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[emblazes]

 
ᴄᴀʟʟ × ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇᴍᴀɪʟ × ᴛᴇxᴛ

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[competing]

[ lance is already two steps after keith when he's forced to stop and acknowledge their panda son. he scoops the little guy up distractedly, cradling him in his arms as he marches after the other. ]

Well, someone's gotta think about you, since you seem so keen on not doing it yourself.

[ ah yes now does this sound like their usual fights... ]

[emblazes]

[Their not!dog will try to lick the underside of Lance's face in the meantime...]

What's that supposed to mean?!

[Whirling around to glare at him...ah yes...here we go.]

I can take care of myself just fine.

[competing]

[ sorry u have to see this junior... this is how your dads used to be all the time. ]

Oh yeah? What'd you have for lunch today?

[ aka the time of day lance is too busy with work to check in on keith. perhaps not the most poignant of examples, but it'll get the work done! ]

[emblazes]

[Providing one white lie is bad enough, when Lance goes for details he....

He ain't got nothin.]

Who cares?!

[Obviously not a real question.]

Like I said, worry about yourself.

[competing]

I never said I was never not worried about myself! [ he can multitask okay... but all this shouting is startling poor junior. ]

Believe it or not, you actually factor into that now. So when you start pushing me away like this, it kind of sort of really affects me!

[emblazes]

[His ears are twitching so much...hackles goin up...]

Me not eating lunch doesn't have anything to do with you!

[And Other Lies Your Alien Boyfriend Will Tell You.]

I'm not pushing you away because I didn't eat lunch-!

[Which, he immediately realizes doesn't make sense? He said that wrong. No takebacks.]

You just keep getting pissed off because -- because you don't get me!

[How could anyone begin to understand poor half alien orphan Keith....read straight from the visitors guide at hot topic dot com. Sometimes Lance is the pro-bono perfecto boyfriend and sometimes Keith gets wrapped up in his own brain and needs to get his ass kicked.]

[competing]

[ where lance would typically react to keith's explosion with a similar one of his own, this time he seems to explode inwardly. closing in on himself. ]

I guess I don't.

[ he rearranges his hold on junior for a second, the little panda snuffling mildly in distress. ]

Whose fault is that?

[ that'll be the last thing he says before swiftly brushing past him, moving back into their shared bedroom so he can set junior back down onto the little crate they'd been using as a makeshift bed/crib for him. ]

1/3

[emblazes]

[No, what, that's not what he's supposed to say?! Lance brushes past and he's left just standing there, dumbfounded. Has he been shutting him out? Intentionally? This is...not their first fight about this.]

[emblazes]

[emblazes]

It's my fault.

[Can lance...even hear him...]

[competing]

[ maybe.

either way, there's a sudden shout that follows it: ]

WHAT WAS THAT? DID YOU SAY SOMETHING??

[ hmph. come over here and tell him yourself, you coward. ]

1/3

[emblazes]

[Clenching his fists...]

[emblazes]

[emblazes]

[He's stomping his way over to their shared bedroom, less like an angry mother, more like an incoming T-Rex.]

I said...

[Whilst making a Grinch Face.]

I was trying to admit that it's my fault! Alright-?! It's not you.

[competing]

[competing]

[ he's already turned around to face keith who comes in, arms folding over his chest in a pretty decent imitation of keith himself. ]

So what're you gonna do about it?

[emblazes]

I don't know?!

[If he knew, they wouldn't argue about it so much...]

[competing]

[ maybe that's not the question he should be asking then... ]

Do you want to do something about it?

[emblazes]

[Sideglance.]

Of course.

[But he can't not do something he just unconsciously...does...or feels...whenever the Blade gets brought up.

Or so he thinks.]

[competing]

[ there's a stretch of silence between them that's only disturbed by the occasional scritch scritch scritch from junior's curious pawing of his crate... ]

Then talk to me, man.

[emblazes]

[Filler noise isn't so bad.]

I don't know what to talk to you about. I don't even--

[Want to, which would contradict everything he's said in the past thirty seconds. He's scratching the back of his head, like it'd help get him out of that shitty train of habitual thought.]

Wearing my Blade outfit doesn't mean I don't...appreciate you. None of that even matters here, you're right. But it's...not...not gonna matter forever.

[Uh.]

Everything's different now -- with Voltron. I know you don't like that I left but...

[This is hard. This is why he didn't wanna get into it again.]

I'm better at working alone.

[That's the best summary he can come up with, which, of course, should offer nothing reassuring. Working alongside the Blade allows him to edge with death whenever he feels like it, for example, and being among the Galra, it's like he's making up for time lost in knowing himself.]

But it doesn't have anything to do with you.

[competing]

[ lance doesn't really know where to begin. in truth, they've had this conversation before, in the wee hours of the morning covered in swamp, late at night in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the daya in front of an injured vendor, shoving and screaming at each other until they were both too tired to carry on. each time felt like it would be the last, and lance has to wonder if this time would be any different.

what can he say that he hasn't said already? what could he do that he hasn't yet done?

maybe the answer all along is just as keith says: it really doesn't have anything to do with him.

but is that really any better? ]

Is that what you really think?

[emblazes]

[When Lance finally speaks up, he's not...sure how to proceed. Yes? Yes would be the response to go with, considering, but he's afraid of confirming as much. He's tired of hurting him, saying ignorant things without meaning to, so on and so forth.

Maybe he should go? Meditate under a waterfall, go on some eyeopening journey, snort ayahuasca to lobotomize himself into not retreating behind a barrier -- not wanting to retreat behind a barrier when it comes to Lance, his peers...]

Sorry.

[He's starting off, backing away from their shared room to the entrance/exit of their treehouse. Where ya waterfalls at..]

[competing]

[ this isn't how it's supposed to go. love is supposed to be stronger than this, and they were in love, despite everything, despite even themselves, so shouldn't they be able to work through this?

but all keith keeps doing is apologizing, without offering any means to fix it, and without really knowing what the issue is, lance doesn't have any solutions either. keith says it isn't about him, and that's fair, that makes sense, keith was his own person well before he and lance were ever a thing, but what does that mean for them in the meantime? is he just going to have to accept that there's some part of keith he can't reach?

is that how it's supposed to go? ]

I don't know how to fix this, Keith.

[ by now, keith's already backed away. he can't even see him from where he stands now, so he's not even sure if the other boy heard him or not. ]

[competing]

[ later, lance still doesn't know how to fix it. but it's late, and the sun's been down for more than a couple of hours, and despite the heat and humidity of wyver it's getting later in the year and so chillier at nightfall, and all lance can think about it the fact that keith still hasn't really eaten yet and. dangit.

once he puts their panda child to bed, lance shrugs on his jacket and ventures down and out towards the woods. where he's sure keith would have ventured off towards, much more likely than the civilization on the other side. before long, he's calling out, only half-mindful that there is a high likelihood that someone (or something) else could answer instead. ]

...Keith? Keith, where are you??