Taking A Chance

Family Matters

Lance's heart sank at his abuela's words. She had refused to talk to him from the day he came out as gay. He'd hoped time and the fact he'd been reported as dead would've changed her mind.
He'd always spoken lovingly about his whole family to the team, even about his abuela, never telling them she hated him, and now they know the truth.
He looked across at Keith who watched him, with is head tipped slightly to one side. Keith looked so cute when he did that, and Lance couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips.
Lance realised in that moment, he didn't need his abuela's approval on how he lived his life.
'You will not talk about about Lance like that,' said Maria, ‘if you do, I will have to ask you to leave.'
‘I beg your…’ began Sophia.
‘You heard me,’ said Maria, ‘we will not have you being rude to him in his own home.’
‘We?’ asked Sophia, her gaze falling on Jorge.
‘Yes, we,’ said Jorge, his anger flaring. ‘We love all our children equally, regardless who they choose to love. Keith is a welcome addition to this family, as are his parents, Shiro and Adam. There are only two people at this table who have an issue with same sex relationships, and if neither of you can look past your bias, then you're not welcome here.'
‘This is my home,' said Veronica, shocked. ‘I have my stuff in the car…’
‘No,’ said Jorge, ‘you can stay with your abuela's and come and get the rest of your stuff on the weekend.’
‘Y...your kicking me out, because of him?’ she asked, pointing at Lance. ‘That's not fair.'
Lance frowned. He wanted to say that he would be the one to leave, but there was a look in his father's eyes that kept him quiet.
'Veronica,’ said Jorge, patiently, 'this is the way it has to be if you can't behave yourself. We don't want to do this, but your attitude leaves us no choice.'
Silent tears slid down Veronica's face as she looked between her parents.
'Are you going to sit there and let this family be pulled apart because of you?' asked Sophia, finally turning her eyes to Lance. ‘If you were a real man you would do the right thing and leave.'
‘What gives you the right to judge me?' asked Lance. ‘You don't even know me any more. I was 14 when I came out, and you stopped talking to me from that day. You stopped coming over here, you stopped buying me birthday presents and Christmas presents. I joined the Garrison and left so the others could have their abuela back.’ A look of shock went around the table. ‘If mama and papa want Keith and I to leave, they only have to say so.'
‘No,' said Maria, ‘we don't want either of you to leave, we want you here, with the babies.’
She wiped the tears from her cheeks.
‘None of us want them to leave,’ said Marco. ‘We buried Lance once, thinking he was dead. We don't want to lose him again, but that could happen at any time with his job. Having him here means we get to spend more time with him.‘
Jorge looked at his mother. ‘We don't want to see this family separated, but you are both asking us to choose between you or Lance. We can come and visit you, have a coffee and a chat. We can't do that if Lance leaves because we don't know where in the universe he could end up.’ Jorge dropped his eyes to the table and looked at his hands. ‘We’ve seen first hand the life they lead as part of Voltron. We've watched them fight the enemy, get hurt, and sit on the edge of life and death. In the middle at all that, Lance fell in love, and brought his family home to meet us. Keith is an amazing young man who has been through so much pain in his short life, and he's a credit to the men who raised him.’
Silence settled around the table.
‘Pa,’ Molly said, from her high chair. She held her hands out to Lance.
Smiling, Lance picked her up. 'What's the matter little monkey?'
‘Um,’ she said, pointing at Lance's plate and looking up at him hopefully.
‘You only love me for my food,’ he sighed, dramatically. He started feeding her as he opened her mouth eagerly.
The others started eating again, but tension hung in the our around the table.
Jaya whined and pushed himself up. Keith transfered him to the crook of his arm. Jaya yawned and opened his yellow eyes.
Sophia looked at Jaya in surprise.
‘Aya,' said Molly, reaching for him. Keith moved Jaya closer to Molly. Jaya grabbed her food covered hand and stuck one of her fingers in his mouth and sucked on it.
Molly pulled her finger out of his mouth with a pop. ‘No, Aya,’ she said, sternly.
A ripple of laughter went around the table.
From a container on the table, Maria handed Keith a cigar shaped biscuit. ‘These were in the bag Kolivan gave you.'
‘Thanks,' Keith said as he took the biscuit and gave it to Jaya.
‘How old is...’ Sophia gestured to Jaya.
‘He would be about 3 months,’ Keith said.
‘Should he be eating that?’ asked Sophia.
‘Galran kits grow and move on to solid food faster than human babies,’ said Keith. ‘The gestation time for a kit is around 4 months.'
‘Are...Galran…cats?’ asked Sophia, uncertainly.
‘I guess that's one way to describe them,’ said Keith. ‘Galran purr, and some have tails.'
Jaya plonked his biscuit in the food on Keith's plate, then push it back in his mouth.
‘Why did you do that?’ asked Keith, looking at the sloppy bits of biscuit in his food. With his folk, Keith scooped those bits up and fed them to Jaya.
‘I guess he likes human food,' said Lance, 'which is good because we don't know how long Kolivan wants us to look after him.'
Sophia and Veronica continued to eat in silence, a moment.
‘Why do you have those marks on your face now?’ asked Veronica.
'It's a complicated story to do with Keith being Galran, and a powerful Ancient Altean, and now us living for 700 years,' Lance said.
‘Yeah, right,' Veronica laughed.
'He's serious,’ Marco said.
'What?' asked Veronica, the smile vanishing from her face.
‘Are you sure you'll be able to put up with him for 700 years?’ asked Shiro.
‘I'll have to, I'm kind of stuck with him now,’ Keith said.
‘Hey,’ said Lance. ‘Little monkey, you tell daddy no.’
Molly looked up at Lance. ‘Pa, no,' she said.
Keith burst out laughing.
‘No,’ cried Lance, ‘you've turned our daughter against me.' Lance shot to his feet. ‘I want a divorce and full custody of the kids.’
Keith continued to laugh and Lance peered out him, then looked at Shiro.
‘I think he's broken,’ said Lance. He looked back at Keith. 'Pull yourself together, Mullet, you're ruining your ninja, assassin, badass image.'
‘You're an idiot,’ Keith said, finally.
‘And he's back,' Lance said, taking his seat again.
Sophia sat there looking confused at the two young men.
After a moment Sophia stood. ‘Jorge, a word.’ Without waiting for a reply, Sophia went outside onto the front verandah.
Lance watched his father follow her out. ‘Come on little girl, let's get you cleaned up and ready for a nap.’
When Lance left Keith followed him upstairs.
Keith was about to ask if Lance was okay, when he heard Sophia's voice drift up from below the open window.
‘You have to put a stop to this stupidity,’ said Sophia. ‘Your other children need to be put first. They can't be subjected to Lance's ridiculous antics, he's 19 not 9, or that…creature…he intends to marry.’
‘You have no say in this, mama,' said Jorge. 'This is our family and we will bring them up our way.'
Lance walked over and closed the window. He briefly met the eyes of the adults below, who had moved onto the front lawn, as he closed the curtains. Turning back, he saw Shiro and Adam in the doorway.
‘We thought we'd say bye to the kids before we left,' Adam said.
‘Sorry about this,’ said Lance, ‘if I knew she was coming I would have let you know to stay away.'
‘You don't need to apologize,’ said Shiro, ‘but are you okay?’
‘Yeah,' said Lance, waving his hand. ‘I'm not going to let it bother me. I realised downstairs, I don't need her approval.’
‘Good on you,’ said Adam. ‘Your live your life, your way.'
‘I was hoping to bring this up at a better time,’ said Shiro. ‘Mum and dad want to see you, and meet Lance. I've put them off as long as I can, but they want you for dinner tonight.'
‘As long as Andy's not there,' Keith said.
‘I tried,' said Shiro, ‘really I did.’ Keith groaned. ‘It's one evening. Mum and dad miss you, and they want to meet Lance...’
‘You mean grill him,’ Keith said.
‘Maybe,’ said Shiro. ‘May and Andy won't be there for dinner, mum told them to come over after. May totally understands, but wanted to see you.’
Keith looked across to Lance to make sure he was fine with it. Lance nodded as be cleaned up Molly and changed her.
‘Fine,' Keith said.
‘Excellent, we'll come and get you about 7pm,’ said Shiro. ‘Now I need baby cuddles.' He took Jaya from Keith. 'What are you going to do when he has to go home?'
Keith sighed. ‘Give him back, but reluctantly.'
‘That's always the hardest part,’ said Adam, as he rested his chin on Shiro's shoulder and ran a thumb gently over Jaya's face. ‘But, thankfully we got to keep the one we really wanted.'
Lance joined them and handed Molly to Adam.
‘Have you told your parents about these two?' asked Lance.
‘No, so I will leave it up to your two if you want to bring them,’ Shiro said.
Jaya yawned, and rubbed at his eyes with his hands.
‘We better let these two have a nap,' Adam said. Molly struggled to keep her eyes open. Shiro and Adam put them in the cots and they all left quietly.
Downstairs there was arguing from the dinning room, and they ignored it as they headed outside. The younger kids were sitting on the verandah looking sad as they listened.
‘Go and play,' said Lance, ‘you don't need to be listening to that.’
The kids slowly got up and went down the stairs only to plop down on the grass under the big true.
‘We'll see you tonight,’ Shiro said.
Keith nodded.