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This the way you left me,
I'm not pretending.
No hope, no love, no glory,
No happy ending.
This is the way that we love,
Like it's forever.
Then live the rest of our life,
But not together.
-Happy Ending, Mika
The desert sunset turned the sky into a watercolor of orange and black. Shadows flickered over the vastness of the rocky mountains in the distance as the sun lowered in to the horizon and the darkness began to appear, dotted by the first stars of the night.
“Hey, remember when you got kicked out?” Lance asked as he sat on the rooftop ledge of the Garrison, his long legs dangling ten stories from the ground.
“You just love to rub that into my face, huh?” Keith who sat beside Lance in the same manner, grimaced. But even if it was deadly drop to the gravel pathway ten floors below, he wasn’t afraid. It was a bold move and honestly, it was reckless, but nothing and no one will take this moment from Keith.
“I guess I thought that you deserved it back then.” Lance shrugged, his shoulder brushing against Keith’s. They were leveled, with Lance’s being a few centimeters taller because of his height advantage over Keith by a few inches. “I mean, I did hate you.”
“You’ve always been jealous of me because I was fighter class, cargo pilot.” Lance scowled and huffed irritatingly at the insulting name Keith had always teased him with while the red paladin smirked.
“Hey, blue paladin over here, thank you very much. Have some respect!”
Keith laughed, the sound rich but a little sad. He pulled Lance’s green jacket that he now wore, having abandoned his red one, while Lance wore his usual blue shirt. They watched in comfortable silence as the sun disappeared behind the rocky mountain range. As the sky darkened, the dark canvass filled up with the stars from faraway galaxies they explored together.
But now, it was nice to be back on earth for a break. The Garrison, even if it kicked out Keith, held a special place in their hearts; it was where they first met and learned the basics of space exploration that had aided them in their adventures as paladins of Voltron.
“We’ve liberated quite a few planets these past few years, huh?” Keith suddenly asked and Lance slowly turned his head to look at the raven haired man beside him. It’s been a few years since they started their duties as paladins and they were known in most far off places as the saviors who will break the chains of the Galra’s enslavement. But despite the time they have been fighting Zarkon’s rule, they were still far from their goal.
“Yeah.” Lance smiled when Keith slowly lowered his head and let it rest against his shoulder. “You did great in the fight today, Keith. I saw everything.” His ocean blue eyes that were a stark contrast against his tanned skin, lifted up to look at the stars above them.
Keith trailed up his violet eyes to look at the sky as well; the constellations were beautiful up close in space, but they are even more breathtaking from where he saw them from afar.
“Thanks.” Keith yawned as he felt the exhaustion of today’s battle wash over him. He felt his head sink heavily on Lance’s hard shoulder. “It was a piece of cake, huh?”
Lance grinned. “I’m proud of you. You and the others will do great.”
Dark lashes fanned over Keith’s violet eyes as he lowered his gaze from the stars. He turned his head slightly and nuzzled the crook of Lance’s neck while his hands caressed the smooth fabric of Lance’s jacket over his shoulders which he had been wearing ever since for good luck. Lance’s scent from it had already faded away and there was nothing Keith could do about it.
“I miss you.” Keith whispered against cold tanned skin. “I miss your stupid jokes. I miss your stupid smile, your laugh, everything. I miss you, Lance.”
“Keith.” The smile from Lance’s lips disappeared and Keith looked up at him from where his head was rested on his shoulder. “Come on, dude, you can always visit me.”
“It’s not the same!” And at that moment, the whole scenery changed. The stars appeared bigger and floated around them like giant fireflies. The planets they have visited together were in sight as they orbited with Keith and Lance as their center. “It’s not the same without you out there with us!”
Emotion thickened Keith’s voice and tears began to fall from his eyes but the moment that they rolled down to land on Lance, the blue paladin’s form flickered with static.
“I miss you so much, Lance.” Keith began to break down. “Why did you have to die? What did you have to die before I could tell you that I love you?” he was sobbing now and Lance closed his eyes. He wrapped his arms around Keith’s trembling form but they went through because he was just a holographic AI of memories now.
“I love you too, you know.” Even if he was just a collection of memories now, he deeply remembered how much he loved Keith. But then again, life had other plans for them when Zarkon decided to ambush the Castle of Lions after the paladins had taken heavy fire from the last attack.
They were at their weakest and they were outnumbered when Galra soldiers broke through their front door. Allura devised an escape plan to shoot out the lions with the paladins, her, and Coran out of the back hanger. Unfortunately, the castle had already taken heavy damage and the signal boosters were destroyed. Someone had to stay behind and manually eject the others into space.
Lance volunteered.
When Keith found out about Lance’s decision to stay behind, he was furious but he was already buckled up inside of Red’s cockpit. He screamed for Lance to get his head out of his ass and go with them but Lance just gave Keith the brightest smile he could;
“Live on, Keith. Kick their asses for me, ‘kay?” Then the monitor went dead.
With Allura and Coran safely inside Blue, Lance launched them into space with Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk in tears and their hearts in pieces as they cried out for Lance.
But the loudest of them all, was Keith.
When the Galra fell back, they immediately flew back to the Castle of Lions or what was left of it. They found Lance in the pool of his own blood and amazingly stubborn as Lance was, he was still alive but barely responsive.
Coran got Lance into the only working medical pod left to try and save him but when the Altean royal adviser saw what a mess Keith was, he decided to extract what was left of Lance as a person because it looked like that his physical body wasn’t going to make it. True enough, Lance wasn’t able to last the night and the only thing Coran was able to save were his memories
That was five years ago.
Keith sobbed brokenly, the scars in his heart still fresh from losing Lance. He looked older now after the years that had went by but Lance still looked the same as the day they lost him. The two of them sat aimlessly in the middle of a holographic mirage of space surrounded by stars and Keith hugged Lance in his arms so hard. However, he tried to reject the cold reality that what he had in his arms was just a glass capsule of memory infused molecules created by Altean technology.
“Come back, Lance.” He begged. “Come back to me, please!”
“I’m always with you, Keith.” Was Lance’s reply and Keith totally lost it as he cried his heart out. He cried, screamed, wailed, and swore to end Zarkon’s life with his bayard sword and Red’s flames for taking Lance away from him.
Lance let him do so; what can an AI hologram do, right?
~
Shiro was instantly woken from his sleep at the sound of his name by a familiar voice that still stirred the pain of loss in his heart.
“Uh, hey, Shiro.”
The black paladin sat up from the bed he laid in. The beautiful princess that slept beside him was also awoken and she pulled the blanket over her bare chest.
“Lance?” Allura’s eyes widened as Lance’s AI stood by the doorway of their bedroom. Lance gave a small wave but he didn’t really look at Shiro and Allura while the couple were in bed together.
“Oops, sorry, about that!” Lance laughed nervously and covered his eyes. “I didn’t see anything I swear! I just came to tell you something.”
“Is it Keith again?” Shiro frowned in worry when Lance sighed and nodded. Then Shiro said; “I’ll go get him.”
“I’ll come with you.” Allura reached for her night robe that hung by the top of the bed as Lance disappeared.
True enough when Shiro and Allura entered the holo room, Keith was there in the middle of numerous firefly like stars, leaning on Lance’s shoulder. The blue paladin’s AI gave the new comers a shrug and motioned towards the sleeping pilot who had passed out due to exhaustion.
Shiro went over and carefully carried Keith over his shoulder with ease like he was a sack of potatoes. “Let’s go, buddy.” Shiro grunted as he hauled Keith. “Time for bed. It’s been a hard day.”
Keith didn’t say anything and there was no protest as Shiro started to carried him out of the holo room. That moment the field of stars and planets around them disappeared and Lance’s AI was the only thing left that illuminated the darkness.
“Thank you for telling us, Lance.” Allura smiled sadly at the former blue paladin.
“Yeah, no prob.” Lance shrug, still having kept his personality along with the extracted memories. His smile mellowed down when he looked over to where Shiro was carrying Keith.
“Could you look after him for me?” He asked and Allura felt her heart break the way it did that same night because they were the same words Lance had uttered before he never opened his eyes again.
“Always.” Allura nodded, her voice thick.
“The others and I will make sure of it.” Shiro assured with a sad smile before he walked off to exit the room with Keith over his shoulders.
“Good night, Lance.” Allura said softly and Lance flashed a carefree grin and a small dismissive wave.
“’Nighty night, princess!”
The moment Allura left, Lance closed his eyes and his whole form dispersed in a small explosion of blue light, like stars and fireflies shooting across the room before disappearing in darkness.