Archive of Our Own ^beta

To be perfectly honest, Keith hadn’t expected this to be such a problem.

When he’d first become a Paladin of Voltron, it certainly hadn’t been. Even by the first technical bonding moment, it hadn’t been an issue. It had only really started even being a thing when they attacked Zarkon and Shiro disappeared.

The issue? Keith had caught feelings for Lance.

He hadn’t intended to – really he hadn’t. Lance was irritating in almost every way. He was loud and over friendly with everyone. He just didn’t seem to grasp that other people had personal space bubbles. He didn’t respect boundaries and that had really pissed Keith off during those first few months in space. Also, Lance is a fucking moron. Somehow despite literally fighting in a space war for years–

(Although Lance had always fought with Voltron. This meant that the most up close battles he was actually involved in were when Voltron took down a Galra base or when they received a distress signal. This also meant that they almost always fought robot sentries or a fleet of ships with no faces to put to voices over comms. When they saw the destruction of the Galra Empire, it was always after they’d liberated a world. Well either that or the planet was well off enough that Allura considered them to be a potential sponsor.)

(While Keith had been a Paladin of Voltron, he hadn’t really understood all of that. He thought he knew war. He thought that he knew what they were getting into)

(During his time working as a Blade of Marmora and alongside the rebels, he’d learned just how wrong he was. He’d visited planet ravaged by famine and terror and had had to leave before they could even really do anything. He’d slaughtered people in cold blood because it was either them or the life of a civilian who hadn’t asked and didn’t deserve to be involved in this war. Keith would do it again in a heartbeat because that is what war is. It’s ugly and it’s cruel. War takes no prisoners and leaves no victors.)

(Keith couldn’t count how many times he’d returned to his room at the Marmora headquarters covered in blood and feeling empty inside. He didn’t know how many times he silently cried himself to sleep and wished that he had stayed with Voltron. Keith had lost count of the people he’d lost, the people he’d seen die, the people he’d killed because there were too many.)

(Keith remembers the first time he’d caught a new recruit breaking down after his first kill. He’d rushed to try to do something but in the end, all he could offer was that in the end, he got out alive. It wasn’t enough, but in the face of such a life-changing moment, nothing was.)

(Keith remembered Lance’s first actual kill vividly. He'd had to shoot a soldier in order to save Pidge from getting gutted the first time that they'd actually fought 'Galra' that weren't robots. He’d been a wreck and Keith hadn’t understood then. His first kill had happened years before back on Earth in a bar fight. One of his dad’s old loan sharks had gotten angry and decided that he’d take Keith as his pound of flesh. Keith had refused and then fled the state. With everyone Keith cared about dying in one way or another, he’d gotten used to the idea that death was a natural part of life. That murder and fighting were how you survived in this reality.)

(No one comes out of a war without earning the title of 'murderer'.)

–Lance still managed to maintain his stupidity. Sometimes it almost seemed like Lance was maturing and might actually be capable of being none than the comedic idiot, but then he’d do something really dumb and they were back to square one.

Well, he could be serious sometimes, but then he’d just fall back onto being an idiot so that was enough for Keith. It wasn’t like Lance was dumb! He’d been a very great and capable right-hand man while Keith had done his first stint as the black Paladin. They’d gotten really close.

Thank goodness that Lance had stopped flirting with everything that was sentient and had something resembling boobs. However, that only happened because Lance was actually serious about Allura. And of course, Keith couldn’t help but fall for him.

Now Keith… well, Keith cared about people in the same way that a Galra did – or at least that’s how Kolivan and his mother had explained it to him. When Keith fell for someone he fell hard. He gets attached to people easily and he’ll do just about anything to protect them.

When Shiro had disappeared, Keith had been fully prepared to launch himself into space without any knowledge about anything as long as it meant the could have even a small chance of finding Shiro and that hadn’t even been romantic love. Doing anything for those that you love was a very traditional Galra value. Galra also had a habit of getting easily obsessed. Just look at Zarkon and his obsession with power.

Look at Keith and his obsessions with Shiro.

Keith’s latest… obsession was Lance. It sounded bad to say it like that. It sounds like he doesn’t actually care about Lance, but that’s not true. He cares a little too much. He cared about Lance to his own detriment – another Galra trait, or so his mother claimed.

He was willing to do pretty much anything if it meant that Lance would be happy. He would actively help set Lance up if Lance would be happier. Sure, Keith would prefer it if Lance could be happy with him, but he’d settle for less.

Ultimately, Keith was just a settler.

After all, nothing was worth Shiro’s pain, and everything was worth Lance’s happiness.

So when Keith returned as the Black Paladin and was confronted with the fact that Lance was still completely gone on Alura and now Allura was actually receptive, all he could do was keep silent. It hurt, but Lance finally had his shot. Keith had missed his. There was nothing to be done about it. Keith wasn’t about to fight when he knew he would inevitably lose and just end up hurt. One could argue that the same could be said about fighting Zarkon, but even then, his death could be the difference between a comrade living or dying. To Keith, that was worth it.

Fighting for Lance would only result in disappointment and heartbreak all around. It would just get his hopes up and when he was inevitably defeated by Allura – who wouldn't pick her over him? – he’d be left with nothing. At least this way he can keep some sort of positive relationship with Lance. He knew that Lance wasn’t the type to treat someone differently once he found out someone liked him, but no one save Shiro knew that he was gay. Straight guys tended to be really weird sometimes. Who knows how Lance would react. Eh could be a complete dick about it and then Keith would have wrecked things. Again.

Lance was a good person, but sometimes good people also have prejudices. Keith had already done the whole crush on a straight guy thing.

Griffin may not hate him now, but there was definitely a long ass period of time when he did when they were younger.

But the point is that he now had quite a few feelings for Lance and they weren’t going away.

Lance was clearly still gone on Allura and to make matters worse, now they were together. AND they were both under his command while Shiro fucked off to lead the Atlas and its crew. Keith was the one stuck going to meetings and shit while Lance and Allura had plenty of free time to canoodle all they pleased. Keith wanted them to be happy but that didn’t stop him from being a bitter bitch that it wasn’t with him. As long as no one else found out and he didn’t let it affect his leadership, then everything was fine.

Of fucking course, that’s when life went to shit and Shiro asked to speak with him after the latest in a long list of meetings.

“What’s up?” He asked as the room cleared out, trying very hard to pretend that nothing was wrong even though he knew that Shiro could see right through him.

“Keith,” Shiro started, his eyebrows of disappointment making an appearance. "You’ve been… distracted lately. Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything at all?”

Keith shuffled awkwardly on the spot. "It’s not going to interfere with my performance.” He pre-emptively started, getting another disappointed look from Shiro.

“You know that’s not what I meant, Keith. Something’s eating away at you.”

Keith sighed heavily. “You’re not going to drop this, are you?” he asked, knowing full well that no, Shiro would not drop the topic. “I’ve done it again.” He finally admitted.

It took Shiro a moment but then the worried look on his face gave way to dawning realization. “Keith…” he said softly. "This is like… back with Griffin, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. He knew better than anyone what had happened with Griffin.

It hadn’t actually started being a thing until they were both attending the Galaxy Garrison and Keith’s obsession with Shiro had started and begun to run its course. Even back then, Shiro had been dating Adam – and was quite happy too – so Keith had been working on pushing down his infatuation so that he could appreciate whatever relationship that Shiro was willing to give him. This meant that it left Keith’s heart open and vulnerable while he struggled to re-sort his feelings.

It happened when Keith was in the middle of a group simulation along with Griffin (and ironically Lance) so he was actually required to communicate with the other teen. Back then the only animosity between them had been due to Keith being at the top of the class and also being socially awkward. He didn’t talk to anyone but Shiro, but of course, Griffin and many others fully believed that Keith just thought that he was better than everyone else. Keith didn’t have enough energy to correct people. Once you earn a reputation it was kind of pointless to try and convince the people that it’s wrong. Keith knows who he is and Shiro knows who he is. Keith had never really bothered with caring about what the others thought.

But oddly enough, he had been caring about what Griffin thought of him.

All it took for him to truly realize what was happening was hearing Griffin take charge of their crew in order to lead them through the simulation. Keith had actually been so stunned that he’d kept quiet and hadn’t done his own thing. Griffin had smirked at him after and made some smart remark about Keith finally following orders for once.

Of course, after that Keith couldn’t just let things go so easily. Griffin got one lucky shot and Keith was going to make him work. (That logic only really worked if Griffin was the one chasing after him, which was of course, only half true). There was a certain sense of competition because Keith was considered a prodigy and Griffin was the only one who could actually make Keith work for being the best. Keith quickly found himself falling harder as Griffin proved himself more and more competent and capable. Keith figures that he probably has a thing for competence.

(Which meant that he was ready for death as soon as Lance actually proved himself to be a sharpshooter.)

Keith didn’t really understand his feelings let alone how to handle them so he sort of just found himself challenging Griffin all the time. This proved to piss Griffin off and in between fistfights and awful simulation crashes, Keith’s crush got revealed.

That… really hadn’t ended well… for anyone.

Homophobia had been at an all-time high for the rest of the year.

After that entire disaster, Shiro had been understandably very concerned for Keith. Fighting his crushes just seemed to be a Keith thing, and since he was attracted to competent and dangerous people, that had the potential to be very hazardous for Keith. It turns out that that was a Galra thing – dangerous sand strong mates are good mates and all that – but Keith knew that Lance wasn’t into that as evidence of their initial relationship.

Shiro knew all of this. So of course, he knew just who Keith was talking about.

“Lance.”

Keith flinched. “He has Allura.”

Shiro pursed his lips and all Keith could do was smile bitterly because as much as he was obsessive, he seemed to have skipped out on the Galra trait of possessiveness. He felt a little jealous of Allura yeah, but the overwhelming feeling was just sad and lonely.

Keith was so tired of feeling lonely.

“It’s not going to interfere. I’m not going to interfere.” He repeated both to himself and Shiro, looking the other man right in the eye. He looked so unbearably sad for Keith at that moment and Keith felt so selfish. Here was Shiro trying to comfort him about Lance while he hadn’t even been offered the opportunity to grieve for Adam. Keith felt horrible and gross. Here he was just wasting Shiroo’s time for stupid feeling she had no business even having.

“You deserve to be happy too, you know.”

Shiro moved to place a comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder but as much as Keith hated the very idea, he moved back and turned away from Shiro. He was this close to crying right now and he couldn’t risk crying in front of Shiro. His already shredded pride didn’t need to take another hit.

He knew that there was no way that Lance would be able to love him back. He'd been after Allura for so long, and there was no evidence that Lance was ever open to getting with a guy let alone with Keith. Hell, Keith counts himself lucky that Lance even considered him to be a friend right now. After all this time and all the things that had come between them, it was a wonder that he could even boast that much.

If Keith was going, to be honest with himself, he didn't really know how he felt about knowing that he could never have a happy ending with Lance. He knew that in this situation he should feel heartbroken or jealous or something. But... all he felt was empty. It was like he just stopped caring but it didn't stop hurting. He couldn't be bothered to actually do anything, but he still, on some level, wanted Lance.

Keith didn't like this odd bland feeling.

He could still feel the sadness and everything else, it was just... muted. Why couldn't he just be normal in the face of heartbreak? Why did he always have to be so alien? 

“I need to go.” He hissed, a sob beginning to work its way into his throat despite the weird empty and muted feeling that had settled over him. He didn’t want to feel right now. Even this emptiness felt heavy with feeling and he needed it to stop.

Without waiting for Shiro to respond, Keith bolted out of the conference room.