As much as i hate and reject the s8-post cannon… i can’t deny one of my favourite klance tropes occurs during that span of time.
Lance waking up cold and sweating in the middle of the night, trapped in a mundane life, aching with years of unresolved trauma and dormant adrenaline.
Something in his body just knows. That this isn’t right. When his friends told him to give himself time, that adjusting to normality wouldn’t be easy, he’d laughed. Adapting is what he does. But he’s not normal, how could he possibly be normal after everything that happened to him?
He thinks back to a time when all he wanted was a quiet life like this. But it’s hollow, and he feels more alone than he ever did when they were trapped in space. It’s not some grand realisation, really. But a quiet, resolved awakening. A primal acknowledgment that snags his soul to heel.
It was always him. (I told you so).
Keith is passing through his system, dark clad and steaming with resolve. A man who knows himself, truly. Who did the hard parts of personal growth while Lance was still pretending to be happy. Keith was forged in fire and suffering, but Lance’s suffering had only gained him grief.
And Keith answers when he calls. Lance’s heart pulses, aches more than just for his face. But for his life. He finds himself insurmountably jealous of Keith. And he finds himself utterly foolish for ever trying to hold him back. When he left Voltron, and when he came back. Everything in between. Keith made hard decisions, took impossibly dangerous leaps of faith, put everyone he loved at risk and thrust his own life into god’s hands like some fucked up sort of yo-yo.
Lance answers the doorbell when it rings. And he’s there. He could scream until his face went numb, drown himself alone in the dark, run to the tethered edges of the known universe - but he would never escape Keith. The bond their lions shared, neither pilot would ever be untangled. A sore mess, flashes of red, black and blue. He sees the lion for a moment, flashing in the back of his mind’s eye. Keith became the most formidable leader he’d ever known.
And they take vacations down to sample that countryside living, sure. When it suits them. But Lance and Keith, neck and neck, could never have been normal.
And they could never have been apart.
