~1~

"The only time someone should wake me up is if an intergalactic emergency is happening." Being the blue paladin of Voltron is awesome, but Lance needs his beauty sleep. And rest. He's a growing boy who's in pretty good shape overall, but the sudden physical strength (and early mornings) expected of him since coming to space is taking its toll on his body. These days he aches in places he didn't even realize he had.

So when Keith very unnecessarily calls him out with a "We'd probably be better off fighting without you," Lance is reasonably pissed. Bickering with his rival over breakfast, he forgets about some of the pain in his arms.

That night Lance goes to bed thoroughly exhausted. Face mask on, he lies comfortably on his back and instantly drifts off. He doesn't know how long he sleeps before Keith is there, standing by his bed, his hand warm on Lance's shoulder. He wonders vaguely if it's normal to dream about one's rival so frequently.

I thought I told you not to wake me up, he says and wills the dream away.

Suddenly there's a hand in his that isn't familiar but feels like it should be, and he tugs it closer because the contact feels good. He's so comfortable now that he turns over, awareness of his face mask banished to the far recesses of his mind as it smears onto his pillow. If he could just stretch his leg out, that would be perfect. So he does. And his foot connects with something.

And a deadweight drops onto him with a grunt.

Not even a little bit sleepy anymore, he jolts up and shoves whoever just tried to kill him onto the floor, and when the person hurriedly stands up, Lance sees that it's…Keith.

Keith, pouting and looking very flustered, won't look at Lance. He barks out something about how they're being attacked and need Voltron and that he was sent to retrieve Lance. Then he bolts out of the room.

Lance, still sitting in bed breathing hard, registers the pressing urgency of the situation but only vaguely. Because finding Keith on top of him, as if he's materialized right out of one of Lance's most confusing dreams, is pulling heat and color into his face. And he's glad the room is dark because that means Keith probably didn't notice his blush and his messed up facemask and his bedhead.

He forgets about the facemask again and runs his hands over his face, groaning when they come back all green and creamy.

Keith has all but forbidden Lance from bringing up the 'falling on top of him' incident. Lance can live with that. It's hard but he can do it, making up for it by teasing Keith with other things—from his fashion sense to his hair—every chance he gets. The longer he keeps this up, the more he notices little changes in Keith. Like how he used to be all stiff around Lance after the 'incident' but now he's more chill. He still stands with his arms crossed and broods all the time, but he doesn't radiate hostility anymore. In fact, more than once, Lance has been at the receiving end of fond smiles from the mullet man. But this happens just as often as the scowling, so who even knows.

~2~

The blue lion crashes.

It's during a battle. Lance gets a little distracted with blasting the fighters getting too close to the castle and doesn't notice the ones closing him in from behind.

The others finish the fight without him by the time he regains consciousness. He gets back in the air only to touch down again. He's upright but his head is still swimming, and when he touches the side of his forehead, his fingers meet something warm and sticky. Good thing the battle is over and won.

Lance is still looking at the darkening red on his fingers when suddenly, Keith is out of his lion and rushing forward. He shouts Lance's name and wraps him tight against himself, burying his own face in Lance's neck.

Lance is too stunned to react at first, except for the heat he feels in his face, which he doubts has to do with the exertion. His arms slowly come up to return the hug. But the slightest touch from Lance jolts Keith, and he breaks away, muttering something that sounds like a very embarrassed apology, before running back to his lion.

Still stunned, Lance watches until the red lion disappears into its hangar.

The following days are especially confusing. Lance's brain replays the hug over and over again. His entire body plays along and keeps reminding him of the sensation of being held in Keith's arms. It felt so safe, and Keith's labored breath fanning against his skin felt…. Lance blushes, not wanting to give that particular feeling a name.

Meanwhile Keith avoids Lance entirely now, out of embarrassment Lance figures. The most direct effect of this is that Lance is no longer able to tease Keith to his face and has to settle for watching from afar. He watches as Keith pours himself into more training and flies off in Red sometimes to blow off steam. He gains the ability to tell when Keith is feeling down because when he is, he spends more time with the training bot than usual. He notices how Keith's nose turns up at Coran's special lunches and how his eyes twinkle at some of Hunk's specialties. And without meaning to he learns all of Keith's most and least favorite food goo varieties. And the moment when he realizes that he is in fact noticing all these things is Lance's undoing.

He's holed up in his room, bouncing his legs—left then right then left again—as he sits uncomfortably on the edge of his bed. He should be asleep, but how can he be? 'Dios mio,' he thinks to himself, not yet ready to say the words out loud, even alone in his room, 'I like Keith…like, like like him….'

Even saying the word four times doesn't make the fact that Lance likes Keith any easier to digest. Sleep doesn't come to him that night.

~3~

Lance has had crushes before. Loads of times. He loves being in love. But this time, his crush isn't like any of his previous ones. It's a boy. And not just any boy; it's a boy he thought he hated, a boy with awful hair, a boy he's forced to cohabit a castle-cum-spaceship with. It's Keith. Keith is the boy Lance is crushing on, and it's driving him crazy. He's not sure yet if it's in a good way.

His own internal panic aside, there's another problem. Keith has been keeping his distance and, well, Lance wants to go back to the whole making fun of each other dynamic they'd had going on. Which, now that he's listening to his inner voice, might actually have been flirting this whole time. Is it possible to flirt without realizing it?

Lance's brain is a bit scattered as the team plans their trip to the Unilu trading post. Coran brings out containers of old clothes and tasks them with finding stuff that fits so he can help them put together pirate disguises.

Playing dress-up like he used to as a kid with his sisters, except now it's for a good cause? Sign Lance the heck up. He rummages through the containers, tossing too large items to Hunk and too small ones to Pidge. He pulls out another item and is just about to throw it to Pidge when he pauses. The waist would be too big on Pidge; it looks more like his own size, really. But the length…. He looks down at the container and pulls out an accompanying top. Bottom lip caught between his teeth, he stares at the blue and white clothes in his hands. He's sorely tempted. They're his size and color; he should at least try them on. He knows he can totally rock the look.

Hunk turns to him to ask for his opinion on a grotesque spiked overcoat, and Lance quickly tucks his find behind his back. "Yeah looks great Hunk," he says carelessly. "I'm gonna go try something on," he announces, dashing out of the room before anyone can stop him.

He puts it on in the dressing room, and boy was he right. He's totally rocking it. He turns in front of the mirror, looking at how it brings out all his best features. with a broad grin, he steps out to show Hunk and Pidge…and runs right into Keith. When did he get here?

Keith's face twists into an irritated grimace at being bumped into, before his eyes take in the sight before him: Lance in tiny deep blue shorts and a long-sleeved thin white top that ends just below his chest.

Keith's eyes widen comically. For a stiff moment, he stares; then his finger comes up, seemingly of its own accord, and pokes Lance's exposed belly as if to check that it's really there. Lance lets out an embarrassing noise in surprise. He's blushing under Keith's attention, he can feel it; and as much as he's trying to hold it back, the touch, however brief, is making him smile.

Keith keenly watches it all play out on Lance's face. He looks pleasantly surprised—and encouraged—by Lance's flustered reaction. "A crop top and booty shorts? Really?" he finally says with a hint of amusement and something else in his tone. "I thought the point of the disguises was to blend in," he adds with a smirk. "Don't know if these will cut it."

Lance, normally a master flirt, looks away. Keith's smirk is annoying him; it always throws him off when Keith gets like this. With a grimace, he remembers asking Keith to come untie him after the fiasco with Nyma. The memory of Keith's teasing is enough to increase Lance's internal temperature by a few degrees.

"I'm afraid Keith is right," Coran muses, seeing Lance's outfit. "The pirates don't dress like that."

"I just wanted to see if they would fit." Lance shrugs and turns to go change.

"Well they fit perfectly," he hears Keith mutter behind him and flushes all over again, hurrying out of the room.

At least he's shocked Keith into talking to him again. With a dopey smile, he puts his own clothes back on, carefully folding and keeping the eye-opening summer outfit. Just in case it…comes in handy at some point.

~4~

So Keith is Galra.

It happens so suddenly and it feels like no one has time to react properly because they're all going on their own missions. When Keith and Shiro first tell the team what they discovered at the Marmora base, Allura's anger erupts so silently that the topic becomes an instant taboo. Keith walks around with a fallen face, doing his best to stay on task but unable to completely hide his hurt—at least from Lance's astute gaze.

Lance wants to go up to Keith, wants to say that this doesn't change anything, that he's still their red paladin. Lance approaches him before they go off on their separate quests, and Keith stands before him, eyes lowered and head hung, posture resigned but impatient, as if he knows what's coming and just wants to get it over with.

"Just tell me I'm Galra scum and go, Lance."

Lance's words die in his throat. Is that what Keith thinks of him? expects from him? He forgets all the words of acceptance and sympathy he had planned and reaches out in the one surefire way he knows how. "I just came to tell you to watch that mullet. I heard you're going to fight some giant beast and get scaultrite from its stomach so you know," he fumbles; he didn't think this insult through. "Your dumb hair would probably get in the way," he finishes with an attempt at his trademark shit-eating grin.

Keith looks up at him, mouthing words that won't come out. And then, the corners of his mouth quirk up ever so slightly. Very slowly, a mixed look of relief and fondness lights his face, and Lance is reminded of that time Keith had embraced him with such suddenness.

"Yeah and you watch your back at that prison," says Keith, having finally found his voice again. "Don't get blindsided by another cute girl and compromise the mission."

"Hey!"

But Keith is chuckling now and Lance feels like this talk hasn't been a disaster after all. He cracks a smile and says, "Good luck, Samurai."

"You too, Sharpshooter." Keith turns toward where Hunk is waiting for him by the yellow lion.

Sharpshooter? Lance's smile grows bigger as he takes in the nickname. He hopes it becomes a thing because he really likes the sound of that. I'll make it a thing, he decides, making his way toward Shiro and Pidge.

The jailbreak from beta-traz goes pretty well, all things considered. The bottom line is they accomplish the mission.

Team Voltron is on the cusp of putting their plan to defeat Zarkon into action. If all goes well, Zarkon and his empire of tyranny will be history once and for all.

Keith and Lance are lounging on the observation deck. It's the night before the big day. Keith was watching the stars when Lance joined him, and now they're looking out at the vast expanse of space together.

"Hey, let's swap war stories!" Lance suggests.

Keith rolls his eyes, but Lance catches the smile that reaches those violet eyes. He motions for Lance to go first, and Lance tells him all about busting Slav out of Beta-Traz. When he gets to the yupper and how she'd basically agreed wholeheartedly that Lance was useless, Keith bursts into laughter.

"You bared your soul to a yupper?!" he wheezes.

Lance's every instinct screams at him to be embarrassed, but he can't help the giddy delight settling in his chest at having made Keith laugh so openly. Keith's eyes crinkle at the corners as tears of mirth threaten to break free.

Drawn in by the way the dim light catches Keith's eyes, Lance keeps talking. "Yeah I told her all about how I thought I was a seventh wheel, and she just said 'yup.'"

Keith's laughter subsides a bit, but amusement still twinkles in his eyes. He gazes at Lance's face, then leans forward and cups his chin. "Maybe you could try baring your heart to me someday instead of to a yupper." Then Keith leans in closer, clearly with the intent to kiss him, but giving Lance every chance to stop it. It's like he's trying to convey just how special he intends to make Lance feel with the intense look in his eyes.

Lance merely holds that gaze, losing himself in the galaxies that are mere inches away. Is this really happening? Lance tries to swallow but his throat is paralyzed.

Keith tilts his head, his eyes drop to Lance's lips…

An alarm blares, and they jump apart. Lance's heart feels like it's about to jump out through his mouth; and judging by Keith's labored breathing, he isn't faring much better.

Apparently it's time. Zarkon is going down. Lance's first kiss will have to wait.

~5~

The empire doesn't go down. They hit Zarkon but just barely. But more importantly, they lose Shiro.

Keith isn't the same after that. They don't get to continue their interrupted night by the stars. Keith moves through the motions of being a paladin but he has a singular focus: bring Shiro back.

And Lance is there. By Keith's side. Through the lion switch that tears Keith apart, the leadership role that threatens to break him before he finally accepts it, the return of a changed Shiro. And then Keith leaves.

Blade more than paladin now apparently, Keith leaves Lance behind. Never bothering to cut the thread Lance has been hanging on since that night under the stars.

Lance is bitter. He's irritated. A little angry even. But under it all, he's hurt. Is he really the only one who thought what almost happened that night was a big deal?

So when Keith comes in wearing his Marmorite suit, blasting through the vacuum of space like only he can, and flies himself into certain death, all of Lance's anger comes to a head. Keith would have perished, erased without a trace, if not for Lotor's perfect timing; and Lance is pissed.

He's shouting. "I hate you!" He's dragged Keith off to give him a piece of his mind but all he can get out is something that isn't even true. Something that hasn't been true for a long, long time.

Keith considers him, incredibly calm, "But I love you."

Lance is stunned into silence. He tries to stay mad, but his heart is melting. He turns away in anger and exasperation, muttering, "I hate how you're always so willing to sacrifice yourself. I hate how you distance yourself so easily. I hate…I hate…."

He still has his his back to Keith, but he doesn't storm off or leave.

That seems to be all the encouragement Keith needs. He steps closer to Lance from behind, and in a low, sincere voice, repeats himself,

"I love you."

Lance can feel Keith's words washing over him. He can feel his resolve eroding. His shoulders start to droop; he slouches, as if physically defeated.

And somehow, Keith is there. He grips Lance's arms, anchoring him, holding him up. Lance sinks backwards against Keith's chest. Keith is a rock behind him, steady, unmoving, comforting.

"I hate you," he whispers again, no bite behind the words. "I hate your stupid hotheadedness and your stupid mullet and your dumb, pretty, intense eyes."

Against the shell of Lance's ear, "I love your soft skin and your smug grins. I love it when you're flustered. I love your bravery and how much you care about everyone…not just everyone but everyone individually, enough to risk your life for someone you just met. You care so much about people, Lance, and I love that. I love how much you care about…me."

Lance is gone. Has been since the first time Keith said it. But despite himself, barely audible, "I hate you."

"I don't believe you."

Lance doesn't believe himself either.

He takes Keith's hands from his own arms and pulls them around his waist instead, wrapping Keith against himself in an embrace says so much more than he can right now.

+1

Lance lies on the floor of the observation deck, a callback to that night so many quintants ago. Keith hovers above him on his elbows, leaning down to kiss Lance's nose, cheeks, lips, pulling back to look at him after each kiss. Everything moves so slowly, gently.

Lance can't decide whether to keep his eyes closed and savor the feeling of Keith's chapped lips, or to keep them open so he can see the awe and intensity in Keith's gaze. He settles for closed for now, but he doesn't know what to do with his hands either, until finally bringing them to rest on Keith's waist. He has to resist the urge to pull, to draw Keith in closer.

Lance opens his eyes and takes in Keith's soft expression. Feeling like the slightest movement on his part will break the magic of the moment. Lance all but holds his breath, not wanting to disturb Keith in his ministrations. His pulse quickens with every dip of Keith's head; a sigh escapes him with every touch of Keith's lips. Keith's touch leaves life in its wake. His fingers ignite little fires as they move across Lance's skin.

"I love you." He says it because it's true. And because Keith isn't pulling away anymore. And because they're still at war but now they have each other.

"I love you too, Lance."