#the doodle on the right is based on the beach off scene angle

[skunkes]

[paladinspride]

The picture will make sense once you read the story. Ha. Anything romantic I would have drawn would have spoiled it. Ha. 

Keith’s Proposal

Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender

Pairing: Klance

Rating: T (Some innuendo, I mention that they made love but nothing smutty)

Word Count: 2775

It felt like a story book morning. Keith laid quietly watching dust flicker in the sun beams that peeked through the divide of the curtains and listened to the birds singing, a dog bark in the distance and the light morning traffic zoom by.

He yawned a wide yawn and stretched out like a cat but careful not to disturb the sleeping figure beside him.

He looked at the time.

6:50am.

The alarm was set for 7am. He turned it off. It was Friday and he had the day off and Lance didn’t have class until 10. He decided he’d let his partner sleep a little while longer and wake him up more gently in a few minutes than by the blaring tone of the alarm.  

Keith rolled onto his side so he could gaze upon Lance’s sleeping face. It had been 3 years since they returned to Earth and he still couldn’t believe he shared a bed with this man.

Lance’s eye mask had shifted so it was only covering one eye, his retainer caused him to hold his mouth at a weird angle and the clay mask he put on the evening before was cracked and crumbly.

Faint music could be heard from Lance’s cast off headphones. Keith reached over him to turn it off and set the headphones on the night side table.

As Keith nestled back down on his side of the bed, Lance awakened. He pulled off the eye mask, placed his retainer in its dish and turned towards Keith and smiled.

Keith smiled softly back. His eyes filled with affection.

“Good morning, mi amor. What are you thinking about all ready this morning?” Lance asked.

Keith smirked, “That you look absolutely ridiculous in the mornings but I want to wake up next to you for the rest of my life anyways.”

“Ahh, geeze, Keith. Are you proposing to me?” Lance grinned his best cocky grin.  

“Wha, waa, no, I was just…”

“Just kidding, Keith, chill your boots. It’s been a long time since I caused panic to flash before your eyes like that,” Lance laughed.

“Argh,” Keith grumbled and turned away from him.

“Aww, babe. Don’t be mad. You know I like to get a rise out of you,” Lance said suggestively as he grazed his hand over Keith’s thigh. Keith brushed it away.

“Fine,” Lance flopped over on to his back.

Keith flipped around and laid his head on Lance’s chest as a silent peace offering.

Lance buried his hand in Keith’s hair and kissed the top of his head.

“You’re gonna get clay in my hair.”

“You’re gonna wash it.”

“I wasn’t planning to today.”

“What do you mean, you weren’t planning to today? You should wash your hair every day.”

“No, you shouldn’t. I read articles. You wouldn’t need fancy shampoos, if you just let your natural oils accumulate.”

“Gross, Keith,” Lance curled his nose, “I am not discussing shampoo practices with an all in one hair and body wash barbarian.”

Keith laughed despite himself.  

“We argue like an old married couple,” Lance decided to poke the bear, one more time. He felt Keith’s breathe hitch.

“You know, I always thought I’d be married someday to some hot goddess with a whole bunch of kids and a place near the beach-“

“But instead you got me and an army base apartment in the middle of the desert?” Keith interrupted in a tone that suggested he wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not.

“Yeah, I got you, and I wouldn’t trade you for anything. Not even for all the beaches in Cuba,” Lance rolled out of bed and leaned over Keith. He tucked Keith’s hair behind his ear and kissed him softly on the forehead. “Come on, let’s get up. You can take me out to breakfast before class. Next week, I start practicum and you won’t be able to for a while.”

 Keith was silent on their walk to a tiny diner which was located not far from their apartment and on the way to the Garrison where Lance was in Instructor Training.

Keith watched as Lance petted every dog, smiled at every couple and greeted every child on the route. He wished he had half of Lance’s charisma.

When they arrived at the diner, Lance held the door for an elderly couple and then ushered Keith inside. They shuffled into a booth near the window and the waitress took their order. Two breakfast platters. Extra bacon. The usual.

Keith watched Lance’s fingers as he added sugar and cream to his coffee. Keith sipped on his black and half listened as Lance prattled on about his course load and the teaching position he was offered at the Garrison in the fall.

Two men, Keith guessed were in their late forties, and two little girls, who looked to be about 8 and 5 years of age, took the bench across from them. Keith over-heard the men making dinner plans and discussing babysitters, which caused him to notice the men had matching rings. He caught himself staring at their hands.

The eldest girl noticed.

“You draw?” she asked tilting a cup of crayons towards him like she was offering him a smoke.

“Ya,” Keith replied.

“He does! You should see him draw cats. He can draw a mean cat,” Lance smiled.

To Keith’s surprise, the little girls climbed into the booth with them and handed him the cup of crayons. Keith looked at the cup like he was stunned.

“Draw the girls some cats, Dumbass,” Lance teased affectionately.

Keith took a blue and red crayon out of the cup and drew two cats on his white paper placemat.

“Those are cute cats. Why are they red and blue?” The eldest asked.

“Those were the colours of our Lions.” Lance commented, “Have you heard of Voltron?”

The little girls nodded.

“Keith and I were paladins,” Lance whispered.

“Really!” They exclaimed, “Can you draw Voltron?”

“I could try,” Keith replied and did the best he could to draw the giant alien robot with the blunt black crayon he retrieved from the plastic cup.

“You’re pretty,” the littlest girl commented as he drew.

“Thanks?”

“He is pretty, isn’t he?” Lance agreed. “I have to get going to class. You two make sure he finishes his breakfast,” Lance directed. Lance kissed the top of Keith’s head and left him in the booth with half eaten eggs and the two little girls. He gave the two dads a quick nod as he made his way to the door.

“Do you love him?” The eldest girl asked as she watched Keith watch Lance leave the diner.

“Sadie!” One of the dad’s scolded who was watching the scene carefully from their booth.

“Ya,” Keith responded matter of factly and went back to his doodle of Voltron.

“Do you think you’ll marry him?” Sadie continued to pry.

“Sadie! I’m sorry. Invading the personal space and privacy of strangers seems to be her thing,” the other dad tried to wave her back their booth.

“It’s all right,” Keith assured and returned to his drawing. “You think I should ask him to marry me?”

“Ya,” the girl replied in the same tone Keith gave his ‘ya’.

“Then ya, I think I might.”

Keith signed his crayon Voltron and handed it to Sadie.

“It was nice meeting you,” he smiled.

Keith paid for his order and took a long route home. He had some stops to make.

 *

Lance normally got home at 5pm on Fridays so Keith was surprised when he heard the door knob click closer to 4:30pm.

Lance open the door to discover Keith standing on a step ladder, dusting the bookshelf in their living room. He ogled Keith and the way his shirt rode up as when he reached for a moment before looking around the apartment. It was spotless.

“Are you cleaning?” Lance asked incredulously as he dropped his book bag on the entry way table.

“What are you trying to say, Lance? That I don’t clean? I clean!” Keith replied defensively as he stepped off the later.

“You tidy. You don’t clean clean unless you are nervous about something and you need to distract yourself with a task and even then you usually go beat something up at the gym.”

“What? No, I don’t,” Keith denied. “Besides, what would I have to be nervous about? I just, I just, I just thought, you were going to be busy with practicum in the next few weeks and it would nice to come home to a clean house today.”

“Well, it is a nice surprise. And I have to admit, you looked nice up on that ladder,” Lance smirked as he slipped his hand up Keith’s shirt and kissed him along his jaw line.

Keith stepped back so he could talk to him.

“Do you plan on doing anything tonight?” Keith asked.

Lance cocked his eyebrow, “Besides you? Nothing really. Why?”

“I thought maybe we could take the hover craft for a spin and catch a bite to eat at Hunk’s Bistro later, maybe?”

“Sure, sounds like a plan, Stan.”

“Who’s Stan?”

“Really, Keith? No one. It’s a figure of speech. Your plan for the evening sounds like a great idea, but,” Lance took Keith into his arms, “In the meantime, do we have time for my original plan?”

Keith weaved his hands in Lance’s hair, pulled him close and kissed him hard.

 They made love with extra tenderness. Each caress and kiss Keith tried to commit to memory. If things didn’t go as he planned tonight, Keith worried it could be the last time and he wanted to savour it.

They laid together for quite some-time afterwards, basking in the bliss of a late afternoon well spent; Lance sprawled out with Keith laying in his arms.

“Mmmmmm. I don’t know what that was about, but I’ll take it.” Lance reflected.

Keith squeezed into him.

“Is Jupiter in retrograde or something, because I feel like you got your sap on real thick today? Lucky, for me I like sappy Keith.”

Lance twirled Keith’s hair in his fingers.

Keith opened his mouth to deny any sappiness, but realized it was futile. He had no case against himself. He was definitely feeling sappy today.

 Keith was quiet again as they showered and got ready to go out. He put on his best black pants, his favourite t-shirt and dug out his old red crop jacket.

“Can you even still get that on?” Lance asked as he put on a button up shirt and khakis.

Keith’s jacket was tight in the shoulders and snug in the arms but he wasn’t going to admit it. He swung a brown satchel over his shoulder.

Lance watched out of the corner of his eye as Keith fumbled with his keys, knocked the earphones off the night stand and tapped his hand against his bouncing knee while he waited for Lance to finish getting ready.

Lance started to feel concerned when Keith dropped his keys again after locking the door on the way out.

“Are you alright? Should I drive?” Lance asked.

“No. I’m fine. I’m fine. I just dropped my keys. People drop their keys.”

“Okay,” Lance held up his hands, “but do you though?” Lance muttered under his breath.  

 Lance noticed Keith was tense when he wrapped his arms around him after taking a seat on the hover bike.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“You’ll see.”

They rode in silence. Normally, this wouldn’t bother Lance, as he was used to Keith being quiet at times but something seemed off. Lance was just about to pry as to why when Keith made a sharp turn that took them off the road and over the rocky terrain of the Roswell desert.

“What the quiznak, Keith! Where are we going?”

“Shut-up and trust me.” Keith replied.

“Last time we were on this thing and you said that, you drove us off a cliff!”

“We made it, didn’t we?”

 *

Keith landed the bike not far from a familiar rock formation.

“Wait? Are we going to where we found Blue?”

Keith didn’t say anything, just took his hand and led him to the opening of the cave.

Once inside, Lance ran his hand over the familiar cave markings and the cave lit up, just like the first time Lance stroked the cave walls.  

They stood a moment and admired them.

“Remember the first time you lit up the cave markings like that?” Keith asked.

“How could I forget?”

“I was so jealous. I spent months being drawn to this place, pulled by some unknown force and it was you who lit everything up and unlocked the Blue Lion with a simple touch of your hand.”

“I find it hard to believe you were ever jealous of me.”

“In so many ways, I was, and still am.”

Keith stepped towards Lance and touched his forehead on his before laying a soft kiss on his lips.

“So why did you bring me out here?” Lance was starting to feel suspicious, “You aren’t going on that mission Captain Ross asked about, are you? I thought we discussed this and we decided we were going to try to make the best of our time back on Earth, at least for a bit, until Voltron is needed again. Maybe I am being selfish, but I don’t want you going on any interstellar journeys without me,” Lance pouted.

“Lance! I didn’t take the job. I don’t want to go on any interstellar journeys without you either.”

“Good,” Lance said with his arms crossed.

Keith squeezed at his forearms causing Lance to relax and his posture to open.

“Lance, I want you with me on all my journeys for the rest of my life! That is why I brought you out here. This place, this is where I first noticed you were something special. This is where I learned I was being drawn to you long before I knew it was you I was being drawn too. This cave is where my journey with you began and it was wild and terrifying much of the time, but somewhere along the line you became my home. You not only unlocked the blue lion, you unlocked my purpose and gave me a reason to be a better person. It was here that Blue chose you out of all of us potential paladins, because she saw how wonderful you are and I hope you know I do too. I can’t think of anyone in the whole universe I would rather spend my life with, so I thought this would be the perfect place to ask this-”

Keith took Lance’s hand and a deep breath and knelt down.

Lance’s breath hitched as he caught on to what was happening.

“Lance Charlies Aguado McClain, will you marry me and be my partner for the rest of my life?”

Lance dropped down to the ground too, and grabbed Keith by the collar of his jacket and kissed him, “Of course I will.”

Keith took a long rectangular box out of his satchel.

“I didn’t know what dudes proposed to dudes with, but I, I, got you a watch. I got Coran to tinker with it, this afternoon so it keeps both Earth and Altean time.”

Keith handed him the watch upside down. On the back he had engraved, “Make every tick count.”

Lance smiled and put the watch on his wrist and held it clasp up for Keith to fasten. He admired the watch for moment before he spoke.

“Even after all these years, you still surprise me sometimes, Keith. Would you believe me, if I said I was going to ask you when I graduated? I can’t believe you beat me to this.”

Keith smiled proudly. They took a long route home.

 *

A few Saturday’s after, Keith and Lance happened to be walking by the diner, when they heard the familiar jingle of the diner door charms and a little voice yell, “Keith!”

“Sadie, was it?” Keith asked the girl who stopped in front of them.

“A-huh!” She looked from Keith to Lance and back to Keith with a twinkle in her brown eyes.

“Did you ask him?” she asked.

“I did.”

“Did he say yes?”

“He did.”

“Good,” Sadie grinned a big grin, “I’m helping Nanna make pies, you’ll have to stop in for a slice later and tell me all about it.”

She skipped back inside.

Keith chuckled softly.

Lance’s laugh was boisterous, “Are we going to have to invite that little girl to our wedding?”

“We just might.”