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The first time it happened, Lance hadn’t even really been thinking about it.
Things have been relatively quiet with the Galra, so Allura has temporarily diverted the team’s focus toward building the coalition. Naturally, this means coordinating and attending a surplus of diplomatic meetings and rallies, accompanied by an unbelievable amount of space travel. They’re basically universal celebrities at this point, their schedules packed full with dinners and parties and interviews and gatherings of all kinds.
Lance knows the work they’re doing is important, because the more allies they have the better, the more street (space) cred they earn, the more other planets begin to take notice and feel empowered to rise up and take a stand. A little hope goes a long way, they’ve learned. Sometimes all it takes is a spark. But he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t exhausting, and it’s getting harder to keep up appearances.
The automatic translators built into the paladins’ helmets mean they don’t have to worry about learning any new languages, but sometimes Lance feels like they might as well have, considering how many different customs and traditions and rules and taboos they have to keep track of. That’s why they let Allura and Coran do most of the talking, as they’re much more well-versed in matters of interplanetary diplomacy and have a much easier time remembering which planets will or will not exile you for accidentally speaking in rhymes. Not that any of the paladins would know if they were, on account that they don’t actually know any of the languages.
Needless to say, it’s all getting to be a little… boring? Repetitive, definitely. Sometimes even stressful, depending on the planet and its local species. Allura promises they’ll take a break after finishing with the string of planets in the current quadrant of the current galaxy they’re in, and thank quiznak for that. The entire team has been struggling. Diplomacy takes a lot more mental energy and focus than people realize.
Unsurprisingly, Keith in particular has mostly hated every second of it.
They literally just have to get through this one last meeting. Allura wants to secure an alliance with the people of the planet Atheria, who are widely known for their incredibly fastidious, calculated nature. Every decision they make is painfully strategic, from their political dealings to what they eat for breakfast in the morning. It’s just how their brains are wired. As such, their decisions hold a lot of weight in this part of the universe. If Atherius agrees to align themselves with Voltron, it’ll likely influence many others to do the same.
Allura warned them all to be on their best behavior, but Keith is very quickly losing steam. He’s been antsy all morning, eyes wandering and feet shuffling, hands flexing constantly at his sides assuming that the arms they’re attached to aren’t already crossed over his chest. It’s a nervous habit that Allura has gotten onto him for on more than one occasion, since by now it’s common knowledge that the red paladin of Voltron is half-Galra, and it’s already hard enough trying to dispel certain aliens’ suspicions toward him because of it. She has a particular knack for it given her own history, but it’s not exactly a walk in the park.
But there are two sides to that same coin. The aliens they meet are often wary of Keith, but that means that Keith doesn’t always feel safe either, despite the team’s constant assurance that they all have his back. Social settings are already a struggle for him without the added pressure of being perceived as a walking contradiction to the purpose of the coalition.
To be fair, Keith really has gotten a pretty good handle on it lately (kind of, almost), but like with most things, some days are better than others. This day is just—a little worse, honestly. It doesn’t help that the room they’re in is lined with armed Atherian soldiers, surrounding them. Chances are it’s customary, meant to ensure the protection of their leader given the nature of this meeting, but it’s also very clearly meant to send a message. We don’t trust you. Not yet, anyway.
Neither does Keith, apparently. He can’t seem to make himself stand still, and it’s starting to put everyone around them on edge. Even some of the Atherian ambassadors have started to take notice, eyeing Keith warily from where they stand in the center of the room conversing with Shiro and Allura. Lance flashes them his most blinding smile, hoping it might be able to do some damage control. Allura is definitely starting to look a little desperate. Their eyes lock across the room and her own smile grows pained. Do something, she mouths pleadingly, before the Atherian counsellor turns back to her and she immediately schools her expression back into the perfect picture of intergalactic diplomacy.
Lance glances sideways at Keith, whose gaze is currently flicking wildly around the room as if he’s searching for an escape. There’s not much he can do without drawing more attention to them as a whole, so he simply smiles again and nonchalantly settles his hand against the small of Keith’s back, silently praying it’ll be enough to get the message across.
Keith stiffens at first, and for a moment Lance is sure that he’s going to snap at him until he sees the slow rise of his shoulders, and hears the release of a long, quiet breath. Their shoulders brush, and Lance blinks as Keith shifts closer to him, arms finally falling gently to his sides. He doesn’t dare move his hand away. Allura shoots him another look over the counsellor’s shoulder, equal parts exasperated and grateful.
The moment that everyone’s attention has gravitated back to Allura, Lance lowers his voice and leans in, ever-so-slightly. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Keith mumbles, hands curled loosely into fists in a deliberate effort to keep them still. His thumbs still rub the sides of his fingers, but at least it’s an improvement. “Sorry.”
“We’re almost done,” Lance promises quietly. “Hang in there.”
And he does. The rest of the meeting goes without incident, and despite everything they leave Atheria one ally stronger than before. Allura is over the moon about it, starts giggling and jumping up and down with Coran once they’ve made it safely back onto the castleship and excitedly congratulates the team on a job well done and a break well earned.
Only then does Lance take his hand away from Keith’s back, and only then does he realize that Keith had never moved away in the first place.
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The next time it happens, Lance knows instantly that it’s all he’s going to be able to think about for the foreseeable future.
Maybe it’s always been a thing and he only started noticing it recently? Or maybe it’s a new development, and that’s why he can’t seem to help but fixate on it. Either way, it’s really starting to do things to his heart. This is going to ruin him, probably.
They’re in the kitchen with Hunk, because Hunk needs a few willing taste testers for some recipes he’s been experimenting with, and also because Lance is hungry. It’s a mutual exchange. Lance is perched on the edge of the counter, swinging his legs back and forth as he watches Hunk flit about, measuring out strangely-colored ingredients and mixing things and double (triple) checking the food that’s already in the oven. Hunk’s ability to multitask is unparalleled, honestly. It’s a gift.
His gaze slides over to Keith, who’s leaning back against the counter next to him. He’s currently complaining to them about Shiro banning him from the training room for the next few days, hands waving animatedly through the air in that rare way they do when he really gets into something. Lance had been listening at the start—honest—but not really so much anymore. It’s Keith’s fault for being unfairly pretty, his hair still a bit wild and ruffled from sleep, the shirt he stole from Lance hanging off his shoulders in a way that just slightly exposes his collarbone. He only really becomes aware of the goofy smile on his own face when Keith catches him staring.
“I mean, I get that we’re on a break or whatever, Shiro says we should all rest or something, blah blah blah, and that’s fine, but if I want to keep training on my own then I just don’t see the problem with—what?”
Keith does a double take, hands stilling in midair when he realizes that Lance is watching him. Lance feels his smile grow, kicking his legs a few times. “Nothing,” he hums.
“Is there something on my face?” Keith mutters to himself, tugging self-consciously at some of the hair hanging around it.
“Nope,” Lance assures him cheerfully. “I just think you’re nice to look at.”
Keith’s cheeks flush pink in that same way Lance has grown so familiar with, spreading down to his neck and up to his ears, sometimes. His gaze flicks toward Hunk then down to his own feet, and he folds his arms over his chest as he clears his throat. “‘Kay, well. You’re not so bad yourself,” he mumbles.
Lance beams at him. “You mean it?”
Keith huffs softly, one corner of his mouth curling up into a smile as he turns his head to glance up at him. “Maybe.”
“Wow,” Hunk says, not even bothering to turn around from where he is now pulling a batch of what looks like pink cookies out of the oven. “That was really sweet, guys.”
“And he only blushed a little this time,” Lance teases, which only serves to make Keith blush again while rolling his eyes. He slings his arm around Keith’s shoulders and grins. “I’m so proud.”
The effect is instantaneous. Keith immediately leans into the touch and presses against his side, his elbow now resting on top of Lance’s knee, even as he grumbles something about “boyfriends” and “embarrassing.” Lance can’t be sure, because by then his brain has already stopped working.
That’s when Pidge walks into the room, takes one look at them and groans loudly. “Would you guys cool it with the PDA? I swear I can’t get a second of peace around here.”
“We’re not even doing anything!” Keith protests.
Pidge goes to take a cookie and promptly drops it with a yelp, sticking her burned fingers in her mouth. Hunk shoos her away and Keith laughs. Lance keeps staring.
Huh, he thinks idly, as his heart skips a beat then finally kicks back into gear.
“Seriously, are you okay?” He blinks back into focus to find Keith looking back up at him. Pidge and Hunk have started bickering over the cookies, completely oblivious to whatever’s taking place on the other side of the counter. Keith’s brow furrows in that very specific way it does when he’s nervous, and he lowers his voice. “You’re staring again.”
Lance grins. A plan is already starting to take shape in his head, a half-baked experiment that even Pidge and Hunk would be proud of. All he has to do is make sure that Keith doesn’t catch on. Keith, who’s seemingly subconsciously glued himself to Lance’s side and is still watching him, waiting anxiously for an explanation for his behavior.
“Like I said,” he starts, and feels his smile grow when Keith rolls his eyes again despite the fond curve of his lips. Oh, yeah. This is definitely going to ruin him. “You’re nice to look at.”
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Lance was right. It’s officially all he can think about. His Roman Empire, if you will.
His little experiment has probably been the most successful endeavor he’s ever achieved in his whole life up to this point. He can’t think of a single instance so far that Keith didn’t immediately prove his working hypothesis. No matter where they are or what they’re doing, the second that Lance puts a hand on him, Keith gravitates toward him like a moth to a flame, like a planet caught in his orbit.
Honestly, Lance has never been so happy to be right about something. Fingers brushing against his waist, a light hand on the small of his back, an arm slung around his shoulders—it doesn’t matter how subtle or how obvious the touch is, Keith always reacts. Lance is fully enamored by it.
So he just… keeps doing it. Makes a point of touching Keith at every available opportunity, just to bask in the closeness he knows will inevitably follow. He puts an arm around the back of the couch when they’re sitting together, just enough to brush his shoulder and have Keith leaning into his side within a matter of seconds. Loops an arm around his waist while they’re walking through the halls of the Castle, knowing Keith will instantly slow down to accommodate it. Hooks their ankles under the table at dinner and revels in the way Keith’s entire body seems to instinctively face him, even if he doesn’t acknowledge it.
But his favorite part? His favorite, is always when he puts a hand on Keith’s lower back, whether to pass by him during breakfast in the kitchen, or while they’re standing next to each other as Shiro lectures Keith on the importance of rest, or when he’s walking him to his room in the morning because they fell asleep in Lance’s. Because there’s something about that in particular that makes Keith practically melt into him, every single time without fail. He has no idea if Keith has even noticed, the touching or the reacting.
That is, until he finds Keith reading in the lounge one afternoon, and sits down next to him only to have his arm rather rudely smacked away when he tries to put it around Keith’s shoulders.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Ow!” Lance laughs, rubbing the offended area as Keith pulls his feet up onto the couch and shuffles around, hiding his face behind his book. “What was that for?”
Keith peers at him over the top of the pages, narrowing his eyes. “You’re not allowed to touch me until you tell me what’s been going on with you recently.”
Lance is helpless to the grin that takes over his face. Scratch that. Keith has definitely noticed. He supposes the experiment is over. “What? Me?”
“Yes, you.” Keith disappears behind the book again and Lance struggles not to laugh. “I’m not totally clueless, you know.”
Lance hums innocently, putting his hands on Keith’s socked feet and snorting when Keith kicks them away. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Keith drops his book into his lap with a sigh, leveling him with a deadpan look. “Don’t make me drag it out of you.”
“Drag what out of me?”
“You’ve been extra touchy lately. Like, extra extra. And that’s saying something.”
“Extra touchy, how so?”
“Would you just—!” Keith laughs brightly, kicking half-heartedly again in Lance’s direction when Lance tries to touch him again. “Are you trying to tell me you haven’t even noticed that you’re doing it?”
Lance actually pauses at that, the gears in his brain slowly turning. He thought he’d been found out, but now it’s starting to look like Keith has only solved the first half of the puzzle. Keith eyes him suspiciously as his smile grows, realization striking suddenly. “Wait. Me, notice what I’m doing? You mean you haven’t noticed how you react every time?”
Keith makes a funny face. “What?”
“You like it, don’t you?”
“What—I—well—” Keith sits up straight, and Lance’s heart swells with fondness as he stumbles over his words. He didn’t deny it, which is all Lance really needs to know. “But, what do you mean how I react?”
It’s Lance’s turn to laugh, softly as Keith blinks at him with his brow pinched in confusion. “You always, like… drift, when I touch you. Closer to me, specifically.”
Keith’s face flushes pink and his eyes widen slightly. “I do?”
“Yeah,” Lance huffs amusedly, taking the chance to finally tangle their fingers together and pull their hands into his lap. “You do.”
He smiles to himself as Keith’s gaze drops down at their linked hands, clearly reevaluating everything he thought he knew about the situation. This probably isn’t at all how he imagined this conversation was going to go when Lance walked into the room. He watches as Keith glances up at him and away again, clearing his throat.
“Okay, well… Maybe I just like being close to you,” he mumbles.
Lance beams at him. “I like being close to you too,” he hums. “And I really like that you like being close to me.”
Keith doesn’t have anything else to say to that, apparently. He stares down at his lap and shifts restlessly, his hands twitching a little in Lance’s hold. Lance immediately feels the smile drop from his face. He recognizes the signs that his teasing has gone just a little too far when he sees them. “Sorry. I’m not making fun of you.”
Keith huffs and looks away, his hair falling into his eyes. “I know.”
“I mean it. I think it’s really sweet, I was just—”
“I know,” Keith repeats firmly, tightening his grip on Lance’s hands in a way that immediately shuts him up, because of the very Keith-brand way that it screams shut up, it’s me, I’m trying to say something.
Lance lets his shoulders relax, crossing his legs and shifting so that they’re facing each other completely, letting Keith know that he has his full attention. He waits patiently as Keith tucks his knees into his chest, fingers still curled tightly around Lance’s like he’s trying to tell him he just needs a little more time. Lucky for him, they’ve got plenty of it.
He traces his thumbs over Keith’s knuckles, tilting his head. “What’s up?”
Keith swallows, hesitating. Lance can see him working his jaw, like he’s found the right words and is just struggling to get them out. “I think—” he starts finally, pauses, then starts again. “I think lately I’ve felt like I’m in this constant state of… panic, or something.”
Lance is quiet. They’ve stumbled their way into one of those rare moments of total vulnerability, where it feels like sharing secrets. “Yeah?” he says softly.
“Yeah,” Keith mumbles, still not quite ready to meet Lance’s gaze. “Just… there’s so much at stake right now. And I know, everyone keeps saying it’s ‘no big deal’ or whatever that I’m part-Galra, but I know it’s made everything really complicated, especially for Allura. I feel like a liability more than anything else. I’m always, like, mentally preparing for something to go wrong. And sometimes—” He hesitates again, and Lance can tell from the way that he hunches his shoulders that his confidence is wavering. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t trust myself, so why should you? I don’t know.”
Lance opens his mouth to argue. Obviously, because they’ve had this conversation a hundred times before, and he’s fully prepared to have it yet again if it means it’ll put Keith’s mind at ease. But Keith must sense that Lance is about to interrupt, because he sits forward and clutches at Lance’s hands, looking a little desperate.
“But I feel safe,” he blurts. “It’s—with you. I feel safe with you. I’m just, not used to having people in my corner, or whatever. And I think that I was alone for so long that I keep forgetting. That I’m not, anymore.”
Lance holds his breath. Keith’s cheeks are still dusted pink, like he’s still afraid of what might happen when he’s honest but he’s still trying. After a moment he swallows and looks away, like the weight of Lance’s gaze has become just a little too much for him to handle.
“It’s just easier, when you’re around,” he says quietly, gaze lowered. “Not to forget.”
They sit quietly for a moment as the meaning of Keith’s small confession settles between them. Keith’s hands twitch again like he might be embarrassed, but he still holds fast. Lance’s heart squeezes in his chest.
He looks down at their fingers wrapped around each other, so many of them rough and calloused and worse for wear. The hands of soldiers, clearly bruised and battered and capable of things they’ll wish they didn’t have to remember. And despite their appearance, despite everything, they still have the ability to carry so much quiet love and intention. Something he’d been afraid they would lose, until today.
Eventually he shifts, reaching forward to gingerly take the book from Keith’s lap and set it aside. “I’ll keep doing it, then.” Keith looks up at him then, his eyes shifting back and forth between Lance’s. Lance smiles, speaking quietly so as not to break the delicate moment they’re in. “I’ll keep doing it, until you don’t need to be reminded anymore.”
He can pinpoint the exact moment that Keith seems to find what he’s looking for, when his gaze settles and his shoulders relax. “Okay,” he answers quietly.
Lance’s smile grows a little, and he hums. “Plus, it’s a huge ego boost for me. My influence, or whatever.”
The spell breaks and Keith immediately rolls his eyes, finally letting go of Lance’s hands in favor of stealing his book back. “Ugh, please. Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late,” Lance sing-songs cheerfully, throwing his arm around the back of the couch as Keith spins back around to sit properly. “Maybe I’ll finally start that YouTube channel when we get back to Earth.”
“Please don’t.”
“D’you think I could make it as an influencer? I’m pretty enough, right?”
“Shut up,” Keith laughs, falling over into Lance’s side with a huff.
Lance obliges, miming zipping his lips as he wraps his arm fully around Keith’s shoulders. He raises an eyebrow when they seem to stiffen a little and peers down at Keith, who is definitely just pretending to be reading again. “...You totally just had to resist the urge, didn’t you?”
Keith slaps his book shut and Lance bursts into laughter as he’s tackled backward onto the couch, but he goes willingly, and Keith kisses him for it.