Chapter Text
“This is a catastrophe!” Lance exclaims as he shoves his way into the control room and claims the nearest chair, draping himself over the backrest and letting his long limbs go loose.
“Did your extra bubbly soap run out again?” Pidge asks dryly. She’s wrenching the covering plate off a failed setup with her bare hands while Matt hovers over her shoulder, warily eyeing the mass of wires that are beginning to spark and fizz under her touch. Keith isn’t sure what they’re doing, exactly, no matter how hard he’s tried to keep up with the sibling-duo’s techno babble. He eventually just settled on being a silent observer.
“Not even close, but since you brought it up, I’m going to insist that we try and restock soon.” Lance swivels around and dangles his legs over one of the armrests. “The problem, the dilemma, the catastrophe, is my love life.”
“You have a love life?” Matt asks, looking confused. “Wait, are you talking about Allura?”
Keith needs to physically restrain himself from looking at Lance’s face.
“Well, I mean – no. I’m sure she writes rhyming ballads about my dreamy eyes in her diary from time to time, but I’m talking more about my love life in general. Or, well, lack thereof.”
Keith tries to be as inconspicuous as possible with his sigh of relief.
“Go on,” Pidge prods. She gives her setup a good smack on the rear. “I wanna hear this.”
“Well, it’s come to my attention that making it back to earth anytime soon isn’t possible. Which means that I’ll have to be a part of this intergalactic war for a little while longer, most likely until I’m old and ripe with a pectoris disease or some shit like that.” Lance stops swinging his legs. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I won’t be able to find love on earth like I imagined. Or here, for that matter. Turns out that getting rejected by even the alien species is abysmal.”
Pidge, with a concerned frown, glances over at Lance.
Lance meets her gaze and shrugs, looking a tad bit shy. “Depressing, I know. But it’s not my fault I’m such a hopeless romantic. To say I don’t have great luck in the ‘getting someone to stay interested in me beyond flirting’ department is like saying Ryan Seacrest doesn’t have great luck in the height department: total understatement!”
Keith finally looks at Lance now. “And this matters because…?”
“It matters because I’ve never been – cue sad music – in love before. And no one has ever been – cue sadder music – in love with me.”
Not that you’re aware of, Keith corrects in his mind as he drags his gaze back to Pidge’s mass of wires and plugs. He pretends to be completely transfixed by them. But Pidge, being the ever-perceptive creature that she is, sends him an appraising, sidelong glance that lasts longer than necessary. She’s been giving him a lot of those recently. It flicks between him and Lance several times before she faces the latter again.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about your love life, Lance. I’m willing to bet that someone up your alley is right around the corner. A really, really near corner.” With this, she lets out a grunt and rips two tangled wires apart, but not before shooting Keith an innocent bat of her lashes.
In that moment, Keith wishes an asteroid could pummel through the castleship and knock him straight out of orbit.
Lance frowns at Pidge’s veiled remark. “Really? You think so?”
“Trust me,” Pidge says, but her expression already looks like she’s lost interest in the conversation. She tugs on her brother’s arm. “C’mon, Matt. I need to get a few more items from my room.”
“Why do I have to –“
“You didn’t get all these muscles from working with the rebels for nothing. You’re my designated carrier, duh.” She pauses to jut a finger at Lance and Keith, then to the carefully arranged order of wires. “Keep an eye on these wires for me. Make sure they don’t snap out of place and come into contact with each other.”
Lance blinks. “What happens if they come into contact?”
“Meh. The castle ship will probably self-destruct.”
With that, Pidge drags Matt out of the room without another word, leaving Keith completely and hopelessly alone with Lance.
“She’s just messing with me, right?” Lance asks after a too long silence. He swings his legs off the armrest and starts stretching them out as far as he can, making the chair creak and rock backward.
Keith shrugs. He’s not sure if Lance is talking about Pidge’s offhand remark about his love life or about the potentially self-destructible mess of wires in their midst.
His wandering attention snags onto Lance again before he can help himself, mostly for lack of anything more interesting than the explosive device to focus on. He can’t help but think that, despite his tattered, olive-green jacket and threadbare jeans, Lance doesn’t look anything less than annoyingly perfect.
The thrumming sensation that’s been building up in his chest these past few months expands, and he desperately wants to claw at it – pick it out, bit by bit, with the edge of his knife.
As unsuccessful as it’s beginning to seem, he’s tried to tamper it down before. He’s tried to distance his focus on Lance by wheeling onto his other problems, like Shiro’s disturbingly grating attitude or his mother’s reappearance, or even his endless supply of anger at the universe in general. But thinking about all of that, accompanied by the knowledge that his premature death is inevitable, only creates a penetrating numbness inside of his mind.
Thinking about Lance, on the other hand, is something entirely different. Keith isn’t sure how to explain it. He’s never given much thought to sentimental attachments or relationships. In his experience, caring about that stuff has always seemed outside of his limits, too far-fetched of a concept. A type of warmth he has no idea how to even approach in the first place. It’s why he had decided a long time ago that there are certain things in life – quite a lot of things – that people as strange and wild as him don’t get to have.
Except, when he looks at Lance, a boy who is both shameless and soft, open-hearted and ambitious, a feeling like burrowing under a warm, heavy quilt in the winter spreads through him. It makes him wonder how Lance can remember to be all those things at once, how there is any space left inside of him to remain so bright and optimistic even while fighting the tyrannical rule of an evil empire.
Honestly, the only way Keith can describe the thrumming in his chest is that it’s not unlike a safety quilt warding off the cold. When he’s angry and reckless and wants to inflict a lot more damage than he’s worth, he lets his focus redirect onto warm, glittering blue eyes and a boyish smile that ends in a set of dimples. He reaches into the closet at the back of his mind, tugs out his patchwork of carefully woven feelings, and wraps it around him to shield the chill of his muddled thoughts, letting it mould against him so that it fills his spaces and gaps.
He often needs to stop himself from wearing it any longer than he needs to, because while it helps him find some semblance of stability, it never leaves without sending him into a queasy mix of dread and longing, either.
It feels as if the more he nurses these feelings, curiously turning them around in his mind the same way one would turn a Rubik’s cube, the more they seem to overflow, like pouring water from a tap that’s been left on for too long. He’s afraid that one day, if he continues nurturing whatever it is that he’s come to think of Lance as, it’ll spill everywhere, out into the open for all to see.
But as he studies Lance – the sharp line of his jaw, the curious tilt of his head, the deep brown of his hair – he reaches a conclusion.
He doesn’t need to let any of his personal feelings spill. Not only are they inconvenient, but they don’t exactly matter in the grand scheme of things. He can’t ruin his friendship with Lance – which somehow still feels like a wriggling, newborn thing – or the team’s meticulously put-together dynamic in favor of chasing something that he isn’t even sure can be returned.
He is part-boy, part-soldier, and part-pilot. It shouldn’t feel like he has any room for much more. Specifically Lance, who’s the kind of person that can easily fill anyone up to the brim. And If there’s one thing Keith has preserved from his time with the Blades, it’s that individual issues – especially the distracting kind – need to end up on the back burner.
Which is why, as Lance cracks a terrible joke about something Keith hasn’t quite caught onto yet, he bunches the quilt into a careless heap, gives it the metaphorical finger, and plunges it deep inside the catacombs of his closet. This time, it lays sealed beneath layers of other things strewn about, far enough where it can’t be reached easily.
>>>
Keith wonders how, exactly, he and Lance are the only ones who ever seem to end up in these situations.
“Would you just stay still for a second?” Lance says, exasperated. He wipes down the side of Keith’s face with a piece of cloth he dredged up from some place Keith doesn’t really care much about knowing.
“It’s not as bad as it seems,” he insists, mouth tasting faintly of copper as he runs his tongue along the back of his teeth. His tone holds more bite than necessary, which only serves to darken Lance’s already dampened mood.
“Sure, yeah. My mistake. Obviously, you can sustain an excellent condition of health after nearly getting a hole blown through your skull.” Lance leans in close to get a better view of Keith’s head injury. “Would it kill you to stop struggling?”
“It just might.”
“Don’t do this right now. You can’t seriously be mad at me.”
“ Try me . We could’ve captured those mercs and their cruiser by now if you hadn’t made that dumb detour.” Even as he’s saying this, Keith feels a woozy, lightheartedness taking form in his mind. At first, he thinks it’s because Lance’s fingertips are running all over the sides of his face, their warmth – even through the thick layer of gloves – leaving searing imprints against his grime-covered skin. But then he notices just how much blood is soaking the cloth, and he thinks, fuck.
He knows he’s being a jerk. If Lance hadn’t gotten him out of the way in time, Keith would’ve received more than a bleeding head injury and a clocked jaw to worry about. But they’ve been butting heads with each other since the start of their mission, uselessly arguing over which route to take, and the fire of it hasn’t left Keith. The need to focus on something that isn’t stomach-churning red is so strong it seems to radiate off him in palpable, rippling waves.
“It wasn’t worth it,” he continues, unrelenting. “Now not only is the mission compromised, but Allura is going to hand our asses back to us for failing to do the easiest task he’s given us all week.”
In the heavy silence that follows, both level a glare at each other.
Lance breaks the quiet with a sharp bark of laughter. “Buddy, I risked my life for you. Don’t disrespect the risks I take by claiming you aren’t worth it.”
Keith draws back from Lance’s fingers and blinks up at him, startled. He feels a notch of uncertainty form in the pit of his stomach under the abrupt force of that blue-eyed stare. It renders him into a fumbling mess, trying to find the right words to counter back with. “I – “
“Just a simple thank you would be enough,” Lance interrupts. “We’re past that whole ‘being testy with each other’ shit. I didn’t go through two weeks of following your questionable leadership skills and having to pull you back from diving headfirst off every cliff just to end up back to square one.” Here, he pauses to jab a thumb into Keith’s chest plate. “We’ve gotten better at listening to each other. Good team and all, remember?”
“I – guess you’re right.” Keith lets out an exhale. “But that doesn’t mean – “
Whatever he’s about to say is cut off by the unmistakable sound of a plasma gun being fired up several yards away. Both boys share a wide-eyed look, and Lance peers over the outcropping of rocks that they’ve tucked themselves behind.
“Looks like those Galra mercs are sending more of their friends our way to throw us off their trail. Numbers don’t seem too bad, but – ah, quiznak , I think they’ve gotten a hold of one of those ion cannons. How the hell did they get that out here?” he shakes his head. “Never mind. We could probably call for Red right now, but…”
“He’s already taken the brunt of heavy artillery this week,” Keith finishes. “Another round of ionized plasma will probably jeopardize some of his external functions. Gotta figure something else out.”
Lance nods, face rearranging into a dead-serious expression. “We need to find another way to get past these mercs and into Red without being spotted. You’re going to need medical attention, too. Stat. Any suggestions?”
Keith opens his mouth.
“Anything that doesn’t include squeezing the trigger out in the open and making a hard-ass run for it with no actual plan?”
Keith closes his mouth.
Lance smirks. “Thought so.”
Even through the throbbing pain at his temple, Keith still finds the energy to roll his eyes skyward. He lets Lance pull him into a crouch, one hand resting on his elbow and the other against the towering rocks next to him. The good thing about this planet’s terrain is that, while it’s barren and plain of any permanent life forms, most of its surface is covered in colossal chunks of glossy, jet-black rock. Ugly as they may be, they’ve so far proven to be useful for cover.
“They know we’re here somewhere, but not exactly where,” Keith says slowly, taking in the sporadic location of the rocks around them. “Lance, do you remember that drill Coran made us do last month?”
Immediately, Lance’s eyes light up. “Ooh, ricocheting the ammo so that the targets don’t know our location. These rocks are perfect for that!”
“Think you can do it?”
At Lance’s offended expression, Keith reaches out and gently flicks him on the nose as he says, “I’m only kidding.”
“You better be,” Lance says with a dainty lift of his chin. The movement causes Keith’s finger to slip down and rest directly between the space where Lance’s mouth parts. He’s about to retract it, but Lance – that asshole – flashes a lightning quick grin and actually bites down against the tip of his gloved finger. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like they aren’t in the middle of a stupid escape attempt.
Keith snatches his hand back, his face an expression that’s torn between half-amused, half-exasperated. Despite how hard he tries to fight off the smile, his traitorous lips still tug upwards. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I rest between the ridiculous and the sublime, buddy. It’s an art.”
Lance tugs on his helmet before gently doing the same for Keith, batting his hand away when he makes a mild noise of protest.
Keith spends the next few moments watching Lance sling his rifle onto his shoulder, but his mind is on the blood covering the side of his head. He’s not entirely sure, but judging by the amount of red drenching the now discarded cloth, a concussion isn’t far out of the realm of possibility. He’s no stranger to head injuries – he’s had his fair share of them on reconnaissance missions with Kolivan and the rest of the Blade members. But losing consciousness and forcing Lance to carry his dead weight in the middle of a crossfire isn’t exactly the way he wants things to go down.
“Count of three,” Lance says. “I’m going to release fire on those inner circles of rock. They’ll be too distracted trying to pinpoint the backfire’s location to notice us slipping around the outer circle. But we gotta be quick.”
Keith grunts in lieu of a reply, and when Lance helps him up, forcing them both to keep their heads low in the process, he feels a wave of dizziness threatening to buckle his knees. The moments that follow pass by so fast they’re almost a blur. He hears Lance count to three under his breath. He hears the rifle humming to life and releasing at rapid-fire speed, the steady crack, crack, crack of each blast leaving a hollow-like ringing in his ears. He feels Lance whirling him around and seizing his hand, threading their fingers together like a single afterthought hasn’t been given to the gesture.
“Snap out of it, Keith. We’re hitting the ground at a hard run. Think you can keep up?”
That gets Keith’s attention. He’s not even finished his retort before they’re already sprinting, the jagged rocks around them melting into nothing but inky-black blurs. Sound and touch begin to trickle in and out from Keith’s senses.
They eventually pause so that Lance can determine which path to cut through next, and Keith takes this as his opportunity for a quick breather. Beneath his helmet, his bangs are slick with sweat and blood, sticking against his forehead. It’s suffocating and he doesn’t think he can take it any longer, so he pulls the stupid thing off and lets the dry breeze tickle his ears.
Lance’s gaze flicks over to him. His eyes are still blazing with the rush of excitement from a battle, somehow making the blue of his irises even more vivid and bright. Like liquified summer skies, Keith thinks absently, then snorts to himself.
He decides that he likes this version of Lance, too, if not more. Face stained with sweat, jaw set in determination, and an expression that reads 'come at me motherfuckers’ in the cheeky and playful kind of way that only a boy as unwittingly charming as Lance can pull off.
Keith is observant when he wants to be, which is generally only when he’s in the midst of combat. He's trained himself to tune out distractions. But Lance? Lance is the kind of person whose entire demeanor just begs to be observed. He's the kind of distraction that feels so much more destructive to Keith's heart than he wants to admit. The simple, restless way his too-long arms wave around when he’s talking. The way his shoulders roll when he’s annoyed or the endearing way he never fails to toe his sneakers off a little too fast. The way his smile always glints, first in his eyes before curving the corner of his mouth. It catches Keith off-guard, being able to glimpse these alternative versions of Lance and yet never quite feeling like he’s seen all of him yet.
Maybe Lance isn’t just someone that demands to be observed. Maybe, to people like Keith, who have fallen a little too hard and a little too painfully, Lance is —
“See something you like?”
Keith’s heart retracts. He lets his gaze fall down to the curve of Lance’s lips, just for a single heartbeat, before he lets it fall away completely, choosing instead to focus on his dirt-caked knees.
He says, “No. Your face isn’t really that interesting.”
To his surpirse, Lance huffs out a small laugh.
“Try not to let too many drops of blood fall to the ground,” he says after another intake of breath. He inclines his head towards Keith’s head. “You could be leaving an easy trail.”
“Right, ‘cause I’m bleeding all over the place for shits and giggles.”
“Ugh, Keith. Please don’t joke and bleed at the same time.”
Keith spits out a mouthful of copper-tinged saliva before grabbing hold of Lance’s palm again. “Please don’t tell me what to do.”
Without another glance backward, they’re off again, feet thudding heavily against the unforgivably hard ground. Keith’s hair flies back against the whoosh of air, and he belatedly realizes he should’ve kept his helmet on, because now his eyes are stinging and he can’t see shit.
He doesn’t know if he’s imagining it or if it’s some crazy side effect of his head injury, but he swears he can feel Lance’s fingers lacing through his once more, followed by a hard, reassuring squeeze that would’ve made Keith react a lot differently in different circumstances.
His head is pounding. His vision is becoming hazy, and it feels like he’s going to keel over at any moment. But when he spares a sideway glance at the blue-armoured boy next to him, he doesn’t feel scared. Or maybe scared isn’t exactly the right word. More like worried. He’s not worried about bleeding out or getting struck down. Perhaps it’s because he’s truly an idiot, or maybe it’s the adrenaline pumping like jet fuel through his veins, but he thinks that if there’s anyone he’d choose to run away from danger with, scraped and bloodied and bruised like hell, it would have to be Lance.
>>>
“If you're going to knock down my suggestion, you'd better have a good replacement.”
“As a matter of fact, yes, I do have a better plan.”
“Lance, for the last time, we’ve already vetoed it. I’m only being rational here, which is clearly a quality you lack –“
“Oh, that’s rich coming from someone whose primary tactic is –“
“Hey, wing nuts!” Pidge’s voice rings out between them. “Cool it, will you? We’re in the middle of something here, if you haven’t noticed.”
Keith doesn’t tear his attention away from Lance. Their gazes strike like flint and steel. If possible, Lance’s glare becomes even more intense, and in that moment Keith suddenly feels like they’re gearing up for a race in their lions.
Hunk stifles a sigh from behind. “Guys, seriously. What’s been up with you two this past week? I’m starting to wonder if we’ve wormholed our way back to our first days in space.”
“Ask Keith,” Lance says with a jut of his chin. There’s just the slightest hint of mockery in his tone, and something unnameable hardens in Keith’s gut as he watches Lance plant a firm hand on his hip and stomp away from the team’s little huddle.
It takes all his willpower to stop himself from going after Lance just to fling back a retort. He takes a breath. Patience yields focus . Adding another layer of tension in the middle of their subterranean operation isn’t what’s needed right now. He presses his lips into a tight line and curls his fingers around the hilt of his sword, following Hunk and Pidge behind an old scrap of spaceship metal. It’s dark and the only source of light are the synchronized pulses of blue coming from the crystals above them, but Keith can clearly make out the scowl on Lance’s face and the obvious tension of his shoulders, like he’s consciously making the decision to be as stubborn as he can by straying afar.
Keith doesn’t know what to do with this kind of change. He doesn’t know what to do with the sudden 180 degree turn that Lance’s attitude has taken. It’s exhausting trying to pinpoint exactly why he and Lance started to become less of a crime-fighting duo and more of two snarling wolves picking petty fights. But he does know that whatever this is, whatever they’ve lapsed into – it runs deeper than the urge to push one another’s buttons just to get a satisfied rise out of it.
The week after his duo mission with Lance had gone by in a blur, and as far as he’s concerned, nothing notable happened apart from another run in with Acxa and her two other comrades. He has, however, become acutely aware of the shift in his and Lance’s interactions. At first, it was easy enough to ignore, and Keith chalked it up to just simple awkwardness regarding their sudden touchiness with each other – like, say, holding hands and playfully bumping shoulders and hips. But then – well. Then things just snowballed from there.
Things evolved from awkward to uncomfortable. It prompted an unspoken breach to crack open between them. It wasn't the kind of thing that neither one could quite ignore, really. And then, because they’re Keith and Lance, they lapsed into their old selves, bickering and getting under each other’s skin. Because it’s them. Always skirting around the edge of an active volcano, just a misstep away from spilling magma like blood from an unclosed wound.
No amount of bonding moments, affectionate teasing, and a hidden exchange of shy smiles can stop them from boiling down anything into an argument.
As the ground rumbles beneath his feet, scattering loose pieces of crystals from above, Keith tells himself that it’ll all blow over soon. They’re friends. Friends bicker and hold hands when they’re running away from danger all the time.
Their target finally emerges from one of the tunnels. Its scabrous head swings side to side and sends chunks of crystals flying everywhere. Its giant maw blows out a huff of air so big that it nearly makes Keith’s hair stand on end, even from this distance. Hunk yells for Lance to get back and threatens to serve him unseasoned food goo for the rest of his life, to which Lance promptly responds with an annoyed roll of his shoulders. He eventually relents and joins their huddle again, albeit huffily.
“It’s much bigger than I thought it would be,” Pidge observes, mouth twisting into a frown.
Hunk adjusts his visor. “You guys think we should lure it onto the surface instead? Underground fights always leave me at a disadvantage, just saying.”
“Yeah, as much I would love to destroy corpse-breath over there, i don’t think we have much of a chance in here,” Lance says. “It’s the size of freaking Wal-Mart.”
Keith snorts. “Corpse-breath?”
“Yeah, yeah. I get a little poetic sometimes.” Lance gives a disdainful sniff. He doesn’t lift his gaze from the glint of his rifle. “I think it’s just the atmosphere.”
As the mission continues, Keith would like to say that he hones in on the task at hand completely – slashing, kicking, and thrusting all of his energy into the fight. Exchanging pointers with Hunk and Pidge through the intercoms. Creating a slight incision on the creature’s tail to extract its thick, sap-like venom in the tiny vials they’d all been instructed to bring along.
But Keith’s always been susceptible to Lance’s jabs, never able to stop himself from giving in to the push-and-pull of each rebuttal. It’s like some sort of Lance-automated response – Lance shoots a retort, Keith parries back with twice as much venom.
“Are you serious? I had that fucking shot, Keith. Stop hauling ass on my side of the fight.”
“Would you just calm down? It was in my range –“
“I’ll calm down when you tell your ego to go take a hike!”
“My ego? I’m not the one being a pissbaby here. The world doesn’t revolve around you and your ridiculous need for attention. We’ve been over this.”
Lance ducks just in time to avoid the swing of the creature’s tail. “It should go without saying that stealing someone’s blow is bad form!”
“Are we really talking about form right now? Here? I’m just trying to protect you!”
“You always have to go out and be all damn heroic, huh?” There’s knife-sharp edge to Lance’s voice. “Look at me! I’m Keith, aviation deity and the most exceptional soldier in this entire goddamn universe! I don’t need to listen to anyone, least of all Lance, the self-absorbed, loud-mouthed seventh wheel! Or maybe ninth now, with Lotor and Matt in the equation.”
“I’ve never said anything like that, and you know it.”
“Please, it doesn’t need to be said.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Keith’s patience finally snaps as he wheels onto Lance, and he doesn’t miss the grim satisfaction curling its way around the edges of Lance’s mouth.
What are you talking about? Keith wants to yell. There’s a strange, jarring mixture of confusion and restlessness sprouting inside of him, and a part of him wants to stamp it down so he can march over to Lance and shake him. Shake him and tell him that he isn’t some seventh or ninth or any kind of wheel.
But another part of him, the one that’s still too diffused and sad to allow himself to love Lance, rears its ugly head up.
In a way, it’s almost a relief. Lance instigating another fight with him feels like he’s back on solid ground. It feels good and it’s freeing and compared to the hopeless flutters in his chest, this is something familiar. Something controllable, a game he and Lance are good at and, most of all, a game that distracts him from his mess of feelings.
He isn’t even sure what the argument turns into, because all the words blur together and everything that’s exchanged between battling the creature and ducking beneath its tail becomes an incomprensible blob that barely registers in his mind.
All he knows is that arguing with Lance is like being one of two ballet dancers in a gunfight. They circle each other with elegance, feigning and pirouetting and setting up the fatal shot. Lance is usually the one to fire it point-blank to Keith’s chest. Keith accepts his wounds with the grace of a seasoned soldier, and the pseudo dance resumes.
It doesn't end well.
>>>
“–And I don’t see why he just won’t admit that his stupid mullet is so outdated and completely stupid! Like, that thing should be a prehistoric relic with the way it’s been groomed. Hunk speculated that it’s really soft – like the promises in magazines – but that’s just crazy talk. I mean, sure, it’s shiny, but that could just be sweat, you know? He’s always sweating.”
Allura takes a dainty sip of her milkshake before giving a small hum of acknowledgement. She swishes the contents of her cup around thoughtfully, dazzling blue eyes fixated on Lance with the kind of intensity that makes him fidget in his seat and knot his fingers together.
“Lance,” she says, in that lilting accent that makes his name sound more like Lonce. “I do not understand why you’re so distressed over this fight with Keith. You two have become close friends and get into little squabbles all the time. Why is this any different?”
“I’m not distressed,” Lance says huffily. “And I don’t know. This doesn’t really feel little. Every time I look at Keith now I just – ugh – feel this weird current go through me? I feel like it’s some alien virus I’ve contracted. Or maybe It’s constipation? That’s gotta be it, right?”
Allura simply arches a brow, and Lance resists the urge to pick at his face mask and crinkle his nose. Normally, his go-to buddy for relaxation and facials would be Hunk, but he’s recently found that Allura isn’t that bad of a companion either. Her face doesn’t need detoxifying or any of that deep-cleansing, but she insisted on trying out his regimen and became fascinated with how the result made her skin so dewy. Now, it’s become somewhat of a regular thing for them to come into the kitchen during the castleship’s night cycle and complain about trivial stuff over milkshakes. Most of the complaining is on Lance’s end.
“Have you ever considered that maybe what you’re feeling around Keith isn’t what you think it is?”
“What do you mean?”
Allura points to her milkshake cup, indicating its emptiness, and Lance dutifully refills it from the large jug next to him and adds in as much froth at the top as he can, just the way she likes it. He slides it over to her, then starts to tap his fingernails against the tabletop, impatient for her reply.
“Well,” she starts, swooping her long, silvery mane away from her sticky face. “I believe that you are simply pushing down your actual feelings for Keith by trying to rekindle your rivalry with him.”
Lance gawks at her. “My feelings?”
“Yes? Surely, you can’t be that clueless. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
“I don’t – I don’t –“ Lance splutters, hands gesticulating wildly in front of him, mouth popping open and closed like a flabbergasted goldfish.
Allura continues watching his floundering with a small tilt of her lips, amusement clearly written on her face. Lance wants to vehemently deny all of this and inform her, with great emphasis, that his ‘feelings’ for Keith are synonymous with annoyance and dislike. He wants to say that he has a crush on her, but the words quickly die on his lips. He knows that those feelings had ebbed away long ago.
With a firm shake of his head, he takes a giant swig of his milkshake, forcing the overly-sweetened cream down his throat and trying not to choke on it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he finally rasps out, determined to hide his expression behind his cup.
“If you say so,” Allura says. For a moment, he thinks she’ll drop the subject, but then she meets his gaze again. “But I find it very odd that you can’t stop talking about him and search for his face every time you enter a room, even after a fight.”
“I don’t recall any such thing,” Lance says primly, setting his cup down. He tries to scowl, but the face mask is preventing him from contorting the entirety of his mouth, so he settles for folding his arms across his chest.
“You find Keith handsome, do you not? Perhaps you want to gaze deeply into his eyes – what colour are they again?” she taps a fingernail against the underside of her chin. “Grey?”
“Violet,” Lance mumbles, hunching his shoulders.
“Just violet?”
“Well, no, he’s got flecks of grey in them too, like gunmetal. And a bit of indigo as well? But that’s only if you look at them really closely and the light reflects off the irises just right, otherwise it’s easy to miss and –“ Lance stops short, catching sight of the smirk on Allura’s face, and he wonders why it isn’t his god-given bisexual right to keep himself from being such an impulsive babbler.
“That doesn’t clarify anything,” he says, fighting back a pout. “So what if I think he’s kind of attractive? Anyone with eyes can see that. It’s not like I’m in love with him or anything.”
“I never claimed you were in love with him.”
“Well – whatever.” Lance lifts his chin and pretends not to notice the sparkle in Allura’s eyes. “I’m not.”
He rakes his fingers through his hair and grabs a fistful, pulling at it in frustration. He doesn’t want to think about this. He doesn’t want to think about Keith. But it’s been two days of slamming doors and avoiding any semblance of social interaction with each other, and Lance is kind of going crazy. He has to give Allura credit, though. She’s not entirely wrong about him wanting to rekindle their rivalry, even if it’s always been one-sided.
It’s not being into boys that concerns Lance. That, he’s known long before his enrollment into the Garrison. He’d told his sister Veronica, with hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, that although he prefers girls most of the time, he wouldn’t mind being with boys, either. It was put plain and simple.
“As a lesbian,” his sister had said, ruffling his hair, “I just want to say that I am so glad I don’t have to be the only person in the family who’s not straight.”
And that was that.
But what bothers him is that this is Keith. Keith, the hothead. Keith, who can unfairly pull off the ‘armed and dangerous’ demeanor without even trying. Who pauses too long before laughing at a joke and rolls his eyes so much that sometimes Lance worries about his ocular health. Keith, a boy who is too hell-bent on saving the universe and protecting everyone around him to possibly care about romance, of all things.
Unease itches its way up his chest.
“No way,” he declares aloud. “I can’t be interested in Keith that way. It just – doesn’t make sense. Do you know how different we are? I mean, come on!”
Allura pulls her legs up against her chest, artfully smoothing down the folds of her nightgown with just a skim of her fingers. “You humans have quite a tendency for being in denial,” she remarks. “But I think I’m going to disagree with you there. On the contrary, I’m quite surprised you two bumbling boozles haven’t figured it out.”
Lance politely decides not to ask what a bumbling boozle is supposed to be.
“You and Keith hold each other accountable — you force each other to admit to your wrongdoings. You are… what is the word?” she pauses to think for a moment, then holds up her hand. She makes a V with her index and middle fingers before slowly bringing them together. “Compatible.”
“Seriously?” Lance says, incredulous.
“You two may be different and clash constantly, but you also migrate toward each other. It’s just a natural kind of chemistry.” She gives him a full-on bedazzled smile, the kind she presents to the royals on diplomatic missions, but it’s hard to take seriously with the milk moustache she’s currently sporting on top of her green face mask.
Balancing his elbows on the edge of the table, Lance opens his mouth to fling back a counterstatement. Closes it. Squeezes his eyes shut. Drags in a long, deep breath, then slowly releases it.
“Compatible,” he repeats, rolling the word around on his tongue. It feels foreign. “Keith and me. Compatible. That can’t be it.” Part of him wants to laugh. The other wants to curl up in the fetal position and wail.
“Perhaps you should –”
“No, no. Wait. What’s his zodiac sign again? That’ll tell me about our compatibility for sure. Like, I know astrology is fake or whatever, but it’s got to have some truth, right?”
Allura looks a bit skeptical, but maybe that’s just because she has no idea what he’s going on about.
He snaps his fingers and says, “Scorpio! He’s a Scorpio. I definitely remember them not being the best contenders for romance. I’ve gotta ask Hunk to prepare some data and charts from research and then maybe he can –”
“Lance. I think you are missing the point.”
“No, I’m not.” He points an accusing finger at her. “Stop it, Allura.”
She arches a questioning brow.
“You’re trying to make me talk about my feelings.”
“So?”
“So, you’re not Oprah. Leave my poor feelings alone.”
Her eyes narrow. “What is an Oprah?”
“She’s – you know what, never mind. I think we’ve left these masks on for too long. I am so not in the mood to get dry patches on my T-zone again.”
With that, the discussion is abruptly drawn to a close, and as Lance walks over to the sink, raking his hair back away from his forehead, he makes a pointed effort to remain as nonchalant as he can, if only to stop Allura from giving him those all-too-knowing looks.
He scoffs. Compatible.