Chapter Text
The night the lions left, Keith knocks on Lance's door at the New Altean Castle.
He had broken into the palace kitchen to get his hands on as much Altean liquor as he could carry. When Lance answers, eyes red-rimmed with tears that contrasted with the blue marks under his eyes, Keith forces his way in like Lance had done so many times to his old room at the Castle of Lions.
They sit together on the floor, cracking open the weird space alcohol and somewhere between recounting old war stories (incorrectly because Lance always exaggerated) they land on a drinking game.
Lance learns that Keith has never been French kissed, and Keith learns that Lance had a crush on him at the Garrison.
When Lance's mouth lands on Keith's, his first thought is that Lance's tongue tastes like strawberry candies.
When Keith drunkenly runs his hands under Lance's nightshirt, he moans at the satisfaction of finally getting to touch the warm, dark skin that's tantalized him for years.
They have sex that night in Lance's room.
Twice.
And then again in the morning.
Keith asks Lance if they can go back to Earth together.
He kisses his knuckles tenderly and whispers, "Maybe."
Keith's mind is too fuzzy with love and affection to realize what a cop-out it is until he's out of the ensuite shower and finds the room empty.
When Keith makes it to the common area, Hunk tells him that Lance already left to go back to Earth.
They don't speak for nearly two months.
Until Keith gets the news.
It takes three missions before Keith is nearly dragged to the Blade of Marmora infirmary by Acxa. He's been feeling dizzy and nauseous for weeks, and while he keeps telling her he's just getting used to the new planet's atmosphere, she doesn't listen.
He figures she rather have him alive than dead to avoid getting stuck with all his paperwork.
When a Galra doctor asks about his symptoms, he's pretty vague. Headaches, nausea, faintness, and dizziness. Standard atmosphere sickness.
She asks about moodiness, and Acxa chirps in, "More than usual."
Keith glares, but she's used to it by now. He sighs. "Doc, can you tell my subordinate here that I'm fine like I've been telling her?"
When the doctor looks at him over the rim of her glasses, he feels a pit drop in his stomach.
"I have a hunch on what this could be," she admits, scribbling something quickly on her tablet. "But I want to do bloodwork first. Should only take a few doboshes."
It actually takes a little more than a varga for the results to come back.
And he can't comprehend what he's hearing until the doctor repeats it for him.
"You're pregnant."
Acxa snaps her fingers. "I knew it!"
The words still don't land in his brain. "I...can't...how?"
He must sound absurd, but the whole situation feels like a joke. Like someone is going to pop out of the wall and scream, "JUST KIDDING! YOU ATE BAD SPACE YOGURT!" and blow confetti in his face.
It doesn't happen.
"Female and male presenting Galra can both be impregnated and vice-versa given their secondary sexes," the doctor explains, slowly bringing down her clipboard to her lap. "These secondary sexes allow for the Galra to procreate with other races. It's an evolutionary adaptation after centuries of being a —for lack of a better term — invasive species."
"I'm male!" Keith screeches, motioning to his body. "And half-Earthling!"
The doctor shakes her head. "It doesn't matter what your presenting sex is, Mr. Kogane. You still inherited a secondary sex that can reproduce."
"But I'm gay!"
The doctor pauses, taking a glance at Acxa and Keith with a start. "Hmmm, my apologies. I thought you two were—"
They both catch her drift and scoff, "No!"
"I shouldn't have assumed," the doctor relents, looking over Keith's paperwork again. "Regardless, it appears that you and your partner were compatible. What was their ethnicity?"
Keith hesitates, and Acxa turns to him. "Would you prefer I go outside for this?"
He nods his head slowly, and she takes his hand, squeezing tightly before leaving the room. When she's gone, the doctor waits patiently for his answer.
"He's an Earthling," he sighs.
The doctor gives him a knowing, but not unkind, look. "Starting to click, hm?"
Keith and Acxa leave the clinic with a handful of pamphlets on Galra secondary sexes (as if that would do shit for him now), family planning options, and Galra pregnancies.
He stops and stares at the one pamphlet he's been given about an option to terminate. Keith drops it back into the pile left on the secretary's desk.
Acxa takes him home, an apartment on Daibazaal the size of a shoebox that he hardly uses. He calls his mom and then Shiro. They're the only two Keith trusts with the news. He also yells at his mother for the severe lack of Galra Birds and the Bees talk.
"Galra have secondary sexes?!"
"I didn't think you would be affected. You're the first half-Galra Earthling and never shown any signs of having a secondary sex. How could we have known?"
"Well," Keith sighs into the receiver, hand resting on his stomach, which is still taut with muscle. "I guess we know now."
A week later, he steps out of his ship on the McClain Ranch wearing an oversized Galaxy Garrison hoodie he stole from Shiro the last time he went to visit. As said in the pamphlet, Galra pregnancies had shorter gestation periods, so his body was already beginning to soften.
When he knocks on Lance's family's front door, it's his brother Marco who answers. His sandy hair is somehow even saggier around his blue eyes. The same eyes Lance has.
He wonders what the likelihood is of those eyes being passed down to their child.
"Hey, Keith!" he smiles kindly. "What brings you here?"
"Is Lance home?"
Marco's face falls with a sigh. "Yeah, I was afraid you'd ask that."
He brings him back to the juniberry garden. Keith has never been before, but he knew that after the war, Colleen Holt had given the McClain Ranch sample seeds to test how compatible it could be with Earth's ecosystem.
It looks like Lance was naturally gifted in making Alien and Earth biology work.
"Listen, he hasn't really been the same since that dinner," Marco admits, rubbing the back of his neck. "We thought he was getting better, you know? Moving on and all that. But then the lions left, and his marks started acting up again..."
Keith swallows hard, shoving his hands in his pockets. The other man shrugs. "He really can't seem to let go of the past."
"Must be hard when you surround yourself with it," Keith replies, and Marco groans.
"On the one hand, those flowers are trendy. We always sell out during the farmer's market and don't even get me started on Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. On the other hand," he motions to his brother before turning around on his heel. "Anyway, just figured I'd give you the skinny. Try not to be too tough on him if he doesn't seem like himself."
Keith nods, and Marco pats him on the shoulder, good-naturedly before heading back into the house. Lance doesn't spot Keith first, and he's thankful for that since it gives him time to look at him — really look at him.
Somehow he's even thinner than Keith remembers. On Altea, he was able to feel more bone than muscle beneath his skin, and it frightened him. Arms deep in dirt, Lance's blue eyes are dark and sunken as they stare at pink petals. His cheeks so gaunt his marks are barely visible, his hair frizzed, and he's clad in an old t-shirt that rides up to show his midriff and too-loose sleeves.
"Working hard or hardly working?"
At Keith's call, Lance falls forward, catching himself against the dirt before he looks up and spots him. He seems dazed and strung out.
"Keith?" Lance's voice sounds like a breath, as he stands on shaky legs from this work and rests his rake against the tree.
A sense of déjà vu sweeps over him, as the ghosts of their past parades around and within him. The marks, the flowers, the grief — Allura still haunts his bones like a sneaky reminder of all the nights he spent with her and not with him. Even years later, this plot of dirt he's claimed on Earth is more a prison than a paradise.
Lance climbs to where Keith is standing, struggling to keep breathing when his entire body sags with exhaustion and numbed agony. It's somehow worse up close. His once radiant skin is sandpaper dry, and hiding beneath his rolled-up sleeves Keith spots hints of bruises and cuts. When Lance extends his arm, on the soft skin inside his elbow peeks the hint of a different mark. Keith looks away instantly, already trying to forget what he just saw.
He gives Keith an awkward hug before looking at his top. "Huh, don't think I've ever seen you in a hoodie before."
"I'm not used to Earth's cooler temperatures."
"Okay."
Is he even going to acknowledge what they did? Or is he going to pretend that they're just friends? Keith feels the uneasy queasiness of anger rise within him. Frustration stemming from having to bear witness to Lance's backsliding. Once again, Lance surrounded himself with relics from his past when the future was right in front of him.
A future they both created.
All it takes is that short conversation and to hear how many times Lance mentions Allura and the way his eyes cloud at her memory for Keith to know this isn't something Lance is remotely ready for — or even wants at all.
Perhaps there is a way Keith can help Lance rediscover who he is, the person that is purely himself and not the grieving widow of a princess who he dated for a little over a month. But that's not Keith's concern anymore, even if he loves him and wants so badly for him to realize his self-worth.
Lance asks Keith to stay for dinner, and it takes every ounce of willpower he has to say no because he knows if he stays for one night, he'll stay forever. He'll stay on this farm full of bad memories, and he'll bleed himself dry trying to fix Lance while also having their child.
He can't do both.
Because Keith has someone else to worry about now.
Someone who can be the best parts of both of them.
He holds Lance close to him when he says goodbye and presses a soft kiss against his temple. In his hold, he feels Lance's teeth clench at the contact as if he's fighting to hold his tongue. Keith gives him only a moment to reconsider, but when Lance remains silent that's all the answer he needs.
"Bye, Lance."
Keith turns to walk around the house to where he parked his cruiser, moving onwards.