Chapter Text
Shiro’s voice rings out, “Keith? Lance? Are you alright?”
Neither of them dare make a sound. Only the low chittering of the Nexthi reverberates through the tunnel. Lance’s headlights catch the crimson corner of its uncanny humanoid-snake jaw, shimmering beautifully with a slight iridescence, much like an oil spill.
“They’re not responding,” Shiro continues, “I’m going to get them.”
Lance ticks on his comms and speaks as low as he physically can, “No, Shiro, don’t. We’ve got this. We can take one of them, we’ve done it before.”
“You have? When?”
“Uh, don’t worry about it.”
A hundred glowing dots of light appear above the nestkeeper, as fluorescently yellow as the Iccytho sky far above. One by one they flicker in and out, darkness crossing in a great wave.
They’re blinking.
A breath of lightning ripples into being suddenly, arcing over the vacant eyes. A dozen—no, two dozen at least—baby Nexthi have corralled themselves right behind their keeper. They’re clinging to the ceiling, a horrible roof of scales and electricity.
“Well,” Keith mumbles just to Lance, “They’re just babies. So they can’t be—”
The start to skitter—fast. Lance drops the spout and shrieks, he’s not afraid to admit it. Anyone would when faced with snakes in the shape and size of humans with the speed of a spider.
“Keith!” he screams, getting a leg towards ascent. “You know by now not to go around begging for karma!”
For his part, Keith is too busy tucking and rolling to answer. The fastest of the little runts is making a dive toward him, and barely nicks a lock of hair. It goes tumbling down into the depths, yowling all the way.
“Fuck,” Keith huffs. “We’ll never—” He dodges another leaping attack. “We’ll never get the spout down through all these guys.”
The nestkeeper is staying away, but who knows for how long? Lance doesn’t want to stick around until it decides to join the fun. He tunes back into the radio channel. “Pidge, how close to the cavern are we exactly?”
“Approximately ninety percent.”
“If we release the yoj now, will it have time to reach the nest before it hardens?” Lance coughs out, darting under a flying Nexthi.
The pause is excruciating as she calculates. “Yes. Barely.”
“Okay, good, because we’re living some nightmare version of a thousand-squirrel attack and we need to vamoose. We’ll drop the payload and make our way up. Everyone else, start evacuating.”
“Roger. We trust you, stay safe,” says Shiro.
“What is a squirrel? Or a vamoose?” Allura asks, distracted.
Lance doesn’t have time to answer her, smashing another jumping nightmare with the butt of his rifle. “Keith!” he cries, “The spout!”
Keith doesn’t acknowledge him—he doesn’t need to. He leaps over a pile of dazed lizards and toward the hose. In one swift flip, he turns his Luxite sword backwards and slashes across the line.
“You couldn’t have used the spout?!” Lance complains.
“It worked, didn’t it?” retorts Keith, leaping back up toward him.
It certainly did, maybe too well. The black-gold insulant shimmers as it explodes from the hose, spraying bits on Keith and Lance in the crossfire. Gobs of it knock into the Nexthi hatchlings, sending them flying like bowling pins. It begins a steady, broad gush pouring straight down the tunnel toward the dim pinprick at the bottom.
This obviously displeases the nestkeeper, leaving claw gashes in the ceiling as it pounces toward Keith. Lance catches it first, scooping up Keith’s Marmora flashlight and knocking it in the head for the second time. It twists around as it becomes a tangled heap on the ground, tail knotted between its legs. Yoj pools around it a centimeter high and only growing. It thrashes around, blowing more of the stuff over Keith and Lance as they hoof it upwards.
Still, there’s at least half of the little mongrels that came through unscathed, and they don’t hesitate giving chase. A gurgling roar sounds out—joined by heavier skittering—and Lance knows the keeper is pursuing as well.
“Flow integrity is all over the place,” frets Hunk. “Did something happen to the pressurization?”
“Yeah, Keith slashed the tube!” Lance answers.
“It was faster! We were under attack!” defends Keith.
“Well, it’s gonna slow you down long term. It’s causing all kinds of bursts further up the line.”
As always, Hunk is right. As they advance closer to the two-thirds mark where Shiro had been, the pipe starts oozing leaks and popping in short bursts. It sticks to their boots and gets heavier with each footstep. The only upside is that a stray pop hits a scrambling Nexthi here and there, tossing them back down. It’s not enough to slow the adult, but its entourage is dwindling.
“You’re about halfway up,” Pidge reports. “Everyone else has evacuated.”
“Roger,” gasps Lance, shaking a fledgeling off his ankle. “We’re—”
The thought is knocked out of him along with all the air in his lungs. For a moment, he’s terrified the next thing to expect is a Nexthi sting right to the brain, but he realizes the body that checked him is a Galra of a friendlier kind; him and Keith go tumbling a few meters backward. Above, Mama Nexthi is chittering, skidding just past where Lance was.
Lance peels himself off of Keith, yelling. “Stop trying to save my life so aggressively!”
Keith spits a chunk of hair out of his mouth. “Then stop putting yourself in harm’s way so much!”
“You’re insufferable!” Lance screams, pulling himself upright. He shoots a bundle of the newborns clawing up the tunnel—it doesn’t pierce their natural armor, but the force knocks them down. “I don’t want you to white-knight me, Keith.”
“Well, what do you want?” he growls, slashing a jumping Nexthi in two.
“Live, goddamnit Keith!”
Lance leaps over a heap of the stunned creatures, Keith on his tail. The adult has recovered its wits and stands staunchly in their way, reptilian smile splitting its face. It flicks its strong tail, and when it crosses Lance’s headlights he notices a gleam of irregular cobalt blue. He peers closer, placing it in the scope of his rifle. “Is that…”
“That’s mine!” Keith announces.
Indeed, it’s Keith’s bracelet. Rogue’s. Whoevers. Really, Lance thinks it should be his own, since Keith was the one who tossed it into an alien den after deceiving him for weeks. But whatever.
“Yuck, do you really want that back? He’s wearing it like an accessory.” Lance’s face scrunches.
“Yes, I want it. You gave it to me,” Keith says so firmly and simply that a wave of affection twists through Lance.
“Alright. Hold on.”
The creature is almost as hideous as Keith on a bad hair day, albeit undeniably woven with pure danger—also like Keith on a bad hair day, Lance thinks. Everything quiets in his mind: the dripping humidity of the cave, the crackling of leftover red sparks, even the heavy breaths of Keith at his arm. The two sides, intruders versus defender, both scuffle on their feet, wavering left to right, trying to see who moves first.
The Nexthi crouches low, preparing to strike. “Glory to the end,” it purrs, leaping.
“Glory to my ass,” Lance seethes, lining up a crystal clear shot right where the yellow luminance shines brightest. The laser crosses ten paces in a breath, burying itself deep into one of those wide-open, hazard-yellow eyes.
It screams. It shrieks. It howls in curls of cacophony yet unheard of by humans like them, in peeling layers that unfold into worse and worse noise. It collapses, chest falling in one last puff of life before stiffening entirely. Lance steps longways and gingerly plucks the Iccythor bracelet off its twitching tail, stuffing it in his pouch for now.
The hatchlings yelp, gurgling in chorus over their fallen keeper. It takes only a second before the remaining few—five, six maybe—start circling Lance and Keith who are desperately sucking down oxygen.
“Nice kitties?” tries Lance.
He’s answered with one trying to take a chomp out of his ankle. He smashes it in the head with his bayard, and it’s small enough that brute force works as well as a blade at this range. It goes crumpling down the tunnel, little more than a balled napkin.
Like this, in such small numbers, they’re a lot less intimidating—even with pops of crimson lightning being thrown off their tails. Keith clears one more, and then another. Lance straight up kicks one as hard as he can, putting a little of his boot’s jets into it, and it goes flying into the depths. The last two—to their credit—don’t back down, flinging themselves at Keith. Lance swats them off with the side of his weapon, no issue, and Keith finishes the job. His legs wobble once, twice, and then he crumples to the floor in pure exhaustion.
Lance kneels down to him immediately, so fast he gives Keith another splashing of yoj. Keith is ten percent face, ninety percent black void speckled with gold. The yoj has already started to harden, painting him as a constellation or cosmic force—one Lance could pass the rest of his life watching.
“C’mon, buddy,” Lance hoists under his arms. “We can’t stay here. You’ll become a beautiful statue.”
“Nnngrh. I know,” Keith grumbles, trying to put his feet back under him.
“Keith, Lance,” comes Shiro’s tense voice. “Status?”
“Safe,” Lance assures, “And proceeding. We got those motherfuckers good.”
Shiro is so relieved he doesn’t even admonish Lance for his language. “Great. See you soon.”
They climb and climb and climb. Lance’s calves burn from the angle—if they way down felt stretched and ominous, the way up feels twice as long, despite the danger being cleared. Their feet drag through the calcifying yoj, layer after layer weighing them down and ever so gradually glazing their boots golden.
“You’re about two-thirds of the way back up,” reports Pidge.
“Great,” Lance coughs. He looks to Keith—the man is completely destroyed but would never admit it. Sweat pours down his forehead, attaching every strand of hair flat to his head. His chest heaves, sucking in as much air as possible and rushing to push it back out, ready for more. Lance knows he doesn’t look much better.
It’s quiet. They’ve both turned their outgoing comms back off.
“That shot,” Keith huffs, “was really good.”
“Yeah, I know,” grins Lance, rolling his head to face him. “I figured its gooey eyeballs can’t be laserproof.”
Keith’s face is fixed forward, by all appearances faraway, but he speaks softly to the small inches between them. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
The rubbery liquid has thinned out, accordant with their proximity from the initial breach. Lance thinks the daylight from Iccytho must be leaking downward, since faint traces of amber are tracing the edges of Keith’s shoulderpads. He exists only in silhouette.
Lance halts them both. He’s staring at Keith, hard, willing him to meet his eyes halfway. “Thanks, man. But at this point, I’m not mad that you lied. I mean, I definitely was furious. But in hindsight, it’s kind of funny. Like, how could I not even have considered? I think the idea of you willingly flirting with anyone—much less me—was so insane I couldn’t even think of it.”
He shrugs. “I figured you’d hate me after. That you’d want me gone.”
Despite himself, Lance laughs. “Yeah, you would think so. But that’s not what I want, or what I ever wanted. Actually, more than anything I hated that you left. We could have figured it out, but you ran away again.”
“When you say ‘again’ you mean…”
“I mean again, Keith. I know why you thought you had to take off when Shiro came back. Too many pilots, not enough lions. But it felt terrible that you wouldn’t even give me—or the rest of the team—a chance to work things out. Like we weren’t good enough to stay and fight for.”
“That wasn’t it,” Keith insists, finally turning. It always takes so long for those eyes—scared and withdrawn—to reach him, but when they do it’s monumental each time. Lance feels Keith’s sincerity pierce him. “It was like…why would I make us fight at all, when there was an answer right in front of me where I could still be useful, and you could keep Red? I thought the Blade was saving the team from heartbreak. I couldn’t push you out, I couldn’t push Allura or Shiro out, I…”
“I know.” Lance says, faced with a sagging Keith. Neither Galra hordes nor enormous beasts faze the guy, but seeing their fiercest warrior defeated by a counting conundrum strikes a unique chord in Lance, one that reverberates through the long tunnel. “Or, I know you felt like you had to. And I’m sorry I’ve been making things difficult. You’re right, I wasn’t looking to solve it, just...I dunno, hurt you like you hurt me.”
Rolling his shoulders, Keith takes them back into step forward. “Well, I didn’t want to stay and fix things, so there. I’m sorry.”
“What?” Lance is smiling deliriously. He starts scrambling after him. “Are you trying to out-apologize me?”
“Maybe. Maybe I want to be the better, uh, apologize-er. I could beat you any day.”
“Nuh-uh. I’m soooo super sorry that I implied you don’t trust us.”
“Well I’m sorry I said I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.” Keith says, shoulder-checking him.
“I’m sorry I lied about remembering our bonding moment.”
“You—what?!”
“Uhhh, don’t worry about it. I though you already knew?”
“No!” Keith gapes. “You remember that?”
“Well, maybe…” Lance scratches the back of his head.
“That’s when I fell in love with you, moron.” Keith kicks Lance in the shin, and on any other day it would have been fine but after their exhausting climb Lance’s leg folds like origami and he takes a skid into the stone. Keith grabs his ankle to keep him from tumbling too far, helping hoist him back up.
Lance doesn’t process the words until he’s vertical again. “You, uh…really? But that was like…”
“Years ago,” Keith nods grimly, like he just received a death sentence. “I know.”
“Oh.”
“What? You already knew I was—well.”
“Yeah, but, I dunno. I thought it might be a passing thing, or just something you said for…for effect.”
Keith just shrugs, lost for words. The knife on his belt swings with every step, progressively more illuminated with each stride. In the not-so-far distance, a floating ball of light represents the surface, softened and welcoming. They’re near enough now that a gentle haze of daylight clarifies their features, like the first shred of sun at dawn. Yellowish tinge mingles with darkened Nexthi blood sprayed over their forms.
“Look,” says Lance, digging in one of his pouches. He pulls out the glittering azure bracelet—as blue as their home sky, as blue as a shining sapphire, as blue as the Lion they found together. “I’m gonna give this back to you, but this time because you’re Keith. I gave it to you before because I liked you, because you liked me, because you were this mysterious guy who paid me attention and honestly filled the tiniest piece of the hole that good ol’ Keith left behind when he—you—ran off. To be honest, I wasn’t all innocent in that Rogue thing either. I missed you as Keith so much, well, it’s like I said—you were all I could think about. Rogue reminded me of you, and had he actually been some random Blade it probably would have been really fucked up because, man, I’m in love with you. I know it. I just held it off because you were far—so far away, literally and physically.”
He drops the damn thing, the igniter of all their recent turmoil, and it puddles in Keith’s black-gloved hand like a pool of fresh rain.
“Thanks,” says Keith dumbly. He slides it on.
“Well, what do you say?” frets Lance.
“Uh, thank you?”
Lance slaps his hand to his face, helmet visor stopping it. “No, idiot. I just told you I love you. What do you say?”
“Oh. Did you want me to like, ask you out on a date or something? Feels kind of high-school.”
Flushing entirely red, Lance slaps him in the arm. “No! Well, maybe. But not exactly. Look, if you don’t feel the same anymore, you can just shoot me in the brain right now because I will never, ever live this down.”
Keith grins.
“You were fucking with me,” Lance realizes. “Dude. If it wouldn’t make Shiro obliterate me I would push you all the way back down the yoj pit right this second.”
“Yes, I was fucking with you. I do still—uh, love you. Or whatever.”
Lance’s eyes water, and for a second he’s horrified he’s somehow been moved to tears. Thankfully, he realizes it’s just because they’ve reached the entrance, and the outpour of sunlight is overwhelming.
They claw their way past the lip of the cave, legs shaking as they collapse on the suddenly flat ground. Golden-black yoj washes thinly just behind them, kissing their ankles. Some of it is still leaking from the pipe, but it’s barely forming coin-sized pockets. The two of them are left without breath—without much of anything at all save for the thick exhaustion buzzing, overloading every possible nerve.
Lance rips off his helmet, Keith’s mask dissipated long ago. Air catches up to them, chests heaving in progressively slower pushes. Rolling over, Lance presses into Keith with his earnest eyes. “So does this mean you’re coming to game night next week?”
Laughter, husky yet clear as a chime, falls out of Keith’s mouth in every direction.
“What?” Lance jerks upright. “Why are you laughing at me? Hey, knock it off!”
Keith’s torso twists as he scrunches up, ripples and ripples of snickers running through him.
“Keith!” demands Lance.
Keith gasps in air, turns toward Lance. He pushes up off one elbow, leans over and smashes their mouths together.
Something explodes, a great wave of sound and light and trembling ground shaking through him. Lance figures it must be the last of his resistance bursting into little pieces. Keith’s gloved hand is gentle and soft—Lance knows this because he feels it reach up to rest on his scuffed cheek. He leans into it, deep and deeper still, forcing Keith to increase the pressure to keep Lance upright.
It doesn’t work. They collapse in a puff, scatters of rich, dark earth swirling every direction. They can’t keep their lips together as they go down, slipping out of place and dissolving into giggles, which melt into laughter, which turn to full-blown cackles. Keith’s face has hidden itself in the crook of Lance’s neck; his armor collar can’t be comfortable, but Keith doesn’t seem disposed to move.
Lance gingerly raises a hand to rest on the small of Keith’s back, speaking to the open air. “So…yes to game night?”
“Yes,” Keith mutters into his shoulder. “Of course. I wish I could say no to you, but I don’t think it’s possible.”
Ka-chunk! An enormous hunk of metal drops from the sky no more than a meter from them.
Lance yelps, scrambles out from under Keith. “Take Keith! I’m innocent!” he begs the mysterious entity throwing scrap at them.
Thwump! Another misshapen piece buries itself into the rocky top layer of Iccytho. They scramble up. All around them, debris as small as a pebble and as large as a turret are crashing from above, steaming at the jagged edges. It appears something other than Lance’s psyche has erupted.
The shower doesn’t last long, and whipping their heads around to find the cause they see four specks smeared across the horizon, rapidly advancing from the direction of the looming Castleship silhouette.
“...eeeeee…..eeeeeeeeith! Laaaaa—”
Keith peers. “Is that…”
The frontrunner of the pack clarifies, and Lance realizes it’s Pidge no sooner than her careening collision with the former Black Paladin. He’s so occupied witnessing the densely-muscled swordsman be toppled by the 4’10” teen he doesn’t see Hunk approaching until two arms are around his shoulders and the wind has been knocked out of him.
“Whouuf,” Lance chokes out. “Hey, buddy.”
“Lance!” Hunk cries, watery with tears. “Oh man, that was so scary. You guys were all alone down there, I’m sorry, we should have insisted on going with, I don’t care if I get Midas feet for the rest of my life, you can make me into a statue. I should—”
“Hey, hey, it’s all good. Just part of the job.” He pries himself back a bit to get some air. “We told you we were safe, man.”
“I know, I know, it’s just…” Hunk swipes at his eyes, composition returning. “We’ve already had to do without Keith for so long. I just thought about all those horrifying Nexthi in that cave with you, and listen, I know you’re strong, but the danger is so real…”
“I’m okay,” Lance assures him. “Really.”
“Okay. Okay. Because now I gotta—” Hunk spins on one heel, shouldering past Pidge to scoop up Keith and lift him a foot off the ground. When Hunk sets him back down, Keith spins in place for a moment, regaining his footing like a newborn fawn.
“Good to see you too, buddy,” Keith wheezes.
Lance’s face softens as he watches Hunk lecture Keith on staying in touch and taking care of Lance. Pidge sidles up to Lance and wraps him in a much smaller but just as warming hug before stepping back and knocking his arm with her elbow. “Glad you’re okay.”
He rubs the injured spot, faking pain. “Ow. Hey, we kept you guys updated.”
“I know, but…” Her gaze travels faraway, to different quadrants and galaxies where the calls were even closer. “It was harder this time. I think we’ve just been after the Nexthi for so long, and we couldn’t help… I don’t know. It all came to a head. And then the yoj tank exploded from the mismatched pressure before we could warn you.”
“Is that what that was?” Lance twists around to look at the graveyard of steely chunks. He turns back to ruffle Pidge aggressively, worsening an already bad case of helmet hair. “You lookin’ out for me, Nerdazoid?”
“Always,” she says earnestly, looking up. “All of us do. You know that, right?.”
He startles under her pressing hazel eyes. “Y-yeah. Thanks.”
From the back, the older two figures finally step into the fray. Allura and Shiro both present their most professional leaderly posture, but their eyes betray the stages of worry melted into relief.
“It’s good to see you both back in one piece,” offers the Princess. “Thank you for your efforts today. Truly.”
“We’re proud of you both,” adds Shiro.
“And we could hear you guys kissing through the comms,” Hunk blurts.
“Hunk!” Pidge smacks his arm.
“Sorry, sorry. I already held it in for so long.”
“It’s been, like, two minutes.”
“Exactly,” he sighs, “A long time.”
“R-right.” Lance stammers, face feeling hot. Keith has turned beet-red under his dark suit collar.
“So that means you’re staying, right Keith?” Pidge wheels toward him. Allura begins leading them back to the Castle, bright alien sun like a ripe lemon hanging in the sky.
He falls into step behind them. “I think I could take some PTO, at least while we, uh…figure some things out.” His indigo eyes fall on Lance and then skitter back nervously. Lance grins, nudging his ankle with his toe.
“Some rest and relaxation is what makes us able to keep fighting,” Shiro smiles. “We’d be happy to have you, Keith.”
“Yes, you are quite good at that, uh, what is it… with the little cards?” Allura’s face scrunches up in thought.
“Uno,” Lance sighs, overly familiar with Keith’s inexplicable luck—it’s not skill—during game night.
“I suppose I could go a few rounds,” Keith grins. “Can’t have Lance winning too much and getting a big head.”
Pidge pulls up something complex on her wrist holo, running ahead toward Shiro and Allura. She’s babbling about a Castle part, or maybe a Lion upgrade. Hunk’s ears perk up as soon as the word quantum comes up and he scurries to catch up.
Lance lets himself fall behind a bit until he’s in step with Keith. They keep their gaze straight ahead, watching the colorful jetpacks of their team bob as they walk. Their knuckles brush now and again, but neither of them acknowledge it just yet.
Leaning over, Lance lets his words brush past Keith’s stupid sidebangs and into his ear. “I know game night isn’t ‘til next week, but, uh… I’ve got a room across the hall from me that could use a guest tonight.”
“Oh, really?” Keith answers without turning his head. “Are you sure you don’t have some other mysterious Blade of Marmora lover to be occupied with?”
“Hmm… I don’t think that’s competition you need to worry about.” Lance’s cheeks hurt, smile burned into them.
Keith laughs gently, a floating sound just between the two of them. Safe under the midday sunlight, they walk together all the way home.