It's common knowledge how soulmates work. Everyone has one, a special someone who shares a soul link with you. Whenever someone marks their body, the same marks will appear on their soulmate. It can be anything from the short-lasting scribbles of a pen on an arm to the everlasting mark of a tattoo over a collarbone.

The beauty of having such freedom when it came to soulmates is that while you knew you were tied to another human being, there was no expected label. Sure, most soul mates sought each other out for close friendships and romantic relationships, but for others it didn't need to be anything more than a gentle reminder that they weren't alone.

Most people's soul connection grew strong enough to start revealing these marks around the age of ten, although it wasn't unheard of for the connection to appear later on in life.

Needless to say, when Lance saw small black marks slowly fade onto his wrist while he was sitting in class one day at school, he was ecstatic.

He had been scribbling on his note paper as the teacher drawled on through some boring lecture when his hand froze mid-scribble. Lance dropped his pencil and his jaw dropped as black ink slowly started to wrap itself around his wrist.

He jumped up from his chair ignoring the startled looks from his classmates around him and grabbed his wrist with a look of glee. It wasn't until his teacher called out his name with a tone of confusion and slight annoyance that he snapped out of it.

Lance rubbed his neck sheepishly and sat down while murmuring a quick, "Sorry Professor Coran."

The teacher simply sighed and shook his head before turning back to the board to continue his entire class had gotten more or less used to the obnoxious mess that was Lance Sanchez. That didn't stop them a few of them from laughing before Hunk and Pidge shot the classmates looks sharp enough to kill, shutting them up quickly.

A few seconds after the class had settled back into it's usual lull, Hunk nudged Lance's arm and shot him a questioning look. Lance glanced towards him to see Pidge on the other side of Hunk, just as intrigued. The stupid grin tugged at Lance's lips once again as he lifted his hand to show a simple bracelet drawn in pen growing on his wrist.

Hunk began to silently jump up and down in excitement for his friend and Pidge shot him a thumbs up before they all turned back to what they were doing. Lance spent the rest of class touching the scratchy mark in awe. He had been one of the few late bloomers, not receiving his mark until freshman year of high school and while he knew everyone was destined to have a soulmate, he would be lying if he had said he wasn't anxious about it up until now.

By the end of the day Lance had done nothing but stare at his wrist in complete and utter glee. He hadn't so much as bothered to socialize with the others, but no one complained. The absence of his usual loud personality was understood, because after all, they all knew what it was like to experience the first appearance of a mark.

As Lance walked home with his two best friends, Hunk and Pidge shared casual conversation while Hunk occasionally nudged Lance or moved him over to avoid walking blindly into a tree or trip over a crack in the sidewalk. It wasn't until Pidge harshly yanked on his ear, bring his head closer to her level that Lance had finally started to pay attention.

"Ow! Pidge, what the hell?" Lance rubbed at his now sore ear while Pidge just rolled her eyes.

"Well as I was saying while you were off in the special dreamland reserved specially for idiots, if you're so excited about the mark, why not draw one of your own?"

Lance stopped in his tracks and gaped at Pidge's suggestion as Hunk patted him on the back and pushed him forwards, "Pidge is right, Lance, I mean think about it. You've had the opportunity to fawn all over your first soulmark but somewhere out there your soulmate is still unmarked and unaware. Only seems fair y'know?"

Pidge and Hunk watched the actual gears in Lance's head turn as he looked between the mark on his wrist. Pidge had to keep herself from rolling her eyes again as the switch flipped and Lance was suddenly scrambling to pull a pen out of his bag. Hunk kneeled down and began to help him pick up the contents of his backpack while Pidge quickly pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the scene.

After dumping out more than half of the contents of his backpack, Lance managed to yank out a sharpie, accidently dropping it in excitement. Lance lunged for the marker on the ground as Hunk and Pidge watched in mild amusement. He popped the cap off and hesitated for a moment, trying to decide what to write before he put the tip of the sharpie to the inside of his left arm.

It was messy from the shaking of his excited hands, but there on his arm in thick sharpie was a simple, "Hi". Lance let exhaled shakily and beamed up at his friend. She looked at the image and smiled before putting away her phone and joining them to help. She straightened the papers in her hand before handing them to Lance and grinning, "Now all you have to do is wait."

He didn't have to wait long. Later that night as Lance was lying in bed, he saw a line start to appear on his hand, and then another, and another. Before he knew it, he had shot out of bed and ran over to his desk to grab a pen and turn on his desk light.

The word on his hand that had appeared was simple, but it kickstarted the first conversation of many between the two. Seeing the small scratchy "hello?", Lance quickly replied on the other hand with a simple, "hey". A few seconds passed before he got a reply underneath his soulmate's first message, "I guess we're soulmates?"

Lance cheered silently to himself before replying again. This continued on for hours and before he knew it, night had begun to fade away, catching Lance's attention as the sun began to shine through the blinds of his window. It was fine this time since it was a Saturday morning, but if his mamá found out he had stayed up the whole night there would be more than hell to pay for it.

Signing a final message saying he was heading off to sleep, he crawled back into bed and looked up at his arms, covered in ink. His soulmate was in the same grade as him, older by half a year. They were both boys and shared a few common interests. Lance, like most people was right-handed, while his soulmate turned out to be left-handed. Lance was surprised to learn that his new soulmate had never played video games before just as much as his soulmate had been surprised that Lance had never seen snow before.

He chuckled at his soulmate's reaction to the information and had explained that in California most places didn't get snow. Lance tried not to dwell on the small pang of disappointment when he didn't get any information regarding where his soulmate lived, but enjoyed discussing more about each other nonetheless.

It had only been a night and yet Lance had learned so many new things about his soulmate. He laughed quietly to himself as he read over the conversation. He knew now that the whole thing about soulmates just being able to click was true. He didn't have a face to put to the other boy, a voice, or a location, but it all just felt so… right. Lance sighed and pulled his arms to his chest before rolling to his side and letting the heavy weight of sleep finally pull him down.

He sank comfortably into his bed and drifted off, his dreams filled with the swirls of ink, the tugging sensation in his chest at the thought of his new soulmate, and the name he would never let go of.

Keith

The first mark that had appeared on his hand had been what started it all. Before he knew it, days turned into months and months turned into years. The two boys exchanged numbers the day Keith finally got a cell phone. They would still constantly draw and send each other messages on through their bond, but when they weren't sending messages through ink, they would text.

It was a year into their bond that they had both decided to wait until college to meet if they didn't run into each other first. While Lance had been reluctant to accept the agreement at first, he quickly obliged when Keith explained why he wasn't ready to meet yet.

Lance learned that Keith's parents had died when he was at a young age and because of that, he was never in more than one place for long. When Keith had told him this, Lance quickly started to write out an apology for not knowing and pushing too far when Keith suddenly crossed out the message with thick, dark lines. Keith didn't want pity, just patience and Lance was more than willing to comply.

As time passed, they continued to communicate and learn more about each other. Lance would gush about how cute Hunk was when he was with his soulmate Shay or complain about how Pidge would tease either him or Hunk when it came to their soulmates and how unfair it was that Pidge wouldn't even hint at who her soulmate was.

Keith would talk about the different stories he would write and Lance would find himself intrigued with each one, even if he did find some of his conspiracy theory stories a bit odd. Lance was overjoyed when Keith called him with the news of finding a place to stay on more permanent terms halfway through their senior year of highschool. In all honestly, Lance hadn't felt this excited since the day when their marks began to appear and he doesn't think it was possible to get any more excited than this.

His older friend Shiro had just gotten out of college and with Keith turning eighteen in less than a month Shiro insisted that Keith come live with him in the apartment he had been at since finishing college. Shiro was, in a sense, the only real family Keith had.

Lance had heard very little of the varying foster families and places Keith would find himself in, yet the one constant was always Shiro. Keith practically worshipped the ground he walked on and would talk of him like a brother.

It made Lance so happy and relieved when Keith told him and he didn't think it could get any better for his soulmate when it did,

"Lance, that's not the best part though. There's something else too."

Lance shifted his phone in between his ear and shoulder as he slipped on his bag before grabbing it and switching it to the other side as he ran down the stairs towards the front door of his house.

He heard Keith take in a deep breath before he blurted out, "Shiro lives in California."

Lance stopped in his tracks immediately, one hand still on the now partially open door. He stood in place, frozen for a few moments and he could hear Keith shifting nervously on the other end of the line.

He just barely managed to whisper out, "What?"

"Shiro. He lives in California. Really, and I mean emreally/em close to where you said you'd be moving to with the others when they go to college."

Lance didn't reply and Keith took the silence badly and panicked as he started to ramble, "I didn't mean to spring it onto you or anything and you don't need to feel obligated to meet or anything I just thought, no I-"

"Keith."

At the sound of Lance's voice, Keith sucked in a breath as he waited,

"What's the soonest date you can move in by?"

A few months later…

Hunk sipped his coffee and scrolled through his phone as he sat by the window inside a small coffee shop in peace. Or at least, he wished it was as peaceful as that.

He sighed as the repetitive sound of a nearby foot tapping the ground quickly across from him finally grated on his nerves to the point where he looked up from his phone to the offending person sitting across from him,

"Lance. Buddy. Pal. I love you, but I swear to god if you don't stop tapping your foot I will carry you out of the shop and chuck you into the street."

Lance snapped out of his nervous focus on the passing cars outside the window and quickly inhaled at Hunk's comment, which in hindsight might not have been the best reaction.

He quickly coughed as he inhaled the hot coffee he had absent-mindedly sipping, earning a sympathetic expression from his friend sitting across from him.

Hunk passed his sputtering friend a few napkins and sighed,

"Honestly, I don't see why you're so nervous. You two have been talking every passing day since we were freshman in highschool. There's nothing to worry about."

Lance threw his arms up theatrically, "Easy for you to say! You already knew Shay before you found out you were soulmates. This is different! What if he takes one look at me and wants nothing to do with me?"

Hunk shook his head as Lance pouted and returned to sipping his coffee,

"You're seriously overthinking this. I know you've been crushing on him hard but-"

Lance cut off Hunk as he choked on his coffee again. Hunk shot him a skeptical look as Lance regained his breath before looking back bewildered,

"How the hell did you know about that?"

Hunk snorted, "Uh, since the day after you got your soulmark and wouldn't stop talking about him? Pidge called it since you dumped out your backpack on the street day one."

Eyes wide in disbelief, Lance groaned before letting his head hit the table. Hunk patted his shoulder sympathetically before noticing the time on his phone.

"Uh, Lance, aren't you supposed to be meeting him in like five minutes?"

Lance shot up from the table and pulled his own phone out of his pocket to confirm the time.

"Oh shit! I gotta get over there."

Hunk shot Lance a smile before he had the chance to dash out of the door,

"Don't worry man, everything will be fine. Now go get him. Make sure to mention me at the wedding."

Lance blushed before grinning and shooting finger guns towards his best friend. With that final exchange he ran out the small coffee shop to the meeting place he'd set up with Keith.

Lance made it to the park just in time. He fought to catch his breath as he checked the time. 3:02. Keith should be here any second.

Now that he was able to breath normally again, Lance took in the small park around him. For the most part it was empty aside from a small family and a few couples wandering the park slowly.

Lance heard someone clear their throat behind him before they called out cautiously,

"Lance…?"

He gasped softly. He knew that voice.

Lance turned around slowly to see the man who stood behind him. He was breathtaking. Lance's own blue eyes stared straight back into the wide purple eyes in front of him.

For a moment they both stared at each other before a small smile broke out on Keith's face. Lance found he couldn't help but smile back in the face of something so warm and beautiful.

Lance took a chance and reached his hand out towards Keith.

Keith looked down at it in surprise before his smile grew and he reached forwards and took moment their hands touched they both knew. Any doubts or fears they had simply washed away.

And as they started to walk hand in hand, Lance knew everything would be just fine.

Notes: Hope you enjoyed this little one-shot! I'll be releasing the next chapter of Unbelievable soon. Also If you're interested in joining a Voltron Discord Server you can join through the link on my tumblr spacemomatyourservice. As usual, all comments and kudos are appreciated!