Work Text:
******
Lance ducks beneath a barrage of gunfire, and Keith jumps the fence into the corral, ready to defend him from the swiftly approaching goons that Hesfer employs. The animals inside are not best pleased by the fighting, making low, threatening hums that Keith would probably call “moos” if they were Earth cows.
Lance definitely calls them “cows” with far too much delight, and Keith, dreading the horrific jokes, has consistently cut him off by stating, “They’re munssen, Lance. No one here knows what a cow is.”
Keith stabs towards a thug who’s trying to get at Lance, and he parries a blow from another as Lance attempts to take the boss down with his pistols.
Hesfer fires at the giant munssen that Lance is using for cover, and said peaceful grazing herbivore decides that it has had enough of this crap — the beast proceeds to lower its head and charge at the mercenary boss, skewering her on three of its five horns.
The battle ends abruptly.
Lance, Keith, and Hesfer’s thugs all look at each other.
An alien woman, who had been Hesfer’s right-hand, takes a moment to evaluate the bloody, unmoving body of her employer and says, “Well, boys, I think we’ve had enough for today.”
“Right,” Lance says, sounding strangled, tipping his cowboy hat at her. “But considering the hole in my favourite jacket, maybe it’s a moot point.”
Keith groans and buries his face in hands that are still clutching his twin blades.
Lance just grins wildly, high on adrenaline. And stupidity. But the latter was just his default state, Keith thought despairingly.
“C’mon, we just about wrangled ourselves a win here.” Lance twirls his pistols back into their holsters and shoots Keith with finger guns.
“No. Stop,” Keith says, pointing at him with one of his swords. “Lance, I’m dead serious.”
“Oh Keith, that’s just bull,” Lance crows.
Keith can feel himself dying inside. “You can’t even pun properly half the time, let alone make good ones when you do,” he insists, trying to end his suffering while sheathing his blades.
“Right, we’ll be taking our boss’s body now,” the woman says, looking like she sincerely doubts their sanity and wishes to be far away.
Keith does not blame her. He ignores the retreating mercenaries as Lance holds a hand to his heart.
“Yeah, she was such a prize, that heifer, I mean Hesfer.”
“Lance, if you don’t stop, you are sleeping on the damn floor, see if I won’t kick your ass straight out of bed tonight.”
“Sorry, buddy, I don’t think I herd you right?” And then he runs away, weaving between the munssen (all right, damn it, they definitely look like cows, albeit green with five horns), as Keith gives chase.
Keith tackles him into the dust, to the background chorus of more space cows mooing and going about their business.
Lance grins up at him, shameless. “Howdy you do, McClain?”
Keith drops his head to Lance’s chest, breathing heavily, and says with an accent he'd lost years ago, “Even though I’ve been stuck with you for months, half the time I still don’t know what in starnation you’re on about.”
The silence that follows is charged. When Keith lifts his head up, he sees that Lance’s blue eyes are wider — and darker.
“Keith, did you just break out your Texas for me? Did you just make a space cowboy pun for me?”
“No. You’re hearing things, maybe being a cowboy has limited your range.” Apparently, Keith could not pun properly either, nor did he have any dignity left, thanks to Lance.
“Keith. Keith,” Lance says, breathless and writhing beneath him — Keith would be answering that call to nudity if they weren’t currently in a corral full of space cows, and if Lance wasn’t about to say the exact thing he says next.
“We should probably catch a ride home, right?” Lance asks, teasing Keith with a swift roll of his hips. “Or …” He leans up and whispers in his ear. “Say it, c’mon. Please? Pretty please?”
“No. Also, the fact that bad jokes turn you on explains so much.”
“But you should save the horse, and ride a c—”
Keith covers Lance’s mouth with his hand. “You’ve said it once, and that was more times than it should ever have been said. Now, let’s get the hell out of here before we get stampeded over.”
Lance sighs heavily, allowing Keith to pull him up to a standing position. Keith takes a moment to make sure he’s not injured, and Lance grins playfully when Keith’s hands linger on certain areas. He smiles back because, well, he can’t help himself around his fiancé sometimes.
Just as they’ve left the corral, walking over to the ikuril they rode in on, Lance pounces onto Keith’s back.
Keith is forced to tightly grip the lanky legs that have wrapped around his waist, stumbling to keep his balance and prevent them both from crashing to the ground.
With all joy and ridiculousness, Lance announces, “Okay, Keith, I won’t say it since you’re the hoss.”
******