#sher prose

[sherale-writes]

Restarting at 'I Love You'

The first time it happens, Lance wasn't sure what had happened.

One moment Keith is confessing to him, saying his undying love, then suddenly, Lance is waking up, reliving moments he swears he had just lived.

Déjà vu at large.

Same battles, same conversations, exact same days.

Same.

Same.

Same.

Even the confession is the same.

Yet again, Lance is waking up. Just in a different moment. Different day, but reliving to that point of that same confession.

Confused, worried, and unsure, Lance has to figure out why this is happening and how to stop it.

Is it the moment itself that makes him relive these days? Is it something about the confession that resets him?

So he forces Keith's confession to not happen that day.

Lance acts ill, avoiding Keith, all the while heart pounding with want to hear Keith's confession.

He doesn't restart.

But the next day, when Lance's curiosity wins out, when Keith cannot hold out for another day before spilling his guts, Lance finds himself back in time.

Now Lance is pissed.

He hurries to Pidge.

All in hopes of some logical or mathematical or overall intelligent solution to why this is happening.

Pidge is intrigued. Invested in this theory of what could be, or could not be, happening.

Of course, Pidge has to test it all.

Why wait until the confession to test it? Perhaps something building up to that point of Keith's confession is what causes the occurrence of Lance's time jump.

So Pidge gives Lance a code word to use, if he ends up back in time.

That way, if Lance does jump back in time, Pidge will believe Lance from the beginning and work all the faster to fix this time error.

Thus, they drag Keith out of training. Causing him to be confused and wondrous as to what Pidge and Lance would need him for.

Except, Pidge is too eager to not be blunt in this situation.

A plan, Pidge concocts.

Lance will confess first. After all, Lance hadn't ever had a chance to say his feelings first. And maybe, if he does, perhaps it will prevent the time jump.

One can only hope.

Of course, it isn't how Lance ever planned to confess his feelings for Keith. Let alone, now of all times.

But he bucks up the courage for it, if it means he won't be jumping back in time any longer.

And when Lance lays his feelings out bare, telling Keith his deepest truth, it's so freeing.

So heart pounding, soul lifting, freeing, to still be in the moment. To watch Keith's eyes widen and cheeks darken. To realize his confession will not jump him back.

Until Keith is returning his feelings.

And Lance is waking up, back in the past.

Lance wants to cry.

To break down and pound his fists into his bed with misery. To scream out in frustration. Because for some reason, the catalyst in all of this time jumping, lies with Keith's confession.

Those three words that start and end Lance's happiest moment.

Over and over and over.

Lance tries to keep the time resetting from happening.

And over and over, he fails.

The attempts grow with his frustrations.

Until one day Lance slaps his hand over Keith's mouth, telling him to not confess.

He can't take one more jump back.

Lance just tells Keith what has been happening. And of course Keith thinks he's being a bit crazy about it. But with enough time, and repeating the exact words Keith was going to say to Lance, Keith relents.

They can be together, happy and with the best feelings ever.

The only catch: Keith can never say those three words.

So they work around it. Keith sees Lance's stress over possibly hearing those words, that he doesn't even dare to say them in another language. Doesn't write the words down.

Lance confesses his love to Keith every day.

Keith expresses his love in every way he can outside of those words.

Actions can hold as much power as words.

Gifts can give the same euphoria.

Words similar, but not the same, are his weapons to use to confess his undying love.

Anything to let Lance know that he loves him.

And it seemingly works well.

Until years later.

When Keith makes a mistake that ruins all of that happiness.

He never meant to do it.

Keith never meant to strip them of this happiness they had forged together through all the near misses and years of near perfection.

While lying beside Lance, caught in the euphoria of it all, he confesses.

Keith has just enough time to see the happiness on Lance's face turn to shock, then fear.

Lance has just enough time to see the sorrow in Keith's violets before he wakes up, years back to Voltron.

Lance just cries.

He couldn't fault Keith for the error, for uttering the three words that brought their whole world to a shattering end in the same way it brought its beginning.

But at the same time, he wasn't sure how many more times he could do this.

How many more restarts could Lance suffer through before even Keith's love wasn't enough to make it worth it.

How many more times, before Lance learned that it was better to have never known Keith's love, so he wouldn't know how painful it was to live without it.

[sherale-writes]

"Do you even— even understand."

Keith watched as Lance's hands raised up, hovering shoulder level, almost cradling his own face. Blue eyes wide, shimmering with unshed tears.

"Out there—" Lance's voice choked, hands trembling. "Out there you—"

Even as he stood there, even as Keith watched Lance's body hunch forward, tears falling like stars from his eyes, he felt frozen in place. Never had he wanted Lance to cry, to feel such misery over his actions. Yet somehow, every time, when he chose to act first and think later, it always had an effect on Lance that made his stomach twist in guilt.

"You—!" Lance's voice shook, lips trembling apart, hands now shaking as those star drop tears raced down his cheeks like shooting stars.

Keith stepped forward, and when Lance did not step away or swipe at him, he took another, more still until his arms wrapped around the other's body, holding him as Lance trembled and cried in his arms.

"You bastard!" Lance sobbed, hands clutched to Keith's clothes. "I hate you!"

But the words weren't true, and he knew. Keith knew that in Lance's agony, he only said such things because he was growing tired of feeling scared for Keith, of feeling like every moment Keith was gone, it would be the last time Lance saw him.

"I love you..." Keith murmured, stroking a hand over Lance's hair, his neck and shoulder becoming wet. "I love you so much."

Lance's fingers twisted in Keith's clothes, a sob choking any words he had on his tongue. He just held on, and hoped, and prayed, that this time wouldn't be the last either.

[sherale-writes]

Betrothal AU where Keith is being promised to another for the prosperity of his family & land.

The deal now finalized.

So in his curiosity, Keith asks people about who it is, who the hell even Lance was, as they had never met before. But everyone keeps telling him stories of how dumb, egotistical, vain, foolish, self-centered, a bit of a leech, etc. the other is. There's comments that Lance isn't bad looking, and seems kind, but he's always making jokes or being in the way.

Keith feels dread.

He can't believe he's about to be married off to some big dumb fool who will likely be nothing but a jerk and cheat on him and just make the marriage what it is: political with nothing to support it.

So on the day they're to meet, the papers signed, the trade off done, he's ready to fight. Keith is ready to be nothing but trouble. Then he meets Lance. And all those rumors seem so... wildly off base.

Yeah, he's a bit dumb, but in the silly kind of way. Maybe Lance is a bit vain, but he cares about his appearance as any sane person would be. And Keith realizes that Lance makes jokes because he's trying to make people happy, to keep the mood up. Lance is self-sacrificing.

Keith's betrothed is nothing but a person who tries to think of others first, to uplift them, even if it makes him look stupid or an outcast. Suddenly Keith is no longer worried about what their marriage could be. Keith's worried that his betrothed will sacrifice himself for others before they could have a happy marriage.

[sherale-writes]

For Keith, life was so frustrating.

He had been living alone after Shiro moved out a year ago to go live with Adam. It was quiet and simple. He even got himself a dog, which, still to Shiro's exasperations, went "unnamed". Except Keith did name his new companion, settling on naming him 'dog'.

Plain and simple.

But he stood in his now shared bathroom, tiredly staring at the amount of products on not just the shelf that had been empty before, but the brand new shelf that had been installed above it.

Face cream, oils, cleanser, exfoliation items, masks, moisturizers, sun screen, lotions, and more. So much more that it all made Keith's head spin with questions on how one person could need so much, let alone how a guy could need so many beauty products.

His eyes drifted over to the shower and its pulled curtain, seeing the products that lined inside of it on the newly installed shower wall caddy, including a hanging loofa, and he couldn't tell what else.

Keith sighed.

Shiro had come to him, saying an old acquaintance of theirs needed a place to stay and quick. They would need a place at least until the end of the school term where they would be trying to look for a new roommate or living situation. Only a few months, Shiro had said, face hopeful Keith would agree.

When he asked why they couldn't just find a new roommate now, Shiro made a smile that seemed to be apologizing to Keith for something Keith knew Shiro didn't cause, a whole situation out of his control but still weirdly felt responsible for. And later Keith understood why Shiro smiled like that, in that quiet beg of forgiveness.

For the person who was needing a roommate desperately was someone Keith had tried forgetting about time and again.

And like a rash, somehow that person always came back.

That's how Lance landed back up in his life; how an old classmate from his youth was now rooming with him in college.

Lance was originally rooming with Hunk. But when Hunk and his girlfriend Shae went fully official, the pair had been debating on moving her in or the two moving out to a new place. Keith didn't know the full story, but Shiro told him that Hunk and Shae eventually decided to move out. Which then left Lance a few months trying to find a roommate himself to help support the rent or someone else to move into with. With no luck, it seemed, until Lance ran into Shiro on campus and told him his woes.

Shiro, always the good samaritan, and knowing Keith was roommateless, thought pairing them together would be a good plan… And Shiro believed it would be a good chance for Keith, to keep someone around and keep Keith from isolating himself from the world and activities as he usually would.

Shiro thought it was a good plan.

Lance was just happy to not be homeless or drowning in debt.

Keith was unhappy to lose his peace and quiet.

He looked at himself in the mirror, his inner voice scoffing at his 'despair' for his lost peace.

As much as Keith would never vocalize it, maybe, for a short moment, he could admit quietly to himself that having Lance living with him was nice... and maybe... for a short second, he... liked having the brunet's presence around.

Of course he wouldn't say that, or admit it aloud.

Lance didn't seem to like him any better than when they were kids. Their animosity just... seemed to grow a bit, their bickering almost daily now.

So there was no reason to lean into any emotions for the other.

"Come on mullet!" Lance knocked on the bathroom door, startling Keith from his thoughts. "How much longer are you going to be?"

Keith sighed.

So much for peace and quiet.

[sherale-writes]

Keith woke to a calm morning, one of the first in awhile where his alarm wasn’t going off or he wasn’t dragging himself out of bed for a task. This time it was on his choice, and as he laid there in the comfort of his bed and warmth of his sheets, he also acknowledged how aching a certain part of him was.

Most times lately he had been ignoring the effects of waking with a male body. There was too much to do or he didn’t want to deal with the mess. But… today felt different.

The tingling sense of a dream sat on his mind like a fog. Something he dreamt last night brought a fire to his body. And with a morning like this, for Keith to be able to relax for once, he figured he'd lean into the desire.

His right hand moved down, sliding under the waistband of his sleep pants and boxers, his left grabbing the bedsheets then the clothing to push them down at least to his legs, letting his cock spring free and fall into his awaiting hand.

“Nngh…” Keith’s lashes fluttered. His head turned, teeth making a short bite at his bottom lip before he let it go, hand stroking over himself.

There was never usually a fantasy Keith would think about when doing this. He might lean into the memory of a dream he had that left him needing, or recall a picture or video he once had seen years back. Usually though, Keith handled himself just fine without all the extra fluffing. This time would be no different.

His right hand squeezed around his base, pulling a shudder and a gasp from him. After a few lazy strokes, Keith would speed his hand up then slow it down at times to rub or pinch at his leaking tip, smearing precum over his fingers and palm. His left hand moved between his legs, fingertips ghosting over or rubbing his balls in time with his stroking.

“Haa... haaa ah…”

As he was losing himself to the pleasure of it all, head burrowing back into his pillow, the image of beautiful blue eyes came to mind.

Keith’s hands made a small jerk before speeding up.

Bright blue eyes like oceans, skin the color of mocha, so warm and inviting, a sharp chin and kissable lips, Slim fingers and a tall frame…Keith moaned, chest rising and falling with quick breaths, that coiling heat building faster in his gut. A fantasy Keith hadn’t taken note of built in his mind until he imagined it was a different hand or a pair of lips wrapped around his cock.

It was one familiar voice calling his name like a melody and he was done for.

Keith came with a startled moan, legs shaking as wetness shot into his hand, making a mess between his fingers.

He laid there, chest heaving, body thrumming with the energy of his orgasm, the pleasure of that small fantasy caressing across his mind.

As the pleasurable sensation of his orgasm ebbed away, piece by piece, the image of his fantasy was soon clearer, more recognizable. A cold realization hit him then, Keith’s eyes snapping open as he looked up at his ceiling.

The person his mind was lusting for, the very real person that had brought him to climax, the very roommate that had been pushed onto him….

”Fuck…!”