Work Text
FRIDAY
5:37 PM
“Your ankles click a whole lot for somebody who’s supposedly in peak fighting form. You should probably get that checked out.”Keith — who’s currently leaning on the bubbler set up next to the doorway onto the training deck, gulping down what’s probably the recommended daily eight cups of water all at once — goes caveman. In other words, his dark eyebrows — already ridiculously thick to the point where Lance has teasingly slipped him his preferred threader’s number on multiple occasions — scrunch down even lower into his face, visible in all of their overwhelming glory beneath the sweaty fringe of equally dark hair sweeping its silky way across his pale face.Wait a minute. “Glory?” “Silky?” No. No way, Tío José (side note: Lance actually does have one of those — he’s pretty sure that his mom’s younger brother lives somewhere in Miami these days). Keith’s eyebrows aren’t glorious — they’re horribly overgrown. His hair isn’t silky — it’s painfully unfashionable.(Not that Lance cares about any of this, mind you. He totally doesn’t.)“I’ve been back for, like, what, five minutes? And you’re already nagging me.” Keith knocks back the last of his water. Lance tries (and fails) not to notice that some of it dribbles down his sharp chin, into the bony hollow of his throat, mottled red from the exertion of fighting with the training bot. “New record… ese.”As he wraps up the last of his cool-down stretches, Lance finds himself screaming internally. He never should’ve called Keith that, because now, Keith calls him that. And the way that Keith says it, with that casual quirk of his smirking face each and every time, is just plain unfair.But externally, all that Lance says is, “I’m always improving… pegajoso.”“Pega-what-now?” Caveman Eyebrows Keith is out with full force. His blade — Marmora blade, gleaming purple — shifts back into its knife form with a flare of light. “What does that mean?”“Look it up,” Lance calls over his shoulder as he heads for the door. It’s way too hot on the training deck right now, so he thinks that it would be a good idea to pay Kaltenecker a calming visit. Because even though he himself is the epitome of anything but, for some strange reason unbeknownst to Lance, he’s suddenly finding that he could really use some peace and quiet, if only for an hour or so.“Google Translate’s a useful thing, Kogane.”“There’s no Google Translate in space, McClain!” Keith hollers after him as the door slides shut with a clean swish. “We don’t even have WiFi up here—!”In the silent hallway, Lance breathes a sigh of relief that he didn’t know that he was holding in. Strange, he thinks again.And then he stops thinking. Because if he keeps thinking, the ever-growing urge to grab Keith’s stupid head and kiss him all over those stupid eyebrows is going to return in full force.
9:18 PM
“Hey, Shiro.”“Hey, Keith.”Keith’s eyes rove the common room, making sure that nobody else is really paying attention to them before he asks his question. Pidge is fiddling with a pile of nuts and bolts scattered all over the carpeted floor, muttering to herself as she flips through some kind of thick and glossy user’s manual written entirely in Altean (since when does she know Altean?). Coran is creaming Hunk at ping-pong (since when do they have a ping-pong table?) — a giddy-as-ever Matt seems to be rooting for both of them, somehow. And Allura, perched on the edge of the next couch over, has one of those sleek tablet thingies out on her lap, concentrating hard with a pronounced wrinkle in her brow as she thumbs her way across its screen through star system after star system. Some are outlined in blue, but most of them are still highlighted in purple.All in all, a typical post-dinner scene for Team Voltron. Except… he’s there, too. And that’s not very typical at all.Keith takes a deep breath, tabling that perturbing thought for later and instead taking the time to assess his older cousin’s face from upside down. Shiro had been lying out on the couch, halfway between a daydream and a nap, when Keith had stalked into the room. He’d even looked peaceful — an impressive feat for post-Kerberos Shiro — and Keith feels kind of bad for interrupting him from his relaxed state, but there’s something that he needs to know. Now.“What does ‘pegajoso’ mean?”Shiro squints up at him. “Huh?”“Pegajoso,” Keith repeats. “It’s Spanish. I think.” (An empty stab at nonchalance on his part, because it’s definitely Spanish, because Lance said it.) He ignores a well-timed snort from a smirking Pidge as he repeats, “Do you know what it means?”“I…” His cousin sits up. Chews his lip, as if he’s thinking hard, his scar pulling all the while. He’s been doing this a lot lately, especially this weekend, and for some reason, it makes something in Keith’s gut lurch.“I don’t… I don’t remember.”Oh, well. Keith flops down onto the couch next to Shiro with a restless sigh. Shiro’s near-fluent in Spanish. But maybe “pegajoso” is some kind of obscure Cuban colloquialism, and after all, his cousin learned Spanish in Ecuador and Perú back when Uncle Ryou and Aunt Mariko decided that it was as good a time as any to spend a year traveling all around South America to expand the scope of their anthropological research for the university.Besides, it’s most likely an insult, coming from Lance. So maybe Keith doesn’t want to know what it means, anyway—“It means ‘sticky.’ Or ’sweaty,’” Allura suddenly supplies. She doesn’t even look up from her tablet as she does so, just continues swiping forward through the next galaxy.Keith eyes her, surprised. “You understand Spanish?” Since when does Allura understand Spanish?The Blue Paladin just shrugs her thin shoulders as she frowns down at a particularly vibrant patch of purple on her screen. “Alteans are excellent diplomats,” she explains without explaining.Sticky. Sweaty. Keith inhales slowly. I need a shower, he realizes belatedly.As he makes a quick exit toward the bathrooms, though, he pauses to lay a hand on Shiro’s beefy shoulder. It’s slumped slightly, and his older cousin has a furrow in his square brow, deep enough to rival Allura’s.Keith’s gut lurches just a little bit more.
SATURDAY
3:03 AM
It’s 3:00 AM (well, according to his haphazard mental math — he still isn’t sure if vargas are perfectly equivalent to hours), but Lance can’t sleep. Granted, that's nothing new — he’s never been a good sleeper. Maybe back when he was a little kid, though, before his anxiety took over with a crushing and debilitating force. Before the Garrison repeatedly undermined his already shaky self-esteem, making him second guess every single one of his equally shaky movements. Before he was involuntarily catapulted into uncharted space inside the belly of an alien warship, without even a chance to say good-bye to his grandma and his mom and his brothers and his sister. Before a bunch of furry purple freakazoids drew their weapons on him and his friends and declared war.Before the unsettling realization that it isn’t just girls that he wants to kiss.Especially that last one. Lance lets out a resigned groan as he stares up at the sleek metal ceiling above his sleek metal bed. Yeah. He might as well admit it — Keith’s unexpected return isn’t helping a damn thing when it comes to stabilizing his circadian rhythm.Come to think of it, Keith himself has never been particularly good for his overactive mind in any sense of anything.Snacks might help, he hypothesizes as he rolls over and off of his too-stiff mattress, hissing as his bare feet make contact with the chilly floor. The Castle of Lions is aesthetically pleasing in its futuristic uniformity, he supposes, but it only makes him miss the warm wooden beams of his family’s home back in Varadero — somewhat warped with salty air and age, but somehow perfect all the same — even more. He wonders if the others miss their homes, too — not just the people, but the places themselves. Hunk had left his own ages ago, flying across the sea from Upolu to start at the Garrison a year earlier than the rest of them. From Pidge and Matt’s stories, he knows that the Holts live in a sprawling military-run condominium complex relatively close to the local base. But Keith…Lance’s door slides open, but he hardly registers the resulting swish as he pads down the hallway, his path illuminated by the running blue lights, turned down slightly in power-saving mode for the night. Keith hadn’t lived in that busted-up little shack for his entire life. There was absolutely no way……right?The kitchens aren’t too far away from their bedrooms, which is probably a good thing, because the amount of midnight snacking that they all do is pretty close to astronomical. Stress eating comes with the territory of fighting off a hell-bent genocidal alien race every single day, after all. And thank the lord above that they’d been able to pick up some real food along their way through Quadrant X7 of the Hemithea System a few weeks ago. The kind of food that Hunk can actually do something with. Sure, the Altean goo has become a little less repulsive as the months have worn on and they’ve all grown accustomed to it, but—“Oh. Hey, Lance.”Lance doesn’t want to think about how high-pitched his yelp of shock is as he flips on the kitchen lights and nearly crashes straight into none other than Keith.Speak of the devil, he thinks despairingly as he glares at the other boy, who's in the business of wolfing down something or other himself. Exactly what Lance doesn’t need right now.He lets out what he hopes is a disinterested sort of grunt (even though his heart’s currently humming too loudly for comfort in his ears) as he crosses the cavernous room to rummage around in the industrial-sized fridge. Act casual and all that, he convinces himself, and then he can make his escape to the observation deck, where maybe the immense brightness of the passing cosmic cloud left over from the Uytania Supernova can blind him to his sickening, sickening thoughts.(Like the ones about kissing Keith’s eyebrows. ‘Cause seriously, what in the fresh hell is that all about?)“Since when do we have pizza?” Keith asks, clearly unbothered by the fact that Lance just caught him sneaking a truckload of food in the dead of the night, with all of the lights off like a weirdo to boot.Lance’s head flies up so rapidly that he fears whiplash. He rubs at his aching neck, blasting the other boy with yet another well-deserved a glare. “You ate the last piece?” he inquires accusingly. “You didn’t even help make it, you selfish pig!”Surprisingly enough, Keith doesn’t rise to the bait. He just stuffs the last bite down, and then — Lance can feel his knees going weak as he watches the other boy’s tongue peek out to swipe some leftover tomato sauce substitute (whipped up from some alien tuber by the bona fide culinary genius that is Hunk Garrett) clean off of the corner of his lips.“It was pretty good,” he states, never breaking eye contact with Lance. “My compliments to the chef.” Even though that deathly smirk of his hasn’t formed just yet — the one that Lance remembers far too well — it’s definitely there, lurking below the surface of his amused face.And for a reason that he most likely knows but very much refuses to acknowledge, it’s really pissing Lance off.“Whatever,” he mutters under his breath, crossing his arms tightly over his chest as he reassesses the contents of the fridge. Well, at least there’re always the—“You ate the freakin' mini muffins, too?!”At least Keith has the grace to look a teensy bit guilty this time. “…Sorry?”That’s it. Lance unwinds his indignant hands from his armpits so that he can toss them up in the air. “You can’t, like, come around once in a blue moon just to eat us out of house and home, gordito!" he exclaims venomously. "And you don’t even like pizza! You’re friggin’ lactose intolerant, for Chrissake! I mean, come on—”He hadn’t realized it at first, but as he slams the now-emptied fridge shut, he suddenly notices that Keith’s been inching just a little too close, rounding the steely island counter to come face-to-face with him, all traces of stolen pizza completely gone from his thinned-out mouth.“For starters,” the other boy begins, and finally, his voice is rising to meet Lance’s, “people can still enjoy the foods that give them gastrointestinal distress, so file that enlightening little fact away for safekeeping somewhere in that big, swollen head of yours, ‘kay?”Lance gulps audibly, because Caveman Eyebrows Keith is returning in full force, purplish eyes shining up at him, enormous beneath the white lights overhead—
Oh, no.
“And this afternoon, I was ‘sweaty,’ but now I’m ‘fat,’ too? What’s your problem, huh, ese?” He jabs a bony finger into Lance’s equally bony chest, and Lance nearly falls backward — not at all at the force of it (which, to the other boy’s credit, isn’t all that much), but because apparently, even the most minuscule amount of Keith-related physical contact is all that it takes to shake him down to his core these days.Tonto, he thinks at himself, utterly disgusted.“I-I, uh—“ he begins to stutter aloud. He throws up two placating hands in front of himself like a shield as he says it, because he knows that he’s being an asshole, dammit, but an angry Keith up in his face isn’t doing wonders for the crashing sensation ramming its way through his already overworked heart, on DEFCON 1 since the other boy had been dropped off in the airlock with zero fanfare yesterday afternoon.He’s yours for the weekend, was all that Kolivan had had to say as they all stared up into the Blade’s grizzled, war-torn face. He needs to be with his friends. And at first, Lance had wanted to put his ensuing sense of utter delight down to the fact that the Blades were whisking that absolute prick Lotor away with them in exchange, something about interrogation over a deadly bioweapon being developed at a secret Galran base (so, like, another average day in the life of Team Voltron). But now he knows that the swift removal of Emperor Asshat from their midst wasn’t the only source for that feeling, and that’s just—The lump in Lance’s throat is growing. “L-Look, dude, I, I just—““Tell Hunk his mini muffins were absolutely delightful!” Keith practically spits in his face.“Fine!” Lance tosses back angrily. “I will!”“I’m going back to bed!”“Me, too!”Keith practically punches open the swinging kitchen door and gestures aggressively at it. “After you!”“No, after you!” Lance counters, shoving his former teammate through and stomping right after him.But that’s when it happens — they find themselves nearly nose-to-nose, both glaring, nearly seething, on the verge of wanting—What, though? What do I want? Lance wonders despairingly.Because it’s 3:00 AM, and he’s exhausted, and those two things combined aren’t doing his self-control (or, at least, what’s left of it) any favors. And in this stilted moment, Lance’s eyes can’t seem to stop themselves from flickering toward those ridiculous eyebrows, either, and if he just presses a breath closer—Keith leans back and literally guffaws.“Oh, my God,” the other boy huffs out between laughs, and Lance doesn’t know whether or not he should be thrilled that they still haven’t broken down into some kind of fistfight (y’know, for old times’ sake) or terrified by the fact that he wants to record the ridiculous sounds that Keith’s currently making and set them as his cell phone’s ringtone (well, the cell phone that he has somewhere back on Earth, anyway). Because he could easily listen to this burst of giggles all day—Sickening, Lance’s brain reiterates disgustedly. Impossibly enough, it seems to be collapsing in on itself. Not at all a pleasant realization for Lance.“Wh-What?” is what he asks aloud, though, suddenly feeling rather nervous.“It’s like I never left!” Keith actually hiccups. “And I was freaking out, y’know, ‘cause there’re a bunch of little things I keep seeing, like these little changes around the ship and with you guys, and yeah, they’re little — I keep saying that, don’t I? — but they still freak me out anyways, but you, you’re…” He trails off, staring somewhat past Lance’s shoulder. Suddenly, he looks rather pink in the face.Lance eyes the other boy carefully. He’s never heard Keith talk like that before, not even once. It was like he was a waterfall, all dammed-up for so long, to the point of caving in on himself (that’s not how waterfall physics works, he knows, but just go with it, okay?).But suddenly, the other boy’s overflowing, freeing, finally giving himself some kind of range to burst...Lance feels kind of pink now, too, come to think of it. Not that he's going to think about it, though—“Wanna go look at the supernova with me?” he hears himself blurt out before he can wrestle it back down into the deepest pits of his uncomfortably sore chest. Great. You thought about it.Keith’s eyes — those stupid, night sky eyes — refocus on Lance’s face. They really aren’t that far apart in height, not at all — Lance has maybe an inch on him, tops. But right now, dressed only in an oversized and faded t-shirt that’s probably Shiro’s and a pair of boxer shorts (wow, how is Lance just noticing those, anyway?), with his armor completely gone, the other boy seems smaller than usual. Or maybe just more accessible.Or maybe—“I can’t sleep,” Lance elaborates, much more quietly. And I missed you. I missed you, I missed this, I missed us—Keith seems to be waffling, maybe to the point of refusal, and Lance has the sudden urge to sink into the cold metal floor and disappear forever and then some……but then the other boy shrugs nonchalantly. “Beats being kept awake by Pidge’s snoring.”Inside, Lance is once again verging on disgusted by how elated he is at the fact that Keith’s willing to do something as corny as stargazing with him at 3:17 AM. On the outside, though, he keeps his features as casual as he possibly can.“I don’t know how a person that small can produce so much noise,” he sympathizes as they begin to walk.“It sounds like there’s a freight train in the walls,” Keith says mournfully.“Back when she slept with us in the guys’ barracks at the Garrison, I thought about smothering her once or twice.”“Whoa, uh, that’s... That's, uh…” Keith lets out a low whistle. “That’s dark, ese.”“Don’t you dare tell her—““I won’t, I won’t, I swear—““She’ll actually smother me if she finds out, that’s the thing,” Lance sighs.“Hell hath no fury like a Pidge scorned,” Keith agrees solemnly.Neutral features be damned — a giggle bubbles up from Lance’s chest. It hovers between them as they make their way down the echoing halls of the Castle of Lions toward the observation deck. And if he catches himself staring at the other boy a few too many times to be excused as the psychedelic light of the Uytania Supernova dances across his face…Thankfully, Keith has the grace not to notice a goddamn thing about him.(Bless his oblivious little heart.)
4:42 PM
“Uhhhngahhh.”The Altean training bot, though eyeless, still seems to be shooting him a look from its position leering over him. Namely, a look that says, Get your shit together, Kogane. You’re leaving tomorrow and your mom probably doesn’t tolerate softies who forget to cover their left sides and suffer subsequent disarmament. Plus significant bruising. Lots and lots of bruising—“Well, maybe she does,” Keith finds himself arguing to the soulless thing, his back flat against the deck’s matted floors as he glares up at its blank face, silhouetted by the bright lights overhead like some kind of freaky halo. “After all, I don’t know a damn thing about her—““Are you talking to that droid again, chief?” somebody’s voice cuts through his one-sided conversation. It sounds mildly concerned (a reasonable response, all things considered).Keith rockets to his feet so quickly that he nearly falls back over. “Sh-Shiro! No, no, I was just, um—““We all do it,” Shiro declares, resting his blocky weight against the far wall. He tips his square chin upward, cheeks dimpling for the slightest of seconds. “Well, at least I’m guilty as charged. Can’t speak for the others, though.”“O-Oh?”“Sometimes, it’s nice to converse with something that won’t talk back to me,” his cousin explains. As he says it, there’s something like humor in his voice, but it’s more like he’s trying to force it in there instead of letting it unfold naturally into itself.Despite that thing still lurching in his gut, though, Keith hazards a chuckle anyway. He sinks back onto the mat, avoiding a patch of his own sweat gleaming beneath the bright white lights of the deck. Pegajoso, he thinks defeatedly, swiping a chunk of damp hair out of his eyes.“Shiro, did you, er, that is, do you…” Keith takes a deep, steadying breath and squares his shoulders.“Do you remember my mom? From when you were little?”His cousin blinks. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting that question. But Keith’s hoping that if he pokes at him hard enough, he can learn just a little bit more about the woman who’s suddenly a part of his life, just as much of a shock as the reveal of his Galra heritage had once been. Rather unsettling. Surprisingly upsetting. He’d thought for so long that whomever she was, she must be dead……because why else would she have left him (and his dad) behind?“Keith, I’m really sorry, but… I don’t,” Shiro replies, voice gentle in its understanding. He crosses the room and sinks to the floor beside Keith, folding his legs into a neat pretzel, then laying a light hand on Keith’s shoulder.Keith can’t help but lean into it — he’s realizing that he’s missed Shiro quite a bit over the past few months. They'd always been together, for so long, but now, it feels like there's much more than just a few star systems between them...After a moment, his cousin offers him a stronger grin, emerging slowly but surely from his pinched face. “I only ever really heard about her from Dad, who met her a few times, I think, back when she and your dad really, er… started things.” He coughs awkwardly, and Keith pretends not to hear it. (Because it’s his parents. So naturally, it’s gross.)“But even then…” Shiro trails off. “My mom… Well.” He grimaces, but it’s well-meaning. “She didn’t love Krolia.”“Because she’s from outer space?” Keith guesses. Aunt Mari is a world-renowned anthropologist, and she's seen a lot, but aliens might be just a little bit out of her league.Shiro chuckles, his hand reaching up to mess Keith’s sweaty hair up even further. “Nah, chief. It’s because she left you all alone.”Something in that statement makes Keith’s nose wrinkle. “Wait." He pauses. Thinks."Your mom knew she was… alive? That she wasn’t dead, that whole time?”The hand in his hair stills.“Shiro,” Keith says warningly.The grimace turns real. “Look, Keith, you’ve gotta understand—“Keith’s up and on his feet before he even knows what’s happening. Shiro looks up at him, and his face is tired.“I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely. “Keith—”But Keith doesn’t give a flying fuck about that. “I thought she was dead,” he exclaims hotly. “That whole time, I thought my mom was dead! But she just — and you just— UGH.“He knows that his spurt of pacing around the room isn’t going to help things. He knows that he should stay calm, sit back down, have a measured conversation like a real grown-up would, find out the facts so that he can finally, finally uncover the truth about his past. But all that he can feel right now is a sudden and surging pulse of anger, and while it’s kind of scaring him, it also feels twisted-ly amazing to just let it all out.“Keith,” Shiro interrupts his nonsensical grumbling. “Keith, my mom thought it was for the best, my parents had no idea if she’d ever come back to Earth, so please, just—““Did you know?” Keith asks accusingly, voice shaking. He can feel it building up inside of him, the anger, far more piercing than that ever-growing, horrible lurching in his gut.“Did you know, Shiro?”“I did,” Shiro admits, almost immediately. He’s on his feet now, too, but he doesn’t move any closer, giving Keith his space (at least he remembers how to do one thing right, Keith thinks with venom). “I did, but not until very recently. Before I left for Kerberos, Mom mentioned something about it.”He rubs a frustrated hand up the back of his neck. Keith keeps on glaring at him, though, so he quickly adds, “But Krolia left so long ago. I wasn’t sure if she’d still be alive, and I, I just—““What?” Keith bites out. “You just what?”“I just… didn’t want to get your hopes up, chief,” he finishes quietly. “After you found me, and I wanted to—“Suddenly, he’s back down onto the floor, falling hard and fast, folding in on himself, and Keith can only stare. Because this Shiro… this Shiro suddenly seems so strange to him. It’s like he’s there, but not all there. And it’s really freaking Keith out.Cue the lurch.“I wanted to protect you, Keith,” his cousin chokes out from behind his knees, raised in front of his face, like they're kids all over again and he's hiding from a particularly cacophonous thunderstorm (Shiro never liked thunderstorms much).“That’s all I wanted. We were finally back together, a family, and I…" A sharp breath. "I didn’t want you to hurt anymore.”Slowly, Keith sits back down next to him. He keeps his hands in his lap, though, because he still isn’t quite sure about what he wants to do with them.“I’m sorry,” Shiro whispers brokenly. “I’m so sorry, Keith.”Keith blows out a deep breath. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And then he’s letting his hands settle on his cousin’s shoulders, because Shiro was there when nobody else was. And he’ll be here with him till the very end……right?
10:27 PM
“Slow day,” somebody says from behind him. “No distress calls or anything?”Lance nearly drops his book to the floor of the observation deck. He glances up, and then he nearly drops the book all over again. Keith’s shrouded in shadows — it’s enough to make him realize that it’s gotten pretty late, and the castle’s lights are dimming once again for nighttime.But Keith’s eyes are still bright here, still glinting. Almost like a cat’s eyes in the dark. A few months ago, Lance would’ve poked fun at him for it. Maybe even made an off-color joke about the whole Galra heritage thing. But now…“Figures,” Keith adds, “that as soon as I leave, everything around here quiets down.” He doesn’t sound particularly bitter about it, though. Maybe just a little bit skeptical. On edge, even.Lance knows a thing or two about being on edge. He squints up at the other boy. There’s a bruise blossoming on his jaw — it stands out starkly in his thin face, against skin that looks even paler than usual.“Hey, man,” he begins slowly. “Are you… Are you okay?”Keith comes to a standstill beside him. “What’re you talking about?”“Bruise,” Lance says, indicating his own jawline.Keith follows the motion. Something in his expression changes, although Lance can’t quite name it. He runs a finger over his face, as if this is news to him, and then he winces. “Ouch.”“You finally piss somebody off enough to earn that?” Lance inquires lightly. Jokingly. A beat too late, though, he recognizes how cringe-y a thing that is to say. So once again, he finds himself wanting to sink into the cold floor. Or maybe just eject himself out into space, where his spiteful tongue will boil and his thoughtless brain will turn to mush—Keith frowns. “Can we not do this right now?” he asks, his voice quiet. “I’m really not in the mood.”“I’m... I'm sorry,” Lance mumbles awkwardly around the sudden lump in his throat.Keith appraises him. Then he shrugs — at what, Lance can only guess — and flops into the pilot’s chair next to him. The other boy’s old seat, Lance realizes. The one that Lance had been glaring at ever since they’d gotten stuck on this godforsaken ship, because Keith had been the person sitting in it……until he was gone, that is.“I made popcorn,” Keith says, and Lance finally notices the bowl that the other boy had set down between them.“I like popcorn,” Lance states, staring at the bowl. It smells really, really good. Eerily like movie theater popcorn, in fact. Where Hunk picked that up, he has absolutely no clue.“I remember,” Keith replies lightly.“Cool,” Lance says shortly.But what he really means is, You don’t look okay. And, That drives me abso-fucking-lutely crazy. And—“I thought watching this supernova’s kinda like watching a movie on a big screen, so…” Keith shifts in his seat. His tone is stilted as he adds, “I figured I’d find you here, ’s’all.”Lance chuckles, even though there’s nothing really funny about this situation... but it’s a whole lot better than dwelling on the idiotic butterflies currently fluttering around his gut.“Well, hey. It's a good idea, and I appreciate it.”“Not so heartless now, huh, ese?” Keith delivers him a spectacular flick on the forearm as he says this.Lance stares at said forearm. “No. N-Never.”“’Bout time you admitted it,” the other boy replies matter-of-factly, and he tosses back a piece of popcorn into his mouth as he stares out at the star dying in a spectacularly beautiful fashion right before them, every single color in the universe reflected in his eyes.
11:34 PM
They’ve been talking about nothing in particular for nearly an hour when Lance finally asks the million-dollar question: “What’re you gonna do when this is all over?”Keith shoots him a funny look, chin wrinkled, head tilted. The ends of his overgrown hair drag along his bony shoulder. “‘This?’” he wonders, sounding rather puzzled.“Y’know,” Lance says, waving his hands aimlessly in the shadowy space around them. “This.”The other boy drums his fingers against his thigh for a quick beat. His mouth’s twisted into a thoughtful expression. Lance tries not to stare at it. (Because that would be weird.)“Well, I can’t go back to the Garrison,” Keith says after a moment’s pause. “That much, I’m sure of.”“And why is that, exactly?” Lance asks.One of those stupid eyebrows quirks. “They didn’t tell you?”“Tell us… what?”“Why I got the boot.”Lance can feel his own eyebrows rocket up into his hairline. “Oh, this’ll be good.”Keith chuckles. “Don’t judge me too hard, ‘kay?” he prefaces. His head’s still slightly tilted — he’s looking at Lance out from under eyelashes that, surprise, are just as thick as his eyebrows. They’re totally ridiculous in their fluffiness. They’re like girl eyelashes.“I already judge you hard, Kogane,” Lance reminds him. Stop staring stop staring stop staring. He fumbles around in the popcorn bowl, desperately searching for something to focus on besides anything Keith-related, but his hands are coming up empty. He’s hit rock-bottom.“True.” Keith’s eyebrow resettles, but the hesitant smile that he offers Lance unsettles him all over again.“Remember Iverson?”“How could I forget him?” Lance mutters.Keith’s back to frowning. “You didn’t like him?”“Oh, no, I fucking adored him,” Lance deadpans. “Teachers who seem to take sadistic pleasure in constantly embarrassing me in front of everybody I know are my absolute favorites.”The other boy’s cheek dimples, and Lance is about to protest at this blatant disregard of his tragic backstory, but then Keith says, “Glad I took my parting shot, then.”“Wait a sec,” Lance begins slowly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”“I punched him,” Keith elaborates plainly.“You… You didn’t.”The other boy leans in, in a weirdly conspiratorial fashion. “In the face.”Lance gives in and stares. Because Keith Kogane — perfect, perfect Keith Kogane — punched decorated Commander Mitchell Iverson of the Galaxy Garrison’s highest esteem… in the face.“You didn’t,” he echoes, but his shocked tone is bowing to pure, unadulterated glee.“Shiro was really disappointed when he found out,” Keith says, with a little sigh thrown in for good measure. He leans back in his old chair, hair shifting to reveal the side of his neck. Just like his sharp jawline, it’s mottled purple in a few places. Something in Lance’s chest squeezes at the sight of it.“Why’d you do it?” He’s pretty sure that he’s on the verge of bursting out in laughter, because holy shit… but the hard note in Keith’s expression makes him think that this isn’t exactly a laughing matter.The other boy eyes the technicolor horizon spread out in front of them, lit up like a funfetti birthday cake by the supernova. “Well, Shiro was gone,” he explains quietly. “And nobody seemed to care. The Garrison… They pretty much told me so, right after he disappeared. Declared missing in action, and all that. And nothing else mattered.”“So… You punched Iverson in the face?”Keith’s head whips up, and Lance, realizing what he's just implied, backpedals immediately, feeling rather horrified with himself. Because to Keith, losing Shiro must’ve meant losing everything. And Lance can’t even begin to contemplate what that would be like. He certainly doesn’t want to start thinking about Vero or Marco or Luis seemingly vanishing into thin air, lost without a trace, for an entire year…“I-I mean! I, that’s, y’know…” He hurriedly holds up yet another set of placating hands in front of his chest. “I-I get it, because, like, inner turmoil makes us do stuff, we’ve all been there—““Dude,” Keith cuts him off, voice firm. “It wasn’t a rational response. I recognize that now.”And then, a little more gently: “You don’t have to make excuses for me, Lance.”“You asked me not to judge you, though,” Lance reminds him, at this point feeling rather miserable about the entire thing.“But you said you would anyway,” Keith reminds him back, something of a smirk returning to his face.Lance purses his lips. There are a lot of things that he could say right now, but none of them sound quite right in his head. His gut reaction is to apologize profusely, although for what, exactly, he doesn’t quite know. But just as he’s about to grit his teeth and commit to it—“So, what’re you gonna do?”“Huh?”“After… this.”Oh. Right. He’d nearly forgotten. “We-ell,” he hedges. “I kinda… Uh.” Suddenly, he feels strangely ashamed.“Hey, ese,” Keith says, with this low chuckle that makes Lance’s chest squeeze even tighter, somehow. “I don’t judge.”“Always gotta one-up me, huh,” Lance mumbles. He’s losing feeling in his right foot — he rolls his ankle a few times, but with as little motion as possible, as if too much sudden movement would be enough to push Keith away—“Lance,” the other boy says. Just his name.Just like that.Lance looks up from his foot. Keith’s eyes are on him. And it’s like the entire supernova is suddenly bearing down on him, the weight of its gravity a fearsome thing to confront, its brightness a terrifying thing to behold. Keith’s undivided attention.He swallows. Hard. But he says it anyway: “I wanna go to college. Y’know…” His cheeks feel uncomfortably hot. He shifts to rolling the other foot. “Learn things. Get a degree. All that jazz.”He’s waiting for Keith to say something like, “That’s selfish.” Or, “That’s pointless.” Because after all, they’re in the midst of an intergalactic war. They fly around in ginormous robot lions. And if they don’t fly around in those ginormous robot lions, people get hurt. Sometimes, they even—“Sounds cool,” Keith says. “What for?”Okay. Once again, Keith has utterly defied his expectations. It’s like the other boy lives to do it. And that thought certainly isn’t good for the state of Lance’s cheeks, which he’s sure are a pretty noticeable shade of pink right about now (but maybe that's a permanent thing when it comes to simply breathing the same air as Keith).“I think…” He considers. “I think my mom would like a doctor. Or a lawyer. She’s a doctor, back in Havana. And my dad, he was a lawyer, before he died.”“But what would you like?” Keith asks, uncharacteristically patient.Lance keeps up the flimsy charade of examining his feet, because he knows that if he looks at Keith, really looks at him, it’s all over. Because this — the gentle expression, the encouraging tone — isn’t the Keith that he’s used to. This isn’t the Keith that he can handle. What ever happened to all of the bickering, the arguing, the at each other’s throats? Did it disappear with Shiro between the fiery explosions of Zarkon’s fleet just a few short months ago?Did it disappear when the other boy told him to leave the math to Pidge?“Well, uh.” Certainly not lawyer-ing — despite appearances, he doesn’t actually like arguing all that much. “I like to…”
Here goes nothing.
“I read a lot.”“Huh.” That’s enough to make Lance chance a glance upward — Keith seems to have found a minute speck of dust on his pants. The other boy’s eyes are laser-focused on his left thigh, the one farther from Lance. “So you’d want to major in something like… literature, I guess?”“Maybe,” Lance admits. It’s the first time that he’s ever said it out loud, he suddenly realizes.“Really?” Keith asks.Lance can feel his nose wrinkling. “Hey, now, Mr. I-Don’t-Judge. I’m gonna be the one flipping your burgers someday with my humanities degree hung up on the fry kitchen wall behind me. You should be sweet on me now, and maybe—“ He winks at Keith. “I’ll cook you something for free.”Keith’s face quirks. He looks a whole lot like he’s trying to fight back a laugh. This goofy expression is a bit too much for Lance to handle with a straight face of his own, so he nearly misses it when the other boy reminds him, “Hunk already makes me the best burgers this side of the Kentaura Belt for free.”“Mine will be better,” Lance counters confidently. “I’ve got my mom’s recipe. Beef done right — Cubano style.”Keith just shakes his head, mockingly sad. “Y’know, it’d be a damn shame if Hunk somehow heard that his best friend thought somebody else’s cooking was superior to his own...”He’s a breath away, sitting in that chair, and even in the close darkness, Lance can see every single one of his too-long eyelashes for what they are. He can feel something stiffening in his throat, but he’s able to work around it to say, “You’re a monster, you know that?”“And you’re delusional,” Keith retorts promptly. He flicks a lone kernel of un-popped corn at Lance. Just like the kernel, though, the insult practically bounces off of Lance, because at this point in their conversation — hell, in this entire upside-down and ass-backward weekend — he’s pretty certain that Keith doesn’t mean a thing by it.“Well, if I’m a delusional Don Quixote type... then you’re La Mancha,” he decides.Whatever Keith had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. Come to think of it, Lance hadn’t even been expecting to say that. Christ on a bike, space ejection sounds like a good idea right about now.But once again, it’s past midnight, and once again, his common sense has gone to sleep before he has. And Keith is leaving in just a few hours, and—He probably is delusional when he thinks, I might as well just say it. Because—“I wanna explore every single inch of you," he finishes the corny pick-up line before he can stop himself.The laugh bursts like a friggin’ Disney Princess’s, bubbling up through Keith’s throat and straight into Lance’s perpetually red-hot-and-steaming face. And in that moment, he’s gladder than ever that they’re completely alone on the observation deck, and not just because he doesn’t want the others to see Keith giggling at his cheesiness (because getting this perpetually surly guy to laugh might be the nail in the coffin of convincing Pidge that he is, in fact, a true comic genius).Instead, it’s because he’s selfish, the most selfish person in the entire goddamn universe, really, so perish the thought of sharing this moment with anybody else.“I guess I should thank you,” Keith says between lingering chuckles, “for not making me into Rocinante for the sake of your attempts to conquer me.”Lance immediately understands the implications. “Okay, wow. Just wow. You really think I’m that gross, cracking riding jokes—“ He stops short, because he’s just been struck by a sudden realization.“You’ve read Don Quixote?” he exclaims, completely and utterly floored by this new information.“I went to public high school before the Garrison, ese,” Keith reminds him. “Of course I’ve read Don Quixote.”“But you didn’t even know what ‘pegajoso’ meant!” Lance complains. “Seems like you’re picking and choosing when it comes to your Spanish knowledge.”“Forgive me, good knight!” Keith exclaims, turning to fully face him, a (un-gloved, whoa) hand splayed dramatically over his heart. “Have my rudimentary language skills disappointed you… Sir Lance-lot?”Oh, lordy. A thematic pun. Lance takes a deep, shuddering breath.Suddenly, he feels rather frantic. Because, so close. Too close.
You’re too close, Keith.
The other boy recoils from him, a full-body startle… and that’s when Lance realizes that he just said that last part out loud.Oh, lordy, he thinks again, but with even more feeling than before. The voice in his head sounds panicked, and it’s just as distracting as the ache in his chest. “S-Sorry, I, uh—““Lance—““I d-didn’t—““Lance.”“…Yeah?” he asks sheepishly.“It’s… It’s getting late,” Keith says softly. He looks… disjointed, Lance realizes. Mixed-up, fragmented among the dust and shadows of the quiet observation deck. “Maybe—”“W-We should get some sleep,” Lance cuts him off, a little too hastily to sound natural. Oh, is he going to kick himself hard for this. As soon as he’s alone in his bedroom—“That’s… That’s not what I was going to—“ Keith starts. Stops. Fists a hand in his shaggy hair. “Dammit.”Lance, who’s realized quite belatedly that he’s currently standing up, hugs the empty popcorn bowl tightly to his chest. “Um,” he says intelligently.“Do you keep any books up here?” Keith blurts out.Lance blinks. Hard. “…Books?”“Y’know,” the other boy elaborates slowly. “Books. They’re made of paper. You read them—“Lance rolls his eyes. “Alright, wise guy. Yes. I do have a few books.”“Can I…” Keith swallows. Lance has the unfortunate pleasure of watching his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, now mottled more red than purple by something or other — most likely the stagnant air of the observation deck, he thinks.“Can I, er. Borrow. One?”“Sure,” Lance replies with a shrug, as nonchalantly as he can manage. “’S’long as you return it. I’d hate for you to incur a late fee.”As he turns toward the door to the hallway, he can hear Keith picking himself up to follow. The other boy’s muttering something under his breath, too, and if Lance isn’t mistaken......it sounds a whole lot like a frustrated utterance of, “Jesus.”(Which, strangely enough, is kind of how Lance feels right about now.)
SUNDAY
12:52 AM
“And you came across all of these?” Keith asks, not even trying to disguise the wonderment in his voice as he ghosts a fingertip along the books’ worn spines. He leans in a little bit closer, taking in the worn titles — The Alchemist. Life of Pi. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And there — The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha.“I never would’ve imagined that these would be the types of books floating around in outer space.” Keith straightens out, rolls back up onto his knees, lets the edge of the blanket fall back over the underside of Lance’s bed once more. “How’d they even get up here? We didn’t even know there were other life forms in the universe until, like, last year!”“Beats me,” Lance murmurs. He’d flopped onto his bed as soon as they’d entered his darkened room. (Keith, like the complete loser that he is, is currently avoiding said piece of furniture at all costs.) “But a lot of the bigger markets have old books on sale, so…” He shrugs.“I’ve always liked stories about adventures, I guess.”“Ever thought you’d become part of one?” Keith chuckles, but mostly to himself. “Weird how a lot of them are in English, too…”“Right?” Lance’s mumble sounds dull. Disinterested.Keith’s heart skips a beat as he gets to his feet. He’s probably overstayed his welcome by this point, hasn’t he? But he has to ask it anyway: “Hey… Everything okay, ese?”Lance cracks open an eyelid. “Y-Yeah.” He looks up at Keith. The high bones of his cheeks seem awfully delicate (a word that he’s never before associated with Lance) from this vantage point, Keith realizes. They cast long shadows down the other boy’s thin face. “Ju-ust peachy.”Now Keith feels the strange and sudden urge to apologize. Or throw-up. Or maybe, both at the same time? Perhaps he shouldn’t open his mouth anymore. He’s always been good at that. Strong and silent type. Stoic and brooding, and all that shit. Yeah. Hello, world. Emo Keith, at your service—“So. You gonna borrow a book, or what?”
Oh. Right.
He hopes that his gulp of awkwardness isn’t too audible as he drops back down onto his hands and knees, and then finally, his belly, to more properly examine the compact-but-captivating collection. They all seem well-thumbed, although whether this is by Lance’s hand or a previous owner’s, he can’t even begin to guess. And in the low light of the bedroom, as he handles them one-by-one with as much care as he can muster, he finds his breath catching in his throat.“Keith?” Lance’s voice floats hesitantly over the edge of the bed.He makes the mistake of looking up… and directly into the other boy’s wide-eyed face. Even in shadow, those eyes are as blue as a cloudless day. It’s terrible, really, how directly a pair of spherical masses of organic tissue can strike you right in the heart like that. The worst part of it all, Keith thinks ruefully, is that Lance probably has absolutely zero idea that of all of the life forms out there in the universe possessing a pair of eyeballs, somehow, only his are capable of delivering Keith that fatal KO. God-fucking-dammit.You’re too close, Keith, Lance had said. Back there, on the observation deck, when they'd only had each other and the stars for company. But now—“You like The Little Prince?”For all of his quick reflexes and fine-tuned pilot's instincts, it takes Keith an embarrassingly long five seconds to fully process what Lance is asking him. Finally recognizing that he’s currently clutching the other boy’s copy of said book tightly in his hands is a crucial step in this processing.“Y-Yeah, I…” He worries at his lip before answering with, “I do. My dad... He used to read it to me, back when I was a kid. And I think it's 'cause it reminded him of my m-mom.”Lance's next move is to squint at the book’s cover instead of at him, which is a really good thing, seeing as it'll prevent him from witnessing yet another one of Keith’s madcap bouts of blushing. “Hope you know French.”Keith examines the cover, too, and realizes that it is, in fact, in French, just like the original story. Le Petit Prince. He blows out a mournful breath.“Not a lick of it,” he says dejectedly, rubbing a listless hand down and across his face.“I can—“ Lance pauses. His tongue darts out to lick along the seam of his lips. It’s a shot straight to Keith’s traitorous heart. “I can translate. Y-Y’know. If you, like, wanted me to—““You understand French?” Keith asks, surprised. Unthinkingly, he plops down onto Lance’s bed, and in the midst of his impressed state, earlier fear completely forgotten, he’s completely oblivious to Lance’s harsh intake of breath.“Y-Yup,” Lance replies weakly. He sits back up. Scoots a little bit closer to Keith, with his back leaning against the wall. "Not so different from Spanish, sometimes. And my dad, he had some French family, so..." The rest of his sentence is eclipsed by a wide yawn, the kind that includes visibility of molars.Keith looks back at him, concerned. He really doesn’t want to keep the other boy awake, but…I want to be too close, he realizes. It hits him where it hurts, and man, does it hurt. But it isn’t a particularly stunning realization, because deep down, he’s known it all along. All along......but now, with just a few hours left before this chance is gone completely.The heart sees best, chief, Keith hears his father saying in his ear, nearly a decade ago and an entire universe away. They'd been squished together on a bed there, too, back in the desert shack, but there, Keith had been small enough to fit snugly into the space created by Akira's knee as he read his son this very same story for the very first time.
What’s most important? It’s invisible to the naked eye.
Keith leans into Lance’s space as closely as his sanity will let him.“Sure, ese,” he says. “If you don't mind."
6:01 AM
Before the Garrison had trained him to up and deal with early rising, Lance had never been a morning person. He was drinking coffee with breakfast by the tender age of seven (or, at least, until his grandma caught onto what he was doing and promptly put an end to it — Marco had gotten the chancla for it once she’d realized who’d been sneakily pouring it for him), and even Vero’s kids jumping like monkeys on his bed to get him up for Sunday church each weekend wasn’t an effective enough alarm clock. His mom had always found it funny — she’d ruffle his hair and call him “gatito.” She’d say, “You can sleep anywhere, anytime, through anything,” as if it was something that he should be proud of. Lance’s special talent.Reflectively, though, he wonders if she should’ve been just a little bit more concerned about the entire thing. Aren’t doctors supposed to be wary of that kind of situation? Check him for a low iron count, or a decade-long bout of mono, or a—In the close darkness of his bedroom, somebody lets out a muffled groan, cutting those thoughts short.It takes Lance a split second to realize three things: (1) His alarm is going off(2) It’s time to wake up(3) He isn’t alone And maybe a fourth thing, then, after another split second — the comfortable warmth pressing up against him, draping softly across his chest and wrapping around his waist and tangling up in his knees… It isn’t just an extra blanket. It’s related to Thing Three.If the past two days had never happened, he might’ve taken the time to do a Freak-Out. A full-bodied one. Like, pushing Keith off and away. Jumping out of his bed and falling to the unforgiving floor, as theatrically as possible. Blurting out a wild string of rambling words laden with accusations and insinuations, each one underscored with a jabbing pointer finger.Except—Never in his life has he wanted to stay so still.Except—Begrudgingly, though, he snakes an arm out from under Keith’s — the one flung around his waist — and shifts his weight so that he can turn off his alarm clock.The movement is all that it takes for Keith to start grumbling all over again. Unlike Lance, Keith is a morning person. A markedly light sleeper, too. It’s always been something that he’s weirdly proud of. And of course that would be the thing that Keith Kogane, master pilot/swordsman/spy, is most proud of about himself. Like, “I wake up quickly and easily” is more of an accomplishment in life than ranking top in the class. Being chosen by cosmic fate to fly a legendary lion robot. Fighting off bad guys in an even bigger legendary robot.“Time ’s’it?” Keith slurs. His breath tickles Lance’s neck, fans down into the space between his collarbone and his t-shirt. He doesn’t seem at all ruffled by their current predicament. It’s probably a result of intense and prolonged exhaustion, though, Lance reasons. Nothing else to see here...The hand that he’d used to shut off his alarm clock is still hovering uncomfortably in midair. His morning muscles — and overall self-control — are way too weak for that shit. So, as carefully as he can in his essentially inebriated state — definitely sleep-deprived and most likely emotionally constipated — he lets his fingers settle in the silky spill of Keith’s hair.“Mmmmm,” Keith mumbles inelegantly. Not a particularly good move when compounded with the bony knee between Lance’s legs—
Stop.
Resignedly, he begins to scratch… and Keith lets out a new noise. One that sounds quite a bit like an honest-to-goodness purr.Lance doesn’t know whether he should laugh or cry. The great Keith Kogane is lying, seemingly perfectly content, in his bed. Hell, the great Keith Kogane is cuddling with him! And purring like his lion to boot.But their weekend’s over, and this is real life, and—“Kolivan’s picking you up in less than an hour,” Lance whispers around the lump in his throat. In the near-silence of his room, though, it might as well be a shout.Keith’s head immediately flies up, his sharp nose barely missing Lance’s chin. He looks around wildly, and then, back down at Lance. Lance probably looks shocked, and maybe even a little bit pained, seeing as the other boy is now resting a good deal of his body weight on his bare palms... which are currently splayed across Lance’s chest.“Shit,” Keith says.“Good morning to you, too,” Lance deadpans, but behind his pointed smirk, his mind's moving a mile a minute.Last night, he’d barely been able to look the other boy in the eye. But now, it’s like Keith is all that he wants to look at. Yup. Just like that. One night, and it’s aaaaall over for every other thought that he’d ever had about Keith. The rivalry, the fighting, the "I'll stick you in a wormhole," everything.Because this Keith — the real Keith — brings him popcorn to eat while watching a supernova. This Keith doesn't laugh at his unspoken dreams for the future. This Keith falls asleep on his chest like it's the easiest thing in the world, like he's been doing it for years—Keith's caveman brow twitches. “Mornin’, Lance.”“Hardly, you’re cutting off my fucking blood circulation—“A mischievous grin nearly breaks Keith’s face in half. And then, without any warning, he flops back down on top of Lance and practically burrows his face into Lance’s armpit. Lance can feel a panic attack brewing at the very thought that he’s definitely not wearing enough deodorant for this shit.“H-Hey—!”“It pains me to no end to admit this, but,” Keith says to his armpit, “this was the best I’ve slept in a really, really long time.”Lance nearly forgets how to breathe. His heart hammers at his ribcage as he chokes out the protest of, “We slept for like, three hours! How—”“It still felt good, though,” Keith interrupts breezily. And then, perhaps a little more carefully—“Are you gonna remember the bonding moment this time, ese?”Lance gnaws at his lip. It tastes pretty awful. (He hopes to God that Keith can’t smell that, either.) “We-ell…” he hedges.“You suck,” Keith declares emphatically. The meaning is completely lost, though, as he somehow manages to twist himself even deeper into Lance's arms.Lance is laughing. He can’t help it — Keith’s breath is tickling him, and even though it really was only three hours of sleep, they were the most restful ones that he’s had in a long, long time. Because Keith’s here with him. And he’s alive. And he’s safe. And—The other boy’s head perks up. His bedhead is nonexistent, not a hair out of place. It’s the most unfair thing in the universe, besides how his eyes are crinkling below those damn eyebrows. Like waking up to Lance’s B.O. and bad breath and slightly oily morning skin is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.“What’s so funny?” he asks.Fuck it, Lance thinks.He grabs Keith by the cheeks and kisses him.And it feels a whole lot like finally.
7:09 AM
Kolivan’s late, which is atypical enough, but nobody in the castle really minds, because breakfast together is a goddamn treat. Hunk outdoes himself as usual, with the chocolate chip mini muffins making a well-received return. Matt’s regaling them all with a truly horrifying story of his first Anime Boston (which apparently involved a stampede of furries, an accidental boner in very tight tights, and one highly confused Optimus Prime cosplayer). Pidge looks like she kind of wants to die as her older brother animatedly recounts this torrid series of events, but Coran’s following the story very enthusiastically, gasping and nodding at all of the right moments, his ginger mustache twitching approvingly. Allura appears torn between terror, confusion, and amusement. And Shiro—Keith side-eyes his cousin. He seems to be staring a hole into his mini muffin. Or, rather, he seems to be staring a hole into something past his mini muffin. Which would be impossible, really, seeing as all that’s beyond his plate is the dining room table.Suddenly, he feels a hand squeeze his knee. It’s Lance’s hand, and he tries to save face by concentrating on Matt’s theatrics, but it’s too late — something in him shudders. He can only hope that he isn't already blushing, but then, when he meets Lance’s eyes—“I’ve been keeping tabs on him,” the other boy whispers. “There’s something…” He pauses. Bites his lip in the exact same spot where Keith had bitten it, just a few short minutes beforehand—Dude! his aggrieved brain angrily hollers at his heart (which seems to be having a grand old time flopping around in his ribcage like a damn fish out of water). Not the friggin’ time!“Wrong?” Keith sucks in a breath. “Yeah. I… I’ve noticed.”Lance just looks at him. There’s pain in his face. And a marked degree of fear, too, by the looks of his furrowed brow and pinched mouth. Lance doesn't like to show fear.Keith feels a sudden surge of immense guilt, because here’s Lance, trying his damnedest to keep everybody together, stuck like glue. He's always been that guy, ever since the five of them got stranded in space with nobody but themselves (well, with nobody but two royal aliens and five magical lion robots). But Keith had just up and left him all alone to do it. He could've stayed, he could've helped. He could've taken some of the weight off of this boy's already overburdened shoulders. And yet—“What’re you two gossiping about over there?” Matt's tone is rife with accusation. “You’re missing all the best parts of my story!”“They’re probably talking about how Keith spent the night with Lance,” Pidge says casually as she methodically picks apart her muffin like it's just another one of her mad science experiements. “He never went back to his room after dinner, and I heard them being all mushy and gross this morning.”The dining room goes completely silent. Hunk’s slack jaw nearly unhinges itself, offering them all an unfiltered and truly scintillating viewing of his mastication process.“Wh-What?” Lance’s hand flies off of Keith’s knee as if he’s been burned by it. “You — what’re you even — I don’t! That’s not true, we just, we—“Jesus Christ. Keith rolls his eyes. “Allura, can you pass me another muffin, please?”Hunk frantically points between them with his meaty finger as he exaggeratedly swallows his breakfast. “You two?” he manages to choke out. "You two got mushy and gross?"“Well, why wouldn’t they spend the night together?” Coran’s nose is wrinkled out of bemusement. “They’re married.”For the very first time in the morning's proceedings, Shiro looks up. “WHAT.”Allura almost drops the muffin that she was passing to Keith, but by virtue of her princess powers, in the nick of time, she's able to save it with all of the gracefulness in the world. “I didn’t know that!” she exclaims as she hands it off to him, complete with butter and butter knife. She sounds awfully pleased.“We most certainly are not,” Keith counters hotly.“But…” Coran’s beady gaze darts between them, completely nonplussed. “You’re always together. And even when you fight like a pair of hungry weblums, you make up in a mere matter of ticks!”Pidge’s hoot of raucous laughter bounces off of the sleek walls and blasts for the high ceiling, surrounding them completely in the gleeful sound. “Oh. Oh my God.” She wipes away at a crocodile tear from beneath her enormous glasses. “You Alteans are just too much. Really.”Keith sighs heavily. Lance looks like he's about to stroke out, so he should probably put an end to this while there's still time. “We aren’t, uh. Married." He coughs. "That’s—““—defamation of character, is what that is!” Lance hollers, cutting him off completely. He slams his fists indignantly atop the table, upsetting the butter completely. “Keith? As in, this Keith? I’d never, not in a bajillion and a half lightyears—!““Shut-up, Lance,” Keith says mildly as he rights the butter tray.“Make me,” Lance counters defensively, shoving his fists up his armpits. (His wonderful-smelling armpits — Keith had had ample chance to sniff them while they were in bed together, and just as he'd predicted, Lance smelled amazing. Not that Keith was about to loop the entire table in on that little fact, though.)“You sure you want that?” Keith asks the other boy, raising a single eyebrow.“I—“ Lance starts, but for some reason unbeknownst to Keith, he seems to be very fixated on the movement of that eyebrow.The other boy never finishes his sentence, though, because Keith, in front of the entire team, kisses him. A very brief kiss, nothing more than a quick smack of the lips, but it seems to do the trick. Hunk's ensuing gasp is damn near comical.“Alright, then,” Keith says, wiping off the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “Glad that’s settled.”Hunk gulps audibly — thankfully, his mouth's completely free of pre-digested food at this point. “Well... I guess it’s about time, huh?”“Yeah, definitely,” Pidge agrees promptly. “The whole ‘we’re rivals’ and 'we're gonna bicker about everything all the time' thing was getting pretty old.”Shiro leans across the table. Suddenly, it’s like everybody is holding their breath, on the edge of their seats, waiting for his response. Keith, too, eyes him somewhat apprehensively. Shiro’s always had his back, no matter what... but this Shiro?After a stilted beat, though, all that he says is, “I’m really happy for you two." And then he smiles, the scar cutting across the bridge of his nose crinkling. Pidge lets out another victory whoop at the sight of it.“You guys…” Lance shakes his head disbelievingly. His cheeks are flushed a deep red, as if he’s suffering from a particularly bad sunburn (although Lance never really seems to sunburn, something that Keith's insanely jealous of). “You’re all being abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous.”Keith looks at him mournfully. “So, are you saying you don’t want to be kissing buddies after all?”“Dios, Keith—!”
COMMUNICATION. INCOMING.
The speaker system's robotic announcement echoes through the dining room like an unwelcome guest. Coran purses his lips below his twitching whiskers, but with a punch of a button tucked into the side of the table, the far wall sparks to life, opening up an A/V channel.It’s Kolivan on the other side of the line, and with his drooping mouth and tightly crossed arms, he doesn’t look very happy. Well, at least, even less happy than his usual state of all-encompassing discontent. And next to him, as smarmy as ever, stands a silently waiting—“What did you do?” Lance asks pointedly, shooting Lotor a particularly noxious glare. Keith can’t help it — he braces a hand on Lance’s bony shoulder, squeezing lightly. This is the guy that's been giving Lance so much shit.(And as of the past forty-eight hours, Keith has firmly decided that Lance's shit is his shit, too.)Lotor follows the hand. His pale brow furrows slightly. Allura would say that he’s simply looking thoughtful, but Keith… He knows a calculating expression when he sees one. And something inside of him turns sickly, because no matter how much Lotor claims he's here to help the galaxy get back on its feet—“I didn’t do anything,” Lotor replies calmly. Something in Lance’s shoulder bunches at the sound of his silken voice.“But some of my… opposers — they seek to attack one of the planets in this system, one that's gone otherwise untouched by my father’s hands,” the new emperor finishes explaining. Keith notices that the guy doesn’t use the word “Galra” as he says this.“We need to defend this planet from harm, then,” Shiro proclaims immediately, jumping up and out of his seat at the table. “Emperor Lotor, how can we help you?““Shiro, you don’t have to take orders from this guy!” Lance sounds a step above aggravated — Keith can see that below the table, his hand is twisting in the leg of his jeans. “We can do this on our own—““Lance.” Shiro delivers him a hard, hard look, one that Keith has never seen before. It appears unsettlingly alien on his cousin's face, like a poorly-done and ill-fitting mask. “Don’t interrupt us.”Keith’s stomach lurches.“Don’t talk to him like that,” he says quietly. Deadly quietly. “Never talk to him like that.”Everybody turns to look at him, but he only has eyes for his cousin. Shiro’s mouth is twisted in a severe line. But if Keith looks just a little bit closer, he swears that there’s something in his eyes that seems to be screaming out for—“I’m sorry, Lance,” the Black Paladin says, breaking Keith's focus. But then he squares his shoulders slightly and adds, “You need to set this grudge of yours aside, though, and listen to Lotor, alright? He’s the one that knows best right now—“Shiro keeps on talking, directing, delegating. But Keith barely hears a word of it.
8:17 AM
“Lance.”With a rattling crash that reverberates throughout the locker room, Lance startles and drops one of his leg braces to the floor. His head whips around in surprise. “O-Oh. Hey.” He gestures widely at nothing in particular. “Just, uh. Getting ready.”Keith closes the space between them in just a few long strides. He ducks down to pick up the brace, then parks himself on the floor, focusing on Lance’s knee as he snaps the piece of armor into place. The other boy doesn’t move a muscle, but his hands are shaking slightly.“You’re right, you know,” Keith says.“You finally admit it,” Lance chuckles, but there isn’t even an ounce of his usual humor in it, just a live wire of tension. “I mean, I don’t exactly know what you’re saying I’m right about, but... this sure is shaping up to be a day for the books.”Keith hauls himself off of the floor and carefully sits down next to Lance on the bench. “That guy in there…" he begins slowly. "That wasn’t Shiro.”Something seems to run out of Lance, then — his chest sags, his gloved hands dangle at his sides, no longer tip-tapping aimlessly at his thighs.“You… You’d know better than anybody.” He almost sounds relieved, and Keith wonders how long he’s been suspicious, on edge, holding it all inside with nobody else around to reason about it with. Nobody else around to confide in.So Keith takes one of those gloved hands in his own, and he twines their fingers together as best as he can. “We’re going to get through this one, Lance.” Together, is the unspoken conclusion, but they both know that it’s there. It hovers between them, earnest and hopeful and bright.“Well, we do make a good team,” Lance proclaims with another laugh. This one sounds a whole lot more real.“Bonding moment, ese,” Keith says accusingly. “You totally remember it. Stop pretending, you can’t fool me.”Lance looks him square in the face, freezing him full-stop in his tracks. The other boy’s eyes search his, and he must find something in them that he was looking for. Because then he says—“I really like you, Keith Kogane.”Keith nearly falls off of the bench at the sensation of his heart leaping into his throat. His stinging cheeks feel like they’re on full-blown fire. And Lance had said it so casually, almost as if they'd been discussing something as objective as the goddamn weather.But all that he responds with is a cool, “That was sort of implied, I thought. Y’know.” He shrugs. “’Cause of all the kissing. And mushy and gross stuff.”Lance sighs dramatically. “This is the part where you say it back, tonto.”“Can’t you ever, like, come up with a good nickname for me?” Keith’s shaking his head, but he’s snorting, too, not in the least bit offended. “At least once?”“Nah,” the other boy replies promptly. His sharp chin quirks.Fuck it, Keith thinks.He kisses Lance. Hard, because they’re about to go off to battle — again. Then soft, because it’s Lance. And this has been a long time coming.(And it’s just so goddamn good.)“I really like you, too, Lance McClain," he says back. And then he's leaning back in to kiss that stupid smirk off of the other boy's face... except—"Did you just kiss... my eyebrow?!"Lance is laughing, the warmth of his breath tickling Keith's cheeks. "Don't ask," he replies cryptically, and then goes to press their lips together all over again, again, and again.