Voltron Legendary Defender - Shining Like the Stars [86] [Shklance]

[scriveyner]

Title: shining like the stars [86]
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
AU: slts
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Keith/Lance, Team Voltron
Rating: M
Length: 2579
Summary: Keith started laughing.



Keith started laughing.

Lance looked over his shoulder, through the bars of Altean brig, and frowned. He had heard Keith laugh before – admittedly, not often, because Keith could be an emo broody little shit sometimes, but that was entirely not the reaction he was expecting. Keith sat back down again in his cell, his back to the bars and facing both Lance and Rian and covered his mouth with one hand and just kept laughing. "Okay, so," Lance said, still staring at Keith, brow furrowed and wondering if maybe they should clear the area because Keith sounded almost hysterical. "That's not normal."

He looked back through the bars at Rian, who had turned his face away, arms folded, and had put himself as far from Lance as possible in the tiny, single-person holding cells. He frowned, looking at the Altean's dark hair and pointed ears, and then looked back to Keith, who was still chuckling. "Keith, buddy, you're freaking me out here."

"Sorry, sorry," Keith wheezed, pawing at his face with the back of his gloved hands, streaking tears into the fine purple fuzz that covered his face, and that was even less normal. Everyone's gone crazy but hey, they were in a memory core and Lance could roll with that, at the very least. He put his forehead against the cool metal bars and stared at Rian thoughtfully while his boyfriend quietly lost his marbles in the next cell. "So, you're part Galra too," he said, and Rian's head jerked and his ears actually twitched, that was cool, he'd never seen Allura's elf-ears do that.

"Say that again," the young Altean hissed, both hands clenched into fists and already in full-on fight me mode. "Say something so slanderous about a royal Altean house and it won't just be the guards you'll have to worry about-"

"Whoa, whoa," Lance said. "Calm down there, short stack. I'm not worried about the guards, anyway." He glanced back again at Keith, whose terminal case of the giggles seemed to be winding down, at least. "You okay back there?"

"Good, I'm good," Keith said, but didn't get up.

"Okay," Lance said, still watching Keith. "You sure?"

Keith nodded and Lance sighed out an amused breath, then looked back to Rian, who looked like he wanted to murder Lance with his expression. The only thing that was really different about him was the unnatural gold hue of his eyes, they glowed softly, and Lance couldn't make out his pupils. It was the same with Keith's eyes, but that seemed to pair better with the purple fuzz and large, fluffy ears that poked through his dark hair. On the Altean, it just seemed ... wrong. Ethereal, but unsettling. "Gotta say, I love the hypocrisy, tho'," Lance said casually. "You're all 'a Galra can't be a Paladin! Grr!' and then you turn out to be part Galra yourself. Tell me, how exactly did you expect that to work out for you?"

Rian's brow was already pulled together, his expression pinched and stormy. But then something unexpected happen. His face crumpled just a bit, and Lance started in surprise as tears started escaping the corners of Rian's eyes. "I'm not," Rian hissed, and then his voice hitched. "Galra." He pushed his palms into his eyes and covered that glow furiously, and Lance looked back to Keith because he really, really didn't have the requisite experience to deal with this. Girl crying because he was so beautiful? That he could handle. Hunk crying because Lance stepped on his casserole trying to climb over the table? Okay, yeah, that was a dick move on his part but still, no sweat. Alien asshole refusing to acknowledge a potentially unknown part of his heritage? Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Keith put one hand on the bar of his cell and hauled himself to his feet. The hood he had buried himself in had slipped down a bit and one purple ear had escaped, twitching in his hair, and he had an intense look on his face, nose wrinkled. Then he relaxed a bit. "You are," he said, head cocked. "You smell really strongly of it, are you suppressing the rest?"

Rian's hands flew away from his eyes and he snarled at Keith and oh, there were the sharp pointy teeth. "Half-breed," he hissed at Keith, who didn't seem nearly as perturbed as he had the first time. "All Galra should die." His rage was diluted somewhat, by the fact that there were still tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. He swiped angrily at his eyes, and then turned his back on Lance and Keith both, arms folded.

"Okay," Lance said, and looked back at Keith. "So, now what?"

"Don't look at me," Keith said. "This isn't a Paladin trial, right? We're just in his memory. How did you get out of," and a pained look crossed Keith's face, if Lance hadn't been looking at him he wouldn't have seen it, "Shiro's memory?"

"Well," Lance said, matter-of-fact. "I got shot, I kinda don't remember."

Keith definitely winced at that. "Did Shiro ... do anything specific, since it was his memory?"

"We did change the course of events," Lance said. "We got off the Galra ship, at least." He tapped a finger to his lips. "So, if we change the outcome of the memory, maybe that triggers it to let us out? It's as good an angle as any, I supposed." He glanced back to Rian, who still had his back to them. "Okay, Fuzzypants, Jr.; we're in your memory here. What happened?"

The Altean remained silent.

Lance shrugged at Keith, who sighed. "It's your own fault for being an ass," Keith said to Lance, and Lance placed one palm on his breast, offended at the thought. Keith suddenly pulled his hood back up, his ear and profile disappearing into shadow and Lance turned at the official-sounding click of boots. A tall Altean with loose, flowing, copper-colored hair was approaching, flanked by two armed guards. Lance leaned his shoulder back into the bars but did not approach the front of his cell as the retinue stopped before the door to Keith's cell.

"Galra," the copper-haired Altean spoke, betraying a voice that sounded younger than expected. "Your presence here," and he glanced toward Lance, and past Lance to Rian; "is quite troublesome. Are you a fugitive from the Empire, or a spy?"

"Let's go with neither," Keith said.

"Well, I mean, you are kind of a fugitive," Lance said to Keith with a tilt of his head. "Zarkon would pay out the butt to get his hands on you. Or me, for that matter," Lance said with a small preen. Keith rolled his eyes, but there was a small noise of alarm from the gathered Alteans. One of the guards struck the metal bars with their halberd.

"You shall not say that name in the presence of the prince," she said haughtily.

"What, Zarkon?" Lance said.

The guard struck the metal bars again, with a mighty clang. Keith sighed and said, "Lance."

"What? It's not like saying Zarkon is going to make him materialize here."

Clang. "Silence!"

"I mean, if it did that would be a pretty nifty party trick. It'd be that much easier to defeat him too. Zarkon, I mean."

"Lance, please." Keith seemed to be enjoying the exaggerated discomfort of the copper-haired Altean. "I think you're making the prince uncomfortable by saying Zarkon's name."

This time when the guard struck the bars, one of them actually chipped. The Altean put his arm out to stop further damage to the cells, and Keith and Lance exchanged amused glances. "Stop, stop," the prince said. "They're doing it on purpose, stop."

Lance blinked innocently. "Allura isn't afraid of Zarkon's name."

The silence that followed his statement was absolute, like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. The prince whirled on Lance's cell, his loose clothing billowing, and he put one hand on the bars at the front. "What did you say?"

"I said," Lance said, arms folded. "Princess Allura isn't afraid of Zarkon's name. No wonder everyone thinks the Alteans have died out, have you all have been hiding and cowering in fear of the Galra for ten thousand years? That's sad."

"Shut up, you idiot," Rian said from behind him, and the prince looked past Lance, eyes narrowed at the small dark-haired Altean.

"Oh, it's you," he said flatly. "Revealed your true self at last, I see. I knew you weren't suitable to be a candidate for Paladin."

"Yeah, that I don't get at all either," Lance said. "So you guys have a whole candidate-for-Paladin thing going on here, but you don't ... go looking for the Lions? Do you even go off-world? How do you expect to fight with Voltron if you stay hidden away like you are? That just doesn't make any sense-"

"And what would a group of Galra know about our savior Voltron?" the prince sneered. "I came here to offer you asylum, but I see that you'll just spit it back in our faces, waving the name of our sacred Princess in such a vulgar manner-"

Lance looked over at Rian. "Is this guy for real?"

"Absolutely," Rian said. "The Paladin-candidates don't leave the planet. If they're worthy, the Lions will awaken, and come to them."

"Silence!" the copper-haired Altean thundered.

Lance and Keith exchanged unimpressed looks, then they both looked at Rian, ignoring the Altean prince altogether. "So you go through all these trials to be a Paladin-candidate and then you, what, sit around and look pretty? That's stupid, that's-" Keith snorted. "That's frustrating."

"Why do you think we stole a freighter and went off-planet," Rian mumbled.

The door to Keith's cell opened and they all looked in that direction. "Hands out, prisoner," the guard instructed, holding a pair of magnetic cuffs in their hands. Keith was clearly judging the Altean, looking the guard up and down and Lance said, "ah, let him cuff ya, fuzzypants. I want to see something other than the inside of a cell in a memory core."

"You just saw the entire city," Keith said, but held out his hands and allowed the magnetic cuffs to be closed over his wrists. "Plus, whatever the hell you saw in your trial."

The other guard opened Lance's cell door, a pair of magcuffs in hand as well. "Iverson," Lance said, holding his wrists out obediently. He wrinkled his nose, looking at Keith. "And the Garrison. I'd rather see the cell."

"Hey!" Rian said as they opened the door to his cell as well. "I'm not with those freaks, leave me alone."

"You've betrayed your true nature," the copper-haired Altean said. "Clearly in league with the rest of Galra spies." He tapped one finger above the pale violet face marking and gave a chilling grin. "Bring them all to the Council room, I'll decide what to do with them there." That said, the prince turned on one heel and stormed imperiously out of the brig.

"Nice guy," Lance said. "Hey, he said Galra spies. Do I get to be Galra too?" The guard yanked Lance from the his cell, and with enough force that he almost collided with Keith already in the walkway. "That's kinda cool."

Keith sighed. "It's not something to be proud of, Lance."

This time Lance did lean into him, bumping their shoulders together, padded by the thick makeshift cloaks. "Anything that makes my boyfriend awesome is automatically cool in my book." Keith ducked his head and looked away but Lance could tell he was pleased by the compliment. "Besides," Lance added, grinning. "I swallow. That definitely means I have some Galra in me."

"Why do you have to ruin nice things," Keith said, "by being you?"

"It's a gift," Lance said, as the guards shoved them forward.

#

Turned out the Council room was somewhat familiar to both Keith and Lance; it was a modified great hall area within the ancient ship. In the Castle of Lions that space was a common room; however here it had a much different setup – including several empty throne-like chairs that were arranged in semi-circle. The prince, as Lance had started referring to him in his head, sat in the second from the right. The other four remained empty.

There were a handful of other Alteans around; they varied in size and shape and color. Lance found the multi-hued hair a little fascinating, he wanted pale blue hair, that looked so cool. It would compliment his skin tone nicely. He made a mental note to see if Pidge knew anything about chemicals and what he might have to exchange as a bribe for her to whip up some hair dye.

"You aren't gonna wait for the rest of the Council," Rian called from behind Keith. "Just you, huh, Ysander?"

"That is Prince Ysander to you," the copper-haired Altean said mildly.

Lance squinted his eyes at the prince, and then looked back at Rian. "Ohhhhh," he said. "I get it. Rivals, right?" He elbowed Keith in the side, or at least attempted to because Keith had anticipated that particular course of events and stepped out of elbowing room. Lance pouted at Keith for a moment then straightened and held his cuffed-together wrists out at the prince. "You're gonna want to take these off," he said, conversationally.

"Oh?" The prince said. "And why would I want to do that, Galra?"

Keith sighed exaggeratedly, and Lance smirked. "Okay, so I want to get this straight," Lance said. "You are all survivors of the Galra's destruction of your homeworld, right? From ten thousand years ago?" At the prince's nod, Lance looked around. The mix of attendants weren't paying much attention to them so it wasn't like he had that much of an audience to work with anyway. "You guys had this great and powerful weapon that was hidden away by the royal family. And in all that time you've built up some kind of pseudo-religious cult around the Paladins and the significance of Voltron, but no one thought to go look for this great and powerful Galra-destroying weapon?" He shrugged his shoulders loosely. "Am I on the right track, here?"

"Please stop him," Rian said to Keith, and Keith just shrugged his shoulders. "He's going to get us killed."

"We're in a memory core," Keith said. "Maybe he's just trying to incite someone to shoot him. I would, if I had a blaster."

"Come to the point, Galra. I'm bored of you."

"Okay, see there's that, too," Lance held up a second finger. "I'm not actually Galra, I'm just mated to one." He lowered his hands and tugged on the cloak he was still wearing, then sighed dramatically. "See, this is why I wanted you to uncuff me, it looks so much cooler when I just whip off the cloak." That said, he still managed to pull the makeshift cloak completely off, letting it puddle to the ground around his feet. "And here's the third thing," Lance said, as the guards shifted a bit and pointed their weapons at him.

"Where did you get that armor?" Ysander demanded, sitting upright on the makeshift throne, his expression gone straight from irritated into angry. "How dare you defile-"

"Hey," Rian snapped. "You're not allowed to speak that way to Paladins of Voltron, Prince Ysander."

Keith glanced back at Rian, surprised at the defense but Rian was glaring at the copper-haired Altean with such venom that maybe it wasn't a good idea to redirect that flow of hatred.

"These are not Paladins," Ysander said, coming to his feet. "The candidates are selected by the Council; and certainly we would never allow Galra to take the holy title again. They have stolen the armor, strip them of it!"

One of the guards moved forward, but the others looked between Lance and Ysander with clearly conflicting emotions. Lance ignored the guards and held out his hands, still bound at the wrist by the magnetic restraints. "Sorry 'bout your luck, Prince Ysander," Lance said. "But me an' Keith, we're Paladins of Voltron, designated by the Princess Allura, of Altea. You know, the ruler of your destroyed home planet. Somehow, I think she outranks you just a little."

"Is that really the armor of a Paladin?" one of the guards asked, sounding slightly awed.

"If they were really the Paladins of Voltron," Ysander said, arm outstretched. "They would have the bayards that signified their status-"

Lance looked back over his shoulder at Keith, then they both looked at the Altean prince. Simultaneously, hands held out, the bayards manifested from the storage system of their suits.

"Oh, quiznack," the prince muttered.