a/n Hello! I'm your author, Jay, and this is my newest work and one of the only things I've published since late 2021💀.

Be warned: a large majority of this was planned and written in a tiny notebook between the hours of 10 and 11 pm over a very long period of time, so sorry for anything that doesn't make sense and any changes in the writing quality as I improve over time.

I hope you enjoy the story, and comments make my day!!

P.s. challenge: find the Stucky quote

"I voted for Keith." Lance said firmly, earning shocked looks from the paladins at the table. "He's our leader, plus he's half Galra, so I think he's, like, the future." He smiled at Keith, who had an emotion on his face that Lance didn't recognise.

The truth is, Keith didn't know exactly what he was feeling, but he had a sinking feeling that it was a pretty big emotion. He wasn't used to compliments from the ex-blue paladin, and to be honest, he could get used to it.

'Get used to it? Man, you're so gay for him!' inner Keith laughed, sounding a little bit like Shiro.

'Yes, I know,' Keith thought to himself, sighing. He'd had feelings for Lance since their supposed 'forgotten' time at the Garrison, but masked them behind scowls and rivalry as he had a fear of rejection. Still, some part of him hoped that one day, he'd muster up the courage to tell Lance. Keith snapped out of his daydreams as Bob addressed him.

"Keith, the leader, who did you pick?" He asked.

Keith didn't reply, still treasuring the fact that Lance picked him over his precious Allura. Bob seemed to pick this up, so Lance's handsome face appeared on the screen. Gasps echoed in the audience as Bob looked at Keith in confusion.

"Lance? Why Lance?"

Time seemed to slow down as two voices in Keith's head plotted what to say.

'Just shrug it off,' said one voice. 'Say you didn't want to be stuck here for an eternity with Lance.'

'No,' contradicted the other voice. 'Now is the perfect time to tell him how you feel about him!'

'But what if he rejects you?'

'He just said you were the future!'

'Think of the embarrassment...'

'EMBRACE THE GAY, KEITH!'

'Don't do it!'

'BE WHO YOU ARE!'

"Because he's incredible!" Keith blurted out before he could stop himself. Even more gasps sounded from the audience, and all four paladins looked at Keith, some confused, others shocked. He considered leaving it at that, but he took one look into Lance's confused baby blues, and knew this was the right time. He took a deep breath...

And finally confessed.

"Listen. Lance is just so talented and amazing, and I know for a fact, without him, I probably wouldn't be standing here today. His mood and sense of humour always lighten the mood of the entire team, no matter how bad the jokes may be. He has that instinct to help as many people as he can, and has saved countless lives throughout his time here in space. He's just made my life so much brighter, and he deserves to be the one to make it out of here." He finished. Or thought he finished.

'That was half a confession. Come on, man, tell him how you really feel." the voice in his head pushed. Before Bob could say anything, Keith said the one thing he'd been meaning to say for years.

"And I love him, and couldn't bare to see him stuck here, unhappily, for the rest of his life."

Keith turned to face the rest of the paladins (namely Lance), his face bright red. Hunk muttered a 'quiznack!' and leaned over to Pidge, sliding her a few coins that he got from Alfor knows where. Allura looked a little shocked, but beamed anyways and gave him a thumbs up. He wasn't really sure what Lance thought of his confession. His jaw seemed to be stuck open, his eyes wide with shock and another emotion that Keith prayed wasn't disgust.

"Woah, that was one hell of a confession!" Bob smirked, as if he knew exactly what was going to happen prior to the events. "Keith, you're nearly as red as your suit!"

The audience laughed, and Keith wasn't sure if that was a joke or not.

"Now, you two lovebirds can catch up later, the show must go on!" Bob announced. So the game continued. But Lance didn't really notice. All he could do was stare at the side of Keith's blushing, cute face.

'Cute?' a voice in his head scoffed. 'More like stunning!'

He'd never thought of Keith this way before. Well, not in a long time anyways. Lance recalled having a teeny tiny crush on Keith in their time at the Garrison when he was figuring out his sexuality. At the time, he'd brushed it off as jealousy, but now those feelings were back, and in full force.

'Why was I chasing after the princess when Keith was there the whole time?'

"-you all get to go home!" Bob finished, snapping Lance out of his head. The paladins laughed and jumped in excitement and relief, before seeing the logo for the show one last time, and fading into darkness.

~

"Keith?"

Keith groaned drowsily as a voice sounded loudly from his headset beside his bed.

'Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away,' he thought sleepily, rolling over in his bed.

"Keeeeith," said the voice again. "Keithy boy!"

'What did this person want?' Keith thought irritably. Somehow, in his sleepy state, he hadn't picked up exactly who was wanting his attention.

"Come on, Mullet, I know you're there."

Keith's eyes shot open with a jolt as he realised who the speaker was. There was only one person in the universe who called him Mullet! Fumbling for his helmet, he put it on his head and finally replied.

"Lance? What is it?" he asked. "Are you alright?"

"We need to talk." Lance stated plainly. Keith's heart started racing as he recalled what happened earlier on. "In person, though, otherwise Pidge will somehow find a way to listen in on our conversation, even though we're on a private channel," he explained.

"How are we supposed to talk in person?" Keith frowned. "We're in the middle of space."

"I'm coming over," Lance said.

"Lance, you dumbass, you can't leave your lion! Who knows what dangerous things could be out there!" Keith tried to reason. But either Lance had turned off his headset, or he just wasn't listening, because Keith got no reply. Muttering a string of Altean curses, he hurriedly pulled on his paladin armour and ran to the airlock.

"That idiot is going to get himself stranded in space, I've got to help him!" Keith said out loud as he put his helmet into space mode. He then took a deep breath, and threw himself into the unknown, to save the idiot that he had somehow fallen for.

Using his jetpack, he slowly flew toward where Lance was approaching the black lion. Lance waved as he noticed Keith, and fiddled with something on his helmet. Moments later, Keith heard static in his helmet, and then the smooth tone of Lance's voice.

"You know we can't talk out here, right?" he pointed out. "We're using our helmets to talk."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be out in the middle of space without our lions?" Keith said, ignoring Lance's previous comment.

"Oh come on, Keith, we haven't seen anything out here, what are the chances we'll see something dangerous at this precise moment when we're not inside our lions?" he laughed. The moment those words left his mouth, something squishy brushed against Keith's shoulder and he let out a scream that Hunk would be proud of.

Immediately summoning his bayard, Keith swung his sword around to kill whatever slimy thing had touched his back, but was halted by the sound of Lance's distressed voice.

"Wait, don't kill it!" he shouted. "It's just a harmless little space blob!"

'Little space blob' was a pretty spot on description. The creature was about the size of two fists, and was a glowing swirl of rainbow. It reminded Keith of the Pòkemon Ditto, but a bit more blobby looking. Lance drifted closer to Keith to inspect the creature.

"It's so squishy looking..." Lance sighed, before he lit up. "I'm going to touch the blob!"

"What?! Don't touch the blob!" Keith said. Honestly, why did he find this idiot attractive?

"I'm gonna do it!"

"Lance, I swear to Alfor if you touch that blob, I will stab you." Keith warned. Lance fake gasped.

"That's not the type of language you use around the guy you just declared your undying love for!" he teased. Keith immediately turned red.

"I-that's not-you-oh, shut your quiznak!" Keith grumbled.

"I thought you said that wasn't the right way to use that word," Lance smirked, enjoying seeing how adorable Keith was when he was flustered.

"You just sound so damn cute when you say it so I picked it up, okay?" Keith blurted. That stopped Lance's teasing. But before the conversation could continue, the forgotten blob attached itself to Keith's shoulder, and started to glow brighter.

"Get it off, get it off, get it OFF!" Keith shrieked as he flailed around like a crazy person. Lance burst out laughing, but his laughter halted when another space blob latched onto his leg. Its colours, blue, purple and pink, glowed so bright that Keith watched as Lance had to look away, most likely so he wouldn't go blind.

"What are these things?" Lance wondered aloud. The colour scheme looked familiar...

Suddenly, he gasped.

"It's the bisexual flag!" he said with glee. "And the one attached to you is the queer flag!"

"These things must somehow sense our sexualities... wait, you're bi?" Keith asked, his heart race increasing.

"Y- yeah." Lance stammered, trying and failing to play it cool.

Keith could've shouted with joy. He might have a chance with Lance!

The space blobs attached to the gays interrupted their discovery by beginning to pull them away from the lions.

"Um... Keith? Maybe now is a good time to get back to the lions." Lance said nervously.

"I think you're right," Keith responded, starting up his jetpack. The blob seemed to understand Keith was leaving, and detached itself from his shoulder. But as he turned around to face Lance, he saw Lance's blob was more reluctant to let him go. Currently, Lance was trying to reason with the creature.

"Come on, man, I've got to go now," he said, trying to peel it off his leg. "I know I'm the most bisexual person you'll ever meet, but I have to go back to the lions. And have a little chat with the cutie over there." He whispered the last bit, motioning with his head to Keith.

But it seemed that the blob was not ready to detach itself from Lance, and started quickly pulling him away from Keith and the lions.

A scream tore from Keith's throat. "LANCE!" He immediately sped off after Lance and the blob.

"GRAB MY HAND!" he shouted to Lance, as he slowly caught up to the flying blob. Lance reached out his hand, but couldn't seem to grip onto Keith. And if things couldn't get any worse, more multicoloured blobs appeared, and started swirling around the boys, seemingly helping the bi blob drag Lance away quicker.

"NO!" Keith screamed, and with one final burst of energy, he grasped onto Lance's hand. And thank Alfor he had, because at that precise moment, the blob shot off as fast as it could possibly move, nearly causing Keith to lose his grip on Lance's hand, which seemed to perfectly fit together with Keith's...

'Not now, gay thoughts!' Keith banished the thoughts from his head, and grabbed onto Lance's arm with his free hand. After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only ten or fifteen seconds) the blobs got sick of dragging the gays along and let go of Lance. Then, they disappeared without a trace. As Keith and Lance slowed to a stop, Keith let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Are you alright?" Keith asked Lance breathlessly.

"Yeah, I'm all goo-" Lance cut off as Keith barrelled into him, wrapping his arms around the taller boy.

"I thought I was going to lose you..." Keith whispered shakily, and listening to his uneven breaths, Lance could tell he had started crying.

"Hey, hey, It's alright, you can't get rid of me that easily," Lance smiled, returning the hug and definitely not thinking about how nice it was to have Keith in his arms. They embraced like that for a little while until Keith had stopped sniffling and gained control of his breathing again.

"Now, to get back to the - oh quiznak!" Lance swore. The two boys had been so caught up in each other's embrace that they had failed to notice that, courtesy of the meddling space blobs, they had been dragged away from the lions. Far away. So far that they didn't even recognise the stars around them.

"This is bad..." Keith muttered, fiddling with the dials on his helmet to try and get a radio signal. "I can't get through to anyone."

"We'll have to wait for them to realise we're missing, and then they should hopefully be able to track and find us." Lance supplied hopefully.

"Let's hope so."

The boys elapsed into silence. Keith stared out at the unknown constellations, a distant galaxy glowing a bright purple colour. Funny, purple was a mix of his and Lance's suits. He wondered if the blobs had brought them here on purpose, the stupid meddling creatures. The silence became awkward as Keith and Lance seemed to remember why they came out of their lions in the first place.

"Sooo... do you want to talk about it?" Lance asked awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.

"Not really." Keith said plainly. He wasn't quite ready to face rejection from the boy of his dreams. Future Keith could deal with that little issue later on.

"Well, what else is there to talk about?" Lance frowned, turning to Keith, looking a little bit disappointed.

"I dunno, we can just go back to not talking."

"Seriously, Keith? We might die out here and you decide to go all emo and bottle up your feelings. This might be the last conversation we ever have and you're too cowardly to admit-"

"I remember you from our time at the Garrison!" Keith blurted, just to stop Lance from breaking his heart. Shock crossed Lance's face as he gaped at Keith.

"I - you what?!"

"I remember the 'little rivalry' we had going on whenever we raced the ships. I remember getting out of bed early just so I could beat you to breakfast. I remember a short, chubby cheeked Lance when he first saw a spaceship up close. I remember seeing his- your- eyes light up whenever we did anything to do with flying. I even remember you telling people to call you 'Tailor' because of how you 'thread the needle'. I remember it all. But I was too scared to admit it because I didn't want you to hate me like you did when we were classmates. Well, that's what my plan was, but I guess that didn't work out very well," Keith chuckled dryly, thinking of all the arguments he and Lance had landed themselves in since becoming paladins of Voltron.

"Basically, I'm a wimp and wanted to pretend not to know you so you might actually like me." Keith's face went red as he realised what he'd said. "I - I mean like me as a friend, you know. Yeah." he finished awkwardly.

Lance stayed silent for what felt like an eternity. Keith braced himself for an angry retort or worse, and was shocked when Lance smiled sympathetically.

"God, Keith, you could've just told me!" he exclaimed. "It would've been totally chill!"

Keith raised his eyebrow, thinking about how Lance acted when they first got to space.

"Okay, maybe it would've taken a bit of convincing, but I would've got there eventually." Lance admitted.

"I thought it was easier to pretend I'd forgotten you entirely than to have to continue that level of hatred we had for each other, although it seemed to make you hate me more." Keith said with a sad smile.

"I don't hate you!" Lance insisted, causing Keith to perk up. It wasn't quite loving him back, but it was better than nothing. "And, talking about pretending to forget things... I kind of... maybe... remember the bonding moment?" he finished awkwardly.

"You WHAT?!?" Keith shouted, all of the warm feelings he had a moment ago dissipating.

"I wasn't ready for our rivals relationship to change! I thought it would be better to stay as we were!" Lance protested. "Come on, I was forgiving about the Garrison thing!"

"Do you know how long I was tormented by that moment? I spent two years with my mum on the back of that cosmic whale, and do you want to know what went through my head every single day? 'I might never see the man I love ever again, and he never knew how much he meant to me! If he'd remembered that moment, maybe I would have built up the courage to confess to him, and maybe we could have been more than just rival-friends. Maybe I could have spent my last moment with him as lovers and not people who hated each other's guts!'"

"Oh Keith..." Lance whispered apologetically as Keith breathed heavily. "I had no idea..."

A flash went off on the inside of both the boy's helmets, interrupting Lance.

'Warning; Two minutes of oxygen left.'

Quiznak. Those damn blobs that got them into this mess must've drained the suits!

"No amount of apologising can right my wrongs, but this might help you begin to forgive me." Lance said. "I want to spend these last few minutes of life together."

Keith scoffed.

"Who else are you going to spend it with? The quiznaking stars or the-"

"As more than friends."

The silence was deafening as Keith tried to formulate words with no avail. All of Lance's calmness had seemed to have worn off as the next few sentences spewed out of his mouth.

"It's because of that stupid, silky mullet that I just want to run my fingers through, and those stupid purple eyes that I get lost in, and that stupid little smile you do when someone says something funny or I do something dumb. And don't even get me started on that stupid jawline oh my-"

"I think you're stupid too," Keith said with a giddy smile.

'One minute of oxygen left.'

Suddenly, Lance began to laugh hysterically.

"We couldn't have done this earlier? We're going to die out here and we've only just confessed!"

"God, I wish I'd talked about it earlier," Keith said, feeling tears prickling in the corner of his eyes. "I was too scared you would reject me. We deserve more time."

Lance placed his gloved hand in Keith's.

"We do. But I'm grateful for these last moments we're spending together."

"Even when we're dead and gone, believe me, us and our memories will carry on, together forever." Keith promised.

'30 seconds of air left.'

"Did you just make a quiznacking My Chemical Romance reference?" Lance exclaimed. "Emo till the end, I see."

"You understood it, that says something!" Keith protested.

"With all of the impromptu performances you've given us, it'd be a miracle if I didn't know it word for word!" Lance shot back. But this argument felt different to their other ones. More... light-hearted. No heat. "God, I can't believe we're talking about this now."

'10...'

"What other chance are we going to get?" Keith smiled sadly.

'9...'

Lance joined their other hands together.

'8...'

"We'll get all the time in the world, Mullet."

'7...'

Keith gazed into Lance's blue eyes for what would be the last time.

'6...'

"I love you." he whispered.

'5...'

"I love you, too."

'4...'

They brought themselves closer together.

'3...'

'I'm so sorry, Shiro...'

'2...'

They both took their last breaths of air.

'1...'

'0.'

The helmets flashed red before the glass screen disappeared. And they connected their lips together for the first and last time. Right then, it didn't matter that they were about to die. Keith felt more alive than ever before. As his vision darkened, he looked at Lance one more.

'I'll see you on the other side...'

There was a flash of light, and then nothing.