Tag: voltron

spaladin:

Okay but like, everything ends, Allura has gone to rebuild Altea but she leaves the space mice on earth to remember her by. Lance is sad and a little heartbroken, the team MUST go it’s seperate ways….everything is over.

Pidge and Hunk become the country’s top engineers. Keith opens an orphanage for kids who were just like him. Lance becomes a pilot instructor. Shiro just…sleeps I guess, finally getting the rest he deserves.

They meet up when they can. Here and there. But they’re never all together at once. It’s usually Lance, Hunk and Pidge, sometimes Shiro, but Lance notices that after a while, Keith mysteriously stays away.

“Hey, Shiro?” He asks after their latest meet-up. It’s been 8 years.

Shiro is happier than Lance has ever seen him, his eyes mostly free from the haunted look he’d carried with him for so long after Earth’s invasion.

“Yes, Lance?”

Lance scratches the back of his head, unsure why he’s nervous.

“H-have you any idea what Keith is up to? I mean… do you know why he couldn’t make it today?”

Shiro regards Lance with a strange expression.

“He’s just run off his feet, Lance. I’m sure he’d be here if he could.”

“Hmm.” Lance hums uncertainly. “It’s been so long.”

Shiro smiles. “When I next visit him I’ll be sure to pass on your thoughts.”

Lance is chewing his lip, frowning. “I wrote him a couple times.” He says, “He did write back but…I guess it was about a year ago now. We haven’t actually seen each other for years. H-Hunk and Pidge miss him a lot too. I – we just want him to know.”

Shiro places a hand on Lance’s shoulder.

“I’ll pass it on, Lance. He’ll appreciate it, I’m sure.”

There’s more Lance wants to say, but he can’t think how or even what it is. But he’s content with this for now.

Some months later, Lance receives a letter from Keith. He’s always wondered why they communicate like this. Why he couldn’t video-call him like everyone else did. But he never complains. No one else wrote letters to him, so he always knew it was Keith when one arrived.

Lance,

I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last letter. Things are wild here. The kids are damned near impossible to keep entertained and I can only the best I can… which takes all my time.

Lance pauses, guilty. It was he who hadn’t written back to Keith, the pressing weight of the fact had gnawed in the back of his mind for months…

Anyway, enough about me.

Lance snorts. That was barely two sentences. This was so Keith it was unreal and as Lance reads on, he finds himself biting his lip to keep from smiling so hard.

Shiro came by the other day and we talked about you guys a lot. He told me you all missed me, which made me remember everything from back then. I always felt bad for splitting so soon after it was all over. Despite voltron, despite our teamwork, I never felt like we really bonded. This might be a little too deep for a quick letter, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

I’ve sent a letter to Pidge and Hunk too, asking if you guys are all around to meet up in front of Allura’s statue this summer. I was thinking June 28th. The kids are going on a trip then, and mom and Kolivan assured me I won’t be needed, so I’ll be free to take the time to come down and see you all.

Let me know if you can make it.

Looking forward to seeing you again, Lance.

Keith.

So that’s exactly what they do.

Lance is early by almost an hour as he drives down to Allura’s tall, smiling statue. The area is deserted, the blue sky framing her pristine marble features like the sky had contrived it to be that way. Despite her likeness, the statue unnerves Lance. It’s nothing like her, and as he stands staring at it he feels an uneasiness in his stomach. He wonders what it would have been like if he’d accepted Allura’s offer to join her in rebuilding Altea. He thought of it often, and never forgot the moment he’d told her:

“No, I can’t. I have too much to stay for.”

“Am I not enough to leave for, Lance?” The question had been in her eyes. Thank god she hadn’t said it out loud, but they both knew it…

He wasn’t guilty for not leaving Earth. He was guilty for not telling the team. He hadn’t known how to look each one of them in the eye and say that something had held him back, he just…hadn’t been able to explain exactly what. Or who.

“Hey, man.”

A familiar voice sounds over Lance’s shoulder and he turns to see an equally familiar face, a little lined with age and experience but still stricken with that same, bold scar. But the face is smiling, though the smile is tight and tentative.

“Keith.” Lance says, blinking, “hey.”

They reach out and clasp hands, the first contact they’ve had in years.

‘How are you’s’ and ‘what have you been up to’s’ feel too mundane for this moment. Unfiltered understanding passes between them as they lock eyes, each trying to say a hundred things and each forgiving the other for matters they hadn’t even realised had been unsolved for this long.

Drawing in a deep breath, Keith pulls away first, and Lance feels quite stunned by the encounter, a strange urge to stay silent curbing his tongue.

“She looks great, huh?” Keith says, nodding at the statue.

Lance looks back at it, features softening with fondness.

“She sure does. She isn’t getting any older… unlike us.”

Keith laughs, ducking his head and tucking his hands in his pockets.

Lance blinks. “Woah, where’s your mullet, mullet?”

Keith colours, threading a hand through his ponytail.

“Oh, I err…grew it out.”

Lance tuts. “What a shame.”

Keith smirks. “I thought you hated it.”

Lance shrugs, somehow unable to meet Keith’s piercing indigo eyes.

“Nah. It grew on me after a while.”

The pause between them is pregnant with tension and meaning and Lance can hardly breathe. It has nothing to do with the heat.

“Well,” Keith says softly, “you’ve not changed much at all.”

Lance looks up. “You think so?”

Keith smiles. “Yeah.”

Lance wishes he could hold this moment still forever, but then Hunk and Pidge arrive, and they’re subject to one of Hunk’s bone-crushing hugs. It doesn’t take long for Shiro to turn up too, and then they’re all laughing and telling stories of the past and sitting on the ground and eating the food Hunk brought and playing with Pidge’s new miniature robots, laughing when one gets tangled in Keith’s hair (which Lance finds he can’t take his eyes off).

Soon, the sun begins to dip in the sky. It’s late afternoon, and they only have minutes left.

“We should take a picture.” Keith blurts out.

Lance is the first to meet his eye. “Yeah.” He agrees, not breaking eye-contact. “We should.”

Setting Shiro’s camera on a timer, they huddle together, making sure to get Allura’s statue in the background. Lance flings his arms over Hunk and Pidge, Keith stands by them and Shiro peaks over them all. Then it really is time to go.

“Hey,” says Lance, catching up with Keith as he makes his way to his hover-bike. “I was thinking… we should hang out more.”

Lance realises how lame he sounded and feels heat rush to his face. But Keith grins.

“Yeah. I’d like that. What are you doing now?”

“Now?” Lance blinks.

Keith shrugs. “I wasn’t going to go home straight away. I was gonna…ride around the mountains a little, I guess. It would be nice to have some company.”

Heart pounding in his chest, Lance is almost skipping with exhilaration at the prospect.

“You trying to bond with me or something?” A loud voice in Lance’s head tells him to shut up.

Keith’s eyes sparkle in the setting sun. “Something like that.” He raps the bonnet of his bike. “Hop on then. Unless you’re scared.”

Lance scoffs, flinging himself into the seat.

“Me? Scared? Think again, samurai.”

“Roger that, sharpshooter.”