Always Understood

Disclaimer: WEP owns Voltron. I just borrow them from time to time.

Always Understood

It was dark inside, and the light from the corridor blazed into Keith’s room like a laser. For a second, Lance wasn’t quite sure that Keith was awake, or that he’d even realized the door was open. He hesitated a second, trying to decide whether it was better to barge right in, as he usually did, or just disappear for a little while.

“Either come in or go away.”

Well, Lance thought with a wry smile. I guess he noticed after all. Quickly he stepped in, and the door contracted behind him, leaving them in darkness again. He stood still, giving his eyes a moment to adjust.

That was all for naught the next instant, as the light on the bedside table flared to life, blinding him all over again. Too late, he raised a hand to shield his eyes. “Ow. Geez, warn a guy, would ya?”

Keith sighed, and Lance saw that he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed. “What are you doing here, Lance?”

Lance sat down beside him, clinking softly as he did. When Keith slewed a glance at him out of the corner of his eye, he heaved a mock sigh and pulled a bottle out of one pocket and some glasses out of the other. “Pick me up?” he asked, flashing his most winning grin.

“Lance…” Keith drew out his name, as was usual when irked, frustrated or annoyed with him. He laid his head back, tilted so that he could still study Lance slant-wise.

“Oh, come on. A little bit of alcohol never did anyone any harm.” He paused in the act of pouring out the brandy. “Well, I don’t think it did, anyway. I mean, I did hear that story about the mermaid, but I figured that was just a story…”

In spite of himself – and Lance knew him well enough to know that it definitely was in spite of himself – Keith gave a soft huff of laughter and picked up one of the glasses. “What, no snifters?”

“Coran has them under lock and key. I had to make do with what I could swipe from the kitchen while Nanny wasn’t looking.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie, not really, but if he knew Keith – and he really thought he did – thinking Lance had risked some kind of bodily harm would make him more likely to play along.

“Hmm.” Absently, Keith picked up one glass and swirled the finger of brandy, staring through the amber liquid. “So what are we drinking to?”

“Do we have to be drinking to anything? We can’t just have a drink? I mean, just ‘cause?”

Keith stopped swirling his glass around. “I guess you’re right. Kampai.” He tossed back the brandy and choked.

“Smooth, isn’t it?” Lance pounded him on the back. “Easy does it there, Cap’n.”

“You...” He coughed, rubbing his chest as if to ease the burn. “You could have warned me that it was the Arusian brandy…”

“Ah, you’ll be all right,” Lance determined, then smirked and sipped at his own glass. “Besides. What else could I possibly get here on Arus?”

Keith set the empty glass down with a shudder Lance wasn’t quite sure was entirely feigned. “That stuff is just lethal.”

“Not if you know how to drink it, it’s not.”

“Oh, and you do?”

To prove his point, Lance drained his glass, wheezed, and then said, “Well, I damn well know better than to just shoot it like that!”

Keith snorted and laid his head back against the bed again, looking up at the ceiling, dark and far away.

Okay, this is what I came in here to avoid, he thought. Deliberately, he let the neck of the bottle rattle against the rim of the glass. When Keith shot him a glare, he raised the bottle, having sloshed less than a finger into the glass. “More?”

“In your dreams, flyboy.”

He shrugged and finished pouring what he wanted. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

Keith closed his eyes. “Oh, I know very well what I’m missing. And it’ll be a good miss.”

Oh, boy. This will be fun. Now that the glass was poured, Lance leaned back next to Keith again. And he waited, knowing that if he kept silent long enough, Keith would start asking questions.

“So, straight answer time, Lance. The alcohol?”

Bingo. He twisted his lips, studying the refraction of light through glass and brandy. The second glass of brandy never tasted as good as the first; actually, after the first glass, it started to taste a lot like paint thinner. He supposed that was because you weren’t really supposed to drink more than one glass. “You are a suspicious bastard, aren’t you?”

Keith didn’t even smile. “It’s my job. The alcohol? An answer, please?”

He took a sip. “Tongue loosener.” Then he shot Keith another grin. “Is it working?”

“Oh, yeah, like a dream. Why do you think my tongue needs to be loosened?”

“Who said it was yours?” he retorted, eyes twinkling behind the glass.

That got his attention: Keith opened his eyes again and straightened. “What, you came here to get me to ply you with alcohol? Forgive me if that doesn’t seem the usual scenario.”

Lance batted his lashes. “Oh, come on, don’t you want to get me into a compromising position?”

Keith let out a short bark of laughter. “No, I don’t. Not tonight.”

He pouted and put a hand over his heart, pushing it for all it was worth. “I’m crushed, I really am.”

Keith just looked away, into the darkness beyond the small circle of the lamp’s light. “The truth, Lance.” His tone brooked no argument this time.

Damnit, he was really being stubborn tonight. Lance took a deep breath and set down his glass. “I, uh... I saw the ‘wave.”

And immediately, Keith stiffened beside him, practically turning into a statue.

“I didn’t mean to,” he went on, “I really didn’t, but when it started playing on your terminal, it started playing in the control room, too.”

The room was so quiet he could hear the hum of the air ducts, and while he and Keith had had their share of cold silences before, this one made him wish that he’d worn his jacket. And maybe a pair of snow boots.

“I didn’t tell anyone, Keith,” he said, running his finger around the rim of his glass, just to have something to do. “I would never. I didn’t even watch it the whole way through, but what I saw… I know what happened. Hence…” He waved a hand at himself, the brandy, trying to explain without explaining.

Keith swallowed heavily, and oh, Lance knew that expression on his face, he really did; the I’m trying not to let anyone see how much it hurts look, the same one that Keith wore – that he knew he himself wore – any time Sven was mentioned.

“I’m sorry,” he offered. “I am truly sorry.”

Keith nodded, a short, sharp jerk of his head, looking anywhere but at him. “So you’re here because…?” His voice broke and he bit his lip, struggling for control and finding it just beyond his grasp.

Lance fell quiet, all the things he could say – I lost my sister when I was 12, I know what it’s like, I want to help – filling up his brain and getting lost on the way to his tongue.

“Where else would I be?” he replied at last, his tone whisper soft.

There was a long moment of silence. “I’m glad you are here, Lance,” Keith finally said in the same tone.

There was nothing to be said to that. Instead, he took both glasses and moved them out of the way, on his other side next to the bottle, and slung his arm around Keith’s shoulders, pulling him close, so that Keith’s dark head rested on his shoulder. “I’m glad I am, too.”