Chapter Text
[LANCE]
Friday morning arrived with Lance lacking in sleep, having stayed up in the back-and-forth of panic of “oh god please don’t let me mess this up,” and “fuck I have three exams tomorrow.” A fairly potent concoction to cure hypersomnia, he noted.
Lance arrived to Allegheny Station first; he hadn’t slept a wink, so with three cups of coffee at home and another in a disposal cup he picked up at the convenience store, he ended up arriving at the station absurdly early. 7:15 AM. Probably the earliest he’d ever shown up, but he was restless and he couldn’t stand sitting in his apartment any longer.
The lilac-tint evoked by wintery dawn, warming the usual steely blue of metropolitan mornings was, in his opinion, worth the early start. The city was beginning to rise, a cacophonic backdrop of cars and people on cell-phones, joggers and dog-walkers braving the biting cold, cafes that were already lined out the door. His breath was a steady fog and his mind was surprisingly clear, his skin chilled but chest satisfyingly warm.
The whole meditative time helped him to settle while he waited for Keith, and two trains ended up coming and going before his not-boyfriend arrived.
“Hey,” Keith said from behind in his usual form of greeting. “Oh. You have coffee.”
“Yeah, almost done with it, too. I needed the – ” Lance stopped, blinking down at Keith’s hands. Both of them were filled today. In one, he had his usual galvanized steel thermos, and in the other, a large, disposal red cup with a white lid. On the side, in scribbled marker, was his name scrawled into the side of a cup. “You got me… Starbucks?”
“Uh, well, I thought – you have most of your exams today, and you said probably wouldn't sleep well. I got up early. There’s one outside my building, so… yes?”
Lance chugged the remainder of his drink – there was really only three solid sips left – and threw it into the nearest garbage can.
Making a swish-sound effect and flipping his hand like a basketball player, Lance’s caffeine- addled brain prompted him to call out, “Jordan!”
Keith huffed a laugh and turned away with the cups, cracking a grin. “How much coffee have you had already? Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“Keith, my man,” Lance began to sing-song the words, slinking closer like a predator with prey in its sight. “My buddy, light of my mornings, the Vegeta to my Goku,”
“Please stop.”
“Ross to my Rachel,”
“I have no idea who these people are.”
“Kacchan to my Deku,”
“Did you just – ?”
“Franco to my Rogen,”
“Lance, I swear to god.” Keith began backing towards the nearest trash-can (the very same Lance had just three-pointered, thank you very much), holding the cup over the bin.
Conceding with a wide grin, Lance almost pounced at him to rescue the precious caffeine from Keith’s cruelty. “Give me that fucking cup of coffee. Right fucking now.”
Keith slowly, warily, extended the red cup towards him, a look of deep regret carved into the lines of his scowl that was, frankly, too funny not to laugh at. So Lance laughed, snatched the cup, and Keith decidedly aimed a punch at his shoulder. Lance captured his fist before it could make contact, however, lacing their fingers together with the most shit-eating grin he could pull.
“This will be my fifth cup, thanks,” Lance stated, and the other boy simply huffed and rolled his eyes, the ghost of a smile cracking through his mask of annoyance.
With the exception of Lance’s now jittery hands and feet, their morning proceeded almost conspicuously normal. Keith was going in for that meeting with his advisor, so he hadn’t brought a bookbag or anything, and Lance went through his schedule of exams for the day. By the time the train was arriving, they’d shifted topics to the more pressing matter of the Christmas party.
“So, the plan is, what, we’ll do what we do every day, right? Just, you know, this,” Lance lifted their joined hands as they settled into their usual place on the train. “And if anyone asks, we’re together?”
Keith bit his lip and nodded, scowling at their hands like they had someone personally offended him. “That’s… yeah. I guess so.”
“Mmm. Cool. Cool cool cool.” Pausing, Lance did a quick scan of the map on the wall. “You said they’re in Baltimore? How do you usually get there?”
“Oh, right. Let me look up the boarding times.” Keith frowned at the same map before sighing and releasing Lance’s hand, fishing around his jacket pocket for his phone.
Bemused, Lance looked over his shoulder while he opened the transit app. “You don’t plan your trips in advance? Like, at all?”
“Don’t really need to,” he replied absently. “This whole strip of the East coast has pretty good transit. You could hop on a train and in a few hours be almost anywhere.”
The topic of coordinating how they would meet for Adam’s took up the remainder of their time until they reached Keith’s stop. They agreed to meet at their usual station to purchase tickets, and from there, they would walk to the APSTA line about a half-mile south. Lance had never been to Baltimore, but it was supposedly just an hour away, give or take a ten minutes. The party began at five, but Keith vowed he would not show up any earlier than 5:30 PM (to avoid as much of the initial start-of-party awkwardness as possible). The closest time that would accommodate Keith’s commitment to being fashionably late – (“Please never say that again.”) – meant they would take the APSTA 4:25 train, arrive in downtown Baltimore around 5:30, and walk the remaining ten minutes or so.
It was supposed to snow, of course, because that would be just their fucking luck.
Apparently, a Wright Family Christmas was quite the ordeal, and judging by Keith’s impressive deadpan expression when he explained the whole set-up, it sounded like the kind of thing he would hate, but more importantly, exactly like the kind of thing Lance would absolutely love.
Adam’s parents, and some combination of his aunts and uncles, would rent out an event space in one of the big hotels – probably a Hyatt or Four Seasons or some fancy shit like that – enough to provide space for at least a hundred people.
“Christ, and I thought McClain Christmases were a big deal. We’ve got like, thirty people, tops.”
Keith nodded gravely. “Adam’s family is… well, they’re pretty loaded but they’re also pretty, uh, generous, I guess? They’re very much the sort of, ‘the more the merrier’ types. Hence his insistence that you come along.”
“Hey!” Lance nudged him in the ribs. “Maybe he insisted because he thought I seemed like good boyfriend material, ass.”
With a smug grin, Keith took a quick sip of his coffee as the train slowed for his stop. “Doubtful.”
“I hate you,” Lance reminded with a scowl, and the other boy just laughed. It was such a cute fucking sound that it was one-hundred percent decidedly unfair, and Lance would like to file a formal complaint with their divine creator on the matter.
(First of all, where do you get off adding so much ‘I’m hot but also cute and smart’ when you decided to craft this beautiful, mulleted asshole? Did they find it funny? Because Lance’s heart sure didn’t; he felt the on-rushing cardiac episode creep closer with every passing day.)
“I know.” Keith shot him a smile that could – probably would – break his heart into little itty bitty pieces, squeezing his fingers lightly before heading off the train.
[KEITH]
Keith didn’t have a meeting with his thesis advisor. They met yesterday after his last exam and tied up a few of the theoretical materials before he would submit the proposal for review after the break, so for all intents and purposes, he was done with school the remainder of the year.
So what if he woke up early on his first Friday of break to ride the train with Lance? Maybe Keith made up a little white lie about it. Not a big deal, okay?
In Keith’s defense, when he originally told Lance he planned on meeting with his advisor, he’d only done it because he thought Friday would be the last day they’d both be in town together for almost three weeks. Keith wanted to spend a little more time with him, okay? Sue him.
And, okay, there was the coffee thing, too. Lance had mentioned liking Starbucks at one point, ever-envious of Keith’s morning coffee, so yeah, okay, he stopped in and bought him one. It wasn’t a huge deal. The drink might not have even been good – he really had no idea what to order or how Lance even liked his coffee, so he resorted to letting the barista decide.
It was, in a roundabout way, Keith’s fault for all of this. He should have spoken up when Lance… socially ambushed him in front of Adam, or perhaps he shouldn’t have started them on the testy waters of fake-dating in the first place. So this was his version of an apology.
And, well, if he maybe he thought Lance was a little cute when he was hyper, that was just a bonus. He was definitely extra annoying… but cute. Like a really excitable puppy, but instead of petting, you just want to kiss the hell out of him.
Ugh.
Okay. Fine. Maybe this was a little more than just admiration. Maybe Keith was a little bit weak for his smile and stupid jokes, or the curved tip of his nose and the smatter of the freckles patterned over his cheekbones. Maybe what Keith really wanted was to shut him up with a kiss instead of just squeezing his hand – not that he was complaining – but god if Lance’s lips didn’t look soft.
After Lance had pressed a kiss into Keith’s fingers in front of Adam, it was all he could fucking do not to just kiss him.
Keith’s lips were chapped and dry, subject to his own nervous picking and biting. The quick press of Lance’s lips, by comparison, had felt like lush, softened clay, like the kind he used to spin in pottery class in high school. Warm and malleable and aching to be molded and touched and tested.
Fuck. He really wanted Lance, didn’t he?
Sighing, Keith looked back at his own reflection in the paneled glass that lined 30th Street Station. He had dated before, but the more he tried to draw comparisons to those experiences, it just made him feel a little more unsure about the whole thing; the notches in his own metaphorical belt had mostly just ended up in cheap, meaningless sex. Which, for then-Keith, was fine, and maybe exactly what he needed at the time. Regretting things now wouldn’t do him much good, so he tried to just take the experiences as what they were – his younger self, doing younger, dumb things.
What he had with Lance wasn’t like that at all.
(Don’t misunderstand, because, oh, yes, Keith very much wanted that, too, but it was never near the front of his attention when they were together.)
They were all small touches, quick glances, chased away smirks and lots of laughter; they weren’t a good match, not complementary in the traditional sense, but that sort of made the whole thing even better. Lance brought out different types of anger and playfulness and even warmth Keith didn’t know he had, because everything he felt with Lance was always reactionary and he had never met anyone remotely like Lance before.
For as perfectly collected as Keith at least tried to act, he realized that Lance may be onto his… ulterior motives.
There was no way for him to tell if it was intentional or not. If it wasn’t, it was the world’s best accident; if it was, maybe that meant Lance was at least humoring the idea? Because while Keith loved the olive-green jacket that he’d grown to associate with Lance, it was absent today, along with his usual dozen or so changes of sweatshirts and jeans that Keith had gotten used to seeing in the mornings.
No, see, tonight, Lance dressed well. Like, really well. The sort of I’m-happy-to-be-seen-out-in-public-with-you level of well, because, Christ – pretend or not, Keith would be shamelessly proud to be mistaken for Lance’s boyfriend when he looked that good.
He wore dark gray slacks and dress shirt of the same shade, a simple but high-quality frosty blue tie that looked way too fucking good with his bright eyes, and a well-fitted charcoal colored coat, long enough to be formal but not so much that it looked ridiculous. The usual little curls of his bangs that framed his face had been tamed somewhat, not to the point where it seemed unnatural, but just smoothed and styled lightly.
The best accessory was that damning smile, though. It was like a jolt straight to Keith’s fucking heart when he spotted Lance waiting outside the station doors at Allegheny, who hadn’t noticed him immediately, absently nodding his head to some nonexistent beat, but when he noticed Keith approach? Just, fucking, wow.
I want to kiss him.
But he didn’t, not yet, even if his hands practically itched with the temptation to reach out and hold Lance’s chin and guide his lips to Keith’s own. It was maddening.
“Hi,” Lance said with a big breath, like it had been fucking months since they’d seen each other, and to be suddenly reunited was like a breath of fresh air. Did he have any idea how much Keith wanted him? Any clue at all? It was impossible to tell when he looked so fucking happy about everything.
Keith managed a response after a slight pause, smiling belatedly. “Hey. Tickets?”
“Got ‘em already, actually. I figured it’s a little bit of paying you back for… well… the coffee, and embarrassing you in front of Adam. Call us even?”
Keith was so surprised he had nothing to say, just blinked owlishly as a high-gloss ASPTA trip pass was placed into his open hand.
“Oh. Well. Thanks, then. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Uh, duh, I know that,” Lance scoffed like Keith had just insulted his intelligence somehow, already marching due South towards the ASPTA line. A crooked smile was tossed over his shoulder. “Now let’s go already Mullet or we’ll be even more fashionably late.”
They were not more fashionably late, for the record. Well, no – they weren’t fashionably anything. (Maybe Lance was fashionable something? But they definitely weren’t fashionably late.) Cut Keith some slack, yeah? The idea of having to show up right when all the other guests began awkwardly trickling in sounded especially painful; if they showed up just a little later, then the family could start to section themselves off into little groups of chatty older women and the bawdy-scotch drinking men – granted, there were only a handful of each of these in Adam’s extended family, it was still plenty too much for Keith’s tastes.
In fact, most of the Wright family were actually pretty nice – so long as you could get past the slight uppish atmosphere, the fancy drinks and dress, the high-flown language – they had always been nothing but nice to Keith since Shiro entered their family, and he by association. Adam had always treated him like as a s ort of little brother, and the general sentiment extended to Adam’s various cousins and aunts, uncles and grandparents. They weren’t the most tolerable lot, but it would be an falsehood to outright say Keith didn’t like them.
Now, bearing that in mind, it was also true that Keith was not entirely sociable, even under ideal circumstances, so he actually was grateful for Lance’s company (not just for the obvious reasons, okay?)
Lance was a little quieter on the train into Baltimore than their usual commute, but Keith supposed that was likely a product of combined travel time and nerves. It was a longer ride than either of them were used to taking together, so the conversation tapered off naturally around the half-hour mark, at which point Keith could practically hear the little ‘ding’ of a lightbulb going off above Lance’s head when he nearly leapt in place, digging around in his jacket pockets and drawing out some headphones.
Keith didn’t think much of it – he usually listened to music on the train, especially to Shiro and Adam’s (or, occasionally, we would put on that podcast Shiro recommended to him, Things They Don’t Want You to Know, which was actually pretty good as far as his feeding his on-going interest in cryptids). It wasn’t until Lance was poking his arm, a headphone flopping loosely in his hand, that Keith realized he intended to share his music with him.
The thought made his heart flutter, just a little, and he accepted with a small smile. He could get used to this.
Upon arriving at the downtown station in Baltimore, the two fumbled their way to the nearest exit and stood outside of the station. Keith punched in the address to the hotel on his phone and led them towards W Biddle St. and Calvert, upon which the monstrosity of a hotel took up most of the city block, but, due to the snow, their progress walking there was a little slow-going. The sidewalks had been shoveled, but Baltimore wasn’t quite as addled with pedestrians to pound its salted pavements flat and dry, so both boys took to the occasional high-stepping through other people’s foot tracks — Lance looked a little too frozen by the time they arrived, but he insisted that he was fine so Keith could do little but begrudgingly accept his explanation.
Inside The Ivy, the lobby appeared mildly festive, just the right amount of secular Christmas so as not alienate any one group too much. The Wrights had their Christmas party here two years ago, so Keith vaguely remembered what to do. As he walked forward to the desk to check-in, he vaguely realized that Lance had floated away, gazing around the lobby, eyes tracing the lights and poinsettias that lined the walls, picking up a complementary cup of hot cocoa by the elevators.
“Good evening. Can I help you?” The concierge greeted him with the perfect amount of professionalism. Her gold-plated name-tag was engraved with a smartly printed script, reading Mira.
“Uh, I’m just checking in for the Wright event. Adam Wright and Takashi Shirogane usually reserve a block of rooms?”
“Oh, of course,” Mira chirped dutifully, fingers flying over her keyboard. “Name?”
“Last name Kogane.” After a thoughtful pause, he added, “The room is usually a single, but it might be a double this year.”
Mira hummed, her head rocking back and forth while she searched. “Mmm. Oh, nope, looks like it’s a single suite, just on the floor above the Mezzanine — that’s where the reserved space should be. Room is M1 012. One key card is standard for single suits, but will you need a key card for your…?”
She leaned around him, eyebrow raised at Lance who had since struck up a conversation with the doorman. Keith could barely stop from rolling his eyes – couldn’t he just stand still for literally five minutes?
Sighing, Keith looked back to her. “My boyfriend, yes. Maybe a third key. He’s sort of forgetful.”
“Oh I know how that is,” Mira nodded seriously. “There you go. Three keys, and they should deactivate at check out tomorrow, so you don’t have to worry about returning them. There’s a list beside the dresser for the operator and room service, and the front desk is always staffed if you need anything at all.”
With a sincere, if not slightly nervous, smile, Keith accepted the cards and turned away.
“Lance?” He called carefully, almost alarmed at how quickly the discussion with the doorman had turned intense, both nodding gravely as they discussed… something. “You ready?”
“Oh, yeah, ‘course. Happy holidays,” Lance nodded towards the man who bowed his head with a smile.
“Same to you, enjoy your party.”
“Will do!” Lance gave a thumbs up as he slid back up besides Keith, who had both brows raised as they set off towards the elevators.
Lance gave him a look. “What?”
“You don’t have to make friends with literally every stranger you meet, you know that, right?”
At that, the tanned-skinned boy scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Of course I do, but it’s easy to make conversation with people on the job. Imagine having to work right now? Wouldn’t you be interested in some friendly conversation that isn’t just holding the door open for rich people?”
Keith couldn’t really argue with that, so he just kept his focus forward and went towards the elevators, jamming his finger on the button for Mezzanine. At such a place as this, they’d ditched their bags immediately upon arrival, surely already having been moved to their rooms.
Once they stepped off the elevator, Keith had to physically drag Lance out by the wrist, his jaw going slack and his eyes wide at the reception on the other side of the golden doors, glossed to perfection. In fairness, Keith couldn’t really blame him for his reaction, as even after all these years the sight was still stunning, the brightest, most opulent version of winter permeating the very air, rich with the flavors of excess. From just a quick breath, he could already taste with the general tang of alcoholic bitters mixed with the cloying sweets of every manner of bite-sized confections, nutmeg and cinnamon and cider and eggnog already being levied out to guests by a small army of servers strolling around in their best vestments.
The room itself was an open plane of white marble floors, practically glowing beneath a web of chandeliers that dangled and threaded together by chains inlaid with Swarovski crystals, but the decorations otherwise were purposefully downplayed as a result. It amounted to a sort of... what, rustic look? That might be the right word – a bit ironic in Keith’s opinion, given the general decadence of the hotel – but he would admit that it held a certain amount of classic charm, something that typical gaudy tinsel, Santa Clauses, big red ribbons and glittering gold ornaments would have entirely missed. There was fresh evergreen branches and pine wood, set in the center of tables hundreds of tea lights providing extra ambiance to the overhead lights. Tendrils of ivy snaked around the walls, little clumps of holly accenting the strands on occasion, stretching out and overtop the central dance floor, which was mostly vacant at the time, leading all the way back to a bar where small clusters of partygoers had begun to gather, and there were tiny strings of lights that wove between the dishes set out on dining tables, inviting guests forward to indulge in the festivity.
“Wow,” Lance said after a long, long pause, evidently remembering himself only after Keith had slowly led them around the room and towards one of the drink tables. He got himself water, just to start, but figured he’d graduate to something warmer and more seasonal later. With all the panache of a child on their first Disneyland trip, Lance threw back his head and finished the cup of hot chocolate from the lobby in one quick movement, sighing in a satisfied sort of way before dismissing his cup in search of another.
“More hot chocolate?” Keith quizzed, watching in amusement as Lance began to load up a fresh, porcelain mug this time, eyes casting over what was labeled as a ‘hot chocolate bar’ that had the epitome of every child’s best wishes, and every dentist’s worst nightmare, splayed out across the linen tablecloths.
Lance didn’t even dignify his question with a response, already piling in peppermint sticks, marshmallows, graham cracker crumbs, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and about six different scoops of something-or-other into his cup with the look of absolute focus, like this was about to be judged for a Michelin star and Lance had every expectation of getting a perfect three-star rating.
In the meantime, Keith cast a long look over the room, spotting about as many familiar faces as not, trying to wrack his brain for a catalogue of names even though he knew it wouldn’t be fruitful – he’d always been shit at remembering people’s names, if Lance wasn’t evidence enough of the fact. It didn’t take terribly long to spot Shiro and Adam, standing beside each other near the groups at the bar talking to Adam’s sister, but they hadn’t yet spotted him.
Mercifully, he hoped Adam hadn’t over exaggerated the situation to Shiro; the older man texted Keith yesterday about Lance, which he promptly ignored, not really wanting to indulge their curiosities on the matter, considering the existing false pretense.
“There we go,” Lance declared smartly from behind him, and Keith glanced over his shoulder to find a mug being shoved into his hands, positively overflowing with candies and marshmallows and whipped cream. It wasn’t nearly as Frankenstein a creation as Lance’s own cup, but it was definitely not what Keith would ever craft for himself – least of all for dietary reasons.
“Uh, thanks, but I’m lactose intolerant.” Keith carefully began to set the cup down on the nearest cocktail table, worried that one wrong move would end in his gloves sticky with chocolate and sugar.
Lance made an offended noise. “I know that, you’ve said it like, three times before. The bar’s got vegan and lactose-free shit on it that’s labeled, now drink it. I slaved over that cup for all of thirty seconds for you.”
Half in disbelief, and maybe half in flattered, flustered surprise, Keith laughed at him and then back at the cup. What an asshole, to act so thoughtful for no good reason. Keith could only sigh and concede to drink the way-too-sweet-sugary-madness that Lance had made for him, but it settled well with his own personal level of bitterness.
A balance, you could even say.
“Keith! There you are!” A voice called from somewhere to his left, and turning, he spotted Adam and Shiro winding their way through guests to get to them. They’d more-or-less accidentally posted up at one of the nearby tables to the drink table, mostly by consequence of Lance’s need to make them both horrendous drinks, so it was only a matter of time before one of the two men did a sweep of the room and spotted them.
“Hi Shiro, hi Adam,” he called dully over the light instrumental music, some sort of philharmonic version of classic Christmas songs. “Merry Christmas.”
Grinning, Adam slowed to a stop across the table, and Keith could very clearly tell Shiro was sizing Lance up, scrutinizing him in a big-brother sort of way. He almost laughed.
“And to you too, Keith,” said Adam with a light sigh, drinking something dark from a glass that he suspected to be scotch. “Hello, Lance, and welcome! First time in Baltimore, right?”
“Ah, hi, yes. Nothing like go big or go home, huh? This place is amazing,” Lance replied, giving a pointed look around at all the decorations. “I’m definitely glad you invited me. Thank you, again.”
“Of course – I’m glad I ran into you guys, because god knows Keith doesn’t tell us anything,” Adam said with a well-meaning glare in his direction.
Shiro took the opportunity to extend his hand across the table, now smiling. “No, he doesn’t, but it’s nice to meet you. I’m Takashi – but please, call me Shiro.”
Lance paused for just a second, blinking down at the hand – Keith realized it was Shiro’s prosthetic, and almost winced at the awkward moment, but it was quickly covered when Lance accepted with a wide grin of his own.
“Nice to meet you. Keith talks about you a lot, so it feels like I sort of already know you.”
“Only good things, I’m sure,” Shiro replied with a meaningful look, at which Keith could only offer a deadpan reply.
“I’m honest. Take what you will from that.”
The four of them chatted for a little while longer, Lance flexing his natural talent towards conversation as he made Shiro and Adam laugh at his stories, or quizzed them on the hotel, their marriage, the city itself, or indignantly defended his sugary creation that he drank without any shame. Listening to Lance’s voice, the familiar warmth, the slight breathlessness of his laugh – it made Keith relax, and he found himself joining in their smiles and mirth easier than he would have expected.
More than once, to his chagrin, Keith caught himself staring at Lance, and when his eyes darted away, he spotted Shiro giving him a look. Said look made him even angrier, because fuck if his pale cheeks didn’t flush so red it looked like he was coming down with a fever, and he was so obvious that it made him want to die.
So what if Lance’s mouth was a little hypnotizing to watch? It’s really not Keith’s fault. He was a victim, if anything, to Lance’s unfairly attractive face.
After about twenty minutes, the husbands bid them goodbye for a little while, needing to continue to make their appropriate rounds in greeting Adam’s family, at which point Lance had effectively finished his drink and Keith had… well, almost gotten through all of his. It really wasn’t bad; it was just so rich that he had to drink it slowly.
Lance’s smile basically hadn’t faded since they walked in, and it was just as bright when he turned to Keith.
“So, what now? Wanna dance, or are there other family members that are going to snipe you?”
Keith frowned, barely having heard him, distracted as he was by a cream-foam-line stuck to Lance’s upper-lip. Without thinking, his hand moved to brush it away, thumb gliding over the bow of his lips. God, they really were soft, weren’t –
Holy fuck what are you DOING?
His whole arm reacted, whipping back to his chest like Lance had electrocuted him, and wide, icy blue eyes blinked back at him.
“S-Sorry, that was – you had a – a thing.” Keith choked out a feeble excuse, averting his eyes at all cost, because, what the fuck, Kogane? You don’t just touch other people’s lips like that, that was – but, fuck, now all he could think about was doing it again.
And again.
And again.
“Uh, n-no, it’s… not a… thanks for getting that. Good uh, ‘fake boyfriending’ there, heh.”
Still mortified, Keith just nodded and stared around the room, wondering if there was an emergency exit for his fucking brain to take, or if that would just have to be the nearest window.
After an agonizingly awkward pause, Lance set his mug down with a firm clink. “Well. Let’s do something. Dancing doesn’t seem like your thing,” he stated. It wasn’t a question, and he was definitely right about that.
“Hmm… oh, there’s a kids table!” Lance’s voice filled with such obvious joy that it disarmed Keith, just for a moment; he sounded as excited as a man who had just been stranded in the desert for months stumbling upon an oasis. “Let’s go play with the kiddos!”
“Oh, um, okay?” Keith trailed after Lance, a bit surprised by the abrupt decision but his ingers found automatically sought out Lance’s, intertwining easily, inevitably, and in seconds they were crossing the room without skipping a beat. Lance stopped once they arrived at a considerably shorter, longer table than the other ‘standing’ tables around the room, this one lined with a high-gloss paper instead of the familiar fabric of the other tables.
It was stocked with plentiful crayons and different types of markers, colored pencils and the like spread across from end-to-end, enough materials to make any proper elementary art school teacher proud – certainly enough to keep the children busy. Lots of construction paper and googly eyes, pom-pom puffs and pipecleaners, tape and glue sticks, popsicle sticks and rolls of string and ribbon that seemed to be intended for the children to make handmade ornaments. Honestly, it was a pretty good idea in keeping with the theme of the party while entertaining enough to hold the children’s attention while the adults did their drinking and mingling and merrymaking.
Lance did not hesitate in walking right the fuck up to the table, at which Keith thought, oh, he really meant it, before immediately managing to secure the attention of all of the giggling children.
“Looks like we’ve stumbled upon a right group of little elves, haven’t we? And what are we workin’ on over here, mis hijos?”
The children were, just as everyone, smitten with Lance immediately. If Keith had been impressed by his ability to converse with adults and charm just about everyone he met, it paled in comparison to his charisma with kids. Those around the table, in little pretty dresses or tiny suits, all of whom were probably no older than seven, were all positively ecstatic to have an adult who took interest in their respective art projects, all of them vying for Lance’s attention to show off a particularly thoughtful use of a piece of string as a reindeer tail or an expertly traced outline of Santa’s hat into the construction paper.
And holy shit if it wasn’t making Keith melt.
He wasn’t even sure how he got drawn into their activities, but before long Keith found himself squashed into a tiny chair at an equally tiny table, a little girl sitting in his lap as she used little ribbons to carve out pieces of Santa’s sleigh in her current masterpiece.
“Um, s‘cuse me, Uncle Keef?” The girl, Becca, with her dark hair and lightly-tanned skin, turned to face him once she’d finishing gluing all manner of ribbon to the page. She was one of Adam’s cousins and definitely had the familiar complexion. “Does this… look okay?”
Why were children so cute? Why was Lance so cute? Coming over here was definitely not at all something he’d have ever done on his own, but now that they were embedded in the crafts, Keith literally could not imagine doing anything else. Trying to talk to adults about school and holidays, politics and sports and current affairs – that sounded torturous by comparison.
Smiling, he nodded. “Looks great. Who are you going to give it to?”
“My mommy. She always puts all sorts of pretty ribbons in mine and my sisters’ hair, so I thought of her while making it.”
“I bet she’ll love it,” he said with every ounce of honesty, and Becca beamed at him before turning back around.
“Umm. Uncle Keef?” Another child approached with a small pout, this time a boy, and he heard Lance snicker at him from across the table. Looking up, Keith almost burst out laughing – Lance had, evidently, volunteered himself as the model for one girl’s crown that she was trying to make by taping together two pieces of construction paper, who stood beside him with severe contemplation drawn into her brow as she appraised the crown’s integrity. He was wearing a necklace of pipecleaners in green, red, and white, and in in his lap two twin boys bounced and chattered away, both trying to get his attention to show him their renditions of different reindeers they had made.
God, that level of adorable should seriously be illegal.
“Hmm?” Keith blinked back at the boy, who had shyly moved closer. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, um, yes! Yes, I just, well – I um. I had a question.” He glared over his shoulder to another group, mostly girls, who giggled and howled like mad when he shot them a look. Keith raised a brow of his own in their direction.
“Sure, what is it?”
“Do you and Mr. Lance kiss like… like boyfriend-girlfriend?”
Keith flinched so suddenly, the girl in his lap let out a little surprised gasp, craning her neck back to get a better look at him, apparently now equally as invested in his answer. Across the table, Lance had stilled.
“Umm.” He shifted uncomfortably, already feeling the tell-tale sign of flush creeping up his neck. “Well, why do you ask?”
“Welllll,” the boy began, hands twisted together as he nervously rocked back and forth. “‘Cause Yulia bet you were boyfriends, since you kept holding hands and stuff before, but I told her I didn’t think so cause most of the time guys don’t kiss other guys? Even though Adam and Mr. Shiro do, so she told me if I wanted to to know I should just come ask you. Soooo… do you guys kiss and stuff?”
That was… a lot at once, and plenty more than Keith had agreed to when he volunteered to play with the children. What was worse, the kid seemed to be seriously anticipating in his answer (maybe a bit mortified to ask in front of his cousins or siblings), but genuinely curious. Keith definitely didn’t want to instill some sort of misguided homophobia by denying it, but this was uncharted territory for him – was it even appropriate to talk about this in front of kids?
“Err… well…. um.”
“Not all girls like to kiss guys, and not all guys like to kiss girls,” Lance supplied, mercifully, from across the table, his expression patient and smile soft. Many of the other children had quieted to listen. “Sometimes, there are guys, like me, who like to kiss both. There are other people who don’t want to kiss anybody, because, cooties are pretty gross, right?”
Almost all of the listeners burst into obnoxious giggles, positively scandalized to be talking about kissing with two adults present, but their own embarrassment was second to Keith’s as he struggled not to smile, lowering his head so Lance might not see his obviously red cheeks.
The little boy, who Keith later learned to be named Liam, came down from his euphoric giggles with a big grin on his face.
“Okay, thank you Uncle Keef,” he said before turning away and sliding back into his little group of friends, many of whom began to giggle anew.
Lance caught his eye at that point, and even beneath the slightly dimmed lighting of the ballroom, beneath the silly paper crown and the pipecleaner necklace, he looked fucking perfect.
He would probably always think Lance looked fucking perfect, especially if he would crook a smile like the one he just decided to pull when he looked Keith’s way – it was really, really fucking hard not to vault over the table and kiss him right then and there.
For the life of him, Keith was pretty sure he’d never shown so much self-restraint, and even that was slipping.
“Hey, Becca?” Keith prodded gently, breaking eye contact at long last in favor of the little girl. She had taken to a new project with crayons, looking suspiciously like a Christmas tree. “I’m going to get up for a little bit now, could you please move?”
“‘Kay,” Becca put up no argument, smiling as she wiggled out of his lap, but not before stopping at the last second to throw her tiny arms around him in a hug. Their width barely made it over both his arms, and Keith chuckled before patting her on the back. “Thanks for playing, Uncle Keef. Where are you going?”
“Ah…” he hesitated for a moment, decidedly nervous, but he wasn’t going to back of his decision now. Swallowing his stuttering heart, which had so conveniently gotten lodged in his throat, Keith did his best to seem composed as he stood and moved around the other side of the table, beside Lance who watched with interest. “Well, I was thinking it was my turn to have a little time with Mr. Lance… maybe he’d want to dance with me?”
Doing his best to stay very still, Keith waited patiently with hand outstretched as Lance’s eyes grew wide, and behind them a small chorus of ooh’s and peels of bubbly laughter erupted from the kids. The other boy was looking at Keith’s hand like it was prepared to bite him, and the earlier nerves in his stomach changed from fluttery trepidation to outright knotting worry – shit, did he just fuck things up? Was Lance going to oblige him just because of the kids and be annoyed with him after the fact? Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe he should have just tried to explain himself – but yeah, like that conversation would have gone any better – hey, Lance, so I know we’re doing this fake-date since Adam basically forced it on us, but maybe you’d actually like to real-date, because I think I really, really fucking like you? Like, the-best-thing-that’s-happened-to-me, you-stupid-idiot-put-on-some-fucking-gloves, mornings-are-the-best-part-of-my-day-now, and goddamnit, I’m stupid and weak for that fucking smile so maybe just, give me a chance and –
“Oh!” Lance exclaimed, visibly jolting in his tiny seat, before practically leaping out of it. With unbridled enthusiasm, and maybe even a little bit of fear, he began to furiously nod his head. “Yes! Okay!”
Easy as breathing, Keith felt the familiar tying of their fingers together, the spaces between his knuckles suddenly warm and complete, like Keith couldn’t have imagined his hand without Lance’s fit against it.
“Let’s dance, Mullet.”
[LANCE]
Lance? Freaking out? Maybe panicking?
No. No way.
Definitely not… nope… nah.
About his thundering heartbeat – that was probably just the sugar from his double-dose of hot chocolate catching up to him! Yes, that was it. His sugar high was hitting and he would eventually crash; this was just Lance being hyper, not Lance being like a fourteen year old at a middle school dance freaking out because an incredibly hot boy just asked him to dance.
That would be ridiculous.
The sweaty palms, his slightly shaking legs, dopey smile (stop that! Get a grip, McClain!), nervous pricking beneath his skin… yeah… definitely symptoms of the on-rushing congestive heart failure that was creeping up on him.
Well, if he was going to die, Lance would at least go out doing something he loved – dancing.
For the record, Keith was a terrible, awkward dancer. He may be in great shape and have annoyingly flawless skin for someone who hadn’t even heard of a face mask before Lance mentioned it, he definitely did not unfairly have a proclivity for dancing – that was at least one thing Lance had on him. Maybe the only thing, but hey, Lance would take what he could get.
And yet, the poorly executed swaying of his stupid hips or the unsure placement of his arms – fuck if it didn’t somehow make Keith even more endearing. That’s how fucking gone Lance was for this boy, Christ. Keith clearly didn’t even like dancing, nor was he very good at it, but he asked Lance to dance and was struggling through it in – in what? An attempt to pay him back for agreeing to this? To helplessly charm him even further into mullet-adoring-bliss? Whatever his angle, it was working miracles on Lance’s fucking resolve, and three weird too-fast-but-not-slow Christmas songs in, and they were laughing and teasing and Lance could have forgotten the world. He could have forgotten than they were pretending, he could have forgotten that everyone here only knew him as Keith’s boyfriend, and he could have forgotten how stupidly, irrationally happy the idea made him. Lance could have just continued to lightly push or nudge the dark-haired guy, to draw out surprised little gasps of laughter from him, to maybe-not-so-accidentally brush past him with intentions he could really only portray with his body, knowing that his voice would fail to carry out such flirtations with confidence.
It would have been so easy. Beneath the muted light, never more than two feet apart, holding Keith’s hands or dramatically twirling him, bumping shoulders with Shiro at one point and smiling at Keith’s clear chagrin, it would have been so easy to fall in love with him.
Call Lance a fool all you want, because his own heart would readily agree. It was just something about this stupid holiday, or the frustrating cold, or something about strange fate having them crossing paths on a train, and then in the company of Lance’s ex, and then again with Adam and a terribly misjudged situation – something about all of this told him that this was okay. No, better than okay – this was right, and how things were supposed to be, and Keith laughing and eyes crinkling at the corners was how he looked best. That this ‘most wonderful time of the year’ crap maybe had some truth behind it, because Lance would be damned if he had ever been happier than he was right then.
Wait, the universe held up a pointer finger — watch this, it said.
They laughed, leaning into each other as they staggered off the dance floor, Lance’s feet automatically redirecting them back towards the children, but Keith tugged them in the direction of the drinks again.
“You suck at dancing, you know that?” Lance teased, only a little breathless as Keith got himself (and, much to his pleasure,) and Lance a cup of water.
To his surprise, Keith had no comeback, instead gulping his water and sighing, slamming the cup down with a little more force that was necessary. Upon closer inspection, Lance realized he was gripping the glass so firmly his knuckles had begun to pale.
“Oh, um, I was kidding, you know?” He tried to sound nonchalant. “I had fun, even if you have two left-feet.”
The words seemed to have the opposite effect, Keith’s scowl only deepening.
“You uh, you okay bud? Should I get Shiro, or do you want some air?”
“Lance, let’s stop.”
Like a slap to the face, the words bit into him suddenly and sharply. He had time to blink twice, reevaluate his senses enough to tune to right, well, fuck this, before taking a big gulp of his own drink and steeling his gaze out over the dance floor.
Right, then. He got a little too deep into the fantasy, stupid him. Predictable, but stupid — that’s Lance for you.
“Sure,” he answered in a clipped tone. “Do you want me to leave? I’ll go to the room if that’s what you want.”
Now it was Keith’s turn to look like Lance had struck him, eyes widening and cheeks reddening with the false-sting. Lance couldn’t even pretend to feel bad about it.
“A-are you — um, I mean, not that I don’t, wouldn’t, but — uhhh. Don’t you think that’s a little, er, soon?”
Oh, fuck this.
Lance threw his hands up, glaring with everything he had to hide any traces of disappointment.
“Seriously? Wow. So just — tone it down? Nice. Fine.”
“I’m… confused. Are you mad about something?”
Lance barely managed not to cringe. Holy fucking shit, of course Keith was confused, he didn’t have a clue how hard Lance had begun to fall for him because he didn’t even try, didn’t feel a damn thing.
“No.” Lance’s lips thinned, and just before his consciousness could stop him, his own bitter heart bit out a few extra words. “Not like it matters.”
“What? But I just asked — I thought — you don’t want… wait.”
Keith’s eyes narrowed, and he moved his hand from the table to grip Lance’s upper arms, holding him in place. “Wait, wait, you thought I meant — let’s not do this anymore. Pretending. Because you think I want to stop?”
“Geez, tear my heart out, asshole. Yes, fine, is that what you want to hear?”
“I — Lance, date me.”
Whiplash is the only term that could aptly describe Lance’s bodily and emotional reaction to those two words.
Oh, god, wait — wait wait wait. Keith wanted to stop fake-dating so they could…?
He must have lost basic brain function for a moment, because before he realized Keith was sliding his hands down Lances arms and went to hold his hands, and oh christ, Lance’s pulse fucking skyrocketed.
“I’m sorry if you don’t want that. I just — I can’t keep pretending to be with you unless I can really have you, this is fucking eating me up. I know you probably weren’t going into this thinking this was it at all and I hope you don’t think I’m, like, trapping you for the night or anything but I’m — ”
Before Keith could ramble further, a voice interrupted them and they both flinched apart. Adam’s sister approached with wide, concerned eyes.
“Oh, boys, I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to interrupt.” She held up a hand as the two righted themselves, retracting back to their automatic position of hand-holding with a respectable amount of space between them. “Are you both okay?”
“Yes.” They answered in sync, same hardened edge to their tone, and Lance was now aware than his hands weren’t he only ones that were clammy.
Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit.
Lance coughed, hard, and the woman seemed to remember herself.
“Oh, um. Well I was just checking in on the kiddos and they asked me to do them a favor. You really don’t have to play along, but I did promise I’d see this through.”
“What are you…?” Keith began, but she was already stepping around them and from her pocket she pulled out a folded piece of paper, heavy-handed green crayon scribbling up and down the page. She held the paper over their heads, so the whole scene was on a perfect display of the kids table, and every single one of them laughed — including several nearby adults.
Lance did the only thing he could think to do with such unbidden embarrassment at the hands of strangers and hid his face in his hands.
Keith has gone totally silent, but he released a small noise of surprise after several seconds and Lance recognized the little girl’s voice, Becca, from earlier.
“There’s no mistletoe at this party Uncle Keef but I wanted you and your boyfriend to be able to kiss since that’s what boyfriends do so I made you some!”
“Oh my god,” Keith sputtered out, sounding almost as mortified as Lance did, but he started laughing after a solid ten seconds of awkward silence.
Becca sounded concerned, and maybe a little unsure. “Mr. Lance, are you okay? I’m… I’m sorry if that was wrong, I just thought – didn’t you say boyfriends kiss?”
Indignant, because Lance was going to save at least some of his pride, he choked out a laugh and bemoaned in the direction of Keith and Adam’s sister. “Okay, I did not say that… specifically... I just said – ”
“Let’s get a move on boys, my arms starting to get tired,” the woman said cheekily, probably misreading Lance’s intense desire to drop dead as bashful shyness. Oh, how he wished it was just that.
Punching down his growing urge to throw-up, Lance stole a glance at Keith to measure his reaction and – oh.
Oh.
His aching chest, wobbly legs, erratic thoughts – it all evened out, faded however slightly – because what he saw was only a small, gentle smile. It was – it was fond, and amused, and happy; it was everything Keith was in the mornings, everything Lance looked forward to seeing the next day after classes, everything that had made him stupid and weak for him in the first place.
It was just a smile, but so sincere, Lance felt like his heart was fit to burst.
Keith bit his lip, almost shyly, and his brows came together. “Lance?”
Maybe Lance had died. Maybe he’d done a good enough job during his nineteen mortal years and had earned himself a spot in heaven with his abuelita and his two goldfish, because, was Keith asking for permission to fucking kiss him?!
With absolutely zero shame, Lance grabbed Keith’s shirt by the collar and practically yanked him forward, stopping just shy of their lips actually touching, gaze flickering momentarily from Keith’s mouth to his eyes, which had turned to the size of dinner plates.
“Finally,” Lance said with a sly grin, and Keith looked like he wanted to roll his eyes but instead closed them, eyelashes fluttering as he met Lance the final few inches, and Lance felt like he’d swallowed a box of fireworks. His chest was sparkling, even from the lightest pressure of Keith’s chapped lips, catching ever-so-slightly over Lance’s smooth skin in a way that was, truthfully, almost sinful considering there was an eruption of cheers from the kids table, and Lance had to fight the urge to chase the feeling and instead pull back – had to keep such a moment chaste for the youngsters.
Keith almost had the nerve to look smug when he reached up and removed Lance’s hands from his collar, threading their fingers together.
“You didn’t answer my question earlier,” he pointed out, and Adam’s sister had already begun to shoo Becca and the other children who had snuck closer during their hilarious hijink. “I hope that meant…”
“Yes, yes you fucking mulleted idiot, yes. Date me. Idiot. Asshole.” Lance squeezed his hands, urgently leaning forward to kiss him again.
Keith didn’t deny him, but this time was a bit gentler, more deliberate as his hands moved to cup Lance’s cheeks, and he thought for sure he was going to run out of air because Keith had effectively stolen all of his oxygen.
There were worse ways to die, Lance decided. Much, much worse.
“We need to find Becca,” Keith informed him once they separated. “I need to thank her for that picture.”
Lance, smiling back at him, couldn’t help but agree.