Chapter Text
When Lance eventually returned to the room, Keith didn't even acknowledge his presence until he walked past him. That's when he spun in his desk chair to face him.
"You smell like you just walked through a forest fire." He said bluntly.
"Good evening to you too, Keith." Lance replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. He walked over to his bed and happily laid down, closing his eyes.
"Well you do." He shrugged, turning back to his computer. "Where have you been anyway?" He asked, actually sounding curious.
"In town." He said. "Why?"
"Just wondering. Mostly because there's no where around here for a forest fire to be." A silence fell between them, and Lance was impressed the conversation went on that long. He decided to see if he could drag it out any longer. He sat up, propping himself up on his elbows and looking at Keith.
"There was another one of those attacks. In town I mean.""
"Did you see it?" He asked.
"No, but I saw the aftermath."
"That must have been fun."
"...Do the attacks ever scare you?" Lance asked him. He sat up all the way now, interested to hear his answer.
"What?" He turned to look at him again.
"Do they ever scare you?" He asked again. Though unpleasant, Galra attacks were common enough for everyone to simply learn to live with. It wasn't an ideal situation, but aside from Voltron taking care of them as much as they could, they couldn't exactly do much more.
"No. Why would it? Don't we have a literal team protecting us?"
"You mean Voltron?" Lance perked up a bit.
"Yeah, them." He turned away from him again, his eyes focused on his computer screen. Lance looked and saw he was playing some online game, something he made sure to make note of so he could tease him about it later.
"They're pretty cool, huh?" Lance asked, never passing up a chance to talk highly of himself. "Especially that blue one, man he's great."
"I guess so." He shrugged. Not the response Lance hoped for, but good enough.
"Are you in a good mood today?" He asked.
"Not anymore than usual. Why?"
"You're talking more than usual."
"Because you're asking more than usual."
"Yeah, because you're actually responding to me. You don't talk much you know." He crossed his arms.
"I don't have much to say. We aren't exactly best friends or anything, why does it matter?"
"I guess it doesn't but... I dunno, I'm stuck sharing a room with you, and it's weird how quiet you are."
"Is it now?"
"Yes. It is." He huffed.
"Well I think it's weird how loud you are. And persistent. I'd think even you could tell when somebody wants to be left alone." Keith told him. So it was back to how it usually was. Lance could tell when somebody wanted to be left alone, but that didn't mean he particularly cared. At least, he didn't care when it came to Keith. However, this time he knew he wasn't going to get anymore out of him, he'd reached the point where he annoyed him enough for the time being and from that point on Keith would only get more and more irritated with him.
He'd pushed him pretty far before, early in the semester, but that time Keith had given him a look so terrifying it shut him up around him for the next week. Now, he knew it was time to stop talking. Maybe he'd get more out of him tomorrow.
Lance couldn't help it, he continued to keep an eye out for Heatwave when they were dealing with a Galra attack. He seemed to have laid off for a while though, because the next time, he didn't come across him. He started to realize that he was a big help, he hadn't had to work that hard in a while. He was grumbling to himself about being annoyed with him for not showing up- Even though he knew he didn't exactly have any obligation to- when he heard Shiro's voice in his ear piece.
"Blue, who was that guy you were talking about?" He asked.
"Who, Heatwave?" He asked. "Firey dude with nice legs?" He narrowly dodged a bullet from one of their crazy alien guns, quickly freezing the soldier in place.
"... Sure. I think he's here with me." He said. He knew Shiro had been sent across town to deal with a bigger attack with Hunk, whose voice he heard next.
"Dude, I don't get what you were complaining about, this guy is great! He can take out more in one hit than either of us can." He said.
"Well if you get a chance to talk to him, tell him it's rude to just not show up." Lance said, still bitter that he wasn't there this time. He may have enjoyed this job, but that didn't mean he didn't like having to work a little less harder. It at least meant he had more time to rest.
"What, did you have a date or something?" Hunk snickered.
"N-No! As if!" He absolutely did not like the way his face heated up at even the thought of that.
"Whatever. We're done here, we'll be over there soon enough to help you out, ok?"
"Yeah, okay. Tell Heatwave I'm going to punch him in the throat the next time I see him for abandoning me like that."
"Don't punch him in the throat." Shiro told him, and even though he couldn't see him, he knew he was rolling his eyes, something he did often around Lance. Finally Pidge decided to chime in.
"Look, you guys keep talking about this dude, one of you needs to record him or something so I can see how he works." She said.
"Why does it matter?" Lance asked.
"Because, I can only see so much from behind this computer screen."
"You'd see more if you actually came with us." He muttered.
"Yeah but then whose going to tell you what to do? Now stop talking and start freezing, or you're never going to get done over there." She told him. Lance rolled his eyes but finally shut his mouth, turning his attention back to the attack at him. He was still waiting on Shiro and Hunk when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"So, how's it going being left on your own again?" He spun around to face Heatwave.
"How did you get here so quick?! I thought you were across town!" He said.
"Hey, I have to keep some secrets. Now stop getting distracted." He told him. Lance was about to reply when Heatwave roughly grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, just as a Galra soldier pointed their gun at him. He was quick to freeze them in place, before turning back to Heatwave, who'd already began taking care of the other soldiers around them. He knew it was useless to try and talk to him so he turned back to the soldiers. A big enough icicle to one of them while frozen would completely shatter them. While he did that he got ahold of Shiro again.
"Black, I think you guys don't need to bother coming by, Heatwave showed up so we got it covered." He said.
"He did? That was fast. But ok, if you're sure." He said.
"Yeah I'm sure, we can take care of this." As he said this he dodged another bullet, freezing the soldier in place as Heatwave called back to him to be careful.
By the time they had finished Lance was exhausted, but Heatwave didn't seem the least bit tired.
"You know, it's really unfair to show up a few times in a row and then just disappear. Gives me false hope that you're always gonna be there." Lance told him, crossing his arms.
"I thought you wanted me to leave you alone." He replied. "You said you could handle this stuff."
"Yeah but I got used to you being around!"
"That's your problem." He shrugged. "Besides, if I help you everytime you might get lazy, and we don't need that now do we." He put his hand on Lance's shoulder, and he quickly jumped back from his burning hot touch.
"Hey, you need to let those things calm down before you touch someone." He said, rubbing his shoulder and trying to cool it off.
"Right, sorry. Guess I better let you go now, I'm sure you and your team need to meet up."
"Wait. Maybe you should come with me, you could maybe work with us." Lance suggested. Heatwave shook his head.
"Yeah, no thanks. I'm not big on teamwork."
"Yet you keep working with me." Lance pointed out.
"... Whatever. Look, I gotta get going. I'll see you around sometime." He said. Lance thought about stopping him, but decided to let him go this time. He watched him walk away for a few moments before finally remembering he had a team to meet up with.