The Best Klance Fanfictions

Twelve Feet Deep

by starspecters
link here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7416370

“Do you ever think about what will happen… after?”

It’s late. Lance isn’t quite sure what prompted his asking, but that’s his excuse if Keith decides to use it against him. It’s late, and they just won a battle against a fleet of Galra ships after hours of strenuous fighting, and Lance’s body feel heavy without the adrenaline response. His mind is still a little fuzzy at the edges. He can’t remember how he ended up here, collapsed next to Keith in front of a thick pane of glass that separates them from the vastness of space, but he decides he can appreciate the company.

“What?” Keith blinks at him slowly, seemingly having forgotten that Lance was there. Lance is worried momentarily because he looks kind of irritated, but he reminds himself that Keith always looks kind of irritated. “What do you mean by ‘after’?”

“You know,” he gestures with his fingers vaguely, as if the question will be answered at the way his index and thumb splay lazily in the air. “Like, when we’re done with all this Voltron stuff.” Lance thinks briefly about trying to blow it off but decides his curiosity outweighs his pride. Besides, it’s not like it’s a weird question or anything.

There’s a beat of silence even after he clarifies, which is pretty odd. It’s a simple yes or no question and Keith is sitting there, brow furrowed, looking like he just wandered into Honors French III instead of English Lit. Altean Castle to Keith, he thinks. Come in, space-boy.

“Uh,” Keith says, seeming unsettled. If that’s what Lance was waiting all those five precious seconds for, he is not impressed. “Not really?” He shrugs one of his shoulders, seeming almost apologetic. “Sorry. Just never really crosses my mind.”

Lance is kind of disappointed but not surprised. “Really? It seems like I’m always thinking about home. I miss my family. I miss the beach.” He thinks, eating salted caramel ice cream on the boardwalk and watching my siblings grow up, but he spares Keith the intimate details.

Shifting awkwardly, Keith finds something interesting to examine in the ridges of his gloves. It’s strange. He seems almost embarrassed, and it’s not a look on him that Lance is accustomed to. “I guess… I don’t really understand what there is to look forward to. This isn’t exactly what I trained for, but it’s where I’m useful.” He doesn’t say that there’s nothing left for him on Earth, but Lance wonders if that’s what he means anyway.

Deciding to break the moment, Lance simply shrugs and stands. Offering a hand to Keith, Lance says, “To each his own and all that, I guess. I’m going to bed before Shiro or Allura finds us and rips into us for being awake. You coming?”

Blinking at him outlandishly for the second time that night, Keith looks pointedly at Lance’s outstretched hand and seems surprised from just the smallest gesture. He guesses that kind of makes sense. He does go on all the time about hating him. Whatever, Lance thinks. It’s late.

“Not yet.” The starlight paints the edges of Keith’s features into something softer, and under the glow, he seems a lot less like his hotheaded, irritating rival and a lot more like just another teenage boy. He looks away.

“Suit yourself,” he says, and heads back to his room feeling strangely melancholic.

--

“I can’t believe you called me because you were too scared to climb out of a damn tree.” Keith’s voice is heavy with disbelief and amusement. If his attention wasn’t fully required to be focused on his white-knuckle grip of the tree trunk, Lance is sure he would have been able to look down and see a dumb smirk plastered all over that fucker’s face. Disgusting. He hates him.