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As Keith walked down the Garrison hallway to the training room where Lance was, his heart was filled with a bubbly kind of happiness. Shiro and Adam's reunion had made his heart irrevocably happy and the other Paladins had been bewildered with his story of Lance and his trans-reality teleporting to find the Black Lion. 

But now, it was time to go. He and Lance had to actually find the Black Lion now, not just visit other realities hoping he'd be there. Keith still hadn't figured out how exactly he was supposed to do it, but he hoped that he'd be able to find Black with the TRAM. 

This Garrison and the one back home were virtually identical, so it wasn't hard to find the training room. Keith remembered his days spent as a kid (when he was still enrolled) in the Garrison's training quarters, trying to strengthen his spaghetti arms and weak legs. It had worked- he'd become an excellent fighter, but those memories were coated with a dark hurt. 

Those hours upon hours of training were a form of therapy he'd used to forget everything else, beating up his physical body instead of his mind for a change to try and work through his problems. He didn't know if that part had worked, but it had healed over nevertheless. 

Keith rounded the corner from the hallway to the training area and peeked into the first room. And there was Lance. With his sword. Keith cursed himself for asking Lance about it earlier. He'd first seen the longsword when they'd been abducted by the Galra in the first reality they'd visited, but he'd forgotten to bring it up again. 

Lance was fighting three sim sentries at once, dodging and blocking, striking out, flipping backward elegantly... he was the epitome of grace as he fought, slipping easily around the sentries and bringing the longsword down on their holographic bodies. 

Someone needs to go a bit harder on him.

Suddenly, a small idea poked at his mind. Looking down, he chose his Marmoran blade over his bayard, then entered the training room at a run, charging at Lance with his blade raised. It immediately transformed into the sword-version of itself and lengthened before Keith's eyes, but as he swung the blade down towards Lance, the Blue Paladin turned and blocked the swing with surprising agility. 

Lance looked up at Keith with an interested and curious expression. "Keith," he greeted happily. 

"Lance," Keith replied, pressing down hard against Lance's blade. But the Blue Paladin showed no falter, seemingly easily holding his own against the Marmoran blade and the Galra hybrid behind it. 

"Impromptu training session?" Lance asked. "Sorry, bud, I'm not a sim."

Keith lifted his sword and attacked from a different angle. Again, Lance deflected with ease, his grin widening. "Someone's gotta show you how to fight with a real sword," Keith jerked his chin in the direction of the sentries with their short, stubby swords that were more of glorified daggers than anything. 

Without breaking eye contact, Lance called out, "Training mode: off." The sentries disappeared with a flash. 

And then Keith was coming at Lance from all angles, his sword swinging down in broad arcs from every direction. He started off slow, but Lance was deflecting easily, meeting Keith's blows with precision and accuracy, even pushing Keith back slightly with the maneuvering of his blade. 

However, where Lance's strength was agility, Keith had been using a sword for far longer than Lance had. He had the upper hand, no matter what fancy longsword Lance pulled out. He pushed back, causing Lance to step back, his face determined as he searched for an opening in Keith's defenses. When he found none, he shook his head in disbelief, grinning. 

"Keith, what the hell, you know you're better than me."

"I know."

Lance's blade swung from the left and Keith caught it easily with a rightwards strike, creating an 'X' between them. Lance beamed and leaned forward, placing a delicate kiss on Keith's forehead. The Red Paladin halted, giving Lance just enough time to plant a solid kick in the center of his chest, sending Keith falling backward to the floor, landing hard. Lance promptly sat on top of him, kicking away the Marmoran blade and pinning Keith's arms to the floor, grinning triumphantly. 

"I win," he laughed in a sing-song voice. 

Keith was blushing furiously. "Kissing people is cheating!"

Lance leaned down, bringing his face so close to Keith's that their noses bumped. He smiled shyly. "You count that as a kiss?"

Keith struggled against Lance's grip, cheeks a very obvious shade of vermillion. "Come on," he muttered, ignoring the question. "Let me up." 

Lance stood and reached down to help Keith up, but the Red Paladin swung his leg out in an arc, causing Lance to trip and fall flat on his ass. Keith got up himself and offered Lance his hand. "No, dumbass, I don't count that as a kiss. Now let's go."

As the two walked down the hallway to the landing pad where Blue and Red were waiting for them, Lance asked about the Paladins of this reality. 

"You're probably glad that you decided to train instead of meeting them. Allura's a guy in this reality."

Lance glanced at Keith shyly. "Why would that be a problem?"

Keith swallowed, floundering. 

Lance's lips spread into a small smirk. "I like girls and boys."

Keith reddened. What was up with Lance today? Why was he being so forward? What the fuck?

The two walked onto the tarp, Blue and Red waiting patiently. Keith sighed and pulled the TRAM out from his pocket. He zeroed it into the coordinates of the Black in the current reality as he walked, then began flipping through the surrounding realities for a Black that looked a little out of place. 

Most of the realities were static, the others displaying Black flying with the other Lions. Coran had told him that Black would be alone, that he likely wouldn't go to a reality that had Voltron already. 

He was still looking after he'd boarded red. He was still looking as he and Lance shot into the sky, the other Lions roaring a goodbye as they left. He was still looking when Lance asked him where the hell they were going. 

And then, he spotted it. It was on a channel that he'd originally thought to be just static, but then, in tiny bursts, a picture formed on the TRAM's holographic screen. Black sat, looking content and proud, in front of a huge, neon, steam-punk city, two figures standing before him. Keith couldn't make out the features of the figures, but the image struck a strang chord with him- he felt a jolt of a connection overtake him. 

"Ready, Lance?" he asked the Blue Paladin distractedly. He locked the TRAM into position and tossed it to the cargo pit, where it was ejected. Within a few moments, the familiar portal opened up. Keith didn't even have to think about it as he urged Red into the vortex. 

Everything seemed fine until there was a bone-jarring jolt. Keith heard Lance yell out in terror as the Lions were thrown about violently. Keith couldn't see anything but the bright white of the inside of the portal and Red's controls weren't responding. "Lance!" he yelled, panic taking over him. 

"Keith!" came Lance's strangled reply, his voice marred with static. 

The light grew brighter and brighter, then all of a sudden, everything was dark. Keith blinked groggily. He had the vague sense that he'd passed out for a few moments. Or maybe a few hours, but it had seemed like a split-second. Before he could fully see, he called out. "Lance? Lance, where are you?"

"I'm okay." Never before had Keith been so relieved to hear Lance's voice. 

Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the scene in front of them. And as they did, they confirmed Keith's worst nightmare. 

The TRAM was scattered, in broken pieces, before the Lions, floating abandoned in space. 

...

i hope u guys are liking so far!! i'm really excited for the ending (we've got a few more chaps left haha)

okay!! hiatus is over bc nats back home n doin better!! everythin is good again((: thank u again to everyone who's been so so so supportive i appreciate ur love so very very much, yall mean the world to me. 

in other news, this bitch went to pride!! it was so much fun omg. everyone in the community is so supportive and kind. it makes me so happy to b a part of this gorgeous group of people. i support and love all of u <333

i have like 8 days of school left (i wont b able to update this coming weekend most likely as finals are next tuesday and wednesday, but after that, its summer my babes). i hope yall do well on ur finals and have a great last few weeks of school!! 

qotd: are you a cat person or a dog person?

a: uhhh so im a cat person but i love my dog too lol. i feel like dog people always hATE cats n cat ppl are always like chill with dogs they just like cats more lmao maybe im just biased (cats can b super sweet i promise ok)

I LOVE YALL SM U DONT EVEN KNOW<333