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autisticlancemcclain · 2 years ago

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“That was bad,” Lance murmurs.

The last team member has just left the room, footsteps slowly fading down the hallway. Left is only the red and black paladins, sat at the head of the table, one with his elbows resting on the table, head in his hands, and the other tipped back in the chair, looking blankly up at the ceiling.

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, eyes crossed and unfocused. He sighs, tipping forward and straightening his neck. “It was.”

It’s not unusual for Voltron to fail. They’re fighting a force so huge and ancient and convoluted that they can’t possibly be truly, entirely victorious; the lions are powerful, and Voltron moreso, but they can only be in so many places at once. There is only so much information they can have. And they are all so young, besides, inexperienced and fumbling in their own confusion.

The fail frequently.

But rarely so ardently, and so congruently.

“I didn’t get all the details,” Lance says softly. He picks his head up; brown eyes still tired and downcast but pen prepped for notes. “The rest of them…this briefing didn’t get anywhere. I need the story from you.”

It’s true. The last half hour was almost completely silent. No one had looked up from their laps, faces streaked with tears or carefully neutral, defeat lining postures and pulling down frowns. Any questions Keith or Lance had asked to try and spark discussion, get notes for later improvements, went nowhere. No one could summon their voices to speak, to vocalize their disappointment and pain.

“Let’s not,” Keith begs. At Lance’s hesitant face, he bulldozes forward, pleading hand on Lance’s arm. “I can’t now, Lance. I honestly don’t think I could make myself go through it, not yet. I just want to — ignore it. Just for tonight.”

Lance scrutinizes him carefully, holding his gaze, trying to read right through him. It’s not like Keith to beg for a break, to insist on taking a breather. He’s usually the one to convince them to get up again and keep going.

But they’ve all been going for so long. They’re tired. The team’s tired. Keith’s tired. Lance is tired.

They can’t keep running on empty.

“Alright,” Lance whispers. He slides his arm back a tad, flipping his hand to grab Keith’s and squeeze. “Let’s take a breather.”

He pushes his chair back and stands, pulling Keith up with him. Keith doesn’t fight it, simply follows behind him. Lance leads him out of the briefing room and down the hall, ducking into the kitchen and flipping on the lights.

“Hang on,” he says. He squeezes Keith’s hand once, shooting him a small grin, and then makes his way to a largely unused set of shelves and cabinets on the back. He climbs up onto the counter, then opens the cabinets by his feet, using the doors as footholds.

Keith snorts to himself. Spider boy.

He finally manages to find what he’s looking for and scrambles back down to the floor, holding out a bottle of something.

“Shiro’s stash?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Coran’s,” Lance says with a grin. “The nastiest nunvil in the galaxy.”

Keith makes to grab a couple glasses, but then stills, getting an idea.

“Keith?”

“Come with me.”

Keith dashes out the hallway, not waiting for Lance — he’s got long legs, he’ll follow.

He speeds past their rooms, past the royal wing where Allura sleeps, past the rest of the paladin rooms. He slides his boots past the training room, Lance’s whooping laughter behind him. He dashes all the way to the very edge of the castle, the forgotten corner, with the giant windows showcasing beautiful and dark empty space — and the pool.

Lance grins at him. Some of the tiredness faces from his dark eyes, replaced with something alive, excited. “You know, sometimes your brain actually pumps out a decent thought or two, Kogane.”

“Oh, piss off.”

They duck into the room, walking up the side walls like Coran showed them all those years ago, feeling the swoop in their bellies as the gravity changes. Keith barely even pauses to strip down to his boxers before diving into the pool. The cool water is like a balm to his heated, sweaty skin and tired brain. He inhales deeply when he finally comes up for air, and the relief settles like heavy snow in his bones.

“God, that feels good.”

He keeps his eyes closed for a moment, waiting for the telltale signs of Lance cannonballing in, but all he hears is the sound of rustling fabric, then a soft grunt and gentle waves. He turns around to see Lance, down to his boxers like Keith, but sat in the edge of the pool, legs swishing in the water. He still holds the bottle of nunvil in one well-manicured hand.

“You’re not coming in?” Keith questions, swimming over to the side of the pool and hooking his arms over the ledge. Lance scoots back slightly, lifting one leg out from the pool and tucking it under the other so he can face Keith better. He pops the cork — narrowly missing Keith’s eye, which makes him laugh and Keith curse at him — and takes a deep swig, hacking up a lung when he comes up for air. He passes the bottle off the Keith as he wipes his mouth.

“God, that shit is disgusting.”

Keith coughs as the bitter taste coats his mouth. “Yep.”

He hands the bottle back to Lance, who takes only a sip before setting it resolutely down behind him. “Nasty.”

Keith hums. He pushes back slightly from the ledge, tipping his head back as he treads water. He says nothing for a while, sensing that Lance is sitting on something, turning it over in his mind.

“Was it really a total ambush?” Lance asks eventually. His voice is quiet; small almost.

Keith sighs, heavy and pained. “Yeah. Just —” he sighs again, tilting his head back in the water until it covers his ears and mutes all the ambient sound, softens the sound of Lance’s feet kicking slowly through the water. “Just a total ambush. No chance of our victory. Me and Hunk and Pidge, watching everything go to shit.”

He imagines he can hear Lance’s heartbeat, his even breaths. He matches them to the swish of the water, to his own steady heart pounding.

“I’m sorry,” Lance offers. Keith lifts his head so his voice doesn’t sound so far away, meets his soft brown eyes head-on.

“It happens,” Keith dismisses. They’ll have to talk about it later, the entire team, but the slight buzz of the nunvil makes everything soft and fuzzy and easier to handle, so for now he doesn’t worry about it. “How’d it fail with the diplomatic mission, though? You and Allura are usually do good at those.”

To his surprise, a light flush dusts Lance’s cheeks. Keith places his feet in the floor, leaning forward in intrigue.

“No particular reason,” Lance says, obviously lying. “Just a rough one. Happens.”

“Try again,” Keith says, smiling teasingly. “I know that look. Something embarrassing happened to you.”

Keith isn’t honestly expecting him to fess up. Keith probably wouldn’t, in his shoes. But for whatever reason, despite his obvious embarrassment, Lance averts his eyes slightly and mutters something.

“Huh?”

“She wanted to kiss me,” he repeats, way too loud. He clears his throat, flush deepening on his cheekbones. “The, uh, the president’s daughter? Said it was some sort of custom, and that I needed to kiss her to seal the contract. I wouldn’t do it and Allura wouldn’t let them force me, so they walked away.”

Keith frowns slightly at the tinge of self-doubt clouding the Cuban’s voice.

“Good for Allura,” he says emphatically. He holds Lance’s gaze until he’s sure his right hand understands, until he knows that he knows that they made the right choice, even if it was a hard one. “I’m a little surprised, though, Loverboy. Gone are the days where you would have jumped for a chance of that, huh?”

He’s only joking, playing at the way Lance used to brag about all the princes and princesses he’d score with his paladin status, but to his surprise Lance looks slightly uncomfortable, like he’s caught in a lie. Keith narrows his eyes.

“I’ve never actually kissed anyone,” Lance admits, so quietly Keith has to strain to hear, and it takes him a second to process. His eyes widen comically when he does, jaw dropping in shock. “No way. You? Loverboy Lance? You’ve never been kissed.”

Face flaming, Lance ignores him, reaching back for the bottle of nunvil and chugging until he literally can’t stand the taste anymore and gags.

“Hey, hey, slow down! Pass that over.”

Dutifully Lance does, still averting his gaze. Keith takes a quick swig — blegh — before swimming over to place the bottle on the other end of the pool, out of Lance’s reach.

“Cant believe you’ve never been kissed,” Keith mutters, half to himself. It really is a shock. He’s always known that Lance plays up his playboy status, that he plays a bit of a part, but he’s assumed that Lance had no shortage of suitors to sort through. There’s no way a boy walks around with legs that long and a face that pretty and isn’t at least a little aware that he’s gorgeous.

Lance shrugs slightly, eyes trained on a very specific area of the pool, pointedly away from Keith. “Just want it to be special, is all.”

For the briefest, barest second, Lance glances at Keith, before hastily looking back away. His fingers start tapping rapidly on his knee.

Something clicks in Keith’s head.

Oh.

He smirks, widely, tilting his head back and looking at his right hand with cocky, half-lidded eyes.

“Aw, you’ve never been kissed,” he teases, voice a touch condescending, making it clear that Keith had definitely been kissed, and it’s cute that Lance hasn’t.

Lance scowls, refusing to rise to the bait. Keith smiles wider, letting some of his blatant fondness bleed through the playfully. He lifts his arm from the water, splashing getting Lance attention, and crooks his finger, beckoning. His heart pounds, but he refuses to bow to any nerves.

“C’mere.”

His voice is so quiet that he’s almost convinced that Lance can’t hear him, but slowly he pushes off the ledge, sliding into the water and making his way to where Keith stands, water up to his chest. He comes all the way close, stopping only inches away. Keith reaches over, water dripping rapidly from his arm, and cups his hand around Lance’s cheek. It burns, but Lance doesn’t move, rigid in Keith’s hold, breaths stuttered and short.

Slowly, giving Lance time to move if he likes, he leans in. He keeps his eyes open as long as he can, so he can watch Lance’s flutter closed, watch him sigh, watch him lean close, watch his fingers curl around Keith’s arm, watch the freckles over his nose and the water droplets of the pool dotting his brown skin. He keeps his eyes open until his lips finally touch Lance’s, gently, softly, reverently.

This kiss is not long. Barely lasts two seconds. But Keith’s belly is flip flopping, and his heart is pounding, and when he pulls away he stays, for a moment, an inch from Lance’s face, just to watch his eyes flutter back open, hazy, dark.

“Hope that was special enough,” he murmurs, trailing his hand down Lance’s bare ribs, down his waist, resting on his hip for just a moment. Lance shudders.

“Yeah,” he whispers, glancing at Keith’s lips like he’s longing to press them to his again. “Yeah, it was.”

———

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