Chapter Text
Lance blinked awake to a cold, foggy morning shining through a slit in the curtains. There was a crick in his neck, but his limbs were warm and heavy. He yawned and tried to stretch, but something was keeping him down, like a weighted blanket. He blinked again. Dark hair was obscuring his vision – Keith was lying on top of him. He was still asleep, and one of his hands was curled around Lance’s left one above his heart.
His heart skipped a beat, then a rush of breath escaped him. The night before came back in bits and pieces. Lance had fallen asleep in one of the most uncomfortable positions he had ever been in – back and neck stiff, his arm stretched out to the side at an unnatural angle. This was a much more comfortable position. Lance yawned and wondered why he hadn’t suggested cuddling the night before. The memory crept up on him – the words, and the tone Keith had said them with. Keith had confessed to him, after Lance had gotten over himself to admit he wanted to be his friend, and now he was lying on top of him. Lance’s heart beat painfully in his throat. He’d been rejected enough times to know how it hurt, how it ate you up from the inside and made you shrivel - though Keith didn’t shrivel, and the rejection had been a lot softer than some of what Lance had experienced. And then Lance had come out to him, which added to the pile of things that made him want to crawl out of his skin and hide in the bathtub.
Before Lance could contemplate if he should accept the situation or try and push Keith off to the side to pretend he had never rolled onto Lance in the night, Keith was stirring awake.
“Mmmh?”
Lance bit his lip to keep the sudden glee in check. The sound was too soft, too cute to have ever come out of Keith’s mouth, and he was warming inside that he had been the one to hear it. Keith lifted his head and met Lance’s eyes. The confusion in his gaze, the hazy veil over his eyes, lifted after one blink. Then he was scrambling back, mumbling something incoherent that sounded like an apology.
Because they were still stuck together, Lance was tugged upright with a frantic Keith, who stared at him, uncomprehending, until his gaze landed on their still-intertwined, and definitely also still stuck-together hands.
“Oh,” Keith said, “I’m sorry.”
Lance swallowed the clog in his throat and tried a smile.
“For what? Cuddling? You don’t have to be, it was comfy. And warm.”
Keith didn’t answer, just looked away and rubbed the fingers of his free hand together. He was more embarrassed than the situation warranted, and Lance didn’t understand why, until Keith threw him a quick glance from underneath his bangs. Oh, right. Cuddling up to your crush while you were asleep in the same bed must be more embarrassing than doing the same thing with a barely-friends teammate. Or maybe it should have been less embarrassing? Whatever. Most importantly – Keith had a crush on him. It just didn’t sound real. It didn’t feel like it ever would. Keith cleared his throat and lifted his head, his jaw set but his voice still quiet.
“It really didn’t bother you?”
There was something else behind his words, something that probably came down to the feelings part of it all, but Lance didn’t know how it should change about how he felt about all of this.
“Nah. I’m a cuddly person, I don’t mind that stuff.”
Keith threw him a suspicious glance but didn’t say anything else about the topic. They got dressed in silence – or as silent as they could be, when they had to twist and turn to get each body part separated at the appropriate time, and also prevent looking at each other too much. Another public appearance was scheduled, which meant they would be meeting the officials soon, and Lance could ask if there were any special cases. If they’d known of a group of people stuck together who told each other their true thoughts and feelings and still weren’t let go. He was sure he had told the truth yesterday. He did want to be Keith’s friend, and he admired him a whole lot. And it didn’t seem like Keith had lied either, with how he was acting now, how he had acted yesterday. But if neither of them had lied, there had to be something wrong with the mistletoe.
The world outside was still wondrous and wintery. Lance hadn’t been paying much attention to their schedule of the day, mind still somewhere on the solution of their little problem, but he felt like it was a good sign that the ground was still covered in snow. A group of Nasköians accompanied them to town, but they didn’t look like the officials they had been dealing with the days before. They were younger, weren’t wearing the ridiculous hats, and they talked among themselves, not as if every step they took was to please the paladins.
When there was a lull in the conversation of the two young Nasköians walking next to Lance and Keith, Lance sidestepped to approach them. Keith huffed a bit as he was tugged along. Lance payed him no mind and turned on his most charming smile.
“Excuse me?”
“Hm?”
The young Naskö-ian turned her wide eyes towards Lance, brows raised. His teeth hurt from the cold, but he kept his smile.
“Hey, uh, just wondering if you had any tips? Pointers? Anything?”
He raised his wrist where he was bound to Keith. The Nasköian’s eyes flit over to their joint hands, but she didn’t look surprised, or like she was thinking over a solution at all.
“Well, you were told everything about how the Müske works, weren’t you? You can wait it out, or you can take one of two poss- “
“Yep, heard that one already.”
She blinked. The snow crunched underneath their feet. Lance’s smile was fading, either because the Nasköian wouldn’t have a different answer for them, or because Keith was pulling at his hand as if he were trying to separate them by sheer force.
“There’s nothing else, I’m afraid.”
Lance sighed, thanked her, and relented to Keith’s pull, who had accelerated his steps to twice his earlier tempo. Lance was doing his best to keep up, but it was difficult in the snow, and he kept stumbling.
“Will you slow down? No one is chasing us,” he finally snapped.
Keith grumbled something under his breath but slowed down a little.
“What was that?”
“You know exactly what the solution is.”
Keith’s voice was almost a hiss, and Lance swallowed. He did know, kind of, but he wasn’t ready to accept it as a last resort yet. There had to be something else – another solution to their mess that didn’t make his insides feel all twisted up and his heart so heavy. Keith carried on without prompting, and his voice was still low and biting.
“You just had to go and make it weird. If you hadn’t been so fixated on confessing to me that you want to be my friend and forced me into actually confessing… now it’s awkward. We could’ve just kissed and forgotten about it.”
“I forced you?”
Lance heard the words as if someone else had spoken them, choked up.
Keith wheeled around.
“I didn’t mean it like that. You know what I meant. It’s just… I never wanted to say it, not like that, and now it’s… like this.”
He held Lance’s gaze, whatever he saw in Lance’s frozen face must not have been better than before because he added, quietly:
“Sorry.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. Lance did not feel better in any single way. He’d found it equal parts funny and annoying, at first, to be stuck to Keith. He had thought, no matter what, they would emerge with a better understanding of each other, a tighter friendship. Now, it felt like the opposite was going to be the case, and the threat hardened into an icy shard in his heart. Maybe it was better to end this before it got worse.
But Lance didn’t want to kiss Keith. To get out of the Müske. He didn’t want to kiss him to get out of the Müske. He just didn’t know exactly why he didn’t. He wished he could put it into words, or some kind of definite feeling, so he could tell Keith he was wrong, at least. Keith thought he had put Lance off the night before, and he didn’t want to kiss him now because he knew Keith liked him. But he was wrong. That was the only thing Lance was sure about. He hadn’t liked the thought before, hadn’t let himself think of the possibility. They couldn’t kiss. And now he knew Keith liked him –though he had to remind himself every two minutes that it hadn’t been some ill-advised dream – it didn’t feel much different. If anything, he had been considering the possibility in a bit of a more positive light. Only because they’d tried the other one already, of course. But still. Keith was wrong with whatever he was assuming about Lance. Too bad that Lance didn’t have an alternative explanation either.
This day, the paladins were assigned to handing out presents again, but they weren’t going from door to door. Instead, the younger Naskö-ians had built a tower of wrapped gifts in the center of the city and were still in the process of building it higher when the paladins approached. The giftees also weren’t children this day. They were older Naskö-ians with wrinkles lining their grateful smiles and grey hair peeking out beneath their colorful hats, and some younger parents with two, three, five children. They were the less fortunate, rallied together in some kind of charity event. It was sweet, something right in the Christmas spirit, but it also felt a little weird to Lance. Shouldn’t a planet such as this utopia have gotten rid of poverty ages ago? Even if they hadn’t tampered with the Müske, something about this planet wasn’t right beneath all the snowy cheer.
Or maybe it was just that no matter how often he bent to the small hands reaching out for a present, no matter how often he stretched to get the largest, the pinkest, or the one with the most glitter, his heart didn’t warm. Keith was still quiet, and there was still this shard of ice that pierced Lance every time he moved.
The mountain of presents was gone sooner than Lance had expected. Hunk gave the last one over to an old Naskö-ian lady with a bright smile, and Pidge was already sitting in the snow behind him. Lance kind of wanted to make a snow angel, but one glance at Keith out of the corner of his eye shut that idea down instantly. He was still frowning at his shoes. Not in the way that screamed he needed to be cheered up. In the way that told Lance he wanted to be alone – an impossible wish at the moment.
In the lull where none of them knew if they could go back to the house on the hill, another Naskö-ian clapped her hands.
“Now! It is time for what you all have been waiting for?”
Lance looked up and found Hunk’s eyes. His eyes were as wide and anticipatory as Lance felt, so he mouthed dinner? at him. Hunk bit down on his grin, but Lance didn’t hide his. At least he hadn’t fucked up his friendship with everyone yet.
“The Snow Battle!”
The surrounding Naskö-ians broke out in whoops and hollers. Maybe this was the real reason all the young people were interested in charity. Lance shook his head. He was thinking like an old person now. The group of Naskö-ians walked around and split them into teams, but one came to a stand in front of Lance and Keith, raised their eyebrows to a sad triangle above their nose, and shook their head.
“I mean, you can participate if you want to… but maybe it would be better if you just got out of the way.”
They moved on without another word, but Lance found Keith looking back at him incredulously. Something hot sparked in his stomach, and he knew they were thinking the exact same thing.
“Let’s show them who needs to get out of the way.”
Keith nodded, brows drawn tight.
“If this is anything like a snowball fight – “
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. If it were anything like a snowball fight, they’d both be a little bit out of their element, but also enough exactly in their element that it would be all the others who would need to get out the way.
And – it was exactly like a snowball fight on Earth if Lance had ever participated in one. He hadn’t, but he’d dreamed of it often enough, and the space spore ball fight had been close enough. There was no objective, nothing to win, exactly. It was about pelting all the other people with as many snowballs as possible and trying not to get hit in the process. And it was so much fun it almost managed to turn Lance’s opinion of the whole planet around. After what they had seen some of the Naskö-ian groups do, Lance and Keith built a low wall of snow to duck behind – a little difficult at first with only three hands instead of four, but they made do. Once they had ducked behind their wall, they slid their connection to their ankles, without looking or talking about it, just with a nod, which sent another hot shock of something to where the ice shard was quickly melting away and formed snowballs.
“Okay. One – two – three – now!”
Lance wasn’t quite as good at throwing as he was at shooting, but it was still better than sitting around watching. And it didn’t matter, anyway. Because he was finally warm. Light spilled from cozy living rooms into the slowly darkening sky , and there was laughter all around him, and Keith was laughing, too, right next to him.
Half an hour later, their little fort was trampled down and they were soaked to the bone, but Lance let himself fall back into the snow without a care, and when he moved his arms up and down, Keith didn’t protest at all. He tried his best to make his own snow angel, even, and when Lance looked over, Keith had his head already turned in his direction, and there was a smile on his face without any trace of resentment. It was small, and soft, and his eyes were shining in the evening light.
Lance was reminded of Keith’s confession with a jolt, but he didn’t look away. Maybe it should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t at all. He could have kept looking.
Keith was the one who looked away. Lance stared at the snow melting in his hair for a second more and then turned away, too. He couldn’t make sense of his thoughts anymore.
They got up and shook the snow from their clothes, and another Nasköian approached them with a wide smile on her face.
“You two are so cute. But if I may ask, why are you still bound?”
Lance felt Keith stiffen next to him, while he himself did the opposite. He threw himself into frenzied denial, pulse in his throat as if there was something of importance to deny.
“Haha, thanks. Cute, like, individually, because we’re not” – he waved his hand around in the air in no specific pattern at all, and Keith’s hand at his other side stiffened into a fist – “yeah. Thanks though. We’re not really ready to, uh, try it all, if you know what I mean.”
Lance’s cheeks felt much too warm for something stupid like this. The Naskö-ian was staring back, her mouth open in a little o before she came back to her senses.
“Oh. I’m sorry for assuming. You’re just so comfortable with each other, and you work very well together.”
Keith made a noncommittal noise next to him and to keep himself from overthinking it, Lance let his mouth run away with him again.
“Sure. Do you have any other idea how to get out of it?”
Bewildered, she shook her head.
“There’s no trick, I’m afraid. Just honesty.”
Honesty. The word haunted Lance all the way back to the mansion. Now, there was less of the tension between Keith and him. They were silent, listening to the Nasköians and the other paladins chatter, but it wasn’t a hostile silence. It would almost have been comfortable, if all the external tension hadn’t now been warring inside of Lance.
Lance knew he hadn’t lied the night before. But he was also thinking about the word honesty and about how maybe it wasn’t just about not lying, it was about the whole, entire truth. The more he thought about it, the more he doubted he had ever told the whole, entire truth about anything in his life, ever. About some things, he hadn’t admitted the whole, entire truth to himself. And if this was one of those cases, then there would be no use trying to reach deep inside of himself to find out what he was hiding, because he wouldn’t find anything there. And then there would truly only be one option left, and Lance couldn’t kiss Keith like this. He couldn’t kiss him because of this. That – and he knew it without knowing the why – would be dishonest.
It was a terrible stalemate. Keith contributed nothing but his steady presence at Lance’s side: A comfort and yet the source of his discomfort.
Another feast awaited them back at the mansion, and the room was full and decked out in even more Christmas decorations than before. There were Müskes spread everywhere, now, and Lance forced himself not to avoid them. Nothing that hadn’t already happened could happen.
From his place at the table decked out in red and gold, shoving hot pieces of something that crossed the best of broccoli and chicken into his mouth, he had a front row view of how the young Nasköians treated the Müskes. It didn’t seem like a tradition of love and honesty; it was like a cheap Valentine’s tradition, like mistletoes were on Earth, only with more of a bond involved. Couples treated it like a game to get each other to say “I love you” – even if Lance never heard the words, it was clear from how two people, arms wrapped around each other, leaned into the other, how some sort of inner glow transformed their faces when they really meant the words. Some singles treated it like a game to catch their crush underneath one and get a kiss out of it, if not a confession.
Any other day, Lance would have found it cute. This day, it was a little nauseating. He put his fork down after only one helping, though it was delicious, and he’d been starving from the day outside in the snow. Why couldn’t it have been like this?
He stared at the crumbs left on his plate. The thought was there. He couldn’t will it away, but he also didn’t know what to make of it. Lance didn’t want to have one of these sappy moments with Keith. He didn’t want to slowly chase him around the room in a weird game of chess until they bumped into each other beneath a Müske. He didn’t want to look into his eyes while he bit down on the triumphant grin before they kissed. There was a bit of jealousy swimming in the pit of his stomach, but it was probably because it was so easy for all of them. They all had it figured out. And even if they hadn’t, the universe wouldn’t be in grave danger if two stubborn Nasköians were stuck together for longer than they should have been.
But if that was all he was jealous of, why was his gaze still drawn to the happy, giggling couples?
Lance was lost in senseless spiraling thoughts for the rest of dinner and answered and laughed along with the others without remembering a single word. What options were left? Was it possible that Keith had lied after all? He had been pretty convincing in his confession, but Lance knew best that it was possible to be absolutely sure of something yourself and still be wrong about it. Maybe he had been lonely and latched onto the first available person, which happened to be Lance. Maybe he had never had feelings for someone before and confused a friend crush with a real crush. Maybe. But no matter if it had been the truth or not, Keith was adamant about it, and Lance wasn’t about to question him. Instead, he kept questioning himself.
After dinner, he walked up the stairs with Keith, and there were still couples spread out under Müskes in nearly every doorway, and he avoided looking at them, but he still felt their lovesick glances as if it was him they were after.
If Keith had been telling the truth, then that had to mean Lance had been lying, and he resented that option. He didn’t hate Keith, that much he knew, and he never had. He’d always wanted to be his friend. He had never thought he would be good enough for someone like Keith, someone so much higher up the food chain than him. Even at the lowest, Lance had still admired Keith, in that painful, hopeless way, the way that almost felt like –
Lance missed a step, and Keith’s hand right there next to him was the only thing that kept him from face-planting.
“You alright?” Keith asked as he hoisted him back up.
There was actual concern in his voice. Lance kept his head down; his cheeks were burning.
“Yup.”
He kept walking, but his heart was still hammering in his chest. Painful and hopeless admiration - it didn’t just sound suspicious. It had also, then and now still, felt like a crush.
He hadn’t considered it until then. It was just an inkling in the back of his mind, nothing solid or proven. But what if he did reciprocate the feelings? Without knowing, without being aware of it? Would that count as a lie?
Then Lance considered telling Keith and shut down almost immediately. Impossible. He walked a little faster. Maybe it was another possibility. Another way to try to separate them, and he did want to be separated. He didn’t dislike spending time with Keith, but he disliked having to spend every minute attached to him. But it didn’t seem worth it to attempt telling Keith he reciprocated his feelings when the thought had just crept up, unannounced, and he had no idea if there was any truth to it. No matter what the positive outcome could be. The negative outcome would be that both of them would know for sure Keith’s feelings were unrequited, and that Lance had lied to get out of it. Lance would know he couldn’t trust himself. And then they would have no choice but to kiss and would never find out what they really thought of one another, if maybe the whole thing would have been fake, and they would never be friends. They would stay teammates until the war ended, spending time with each other when necessary, Keith would get over Lance and leave to do something awesome, alone, without Lance, or worse, with someone better than Lance, who never mistook a feeling, and who held Keith’s hand without a magical mistletoe forcing him to. Because they wouldn’t be friends. And they definitely wouldn’t be boyfriends.
They went to Keith’s room. It was smaller than Lance’s, but also cozier, warmer, and had a much larger bed. Lance grinned as he saw it, but then remembered it would do them no good anyway. They were stuck together. A large bed was as good as a small one. Keith tugged on his hand toward the closet and changed without a word. They took turns getting ready in the bathroom - also in warm colors, also relatively small. This time, Lance didn’t fully turn away, and watched Keith brush his teeth, and watched as his hair got in the way time and time again. Lance had never seen Keith with his hair back. Maybe he didn’t own any hair ties. But his hair was long enough that he would have to keep it out of his face - for washing, for brushing his teeth, sometimes probably for eating. Keith lifted their joined hands to push the longest part of his bangs behind his ears, and Lance’s hand brushed against some of Keith’s hair. It was soft like satin, shiny and strong and the darkest, most beautiful black. But still too long to brush teeth without a hair tie. And also too long to sleep with it open and untamed. Lance frowned. There had been a lot of hairs on the pillows in his bed this morning, hair too long to be his own. He kept his right hand, attached to Keith’s left, up, and pushed his hair back. Keith met his eyes as if to say thanks, but also, what?
Lance smiled as a response.
“We’re going to get you a hair tie.”
Ten minutes later, Keith was frowning at Lance, who had already sat on the bed. As best as he could anyway, with Keith still standing. Lance patted the bed in front of him with his free hand and smiled wide.
“But… you’ll need two hands.”
“Yeah.” Lance had obviously thought of that and rolled his eyes. “If you’re gonna sit in front of me anyway, we can switch it to our thighs.”
Keith didn’t look convinced but sighed and sat. He was close enough that his presence warmed Lance, almost back to chest, and whatever shampoo they were supplied with of this planet smelled amazing on him. Lance snapped the green-and-red striped hair tie on his wrist with one finger. His hands were getting sweaty. Not the ideal beginning for a braiding session. But he ignored it, grabbed Keith around the waist and scooted backwards, until his feet were no longer on the ground. He got a beautiful yelp in return that made him giggle into Keith’s shoulder. He was a solid weight in Lance’s arms, a real person, warm and breathing and alive, and gorgeous, but it was also just Keith. Just Keith had a thin hard shell and was dorky and awkward and sweet underneath, and for a long time Lance had thought people like him didn’t exist, couldn’t exist, and to believe there was anything else than the exterior he was presenting was wishful thinking. But there was. There was so much underneath a barely-friend like Lance couldn’t begin to grasp it, but the hint of it was there, and it made him smile and he wasn’t sweating anymore. This was just Keith. There was nothing to be afraid of when he was braiding just Keith’s hair.
“Okay,” he warned Keith, loosened his arms from around his waist and scooted back a little, “I’ll separate us now.”
Keith nodded, and let out a little sigh, his head turned so he could watch as Lance slid their pinkies apart, their wrists together, then their forearms. His shoulder pressed against Keith’s, and their breath was synchronized, the same, like they were sharing a pair of lungs. He leaned back and felt as his thigh tingled to his knee, where he was connected to Keith now. His side was burning, his whole body sparking, something new in his veins he couldn’t name. Keith’s head was still turned, but his eyes were lidded, focused somewhere on the bedspread, and he was breathing heavily, flushed. Whatever he was feeling, Keith was, too.
Lance didn’t feel qualified to speak, so he took the hair tie, turned Keith’s head gently to the front, and started combing through his hair with his fingers. He’d only touched one lock before, and determined it was soft, but touching all of it was like a different world. Something settled deep in Lance’s stomach. He knew without knowing the words, but swallowed it, and began braiding. Keith let out another sigh, a little louder, a little more content. It made Lance smile. This was to keep hair off the pillows and to help Keith’s hair look the best it could, yes, and it was because Lance was aware, somewhere in the deep dark corners of his mind, he had always wanted to touch Keith’s hair for as long as he liked, but it was also because it was more comfortable for Keith. It was certainly more comfortable to sleep that way, especially if he preferred sleeping on his side or his back. And the process seemed to be comfortable, too. Keith’s posture relaxed, his shoulders slumping until Lance could feel his thigh pressing against his, falling open. Lance’s smile became painful at that.
He was practiced at braiding and it didn’t take more than a few minutes to get Keith’s hair where he wanted it to be, to tie the hair tie around the ends of his hair. But he didn’t want to be finished. He didn’t want to leave the position and scoot out from behind Keith. He wanted to keep sitting there, hands in Keith’s hair, for as long as he would be allowed. And something about this room, something about the atmosphere, something about Keith’s thigh stuck to his, tingling against his, and his back slowly sinking against Lance’s chest as if he was falling asleep, made him do just that. He kept one hand in Keith’s hair, pushing his fingers in, careful not to disturb the braid. Keith made another sound of enjoyment and sank further against Lance. He must have been falling asleep. Just this morning he’d been jumping up at discovering he had rolled onto Lance in his sleep and now he was conscious, cuddling back against Lance. It made something large and happy swell in Lance, accomplishment, fulfillment, like he had rarely felt. He put his free arm around Keith and pulled him back, until he could hook his chin across his shoulder and squeeze.
“Lance,” Keith brought out, “what are you doing now?”
He sounded like he had really almost been asleep, now a little frantic at the situation they were in, his voice rough and deep, but still soft. Still like was enjoying it but didn’t want to let himself.
Keith was the same size as Lance and squeezing him was work. He didn’t fit between Lance’s legs perfectly, not like a puzzle piece to another puzzle piece. But he was warm and heavy and he smelt and felt like Keith, and his hair tickled Lance’s nose and his chest rose and fell with his breath and his jaw tightened when he swallowed and tried to turn his head to look at Lance. Something was happening. Lance swallowed around it. He knew what he had to do, what he had to say. He had known, really. Had been too much of a coward to do anything about it. But now, when there was almost everything on the line of how well he knew himself, he was going to do it. He couldn’t stand it anymore.
He took a deep breath.
“Keith. Before I say anything else, I wasn’t lying yesterday, okay? I do want to be your friend.”
“What are you-”
Keith was wriggling, trying to get out of Lance’s grip. If it had come down to strength, Lance knew he stood a small chance, but Keith settled when he noticed Lance was serious, wasn’t letting go. He kept his head turned to the front, as if he could feel Lance’s frantic heartbeat against his back, as if he knew turning around, eye contact, being scrutinized, would stop Lance from ever saying the words out loud.
“So, I wasn’t not telling the truth then. But maybe I wasn’t telling the whole truth. Not because I didn’t want to, but because - because I didn’t really know myself?”
Keith was breathing steadily, but harshly, as if he was forcing himself to, and his right hand was clenched atop his thigh, just-so touching Lance as well. Lance looked at their legs, stuck together, blinked, and it wasn’t his own leg anymore. He was an outsider in his own body, exorcised by his wildly rushing blood, speaking the words as if he knew they were true, when he could just hope.
“I like you, too. I think that’s what the mistletoe wanted to hear.”
A stinging relief brought Lance back into his limbs. It was a short-lived relief, because Keith wasn’t reacting, only his breathing was speeding up, and Lance unwound his arms from around his waist, scooted back as far as he could, his heart dropping somewhere below his stomach. Well, there, he’d fucked it up, they were still stuck and would be for an eternity now - but his leg came backwards with the rest of his body, shin and foot included. Lance held it in the air, stunned. Shook his arm. Then the other arm. He was sitting on the bed, not connected to Keith, all his limbs on their own again. His blood rushed, in a mixture of relief and regret. Because it was nice to have his body back to himself, but - but. The realization of what had caused this, what it meant, came over him, made his hands drop to the bedsheet and his head lift and there Keith was, turning slowly, his mouth slack and his eyes wide, as if he, too, had just realized.
Lance just stared as Keith stared back, trying to get a hold of the tingling underneath his skin, his chest too wide for his body. Keith blinked, and a smile spread over his face, a true, wide smile that encompassed his whole face, and Lance couldn’t help but smile back, and then Keith was vaulting forward, knocking Lance over into the mass of pillows, laughing into his neck, and then they were kissing.
Keith’s lips on his were the last broken seal on the truth, because there was no way he was imagining his heart thumping heavily and his limbs growing numb and how he felt so happy he might have been floating when Keith pressed his smile against his. It wasn’t a long kiss, but Lance pulled Keith back in as soon as he lifted his head, pulled him back in for another, slower, deeper kiss. As long as they were kissing, he didn’t have to think about what would come after. As long as they were kissing, there was too much to even think, the whole of Keith’s weight, warm and present on top of him, his soft lips and his hesitant teeth and tongue and his hands, one clenched on Lance’s shoulder and the other resting behind his neck, fingers curling into his hair. Lance slid his fingers into Keith’s hair, hooked an ankle around the back of his leg, and pulled. He didn’t want to let go.
Half an hour later, Keith had slid off Lance, and though he hadn’t gone far, they weren’t touching anymore. Maybe that was a good thing. They had been touching a lot, after all, for a long time at first and then for a short time, but a lot at once. Lance was still melted into the pillows, but in a good way. He didn’t know now why he had been afraid of after the kiss. After the kiss meant his insides were soft and sugary sweet, and his lips were swollen, and his tongue was too lazy to form any of the non-existent thoughts in his head. There was nothing but this bed and Keith in there. Lance closed his eyes with a sigh and a smile.
“Hey,” Keith whispered, suddenly close again.
It was the first time either of them had spoken since the kiss. Since the confession, really, because there might have been words during the kiss, but they hadn’t been spoken. Lance blinked his eyes open again and turned his head to the side. Keith was propped up on one elbow, looking at Lance with lidded, hesitant eyes. He was still flushed and his lips too red and his braid was less of a braid, more of a mess of hair held together loosely by a hair tie. That was Lance’s work. His fingers had made the braid, and his fingers had undone it again. The sight and the blush that resulted from it distracted him from Keith’s words.
“…would that be okay?”
“Uh, sorry, repeat that?”
Keith wasn’t frowning or rolling his eyes like Lance had expected, he fixed him with his large dark eyes and smirked as if he knew exactly what had distracted Lance.
“You can try the braid again tomorrow. Anyway,” he got shy again, turned his gaze away and plucked at the bedsheet, “I know we just got done with the whole stuck-together thing and this bed is a lot larger than yours, but. Can we cuddle again?”
Lance couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him, because Keith had said 'cuddle', and he was pouting, both as if he couldn’t believe he had said the word, and as if he would be disappointed if Lance said no. He should have known there was no way Lance would ever say no to a question like that.
“Come here,” he said and opened his arms wide.
Keith flung himself forward into Lance’s arms and let out a noise of sleepy contentment, and Lance closed his eyes and smiled and wrapped one arm around Keith.
“You know I’m a cuddler,” he mumbled.
Keith woke up in almost the same position as the day before. He was warm, head pillowed on Lance’s chest, their legs in a tangle. His heart stuttered, and he lifted his bleary eyes to Lance’s. He was awake, looking back at Keith with a sleepy smile. Just the same as the day before. Only that this time, the realization didn’t make Keith scramble back, panicked that he had crossed an invisible border. This time, he smiled back and pulled himself even closer to Lance. He could do that now. He might not have believed Lance liked him back under different circumstances, but they weren’t attached anymore. Lance’s eyes, pupils blown too wide for the early morning, slid down to his lips, and all thought halted.
“Morning,” Keith mumbled. His voice came out rough from sleep, but he didn’t pause to clear his throat. He didn’t need to speak. He leaned up, and his eyes slid close again.
“Morning,” Lance whispered into the minimal space between their lips.
Keith’s mind was blissfully empty. Nothing felt real outside of this bed, just him and Lance and no words at all. It was a world of warmth and endless kisses and hands that always found their way back into his hair.
Until Lance pushed back, sat up, and stared down at Keith with wide eyes and an open mouth.
“What?”
“They’re going to want to know how this happened.”
“This?”
Keith’s eyebrows were drawing ever closer together.
“Yeah, you know!”
Lance was frantic now, waving his hands back and forth between them. Keith didn’t know.
“I mean that we’re not stuck together anymore. They’ll want to know how it happened and, uh. Why.”
Lance wiped his hands on his pajama pants, and Keith just looked at him. He was nervous, but Keith didn’t understand why. In the few days they’d been stuck together, he had come to know Lance in a different way, and yet his perception of him had barely changed. He was still the same Lance, in his rumpled pajamas and unruly hair and his fingers drumming an uneasy rhythm on the cheery bright red bedspread. He couldn’t understand why Lance was nervous, but he knew that he didn’t want him to be.
“Then we tell them,” Keith said.
Something sour crossed Lance’s face and he got up from the bed without another look or word. Keith watched as he pulled open the dresser and scrutinized the clothes inside.
Without Lance, the bed cooled down quickly, but Keith didn’t pull the duvet around himself again. Maybe it had been a mistake. Lance didn’t actually like him. He had just figured out how to trick the Müske, somehow. Keith shook his head to get rid of the thought. He had been attached to Lance the entire time; there was no way for him to gain knowledge of something without Keith also being aware of it. And even though Keith didn’t know enough about Naskö and their traditions to judge if there was a way to trick the Müske, he did know Lance. He trusted him. His touch and his kisses couldn’t have lied, and the dazed smile on Lance’s lips after Keith had kissed him last night was forever etched into his brain. None of that could have been fake.
Keith shifted out of the covers and approached Lance. The floor was cold beneath his naked feet, and he drew his arms around himself.
“We could also just tell them we kissed to get out of it. That would also be okay.”
Lance whirled around. His eyes were still wide, and his mouth fell open when they landed on Keith. He crossed his arms tighter. Why did it still feel like he couldn’t be sure about anything? Kissing should have solved all the uncertainty between them, but it had added an issue for each one it had solved.
Lance cleared his throat.
“I – that’s not what I meant. I just –“
He pulled at his own hair, gaze locked on the floor, and Keith took a step closer.
“Lance –“
“I don’t want to explain last night to anyone. I don’t want to share it with anyone else. Especially not these stuck-up officials. I just want a way to tell them without having to tell them – like, a one-word-summary –“
His eyes found Keith’s and Keith saw the idea spark behind them and transform his whole face in a split second. Lance’s gaze became focused, his lips no longer scrunched in thought, but stretched in a grin.
“Oh. That’s it. Keith, do you wanna be my boyfriend?”
Keith was nodding and stepping forward into Lance’s warmth before the words had registered, before he had even thought. It didn’t eliminate all his doubts, but even that didn’t matter when his heart was suddenly light again and even the cold floor biting into the soles of his feet just reminded him that this was real. It was real, and Lance wasn’t running away from him even now that he could. His arms welcomed Keith closer. Keith kissed Lance’s smile, and it didn’t matter so much anymore that they had to tell the others, or that Keith still couldn’t believe that Lance felt the same for him. They were there to remind each other.
Just when Keith had let himself fall into the warmth of Lance’s kisses and thoughts of the cozy bed that beckoned to them, Lance drew back. Keith had to blink to get used to the sunlight. Lance was grinning broadly again.
“So, about telling them, what do you think of –”
They appeared in the breakfast room late. The other three paladins were there, and almost finished eating already. All eyes were on Lance and Keith when they entered. Keith tried his best to smile and look normal. Lance lifted their hands to wave – they were connected at the wrist.
“Hey, guys! Morning!”
After everyone echoed the greeting, Shiro sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Have you still not gotten rid of the attachment? Seriously, you two-”
Lance waved his finger back and forth in the air.
“Just wait!”
In front of the large table, he gripped Keith’s hand, attached again courtesy of a Müske they had found in the doorway of another room. He turned to Keith and looked him in the eyes and bent to whisper in his ear:
“I like you so much.”
Keith shivered at the words, but allowed himself only a small smile. He could feel the eyes on them, and even though he knew they couldn’t hear the words, it couldn’t have been difficult to guess. He didn’t want anyone to be able to guess what he would say to Lance. Before he could pull back, Keith slid his hand to Lance’s neck and whispered back:
“You don’t even know how much I like you.”
Their hands came apart, but their fingers stayed intertwined. Keith let Lance pull back a little and their eyes met. There was a mischievous twinkle in Lance’s.
“Really? Then why don’t you show me?”
Keith rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the fond smile. Lance was a little pink around the ears. Keith couldn’t look at him for much longer without blushing, too, so he turned to take in the others’ reactions.
“Well that is one way to solve it,” Pidge said, but she was smiling through it.
Hunk stood up and power-walked around the table to pull Lance into a side-hug and say something that had the word “proud” in it too many times.
Shiro smiled.
“Finally,” he mumbled into the last bite of his toast.
The last day on Naskö was the most fun. This time, it really felt like Christmas. And there could be nothing else that felt like real, actual Christmas: Running around in ankle-deep snow, building snow men, and throwing snowballs and laughing and making snow angels, and coming back inside cold and soaked to a hot chocolate and a cozy room and someone soft and smiling to cuddle with on the couch. A friendly cat snuggled in between Keith and Lance when Keith was just about to doze off, and someone was singing a soft song with a lovely voice in the next room over. The others' voices faded into the background, the cat was purring, and Lance scratched her ear, his other arm around Keith's shoulders.
And as he leant back into Lance’s side and felt all warm, inside and outside, Keith thought that Christmas might just become his favorite holiday.