It had been well over a week by both human and Elpesian standards, and Keith was beginning to think he was going to lose his shit. Never since the moment he stranded himself in a Texan desert had Keith felt as useless as this mission made him feel, and his inability to take out his frustration on any Galra, or even take Red out of her hangar to just fly for the sake of flying was only adding to his stress. It was all he could do not to lash out and pick fights in Concordia, making him completely worthless in the efforts of gathering information. He just… He sucked with people. He hated them all and he was suspicious of everyone and he couldn't even TALK to the customers, much less lure them into a conversation long enough to learn anything.
Fortunately, that's what they had literally everyone else for. Even Pidge, who also hated people, was doing leagues better than Keith. Even if only because she seemed to have accidentally joined a street gang, but at least she'd figured out how the local currency worked in the process and was now keeping all of the books for the store. Of course, as for what else they'd managed to learn in their time here, the results were disappointing. Especially because the one fact they were picking up was that Keith was apparently right from the get go and the Merchant's Guild was a big fucking organized crime empire. It had to be, because there was no way in seven hells a profitable organization would have the city's entire police force as a "subdivision." Police, generally speaking, were supposed to be run by the government, as Keith understood it. Seemed like the cops being a wing of the MGE would cause a lot of… conflict of interest, legally speaking.
Naturally, this information was doing wonders for Keith's paranoia, making the need to constantly interact with strangers all the more grating on every last hair of Keith's nerves.
And none of any of that was even the worst part. The WORST part of every day had somehow become going home. He wasn't sure why or over what, but it seemed like he and Lance might still be fighting, after all. Except there wasn't any anger as much as just this weird awkward tension that had risen between them that Keith could not for the life of him figure out the source of, but it had managed to turn the usually soft and relaxing silences between them stiff and uncomfortable, to the point where Keith was just starting to give up all together and spend the little free time they now had locked in the training room trying to work off some of the extreme levels of tension that had become his constant companion.
Okay, so it wasn't a complete mystery, what was wrong between them. Mostly it was, but Keith was aware of the fact that his stress was so bad he was just about back to finding every little thing about his boyfriend grating and irritating. Like, he could deal with the stream of bullshit that comes out of his mouth because he knew it was how Lance compensated for his insecurities. So even though every single thing Lance said when there was more than two people in the room had started to annoy him to no end, Keith was at least aware that that was his own problem and not actually his boyfriend's fault. No, the actual problem was… Probably, due to Keith's anxiety, come to think of it.
The actual problem was that Lance, despite the fact that they were barely talking to each other, was still managing to hover and needle at Keith like a mother hen. Just... It was stupid, that it was bothering Keith so much, but Lance was constantly asking about where he was going or what he was doing or what he had done that day while they were apart, and Keith was pretty sure that was normal behavior for people who cared about each other but he just wasn't used to that sort of attention, okay? It was starting to feel invasive, like he couldn't keep anything to himself without Lance asking about it, and for some reason his brain's reaction to feeling smothered was to try to retreat at all costs. So somehow, Keith had wound up sneaking through the castle at odd hours in hopes that no one would see him, not just Lance, because the idea of anyone in the entire universe knowing where he was at any given moment had become the worst pressure imaginable.
That… made it sound like he was avoiding Lance. He wasn't, not actually. They were still right on top of each other for meals and training, apparently both desperate to pretend things were normal and force conversation every morning at breakfast. They were even still trying to spend their free time together… Or. At least, had been, until…
So. a couple of nights ago Keith had suggested they watch a movie together, figuring that it wouldn't matter that they suddenly couldn't think of anything to say to one another if they were absorbed in the movie and maybe they could get a little cuddling in. He was never a person who had been good at relying on words, so to Keith the physical contact with his boyfriend was sort of… grounding. Helped him affirm their place with each other, maybe. And at first everything was even going okay, and they settled onto the couch and got into the movie, which Keith was almost depressed to report were all becoming easier to understand as the Paladins unwittingly continued to immerse themselves in ancient Altean culture to the point where they were actually starting to get some of the jokes. And as usual they soon ended up all kinds of sprawled on top of each other, comfortable in each other's arms like normal and Keith had been feeling so nice, warm from the inside out in that newly familiar way…
Which is of course the point where he apparently got greedy and did something stupid. He hadn't THOUGHT it was stupid, not at the time. He still wasn't sure why it was the wrong move, but when he'd slid his hand up Lance's thigh towards his crotch in an attempt to start something to get a little stress relief in the fun way, hoping a little intimacy would help bring them together... Lance hadn't reacted well. Well, his body had reacted well, but that had hardly stopped him from pushing Keith off of him. Too determined to just flee in humiliation, they'd wound up spending the rest of the movie on opposite ends of the couch stewing in a worse awkwardness than ever.
He wouldn't have been able to explain even if he'd wanted, but the rejection hurt more than Keith would ever admit. If words were failing, and Lance didn't want him enough to let Keith use their bodies to communicate instead, then he just… didn't know what else to do.
So that was also adding to Keith's tension. The horniness, that is. He wasn't sure if having sex two nights in a row and then not at all for a week and a half was normal, but it didn't feel that way. Had he been this horny all along, or only since he and Lance had started doing it? He wasn't sure. Plus he couldn't even bring it up to Lance because Keith didn't actually know if there was a problem or not, because they'd only JUST started having sex and didn't have a set 'normal' with each other yet. Not to mention, now he didn't even have the guts to try and make another move anymore, and had no choice but to just… wait for Lance.
So in other words, literally every aspect of Keith's life was currently a disaster. But at least they were shuffling around who was in charge of the stall enough that he and Lance were hardly ever stuck working it together. Things were already bad enough without that torture.
Instead, Keith right now was manning the store with Coran, who was the one currently in charge of talking to customers while Keith sprawled across a comfortable piece of display furniture and plucked absentmindedly at the damnable electric space banjo Lance had assaulted him with a couple of weeks ago because it wasn't like anyone was interested in buying the stupid thing. And of course, mostly as a way to look preoccupied like he wasn't staring down everyone who came near the stall with suspicion like an overwhelmed secret service agent.
"You know," Coran started conversationally after another patron with no information bought absolutely nothing, "that baliset would sound a lot better if it were tuned. Turning it on would probably help as well, of course, but tuning would help a fair bit more."
Keith looked down at the instrument in his hands, wondering if perhaps he were holding it upside down while he was at it. "Don't suppose you know how to tune it?"
Coran looked thoughtful, his moustache twitching as he hummed for a moment before heading towards where all of the rest of the instruments were being displayed. "Well logically, we should have put the tuning fork with the rest of this lot," he said as he rummaged around. "Aha! Here we are!"
It looked enough like a normal tuning fork, but Keith was right not to underestimate it. Coran merely had to plug it into the banjo - er, baliset apparently - for a moment and the instrument hummed in Keith's hands, the strings vibrating under his fingers as they tuned themselves into the correct frequency. When he experimentally plucked at one of them he was surprised to hear the sound was entirely unlike the flaming banjo noises it as producing before, now humming in a strange echoey twang like… Kind of like a banjo being played in a huge empty metal hallway, actually. "Huh, I'll be damned," Keith considered. The stupid thing really COULD play music. Maybe he should tell Lance it hadn't been his fault he'd sounded so bad -
Keith scoffed, annoyed with himself. Plucked determinedly at the strings again to prove he was not thinking about Lance, testing out the different ways to make notes ring from it. Eventually absorbed himself enough in the alien music that it was actually true.
The two of them watched the city move around them for a while. "This city hasn't changed much for ten thousand years having passed," Coran offered conversationally. "Well, s'a bit shinier I s'pose, but the basic sort of… shape and feel is still the same."
Keith watched a pair of aliens that looked a bit like sentient tires roll past, tapping his fingertip idly against the baliset's B string (or the baliset equivalent of a B string, anyway). "You've been here before, then?"
"But of course," Coran confirmed cheerfully. "Like we've been saying, Altea and Elpis have been allies for long generations before Allura and I were around. I visited a fair number of times in my day. And Concordia's always been the best place to throw a party."
"I'll bet," Keith agreed dryly.
Coran laughed. "Come on, now, don't have such a low opinion. I'll have you know many geruda have made fine warriors. Why, one was even a paladin!"
He didn't mean to sound dubious, but Keith couldn't help his raised eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"The Red Paladin, even! A fair bit before my day, but I hear she was quite the firecracker."
His own Lion, even? Wasn't Red supposed to be temperamental? He had been trying not to dismiss the geruda based on their appearance, but it was sort of hard to imagine one of these tiny women wielding the sword of Voltron. "Must have been a real sight."
"Oh, she was that alright," Coran chuckled. "There's only one story about her anyone remembers, but you'll get a real kick out of it, I think. How she died." Keith looked at him, and Coran grinned with delight as having caught Keith's interest.
"Oh, yeah?" He inquired indulgently.
Coran absolutely preened. "Oh, it's a good one!" He crowed in delight. "As the story goes, she was up all alone against an entire enemy battleship with a half-broken Lion. Somehow, she was able to destroy the enemy battler's flying systems, landing them all crashed on a nearby planet together, her Lion useless pinned under the nearly whole ship. She managed to survive the crash, but so did most of the enemy army!"
"How big of an army?" Keith hadn't meant to interrupt to ask.
Coran considered. "Well, it was a Vogon cruiser, so probably a whole flottso worth." Keith had no idea what that meant. He decided not to ask. "Anyway, so there she was, all alone and trapped in a crashed enemy battleship with only her bayard at her side. No one knows for sure what happened on that ship, but we know what they found."
Taking his cue, Keith asked "What'd they find?"
With gravitas, Coran leaned forward, voice dropped low to draw out the tension. "Bodies. Only bodies. Not a single living soul left on board. She had killed the entire surviving Vogon army, single handedly."
Keith blinked. That sounded cool and all, but… "How do you know she killed them and not the crash, then?"
Eyes sparkling, Coran grinned. "Because of the wounds from her bayard carving open their corpses." Which was of course, the most awesome thing he could have said. "And," though it shouldn't have been possible, he managed to make his tone even more dramatic. "When they found her…"
Almost against his will, Keith leaned forward in interest. "When they found her?"
"She still had her spear in her cold, dead hands. Run through the bodies of two enemies and propping her up, so that she stood over a field of corpses even in death. So many holes torn in her her body there shouldn't have been enough left of her to stand in the first place, and a wicked smile still frozen across her blood-soaked face."
"Whoa," Keith breathed. "That might be the coolest thing I've ever heard."
Coran laughed. "Yes, I thought you might enjoy that."
Keith leaned back in his chair again, letting the story soak in. Trying to imagine what might have happened in there, visions of a five foot lizard in paladin's armor stalking through vents and hallways like like a red ghost with bloody footprints and leaving death in her wake. Fuckin' rad. "What was… Do you know her name?"
A thoughtful twitch of orange moustache hairs. "Hm, how was it again? If the gerudas have their family names last, so out of Kara and Vlella she'll have been Kara... Thrace? Yes that's it, Kara Thrace."
Kara Thrace… Keith would try to remember that. The very same bayard used to kill who-knows-how-many hundreds of enemies, now weighing on Keith's own hip. Quite a legacy to live up to, huh? Friggin' heavy.
Although, come to think of it… "Hey wait - geruda don't have family names."
Coran blinked. "You know, I did notice that all of the ladies I've met have only given me their first name. But, uh, that queen, Shirun Shera of the Kingdom of Sheeba? Obviously she's got a full name."
Keith frowned. "Yeah, but I don't think anyone else does. They're super friendly, I've heard the name of every single one I've met and it's always just one."
Looking mildly disturbed, Coran crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "I suppose it has been ten thousand years. Still, seems like an odd way for a culture to change, doesn't it?" His frown deepened. "I don't believe I've seen any older gals around here either, now that I look back on it."
Keith couldn't tell anything about a geruda's age by looking, but he knew one thing. The loss of a name was the loss of individuality… Keith couldn't help the shudder than ran through his body. About ten percent of the Concordia's population seemed to be geruda, which in such a large and diverse city was a huge number of people… How many girls just called 'Kara' or 'Lala' were there running around? Creepy.
After a minute or two of plucking at the baliset strings in a heavy silence, Keith asked "So then, 'out of Kara and Vlella,' who's Vlella?"
"Oh!" Coran seemed surprised at the idea of Keith actually asking for more information from him. "Ah, she was the blue paladin at the time. I understand they were quite close friends, although," his voice in an awkward suppressed chuckle. "I suppose not as close as…" He laughed again, but it seemed more like a substitute for speech than actual amusement. "Well, you know."
Keith couldn't help the wry smirk. "And here I'd think the paladins would have been lovers with each other all over the place."
This time Coran's laugh was genuine. "Probably," he shrugged. "That's not really the sort of information that gets passed down, as it were." He sighed, and they watched distant ships fly through the cracks of orange sky they could see through the buildings. "Come to think on it, that's a funny coincidence," he announced after a moment.
Keith looked at him. "What is?"
"Oh, Vlella is all. She was from Glee Anselm."
"Am I… supposed to know what that means?"
Coran chuckled. "Right, right, of course. Glee Anselm is the same swamp planet our, uh... Acquaintance Veret hails from." Immediately Keith's mind set to imagine it, his vicious red mental image of Kara set next to another grinning blue squid. Kind of hilarious - like a fish and a bird making friends or something. Hey wait, wasn't there some kind of idiom like that? "Though she was a Nautolan and Veret…" Coran's eyebrows furrowed. "Now, what were they called again?"
"Teuthilotl," an increasingly familiar voice offered cheerfully. And like the devil being summoned by his own name there of course, was Veret. "What are we talking about?" He grinned. "Who's Vlella? Is she hot?"
Keith glared at Coran as though this was his fault for ever uttering the squids name. "No one," Keith said shortly. "How long have you been here?"
"No time at all," Veret assured smoothly. "Just long enough to hear the melodic sound of my own name."
Keith tried not to let his face twist into a scowl, and doubtlessly did not succeed. Frantically replayed the last conversation in his head - they had clearly been talking about paladins of some sort, but neither he nor Coran had made any allusions to Keith himself being one… Still, anything he could have overheard was already too much. Fuck. Keith should've known better than to even consider having this conversation out here, but it hadn't even occurred to him for a second. All the good this paranoia fucking does if it can be distracted out of him in two seconds…
"...And anyway, it's about time I stopped over again to make sure this fine establishment is conducting its business on the level," Veret continued, flicking out that same ECHO screen from is wrist and immediately snaking his way in between Keith and Coran to wander under the shoddy canvas awning casting shade over their furniture display. "Let's see, what have we got here…" He said theatrically as he looked at his screen with one pair of eyes and the surrounding wares with the beady pair on his temple. "I have no idea what any of this stuff is but the numbers look good, so we'll say it's correct!" He clapped his hands together as the screen flickered out of existence. "So! Since my official business is all taken care of…" He turned his smile towards Keith, who acknowledged the look by spitting into the dirt at their feet. Veret just laughed, "How charming."
Keith watched as one of Veret's yellow eyes met Coran's, who was watching the man with interest. "...Right, actually, hold on a moment," the squid declared, and faster than Keith had thought he could move, slithered past them both into the street. Keith watched him hail down a random passerby with a friendly wave, drawing them into a conversation that couldn't be heard from here. Threw an arm around their shoulder and turned them towards the shop, leading the alien straight to Coran with a better salesman's charm than any one of them had managed to conjure so far. "...Because I can tell you're having problems with your back from the way you stand, I really can, and I happen to know this man sells some fine beds that would do wonders for your sleep. Besides, how long have you had your current mattress? I bet you can't even remember how long ago you bought it, you know that means it's time for a new one."
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take a look…" The alien said thoughtfully. "What have you got in stock?"
Having successfully set up a distraction for Coran, Veret reapproached Keith, settling into a lean against the desk next to Keith's chair. "Like I was saying, it seems like you've been having some trouble settling into town. And being as it is my job to help you with exactly that, I decided what better way to get you used to Concordia than by living it?"
Keith humored him with the quirk of an eyebrow. "Living it?"
"Going out on the town, of course! I bet you still haven't had the chance to explore the city at all yet, and I'd be happy to show you around. I can take you to all the best places, tell you where to steer clear of…"
Keith narrowed his eyes, hackles raised. "Steer clear of?"
"Well," Veret shrugged. "You know, we are in the seedier parts of town right here. It's dangerous for a person to wander around by themselves. You might be liable to wind up somewhere you shouldn't be."
The idea that Keith in any way couldn't take care of himself was offensive to the core, and even more annoying was the knowledge that that was exactly why Veret said it. Fucking prick. "What a great incentive," he bit out sarcastically, fingers curling around the neck of the baliset until the strings cut into him.
Veret grinned. "...Or you could just accept it as an excuse to let me buy you dinner."
Thrown off guard, Keith actually had to pause. Yeah Veret's game was to play at flirting, but he hadn't expected him to actually just… ask him out. Obviously Keith's first instinct was to shut that shit down. But he knew that in reality Veret wouldn't be asking him on a real date - the idea was actually absurd. This was an invitation to play a game - and the first opportunity any one of them had to actually get information. And even if he didn't learn anything about the MGE or any potential revolution, Keith wanted to confirm if this guy was just a normal creep or the kind that had connections to the Galra.
He glanced at Coran, still busy with the alien he was selling a bed to. Back to Veret, patiently awaiting response. Smothered the hesitance in his voice to try to sound bored, and said: "I suppose it's as good of a way to waste time as any."
Veret's smile was like the flash of a knife blade. "What time to do you get off work?"
--
They agreed to meet on the next tier up on the same building as the shop, where Keith could overlook to watch people wander in and out of its canvas roof by leaning on the railing and looking down at it. The city had so many high places, if Keith wanted he could find just about any angle to watch just about any building; a stalker's paradise. Which meant that at any time they could all be being watched and never know it - nope. Not now, Keith; you know the threat of being murdered is constant like always, no need to dwell on it. Just keep your eyes open and do what needs to be done.
When Veret arrived - on time, Keith had just showed up early - he had surprisingly little to say in the way of irritating Keith. Didn't even try to touch Keith, just greeted him with another one of those uncommon smiles that was more charming than toothy and started them off, a bit unsurprisingly, towards the deeper slums.
The conversation remained brief, Veret only idly pointing out places of interest as they passed them, apparently intent with a destination for them already in mind. They climbed further and further up Concordia's buildings and into the high layers of the sky, leading Keith to realize that Concordia's social structure was literally upside-down. Unlike the penthouse suites of highrises on Earth, the higher you went on Elpis the more the buildings seemed to crumble, the rich apparently favoring the convenience and relative safety of ground level and letting the proletariat populate taller tiers and layers of the great city. Still, there remained no shortage of people wherever you went, and Keith kept his eyes moving as he thought about what, exactly, he might have to offer Veret to have been invited on this outing.
Veret should have all of the information they'd given to the geruda clerk, which didn't include much more than their fake names and a bit of the Magrathea spiel Shiro had given her. So technically Veret didn't even know they were supposed to be bandits yet, just had the fact that they had ancient furniture than needed to be sold. It was implied that they were bandits, but that fact that was never confirmed, so as it was the only thing Veret could possibly find interesting was the dead planet backstory and ten thousand year old merchandise. He had already been hovering around even before he'd heard Coran and Keith talk about paladins, and they'd never said the name Voltron, but… the fact still remained Veret hadn't actively asked Keith one-on-one until he'd heard them. Yeah… If Keith were a Galra spy looking for paladins of Voltron, it would all be just enough for him to get suspicious of them. Which meant the probability Veret was Galra scum and not just Guild filth had just shot up exponentially. Great.
"Here we are," Veret eventually declared, gesturing towards a short downward-sloping alley with the single door of a building at the end. "Tash's bar. Not the best food in the city but one of the only places where you don't have to look over your shoulder to watch your back the whole meal."
"Yeah?" Keith followed him to the alley. "What makes it so safe?"
"Tash's total inability to withstand bullshit from her customers," Veret answered cheerfully. "They say she caught someone eavesdropping on another table and poured a cup of scalding kaffa right in their ear and told them to mind their own business. It's probably not true, but everyone likes to pretend it is so we have one decent bar where everyone actually does mind their own shit."
"Fair enough," Keith agreed, allowing Veret to hold the door open for him before stepping inside.
The bar was lively, and better-lit than Keith had expected it to be. At least bright enough that no one of the many faces around were obscured in shadow, and Keith could see the weathered and aged geruda at the bar who was presumably Tash. Huh. So they really did get older than all the girls he'd seen running around.
They found a table for two to sit down and even took the time to actually order food, Keith choosing something at random from the illegible list of meals on the automatic menu they ordered from. And then they settled in to get comfortable, Keith waiting for Veret to make the first move.
Whoever spoke first had no choice but to reveal to the other what it was they wanted. Veret seemed at first unwilling to give himself this disadvantage, and they settled into a silence not unlike the one shared by wolves circling each other in the first steps of a fight. Finally, Veret put his white pawn forward(5), and the game began. "So, you must've heard the rumor, right?"
A tactical question in which no actual information was revealed. Not bad. Keith just let his head roll lazily to the side, arms crossed over his chest as he boredly asked, "What rumor?"
Veret's smile didn't waver, his eyes only narrowing further in amusement. "Weren't you guys just talking about it? I heard you guys say something about paladins."
Keith carefully considered his options on answering. He was playing the part of a bandit, giving out too little would be just as suspicious as too much… "You mean that rumor going around that ancient warrior robot thing Voltron has revived? Even we heard that one, isn't it old by now?"
"Not just that it's revived," Veret drawled with calculated ease. "That it's even supposed to be here on Elpis."
Fuck. Fucking fuck. No, this was fine. This was fine, Keith could deal with this. Keep cool and put forward your bishop and hope he takes the bait. "That's actually not surprising," Keith offered. "But it's also probably just because of us."
Veret raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" Looked impressed that Keith had been so bold as to offer this much. "And why would that be?"
Keith shifted his eyes away with deliberate casualness, looking off into the din of aliens drinking and eating and laughing around them. This was where he lay down his hand; the story they'd set up to divert attention away from them. All he had to do was be convincing. "Well, as for that Voltron rumor… I can actually confirm it's true. We saw it with our own eyes over on Thuban 9. And…" He let his eyes turn back to meet Veret's again, but kept his head tilted casually away.
A grin slipped across Veret's face, and he leaned forward on the table towards Keith in unconscious interest. "And?"
Keith's eyes fell back away towards the wall. "...And, while we happened to be there and Voltron happened to be busy fighting some Galra, the captain may have happened to find their mothership. And while they happened to be rather distracted by the Galra they were fighting, we may have happened to slip inside and steal a few things."
Veret actually let a laugh bark out of him. "You ROBBED the paladins of Voltron?"
"Nothing they'd really miss," Keith shrugged. "Just some… You know. Furniture and whatnot."
Veret's amusement at this was complete and unrestrained. "'Wares we need to unload in a hurry', indeed," he laughed. "So then you guys really are a gang of thieves after all, huh?"
Keith let one shoulder rise in a nonchalant shrug, carefully training his expression into a tiny coy smile, like he was suppressing a smirk. "We have our own ways of getting by," he said evasively.
Veret leaned back in his seat again, shark-toothed smile splitting his face open with amusement. "So we do. Remind me to watch out for sticky fingers." This time, Keith didn't have to do any acting for his face to twist into a smothered laugh. Veret watched this, and, after a moment stated with matter-of-fact certainty: "...You've stolen my wallet, haven't you."
Keith bit his lip, but the snicker broke through anyway in an ugly snort. He tossed Veret's wallet onto the table between them, and Veret broke out into another mirthful laugh. "You son of a bitch," he declared gleefully as he took it back. "I can't believe you didn't take anything out of it."
"How else would I make you pay for my dinner?"
Veret laughed again, genuinely entertained. "So that Magrathean Nomad bit on the registry is just your cover story to pretend you're not a band of space pirates?"
This question, at least, Keith had covered. "That part's true, actually." They hadn't gone to the trouble of picking out a real dead planet in the Milky Way and memorizing their backstories just to tell one clerk at a desk. "Our ancestors set out on the very same ship we were all born on. Flying all the way here from the backward-ass boonies Magrathea died in, zig-zagging its way across the universe until thousands of years later our asses wind up here on Elpis."
"What a magical journey," Veret said sardonically.
"Yeah," Keith agreed flatly. "The whole thing is actually ridiculous. That's why so many of us went with Captain Fenchurch when she decided to steal a ship and set out on her own a few years ago on Nelvana III."
"I gotta say, that's genuinely pretty awesome."
That statement left a break in the conversation, an opening for Keith to make the next move. It his was chance to get some information of his own, but… What to ask. He wanted to pursue his suspicion that Veret was working for the Galra but even if he found a safe way to bring it up, it was also obviously exactly what a paladin of Voltron would be interested in. Too risky. Instead, he shifted to sling a lazy arm over the back of his chair, and with precise aloofness threw out "So what's up with this Merchant's Guild of yours, anyway? I hear the cops are under MGE control, do you guys just own the whole city or what?"
"Maybe not the whole city," Veret's smile was a bit mocking, but not towards Keith. "But I'll admit that the queen has very little in the way of actual power." Keith didn't respond with words, just a raised eyebrow that suggested the squid continue. Veret picked up the nonverbal cue, continuing with slight hesitation. "Ah lets see... I guess the best way to explain it would be like… A big, planet-wide protection racket. This arm of the galaxy is supposed to have agreed to be pacifistic and unman their militaries, right? So since Elpis can't legally pull together a police or guard large enough to properly protect this place, some old queen a thousand years ago figured that if it wasn't the government running it there was no need to tell anyone exactly how big any personal police force might get. Somehow the MGE was the solution that worked itself out, and so now we run as much of Elpis as the Queen's government."
"Sounds like the Geruda really fucked themselves over."
"Well, I don't really know if I'd say that," Veret disagreed. "I mean ultimately the goal was to keep the royal line in office so that a geruda is always leading the people of Elpis. Even if her hands are tied behind her back, it isn't just the geruda that feel more comfortable with a proper Elpesian queen standing tall."
Keith considered this. "There is a lot of power in just having the people on your side," he finally conceded. "But it still leaves anyone whose complaint is against the MGE pretty much fucked."
"Then maybe they should take it up with the queen," Veret laughed.
Keith saw another break in the conversation, but didn't know how to use it to his advantage yet. He didn't have time to figure it out, either - it was just then that their server arrived, proving once again Concordia's insistence on blending their reliance on technology with their reliance on people, considering nowhere Keith had ever been before now had automatic menus to order but real people instead of robots delivering the food. The plate, too, was a technology Keith and the others had all run across many times before: when one made skin contact with it, an automatic sensor scanned the chemical content of the food on the plate against the chemicals in your body, and if what's on the plate is toxic to whomever is consuming it the rim of the plate with turn bright red in warning. It wasn't a perfect system, since it only detected if the food would kill you and not if it would like, fuck you up drunk. Keith was already aware of this because even the Castle of Lions had this basic tech, which is how they'd known the food goo was even safe to eat in the first place. They also knew it was a flawed technology because of the time Lance got fucked up on space juice and had somehow become convinced Keith was a cyborg that needed to be destroyed before the Great Robot Uprising. So, randomly getting high off anything was yet another constant risk they all had no choice but to take day after day.Unfortunately, just a second or two after Keith's finger made contact his plate flashed red at him. "Ah, shit."
"HA!" Veret's laugh was delighted, and he snaked over the table to steal Keith's plate from him and pop a cherry-looking bit of fruit into his mouth. "S'what you get for picking something at random."
What happened next was pure foster-home-bred reflex, and thus Keith felt he was not responsible for his actions. That being, standing out of his seat to snatch Veret's own plate from in front of him, and even before confirming there was no red light he was already spitting over as much of the food as possible to claim as his own gross territory. When Keith sat back down with it and started eating, Veret just stared at him in honest surprise, mouth slightly parted in an aborted word. And then he burst out laughing so hard he doubled over in his chair, shoulders shaking as he tried to bury his laughter in his hands. Not quite certain what to do with this reaction, Keith just scowled at him and ate a forkful of blue noodles.
They ate in relative silence, and Keith wondered if he had missed his opportunity to get any more information out of him. He'd have to be careful, steer the conversation towards where he wanted Veret to be and he just wasn't sure he had the linguistic skills necessary for that. Especially since he'd need to try to stay in character as a stoic pirate raider, and most of his strategy for that role so far was to just glare a lot. He might have been able to slip in a question about the Galra while Veret had been talking about the police defending Concordia, but now that topic was long passed and he didn't know how or if he could bring it back up at all at this point. Keith frowned into his pasta, watching the end of a noodle flick in circles around his plate as he spun it onto his fork. What options did he have to work with here...
"So," Veret's tone was light, and he was looking at his own fork like he couldn't care one way or another what Keith's response was. "What was the other question you wanted to ask?"
Keith froze, looking up at Veret with drawn eyebrows. Veret grinned again, looking at Keith directly as he clarified, "Earlier when you asked about the Guild, you hesitated like you were still thinking about something. And just now you were glaring at your yurba like it held all the answers to the universe. So," he smiled at Keith like they were actually friends, and Keith hated him for being so damned observant that he could read Keith like an open menu. "What's the question that's bothering you so much?"
Keith just looked at him for a moment, mind reeling. Just how much could he push this… What could he gain without giving too much away? "I'm not usually one to question a good thing, but it has been bothering me…"
Veret's smile was open, inviting Keith to continue. "There don't seem to be any Galra bases on this planet," Keith gambled. "We'd thought that they must just be underground, but even once we got into the city the crew has spotted exactly one Galra, and he was wearing board shorts and a straw hat. The MGE can't possibly be enough to be protecting the planet from them - if anything they should only make Elpis even more of a target."
Silvery eyes narrowed in unrestrained pleasure, and Keith had the very real feeling that he had just laid the wrong card down. "Isn't that a good question, now?" He agreed in a silky voice, unpleasant shivers running down Keith's spine at the sound. "Because you're right. This planet isn't under Galra banners. Seems a little strange when you look at the rest of this system."
Keith's frown only tightened, having given away his hand to get nothing in return. "Yeah, I noticed."
"Well," Veret said reasonably. "Let's think about it. The Galra take over a planet when they need something from it, right? Whether it's a resource or just a good location, the Galra take what they need. And from what I've seen, they don't bother wasting manpower on empty planets they have no use of." He poked one of the small red fruits on his plate until it rolled to the other side. "So logically, that means there are only a couple of reasons that make sense."
Watching the path of the red orb as it bounced softly against the plate's rim, Keith tilted his head to the side. "That whatever they'd gain from here isn't worth the trouble of dismantling the Merchant's Guild?"
"That's the obvious answer," the tip of of Veret's fork tapped lightly against the top of the fruit when he pinned it down, and Keith noticed for the first time that the shiny red of of it wasn't skin but a solid shell. "But here's another interesting idea," Veret offered. "Maybe it's the opposite. Perhaps whatever it is the Galra need from Elpis is something too delicate to simply conquer through warfare." He pressed down, and the shell cracked under the weight of his fork. "Something that can't be taken by force."
Something that can't be taken by force? Something that Elpis had that the Galra needed so badly they couldn't risk destroying it…
Keith watched the bright purple orange juice as it leaked out of the crushed fruit onto Veret's plate. There was nothing left that he could say, and had no choice but to sit through the rest of the meal with the feeling that he'd lost far more than he'd gained tonight.
--
(5) Keith was taught the rules to chess by Shiro during an effort to still some patience in him and show Keith the value of stopping to think before he moved. Whether or not this ultimately succeeded Shiro learned something himself, which was that the only way to prevent Keith from flipping the board over and scattering the game was to nail it down. He then also learned that it was more difficult to nail something down than take it off, and subsequently learned to navigate around the chessboard embedded into the top of his desk for the rest of the year.
--
Keith was in a mood worse than foul by the time he returned to the castle. He still didn't know what that stupid fucking squid wanted, just knew he had managed to give it to him regardless. Two hours of his life wasted on that asshole, and what did Keith have to show for it? Should have kept the money from that dickwad's wallet, at least then Keith would be able to say he'd taken something of Veret's. Shit.
Keith was headed straight towards the training deck, no intention of stopping for anything on his way to fuck something up with his sword. Too wound up to remember to be anxious, he made no efforts to avoid his fellow paladins, and he paid for this carelessness. Of course! When else but now? What better time than right fucking now to finally get cornered by an irate Lance? This is how his life worked now, wasn't it? Just fucking make every moment more stressful than the last!
"And just where were you all damned night?" Lance's words were sharp as a blade's edge, and the angry twist to his eyebrows said he wouldn't like any answer no matter what Keith gave.
Fucking christ, this again. Why the hell did he keep bringing this up? Why the hell did he CARE so much what the fuck Keith was doing with his time? "Are you completely incapable of getting off my back? It was nothing, I was just in town getting dinner."
Keith watched the flash of anger in Lance's eyes, and deep down the part of him that was hornier than it was mad reminded Keith that his boyfriend was always at his most handsome when he was being serious. "Just getting dinner, huh?" Lance spat, eyebrows drawn into a tense, angry line. "And you don't feel the need to mention this dinner is with that douchebag Veret, even when I ask you where you were?"
Ah, shit. So much for Veret's distraction - should have known Coran's ears were too big not to eavesdrop. Fucking snitch. "Not really, considering I knew your reaction would be exactly this."
"So you knew I'd be pissed, but you still went anyway?" It was more of an accusation than a question, and Keith could feel his heart rate rising from the adrenaline of his own rage.
He made it sound like Keith had deliberately done it to piss him off - all the work Keith was doing for this god damned mission, and this prick still managed to make this about himself! "Yeah, because maybe not every decision I fucking make revolves around you!"
"So basically," The furrowed space between Lance's eyebrows twitched like his face wasn't even capable of containing his fury without shaking the same way the rest of his body was. The way both of them were - full boil in a seethe of his own, Keith's shoulders were shaking and his face was growing hot with uncontained ire even before Lance stepped forward to close the space between them and - oh shit he smelled good. Fuck. Not now, horniness, the rest of the body is very busy being mad right now. "What you're saying is that my feelings are too fucking petty to bother even considering. Good to know where we stand on that one, or I'd have never known how fucking self-absorbed you are."
"Self-absorbed?!" Self-absorbed?! That, coming from this asshole of all people? The fucking nerve he had! Everything Keith had been putting himself through, and the stress these weeks of trying to decide if he had to break both of their hearts for the sake of the entire fucking universe , and now that made Keith self-absorbed! "That's rich coming from a fucking flake like you; you can't pull your head out of your own ass long enough to focus on a single mission!"
Lance rolled his eyes, so dramatically the gesture managed to take his whole body to accomplish. "'The mission," he quoted with mocking annoyance. "It's always the mission to you, isn't it? God forbid even once you should actually consider anyone's human emotions! How silly of me, for a second I forgot that our relationship is always secondary to Voltron and your fucking missions!"
"Of course it is!" Keith couldn't restrain his voice from breaking into a shout. "People are dying out there Lance! There's a fucking war going on and every one of us is in danger of getting killed every second of every day-"
"Well, we're NOT dead, Keith!" Lance was definitely yelling back, voice high and animated gestures bordering on violent "War or not for right now all of us are still alive, and you don't give any kind of shit about the kind of lives we're living until then, do you? It's all fucking war and death; no time for even a few god damned seconds of- of love and happiness, just gotta focus on your TRAINING!" He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing a hand to his forehead for a moment like he had actually gotten so mad he'd given himself a headache from it. "All I ever wanted was for you to open up to me, I spend- I have been giving you every fucking piece of myself, and I don't even know why anymore when all you ever do is keep pushing me away!"
" I'm pushing you away, now!?" The memory of being literally shoved off of Lance when Keith had reached out to him stung at Keith's mind, the humiliation and hurt from that moment only fueling his rage more in this one. "Un- fucking -believable! Can you seriously not see how fucking hard I've been trying?! You're the one that got cold on me, and now you can't even understand it when I just want a little god damned SPACE!"
"We're IN space, Keith!" Lance gestured to the room - of the spaceship they were indeed in - at large. "You have all the SPACE you need!" He scoffed so loud it was practically a curse, and turned away from Keith. "If you wanted to be alone so badly we should have left you in the fucking desert," he spat out the words like they burned his tongue, and stepped away with the apparent intent to storm off.
Keith's breath had caught in his throat, Lance's words hitting him like a punch to the neck. He could feel his entire body shaking, mind blurring out from white hot rage, as he wondered how the fuck Lance could stand saying such a cruel thing to Keith. He knew - he fucking knew how much Keith had hated that deserted shack, knew that place had driven him half to madness. Lance knew that finally leaving that lonely hell and joining the paladins in space was the first good thing to happen in his shitty life, and he had the nerve to say - just to fucking hurt him! He'd said that because he'd fucking known it would hurt Keith, and the scorching pain of Keith's resulting anger made him want to lash out. Make Lance hurt the way he'd done to Keith, with deliberate and vicious precision. Before he had the chance to consider what the words would do they were falling out of his mouth, and even knowing that not a word of it was true didn't matter as long as it made Lance hurt, as painful as Keith could make it for both of them. "Maybe we should have left you behind instead! I'd have had better luck trying to get with Shiro than wasting my time on you !"
Lance froze mid-step, and at first Keith had nothing to watch but the solid tense line of his back. When he turned around he was wearing a face so apocalyptically angry it was almost calm, but the fire of rage lighting up his eyes was unmissable. "You fucking bitch," he hissed out, stalking back towards Keith.
Keith's eyes widened, and he unconsciously stepped backwards to end up against the nearest wall. His heart was going a thousand miles an hour, and when Lance reached him he wasn't sure if Lance intended to punch him, or -
Lance's hand slammed against the wall beside Keith's head, caging him in to loom inches away from Keith's face. And shit, Keith was really fucked up in the head, he was pretty sure, because instead of making him more angry like that really should have Keith just ended up having a flashback to the last time Lance had him pinned to a wall. Ah, hell, it was getting harder to ignore all the wrong kinds of hot he was right now, because Keith definitely wasn't done being angry but Lance just had to look and smell so fucking good when he was mad, and he was caught up in remembering how that forceful side of Lance he was showing now could be so, so hot during sex… Shit. Fuck, Keith was totally turned on right now. He was so fucked up.
He bit his lip, hoping Lance wouldn't realize that his body was doing the wrong kind of trembling right now. But Lance's gaze went straight to where Keith's teeth were pressing against his lower lip, and his eyebrow twisted upward in slight bemusement, like he had noticed something strange, and then he licked his lips. "You…" He said shortly, and Keith understood that something had just shifted and the entire situation had just turned really, really, weird. "Are you seriously turned on right now?" He said the words like he wanted them to be an accusation, but they ended up twisting up and the end and Keith didn't know how it happened or who started it but after that everything went straight to hell. Suddenly they were kissing, if something so rough and full of teeth could be classified by such a word, and the different kind of conflicting heat building up between them converged into an inferno of bad ideas.
Against his lips in between bites, Lance complained "I can't fucking believe you get hot from arguing, of course you do you weird little fucking -"
"Shut up," Keith hissed, sucking Lance's tongue into his mouth in an effort to get him to just stop talking. "Shut up, just shut the fuck up."
Lance managed another angry scoff against Keith's mouth, "Of course." He pulled away from Keith's mouth to shove his face against Keith's neck, his breath hot on his throat as he hissed out, "Lord knows this is all I'm good for with you anyway," before biting down hard.
What happened after that, Keith was not proud of. Whatever this was it was twisted and distorted with rage, the two of them clawing and biting at each other so much it was almost more of a fight than sex. The only proof they had to the opposite was that somehow in the scrambling and groping they'd both managed to come, grinding and shaking against each other in an ugly parody of lovemaking.
They couldn't even look at each other when it was over. Lance stood up and buried his face in his hands, a final angry curse of "FUCK! " ringing through the hallway behind him as he left.
Keith stayed there. Curled into a boneless puddle on the floor and leaning against the wall, Keith drew his knees to his chest and rested his head on them, feeling dirtier and emptier and more disgusted with himself than he'd ever thought capable of in his life.
And then for some reason, it was now that it finally came to mind. The idiom he'd been trying to remember earlier, rising fresh in his brain just to pour salt on his aching, wounded heart.
A fish and a bird may indeed fall in love, but where would they make their home?
The meaning of the idiom was obvious: love alone was not enough to make a relationship work. Sometimes, there was just no such thing as reaching a compromise.
In the ridiculousness of it all, Keith felt his body start to shake with laughter. Broken, ironic laughter that squeezed the breath out his throat. Laughter that turned into tears at the end, until Keith was left alone in an empty hallways crying silently into his own arms.