Voltron Legendary Defender - Shining Like the Stars [97] [Shklance]

[scriveyner]

Title: shining like the stars [97]
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
AU: slets
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Keith/Lance, Team Voltron
Rating: M
Length: 6086
Summary: When Hunk brought the Yellow Lion into its hangar bay, it felt like the whole Castleship turned out to greet them. Granted, there were barely ten people all told including Hunk and Illianya, but it still felt like a lot, especially when Lance practically jumped Hunk as he emerged from the Lion’s loading ramp and wrapped his arms around him. “Don’t freaking scare me like that,” Lance said, as Hunk patted his back.

When Hunk brought the Yellow Lion into its hangar bay, it felt like the whole Castleship turned out to greet them. Granted, there were barely ten people all told including Hunk and Illianya, but it still felt like a lot, especially when Lance practically jumped Hunk as he emerged from the Lion’s loading ramp and wrapped his arms around him. “Don’t freaking scare me like that,” Lance said, as Hunk patted his back.

Illianya, on the other hand, was nearly knocked off her feet by Rian; who wrapped around her almost as quickly as Lance had wrapped around Hunk. Hunk and Illianya exchanged amused expressions, but the moment was quickly overwhelmed because Pidge was two steps behind Lance and Allura was on her heels. By the time Keith got to them, both Hunk and Illianya were squished together by the massive group hug, and it was Illianya who lost her balance first, buried under the lot of them.

#

”The Lions went ballistic,” Lance said, as they all stood on the bridge, arrayed around Allura’s command post. “Like, all of them. At the same time.” He had his arms folded and a thoughtful expression on his face, his shoulder slumped forward; and for some reason Keith stood much closer to him than usual. Shiro shook his head, his own arms folded, and looked to Hunk, the only one still in his Paladin armor.

“They woke the entire ship,” Shiro said. “All four of them fed into each other.”

“That is troubling,” Allura said, as if she hadn’t been awakened by the Lions just like everyone else. “I don’t have any idea what they could be reacting to. Coran?”

”Perhaps they were reacting to Yellow’s distress,” Coran said. “The Lions do have many secrets that even the original Paladins had not had a chance to unlock.”

“We weren’t in that much distress,” Illianya said. Rian was standing slightly behind her and to her left, and she kept glancing at him with a small frown on her face. “I don’t see how they would react to that.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hunk said. “I was in plenty of distress.”

“In any case,” Allura said, “this entire endeavor was an unmitigated disaster.” She cast a severe glance over the lot of them, and all but Shiro and Illianya lowered their gazes and shuffled sheepishly in place. “Voltron was almost destroyed by your inability to work together! What happened to all the progress we have made as a team? Everyone going off on their own was a terrible decision.”

“It was my fault,” Pidge said, without raising her head. Everyone glanced to her, and Matt put out his arm, standing up from where he’d been leaning against her chair.

“Oh no, little sister,” he said. “You’re not taking the blame for this. It was my idea, Princess,” he addressed Allura. “I convinced Pidge to take us to the waystation with the intention of gathering intel and freeing the prisoners.”

“It was too my idea,” Pidge said, head shooting up and sounding insulted. “You lit up like Christmas when I told you about the modified cloaking shield I’ve installed on Green, but it was still my suggestion to take her out for a spin.”

Matt’s eye glinted, and Allura held up her palm, hoping to halt the argument before it could start in earnest. “Regardless of whose fault it was,” she said, sharply, “it is clear that our training is only just beginning. We’ve wasted our chance for you to retrieve your totems, as well.” She groaned. “I can’t think of any way that we could return to the surface of Eaphus’s moon to complete the trials.”

“We wouldn’t have been able to complete them anyway,” Shiro reminded her. “The air temple was completely destroyed.”

“Yeah, the earth temple was a mess when I was inside,” Hunk added. “Although I think that the memory core was in there, there were a lot of glow-y vaguely threatening hieroglyphs and stuff, I don’t know how safe it all was.”

Keith said nothing, his arms folded, but Lance sensed him edging closer into his personal space.

“I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” Pidge said. “I got my totem.”

“What?” Lance, Hunk and Keith’s voices all overlapped Allura’s in surprised. Pidge blinked and pushed her glasses back up her nose, giving the lot of them a frown.

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” she said archly.

“Let’s see it then,” Lance said, and Keith rubbed a hand over the bottom of his face, frowning. “Because, you know, I would love to have known about this whole totem thing before,” he looked at Allura pointedly, “going into the memory core.”

“We all know you didn’t get a totem,” Keith said.

“You cam out of yours purple and fuzzy, I don’t want to hear it,” Lance snapped back, and then hesitated at the way Keith flinched at looked away. “Keith, man-”

“Pidge, what is your totem?” Shiro asked, his voice rising to quell everyone else’s. Pidge shuffled herself around in the seat, pulling her legs up to sit on them crossed and then fidgeted in place a moment more.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” she said finally, and Lance groaned loudly.

Allura shot Lance a sharp glare. “It’s okay, Pidge,” she said. “Just try.”

“I saw … it was like a fox,” she said finally. “Except, it was mossy and green, kinda looked like it would be a forest spirit of some kind.” There was a distant expression on her face, and then she shook her head sharply as if to clear it. “Yeah, I mean … it let me pet its head and that’s about the time the memory core kicked me out. So I think my totem is … a fox? Something vulpine, at least.” She looked over at Allura questioningly, and Allura nodded her head rapidly, a large smile on her face.

“Yes, yes!” she said. “The totem appears to their Paladin in the form of an animal from their homeworld, of course! Father spoke of his totem as a grifflespurt, we used to keep them around the castle when I was younger.” Allura looked distant herself for a moment, while Lance and Hunk exchanged a look and mouthed ‘grifflespurt?’ at each other.

“Okay, so I got my totem then,” Pidge said, crossing her arms and looking smug.

“Have we ever figured out the point of the totem in the first place?” Keith asked. “I mean, can’t we just bond with our Lions the old-fashioned way?”

“What is the old-fashioned way?” Hunk wondered, and arms folded Keith shrugged.

“I’m afraid that it’s hard to explain how the totem deepens your bond,” Allura said. “As I haven’t experienced that bond myself. But I do know that it made the original Paladins stronger, and as a whole made Voltron stronger as well.” She smoothed her hands over her skirts and glanced to the side, at one of the hovering holographic terminals to her right. “We’ll debrief more later,” she said, finally. “It is a relief that everyone is now safe and whole, so a short rest is not out of line before we start vigorously correcting the faults in your training.”

“Well, that just sounds terrible,” Lance said. “Count me out. I wasn’t the one in trouble.”

Allura gave Lance a sweet smile. “Bright and early, Lance.”

Shiro inclined his head. “Lance, Keith,” he said in his authoritative, head-of-Voltron voice. “Hang around a minute, we need to talk to you.”

“What were you saying about being in trouble?” Pidge said in a teasing tone, as she followed Matt off the bridge. Lance groaned loudly and spun on his heel, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jacket as they waited for the bridge to clear.

“So,” Shiro said, looking between them. “Do either of you want to tell me what, exactly, is going on?”

Lance and Keith exchanged looks, and then both looked at Shiro. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lance said, as Keith responded, “Lance was going to go after Hunk.” There was a brief stretch of stunned silence, and then Lance put his hand on his chest and looked at Keith, betrayed. “Well I never.”

Shiro sighed as Keith gave Lance an angry look. “There’s no point to lying about it,” Keith said, pragmatic at least, but all the same Lance folded his arms and glared right back.

“Lance,” Shiro said. “That was incredibly foolish.”

“No,” Lance said. “It’s my fault Hunk as left behind, he’s my best friend, of course I was going after him.” He pointed at Keith. “Keith was coming with me!”

Now it was Keith’s turn to look surprised. “I never said that.”

“You were totally coming with me,” Lance said.

“I was there to stop you.”

“Lance,” Allura’s voice overrode theirs. “Hunk being left behind wasn’t your fault. If it was anybody’s, it as mine for ordering the retreat.”

Lance looked her square in the eye. “If I hadn’t gotten hurt in the memory core, I would have been out there with you. We could have formed Voltron and routed the cruisers.”

“You only got hurt because of me,” Keith said, anger again rising in his voice. “You can’t take the blame for something I did.”

“We’re a team,” Lance was still staring at Allura with a peculiar intensity. “Failure and success are both shared in equal measure, right, Allura?”

“Yes,” Allura said. “And that also means that you can’t take sole responsibility for this. It is shared among us all. Be that as it may,” she added, placing her hands on her hips, “I don’t want to hear about anyone going off on their own again, is that clear?”

“Yes,” Lance said, and after a moment Keith nodded his head as well.

“I’m glad to see that we all understand,” Allura said pleasantly. “Shiro, I expect to see everyone bright and early in the training room tomorrow morning.” Her piece finished, Allura picked up the two mice who had been sitting on her console for the entire debrief, setting them on her shoulders before leaving the bridge to Shiro. Lance and Keith both watched her go, and then turned back to see that Shiro’s expression was still troubled.

Lance let out a large sigh. “Sorry we’re such disappointments, Shiro,” he said, and Keith elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “Ow.”

“Neither of you are disappointments,” Shiro said. He shifted a little and then unfolded his arms, holding them out. Without hesitation Keith moved forward, sliding in under Shiro’s offered arm. Lance did hesitate a moment, but followed suit and Shiro hugged them both close. “It’s been a long couple of days,” Shiro said into their hair as they both pressed close. “But I love you both very much, please don’t scare me like that again.”

Lance closed his eyes, Shiro’s arm tight over his shoulders and forehead pressed to the top of Lance’s head. This wasn’t quelling the strange emptiness that had sprung up in his chest but he still felt better, at least. “Sorry I tried to kill you,” Keith mumbled, his warmth pressed to Lance’s other side. “Literally.”

“Please stop bringing it up,” Lance said without opening his eyes.

“You’re not going to let me forget it any time soon so I might as well,” Keith said, and Shiro let out a disgruntled noise as Lance opened his eyes, considering this.

“You know what, you’re right,” he said. “What sort of prize does ‘being skewered by your boyfriend’ net you? And not in the fun way,” he added, as this time Shiro actually groaned and lifted his head.

“No,” Shiro said. “We’re not doing this.”

“No, really, I need to know what this is worth,” Lance said thoughtfully. Now Keith groaned, and buried his face in Shiro’s chest. “Is this a ‘get out of training free’ card, because if so I’m invoking it the fuck now; Allura is going to kill us all tomorrow and possibly laugh as she stands over our graves.”

The bridge doors opened and everyone glanced in that direction, to see Matt tentatively leaning in. “Oh good,” Matt said. “You’re not having sex. Pidge and I are attempting to make pancakes out of … stuff, do you want in?”

“Stuff?” Shiro said, bypassing the rest of Matt’s statement.

“I’m in!” Lance said, wiggling out from under Shiro’s arm. “I haven’t had pancakes since we were on Earth! And Keith’s in too,” he announced, grabbing Keith by the shirt and pulling him after before he could voice opposition. This time, Shiro made a resigned noise of amusement and followed them all off the bridge.

#

So the pancakes weren’t a complete disaster, although Lance had to fetch a strangely-flustered Hunk to come deal with the pancake batter because it kept attempting to crawl up the mixing spoon. “You know that’s not natural, right?” Keith said, seated on the island counter and holding a drink between his hands, watching the chaos neutrally.

Illianya joined them a little while later, her golden hair down for the first time that most anyone had seen. Rian was following her like a lost puppy and giving Hunk absolutely dirty looks, which Lance caught on to immediately and locked in on the fact that Rian had some sort of puppy crush on Illianya with deadly accuracy. Keith watched Lance follow Rian around the galley for a bit, teasing him mercilessly until Illianya actually stepped in and put Lance on the floor with a simple throw.

That was the point that Hunk threw everyone out of the kitchen, and they filed to where the big table was in the dining area, Lance massaging his shoulder but blushing pink at the same time. “What is it with you and Alteans?” Keith asked as Lance settled into a chair, both elbows on the table and chin in his hands with a dreamy expression on his face. “You don’t have a crush on her now too, right?”

“What?” Lance looked affronted. “No!”

“You’re mooning over being thrown around like a rag doll,” Keith pointed out, and Lance tilted his head in his hands so he could cast a sly look down the table at Shiro, seated in a chair on his left with his arms folded and his eyes closed as if he was ignoring the commotion all around him.

“A guy’s got his kinks,” Lance said, and to his amusement Shiro’s mouth quirked. He was paying attention. “I mean, there is a line, though,” his attention drifted back to Keith. “A line in the sand, if you will.”

Keith flinched, although he tried hard not to. Lance didn’t say anything for a moment and Keith looked away. “All I’m saying is I’m not into knife play,” Lance said, but it was a little too late. Fortunately at that point Hunk brought in a very large platter of pancakes that were all a mossy green color. Lance was very glad that he’d gotten used to the peculiarities of Space Food because these were very green.

“I have no idea how these turned out,” Hunk announced, “since I didn’t make the batter, so you can all blame Matt if they make you sick.”

“Hey!” Matt said.

“They smell fantastic,” Allura said. “And that’s always a good start.”

It was comforting, in its own way, to have everyone at the table. Despite everything, all the conflict and disaster they had all managed to find their way back to the Castleship intact. Lance smiled as even Coran seated himself to try the Space Pancakes, and chatter was lively and warm.

Allura wasn’t kidding about the pancakes, they smelled heavenly; or at least they did to Lance. Keith was frowning at the ones put in front of him as if he was unsure what to do with them, but before Lance could lean over and steal a bite to antagonize Keith, Matt leaned across the table and swiped the top pancake off of Keith’s stack. Lance snickered as Keith gaped at him. Illianya said “Holt,” but there was no admonishment in her voice.

“Why do you call him that, but call Rian, Rian?” Pidge wondered aloud. “I mean, his name’s Matthaniel.”

Matt was nodding along in agreement until the end of Pidge’s statement. “Wait, no-”

“Matthaniel?” Allura said, and Lance couldn’t contain his laughter anymore, wheezing awkwardly and slapping the table with his hand.

“No it’s not,” Keith said, glancing to Shiro for confirmation. “Is it, Shiro?”

Without batting an eyelash, Shiro said, “Of course it is, right, Matthaniel?”

“I hate everybody at this table,” Matt said as everyone laughed, and Hunk patted his arm reassuringly.

#

“Is your name really Matthaniel?” Keith was asking Matt as they cleared the table. Shiro quirked a smile as he passed but didn’t interrupt, walking a step behind Allura and followed by Illianya as they returned to the bridge. Coran was already present, working away busily at his station, and he glanced up when the doors opened.

“Ah, Princess,” Coran said. “I’ve been monitoring the signal frequencies from the direction of our escape. It seems that they’ve dropped the jammer frequencies since the Yellow Lion escaped, but no pursuit so far.”

“Thank you, Coran,” Allura said, and folded her arms.

“What now?” Shiro asked, as Allura tilted her head, looking at the status readouts Coran kept open on the main screen when the ship was in flight. “The memory cores are a dead end, and while I’m certain some of the prisoners escaped I know not all of them could have bailed before the Galra caught right back up to them.”

“The totems are not integral to the function of Voltron,” Allura said, although she sounded disappointed. “I was just hoping to give you an edge, and an added boost.” She glanced over to Illianya, who looked less fierce without her hair tied tightly back. “Will you and your crew continue to stay with us aboard the Castleship?” she asked, and Illianya nodded.

“We’re down one skitter anyway,” she said. “They’re not exactly two-man craft. Besides,” a soft expression Shiro recognized crossed her face quickly, and it was all he could do not to smile himself. “I feel we would be able to accomplish much good together, Princess. If you’ll have us,” she added on quickly, realizing her presumption, “it would be an honor to serve with the Breath of the Lions.”

Allura smiled broadly. “I am quite happy to have more Alteans about,” she said. “Your crew is always welcome here.” She glanced to Shiro, then, but did not speak, clearly waiting instead for him to volunteer the idea that must be evidently brewing on his face.

“They’re going to come after us,” Shiro said, finally. “That entire thing was a debacle, and it’s frankly a miracle that none of us were killed or capture. Several different Galra ships saw us engage without forming Voltron, they’d be foolish not to try and strike at our perceived weakness.” He glanced over to Coran. “They’re probably tracking us even now.”

“They can’t be tracking us,” Allura said. “We used a wormhole to leave the system.”

“They’re following us,” Shiro said, and felt a sudden shiver wick down his spine. He didn’t suppress the resulting shudder. “I don’t know how, but I would bet the Black Lion on it.”

“Even if they were,” Allura said, “we did do quite a lot of damage to their fleet. The sensor scans showed just about every cruiser in need of major repairs, and the frigate appeared to be falling into the gas planet.”

Shiro said nothing to that, jaw set as he looked to the viewscreen. “So, what,” Illianya said, cutting the tension that had risen. “We just keep running?”

“We can’t run forever,” Allura said. “If they are tracking us, we have to put a stop to it.”

“So we stop,” Shiro said, “and let them come to us.” Both Allura and Illianya looked to him, and he continued. “We form Voltron, and we put an end to them tracking us.”

“Bait the trap and let the grifflespurt come to us,” Allura said softly, nodding her head.

“All right then,” Illianya said. “Even with only two skitters, we’re in.”

“No,” Allura said thoughtfully. “With Coran at the helm the Castleship is a formidable weapon in its own right, however with a larger crew manning its defenses…” Allura grinned wickedly. “I daresay that the Galra fleet that comes calling will be in for quite a surprise.”

#

Hunk was seated in the common room, on the sunken couch and staring out into space. Lance stood right by him, hands on his hips and clearly waiting to be noticed. “He’s been like that for a while,” Pidge informed Lance, seated on the other couch cross-legged, her laptop open on her lap as she worked on a filtering program.

Lance leaned in real close to Hunk, and then said loudly directly into his ear, “EARTH TO HUNK!”

Hunk let out a high-pitched little shriek and flailed his arms, smacking Lance away in the process as he promptly flopped over on his side and covered his face with both hands, beet red.

Pidge watched this from over the lip of her laptop’s screen. “That’s one way to do it.”

“LANCE,” Hunk yelled, without emerging from behind his hands.

“You okay there, bud?” Lance said. “Need anything? Coffee? A hot Altean girlfriend? A margarita?”

“I want a margarita,” Pidge said thoughtfully, and Lance squinted at her.

“Aren’t you like fourteen?”

“Go away,” Hunk moaned.

Lance took this request into account, considered it for a moment, and then sat himself down on the couch beside Hunk, if Hunk weren’t slumped all the way over to the other side. “If you need girl advice, you know you can hit me up anytime,” he said, grinning rakishly and more for Pidge’s benefit as Hunk wasn’t moving his hands. Pidge rolled her eyes.

“I don’t need girl advice,” Hunk muttered, but finally shifted, pushing himself back up into a seated position. His face was still flushed a deep red, and he refused to look directly at Lance. Lance chuckled and Hunk groaned. “I don’t.”

“You’re sweet on Illianya, it’s okay,” Lance said, and patted Hunk’s arm. “She’s fine as hell.”

“It’s not that at all,” Hunk said, and now irritation was beginning to creep into his voice. “The only reason she kissed me was because…” he trailed off and looked away, and his blush didn’t fade.

“Yeah, we only came in during the kiss,” Pidge said. “Why did she kiss you?”

“I think Yellow took over,” Hunk said. “I don’t know how we got back to the Castleship.”

“What?” Lance sat straight up now. “Like … what do you mean, ‘took over’?”

“I don’t know,” Hunk said, and folded his arms, tucking his chin down and staring at his knees. “We were still on the moon, at the Temple of Empedocles, and then, suddenly, Illianya was kissing me and we were out of the system.”

“Just… cutting in and out, just like that?” Pidge said, alarmed. “Straight up time-loss?”

“Yeah,” Hunk said. “Yeah, I don’t know what happened. It was really freaky.” He shuddered again, arms folded tight, and Lance looked to Pidge. “So, to answer your question Lance, she didn’t kiss me because she likes me.”

“Uh,” Lance held up a finger, while Pidge typed furiously at her laptop. “First of all, Hunk ol’ buddy ol’ pal, she absolutely likes you. She wouldn’t have kissed you if she wasn’t into you.”

“Lance-”

“No, hear me out,” he said. “I’m sure there were other ways to, IDK, knock you back into you, or Yellow out of you, or whatever-”

Pidge didn’t glance up. “Did you just say ‘IDK’?”

“A N Y W A Y,” Lance enunciated the word loudly, over Pidge, “she totally digs you, man. Go forth and get some long-overdue action.”

“LANCE,” Hunk moaned, embarrassed.

Pidge was concentrating so intently on her laptop that Lance finally looked back over. “What are you doing over there?”

“Trying to see if I can pick out when the Quintessence spike happened,” she said, still focused. “It registered on Green’s sensors overnight, before Hunk and Illianya got back.”

“Quintessence spike?”

“Yeah,” Pidge didn’t offer any additional explanation, but both Lance and Hunk stared at her until she sighed and looked up. “Do you mind?” she said. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna stare at you until you explain that.”

Pidge let out a groan. “Because of the location of our Lion’s launch bays, I outfitted Green with some extra sensory arrays to pick up stray - Lance do not make that joke, I swear to god - signals that might occur in deep space. It recorded a spike of background Quintessence radiation while I was in the cryo replenisher, and another overnight, but I hadn’t really looked at them yet.”

“ESA,” Lance whispered, delighted, when she paused. Pidge shot him a dirty look.

“Well,” Hunk said. “I would bet that the second Quintessence spike was Yellow, because when we went back to the temple we were following the glowy Quintessence lines and hoping to get a boost or something so we could make it to the edge of the star system before one of the cruisers caught up to us with its tractor beams.”

“Glowy lines?” Lance said. “We’re just going to ignore that he said that?”

“This was a short-range burst, in system here,” Pidge said, tapping the top lip of her laptop screen as she stared down at the information that only she could see. Suddenly, she paused. “Hunk, did you guys use a wormhole to get here?”

“I don’t know?” Hunk shrugged helplessly.

“That’s not possible, Allura has to use the teludav to open wormholes,” Lance said

“Yeah, but Blue opened a wormhole before we’d even met Allura,” Pidge said, and Lance’s brow furrowed as he realized that Pidge was right. “Blue was probably using up the last of her previous Paladin’s stored Quintessence.”

“Wait,” Hunk said. “The Lions can store Quintessence?”

“And I thought only Alteans could open wormholes,” Lance added.

“It’s just a guess,” Pidge said, aggravated. “I don’t know either, I’m just throwing noodles at the wall, here.” She sat back. “That doesn’t explain why Yellow took the driver’s seat when she could just, I don’t know, move herself instead of taking over her Paladin.”

“I don’t know about you but maybe we should be talking to Allura and Coran about this?” Lance said. “They know the Lions better than anybody on board.”

“And even they don’t know everything,” Hunk responded. “Neither of them has been a Paladin. We’re in uncharted territory here, Lance!”

“We still need to tell everybody,” Lance said. “And figure this out. Because, no offense to Yellow but I prefer my best friend to remain, uh, un-lion-ated.”

“Tomorrow,” Pidge said. “I’m going to run some of this information through the network I had set up with the memory core and see if I can pull anything useful out of the zetabytes of raw information.” She groaned. “I also have that massive infodump from when I was cloning the cruiser’s core memory.”

“Wait,” Lance said. “You have what now?”

“That reminds me,” Pidge said, and after fiddling a moment popped a small drive with the familiar Altean teal glow at its edge. She held it out. “Give this to Keith.”

“Why am I your courier?” Lance said. “What is it?”

“If Keith wants to show you he can, otherwise it’s his eyes only,” Pidge said, and Lance held up the drive, squinting at it, as if he could read the data contained with in with his bare eyeballs. “Anyway, I need to work on this as much as possible so I can get to the prisoner logs. I only have so many processors, I don’t think Coran would appreciate it if I hijacked the ship’s core memory for this, no matter how important it is.”

Lance and Hunk looked at each, and then Lance patted Hunk’s back. “Go talk to her, bud,” he said. “I bet you anything she really is into you.” He paused in patting Hunk’s back. “You are into her, right?”

Hunk gave Lance a wicked side-eye and Lance laughed and resumed patting his back. “Just a word of advice. Check that you’ve locked the door.”

“Oh my god,” Hunk groaned, and buried his face in his hands.

#

Keith was so distracted exiting the showers he almost walked straight into Lance. “Hey, dude,” Lance said, affronted, and Keith stopped dead in his tracks, a towel draped open over his damp head and wearing only his boxers.

“Oh, sorry Lance,” he said, and put his hands on the edges of the towel, as if anticipating Lance grabbing at it. There was a moment of strange, strained silence between them as Lance stared at him, then the stare softened at its edges as if to put Keith at ease. It didn’t feel right to relax, though, his shoulders bunched tight still. “You can sleep with Shiro tonight, I’m not in the mood.”

Lance frowned. “Man, I do not have to schedule my happy fun times with my boyfriend through you,” he said, and then backtracked very quickly with a pained expression. “Our boyfriend. Our boyfriend.”

Keith didn’t flinch at that, maybe he was just too tired and was numb now. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, the irritation too weak to be effective. “I just literally meant sleep, Lance.”

Lance blinked slowly. “Where will you sleep?” he said, and Keith shrugged.

“My bed,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and tugged on his towel which provided enough of a buffer that he didn’t have to look Lance in the eyes.

Lance blew out a breath and fished in his pocket for a moment, coming up with a small Altean thumb drive. “Pidge told me to give you this,” he said, and that distracted Keith, making him raise his head and look at the proffered drive. “What’s on it?”

This puzzled Keith. “I don’t know…?” he said, confused. “Did she say what was on it?”

“Nope,” Lance said. “Said it was ‘for Keith’s eyes only.’” He waggled the drive. “It must be something good if she won’t tell me what it is. Why don’t you go put on a shirt or something and we can have ourselves a little sleepover and see what sort of kinky porn Pidge dug up for you.”

“I didn’t ask Pidge for porn,” Keith said.

“You are far too literal sometimes,” Lance grabbed Keith by the shoulder and began practically dragging him down the hall. “Come on, I’m dying to see what’s on this thing and I’m not gonna look at it without you.” He looked over at Keith and grinned, and then squeezed his shoulder.

From somewhere Keith mustered his own smile, and was surprised, then relieved, to find it genuine.