Work Text:
How Far We’ve Come (let’s see)
Keith narrows his eyes when Lance walks in the living room. “You want something.”
Lance gapes at him, placing a dramatic hand over his heart, “Whyever would you think such a thing?”
Keith goes back to doing pushups on the living room floor. “I can tell.”
“How?! I haven’t said anything!”
“I know things.”
Lance huffs dramatically, “I don’t know what you mean.”
A long moment of silence as Keith continues to do pushups and Lance stands in the doorway.
“Are you just watching me?”
“No, I actually do want something but I don’t want to admit it.”
Keith smiles a small, self-satisfied smirk that has Lance rolling his eyes. “Knew it.”
“Quit being smug.”
“Never. What do you want?”
Lance chews the inside of his cheek and not-so-subtley watches the stretch and pull of Keith’s muscles under his skin. “I need chaperones for a community center camping trip.”
Keith actually pauses in his fitness routine and twists up into a sitting position. “Why are you asking me?”
Lance grins awkwardly, “Because I loooove you and want to spend every minute possible in your presence?”
Keith raises a skeptical eyebrow, “A parent quit at the last minute didn’t they?”
“Well, yeah, but my original argument sounded way more convincing.”
Keith sighs and flops onto his back on the living room carpet. “I hate camping.”
“Yeah, but you know how to do it, and you loooove me.”
Keith sighs again, louder and more dramatic, “Remember when we were first dating and you’d actually get me drunk and seduce me before convincing me to do annoying stuff for you? I miss those days.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“No, I’m holding out for vodka and sex.”
“We can do that later but I really need you to commit like, now, so Coran doesn’t have to cancel the trip.”
Keith groans, “Fine. I’ll do it.”
Lance comes over, crouching down to press a kiss to his lips, “Thank you, babe.”
Keith makes an irritated noise and reaches out to pull Lance into his lap. Lance falls with the motion, laughing, until they’re tangled together on the living room floor. Lance presses their foreheads together and smiles, “You’re the best husband.”
“I’d better be the only husband,” Keith huffs, still playing at being grumpy.
“Best of husbands. Just of all the husbands, you’re the best.”
“Eh, you’re pretty okay, too.”
“I take it back, you’re the worst, the absolute worst of everything –“ Lance’s words cut off with a shriek as Keith’s hands sneak up and under his shirt, tickling as they go.
…
Keith squints suspiciously at the early-morning sun and then down and over at Pidge, “How’d he get you?”
Pidge sighs. “He got Hunk and Shay first.”
“Did all the parent chaperones just spontenously go on strike?”
“Turns out Community Center camping trips are great ways of getting out of having to deal with your own kids for a weekend. Once you realize that, the idea of dealing with your kids plus dozens of other people’s kids becomes a lot less appealing.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“This is going to end badly,” Keith sums up resignedly.
“Yep.”
“Very badly.”
“Definitely.”
Keith passes her his canteen of coffee and lets her take a healthy swig. They’re going to need it.
…
There are actually some other chaperones on this trip, or as Pidge says: ‘real adults’. Keith can’t help but be a little grateful. If worst comes to worst, there are at least people with actual experience with and knowledge of children. Not to mention Shay, who regularly volunteers at the Community Center. She owns a little paint-your-own-pottery studio in town and sells her own ceramics on the side. She routinely takes a batch of mugs or little ceramic animals and some paints to the center for the kids to work on. Because she’s an actual angel and personal friend of Coran’s, she only lets the center pay for supplies (and Lance suspects she underbills them for that too). Lance is 100% convinced she and Hunk are Meant to Be.
Keith doesn’t know about Lance’s matchmaking shenanigans but he does like Shay. She’s one of those infinitely kind people you just feel better after talking to.
“Hello, Keith, I’m surprised I haven’t seen you on one of these trips before,” she says lightly, walking over to where Keith is leaning against a lamppost, Pidge having already wandered off to bug Lance, watching the parking lot slowly fill up with parents dropping their kids off.
“I normally work weekends,” he explains, “but after the regular season ends I have a couple weeks off before workshops begin.”
She smiles, mellow brown cheeks dimpling and golden-amber eyes twinkling. “Lance was so nervous about asking you, it was kind of sweet.”
Keith blinks at her, “Nervous? Why?”
She shakes her head, bobbed black hair swaying with the motion. Her usual heavy gold hoop earrings are missing – she must not want to risk her nice jewelry in the wilderness. “Lance is funny. He does everything for everyone but is always so surprised when the people who love him are willing to do the same,” she reaches out to touch his arm, “I’m glad you agreed to come along.”
She walks away before Keith can come up with a good response.
…
Lance appears at his side before Keith can finish mulling over Shay’s words. “Hey, how’s my favorite chaperone?” Lance’s eyes are bright; he’s practically bouncing. It’s an odd image, an energized morning Lance. Keith’s husband is generally not a morning person. He’s typically perfectly content to drag himself through his first hour of wakefulness, nursing a cup of coffee and sluggishly putting together breakfast.
Keith narrows his eyes, “Why didn’t you think I’d want to come?”
Lance pauses, tipping his head to the side curiously, “Uh, because you don’t?”
Keith’s brows pull together, “But you know you can ask me to do things for you, right? You just have to ask and I’ll do it.”
Lance laughs nervously, fingers tapping restlessly agains his clipboard, “Well, yeah, that’s why I don’t ask to do stuff much, babe. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
Keith frowns but Lance is interrupting him before he can say anything.
“Anyway, I’ve got your group assignment here. You and Pidge are on the 14-and-olders. I’m not mean enough to stick you with a bunch of middle schoolers and teenagers walk all over Hunk and Shay. And the actual parent chaperones…don’t really get ‘teens these days’.”
Keith smiles, but he’s still stuck on what Lance said. He doesn’t say anything, though, just takes the list from Lance and teasingly says, “I don’t actually need your whole chain of reasoning,” like the previous conversation didn’t happen at all.
“Just no punching any sixteen year olds,” Lance bumps his shoulder with his own, “I know they’re annoying but they’re actually very sensitive.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Keith says dryly, skimming his list.
…
“You do know how to drive a van, right?” Pidge asks him suspiciously, after telling some kid that ‘for the last time, I am a real adult’.
“Uh, yeah? I learned how to drive on my mom’s truck. I’ve driven RVs before, Pidge.”
“Yeah, but that was when you were like, twelve and a delinquent.”
“I wasn’t a delinquent, Pidge. I was a desert nomad, there’s a difference.”
“You guys are super weird,” is the verdict from one of the ten teens they’re nominally in charge of.
“Your face is weird,” Pidge shoots back.
“Pidge,” Keith sighs from the front seat, suddenly feeling a huge burst of sympathy for Shiro.
“I’m an adult, I do what I want.”
It’s going to be a long trip.
…
Keith is aware his iTunes library has a lot of what Lance and Pidge lovingly refer to as ‘emo trash’ and the rest of it is mostly Broadway musical sountracks. But that’s not really going to stop him from inflicting ‘Mr. Brightside’ on a van full of teens all determined to show they’ve too cool for that song that was cool in middle school.
(They’re singing along by the second chorus and Keith feels inexplicably powerful)
…
“Oh my god, you resurrected the Black Parade,” Lance groans at a rest stop, “Seriously, Keith?”
Keith just shrugs and dumps a bowl of microwave chili into an open bag of Fritos.
“I tried to stop him,” Pidge says piously from where she sits, one eye on the hoard of children, the other on Keith’s lunch, “That still looks disgusting every time you make it, dude.”
Keith shrugs again and drizzles on the cheese.
Lance sighs dramatically, “Why did I think it was a good idea to pair the two of you with teenagers?”
“No clue,” Keith takes a bite out of his concoction and nods judiciously. It’s pretty good, “We’re not exactly good role models.”
“Speak for yourself, you’re married with like four children,” Pidge snorts.
Keith narrows his eyes at her, “For the last time, my coworkers are not our children.”
“Hey,” Lance elbows him, “Don’t speak ill of Adela, Alyssa, Farid and Tony. We’re practically the Brady Bunch. But with more diversity and a better theme song.”
“What’s our theme song?” Keith asks, perplexed.
“‘Water Fountain’ by the Tune Yards,” Pidge says decisively.
“I will look that up and be very offended later, I’m sure,” Lance huffs, “Why are both of you so terrible?”
Keith wordlessly presses play on his iphone and the chorus to My Chemical Romance’s ‘I’m Not Okay, I Promise’ blares tinnily from the built-in speakers.
Lance sighs and throws his hands up in the air dramatically. Keith and Pidge exchange smirks.
…
The campsite is outfitted with cabins (featuring standard-issue cliché bunkbeds), a mess hall (featuring no actual food – they have to supply that themselves), outhouses (featuring the signature outhouse odor), and rudimentary running water pumped from the nearby lake.
“It’s so…” Keith tips his head to the side, considering.
“Rustic?” Pidge offers.
“…urban.”
She gapes at him. “Dude, these are cabins in the woods.”
“With running water!”
“There are outhouses!”
“Yeah? And no poisonous snakes. This is pracitally the city plus a few more trees.”
Pidge shakes her head at him slowly, “I never know if you’re kidding about this stuff or if you’re actually this much of a feral desert child.”
Keith just shakes his head, expression carefully blank until Pidge gives up and shoves him with a huff. He rocks back, laughing, and, catching Lance’s eye across the parking lot, flashes his husband a grin. Lance looks momentarily surprised then beams right back at him. It leaves Keith warm to his toes.
Until Pidge lobs his duffle bag at his head and tells him to get a move on.
…
There is a whole list of planned activities for each age group and a complicated system for switching from activity to activity. Hunk and Shay take this in stride (when asked Hunk just shrugs and says it’s not that much different from TA-ing freshman classes at the university), but Pidge and Keith spend the rest of the day running around clutching their clipboards and hoping no one notices how confused they are.
Keith feels like he should be better at this. Timetables and sudden changes are pretty par for the course in his line of work. But there’s something drastically different about switching from group to group and activity to activity as the time blocks pass that just hasn’t clicked in his brain yet. But for now he has to supervise the 11-13 year olds as they stumble their way through basic archery…despite knowing very little about archery beyond ‘that stuff Legolas did in the The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘prop bows are the worst, never let a director talk you into it ever again’.
But by the end of the session no one’s dead or impaled and they’ve only lost three arrows in the woods so Keith counts it as a win.
They troop back to the main campground, the middle schoolers squabbling the entire way (Keith doesn’t know how Lance does his job and stays sane, he really doesn’t). Keith at least can get them to stay on the path with a few well-placed shouts and some carefully calculated sharp looks that have been known to quell even the most preposterous theatre tantrums. (The Look only gets impetuous eye-rolls from these preteens but Keith’s just assuming those are quelled eyerolls and just takes what he can get.)
At least there is food and other children and fire…oh shit there’s fire…back at the campground. Apparently they’re making their own dinners…over an open fire…how…camping-like.
Well. Keith knows how to do this better than archery. So there’s a silver lining after all.
Hunk and Shay, in charge of the littlest kids, have prepared basic hotdogs, hamburgers and some kind of veggie burger Keith’s pretty sure is Hunk’s own recipe back at the mess hall along with carrot sticks and a truly massive amount of macroni and cheese. The under-10-year-olds are chowing down under Hunk, Shay, and a parent chaperone’s benign supervision. Meanwhile a beaming Lance (is he battery-operated? How is his still this peppy?), a bedraggled Pidge and a weary parent chaperone whose name Keith can’t remember (Sheri? Susan? Keith should be better at names…) herd the 11-and-olders down to the beach where they are apparently expected to learn the art of making fire and then making edible food with the fire.
Keith is not sure why they’re so excited about this.
But excited most of them seem to be, tearing down the pebbly beach, searching for stones to make their fire-rings, gathering bark and brush for the starter kindling. One sullen middle schooler sulks beside Keith, arms crossed, eyes prepped for rolling, “Why do the babies get food for free when we have to work for it?”
Keith is honestly wondering the same thing. He wants some macaroni and cheese, dammit. He thought he was done making food over open flame when he moved to the city and got a kitchen and a diet that approached ‘balanced’.
He stares at the kid, though. There’s no need to be whiny about it. “When I was your age I had to catch my food first,” he deadpans.
The kid’s eyes widen and she gapes at him, “You’re lying.”
“Nope. I lived in the desert and cooked my food over an open fire every other night.”
“Were you a cowboy?” she sounds really suspicious, like she’s been burned before by other random camp counselors who’ve claimed cowboy status.
“No. I was a feral desert child raised by coyotes.”
“No way.”
“Way. They adopted me.”
She narrows her eyes, “If you were raised by coyotes then how come you’re here?” she asks like this is a real stumper of a question.
“You ever see Jungle Book?”
“Yeah, it’s a kid movie. My little brother likes it.”
“It was like that. I had to go back to the human world. You can’t stay wild forever. So I’d enjoy it while you have the chance.”
She scrunches up her nose.
“What? You think you’re too cool to make a campfire? Or make your own food? Guess what people were doing for thousands of years before you were even here?”
She gives him a disdainful look.
“Making fire.” Keith tells her, “Making food. The usual thing.”
“How would you know?”
“Well, in addition to being raised by coyotes, I’m an alien who’s been using my time-traveling spaceship to check up on your primitive species every millennia or so.”
She stares at him. Maybe he was a little too dry.
He sighs, “I’m kidding. But you should enjoy the opportunity to set stuff on fire while you have the chance. Unleash your inner pyro. In a very contained, safe way.”
That’s oddly enough to draw a laugh out of her, “You’re weird.”
“I get that a lot.”
She laughs at him again, and says; “I get why Mr. Lance likes you,” before jogging away to join her friends.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith mutters at her back.
…
The chaperones do get some macaroni and cheese but it’s the leftovers and they don’t get it until later. First there’s the big all-group gathering around the main fire pit and marshmallows and singing camping songs Keith and a number of the more self-concious teens and preteens only vaguely mouth along to. Lance of course sings every line and is too adorable to handle – Keith really, really loves this ridiculous man. Hunk and Lance take turns telling stories that are half scary and half silly. They end by going around the circle and having each camper say something good about their day.
It’s kitschy and cliché and Keith finds himself wondering if this was the kind of summertime childhood memories Shiro wanted to have. Keith never wanted this kind of thing…never put a whole lot of thought into what must go into being normal. He’d spent so much time fighting the kids who called him weird…he’d been pre-programmed to reject anything they talked about or liked or wanted to do and be. It was a defense mechanism. His first loyalty was always to his mom. If they thought his fierce, brilliant mother was bad then anything they must think was good must be crap, right?
But…this is nice. He looks up, catches sight of Lance, face striped with orange and gold light from the firepit, eyes dancing, hands fluttering through the air as he outlines another point…this is very nice.
Keith wraps his jacket tighter around himself and lets the sounds of life and youth wash over him.
…
“We have to sleep in separate beds?” Keith asks skeptically, “In different cabins? Is this place run by Puritans?”
Lance laughs at the scandalized look on Keith’s face. “No, this camp is run by people who want each cabin to be adequately supervised by a responsible, legal adult.”
Keith will never admit it, but he totally pouts. “Lance.”
“Each cabin has one chaperone in case of emergencies. One chaperone that sleeps on a bunkbed like every other camper. Alone.” Lance’s eyes are dancing again, he’s totally laughing at Keith’s pain.
“But…” Keith knows he’s being ridiculous and irrational. But he wants his husband with him, dammit.
“You realize you’d be sleeping alone even if you didn’t come along on the trip, right? This actually changes nothing.”
Keith narrows his eyes at him. “I hate it when you’re more rational than me.”
Lance shakes his head, a fond smile on his face, “We have the most competitive relationship.”
“Yeah, it makes us better than all those other couples.”
“Nice use of verbal irony, babe. You’re still sleeping in your own cabin.”
Keith sighs dramatically. The middle schoolers might be influencing him a bit too much.
…
The next morning they all have to be up early, campers included, but the chaperones have to be up and about at least an hour earlier than the kids. They aren’t making the eleven and olders make their own food for breakfast, it’s just basic Costco pastries and fruit platters with Hunk scrambling up eggs and Shay frying bacon. Keith has been banished to muffin-slicing (“Since you have a scary knife and a fondness for slicing things up, babe –” “ – you know I can scramble eggs, Lance – ” “ – and as much as I appreciate all the times you’ve only kind of burned breakfast I think it’s best if we left this with Hunk this time, love you~”). So Keith cuts muffins in half (although not with his multi-tool, he’s not getting muffin crumbs in it’s hinges if he can help it – and it’s a multi-tool, not a scary knife! He didn’t even bring the hunting knife his mom left him in her will…).
The children descend on the food like a swarm of locusts and it’s honestly a little disturbing.
Pidge, who’s been on chaperone-caffienation duty, looks a lot like she’s been drinking her own merchandise. Speaking of merchandise, Keith is pretty sure he spotted her selling Styrofoam cups of coffee to the older kids for a dollar each. He’s not going to tell on her, but he’s pretty sure Lance will notice in the next five minutes and put a stop to it. (It takes Lance three to spot her and another two to thoroughly chastise her for her capitalist aims and corruption of the youth.)
Keith steals another muffin half for himself while Lance is distracted.
…
Saturday is another whirlwind of activities briefly interrupted by a sandwich lunch and topped off with another campfire dinner (this one is chili, made in big metal pots over hot coals and closely supervised by the adutls). They all gather at the big fire pit one more time for more marshmallows and equally fluffy feelings. It’s very…wholesome. Keith feels like he’s in a movie montage of some kind, but not the kind of movie people like him actually belong in. He’s borrowing someone else’s movie montage. It’s weird but not…bad. It’s actually kind of nice.
Lance even kisses him at his cabin door like they’re sixteen and dating under parents’ watchful eyes. It’s enough to make him laugh out loud, a soft chuckle into the night after Lance has walked away with a wink and a wave.
…
Sunday is a ‘free day’ in the sense that the kids can pick their activities in the morning and the afternoon is devoted to a giant water gun and water balloon fight (aquatic weaponry provided by Lance and co.). What starts out as a free-for-all quickly evolves into a Team Lance vs. Team Keith endevour the minute the kids get a sense of how ridiculously competitive the two of them can get. No one’s sure who wins in the end, since everyone is soaked to the skin, but Keith’s pretty sure it was him; (Lance is also pretty sure it was his own team so they’ll never know, will they?).
…
Monday they pack up and head out, back to the city. Pidge is too exhausted to fight Keith for control of the radio so he takes pity on her and turns on ‘How Far We’ve Come’ by Matchbox Twenty and they howl along to the lyrics and soon have the whole van singing along.
…
Keith and Lance stagger through their door, nearly tripping over Laz as she bounds over to greet them, fluffy tail high in the air. Ruby mews at them imperiously from the back of the couch, her own tail thrashing as if to say she is not impressed with their shenanigans. Their bags hit the ground and they’re a mess of greeting the cats and half-hearted unpacking until they’re just simply a mess, sprawled in the middle of the living room floor side-by-side, the cats occasionally walking over them, paws digging in insistently, a four-footed demand for attention.
Keith rolls his head to the side and finds Lance has done the same. They’re nose to nose now. “How do you do your job and not go insane?” Keith asks flatly.
“You know, I wonder the same thing about your job, babe,” Lance says lightly, then sobers, “It’s all relative. My job makes me happy. Your job…makes you happy too? I think? I think it’s a happy kind of misery?”
“Oh definitely.”
Lance chuckles, “You’re funny.”
A moment of silence as they just breathe and try to ignore the chirping cats circling them.
“Why didn’t you ask me right away?” Keith asks, serious now, eyes tracing Lance’s face, trying to find the answers written there.
Lance sighs, “I don’t like asking you for stuff,” he shrugs, “You do so much…”
“Yeah, so do you. I like doing things for you. I love you.”
“I just don’t…”
“I’m a grownup, Lance. I can say no if I have to.”
Lance huffs, “I seem to remember a time when some idiot almost worked himself to death and ended up in the hospital, dehydrated, malnourished and exhausted.”
Keith sighs, “That was different. Just...I don’t want you to think you can’t ask me for things.”
“I just don’t want you making yourself miserable trying to do everything.”
“This conversation is going in circles,” Keith says flatly, “I get that communication is super healthy and adult and whatever but there is such a thing as too much talking.”
It’s enough to send Lance into a fit of laughter so sharp and sudden Keith actually twitches back, surprised. It’s a minute or so before Lance collects himself, wiping tears of mirth away from his eyes, “You’re…you’re something.”
“Yeah, so are you.”
Lance reaches over to run a gentle hand through Keith’s hair, scratching his scalp as he goes, “Love you.”
“Love you too. Please don’t think you can’t ask for things from me.”
Lance sighs dramatically and rolls away onto his back. Keith mourns the loss of his hand in his hair. “Ugh, this is so emotionally mature. I am Not Prepared for this.”
Keith takes a risk and rolls over to flop partially on top of him, hooking his chin over Lance’s shoulder and slotting their limbs together.
“Oof, hey, you’re heavy.”
“Answer the question and I’ll move.”
“Fine. But this is coercion.”
Keith noses at his neck.
“Hey! Cheating! But okay, I get it. I’ll ask you for stuff in the future. But I’d like to point out, by winning this argument you have also lost it.”
“I think I can live with that.”
“Well as long as you’re sure.”