weird.

That shouldn't even be possible! Barry's a human being, not some bizarre singularity-black-hole in the making - unless that's what lies at the far end of his speed capacity –

Barry groans and puts his head in his hands.

He wants to talk to Iris about this, but he can't, because he's been lying to her so long about being the Flash that he doesn't know how he'd raise it even if Joe lifted his prohibition against telling her.

He wants to talk to Len, cool-headed, practical, sci-fi nerd Len, about this, but he can't, he can't just reveal himself now - and what if Len thinks that Barry's been deceiving him, too? He kinda has been, and they may be new to each other but Barry already knows that Len has deep-seated issues with deception and betrayal. So that's out, too.

And while Cisco and Caitlin are technically available, Barry desperately wants to talk to someone, anyone, that isn't part of what Cisco's been calling Team Flash, because he has the sinking feeling that they (or at least Dr. Wells) kinda-sorta-maybe theorized that this was going to happen.

The time travel stuff, that is.

Dr. Wells hadn't even been all that surprised about it! A total reworking of how humanity understands physics and the nature of time, but nope, Dr. Wells, a renowned physicist, doesn't seem to care about the scientific implications. If anything, he'd just been pissed off that Barry changed what happened - apparently he "should've been more careful with changing history" which, uh, seriously? Barry literally saved the whole city? That seems like a worthwhile change to him, whatever the personal costs that might come about as a result.

Also, seriously, he just broke physics, how is that not the priority issue here?!

It'd been weird. Not to mention how Dr. Wells' lack of surprise, combined with the vaguely pleased-anticipatory look Dr. Wells'd had when Barry first mentioned his time travel? Really making Barry feel kind of manipulated here. Or like a science experiment. Or like one of those psychology experiments where you don't tell the subject what the goal is in advance because that could affect the results...

Either way, he's feeling used.

All that emphasis on training speed - was it really to help Barry catch up to the Reverse Flash, as Cisco's started calling him, or was it to see if Barry could break the time barrier?

And if it was, why hadn't Wells just told him that was the goal?

Maybe Barry doesn't want to have the responsibility of fixing the timeline as well as the city, okay? He was a huge Harry Potter fan growing up - he's gotten into all the debates about what the wizarding world should and shouldn't have done with the Time-Turner technology/magic they apparently possessed for no reason other than to let an over-achieving student take extra classes, and damnit, he doesn't want to be book 3 Hermione! He doesn't want to have to be constantly thinking about what events over the previous day or whatever might be worth going back to fix! Barry's already doing two full-time jobs; time travel would just make the responsibility to be “always on” even worse! He wants to live a normal life sometime!

Cisco and Caitlin aren't any help, either with his complicated feelings about Dr. Wells or about the time travel thing. Cisco thinks time travel is cool, but in, like, a non-personal way, theorizing that Barry might go all Back To The Future on them and accidentally erase someone from existence which, thanks Cisco. Like Barry needs any more pressure here.

God, Barry loves the guy, don't get him wrong, but sometimes Cisco is too focused on whether something is "awesome" and not enough about the actual impact of that something. Prime example: Captain Cold's cold gun, which remains an outstanding threat.

Caitlin, too; he would've thought that she'd be more sympathetic, but she'd immediately started thinking of major historical events he could change for the better - mostly the Particle Accelerator explosion, which killed her fiancé and ruined her career. Which, again, wow, pressure much? Barry can't blame her for her reaction but then she and Cisco'd gotten into an argument about paradox and neither of them were really noticing Barry's freak-out so he just said he had to go back to work and came here.

And even putting aside the whole time travel business, he really can't talk about his disappointment in Dr. Wells with them of all people, because neither Cisco nor Caitlin seem to understand that it's not actually normal for a boss to run experiments on his staff without their consent. Apparently that's "just how Dr. Wells is" and "well, you know, he is a genius" - which is not okay! Forgiving someone for being a dick because they're a genius is, like, sign number one of a toxic working environment, and Barry legitimately doesn't know how to convey that to them.

It's like they've never had a union rep bring a lawyer to ramble at them for an hour about their rights as employees. Though now that Barry thinks of it, STAR Labs was probably never unionized, so that explains that, anyway...

Besides, even if he could think of a way to explain to them that he's really upset with Dr. Wells right now, he's not actually sure if there's even a point in trying to do so. They stayed with Dr. Wells after the Particle Accelerator explosion; Barry's not sure there's anything the man could do that would break their loyalty to him.

Which is by itself kind of weird? That's a lot of loyalty to have to a single guy in relation to, well, a job. Even Hartley had been weirdly obsessed with Wells as a person, rather than just as a bad boss. Barry can sympathize with the idea of Wells being a father figure, he totally gets that, but...it's a bit weird.

Weird or not, though, it's pretty depressing. Barry's never really thought about there being a difference in their goals, him and Dr. Wells, and it's kinda depressing to realize that if there is a difference, Cisco and Caitlin - probably his closest friends right now - would fall on Dr. Wells' side.

Man, he wishes he could talk about all this to Iris. Or Len.

(Not Joe. Joe would just immediately start encouraging Barry to use his time travel powers to stop routine crime, like murders and robberies, before they ever happened, and wouldn't understand at all why Barry's reluctant to take on that sort of responsibility. He hasn't even read Harry Potter! Or, like, Minority Report!)

No, what Barry needs is someone who's his friend, not Dr. Wells' friend, someone who's nerdy enough to get it, honorable enough to keep the whole thing a secret, and scientific enough to help him think through all the potential consequences here –

Holy crap, he's an idiot.

No: he's a genius.

The answer that would simultaneously solve both of his current problems just hit him.

First problem: the suddenly-too-constricting circle of people who know about him being the Flash, thus limiting who he can talk to about this time travel/Dr. Wells development.

Second problem: the fact that he's run into a total wall on the whole disappearances thing.

Answer: He can tell his CSI friends - Gila, Terri, and Andre - about the issue!

He can't believe he didn't think of this before. They're his friends, after all, even if he kinda-maybe-sorta has been neglecting them recently in favor of Cisco and Caitlin. No one's prohibited him from mentioning the Flash thing to them (unlike Iris), and as CSIs, they're familiar with keeping things totally confidential, which he needs them to do with his identity as the Flash.

It's perfect.

After all, they're all total nerds, so they'll be able to provide an objective (semi-objective, anyway) perspective into what's going on with Dr. Wells!

Plus, they might be able to help him make progress on finding the Reverse Flash - he still thinks Chemical X is speedster residue, but he hasn't been able to confirm that because he doesn't have the tools necessary to do that in his on-site lab. But his friends do, what with all those fancy new toys they're always telling him to come play with.

They also have access to all the same case files as he does, so if he crosses off all the ones he knows aren't related to the Reverse Flash, they might be able to see a pattern in the ones that are remaining. He's been trying, but it feels like every time he's on the verge of some sort of breakthrough, something Flash-related comes up.

Seriously, this Flash thing is really starting to take over his life. He hadn't had much of a life before, so he hadn't noticed it all that much, but now that he has an engaging project at work he wants to do in his free time, he's starting to realize that he doesn't actually have any free time anymore.

Or, at least, the fact that he's given Team Flash at STAR Labs the idea that he'd give every minute of his free time to them, and if he doesn't, Dr. Wells gets annoyed, and when that happens, Cisco and Caitlin call-slash-text him pleas to come sooner.

Yes, Barry could say no, and he's trying to do it more often, but he's kind of a doormat sometimes. He's aware of that.

Though the way Dr. Wells mentions his mom every time Barry skips out on training is really starting to piss Barry off...

He's getting distracted. The point here is that his idea - telling his friends - is a great idea, and he should do it.

(A little voice in his head suggests that there might be some downsides to the idea if he thinks about it a little longer, but he's really desperate to talk to someone, so he's just going to ignore that little voice. He's sure it'll be fine.)

Decision made, Barry jumps up.

He promptly knocks his head against one of the shelves and has to spend a few Flash-speed seconds catching all the evidence samples before they crash onto the ground, but when they're all back in order, he heads out right away.

The CSI building (technically, the off-site forensic science analysis division of the CCPD, but no one calls it that) is just as he remembers it: a big squat office building painted a soul-sucking taupe color, unlovely and boring and everything Barry's job is not.

Barry smiles at it fondly.

They throw the best holiday parties here. And birthday parties. And weekend parties, any time they have to work Sundays...yeah. This place is totally awesome.

Okay, maybe the parties aren't the most exciting by anyone else's standards - Barry's well aware that D&D marathon sessions, WoW LAN parties, and high-stakes science trivia drinking contests aren't everyone's speed, but they definitely are his.

It's a good place.

Barry considers just running upstairs, but that seems rude, so he buzzes in through the front desk like a proper visitor would. The door guy - a friendly if somewhat nebbish guy named Gary who's studying frantically for grad school just about every second he can, something that doesn't seem to have changed in the entire time Barry's known him - looks up from his textbook and exclaims, "Barry! Buddy! It's so good to see you!"

Barry grins. "Hey, Gary. How's it hanging? How's John?"

Gary flushes pink in delight. "I can't believe you remember my boyfriend's name. You only met him once!"

"Between the British accent, trenchcoat, and tendency to flirt with everything up to and including inanimate objects after a few drinks, John was very memorable," Barry says dryly. "You're still together?"

"Yeah, we're good," Gary says. "He's been a bit busy with this thing at work - something called Project Rising Darkness, I don't know, I think his co-worker Manny thought it up, he's kinda emo - but he's been helping me apply to work with the FBI in my spare time now that I'm on the verge of graduating."

"At last! That's really great, Gary; I hope you make it," Barry says warmly. Something occurs to him. "Uh, actually, do you know about the new Internal Affairs guy in the CCPD?"

"No; what about him?"

"I hear he used to do undercover work in a joint CCPD-FBI group," Barry says. "Maybe he could recommend you?"

"You think so?" Gary asks, brightening. "That would be amazing! I'll reach out to him."

"You do that," Barry says, amused. He's pretty sure Gary's unique combination of overwhelming optimism and extreme eagerness to please could evoke sympathy from anyone, whether they’re an undead zombie or a ninja assassin or both; a mere supervillain like Captain Cold doesn't stand a chance. Besides, it could actually help Gary's career. "I'm here to talk to Gila, Terri, and Andre - are they still in the old room?"

"Your old crew, of course! I should have guessed," Gary says, beaming. "No, they're on the new floor - let me give you directions."

Good thing Barry asked.

See, there's some benefit to going slow sometimes.

(Barry really wishes he could think of a good way to tell Len about being the Flash - he'd get such a kick out of all the slow/fast puns Barry's made so far.)

When Barry gets up to the new floor, though, he slows down for a completely different reason.

"What the hell...?"

"Barry!" Gila exclaims, abruptly appearing out the door. That part's not a surprise; Gila was the person who inspired Barry's belief that chubby five-foot-two women with hair a color of red not found in nature are capable of a sort of magic sudden appearance thing that the Flash can only envy. "You finally came to visit!"

Barry just gestures mutely.

She grins. "So what you're saying is that you like the new lab."

"You said you got new machines!" Barry yowls. "You didn't say they redid everything with state-of-the-art tech!"

Andre - Gila's opposite in every respect, being tall, skinny, and dark-skinned - strolls out of the door, laughing. "They felt very bad," he says, grinning. "You know, you look remarkably well for someone who was in a coma for nine months."

"I know," Barry says, grinning back. "But seriously! Look at this! This is amazing!"

"You want a tour?" Terri asks, joining the rest of them.

"Do I ever!"

The tour takes them all past the end of official working hours, but no one minds; they're all used to working odd hours.

By the end of the tour, Barry's fallen in love. Deeply, irrevocably in love - with one of the new spectroanalysis machines, which he's named Julie.

"You know you can't take that back to the city with you," Andre says, sniggering.

"You can't separate me and Julie! We're meant to be!" Barry exclaims, hugging the machine.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, you big baby. You're the one who volunteered to be the on-site tech," Gila laughs. "You get the fresh crime scenes, we get the cool tech – deal with it!"

Barry mock-grumbles at her.

"Now, it's getting late," Terri says briskly. "Why don't you tell us why you're really here?"

Barry blinks.

"We're your friends, B," Andre says, not without fondness. "We know you and love you for the absent-minded super-focused asshole you are. No way you came all the way out here just to say hi and go on a tour our admittedly kickass new facility; if you wanted to do that, you would've done much earlier on."

"So what's the issue and how can we help?" Gila asks.

"Uh," Barry says.

He's never really had to tell someone. Maybe Felicity, but that was because she already knew about Oliver and he could just, you know, communicate in lots of "you know..? You know..."s.

Well, at least he can consider this good practice for telling someone like Len or Iris.

"Okay," he says. "I have - no, wait. Can you guys first promise to keep this, like, super confidential? The most confidential. It's really important. I might not be able to tell you everything, but I want to tell you some of it and, well, yeah. You guys promise?"

They all impatiently agree.

"Okay," Barry says again. Wow, this is harder to get out than he thought. Maybe it'd be easier with an oblique approach? "Uh - I have a lead on Chemical X."

"You do?!" Gila exclaims.

"Well, a hunch," he corrects. "Let's take a step back: the Particle Accelerator explosion released a lot of dark matter -"

"And don't we know it," Terri grumbles.

"- and it's been affecting people."

"How?" Andre asks.

"They've been developing strange abilities," Barry tells them. "All sorts. We've been calling them 'meta-humans'."

"You and the CCPD?"

"Uh," Barry says. "No. Me and the scientists over at STAR Labs."

"Wells," Terri growls. "Of course he'd know more than he let on."

"He's trying to help," Barry says firmly. "Please try to stay objective, Terri. Anyway: you know how you think the Flash is an urban legend?"

"Less so now, after all the reported sightings," Andre says wryly. "A good scientist admits when their hypothesis is wrong...You're saying the Flash is one of these meta-humans? That the dark matter somehow gave someone the ability to, what, run at incredible speeds?"

"Yes. And not just him; there's another speedster out there, dressed in yellow instead of red and emitting red lightning instead of yellow. I think that speedster is behind the disappearances, and that Chemical X is the residue left behind when he runs."

"A human running at Mach speeds," Gila says thoughtfully. She's the chemical analysis expert of the three of them, compared to Barry's jack-of-all-trades (with an interest in weird stuff), Terri's forensic accounting, and Andre's fingerprint/DNA specialization. "That might do the trick, yeah. But what makes you think it's not the Flash? I've never even heard of this second speedster: Occam's Razor suggests one makes more sense than two."

Ouch. No wonder Captain Cold is suspicious, if even Barry's friends jump to that assumption.

...huh. Maybe the guy really isn't a supervillain - just a very unorthodox cop worried that Barry's up to something.

Barry doesn't know exactly what to do with that thought, so he shelves it for later.

"No," he says. "I know it's not the Flash."

"Why?" Andre asks.

"Well..."

Barry runs.

Just from one end of the lab to the other, but it's enough to make his point.

"Holy crap!" Terri exclaims, amid similar exclamations. "Barry, what the hell?"

"See," he says, grinning. "Told you I knew it wasn't the Flash. Cool, isn't it?"

There's another five solid minutes of yelling about how freaking awesome super-speed is and potential scientific implications and possible applications before they finally settle down.

That, of course, is when Barry breaks out the time travel thing, and that gets all of them yelling again, this time for ten minutes.

Barry enjoys the whole thing. Not just because they do, in fact, think that the whole Flash thing pretty damn awesome but also because some of their ideas about scientific applications of his usual Flash powers are pretty damn neat: learning about brain plasticity by studying the effect of learning at super-speed, the possibility of transferring his healing powers (even if only temporarily) via a blood or bone marrow transfusion, super-speed surgery or fire rescue or even just using it to test the laws of physics as they know them...

Honestly, this is more along the lines of what Barry was expecting when Dr. Wells had asked him to agree to help scientific progress by allowing himself to be studied: crazy brainstorming, hypothesizing, testing, record-keeping with an eye towards eventual publication...

Huh.

Why haven't they done that at STAR Labs? How have they all managed to get so fully fixated on the question of speed, and specifically of maximizing speed? Even before he'd found out about the Man in Yellow and how he needed to catch up to him, everything they'd done had been aimed at making him faster.

Sure, one of the joys of a new discovery is finding out its limits, but getting to a top speed isn't the only limit they could be testing.

Now that he thinks about it, Caitlin's wistful requests to study his biological reactions were always brushed off, as were Cisco's occasional daydreams about trying to replicate even a lower level of speed in his machines; at this point, they've stopped even asking - Caitlin focusing all her research on maximizing his metabolism to enable further speed, Cisco doing nothing but creating new suits that can go faster. No different experiments, no exploring different alternatives, barely any hypothesizing and no control groups at all...

That - isn't how science is supposed to work.

Barry has the distinct sinking feeling that something is even more wrong in STAR Labs than he'd originally thought, and that in his excitement over his new abilities and joy at having new friends, he may have overlooked it entirely.

Great.

He hasn't had a chance to raise the whole Wells issue with his CSI friends yet, but he's starting to think that he might need to raise that on a different visit. Possibly after he's had some time to think about it and figure out if he's just being unduly paranoid or if there really is something off there.

After all, Terri already dislikes Wells, thinking there was something intentional behind the Accelerator explosion; if Barry doesn't tread lightly here, they might not be willing to entertain the possibility that it's all a coincidence.

...a really big coincidence.

"Okay, okay, okay!" Terri eventually shouts, holding up their hands. "Hush. We can brainstorm ideas later. Barry, I assume the difficulty you're having is in both running and analyzing?"

"I definitely leave a residue that appears similar on a surface glance," Barry confirms. "And it seems pretty similar, but I'm worried about there being bias affecting my ability to confirm if it's definitely Chemical X..."

"We have a lab room for testing," Gila says, taking charge. Chemical analysis is her specialty, even though she prefers to throw the weirder things over to Barry. "Come on."

The test, when done properly - Gila insists on several variations, plus a few "control" runs using Andre, which is so normal Barry feels like crying in relief - takes about an hour to finish on the new machines.

Barry spends the whole hour telling the group stories about the metas he's defeated – unsurprisingly, they’re a lot less interested in how he defeated them than they are in just what abilities dark matter can produce, so he eventually gives up on trying to tell them the stories and starts just describing the meta powers and letting them brainstorm possible applications or explanations for them – and trying to decide on whether he should bring up the Wells thing or not.

Assuming there even is a Wells thing beyond some crappy scientific method, bad management skills, and a few weird reactions.

He still hasn't decided by the time the result comes out.

And the result -

"Yep, this is definitely Chemical X or something extremely similar," Gila reports. "The analysis matches on multiple vectors. Congrats, Barry, you have a residue; the only question now is if you're secretly a serial kidnapper."

"Hey!"

"Joking," Gila says, smiling crookedly. "You were definitely in a coma for a few of these early ones. We came to visit a few times. You're all alibi'd out."

"Speaking of which," Terri says from where they and Andre have been pouring over the case files. "Can you come here and double-check some of these? I'm starting to see a pattern, but there are a few outliers."

Barry comes over, noticing that the files have been divided into three piles, one large and two smaller ones. "Yeah, I think -"

"No, no, there's just a few in particular," Terri says. "And I want you to think carefully if there's any chance they could be Flash-adjacent, any chance at all."

Barry nods, frowning. "You think you have something?"

"Well, maybe. I don’t know why the disappearances related to the Flash would be different, they’re still disappearances, but ignoring that, if we try to exclude them, then I think I see two patterns instead of one," Terri says. "It's not unusual in forensic accounting - people are rarely corrupt in only one way, if that makes sense? They usually have a couple of different plots happening at the same time, and that can confuse the results if you look for only one explanation. But these outliers...well, they might just be outliers. But based on the stories you've been telling us, these actually feel like they might be Flash-related, and therefore can be excluded, which would support my theory."

"What do you mean?"

“Well, take this one, Mason Bridges – he was investigating the Flash, right? And then there’s this one, Simon Stagg.”

“What about him?”

“Didn't you say you fought him - or, uh, around him, anyway - at Stagg Industries?”

Barry blinks. He hadn’t thought of that. “Yeah, good point,” he says. “Danton Black – he’s the one who basically committed suicide, it was awful – was trying to get back at Stagg Industries because they stole his work on cellular regeneration and took credit for it.”

“So Stagg witnessed a fight between a meta and the Flash right before he disappeared?”

“Uh,” Barry says. “Yes?”

“So we can say those are tangentially Flash related, too,” Terri says briskly, putting the two files into one of the smaller piles. “And this Farooq guy you mentioned, who used lightning to get rid of your powers and then got driven off –”

“I’m, like, 90% sure he died, but I’m honestly not sure.”

“No body, though,” Terri says. “I’m counting it as a disappearance. Plus you take the fact that that Professor Stein guy’s last known whereabouts were when he was heading to STAR Labs –”

“That was way before my time, though,” Barry objects. “He disappeared before the Accelerator even blew!”

“Good point. I’ll put him in the STAR Labs pile.”

Barry’s eyebrows go up. “STAR Labs pile?”

“As far as I can tell,” Terri says, “a handful of these disappearances can only be connected by the fact that they’re related to STAR Labs, particularly prior to the explosion. Could just be coincidence, but we're dealing with disappearances including the man in charge of building permits, a local paparazzo who went there to look for a scoop and never came back, this professor going there right before the explosion, that sort of thing, and since I'm looking for any pattern at all right now, I'm going to take it. But here's the interesting thing: if we put those aside, and put aside the specifically Flash-related ones as well, the rest of these – ” And here they gestured at the large pile. “– have a significantly more sinister connection.”

“Sinister?” Gila echoes.

Terri makes a face. “I’m pretty sure they’re Family hits.”

“They’re what?! No way!”

“Unfortunately so,” Terri says. “It’s pretty subtle – a lot of these people are only tangentially related to Family stuff, accountants or political figures or hospital staff or county clerks – but I’ve been doing a lot of work for the organized crime division recently, following the money trails, and I recognize some of these names.”

Barry sits down hard, all thoughts of Wells abruptly wiped from his mind. “The Man in Yellow is working as a Family assassin?”

“Possibly,” Terri says, reaching out to tap what they’d dubbed the ‘STAR Labs’ pile thoughtfully. “Not sure how that relates to these one ones if that's the case...Though if they are a Family assassin, the question arises: why? And why aren’t they doing more of them?”

“Assassination at super-speed,” Gila marvels. “They could kill the mayor in the middle of city square and no one could stop them.”

They all look at her.

“It wasn’t a suggestion! I was just saying.”

“The Families aren’t going to act that publicly,” Andre says, shaking his head. “Not in a million years; that’d bring the Feds down on their heads.”

“Not to mention inciting the whole city to riot,” Terri says. “Central’s very ‘oh, well, the Families, what can you do’ most of the time, but public interference on that scale? No way. No one would tolerate it. The only reason they’re tolerated as much as they are now is because most people feel comfortable with the way they’re cordoned off: their operations are mostly focused on the slums, their protection rackets don’t extend to the wealthiest neighborhoods, and so what if they bribe a few councilmen? We all know who they are, so it's almost like having a comforting safety valve.”

“Same with the police,” Barry says, making a face. “We all know which guys are in Family pockets are, so we all shrug it off, saying it’s better to know who it is than not to know.”

“I wasn’t saying they’d do it,” Gila protests. “Just that they could, you know, and what are people going to say? A streak of light did it? How would they even connect that to the Families? If they don’t know there are two speedsters, they’d probably just assume it was the Flash!”

Uh.

Barry hadn’t thought of that.

“Everyone would just assume it was the Families, even if they also thought it was the Flash,” Andre points out. “Everyone always blames crime in Central on the Families, and they’re usually right, too.”

Right.

Whew.

Barry doesn't want to deal with the thought of being framed at super-speed.

“I have a better question, though,” Andre continues. “If these are the Families, why are there so many? Like Terri said, the Families exist in a pretty tight balance in Central: enough influence to rule the streets, not enough to bother the movers and shakers. This many hits, in such a short amount of time? That’s not balanced. They must be planning something big.”

“The Families have been fading in power recently,” Terri offers. “Power-wise. The Feds have been taking huge bites out of them for the last decade and a half, ambushing major deals, busting huge deposits, blocking key intake lines…”

Barry snaps his fingers. “Captain Cold!”

“…what?”

“No, sorry, the new Internal Affairs guy, Captain Snart,” Barry says. “Captain Singh told me that he used to be undercover, that his cover got blown, and that the Families are still trying to kill him. He’s been helping bring them down!”

“And now he’s changed tracks to start taking down corrupt Family-bribed cops?” Gila asks, sounding impressed. “I mean, good for him; that's real dedication and work ethic there, at least for the three weeks he’s probably got left to live until the Families murder him. Especially with these disappearances.”

“Holy crap,” Barry says.

“What?”

“No, it just occurred to me,” Barry says. “All these disappearances – the Anti-Flash Task Force, which Captain Snart is involved with, is looking into these disappearances. Like you said, if you don’t know there’s two speedsters, you think it’s the Flash! That’s why he’s looking into the Flash!”

“Reasonable enough,” Terri says.

Barry shakes his head. He’s been so obsessed with trying to figure out Captain Cold’s evil plan – because, like, the guy has a mask, a superpowered cold gun, cold puns, supervillain is clearly the obvious conclusion here – that even though the thought had occurred to him once or twice, he’d never really believed in the possibility that maybe the guy is actually, well, doing his job.

Except – it seems like that’s probably what’s going on.

So weird.

“I’m going to need to think about this,” Barry says.

“Make sense,” Gila says. “Now what, though? I assume you don’t want to out yourself as the Flash.”

“Definitely not.”

“I’ll write up a draft report about how these particular disappearances appear linked to the Families,” Terri offers. “That’ll get everyone on the right track, I think, without needing to get into the other ones being Flash-related. But Gila will eventually need to submit something on the residue…”

“I can say it might be related to a speedster,” Gila says. “But that might lead him to suspect the Flash more…”

“No, you should still do that, even if it makes him suspicious,” Barry says. “Stopping this guy is the top priority, above everything else. If I have to stop being the Flash for a while or talk to Captain Snart about what I’m doing, I’ll do that. I’ll figure something out.”

“Good luck!”

Barry heads back to the office, torn between being absolutely elated at the progress they’re making and kind of horrified at what they’ve discovered. Somehow, even though he’d signed up to be a superhero, he hadn’t really thought about going up against the Families – the closest he’d come was fighting Nimbus, and that’d been one of the toughest fights he’d had yet –

There’s someone in his office.

It’s pretty late, getting close to nine p.m.; the building should be deserted. The CSI lab, which is basically Barry’s private area, should definitely be deserted; there shouldn’t be someone walking around with only one dim phone light to guide them.

What the hell’s going on?

Barry reaches inside the room and flips on all the lights at once.

“Jesus fuck!” the intruder swears, clutching at his eyes to shield himself from the glare.

The intruder –

“Detective Lloyd?” Barry asks, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for some of case files and evidence someone checked out,” Lloyd says, sounding annoyed. “What’re you doing here? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“I had to duck out for an appointment,” Barry lies. “I came back to finish up some projects. You know, if you think the evidence is up here, then the only person who could’ve checked them out is me – which cases are you looking for? I might be able to help you find it.”

Lloyd rattles off some case numbers.

Those are a few of the disappearance cases, some of the ones they’d determined were probably Family hits.

“Oh, yeah, I know where those are,” Barry says, heading towards the evidence cabinet, as he's mentally dubbed it. “Gimme a second. How long do you need them? I still have a few tests I'd like to run..."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Allen," Lloyd says.

Barry pauses in the middle of pulling out the evidence bags. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know how it is. What with the Commissioner running for office and all, that means Deputy Commissioner Gillick's going to be moving up soon, and he doesn't like too much spending," Lloyd says, reaching out and plucking the bags out of Barry's hands. "Especially on low-priority cases like this."

"I know they're not at the top of the queue," Barry says, a little stung. "But they're still important. In fact -"

He's about to tell Lloyd about the Family connection, but Lloyd cuts him off.

"They're low-priority, Allen," he says. "Trust me. No one wants to be wasting time looking into these. Just relax, will you? Take another - heh - day off. We've got a pretty good handle on these cases." He waves the bag. "And we're pretty sure there's nothing all that serious to them."

"But -"

"That's final, Allen," Lloyd says. "Listen, take a tip from a friend, yeah? You want people to like you, you do your job, you do it well, and you don't step on people's toes in the process. It's not like these cases are going down the memory chute or something; we're just bumping them down so they don't interfere with more important stuff. You hear me?"

"I hear you," Barry says, still frowning.

Lloyd slaps him on the back, says, "I knew you weren't as uptight as they say," and heads out.

Barry would normally spend the next hour stressing out about who 'they' are and the fact that he's totally not uptight but do people think he is, but he's too busy being utterly appalled.

Why would Lloyd be warning Barry off a Family-related case? He's not one of the cops in the Family pocket, not even slightly; there's never been a hint of scandal there.

Honestly, if Barry hadn't known it was a Family case, he probably wouldn't have even thought it was all that weird. Lloyd's heavy-handed suggestion to butt out is practically normal for cops, who are notoriously protective of their cases, and even the weird hour he came by isn't all that unusual for a cop.

It's not that Barry's worried or anything, of course: once Terri and the others submit their report, the cases will be upgraded once more, no matter what Lloyd says.

But - it is a Family case. And Lloyd tried to squelch it.

Why would he do that, if it wasn't on the orders of one of the Families? Was it on someone else's orders? If so, who, and why is Lloyd listening to them?

What's going on here?

[emma-what-son]

Anniversary Month - A Himmmm Blind Item

If you’re familiar with the CDAN blog, then you’ll know that Enty isn’t the only one who posts there. There’s also a guy who goes by the alias Himmmm who is an industry insider. This person doesn’t just write short blind item’s, but long articles exposing people. Some think it’s an actor. Some even thought that it was Robert Downey Jr, who denied it. He recently wrote another post and Emma was mentioned in it.

This is a tough one to write, simply for the challenge of not giving it away and damaging anything before it happens.  It's amazing it has been kept this quiet for so long, but I'm sure it'll leak out after the Oscars.  Anything this big is bound to. Like the old saying goes: "If you want to keep a secret between three people in Hollywood – two of them better be dead".  No, there's no murders or deaths surrounding this film, yet.  But the story it is based on sure had plenty. What I'm talking about is a movie.  A big movie that will be one of those rarities that is both Oscar lure and box office success.  A+ list all the way, big budgets, big talent, and every A+ list actress/actor in the industry wanting to be a part of it.  The secrecy around it is unlike anything in history.  They're not even using a fake name as cover, it's totally off-book.  Right now, they have more attorneys involved in this project than filmmakers, crew, or elements.  Maybe the first time in history a Hollywood studio has employed publicists to PREVENT people from knowing about it.  They even hired social media ninjas to comb the internet to shoot down and remove mentions of it.  I even wonder if it'll stay long on CDAN.  I've not seen this much secrecy on a film since Jurassic Park.  Even Avengers, or Star Wars Force Awakens wasn't this paranoid.  So why all the fuss?

It's a porno. Yep.  Uh-huh.  A porno.  Okay, to be fair – it's about a porno star, not an actual porno.  So if you're thinking Boogie Nights or those Deep Throat – Linda Lovelace films, you're asking: So what? What's the big deal? They even have The Deuce on HBO.  Why so secretive? Because comparing this film project to those is like comparing Plan 9 From Outer Space or Lost In Space to the entire Star Wars saga or Avatar.  Point is that this project is so huge and prestigious that it makes the others look like a "Skin-emax" soft core indie film.  Mostly though, it is because in the current social/scandal climate surrounding Hollywood these days they put the lock-down on this project for good reason.  They don't want leaks leading to people accusing the filmmakers of being tone-deaf insensitive; and they also absolutely do not want to get flooded by every perv in Hollywood trying to get a part or be part of it.  A single casting couch rumor on this project would torpedo it.   So they've gone to insane lengths to protect it.  Not long ago, this (disgraced A list director/Brett Ratner) was set to do a big-budget adult-themed project (about a permanent A list celebrity/Hefner Film) that got torpedoed over his abuse accusations.  When a studio already has tens of millions sunk in a project, they cannot let that happen. Especially in high-dollar ironclad play-or-pay deals (not to be confused with pay-for-play, tit-for-tat, barter, couching, or land yachting). It's like this: This movie is about one very specific female actress who was known mainly in the 1980s era of porn.  It is a biopic in that sense.  But her fame was such in her time that she crossed over to more mainstream top-shelf publications, and even television interviews. Possibly the most beautiful all-American girl next door to ever have a hardcore career.  If you're thinking it is (former underage porn star/Traci Lords) you would be wrong.  But she's a featured character in it too.   Thing is, the star of the story disappeared. Vanished into thin air after her last film.  Not vanished dead, because she went on to have a different life.  She went to law school, became an attorney, changed her name and had a nice family.  Typical soccer mom, Sunday-school teacher, holly homemaker type.  Until a few years ago when she was contacted by people who represented the last big mafia family. They were looking to sell their holdings in porn to a legit media company for big bucks.  Problem is, she was one of their most popular stars and she had a unique contract in her day (which allegedly she co-wrote herself back then with her law professor).  She quit and vanished from porn due to the mob taking over her porn studio, and killing many of the owners of it.  Years later, turns out she was owed millions in back royalties – and her contract was still legally enforceable.  The legit media buyers wouldn't proceed without her signature on a new contract; or her accepting a settlement; or…her death certificate.  Yep.  The mob had to either pay her or kill her.  Which was tricky to do, because even if they found her – the FBI still wanted to bring her in as a witness against the mob hits of her bosses.  Then it got ugly for her, and turned into quite a ride.  Turns out, she lived and prevailed.  Using her brilliance instead of her body.  But it was one hell of a bumpy ride. Best of all? It was ALL TRUE.  It resulted in the FBI actually getting plea deals with mobsters; clearing 30 year-old mob hit murders; and solving money laundering cases worth tons of money globally.  The legit media company got the old porn library titles and reaped a billion from it.  And it all really happened.  She also got her money, and peace. It's one of the best scripts to come through Hollywood in decades, and has an amazing role for the lead actress.  Best of all it includes life rights, and the lady ex-porn star's willingness to promote it.  It is a package that includes documentaries, media stories, and specials.  The studio that bought it agreed to use cross-promotion synergy from many of their media divisions to tell her story.  In any era of the entertainment industry it would be a welcome change for such great material and a big project.  But, as you all know – this isn't any era. It is a very sensitive era, especially telling women's stories, porn stories, and having lots of sex and nudity on a project. If the project isn't done right, in the right tone with the right people? It'll be destroyed before it ever opens purely by social media, rumors, and speculations from knee-jerkers who will attack it without any idea of it.  That has happened or nearly happened many times in the past.  So the conglomerate/studio who is producing it has set up a massive legal, security, and IT security team that would rival a government's.  Everything to do with the project is kept on off-line isolated secure computers.  Nothing is allowed to be taken in, or out.   They do not even let the team working on the movie bring in mobile phones or devices.  An entire 25% of the studio's legal staff are devoted to this one project.  Clearing rights, contracts, and mostly NDA's that would make an intelligence agency jealous.  The punishment for violation by actors? So severe and massive that it would basically blacklist and possibly bankrupt not just the actor, but their agents and managers.  It's that extreme.  But few would risk that anyway, since even (permanent A list mostly movie actress/Meryl Streep) has supposedly offered to do a small role in the project for scale just to be part of it. Somehow, I don't think they want her for the lead. Of course, nothing is totally foolproof or totally private.  When the studio (they have wide ranging entertainment industries/Warner) first pre-emptively gobbled up the rights to it a year ago, they originally did it with this star (disgraced former A list mostly movie actor/Kevin Space) in mind for the older male lead.  Whoops. Then when this company (disgraced A list director's company/Ratpac Dune) got slammed in scandal, the studio had to find a quick co-financing partner.  Whoops again.  So they shared the project with a few select investors.  They too were subject to the legal lockdown but the studio needs them more than they need the studio, so not much threat there.  Interestingly, one investor stepped right up and wrote the studio a blank check because the project is so good.  Recently, the investor swallowed up the entire project, buying the rights from the studio, and has threatened to take it to (a studio that owns a theme park/Universal) is this studio doesn't shape up. The producers got the best director (A lister who had a very good 2017/Christopher Nolan) for this project.  As picky as he is, he jumped at this project.  He's not known for his heartfelt movies, but with this script and his recent hit (Dunkirk) he's given wide berth.  He's one of the few that could be trusted with this material, and do it proper without risk of any problems derailing it. The studio used this project as bait to try and lure him to other projects (his old project/Batman), but he won't commit to those.  Meanwhile, the studio and director have held semi-formal casting sessions very, very, very secretly. Every actress is told to bring an attorney or manager; a studio attorney is present; a female casting director; and every meeting is video recorded.  All because of the "casting couch" temptations – not by the director, but by eager actresses.  Also due to the adult nature of the story, and the fact that it will have reams of nudity and sex.  This will not be one of those PG-13 movies about sex, it'll be very true to the script.  This actress (A list mostly movie actress who worked with the director before/Ane Hathaway) already said she'd do anything for the lead; as did (foreign born A- list mostly movie actress/Marion Cotillard), and (foreign born B+ list mostly movie actress who was barely old enough to drive when that gross French actor had sex with her before casting her/Melanie Laurent), and (A+ list mostly movie actress who is an Oscar winner/nominee/Jennifer Lawrence), and (A list mostly movie actress who is an Oscar winner/nominee/Jessica Chastain).  It's crazy, but only one of those even has a shot at the lead.  Even (former A+ list mostly movie actress/America's sweetheart/Sandra Bullock) and (foreign born A- list mostly movie actress who had a franchise back in the day and could use a career boost/Emma Watson) have told their agents to get them auditions.  Actresses who "never read" or audition are jumping at it. These actresses are offering to work for scale, do anything required onscreen, and sign unprecedented promotion agreements.  This actress (foreign born A list mostly movie actress who is a recent Oscar nominee/Margot Robbie) has already auditioned for a supporting role.   Funny enough, this actress (former A list singer/number one box office star in a different country/Jessica Simpson) auditioned for the same role.  I don't think it'll be a fair fight to see who wins that one although I can see the box-office appeal of the latter's scenes being a big draw.  I've heard (A-/B+ list mostly movie actress who was married to a celebrity offspring/Diane Lane) has given one of the best reads thus far.  For male leads, this actor (foreign born A+ list mostly movie actor/Christian Bale) has said he too would waive his fee, and possibly return to a franchise for the studio.  Guess he's getting pumped up for it.  Meanwhile, it's said (permanent A list mostly movie actor who started in television and had a nice run there/George Clooney), and (permanent A list mostly movie actor despite his relatively young age/Leonardo DiCaprio),  and this actor (permanent A list mostly movie actor who has made a ton of money in a superhero franchise/Robert Downey Jr.) have all agreed to audition and read.  I cannot tell you how unusual that is.  It is one of the rare times lately when the material really seems to be king (and not how many toys you can sell – although toys related to this movie sure wouldn't be sold in Wal-Mart). During the hoopla around the Golden Globes, many A+ listers were fighting the urge to discuss the project though they knew the others knew.  Sort of like a secret club.  Many actresses used it as a cover story to happen to be in town at the same time auditions were ongoing.   Likewise, during the coming Oscars week, the director and studio will be wrapping up major casting under the same cover of people all being in town.  Yes, it is that big of a deal.  I personally cannot wait, and hope it comes off without a hitch.  We probably won't have to wait too long.  Any project with that much heat will get a quick greenlight.   That's the sexiest thing of all.  Especially if you're producing it.

[pidgelings]

List of AUs

Since y’all really seemed to like my Cross-Time Doctors AU, I might as well share the list of all the AUs I’ve come up with thus far!

If any of the AUs interest you, just pop an ask in my inbox sharing the name of it and I can go into detail of it!

Some AUs are more creative than others. XD

[Under a cut because long list is long]

Cross-Time Doctors AU - [Post] Pidge and Lance are doctors of different times that become connected through death.

Galra Prisoners AU Lance, Keith, and Pidge become prisoners of the Galra Empire and forge strong, essentially romantic bonds with one another as they question if they’re ever going to get rescued.

Dance Competition AU Pidge and Lance are old friends that end up in a Dance Competition TV Show and end up partnered up with Keith and Allura respectively as both groups compete for the prize.

Hockey AU Focuses on the struggles of the hockey team “The Voltron Lions” as they not only work to beat their rivals, “The Daibazaal Galras,” but also as they try to figure out the strange feelings that have formed between Team Captain Shiro and his right-hand man, Keith.

Long Distance AU - [Post] Friends separated by distance and joined by things like Skype and Discord, our beloved Team Voltron is now a bunch of friends scattered around the world.

Ghost Adventures AU The title says it all! Some of the members of Team Voltron have been placed into the roles of Team Ghost Adventures. Spooky shit shall occur!

Greek Mythology AU An AU that Tama helped me create, Lance is a mermaid/siren that falls in love with a Forest Nymph (Pidge). The Nymph’s friends a centaur (Shiro), a satyr (Hunk), a fellow nymph (Allura), and a male harpy (Keith) are not too pleased with this arrangement.

Karakuri AU Loosely based off of the Karakuri Series, Lance and Shiro are officers in the Altean Army. When the Altean’s greatest enemy, The Galra, create new cyborg/superhuman weapons to take them down, Lance will have to come face to face with an old friend while Shiro will have to encounter a man he met while imprisoned.

Soulmate Dream AU - [Fic] Soulmates share the same dreamscape as one another and can meet and interact in it but will only remember the location when they wake up. Turns out, Pidge and Lance are Soulmates.

Photographer + Programmer AU Two college students with different studies, Lance and Pidge’s worlds collide with help from their mutual friend, Hunk. Soon, they’ll learn to see the world through each other’s eyes.

Split Mind AU - [Post] Somehow, Pidge’s mind gets split across five different realities! As she suffers from the new memories from these different realities, she finds herself clinging to the one constant throughout all of them, Lance.

MS AU Pidge suffers from MS while Lance stays by her side through it all.

Dancer Pidge AU Pidge is just your average college student with a colorful group of friends but she just is harboring a little secret. She just so happens to be a dancer at a rather interesting place. And, no, as she’ll say herself, she’s not a stripper.

WWII AU When Pidge’s brother enlists to fight in such a deadly war, Pidge disguises herself as a boy so he won’t go into the fight alone. However, she didn’t count on meeting Lance.

Pacific Rim (+ Uprising) AU Shiro was once a famous a famous Jaeger Pilot with his brother Kuron. However, after losing his brother and going into hiding, he is called back to service by Marshal Kolivan. There he meets Kolivan’s adoptive daughter, Allura. A powerful, yet naïve female, a bond is soon formed between them in this war.

Years after the war against the Galra was believed to be over, a new threat rises. Keith, another child of Kolivan’s who turned to a life of black market dealings after leaving the Jaeger Program, encounters a skilled hacker and mechanic by the name of Pidge who needs Jaeger parts for her self-made Jaeger, Rover. The encounter soon leaves the two arrested and with a choice: Join the Jaeger Program, or face prison time.

Pacific Rim Voltron AU An AU where everything is the same in the Voltron verse, however, the way the team pilots Voltron when it’s in the giant robot form is the same as how Jaeger Pilots pilot the Jaegers. Basically, their whole bodies are put to use.

Oblivion AU(s) Based on the movie, Lance/Shiro is Tech 49 on a Post-Apocalyptic Earth being guided by Allura and Honnerva (nicknamed Haggar) during his day to day tasks. That is until Pidge/Keith crash land on Earth and everything changes.

Edge of Tomorrow AU Can be seen two different ways as either Shiro being Bill and Keith being Rita or the reverse, but no matter the case, it’s up to them to save humanity from aliens that can manipulate time like a video game.

1950’s AU It’s the 1950′s and there’s nothing like a ragtag group of friends and mixed up feelings! Love is in the air in this diner hangout~

Drama Production AU Team Voltron does drama?! What kind of shenanigans will that ensue?! 

Magic AU Modern-day witches and wizards tasked with protecting humanity from not only dark supernatural beings but also other witches and wizards? What could go wrong?

Dance Team AU That’s right! Team Voltron is now a Dance Team competing in competitions! Time to get the groove on~

Hamilton AU You can pretty much guess what this is. It’s my take on it though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Youtubers AU Pidge and Lance run a Gaming Youtube Channel together and all sorts of silly things occur! They aren’t the only ones on Youtube though~

Extreme Stunts AU Based off of videos filmed by devinsupertramp on Youtube, Shiro and Keith have a strong taste for adventure along with the rest of their friends and set off to film their adventures as they travel around the world doing all sorts of crazy things!

Star Wars AU Not based exactly on the movies but taking place in the same universe, Team Voltron is a ragtag group of rebels doing whatever they can to fight against the Empire.

Gods and Goddesses AU Gods and Goddesses of the Elements and the people of Earth, our dear Paladins have a lot to deal with. (This has been done to death.)

Seasons AU Pidge, Lance, Keith, and Shiro are the actual embodiments of the seasons Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Managing entire seasons can be rather stressful.

Sven’s Verse AU - [ Plangst Story ] Basically my take on what’s going on in Sven’s Universe. Plance angst and Sheith fluff are very present there.

New Champion AU A different take on Voltron’s story where Pidge was also on the Kerberos Mission with her family and Shiro. While Shiro escaped, her brother was rescued, and her father was sent off to a work camp, Pidge was forced to become the Galra’s Champion to replace Shiro. She doesn’t disappoint. 

Tron AU Kinda based on Tron: Legacy, Shiro goes missing for several years until Keith ends up at the arcade he was last spotted in. After being transported into a video game, he has to learn how to survive with the help of a couple of odd characters and the very man he’s been looking for.

Actors AU Yup. This is exactly what everyone else is doing. “What would happen if Voltron was Live Action and not animated?!”

Special Class AU A High School AU where all members of Team Voltron end up in a rather unique class that doesn’t exactly follow what the rest of the school is like.

Parasyte/Tokyo Ghoul AU Loosely based off of these two animes, Pidge and Keith become infected with a strange disease that gives them unique powers and abilities. Sadly, while they plan on using these powers for good, the others of their kind aren’t as nice and Pidge and Keith find themselves needing to protect those they care about.

Superhero AU Yup. Basic idea. Team Voltron as superheroes. Not like anyone has done that before. XD

Aerialists AU Team Voltron is a bunch of aerial artists in training. They all have different skills and different interests but maybe special connections can be formed?

Mental Reincarnation AU Remembering things from another life sucks, especially when you get the memories randomly. What shall our former Paladins do as they slowly remember the events of Voltron?!

Soulmate Voltron AU Legends say that only Soulmates can pilot the mighty Voltron. So, what do our Paladins do when they find out they’re able to pilot it?

Cosplayers AU Team Voltron is your average cosplayers that have grouped up to make some pretty amazing cosplays. They like to compete at cons.

Hanahaki Disease AU Pidge has a crush on Lance but he doesn’t feel the same way. God, does it suck to cough up these petals...

Dark Woods Circus AU Pretty much an AU based on the Vocaloid song. More torture for my poor beans~

Suasoculi AU - [Post] Pidge has been as Suassie for as long as she can remember, refusing to use the benefits of being one. However, when she meets a fellow Suassie by the name of Keith, she is tossed into a battle that she was never prepared for.

Year Walk AU Based on a short, old horror game based on Norse Mythology. A fic is in a WIP.

This list is always being updated as I think of more ideas. XD

[sazorak]

What I Thought Of Every Single Game I Played In 2017

2017 was a weird year for me. In terms of my personal life, it's been something of a holding pattern; I'm a year older, but I've not accomplished nearly as much as I'd liked to. I've had a lot of good times, and I've done my best, but I probably haven't made an entirely meaningful use of my lingering youth.

But on the other hand: I got to play a whole bunch of video games! 2017 was a good year for video games. It had to be a good year for something, I suppose, and if the rest of the world was going to be getting it nasty this year, video games might as well be the thing that gets its due.

This write-up is an overview of what I thought about every single game I played this year. Only games that released this year qualified for a numbered “place”, as interpreted through my own rules. Here we go!

[2015] | [2016]

19. Fire Emblem Heroes – Android – ★★ – 2017

As a latecomer to the Fire Emblem games, this did nothing for me. I don't have a great amount of affection for the characters in the abstract, three lines of dialog and a couple cut-ins of them stabbing a guy don't even qualify as “fanservice”, and the narrative that is there is just plain bad. It's admirable that they managed to reduce their permadeath-driven tactical RPG to an experience that works on phones, but I have zero interest in throwing myself into gachapon hell in the hopes of a “dream team.” Besides, the second orb I cracked open had a five-star Camilla in it, so my experience was guaranteed to be a down-hill one.

18. Pictopix – Steam – ★★ – 2017

Pictopix is a fascinating lesson that not all Picross games are alike. It's not just a matter of creating puzzles that are secretly pixelized art: there is a flow to good nonogram design that is apparently quite hard to achieve. Where I get a lot of enjoyment from the Picross E- and Picross S- titles, I didn't care for this one, despite being on a platform well suited for a picross-a-like experience. I'm not sure I can even articulate just what rubbed me wrong about it (though the shoddy controls didn't help); the puzzles just felt clunky in a way that other takes on this style of puzzle did not.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero – Steam – ★★ – 2016

I accidentally backed this game on Kickstarter a few years ago. I thought an artist I was a fan of was attached to this project, when they just did some contracted promotional material for the Kickstarter. It's on me for reading into that, I suppose. In any case, I backed this game, it came out last year, and I couldn't honestly be bothered to actually play it until this year.

After having finally done so: I'm not sure why people like these games? They feel like baby's first platformer; it's well-produced, but threadbare in terms of mechanical complexity. There's a vague Metroidvania-aspect to re-exploring levels you've already completed, but it lacks the simple mechanical joy that the best of those have. The characters don't really do anything for me either; I presume if you've been following these since the mid-90s you get something from their interactions, because personally I just find it kind of lame? The art is fantastic, and the game looks good in motion, but overall, it's just not for me.

17. For Honor – Steam – ★★★ – 2017

Until I started making this list, I had completely forgot that For Honor even existed. Remember this game? It's the one where you play as an assortment of medieval warriors assembled from across the globe to stab each other in 4-vs-4 3 rd person capture-the-point combat. It was OK, but the experience overall fell flat— largely because of an abundance of flaws peripheral to the core gameplay.

The basic combat and mechanics felt and worked well; the simple axis-based block-or-attack combat system enabled some truly awesome duels that really felt like you were in a melee. But while the combat worked quite well, there wasn't a whole lot going on around it to justify the overall experience. The campaign was functional, but it was clearly an afterthought, bereft of even characters. The multiplayer was fun, but severely hampered by a poor progression / unlock system, as well as bad matchmaking and server issues.

In another year, perhaps For Honor would have stood out more. If the game had received post-release support in the way Ubisoft's more Clancyesque titles, perhaps it'd have had longer legs. As is, I spent enough time with it to know that it was maybe worth coming back to once they had hammered out their online issues— something that never really happened. And then the rest of 2017 happened and put it in its proper place. Oops!

16. Picross S – Switch – ★★★ – 2017

Where Pictopix disappointed, Picross S is functional, acceptable Picross. It's far from the best Picross offering in this line (I think I had the most fun with Picross E3, and not just because of its dumb name), but it is Picross on the Nintendo Switch, which is basically all I was really wanting out of it. The loss of touch screen interactions from the 3DS release is bizarre (the Switch has a touch-screen my dudes!), but I can live with it.

15. Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment – Switch – ★★★ – 2017

It's been interesting to watch Yacht Club take the baseline premise of Shovel Knight— a retro-styled platformer shouting its Mega Man inspirations via megaphone to anyone who'll listen— and alter their execution with these different DLCs. Where the original Shovel Knight was a relatively straight-forward platformer (with Ducktales-inspired down-stab action), and Plague of Shadows was something of an odd build-your-own-shooter, Specter of Torment focuses instead on aerial combo-attacks. These changes really alter the gameplay; where the others could be a bit mindless at times (particularly Plague of Shadows, which was fairly easy given the number of projectiles you could throw across the whole screen), Specter of Torment is considerably more demanding of one's attention; you have to be more deliberate with your actions relying than relying on flow to get you through.

The design of the levels doesn't feel entirely there; while they certainly have been more redesigned than Plague of Shadows' were to fit the different style of movement, it just wasn't that fun to play through. Rooms were either too easy or too frustrating, with little in the way of a middle ground. The boss fights were trivially easy (which is dire in a game aping a series that largely relied on the quality of its emblematic show-downs). The plot was… fine? It certainly was a Shovel Knight prequel alright, that's for sure. At this point, I must imagine Yacht Club and I are both on the page on wanting see them work on something else at this point. They've proven themselves to be extremely competent developers, but it's time to put Shovel Knight to rest; they've gotten about as much blood as they can out of that particular stone.

14. Mario Kart 8 DX – Switch – ★★★★ – 2017-ish

OK, seriously Nintendo— when are you going to make a new F-Zero? Don't you give me this bullshit about “Why would you want a new F-Zero when we've already done it before!” when you keep making new Mario Karts with little different beyond the platform you put it on. All Mario Kart 8 DX did was pack-in all the DLC and add a true battle mode— which is great and all, don't get me wrong. It's just a sign that your excuses suck and you need to fund a new Captain Falcon vehicle-vehicle ASAP.

13. Player Unknown's Battlegrounds – Steam – ★★★★ –– 2017

I want to like Plunkbat more than I do, but I don't. What's there that's good is great; the open-world mix of random-luck and skill-based shooting (especially with friends!) is a real hoot, particularly when one is either taking it entirely too seriously or entirely not seriously at all.

But something about the game just feels… incomplete? Despite leaving early access, it really has a lot of work that it should be still getting. The physics is jank (the vehicles annoy me to no end), there's still absolutely 0 tutorializing for new players, and the problem with persistent hacking and aimbotting has been dire as of late. There's also something to the notion that a lot of the skill in the game comes down less to polished learning of the mechanics and their interactions and more a sort of base memorization of Plunkbat Best Practices. That's not innately a bad thing, but I personally find these sorts of experiences better when they're focused more towards tactical mastery than strategic mastery. Both are important in Plunkbat, but I prefer mastering the former over the latter. The game seems to disagree. I feel like the quality of my gear should be less important than how good I am at using what I find. That is not the case. Oh well.

I'm looking forward to putting more time into this with buds in the future, but I've fallen off the wagon as far as general enthusiasm goes. Eh!

Prison Architect – Steam – ★★★★ – 2015

Prison Architect is sort of a highly-specialized, more accessible Dwarf Fortress. Much of the appeal of Dwarf Fortress is the immersive unpredictability of managing emergent personalities trying to go about their tasks, and ultimately, it's so complex that an ASCII-based rendering is the only way to handle it all. Prison Architect constrains the variability by its very nature (the things people do in a prison are typically well-regulated, and there's not a lot of agency within those bounds), resulting in an experience that is nowhere as impenetrable as Dwarf Fortress— but also nowhere as appealing.

There's just not as much going on when you get down to it; while there's certainly variability in prisoner personality and actions, there are just so fewer variables in terms of what someone can do and interact with. Plus, given your funding regimen and in-take are totally under your control, the actual form your prison takes doesn't need to vary; you're not incentivized to innovate beyond a desire to keep things interesting. You can just your layouts entirely towards efficiency and nothing else, and even then, there's no real end-game to it beyond making numbers get bigger.

Mini Metro – Android – ★★★★– 2015

Mini Metro is a slight mobile puzzle experience, but it is quite engrossing while it lasts. The pairing of simple mechanics and style works very well on the phone. You make subway lines connecting points. It looks like a subway map. It's pretty good.

Total War: Warhammer – Steam – ★★★★ – 2016

I've always been vaguely interested in the Total War games— just never enough to go out of my way to actually, y'know, play them. Warhammer Fantasy has never been my thing, but I like fantasy things in general, and the idea of applying battle tactics to lines of zombies was appealing enough for me to give this a look. Overall, it turns out I enjoy the tactical depth of Total War!

I'm not sure how I feel about the strategic-layer in the few factions I played—it's a bit micromanage-y, and any faction managing to sneak its way to the back-end of your empire becomes a real chore-- but the tactical level is very good. The interplay of artillery, cavalry, and troops-of-the-line is realistic enough to where you can apply real-world know-how and be rewarded for it. The types of troops are massively varied, both inside and outside of the factions. I was mostly drawn to this game by the monster-y factions, so those were the ones I played most.

I'm looking forward to checking out Total War: Warhammer II... eventually?

12. Sonic Mania – Switch – ★★★★ – 2017

Sonic is bad. If you add up the total of what Sonic has been over the last two decades and average it out over the amount of games he has had the misfortune to appear in, the average Sonic is hardly deserving of the fawning devotion he receives. Those first few mainline Sonics were good, no question—but that was over two decades ago. SEGA has never succeeded in recreating the feel of those games—even when they have ostensibly tried.

Thankfully for them (and us), there are those that can succeed. Sonic Mania, created by long-time Sonic fans and hackers, perfectly captures the feel of those first three games almost too well. It's basically Sonic 1-3+K+CD, warts and all. The Sonic CD-based stages in particular carry on Sonic CD's design of being too long and really fucking annoying, which is rather indicative of the ethos of Whitehead towards recreating the feel of the older titles. I'm very curious to see if they'll be given permission to do a Sonic Mania II, where they'll perhaps have a chance to innovate more and burn off those warts. I'm not sure if they would, but I certainly hope they do. Sonic deserves better than, well, Sonic.

Stellaris: Utopia & Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn – Steam – ★★★★– 2017

This is technically a 2017 release, but it's so miniscule an addition to the existing Stellaris that it's not worthy of a numbered ranking. Stellaris in 2017 is a lot like Stellaris in 2016, but better. The addition of end-game specializations, new government-types, and the ability to play as both hive minds and robots are extremely good, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. That's the Paradox model, I suppose; they'll continue iterating and adding onto Stellaris over the next half decade until it finally achieves some near-ideal state—or the engine buckles under all they're trying to do with it. One of the two.

My favorite Stellaris moment this year must be the creation of "The Borth Problem". The Borth are a race of space Hyper-Platypuses, whose traits were specially selected by their creator (me) to be absolutely trash. They're short-lived, xenophobic pacifists who hate being around each other almost as much as they hate being around everyone else. I force them to spawn as one of the empires in every game I play-- not because they're particularly threatening, but because watching them repeatedly balkanize every two months under the strain of their own ineptitude and malfeasance is extremely good. Occasionally some fool attempts to annex Borth planets, which is a tragedy in and of itself.

11. Tekken 7 – Steam – ★★★★ – 2017

God am I terrible at fighting games. I've just never put in the time to get any good, and I'm way too prone to mashing out moves I think are cool than learning combos or hit-strings. God do I love fighting games though— and Tekken 7 is a good one. It is a Tekken game through-and-through, but the additions they've made to the cast have been good, and the limb-specific combat system continues to hold up after all these years.

To be completely honest? I've been playing mostly as Eliza—whose special strings are just Street Fighter entry strings. She's basically Ryu if he was in a bustier (and a sleepy Dracula). It's allowed me to get past the hump of learning how to pull-off her specials, though it's done little to actually get me good at stringing combos together. It's still a lot of fun though.

10. Puyo-Puyo Tetris – Switch – ★★★★ – 2017

IT'S PUYO PUYO AND TETRIS, WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions – PSP – ★★★★ – 2007

Coming to Final Fantasy Tactics two decades on from its initial release on the PlayStation, one can still understand the appeal. The tactical RPG system has phenomenal mechanical depth, supporting wide-ranging customization and gameplay specialization. There's lots of weird systems to learn and exploit. The setting is austere and grounded in a way that few RPGs are; the story it tells is ultimately yet another Japanese tale of man-killing-god, but the way that it's presented is more about fighting back again the abuse of systems by society, and the futility of one man trying to change the world.

At the same time, two decades have passed since Final Fantastic Tactics came out, and it honestly has not aged superbly well. The controls are bizarre, its job system is rather annoying in practice, it suffers from the usual problem games with permadeath carry where the second a character joins the party and becomes non-essential, their relevance to the story ends. The story which was apparently once so astounding seems almost quaint now; “Organized religion… may be bad!” is far from a hot take in these days, and there have since been hundreds of other games (JRPGs, even) playing in the same sandbox.

As someone introduced to the Ivalice setting of Final Fantasy through Final Fantasy XII, it's also somewhat strange looking back at this series and trying to conceive of them as some connected timeline. A lot of what I liked about Final Fantasy XII was its diverse races and their cosmopolitan associations and interactions. Tactics has even less than none of that. It goes out of its way say with a ringing finality “AND EVERYTHING NOT HUMAN OR DEMON WENT EXTINCT, THE END.” Pour one out for my Ban'gaa homies, I guess??

I had fun with Final Fantasy Tactics, but I suspect I may have had a miserable time if I didn't have a friend warning me of points-of-no-return and making sure I didn't build myself into an unwinnable state. Also: exposing me to the utterly broken arithmetic / mathematics magic system, good lord.

9. Splatoon 2 – Switch – ★★★★ – 2017

Splatoon was a good game; Splatoon 2 is that same game, on a different platform.

The additions made to Splatoon 2 are really quite minor; there's some slightly different weapons, and the campaign is denser, but all in all it's just the same good game. The only meaningful addition to Splatoon 2 is Salmon Run, Nintendo's take on the cooperative Horde mode. And you know what? Salmon Run fucking rules. My best multiplayer experiences this year were playing Salmon Run with my boys on Discord. If it were more reliably available, I'd probably have played it more!

8. What Remains of Edith Finch – Steam – ★★★★ – 2017

The latest in the Walking Simulator genre, What Remains of Edith Finch is low on the interactivity, but high on the graphical fidelity, atmosphere, and emotional heft. Sometimes that emotional heft veers into the realm to over-sentimental schmaltz (the ending engendered some real roll-eye), but it doesn't diminish the overall experience. What interactivity that is there is quite good, and it all-in-all made for a great evening experience. I like these sorts of evening-games where you can plop down for 4 hours and just have a nice, self-contained emotional experience.

7. Metroid: Samus Returns – 3DS – ★★★★ – 2017

Maaan, it's good to see Samus in a properly ass good video game again. Other M was bullshit that I wasn't down with at all; this is some proper Metroid-ass Metroid. While there's perhaps still a bit too much Metroid 2 in there (the game is remarkably linear for a “Metroidvania” and the area design is a bit one-note – befitting its Gameboy origins), Metroid: Samus Returns is a very excellent proof of concept that yes, you can make a good Metroid in 2017.

It's also proof that even if we can no longer trust the franchise to Sakamoto's hands without him ruining everything and throwing a tantrum about Prime, others are capable of doing what's necessary to ensure that Samus remains a galactic badass and not Sakamoto's weaponized nadeshiko. Uugh.

As an aside: The references back to the Prime Trilogy, as well as the REALLY WELL-HIDDEN sequel-hook, are extremely good and appreciated. I am pumped to see what Mercury Stream (or someone else!) does with Metroid moving forward. Is that sequel hook actually a Metroid Prime 4 hook? That'd be cool as hell.

6. SteamWorld Dig 2 – Switch – ★★★★ – 2017

SteamWorld Dig was a relaxing, though ultimately rather forgettable take of what would happen if you crossed Metroidvania with Mr. Driller. SteamWorld Dig 2 would be the same, if it wasn't for the fact that it's just so god damned well-polished. Everything about it from the core gameplay feel, the movement, the digging speed, the music— they're just so damn well executed. The game world is just a delight to be in.

The story and ending are disappointing (as legally required of every SteamWorld game) but that's not really the point; this is absolutely a game where it's absolutely about the journey rather than the destination. When your journey revolves around such a fundamentally satisfying gameplay loop, the greatest sin it has is ending in the first place.

HITMAN – Steam – ★★★★★ – 2016

HITMAN is good! IO Interactive has created the ultimate encapsulation of the Hitman formula. The game is built to encourage replay and iteration on the game's limited number of maps. This is great, because replaying missions to achieve the perfect murder is a real joy. HITMAN is a game about perfecting the art of playing it: learning the systems, the maps, and the routines of people to the point where you see the clockwork that everyone else is beholden to— so that you can slide between the cogs like a bald, sardonic time-ghost. The game is grimly hilarious and cool in equal measures. I can't wait to see what they do with Season 2.

Stardew Valley – Steam – ★★★★★ – 2016

Stardew Valley is a celebration of the routine. While so many games are about providing novel experiences and spectacles to keep our interest, Stardew Valley enables you to a build a routine, iterating and adapting as the world twists and turns around it. It's about riding a slowly swelling wave while maintaining flow; your farm and experience gets more and more complicated as the seasons go on, but it's always at your own pace; there's no real stakes beyond a desire to prosper and discover. It's charming and addicting in equal measures.

I'm glad they stopped development on it to focus on porting it to new platforms, because I'm pretty sure they'd have honest to god killed people with it. It turns out the cup-and-ball game from that Next Generation episode is actually a game about pleasing your peepaws' ghost by growing corn and hooking up with the goth chick down the lane. You're welcome, peepaw.

Valkyria Chronicles – Steam – ★★★★★ – 2016

Man, SEGA used to make brilliant RPGs back in the day, huh? I really liked Skies of Arcadia, and this is another RPG in that vein from that era. You wouldn't think “fantasy World War II European Front through the lens of Japanese RPG developers” would work, but… it does! They manage to evoke some genuine ethos, and their depiction of the brutality and horror of war, the in-grained senselessness of inherited discriminatory beliefs, are actually pretty OK. You'd think “We're going to depict ANIME FANTASY HOLOCAUST” would be the Worst Thing Ever, but they manage to thread that line enough to make it work… mostly.

Perhaps the craziest thing about Valkyria Chronicles though is that they somehow managed to make a tactical JRPG about trench / tank warfare not only work, but work well. While it's kind of breakable in areas and has balance issues, it managed to hold my interest through the dozens of hours without getting bored. I wasn't invested enough to do much in the way of the extra / repeatable missions, but I thoroughly enjoyed the combat for what I played.

That all said, Valkyria Chronicles could have done with less anime all around. If you turned that anime dial down a good 20%, this would have been a vastly superior work— perhaps even an all-time great. Unfortunately, its tendency towards Anime-ass composition and design, and some frankly juvenile characterization means it will forever carry that stigma of “it is very anime” that prevents it from penetrating into less anime-immune audiences. Still, for those willing to give it a shot and endure some really ham-fisted anime-as-all-hell ruminations on peace, Valkyria Chronicles is a real gem.

5. Super Mario Odyssey – Switch – ★★★★★ – 2017

The single thing that has defined Mario since the halcyon ape-threatening days to his hat-tossing present has been his movement. Over the years, the movements available to “Jump Man” have become more varied and complex, but they still harken back to what set him apart in the beginning: it's all about the jump. Mario Odyssey, while ostensibly about his more obvious hat-trick, is in reality just another stage of the gradual, ever-evolving repertoire of Mario's jump. He just… jumps so damn good y'all. It feels real damn good to run around and jump on shit as Mario. The hat even makes it so he can basically jump in the air, it's ridiculous.

Mario's new ups are made even better Mario Odyssey's excellent collections of worlds for him to mark with his kicks. The sheer variety and volume of unique platforming experiences is great, and it's ultimately up to you how deep you're willing to take it. Mario is something of a casual completionist's nightmare, given just how many stars there are to find. But for those willing to take a step back, the game allows you to engage it just as much you'd want. You could work on polishing your platforming skills to where you easily master the Darker Side of the Moon, you could just play enough of the game after “beating” it to get your fill, or you could just play what's needed to get to the credits. If you're a complete mad-person, you could try even collecting all those stars. All are valid end-points, and no matter what the experience is a complete and quality one.

Some one-off thoughts:

The new enemy designs in the game are so good. A particular shout-out to the Oni Thwomp!

THERE IS A BOSS WHOSE NAME IS “Brigadier Mollosque-Lanceur III, Dauphin of Bubblaine”, FUCK

Steam Garden's God Hand surf rock theme music is so good

The entire end-game sequence leading into the post-game zone was one of the most surreal things ever

NEW DONK CITY

4. Cuphead – Steam – ★★★★★ – 2017

Cuphead is a magic trick. At first glance, it seems impossible, like an actual sorcerer has walked in and done something impossible. “There's no way anyone could recreate the style of Fleischer-era cartoons and make a genuinely good video game!” Like any magic trick, once you look at it long enough the magic goes away, and you see it for what it is. You see the sleight of hand, the smoke and mirrors required to resurrect a nearly century-old style and make it work in what should be a wholly incompatible medium. But the skills required to pull that trick off, and that such a small studio accomplished it, is itself a feat worthy of a wizard with a sizeable beard. It's not perfect, but it's as damn close as any person could ever expect to see, really. The game looks, sounds, and plays damn good.

It's been funny following the discourse around Cuphead's gameplay, particularly the reaction to its difficulty. It's nowhere near as hard as people make it out to be; it's got a lot in common with bullet-hell shooters like the Touhou games, to be sure, but the difficulty about those games, like Cuphead, are more about learning how to play them right than anything particular crazy about most of the challenges they put in front of you. Once you learn how to precisely move the character, you can basically relinquish yourself to the flow state and soldier through pretty much everything (within reason). Cuphead's real trick in this regard is that the types of things going on screen look so fucking cool that it can pull you out of the flow through sheer wow-factor. It's a game that is harder because it looks so good. Unreal.

3. Pyre – Steam – ★★★★★ – 2017

The cruel hands of mother nature have evolved Supergiant Games into the perfect predator of my species. Their approach to writing characters, stories, and music is such that whenever they release one of their games, they burrow a tendril into my brain and maneuver my zombified body into a hole so they can lay eggs in my chest cavity. I'd feel more broken up about how they play me like an acoustic guitar if they weren't so, y'know, good at playing acoustic guitars.

Ostensibly, Pyre is NBA Jam meets Oregon Trail meets a Visual Novel, but it's so much more than that. It's the archeology of uncovering the history of a world through half-heard conversations and vaguely-written reminiscences. It's the trepidation of holding the fate of friends in your hands and knowing that you can't save them all in the end, and still having to choose. It's the struggle for glorious revolution, even though the odds of a bloodless one is low. It's all these things. You plot the end of an empire with a pipe-smoking treeman in between games of mystic slamball with a mustachioed dog. Everything about how it carries itself and presents its world resonated deeply with me and held me enraptured to the very end.

2. NieR: Automata – Steam – ★★★★★ – 2017

I've spent a lot of the last year thinking about Nier: Automata. At this point, I'm not even sure what to say about it. Do I talk about the questions it raises about humanity and what we may leave behind? Do I talk about its astounding visual and audio design? Do I go on a long aside on Yoko Taro's writing and directorial style? They're all valid things to talk about, but they're also all meaningless. They're only important in how they made me feel over the course of my journey with Nier. Intrigued, lost, depressed, uplifted. Nier: Automata invoked all these emotions in me in turn.

In the end, I'm left somewhat in awe of the experience. Not because Nier is a perfect game; it's a very flawed one. But it's a game that's really made me feel and think. Yoko Taro weaves the threads of narrative, emotion, and atmosphere with the deftest of hands. So what if the loom he was forced to work with wasn't a particularly good one? Nier: Automata is one of the most complete explorations of the nature of humanity and how impossible it is to grasp. I imagine I will carry thoughts of it with me forever.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Switch – ★★★★★★ – 2017

Breath of the Wild is my favorite video game of all time. Thanks, Nintendo.

[seoul-less-ging]

The Seconds That Go By ★☆Mark☆★

A/N: I live! I'm alive I swear! I’ve just gotten myself busy with College. Fun time. So I had originally scrapped this fic thinking it was bad. Like Seriously... It was just sitting in google docs drive since July.  But Rae convinced me to finish and post it. Still a little unsure though if it is good. Also hello frien who wanted me to tag them in this :3

After finishing: I have a feeling you guys are gonna hate me for this fic. *Nervous chuckle* Also have I forgotten that I’ve mentioned that I think this is kinda bad?? But that's just me... You guys might think it’s good.

Paring: Mark x Reader

Genre: Angst

Word count: 2,994

Summary: Everything has gone to all hell when the dead started walking with the living. And all it takes is just a second to change everything.

It has been a couple of years, or so one would guess that it might have, there’s nothing really to keep track of time when pretty much all electronics are down and the dead walk around like the living and could kill someone with a single bite. Yeah, we’re talking about the zombie apocalypse, it seemed like a pretty used up topic before everything went to hell but now it’s just plain annoying and tedious with them actually walking around.

It was an end of a fall-nearly winter day and just Mark Tuan and you were traveling currently. The two of you were out dodging walkers and still set animal traps searching for anything useful for your small group. It was thought that going in pairs would be better than going out small groups. There was 8 of you in total, just Got7 and you. So it was even when it came to coming down to splitting into even teams. Jae Bum and Jinyoung, Bambam and Yugyeom, Jackson and Youngjae then finally Mark and you.

You don't quite remember how you ran into Got7 or even when you did but you're glad you found such a fun and caring group to be with. You were snapped out of your thoughts by Mark's voice. Turning to look at him just to see that he is trying to get your attention to question about a tree that seemed to have something that looks like a group of scouts might have hung up high so the animals wouldn't get at it.

“Do you think you can get up there easily?” The former star asks and you nod. “I believe getting up there should be easy enough” You replied, moving over to the tree and scaling up it to get to the object in question. Untying its bindings you let it down slowly to Mark below, who unbundled it and searched its contents.

“Anything good?” You call. Glancing around you just in case there was anything in the tree itself that may be useful and also for a safe way to get down.

“Just a few candy bars, some books, a small cooler with some beer and Soda, and a boy scout manual, which I guess could also count as a book.”

“So useful stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.” You pause. Starting to find your way back down the tree “Once I get down I'm nabbing one of those candy bars.” You state with a slight determined tone “Really now?” The male asked with a smirk, an idea brewing in his mind “Hell yeah. You have no idea how long I've been craving something sweet.” you partially grumble as you get low enough to jump without causing damage, landing on the ground with a small thump.

Mark watched you the entire time. He sometimes just couldn't take his eyes off of you. He realized a while back that he adored everything about you, your eyes, your figure, your hair, your voice. Just everything. You're beautiful... No, Actually you're gorgeous no matter what you look like. He wouldn't want you to change a single thing about yourself. He was practically head over heels for you. But he hasn't worked up the nerve yet to tell you. He would do anything and everything in his power to protect you and to make sure you were happy.

He started to put the Items in the empty backpack he had on his back. “Hey Markie, can you pass me one of those candy bars??” You asked him. He smirked lightly and held one out to you but just as you were about to grab it he took a couple of steps back. “Ya want it ya gotta get it from me.” He said with a mischievous grin. You huffed faintly and then tried to grab the candy bar and he moved back even more.

You ended up chasing him around, being mindful of walkers as you went,  because he was playfully teasing you with his words and by not giving you the candy bar. You found this kinda fun. You ended up tackling him which took him by surprise and fell back onto his back, making him let out an ‘oof’ sound. It took him a second to recover but when he did he looked up at you to see that you were straddling his waist. “I caught you now can I please have that candy bar??” You pouted and begged a little. He let out a faint huff and handed the candy bar over to you which made you smile, which as if it was contagious he smiled as well.

“Can ya get off of me then?”

“Nah”

“Why not?”

“Cause I’m comfy..~”

Mark huffed, shifting some under your weight and then pushed you onto his legs, allowing him to sit up. He slipped one arm under your legs and the other wrapped around your back. He maneuvered himself so he could get up and lift you up at the same time, which caused you to squeak in surprise and immediately cling to him by wrapping your arms around his neck, a part of you afraid that he would drop you even though you know he would never. Seeing you react that way caused him to chuckle lowly as he held you in his arms.  Wanting to keep you in his arms forever but he eventually set you down on your feet.

“Shall we get going?”

“Yeah of course”

«——————»×«——————»

You and Mark were wandering in an old town that you’d planned on going to before heading back to your base where the others waited. There were a couple transport trucks that you planned on checking out. Which was a mistake, a very big mistake.

Opening one caused a trap to be triggered which not only released the four dozen walkers that were hidden within each of the trucks but also alarmed walkers that were in the area, and even somehow opened the other trucks which only one had an extreme amount of supplies in. It all seemed like some sick trial someone set up, get past all the walkers, get to the truck with supplies, close the back door and then get the fuck out of there. Which seems easy enough right? Well wrong. Because the truck with all the supplies is across the yard and walkers were swarming you and Mark left and right.

You fought for a while, as did Mark, he was ahead of you as the two of you maneuvered through the dead crowd, killing anything that got too close to your bodies. You sliced at one of the walker's heads, which partially worked but the blade you were using got stuck in the body in front of you, it seemed to have a metal plate in its head where the blade got lodged between the bone and the plate. You tried feverishly to dislodge the stuck blade but alas it wasn’t working and you let out a small cry as walkers started to swarm you. You could have used the gun you had attached to your side but you couldn’t because it had run out of ammo from an earlier incident and you hadn't found ammo for it yet, just ammo for different guns that you didn't have on your person. You called out to Mark, hoping that he would help, come and save you like he has done before when you were in situations where despite your skill you couldn’t get yourself out of.

The first few cries for help didn’t work but the last one caught his attention and saw how you were getting swarmed with your weapon stuck in the walker’s head, desperately kicking the walkers that got too close away only for them to get back up and stagger back over to you. He rushed as quickly as he could over to you, but he was too far and couldn’t get over to you in time. He couldn’t help but watch as he tried desperately to get over to you as one of the walkers bit onto your arm. Ripping into the flesh of your arm and tearing the muscle. You let out a shriek of pain, which caused tears to roll down your cheeks. Finally managing to dislodge your blade you started to do your best to fight off the walkers with tears just streaming down your cheeks.

Your shriek of pain caused Mark’s heart to drop to the pit of his stomach as he eventually made it to your side, killing off some of the walkers and then just grabbing you and bolting as fast as he could to the truck.

With some difficulty, he made it without himself getting injured or having you receive more wounds. He sat you on the driver's and removed the belt he had on his pants and looped it around your arm as tightly as possible to prevent the virus from spreading throughout your body. Once finished with his task and had closed the back of the transport truck he hurried over to the driver's side, getting in. luckily there was a full tank of gas so he started the transport truck drove the hell out of there, not giving a single shit about running over the walkers.

«——————»×«——————»

You have gotten far enough away from the site where you had gotten bitten and were on your way back to the base. It's been around a day since you've been bitten. You were exhausted and all could feel is the throbbing in your arm with your body temperature dropping, or it seemed to be dropping to you. You started to shiver some which caught the attention of Mark who reached over to feel your forehead only to almost immediately flinch away after just ghosting his hand against your skin.

Mark frowned as his hand retreated back to the wheel. You were burning up. It's probably the hottest he has ever felt someone's skin to be.  He hesitated before speaking up.

“...(Y/N)... How… How are you feeling..?”

“..C-Cold… E-Exhausted…”

“Oh… I see… I'm sorry I can't turn the heat up any further... It's as high as it could go…”

“It's… It's alright… I… I'm just going to try and… and sleep…”

“Alright…”

He spoke softly and sadly as he drove. He glanced over at you as you tried to drift off into a peacefulness that would dull the pain and make you feel at least somewhat alright. He took notice how you had become much paler since yesterday. You looked almost like a ghost which pushed the feelings of worry and guilt to turn in his stomach.

«——————»×«——————»

Mark had stopped on the side of the road. You had begged him to pull over and pretty much tumbled out of the vehicle, crawling away from the truck a couple of feet before vomiting the little amount you had in your stomach. He watched with worry and then got out to move to your side. Carefully grabbing your hair and held it up as you vomited. You let out a small whine when you were done and pushed yourself to a sitting position, but you ended up leaning against Mark. You wiped the leftover vomit from your mouth. You were feeling worse than horrible.

Mark helped you stand and let you lean heavily on him as he helped you back to and into the truck. You let out a shaky sigh as you uttered a small thank you to him. “It's not a problem Y/N.” He said with a small smile as he moved to brush some hair away from your face, then went off to continue driving.

After a couple of hours of driving you let out a small sound and shifted a little in your seat. “... M...Mark…?”

“Yeah..? What's up..?”

“How long… till we get home….?”

“Oh.. about two days or so…”

“Oh.. O...Okay..”

He let out a small hum in response and kept driving. His eyes staying on the road except for when he would glance over at you. “H..Hey mark…” you spoke. Shivering some.

“Yeah Y/N?”

“I...I'm really cold…”

He frowned and then stopped the truck. Shifting in his seat and then taking off his jacket. “Can you lean forward…?” He asked and you thought for a moment before nodding and moving forward some. Slipping his jacket around your back and carefully slipping your arms through the sleeves. “But.. don't… don't you need it…?” You ask as you attempt to fight him but are too weak to, flinching slightly when he moved your injured arm. “I'll be fine. You need it more than I do at the moment.” He responded being really careful while Moving your injured arm. Pulling away when he was done. “Any better?” He asked, worried about you. You did feel a tiny bit warmer after a moment so you nodded. He looked a bit relieved and smiled a little. “Good.” He moved back and started to drive once more.

«——————»×«——————»

You were about a day away from base, maybe a little bit less than that, where the others waited and guarded your home. But you can feel that you are dying. You can't hold on any longer. You were trying to fight it the entire time since you were bitten. But you can't anymore. You are so exhausted and in pain. You glanced over at Mark. He had done so much for you. And you really hate to make him do this but you can't fight it anymore.

“... Mark…?” He responded a small curious sounding hum “I.. I need you to do so..something for me…”

“What do you want me to do?”

“....Kill me…”

Mark's P.O.V

I was driving like I have been for the past couple of days, we were almost back at base. Maybe like a day away. It was silent until Y/N had broken it. “... Mark…?” She paused, waiting for my response so I let out a curious hum “I.. I need you to do so..something for me…” she spoke with a bit of a shake in her voice. “What do you want me to do?” I asked. She seemed hesitant but answered with “....Kill me…” I slowly stopped the truck and looked over at her. “W..What do you want me to do?” She looked over at me and repeated her answer “I said… Kill me…. Please Mark… I… I can't fight it anymore…. I'm tired… I'm in pain…. Please kill me….” The look in her eyes were begging me to kill her. She looked so serious at the same time. “We.. we are almost home… when we get home we should be able to make you better…! I'll make sure-..” “Markie… Please…” she interrupted me, grabbing my hand with hers. “I … I need you to do this for me… I don't want to turn into one of those monsters and hurt you….” I let out a faint whine before nodding. She gave me a weak smile before letting go of my hand. I got out then headed over to her side to help her get out.

We had moved to an area where there was enough room yet quiet enough that if we were to make noise it wouldn't attract anything, just in case. “Markie…” she said, grabbing my attention. “Don't… don't waste a bullet on me…. Just… end me with your knife...” she said. Doing her best to keep her words from breaking up. I just nodded a little bit. “And… I… I'm scared…” she added, pausing before continuing. “So… hold me… as… as I go… please Markie…” I just nodded again. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to persuade her into trying to last a little longer.

I set her down and sit with her. Carefully pulling her into a hug. She shifted a little bit and then hugged me as tightly as she could back. Even managing to grab ahold of the back of my hoodie with both her hands. She rested her head on my shoulder. Nuzzling into my neck a little.

YOUR P.O.V

Mark brought me into a hug after sitting on the ground. I raised my arms and hugged him back as best as I could in my weak state. Curling my fingers into the back of his hoodie and resting my head on his shoulder, nuzzling into his neck a little. His scent was always so comforting to you. He feels so warm, it's comforting you. You let out a shaky sigh and lean heavily against him. Letting your body relax and submit yourself to the virus. Feeling everything slowly go numb. It climbed up your body as you started to lose consciousness. You felt something very sharp be pressed deep into the back of your head and the last thing you saw was the ground behind Mark and a bit of his hoodie before everything went dark.

Mark's P.O.V

I held her close as she started to grow limp. What finally got to me was when her grip on my hoodie loosened and felt her hands slide down my back.

With a shaky hand, I pulled out my knife and hesitated for a second before pressing it into the back of her head, ensuring that she won't turn. I pulled out the knife after a moment and just sat there. Holding her limp body in my arms. It took everything I had not to burst into tears. But I couldn't hold it back as tears slipped down my cheeks. I lifted her up as I stood and moved back to the truck. Planning on taking her home so I could give her a proper burial. She deserved it. Better than rotting out here. Covering her in a slightly worn linen sheet I grabbed from the back of the truck and set her with the rest of the stuff before continuing to head back home.

[survivor-kuwait]

Episode 1 - “Okay, I’m back so fucking buckle up” - Trace

But not two minutes into the game and I'm already stressed out of my mind to see that Nehemiah is here. I swear to god if that kid decides to fuck up my game YET AGAIN, I will lose my fucking mind.

Timmy doesn't seem like a gemini. He seems a little boring. Maybe I'll make a f2 deal with him. That seems predictable though.

Okay, I'm back so fucking buckle up.

This is an interesting twist. I really hope we don't get targeted because I filmed my introduction for 5 minutes. that would suck.

Also, am I the only one that thinks Devon on the Leo tribe looks like Bertram from the show Jessie?

Also, willow, my sign partner seems cool from the one exchange we've had. Hopefully we can work together in this game.

Ok, matt the saggitarius seems really cool. His entire introduction was memes which I approve of. He may be a social threat down the road as he seems very likable.

So anyway the twist of our two person tribes is that we must vote out an entire star sign. This is supposed to be taken sort of as a "first impressions" vote.

The way I see it it would make the most sense to vote for a star sign pairing with a winner since they have already made it to the end in the series and got the votes to win. I think that narrows it to two people (I could be wrong as I am on my phone looking at stuff and it is unreliable.

Owen and Kait have won and Kaits win is less relevant in my eyes since she has gotten sixteenth on her following games. So it makes sense to me to target Owen's sign.

On the other side of this, should we or others choose to target players they perceive as annoying or a liability in the game I think my sign has a high likelihood of being first gone. Nehemiah does not have the best reputation and some might see it better to vote him out before he stirs the pot.

I dont blame them.

Anyway, I kind of like this twist and if I am one of the first out and it's not a twisted twist where we go to redemption island or something to that effect I want my survivor avatar for this season to not be Lil but to be changed to Wanda Shirk.

I am aggrivated at the fact that Matt S. does not know the correct way to eat an oreo.

I sware everyone in this season is from Chicago except for me. 

Bro Matt stop eating the damn oreos. I'm trying to hear what you're saying but all I can hear is the crunching noises from the chewing!

mr oreo literaly said he has a deep history of being a wildcard and that you should work with him because he's trustworthy.. this doesn't add up my guy

this dude is literally named chips. now that is epic

Nehe is really ecstatic that he is legal. bruh

Nehe has the weirdest ways of showing the number 6 on his fingers.. like what?

Nehe says he is very emotional.. idk how willing I'm gonna be to work with someone who could potentially use emotions in this game.

Nehe, stop with the gang signs please

Drinking Game: Take a shot Nehe does a gang sign.. post your results below

hmm.... this ascension twist is funny. I am crying laughing because i was like, so timmy, who do we think we should go for? and he was like... nehe hates me.

JOIN THE CLUB. this is the only time that i think a vendetta worked in my favor! so luckily me and timmy are on the same page and hopefully nehemiah is packed up before the game even begins.

I am going to be paranoid quite honestly all day long, because if nehe doesn't like both me and timmy, then that is a big problem for me. also gemini's are batshit, so people could target us for that reason alone. I am hoping that some people will look at other star signs that have really big players and target them, but i'm not idiot. the sheer number of seasons I have played already puts a major target on my back.

I hate this because I basically just have to sit back and watch. but hopefully the pisces will be sent packing and trace will live to see another cracked out day.

Ok so this twist got me big mad. Like I’m happy I don’t have to try to message many people, but only one other person...and this twist wtf. But I’m happy it’s Trace because he seems cool yet here I am being a dead lobster because I suck at having good opening conversations. But I want to talk about the cast I can remember, or at least all I feel like typing right now. Trace and I want the pisces out and thank god because nehe hates me so that’s exactly what I want so it’s lit. Chips is ok but still I’ve fought him in orgs before so it’s for the best that he goes too. Owen and Stevie are scary and this probably is a perfect time to get rid of them but I guess that’s how they (mainly Owen) go far since they know how not to be the biggest threat while still technically being a threat. Maynor is a king...but the last game I played with him I idoled him out so that’s a thing, hopefully we can work on that though because he is a friend. OH OH OH CULLANS INTRO VIDEO OMG THAT WAS A RIDE. Like omg it was over 5 minutes long and he just kept going and I loved every second of it. I’ll look at the rest of the cast tomorrow so expect another cast assessment. Stay litty.

Ok, so I’m looking at the cast reveal now so I’ll talk about those who I haven’t yet. Renée: I think I’ve see Renée around before and like I feel she does well a lot...she might be the one who has won bb Pokémon but idk, if so, gotta keep an eye out. Chole: we stan a European queen like love her accent and she seems cool. Ian: idk who that is and...idk their intro is sports so who cares. Timmy: oh fuck that ugly bitch, they don’t know how to have a social game so they’re gonna flop majorly because they suck. Jacob: honestly idk how I feel about Jacob. I like him more as a person than i have previously like I respect him, but idk how this game will go. Madison: oh she scary and I love her with all my heart and yea but she scary. Idk who Corey and Devon are. Stephen: I LOVE STEPHEN. So I was in his first game ever, which was also Madison’s first game, so they’re family because that cast honestly is tight. At least we were, but I love them all and he is such a good person and I want to play this game with him but idk how it’s going to go. Either way he is one of my favorite people in the community because he is nice and real. Also side note, i was in Maynors first game too (different game than Stephen and Madison) and he won so he’s scary but I love him because I knew him from his start. Idk Taylor but we stan. There are 12 cast reveals so imma stop here because I’m so tired.

First of all, I have never done Tumblr Survivor until now and right of that bat, I'm confused as fuck. My partner, Kait, seems extremely nice and we were forced to be besties day 1. She seems to know more about this community than me so hopefully she can help. I noticed that Beastman (Matt B.) was in this game and Willow? I don't know if that is the Willow I played with previously. I think I also noticed Maynor and Chloe from the FB Survivor community and I am glad to be playing with them. I hope this first vote me and Kait can survive because going out day 2 would be a shame.

Pre challenge eliminations are dumb, that being said I honestly don't care if Taurus is eliminated because of it, literally nothing to be done to avoid it. Fucking do it. I know jack shit about Chloe, I don't care to at this point in time, if we aren't eliminated we'll be on opposite tribes, if we both last long enough to be on a tribe together, that's chill. Every game I've lost because I've played for other people, this go around I don't give a shit about nothing or anybody.

This sign partner twist is very nerve wracking. Because u cant talk with anyone but your sign partner, makes it hard to figure out what the others would vote for. I just hope my partner and I dont get voted out.

This twist was not the way I was expecting the game to start. Clearly the hosts are ready to send us right into it, but at this point I just really feel like me and Timmy are being lead to the slaughterhouse.

I was talking to Timmy about it, but neither of us know that many people in the game, which could be a good thing for us while we hope our names are kept out of their mouths. Of the few people I have interacted with on this cast, we have pretty mutually pleasant relationships so hopefully that will also keep us safe. I don't know, this is just really tough because there is not much we can do in terms of trying to save ourselves. I will most definitely be sweating all day long until these results are posted.

I am starting to like Timmy more and more. He seems like a nice guy, but sometimes can be a little bit hard to talk to just because he seems to be a man of very few words. No problem with that, just hard to read people that aren't super talkative and open. I have a feeling that we will be split from our teams to make tribes if we make it past this round, so hopefully the little seeds I have planted in Timmy and my's relationship will grow into a beautiful flower by the time we get to a swap or merge situation.

Other than that, there isn't much I can do but to cross my fingers and hope for the best. Hopefully this won't be the end of my journey in Kuwait, but at this point I have to expect the worst possible scenario...

It feels good to be back but I did assume there was gonna bemore newbies than veterans. Yet there isn’t so that’s interesting. The whole zodiac thing is cool in itself but it sucks that someone has to go home so fast best based off past impressions of others. I mean people do t like me. I have a reputation so this twist is not in my favor and Chips my Pisces partner does not necessarily help me jut there either. Chips is likeable but conniving. I mean we def could be the one to go. And it sucks

We ‘decided’ our votes are going on the Scorpios. Like we didn’t have a lot to go by. We brought it down to Libra and Scorpio then we random.org to decide their fate. I cant believe we did that but o well. I just want to survive this first vote.

This is a crazy twist but oh so much fun. I definitely do not feel safe, but that’s every round. I think we made a good choice.

Fun fact: my reasoning for wanting to eliminate Cancer is more than "fuck cancer" that's just the excuse I came up with to tell people as to why I "randomly" voted for Cancer when they inevitably aren't the ones eliminated.  It's purely my motivation to eliminate everyone I have have been in a game with before, starting with Madison.  If it happens, chill if it doesn't I'll have to find another way to go about getting her, Devon, and Trace eliminated in this game.

omg. Devon is fake as shite I don’t trust his judgment but I also think I can play him in the long run and I genuinely think he thinks I’m a d*mbass (which is what i want). I think I might go home especially if Renee spoke to ppl she has preexisting relationships with (I know it’s not allowed I just think it could happen). I hope I remain in this game bc I’m excited to compete tho!

So... this is annoying. This whole star sign twist is kind of forcing my hand in who to try and connect with, and you know the others are bonding too. But still, even when voting out one star sign thats 22 people, i mean Australian Survivor starts with 24, but most tumblr seasons dont get near that. What else do they have up their sleeve to speed things up?

Willow is really chill and cool. I think we can work well together and stay libra strong. I'm personally wanting to try and get Pisces here because they have the potential to be social threats later on so might as well vote off threats while we have the chance.. however, I have a gut feeling they aren't actually going to be eliminated and may come back later so that is something to look out for.. if so, we need to claim we voted someone else incase they find out.

Willow and I had a very long conversation about college and stuff and I can really see myself working with her in this game. We have lots in common so as long as we trust each other we should be able to go far together. I have a feeling we are going to be split by ourselves after this so I probably won’t have willow by myside until a future tribe swap

Also, my partner seemed a little all over the place at first. He eventually calmed down. The problem with new players is they usually try to make their mark early and that could be trouble.

I had anxiety through out that whole tribal. I’m glad that Renee and I survived and didn’t get a vote. Pisces being voted out is 🤷‍♂️. Like idk why but I felt they were gunna get a few votes. Between the two I want Chips to survive and come back. I think I could work with Renee but we havent talked much so going to try and see howni feel later.

You had no fucking idea how stressed I was when I saw that there was one gemini votes. Whoever did that has one person to answer to: jeff fucking probst christ.

I am SO happy that Nehemiah clearly has enough adversaries in this game to make himself an automatic target. Hopefully he will be sent home during this retrograde situation, but I have a feeling he will stay because he is very strong in challenges. I feel a little ridiculous for having such a strong vendetta for him this early on in the game, but I know that he is a number I cannot trust so it'd be ideal for him to head home earlier than later.

Thank god I can rest for another day...

hello friends.  i told myself that i’m gonna force myself to write these .   So first couple days have gone past.  not too much has been going on.  24 person cast was kinda expected tbh with the season being battle of the signs and whatnot.  my partner SUCKS!!! he hasn’t talked all game until this morning so we’ll see how that goes moving forward.  having all the teams vote out one team was something else and unexpected but expected to cut down the size of the cast.  where the game goes from here, i have no idea and i’m excited.  i’m even more interested to see how the game shakes down after the pisces challenge.  cause that leaves 23 ppl and a whole lot of ppl left

randomly voting people without talking to people I'm sleep. my partner is boring and doesn't talk to me it's all zzz

Im BEYOND thrilled that there is someone looking out for me and like seeing what a fucking snake Nehe is. Karma got to him last night and I was living for it. 4 votes from 12 tribes. That's 8 people that DID NOT want him here. And oh my god, I was living. Yeah sure we (Aquarius) got a vote but that didn't matter because I'm very close, oh so very close to not seeing Nehe in this game EVER! So I'm pulling for Chips to win and let's put that out in the fucking universe because Nehe winning and returning probably means that he'll get some secret advantage that may bite me in the ass down the road.

Sorry I’m just sending one for the first time. Just kinda ranted to my Skype.

I’m indifferent about Pisces getting voted into the elimination. I didn’t talk to anybody so as long as I’m okay i don’t really care at this point. My partner seems nice enough - hopefully he sticks with me.

I’m looking forward to interacting with people. The intros made everyone look like they have very similar personalities, so I’m hoping to find a few people who i actually think are cool and interesting. I’m out for blood, mawma.

So far so good? The two person tribe thing definitely freaks me out, and it shows that I have to put in work to maintaining a good relationship, but I feel like Adrian and I are on the same page. I always strive to have one really really solid ride or die per game and usually it doesn’t work out for me, so this time I’m willing to do what it takes to keep this duo. It was interesting to see that there were four tribes who wanted Pisces out, but I also was nervous about the one Aquarius vote (I hope it was from Pisces so that we don’t have to worry about them, but if it was from Willow then I’m anxious!).

This twist is weird FHSHSHD at least we voted in the majority tho?? I kinda wanna see Nehe come back from the challenge bc we've played before and he was pretty cool and he's friends w Benj!! Anyways I like Cullen he's pretty cool to talk to

Welcome to Kuwait bitches !!!! I just had a huge margarita and I’m drunk so now I’m gonna tell u about it.

Nothing has happened for me yet except I’m with Stevie who is a Capricorn. He said nice he is my masc gay friend because he plays flag football. Kinda cool he’s my bud but I rlly wanna TALK TO OTHER POEOL!!!!!!!! 24 is a too much cast I hope Nehemiah beats chips because I am friend with Nehe and people clearly don’t like him I guess Iran kinda suspicious that four teams all voted him!!!!

But hey listen you wanna know what’s even fucking worse ?????!!!!!!! = TWO FUCKER ZODIAC SIGNS VORED FOR ME AND STEVIE!!!!! What the Afuck is UP WITH THAT!? So I’m coming into this game with a grudge already except I have no clue who the grudge is against. It’s honestly kind of upsetting and I rlly want things to get started so I can talk to people and be cute. I’m trying to think they’re rlly aren’t many hot boys yet except trace is kinda cute. I need to find out which straight boys there are the.

Ummmmm I love corey I was in nyc with him so thays cool we met and we’re sisters. Kait is a queen and I rlly hope she wants to work with me but it’s scary bc sometimes she ones after me. I bet she wrote the same thing about me lol. If she voted for me and Stevie she is dead to me!!!!!!!! Redhead Timmy is cool he’s nice and my friend. Love Brandon, I hope he wants to work w/ me bc last time we played a game together he got mad evacez. That girl named Chloe seems nice too bad I voted for her but a t least no one else did

This confessional has been so fonking boring I’m gonna make a video later don’t worry

brought my poppers to the party now I’m ready to watch the fun xo

Hello, So Aries got no votes and I feel blessed but also y’all stuck me with maynor, the drunkest person in this game, who’s chill but also I feel like he’ll fuck me over first chance he gets. But anyway I didn’t really want Pisces to go, mostly for chips because I think he’s the one that sent me a $10 google play gift card in 2016 for winning fan favorite once in a game he hosted and I STILL remember the movie I bought with that $$$ so I wanted to play with him so hopefully nehe goes so I can play with chips and get more google play gift cards hehe. Ok I need to go talk to maynor more even if it’s difficult bc I need allies ok bye.

So here I am!!! First confessional of the game! I am honestly shook that Kait and Owen are playing ahhhhh!!! Scary!!! But also my first impressions made me not like Chips so much so I’m glad he’s been voted “out”. My only hope is that he is the actual first boot of the season and that the other guy comes back! 🤞🏻

So it comes as not surprise to me that the Pisces get the majority of the votes. Even not knowing the details of Nehemiah and his relationship with others I am aware of the impression he gives. I was in the viewing lounge for International House of Survivor where people actively rooted against him as well as the duo's season of House of Shade where he was not taken seriously at the finale.

Truthfully it is kind of terrible to be targeted because I am on a tribe with someone who is not well liked by a chunk of the cast but I guess those are the punches you roll with. It would be similar in situation for anyone who had been put with a winner had the players not voted personally.

Instead of getting voted out we were given the chance to do a challenge. The challenge is counting as high as you can go and Nehemiah asked me to throw it for him. He said that he is not playing anything and that this is all he has. I told him that I didnt sign up for the season not to play at all.

I decided I am going to count to 1337 and then stop. If Nehemiah wants it more than me and he counts higher then he deserves to continue on. I want to play and I want to compete but I have had a busy day with my wife celebrating her birthday and my infant needing lots of attention.

I hope this is not my last confession but if it is it will be a fun experience getting first boot.

So we have this TikTok challenge for immunity and the one thing going through my mind is how the Hell are me and Kait going to do this? Neither one of us know how to use TikTok and now we have to make a video using it? Hopefully we can adapt quickly. It shouldn't be that hard.

A tiktok challenge. Really why. I hope Renee and I are able to be part of the 6 signs who are safe. I dont know how tiktok works so hopefully what we came up with is fine. I will literally die if tiktok is the reason we lose immunity and i go home. Like please dont let that happen.

I feel fairly confident that I’ll be going to tribal council this episode, because the Tik Tok challenge is proving to be a bit difficult, and I would do it alone if I could but I can’t! I wanna make this whole thang work with Adrian but now it’s making me nervous. If I get eliminated from Survivor because of Tik Tok I’ll SCREAM for a hot minute then work it into a standup bit or something

Well it is day 3 in this game and I am still pretty bored. I am PRAYING that me and Timmy can pull out a top 3 win in the video challenge so that way I can have other people to talk to. It's not that Timmy is THAT boring, it's just hard to only speak with one person when the game has 22 others.

Normally I hate these kinds of challenges, but I actually think that I came up with a pretty good idea. Hopefully Timmy can supply and we will be able to pull this one out. Obviously I am happy to not be first boot, but sitting around and waiting for stuff to happen is my least favorite way to play these games. Wish us luck!

Renee is editing our video. I am very nervous cuz idk if the judges will like it. We dont have go be the best. All i care is for us to be in one of the 6 spots of saftey. I dont want to have either one of us in danger of leaving. Im crossing my fingers and i hope they like it enough. This 2 tribe  twist is so nerve wracking. 😧

Think I might just take a nap bc stevie isn’t giving me any ideas to work with and I rlly don’t have a single creative idea in me rn I’m actually so annoyed like can he please just come up with something I’ll do all the work I’ll edit and whatever if he can just make the CHOICE!

So the past round has definitely been eventful for the sole fact that I was already voted out of this game before it even started. Like it kinda fits though seeing how I am and the relationships I’ve made over the months and years I’ve played these games. There are definitely tons of people from different games and different reasons to which I screwed them over. Definitely left sour tastes in majority of their mouths and I didn’t even realize who majority of the cast was until I was voted out 4-2-1-1-1-1 cause we voted with our sun sign. Chips was cool and I personally wanted to rebond with the dude after Kilimanjaro and on top of that I just feel bad. The dude was voted out for being my partner. I sent that motherfucker home unintentionally.

I had no faith in myself that I was winning that challenge yet now here I am still in the game with a chance. Yet the game was hit with another massive wave in the form of a twist that honestly is clever. The tribes of 2 is staying that way which unfortunately for me means my tribe of 1 is also staying that way. Top 6 teams will be safe meanwhile the bottom 6 go to the war zone aka tribal council. Where one is voted out. Now in my perspective if I was to lose this challenge (which hehe all on a tribe by myself having to depend on comp skills puhlease) I  will be attending an 11 person tribal council with all tribes having 2 but me. So I would outright stand as an easy target but I’m not going to roll over and die. The best way to survive would definitely be to worm my way into the ins. I also definitely need to right the wrongs that I have committed to some of these people who already decided to not want to deal with me. I mean what’s the point of getting rid of someone who is definitely going to be in the war zone a lot cause he can’t win by himself BUT he would most definitely be a number for your game if you choose to use him. The game is gonna merge into official better tribes sooner or later and I want to be there when it happens and I know I’m a loyal person to have by my side. There are people in this game that I haven’t played with or met and this is good for the power of surprise to the type of player I am.

Ok woo, so trace and I voted in the majority for the first vote so that was amazing. I'm sad Chips left and not Nehe because that would've made the game a lot better. I'm just hoping with this challenge and nehe being alone that his score is lower since it'll probably lose some comedic value...or at least I hope. I hate this challenge with all my being though because music video type challenges are the thing that gives me the most anxiety in orgs. Going to tribal doesn't even give me as much anxiety tbh. I usually don't even submit this challenge but I can't let trace down because that would suck for both our games and right now I need to focus on his game as well. Trace has been so helpful with this challenge and I'm so thankful that I'm on this tribe with him since he came up with the song and is doing the editing (i just had to film 15 seconds of me not trying to look totally disgusting). But all in all I think this will be a good video and I'm excited to see the results.

So my partner Devon and I are safe this week. For now, this is ideal as I need my first impression to be lackluster but still.. safe. I want people to see me as a loyal but foolish pawn who could be useful in competitions (not deadweight) but no comp threat. The downside is the lack of socialization. I can still only interact with Devon and am isolated from people I need to interact with, such as Madison or Owen or literally all the people I have absolutely no knowledge on. I fear pre-mades / pre-existing relationships. 4 votes on Virgo seemed unlikely but Chips leaving was good imo as there seemed to be more than 1 person from their cast in this game if I correctly recall from the intros. I will try to DM Devon more than I have as I need us to have somewhat of a bond or understanding even if it's only till ponderosa as I know most duos will have similar kinds of deals/bonds and to not have one is a disservice at this point although having him leave could get rid of the potential deadweight in upcoming challenges. Regardless, a healthy social bond never hurt me. I am excited for this twist to end whenever it does because it really is slowing down my momentum and makes me feel like I'm behind (I said this before I was isolated with immunity too). Final thoughts: not bad for a dead bitch!

Wofhei Stephen ❤️ Hopefully he wants to work with me. The last time we played I did blindside him, very hard. The two ppl i want to strengthen my bonds with is Stephen and Madison. Ive meet Madison before so this is gunna be exciting to get to know her more. And hopefully wants to work together in this game. Matt B from Marmoreal I need to talk to because it’ll be noce since I kinda talked to him in my host chat. Also someone Im leaning towards working with.

This twist is so awful, so much strategy and factors are removed by not actually being in tribes. Its a mess, and a 12 person tribal? awful. But hey I have a planning day tomorrow so I dont teach, get to spend the day getting some form of alliance going, hopefully that can protect me cause..... if this twist continues ill be going to tribal a lot

Hello, Honestly fuck this twist!!! Making me play the first night small talk game AND the first tribal panic game in 1 day this is NOT fair. Actually I’m being dramatic it’s kinda interesting because it’s forcing me to play without knowing shit. Anyway I think I can trust maynor, ian has been really fun to talk to so I’m glad for that, I reached out to almost everyone else.. hopefully we can all agree to just go for someone inactive for this vote, then hopefully y’all will finally make us real tribes (hint hint) thanks ok bye

It’s been nixe talking and getting to know the other people but like we have a tribal and vote someone off. So kinda nervous havent heard anything about that. Renee and I decided to try and get votes for Cloe. She seems really nice but havent talked to her much. Im sorry Cloe if you do end up going.

Safety? For being the only duo to make a TikTok with a Survivor moment and not a song? Iconique! Who knew the judges were such avid Brenda Lowe stans. I live and love them for that! AND we scraped by the first tribal!!! YES safety!

In other words, Nehe being the one with the top score this challenge..... What the fuck? I seriously need him to go like NOW. Its probably weird of me to be all obsessive about him, but like the things that this kid can do. Like people should fucking learn that you never can trust him and since he's all alone- the moment he goes to tribal, Im gunning for his ass.

I have talked to Cullan, Willow, Ian. (New people to me). Ive talked to Stephen, Matt B, and Madison (who i know). I havent talked to Cloe, Brandon, Taylor, and Jacob. I really like Ian but idk how he feels about his partner Cloe. Since Cloe is mine and Renee’s target.

At some point the ball has to start rolling, if it already has I'm fucked and didn't get out ahead of it fast enough. I've played real nice and friendly because first and foremost you need numbers and have to maintain those numbers before you can get into a position to start trimming the fat. I need this vote to go one really anyone but me and Chloe, I still need her, for now. Chloe needs to be my get out of jail free card. As of writing this, Brandon seems like the most likely target to pin the vote on. He hasn't talked to me yet and I'm under the impression he hasn't talked to others either.

We roughly have 2 hrs before tribal and None of these FOOLS are talking about the vote. :p imma die but i think atleast it might end up being between Cloe and BDC. I really like Ian and Matt B but the two targets are their partners so i hope me voting BDC or Cloe wont affect them potentially working with me.

It looks like BDC may be going which is awesome because he really hasn’t talked to me (or anyone else). I really hope people aren’t lying to me when they say they are good with voting BDC tonight. This is giving me facebook game flashbacks where there wasn’t much game talk and I was blindsided. That once tribal has given me soo much anxiety and makes me very paranoid this first tribal. I just hope me and Renne dont get any votes tonight.

[pumpkins-s]

King and Reaper

Read on AO3 Here

Allura had told them once that Voltron was their destiny.

If anything, Keith thinks, Lance had proven that while finding the lions might have been on the dime of some greater plan, compliance to their supposed fate was not strictly required in any remote sense of the word.

In fact, by Lance's standard of doing things it was all rather bullshit.

(Or: The story of the destruction of Earth and its aftermath, feat. questionable science in regards to weapons of mass destruction, gratuitous Star Wars references, theoretical chess games with the emperor of most of the known universe, explosions, the greatest bromance of all time, the worst romance of all time, far too many guns, concussions, extreme misuse of the French language, awkward flirting, and Lance in an overly-dramatic trench coat.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: Keith/Lance, platonic Lance & Hunk and Keith & Hunk

Characters: Keith, Lance, Hunk, Allura, Shiro, Pidge, Coran, Nyma, Rolo

Written for @klangst-week‘s Day 7 Prompt: Destiny/Choice. A couple days late, but in my defense, this was a nightmare to power through.

Full thing + content warnings are under the cut.

((Author Notes:

Conveniently, Klangst week coincided with my spring break this year, so instead of doing a couple short fics like a normal person, this happened.

For the record, I wrote this entire thing in 6 days solely because I wanted to put Lance in a trench coat and make Star Wars references. So if you're wondering why it's Bad, this is why.

Enormous thanks to markedpatches on tumblr for beta reading the beginning sections of this, and to inkedstarsandcoldstairs for patiently proofreading pretty much this entire thing! Y'all are the best and I am So Sorry.

A few quick warnings in here for depictions of violence, descriptions of blood and wounds, references to eye and face trauma, and. like. blowing up a whole planet?

Look. It's for klangst week.

(This one's got a playlist fam.) ))

Keith knows it’s not going to be a good day the minute he walks into the castle’s dining hall for the daily morning briefing they lazily disguise as breakfast to find his team sitting tensely in their chairs, individual expressions of discomfort or outright worry on their faces, while Allura sits primly at the head of the table, jaw set and glaring down at her tea with a kind of regal poise that makes the offending object look like it deserves to be thrown out the airlock for whatever it did.

 “Oh God.” He says, not even bothering to sit down as he crosses his arms and takes in the room. “What?”

 Perhaps when they had first been launched into space, Keith might not have held the people skills to recognize the subtle expressions of his teammates, minus Shiro, but if Voltron has given him nothing else, it’s provided him with intimate knowledge of the workings of his teammates, and he can recognize a shit storm about to come down.

 “Keith, buddy!” Hunk says quickly, voice cracking on the second word with poorly disguised panic. His hands are fluttering against the tabletop where they rest, fingers twisting and tangling with one another over and over in a pattern that Keith has over time come to recognize as one of his nervous habits, a sign Hunk is about five minutes from quite literally vibrating out of his seat and fleeing to the kitchen to stress bake in order to stave off an impending panic attack. “How are you?”

 “You tell me.” Keith sighs. “What’s wrong?”

 “Keith.” Allura says with a tone that belies no contradictions or arguments. “Please take a seat, we must discuss plans in relation to our next move against the Empire.”

 He raises an eyebrow, but complies, dropping into his chair and, on second thought, kicking his feet up onto the table, ignoring the horrified look Shiro gives him for it. He’ll take what kind of petty disobedience he can get away with right now, in the face of what he knows will be an order from Allura he won’t like. “What next move? The castle was pretty dinged up in the last attack, isn’t that why we’ve been hiding out here for the last week and a half?”

 Allura purses her lips. “Quite.” After a moment of what would Keith would call hesitation on anyone else, but comes off as a kind of dramatic pause for tension with Allura, she sighs. “Our repairs of the castle have turned up a larger problem than we originally anticipated. The Alrexan stones that provide power to the central neural command, which I use to control and fly the castle, have cracked under the strain of the last few skirmishes we’ve been in. We can fly, for now, but they will not hold up under another battle.”

 “I thought the Balmeran crystal powers the ship?” Keith asks, barely able to keep the disgruntlement out of his voice at the thought of yet another mission to retrieve obscure objects to repair the castle.

 Across the table, Pidge nods. “It does, but from what I can understand of the castle’s schematics, these stones are a power conduit for the controls that sync with Altean quintessence, which is what allows the ship to be flown by only one person from Allura’s command center on the main deck.” They grin sheepishly. “The stones on Allura’s pedestals are smaller versions of the bigger stones down in the castle’s main system. It’s an inherently different problem from when the crystal gave out. Lose the crystal, we lose all power, all the way down to door controls and life support. Lose the stones, and we’ll still have a working castle in terms of power, but the remote command abilities will cease to exist, which means we’d need a few hundred of us to run the castle manually.”

 “…Great.” Keith says, already feeling like he’s fighting off a headache. “So what giant sentient creature are we going to fly into this time?”

 “Actually.” Allura cuts in calmly. “The Alrexan stones are found solely on a small, perfectly normal planet with only docile, unintelligent life forms living on it.”

 “So what’s the problem, then?”

 “Keith…” Shiro says quietly, staring down at the table and refusing to make eye contact with him with dedicated avoidance. “According to our maps… Alrexa is the current base camp planet for the Blue Lion Resistance.”

 Two seats down, Hunk jumps up violently, seemingly unable to hear the words for, assumedly, a second time, given everyone had seemed to have already discussed this before Keith arrived, and darts out of the room, likely headed to the kitchen or his lion’s hangar to have a breakdown in peace. Keith holds his tongue until Hunk is gone, and then turns on Shiro, glaring over at the other with undisguised fury.  “No.”

 At the head of the table, Allura bristles. “This isn’t a debate—“

 “I said no!” He snarls, bringing a fist down onto the table as he stands and ignoring the way Pidge flinches at the action across from him. “We’ll just have to find another way!”

 Allura rises, ignoring Shiro’s quiet plea of her name, with flames in her eyes, and Keith tries not to think about how the anger there looks so much like his own reflected back at him. “We do not have a choice, we need this repair! I know you do not wish to confront him, but we cannot pick and choose who we help and where we go based on mixed feelings!”

 “Don’t be an idiot.” Keith hisses, irritation and borderline rage simmering low in his gut and crawling up into his chest. Mixed feelings, his ass. How dare she simplify things like this, as if he wasn’t a gaping wound they felt constantly, as if it was so easy to forget what they had done, what had been irrevocably destroyed. “He’d be more likely to shoot us all on sight, starting with you! And with fucking good reason, I might add!”

 “Keith!” Shiro barks as Allura recoils back, looking like she’s been slapped, and Keith sneers, turning and stalking out of the room with the fury of the Red lion humming in his bones, demanding that he stay and fight, remind Shiro and Allura of the unfixable damage they had all allowed to happen to their team, to the pack.

 He shoves it down, turning on his heel and heading for the training room with the intent to go beat his anger out into one of the training bots until he can’t think anymore.

 It’s the only way he ever even temporarily escapes the ghost of what was, these days.

    It’s Hunk who hunts him out, hours later, cornering Keith on the holodeck where he sits watching the projected star systems above him, because of course it’s Hunk, who else would be willing to track him down and put up with him in his anger but the ever-patient yellow paladin?

  “Y’know,” He start conversationally, startling Keith out of his reverie as he sits down beside him with a quiet grace that belies his size, “I don’t think I ever once saw you here, before.”

 He doesn’t need to specify what before means.

 Keith shrugs. “There was never a need.” He pauses. “…This was his space, anyways. He liked it here.”

 Hunk sighs. “Yeah, he did. He liked looking at Earth, I think.”

 They both pointedly ignore the gaping hole in the star map.

 After a moment, Keith huffs, averting his eyes from Hunk and glaring down at the floor beneath him. “You can’t seriously think this is a good idea.”

 “No,” Hunk says calmly, “I really, really don’t, and if it was up to me I’d probably choose going Weblum-diving again over this if it was an option, but I also understand what’s going on with the castle a lot better then you do, no offense, and trust me, Allura’s right. If we don’t replace those stones before they shatter, we’ll be dead in the water.”

 “Then lets hit up the space malls and all that other bullshit until we find some!” Keith snaps, throwing his arms up in an exaggerated gesture he knows he picked up from a certain paladin, and looking to Hunk. “We find obscure shit all the time in the weirdest places, fuck, Pidge and— Pidge found a cow once, there’s no way these stones are only on this planet!”

 Hunk deflates. “That’s what I said, at first, but turns out these stones only work with Alteans. There’d be no reason for any swap moons to carry them, according to Allura.”

 Keith snorts. “And you believe her?”

 “Yes, I do.” Keith sneers at the words, and Hunk looks over at him tiredly. “I need to be able to believe that everyone on this team, including Allura, is honest, alright? I need that trust, because without it, I’d have no idea what I’m doing here anymore.”

 “It’s naivety.”

 “Maybe.” Hunk says. “But I’m tired, Keith. I’m so tired. I never signed up for this war, and it ended up taking everything from me. If I don’t at least have faith in the people in this castle, I have nothing. I can’t just run on anger and adrenaline all the time like you do.”

 He scowls, but doesn’t argue, because, in a way, he knows what Hunk says is the truth, about all of it.

 If anyone had told Keith, back when they first formed Voltron, that he and Hunk would end up this close, he never would have believed them. Hell, before everything went to shit he’d barely thought much of Hunk at all— Not in a bad way, but just that he literally did not put much time into cultivating a friendship with the other, beyond the casual camaraderie he’d shared with everyone on the team, but… things change, people change, and as it stands now he probably spends more time with Hunk than he does with even Shiro.

 Hunk, he thinks, at least feels something. Sometimes he looks at Shiro, in his calm collectiveness in the face of what they’ve done, and he feels like throttling him.

 “I don’t like it.” He says quietly, turning back to the original topic of their conversation, and next to him Hunk sighs out slowly.

 “Neither do I.”

 “What if we’re not even allowed onto the planet?”

 Hunk chews his lip nervously, shrugging. “Allura and Shiro are hoping that… old fondness might allow us to gain entry.”

 “You mean Allura’s going to land whether she has permission or not by threat of the castle’s firepower and then stick you or Coran in front as a human shield when we get off the ship because he’s less likely to shoot you two.” Hunk winces in response, and Keith snorts. “It’s not about these stones, really, is it? That’s just giving her an excuse. She wants to try and negotiate with him.”

 Hunk is silent for far too long, staring up at the star map above them with haunted eyes. “We’re not winning anymore, Keith. Maybe we managed to make it work for a while, but… Things are bad. We need Voltron. In a way, we’re lucky the Resistance takes up more of the Empire’s attention. If we were its sole focus, we’d probably all be dead by now.”

 “…Maybe it’s a good thing we’ve stopped winning. Maybe we don’t deserve to play heroes anymore.”

 “Do you really think that?” Hunk asks, sadness and disappointment mixing with curiosity, and Keith groans.

 “No, of course not. We’ve protected hundreds of planets, saved millions of lives. It’s just— We’ve made mistakes too, but instead of learning from them we just ignore them, write them off as inevitable! They’ve spent two years pretending it didn’t happen, and now they want to acknowledge it? Fuck that. Just… fuck it. It’s not right.”

 “You think I don’t know that?” Hunk mumbles, quiet anger creeping into his words. “I lost my home, Keith, and I lost my best friend, someone who’d been practically family since we were children, and then I had to watch everyone trip over themselves to find someone else to blame. Of course it isn’t right.”

 Keith winces, ducking his head, and Hunk pales. “Sorry, I—“

 “No, you’re right.” Keith says lowly. “You lost a lot more than I did, I’m just being self-centered.”

 “It’s not a contest. We all lost something, we just… had different ways of handling it.”

 Keith barks a laugh. “Shitty ways of handling it, you mean.” He sighs, running a hand over his face and fighting the urge to just grab his bangs and pull, use the sharp edge of pain to remind himself of his own existence and dull all the swarming thoughts in his mind. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what we think, does it? They’re not going to listen anyways.”

 Hunk shrugs. “That’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?”

 Keith stills, fighting to keep himself from looking to the star map at the words, to the gaping hole where a beacon of life once rested, shoves down the bile in his throat and the burn of pain just at the memory of the image and locks it away. Dissociate, compartmentalize, repeat.

 “…Yeah, it has.”

    It began, and it ended, with the destruction of Earth.

 Or… No, that wasn’t quite right.

 The death of the Earth was both a beginning and an end, yes, to so much, but the whole mess that led up to it? That began when Lance found the schematics for the death ray.

 Well… That’s what he’d called it, at least. Keith had never bothered to find out what actual name the Galra had given it, if any at all. It didn’t matter. It did its job, and in the end it was destroyed in turn. That’s all that counted, at the end of the day.

 …Or perhaps, really, it started long before all that.

 Things changed after that final fight with Zarkon.

 Keith doesn’t know what they expected, really. It had been naïve to assume that taking out Zarkon would instantly solve all their problems. Of course he would have a heir, of course there would be a backup plan. Ten thousand years of domination and cruelty couldn’t survive on just one corrupted soul— There was no doubt some, if not most, Galra must have swung to Zarkon’s side during the war, given Allura’s reactions to the species as a whole, and after so long under Zarkon’s rule, many of the Galran elite would of course come to see their place in the Universe as natural.

 Hell, they hadn’t even killed Zarkon, just… knocked him out of commission.

 And that had opened the door for Lotor.

 In a way, Keith wonders sometimes if they might have been better off just continuing to deal with Zarkon. Yes, the dictator was a terrifying monster that even he himself had learned wielded immense, terrifying power that was almost impossible to match, but at least with Zarkon they knew what they were dealing with. With Lotor, there was no interest in merely “capturing” Voltron, or a predictable obsession with the Black lion to bet on. Instead, they now just had a new Galran emperor to deal with who considered them an annoying nuisance that needed to be squashed out at the soonest convenience. Oh, sure, he doesn’t doubt that Lotor would happily claim Voltron as a weapon for himself if given the opportunity, but he doesn’t hold the same obsession with preserving the autonomy of the lions his father did, and if its easier to destroy Voltron than conquer it, that seems to be good enough for Lotor.

 Lotor was a new-age strategist walking onto a field of old players, and for the princess, who had been partaking in a ten thousand year old chess game of war with Zarkon, his way of playing destroyed both the rules and the expectations.

 It hadn’t helped, of course, that amongst the midst of all this, they hadn’t even had Shiro with them to be their guide.

 After he had disappeared following the battle with Zarkon, Shiro had remained missing for two of the longest months of Keith’s life.

 They hadn’t had the slightest idea what to do— They’d retreated back to a star system where there weren’t any life forms or, more importantly, Galrans, for galaxies, and there they’d remained.

 Keith had known that Shiro wanted him to lead, to take charge if something ever happened to the other, but at the time all he’d felt was… numb, those first couple weeks caught up in a haze of helpless rage and apathy, spiraling between the two extremes without pause or pattern.

 He’d been… lost.

 They all had.

 In retrospect, Lance had handled it the best out of all of them, excepting perhaps Coran, who already had far too much experience with losing people and knew how to push it aside in favor of more immediate matters. While the rest of them shut down, Lance was there searching for a way out of the mess they’d gotten themselves into. He became a fixture in front of the monitors on the flight deck where Allura normally stood, working through the nights in order not to get caught by the others on the screens Keith hadn’t even noticed him learn to use with such proficiency.

 Keith had seen him there more than once, on the nights where he couldn’t sleep no matter how hard he tried, grief and terror and anxiety clawing at his throat, and eventually would get up to just pace the halls of the castle until morning.

 Lance never noticed him hovering outside the entrance to the flight deck, and Keith had never bothered to alert the other to his presence.

 Perhaps he didn’t want Lance to turn the mothering hand to him that he had been using on the others to coax them into eating and sleeping, or perhaps he just didn’t know what to say.

 He’s… not sure if he regrets that decision or not.

 It hadn’t really clicked for him as to just how much the aftermath of Shiro’s disappearance had changed Lance until he caught the other in the training room one night, doing the same stupid thing Keith himself had snuck down there to do.

 He had been used to catching Shiro working his way through a steady stream of training bots, or Shiro in turn catching him doing the same thing, but he hadn’t been prepared to find Lance perched in one of the holes in the walls of the training room that served as their versions of sniper’s nests, bags under his eyes and hair unkempt yet gaze perfectly steady as he took down training bot after training bot with his bayard, eventually switching to just a handheld blaster that served as the Altean equivalent of handguns, as far as Keith could tell, without even a pause.

 It had been unnerving, to say the least. He’d never seen Lance so calm in the face of a fight before, the other usually taking even their training as an excuse to fuck around to the best of his considerable ability. Lance… just wasn’t a serious fighter, it was an inevitable part of his personality that lent him to background noise and assisting others, not… the kind of calm certainty Keith was used to seeing from Shiro or Allura in the face of an impending storm.

 The whole thing had left a sour taste in his mouth, and he’d opted to try and forget about it, writing it off as a fever dream from the stress of the whole period of time.

 These days, Keith can’t help but wonder sometimes if that is the Lance people see now, when they meet him. If the calm killer he’d seen hiding under the surface for only a moment is the face of an entire movement.

 Do they even know the real Lance? The idiotic child who had flirted innocently with the princess and challenged Keith to pointless races down the castle’s corridors? The paladin who had hated hurting others and had just wanted to go home?

 Or… Had the Lance he’d seen methodically work his way through star charts on Allura’s command deck and shoot down training bots without even a flinch or pause been the real Lance after all? Had the Lance they had known been the lie?

 …Keith has never figured out which train of thought scares him more, though he does know those are the musings that drive him to the training room, beating his feelings into a bot until he can’t feel anything but his own heartbeat.

 Only once had Keith seen someone else with Lance on those nights where the other flitted around the flight deck, commanding the screens with calm focus as he searched for… something.

 It had been Hunk, of course, because really, Keith thinks, only Hunk knew perhaps even a piece of this side of Lance.

 “You can’t keep doing this.” Hunk had said, voice low and entirely unaware of Keith’s presence in the background. “You’re about one second away from collapsing, Lance. You need to rest.”

 “I can’t.” Lance had answered, with frustrating indifference. “I’m sorry Hunk, but I can’t. We don’t know what’s coming next, and the others are too preoccupied with finding Shiro to pay attention to the movements of the Empire.”

 Hunk had made a frustrated noise, gesturing to the screens. “This isn’t even about the Empire. I may not be a language nut like you who picks up Altean writing this easily, but even I know enough to tell.”

 “…We need to find Shiro, even if it’s just his body.” Lance sighed, turning away from Hunk. “And Allura and Keith and Pidge, they’re not in the right mindset to do that right now, let alone deal with considering the option that Shiro might be dead. So if finding proof of what happened to Shiro speeds up the healing process, or at least gets them to a place where they can focus on other things, so be it.” Lance had paused, running a hand through his hair and looking to Hunk tiredly. “I’m serious though, something is coming, I can just feel it. We’ve got a month, maybe two at best, while the Galrans regroup, if we’re lucky. Kolivan says—“

 “You’ve been talking to Kolivan?”

  “Yes Hunk, I’ve been talking to Kolivan, because the dude is stuck on this ship with us and no one has been bothering to ask his opinion or even check he’s alright given he just lost two of his men! He’s the closest thing we have to an informed source on how the Empire might move now, so I’m damn well going to listen to him.”

 “…Right.” Hunk had coughed awkwardly.

 “Look. I know you’re just trying to look out for me, but I can handle myself. Take care of yourself first, and if you want to help, then keep an eye on Pidge so I can focus on making sure Keith or Allura don’t kill anyone during an argument.”

 “But—“

 “I’m fine. I’ve got Coran and Slav helping me figure out Shiro, and Kolivan helping me with tracking the Empire. I can handle this.”

 Hunk had just sighed, and Keith had opted to slip away before either of the occupants of the room caught onto his presence.

 He hadn’t slept that night, Lance’s words running through his head in an echoing mantra.

 The frustrating thing, though, was that Lance had been right. They weren’t coping with Shiro’s disappearance, and the idea of focusing on anything else, let alone considering the possibility Shiro might need replacing, was unacceptable. Even after overhearing that conversation, Keith still couldn’t bring himself to suggest to Allura or the others that they might need to think about other options— He had felt like if he let himself say it, then it became a reality, and that… that was too much.

 So he raged and wasted time in the training room taking his feelings out on the training bots and helped Allura scour their scanners for any sign of Shiro, and he willed himself to forget what he had seen of the calm, analytical Lance he’d caught glimpses of in the dead of night.

 It took three weeks before Coran quietly interjected and suggested they might need to think about ways to continue to form Voltron in Shiro’s absence.

 It took four for them to accept it.

 Keith had told the others of Shiro’s decision that he should lead Voltron if something should happen to the other, doing his best to ignore Lance’s unimpressed stare from the corner of the room, and didn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened when Allura agreed without hesitation.

 No one had objected once Allura gave her approval, even if Keith could feel the weight of Lance’s disapproval, Hunk’s uncertainty, Kolivan’s lack of impressment, clinging to him.

 Lance had finally broke when Allura suggested that the easiest pilot replacement might be for her to take the Blue lion and for Lance to move to Red.

 “Uh, no. Not going to happen.”

 Keith had seen Allura look at Lance with irritation before, but the sheer depth of it on that occasion had him wincing. “And why not?”

 “I can’t fly Red, and you certainly can’t fly Blue.”

 It had been Pidge who spoke next, looking to Lance with annoyance as the lack of sleep she’d been getting got the better of her temper. “No one’s happy about this, Lance. Now’s not the time for your stupid inferiority complex.”

 “It’s not that!” Lance had snapped, throwing his hands up. “Even I’m not that selfish, jeez! I just mean it won’t work. We’ve all felt the lions’ presences when forming Voltron. Red’s completely the opposite of Blue. I know I come off as impulsive sometimes but believe me it’s not going to be enough to meet Red in the middle. We’re just too different. Never mind the fact that Blue isn’t going to let Allura pilot her, they’re not even remotely compatible.”

 “Excuse me?” Allura looked the angriest Keith had ever seen her, frustration boiling under her calm, regal visage.

 “Princess, with all due respect, you don’t have the temperament for Blue. I know you’ve told us she’s the easiest lion to bond with,” Here Lance winced at his own words, and Keith did his best to ignore it, “but Blue is all about fluidity, trust and loyalty and all that bull. You’re too commanding for her. If anything, you’d be better off in Red.”

 Allura snorted. “We will see about that. It is the lions’ decision, not yours.”

 In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Lance had been right.

 Red had reacted violently to the very idea of switching paladins, raising her particle barrier the minute they had entered the hangar, and Blue, despite her claimed easy-going nature, would not open for Allura, just as Lance had said.

 Keith hadn’t even approached Black, taking one look at them and knowing just from the weight in his chest that the chances of them opening were remote, especially when it would, in this current state, leave Red without a paladin.

 “I told you.” Lance muttered, and Allura had turned on him eyes blazing.

 “What would you suggest then, Lance? We need Voltron.”

 “We could put Kolivan—“

 Allura snorted, and Lance sighed. “Okay, fine. We rotate Coran in for Blue, I think they’d match well enough for the time being, and…” He shifted. “I could try Black?”

 Keith had blinked in surprise, staring at Lance in astonishment and wondering when the serious Lance of the night had crept into the day.

 “Absolutely not.” Allura didn’t even hesitate in her answer. “There is no way Black would answer to you.”

 He had expected Lance to wince, to shrink away, but instead he straightened up, glaring. “I know I’m not the best choice, I know I offer nothing special to the team, but—“ He huffed. “Coran told me that the old blue paladin was close to Zarkon, that they were able to communicate with the Black lion. Maybe that’ll be enough. We’ve got to try something, and this…” He gestured to the shut-off lions around them, “This isn’t working.”

 Allura had paled, eyes narrowing. “You are not the former blue paladin, and things are not the same as they were. Do not confuse the past with the present. If the lions will not accept this arrangement, we will just have to work until they do.”

 “The past seems to be enough for Blue to refuse you.” Lance had grumbled as Allura swept by, and Keith pretended not to notice her hands tighten into fists at his words.

 There were some things about Voltron’s checkered past that he just… didn’t want to know.

 (The next night, he caught Lance in the lion hangar, sitting in front of Black with an achingly solemn expression, speaking to the lion in quiet languages Keith didn’t recognize— At first, he had thought it was just Spanish, but eventually he noted the subtle shifts in the word sounds as he filtered through languages and they ran together, eventually settling on what Keith easily recognized as Japanese, perhaps trying to find a language the lion would prefer to listen to. Even now, he’s not sure if Lance was just talking to the Black lion, or with it. Of all the things from the past he tries not to think on, that memory is the one most pushed down, hidden in the depths of his guilt and his considerations on the what ifs.)

 The thing was, and Keith had accumulated a lot of time to think back on that day, among others, Allura’s… their dismissal of Lance wasn’t routed in hatred or dislike. They just… hadn’t respected him enough, too used to the Lance of the day to allow themselves to see the Lance of the night when he offered himself to them. The stress, the overwhelming fear of their situation making Lance an easy scapegoat to take their frustrations out on, to ignore and push aside in favor of their own opinions.

 That didn’t excuse their treatment of Lance, or make it right, but it was… context. Really, none of them had treated each other well during that time. Hunk and Coran were just as ignored as Lance, Kolivan and Slav treated as outsiders at best, Pidge picked fights with everyone who so much as looked at her, absorbed by insomnia and her desperation for clues to Shiro’s whereabouts, Allura coped by taking charge of the daily search with steely determination, and Keith… he shut himself away.

 Ultimately, they never had time to decide on a new way of approaching reforming Voltron. Three days after Blue’s refusal to accept Allura, and Red’s blatant aggression to even considering anyone but Keith, a flurry of distress signals went off all across the board.

 That was the first indication— Lotor may not have held the sheer power or respect of his generals that his father did, but he was infinitely more intelligent, and had no obsession with the Black lion to blind him.

 He baited them out of hiding far too easily.

 That became the month of running and taking cover, of playing guerilla warfare.

 (Perhaps that was where Lance had learned how to do so, or perhaps he was the one who already knew, who nudged them quietly towards that mode of fighting for survival without their conscious notice.)

 They responded to distress signals, of course, but without Voltron they simply didn’t have the firepower to go up a Galran fleet that suddenly seemed smarter and faster than ever before. This was a new enemy, and they were so busy trying to figure out how to successfully combat it that they never had the chance to sit down and actually discuss a feasible lion-swapping plan, let alone the extra time it would take to learn to reform Voltron.

 And so the Black lion went empty.

 Until just over two months after he’d vanished, Shiro appeared back in the cockpit, like he’d never left at all, shaken to the core and staring at them all like ghosts once they’d gotten the alert from the lion hangar and rushed down to find him.

 Shiro… He wouldn’t talk about what happened. Not to any of them.

 And, God, Keith tried, he tried so hard to get Shiro to talk to him, or to Allura, or to anyone. Pleaded with, begged, coddled the man who had been a part of his life for so long he was practically a brother into opening up to him, but he never got anywhere.

 Maybe Shiro wanted to protect them, maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to talk about it.

 Maybe it was both.

 And so they wallowed in that silence, Slav filling up the quiet spaces on the flight deck with long ramblings about alternate realities that only Lance and Coran seemed to pay any attention to while Shiro stared at the star map projections with haunted eyes.

 It didn’t occur to Keith until much, much later on that perhaps Slav had been trying to tell them all something with his inane chatter. That there was a reason no scanner could find Shiro, why he just seemed to disappear and then reappear right where he had been.

 Regardless, whatever had happened to Shiro, wherever he had gone… He wouldn’t tell. He locked it away and asked them in his silence to pretend to forget those two months, taking charge of Voltron again without hesitation, as if nothing had happened.

 They all have their individual coping mechanisms, Keith thinks, and for Shiro, it’s blocking out his trauma with a soldier’s focus on an immediate goal, a visible and logical obstacle to overcome, locking down his past and refusing to let it air unless he has no other option.

 …Then again, Keith himself is much the same.

 And just like that, they moved back into doing what they had always done since becoming paladins, just with a slightly different enemy to face.

 And the Lance of the night, of quick analysis and sharp movements and steady hands, disappeared in the face of their old equilibrium returning.

 (Or, at least, Keith stopped looking for him.)

 There were only glimpses of that Lance again, after that, in the rare moments like that first time Lance questioned Shiro’s orders in the face of approaching the Blade of Marmora even before all this started, emerging on the few occasions where Lance steadfastly voiced his disagreement with a plan Shiro or Allura suggested, arguing against then with the same calm logic he had used when refusing the lion changes, and with the same amount of success in getting people to listen to him.

 Keith wonders, sometimes, if perhaps this could have all been prevented even then, if he had gotten his head out of his ass and stopped taking Shiro’s word as law, had been willing to acknowledge Lance might have more going on under the surface than they initially thought. Perhaps, subconsciously, he’d enjoyed Shiro’s favor, basking in the approval of the one person who had been with him for much of his life, and had been reluctant to potentially lose that.

 Over time, Lance seemed to give up, and his objections faded, and Keith lost sight of the Lance of the night.

 Until the breaking point, until Earth.

    It had started with an intel-gathering mission.

 They had broken into a decent-sized transport depot, intent on gathering information on what was being moved where with the hopes that it would clue them into what Lotor’s plans were, both against them and the universe in general. Pidge had set herself up in the main control room of the shipping deck, Shiro standing guard, and himself, Hunk, and Lance had been sent out to find what Pidge aptly described as ‘important-looking computers’ within the greater complex of the depot itself, the three of them under strict warnings to stay on the comms and ‘not do anything stupid’.

 (Perhaps, Keith thinks often, if they hadn’t opted to split up, things might have turned out different.)

 They’d split levels of the depot between them, himself and Lance scrapping over who got stuck with the lower level and who got the top one, for some inane reason Keith can no longer remember.

 Lance won and got the top floor, and it was… It was fine. Had been fine. A normal mission with a bit of lighthearted arguing and competition over the comms as to who could find the computers they were looking for first.

 Until they were all in the rooms with the tech in question, portable chips that allowed Pidge’s program remote control of the systems, and then Lance’s voice rang out over the comms.

 “There’s another monitor in here.”

 “An additional screen setup?” Pidge’s voice had answered, only half paying attention.

 “No, no. Like… A whole second system, completely removed from the one I plugged you into. Smaller. Galra laptop version.”

 Keith and Pidge had groaned in time at Lance’s seemingly less-than-helpful terms of description, Keith already half tuning the other out as he focused on getting the chip Pidge had given him plugged into his own computer, Lance’s insistent chatter about ‘Galra laptops’ drowning to white noise.

 “Lance.” Pidge had finally said, loud enough to cut through Keith’s distinct focus on the not-Lance things going on around him. “If it’s a smaller system, and doesn’t have an input plug like the main computer does, then it’s both useless to me right now and probably contains absolutely zero information. Please for crying out loud go back to the main computer and follow my instructions.”

 “One sec—“ Over the comms, Lance cursed quietly. “This is a lot harder without Kolivan on call to translate the shit I don’t understand. Galran is hard to read. Why’d we have to drop him back with the Blade?”

 “Lance.” Shiro snapped, breaking his silence.

 “One second, Shiro!” After a moment, Lance’s triumphant whoop signaling that he’d most definitely ignored Pidge’s orders and somehow gotten his way into the smaller computer rung out over the comms, and Keith had rolled his eyes, turning back to his own work monitoring the tiny Pidge-sprite on the monitor on his computer as it went to work.

 It had taken about three seconds before Pidge swore loudly, earning a scandalized gasp of her name from Shiro. “Abort mission, get out of there and back to the Green lion. It appears Lance in all his genius has triggered a system-wide alert by fucking around with that computer.”

 Keith gave his confirmation, listening as Hunk did the same, and had unplugged Pidge’s chip and booked it for the control room, barely noticing at the time that Lance hadn’t done the same until Shiro called his name impatiently over the comms.

 “H-Hold on.” Lance had answered. “If they had a security trigger on this, it must mean it’s important! Shit, I can’t read this.”

 “Lance.” Keith had growled, losing his patience. “Fucking leave the computer.”

 There was silence on Lance’s end aside from frantic typing and a couple unsteady, heavy breaths, until a crash followed by a yelp from Lance and the robotic voices of sentries rang through and Keith had turned on his heel, grumbling as he ran back to rescue his teammate.

 After the mission, Keith hadn’t thought any more on it, just another occasion where Lance got distracted with some inane thing and ended up needing saving. It was hardly like it was a new occurrence, really. That was just what happened with missions sometimes, especially when involving Lance, who for every moment of luck seemed to have an equal number of times where he tripped right into danger.

 Until the next morning, when debriefing on their mission and what Pidge had found, Lance brought up the computer he had been messing around with again, earning himself a bored look from Pidge as he rambled on nervously.

 As much as Pidge and Lance had gotten along as easy friends, as far as Keith could tell, she’d never seemed to put much stock in his opinions when it came to anything involving technology— And while, admittedly, Lance had nearly blown up some Altean tech messing with it, and Pidge really didn’t value any of their opinions when it came to what she considered her field, perhaps that, too, had been a mistake.

 “Lance.” She’d said firmly, pinching the bridge of her nose and dislodging her glasses with the movement. “With all due respect, if you’d just monitored my program properly and not tripped any alarms before I finished downloading the files, I’d have probably found whatever has you so worried.”

 “But this computer had a security system! That proves there was something important on it!”

 “All the computers have security systems!” Pidge snapped, throwing her hands up. “That’s why we use my program designed to get around them!”

 “Shiro.” Lance had turned, eyes begging. “I’m telling you, there was something big on that computer— I think they were schematics, something. A weapon.”

 “A weapon?” That had caught Allura’s attention if nothing else, leaning forward and staring at Lance curiously.

 “Yeah, like a— Like a death ray?”

 “…A death ray.” And just as easily, Allura’s interest had been lost.

 “I’m not lying! It was like… a huge ion cannon. It looked the freaking death star!”

 “What is a death star?” Allura asked, and Shiro groaned pointedly.

 “Lance this isn’t Star Wars and giant death rays aren’t real. I know Kolivan was teaching you a little Galran, but you said so yourself that you couldn’t really understand what you were looking at, and I’m more likely to side with Pidge and agree that it’s quite possible you never actually got into the system itself and just saw the security alerts.”

 “But—“

 “I promise we’ll keep an eye out in the future for something matching what you described.” Shiro said more patiently. “But I don’t think diverting all our focus on a weapon that may or may not even exist as a schematic is a good use of our time when there’s people that need our help now.”

 Lance had sighed, nodding, and that, Keith had assumed at the time, had been the end of it.

 At least, he’d thought as much until three nights later, when in a fit of pacing around the halls of the castle, the insomnia-driven habit never quite shaken even after Shiro had returned to them, he’d wandered across the strange version of Lance he’d thought died off after Shiro’s reappearance, standing in front of the monitors on the flight deck with deadly focus.

 After that, Keith couldn’t help but wander back each night he felt too restless to sleep, far too fascinated with this enigma of Lance that only seemed to exist away from the team’s eyes not to.

 (Maybe, just maybe, if he had intervened even then, had offered to help Lance, had approached Shiro, something might have changed.)

 Just like before, he only caught Hunk there with Lance once.

 “Don’t do this again.”

 “I have to be sure I was wrong.” Lance told Hunk quietly.

On their next mission two weeks later to help a planet that sent out a distress signal, Lance gave Pidge a file for her system scanners if they ran into any Galra tech.

 “I recreated the schematics based of what I remember. Just… see if you can find them.”

 Pidge had complied, albeit hesitantly, and when her scans of the Galra ship they’d taken down turned up nothing even remotely close to Lance’s model, they moved on.

 Keith had thought perhaps that would put a rest to it, for Lance, but four days later they got a new transmission from the Blade of Marmora with information from their spies suggesting the transport depot they had crashed had been moving some unidentified supplies on Lotor’s direct orders, and the next night Keith found Lance holed up in the training deck, shooting down bots with steel in his eyes.

 He had looked beautiful, and he had looked terrifyingly unlike the Lance of the day, and, ultimately, Keith had fled.

 A month after that initial mission, Allura caught Lance passed out against the base of her podium in the early morning, monitors still flickering idly, and it devolved into a screaming match that ended up dragging everyone into the argument, crossed arms and bared teeth looming over opposite sides of the flight deck.

 “Lance, please, you quite clearly have not been getting enough sleep, and you should not be playing with the monitors in this state.”

 “I’m fine!” Lance snapped, pushing Allura’s steadying hands away and glaring. “I don’t need babysitting, I just need you to believe me. I’m onto something here!” He gestured at the screens, and Allura squinted at the mess of words and diagrams across them.

 “…I cannot read this. Is the program Pidge built not supposed to translate your language?”

 “It does.” Pidge piped up. “Just not like… French.”

 Keith had squinted at Lance in confusion. “Since when do you speak French?”

 “I speak a lot of things! And it’s not—“ Lance looked to the monitor. “…It’s in French… And Spanish. That bottom part is in Spanish.”

 “If you’re so tired you’re losing track of what language you’re writing in, it’s probably time to quit.” Keith mumbled, ignoring the dirty look Lance shot him.

 “Lance I understand you are… upset, but this is not advisable.” Allura said smoothly. “Pidge has already checked your claims and we found no evidence of them. To keep pursuing it like this is foolish.”

 “Lay off, Allura.” Lance growled, turning back to the screens. “I can do what I want.” Allura bristled at Lance’s dismissive tone, and Keith winced, sensing the impending storm.

 “I will not have you messing around with the castle’s delicate systems without supervision just to feed your paranoia! Exhausting yourself on such a fruitless task, especially around potentially hazardous equipment, is ridiculous and risks placing you and your fellow paladins in danger!”

 “I’m telling you there’s something here we’re missing!” Lance had shouted back, waving his arms pointedly at the monitor even as he swayed uncertainly on his feet in his obvious fatigue. “It’s not just me! The Blade had evidence Lotor was moving shit around on the down-low! He’s planning something.”

 “The Blade has been well-proven in their ability to be wrong before.” Allura said coolly, and that had even Keith twitching, because, yes, he’d never really jumped onto the whole ‘galra heritage’ thing with much enthusiasm, but the Blade of Marmora was the only solid potential source of information on his mother that he had, and the fact that they were the good Galra was something he had always clung to.

 …Still clings to, if he’s being honest.

 “Don’t dump Lance’s Star Wars mania on the Blade.” He had snarled unthinkingly, ignoring Lance’s hurt expression at his words.

 “I’m not crazy and I’m not making this up!” Lance screeched with a frustration that had surprised them all. “How is what I’m suggesting even that far-fetched?! We know the Galra used something to destroy Altea, and we’ve seen them build pretty fucking big lasers and shit before, it’s not like there’s no evidence that they have the capabilities to build something able to target worlds! Do you really think Altea was so fucking important that Zarkon just one-and-done’d it and gave up on world-destroying power?! It’s not like it was the bloody center of all existence just because you lived there!”

 The sound of Allura slapping Lance had been startlingly loud against the sudden silence, her expression taught and pained, close to tears, even as Lance had stared at her in open shock.

 “Don’t you dare suggest I have forgotten what was done to my planet. I dismissed your theories because my father’s AI, which had his memories of the end of Altea, indicated that what Zarkon used was both unsustainable technology and relied on the magic of a race that died out thousands of years ago. It cannot be recreated, so do not speak of things you do not know.”

 Allura had strode out of the room hurriedly, Shiro chasing after her only a moment later, and Coran, with a concerned glance at Lance, right behind him.

 “That was harsh, dude.” Pidge’s voice had rung out softly.

 Lance steadied himself, turning back to the monitors with barely a flinch. “It needed to be said. Allura… Allura was the one who told me once that I shouldn’t confuse the past with the present. Just because whatever exact method Zarkon used then couldn’t be recreated to Alfor’s knowledge doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Technology advances and changes, it’s about the willingness to do it, not the formula.”

 “Lance…” Pidge sighed. “Look. I looked into your schematics notes and stuff, but I really can’t find anything. I’m not saying what you saw wasn’t there, but maybe you just got… confused. A large ion cannon doesn’t necessarily mean a… death ray.”

 “What are you even so worried about?” Keith said after a pause. “If an alternative power for destroying worlds was available, don’t you think Zarkon would have used it before now?”

 “…Lotor isn’t Zarkon.” Lance offered quietly. “He’s smarter, more goal-oriented. We’ve seen it in the way he attacks. I have read Alfor’s old notes on the destruction of Altea— I’m not a complete idiot, ya know. I don’t think there is a sustainable way to continuously use the power you’d need to take down a whole world, at least, not the kind of thing you could use more than once or twice without serious problems. For Zarkon, if regular Galra forces were enough to take down most planets, why bother?”

 “So?” Hunk prompted gently.

 “So it’s the kind of thing you’d reserve as an ultimatum, a final ace up your sleeve against your main opponent. A way to completely destroy them and everything they care about.”

 “…Like Altea.”

 “Yes, Pidge, like Altea.” Lance turned to them somberly, the Lance of the night, odd and thoughtful, hovering on the edges of his face. “Alfor was Voltron’s handler. He was Zarkon’s greatest enemy during their war. He destroyed Altea and its neighboring planets. If he was willing to do that, what would stop Lotor from doing the same now?”

 “Earth.” Keith said as Lance’s fears, his nightly musings in front of the monitors, his unfocused yet deadly and silent practices against the bots suddenly clicked into place.

 “It’s… That’s just not possible.” Pidge was quiet, but firm. “Shiro and my family were picked up on Kerberos, with no indication of where they’d originally come from. The Galra cruiser we saw outside Earth was only there because Shiro was, and all they know is that Shiro landed, found Blue, and left. How would they know Earth is our home planet or that there’s even any intelligent life there, especially if they haven’t approached Earth before now? It just… wouldn’t make sense.”

 Lance hesitated. “You think?”

 “I know. Now…” Pidge paused, fidgeting. “We should really go check on Allura.”

 As Hunk and Pidge had filed out the door and down the hall, Lance had hesitated just before the doorway, and Keith turned, stuck in those eyes that looked like the specter of the other Lance who haunted him— And yet, with this, this anger and fear and seriousness Lance had just expressed, perhaps the two were not as separate as Keith had pretended.

 “Nothing’s going to happen to Earth.” He had found himself saying. “I promise.”

 Lance’s expression shattered, and he fell against Keith, forehead pressed to his shoulder and breath hot against his collarbone.

 “Thank you.”

 And then he was gone, and Keith had been left only with the heat in his cheeks.

 Weeks and months and years later, he had dwelled on that moment endlessly, on the warmth of Lance, of the unbridled trust he’d placed in him despite their arguments and Lance’s previously proclaimed rivalry, of the faith he held in Keith’s word regardless of all the previous times he’d fought against it.

 And on how he’d failed that simple promise.

 It happened a month and some weeks after.

    “Left!” Shiro screamed, directing their course as Voltron as they dodged to avoid the blast from Haggar’s apparent latest robo-creation. The whole of Voltron shuddered as one as the beam nicked the edge of the Yellow lion, and a chorus of shouts rung out over the comms as they all jolted in their seats from the movement.

 “C’mon, we have to take this thing down before it gets near the Earth!” Shiro chastised, his worry and faint panic echoing over the mental bond that held Voltron together. “Focus!”

 “Shiro—“

 “Pidge, shield!”

 Another blast slammed into them against the shield, and they rocketed back, no grounding to stabilize themselves against in the open void of space just above Earth’s atmosphere.

 At the time, Keith had experienced a moment of hysteria-driven humor at the thought of what the assholes down at the Garrison with their scanning technology and satellite feeds must make of all of this.

 …There hadn’t been much to laugh at about the moment, after.

 It had started as a signal on Pidge’s galra-tracking equipment, a clear beacon signifying movement of Lotor’s flagship and its entourage.

 That had been the first clue that something was up— It had always been a back-and-forth game of the Galra forces finding new ways to evade the castle’s tracking technology, and Pidge in turn finding better ways to locate their ships, but tracking Lotor’s flagship was almost impossible, nor should the signal of their trackers have reached that far regardless.

 The little purple dot of Lotor’s ship, blinking clearly on the portion of their maps depicting Earth’s solar system, and the steady movement of it towards their home planet, was the first clue that this was an obvious ploy.

 Lotor was not his father, far more aligned to Haggar’s calculated way of thinking and acting, and he was not found by them unless he wanted to be.

 He was drawing them out, just as he had before.

 And yet they went. How could they not? It was Earth; it was their home. To not take Lotor’s bait was to risk the lives of everyone still on Earth, millions upon millions of people who had never even known of this war that held them in such danger, let alone asked for it.

 They went, nerves jittery and hearts in their throats.

 “I don’t like this.” Lance had whispered into the silence of the flight deck as Allura opened the wormhole bound for just outside Earth.

 “None of us like this, Lance.” Keith had mumbled back, too tired and frustrated and goddamn scared for this.

 “No, I mean I really don’t like this. Something bad is coming.” He was shaky and clammy, fiddling reflexively with his bayard even as he stood tall in his uniform, awaiting orders.

 Keith ignored him. They all ignored him.

  They’d arrived to find Lotor’s ships there, hanging in the balance just between the beginnings of Earth’s atmosphere and the cold reach of the stars, not moving, not attacking. Just… waiting.

 Waiting for them.

 The minute the castle had come through the wormhole, a creature had appeared from the cargo bay of Lotor’s ship with an unholy screech, the distinct feeling of wrongness surrounding its quintessence signaling it as a creation of Haggar, and without pause for thought they’d rushed to the lions, focus set on taking it down before it attacked the castle or, worse, headed for Earth.

 The moment they’d engaged the robo-beast, Lotor’s ships had decided that was a fine time to open fire on the castle, and all hell broke loose, Earth’s presence below them more an afterthought, something to protect but not an immediate problem, than anything else.

 Except… There had been plucks of anxiousness, of paranoia, along the fragile strings of the bond even as they focused on the fight. At the time, Keith had only barely registered them as Lance’s, their presence barely noticeable at first but growing stronger the longer they spent combating the robo-beast. A particularly loud blast from one of Lotor’s ships shooting past them had Lance’s anxiety yanking hurriedly at the bonds, and unthinkingly Keith had snarled back loudly.

 “Fucking focus, Lance!”

 “Something’s wrong!” Lance wailed back, even as he moved Voltron in time with the rest of them.

 “You wanted to protect Earth from Lotor, didn’t you?” Pidge snapped over the comms. “Then let’s take this thing down!”

 “That’s not it! Isn’t this too easy? Why was Lotor just… waiting?!”

 “It’s Lotor.” Keith grumbled. “Why does he do anything?”

 “We don’t have time to ponder Lotor’s intentions right now!” Shiro yelled, the utter stress of the situation coating his words. “Taking this thing down is our priority before it moves on to a different target, namely Earth! We’ll worry about Lotor later!”

 “Guys…” Hunk’s hesitant voice echoed over the comms. “Guys, maybe—“

 “On your right, Keith!” Pidge screeched, and Keith gritted his teeth and moved Red accordingly, Voltron’s arm cutting through the blast in front of them with its sword. All this background noise while trying to fight was distracting, giving him a headache. They needed to protect Earth, and to do that they needed to focus on the problem in front of them, not Lance’s—

 “But the location!” Lance’s voice was frantic. “Lotor baited us here! To Earth!”

 …Lance’s panicking.

 “Not now, Lance!”

 “But Shiro—“

 “I said not now, Lance!”

 “Paladins.” Allura���s words were strained over the comms. “We cannot hold up against all this firepower indefinitely, as it is we are on the defensive. Please take that thing out at your earliest convenience so that we may then focus on driving Lotor away from your planet.”

 “Allura, listen—“

 “Please Lance, I am a little…” He had more felt than heard the shudder of the castle behind them as it took another hit to the particle barrier. “Busy.”

 “Shield!” Hunk had screamed, and they fell back into the fight.

 It had felt like an eternity of dodging and counterstrikes, the robo-beast in question not the most difficult they had faced but deliberately quick, keeping them one step behind and flying blind without a clue as to what it was trying to do. It hadn’t been trying to get to Earth, Keith had realized much, much later. Its purpose had never been about Earth, it had been about distracting them, keeping them preoccupied until Lotor was ready to put on his show.

 And put on a show he had. Keith had felt it, the change of power in the air, giving him goosebumps along his arms even that far away in his lion, the shift in the energy around them as it was drawn in, a humming noise slowly filling the air and growing louder as… something was brought in to Lotor’s ship.

 And then the ship had shifted. He’d barely caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye at first, too focused on the robo-beast that had conveniently shot itself into Voltron at that same moment, but he’d heard Lance’s screech over the comms, felt the tug of unbridled, overwhelming terror through the bond, and had slammed his head up to watch as Lotor’s flagship literally seemed to fold in on itself, parting down the middle and reshaping around what had looked like an enormous, misshapen ion cannon, lighting up with the Galra Empire’s signature color as the ship tilted and aimed the cannon directly at the Earth below them.

 “What the fuck is that?” Pidge had screamed.

 No one answered her. They all knew.

 “No!” Lance’s shout had echoed through the comms as his pain rippled across the bonds, snapping the threads of Voltron loose as they broke apart, the Blue lion dodging past the still advancing robo-beast and the shots from the other ships meant to keep the castle in place. “No!”

 “Lance—“ Keith had gone to follow, and the robo-beast had slapped Red like a pesky fly and sent him spinning off his trajectory.

 “Lance, stop!” It was Shiro who got to him first, shooting past the robo-beast while it was busy pushing back Keith, Pidge, and Hunk, chasing after the Blue lion with desperate focus. “You’ll get caught in the blast!”

 The Black lion had slammed into Blue and knocked her away from Lotor’s ship and the subsequent blat radius just as the cannon went off, lighting up the void of space around them a sickly purple as a beam shot down to Earth and consumed it in perfect harmony with Lance’s echoing screams.

    The aftermath was drenched in shocked horror and barely-formed grief, steeping in silence and almost potent disbelief.

 Keith remembers having felt numb, motionless in his lion as his eyes lay trained on the Earth as it was consumed from its core outward, burning and crumbling with purple fire. He hadn’t needed a closer look to know, Red informing him of what her scanners showed with uncharacteristic quiet— The rapid destabilization of Earth’s surface, the winking lights of human life going out one by one in rapid formation in only a few minutes.

 It had been done before it started, the moment the beam touched the Earth. They had not had in their power any way to stop its path, even if that would have done anything.

 (Lance hadn’t been far off, he thinks. The consumption of the planet by the Galran light had looked far too much like the scenes of the movies he had watched once as a small child with his father a lifetime ago, unimpressed with the cheesy effects as the model planets crumpled in on themselves.)

 Lotor’s ship had called a wormhole and vanished immediately after along with his fleet, his job there done, and the castle had delivered the final couple blasts to kill the robo-beast while the five of them laid frozen in their lions.

 It hadn’t been about destroying Earth, Keith had realized as he watched Lotor flee, it had been about making them watch Earth die, to pay witness to the end of their kind as penance for their sins.

 Those, Keith thinks, had been the longest moments of his life, watching as the Earth slowly, gracefully, was consumed, not in a rush but with an artful collapse, and knowing nothing he could do would stop that trajectory, even as his people actively lost their lives below him where he played observer, safe in his lion.

 Lance did not stop screaming that whole time, still fighting to get to Earth despite the inevitable even as the Black lion literally grabbed Blue in their jaws to halt her tracks, dragging Lance and his lion forcefully back to the castle while the rest of them had followed shakily behind.

 The moment they had gotten through the hangars, the castle opened a wormhole, pulling them far, far away from the remnants of Earth as it still continued to burn.

 Perhaps Allura had wanted to spare them the sight of any more of the destruction of their home; perhaps she had just not wanted to watch it herself.

 They had stumbled out of their lions after they exited the wormhole into somewhere in the vast dark, far away from any planets, burning or otherwise, stuttering on their feet as they walked shell-shocked across the hangar. Hunk had made it four steps out of Yellow before he fell to the ground retching, Pidge five before she collapsed in a puddle to the floor, wailing.

 Shiro made it a full eight steady steps towards his teammates before he had fallen to his knees, curling in on himself and letting loose a scream like Keith had never heard from him before even once in the years they had known each other.

 He had stayed standing, swaying on his feet and feeling so, so empty inside, about a minute away from dry heaving like Hunk, and eventually his eyes had fallen to Lance, who stood at the mouth of his lion, fists clenched and staring down at unseeing eyes.

 (Keith wishes, sometimes, that he had gone to him in that moment, had grabbed onto Lance and just… held him, until the life came back to his eyes.)

 It had felt like an eternity before the door from the hangar to the castle hallway had opened, Allura stumbling in with red-rimmed eyes and Coran a step behind her. She had looked at them hopelessly, shoulders shaking with grief and rage and sympathy, choking on air as she looked for words, and Keith had known she was just as lost as they were.

 “…Paladins.” She had said at last, turning to each of them in turn with sorrow. “I… I am so, so sorry.”

 Keith had ducked his head, knowing she meant well, but not wanting to face her pity, and for a moment there was silence, before Lance’s voice had rung out in a vicious, yet deadly calm growl.

 “You’re sorry?”

 “I—“

 “You’re sorry?!”

 “Lance…” Shiro’s voice warned quietly, weary and exhausted and broken.

 “Our planet is dead! Everyone we know, have ever known, is gone! What the fuck good does an apology do?!” Lance crumpled in on himself, body shaking, and beyond the numbness, Keith’s heart had ached. “Gone… my friends, my cousins, my mother, my sisters. They’re all… gone.”

 Allura had taken an unsteady step forward, her eyes trained on Lance, expression open and helpless. “I cannot fathom— I am so… I did not foresee—“

 “I warned you!” Lance screamed, flying up with a kind of fire in his eyes Keith had never known him before to contain, even in his most serious moments in the dead of night. In that moment, he had seen in Lance what he imagined Allura had seen when she asked him to fly Red. “I warned all of you, and you didn’t listen!”

 “Lance.” Shiro had called again, stumbling to his feet in a disjointed way that had brought Keith rushing to his side, catching his arm. “Lance, there was no proof…”

 “Shut up, Shiro!” Lance’s voice was a screaming sob. “I had my word; I had the schematics! That should have been proof enough!” Lance’s lip had curled then, a snarl across his face. “It was never about quiznacking proof! It was because I said it! If Keith or Pidge had come back with the same lack of proof, you would have at least looked harder! Fuck, if you had found it, it never would have even been a discussion!”

 “Lance…” Pidge had mumbled shakily. “This… This isn’t the time.”

 “Lance, please…” Allura stumbled hesitantly towards Lance, reaching out. “I know the grief you feel right now—“

 She had cut off with a startled yelp as Lance had surged, arm swinging up at her, and her gaze fell trained on the gun that came to rest between her eyes. Lance’s bayard, Keith had realized, had changed, the normally bubbly, round, almost playful sniper rifle replaced with a sleek, smooth handgun-type blaster.

 “My whole life is gone.” Lance had said, his voice raw and eyes empty even as the tears finally spilled over, chest heaving for breath as he stared imploringly at Allura. “Because of this—“ A hand waved at the hangar around them. “Because of you. So give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you right now.”

 Keith had tensed, going to lunge forward between Lance and Allura, and Shiro had grabbed his arm, shaking his head as his eyes darted desperately between Lance and Allura.

 “Lance.” It was Coran who went to him, in the end, stepping calmly through the fray and between Lance and Allura, placing a gentle hand on his wrist. “Lance, put the bayard down, my boy. Put the bayard down. I know you are hurting, but this will not… This will not bring them back, lad.” Lance’s eyes had darted to Coran, and the Altean had smiled tiredly at him, a matching grief in his face. “I am sorry, but it won’t.”

 And Lance, tears falling over his cheeks, had collapsed, the gun falling from his hand and de-transforming as it hit the floor, slumping into Coran’s chest as Allura stumbled back and away, eyes trained wide on the scene in front of her, Lance’s screaming sobs echoing in the air around them.

    The days after Earth’s destruction had hung heavy in grieving silence, a shroud falling over the castle as they tried to come to terms with what, all too suddenly, had happened.

 Keith had found the numbness turned to solely to anger, the hollow grief he’d felt in their last hopeless situation, when Shiro had vanished, disappearing in the face of rage, the Red lion’s despair at having not been able to protect her paladin’s planet crawling under his skin as he demolished training bots with only his hands.

 Pidge had grieved— Crying and crying and crying until she was short of breath and choking on her own tears, avoiding sleep for as long as possible with shaky hands and bloodshot eyes until she passed out on random chairs and sofas and woke up from nightmares screaming for her mother.

 Shiro had spent his time with Allura, curled up on the couches of the large room Lance had once, a long time ago, cheerfully dubbed the ‘rec room’, speaking with her in quiet voices with haunted eyes and unkempt hair, at a loss on how to properly grieve for a planet that was both his home and a stranger to him, so far removed from him after his time with the Galra.

 Hunk had wandered, a constant exhaustion dragging at his frame, and more than once Keith had found him in the kitchen in the middle of the night, sitting quietly in a chair at the table with a mug of the Altean equivalent of tea clutched between his hands.

 “I can’t sleep.” He’d told Keith quietly the first time he found him there. “Whenever I close my eyes, I hear my family’s screams.” Hunk had shuddered, eyes closing somberly. “Sometimes… I think I can smell my home burning, heh…” He’d choked, his desperate, tiny laugh turning to a sob, and Keith had leaned against his side, offering his silent support in the warmth of one human body resting next to another.

 After that, whenever Keith had found Hunk sitting alone in the kitchens at night, he’d found room to push aside his grieving anger, Red’s rage, to sit with Hunk in quiet companionship, reveling in the reminder that this other human was still here, at least.

 Lance… Lance became a specter, appearing only to take food during meals and then leave, and the single reassurance he was in his room and alive when not visually present being the furious screaming and crashes of thrown furniture echoing from under the door.

 Looking back, perhaps Keith should have seen that as a clue to what was really happening, but after Lance’s explosion at Allura, at them, in the immediate aftermath of losing Earth, they thought in his obvious grief he deserved his space, if that was what he desired.

 …God, how Keith wishes they hadn’t. Maybe they could have saved what there was left of their Lance.

 Two weeks after the Earth died, Keith woke up in the early morning with a wrench of pain low in his gut, the feeling of something missing echoing throughout his core.

 It had taken a few moments of half-asleep mental scrambling before he found it, the echoing ache throughout his soul, catching on the severed threads of the lion bond between himself and Red and the others and their own lions where something had been cut loose with a jagged edge, sloppy and fast and raw.

 Something important.

 He had jumped shakily out of bed, tripping into the hallway and meeting Pidge and Hunk’s eyes as they stumbled out of their rooms, the same phantom pain written across their expressions. Down the hall, loud footsteps came, Shiro sprinting around the corner with Allura and Coran trailing half-asleep behind him, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw them.

 “Thank god. I don’t know why, but I thought—“

 “Shiro, something’s wrong.” Pidge had interjected quietly, clutching at her stomach.

 Shiro frowned, eyes flickering to her and then to Keith and Hunk, before widening.

 “…Where’s Lance?”

 They had found Lance’s room empty, after flocking around his door while Coran carefully overrode the automatic lock, crowding into the barren space devoid of both Lance and any sign of his existence there, down to the missing face creams on the bathroom counter. The whole place was dim, scrupulously clean as if no one had ever lived there, despite Keith knowing Lance had been in the room just the night before.

 “He’s… gone?” Pidge had asked in shaky confusion, while Allura had taken a steadying breath and strode out the room to the flight deck, the rest of them trailing behind her nervously as she pulled up her monitors and tapped a few symbols.

 “…So is the Blue lion. It is not in its hangar.”

 “Maybe he just went out for a bit?” Hunk’s voice had been pleadingly nervous.

 “Hunk his room is empty.” Shiro had looked to Coran, wide-eyed. “He can’t survive out there just on his own, right? He’d have to come back.”

 Coran had frowned, considering, turning to the monitors and fiddling with them checking inventory scans of the castle. “…Perhaps he can.”

 “What does that mean?” Keith had growled out, desperate and aching and still frantically clinging to the fragile broken pieces of the lion bond, searching for what was missing, praying that they were all wrong.

 “It appears a small but not inconsequential portion of the castle’s nourishment supply has been removed to a portable container, enough to last one person a few weeks, at the very least, and the scanners show some basic repair tools missing from the maintenance hangars.” Coran’s eyes had widened, ears twitching downwards. “Oh quiznak.”

 “What?”

 “Lance had been asking me a little while ago about how to modify Altean weapons, before… Er, before Lotor’s attack on your planet, so I hadn’t thought anything of it, but he did have a couple more questions about them the other day…”

 “Weapons?” Shiro’s face shuttered, arms crossing. “The bayards don’t need modifications, they’re custom-shaped to us.”

 “The bayards would, yes, but…” Allura sighed out, turning. “Come with me.”

 She had led them to the floor above their regular accommodations, the air there stale and dry, the whole thing smelling faintly dusty, and, hesitantly, she had gone to a door, hand hovering over the scanner as if she expected to be burned by it.

 “Allura, what is this?” Hunk had asked, nervously fiddling with his hands.

 “…The former paladins’ living hall. I fear if Lance had gone looking for weaponry, the Blue lion might have indicated to him where to seek it.”

 She pressed a hand to the door, and they had all filed in carefully behind her, eyes wide as they took in the cheerful room painted blue with soft, plushy furniture dotted around. Allura ignored it all, heading straight to a wall panel and sliding it open, an alcove behind it barren aside from a few empty wall mounts. Unlike the dusty hall, there were clear signs of life here, fingerprints along the door to the alcove and around the wall mounts. Allura turned back to them, face grim.

 “The former Blue paladin was… a very practical warrior who did not like to rely only on her bayard. She kept an assortment of weapons, mainly Altean and Galran standard blasters, here in her room.”

 “…Great.” Pidge’s voice was flat. “So Lance’s room is empty, his lion is gone, and he apparently raided his predecessor’s backup gun supply. I just want to know where the hell he is.”

 “Not coming back.” Hunk intoned monotonously, gesturing to the bed in the room with an achingly tired expression. Following his hand, Keith’s gaze landed on the blue paladin armor resting in a neat pile on the bed, and he had felt his heart curl in on itself.

 “…He knew we’d come here?” He’d murmured unthinkingly, lost and still reeling from the realization of just what those broken strings of the bond meant.

 “Lance is smarter than he comes off as.” Hunk sighed lowly. “He works around contingencies, plans based on what he observes about others. He knew Allura would put two and two together.”

 Shiro had taken a hesitant step forward, snagging a thin piece of paper resting on top of the chest piece and staring down at it for a moment before handing it shakily to Hunk.

 “It’s addressed to you.”

 Hunk had opened it with trembling hands, staring down at the sparse words as his expression slowly shattered, dropping the note and backing away. “I can’t… I’m sorry, I can’t…” He’d fled out the room, and Keith had watched him go with wide eyes.

 It was only much later that Keith had realized Hunk had already known what had happened, from the moment he woke up to the shattered bond and Lance’s empty room, not needing any time to piece it together like the rest of them, the only one privileged enough to the glances of the angry, haunting, serious Lance of the night to know he was capable of this.

 Keith had picked up the fluttering note as it touched the ground, unable to stop himself from opening it and reading the words scrawled across it in Lance’s small, disjointed handwriting.

 Hunk,

 Please forgive me for leaving you alone, buddy.

 …I just… I can’t just sit idly by and watch another planet die because of Voltron.

 I’m afraid of what I might do if I stay here too long.

 Blue’s agreed to come with me, she doesn’t want to lose another paladin to this war.

 I’m not sorry.

 …Take care of yourself, alright?

 Keith had closed his eyes, fighting down the sick feeling in his stomach at Lance’s words, and carefully handed the note to Shiro, swaying in place and listening idly to the shuffling as Lance’s parting words to his best friend were passed around like an open diary.

 “…How can he be so selfish?” Allura had whispered out into the stale air of the former blue paladin’s space.

 For the first time since finding Lance’s empty room Keith’s anger had surged, and he’d finally found a place to direct it, turning to Allura with bared teeth.

 “He is not selfish, we drove him to this!”

 “Keith—“

 “Shut it, Shiro!” He’d snapped. “This whole mess was preventable— Lance, Earth, all of it. We let it happen.”

 Striding from the room, he’d made it to the end of the hall before Red’s anger overtook him and he punched the wall in an impromptu fit of fury, her pain at losing her sister easily overriding the aching in his hand from the impact.

 Lance and Blue hadn’t just left, they had severed their bond with Voltron, the place where Lance’s joy, his anxiety, his hopes normally sat coiled in the threads of the lion bond cut loose in a jagged hole that left something aching and empty in Keith’s chest.

 They had made sure they could not be found, no matter how much the rest of them may have desired to.

 …Three months later, they heard their first whispers on wayward planets they stopped at of the Godlike warrior accompanied by a living ship much like their own that slaughtered all Galra in his path, silently championing a rebellion against the Galra rule from the ground up.

    The day after Allura announces their plans to wormhole over to Alrexa in search of these elusive stones, Keith finds himself sitting in his designated spot on the flight deck, slumped in his chair and glaring a hole into the back of Allura’s head as she goes about opening a wormhole to the planet in question.

 “This is still a bad idea!” He calls, just to be an asshole, and savors Allura’s frustrated twitch in front of him.

 He knows he’s being petty, but he’s too goddamn tired to care. He doesn’t want to do this, at all. Lance had left, and though it had hurt Keith more than he would ever admit to, that was still Lance’s choice— He hadn’t wanted to be found by them, he’d made that very clear.

 Plus… Well. He’s not sure if he can face Lance, can stand the idea of seeing someone who was once his friend, who he once, albeit grudgingly, cared deeply about… still cares about, look at him with hate in his eyes.

 When he’d come to the flight deck in the morning to find Allura and Shiro preparing for departure, Coran watching wearily with clear hesitance about their decision in his eyes, Keith had raged, yelling and waving his arms as they ignored him, until he’d given up and eventually plodded over to his seat, followed not long after by Pidge and Hunk.

 He glances over at Hunk once it becomes clear Allura is not going to dignify his newesy commentary with a response either, and raises an eyebrow, earning a shrug from the other. After a moment, chewing his lip in contemplation, he gets up and walks over to Hunk’s station, leaning over the back of his chair and resting his chin on the top of the other’s head wearily, closing his eyes.

 “Are you alright?” He asks quietly, cracking open his good eye just slightly to meet Shiro’s gaze as he stares at them impassively.

 “I don’t know.” Hunk murmurs back. “It’s… I want to see him, but…”

 “It’s been two years.” Keith finishes, ignoring the aching in his chest where the hole in the lion bond still sparks painfully. Two whole years without Lance, only clues and second-hand information to go off of to even know if he’s alive. Two years without Voltron, without a complete lion bond or Lance’s laughter reverberating in the halls or his warmth when he graced them with his presence.

 Losing Earth had been hard, Keith thinks, but for him, losing Lance had been harder. He’d had nothing to love, back on Earth, beyond its existence as a concept. No family to return to, no real home waiting for him. This, Voltron, had been the best part of his entire life, and Lance had been a significant piece of that.

 For a long time right after, it hadn’t seemed real, all of them hanging in the balance of waiting, as if expecting Lance to return.

 Keith doesn’t know what they thought Lance would do, maybe kick a few Galran asses to get his vengeance quest out of his system and then come back. Maybe.

 But… Definitely not… this.

 None of them could have predicted what Lance would become.

 Now, it was hard not to go too long without hearing news of the Blue Lion Resistance, Lance’s fame easily rivaling that of Shiro’s title as the Champion, but for a long time they’d had little to go off of, barely a clue of what he was up to.

 They’d gotten most of their information on Lance from the Blade, which apparently had held no qualms about trading information and holding a conciliatory alliance with him, despite their long-term secretive approach to fighting the Empire before their interactions with Voltron.

 It was likely because of the position Lance held, Allura had told them only once, voice quiet and eyes distant. The original blue paladin had been Galran, the Blade of Marmora formed in her honor, as her legacy for fighting against Zarkon, and that alone would have been enough for them to respect Lance, the successor to the first Galran who had sought to end Zarkon’s reign of terror.

 While Kolivan had been willing to confirm Lance’s survival to them, he had never offered them his location, and over time, when they came to worlds and found the residents there look at them with disdain upon recognition of the castle, heard the whispers of Princess Allura of Altea, world killer and Takashi Shirogane, Champion of destruction, they had finally come to grips with just how little Lance wanted to be found by them.

 “Two years, seven months, and six days.” Hunk replies shortly, startling Keith out of his musings. He frowns, poking the side of Hunk’s head, and the other shrugs, the moment jolting Keith where he lies slumped over the top of him. “I didn’t mean to count, at first. It just… happened.” Hunk shifts awkwardly. “…His birthday was last month.”

 Keith sighs out, a long, low breath, trying to picture a twenty-two year old Lance against his memories of Lance at nineteen and a few months, coming up blank. He wants to believe he’ll look the same, but… Well… He opens his eyes properly, taking in the room and its inhabitants. They’ve all changed. Two and a half years when fighting the Galra was a fucking long time, especially when they’d already been doing it for nearly another two years before Lance had left— They weren’t the same people they were, and they weren’t the ones who’d possibly semi-accidentally started the largest mass resistance against the Galra regime in modern intergalactic history.

 “Paladins.” Allura calls to them, reference neutral but clearly directed at him. “Please take your seats and prepare for the wormhole jump, we will be emerging above Alrexa shortly.”

 Groaning, Keith takes a deep breath and pushes himself off his resting place, sharing one last half concerned, half bitter look with Hunk before trudging back to his station, throwing himself lazily on his chair and waiting for the inevitable.

 Idly, he wonders if Lance will just shoot them out of the air the minute he sees the castle.

 …He wonders if they would deserve that.

      Barely moments after exiting the wormhole, Keith only just managing to scrape a quick glance on their monitors of the rocky, desolate looking planet below them, the transmissions feed lights up on Allura’s screens, signaling a feed coming from the planet below them. He watches as Allura and Shiro exchange hesitant glances, before Allura presses a couple symbols and a feminine, military-like voice rings out through the flight deck.

 “This is Alrexan ground control hailing the unidentified non-Empire craft in Alrexan airspace. Please state your identity and means of business or depart.”

 Allura frowns, looking to Shiro, who stands up and lifts a finger to his lips, breathing in and then speaking in the overly-calm tone he uses when trying to establish control of a situation. “This is the Castle of Lions, requesting permission to land.”

 There is a pause. “Please hold.” The voice says hesitantly, before the line goes dead.

 “…Oh God.” Hunk groans out, slumping over in his chair and covering his face, barely hiding the edges of his relieved grin that peak out. “He taught them human sales call lingo.”

 “What is—“ Allura goes to ask, before the line reconnects and the voice speaks again.

 “Castle of Lions, you are not cleared for landing. Please depart immediately or face enhanced removal techniques.”

 Hunk gulps audibly, face pale, and Allura’s face closes off, eyes narrowing. “I am sorry, but we are in need of Alrexan power stones. We must land.” She shuts off the communication feed without hesitation, raising the particle barrier and beginning the descent of the castle, and Hunk lets out a piercing whine.

 “We’re gonna die. I’m going to be blown up by alien missiles stockpiled by my former childhood best friend and we’re going to die.”

 “Lance won’t actually blow us up, Hunk.” Pidge murmurs from their seat, their words at odds with the way they cling to the armrests with a white-knuckled grasp. “Stop panicking.”

 Panicking, though, is inevitable, Keith thinks, stilling as the castle lowers itself through the atmosphere and pierces the Alrexan sky, the ground below becoming more and more visible as they creep closer. What if Lance didn’t just blow them out of the air? What if he let them land and then shot them all on sight?

 Through the anxiety, a single shot of excitement shoots through him.

 Lance. They’re going to see Lance.

 Red rumbles in the back of his mind, hesitant about the situation but delighted at the thought of seeing her sister again, Blue’s connection with the other lions forcibly cut off all this time, leaving her as much in the dark on Blue’s condition as they had been on Lance’s.

 After several tense moments, there’s the jolting shudder of the ship signaling they’ve landed, and Allura relaxes from where she stood rigidly at her podium, sighing out in relief and turning to the rest of them. “Well then. Shall we?”

 They follow her out to the main ‘ground level’ entrance of the castle, hesitant steps trailing her own steady, seemingly-confident movements as anxiety prickles in the air, present in the military set of Shiro’s shoulders, Hunk’s nervously twisting hands, Pidge’s shuddery steps, the coils of fearhopesorrow dancing along the lion bond.

 Keith finds himself checking his own weapons once, twice, materializing and dematerializing his bayard in a repetitive pattern before reaching behind him and checking his dagger is still strapped to the back of his belt. He’d modified the suit to hold the dagger after Shiro had gone missing, all that time ago, finding it a comfort to have on his person even during battles, one he hadn’t grown out of even after Shiro had come back to them.

 He wonders if they shouldn’t have worn the armor, if wearing their regular clothes would have made them seem like less of a threat.

 …Then again, on the off-chance Lance might just try to shoot them he’ll take his chances with the armor.

 The castle doors part, and his eyes widen as he takes in the scene in front of them, the rocky Alrexan landscape marred by the presence of a ring of what can best be described as alien forms of trucks, looking like something out of those Mad Max movies his father had liked, surrounding the castle entrance, a hoard of various aliens gathered around or on them with blasters pointed straight at them.

 He takes one look at the setup, shares a glance with Hunk and Pidge, and raises his hands in the air, ignoring the dirty look Allura gives him even as Shiro, hesitantly, does the same.

 “We are not here to fight.” Allura calls out firmly, standing her ground, and from the ring of rebels a wave of murmuring stirs, before settling as a lithe figure hops out of the bed of the largest truck, the aliens parting for them as they walk to the forefront, meeting Allura’s gaze head-on with fierce, arresting blue eyes.

 “You landed your ship on a planet you did not have permission to enter, against express warnings not to. Try again.”

 Keith’s heart lurches, the broken tangles of the bond aching, and his breath catches in his throat, stolen by the presence of the painfully familiar, yet oh-so-foreign person in front of him.

 “Lance.”

 Lance blinks, eyes flickering to Keith at his call, and then looks away, face impassive.

 He’s so… Keith drinks in the sight of him, lost and confused and desperately searching for the pieces of the person he once reluctantly called friend in this stranger.

 He’s taller, Keith thinks, by at least a couple inches, yet just as long-limbed and willowy as he had always been, all sharp angles and lean lines. A form-fitting black bodysuit fitted with thin, almost unnoticeable pieces of black armor hugs his body, reminding Keith most of the combat suit he had worn when he faced the trials of Marmora, minus the purple lights and symbols, this one more streamlined and indistinguishable in its plain black coloring, lacking markings or accessories, and overtop he wears a black-grey trench coat, unbuttoned and hanging loose around his silhouette, the wide collar framing his long neck and slanted face.

 The funny haircut with its short bangs and long sides around the ears that Keith remembers is gone, Lance’s hair falling in a long brown wave around his shoulders, curling over the collar and flying loose in the thin wind of the Alrexan air, the ever so slight natural curl of it tangling the strands in thin twists. It hangs in an elegant curve over the left side of his face, obscuring it entirely from view and hugging the edge of his nose, a few stray strands drifting across it onto his right cheek.

 Lance has scars, he realizes with a painful lurch in his gut at the thought of how he must have gotten them— A thin one curving up his right cheek to just under his eye and a second, larger one, running up the left side of his face in a larger, more distinct mark, before disappearing under the fall of hair.

 The single eye he can see is the same though, the familiar dark blue that speaks of oceans and rivers and currents, deep and fathomless and fascinating… and looking to Keith and the others as if they are a particularly disgusting piece of gum under his shoe.

 Lance is scowling at them, looking to Allura for answers, and as she stumbles over herself, tripping on her words, his annoyed expression only widens, until he sighs and grabs a gun off the holster on his hip, lazily pointing it at Allura in a strangely fitting mirror of when the Earth first died. “I’ll ask again. Why are you really here? And speak carefully, my people are a little trigger-happy.”

 “Wait!” Hunk yelps from next to Keith, darting in front of Allura and holding out his hands. “Just wait. Please.”

 Lance tenses, withdrawing his gun the moment Hunk steps into aim, and barks an order to the aliens around them, their guns lowering automatically, eyes trained on him.

 “…Thank you.” Hunk sighs out, looking about two seconds from collapsing even as he turns imploringly to Lance. “We— Look, we know we aren’t welcome here, but the stones that control the ship’s command system cracked, and we can only replace them with others from this planet. We didn’t have a choice.”

 Lance frowns, tilting his head, and Keith watches, mouth dry, as the wave of hair in front of his face shifts with him, catching his eyes and demanding their attention for inexplicable reasons. He thinks maybe the long hair is just too weird compared to his memories of Lance’s visage to really compute.

 “…Is this true?” Lance asks after a moment, looking to Coran and studiously ignoring the rest of them, apparently willing to take the older Altean’s word as truth over the rest of theirs.

 “Yes.” Coran says cautiously, nodding to Lance. “It is.”

 Lance’s face scrunches, clearly considering, and Keith watches him thumb the trigger on his pistol where it hangs loosely in his hand by his side. After a long moment, he turns, waving a dismissive hand and heading back towards the circle of rebels, his voice ringing out in a commanding tone that is entirely new to Keith.

 “I want a constant armed perimeter around the castle! If any weapon systems come online or any crafts attempt to leave it, you are instructed to fire on it immediately! The paladins of Voltron and their handlers are to be treated as prisoners of war, I want guns on them at all times, and any weaponry on them removed!”

 “Sir!” A chorus of voices rings out, and in an instant a number of the rebels surge forward, crowding them and pointing blasters at their heads while others step forward calmly and begin patting them down, seeking out any hidden weapons. Keith hisses, jumping back as one reaches for his bayard, and looks to Lance’s retreating figure helplessly.

 “Wait—“ Allura yelps, dodging the alien attempting to check her for weapons and reaching for Lance. “Wait, Lance!”

 He pauses, looking over his shoulder to Allura with disdain. “Lance McClain died with the Earth. You speak here to the General of the Blue Lion Resistance, nothing more.”

     The ride back to the Resistance base camp is a jolting, unpleasant affair, the six of them all crowded into the back of one truck together with cuffs strapped tightly onto their wrists, the composition of the cuffs seemingly even built to contain Alteans as Allura wiggles her hands and glares down at them. The guard on them is Galran, a fact that clearly leaves Allura antsy, with the brand on his face marking him as a former slave of the gladiator ring, punishment for a traitor to the Empire.

 “What’s your name?” Keith finds himself asking, unable to help himself, and winces at the unimpressed look the guard gives him.

 “What’s it to you?”

 “I’m half-Galra.” Keith mumbles, shrugging helplessly. “Meeting other Galra who fight against Lotor is kind of a pleasant rarity.”

 Honestly, while he’d been intellectually aware of their existence, this is the first Galran rebel he’s seen who is not a part of the Blade of Marmora, and that enough is fascinating to him.

 The rebel raises an eyebrow, and then looks away, staring out at the Alrexan landscape as it flies by. “My name is Zenex. The General rescued me and my fellow prisoners from a transport ship eighteen of your Earthen months ago, and since then I have served as a sergeant in the Blue Lion Resistance.”

 “What is La— Your general like?” Pidge asks quietly.

 Zenex blinks, glancing down at Pidge in surprise. “The General… The General believes he can save everyone, and he might just be crazy enough to do it. He is hope for many who believed the universe had abandoned them.” The truck lurches to a stop, and Keith peers curiously over the side, catching glimpses of an array of tents and ships scattered around them. Shouldering his gun, Zenex hops off the back of the truck onto the rock below and gestures out, a grim smile on his face. “Welcome to the Alrexan base camp, home of the Resistance.”

 They are paraded through the camp like trophies, rebels stopping in their tracks to stare openly, whispers echoing through the space around them. It leaves Keith with an anxious feeling low in his stomach, watching all the faces surrounding them. There are easily hundreds of aliens here, in a disparity of species, and this is just the immediate base camp, not accounting for those on a mission or elsewhere— He knew Lance’s operation was no small feat, but goddamn, there’s more races here than in the Voltron alliance.

 More Galra too, he notes with interest, eyes falling over familiar spots of purple fur and catlike ears in the crowd. Given Allura’s hesitations, they’d never really sought out Galran rebels beyond the Blade of Marmora, and Keith is honestly surprised to see so many here in Lance’s Resistance. Surely, after Earth, he would have held the same hatred for the Galra as a whole as Allura had?

 …Then again, they had known that Lance had been working on-and-off with the Blade after leaving Voltron.

 “Holy shit, they weren’t kidding.” He hears a familiar voice mutter, and wheels around to see a recognizable pair of aliens sitting on the rim of a small ship, staring down at them.

 “…Rolo?” Keith says, unbelieving. “Nyma?!”

 “Heya.” Rolo answers cheerfully.

 “…What are you doing here?” Hunk asks from beside Keith, gaping up at the two aliens.

 “Oh, well, y’know.” Rolo shrugs. “Had nothing better to do.”

 “Never thought I’d be taking orders from the kid I strapped to a tree.” Nyma adds on, looking amused. “But stranger things have happened.”

 “The last time we saw you, you tried to sell Lance’s lion to the Galra.” Shiro bites out, breaking his silence to glare at them fiercely.

 “And now we sell shit for the Resistance.” Rolo shrugs. “Guess we saw the light.”

 “I— But—“ Keith falls over his own words, too startled by the presences of two people so familiar to him to think. It had been so easy to think of the Resistance as just a faceless mass of random people, and yet here they were, two actual aliens who had interacted with Voltron, and chosen to side with Lance’s rebels instead.

 “That’s enough, come on.” Zenex interrupts, nudging them forward. “The General has instructed me to take you to central command.”

 Zenex ushers them forward, and they follow, still staring at the forms of Rolo and Nyma as they all too casually wave them goodbye.

 “This is too weird…” Pidge murmurs, and Keith finds himself silently agreeing.

 He doesn’t know what he expected, but not… this. It’s like something out of a movie, a gathered force of rebels against an oppressive Empire with no great champions or magical princesses to lead them, fighting with what they have only and being willing to give up their own lives to do it.

 …Well, that’s not quite right. They have Blue; they have Lance. Somehow.

 Somehow Lance commands all this, without question or hesitation.

 While objectively he had known it was possible, the Lance of the nights of analysis and planning in front of the monitors and the Lance that had spoken mournfully to the Black lion years ago clinging to his mind whenever he thought of the Blue Lion Resistance, it’s still a shock.

 It’s easy to acknowledge the Resistance as a powerful weapon against Lotor that has been keeping his attention off of them, off of Voltron. It’s harder to reconcile that with the fact that Lance, the boy who had demanded Keith call him rival and had flirted with every pretty face he saw, is leading it.

 The central command turns out to be a large, military-looking tent, and when they are led inside it is to dusty tables full of maps and wide boards with coordinates scrawled across them, Lance’s own handwriting predominant among them.

 Lance is standing in the middle of it, speaking lowly with a young alien girl with light orange skin and pointe ears who looks at him imploringly, clearly requesting something. Her eyes catch on them when they enter, and her nose scrunches, grimacing. “You were serious.” She turns back to Lance, hands curling into fists. “You cannot negotiate with them! They are monsters!”

 “I don’t negotiate with anyone, Ruya, you know me better than that.” Lance admonishes. “But we do not turn our backs on anyone, even those who are not our allies.”

 “And you also say our enemies shall meet no mercy but our guns!” The girl… Ruya, says, lifting her chin defiantly, and Lance sighs.

 “I need to speak with our… guests.” He pauses. “Alone.” The girl huffs, turning and storming out of the tent, and Lance watches her go with unreadable eyes. After a moment, he looks to them, gesturing to the chairs spread out in front of his own. “Sit. You can stay, Zenex. I appreciate your judgment in these matters.”

 “Sir.” Zenex says, saluting and crossing the room to stand behind Lance’s shoulder, watching Keith and the others carefully as they take their seats awkwardly, the pull of the cuffs tugging on their wrists in a way that is not painful, but certainly annoying.

 “Apologies for Ruya.” Lance offers, settling in the chair across from them. “She’s… idealistic. Her parents were killed in a Galra attack last year.”

 Allura’s face falls, and she nods, looking down.

 “…It’s good to see you.” Shiro offers hesitantly, and Keith can’t help but stare, because really? That was the best opening Shiro could come up with?

 Lance’s lip curls. “I’m not here to play happy families. Explain to me the problems with the castle or get the quiznak off my base camp.”

 It’s an odd statement to suddenly fill Keith with subtle joy, but he can’t help it. Until now, this grown-up version of Lance has seemed so foreign, formal and untouchable. Hearing him use casual language and swear grumpily when he doesn’t get his way is like a glimpse into the Lance he remembers, a reassurance that he’s not completely gone. He finds himself staring at Lance, trying to memorize this new image, as Pidge hurriedly breaks into chatter, rambling at length about the problems with the castle. It’s technical jargon Keith doesn’t care to put too much effort into understanding, but Lance seems to follow along well enough, eyes set on Pidge as she waves her hands and describes what they’re looking for.

 “Why should I help you?” He finally says at length, once Pidge has fallen silent. “You are not our allies, the Resistance has never stood with Voltron. Our only tie is that we have a common enemy.”

 “Are you serious?!” Pidge explodes. “You selfish son of a bitch! You turned your back on us and even when we come crawling to you, you’re willing to turn us away?! You weren’t the only one who lost something, you fucking asshole!” She’s crying, Keith realizes, great, shuddery breaths echoing from her small frame as she glares at Lance, bitterness and betrayal rolling off her tongue.

 He had wondered how long it would take before Pidge imploded like this, and he’s honestly surprised she lasted this long. Losing Lance had been hard on her, especially right after losing her mother, the one family member she’d still known was safe and alive, and she’d seen his leaving as his abandoning them, feeling as if the person she had come to consider something like a sibling had betrayed her.

 Lance merely raises an eyebrow, looking down at Pidge impassively, though Keith doesn’t miss the ever-so-slight twitch of his hand, a sign he’s not quite as composed and emotionless as he may portray. “I—“

 “Lance.” Hunk cuts in, looking to the man who was once his best friend imploringly. “You owe me, Lance, for leaving me alone. You owe me.”

 There’s a pause, and then Lance closes his eyes, sighing out. “Alright, for you, Hunk. But—“ Lance’s eyes are blazing when he turns to Allura, fiery anger boiling within. “Do not take this as an alliance or a peace treaty. I may be willing to help you with this on Hunk’s request, and we may not be enemies, but that does not make us friends.”

 Allura purses her lips, clearly unhappy, but nods.

 Lance smiles bitterly in response, clicks his tongue, and accepts a small tablet Zenex offers him, tapping a couple commands on it. With a hiss, their cuffs disconnect, breaking into two thick metal bracelets still secured around their wrists, but allowing them independent movement of their arms, and Keith gratefully takes the opportunity to rub some life back into his hands.

 “Your cuffs are remotely controlled, and have tracking monitors installed within them. They were built off plans we nicked from Lotor, and were designed with Altean magic in mind, so no you won’t be able to break out of them or shape shift them off. Any attempts to mess with or remove them will be considered termination of our agreement, understand?”

 “Yes, sir.” Keith mutters sarcastically.

 Lance stands up and walks over to a table nearby, sorting through and picking up a map, bringing it back to them and, after a moment of hesitation, offering it to Coran. “Alrexan stones of the size you’re looking for are practically nonexistent now. We only have ever found shards when we first set up camp here, and we sold them off in exchange for information pretty quickly. To get your hands on what you want, it’s going to take days of digging. Luckily for you, the mines are pretty close to where you decided to up and park the castle.”

 Coran accepts the map slowly, and next to him Shiro sighs out in relief. “…Thank you.”

 “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing this for you.” Lance says bluntly, resuming his place in front of them. “I won’t stop you from doing what you need to search out the stones, but the lions must remain in the castle. No flying, no defenses tests, no anything. This is supposed to be a safe place for refugees. We’ve kept Alrexa off the Galra Empire’s maps so far, and I’m not putting them in danger with your bullshit.”

 “Seriously—“ Pidge starts, and Shiro slaps a hand over her mouth, smiling with fake enthusiasm up at Lance and nudging Allura’s side until she does the same.

  “Of course. We’re very grateful for your hospitality.”

 Lance wrinkles his nose, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Don’t suck up to me, it’s weird.” He looks to Zenex, who nods. “Zenex will arrange your transportation back to the castle. If you want to return to base camp, you’ll be required to have a guard with you. I’ll be in constant communication with those on the castle’s perimeter,” He taps an earring Keith hadn’t noticed until now, bright blue and the design reminiscent of Allura’s own communicator earrings, “So try to behave.”

 They take that as a dismissal, turning to leave, and as the others exit out the tent, Zenex a step behind them, Keith hesitates. Turning back, he meets Lance’s gaze as he walks up to him, staring at Keith questioningly. They’re the same height, Keith realizes with a lurch in his chest, Lance’s extra inches combated by the sudden growth spurt Keith had experienced when more of his recessive Galra traits had seemed to ‘come online’ with greater exposure to quintessence over the years.

 “What is it Keith?” Lance asks, eyes studying him.

 “How are you so… calm about this?” He finds himself asking, curiosity and fascination at this unfamiliar version of Lance overriding his caution. “I thought you’d be furious with us.”

 Lance’s mouth curls into a sharp grin, and he lifts a hand into view, Keith’s gaze catching on the trembling fingers. “See that? That’s anger, the kind that makes it tempting to punch someone in the face or kick the crap out of ‘em. Don’t mistake my calm for acceptance, Kogane.”

 “So…”

 “I’m not you, Keith.” Lance says lightly, tucking his hand back away into the pocket of his coat. “Anger is a drive for you, a power to push you forward. It’s why you make a good pilot for Red, but there’s a reason I am Blue’s.” He closes his eyes, breathing out slowly. “Allowing myself to be controlled by my anger helps no one in this situation. What I said is true— We’re not allies, but we’re not enemies either. I wouldn’t choose to deliberately physically hurt any of you, no matter what you may think of me. Don’t get me wrong, I wish to hell you hadn’t come here, but I won’t send you back out there to die now that you’re already here.”

 Keith blinks. “So what was all that, a test?”

 “Let’s call it a one-sided negotiation.” Lance says, opening his eyes, dark blue staring at Keith. “I’ve gotten good at getting my way. Shiro and Allura don’t control me anymore. They don’t get demands; they get my permission. Now…” He opens the tent flap, gesturing out. “Go get on the damn truck so I can get back to work.”

    Dinner at the castle that evening is a tense, silent affair, all of them pointedly avoiding eye contact as they stare down at their food awkwardly, the same subject on everyone’s minds, yet no one being willing to be the one to address it.

 Pidge breaks first, face scrunching up as she glares down fiercely at the table, hand clenched in a fist around her spoon. “I hate this.”

 “It’s not ideal, but—“ Shiro begins, and Keith grits his teeth, tamping down on his anger. Once upon a time, Shiro’s calm in the face of panic was something he aspired to and relied on. Now, when it comes to matters of Lance, it just leaves a bad taste in his mouth— Façade or not, seeing Shiro so easily turn off his emotions involving this is frustrating beyond belief. At least with Lance, he acknowledged his calm as a shield over his true thoughts, a ploy in his favor. Keith know that, even if he cornered Shiro alone and asked him what he was really thinking, he wouldn’t get a straight response.

 It’s more about Shiro protecting himself, he thinks, than about protecting Keith.

 “He’s not Lance!” Pidge yells, throwing her hands up, a spare blob of food goo tumbling off the end of her spoon with the motion. “That is not Lance. He’s too… different.”

 Hunk frowns where he sits next to Keith, pushing his food goo around on his plate. “Losing Earth changed all of us.”

 “Not like that! He’s… He’s not even the same person!”

 “I admit the change was… startling.” Allura mumbles from her seat at the head of the table. “However, this is not a social visit, we will just have to make do the best we can.”

 Keith snorts, and Allura raises a disapproving eyebrow at him. “Do you have something you wish to say, Keith?”

 “Yeah, don’t lie? We could have figured out another option, you chose this despite knowing half of us didn’t agree to it. What’d you expect was going to happen? That we’d show up and he’d come running back into our arms and it’d all be fine? It’s been nearly three years. Lance has long since proved he doesn’t need us. We’re damn lucky he’s giving us this much leeway, if I had been in his position I sure as hell wouldn’t have.”

 “He’s still Lance.” Hunk says tiredly, glancing over wearily at Keith and then to the others. “The fact that he liked to lighten the atmosphere doesn’t negate his ability to be serious. Lance is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, even if it’s not mechanical or technology centered intelligence. He’s social, analytical, and people-smart. Heck, the Garrison had him on scholarship to go into their data analysis and diplomacy programs, he was the one that decided to try and be a pilot on top of that. Given all of that, him running something like this isn’t that impossible to believe.”

 Shiro blinks. “Lance was on scholarship?”

 “Yes?” Hunk gapes. “Shiro, dude, he and I were both on scholarship. No way we could have afforded it otherwise.”

 “I never knew.” Shiro mumbles, looking abashed.

 “Of course you didn’t!” Hunk cries, looking about two seconds from leaning across the table and shaking Shiro, frustration evident in his posture. “Because you never asked! You can’t judge Lance based on who he is now when you never even took the time to get to know him before!”

 “He doesn’t even want us to use his name, Hunk.” Pidge says, suddenly looking far too small and young in her chair, like the practical child she had been when they first left Earth. “How can he hate us that much?”

 Hunk’s face falls, and Keith cuts in firmly. “He doesn’t hate us. He doesn’t like us, but if he hated us that badly we wouldn’t be here.”

 “I…” Hunk’s voice is low, pitched in sorrow. “I don’t think he’s abandoned his name because he hates us. I think…” He glances over, looking helplessly at Keith, who knows with creeping certainty just from the other’s expression as to where he’s going with this. “I think he hates himself.”

    They end up splitting up who does what surrounding the castle’s repairs. Since the only ones who really understand what they’re doing in regarding to find the stones are Hunk, Pidge, and Coran, they readily agree to the task, and Shiro and Allura opt to stay on board the castle to work on other minor repairs and discuss their next move against the Galra.

 Technically, Keith is also on repairs and strategy duty, but even after all these years he still doesn’t understand much of how the castle works, that being much more Pidge and Hunk’s area, and the idea of sitting on the flight deck for hours on end with only Allura and Shiro for company sounds like a painfully grueling experience. He’d never really taken to the ‘leader’ thing after Shiro had disappeared, and his relationship with Allura, while infinitely better than it was when his heritage first came to light, has always been a little strained, especially after Lance left. Strategy as a whole is just… not his thing. He’s much more prone to the ‘go with your gut’ way of fighting, and while it’s worked out for him for the most part, he’s grown up enough now to admit he should not be the one calling the shots, just the one to take them.

 He lasts one day just restricting himself to training, working alternately with his bayard and his Marmora sword through different levels of training bots, before boredom and the itching need to go outside wins out. The idea of spending what could be a whole week and then some cooped up in the castle without even being able to fly is daunting, and with his severe lack of interest in helping with the Alrexan stone hunting, knowing how generally unhelpful with the task he’d be, combined with the fact he knows Lance is just outside the castle, within touching distance for the first time in two and a half years, it’s a quickly losing battle in trying to convince himself to stay inside and ‘behave’ like a good little paladin.

 The morning of day three of being on Alrexa, Keith slips past Allura and Shiro and storms out the main doors of the castle to the perimeter Lance had ordered his people maintain around the castle, demanding someone drive him to the fucking base camp. A quick radio call later, and Keith is stuck on the back of a truck with an androgynous-looking alien that studiously ignores his questions. Zenex had been downright sociable on the ride yesterday in comparison.

 Ironically, it’s Zenex of all people who meets him at the edge of the base camp, as Keith is apparently for all intents and purposes an item to be passed between guards, and he stares unimpressed at the Galran as he shares a few polite words with the guard, who suddenly seems much less averse to talking.

 “Is this gonna be like a recurring thing if I keep coming back here?” He asks idly, noting that there seem to be less rebels around today as he is led through the camp. “Did Lance make you our in-house babysitter or something?”

 “Actually I volunteered to come get you.” Zenex answers, sounding vaguely amused as he glances down at Keith, who blinks up at him in surprise.

 “Wait, really?”

 Zenex tilts his head in acknowledgement, ears twitching lazily. “You are not the only one who takes curiosity with your own species. I have never met a half-Galra before. You are very different from what I would expect.”

 Keith wrinkles his nose, considering. Admittedly, he doesn’t hold a plethora of Galran traits, but he’s certainly less human looking than when he left Earth, for a multitude of reasons. “I’m… surprised Lance, er… the General has so many Galra as a part of his force, given it was the Empire who destroyed our planet. Princess Allura took a long time to even come to terms with my heritage and potentially working with Galra after what happened to Altea.”

 Zenex nods, tilting his head back and observing the Alrexan sky above them as they walk through the base camp. “I thought that myself for a long time before being rescued by the Resistance. Even when they first brought me here, I thought perhaps I would be executed for my crime of being Galra, but instead the General offered me a purpose.” He looks to Keith, the first genuine smile any of the rebels have offered him stretching across his face. “It was… surprising. The General told me his mother’s family came from a country of Earth that knew oppression in its history, that he has heard of what it means to grow up in fear.” Zenex’s face turns sober. “It is not easy to turn against those that have ruled you your whole life, especially when they are your own kind. The General holds nothing but respect for those of us who have chosen to do so, and nothing but hope for those that cannot fight back. The Galra as a whole are ruled by fear and ignorance as much as many parts of the universe, and while the General would see the Empire toppled, citizens and foot soldiers just doing their day’s work will meet open arms, should they be willing to accept an equal place in society amongst their fellow beings of the universe.”

 “…Huh.” Keith says, trying his best to absorb all that. It’s such a… simple, forgiving approach to taking down the Empire. He could never imagine Allura saying the same things, even in paraphrase from someone else. To her, the compliance of the Galra race as a whole was as much a crime as the actions of Zarkon’s high commanders.

 “We are here.” Zenex says gently, coming to a stop, and Keith blinks, stumbling to a halt and looking to him.

 “Here where?”

 “I assumed you would want to see the General.” Zenex offers, raising a brow. “He is sparring with some new recruits to the Resistance.” He gestures in front of them, and Keith turns, finally spotting the clearly set-apart area of level ground where a few tables of weapons and empty benches litter the edges. Lance is in the middle, a small group of aliens circling around him, and Keith finds his throat runs dry at the sight.

 Lance has shed the trench coat he was wearing yesterday, the thing tossed haphazardly on a bench nearby, and without its presence the black bodysuit from yesterday obscures nothing of the lines of his body, fabric and thin armor hugging lean hips and long legs and thin wrists. He hasn’t pulled his hair up, because he’s clearly an idiot who hasn’t realized that’s a hazard while fighting, and it falls in a wave in front of him, still swooping over his face, as he dodges around the strikes of the other fighters.

 He moves like a monster, fighting with a speed and grace Keith has never seen from him before. Hand-to-hand had never been Lance’s strong suit, his skills much more suited to holing up somewhere on high ground and taking enemies out one by one with his bayard, but clearly in the last few years, that has changed. One of the fighters swings a blunted wooden training sword at him, and Lance ducks under it without hesitation, grabbing onto the rebel’s arm and using his momentum from the swing to throw him over his shoulder, then turning and grabbing a pistol on his belt to fire two round directly at the chests of the two remaining fighters. Keith tenses at the sound, and Zenex chuckles from next to him as the two fighters simply stop and hunch over to catch their breath as soon as the bullets bounce off their armor harmlessly.

 “High-density foam bullets. The General based them off something he called Nerf guns. They’re heavy enough to shoot correctly, but harmless. Worst they’ll do is leave a bruise if you’re not wearing armor.” Zenex grins as Lance helps the third fighter to his feet, speaking quietly to him in a low voice Keith can’t discern the words to. “They’re lucky he goes easy on them during practice.”

 Keith gapes. “That was going easy?”

 Zenex snorts. “You should see him fight in a real battle.”

 I have. Keith wants to say, but bites his tongue. This Lance who fights artfully and up close and personal is a Lance he has not learned yet. What shape does his bayard take now, he wonders— They’d never found it on the ship or with Lance’s abandoned armor, so they know he took that with him at least.

 Lance sends the fighters off with easy smiles and pats on the back that are so familiar it hurts to watch, and when Zenex calls he looks up cheerfully until his eyes fall on Keith and his expression centers out, the smile dropping to something more neutral, unreadable.

 He’s missed Lance’s smiles, he realizes. There’s nothing quite like them in their blinding honesty and joy when Lance is truly happy, and even if he cannot have them directed at him, at least seeing them again is better than nothing.

 “Zenex.” Lance says as he joins them, thumbs hooked into the holsters at his hips. “…Keith.”

 “…Hi.”

 “What are you doing here?” Lance asks, tone businesslike and blunt. “Do you need something?”

 “No, um…” He flushes, suddenly feeling entirely too embarrassed under Lance’s indiscernible gaze. “I was just… bored.”

 “…Bored.”

 “I— yeah.”

 Lance raises an eyebrow, and Keith scowls, cursing the other for his apparent new skill for keeping a straight face. “Can I train with you?” He finally blurts out in a rush, wincing as Lance frowns, a small line forming in the crease of his brow.

 “This is practice for my people only.”

 “What’s wrong?” He goads unthinkingly, falling back into the old habit of push and pull with Lance that is as old as it is instinctual. “Afraid to get your ass kicked?”

 Lance’s eyes gleam at the clear challenge, and out of the corner of his eye Keith catches Zenex pinching his brow, clearly having already sensed the inevitable outcome of this interaction.

 But hey, if this is the only way Keith will get to experience this version of Lance’s fighting, then its good enough for him.

 “…Get in the fucking ring, mullet.”

 “I don’t even have a mullet anymore.” He points out, deliberately reaching a hand up to brush along the short hairs at the back of his neck.

 “Just get in the ring!”

 Lance tosses him a practice sword as soon as he’s in the fighting circle, catching it with one hand easily and watching as Lance scoops up a staff from the ground, swinging it around in his hands before pointing it at Keith. “I’ll go easy on you.” Keith scoffs, going to remind Lance that he was the one who always had to go easy on Lance when it came to hand-to-hand in the past, and then promptly shuts his mouth and dives as Lance’s staff makes an arc right where his head had previously been.

 Well then.

 “So…” He starts up casually, dodging Lance’s swings and parrying accordingly. It’s not overly difficult to keep up without requiring his full attention, and Keith isn’t sure if that speaks to how much Lance may or may not be ‘going easy’ on him, but he can’t find it in himself to complain… yet. “Are you sure you’re not overly furious with all of us?”

 “Seriously?” Lance pants out, aiming a jab to Keith’s chest that is easily dulled by his paladin armor, but does send him stumbling back a couple feet. “Now you want to talk about it?”

 “Hey, I’m just saying!” He continues, swiping down Lance’s next swing with his sword. “If I was you and we’d shown up on your doorstep after two and a half years completely uninvited, I’d be pretty tempted to punch someone too!”

 “Shut up, Keith.” Lance grumbles, dropping low and aiming his staff at Keith’s shins with a wide swipe, forcing him to focus on jumping over it.

 “Like… Hell sometimes I want to punch Shiro these days and I’m not even the one who left Voltron.” He goes on the offensive, getting in Lance’s space and pressing his advantage as he pushes Lance’s staff back closer to his body with the practice sword. “And it’s not like you don’t have it in you. I was there when you threatened to shoot Allura, after Earth. You looked like you were about two seconds from doing it, too.”

 “I said shut up, Keith!” Lance screeches, swinging his staff in a much more vicious swipe than before, slamming it into Keith’s shoulder, and he silently congratulates himself for all of about point two seconds before Lance’s foot comes out of nowhere and connects firmly with his face, hearing something crunch and the warm feel of blood on his skin before he hits the ground.

 He regains consciousness to find Lance peering down worriedly at him, and his first thought is that Lance looks really nice like this, all concerned and caring instead of glaring at him like he’s the scum of the earth or a particularly annoying nuisance. “Found it.” He croaks unthinkingly, brain still set on the tangent it was before he took a boot to the face, and Lance’s fussing expression turns into a glare.

 “You idiot, were you trying to get me to hurt you?”

 “Call it curiosity.” He says, shrugging as best he can with his back flat against the semi-smooth rock beneath them. “I wanted to see what you fight like when you’re mad.”

 Lance sighs, bringing a hand to his forehead and smoothing the hair back gently, leaving Keith’s scalp tingling from the cool touch of his fingers, before Lance pulls his hand back quickly as if Keith might burn him. “You’re so stupid.”

 “Mmm…” He hums in agreement, drinking in Lance’s face, eyes tracing over the unfamiliar scars, cataloguing the minor scratches that he hadn’t been able to notice the other day from further away. “…’M dizzy.”

 “You probably have a concussion.” Lance murmurs, squinting as he peers into Keith’s eyes, no doubt checking for dilated pupils. “Your nose is definitely broken, at least. You’re going to need a couple hours in the healing pods.” He looks up, and Keith mourns the loss of Lance’s sole attention. “Zenex, can you take him back to the Castle? Explain to Coran, the older Altean, what happened.”

 Keith hears Zenex offer an affirmative, and then suddenly there are arms sweeping him up off the ground, lifting him bridal style until his head is level with Lance’s. Fuck, Zenex is tall, why the hell didn’t he get more of that Galran height?

 “Can I come back tomorrow?” He murmurs unthinkingly, eyes still glued to Lance’s face, tracing the edges of the scar hidden by his hair with fascination.

 Lance’s mouth quirks upward, and his expression softens ever so slightly. “I’m on a mission tomorrow.”

 “Oh.”

 “But—“ Lance takes a deep breath, seemingly steeling himself against… something. “But I should be back by tomorrow evening, if you want to come by then.”

 Keith grins, and suddenly the aching of his nose and the ringing in his ears is absolutely, unequivocally worth it. “Deal.”

    The next morning, Keith peers out the castle entrance as he watches a small gathering of ships vanish into the Alrexan sky, the Blue lion noticeably missing from the group. It’s not entirely surprising— What little intel they’d managed to pick up on the Resistance over the years had indicated that Lance didn’t fly Blue exclusively, preferring only to take her out on larger missions in order to minimize chances of being spotted, given the distinctiveness of a giant mechanical space cat, or of her being captured by Galran forces if a mission ever went wrong.

 Would Blue come back to them if, God forbid, something were to happen to Lance? Or would she find a successor in the Resistance?

 He knows what Allura would prefer, at least. She’d been furious at him when he’d first emerged from the cryopods after a brief stint to patch up his nose and heal the concussion, but she’d quickly changed her tune when he’d admitted to Lance inviting him back tomorrow.

 Keith had known she wanted Blue back, wanted a chance to secure the reformation of Voltron, but it still hadn’t been pleasant to have her pull him aside and lecture him on the importance of trying to convince Lance to relinquish Blue back to them, if he would not return to fly with Voltron himself, as if Lance’s willingness to apparently withstand Keith’s company for a few hours was just another bargaining chip.

 While he knows Allura is only doing what she is because she believes that it is right, that Voltron is needed as a whole, singular form to fight the Empire, no matter what individual sacrifices that may entail, the idea of turning that on Lance after the other has allowed him this much makes him feel sick. It may only be permission to come back and see him again, but to Keith it feels like the beginnings of a second chance with Lance, to repair the bond they’d once had, and he doesn’t know if he himself is selfless enough to give that up in the name of trying to reform Voltron.

 He wants when it comes to Lance, wants in a way he can’t explain or quantify, but just knows it’s there. That want had been there long before, back on the first strains of camaraderie and, later, the intriguing glimpses of the side of Lance that haunted the nights after Shiro’s disappearance, and after all this time not even knowing for absolute certain if Lance was alive and well, that want has only grown stronger.

 It’s terrifying, to want something like this, when Keith is used to being the kind of person who is so used to what little he has that he wants for nothing more, but yet he is drawn to Lance, like a moth to the flame, just as the first time he saw Lance in front of the monitors while the castle slept and could not stop himself from wandering back.

 And the fact this Lance is so new and different, yet achingly the same, only adds fuel to the fire that relentlessly commands his attention.

 When evening falls, and Keith spots the faint lights of the returning ships, he races out of the castle, ignoring Shiro’s reprimanding gaze on his back, hopping into the idling truck on the perimeter and smirking at the same silent guard from yesterday.

 “Am I growing on you?”

 They roll their eyes, but knock on the wall, signaling the driver, and Keith cannot fight the grin from his face as they drive along the winding road of smoothed-down rock back to the base camp.

 He’s faintly surprised when they arrive and there’s no Zenex waiting to collect him, or any guard for that matter, but it quickly becomes clear as to why not as he notices the camp busy securing the ships that have landed and helping off a few injured aliens, and he feels his stomach plummet. Injuries aren’t good, no matter how minor; injuries mean something went wrong.

 “Lance.” He whispers, pushing through the crowd even as the guard yelps and yells his name as he pulls away from them, too intent on looking for the increasingly recognizable jumble of long hair. “Lance!”

 It’s Zenex who he spots first, the Galran’s eyes widening as he shoves his way over to him. “Keith.”

 “Zenex.” He pants, half tripping over a rock and catching himself on the other’s offered arm gratefully. “Where’s Lance?”

 Zenex frowns, going to answer, and is cut off as a final ship touches down and the entry runway slams down, Nyma staggering out with a limp figure, their arm slung over her shoulders to keep them propped up and a mess of brown hair hanging in front of their face. There’s blood on Nyma, Keith realizes, and it’s not her own. “Need some medical attention over here!” She yells, and Keith’s breath stutters as things click into place.

 Lance. Lance is hurt.

 It’s Zenex who moves first, swooping in and picking Lance up gently from Nyma’s shaky support, turning and pushing his way through the crowd, which parts quickly as the rebels recognize who is being carried, with Nyma an anxious step behind him. Keith blinks once, gaze caught on the splatter of blood on the ship’s runway, and then turns and runs after them, heart beating rapidly.

 The medical tent is a mass of noise and movement, rebels dressed in various alien approximates of doctor’s scrubs bustling to and fro with bandages and other supplies in their arms. There’s only a single healing pod, he notes, even in his panic, set up in the corner with someone else already inside. He stumbles, desperately searching for Lance, and feels a swoop of relief s Nyma calls his name from a bedside.

 Lance is awake, Keith notes as he tries to semi-calmly make his way over as not to slam into any moving doctors, but he seems out of it, eyes half-lidded and woozy as Nyma and Zenex wrestle the top of his bodysuit down, exposing a long, thin gash up Lance’s side that is slowly oozing blood. It’s less the cut, though, that leaves Keith’s heart hurting, the edges of the lion bond alight with hollow pain along the gap where Lance once was, but the litany of healed scars that line Lance’s body, a testament to dozens of other injuries he experienced that Keith wasn’t there to protect him from.

 He barely notices when Nyma takes pity on him and guides him into a seat, still stuck on Lance’s markings, his blood.

 “You’re an idiot.” Nyma says, taking the seat next to Keith and glaring at Lance. “You could have been killed.”

 Lance grins lazily. “Ah, don’t weep for me, gorgeous. I’m not dead yet.”

 “Gross.” Nyma murmurs, smirking at Lance’s yelp of pain as the doctor who has appeared by the bedside wipes down the gash on his side with what looks like disinfectant, and Keith winces in sympathy.

 “Going to need stitches.” Zenex murmurs, peering carefully at the wound.

 “Oh, fuck no.” Lance says, the pain of the disinfectant seemingly having woken him up from his dazed state. “You lot always fuss around then and keep me from working, always yelling about me tearing my stitches.”

 “Because the last two times you have torn them, oh great General of ours.” Nyma says, looking far too amused.

 Lance groans, and hesitantly Keith speaks, looking to Zenex because he knows Lance won’t be on board with this. “We have cryopods in the castle…”

 Zenex looks considering, but it’s Lance who speaks first, sitting up and hissing in pain to glare at Keith. “Nope! Not happening!”

 “But—“

 “I’m not setting foot in the castle and I’m definitely not accepting any favors from Allura, end of story. It’s a minor scratch, a few stitches and some bandages and I’ll be fine.”

 There’s a scuffle and then the young girl from the other day, Ruya, bursts into view from between the other doctors and rebels, eyes flickering around until they land on Lance and widen with undisguised horror.

 “Ruya!” Lance leans forward and groans when Nyma slaps his arm, forcing him to hold still as the doctor prepares the stitches. “You’re not supposed to be in here!”

 “I heard you were hurt…” She whispers, still staring at Lance’s gash as the light orange of her skin rapidly pales.

 “Get her out of here.” Lance whispers, flinching as the needle touches his skin, eyes landing on Keith, imploring. “Please, get her out of here.”

 Keith nods shakily, pushing himself to his feet and wrapping his arms around Ruya when she fights his guiding touch on her shoulder, bodily lifting her up as she kicks and yells and lugging her out of the tent, catching Lance’s relieved expression as the entrance flap slips closed. He sets down Ruya gently, and coughs, doubling over, when she promptly punches him in the stomach. She’s not big, probably only the size of a ten or eleven year old human, but she’s a lot stronger than that.

 “Let me back in.” She growls, and Keith shakes his head. “I said let me in!”

 “Lance said no.” He says firmly, crossing his arms and glaring down at her.

 “I have to know he’s alright!”

 He softens, sighing. “He’s going to be fine. Us humans are harder to kill than we might seem.”

 She scowls, but when Keith stands his ground, she huffs, turning and stalking off, small hands curled into fists as she disappears into one of the smaller tents in the camp.

 Once he’s sure she’s gone, he falls back against the pole holding up the edge of the tent flap, closing his eyes and releasing a shuddery breath. He’s seen a lot of blood and injury in his time with Voltron, and not just on his enemies. He’s helped his teammates into pods countless times, he knows what seeing his friends hurt looks like, but seeing Lance like that is still… unpleasant, especially when he knows there’s perfectly viable healing pods sitting empty in the castle that could be helping Lance right now.

 It’s not that he doesn’t understand Lance’s reasoning— If he were Lance, he wouldn’t want to set foot in the castle after all this time either, and given Lance probably knows what Allura’s up to, keeping her in his debt and out of hers is the smartest option, but goddamn if he still doesn’t want to go back in there and fucking insist Lance get his ass in a pod.

 He doesn’t realize how long he’s been out there until he hears a startled cough behind him, and turns to see Lance, bandages around his side and bodysuit top tied loosely around his waist, peering at him from the pushed-back edge of the entrance flap. “Keith. You’re still here.”

 He shifts nervously, flushing. “I was… worried.”

 Lance grins, and Keith feels his heart stutter for an entirely different reason than before. “Well in that case, you can walk me back.” He turns, yelling into the tent. “Zenex! Nyma! Keith’s gonna go with me to Blue, so your paranoid asses don’t have to worry about me collapsing on the middle of the road or something!”

 A grumbling affirmative is called back, and Lance smirks, looking pleased at having escaped his caretakers as he stretches out with a sigh, arms reaching above his head in a way that shows off smooth brown skin and leaves Keith breathless.

 “C’mon then, I wanna see my favorite girl.”

    Blue’s resting place is on the edge of the base camp closest to the central command tent, her large frame curled up in a smooth patch around a few outcroppings of rock, head turned towards the camp as if to keep an eye on the Resistance members at all times. Her eyes light up when Lance and Keith appear around the edges of the last tents on the path towards her, and she lifts her head just slightly, peering down at Lance with what Keith can only interpret as delight, despite her mechanical build precluding her from facial expressions.

 Even just taking one glance at Blue’s joy at seeing her paladin, at Lance’s large, honest grin as he calls out to her and hops the last few steps towards the edges of her massive paws, Keith has no idea how Allura hopes to break this apart. No matter what the princess may say on the lion’s nature, Blue clearly loves her paladin more than anything else in existence, and the idea of her suddenly abandoning Lance to accept another in her cockpit seems laughable.

 She growls lightly when Keith comes to stop at her feet next to Lance, and the other smacks her gently on the edge of her nose, tone admonishing as he speaks to her. “Don’t be grumpy! I invited him here.”

 Blue settles instantly, seemingly satisfied with that answer, and Lance snorts, turning to Keith hesitantly. He wonders if Lance is about to send him away, demand that he return to the castle now that he’s done his job, but instead Lance smiles, the edge of his mouth quirking up unsurely. “Do you want to stay? I need to get changed real quickly but if you want to hang out on top of Blue I’ll see if I can find something to drink or… something.”

 “Alright.” Keith says quickly, not even stopping to consider another answer, and Lance’s smile slips into something slightly more real.

 Blue purrs quietly when Keith scrambles up the side of her head to the top of it, apparently content with his presence now that Lance has given his okay, and Keith can’t stop himself from giving her ear a few idle pats, leaning against it lazily. There’s the faint presence of her quintessence humming under her metal shell that Keith has come to recognize in all the lions, somewhat muted in this case by the cut-off pieces of the lion bond where she once resided, but he finds he’s still able to distinguish it well enough. Red stirs in the back of his mind, delighted at the faint echoes of her sister she can feel through Keith, though frustrated that she cannot connect to the other directly, Blue’s consciousness as cut off from Red as Lance’s is to his, the place where they tore themselves loose from the bond still a barely-healed wound.

 “I never knew it was possible for lions to choose their pilots over Voltron.” He says quietly, and feels Blue stir beneath him, the tendrils of her mind hesitantly reaching out, grasping through the tentative connection that once alerted him to her presence on Earth, offering him images of Lance as he was when they first became paladins, and of a Galran girl in matching armor, feelings of doubt and grief and discontent lingering beneath them, an undercurrent of resolve tied up between them all.

 “I know.” He offers, closing his eyes. “I know you couldn’t lose another one.”

 Red has never offered him much information on her former paladin, her original paladin, but he does know that she misses him terribly. He’s seen how powerful the bond between a lion and its paladin is, how even Black fell to it under Zarkon’s presence for a long while before they created a stronger bond with Shiro. He imagines for a lion like Blue, whose entire being thrives on love and loyalty, the idea of seeing a second paladin die for Voltron pains her immensely.

 He doubts any of the former paladins had pleasant deaths, but he’s always gotten the sense that whatever happened to Lance’s predecessor, it was particularly bad.

 There’s a rustling behind him, and Keith turns to watch Lance clamber out of Blue behind him. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

 Lance grins. “There’s a hatch on the back of Blue’s neck, pretty sure all the lions have them.” Keith shrugs, and Lance snorts, clambering over the top of Blue’s head to join Keith sitting between her ears, plopping down with a sigh.

 He’s still shirtless, Keith notices, and promptly forces himself not to think anymore on that topic. Then again, it’s not hard with the very noticeable presence of the bandages wrapped up along Lance’s side— Probably why he’d forgone a shirt, honestly, in order not to have extra layers pulling at the wrappings. The bodysuit with its numerous weapon holsters has been discarded in favor of a pair of sweatpants that hang low on Lance’s hips, and Keith is suddenly very grateful of the bottled drink Lance offers him, taking a long gulp before promptly choking and coughing at the burning in his throat.

 There’s snickering coming from Lance’s direction, and Keith blindly shoves at him while still doubled over coughing, finally straightening back up once his lungs stop trying to kill him. “What the fuck was that?”

 Lance grins, taking a sip of his own drink with seemingly no problems. “Unilu namka. Basically their equivalent of whiskey.”

 Keith gapes. “You keep alcohol on Blue.”

 “Dude I live on Blue, I keep much worse things here.” Lance raises an eyebrow. “And I’m twenty-two and you’re twenty-three, so I don’t see what’s so scandalous about it.”

 He scowls, glaring down at the bottle of namka and forcing himself to take another sip. “Shiro isn’t big on having alcohol on the ship. Says if we’re inebriated we risk not being prepared for surprise Galra attacks.”

 “Stupid.” Lance says bluntly, and Keith snorts.

 “Aren’t you supposed to be a high and mighty commander too?”

 Lance frowns, putting down his bottle and pointing at Keith accusingly. “I’m not Shiro, and I’m not Allura. I’m not going to ask these people to risk their lives to fight in this war and then tell them what they can or cannot do on their own time. Fighting the Galra shouldn’t preclude them from having lives. We drink, we celebrate, and we have friends and families, like we should.”

 “…And what about you?”

 “Me?” Lance makes a face, turning away to stare out at the base camp. “I lead.”

 Keith sighs. “You literally just said this shouldn’t stop people from having lives, Lance.”

 Lance scowls, taking a swig of his bottle. “My life died on Earth, Keith. I’ve made my choices. Better alone here and doing what I can than with Voltron and living in silence as people die from our mistakes.”

 He winces, ducking his head. “…Right.” After a pause, he looks back to Lance, considering. “…You’re not alone though, not really.”

 “What do you mean?���

 “Well… like.” Keith gestures out to the camp vaguely. “These people, they look up to you, they care about you. You’re more than just a figurehead to them— Zenex and Nyma they… they both really seem to worry over you.”

 Lance smiles lightly, closing his eyes and humming in agreement. “They’re good people. Zenex is as reliable a soldier as you could ask for, and Nyma has been… a friend.” His smile fades slightly, and he opens his eyes, looking back to Keith. “She said once that she couldn’t believe I was the same person as the kid who tried to climb a tree to impress her and got swindled out of his lion.”

 Keith grimaces. “You’re still you, Lance.”

 “Am I?” Lance says quietly. “I don’t know if I want to be.” He pauses, taking another gulp of his drink and raising an eyebrow at Keith. “And what about you? Are you still the same, Keith?”

 “We all changed after Earth, Lance.” He offers hesitantly, shrugging. “It was inevitable.”

 “Mm… I suppose.”

 “And what about the kid, Ruya?” He says, a slight twinge echoing along his stomach where the girl had punched him earlier. “What’s her story?”

 Lance snorts. “Let me guess, she punched you?” At Keith’s answering wince, he snickers. “Ruya… Ruya is… impulsive, prone to anger. Her parents were refugees who came to the Resistance last year, and died a few months ago in a raid. She wants revenge for her family, to fight, but really she’s just a child, only mentally about thirteen or fourteen by our standards, so I keep an eye on her.” He grins suddenly. “She reminds me of you, actually.”

 “Me?”

 “Yeah, well, y’know. A hothead.”

 “Oh my God you’re still on about that?” He gapes, and Lance laughs loudly, prompting Keith to shove him lightly. “It’s been four years, asshole!”

 Lance falls still, smile softening. “Yeah…. it has, hasn’t it?” He sighs, suddenly looking immensely tired, and Keith’s heart sinks. Idly, his eyes fall to the scars on Lance’s torso, chasing up and down his chest and along his arms— They’re messy, jagged. The cryopods in the castle minimize marks, any leftover scarring thin and neat, and the few distinct scars Keith has on his body come from occasions when he couldn’t get to a healing pod. Looking at Lance, it’s quite obvious he’s not been spending much time in healing pods when injured at all in the last few years. Lance turns slightly, leaning his shoulder against Blue’s ear, and Keith’s eyes catch on slight markings along Lance’s back, eyes widening.

 “Are those tattoos?”

 “Oh…” Lance stills, glancing at him, and then turning and pushing his hair up to expose the ink traced along his back in thin lines. “Yeah, turns out we’re not the only species that’s into it— Though Markordian inking is a lot less painful based off what I’d heard about Earth tattoos, lemme tell you.”

 “Are these…?” He half-asks hesitantly, unable to stop himself from reaching out and running a thumb under a neatly inked line of small letters, the skin cool under his hand against what he has over time come to know is his unusually high body temperature thanks to his Galran blood.

 Lance shivers at his touch, nodding. “The names of the people I lost.” He reaches around with his free hand, blindly yet expertly tapping to different lines of dark blue ink. “My friends, my aunts and uncle, my grandparents, my cousins, my niece and nephew, my mother, my sisters.”

 Keith’s gaze runs down to the final line, just above the curve of Lance’s hips, and blinks. “Lance, your name is on here.”

 Lance shifts quickly, ducking out from Keith’s touch and turning to face Keith, back hidden from view as his arms come to wrap around himself defensively. “Yeah, I know.”

 “…Why?”

 “Because,” Lance scowls, “I died that day too, Keith, along with my family. That was my hope; that was what I looked to return to— To my mother, my sisters. I meant what I told Allura, Lance McClain doesn’t exist anymore, only this.” He gestures out to the base camp in front of them, the lights around the tents low as night settles. “Only the Resistance, only the General.”

 “Then…” He pauses, looking to Lance, who meets his eyes defensively, exhaustion and anger and so much grief coiled up in dark blue. “Then how come I still see Lance McClain, the same idiotic, brilliant Lance McClain who demanded he be the one to save Shiro back then, when I look at you?”

 “Really?” Lance snorts, gesturing at himself. “You look at this wreck and you see that Lance?”

 He shrugs. “You’re the same, and you’re not. The past and the present aren’t mutually exclusive.”

 “I mean technically they are.”

 “Shut up, you know what I mean.” He mumbles, flushing. “None of us are the same as we were, idiot— Not physically, not mentally. You’re not suddenly a monster for having a few scars.”

 “Mm…” Lance hums, eyeing his drink and downing the last of it before looking to the empty bottle regretfully. Raising an eyebrow, he turns to Keith, the alcohol seemingly having emboldened him as he reaches out and runs his fingertips over the side of Keith’s face, catching on the edges of the marks he knows lie there and trailing up to just underneath his bad eye. “And you? How’d that happen?”

 “Fight with Haggar about nine months ago.” He says softly, bringing his hand up to brush Lance’s own as he idly rubs over the ever-so-slightly differently textured skin. “Got splashed with a face full of concentrated liquid quintessence, burned like a motherfucker at first. It’s kind of like getting acid on your skin, but luckily those good ol’ Galra genes kicked in and kept me from losing my eye, and half my damn face for that matter.”

 Keith doubts it’s a pretty sight, he’s seen it in the mirror enough times— A mess of splotches of purple skin along the left side of his face, covering his eyelid and forehead and descending down his cheek to the corner of his mouth. There’s no fur, thank God, but it’s definitely Galra skin, down to the purple color and texture. The most noticeable part, he thinks, is probably his eye, the once human appearance taken over by the blank yellow of all Galran eyes.

 He doesn’t regret the changes to his face his Galra genetics have wreaked, knows they probably damn well saved his life and his sight that time, but he doubts it’s much to look at for many people, especially those who have an aversion to Galra in general. The princess hadn’t been able to look at him for weeks, afterward. Even accepting his heritage, he imagines seeing a half-Galran face on one of her paladins couldn’t have been easy.

 …Ha, half-Galran.

 He expects Lance to pull away, or maybe make some comment about his bad luck, but instead he just hums, squinting at Keith’s face. “Can you still see?”

 Keith blinks, surprised. “More or less? Galrans don’t see color exactly the same way or have the same depth perception, so it’s a little wonky, but the night vision’s a plus if nothing else.” Lance hums, nodding and sitting back, seemingly satisfied with the answer, and Keith mourns the loss of the feel of cool fingers on his face.

  “Y’know, I always hoped if you suddenly sprouted Galra traits it’d be the ears, I had so many catboy jokes saved up for that day.”

 Keith gapes, and Lance giggles, breaking down into laughter as Keith gives him a pointed shove. “What the fuck?!”

 “What?! It would have been funny as hell!”

 He snorts, shaking his head, and falls silent as the last of Lance’s snickers peter out. “It doesn’t… bother you?”

 “Nah.” Lance says easily. “Of course not. I suppose it means we match, if anything.”

 Keith frowns, furrowing his brow in confusion and turning to Lance as the other smiles, a nervous half-formed thing at the corner of his mouth, and pushes the hair back off the front of his face, tucking it behind his ear.

 “…Jesus Christ, Lance.”

 Lance snorts, reaching a hand up to trace the smaller scar on his right cheek. “This one was from Haggar, and this—“ His hand moves to the one on his left, thumb running up from the edge of his jaw along his cheek to where the scar curves over his eyelid and reaches his forehead, the eye framed by it light and discolored, unseeing. “This was from Lotor. He said he couldn’t fight such a pretty face, so he had to do a little damage first.” Lance’s words are calm, but his voice is watery, and Keith finds himself reaching out to trace along the scar, catching the first droplets of tears as they spill unheeded from the blinded eye.

 “It’s not bad, really.” Lance continues, shaky. “He didn’t get the one I use for sniping, and I got used to it fast enough, so in the end it wasn’t a huge loss. It was a nuisance to clean up though, was before the Resistance really formed, so it was just me in Blue’s cockpit trying to patch myself up. For a little while I was afraid I might have to remove the eye myself if it got infected.” He smirks bitterly. “It worked, though. Lotor didn’t seem to have many problems fighting me after that, creepy fascinations aside, so I guess he got me ugly enough. It’s appropriate, I suppose— Most monsters don’t stay pretty.”

 “You’re gorgeous.” Keith blurts unthinkingly, and Lance’s eyes widen, red scrawling across his face. Realizing what he’s said, Keith pulls his hand back, pointedly avoiding Lance’s gaze as he stares down at Blue’s surface and prays for the mortified flush in his cheeks to fade.

 “So…” He coughs awkwardly, desperately looking for a distraction. “…Why the hair? You always wore it short before. Was it just to hide the scarring? Because that’s bull, Lance. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

 Lance raises his hands defensively. “No, jeez, calm down. I just fancied it. I kept it longer when I was little and…” He shrugs, looking back out to the camp. “With Earth gone, there weren’t any human gender binary expectations to return to, y’know? It didn’t really matter anymore.”

 Silence crawls between them, overwhelming and deafening, and Keith watches Lance’s somber face carefully, the last lights of the camp catching on his skin and illuminating tan skin and dark hair.

 “…You know it’s not your fault, right? What happened to Earth.”

 Lance scowls, leaning forward and wrapping his hands around his knees, glaring out into the night. “Sure.”

 “It wasn’t!” He turns hurriedly, staring at Lance with wide eyes. “We should have listened to you!”

 “And I should have found another way.” Lance murmurs, closing his eyes. “I knew Allura and Shiro wouldn’t believe me, and the rest of you would accept their word, I could have found another way to prevent it myself.”

 “You can’t fight the world alone, Lance.”

 “Says you.” Lance mutters tiredly. “I seem to recall you fighting your way through half the Blade of Marmora on what basically amounted to a dare from Kolivan.”

 “Okay, yeah, but I’m not like that now.” Keith says, waving his arms. “I learned to rely on other people! Trust in your teammates and all that crap Shiro used to spout!”

 “Oh, really? Who?”

 “Well…” He shrugs, slumping forward and dropping his chin into his hands, eyes falling to Lance’s sullen form next to him. “Hunk, for one?”

 The corner of Lance’s mouth twitches up, and he opens his good eye to peer curiously at Keith. “Seriously?” He nods, and Lance’s smile grows a little wider. “Good. He’s… a good friend.”

 “Yeah.” Keith sighs. “He is.” He hesitates, exhaustion quietly clawing at him, and slowly slumps into Lance’s side, shivering when Lance’s answering hum echoes against him. Closing his eyes, he tilts his head, resting it on Lance’s shoulder, and breathes out a shaky sigh of relief when he feels Lance’s head nudge back against his. “I don’t blame you, for leaving. But… I did miss you. I still miss you.”

 Lance stiffens, ever so slightly, and Keith prepares himself to be pushed away, but instead cool fingers find his own, intertwining and palms pressed flat together.

 “…I missed you too. Always did.”

    Keith wakes up to Shiro’s voice calling his name at an hour that feels far too early to be getting up, and barely cracking one eye open assures him that, yes, he’s just a little bit hungover.

 Groaning, he sticks a hand out and up, flipping Shiros’s currently rather annoying voice off, and hears a sighs of relief coming from somewhere below him. “Yeah, he’s there.”

 Scrunching his nose up, Keith ponders why Shiro would even be looking for him, before the events of the night before come back to him, and he snaps his eyes open, staring down in vague horror at Lance’s slumped form curled up against his chest, a mess of brown hair tucked under his chin as Lance’s shoulders rise and fall softly with his breath.

 Jesus Christ almighty he spent the night sleeping on top of Blue and cuddling with Lance.

 Idly, he wills the heat in his cheeks to fade, and wonders if there’s a way he can extract himself from this situation without waking Lance, before Allura’s voice shouts up with none of the patience or mellowness of Shiro’s.

 “Keith!”

 Lance startles, sitting bolt upright and looking around wildly, hand reaching automatically to his hip as if to grab a gun or his bayard and then pauses when he meets air, blinking and actually taking in his surroundings for the first time. He looks to Keith and makes a surprised, vaguely distressed sound, scrambling off until he falls against Blue’s other ear, wincing as his shoulder connects with it.

 Sighing, Keith peers over the edge, glaring down at Shiro and Allura where they stand at the base of Blue’s paws, a disgruntled-looking Zenex standing a few feet behind them, arms crossed and glowering at the back of Allura’s head. “What’s up?”

  Allura scowls, going to reply, and Shiro beats her to it. “You just didn’t come back to the castle last night, we were worried.”

 He raises an eyebrow. “I’m fine.”

 “Is the General there?” Zenex asks impatiently, and across from Keith, Lance lifts his arm over the edge of Blue’s head and offers a vague thumbs-up.

 “I’m here, Zenex.”

 “Apologies, sir.” Zenex shifts nervously. “They demanded entry to the camp and you weren’t answering your comms…”

 “It’s fine…” Lance calls out, yawning. “Gimme a sec to get dressed, yeah?” He turns, sliding down the back of Blue’s head and into a hatch that opens at the very base of her head, right where her neck connects, and Keith blinks in surprise.

 Ok, so the neck hatch thing was real.

 He gives it all of about two seconds to consider how he himself is going to get down, before Blue tips her nose forward and he slides off with a yelp, landing in Shiro’s patiently waiting arms.

 “Good morning.” Shiro smirks down at him, and he scowls, pushing the other man away as he clambers free and finally manages to get himself standing on his own on the ground, sending both Allura and Shiro severely unimpressed looks.

 “You know, forcing your way into the camp is not going to do you any favors with Lance.”

 Allura snorts, crossing her arms. “I do not care for his favor. If you are free to come and go as you please, so are we. Besides, you were missing.”

 “I’m twenty-three, Allura. I can look after myself.” He says, pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing out slowly. “Lance got hurt last night, I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

 Shiro frowns. “Lance was hurt?”

 “It was only a minor scratch and it is none of your business, regardless.” Lance’s voice rings out from behind him, and Keith turns to watch as he strides out of Blue, patting the side of her snout as she shuts her mouth and goes back to resting her head on her paws. He’s back in the bodysuit, Keith notes, or at least a carbon copy of it, as well as the trench coat, hair brushed back over his eye and weapon holsters in place. Idly, his gaze falls to the blue bayard, strapped to Lance’s thigh. So that’s where it was, he’d been wondering.

 Like this, Lance looks the perfect picture of a regal and powerful commanding officer leading a full-fledged rebellion. It’s an odd contrast compared to the open, vulnerable, scarred Lance of last night, and the idea that he was willing to expose that to Keith but not to Shiro and Allura is…

 Well. Keith doesn’t know exactly what he feels about it, but whatever it is, it leaves a strange warmth in his chest, spreading along the old fractures of the lion bond.

 Lance strides past Allura and Shiro without a second look, turning his attention to Zenex and leaving Keith and the others to race after them as they walk back to the camp.

 “Any news?” He hears Lance ask, and Zenex shakes his head.

 “The radios have been silent all night. Elos has been working on the plans you picked up during the mission, but they haven’t yet figured out what they are for. Lotor has by now realized regular Galran will not be enough to keep secrets, so he has been religiously switching up codes in his messages to his commanders.”

 “Of course he has.” Lance mumbles. “I’ll stop by and take a look at them later, see if I can help.”

 “Lance.” Allura calls, and Keith winces when Lance pointedly ignores her. “Lance! I need to talk to—“

 “I know what you’re going to say Allura, and the answer is no.” Lance says, turning and looking back at them with a sigh. “I am not coming back to Voltron, and you are not having Blue.”

 Allura bristles. “You would be so selfish as to insist on continuing to keep her?”

 Lance’s eyes widen, and he gives a disbelieving laughs. “You just don’t get it, do you? I don’t own Blue, and neither do you. The bond between a lion and a paladin isn’t about control, or about force. Shiro couldn’t make Black relinquish their bond with Zarkon, they had to choose to, and I didn’t make Blue come with me. I told her what my intentions were, and she asked that I take her with me over a different ship. If you can’t understand that, then it’s not really surprising Blue rejected you.”

 “Lance.” Shiro says from next to Keith, voice disapproving, and Lance scowls, twisting back around and pointedly putting his back to them.

 “You’re not my commanding officer, Shiro. Do not try to moderate my words.”

 Shiro winces, and Keith can’t help but shrug. “He’s right.”

 “How is your search for the Alrexan stones going?” Lance asks, still not facing them, and hesitantly Shiro glances at Allura, who still looks like she’s like to smack the back of Lance’s head, and answers carefully.

 “…Good. Coran, Pidge, and Hunk have located stones that should be of an acceptable size for the castle’s needed level of power and are working on removing them. We should be set to leave in a day or two.”

 Keith feels his heart sink at the words, and does his best to ignore it. This is good. The sooner the castle is fixed, the sooner they can get back out there to helping people, and the sooner Lance can get them all out of his hair. This is the way things should be— The Blue Lion Resistance and Voltron, two separate, completely untied forces operating against the Galran Empire.  

 …So then, why does the thought hurt so much?

     When they get back to the castle, Keith is one part cranky and tired and one part still slightly hungover, and that alone is enough to coax him into a nap. He’s not usually a napping person, but occasionally even he can be tempted, and the exhaustion he feels from the lack of sleep he got last night after staying up so late talking with Lance coupled with the general emotional tiredness he feels at the thought of knowing they’ll be leaving Alrexa in a couple days is enough to coax him into just falling asleep for a few hours as a way to turn his brain off for a few hours.

 It feels like a great idea at the time, but when a fucking explosion of all things jars him awake just as the evening sets in, he’s sorely regretting his most recent life choices.

 He stumbles out into the hall only half-awake and collides with Hunk’s chest, who apparently must have returned to the castle from the mines while he was asleep, steadying himself before pushing up and meeting the other’s frantic eyes. “What’s going on?”

 “I don’t know!” Hunk says, panicky. “I was in my room when suddenly everything started shaking!”

 There’s a whistling sound from above, and all of a sudden another shake rocks the ship, clearly not a hit to the castle itself but on the ground close enough to feel the impact tremors. He has all of about five seconds to frantically question why the fuck something is apparently chucking projectiles from above them at the area just west of the castle before it clicks, and his eyes widen.

 “Fuck, Hunk, the base camp!”

 Hunk pales, and then they’re running, sprinting past Pidge’s door as it opens and she calls out to them, hesitating for a few seconds before chasing after as well. They nearly collide with Allura, Shiro, and Coran as they reach the castle entrance, screeching to a halt just before Hunk and Keith would have slammed into Shiro. Allura’s eyes are wild and confused, and Coran’s mustache is literally sparking, as if the impact tremors sent him face-first into something electrical. Then again, if the others had just come back to the ship and Coran had been starting on repairs, he supposes that’s a possibility.

 “Paladins,” Allura says, gaze darting between them, “What is—“

 “It’s the Galra.” Keith growls. “They’re shooting at the base camp— They’re shooting at the base camp and chances are we damn well led them here!”

 “We don’t know that.” Shiro says quietly, and Keith snarls.

 “They’ve been here nearly a year without incident, and within four days of us showing up the Galra suddenly know where to look?! Yeah, right!”

 “We have to help them, regardless.” Allura says pointedly, cutting through the argument. “Get to your lions.”

 Red’s anger, her willingness to fight, coils in Keith’s stomach, and he shoves it down. “Are you crazy?! Lance will kill us!”

 “He will not be able to do much if he is dead.” Allura counters primly. “He needs our assistance.”

 “Allura, Lance gave orders to fire on the castle if the lions ever left their hangars.” Hunk points out, nervously fiddling with his hands and shooting glances at the distant form of the base camp, smoke rising from where the explosives have hit. “Chances are he hasn’t had time to belay that order, and if the rebels see a bunch of lions that have been labeled as potentially dangerous to them suddenly flying overhead, it may panic people and just make things worse.”

 A scowl writes itself across Allura face, and Keith feels himself rapidly losing patience. “Fuck this! They need help now. Open the quiznacking hangar doors and if Lance gives the alright then we’ll call the lions to us, but I’m not having a fucking debate over it while people are in danger!” He takes off through the doors, heading for the last of the trucks that were holding the perimeter around the castle, the majority already gone and headed to the base camp, he assumes, and hears footsteps behind his that he recognizes as Hunk. Moments later, there’s a bunch of calls, and then several following sets of footsteps as everyone else gives chase.

 He skids to a stop next to the truck he took into the base camp yesterday, Hunk a step behind him, and meets the eyes of the guard from yesterday, sitting in the drivers seat. Whoever was driving the truck yesterday while they watched Keith is clearly gone, likely on one of the other trucks back to the camp.

 “Please.” He chokes out, doing his best to pull air into his lungs after so much stop and start sprinting. “Please, I need to help him.”

 The guard hesitates, and then nods, gesturing to the back of the truck and speaking their first words to him.

 “Get in.”

 Keith scrambles into the back, the others climbing in a few seconds after as the truck roars to life, and then they’re shooting down the path, any of the speed regulation from the last couple trips gone in the favor of getting there as quickly as possible. He only allows himself one quick look at his teammates, taking in Hunk’s nervous face, Pidge’s wide and fearful eyes, Shiro’s guilty expression, and then turns back to watching the smoking outline of the base camp as it draws near, praying to entities he long since gave up on that Lance is alright.

 They emerge into chaos, stumbling out of the truck into a sea of rebels rushing around them and Keith’s eyes catch on Lance barking orders in the center of the swarm, Zenex hovering over his shoulder.

 “Lance!” He screams, shoving his way over, and Lance turns at the call, eyes widening.

 “Keith? What are you doing here?” He notices the others behind Keith, and his expression closes off, eyes going dark. “What are they doing here?”

 “We are here to help.” Allura says, and Lance scowls.

 “No.” He turns, calling out more orders as the people around them don flight gear and board ships, and Keith reaches out, grabbing his hand desperately.

 “Please, let us help you! We have the lions, we can fight!”

 Lance turns, wrenching his hand out of Keith’s, and his eyes are fire. “For all we know, your presence is what brought them here! This is not your fight, so just— Just stay out of it!”

 “If we brought them here then we have to help!” Keith screeches, and along the threads of the lion bond Red stirs, her anger at the Galra and fear for the people of the base camp, fear for Lance, mixing with his own. “Please, I can’t just sit here while you go and fight without even knowing what will happen to you!”

 “Lance, please.” Hunk murmurs from behind Keith, and something in Lance’s expression softens, his eyes darting once to the people of his base camp as they run to fight or to cover.

 “The Empire’s ships have fired only on the base camp, not the castle. They may not know you are here. If this attack was not timed to your arrival, seeing more lions may tempt the commander to fight harder rather than retreat. There is significantly more glory in having captured Voltron than in having done some damage to a bunch of scraggly rebels hiding out on a no-name planet.”

 “Or seeing the full force of Voltron may scare them off!” Keith presses.

 Lance hesitates, then closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Strategy before impulsivity. I have doubted myself once before in the face of Voltron’s opinion, and it cost too much.” When he opens his eyes, it is the General of the Blue Lion Resistance who looks back at Keith.

 “If you really want to help, then assist in getting those who are non-combatants or injured underground. Leave my soldiers to me.”

 The others hesitate, and then disperse, and Keith turns to go as well, before Lance’s hand reaches out and grabs his own, spinning him around before a second hand grabs the back of his neck and pulls him down slightly, Lance leaning forward and pressing his forehead against Keith’s, dark eyes staring into his own.

 “If I need you, I will call for you.” Lance breathes, and then releases Keith, turning and sprinting his way to the Blue lion, catching a pitch black helmet with a reflective blue visor that Nyma throws him as she boards her ship and slipping it over his head as Blue stretches up and roars from the edge of the base camp, awaiting her pilot.

    Waiting on the inside of what is essentially a bomb shelter with only a listen-in radio connected to the Resistance fighter’s comms to give any indication of what’s going on outside, while Keith knows Lance is out there potentially risking his life, is hell.

 He can tell Red agrees, her presence pacing anxiously in the forefront of his mind, and he knows she is likely moving restlessly around her hangar, fighting the urge to just take off and fly only because Keith has begged her to hold steady, and after this long together their trust is at a level where his words may occasionally override her own protective instincts.

 It’s just as jarring for her as it is for him, he knows, if not more so. At least he can hear Lance’s voice over the radio as he yells out commands to his fighters, calling out attacks and occasionally swearing, usually in Spanish or another language. Red can’t feel anything, the destroyed place in the bond where Blue once resided keeping her from seeking out her sister’s quintessence, and the best Keith can do is offer her confirmations that Lance, and assumedly his lion as well, are still breathing.

 …He just hopes, prays, that Lance’s shouted curses are out of anger and frustration with the Galra fleet they’re dealing with and not because of near misses on shots to Blue.

 Keith startles when Hunk sits down next to him where he’s crouched against the edge of the underground shelter, the other’s presence startling him out of his musings, and when Hunk raises a curious eyebrow at him, he simply groans, giving in and slumping against the larger paladin.

 “…I can’t stand just… waiting here.” He mutters, and Hunk hums his agreement.

 “I just—“ He continues, frustration tugging at his being. “We have the lions! We should be out there watching his back, protecting him!”

 “I don’t really think Lance needs much protection anymore.” Hunk offers mildly, and Keith snorts.

 “I know, but… God, there’s extra help just sitting there and he’s too stubborn to accept it!”

 “Do you think that’s what it is?”

 “Huh?” He blinks, turning his head slightly from where it’s slumped against Hunk’s arm to peer up at the other.

 “Stubbornness. Do you think that’s why Lance refused our help?”

 “I… Guess?” He answers hesitantly, and Hunk sighs.

 “Do you remember what I told you when Lance first left Voltron?”

 “Uh…”

 “I told you that Lance plans around contingencies. He’s a strategist as much as he is a people pleaser or inevitably plain old insecure— It’s just a part of who he is, he’s been like that since he was a child. His backup plans have backup plans, and nine out of ten times he’s not going to need them because he considered all the options before even making his initial decision.” Hunk grins lopsidedly at Keith, shrugging lightly. “Lance is brilliant, he always has been, it’s just not in an area people pay much attention to. If Lance truly believed the best option was to have us flying with him, no matter how much he may dislike working with Voltron, he wouldn’t have hesitated, not at the risk of the lives of people under his command.”

 “…So?” Keith asks hesitantly.

 “So have a little faith in his thinking process. He wasn’t bullshitting just to get us to sit down and behave. There’s a good chance that this attack was random, or based off something else than the Empire tracking our presence. In a way, that’d make less sense for Lotor’s style. Hit two birds with one stone, yeah, but it’d take immense firepower to take out both of us. We’d be seeing a lot more damage than we are right now, not to mention attacks on the castle. If they’re shooting from high enough up that they can’t see the castle, then it’s a pre-coordinated attack going off the specific coordinates of the camp.” Hunk chuckles. “If he’s betting on his forces being enough to send ‘em scattering without alerting the Empire to our presence, then that’s good enough for me to do the same… What about you?”

 “I—“ Keith hesitates, closing his eyes and shivering when he hears an explosion echo over the radio. “…Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

 In the recesses of his mind, Red’s presence slows her frantic pacing, considering, and then purrs back, a reassurance she will also take Hunk’s words as truth and place her trust in her sister and said sister’s pilot to know what they are doing.

 “…Thank you.” He murmurs, and Hunk smiles.

 “Of course.” Overhead another explosion hits, and Hunk winces. “…Now we just have to wait it out.”

 “Yeah… Now we wait.”

 It feels like an eternity buried in the shelter, listening to the echoes of the guns and the shouts reverberating over the radio, but eventually the explosions from above that shake the ground around and above them peter to a stop, the sounds of the battle on the comms fade, and, finally, Lance’s voice rings out through the shelter.

 “Sound the all clear. Bastards are turning tail, we got ‘em.”

 There’s a sigh of relief from the young alien wearing the headset plugged into the comms on the radio, and a faint cheer whoops in the back, quickly being picked up the others in the bunker, and Hunk grins, looking delighted and nudging Keith lightly in the side, who can’t help but smile back.

 Thank God.

 He watches with relief as Allura climbs up and opens the hatch leading to above ground, and steps aside to let the stream of aliens clamber out. Lance’s camp really is about more than fighting, he thinks— There are at least sixty or seventy noncombatants here, if not more once you include those who are injured. Children and elderly and young parents who are true refugees, welcomed to the Resistance with open arms for what they offer just by continuing to survive in the face of the overwhelming reach of the Empire.

 It’s so different from the long, empty halls of the Castle of Lions, where there are whole floors that lie untouched even after nearing five years in space, and the only permanent residents are the six of them… himself, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro, and Coran and the princess. Any prisoners they rescued were always promptly healed and given healing pods to be sent home, but perhaps, he thinks, looking out over the sea of different species as they make their way out of the shelter, remembering the brand on Zenex’s face marking him a traitor to his kind and of Rolo and Nyma’s seemingly endless planet hopping, it’s not that simple. He’d always assumed that was the way things worked, before. You rescue people, and they get to go back to their lives as they once were, but…

 They have no home to return to, anymore, just a crumble of rock where Earth once flourished. And, perhaps, these people do not have one either.

 Keith savors the first breath of fresh air he takes in once he’s out of the bunker, second to last behind Shiro, who hovers over his and Hunk’s shoulders until he’s sure everyone is out. Closing his eyes, he breathes in, and then out, a grin creeping onto his face as he hears the nearing jets of Blue, and then he’s running, hopping over the spots of debris from the projectiles that hit the camp and heading for the place where Blue is circling to land.

 Lance descends from the runway in Blue’s mouth just as Keith makes it to the clearing, and his heart leaps as he watches Lance yank his helmet off his head, tucking it under an arm and half-heartedly running a hand through his hair to work out the worst of the knots from having it bunched up under his helmet while flying. Without thinking, he grabs Lance the minute he’s in reaching distance, pulling him into a tight hug up and off his feet and spinning him around in a wobbly circle, ignoring the clattering of Lance’s helmet as it hits the ground and savoring the faint reassurance of Lance’s beating heart from underneath his suit against his own.

 “Uh… Keith?” Lance says questioningly after a moment, and Keith instantly releases him, coughing nervously, and studiously looking anywhere but Lance’s face.

 “Sorry.”

 The corner of Lance’s mouth quirks up in a small smile, and Keith finds his eyes stuck on it despite his seconds ago conviction not to look at Lance, savoring the slant of his lips, the genuine, if somewhat confused, happiness on his face at seeing Keith.

 “I’m… glad you’re alright.” He offers hesitantly, and Lance’s smile widens just a little.

 “I told you I would be.” Lance says, the slightest tinges of amusement creeping in at the edges of his voice, and then he turns, whistling as he looks out over the camp. “Damn, they really did a number on this place.”

 Keith winces, taking his own proper glimpse of the damage for the first time. “Will you be able to fix it?”

 Lance shakes his head slightly. “It doesn’t matter. What can come with us will be packed away, and everything else will be burned. We can’t stay here now that the Empire knows our location.”

 “…Oh.” Keith swallows past the lump in his throat at Lance’s words. He’s right, it would be stupid to continue to keep base in a location the enemy knows you’re in. “Of course.”

 Lance frowns slightly, a hesitant question on his lips as he turns to look at Keith, and then a shout rings out from an approaching voice.

 “General!”

 It’s Nyma, skidding across the last of the way to the Blue lion and then hunching over, wheezing for breath. “G-General…”

 “What is it, Nyma?”

 “You have to… come quick.” She gasps, straightening up and staring at Lance with a terrified expression as she points back to the camp. “It’s Ruya.”

 Lance’s eyes widen, and he breaks into a sprint, stumbling into the center of the still half-deserted camp as Keith and Nyma work to catch up and looking around wildly until someone signals him.

 “She’s— Fuck. Boss, over here!” It’s Rolo who calls them over from a spot near the edge of the tents where they run into an area of mostly fighter ships, waving desperately from a spot where he’s hunched over… something with Zenex and a couple other aliens, and Keith feels his stomach lurch unpleasantly at the mere thought of what they might find there.

 Please don’t let her be dead, he prays, for Lance’s sake, if nothing else.

 When they reach the others, Keith bites his lip, taking in the scene. She’s definitely alive, the shallow rise and fall of her chest a testament to that, but there’s… there’s a lot of blood. Green blood, because, as Keith has discovered, alien blood runs in a variety of colors, but… blood. It’s all over her chest and side, making it impossible to distinguish where the wound is.

 “Ruya…” Lance whispers, dropping to his knees beside the girl.

 “I don’t think there’s spinal injuries.” Zenex says quickly, looking to Lance. “But I wasn’t sure…”

 “If we don’t move her, she’s going to die regardless.” Lance murmurs, looking over Ruya’s unconscious form with obvious panic.

 “The… The healing pod?” Nyma offers, and Zenex shakes his head.

 “The first blast targeted the medical tent, the pod was smashed.”

 “Fuck.” Lance breathes out, ducking his head before reaching out to run a careful hand along Ruya’s cheek. “C’mon, baby girl stay with me. You’re going to be alright.”

 There’s a kind of visceral horror in it, Keith realizes. Ruya, a child, a child Lance cares about, is dying, and there’s nothing they can do about it, without a cryopod.

 …Fuck, a pod.

 “The castle!” He yelps, and Lance looks to him, eyes wide. “Lance, the castle!”

 Understanding shivers across Lance’s face, and Keith watches as hope crawls back in.

 Lance turns to Rolo, barking an order. “Go get a truck started, we’re going to the Castle of Lions.” Gently, he places an arm under Ruya’s neck and under her thighs, scooping her up, and glances at Keith, nodding. “Go get Allura and Coran, and tell them to get their asses back to the castle pronto.”

    Ruya’s already small form looks incredibly tiny floating in the space beneath the glass of the healing pod. Then again, Keith supposes, looking over her frame, that’s not hard. Pretty much anyone but Shiro or Hunk looked small in the healing pods honestly, and given Ruya was really only the size of a human child, that only emphasized that fact.

 Lance is somber as he stands in front of the pod, watching the readings on the monitor next to her with careful eyes, taking in the data of heart rate, blood replenishment, skin repair, all of it, as if he hopes to heal her faster just by observing the numbers at work.

 The whole sight makes Keith ache, and he can feel Red’s anxiety crawling along the bond, discontent over the injury of someone who her sister’s pilot cares for.

 For a long time, Keith had believed Red thought for no one but her pilot, but in time he’d come to realize she cared intensely about the wellbeing of those who mattered to those she cared about, in a long chain of protective feelings. Red cared about Blue, and about Keith, both of whom cared about Lance, who cared about Ruya, and that, it seems, was enough for her to be disgruntled over Ruya’s condition, if only because it put Lance, and therefore Keith, in distress.

 “She should be alright.” He hears Coran say from where he’s positioned at another monitor near Lance’s, hitting a few symbols as he sets the timer for the pod. “One night in there, and she’ll be right as rain. Lucky girl though, I don’t know if she would have made it without the pod.”

 Lance’s frame shudders ever so slightly, hands curling into fists for a moment before his shoulders slump, and he nods.

 “I don’t understand…” Allura says softly from where she stands in the corner with Shiro, observing the scene with tired eyes. “I was sure we got everyone underground.”

 There’s a quiet sigh, and then Lance turns around, casting a quick glance to Keith, and to Zenex where he stands a few feet from him, and then looks to the princess. “Ruya has… a lot of anger in her heart. She’s been begging me to allow her to fight since she lost her parents in order to avenge their deaths.” His eyes slip to Keith’s again, the edge of his mouth quirking, and Keith remembers what Lance had said to him the night before, murmured into the silent spaces of the night in-between sips of fiery alcohol.

 She reminds me of you.

 “We have a strict rule in the Resistance that you must be of at least sixteen years, or of your species mental equivalent to that of a human sixteen year old to fight, but Ruya has been trying to sneak aboard ships bound for missions in spite of that for months. She likely took the confusion during the attack to try and get into a fighter ship, and got hit in the process.” He slumps forward, turning back to Ruya again with a tired expression. “I knew she needed extra supervision until she learned to command her hate for the Empire instead of letting it control her, I should have kept a better eye on her.”

 Lance breathes out slowly, leaning forward and resting his head against the cryopod, eyes falling shut, and then he spins around, walking towards the princess and bowing ever so slightly to her. “Ruya would not have survived if it weren’t for the castle, and therefore you, and that is a debt I cannot repay. However…” Lance’s hands clench at his sides, and Keith realizes what he is going to do seconds before he says it, making frantic eye contact with Hunk across the room, who is clearly figuring out the same thing, panic in his expression.

 Lance, Keith thinks as it finally clicks into place, doesn’t like owing anyone anything, let alone owing Allura. That is a part of who he is too— And somehow, that desire to be equal, to be fair, overrides his pride, hell, his sense of self preservation, without question.

 …Because Lance McClain, no matter how old or analytical or respected or downright bitter he may get, is still an idiot who tries so hard to be good even when he imagines himself a monster, and at the end of the day that might just be what destroys him.

 “However, I can offer you what you most desire from me.” Lance keeps his head bowed, and Keith knows he is likely fighting himself every step along the way with these words. “I will ask the Blue lion to relinquish our bond and return to your care.” He hesitates, studiously avoiding Allura’s gaze as he turns and nods respectfully to Coran. “I will leave Ruya in your care for now. Come, Zenex, we’re leaving.”

 Keith watches Lance leave, dark hair and stupid coat rustling with measured steps, and fights the urge to just throw himself at Lance and beg him to be selfish for once in his life.

 The minute Lance is gone, he turns to Allura, words on the tip of his tongue, but it is Hunk who beats him to it.

 “Don’ you do it, Allura.” Hunk’s expression is thunderous, a kind of anger Keith has seen on the other on very few times in the years they’ve been teammates, and later friends. “Don’t you dare take Lance’s stupid, self-sacrificing quid-pro-quo streak and use it to get what you want.”

 Allura hesitates. “Hunk, I—“

 “Save it.” He snaps, turning and storming out of the room, and when Allura looks to Keith with nervous eyes, he crosses his arms and looks away, avoiding her gaze. There’s nothing he can’t offer that Hunk hasn’t already said.

 ...It’s not like she ever listens to them, anyways.

    The next day, a tearful and apologetic Ruya is collected from the castle by Nyma and Rolo, and Coran and Pidge announce that, with a few hours of work, the new stones should be fully in place and the castle set to depart by the evening. Hunk and Allura had both disappeared in the early morning off to the camp, the former in all likelihood to talk to Lance and the latter to, assumedly, collect the Blue lion.

 When Coran asks for someone to go down to the camp and tell them the news, Keith doesn’t know why he volunteers, but for some reason it falls out of his mouth without his prior consideration. He blames Red, despite knowing she can’t control his words or actions that much, simply because of the annoying, pleased purring resonating through his chest.

 Which is how he finds himself perched on a rock on the edge of the clearing where Blue rests, knees to his chest and his arms around them, watching Allura’s form as she sits peacefully in front of the Blue lion’s paws, unmoving.

 “You’re not seriously going to do it, are you?” He asks, and she startles, whipping around and staring at him before relaxing minutely.

 “Oh, Keith. I…” She hesitates, shrugging. “I do not know. I am not sure if Blue would consent to coming with us, regardless, even if Lance asks her too.”

 He sighs and, on a whim, unwinds himself and hops off his perch, walking over and sitting down on the ground next to her, crossing his legs and peering up at Blue curiously, poking out with the tentative grasp he has, has always had, on her presence, and feeling her brush back, conveying a storm of thousands of years old emotions he cannot begin to comprehend, let alone sort out and understand.

 More than anything, though, what he gets, is exhaustion, pure and simple.

 The lions are old, he realizes, not for the first time, but gaining a new appreciation for what that means each time he considers it. However they came about into the forms they are now, they existed before that, and unlike Coran and Allura, they did not sleep those ten thousand years between paladins. They had near an eternity to reflect on their choices, their mistakes.

 The paladin bond is something stronger than a lucky choice out of limited options— It’s a destiny, of sorts, an inevitable connection that spans the odds of chance or luck. Blue had come to Earth for a reason, had reached for Keith, who had found Shiro, who in turn had been found by Lance, who had found Hunk and Pidge, and in the end that brought all the lions what they needed. Keith doesn’t know what that whole mess of fate versus the odds of rational logic says in terms of what their relation may be to the former paladins, but he guesses the connection is more complicated than just that of ‘convenient replacements’.

 Blue had ten thousand years to mourn what she lost, and she had found that again, in Lance, and she would give up anything for that, even Voltron, especially if she believed this lent the universe better chances of survival.

 “I have always felt I had quite a complicated relationship with the Blue lion.” Allura says quietly, drawing Keith out of his reverie. “The former Blue paladin was… someone very important to me, and for a long time I felt quite resentful over her bond with her lion, and with the other paladins, as it was something I could never match or even relate to.” She closes her eyes, sighing. “Perhaps it is selfish, but for a while, when we lost Shiro, the idea to experience that, to understand what she had known, was… intoxicating. In hindsight, it may have led me to pretend my motivations were more selfless than they were, but… Well, it can be very hard to relinquish pieces of your home when they are offered to you.”

 Keith hums, and then, looking at Blue, he cannot stop himself from asking. “What happened?”

 Allura bows her head. “Lance’s predecessor was Galran, and when the war began I lost… perspective. Zarkon had been like an uncle to me as a child, and to see him betray my family like that, it led me to have doubts about the Galra as a whole. After all, if he could turn his back on people he claimed to love so easily, surely they all would?” She chuckles bitterly. “I let myself doubt her, even when she renounced Zarkon to fight for Altea against him, even in the face of her kindness and compassion. I convinced myself her impressive loyalty would surely swing back to her own kind eventually, and in the end my hate and my ignorance caused her death. And… Well, the Blue lion has never forgiven me for it, not that I really blame her for that.” She trails off, tilting her head and turning to Keith, eyes solemn. “I am sure there are many of us who see an angry child that lets their need for revenge get the better of them and think of someone we know, but for me, seeing that girl in the pod… I saw myself.”

 “Funny…” Keith says quietly, pulling his gaze away from Blue and meeting Allura’s eyes, quirking the edge of his mouth up into a half-hearted smile. “I saw myself, too.”

 Allura sighs, looking down. “I… I do not know if it is right, to demand the Blue lion back as if she is an object to be bartered, but I do genuinely fear for what the future may hold if we continue on like this. The universe will need Voltron again.”

 “Allura…” Keith says, stretching out and hesitantly gesturing to Blue. “Voltron… Isn’t a giant mecha-human super weapon, and it isn’t a status symbol to prove our lawful high ground. Voltron is… Hope, and whether that comes from a unified giant robot that kicks ass or from five separate lions or…” He turns ever so slightly, nodding his head to the base camp, “Or just one lion serving as a flagship to a ragtag Resistance made up of rebels and refugees turns soldiers, that hope is still the same. Voltron stands for a better tomorrow, no matter how it goes about getting there, and sometimes someone has to be willing to get down in the dirty and do the messy work.” He pauses. “Your Voltron is regal power and this… straight and narrow moral compass, and that’s not bad, because one day, when this is all over, we’re going to need that, but the Galra… One thing I’ve learned about them more than anything is that they’re pretty human, at the end of the day, and to beat a human you have to fight like a human. Lance is… We made mistakes when we tried to be a perfect Voltron, and they ended up destroying things we will never be able to bring back. So maybe, what the universe needs right now is a hope they can know, a hope willing to give up certain parts of their perfection in order to do what is needed.”

 “…And you think that’s Lance?”

 “Yes.” He says firmly. “I do. And if you take Blue away from him, if you limit the amount of good he can do as himself in the name of a perfect Voltron, we’ll just end up making the same mistakes we did the first time. The Earth is gone, and we can’t bring that back, but to learn from it we have to accept what it means, and right now it means that Lance’s place, Blue’s place, is here. I’m not saying your Voltron won’t ever fly again, it’s just… not yet.”

 “Hm…” Allura smiles, eyes distant. “When did you get so profound, huh?”

 Keith snorts. “I wouldn’t call myself profound, just… older, maybe a little more well-rounded. Five years running around sharing a mystical bond with a space lion and a bunch of other people will do that to you.”

 Allura hums, nodding, and for a moment there is silence, before the stir of approaching voices reaches them, and they both turn to see Hunk and Lance coming up the path, heads tucked together as they talk quietly, the gentle sounds of Spanish filtering through. He looks at them, in their easy peace and brushing shoulders, and he knows, without even needing to understand their words, that the two of them have worked it out, as they always have.

 Lance glances up and jolts, surprised, as they near Blue. “Keith!” His eyes fall slightly to the left, and he gulps. “…Allura. You’re here for Blue, I assume?”

 “Actually,” Allura says breezily, standing up and dusting herself off, “I rather think I’ll be leaving her. I find her to be severely temperamental and moody and generally not at all suited to me. If you fancy dealing with her so much, you can keep her, I think.” She sighs airily, drifting past a gaping Hunk and Lance without a second look, a small smile tugging at her lips. “I’ll be seeing you, General.”

 And just like that, Allura’s gone, disappearing between the tents, and Keith fights the urge to laugh at Lance and Hunk’s dumbfounded expressions.

 “…Dude.” Hunk says, bringing a hand up to rub at his eyes disbelievingly. “Did Allura just… give up on taking Blue?”

 “…I think she just did.” Lance murmurs, turning to look at Keith with a raised eyebrow. “What the hell did you say to her to pull that off?”

 Keith shrugs, standing up and stretching idly. “Not much, really, I just…” He glances up at Blue, and he swears to God the feeling she sends him is best described as a wink, “…listened.”

 “No way…” Hunk says, and then yelps, turning and chasing after Allura. “Hey! Allura, wait up! I wanna know what you guys talked about!”

 Keith grins, watching him go, and then stumbles as arms are thrown around his neck, brown hair flying in his face as Lance buries his head in his shoulder. He flushes, and, carefully, wraps his arms around Lance’s waist in return, pressing his face to the side of Lance’s head, long hair tickling his nose, and breaths in the scent of blaster residue and smoke. On anything else, it wouldn’t be a particularly appealing smell, but… He likes it, on Lance. It seems right.

 “…Thank you.” Lance whispers.

 “Of course.” He sighs, closing his eyes.

 After a long moment, Lance hesitantly disentangles himself, straightening up and coughing awkwardly, and Keith snickers, throwing an arm over his shoulders as they meander lazily back towards the camp.

 “Yknow,” He says casually, “I never asked. I know you kind of mentioned not using Lance anymore once you started the Resistance, but how’d you end up being called General of all things?

 “Oh my God…” Lance groans. “Okay so, I’ll tell you but you can’t laugh.” Keith nods, and Lance sighs, closing his eyes with a pained expression on his face. “I have learned many things in my time in space, Keith, but this lesson stays prevalent.” His eyes snap open, looking to Keith with deadly seriousness. “Never show a bunch of aliens the episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist you have saved on your phone, they will pick up way too much new language, among other things.”

 …In his defense, Keith does try really hard not to laugh, but when Lance punches his shoulder after he doubles over wheezing and then breaks into a bunch of snorting little giggles of his own, the slight tinge in his shoulder is absolutely worth the sounds of Lance’s laughter.

    The gathering to see them off is surprisingly formal, while also being the most relaxed Keith has seen the Resistance members around them yet. Half the camp seems to turn up, crowded around the ship not in the careful military perimeter of before but more of a cluster of regular people. There’s dozens of faces Keith doesn’t recognize or know in the slightest in the crowd, but he can pick out Rolo and Nyma’s lounging forms, Ruya tucked between them and scowling half-heartedly down at the ground, and Zenex near the center of the half-circle closest to the castle’s entrance, the Galra offering him a small smile and a nod when Keith catches his eye.

 Lance stands at the forefront, a few feet from them where they hover at the entryway of the castle, his posture stiff and arms behind his back. The trench coat’s back once again over the bodysuit and its multiple holstered weapons, and Keith still isn’t sure if it annoys him or if he likes it, but he can’t deny it adds… something to Lance’s already lean and cutting figure.

 “For the record,” Lance tells them all softly, dipping his head just slightly, “I owe you an apology for my comment yesterday. It turns out my second assessment of the situation was right— The Empire found us based on information a spy who had been passing as a refugee for the last couple months leaked to them, not because of any tracking of your presence, they didn’t even know you were here. Believe me, they’ll pay for the danger they put my people in.” The edge of his mouth quirks, and Lance looks up, smirking lightly. “However, don’t take that as an offer of alliance. If you show up on my doorstep again without at least prior warning, I will sorely consider finally shooting one of you, or at least punching someone firmly in the face.” He makes eye contact with Keith, and winks. “No promises on who that’ll be, though.”

 “…Are you sure you won’t come back, Lance?” Pidge asks quietly.

 Lance hesitates. “…My place is here, Pidge. I’m not sorry for the choices I’ve made. I never was, and I never will be. This is where I need to be. My voice is heard amongst these people, I can help them. I can protect them.”

 Pidge sniffles, but nods, and Lance smiles softly, hesitantly taking a couple steps back so that he is clear of the castle’s doors, lifting a hand tentatively. “Bye?” He offers unsurely, and next to Keith, Shiro sighs.

 “Goodbye, Lance.”

 Keith hears the others shuffle around, heading back into the castle, and he turns too, casting one last lingering look at Lance as he goes, making it about five steps, before there’s a shout.

 “Keith!”

 He groans, twisting in place to ask Lance what it is he wants to say now, but instead hands grab his jacket and yank him forward, and suddenly a pair of soft lips is pressed to his own.

 Lance is kissing him, he realizes, and his brain promptly short-circuits after that.

 He does note one thing, though. While the rest of Lance seems to naturally run cold, his lips are warm, like the soft fire of Red’s consciousness wrapped up along his own.

 There’s barely fleeting pressure for a few seconds, then the slightest of movements, before Lance nips quickly at his lower lip and then shoves him back, sending him stumbling over the boundary of the castle’s edge and back inside just as the doors begin to slip closed.

 “Stay alive out there!” Lance calls, the wind turning his hair into a messy halo as he grins brightly at Keith. “I’ll be damn upset if you die on me, Kogane!”

 “Just don’t go and get yourself in trouble first then, you reckless idiot.” He croaks, and Lance laughs, the sound bright and delighted, before turning back to the Resistance, his ridiculous trench coat catching on the breeze as he strides back towards them.

 “Alright, you gossipy fucks! You’ve had your oogling time, now back to work! We’ve got a camp to break down!” Lance barks loudly, Zenex slipping to his side, ever the faithful soldier, as the castle doors slip closed, the engines lighting up as they prepare for takeoff.

 Somewhere in the recesses of Keith’s chest, there’s a spark, a small fluttering of joyhopeanxiety that feels like cool ice and running water and warm lips in a place where the hole in the lion bond rests, and Keith smiles giddily, Red purring happily in the back of his mind.

 That promise to stay alive until he at least next sees Lance is one he’ll have to keep this time, he thinks.

 Though, if he’s being honest, that doesn’t sound too bad at all.

[fearlessinspace]

Summary: A BonesxReader that's set during ID when the Vengeance is crashing down on earth: The reader is an engineer stationed in San Francisco during the crash (Bones knows that), survives it without being injured and then starts to help fix things after everything calms down (Bones doesn't know that) and when he lands on earth and hears that the reader is on the 'battlefield' he freaks out? But then everything turns into fluff? (: for @littlecarowrites

Notes: I’m so sorry it took so long! Hope you like it! ((also first bones fic omg y’all))

Word count: 1222

Tag: @usscomics @youre-on-a-starship @trekken81 @yourtropegirl @enterprisewriting @imoutofmyvulcanmind @starshiphufflebadger @ussimagine​ @kaitymccoy123 @starmission @outside-the-government @imaginestartrek @paigeinastory @star-trekkin-across-theuniverse @bkwrm523 @frostedej

While sliding around the corridors of the flagship, Leonard’s focus was 100% on the job at hand – making sure nobody ends up dead. The ship was falling down from the sky and pulled towards the Earth by its gravity. A one-way trip to certain death and imminent destruction.

Usually, as a grump that he is, he’d whine about the weight of his toolbox. Even though he always knew it’s in the job description, he would’ve sometimes wished he could just throw it into open space and never see that damned thing again. Now, though, while running around the ship making sure everybody gets home in a single piece and with a pulse, he did not feel the weight of the box. Despite the grip on the box’s handle being real tight, he even forgot it was there until he had any real use of it.

Only once did he take away a few moments to focus on something other than the task. ‘My mother was right. Hell is real.’ he thought to himself, a single eyebrow cocked. What never even crossed his mind, though, was you. And not because he didn’t care, far from it, he loved you more than life and treasured you more than booze (and Bones is quite a lover of fine alcohol). He was just unconsciously sure that you were in safety, based on nothing specific, and that enabled the mind to concentrate on other lives at stake.

And the exact same thing happened to you.

While watching a big, black, unknown ship fall down in flames and destroy 1/3 of San Francisco, you were scared. And the moment they placed you, an ordinary officer, on a commander’s spot and set you to repair the damage that was done, you were fucking terrified. ‘Out of all the things that could fall from space it had to be a big-ass ship with an infinite number of weapons and loads of toxic matter and nuclear energy?’ you screamed at nobody in particular before rushing to the scene with a toolbox in one hand and a communicator in the other.

Needless to say, your brain was on the verge of catching fire and exploding in your skull. You were constantly being called from 5 different directions and 10 different places. You were forced to answer them all whilst figuring out how to fix the problem in your own hands. Not to mention that all the machinery was extremely delicate and shit could hit the fan real fast if something wrong was done.

While speaking, thinking and working with your hands all at the same time, there wasn’t any space for your beloved doctor in your mind.

Luckily, it all turned out fine for Bones. Engineering pulled some strings, Sulu sprinkled some magic fairy dust and, god bless, the Enterprise stopped just before crashing, burning, exploding and killing everybody.

Bones threw himself in an empty seat in medbay and sighed.

The ship did have a few scratches and bruises here and there, but nothing Scotty and a good engineering team back on Earth couldn’t fixed.

Wait a moment.

Engineering team.

“Y/N! Shit!” Bones yelled, voice achieving and echo as the room was previously silent.

His eyes widened with pure fear while his mind scream at itself, disappointed by how he didn’t even think of you. He jumped from the chair and basically threw himself at a nearby computer.

“Locate Commander Y/L/N, Y/N, Engineering.”

“Commander Y/L, Y/N, Starfleet Headquarters.”

That’s where the Vengeance crashed.

Leonard sprinted out the door and straight to the bridge. He pushed through a sea of officers, forcing everybody and everything out of his way. Those few moments he spent in the turbolift, he spent them cursing at the damn thing for not going any faster. It appeared when Bones became worried, time flew in slow motion and his pulse skyrocketed. Not to mention that curse words star flying out of his mouth limitlessly. As he entered the bridge, Chekov didn’t even have time to announce his presence to the captain.

“Uhura, connect me to Starfleet HQ right now!”

Jim stood up from his chair with a bewildered look on his face and turned to his best friend and partner-in-crime.

“Bones? What-“

But as soon as he said the man’s name, Bones turned around and sent a glare Jim had never seen before in his entire life. Eyes full of passion, resentment, rage and love. Jim did not dare spend another moment analyzing those eyes, so he quietly returned to his spot.

“All frequencies open, but I can’t reach them. I’m sorry Bones.”

But before the young woman could finish her sentence, Leonard was out the door and in the turbolift once more.

This time, he headed directly to the transporter room with a clear goal on his mind. Before the door swished and closed, the doctor was already being beamed down to Earth. He had to remember to thank Jim later – it was he who announced Leonard’s arrival and destination to Scotty. Turns out he knows Bones better than he even thought.

You were working on picking out and storing pieces from the fallen ship which would be used in future creations (hopefully not secret ones), because even Starfleet believes in reusing unharmed whole parts.

You kneeled on the hull and bent down to scavenge a little more, just to make sure all the non-faulty parts were taken out. Later you picked up the box and turned around, just to drop it on the ground once more, this time because you suddenly lost all strength in your arms.

It was Leonard.

10 meters away from you and nearing, a dead serious look on his face. You choked on thin air as a stray tear came rolling down your dirty cheek. You closed your eyes and rubbed them, and only managed to take one step before being enveloped in a pair of strong arms. One of his hands held on your back and the other pressing your head to his warm chest, the beat of his heart calming your already wrecked nerves. Due to visible height difference, you wrapped your arms around his waist, your fingers intertwining on his lower back. Both of you pressed with equal force, with each squeeze negative energy pouring out of you and being replaced with nothing short of love.

You stood there for quite a long time. The way you held each other, it wasn’t just about physical contact. Together with body heat and tension relief, the two of you shared emotions via touch – something only people who are truly in love would be able to do. Together with your bodies your minds were in a peaceful place of their own. Contrary to chaotic thoughts that were swarming through your brains just an hour ago, your minds cleared of all worries. You were in Leonard’s arms and he was in yours. You were both alive and unscathed, and that’s all that mattered to you.

Even though the two of you stood like that for about 17 minutes, for you it felt like centuries.

Bones pulled away for a moment, still never letting go of you, almost like he was afraid that he’d lose you if he did. Before you could say anything, your lips collided and happiness came over you all over again.