A/N: Sorry about the long wait! I kinda lost inspiration for this fic for a while. Now its back, and with my friend who is sorta-betaing this for me fangirling in my ear driving me, I seem to have found it. I own nothing. If I did I would have made Voltron much more violent, much more R-rated, and 100% gay. Enjoy.

Chapter three: Space-wood and a Should be Sob Story

Keith pov:

I groaned as light crept into my eyes. Who the fuck turned up the brightness in the ship again? I shift further into the bed. 'If the alarm isn't going off, I don't need to be up yet.' I reasoned to myself sleepily.

Wait. My body froze for a second. 'My bed does not feel like this.' My eyes snapped open, and the events of yesterday began to trickle into my sleep-fogged brain.

'Oh,' I thought, letting my body relax. It's fine, I'm with lance on an Altean vacation planet. My racing pulse slowed. Wait. I'm on an Altean vacation planet. With Lance. For the next ten Earth days.

My brain took a moment to process this. I could imagine my mind being a cluttered, paper-strewn office, with little brain-workers scrambling around to find an answer to my problems. One of them stands up to where my mind-office-camera thing was watching them, and held up a sign written in large, red letters.

"YOU ARE FUCKED." It read. Shit.

I snapped back to the real world with a blink. I need to stop creating these weird scenarios, someday I'm going to start talking to them out loud again. That definitely won't go over any better than it did the last time.

I sat up, taking in my surroundings for the first time. I was laying on a faded blue couch, in front of a window with the curtains drawn back. Further inspection of the room revealed creme white walls, and warm, wood-colored flooring that probably wasn't wood. Effectively, it looks like a small country house from Earth-if you ignore the subtle glowing strips on the corner and edge of everything, and the data panels built into the wall farthest from me that showed the temperature and day of the week in Altean, I think.

In my inspection, I found no sign of Lance. Shit he saw me last night. I grimaced, today was going to be painfully awkward. Could I just hide? A muffled clunk from another room stopped my thoughts of self preservation. So did the heavenly smell tickling my nose. My stomach grumbled, and I soon forgot my earlier musings in search of breakfast.

I got off the surprisingly comfortable couch, and walked to the hallway. The duffel bag I had dropped last night was still sitting beside a possibly-wood table, and the front door further to the right of that. Nope.

Following the hallway to the left took me to a set of double doors, and a side hall that led to more rooms. Tentatively, I push open the double doors, behind which I can hear clinking and footsteps. In the lights of the-surprisingly Earth-like kitchen, I see Lance looking over his tablet while standing over what I'm pretty sure is a stove.

He looks up and smiles at me. "Morning Mullet, sit down and we can eat, the foods almost done." He gestured a spatula covered in pinkish goo towards a high table with bar stool-like seats on the other side of the kitchen before turning back to whatever the pink thing was that was frying.

I hesitated a moment, Lance's tone has been light and teasing, but his eyes had a slightly more somber glint to them. As I stood awkwardly in the doorway longer my internal panic rose higher. Lance turned back to me again, this time with a flat look that told me he would throw said spatula at me if I didn't sit my ass down.

I followed the spatula.

A few minutes later we were both eating over the tall, maybe-wood table, and sitting in the tall, maybe-wood chairs. The pink thing was something that looked like a crunchy pancake, and tasted something like potatoes and sausage, if they also had minty citrus in them. Still better than space goo. It went fine, neither of us talking. Which also solved basically nothing. I put my plate in the sink, and was about to start washing when Lance gently nudged my out of the way with his hip.

"I've got this. Why don't you go shower and get changed. The bathroom is the first door on the right, and clothes are in the last room on the right side of the hall. Grab anything, Allura gave us the go ahead." he assured me gently, already reaching for the dish soap.

I protested a bit, before getting shooed out of the kitchen. Well, there goes that.

"Once you're done, head back to the room where you get your clothes, I should be done by then." He finished, pinning me with a stare that allowed for no arguments, and walking back into the kitchen.

I stared at the door for a moment and sighed, before heading over to the "clothes room" Lance had indicated.

I pushed open the easy-swinging maybe-wood door and was surprised. It was a large, open bedroom. Sparse furniture of the same sort-of-wood was scattered against the walls, and a king sized bed with creme and grey patterned covers sat in the middle. The ceilings were high, and a portion of one wall curved outward into a cozy window seat overlooking a green field. To my left I found a writing desk, and a powered-off hover lamp. Past that was another, narrower door. Curious, I walked over and opened it.

Inside were definitely not the clothes that Lance instructed me to find, but a linen closet, filled with soft, fuzzy blankets in an array of colors. I shut the closet and scanned the room again. Beside the bed were two simple nightstands, each with a single drawer. The far wall held only the window seat-alcove, and a plush looking grey chair sat in the corner farthest from me. Across from the bed was a second door that I had missed, and a full length mirror.

As I reached to pull it open, I glanced in the mirror, and did a double take. My face was pale, and covered in tear-tracks from the night before. My eyes were bloodshot, red, and swollen, worsening the existing eye bags that seemed to have darkened. I looked like shit.

Grimacing, I turned away from the mirror and pulled open the door. It was a walk in closet, filled to the brim with a variety of clothes, most of which were in soft tones of grey, blue, and creme. 'Alteans really liked color schemes didn't they?' I thought, vaguely amused.

The clothes were not my usual, but looked incredibly comfortable. The only problem being that they were definitely made for people not my size. Or in my general comfort zone. I pushed back the tenth pastel dress, and grabbed something I thought was a shirt, before realizing it was also a shirt made for someone who was significantly curvier than I was. After a while of hunting through dresses and skirts, I found a set of sweatpants that looked about right, and a sweater that was probably about my size.

I wandered back to the bathroom at the other end of the hall, and was again surprised by the niceness of it. As the door swung shut behind me with a gentle click, I found myself facing another very Earth-like room. The spacious room was creme again, with two sinks to one side, followed by a built in cabinet, which ended at another door. I peaked my head inside the open room. Ah, there's the toilet. Past the mini-room was a shower cubicle, much like what I was used to on the ship. Unlike the ship however, beside that was a white, possibly-porcelain-but-probably-not-because-it's-in-space bathtub.

I shook my head slightly, Alteans certainly loved their color schemes.

Post shower I dressed in the soft Altean clothing. I definitely did not have an eye for clothing size. The pale pink sweatpants flopped under my heel as I walked, and the grey sweater hung nearly off of one shoulder, and extended a bit past my hands. I shrugged, oh well. At least it's comfy.

I padded into the bedroom, and while I didn't see Lance, I could hear some rustling from the closet, and figured he was changing. I chose to curl up in the window seat to wait for him. As I sat down, I had expected to find the seats to be comfortable, much like the rest of the Earth-like Altean things here. I did not expect to sink into them until my shoulders, and knees were all that was above the apparent pit of softness the Alteans called a window seat.

Lance chose that moment to walk out, and I saw a grin spread over his face. "I see you found the Altean secret: everything is squishy or unbelievably soft."

I gave him a heatless glare. "And you must have too, if you know about it."

He chuckled, and gave me a half sheepish, half mischievous grin in response, before seating himself on the corner of the bed.

The grin faded from his eyes a little as he leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees, "Ok, now, hate to be the person who plays therapist here, but I have been delegated that job, and if last night was any indication, you really need to talk about something."

I sighed and grimaced.

Lance looked at me seriously, "Keith, I have four sisters, and two brothers who are definitely not as tough as they seem. I know what it looks like when someone bottles things up so long that it explodes when something pushes their final button. What happened last night was definitely the result of a lot of stuff that never got dealt with coming to the surface at once." He took a deep breath and continued. "So, we are going to talk it out now."

I looked down at my cushion covered legs and thought about what to say next. "You're-you're probably right, but….I'm not sure where tostart." I say softly, my words beginning to run together as my nerves took over.

Lance's face softened, "Where do you think it starts?"

I looked up at him with a weak smile, "Long enough ago that I probably can't tell it all in an hour."

He just smiled gently, "Well, we've got six more days of leave cleared from Allura, and still the ride back to the castle. I think there's time."

I let my mind drift back through memories. Shit, it really did start a long time ago. I heaved a breath and tucked my knees up to my chest in the pillow-pit.

I bit my lip for a moment, "Ok, well, we know now that my mom is galran, right? Well, when I was a kid, I had no idea who she was. She and dad were...er, separated?" I stopped, that didn't sound completely accurate, but I decided to shrug it off and continue.

"I have basically no memory of her existing. Dad-dad really didn't like to talk about it. When I was younger I used to ask about her a lot, because, well, I didn't know. I never actually got any answers from him about that." I thought for a moment about how to continue. "Dad was...probably where I get my anti-social-ness from. He didn't talk a lot, and we didn't have the best relationship."

Lance's face darkened, "He didn't-" He stopped himself and seemed to calm himself for a minute, before continuing in a calmer voice, though no less tense "He didn't ever abuse you did he?"

I blinked-oh. "Wha-Oh, no. No no no." Shook my head, and a breathless sort of laugh rushed out of my chest. "Dad wasn't a warm person by any means, but he never hurt me. If anything, I think he just didn't know what to do with me." I admitted. "I mean, thinking about it now, whatever the circumstances he and mom met under, they had to be really weird for him. He's the kind of guy who really only went into town for a few reasons, grocery shopping, work, and going to the bar for a few beers. At least, before I was around. Then all of a sudden he's with a literal-probably purple and fuzzy-alien woman, probably thought he imagined the whole thing, and then however long later gets a half human infant dropped in his lap by her. I think he just had no idea how to handle any baby, much less one he was always watching to see if it would turn purple and he'd have to hide it from the government." I laughed at the image of my stoic, mechanic dad looking helpless as he holds toddler me, and prays to the god he doesn't believe in that toddler me didn't turn purple while he had a tantrum in public.

Lance seemed to find the same kind of ironic amusement in the idea as I did, and chuckled along with me.

"So, he wasn't dad of the year, pretty much ever. He also wasn't the worst. He did what he needed to-kept me fed, clothed, happy and healthy. We just were never close." My smile dimmed a bit. "I'm still not entirely sure what happened to be honest. One day-I was about six I think-I came home from school, and there was a guy from the police department there. He...he told me that I would have to live with my babysitter, Mrs. Boldstere-she was our elderly neighbor. I think she widowed before I was born, and took care of me while dad was at work. I...I'm not sure how much of this is true now. Or if there was something more to the story, but supposedly my dad died in a car crash on the main highway.

"I never saw his body-there wasn't really a funeral since I was his only relative. I..honestly wasn't too badly affected by it then. I'm not sure if I completely understood it at the time, or if I just honestly wasn't that affected by his passing; it only took me a month or two to settle into life with Mrs. B. as if he had never been there." I still felt bad about that. I don't think I even visited his grave once while I was on Earth, and now I am in another solar system every day.

"I was pretty happy with that set up I guess. The only thing that dad requested in his will that I was given was my knife-which apparently was mom's, and I was supposed to get it when I was twelve. I probably have some money that he left me on Earth, though I never actually saw it." My chest ached a little at the next memory that washed over me.

"Mrs. B. was probably the closest thing I had to actual family growing up. She was a retired army Medic, and about the craziest storyteller I've met to date." I chuckled a little as I recalled terrible-but good character impersonations, wild gestures, and a manic grin that seemed out of place on a woman in her seventies. "She was also sort of an artist I guess? She used to let me go down to the studio in the basement and play around with the paint and any canvasses she had scrapped." God I missed her.

"She never told me-probably didn't want to worry me over it-she had a terminal illness. Something with her heart I think. I didn't realize anything until a few weeks before…" My voice trailed off, and my hands gripped my knees closer to my chest. "She passed away two years after dad died, almost to date. Just a couple weeks before my eighth birthday."

My breath shook a bit and I tried to calm myself. "After that I got put into the system. I never really clicked with any of my foster parents. Some of them were really great, some of them...a lot less than great." I shoved back memories of raised voices and shattering glassware. "I always got moved around. I think the longest I was ever in one house was about ten months-just through a school year. The shortest was only three days. In total I think I was in 27 different foster homes between my eighth and fifteenth birthday. When I was fifteen, I was in my first year at the Garrison. They basically got me state clearance to be recognized as an adult as long as I was there-or until I was actually an adult.

"My first roommate was Shiro. I'm still not sure how, but we ended up hitting it off right from the get-go. We weren't roommates the next year, but we stayed pretty close. For about two years he was my family again. My brother." The last words faded to a near whisper, but Lance seemed to hear them anyways.

"The Kerberos mission," he said softly, as sad sort of understanding lit his features.

I nodded, "He was my backbone. Pretty much my only friend, or family that I'd had since I was eight, and then he was gone." I laughed bitterly. "After that I went a bit nuts. I started screaming at the higher ups, and demanding to know what happened. I just couldn't believe that a pilot as good as Shiro could have such a fatal crash. The week I turned eighteen, I got kicked out. I guess I should be grateful for that. They could have kicked me out three months earlier and shoved me back into the system. You probably know the rest to some degree. I found an old shack that dad had left me, and fixed it up to be livable. I go a little conspiracy-wormhole crazy for the next seven months, and start finding stuff that led me to Shiro's return to Earth. And by extension, you, Hunk, Pidge, and the Lions." I blinked, looking at the slightly changed light outside. "Wow. That...that actually fit in a lot less time than I thought it would take."

I looked over and found Lance staring at me with an unreadable look. His expression betraying little of his thoughts. Well, this was going to be fun.