'Dear Lance,

So many universes. All of them saved, because of us.

Maybe I should have been wearing green socks, huh? Then she'd still be alive, and you wouldn't have loved me, but you would have been happy.

I spent years on the back of a whale. I saw visions of the past and the future. I saw myself as a baby and I saw my grave, abandoned and covered in moss. It was in desperate need of a pressure washing, but I wasn't alive to wash it.

That pressure washing thing was a joke, by the way. Thought it'd help lighten the mood, but... it didn't.

But what I didn't tell you was that I saw into other realities on the whale, too. I saw one where the galaxy is ruled by enormous crystal aliens and you're a food truck vendor. I saw into one where all of us are in high school and I have a really cool motorcycle and an addiction to smoking (but I'm trying to quit.) I saw into one where I pretend to be your boyfriend because you bribe me and wash my clothes. I saw into one where you're an Altean and I'm full Galra, and another where you're an Altean prince and I'm your guard.

I even saw into a universe where you're a stripper, and I have to admit, you pulled it off. The look, not the clothes. I mean, you pulled those off, too. But that wasn't what I meant.

Maybe I should have left that one out.

The thing is, in all of those universes, you and I are in love. A two way, reciprocated love, not just me watching you cry over Allura and not knowing how to console you. Not just me trying to move on from someone who never saw me that way.

That's the thing that's hardest for me. You never loved me like that. I really did imagine all of it, and knowing that hurts more than any physical wound ever could. Those soft smiles you gave me, when you came to me for advice, the banter. None of it meant you loved me, and you never meant for it to mean that. I misread it, and that's one hundred percent on me.

In one of my favorite realities, you're still the red paladin, and I'm still the black one, and Allura still pilots Blue. Everything is the same other than the universe being fixed without her dying, and you love me back.

I should be happy knowing that you and I are are happy and together in every universe but this one. But I'm not, because I love the you in this universe.

People say you're stupid, but you're not. You're so fucking smart, it makes my mind reel sometimes. You say these goofy comments and jokes and people think, 'oh, a dumbass' but they're the dumb ones, because they aren't willing to look past your jokes and see the person behind them. The Lance who is the best strategist and who always has my back. The Lance who knows exactly what he has to offer.

I probably won't send this. You're not over Allura, and for some reason you think being a farmer is a good career choice for you (I don't even know what's going on there, some kind of mid life crisis? A complete personality swap? A possession? Maybe you've had a stroke? Idk, man. It makes no sense.) but I still love you and I just wanted to write this down.

Keith'

Lance hadn't bargained for this. He had wanted some juicy gossip and had gotten a folder full of love letters addressed to himself.

Had Keith liked him for this long? How had Lance not realized? Looking back, it made sense. Why Keith was so upset when Lance pretended to forget the bonding moment, why he had chosen him during that weird game show, why he had left for the Blade when Lance was scared of not being needed.... How had he not seen it?

It's not like Lance had wanted to read years worth of angst-ridden lust mail, it just kind of happened. One minute, he was reading the first one, the next he was thanking his lucky stars that Keith hadn't gotten home yet, because Lance had been there for two hours longer than he had intended.

He made sure to close the cabinet they had been in, but take the most recent letter in case he later convinced himself that this was a fever dream.

What broke his heart the most was that the most recent letter had been written only two days earlier. Keith had been depressed two days earlier, and no one had been there for him.

'Well,' Lance thought to himself as he drove away, 'Maybe he talked to shiro about it. They're brothers. I need to make sure Keith was able to confide in him."

So Lance turned his car around and began driving back to Garrison property so he could pay Shiro a visit.

"Shiro," Lance yelled, not bothering to knock and immediately regretting it. "Agh! What the fuck?"

"Lance?" Shiro asked, fumbling to cover up his body with the nearest object. "What are you doing here? Ever hear of knocking?"

"Shit!" Adam said before running into the other room. Lance decided to not watch him leave, and to block out the image of his naked body.

"Me?" Lance cried, "You're the one having kitchen sex with your not actually dead fiancé."

"It's my house! I can have kitchen sex in it if I want to!"

"Why didn't you lock the door? I am traumatized from seeing your dick! How is it even bigger in person?"

"In person? You've seen my penis before? How?"

"Fanart, Shiro! We're very popular across the universe and you're an absolute thirst trap! Of course there's fanart of your dick!"

"What the Quiznack? How did I not know about this?"

"Can we discuss the fact that Adam is alive? It's of bigger importance than- I mean, it's of more importance than your dick!"

Shiro sighed. "Let me get dressed first."

"So he faked his death?" Lance asked, sitting in the living room with a now fully clothed Adam and Shiro.

"Not on purpose," Adam clarified, "My plane crashed and I was severely injured. I wasn't able to get back to the Garrison to tell them I was alive until last week. Then they ran a bunch of tests on me to make sure I was really me and not a clone like someone," Adam paused here to look pointedly Shiro. "When they were finally done with tests yesterday, they let me come see Takashi."

"And the first thing you two decide to do is to fuck in the same place you cook food?" Lance asked.

"I mean," Shiro said, rubbing the back of his neck, "That's definitely not the first thing we did. Like he said, they released him yesterday. What did you come to talk to me about?"

"So, the thing is," Lance said carefully, thinking about the best way to phrase what he wanted to say. If Shiro was half as protective of Keith as Keith was of Shiro, then Lance would have to do this right.

"What is it?" Shiro asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," Lance assured him, "I'm just kind of worried about Keith."

"What's wrong with Keith?" Adam asked, "I haven't gotten to see him yet, but he sounded fine over Skype."

"Well," Lance explained, "He didn't say anything to me. I- um... I went snooping in his apartment and I found these letters-"

"Pretty sure reading someone else's mail is a crime," Adam said.

"It's wasn't mail, exactly. And it was for me. He had written these letters to me saying he was in love with me going back to, like, when we were in space. The most recent one was written a couple days ago and he seemed really sad, talking about how I would never love him back."

Shiro and Adam just looked at him for a moment.

Eventually, Shiro spoke up. "Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Love him back."

Lance started talking, about to say he didn't, but he stopped himself. Did he love Keith?

The last time he had liked someone was with Allura. He had said he loved her on their first date, and that didn't end well, so he figured he should take it slower this time around.

But did he like Keith? Lance decided to make a pro and con list in his head.

The cons for dating Keith were that he got angry easily, but that had decreased since the space whale. When he got stressed his eyes turned yellow and he grew fangs, but that was kind of cute. He was painfully blunt sometimes. He had a terrible mullet, and he didn't like talking about his feelings.

Pros for dating Keith.... He always valued Lance and saw him as a friend and an equal. He cared a lot about the universe's wellbeing and greater good, which was endearing. He was fun to be around when he loosened up a little. He was selfless. He was cute when he was mad, and even cuter when he wasn't mad. And his hair looked like it would be really nice to run his fingers through...

'Yep,' Lance confirmed to himself, 'I am queer.'

"I think so," Lance said, out loud this time.

"Are you sure?" Adam asked, "Keith really likes you, but he needs commitment. So many people in his life have abandoned him, so he needs something long term."

Lance squinted his eyes. "Long term like Shiro, or-"

"Long term as in a committed relationship," Shiro quickly interjected. "We're not talking about penis size, Lance."

Lance nodded. "Good, because I'm average."

"I didn't ever want or need to know that."

"That's rude. We can't all have monster dongs, Shiro."

"Enough," Adam groaned. "Lance, can you handle a long term relationship with Keith?"

"I think so."

"Then you have my blessing. But if you ever go through Keith's things again without his permission, I will ruin your career."

"Same here," Shiro added.

Lance decided not to tell them that he hadn't been asking for his blessing. He also decided not to tell Adam that his career was currently failed impulse farmer, and that it was already an awful job that Adam couldn't possibly ruin further.

Lance wasn't sure what he expected, but he didn't expect being a farmer to be so boring and exhausting and gross. "Thank you, Adam."

Lance got up and walked over to the door. "I'm going to go talk to Keith. You two can get back to getting dirty in your kitchen. You've been a big help. But still not as big as Shiro's-"

Adam closed the door before he could finish. This time, Lance could hear them lock it.

It did not occur to Lance until he was back in his car that he had no idea how to tell Keith he liked him.

It's not like he hadn't dated people before. With his first girlfriend in kindergarten, all he had to do was give her his extra pretzels at snack time and she fell in love. Then when they broke up in first grade (with a surprisingly dramatic break up for kids so young,) Lance had been single until third grade, where he charmed his girlfriend with his Silly Bandz, Heelys, and Neopets account.

Lance didn't have any pretzels or Heelys,
and he wasn't sure if Silly Bandz even still existed.

He forced himself to take a breath. He already knew Keith liked him, so he didn't have to worry about rejection. The best thing to do was probably to do the opposite of what he did with Allura. So, don't kiss a mouse, don't let Keith die, don't ask for Coran's permission, take it slow, be gay.

He could do all of that.

But how was he going to tell Keith that he had read (and stolen- er, borrowed) the letter? Did he even need to bring that bit up? Keith surely wouldn't notice it was gone.

At least, that's what he thought until his phone started ringing. Keith's face popped onto his screen.

"Hey, Keith," Lance answered into the phone, putting it on speaker. He didn't want to drive while on the phone, which he realized would probably be the least dangerous thing he had done while driving.

"Lance," Keith's voice said, "Did you by any chance visit my apartment today when I was on a mission?"

Lance began to sweat. "Why? Is something wrong with it?"

"Nothing's wrong," Keith assured him, "It's just that something's missing."

"What's missing?" Lance asked, hoping Keith hadn't been robbed when he wasn't there. "Did you get robbed?"

"I doubt it. Nothing valuable is gone, just some... personal stuff. Mail, I guess."

Lance wondered what kind of personal stuff had been stolen. Did Keith have a dildo stolen or something?

It then donned on Lance that it had been him who had taken the personal item, which was the letter and decidedly not a dildo.

"Oh!" Lance said, "Um, I'm actually driving right now. Maybe we could talk in person?"

"Sure? I guess. But were you not driving when you answered the call?"

"No, I was."

"Then why are you concerned now?"

"I'm a farmer, I don't need to explain myself to you!" Lance panicked. "I'll be at your house in 45 minutes."

"You're still doing that farmer thing? Whatever. Just don't bring hay into my house, and we should be good."

Lance turned his car around and drove to the nearest store.

After staring at the selection of flowers and getting no where, he turned to the guy at the cash register. "What kind of grand romantic gesture would you do if you wanted to confess your love to someone after finding out they liked you by stealing their mail?"

The cash register guy stared at Lance for a moment before shrugging. "I don't know, weed, maybe?"

"Do you sell that here?"

"I can sell you some out back in an hour when my shift is done."

Lance considered this. "I said I'd be at his house in 45 minutes. Any other ideas?"

The cashier nodded. "Maybe roses? And, like, dinner?"

"You're so wise." Lance said, grabbing some roses and walking toward the canned food isle. He grabbed two cans of ravioli. He figured Keith liked canned food since he mostly survived off of it in the desert.

Then he grabbed a $4 bottle of wine, because he wasn't rich and he read an article saying all wine tasted the same anyway, to which he agreed.

After knocking on Keith's door, Lance went over what he was going to say. He had been practicing on the way there, but it wasn't like there was a how to guide on this. Lance would know, he checked.

Keith opened the door. "Hey, La- you brought me flowers?"

Lance took a deep breath and began saying what he had been practicing. However, after a moment, he forgot what he had meant to say and decided to wing it. "I want you to know that I found the letter you wrote me and I was a little shocked that you liked me, but then I thought about it and I feel the same way. I like you a lot and I'm sorry I broke into your house. I got you these flowers and dinner as an apology and also as a first date thing. Will you go out with me?"

Keith quirked his head forward in confusion, but accepted the flowers. "I.... what?"

"I like you, too."

Keith just stood there for a moment. "You do?"

Lance nodded. "Yeah."

"And how exactly did you find the letter?"

"Like I said, I found it when you were with the Blade."

Keith stepped aside and gestured for Lance to come in. "What's in the bag?"

"Ravioli," Lance said, putting the cans on the counter. "Since you lived off canned food in the desert, it'll probably remind you of home."

"What made you think I would want to remember that?" Keith laughed, taking out a pot for the food.

Lance opened his mouth to respond, but closed it almost immediately. Keith made a good point. "In my defense, I only realized I liked you earlier today. Also, I think my brain is broken from seeing Shiro and Adam having sex in their kitchen."

"I mean, I figured you broke into my house," Keith said, "But you also broke into theirs?"

"You knew I broke into your house?"

"Shiro wouldn't have because he has a key, Pidge is busy with their experiments, Matt is in hiding because of his awful haircut, Hunk is on a food tour, and Adam is busy making out with Shiro. You're the only person who could have done it and taken the letter."

"And you're not going to, I don't know, kill me?"

Keith rolled his eyes and put the flowers in a vase. His voice took on a sarcastic tone as he replied, "I took a sacred oath to not kill farmers."

Lance groaned as he filled two bowls with ravioli and sat them on Keith's table. "Why did I think farming was a good idea?"

"I've been wondering that, too." Keith said, "What were you even farming?"

"I have a cow, a lion, and some juniberries. Granted, the lion is a ship, but it still counts."

"Why don't you just give up? It doesn't seem like you love farming too much. The Garrison could always use more instructors. I hear Admiral Shirogane's looking for new flight teachers."

Lance sighed and swallowed his ravioli. "I would, but I spent a lot of money on this farm, and I'll lose even more if I quit. Pidge bet me fifty bucks I wouldn't last 3 years. The only way out of this hole is to keep digging."

"Maybe the reason you've failed at farming is because you don't know how holes work. Digging makes them deeper."

Lance laughed. He had missed how bad at jokes Keith was.

"I always assumed you ran your family's farm or something." Keith said.

"My mom is a salesperson and my dad makes loyalty programs."

"Then why did you buy a farm if it wasn't a family business or something?"

"I was having a lot of stress and I read that gardening was good for stress relief."

"Yeah, gardening. Not buying a farm."

"You know me! I'm the definition of go big or go home. Only now, my home is a farm and I don't want to go home because it smells like straw and manure."

Keith made a face of disgust. "Ew. Have you tried Febreeze? I heard it can cover up the smell of bodies from someone at the Blade, but I don't know if they knew that from experience or from a Febreeze commercial."

"Febreeze just made it smell like straw, manure, and fake flowers, which is arguably worse."

"I-" Keith began. Before he could finish his sentence, his phone started ringing. "Pidge?"

Keith stepped away from the table for a moment. "Yeah, he's here. Why?"

Silence for a moment. Lance wondered if Pidge was talking about him.

Lance saw Keith frown. "What? Are you sure? Yeah, that's great! I'll tell him.

Keith walked back over to the table.

"Care to fill me in on what that was about?"

"So," Keith started, "You know how Pidge and Coran have been scanning the Milky Way for abnormal activity?"

Lance shot up. "Is it Galra? Like, bad ones? Or Honerva?"

"Nothing like that!" Keith quickly explained, "Well, something like that, I guess. But nothing bad. For you, I mean."

Lance sat back down, but did not feel any calmer. This was apparently visible on his face, because Keith began to elaborate.

"So Pidge picked up this ship. They said it was small so they didn't think much of it at first, just that it was space junk. But then they noticed that the area around it was, and I quote, 'bananas with quintessence.' So they contacted the ship and when it answered," Keith took this moment to take a sip of cheap wine.

Lance wondered if he was trying to kill him with anticipation. "Who was it?"

"Allura and Lotor, Lance. Allura and Lotor are alive and coming back to Earth."

"That's amazing!" Lance said.

"Yeah! It's great."

"You don't seem too happy about it."

Keith quickly corrected his disposition. "No! I'm definitely happy that they're alive. No question there. It's just that, well, we're just now having our first date. And now Allura's coming back. It's stupid. I'm being stupid. And selfish. I'm obviously relieved they're okay and that you two-"

"Wait," Lance ordered, snaking his hand over Keith's mouth. "You think I'm going to get back with Allura?"

Keith nodded and blinked tears out of his eyes. He pulled his face away from Lance's hand. "Yeah. You guys really loved each other. You even said it on your first date."

Lance sat back down sighing, "Allura was in love with the idea of me. She thought I was cute and that being in a relationship with me was better than being alone. But I don't think she was in love with me."

"You don't?"

"Plus, Coran never would have approved. Apparently Allura deserved better than me or something. The idea is insulting. Allura deserves whoever she wants."

Keith reached across the table and took Lance's hand. "Thanks, Loverboy."

"Oh my god, Lotor's never going to let me hear the end of it. When Allura dumped his ass in a quintessence field, he rebounded with an Altean army! When she dumped my ass to save the universe, I become a farmer? How lame is that?"

"Don't worry," Keith comforted, "Pidge says Allura and Lotor will be here in about three days. That gives us three days to get your life together. We got this."