#shiro's is the kerberos shuttle

[discordiansamba]

some more spitballing about that AU but in a new post since that one was getting kind of long:

From Coran, Allura figures out that it may be possible to get someone's memory of the previous reality to return by having them come in contact with a specific trigger. For Coran, it was his control panel on the Castle of Lions.

Which means... she just has to figure out what each paladin's trigger is. Clearly it is not their lions. Keith is proof enough of that. But maybe she can even use it to disrupt Honerva's brainwashing.

Speaking of Keith, it is... deeply weird to see him as an Altean. But also fortunate, because it seems he has a spark of alchemical talent! Which means they can move the Castle of Lions, as soon as they get it in order.

Keith and Romelle are just confused. Why do these two- what did they call themselves again? Humans? Know so much about this ancient Altean ship?

Allura only sort of lies. She tells them she has memories from a past life, as does Coran. Technically very true! She has lived nineteen years as a human. It does make her life as an Altean princess feel a bit like a 'past life'.

Keith's a little wary, but Kosmo seems to trust them, so he decides to trust them both.

local half-Galra turned local Altean born with a lingering sense of something being off, but unable to determine what. He grows up wary and naturally suspicious. except for Romelle. he trusts Romelle implicitly.

(ironically, it was this same wariness that prompted him to never be around whenever Honerva visited. he was under her nose the entire time, and she never knew)

Keith and Romelle out on their own in the universe. What will they do? (acquire a cosmic wolf, an ancient Altean superweapon, and stumble upon an ancient Altean castle. they're keeping themselves busy.)

Pidge is Olkari and Hunk is Balmeran. These are obvious. If we had confirmation that the merpeople could get legs, I would make Lance one of them, but we don't so I feel like he's Puigian? I think Shiro's just Galra again. He gets to be fuzzy this time.

Coran gets to speedrun the sense of strangeness that Allura has lived with all her life, of being one thing and then suddenly another. It's fun!

(Allura overhears Keith and Romelle whispering to each other about their 'weird ears'. oh. now she knows how Lance felt.)

Allura is going to have to somehow teach Keith at least the fundamentals of Altean alchemy without being able to do it herself. That... shouldn't be hard, right?

(it very much is)

Their luck runs out eventually, and Honerva becomes aware that the Castle of Lions is active again. And onboard is a human girl who resembles Princess Allura far too closely for her comfort...

[atlasarcana]

radio waves 🎶

“Talk about a first kiss,” Matt laughs, voice husky. He’s tilted his head back in reverie, exposing the sheen on the hollow of his faintly bobbing throat. Shiro suddenly feels as though he’s started traveling at the speed of light. As though he’s back in his room on a now-cannibalized shuttle, Matt between his legs, tinny music coming through the radio at his belt. “Your memory’s better than mine,” he says. His throat feels thick. Neither of them are dancing anymore.

— Shiro and Matt had something romantic and undefined on the Kerberos mission, but after enduring Galra slave camps, the gladiatorial arena, and forced amputation, rebel Matt reunites with Pidge and Shiro as a completely new man. Shiro takes the time to learn how much Matt has and hasn’t changed, and vice versa, as they rebuild something new together.

Chapter: 5/5 (COMPLETE)

Rating: E Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Ship: Matt Holt/Shiro Word Count: 26,568 Tags: Canon Divergence, Matt has Galra prosthetics AU, Vignettes, Relationship Study, Character Study, Sparring, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Fluff.

Content warnings for the fic are described in the tags and elaborated in the Author’s Note.

⋆ read on ao3 ⋆

[pumpkichia]

Shiro's Sister

---At the Canyon---

"Woah! What the hell is that thing?" Lance says looking through the binoculars. From what it looks like, the Galaxy Garrison had set up a tent and extracted whatever, or whoever, was inside the ship. The ship was strapped onto a transportation truck, shuttles and Garrison members surrounding it. "And who the hell is she?" Lance aims the binoculars to a general exiting the tent. Pidge knocks him upside the head. "Ow!" Lance groans. At this point, Pidge takes her computer out of her bag and puts on her headphones.

"Right, alien ship. Fuck, we'll never get past all those guards to get a look." Lance whines, lowering the binoculars.

"Wait, they set up a camera in there and I grabbed it's feed. Look!" Pidge whispers as to not alert the Garrison of their presence. Hunk and Lance look over Pidge's shoulder. Pidge's computer shows Shiro, the junior officer who went missing on the Kerberos mission, strapped down to a table. He looked a little worse for wear, as his formerly black hair now had a white streak at the front. His face had a huge scar across the bridge of his nose, indicating that he got in a fight with someone. Or something. His right arm was replaced with some sort of mechanical arm. There were three members of the Galaxy Garrison, including the commander, inside the tent. They were wearing white hazmat suits with ventilation masks.

"Hey! What are you doing?" says Shiro through the computer, static surrounding his voice. "Calm down Shiro, we just need to keep you quarantined until we run some tests." the commander of the Garrison.

"You have to listen to me-" Shiro grunts, trying to free his restraints. "They destroy worlds! Aliens are coming!"

"That's Shiro, the pilot of the Kerberos mission. That guy's my hero! " exclaims Lance. "Well, guess he's not dead in space after all.." Hunk sighs in relief. "But where's the rest of the crew?" Pidge asks as the three cadets inch closer to the computer monitor.

"Do you know how long you've been gone?" asks a Garrison member through the computer.

"I dunno. Months. Years? Look, there's no time. Aliens are coming here for a weapon. They're probably on their way." Shiro says as the three Garrison members work on putting him in quarantine. "They'll destroy us. We have to find Voltron."

"Sir, take a look at this. It appears his arm has been replaced with a cyborg prosthetic." says one of the members. "Put him under until we know what that thing can do." says the commander under the hazmat suit.

"Nonono. No. Don't put me under! There's no time! My sister is still up there, we have to get Voltron and save her!" Shiro says, struggling against his restraints.

"What are they doing? He's a legend. They're not even gonna listen to him?" asks Lance in disbelief. "We have to get him out." says Pidge.

"Uh, I hate to be the voice of reason, always, but weren't we just watching the computer because there's no way to get past the guards?" Hunk says, gesturing to the guards outside of the tent.

"That was before we were properly motivated. We've just gotta think. Could we tunnel in?" Lance asks. "Maybe we could get some hazmat suits and sneak in like med techs." Pidge thinks.

"What we really need is a distraction." says Lance. Suddenly explosions spark from outside the tent. "Is that the aliens? Are they here? They got here so quick!" Hunk panics, holding his arms to his head.

"No, those explosions were a distraction, for him." Pidge points to someone riding a hoverbike. "The Garrison's headed towards the blast, and he's sneaking in from the other side." Pidge exclaims. Lance takes out the binoculars from his pocket and aims it towards the mystery person. From what they can see, it looks like a guy wearing a red jacket, his face covered by a bandana.

"Oh, he is not going to beat us in there!" Lance yells. "That guy is always trying to one-up me!" Lance mutters under his breath. "Who is it?" asks Hunk. "Keith!" replies Lance, running after the guy. "Are you sure?" says Hunk as he follows Lance. "Who's Keith?" Pidge asks as she's forced to run alongside the other two cadets.

---Inside the Tent---

--- Keith's POV---

"These readings are off the chart." I can hear one of the Garrison members say from inside the tent. As I sneak in, I know I'm going to have to take these sons of bitches out.

"Hey!" one of the three Garrison members yells, as they rush in to restrain me. I get into fighting position and jab the first guy in the face, knocking him flat on his back. The second guy hesitates, so I take my chance. I give him a blow to the gut, throwing him against the computers they had set up. I lock eyes with the last member as he charges at me. I quickly turn and kick him in the stomach sending him flying. His head hits the table as I run to Shiro's side.

"Shiro… Can you hear me?" I ask as I lightly pat his face to try and wake him up. "Where's Alex?" He's not responding, they must've drugged him. I quickly take out my knife and cut off his restraints. Then I grab him and sling one of his arms over my shoulder, making him easier to carry.

"Nope. No, you-- No, no, no. No, you don't. I'm saving Shiro." says some guy as he storms into the tent. "Who are you?" I ask as the dude grabs Shiro's other arm and throws it over his shoulder.

"Who am I? Uh, the name's Lance." the dude says as he blinks at me. "Really? are you an engineer?" I ask, confused. Am I supposed to know him from somewhere?

"No, I'm a pilot! We were, like, rivals. You know, Lance and Keith, neck and neck." Lance says.

"Oh, wait. I remember you. You're a cargo pilot." I reply, glaring at him. "Well, not anymore. I'm fighter class now, thanks to you washing out." Lance says, glaring back.

"Well, congratulations." I sigh as we both carry Shiro out of the tent.

"Oh, man. They're coming back and they do not look happy." says a big guy standing outside the tent. "We've gotta go!" Lance and I pick up the pace, hurrying back to my hoverbike. "Uh, do you mind if we catch a ride with you?" says the big guy. Of course I mind. "Is this thing going to be big enough for all of us?" some chick with glasses yells.

"No." I reply. I can see the lights of the Garrison shuttles heading towards us, so I quickly start up my hoverbike. I do a sharp turn-around and turn the throttle towards me, accelerating fast.

"Can't this thing go any faster?" asks Lance. "We could toss out some non-essential weight." I reply dryly. "Oh yeah- Okay, that was an insult. I get it." Lance gestures towards himself.

"Big man, lean left!" I shout. I managed to get some of the shuttles wiped out on the rocks. Wait, I can go down to the second level of the canyon. "Big man, lean right!" I shout back. We fly across the ravine and onto the second layer of the canyon. One of the shuttles was wiped out from that turn, so there must only be one more shuttle chasing us, from the looks of it.

"Guys?" the big guy stammers "Is that a cliff up ahead?" "Oh, no, no, no." Lance screams.

"Yup." I say, revving the engine. This'll be fun. The rest of the people behind me start screaming as I charge down the cliff. "What are you doing, you're gonna kill us all!" Lance screams at me.

"Just shut up and trust me." I reply. I shift gears right as we're about to reach the ground, so that it hovers above the ground. We managed to get away. I guess I'll bring them to my house, since we're already almost there.

---At Keith's House---

By the time the cadets arrived at Keith's house, it was already morning. The house was more of a wooden shack in the middle of the desert. Lance and Keith had carried Shiro inside to let him rest. A couple hours later, he was ready to talk. Shiro had gone outside for some fresh air, Keith followed alongside.

"It's good to have you back." Keith tells Shiro, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's good to be back." replies Shiro.

"So, what happened out there, where's Alex?" Keith asks in a concerned tone.

"My head's still pretty scrambled. we were on an alien ship, but Alex helped me escaped. It's all a blur." Shiro said, rubbing his forehead. "How did you know to come save me when I crashed?"

"You should come see this…" Keith says, guiding Shiro back into his home. Once inside, Keith revealed a corkboard being hidden behind a bedsheet.

"What have you been working on?" Shiro asks as the rest of the cadets gather around to examine the corkboard. On it was multiple printed photographs of the landscape and what looked like lion carvings. In the center was a huge map with three points being triangulated, with "ENERGY SOURCE" written in the center of the tree points.

"I can't explain it, really." Keith shrugs. "After getting booted from the Garrison, after Alex left, I was kind of lost and found myself drawn out to this place." Keith frowns and turns towards Shiro. "It's like something… some energy was telling me to search."

"Who's Alex?" asks Pidge, confusion in her eyes. "My sister." replies Shiro. "She was an engineering cadet at the Galaxy Garrison."

"Shiro has a sister?" Lance asks. "Wait, "was"?" Hunk asks nervously.

"She's still Zarkon's prisoner. Last time I saw her, she was on the same ship as me." Shiro says in a worried voice. There was an obvious worry amongst the Keith and Shiro. Shiro's forehead wrinkles while Keith turns away to face the corkboard.

"Well, while I was searching I found this area." Keith points to the middle of the triangulated points. "It's an outcropping of giant boulders with caves covered in these ancient markings. Each tells a slightly different story about a blue lion, but they all share clues leading to some event, some arrival happening last night." Keith frowns and looks at Shiro. "Then you showed up."

"I should thank you all for getting me out. Lance, right?" Shiro asks, turning towards Lance and extending his mechanical arm in a hand shaking position. Lance hesitates for a split second, but ends up shaking his mechanical arm anyways. Shiro turns towards the other two cadets.

"The nervous guy is Hunk. I'm Pidge." Pidge reaches out to shake Shiro's hand. "So, did anyone else from your crew make it out?" she asks. "I'm not sure. I remember the mission and being captured. After that, it's just bits and pieces."

"Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but back to the aliens. Where are they now? Are they coming? Are they coming for us? Like, where are they at this very moment?" Hunk asks nervously.

"I can't really put it together. I remember the word "Voltron"." Shiro thinks back. "It's some kind of weapon they're looking for, but I don't know why. Whatever it is, I think we need to find it before they do."

"Well, last night, I was rummaging through Pidge's stuff-" Hunk says as he pulls out her backpack. "and I found this picture." Hunk takes out a picture of someone who looks similarly to Pidge posing with a girl with longer hair. "Look it's her girlfriend." Hunk laughs.

"Hey, give me that! What were you doing in my stuff?" Pidge snatches the backpack away from Hunk. "I was looking for a candy bar. But, then, I started reading her diary." Hunk takes a small red book out of his pocket. "WHAT?" screams Pidge. "I noticed the repeating series of numbers the aliens were searching for looks a lot like a Fraunhofer line." Hunk says.

"Frown who?" Keith asks with a blank expression. "It's a number describing the emission spectrum of an element, only, this element doesn't exist on Earth. I thought it might be this Voltron, and I think I can build a machine to look for it, like a Voltron Geiger counter." Hunk says excitingly.

"Hunk, you big, fucking genius!" Lance exclaims. "It's pretty fascinating, really. The wavelength looks like this." Hunk pulls out a folded piece of paper with a graph on it. There are multiple black points on the paper, connected together with an orange line.

"Give me that!" Keith exclaims, snatching the paper from Hunk. He goes over to the corkboard and holds the graph up to the picture of the mountainous desert landscape picture. The points on the graph seemed to match up perfectly with the points and valleys on the mountains.

[ao3feedsheith]

a rough road leads to the stars

a rough road leads to the stars https://archiveofourown.org/works/51026956 by trashwriter (Voltron Role Swap AU) Lone wolf Lucy McClain is searching for any clue about what happened to her father and sister on the Kerberos mission, when Keith Kogane, Garrison Golden-Boy comes crashing back to Earth in an alien shuttle after a year of being held prisoner by the Galra. And he has an important message. The aliens that held him prisoner are searching for something, a super-weapon called Voltron, a piece of which is hidden on Earth. Together with cheerful but nosy comm-spec, Katie “Pidge” Holt, and fun-loving flirt, Hansom “Hunk” Garrett, Keith and Lucy set out to find the weapon before the Galra. But when the ‘weapon’ turns out to be a semi-sentient ship. The heroes learn from the young Prince Shiro of planet Altea and his young half-sister, spunky genius Allura, that they’ve been dragged into a war that’s been raging for over ten thousand years and that they might be the universe’s last hope for peace and freedom. Words: 1651, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi Characters: Keith (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt, Hunk (Voltron), Allura (Voltron), Coran (Voltron), Lance's Father (Voltron), Veronica (Voltron), Krolia (Voltron) Relationships: Keith/Lance/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Lance/Shiro (Voltron), Minor or Background Relationship(s) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Canon Rewrite, Female Lance (Voltron), Champion Keith (Voltron), Prince Shiro (Voltron), Allura & Shiro are Siblings, sunshine pidge, loverboy hunk, Aged-Down Allura, Altean Shiro (Voltron), BAMF Lance (Voltron), Polyamory, Half-Galra Keith (Voltron), Genius Allura, Altean Alchemy (Voltron), Rebel John McClain, Hostage Veronica McClain, Fix-It, Alternate Season/Series 01, Found Family, Canon-Typical Violence, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Action/Adventure, Keith (Voltron) is a Dork, Family Issues via AO3 works tagged 'Keith/Shiro (Voltron)' https://archiveofourown.org October 22, 2023 at 09:58AM

[void-tiger]

Shiro’s s1 outfit is essentially old riding leathers that prolly were a bit too big preKerb which now...fit very well (except too baggy in the waist); a skintight leftover underarmor turtleneck that somehow didn’t make it to Kerberos; and a much loved vest loaned to him by Keith (because he’s cold, the leather pants are baggy even with the belt, and...screw it. If the pants are gonna fit tight he’d rather not have those new baratiddies sticking out, too). Oh, and a pair of snowboots he barely wore. But kept them because the few times it DID snow in Arazona Winter, it snowed A LOT.

...and of course it all works together because Shiro’s the one wearing it.

But, like. No wonder he seemed most comfortable in his Black Paladin armor. Can somebody PLEASE take this poor man shopping?

[writing-protocol]

Love Interrupted

They say it's an illness. Another one, on top of everything else that has happened in Shiro’s relatively short life. He isn’t even surprised anymore, and he has bigger plans. The Kerberos mission is on the horizon, and he’s mentoring a kid who needs all the patience Shiro can muster.

The first petal is a bright, mesmerizing shade of purple on his lower back. It might as well be glowing.

"You, too, huh," a fellow pilot commiserates in a shared locker room.

Shiro needs a mirror to see it, and even then, the strange design doesn’t mean much to him. It could be someone’s fancy ink work, but something inside him knows better. Tattoos don’t magically appear on people — when that happens to someone, it’s a disease.

"What is it?”

"Unrequited love, they say, or a hidden one." The co-worker shrugs like it’s old news. "Happens to the best of us."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Maybe? I've heard of people covered in those tattoos. Never met one, though."

He climbs into a shuttle three weeks later and takes off for the stars. The mark doesn’t waver through years of hardships. It returns with fresh vigor when he finally escapes the astral plane. 

The body is new, but the petals are the same. 

He can’t escape love so easily, it seems. Shiro laments that his heart always knows what his mind refuses to admit, even to himself. 

The war ends, and slowly, more petals appear. There’s never any pain, but each one might as well stab him through the heart. They form a blade, a gorgeous bit of work with a hauntingly familiar design. 

He doesn’t need magic to tell him who he loves — he has always known — but this isn’t a confirmation. 

This is a mandate.

The strange ink doesn’t hesitate to mark his skin. It doesn’t have hang-ups or fears — it doesn’t know how devastating losing Keith would be. It’s merely love, if one could transform love into a work of art.

Shiro hides the almost completed blade carefully because he doesn’t want the man who is the other side of his soul to know. He fears rejection more than the white lie. 

And then, one morning, it’s complete. Petals that turn into roses turn into a blade extended. Turn into something permanent, writ large on his skin, that Shiro treasures beyond words.

That same day, he walks into a hotel room, tired and cranky, and sees the same truth decorating Keith’s tan skin. He can't believe it -- his heart can hardly bear the knowledge that he's not alone anymore. 

He doesn't remember crying.

The kiss that follows sweeps him off his feet.

"I love you, too," he whispers, flesh-and-blood hand pressed against his lover's cheek.

There's a sudden urgency to remove his own jacket and shirt. Decorum forgotten, he watches as the final piece of art shimmers into existence between them. 

Then, he turns, and Keith can only stare.

Fingers touch Shiro’s back, feather-light and reverent. “My blade.”

"It came back when I did." Shiro swallows hard, unable to stop the tears or the smiles. "It knew when I didn't."

"It's a gift," says the man he loves.

“One I would gladly share with you for as long as you’d have me.” The words come unbidden but not unwelcome. 

Perhaps they cannot promise each other a forever, but together, they will make do with a lifetime.

See the quiet love tag for the other part of this story.

[millennium-queen]

LOOK OUT LADIES AND GENTS OF THE GALAXY GARRISON THE KERBERBOI’S ARE HERE TO WIN YOUR HEARTS

[justheretobreakthings]

Joy Is the Flag

Because there’s no way I wasn’t going to write an aro-ace Keith fic for Pride Month! Enjoy!

Read on AO3

“You doing okay there, kiddo?” Shiro asked Keith as they walked side by side through the crowd.

Keith nodded, silently, eyes not on Shiro but on the booths and decorations and people swarming around the two of them as they made their way through the crowd. Shiro felt a frown tugging at his lips as Keith’s arms tightened where they were crossed over his chest and leaned toward Shiro to avoid being knocked into by a group hurrying in the opposite direction.

Shiro had been utterly delighted when Keith had tentatively offered to come along to Pride this summer as an ally. He had invited him along the previous year, after Keith’s first school year at the Garrison, but the latter had turned the offer down. Shiro hadn’t been surprised. Keith wasn’t great at dealing with large amounts of sensory input; he tended to tense and become snappish when the cafeteria was too crowded, was known to lose his temper and devolve into shouting when the cadets ran emergency drills in the simulators, and during one particularly busy visitors’ day Shiro had sat with Keith in his silent and darkened dorm room for two hours while the latter cried his way through a sensory-overload-induced meltdown, just rubbing his back and not saying a word until Keith was back to normal and stubbornly behaved as if nothing had happened at all.

So a Pride festival, with its large crowds and loud music and bright colors and myriad decorations and fragrances from mobs of food booths and shouting and cheering and constant sound and movement - well, Shiro hadn’t really expected Keith to take him up on the offer to come along.

The fact that he had come this year meant a lot in terms of Keith getting out of his shell and facing new experiences, which, of course, gave Shiro a second thing to be proud about today. But he also stayed on his guard for Keith’s sake. The boy had a tendency to push himself beyond the point of brave and into purely hell-bent, regardless of whether it was any good for his health, mentally or physically, from staying awake for three days straight to work on a school project to attempting hoverbike stunts far beyond his skill level.

If the festival got to be too much, Keith wasn’t likely to show it, at least not in any obvious way. He would no doubt just try to grit his teeth and power through, shoving down any distress or frustration until there was no more room to shove any more and it would all explode out of him.

So he kept his eye on Keith as they strolled through the festival, pausing at craft stands to browse through the merchandise on display and peering into food booths and glancing over various non-profits’ posters and brochures. His own enjoyment at Pride was important too, sure, but Shiro couldn’t just turn off his big-brother-mode at the drop of a hat. If Keith was uncomfortable or unhappy, there was no way Shiro would be able to enjoy himself either.

Keith held up well, but about half an hour in Shiro noticed Keith starting to fade. His posture was growing more hunched, his shoulders gradually tensing, with every minute inside the noisy crowd, and he had started running his thumb over his knuckles, a subtle stim that Keith had adopted due to it being one that other people wouldn’t notice.

Shiro wasn’t other people; he noticed.

“Hey,” he called, leaning in toward Keith, not so much as to startle him but enough for him to be heard over the crowd and the speakers blasting music a few booths down. “I’m starting to get tired. Do you wanna go meet up with Adam, see if he needs any help?”

Keith’s shoulders sagged in relief as he nodded, and Shiro smiled at him before lightly taking him by the crook of his elbow and giving it a reassuring squeeze before starting to lead him through the crowd.

They made their way from the center of the festival and onto the outskirts, eventually passing through the roadblocks that signaled the edge of the fest and into the relative quiet of the streets that had been reserved for parade prep. Shiro kept his eyes peeled and his hand on Keith, trying to locate Adam. The Garrison’s Queer Student Alliance had a float in the parade, and as a student officer of the club, Adam had taken charge of the committee to build it this year. Shiro, busy with his own work and prepping for the Kerberos mission, hadn’t had the time to help out with it, and in fact didn’t even know what their float looked like.

That question was answered as he turned a corner and broke into a grin at the site of the giant foam space shuttle one block down.

He let out an impressed whistle as he approached the float, catching the attention of the handful of Garrison students standing on and around it, each of them decked out in their own pride gear. “Man, this came out nice,” Shiro said, eyes roving along the smooth surface of the shuttle and down to the float’s platform, which was bordered with an array of glittering planets painted in the color schemes of a variety of pride flags. “How long before I’m flying this thing out to Pluto?”

A door opened on the platform underneath the shuttle, and Shiro smiled at the bespectacled man who climbed out. “Shiro!” Adam said, straightening up and dropping down off the float. “What are you doing here?”

“Distracting you from your work,” Shiro answered. He stepped forward to greet him with a peck on the cheek before turning back to the float. “You did a really nice job on this.”

“You haven’t seen it in action yet,” Adam replied. “The main engine nozzle’s got a decoration of its own. You can see it in a sec, once someone gets the wiring fixed up.”

A girl Shiro recognized as a student from the year below his turned to scowl at Adam from where she was working at the tail end of the shuttle, a couple of visible grease stains on her pink, purple and blue shirt. “If everybody hadn’t been so careless while they were attaching the shuttle to the platform and moving the float out here, it wouldn’t need to be fixed at all!”

“Just finish it up before the parade starts!” The girl stuck her tongue out and adjusted her glasses before returning to work, and Adam turned back to Shiro. “So, hey, what’s with the change of plans? I thought we were going to meet after the parade. Coming in behind the scenes like this kinda ruins the magic, don’t you think?”

“I just missed you; can’t help it.” He leaned in closer, then, so that Keith, who was busy examining the planets painted on the side of the float with narrowed eyes, couldn’t hear, before continuing, “Keith was starting to get pretty tense with all the noise. Thought we’d go somewhere quiet, and this seemed like a good option.”

“Ah, okay.” Keith looked over toward the two of them, perhaps sensing that eyes were on him, and Adam grinned and waved his hand. “Hey, Keith! Enjoying the Pride fest?” Keith nodded before turning back to the float. “Least you could have done was get the kid some face paint or a pin or something,” Adam said to Shiro. “I know his all-black thing usually blends into crowds, but he’s sticking out like a sore thumb today.”

Shiro shrugged. “Eh, he’s already far enough outside his comfort zone as is. Think getting him all bright and colorful would be pushing it.”

“Mm. Fair enough. How’s that wiring looking over there, Veronica?” Adam called.

“Literally just finished, your royal highness,” the girl said, plopping down to sit on the float and wiping the back of her hand over her forehead. “And thanks, by the way, for being oh so fucking patient.”

“We’re on a time crunch,” Adam said. “Can’t help it. All right, let’s give it a test run.”

“Fine, whatever,” Veronica said, stretching her arms out before leaning back to fiddle with something under the nuzzle. “Everyone stand back, there’s like a forty percent chance this thing’s gonna blow. Kidding,” she added in response to the pointed glare Adam shot her. “God, you’re so serious. Ready?”

There was a little metallic thunk, then lights in the windows and along the sides of the shuttle switched on. A whirring began to sound in the engine nozzle, and as a bright light inside of it clicked on, lengths of multicolored fabric started to unfurl from inside and dance behind the shuttle. At a distance, the effect made it look as if the shuttle were emitting rainbow flames.

The Garrison students let out applause and a couple of whoops, Shiro joining in. Adam simply sighed in relief. “Thank God,” he said. “Can you imagine how bad it would have looked if students of the most prestigious space program on the continent couldn’t even get a parade float operating correctly?”

“I’m sure it would have been the scandal that rocked the world,” Shiro said.

“I hear your sarcasm, and I must say, I don’t appreciate it.”

“Aw, come on, Adam,” he said, slinging an arm around his shoulder and gently rubbing his arm. “It came together great, didn’t it? You worry too much.”

Adam shrugged, giving Shiro a little smile. “Every couple has their thing. Apparently ours is worrying.”

“Damn it. I was really hoping ours would be piloting.”

“It’s a close match.” He patted Shiro’s hand before slipping out of the half-hug. “All right, I’ve got a couple things to double check before the parade starts. Text me where you’re standing to watch the parade once you’re there, and I’ll join you when we finish, okay?”

“Will do,” Shiro replied, and they exchanged a quick kiss before Shiro turned back to Keith. He was still standing off to the side, silently examining the float. “Hey, kiddo,” Shiro said. “Ready to head back to the festival soon, find a good viewing spot?”

“... I don’t recognize any of these planets,” Keith said after a pause.

“Hm?” Shiro looked over at the planets painted along the side of the float, and he grinned. “Oh, no, these aren’t actual planets. They just took the color schemes and patterns of different pride flags and made them into planets. See?” He tapped a finger against a rainbow-streaked planet on the corner of the float.

Keith’s brow furrowed as he looked at the rainbow planet, and then moved his gaze along the others. “But, um, there’s - there’s a lot?”

“Outer space is a big place, you know.”

“No, no, I mean - I mean, isn’t it just, like, four? L, G, B, and T?” He strode over to turn the corner of the float and glance at the other side. “There’s enough here to cover the whole float, and they’re all different colors, so, how…?”

Shiro couldn’t help but let a little laugh escape him, which he quickly swallowed back at the scowl Keith shot him. “Sorry, I wasn’t making fun,” he said. “Sometimes I just forget that to a lot of people, this is new stuff. It’s fine. See, those tend to be the four, like, primary identities in the acronym, but it’s not actually just LGBT, it’s LGBT-plus.”

“Plus-what?” Keith asked.

“Plus anything that’s a marginalized sexuality or gender, really. Didn’t you notice any of the other flags while we were walking through the fest?”

“I dunno. Wasn’t really looking for them.”

“Well, there’s plenty out there. Like, this flag here - ” He pointed to a planet that was shaped like Saturn, pink at the top of the center sphere melting into blue, with bright green rings. “This is polysexuality, which is attraction to multiple genders, but not all. And this one - ” He gestured to a crater-laden planet striped with yellow, white, purple, and black. “This is non-binary, for when a person doesn’t identify as strictly male or female. Right here - ” He pointed to a planet shadowed to look like it was fading between stripes of black, gray, and white, leading to a large splotch of purple at the bottom. “This one is asexual, which is for when you don’t feel sexual attraction.”

Shiro turned the corner of the float and started on the next row of planets. “This is pansexual, which means - ” He paused and glanced up, realizing that Keith hadn’t followed him around to this side of the float. “Hey, Keith? You with me?” Keith, though, didn’t look up. Instead, he was staring at a spot on the side of the float as if mesmerized. Shiro sidled back over to see what had him so transfixed, and found him still staring at the asexual-themed planet. “Bud, you all right?”

“Asexual,” Keith repeated, moving his mouth slowly and deliberately as if he were trying a new food for the first time. “That’s - that’s a thing?”

“Mm-hm,” Shiro replied with a nod. “Think the pride club at the Garrison’s got a good handful of ace members - though, haven’t been all that involved in it this year what with all the Kerberos stuff, so I couldn’t give you numbers. There’s also, let’s see - ” He scanned the planets before finding the one where the grayscale ended with two stripes of green and pointing at it. “There we go, aromantic. Same concept, but with romantic attraction instead of sexual, see. Some people are both, some people are one or the other.” He looked back over at Keith, who had edged toward the aromantic planet Shiro had pointed to, that same fascination still on his face. “Why? Is something wrong, Keith?”

Keith shook his head slowly, letting a beat of silence pass before softly saying, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was - it was a - a thing.”

“Yeah, understandable,” Shiro said. “I guess they’re not identities that get a whole lot of attention. Same goes for quite a few of these, really. But, yeah, there you go. Keith?” He tilted his head. “Hey, something else on your mind, or…?”

Keith finally pulled his gaze away from the painted planet to turn to Shiro, and the latter’s brows shot upward in surprise at the dewy shine in Keith’s eyes. Frantically he tried to figure out what was distressing Keith badly enough to make him tear up. “Keith, you okay? Is it still too crowded here? Do you, um, do you want me to take you back to the apartment?”

Keith shook his head. He opened his mouth, let out a single choked sound, closed his mouth and swallowed, then tried again. “It’s just that - it’s just - ” He took a breath. “I thought it was just me.” His voice was soft as he finished, practically a whisper.

Shiro blinked at him before glancing back over at the float. “Wait, you mean...”

“Or, I - I thought maybe it was - that something didn’t work right, or got numbed, or - or something,” Keith continued quietly, and his thumb was moving again, that twitch along his knuckles. “Like because of - because of everything that - all the stuff with mom and - and - and the homes, and stuff, that it kinda… it messed me up…”

“Oh, gee, hey, hey, Keith,” Shiro stammered out as one of the tears in Keith’s eye began spilling over and down his cheek. Quickly he wrapped Keith into a hug, mostly as a means of comfort, partly because Keith would definitely want to keep his face hidden now that he was crying; it was enough of a struggle for Keith to even cry in front of Shiro, let alone out in public with total strangers about. “Hey, shh, it’s all right,” he mumbled, bringing a hand to Keith’s back to rub. “Just getting a little overwhelmed, huh?” Keith lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “So, you’re saying you think you might be aromantic? Asexual? Both?”

“Both,” Keith answered, voice muffled by the way his face was buried in Shiro’s chest.

Shiro kept up the hug and the soothing, but inside his mind was awhirl. Keith had just come out to him. Hell, Keith had just come out to himself, too. How had Shiro not noticed before? How had they not talked about this? He searched his memories, trying to figure out if there was something that should have tipped him off. Keith had never shown any interest in any of his classmates that way, had never come to Shiro to ask for any advice about dating or sex. But Keith was a private person, and besides, it was much harder to notice the absence of something than the presence.

Still, the fact that this sort of revelation had reduced Keith to tears the way it had suggested that this was something that had been bothering him, had been weighing on his mind. And he had been getting so much better lately about coming to Shiro to talk about things that bothered him. So it seemed a little strange that Keith hadn’t given Shiro any indication that he was struggling with his sexuality, that he felt the need to keep this to himself.

Unless…

“Keith?” Shiro said, pulling. “You know… if you do feel that those are a fit for you - if you think you’re aromantic or asexual - that’s not a bad thing. It isn’t something wrong with you.” Keith didn’t reply, so Shiro continued. “It isn’t, Keith. It’s just an orientation, like any other. Just as legitimate as being gay or straight or bi or - or anything. It’s real, and it’s okay. It’s good, Keith, it’s a good thing, to be able to learn these things about yourself, to be comfortable with them.”

He moved his hands to Keith’s shoulders and leaned down to be at eye level with him. “Are you okay with it, Keith? Do you think it’s a good fit for you?”

“I… don’t know,” Keith answered. “I guess it… makes sense… but I don’t want - I don’t know if - ” He sniffed and swiped the back of his hand over his nose. “It’s - it’s probably stupid, it’s stupid, but - but I just had hoped - you know, I’ve had, like, you know, foster parents and stuff in the past, who said - who told me I was, um, I was… unlovable…” He said the word softly, intently, as if it were a particularly filthy swear. “But I had been hoping that… that they were wrong…”

A heat flared up in Shiro’s gut, one that had gradually become familiar in the time he had known Keith. Keith had given him occasional glimpses into his life in the foster care system, and every time he mentioned one of the bad ones, Shiro would feel himself growing closer and closer to wanting to strangle anyone who had ever caused Keith any amount of harm. And if this was the sort of message one of them had been instilling in Keith, then it was no wonder that he had kept it hidden, and no wonder that he’d thought this was some sort of failing on his part.

“Keith,” Shiro said. “Look at me.” Keith did, blinking wide, damp eyes up at him, and Shiro said, firmly and deliberately, “I love you.”

Keith blinked, brow wrinkling. “What do you - ?”

“I love you,” he repeated. “So if you need hard and fast evidence that you’re not unlovable, there it is. I could not possibly have asked for a better little brother than you, and I love you for it. And you being aroace doesn’t change that, okay? Not one bit. Love doesn’t have to be romantic, or sexual, and not feeling that type of attraction doesn’t mean you’re not perfectly capable of other types of love, and being loved in return. Okay? You are loved - you deserve to be loved. Don’t you dare believe anybody who tells you otherwise.”

Keith was silent, his lower lip trembling as he squeezed his crossed arms tighter around him.

“And it’s perfectly all right if you don’t like the labels, if you don’t think they fit or if you don’t want to use them. You don’t have to. But just know - ”

“I love you too,” Keith interrupted. “And I - I like them. The labels, I mean. They’re… I have to get used to them, I guess, is the thing, but, um, they - they make sense. They fit.”

“Okay.” Shiro clapped his hand firmly on Keith’s shoulder and smiled. “Okay. That’s good, that’s good.” He paused, then asked, “Are you still feeling up for staying at the festival?” Keith nodded. “In that case, we should probably find our spots to watch the parade. It’ll be starting soon.”

“Right,” Keith said, nodding again, and he obediently followed Shiro as they turned back toward the festival.

The curbs of the streets were growing crowded as the parade’s start time approaching and people were clamoring to secure a spot where they could see it all. Shiro and Keith searched two blocks before they found enough space on a set of bleachers set up at one of the street corners where they could squeeze in together.

Shiro noticed as they took their seats that Keith had begun to stim again amid the stress of the crowd, this time knocking his knuckles rapidly against his forearms. He watched thoughtfully for a moment. Then, he tapped Keith’s shoulder and leaned in to say, “You mind saving my spot while I grab something real quick?”

“Okay,” Keith said, and Shiro gave him a reassuring squeeze before slipping out of the bleachers and making a beeline for one of the merchandise booths he had browsed earlier.

He returned a couple minutes later, slid back into his spot, and handed his new purchase to Keith. “Here.”

Keith stared down at the object in his hand. A flag, a foot long when unfurled, on a little wooden stick. It was two-sided, its stripes bearing the same colors as those of the planets Shiro had shown him on the float, the one with the purple stripe on one side, the green on the other. “What’s this for?” he asked.

“If you want it,” Shiro said. “You can keep your hands busy this way, and well, most everyone here’s got a bit of decoration, so I thought maybe you’d like some too. Or you can just pocket it for now, if you don’t want to have it out. Your pick.”

Keith continued staring at it, but he didn’t make any move to put it away either, and Shiro’s attention was drawn away from him when cheers went up through the crowd and he looked to see the first of the floats making its way down the street.

For several minutes the parade had his full attention, and he watched with rapt attention as the first couple of floats passed by, followed by a dance troupe. He managed to pull his attention away from the little procession of cars that followed them, and he couldn’t help but grin at the sight of his little brother, arm up as he waved his little flag in the air with as much fervor as all the other celebrators in the crowd, and with a small, rare smile on his face.

[pepplemint]

Fanfic Recc:s

I had this since a long time back actually, I think. I figured I might as well post it and give ya’ll something lol.

  —————————-——————-———GEN——————————-——————-———-

Room with a View by isabeau25 (10,089 words): Lance manages to carve out a space for himself in a hidden part of the castle. The rest of the team find their way there eventually. ———- This was one of those fics I didn’t really expect to get as into as I did. Is really sweet and focus on the original team as a family. You know how you sometimes see art where everyone in a giant cuddlepile and it’s just too sweet and everyone is so comfortable with each other? This have got the same feeling, plus some Langst

————————————————-  Accepting Amelioration by XILVerify (4887 words): Shiro trusts his team with his life, but after what he and his daemon experienced at the hands of the Galra… well, trusting them with his soul is the one thing he just can’t bring himself to do. Or so he thinks. Daemon AU. Post season 1 speculation.  ———- Shiro and Hunk is a pair that have gotten very little bonding time in canon, so seeing them together here put in a situation where they are trapped in a distressing urgent situation is both interesting and engaging. I don’t know much about His Dark Materials or daemons to be honest but it’s explained well enough within the fic and I enjoy these representations very much. WARNING: Mentioned previous-to-fic assault

————————————————- The Purity of Sin by IcyPanther (105,002 words): Lance's first diplomatic mission had gone wrong. Very, very wrong. Instead of allies on planet Macka, he and Keith found only enemies who want to sacrifice them to their Goddess. The two Paladins are going to have to work together to survive the harsh desert, severe injury, relentless pursuit, with the added problem that in addition to losing copious amounts of blood, Lance is losing his senses one... by one... by one... ———- I’m sure most people have heard of this fic already but god damn it is INTENSE. You will feel stuff. I am terrible at keeping attention and tend to stay away a bit from longer fics but I couldn’t stop reading. WARNING: Explicit violence, religious rituals, character death

————————————————- Bury the Sun by maychorian (26,734 words): Sam Holt has been a captive of the Galra for more than a year. He has lost all hope of escape or rescue. But when a new prisoner arrives in his underground cell, a boy who seems to carry the sun in his smile, everything begins to change. ———-    An unexpected pair as Pidge’s dad kinda takes Lance too under his wings. This is really sweet at the same time as you can never forget the terrible situation they are really in. WARNING: Violence and mentions of torture

————————————————- I'll Be Your Journal by BreakTheDawn (5756 words): “Lance,” Hunk had pleaded. “I can’t believe you just did that to me,” Lance covered his face as his breaths started to become heavy and uneven. Looking back, Hunk doesn’t know how he knew, but he did. He knew at that point that if he didn’t fix that. Didn’t fix Lance. Then he would lose him. Hunk could not let that happen

....

Or, that one time that Hunk crossed the line. ———-  I just love Hunk and I love seeing his perspective. Also Hunk and Lance friendship... There’s too little of it in the world honestly.

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The Cost of Winning by IcyPanther (9596 words): "The Blue and Green Paladins serve no purpose to the Empire," the Galran commander smirked at his bound captives. "And as such you have no use except as arena fodder." He chuckled. "Give us a good show before you die." / Lance is determined to protect Pidge and save her from the arena. She will not die here. Over his dead body. Hopefully it's not quite that literal of a promise. ———- I’m starting to see a pattern here uuuh anyway I love this fic, I love Pidge and Lance working together. WARNING: Violence, Character Death

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A Little Unsteady (Hold Onto Me) by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee (13,385 words): Takashi Shirogane is nine years old when he holds his brother for the first time. “I’m here,” he’d whispered to his fussing baby brother, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”  And Keith stopped crying. He didn’t laugh; he looked up at Shiro with big, skeptical eyes. A challenge. Like this tiny person was saying ‘oh yeah, prove it’. And Shiro, newly nine years old, promised that he’d prove it.Shiro and Keith's childhood in moments. ———- There’s a lot of Keith’s background story here that I fell really strongly for (though not canon compliant, I just like it.). If you’ve ever had that kind of relationship where you are like an older sibling figure, you can really feel this in your bones. WARNING: Child Abuse

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Leave Them Stunned and Stuttering by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) (10,527 words): Five Times Shiro couldn't be knocked off balance, one time he was, and one time he trusted the team to see. Or, when sibling bonding goes wrong. ———- A little bit Everyone/Shiro. It’s fun to see the team all bond over trying to mess with Shiro.

———————————————— Fatalistic Daydream by Engineer104 (27,873 words):  Being a low-ranking Galra soldier stationed in a virtual backwater isn’t stopping Pidge from finding out what happened to her family. But the secrets she’s keeping from her friend Keith on top of the unwanted attention of an Altean prisoner-of-war are definitely...slowing her down. ———- Interesting AU where the Galra and Alteans are actively at war. Technically this is tagged as Pidge/Lance but there isn’t anything actually romantic so I feel it fits the gen category.

——————-——————-——-—--—--SHANCE———————————-——————-—-

Racing on the Thunder by Jennypen (5435 words): Freshman Shiro is pretty hung up on Senior Lance at the Garrison, but no-one else shares his opinion. At least, not until a hostage situation changes everything. ———-   I love this!! Baby Cadet Shiro (who are not so baby-looking) pining after the older Cadet Lance, and Lance is a BAMF.

————————————————- Closer to Your World by CastleSL (29,576 words): Students will be carefully selected and tested for the opportunity to fly out to Kerberos for scientific research. Only one student may be selected. Application and Testing will commence during the third trimester, June 21XX. There was more on the page, statistics and requirements and more details, but it was legit. The flyer was printed on standard Garrison announcement paper, the document signed by the Dean and board of directors. The chance to go to Kerberos. Hunk took a moment to think, then clapped his hand on Lance’s back, smiling. “Well, I’m rooting for ya, buddy.” He said, and Lance beamed like that was all he needed in the world. ———-   It’s been a while since I read this fic but it’s nice with a lil longer Shance fic - it’s also really well written. A sequel is also being written right now that is also good. WARNING: Mentioned character death

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Full Moons and the Mornings After by Impetus (6496 words): Shiro is an unlucky werewolf who can’t control himself during the full moon. Lance really needs to stop letting stray wolves into his apartment. ———-   This is like my favourite werewolf fic ever hahahaha. I love when werewolves are portrayed as big dumb dogs. It’s really cute and they’re both big pining messes.

————————————————-  Jaded by Impetus (8728 words): Shiro is the leader of Voltron. He is the strength and the calm in the face of the thundering storm of the Galra. Lance is someone Shiro doesn't quite understand. Shiro is someone Lance wants to understand with all of his heart. ———-   WARNING: Major character injury

————————————————- The Luxury of Lacking Confidence by oldmythologies (13,695 words): They knew how it worked; Lance was always the damsel in distress and Shiro was the big strong hero who came to save him. When Shiro’s lion is hit by a vicious attack, he is knocked off course and careens into an ice planet. Lance finally elects himself the hero and has to save Shiro from his own injuries and the Galra ships searching the planet. Shiro, feverish and low on blood, is forced to confront his demons; Lance has to learn how to fight them off. ———-    WARNING: Major character injury

————————————————- Tris for Guys by quiddative  (2907 words): It was all Keith’s fault—him and his stupid biceps showing up at intramural basketball two nights ago without his trademark cropped jacket (which was almost as outdated as his mullet) and making everyone swoon. And what was worse, even Shiro, their hotter-than-hell yet sweeter-than-sugar RA and current object of Lance’s helpless affections, seemed impressed. He actually went up to Keith after his team had pummeled everyone else into the ground, clapped him on the back, and uttered the words that Lance had been daydreaming about for approximately fifteen thousand years: “Great job, buddy!” So, as soon as he got back to his room that night, he logged into his student account and signed up for the first available complimentary personal training session the college’s gym offered. ———- The story of how Lance thirsts so hard he even makes the ultimate sacrifice and goes to the gym. Lance’s “voice” here is great.

————————————————-  Slowly, Surely by needchocolatenow (2997 words): Shiro is tasked with an assignment to deliver important cargo to Altea. Lance is his second. -- Or, the fic in which Shiro and Lance take a road trip through space in an unfortunately named shuttle. ———- Just a really cute story where humans have moved into space and Shiro pines and is as awkward as a kid with his first crush.

————————————————-  ordinary people are everywhere by lein (5625 words): The note, situated in the bottom right corner, reads simply: ‘Will you be my Valentine? Yes or yes.’ Surrounded by little hearts and unaddressed, it seems a little out of place nestled next to the carefully crafted drawings of both pigeon lance and the deviantart stamp Pidge sent to Keith that made him cry for upwards of an hour before he had wordlessly crawled atop the table to recreate it as closely as he could. Shiro grins as he picks up a black dry erase marker and circles a yes. ———- This fic is so underrated! It’s super cute and I fell in love already at the summary, but the fic in itself is really well written and nice.

————————————————- Lance's Guide on How to Embarrass Yourself in Front of Your Insurance Adjuster by Eilera (2035 words): “This is for my mama, Hunk. She was so worried about this whole thing. They just finished renovating. I’m not gonna let her down. If my name isn’t Lance fucking Hernandez Martine-holy fuck he’s gorgeous.” “Oh no. No. Lance do-“ Lance didn’t even hear him because there was a fucking gorgeous god walking up the path to the front door.

(In which Lance is helping his mama with an insurance claim and he was not prepared for the smoking hot insurance adjuster.)

———- Lance is Lance and this was funny and cute.

————————————————-  Left Side Or Right? by liddie (2698 words): When Lance accidentally locks himself out of his dorm room he finds himself on Shiro's doorstep hoping that this falls under Shiro's offer of  "Let me know if you need help with anything."

Luckily for him, it does. ———- Piiiining I love it...... I really do

————————————————-  Lactose IntolerLance by humblenoodle (1807 words): Shiro's aware, at least, that his current course of action is humiliatingly stupid, and he should really stop while he's still ahead.

But it’s not like he could just casually waltz up there and ask for Lance’s number, maybe even a date. That’s not how this worked. ———- 

This was really funny and cute, pining Shiro at his most awkward.

————————————————- Define Dancing by starbear (5495 words): “Dancing?” Shiro made a small, scoffing little laugh. “You’re kidding, right? “What? No,” Lance said, “Why?” “I can’t dance.” “Lies.” “No, I’m serious,” Shiro said, “Two left feet. I’m terrible.” “That I absolutely do not believe. I bet you’ve just never really tried.” Lance stood, abruptly, an unsettlingly determined look on his face. “C’mon, let’s do it.” “Do...what?” “Dance, duh,” Lance said. “Let’s go.”

Shiro learns how to dance, and falls in love along the way. ———-  I tend to like fics that are snippets through time, but this one stand out :)

————————————————- Ten Days by WashiPuppy (??? words): Most people never got to learn exactly what their mind is worth, how resistant it is. Lance knew now, and the answer was ten days. It only took ten days for something in him to break that he wasn't sure he could get back.

Shiro had survived a year and come out as someone still able to smile, to be kind and gentle with those around him. Scarred, but not shattered.

Lance wore no new scars. But he still hadn't made it ten days.

———- So you like slow burn? Well what about the characters doesn’t even interact for three thirds of the fic lmao. Honestly though this fic is really good and well written! The focus isn’t on romance at all and I even forgot about it a couple of times, but none the less it’s 100% worth the read.

————————————————-  Black to Blue by PuppetMaster55 (153,825 words): Lance, the undisputed (no longer, since he finally got the team to stop questioning his position like a month ago) leader of Voltron finds himself in the absolute strangest scenario: being the Blue Paladin.

Lance, still finding his place on team Voltron, wakes up to the weirdest world: one where he's the Black Paladin.

OR, I take a universe where Lance was always the Black Paladin and have him swap bodies with canon Lance, throwing both sets of teams for a trip.

———- I mean I assume most people have already read this fic but just in case someone missed it? Read it. This is the Lance as Black Paladin au you always wanted.

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Breaking Wind by AshesTheTerrible (10,044 words): Shiro is settling into his new body and finally trusting himself to rekindle things with Lance. Intimacy proves to be a lot of stumbling after such a long time without. And nobody is safe from awkward bodily functions during sex, not even Shiro. ———- Like the mature dumbass I am I love this fic about farting. It’s really well written and have such a good, soft relationship though it’s worth it ok.  WARNING: Explicit

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ticket to ride by mettaverse (2085 words): The officer raises his hand. “You were going thirty miles over the speed limit for a date?” Lance opens his mouth and the officer lowers his sunglasses just to glare at him. “Sixty in a thirty lane. You know how fast that is?” “Um. Fast? Pretty fast?” “Dangerously fast.” He pulls a pad of paper out of his pocket. “I'm gonna have to give you a ticket.” ———-  Short AU-fic that I just find really cute

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How to Dig Your Own Grave by flyingisland (8804 words): The complete anthology, written from first-hand experiences and mortifying, soul-crushing interactions between Lance McClain and one very attractive neighbor. ———- This fic is kinda wonderful. Lance mess up so bad over and over and it’s hilarious. It’s all fine though in the end ;)  WARNING: Explicit, Sex Work (Pornography)

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easier to lose by quiddative (???? words): Shiro is at the peak of his NHL career. Unfortunately, being famous has its downsides, particularly when it comes to dating. And that’s on top of the fact that he’s still in the closet.

However, a chance meeting with college student Lance, who seems to be the only person in the entire city who doesn’t know who he is, gives him hope that maybe he won’t die alone after all. Just as long as he can keep his identity a secret. ———- This fic isn’t actually finished when I add it here, but I expect it to be soon. I kinda love sport-AU’s not gonna lie. This one hit me right in the weak spot.

———————-——————-—-—--—--KLANCE————————-——————-————-

Five Minutes by WhatTheBodyGraspsNot (4176 words): When Keith is unwillingly tricked into a speed dating session by Shiro, he finds himself meeting several unusual characters. The most unusual of all, however, is the loud one in the letterman jacket. He's obnoxious and has no regard for the other people around him and he keeps making his way closer and closer to Keith within the ring rotations. Can Keith pull himself together to get through this meeting? Or will he find himself interested by the end of their five minutes? ———-   I like Keith being stubbornly set on being bitter and hating things he’s dragged into lol. Even when he kinda really doesn’t.

————————————————- gladly break my heart (for you) by godsensei (1747 words): “You want me to... touch you?” Lance asks, a mildly dubious look on his face. Keith feels his face go hot. “Yes! You touch everyone else. I just-- we’re boyfriends, right?” he asks, feeling stupid, but so hopeful. Lance searches his face for a moment, before his eyes soften, a sweet smile blooming on his lips. ———-   This is just fluff and touch starved Keith and I’m all for it. ————————————————- i want your heaven and your oceans too by mothpoem (11,610 words): “Not—not that you’d be my rebound! I mean, you’d be helping me take my mind off of this guy, but to be a rebound, I’d have to have dated him first, I think, and he doesn’t even know I like him, so. You wouldn’t be a rebound. At worst, we become badass partners-in-crime with a grudging respect for each other, at best, we’re soulmates for life and this is fate trying to help us find happiness. So. Um.” Lance swallows and looks up at the Blade of Marmora soldier through his lashes. “What say you?” They look down at their hands for a moment, fingers twisting together in deep thought. Then they’re pulling their gloves off, revealing pale, half-bruised knuckles of the human variation, and their mask is dissolving, giving way to big blue-purple eyes and an achingly familiar jet-black cowlick. “Who,” says Keith Kogane, in that low-pitched rumble that makes Lance’s stomach roil in the good way—holy fuck—“is this guy you’re trying to get over?” ———-   I drew a scene from this fic so I guess in a way I’ve already recc:d it, but I’m gonna do it again. I love awkward misunderstandings and Lance’s rambling in this fic is both kinda hilariously in character and well written. WARNING: Canon-typical violence ————————————————- Keith's Type by AmbitiousSkychild (24,050 words): “How would anyone notice what anyone else’s type is in the middle of all this?!” Matt demanded, laughing. “What’s Keith’s type?” Lance blurted out like an idiot. “It’s… obvious,” Pidge said. “He gets all flustered over shitty puns and most physical comedy. And have you seen the way he stares at Hunk when he’s going on about the mechanics of something? Like how the lions work? I’ve literally seen him blushing when Hunk goes into explanation mode.” “So, you think he has a crush on Hunk?” Lance squawked. “No. You bonehead,” Pidge laughed. “I’m saying any dad-joke-telling, klutzoid with good grades has probably got a pretty good shot at Keith.” Or: It figures that after years of getting it hilariously wrong face-to-face, Lance finally gets good at talking to Keith through a screen, which is, like, one of his biggest accomplishments. Then, Pidge makes the comment that Keith has a type, while heavily implying that it's Matt. But, listen, with everything going on with Voltron, the coalition, the Blade of Marmora, and Coran, Lance isn't going to get distracted worrying about it. Ask anyone, he's always been great with measuring levels of importance.... ———-   I kinda have a weakness for the emotional jealousy, the one that isn’t angry and hot but insecure and hits where it hurts. And yeah. Matt and Keith have (kind of?) a past together and Lance is alone-ish after Keith left the team. ————————————————- King and Reaper by PastelClark (35,512 words): 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.) ———-   BAMF rebel leader Lance and mental images that kinda kick you in the inspiration, honestly. Everyone is older and different. Voltron kinda failed.

————————————————- Keith the Amnesiac by jilliancares (8878 words): In which an accident leaves Keith temporarily without his Voltron-filled memories and he may or may not spill a few of his better kept secrets to Lance. ———-   This story is great if nothing else because it feels so realistic in how it handled Keith’s amnesia. This is very much just what it’s like to have those small differences in how you perceive the world vs how you normally do.

————————————————-

Let's be (dis)honest by noero (1581 words): Lance is backed against his bathroom wall, one hand gripping his sink and the other nervously combing through his hair. Keith is in front of him — down on his knees — calling Lance’s bluff.  ———-   Nothing really to say about this other than I liked the competitiveness between Keith and Lance and it was fun. WARNING: EXPLICIT

——-—--—--——————-——————-OTHERS——————-——————-——————-

Sun In Our Eyes by MatchaMochi (9349 words): “Think you can beat me hotshot?” He doesn’t falter, just nods and holds up his sniper. His hands don’t shake, his lips don’t tremble, (his heart though, that wild erratic thing stuttering in his chest, makes the blood rush to his ears, makes him think: Oh god.) ///

In which Kinkade pines and Lance has too many feelings. ———- 

So this is THE Kinkance fic, but just in case someone didn’t read it yet - I’m gonna add it here. (RYAN/LANCE)

———————————————— i'm willing to wait for it, i'm willing to wait for you by ThePackWantstheD (10,338 words): Lance McClain is hard to hate. He’s easy to love. Or: James Griffin falls fast and hard for a charismatic cargo pilot, dates him for six months, and then waits for him for five years.

———-

This ship isn’t something I ever considered until this fic, but heck it got me on board. I like everyone’s reactions and James’ belief. (JAMES/LANCE)

————————————————

no need to say goodbye by smolsarcasticraspberry  (13,557 words): The juniberry tree blossoms every seven years, and when it does, a gateway opens up to another world - a world that Shiro first explores as a child. There, he meets Allura. They do not speak the same language, but children do not need words to play. Every seven years, when the gateway opens again, Shiro steps through to visit the girl he knows on the other side. But the gateway only stays open as long as the juniberry flowers bloom... 

———- This is one of those stories that are simply wonderful, even if you’ve never seen the original show because it build up such a cool new world in the relatively few words. It also deals with Shiro in the aftermath of war and pining. (SHALLURA)

————————————————

Drip Like Honey by avoidingavoidance (7171 words): In which Romelle recommends a hot Tumblr boy to Allura, but when she checks him and his stream out, she finds that he seems awfully familiar.

———- Obviously this is right up my alley. Da-mn. Allura is top as heck. WARNING: Explicit (SHALLURA)

———————————————— Frostbite by Rueitae (6109 words):  Pidge is a renowned super villain. Lance is a hero in training. During their latest encounter, Lance pushes his powers to their limit and Pidge has some soul searching to do.

———-  I doooo love superhero AU’s and this is both super sweet, funny, well written and paints a clear picture of the universe which we are thrown into. I like it a lot. (PLANCE)

[rangoatemybabynsfw]

Shiro’s first time flying a plane

Waaaa

He’s done thousands of hours in a simulator. And ridden as co-pilot over a hundred. From his co-pilot seat, he takes the controls and mimics them the way the pilot says. It’s not until they’re halfway through the usual steps that the pilot lets him know that control was transferred over to him three movements ago.

“I…I’m the one flying us?” Shiro asks, his smile growing wide.

“For the past ten minutes, yes,” she nods, her proud smile matching his.

He can’t believe it. Years of dedication and practice have accumulated to this. He’s flying the plane. And soon he’ll be flying shuttles. The first to travel to Kerberos. That was always his dream and now it’s going to come true.

“Think you can handle the flight path back without instruction?” she asks. “Captain?”

“Yes ma’am!” Shiro nods. “Can I do a barrel roll?”

“Haha, you’re allowed one celebratory barrel roll,” she tells him. “After that, take us back in.”

“Understood,” he tells her with a great big smile.

While he does his barrel roll he lets out the loudest victory hoot. 

It feels just like he did when he was a kid. When he first drove a boxcar down a hill pretending it was a fighter jet. Even though the boxcar had cardboard wings that came off as he shot down the first hill it didn’t matter. Once it hit the top of the second hill he was vaulted into the air. In those five seconds he knew what he wanted to do every day for the rest of his life–to feel like he did in that moment, that sense of wonder and awe like he was flying above the world and nothing could tether him down.

This feeling isn’t exactly the same but it’s pretty damn close.

[discordiansamba]

just making dinner like I do every night when the thought of 'vld zombie apocalypse AU' hit me like a truck and I cannot stop thinking about it.

The Kerberos crew loses contact with ground control shortly after touching down on Kerberos- or contact with anyone, for that matter. Sam checks out all of their communications equipment, but it's working fine. That's... concerning. They collect their samples. Wait for a signal from home.

It never comes.

They return home anyways. They don't have the supplies to stay out here longer than scheduled. All the way home, they keep trying to make contact, hoping to reach someone, anyone. It's not until they're days away from Earth that a familiar voice breaks over their coms- it's Adam.

He cryptically tells them that Earth is facing an emergency situation now, but that they'll get them on the ground. Just give them an ETA. Shiro gives him his best estimate, and he swears he hears Adam mutter something about 'not enough time' under his breath, but they still make arrangements to land the shuttle according to what they practiced.

Right away, they know something is wrong. Adam's manning the control room at the Garrison, along with some people that Shiro's never even seen before. No one is in uniform.

And there are people on the ground.

Adam just gives them a grim look. Those aren't people anymore. Land.

And whatever they do, do not leave the shuttle until they're given the greenlight.

They follow instructions. Adam and a small crew are there, ready to hurriedly escort them into an AW-Cruiser. That's when they get their first real look at the shambling hordes on the grounds of the Garrison- ones that are slowly moving towards them- at least, they are, until a familiar red and white hoverbike draws their attention away from them all.

Shiro would know that hoverbike anywhere.

But they don't get a chance to question any of it. They're hurried into the AW Cruiser and off before they can fully process what's going on. Matt's the one who breaks the question, and Adam grimly confirms it.

The Earth has been overrun by zombies.

The Garrison fell in the first few weeks. Since then, the survivors have been living in the tunnels leftover from WW3. But they kept an ear to the sky, waiting for the inevitable return of the Kerberos mission, knowing they'd need the assistance from the control tower to land- and then an immediate extraction to safety.

Matt and Sam ask about Pidge and Colleen. Adam tells them they're safe.

Shiro asks about Keith. Adam gives him a long look, before he switches on the radio, passing it to Shiro. Keith's voice comes over it, and Shiro exhales in relief. They exchange a few words, before they have to cut the conversation short since they'll be heading underground.

It's only once they get to safety that they find out Keith won't be joining them there. That he's not allowed in without special clearance.

That Keith's alive, but he's not safe.

He's infected.

He's just the only one that kept their mind.

[melalot]

Keith in general

I am so sad seeing all these posts about people saying that Keith was ruined in Season 7 when he wasn’t.

I’m really upset...

Keith has developed so fucking much???

Keith lost his father before he was 12. Keith had no mother, no other family to take him in. He was at a foster home, he still went to school, but he never participated in anything before. And I will talk about this along with some pictures to be more specific. 

This is how Keith was before he met Shiro in his classes.

He was always distant from the class, always in the background. Never really participating or showing like he cared for the class, like he was always protecting himself. And we know Keith still has that body language to this day, just look.

And well yeah, we get the point. 

But now look what happens when someone acknowledges him.

He is very surprised, like this doesn’t happen often. He’s been alone for such a long time that even someone acknowledging him takes him by surprise.

Now here it what happens next.

Now Keith is playing the video game, and look what the kids call him, the “emo kid” 

Seem pretty familiar?

His own teammates saw him as one. But you can’t really blame them. The thing is the term “emo” is sometimes used in a bad way, but still that’s what he was known by. 

Now this is what happens when Keith beats the simulator.

Since Keith is known to stand back, and known as the emo kid, no one really expects much from him. He’s just looked off to the side, which explains why he is closed off, but there is a reason why he is closed off as well and I will get back to that.

Look how his own teacher talks about Keith when Shiro is asking her if he is on the list, and Keith’s reactions say everything.

He is upset, someone finally sees something in him only to have it shut down, then this is when Keith steals his car and runs away.

He is really surprised once someone still hasn’t given up on him, he is so used to people giving up on him that when someone is actually trying, he is blinded and doesn’t know what to do. After this Keith is finally admitted into the Garrison.

Keith is shown to be in a simulator with his fellow cadets, and he isn’t following orders, Keith is a bit of a show off, yes, but only because he feels at this moment like he doesn’t need to hide behind anymore, someone believes in him, in his abilities, and he was going to show those abilities.

But of course, he is called out again by his cadets and Commander Iverson, saying how he was a show off. Now the next scene is where things change.

Keith knows his strengths. But then..

Touchy subject. Remember, Keith’s dad has already passed away at this point. And he thinks his mom left him, he doesn’t know anything from his past, he’s only had his mom. So to be told this, it hurt and we could see how he sinks down again in the next scene when he is about to be kicked out of the Garrison again.

Keith already knows what comes next. He’s probably been down this road so many times. Keith doesn’t believe in himself, and guess what? Shiro knows this is his problem. He isn’t self assured, and he points it out. Just look at this next scene.

He is shocked, because he saw right through him, but he still doesn’t buy it.

This is the first time Keith lets someone in. Emotionally, and he learns to accept it.

Now after this we all know Keith and Shiro take a spin on whatever those things they were riding on was called and they talk about flying. Keith asks Shiro if he thinks he is ready to dive off of the cliff, and Shiro doesn’t tell him yes or no. He says “What do you think?” Basically saying, when you think you are ready, you can do anything, (and I will bring up this point again at some point) But look what Keith says after that.

Guess what this is?

Keith was the one who brought this up himself, Shiro only used his own words and made it into a lesson Keith should keep true to himself, and he continues to do so for the rest of the series and I’ll go back to that later too (I am just trying to go in order for events on the timeline)

Keith is asked about his dad and honestly... Keith surely admires and loves his dad a lot, and he is a lot like his dad I mean just look.

And guess what, it does sound EXACTLY like someone he knows because Keith is like that. I mean hello??? His big sacrifice in Season 4??

He is honestly so much like his father??

Now I’m gonna try and send less screenshots and focus more on my words but sometimes I just want to be specific. So we know how Keith when he heard about Shiro leaving him to go on the Kerberos mission and about his disease. Keith said he wasn’t a kid anymore.

Keith is right, he isn’t a little kid anymore, Keith has gone through death, but now here is a person he has accepted into his life and now they’re leaving, and not only that, they have a condition where they aren’t going to survive for much longer.

This explains this scene, as to why he was telling Shiro to stop talking about himself dying, especially over his condition. 

Now I just want to make a point now. and re-track back to the previous seasons, like S1 and S2. 

I’m going to go back to where it was confirmed Keith was Galra. In that episode in the Marmora trials, we see something in Keith and that is determination. He really never goes give up, and honestly props to him, we know something about his character, and you know what else we know? He is desperate to know answers about his past. After his dad died, all he had with him was a knife, a knife he didn’t know who it came from or what it meant, but once he saw someone with the same symbol on their blade, he was itching to find out, because that piece a metal, was a connection to his past.

And even in the trials, Keith still didn’t get an answer, yes, he saw his dad, and it broke him because its been so many years, and he kept trying to find the answer but couldn’t it ended up in him actually saying goodbye to his dad for the second time. Why? Because outside the window, Earth was being attacked, and he missed out on at least getting an answer, a hug, or spare time with his dad, just to save the world and other people. 

The team has called Keith selfish.

(Even though that Shiro wasn’t really Shiro but still)

Yet Keith isn’t a man of words, he is a man of actions.

If Keith really was selfish, then why did he miss out on this.

Time to catch up with his dad.

To then seeing this outside.

Then going back and learning about his answers.

Now he finds out HIS MOTHER, THE ONE WHO HE THINKS FUCKING LEFT HIM, IS THE ONE THAT LEFT HIM THE KNIFE, STILL NOT KNOWING ANSWERS, HE GOES TO THE DOOR AND IS LEFT WITH THIS!

He says goodbye to his dad. For what? The sake of the war and the people outside. He missed out on that opportunity, just for the world. That is not selfish. And the next pictures continue to prove me otherwise when he considers to give up the knife for the sake of the war and to have more people on their side to just find out he is part Galra.

Now, I’m gonna move forward in the timeline. This pretty much sets what Keith’s arc is. Self acceptance and self assurance.

Keith now goes through the trouble of being part Galra, the race that is the “enemy” and to make matters worse, the Princess starts to hate him for this, she doesn’t know what to think, but Keith continues to try with her, to prove the fact that not all Galra are evil. I remember before he was even confirmed Galra when him and Allura were on the shuttle to see who Zarkon was tracking down, he was saying how not all Galra are possibly evil, that some of them could have some good. And now here he is trying to prove to everyone else how he is not the enemy even when a few of them thought he was.

We all know what happens after this, Allura apologizes and considers Keith as family. This is when Keith has learned to accept that he is Galra and he is not the enemy.

Oh gooosh now time for the big one, the leadership.

Keith was known as the hot head reckless paladin of the group, he was the lone wolf, the loner. Pidge called him that when they were discussing about their roles in the group when Shiro was gone.

Again, Keith wasn’t seen as much from his team, he wasn’t seen as much of anything. This is why he was so shocked when Shiro brought up 2 times that if he dies he wants Keith to lead. He is so confused because he doesn’t see this in himself. His whole life, he was the emo kid, the loner, the kid who had a discipline issue, basically seen as nothing. He didn’t think he had what it takes to lead a team or much less work with a team.

Now we all know, that with some help from his team, he was able to get forced into the leadership role, he really had no choice. But that doesn’t mean he was a good leader. He wasn’t a good leader for Voltron in Season 3, he honestly wasn’t. He would try to do things by himself and his team saw that. Keith knows he is better working by himself than he is with others. 

But once Shiro comes back and is on the Blade missions, he learns that maybe he probably needs some space. He runs away from the team by joining the Blade. And on the blade, he learns a bunch of things guys. He realizes how isolated it is in the blade, but he also found some answers that has haunted him for so long.

He found his mom.

He learns his past.

How she got on Earth

How this links to the Blue Lion.

How he got the knife.

And he learns why she actually left him.

Keith’s past is starting to clean up, he has got his answers, he spent 2 years connecting back with his mom, found out things about the mission, he went back to Team Voltron, he leaded them in with the fight of Lotor, he matured, he is now self assured. 

Want to see Keith’s character development as a leader? Because I will show you right now.

He went from this.

To this

His role in team work has gone from this

To this

He learns to accept Shiro from this

To his brother

He calls Krolia this

To calling her his mom

And can we just talk about how well he handled his mom having to leave again?

He went from looking so broken.

To so understanding...

He literally used to comfort people like this

TO THIS OMFG

He could of just backed away but..

HE DIDN’T AND WE ALL FUCKING KNOW KEITH IS A MAN OF ACTIONS NOT WORDS!

AND YES SOMETIMES EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE GROWN YOU DO FALL BACK, AS WE CAN FUCKING SEE HERE!!!!

YOU MAY SAY SOME PRETTY HURTFUL SHIT YOU DON’T EVEN MEAN

AND HE COULD OF JUST LEFT BUT 

HE CAME BACK TO DANGER AND AFTERWARDS

HE DID THIS

HE KNEW WHAT HE SAID WAS WRONG, HE APOLOGIZED, HE ACCEPTED THESE PEOPLE AS HIS FRIENDS AND THEY CONTINUED FIGHTING!!!

I am so tired of you guys saying Keith gets way too much attention and that Keith’s development went wack this season and that he shouldn’t be the black paladin or the leader of Voltron. But guys come on! He fucking deserves it! Look at this! He went from being this kid that no one paid attention to, he learned to accept people in his life and that its ok to love and consider people as your family, he learned that when he was ready he could lead Voltron, he knew that all he needed was a good mind set, he worked on this.

He used to be so much more reckless, he used to have horrible self esteem issues, he used to be such a show off?

But now???

He’s grown so much, he has a family, he has love, he is a leader, he is self assured, he believes in his friends, he can work with a team, he can do all of this... 

So stop hating on Keith or demoting him when he is such a great character and is so much. He had a broken past and made his own path after it and with time, he didn’t let it come into his way anymore.

I know this is long but I thank all of those who read all of this and that I have changed some people’s perspective of Keith. Thanks.

[almasy-fics]

The Major

Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender Chapter: 1/? Rating: T Warnings: None yet Pairing: None yet

Summary: Major Lenore Falsetto, ex soldier of World War III and recipient of many awards and medals for her service decided that her skills were needed elsewhere after the war was over and decided to become a combat and firearms instructor at the American branch of the Galaxy Garrison. When Shiro and the Holts go missing during the Kerberos mission, the staff of the Garrison resign themselves to never seeing the trio again. But then Shiro arrives back on Earth in an alien escape pod and The Major gets tangled up on a bizzare, larger than life adventure.

Notes: Here I am, with absolutely no chill whatsoever with a new fic >_> But this is all completely dedicated to @mashkewrites because my beautiful Mooshie put up with me screaming at her about the series for a while week straight as I binged it. ILY BBY <3 <3 <3

AO3 Link: Ko-Fi Link:

Tagging:  @averyverymary@jastiss @lazarustrashpit@sugarbombxv@fangirlreice7 @major-artery@tehrevving @zetsubou-student-artsu @mashkewrites

“Lance, how many times do I have to tell you that patience yields results? Your stance is too slack and your grip on the rifle is too soft. The resulting recoil will injure you.” The teenager only groaned in response to the Major’s criticism, flinching when she adjusted the stock so it was sitting comfortably between his shoulder and right arm. She stood back, sapphire eyes continuing to study her student’s posture with a disapproving click of her tongue. “Left foot forward, spread apart feet to shoulder width. Good. Cheek into the stock like so and ensure your face isn’t too close to the scope, that’s exactly how Hunk got his black eye last week.”

“Hey!” The resulting swift glare caused the entire class standing behind the Major and Lance to sand stock still with arms and their sides and back straight, the teen beside her shuddering from her fearful aura until her ire turned back to him to get back into proper stance.

“Lean forward into your stance ever so slightly with calm breaths and watch your target carefully. This may be but a piece of paper, but think of it as your enemy, study it and fire when-”

BOOM

The over zealous teen once again blew off the arm of the paper target before she could finish her instructions. A deep breath, a count to three and an exhale, the images of a war that passed long ago then faded from her mind.

“We’re done for today.”

Observant eyes watched the night sky before her, the twinkling stars, planets and constellations revealing themselves to her in the clearest skies the Earth had ever known, the vast desert surrounding the Galaxy Garrison was free from the toxic emissions of metropolis. It allowed her to dream of space, all the while being completely aware of her ever changing surroundings.

The highest rooftop of the Garrison called to her on these clear evenings where she could stargaze to her heart's content whilst the cadets were assumedly obeying the mandated curfew, though moments earlier she noticed that Lance and Hunk were indulging in the same sight she was a few buildings away. She couldn’t blame the kids, really. The skies were something truly beautiful at night, just waiting to be explored.

There was a shift to her right and she already knew who was on the approach.

“Shiro.” She greeted.

“Major.” He greeted back.

“I told you, after hours it’s just Lenore.”

He tried to look complacent, but nothing escaped her observation. His eyes betrayed his inner turmoil, even though he was meant to be happy to be leaving on the Kerberos mission in the next week. Shiro also knew he’d never be able to escape Lenore’s scrutiny.

“Adam broke up with me.” She wasn’t expecting that, nor was she expecting the fingers that sadly carded through her short black hair, “Am I really that selfish for wanting to go on this mission?”

“No.” She immediately replied, “Your condition is at a manageable state, all relevant supplies will be at your disposal during the mission and you have two very capable team members at your disposal if you were to somehow fall ill during the expedition. The Holt family aren’t idiots, the both of them are absolute geniuses in their own right.

“But I am still sorry that it happened, perhaps he will reach some sort of clarity while you are away and realise how much of a mistake he’s making. If he doesn’t,” She grinned manically, “I’ll throw down with him to preserve your honour!”

Shiro barked a laugh.

“Keith found out too, but I think he’ll be okay. He has ‘The Major’ to beat some sense into him if he goes awry.” He sat down beside her, both of their legs dangling off the roof. “How goes the family anyways? Last I heard Annabelle was ready to pop.”

“Phoebe, she’s an absolute angel apparently. I beg to differ.” Phone was instantly out to show him one of the many pictures she had of her niece on the device, the one she chose to show, however was of a happy, bald infant in the throes of a violent ‘poosplosion’. Shiro gagged. “Good thing they’re back home in Australia, huh? This would smell like literal shit.”

“Shut up.”

They shared a laugh before enjoying the sky in familial silence.

The entire Garrison came to watch the launch of the Kerberos shuttle into the outer reaches of the Solar System. For the first time ever in history the human race will finally transcend the Milky Way Galaxy into far off planets man could only ever dream of. The Major watched intently from the Command Centre, relaying messages of goodwill and safe travels, as well as reminding the three on proper firearm etiquette.

She reminded, mostly to Shiro that Matt and Sam were his responsibility and the threats past their system were completely unknown. Perhaps weaponised or hand to hand combat may be utilised if faced by unidentified hostile lifeforms.

“Good thing I was taught by ‘The Major’ then.” He smiled into the camera of the craft’s cockpit. That earned him a smile back from her and Commander Iverson.

“Be safe out there, all of you. And godspeed.” The three astronauts saluted their commander with a ‘yes sir!’ as he saluted them back.

“Prepare launch sequence.”

Adam never reached that clarity she spoke of, as only months into the mission they lost all communication with Sam, Matt and Shiro and they were all but assumed dead. Keith was expelled from the program shortly after the news went live, but Lenore didn’t give up on the kid for even one second, forcing herself into his life as often as she possibly could.

It was probably one of the only things that allowed Keith to accept himself for who he was later in their journey throughout the cosmos, he’d be too stubborn to admit that to her face until many years later.

[void-tiger]

Meet the Veeladee Reboot 20s Gang!

Veronica: Data Analyst and Lance’s older sister. She mostly works Earth-Side to be closer to her large family (and to keep an eye on her little brother). She’s constantly pestered with requests for DeepSpaceMissions but keeps turning most of them down, at least until after Lance graduates. She likes her work HERE, thankyouverymuch, and it’s just as important as what the “space colonists and explorers” do. (She’s also Lance’s confidant about his initial placement as a cargo pilot—while he’s got the personality to work with a team and deliberate skills to carry passengers and supplies into space in one piece, in his eyes the “fighter pilots do the COOL Stuff” when in reality it’s that he’d get extremely homesick in space—proven when she mildly mentions that Lisa’s a cargo pilot and Shiro prefers those missions over prototype testing as well.)

Ginger: Earth-side engineer, and Hunk’s older sister and personal hero. Like Veronica she enjoys Earth-side work for the chance to be closer to her parents and brother (and to make sure her friends BEHAVE), but also takes several space missions to oversee how beta testing’s going. She’s also one of the major brains behind the GG’s advancements in astronaut food and food storage...somewhat motivated by her mild horror of her roommate Lisa describing growing up on the stuff and not having much of a taste for Fresh Foods vs dehydrated, frozen, or canned. (Matt practically worships the ground she walks on as a result, since Sam is almost as bad after each space mission.)

Lisa: Cargo Pilot (and proud of it—who do you think goes on those space missions and what they actually are?), and Moon Colonist. She mostly takes transport assignments between Earth, Luna, and various Inner Solarsystem Stations. Having a chance to visit her family and “village” without taking time off...AND still getting the stars?? Two birds, one stone. After the “Kerberos Failure” she switches to doing Earth-Based Alpha Testing (aka, “fighter class” piloting) or Luna Transport exclusively to keep her friends and family close. She and Shiro are very close as flight partners and their shared love of space and preference for Space Missions (even if it’s just short transport trips vs uncharted territory...although yeah getting to go on the exploration missions is pretty sweet.) Lisa and Ginger also “agree to disagree” when it comes to cooking, though the arguments are mostly playful and Lisa is Ginger’s preferred partner to test out New Astronaut Food (and actually make it taste like more than just “it came straight from a can”). Which...also means she’s better at making sure the Shirogane Twins actually have a stocked pantry of stuff they can cook without burning the place down or neglecting it to spoil because “too much effort when they could be doing __ instead”. She also has enough of an interest in anthropology that she worked on getting her Masters in it along side a few minors in various languages and her piloting liscense and batchlor’s degree in astrophysics. (SO many late nights studying and joking comments about Timeturners as she commuted between the GG and a local univesity and fighting to get her credits to balance out. And all that student debt has her splitting rent with Ginger and Veronica in a GG Issued Apt vs having a place of her own.)

Ryou: Engineer, and Takashi’s younger twin. (He’s probably worse about the leapyear jokes than Shiro...) PreKerb he pretty evenly split his time between SpaceMissions with either working as Ship Engineer or overseeing SpaceTesting or working on initial builds on Earth...well until the GG suddenly gets a stick up their ass about Shiro’s piloting career when his twin has to switch to a different treatment for his epilepsy. Then he’s working almost exclusively on Earth Projects to better support his brother while he’s Grounded, and completely obsesses over the Kerberos Mission’s Shuttle to ease Taka’s unspoken anxiety and to get the GG to stfu after Taka’s finally cleared to do more than PR and Recruitment. Post “Kerberos Failure” he falls into a deep depression and obsesses over the shuttle’s designs, convinced he’s somehow at fault vs Taka. Once he climbs back out of it, he redetermines to keep an eye on a recently expelled Keith (which needing to be there for someone else helps keep his own depression symptoms in check), and rejoins the analysis of the “Failure” now that he accepts he’s not in it alone to figure out what happened to his twin and his best friend and his dad.

-

In Fixit vs Reboot? Lisa, Ginger, and Veronica form a 3-persons crew to investigate the Kerberos Disaster and end up running into Team Voltron that way. The only reason why they weren’t at the Launch was because they already had their own space missions at the time—they still kept in steady contact with Shiro and Matt and definitely noticed when the Kerberos Crew stopped contacting them. (Sadly, no Ryou in fixit. Reboot’s partially exists to still work with my own version of him.)

[laallomri]

keith

keith is 3 when his mama leaves. he doesn’t remember anything about her, doesn’t remember a face or a name or a voice. he remembers a presence, something vaguely maternal that was there and then gone, something he’s always associated with the color purple, though he doesn’t really know why.

(he does not like purple. he likes red, and black, and blue, but he does not like purple)

keith is 9 when his dad leaves. he remembers a lot about him, remembers a face and a name and a voice, remembers a square jaw, and a name full of syllables that white people’s tongues stumble over, and gruff japanese that is somehow still fond. he remembers the day he leaves, though he doesn’t remember him leaving. he comes home from school, lets himself in with the key hidden under the welcome mat, and reads his comic books while he waits for his dad to come home. except he doesn’t, so keith makes himself a sandwich with what’s left in the fridge and goes to sleep hugging his stuffed hippo tight to his chest. he wakes up the next morning to the sound of the neighbor pounding on the door; she’d noticed his dad’s car was still missing and came to check if everything was okay.

everything is not okay. his dad never comes home, and he has to pack up his comic books and his stuffed hippo and move to a different house with different people in it, people who don’t speak gruff-but-fond japanese and who call him keith instead of akira and who act like it’s weird for him to still have a stuffed animal at his age.

one day he comes back from baseball practice and he can’t find his hippo. he can’t find him, he can’t find him anywhere, he tears apart the room he shares with his foster brother but he can’t find it, and he doesn’t know who took it but he knows, he knows someone took it, because he would never just lose Pom Pom, he always made sure to put him in his shoebox home under his bed, but he’s not there, he’s not there, and his foster brother is yelling at him for going through his side of the room and his foster mom is yelling at him for making a mess and his foster dad is yelling at him for caring so much about a dumb toy and he doesn’t know what happens but suddenly he’s crying and hitting whatever he can reach with his fists.

his foster mom tries to catch his arm but he pushes past her and runs downstairs and hides in the linen closet, knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around his legs, crying and crying and crying because now Pom Pom has left him too.

(Pom Pom is--was--blue. keith still likes blue, but he thinks maybe he doesn’t deserve it anymore, not after being such a bad friend to Pom Pom that he couldn't take care of him)

keith is 12 when he finds his mother’s knife. he’s in his third foster home in as many years, and it’s only a 10 minute walk from his dad’s old house. he gets into a fight at school and he doesn’t want to go home and deal with his foster parents’ wrath, so he wanders around the neighborhood, tries to breathe, tries to calm down from his anger so he can deal with getting yelled at later.

he walks past his dad’s old house. it’s abandoned; he thinks the city might be tearing it down soon or something. he looks round--no one is here--so he jumps the wire fence around the yard and goes around to the back, breaks a window, and hoists himself into the living room.

there isn’t much here except dust and dirt and cobwebs and cockroaches. he picks his way past the grime, walks around the house. here is where his dad read him bedtime stories, there is where he fist-bumped his dad every morning before they left for school and work. he goes to the back, goes into his old room, then his dad’s old room, then--

--then stops, because there’s something glowing in his dad’s closet, so bright he can see the light through the cracks of the closed closet door.

he goes back out into the living room, picks up a shard of glass from the broken window, then goes back to the closet. he approaches with caution, the shard held out in front of him--then throws the door open.

there’s a knife lying there, glowing glowing glowing. he picks it up and the glow fades, until it’s just a regular knife, albeit a fancy one.

(it’s purple, but he takes it anyway. he’s starting to think that maybe he doesn’t hate purple so much as wish it didn’t seem to hate him)

keith is 15 when he meets his big brother. he has the same square jaw that keith’s dad had, the same name full of syllables that white people’s tongues stumble over, but his japanese is soft instead of gruff, and blocky around the edges in the way that keith’s is (or used to be, back when he still spoke it, back before he started to forget words). 

he talks to keith in japanese sometimes, and every time he does it feels like keith’s soul heals and aches at the same time, cries with happiness at the sound of someone speaking it so casually to him, cries with sadness at no longer being able to respond so fluently. he stammers over the sounds, face hot with shame at forgetting his own language, but shiro just waits patiently, gently corrects his grammar, teaches and re-teaches him words and never makes fun of his pronunciation.

he calls keith akira, and hugs him when he’s had a bad day, and teases him for his terrible hair, and smiles big and says I’m proud of you, kiddo every time keith tells him about an accomplishment, and keith thinks he’s never loved anyone so fiercely as he loves shiro, thinks that he would do anything for this person who found him when he was lost and lonely, this person who filled his heart with enough love for an entire family.

(it turns out shiro’s favorite colors are black and purple. maybe purple doesn’t hate keith so much after all)

keith is 16 when shiro leaves for the kerberos mission. he hugs keith before he leaves, tells him that he is always going to be there for him and that he will be back soon. keith rolls his eyes and pretends that shiro’s words are dumb, but as soon as the shuttle takes off keith goes to the bathroom and cries in the stall. he tells himself that it’s stupid, that shiro will be back soon, but he can’t help but worry that yet another person has left for good.

he washes his face, tells himself firmly that he’s being stupid again, and goes back to class. that night he lies awake by the window, pictures shiro in the shuttle, and he says good night big brother in japanese, just for him.

a few weeks later he is in chemistry class, and the teacher is at her desk checking her email, and suddenly she gasps. a student asks if she is okay, and she says the kerberos mission failed there were no survivors, and keith can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he’s sitting frozen in his seat gripping his pencil so tightly it might snap, and he thinks his heart has stopped because how could it keep beating if shiro is gone? how could his heart keep thud thud thudding when shiro’s heart has stop stopping stopped?

(maybe purple doesn’t hate him, but it’s left him again)

keith is 17 when he finds shiro. he sees him on the table and part of him sees red, part of him wants to murder everyone responsible for him looking like this, but part of him wants to curl up next to him and cry and cry and cry.

except he can’t do either of these, because there are other people here, a really annoying mini matt holt and a huge guy who won’t shut up about how anxious he is and a boy who somehow expects him to know who the fuck he is at a time like this.

he remembers him after a second, and he remembers much more later, remembers seeing him in the cafeteria and the hallways and in classes, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s just some stupid kid for keith to bicker with, and nothing really matters now that shiro is back and now that keith has a solid enemy to make pay for what they did to his big brother.

(though--the boy is kinda cute. but he wears blue, pilots blue, fights with blue, and keith doesn’t deserve blue, doesn’t know how to take care of it, so he continues to bicker, continues to argue, and even when they become friends, even when it seems like blue might want him, he says nothing)

keith is 18 when he finds his mother. he doesn’t know what he expected to feel when--if--he ever found her, but he doesn’t think it was this, this anger, this white-hot, all-consuming fury, this need to yell and scream until his throat is raw.

so he does, and she lets him, lets him pour out fifteen years of confusion and loneliness and abandonment, wrapped up in a package of fury that explodes out of him until he feels like he might never speak again. she doesn’t make excuses, doesn’t try to say that what she did was justified. she says she is sorry she did not leave him any explanation, that she wants to make it up to him, if he will let her.

he does not know if he will let her. he is too angry to feel anything else, so he just shrugs, and she looks at him with sad eyes, and he hates her for being sad, because what right does she have to be sad, when she brought that sadness upon herself in the first place?

but he thinks of what shiro would do, thinks of how he would at least try, thinks of him saying patience yields focus, thinks of him saying you don’t have to forgive her, but give her a chance. so he says to her not yet, but maybe one day, says I have a family now, I have two brothers and two sisters and an uncle and a maybe-boyfriend, people who were there for me when you were not, says I will not call you mom, you lost that privilege when you left, but I will have a relationship with you, I will call you once a week and I will be civil.

she smiles, and he sort-of smiles back, and he tells her how he ended up in space to begin with. he does not feel any of the excitement that he does when he tells stuff to shiro or lance or hunk or pidge or allura or coran, but he thinks--maybe--that one day he might.

(it’s odd, but despite her being literally purple, he does not associate purple with her anymore. purple is the black lion, purple is a responsibility he was not ready for but handled anyway because of a bright beaming boy in blue. purple is shiro, purple is a big brother who hugs him tight and says I’m proud of you kiddo. his mother has no color anymore, but he thinks--maybe--that one day she will have a color again, will fit into his life and his family in some way)

keith is 19 when he pilots the red lion again. he sits in the pilot’s seat, puts his hands on the controls, hears red’s reassuring rumble in the back of his mind. he smiles, then grins, then laughs out loud, for no reason other than how deliriously happy he is to be back here again.

he slams the controls forward. red zooms out of his hangar and out among the stars. to his left he sees lance, hears him yelling over the comms about how fucking huge the black lion is and how the fuck do you pilot something this big, holy motherfucking shit, hears pidge’s and hunk’s giggles at his language, hears coran’s admonishments, hears allura’s remark that coran really shouldn’t scold lance considering how often he says quiznak. keith hears lance’s answering apology, hears him immediately curse again when he almost runs his lion into red.

whoops, sorry, babe, he says. keith just laughs, says it’s okay, baby, I wouldn’t expect anything else from your clumsy ass, hears allura coo at him for using the endearment, feels his face flush when he remembers everyone can hear him.

lance pulls up the screen, the one that links just to keith in the red lion, and flashes him a grin.

you ready to go get your big bro? he asks.

keith smiles back, soft and happy and determined.

yeah, he says, I’m ready.

(they find him, and when they do keith hugs him tight, hugs this person who was there for him when he had no one. shiro hugs him back, says I’m so glad you’re okay, akira, and then lance is there, and allura, and pidge, and hunk, and they’re all hugging one other at the same time, one big messy group hug, purple and black and red and blue and green and yellow all tumbled together)

(the galra empire may be strong, but keith’s family is stronger)

[blackbaeyard]

Hoverbike

Keith had thought he was ready, but now, lifting the heavy tarp away, he realized he wasn’t. Maybe he never would be.

It had been nearly a month since the world had received its last bit of news of the Kerberos crew. Nearly a month since the words “pilot error” had been carved into Keith’s mind, nearly a month since Keith had punched Iverson and ditched the Garrison.

Nearly a month since he’d last ridden the hoverbike, or even had the courage to look at it.

Shiro’s hoverbike, initially. The one he’d given to Keith to learn with, then to take care of while Shiro was up in outer space. Keith had ridden it a couple times since Shiro had left, but he hadn’t touched it since the Garrison’s announcement. It had remained in storage, until now.

Keith had avoided riding the hoverbike as long as possible, and although he didn’t necessarily want to, he needed to. The shack was low on provisions, and he had to go to the next town over to get some supplies. He couldn’t walk there, get what he needed, and carry it all back. He had to take the hoverbike.

Steeling himself, Keith climbed on and started the engine. The familiar purr made his heart ache. Driving the hoverbike seemed impossible without the man sitting astride him. Keith didn’t know if he really believed that Shiro was dead. He had faith in the man, faith in his skill, and knew that if the Kerberos crew were dead, it wasn’t because of any ‘pilot error’. Regardless, he hadn’t been able to get any more information out of Iverson, so it was all he had to go off of. A part of him knew that Shiro was still out there somewhere, but another part of him mourned the man nonetheless.

Riding with Shiro had been the absolute best feeling Keith had ever known. The adrenaline rush wasn’t anything compared to the way Keith felt with Shiro at his back, his laughter drowned out by the wind as Keith pushed the bike to its limits, kicking up dust in their wake. More than once, Keith and Shiro had outrun the Garrison’s perimeter patrol Jeeps to sneak off after curfew and take the bike for a spin, or even just to park it somewhere and stargaze. In fact, they’d done it quite often, often enough that Keith was amazed they never got in trouble.

It had given Keith something to look forward to day in and day out, though, other than the seemingly impossible promise of exploring the endless expanse of space.

With Shiro missing from the picture, riding the hoverbike lost most of its appeal. His trip into town was short, uneventful, and so was the ride back.

But after he’d dropped off his things and drove back to the storage shed, it didn’t feel right to put the bike away just yet. He’d barely driven it enough to warm it up. Shiro had entrusted the bike to him because he knew Keith would take care of it, and although it wouldn’t gather dust or start rusting in the shed, Keith knew that in order to keep it running right, he had to put the bike through its paces regularly.

With a sigh, Keith turned the bike around.

He didn’t stop to let himself think. He just revved the engine, punched the gas, and drove.

Flying through the desert at such high speeds was still as exhilarating as it had been the first time Keith had done it. He’d never tire of the thrill of it, even missing Shiro as he was, and it wasn’t long before Keith found himself grinning into the wind, taking every sharp turn and steep drop-off the canyons offered, not caring where exactly he went, just moving on instinct alone. He knew this place like the back of his own hand, and he had missed it nearly as much as he missed Shiro.

Piloting had become as integral to his life as Shiro had, and losing Shiro had been devastating. Keith hadn’t realized until now that, although it was bittersweet, he couldn’t lose piloting too. He hadn’t wanted to stick around at the Garrison, where Iverson lied to his face and everyone pretended everything was okay, but he could still do this. He could still drive the hoverbike.

For Shiro.

It’s eleven more months before Keith feels it again: that heart-pounding, gut-wrenching exhilaration of driving the hoverbike with Shiro riding alongside him. Shiro’s unconscious this time, held up by the shortest of three Garrison cadets who Keith hardly recognizes, but it’s Shiro. It’s Shiro, alive and, if Keith can outrun the Garrison’s Jeeps one more time, safe. He can already tell that Shiro isn’t the same, but there’s enough left of the man that boarded that shuttle for Keith’s pulse to pound in his ears and his breath to rattle in his chest every time he stops to look at him. It’s Shiro, and Keith is whole again.

They had to leave Earth rather suddenly, but Keith thanks the stars that he remembered to put the hoverbike away properly before they had left. It hasn’t rusted at all in the time they’ve gone, but the engine sputters a bit when he turns the ignition. A few more tries and it flares to life.

They’re not the same people they were when they left. They’ve changed so much in just one of Earth’s rotations around its Sun, but the hoverbike is the same. If the bike were sentient, it would not recognize the men that now sit astride it. They hardly recognize themselves, but they are confident in the presence of each other.

Shiro wraps his arm around Keith’s waist, and Keith punches the gas.

They’re together again, and that’s all that matters.