Accidental Intentions

29 • Vulnerable

"Tell me you're joking."

This was great. As if things weren't uncomfortable enough between him and Lance, here he had gone and said more than he meant to. All he wanted was to get away. But now they were really stuck.

Lance shook his head without turning around. "I wish I was."

"Fuck!" Keith exclaimed.

"You keep saying that but I don't think it means what you think it means."

"Did you just..." Keith drifted off as he felt the heat rise in his face. He was glad Lance was looking the other way.

Did he seriously just say that? Keith asked himself. After everything that happened?
Memories of the feeling of Lance's lips on his rushed through his head. He tried to shake his head to clear it, but got distracted when he thought how hot Lance had looked just now with his shirt off.

Damn.

"Yeah, that's awkward, sorry," Lance admitted. "It's something my mom would say whenever we would swear in front of her."

Keith noted how Lance's voice pitched when he mentioned his mother. "You miss her?"

"Of course! Yeah, we may fight, but they're family. And I might never..." Lance drifted off as his voice quivered dangerously.

See them again, Keith finished mentally. He had never thought of that. How hard this must be for Lance. How hard it must be for Hunk. He had even seen how Pidge almost left Voltron to find her family.

Personally, Keith felt more at home here. Here he had purpose. He had Shiro. He had a team. He had friends. Kind of. If Lance could be considered a friend. More like an annoyance. But a familiar annoyance. Maybe that's what Lance meant when he explained how he missed his family even though they fought.

He knew the chances of any of them returning to Earth were slim. He didn't dare mention it though. He was sure Lance knew it anyway. Instead he said, "I won't say anything if you cry."

And so Lance did. Not very loudly, but apparently it was a very leaky affair with lots of sniffling and blowing of snot.

Keith reflected that he would be not good at trying to cheer Lance up as he himself didn't know the pain Lance was experiencing. So he just sat there and stayed with him. Not that he could leave anyway. But Keith thought that if he had the option, he would put aside his feelings of shame and awkwardness and stay with the Blue Paladin. Lance who was never alone, now very, very alone. For Keith, alone was all he had ever known.

Slowly, the motion detection lights began to fade. Keith wondered when Shiro was planing on coming back, if ever.

After the sobs had subsided Lance sighed. "That wasn't embarrassing at all."

"Oh?"

"Nope!"

There he goes again, popping his ps, Keith thought. He must be feeling better. "If you say so."

"Whatever happened to your family anyway?"
The question was earnest, without any Lance-style frivolity, but the question still caught him off-guard.

"My family?" he asked. Shiro was his family, but he had a feeling that Lance wasn't asking after the senior officer who took care of him when he was younger.

But then the lights flashed on.

"You guys are still here?"