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autisticlancemcclain · 6 months

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My Dearest La

Dear La

Lance,

I really hate it when you’re right.

I know you are smiling as you read this. I can see it so clearly in my head. You are rolling your eyes now, probably, in fact you are probably even straining yourself. But I bet you are still smiling.

…

I miss you.

You told me leaving was stupid. Well, we screamed about it. I don’t like that I left angry. I should have waited so we could have been — well, I don’t know. I just don’t like that I left without saying goodbye properly. I don’t like that I didn’t get to kiss the smush between your eyebrows that you get when you’re mad

The bottom line is that I’m sorry. And I can’t do anything about it now because what’s done is done but. I wish I did. I’m sorry this message is so dorky. I can’t help how I feel about you. I promise I’ll be more — suave, or whatever, in my next one. There’s this Blade I hang out with sometimes, Sedrit, she is awkwardly funny like you. She has promised to give me some pointers because she’s as nosy as you are and read over my shoulder all the other times I tried to write this letter. I don’t trust her judgement but I��d walk into a wall on purpose in front of Pidge’s cameras if I could guarantee it’d make you laugh I think we could always use a smile. I’m ending this letter now because I’m embarrassed and if I write one more line I’ll lose my nerve.

Love,

Warm regards,

Sincerely,

Love,

Keith

———

“Sir? Sir! Hold on! Sir!”

The Balmeran turns, looking back at him curiously. He leans heavily on his cane, back hunched but chin set squarely.

“Yes, Blade?”

Keith jogs all the way over to him, stopping a respectful distance away. He reaches up to deactivate his mask, which he is not supposed to do, but the mask is fucking creepy, okay, it makes people uneasy so clearly that even Keith can see it, so fuck Kolivan’s lectures. He’s vindicated by the visible relaxing of the Balmeran’s shoulders.

“I need — a favour,” Keith says haltingly. His own shoulders begin to hunch. “If you don’t mind.”

The Balmeran’s stiff brows lift in surprise. He looks deliberately down at his newly-bandaged leg, then back up at Keith. Keith flushes.

“A… favour.”

All the pockets on Keith’s uniform are square-shaped and small. Deep, but not very long. Anything he puts in there gets squished. Except for the long, thin pocket-thing hidden against the outside of his thigh.

The letter has been stuffed carefully in there for two weeks. It’s a miracle it hasn’t been destroyed. The top left corner of it has gotten frayed, because Keith keeps catching himself rubbing it with the pad of his thumb.

“I know you’ve been through so much,” Keith says quietly. “I’m sorry even to ask.”

The Balmeran’s stance is still carefully guarded, practiced —

“As have you.”

— but his eyes are soft and knowing.

Keith lets out a long, heavy breath. He slides the letter gently out of its spot, turning it over in his hands; inspecting the familiar creases, ink stains. It’s a rough, recycled envelope. Made out of old briefing notes, by the looks of it, thick black lines of censorship streaking across the pale yellow surface. An ugly thing, really.

“I need to get this to the Red Paladin of Voltron,” he says, forcing himself to hand the thing over. “I don’t — I can’t send it through the Empire delivery service, for obvious reasons. And Voltron’s location is always encrypted. I —” He stops, mouth clamping shut, because suddenly the words have become impossible to force out through the lump in his throat. He hasn’t talked to the team in weeks. He has no way of contacting them without putting them — or himself — in danger. There will be absolutely no way for Lance to send him a letter back, even if he wants to. The whole thing seems, abruptly, a painful kind of hopeless.

And yet.

“I will pass it along,” promises the Balmeran, voice flooded with kind understanding. He wraps his hands around Keith’s, squeezing once, before gently prying the letter out of his clenched fingers. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I have a someone who works in Emerg-med. She travels frequently, and should be able to take it farther than I can.”

“Thank you,” Keith chokes out, blinking rapidly.

The Balmeran smiles. “Keep strong, child.”

———

“Granddaughter,” greets the old man warmly. The young woman turns at his voice, laughing in delight when she sees him and enveloping him carefully in an embrace.

“Grandfather! You’re well!”

“I’m alive,” he corrects, teasingly.

She takes the jest in stride. “You are alive, and so you are well. I am so happy to see you.” There is genuine love in her voice. She holds tightly to his arm. “Are you staying in care long?”

He shakes his head. “No, dear. I dropped by only to see you. And,” he digs around in his pocket, carefully extracting a letter, placing it in her waiting hands, “to ask a favour.”

“A letter?”

“For the Red Paladin, from the Black.”

“I see.” She frowns thoughtfully, turning the paper over in her hands. “Last I heard, they were rebuilding on Ilso. I am going only as far as Igrendia, to visit my cousin.”

“Pass it along then,” he suggests.

She promises she will.

———

A young girl, to her cousin: “Imeld! Can you pass something along for me?”

A cousin, to her lover: “If you could drop it off at the supply camp when you stop by.”

A lover, to his father: “A friend of mine works in that fuel stop. Let him know I sent you?”

A father, to a friend of a friend: “Only a couple stops left, I reckon.”

A friend of a friend, to a friend of a friend, to a friend of a friend: “It’s almost there.

———

A friend of a friend of a friend, to a Paladin:

“I think this is yours. It’s travelled a while.”

———

A smile aches at the apples of Lance’s cheeks. Salt drips onto his tongue, and he swallows, breath shuddering.

“You — dorky asshole,” he whispers, and tucks the envelope in the secret pocket on the thigh of his undersuit.

———

Lance,

I have no idea if my last letter got to you. I hope it did, if not, here’s the rundown: you were right, I regret leaving, and I miss you.

Anyways.

Today I was on a mission in a planet that was just a huge wildflower field. Just — hundreds of hundreds of flowers, every colour you can imagine and then some. It smelled like you. I cried.

Do you remember when we snuck out of that negotiation — thing? Whatever it was? And you poked me hard in the arm and loudly complained about how much of a bummer I was being. And you dared me to roll down the hill with you. And when I was laughing at the bottom of the hill because you had just so much grass in your hair you crawled over me and kissed me like you’d been waiting to do it.

I remember how we kissed until my lips bruised after. And then we just lay there, until I got fidgety, and then you pulled us both up and walked around picking flowers and sticking them in my hair and snickering. This was the flower. Doesn’t it look like the one you brought back?

I thought of you a lot today. It hurt a little bit. A lot bit. I missed you until it ached.

I hope I see you in the flowers again soon.

I love you more than the stars

Love, and lots of it,

Keith

———

“Hey, Sedrit.”

His voice is as hushed as he can make it. He doesn’t want to wake the others. But she won’t be asleep — she never sleeps before big missions. She says it’s because the adrenaline keeps her alert, puffing up her chest. But Keith knows that she prays because she is afraid that she will die.

She doesn’t answer, so he kicks the bottom of the mattress above him. He hears a huff, and then seconds later, a curtain of hair flops over the side of the top bunk, and her wide, pupil-less eyes blink into focus.

“What do you want, shithead.”

He smiles at her guiltily. “A favour?”

“Ugh.”

But she looks at him in begrudging acceptance.

“I need you to — drop something off, when you go to El-dan. Ask another Blade there if they could pass on a letter.”

She must read his tone, because the annoyance vanishes from her expression. She reaches over and flicks him in the nose.

“Yeah, lovebird. I can pass on your letter.”

———

“Hey, man, could you send this along the next off-world?”

“What for?”

“For true love. Or because I asked you to.”

———

“I don’t know what it is. It’s classified. But it needs to get to the Red Paladin.”

———

“I heard it’s news of an ambush!”

“Well, it can’t be news now. It’s weeks old at least.”

“Yes, well, drop it off anyways. It’s Voltron business, you know.”

———

Lance’s door slide opens.

“I have — correspondence,” says Allura, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I was informed of a possible ambush? Perhaps we should read the letter together.”

Prepared remark about greetings and knocking and why they were invented flee Lance’s tongue, and his controller clatters to the ground in his haste to meet her.

“Lemme see,” he demands, snatching the letter straight from her hands. Her protests fall on deaf ears.

You were right, I regret leaving, I miss you.

He grins.

“What is that?”

“No ambush,” he says breathlessly, floating back over to his bed. He traces the shape of every letter, the blots of smudged ink. The scratch of the words is just as important as the content of the letter, Lance has found. He’s long since memorized the first letter, but he still finds himself drawing it out of his pocket, unfolding it with a shaky sort of reverence, studying every slanted T and looped L, closing his eyes and letting the impression of the ink burn into his eyelids. The cadence of the words have become song, hummed over and over and over again in his head.

This time, there’s a drawing. It does indeed look similar to the one hanging, dried, at the head of his bed. He presses the tip of his thumb into the center of it, breathing hard, rapidly blinking away the tears so they don’t drop and ruin the paper.

“I remember,” he manages, half-choked. “I remember, I remember.”

When he looks up again, hours have passed, and Allura has long since left, closing the door quietly behind her.

———

Lance, my love,

I know we do not talk about the observation deck.

It is your sacred place, I think. When you sit in the middle of the floor and look up at the glowing stars and the planets cast shadows on your face and make your eyes shine gold as sunlight the only way to describe you is holy. The first time I ever saw you like that it made my stomach hurt. When I think about it now I miss you so much the ache spreads all the way to my teeth.

When I was a kid I read about how grief makes you hurt but time makes you forget. I read about how men begin to forget the shape of their late wives’ smile. Or the slope of her nose. I read about how children begin to forget the slant of their fathers’ shoulder. How mothers forget the way their babies curled their fist.

Missing you hurts like unravelling. You’re all I think about. I will never forget the fit of your hand in mine as long as I remember how to speak. And I will know the ridges of your teeth so long as I can taste. I will know the length of your back as long as I can walk. I will remember the curve of your lips as long as I can blink. I will know the way you glowed in floating blue starlight until my brain shuts down and my organs fail me.

Patroclus said I will know him in death and at the end of the world.

I will know you every waking second of my life, and I will make myself remember for every nanosecond in between.

Nothing will compare to holding you in my arms again.

Keith

———

Sedrit has officially been declared missing in action. A new soldier has taken her bunk.

Keith’s stomach hurts all the time, now.

“Just — one time,” Keith begs.

“You have way more training than that job requires,” says Kolivan.

“I know. I just —” He realises, suddenly, that even if he had an argument he does not have the strength to make it. The letter creases in his clenched hands. “Please.”

For a long moment the Blade leader does not speak. Keith meets his searching gaze, but his eyes are blank, unfocused. Exhaustion pulls at his features. His hood droops on his shoulders.

“In an out, Keith,” Kolivan relents finally. “A supply mission should take less than four vargas. I want you back here then and not a tick later, so you understand?”

Keith could cry in relief, but Kolivan looks stiff enough already. Should Keith express an emotion in front of him he might be forced into a total system reset, and his programming might not be prepared for that.

“Thank you,” he says instead, and rushes off before he can change his mind.

Matt is leading the supply run. This letter might land right in Lance’s hands.

———

“I’ll get it to him, Keith.”

“Thank you, Matt. I owe you.”

“Take care of yourself, man. They all miss you.”

“…I miss them too.”

———

Matt hands him the letter without a word. No one else says anything, either, when he clenched it tightly between his thumb and forefinger and walks right out of the bridge. Not even Shiro, whose gaze Lance can feel bore a hole into the back of his head.

You’re all I think about, writes Keith’s neat cursive, and Lance presses the paper to his chest and cries.

———

My Lance,

I hate it here.

I miss you.

———

Alarm bells shriek through the headquarters. Keith has become numb to them, at this point.

He slides the letter in between the pages of an intelli-file and hopes.

———

CLASSIFIED

FOR VOLTRON’S EYES ONLY

BIOMETRICS REQUIRED

WILL SELF DESTRUCT

———

There is a letter waiting on his bed when Lance gets back from his mission on Efid-d. He has not slept in three days. His vision is blurry.

He falls asleep with the paper open in his hands, mirroring the curve of Keith’s body.

———

My love,

Naxzela. Soon. I think Kolivan knows there’s something wrong. I’m gonna I might I think I can stay, for a bit. Hopefully.

Well, I will see you again. Damn it all. I don’t care about the world I don’t care about the Empire I don’t care about anything, anymore, I just want to come home —

Naxzela.

It will be weeks until I see you face to face on this mission but already everything seems less bleak. I will admit some of the anger has crept in. I feel awful. I’m trying to remember what you said, in the very beginning, before you kissed me in the flowers. When you held my hands in the purple light and said we make a good team.

I know you say you don’t remember it, you goober. You do. You get embarrassed when I bring it up, that’s how I know. You always get embarrassed when you’re caught being vulnerable.

I loved you then, you know. I didn’t know it then but I did. I thought about your hand in mine for weeks. You have always been so central to me.

Soon, sweetheart. Soon I can hold you again.

Naxzela.

———

He doesn’t bother sending this one along. He tucks it in the secret pocket on the side of his pants, and with every passing day it grows heavier and the weight on his chest grows lighter.

———

When the shield closes over the planet and Keith says, it’s been an honour serving with you all, the scream starts at the bottom of Lance’s feet. It comes up to his knees when he sees the pod speeding towards it, up to his chest when Shiro barks at him to stay in formation. It catches in his throat as he wrenches Red away.

It echoes through space when the pod hits the shield in a shower of blue sparks and grey smoke, and Prince Lotor defects to their side one nanosecond too late.

———

The beep of the healing pod synchs with Lance’s heartbeat. It can’t quite drown out the screech echoing in Lance’s head; that keeps going, and going, and going.

Soon, sweetheart.

He sobs into the half-burned paper.

———

“You better keep your promise, you dorky asshole.”

———

Healing pods have always smelt, inexplicably, of burnt hair.

He hears the slide of the glass door opening, then the whoosh of air as he pitches forward before his arms are awake enough to stop him. Luckily, he falls right into bony arms, and the smell of flowers and sunshine quickly envelops him.

“You motherfucker,” says a voice, heavy with tears, and Keith smiles.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he croaks.

His Lance sobs. The hands on the sides of his arms slide slowly down to his wrists, gripping tightly. Keith forces his eyes open, blinking away the bleariness. Lance has his own eyes squeezed shut, like he’s too afraid to look, head bowed.

Well, that simply won’t do.

“Lance, baby, look at me.”

“You motherfucker,” Lance repeats, and finally he does look up but he’s glaring angrier than Keith has ever seen him. Keith grins wider. “You motherfucker, you damn near lied to me.”

Slowly, half convinced he’ll move to fast and wake up on his bunk, alone, he reaches up and cups Lance’s cheeks. He swipes his thumbs carefully over wet cheekbones, exhaling shakily, revelling in the feel of Lance’s skin under his, finally, finally, finally.

“I’m home, Lance,” he whispers. Tears spring from his own eyes. “Sweetheart, I’m home.”

“Stay,” Lance begs, like he should have months and months ago, like he meant to, like he wanted to.

“There’s no other option,” Keith promises, and as he leans in and presses their lips together, finally, tasting the salt and licking the ridge of his teeth and swallowing every shuddering breath, he vows to never send a letter again.

He’ll tell Lance all he needs to hear himself.

———

all art by @mothmanavenue

concept from this post

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mothmanavenue · 5 months

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You said, "Forever, " and I almost bought it

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badsongpetey · 7 months

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My submission for @erithel 's Gone comic contest 💜 This comic is such moving story of trauma, sacrifice, and love (with a happy ending), and it's been very special to me. She has these reoccurring themes of reflections: how two people can experience the same event very differently; and how trauma can be reflected back at you even after the event is over. Probably the image that hit me the hardest was Lance collapsing in the shower, overwhelmed. It's so real. And the idea of him trying and not being able to take comfort in his element (water), is so poignant. Erithel is an amazing artist. Go read Gone and follow her if you aren't already 🥰

#gone comic #this was one of the first comics I followed when I started in the fandom #as someone with ptsd it means so much to see trauma represented and not avoided or glossed over #angst with a happy ending #erithel is a genius fr #klance #voltron #lance mcclain #keith kogane #vld #fanart #fan comic

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justaz · 3 months

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thinking about klance.

keith who is always left behind and abandoned, either voluntarily or not. keith who has trouble trusting people and talking to people and getting along with people and-…keith having trouble with people in general. keith who is used to fending for himself and not relying on anyone bc the two (2) times he’s done that, his parents and shiro (died, left, disappeared), didn’t end well. keith who despite finding shiro again couldn’t help the gap forming between them as his brain and heart insist that something will happen again and shiro being here isn’t permanent. keith being proven right in season 2/3 and being left alone again.

lance who is SO trusting that he comes across as a bit naive. lance who worked hard to get where he is, who studied and practiced day and night to be at the top of the class. lance who always fell short and just missed the cut and ended up a cargo pilot. lance who only excelled once keith was gone but was stuck living in his shadow. despite the fact that iverson was mean to keith, keith was his favorite student and iverson always held a grudge for lance taking his place and was downright cruel to him at times. lance who started a rivalry w keith in his head bc he was determined to prove that he could be better than keith. lance who was moved from blue to red paladin, following after keith yet again. lance who worked hard to prove that he was worthy of being red paladin but always failing bc he was never keith, he was never good enough.

klance who found what they lacked in each other. lance who was there for keith when it seemed like the universe was crumbling down around him. lance who stood by keith’s side and told him what he needed to hear, supporting him being leader and helping lead the team together. keith seeing lance as an equal and relying on him the way lance relied on him. keith who was loved and supported by someone who never left, lance who was seen for who he was and who never doubted him or his place on the team. klance who turned on each other.

keith who turned into what he hated and leaving lance behind. lance who saw keith as weak and selfish for leaving him the team behind. keith who came back to a lance who was so angry and upset, but who never left his side bc lance was just Like That. lance who was so hurt and upset, who said cruel things in the vacuum of space, but keith never saw him as less for it, who never got angry enough to hurt lance back.

at the end of everything, lance searching for keith to sit at his side as they watched the sunset bc lance will always be at keith’s side. keith who told lance how relieved he was and hopeful bc he knows what lance is capable of and how much he needs him. klance being what the other needs, holding each other’s heart in their hands but never taking the opportunities to crush each other. lance who never left keith behind, keith who never saw lance as less despite the vitriol he spat at times.

#soulmates #idk if i articulated my thought well enough #but it is what it is #i just wanted to get this down #they are exactly what the other needs #they could be each others downfall but they love each other too much to do so #lance who could prove to keith that his mind is right - that keith is doomed to be alone. that everyone will always leave him.#keith who could prove to lance that his mind is right - that lance will NEVER be good enough for anyone. that hes unworthy of veneration #klance who could utterly destroy one another and have enough reason to but never doing so #theyre on like a dangerous precipace but their love for one another is enough to keep them from falling to their doom #does this make them two sides of the same coin? kinda right?#lance mcclain #keith kogane #klance #vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender #chracter analysis #does this make sense #angst #klangst #but also not #but also yes #keith angst #lance angst

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retvenkos · 1 year

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solar flares | k.k.

requested Voltron: Legendary Defender — Keith Kogane x Reader, angst, fluff

word count: 3.6k prompt: “things you always meant to say but never got the chance” A/N: hello hello hello, old friends. i am... perhaps back, perhaps just dropping something off before i disappear into the void once more. i want to get back onto tumblr but also i have the most anxiety over it so i’m kinda just,,,, vibing. it will work itself out in time <3. i’m kinda on the fence with the ending on this one but also i love keith kogane, and this is your daily reminder that he.

Summary: Time is cruel - it is it’s right. Here, in the Quantum Abyss, where time means everything and nothing, Keith has to reconcile with all that time means, now that it separates him from you.

In every solar flare - in every incandescent glimpse of his long-aching past - Keith saw you.

In the beginning, they were longer memories - moments recent and still fresh in his mind - arguments in the Castle of Lions, the words fierce and sharpened to an ever-stinging point. The apologies that always followed — the weight on his shoulders dragging him down, the pressure of the universe seated on his chest. You'd look at him with clouded eyes — like you knew you shouldn't believe him but wanted to nonetheless, and Keith wouldn't be able to shake it all night long.

Then, another memory: the moment of his departure — that longing in his bones he couldn't be rid of. There'd been something calling him — the promise of a mission grander than everything his fragile mortality had ever been, the guarantee of something more. It had been crushing. It had dragged him to the floor like lead.

He had somehow felt so alone in this great expanse of universe, but even then, there was you. Your eyes — filled with some kind of mourning — a smile on your face despite, and all the makings of a yearning farewell on your lips as you watched him go. Your jaw hadn’t trembled, and your shoulders hadn’t bowed; you'd been solid - the rock that always kept Keith grounded, even if he was halfway gone. He almost didn't know what to do and how to leave it all behind, but then you raced after him for a more private goodbye. Your voice had faltered as you held him tight and said you would miss him more dearly than sunlight on Earth.

"I trust you—" and there was something acerbic in the rawness of your truth "—so I won't tell you to be safe or to come back to me. I won't ask for things you can't guarantee. Just find what you're looking for, Keith… and if you ever do find your way back, bring me something good."

And in that moment, you looked so lovely, and Keith didn't know how to tell you that nothing would compare or ever be good enough for the brilliance of your being. What good could he possibly find, out there, when you were right here? What beauty could lay in store for him when he was leaving you behind?

It should have changed his mind, but it didn’t. The yearning he felt in his being then… It had been so strong and overwhelming - almost like it wasn't his at all but had fastened itself to his very bones for reasons he couldn't comprehend. The desire to follow where this new mystery led had been so fierce and untempered - a fire that reminded him of something he'd once been.

He had thought, then, that it threatened to eat him alive; it was nothing compared to the guilt that consumed him now.

But your eyes had shined like constellated skies, and a single tear fell down the curve of your cheek like a shooting star. Keith held you tighter, and for a breath that should have lasted an eternity, he couldn't pull away. There had been so much he wanted to say to you right then - so much he had mulled over and practiced for hours on end - but none of it came. All of his words caught themselves on the barbs of his ribcage, and all his farewells failed to assemble in his throat.

"Always," was all that made it past his lips. It wasn't nearly enough.

And for every moment thereafter - when he revisited this moment in his mind and drank it like a poison he couldn't be rid of - he had speeches and poetry to bare his soul. He had essays and dissertations to explain what lay amongst his tangled and frayed mind. Every moment remembered, after, was filled with the things he didn't say, but it was pointless, now, and that was a particular ache in his chest. You weren't here to listen, and the moment was already gone.

I love you. And I love you because my whole world is you, and it always has been. You constellate the galaxies, and you solve all my mysteries, and sometimes I fit in the palm of your hand.

The flare would pass. He'd no longer be blinded by the light. Keith's mind would clear, and that void named space would fill in around him once more.

But your ghost was tricky, and it liked to linger under his skin. Its favorite amusement was to swim in the deep wells of his thoughts — spiraling down, down, down - no matter how it tortured him, and no matter how it was an injustice to you.

But nevertheless, the flares would come, and so too, would your ghost.

Soon enough, the memories were less coherent. The solar flare would flash, the universe would still, and for a moment, Keith would see the curl of your grin or feel the pressure of your shoulder against his. Sometimes, they were just impressions - the knowledge that for those moments when his world went white, you were beside him, and he was home. Home - in that living room where the both of you had pieced together the mystery that started everything: the caves with the lion carvings, the desert with its secrets. Home - where all this nonsense began. It was like he could reach out, and his corkboard would be before him, and you would be flipping through miscellaneous books on his right. "Come look at this," he could hear you saying, "you'll never believe what I found."

Other times, it was only your voice - soft and low, the way it would be when you were serious and thinking, that Texas drawl still hanging onto every other word and coloring your speech like a fading memory. Like a secret the two of you kept; like the past you had once built together.

“Just find what you're looking for.”

But Keith didn’t know how to reconcile all that he left behind.

One time, the solar flare had been particularly bright, and Keith nearly thought he saw the future. But no - he was in deep bad enough already. Better to not confuse dreams with premonitions.

But your eyes had been shimmering with relief, and you ran into his arms without thinking, and when you crashed your lips against his, the world was like a mystery that fell into place.

But no - better to not breathe hope where all he had left was abandon.

“So…” and it was raining fairly heavily - or whatever constituted rain, on this strange creature, in this even stranger Quantum Abyss. The fire was crackling and hissing in the shelter Keith had assembled and expanded over the months, and on the other side of the flames, Krolia’s purple eyes danced. “Who’s (Y/n)?”

"How do you know that name?"

And Krolia seemed to like the defensive edge in her son's voice. Keith pretended not to notice the smile that spread across her face, the pride that had started to settle in her facial lines. "I see them, sometimes. The same way you see people I once knew."

The wolf stalked at the entrance of the shelter. He waited impatiently for the weather to turn, and he whined at the precipitation. He wanted to be away from the smoke and this pesky conversation. He longed to run free.

"It's not like I'm trying to, you know. With time collapsing here and us living in such tight quarters, there's no delineation between my memories and yours. You see my remembrances of your father, and I see yours with them."

And it wasn't even that he was ashamed or felt awkward talking about you. Keith just wasn't sure if he deserved to utter your name.

"Yeah, I know," Keith sighed and pushed his ever-growing hair off his brow. If time truly was different here, would he be older than you now? You had always liked your six-month seniority, and there had been a time when you playfully held it over his head. Part of him longed to joke that you couldn't boss him around anymore. But when he got back - if he made it home to you in one piece, with something good and apologetic in hand - would you be in a playful mood?

Krolia sat motionless - waiting for him to respond. Always so silent, always unmoving - it was as though every moment, she was drinking him in, trying to make up for all those lost years in the span of an instant. Always so patient - Krolia would wait forever for him to continue, and Keith knew she would never forget or let it go.

Would he look at you the same?

"(Y/n) and I..." and it was stupid and pointless that it was this hard for Keith to talk about you out loud. But where would he start? In the beginning, when you were little things that met before his world was taken from him? With your trip into space, him coaxing you the whole way there? With the moment he realized he loved you - inconsequential and insignificant, in a time that belonged to him no longer, on a planet he might never return to? Or should he begin with the loss of you? Should he start his tale moving backward and rip himself apart to decipher where it all went wrong?

Maybe he should just lie - make something beautiful and fleeting, tied with a silver bow.

He might never survive this mission, and anything he said here would be lost to the Abyss. He could claim whatever he wanted and leave out whatever he liked, and it might not matter, besides.

"I left them behind." And there it was, again. That inability to speak his mind — that barrier between his thoughts and his voice, where everything became bottlenecked, then fermented, and eventually died. Krolia was silent, still. "I brought (Y/n) out here to space when they didn't want to go, and I convinced them by saying we'd do it together."

The wolf was whimpering at the mouth of the shelter. He was pawing at what one might consider the dampness of the earth.

"But here I am."

"Yes," Krolia nodded, but her eyes were sparkling no longer. "Here you are."

And they were silent until the storm let up.

The vengeance of the solar flares never abandoned him. There was always you. Catching his eye from across the room and winking; taking your place on the Bridge with a clenched and determined jaw; drumming your fingers against the grip of your blade as you danced around him - playful yet focused before your strike. You never left him, and so the memory of you always ached. Deeper than this Quantum Abyss, more profound than any other memory beside. The sun would flash, and Keith would be suspended in memories that haunted him forever.

Perhaps it was all he deserved. Maybe this was some celestial form of penitence for how he left things and how he allowed them to degrade before he had vanished.

But if it were really you - the whole you and not just these fragments he was left with - he liked to think you wouldn't be so cruel. That at the very least (a least he didn't deserve, perhaps, but a mercy you'd allow him - if not for your love of him then some kind of sympathy beside), you would have let him sleep.

These days, he couldn't get much by way of shut-eye. Solar flares were tricky things - more vivid than dreams, so immersive they'd fool you into believing that moment and nothing else was real.

And sometimes, you would be laughing so hard the sound reverberated through his very being. And sometimes, you would hold him like he had never left.

There was no telling how deep this Abyss went, or what even lay in wait at the bottom. Perhaps it would take another two years more. Perhaps it would take decades and when he returned, you wouldn't recognize the person he'd become.

Keith kicked at a rock - or whatever resembled a rock, on this on this unbearable creature, in this near unendurable Quantum Abyss. It skid to a halt, the earth soft enough to absorb the impact. He sighed, kicking at another, and part of him was waiting for you to fill the blanks in between — "I know a broody sigh when I hear one. What's your trouble this time?"

And it would soothe all his woes, coaxing a smile to his face, despite. He'd turn to you haphazard, and the way you cocked your brow would be enough to pacify the worst of him. "And what if my trouble is you?"

You'd push him gently to sway. "An easy remedy, then. I'm always fixin' to change."

Was this what insanity felt like? For your mind to be trapped someplace where your body wasn't?

"I've left people behind too, you know." And Krolia was still there, beside him. Quiet, mostly, except for moments like these when she wasn't. They made quite the pair - this son who couldn't quench the fire that scorched him and his mother, who had long since been burned through - but that had taken time. Luckily for her, time was all they had, out here.

She looked at Keith with almost veiled sympathy. It crept up on her, occasionally, in the moments when there wasn't enough action for a sense of pride, and too much stillness to bear regret.

Keith didn't turn away from his mother, anymore. He just sat heavy with the knowledge of her and sometimes, together, their aches would ease. A breeze blew past them - sweetened from the grasses nearby, cold and everlasting. "We leave people behind sometimes." And Krolia turned her attention to the wolf in front of them, scratching his side, fingers deep in the soft, blue fur.

"Sometimes, there's nothing else we can do," she muttered. Almost apologetic, almost like she didn't wish to speak it at all. Sometimes, Krolia tettered on the edge like that. There was always something that itched at the depths of her throat - like she couldn't rid the thought without uttering it, condemned though it may be. Keith was used to it, now. It rolled over him easily without catching on all of his sharpened edges.

It was a strange sort of familiarity, to recognize yourself in another. It was a comfortable sort of loss, to discover who you took after years and calamities too late.

"We've left people, Keith. And sometimes, we don't know if it was the right choice." Krolia's head hung low, then - the usual glow of her irises cooled. His father. The little boy he'd once been. They were all ghosts swimming in her vision - guilt that couldn't be altered. "Sometimes we'll never know... but it doesn't always mean you made the wrong choice."

Keith scoffed.

What else could he do?

A solar flare passed not long after that - a searing white that coalesced in the image of something more, a promise he'd once avowed to keep, a fondness that was now consigned to ash - and Keith repented, once more.

But time passed, as it had no choice to. And solar flares accosted him, as was their right.

The Colony wasn’t what he expected - the discovery that followed somehow worse. Then the race against time, the battle against Shiro... the revelation that, at present, felt like an explosion - the debris of that blast all truths he'd have to swallow, craters the size of entire moons, the sum more vast that this known universe. It was as though two years' worth of heartache and sorrow unloaded at once, the fallout a reality he could never reconcile, the truth too terrible to name.

But still there, in the middle of it all was you - a breathless disbelief when he landed in the hangar, a flash of too-bright eyes, and an utterance of his name that felt like more of a homecoming than any celebration Lance might coax the others to throw, sometime later. There, amongst it all, was you - and all he seemed to bring back with him was discord and an infinitely deep sort of ache.

He yearned to fix it all then - to reach for you the way he knew he should and unload the thoughts that had haunted him longer than the restlessness within him. But he couldn't; there wasn't the time.

And so one longing in his chest only ever led to another and in the end, he was somehow incomplete.

But it was quiet now, on this strange planet that was so far from the Quantum Abyss and everything else Keith had once left for. The lions were recharging, Shiro was close to waking, and Keith had stepped out to give Allura some solitude and time.

He found you sitting in the shade of his mecha beast, its long shadow a respite from the bright stars above. You kicked at a stray rock and it tumbled, falling away from you, crashing into the earth further below. You shook your head, plucked the grass beside you.

"(Y/n)."

His mouth was dry, his voice more rasp than language.

And when you turned to him, the emotion in your gaze was too complex to name, and against his two-and-a-half years of longing, your handful months of separation rattled him anew.

Could you possibly miss him the way he had yearned for you?

"Keith," and you let his voice linger on your tongue - like the sound was something to savor, the idea something to hold - "you're always coming with a storm, aren't you?"

And his language was getting caught in his throat again, his words trapped in his mind, and all of that meaning snagging on the edges of his labyrinthine being—

You crashed into him with a force that sent him staggering backward. If it hadn't been for how you held him tightly, he would have hit the solid ground.

"I've missed your chaos more than I ever should," your voice was muffled, vibrating in the depths of his chest. And when you pulled away, half laughing, Keith swore you stole all the infinite beauty of the moon. "But never bring this like of storm again, I'm begging you."

And Keith barked a laugh. What else could he do?

"Alright." He tightened the hug for a moment before pulling reluctantly away. "I'll do my best, (Y/n), I will."

Who took the first step, he can't recall, but the two of you started on a walk to nowhere but familiarity, wandering away from the circle of lions but always staying in their view. He asked you to tell him something good, and you recounted some of the events he'd missed, being so far away. You pulled stories from him as well - the best that he could fashion, out of the heaviness he'd been doused in for so long. He apologized then, though for what, he was too vast in his meaning, yet too precise to be vague. It was enough, you assured him, but still too little to be sufficient.

"Oh!" And Keith patted for his pockets, then, searching for a promise he'd almost lost. He should still have it... if there was any mercy in this great expanse of space, it should still be intact...

"Romelle talks a lot — if you don't know that yet then you don't have to wait much longer to realize — and she uhh... she helped me find this." And he fished through the depths of him until he found what he was looking for and held it out.

A rock. No, more of a crystal. The kind encased in dull grey rock but shimmering on the inside, catching the light of a thousand stars and reflecting it back - a kaleidoscope of colors that Keith couldn't quite name. What did it remind him of? A geode, perhaps? No, something grander than that. Something otherwordly. Something that, when he saw it, reminded him of longing and love, and how those two were, in fact, the same though they settled differently in his chest.

Something that, despite his hesitance, was worthy of you.

Perhaps not anymore, though. It was split in two, cracked down an uneven center, and crumbling away at the jagged edges, but it was still beautiful, the same.

Keith couldn't meet your eyes. "She said they're rare on her home planet - a rock of some kind that comes from outside their atmosphere. The Alteans don't know what push them there, but I think I have some idea, after traveling through the abyss. It, uhh... it symbolizes something. I can't remember—"

You called his name.

Despite himself, Keith looked up.

"You brought it." And your voice was soft, but your eyes shimmered with all the intensity he could not bear. They were almost tears, but you refused to let them fall. Always so stubborn, you'd hold onto them and he'd be entranced with how they set your eyes to glisten.

"Something good... yeah."

You laughed, the sound incandescent.

And then you ran.

You ran into his arms without thinking, and when you crashed your lips against his, the geode fell to a softened grass-cushioned landing, but the rest of the universe came close, fitting itself into place - a mystery solved, an uncertainty no longer wavering but defined.

"I love you," and it spilled from his lips afterward, when he was gasping for breath, the words dislodged from the spines of his ribcage - desperate and bloody after clawing their way free. "I always have."

And you kissed him again to whisper it against his lips, soft and ever-present, a sigh that grounded him for the rest of eternity — "I love you too."

taglist: @teaand-dreams, @konepmi, @simpamonroll // add yourself to the taglist here!

(also shamelessly tagging @biqherosix because daniza is a keith lover and i think it would be a crime to not alert her.)

#voltron #vld #keith kogane #keith kogane x reader #keith kogane fic #keith kogane one shot #keith kogane imagine #keith kogane x you #voltron x reader #voltron x you #one shot #imagine #reader insert #angst #fluff

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localsaintbernard · 24 days

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a redraw, Feb - april

#voltron #voltron fanart #voltron legendary defender #klance #klance fanart #keith kogane #lance mcclain #vld lance #voltron keith #light angst

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salmonwentmissing · 10 months

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Page 17

FIRST / NEXT / FULL

#klance #klance comic #eternal immortality KLCS #klangst #klangst comic #fancomic #fanart #vld #vld comic #bl angst #lance mcclain #keith kogane #artist on tumblr

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klance-headcanons-official · 29 days

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Guys guess what?? You get fluff because I love you, yes you, and I just hit 1,000 likes!

Continuation of yesterday's headcanon.

Weeks go by in a blur, Lance has been in Keith's room in the Castle of Lions, he's kept the door locked and has only come out to get a small snack every couple of days.

Everyone has tried to get him to come out, to talk and work through it but nothing is working, all he's been able to hear is Shiro's voice in his head saying "Keith... Didn't make it..." Over and over and over, "Keith didn't make it..." He tells himself on repeat, "He didn't make it..."

For the first time in days, Lance's phone dings. He checks the notification and to his surprise, someone has left him a voicemail. He opens it up and it's quiet.

It's quiet for what feels like a very long time, and then someone speaks.

"Lance, I'm here. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'll be home soon. I'm sorry for everything I said before. I love you."

Keith's voice plays in such a soft tone that it's almost a whisper. He checks the date of sending, hoping that somehow, Keith was alive, but it says the message was recorded the day after he'd left with the Blade.

Lance begins to cry again, something he's grown all too familiar with in the past weeks. He cries and cried for hours, drowning in his hopelessness and sorrow.

And then someone knocks on his door.

Thinking it's just one of the others, he shouts with a wobbly voice, "Go away! I already told you I'm not coming out! Just leave me alone!"

The person on the other side doesn't speak, but Lance hears the door click open, he thinks to himself I could have sworn I locked that-

"I'm home."

Keith is standing just inside the door with hardly a scratch. Lance throws down the pillow he's holding and immediately runs into Keith's arms, pulling him into a very tight hug. He falls to his knees, bringing Keith with him.

"Shhhh, it's okay. I'm okay. I'm here now." He whispers, cradling Lance in his arms and gently rocking him back and forth.

The two sit there for a bit until Lance is able to calm himself down enough to speak, the first thing he says is "Can I kiss you? I need to know that this is real. That you're really here."

And of course, Keith says yes and brings him into a sweet, yet desperate kiss, and Lance is, in fact, not imagining things.

Keith is there, with him, in his arms.

He's home.

#voltron #klance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #ships #vld #headcanon #angst with a happy ending

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awhoreintheory · 1 year

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Ok. So I don't typically post unfinished work, but. I'm totally in love with this sketch. I feel like it carries more emotions than I can convey by finishing it.

Take my klanagst. Take it and run. (Someone write a fic I'll pay you with my body)

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empty-blog-for-lurking · 8 months

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Never a Lance basher, nor a Lance woobifier, but a secret third thing (Lance should get to maul people and also get tragic corruption revenge arc)

#Self made tragedy baby! Give that bitch a greek tragedy but with a gun arc #No i dont want him to angst over Keith or Allura or whatever. I want him to fuck around and find out in best worst way possible #Must langst have some form of character bashing? Why cant it be Lance being doomed by the narrative and also himself?#lance mcclain #lance serrano #lance voltron #voltron lance #vld lance #lance vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender #empty thoughts

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erithel · 2 months

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[Cover] [Previous] [7] [Next]

Early access to all my comics available on my Patreon. Bi-weekly updates.

#someonecomic #klance #klance comic #keith kogane #lance mcclain #fan comic #vld #angst with a happy ending

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autisticlancemcclain · 6 months

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The situation starts on the couches of a hotel lobby on a random planet at three-something in the morning, sprawled all over each other, exhausted, as Coran quietly checks them in.

“Hey, Lance,” whispers Keith, from somewhere beside the shoulder he offered. Lance groans, feigning more tiredness than he actually feels, heart racing since Keith first shifted so Lance would have somewhere to rest his head. He has this strange feeling of invasion, even though Keith offered, even though they’ve been in this position dozens of times before. He’s waiting almost for the other shoe to drop.

“Mm-what,” he mumbles, muffled into his roughed shoulder pads, words smushed together.

Keith sighs instead of answering. For half a second Lance tenses. But Keith only shifts again, not pushing Lance off but moving so Lance is pressed closer to him, and then the heat of his breath tickles the shell of Lance’s ear, and he tenses for a whole different reason.

And then there is, inexplicably, the feeling of what must be Keith’s lips, pressed to the side of Lance’s skull, gentle and lingering, and Lance thinks clearly to himself: what the fresh actual and genuine fuck.

“‘M sorry,” says Keith, so quiet it would be impossible to hear were his mouth not one single inch away from Lance’s ear. He kisses again, and he almost sags into the motion, into Lance. “I shouldn’t have been so dismissive of you earlier. I was stressed. I missed you, too.”

Lance opens his mouth. He muffles a choking sound with all of his strength.

“All good in the hood,” he finally manages, and then wants to strangle himself. “We’re — tight, Keithalicious.”

Somewhere, somehow, there is a God, and this God looks upon him with the utmost cruelty, and so Lance suffers, unjustly, every day of his life. He often prays that he will wake up one morning in the absence of a tongue. A hindrance and horrible sacrifice, of course, but one that may be worth the total sum of humiliation he feels so acutely and so frequently by virtue of God’s gift of language.

Shit is just not worth it, sometimes.

Keith’s laugh tickles a little. “I’m glad, sweetheart.” His final kiss is light, more of a peck than anything. He pats Lance’s hip twice before standing. Lance wonders, vaguely, when the hell his hand was in his hip area in the first place, and how the hell he’s supposed to rationalize that somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind. “‘M gonna go help Coran. See you in a few.”

“Yeah,” is what Lance means to say, but unfortunately when he opens his mouth the only sound that escapes is a strange kind of croak, clawing its way out of his throat and withering to death somewhere in the air between them. It may be, he realises with an intense flash of solemnity, the last remaining dredges of his dignity. Rest in fucking peace.

Keith just smiles again (a real one that shows his crooked incisors and crinkles his eyes and makes him looks handsome, not hot or sexy or beautiful but handsome, in a way that genuinely makes Lance weak in the knees) and jogs over to the front desk. Lance watches him place a friendly hand on Coran’s shoulder, leaning in and narrowing his eyes at the paper the front desk worker offers, saying something Lance can’t hear with his Black Paladin face in full force. When he finally manages to wrench his eyes away, he sees the faces of his team, gobsmacked, staring at him with wide eyes and jaws brushing the polished blue tiles.

“What,” Shiro manages eventually, “the fuck.”

“Since fucking when are you two boning!” Pidge adds, shamelessly.

“I thought you had a thing for Allura?” questions Hunk.

Lance’s own jaw snaps shut. His ears burn, worse than they already were, and he glances at the princess only to find her already looking away. Shame burns something fierce in the pit of his stomach. It’s an unwelcome replacement of the butterflies.

“What me and Keith do behind a closed door is none of your business,” Lance says hotly, straightening his shoulders and puffing out his chest ridiculously. His heart pounds. He raises his voice to drown it out. “We had a bonding moment, after all.”

Pidge barks a laugh. The rest of the snorts and giggles soon follow, and soon the team is looking at him in fond exasperation, rolling their eyes and muttering about Lance and his antics. Allura, even, looks him in the face again. The roiling in his stomach doesn’t change, but the pound of his heart is replaced with something bitter on the back of his tongue.

Anything is better than looking ignorant. Even if you look like a fool.

He settles into the corner of the couch — much less comfortable than Keith’s armoured shoulder, somehow — and lets his eyes slide shut, lets the familiar sound of his team quietly conversing and the ambient sound of a public place at night wash over him as he fades into a half-sleep. The same kind of sleep in a car on the way home from a long road trip, late at night; half aware of the movement and murmured sound of your parents’ whispering in front seat, time stretching around you like taffy.

He stirs slowly at the sound of boots hitting the floor, bleary eyes still half-shut. Keith slowly comes back into focus, standing in front of him now. He’s frowning, troubled.

“They booked us two separate rooms,” he explains, pursing his lips at the two keys in his hand.

Lance pauses. “…Yes.”

Keith doesn’t pick up on it. (That, at least, is familiar enough to make Lance smile.)

“You’d think they’d…well, whatever. I suppose it’s fine. I’ll come join you after you’re showered?”

“Keith —”

“I think my room has the bigger bed, actually. You come to mine.” He opens the little envelope thing and pulls out the extra key, sliding it into Lance’s hands. “I’ll bring up your luggage.”

“Keith, I’m not going to —”

Lance stops.

Keith, I’m not going to sleep with you, is what he was going to say. Keith, what the hell. Keith, you’re acting like a pod person. Keith, I don’t understand what’s going on. Keith, everyone is laughing at us and you don’t seem to notice. Or care. Keith, you’re acting like you’re my — boyfriend, or something. Keith, one day ago you didn’t want anything to do with me. Keith, now you can’t seem to get enough of me. Keith, I am going to lose my mind. Keith, Keith, Keith.

“Okay,” Lance says instead, quiet. He turns the key over in his hands. It looks like a regular white hotel key. It feels heavier, somehow. “Okay, I’ll meet you in twenty.”

Keith flashes a quick smile. It, too, is genuine, and Lance lips are quirking up to match before he can think about it.

“Liar. You’ve never taken less than a half hour shower in your life.”

“I have — so.”

Shaking his head, fondness bleeding from him, Keith steps forward, bending down and pressing a gentle kiss to Lance’s forehead. Lance feels all the air exit his body in one huge whoosh.

“I know you, goober. We got all night. Decompress. I’ll check the closet and under the bed before you get there. Don’t take too long.”

Lance stills. He watches after Keith with wide eyes. His heart, finally calmed again, fucking races.

He’s never, not once in his life, told anyone about the — thing. With the — closets, and under the bed. Not one person; not even Hunk.

It’s stupid, is what it is.

But Lance’s older cousin was kind of a — jerk. And when they were kids he would make these freaky fucking paintings with red eyes and smudged faces and — hide them, in Lance’s closet or dresser drawers or under his bed, and convince him they would come to life in the night and posses him, and it was so fucking dumb, but Lance has always been gullible and it used to scare the shit out of him, because he would never know when they would appear and it would just — freak him out. All the time. Unless he checked his entire room once in the daytime before sleeping, he would never be able to fall asleep.

And he’s never fucking — told anyone about that. Because as a kid it was terrifying to say out loud and as he got older it was just embarrassing. But Keith knows, somehow.

Keith knows.

Lance exhales, air whistling sharply from between his teeth, “Whatever. Whatever. You know what? Whatever,” and stomps over to the elevator. “This is — I’m going to shower. And not think. I don’t — whatever.”

He stews the whole way up to his room. He stews as the key doesn’t fucking work in the slot until the fourth try. He stews as he yanks off his armour and flings it into a random corner, relishing in the heavy thud as it hits the wall, hoping it cracks. He stews as he angrily presses all the buttons in the shower and hops in, cussing as he’s assaulted with an onslaught of hot-cold-hot-cold-soap-soap-soap, aggressively blinking away the sting in his eye and cursing the very air molecules around him. He stews the entire fucking forty minute shower, although admittedly he does, by the ten minute mark, start to calm down a little.

By the time he steps onto the bathmat, he’s just — tired.

“Whatever,” he sighs to himself again, but this time it’s more weary than anything. “Just — I guess. Sure. Whatever.”

There’s a fancy complimentary robe folded neatly on the stack of towels. He swallows the lump in his throat, thinking of his beautiful blue one, now ashes with the rest of the castle.

“Whatever,” he repeats to himself, firmly. Eventually he manages to blink the tears away.

The walk to Keith’s room is short, and cold, and probably embarrassing, since he is in a robe and slippers and a twisty shower hat, but he’s too drained to care. Every step is heavy. By the time he manages to slide the key in the lock — this key cooperates, go fucking figure — and shove the heavy door open, he feels…precarious.

Fragile, maybe.

It takes one look from Keith, one flash of soft indigo eyes and bedsheets untucked and folded over like he likes them and a nightlight shining low on the side table, for him to simply burst into tears.

“It has been a long fucking day,” he sobs.

“It sure as shit has,” Keith agrees, opening his arms, and Lance doesn’t bother thinking before collapsing into them, curling into Keith’s lap and tucking under his chin. Keith grips him tightly and squeezes, and it feels so strangely familiar and so perfect that it’s simply too much for Lance to worry about. He does not have the energy. It’s just — too good, and he’s so tired, and if this is all a trick or a dream or anything like that then he’ll handle it in the fucking morning. Right now Keith is warm and he’s a real fucking person offering real fucking affection with absolutely zero strings attached, none of them, and Lance is allowed to have nice things, actually, it’s written right the in paladin handbook, he knows because he wrote it there himself.

He can just — have this one thing.

“Let’s just sleep for a few thousand years,” Keith says, and he sounds exhausted as Lance does.

And if this is a dream than there’s absolutely nothing to lose, and also whatever, truly, so Lance gives fully into every impulse he’s been too ashamed to even admit in his own head and leans up to kiss him squarely on the lips. He is warm and sweet and tastes like toothpaste, and he kisses back without a second of hesitation, and his hands cup the side of Lance’s face and his calloused thumb brushes across his cheekbones, and it’s everything Lance could ever want it to be, and it makes all the horrible everything melt away. So Lance says screw you, universe, and kisses him until he’s too tired to keep his eyes open, and then he tucks in next to him and relishes in his arm over his waist and falls asleep faster than he ever has in his life listening to Keith’s heartbeat.

This is where the situation starts.

———

based on this thread

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