#i just wanted to write keith with his words spilling out of him i guess | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

i-write-shakespeare-not-disney · 5 years ago

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Director’s Commentary- Lovesick Side Effects, Julio visits Lance to apologize

My comments are in bold italics!

When writing this, I imagined that Julio passed Keith as Keith went downstairs with Kosmo, then sort of paced at Lance’s door until Keith came back. The whole time trying to decide if he had the guts to do it, whether Lance would want to listen to him. By the time Keith came back up, Julio manages to put two and two together when Keith is able to open the door, and Keith can figure it out too. And I mean of course Keith asks who are you do you need something but I mean it’s all super awkward. His dad stood at the door looking uncomfortable as he glanced from Keith to Lance. Keith's expression had turned somewhat stoic, only the slight curl of his lip showing his simmering anger. Keith’s go to when he’s uncomfortable or in new territory is to turn stoic. But here, he can’t even fully reign in the anger because he knows how this man made Lance feel.

"Kosmo, down," Keith snapped as Kosmo sniffed the work boots and barked for attention. Kosmo retreated with a whine and a huff. This was supposed to be a little nod at the fact that Julio was a good man. Kosmo wanted to play with him, he wasn’t growling or defensive.

"What are you doing here?" Lance asked cautiously, moving closer to Keith to shield him. From y’know disdained or disgusted looks.

His dad cleared his throat and scratched his head nervously. "I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh, now?" Lance asked bitterly. Papá sighed and glanced back at Keith, furrowing his eyebrows. A silent slew of questions. “Who is this, is this the boy, why is he here, are you living together, sleeping together, can we talk in private, but also how do i ask that without sounding rude or more homophobic than you think I am?” Lance scoffed and turned away to look at Keith, ignoring the way his heart pounded, hating the way he was curious enough to give his dad the satisfaction of listening to him. "Take my car and go get some snacks for our movie night, okay? I'll text-"

"No," Keith said firmly. Here, Keith has already gotten ahead of himself. He’s thinking of Roland and how his father left him. He’s terrified of it happening to Lance if he leaves them alone.

"Keith, I just need to talk-"

"No. I'm not leaving."

Lance sighed and shut his eyes trying to talk over him. "This is between-"

"I don't care-"

"Keith, baby, please. I need to be alone with him."

"He could hurt you," Keith said with a wavering voice. Lance opened his eyes in surprise, unexpected tears filling up Keith's eyes without spilling over.

"He's not going to."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do, Ke-"

"You think Roland thought his dad would hurt him the way he did?" Keith snapped. Lance snapped his mouth shut. Keith's faze fell behind Lance onto his dad. "I'm not leaving."

Lance sighed and touched his face softly. He nodded and pressed his forehead to Keith's. "Okay. Okay, just go to my room then." In my head, this whole time Julio is watching their interaction. Watching how protective Keith has gotten but also just how close and touchy they are. How all of that intimacy isn’t second-guessed, it’s all very natural to them both. He’s seeing the urgency in Keith’s expression and well of course their actions just show their overall bond as a couple. Julio had no idea what to expect of a same-sex relationship, and this is the first time he’s seeing that it’s... well not different from the one he himself has with his wife. (Obviously not quite to that extent at this point, but you guys get what I mean)

Keith didn't seem to like that, but it was a decent compromise. He nodded and headed to the hallway, snapping his fingers for Kosmo to follow him.

Lance took a deep breath, sent a quick mini-prayer to whatever god might hear him and take pity, this was kind of a nod at Lance’s lack of/wavering faith at this point in time then turned to look at his dad.

"Es él? Andas con un chino? Wasn’t expecting that,” he said with a nervous smile. this was supposed to be a joke. He was trying to lighten the mood and be like heh see I’m making jokes, it’s okay. But it’s not. He also just has no idea how to ask IS THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND????

Lance rolled his eyes. "Coreano, Apá. What do you want?"

His dad continued in Spanish, keeping the conversation private to an extent. If I wrote it all in Spanish I’d lose a lot of comprehension from a lot of readers tbh asdjfkdjfak "I wanted to apologize. I didn’t know how to react, and I didn’t know what to say when you told me. I was angry that your mom already knew. And later, when I talked to her, I was angry that your brothers and sister knew before us. I just…. I needed time to think about what it meant-” oh hey i mentioned this before. I love when I’m still on the same page as me from a long time ago lmfao

“What do you mean what it meant? It means I’m seeing a boy, that’s all it means.” again, in an ideal world it would be that simple.

“No, Lance. No it’s not. It meant that I had to reevaluate everything I knew. That maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did, I think as a parent, it would always hurt when you realize you don’t know everything about your kids for whatever reason. Especially in this case where Lance is so open and wears his heart on his sleeve, it’s like... how could a parent not know? that I did something as a father to make you feel like you couldn’t let me know you. Back to what Caridad was feeling too. Feeling like he messed up as a parent and tbh he did, he just had no idea he did.��Okay, yes, I came up with reasons this would happen now, i.e. he’s getting over allura’s death, he’s lonely, it’s a trend and then I talked to you mom and then I had to think again, Mama mcclain told him to get his head out of his ass and realize this was real and then I have Veronica yelling at me in one ear. she’s defensive of her little brother!!!! I figured once you left it would calm down and I could figure it out and talk to you, then I get Marco screaming at me, telling me I won’t see my grandkids until I…. And Luis hasn’t even talked to me. Your grandmother called me. To yell at me.” I recognize that to a lot of readers this felt like he was just whining and playing the victim. But I wanted it to show why he was so overwhelmed. He wanted space and time to think and figure out how to react properly but everyone else who already knew, had already gotten used to it, everyone was shitting on him also assuming he was just immediately against it. And not only are they yelling at him, they’re adding other pressures. It wasn’t to get sympathy, and he’s not apologizing as a way to just fix things with everyone else, he’s just trying to explain that he’s been juggling these other things and if he hadn’t been he might’ve gone to see Lance earlier.

Lance gulped and stared at the floor. “What, you want me to feel sorry for you? Which, it’s Lance. He does feel bad. But he also has a right not to pity him and to stay angry and to feel like a lot of readers felt when reading Julio’s response. You’re not the one who gets ostracized for who you are by your own family, Dad. God, I wasn’t expecting you to throw me a party or congratulate me! I just wanted you to talk to me and understand, but you didn’t even do that!”

“I know. And I’m sorry,” he said, slumping as he walked toward Lance. Lance took a few steps back. SYMBOLISM! DISTANCE! This time it’s Lance pulling back. Also kind of... he doesn’t want to be close because he might be more privy to accommodating to his dad instead of standing up for himself. “Can you really be this angry with me for reacting differently than your mother? We’re different people-” who react differently and think differently and require different things. For Caridad, it was the silence and space she got while making coffee. For Julio it was stepping away to think and figure out what to say. Julio’s just wasn’t compatible with Lance and also let’s all be real- the machismo that causes lack of communication fucked it up too. If Julio had just said, “Give me some space to think, I’ll be back and I’ll tell you when we can pick this back up” instead of storming off (note: Keith storms off in his first argument with Lance. The second time, he communicates he needs space! Still not compatible with what Lance needed at the time, but it avoided a lot of issues), things would be a lot different.

“You’re both my parents. That should have been enough.”

“In a perfect world yes.” I love when I do this. haha

Lance felt his throat constrict. He felt like he was about to puke. Lance felt this as a personal attack. Like HE was imperfect and that’s what stopped Julio from immediately being okay with everything. But of course, that’s not how it was meant to come across. He wanted to scream and cry and punch something, and that scared him because he was not a violent person. “Get out.”

“Lance-”

“What do you want me to say!” Lance shouted. “You want me to say it’s okay? Because it’s not! The way you reacted isn’t okay. Which is what we’re all thinking!!! We need a change!!! I get it, I surprised you, the relationship I have with my boyfriend is weird to you, it’s confusing because of Allura, yes. But you- you acted like I don’t exist! Bad coping. Bad communication. So I acknowledge this shitty apology, but no it’s not okay. And frankly? I don’t really care what else you want me to say because you didn’t care about what I had to say when I wanted to talk to you.” Lance walked toward the door to open, but his father grabbed him by the arm to stop him.

There was a moment of panic. A moment of sheer, heartbreaking fear where Lance wondered if his father was capable of it. Hitting him, I mean. But the idea is so unfathomable that Lance can’t even think the word, you know?His dad saw it too, and he immediately let go. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I just want to fix this. I didn’t mean you were imperfect, I meant the world-” He shut his eyes and rubbed his face. “The world teaches people to think a certain way. I got used to it, I couldn’t even see that it was bad. And then you come and tell me… that you’re in a new relationship… with a boy. And even if I don’t know you as well as I thought, I know most of you.” He stepped closer, slower this time as he grabbed Lance by the shoulders. “I know that you are good. That nothing about the way you show love could ever be bad, so how could everyone in my life before have been so wrong? So this whole part, I was alluding to the way the world condemns homosexuality by sexualizing it. People hear gay or see a same sex couple and respond with disgust because it’s correlated to sexual things, sexual acts they can’t fathom. Julio had to turn that stereotype/stigma over and recognize that’s not what it was. It’s what he means when he says Lance is good. He’s recognizing that gay isn’t a synonym to bad or sinful the way a lot of Catholic people assume. I didn’t get it, and I still don’t. I don’t understand how you could feel this way about a boy, but I believe that you do, (he doesn’t doubt it/think Lance is confused anymore) and even just now….” His dad let out a shaky breath. “You look at each other the way your mom and I would when we were young. I love this line, and I think someone (Kay, I think?) mentioned how big that was. That Julio saw a reflection of his own relationship with the person he married in this boy and his son.ahhhh It’s real, whether I understand it or not.”

Lance felt the anger that had been ravaging his body suddenly die, releasing itself through hot tears that fell down his cheeks in streams. “I hate this. I hate that I still want your approval. That I still want you to be proud of me,” he cried. In my head, at this part, this is a double whammy. Because Lance is crying and being sentimental, which isn’t what guys “should” do. So he’s upset about wanting approval and being scared to let him down WHILE feeling like he’s continuously letting him down. I also based this off of my feelings about coming out to my mom. I still haven’t, but the fear is there because of this. And no matter how much I don’t want to care what she thinks, I do. even when she hurts me, even though I have so many people I can turn to, it still feels like she’s the one whose opinion matters. And I put that fear and hurt into Lance. “That even though everyone else was happy for me or tried to be, you not talking to me hurt more. I don’t want to keep disappointing you-”

“You don’t!” Lance sucked his teeth and walked away from his father. “Why would you think that?”

“Are you serious?” Lance said, letting out a humorless laugh. “I know it. I’m the runt of the litter for you. Too emotional, too sentimental. I’m wasting my time getting a writing degree that I might not even use because I can’t pick up a pen anymore. And now this. I just keep letting you down and…. And I’m done apologizing for it. I’m done apologizing for being… me. I wanted this to be the point where Lance grows solidly into that idea of being unapologetically himself. Even through that fear and hurt, he’s not going to apologize because he’s happy. Because that’s who I am, Dad, I’m the boy who likes love stories and poetry and loves writing but might not be able to do it again, the boy who cries because his dad won’t talk to him, the boy who wants to fall in love with another boy. And I like being this way.”

The words left him spent, left his father speechless for a long time. He turned away and sat down on the couch while Lance sniffed and cried into his sleeve. heart on your sleeve, tears on your sleeve, same thing, right? After a while his dad patted the seat next to him. “Come sit,” he said. Lance hesitated for a second before indulging him. “I’ve been a horrible father if I’ve made you feel like you were a disappointment. RECOGNITION. I love the idea of parents who can recognize and properly apologize for their mistakes. And I like the idea that even someone as proud as Julio can put that aside for the sake of their child because he just loves them that much. That it’s worth the discomfort of digging into his own feelings an admitting he was wrong if it meant Lance never felt this way again. That was never my intention. You make me proud, Lance. You make me so proud in so many ways. You made it farther than the rest of us. You found something you love to do and you’ve worked on it your whole life. You inspired your sister to go to college. You’re unafraid to be who you are, to demand change, and you teach me every day….”

Lance tried to swallow and wiped his face again. The words were somehow managing to soften him up while feeling hollow. Because it’s everything he wanted to hear, everything he needed to hear, but he doesn’t know if he believes it because he spent so long feeling the opposite. He had nothing to say to that.

“His name is Efrain,” his father said suddenly. Lance furrowed his eyebrows and looked at his father in confusion. “My co-worker. I asked him last week…. If he even liked his nickname. He said he was used to it, but I thought about what you said, and I asked, ‘Do you like it though?’ And… he said no. But that he knew it’s what people would always call him. So I asked him his real name, and I’ve been calling him that. I told him about what you said to me, and he said you had balls to say something.” OKAY so this whole bit I had planned since I planned the Christmas scene. I planned out that slip and confrontation and I knew I wanted to go back to it. Because again, pride. What Lance said on Christmas stuck with Julio, he was just too proud to admit he should listen. But once Lance came out, Julio realized that what he said that night upset Lance because LANCE felt offended by it. That there had probably been so many times Julio carelessly and accidentally hurt Lance and didn’t know it and it was time he learned and changed that. The first step was talking to his coworker like Lance told him he should. And I also felt that the fact that this happened without anyone knowing until now shows the sincerity everyone doubted was there before. It’s a way to say, “I took this step because you told me to, not because anyone else did. Because this mattered to you. And I learned from it, and I want to keep learning.”

“Oh.” Lance stared at the floor as he thought back to Christmas. “You… remembered that?”

“Of course. I’d thought about asking him the next time I saw him at work, but I figured it didn’t matter. That it was just how we talked, how we did things. Then you told me about this boy and I realized… that I was hurting you. And if I was hurting you by calling someone else that, then how badly was I hurting Efrain? So I asked.”

Lance had to smile at the fact that his dad wasn’t even saying the nickname anymore. “I’m glad you did that,” he said softly, this time in English. “It means a lot.”

His dad wiped his eyes and sighed tiredly. He scratched his head and patted Lance on the back before gripping his shoulder. “I know I shouldn’t have walked out on you,” he said, keeping it in Spanish. “I just needed time to think about everything before I could listen to you talk, and I know that wasn’t fair to you. But I want to try to be better. And I’ll do anything to fix what I did.” He ruffled Lance hair before pulling his hand back and crossing his arms. Men. Men and their fear of emotions. Granted, he’s capping out on his limit of emotional vulnerability.

Lance chuckled softly and wiped his eyes. “Yeah. Actually Keith does that too. If we argue he has to distance himself for a while. Except he doesn’t ignore me for weeks.” I really didn’t mean to make so many parallels between Lance’s parents and his relationship with Keith but it just happened and honestly, it works.

“I know, I know! I just didn’t know where to start. And everyone else was getting mad at me and I didn’t know if you’d even let me talk to you. I didn’t even know if I’d actually knock on your door, but that-” He waved a hand in the direction of the hallway. “Keith saw me. I saw him on the stairs when he was leaving, but I didn’t know he was…. Boyfriend, right?” Still a little funny for him to say.

Lance smiled and nodded. “Yeah.”

He nodded too and scratched his head. “It’ll take me time. I wish I could say it wouldn’t, but I need to get used to it.” Lance pursed his lips and sighed in resignation. For now, this was what he would get. “Am I… allowed to ask questions? Are there ones I shouldn’t ask?”

Lance groaned, half laughing through it. “Yeah. Yeah, Papá, you can ask questions. But not today. Podemos hablar después, okay?”

“Okay. Pero me perdonas?”

Lance hesitated and stood back up. “Yeah. I forgive you. But you have to be on your best behavior when I take Keith to meet Mami. You have to be there, and you have to be nice, and you have to try.”

“Claro, mijo. I’ll be there.” He cleared his throat and looked at the time. “I should get back. I didn’t tell your mami I was coming out here.” Lance furrowed his eyebrows. “I was thinking about talking to you, and the next thing I knew I’d taken the freeway to come here instead of the exit home.” Hopefully more proof that he did this because he wanted to, not to get back into good graces with everyone else. He walked to the door with Lance following after him. His dad turned to look at him and tousled his hair again. “Dile gracias a tu novio.”

“For what?”

“For showing up at the door before I could talk myself out of this.”

“Ah. Gotcha.” Lance nodded and shifted on his feet. “Well. Thanks for coming out here. I’ll call Mami and see when she wants to get coffee.”

Papá nodded and opened the door, but before he could actually step out, he turned around and wrapped his arms around Lance tightly. Lance’s love language is physical touch, and he needed this. Julio knows that to an extent, but it still took a second for it to click that maybe his son needed tangible confirmation of his affection. It was rare for Lance’s dad to hug him this way, and the last time he got one like this had been after getting home from Allura’s funeral. That’s like. 2 years guys.

Even rarer were the sniffles Lance could hear in his ear, the way his shoulder shook in a way that told Lance he was trying to hide it. Lance decided not to comment on it and simply hugged him back just as tightly. JULIO IS CRYING AND ITS AWKWARD FOR HIM AND LANCE KNOWS THAT. Idk. I like letting men cry. And even though he’s hiding it here, it’s still a huge step. For Julio.

“Sabes que te quiero, verdad?” his papi asked gruffly. “And I get prouder of you every single day. I love you for who you are, mijo. Siempre.” We need. More. Parents. Saying. They’re. Proud. The She-Ra Screeches discord groups knows how I get about “I’m proud of you” it’s... my weakness. As well as Good Dads.

Lance could only nod, unable to speak past the knot in his throat. I remember writing this and having a knot in my own throat. Because I write in the head of the character so I was experiencing this as Lance but also because... it’s still such a good outcome in comparison to a lot of Latine kids can go through and it just... idk. Makes me emotional for myself. I kind of hate the idea of ahaha look I cry in my own writing, but just. Some of these things are idealized things I would want or just have enough of my family or dynamics in them that I’ll empathize too much. And I hope that came across for others. I swear I’m not patting myself on the back, I just. I have vivid memories of what parts gave me my own emotional struggle when writing. He stayed that way for a while, enjoying this one moment with his father. It would be a struggle to get his parents comfortable with who Lance shared his life with, but they were both willing to try. Lance let him go when he felt the arms loosen around him.

Without another word, his dad left the apartment and Lance locked the door.

I was really excited about this scene because I felt that it shows growth for Julio and it shows how it’s also only the start of how much growth he’ll go through. I tried to make it to where each time you see Julio again, he’s growing a little more. And I was really worried about it not coming off sincere especially with how long it took him to talk or look at Lance again, but this was also one of the scenes I had vaguely planned for early on.

#director's commentary

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beyards · 6 years ago

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Plance cashier au where Lance is the cashier and Pidge is the one customer who walks in at closing to get one item

Closing Shift

pidge/lance

1478 words

gen audience

support it on ao3

fic requests are open!

It was 9:51:47 PM, which meant Lance had exactly 8 minutes and 13 seconds before he could officially lock the doors. Unfortunately, someone else was having just as long a night as he was.

Lance slumped over the counter, staring ahead at the sugary rainbow of check out candy neatly stacked and ordered. Within an hour of opening tomorrow they were sure to be a mess, but he was kind of proud of how hard he’d worked to make them look nice. It was one of the few things he actually got joy out of in this miserable job, miserable life really.

It was 9:14:47 PM, which meant Lance had exactly 8 minutes and 13 seconds before he could officially lock the doors. Everything was accounted for, every other register closed out, everything cleaned up, but he couldn’t leave until exactly 10 PM. Damn corporate policy. Nobody was even going to come in the damn store. He’d worked closing for the past 4 days and hardly anybody ever came in after 9:45. That might have something to do with Keith shutting off the lights that spelled out the store name at that time, but still. Finally, Lance caved. Fuck it. It was only a minute or two until 10, and it’s not like Shiro was going to write him up for that, he was a pretty chill manager.

Suddenly the door chimed, signaling somebody entering the store.

Lance, figuring it was pretty much 10 PM anyways said “Sorry, we’re closed-”

“No you’re not, it’s 9:54.” Snapped a voice.

Internally, Lance groaned, not even bothering to look up. He didn’t have the patience to deal with any more bullshit today. He already had that one lady try to cuss him out when she accidentally put the card reader in Spanish and couldn’t figure out how to change it back. She said that it was a damn shame that now she couldn’t even get groceries without ‘witnessing the assault of American culture by the gangs and rapists from Mexico’ and told him Trump was going to deport his whole family. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he was Cuban.

Lance flipped his light back on and rebooted up his register, grumbling the entire time. He couldn’t even punish her by faking a register problem or faking a need to call management. He wanted to go home. He’d just have to rely on karma to get this entitled customer in line.

To his surprise, he heard footsteps rounding into his lane and put something on his counter by 9:57. As he thoughtlessly reached for the big ass chocolate bar this cretin was purchasing, he heard a sniffle. It was faint, and if the muzak that usually played hadn’t been shut off a few minutes ago he surely would have missed it. At first Lance waved it off as allergies as he passed the first item over the scanner, but then on a whim he actually looked up.

Her eyes were red and puffy, a tear slipping down her reddened face. He froze, unsure what to do. He was trained to handle all sorts of situations like active shooter, robberies, fake IDs, suspected human traffiking, and mislabeled merchandise, but Lance had never been through a course on how to comfort a crying customer.

“Uh,” Lance said, setting down the item in a bag, “are you okay?”

She wiped her eyes and shot him a glare. It would’ve been petrifying if it wasn’t for the fact more tears were spilling out already. Realizing what she was doing wasn’t working she looked away.

“I’m fi-ine.” She huffed out, the declaration punctuated by another sniffle.

“You’re crying in a grocery store at 10 PM,” Lance pointed out bluntly, “I think that’s like, the opposite of fine.”

“Well,” she tried wiping her eyes again, and this time Lance noticed little mascara smudges and a hint of a shimmery powder on her lids, “it’s closing and you probably have a girlfriend to get home to.”

It was almost like she was just throwing the words haphazardly at Lance. There was an edge of bitterness, but for the most part it was just sadness and maybe a hint of jealousy behind it. He took another look at her appearance. She was wearing sort of nice clothes, nothing formal or fancy, but really cute he had to admit. It was nice shorts with an off the shoulder top. Her hair was in soft ringlets, probably looser now than they’d been earlier, so clearly there was some effort put into it. All that combined with the makeup pointed at the strong possibility that she’d just been burned by Cupid.

Lance snorted, starting to ring her up. “Nah, I’ve been single for nearly a year now. I found out my last girlfriend of 3 years had been cheating on me literally the day I was going to propose.”

He flushed, realizing that he didn’t know why he’d just told her that. It wasn’t any of her business, and in fact Lance had told 3 people the truth about why he and Nyma weren’t together anymore. Maybe he just felt bad for her.

“Oh shoot,” the girl mumbled, “I’m sorry, that sucks.”

“Yeah, but don’t feel too bad for me,” Lance added dully, “I’d caught her cheating the month before but she promised it was a mistake and that she was so sorry. So I forgave her. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise when I walked into our bedroom and saw her being fucked by two guys at once. I should’ve known she didn’t just stop, I was the ultimate cuck.”

The customer cringed, but chuckled a bit. “Oh god, and I thought I was having it bad.”

“Well, whatever you’re going through,” he sighed, finalizing the sale with the cash she gave him, “I’m sure it’s not as bad as getting cucked.”

“Probably not,” she mumbled, accepting her change, “I just got stood up by guy who was dared to ask me out as part of his fraternity rush.”

Lance shut off his register as the lights in the back of the store went out. “Wait, you knew he was a frat boy and you still accepted?”

“He was my bio partner,” she explained, following him as he made his way over to the time clock, “and I didn’t know he was joining a frat. It’s not like he mentioned it to me and I don’t talk to people on campus who are part of that crowd, so I just didn’t know.”

You didn’t look this guy up on social media or anything?” Lance asked, raising an eyebrow. The pair made their way towards the exit. “That’s rule one of dating in college.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t really know those rules. It’s not like anyone ever told me about them.”

“Okay, fair,” Lance said, leading them over to a park bench so they could talk some more, “so this guy asked you out and you said yes.”

“I guess- I mean, yeah.” The girl sat down next to him, jiggling her foot, “he’s always been super sweet, talks to me in the hallways, and we would text a lot too. He’d ask for pictures of my dog like every day.”

“Ah, animal loving,” Lance whistled, “that’s how they get ya.”

She glowered at him, but continued anyways. “I agreed to meet him for a milkshake, and I waited 3 hours but he never showed up. Finally one of my friends texted me saying there was a timelapse of me sitting at the diner barstool for the first two hours taken from a security camera up on social media. I guess one of the fraternity members works there…”

Her bottom lip trembled and Lance’s heart really hurt for her. “Wow, that’s just… wow.”

“Yeah,” she let out a shuddery breath.

They sat there in silence for a bit, the cool night breeze playing with her curls. He couldn’t help but steal glances at her every now and then. He felt really, really bad for her. He’d been the victim of some cruel pranks in the past too, and he knew what it was like for someone to just toy with your feelings. He bit his lip, hesitant to offer this. Was he even ready?

“Hey,” Lance said, after a few moments, “do you still wanna get that milkshake?”

She looked up at him and he could see she’d been crying again.

“Only if you want to,” he added hastily, feeling his face heat up, “and it can just be as a friend thing, or well, not a friend thing, I’m just your cashier but like, hey, I don’t want this asshole to ruin your night, you know?”

She gave him a small smile. “Actually, I think I’d like that.” She got to her feet, offering her hand. “I’m Pidge, by the way.”

“Lance,” he grinned, accepting her handshake before getting to his own feet. “Let’s go bring all the boys to the yard.”

(like the story? reblog it! let me know if you want a sequel!)

#plance #pidgance #ellis writes #pidge #lance #lance vld #pidge vld #vld pidge #vld lance #vld #voltron #ask ellis #Anonymous

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stressedspidergirlsfandomblog · 6 years ago

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Part 19?

((((just a heads up, this deals with a lot of unhappy things, from suicide to torture and assault. So if this is a chapter you want to skip, you might want to. It is unbeta’d. But I’m a slut for feedback so I didn’t want to sit on it for days on end without knowing what people think. I’ve been super blocked about writing it, and it finally just worked out, more or less. It’ll get edited, and posted on ao3 eventually. My beta and I aren’t that far along, I think I’ve posted all we have edited. I’ll have to double check. )))))

“We should talk before I lose my nerve,” Shiro mumbles after they’ve been sitting for a while.

“Is it really that bad?” Curtis asks, pulling back some to get a better look at Takashi’s face. “Between the two of us I think we’ve covered almost the entire gamut of human suffering.”

“I think it might be, I know someone always has it worse-”

“That’s irrelevant,” Curtis interrupts. “There is no ‘worse’ in trauma. That’s not how that works. Would you tell one of your paladins that they had it worse than each other? Or that one suffered more and deserves something special?”

“No, of course not, they need to support each other’s needs as is!” he says indignantly and then realizes what he’s walked into. “I just don’t think it’s fair to compare four teens and an idiot in space with people who’ve been through even more horrific stuff.”

“What idiot? Keith?” Curtis teases, kissing Takashi’s cheek. “You’re being extra stupid on purpose and I don’t love it,” he informs the other man. “If I say, you had it worse than me, does that feel true to you?”

“No, you saw people around you die, you lost….”

“But I had happy parents, a good childhood, I’ve been accepted and loved by my whole family my whole life. So how do I compare that with what you went through? Am I even allowed to talk about my ‘suffering’ with you? Since you’ve had it worse?” Curtis pushes. He’s going to make this point and win this argument once and for all.

“It’s not the same thing, you can’t compare my childhood to yours, or the Galra Invasion to being held captive, you can’t just compare our pain like that,” Takashi points out.

“So would you stop doing it then?” Curtis asks.

“I wasn’t-”

Curtis raises an eyebrow.

“I will do my best to stop and correct myself when I start to do it.”

“That’s all I can ask for,” Curtis smiles. “Our pain is so different, love, you can’t put price tags or weights on it. And we all show it so differently. No one handles things the same. No one feels the same way about something. Even if we both love something, we bring with us completely different ways of seeing it and reasons why we love it.”

“When did you turn into a great sage?” he wrinkles his nose at his boyfriend.

“I’ve always been smart like this. You were too busy busting flight records in the Academy to much care about intellectual pursuits.”

“Hey!”

Curtis laughs and kisses him. Takashi kisses back, stepping back in so their bodies are perfectly aligned. He almost doesn’t want to know what it is they have to talk about. It will not only ruin the moment, but clearly the other man isn’t sure how to begin, and doesn’t want to, either. But it’s not Curtis’ job to push. It’s his job to wait.

Reluctantly pulling back, Shiro looks around. “Can we get this over with?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yeah, of course,” Curtis says, face clouding. Clearly this is going to be awful for both of them. Reaching out to touch Takashi’s cheek, he lets his hand drop when Shiro pulls away a little.

“Sorry,” he says, when he sees the hurt in the other man’s eyes. “Sorry, I just. If you start being nice and touching me, I won’t be able to do this. And you’ve said you won’t fool around with me until we do this, and I really really want to fool around and have sex, and I’m going to lose my nerve if we don’t just get this over with.”

He takes a minute to meet Takashi’s eyes, before nodding a little. “Let’s sit on the couch?” he suggests. Then when it’s over they can cuddle up and comfort each other a lot easier.

“I can do that,” Takashi agrees, practically vibrating out of his skin with nerves. He’d known his day was leading up to this, but it doesn’t make it any easier. “I… don’t... No matter what I do, if you interrupt me, or, or talk, or do anything to help, I won’t be able to get through this. I’ll start crying and I will never be able to actually tell you any of this.” He meets Curtis’ eyes, his own already welling with tears that he blinks away irritably.

Curtis nods, and leans back, crossing his legs and then crossing his arms across his chest. “Okay. No interrupts, and I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he says seriously. “But, if you can’t do it, just lean into me. And we’ll try again later. Okay? I won’t hold you until you ask.” Verbally or nonverbally.

Nodding, “I don’t know if I can make eye contact with you, while I do this,” Shiro whispers.

“That’s okay,” Curtis reassures him, letting him stall. Some part of him his morbidly curious, and he hates that. The rest of him doesn’t want to know anything about this, other than it could impact them both negatively in bed. And in their relationship in general. Half tempted to give the other man an out, he takes a slow even breath.

“Okay,” he looks up at Curtis briefly, seeking that love and reassurance he always sees when they make eye contact. “Don’t talk to me anymore,” he says with a shuddering breath. Grateful when Curtis just stays quiet. “I know, I know you know the Galra ran experiments on me,” his voice shakes and he takes a few breaths to calm himself. “And sometimes I don’t think it was malicious, just, curious. It was still awful,” he whispers in a smaller voice. “Like when they would test the mobility in my joints, see how far they could bend before they broke. I think hurting me was just a bonus for them on their journey to scientific inquiry.” He clenches his fist, and then slides a hand into his pocket where he keeps Allura’s gem. She’d want him to talk about this. She’d be proud he was working past it. Thinking about their silent nights on the bridge of the Castle, just watching stars, unable to speak about their nightmares, he takes another breath.

He can’t look up at Curtis, or he’ll break and never be able to do this. See those blue eyes softened in compassion and worry. His breathing hitches just thinking about it. Focus. Squeezing the gem in his palm, he nods to himself a little. “Well, they were… curious, and they did all sorts of things,” his throat squeezes and he breathes through his nose. He can do this. “I know they stuck things up my nose, in my ears, I’m… I’m pretty sure they did things to my eyes that I can’t remember,” thank the gods. “They were interested in human reproduction…” his breathing is ragged and it takes several moments to compose himself.

Curtis is rigid in his seat, because he has to be or he’s going to pull Takashi into his arms and not let go of him for several hours. He is doing his best to keep his face neutral and calm, for all he can feel the rage making his heart pound. Biting his lip to stop himself from saying a word, he is starting to get where some of this is leading.

“They were interested in our anatomy in general… I guess since I was Champion they were especially curious as to what made me tick, vs another human. I don’t know if they experimented on Matt or Sam like they did me, but I doubt it. Since they were both removed from the arena to do scientific work.” His voice takes on a flat, almost bored quality. “One time, they chose to, I don’t know if they knew how humiliating it would be. I have no idea what culture or customs they had, or if they even saw me as anything other than a slave…” his voice trails off and he looks down at his pocket, rolling the gem over and over in his hand.

“I don’t know if it was intentional, I don’t know if they even wanted to hurt me. They did plenty of things that were painless.” And so many things that weren’t. “It could have just been a misjudgement on their part. I don’t really know. But they tore me open… ‘exploring.’ I suppose I’m lucky they didn’t rupture anything internal, but sometimes I wish they had.” He shrugs a little, more to himself than to Curtis. He’s almost forgotten the other man is in the room with him. “When they were done, they left me in my cell. And the bleeding just… didn’t stop. So I hid it. I wanted to die, and then one day I woke up and it was healing.” Tears spill over his cheeks without warning. “So I tore myself open, because it was the only way I could hurt myself in those cells.”

His throat squeezes and he struggles to breathe. Just admitting it. Admitting it out loud that he had wanted to die. Had tried to kill himself. It’s oddly freeing while absolutely terrifying. Because he’s admitting it to himself now, too, for the first time. “Eventually they figured out something was wrong. I… did some damage to myself,” he whispers. “I’d been refusing food, hiding it so they wouldn’t know. Trying to make sure I hid the blood, too… so they stapled me up, chained me spread eagle so I couldn’t move so much as an inch, and shoved a feeding tube down my throat…. And left me until I healed.” He chokes down a sob. “And the worst part is, I withstood everything they threw at me until then, and… something that might have just been an accident, something that might not have been even the slightest bit malicious is what broke me,” he whispers, starting to sob. “So many people survive intentional… attacks like that, and they survive and they go on and that’s what made me lose it…” he chokes out a bitter laugh. “Funny right? Kill people. Have your bones broken. Face torture. Sendak used to….” he looks up for a second, shaking his head with his lips pressed flat to his teeth so he won’t cry. “He loved that electric baton they had. And I handled that, too.”

Curtis forces himself to put his hands on his knees, so that when and if Takashi is ready for comfort, he won’t have to wait for Curtis to be able to peel his arms off his chest. He’s so rigid, and so angry, and so devastated for his partner. But he promised to stay quiet until it was over. He is dying to comfort Takashi, tell him everyone has a breaking point. Or just something that they can’t withstand. None of it makes him any less. He wants to also make sure that the other man isn’t considering what he had in that cell, not anymore. So he clenches his jaw and bites his tongue because this isn’t about him right now. For all he thinks he might be sick later. Repeatedly.

Starting to cry, he feels like he almost can’t stop the words now that he’s started. “They hurt me so much, and I’m so scared that if I try… if I try and do some of the things… that I would want, that you would want… Curtis I’m so scared if I try and…” he chokes, sobbing. “I don’t want to go down on you and freeze up,” he can’t force himself to explain why. Hopefully Curtis can infer why that might happen. “And I’m scared that if you… I’m scared if I let you, if I want you to, I’m scared the scars… I don’t want to tear open again, I don’t want to remember how that felt, I don’t want to feel any of that with you and I don’t want you to not sleep with me because I can’t give you what you can give me,” he forces out in a breath. “I’m so scared if we do the things I want to do, I’ll panic and hurt you, or… get hurt and I don’t want to hurt anymore,” he sobs miserably, shaking.

He hunches around himself, hand squeezing the gem in his pocket so tightly he’ll have the mark for hours. Curtis takes a few breaths to center himself, tears of his own running down his cheeks. Takashi has not told him he can respond now, yet, or do anything, and he hates to break that promise but he can’t take it anymore. He leans forward and gathers his partner into his arms. “I love you,” he says fiercely, “I love you and it doesn’t matter to me who puts what where, it never did and it never will.” Because that’s part of what this is about. Rubbing Takashi’s back, he slowly encourages the other man to curl into him. With gentle touches and soft reassurance, he eases Takashi into his lap so the other man can be as close to him as possible.

“I would never want to hurt you or scare you while we’re in bed together,” Curtis reassures him, blinking through tears of his own. For all he’s thankful Takashi doesn’t seem to think he could do that intentionally. Putting all the blame on himself, instead of the Galra. Kissing his temple, Curtis closes his eyes, feeling tears run over his own cheeks. Squeezing his partner tightly, he wishes he knew how to be more comforting.

Shiro wraps his legs around Curtis’ middle, too upset to be worried about if it’s comfortable for the other man or not. His hand is clutching the back of Curtis’ shirt, trying to press himself as close as possible to him. The need to feel safe, and loved is absolutely overwhelming. “I’m sorry,” he forces out between sobs. It’s a lot to dump on someone. Even if that someone said they wanted to know. “I’m sorry,” he says again, between sobs, over and over until he feels like he can’t stop.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Curtis promises, forcing back sobs of his own. He has no idea what Takashi is apologizing for. Trying to find a way to hug him tighter, Curtis shifts his grip a little. Realizing at some point his partner is stuck repeating it, he pulls back a little to kiss him gently on the cheek, bridge of his nose, and corner of his mouth. Surprised when Takashi turns into the kiss, Curtis doesn’t stop him and kisses him back. When Shiro tries to pull back to apologize more, Curtis kisses him again to stop him. “I don’t know what you’re apologizing for, but you don’t have to, there’s nothing to be sorry for,” he promises. Pulling Takashi close again, he does his best to keep his breathing as even as he can. For all he’s starting to cry now, too.

He shifts a hand up to Takashi’s head, gently, but compulsively, smoothing the silvery white hair. Curtis isn’t sure if he’s trying to comfort himself, or his partner more, right now.

When he feels himself starting to wind down, Shiro pulls back, ashamed. He doesn’t need to make such a fuss. They stuck things in every hole in his body. What did it matter which one? They’d made holes and probed those, too. Cut him open. Cut his arm apart. Without anesthesia. They had tortured him so many times. Thrown him into that arena again and again and again. Body shuddering in exhaustion after the force of his outburst, he looks at Curtis wearily. Pulling his hand free from the back of Curtis’ shirt is no small feat, and it cramps as he tries to flex it. When his hand is finally under his control again, he reaches out to smooth away the tears on his partner’s cheeks. They look like diamonds against the dark skin, but Shiro still hates seeing them there.

Curtis allows Takashi to pull back, and get himself the rest of the way under control. “Let me go get some tissues,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to Takashi’s forehead.

“Okay,” he says hoarsely, half terrified Curtis won’t come back. Now that he knows just how damaged the goods are, he won’t want them anymore. Trying not to cry more, he can’t stop himself. Wrapping his arm around his middle he rocks a little, wishing he was stronger.

Shocked into stopping when something cold and wet touches the back of his neck, he freezes. Curtis is back, his face shiny with water and his hairline still damp. He holds still while Curtis gently runs the washcloth over his face and neck. It feels so good.

“Here, hold it up to your eyes for a minute or so while I make some tea,” Curt says gently, quickly folding it into a compress and holding it out to his partner. He also drops a box of tissues in Takashi’s lap. Leaving him to settle down some on his own, Curtis heads into the kitchen and starts making tea with shaking hands.

He glances at the tea bags and picks chamomile, setting up a pot. When the water from the kettle boils, he fills the pot and gets out two mugs. Adding a little honey to both, he has a feeling after all the crying they could use the sugar. Waiting a few minutes, he glances back at his partner, feeling devastated. Takashi’s shoulders still shake here and there, and from a room away Curtis can see the trembling in his hand as he holds the washcloth to his face.

Counting down the seconds until the tea bag has steeped enough to have some flavor, he glances at his comm. Should he call someone? Is there anyone Takashi would even take comfort in right now? Shaking his head a little, he pockets the device again and pours out two mugs of tea, stirs the honey into them, and heads back to the couch. Settling them on the cheap coffee table, he pulls Takashi back into his arms.

“You don’t have to stay,” he says dully, tears still running down his cheeks. He can’t seem to make them stop, but at least the sobbing has.

“What?” Curtis asks, too surprised to have any idea what the other man is talking about. “Where am I supposed to be going?” he glances at the clock.

“I just,” Shiro huffs. “I get it if you don’t want to be here right now.” He blinks hard, trying to stop more tears from squeezing out.

“Oh,” Curtis sighs heavily. “You can’t drive me off with this stuff.” Not that he’s trying to downplay how bad the ‘stuff’ in question really is. It’s just that he’s not afraid of it. Or Takashi’s pain. Sure, he’ll probably need an extra therapy appointment or two this month, instead of the one he’s gotten down to. But he’s not giving up on his partner now. They’ve come too far. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Shiro’s voice cracks. He lets Curtis settle him in closer, tucking his head under his chin. It feels so good. So safe. Nuzzling into the embrace, he works on evening out his breathing. He can calm down. Curtis won’t leave. At least not yet, so he can let himself feel safe enough to settle back down.

Rubbing Takashi’s back in slow circles, Curtis nuzzles him back as he tries to ignore the tortured flesh under his hand. Usually he just accepts it. Or ignores it. “I’m not leaving you, well, not until tomorrow when I have to go to work. But I really don’t want you to be alone all day tomorrow. Can I call someone for you?” he asks, worried. He doesn’t want this to spiral into Takashi hurting himself again. Or just being too depressed to do anything to take care of himself until Curtis gets home. Not that he’s really let himself get that bad. “Maybe you and Keith can convince Pidge you need to keep testing the speeders?”

“Maybe,” Shiro agrees wearily. “Just as long as I get to sleep in.”

“Deal,” Curtis agrees, a weight off his chest. “Come to my place tomorrow? Or just meet me at the Garrison and I’ll take you with me?” he offers. He has more teas, and a much nicer comfier place. For all Keith had helped Takashi make some improvements. The new sheets are a plus. The extra groceries are good, too. But Curtis still feels like he’s got more at his own apartment that will help them both feel comfortable. For one, he has pillows and a blanket on his couch. Two, he has a much bigger bathroom with a nicer shower.

“Are you sure you want me around?” he asks. He can almost feel the glare he gets and clears his throat. “Not like that, I just… you don’t need time to… process?”

Pulling back, he very deliberately catches Takashi’s face with both hands and presses his forehead against his own. “Look at me a minute?” he asks. Smiling a bit when red rimmed grey eyes meet his. “I have known since I met you that you had been through some bad stuff. I knew before I met you. This is awful stuff to have lived through. And I am sorry it happened. But I knew coming into this relationship you would have baggage. And I decided that if I wanted to be with you I would help you carry it. I can’t do it all the time, we both know that. And I have my own stuff, and you’ve been helpful and patient with it. So just… stop worrying that something the Galra did to you will make me stop loving you.” Not surprised when fresh tears roll over scarred cheeks, Curtis gently kisses him. “I have never been with you because I wanted to fuck you. So if you’re on top, it makes no difference to me.”

“Is that a polite way of saying you don’t want to fuck me?” Shiro tries to joke.

“I am saying I don’t care about that stuff. Being with you like this… is painful, I know, but it’s worth it. And just as worth my time as fooling around with you in the shower. It’s like yin and yang right? Good and bad? Can’t have the good without the bad.”

“Well hopefully we’ve both had enough bad times we don’t have to create new bad memories together,” Shiro mutters. Then wonders if what he just said made any sense at all. If anyone’s going to understand what he meant, it’s Curtis.

“We might make mistakes. Get frustrated with each other. It’ll be okay in the end. As long as we keep being honest with each other.” He pulls away and hands Takashi the mug. “How about we have the tea, get cleaned up, and go to bed?”

“And then you’ll tell me whatever you wanted me to know, too?”

“Are you sure you’re up for that? We might just need to sleep some…”

“Is it that bad? Or do you just think it’s not that important compared to…”

“It’s not that bad. It’s just there’s no rush…” he sips his own tea. “Mine is more about stuff I don’t like. Not much of it’s trauma. Just...things I’ve learned make me uncomfortable or turn me off.”

“Oh.” Shiro shifts a little, searching for a joke of some kind. “You mean I didn’t have to go through any of that, I could have just told you I’d rather top?” he forces an awkward chuckle.

“No, I don’t think that’s what I mean… some of it’s… not just preference.” Realizing Takashi is looking for something to ease some of the sting, he breathes out a sigh. “I … don’t love when people put my hands in their mouths because sometimes I panic and forget why they’re wet and that I’m feeling teeth and not rocks. It’s not often, but when it happens it’s hard to push through. Not to mention, I uh, with the grafts and all the broken bones, it just doesn’t feel right anymore.” He chuckles weakly. “I read somewhere that it takes the same amount of force to bite off a finger as it does to bite through a carrot. Every time some guy put my fingers in his mouth that’s all I could think of.” What if they bit down? “It just… with all of it… just lost it’s appeal entirely I guess. I used to like it. Maybe I will again, eventually.”

Shiro glances at Curtis, then his hands, wrapped around the mug. He nods a little. He doesn’t have any specific interest in those hands. Other than feeling them on his body. His face heats in response to the thoughts, and he feels guilty for having them.

“I can’t stand people touching my neck. A little kissing down the side is fine, but one guy I slept with just liked to rest his hand there. And it always made me feel like I was suffocating.” He glances away some. Any kind of pressure can trigger that terror in him now. But he hates when people do things like try and choke him in bed. Not that he really feels Takashi would be into that at all. “Then I guess there’s just kind of the normal stuff, but some of it won’t matter with you,” he shrugs.

“Why not?” Shiro asks, almost indignant. What wouldn’t matter with him?

Laughing a little, he can’t help it. “There’s some weird things guys do when they give blowjobs, and since you don’t feel comfortable doing that right now, or ever, it won’t be an issue for us, that’s all. And if I find out it’s something you like, then I’ll tell you what it is so you never try it on me if you feel up to trying.”

Cheeks red, Shiro nods a little. “Fair enough,” he admits, embarrassed. The idea of Curtis between his legs makes his face burn and he hates himself a little for being able to think like that after what they’d just talked about. But the whole point of this talk was to be comfortable doing things together.

“So, in the shower, you got really jumpy… and I get why, but is that an area you’d rather I didn’t touch?” Curtis pushes softly. “Usually I do a lot when I’m down there, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable….” he trails off, finally noticing how red Takashi is. “We can put this conversation off for later, if you need to,” he says. For all he thinks the other man just wants to get it over with all at once. Not that he blames him. None of this has been fun.

“I’m.I’m scared I’ll tear open,” Shiro admits, looking down and away. It might not be rational. It’s just how he feels. “I used to switch with Adam,” he admits, knowing Curt won’t mind him bringing up his ex. “We didn’t take turns necessarily we just… it just worked out however it worked out, I guess. I don’t know if we put any thought into it,” his eyes well with tears. “But I’m so scared if you… even a finger… I’m scared I’ll go back to that place and I’ll relive it all over again. Or… or that the scar tissue won’t hold,” his throat squeezes and he takes a drink of tea to hide that he can’t talk anymore.

“Okay,” Curtis says calmly. “Okay. Nothing inside, I can do that.” He raises an eyebrow slightly, testing the waters. “Or not do that, actually. I can not do that,” he teases weakly.

“You won’t hate me? For not being able to… ‘give back’ or keep it even?”

“You really have only dated one other guy, huh?” Curtis cups his cheek and smooths away a tear with his thumb. “Some guys only top, or only bottom or have very strict rules and preferences. All you’re asking me to do is not do something that might hurt you. I think I can manage that. That doesn’t upset me at all.” He knows it’s not exactly like Takashi can be part of a community or learn much about some of the culture out by the Garrison when he’s spent most of his time in space away from humans. But sometimes he forgets that the other man grew up with a family who did not accept him as he was. Not that it had been fun for Curtis to get caught ‘learning’ about the gay community. Or as his mother would call it ‘watching porn.’ Thankfully his education also came from other sources.

“I won’t put a hand on your neck. Or mess with your hands,” Takashi says seriously. Finishing his tea, he sets the mug down on the table. Leaning into Curtis’ chest, he heaves an exhausted sigh. “I feel disgusting,” he complains.

“Mm?”

“Tears and snot… I feel like I need to shower again.”

“Well it has been since yesterday,” Curt drawls slowly. “I usually feel like I have to shower at work, and most of what I do involves sitting down and not working up a sweat.”

“We could save time….” he tests the waters. He’s not sure he wants to do anything, but he wants to feel close to the other man.

“You looking for an encore of yesterday’s performance?” Curtis teases gently.

“I don’t know yet,” he admits. “But uh, if I was… I don’t think I’d want to see the exact same show over again.” He blushes and looks at Curtis.

“Well, if you decide you’re interested, I suppose something could be arranged. I have an in with the guy from yesterday, so I can at least ask.” He smooths Takashi’s hair back from his forehead gently. Then kisses him. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, just so we’re clear.”

“I know.” He glances at Curtis oddly and realizes it’s true. He doesn’t feel like he has to prove anything to the other man. There’s no record to break, no point to be made, no fight to win. Overcome by the idea he just sits there for a few seconds, stunned.

#curtashi #vld shiro #curo #shurtis #takashi shirogane #i found a reason #my fic

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my-one-love-is-music · 6 years ago

Text

Be My Player 2? Ch. 38

Also on AO3!

~~~~~~~~

Keith yawned and ran a hand through his hair, trying to wake himself up after the long day of classes he was back to. He was already missing the mornings he got to spend sleeping in over spring break and knew that the next week was going to be hell as he fought to get back on schedule.

He tugged uncomfortably at the collar of his jacket as he pulled open the backdoor of the restaurant. The weather was warm enough that wearing his usual jacket was becoming stuffy. It was almost time to put it away for the year.

“Hey! Look who’s back!”

Keith smiled and waved at the cooks as he passed.

“How was your vacation?” Lee called after him.

“Great! I wish I was still on break,” he said over his shoulder.

Lee’s booming laughter followed him down the hall. “None of us would work if we didn’t have to, kid!”

Keith shook his head and huffed. He paused at the time clock and punched his number into the system, waiting for it to beep before he made his way out into the dining room.

Happy chatter surrounded him as he crossed to the bar, the sounds of the patrons muffling the music that played over the speakers. He spotted George behind the counter, mixing drinks with a grin on his face. He spun and twirled, looking completely at ease despite the list of tickets Keith saw in front of him.

“Have no fear, the cavalry’s here,” Keith called as he swung around the back of the bar and slipped his jacket off. He tossed it into the bin underneath the bar and immediately rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, ready to dig into the pile of orders and help things along for them both.

“Hey! Welcome back, man,” George said, pausing just long enough to throw an arm around his shoulders in a quick side-hug. “You’ve got to tell me all about your vacation.”

Keith swiped the next ticket as George set his drink on an available tray. He scanned the scratched writing and nodded, turning to grab a glass and the three bottles he was going to need.

“I don’t really know what to say. It was kind of amazing.”

“Kind of?” George prompted.

Keith bit his lip, trying to hide his grin. “Okay, it was more than just kind of amazing. It was fantastic.”

George chuckled, intercepting his hand as they both took another ticket. “Sooooo things with the boyfriend are good?”

“More than good. Way more than good.”

George paused his stirring and raised an eyebrow. “Way more than good?” he asked. “Wow. He didn’t propose to you, did he?”

Keith chuckled and shook his head. He grabbed two beers and popped the caps, setting them next to the martini George just finished.

“Not at all. But…”

“But?”

“But I might’ve said yes if he had,” he murmured.

“What?!”

Keith blinked as George scrambled to get a better handle on his shaker, almost dropping it and spilling the drink all over their feet.

George carefully set the shaker on the counter and gripped the edge, taking a steadying breath. He raised his gaze and met Keith’s eyes.

“Did you seriously just admit to me that you would marry Shiro if he asked you to?” George said carefully.

Keith felt his face heat up and crossed his arms. He cleared his throat and shifted from foot to foot. “I guess I did.”

George’s disbelief faded and he grinned, chuckles slowly working their way up his throat until he was clutching his stomach and nearly doubled over laughing.

“Oh my god, that’s incredible,” he said, wiping away a nonexistent tear. He fought to catch his breath, keeping one hand on the counter next to him. “But seriously man, I’m really happy for you. You deserve to have someone like Shiro in your life. Especially when the two of you are so happy together.”

Keith smiled, shoulders relaxing where they’d hunched in the face of George’s laughter. “Thanks. I’ve kind of…never mind, it’s stupid.”

“No, come on. You can tell me, man. I swear it’ll stay between us,” he said, grabbing the shaker and finally shaking it above his shoulder.

“Well, I…I’ve been thinking about doing job applications for companies down in Florida. I figured that if I can get a job down there, I can move south and be closer to Shiro.”

George raised an eyebrow. “You’ve only been thinking about it?” he asked.

Keith huffed. “Okay, so maybe I haven’t just been thinking about it. I’ve been doing some applications. Pidge and Hunk have actually been helping me out.”

George nodded and pulled the top off the shaker. He poured the drink in the waiting glass and set it on one of the trays with the ticket.

“I’m happy for you, man. I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Keith whispered, swiping one of the last tickets from the pile.

“And I know you’re going to make it. I know you can get a job down there and be close to your boyfriend.”

Keith bit his lip and ducked his head, grabbing two beers from the fridge under the counter. He was glad to have so many supportive people in his life, but he didn’t want their encouragement to get the better of him to the point where he got his hopes up too much.

It was possible, but there was no guarantee he’d be able to make the move. He just had to remember that.

Keith glared at his computer screen as he paced back and forth behind his kitchen chair. One half of the screen had half of a research paper he was putting together and the other half had a job application sitting open.

He had deadlines and as much as he hated to admit it, the end of his senior year was hurtling towards him. There was a lot to do and he there was never enough time to finish it all. Not after he was faced with two rejection emails for job applications that day alone, one coming five minutes after he’d submitted his info for review.

His phone vibrated on the table and he glanced at it, seeing Shiro’s name flashing on the screen. He smiled, reaching for it to answer the call.

“Hey,” he murmured, some of his stress already falling away at knowing his boyfriend was on the other end of the call.

“Hey baby,” Shiro said. “I miss you.”

Keith chuckled, laughter soft. He glanced at his computer before moving around the side of his couch to plop down onto the cushions.

“I miss you, too.” He stretched out his legs, propping his feet on the coffee table. “How are classes going?”

Shiro groaned and Keith could almost picture him rolling over to bury his face in his pillow. “Classes suck. I’m tired of doing homework and papers. I’m ready for it to be over.”

“Me too. And don’t even get me started on job applications on top of those,” he huffed.

“Yeah, those are…still a thing.”

“Takashi Shirogane,” Keith swore, leaning forward. “Have you been ignoring job applications?”

Shiro chuckled. “Not ignoring them per say…they’re just really fucking exhausting and I only have so much energy in the day to do homework. Job applications are a whole other monster.”

“Oh believe me, I know,” Keith muttered, thinking about the rejections he’d gotten earlier that day.

“How have they been going for you?”

Keith sighed, his good mood taking a dip. “I got two rejection letters already.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, babe,” Shiro said, sounding just as disappointed as he did. “Was it anything promising?”

Keith’s stomach sank further. The locations of both companies were within a few minutes of Shiro’s house. “Sort of? I think the opportunities would’ve been great. As great as they could be with a first job out of college.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure they would’ve been good fits for you. I know you’ll be able to find something even better that’ll make you happy.”

Keith bit his lip, thinking about the job application he had sitting open on his computer. “I hope so,” he whispered.

They were both silent for a moment, enjoying the few moments they had together despite the distance between them. Keith closed his eyes, brows furrowing. If he concentrated hard enough, it was almost like he was back on the couch or laying in bed with Shiro, head pillowed on his chest while they cuddled and talked. Maybe a movie was playing in the background they weren’t really paying attention to, sharing kisses in the soft space between them.

“Keith?” Shiro asked.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Keith grinned, biting his lip to try and contain the giddy butterflies that swarmed in his stomach every time he heard those words.

“I love you, too.”

Keith scrubbed at his eyes, trying to focus on the clock in the corner of his computer screen. It was after midnight and even though he’d got another quarter of his paper done and submitted a handful of applications, he still couldn’t let himself rest. Not when he only had so much time to try and get a job near Shiro before the school year ended.

He yawned, eyes threatening to fall shut with his need to sleep and get rest before he’d have to get up the next morning and do another whirlwind of classes, homework, bartending, and job applications.

“One more application,” he muttered, fighting to focus on the words his sluggish fingers typed in what he swore were shrinking boxes. “Just one more and then I’ll go to bed.”

He blinked again, taking longer to force them back open to focus on the words in front of him. He was so tired, but he just had to get this done. A few more minutes and then he’d be able to sleep.

Keith groaned when his alarm went off next to his ear. He smacked his hand on the table, fighting to silence the incessant ringing pulling him from the sweet rest he’d gotten during the night.

He forced his eyes open, feeling like a zombie. He blinked at his fridge, trying to figure out why it was in his bedroom.

Keith sighed and forced himself to sit up. He swiped his phone from the table and shut off his alarm. He glanced at the battery and sighed at seeing it under twenty percent. He’d need to get to class early and grab a seat by one of the outlets to charge his phone.

He rolled his shoulders, feeling his neck and back twinge from the awkward sleeping position all night. It was going to take more than one night in his bed to help repair the damage he’d done the night before. It would make standing on his feet at work absolute hell when he went in for his shift.

Keith pressed the spacebar of his computer and waited as it booted up. It was sluggish to start and he sighed when he was met with his still incomplete application he’d been forcing himself to finish. If he was lucky, he could grab a couple minutes between classes to finish it up and submit before moving on to everything else.

He closed the top of his computer and slipped it into his backpack. He grabbed the books for his classes that were in a pile on the kitchen table. He pushed himself from the chair and winced when his back cracked in two different places.

Keith groaned and stretched his arms over his head before shuffling down the hall to his bedroom. He yanked his shirt over his head and shoved his day-old jeans down around his legs, kicking them off to join the edge of his pile of laundry. He tossed his shirt on top and grabbed a new pair of boxers and jeans.

He dressed quickly and grabbed the first shirt in his drawer, pulling it over his head as he walked down the hall and turned into the bathroom. He stared at his reflection, taking in the bags under his eyes and the dullness of his gaze.

He turned on the tap as cold as it would go and cupped his hands under the running water, washing it over his face to help wake himself up. He shivered at the biting temperature and grabbed a towel to wipe off the excess water.

Keith grabbed a thin hair-tie from the sink drawer and pulled his hair back, tying it up in a messy ponytail.

He yawned and scrubbed at his eyes as he padded back to the kitchen. He grabbed a granola bar from the cabinet and tossed it into his backpack with the rest of his things. He grabbed his backpack and shoved his phone in his pocket, barely remembering to snag his charger from the couch.

He shoved his feet into his boots and grabbed his keys, sluggishly locking his apartment behind him. He shuffled down the hall, gripping the straps of his backpack tightly in his hands. It was going to be a long day and he couldn’t wait until he could go back to bed and forget about everything he had to do.

Keith blinked when he heard his phone chime next to him. He pulled himself from his paper and the extra thoughts continually circling around job applications and grabbed his phone where it rested on the arm of his chair.

He’d found a secluded nook in his building, ready to settle down and do some work between classes. An empty coffee cup sat next to his foot, the caffeine kicking in after he’d downed his third refill.

Keith smiled when he saw Shiro’s name on the screen and quickly opened their chat.

Shiro: hey baby. How are things going today?

Keith settled back into his chair, his shoulders relaxing as some of the stress left him thanks to Shiro’s never-ending calming presence.

Keith: Not gonna lie, I’m exhausted. I ended up falling asleep at my kitchen table last night in the middle of doing a job application.

Shiro: ☹ Don’t work yourself so hard. You’ve already got all of your papers and reports for your classes.

Keith sighed, his eyes falling shut for a minute. His fingers hovered over the keys on his phone. He wanted to tell him. He wanted to spill everything that he couldn’t rest and he had to do as many applications as possible because it meant there was a tiny, miniscule possibility that they could be together again in a couple months and he was desperate to take advantage of that chance.

He bit his lip and forced himself to skirt around his thoughts, only giving Shiro the necessary information.

Keith: I know, but I can’t stop. I really want to have a good job lined up once school wraps up. As much as I love bartending and working with George, I don’t want to be doing that forever. I didn’t go to school for a degree just so I could mix drinks for the next year.

Shiro: I know, baby, but taking care of yourself right now is important, too. Promise me that you won’t lose too much sleep trying to get applications in?

Keith: Fineeeee. I promise. I’ll only lose the socially acceptable amount of sleep so I can get job applications in.

Shiro: ☹

Keith smiled, feeling some of the ache from the past few days disappear. It was by no means better since they were still a thousand miles apart. But it was better. Knowing Shiro missed him and was there for him…it was better.

Keith: Don’t pout too long or your face will get stuck like that.

Shiro: Call me when you get home and I won’t have a reason to pout.

Keith: Deal. But I’ll need proof that you’re not pouting.

Shiro: Don’t worry. I think you’ll be able to tell. Considering I’m always smiling when I talk to you.

Keith felt a burst of butterflies in his chest. He was never going to get used to Shiro. And he never wanted to. Shiro was a gift in his life and he was determined to cherish him forever.

Keith: You were just pouting a minute ago.

Shiro: Technicalities!

He huffed a laugh, voice quiet in the nook he was settled in.

Keith: Fine, fine. We can talk about this later. As much as I love talking to you, I need to get a few more things done before my afternoon classes start.

Shiro: Oh yeah. It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? And you have to work tonight?

Keith: Unfortunately I do.

Shiro: Sorry.

Keith: That’s just how it is. I’ll call you when I get home from work.

Shiro: Sounds good. Later, baby. Love you.

Keith: Love you, too.

Keith stared at his screen for a moment, looking at the matching love yous. He sighed and was about to lock his phone when it chimed with a new email. He glanced at his computer screen which still showed the paper he was working on.

He quickly changed apps, knowing it wouldn’t take long for him to check his email before getting back to work.

Keith opened his email and frowned when the first email came from a sender he didn’t recognize. He clicked on it and scrolled down to the body, eyes widening. He read through it once, and then a second and third time to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

Dear Mr. Kogane,

Thank you for reaching out to us with regards to our open research assistant positions. Your academic background is quite impressive and we’d like to have the opportunity to discuss this position with you in more detail and possibly set up a Skype interview with you.

Please respond with your availability if you’re still interested in this position and-

Keith swallowed, trying to keep his heartrate down. His fingers shook as he tried to calm himself down enough to write a reply. This was too much. All of the planning and job applications and wishing wasn’t enough to prepare him for the possibility of landing an interview for a company in Florida.

He slammed the lid of his computer and threw it into his backpack. He pushed himself out of his chair and barely remembered to unplug his phone from the wall before he was skidding around the corner and sprinting down the hall.

Pidge and Hunk would be getting out of class in the next few minutes. He had to tell them about this.

If you enjoy my work, please reblog or consider buying me a ko-fi!

#sheith #molim writes #fic: player 2 #fic update

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eliniei · 6 years ago

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Those Hard Days - Chapter 32

Summary: Rae’s brother always made sure she was tough as nails. But when her father flips her world upside down, will she find that there’s a limit on how strong she can be?

Warnings: Rape/Non-con (non-graphic, fade-to-black), child abuse, underage drinking, underage smoking, drug use, violence, major character death

AO3: here Fanfiction.net: here

Masterlist

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter 32 - Ready

“Okay,” Patricia began, flipping open the small file she had brought with her. “Rae Lee Winston. 15 years old. No prior record with the police, although comes from a family of known criminals.” She paused, eyes sliding to Dally for a moment. Rae watched as he ground his teeth together to prevent himself from saying something he’d probably regret. The woman pushed the smallest folder away and opened the next. “Father a known drunk and heroin addict, suspected of physical and sexual abuse against a minor, tax evasion, and public intoxication. Active minor warrants in New York. Known to be noncompliant with officers while intoxicated. Brother, Dallas Tucker Winston. Seventeen years old.” She moved the file over and raised an eyebrow as she looked down at the thick folder. “I don’t really think we need to go into detail, do we?”

“No, ma’am,” Rae said, quietly.

“Miss Winston, a report has been made against your father with some serious allegations. I think you know about what.” She nodded and started stretching the hair ties at her wrist. Dally stretched his arm out and put a hand on the back of her chair. She knew it was meant to comfort her. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Her eyes darted to Barb, who nodded and reached out to put a hand over hers.

“It’s okay. Just tell the truth.”

“Take as long as you need.” Rae blinked a few times, trying to clear her thoughts and took a deep breath. She folded her hands together in her lap.

So she started, the unsaid words- the ultimate secret- spilling out of her mouth. Everything. Her brother removed his hand from the back of his chair and shoved it in the pocket of his coat. He looked away, jaw locked again. His eyes had turned dangerous, rimmed with red.

When she had finished, she wiped the water streaming from her eyes with her sleeve. Patricia’s features had softened into something resembling sympathy. Even Barb had to look away, trying to hide the hurt she was feeling and the tears falling down her cheeks. Her makeup was smeared when she was able to look back.

“Okay, Rae. You’ve been very brave through all of this,” the caseworker started again as she finished writing notes onto a pad of legal paper, and suddenly Rae felt as if she was a five-year-old. “Why didn’t you go to the police and report your father?”

“Well,” Rae started. “I was scared. We all were. I didn’t…”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t wanna be separated from my brother, my friends. I-I know there is a possibility that I could be sent out of state- back to New York.”

“Even when you knew your life was in danger?”

“That was when we figured out it was too much to handle. So we went to Mrs Mathews.” Rae’s eyes shifted. Barb gave her an encouraging nod. Patricia nodded as well, but in confirmation. “She filed the paperwork to become my foster mother and legal guardian, but I guess they ain’t gone through yet. We had some visits and meetings, but that’s it.”

“Under the guise that you were just experiencing child abuse.” She sighed. ”It is true that we sometimes send children out of state to live with other relatives- but generally, they must be immediate. Grandparents, aunts, uncles. Older siblings if they are of age and-” Her eyes flicked to Dally again for a split second, then back down to her notes. “Without an arrest record. Or twenty. We know that you all have family in New York but we are not sure how closely related they are. It will be looked into, but it is unlikely.”

“So, what options do we have?” Two-Bit’s mom asked, sitting forward in her chair, leaning on her elbows.

“Well, not many, I admit.” Rae frowned. Dally finally looked at her, listening intently. “We did go to your previous place of residence and it is, as you said in your paperwork, Mrs. Mathew, unlivable for a fifteen year old.” Patricia looked to her brother. “A seventeen year old should also not be living in such a place, but since you are almost eighteen, the state has decided to turn a blind eye to your situation.”

“Gee, thanks, miss,” Dally said with feigned gratitude and a roll of his eyes. “If you can’t tell, I don’t really give two shits about my own situation. I just want to know about my sister.”

“Charming, Mr. Winston.”

“I try.”

“Back to the task at hand. You also willingly withheld information from your previous caseworker, which doesn’t look good at all. Your father is nowhere to be found and has made an attempt on your life.” Patricia flipped her notepad a few pages back. “I suggest sending Rae to an undisclosed foster home for a time, until we can locate your father and bring him in.”

“That’s-”

“Since your father knows your friends and where they live, I must impress upon you that you cannot have contact with them until we have deemed it clear. It could put not only Rae but your friends in harm’s way.”

“Whoa, wait a second-,” Dally started.

“Mr. Winston, do you care about your sister’s wellbeing?”

“Well, duh, but-”

“Do you want her to be safe?”

“That’s what all this has been about, hasn’t it?”

“This is the best option she has now. There’s a foster home open right this moment across town that can take her in today.”

Rae looked at her brother and he looked back, an expression on his face she’d never seen before. She felt her eyes burn and panic claw its way up her throat. Her emotions must have been clear on her face.

“You won’t be leaving town,” Patricia said. “You’ll have to go to the other high school, but you won’t be far, if that makes you feel any better.” Mrs. Mathews shifted in her chair and uncrossed her legs.

“I’ll go call Keith and have him bring some of your clothes down, honey.” She stood and left the room for the main office. The caseworker also stood, closing her folders.

“I’ll let you two have a moment.”

When she left the room, she closed the door behind her. The siblings were silent for a few long seconds.

“Dally, I’m scared,” Rae finally piped up. He bit his lip, but released it a moment later and took a deep breath.

“Me too.” He ran a hand through his blonde hair. “But we’ll-we’ll get you back. If I have to enlist all the boys to help hunt that bastard down, I will. I promise, Rae. We’ll get you back soon.” She nodded, letting some tears break free. She sniffled and wiped her eyes. He turned towards her. “I need you to be brave, okay?” His voice cracked on the last word and he paused, surprised at himself. He cleared his throat. “Okay?”

“Alright.” Her answer was barely a whisper.

“Good. Just-just sit tight and keep your head down. Leave everything to us.” Before she could respond, the door opened.

“Time’s up, kids. Your clothes are here,” Patricia informed them. “Best that you come and say your goodbyes so we can get going.”

Rae and Dally stood out of their chairs and followed her back into the main part of the station where Two-Bit waited, her backpack slung over his shoulder, his mother by his side. She was stroking his hair as she told him what was happening. A look of pure sadness overcame his face, but when he noticed his friends come around the corner, he batted his mother’s hand away and plastered a smile onto his face. He slid the backpack down his arm and held it out to her as they approached.

“Heard you might be needin’ this,” he said, obviously trying to keep his voice light. She tried to smile as well and took her bag.

“Thanks, Two-Bit.” They stared at each other for a few quiet moments, fake smiles mirroring each other. Finally, he wrapped her up in a bear hug. She snaked her arms around his back as well, clinging to the t-shirt underneath his jacket. “It’ll be okay, right? I’ll be back soon.”

“We’ll find him,” he whispered into her ear. “You’ll be back home before you even know their names.” She nodded into his neck and he released her. She turned to his mother, who gave her a quick, gentle hug.

“When you get back, I promise I’ll make you a full-fledged member of the family.” Barb raised a hand and stroked Rae’s cheek. “You’ll always have a home with me. We’ll work hard while you’re gone to make it official.” She gave the older woman a grateful smile and lastly, turned to her brother.

Dally stood there with a frown, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. He looked down at his sister, his eyes roving over her face as if trying to memorize it. She stepped up to him.

“I guess this is it, huh?” she asked, quietly. He dipped his head towards the ground for a short moment before sniffling.

“Yeah, kid, I guess it is.” He gathered her up in his arms and grasped her so tight, it was like he was holding on for dear life.

“Bring me home,” she ordered him. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

Yeah,” he answered and let her go. “Okay. Get goin’.” With a nod, she lifted her backpack to her shoulder and turned back to her caseworker, her blue eyes sharp.

“I’m ready.”

#Those hard days #Rae Winston #The Outsiders #the outsiders fanfiction #outsiders #Dallas Winston #dally winston #curly shepard #curly shepard x oc #Tim Shepard #carrie merrill #Two-Bit Mathews #Steve Randle #Ponyboy Curtis #Sodapop Curtis #darry curtis #Johnny Cade #stay gold ponyboy #stay gold

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poor-sickies · 6 years ago

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hey I'm the anon who asked for braces Lance, i was thinking maybe he had to get when he's like nineteen and feels kinda upset about having them so late when usually people get them in middle or high school? And idk he just feels self conscious and uncomfortable, plus he's hurting, so Keith tries to distract him because he went through having braces too?

Ahh this is such an old request and I’m so sorry I’m only writing it now! It was kind of a quick thing, so I hope there aren’t any mistakes. It’s also a fic that happens in my band AU. I hope you like it!

Also kudos to @cinquefoilelove who left some replies that gave me ideas for this one :)

“Can I come in?”

It’s Keith voice from the other side of the door, and despite their usual and familiar bickering, Lance can be sure he hasn’t come to make fun of him.

But he still wants to be alone.

He knows he’s probably making a big deal out of this – and really, it’s not even that bad, all things considered. All in all, it’s nothing worse than a simple teenage drama, in Lance’s opinion.

Except he isn’t really a teenager anymore, he’s nineteen, and nineteen year olds shouldn’t be getting braces.

It had started with some dull pains in his lower jaw, the joint clicking each time he opened his mouth, getting worse and worse until he was avoiding eating and singing because of the discomfort.

While visiting his family on Thanksgiving, his parents had noticed the problem and dragged him to a dentist. The outcome was…not pleasant. Something about a bad positioning of his jaw that needed to be fixed? Lance can’t recall the details over the dread filling his stomach, but the only solution was braces, and he was not happy.

And just because some days just kept getting worse, this morning, on his way to the dentist, he receives a call from Hunk, about a last-minute scheduled show Allura had got for them tonight, at the local University bar.

Two hours later, returning from the dentist, and he’s starting to wonder if he’s brave enough to go through with the show at all.

Just talking feels difficult enough, with all the wires and foreign pieces muddling his speech, and the new sores around his cheeks and tongue stinging at every little movement of his mouth. Not to mention the annoying and constant pressure all over his gums and jaw. If Lance had the night to himself, he would probably head to bed right after dinner with a couple of painkillers and hope it all felt a little better tomorrow.

The prospect of singing for fifty people isn’t nearly as appealing as usual when he’s in this much pain.

And looking in the mirror only reminded him of why this all had bothered him so much in the first place.

It’s no secret to anyone that Lance puts a lot of effort in his appearance. Even before stepping up as frontman of the band, his image has always been something he pays a lot of attention to. And even though he’s seen a lot of cute girls that look adorable in braces, he’s wasn’t exactly confident about how it all would look on him.

Now that he has the answer, he feels an urge to hide any mirror in sight.

How is he supposed to talk to his fans? To sing for them? He feels so unattractive and awkward, and not even his upbeat personality will help. Lance’s confidence is enough when he’s wearing his best shirts, glowing skin, crooked smirk that leaves the girls swooning, but that’s where most of it comes from.

He doesn’t care if his mother said he looked fine, these braces make him feel awkward and young all over again. He doesn’t know if he’s more embarrassed about the way he looks or the extent to which he’s taking this drama, but either way, he wants to be alone.

So no, the last thing he wants to do is to talk, even with Keith.

“I wanna be alone.”

But Keith was nothing if not persistent. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and open the damn door.”

And brutally honest, for that matter.

Lance opens the door and Keith goes in, quickly taking a seat on the edge of the bed, his arms crossed against his chest.

“So,” he starts, “you wanna talk about it?”

Lance sits cross legged in the floor, leaning against the bed. “You just told me to stop feeling sorry for myself.”

Keith is caught off guard for a moment. He was expecting Lance to just spill things out, like he usually did, but apparently, this was getting to him a bit more than usual.

“I- look, I’m just trying to help, okay? Talking usually makes you feel better, right? So talk to me.”

“It’s uncomfortable,” Lance sighs, looking down at his lap, “and my speech is all fucked up, and my tongue is cut up all over, and my teeth hurt and - it looks bad. I look like a middle school kid. It just looks so awkward…so yeah, that’s it. You happy now?”

“I think you’re being dramatic,” Keith says, “I mean, I get the pain, I’ve been there - your teeth are moving, of course it’s gonna hurt for a while - but you don’t need to feel self-conscious about it. Besides, you’re only wearing them for like… a year, is it?” Lance nods, looking down, and Keith carries on. “Try wearing them for three years, maybe then you’ll have a reason to sulk.”

Well. It’s nothing he hadn’t expected from Keith. Trust Keith to be blunt.

“You had braces for that long?” He manages to ask.

Keith nods, eyes rolling involuntarily at the unpleasant memories. “Yeah. It sucked. I’d show you pictures if I had them - I’m sure you’d feel a lot better about yourself after seeing them.”

“That bad?”

“Oh yeah,” Keith continues, “Yours look somewhat discrete, actually.”

Lance scoffs. “Yeah, they sure are really invisible,” he trails off sarcastically.

Keith sighs. This isn’t working so well.

“Do you remember last summer when you were drunk and Pidge convinced you to get a death hawk for that rock festival, and you shaved half of your head?”

“Wow Keith, is that how you’re trying to make me feel better? By bringing up all the times I looked freaking terrible?”

“Would you just hear me out?!” Keith interrupts loudly, clinging to every last ounce of patience he still has. “Do you remember what you said at the time? The next day, when you saw yourself in the mirror?”

“That I would hide in my room and never see the sunlight again…?”

“Exactly. But you got over it. Do you remember why?”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Uh, cause… hair grows back?”

“No. Because you get used to it,” Keith says, “look, I’ve been there, okay? I know how much it sucks. But I can promise you, it’s not always gonna feel like that. And honestly, people don’t care that much.”

“Ugh. I hate it when you actually sound reasonable.” Lance sighs. “Alright. I’ll try to keep positive. And hope the show doesn’t go terribly.”

Keith chuckles with a fond smile. “Now will you come? We still have to get some dinner before.”

“Ah, that’s gonna be fun..” Lance rolls his eyes, and gets up. “Let’s get moving.”

“Hm. I see you’ve added something,” Shiro says as Lance takes a seat beside him, at their usual table at the bar.

“Yeah,” Lance chuckles, still looking down, “lucky me.”

“Oh Lance,” Allura says, “you have such a nice smile. I’m certain that’s what people notice right away.”

“I - thanks, Allura,” Lance blushes, feeling better for the first time since the day started.

“So, we were talking,” Pidge says, “and we agreed that if you’re not feeling up to it, Keith can do the vocals for most of the songs and hand you the guitar for a while.”

Keith nods, fingers still busy tuning the strings on his guitar.

“My voice is working fine,” Lance explains, “I can still do it.”

“Yeah, but we know it’s not comfortable yet, so just let us know if you need to stop, okay? And maybe take a painkiller.” Hunk reassures, giving a gentle squeeze to Lance’s forearm.

“The show starts in half an hour, we should probably have dinner now,” Shiro points out.

“Oh good, they have those amazing burritos, I’ll be set for the night!” Hunk grins, before calling the waiter.

“Ugh, guess I’ll order some water then,” Lance grumbles, rubbing his cheek, “ice cold.”

“Aw, buddy,” Hunk looks over at him, placing a hand on his shoulder, “you should really eat something before the show…did you even eat lunch?”

The waiter stops at the table and starts taking note of Keith and Pidge’s orders.

“Maybe some scrambled eggs?” Shiro suggests, leaning closer. He then turns to the waiter, “make them soft.”

Lance manages to eat, slowly and carefully. The painkiller starts kicking in, and the pain isn’t as bad, but talking is still uncomfortable, and he really doesn’t want to imagine how singing will turn out. The thought gives him some unusual stage fright, and it’s not a sensation he likes. He puts down his fork, and tries to relax. He’s done this dozens of times. Why is he so anxious now? The stage is usually his happy place, and it really sucks that such a tiny problem is making him feel like this.

“Hey, Lance,” Pidge calls out, tapping his shoulder. “Calm down. Your leg is bouncing like crazy.”

“I – yeah. Sorry Pidge.”

“Oh, I think we have to go now. The stage is set up,” Shiro announces, and they all get up, walking to the back to get ready.

“It’s okay, Lance,” Pidge says, plugging her bass to the amplificator, slinging the strap around her neck. “It’s gonna be fine. You’re an amazing singer. How terrible can you be? And why does it matter if it doesn’t go well? I mean, we’ve done tons of great shows, it’s not a huge deal if this one doesn’t go that great. Just relax and have fun, like you always do. That’s usually what makes our songs great.” She argues. “Besides,” she lowers her voice with a sly smile, “this place doesn’t have amazing acoustics. So even if you mess up some words, the crowd will most likely not notice. You’ll be great.”

That’s some kid of security Lance can lean on. He trusts his bandmates. This is not some new situation. He just needs to relax and have fun. Feeling revigorated, he nods. “Thanks, Pidge. Let’s do this.”

#vld #lance #band au #fanfic #a writes #m #ask

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getyourvitamin-bri · 7 years ago

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Super-Mega-Foxy-Awesome-Hot Klance Fic Recs!

One-Shots

Sweet Quiznak - CheckeredCloth Read if your into hurt/comfort and humor, an odd mix but this fic does it awesomely. Summary: "You're really into him," Hunk mutters, and wow, Lance's face is on fire. Hunk is killing him. "Look, read into how you like, Freud, just make sure that if I die Keith knows I totally would've mowed his ass like grass. That way, I can laugh hysterically at his emotionally-constipated expression from the afterlife." Rated Teen & Up

Love Bug Stuff - WhatTheBodyGraspsNot @whatthebodygraspsnot I’m such trash for Love Bug fics, this one in particular is stellar. Summary: Keith is bitten by an alien love bug that makes him fall in love with the first person he sees. And just guess who the heck that first person is? Rated M

Never Saw You Coming - dimpleforyourthoughts @dimpleforyourthoughts Read if you love angst, slow burn, mutual pinning, and hurt/comfort aka read if you love being put through all the feels :) Summary: Three months in space on his own would have been fine. Three months in space with Lance McClain is a whole other fucking story. Rated M

nothing’s quite as sweet - dimpleforyourthoughts There is cute cats and cute klance, need I say more? Summary: Keith is a barista who hates his job. Lance works at the cat shelter across the street. Rated Teen & Up

Muy Lindo - flipfloppandas - I’m trash for shy adorable keith and this fic delivered. Summary: In which Lance must learn how to navigate through a relationship with a Keith who is surprisingly shy, but it’s okay because Lance honestly freaking loves it. Not Rated.

implosion (the lines we cross) - pidgeotto_gunderson Some well written hard core angst if your up for it. Summary: The adrenaline is pumping through his veins - this is what he needs, what they both need. To yell and scream and hurt each other before they can mend.Fix-it fic for s7e6, imagining if Lance and Keith fought things out while they were all lost in space and it led to Lance finally spilling about his insecurities. Rated Teen & Up

Crest of White, Bow Down - 2towels @2towels I totally went “awwww” while reading this fic, its so adorable, it will definitely make you smile. Summary: “I don’t know what I need to do to prove to you that I haven’t thought about leaving, but I haven’t.”Without hesitating, Lance lifted his good hand to rest on Keith’s cheek and stroked his thumb across it, silently appreciating his pouty features as he swallowed. “Tell me every day you love me more,” He finally demanded dramatically and breathlessly, flitting his gaze down to Keith’s shoulders instead of the intensity of his eyes, “maybe that would work.”“That wouldn’t even be a challenge.” Keith said quietly.--Five times Lance is swept off his feet, and one time he falls. Rated Teen & Up

Kodachrome - HoddieMaine @joinmeinthishell , Ninke_A @collector-of-hats Wow this is such a beautiful story, its really well written, read if you love pinning and fluff. Summary: Keith has been at a loss for a while now. His job is terrible, his passion for photography has waned, and his pseudo brother has moved to some little town and keeps insisting he visit.When Keith finally does go, he ends up on a little street full of quaint shops. He intends to simply spend time with Shiro but ends up in a record store across the street. With a very attractive man, who signs instead of speaks. Rated E

Thinking ‘Bout You - BleuSarcelle @bleusarcelle, Queerklancing @queerklancing I got a cavity from the fluff in this fic :) Summary: That time Keith had a voice in his head singing and found out he had a quite unique soulmate link. Rated G

Rose-Colored Boy - melancholymango @melancholymango Read if you enjoy angsty lance, langst, & to experience all the feels. Summary: “I missed you, you know.”“Yeah?” Lance sighed, warm and giddy, clearly not absorbing how serious the words truly were. “Yeah.” Keith said, more certainty in his voice now. He reached down, hesitantly threading his fingers through Lance’s and giving his hand a squeeze. Lance tensed next to him. “I still do.”“I mean, I’m right here.”“Are you? You still seem pretty far away.” Rated Teen & Up

Blue Christmas - melancholymango I loved how keith and lance were written in this fic, its just overall super well written. Summary: The team decides to celebrate the holiday season in space as nostalgia gets the better of them, but reflecting on the past hurts Lance more than it helps and Keith doesn't have any memories to reflect on. AKA the one where Keith and Lance hate the holidays together, only to realize that they were actually celebrating all along in their own Keith and Lance way. Rated G

Multi-chapter

Not That Bad - varelsen @lvtvr Yeah this fic gave me lot of feelings, their relationship builds beautifully. Summay: “Am I really going to have to explain this to you?”“No, I’m totally fine with you shutting up right about now.” Hunk cups his hands around his mouth. “You. Are crushing. On Keith.” Or, a college AU featuring coffee shops, silly rivalries, motorcycles, arcade games, friendships, and lots of warm, fluffy feelings that are both confusing and delightful all at the same time. Rated M

Entangled - Purpleneutrino (mackerelmademedoit) @purpleneutrino I found this fic super interesting to read, and literally could not put it down. Summary: When Keith found himself mentally linked to Lance of all people, he never thought that it would end in anything but irritation and misery on both sides. He certainly never imagined that it would be a useful asset in team Voltron's fight against the Galra Empire. Now if he can just keep his feelings in check, they might actually have a chance at defeating Zarkon. Needless to say, when he'd wished for a 'bonding moment' with Lance, this wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. Rated M

Hearts Don’t Break Around Here - klancekorner @dimplesandcurlsss Yeah I stayed up till 4am reading this and it was glorious, I finished at 3am and just thought about it for another hour, so awesome! Summary: Lance and Keith have been best friends since first grade. Lance’s brain is always on overdrive and Keith’s blunt, realistic ass can never keep up. They both come to realize that sometimes you can learn a lot about loving yourself by loving someone else. Rated M

Something just like this - klancekorner A summer romance sundae with a friends to lovers cherry on top. Summary: Keith reluctantly becomes the counselor for the Red Cabin at Camp Voltron, a summer camp in the middle of buttfuck nowhere that his older brother Shiro has worked at for years. Already unhappy with the current position that he is in, Keith prepares himself for a boring, sweaty, miserable summer; and his frustration only grows when he meets the counselor for the Blue Cabin Rated M

You and I Collide - idratherhaveyou @itsthegameilike If you looked up cute in the dictionary, this modern apartment au would be the definition. Summary: Lance likes to sing in the shower. Keith lives in the apartment next door and the walls are not very thick. And you can bet when Lance wakes him up at 7:30 in the morning, Keith has something to say about it. Rated M

I’ve Got You - DragonofFernweh @dragonastral Keith comforting lance is my aesthetic, this fic is my aesthetic. Summary: Keith isn’t great at the whole comfort thing, he doesn’t have a way with words, nor does he have much experience in way of affection. Still, when Lance hurts, Keith wants to do something to help. Otherwise known as; five times Keith comforts Lance, and one time Lance comforts Keith. Rated G

it’s easier for you to let me go - welcometothehumanrace Should be called 6 times I went AAJKSCNSKDCNSJ because of how fluffin’ cute keith and lance are. Summary: Keith did not think Lance's arms were anything to get excited about. Or his shoulders. Or any general part of him. Just everything about him was unexciting as a whole.Obviously. Or 5 times Lance put his arms around Keith and the one time Keith really wanted him to. Rated Teen & Up

The Message - shipstiel @shipstiel-writes Wow this wrong number fic is just glorious, I laughed, I went “awwwww”, I just had such a good time reading this. Summary: Keith is texted by accident by some idiot one day, and honestly he's not even sure why he responds. Or why he keeps responding. Yet somehow he finds himself drawn in, and okay, so maybe this fool is mildly entertaining after all. Who would've thought. Rated Teen & Up

Homesick at Space Camp - K0bot @k0tron So awesome...just a fucking great fic. Its got fake relationship/married, its got angst, its got ballroom dancing, its got so much fluff, do I need to say any more? Summary: Lance realizes he's been an asshole to Keith, and on a diplomatic mission to a key planet for the Voltron alliance he... overcompensates.

Fake It Till You Make It - nikkiRA @aravenlikeawritingdesk I’m a sucker for Fake/Pretend Relationship fics and this one is the fic that started that particular habit. Summary: “What Keith here means to say,” Lance says, and although his voice is steady, he is gripping Keith’s fingers so tightly it’s painful. “Is that we can’t mate with your people, although we, um, appreciate the offer, because, well. We already are. M-mated, I mean. With, you know. Each other.” Rated M

I hope you love these fics as much as I did, they are some of my fav fics of all time. It took me forever to finish this post because I sorta, kinda, maybe, totally re-read a lot of them while making it :) Shout out to fanfiction writers, thank you for putting so much of your time into these stories for free, your all amazing!

Check out my blog if you would like >>> @getyourvitamin-bri

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emospritelet · 7 years ago

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Kiss of Life - chapter 4

In which Belle has a blind date...

AO3 link

Her Saturday shift at the hospital had made Belle tired and sore, and she slept later than usual on Sunday, forgoing her usual run in favour of a brisk walk to the diner for a coffee and bear claw. Mary Margaret and Ruby were chatting at the bar, and Belle slid onto a seat beside them to place her order.

“You look tired,” said Mary Margaret sympathetically. “Long night, huh?”

“It was hard work,” admitted Belle. “I’m enjoying it, though. Feels like I’m doing something worthwhile.”

“Any fights break out?” asked Ruby. “They tend to spill over from the bar sometimes.”

“None that I saw,” said Belle, yawning. “That Keith guy grabbed my arse, though.”

Mary Margaret and Ruby made the almost identical sounds of cats being stepped on.

“Remind me to kick him in the balls next time I see him,” said Ruby.

“Dr Gold threatened to report him to the Sheriff if he did it again,” said Belle.

“Oh, if Emma finds out he’s up to that kind of thing, she’d kick him in the balls,” said Mary Margaret.

“I don’t think you’ve met Emma,” added Ruby. “Blonde. Wears a lot of plaid. Married to Regina Mills, the Mayor.”

“The Sheriff married the Mayor?” said Belle. “That’s kind of sweet.”

“The deputy sheriff’s also a lesbian,” added Mary Margaret. “Mulan. She’s dating Merida, the redhead who works at the Rabbit Hole.”

“This town is powered by gays,” mused Ruby.

Belle giggled, and Ruby slapped her hands on the bar.

“But never mind about everyone else’s love lives!” she said excitedly. “It’s your big date tomorrow! You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be, I guess,” said Belle.

“Who are you going on a date with?” asked Mary Margaret curiously, and Ruby grinned.

“I told her I’d fix her up with a book lover, right?” she said, and leaned on the bar, eyebrows twitching as she grinned. “Okay, so his name’s Isaac Heller, he’s a writer, he’s always reading something or tapping away on his laptop when he’s in here—”

“You set her up with Isaac?” said Mary Margaret, in a flat tone, and Ruby spread her hands.

“What?” she protested. “He’s a writer, a book nerd! He could be Belle’s soulmate!”

“I’m not sure I believe in soulmates,” said Belle. “Besides, it’s only a date. A blind one, at that.”

“Well, I told him you’d meet him here,” said Ruby. “Seven-thirty tomorrow, okay?”

Belle tried to recall the last time she had been on a date, remembered that it was almost a year ago, and sighed to herself. After some deliberation, she had chosen an understated outfit: a flared black skirt with a fitted white shirt and little black cardigan. The date was at Granny’s, so at least she would be on familiar territory, and Ruby would be there to step in if it turned into a disaster. She’d had one or two dates like that in the past, after all.

Isaac Heller was a nervous-looking man with a long, thin face, dark hair and anxious eyes. He ordered a bottle of red wine and two glasses, delivered to the table by Ruby, who beamed at him and winked at Belle as she left. It took about ten minutes for Belle to decide that, whether or not soulmates existed, hers was not currently sitting across from her. Isaac was polite enough, pulling out her chair when they sat down, but agonised over the menu choices for half an hour before finally ordering the chicken parm, and then spent ten minutes wondering aloud whether the steak would have been better.

She found that she didn’t have to say much; Isaac told her all about his time travelling in New York and Boston and down into Florida, researching for his new book. He then told her about his agent, who had told him he was the next Hemingway, although whether that was something to be proud of was a matter of opinion, in her eyes. He then moved onto his publisher, who was being, in his words, unreasonably picky about the progress of his novel. Belle had drunk three glasses of wine by the time their food arrived, and while eating gave her something else to do with her hands, it didn’t distract Isaac from telling her the plot of his novel about a disillusioned but brilliant writer having what sounded to her like a midlife crisis.

“So let me get this straight,” said Belle, when he finally drew breath long enough to put a piece of chicken in his mouth. “The protagonist has a gorgeous girlfriend who - apparently - caters to his every need, and he’s still not happy?”

“He’s a tortured soul,” said Isaac earnestly, leaning forward. “Always looking for something better. A perfectionist, you see. He’s so used to excelling at what he does, he assumes that carries over into all areas of his life. I can relate to that.”

Belle almost choked on her wine, and her eyes watered as she tried not to splutter in amusement. She was feeling light-headed, and it was making her lose patience.

“Okay, so Mr Perfect wants the perfect woman by his side while he writes his wish-fulfilment self-insert porn or whatever it is he’s doing—”

“It’s a future New York Times bestseller...” he said indignantly

“Right,” sighed Belle, taking another drink. “My point is - why was she attracted to him in the first place?”

Isaac blinked. “What?”

“What does she see in him?” asked Belle. “Why are they together?”

Isaac stared at her, fingers twitching on his napkin, his mouth open a little.

“Are you saying you don’t believe she could love him?”

“Well, I don’t really know anything about her,” Belle explained, and when he looked confused, added: “I mean, I know what she looks like, that she’s tall - but not as tall as him - and she has the body of a burlesque dancer and a beautiful face—”

“Yes!” said Isaac eagerly, nodding. “You can see her in your mind, can’t you?”

“Well - kind of,” said Belle slowly. “I mean she looks at herself naked and describes herself in detail so there’s that. I can picture her from the description, but I still don’t know anything about her. Other than that she’s very supportive of him and drinks latte and is oddly aware of her own breasts.”

He looked puzzled, and she sighed.

“What does she do?” she asked. “What are her interests? Who are her friends? Does she exist as a character outside her relationship with the protagonist? Is she a whole person or is she just there to get him laid and provide some manpain when she dies?”

His mouth fell open.

“How did you know she dies?”

She closed her eyes, reaching for her wine again. Something told her there wouldn’t be a second date.

Belle sighed, pressing her palm to the small of her back and stretching. They had been short-handed the past few days, and she had worked more hours than she had planned. Her entire body ached from rushing around and carrying supplies in her first week of work, but it was a good sort of ache, the kind that came from hard work that meant something.

She still had three hours left of her shift, but Dorothy had taken one look at her and told her to go get some coffee. She hadn’t objected, and she rolled stiff shoulders as she made her way to the cafeteria, smiling her thanks and handing over some cash in return for a mug of coffee and a maple pecan Danish. She turned away, glancing around in vain for a vacant table. The place was full of hospital staff chatting over coffees and tucking into cake and sandwiches, and there was only one table with a single occupant. Belle sucked in a breath as she saw that it was Dr Gold.

He was sitting with one elbow on the table, a cup of coffee steaming in front of him and his finger and thumb rubbing at the bridge of his nose, as though his eyes were tired. She suspected they were; he had been on shift when she had arrived, and would no doubt be there long after she had gone home to crawl into bed and think about how it might feel to kiss him. Which seemed to be the uppermost thought in her mind every night since she had started working at the hospital.

She made a decision, stepping forward quickly to stand beside his table.

“Dr Gold,” she said, and he looked up, dark eyes heavy.

“Miss French,” he said. “How are you settling in?”

“Um - okay, I guess,” she said. “Do you mind if I sit down? There’s a shortage of free tables.”

“Oh, of course.” He gestured to the seat opposite. “Be my guest. I’ll be leaving soon, anyway.”

She slid into the seat, setting down her coffee and Danish.

“We could split it, if you like,” she said, and he glanced at the pastry with a spark of interest in his eyes, but shook his head.

“Coffee’s all I need.”

She privately thought he could do with eating a few decent meals and working fewer hours, but she said nothing. She tore off a piece of the pastry, putting it in her mouth and licking sticky glaze from her fingers. He was eyeing her over the rim of his coffee cup as he sipped at it, and she sucked a few crumbs from her thumb.

“Apologies for my messy eating,” she said.

“That’s quite alright.” He set down his cup. “I’ve seen you running around the place, I suspect you could use the energy.”

“Yeah.”

She tore off another piece and popped it in her mouth, making a noise of enjoyment at the rich taste of the buttery pastry and the maple-coated pecans. Dr Gold took another sip of his coffee.

“How are you enjoying working here?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s been - well, it’s been hard work, and I feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but it’s been fun,” she said, and he gave her a tiny smile.

“Well, the feeling of not knowing what the hell you’re doing never fully goes away, if it’s any comfort,” he said.

“But you’re a doctor,” she said. “The doctor, from what I hear. The most experienced in this place.”

“And none of us are infallible,” he said. “More’s the pity.”

He drained his cup, setting it down with a clunk, and pushed to his feet with the aid of his cane.

“I’ll leave you to your snack,” he said. “Good evening, Miss French. And welcome aboard.”

He shook back his hair, nodded to her once, and strode off with his swift, limping stride. Belle watched him go, sighing to herself. Her crush on the man was intense, all-consuming, and apparently wholly unrequited.

#fic: kiss of life #rumbelle fic #my fic #dr gold x candy striper belle

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scriveyner · 7 years ago

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impact

this is completely unbeta’d and I’m super rusty but I wanted to write something to share on my birthday ... and ran out of time instead, oops. so happy friday the 13th instead!

Shiro stood at the opening of the booth and stared at the large array of plush monstrosities as Lance handled the toy weapon, then turned slightly and glanced along the arcade row behind them. The entire area was teeming with people of all shapes and sizes, alien forms both familiar and not clustered together as they made their way through the carnival. He knew that Keith and Allura weren’t far, but he couldn’t see them through the crush of nightlife and that kept him more on edge than he ought to be.

After a moment of stretched silence, Shiro realized he had been addressed and glanced back to Lance, surprised. “What?” he asked, lamely, because the frown that had settled on Lance’s face grew with his response. “I’m sorry, Lance, I got distracted.”

Lance shook his head and started to put down the toy weapon. It was long, longer than the blaster rifle that Lance’s bayard turned into and reminded Shiro more of a hunting rifle. “It’s okay,” he said, although the tone of his voice had slid into disappointment. “I know we’re on a mission, not a date.”

There was another beat of silence, and then Lance flushed pink and looked away quickly. “N-not that this was ever a date,” the words spilled out of him fast and Shiro blinked a few times in response. “Sorry, I don’t know why I even said that.” Lance sighed deeply, and made to step away from the booth.

It wasn’t a date. Shiro looked to the booth, with its gaudy arrangement of plush aliens, and simplistic-but-likely-rigged shooting gallery, and then back to Lance, who was already scanning down the arcade, undoubtedly looking for one of the others, and the sudden realization of why Lance had been so excited that Shiro had selected him for this mission struck him, and the tips of his ears went pink. Oh.

“Lance,” Shiro said, but it was loud and Lance kept a few steps ahead of him, his walk determined, not dejected. They hadn’t seen the Princess or Keith yet, but Shiro knew that they were around. After a moment of hesitation he touched Lance’s shoulder, and Lance looked back at him. “Maybe that booth?” he suggested, indicating with his head a booth that had half a dozen thin, reedy aliens clustered around it. The edge’s of Lance’s smile returned and Shiro smiled back as he let Lance lead him to this booth.

It was a variation of the milk bottle game he’d seen every summer at the pop-up carnival that happened in the town he grew up. Several of the reedy aliens were winding up to throw a ball at the pyramid of vessels, but they lacked the strength to even get the balls close; they slowed and dropped abruptly, like they had hit some sort of invisible force field. Shiro frowned at this, but Lance nudged his shoulder, pointing to the prizes on display.

There were very obvious knock-offs of the Voltron Lions among the cheap prizes here. Shiro laughed despite himself, and Lance grinned. “I need to win you that Black Lion,” he said, and stepped up to the booth.

The alien running the booth was Galra in heritage, but not full-blooded; he was large and purple, with a wild shock of green fur and red-fringed ears. That, mixed with the outrageous hues of his carnival outfit made him a walking headache. Lance leaned back, looking to Shiro. “Do we have any money?”

They didn’t, technically have any GAC. But the funny thing about a digital currency was that someone with the right amount of technical knowledge could manufacture the credits without much difficulty. Once upon a time Shiro would have probably frowned at counterfeiting but hey, he was a rebel revolutionary in a war against a galactic superpower and that didn’t exactly pay well. He handed over Pidge’s newly-minted credit chips and Lance gleefully paid the seizure-inducing Galra for an armful of balls.

Lance wanted to win him a knock-off Black Lion stuffed creature, and that was insanely charming.

Lance had a good arm, and a good eye. However, the first ball he threw never even made it across the booth, falling far short of the target. Lance paused, frowning, having been somewhat confident prior to this. “Huh,” he said, holding the second ball in his hand a moment as he re-judged the distance. “That’s weird.”

The second ball made it farther than the first, but not by much. The Galra clucked his tongue in a false show of sympathy for Lance, as Lance wound up and flung the final ball as hard as he could.

Just like the two previous, it dropped to the ground far short of hitting its target.

Lance’s shoulders slumped in dejection, and he jammed his hands into his pockets, turning on his heel and not realizing how close Shiro was nor how closely he’d been watching. His cheeks flushed slightly in shame. “Guess I wasn’t as good at that one as I thought,” he said, and tilted his head. “Should we go find Keith?”

“Hang on a second,” Shiro said, and pulled out another credit. He was startled by Lance’s hand on his arm.

“It’s not worth it,” Lance said, and there was still that hint of shame to his tone. “It’s rigged as hell, did you see how hard my throws hit the ground?”

He had, of course. The balls were likely magnetized. “I saw,” Shiro said, and held up his credit, waiting for the Galra to notice him. “I just wanna try, too.”

His first attempt flopped just as Lance’s had. He hadn’t thrown the ball particularly hard, calculating the weight of it and watching how it plummeted. “Yeah,” he said, weighing the second ball in his right hand before he switched it to his right hand. “Definitely rigged.”

“What is that?” Keith said when he saw what Lance was carrying under his arm. Shiro was right behind Lance, wearing an expression that could only be described as pleased with himself. Keith’s eyebrows drew together when he saw that, and when he looked back at Lance, Lance blushed.

“Shiro won me a lion,” Lance said. “And knocked down a rigged game, too, that dude wasn’t happy at all.” He looked back at Shiro and grinned, and Shiro smiled fondly in response; and Keith scowled when they started blushing awkwardly at each other.

Allura patted his arm and in leaned in close. “Let them have this,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

#voltron #shance #hint of kallura #whee #gah it feels good to write something

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bathands · 7 years ago

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vld positivity day!

this is my contribution for @vldpositivityday for the amazingly talented and kind @kcgane i don’t even know where to begin to explain the depths of the creativity and talent this lovely lady has and if you haven’t already please take a listen/look at all of her music and writing on her ao3! (links on her profile)

without further ado please enjoy this little sheith drabble i wrote for you!

i wanna hold your hand

tags:

sheith, college/university au, alcohol use, mutual pining, light angst

[ao3 link if you prefer that for readability]

With the two of them, alone now, on the empty plastic seating around the football field, Keith swallowed another gulp of beer. Shiro sighed as he sat back, groaning softly with the satisfaction that came with stretching as he looked up at the sky above them. The night, painted with stars where the yellow glow of human habitation smeared into black. “Just you me and now, I guess?” Keith tried to mumble an agreement (say something funny, Keith, witty, endearing, anything) but instead all that came out was a half a ‘yeah’, and half a burp mangled in infancy by the slap of his palm against his mouth. Fuck! Why was he such a mess? Why now?

Why, when they were finally alone, when he finally had liquid courage thumping in his chest, was he losing his cool? All that shit about ‘remaining calm and conscientious under pressure’ he’d put on his college application now felt doubly like the garbled nonsense he’d thought it was when he’d wrote it. It didn’t matter what others around him said; that he was calm under pressure, that he was good at handling difficult situations without breaking a sweat. That he was confident, self assured, determined. It didn’t matter that they said he was always guilty of underselling himself.

God, right now, at this moment, when the world hinged on a bead of condensation travelling over the peaks of Shiro’s knuckles gripped around the beer bottle…

Ugh.

Every time he tried to think of something to say, to fumble through the awkwardness settling like low hanging cloud around them, his eyes and his mind just drifted to him.

Little things. Things that he hadn’t quite noticed before, from afar, or from their casual, platonic interactions up until now.

The shape of his fingers, the coiled strength that settled in the muscles of his hands, waiting.

The topography of the veins on his bicep, maps begging to be travelled.

The jut of his collarbones, his bob of his throat with every swallow, each breath a marvel.

Keith couldn’t stop thinking about how soft the hair behind his ears looked, and how much he wanted to touch him there, and so many other secret and private places that he was sure Shrio permitted no one else.

That was the thing though, wasn’t it? Shiro never showed interest in anyone. As far as Keith knew, of course: who was he to speculate into Shiro’s private life? but… the past few weeks they had spent so much time together, and Keith had ravenously noted every interaction Shiro shared with a benevolently smiling cheerleader. Their hands would sometimes grasp for his arm while they shared a joke, and Shiro would always politely retract himself, a calculated slowness that wasn’t quite like revulsion; just extraction.

Was it reading into things too much to acknowledge that it was Shiro himself that clapped his shoulder whenever Keith made him laugh? He never quite forgot the weight of his hand there. In it’s absence Keith felt it, hours later, curled up in bed underneath the blankets with a pillow clutched against his chest, heart bursting and blooming in his throat.

So what if it was reading too much into it? So what if this was all a misunderstanding? So what if he was wrong, and this was going to snap his shivering heart in two, and Shiro didn’t feel the same way? So what? If he didn’t say it now, then it was going to all spill out at some other time which was much more inconvenient for them both.

Better now than with an audience.

Keith glanced over at his friend, just to check if he was physically recoiling from his embarrassing attempt at human interaction, but Shiro appeared to be transfixed on the sky above. As Keith watched, Shiro took another drink, and he drank in the sight of the bottleneck pressing against his yielding lips with unguarded hunger.

He began to speak before he could stop himself; the syllable just tumbled out. Too late to stuff it back in, Keith frantically gathered his thoughts for something to say, anything. “I-.. I hope everyone got home alright. Y’know?”

Keith made sure he had turned his gaze back toward the football field by the time Shiro’s eyes found him again. He wondered what expression he might see on his face if only he could turn back around quick enough to catch the other off guard; how did Shiro look at him when he knew Keith wasn’t watching?

God, he wanted to know so badly it felt like pins and needles that wouldn’t abate no matter how much he fidgeted.

There was a pause before Shiro replied, preceded by the sound of him taking another drink. A gulp, his perfect lips smacking against glass. Shit.

“We walked Katie almost to her door, remember? I’ve told everyone to text me when they get in.”

Why had he hesitated? What was he thinking about it? Probably mentally cataloguing every one of their friends and their routes home, calculating the obstacles before them and the likelihood of their safety, and whether they ought to call one or more and check. Shiro was like that, a natural leader. He cared so much about everyone, was always the first person to offer help in any situation, no matter what the problem was.

Another silence gathered between them. At the beginning, Keith had cherished the safety their quiet offered; he didn’t need to try, not with Shiro, and silence was never awkward, just another aspect of the comfortable shared space between them. Lately, though, he’d come to resent it. There was so much he wanted to fill it with. So many words. So many proclamations.

Maybe he should whisper it, barely audible, then they could both pretend Shiro hadn’t heard. Maybe he should scream it, and then Shiro would know just much he felt it; too much, too big, too many words for his voice to contain in stuttered syllables.

Keith just wished he knew what was best. Shiro would know. If he asked him for advice, Shiro would do like he always did and smile gently and attend to his every concern with keen attention. What was the problem? How was it making him feel? How could he help? Methodically and calmly he would straighten out Keith’s frantic mind with a fluency that always caught Keith off guard. He would do anything just to… just to have five seconds of being with him, really being with him, whatever that meant. To touch him as more than a friend. To look at him unguarded, uninhibited. To breathe him in, to hold his hand, to just… damn it.

Three gulps of vodka wasn’t enough. Ten wouldn’t have been enough. He’d drank with everyone else, of course, but the extra gasping shots he’d downed in the bathroom had been secret. Unfortunately, the night had worn on, and on, and there had never been the perfect moment. Even at the height of his inebriation, Keith hadn’t dared broach this subject, not with someone else there, and now that they were finally alone he could already feel the buzz wearing off.

Now it was nerves alone making his head spin, his feet feel heavy. Maybe he'd drink some more once he got home and send him a text? Or would that be worse? There was the shift of movement behind him, and Keith felt his stomach fold inward, his only chance slipping out between his fingers, but all the same he took a deep breath and resigned himself to it. They would head home, and Shiro would part from him without a second glance, never knowing how Keith longed to look over his shoulder, fists curled at his side in resistance.

What had he been thinking, even considering this in the first place?

“Keith, you…”

Shiro's touch was tentative, at first, usual easy confidence seeming to stumble, before his hand settled on his shoulder. His fingers felt warm where they brushed the skin on the back of his neck.

The whole world snapped it’s tethers to Shiro’s careful fingers. What was happening? Was this happening?

Keith didn’t dare to breathe, every muscle rigid as he tried to process what was happening. There had been a note in Shiro’s voice that was unknown to him, foreign and lovely. His heart felt pinned to the sound of it. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know what it meant; maybe it was nothing at all like he thought and this was just another facet of platonic tenderness that Shiro was revealing to him, but part of him zealously clung to the small chance that it could be something. But then, it was ending, Shiro’s hand slowly pulling away, and only thing did Keith realise that for more than a few seconds he’d been sat silent and frozen while Shiro had waited for a response. There was a new quality in Shiro’s voice when he spoke next, something that hurt. “Keith…”

The hurt was unacceptable. Keith couldn’t stomach it! No matter what he felt, no matter how much of a pathetic loser he was being about avoiding his feelings, nothing was worth hearing Shiro hurt like that, no matter the reason!

Keith sprang to his feet, surprisingly balanced despite the world immediately swaying on it’s sides around him. He whipped around to face Shiro, the other flinching backwards with the shock written plainly across his face. Whatever he thought the response would be to what he’d done and what he’d said, Shiro clearly hadn’t accounted to Keith leaping up and turning flush to face him directly. Out in the chilly air, Shiro’s bronzed cheeks were rosy, each puff of breath curling from his lips in a vapor. What the hell were they thinking, sitting outside here in the middle of winter? Keith had never considered how ridiculous an idea it was suggesting to come here at the time, and he was only now also considering how Shiro had never objected.It was now or never. He had Shiro in his palm, and if he didn’t say it now, Keith knew he never could ever again. So, he steeled himself, took a breath. Quick and painless. Like a band aid. He could pull this off, tear the words out of himself so he wouldn’t have to carry them around anymore like a lead weight, and even if it went badly, it would feel better. It would. Even if Shiro hated him. Even if Shiro didn’t like him back. Even if Shiro calmly and kindly extracted himself from him like he did with those cheerleaders, pity in his eyes. Oh god, no. “I… I have something I gotta say!” Another breath, empty air, and the words failed to come. Shiro peered up at him expectantly, his expression struggling to settle on one singular emotion, instead morphing in between confusion and trepidation. Keith squeezed his hands into fists at his side, inhaling another deep lungfull of night air, as if that would help, as if it would somehow lend him the clarity to see the transparent solution to this awful mistake. No, he was cool. He had to think about something else, something other than Shiro’s depthless grey eyes pinning him against the sky. If he looked at them, thought about them, then he wouldn’t be able to function. He had to untangle his thoughts, and fast, before he tripped up over them and crushed this opportunity completely. “A-are you listening?” Shiro's confusion visibly multiplied by five. He nodded, hesitantly. “Yeah..?” Fucking hell. Shiro fidgeted, his fingers worrying absently at the peeling label of his beer bottle, though he didn’t look away from Keith’s face, even for a moment. That unrelenting stare, yielding nothing, confronting Keith with the thousand myriad emotions he desperately wanted to see, but didn’t believe he witnessing. It was the alcohol, surely, because there was no way someone like Shiro would ever look at someone like him like that. It didn’t matter if he was the top of his class, it didn’t matter that Shiro was always there by his side, it didn’t matter that Shiro told him that he mattered; some little part of Keith almost felt like he wanted to doubt it.

These things that he felt were so huge that he was almost afraid their bulk would crush them both if he ever breathed life into them. He couldn’t do this to him, to them.

Their friendship mattered too much; Shiro’s place in his life was far too essential to squander. Keith could feel his resolve crumble to dust somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

Stupid. This whole thing had been stupid, stupid, stupid.

Even though he hadn’t said anything, the look on his face had to be enough. Shiro would know, if he didn’t already, or he’d guess, and it’d all come out somehow. Lance would probably be jealous as all hell that Keith got the chance to hang out alone with Shiro, like he frequently was, and would pester the both of them about it, and the silence would be telling. Keith hated that the most. That tomorrow, things might be awkward.

“Keith..” The pity in that single word was a needle in his chest. Nope. Enough. Keith turned away, too fast, his feet skidding on damp concrete as he made a move towards the steps of the stands, but Shiro was quick too. Before he had time to form a thought Shiro’s hand had snatched at his own, rescuing him from a trip down onto his ass and steadying his teetering balance. God, he’d almost fallen face first onto the bleachers. What a disaster that would have been, of a greater magnitude than this night already was. Keith only noticed that Shiro had failed to let go of his hand, when he turned to thank him, and saw their fingers still tightly tangled together. It took every ounce of self control he could muster not to gawk at the sight of it; his hand fitting perfectly inside Shiro’s, their grasp nestled together like pieces of a puzzle. Clicking into place, at last.

He couldn’t speak. Tried to, even mumbled something, but no words came out. He tugged, once, subconsciously testing whether this was real and not some dream, but Shiro’s grip didn’t relent. If anything, it tightened.

“You can say it. Whatever it is.” Everything about Shiro was earnest. His eyes, his grip on his hand. Keith didn’t dare move or think, even breathing felt like a transgression into the sacred space of whatever Shiro was trying to get across. Those grey eyes begged him to listen, and Keith couldn’t have ignored their call even if he’d wanted to.

So he waited as a second passed, and then another, and Shiro seemed to second guess himself. The grip on his hand only grew tighter. Keith’s heart felt like it was strung up with tightening string, and every silent moment constricted his panic. Was there fear in those eyes? Anxiety? Those feelings in Shiro were so rare and felt so private that even Keith in his insecurity knew that whatever this confession on the tip of Shiro’s tongue was, it was intimate. That only multiplied Keith’s hysteria. It was was an effort to stop his lips from moving, from mouthing the words he was dying to hear from Shiro’s lips, even as he scolded himself for daring to actually think he was going to hear them. I like you. That was all he needed. That was all he wanted to hear, and all he'd wanted to say, and of course it was typical that neither of them could find the courage to get on with things and spit it out. What did come, eventually, was so much more. Every syllable a precious arc that Keith knew he would cherish forever, each perfect movement of it on Shiro’s lips as he watched transfixed while his wildest imagination unfolded before him. “I’d cross the universe for the chance to listen to what you had to say. And..” And? There was more? This was already so much, more than Keith had ever allowed himself to really expect. Keith swallowed the joy bubbling in his throat and focused on trying to remember to breathe, waiting impatiently for the rest. Did Shiro know that he had his heart teetering on a knife edge? By the look on Shiro’s face, it was suddenly abundantly clear that Shiro was wondering the very same thing about him.

“And to hold your hand, like this. I mean, I’ve wanted to, for a while. A really long time. I like you.” There it was. Real. It was real. Shiro liked him back. Shiro wanted him back. Shiro was holding his hand and saying these things to him, unequivocally confessing his affection so that there could be no misinterpretation. He was so transfixed by it that he forgot to answer out loud, staring dumbly at Shiro’s hand holding his own until the man spoke, nervously prodding for a response. “Keith?” He squeezed his hand, and Keith could have sworn he felt the same gesture in his chest as his heart swelled.

Fucking oblivious and hopeless, the both of them. This was ridiculous. Had everyone known, had everyone else seen it, from the very beginning? Now all Keith could think of was every little gesture or word or look he’d once doubted, and seeing them in a totally new light. Shiro’s attentiveness, his deliberate touches, his morning texts and his goodnight phonecalls. Even his own feelings made more sense now, like the whole world had been brought out of blurry focus, dragged into a new and wonderful light. He had been wrong to doubt himself. He had been wrong to doubt Shiro. From the beginning, he’d been by his side, and he always would be. “Me too.” “That’s good, since, well, we’re doing it. Holding hands.” Shiro’s soft chuckle was the sweetest music Keith had ever heard. “Not even first base and I was this nervous. Gosh, what are we like, huh?” Keith tried to laugh, he really did, but all that came out was a breathless puff of air that curled in tendrils in front of his face. It rose twisted in with the mist of Shiro’s breath until both evaporated into the night. He hadn’t realised just how cold he was until now, as if the warmth of Shiro next to him suddenly lit a beacon that beseeched him to seek it out. Damn it, he’d done enough resisting to last his entire life. Keith yielded control of his muscles, sinking against the solid weight of Shiro’s body at his side. Shiro responded almost habitually, nudging back against his shoulder; Shiro’s silent and playful displays of affection, secret and completely his. Eventually, he managed to speak, (“Yeah,” he’d muttered, pliant) even though he knew there was no need to. They could have sat like this for hours, and Keith would only have been able to think about the texture of Shiro’s palm flush against his own. Truthfully, no matter how cold it was getting, he wanted to remain here for hours. The emptiness of their comfortable silence was like stepping into a warm bath; he sank in deep, wreathing himself in it. Being without Shiro’s touch now would feel like an irretrievable loss until the moment he got to claim it for himself all over again. Some time did pass, until Shiro finally spoke again, and Keith knew that he felt the same way. He felt it, in the way Shiro had huddled nearer when Keith had shivered once, the grip on his hand tightening, and dipped his face closer. “‘Nother beer?” Oh yeah. They’d come out here to drink. Funny how easily Keith had forgotten those pretenses as if there had ever been any need for them. This was, after all, coming so naturally to the both of them that it almost felt like it had been the way it always was. “I guess why not?” Keith sighed, body going limp with relief, and sank back against the bleachers. The sky was still the same; whatever stars had aligned to place Shiro’s hand in his were hidden elsewhere, between them, within them. This couldn’t be real, this had to be a dream, but the warmth of Shiro beside him grounded him firmly in reality, as well as the steady grip of their fingers entwined together. Every breath filled him with a glow, as if the very air around them was turning iridescent. Maybe it was the alcohol, finally getting to him. Or maybe it was Shiro. Maybe that was what holding his hand felt like. A world where the stars were closer, and everything felt fine.

#vldposday2018 #writing #voltron #sheith #im come back to post this because sunny deserves to have a lot of nice things happen #hun i hope you have a lovely day and thanks so much for planning this event #i hope everyone is having fun and will continue and have lots of fun and be happy #im sure im not missed but thanks so much for allowing me to take part #also sorry its a little short #im getting spoiled so im vacate this tumblr again for a while

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lazyfox411 · 8 years ago

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KEITHS VLOG BROKE MY HEART SO HERES A FIC

MEGA THANKS to @hastalalaterkeith7152 for sending me quotes from the vlog so I could write this without internet and also motivating me

“I think it’s dumb.”

“Well of course you would, mullet,” Lance retorted.

“I’m just saying, there are better things we could be doing,” Keith fumed.

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Hm, I don’t know, maybe trying to find Lotor?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Shiro interrupted. “We haven’t found any trace of Lotor, so in the meantime, why not strengthen the coalition? It will be good for our allies to know more about their ‘defenders of the universe.’”

“Exactly,” Lance said. “So, Keith, get your butt in there and make a vlog!”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

Lance groaned. “Come on, mullet, it’s not rocket science. Vlog. Video. Log,” he drew the words out, one at a time. “Like a journal, but as a video.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Anything you want,” Shiro said. “Just be careful not to give away sensitive information, in case these ever get into the wrong hands.”

“Right. Sounds easy,” Keith muttered under his breath. Why couldn’t somebody else go first? That would make it easier. So far only Coran had done it, and Keith had learned from experience not to follow his example when it came to film making. But Pidge, Hunk, Allura, and Coran were all working on castle upgrades, and Lance and Shiro had a one-on-one training session planned. That left Keith to sit alone in what Coran had deemed ‘the recording room,’ talking about himself. Something he’d never been particularly good at.

“Hey, man, take it easy,” Lance said. “No need to cry over it.”

“I’m not,” Keith said, confused.

Lance groaned again. “It was a joke.”

Of course it was a joke. Lance always made jokes. And they always flew right over Keith’s head.

“I’m not going to cry,” he said in frustration, after the door to the recording room had slid shut behind him. He sat down. Took a deep breath. Turned on the camera.

“I’m Keith, the pilot of the black lion…what should I say?” he asked. “I’m a paladin. I fly the black lion. I-I said that already, see that’s why I’m bad at this. What else am I supposed to tell you? Okay, um, I guess I’m part Galra…”

After stammering through an introduction, finding words seemed a little easier. Whenever they visited planets, people always seemed most interested—or disgusted—to learn about his heritage, so he opted to talk about that for a little while, pulling out his knife to try and bring up the memories of the trials. Then he remembered what Shiro had said about sensitive information. Maybe talking about the Blade’s secrets wasn’t such a good idea.

Keith paused, staring down at the knife, at his reflection in the shiny, rare metal. “I guess being part Galra is a big deal. Might explain why I was never really good at…connecting with people.” He thought back to the events on Arus, how Lance had tried to teach him some sort of team chant. He still thought it was dumb, not as dumb as this video, but still dumb enough. He said as much, and before he realized what he was doing, his face was heating up and he was raising his voice in anger. Why did he have to get angry so easily?

“I am so sorry,” Keith said, remembering all their allies would be watching this. He leaned back, closed his eyes to calm down. “I am so sorry, I guess…I have a bit of a temper, so…”

Words were becoming hard again. Sticking to his heritage, Keith realized, might also not be the best idea. He didn’t know enough to talk about it with the ease he’d like. And not knowing was making him angry. Not knowing where he came from. Not knowing where his mom went. Not knowing why she left.

Words were hard, but for some reason Keith couldn’t seem to make them stop coming out his mouth. Emotions were rushing out, and he couldn’t keep them bottled up anymore, but this wasn’t the time or place. There was never a time or place for the leader of Voltron to break down.

Breathing was getting hard, too. He felt tears coming, sniffled once, and frantically thought of a way to cover this up. But it was too late. He’d spilled his guts and now everyone was going to know, the team was going to know, the allied planets would know, the universe would know that Keith Kogane was just some scared little kid lost in space.

“I'm—I’m outta here! Get me outta here,” he muttered, getting to his feet. “I'm—I’m outta here!”

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pilot Black, he couldn’t lead Voltron, even with Shiro back, hell, he couldn’t even make a damn vlog, whatever the hell that was. It was frustration more than anything that made him yell, “I said I wouldn’t cry!”

Keith stalked out of the recording room, the colours of the hallway swirling together as tears blurred his vision. It occurred to him that he’d left the camera on, but he didn’t care. He just needed to be alone. He was already alone. He was always alone. He was a loner. Right now, he needed to be alone somewhere safe from discovery.

He stumbled into his bedroom. He was dizzy, he couldn’t walk straight, he couldn’t think straight. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be a leader. He didn’t want to be a paladin. He just wanted to be home, alone in his cozy little desert shack, back when he liked being alone, when it was easy to pretend he didn’t care about his parents, when he had no idea that he was an alien.

Keith was really crying now, hot, messy tears dripping down his face. The armor that encased his shaking body was too tight, too constricting. He fumbled to get it off, piece by piece, fingers slipping over the smooth surface as he trembled with sobs, until eventually he gave up and sank to the floor. He was all alone. Nobody wanted him. Nobody cared. Why would they? All he’d ever done was push them away.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, crouched in the middle of his room with his head in his hands. Surely there were better things he could be doing right now. Like trying to find Lotor. Or training. He could’ve taken down the gladiator at least twice by now.

The sound of the door sliding open was barely audible. Just a gentle whoosh, a whoosh Keith had heard many times before. He didn’t pay it any attention, even as someone walked into the room and knelt beside him. He felt a hand on his back, rubbing up and down, slow and gentle, heard soft words being murmured in his ear. He tried to focus on that.

“Hey, Keith. Hey, it’s okay. Shhh, it’s okay, Keith, you’re alright.”

Keith swallowed hard and steeled himself to meet the kind pair of blue eyes that looked down at him.

“L-Lance?”

“Yeah, buddy, it’s me,” Lance smiled worriedly. He brushed tear-soaked bangs from Keith’s face. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“I—” Keith froze. That was just the problem. He could never bring himself to open up. He never told anybody what was wrong. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to take down all the walls he’d spent years putting up.

“It’s okay,” Lance soothed. “You can talk to me.”

“No, I can’t!” Keith cried, much louder than he’d meant to. Lance flinched. “Can’t you see that I can’t talk to you? I can’t talk to anybody! I’m no good at it. I can’t connect with people, I can’t open up. Nobody likes me, and I try so hard, but I can’t make people like me because I always push them away and I don’t mean to but it just happens because I don’t know how to do it any different and then I’m all alone but I don’t want to be alone anymore but I can't…I just…I can’t.”

“Keith.” Lance’s strong, steady hands found Keith’s shoulders. His voice was soft, caring. “What are you talking about, man? You’re not alone. I’m right here. I’m always here for you.”

Keith wiped viciously at the tears stained on his cheeks. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say.

“Let’s get off the floor, huh?” Lance suggested. Keith nodded. Lance guided him to his feet and helped him take off the pieces of armor he’d missed. Keith tried to do it on his own, but he felt so clumsy and useless he ended up just standing there while Lance reduced him to the black bodysuit that was underneath all their armor.

Lance sat them both down on the edge of the bed, keeping an arm around Keith’s shoulders. He was still warm and a little bit sweaty from training, but Keith didn’t care. It felt good, Keith realized. It felt good to be close to someone and have them look out for you.

“We all care about you, Keith,” Lance said. “You do know that, right?”

“I…” Keith paused, “don’t know.”

“Well, we do. All of us. And yeah, okay, I guess your people skills could use a little work, but we know you’re trying. You’re part of the team, Keith. You’re family.” Lance squeezed his shoulder, smiling. Keith looked at him uncertainly. “What is it?” Lance asked.

“I’ve never had that before,” Keith admitted.

“You’d better get used to it,” Lance chimed. “Because we’re not going anywhere. We love you, man.”

“I love you too,” Keith managed. He was tearing up again. Lance pulled him in for a hug, and Keith went with his instinct to hug him back. Things weren’t great, but with Lance here, they were better. Speaking of which…

“How did you know to come find me?” Keith asked.

Lance ducked his head. “I, uh, kinda saw your vlog. You left the camera running.”

“The vlog,” Keith moaned. “I don’t know what I was thinking, saying all that stuff. And now the universe is going to see it. What do I do, Lance?”

“Don’t worry about it. It hasn’t been sent anywhere yet, and I’ll bet there’s a way we can delete it. And we could make a new one.”

“I don’t think my second time around will be any better,” Keith frowned.

“We’ll do it together,” Lance grinned. “We’ll call it ‘Get to Know the Two Bravest Paladins of Voltron!’ Razzle dazzle, right?”

“Yeah,” Keith chuckled. “Razzle dazzle.”

#i don't have time to edit this #i haven't had time to be on tumblr at all #keith kogane #vld #voltron #keiths vlog #voltron vlogs #paladin vlog #protect keith #lance mcclain #klance #vneujvhnvenbekjnv let me know what you think of this #pretty please #keith angst #angst #my writing

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sp4c3-0ddity · 8 years ago

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cultofpokeshipping replied to your post “so a part of me is annoyed to be doing this but i feel down so: send…”

How about Lance and pidge snuggles with their newborn (son or daughter, you pick)

@cultofpokeshipping confession: I don’t really like writing kid fic and/or devising child OCs, but I still tried

Vaguely AU-ish. ~1400 words. Hope you like it <3

Pidge could never be bothered to maintain a rigid sleeping schedule, a set bedtime with an alarm clock ready to blare in the morning to start her day. When she was in school, before she went to the Garrison, she relied on her mother to wake her up, and staying up late and sleeping in was second nature to her. Even if she woke up early for days at a time, she fell back into her usual rhythm of poor sleeping habits. At least until now, when she yearned for her bed by late afternoon and was forced to wake in the early hours of the morning.

Or, rather, someone else forced her awake with their needy cries without caring if it was still dark outside or if the timing was appropriate. But Pidge supposed it was unfair to assume that a baby could have any concept of time.

Now she jerked awake in the darkness, the apartment eerily silent, the only light from the digital green alarm clock on her bedside table and the nightlight in the hall spilling in through the cracked bedroom door. She put a hand to her face, wondering what, exactly, woke her; whatever she’d been dreaming was gone too, only an image of lions - of colorful, powerful beasts - lingering, and even that faded fast.

Reflexively Pidge reached out to the other side of the bed, but when her hand only connected with wrinkled sheets, she frowned and rolled onto her side. Where did you...? She glanced back at the alarm clock - a few minutes shy of three in the morning, right in time for Sana to wake - and then sat up, swinging her legs out of bed and standing.

Still bleary-eyed from sleep, Pidge wandered out of the bedroom and across the hallway into Sana’s room. She spotted Lance standing by the window with his back to her, Sana in his arms, looking like he was about to start burping her.

“Did she wake you up?” Pidge asked, voice low.

Lance turned, eyes widening when they fell on her. “No, I, uh, set an alarm,” he admitted sheepishly. “I wanted to give you a break, but I guess it didn’t work.”

Pidge smiled, warmed to the core. “Force of habit waking up at this time,” she said, shrugging. She leaned against the door frame, oddly not very regretful that she’d woken for nothing.

Well, perhaps not for nothing.

“Is she asleep again yet?” Pidge wondered. She stepped into the room and towards Lance, where he still stroked Sana’s back after feeding her.

“Yeah, I think so.” He kissed the baby’s shockingly hairy head and gently and easily returned her to the crib, laying her on her back. Pidge still felt that odd shock of jealousy watching him do it, that being a parent seemed to come as naturally to Lance as breathing.

“You have that look on your face,” Lance said, coming to her and poking her cheek.

She swatted his finger away and frowned. “What look?”

“That...pouting look.” This time he prodded her bottom lip, which she now noticed stuck out.

Pidge tried to relax her face, but she admitted, “I’m just...not very good at this, am I?”

Lance took her arm, tugging her out of Sana’s room and back towards theirs. “Good at what?”

Pidge waved around the apartment, gesturing towards its general mess and clutter, towards her belongings - everything from clothes to books to memory storage devices - strewn over every surface save the floor. Except now, baby shampoo and toys and clean diapers joined them.

Not to mention, she’d been on maternity leave for almost the entire allotted six months and was close to tearing her hair out and going stir crazy.

“I hate waking up in the middle of the night.”

“I’ve never met anyone who liked it,” Lance pointed out.

“I want to go back to work,” Pidge said. She sighed and laid back down in bed.

He sat down beside her and started playing with her hair. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.

Pidge rolled onto her side and relaxed, enjoying the slight tugging on her scalp with Lance French braiding her hair (she didn’t bother telling him she planned on taking a shower in the morning and ruining his hard work). “But I’m leaving her,” she said. “Shouldn’t I want to stay home?”

“You don’t have to,” Lance said, hands pausing. He leaned over her so he could look her in the eye. “I start my leave after you go back to work, so it’s not like she’ll be alone.”

“You’ll get bored,” Pidge said.

“Pidge, it’s not like I’ll be turning into a hermit.”

“What if she starts walking when I’m not there to see it?”

“She’s not even six months old,” Lance said, chuckling, “so why don’t we cross that bridge when we get to it?”

Pidge shot upright, her hair escaping Lance’s grasp as she turned to regard him with wide eyes. “What if she crosses her first bridge without me?”

Lance raised his hands in a conciliatory manner and smiled. “Okay, Pidge, now you’re starting to sound like Hunk.” When Pidge just stared at him worriedly, heart pounding, he sighed and beckoned her towards him. “Come here.”

She did, letting him fold her into his arms, his faint stubble tickling her cheek. “Sana will be better than fine,” Lance told her. “She’ll have your brain and my good looks, the total package. We’ll have to beat back suitors with a sword when she gets older. Hey, you think we can hire Keith as a bodyguard from now?”

Pidge raised an eyebrow at him, somewhat cheered. “Oh, is that all?”

“...she does have your eyes.”

She snorted, turning so she could return his embrace. “I’d rather her have your sense of humor.”

“So you finally admit that you think I’m funny?”

Pidge smiled. “I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it at some point.”

“You could stand to mention it more,” Lance said, bumping her forehead with his. “But anyway, just because I woke up before you doesn’t make you a worse parent.”

“I know,” Pidge admitted.

“Also, not that it’s a competition,” Lance said contemplatively, “but I will be the favorite one day.”

“Please, Lance,” Pidge scoffed, “I’ll be showing her cool science experiments and playing video games with her. What do you have to offer? Dumb pickup lines?”

“First of all, they’re not that dumb--”

“Yes they are.”

“--and you married me anyway, and second of all, I won’t be the one threatening to destroy her friends if they ever hurt her.”

Pidge stared at him, but then conceded, “Okay, you may be right about that.”

“Also I’m actually a good cook.”

Pidge elbowed Lance. “You done bragging so I can go back to sleep?”

“I’m never done,” Lance teased, “but for you? To be continued.”

Pidge rolled her eyes but smiled as she lay done and crawled back under the covers. Lance joined her a beat later, tangling their limbs. She could feel herself nodding off, at least until he said, “You know what I miss from before though?”

Pidge cracked an eye open to look at him. “That’s not what we were talking about.”

“Yeah, I know, but I still want to get it out there.”

Pidge sighed but gave him her full attention. “Lay it on me, darling.”

“I miss having sex without worrying her crying will interrupt us.”

That surprised a laugh out of Pidge, and she retorted, “Oh, boy, then you are going to hate when she starts walking and climbing out of her crib.”

Pidge woke up first - and on a Saturday, no less - the following morning, and Lance found her sitting on the couch in the living room with Sana awake and wide-eyed in her lap. She read a book about space aloud to her and pointed out all the pictures, explaining them to her even though it would be months still until she could comprehend.

Lance sat beside them, relaxing and extending an arm across the back of the sofa behind Pidge, but she barely spared him a glance.

“...and Jupiter is the biggest,” she read. She guided Sana’s fingers to the page. “Jupiter has this big red spot on it, and it--” She cut herself off and turned to glare at Lance. “What?”

Lance grinned, full of warmth and glad for a day he didn’t have work; he could phone his mother, spend the day with his family...and maybe help Pidge redistribute the clutter at home. “Nothing,” he said. “Tell us more about Jupiter, Dr. Holt.”

Pidge rolled her eyes but smiled as she kept reading with their daughter now sitting between them.

#cultofpokeshipping #plance #pidgance #lidge #flirtyrobot #i have a fair few married plance headcanons #including that pidge doesn't change her last name #and also that she mockingly calls him 'darling' a lot #because she generally doesn't like petnames #but she got attached to that one #also pretend they live in a place with six-month maternity leave and paternity leave exists #ehhhhh i don't know how well i did with this #i don't spend a whole of time around very small children #voltron #reem writes fic #qna #but anyway can you tell that sleep is precious to me #also fun fact i gave their daughter an arabic name because it was the first baby name to pop into my head

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pumpkins-s · 8 years ago

Text

Spilling Like An Overflowing Sink

Read on AO3 Here

Read the Other Chapters on Tumblr Here

Lance Alexander Rafael McClain is born in the middle of a summer storm, thunder cracking and rain slamming onto the roof of an old ramshackle house that had seen more than its fair share of children.

The miracle baby, that’s what the family had called Lance. The unexpected son to a mother of five daughters.

(In which family is always complicated, Lance’s life hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, and he and Keith are really emotionally constipated for each other.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: Keith/Lance, significant platonic Lance & Hunk

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family, Hunk, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, Allura, Coran

Chapter 11: Limitations

((Author’s Notes:

Last update of 2017, rolling out. Late November and early December were sucked up with an original writing project for college -my first novella, which killed me - but I'm pleased to be back now to my Regularly Scheduled Bullshit. This chapter and the one following it were originally intended as one update, but for logistical and timing issues I opted to divide the two.

This chapter has discussions of divorce, (mentions of) the foster system, and what can be interpreted as child abandonment & poor parenting, depending on a person's feelings on the subject matter. While these aren't exactly new topics for SLAOS (see: Hunk's living situation), I still felt it was suitable to give a fair warning if those are topics any of you are sensitive to.

Also! Because I'm a hoe for my own bad music choices, there's another SLAOS playlist up called Lions - The tumblr post (complete with coverart!) can be found here, or you can jump to the playlist directly on Spotify or Youtube.))

After everything—that exhausting, all-encompassing summer that had ended following Lance’s return home with a sparse few weeks of scorching, claiming sun, the crisp freshness of coastal air, and continuing reconciliation with Hunk—returning to Greenwood feels severely underwhelming.

Perhaps it’s simply that many of the fears Lance held approaching the place the first time around are now largely void. He knows this place, lent a kind of familiarity to it in one year living there that he never experienced with his multiple years at his former schools. Knows who to avoid, who can be trusted, what to do and what to say. His position there is secure enough that he doesn’t have to experience a daily fear of being one step away from losing it all—so long as he keeps his shit together, at least—and that’s all Lance ever wanted, really.

And so, when his family departs with considerable noise, but still substantially less fanfare than last year, he feels fairly at ease as he helps Hunk unpack the remainder of their stuff.

About twenty minutes in, as Lance is balanced precariously on the head of his bed and attempting to restring last year’s not-strictly-legal Christmas lights, Ritzie bursts in without warning. The door rattles as she kicks it open, and Lance, startled, yelps and falls backward onto his bed, casting a despairing look at the ceiling as the Christmas lights follow him down and land heavily on his stomach.

“I hate men!” Ritzie announces sullenly, and then collapses in a pouting heap on the ground, limbs splayed to the ceiling dispassionately. After a moment, Yuu follows in, casting her a tiredly concerned look as he steps over her legs and takes a seat on the end of Hunk’s bed, crossing his legs beneath him.

“All your friends are men,” Yuu points out, staring down at her, and she sticks out her tongue.

“Fine, I hate white men.”

“Ritzie…” Hunk puts down the clothes he was sorting, and turning to her as if with the solemn bringing of shocking news. “You’re white.”

“Jewish,” she corrects with a hiss, pointing a finger in the air imperiously, and Hunk squints.

Lance snorts, rolling over and pushing the Christmas lights to the side. Planting his chin in his hands and his elbows on the bed, he opts to take pity on her and ask, “What happened?”

Ritzie moans in defeat, and waves the hand still in the air. “We shan’t speak of it. It was too horrible.”

“Ritzie—“

“Shan’t.”

Lance sighs.

“She got snapped at,” Yuu says, ignoring Ritzie’s squawk of protest. “That guy who was on our floor last year, Travis?”

“The one who called me—what was it—‘a Mexican’?” Lance rolls his eyes. A year of continued observation—not exactly desired but inevitable due to shared classes—had assured him that Travis’s specialty in cultural insensitivity and general assholishness extended in basically all directions, various genders and ethnicities included. “Among other things. What’d he say to her?” He can’t exactly imagine Ritzie taking shit from Travis of all people, so whatever words had been exchanged must have been pretty bad to affect her like this.

“He didn’t,” Yuu admits, scrunching up his nose in distaste. “Well, he was the cause of the whole thing, so I’m blaming him for this one, but—“ Ritzie whines, and Yuu pokes a foot gently into her side, prompting another displeased noise. “Anyways, he was picking on this year’s newest target, one of the new scholarship kids, because he’s uncreative. Ritzie stepped in, and the kid she was defending basically told her he didn’t need a uh—a society princess causing a scene by trying to speak for him.”

Lance hisses in a breath. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t…great.”

“You doing okay?” Lance asks Ritzie, casting her a sympathetic look, and she shifts enough on the floor to sit up, glaring at him.

“I’m fine.” Ritzie stands up, scowling as she casts them all a wary look. “I’m going to go unpack. Half my clothes are still in a box.” She trudges out of the room, and they all wince when the door slams pointedly behind her.

“…Is she actually okay?” Hunk asks after a long moment of awkward silence. “I know she likes to make dramatics of things but she seems like…genuinely upset. For Ritzie levels of upset, at least.”

Yuu groans in exhaustion, which seems to be the ongoing mood for all of them, Lance thinks. Falling backwards onto Hunk’s bed, Yuu shrugs, staring up at the ceiling miserably. “Who knows? Ritz’ likes to make out she’s all nails, but God knows she’s pretty sensitive at times. Especially about this sort of thing.”

“This happen a lot?” Lance asks, peering inquisitively at Yuu. If it does, it’s certainly not a trend he has really noticed. Most people seem fairly acclimatized to Ritzie’s meddling streak—begrudgingly accommodating if not grateful, at least.

“Occasionally?” Yuu makes an indecisive noise. “You know what she’s like. Can’t help but get involved in everything, regardless of whether she’s wanted or not. It’s a compulsion to be overly helpful, if anything, but to some people it’s annoying, or her personality just makes it come off as self-righteous despite being genuinely well meaning.” His head leans up enough to cast Lance a tired look. “Some people just want to fight their own battles, and she can’t get that when it applies to anyone but herself. And it doesn’t help the people she’s usually quickest to jump in and defend are scholarship kids, can’t exactly blame some for reacting badly. Pretty much everyone in that program isn’t exactly coming from the heights of financial luxury—though I suppose you guys would know that better than me,” he amends, an embarrassed flush scrawling across his cheeks.

Hunk offers him a wry look. “Yeah, probably.”

“But anyways,” Yuu continues, flopping back down and waving a hand in a move that’s so reminiscent of Ritzie herself not yet ten minutes ago that Lance has to stifle a probably situationally-inappropriate giggle. “Some kids in that situation, the last thing they want is someone else stepping in and causing a fuss, they just want to keep their heads down. Or worse, they don’t want Ritzie specifically getting in the middle of things. Insult to injury, or something, I guess.”

There’s a pause, and Yuu sighs. “It’s not like I don’t get it, y’know? To them it’s like…how could a kid living in privilege—the literal granddaughter of the headmaster, at that—possibly relate to someone who’s clawed their way to get here? It just looks like a martyr complex gone bad.” Hunk makes a reluctant sound, and Yuu points a finger at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought it.”

“Okay, yeah,” Hunk says, holding his hands up in surrender. “A couple times, when we didn’t know each other as well. But she’s just trying to help, I figured that one out a long time ago. Ritzie’s one of the most bullheadedly self-sacrificial people I know.” He casts Lance a significant look, and he doesn’t have to say anything for Lance to know the other bullheaded moron he’s referring to is probably Lance himself.

“Yeah, but not everyone’s going to get that, and they can’t really be expected to.” Yuu sits up, fiddling with the hem of his shirt uncomfortably. “And she gets that, too. When she gets like this, she’s upset at herself, not mad at whoever told her to fuck off. She just needs some space to cool off and mope by herself for a while and then she’ll be fine.”

“Mmmm, if you say so,” Hunk murmurs, leaning up and stretching, and then grabbing the nearest box yet to be unpacked. “You’re the Ritzie expert.”

“Well,” Yuu stands up, going to join Hunk. “I’m probably banned from the room for a bit, so I’ll help.”

They both turn to Lance, giving him a pointed look, and he sighs, getting up to join them reluctantly.

After about fifteen moments of Lance awkwardly shuffling in place in-between helping unpack, and casting longing looks towards the door, Yuu knocks his shoulder against his own, offering him one of the patiently exhausted yet amused expressions he gets when dealing with Ritzie trying to do something particularly unadvisable. “You can go and check on her, you know.”

Lance squints at him suspiciously. “You’re the one who told us to leave her alone.”

“Yeah, but,” Yuu makes a face, shrugging a shoulder, “I did mostly mean me. Besides, if she’s going to talk to anyone right now, it’s you.”

“…Really?” Lance asks skeptically.

“You two have got that like—wonder twins junk going on. Ritzie and I have known each other so long, we practically treat each other like siblings, with all the annoyance and pushing at boundaries that comes with it. You treat her like a friend and that means a lot to her.”

Lance glances away from Yuu and to Hunk carefully, who gives him one of those looks that means he’s being an idiot again, like about Greenwood, like over the summer.

Well. Hunk’s never wrong.

“…Ok,” he relents, and bows out of the room as Yuu and Hunk resume their work, breaking into easy conversation about the robotics team’s possible plans for the year as he slips out the door and pulls it shut quietly behind him.

Lance slinks across the hall to Ritzie and Yuu’s room, knocking gently, and the door creaks open of its own accord when he touches it, apparently not shut properly to begin with. He casts a wary look into the suspiciously empty room as the door opens more and more of it to view, and after a moment steps in, glancing amongst the largely unpacked boxes and haphazardly shoved around furniture. “…Ritzie?”

There’s a crash of noise, and then Ritzie’s voice, sounding rather frazzled, rings out from the adjoining bathroom door. “In here!” Lance considers asking if she wants him to leave, but then she calls out “One second!” and he figures she can tell him to shove off to his face if she desires.

Instead, he opts for more awkward skulking around her room, carefully stepping over boxes and bags and random shoes, likely chucked in the car at the last minute, knowing both Ritzie and how Lance’s own packing tends to go. Picking up on the distinct lack of pet tanks, even amongst the clutter, he yells out back to the door. “What happened to those leopard geckos you stole from Jake Calhoun last year?”

“Oh them?” Ritzie calls back, voice markedly less shaky than before—a safe topic, then. “They’re at home. Somehow for the one day Dad was actually home and not on a video conference or something, he still managed to find them after not noticing the tank in the spare room for the whole damn summer. Wouldn’t let me take them back to school.” She pauses. “I’ll give it a week and then sneak them back in somehow. The housekeeper won’t stop me, she hates them.”

“You’re terrible. A terrible, terrible rulebreaker,” Lance says, just loud enough for Ritzie to hear, and her muffled laughter rings through the door.

It’s all a diversion tactic, really, for both of them, but it’s nice. Hearing her laugh and not be upset like before is nice. Lance always feels like he has so little control in his life, an inability to do as much as he should and help as much as he would like—unable to help his family, incapable of healing Mavis, of fixing himself.

Always, always, unable to bring Loraine back to them—unable to save her, unable to be her.

Comparatively, helping Ritzie should be easy.

It is. It isn’t. It’s neither. It’s both. Somehow. Like Loraine, and the being and saving of her.

Can’t save the dead, his heart whispers, and he hears Hunk on the beach again, for the millionth time over.

You need to save everyone, to protect them, because you love them. You let them in, because you need them, but you also push them away when they get too close.

Can’t even save the living.

He walks echoing steps along Ritzie’s wall, tracing a hand along whitewashed, concrete-foundation walls, the kind you can’t push poster tacks or hooks into, the kind that can’t be marked or damaged. Instead, they tape up pictures and string lights along windowsills to make homes out of a place that will bear no marking or memory of them once they’re gone.

His fingers still along the edge of the school-installed shelf, the one every room gets on each opposite wall. Ritzie has already started unpacking here, in the most backwards of functions given most of her clothes are still in boxes, knick-knacks and debate trophies and small ornaments he’s seen her pick up at touristy junk shops crowding the surface. On the edge, there’s a photo of a younger Ritzie and two men he assumes are her dads, all crowded together outside a building somewhere in a traditionally cheesy family photo. Ritzie’s hair is a puff around her head, not even long enough to pull into the smallest of pigtails or braids yet, and her dads have their arms around each other, a hand each on her shoulders.

They look nothing like her in the slightest. They look like a family.

“Oh look,” Ritzie says with a snort behind him, and Lance starts as her arms loop around his waist and her chin drops onto his shoulder. He hadn’t even heard her come out of the bathroom, too wrapped up in both their pasts. “They were married once. Who’d have thought?”

Lance puts his own hands on her forearms, and says nothing. He doesn’t know this territory.

“That was the day they took me home properly, y’know,” Ritzie says conversationally, voice dull. Her hair tickles his chin and the edge of her glasses digs into his neck. He leans his head more firmly against her own, regardless. “Day they adopted me. I was…” She scrunches up her nose. “Eight? Eight. They were my foster parents first, got me just after I turned seven, so it wasn’t like we didn’t already have pictures, but…” A chuckle. “They wanted it to be special, I guess? First photo after it was all official. Once we were a definite family. No maybes, no take backs. Maybe they just knew I needed that.”

“You look happy,” Lance offers, and Ritzie huffs.

“Yeah.” She frowns, just slightly, and Lance can feel the corner of it against his skin. “They got divorced not long after that, it felt like. I mean it was—it was three whole years—but God it didn’t feel like it. And then it was just…over. Looking back, I was probably the only thing holding them together, at that point. They’d always been separating, but they just didn’t realize it for a long time. Neither did I.”

Lance looks down and studies their hands, just next to each other. Ritzie is taller, but her hands are just slightly smaller than his, fine-boned and calloused and skin paper-thin pale next to his own. She is an ice sculpture, immovable, impenetrable. She is glass, easily broken. “Does it still hurt?”

Ritzie’s head turns, and her laugh tickles the back of his neck. “Most things don’t stop hurting, Lance.”

“I know,” Lance says, and he does. God, he does.

“…I don’t know,” she answers after a moment, soft but still firm in her decision, still Ritzie. “I guess? Sometimes. They’re happier now, and my step-dad—my papa’s husband—he’s nice, and they still…they still love me. Even if they don’t love each other, they still love me. I know that. And hey, two birthday parties, right? What could be better?”

Her voice is flat, and Lance closes his eyes. “You’re allowed to be upset. It’s ok to be upset about things that won’t change.” God knows he is.

She sighs out against his shoulder. “But I’m not sure if I am, at least as much as I used to be. It doesn’t not hurt, but it’s number, now.”

He tries to imagine the pain of Loraine going numb, of it fading. He can’t. He’s not sure he wants to. It has settled, but it has never, never become lesser.

He thinks he’d rather die, than face that day when it is lesser, despite how much easier it would be.

“I guess I just wish they were around more,” Ritzie murmurs, and Lance thinks of Mavis. “They’re always—“ She makes a frustrated noise. “Never mind.”

There’s a pause, and then she says, “I didn’t mean what I said earlier.”

“I know.”

“I was just—upset. Before my dads, there were mostly just group homes, everyone always clashing or sticking together. I guess I kind of stayed used to that, even after. When it was just me, in this new school on my own, and then just me and Yuu, the one other kid who didn’t have anyone, on our own together.”

Ritzie: the princess, the protector. Ritzie: the faceless, the friendless.

Ritzie: the child hanging off the tree, reaching out, seeking. Yuu: the child on the ground, looking, searching.

A park in Maryland, a private school in Virginia—what’s the difference, really, Lance wonders, when it comes to lonely children.

Except—he hadn’t been lonely, really. Not when he had his sisters, not when he had Loraine.

But then Loraine had been gone, and Mavis had been the next best anchor, but was away, always, even when she was there. Just like Ritzie and her dads.

“What that kid said to you…” Lance says, and Ritzie tenses slightly against his back. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Ok,” he says, and Ritzie presses a smile against the back of his neck. Lance finds her hands with his own, squeezes. “Ok.”

“Thank you.”

“…I think I saw Calhoun bringing a turtle in earlier,” Lance mumbles after a long moment, a peace offering. “Do you want to go and rescue it before he inevitably kills it?”

Her smile curves into a grin, upturned lips warm against his skin.

“Please.”

At the end of a weekend in early November, with rain pounding outside amongst air so humid it feels heavy, Lance sits on the train back to D.C. from Veradera, watching the brewing storm from the window, wondering idly if it will turn into one of the thunderstorms that more usually characterize summers.

He likes thunderstorms, remembers August afternoons spent running out into the tempest with Loraine and his other sisters, dancing through forming puddles and letting the rain and wind ruin their hair as their mother screamed at them to come inside before they tempted fate and ended up being the unlucky idiots who got hit by lightning. Evie would recount statistics of lightning strikes, shark attacks, car crashes, every you’re more likely to as she would carefully place a palm out into the rain by their mother’s side, the only one who knew the unlikely odds, yet feared the chances more than the rest of them, Lance and the others contented to the risk in exchange for the joy.

Beside Lance, Hunk is silent, and that steals more of his attention than even the storm.

He had thought they had reached a new stability, after the summer. It’s not perfect, and Lance fucks it up more than he gets it right—like anything—but he tries, he tries to be more open, to not shut Hunk out when he feels himself slipping, and he knows that’s all Hunk was looking for, really—a token of effort, a bit more consistency in Lance’s treatment of him.

It is better. It feels better, than before. Not perfection, but honesty, human and flawed, there to be seen and heard.

And in turn he has felt Hunk try to be more understanding of Lance’s other forms of support, quieter on the afternoons Mavis calls, giving him the space he needs.

Which is why this past weekend—which took a turn from a friendly goodbye on Friday night when Hunk opted to go home with his grandmother to two days of Hunk straight up vanishing, rounded out by an awkwardly silent car ride and wait to board the train—is somewhat of an aberration.

Ok no, very much of an aberration.

And the thing is, Lance can’t figure out why. As far as he can tell, he’s done nothing to promote the return of Hunk’s silent treatment—and while Lance will fully acknowledge he has vast capabilities to be a dick, he’d like to think he’s at least self-aware enough to realize when he’s being a dick.

In truth, the longer Hunk remains silent, and the longer Lance racks his brain while tracing raindrops on the window, the more he begins to wonder if it does have anything to do with him at all. While Hunk hasn’t really been looking at him, it hasn’t seemed pointed, and the few times their eyes have met, Lance hasn’t detected the quiet fury he usually feels radiating off of Hunk when he’s truly angry at him, but just…distraction, lack of focus.

Hunk’s mind is somewhere else, as out of tune with his surroundings as Lance had been in Ritzie’s bedroom when he’d stood thinking of things that once were, and Lance frankly has no idea as to what holds his attention so drastically, except that it may not in fact be concerned with Lance himself.

Shocking, he knows, but he’d also like to think he took the portion of Hunk’s lecture about how his life doesn’t revolve around Lance to heart along with the rest of it.

Which really only leaves the question of what non-Lance-related puzzle has Hunk so wrapped up.

Next to him, Hunk shifts, pulling an envelope with a clumsily shredded top and loopy handwriting on the front out of his bag and turning it over again and again in his hands. It’s a repetitive motion he’s already done a couple times during the train ride, before tucking the envelope back into his bag until the next time he draws it out and does it all over again. Lance is drawn to it, watching Hunk’s large hands handle the envelope with the kind of dedicated fragility given to something revered, or something feared.

Stealing one quick glance at Evie in the aisle seat, who is still conveniently focused on her laptop, thick eyebrows lowered and glaring at the screen, Lance leans out and carefully taps the edge of the envelope. Startled, Hunk retracts it instantly, clutching it to his chest as if he instinctively expects it to be stolen away, and blinks, turning to Lance.

“You alright?” Lance asks quietly, and Hunk quirks a false smile far too easily, leaving Lance wondering when he learned to do so well what Lance does all the time.

“Fine.”

“…Uhuh.” Lance glances down at the envelope pointedly, and Hunk’s hands around it twitch nervously. “Look, you know I’m not going to make you talk about whatever’s going on, but…”

Hunk winces, eyes lowering to the envelope. “That obvious, huh?” He looks back up to Lance’s deadpan stare, and snorts. “Ok, yeah, fair.” Eyes flickering to Evie’s profile next to him, Hunk shakes his head and mutters under his breath, “I’ll tell you about it later, not here.”

Lance casts a questioning glance around the half-empty train car, and then looks pointedly to Evie’s headphones fit snugly over her ears. “Hey Evie, Karen was the one who broke your DS when you were eighteen.” Evie doesn’t even glance up, completely unawares of anything he’s saying, and Lance turns back to Hunk, who rolls his eyes.

“Ha-ha. Very funny.”

“Hey I’m just saying in terms of privacy, this isn’t actually that bad.”

“Yeah, but—“ Hunk leans forward. “It’s about—it’s about my mom, ok?” he hisses under his breath, and Lance jerks in surprise.

“Your mom?” he asks, and Hunk just nods jerkily.

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Lance mumbles, and nods in turn, sitting back. “Ok.”

Hunk says nothing, falling back to his pattern with the envelope, turning it over and over again, fingers shaky as they skate around thin pencil lines to avoid smudging the writing, and Lance is left to wonder at exactly what secrets it contains. Is it a letter from her, a letter about her?

Lance has never met Awhina Garrett, the highflying woman who could never ground herself enough to be a caretaker. He’s seen pictures, old things depicting times long before, shoved up onto the fireplace mantle in Hunk’s home. She is mythic in that house, and in Lance’s own for that matter, unspoken of beyond the occasional whisper of a story from Hunk’s grandmother. It is not that she is a disgraced topic, or something uncouth to breathe mention of, but more that she is simply…not present. She has not been a part of Hunk’s life for a very long time, and never part of their lives, part of Veradera.

What could she even have to say, to the son who barely knows her?

Obviously, whatever it was, it was enough to rattle Hunk.

The silence between them lingers the rest of the train ride back to school, eyes largely not meeting save for conspicuously shared glances of waiting tension as Evie tiredly drags them out of their train and onto the local Metrorail one with the stop that puts them closest to Greenwood’s front gates. She waves them off distractedly, already answering a call from their grandfather about a sudden and immediate problem with the television he wants her to resolve right now, please.

They walk up the front steps of their dorm to the tune of Evie loudly explaining that no, Abuelito, she can’t fix the T.V. with the remote power of her mind because shockingly even she isn’t that good, and Lance has to stifle a grin even with Hunk shifting anxiously next to him.

He calls out his goodbye cheerfully, and Evie makes a face at him as she holds the phone out away from her ear enough that their grandfather’s confused bellowing won’t blow her eardrum.

Once they get up to their room, Hunk makes a beeline for his bed, flopping onto it gratefully, and Lance leans heavily against the door after he shuts it, eyeing Hunk speculatively as his friend makes exhausted sounds and rolls around onto his back, already fishing the letter out of his hoodie pocket. “So. Your mom, huh?”

Hunk heaves a heavy sigh. “Yep.”

Lance thinks back to the weekend’s lack of Hunk’s presence, and almost without thought slides to the ground, back resting against the door. “Was she here this weekend?”

Hunk blinks, and shakes his head, face furrowing into contemplation. “No, but uh—“ He stops, considering. “She’s been…around.”

“Around?”

“Earlier this week,” Hunk says, pushing himself up enough to sit back against the headboard. “Just a couple of days. Don’t know if she did that on purpose. She and Nana write, sometimes. When Nana has an address, at least. I guess she’d probably know I’m at boarding school by now, when I’d be home and when I wouldn’t be. Maybe.” He grimaces. “Maybe they don’t talk about me at all.”

Lance just crosses his arms over his knees, leans forward and rests his chin onto them, eyes trained to the floor. There is no easy answer here. Either Hunk’s mother knew his life’s schedule, and chose to come on days when he wouldn’t be present. Or she didn’t, which leaves the implication that she never asks about him at all. He honestly can’t say which would be more disappointing, or more comforting to Hunk—that his mother may have avoided him, or that she does not think of him.

Despite the close intimacy they share compared to their other friends, even they have things they do not speak of, unless in desperation. Lance’s hair—the incident that put him down this road to begin with. Loraine, sometimes, and what she meant to both of them.

Hunk’s mother—she, too, is one of the things they do not ask each other unprompted.

Lance was shared the story—or lack of it—for her…her un-presence in Hunk’s life in confidence when they were younger. Of how Hunk has that parental gap he doesn’t quite know if he even misses, when he never had something to begin to miss in the first place. Beyond that, it was something rarely mentioned between the two of them, it just was. Is.

Some things, for better or worse, are immovable.

Lance’s life will not resolve itself with waiting. Ritzie’s parents will not suddenly reconcile. Hunk’s mother will not come home to him.

“What happened?” he asks, rather than offer comfort. Hunk’s shoulders slump in subtle relief, and Lance decides he made the right call.

“She’s apparently on one of her ‘clean up the act and all loose ends’ kicks,” Hunk says softly, looking down to the envelope sitting in his lap. “Nana says they work, sometimes. For a little while.”

“…What happened, Hunk?”

“I don’t—“ Hunk makes a frustrated sound, curling up on himself. “It’s not like I’m angry, really. Though maybe I’m supposed to be. She just…was never the sort of person meant to be a mother. Anyone’s mother, not just mine. That’s not—I know that’s not my fault, it might not even be hers, but—“

“It hurts?” Lance guesses, thinking of Ritzie, and Hunk looks up, smile tenuous and grateful, even with watery eyes.

“Yeah.”

And then the tears spill over.

Lance moves on instinct, crossing the room to Hunk’s bed and sitting across from him. He looks around for a tissue for all of half a second, before promptly giving up and opting to pull his jacket sleeve over his hand and use it to dab ineffectively at Hunk’s face. Hunk makes an embarrassed noise, hands reaching up to try and push Lance’s hand away and wipe at his face himself, and Lance gently slaps them away with his spare hand until Hunk huffs in resignation and gives up. He looks mostly tiredly amused by the time Lance is done.

“Crybaby,” Lance mutters halfheartedly as he withdraws his hand, not meaning it in the slightest, and Hunk’s patient look indicates he knows Lance doesn’t mean it either. “Your skin always gets so blotchy.”

“Yes, because I’m really worried about that, Lance,” Hunk says dryly, even as he sniffles one last time and wipes his nose with the back of his hand, making a face. “Where’s the tissue box?”

“No idea.” Rummaging around in his jacket pockets, Lance finally turns up an old napkin he thinks he stole from the school cafeteria last week, and offers it to Hunk. Despite the suspicious look he gives it, Hunk accepts, wiping his hand and then wiping again at his face. Glancing down at the envelope still sitting between them, Lance draws in a deep breath. “Look, whatever your mom wrote—“

“My mom didn’t write that,” Hunk mumbles, scrubbing the napkin over his nose and eyes one last time and then balling it up in his hands, placing them back in his lap and reaching out one finger to tap the edge of the letter apprehensively. “It was—my—“ He sighs. “My dad did.”

Lance blinks. And then blinks again. Confusion wells up, and he stares at Hunk blankly.

One of the things Lance has always known with complete certainty in life is that Hunk doesn’t have a dad, at least not one he can put name and face to. There had only been Hunk’s mother, the unavailable, the unobtainable, and his grandmother, the homemaker, the caretaker. The technical family tree made up of the woman who birthed him, and the woman who raised him, none other.

“Your dad?”

Hunk sucks in a breath. “Yep.”

“But I thought—“ Lance wavers. “How?”

“Apparently part of the whole tying up loose ends thing meant visiting some old haunts,” Hunk says, with a kind of self-deprecating laugh, and Lance isn’t quite sure why. “She ran into an old flame, they caught up, and I guess somewhere along the way she decided it might be worth mentioning she had a kid that was half his.”

“Jesus,” Lance says faintly, and somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear his own mother—or Marcie, maybe—making a scandalized noise at his language choice. “And she’s uh…sure?”

“As sure as it’d ever be without a test.” Hunk shrugs. “She never stayed with anyone for long, but she never saw more than one person at once. Even I know that much, from her and Nana’s old letters and stuff.” He hums halfheartedly, a low, conflicted sound, eyes dropping again to the letter. “…She never told him, before. Just left when it was time for her to float off somewhere new. I have no idea why she brought it up now of all times, or if she even expressly did and he just did the math with my age o-or something and asked her but—“ Hunk glances up, staring at Lance with solemnity, and more than a hint of panic. “He is. He’s my dad.”

“He’s your dad,” Lance repeats with as much breathless awe as Hunk, and now his friend looks even more terrified, as if Lance’s speaking it somehow made it that much more real. He looks down to the letter once more in time with Hunk, and suddenly the way Hunk so reverently handled it, and the weight of it, metaphorically speaking, makes sense. “…Where? Where is he, I mean?”

New Zealand. Australia, maybe. The U.S.? Where else had Hunk’s mother been?

“You won’t believe it,” Hunk says, and when Lance looks to him, raising an eyebrow, Hunk giggles, suddenly seeming giddily overwhelmed. “Samoa.”

“…Samoa.”

Hunk nods frantically, eyes wide and excited. “Samoa. The uh—the independent state, not the American territory portion.”

“Why the hell was your mom in Samoa?” Lance asks, and suddenly he’s laughing too, stifling helpless snorts into his hands because this conversation was so entirely not what he had expected, and God—Hunk has a father, a father in Samoa. A father with a name and an address and—and—all the proof of a living and being of a person.

“I don’t know!” Hunk answers, throwing his hands up before he has to quickly pull them down again to muffle his own laughter. “She just—she just was!”

“I guess, geographically, it’s sort of logical.” Lance says, as the last of his giggles die down. “Especially if she was island-hopping around that part of the Pacific.”

“Who knows with my mother, honestly,” Hunk says, sounding mystified but not particularly upset, and Lance feels glad Hunk seems to be more at ease, at least until he looks back to the letter, and his shoulders slump slightly. A more serious expression sets on Hunk’s face, and he doesn’t look upset, really, so much as just very…contemplative. “He wrote this, for my mom to give to me. He wants—he wants to meet me. At Christmas, or the summer, whenever I’m comfortable. He—“

Hunk hesitates, and Lance leans forward, offering his hand to Hunk as an anchor. He takes it, smile grateful, and Lance intertwines their fingers as he taps Hunk’s name on the envelope carefully with his other hand. “Do you want to meet him?”

“I—“ Hunk’s face cracks, uncertain and frightened. “I don’t know? For so long when I was younger, littler but old enough to understand, all I wanted was to—to know. And then I accepted I never would, and now…” Hunk’s voice cracks, and his spare hand grabs at the forgotten napkin to scrunch and twist between his fingers anxiously. “What if it goes wrong? What if—what if he doesn’t like me?” he finishes, voice small.

“Hunk,” Lance says firmly. “Of course he’ll like you.”

“My mom doesn’t like me,” Hunk whispers.

“No,” Lance says, reaching up to touch Hunk’s chin and gently raise his face upward so that they can look eye to eye. He knows enough about running away from things, about the times Hunk has had to confront him and force him to see his own hypocrisy. It’s time he did the same. “Your mom doesn’t want to be a parent. You said it yourself. It’s not about what you can and can’t be for her, it’s about what she can and can’t be, and therefore not your fault.” He smiles as gently as he can manage. “You’re always there to tell me when I’m being an idiot, so now I’m returning the favor. You have no duty to your dad, blood doesn’t create a relationship, and if you don’t want to meet him you don’t have to. But don’t run away because you think he might not want to know you when he’s already indicated he does, otherwise you’re being just as dumb as I am whenever I panic and push people away.”

Hunk sniffs, and is back to wiping ineffectually at his eyes with the napkin. “Don’t compare my biggest moment of crisis in my life to your—your repetitive cycles of ‘I must solve everything myself’ self-sacrificing nonsense.”

“You’re welcome,” Lance says, grinning, and Hunk throws the napkin at him, the crumpled paper batting softly off his nose.

“…I just don’t know what I want,” Hunk admits softly after a long moment. “I never even thought this would be an option, you know?”

Lance thinks of all the unfixable things that haunt him, that drive him. What he would do, if he had an option to suddenly change it all. At first instinct, it seems easy. Bring Loraine back, repair his family, make himself…himself again. But it’s not that easy, really. If he could reverse the last year and a half…he’d lose Mavis all over again, would have never met Ritzie.

They’re not equivalent to Loraine in any way, shape, or form, but in the same sense she isn’t—she isn’t equivalent to them. You can’t trade away one person for another, balance out the equation and decide who’s worth more. Loraine was—is—everything, but Mavis, his friends…they’re important too. He wants Loraine back more than anything in the world, but he wants so many things. Wants his family to be ok again, wants his mother to have never been sick, wants Mavis to have never left, but sometimes bad things just…happen. And would he even know how to be her Lance again, if the world reset and he could have everything back?

“Yeah,” he says to Hunk eventually, shrugging tiredly. “I know.”

“…What would you do?” Hunk asks, and Lance snorts.

“I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask, my dad was dead long before I was around.” Hunk makes a face at him, and Lance sighs. “I don’t know either, ok? Sometimes family isn’t what you expect it to be…for better or for worse.” He hesitates, and then grabs the envelope, picking it up and turning it to face Hunk. “It’s your decision to make, and it’s not like you have to do it now. But you have a chance, and if you want this, then don’t give it up and regret it down the line.”

So many unchangeable things happen, to all of them, but one of the few things Lance feels like he’s learned—with every fuckup and face slap and New York city street—is that you can’t run away from change, either. To hold onto his past, to Loraine, and to survive, he must change. Otherwise he’ll never reach the Garrison. Never reach her stars, his stars, their stars.

The unfixable is immovable, but change is also inevitable.

“If you want to know your dad, Hunk,” Lance says quietly, “Don’t let fear keep you from family.”

“You’re one to talk,” Hunk snorts unthinkingly, and Lance winces, glad Hunk doesn’t notice when he does. His family issues aren’t the ones on the table, right now. “I— yeah. Ok,” Hunk says, and when he squeezes Lance’s hand, Lance squeezes back.

“Ok,” he breathes. “Good.”

#Spilling Like An Overflowing Sink (Voltron)#my writing #vld fanfic #Voltron

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kyleknight · 8 years ago

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God is gonna have to kill me twice

Klance vampire/werewolf fic for @redvioletz‘s art here. Check it out, it’s really awesome!!

Warnings: violence, unimportant character death, injuries Word count: 2.7k Summary: The Bonding Moment is a universal constant.

I am only writing more when Red draws another picture. Step it up, bro.

~~~~~

Keith swings his short sword in a wide arc and it sings as it cuts through the hunter’s body. The hunter doesn’t even have a chance to cry out in pain or rage before Phoenix drains his life force through the fatal wound. He collapses to the ground a moment later, lifeless. The purple design on the length of the sword flashes with purple light, freshly charged with the life force.

“Vampire bastard!” another hunter roars from across the room. Keith narrows his eyes and tightens his grip on his blade. Phoenix pulses in his hand like a heart beating and the stored life force energy starts to bleed into Keith.

He dodges a crossbow bolt that the hunter fires at him and focuses the life force energy into his agility. Keith runs sideways up onto the wall and speeds around the archaic sitting room to the hunter. At the last moment, he jumps off the wall and throws his body into a spin, decapitating the hunter right as he’s fumbling to load another bolt onto his crossbow.

Phoenix drains this hunter’s life force too, and the design on the sword flashes again, brighter. Keith spares a moment to regain his balance and then sprints into the connecting room.

There are no hunters here, so he keeps moving through the Maria werewolf clan’s mansion. As Keith runs, he grows irritated to sense that the rest of the Marmora vampire clan have already escaped. Damn it, after all that work to negotiate this meeting to ally with the Maria clan, they’ve abandoned it all. Just because a bunch of hunters crashed the meeting. Keith knows they could have easily overpowered the hunters if the Marmora vampires and the Maria werewolves worked together.

Keith quickly changes direction when he smells spilled blood nearby. It’s either from the hunters or from the Maria werewolf clan. Or both.

Keith finally arrives at the second floor balcony that oversees the Maria clan’s ballroom, where he sees almost a dozen of the werewolves fully shifted into their huge wolf forms, fighting off about a dozen and a half well organized hunters. The hunters are shooting repeatedly with their bows and crossbows, and keeping the attacking wolves back with gleaming silver bladed weapons. Most of the werewolves have arrows or crossbow bolts buried in them, and Keith winces in sympathy. He knows those are all tipped with wicked silver barbs that burn the werewolves’ flesh and poison their blood.

As Keith hesitates, looking for the best opening to utilize his element of surprise, he notices that a handful of the werewolves are struggling to maintain their wolf forms. One or two are slowly changing back into their human forms, and it doesn’t look like it’s intentional.

“What the hell…” Keith mutters, focusing on one in particular who has what looks like five crossbow bolts embedded in his back, plus a few arrows. That one is at the edge of the pack, and it’s moving sluggishly.

Damn it. Keith has never seen silver’s effect on werewolves before, despite knowing about it. This looks really bad. Hunters really don’t have any qualms using the most painful means to attack and kill vampires and werewolves, do that? All the hunters Keith’s dealt with always have some disturbing desire to watch the vampires suffer before they die. These hunters seem no different.

One of the hunters separates from the others, advancing on the injured werewolf at the edge of the pack. Keith narrows his eyes. The werewolf suddenly collapses on the ground, his body now much more human than wolf.

Keith doesn’t wait a moment longer. He leaps off the balcony and lands directly in front of the werewolf. The hunter is taken by surprise, and Keith wastes no time cutting him in two. Then Keith tenses, not sure whether to charge at the other hunters or to stay with the fallen werewolf.

In moments, however, the remaining werewolves start to force the hunters back. The largest of the werewolves snaps its powerful jaws around the neck of a hunter who can’t run back in time. Over the noise of the hunters yelling and the wolves snarling, Keith hears the hunter’s bones snap.

Another one of the hunters throws some kind of smoke bomb--similar to the one they used when they interrupted the meeting in the first place. The Maria werewolves back away from the smoke, unwilling to make the same mistake as before.

The noise dies down, the smoke soon clears, and Keith scowls when he sees that the hunters have gone.

Cowards. Cheating murderous cowards.

He’s not enough of an idiot to go chasing after them now that they’ve gone, so Keith instead turns around to examine the werewolf on the floor. To his surprise, he finds it’s the young one that he had argued with at the start of the meeting. Lance. Keith quickly sheathes Phoenix, deactivating it, and kneels down next to him. Ever so carefully, he lifts Lance off the floor so the silver-barbed bolts aren’t being pushed any further into his body.

Lance is shaking, covered in blood and sweat. There are some patches of brown fur all over him, but most of his body has reverted to his human form. He cracks open his yellow eyes.

“Keith,” he says, panting laboriously. “You stayed.”

Keith blinks. He wasn’t expecting that response. “Yeah. I did.” What else was he going to do? Run away and leave the werewolves to deal with the hunters on their own?

Lance closes his eyes. “Guess we can work together after all,” he says. “Vampires and werewolves...”

Two of the Maria werewolves arrive on either side of Lance. They’ve also been injured by the arrows, but not nearly as badly as Lance. Keith moves so they can take Lance. They move tenderly, taking care not to disturb his injuries any more than necessary.

“Thank you,” says one of them, a young female werewolf who looks remarkably similar to Lance. Maybe a sister? She and the other werewolf, an older male, pick up Lance and carry him out of the ballroom.

Keith gets up and faces the other wolves. Most of them have left the ballroom, but four remain. The most senior members of the Maria werewolf clan. Guadalupe, the head of the clan, is standing in front of the others. Her eyes are still glowing yellow and her fists are clenched as she approaches Keith.

“So, only one of our new allies chooses to stay and defend us?” she says in a low, dangerous voice.

Keith stands his ground, even though his senses are telling him to get away from the werewolves and get out. To escape, just like the rest of the Marmora clan did as soon as they killed the hunters who pursued them.

Keith knew that action wasn’t right. What sort of message would it give the Maria werewolves if the vampires fled at the first sign of trouble? This hunter attack wasn’t the werewolves’ fault, and it wasn’t the vampires’ fault either. It was an unfortunate reality of their existence, and it was better for them to face it and fight it together. That’s the hope that Ulaz and Thace both died for.

Keith resists the urge to grab Phoenix’s hilt. “Yeah. I stayed.”

“Where are the rest of the Marmora vampires?” one of the other werewolves snarls. “Run away like the cowards they are?”

Keith bristles. “We told you that our clan has been attacked by hunters so much in the past decades that our numbers are low. My friends chose to--”

“They chose to abandon their attempt at an alliance,” Guadalupe finishes. “But for some reason you decided to stay. Why?”

Keith thinks about Shiro and grits his teeth. “Because I wanted to kill those hunters more than I wanted to protect myself.” It’s the honest answer, if not the one the Marmora leaders would have chosen.

Guadalupe’s face twists in a smirk. “Interesting.”

Keith waits for the werewolf to tell him to get out of their mansion. Or to tell him that he should tell the other Marmora vampires to consider the alliance attempt a complete failure. It sure feels like he’s standing in the aftermath of a disaster.

But instead, Guadalupe says, “I would like to offer an invitation to you. Stay here, for a while. The Maria clan may reconsider your Marmora clan’s alliance if you are truly earnest about your hatred for the hunters. I do not trust your companions, but I will trust you… for now.”

Keith doesn’t know what to say at first. He glances from Guadalupe to the other three werewolves remaining in the ballroom. They all seem to have mixed reactions to Guadalupe’s offer. One doesn’t seem pleased at all, one is frowning at Keith although without any real hostility, and one is nodding at Keith with something like respect. Keith looks back at the bodies of the dead hunters. There’s a chance that the hunters may send more people to attack the Maria clan, in order to avenge their fallen comrades.

Keith thinks he’d like to be here, ready for when they come.

Also… if he stays, he’ll be able to make sure Lance is alright. Since Keith went and pretty much saved the werewolf from getting killed by that hunter, he wants to be sure that he’s going to survive his injuries.

“Okay,” Keith says. “I’ll stay however long you want me.”

~~~

The next day, the werewolves patch themselves up and spend time recovering in their rooms across the Maria mansion. Very few of them escaped injury, and those lucky few have their hands full removing the silver barbed bolts and administering medicines to combat the silver poison. After a day of resting in one of the guest bedrooms, Keith offers to help. He asks to help with the treatments, but it’s quickly made clear that Guadalupe doesn’t trust him that much yet. Or maybe she doesn’t want him in the way of the Maria clan’s healer.

Instead, he’s put to work helping Anne, a werewolf in charge of preparing meals and bringing supplies to Vivian, the healer werewolf.

Anne is pleasant. She’s probably the friendliest werewolf Keith’s ever met, although he notices that she doesn’t like to turn her back on him. But she speaks nicely to him and she allows him to do simple tasks unsupervised. Keith counts that as a win. He does his best not to mess up any of the jobs she gives him, and she grows a little less uncomfortable in his presence as time passes.

Keith sees Lance whenever he and Anne go to his room with Vivian’s supplies, but every time, he’s asleep. Vivian has them leave Lance’s food, but Keith doesn’t know if he actually wakes up to eat it. Anne tells him not to worry, but Keith worries nonetheless.

After five days of helping Anne, Guadalupe takes Keith out of the kitchen. She brings him to a different werewolf, an older male with a soft smile names Ricardo. Ricardo takes Keith through the mansion to remove all the remaining traces of the hunters’ attack. Like Anne, he speaks to Keith with some respect and even smiles at him.

It’s nice that Guadalupe is setting him to work with werewolves who won’t bite his head off when they’re alone, Keith thinks.

All the hunters’ bodies have been removed from the mansion, but there are still traces of them everywhere. Blood, missed arrows and bolts, and even a few silver daggers and bottles of poison. With gloves on, Keith picks up the silver weapons and puts them in a wooden box for Ricardo to dispose of. They scrub at wooden floors and carpets until the bloodstains are out, then move on to the next mess.

The work doesn’t take very long. Keith and Ricardo are finishing up in the ballroom when Ricardo says, “I really appreciate it… you saving Lance.”

Keith stops and looks up at the werewolf. While they were working, Ricardo mostly kept the conversation to cleaning tips or instructions. Now he’s… opening up? Anne didn’t do that even after five days of working together.

“I didn’t realize he was so hurt,” Ricardo says, keeping his eyes fixed on a bloodstain on the wooden floor. “I was right there and all I could think of was killing the hunters. Lance is my nephew and I... I didn’t.” He swallows shakily. “If you hadn’t--”

“He’s going to be alright,” Keith says firmly.

Ricardo nods. “Vivian is going to try and wake him up in a few hours,” he says. “If. If you’d like to be there.”

Keith feels his chest grow tight. “Please,” he says.

~~~

Keith stays at the back of the room. Ricardo is leaning against the wall next to Keith, but only because there are seven other werewolves taking up most of the space in the room. Guadalupe and Vivian are nearest to Lance’s bedside, sitting in chairs on either side of his bed. Vivian is doing something with her strong-smelling medicines. Keith doesn’t have a very good view of her, but only because he’s focusing on watching Lance.

Despite the crowd in the room, everyone is silent. The only sound is the beaded bracelets on Vivian’s wrists clicking together as she moves. And then, Lance groans softly and starts moving in his bed. There’s a collective sigh of relief that resounds around the room. Keith is relieved too, and he moves to try and get a better look.

Lance is still lying in the bed, but he’s moving his arm up to reach for Guadalupe. The clan leader takes his hand and strokes his cheek.

“You gave us quite a scare,” Guadalupe says, her voice full of tenderness. “Five crossbow bolts and two arrows in you. I was worried the silver poison would be too much.”

Lance gives a weak snort. “Takes more than that to beat me,” he says.

A few of the werewolves chuckle softly.

“Clearly,” Guadalupe says. “Although it might have been worse if our vampire friend didn’t jump in to save you.”

Lance frowns. “What are you talking about? I thought all the vampires left.”

Guadalupe turns and makes eye contact with Keith. “Come,” she says. Keith obeys and stops a few feet from the bed. He looks much better than when Keith last saw him, although there’s nothing but confusion in his face. “You remember Keith?” Guadalupe prompts. “He came back to fight with us.”

Lance looks skeptical. “That guy? Are you sure about that?”

“Are you telling me you don’t remember?” Keith says, indignation at Lance’s tone starting to overpower the voice of reason telling him to stay on his best behavior around the werewolves. “I saved your life and you don’t remember?”

Sure, Lance had been a bit drained from the fight. But he was still conscious! He talked with Keith and there was a moment there!! An actual vampire-werewolf moment that wasn’t just hostility or outright fighting! That’s something really fucking important!

Lance scoffs. “Yeah, nothing’s coming back to me. Apart from your clan disappearing after the hunters showed up.”

“Keith remained to fight,” Guadalupe says, patting Lance’s hand.

Lance still doesn’t look convinced. Keith throws up his hands in frustration. “I don’t believe this! I saved your life! Nothing like that has happened between werewolves and vampires for over three hundred years, and you can’t remember it!?”

Lance crosses his arms stubbornly. “Yeah, nope. Don’t remember that. Sounds fake, really. Sorry, Twilight.”

Keith shakes with rage. He can’t believe he’s hearing that stupid fucking nickname that Lance gave him before the meeting again. “We had a bonding moment!” he cries in desperation. “I cradled you in my arms!”

“Lance,” Guadalupe says, before Keith or Lance can argue further. “I’m glad to see you’re well enough to pick a fight with our new ally. But I would rather you not aggravate him.”

“Ally?” Lance repeats.

Guadalupe rises from Lance’s bedside and turns to Keith. “Yes. If you would follow me, I would like to discuss terms of that with you.”

Keith gets up and leaves Lance as soon as he can. That ungrateful little… he’s lucky Keith is still so happy to see that he’s okay. The other werewolves crowd around Lance and start talking as Keith and Guadalupe shut the door behind them.

#klance #werewolf lance #vampire keith #mani playing with words #redvioletz #eh thats enough tags I suppose #sorry yall this aint bandom but I didnt feel like putting it on a sideblog

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writing-wren · 8 years ago

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Demons

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Genre: Fluff and Angst Word Count: 8465 Summary: Time to fight your demons and worst fears, paladins! (all in a training simulation, of course) [Part 5 of the Mother Hens of Marmora ‘verse. Read all parts on Ao3]

This is a monster. Not only because it's almost 8500 words but also because I struggled so much with it. There's a lot of outside POVs in this and writing them was really hard.

Many thanks again to @paladin-pile, not only for the au this time but for general help when I was struggling and proof-reading, too (and telling me it was okay to post, because I almost didn't)!

Enjoy~

************************

Every once in a while the paladins have to undergo special training. Mostly it’s simulations to improve their teamwork, though it’s much, much better than it used to be. The days of the beginning when they didn’t trust each other to have their backs are long gone and their communication during battles is smooth, honed in many real fights. But just to make sure, to stay on that level or even improve -because there’s always room to improve- Allura and Coran write new programs every now and then, just to challenge them.

“So what’s different about this one?” Lance asks, because Allura has made a bit of a secret out of it, and because for some reason she called them all to the training deck for the big reveal.

“Yeah,” Pidge chimes in. “Isn’t it just another simulation? Is it a team or a single player one?”

“It is both,” Allura replies. “This…” She pauses. “Is a simulation to fight yourself, paladins. Your inner demons and biggest fears, so Zarkon can not use them against you. Nobody can know what exactly it will show you, except for yourself -if you know yourself well enough.”

“And… where is the teamwork in that?” Hunk asks, confused.

“Somebody has to stay with you,” Coran explains. “In case there is a malfunction. And they will see whatever you see on that monitor right over there!” He beams as if that was the best news he’s ever delivered. “So you have to choose a teammate to stay with you.”

“I choose Hunk!” Pidge shouts, quick like a shot.

There’s some chaos after that, everybody trying to secure a partner, everybody talking across each other -but there’s five of them, so somebody will have to do two rounds of this at least.

Shiro crosses his arms, looking serious and thoughtful as always. “I’m not going to choose one of you,” he says, effectively silencing and earning himself surprised looks from all of them. “We’re a team,” he explains. “I’m not going to choose, we’re in this together. For my turn, you can all stay; I have nothing to hide.”

There’s a moment of silence after that, the other paladins looking down.

“Shiro’s right,” Keith says eventually. “We shouldn’t just choose one. That’s only going to divide us, and that’s not what this is about.”

The others murmur their agreement.

“Sorry, guys.” Pidge scratches the back of her head sheepishly. “I started that… I should’ve thought first, I guess…”

“It’s okay, Pidge,” Shiro reassures her, smiling. “It’s a difficult decision to make when it means the others will see your deepest fears…”

“Congratulations, paladins!” Coran exclaims in that moment, beaming proudly.

Lance blinks. “What for?”

“For passing the first half of the test,” Allura smiles. “We wanted to see if you would trust each other -and not only one, but all of the others- for this…”

“Oh great,” Hunk groans, “Isn’t the nightmare-simulation-part enough already?” He pauses, thinking. “And didn’t just Shiro pass that? He was the only one who didn’t try to choose…”

Allura hums. “Think about it, Hunk. Yes, you all started out having the wrong idea; but Shiro, as your leader, well… led you back onto the right path, and you all followed. You made that decision together, as a team, so I’d say that, yes, you have all passed.”

“Well, that’s a way to see it…”

Coran opens his arms invitingly, as if this was a ride in an amusement park, and beams. “So, who’s going first?”

“Anybody?” Shiro asks, when after a moment nobody has come forward. “Alright then, I guess I will-“

“I’m going,” Pidge cuts him off. “I want to get it over with.”

Shiro smiles. “Alright.”

She grabs the helmet Coran hands her, sits down with her legs crossed, mutters, “Here goes nothing,” and puts it on.

Darkness. There’s a floor beneath her feet but it’s pitch black. The only light is coming from countless doors, a little lamp above each one.

That’s really a lot of doors. Possibilities, her mind whispers, a lot of possibilities. Which one to take? She can’t just take a random one; this has to be thought through. But they’re all looking the same, with absolutely no differences and there’s no hints at anything. Do they all lead to the same place? Different ones? Is one more dangerous than the other?

“Think, Pidge, think,” she mutters to herself. Takes a closer look at the doors, presses her ear against them, but nothing helps, and she doesn’t hear anything, either. When she reaches the point where she can’t do anything else, she realizes that she has no other option than taking a leap into the unknown and choose a random door.

The scene changes, and she’s on a Galra ship (she thinks). She swears under her breath and ducks behind a corner, praying that there’s no guard around. This is stealth, she’s good at this. Just don’t get noticed. She’s better at hiding than at fighting, and if she can choose, she’ll always choose the former. If this is a Galra ship, chances are -since this is her simulation- that her brother and father are here, too.

She has to find them.

She’s pretty sure they have cells for prisoners here, so she starts searching for that, makes her way through the corridors, ducking behind corners when there’s guards, her heart beating faster with every minute because if she’s caught here it’s over. This would be so much easier if she had her tech with her, but she doesn’t even have her armor. She’ll have to make do without it.

Then there’s the first scream. Matt. This was Matt. Her heart stops for a second and starts beating at twice the speed. There’s another scream and she follows it, blindly, until she reaches what has to be the cell tract. Most of them are empty when she looks through the little windows in the doors, until-

“Matt!”

He’s there, he’s really right here and this is not a simulation anymore, the way her heart and her entire body ache is real and there’s tears in her eyes but she wipes them away; there’ll be time for that later.

“Katie?” He sounds disbelieving, and how could he not? The last time he saw her was back on earth. “What happened to your hair?”

The sound that escapes her is as much a sob as it is a laugh. “Long story,” she says. “I’ll get you out of here first and we’ll talk later.”

Which is when another voice calls out from two cells over. “Pidge?” It’s Hunk and she can’t believe this. They’re all in that cell; Shiro, Keith, Lance and Hunk.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“We got caught when you ran off to search for your family,” Hunk says and, wow, did she really do that? She wishes she couldn’t believe she’d do something like that, but sadly enough she can. “We can’t form Voltron without you and there were just too many of them.” His eyes water. “But I’m so glad you came back, I knew you’d come for us. We’re a team, right?”

“Pidge, you need to hurry,” Shiro urges. “There’s no time, the guards are going to come back soon!”

“Katie?” Matt calls out from the other cell. “Katie, please you have to get me out of here! They’re going to kill me! Please, you have to come back!” He’s pleading and there’s no time and she needs to choose now or she’ll lose them all and why are there stupid tears, dammit she can’t work if she can’t see! Her heart is beating so fast by now it hurts; her ribcage might just burst at this rate.

She makes her way over to Matt’s cell.

“Oh thank god! Katie, please, you just have to open the door, c’mon, Kitty-Kate, before they come back!”

And ouch, this hurts, hearing her old (very much hated but now welcome) nickname from him, especially at what she has to do. But she’ll look him in the eyes.

“I’m sorry, Matt,” she says. “I promise I’ll come back for you and get you, just you wait.”

And she can see all hope leaving him, his shoulders sagging and her heart breaks, but the lion chose her for a reason, and her team needs her. So she ignores Matt’s begging, his pleas, as best as she can and turns to free her team.

The next moment she’s back in the castle, her cheeks wet and her hands shaking, and for a moment nobody says a word. Then she suddenly has an armful of Hunk and… is he crying? “You chose us!” he sobs. “You chose us!”

Pidge looks down. She wants to tell him that it was just a simulation after all, but for a moment there it wasn’t and it still feels as if she just left her brother behind. “I thought it was odd,” she admits instead, her voice hollow. “That Matt wouldn’t tell me to get away, to safety. And… you guys are my friends, and you needed me, and the universe needs us and-“

A warm, heavy hand on her shoulder stops her rambling. “You don’t need to justify yourself, Pidge,” Shiro says. “We all know how you feel about your family. But you came back in the beginning, when you had left already, and I trust you to do the right thing. We’re going to find your brother and father together; you’re not on your own.”

And that does it. The tears she’s been holding back spill over and she just cries into Shiro’s shoulder for a good few minutes before Lance asks from the back, “So… did you guys hear her brother call Pidge Kitty-Kate, too, or was that just me?”

“Shut up, Lance.” Keith punches his shoulder. “You’re ruining the bonding moment.”

They all need to take a break after that; Allura gives them 15 Doboshes and they go sit in the common room for a while. Hunk is still not letting go of Pidge, but at least he has stopped crying. Nobody is talking, either, but it’s the kind of shared silence that’s not suffocating or awkward at all. When it’s time to get back Pidge seems fine, more or less. At least her hands have stopped shaking.

Once they’re back on the training deck, Hunk steps forward, swallowing. “I’ll go next,” he says. “I really don’t want to but I guess if I have to I’ll do it rather sooner than later.” Like Pidge, he takes the helmet, sits down on the floor and takes a deep breath before putting it on.

He’s back at the space mall, without his armor but wearing an apron. He looks around and realizes he’s back in Vrepit Sal’s diner, an endless stream of customers as he cooks and hands out the food, a chorus of “Chef Hunk! Chef Hunk!” in the back. Hunk loves cooking. He loves seeing all those happy people eating his food, and, yes, he loves the chanting, too.

“Guys?” he says, looking at the ceiling. “I think this thing is malfunctioning. I’m scared of a lot of things, but this is not one of them…”

“Whom are you talking to?” Sal asks, handing him a new stack of orders. “Less soliloquies, more cooking!”

Going against authorities is an actual thing Hunk really isn’t good at -might be scared of, even- so he does as he’s told. But nothing changes, and he just keeps cooking, dishing out food until the last guest has left.

“Good work,” Sal says. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Hunk raises a hand. “Um, Sal, sir, I’ll probably not be here tomorrow…”

“What,” Sal bellows, “You’re getting sick again?” He narrows his eyes. “You don’t look sick to me.”

“N-No, I just, uh, I need to get back to my team… sir…”

The Galra does not look amused. In fact, his smile is sharp and cruel, and his eyes are cold. “What team,” he asks, and his voice has changed, sharp like his smile and colder than his eyes. “Did you forget that you abandoned them in your fear? You were scared, and turned your back on them to pursue a different career -and don’t you love cooking? Your days are filled with happiness and cheering, what do you care about the ones you left behind? You did not care when the great emperor Zarkon,” He makes a fist over his heart at saying that name, “took them out one by one, why would you care now all of a sudden?”

Hunk pales and stumbles backwards. “N-No…” he whispers. “No, I didn’t, I can’t have-“

“You did,” Sal says cruelly. “You only care about yourself, and as long as you work for me and remain harmless and not a threat, the great emperor Zarkon,” he makes a fist over his heart again, “Emperor of all Galaxies and ruler of the whole universe, will let you remain free, unlike the other paladins. You do not want to end up like your glorious leader, do you? I heard he was injured during his last fight in the pit, maybe he will die now. His next fight might be his last; I’ll definitely have to go and watch it. The end of the Champion is the end of an era after all…”

No. Nononono this can’t be. Hunk wouldn’t- He’s scared easily, yes, a lot of things scare him, but he would never- Would he? Sal just told him he did, and why would he lie? Hunk can not even stand up to this man who looks larger than life to him right now. He’s a coward, always has been. He has long since forgotten that this is just a simulation, having lost himself in a full day of cooking and the shocking news paralyzing him.

Sal takes Hunk’s silence as agreement, he has stopped arguing after all, and nods, satisfied. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he says again. He turns to leave. “And if you try to call in sick when you’re not, I’ll fire you and you’ll be imprisioned like the rest of those useless fools.” A hum. ”Though I heard news they at least managed to make use of that green paladin’s brain. They’re already working on new technologies based on that one’s knowledge… And the red one was some fine entertainment in the pits… And the blue one, of course, makes a fine pet for the emperor.”

Hunk is scared easily, yes. A lot of things scare him. And it scares him that he should’ve been the one to betray his comrades like that, just because he was overwhelmed by his fear again. Sal scares him, right now. This kitchen scares him, feeling too small and restricting, suffocating, all of a sudden. He’s scared of Zarkon, too. His palms are sweaty, his knees shake and he can’t find his voice, and when he does it’s raw and hoarse, and not firm as he’d like it to be. But through the fear he speaks.

“Don’t talk about my friends like that,” he says, quietly, and Sal turns back to him, blinking.

“What did you just say?” he asks, just as quietly but dangerously so.

“I said don’t talk about them like that,” Hunk replies, louder. He straightens up, makes himself bigger -he is big, after all. Not just tall but chunky. He is strong, even though he so easily forgets. He can be a rock, a mountain if he wants to. “They’re the best people I know,” he continues, taking a step forward and Sal doesn’t look that big anymore. “They take me as I am.” Another step. Sal takes one back. “Even though I’m always scared. Even though I’m a crybaby. And I would never.” Another step and he is nose to nose with Sal. “Ever.” He puts a hand on Sal’s chest, pushes him away. “Betray them like that.” And it’s true, he realizes. He’s scared so often, but he would never turn his back on his friends. He might have been scared of that until now, too, and it’s a little funny, in an absurd way, that it took this weird talk to Sal for him to realize that even if he does love cooking, it’s the part where he’s cooking for his friends that makes him happy.

And with that he’s back on the floor of the training deck, breathing heavily as he pulls off that wicked helmet. He looks at Shiro. “Never,” he says, promises. “Never, never, ever would I do that. I swear. I wouldn’t -ever -I wouldn’t-“

“We know that, man,” Lance interrupts, smiling. He points at himself with his signature grin. “And this sharpshooter has your back, buddy.”

“As does the rest of the team,” Shiro adds.

Hunk is so relieved he wants to cry, but he manages not to, somehow. He definitely needs a break, though, so they all go to sit in the common room for another 15 Doboshes.

Lance picks up the helmet next. “I’m so gonna beat Keith,” he says, sits down and puts it on.

When he opens his eyes he doesn’t know where he is. His armor is gone, and when he looks around there’s that kind of… mist… all around.

“…Hellooo…?” he calls out after a while, when nothing has happened yet. “Anybody here?” He frowns. “Is this working right?” He squints at the mist when he thinks there might be a figure coming closer, only a shadow at first, then a silhouette, then a person, and-

“Me?”

The other Lance smiles, and there’s something off about him. Apart from being another Lance, because there’s only one Lance McClain. He looks -feels- like a predator; and Lance is his prey. He’s wearing the same clothes, too, but the blue seems colder somehow, just as his eyes.

“Of course,” he says, and even his voice is off, though Lance can’t tell exactly how. “Who else would come for you? Who else do you think cares?”

“Hey! There’s a lot of people who care about me, okay?!”

The Other laughs a cruel, cold laugh that isn’t like Lance’s at all. “Who?” he asks.

“My- My family! I bet they’re searching for me. But once I’m home and they see that I’m a hero, I bet they’ll be happy.”

The Other just laughs again. “Your family -or should I rather say our family? I’m you, Lance. I know you, better than anybody else. I know your fears. I know how justified they are… And do you want to know a secret? Your family is not even searching for you. They didn’t even realize you are gone. And who could blame them? There’s just so many kids, your parents simply didn’t notice there’s one less. You’re nothing special, Lance, and the sooner you get that into your head, the better.”

“But… my team! They’re definitely gonna come for me!”

“Oh please,” the Other replies. “Your precious team is probably glad you’re gone. You’re just an annoyance to them. You’re not worthy of being a part of this team. You’re not worthy of being a paladin. What makes you even think you could be a part of any team when there’s nothing you can contribute to it? It’s a coincidence the blue lion even chose you. I guess even ancient space lions can make mistakes.”

Lance wants to disagree, but this is himself and he can’t really, because all of that are things he’s thought about before.

“I know that you’ve thought about this before,” the Other says triumphantly. “All of them have a thing, haven’t they? Shiro is the… what did you call it? Awesome leader. His thing is keeping the team together, having a plan B for when plan A fails and a plan C just in case; always calm and never losing his composure. Pidge is smart. Intelligent. She’s a magician when it comes to tech and she’s a stealth expert, too. Hunk is big, and strong, and he can fix about anything, and he’s an amazing cook to boot. He’s a leg Voltron can stand on, unlike you. And Keith. You can play “rivals” all you want, but you’re not even close to his league. You should just accept that he’s all you’ve ever wanted to be and will never accomplish; at the end of the day you’re a cargo pilot and he’s a real one and that will never change.”

Lance swallows. “I’ll never…”

The Other’s smile is cold and cruel. “Yes. You’ll never be special. You’ll never be worthy. You’ll never be like them. The sooner you accept that the better.”

He’ll never be like them. Lance swallows again; closes his eyes, takes a deep breath as if he was aiming at a target, about to shoot.

“Yes. Yes.” There’s malicious glee in the Other’s voice. “Just give up. Accept it. Cry, if you want to; I know you do that at night anyway.”

But when Lance opens his eyes he’s smiling, and for the first time the Other looks unsure.

“You’re right,” the blue paladin says. “I’m not like them. I’ll never be like them. I’m not Shiro, or Pidge, or Hunk or Keith. We don’t need a second one of either of them, because they’re already there and they’re all awesome. But I’m me,” A grin. “And we all know there’s only one Lance McClain. And even though I don’t know what my thing is yet, apart from the sharpshooter-thing, doesn’t mean I don’t have one. And that Blue chose me? That was no coincidence. You say you are me, why can’t you feel her then? Because I do, and I’ve never even felt so much as a hint of remorse or regret from her. So… Whatever you are, go back to where you’ve come from, because you’re not me for sure.”

That seems to have done the trick. The other Lance that wasn’t Lance dissolves into thin air together with the mist, everything fades into black and the real -the one and only- Lance opens his eyes back on the training deck.

“Dude,” Hunk says. “I didn’t know you thought like that… You know we don’t think that, right? You’re a part of the team like anybody else…”

Pidge nods. “Yeah… I’m kinda sorry for a few of the things I said now…”

Lance clears his throat. “Thanks, guys… New rule, though. We’re not talking about this, like, ever again.”

They do take another break, though, and then it’s only Keith and Shiro left.

“Do you wanna go first?” the younger paladin asks. It’s rather a can you go first, though, and Shiro, bless him, understands.

“Sure,” he says and puts on the helmet like the others did before.

He isn’t surprised to find himself back in a cell very similar to the one he was kept in back when he was a captive of the Galra. He takes a closer look in the dim light and finds too familiar markings; this is not just any cell, it’s that one. Of course his armor is gone. Shiro knows with a certainty he can not even explain himself that this is not before Voltron. He has made a wrong call as their leader and has failed them all, all of them captured and their lions in Zarkon’s hands. He doesn’t know where the others have been brought. He’s not even sure about what happened to Allura, Coran and the castle and he hates it, not knowing, not being in control, not able to make sure everyone is safe.

Shiro sits on the floor for an indefinite amount of time before he can hear heavy steps coming closer. These are different from the guards making their rounds about every 30 minutes. Shiro tenses, hoping that they’re not coming for him, but of course he’s not that lucky. He’s blinded when the door opens and for a few seconds he only sees a dark shadow looming over him.

“Up,” the shadow growls and pulls him roughly to his feet. His hands are still free; odd. Usually cuffing him is the first thing they do when they come for him. “We’re going to have a little talk, Champion.” It’s Sendak, he realizes, which explains the carelessness -with or without his hands bound, he could never run from him. Especially not in the state he’s in after the lost battle.

The Galra pulls him along to the -now empty- arena and throws him to the ground, but Shiro manages to catch himself and gets back to his feet. Sendak smiles coldly, his triumph in his eyes and the way he holds himself as he circles Shiro predatorily. He does like his mindgames and Shiro is one of his favorite playthings.

“What a small world we live in,” he says eventually. “We’ve started here, and now we’ve come full circle… We must truly be meant to be here, like this. Me, in control, and you, a slave. All as it should be…” he trails off, pauses for a moment, then asks, “Say, did you really think you had killed me back then, when you ejected me into space?”

Shiro didn’t know, back then. He could never be sure, isn’t sure if that’s what he even wanted and the truth is, he never thought about it that much. It had felt liberating in the moment, and afterwards there was just too much happening at once to think about Sendak anymore. He remains silent and the Galra continues.

“Well, I think we ought to have a little chat anyway. Just to make sure you know your place, since you seem to have forgotten.” The kick to the back of his knees comes sudden. Shiro has been half expecting it sooner or later, but it hits him unprepared anyway. He goes down to his knees, his hands behind his back without a conscious thought in a movement that has become a habit during the time of his captivity.

“So you haven’t forgotten all of it, then.” Sendak sounds pleased. “You haven’t forgotten what you truly are… Once a slave, always a slave. You may have played “paladin” for a little while, but now you’re back where you belong and I’ll have none of it, understood?”

Shiro stays silent still, defiantly. Yet he can not deny that he’s had thoughts along the same lines before, in the privacy of his own mind. About how he’s tainted, not truly free anymore even though he escaped. It’s as Sendak said: Once a slave, always a slave. He is different from the rest of the team in this regard; and how presumptuous is it for someone like him to become the leader of a team that fights for freedom? And it was true in the end, wasn’t it, look at where Shiro’s leadership has gotten them.

“I can see you thinking,” Sendak gleefully comments from somewhere out of Shiro’s sight. “And don’t get me wrong, I so do like to see you suffer, but,” Out of nowhere there’s the Galra’s artificial hand around his throat, sending electroshocks through his entire body; he’d scream, but only can make a strangled, gurgling sound. His nerve endings are on fire and he’s breathing heavily when finally, after what feels like ages but was probably no more than a few seconds, the hand is taken away. “But,” Sendak continues, “I did ask you a question, and you might have forgotten that little detail, but if I ask you a question you answer, slave.”

“Sorry,” Shiro croaks, smirking. “What’s the question again?”

There’s more pain after that. Shiro knows that might very well only be the beginning of a long, long day, but he’s not going to back down, not going to give in. No matter what he thinks of himself.

Before anything more can happen, though, the scene changes. Shiro is alone in the arena, lights blinding him for a short moment. The deafening roar that is a thousand shouts from a thousand people in the audience is a sound he will probably never forget, and he knows what it means. He knows he can not run, either. He didn’t become the Champion, didn’t survive in here, because he ran. He’s survived because he won, and because he entertained. That’s all this is, after all. Entertainment.

He doesn’t like it at all, hates it with a passion, actually, but he doesn’t have a choice. He doesn’t get any more time to think after that, the door on the other side of the arena opening and his opponent coming in. Or rather, opponents. He can’t really see them clearly, just that all four of them are armed, but Shiro is, too. He transforms his arm into a sword and lets his instincts take over, attacking first because that’s the most important rule here. He doesn’t think but reacts, the audience sounding muted. Until, when he sends the smallest one flying, there’s a moment when Shiro blinks and it looks like an image interference on a defective monitor, and he can see and it’s Pidge. The others are there, too, now, and good god he has been fighting his teammates, has probably hurt them, and they all look so desperate, trying to call out to him, to get him to stop and he didn’t even realize.

They can’t just stop fighting now, though, there’s a thousand people, a thousand enemies, watching, a thousand potential threats. But he’s not going to fight them, either. He’s going to get them out of here and if it’s the last thing he does. No matter what he thinks of himself sometimes, he is their leader because they chose him, because Black chose him, and he’s only their leader because they follow. And he’s not going to disappoint them; he needs a plan and fast.

He closes in on Pidge, as if he was pursuing her, and almost flinches at the fear he sees in her eyes, but he keeps calm and winks at her, and she looks like she wants to cry, because she understands. Shiro clashes with all of them after that, whenever they’re close enough to understand each other over the roaring from the ranks of spectators telling them what they’re going to do. Apologizing will have to come later.

He's going to defeat all of them. Not really, but it has to look like it. Then, once it is over, the doors to the arena are going to open; someone will come to escort Shiro back to his cell and take away the losers of the fight and that’s going to be their chance to get out of here. They will not expect the others to get up more or less unaffected and Shiro and the others can use the short moment of their captors’ confusion to escape. Which might not sound like a very good or promising plan, but it’s the best they have, so they go through with it.

It works better than anticipated. In the end Shiro is the last one standing, his breathing heavy but not as heavy as he lets on -the more they underestimate him, the better- and the doors to the arena open. This part is tricky; Shiro has to call the shots because the other’s are playing unconscious and can’t see, so all they can do is wait for his sign. He waits for the right moment, until the guards are close enough and shouts, “NOW!”

He trusts his team to have his back and doesn’t wait for them, running towards the guards and taking the first one down before anybody can react. In the next second Keith is to his right, Lance to his left and Pidge and Hunk follow behind. They take down the few guards that are left and are out of the door before anybody can close it, and the world is a bit of a blur after that.

And then, just like that, he’s back on the training deck, looking into the surprised faces of his comrades.

“That was… intense. And scary. Definitely scary,” Hunk says after a moment.

“I didn’t understand half of it,” Lance confesses.

“I think there was a lot more to it than what we actually saw.” Pidge.

Keith just exchanges a look with Shiro and the older paladin thinks he might understand; at least more than the others.

During their last break, after about ten minutes, Keith slinks away to look for his pack. Luckily for him they’re all in their room; (something Keith has started calling their Den because, let’s be honest, they’re a pack, and they’ve got a nest. So.) Ulaz looks up when Keith comes in.

“You are distressed,” he remarks and comes over to nuzzle him.

“Yeah,” Keith replies, “well, I saw some distressing things today.” He tells them about the simulation, not the details about the other’s visions but what it’s about, so they have a gist. By the end of it the others have sat down in the nest with him and Antok looks like he’d rather pull Keith into his lap right away.

“So now you’ve come to us…” Thace starts.

“To ask if you’d, maybe, come along for my turn? Or one of you…?” Keith finishes his sentence. He doesn’t know how to ask for their company any better, but he knows them, and they’ll get it. He looks at Antok. “Remember that dream I told you about? That might come up, too…”

Antok hums. “I see… Of course I’ll come along, youngling.” He nuzzles Keith and gets a purr in return.

“We all will,” Kolivan adds, and nobody even wants to object.

So it is with all of his pack that Keith turns up back at the training deck when it’s his turn to face his demons. Nobody here objects, either; they accept his choice of wanting to include not only his team, his friends, but also his pack. Keith sits down with crossed legs like the others did before and puts on the helmet without another word.

He’s back in his shack; alone, of course. It’s small, but empty and now that he knows what home feels like, it’s cold, too. He used to like it out here, back when he didn’t have people who cared about him and whom he cared about in return. Nothing happens, it’s just him and the silence, laying over everything like a thick blanket, so Keith sits down on the couch that’s his bed at the same time and waits for something to happen. He feels a sting at the thought that this might be the life he’s going to go back to after they defeat Zarkon. He doesn’t want to go back to this. Truth is, he doesn’t even miss earth that much, simply because there’s nothing apart from this dingy shack waiting for him.

He shakes his head to banish those unwanted thoughts, sighing and looking over to the window when he sees the face. It’s just eyes and a top of unruly, dark hair, a kid, and the eyes widen a little and the face disappears, the kid ducking, probably. Something about that kid is very, very familiar to him. He goes outside -it’s even hotter here than in the shack- and around the shack, where the kid is still sitting beneath his window. And it’s not just any kid; it’s him. He can’t be older than eleven, he thinks. Little Keith pales, and Older Keith can see the purple mark on his jaw clearly, now, and the split lip that’s bled on his shirt a little.

“Keith?” he asks, and the kid tenses but looks up defiantly.

“What?” And then, after a short pause, narrowing his eyes, “Are you… me?”

Keith nods, as surreal as this is. “Yeah,” he replies. “I guess I am.”

“Weird…”

Keith sighs a little. “Hey, if you’re here, wanna come inside? I’ll give you some ice for that bruise.”

Little Keith crosses his arms. “Why?”

“Because… I’m you, so I’m actually treating my own injury.”

“If you’re me, tell me something a stranger couldn’t know,” little Keith demands.

A hum. “How old are you right now?”

“Ten…”

Keith nods, grim. “Then you got that bruise from Ma and Pa. Is this from the time they punished you because the lady of the Child Services heard the weird noises you make sometimes?”

Little Keith pales and swallows. “You know about…”

“Yes,” Keith nods again. “I do. I’ve been there. Good enough to trust me?”

“I don’t trust anybody,” little Keith huffs. “I’m not stupid.” He pauses, biting his lip. “But… You’re really gonna help me?” He sounds desperate for anybody to help, and Keith knows he is, from his own experience. He leads the way inside and tells little Keith to sit on the couch-slash-bed while he goes over to the small kitchenette and opens the fridge, getting out an ice pack and wrapping it up in a dish towel before handing it to little him, who snatches it from his hand and retreats to the far end of the couch. He sits down with him, minding his distance because he knows just how jumpy he used to be around people back when he was ten, especially when he was ten.

Little Keith looks around with big eyes, gaze straying back to the older version of himself every now and then to make sure he stays where he is. “Do you really live here?” he asks after a while, and Keith nods.

“Yeah,” he replies and little Keith makes a quiet sound Keith now recognizes as a Galra one, but for once he doesn’t seem to notice he made it (Keith remembers being very aware of them, but he guesses meeting the older you is a good enough excuse to forget for a little while).

“That’s so cool,” little him says. “Do you live here all alone? I wish I could live like that already…”

Keith doesn’t, at least not anymore. He wishes his pack was here, or his friends, or, preferably, both, even though he isn’t sure they’d all fit into his shack. But little him doesn’t know any of that yet; little him only knows being moved from one family to the other and the abuse from Ma and Pa, so he lets it go for now.

“Do you have other injuries?” he asks instead; knowing that, yes, little him does, but leaving him the choice of telling him. Ten year old him is wary, and he needs to tread carefully. Little Keith looks at him, narrows his eyes a little, thinks, and eventually nods.

“Pa used the belt this time so my back is a mess. And they kicked me; I think one of my ribs might be cracked,” he mutters.

Keith remembers that, and nods. He stands and gets some bandages, his first aid kit and another towel that he wets in the sink. He sits down on the couch and motions for little Keith to come a little closer. “Let me take a look,” he says.

Little him looks wary, but complies after a moment, wincing a little when he moves. The first thing Keith does is dabbing at little Keith’s lip with the towel, cleaning away the blood. Once he’s done with that and little him has relaxed at least some, he helps him get his shirt off and takes a look at his back. It’s black and blue, not a single patch of unmarred skin left, and he bites back the worried whine and starts gently applying some arnica cream instead. He just wishes someone had done that for him back when it really happened, but nobody cared at the time. Done with that, he feels for his ribs, the sharp intake of breath telling him that at least one has to be broken. Not that he didn’t know that already. Hurt like a bitch back when he was ten. He expertly wraps the bandages around little Keith’s torso, tight enough to make breathing easier and help the broken bone heal, and helps him back into his shirt.

“Thanks…” little him mutters, looking away.

“You’re welcome.” He pauses. “You know, you won’t have to stay with them much longer. And you’re going to find people who care.”

Little Keith huffs. “Yeah, sure.” There’s a moment of silence, then he adds, “Wait, don’t tell me you got attached. That’s bad. People suck, they’re just gonna leave you and then it’ll hurt, did you forget that?”

Keith sighs. “It’s complicated,” he says.

“No it’s not! It’s easy! Don’t get attached, then it won’t hurt when they see how weird you are and they decide they don’t want you anymore!” A little sound escapes him, a Galra whine that actually tugs at Keith’s heartstrings. Little him clasps both hands over his mouth, his cheeks pink, and ducks his head, but before he can say anything Keith himself has returned a low, reassuring rumble that makes little Keith’s eyes widen.

“You’re still making the weird sounds,” he whispers.

“It’s not weird,” Keith explains. In this moment he understands why Thace so often ruffles his hair; he’d really like to do that right now. Or pull him into his lap like Antok does. But he doesn’t, because little him, just like big him, would probably flip his shit. “It’s because you -we- are half Galra.” He tells him about Voltron, about his team, about Galra and Alteans and about the good Galra, about his pack and how he’s a part of Voltron now, too, and strangely enough little him doesn’t doubt his story for a second. But he doubts something else.

“They’re still gonna abandon you,” he says. “Once you’ve defeated that Zarkon guy the others will go back to their families and you’ll have to come back here, and you’ll be alone again, and it’ll hurt because you’ve become attached to all of them.”

Which is something Keith has been thinking about a lot lately, has been fearing, but he still shakes his head, stubborn. “They won’t,” he says.

“Yes they will. Even if they don’t want to, they can’t come to earth with you, can they? You’re going to be on your own again, because nobody really wants you.”

And that, right there, is Keith’s biggest fear. It’s a feeling he can’t fully shake off, not after being abandoned so often, and he understands little him, he really does.

“If they won’t abandon you, then where are they? I don’t see any of them. I bet they left you behind already. You should get over it, you’re meant to be alone. That’s just how it is,” little Keith continues, and ouch. “You’re stupid for letting people close,” he adds.

But Keith has something little Keith doesn’t, knows something more. Remembers strong arms pulling him close that night, a low growl next to his ear, “Never.” and he believes Antok with a certainty that surprises even himself.

“No, I’m not,” he replies, even though a shred of doubt remains. “I know that you don’t know yet, but you will sometime. Believe me.”

“You’re really stupid,” little Keith frowns. “I don’t want to grow up to be like you!” He stands and runs from the house, and the moment he’s out of the door everything blurs and Keith is back on the training deck. He frowns.

“Does that… mean I passed?” he asks, confused, because he isn’t really sure this counts but he’s tired anyway.

Coran twists his beard and hums, undeterred. “You all passed,” he says, cheerfully as always. If you didn’t it wouldn’t have ended as smoothly as this. So whatever you did, congratulations, paladins, you all did exceptionally this first time!”

“Wait, first time?” Hunk pales. “No way I’m going through that again!”

There’s a bit of an argument about how they’ll have to do it again, but Keith doesn’t really listen. He catches a look from Kolivan and knows he’s in for a Talk now. He murmurs a goodnight to the rest of the team and makes his way back to the Den with his pack; he can’t complain now, he did ask them to come along. Truth is, he needed to tell them and didn’t know how else to do it.

As soon as the door closes behind them, Keith is pulled into the nest, surrounded by warmth, quiet huffs and grumbles the only sounds in the room for a while.

“We��re not going to just leave you behind once Zarkon is defeated, youngling,” Kolivan finally says and Keith makes a quiet whine, because he wants to believe that, and he does, on some level, but -well, there’s still but.

“Never,” Antok repeats what he said that night, nuzzling him when he whines, and Thace chimes in,

“How could we? You’re a part of the pack. You belong with us.”

“But- You can’t come to earth with me, and I can’t stay here… can I?” Keith finally voices what’s been bothering him and Antok growls but it’s Ulaz who speaks.

“We’ll work something out, youngling. We’re not going to abandon you no. Matter. What.”

And somehow that last shred of doubt flickers and disappears, and Keith didn’t know he was tense but he realizes he was when he relaxes now. He makes a relieved, little sound that’s met by reassuring growls and rumbles, and after that there’s no more talking but a lot of cuddling and nuzzling.

He’s dozing lightly, not really sleeping, when Antok speaks up. “Keith?” he asks. He only gets a sleepy hum in response but Keith is listening. “We still need to talk about that other thing…”

Keith wakes a little more and opens one eye, glancing up at him. “What’s that?”

Antok’s voice is strained, as if he was biting back a growl -one of those that are angry and protective at the same time. “Those people,” he says. “Ma and Pa?” Keith tenses at their names and there’s a series of quiet rumbles until he settles again.

“The injuries,” Ulaz adds, and Keith sighs.

“That was long ago,” he says.

“Tell us anyway?” Thace prods.

There’s a moment of silence while Keith thinks about where to start. “You guys know that I was with a lot foster families… And most of them were nice people, even though they just couldn’t handle me. So… I really was with a lot of foster families, and even more often I was sent back into the system. Ma and Pa… that was one of the last places I lived before I got into the Garrison. They’d taken in a lot of kids of all ages because on earth you get money if you take in foster kids so you can buy them food and clothes, such things. Just that they didn’t, they took most of the money for themselves, ignored us most of the time and hit us when we got in the way.”

There’s a strangled sound from Thace and a low growl from Antok; Keith nuzzles Thace and purrs reassuringly at Antok before he continues. “It was okay, most of the time, if you managed to lay low. But… well, by the time I got to them I was ten, I’d been in the system for years, for as long as I could remember, and I had that, ah, rebellious streak, because I didn’t really want to stay with people anymore, not if they’d get rid of me after a few weeks or months anyway. I was kind of a trouble maker, and I was making those weird noises sometimes, so I got it more often than the others.”

He pauses, organizing his thoughts. “Sometimes there were check-ups, from the people who ran the system, to make sure the children were alright. Ma and Pa were really good at putting on a show those days; so nobody suspected anything. And all the children played along because they were scared. Anyway, because I was a trouble maker they didn’t trust me to keep my mouth shut, so they locked me up in the broom cupboard -that’s a really small room or a big cupboard or whatever, where they kept the cleaning supplies. But I made one of those weird sounds, a Galra one but I didn’t know back then and I couldn’t really control it.” Which, he knows now, basically means that he was so starved of touch and affection that he instinctively tried to call out to his parents; that’s something really bad for Galra, and he needs to take a moment of purring, nuzzling and rumbling until the others have calmed down enough that he can continue.

“The lady who did the check-up noticed, and she got them to open the cupboard. Ma and Pa tried to play it down and managed to convince her that it was just an accident, but once she was gone they were really mad. Those injuries,” He clears his throat. “That happened afterwards. They hit me, split my lip, then kicked me and cracked my rib in the process before Pa got out his belt and beat me black and blue. That’s it, mostly.”

“Was there at least someone to treat your injuries?” Ulaz asks, and Keith snorts.

“Who would have cared?” he retorts. “I was on my own at that place, and the other kids didn’t want anything to do with me because I was weird and so they could stay in Ma and Pa’s good books.”

There’s a second of complete silence, then two, three, before Antok growls. Keith has never heard him make such a sound before; it sounds terrifying even though he knows it’s not directed at him, and he whines quietly before he even realizes he did. Antok takes a deep breath and pulls Keith into his lap, fingers automatically starting to card through his hair in a soothing motion, but it’s Kolivan who speaks.

“Once this is all over,” he says, with just as much repressed anger in his voice as Antok, “we are going to find a place to live. That shack is definitely not sufficient. And we are going to visit those people and have a Talk.” Every one of them can hear the finality and the capital T in that. This “talk” is going to involve a lot more than just plain talking. If Keith wasn’t so damn tired, and so sleepy with Antok petting his hair like that, he might look forward to that Talk. But as it is the others’ voices become a steady background noise as they keep making plans for that special day which, together with Antok’s hand in his hair, lulls him to sleep -this time for good.

#my writing #voltron #mother hens of marmora 'verse #angst #fluff #outside POVs #MoM fic

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