#seriously breaking the pattern in an argument is the fucking best i want everyone to learn it

[britcision]

Hey by the way I just wanna throw this out there because I’ve been thinking about it

Just… some analysis but also commentary on said feeling about people telling you you’ve always annoyed them below the cut

Shuro’s in one hell of an overwrought mental state right now. The woman he loves has not only died, he arrived too late to revive her and learns that the people who did revive her MAJORLY fucked up

They’re probably going to have to mercy kill her, and he doesn’t know if she can ever be revived, because Laios beat him down here

(Don’t worry about how anything might actually have gone if Shuro got there first it’s irrelevant, the point is he’s overstimulated and in a shitty place)

Why is this relevant?

Because he probably doesn’t actually mean what he’s saying

He’s lashing out at the first and closest target, and trying to make all of his problems Laios’ fault in case that makes them go away, and frankly probably didn’t actually expect Laios to pay attention to the “we were never friends” when he is explicitly saying “I’m going to kill you and bring Marcille to justice”

When neurotypicals say things like “I never actually liked you you’ve always annoyed me”, it is very rarely The Secret Truth And Everything Else Was Fake

It’s an exaggeration, and yeah, it is meant to be hurtful, but if it’s said in a heated moment like this? It’s probably not worth going back and trying to evaluate every interaction you ever had, looking for clues

Because it’s probably not true. Your friends that you spend a lot of time with probably have a choice in spending that time with you specifically, or someone else (or alone)

If they keep choosing to spend time with you, there’s something about you that’s worth it, even if you have some annoying qualities

And yeah, we can all be annoying - including your neurotypical friends

Those right there are the hurty panels, because it’s a pretty big trigger for a lot of people; that your friends never really liked you

But the important panels come later on

There’s the actual frustration underneath (and listen I don’t actually think Shuro’s neurotypical I think he’s been forcibly taught heavy masking by his dad)

“You’re the only one who gets to act totally sincere all the time, and everyone else has to take on the burden of dealing with you.”

High masking friend to low masking friend behaviour. And again, once the fight is over and they’ve calmed down, Shuro can name what he’s actually feeling.

It’s not that Laios has always only annoyed him and he faked the whole friendship. It’s that he’s frustrated, spiralling, and jealous of how uncomplicated Laios makes all these complex issues seem by being blunt

Because for Laios (for a lot of us), it is simple. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Why wouldn’t you just tell someone if you were annoyed by them?

Well, if you’re used to having the burden of managing other peoples’ feelings for them, for one. What if your friend gets angry when you try and tell them they’ve annoyed you? What if they blow it into a bigger fight?

And the really important part of all of this, and I swear it’s part of why we got this whole fight and heart punch in the first place:

Shuro 1000% guaranteed does not hate Laios for always being annoying. He’s still in a pretty shitty place, but he’s had his meltdown, blown off some steam, and when it comes to the actual truth?

They’re still ride or die

If Laios survives the dungeon, with or without Falin, Shuro will ride to the rescue and do what he can to keep them safe

(And possibly still narc on Marcille’s ass, he made no promises there)

If someone you love and trust says they’ve always hated you in a heated fight, or that you’ve always been annoying, you don’t have to believe them

Because once everyone has calmed down, if you can ask again “hey, did you really mean that? I’d like to not annoy you, can we fix it?”

Yeah, they’re probably not going to have the massive list of all your personal failings that the trigger puts in your head (if they do, well, you’re probably better not being friends because that is petty bitch behaviour that we do not stan)

They might have a couple things they don’t like

You might have a couple things they do too

Then you can decide together if you wanna keep hanging out anyway and try and do better

Deadass though, having a completely frank discussion, when neither of you are upset, will get you much closer to the truth than a screaming fight

Anger is a liar and will push you to say whatever you think will hurt the worst, no matter how you really feel

The truth is never that black and white, or that easy

Tl;dr: never trust what someone says when you’re fighting more than what they say when you’re calm

You’re not going to get a real answer until the adrenaline fades, and a very honest “I still like you and would like to be friends” is a pretty solid first step once you’ve both calmed down

Do not let the squirrel brain hold onto and covet words spoken in anger to hurt you. Kick that spiral in the ass and hey, if you talk about it calmly later and it turns out it was true? At least you know now and won’t waste more time on it

But that’s gotta be better than just taking it as read, holding onto it, resenting the person, and losing them as a friend anyway

Oh god, this chapter is hurting me.... the adhd/autism feeling of not realizing that you're upsetting and annoying the people around you until they treat you like you're a bad guy for doing it.... aaaaaaa

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 297: We’re Bustin’ Outta This Joint

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi did his best to undo all of the good vibes from the Girl Power arc by killing off Midnight. It sucks and I still don’t like it, but it is what it is. Unfortunately, Not Killing Off Your One Female Teacher Character With Any Character Development was worth 30% of his grade for the semester, so it brought his average down all the way to a C-, and so he and his report card will just have to live with that. Meanwhile Ochako did some rescuing, and the other U.A. kids lay around unconscious and/or traumatized. The chapter ended with an abrupt cut to Tartarus, where AFO is apparently just chilling and waiting for the Nearly High Ends to come bust him free. What kind of a cliffhanger is that to leave your fans hanging on for three whole weeks. Who’s suffering more here, the characters or the readers.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “okay I know you all want to know what happens to Deku and Shouto and the rest, but have you considered finding out what happens to Overhaul and Muscular and Moonfish and New Girl Character instead?” Fandom is all, “you had us at New Girl Character.” Seiji’s dad is all, “I’m just going to say a bunch of stuff to help make sure none of the readers feel conflicted about cheering on a bunch of mass murderers escaping from prison.” Tomura is all, “dammit AFO why are you still here.” AFO is all, “shhh, Tomura, go back to sleep.” Tomura is all, “wtf but you’re literally hijacking my body and continuing to shred it to bits while we break into BnHA Alcatraz to recruit your own personal Suicide Squad.” AFO is all, “:).” Real!AFO is all, “HERE I AM, EVERYONE, SORRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING.” And then the chapter ends. Geez.

oh shit lol it’s a whole big fucking page all about Tartarus

my very first thought was “that’s a long-ass fucking bridge”, and then I went to go google “longest bridges”, and Wikipedia was all “son there are literally a hundred and fifty bridges in the real world longer than 5km, and the longest one is actually 165km”, and I was all “oh shit I really don’t know jack shit about bridges.” then I looked at the list for a few more minutes and realized that the super-long bridges were all built over land, and that the longest bridge over water is only 38km. which is way more reasonable, but also still really fucking long though?? ngl I would freak the fuck out on that bridge. what does any of this have to do with Tartarus you ask?? absolutely nothing, I literally forgot I was reading a chapter for a sec lol uh

anyway, my parting thought on the bridge is that it kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a giant island fortress prison, but whatever. moving on

and the six levels thing is straight out of One Piece lol. something tells me BnHA’s prison break arc isn’t going to be quite as fun. hmm

so now we’re cutting to “the Bronze Gate”, which is the main entrance off of the bridge, and some goat-looking motherfucker is out here trying to become my new favorite character. bro

SON OF A BITCH WHAT’S WITH THE BULLETS FLYING IN THE BACKGROUND. DON’T TELL ME THEY’RE SHOOTING AT GYGES. THEY CAN’T KILL OFF MY FRESHEST HOMIE GYGES. SURELY THEY WOULDN’T

ooh and now, giant robots!

giant robots with machine guns. “I’m very sorry I killed off Midnight, makeste” you know what, fuck you Horikoshi. thinking you can buy my affections back so easily

does Gyges have six arms??? look how fucking calm he is announcing the code red security lockdown, holy shit. GYGES

NOOOO

NO NOT BRIAREUS. THIS DAY EXACTS A HEAVY TOLL

YO, WHAT

he came there himself?? so much for making the Noumus do his dirty work. and based on the speech bubble shape and font, this is still AFO talking

uh oh what’s happening

is he using Decay or is his arm just sort of crumbling to pieces because he hasn’t had time to heal up yet? if it’s the former this prison break is going to set a record for shortest arc yet isn’t it

now we’re cutting to B10 which is apparently the lowest level. but do they mean lowest as in the least security, or lowest as in the deepest underground, a.k.a. the most security? idk it’s confusing and I think they should be more specific. is it B like in basement?? are there six levels or ten?? stupid Tartarus

anyway so the guards are talking about how Gigantomachia is scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning. heh. will there even be a Tartarus tomorrow morning

(ETA: WELL, UH.)

wow they’re talking about just killing him outright. damn

I kinda feel like “prison guard” is one of those jobs that just sort of naturally attracts shitty people. anyways yeah, Seiji your dad is a real piece of work

and he’s even doubling down on it after the other guy repeatedly keeps trying to hush him up. dude we get it, you’re an asshole

ooh and now we’re getting an interesting look at the various prisoners, some of whom look suspiciously familiar!

for starters, that’s definitely Moonfish in the upper left corner, I’m like 99% sure. not quite clear who that is across from him in the upper right, but it’s been a hot minute since we saw Muscular, so maybe?

and could that be Overhaul in the panel beneath him?? they’re not showing his face so I assume it’s someone we’d recognize, and he’s the only currently-incarcerated villain with that haircut as far as I can recall. though it seems weird that he’s not restrained more given his quirk. I thought Horikoshi mentioned in Ultra Analysis that he’d gotten it back somehow. eh well we will wait for answers

I don’t recognize the person to his left either (though she has an oddly familiar look to her?). but the person on the bottom right, next to Kurogiri... is it Stain?? the hair and body language are sure giving off Stain vibes. if someone had told the me from two years ago that I’d actually be excited to see Stain again I would have said you were full of shit. and yet here we are. these sure are interesting times

anyway so now the Code Red intruder alarm is blaring. and I gotta say, that one scene sure was effective at killing any sympathy I might have been inclined to feel for these guards lol. bring on the imminent massacre

“what horrible timing” lol yes. it’s almost as if they planned it that way

uh oh

is he omae wa shindeiruing. watch your six, Mr. Prison Guard

oh shit

WHAT DID I SAY. WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY. but nooo, you all were all, “but a bridge is more convenient!” VERY WELL THEN, LIE IN THE BED THAT YOU HAVE MADE

anyway so it’s the High Ends lol. I mean we already knew it was them. let’s just get on with it

omfg Tomura ARE YOU RIDING ONE

WHAT ARE YOU, A NAZGUL. WHY IS THIS MY FAVORITE THING

and it looks like it actually is Tomura again, too (as opposed to AFOmura)

-- is he using Decay on himself?? is that what it is?? or no wait, is this just more of the weird side effect shit that’s been happening since he Awakened. actually yeah never mind that’s clearly what it is

y’all this man is out here having a full blown argument with himself

so this is equal parts compelling and hilarious to me right now lol. like I feel so bad for Tomura, but I also lowkey want to see how far this escalates. like do you think he’d go as far as to punch himself in the face. where will this journey lead us

fucking look at this shit

other people have already mentioned this, but with this scene especially it makes me really curious how they’re going to show this in the anime. will it be AFO’s voice coming out of Tomura’s mouth? or Tomura’s voice using AFO’s speech patterns? more importantly, will it be cool and dramatic, or will it actually wind up being hilarious? or both?? never count out both

also he’s looking pretty good there in that bottom panel with his one eye just barely visible. that doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but here I am, pointing it out

also also, lol at Tomura being all, “the fuck do you mean, ‘rest’, you’re the one that dragged my body out here to raid a fucking prison,” and AFO being all, “oh yeah, lol, true true, but I meant rest after that.” yes, this man clearly has nothing but the purest intentions, Tomura. trustworthy af

this fucking guy. Tomura is your bullshit radar finally operational yet?? can you see yet that it was always his intention to use you right from the very start?? oh man I am starting to get fidgety now listening to this

so Tomura’s saying he doesn’t just want to be used as a chess piece. and AFO is all, “well okay but what if it’s a VERY NICE AND IMPORTANT chess piece.” bro DID HE STUTTER

-- AHH BUT NEVER MIND THAT, HERE IT IS, THIS IS WHERE THE FUN STARTS OMG

GO ON AND ACQUIRE THEM THEN! omg. why am I so fucking excited. it seriously makes no sense. like seriously, ‘hooray, our old buddies, Overhaul and Stain!!’ -- come again now?? who is this person that I have become

meanwhile AFO is making all this fuss and I really don’t understand it though

why would you need to plow directly through the building. why can’t you just use doors like a normal person. it’s not like they can lock you out, like hello, you can literally turn anything you touch into dust, what’s with all the melodrama

anyway so he’s apparently hitting the prison with some sort of EMP attack now and shutting down all their systems

omg the suspense is killing me. this is going to be so badass once it’s animated, but right now all I keep thinking is “YES, GREAT, CAN WE PLEASE JUST MOVE IT ALONG”

the doors are opening ahhhhhhh come on come on come on let’s go let’s get to the excitement already

now the guards are running over to try and regain control. but, like

yeah that’s pretty much how I’m expecting the rest of this to go basically

so now they’re shooting at the dust cloud lol. well if there’s one thing movies have taught me, it’s that bad guys who wait inside clouds of dust while panicked cops blindly rain bullets at them until they run out of ammo are basically invincible lol. soooooo

OHHHHH SHIT

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. THEY ARE SO FUCKED LOL, SHIT

YEP, AND HERE’S ANOTHER ONE

is this the first time we’ve seen Moonfish’s face? I feel like we might have caught a glimpse of it before on an omake page or something. either way, it wasn’t anything I actually needed to see again. thanks...?? I guess??

okay but seriously, are we supposed to actually know who this badass lady is?? like I don’t know her but I feel like I know her, you feel?

(ETA: lol there are already like 60 different theories about how she’s related to every single character in the series. will be interesting to see if anything comes of this. although we did just get three “this villain was secretly related to [insert character(s) here] all along” reveals just in the last arc, so idk, it might be better if we pass on it this time lol.)

girl who are you. please stick around. for the love of god don’t let this man kill you off too

????

wait so is this Overhaul? boy sure has seen better days huh. but the floppy sleeves... yeah, it’s gotta be him

anyway so then the only ones missing are Stain and Kurogiri, yes?? omg. and one page left to go

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO CONVINCE ME HE COULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS SHIT RIGHT FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. FUCKING TIME-BIDING DRAMA QUEEN

AND HE’S JUST FLOATING HIS LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM ALONG BEHIND HIM SOB. THIS FUCKING GUY

AND IS HE JUST ABSENTMINDEDLY DRAGGING SOME POOR SCHLUB’S CORPSE ALONG BESIDE HIM LIKE A SLEEPY TODDLER CARRYING THEIR TEDDY BEAR. I FUCKING CAN’T. REST IN PEACE, FRIEND. GIVE MY REGARDS TO GOOD OLD BRIAREUS

so that’s it! and we still don’t have any idea what AFO is actually planning to do now, after all of that. are they going to merge bodies?? or is he going to try to switch with him?? either way Tomura’s body has to be part of the plan somehow since he keeps making so much of a fuss over it. flkhglkhlk. dammit I need answers lol

[birdsareblooming]

Sonic may actually be lost royalty

I keep going down these rabbit holes I shouldn’t go down BUT! Although this theory is one that I don’t fully believe in (unlike the infinite/solaris theory and the chaos emerald theory) I still have a good argument that I want to talk about very bad.

I also tried to make this as short as possible but there’s a lot of ground to cover, but at least it’s not the infinite/solaris theory. But I have a TLDR at the end.

[Spoiler Warning for Sonic and the Black Knight]

let’s start with a ✨numbered list✨

1. Blaze the Cat

Blaze is the biggest caveat for this theory, but I think it’s best to start with her.

Now, firstly I need to clear up some things.

[Eggman: My world...]

[Eggman Nega: and my world...]

[Eggmen: are in a manner, inextricably linked!]

[Blaze: Like two Eggmans?]

Part of the Blaze’s world is that it’s a parallel universe. Parallel Eggmen, Parallel emeralds, Everything else that isn’t stated outright. Like how Tails and Marine are definitely counterparts. Seeming as Tails came from South Island and Marine came from southern island, Tails is definitely based on a kitsune and Marine, in theory, based on a tanuki. 

And, although not stated completely, Blaze and Sonic are universal counterparts.

[From Sonic Wiki: Blaze was designed as a charater who was equivalent yet and alternate version of Sonic’s character.]

Much like the Sol and Chaos emeralds, Sonic and Blaze are a mirror version of one another, although slightly different.

Alright, now that we have that out of the way:

Looking at the connections between the others, Sonic and Blaze seem, a bit too different.

The Sol and Chaos emeralds fulfill the same role, although their different appearance, and have a similar story.  Tails and Marine fulfill the same role, although their different appearance, and have a similar story. The Eggmen fulfill the same role, although their different appearance, and have a similar story. 

Blaze and Sonic fulfill the same role, although their different appearance, and have a... completely different story. 

Blaze was born to a royal family, and set to protect the Sol Emeralds and the Jeweled Scepter as her birthright, and it’s somewhat hinted that her powers may also be a birthright. Sonic, on the other hand, has no known past, and seems to have just run into the Chaos Emeralds by accident. 

You could claim that Blaze does take on the role of both Sonic AND Knuckles, which is fair and stated on the wiki, however Knuckles is also never stated to be any kind of royalty, and certainly doesn’t have that kind of past, his past being one of the more tragically alone ones. 

And here’s something interesting.

Time has warped our vision of Blaze. We all know her as “Princess Blaze the Cat.” But from watching Sonic Rush, her opening game... she is never mentioned to be a princess until the very end.

[Burning Blaze: As princess, it is my duty to protect the Sol Emeralds...]

From what I remember, this is the FIRST mention of her royal status. 

From this game’s viewpoint, they reveal the mirror status of the dimensions. They then show both Blaze and Sonic having mirror super transformations using their emeralds, highly implying that Sonic and Blaze were mirror versions. (also this was implied already by just Blaze’s shoes.) and then it’s revealed that Blaze is royal, and a princess. 

So if she’s the mirror of Sonic, what does that mean for Sonic? Especially right after showing the two of them being, well, mirrors.

2. King Arthur

SATBK is much less transparent about the counterpart universe thing.

Now this is an alternate universe, set up by Secret Rings, and surprisingly not just a story Sonic told as an elaborate excuse.

They don’t hide obivous Sonic characters being put into roles, and their in these roles for a reason.

Blaze and Silver as Percival and Galahad, the knights who quested together for the holy grail. Knuckles as Gawain literally only because of “Gawain and the Green Knight” But I respect that so much. Jet as Lamorak because of Lamorak’s fiery temper and competitiveness.  Shadow as Lancelot because he’s the “closest knight to the king” stated in game (👀) Tails as a Blacksmith because that’s p much the medieval version of a mechanic. Amy as the Lady of the Lake because like. Fuck she’s the most powerful one there. (but seriously, in forces she’s shown to be the most level headed leader and strangest, especially in Sonic’s absence. As well as “sensing” that he was still alive and having a past in tarot.) And Merlina as Merlina because... well that’s a whole other theory.

(all my theories are being brought up in the post. like i know the first two were expamples of theories I fully belive in but damn this is like a avengeners, ok,)

But Sonic as King Arthur makes sense when it’s revealed. Although he wasn’t anyone’s counterpart in Secret Rings (because secrets rings was confused as hell) He is in this game, and as the ring leader of everyone following him in SATBK, it makes sense. 

Although something that was never brought up...EVER is the Knight’s backstories, which are EXTREMELY important not only in Arthurian legends, but for the knights in Sonic lore. All of the knight’s mentioned backstories are important to their character, in both contexts. Although their never brought up.

*DEEP BREATH* Alright. The similarities between Sonic Character/Knight backstories.

Shadow and Lancelot have pretty simmilar backstories when getting down to it. Shadow/Lancelot were both raised for greatness, but still outshined by Sonic/Arthur. Although remaining loyal to them, even if for Shadow it’s only in times of need. Shadow doesn’t want to admit he’s a supporting role to Sonic, although Sonic generations kinda throws that Idea out of the water when Shadow cheers Sonic on while watching from the sidelines, much like early Lancelot.

For Blaze and Percival, in multiple interpretations Percival is of noble birth. Upon meeting Sonic’s Gang/The Knights, Blaze/Percival get’s inspired by their heroics and eventually joins them.

“Lancelot and Percival prove morally superior to Gawain who follows the rules of courtliness to the letter rather than the spirit.“ Is an actual quote from Wikipedia. Although it is VERY hard to find a concrete backstory for Gawain other than “separated from his home”, I think this proves enough. As well as the Gawain and the Green Knight story (in which Gawain tries to slay the green knight and then he picks up his head and says “see you in a year” is pretty representative of Knuckles constantly breaking the master emerald in a comedic light.) 

Lamorak/Jet are known for challenging Arthur/Sonic to competitions. 

Galahad/Silver are searching for an object/person aided by Percival/Blaze

So now that we’re all good, do you see the similarities between part one.

Although everyone else has given backstory similarities, Sonic is given none, seeming as, as far as we know, Sonic HAS no backstory.

But isn’t it interesting that King Arthur’s backstory is being lost royalty? And the secret son of the king? Wack.

3. Sonic Fucking Underground

Now, most of you are probably unfamiliar with Sonic Underground. Good.

If you’re not, you watched it as a kid and you’re nostalgic, and let me tell you I watched the entire show recently and it’s not as good as you remember.

But Sonic Underground’s quality and history could be a post on it’s own, it doesn’t matter here. What matters is the plot:

[From Sonic Wiki: Sonic, Sonia, and Manic are the children of Queen Aleena, the rightful ruler of Mobius and are pursued relentlessly by Doctor Robotnik and his bumbling bounty hunters sidekicks, Sleet and Dingo. As infants, the siblings were separated and placed in hiding to fulfill a prophecy made by the Oracle of Delphius (a spoof of the Oracle of Delphi of Ancient Greece) that the triplets would grow up to find their estranged mother, overthrow Robotnik and take their places once more as Mobius' rightful rulers.]

FORGOTTEN ROYALTY YOU SAY.

Now, Sonic Underground is VERY SEPARATED from Sonic Lore, and nothing has ever taken from it besides Manic appearing in some comics, although from what I know he’s never mentioned to be Sonic’s brother. So This is the part I always take with a grain of salt, however;

4. In conclusion/TLDR

We have Two Instances of Sonic being lost Royalty (One in a separate reality and one in a separate continuity) We have Two Instances of Dimentional Counterparts of Sonic being Royalty (Blaze and King Arthur) We have zero given backstory for Sonic We have Three instances of Sonic, or a counterpart, being royalty

And from what I remember hearing, three’s a pattern.

[matthiasschoenaertsdaily]

Matthias Schoenaerts full interview for De Morgen Magazine (original in Flemish, translated into English by @matthiasschoenaertsdaily​)

Interview by Els Maes, published on November 28, 2020

Even a global pandemic will not destroy the optimism of actor Matthias Schoenaerts (42). Because he knows from his own experience how much beauty can emerge from the most hopeless situations. "I've had my back against the wall often enough, I'll always find a way out."

A bleak autumn day on a concrete square. There is lukewarm coffee, lukewarm Chimay and rolling tobacco. At dusk we see the silhouettes of fat rats that shoot past our ankles. And yet Matthias Schoenaerts will tell us in a glowing argument that this, here and now, is the very best place to be. That there is so much beauty to discover, he says. Le paradis c'est ici. As long as we want to see it.

"It's strange to say in this unpleasant period, but I've enjoyed the past few months enormously. It's the first time in ten years, since Runskop actually, that I'll be home for a long period of time. This is so beneficial: I am photographing, painting, writing. I can devote time and attention to the very simple things we'd otherwise race past."

"Seriously, look at that," he says, picking a leaf off the ground. "Those colors, that pattern. I can spend hours looking at the pure beauty of the things that surround us."

Above us a pigeon is wreaking havoc between the thinned out foliage. "While you are singing about the wonderful beauty of nature, that animal is going to shit on our heads," I say. "And that too will be a s-p-l-e-n-d-i-d moment," Schoenaerts answers.

Matthias Schoenaerts is Belgium's most successful international film star. But here and now, on a bench in his hometown, he is a technically unemployed actor, an all-round searching artist, but above all: fighter of cynicism. "I refuse to go along with all negativity and fear. The true battle today is cynicism versus courage. And I always choose the latter."

We're on the Oudevaartplaats, the square that everyone knows as the Antwerp Bird Market, and where Schoenaerts' childhood memories are waiting to be picked up. It comes into the conversation just like that: Brando, the cute chow chow that little Matthias got from his mom on this square, when here on the bird market puppies were still sold. "My dogs were my great loves. The home situation was often difficult, and with my dogs I found security. We had three chow chows, those fluffy lion dogs with a blue tongue. Brando was the first, I loved that animal."

"We lived in a small apartment with three dogs, anything but ideal. One day we let them go, to people with a large estate. That was heartbreaking."

There is a beautiful lesson in that, about love and letting go. It would have been selfish to keep your dogs if you could give them a nicer life elsewhere, wouldn't it?

"Absolutely, but I obviously didn't process that departure properly. Brando still appears in my dreams, after all these years. Then he returns home unexpectedly, and am I mad with joy.

"I often dream about my parents too: that reunion is so intensely beautiful and warm. Oh, there you are, finally! Those dreams are true to life, and the awakening is rock-hard."

Is that one of the reasons why you like being here in Antwerp, because here you feel more connected to the people that you loved?

"This is my home, my zero, I can't imagine a place in the world where I would rather live. When my mom was alive, and especially when she got sick, in between filming I tried to be with her as much as possible here in Antwerp. In the meantime I have an apartment here, my first permanent place of my own, but I've hardly been there in recent years. Now I can finally enjoy my home, I find peace, tranquility and inspiration there. I have seen fantastic sunsets on my roof terrace in recent months. So much beauty, and you can just admire it there, every day, for free. As long as you take the time to enjoy it.

"Normally I would have started filming again in April, and left for a hectic ride of at least two years, with projects that would follow each other quickly. I was at my limits, sooner or later I was going to bang my head against the wall. I feel how beneficial it is to slow down for a moment. David Lynch said that: 'Just slow things down and it becomes more beautiful'.

"As an actor you have to work in a big machine, according to a tight schedule. I have now discovered the pleasure of creating things for myself very spontaneously in my own cadence."

Is that work something you ever want to go public with?

"I want to do something with my photography someday, but I'm in no hurry. I'm also writing a film script, I've had an idea for a trilogy for a long time. It's a very personal project, and it takes time for it to crystallize into something very pure and proper. Maybe those films will come within ten years, maybe never.

"The most important thing is to keep busy. You have to look for something, anything, on which you can focus your passion, love and attention. Of course I would like to return to set, and those projects will come back later. But if I can't change anything about a situation, why worry about it?

"From a very young age I learned that there are not many certainties in life, I adapt easily to unexpected circumstances. There is one thing I can't stand, and that is feeling powerless. I never want to be the victim of a situation, I will always think: what can I do myself? Which way can I go? I have often enough stood with my back against the wall, I will always find a way out and take matters into my own hands."

So Schoenaerts decided to use this period to put Zenith - his artist name as a street artist - to hard work. Since the lockdown he has already created nine impressive murals, including one in the courtyard of the Oudenaarde prison, and one at the beginning of this month in the Antwerp Begijnenstraat, on the bare walls that form their furthest horizon for the prisoners. A moving event, he says. Not only by the touching conversations with inmates, and the forty-minute applause with which the prisoners welcomed him. "The mural contains a poem by my father. While I am there painting those beautiful words of my dad on the wall, I suddenly remember that my mom used to give meditation lessons to the prisoners there in the Begijnenstraat. I had completely forgotten about that until I stood there. How beautiful that is. Suddenly I felt my parents very tangible, very close to me."

It's a bit funny: a long time ago you were arrested for graffiti, now they invite you to prison to make a mural.

"I used to tag a lot, but I really don't like the vandalism that sometimes comes with graffiti. Defacing a facade, that's just ridiculous. But trains, bridges, tunnels.... frankly I think that's the max. Soon I'm going to do another oldskool graffiti wall, with some friends, back to the roots. But with permission, yes."

Scary dudes

The problems of the Belgian detention system are well known: outdated infrastructure, overcrowding and a system of pre-trial detention which means that some people are innocently stuck for years. Schoenaerts: "These are human lives that are destroyed by the Belgian state, isn't that scandalous?"

Schoenaerts' engagement started years ago, after meeting Hans Claus, prison director in Oudenaarde, who contacted him when he wanted to organize a screening of Le Fidèle, the film by Michaël R. Roskam starring Schoenaerts. Claus has been fighting for many years for a reform of our detention system, among others with the non-profit organization De Huizen, small-scale centers that are more focused on rehabilitation and reintegration of the detainee. How does Schoenaerts see his role? "Those murals are a kind of lubricant for me, to get attention for this problem. I am not the expert and I am certainly not a politician. This injustice touches me as a human being, and my message is clear: please listen to the people who have been working hard for decades to reform the system from the inside."

In The Mustang, your last feature film to be seen here before the lockdown, you take on the role of a prisoner who learns to tame wild horses and his demons. Has that role changed your vision?

"That rehabilitation program with mustangs really exists, and the chance of recidivism is almost zero percent. I had a conversation in the Begijnenstraat with the minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld, ed.), and he told me that the chance of relapse here is 40 to 50 percent. Isn't that madness?

"That's what fascinates me most of all: what do we do with those detainees while they're stuck? How can we help to break the destructive patterns that put them in prison? Imprisonment is a punishment in itself, but someday we'll send those people back into society, so let's mainly support them in their self-development.

"In preparation for The Mustang, I visited prisons in the U.S., and talked to men who had been detained for 20, 30 years. Heavy guys: Aryan Brotherhood (powerful crime syndicate of neo-Nazis in American prisons, ed.), Mexican gang leaders... real scary dudes. You know what those say to me? That they live in fear every day, but they must not show weakness. Psychological counseling and things like that have their value, but that's often very cerebral. I especially believe in the healing power of art. Imagine that inmates can express all those fucked up emotions through art: I think that there is an enormous potential in this."

I heard you're playing with the idea of giving acting lessons to inmates?

"That's not a concrete plan yet, but I would love it if people from the creative sector would commit themselves to this: musicians, sculptors, dancers. Or writers who help prisoners put their own story into words.

"The cultural sector needs to start sticking its neck out. The sector is lying flat, and that's terrible. But we have to keep moving. We can all do something for the community, without being paid for it. Planting small seeds, doing something good for your fellow man, something beautiful always comes out of it."

Had you been to a prison before The Mustang?

"To visit friends, yes. In Merksplas, Hoogstraten, Hasselt, Dendermonde... We shouldn't talk about that any further. A prison is deep tristesse. Who dares to call that 'a hotel', shame on you."

This summer you painted an impressive mural in Paris in honor of George Floyd, murdered by American officers. And in Ostend last week a new mural was unveiled, with a 'decapitated' Leopold II. Is activism an important part of your street art?

"Graffiti used to be more of a style exercise for me, you want to create things that get noticed within the scene. But gradually I felt like communicating with a wider audience. I like to incorporate a lot of symbolism in my paintings, such as the cracks I photograph all over the world and then magnify them in another place. And the praying hands, a universal image of hope and faith in yourself. Art has the power to speak to our deepest emotions, and that is what binds us to the other. Connectedness, empathy, harmony, solidarity, that's the essence for me."

The corona crisis is one big exercise in empathy and solidarity. Sometimes we seem to lack that.

"I refuse to surrender to cynicism, and I surround myself with positive people who do beautiful things for others. This period would lead us to insights: how do we deal with each other? Do we help each other, or is it every man for himself? A human is such a wonderful creature, but we mess it up so much for ourselves.

"Yeah, I know. Some people who read this will think: this guy is smoking too many joints. (laughs) I don't smoke joints, and I'm not an unworldly idealist. But I will always focus my attention on the good, in spite of everything."

If you always want to see the good in people, are you sometimes disappointed?

"Yes, of course. I'm not a naive brat, I've learned to guard my boundaries. I can't please everyone all the time, and I don't let anyone rush me. I react badly when people put pressure on me because they want things from me. The perception of me that others have of me, I can't control. I don't let myself put out of balance easily anymore."

I saw that on your Instagram Stories you warned about fake profiles on social media, of people pretending to be you. That made you visibly angry.

"Really, that makes me angry. Every day I receive screenshots from people who have been tricked by crooks who approach innocent victims with my name and my pictures. There are stories of fans who have paid thousands of euros because they were promised a meet-and-greet with me. How disgusting is that? One person has transferred 14,000 euros to someone who pretended to be my manager.

"Of course, that raises questions about how gullible some people can be. But I've seen those chat conversations for myself: those criminals are terribly sneaky. They know how to play on the vulnerabilities of their victims in a very cunning way. This is manipulation and swindle of the filthiest kind.

"Really, I get physically unwell when I think about it. How can someone be so mean? If I ever catch these guys, I'm gonna bash their skulls in, I'm not kidding. Sorry."

Or: those crooks get a jail sentence, where you're going to give them acting lessons.

(laughs) "Okay, let it be clear that I think everyone should be punished for their crimes. My commitment to the prison system is not a plea for impunity, and I certainly don't want to romanticize crime.

"But when someone abuses innocent people's trust in such a cunning way, the question is: how did you derail so morally? And above all: how can we initiate a transformation in that person? Surely you can't lock someone up and expect that person to suddenly make better choices years later? First such a person has to take responsibility for his own actions."

Do you have something criminal on your conscience?

"No." (Thinks for a second) "No. Thank God. I couldn't live with that.

"I've probably hurt people in my life, like everybody else. Sometimes we just hurt people because of who we are, or because we can't fulfill what others want from us. But I have never harmed anyone consciously or criminally, no."

As a teenager you sometimes came into contact with the juvenile court, for vandalism. Do you think you could have ended up on the other side of the bars?

"Probably, a life can take strange turns sometimes."

What made you sit here today, and not get on the 'wrong' path?

"Wait... that's a good question. There's the one terrible dramatic event that caused a total turnaround in my life: when my dad went into a coma after a psychosis, and I was told he only had 24 hours left to live.

"I was 21 then, thrown out of school for the umpteenth time. I was doing graffiti and wanted to find my way creatively. But I was messing around, going with friends who... Anyway, there was latent danger, it threatened to go a little bit the wrong way.

"And then I got that phone call: come and say goodbye. Bam. The relationship with my father had been sour for years, we hardly saw each other. Until I stood there at his deathbed in intensive care... I only felt love, a wave of emotions that I had pushed down very deeply. That realization was rock-hard: this was it. My father and I will never get the chance to figure shit out, I thought.

"Long story, the rest is known: after 72 hours my father woke up from a coma against all odds. Like a plant: he could not speak, reacted to nothing or nobody. According to the chief psychiatrist, we had to accept that his condition would never improve. That was without the fighting spirit of my mother and me.

"It's because of that unlikely event that I've changed my whole lifestyle. For eight months, my mother and I went to visit my father every day. We talked to him, but he seemed to look straight through us. For hours we sat with him at the psychiatry department of Stuivenberg, how desperate those first months were also. We continued to fight, taught him to talk, to eat, to walk. A miracle, the doctors called it. Bullshit of course. It was love, dedication and stubbornness. Especially thanks to my mother, the lioness who kept fighting for him. And see how much beauty came out of it. My life then received an entirely different impulse.

"I suddenly think of an anecdote I've never told before. After a while we were allowed to take my father to the cafeteria once in a while, or to the garden. But he was absolutely not allowed to leave the hospital. Fuck it. I hid a bag of clothes for him, secretly dressed him in the toilet and took my father to the city. By bus, because I didn't have a driver's license. I wanted to stimulate his senses, test if any memories would come back. He was fond of Our Lady's Cathedral, so that's where I wanted to take him."

Matthiaske, why am I crying?

He plays it out. The written version here is only a dead script compared to the lived-through performance, right there on that dark square, just around the corner of the Arenbergschouwburg, where Matthias made his stage debut as a 9-year-old boy next to father Julien, as The Little Prince.

Matthias shows how he supported his frail dad, and how they shuffled in small, careful steps towards the cathedral. Dad looking at the ground to be sure not to fall. "I say, 'Dad, look up'. He looks up, and I see the tears rolling down his cheeks. I had never seen my father cry. 'Matthiaske,' he says, 'can you tell me why I'm crying?'

"I had already decided then that I would take my father into my house. Overconfident, yes, at that age, but they have become the most beautiful years of my life. Mom came by every day to help. Suddenly we were a bit of a family again, something we had only been for a short time when I was young."

It was at that time that you decided to become an actor. Why did you decide to become an actor?

"I had always resisted following in my father's footsteps. In my youth I mainly wanted to break away from my father, and seek my own path. I didn't want to have anything to do with him and all those loudmouths around him in the theater world. But most of all I was terrified that compared to the great Julien Schoenaerts I would never be good enough.

"Only now do I understand why I then decided to go to the conservatory. Not to become an actor, but to understand my father. We had so many years together, and now that we had been given a second chance, I wanted to get to know him as well as possible. By acting, maybe I could get closer to him." (pauses)

Sentimental fuss

He banishes the tears. It's one of the many things he has in common with his father, he says: they're both very emotional, but they hate sentimental fuss. "Come on, Matthias: breathe," he commands himself.

"Voilà, see how much beauty can come out of misery. What a chain of beautiful things came out of the fight my mother and I put up in the most hopeless situation. Who knows how differently my life would have turned out?"

"There are so many lessons in that. If we just talked about the rehabilitation of detainees, for example. It takes commitment. Not a workshop of two hours. You have to persevere, even in the event of a setback, with no guarantee of a happy ending. That's why I think it's so important to keep telling that story about my dad. Those are the values I believe in: dedication, stamina, attention, love. You can apply that to everything in life. Love is the fuel."

You often talk about your parents as if you want to keep them alive with your words.

"Because my mom and dad are the people I've loved most. With them I shared the most important moments, built the most beautiful memories. That loss is enormous. Life has been really fucking tough since they've been gone.

"That's what grabs me so much in this period. How many people have died of corona in Belgium?"

According to Google, today, on the day of the interview, the counter stands at almost 14,000 deaths.

"Fourteen thousand! Imagine how many people that has an impact on? How many people have suddenly lost their mother, father, brother, sister, best friend or neighbor? Behind those figures lie tens of thousands of poignant stories, of people who see a loved one torn from their lives. That is a mountain of unresolved grief, and far too little attention is paid to it."

Earlier during our conversation a guy had walked past coughing and maskless. It pissed Schoenaerts off: "And whining about masks or strict measures. Grow some fucking balls. Having to say goodbye to a loved one, that's the worst thing."

"Isn't that what this period teaches us? That our time here is limited? And what really counts in life: sharing moments of beauty with the people you hold most dear. All the rest is wallpaper. Having success, making movies, that's all fun. But the day you lie on your deathbed, you really don't think about the professional successes on your resume. No way."

[binniedeactivated]

saint. || soobin (3.1)🌪

pairing: soobin x reader genre: au  word count; 3k

“wow, you’ve really been studying a lot haven’t you?”. you say, seeing soobin’s notebook splayed out on the bed filled with notes that you had no supervision on. you were shocked to know that he took the time to study by himself. he was really taking things seriously. soobin nods, 

“i want to pass”. 

“it sure looks like it. you’re going to do more than pass with all this knowledge”. 

soobin laughs, “good. maybe I’ll earn the ski trip”. 

“ski trip?”. you question, having absolutely no clue as to what he was referring to. 

“yeonjun told me that everyone who does good on the exams earns a ski trip as an incentive”. 

you were kind of amazed, “wow. that sounds fun. when did our school start doing stuff like that? they must really want us to pass”. 

“definitely. and I think if everyone doesn’t do well the school’s going to be shut down. so I already know my parents are to blame”. 

you roll your eyes and smile a bit, writing down your chemistry notes to study. “must be nice having money”. 

“stop saying that. you have money too now”. 

“really? where?”. 

“right here”. 

you shake your head and laugh. soobin eyes you before going back to write his notes. 

“seriously why don’t you ask me for money? you never ask”. 

“you want me to?”.

soobin nods as if it were a stupid question. “yes”. 

“why?”. 

“because why not? I think every boyfriend does”.

“I love how you just call yourself my boyfriend in front of my mom and now that counts as us being an official couple”. 

soobin laughs and takes your hand. you look at him like he was the biggest joke in the world. “what are you doing?”. you say trying not to laugh. soobin was holding in laughter also while attempting to look at you seriously in your eyes. 

“do you want to be my girlfriend?”.

“i hate you soobin”. you laugh. 

“I’m serious I’m serious stop making me laugh”. 

you roll your eyes playfully. “fine. I guess I can be your girlfriend”. 

“good. are we an official couple now?”. 

you sigh scrawling your pen against your paper pretending to be frustrated. “I guess we are an official couple now soobin”. 

“you’re always trying to act like you don’t like me”. soobin laughs again, flipping his notebook page to finish the rest of the notes on the backside. 

“because if i act like I’m in love with you then things will be cringy”.

soobin lays his head on his hand, staring at you. 

“are you in love with me?”. 

you try not to blush. keeping your eyes on your own paper. his stare was eating you alive. 

“of course not”. you mumble jokingly. soobin chuckles. 

“your first time lying to me and this is what you waste it on?”.

you continue laughing leaving his rhetorical question floating in the air. he was still staring at you lovingly. 

“tell me the truth. because I’m in love with you. and I’m not afraid to admit it”.

“why are you in love with me? I’m not shaming you I just kind of find it odd--I’m just a church girl. living a normal middle class teenage catholic life. there’s nothing special about me. and here you are every girl’s dream. you’re rich. good looking. everyone wants to be you. why me? I’m nothing”.

“do you really think I can fall in love with someone whose nothing?”. 

you sigh. “I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. I’m scared of getting my hopes up and then one day you just leave. there’s so many girls out there that’s better. look better and dress better. and you can get with every single one of them if you wanted”. you ranted and you didn’t mean to take it this far but it’s honestly how you felt. you couldn’t help it. 

soobin presses his warm hand against your cheek. “why are you getting so upset, princess?”. 

“I don’t know”. you utter being swarmed in a sea of vulnerability. 

“I’m not going to leave you. and if I did who would I even leave you for? some girl who only wants sex and clout from me?”.

“what about the ones who are looking for a relationship?”.

“I’m too in love to care”. 

you sigh again, giving him pitiful eyes. being the cheesy person he was leans in and kisses you. that didn’t stop you from liking it though. 

“I only want you i swear. now please admit to being in love with me because I’m tired of waiting for your answer”. soobin says gradually laughing. you smile a bit breaking out of your sadness. his reassurance was what you needed. to be this deep into a relationship and him leaving you? it was your biggest fear. 

“I may or may not be”. you joked. soobin sucks his teeth playfully. 

“fine don’t admit it then. guess you won’t be getting a car for Christmas”. 

“soobin?”. 

“yes?”. he grinned while continuing his notes, knowing he caught you by surprise there. 

“a car?!”. 

“you heard me”. 

“don’t buy me that it’s way too expensive”.

“i’m totally going to obey your command”. 

“soobin I’m serious”. 

“so am I”. 

“how am I even going to explain that to my parents? they’re going to think I did something for it”. 

“something like what?”. soobin asks knowing exactly what you were getting at. 

“you know. they’re going to think I had sex with you or something for you to buy me such expensive gifts”. soobin waited and laughed once you finally said it. 

“that’s hot. they think you’re like a little churchy prostitute”. you childishly punch his arm. “that’s hot to you?”. 

“if it’s you doing it then yes”. 

“how is having sex with someone for gifts and money hot?”.

“I just like the idea of you being a whore for me”.

you laugh, wondering what else went on in soobin’s mind. 

“you know--like the outfit you wore when you came over my house for the first time--god i wanted to devour you”. 

“oh yeah? why didn’t you say anything?”.

“because you were most likely going to punch me. you didn’t know me yet”. 

“I still don’t. I’m still learning”. 

yeah, but you know enough about me now”. 

“I wouldn’t say all that. how do I know you’re not some serial killer deep down?”. 

“you sat on my face last night I’m pretty sure that whole ‘secretly a serial killer’ bullshit is out the window at this point”. 

you laugh loudly, “soobin!”. 

“you also didn’t call me soobin you called me daddy”. 

“alright that’s enough!”. the both of you laugh in perfect sync. interrupting it was his mother obnoxiously calling him from downstairs. soobin promises you his return before he goes to stand at the top of the stairs answering her. 

“yes?”. he says kind of annoyed. 

“me and your father have a conference to attend. our flight leaves soon. if I come back and find out you’ve studied nothing words can’t explain your punishment. don’t just sit around this house making nothing of yourself”. 

soobin rolls his eyes, “where is your conference being held?”.

“france”.

“for how long this time?”. 

“why are you asking meaningless questions? did you hear what I said?”.

“it’s not meaningless if you guys just came back and spent less than 8 hours in the house with me before you leave again”. 

“soobin don’t start. we’re leaders and we are also missionaries. you know what is required of us”. 

“what about me?”. 

“what about you? study and make yourself useful for something soobin. we were glad finally seeing you out with the sports team and doing things that don’t require a suspension”. 

soobin’s breathing pattern changes swiftly. he could hear the nonchalantness in her tone and he hated it with a passion. 

“study and make myself useful and then what? so you both can come home and beat me and yell at me anyways?”. 

his fathers enters the foyer pointing his finger up at soobin. 

“watch your volume”. 

“for what! for what whose going to hear me?”. 

“for respect soobin! don’t make me come up these stairs”. his father threatens. 

“why should I respect you both if you guys barely respect me?!”. 

“what are you talking about you have a house to live in don’t you? you have cars you have nice clothes you have gourmet food to eat and your bank account surpasses any number of ever seen in my life. you have nothing to complain about you need to be grateful!”. his mother spat. 

“yes you’re right thank you mom thank you dad for subtracting the parental love I could’ve gotten in my life and supplementing it with material things! I appreciate it so much!”.

“what did I tell you about saying that? huh?! we love you. this is tough love”. his father replies. soobin ball his fists. 

“that’s bullshit you’re only saying that because you don’t want anyone in this town to know that the two people they respect so much don’t give a damn about their son! half the shit that you do you only do it so I can never say that I don’t have anything”.

“soobin watch your mouth!”. he father growls. 

“it’s true just fucking admit it and stop getting angry!”

soobin spat harshly and his dad was about to take off up the stairs in a fit of rage until his mother pulled him back. 

“our flight leaves in less than a half hour we have to be at the airport. we can deal with him later”. his dad nods and points his finger at soobin again. 

“consider yourself lucky”. he stated before clutching his suitcase. his mom clutches hers and they both approach the door. she shoots a disgusting look at him. 

“maybe this getaway will help you clean up your act”. she muttered and closed the door behind him.

“What about me!?”. soobin stands at the top of the stairs still yelling.

“your getaways don’t help! they never fucking did!”. he could feel his heart racing and his cheeks growing hot.

“just say you don’t really love me. thats all you have to do”. he croaks without even realizing he was crying. 

you’d been in his room overhearing the whole argument but unable to come out due to you not supposed to even being there in the first place. so you kept silent until you heard the front door shut. you snuck out of soobin’s bedroom to see him down the hallway still yelling, so it was hard to tell if it’s parents really left or not. you approach his tall frame timidly, touching his shoulder. 

“soobin?”. he palms his face sniffling. you wrap your arms around his torso and glance up at him. 

“it’s going to be okay alright? they don’t deserve you. you’ve made mistakes in your life and sure you weren’t the best behaved kid but you are still theirs and they should treat you as such”. 

“I hate them. I fucking hate them both”. 

“soobin don’t say that”. 

“I will say it. because they don’t care about me”.

“look at me”. 

soobin sighs, removing his hands from his wet eyes to glare down at you. he looked so miserable when he cried and you hated it. you’d only ever like to see him happy and laughing. this was cruel. 

“I’m in love with you, okay?”. you say, reaching up to help him dry his eyes. 

“do you mean that?”. he replies. 

“yes I do mean it”. 

“good because I fucking knew it”. soobin admits with a straight face until you playfully slap his chest and laugh. it was a relief to see his reddened face contort into a smile. 

╲╱❀╲╱╲╱❀╲╱╲╱❀╲╱

“babe! hurry up!”. soobin yells from the living room couch. he had the movie ready and he was just waiting for you to cuddle with him. you figured you couldn’t leave him alone while he felt like this. so you gave your parents your usual excuse for being out so late. 

you promised soobin you’d do anything to help him feel better and guess what he requested? you guessed it. 

four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches specially made by you. and of course the big baby was being impatient. you rushed and slabbed the layer of peanut butter on the last slice and sat all the sandwiches on the plate. 

you carefully walked into the living room with it and soobin started the movie. you sat criss-crossed between his legs on the couch, trying to hand the plate off to him. 

“feed me”, he begs. you turn your body and face him. “you’re a big baby do you know that?”. soobin smirks knowingly. you rip a piece of one sandwich and hold it up to his lips which he munches on adorably. you feed him a few more pieces and watch the crumbs fall from his lips. 

“you’re the only person I know that can get fed and still make a mess”. you use a hand to dust the crumbs off of his lips and hoodie. 

“you’re such a mom”. 

“and you’re such a baby”. 

“your baby right?”. you sigh trying not to blush once again. 

“cmon. it’s okay to admit it”. 

“I’m not going to make things cringy soobin”. you mumble and he immediately tackles you down on the couch playfully. 

“soobin you’re going to make me drop all of these sandwiches on the floor!”. you laugh.

“admit I’m your baby”. he laughs. 

he face was inches from yours. he looked so cute and cuddly in his big sweater and hood over his head. you pulled one of his drawstrings. 

“fine. you’re my baby”. soobin smiles and softly kisses you. 

“you forgot to get me something to drink with my food. I’m going to suffocate from this peanut butter”. 

you laugh, “you didn’t ask for anything to drink”. 

“I know. I should’ve asked for milk”.

“see, that’s your mistake not mine”. 

soobin thinks for a moment before grinning. “i mean--if i wanted some milk I can just--”. he interrupted himself just to snake his hand up your shirt and massage your boob. you cackled loudly. 

“soobin!”. 

and your mornings were usual. this time around though you were encouraging soobin. he’d be taking his first history exam today. 

“remember you got this. you are smart. you can do anything and you studied really hard for this”. you remind prior to kissing him. “I believe in you”. you added. you went into your classroom and let soobin put his skills to the test. he was even more inspired now that he had you rooting for him. 

“I tried to call you yesterday but either your phone was dead or you didn’t pay your phone bill”. taehyun admitted. 

“my phone bill is paid. my phone was probably dead”. you lied. you were declining his calls to keep from soobin’s wrath. 

“we can study today after school if you’re down. I don’t have anything to do and plus the exam is coming up soon”. 

damn. you couldn’t say no to his face. could you? 

“yeah that’s fine. library?”. you ask. 

“yeah that’s cool”. taehyun shortly replies. all the while you were wondering how the hell you were going to continue studying with taehyun behind soobin’s back. it wasn’t like you were cheating on him or anything. just studying. maybe soobin was being too overprotective. 

soobin adjusts his backpack strap and attempts recalling his notes in his head while he walked to his classroom. 

“ayo? you ready?”. yeonjun asked catching up to him

“hell yeah. I actually studied”.

“good. I uhh- kind of have some news for you though”. 

“what is it?”. 

“they found more evidence on the hotel case”.

“shit. why the hell would you tell me that right now?”.

“I’m trying to tell you all the shit I know before anything comes up later so you can be prepared”. 

“how do you know this shit anyways? do you have a part time job at the police station or something?”. 

“I have my connections. and i’ve been following it to make sure they don’t try and frame me”. 

“why would they frame you?”. 

yeonjun shrugs, “I was acting pretty hostile during interrogation. but still”.

“I don’t have time for this shit”. 

“yeah that’s probably why you still haven’t told your girlfriend”.

“don’t start yeonjun”. 

yeonjun shrugs again, “I’m just saying. you keep dragging this shit out she’s going to fuck around and leave you”. 

[foundthe8wing]

I know exactly what I mean when I say “the dndads team is endangering minors in their spaces,” but I think from the outside, seeing that sentiment repeated, it’s easy to interpret it as rhetoric or as something like “if you’ve ever mentioned the existence of sex you’re a danger to children” when that isn’t the argument here at all. So I want to do my best to lay out why we call it dangerous.

CW: discussion of grooming (a bit more specifically than in previous posts of mine)

For context, these are the rules for the dndads patron server, at least as of October 4:

[ID: a discord message from Freddie:

In order to keep this a safe and welcoming community, we have some rules and guidelines everyone must follow.

If you need help or if anyone makes you uncomfortable (in chat or in DMs), the mods are here for you! You can ping them in the chat by using @/moderator, message the group using @/ModMail, or if you’d prefer to discuss a matter privately 1-on-1, you can also PM the community manager @/Ash or moderators directly.

Listen to the mods! They enforce the rules. Infractions are handled on a case-by-case basis. Breaking the rules will result in you being muted for a duration determined by severity and infraction history. 

We’ve enabled nicknamed editing on the server, so please feel free to append your preferred pronouns at the end of your username.

Always remember these basic guidelines:

This is an 18+ space. Per Patreon’s policy, you must be 18+ or have parental permission.

Keep conversation polite. NSFW content is not allowed!

Stay on topic! If you find yourself drifting off topic, move to another channel. When in doubt, go to #shoot-the-breeze or #shoot-the-breeze-2 /End ID]

You’ll note the policy against NSFW content, but damn, I don’t know what kind of world they live in where linking kink tests and writing erotica are SFW activities. Definitely wouldn’t fly at my job, I’ll tell you that. Anyway.

I’m not saying that everyone who’s ever discussed sex in the presence of a minor is a predator, or that these discussions are always, definitely a slippery slope to kids getting groomed. But I’m saying that when the cast says things like “Grant has never jerked off in that house” and “there’s so much sexual tension between Bella and Dr. Cullen” and “Glenn definitely looks through Nick’s porn history,” among other things; and when they then allow people to regularly discuss sex acts and share kink test results and erotica in their server (yes, even if it’s meant as a joke), they’re making it much easier for predators to approach minors, and much harder for those minors to then be able to tell when lines are being crossed. 

You know the saying about how you can boil a frog and it won’t hop out of the pot as long as you heat it up slowly? The server is getting uncomfortably warm, and it makes it that much easier for someone to turn it up a few degrees in private. It contributes to things like, for example, 9th grade me not pushing back when a then-20-year old made comments on all the “sexual tension” between me and one of my classmates (in response to me telling a story from when we were eleven). 

I believe that if a 14-year-old in a position like the one I was in said “hey, this person keeps asking invasive sexual questions and I’m uncomfortable,” the mods would do something (though whether it’d be handled well is still questionable), but I don’t feel confident that that hypothetical kid has a good reason to believe that’s the case. If I was in a similar situation, I can’t cite anything that would make me feel like I’d be supported and have my concerns addressed, or that would validate my discomfort with the situation, and I can actually point to a lot of things that send the opposite message. 

Because if that kid takes a look around the server and sees that plenty of adults here are bringing up sexual topics in this all-ages space anyway, that no one in charge is objecting to users sexually discussing 13-year-old characters, that Anthony considers “why, did the podcast make you nut” a perfectly acceptable thing to say unprompted . . . it doesn’t give a great impression that whoever they approach will take them seriously if they ask for help. It doesn’t give them a good basis for trusting their instinct that something is off with the way they’re being spoken to. That piece is vital, and it’s where the cast, community manager, and moderators have failed over and over and over. 

Simply saying “if anyone makes you uncomfortable (in chat or in DMs), the mods are here for you!” isn’t sufficient when it’s not coupled with a direct statement that adults approaching minors about sexual topics isn’t okay. It’s not cool for adults to be having explicit conversations with or around minors. There is no good reason for an adult to be asking or speculating about a minor’s sexual behaviors, or discussing their own sex life with minors, or sharing/discussing explicit media with them. Make that clear. It’s not the kid’s job to automatically know this; it’s your job to tell them. 

(Which isn’t to say that an action has to definitively cross that line in order for someone to express discomfort-- “these things aren’t okay, and if you’re unsure, you can reach out anyway” would be a good approach in my book, but the second part on its own isn’t enough.)

Right now, if a teen in the dndads server is being groomed, all of the responsibility is placed on this teen to:

Identify the fact that they’re uncomfortable (and then choose to examine that discomfort rather than immediately downplay it)

Articulate why this is bothering them

Convince themself (and, potentially, whoever they approach about it) that it’s a big enough deal to bring up at all

Speaking as someone who’s been there: it can be really fucking hard to do. But it’d be a hell of a lot easier if the cast said anything to the effect of “hey, adults shouldn’t be initiating this kind of conversation with you,” or if they made any effort to rein in the “spicier” conversations in the server. 

Adults detailing their kinks in the presence of kids isn’t cool, even if none of those kids say they’re uncomfortable. I need an indication that a single person managing the dndads patron server understands that and is taking it into account. 

Nobody wants to be the killjoy who says “hey, I’m not comfortable.” Especially not in an environment where there’s a pattern of such concerns getting dismissed and belittled. Double especially when the behavior is coming from some of the most influential members of the community. It’s not fair--and not safe--to foist all of that pressure onto an uncomfortable kid, and it’s absolutely crucial that the people with power get ahead of it and take on the responsibility of calling out and shutting down unacceptable behavior.

In order to be effective, “reach out if you’re uncomfortable” needs to also be coupled with an apology for the way they’ve been conducting themselves. Because if they don’t apologize for things like the examples I listed above, for the ways their content and actions have contributed to harmful ideas about consent and about sexualizing kids, for allowing the server to exist in this state for so long, then they’re implicitly saying either that those things were okay, or that they’re above those standards. Not a great look no matter how you slice it.

TL;DR: allowing this level of sexual discussion around minors, especially in the absence of any type of messaging or warning regarding grooming, makes it easy for those minors to get preyed on. And saying “we’re here for you if you’re uncomfortable” doesn’t on its own count as actually making the server a safe or comfortable environment. 

[taeguboi]

BTS Reaction to you bumping into an ex that was emotionally manipulative / abusive

... (and in which the BTS member is your current boyfriend)

So first of all, a big fat [!]Warning[!] about the themes about abuse - it’s not like highly descriptive or visual, just mentions about it but I don’t want to upset anyone. 

Like seriously, please don’t make yourself read this because it’s BTS themed or because you think you should force yourself to read something like this when you aren’t ready too. Sending much love to everyone who might have had similar experiences <3 

EDIT: here’s my Reactions Masterlist if you would like to pick out some content to read that’s more your jam :)

RM

Calms you down

You see your ex one day when you and Namjoon are just walking down the street before a nice stroll in the park. Today was supposed to be about you relaxing and forgetting about all of life’s problems but you can’t help but feel a bit sick in the stomach at the sight of your ex who was very emotionally abusive and manipulative. He’s right there in the near distance; across the road but heading in your direction. You start thinking all sorts of negative thoughts about yourself like maybe he was right about your appearance, weight or ambitions… 

Without you even saying a word, your current boyfriend Namjoon just knows there is something the matter. Just a second ago you were extremely chatty and having a laugh and all that, and the next thing he knows, you’ve gone silent, so pale, almost grey, in the face. 

He looks around, in front of the two of you, behind, then finally as he turns back, he can see across the road, a lonely figure. From description, he initially wonders if it’s this ex you opened up to him about even though you still haven’t said a word about it right now.

The aim here for Joon is to stay calm and ensure that this doesn’t get made into a scene. For now, at least he thinks so anyway, the ex hasn’t caught sight of the two of you yet. But in order for this to have a chance at being handled well, he needs you to talk to him (to Joon).

“Um… is that…?”

“Afraid so” you reply.

“Don’t worry about it honey, all you have to do is have a normal conversation with me, yeah?”

“Okay” you utter.

And that’s exactly what the two of you do. He asks you about how your work / studies are going and you manage to think just about straight enough to send calm, constructed replies and the two of you even get a giggle in when your boyfriend responds to something you just said with a joke.

In the corner of your eye, just as you are laughing with Namjoon, you can faintly see the figure walking across the road, now passing you. It seems Namjoon’s idea worked. The ex doesn’t seem to have any intentions of talking to you and as a bonus, he looks unhappy at the sight of you with someone else. You moved on and now he knows you are happier than you used to be. Just the kind of closure you didn’t realise you needed.

Jin

The defensive boyfriend

As your best friend even before the two of you got together, Jin was always very protective of you. In fact, he was your ex boyfriend’s worst nightmare, not that the latter would have ever admitted that to you.

Your ex was… let’s say not the nicest of human beings in the world, and whenever an argument arose - usually caused by this ex - the subject of Seokjin would always arise. Constantly, you were accused of cheating on him with Jin or that you spent more time with Jin, and so on… You ultimately plucked up the courage to break up with him when Jin agreed to be present when you had the conversation to break things off.

Fast forward about 6 months and you’ve been together with Jin for about 2 months now after finally getting over the trauma you experienced and allowing yourself to think about other people in a romantic way.

But just as life for you finally seemed to be turning around, the sight of your ex really put a cramp on your day. There you were just minding your own business in the supermarket, and he just so happened to be shopping in the same place at the same time.

Immediately Jin notices who is nearby and wants to go up to him and tell him to leave you alone, but you insist that he doesn’t act rashly just incase the ex actually doesn’t even bat an eyelid at the sight of you two; for all you and Jin know, he could just honestly be shopping there and not around only to bother you. This could be a coincidence.

However, a few minutes after spotting him and when the two of you are browsing the veg aisle, really putting some thought into what you’d like to cook this week, you can’t shake this feeling that your ex is sort of… lingering… and it sends a unpleasant shiver down your spine, causing you to twitch.

Jin, sharp as ever, notices this sudden movement you make and your ex happens to catch his sight. He could have sworn he was there like 5 minutes ago. And there’s nothing in his basket STILL. What’s he playing at…?

You give Jin a look though, giving him the message that you don’t want any trouble and he nods to show that there won’t be any trouble. Instead, he just gives your ex a hard glare, giving the message without using words that he should probably stop this suspicious business. Jin would never let anything bad happen to you and it seems he warded away the ex boyfriend for the rest of your shopping trip, the rest of your day and hopefully the rest of your life.

Suga

He won’t give trouble as long as he doesn’t get trouble

You were a bit shook when you were out alone one day. You were just walking back home from a friend’s house when you saw your ex. Now, you weren’t sure if he had seen you, but just you seeing him was enough for you to feel like your lungs were about to go into overdrive.

Hands shaking, you reached into your pocket and hit Yoongi’s number, being sure to whisper as you tell him what’s going on.

“Hey, y/n! I was actually just about to...”

“Yoongs, he’s here” you tell him a little breathlessly

“Hey, hey, calm down and start over” he says, his voice having a bit of a soothing effect on you

“Okay, so you remember... do you remember when a while back, I told you that thing? The thing about my last relationship...” and you’re trying your absolute hardest to keep the breathing pattern regular

“Yeah, of course... what’s the matter?”

“Can you come meet me... please? Like could you just walk up the street as if we were walking up to [y/f/n]’s house?”

“Yeah, sure, sure... Is there any way of telling me what’s happened sweetie?”

“Um, yeah, I think... Um... Well, about what I just said....” You beat around the bush a little, worried that your ex might be within hearing distance. “About what I just said... I can see him; it’s him”

Yoongi immediately hangs up and pretty much races down the route you asked him to go to come find you.

To your relief, it only takes your boyfriend a matter of minutes to find you, now much calmer than you had sounded over the phone. It seems the ex was out of sight now and once you think about it a bit more rationally, you’re quite sure he didn’t see you anyway and you tell your boyfriend you feel silly for causing such a fuss.

Yoongi doesn’t mind though. He will always be there for you. Though Yoongi didn’t come across your ex this time, he imagines some scenarios in which he could just get the opportunity to talk to him. There’s questions. What is wrong with that brain of his? Did he consider therapy? How could he treat anyone like that let alone the wonderful being that is you?

And although no trouble happened in this situation, if there is ever a time this ex tries anything with you, Yoongi knows he will be there to defend you. If the ex is civil, Yoongi will be civil. If there’s trouble, then your ex will probably regret his actions.

J-Hope

“Nope, she’s not here...”

You had another bad nightmare again and had asked Hoseok to stay the night with you. Whilst it felt a bit odd roaming the streets at 1am, he didn’t mind coming to comfort you.

He let himself in with the key you gave him and everything felt great again. A sudden knock on the door makes you both jump and your boyfriend Hoseok offers to answer it for you because a) you’re still in a bit of shock about the dream and b) this is an odd time for someone to be knocking on your door...

Since you were both in your living room, you’re sat pretty close to the door, within hearing distance anyway. Your heart sinks when you hear the voice other than your boyfriends in conversation.

“Uh, oh, is y/n here?” you can hear him asking. You don’t believe it. You thought that was the end when you broke up ages ago and that he’d quit bothering you.

“Who’s asking?” replies Hoseok, being certain not to reveal anything too soon.

“I’m [your ex’s name]... I’m uh... a friend of hers...” 

Hoseok knew instantly who he was talking to as soon as he heard the name. Whilst the two had never met, you had recently opened up to Hoseok about your past.

“Y/n you say?” replies your boyfriend, playing dumb.

“Yeah, I...”

“Well, I don’t know if this y/n was nocturnal or something but she moved out. A couple of months ago... did she not tell you that as her friend?” he challenges but still pretending to be some unknowing tenant of the house.

“Oh, right...” sighs [your ex] unsure what his next move is. “Did she leave like any details of where she moved, like a place to forward her mail, or...?”

“Afraid not fella. Have a good night anyway” Hoseok tells him, warding him away now.

Shutting the door behind him and coming back into the living room, you can’t speak. All you can do is stare at your boyfriend in shock at the ex’s appearance and mouth ‘no fucking way’ and he can see the worry on your face. He instantly comes to cuddle you on the sofa as you get emotional but he reassures you that [your ex] won’t be bothering you anymore any time soon. After all, thanks to Hobi, your ex now believes you no longer live at the address he thought you did.

Jimin

It’s all about the future

Jimin hated to see you feeling this way. Worried, emotional, even scared. There were an increasing number of incidents in which you had passed your ex: the one that flipped your world upside down and took everything away from you that was in your personality - your confidence, your self-esteem, the lot.

You had started to get back on your feet but you couldn’t shirk the feeling that either you were being followed or there was these set of coincidences that meant you saw your ex at the local shop, the park, and on one occasion, work.

So Jimin made it his duty, his mission, to help you move on. He believed that your best defence against this situation, to ward this dude off, was to show him how happy you are now, or at least show you’ve moved on. Once your ex gets the message that you’re no longer available, he won’t be as interested in the idea of pursuing you, right?

Jimin starts by just taking you on days out just because, you know, to make new memories with him. Sometimes he takes you out of town and sometimes, he takes you to some of the places you went to with your ex but at first it’s only the places that don’t hold strong memories like that one takeaway down the road that you maybe went to twice ever or that one pet store you think you walked into once like a year ago.

Once he thinks you might be feeling more up to it, one day Jimin suggests you go to that park with him for a stroll. It’s a sunny day, you should go and appreciate the nature, but... you’re hesitant

“I don’t know Jimin, it’s just that last time I went there...”

“Exactly! The last time you went there. This time it will be us going there. I’m here for you...” he replies, coming in closer for a cuddle.

“I’m always here for you now he assures you, kissing your head.

V

Pulls you in closer

Okay I may or may not have sort of based it on this even if I wrote it like 3 years ago lmao (the post’s date is actually Feb 2017 woww)

You want to run out of the local convenience store as soon as you see your manipulative ex already in there as you enter with Taehyung. Your boyfriend keeps hold of the arm you have linked through his and you wonder why he is even making you stay.

“No, no, no, don’t worry sweetheart, you’ve got this. I’m here, yeah?”

He un-links his arm from yours and instead puts his arms around your waste, keeping you close. This both makes you feel a bit safer and gives your ex a stronger signal that you’re taken. 

With Tae’s confidence and smooth acting skills, you both manage to pretend you didn’t even see your ex and he’s none the wiser. But, just to be certain about the whole making it clear you moved on thing, whenever Tae thinks you’re both within hearing distance from your ex as you navigate the store to shop for essentials, he just makes little comments to sort of hint at the life you now have with him like

“What should we get in for dinner this evening?”

“Ah, I haven’t had this wine since we sat out in our back garden...”

Before you know it, your ex is out of sight, out of mind. Taehyung is all you need to focus on to make you feel better and to have a happier life with

Jungkook

Tells him to go away

One night, you and Jungkook were sat in watching a movie. You were waiting on the takeaway order of both your favourite pizza so you were listening out for the door.

You shoot up from the couch at the sound of the doorbell, open the door, and to your shock... there stands your ex with your order.

“Oh, um, hi...” you say.

“Yeah, hi...” he replies awkwardly

Worry fills you; you aren’t even sure you can recall your ex even mentioning a job like this. Granted, it’s been a long time but still...

“You alright?” he asks.

“Yep, great” you abruptly reply, not even caring to ask about him.

“So, it’s been a while...”

“Yep”

“Uh, can I come in?” he asks, really sending panic through your system.

“No, thank you!... Mr delivery guy” you boom, sort of being over the top in your state of panic.

Jungkook hears this from the other room and decides it’s been a while for the pizza delivery person to have only brought the pizza.

“Hello?” questions Jungkook, eyeing your ex up and down as he comes to the front entrance next to you.

“Oh, hello... I...”

Something in Jungkook just sparks because he knows exactly who this dude is as you all went to the same school together.

“Listen mate, thanks for the pizza, now I think you have better things to be doing now than harassing my girlfriend...”

“I wasn’t harassing, I was just...”

“Come on, what sort of pizza man asks to come in? No. They give the pizza,get paid and leave. We have the pizza” Jungkook tells him crossing his arms. “Now leave.” 

Your ex tries to as about the payment part but Jungkook is one step ahead “And since I’m sure you wouldn’t want your boss to know about this incident... let’s say this one’s on the house, yeah?”

You were amazed at how confident your boyfriend had suddenly become all because of this situation. Usually he was so shy, never dared even speak a bad word about his older friends.

The ex admits defeat, albeit in a huff, and walks away, allowing you to finally shut the door.

“Wow, Jungkook, that was...”

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened” he laughs nervously. “I guess it was just not seeing him after all this time and I guess I didn’t realise just how angry I was about the way he treated you, and...”

“Kookie, there’s no need to say anything. Thank you”

He never really realised he had it in him, but now he knows... he really can and will protect you.

***

I don’t know why but I felt like I needed to write about this; I think it’s just that with lock down and all that, my mind sort of casts back to weird, bad and confusing times in my life because I guess I’ve been left alone a lot with my own thoughts and then there’s the bad dreams which don’t help, and sorry that’s really enough about me, I just thought I’d explain in case anyone was wondering why I would want to make this kind of piece. Also I guess I have less angsty stuff on my blog because of all the fluff and more so the smut I wrote over the years lmao

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The 12 Step Job

leverage 1.10

Hardison (brings up map on monitors): That look like a pattern to you?

Parker: It's like Billy from "The Family Circus," If Billy was a drunken sex fiend.

eliot straight up looked at her like ?????

- - - - -

Nate: Actually, it does. He's an addict, under stress. So he's not gonna be doing a lot of exploring. He's gonna stay well within his comfort zone. He's still in LA. Oh, yeah. All right, we're gonna do this old-school. Ah, Parker, you break into his condo, see what you can find. Sophie and I will hit the retail spots. You guys go to his favorite haunts. But don't spook him, just follow him. Let him lead us to the money.

Hardison: All right?

Eliot (to Hardison): Strip Joint.

Hardison: Mmm. (to Nate) You know, I'm - I'm gonna need change for $100... in singles.

Nate: I'm sorry. What? Y-you think I have 100 singles on me?

(Eliot and Hardison walk out)

they looked at each other giddily that the con was going to take them to a strip joint and immediately asked their dad nate for money

they’re children, your honor

- - - - -

Hardison: This dude, you see him trying to force his keys onto that girl?

Eliot: Yeah. It should be the other way around, huh?

(Hurley gets into the car and starts it)

Eliot: Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. You don't know nothing about that.

Hardison: Really? I almost had it in me to wash this car. Almost.

Eliot: Ten bucks says you're washing the car.

Hardison: I know it ain’t

Eliot: I guaran- (he is cut off when a car pulls up behind Hurley as he’s backing up, and he hits it. Men get out of the car and run around to where Hurley is getting out of his car)

CHILDREN

also as soon as hardison spilled that slushie he was Dead™

(also when did they stop to get slushies ??? like did hardison beg eliot to stop at some place to get one ??? did eliot begrudgingly to it, complaining all the way but secretly not actually minding it that much ???)

- - - - -

eliot and hardison fighting goons in the parking lot ? two words: 🥰 crime boyfriends 🥰

- - - - -

Hardison: I got a gun. I got a gun.

Man: All right, man, hey, hey.

(the men back away. Hardison points the gun and shoots. The bullet goes into the engine of the men’s car, disabling it. Eliot pulls Hardison toward their car)

Eliot: Nice job blowing out the engine block.

Hardison: I was aiming for his leg.

(Eliot grabs the gun)

Eliot: Yeah give me the gun, Hardison

hardison can’t shoot for shit and it’s hilarious

- - - - -

Parker: Hi. My name is Rose. I'm a kleptomaniac. My parents are rich, but I shoplift anyway... (looks at notes on her wrist) because I hate myself.

HER NOTES ON HER WRIST LMFAO

- - - - -

making parker take the drugs without explaining the process or making her sign anything etc is unethical

- - - - -

Hardison: It-It's, uh, a computer bomb. I-I-I know computers. Computer bomb, um. We-we-we got to reboot the system. Yeah.

Eliot (stands up): You want me to kick it?

Hardison: God, I’m gonna die. No, just, look. (reaches under dash)

Eliot: Wh-wh-wh-whoa.

Hardison: J-just, no. Duck up under the hood and just tell me how it's attached to the electrical system. (pops hood)

I’ve seen meta for this scene where eliot actually obviously knows not to kick it, he’s just saying that to jumpstart hardison’s brain since he’s freaking the fuck out. and I believe that wholeheartedly.

- - - - -

Eliot: What's our margin for error here?

Hardison: About half a second.

Eliot: Run the bag of bricks by me again.

Hardison: You ready?

Eliot: No.

Hardison: Are you ready?

(Eliot reaches under the hood with a shaking hand and grabs the wires)

Eliot: Yeah

ELIOT! COULD! HAVE! JUST! LEFT!

they were a newly formed team and if worst came to worst, he could have just gotten himself to safety and have that be it. except he would NEVER do that. he’d never leave any of his team behind (especially hardison). in this scene and the one before it his hands were SHAKING because he was so scared for hardison and that hardison wouldn’t make it. eliot is the retrieval specialist and he’s the one that is supposed to get everyone home safe. he needed hardison to be safe.

- - - - -

Receptionists: Can I help you?

Eliot: You sure can. Here to see a patient of yours, Mr. Tom Baker.

Receptionists: What's your relationship?

Eliot: Why?

Receptionists: Second Act has a strict policy. Only family members can see patients. We want to make sure outside influences don't hamper our clients' recoveries.

Eliot: I think that's an excellent policy. I'm Tom's brother. Hi. Mark.

(Eliot kisses the receptionists hand. She looks at Hardison)

Hardison: I'm-I'm with him.

Receptionists: So, you're a friend of…

Hardison: No, no, I am—

(Hardison puts his arm through Eliot’s. Eliot stiffens)

Hardison: I am with him. See, he thinks the flirting makes me jealous, but it doesn't. You know, but if you was, like, Brad Pitt or Denzel or somebody, oh, girl, it would be on, seriously. (rings the bell) Bring your ass. Bring your ass. (pulls Eliot away from the desk)

ot3 foreshadowing in season one- we love to see it

(also what a fucking nerd, hardison, tom baker? you live to base aliases off of doctor who)

- - - - -

Parker: I thought my foster parents just wanted me so they could get money from the state, but now I realize they didn't love each other. They just wanted someone to love them.

Hurley: Like they need you to fill in the gaps for their relationship.

Parker: Exactly. But when that didn't happen, they just withdrew

Hurley: Yeah.

Parker: Which led me to steal.

Hurley: Yeah.

Parker: It's all so clear to me now

I’m not sure how much of this was true from her origin story but I’m keeping it as meta just in case

- - - - -

Hardison: He's not all bad. He did give some of the money to people in need.

Eliot: You ever notice how all bad guys know at least one stripper?

Sophie (answering phone): Hello?

Hardison: And you know at least a hundred, so what does that say about you?

Eliot: Hey, I’m a bad guy

stfu eliot you know you’re not a bad guy anymore

- - - - -

parker walking around all happy

- - - - -

Parker: Okay, Parker, get into the air vent, out to the front gate.

Parker: No.

Nate: No?

Parker: No, I feel like I’m making real progress here.

Nate (puts his hands on her shoulders): Listen, I need you to focus, okay?

(Parker smiles and looks down at Nate’s arms)

Nate: What?

Parker: You don't usually touch me, or any of us, really. It's the hole in your heart, Tom. It doesn't allow you to get close to people.

Hurley: She's right

parker got so insightful in this episode. like it was because of the drugs but it gave an interesting look into her mind and into her past

- - - - -

Hurley: Dr. Tanner?

Sophie: Hurley, jump on. Let's go. Now!

(Sophie is pulled away, but another creeper comes out from beneath the car. Hurley gets out of the car. Eliot is pulling on the rope from behind another car. Hurley is pulled away to safety. Eliot covers Sophie)

Eliot: Keep your head down. Keep your head down.

eliot covered sophie with his body and we love to see eliot protecting his family with whatever he’s got

- - - - -

Eliot: Ooh.

Hurley: Steel-Belted radials.

(Eliot pulls a knife and cuts open the tire, revealing the inside full of money)

Eliot: Ohhh.

Hurley: What do you think?

(Eliot hands Hardison a handful of money)

Sophie: I think you might have a knack for this.

that was actually really smart ??? tagging this as something useful for a fic maybe ???

- - - - -

Nate: Just-just take the win. Take the win. (grabs an envelope from Hardison and hands it to Hurley) Here you go.

Hurley: What's this?

Nate: That's your new identity. It's a driver's license, a passport, birth certificate.

Hardison: Your library card, Netflix membership, Sam’s club. Oh, I got you three months free at 24-Hour fitness. Maybe work off some of those tacos.

Hurley: You guys didn't have to do all this.

Nate: Yeah, well, actually, uh, we did. Uh, Jack Hurley is dead. We killed him. So this is your chance to kind of start over.

Hurley: Wow. Hey, d-do you think Michelle will forgive me when she gets the payout from my life-insurance policy?

Nate: Yeah, why don't we just, uh, go with the win? (escorts him toward the door) We're giving you a second chance, so don't screw it up. If you do, I promise we'll know. (hands Hurley tickets) Train ticket.

Hurley: Don't worry about me.

Nate: Yeah.

Hurley: I'm playing it straight from now on. In fact, as soon as I get to, uh... (looks at ticket) Rosarito, I’m gonna find the nearest support group. I promise. Thanks for everything, Tom. (shakes hand)

when the team has someone “die”, they take CARE of them

- - - - -

Dr. Frank: You're sure this is for the best?

Sophie: Absolutely. Second Act isn't the right place for her.

(Parker smells marker. Sam comes and takes it away from her)

Sophie: No, she needs to be around people who better understand the issues she's struggling with. People more like her.

parker sniffing a marker and smiling snjdnssjsj

also SHE NEEDS HER FAMILY. HER FAMILY UNDERSTANDS HER.

- - - - -

(Parker walks out of the building, laughing)

Parker: Hi. (runs up to the group, who are waiting for her) Hey! I missed you guys!

(Parker throws her bag at Nate and jumps into Eliot’s arms)

Eliot: Oh! (to Sophie) When do the happy pills wear off?

Nate: Usually about 24 hours.

Parker (hugging Hardison): I missed you.

Hardison: That's too bad. I kind of like this Parker.

(Parker puts an arm around both Eliot and Hardison and they start walking away)

Nate: Uh, Eliot?

(Nate throws Parker’s bag, Eliot catches it)

OT3 OT3 OT3

also PLEASE give me a fic of them watching over her while she comes down from the meds just in case she needs anything. fuck, I might have to write this if no one else does.

- - - - -

eliot and hardison having a mini argument in the background getting parker in the car

[britishassistant]

Too Many Bridges (I Dig Canals) 1

He was twenty-two when he died.

His mama hadn’t wanted him to move out to West Texas, crying that it wasn’t safe. His dad had soothed that he’d be fine at UTEP, the first one in the family to go to university, a business major, doing them all so proud.

His little sister had said they’d all dealt with much worse in high school, where the teachers screamed at you for speaking Spanish until you could barely remember a word.

His short older sister just snuck a dumb Homestuck backpack into his luggage, filled with the latest volumes of Boruto. He’d liked to read them while eating shitty convenience store ramen at 2AM.

Then he’d run out of cup ramen in his senior year, gone to the 7-11 at 1AM to grab some more, and made the mistake of glancing at a cracker junkie shaking from withdrawal.

Last thing he knew, he was bleeding out around a knife while the druggie tore through his groceries, crooning, “C’mon, c’mon where’s the hit, where is it, I know you’re hiding it.”

He’d only had the strength left to flip the racist fucker off before he finally drifted away.

He wakes as a baby.

The only natural response to this is to begin screaming.

What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?! Why the fuck is he a baby?! Is everyone a baby when they go to Heaven?! Or wait, his butt’s kinda damp, is this Heaven at all?! Is he in Hell?! Was him flipping off that cracker enough to get him sent to Hell, after all he’s done?! All the masses he’s been to?! For the love of Christ, what’s going on—

A woman with white-blond hair and a tired face leans over him, muttering something harsh-sounding in a foreign language.

A loud and angry sounding man’s voice shouts something from somewhere he can’t see, which startles him into crying harder.

Then a large and callused hand slams down over his mouth, practically smothering him.

The woman’s face looms over him, wrinkled and shadowed like the face of the devil himself, poisonous green eyes glaring at him.

“Damare, kuso gaki.” The devil-woman hisses.

He whimpers.

His hair is green now.

Like a dehydrated shrub left too long in the heat, spiky-dry and almost yellowing at the edges.

And his eyes are purple. As if the green spiky anime hair wasn’t enough to humiliate him.

He misses his mama and his dad and his sisters but thank Jesus they’ll never see him like this.

At least his skin color’s pretty much the same as his last life. If he ended up resembling that fucking junkie who murdered him in any way, shape or form...

Well. All he knows is it wouldn't be pretty.

His new name is Meiun Nobuo.

The devil-woman who would rather smother him in his crib than let him cry apparently gave birth to him.

The deadbeat who cursed him with this eye and hair color and returns most nights stinking of alcohol and rotting fish is the sperm donor.

He misses his real family.

They live in a dock town.

Their house is farthest from the shore, so the scent of rotting fish guts and seagull shit is vaguely bearable. It’s bigger than the fishermen and farmer’s huts and market stalls that make up the rest of the village, with a curved asian roof.

He thinks the sperm donor is in a relatively high position in the village, perhaps an official of some sort. Probably inherited, because he seriously doubts anyone with a brain would elect that drunk deadbeat to any position of authority, but who knows.

He used to think the same thing about the government in his past life, and look what happened there.

Ragged official looking people buzz in and out of the rooms he’s not supposed to enter all day every day. Some of them smile at him if they notice him, lips spread sickeningly wide and eyes sycophantically crinkled.

Others look at him like he’s a nuisance, worthy of only their ire.

As if he asked to be reborn to this fucking paltry excuse for family when he had a perfectly good one back home

The devil-woman isn’t from around here.

That much is obvious in the way she’s constantly ill at ease, snapping at the slightest inconvenience, acting like everyone’s out to get her.

To be fair, a lot of them probably are just for the chance to have some peace and quiet again.

He privately counts himself among that number.

She’s always grumbling about how much better it is in rain, but regardless of the weather her shitty attitude never seems to improve.

She also starts trying to poison him when he turns four.

When his rice tastes weirdly bitter he spits it back into the bowl.

The devil-woman slaps him across the face.

“Eat.” She hisses, forcing his head into the bowl. “I didn’t destroy my body for you to bring shame to the Dokuso name like this. Your great uncle was already immune to neurotoxins by the time he was your age. The least you can do is eat.”

He tries to struggle, to scream for someone to help him, but the devil-woman just forces his head down farther until he swallows every last grain of tainted rice.

His body won’t stop shaking for the rest of the day, every gasp of air feeling like it’s scraping his lungs raw.

It becomes some kind of demented pattern.

He’s poisoned, he suffers, his body adjusts, he’s poisoned again in a new way, rinse and repeat until he seriously finds himself contemplating whether his last death was better than this.

The look of dissatisfaction the devil-woman always wears, as though he’s somehow not doing this (or dying) fast enough for her liking, weighs the argument a lot.

On the days where he’s in less danger of throwing up his guts, he has lessons with a tutor, because of course he fucking does.

Death, taxes and homework: the three constants of existence.

The tutor calls him a prodigy with mathematics, even if his grasp of kanji is shaky.

The deadbeat uses this as an excuse to push some of his work onto a five year old with some garbled line about “carrying on the work of our forefathers”.

He hates this.

He hates it so fucking much.

He prays every night, asking Christ why he’s being tormented like this. He hasn’t got an answer back yet.

He’s gonna make a break for it as soon as he’s old enough to do so. He’s still too young to be allowed out of the house, even for festivals. He also doesn’t receive anything like an allowance yet either, though he suspects that’s more due to the fact that the sperm donor is a cheapskate.

It’s fine. It’ll be fine. He’s already got access to some of the accounts, has proven himself to be a dedicated worker beneath suspicion.

Nobody’ll suspect the kid “carrying on the work of his forefathers” if money begins disappearing, not when there are so many greedy adults around. It’s foolproof.

He’s just gotta wait until he learns where he is and how he can get away.

He can do that. It’ll be fine.

“The daimyō has declared dōjutsu users enemies of the state.” His sperm donor complains one evening. “The Mizukage has authorized the use of deadly force to subdue them.”

The devil-woman sniffs, says something nasally and contrarian back but he can’t hear her over the blood rushing in his ears.

Dōjutsu.

Mizukage.

His mouth is dry. He can’t breathe.

There’s no way—there’s absolutely no fucking way—the tech here is way too primitive, he must be hallucinating, going through withdrawal from not reading his favorite manga for so long.

There’s no way this place could be the same world as Boruto. Besides, Chojuro would never authorize a-a genocide like that, Kagura-kun would be so disappointed in him—

But Kagura-kun’s grandfather wouldn’t have had any problems with it, would he?

It’s not until the devil-woman whacks him over the head and screams at him to get up that he realizes he’s on the floor.

He climbs shakily to his feet.

He endures the scolding quietly.

He goes to his room when dismissed.

He shuts the door behind him and slides down it, trying to muffle the sounds escaping his throat. They could be hysterical laughter or sobs. He really isn’t sure.

Because of course he’s been reborn years before any of the good characters of this series or plot developments that he can clearly remember will make their appearance.

That’s just his fucking luck.

He presses his forehead to his knees and screams.

This revelation helps along his plans, at least.

If he’s in Kiri, then he knows he’s probably on one of the many islands that make up the...peninsula? Archipelago? Fuck, geography was never his strong suit.

But yeah, he’ll need to charter a boat to get to the mainland so he can disappear.

He briefly entertains the idea of becoming a ninja for Kiri, maybe growing up to become one of Chojuro’s aides and Kagura-kun’s mentors. Getting to meet Boruto when that arc comes around.

But no. Or at least, not yet.

Going there before Terumi Mei has had the chance to overthrow Yagura isn’t a good idea, what with the whole “kill everyone else you studied with to become a genin” thing they’ve got going on. Also the people claiming to be his parents might track him down and have him sent back.

Fire Country is probably his best bet to vanish. The ninja there actually care about the populace.

He might even be able to go to Konoha. See Boruto and Sarada and Mitsuki grow up firsthand.

The thought leaves a warm feeling in his chest even as his limbs tremble from the effects of the latest venom for the rest of the week.

It doesn’t last.

Of course it doesn’t.

It’s one thing to know that certain people in the community are slated for death.

It’s a different ballgame entirely to see a mob barge into the sperm donor’s office, howling for blood.

He can only hear the words “kekkai genkai filth” chanted like a curse before the deadbeat is nodding his head and rising, grabbing a huge ass sword from where it’s been gathering dust on the wall.

He tries to shrink back, tries to let the throng pass him without drawing their attention, but a hand grabs his collar and yanks him away from his little table, away from his calculations, and drags him along with the frothing crowd of people with hate in their eyes.

He’s squashed near the back of the herd, but every time he tries to get away there are hands and arms to yank him back into line, hands of men or women or—Jesus, or other kids.

He’s eventually funneled through the doorway of a tiny farmer’s hut, pushed into one of the walls by the crush of people, and he looks up and there’s—

There’s—

Oh God.

Oh God.

Oh Jesus in Heaven have mercy.

He can’t look.

It’s awful, it’s too much, he can’t look, he can’t, he gags, averts his eyes—

He sees the girl in the corner of the room.

She’s crying, mouthing “Mama” to herself over and over.

One of those murderers has seen her too.

The man takes a step towards the girl—

“Stay the fuck away from her!” He yells.

He can’t remember moving. All he knows is he’s now in between the girl and the mob, knees trembling and adrenaline pounding in his ears.

His voice is all shaky and squeaky, not intimidating at all.

He’s scared.

Jesus Christ, he’s so scared.

These monsters just killed that innocent lady for their dumb fucking witch hunt.

What’ll they do to this girl if they get their hands on her?

One of the villagers steps forward and growls, “Outta the way, boy. You don’t wanna get hurt for that thing.”

“Fuck you, asshole!” He screams back.

“Meiun, discipline your fucking brat before we do it for you!” Someone else in the mob shouts.

The sperm donor is pushed to the front and begrudgingly holds out a hand. “Don’t be stupid Nobuo. Get your ass over here, now.”

“Listen to your father!” The demon-woman shrieks from the safety of several people away.

He laughs. He can’t help it. “My father?! You want me to acknowledge that drunken excuse of a sperm donor as a father?! Get real, you fucking hag!! You and him wouldn’t know what real fucking parenting looked like if you fucking murdered it in cold fucking blood!!”

He points at what’s left of the lady. “Because guess what? Looks like ya did!”

“How dare you—” The deadbeat’s gone dark purple.

“No, how dare you?!” His hands are shaking and Christ, there’s no way this can end well, but his mouth won’t stop running. “That lady was a perfectly fucking nice lady, a loving wife and a good mom and you assholes think you can just come out here and murder her for what?! Having something that you don’t?! Being a genuinely good person, like you aren’t?! You’re all just JEALOUS FU—”

Pain explodes in his temple.

A man’s screaming, “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, YOU KNOW NOTHING YOU LITTLE BASTARD, SHUT UP—”

He tries to raise his arms, tries to fight back, but the man’s swinging too wildly, he can’t stop the blow to the gut that knocks the air out of him.

More arms appear from nowhere, shoving him to the ground, pinning him down, jeers and taunts about how if he loves kekkai genkai filth that much he can join them, see what happens to them.

The knife glints evilly in the light.

He doesn’t wanna die again.

Jesus Christ, he doesn’t wanna die again.

There’s cold for a moment behind his right ear.

And then there’s nothing but agony, red and sharp and pounding pounding pounding and Nobuo is screaming screaming screaming.

Until his throat feels like it’s going to give out.

Until he knows he’ll die like this.

He doesn’t wanna die he doesn’t wanna die he doesn’t wanna die he doesn’t wanna die he doesn’t wanna die he doesn’t wanna die he doesn’t wanna die he doesn’t wanna die Christ—

The sensation is sudden and painful.

Like he’s been punched in the chest again, but in reverse.

Something erupts from him, with enough force to leave him breathless.

The jeers and ugly laughter become screams as pained as his own.

“Shit, he’s one t—?!” is the last thing he hears before a sound like glass shattering over and over overwhelms all other noise, even the terrified shrieks for mercy.

Nobuo’s eyes roll back into his head.

He blacks out.

The right side of his head throbs.

He whimpers in pain, curling in on himself.

“A-are you alright? Are you hurting? I tried to patch you up as best I could...” A soft, sweet voice murmurs.

He cracks open his eyes a sliver to see a dark-haired head with a pretty face hovering over him. The pretty face looks worried, almost scared.

“What...?” He tries to ask, voice croaky as hell. “Where...?”

“Ah, I, uh, took you and ran away after you got those guys off you.” The pretty face explains, averting their eyes for some reason. Their kimono is torn in places. “You-your e-head was bleeding really bad, so I tried to fix it, but I don’t think I did a very good job...”

What?

His hand lifts to the side of his head, feeling cloth sticky with what he can only assume is blood.

And feeling nothing beneath it.

His breathing hitches. He tries to stop it, tries to gulp the panic and fear back down, he can’t cry, he’ll get hit again if he cries, he can’t—

He lets out a sound that can only be described as a wail, shoulders shaking.

There’s movement and he flinches, oh god, he doesn’t want a hit, not now, not when he’s already dealing with this—

Small, thin arms wrap around him, trembling. A head of soft hair buries itself in his other shoulder, and a low voice begins sobbing “I-I’m so-sorry, I-I didn’t, I co-couldn’t stop them, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” in his remaining ear.

A small part of his brain notes that this is the first time he’s been hugged since he woke up as a baby.

They cry for a long, long time.

Finally, when it feels like he’s gonna have a head cold for a week at least, he shrugs his shoulder minutely.

The girl looks up, face blotchy and red.

“You’re that girl, right? What’s your name?” He croaks.

The girl tenses and pulls away a little. “I’m Haku. I’m eight. A-and I-I’m a b-boy.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He rubs the back of his neck, feeling his cheeks flush. Where does he feel like he’s heard that name before...?

“And you are?” Haku prompts.

“M-Meiun Nobuo.” He states with a grimace. “M’ six.”

“Ah...then Official Meiun was...” Haku’s eyes begin to fill with tears again. “Y-your father, and, and your m-mother—”

“God no.” He snaps. “That man impregnated that woman to make me, but father and mother are the last things they can be called. Real parents don’t pull the shit they do on their kids.”

He folds his arms across his chest. “This may’ve sped up my plans, but you did me a favor, taking me with you. I was planning on running away anyway.”

Haku lets out a confused sniffle.“Where were you planning on running away to?”

“Fire Country.” He might puff out his chest a little. “Their ninja actually care about people, and they don’t hate kekkai genkai there.”

“Kekkai genkai...th-that’s what they kept calling me and m-mama...” Fat tears begin rolling Haku’s pretty face.

He shakily slides an arm around the older boy’s shoulders. “Y-you can come with me. If you want. I-I don’t exactly know the way, I was hoping to get some more geography and funds first, b-but I’ll figure something out, I swear.”

Haku takes a few deep, shuddery breaths. “I-I don’t either, but I know how to get to the next village, if that’s okay?”

“That’s great! That’s way better than what I can do!” He assures, giving his traveling companion’s shoulder a pat. “...d’you, like, wanna start going now, or...?”

“Can we stay here for a moment?” Haku asks. “J-just until I can check your head’s okay?”

Meiun Nobuo nods carefully, leaning more against the older boy. “Sure. No rush.”

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 29: something of an overdue talk, in a long overdue chapter.

Hey everyone! We’re back at it, hopefully, with a few orders of business.

First things first: I’d like to issue a small warning for a short discussion of past suicidal ideation that pops up during this chapter. Since this series is a retelling, generally most of you do know what’s coming up next and what we’ll run into and to brace ourselves for that. You know about the characters’ past traumas and future choices and know where that pops up, or if it becomes unexpectedly relevant or makes a new parallel, you did at least know in advance that it happened. Phoenix’s occasional oblique allusion to Edgeworth’s “choosing death”, for instance. 

As this is not something quite like that and comes up more out of nowhere than usual, I just wanted to make sure that no one is uncomfortably caught off-guard. It felt like something different to me personally as I was writing - whether it’s going to strike any of you as different than other heavier material we’ve had in the past, I can’t say, but I’m erring on the side of caution today. If you’ve got any questions or concerns or anything you want done for content warnings in the future, please do come talk to me and let me know!

On two lighter notes: thank you all for bearing with me through the “oops all Fire Emblem only Fire Emblem” hiatus. It’s been a weird year, obviously. I’m hoping that I can carry on with room in my brain for both.

And finally: Happy UR-1 day! Today is, yes indeed, the exact day that Simon Blackquill is arrested for murder, and in honor of that, have a chapter where I mention him one (1) entire time.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches of Los Angeles Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

Golden Saturday-morning sunlight streams in through the blinds, lighting up the dust particles swirling through the air. The office is colder than Apollo expects for the end of October - colder than it was last year this time - and Phoenix is even wearing a sweater, the shining locket that Apollo hasn’t seen in a while hanging around the outside of the tall collar. “Morning,” Phoenix says, without raising his eyes from what appears to be a manila folder full of newspaper clippings he is perusing. “What’s up?” 

Straight to business, then. Apollo is fine with that. He grabs the chair from his desk and drags it around, not directly in front of Phoenix’s desk, but near enough that it will be harder for Phoenix to ignore him.

“Is there any way to break a curse?” he asks, shoving his hands deep in the pocket of his hoodie. If it were this cold in a regular office on a Saturday, that would make sense; save money on heating bills when no clients are coming in. This is just - fae bullshit. The beginning of their seasonal tantrums. Winter only properly begins on the solstice, and Apollo really wishes that the fae of Kurain would respect the astronomical seasons. Stave off the snow until the end of December and end it in March. Don’t allow it to span from October to April. 

Phoenix sweeps the scraps of paper all back within the folder and ducks down to set it inside a drawer. “If I knew a way,” he says, rising back up with the magatama in hand and setting it down on his desk with a hard clack, “do you think I would go around looking like I do? You don’t think I would’ve gotten this mess cleaned up a long time ago?”

He doesn’t offer Apollo the magatama for a refresher on what that mess looks like. Maybe he was just making a dramatic point with it. “Oh,” Apollo says, scratching the back of his head, faintly embarrassed by how obvious the answer is if he’d given it a modicum of thought from that perspective. “I guess not.”

“Right,” Phoenix says. “As my understanding goes, you can theoretically maybe mitigate a curse, if you layer another opposing blessing on. I am ‘lucky’” - he makes sarcastic quotation marks to ensure that the bitterness dripping from the word doesn’t go unnoticed, as if Apollo could possibly not notice - “to have known enough fae that I’m saddled with both Fortune and Misfortune, and Life and Death. But I’m also not certain that when you drop those on each other they don’t just each take their own separate niches. I’m not dead, but god knows when I try to go somewhere for a vacation or a day off, I still stumble across crime scenes like nothing else. Stunningly lucky in some aspects, and wildly unfortunate in others. You know me. I don’t need to elaborate too much, do I?”

Apollo nods. 

“So that’s the theory, but I don’t think that helps anyway for your purposes, which - this is about Prosecutor Gavin?”

Apollo nods again. Phoenix sighs and rubs his eyes. “Shit,” he says, folding his hands together in front of his face and leaning his head against them. “I - believe me, Apollo, I wish I had some - I wish I had any way to help him.”

And Apollo does believe him. Apollo has to believe him, and believe that Phoenix means well, because he’d go crazier if he wasn’t reminding himself that Phoenix’s most frustrating decisions are born out of good intent. That Phoenix thinks he knows what’s best, but there’s still that old saying about good intentions. 

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Apollo asks. “You knew before this. You knew before he asked you.”

Phoenix raises his head. “And what does telling him get him? Secure in the knowledge that his brother - who is already in jail by the way, don’t need any more proof of his crimes, he’s already never getting out to be able to hurt anyone ever again - hates him enough to have wished him dead?”

Basically the same reasoning that Klavier had, but Apollo has a counterargument now. “Gives him time to come to terms with it before someone dies!”

“You don’t!” Phoenix slams his palms on the desk. Apollo flinches. Of course everyone is volatile and heated over this topic, but that doesn’t make it easier in the moment that it first gets directed at him from people who are usually frustratingly calm and casual. But Phoenix winces, lifting one of his hands and dragging his fingers through his hair, and sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says, and repeats, much quieter, “You - you don’t. Or I never didn’t. I knew from right when it happened that I was cursed; I had three years between then and when Mia died - it - I could’ve had a decade, or two, and it - it wouldn’t have helped. I wouldn’t have felt any differently. Any more come to terms with it. With the thought that I - helped cause—”

His tongue heavy in his mouth, Apollo nods. “But - but wouldn’t it have been worse to find out right after she died?”

“Of course it would have,” Phoenix says blithely. “Of course that - this - is the worst possible alternative. Of course I would’ve said something if I’d known that this was what would happen instead.”

“But you have to have expected that someone would—”

“No, I didn’t,” Phoenix interrupts. “That’s not how this works. You know Klavier. You know how much he doesn’t say, don’t you? How much I don’t - you know what people like us are like. Who’s going to tell him? Sebastian forgets half the time that he even has the Sight. Kay only acts like she knows things. Prosecutor Blackquill spent until two days ago acting like magic isn’t real even when he knew we knew otherwise. Someone who means ill isn going to keep that information to use it, and not to just plainly say something.” He frowns. “Well, usually not. Unless they’re a clumsy interloper stumbling in somewhere they don’t belong and getting themselves fucked over for it too.”

“So other than Means just walking all over everything” - because he wasn’t immersed in this kind of fae etiquette, didn’t grow up in it, learned just enough to spot what he thought were opportunities and ruined himself by it - “you think every other random stranger is just going to respect all these - these weird little rules about what you don’t say?”

“Rules of engagement, basically,” Phoenix says. “Yeah, I do.”

“Prosecutor Gavin told me that you’re cursed,” Apollo says. “Don’t just tell me that’s - that’s the exception that proves the rule, or whatever.”

Phoenix’s expression, smug and trying to dampen that smugness back into something that respects the seriousness of the conversation, tells Apollo that yes, yes that is absolutely what his retort was going to be. Apollo considers screaming. “I’ve been tangled up in this for far too long,” Phoenix says. “I can promise you, I know the patterns. I know the way these things go.”

“And because you’re so much smarter than the rest of us, that makes it okay?” Apollo demands. “To take a gamble and just hope that it won’t go wildly wrong?” 

And he wants to, really wants to add, I guess that’s what you do, just gamble with people’s fates, and he doesn’t, and Phoenix’s face still darkens like he knows, like he can read Apollo’s mind. Because every time Apollo ends up arguing with him, that’s always at the core. This playing card that haunts them both, burnt a bridge barely built, and they keep trying to balance on the ashen skeleton of it. “Just because Prosecutor Gavin is too fucked up about everything else to be mad at you for hiding this—”

“I did,” Phoenix says, voice low, eyes narrowed and dark as an evening’s storm clouds, “what I thought would be best, based on my prior experiences of both how curses don’t get talked about, and knowing exactly what it is like to personally live with knowing that I’m cursed. This is not something I want anyone to have to know how it feels.”

“So you think ignorance is bliss,” Apollo says. Klavier said that. Apollo wants to know how Phoenix takes that statement.

“I wouldn’t call it ignorance,” Phoenix says. “It’s not like he, or you, didn’t know what Kristoph was like until you found this out. You know the crime, the verdict, the sentencing - and everything else that Kristoph tried but failed to do. That Kristoph also wanted Klavier dead is only another small piece in the grand scheme of it all.” 

Still the same argument that Klavier made; Apollo can’t imagine they discussed it. What brought them to the same conclusion? That they both have lived this strange specific kind of grief? This common ground that they share that is foreign to Apollo.

“Come to terms with - Klavier’s already got to come to terms with the rest of that,” Phoenix continues. “It was obvious during that trial how much Kristoph despised him. He knew that too. He knows that Kristoph ruined more lives than just the people he murdered - that he tried to kill more people than he actually succeeded at - cursed and tried to kill children because he couldn’t have - didn’t want anyone remaining who - who could - could… say…”

If Phoenix hadn’t faltered like that - fumbling and failing to continue, words petering out as he went back over what he just said, his eyes going wide and welling up with horror - then Apollo would have simply assumed that his thoughts were moving too fast for his mouth and he couldn’t keep them straight. It would have been easy to talk right through it, and Apollo wouldn’t think twice. If Phoenix hadn’t showed his own hand, gave the game away. Something too terrible for even seven years of professional poker to hide. 

“Mr Wright?” Apollo asks, and Phoenix turns his head, glancing away away, no longer meeting his eyes when less than a minute ago he was staring him down with a cold confident glare. “What - what are you talking about? Vera, and - not someone else? Who else?”

Phoenix makes a tiny shake of his head, and even that little motion is a bright, distinct liar’s red. It lights up his eyes, too, when they dart down to the floor. “Mr Wright?” Apollo repeats. When would this have been? He casts his mind over everything he learned, just a little over a year ago, Phoenix sitting him down to explain seven years of information collected about Kristoph, what he’d done and how he’d tried to cover it up. He tried to kill Drew Misham to tie up that loose end; he cursed and poisoned Vera, two precautions because he wasn’t confident enough in the former, hoping that if she ever left the house she wouldn’t be able to speak to his identity and the forgery he requested. He killed Zak Gramarye seven years later to hide the same. He wanted to eliminate every link in the chain that connected the diary page to him. Its makers Vera and Drew, and Zak who knew he was the first attorney on the case, and then the page got to Phoenix via—

Via—

“Mr Wright,” Apollo says. His voice shakes. “He didn’t—”

“Promise me something, Apollo,” Phoenix says firmly. His mouth is drawn in a tight line but he doesn’t look stern. He looks more like he’s going to cry and is desperately trying to stop himself. “Promise me.”

“Wh - what? I can’t—”

“Promise me, Apollo.”

Not until you tell me what I’m promising, Apollo thinks, Apollo knows is what he should say. He’s been told this enough times; he’s aware of this on his own. Don’t agree to a deal before all the terms are set. Don’t sign the contract before it’s read thoroughly. Rules for lawyers and fae are the same. Just because Phoenix means well doesn’t mean that Apollo agrees with those decisions he makes; certainly not the one they have been discussing, and likely not whatever Phoenix is asking him to agree to. 

“Please.”

The air in the office is so cold. Even the sunlight seems cold now. Apollo shivers, hunches himself up further. What does Mia think? Is this secret-keeping so natural to her, easy as breathing once was, because she’s fae and that’s what they are, liars by trick and by trade?

“Just promise me you won’t tell her until I do.”

His mouth dry, Apollo nods and croaks out, “All right. I won’t.”

He almost regrets pushing the issue,regrets ever asking Phoenix why he faltered. Phoenix sits slumped, his hands in his hair, and when he glances back up at Apollo, he looks so exhausted that it reminds him of Klavier last night. Burnt-out and broken, when it’s so rare for either of their masks to break. Rarer for Phoenix not to be positioning himself as the one with all the cards in hand; for him to fall apart, for Apollo to actually see him upset. “Yeah,” he whispers, soft enough that Apollo sits forward to make sure he can hear him. “Everyone involved in getting the diary page from him to me, Kristoph wanted dead, or to make sure he could silence them. Everyone who knew, even if she was - eleven years old, or eight. The girl who made it, and the girl who gave it to me. He fucking hated the Gramaryes. You think he didn’t jump at the opportunity to try and get rid of all of them that he could? That he wouldn’t cast a curse on each one who ever entered his sight?”

“And she” - Apollo’s voice cracks - “she doesn’t know? You didn’t tell her?”

“Shit, no,” Phoenix says. He sounds close to cracking, too, and when he drops his hands to his desk he starts shaking his head, his eyes scrunched closed. “Being a Gramarye has been goddamn enough of a curse for her. She lost all her family and then found out that her grandfather buried her mother’s soul in the woods because he was a monstrous son-of-a-bitch who deserved worse than getting to go out on his own terms by shooting himself in the fucking head—”

Apollo shudders. Phoenix had never before directly stated his opinion on Magnifi, but Apollo could definitely tell he held only disdain for the man. This, though, is more than disdain. This is positively venomous, and more than a bit frightening. Did he always feel like this, and hid it, or is this hatred something that has only come about since last year Trucy came back to the office with her mother’s soul in her hands?

“—so yeah, on top of that, I’m definitely going to tell her that the same man who killed her father cursed her just because of the accident of who her family is.”

“B-but—” Apollo doesn’t quite know what he’s arguing. He also doesn’t know where all of his prior conviction went. Of course Klavier should have been told - because he found out in the worst way possible - and Trucy - to take a gamble with her too - that’s got to be just as wrong— “Nine-Tails Vale,” he says suddenly. “We went there, and then there was a murder - that - that’s - is that like—”

“Like what happens to me?” Phoenix asks. “What happens with a curse? Yes. That’s how it goes.”

“And you - you’re not going to - to tell her? Ever? In case - in case something happens to her like with Klavier, or—” Too many thoughts are playing in his head, and the next one grabs hold of him and pivots him away from the point he was going to make about maybe why Trucy should know. “The concert,” he says. “When we went to the concert, Trucy and I, and Klavier was there too of course but that’s - Romaine LeTousse was murdered. They’re both cursed and they - wait, was Klavier cursed then? That was before…” 

Did Klavier know when it happened? Did he tell Apollo? He’d said that Phoenix had seen him twice since the trial last October. Presume then that Kristoph cursed him then. The last time the brothers saw each other, and that doesn’t make one bit of sense. 

“How could Kristoph have cursed him?” Apollo asks, and he doesn’t miss a momentary flash of panic that passes over Phoenix, his eyes popping wide for half a second and a loud, sharp intake of breath. “Klavier always has iron on him. He gave me—” He looks down at his hand, and then back up, to Phoenix’s lifted eyebrows. Apollo sticks his hand back in his pocket. “What’s the point in iron if it doesn’t actually save you from being cursed?”

Phoenix is obviously trying not to move. He knows Apollo is watching him, waiting for a twitch, anything to pounce on and draw an answer out of him. Staring steadily back at Apollo, he barely blinks; he rests his folded arms on his desk and his fingers curl just a little tighter into where he’s gripping his arm. Apollo is right to be asking these questions. He’s getting closer to something that Phoenix is hiding. 

“Or it does,” Apollo says. The veins on the back of Phoenix’s hand flex from his grip. Apollo thinks about someone else with a tense hand and secrets. “And he couldn’t have been cursed then, at Vera’s trial, if it does. So then Mr Gavin hated him that much before then.” Phoenix blinks placidly, but he doesn’t adopt his lazy-eyed gaze. Too serious even for that. “And you lied,” Apollo adds. “You lied about when.”

Phoenix flinches. It’s just a tiny one, pulling his head back, the muscles in his jaw and neck tightening, but Apollo can’t miss the light show. Can’t miss that the lie is bleeding out of him.

He finds himself on his feet, not stepping any closer to Phoenix’s desk, just needing the height, just needing to move a little to stop the shaking in his hands and in his chest, a trembling that goes right down to his heart. “He knew already that he’s cursed! Why did you keep lying to him!” 

“I didn’t lie to him,” Phoenix says evenly, but very quietly, and Apollo wants to go over and slam his fists on the desk and make him stop with these hollow justifications, make him face what he’s done couched in none of his winding words. “I just didn’t correct his assumption.”

“That’s lying!” Apollo shouts. “That’s still lying! That’s what happened in Mayor Tenma’s trial! Do you remember that? Do you care!” 

“Don’t accuse me of not caring.” Phoenix’s voice is low, his eyes dark, staring up at Apollo. “I do care. I—”

“You don’t care about lying! But you do care about - what, about us? Doing this because you care, because you always know what’s best for everyone not to know!” Apollo throws his hands in the air. Phoenix’s brow furrows further, his jaw set tightly. “Never mind that Athena had a breakdown during the trial because Means hit her exactly where you were worried she would be! And you didn’t prepare her! Never mind that Klavier’s having a breakdown now because he found out at the worst possible time! When you could have told him! You know—”

“And if what he knows already hurt him this badly, then what do you think would be happening if he knew Kristoph cursed him years ago?” Phoenix slams his hands on his desk like he’s at the defense’s bench, pushing himself up out of the chair and onto his feet. “That his brother’s wanted him dead for that long? You think that’ll help anything, for him to find that out right now on top of all this? You want him to have that to come to terms with right now, too? I didn’t lie to him! He made an assumption that I didn’t correct because I’m not in the business of salting anyone’s wounds!”

He makes - a point. Apollo sees where he’s coming from. Why he’d do that. An additional piece of truth, yesterday the same as a salting of the wound. “But you don’t think he’s ever wondered if - if Mr Gavin resented him for that long? If he - if you would be setting something to rest, if you told him that. You can’t decide for someone else what they’re capable of handling.”

“Fair point,” Phoenix says. He sinks back down into his chair, and then motions to Apollo’s, suggesting he sit back down. “If he’d asked, I’d have told him. If he ever asks, I’ll tell him. I just wasn’t about to drop that on his head with him unprepared. Or if he asks you - I’m not asking you to swear silence to that. Shit, if you ever think that it’ll help him to know, then tell him - tell him you just found out from me, throw me under the bus and lie to make me look worse, that’s fine.”

Apollo returns to his chair, still not feeling any less like he wants to take a swing and see if he’s gotten any better at punching since last April. “You want me to lie now too?” he asks. 

“I want you to use your best judgment about what he might want to know or be able to handle,” Phoenix says. “To not pile on more if he didn’t ask, if you don’t think he’s prepared. Like I said, when it comes to being cursed, I didn’t ever not know, and I know what the knowing is like. Yeah, I took a gamble that if I didn’t tell them then no one else ever would. That they’d never know, I hoped.” 

He shakes his head and then leans it back against his chair, his eyes closing. “See, it’s not just grief, not at all. The woman who cursed me was someone I thought I knew. Though I’d known for a while. She had actually wanted me dead since we first met.” His eyes pop back open. “Eventually she tried to poison me, and when that didn’t work she tried to frame me for murder, and when that plan fell apart she just tried to kill me with a curse because she was pissed about it. She was a lot stronger than Kristoph, I’ll tell you that much. But Mia stepped in, and now I’m still alive and other people just drop dead all around me instead.”

He sounds almost like he is making a recitation, like he’s rehearsed it, scripted it. Apollo wonders if he’s ever told anyone else all these details, if anyone else lacking the Sight knows that Phoenix is cursed, and if he used this same script then too. He’s speaking about himself, something so personal, in a way so curt and crisp, so much more detached than he’s been speaking about Klavier, or Trucy. 

Apollo nods numbly, unable to force his tongue to ask any of the questions he has.

“I could have come to grips with her hating me that long and that much - I could’ve come to terms with it and moved on. I was - well, I eventually became glad to know what she was. I could’ve been okay with all that. Eventually. If I hadn’t known about the curse. But I did and the - the knowing, the - Mia was murdered. Three years after she saved me. That long, thinking I could accept that I was cursed, and as soon as something really happened - I couldn’t.”

He presses his hands together and rests them against his chin. “And I couldn’t ever even just grieve her, because I had this guilt. That her death was my fault - I know, I know, some other man murdered her. He got to rot in jail for the rest of his life for his crimes, and he would’ve hated her whether or not I was cursed. For the things she did and because of what he was, and I had no part in any of that, but I was still - thinking, if maybe if she hadn’t ever taken me under her wing. If I hadn’t been around, maybe it would’ve been different somehow. Maybe she would have survived.”

The lights flicker gently and return dimmer and softer than they were before. Everything that gets talked about in this office, Mia hears; Apollo wonders if Phoenix doesn’t get sick of it sometimes, just want to say something without her offering input. Even if this is presumably well-meant, some attempt at comfort, the most a dead woman who can’t speak can give. Apollo exhales and can see his breath. He shivers again. “Why are you telling me this?” he finally asks. 

“I want you to understand.” Phoenix rubs his hands together, a vacant look in his eyes, like he hasn’t quite realized why he’s so suddenly cold. “What it felt like, and what I’m worried about. If I’d told Klavier, or I tell Trucy - once I say something, I can’t take it back. That’s it, and they know, forever, just like I do. So I want to be sure that this won’t - I want—” He drops his hands and reaches over and picks up the magatama, idly spinning it around between his fingers. Apollo can’t remember ever seeing him this uneasy, this fidgety. “Klavier, especially, reminds me of myself when I was his age, and of a prosecutor I knew then, too. And that - recognition” - he gestures with the magatama clutched in his hand - “is not good, because we were not - okay.”

Apollo wishes he could remember with clarity all that Phoenix said to him about this time a year ago, about Klavier, about Phoenix being concerned for him. He does remember that Phoenix said something about some other prosecutor then, too, that Klavier reminded him of. Or that he was worried Klavier was going to end up like.

Phoenix inhales slowly, and says, “Six months after Mia was murdered - which was three, three and a half years after I was cursed, mind you - I lost someone else. I didn’t realize how badly he was doing - he did a good job at hiding it, and I didn’t know how to reach out. I was wrapped up in my own loneliness and depression, and then he was gone.” 

He stops turning the magatama between his fingers, staring down at it for a few seconds, and then he resumes fidgeting with it. “I felt like I’d caused both of those. Couldn’t convince myself otherwise. Every other factor I knew there was, every single thing I couldn’t prevent or control, all these other things that other people did - I still thought that if I wasn’t cursed, then it could have been - just different enough that they would still be here.” He reaches up, brushing his fingertips across his temple. “Wouldn’t have been a fatal wound. Or wouldn’t have—”

He falters, staring past Apollo now, over at the window. This is the same thing he said about Mia earlier, about that sense of guilt, even knowing someone else murdered her. That he held some kind of responsibility, for a curse that seems to manifest itself as coincidence. Just coincidence, a little too often. 

“They could’ve been okay, somehow, in the end, I thought,” he continues. “And instead, I was - I was there, I was still around, and they weren’t. And all I could think was that if I didn’t do something, then I would just lose the other few friends I still had - they would be around me, and they would die for it.”

“Didn’t you say that there’s no way you know to break a curse?” Apollo asks. From Phoenix’s solemn expression, he’s not going to suddenly say that there is a method, but Apollo has no idea what he is going to say. What that something he thought to do was. 

“Right,” Phoenix says. “So I thought - only way to take the curse out of the equation is by taking myself out of the equation. I thought - as long as I’m not around - if I go and die, then anyone else who I love won’t. The curse will be gone, right, if death finally takes me. But the curse only seemed to hit other people, not me, so if dying was what I needed to do, then I…”

Klavier lying on the stage, wondering why it had to be Courte who died instead of himself. Phoenix’s dark, pained eyes, as he speaks again, finishes the thought in a voice barely above a murmur. “It made - made far too much sense to me, then. Was far too appealing a prospect.”

The question of what Phoenix won’t quite spell out catches sideways in Apollo’s throat, and when he tries to force it he just makes a soft croaking sound. Phoenix presses his lips together and glances away. “It’s a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he adds softly. “Klavier’s - he’s what, twenty-whatever? I was twenty-five when I—” 

When Mia died, Apollo thinks, but that Phoenix doesn’t finish the thought, swallows hard and stares at his desk and says something else, makes Apollo think there was something even worse he could have said, with that implication he didn’t say. “And Trucy - she’s my daughter. I’m supposed to protect her. I took her in because I couldn’t live with the thought of anything else happening to her when I could bring her here, hope that Mia could somehow bless and protect her as much as she did me. But I can’t imagine just - I can’t let that happen to her. To suffer the way I did, to - to spend her life wondering if wherever she goes, someone’s going to die - the concert, Nine-Tails Vale, to ever - to think she can blame herself. Or that everyone she loves is better off without her. Or to—”

He blinks, fiercely, his eyes watering, and Apollo hopes he’ll never have to see Phoenix this close to tears again. Phoenix, cursed and trying - and in the case of Klavier, now failing - to shelter others from that same pain. Klavier, and Trucy, and—

“What about Vera?” he asks. “You explained to me, but did you ever tell her that she’s—” Phoenix stares at him, blinks slowly. Apollo squeezes his own eyes shut. “You didn’t tell her.” He’s unable to muster the same indignation he was before. He can’t really even bring himself to feel manipulated. Phoenix told him exactly that he was saying all this to make Apollo understand. Phoenix sought this reaction. But Phoenix’s chessmaster act has never superceded his desire to keep secrets before; there’s no way that Apollo can convince himself that this emotional vulnerability is all entirely a ploy to get Apollo to shut up. How many times has he refused to explain something and just left Apollo to stay angry about being in the dark? He has never been reluctant to do that. To just sit silent and lock Apollo out. To let Apollo hate him for his secrets.

He wanted Apollo to understand, intimately, whatever it took. So that Apollo would agree keep these secrets. So that Apollo would go along with him. And it might be concern that drives him - he cares, of course he does - but it’s still manifesting in the most infuriating ways possible. In well-meant silence.

“Would you want to know?” Phoenix asks, and that question at this time is an answer and confirmation in itself. “I know the truth is important to you, Apollo - I know it is to all of us.” 

For once, Apollo believes he means it. He’d know it’s the truth because he can see when Phoenix is lying, but he’s actually convinced, this time. 

“But,” Phoenix continues, “if you already know that the person who cast the curse hates you and is in jail for committing murder - already got to come to terms with that, or grieve that, or for someone else dead - you already know that truth. Would you really, honestly want to live with also knowing that you’re cursed?”

To possibly want to die because of it, like Phoenix did? Apollo opens his mouth. He wants to say yes, yes he would like to know, because that’s the truth of it and he wants to always know the truth, all of its facets no matter how ugly. 

Doesn’t he? 

He thinks about Nahyuta, about Dhurke, about trying to forget they ever were anyone, because that’s easier than facing the fact that Dhurke abandoned him, and they might both be dead by now. Easier than wondering whether they were human or fae or something else. He doesn’t want to know what they were. He wants to deny the dreams, to convince himself they’re nothing but the weird subconscious mash-up of memory and the fae horrors Clay has spent all these years warning him about. He doesn’t want the truth about his childhood. He doesn’t want to remember his childhood at all.

(Is it well-meant silence when he doesn’t tell Clay, or Trucy, or Klavier, about them? To not worry them about his life and his past? Or is it just cowardice on his part? Blissful ignorance.)

He closes his mouth. Thinks about the smile Trucy forced onto her face as she realized that Apollo was about to reveal to the court that her father Zak Gramarye was murdered six months before then. Thinks about how she couldn’t keep that smile forced when she found out that her dead grandfather took her mother’s soul for his own personal gain. Thinks about Klavier lying on the stage wishing that he had been the corpse there, not Courte. All the pains that truth has caused them. Is that better or worse than that alternative? Does it depend on what truth it is being hidden?

(He thinks about how long it’s been since he’s said Nahyuta’s name out loud. What color were his eyes in real life, and not Apollo’s haunted dreams? He doesn’t remember.)

“I - I don’t really know,” he admits.

The smug, victorious expression he expects never arrives on Phoenix’s face. There’s no satisfaction in winning this argument. “I’m sorry,” he says, closing his hand around the magatama. “I told you about Vera because it mattered directly for that case, but the rest of this - I wanted to shoulder it myself. So the rest of you don’t have to worry about it. I don’t want you to have to keep secrets from anyone. But I don’t know what else to do.” He forces a smile onto his face with visible effort that makes Apollo wince. Nothing masks the exhaustion written into the lines on his face. “Maybe we put our heads and together we figure out some better way to talk about it. If I ever figure that I should tell…”

He trails off, touching a finger to his locket. Tell Trucy. If he ever gains reason to think that he should tell Trucy. Would he actually run it by Apollo first, ask for his advice? The possibility of being in Phoenix’s confidence for something that isn’t a case doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. 

“I still don’t think you should try and keep it secret forever,” Apollo says, “but I - I guess I see what you mean. And why you don’t just…”

Why he doesn’t just tell her. More reason that just because Phoenix doesn’t “just tell” anyone anything. For once, he’s not being a cryptic bastard.

“Believe me, Apollo,” Phoenix says darkly, “I’m always thinking ahead and trying to plan for the worst. I’m not naive enough to just hope that anything will stay one way ‘forever’. But I have to be sure I don’t make it worse, either.”

It isn’t the lack of a visual cue that makes Apollo believe him. It’s knowing him that makes Apollo believe him. Phoenix always has his eye on something down the line, playing out the plan a few steps ahead to find the complications. Even - especially - while he wasn’t a lawyer. A gambler’s steady hand holding the cards, chancing on an outcome, because the cost of doing nothing at all is even more unthinkable. 

Apollo nods, more times than necessary, lacking anything else to say. Phoenix cocks his head. “Apollo, you all right?” he asks. 

What the hell is he supposed to say - how the hell is he supposed to be? Fine? In what world is he possibly fine? At the end of this, he’s learned more than he ever dreamed he would from his sole initial question, but in it all, that first answer has never changed. 

This is all there is. A rabbit hole of pain so unfathomably deep and winding, and in its darkest depths, the same as the answer given to him on the surface: there’s no way to break a curse. Their lives aren’t the kind of fairy tale where true love’s kiss can wake a sleeping beauty or transform a beast back to a prince - it’s grimmer than that, colder than that, crueler than that. Curses not so concretely visible but more like haunting coincidence, a ghost whispering at the shoulder with reminders of guilt. How could a man who wasn’t even there when the crime happened blame himself for his mentor’s murder? And yet, even after the killer’s confession, how could he not? How can even the curse’s caster be blamed when someone else wielded the murder weapon? And yet, how could they not share in it?

Apollo would rather someone have been turned into a frog, honestly. Wouldn’t that be easier to grapple with, a simple chain of cause and effect, and no ambiguity in who to blame. 

“No,” Apollo finally says. “Not really, no.”

“I guess that was a bit of a stupid question, huh.”

Apollo nods. No kidding. What’s a better question at this point, anyway? Not what he says. “How - how can there really not be any way? For a curse to be broken, I mean.”

Phoenix spins his chair around, resting his head back against it, eyes turned up to the ceiling. Once he slows to a stop, facing the windows, he says, “I mean, maybe it’s possible there was, once, but it was forgotten. There’s a lot of magic that’s gone that way.” 

He gives Apollo a moment to digest that, and then continues, “The Court’s heyday was thousands of years ago. They’re living ruins of what they used to be, and a fraction of what they used to know. Maya - you haven’t met her, she’s Pearl’s cousin - Maya’s helping me out with some matters by trying to dig up more about some kinds of magic they’ve forgotten the nuance of. But even that’s something we’ve got a hint that they knew, once. Not like—” He shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a way to break a curse.”

“Oh,” Apollo says, somewhat surprised, but pleasantly so, that Phoenix said that much. It would be typical of him just to reiterate that no, there just isn’t any way he knows, that’s all, and to skip the explanation for fear of giving Apollo false hope. But thinking about the prospect of false hope is still easier than really, truly considering the meaning of what Phoenix just said - that this, that everything they’ve ever had to deal with in regards to the fae, could have be so much worse. They could do so much worse than all this pain they’ve ever wrought - they were once so much more dangerous than this, and now their Court is only ruins. This is what they are when they are weak.

“If I do find anything out, I’ll—”

Phoenix breaks off, rising up slowly from his chair, staring at something past Apollo, over his shoulder. Apollo twists around to look, not sure what he expects to see, but it certainly isn’t Vongole standing in the doorway, her head held high, her body much more solid than it usually appears, and stiller. The wispy fur at the back of her legs and off of her tail does not stir as though she is made of mist and surrounded by a breeze that affects only her; she could almost, in this moment, be a normal dog, but for her glowing eyes and her ears so bright red as though they were dipped straight in paint.

All the color drains from Phoenix’s face. He snatches up the magatama and springs to his feet, hurrying past Vongole to peer into the other half of the office. Apollo rises to his feet; if Klavier was here - if he heard what Phoenix was hiding - how Apollo promised to keep it a secret—

Vongole stares at Apollo. She doesn’t move. Phoenix reappears in the doorway, curling a hand in his hair, but his face has fallen slack with obvious relief. The claws curled into Apollo’s heart unclenches. “So then what are you doing here?” Phoenix asks the hound, whose ears fold back flat against her head, though her snout does not turn to shift her attention to Phoenix. She stares Apollo down like she will pounce. “Does he send you places or did you just wander here yourself?”

“You don’t know?” Apollo asks.

“You think I’ve ever had the chance to ask either Kristoph or Klavier about the logistics of their spectral hellhound?” Phoenix asks. Apollo tries to remember when he first started seeing Vongole. Whose ownership she would have been under. How soon after Kristoph’s arrest did Klavier come back to Los Angeles?

Despite her weirdly lanky proportions, like a regular dog was put on a rack and stretched out, Vongole always moves with grace, a predator’s prowl and elegance. A monster, but a beautiful one. She circles Apollo like she intends to herd him somewhere, like she is a shark smelling blood waiting for the moment to strike. “What—” Apollo spins too, trying always to keep her in his sight. She moves just slowly enough that he can keep up, but just quickly enough that he becomes slightly dizzy in his efforts. “What do you want?”

She stops. Apollo steps forward, trying to escape her circle, but she swings suddenly to the side, throwing her body up against Apollo’s hip. He expects her to fade through him, as she does walls and doors, but when she hits him he staggers with the force of her weight. And the cold - her body is cold and it reaches straight through his clothes, cold enough to burn, ice on bare skin type of burning, and Apollo doesn’t understand. He’s touched Vongole before, without problem, hasn’t he? Surely he has. What’s wrong with her? Or is something wrong with Klavier?

She trots over to the door, standing on the threshold, staring back at Apollo with her head aloft. He can’t bring himself to move, can’t unfreeze his feet from where they are riveted into the ground. Vongole presses her ears back against her head, lowering it so that her neck is level with her shoulders, prowling again, and she makes another circle of Apollo before again stopping in the doorway.

“I think she wants you to go with her,” Phoenix says.

She wags her tail, much faster than the usual low, wide swishing path that it takes. Apollo wrenches his foot from the floor and takes one step forward. Vongole bounds through the front room of the office, weaving between magic props tossed carelessly on the floor as though she couldn’t pass through them. And she stops and waits at the door, glancing expectantly back at Apollo. He fumbles his phone free from his pocket, finding no messages waiting for him; why would Klavier do something as cryptic as sending his faery dog to collect Apollo, rather than just calling or texting him?

Unless it isn’t Klavier instructing Vongole. Unless she’s acting on her own. Or unless Klavier is in trouble.

“You’d better go,” Phoenix says. “I can lend you the—”

“It’s fine,” Apollo says. He’s pretty sure that Klavier hates the magatama, and he found him fine without it last night. And he didn’t have Vongole guiding him then. 

“Let me know that everything’s all right,” Phoenix says quietly. Apollo opens his mouth to ask what Phoenix knows, why he’s so sure that this means something is wrong - remembers what Phoenix said about himself and how Klavier reminds him of himself, long ago. Closes his mouth. Knows why Phoenix worries.

Phoenix always worries. He means well. His road is paved in well-intended worry.

“Yeah,” Apollo says. “I’ll - I’ll let you know.”

Vongole waits for him only to reach the door, diving through it as his hand reaches for the doorknob. He next finds her waiting beside the bike rack, her smoky fur drifting independently of the chill breeze, and as soon as he mounts his bicycle she lopes off down the sidewalk. She never looks back at him but is obviously monitoring him in some way, her pace changing depending on obstacles and traffic so that she always remains in his sight. He follows her through the quieter (relatively, anyway) city of weekend mornings, through his usual stomping grounds, to end up on the stoop of an apartment building that is - quite frankly, not as grandiose as Apollo would expect. He presumes this is where Klavier lives.

(If it’s not, then he’s far too deep into something that it’s also far too late to back out of.)

Vongole noses one of the buttons on the buzzer at the entryway and disappears through the door. Only seconds later, too quickly for her to have physically covered the necessary amount of ground, the door clicks to unlock. Apollo enters the lobby and before he has time to take in his surroundings, she appears in front of him. Literally appears - not bounding up to him out of a wall, but materializing out of the air, white fog swirling in circles around her ankles. She directs him to the elevator, pressing her nose into the button for the fourth floor and then several times in quick succession slamming her nose into the close doors button. “So were you always like that, or did you pick up your impatience from him?” Apollo asks.

She sits down and fixes her eyes on him. He doesn’t know what that means. He’s not sure why he bothered talking to her. She can’t respond - can she understand? Does she have some way to communicate information she hears to Klavier? Surely not - hopefully not, depending how long she was in the office.

She does not move until the elevator halts at their destination, and she springs to her feet and slips through the doors before they have opened wide enough for a fully-corporeal dog of her size to pass through. But when he makes it through, she meets him right at the other side, her impatience not taking her any further down the hall until Apollo can follow right at her tail. The walls are not cracked and peeling as in Apollo’s building, but they are certainly plain - again, very much not the kind of place he would imagine Klavier to live.

Vongole throws herself through the door of Apartment 404, and Apollo waits in front of it. A moment passes, and then another. Right. Even a faery dog doesn’t have opposable thumbs to grip a doorknob. He fails to swallow his apprehension but knocks anyway. There has to be a reason Vongole brought him here. He can’t just run away from it. 

The seconds crawl past. Apollo reaches up to knock again, but the door swings suddenly open, and he flinches back.

Klavier’s hair is barely held together in a ponytail, strands falling loose around his face, and he looks even more like he hasn’t slept, going by the shadows under his eyes. And Apollo never thought there would come the day that he sees Klavier in sweatpants, but - he’s still alive. He’s still intact in one mobile piece, and he’s lucid enough to look annoyed. Apollo fumbles for words, any at all, but none arrive on his tongue. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He starts to raise his arm to point at Vongole, to blame her, and before he can, Klavier sighs, shaking his head, his apparent annoyance sliding into exhaustion, and he steps out of the doorway, pulling the door open wider, and gesturing for Apollo to come in.

-

[notes on the chapter]

[latestageyouth]

When you walk away (Nothing more to say)

chapter 11 - Knock Knock Get The Door It’s Depression

trigger warnings: cussing, coffee, a quick mentions of death, mentions of running away from home, mentions of injury (pieces of glass in a hand), some negative self talk, please let me know if i forgot something

summary: Remus finally decides to do something right...kinda

author’s note: Sorry it took so long the planets just weren't aligned right. No, but seriously, I'm really sorry haha, shit was just going on in my life and I got really stressed. Hope people haven't forgotten about this yet :|

Remus knocked on the wooden door again, frustration apparent in the sharp, loud pattern. C'mon answer. He knocked again, his knuckled started to ache. C'mon. C'mon. Come on.

The door opened, revealing a tired man who was clearly perplexed by the sudden visit, partly because he just woke up "Rem? Dude, it's, like..." Nate trailed off and looked at the clock on the wall, "Shit, it's gonna be midnight. What the hell happened to you, kid?"

Remus looked at Nate's baffled face, the concern apparent on his features enough for both of them. He rolled his tired eyes, still slightly puffy from the tears "It's whatever. Will you let me in or not?"

Nate was...unsettled, to say at least. He didn't care what Remus did, for the most part, it's not like he was a big part of his life, but this...this doesn't feel good. Remus wasn't joking now, which meant something seriously bad has happened. Nate learned that the hard way. Besides, Remus' attempts at running away stopped long ago, so it wasn't that, which...actually made it worse now that he thought about it. Nate stepped out of the door frame, a few raindrops falling onto the floor as Remus made his way inside.

The house was significantly warmer than outside, Remus noticed. Still cold, though, maybe that was because he spent an hour or two wandering outside in rain, his clothes felt heavy, probably everything including him was soaked with water. He could hear Nate walk up to him even though the violent beating of the rain, "So, I am assuming you're not here for a slumber party," the older man looked him up and down, making a mental note to ask about Remus' clenched fist later.

Remus scoffed, "Yeah, no shit."

Nate furrowed his eyebrows...no joke? He's not even trying to be sarcastic? Something...someone seriously messed up. He walked over to the kitchen, turning the kettle on, they will both need something to drink, "You want some coffee? Y'know, since otherwise you're probably gonna freeze to death," he tried to lighten the mood, Nate never did that, he was the cool guy, Remus always clowned around. He even made a morbid joke, hoping to at least hear Remus chuckle. Not even a proper response came back, just a hum of what Nate assumed was agreement. He took a jar of coffee from the cupboard. Remus was surprisingly quiet...too quiet. He was never good with serious stuff, no matter how much he tried to be, he thought Remus knew that. Hoped, Remus knew that.

He glanced into the living room where Remus was seated on the couch, a wet spot from all the dripping water forming around him, some from his hair even fell to the ground as he ducked his head further down, "What happened, dude? Was it Elise again?"

Remus tilted his head back, "No," he said with a groan, "You know she died when I was like fifteen," he looked at Nate, "Right?" Nate was never the type to pay attention but damn it, even he should remember that.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, you know how I am with memory."

Remus hummed in response. The same monotone tone he was humming in all the times before. Nate really didn't want to nag Remus about it for the fear of only making whatever was happening worse. Still, he needed to know what was wrong, otherwise he couldn't help him "You still didn't answer my question," Remus looked at him with a sour look on his face, Nate doesn't think he saw that ever since...shivers shot down his spine as he shook his head, that was a long time ago, Nate was reaching, "What happened?" he pressed on, a little uncertain if that was a right thing to do. For fuck's sake, didn't his school have a counselor or something?

Remus looked away, eyes overflowing of doubt. Nate sighed and poured the finished coffee into two mugs. A little spilled on the ground as he made his way to the couch to sit with Remus, though both of them paid no mind to it.

"Have you ever..." Remus started and didn't finish, as if he swallowed his tongue. Nate was sure Remus could come up with a more creative and gross metaphor if he wasn't a shivering cold mess, which Remus never was, until, well, now. Nate started at Remus, finally putting his acting skills to use and making himself look serious and worried. Not that he wasn't, but his default face was more of a resting-bitch face, as Remus always put it. He never was good at expressing himself.

"Did you ever...fuck up? Like, big time? Something that you couldn't fix?" Remus's voice cracked a little bit at the end. He tried to scratch his arms but his overly-bitten nails didn't allow it. Nate made another mental note to ask about that, maybe talk to Natalie about this, suggest getting the kid a therapist.

"I mean, duh. All people fuck up sometimes" he took a sip of his coffee, unsure of what to say. It was painfully obvious he was trying to play it cool while having to idea what to do.

Remus tsked as his body jolted from the cold, then continued, "No, I mean like," he hesitated for a second and thought over the words racing around his mind, "Majorly fuck up. L-like, something really important."

Nate honestly didn't know how to respond to that, but he tried, for once in his life, "Yeah, of course. Everyone has things that they regret, there's no shame in that."

No response. Nate waited a bit longer, hoping the silence would urge Remus to speak up, before sighing heavily - finally something he was good at - and pushing the now lukewarm coffee towards Remus, "C'mon, drink, it'll warm you up."

Remus didn't drink the coffee, instead talking again, which was a relief but it did nothing to ease the knots in Nate's chest, "Let's pretend you fucked up with a really important person. And ruined years of building a friendship. Do you...do you think there would be a chance to save something?"

"Huh, I never really..." he hesitated, "Fucked up that much with a person, I don't..." Nate put down his cup with a huff, trying a more assertive approach, "Look, Rem, you're like 14-"

"17."

"Doesn't matter. Listen. If the friend that you're talking about really is your friend, they will forgive you, people have arguments all the time."

"It wasn't an argument," Remus rolled his eyes, "It's my fault that this happened anyways, and even though I've known him for so long it feels like I don't know him at all and it's weird and I want things to go back to the way they used to be," his vision got blurry, but he didn't let himself cry, he had enough of that. He wasn't sure if the uncomfortable tightness in his chest was from the melancholy heartbreak or the fact that he was running out of breath.

Nate took a sip of his coffee again, it was apparent by now that this was a nervous gesture, but it shouldn't be, he should be confident and reassure Remus, but hell, this was a new level of teenage drama. He took a deep breath, "Sometimes things can't go back. Sometimes it's for the worse, sometimes for the best, but right now you can only focus on what will be and if you'll let this one thing break you."

Once again, uncomfortable silence filled the room. But not for Remus. He felt better, knowing that he wasn't bottling it up inside anymore. At least not all of it. He reached for the surely cold coffee.

A piercing pain surged through him, still clinging in his hand even as the mind-numbing, quick sensation came to an end. Fuck. He forgot. How could he forget? Stupid. Stupid Remus.

"Woah there, the hell is that?" Nate reached towards his arm as soon as he could process what was happening, at which Remus promptly moved further away from him and stood up, backing away from the couch slightly. Nate hesitated, "Remus," a troubled tone sounded the room, "Show me your hand, Remus."

Reluctantly, almost like half of him protested, he did. What good was it gonna do keeping it from him anyway? Nate knotted his eyebrows, "Oh, you clumsy idiot," he huffed at the sight of the tiny pieces of glass scattered around inside the palm, "I am not a fucking doctor, why didn't you just go- y'know what? Fine, stay here, I'll bring the first aid kit, it's gotta be here somewhere..." he walked down the hallway to what Remus assumed was his bedroom, not that he was familiar with Nate's house. And Remus was left in silence once again. Left to wonder how exactly he found himself here, and why he found himself here? Remus found himself thinking about the butterfly effect, that one small misstep on his side which caused his life to change in an instant.

It wan not often that Remus thought about his future, but the heartwrenching scenarios that could - and will, Remus was certain - happen couldn't help but slowly creep their way into his head, slowly eating him up from the inside like maggots, Remus could practically feel the dopamine and serotonin leaving his body, leaving an empty shell of the jokester he once was. Maybe he was exaggerating, Dee always told him he was a drama queen, so did Roman. It hurt to even think those names, has Remus really become that sensitive?

The tiny drops of rain drummed against the window as Remus heard a distant, quiet rumble of thunder. Huh, he's probably gonna stay here overnight, he wasn't sure Nate would even let him leave, considering what state he came to him in. Speaking of Nate...

Remus got up, looking at the wet spot left behind him on the couch before he walked further into the house, his ears picking up on a hushed tone behind one of the doors.  He carefully put his ear to it, trying to pick up on the sentences being spoken.

"Yeah, he's here, no need to worry."

Remus' breath hitched in this throat.

He barely heard Nate sigh, "Natalie, it's past midnight, just let him sleep here."

Oh, was it really that late? Remus didn't notice...

"Yeah, yeah, I will, don't worry, g'night," Remus presumed that Nate hung up, because the next thing that came out of his mouth was, "Worrywart bitch..."

Remus knew he and ma weren't on good terms, the reason was there, so that wasn't much of a surprise. Still kind of angered Remus. He could hear footsteps coming closer, and stepped away from the door as it opened.

"Oh, Rem," Nate startled.

Remus groaned, "You took too long, I was tempted to just pull the glass out myself," he added a playful tone to the end to make Nate less worried.

Nate scoffed and walked back to the small living room where Remus followed him, "Yeah, like I'd let you do that."

Remus wanted to complain but shut his mouth instead, sitting back down onto the couch. He silently wondered...what was everyone doing right now. How they were...

He was getting sentimental.

[herzdieb]

I have to bite the bullet and ask - how do you deal with being in a relationship with an introvert as an extrovert yourself? I feel all I do is argue with my girlfriend because she's an introvert and I'm an extrovert. :(

One thing you have to take into consideration here is that I’m talking purely based on my own experiences.

I’m also speaking from a POV of an eight years-long relationship filled with lots of talking, adjustments, arguments, miscommunication, trial and errors, and a lot of compromises.

Let’s dive into this, shall we?

The obvious thing is - your partner recharges by being away from people, while you recharge by being with and around people. That’s the first big thing that will drive a divide between you two. Because you don’t function okay if you are isolated for too long, and your partner doesn’t function okay if they don’t get the right amount of isolation from people and life in general.

We started dating when I was a bit on the wild side of life; lots of partying, staying out late, lots of all the fun things that you can imagine a college girl would be into. And she simply was not. Never, really.

I’m not sure at what point of life you guys are at, because at a certain point, life kinda winds down and it’s easier to settle into a routine that’s equally as comfortable for both parties. Other times, things are just too hectic and all over the place. Nevertheless, if this got me through my college years, it can get you through anything. 

It used to drive me insane. I used to take it very personally. And I know it’s hard not to. I don’t think it’s easy for anyone to initially understand that someone needs a break from you and it’s not personal, it’s just how they recharge and cope with the world. Due to my nature, I was surrounded mainly by extroverts and dated them as well, so this was a huge learning curve for me.

She gave me space, but there were moments when I desperately wanted her to occupy that space as well. And I’m sure you feel the same way. It gets lonely after a while if you attend most of the social events on your own, or feel restrained, one way or another. 

That’s life. 

But here’s what helped me and helped our relationship in the end:

understand that their need to be left alone has little to nothing to do with you personally

social interactions of any kind, that you wouldn’t even register as a “big deal” can exhaust them to no end; acknowledge and learn to respect that

don’t guilt-trip them - that’s a given for anything really concerning a healthy relationship, but sometimes it gets far too easy to play the blame game - still, don’t fucking do it

learn to give them space - learn to register the signs and patterns, and don’t be afraid to ask “hey, do you need some alone time?”. it hurts to hear a ‘yes’ for the first few times but you’ll adjust to it, just keep yourself busy with something else in the meanwhile. us extroverts are good at that

learn to be patient and understanding - their social battery can go from 100% to 0% in a blink of an eye and sometimes you don’t see it coming. don’t make a big deal if you have to leave a party or a social event before everyone else. or if suddenly they don’t want to go anywhere. staying in isn’t the worst thing that could happen, now is it?

it took me years to realize that staying at home with her, in her little isolation bubble wasn’t her trying to keep me away from things I wanted to do, but was actually her way of showing and expressing love by including me instead of excluding me.

talk about things; ask them what makes them comfortable in social settings, how you can make things easier for them, etc. Usually what we do is that I stick by her side and it’s one of the best things really. you can still mingle as an extrovert, you can still have fun. these things are not mutually exclusive. you can and will have fun with an introvert. 

last but not least, take it easy. make small, short-term plans. don’t overwhelm them. learn to accept a “no” from them if they genuinely don’t feel like doing or going somewhere. it doesn’t mean you have to go alone, it could simply be a matter of rescheduling things. 

Look, it gets better. Talk about things. If you get hurt, explain why you got hurt. If you get frustrated, do the same. Give your partner a platform to discuss whatever is on their mind as well. 

Trust me, nobody who loves you wants to hurt you and your partner is no exception to that rule. Also, keep in mind that escalating every little thing into an argument won’t bring you far. Don’t let things pile up and don’t be afraid of objectively expressing what’s weighing on you and what behavior affects you.

Finding a healthy balance takes time, but eventually, you’ll realize that instead of going to the 10th party that week, chillin’ at home with your s/o doesn’t sound half as bad. It took me years to realize all of that and for us to adjust because I came into this relationship convinced that the only way to spend quality time was by doing things. and doing things meant going places. and that’s simply not true; the sooner you realize and accept that all you really need for a good quality time is your s/o, the better for you guys. 

But seriously, if you want someone who is far better at solving problems, you should go annoy @ifishouldvanish. Without her, I wouldn’t be half as insightful as I am right now regarding any of that. 

[krissykat420]

All the things I've needed to say

Hello, 

First of all I want to ask that you please bear with me and my words as I try my fucking hardest to slice my chest open with this paper and pour my heart out onto it at the same time. I've prayed for guidance and for you. 

I hate the words “I'm sorry” as they do nothing to convey if someone is sincerely and unconditionally sorry. Also, I've found myself using this phrase out of pure routine and avoidance....without any true feelings of sympathy or guilt. I've always been someone to refrain from recognizing and accepting my wrongs. My pride is high even if my self-esteem is low and I do agree that I display narcissistic traits. I often apologize to avoid dealing with an issue rather than honestly admitting my faults and accepting the shame guilt and remorse associated with them. I do have that ability I just choose to avoid it at times to feel like I am not to blame. I feel as if I am trying to explain someone who I have lived as and you have lived with....someone who you could so easily explain while I struggle to explain the nature of the girl staring back at me in the mirror. 

okay, I know that I have made enough jail references and it is becoming more of a distant experience instead of a recent challenge. However, I'm going to try to recall some of the nights I spent full of emotions with a bible in my lap and tears in my eyes trying to figure out how to make it in there and out here. I've always been codependent even though I claim independence and being forced to depend on myself and my God alone was what I needed to experience. I told myself regularly that jail was a necessity to my survival as God made it part of His plan for my life. I needed jail and I desperately needed to realize that I was not God and I was not able to decide the worth of others. It took me months to accept that I had made the decisions I had made and I had treated those who loved me most so fucking wrong. I still have a hard time believing that I was so cruel and cold. Feelings of pure shame and embarrassment sit at the bottom of my stomach every single day. I still try to mask these feelings by disregarding the severity of my actions and laughing at the story of it all. I am still learning how to cope outside of punishment and distance from those I hurt. I need to pray about this more and focus on the future rather than the damages of the past. 

I remember when things first began for us in every way. I remember hating you because you had a idgaf attitude that I actually envied. I remember the way you enjoyed life and focused on your happiness rather than meeting the needs of everyone else. Even down to sleeping with a damn ashtray because you do shit how you do it. I think that Ive always been attracted to you since I met you but different aspects have been highlighted over the years. Your personality and your mannerisms, your gestures, expressions, your behaviors all together attract me more than I could explain. I know that throughout our relationship arguments and attempts to change you were frequent as this happens with every relationship I have been in in the past. I am someone who likes to make projects out of people instead of finding a legit hobby to occupy my time and attention. I find myself so focused on avoiding my own issue and instead magnifying the “problems” I find within others. I hate that I do this because I know that I strive to be more open minded and accepting as a person all together. I find myself getting lost in the moment so often that I fail to realize patterns of my behaviors and the repeated consequences. I seriously have to create timelines in my head frequently to reflect on how insane my behaviors look. I want to stop this cycle so bad. I judge the person closest to me so much to avoid judging myself when that is who I need to be focused on instead. 

Anyways back to you, whenever I brought you to my house when you were avoiding my ex husband I did because I was uncomfortable with my choices and I wanted you to know what I was doing. I needed someone who cared to break that pipe and tell me I was fucking up and deserving of more. Its like someone who cuts their wrists but doesn't cover them up completely when going to school....so that its a call for help. I wanted you to care CJ. I know that I said that I purposely “got you addicted” but I lied to seem even more heartless than I was. I didn't have any premeditated thoughts of trying to get you addicted like I was however misery does love company and I was miserable inside and out. I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts and I wanted someone who loved me around to lessen the guilt and shame that I felt inside. As time passed I pushed those feelings back and focused on my ego alone. I treated you so badly because I was in love with myself and who I had become at that time. I knew that if anyone could destroy my ego then it was you so I attempted to destroy yours first. I manipulated, abused and took advantage of you in every way possible because it fueled my ego. I was not only on a high from drug use but a high from false power and control. I honestly think that I allowed the devil to enter my life in ways that I never have before. I have had a faith in God since I was younger as I prayed to Him with full realization for the first time in the passenger seat of my moms old Honda car in our drive way one night when I was about 12 years old. I've given my testimony in front of my home church when I was younger and I've rededicated my life more than once. I turned my back on God when I was in high school and found God again in rehab. I know that I need a closer relationship with Him today as I became closer to him in jail and have distanced myself again since I was released. I never want to allow myself to become so lost again. I never want to have a disregard for life like I did before......testing God, thinking I was God at times and seriously playing with nothing but fire. 

Even though I have not made every right decision since I am a lot more aware of how scared I am of myself and who I have been in the past. I am trying my absolute best to focus on the present and live in the moment in a positive way. However the stress the unknown future does affect me and my choices. I am trying to be the best me I can be today. I am also trying my hardest to give you the best of me as well. I know that I've disappointed you but part of me knows that I am again falling back on the cutting wrist example given earlier. I desire affection and attention and I want that from you. I also need direction and discipline as I have lacked so much In the past but I also want that from you. I'm still clearly struggling with self discipline, self love (without drugs), and being content with myself. 

I know that no amount of words could ever compare to action and time to show that I am sincerely, honestly and completely dedicated to our happiness. I hope that I've given you some insight into the craziness of my mind. 

I think of our family, our happiness and the future I want for us so badly. I also feel so undeserving of this yet I know everyone deserves the best. CJ you are my best and I just want to be your best too. I promise I will die trying for not only you but my daughter as well. 

Lost story short, I'll die sorry for who I've been and I'll be forever burying that part of my past.

[pbjpuppy]

do every oc question but with horsepower PLEASE

DUDE I WAS SO HOPING SOMEONE WOULD ASK ABT HER IM SO EXCITED

THIS IS SO LONG SO I’M PUTTING A READMORE

1. Do they sleep with a stuffed animal? If they have multiple, who’s the favorite?

SHE does Not surprisingly!! BUT similarly to Giovanni with his kids, Serene is always sleeping next to her bc she’s Warm and Soft so it’s like, kinda the same thing 

She IS the type to love sleeping with a ton of pillows though

2. Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child?

Horsie doesn’t have the world’s greenest thumb but she could probably keep a houseplant alive!! She likes nature a lot she’s just not stellar at gardening

She would be REALLY GOOD with a pet though that animal would THRIVE and she’d be the type to take like 400 pictures of her pet and spam everyone with them like “Look at this Fucking Angel” 

And she’s DEFINITELY GOOD W KIDS seeing as she’s basically raising Serene!! Serene can testify that she’s the Best babysitter (even if she accidentially taught Serene like. 20 separate curse words gdgjdsk) 

3. Ask them to describe their love interest.

OOH FUN DIALOGUE

“Um, she’s.. REALLY pretty. Like, really fuckin’ pretty. I think she made me like, 17% more lesbian the first time I saw her. And like, we’ve known each other for a long time and we know each other’s secrets n’ stuff… ahahah, that came out really weird! I just mean we’re good friends, y’know? Hah. Anyway, she’s a bad bitch, I’d die for her. Love her.”

Her love interest is actually a character named Destiny who I havent drawn yet!!

4. Do they look good in red?

I think she could pull it off bc red is in her color scheme but also like.. there’s already so much warm colors!! I think she looks the best in gray or black tbh (like imagine her in a black suit or something she’d look SNAZZY)

5. Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?

“HHuuh WHAT AM I S’POSED TO TALK ABOUT? Fuck. Uh. Respect lesbians.” Mic drop

6. Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is?

She’ll ALWAYS take advice from her friends, especially Destiny, bc she trusts them to know when she’s being too hot-headed or rash- There’s a character in her friend group who hasn’t got a name yet but he’s REALLY good at giving advice!!

She will NEVER take advice from her old rival Lockjaw, and she shouldn’t- he’s always out to sabotage her somehow and plays dirty a lot of the time, and he’s known to be a huge liar (Plus they just hate each other)

7. Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words.

My three words: Fiery, protective, loving!!

Her three words: “Uh.. Gay. Handsome. Wait, scratch that. Gay, HOT, optimist.”

8. Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them?

She WANTS to be intrigued but she just gets frustrated and crumples up the paper after a few minutes if it’s not a super easy riddle sjhsjf she knows by now that it’s just Not Worth It

9. Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)?

She only usually does with like people (or I guess furry)-shaped objects like stuffed animals and dolls, and even then not to an extreme degree- it’s really Serene who has the EXTREME empathy and empathizes with everything!!

10. What age do they most want to be right now?

THIS IS SUCH AN INTERESTING QUESTION she misses being a kid like Serene is a lot, but she’s pretty happy where she is- she’s in a better place than she has been for a long time at the current point of her story! If anything, she wishes she could go back and tell her middle/high school self that things are gonna be okay

11. They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save?

She’d SAY she’s gonna save it and REALLY try but she wouldn’t be able to resist splurging on some really cool stuff bc COME ON she won the LOTTERY!! She’d also wanna buy gifts for the Monster family because she wants to thank them for how generous they’ve been to her so it’s really very wholesome 

12. Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)?

She doesn’t READ that’s for NERDS

JUST KIDDIN but nah she’s not really one for “mushy stuff” and prefers action/adventure stories!! She’s also a fan of mysteries and anything that’s not Painfully Heterosexual 

13. Name one thing their parents taught them.

Her parents weren’t the best, but they did teach her very good manners- she did go through a BIG rebel phase where she definitely was Not as polite, but overall her politeness and natural charisma really help her out in social situations (especially when she has to get favors from people and stuff)

14. Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? Do they have any?

I think she’d agree with the term in a general sense!! I’m not sure exactly what guilty pleasures she has, probably just the fact that she can be kind of a thrill-seeker and take unnecessary risks- not involving Serene though ofc

15. What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?

The first thing that came to mind is that she considers arguing with people you KNOW aren’t gonna change their mind to be a waste of time- Especially when it comes to social justice type issues she knows not to waste her energy on people who just won’t listen (but she’s argumentative by nature and usually ends up doing it against her better judgement)

16. If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear?

LEATHER JACKETS AND COOL BOOTS AND SUCH!! She’d also wanna buy a bunch of cool pins to put on said jacket (And she’d probably have to get it tailored bc of her wings too which would also be money..) She would also probably get some kind of cool patterned horseshoes!!

17. Do they like children?

Yes she DOES and Serene is her favorite (Even though she calls her a booger)

19. Do they study before tests? Practice before job interviews?

NOPE she usually dives into most things headfirst, which can be VERY UNWISE but she feels like it keeps her brain clear to not stress about stuff beforehand  

20. What do they like that nobody else does?

HMM… I don’t really have an answer for this one tbh!! I’ve been thinking about it for a bit, the only thing that I can think of is that she likes waking up REALLY early and the smell of smoke, but lots of people also like those things

21. What would it take for them to break up with someone? What would be the last straw?

She’s actually really bad at getting out of situations like that, like if she’s in a relationship she’s not happy in she’s bad at getting herself out of it- but probably something that really make her realize she needs to get outta there would be if the other person seriously hurt her on purpose 

22. Do they like being called pet names? Do they call other people pet names? What’s their go-to?

She LOVES pet names and calls EVERYONE pet names (unless they’re not comfortable ofc)!! Nicknames are kinda hard to make from “Horsepower” so a lot of the time she’s given weird affectionate pet names instead, it’s somthing that she’s kinda known for

DEFINITELY her go-to pet name is “babe”, she calls almost everyone that and I like to imagine that it’s very soothing bc she has a lovely deep voice.. other go-to pet names are baby, hon and love!! She has a lot of personal nicknames/pet names for individual people though 

Tbh she only really refers to someone as their full name if she doesn’t know them or if she’s mad at them shfshf

23. Stability or novelty?

Novelty!! Stability is important to her but she gets bored and anxious if she’s stuck in the same routine for too long, that’s why she likes taking care of Serene bc Serene is ALWAYS doing new things

24. Honesty or charity?

Ooh that’s difficult… Once again both are important values to her, but I’m gonna go with honesty- she’s a very (bluntly) honest person

25. Safety or possibility?

Possibility!! As established before she’s kinda a daredevil she doesn't care about SAFETY (unless it’s anyone else but her doing it then she’s gonna lecture them)

26. Talent or effort?

Effort!! She is EXTREMELY passionate and such an overachiever about everything shkfskh it’s like Hey Horsepower Can You Do This Simple Task For Me and she’s like Oh You Wanted Me To Change The World? I’ll Do That

27. Forgiveness or vengeance (or…)?

Definitely vengeance she holds grudges REALLY BAD and as kind as she tries to be if someone who hurt her or her friends gets hurt… she can’t help being satisfied

30. What would they do if they knew it would be forgiven?

OH THATS A HEAVY QUESTION since she holds grudges so bad she’s probably try to get revenge on Lockjaw for all the grief he’s caused her over the years, if she knew she’d be off the hook she’d get really nasty about it bc her anger at him has just been Boiling for years 

WOW THAT TOOK A WHILE BUT IT WAS SO EXTREMELY FUN THANK U SO MUCH FOR ASKING!!! I’ll do the other one tomorrow bc I need to go to BED 

Also I did cut out a few questions!! I either didn’t wanna answer them or I had answered them before 

[canyousevmyheavydirtysoul]

on the 8th day of 🎄, canyousevmyheavydirtysoul gave to you...

Decorating with Fall Out Boy.

Joe:

“No, it can’t be,” you murmured to yourself, leaning closer over the steering wheel and squinting to get a clearer look through the windshield.

You were approaching your house, and from what you could see, there appeared to be something hanging from the roof. You had a nasty suspicion that it was either your boyfriend or his bandmate, but you gave them the benefit of the doubt and shook it off; surely they couldn’t be that incapable of hanging Christmas decorations.

Upon pulling into your driveway, your suspicions were confirmed.

Your boyfriend, Joe, was dangling from the roof, holding onto a string of Christmas lights for dear life as Pete stood on the roof tiles, frantically trying to pull him up.

“OH MY GOD!” you exclaimed in a mixture of horror, disbelief and infuriation, hurriedly exiting your car and sprinting across the lawn to where the previously propped up ladder lay on the grass.

Swiftly, you set the ladder underneath Joe and carefully guided his feet to the steps. Once he was safely on the ladder, Pete let go and both guys sighed heavily in relief.

“Seriously, you guys?” you threw your hands up before setting them on your hips, frowning at both of them, “Can I not ever leave you two alone? First, you bury Joe in the snow, then you use the roof-gutter as monkey-bars!”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Joe spoke, stepping down from the ladder, “But this really wasn’t our fault! The ladder fell over.”

“Uh huh,” you ran your tongue along the inside of your cheek and nodded, “And why exactly did the ladder fall over, Joe?”

Scratching the back of his neck, Joe avoided your gaze; as did Pete, who whistled through the silence.

“That’s what I thought,” you nodded mockingly before turning around and grabbing your bags from the car before heading inside, “Just know that now, not only will Pete definitely not be our baby’s godfather, but you two are never, ever allowed alone with them!”

Andy:

You stifled a laugh as you watched Andy struggle to wrap the tinsel all around the tall frame of the Christmas tree.

“Why the heck did we buy such a huge tree?” he complained, stretching his arms as far as he could in order to wrap the tinsel around the entire tree.

“You’re the one who wanted a big one,” you chuckled, walking over to assist your husband, “Need I remind you the tantrum you threw over wanting to get this specific one?”

“You’re smarter than me,” he retorted as he draped the final piece of tinsel over the lower branches, “You’re supposed to stop me from doing such stupid things.”

“I’ve been doing that for almost five years now,” you pointed out, adjusting one of the baubles that had gone askew, “I think I’ve earned a little break. There,” you smiled, stepping back to admire the tree, “Beautiful.”

“Yes, you are,” he cooed, scooping you into his arms and nuzzling your neck, making you giggle in adoration.

“You’re such a dork,” you mumbled, ruffling his short hair as much as was possible.

“You love my dorkiness!” he defended, “Why else would you have stayed with me for five whole years?”

“Gosh,” you breathed, wrapping your arms around his neck and shaking your head in disbelief, “Can you believe it’s been that long already?”

“I know,” he murmured, gazing soulfully at you, “It’s crazy. I can still remember the moment we first met as if it happened yesterday. I knew my life would change for the better from that moment, and I was right. It has. I love you more than anything.”

“I love you too,” you whispered, “Happy anniversary, baby.”

Pete:

“Doll, help me put the star up?” Pete called out, struggling to reach the top of the towering Christmas tree.

“A star?” you quizzed, stepping into the living room, “I thought we agreed that we would put an angel on top.”

“When did we agree on that?” he replied with a confused scrunch of his face.

“It’s a given, is it not? Angels belong on the top of the Christmas tree. Not stars.”

“That’s bullshit,” Pete snorted, and you let out an offended gasp.

Pete let out a gasp too, but the purpose of his one was to mock you.

The two of you stood in silence, staring at one another – eyes slightly twitching. A minute later, the soundtrack of the classic western standoff started playing, and the both of you slowly pivoted your head to look at Joe, who was playing the music from his phone.

“Go on,” he encouraged, making a shooing motion with his hands.

“Pete,” you spoke, turning back to your boyfriend, “we’re putting an angel up there. End of argument.”

“No, we’re not! Everyone knows that stars belong up there!”

This back and forth continued on for the better part of an hour, during which both you and Pete each made multiple attempts to place your respective ornament on top of the tree as Joe observed from his seat on the nearby armchair. It was mildly entertaining at first, but after almost an hour, the novelty had worn off, and he was beginning to get irritated.

While you two were preoccupied with arguing, Joe took the opportunity to find a way to secure both the star and the angel on top of the tree.

“GUYS!”

“What?” you and Pete yelled in unison, whipping around to face Joe, who held out his hands to draw your attention to his solution.

“Oh,” you said.

“Wow,” Pete added.

“That looks stupid,” you snorted.

“So stupid.”

“What were you thinking, Joe?”

“Yeah. Take it down.”

“But I… You… I just,” Joe stammered, gesturing between you two and the tree. He gave up and waved a dismissive hand soon after. “Ah, fuck it. You two can fight it out. Ungrateful bitches.”

Patrick:

You winced as you heard a crash; the unmistakeable sound of glass shattering. Turning around, you saw your boyfriend, wincing too and giving a sheepish smile.

“My mom got me those ornaments! Stop breaking them!” you scolded, carefully securing a bauble to the tree.

“It’s not like I’m trying to break them!” he defended, gasping when another one slipped out of his grasp, resulting in yet another crash; the third one so far. “Oops,” he chuckled nervously, casting his gaze downwards when he saw the death glare you were giving him. “Uh, maybe you should handle these.”

“I think that would be best,” you agreed, rushing to take the remaining three ornaments from your husband’s arms before they too suffered a tragic end. “You can take over with these.”

“Okie dokie,” he replied happily, quite content in being tasked with handling the baubles.

Until you started yelling again, that is.

“THAT IS NOT WHERE THE BAUBLES ARE SUPPOSED TO GO!”

Patrick startled so much, his fedora fell off.

“WHY ARE YOU YELLING?”

“BECAUSE YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!”

“I’M SORRY!”

“YOU SHOULD BE!”

“I AM!”

“GOOD!”

“Ugh,” he groaned, removing the silver ball from the tree and readjusting its position so that it fell into the pattern you had going, “There. Is that better?”

“That’s perfect,” you beamed, “You’re amazing.”

Patrick raised an amused eyebrow. “Oh, so now I’m amazing? I could’ve sworn you were about to file for divorce a minute ago.”

You frowned at him before looking down at your swollen tummy and gently caressing it.

“It’s not my fault I’m having mood swings. Blame baby Stump,” you pouted, and he sniggered, moving to plant a kiss on your head, and then kneeling to plant one on your stomach too, making you giggle.

“It’s alright, I can handle it. It’ll be worth it in the end,” smooching your tummy one more time, he started rubbing it slowly, “You’re the best Christmas gift I coulda ever wished for.”

_______________________________

Thank you for reading x

[pumpkins-s]

King and Reaper

Read on AO3 Here

Allura had told them once that Voltron was their destiny.

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

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

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

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

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

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

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

Full thing + content warnings are under the cut.

((Author Notes:

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

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

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

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

Look. It's for klangst week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 “So what’s the problem, then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 He doesn’t need to specify what before means.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Keith snorts. “And you believe her?”

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

 “It’s naivety.”

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

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

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

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

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

 “Neither do I.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 “You think I don’t know that?” Hunk mumbles, quiet anger creeping into his words. “I lost my home, Keith, and I lost my best friend, someone who’d been practically family since we were children, and then I had to watch everyone trip over themselves to find someone else to blame. Of course it isn’t right.”

 Keith winces, ducking his head, and Hunk pales. “Sorry, I—“

 “No, you’re right.” Keith says lowly. “You lost a lot more than I did, I’m just being self-centered.”

 “It’s not a contest. We all lost something, we just… had different ways of handling it.”

 Keith barks a laugh. “Shitty ways of handling it, you mean.” He sighs, running a hand over his face and fighting the urge to just grab his bangs and pull, use the sharp edge of pain to remind himself of his own existence and dull all the swarming thoughts in his mind. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what we think, does it? They’re not going to listen anyways.”

 Hunk shrugs. “That’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?”

 Keith stills, fighting to keep himself from looking to the star map at the words, to the gaping hole where a beacon of life once rested, shoves down the bile in his throat and the burn of pain just at the memory of the image and locks it away. Dissociate, compartmentalize, repeat.

 “…Yeah, it has.”

    It began, and it ended, with the destruction of Earth.

 Or… No, that wasn’t quite right.

 The death of the Earth was both a beginning and an end, yes, to so much, but the whole mess that led up to it? That began when Lance found the schematics for the death ray.

 Well… That’s what he’d called it, at least. Keith had never bothered to find out what actual name the Galra had given it, if any at all. It didn’t matter. It did its job, and in the end it was destroyed in turn. That’s all that counted, at the end of the day.

 …Or perhaps, really, it started long before all that.

 Things changed after that final fight with Zarkon.

 Keith doesn’t know what they expected, really. It had been naïve to assume that taking out Zarkon would instantly solve all their problems. Of course he would have a heir, of course there would be a backup plan. Ten thousand years of domination and cruelty couldn’t survive on just one corrupted soul— There was no doubt some, if not most, Galra must have swung to Zarkon’s side during the war, given Allura’s reactions to the species as a whole, and after so long under Zarkon’s rule, many of the Galran elite would of course come to see their place in the Universe as natural.

 Hell, they hadn’t even killed Zarkon, just… knocked him out of commission.

 And that had opened the door for Lotor.

 In a way, Keith wonders sometimes if they might have been better off just continuing to deal with Zarkon. Yes, the dictator was a terrifying monster that even he himself had learned wielded immense, terrifying power that was almost impossible to match, but at least with Zarkon they knew what they were dealing with. With Lotor, there was no interest in merely “capturing” Voltron, or a predictable obsession with the Black lion to bet on. Instead, they now just had a new Galran emperor to deal with who considered them an annoying nuisance that needed to be squashed out at the soonest convenience. Oh, sure, he doesn’t doubt that Lotor would happily claim Voltron as a weapon for himself if given the opportunity, but he doesn’t hold the same obsession with preserving the autonomy of the lions his father did, and if its easier to destroy Voltron than conquer it, that seems to be good enough for Lotor.

 Lotor was a new-age strategist walking onto a field of old players, and for the princess, who had been partaking in a ten thousand year old chess game of war with Zarkon, his way of playing destroyed both the rules and the expectations.

 It hadn’t helped, of course, that amongst the midst of all this, they hadn’t even had Shiro with them to be their guide.

 After he had disappeared following the battle with Zarkon, Shiro had remained missing for two of the longest months of Keith’s life.

 They hadn’t had the slightest idea what to do— They’d retreated back to a star system where there weren’t any life forms or, more importantly, Galrans, for galaxies, and there they’d remained.

 Keith had known that Shiro wanted him to lead, to take charge if something ever happened to the other, but at the time all he’d felt was… numb, those first couple weeks caught up in a haze of helpless rage and apathy, spiraling between the two extremes without pause or pattern.

 He’d been… lost.

 They all had.

 In retrospect, Lance had handled it the best out of all of them, excepting perhaps Coran, who already had far too much experience with losing people and knew how to push it aside in favor of more immediate matters. While the rest of them shut down, Lance was there searching for a way out of the mess they’d gotten themselves into. He became a fixture in front of the monitors on the flight deck where Allura normally stood, working through the nights in order not to get caught by the others on the screens Keith hadn’t even noticed him learn to use with such proficiency.

 Keith had seen him there more than once, on the nights where he couldn’t sleep no matter how hard he tried, grief and terror and anxiety clawing at his throat, and eventually would get up to just pace the halls of the castle until morning.

 Lance never noticed him hovering outside the entrance to the flight deck, and Keith had never bothered to alert the other to his presence.

 Perhaps he didn’t want Lance to turn the mothering hand to him that he had been using on the others to coax them into eating and sleeping, or perhaps he just didn’t know what to say.

 He’s… not sure if he regrets that decision or not.

 It hadn’t really clicked for him as to just how much the aftermath of Shiro’s disappearance had changed Lance until he caught the other in the training room one night, doing the same stupid thing Keith himself had snuck down there to do.

 He had been used to catching Shiro working his way through a steady stream of training bots, or Shiro in turn catching him doing the same thing, but he hadn’t been prepared to find Lance perched in one of the holes in the walls of the training room that served as their versions of sniper’s nests, bags under his eyes and hair unkempt yet gaze perfectly steady as he took down training bot after training bot with his bayard, eventually switching to just a handheld blaster that served as the Altean equivalent of handguns, as far as Keith could tell, without even a pause.

 It had been unnerving, to say the least. He’d never seen Lance so calm in the face of a fight before, the other usually taking even their training as an excuse to fuck around to the best of his considerable ability. Lance… just wasn’t a serious fighter, it was an inevitable part of his personality that lent him to background noise and assisting others, not… the kind of calm certainty Keith was used to seeing from Shiro or Allura in the face of an impending storm.

 The whole thing had left a sour taste in his mouth, and he’d opted to try and forget about it, writing it off as a fever dream from the stress of the whole period of time.

 These days, Keith can’t help but wonder sometimes if that is the Lance people see now, when they meet him. If the calm killer he’d seen hiding under the surface for only a moment is the face of an entire movement.

 Do they even know the real Lance? The idiotic child who had flirted innocently with the princess and challenged Keith to pointless races down the castle’s corridors? The paladin who had hated hurting others and had just wanted to go home?

 Or… Had the Lance he’d seen methodically work his way through star charts on Allura’s command deck and shoot down training bots without even a flinch or pause been the real Lance after all? Had the Lance they had known been the lie?

 …Keith has never figured out which train of thought scares him more, though he does know those are the musings that drive him to the training room, beating his feelings into a bot until he can’t feel anything but his own heartbeat.

 Only once had Keith seen someone else with Lance on those nights where the other flitted around the flight deck, commanding the screens with calm focus as he searched for… something.

 It had been Hunk, of course, because really, Keith thinks, only Hunk knew perhaps even a piece of this side of Lance.

 “You can’t keep doing this.” Hunk had said, voice low and entirely unaware of Keith’s presence in the background. “You’re about one second away from collapsing, Lance. You need to rest.”

 “I can’t.” Lance had answered, with frustrating indifference. “I’m sorry Hunk, but I can’t. We don’t know what’s coming next, and the others are too preoccupied with finding Shiro to pay attention to the movements of the Empire.”

 Hunk had made a frustrated noise, gesturing to the screens. “This isn’t even about the Empire. I may not be a language nut like you who picks up Altean writing this easily, but even I know enough to tell.”

 “…We need to find Shiro, even if it’s just his body.” Lance sighed, turning away from Hunk. “And Allura and Keith and Pidge, they’re not in the right mindset to do that right now, let alone deal with considering the option that Shiro might be dead. So if finding proof of what happened to Shiro speeds up the healing process, or at least gets them to a place where they can focus on other things, so be it.” Lance had paused, running a hand through his hair and looking to Hunk tiredly. “I’m serious though, something is coming, I can just feel it. We’ve got a month, maybe two at best, while the Galrans regroup, if we’re lucky. Kolivan says—“

 “You’ve been talking to Kolivan?”

  “Yes Hunk, I’ve been talking to Kolivan, because the dude is stuck on this ship with us and no one has been bothering to ask his opinion or even check he’s alright given he just lost two of his men! He’s the closest thing we have to an informed source on how the Empire might move now, so I’m damn well going to listen to him.”

 “…Right.” Hunk had coughed awkwardly.

 “Look. I know you’re just trying to look out for me, but I can handle myself. Take care of yourself first, and if you want to help, then keep an eye on Pidge so I can focus on making sure Keith or Allura don’t kill anyone during an argument.”

 “But—“

 “I’m fine. I’ve got Coran and Slav helping me figure out Shiro, and Kolivan helping me with tracking the Empire. I can handle this.”

 Hunk had just sighed, and Keith had opted to slip away before either of the occupants of the room caught onto his presence.

 He hadn’t slept that night, Lance’s words running through his head in an echoing mantra.

 The frustrating thing, though, was that Lance had been right. They weren’t coping with Shiro’s disappearance, and the idea of focusing on anything else, let alone considering the possibility Shiro might need replacing, was unacceptable. Even after overhearing that conversation, Keith still couldn’t bring himself to suggest to Allura or the others that they might need to think about other options— He had felt like if he let himself say it, then it became a reality, and that… that was too much.

 So he raged and wasted time in the training room taking his feelings out on the training bots and helped Allura scour their scanners for any sign of Shiro, and he willed himself to forget what he had seen of the calm, analytical Lance he’d caught glimpses of in the dead of night.

 It took three weeks before Coran quietly interjected and suggested they might need to think about ways to continue to form Voltron in Shiro’s absence.

 It took four for them to accept it.

 Keith had told the others of Shiro’s decision that he should lead Voltron if something should happen to the other, doing his best to ignore Lance’s unimpressed stare from the corner of the room, and didn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened when Allura agreed without hesitation.

 No one had objected once Allura gave her approval, even if Keith could feel the weight of Lance’s disapproval, Hunk’s uncertainty, Kolivan’s lack of impressment, clinging to him.

 Lance had finally broke when Allura suggested that the easiest pilot replacement might be for her to take the Blue lion and for Lance to move to Red.

 “Uh, no. Not going to happen.”

 Keith had seen Allura look at Lance with irritation before, but the sheer depth of it on that occasion had him wincing. “And why not?”

 “I can’t fly Red, and you certainly can’t fly Blue.”

 It had been Pidge who spoke next, looking to Lance with annoyance as the lack of sleep she’d been getting got the better of her temper. “No one’s happy about this, Lance. Now’s not the time for your stupid inferiority complex.”

 “It’s not that!” Lance had snapped, throwing his hands up. “Even I’m not that selfish, jeez! I just mean it won’t work. We’ve all felt the lions’ presences when forming Voltron. Red’s completely the opposite of Blue. I know I come off as impulsive sometimes but believe me it’s not going to be enough to meet Red in the middle. We’re just too different. Never mind the fact that Blue isn’t going to let Allura pilot her, they’re not even remotely compatible.”

 “Excuse me?” Allura looked the angriest Keith had ever seen her, frustration boiling under her calm, regal visage.

 “Princess, with all due respect, you don’t have the temperament for Blue. I know you’ve told us she’s the easiest lion to bond with,” Here Lance winced at his own words, and Keith did his best to ignore it, “but Blue is all about fluidity, trust and loyalty and all that bull. You’re too commanding for her. If anything, you’d be better off in Red.”

 Allura snorted. “We will see about that. It is the lions’ decision, not yours.”

 In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Lance had been right.

 Red had reacted violently to the very idea of switching paladins, raising her particle barrier the minute they had entered the hangar, and Blue, despite her claimed easy-going nature, would not open for Allura, just as Lance had said.

 Keith hadn’t even approached Black, taking one look at them and knowing just from the weight in his chest that the chances of them opening were remote, especially when it would, in this current state, leave Red without a paladin.

 “I told you.” Lance muttered, and Allura had turned on him eyes blazing.

 “What would you suggest then, Lance? We need Voltron.”

 “We could put Kolivan—“

 Allura snorted, and Lance sighed. “Okay, fine. We rotate Coran in for Blue, I think they’d match well enough for the time being, and…” He shifted. “I could try Black?”

 Keith had blinked in surprise, staring at Lance in astonishment and wondering when the serious Lance of the night had crept into the day.

 “Absolutely not.” Allura didn’t even hesitate in her answer. “There is no way Black would answer to you.”

 He had expected Lance to wince, to shrink away, but instead he straightened up, glaring. “I know I’m not the best choice, I know I offer nothing special to the team, but—“ He huffed. “Coran told me that the old blue paladin was close to Zarkon, that they were able to communicate with the Black lion. Maybe that’ll be enough. We’ve got to try something, and this…” He gestured to the shut-off lions around them, “This isn’t working.”

 Allura had paled, eyes narrowing. “You are not the former blue paladin, and things are not the same as they were. Do not confuse the past with the present. If the lions will not accept this arrangement, we will just have to work until they do.”

 “The past seems to be enough for Blue to refuse you.” Lance had grumbled as Allura swept by, and Keith pretended not to notice her hands tighten into fists at his words.

 There were some things about Voltron’s checkered past that he just… didn’t want to know.

 (The next night, he caught Lance in the lion hangar, sitting in front of Black with an achingly solemn expression, speaking to the lion in quiet languages Keith didn’t recognize— At first, he had thought it was just Spanish, but eventually he noted the subtle shifts in the word sounds as he filtered through languages and they ran together, eventually settling on what Keith easily recognized as Japanese, perhaps trying to find a language the lion would prefer to listen to. Even now, he’s not sure if Lance was just talking to the Black lion, or with it. Of all the things from the past he tries not to think on, that memory is the one most pushed down, hidden in the depths of his guilt and his considerations on the what ifs.)

 The thing was, and Keith had accumulated a lot of time to think back on that day, among others, Allura’s… their dismissal of Lance wasn’t routed in hatred or dislike. They just… hadn’t respected him enough, too used to the Lance of the day to allow themselves to see the Lance of the night when he offered himself to them. The stress, the overwhelming fear of their situation making Lance an easy scapegoat to take their frustrations out on, to ignore and push aside in favor of their own opinions.

 That didn’t excuse their treatment of Lance, or make it right, but it was… context. Really, none of them had treated each other well during that time. Hunk and Coran were just as ignored as Lance, Kolivan and Slav treated as outsiders at best, Pidge picked fights with everyone who so much as looked at her, absorbed by insomnia and her desperation for clues to Shiro’s whereabouts, Allura coped by taking charge of the daily search with steely determination, and Keith… he shut himself away.

 Ultimately, they never had time to decide on a new way of approaching reforming Voltron. Three days after Blue’s refusal to accept Allura, and Red’s blatant aggression to even considering anyone but Keith, a flurry of distress signals went off all across the board.

 That was the first indication— Lotor may not have held the sheer power or respect of his generals that his father did, but he was infinitely more intelligent, and had no obsession with the Black lion to blind him.

 He baited them out of hiding far too easily.

 That became the month of running and taking cover, of playing guerilla warfare.

 (Perhaps that was where Lance had learned how to do so, or perhaps he was the one who already knew, who nudged them quietly towards that mode of fighting for survival without their conscious notice.)

 They responded to distress signals, of course, but without Voltron they simply didn’t have the firepower to go up a Galran fleet that suddenly seemed smarter and faster than ever before. This was a new enemy, and they were so busy trying to figure out how to successfully combat it that they never had the chance to sit down and actually discuss a feasible lion-swapping plan, let alone the extra time it would take to learn to reform Voltron.

 And so the Black lion went empty.

 Until just over two months after he’d vanished, Shiro appeared back in the cockpit, like he’d never left at all, shaken to the core and staring at them all like ghosts once they’d gotten the alert from the lion hangar and rushed down to find him.

 Shiro… He wouldn’t talk about what happened. Not to any of them.

 And, God, Keith tried, he tried so hard to get Shiro to talk to him, or to Allura, or to anyone. Pleaded with, begged, coddled the man who had been a part of his life for so long he was practically a brother into opening up to him, but he never got anywhere.

 Maybe Shiro wanted to protect them, maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to talk about it.

 Maybe it was both.

 And so they wallowed in that silence, Slav filling up the quiet spaces on the flight deck with long ramblings about alternate realities that only Lance and Coran seemed to pay any attention to while Shiro stared at the star map projections with haunted eyes.

 It didn’t occur to Keith until much, much later on that perhaps Slav had been trying to tell them all something with his inane chatter. That there was a reason no scanner could find Shiro, why he just seemed to disappear and then reappear right where he had been.

 Regardless, whatever had happened to Shiro, wherever he had gone… He wouldn’t tell. He locked it away and asked them in his silence to pretend to forget those two months, taking charge of Voltron again without hesitation, as if nothing had happened.

 They all have their individual coping mechanisms, Keith thinks, and for Shiro, it’s blocking out his trauma with a soldier’s focus on an immediate goal, a visible and logical obstacle to overcome, locking down his past and refusing to let it air unless he has no other option.

 …Then again, Keith himself is much the same.

 And just like that, they moved back into doing what they had always done since becoming paladins, just with a slightly different enemy to face.

 And the Lance of the night, of quick analysis and sharp movements and steady hands, disappeared in the face of their old equilibrium returning.

 (Or, at least, Keith stopped looking for him.)

 There were only glimpses of that Lance again, after that, in the rare moments like that first time Lance questioned Shiro’s orders in the face of approaching the Blade of Marmora even before all this started, emerging on the few occasions where Lance steadfastly voiced his disagreement with a plan Shiro or Allura suggested, arguing against then with the same calm logic he had used when refusing the lion changes, and with the same amount of success in getting people to listen to him.

 Keith wonders, sometimes, if perhaps this could have all been prevented even then, if he had gotten his head out of his ass and stopped taking Shiro’s word as law, had been willing to acknowledge Lance might have more going on under the surface than they initially thought. Perhaps, subconsciously, he’d enjoyed Shiro’s favor, basking in the approval of the one person who had been with him for much of his life, and had been reluctant to potentially lose that.

 Over time, Lance seemed to give up, and his objections faded, and Keith lost sight of the Lance of the night.

 Until the breaking point, until Earth.

    It had started with an intel-gathering mission.

 They had broken into a decent-sized transport depot, intent on gathering information on what was being moved where with the hopes that it would clue them into what Lotor’s plans were, both against them and the universe in general. Pidge had set herself up in the main control room of the shipping deck, Shiro standing guard, and himself, Hunk, and Lance had been sent out to find what Pidge aptly described as ‘important-looking computers’ within the greater complex of the depot itself, the three of them under strict warnings to stay on the comms and ‘not do anything stupid’.

 (Perhaps, Keith thinks often, if they hadn’t opted to split up, things might have turned out different.)

 They’d split levels of the depot between them, himself and Lance scrapping over who got stuck with the lower level and who got the top one, for some inane reason Keith can no longer remember.

 Lance won and got the top floor, and it was… It was fine. Had been fine. A normal mission with a bit of lighthearted arguing and competition over the comms as to who could find the computers they were looking for first.

 Until they were all in the rooms with the tech in question, portable chips that allowed Pidge’s program remote control of the systems, and then Lance’s voice rang out over the comms.

 “There’s another monitor in here.”

 “An additional screen setup?” Pidge’s voice had answered, only half paying attention.

 “No, no. Like… A whole second system, completely removed from the one I plugged you into. Smaller. Galra laptop version.”

 Keith and Pidge had groaned in time at Lance’s seemingly less-than-helpful terms of description, Keith already half tuning the other out as he focused on getting the chip Pidge had given him plugged into his own computer, Lance’s insistent chatter about ‘Galra laptops’ drowning to white noise.

 “Lance.” Pidge had finally said, loud enough to cut through Keith’s distinct focus on the not-Lance things going on around him. “If it’s a smaller system, and doesn’t have an input plug like the main computer does, then it’s both useless to me right now and probably contains absolutely zero information. Please for crying out loud go back to the main computer and follow my instructions.”

 “One sec—“ Over the comms, Lance cursed quietly. “This is a lot harder without Kolivan on call to translate the shit I don’t understand. Galran is hard to read. Why’d we have to drop him back with the Blade?”

 “Lance.” Shiro snapped, breaking his silence.

 “One second, Shiro!” After a moment, Lance’s triumphant whoop signaling that he’d most definitely ignored Pidge’s orders and somehow gotten his way into the smaller computer rung out over the comms, and Keith had rolled his eyes, turning back to his own work monitoring the tiny Pidge-sprite on the monitor on his computer as it went to work.

 It had taken about three seconds before Pidge swore loudly, earning a scandalized gasp of her name from Shiro. “Abort mission, get out of there and back to the Green lion. It appears Lance in all his genius has triggered a system-wide alert by fucking around with that computer.”

 Keith gave his confirmation, listening as Hunk did the same, and had unplugged Pidge’s chip and booked it for the control room, barely noticing at the time that Lance hadn’t done the same until Shiro called his name impatiently over the comms.

 “H-Hold on.” Lance had answered. “If they had a security trigger on this, it must mean it’s important! Shit, I can’t read this.”

 “Lance.” Keith had growled, losing his patience. “Fucking leave the computer.”

 There was silence on Lance’s end aside from frantic typing and a couple unsteady, heavy breaths, until a crash followed by a yelp from Lance and the robotic voices of sentries rang through and Keith had turned on his heel, grumbling as he ran back to rescue his teammate.

 After the mission, Keith hadn’t thought any more on it, just another occasion where Lance got distracted with some inane thing and ended up needing saving. It was hardly like it was a new occurrence, really. That was just what happened with missions sometimes, especially when involving Lance, who for every moment of luck seemed to have an equal number of times where he tripped right into danger.

 Until the next morning, when debriefing on their mission and what Pidge had found, Lance brought up the computer he had been messing around with again, earning himself a bored look from Pidge as he rambled on nervously.

 As much as Pidge and Lance had gotten along as easy friends, as far as Keith could tell, she’d never seemed to put much stock in his opinions when it came to anything involving technology— And while, admittedly, Lance had nearly blown up some Altean tech messing with it, and Pidge really didn’t value any of their opinions when it came to what she considered her field, perhaps that, too, had been a mistake.

 “Lance.” She’d said firmly, pinching the bridge of her nose and dislodging her glasses with the movement. “With all due respect, if you’d just monitored my program properly and not tripped any alarms before I finished downloading the files, I’d have probably found whatever has you so worried.”

 “But this computer had a security system! That proves there was something important on it!”

 “All the computers have security systems!” Pidge snapped, throwing her hands up. “That’s why we use my program designed to get around them!”

 “Shiro.” Lance had turned, eyes begging. “I’m telling you, there was something big on that computer— I think they were schematics, something. A weapon.”

 “A weapon?” That had caught Allura’s attention if nothing else, leaning forward and staring at Lance curiously.

 “Yeah, like a— Like a death ray?”

 “…A death ray.” And just as easily, Allura’s interest had been lost.

 “I’m not lying! It was like… a huge ion cannon. It looked the freaking death star!”

 “What is a death star?” Allura asked, and Shiro groaned pointedly.

 “Lance this isn’t Star Wars and giant death rays aren’t real. I know Kolivan was teaching you a little Galran, but you said so yourself that you couldn’t really understand what you were looking at, and I’m more likely to side with Pidge and agree that it’s quite possible you never actually got into the system itself and just saw the security alerts.”

 “But—“

 “I promise we’ll keep an eye out in the future for something matching what you described.” Shiro said more patiently. “But I don’t think diverting all our focus on a weapon that may or may not even exist as a schematic is a good use of our time when there’s people that need our help now.”

 Lance had sighed, nodding, and that, Keith had assumed at the time, had been the end of it.

 At least, he’d thought as much until three nights later, when in a fit of pacing around the halls of the castle, the insomnia-driven habit never quite shaken even after Shiro had returned to them, he’d wandered across the strange version of Lance he’d thought died off after Shiro’s reappearance, standing in front of the monitors on the flight deck with deadly focus.

 After that, Keith couldn’t help but wander back each night he felt too restless to sleep, far too fascinated with this enigma of Lance that only seemed to exist away from the team’s eyes not to.

 (Maybe, just maybe, if he had intervened even then, had offered to help Lance, had approached Shiro, something might have changed.)

 Just like before, he only caught Hunk there with Lance once.

 “Don’t do this again.”

 “I have to be sure I was wrong.” Lance told Hunk quietly.

On their next mission two weeks later to help a planet that sent out a distress signal, Lance gave Pidge a file for her system scanners if they ran into any Galra tech.

 “I recreated the schematics based of what I remember. Just… see if you can find them.”

 Pidge had complied, albeit hesitantly, and when her scans of the Galra ship they’d taken down turned up nothing even remotely close to Lance’s model, they moved on.

 Keith had thought perhaps that would put a rest to it, for Lance, but four days later they got a new transmission from the Blade of Marmora with information from their spies suggesting the transport depot they had crashed had been moving some unidentified supplies on Lotor’s direct orders, and the next night Keith found Lance holed up in the training deck, shooting down bots with steel in his eyes.

 He had looked beautiful, and he had looked terrifyingly unlike the Lance of the day, and, ultimately, Keith had fled.

 A month after that initial mission, Allura caught Lance passed out against the base of her podium in the early morning, monitors still flickering idly, and it devolved into a screaming match that ended up dragging everyone into the argument, crossed arms and bared teeth looming over opposite sides of the flight deck.

 “Lance, please, you quite clearly have not been getting enough sleep, and you should not be playing with the monitors in this state.”

 “I’m fine!” Lance snapped, pushing Allura’s steadying hands away and glaring. “I don’t need babysitting, I just need you to believe me. I’m onto something here!” He gestured at the screens, and Allura squinted at the mess of words and diagrams across them.

 “…I cannot read this. Is the program Pidge built not supposed to translate your language?”

 “It does.” Pidge piped up. “Just not like… French.”

 Keith had squinted at Lance in confusion. “Since when do you speak French?”

 “I speak a lot of things! And it’s not—“ Lance looked to the monitor. “…It’s in French… And Spanish. That bottom part is in Spanish.”

 “If you’re so tired you’re losing track of what language you’re writing in, it’s probably time to quit.” Keith mumbled, ignoring the dirty look Lance shot him.

 “Lance I understand you are… upset, but this is not advisable.” Allura said smoothly. “Pidge has already checked your claims and we found no evidence of them. To keep pursuing it like this is foolish.”

 “Lay off, Allura.” Lance growled, turning back to the screens. “I can do what I want.” Allura bristled at Lance’s dismissive tone, and Keith winced, sensing the impending storm.

 “I will not have you messing around with the castle’s delicate systems without supervision just to feed your paranoia! Exhausting yourself on such a fruitless task, especially around potentially hazardous equipment, is ridiculous and risks placing you and your fellow paladins in danger!”

 “I’m telling you there’s something here we’re missing!” Lance had shouted back, waving his arms pointedly at the monitor even as he swayed uncertainly on his feet in his obvious fatigue. “It’s not just me! The Blade had evidence Lotor was moving shit around on the down-low! He’s planning something.”

 “The Blade has been well-proven in their ability to be wrong before.” Allura said coolly, and that had even Keith twitching, because, yes, he’d never really jumped onto the whole ‘galra heritage’ thing with much enthusiasm, but the Blade of Marmora was the only solid potential source of information on his mother that he had, and the fact that they were the good Galra was something he had always clung to.

 …Still clings to, if he’s being honest.

 “Don’t dump Lance’s Star Wars mania on the Blade.” He had snarled unthinkingly, ignoring Lance’s hurt expression at his words.

 “I’m not crazy and I’m not making this up!” Lance screeched with a frustration that had surprised them all. “How is what I’m suggesting even that far-fetched?! We know the Galra used something to destroy Altea, and we’ve seen them build pretty fucking big lasers and shit before, it’s not like there’s no evidence that they have the capabilities to build something able to target worlds! Do you really think Altea was so fucking important that Zarkon just one-and-done’d it and gave up on world-destroying power?! It’s not like it was the bloody center of all existence just because you lived there!”

 The sound of Allura slapping Lance had been startlingly loud against the sudden silence, her expression taught and pained, close to tears, even as Lance had stared at her in open shock.

 “Don’t you dare suggest I have forgotten what was done to my planet. I dismissed your theories because my father’s AI, which had his memories of the end of Altea, indicated that what Zarkon used was both unsustainable technology and relied on the magic of a race that died out thousands of years ago. It cannot be recreated, so do not speak of things you do not know.”

 Allura had strode out of the room hurriedly, Shiro chasing after her only a moment later, and Coran, with a concerned glance at Lance, right behind him.

 “That was harsh, dude.” Pidge’s voice had rung out softly.

 Lance steadied himself, turning back to the monitors with barely a flinch. “It needed to be said. Allura… Allura was the one who told me once that I shouldn’t confuse the past with the present. Just because whatever exact method Zarkon used then couldn’t be recreated to Alfor’s knowledge doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Technology advances and changes, it’s about the willingness to do it, not the formula.”

 “Lance…” Pidge sighed. “Look. I looked into your schematics notes and stuff, but I really can’t find anything. I’m not saying what you saw wasn’t there, but maybe you just got… confused. A large ion cannon doesn’t necessarily mean a… death ray.”

 “What are you even so worried about?” Keith said after a pause. “If an alternative power for destroying worlds was available, don’t you think Zarkon would have used it before now?”

 “…Lotor isn’t Zarkon.” Lance offered quietly. “He’s smarter, more goal-oriented. We’ve seen it in the way he attacks. I have read Alfor’s old notes on the destruction of Altea— I’m not a complete idiot, ya know. I don’t think there is a sustainable way to continuously use the power you’d need to take down a whole world, at least, not the kind of thing you could use more than once or twice without serious problems. For Zarkon, if regular Galra forces were enough to take down most planets, why bother?”

 “So?” Hunk prompted gently.

 “So it’s the kind of thing you’d reserve as an ultimatum, a final ace up your sleeve against your main opponent. A way to completely destroy them and everything they care about.”

 “…Like Altea.”

 “Yes, Pidge, like Altea.” Lance turned to them somberly, the Lance of the night, odd and thoughtful, hovering on the edges of his face. “Alfor was Voltron’s handler. He was Zarkon’s greatest enemy during their war. He destroyed Altea and its neighboring planets. If he was willing to do that, what would stop Lotor from doing the same now?”

 “Earth.” Keith said as Lance’s fears, his nightly musings in front of the monitors, his unfocused yet deadly and silent practices against the bots suddenly clicked into place.

 “It’s… That’s just not possible.” Pidge was quiet, but firm. “Shiro and my family were picked up on Kerberos, with no indication of where they’d originally come from. The Galra cruiser we saw outside Earth was only there because Shiro was, and all they know is that Shiro landed, found Blue, and left. How would they know Earth is our home planet or that there’s even any intelligent life there, especially if they haven’t approached Earth before now? It just… wouldn’t make sense.”

 Lance hesitated. “You think?”

 “I know. Now…” Pidge paused, fidgeting. “We should really go check on Allura.”

 As Hunk and Pidge had filed out the door and down the hall, Lance had hesitated just before the doorway, and Keith turned, stuck in those eyes that looked like the specter of the other Lance who haunted him— And yet, with this, this anger and fear and seriousness Lance had just expressed, perhaps the two were not as separate as Keith had pretended.

 “Nothing’s going to happen to Earth.” He had found himself saying. “I promise.”

 Lance’s expression shattered, and he fell against Keith, forehead pressed to his shoulder and breath hot against his collarbone.

 “Thank you.”

 And then he was gone, and Keith had been left only with the heat in his cheeks.

 Weeks and months and years later, he had dwelled on that moment endlessly, on the warmth of Lance, of the unbridled trust he’d placed in him despite their arguments and Lance’s previously proclaimed rivalry, of the faith he held in Keith’s word regardless of all the previous times he’d fought against it.

 And on how he’d failed that simple promise.

 It happened a month and some weeks after.

    “Left!” Shiro screamed, directing their course as Voltron as they dodged to avoid the blast from Haggar’s apparent latest robo-creation. The whole of Voltron shuddered as one as the beam nicked the edge of the Yellow lion, and a chorus of shouts rung out over the comms as they all jolted in their seats from the movement.

 “C’mon, we have to take this thing down before it gets near the Earth!” Shiro chastised, his worry and faint panic echoing over the mental bond that held Voltron together. “Focus!”

 “Shiro—“

 “Pidge, shield!”

 Another blast slammed into them against the shield, and they rocketed back, no grounding to stabilize themselves against in the open void of space just above Earth’s atmosphere.

 At the time, Keith had experienced a moment of hysteria-driven humor at the thought of what the assholes down at the Garrison with their scanning technology and satellite feeds must make of all of this.

 …There hadn’t been much to laugh at about the moment, after.

 It had started as a signal on Pidge’s galra-tracking equipment, a clear beacon signifying movement of Lotor’s flagship and its entourage.

 That had been the first clue that something was up— It had always been a back-and-forth game of the Galra forces finding new ways to evade the castle’s tracking technology, and Pidge in turn finding better ways to locate their ships, but tracking Lotor’s flagship was almost impossible, nor should the signal of their trackers have reached that far regardless.

 The little purple dot of Lotor’s ship, blinking clearly on the portion of their maps depicting Earth’s solar system, and the steady movement of it towards their home planet, was the first clue that this was an obvious ploy.

 Lotor was not his father, far more aligned to Haggar’s calculated way of thinking and acting, and he was not found by them unless he wanted to be.

 He was drawing them out, just as he had before.

 And yet they went. How could they not? It was Earth; it was their home. To not take Lotor’s bait was to risk the lives of everyone still on Earth, millions upon millions of people who had never even known of this war that held them in such danger, let alone asked for it.

 They went, nerves jittery and hearts in their throats.

 “I don’t like this.” Lance had whispered into the silence of the flight deck as Allura opened the wormhole bound for just outside Earth.

 “None of us like this, Lance.” Keith had mumbled back, too tired and frustrated and goddamn scared for this.

 “No, I mean I really don’t like this. Something bad is coming.” He was shaky and clammy, fiddling reflexively with his bayard even as he stood tall in his uniform, awaiting orders.

 Keith ignored him. They all ignored him.

  They’d arrived to find Lotor’s ships there, hanging in the balance just between the beginnings of Earth’s atmosphere and the cold reach of the stars, not moving, not attacking. Just… waiting.

 Waiting for them.

 The minute the castle had come through the wormhole, a creature had appeared from the cargo bay of Lotor’s ship with an unholy screech, the distinct feeling of wrongness surrounding its quintessence signaling it as a creation of Haggar, and without pause for thought they’d rushed to the lions, focus set on taking it down before it attacked the castle or, worse, headed for Earth.

 The moment they’d engaged the robo-beast, Lotor’s ships had decided that was a fine time to open fire on the castle, and all hell broke loose, Earth’s presence below them more an afterthought, something to protect but not an immediate problem, than anything else.

 Except… There had been plucks of anxiousness, of paranoia, along the fragile strings of the bond even as they focused on the fight. At the time, Keith had only barely registered them as Lance’s, their presence barely noticeable at first but growing stronger the longer they spent combating the robo-beast. A particularly loud blast from one of Lotor’s ships shooting past them had Lance’s anxiety yanking hurriedly at the bonds, and unthinkingly Keith had snarled back loudly.

 “Fucking focus, Lance!”

 “Something’s wrong!” Lance wailed back, even as he moved Voltron in time with the rest of them.

 “You wanted to protect Earth from Lotor, didn’t you?” Pidge snapped over the comms. “Then let’s take this thing down!”

 “That’s not it! Isn’t this too easy? Why was Lotor just… waiting?!”

 “It’s Lotor.” Keith grumbled. “Why does he do anything?”

 “We don’t have time to ponder Lotor’s intentions right now!” Shiro yelled, the utter stress of the situation coating his words. “Taking this thing down is our priority before it moves on to a different target, namely Earth! We’ll worry about Lotor later!”

 “Guys…” Hunk’s hesitant voice echoed over the comms. “Guys, maybe—“

 “On your right, Keith!” Pidge screeched, and Keith gritted his teeth and moved Red accordingly, Voltron’s arm cutting through the blast in front of them with its sword. All this background noise while trying to fight was distracting, giving him a headache. They needed to protect Earth, and to do that they needed to focus on the problem in front of them, not Lance’s—

 “But the location!” Lance’s voice was frantic. “Lotor baited us here! To Earth!”

 …Lance’s panicking.

 “Not now, Lance!”

 “But Shiro—“

 “I said not now, Lance!”

 “Paladins.” Allura’s words were strained over the comms. “We cannot hold up against all this firepower indefinitely, as it is we are on the defensive. Please take that thing out at your earliest convenience so that we may then focus on driving Lotor away from your planet.”

 “Allura, listen—“

 “Please Lance, I am a little…” He had more felt than heard the shudder of the castle behind them as it took another hit to the particle barrier. “Busy.”

 “Shield!” Hunk had screamed, and they fell back into the fight.

 It had felt like an eternity of dodging and counterstrikes, the robo-beast in question not the most difficult they had faced but deliberately quick, keeping them one step behind and flying blind without a clue as to what it was trying to do. It hadn’t been trying to get to Earth, Keith had realized much, much later. Its purpose had never been about Earth, it had been about distracting them, keeping them preoccupied until Lotor was ready to put on his show.

 And put on a show he had. Keith had felt it, the change of power in the air, giving him goosebumps along his arms even that far away in his lion, the shift in the energy around them as it was drawn in, a humming noise slowly filling the air and growing louder as… something was brought in to Lotor’s ship.

 And then the ship had shifted. He’d barely caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye at first, too focused on the robo-beast that had conveniently shot itself into Voltron at that same moment, but he’d heard Lance’s screech over the comms, felt the tug of unbridled, overwhelming terror through the bond, and had slammed his head up to watch as Lotor’s flagship literally seemed to fold in on itself, parting down the middle and reshaping around what had looked like an enormous, misshapen ion cannon, lighting up with the Galra Empire’s signature color as the ship tilted and aimed the cannon directly at the Earth below them.

 “What the fuck is that?” Pidge had screamed.

 No one answered her. They all knew.

 “No!” Lance’s shout had echoed through the comms as his pain rippled across the bonds, snapping the threads of Voltron loose as they broke apart, the Blue lion dodging past the still advancing robo-beast and the shots from the other ships meant to keep the castle in place. “No!”

 “Lance—“ Keith had gone to follow, and the robo-beast had slapped Red like a pesky fly and sent him spinning off his trajectory.

 “Lance, stop!” It was Shiro who got to him first, shooting past the robo-beast while it was busy pushing back Keith, Pidge, and Hunk, chasing after the Blue lion with desperate focus. “You’ll get caught in the blast!”

 The Black lion had slammed into Blue and knocked her away from Lotor’s ship and the subsequent blat radius just as the cannon went off, lighting up the void of space around them a sickly purple as a beam shot down to Earth and consumed it in perfect harmony with Lance’s echoing screams.

    The aftermath was drenched in shocked horror and barely-formed grief, steeping in silence and almost potent disbelief.

 Keith remembers having felt numb, motionless in his lion as his eyes lay trained on the Earth as it was consumed from its core outward, burning and crumbling with purple fire. He hadn’t needed a closer look to know, Red informing him of what her scanners showed with uncharacteristic quiet— The rapid destabilization of Earth’s surface, the winking lights of human life going out one by one in rapid formation in only a few minutes.

 It had been done before it started, the moment the beam touched the Earth. They had not had in their power any way to stop its path, even if that would have done anything.

 (Lance hadn’t been far off, he thinks. The consumption of the planet by the Galran light had looked far too much like the scenes of the movies he had watched once as a small child with his father a lifetime ago, unimpressed with the cheesy effects as the model planets crumpled in on themselves.)

 Lotor’s ship had called a wormhole and vanished immediately after along with his fleet, his job there done, and the castle had delivered the final couple blasts to kill the robo-beast while the five of them laid frozen in their lions.

 It hadn’t been about destroying Earth, Keith had realized as he watched Lotor flee, it had been about making them watch Earth die, to pay witness to the end of their kind as penance for their sins.

 Those, Keith thinks, had been the longest moments of his life, watching as the Earth slowly, gracefully, was consumed, not in a rush but with an artful collapse, and knowing nothing he could do would stop that trajectory, even as his people actively lost their lives below him where he played observer, safe in his lion.

 Lance did not stop screaming that whole time, still fighting to get to Earth despite the inevitable even as the Black lion literally grabbed Blue in their jaws to halt her tracks, dragging Lance and his lion forcefully back to the castle while the rest of them had followed shakily behind.

 The moment they had gotten through the hangars, the castle opened a wormhole, pulling them far, far away from the remnants of Earth as it still continued to burn.

 Perhaps Allura had wanted to spare them the sight of any more of the destruction of their home; perhaps she had just not wanted to watch it herself.

 They had stumbled out of their lions after they exited the wormhole into somewhere in the vast dark, far away from any planets, burning or otherwise, stuttering on their feet as they walked shell-shocked across the hangar. Hunk had made it four steps out of Yellow before he fell to the ground retching, Pidge five before she collapsed in a puddle to the floor, wailing.

 Shiro made it a full eight steady steps towards his teammates before he had fallen to his knees, curling in on himself and letting loose a scream like Keith had never heard from him before even once in the years they had known each other.

 He had stayed standing, swaying on his feet and feeling so, so empty inside, about a minute away from dry heaving like Hunk, and eventually his eyes had fallen to Lance, who stood at the mouth of his lion, fists clenched and staring down at unseeing eyes.

 (Keith wishes, sometimes, that he had gone to him in that moment, had grabbed onto Lance and just… held him, until the life came back to his eyes.)

 It had felt like an eternity before the door from the hangar to the castle hallway had opened, Allura stumbling in with red-rimmed eyes and Coran a step behind her. She had looked at them hopelessly, shoulders shaking with grief and rage and sympathy, choking on air as she looked for words, and Keith had known she was just as lost as they were.

 “…Paladins.” She had said at last, turning to each of them in turn with sorrow. “I… I am so, so sorry.”

 Keith had ducked his head, knowing she meant well, but not wanting to face her pity, and for a moment there was silence, before Lance’s voice had rung out in a vicious, yet deadly calm growl.

 “You’re sorry?”

 “I—“

 “You’re sorry?!”

 “Lance…” Shiro’s voice warned quietly, weary and exhausted and broken.

 “Our planet is dead! Everyone we know, have ever known, is gone! What the fuck good does an apology do?!” Lance crumpled in on himself, body shaking, and beyond the numbness, Keith’s heart had ached. “Gone… my friends, my cousins, my mother, my sisters. They’re all… gone.”

 Allura had taken an unsteady step forward, her eyes trained on Lance, expression open and helpless. “I cannot fathom— I am so… I did not foresee—“

 “I warned you!” Lance screamed, flying up with a kind of fire in his eyes Keith had never known him before to contain, even in his most serious moments in the dead of night. In that moment, he had seen in Lance what he imagined Allura had seen when she asked him to fly Red. “I warned all of you, and you didn’t listen!”

 “Lance.” Shiro had called again, stumbling to his feet in a disjointed way that had brought Keith rushing to his side, catching his arm. “Lance, there was no proof…”

 “Shut up, Shiro!” Lance’s voice was a screaming sob. “I had my word; I had the schematics! That should have been proof enough!” Lance’s lip had curled then, a snarl across his face. “It was never about quiznacking proof! It was because I said it! If Keith or Pidge had come back with the same lack of proof, you would have at least looked harder! Fuck, if you had found it, it never would have even been a discussion!”

 “Lance…” Pidge had mumbled shakily. “This… This isn’t the time.”

 “Lance, please…” Allura stumbled hesitantly towards Lance, reaching out. “I know the grief you feel right now—“

 She had cut off with a startled yelp as Lance had surged, arm swinging up at her, and her gaze fell trained on the gun that came to rest between her eyes. Lance’s bayard, Keith had realized, had changed, the normally bubbly, round, almost playful sniper rifle replaced with a sleek, smooth handgun-type blaster.

 “My whole life is gone.” Lance had said, his voice raw and eyes empty even as the tears finally spilled over, chest heaving for breath as he stared imploringly at Allura. “Because of this—“ A hand waved at the hangar around them. “Because of you. So give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you right now.”

 Keith had tensed, going to lunge forward between Lance and Allura, and Shiro had grabbed his arm, shaking his head as his eyes darted desperately between Lance and Allura.

 “Lance.” It was Coran who went to him, in the end, stepping calmly through the fray and between Lance and Allura, placing a gentle hand on his wrist. “Lance, put the bayard down, my boy. Put the bayard down. I know you are hurting, but this will not… This will not bring them back, lad.” Lance’s eyes had darted to Coran, and the Altean had smiled tiredly at him, a matching grief in his face. “I am sorry, but it won’t.”

 And Lance, tears falling over his cheeks, had collapsed, the gun falling from his hand and de-transforming as it hit the floor, slumping into Coran’s chest as Allura stumbled back and away, eyes trained wide on the scene in front of her, Lance’s screaming sobs echoing in the air around them.

    The days after Earth’s destruction had hung heavy in grieving silence, a shroud falling over the castle as they tried to come to terms with what, all too suddenly, had happened.

 Keith had found the numbness turned to solely to anger, the hollow grief he’d felt in their last hopeless situation, when Shiro had vanished, disappearing in the face of rage, the Red lion’s despair at having not been able to protect her paladin’s planet crawling under his skin as he demolished training bots with only his hands.

 Pidge had grieved— Crying and crying and crying until she was short of breath and choking on her own tears, avoiding sleep for as long as possible with shaky hands and bloodshot eyes until she passed out on random chairs and sofas and woke up from nightmares screaming for her mother.

 Shiro had spent his time with Allura, curled up on the couches of the large room Lance had once, a long time ago, cheerfully dubbed the ‘rec room’, speaking with her in quiet voices with haunted eyes and unkempt hair, at a loss on how to properly grieve for a planet that was both his home and a stranger to him, so far removed from him after his time with the Galra.

 Hunk had wandered, a constant exhaustion dragging at his frame, and more than once Keith had found him in the kitchen in the middle of the night, sitting quietly in a chair at the table with a mug of the Altean equivalent of tea clutched between his hands.

 “I can’t sleep.” He’d told Keith quietly the first time he found him there. “Whenever I close my eyes, I hear my family’s screams.” Hunk had shuddered, eyes closing somberly. “Sometimes… I think I can smell my home burning, heh…” He’d choked, his desperate, tiny laugh turning to a sob, and Keith had leaned against his side, offering his silent support in the warmth of one human body resting next to another.

 After that, whenever Keith had found Hunk sitting alone in the kitchens at night, he’d found room to push aside his grieving anger, Red’s rage, to sit with Hunk in quiet companionship, reveling in the reminder that this other human was still here, at least.

 Lance… Lance became a specter, appearing only to take food during meals and then leave, and the single reassurance he was in his room and alive when not visually present being the furious screaming and crashes of thrown furniture echoing from under the door.

 Looking back, perhaps Keith should have seen that as a clue to what was really happening, but after Lance’s explosion at Allura, at them, in the immediate aftermath of losing Earth, they thought in his obvious grief he deserved his space, if that was what he desired.

 …God, how Keith wishes they hadn’t. Maybe they could have saved what there was left of their Lance.

 Two weeks after the Earth died, Keith woke up in the early morning with a wrench of pain low in his gut, the feeling of something missing echoing throughout his core.

 It had taken a few moments of half-asleep mental scrambling before he found it, the echoing ache throughout his soul, catching on the severed threads of the lion bond between himself and Red and the others and their own lions where something had been cut loose with a jagged edge, sloppy and fast and raw.

 Something important.

 He had jumped shakily out of bed, tripping into the hallway and meeting Pidge and Hunk’s eyes as they stumbled out of their rooms, the same phantom pain written across their expressions. Down the hall, loud footsteps came, Shiro sprinting around the corner with Allura and Coran trailing half-asleep behind him, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw them.

 “Thank god. I don’t know why, but I thought—“

 “Shiro, something’s wrong.” Pidge had interjected quietly, clutching at her stomach.

 Shiro frowned, eyes flickering to her and then to Keith and Hunk, before widening.

 “…Where’s Lance?”

 They had found Lance’s room empty, after flocking around his door while Coran carefully overrode the automatic lock, crowding into the barren space devoid of both Lance and any sign of his existence there, down to the missing face creams on the bathroom counter. The whole place was dim, scrupulously clean as if no one had ever lived there, despite Keith knowing Lance had been in the room just the night before.

 “He’s… gone?” Pidge had asked in shaky confusion, while Allura had taken a steadying breath and strode out the room to the flight deck, the rest of them trailing behind her nervously as she pulled up her monitors and tapped a few symbols.

 “…So is the Blue lion. It is not in its hangar.”

 “Maybe he just went out for a bit?” Hunk’s voice had been pleadingly nervous.

 “Hunk his room is empty.” Shiro had looked to Coran, wide-eyed. “He can’t survive out there just on his own, right? He’d have to come back.”

 Coran had frowned, considering, turning to the monitors and fiddling with them checking inventory scans of the castle. “…Perhaps he can.”

 “What does that mean?” Keith had growled out, desperate and aching and still frantically clinging to the fragile broken pieces of the lion bond, searching for what was missing, praying that they were all wrong.

 “It appears a small but not inconsequential portion of the castle’s nourishment supply has been removed to a portable container, enough to last one person a few weeks, at the very least, and the scanners show some basic repair tools missing from the maintenance hangars.” Coran’s eyes had widened, ears twitching downwards. “Oh quiznak.”

 “What?”

 “Lance had been asking me a little while ago about how to modify Altean weapons, before… Er, before Lotor’s attack on your planet, so I hadn’t thought anything of it, but he did have a couple more questions about them the other day…”

 “Weapons?” Shiro’s face shuttered, arms crossing. “The bayards don’t need modifications, they’re custom-shaped to us.”

 “The bayards would, yes, but…” Allura sighed out, turning. “Come with me.”

 She had led them to the floor above their regular accommodations, the air there stale and dry, the whole thing smelling faintly dusty, and, hesitantly, she had gone to a door, hand hovering over the scanner as if she expected to be burned by it.

 “Allura, what is this?” Hunk had asked, nervously fiddling with his hands.

 “…The former paladins’ living hall. I fear if Lance had gone looking for weaponry, the Blue lion might have indicated to him where to seek it.”

 She pressed a hand to the door, and they had all filed in carefully behind her, eyes wide as they took in the cheerful room painted blue with soft, plushy furniture dotted around. Allura ignored it all, heading straight to a wall panel and sliding it open, an alcove behind it barren aside from a few empty wall mounts. Unlike the dusty hall, there were clear signs of life here, fingerprints along the door to the alcove and around the wall mounts. Allura turned back to them, face grim.

 “The former Blue paladin was… a very practical warrior who did not like to rely only on her bayard. She kept an assortment of weapons, mainly Altean and Galran standard blasters, here in her room.”

 “…Great.” Pidge’s voice was flat. “So Lance’s room is empty, his lion is gone, and he apparently raided his predecessor’s backup gun supply. I just want to know where the hell he is.”

 “Not coming back.” Hunk intoned monotonously, gesturing to the bed in the room with an achingly tired expression. Following his hand, Keith’s gaze landed on the blue paladin armor resting in a neat pile on the bed, and he had felt his heart curl in on itself.

 “…He knew we’d come here?” He’d murmured unthinkingly, lost and still reeling from the realization of just what those broken strings of the bond meant.

 “Lance is smarter than he comes off as.” Hunk sighed lowly. “He works around contingencies, plans based on what he observes about others. He knew Allura would put two and two together.”

 Shiro had taken a hesitant step forward, snagging a thin piece of paper resting on top of the chest piece and staring down at it for a moment before handing it shakily to Hunk.

 “It’s addressed to you.”

 Hunk had opened it with trembling hands, staring down at the sparse words as his expression slowly shattered, dropping the note and backing away. “I can’t… I’m sorry, I can’t…” He’d fled out the room, and Keith had watched him go with wide eyes.

 It was only much later that Keith had realized Hunk had already known what had happened, from the moment he woke up to the shattered bond and Lance’s empty room, not needing any time to piece it together like the rest of them, the only one privileged enough to the glances of the angry, haunting, serious Lance of the night to know he was capable of this.

 Keith had picked up the fluttering note as it touched the ground, unable to stop himself from opening it and reading the words scrawled across it in Lance’s small, disjointed handwriting.

 Hunk,

 Please forgive me for leaving you alone, buddy.

 …I just… I can’t just sit idly by and watch another planet die because of Voltron.

 I’m afraid of what I might do if I stay here too long.

 Blue’s agreed to come with me, she doesn’t want to lose another paladin to this war.

 I’m not sorry.

 …Take care of yourself, alright?

 Keith had closed his eyes, fighting down the sick feeling in his stomach at Lance’s words, and carefully handed the note to Shiro, swaying in place and listening idly to the shuffling as Lance’s parting words to his best friend were passed around like an open diary.

 “…How can he be so selfish?” Allura had whispered out into the stale air of the former blue paladin’s space.

 For the first time since finding Lance’s empty room Keith’s anger had surged, and he’d finally found a place to direct it, turning to Allura with bared teeth.

 “He is not selfish, we drove him to this!”

 “Keith—“

 “Shut it, Shiro!” He’d snapped. “This whole mess was preventable— Lance, Earth, all of it. We let it happen.”

 Striding from the room, he’d made it to the end of the hall before Red’s anger overtook him and he punched the wall in an impromptu fit of fury, her pain at losing her sister easily overriding the aching in his hand from the impact.

 Lance and Blue hadn’t just left, they had severed their bond with Voltron, the place where Lance’s joy, his anxiety, his hopes normally sat coiled in the threads of the lion bond cut loose in a jagged hole that left something aching and empty in Keith’s chest.

 They had made sure they could not be found, no matter how much the rest of them may have desired to.

 …Three months later, they heard their first whispers on wayward planets they stopped at of the Godlike warrior accompanied by a living ship much like their own that slaughtered all Galra in his path, silently championing a rebellion against the Galra rule from the ground up.

    The day after Allura announces their plans to wormhole over to Alrexa in search of these elusive stones, Keith finds himself sitting in his designated spot on the flight deck, slumped in his chair and glaring a hole into the back of Allura’s head as she goes about opening a wormhole to the planet in question.

 “This is still a bad idea!” He calls, just to be an asshole, and savors Allura’s frustrated twitch in front of him.

 He knows he’s being petty, but he’s too goddamn tired to care. He doesn’t want to do this, at all. Lance had left, and though it had hurt Keith more than he would ever admit to, that was still Lance’s choice— He hadn’t wanted to be found by them, he’d made that very clear.

 Plus… Well. He’s not sure if he can face Lance, can stand the idea of seeing someone who was once his friend, who he once, albeit grudgingly, cared deeply about… still cares about, look at him with hate in his eyes.

 When he’d come to the flight deck in the morning to find Allura and Shiro preparing for departure, Coran watching wearily with clear hesitance about their decision in his eyes, Keith had raged, yelling and waving his arms as they ignored him, until he’d given up and eventually plodded over to his seat, followed not long after by Pidge and Hunk.

 He glances over at Hunk once it becomes clear Allura is not going to dignify his newesy commentary with a response either, and raises an eyebrow, earning a shrug from the other. After a moment, chewing his lip in contemplation, he gets up and walks over to Hunk’s station, leaning over the back of his chair and resting his chin on the top of the other’s head wearily, closing his eyes.

 “Are you alright?” He asks quietly, cracking open his good eye just slightly to meet Shiro’s gaze as he stares at them impassively.

 “I don’t know.” Hunk murmurs back. “It’s… I want to see him, but…”

 “It’s been two years.” Keith finishes, ignoring the aching in his chest where the hole in the lion bond still sparks painfully. Two whole years without Lance, only clues and second-hand information to go off of to even know if he’s alive. Two years without Voltron, without a complete lion bond or Lance’s laughter reverberating in the halls or his warmth when he graced them with his presence.

 Losing Earth had been hard, Keith thinks, but for him, losing Lance had been harder. He’d had nothing to love, back on Earth, beyond its existence as a concept. No family to return to, no real home waiting for him. This, Voltron, had been the best part of his entire life, and Lance had been a significant piece of that.

 For a long time right after, it hadn’t seemed real, all of them hanging in the balance of waiting, as if expecting Lance to return.

 Keith doesn’t know what they thought Lance would do, maybe kick a few Galran asses to get his vengeance quest out of his system and then come back. Maybe.

 But… Definitely not… this.

 None of them could have predicted what Lance would become.

 Now, it was hard not to go too long without hearing news of the Blue Lion Resistance, Lance’s fame easily rivaling that of Shiro’s title as the Champion, but for a long time they’d had little to go off of, barely a clue of what he was up to.

 They’d gotten most of their information on Lance from the Blade, which apparently had held no qualms about trading information and holding a conciliatory alliance with him, despite their long-term secretive approach to fighting the Empire before their interactions with Voltron.

 It was likely because of the position Lance held, Allura had told them only once, voice quiet and eyes distant. The original blue paladin had been Galran, the Blade of Marmora formed in her honor, as her legacy for fighting against Zarkon, and that alone would have been enough for them to respect Lance, the successor to the first Galran who had sought to end Zarkon’s reign of terror.

 While Kolivan had been willing to confirm Lance’s survival to them, he had never offered them his location, and over time, when they came to worlds and found the residents there look at them with disdain upon recognition of the castle, heard the whispers of Princess Allura of Altea, world killer and Takashi Shirogane, Champion of destruction, they had finally come to grips with just how little Lance wanted to be found by them.

 “Two years, seven months, and six days.” Hunk replies shortly, startling Keith out of his musings. He frowns, poking the side of Hunk’s head, and the other shrugs, the moment jolting Keith where he lies slumped over the top of him. “I didn’t mean to count, at first. It just… happened.” Hunk shifts awkwardly. “…His birthday was last month.”

 Keith sighs out, a long, low breath, trying to picture a twenty-two year old Lance against his memories of Lance at nineteen and a few months, coming up blank. He wants to believe he’ll look the same, but… Well… He opens his eyes properly, taking in the room and its inhabitants. They’ve all changed. Two and a half years when fighting the Galra was a fucking long time, especially when they’d already been doing it for nearly another two years before Lance had left— They weren’t the same people they were, and they weren’t the ones who’d possibly semi-accidentally started the largest mass resistance against the Galra regime in modern intergalactic history.

 “Paladins.” Allura calls to them, reference neutral but clearly directed at him. “Please take your seats and prepare for the wormhole jump, we will be emerging above Alrexa shortly.”

 Groaning, Keith takes a deep breath and pushes himself off his resting place, sharing one last half concerned, half bitter look with Hunk before trudging back to his station, throwing himself lazily on his chair and waiting for the inevitable.

 Idly, he wonders if Lance will just shoot them out of the air the minute he sees the castle.

 …He wonders if they would deserve that.

      Barely moments after exiting the wormhole, Keith only just managing to scrape a quick glance on their monitors of the rocky, desolate looking planet below them, the transmissions feed lights up on Allura’s screens, signaling a feed coming from the planet below them. He watches as Allura and Shiro exchange hesitant glances, before Allura presses a couple symbols and a feminine, military-like voice rings out through the flight deck.

 “This is Alrexan ground control hailing the unidentified non-Empire craft in Alrexan airspace. Please state your identity and means of business or depart.”

 Allura frowns, looking to Shiro, who stands up and lifts a finger to his lips, breathing in and then speaking in the overly-calm tone he uses when trying to establish control of a situation. “This is the Castle of Lions, requesting permission to land.”

 There is a pause. “Please hold.” The voice says hesitantly, before the line goes dead.

 “…Oh God.” Hunk groans out, slumping over in his chair and covering his face, barely hiding the edges of his relieved grin that peak out. “He taught them human sales call lingo.”

 “What is—“ Allura goes to ask, before the line reconnects and the voice speaks again.

 “Castle of Lions, you are not cleared for landing. Please depart immediately or face enhanced removal techniques.”

 Hunk gulps audibly, face pale, and Allura’s face closes off, eyes narrowing. “I am sorry, but we are in need of Alrexan power stones. We must land.” She shuts off the communication feed without hesitation, raising the particle barrier and beginning the descent of the castle, and Hunk lets out a piercing whine.

 “We’re gonna die. I’m going to be blown up by alien missiles stockpiled by my former childhood best friend and we’re going to die.”

 “Lance won’t actually blow us up, Hunk.” Pidge murmurs from their seat, their words at odds with the way they cling to the armrests with a white-knuckled grasp. “Stop panicking.”

 Panicking, though, is inevitable, Keith thinks, stilling as the castle lowers itself through the atmosphere and pierces the Alrexan sky, the ground below becoming more and more visible as they creep closer. What if Lance didn’t just blow them out of the air? What if he let them land and then shot them all on sight?

 Through the anxiety, a single shot of excitement shoots through him.

 Lance. They’re going to see Lance.

 Red rumbles in the back of his mind, hesitant about the situation but delighted at the thought of seeing her sister again, Blue’s connection with the other lions forcibly cut off all this time, leaving her as much in the dark on Blue’s condition as they had been on Lance’s.

 After several tense moments, there’s the jolting shudder of the ship signaling they’ve landed, and Allura relaxes from where she stood rigidly at her podium, sighing out in relief and turning to the rest of them. “Well then. Shall we?”

 They follow her out to the main ‘ground level’ entrance of the castle, hesitant steps trailing her own steady, seemingly-confident movements as anxiety prickles in the air, present in the military set of Shiro’s shoulders, Hunk’s nervously twisting hands, Pidge’s shuddery steps, the coils of fearhopesorrow dancing along the lion bond.

 Keith finds himself checking his own weapons once, twice, materializing and dematerializing his bayard in a repetitive pattern before reaching behind him and checking his dagger is still strapped to the back of his belt. He’d modified the suit to hold the dagger after Shiro had gone missing, all that time ago, finding it a comfort to have on his person even during battles, one he hadn’t grown out of even after Shiro had come back to them.

 He wonders if they shouldn’t have worn the armor, if wearing their regular clothes would have made them seem like less of a threat.

 …Then again, on the off-chance Lance might just try to shoot them he’ll take his chances with the armor.

 The castle doors part, and his eyes widen as he takes in the scene in front of them, the rocky Alrexan landscape marred by the presence of a ring of what can best be described as alien forms of trucks, looking like something out of those Mad Max movies his father had liked, surrounding the castle entrance, a hoard of various aliens gathered around or on them with blasters pointed straight at them.

 He takes one look at the setup, shares a glance with Hunk and Pidge, and raises his hands in the air, ignoring the dirty look Allura gives him even as Shiro, hesitantly, does the same.

 “We are not here to fight.” Allura calls out firmly, standing her ground, and from the ring of rebels a wave of murmuring stirs, before settling as a lithe figure hops out of the bed of the largest truck, the aliens parting for them as they walk to the forefront, meeting Allura’s gaze head-on with fierce, arresting blue eyes.

 “You landed your ship on a planet you did not have permission to enter, against express warnings not to. Try again.”

 Keith’s heart lurches, the broken tangles of the bond aching, and his breath catches in his throat, stolen by the presence of the painfully familiar, yet oh-so-foreign person in front of him.

 “Lance.”

 Lance blinks, eyes flickering to Keith at his call, and then looks away, face impassive.

 He’s so… Keith drinks in the sight of him, lost and confused and desperately searching for the pieces of the person he once reluctantly called friend in this stranger.

 He’s taller, Keith thinks, by at least a couple inches, yet just as long-limbed and willowy as he had always been, all sharp angles and lean lines. A form-fitting black bodysuit fitted with thin, almost unnoticeable pieces of black armor hugs his body, reminding Keith most of the combat suit he had worn when he faced the trials of Marmora, minus the purple lights and symbols, this one more streamlined and indistinguishable in its plain black coloring, lacking markings or accessories, and overtop he wears a black-grey trench coat, unbuttoned and hanging loose around his silhouette, the wide collar framing his long neck and slanted face.

 The funny haircut with its short bangs and long sides around the ears that Keith remembers is gone, Lance’s hair falling in a long brown wave around his shoulders, curling over the collar and flying loose in the thin wind of the Alrexan air, the ever so slight natural curl of it tangling the strands in thin twists. It hangs in an elegant curve over the left side of his face, obscuring it entirely from view and hugging the edge of his nose, a few stray strands drifting across it onto his right cheek.

 Lance has scars, he realizes with a painful lurch in his gut at the thought of how he must have gotten them— A thin one curving up his right cheek to just under his eye and a second, larger one, running up the left side of his face in a larger, more distinct mark, before disappearing under the fall of hair.

 The single eye he can see is the same though, the familiar dark blue that speaks of oceans and rivers and currents, deep and fathomless and fascinating… and looking to Keith and the others as if they are a particularly disgusting piece of gum under his shoe.

 Lance is scowling at them, looking to Allura for answers, and as she stumbles over herself, tripping on her words, his annoyed expression only widens, until he sighs and grabs a gun off the holster on his hip, lazily pointing it at Allura in a strangely fitting mirror of when the Earth first died. “I’ll ask again. Why are you really here? And speak carefully, my people are a little trigger-happy.”

 “Wait!” Hunk yelps from next to Keith, darting in front of Allura and holding out his hands. “Just wait. Please.”

 Lance tenses, withdrawing his gun the moment Hunk steps into aim, and barks an order to the aliens around them, their guns lowering automatically, eyes trained on him.

 “…Thank you.” Hunk sighs out, looking about two seconds from collapsing even as he turns imploringly to Lance. “We— Look, we know we aren’t welcome here, but the stones that control the ship’s command system cracked, and we can only replace them with others from this planet. We didn’t have a choice.”

 Lance frowns, tilting his head, and Keith watches, mouth dry, as the wave of hair in front of his face shifts with him, catching his eyes and demanding their attention for inexplicable reasons. He thinks maybe the long hair is just too weird compared to his memories of Lance’s visage to really compute.

 “…Is this true?” Lance asks after a moment, looking to Coran and studiously ignoring the rest of them, apparently willing to take the older Altean’s word as truth over the rest of theirs.

 “Yes.” Coran says cautiously, nodding to Lance. “It is.”

 Lance’s face scrunches, clearly considering, and Keith watches him thumb the trigger on his pistol where it hangs loosely in his hand by his side. After a long moment, he turns, waving a dismissive hand and heading back towards the circle of rebels, his voice ringing out in a commanding tone that is entirely new to Keith.

 “I want a constant armed perimeter around the castle! If any weapon systems come online or any crafts attempt to leave it, you are instructed to fire on it immediately! The paladins of Voltron and their handlers are to be treated as prisoners of war, I want guns on them at all times, and any weaponry on them removed!”

 “Sir!” A chorus of voices rings out, and in an instant a number of the rebels surge forward, crowding them and pointing blasters at their heads while others step forward calmly and begin patting them down, seeking out any hidden weapons. Keith hisses, jumping back as one reaches for his bayard, and looks to Lance’s retreating figure helplessly.

 “Wait—“ Allura yelps, dodging the alien attempting to check her for weapons and reaching for Lance. “Wait, Lance!”

 He pauses, looking over his shoulder to Allura with disdain. “Lance McClain died with the Earth. You speak here to the General of the Blue Lion Resistance, nothing more.”

     The ride back to the Resistance base camp is a jolting, unpleasant affair, the six of them all crowded into the back of one truck together with cuffs strapped tightly onto their wrists, the composition of the cuffs seemingly even built to contain Alteans as Allura wiggles her hands and glares down at them. The guard on them is Galran, a fact that clearly leaves Allura antsy, with the brand on his face marking him as a former slave of the gladiator ring, punishment for a traitor to the Empire.

 “What’s your name?” Keith finds himself asking, unable to help himself, and winces at the unimpressed look the guard gives him.

 “What’s it to you?”

 “I’m half-Galra.” Keith mumbles, shrugging helplessly. “Meeting other Galra who fight against Lotor is kind of a pleasant rarity.”

 Honestly, while he’d been intellectually aware of their existence, this is the first Galran rebel he’s seen who is not a part of the Blade of Marmora, and that enough is fascinating to him.

 The rebel raises an eyebrow, and then looks away, staring out at the Alrexan landscape as it flies by. “My name is Zenex. The General rescued me and my fellow prisoners from a transport ship eighteen of your Earthen months ago, and since then I have served as a sergeant in the Blue Lion Resistance.”

 “What is La— Your general like?” Pidge asks quietly.

 Zenex blinks, glancing down at Pidge in surprise. “The General… The General believes he can save everyone, and he might just be crazy enough to do it. He is hope for many who believed the universe had abandoned them.” The truck lurches to a stop, and Keith peers curiously over the side, catching glimpses of an array of tents and ships scattered around them. Shouldering his gun, Zenex hops off the back of the truck onto the rock below and gestures out, a grim smile on his face. “Welcome to the Alrexan base camp, home of the Resistance.”

 They are paraded through the camp like trophies, rebels stopping in their tracks to stare openly, whispers echoing through the space around them. It leaves Keith with an anxious feeling low in his stomach, watching all the faces surrounding them. There are easily hundreds of aliens here, in a disparity of species, and this is just the immediate base camp, not accounting for those on a mission or elsewhere— He knew Lance’s operation was no small feat, but goddamn, there’s more races here than in the Voltron alliance.

 More Galra too, he notes with interest, eyes falling over familiar spots of purple fur and catlike ears in the crowd. Given Allura’s hesitations, they’d never really sought out Galran rebels beyond the Blade of Marmora, and Keith is honestly surprised to see so many here in Lance’s Resistance. Surely, after Earth, he would have held the same hatred for the Galra as a whole as Allura had?

 …Then again, they had known that Lance had been working on-and-off with the Blade after leaving Voltron.

 “Holy shit, they weren’t kidding.” He hears a familiar voice mutter, and wheels around to see a recognizable pair of aliens sitting on the rim of a small ship, staring down at them.

 “…Rolo?” Keith says, unbelieving. “Nyma?!”

 “Heya.” Rolo answers cheerfully.

 “…What are you doing here?” Hunk asks from beside Keith, gaping up at the two aliens.

 “Oh, well, y’know.” Rolo shrugs. “Had nothing better to do.”

 “Never thought I’d be taking orders from the kid I strapped to a tree.” Nyma adds on, looking amused. “But stranger things have happened.”

 “The last time we saw you, you tried to sell Lance’s lion to the Galra.” Shiro bites out, breaking his silence to glare at them fiercely.

 “And now we sell shit for the Resistance.” Rolo shrugs. “Guess we saw the light.”

 “I— But—“ Keith falls over his own words, too startled by the presences of two people so familiar to him to think. It had been so easy to think of the Resistance as just a faceless mass of random people, and yet here they were, two actual aliens who had interacted with Voltron, and chosen to side with Lance’s rebels instead.

 “That’s enough, come on.” Zenex interrupts, nudging them forward. “The General has instructed me to take you to central command.”

 Zenex ushers them forward, and they follow, still staring at the forms of Rolo and Nyma as they all too casually wave them goodbye.

 “This is too weird…” Pidge murmurs, and Keith finds himself silently agreeing.

 He doesn’t know what he expected, but not… this. It’s like something out of a movie, a gathered force of rebels against an oppressive Empire with no great champions or magical princesses to lead them, fighting with what they have only and being willing to give up their own lives to do it.

 …Well, that’s not quite right. They have Blue; they have Lance. Somehow.

 Somehow Lance commands all this, without question or hesitation.

 While objectively he had known it was possible, the Lance of the nights of analysis and planning in front of the monitors and the Lance that had spoken mournfully to the Black lion years ago clinging to his mind whenever he thought of the Blue Lion Resistance, it’s still a shock.

 It’s easy to acknowledge the Resistance as a powerful weapon against Lotor that has been keeping his attention off of them, off of Voltron. It’s harder to reconcile that with the fact that Lance, the boy who had demanded Keith call him rival and had flirted with every pretty face he saw, is leading it.

 The central command turns out to be a large, military-looking tent, and when they are led inside it is to dusty tables full of maps and wide boards with coordinates scrawled across them, Lance’s own handwriting predominant among them.

 Lance is standing in the middle of it, speaking lowly with a young alien girl with light orange skin and pointe ears who looks at him imploringly, clearly requesting something. Her eyes catch on them when they enter, and her nose scrunches, grimacing. “You were serious.” She turns back to Lance, hands curling into fists. “You cannot negotiate with them! They are monsters!”

 “I don’t negotiate with anyone, Ruya, you know me better than that.” Lance admonishes. “But we do not turn our backs on anyone, even those who are not our allies.”

 “And you also say our enemies shall meet no mercy but our guns!” The girl… Ruya, says, lifting her chin defiantly, and Lance sighs.

 “I need to speak with our… guests.” He pauses. “Alone.” The girl huffs, turning and storming out of the tent, and Lance watches her go with unreadable eyes. After a moment, he looks to them, gesturing to the chairs spread out in front of his own. “Sit. You can stay, Zenex. I appreciate your judgment in these matters.”

 “Sir.” Zenex says, saluting and crossing the room to stand behind Lance’s shoulder, watching Keith and the others carefully as they take their seats awkwardly, the pull of the cuffs tugging on their wrists in a way that is not painful, but certainly annoying.

 “Apologies for Ruya.” Lance offers, settling in the chair across from them. “She’s… idealistic. Her parents were killed in a Galra attack last year.”

 Allura’s face falls, and she nods, looking down.

 “…It’s good to see you.” Shiro offers hesitantly, and Keith can’t help but stare, because really? That was the best opening Shiro could come up with?

 Lance’s lip curls. “I’m not here to play happy families. Explain to me the problems with the castle or get the quiznak off my base camp.”

 It’s an odd statement to suddenly fill Keith with subtle joy, but he can’t help it. Until now, this grown-up version of Lance has seemed so foreign, formal and untouchable. Hearing him use casual language and swear grumpily when he doesn’t get his way is like a glimpse into the Lance he remembers, a reassurance that he’s not completely gone. He finds himself staring at Lance, trying to memorize this new image, as Pidge hurriedly breaks into chatter, rambling at length about the problems with the castle. It’s technical jargon Keith doesn’t care to put too much effort into understanding, but Lance seems to follow along well enough, eyes set on Pidge as she waves her hands and describes what they’re looking for.

 “Why should I help you?” He finally says at length, once Pidge has fallen silent. “You are not our allies, the Resistance has never stood with Voltron. Our only tie is that we have a common enemy.”

 “Are you serious?!” Pidge explodes. “You selfish son of a bitch! You turned your back on us and even when we come crawling to you, you’re willing to turn us away?! You weren’t the only one who lost something, you fucking asshole!” She’s crying, Keith realizes, great, shuddery breaths echoing from her small frame as she glares at Lance, bitterness and betrayal rolling off her tongue.

 He had wondered how long it would take before Pidge imploded like this, and he’s honestly surprised she lasted this long. Losing Lance had been hard on her, especially right after losing her mother, the one family member she’d still known was safe and alive, and she’d seen his leaving as his abandoning them, feeling as if the person she had come to consider something like a sibling had betrayed her.

 Lance merely raises an eyebrow, looking down at Pidge impassively, though Keith doesn’t miss the ever-so-slight twitch of his hand, a sign he’s not quite as composed and emotionless as he may portray. “I—“

 “Lance.” Hunk cuts in, looking to the man who was once his best friend imploringly. “You owe me, Lance, for leaving me alone. You owe me.”

 There’s a pause, and then Lance closes his eyes, sighing out. “Alright, for you, Hunk. But—“ Lance’s eyes are blazing when he turns to Allura, fiery anger boiling within. “Do not take this as an alliance or a peace treaty. I may be willing to help you with this on Hunk’s request, and we may not be enemies, but that does not make us friends.”

 Allura purses her lips, clearly unhappy, but nods.

 Lance smiles bitterly in response, clicks his tongue, and accepts a small tablet Zenex offers him, tapping a couple commands on it. With a hiss, their cuffs disconnect, breaking into two thick metal bracelets still secured around their wrists, but allowing them independent movement of their arms, and Keith gratefully takes the opportunity to rub some life back into his hands.

 “Your cuffs are remotely controlled, and have tracking monitors installed within them. They were built off plans we nicked from Lotor, and were designed with Altean magic in mind, so no you won’t be able to break out of them or shape shift them off. Any attempts to mess with or remove them will be considered termination of our agreement, understand?”

 “Yes, sir.” Keith mutters sarcastically.

 Lance stands up and walks over to a table nearby, sorting through and picking up a map, bringing it back to them and, after a moment of hesitation, offering it to Coran. “Alrexan stones of the size you’re looking for are practically nonexistent now. We only have ever found shards when we first set up camp here, and we sold them off in exchange for information pretty quickly. To get your hands on what you want, it’s going to take days of digging. Luckily for you, the mines are pretty close to where you decided to up and park the castle.”

 Coran accepts the map slowly, and next to him Shiro sighs out in relief. “…Thank you.”

 “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing this for you.” Lance says bluntly, resuming his place in front of them. “I won’t stop you from doing what you need to search out the stones, but the lions must remain in the castle. No flying, no defenses tests, no anything. This is supposed to be a safe place for refugees. We’ve kept Alrexa off the Galra Empire’s maps so far, and I’m not putting them in danger with your bullshit.”

 “Seriously—“ Pidge starts, and Shiro slaps a hand over her mouth, smiling with fake enthusiasm up at Lance and nudging Allura’s side until she does the same.

  “Of course. We’re very grateful for your hospitality.”

 Lance wrinkles his nose, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Don’t suck up to me, it’s weird.” He looks to Zenex, who nods. “Zenex will arrange your transportation back to the castle. If you want to return to base camp, you’ll be required to have a guard with you. I’ll be in constant communication with those on the castle’s perimeter,” He taps an earring Keith hadn’t noticed until now, bright blue and the design reminiscent of Allura’s own communicator earrings, “So try to behave.”

 They take that as a dismissal, turning to leave, and as the others exit out the tent, Zenex a step behind them, Keith hesitates. Turning back, he meets Lance’s gaze as he walks up to him, staring at Keith questioningly. They’re the same height, Keith realizes with a lurch in his chest, Lance’s extra inches combated by the sudden growth spurt Keith had experienced when more of his recessive Galra traits had seemed to ‘come online’ with greater exposure to quintessence over the years.

 “What is it Keith?” Lance asks, eyes studying him.

 “How are you so… calm about this?” He finds himself asking, curiosity and fascination at this unfamiliar version of Lance overriding his caution. “I thought you’d be furious with us.”

 Lance’s mouth curls into a sharp grin, and he lifts a hand into view, Keith’s gaze catching on the trembling fingers. “See that? That’s anger, the kind that makes it tempting to punch someone in the face or kick the crap out of ‘em. Don’t mistake my calm for acceptance, Kogane.”

 “So…”

 “I’m not you, Keith.” Lance says lightly, tucking his hand back away into the pocket of his coat. “Anger is a drive for you, a power to push you forward. It’s why you make a good pilot for Red, but there’s a reason I am Blue’s.” He closes his eyes, breathing out slowly. “Allowing myself to be controlled by my anger helps no one in this situation. What I said is true— We’re not allies, but we’re not enemies either. I wouldn’t choose to deliberately physically hurt any of you, no matter what you may think of me. Don’t get me wrong, I wish to hell you hadn’t come here, but I won’t send you back out there to die now that you’re already here.”

 Keith blinks. “So what was all that, a test?”

 “Let’s call it a one-sided negotiation.” Lance says, opening his eyes, dark blue staring at Keith. “I’ve gotten good at getting my way. Shiro and Allura don’t control me anymore. They don’t get demands; they get my permission. Now…” He opens the tent flap, gesturing out. “Go get on the damn truck so I can get back to work.”

    Dinner at the castle that evening is a tense, silent affair, all of them pointedly avoiding eye contact as they stare down at their food awkwardly, the same subject on everyone’s minds, yet no one being willing to be the one to address it.

 Pidge breaks first, face scrunching up as she glares down fiercely at the table, hand clenched in a fist around her spoon. “I hate this.”

 “It’s not ideal, but—“ Shiro begins, and Keith grits his teeth, tamping down on his anger. Once upon a time, Shiro’s calm in the face of panic was something he aspired to and relied on. Now, when it comes to matters of Lance, it just leaves a bad taste in his mouth— Façade or not, seeing Shiro so easily turn off his emotions involving this is frustrating beyond belief. At least with Lance, he acknowledged his calm as a shield over his true thoughts, a ploy in his favor. Keith know that, even if he cornered Shiro alone and asked him what he was really thinking, he wouldn’t get a straight response.

 It’s more about Shiro protecting himself, he thinks, than about protecting Keith.

 “He’s not Lance!” Pidge yells, throwing her hands up, a spare blob of food goo tumbling off the end of her spoon with the motion. “That is not Lance. He’s too… different.”

 Hunk frowns where he sits next to Keith, pushing his food goo around on his plate. “Losing Earth changed all of us.”

 “Not like that! He’s… He’s not even the same person!”

 “I admit the change was… startling.” Allura mumbles from her seat at the head of the table. “However, this is not a social visit, we will just have to make do the best we can.”

 Keith snorts, and Allura raises a disapproving eyebrow at him. “Do you have something you wish to say, Keith?”

 “Yeah, don’t lie? We could have figured out another option, you chose this despite knowing half of us didn’t agree to it. What’d you expect was going to happen? That we’d show up and he’d come running back into our arms and it’d all be fine? It’s been nearly three years. Lance has long since proved he doesn’t need us. We’re damn lucky he’s giving us this much leeway, if I had been in his position I sure as hell wouldn’t have.”

 “He’s still Lance.” Hunk says tiredly, glancing over wearily at Keith and then to the others. “The fact that he liked to lighten the atmosphere doesn’t negate his ability to be serious. Lance is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, even if it’s not mechanical or technology centered intelligence. He’s social, analytical, and people-smart. Heck, the Garrison had him on scholarship to go into their data analysis and diplomacy programs, he was the one that decided to try and be a pilot on top of that. Given all of that, him running something like this isn’t that impossible to believe.”

 Shiro blinks. “Lance was on scholarship?”

 “Yes?” Hunk gapes. “Shiro, dude, he and I were both on scholarship. No way we could have afforded it otherwise.”

 “I never knew.” Shiro mumbles, looking abashed.

 “Of course you didn’t!” Hunk cries, looking about two seconds from leaning across the table and shaking Shiro, frustration evident in his posture. “Because you never asked! You can’t judge Lance based on who he is now when you never even took the time to get to know him before!”

 “He doesn’t even want us to use his name, Hunk.” Pidge says, suddenly looking far too small and young in her chair, like the practical child she had been when they first left Earth. “How can he hate us that much?”

 Hunk’s face falls, and Keith cuts in firmly. “He doesn’t hate us. He doesn’t like us, but if he hated us that badly we wouldn’t be here.”

 “I…” Hunk’s voice is low, pitched in sorrow. “I don’t think he’s abandoned his name because he hates us. I think…” He glances over, looking helplessly at Keith, who knows with creeping certainty just from the other’s expression as to where he’s going with this. “I think he hates himself.”

    They end up splitting up who does what surrounding the castle’s repairs. Since the only ones who really understand what they’re doing in regarding to find the stones are Hunk, Pidge, and Coran, they readily agree to the task, and Shiro and Allura opt to stay on board the castle to work on other minor repairs and discuss their next move against the Galra.

 Technically, Keith is also on repairs and strategy duty, but even after all these years he still doesn’t understand much of how the castle works, that being much more Pidge and Hunk’s area, and the idea of sitting on the flight deck for hours on end with only Allura and Shiro for company sounds like a painfully grueling experience. He’d never really taken to the ‘leader’ thing after Shiro had disappeared, and his relationship with Allura, while infinitely better than it was when his heritage first came to light, has always been a little strained, especially after Lance left. Strategy as a whole is just… not his thing. He’s much more prone to the ‘go with your gut’ way of fighting, and while it’s worked out for him for the most part, he’s grown up enough now to admit he should not be the one calling the shots, just the one to take them.

 He lasts one day just restricting himself to training, working alternately with his bayard and his Marmora sword through different levels of training bots, before boredom and the itching need to go outside wins out. The idea of spending what could be a whole week and then some cooped up in the castle without even being able to fly is daunting, and with his severe lack of interest in helping with the Alrexan stone hunting, knowing how generally unhelpful with the task he’d be, combined with the fact he knows Lance is just outside the castle, within touching distance for the first time in two and a half years, it’s a quickly losing battle in trying to convince himself to stay inside and ‘behave’ like a good little paladin.

 The morning of day three of being on Alrexa, Keith slips past Allura and Shiro and storms out the main doors of the castle to the perimeter Lance had ordered his people maintain around the castle, demanding someone drive him to the fucking base camp. A quick radio call later, and Keith is stuck on the back of a truck with an androgynous-looking alien that studiously ignores his questions. Zenex had been downright sociable on the ride yesterday in comparison.

 Ironically, it’s Zenex of all people who meets him at the edge of the base camp, as Keith is apparently for all intents and purposes an item to be passed between guards, and he stares unimpressed at the Galran as he shares a few polite words with the guard, who suddenly seems much less averse to talking.

 “Is this gonna be like a recurring thing if I keep coming back here?” He asks idly, noting that there seem to be less rebels around today as he is led through the camp. “Did Lance make you our in-house babysitter or something?”

 “Actually I volunteered to come get you.” Zenex answers, sounding vaguely amused as he glances down at Keith, who blinks up at him in surprise.

 “Wait, really?”

 Zenex tilts his head in acknowledgement, ears twitching lazily. “You are not the only one who takes curiosity with your own species. I have never met a half-Galra before. You are very different from what I would expect.”

 Keith wrinkles his nose, considering. Admittedly, he doesn’t hold a plethora of Galran traits, but he’s certainly less human looking than when he left Earth, for a multitude of reasons. “I’m… surprised Lance, er… the General has so many Galra as a part of his force, given it was the Empire who destroyed our planet. Princess Allura took a long time to even come to terms with my heritage and potentially working with Galra after what happened to Altea.”

 Zenex nods, tilting his head back and observing the Alrexan sky above them as they walk through the base camp. “I thought that myself for a long time before being rescued by the Resistance. Even when they first brought me here, I thought perhaps I would be executed for my crime of being Galra, but instead the General offered me a purpose.” He looks to Keith, the first genuine smile any of the rebels have offered him stretching across his face. “It was… surprising. The General told me his mother’s family came from a country of Earth that knew oppression in its history, that he has heard of what it means to grow up in fear.” Zenex’s face turns sober. “It is not easy to turn against those that have ruled you your whole life, especially when they are your own kind. The General holds nothing but respect for those of us who have chosen to do so, and nothing but hope for those that cannot fight back. The Galra as a whole are ruled by fear and ignorance as much as many parts of the universe, and while the General would see the Empire toppled, citizens and foot soldiers just doing their day’s work will meet open arms, should they be willing to accept an equal place in society amongst their fellow beings of the universe.”

 “…Huh.” Keith says, trying his best to absorb all that. It’s such a… simple, forgiving approach to taking down the Empire. He could never imagine Allura saying the same things, even in paraphrase from someone else. To her, the compliance of the Galra race as a whole was as much a crime as the actions of Zarkon’s high commanders.

 “We are here.” Zenex says gently, coming to a stop, and Keith blinks, stumbling to a halt and looking to him.

 “Here where?”

 “I assumed you would want to see the General.” Zenex offers, raising a brow. “He is sparring with some new recruits to the Resistance.” He gestures in front of them, and Keith turns, finally spotting the clearly set-apart area of level ground where a few tables of weapons and empty benches litter the edges. Lance is in the middle, a small group of aliens circling around him, and Keith finds his throat runs dry at the sight.

 Lance has shed the trench coat he was wearing yesterday, the thing tossed haphazardly on a bench nearby, and without its presence the black bodysuit from yesterday obscures nothing of the lines of his body, fabric and thin armor hugging lean hips and long legs and thin wrists. He hasn’t pulled his hair up, because he’s clearly an idiot who hasn’t realized that’s a hazard while fighting, and it falls in a wave in front of him, still swooping over his face, as he dodges around the strikes of the other fighters.

 He moves like a monster, fighting with a speed and grace Keith has never seen from him before. Hand-to-hand had never been Lance’s strong suit, his skills much more suited to holing up somewhere on high ground and taking enemies out one by one with his bayard, but clearly in the last few years, that has changed. One of the fighters swings a blunted wooden training sword at him, and Lance ducks under it without hesitation, grabbing onto the rebel’s arm and using his momentum from the swing to throw him over his shoulder, then turning and grabbing a pistol on his belt to fire two round directly at the chests of the two remaining fighters. Keith tenses at the sound, and Zenex chuckles from next to him as the two fighters simply stop and hunch over to catch their breath as soon as the bullets bounce off their armor harmlessly.

 “High-density foam bullets. The General based them off something he called Nerf guns. They’re heavy enough to shoot correctly, but harmless. Worst they’ll do is leave a bruise if you’re not wearing armor.” Zenex grins as Lance helps the third fighter to his feet, speaking quietly to him in a low voice Keith can’t discern the words to. “They’re lucky he goes easy on them during practice.”

 Keith gapes. “That was going easy?”

 Zenex snorts. “You should see him fight in a real battle.”

 I have. Keith wants to say, but bites his tongue. This Lance who fights artfully and up close and personal is a Lance he has not learned yet. What shape does his bayard take now, he wonders— They’d never found it on the ship or with Lance’s abandoned armor, so they know he took that with him at least.

 Lance sends the fighters off with easy smiles and pats on the back that are so familiar it hurts to watch, and when Zenex calls he looks up cheerfully until his eyes fall on Keith and his expression centers out, the smile dropping to something more neutral, unreadable.

 He’s missed Lance’s smiles, he realizes. There’s nothing quite like them in their blinding honesty and joy when Lance is truly happy, and even if he cannot have them directed at him, at least seeing them again is better than nothing.

 “Zenex.” Lance says as he joins them, thumbs hooked into the holsters at his hips. “…Keith.”

 “…Hi.”

 “What are you doing here?” Lance asks, tone businesslike and blunt. “Do you need something?”

 “No, um…” He flushes, suddenly feeling entirely too embarrassed under Lance’s indiscernible gaze. “I was just… bored.”

 “…Bored.”

 “I— yeah.”

 Lance raises an eyebrow, and Keith scowls, cursing the other for his apparent new skill for keeping a straight face. “Can I train with you?” He finally blurts out in a rush, wincing as Lance frowns, a small line forming in the crease of his brow.

 “This is practice for my people only.”

 “What’s wrong?” He goads unthinkingly, falling back into the old habit of push and pull with Lance that is as old as it is instinctual. “Afraid to get your ass kicked?”

 Lance’s eyes gleam at the clear challenge, and out of the corner of his eye Keith catches Zenex pinching his brow, clearly having already sensed the inevitable outcome of this interaction.

 But hey, if this is the only way Keith will get to experience this version of Lance’s fighting, then its good enough for him.

 “…Get in the fucking ring, mullet.”

 “I don’t even have a mullet anymore.” He points out, deliberately reaching a hand up to brush along the short hairs at the back of his neck.

 “Just get in the ring!”

 Lance tosses him a practice sword as soon as he’s in the fighting circle, catching it with one hand easily and watching as Lance scoops up a staff from the ground, swinging it around in his hands before pointing it at Keith. “I’ll go easy on you.” Keith scoffs, going to remind Lance that he was the one who always had to go easy on Lance when it came to hand-to-hand in the past, and then promptly shuts his mouth and dives as Lance’s staff makes an arc right where his head had previously been.

 Well then.

 “So…” He starts up casually, dodging Lance’s swings and parrying accordingly. It’s not overly difficult to keep up without requiring his full attention, and Keith isn’t sure if that speaks to how much Lance may or may not be ‘going easy’ on him, but he can’t find it in himself to complain… yet. “Are you sure you’re not overly furious with all of us?”

 “Seriously?” Lance pants out, aiming a jab to Keith’s chest that is easily dulled by his paladin armor, but does send him stumbling back a couple feet. “Now you want to talk about it?”

 “Hey, I’m just saying!” He continues, swiping down Lance’s next swing with his sword. “If I was you and we’d shown up on your doorstep after two and a half years completely uninvited, I’d be pretty tempted to punch someone too!”

 “Shut up, Keith.” Lance grumbles, dropping low and aiming his staff at Keith’s shins with a wide swipe, forcing him to focus on jumping over it.

 “Like… Hell sometimes I want to punch Shiro these days and I’m not even the one who left Voltron.” He goes on the offensive, getting in Lance’s space and pressing his advantage as he pushes Lance’s staff back closer to his body with the practice sword. “And it’s not like you don’t have it in you. I was there when you threatened to shoot Allura, after Earth. You looked like you were about two seconds from doing it, too.”

 “I said shut up, Keith!” Lance screeches, swinging his staff in a much more vicious swipe than before, slamming it into Keith’s shoulder, and he silently congratulates himself for all of about point two seconds before Lance’s foot comes out of nowhere and connects firmly with his face, hearing something crunch and the warm feel of blood on his skin before he hits the ground.

 He regains consciousness to find Lance peering down worriedly at him, and his first thought is that Lance looks really nice like this, all concerned and caring instead of glaring at him like he’s the scum of the earth or a particularly annoying nuisance. “Found it.” He croaks unthinkingly, brain still set on the tangent it was before he took a boot to the face, and Lance’s fussing expression turns into a glare.

 “You idiot, were you trying to get me to hurt you?”

 “Call it curiosity.” He says, shrugging as best he can with his back flat against the semi-smooth rock beneath them. “I wanted to see what you fight like when you’re mad.”

 Lance sighs, bringing a hand to his forehead and smoothing the hair back gently, leaving Keith’s scalp tingling from the cool touch of his fingers, before Lance pulls his hand back quickly as if Keith might burn him. “You’re so stupid.”

 “Mmm…” He hums in agreement, drinking in Lance’s face, eyes tracing over the unfamiliar scars, cataloguing the minor scratches that he hadn’t been able to notice the other day from further away. “…’M dizzy.”

 “You probably have a concussion.” Lance murmurs, squinting as he peers into Keith’s eyes, no doubt checking for dilated pupils. “Your nose is definitely broken, at least. You’re going to need a couple hours in the healing pods.” He looks up, and Keith mourns the loss of Lance’s sole attention. “Zenex, can you take him back to the Castle? Explain to Coran, the older Altean, what happened.”

 Keith hears Zenex offer an affirmative, and then suddenly there are arms sweeping him up off the ground, lifting him bridal style until his head is level with Lance’s. Fuck, Zenex is tall, why the hell didn’t he get more of that Galran height?

 “Can I come back tomorrow?” He murmurs unthinkingly, eyes still glued to Lance’s face, tracing the edges of the scar hidden by his hair with fascination.

 Lance’s mouth quirks upward, and his expression softens ever so slightly. “I’m on a mission tomorrow.”

 “Oh.”

 “But—“ Lance takes a deep breath, seemingly steeling himself against… something. “But I should be back by tomorrow evening, if you want to come by then.”

 Keith grins, and suddenly the aching of his nose and the ringing in his ears is absolutely, unequivocally worth it. “Deal.”

    The next morning, Keith peers out the castle entrance as he watches a small gathering of ships vanish into the Alrexan sky, the Blue lion noticeably missing from the group. It’s not entirely surprising— What little intel they’d managed to pick up on the Resistance over the years had indicated that Lance didn’t fly Blue exclusively, preferring only to take her out on larger missions in order to minimize chances of being spotted, given the distinctiveness of a giant mechanical space cat, or of her being captured by Galran forces if a mission ever went wrong.

 Would Blue come back to them if, God forbid, something were to happen to Lance? Or would she find a successor in the Resistance?

 He knows what Allura would prefer, at least. She’d been furious at him when he’d first emerged from the cryopods after a brief stint to patch up his nose and heal the concussion, but she’d quickly changed her tune when he’d admitted to Lance inviting him back tomorrow.

 Keith had known she wanted Blue back, wanted a chance to secure the reformation of Voltron, but it still hadn’t been pleasant to have her pull him aside and lecture him on the importance of trying to convince Lance to relinquish Blue back to them, if he would not return to fly with Voltron himself, as if Lance’s willingness to apparently withstand Keith’s company for a few hours was just another bargaining chip.

 While he knows Allura is only doing what she is because she believes that it is right, that Voltron is needed as a whole, singular form to fight the Empire, no matter what individual sacrifices that may entail, the idea of turning that on Lance after the other has allowed him this much makes him feel sick. It may only be permission to come back and see him again, but to Keith it feels like the beginnings of a second chance with Lance, to repair the bond they’d once had, and he doesn’t know if he himself is selfless enough to give that up in the name of trying to reform Voltron.

 He wants when it comes to Lance, wants in a way he can’t explain or quantify, but just knows it’s there. That want had been there long before, back on the first strains of camaraderie and, later, the intriguing glimpses of the side of Lance that haunted the nights after Shiro’s disappearance, and after all this time not even knowing for absolute certain if Lance was alive and well, that want has only grown stronger.

 It’s terrifying, to want something like this, when Keith is used to being the kind of person who is so used to what little he has that he wants for nothing more, but yet he is drawn to Lance, like a moth to the flame, just as the first time he saw Lance in front of the monitors while the castle slept and could not stop himself from wandering back.

 And the fact this Lance is so new and different, yet achingly the same, only adds fuel to the fire that relentlessly commands his attention.

 When evening falls, and Keith spots the faint lights of the returning ships, he races out of the castle, ignoring Shiro’s reprimanding gaze on his back, hopping into the idling truck on the perimeter and smirking at the same silent guard from yesterday.

 “Am I growing on you?”

 They roll their eyes, but knock on the wall, signaling the driver, and Keith cannot fight the grin from his face as they drive along the winding road of smoothed-down rock back to the base camp.

 He’s faintly surprised when they arrive and there’s no Zenex waiting to collect him, or any guard for that matter, but it quickly becomes clear as to why not as he notices the camp busy securing the ships that have landed and helping off a few injured aliens, and he feels his stomach plummet. Injuries aren’t good, no matter how minor; injuries mean something went wrong.

 “Lance.” He whispers, pushing through the crowd even as the guard yelps and yells his name as he pulls away from them, too intent on looking for the increasingly recognizable jumble of long hair. “Lance!”

 It’s Zenex who he spots first, the Galran’s eyes widening as he shoves his way over to him. “Keith.”

 “Zenex.” He pants, half tripping over a rock and catching himself on the other’s offered arm gratefully. “Where’s Lance?”

 Zenex frowns, going to answer, and is cut off as a final ship touches down and the entry runway slams down, Nyma staggering out with a limp figure, their arm slung over her shoulders to keep them propped up and a mess of brown hair hanging in front of their face. There’s blood on Nyma, Keith realizes, and it’s not her own. “Need some medical attention over here!” She yells, and Keith’s breath stutters as things click into place.

 Lance. Lance is hurt.

 It’s Zenex who moves first, swooping in and picking Lance up gently from Nyma’s shaky support, turning and pushing his way through the crowd, which parts quickly as the rebels recognize who is being carried, with Nyma an anxious step behind him. Keith blinks once, gaze caught on the splatter of blood on the ship’s runway, and then turns and runs after them, heart beating rapidly.

 The medical tent is a mass of noise and movement, rebels dressed in various alien approximates of doctor’s scrubs bustling to and fro with bandages and other supplies in their arms. There’s only a single healing pod, he notes, even in his panic, set up in the corner with someone else already inside. He stumbles, desperately searching for Lance, and feels a swoop of relief s Nyma calls his name from a bedside.

 Lance is awake, Keith notes as he tries to semi-calmly make his way over as not to slam into any moving doctors, but he seems out of it, eyes half-lidded and woozy as Nyma and Zenex wrestle the top of his bodysuit down, exposing a long, thin gash up Lance’s side that is slowly oozing blood. It’s less the cut, though, that leaves Keith’s heart hurting, the edges of the lion bond alight with hollow pain along the gap where Lance once was, but the litany of healed scars that line Lance’s body, a testament to dozens of other injuries he experienced that Keith wasn’t there to protect him from.

 He barely notices when Nyma takes pity on him and guides him into a seat, still stuck on Lance’s markings, his blood.

 “You’re an idiot.” Nyma says, taking the seat next to Keith and glaring at Lance. “You could have been killed.”

 Lance grins lazily. “Ah, don’t weep for me, gorgeous. I’m not dead yet.”

 “Gross.” Nyma murmurs, smirking at Lance’s yelp of pain as the doctor who has appeared by the bedside wipes down the gash on his side with what looks like disinfectant, and Keith winces in sympathy.

 “Going to need stitches.” Zenex murmurs, peering carefully at the wound.

 “Oh, fuck no.” Lance says, the pain of the disinfectant seemingly having woken him up from his dazed state. “You lot always fuss around then and keep me from working, always yelling about me tearing my stitches.”

 “Because the last two times you have torn them, oh great General of ours.” Nyma says, looking far too amused.

 Lance groans, and hesitantly Keith speaks, looking to Zenex because he knows Lance won’t be on board with this. “We have cryopods in the castle…”

 Zenex looks considering, but it’s Lance who speaks first, sitting up and hissing in pain to glare at Keith. “Nope! Not happening!”

 “But—“

 “I’m not setting foot in the castle and I’m definitely not accepting any favors from Allura, end of story. It’s a minor scratch, a few stitches and some bandages and I’ll be fine.”

 There’s a scuffle and then the young girl from the other day, Ruya, bursts into view from between the other doctors and rebels, eyes flickering around until they land on Lance and widen with undisguised horror.

 “Ruya!” Lance leans forward and groans when Nyma slaps his arm, forcing him to hold still as the doctor prepares the stitches. “You’re not supposed to be in here!”

 “I heard you were hurt…” She whispers, still staring at Lance’s gash as the light orange of her skin rapidly pales.

 “Get her out of here.” Lance whispers, flinching as the needle touches his skin, eyes landing on Keith, imploring. “Please, get her out of here.”

 Keith nods shakily, pushing himself to his feet and wrapping his arms around Ruya when she fights his guiding touch on her shoulder, bodily lifting her up as she kicks and yells and lugging her out of the tent, catching Lance’s relieved expression as the entrance flap slips closed. He sets down Ruya gently, and coughs, doubling over, when she promptly punches him in the stomach. She’s not big, probably only the size of a ten or eleven year old human, but she’s a lot stronger than that.

 “Let me back in.” She growls, and Keith shakes his head. “I said let me in!”

 “Lance said no.” He says firmly, crossing his arms and glaring down at her.

 “I have to know he’s alright!”

 He softens, sighing. “He’s going to be fine. Us humans are harder to kill than we might seem.”

 She scowls, but when Keith stands his ground, she huffs, turning and stalking off, small hands curled into fists as she disappears into one of the smaller tents in the camp.

 Once he’s sure she’s gone, he falls back against the pole holding up the edge of the tent flap, closing his eyes and releasing a shuddery breath. He’s seen a lot of blood and injury in his time with Voltron, and not just on his enemies. He’s helped his teammates into pods countless times, he knows what seeing his friends hurt looks like, but seeing Lance like that is still… unpleasant, especially when he knows there’s perfectly viable healing pods sitting empty in the castle that could be helping Lance right now.

 It’s not that he doesn’t understand Lance’s reasoning— If he were Lance, he wouldn’t want to set foot in the castle after all this time either, and given Lance probably knows what Allura’s up to, keeping her in his debt and out of hers is the smartest option, but goddamn if he still doesn’t want to go back in there and fucking insist Lance get his ass in a pod.

 He doesn’t realize how long he’s been out there until he hears a startled cough behind him, and turns to see Lance, bandages around his side and bodysuit top tied loosely around his waist, peering at him from the pushed-back edge of the entrance flap. “Keith. You’re still here.”

 He shifts nervously, flushing. “I was… worried.”

 Lance grins, and Keith feels his heart stutter for an entirely different reason than before. “Well in that case, you can walk me back.” He turns, yelling into the tent. “Zenex! Nyma! Keith’s gonna go with me to Blue, so your paranoid asses don’t have to worry about me collapsing on the middle of the road or something!”

 A grumbling affirmative is called back, and Lance smirks, looking pleased at having escaped his caretakers as he stretches out with a sigh, arms reaching above his head in a way that shows off smooth brown skin and leaves Keith breathless.

 “C’mon then, I wanna see my favorite girl.”

    Blue’s resting place is on the edge of the base camp closest to the central command tent, her large frame curled up in a smooth patch around a few outcroppings of rock, head turned towards the camp as if to keep an eye on the Resistance members at all times. Her eyes light up when Lance and Keith appear around the edges of the last tents on the path towards her, and she lifts her head just slightly, peering down at Lance with what Keith can only interpret as delight, despite her mechanical build precluding her from facial expressions.

 Even just taking one glance at Blue’s joy at seeing her paladin, at Lance’s large, honest grin as he calls out to her and hops the last few steps towards the edges of her massive paws, Keith has no idea how Allura hopes to break this apart. No matter what the princess may say on the lion’s nature, Blue clearly loves her paladin more than anything else in existence, and the idea of her suddenly abandoning Lance to accept another in her cockpit seems laughable.

 She growls lightly when Keith comes to stop at her feet next to Lance, and the other smacks her gently on the edge of her nose, tone admonishing as he speaks to her. “Don’t be grumpy! I invited him here.”

 Blue settles instantly, seemingly satisfied with that answer, and Lance snorts, turning to Keith hesitantly. He wonders if Lance is about to send him away, demand that he return to the castle now that he’s done his job, but instead Lance smiles, the edge of his mouth quirking up unsurely. “Do you want to stay? I need to get changed real quickly but if you want to hang out on top of Blue I’ll see if I can find something to drink or… something.”

 “Alright.” Keith says quickly, not even stopping to consider another answer, and Lance’s smile slips into something slightly more real.

 Blue purrs quietly when Keith scrambles up the side of her head to the top of it, apparently content with his presence now that Lance has given his okay, and Keith can’t stop himself from giving her ear a few idle pats, leaning against it lazily. There’s the faint presence of her quintessence humming under her metal shell that Keith has come to recognize in all the lions, somewhat muted in this case by the cut-off pieces of the lion bond where she once resided, but he finds he’s still able to distinguish it well enough. Red stirs in the back of his mind, delighted at the faint echoes of her sister she can feel through Keith, though frustrated that she cannot connect to the other directly, Blue’s consciousness as cut off from Red as Lance’s is to his, the place where they tore themselves loose from the bond still a barely-healed wound.

 “I never knew it was possible for lions to choose their pilots over Voltron.” He says quietly, and feels Blue stir beneath him, the tendrils of her mind hesitantly reaching out, grasping through the tentative connection that once alerted him to her presence on Earth, offering him images of Lance as he was when they first became paladins, and of a Galran girl in matching armor, feelings of doubt and grief and discontent lingering beneath them, an undercurrent of resolve tied up between them all.

 “I know.” He offers, closing his eyes. “I know you couldn’t lose another one.”

 Red has never offered him much information on her former paladin, her original paladin, but he does know that she misses him terribly. He’s seen how powerful the bond between a lion and its paladin is, how even Black fell to it under Zarkon’s presence for a long while before they created a stronger bond with Shiro. He imagines for a lion like Blue, whose entire being thrives on love and loyalty, the idea of seeing a second paladin die for Voltron pains her immensely.

 He doubts any of the former paladins had pleasant deaths, but he’s always gotten the sense that whatever happened to Lance’s predecessor, it was particularly bad.

 There’s a rustling behind him, and Keith turns to watch Lance clamber out of Blue behind him. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

 Lance grins. “There’s a hatch on the back of Blue’s neck, pretty sure all the lions have them.” Keith shrugs, and Lance snorts, clambering over the top of Blue’s head to join Keith sitting between her ears, plopping down with a sigh.

 He’s still shirtless, Keith notices, and promptly forces himself not to think anymore on that topic. Then again, it’s not hard with the very noticeable presence of the bandages wrapped up along Lance’s side— Probably why he’d forgone a shirt, honestly, in order not to have extra layers pulling at the wrappings. The bodysuit with its numerous weapon holsters has been discarded in favor of a pair of sweatpants that hang low on Lance’s hips, and Keith is suddenly very grateful of the bottled drink Lance offers him, taking a long gulp before promptly choking and coughing at the burning in his throat.

 There’s snickering coming from Lance’s direction, and Keith blindly shoves at him while still doubled over coughing, finally straightening back up once his lungs stop trying to kill him. “What the fuck was that?”

 Lance grins, taking a sip of his own drink with seemingly no problems. “Unilu namka. Basically their equivalent of whiskey.”

 Keith gapes. “You keep alcohol on Blue.”

 “Dude I live on Blue, I keep much worse things here.” Lance raises an eyebrow. “And I’m twenty-two and you’re twenty-three, so I don’t see what’s so scandalous about it.”

 He scowls, glaring down at the bottle of namka and forcing himself to take another sip. “Shiro isn’t big on having alcohol on the ship. Says if we’re inebriated we risk not being prepared for surprise Galra attacks.”

 “Stupid.” Lance says bluntly, and Keith snorts.

 “Aren’t you supposed to be a high and mighty commander too?”

 Lance frowns, putting down his bottle and pointing at Keith accusingly. “I’m not Shiro, and I’m not Allura. I’m not going to ask these people to risk their lives to fight in this war and then tell them what they can or cannot do on their own time. Fighting the Galra shouldn’t preclude them from having lives. We drink, we celebrate, and we have friends and families, like we should.”

 “…And what about you?”

 “Me?” Lance makes a face, turning away to stare out at the base camp. “I lead.”

 Keith sighs. “You literally just said this shouldn’t stop people from having lives, Lance.”

 Lance scowls, taking a swig of his bottle. “My life died on Earth, Keith. I’ve made my choices. Better alone here and doing what I can than with Voltron and living in silence as people die from our mistakes.”

 He winces, ducking his head. “…Right.” After a pause, he looks back to Lance, considering. “…You’re not alone though, not really.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “Well… like.” Keith gestures out to the camp vaguely. “These people, they look up to you, they care about you. You’re more than just a figurehead to them— Zenex and Nyma they… they both really seem to worry over you.”

 Lance smiles lightly, closing his eyes and humming in agreement. “They’re good people. Zenex is as reliable a soldier as you could ask for, and Nyma has been… a friend.” His smile fades slightly, and he opens his eyes, looking back to Keith. “She said once that she couldn’t believe I was the same person as the kid who tried to climb a tree to impress her and got swindled out of his lion.”

 Keith grimaces. “You’re still you, Lance.”

 “Am I?” Lance says quietly. “I don’t know if I want to be.” He pauses, taking another gulp of his drink and raising an eyebrow at Keith. “And what about you? Are you still the same, Keith?”

 “We all changed after Earth, Lance.” He offers hesitantly, shrugging. “It was inevitable.”

 “Mm… I suppose.”

 “And what about the kid, Ruya?” He says, a slight twinge echoing along his stomach where the girl had punched him earlier. “What’s her story?”

 Lance snorts. “Let me guess, she punched you?” At Keith’s answering wince, he snickers. “Ruya… Ruya is… impulsive, prone to anger. Her parents were refugees who came to the Resistance last year, and died a few months ago in a raid. She wants revenge for her family, to fight, but really she’s just a child, only mentally about thirteen or fourteen by our standards, so I keep an eye on her.” He grins suddenly. “She reminds me of you, actually.”

 “Me?”

 “Yeah, well, y’know. A hothead.”

 “Oh my God you’re still on about that?” He gapes, and Lance laughs loudly, prompting Keith to shove him lightly. “It’s been four years, asshole!”

 Lance falls still, smile softening. “Yeah…. it has, hasn’t it?” He sighs, suddenly looking immensely tired, and Keith’s heart sinks. Idly, his eyes fall to the scars on Lance’s torso, chasing up and down his chest and along his arms— They’re messy, jagged. The cryopods in the castle minimize marks, any leftover scarring thin and neat, and the few distinct scars Keith has on his body come from occasions when he couldn’t get to a healing pod. Looking at Lance, it’s quite obvious he’s not been spending much time in healing pods when injured at all in the last few years. Lance turns slightly, leaning his shoulder against Blue’s ear, and Keith’s eyes catch on slight markings along Lance’s back, eyes widening.

 “Are those tattoos?”

 “Oh…” Lance stills, glancing at him, and then turning and pushing his hair up to expose the ink traced along his back in thin lines. “Yeah, turns out we’re not the only species that’s into it— Though Markordian inking is a lot less painful based off what I’d heard about Earth tattoos, lemme tell you.”

 “Are these…?” He half-asks hesitantly, unable to stop himself from reaching out and running a thumb under a neatly inked line of small letters, the skin cool under his hand against what he has over time come to know is his unusually high body temperature thanks to his Galran blood.

 Lance shivers at his touch, nodding. “The names of the people I lost.” He reaches around with his free hand, blindly yet expertly tapping to different lines of dark blue ink. “My friends, my aunts and uncle, my grandparents, my cousins, my niece and nephew, my mother, my sisters.”

 Keith’s gaze runs down to the final line, just above the curve of Lance’s hips, and blinks. “Lance, your name is on here.”

 Lance shifts quickly, ducking out from Keith’s touch and turning to face Keith, back hidden from view as his arms come to wrap around himself defensively. “Yeah, I know.”

 “…Why?”

 “Because,” Lance scowls, “I died that day too, Keith, along with my family. That was my hope; that was what I looked to return to— To my mother, my sisters. I meant what I told Allura, Lance McClain doesn’t exist anymore, only this.” He gestures out to the base camp in front of them, the lights around the tents low as night settles. “Only the Resistance, only the General.”

 “Then…” He pauses, looking to Lance, who meets his eyes defensively, exhaustion and anger and so much grief coiled up in dark blue. “Then how come I still see Lance McClain, the same idiotic, brilliant Lance McClain who demanded he be the one to save Shiro back then, when I look at you?”

 “Really?” Lance snorts, gesturing at himself. “You look at this wreck and you see that Lance?”

 He shrugs. “You’re the same, and you’re not. The past and the present aren’t mutually exclusive.”

 “I mean technically they are.”

 “Shut up, you know what I mean.” He mumbles, flushing. “None of us are the same as we were, idiot— Not physically, not mentally. You’re not suddenly a monster for having a few scars.”

 “Mm…” Lance hums, eyeing his drink and downing the last of it before looking to the empty bottle regretfully. Raising an eyebrow, he turns to Keith, the alcohol seemingly having emboldened him as he reaches out and runs his fingertips over the side of Keith’s face, catching on the edges of the marks he knows lie there and trailing up to just underneath his bad eye. “And you? How’d that happen?”

 “Fight with Haggar about nine months ago.” He says softly, bringing his hand up to brush Lance’s own as he idly rubs over the ever-so-slightly differently textured skin. “Got splashed with a face full of concentrated liquid quintessence, burned like a motherfucker at first. It’s kind of like getting acid on your skin, but luckily those good ol’ Galra genes kicked in and kept me from losing my eye, and half my damn face for that matter.”

 Keith doubts it’s a pretty sight, he’s seen it in the mirror enough times— A mess of splotches of purple skin along the left side of his face, covering his eyelid and forehead and descending down his cheek to the corner of his mouth. There’s no fur, thank God, but it’s definitely Galra skin, down to the purple color and texture. The most noticeable part, he thinks, is probably his eye, the once human appearance taken over by the blank yellow of all Galran eyes.

 He doesn’t regret the changes to his face his Galra genetics have wreaked, knows they probably damn well saved his life and his sight that time, but he doubts it’s much to look at for many people, especially those who have an aversion to Galra in general. The princess hadn’t been able to look at him for weeks, afterward. Even accepting his heritage, he imagines seeing a half-Galran face on one of her paladins couldn’t have been easy.

 …Ha, half-Galran.

 He expects Lance to pull away, or maybe make some comment about his bad luck, but instead he just hums, squinting at Keith’s face. “Can you still see?”

 Keith blinks, surprised. “More or less? Galrans don’t see color exactly the same way or have the same depth perception, so it’s a little wonky, but the night vision’s a plus if nothing else.” Lance hums, nodding and sitting back, seemingly satisfied with the answer, and Keith mourns the loss of the feel of cool fingers on his face.

  “Y’know, I always hoped if you suddenly sprouted Galra traits it’d be the ears, I had so many catboy jokes saved up for that day.”

 Keith gapes, and Lance giggles, breaking down into laughter as Keith gives him a pointed shove. “What the fuck?!”

 “What?! It would have been funny as hell!”

 He snorts, shaking his head, and falls silent as the last of Lance’s snickers peter out. “It doesn’t… bother you?”

 “Nah.” Lance says easily. “Of course not. I suppose it means we match, if anything.”

 Keith frowns, furrowing his brow in confusion and turning to Lance as the other smiles, a nervous half-formed thing at the corner of his mouth, and pushes the hair back off the front of his face, tucking it behind his ear.

 “…Jesus Christ, Lance.”

 Lance snorts, reaching a hand up to trace the smaller scar on his right cheek. “This one was from Haggar, and this—“ His hand moves to the one on his left, thumb running up from the edge of his jaw along his cheek to where the scar curves over his eyelid and reaches his forehead, the eye framed by it light and discolored, unseeing. “This was from Lotor. He said he couldn’t fight such a pretty face, so he had to do a little damage first.” Lance’s words are calm, but his voice is watery, and Keith finds himself reaching out to trace along the scar, catching the first droplets of tears as they spill unheeded from the blinded eye.

 “It’s not bad, really.” Lance continues, shaky. “He didn’t get the one I use for sniping, and I got used to it fast enough, so in the end it wasn’t a huge loss. It was a nuisance to clean up though, was before the Resistance really formed, so it was just me in Blue’s cockpit trying to patch myself up. For a little while I was afraid I might have to remove the eye myself if it got infected.” He smirks bitterly. “It worked, though. Lotor didn’t seem to have many problems fighting me after that, creepy fascinations aside, so I guess he got me ugly enough. It’s appropriate, I suppose— Most monsters don’t stay pretty.”

 “You’re gorgeous.” Keith blurts unthinkingly, and Lance’s eyes widen, red scrawling across his face. Realizing what he’s said, Keith pulls his hand back, pointedly avoiding Lance’s gaze as he stares down at Blue’s surface and prays for the mortified flush in his cheeks to fade.

 “So…” He coughs awkwardly, desperately looking for a distraction. “…Why the hair? You always wore it short before. Was it just to hide the scarring? Because that’s bull, Lance. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

 Lance raises his hands defensively. “No, jeez, calm down. I just fancied it. I kept it longer when I was little and…” He shrugs, looking back out to the camp. “With Earth gone, there weren’t any human gender binary expectations to return to, y’know? It didn’t really matter anymore.”

 Silence crawls between them, overwhelming and deafening, and Keith watches Lance’s somber face carefully, the last lights of the camp catching on his skin and illuminating tan skin and dark hair.

 “…You know it’s not your fault, right? What happened to Earth.”

 Lance scowls, leaning forward and wrapping his hands around his knees, glaring out into the night. “Sure.”

 “It wasn’t!” He turns hurriedly, staring at Lance with wide eyes. “We should have listened to you!”

 “And I should have found another way.” Lance murmurs, closing his eyes. “I knew Allura and Shiro wouldn’t believe me, and the rest of you would accept their word, I could have found another way to prevent it myself.”

 “You can’t fight the world alone, Lance.”

 “Says you.” Lance mutters tiredly. “I seem to recall you fighting your way through half the Blade of Marmora on what basically amounted to a dare from Kolivan.”

 “Okay, yeah, but I’m not like that now.” Keith says, waving his arms. “I learned to rely on other people! Trust in your teammates and all that crap Shiro used to spout!”

 “Oh, really? Who?”

 “Well…” He shrugs, slumping forward and dropping his chin into his hands, eyes falling to Lance’s sullen form next to him. “Hunk, for one?”

 The corner of Lance’s mouth twitches up, and he opens his good eye to peer curiously at Keith. “Seriously?” He nods, and Lance’s smile grows a little wider. “Good. He’s… a good friend.”

 “Yeah.” Keith sighs. “He is.” He hesitates, exhaustion quietly clawing at him, and slowly slumps into Lance’s side, shivering when Lance’s answering hum echoes against him. Closing his eyes, he tilts his head, resting it on Lance’s shoulder, and breathes out a shaky sigh of relief when he feels Lance’s head nudge back against his. “I don’t blame you, for leaving. But… I did miss you. I still miss you.”

 Lance stiffens, ever so slightly, and Keith prepares himself to be pushed away, but instead cool fingers find his own, intertwining and palms pressed flat together.

 “…I missed you too. Always did.”

    Keith wakes up to Shiro’s voice calling his name at an hour that feels far too early to be getting up, and barely cracking one eye open assures him that, yes, he’s just a little bit hungover.

 Groaning, he sticks a hand out and up, flipping Shiros’s currently rather annoying voice off, and hears a sighs of relief coming from somewhere below him. “Yeah, he’s there.”

 Scrunching his nose up, Keith ponders why Shiro would even be looking for him, before the events of the night before come back to him, and he snaps his eyes open, staring down in vague horror at Lance’s slumped form curled up against his chest, a mess of brown hair tucked under his chin as Lance’s shoulders rise and fall softly with his breath.

 Jesus Christ almighty he spent the night sleeping on top of Blue and cuddling with Lance.

 Idly, he wills the heat in his cheeks to fade, and wonders if there’s a way he can extract himself from this situation without waking Lance, before Allura’s voice shouts up with none of the patience or mellowness of Shiro’s.

 “Keith!”

 Lance startles, sitting bolt upright and looking around wildly, hand reaching automatically to his hip as if to grab a gun or his bayard and then pauses when he meets air, blinking and actually taking in his surroundings for the first time. He looks to Keith and makes a surprised, vaguely distressed sound, scrambling off until he falls against Blue’s other ear, wincing as his shoulder connects with it.

 Sighing, Keith peers over the edge, glaring down at Shiro and Allura where they stand at the base of Blue’s paws, a disgruntled-looking Zenex standing a few feet behind them, arms crossed and glowering at the back of Allura’s head. “What’s up?”

  Allura scowls, going to reply, and Shiro beats her to it. “You just didn’t come back to the castle last night, we were worried.”

 He raises an eyebrow. “I’m fine.”

 “Is the General there?” Zenex asks impatiently, and across from Keith, Lance lifts his arm over the edge of Blue’s head and offers a vague thumbs-up.

 “I’m here, Zenex.”

 “Apologies, sir.” Zenex shifts nervously. “They demanded entry to the camp and you weren’t answering your comms…”

 “It’s fine…” Lance calls out, yawning. “Gimme a sec to get dressed, yeah?” He turns, sliding down the back of Blue’s head and into a hatch that opens at the very base of her head, right where her neck connects, and Keith blinks in surprise.

 Ok, so the neck hatch thing was real.

 He gives it all of about two seconds to consider how he himself is going to get down, before Blue tips her nose forward and he slides off with a yelp, landing in Shiro’s patiently waiting arms.

 “Good morning.” Shiro smirks down at him, and he scowls, pushing the other man away as he clambers free and finally manages to get himself standing on his own on the ground, sending both Allura and Shiro severely unimpressed looks.

 “You know, forcing your way into the camp is not going to do you any favors with Lance.”

 Allura snorts, crossing her arms. “I do not care for his favor. If you are free to come and go as you please, so are we. Besides, you were missing.”

 “I’m twenty-three, Allura. I can look after myself.” He says, pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing out slowly. “Lance got hurt last night, I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

 Shiro frowns. “Lance was hurt?”

 “It was only a minor scratch and it is none of your business, regardless.” Lance’s voice rings out from behind him, and Keith turns to watch as he strides out of Blue, patting the side of her snout as she shuts her mouth and goes back to resting her head on her paws. He’s back in the bodysuit, Keith notes, or at least a carbon copy of it, as well as the trench coat, hair brushed back over his eye and weapon holsters in place. Idly, his gaze falls to the blue bayard, strapped to Lance’s thigh. So that’s where it was, he’d been wondering.

 Like this, Lance looks the perfect picture of a regal and powerful commanding officer leading a full-fledged rebellion. It’s an odd contrast compared to the open, vulnerable, scarred Lance of last night, and the idea that he was willing to expose that to Keith but not to Shiro and Allura is…

 Well. Keith doesn’t know exactly what he feels about it, but whatever it is, it leaves a strange warmth in his chest, spreading along the old fractures of the lion bond.

 Lance strides past Allura and Shiro without a second look, turning his attention to Zenex and leaving Keith and the others to race after them as they walk back to the camp.

 “Any news?” He hears Lance ask, and Zenex shakes his head.

 “The radios have been silent all night. Elos has been working on the plans you picked up during the mission, but they haven’t yet figured out what they are for. Lotor has by now realized regular Galran will not be enough to keep secrets, so he has been religiously switching up codes in his messages to his commanders.”

 “Of course he has.” Lance mumbles. “I’ll stop by and take a look at them later, see if I can help.”

 “Lance.” Allura calls, and Keith winces when Lance pointedly ignores her. “Lance! I need to talk to—“

 “I know what you’re going to say Allura, and the answer is no.” Lance says, turning and looking back at them with a sigh. “I am not coming back to Voltron, and you are not having Blue.”

 Allura bristles. “You would be so selfish as to insist on continuing to keep her?”

 Lance’s eyes widen, and he gives a disbelieving laughs. “You just don’t get it, do you? I don’t own Blue, and neither do you. The bond between a lion and a paladin isn’t about control, or about force. Shiro couldn’t make Black relinquish their bond with Zarkon, they had to choose to, and I didn’t make Blue come with me. I told her what my intentions were, and she asked that I take her with me over a different ship. If you can’t understand that, then it’s not really surprising Blue rejected you.”

 “Lance.” Shiro says from next to Keith, voice disapproving, and Lance scowls, twisting back around and pointedly putting his back to them.

 “You’re not my commanding officer, Shiro. Do not try to moderate my words.”

 Shiro winces, and Keith can’t help but shrug. “He’s right.”

 “How is your search for the Alrexan stones going?” Lance asks, still not facing them, and hesitantly Shiro glances at Allura, who still looks like she’s like to smack the back of Lance’s head, and answers carefully.

 “…Good. Coran, Pidge, and Hunk have located stones that should be of an acceptable size for the castle’s needed level of power and are working on removing them. We should be set to leave in a day or two.”

 Keith feels his heart sink at the words, and does his best to ignore it. This is good. The sooner the castle is fixed, the sooner they can get back out there to helping people, and the sooner Lance can get them all out of his hair. This is the way things should be— The Blue Lion Resistance and Voltron, two separate, completely untied forces operating against the Galran Empire.  

 …So then, why does the thought hurt so much?

     When they get back to the castle, Keith is one part cranky and tired and one part still slightly hungover, and that alone is enough to coax him into a nap. He’s not usually a napping person, but occasionally even he can be tempted, and the exhaustion he feels from the lack of sleep he got last night after staying up so late talking with Lance coupled with the general emotional tiredness he feels at the thought of knowing they’ll be leaving Alrexa in a couple days is enough to coax him into just falling asleep for a few hours as a way to turn his brain off for a few hours.

 It feels like a great idea at the time, but when a fucking explosion of all things jars him awake just as the evening sets in, he’s sorely regretting his most recent life choices.

 He stumbles out into the hall only half-awake and collides with Hunk’s chest, who apparently must have returned to the castle from the mines while he was asleep, steadying himself before pushing up and meeting the other’s frantic eyes. “What’s going on?”

 “I don’t know!” Hunk says, panicky. “I was in my room when suddenly everything started shaking!”

 There’s a whistling sound from above, and all of a sudden another shake rocks the ship, clearly not a hit to the castle itself but on the ground close enough to feel the impact tremors. He has all of about five seconds to frantically question why the fuck something is apparently chucking projectiles from above them at the area just west of the castle before it clicks, and his eyes widen.

 “Fuck, Hunk, the base camp!”

 Hunk pales, and then they’re running, sprinting past Pidge’s door as it opens and she calls out to them, hesitating for a few seconds before chasing after as well. They nearly collide with Allura, Shiro, and Coran as they reach the castle entrance, screeching to a halt just before Hunk and Keith would have slammed into Shiro. Allura’s eyes are wild and confused, and Coran’s mustache is literally sparking, as if the impact tremors sent him face-first into something electrical. Then again, if the others had just come back to the ship and Coran had been starting on repairs, he supposes that’s a possibility.

 “Paladins,” Allura says, gaze darting between them, “What is—“

 “It’s the Galra.” Keith growls. “They’re shooting at the base camp— They’re shooting at the base camp and chances are we damn well led them here!”

 “We don’t know that.” Shiro says quietly, and Keith snarls.

 “They’ve been here nearly a year without incident, and within four days of us showing up the Galra suddenly know where to look?! Yeah, right!”

 “We have to help them, regardless.” Allura says pointedly, cutting through the argument. “Get to your lions.”

 Red’s anger, her willingness to fight, coils in Keith’s stomach, and he shoves it down. “Are you crazy?! Lance will kill us!”

 “He will not be able to do much if he is dead.” Allura counters primly. “He needs our assistance.”

 “Allura, Lance gave orders to fire on the castle if the lions ever left their hangars.” Hunk points out, nervously fiddling with his hands and shooting glances at the distant form of the base camp, smoke rising from where the explosives have hit. “Chances are he hasn’t had time to belay that order, and if the rebels see a bunch of lions that have been labeled as potentially dangerous to them suddenly flying overhead, it may panic people and just make things worse.”

 A scowl writes itself across Allura face, and Keith feels himself rapidly losing patience. “Fuck this! They need help now. Open the quiznacking hangar doors and if Lance gives the alright then we’ll call the lions to us, but I’m not having a fucking debate over it while people are in danger!” He takes off through the doors, heading for the last of the trucks that were holding the perimeter around the castle, the majority already gone and headed to the base camp, he assumes, and hears footsteps behind his that he recognizes as Hunk. Moments later, there’s a bunch of calls, and then several following sets of footsteps as everyone else gives chase.

 He skids to a stop next to the truck he took into the base camp yesterday, Hunk a step behind him, and meets the eyes of the guard from yesterday, sitting in the drivers seat. Whoever was driving the truck yesterday while they watched Keith is clearly gone, likely on one of the other trucks back to the camp.

 “Please.” He chokes out, doing his best to pull air into his lungs after so much stop and start sprinting. “Please, I need to help him.”

 The guard hesitates, and then nods, gesturing to the back of the truck and speaking their first words to him.

 “Get in.”

 Keith scrambles into the back, the others climbing in a few seconds after as the truck roars to life, and then they’re shooting down the path, any of the speed regulation from the last couple trips gone in the favor of getting there as quickly as possible. He only allows himself one quick look at his teammates, taking in Hunk’s nervous face, Pidge’s wide and fearful eyes, Shiro’s guilty expression, and then turns back to watching the smoking outline of the base camp as it draws near, praying to entities he long since gave up on that Lance is alright.

 They emerge into chaos, stumbling out of the truck into a sea of rebels rushing around them and Keith’s eyes catch on Lance barking orders in the center of the swarm, Zenex hovering over his shoulder.

 “Lance!” He screams, shoving his way over, and Lance turns at the call, eyes widening.

 “Keith? What are you doing here?” He notices the others behind Keith, and his expression closes off, eyes going dark. “What are they doing here?”

 “We are here to help.” Allura says, and Lance scowls.

 “No.” He turns, calling out more orders as the people around them don flight gear and board ships, and Keith reaches out, grabbing his hand desperately.

 “Please, let us help you! We have the lions, we can fight!”

 Lance turns, wrenching his hand out of Keith’s, and his eyes are fire. “For all we know, your presence is what brought them here! This is not your fight, so just— Just stay out of it!”

 “If we brought them here then we have to help!” Keith screeches, and along the threads of the lion bond Red stirs, her anger at the Galra and fear for the people of the base camp, fear for Lance, mixing with his own. “Please, I can’t just sit here while you go and fight without even knowing what will happen to you!”

 “Lance, please.” Hunk murmurs from behind Keith, and something in Lance’s expression softens, his eyes darting once to the people of his base camp as they run to fight or to cover.

 “The Empire’s ships have fired only on the base camp, not the castle. They may not know you are here. If this attack was not timed to your arrival, seeing more lions may tempt the commander to fight harder rather than retreat. There is significantly more glory in having captured Voltron than in having done some damage to a bunch of scraggly rebels hiding out on a no-name planet.”

 “Or seeing the full force of Voltron may scare them off!” Keith presses.

 Lance hesitates, then closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Strategy before impulsivity. I have doubted myself once before in the face of Voltron’s opinion, and it cost too much.” When he opens his eyes, it is the General of the Blue Lion Resistance who looks back at Keith.

 “If you really want to help, then assist in getting those who are non-combatants or injured underground. Leave my soldiers to me.”

 The others hesitate, and then disperse, and Keith turns to go as well, before Lance’s hand reaches out and grabs his own, spinning him around before a second hand grabs the back of his neck and pulls him down slightly, Lance leaning forward and pressing his forehead against Keith’s, dark eyes staring into his own.

 “If I need you, I will call for you.” Lance breathes, and then releases Keith, turning and sprinting his way to the Blue lion, catching a pitch black helmet with a reflective blue visor that Nyma throws him as she boards her ship and slipping it over his head as Blue stretches up and roars from the edge of the base camp, awaiting her pilot.

    Waiting on the inside of what is essentially a bomb shelter with only a listen-in radio connected to the Resistance fighter’s comms to give any indication of what’s going on outside, while Keith knows Lance is out there potentially risking his life, is hell.

 He can tell Red agrees, her presence pacing anxiously in the forefront of his mind, and he knows she is likely moving restlessly around her hangar, fighting the urge to just take off and fly only because Keith has begged her to hold steady, and after this long together their trust is at a level where his words may occasionally override her own protective instincts.

 It’s just as jarring for her as it is for him, he knows, if not more so. At least he can hear Lance’s voice over the radio as he yells out commands to his fighters, calling out attacks and occasionally swearing, usually in Spanish or another language. Red can’t feel anything, the destroyed place in the bond where Blue once resided keeping her from seeking out her sister’s quintessence, and the best Keith can do is offer her confirmations that Lance, and assumedly his lion as well, are still breathing.

 …He just hopes, prays, that Lance’s shouted curses are out of anger and frustration with the Galra fleet they’re dealing with and not because of near misses on shots to Blue.

 Keith startles when Hunk sits down next to him where he’s crouched against the edge of the underground shelter, the other’s presence startling him out of his musings, and when Hunk raises a curious eyebrow at him, he simply groans, giving in and slumping against the larger paladin.

 “…I can’t stand just… waiting here.” He mutters, and Hunk hums his agreement.

 “I just—“ He continues, frustration tugging at his being. “We have the lions! We should be out there watching his back, protecting him!”

 “I don’t really think Lance needs much protection anymore.” Hunk offers mildly, and Keith snorts.

 “I know, but… God, there’s extra help just sitting there and he’s too stubborn to accept it!”

 “Do you think that’s what it is?”

 “Huh?” He blinks, turning his head slightly from where it’s slumped against Hunk’s arm to peer up at the other.

 “Stubbornness. Do you think that’s why Lance refused our help?”

 “I… Guess?” He answers hesitantly, and Hunk sighs.

 “Do you remember what I told you when Lance first left Voltron?”

 “Uh…”

 “I told you that Lance plans around contingencies. He’s a strategist as much as he is a people pleaser or inevitably plain old insecure— It’s just a part of who he is, he’s been like that since he was a child. His backup plans have backup plans, and nine out of ten times he’s not going to need them because he considered all the options before even making his initial decision.” Hunk grins lopsidedly at Keith, shrugging lightly. “Lance is brilliant, he always has been, it’s just not in an area people pay much attention to. If Lance truly believed the best option was to have us flying with him, no matter how much he may dislike working with Voltron, he wouldn’t have hesitated, not at the risk of the lives of people under his command.”

 “…So?” Keith asks hesitantly.

 “So have a little faith in his thinking process. He wasn’t bullshitting just to get us to sit down and behave. There’s a good chance that this attack was random, or based off something else than the Empire tracking our presence. In a way, that’d make less sense for Lotor’s style. Hit two birds with one stone, yeah, but it’d take immense firepower to take out both of us. We’d be seeing a lot more damage than we are right now, not to mention attacks on the castle. If they’re shooting from high enough up that they can’t see the castle, then it’s a pre-coordinated attack going off the specific coordinates of the camp.” Hunk chuckles. “If he’s betting on his forces being enough to send ‘em scattering without alerting the Empire to our presence, then that’s good enough for me to do the same… What about you?”

 “I—“ Keith hesitates, closing his eyes and shivering when he hears an explosion echo over the radio. “…Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

 In the recesses of his mind, Red’s presence slows her frantic pacing, considering, and then purrs back, a reassurance she will also take Hunk’s words as truth and place her trust in her sister and said sister’s pilot to know what they are doing.

 “…Thank you.” He murmurs, and Hunk smiles.

 “Of course.” Overhead another explosion hits, and Hunk winces. “…Now we just have to wait it out.”

 “Yeah… Now we wait.”

 It feels like an eternity buried in the shelter, listening to the echoes of the guns and the shouts reverberating over the radio, but eventually the explosions from above that shake the ground around and above them peter to a stop, the sounds of the battle on the comms fade, and, finally, Lance’s voice rings out through the shelter.

 “Sound the all clear. Bastards are turning tail, we got ‘em.”

 There’s a sigh of relief from the young alien wearing the headset plugged into the comms on the radio, and a faint cheer whoops in the back, quickly being picked up the others in the bunker, and Hunk grins, looking delighted and nudging Keith lightly in the side, who can’t help but smile back.

 Thank God.

 He watches with relief as Allura climbs up and opens the hatch leading to above ground, and steps aside to let the stream of aliens clamber out. Lance’s camp really is about more than fighting, he thinks— There are at least sixty or seventy noncombatants here, if not more once you include those who are injured. Children and elderly and young parents who are true refugees, welcomed to the Resistance with open arms for what they offer just by continuing to survive in the face of the overwhelming reach of the Empire.

 It’s so different from the long, empty halls of the Castle of Lions, where there are whole floors that lie untouched even after nearing five years in space, and the only permanent residents are the six of them… himself, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro, and Coran and the princess. Any prisoners they rescued were always promptly healed and given healing pods to be sent home, but perhaps, he thinks, looking out over the sea of different species as they make their way out of the shelter, remembering the brand on Zenex’s face marking him a traitor to his kind and of Rolo and Nyma’s seemingly endless planet hopping, it’s not that simple. He’d always assumed that was the way things worked, before. You rescue people, and they get to go back to their lives as they once were, but…

 They have no home to return to, anymore, just a crumble of rock where Earth once flourished. And, perhaps, these people do not have one either.

 Keith savors the first breath of fresh air he takes in once he’s out of the bunker, second to last behind Shiro, who hovers over his and Hunk’s shoulders until he’s sure everyone is out. Closing his eyes, he breathes in, and then out, a grin creeping onto his face as he hears the nearing jets of Blue, and then he’s running, hopping over the spots of debris from the projectiles that hit the camp and heading for the place where Blue is circling to land.

 Lance descends from the runway in Blue’s mouth just as Keith makes it to the clearing, and his heart leaps as he watches Lance yank his helmet off his head, tucking it under an arm and half-heartedly running a hand through his hair to work out the worst of the knots from having it bunched up under his helmet while flying. Without thinking, he grabs Lance the minute he’s in reaching distance, pulling him into a tight hug up and off his feet and spinning him around in a wobbly circle, ignoring the clattering of Lance’s helmet as it hits the ground and savoring the faint reassurance of Lance’s beating heart from underneath his suit against his own.

 “Uh… Keith?” Lance says questioningly after a moment, and Keith instantly releases him, coughing nervously, and studiously looking anywhere but Lance’s face.

 “Sorry.”

 The corner of Lance’s mouth quirks up in a small smile, and Keith finds his eyes stuck on it despite his seconds ago conviction not to look at Lance, savoring the slant of his lips, the genuine, if somewhat confused, happiness on his face at seeing Keith.

 “I’m… glad you’re alright.” He offers hesitantly, and Lance’s smile widens just a little.

 “I told you I would be.” Lance says, the slightest tinges of amusement creeping in at the edges of his voice, and then he turns, whistling as he looks out over the camp. “Damn, they really did a number on this place.”

 Keith winces, taking his own proper glimpse of the damage for the first time. “Will you be able to fix it?”

 Lance shakes his head slightly. “It doesn’t matter. What can come with us will be packed away, and everything else will be burned. We can’t stay here now that the Empire knows our location.”

 “…Oh.” Keith swallows past the lump in his throat at Lance’s words. He’s right, it would be stupid to continue to keep base in a location the enemy knows you’re in. “Of course.”

 Lance frowns slightly, a hesitant question on his lips as he turns to look at Keith, and then a shout rings out from an approaching voice.

 “General!”

 It’s Nyma, skidding across the last of the way to the Blue lion and then hunching over, wheezing for breath. “G-General…”

 “What is it, Nyma?”

 “You have to… come quick.” She gasps, straightening up and staring at Lance with a terrified expression as she points back to the camp. “It’s Ruya.”

 Lance’s eyes widen, and he breaks into a sprint, stumbling into the center of the still half-deserted camp as Keith and Nyma work to catch up and looking around wildly until someone signals him.

 “She’s— Fuck. Boss, over here!” It’s Rolo who calls them over from a spot near the edge of the tents where they run into an area of mostly fighter ships, waving desperately from a spot where he’s hunched over… something with Zenex and a couple other aliens, and Keith feels his stomach lurch unpleasantly at the mere thought of what they might find there.

 Please don’t let her be dead, he prays, for Lance’s sake, if nothing else.

 When they reach the others, Keith bites his lip, taking in the scene. She’s definitely alive, the shallow rise and fall of her chest a testament to that, but there’s… there’s a lot of blood. Green blood, because, as Keith has discovered, alien blood runs in a variety of colors, but… blood. It’s all over her chest and side, making it impossible to distinguish where the wound is.

 “Ruya…” Lance whispers, dropping to his knees beside the girl.

 “I don’t think there’s spinal injuries.” Zenex says quickly, looking to Lance. “But I wasn’t sure…”

 “If we don’t move her, she’s going to die regardless.” Lance murmurs, looking over Ruya’s unconscious form with obvious panic.

 “The… The healing pod?” Nyma offers, and Zenex shakes his head.

 “The first blast targeted the medical tent, the pod was smashed.”

 “Fuck.” Lance breathes out, ducking his head before reaching out to run a careful hand along Ruya’s cheek. “C’mon, baby girl stay with me. You’re going to be alright.”

 There’s a kind of visceral horror in it, Keith realizes. Ruya, a child, a child Lance cares about, is dying, and there’s nothing they can do about it, without a cryopod.

 …Fuck, a pod.

 “The castle!” He yelps, and Lance looks to him, eyes wide. “Lance, the castle!”

 Understanding shivers across Lance’s face, and Keith watches as hope crawls back in.

 Lance turns to Rolo, barking an order. “Go get a truck started, we’re going to the Castle of Lions.” Gently, he places an arm under Ruya’s neck and under her thighs, scooping her up, and glances at Keith, nodding. “Go get Allura and Coran, and tell them to get their asses back to the castle pronto.”

    Ruya’s already small form looks incredibly tiny floating in the space beneath the glass of the healing pod. Then again, Keith supposes, looking over her frame, that’s not hard. Pretty much anyone but Shiro or Hunk looked small in the healing pods honestly, and given Ruya was really only the size of a human child, that only emphasized that fact.

 Lance is somber as he stands in front of the pod, watching the readings on the monitor next to her with careful eyes, taking in the data of heart rate, blood replenishment, skin repair, all of it, as if he hopes to heal her faster just by observing the numbers at work.

 The whole sight makes Keith ache, and he can feel Red’s anxiety crawling along the bond, discontent over the injury of someone who her sister’s pilot cares for.

 For a long time, Keith had believed Red thought for no one but her pilot, but in time he’d come to realize she cared intensely about the wellbeing of those who mattered to those she cared about, in a long chain of protective feelings. Red cared about Blue, and about Keith, both of whom cared about Lance, who cared about Ruya, and that, it seems, was enough for her to be disgruntled over Ruya’s condition, if only because it put Lance, and therefore Keith, in distress.

 “She should be alright.” He hears Coran say from where he’s positioned at another monitor near Lance’s, hitting a few symbols as he sets the timer for the pod. “One night in there, and she’ll be right as rain. Lucky girl though, I don’t know if she would have made it without the pod.”

 Lance’s frame shudders ever so slightly, hands curling into fists for a moment before his shoulders slump, and he nods.

 “I don’t understand…” Allura says softly from where she stands in the corner with Shiro, observing the scene with tired eyes. “I was sure we got everyone underground.”

 There’s a quiet sigh, and then Lance turns around, casting a quick glance to Keith, and to Zenex where he stands a few feet from him, and then looks to the princess. “Ruya has… a lot of anger in her heart. She’s been begging me to allow her to fight since she lost her parents in order to avenge their deaths.” His eyes slip to Keith’s again, the edge of his mouth quirking, and Keith remembers what Lance had said to him the night before, murmured into the silent spaces of the night in-between sips of fiery alcohol.

 She reminds me of you.

 “We have a strict rule in the Resistance that you must be of at least sixteen years, or of your species mental equivalent to that of a human sixteen year old to fight, but Ruya has been trying to sneak aboard ships bound for missions in spite of that for months. She likely took the confusion during the attack to try and get into a fighter ship, and got hit in the process.” He slumps forward, turning back to Ruya again with a tired expression. “I knew she needed extra supervision until she learned to command her hate for the Empire instead of letting it control her, I should have kept a better eye on her.”

 Lance breathes out slowly, leaning forward and resting his head against the cryopod, eyes falling shut, and then he spins around, walking towards the princess and bowing ever so slightly to her. “Ruya would not have survived if it weren’t for the castle, and therefore you, and that is a debt I cannot repay. However…” Lance’s hands clench at his sides, and Keith realizes what he is going to do seconds before he says it, making frantic eye contact with Hunk across the room, who is clearly figuring out the same thing, panic in his expression.

 Lance, Keith thinks as it finally clicks into place, doesn’t like owing anyone anything, let alone owing Allura. That is a part of who he is too— And somehow, that desire to be equal, to be fair, overrides his pride, hell, his sense of self preservation, without question.

 …Because Lance McClain, no matter how old or analytical or respected or downright bitter he may get, is still an idiot who tries so hard to be good even when he imagines himself a monster, and at the end of the day that might just be what destroys him.

 “However, I can offer you what you most desire from me.” Lance keeps his head bowed, and Keith knows he is likely fighting himself every step along the way with these words. “I will ask the Blue lion to relinquish our bond and return to your care.” He hesitates, studiously avoiding Allura’s gaze as he turns and nods respectfully to Coran. “I will leave Ruya in your care for now. Come, Zenex, we’re leaving.”

 Keith watches Lance leave, dark hair and stupid coat rustling with measured steps, and fights the urge to just throw himself at Lance and beg him to be selfish for once in his life.

 The minute Lance is gone, he turns to Allura, words on the tip of his tongue, but it is Hunk who beats him to it.

 “Don’ you do it, Allura.” Hunk’s expression is thunderous, a kind of anger Keith has seen on the other on very few times in the years they’ve been teammates, and later friends. “Don’t you dare take Lance’s stupid, self-sacrificing quid-pro-quo streak and use it to get what you want.”

 Allura hesitates. “Hunk, I—“

 “Save it.” He snaps, turning and storming out of the room, and when Allura looks to Keith with nervous eyes, he crosses his arms and looks away, avoiding her gaze. There’s nothing he can’t offer that Hunk hasn’t already said.

 ...It’s not like she ever listens to them, anyways.

    The next day, a tearful and apologetic Ruya is collected from the castle by Nyma and Rolo, and Coran and Pidge announce that, with a few hours of work, the new stones should be fully in place and the castle set to depart by the evening. Hunk and Allura had both disappeared in the early morning off to the camp, the former in all likelihood to talk to Lance and the latter to, assumedly, collect the Blue lion.

 When Coran asks for someone to go down to the camp and tell them the news, Keith doesn’t know why he volunteers, but for some reason it falls out of his mouth without his prior consideration. He blames Red, despite knowing she can’t control his words or actions that much, simply because of the annoying, pleased purring resonating through his chest.

 Which is how he finds himself perched on a rock on the edge of the clearing where Blue rests, knees to his chest and his arms around them, watching Allura’s form as she sits peacefully in front of the Blue lion’s paws, unmoving.

 “You’re not seriously going to do it, are you?” He asks, and she startles, whipping around and staring at him before relaxing minutely.

 “Oh, Keith. I…” She hesitates, shrugging. “I do not know. I am not sure if Blue would consent to coming with us, regardless, even if Lance asks her too.”

 He sighs and, on a whim, unwinds himself and hops off his perch, walking over and sitting down on the ground next to her, crossing his legs and peering up at Blue curiously, poking out with the tentative grasp he has, has always had, on her presence, and feeling her brush back, conveying a storm of thousands of years old emotions he cannot begin to comprehend, let alone sort out and understand.

 More than anything, though, what he gets, is exhaustion, pure and simple.

 The lions are old, he realizes, not for the first time, but gaining a new appreciation for what that means each time he considers it. However they came about into the forms they are now, they existed before that, and unlike Coran and Allura, they did not sleep those ten thousand years between paladins. They had near an eternity to reflect on their choices, their mistakes.

 The paladin bond is something stronger than a lucky choice out of limited options— It’s a destiny, of sorts, an inevitable connection that spans the odds of chance or luck. Blue had come to Earth for a reason, had reached for Keith, who had found Shiro, who in turn had been found by Lance, who had found Hunk and Pidge, and in the end that brought all the lions what they needed. Keith doesn’t know what that whole mess of fate versus the odds of rational logic says in terms of what their relation may be to the former paladins, but he guesses the connection is more complicated than just that of ‘convenient replacements’.

 Blue had ten thousand years to mourn what she lost, and she had found that again, in Lance, and she would give up anything for that, even Voltron, especially if she believed this lent the universe better chances of survival.

 “I have always felt I had quite a complicated relationship with the Blue lion.” Allura says quietly, drawing Keith out of his reverie. “The former Blue paladin was… someone very important to me, and for a long time I felt quite resentful over her bond with her lion, and with the other paladins, as it was something I could never match or even relate to.” She closes her eyes, sighing. “Perhaps it is selfish, but for a while, when we lost Shiro, the idea to experience that, to understand what she had known, was… intoxicating. In hindsight, it may have led me to pretend my motivations were more selfless than they were, but… Well, it can be very hard to relinquish pieces of your home when they are offered to you.”

 Keith hums, and then, looking at Blue, he cannot stop himself from asking. “What happened?”

 Allura bows her head. “Lance’s predecessor was Galran, and when the war began I lost… perspective. Zarkon had been like an uncle to me as a child, and to see him betray my family like that, it led me to have doubts about the Galra as a whole. After all, if he could turn his back on people he claimed to love so easily, surely they all would?” She chuckles bitterly. “I let myself doubt her, even when she renounced Zarkon to fight for Altea against him, even in the face of her kindness and compassion. I convinced myself her impressive loyalty would surely swing back to her own kind eventually, and in the end my hate and my ignorance caused her death. And… Well, the Blue lion has never forgiven me for it, not that I really blame her for that.” She trails off, tilting her head and turning to Keith, eyes solemn. “I am sure there are many of us who see an angry child that lets their need for revenge get the better of them and think of someone we know, but for me, seeing that girl in the pod… I saw myself.”

 “Funny…” Keith says quietly, pulling his gaze away from Blue and meeting Allura’s eyes, quirking the edge of his mouth up into a half-hearted smile. “I saw myself, too.”

 Allura sighs, looking down. “I… I do not know if it is right, to demand the Blue lion back as if she is an object to be bartered, but I do genuinely fear for what the future may hold if we continue on like this. The universe will need Voltron again.”

 “Allura…” Keith says, stretching out and hesitantly gesturing to Blue. “Voltron… Isn’t a giant mecha-human super weapon, and it isn’t a status symbol to prove our lawful high ground. Voltron is… Hope, and whether that comes from a unified giant robot that kicks ass or from five separate lions or…” He turns ever so slightly, nodding his head to the base camp, “Or just one lion serving as a flagship to a ragtag Resistance made up of rebels and refugees turns soldiers, that hope is still the same. Voltron stands for a better tomorrow, no matter how it goes about getting there, and sometimes someone has to be willing to get down in the dirty and do the messy work.” He pauses. “Your Voltron is regal power and this… straight and narrow moral compass, and that’s not bad, because one day, when this is all over, we’re going to need that, but the Galra… One thing I’ve learned about them more than anything is that they’re pretty human, at the end of the day, and to beat a human you have to fight like a human. Lance is… We made mistakes when we tried to be a perfect Voltron, and they ended up destroying things we will never be able to bring back. So maybe, what the universe needs right now is a hope they can know, a hope willing to give up certain parts of their perfection in order to do what is needed.”

 “…And you think that’s Lance?”

 “Yes.” He says firmly. “I do. And if you take Blue away from him, if you limit the amount of good he can do as himself in the name of a perfect Voltron, we’ll just end up making the same mistakes we did the first time. The Earth is gone, and we can’t bring that back, but to learn from it we have to accept what it means, and right now it means that Lance’s place, Blue’s place, is here. I’m not saying your Voltron won’t ever fly again, it’s just… not yet.”

 “Hm…” Allura smiles, eyes distant. “When did you get so profound, huh?”

 Keith snorts. “I wouldn’t call myself profound, just… older, maybe a little more well-rounded. Five years running around sharing a mystical bond with a space lion and a bunch of other people will do that to you.”

 Allura hums, nodding, and for a moment there is silence, before the stir of approaching voices reaches them, and they both turn to see Hunk and Lance coming up the path, heads tucked together as they talk quietly, the gentle sounds of Spanish filtering through. He looks at them, in their easy peace and brushing shoulders, and he knows, without even needing to understand their words, that the two of them have worked it out, as they always have.

 Lance glances up and jolts, surprised, as they near Blue. “Keith!” His eyes fall slightly to the left, and he gulps. “…Allura. You’re here for Blue, I assume?”

 “Actually,” Allura says breezily, standing up and dusting herself off, “I rather think I’ll be leaving her. I find her to be severely temperamental and moody and generally not at all suited to me. If you fancy dealing with her so much, you can keep her, I think.” She sighs airily, drifting past a gaping Hunk and Lance without a second look, a small smile tugging at her lips. “I’ll be seeing you, General.”

 And just like that, Allura’s gone, disappearing between the tents, and Keith fights the urge to laugh at Lance and Hunk’s dumbfounded expressions.

 “…Dude.” Hunk says, bringing a hand up to rub at his eyes disbelievingly. “Did Allura just… give up on taking Blue?”

 “…I think she just did.” Lance murmurs, turning to look at Keith with a raised eyebrow. “What the hell did you say to her to pull that off?”

 Keith shrugs, standing up and stretching idly. “Not much, really, I just…” He glances up at Blue, and he swears to God the feeling she sends him is best described as a wink, “…listened.”

 “No way…” Hunk says, and then yelps, turning and chasing after Allura. “Hey! Allura, wait up! I wanna know what you guys talked about!”

 Keith grins, watching him go, and then stumbles as arms are thrown around his neck, brown hair flying in his face as Lance buries his head in his shoulder. He flushes, and, carefully, wraps his arms around Lance’s waist in return, pressing his face to the side of Lance’s head, long hair tickling his nose, and breaths in the scent of blaster residue and smoke. On anything else, it wouldn’t be a particularly appealing smell, but… He likes it, on Lance. It seems right.

 “…Thank you.” Lance whispers.

 “Of course.” He sighs, closing his eyes.

 After a long moment, Lance hesitantly disentangles himself, straightening up and coughing awkwardly, and Keith snickers, throwing an arm over his shoulders as they meander lazily back towards the camp.

 “Yknow,” He says casually, “I never asked. I know you kind of mentioned not using Lance anymore once you started the Resistance, but how’d you end up being called General of all things?

 “Oh my God…” Lance groans. “Okay so, I’ll tell you but you can’t laugh.” Keith nods, and Lance sighs, closing his eyes with a pained expression on his face. “I have learned many things in my time in space, Keith, but this lesson stays prevalent.” His eyes snap open, looking to Keith with deadly seriousness. “Never show a bunch of aliens the episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist you have saved on your phone, they will pick up way too much new language, among other things.”

 …In his defense, Keith does try really hard not to laugh, but when Lance punches his shoulder after he doubles over wheezing and then breaks into a bunch of snorting little giggles of his own, the slight tinge in his shoulder is absolutely worth the sounds of Lance’s laughter.

    The gathering to see them off is surprisingly formal, while also being the most relaxed Keith has seen the Resistance members around them yet. Half the camp seems to turn up, crowded around the ship not in the careful military perimeter of before but more of a cluster of regular people. There’s dozens of faces Keith doesn’t recognize or know in the slightest in the crowd, but he can pick out Rolo and Nyma’s lounging forms, Ruya tucked between them and scowling half-heartedly down at the ground, and Zenex near the center of the half-circle closest to the castle’s entrance, the Galra offering him a small smile and a nod when Keith catches his eye.

 Lance stands at the forefront, a few feet from them where they hover at the entryway of the castle, his posture stiff and arms behind his back. The trench coat’s back once again over the bodysuit and its multiple holstered weapons, and Keith still isn’t sure if it annoys him or if he likes it, but he can’t deny it adds… something to Lance’s already lean and cutting figure.

 “For the record,” Lance tells them all softly, dipping his head just slightly, “I owe you an apology for my comment yesterday. It turns out my second assessment of the situation was right— The Empire found us based on information a spy who had been passing as a refugee for the last couple months leaked to them, not because of any tracking of your presence, they didn’t even know you were here. Believe me, they’ll pay for the danger they put my people in.” The edge of his mouth quirks, and Lance looks up, smirking lightly. “However, don’t take that as an offer of alliance. If you show up on my doorstep again without at least prior warning, I will sorely consider finally shooting one of you, or at least punching someone firmly in the face.” He makes eye contact with Keith, and winks. “No promises on who that’ll be, though.”

 “…Are you sure you won’t come back, Lance?” Pidge asks quietly.

 Lance hesitates. “…My place is here, Pidge. I’m not sorry for the choices I’ve made. I never was, and I never will be. This is where I need to be. My voice is heard amongst these people, I can help them. I can protect them.”

 Pidge sniffles, but nods, and Lance smiles softly, hesitantly taking a couple steps back so that he is clear of the castle’s doors, lifting a hand tentatively. “Bye?” He offers unsurely, and next to Keith, Shiro sighs.

 “Goodbye, Lance.”

 Keith hears the others shuffle around, heading back into the castle, and he turns too, casting one last lingering look at Lance as he goes, making it about five steps, before there’s a shout.

 “Keith!”

 He groans, twisting in place to ask Lance what it is he wants to say now, but instead hands grab his jacket and yank him forward, and suddenly a pair of soft lips is pressed to his own.

 Lance is kissing him, he realizes, and his brain promptly short-circuits after that.

 He does note one thing, though. While the rest of Lance seems to naturally run cold, his lips are warm, like the soft fire of Red’s consciousness wrapped up along his own.

 There’s barely fleeting pressure for a few seconds, then the slightest of movements, before Lance nips quickly at his lower lip and then shoves him back, sending him stumbling over the boundary of the castle’s edge and back inside just as the doors begin to slip closed.

 “Stay alive out there!” Lance calls, the wind turning his hair into a messy halo as he grins brightly at Keith. “I’ll be damn upset if you die on me, Kogane!”

 “Just don’t go and get yourself in trouble first then, you reckless idiot.” He croaks, and Lance laughs, the sound bright and delighted, before turning back to the Resistance, his ridiculous trench coat catching on the breeze as he strides back towards them.

 “Alright, you gossipy fucks! You’ve had your oogling time, now back to work! We’ve got a camp to break down!” Lance barks loudly, Zenex slipping to his side, ever the faithful soldier, as the castle doors slip closed, the engines lighting up as they prepare for takeoff.

 Somewhere in the recesses of Keith’s chest, there’s a spark, a small fluttering of joyhopeanxiety that feels like cool ice and running water and warm lips in a place where the hole in the lion bond rests, and Keith smiles giddily, Red purring happily in the back of his mind.

 That promise to stay alive until he at least next sees Lance is one he’ll have to keep this time, he thinks.

 Though, if he’s being honest, that doesn’t sound too bad at all.