I need you //klance

Day 32

(A/N: This is set in the middle of the lion swap- just after Keith has become Black Paladin but before Lance and Allura switch. It's also a slightly rewritten version.)

Lance, Pidge and Hunk were all piled into the Green and Yellow lions. They hadn't made much progress with finding Shiro but they'd managed to stay on top of their voltron work. Their missions were certainly harder with the disorder that the lack of their Black Paladin brought but they'd pulled through. 

The Blade and the coalition hadn't been particularly cooperative with each other given that the Blade preferred to work alone and the coalition already had a strong distrust of all Galra. As a result, Voltron had been accompanying them on most missions to ensure that they went smoothly. That's what they were doing right then.

They were meant to meet a few Blade members and a possible new addition to the alliance but they'd run into a slight problem. The planet they were visiting, that wanted to meet with them to discuss an Alliance, was under Galran rule and protection. The Blade members coming with them had left immediately upon discovering that fact and now the three of them were deciding what to do next.

Lance could hear Hunk groaning through the comms, he couldn't see him in Green's screen but he presumed Hunk looked like he was about to throw up.

"I think we should just go back to the castle, waiting around next to a Galra infested planet is just asking to get shot out of the sky." Pidge spoke irritably, Lance stayed silent while Hunk audible gulp.

"But... Shouldn't we at least talk to them? What if they need our help?",  Hunk's voice came out shakily at first but strengthened with the prospect of helping someone.

Lance nodded, "There's a reason they want to talk to us," Pidge opened her mouth to interrupt but Lance talked over her, "It could be a trap so we should talk to the others first but we can't just dismiss it."

Pidge glared at him, "I wasn't saying that we should just forget about it-"

"I know I'm agreeing with you." Lance tried to smile at her but she wouldn't look at him and redirected her focus to her controls. She had already seemed to be feeling moody today so he tried not to let in bother him too much but it didn't stop him from wanting to be anywhere other there right then.

Keith was still quieter than before but no one but Lance really seemed bothered by it, they were however bothered by his and Pidge's mood swings. Lance and Hunk tried to not take anything they said at the moment personally but Allura took them all too seriously causing a series of rows over the past few weeks. It was because of a particularly bad one between the three of them that their missions were separate today and also probably contributed to Pidge's bad mood. But now his silence matched that of everyone else's.

 The Planet was supposedly under the protection of Prince Lotor. It wasn't that none of them had any ideas for how to react in this situation, they had plenty of those, the problem was that none of them could agree on what to do anymore. Pidge and Allura thought that they should liberate the Planet. Coran, Hunk and Lance wanted to get more information first before deciding what to do while Keith remained undecided. The majority were for procuring more information but that didn't make the conversation any easier.

It was amongst all the chaos that Lance had taken to zoning out of the conversation and absentmindedly watching Keith. He hadn't talked much today and Lance barely saw him as much anymore now that he'd been trying to sleep on his own again. He looked paler too and had purplish bags under his eyes that made Lance cringe internally. He looked in between Pidge and Coran's row (definitely something he never thought was possible), concluding that neither of them would notice a few missing Paladins and nudged Keith quietly, gesturing to the door.

A few minutes later, they were settled comfortably into Keith's room, a place that Lance had spent a surprisingly small amount of time. Lance leaned into Keith's side, humming softly and fiddling with the leather glove on one of his hands. 

"Keith." Purple eyes met his own almost fearfully, "Come on, talk to me. Please." Lance moved his focus to Keith's hair, threading through it and braiding smaller strands before brushing them out with his fingers. 

"I- I don't know what to say... I'm overwhelmed, I guess." Lance nodded, a lion functioned similarly to a second consciousness in their head so having one leave and immediately replaced by another would be confusing to say the least.

Keith just slumped against him, finding comfort in Lance's scent. The Blue Paladin didn't say anything, only humming and playing with his hair while watching the now Black Paladin curl in on himself in his lap.