Work Text:
Everyone was hurt that Shiro was gone, no one more than Keith. The first night was the hardest, the pain didn’t compare to Shiro being pronounced dead, but witnessing first hand, Shiro disappearing and only being a few feet away from each other when it happened, deepen the wound in Keith’s heart. In his room bang his fist on the wall while screaming “I could’ve saved him!” tears running down his eyes. He continued this for a good hour, till he no longer had the energy to cry or to hit the wall.
A few weeks had passed, Keith was now the leader of Voltron, Lance was Keith’s right-hand man, and Allura finally part of Voltron itself. The pain was still fresh, but every day without Shiro the wound went deeper. Lance new position gave a new look into Keith, Keith wasn’t some mullet-prodigy-dropout, but a mullet-prodigy-dropout filled pain and anger and loneliness. As Keith’s right-hand man, he had to make sure Keith was, emotionally, in top shape.
It was now a few month later, everyone became worried for Keith. He barely ate, spent days away from the ship looking for Shiro; they were just glad that they didn’t need Voltron when Keith was away; spent most of his spare time training. The final straw was when he snuck out and went AWOL, the team spent days trying to find Keith, not even taking Black with him like he always did, they only find him by sheer luck.
“I need to do something…” Lance pondered. After some time had gone by he came to a conclusion, just thinking about it made him gag, but hopefully, it’ll help Keith in the end.
Lance found Keith in his normal place, the training room.
“Keith” Lance whispered. Keith barely heard Lance calling him, “Hm? What is –“ before he could finish his sentence, Lance walked up to him placed his hands on Keith’s cheeks and kissed him. It only lasted a few seconds, until Keith shoved Lance, making him stumble and fall to the ground. Keith wiped his mouth roughly as if acid was on his lips, Keith felt sick, more importantly, hate. Before Lance could start getting up, Keith’s sword pointed at Lance’s neck – close enough that his Adam apple could feel the tip of the sword. Lance slowly looked up, fear overtook his body, in front of him was a man that embodied Wrath itself. “WHAT THE FUCK!?” Keith screamed. Lance shaking with absolute fear was silent. The sword pulled back then pushed forward, stabbing the floor, Lance was now lying on the floor, Keith laying on top of him. Lance was absolutely scared shitless. “Am I dead?! I’m alive, I think. Oh GOD, I screwed up! Lo Siento! Perdòname!” Lance yelled inside himself. “ANSWER ME!” screamed Keith once again. “I – I did it to help you…” with a shaky breath. “BY KISSING ME?!” Grabbing Lance collar, foreheads touching. Lance could see, literally even, fire and determination in his eye’s. Closing his own eye’s, he calmly said: “There it is…”. “What?!” Letting go of Lance’s collar, Lance fell back to the ground, Keith was absolutely confused. “What do you mean ‘There it is’?!” Keith was confused, more confused than the Voltron chant.
“You’ve lost your fire”. Lance said. “Trust me when I say this. I have NO romantic ANYTHING for you. I did… that so your fire could be lit again. ” Embemsizing certain words, hoping Keith can get the gist of what he was saying.
“You lost hope.” Lance quietly said. “You can’t keep on doing what you’re doing. You're the leader now, whether you wanted it or not. You have responsibilities now.” Getting back up on his feet and facing Keith. “I did what I did. So you could have your fire back, at the cost of losing my first kiss to a man…” giving a small dramatic pose. Keith was dumbfounded. Lance, someone he has come to see as an annoying little brother, being the bigger man and doing something to help him. With a small smirk, Keith said “Thank you, but ever do that again-” Lance interrupted “- You’ll kill me. Trust me. I would kiss the mouse’s for eternity if that meant I didn’t have to kiss you.” Lance folding his arms and giving a face of disgust. “Don’t tell anyone – Pidge really, about my sacrifice,” Lance said, as he imagined himself doing unspeakable things because Pidge found out.
“Deal”. Keith said quickly. Lance then left.
Keith still disgusted, he couldn’t help but think back to all the selfish things he did. “Lance was right, I’m a leader now… if I wanted it or not…”
The next few weeks passed, Keith was eating more, taking his role as a leader more seriously, and having one of his teammates with him when he was looking for Shiro.
Then a few days later, Black roared, hearing the pain in its voice. Keith knew.
“I finally found you, Shiro.”