ya'll'd've'f'i'd've

- a tribute to keef

- coel

note: the next part provides a third person perspective on what happened to lance after he left keith behind the debris (preceded  by some rantful explaining)

  •••

"Lance? He is only sixteen. Has never been in a fist fight, nevermind a war. Never takes anything seriously. According to some, the weakest Paladin. The prankster, trickster, and sarcastic-son-of-a-bitch-who-never-shuts-up."

Or, at least, so the myth goes.

Keith never confessed it to anyone, but he hated--no, loathed it, when people mistook Lance for this cosmic legend. They had been Paladins of Voltron for quite some time now, and several planets had recognised them during previous missions before introductions could be said, and they were all welcomed.

But from time to time, there came a planet that would somehow stand being the host of some disgusting motherfuckers who didn't accept Lance and judged his laid back attitude as laziness, and ordered him to leave because he "wasn't a real Paladin" and was a "shame to the Holy Lions".

Before anyone knew what was happening, half of them had been knocked out, the other half were running for the hills, shit was flying in the air and Keith was being forcibly dragged away by a (there's no other was of putting it) red Shiro. Pidge always left a secret bomb behind. Allura made sure to "accidentally" shoot a few craters into the thing before they left. Hunk replaced the 'n' in his name with an 'l'.

And Blue?

Well, Blue had a very serious telepathic conversation with whatever filth had been dubbed the leader of the place, after which they usually pissed themselves in fear, but that's a bunch of other stories for another time.

But despite their efforts, by that time the damage had already been done, and Keith always saw right through Lance's lying smiles and lying laughs and lying waves of the hand and lying "I'm totally fine guys don't worry about me I've been through worse."

Insert 10 weeks of continuous, never ending training and starving himself.

No matter how hard he tried, Lance was never fully accepted. Because the aliens never saw him fight. Because they never saw him cry. Because they never saw him risking his life over and over and over again for the other Paladins because he was so convinced that they were unique and he was replacable.

But Keith had.

And the truth was that no one on the ship could beat Lance in long-range shooting; not even Shiro. Keith never beat Lance in a duel. Lance had stayed up for three days and nights straight working on some Altean tech and trying to modify it to allow Pidge to play the game that she was so looking forward to only to realise she had no console, and succeeded. He was constantly fixing and upgrading Blue and making sure she was alright.

And he was there for Keith when he finally told him about his fears of becoming the Black Paladin, and how he didn't know how to lead, and how he was terrified of screwing up and getting someone hurt, and how his relationship with Red was getting tense and he didn't know what to do.

Keith had seen Lance. The real Lance. Under all his layers, all his masks, Lance had let Keith in, and he was so beautiful and heart-breaking that Keith could barely breathe.

But the last day of their mission on Jaliah, Lance proved himself not to Keith, but to the Galra Empire. He ran out to meet an army of two million on his own, as if he were saying, "Look. I'm done with your bullshit. I'm a Paladin too. The Blue Paladin. And I'm fucking scary."

He was wrong.

He wasn't scary.

He was terrifying.

And despite their arguments, despite their differences, despite their mutual hatred...

... if Keith had seen him there, like that, instead of staring at the sand beneath his feet, behind the pile of debris?

He would have smiled.

Because at long last, the Water Guardian had lowered his layers.

•••

Lance's first few moments out in the red rage of battle were overflowing with fury. He was physically incapable of feeling anything else. The explosions going off in his head from Galran machine guns and his own bayard were bearable. The humid, dusty desert air mixed with sand and sweat and blood, was bearable. The odd Galra that caught his arm or leg or chest and sent a spike of pain shooting throught his body was bearable.

The constant, dull knowledge that Keith had left him behind and had no intention of coming after him was unbearable.

At some point, a Galra came screeching into his face, and Lance only just managed to shoot it, but its sword had caught and pierced the soft black foam of his armour and gone through his skin and muscle, and out the other side. It was on the very edge of his chest, so it could of been worse, but as you would react if someone had impaled your hand with some scissors, Lance screamed. And it wasn't just a scream of pain; it was a scream of anger, guilt, fear, and above all else, war. It was this scream that tricked Keith into thinking that Lance had been killed, while in reality from that moment on he did better than ever.

He would shoot their heads. Always the heads. Aim right bang splat in the middle of their temple, pull the trigger, and... brains everywhere, and a jiggling body slumped over on the ground.

Keith and Lance were both fighting like monsters, and at the same time. Both thought the other was dead. Both yelled and shot and sliced and punched their way through the army, slowly clawing their way closer to each other.

Slowly.

Slowly.

They were soaked to the skin in dark purple Galran blood. Lance had lost his left chest plate, front right calf plate and right shoulder plate; the rest of his armour was loose and barely holding together. Keith had lost both his back and front thigh plates, back bicep plates and his entire spinal plate.

They might as well of been fighting in jockstraps.

Lance had gotten hit in the head at some point because blood was coating his eyes and he felt dizzy. His eyelashes were stuck together with the stuff, and he was having trouble blinking. All he could see was purple, purple, purple, purple.

The particular Galras that they were fighting weren't well built at all. Somewhere at the back of his head, where a tiny spark of sanity remained dormant in Lance, he wondered whether they were considered extinct because of their disadvantages, or whether the typical Galras simply whipped them out like animals. But it didn't explain how it was possible that so many of them where there at the time.

Of course, this tiny sane fragment rarely got anything across. The mess that was the rest of Lance's brain kept firm control. It was finding the entire situation quite humorous. There were so many of them, but they were all so weak. When Lance hit a key point like their chest or head or abdomen, they basically exploded like balloons. Blood went flying everywhere. Their guts spilled out. Bodily fluids soaked up the sand.

It was basically like the war was a drug. The worst drug imaginable, slowly poisoning both Lance and Keith, twisting and turning their insides until they had to keep reminding themselves who they were. Lance in particular found himself feeling dizzy and woozy, whether it was from the excitement of combat, his loss of blood or his certainity of Keith's death, he wasn't sure.

But whatever emotions were supposed to come our at the core of his mind got lost along the way and came out completely different at the end. From the side, he looked like a berserk.

Lance had to stop himself from screaming with laughter as he killed another Galra. Pop! Just like a balloon.

Pop!

Pop!

How long had he been fighting?

Pop!

Pop!

An hour? Two? Four? Eight?

Pop!

He couldn't see. He couldn't see anything but purple and purple and purple (don't forget purple) and purple and--

-- red.

Just a flash.

A tiny, bleak flash somewhere in the distance.

And yet it was there.

And as the fury of the war finally left his body and he found himself swaying, shaking on the spot, a single word left his bloodied lips, paired up with the weakest hint of a smile.

"Keith."

•••

aaand we all know what happens next now don't we

☆〜（ゝ。∂）

hahahahhahahahhahahaha

i'm a monster

-coel

•••

note: jaliah is the name of the planet that the paladins and their lions landed on to collect galra samples for pidge's "master plan". the reason why the castle of lions couldn't land with them is because of the atmosphere thickness. it took several months just to get close enough to create a wormhole there and back.