The war doesn’t end with a crash or a bang. Nothing explodes in a fiery shower the way he’d read about in books as a kid. There's no rocking of the ground as the world shifts under their feet, and a curling anxiety in his gut as he desperately reaches out in the link for a glimmer of one just one of his teammates, his family, his lover.
There’s just the dead drop of a falling lion as a ceasefire is called. It’s just the feeling of his fingers relaxing from a white knuckled grip on Red’s controls and his head falling back with a dull thud against the headrest of the pilot’s chair. It’s the unwinding of his spine as he slumps, all his strength and exhaustion collapsing in on him as he surrenders flight back to his lion, her battle roar softening to a gentle rumble in the back of his mind. It’s the gasps of relief and whispered gratitude of his family echoing in his ears, letting him know they’re safe, they’ve made it, it’s finally done.
Keith is completely unsurprised to note which one he prefers.
Red’s purr is a constant source of comfort in his mind as he curls his legs toward his chest, eyes squinted in lazy, bone deep weariness, brain barely processing Shiro and Allura from their respective command stations outlining the conditions of ceasefire. He can barely think about anything outside the cramping in his fingers and the bleariness of his eyes from entire successive days spent raising Voltron’s sword, pouring his energy and willpower into convincing the strongest weapons in the universe to bend to his will.
It’s ok if he misses something. The team will catch him up. They always have, when the tiredness consumes him, and he checks out of conversations and discussion, slumping against the nearest comforting shoulder.
Allura’s voice is as sharp and clear as the crown that adorns her head; the queen of Altea in all her glory commands her troops from the midst of battle. Keith’s attention had been laser focused on ensuring Voltron’s continued presence, but nothing in the world could keep him from watching for Allura’s flashing blue light as she approached Haggar, now withered and raging, and knelt in front of her. Keith missed what was said, the words exchanged. But he saw the tightening of his Queen, his sister’s, shoulders, and the hand wrapping tight around the witch’s neck.
It’s been a long eight days on this earth of his.
His brain clocks out in that moment, and he rides the warm haze he’s in, letting the satisfaction of success settle into his bones. It’s not time for celebration just yet. It will come later once the dead is counted and the shrouds are laid. Keith knows better than most the toll of war, and he dreads the time that will come when the lists of the dead will be handed to them, and he will need hours, days, weeks, to grieve people he did and didn’t know and names he’s cherished and ones he’s never heard, and each loss will still hit like a blow to the ribs. After that, the celebration will come. The ballrooms of the castle will glow with life and Hunk will dress in gold, Shiro’s white hair will gleam in the light, and Pidge will protest that she just won a war, she deserves a drink. Allura will stand regal at their side, and her shoulders will be light, free from the burden of an avenger, and she will turn to them with a gleaming grin and they won’t have any choice but to smile back at her.
And lance.
Lance will be so handsome in his blue suit, golden and silver threaded in painstaking embroidery in the bed of deep sky. His hair will fall loose and natural in his eyes, heavenly blues, and earthy brown under the string set of his eyebrows, and he’ll gleam like a freshly lit candle.
He’ll take Keith’s breath away and Keith will never want it back.
But that comes after.
Right now, here, Red lands on dusty earth and grumbles in his head about doing all the work. He’s sure none of the other lions give their other halves this much shit. He loves her so fiercely it burns his throat and eyes. He can’t believe he ever spent a day outside of her. Can’t believe he wasn’t raised alongside this wonderful, temperamental, protective, grouchy cat, who bossed him and fussed him, and purred and cooed when he screamed in his dreams. Can’t believe there ever was a time he resigned himself to not having this. What a fool he was.
The wave of emotion fills the cockpit in a lilting hum, and she lights up around him, Voltron blue piercing through the chunks in his armour. Red is as alive as a blaze and warm as a hearth in his head.
Her mouth drops open with one final swell of affection, as she releases her paladin to his home ground.
Keith murmurs a breathy thank you i love you you’re everything to me, as he stumbles out, hand grasping the cool metal as he comes to a rest on the shifting sands. The sand is warm from fire and fighting and it hits him all at one.
He crouches down, head hanging as he pants and gasps for breath. The emotion of the past few days shutter his eyesight till all he sees in the grains of sand sticking to his gauntlets. His head spins and his hair is falling out of the ponytail he’d tied it back in, and his breath is coming hard now.
Something is missing. Somethings not quite right.
The swords have fallen, the helmets tossed to the side, red looms protective behind him. The shields are down the guards are dropped and he can feel the press of the Voltron bond that lets him know his team is landing nearby, drawn together with a gravitational pull.
He draws in breath, cool and refreshing and tinged with the scent of burning. Around him the sand is interspersed with freshly formed glass.
He raises his head, expecting to see the heavens above him. He wants to take in the freshly healed scar of the newly collapsed Rigel star system. Wants to know how the blazing lights of thousands of planets worth of warfare look set against the familiar earth sky. He think he might look at the constellations, like he did not far from here a hundred years ago, tucked into his dad's strong, solid arms, the scratch of a stubbly chin accompanying a moving mouth as it named Orion, Cassiopeia, Gemini.
He looks up expecting to see stars, and instead, he sees the sun.
Lance's smile is crooked, and his breath comes fast, like he ran, as he hovers over him. Their faces are so close he can count each individual freckle on this boy’s face, as precious to him as the gleam of moonlight cutting paths across the castle hallways. Oh this boy, this absolute death of him.
“Hey lover,” the words leave Lance’s mouth with ease and anticipation, years of pent-up adoration spilling out with every vowel, “we did it.”
Keith feels his own smile steal across his face, “yeah, we did.”
If possible, Lance's smile grows wider, crinkling the already forming smile lines at his eyes. Keith thinks of the products that line the counter of his bathroom sink, just waiting for a pretty bronzed hand to pick them up when the separation hits, and their resolves are softened by the press of late hours and long silence.
A silly waste. Keith likes this look on Lance.
Aging.
What a wonderful thing he never thought he’d get to have.
“You know what that means?”
Lance's voice is smooth, the tremble that only a practiced ear could pick out masked by the sincerity and anticipation that has dogged their every conversation since that night on the dais.
“We’ll wait.”
“Until when, Keith?”
“Until it’s done. When it’s done then we can have this. We can’t lose everyone for each other.”
“I’m yours?”
“When it’s done then. And when it’s done, I’m bringing you home with me. I’m putting a ring on your finger and I’m never letting you go. You’re it for me, Keith.”
“I’m not asking you to wait, that’s not fair-“
“I followed you into space Keith. I followed you to the point of no return. You aren’t asking me anything and that’s a damn shame. I’d give you anything you asked for.”
“When it’s done lance, when it’s done, I’ll ask you anything you want me to. I’ll come home with you, I’ll share a bed with you. I’ll be yours as long as you’ll have me.”
“Don’t joke, honey,”
“I’m not. You’re mine, lance”
“And-“
“you’re mine.”
The words reverberate in his head, and oh. This is what it was. The smooth slot of this thing that’s been so long coming.
Lance drops to his knees in front of him, one warm hand coming to rest on his cheek. Keith leans his head into it. He’s too tired for restraint, or shame, or any other useless emotion that would’ve held a younger him back. He’s got nothing to lose. He’s won. There’s no reason left to hold back. What a novel idea. It coats him and leaves him shivering at the feel of a gloved thumb running gently over his cheekbones.
His eyes fall back open from their unconscious close, and Lance is so close.
Honest, sweet, honourable lance. The sandpaper to all his rough edges. The iron that absorbed his burning heat. The shore that meets his rocking tide.
Keith can hear the thunder of Pidge’s feet as they run across the uneven terrain. Hunk is following after her, his voice a cacophony of relief and joy. Shiro’s laughter is warm and thick as honey, coming easier than it has since aliens were a late-night story. Allura is giggling, high and bright, and a little hysterical. It’s ok. She’ll pull herself back together and they’ll be there to fill the cracks with liquid gold.
(Or glitter. She’d like glitter.)
Lance is watching him, and Keith’s eyes drift back to him. Lance hasn’t looked away in years. Something, some last resistance hidden away so deep he didn’t even know to search for a cure, falls away.
Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:
Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.
You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.
When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.
A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)
Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)
The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.
Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.
Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.
I like to think that in a modern au, if Keith had any kind of social media, it would be a little bit like one of those accounts where you go “is this guy just really committed to the bit or is he just Like That?” Like his instagram account would be full of nothing but reels where he sets the phone camera down after staring silently into it, walks far enough away that his whole body is in shot and does like, ten backflips before the video just abruptly ends with him still in motion. Another video where he walks around town with a ton of little throwing knives and it’s just a montage of footage of him lodging them into billboards and signs and other random hard to reach places. A lot of his videos are taken in the dark at indiscernible locations with nothing but the flash too bright and distorting his face, his eyes flashing like a raccoons in the brightness, and those videos are the rare times he speaks in his vids but it’s always something like “if life has to include suffering then how come it’s minor shit. I’d rather be miserable in a big way that is kinda badass then go through one more awkward conversation with a barista.” His most normal videos are of his dog just zooming around (no commentary or caption) and just. Footage of his legs dangling from absurdly high places with beautiful views.
Lance just randomly comes across his account while scrolling through his Instagrams suggested reels and immediately becomes OBSESSED with xxjustkeith.xx4510fu. At first Lance thinks it’s a meme account, some kind of bit but then the more he watches the less sure he is. He kinda can’t believe someone That good looking would make anything other then thirst content. He spends hours scrolling the account. He starts to wonder if maybe this guy is a serial killer or something. Then he notices in one of the videos that…hang on…he recognizes that place. And that too. And holY SHIT they totally live in the same town!!! So under one of the videos he comments something obscure but that is undeniably From Their Town, basically calling this guy out on where he lives without doxxing him.
Keith immediately dms him like. Who the fuck are you and what do you want. Lance is like teehee hi uh. I think you’re insane 🥰🤪😉. And Keith is like meet me at x spot at x time for a fistfight. And Lance is like hell yeah brother, writes his last will and testament (a text to hunk) and goes to meet this unhinged hottie who literally said they were going to fight. So they meet up and like. Keith is how he is, kind of mostly just awkward and shy with an inclination for feral hobbies and knuckle first thinking and Lance is how he is all chatter and bravado and challenges and charm and so. The do spar a little bit but once they’re both breathless they just go get coffee and talk.
And after that in all of Keith’s videos there are snippets of someone chattering in the background, tan legs dangling just out of frame, a dude who does backflips with him, someone cheering or whining saying “let me try 😞 Keith hey. Let me try.” When he walks around throwing knives. A dude who is otherwise not mentioned anywhere or tagged in anything.
All the people who are fans of Keith account for its adventurous and surreal humor start speculating in the comments. Eventually Keith gets fed up and posts a video reply to the comments.
It’s in selfie mode. It a beautiful day, and him and Lance are side by side. Wherever they’re sitting it’s up high. A breeze ruffles their hair. Keith looks straight into the camera and says completely monotone. “This is Lance. He’s my boyfriend.” Lances silent shock gets cut off by the video ending (he did not know they were dating.)
never let anyone tell you that trawling through mediocre victorian poetry isn't worth it. we just happened upon an absolute BANGER of a worm poem. go read it or else 🪱🪱🪱
the reviews are in... glad everyone's enjoying song of the worm
[id: tumblr tags reading 'dude This Fucking Rules', 'holy fucking shit! that was legit so cool?', 'holy shit that is fucking metal', 'oh this fucks severely', 'yeah no this fucking SLAPS', 'yo this RULES']
Holy fucking shit this is one of the most incredible things I have ever read.
I am dead serious. I PROMISE you that you want to read this, and you're going to immediately send it to all your weird friends who you also know will love it.
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