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Lance glances up as he hears sleepy footsteps in the hall of their country home. “G’morning Love!”“Morning.” Keith’s reply is slow and steady as he shuffles into the sun-lit kitchen.“Coffee?”“Coffee.” Keith replies simply. “I have no clue how you’re always so energetic so early.”“Practice.” Lance gives Keith a warm smile as he pushes the steaming mug of coffee across the bench top. “Now drink up, we have brunch with my family at eleven.”One mug of coffee and a shower later Keith comes back downstairs looking for the shirt he’d ironed the day before. A resounding clunk from somewhere in the garden startles Keith out of his thoughts. Still shirtless, Keith does up the belt on his jeans before heading to the front door. He pulls it open to see three people standing there.“Keith!” They chorus before pushing their way into the house.“Pidge, Hunk, Allura!?” Keith gasps. “What are you doing here?”“Is Lance here?” Hunk grins.“Yes, he- he’s just getting ready to go to brunch.” How did I forget these guys!?“Who is it?” Lance calls down the stairs.“It- it’s Pidge, Hunk, and Allura.”“Pidge, Hunk, and Allura?” Lance clatters down the stairs with only the bottom half of the buttons on his shirt done up. “How did we forget you guys?”“You’re living together?” Allura gasps, leaving Lance’s question quite forgotten.“Yes,” Keith steps forward with a frown, “we’ve been dating for five years now.”“Five years.” Pidge repeats. “We’ve been in space for way too long.”“How’d we completely miss this!” Hunk groans.“It’s nothing to worry about.” Lance reassures, trying to look less confused than he feels. How could we forget? “Yes…but there’s isn’t really time to catch up now.”“We’re off to brunch.” Lance finishes for Keith.“Brunch?” Pidge raises an eyebrow.“With Lance’s family, you’re welcome to join us though!”“I would,” Allura smiles weakly, but I seem to be getting the worst headache. Could I sit down for a bit?”“Sure,” Lance directs her towards the couch.“That sounds like a nice idea actually.” Keith trails off as he sits down next to Allura. “Been feeling a bit strange myself.”Allura lets her eyes close as she sinks into the couch. She is so dazed she doesn’t feel as Keith leans into her shoulder closing his eyes too. With a start, Allura sits up straight again, blinking slowly as her vision focuses again on the large window at the front of the Castle of Lions. She glances around at the rest of the team who seem to be in much the same position as her.“Nice sleep, Allura?”Coran’s voice brought her back into the land of the living. What the quiznack. She knows she’s never fallen asleep on the bridge before.“Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.”Hunk, Pidge, and Keith are sitting there looking just as confused.“Strange dream.”Allura spins around at the sound of Lance’s quiet voice to see him staring at Keith, a small blush colouring his cheeks.“Keith and I were dating.”“Yes,” Keith continues slowly, “happily dating. In love.” He then shoots a nervous glance at Allura, before flicking his eyes back to Lance. “Strange.” Not from my point of view, but for Lance – I know how he feels about Allura, and I’m pretty sure she feels the same way.“Just a dream though, right?” Allura asks.“…but how could we all be having the same dream?” Pidge wonders aloud.“A dream like that, too.” Lance adds. Me, dating Keith. K e i t h.“Same dream you say?” Coran grins.“How are you smiling?” Hunk splutters, “Same dream. Same, dream – that cannot be good.”“Oh I’m sure it was just a freak episode!” Coran chuckles, “You’ve all been mind melding so much in training it rubbed off into your dreams. You’ll be fine.”“Fine?” Keith whispers, “then why do I hear Hunk snoring?”“Hey!” Hunk yelps.“Sorry,” Keith shrugs, “I’m honestly feeling quite dizzy again, like I’m going back to sleep.”Blinking himself awake again Keith finds himself sitting on the couch leaning comfortably against Allura’s shoulder. Allura. What, the, hell. “Ahh.” Keith yells as he leaps up from the couch. “What, why was I asleep, I just woke up.”Pidge stands up from the couch they’d shared with Hunk and stretched. “What an odd dream. We were back in the Castle of Lions.”“How could I have been having that same dream?” Hunk pales.“Same here,” Lance and Keith chorus back.“You two weren’t dating.” Allura adds.“How very odd.” Keith mutters to himself, “Still, it was just a dream. We’re still dating now.”“Exactly,” Lance slips his hand into Keith’s, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”“Weren’t we just saying that exact same thing back on the Castle of Lions?” Pidge asks with a frown.“Yes.” Hunk replies.“And we said this was a dream.”“Yes.” Allura glances at Lance and Keith.“But we’re not dreaming now!” Keith exclaims. “We can’t be. This is real, it feels real!”“But what if it’s not? What if this is the dream?”I don’t want it to be. Keith thinks desperately.“Okay,” Pidge speaks slowly, “just in case-”“-but!”“Just in case this is the dream we can’t trust anything. Question everything you hear, see, or feel.”“Why?” Lance frowns.“In case this is the dream.”“Cause if it is then we don’t know why we’re here, or who put us here.”“Plus there’s another problem,” Pidge continues Hunk’s train of thought, “are we flashing forwards, or backwards?”Allura sits up with a gasp. “I really don’t like this!” She is back in the Castle of Lions pulling herself up from the floor.“This really is a strange situation we have here.” Coran mutters to himself. “It must be something to do with your connection with the lions. Cause I’m staying awake and you’re all sleeping lazily around me!”“I would stop this if I could!” Keith snaps back. “Please, tell me we can stop this.”“Why,” Lance sighs, “Why are we dreaming of the future?”“How do you know that it’s your future?” Allura asks.“Because, Keith and I were dating and we were on earth.”“So?” Pidge counters.“Well we’re not dating now are we? Nor have we ever dated.” Lance points out.There’s nothing saying that it could never happen. Keith thinks, all the while trying to ignore the empty feeling in his chest.“So this has to be real.” Allura glances over at Lance.“You said the same thing in the dream.”“No, Keith said the same thing in the dream.”“That reality might not be the dream though!” Coran added playfully.“That is not helping!” Pidge groans. “Like I said before. Look for details, anything that doesn’t make sense.”“Well,” Hunk waves his arms about to indicate the room, “we are in the middle of deep space in a castle that can fly. So maybe what ‘makes sense’ isn’t so clean cut.”At that moment every light in the room goes out. Leaving the room lit only by the dim light of the surrounding stars.“What happened?” Lance yelps.“We’ve lost power!” Allura wAnders up to the control panel pressing buttons wildly.“There is no indication as to why though.” Coran adds thoughtfully.“Is that you snoring again Hunk?”“It shouldn’t be,” Hunk replies, “seeing as I’m awake.” He blinks a couple of times to clear his vision, “it’s day again!”“Back in the dream.” Allura sighs.“Or, we just woke up.” Keith offers with just as much, if not more frustration.“What the hell is going on?” Pidge cracks their knuckles. “Whatever the quiznack is doing this, show yourself!”“That is not going to help, Pidge.” Hunk cuts in, feeling like he’s thinking clearly again. “Think, what could be doing this.”“What if it’s a simulation?” Pidge waves their hands in front of their face. “I’m looking for pixilation, or lagging. Nope!” They reach up on tiptoes to pinch Hunk’s cheeks lightly, “definitely real.”“Like I said.” Keith smiles. “Definitely real, right Lance?”“Yes Love, this feels real to me.”“I’m not so sure.” Allura cuts in. “Would you really use pet names with Keith?”“Why not? They suit him.”“I’m more surprised you let him.” Pidge nods their head towards Keith.“Shut it.” He can’t help the blush that colours his cheeks, “I like them.” Keith turns back to where his shirt had been hanging. Only just realising he was still not wearing a shirt. “Anyway, we have brunch to get to.”“Brunch?” Allura’s jaw drops. “No, now this definitely has to be the dream. Since when do you like brunch Keith, and pexpletive…unless…”“Unless what?” Keith asks, though he doesn’t really want to hear the answer.“Unless this is your dream.”“My dream.”“The whole family vibe.” Allura continues, “The house, the life, Lance. It’s no secret how you feel about him.”“Yes, I love him,” Keith pauses before adding, “…and he loves me.”“Of course I do!”“But unlike you, for Lance it’s most likely only in this dream.” Hunk finished guiltily, knowing full well about Keith’s feelings for Lance. No one could think of anything to say after that. Hunk’s brows crease into a frown. “That is definitely not my snoring this time.”“So you admit you were snoring at some point!” Pidge grins gleefully, punching a fist into the air. “Ha! …it’s quiznacking cold in here.” They glance around the room looking for a coat or something, anything to warm themselves up.“I think something might be controlling the Castle of Lions.” Coran speaks up from beneath the control panel, “I can’t do anything to get this thing back on.”“Finally,” a familiar voice calls out from the shadows, “it’s taken you all long enough.”“Shiro?” Keith whispers. “You’re alive?”“Not quite.”“What?” Hunk exclaims. “What do you mean by ‘not quite’?”“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not Shiro. I just needed a voice you all would listen to, and one that wasn’t currently present.”“Who are you then?”“I’m nobody. Quite literally.” Shiro disappears before reappearing right behind Lance. “I guess some people call me the Dreamlord, but in truth I don’t have a name. Call me Shiro if you like, the name does match the face.”“Like hell I will,” Keith growls. “What the hell are you doing here?”“Games are fun, are they not? Let’s call it a game. There are two realities, the first, here in the Castle of Lions. The second, Lance and Keith’s home on earth. One of them is real, one of them is not. You need to choose which is the real one.”“Easy enough,” Pidge mutters. “What’s the catch?”“I’d love to say there is no catch, if I were Shiro that is, but as I‘m not, there is one. In each world you will have to face a deadly danger, but only one of the dangers is real. Okay then, time to sleep. Oh, or are you waking up?”Lance takes in a large breath as he sits up again on the lounge room floor. “What the quiznack is going on!”“This is crazy!” Hunk exclaims. “Why is he doing this?”“How would I know,” Lance responds, “I’m just as confused as you are.”“This is very bad.”“No shit!” Pidge quips back.“No she’s right,” Shiro continues, “this is very, very bad. I can see right through all of you, your dreams and desires.”“So?” Lance snaps.“So, I have a question for you: whose dreams are these, and why?”“What does that matter?” Hunk asks calmly.“Well, it will probably help to decide what’s real and what’s not, but that’s all the help you’re getting form me for now. Time to get choosing, chop chop, or your deadly danger will be arriving any moment.”“That wasn’t really helpful at all was it?” Keith grumbles. “I don’t like him.”“I disagree.” Pidge smiles, “ignoring the impending doom, we already know whose dream this one is, if it is the dream at all.”“Mine.” Keith whispers, seeing no point in denying it.“Which points all indicators at the Castle of Lions being real.”Keith looks lovingly over at Lance, “This feels so real though.”“Just because you want it to be.” Allura points out.“There is nothing going on here though.” Pidge frowns, staring around the lounge room, “no danger, no disaster, and most definitely no adventure. Normal, boring, nothing.”“Boring?” Lance whispers. “Boring! Our life is perfect, lovely! Don’t you-”“Lance, this is not the time.” Pidge interrupts, “everybody out, you two are skipping brunch this morning, we need to see what’s going on.”Lance, however reluctantly, stays quiet and follows Pidge and the others out of the house.An explosion a little down the road blasts them all backwards. Coughing and spluttering they stare around, dazed, as a Galran ship looms overhead.“Quiznack.” Hunk yelps as he feels a dizzying sensation overcome him and he succumbs to the darkness.“Thank goodness you guys are awake again!” Coran exclaims as he helps Allura to her feet. His teeth chatter as he speaks. “We’ve hit a little bump in the road.”“We’re in space.” Shiro’s lofty tone rings around the room.Coran ignores him. “The cold, it isn’t just cold. We seem to be floating towards a star.”“A star?” Hunk asked through his shivers.“A cold star.”“Stars can’t burn cold.” Keith interjects roughly, “This has to be the dream.”“Well apparently, they can!” Allura responds. “So maybe this is reality. Coran?” She asks hopefully.“I can’t know everything!” Coran explains. “There are definitely some blankets down the hall though.”“I’ll get them.” Keith offers immediately. To his surprise, Lance follows him.“Are you okay?”The question is unexpected, it throws him off guard. “I think so.”“Though I suppose this isn’t how you wanted me to find out about your feelings for me.”“In my mind it was less public, yes.” Keith chuckles, “Though if Hunk is right, everyone but you has already known for ages.”“I suppose you’re right.” Lance grins. “You want to talk about it?”“Not right now.” Keith responds calmly. “The blankets should be in here.”They return with armfuls of blankets, both blushing slightly despite the cold.“I should tell you all now, so you know how to get back to reality,” Shiro spoke up again, “If you die in the dream you wake up in reality.”“Logical.” Pidge responded.“Now ask me what happens if you die in reality.”“What happens if you die in reality?” Lance obliges.“You die, stupid. That’s why they call it reality.”Lance rolls his eyes.“Can anyone hear explosions?” Shiro asks in a sing song voice. “You wouldn’t want to die too early now would you?”“Ughh!” Lance stumbles to his feet, all the while attempting to brush gravel off his knees. “I’m really beginning to hate this guy.”“Beginning to?” Hunk pulls Pidge to their feet. “We should get back to the house. It will be safer there.”“For now.” Allura mutters, “we all know four walls won’t keep the Galra out.”Moments later the ground beneath them explodes from the force of another Galran bomb. Keith and Lance on one side, Hunk, Pidge, and Allura on the other.“Run!” Pidge yells. “We don’t have our bayards so there is no point in trying to fight!”“But-”“Go! We’ll find cover elsewhere!”Keith nods. Pulling Lance with him he leads him into the house and up the stairs.“We can’t just leave them!”“They can fend for themselves Lance and you know it.” Keith responds, trying to convince himself as much as anything. “They’ll be fine.” They tumble into the bedroom and Keith locks the door, shoving a chair under the handle too.Lance raises an eyebrow.“Just in case.”“Are you feeling cold at all?” Lance asks crawling into bed.“Freezing.” Keith joins him, but he still sits up enough to keep an eye on the window. When he opens his eyes again he is back in the Castle of Lions and the window is looking out onto the bright cold star as it looms over them. He’s surprised to see Lance cuddled in next to him, a subconscious choice of Lance’s he was sure, but it did make him feel better. That was until seconds later when Lance jumps up again to start distributing the blankets, taking the warmth with him.Nobody comments on their sleeping position, at this point everyone much too concerned with their own cold.“Seeing as we’re back in the slightly less physically stressful reality, I feel it would be a good idea for us to try and figure out which one of us this reality belongs to.” Hunk voice what they had all been thinking.“I think I have an idea about that.” Lance spoke up.“Do share.” Shiro appeared again sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room. His shoulders covered with his own blanket.“I think it’s Allura’s, or maybe mine, partially mine.”Shiro grins wickedly. His eyes seeming to flash dangerously as he stares at Lance.“If our home on earth is Keith’s world, so to speak, then the other is Allura’s, or- well, my other reality. My choice.”“Ohh.” Hunk hummed in response. “You’ve had feelings for Allura since day dot in this reality, Keith, I think, has felt the same thing for you since that beginning too.”“But then how does it make that one Allura’s world?”“Recently, I’ve been, erm, dealing with some, err, feelings. Conflicting feelings.”“Ahh,” Allura offers Lance a sympathetic look. “One world is a reality where you have the opportunity to eventually start a life with me, the other is one where you’ve already have your own life with Keith. Is that what you’re getting at?”“Yes,” Lance sighed, “but which is real?”“Ooh! That’s the big question Lance!” Shiro grins, “I’m so glad you finally worked it out!”“So while we’ve worked out it is Lance’s choice, ultimately we have to decide which battle to lose.” Pidge suggests.“So then which world do you think is the reality?” Lance asks Allura.“It’s this one.” Allura declares. Even through chattering teeth there is a finality to her tone. “Have you seen Keith’s ponytail in the other reality, there’s no way you would let him keep that.”Lance doesn’t deny Allura’s claim but only directs the question at Keith.“No, this one can’t be the reality.” Keith insists. “Stars can’t burn cold, they just can’t.”“Stars can burn cold,” Coran states calmly, “anything is possible.”“Yes,” Hunk agrees, “so then are you both disagreeing or competing?”“Competing…” Lance frowns, “over what?”Keith and Allura give Lance identical looks of bewilderment. Realising the problem again he huffs to himself before turning to Shiro. “Why though?” Lance glares at Shiro, “how does it benefit you to do this?”“In all honesty, it’s fun! This is only a hobby, my day job is similar, but much worse.”“So you want Lance to choose a life?”“Eventually, yes, and he better hurry up too. I think I can hear the Galra approaching.”“Damnit.” Lance pales. Why me?“How about I stir things up a little?”“Haven’t you done so enough already?” Keith growls.“Not at all.” Shiro grins. “How about I keep Lance here for a little heart to heart? I’ll send Coran to sleep too. Actual sleep, not to the other reality, I don’t have enough power for that.”“No!” Keith tries to fight the sleep tugging at his mind but the feeling of warmth that Lance and the bed provides is far too comforting to pass up. He wakes with a jolt as another explosion lands close to their cottage. He glances around, blinking his vision back to normal. Lance looks so peaceful next to him, so beautiful.
How could this not be Lance’s reality? Surely this comfort would be worth the Galra’s attacks?
Keith does a quick check of the room. Surely I have some weapons stored somewhere. At least my knife. Keith doesn’t find anything of use, just a hair dryer. With a shrug he grips it tight in one hand while keeping an eye on the window. At least one well aimed whack could do something~“So, Lance,” Shiro drawls, “having fun yet?”“Couldn’t say this is my idea of fun.”“In that case, you could put us all out of our misery. It is up to you after all.”“Or you could just stop all this.” Lance’s breath appears before him as he speaks. Slowly, he kneels down, pulling the blanket tighter around Keith’s shoulders, then doing the same for Allura and the others.“No Lance, you’re the only one who can do that.” Shiro walks over to kneel down between where Keith and Allura are sleeping. “Now…who of these two would you really choose? Look at them.”Lance stays silent.“You followed your rival off into the stars, but there you met the woman you thought you were meant to be with. You’ve been thinking since then though, haven’t you? Keith isn’t really your rival. You just made that up to cover feelings you didn’t understand.”“Shut up!”“Do you stay with the beautiful woman you met in those stars? Or do you give up all that grandeur to spend the rest of your life, safe and happy with him?”“Stop it!”“Well, maybe that is better than loving someone who could never love you back. Pick a world, Lance, and this nightmare will all be over.”“I said stop it!”“It’s all up to you Lance. Your choice.” Shiro repeats with a grin before disappearing again with a small pop.Lance sinks to his knees with a small sob. I shouldn’t need to do this. He moves his gaze from Allura to Keith, then back again. They were all right, he’d had feelings for Allura from the start, but his feelings for Keith he knew had been around for much longer. He just hadn’t been able to understand them. He smooths his shaking fingers through Keith’s fringe, hoping more than anything that he would wake. Either that, or that he would fall back to sleep. The silence that cloaks the room is just as painful as the cold.
I could never have gone back to a normal life after everything I’ve done, though, right?
~“Why do you have a hair dryer?”Lance’s sleepy voice grabs Keith’s attention.“Couldn’t find my knife.” Keith smiles at the small laugh he hears from the bed. “What did Shiro want?”“Ohh, just to taunt me.” Lance deflects the question, that’s the last thing he wants to talk about.“That’s unsurprising.” Keith spins around at the sound of the window breaking. “What the quiznack!” He raises the hairdryer above his head, moving in front of Lance on the bed.“Don’t worry,” Allura calls out, “it’s only us.”“Oh, thank goodness.” Lance mutters.“Why do you have a hairdryer?” Pidge asks once they’ve gained their balance.“I don’t have my knife.” Keith replies simply. “Are you guys okay?”“Yeah, fine.” Hunk says, panting slightly. “The Galra are on our tail though, we should probably move.”“Where though!” Allura glances around the room at everyone. “There aren’t many places left for us to h-”“Get down!” Keith yells out as he notices the purple blur out of the corner of his eye, as a Galran soldier attempts to climb in the window. He pulls Allura and Pidge to the ground before jumping up again and whacking the soldier over the head with the hairdryer. The soldier falls backwards with a cry of pain.Hunk pokes his head back up from where he had pulled Lance to the ground from the bed. “Good save!”Keith grins. “Told you it’d work!”Lance sits back up, “I never doubted you for a second Love.”At that moment another soldier crashes through the second window. Keith takes a step forward, raising the hairdryer but he was too late. A flash of purple light fills the room as Keith stumbles back with a yell, one hand clutching at his chest.“Keith!” Lance yelps, bounding over the queen sized bed in panic.Hunk picks up the hairdryer and uses it to shove the soldier back. He fell to the ground with a scream but the damage was already done. Hunk kept the hairdryer in hand, keeping his attention on the broken windows in case anymore came through.“Keith?” Lance cups his boyfriend’s cheek, “Keith, speak to me. Keith!”“Lance?” Keith mumbles through a groan of pain.“You’re going to be fine,” Lance continues. “There’s still so much we have to do. You’re going to be fine.” He repeats, trying and failing to keep in a sob. “You’ll be fine.”“Lance,” Keith takes in a shuddering breath, tears leaking from his eyes with every slow blink. “It’s okay. It’s okay…”“This is in no way, okay!” Lance takes Keith’s hand in his.“I love you, Lance.” Keith looks up into Lance’s teary gaze. “You’re so beautiful.”As Keith’s eyes close Lance can feel panic rising in his throat. “No, Keith! Keith, please, open your eyes!”“Lance,” Pidge kneels down next to him, “I’m so sorry. We need to go.”“No!” Lance refuses to look at them, “I can’t leave him.”“If we don’t go now,” Allura adds, “we’re all going to die.”“You guys go.”“No way buddy!” Hunk exclaims. “We go, you go.”Lance gives Keith one more lasting look before standing up. Through the tears there is a pained defiance, a determination that no one had seen on Lance’s face in this reality.“This is the dream, definitely this one.” Lance thinks aloud. “If we die here, we wake up, yeah?”Allura nods slowly.“Unless we just die.” Pidge answers.“Either way this is my only chance of seeing him again.” Lance wipes the tears from his cheeks. “Because if this is real life, I don’t want it. I don’t want it.”Nobody speaks as Lance storms from the room. They just follow him, knowing that if Lance goes that they need to go with him. As they leave the house none of the Galra move, they just watch as the group head towards Lance’s car.“Why aren’t they attacking!” Lance yells as he unlocks the car and slides into the driver’s seat.“Either because this is just a dream,” Pidge answers, “or because they know what we’re about to do.”Just before Allura shuts the door on the passenger side she turns to Lance, “Be very sure, this could be the real world.”“It can’t be,” Lance continues to stare straight ahead, “Keith isn’t here.” Tears continue to leak from Lance’s eyes as he pushes the key into the ignition. “I didn’t know for sure- I honestly didn’t until right now.” Each car door slamms with a solid finality before Lance turns the key letting the engine burst to life. “I just want him.”“Okay.” Allura whispers.“I loved Keith, and I never told him, not enough, and now he’s gone.”As Lance pulls the car out onto the road and starts to head into the centre of town, Allura could see Shiro in the wing mirror. His face was nearly expressionless, but she could see something sinister in his eyes. At the first roundabout Lance does a full turn back towards the house before closing his eyes and slamming his foot onto the accelerator.The darkness which takes him is almost instant. There’s the sound of crushing metal, a flash of pain, and then nothing. Just cold.Lance’s eyes flicker open only to fall on Keith’s still form. Icicles have formed over his already pale skin, but he is definitely breathing. Slowly, Lance reaches out so that his hand brushes with Keith’s and their fingers can interlace. The response is enough to bring a smile to Lance’s face. He’s okay. With a deep breath, he sits up, checking that everyone else is waking up too. I made the right choice.The room is still freezing, icicles have formed on every surface, but Coran has managed to remove most from the control panel as the lights and heating were back on. As quickly as possible he steers the castle away from the star. “That was close!”“Oh, you have no idea how close you really were.” Shiro appears again out of nowhere, leaning against the side of the control table. “So, you chose this world. Very interesting. Well done, you got it right, and with only seconds left.”Lance glared at him, still not trusting his teeth not to chatter if he spoke.“I hope you have enjoyed your little fictions. It all came out of your imaginations, so I’ll leave you think on that. I have been defeated, I shall withdraw. Farewell.” Shiro then popped out of existence again.“Dammit!” Lance growled, “I wanted to give him a good punch before he left.”Keith sat up slowly, shuffling closer to Lance. “Something happened. I…what happened to me? I…”Lance simply pulls Keith into a tight hug.“Oh, right.” Keith murmurs into Lance’s shoulder. “This is good…I am liking this. Was it something I said? Could you tell me what it was so I can use it in emergencies, and maybe brithdays?”Lance smiles lovingly at Keith but still doesn’t say a word until he sees Pidge pulling themselves to their feet and heading slowly towards the control panel. “What are you doing?”“Me?” They enquire. “I’m going to blow up the Castle of Lions.”“What!?” Everyone choruses back.“Notice how helpful the Dreamlord was?” Pidge answers. “Okay, there was the misinformation, red herrings, malice, and I could have done without him using Shiro’s face, but he was always very keen to make us choose between dream and reality.” Pidge starts to laugh as the castle shakes violently.“What are you doing?” Allura asks again.“Pidge!” Keith yells over another boom echoing through the castle. “The Dreamlord already agreed this isn’t the dream!”“Oh yes it is!” Pidge yells back triumphantly. “The Dreamlord has no power over the real world he basically said it himself! He was offering us a choice between two dreams.”“How do you know that?” Hunk asks, panicked.“Simple, Hunk,” Pidge answers, “logic and reasoning, as per usual.” Their face lights up with a manic grin as a blinding white light fills the castle and it explodes around them in a ball of fire.~Lance and Keith stumble into the Atlas’s main control room. They’re followed by a very confused looking Hunk, Allura, and Pidge.Coran is leaning against Shiro’s control panel. Shiro stands next to him, watching as the five paladins enter the room. Everyone else is still in bed if the time roster they’d set up on day one was anything to go by.“Any questions?” Coran asks with a knowing smile.“Um, yeah…” Lance stops in front of Coran and Shiro, staring at the sparkly, pollen looking stuff in the Altean’s palm, “what is that?”“A speck of psychic pollen.” Corn states whimsically, “must have gotten into the air vents and fed its way into your paladin psychic link. Leaving you all in a dream state.” Coran opens up a small box and tips the pollen like substance inside before sealing the box and tucking it into his pocket.“So that was the Dreamlord then?” Hunk asks.“Sort of, yes, no. Uhh, no.” Coran glances at Shiro as if he has all the answers. Shiro just shrugs and lets Coran continue. “How to explain. The psychic pollen is a mind parasite. It feeds on everything dark in you, gives it a voice, turns it against you. The Dreamlord was a creation of your minds put together, but mainly Lance’s mind, if the readings from the pollen are anything to go by.”Everyone turns to Lance as if waiting for him to respond, but he says nothing. Eventually it is Allura who speaks up.“Lance, right now a question is about to occur to Keith, and seeing as the answer is about to change his life I think you should give him your full attention.” She pushes him gently in Keith’s direction.Keith hesitated but then frowns. “Yeah, actually, yeah.”“There it is.” Allura can’t help but smile as she watches the pair.“…‘cause what I don’t get is,” Keith continues, “Pidge blew up the Castle of Lions, that stopped that dream, but what stopped the earth dream?”Lance clears his throat. Now wishing that it were just him and Keith in the room. “We crashed the car, into the house.”“Oh, right.” Keith frowns. “I don’t remember that bit.”“No, you weren’t there. You were already-” Lance clears his throat again.“Already what?”“Dead. You died in that dream. A Galran soldier got you.”“Okay…” Keith trails off, “but how did you know it was a dream before you crashed the car? How did you know you wouldn’t just die?”Everyone watches as Lance answers, waiting with baited breath for the realisation to hit.“I didn’t.” Lance answers slowly.“Oh.”“Yeah.”“Oh.” Keith repeats.“Yeah, oh.” Lance giggles nervously.With a deep breath Keith leans in to press a kiss to Lance’s lips. It’s short but sweet, and everything Keith has ever wanted. They aren’t apart for long before Lance leans in again. Cradling Keith’s cheek with one hand while the other trails through Keith’s hair, Lance deepens the kiss. Cherishing every second of it.“So… well then.” Hunk claps his hands together. “Good to see you two finally worked it out!”“You’re only a couple of years late.” Pidge adds with a laugh, but the pair ignore them.“Maybe we should give them some space.” Shiro suggests with a smile. “At least until the morning bell goes off in roughly, five minutes. They do have the rest of their lives after all.”