Archive of Our Own

i.

Keith isn’t entirely sure how he got here.

He vaguely remembers some kicking and screaming; a disappointed sigh or two as he was deposited at the door. His face is still screwed up in the global toddler language of no, don’t leave me here, I’m staying at home, please for the love of all that is holy no.

But the fact remains: despite all his pleading, Keith Kogane is in kindergarten, listening to his new classmates introduce themselves and wishing heartily he’d never been born.

Heavy stuff for a five-year-old, he knows. But when you’ve been sitting cross-legged on a musty carpet hearing the same mindless chatter for half an hour straight, well, things can only be expected to get a little dreary. If his brain were advanced enough to grasp the concept of sarcasm, he’d probably be able to recite the drivel before it spills from these kids’ mouths: Keith’s no child genius, but he’s pretty sure the average IQ in this room is approximately the same height as he is.

Hi, I’m Reyna and I like to ride horses. Hey, my name is Jack and I’m going to be a policeman. Hello, I’m Polly and I play soccer every morning with my mom.

(Ah yes: irritatingly miniscule, with skinned knees from chewing the ground.)

Keith gazes at the clock on the wall – he’s been told it controls the time, though how the entire universe revolves around it he cannot imagine – and wills its tired hands to circle faster. He longs for the couch at home, infinitely more welcoming than this sneeze-inducing floor. Hours of silence to watch Legendary Defender and pore over alien picture books: galaxy documentaries and jargon at the dinner table. From only moments in this room, Keith already knows that space captains’ orders are infinitely more interesting that anything his classmates have to say. Back yards beckon: rickety treehouses, deserted planets, starlit skies.

In naivety, the other kindergartners notice Keith’s absence from the room. They accept it benignly, with momentary wonderings of where his mind might be. Reports cards to come will label Keith a ‘daydreamer;’ teachers will despair of his wasted potential, the mind locked away in reverie. In response, his dad will offer shrugs and helpless smiles. What do you say, he will ask them. What do you say to a kid with his head in the stars?

No inklings of this future reaches Keith now; kindergarten Keith, whose knowledge extends only as far as the number ten and the edge of the Milky Way. Instead, intrinsic need of movement unfurls within his veins. There have been a total of two interesting children in this line-up so far – a kid whose parents teach the fourth grade and a little girl with an awesome pair of overalls – and that’s it; his first day of kindergarten, and Keith Kogane has never been so ready to graduate.

(In less eloquent terms, he. wants. out.)

Another boy jumps to his feet, nearly taking the carpet with him. The tugging of the floor brings Keith abruptly back to Earth, and his eyes slide into focus on an accident with legs. The kid’s feet are too big for his body and he’s missing two front teeth, giving him a distinct look of Altean bar-brawl; haphazard band-aids paint ancestral markings on his skin.

(Maybe he’s an alien! Keith thinks wildly in a moment of epiphany, then notices the sling encapsulating the boy’s right arm. Unwillingly, he sinks back into disdain. Nah. Aliens don’t break bones.)

Blissfully unaware of Keith’s internal monologue nor the half-hearted attention he’s garnered, the boy puffs out his chest, face commandeered by an enormous gap-toothed smile.

“I’m Lance!” he announces to the world at large, or at least the kindergartners still functioning enough to listen. “My family came over here from Cuba. I have three sisters and a brother!”

Booooring. Keith expels all thoughts of aliens from his mind.

Lance, however, isn’t finished. “When I grow up, I’m gonna go to space and marry Coran the Crusher. Then we’re gonna rule over the galaxy together!”

What?

Keith is on his feet in a flash, wasting no time in stomping across the classroom.
The teacher looks on in mystery as Lance turns to his new companion, grin growing ever larger. “Are you going to space too, buddy?”

“Yes I am, you quiznak,” Keith spits, balling his fists in first-day-of-kindergarten glory. “And I’m going to marry Dr Coran.”

(If both Keith and Lance were sent to the principal’s office on their first day of kindergarten, neither of them remember it. If letters are issued the day after – filled with recommendations of ‘child-friendly’ shows to watch, Legendary Defender decidedly absent from the list – they remain crumpled in the abyss of space-themed schoolbags. If something had started there, in the crummy nebula of an elementary school classroom, neither of them knew it – but how could they? Forgetting about the clock on the wall and building kitchen-roll rockets in the heat of newfound friendship is exhausting, especially if one’s eyes are set on stars.)

ii.

“Lance,” Keith asks cautiously. “What are you doing?”

After three years of rocky companionship, the other boy’s blush isn’t exactly an unfamiliar sight, yet hasn’t ceased to amuse. Lance averts his gaze, staring forcefully over Keith’s head with his feet shuffling awkwardly on the carpet. A heart-shaped piece of paper – akin to the one clutched behind Keith’s back – lies crumpled in his fist.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out what Lance is fixated on. Behind Keith, in all its glory, is the class calendar: decorated gaily with stickers and glitter-glue, plastered in educational slogans.

And a heart. A big, crimson heart, embellished with glitter and encircling the 14th of February.

(Lance, for all his bragging and playground games of ‘spies’, has never been too great at discretion.)

Having successfully deducted his friend’s intentions and quivering internally with self-congratulatory disgust, Keith continues. “We’re supposed to put them in the box on Miss Nyma’s desk. It’s an anony – anonym – “

“Anonymous,” the teacher corrects as she sails by, arms full of fruit snacks for the third graders’ morning break.

“That,” Keith nods. “She said that your valentine isn’t supposed to know who you are. Why are you still holding it?”
If anything, the scarlet speckling Lance’s cheeks blooms further. “I wanted to give it to her in person,” he declares, still gazing resolutely behind his companion. “I bought candy to put in it. So.”

It takes all the willpower Keith possesses not to whine and kick his shin: that was my idea.

(Not that Valentines, in all its sappy glory, had ever even slightly appealed to him. If it weren’t for Lance’s relentless enthusing, he doubts February 14th would even register in his head. Nevertheless, the starstruck romances featuring on Legendary Defender – between two boys even, not that he’s seen any of that here on Earth – have always been intriguing: why, he wonders frequently, would you choose kisses over kills?)

“I’m doing the same thing,” he confesses instead, betraying weakness in the face of a superficial class exercise – and perhaps a little curiosity. “Who is yours to? Maybe we can catch them together.”

By the time the teacher breaks up the squabble that ensues after Lance’s answer – but she’s MY valentine, not yours, go get your own girlfriend – recess is well and truly over, and both Casanovas have to wait until lunch break in order to declare their undying love. Lance sits at the back of the classroom and pouts at Keith; the latter, with his head in the clouds, stares out the window and smiles.

***

Katie Holt moved into the neighbourhood around a couple of months ago, from a place that nobody in the class can pronounce. She wears glasses that wink in the sunlight – prescription lenses, as she proudly informs anyone who does (or does not) ask; her knowledge on the mystery of contact lenses knows no bounds. Her hair is longer than all the other girls in the third grade, but woe betide anyone who pulls it: quick fingers – the ones which tackle piano keys and know how to turn on computers – are notorious for tying shoelaces in irreversible sailors’ knots.

Katie Holt is fearless; Katie Holt is bold. Katie Holt has skipped a year to third grade, her parents having already taught her how to read and write and add. Both Lance and Keith – unfortunately for all parties involved, and the latter for the sake of a Valentine – are completely and utterly in love with her.

(Katie Holt, as Keith would reminisce after the incident, is capable of pulling the most majestic disgusted face he’d ever have the pleasure of witnessing.)

“What is it?” she asks, after approximately two seconds of having the two boys within her radar. Her glasses wink over the top of a book that Keith is pretty sure the fifth graders haven’t started yet: he makes a mental note to step up his reading game.

“It’s Valentine’s day,” Lance blurts out, hands tucked behind his back in what is probably the least conspicuous ‘I’m hiding something’ pose ever. Nevertheless, Keith mimics his stance. The aura Katie projects is as awe-inspiring as it is terrifying: to have both in equal measure is a hardship that few can endure, and blending into his surroundings has always been an easy alternative.

“It is,” Katie replies quizzically, eyes narrowing over her tome.

(The silence stretching out between them is suffocating, so Keith throws in a helpful “yeah,” ignoring the frustrated squeak coming from somewhere in Lance’s direction.)

“We made some!” Lance finally gets out, painting a grin of gargantuan proportions onto his face and thrusting the pile of crumpled paper at its intended recipient. Keith follows suit, candy dust ballooning into the air. Katie winds up coughing, and Keith has his first ever experience as a third wheel: Lance’s eyes twitching in his circus grin, their ‘valentine’ coughing her guts out, and Keith disassociating entirely from the situation.

Or, to be precise, wondering why the hell he ever took his eyes off the stars to look at a girl instead.

Lance, ever the trooper, soldiers on. “We didn’t want to put them in the box, because the candy would get ruined. And you’re too awesome for that. So we thought we’d give them to you in person.”

“No thanks,” Katie says unceremoniously after she recovers, popping a fragment of candy into her mouth. “I don’t do Valentines. Boys are gross, anyway.”

From what he’s seen of TV rejections, Keith should be falling into an abyss right about now. Tears of helplessness flooding from his eyes, uttering reams of romantic garbage; instead, he feels numbing indifference. Love is stupid, he decides from the vantage point inside his head. Crushes are overrated.

(Judging by his reaction, Lance has seen his own share of tween heartbreak. Mouth gaping like a goldfish and doubled over like a punch to the gut, Keith’s friend has never seemed so small. Lips tremble, unbecoming on a boy of usual high cheer.)

Maybe Valentines should mean something after all, Keith ponders. If Lance – spacecraft second-in-command, king of scraped knees and his best (and only) friend – is so entranced by it, perhaps he ought to reconsider.

(He surveys the carnage. Naaah.)

“Sorry,” Keith nods after it becomes apparent that Lance is too stunned to contribute, then drags his friend-come-rival off in disgrace.

Little by little, Lance comes back to life. As they squabble, cheeks fire-engine red – that was your fault, dumbass – you can’t say that – watch me – Keith is painfully aware of the emotional void latching its claws in his chest. He shoves it from his mind and dedicates himself to listening for a breaking heart instead: he doubts their spaceship carries surgery kit, but no harm in checking all the same.

(He doesn’t hear it, but the anguished wails coming out of Lance’s mouth are terrifying enough. As their bickering returns to normal amid an unsaid pact of confidentiality, Keith makes a silent oath to never, ever be involved in Valentine’s Day again.)

iii.

It takes Keith a while to come back to that oath.

Even longer to realise why.

(And by long, he means it took years: all of elementary school, all of Lance moving away, all of awkward homeroom chatter through the sixth grade and all of being asked out by four different girls, all of whom are barking up the incorrect figurative tree.)

But all conclusions come, however slowly, and when Keith’s penny drops it drops like a boulder. On his pinkie toe. In outer space. Snickering, this asteroid brings him back down to earth with a bump, straight through whatever stratosphere had separated him from others his age: classmates who previously piqued no interest but now aggravate a fragile, hellish emotional minefield.

Returning to the planet after long periods in space can wreak havoc with an astronaut’s sense of balance: Keith has been knocked right off his feet. For the first time since his disastrous Valentine’s attempt in third grade, he has cause to tear his eyes from the stars.

In other words, Keith looks at Hunk Garrett and thinks oh.

Hunk Garrett: the two words guaranteed to make Keith’s mind fold in on itself. Inexplicably, they invite both uncontrollable grinning and scrunching his face into a scowl: emotional shambles tie him into predicaments he’d much rather sprint away from. For Hunk is everything Keith has missed since Lance left, but he is so much more than a replacement. And Keith doesn’t know how to deal with it.

A comforting presence at his back. Respect for personal space, yet conversation when insecurities call. Heated debates over mythical technology in some spin-off sci-fi episode, or eleven-pm phone calls enthusing about garlic bread; puppy-dog eyes pleading for sleepovers and pumping fists as Keith finally agrees. A relationship that extends tentatively past the realms of Altea and Zarkon: a foreign object in Keith’s system.

Yet since the awkward introductions in homeroom – with Lance gone, Keith had nobody, and Hunk was the only student from his elementary – Hunk has barrelled his way into Keith’s heart, grinning ear to ear in braces and broad shoulders. A year or so of dubious chemistry concoctions, fruitless races in Phys Ed and countless antics besides have knit them closer together than Keith had anticipated. Previous friendships had balanced precariously on common interests: Legendary Defender in elementary school, evolving into dreams of aeronautical engineering or spaceflight.

Hunk has an affinity for baking cupcakes, tinkering in his father’s workshop and playing linebacker for the middle school’s football team. Keith runs track, delves into physics, and – well, that’s pretty much it.

(Unless you count stargazing as a hobby, which Keith very much does not. It’s just a timewaster. An evening-filler. A reminder that he can run around a circuit as much as he wants, but he can’t outrun this god damn planet unless he works his ass off and into a rocket ship, up into the galaxy.)

Other than elementary school recess and afternoons spent exploring the back yard, Keith has never had anything to endear Earth to him. It’s not that he particularly hates this planet, just that there’s so much else out there, quiet and waiting for his footsteps. However, Hunk – after the initial shock of foreign object – might just be changing his mind.

“If I end up flying for NASA,” Keith muses one day, lying on his back in school yard with homework maliciously abandoned, “will you be my ground engineer?”

“Of course I will, dude,” Hunk replies from where he’s fiddling with a malfunctioning binder, tongue stuck out in concentration. “I’ll be right behind you, checking the regulators so you don’t explode.”

Keith throws a pencil at him, and he rolls his eyes. “Watch it, Kogane, or I’ll fix it so you do.”

There it is, Keith thinks in retrospect, skimming over that day and the hundreds other memories like it. Drowsy hours in the summer sun, planning for the future in a throwaway fashion; shared anticipation for report cards, and mutual tirades over the education system; impromptu kinship thrown together by circumstance and held fast over time. A brotherhood. In many ways, Hunk has come to be as much of a constant as the ground pressing into Keith’s back: tying him down to earth, natural as breathing and always there to come back to.

Perhaps that’s what prompted the change. He’s not entirely sure when it came about: unfamiliar warmth first nestling itself into his chest, eyes lingering just that little bit too long. A stirring in places he’s never felt emotion before.

Some things never change, and Keith has always been the one to dig his heels in. Nevertheless, he supposes this is what one calls a crush.

(It’s just as inconvenient as he remembers it to be.)

***

“Keith,” Hunk asks as he surfaces awkwardly from the gym shirt, “do you know if Shay is watching today?”

“No,” Keith says, trying not to let his nose wrinkle in disgust as he watches Hunk struggle with the kit. He shields his eyes from the sun, already sweating in the apocalyptic heat. “Why would you care?”

Hunk shrugs, jamming the line-backer’s helmet on his head. “No reason in particular. Got your pom-poms?”

Keith rolls his eyes and slaps his companion on the back. “Get out of here, idiot.”

It’s a running joke between them, the fact that Keith’s an all-star on the track but won’t touch football with a barge pole. The fateful conversation of why – “is there anything remotely confusing about the fact that I don’t want to get my face smashed in” – “dude you’re the most confrontational person I know” – had culminated in several spur-of-the-moment declarations, the foremost of which Keith has never been able to live down.

Keith may be twelve years old. He may be mid-gay-crisis. But he still should’ve known – being fast friends with Hunk Garrett, self-proclaimed gossip girl and nicknamer extraordinaire – not to stand up and yell “I would literally rather join the cheerleading squad than get tackled into the dirt by football jocks.”

(Not that there’s anything wrong with male cheerleaders. It’s just that – well, y’know. Keith’s built a bit of a reputation for himself as the mysterious loner with the emo hair, and he doesn’t want to ruin it by turning flips in a tiny skirt. Even if, as Hunk put it, he could really rock that dress.)

(And the last thing this sexuality shitshow needs is exposure to a bunch of muscled athletes. That too.)

“Remind me why I agreed to this?” he says flatly as Hunk stretches his quads. “I could be at home right now. Or doing sprints. Not sitting alone in the bleachers, watching as you kick a ball about with people you don’t even know.”

“I already told you: community training. I know these guys from games I’ve played.” Hunk shrugs, wincing as his hamstrings loosen. “Anyway, I bribed you with ice cream, man. Feel free to chicken out on mint choc chip.”

Keith splays his hands in surrender. “Don’t worry buddy, I’m sold.”

“Do you ever eat anything that isn’t absolute garbage?”

“You’re the one who eats pineapple on his pizza.”

Hunk’s hands jump to his hips. “Hey, you don’t know what you’re missing, bro –“

The protests are cut off by someone on the field yelling his name, and he jogs off mid-evil-eye. “This isn’t over, Kogane!” he bellows, drawing the attention of every other middle-schooler lounging in the stands. “I’ll get you later!”

“Try me, pineapple head,” Keith responds quietly, smile unfolding without his permission, revelling in the ease of conversation. His brain grappling a whole load of uninvited mushiness, he retires to the bleachers to watch the game and scrape the flush from his face.

(Damn, is he fucked.)

***

Half an hour later, not only is Keith irrevocably whipped for his best friend, he is past the point of pretending to be interested.
Hunk and his teammates have successfully passed the ball about a hundred million times, and the other team have scored a couple of points. This information is courtesy of the spectators dotted around him, all of whom seem to have been paying a lot more attention: from Keith’s magnificent view of the inside of his baseball cap, Hunk could’ve been running on his hands and he wouldn’t have noticed.

That might shake things up a little, he thinks drowsily, limbs melting over the scorching seats. Shouting echoes lazily across the field. Actually, scratch that. There is nothing that could make this game interesting.

“McClain!” a voice roars over the hubbub, followed by the pounding of fast feet and a very familiar cheer.

Keith sits bolt upright, cap frisbeeing off into the distance. Apart from that.

The sunlight plays havoc with his vision, splaying speckles across his view as he squints across the pitch. The voice is achingly familiar, a sound Keith’s heart – judging by the way it seems to be battering its way up his throat – seems to have missed; ensuing shouts break down his floodgates. Memories pile into his head, mirroring the scrum enfolding on the field.

A certain boy, racing him around the playground with a kitchen roll rocket ship. A certain boy, stitched together in gapped teeth and crumpled valentines. A certain boy of four siblings, patched-up knees and a grin that held mischief and stars.

(A certain boy, telling him on the last day of elementary that they wouldn’t, in fact, be seeing each other soon. That their times of playing spaceships were over. That the moving van left last night and his mom wouldn’t enrol him in their local middle school, because it was ridiculous, couldn’t he see, and no matter how hard he argued she just wouldn’t give in…)

Keith watches this certain boy – certain astronaut, certain space ranger, certain boy who promised to keep in touch and lied – streaking up the pitch as if it were the playground, throwing himself into the end zone and screaming touchdown.

(That voice, some selfish childhood remnant snarls, is only supposed to scream over aliens.)

(Shut UP, some rational fragment replies. Now is NOT the fucking time.)

Nevertheless, Keith finds it a lot easier to focus on the game after that: the snake’s nest that has erupted in his stomach renders relaxing nigh impossible. He watches instead, eyes aching from forgetting to blink. Searing every last movement Lance makes into his brain, he feels oddly akin to a parched man gulping water: no matter how much he absorbs, it will never be enough to slake his thirst.

The fancy metaphors do nothing to calm Keith’s crisis. He may think in half-baked poetry, but a kaleidoscope of warring emotions shatters his thoughts. Does he challenge Lance? No – he hasn’t spoken to him in over a year. Will Lance even remember him? All contact was lost, after all: perhaps he’s made new friends and forgotten all about his space ranger partner. Maybe Keith should let those memories go too. Wait – and why hasn’t Hunk told him about this? Has he simply forgotten, or has Keith never actually mentioned Lance? He had been stupidly withdrawn at first, true, too terrified to strike up proper conversation. Was it possible that Hunk has never heard about the friend who’d jumped ship, and therefore wasn’t able to divulge any details?
Keith scans his brain feverishly, but can’t dredge up any data on such conversations. At the ideal time to talk about it – while Hunk reminisced over elementary-school classmates, or moaned about being a ‘loner’ – the wound had been too fresh.

He groans. For an entire year, Keith has been wrapped up in self-pity while his best friend played football with its cause. For want of a better phrase, goddamn typical.

Maybe Lance won’t even come over to the bleachers, he thinks in a fit of desperation. Maybe we won’t have to interact at all. He isn’t sure if he could take the strain of an awkward greeting; a simple nod could not satisfy this crisis. Maybe, despite the ache in his chest, that would be better for both of them. Perhaps I can finally leave this shitshow behind…

(He’s so busy twisting himself into knots that he doesn’t notice when the game wraps up, nor when Hunk heads over to the stands with a very familiar teammate. Keith nearly has a heart attack when a padded hand claps onto his shoulder. He whirls round, wild-eyed, to come face-to-face with his new best friend: out of breath, and with an arm round his old one.)

“Hey Keith,” Hunk beams, words rolling in the aura of someone thoroughly exhausted. “This is Lance – he’s a receiver for the other high school.”

I know that, you pea-brained football fucker, Keith wants to shriek, raging in his new-found ability to swear. Any crushes or romantic feelings are completely drowned out in the moment. Rather than completely blowing it, however, he manages a tight nod: breath, held inadvertently, batters indignant fists on his lungs.

“Hi! We went to elementary school together, right?” Lance’s grin is just as blinding as he remembers, but he can sense the discomfort emanating from his childhood friend. Lance is nervous as hell, though he has a feeling that it’s not because of him. “We were really into Legendary Defender, I remember. You were my second-in-command!”

“You were the second-in-command,” Keith replies through gritted teeth, ignoring Hunk’s incredulity. “I was the pilot.”

A stilted argument ensues, consisting entirely of the words ‘were not’ and ‘were too’ and entirely too reminiscent of elementary school for Keith’s sentimental liking. This continues until Hunk – who watches bemusedly from a viewpoint of what on earth – takes it upon himself to interrupt.

“Sure you were, Keith,” he says, waving his hands in a good-natured – if dismissive – this conversation is over. “Anyway, Lance was wanting to talk to me about something, so we just came up to tell you we’d be a couple of minutes. See you in a few?”

“Yup,” Keith nods with the disgruntled manner of someone dragged back into reality without consent. He resists the urge to send Lance his most diplomatic eat-shit¬ kind of glare.

“Well. See ya around, Keith,” Lance agrees obliviously, throwing him a finger salute like this is the most causal encounter in the world and soliciting nothing but his former friend’s rage. If a few internal yells of no you won’t and don’t you walk away you asshole I miss you factor into the mix, nobody’s blaming him.

Keith watches as his two best friends amble away in the direction of the park woods, bickering over some random item of discussion. Whatever it is, it prompts much belly-laughing on Lance’s behalf, and a lung-vomiting clap on the back from Hunk. He hopes to God that it’s not him.

(In actual fact, he hopes that for approximately 2.4 seconds, or however long it takes him to abandon his moral code and decide to follow them to hear what Lance has to say.)

(He knows it’s a private conversation. He knows he’s a scummy human being. But Keith is salty as hell, twice as fiery and past the point of boundaries, so eavesdropping on whatever shenanigans are about to ensue is the least of what he could attempt. Besides, he figures Lance owes him.)

***

“So,” Hunk says cheerfully once they reach the back of the changing room block. “What’s up?”

Keith strains his ears to pick up every morsel of their conversation, clinging to the wall like some kind of mutant gecko. Internally, he thanks every deity he knows that he spent so much time creeping around on ‘alien missions’ as a child.

(Even if he didn’t know those skills would be used for… well, this.)

Lance is beating around this bush, fumbling nervously to put off whatever he has to say, and Keith can almost see him in his mind’s eye. Shuffling his feet with one hand clapped on the back of his neck. Probably with crimson dusted over his cheeks. The picture of ‘I’m-sorry-I-smashed-your-window’ or ‘alright-you-can-marry-Coran-please-don’t-punch-my-face-in’: Lance may have sprouted gangly legs and a nonchalant demeanour throughout their separation, but some things never change.

“Out with it, man,” he hears Hunk say in all amity, and it’s then that the floodgates open.

“Ok, so it’s like this.” Lance voice is halting, tinged in uncertainty. Keith knows Hunk well enough by now to picture the confusion on his face, but concentrates on the conversation instead. “This might come across as a little weird, and I don’t even know you that well. But. I was wondering if you’d – well, if you’d like to go on a date with me?”

What.

“I mean, if you’re into guys and all. It’s ok if you’re not, obviously. I just… I just thought I’d ask.”

The silence that ensues is deafening, and Keith would probably complain of splitting ears if his stomach hadn’t just bounced off the floor. Jaw dropping in disbelief, he scrabbles at the wall in an attempt to hold himself back. He knows he should abandon his eavesdropping here, that this is a private conversation – should’ve known that from the start – but every atom in his body is screaming for him to stay and hear this out.

That’s my confession to make, his brain snarls contemptuously. Easily-summoned anger scalds his lungs; with all the willpower he owns, he restrains the raging instinct. Thank god for Hunk, some far-off part of his mind comments. Keith’s best friend has yet to respond, and it’s for that reason that he remains hidden. He’s, like, 90% of my impulse control.

Apparently, Lance’s solution to this stasis is to fill it with as much panicked rambling as possible. If he were in a place to judge, Keith would say that it’s probably Lance’s first time confessing to a guy. Or, at least, that’s what he’s gathered from the fractured spluttering: it’s mostly unintelligible, which isn’t helped by the thrashing jealousy battering his brain.

“Sorry. I obviously overstepped the mark – I mean, it’s not like I was expecting you to be – well, I mean, there’s no harm in experimenting, right, it’s supposed to happen to everyone – “

“Ok, dude, I’m going to need you to take a deep breath.”

Hunk finally decides to re-enter the conversation, complete with his patented, 3am-phonecall tone of ‘calm-the-fuck-down’. Keith lets go of air he didn’t even know he was holding.

Shaking breaths emanate from behind the changing block, evidently the culmination of Lance’s fevered confession. Keith hears the clapping of a hand on someone’s shoulder, and winces in inadvertent sympathy. Hunk may be entirely well-meaning, but sometimes he can really pack a punch.

“You alright now? Everything’s ok. I’m not going to think any differently of you.” Keith can almost hear the smile in Hunk’s words, but notices just as easily as it switches to awkwardness. Inexplicably, he knows what’s coming, and resents the words before they hit the air.

Hunk, ever the legend, pulls off the let-down spectacularly. “In fact, I’m flattered! But I’m not gonna lie, man – I’m straight. I’ve just never been into guys. I’m really sorry.”

Perhaps it’s the genuine regret lacing Hunk’s words, or the gentle finality of his statement. Keith will never know. But something in that moment prompts Lance to take a deep breath – Keith knows he will be raising his head and shaking off the rejection with a beaming grin – and click his fingers, easy-going in the manner Keith will eternally be jealous of.

(As Lance comes to terms with the rejection, he becomes aware of the numbness submerging his body, akin to Valentines’ millennia ago. It’s better than a resounding slap of pain, he supposes bitterly. At least I won’t have to deal with the pining any more.)

“It’s cool, man. It’s not like I had a lot of hopes hangin’ on it – probably the ‘confessing to a guy’ bit that was getting to me! Nerves, y’know?” Lance’s voice is remarkably casual for someone whose dreams were dashed merely seconds ago. “I just thought you were pretty cute!”

“Aww, you flirt, you,” Hunk responds amiably, and from under emotional myopia Keith marvels at the ease of their camaraderie. “No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings, bro. Let’s go change.”

It is only now when Keith truly recognises the nature of his predicament. He is positioned – spy-like – on the sole walkway to the back of the changing block: a route that will soon become the prowling ground of the boys whose privacy he’d just shattered. He has approximately 0.3 seconds before they turn the corner and find him frozen in rejection, a three-dimensional mural against grubby brickwork. Keith, no matter how the situation resolves itself, is in a pickle.

And so he runs. He fucking guns it, all the way back to the bleachers, outrunning his best friends and his crush on Hunk and his ability to care; he sprints away from rejection, from his elementary-school self staring unbelievingly at the boy who was leaving him until the slate is scraped clean and he lounges, languid in the stands. And when the two boys come up to him, discussing training techniques and whether teleportation from the block to the bleachers is actually, physically possible, when they ask him if he saw anyone following them, he hitches a smile on his face and shakes his head.

(Whatever Hunk may say, it seems his track skills are good for something.)

***

“So, watcha think you’re gonna study, Lance?” Hunk asks later, watching enviously as Keith buries his face in a tottering ice-cream cone. The sun is sprawled lazily over the horizon, kissing their footsteps gold; the sweltering heat of the afternoon is dimming to a hazy glow. Lance punts a football along the street, tossing between nimble feet and calloused hands.

(Not that Keith’s been drinking in Lance’s every detail, because that would be creepy. Even if he has just eavesdropped on a very private conversation, and is now accompanying its participants to the bus stop. Complete with a patched-up heart and a new number in his phone.)

(Keith should really stop trying to defend his moral stance, because at this rate he’s just going to keep on digging.)

Lance, eternally oblivious to the turmoil, catches the ball and turns a blinding smile on the pair of them. Keith fights the urge to shield his eyes. “I don’t know, man. Maybe astrophysics, or engineering like you. Or I might try and get scouted for a swim team. It’s hard to choose when everything’s so interesting, you know?”

“Yeah,” Hunk agrees, tipping his head back to count constellations. “It would be cool if we were in the same classes in high school though. Gotta take it a step at a time.”

“Wait, what?” Keith jerks away from the ice-cream, acutely aware of the mint-choc-chip-moustache dripping from his cheeks. The dusky scene jars into focus before his eyes, harnessing his mind to the present. “You’re going to high school with us?”

Hunk nods, surprised. “Did he forget to tell you?”

“I’m still in the catchment area for you guys’ high,” Lance grins. “Then you’ll have the honour of looking upon my gorgeous face, every single day. That’ll be great, won’t it, Keith?”

At the stunned silence that follows, he shrugs all-too-innocently. “Unless you just can’t wait, in which case you’ll have to join the football team.”

(As Keith presents a spectacular array of vomiting mimicry and Lance looks on in mock confusion, the sun plays out its swansong on the sky. As Lance swings on the railings and vaults on to the bus, Hunk exclaims over Keith’s fervent goodbye waving. As the two friends make their way home, hopping over pavement cracks and discussing an intertwined future, Keith feels a forgotten wound heal over in his chest. Tonight, shared laughter doesn’t sting of foreign object: instead, of reconciliation.)

(This epiphany vanishes as Hunk leans over to whisper “he’s into dudes, Keith, go get him,” and his tell-tale blush drips over indignant protests and sunsets alike. But not once, this evening, does Keith Kogane look up at the stars: instead, he relishes the ground beneath his feet, and the coincidence laughing in his veins.)

iv.

Lance sits bolt upright, sniffing the air like a cheap imitation bloodhound. The only sign of life in their sluggish high-school library, he holds a licked finger to the air; Keith, for one, knows better than to ask as his companion casts a searching gaze around the bookshelves. Hunk, occupying (or dozing on) the opposite side of the table, watches his friends through half-lidded eyes laden unapologetically with why.

Eventually, Keith breaks.

“Lance, what the fu – “

“Shhh.” Lance presses a finger to Keith’s lips. “Something queer’s afoot.”

“That would be me,” an irritated voice replies, followed by an equally miffed body stomping round the corner and slamming a folder on the desk.

“Oh, hey Pidge,” Keith says absent-mindedly, attempting to unstick his innards from the ceiling and stuff his relieved mind back into calculations. Aforementioned new arrival has never been the best at intimidation, but that isn’t for lack of trying: the librarian, a grumpy man called Sendak whose origin has much been debated (wolverine? bear?) growls ominously from the corner. “She or they day?”

“Screw pronouns,” the newcomer grumbles, glasses glinting ominously from under an unruly bush of hair. “Today is a caffeine day. Hand over the coffee and no-one gets hurt.”

Keith concentrates harder on his algebra, hoping that the thus far un-caffeinated Pidge will give his strawberry frappuchino a wide berth. However, Lance seems to be having one of those days where he lacks a sense of imminent murder, which is never a good sign for morning studies. “Hush, little gremlin,” he coos, patting the furry head without a hint of apprehension. “Addiction isn’t good for young souls.”

“I’ve demonstrated often enough that I don’t have one,” Pidge spits. “Now shut your damn mouth and gimme the beans, or I’ll take that radioactive smoothie and hold it to ransom.”

“All right, all right, don’t blow a gasket.” Evidently resenting interaction, Hunk – neck-deep in mechanics – chucks a half-empty plastic cup across the table. Pidge inhales it in one, face orgasmic in relief. After draining the chalice, a position of prayer is adopted.

“Hunk, my one and only true saviour.”

“Feel free to continue, I’m drinking it in,” Hunk says, producing another brimming coffee cup. “Pronouns?”

“They,” Pidge replies. Watching them eye the flagon with terrifying feral hunger, Keith makes a mental note to never put himself between his classmate and a source of caffeine, ever, ever again. Frappuchinos be damned

Oblivious, Hunk chugs the holy liquid. Pidge wilts, plantlike, in their chair. Lance gives their hair one last flick for good measure and sneaks a pencil right out from under Keith’s nose, flipping through his physics textbook to land on a list of equations.

Peace descends on the library once more, and Keith forces his brain into gear. Summer sunlight weighs heavy on his eyelids, fogging his brain in a mixed mess of half-finished formulae; tumbleweed drifts aimlessly across his subconscious. Familiar restlessness chatters in his mind, but he shoves it away and grips his pencil. One more page, he chants to himself, the symbols blurring before his eyes. One more page, then you can go and run track. One more month of this shit, and you’ll never have to deal with corridors or teachers again.

Until college.

…then space school.

“I can’t believe we’re graduating so soon,” Lance says, interrupting his thoughts with a voice that would be reverent if he wasn’t
regarding his textbook in disgust. “I’m never going to see this book again.”

“Trust me, Lance, we haven’t forgotten about graduation yet. It’s kind of impossible, when you’re reminding us about it every two seconds.” Pidge rolls their eyes, tearing their gaze from a graphing calculator. “Can I hack your mind to erase that word?”

“Pidge is right.” Keith chips in, tearing his eyes from equations. “We can worry about graduation once I’ve passed AP calc. For now, shut your goddamn quiznak, or whatever that Defender quote is, and let me try my best not to fail.”

Peace falls for a little more than a moment. Lance has never been one to keep his mouth shut for long.

“But guys, just think. All these years we’ve spent in this hellhole of an education system… all the way back to elementary school, and playing space exploration in the playground…”

Nostalgia tinges Lance’s tone: despite himself, Keith looks on with a mix of exasperation and fondness. By contrast, Pidge’s voice is about as enthusiastic as a dying goat. “Ah yes, when I was still Katie and you idiots turned up to confess to me in the middle of lunch hour.”

Lance ignores them, turning to Hunk for sympathy. “And middle school, when we played football together and I had my bi awakening…”
Keith strangles an imminent laugh, knowing all too well the circumstances of that ‘awakening’. And the way he’d pulled his hamstring sprinting from that changing block. And the awkward, not-quite-believable excuses he’d provided when Hunk queried his new limp.

“When Keith was angsting – ha, Langsting over me for a year before he actually came to a football game and realised I hadn’t dissolved into thin air–“

“I was not angsting,” Keith retorts heatedly, ignoring Hunk’s raised eyebrow and shoving his worksheet aside. “You left me. With nobody. At the tender age of ten years old – a mere foetus, may I add, fending for myself in the abyss of middle school with not a soul to turn to.”

“We know.” Hunk and Pidge form a flat melody of exhaustion. After three years of high school, Lance has yet to cease fitting this into every conversation they share, for the sole reason of riling up his 'rival;' Keith has also yet to let it go.

(And why should I? a bitter voice mutters, every time he takes the bait. Why should I? I get used to life without you and then you blunder in again, all pick-up-lines and TV references and swim-team shoulders; smiles so bright you outshine the fucking sun. I was done squinting into your light, Lance, but now I can’t fucking get enough of it and my eyes are starting to burn.

(He doesn’t say any of this, of course, because he’s in the middle of his high school library and he’s just about had enough of this crushes thing, and he’s fought tooth and nail for university and he’s going to space school and at long last he’ll return to his kindergarten mindset, when his head was full of galaxies and not a stupid boy with a sunshine smile.)

(And, y’know, because he doesn’t actually have a crush on Lance. It’s just a remnant, left over from a mixed-up pining childhood. The appreciation of Lance’s face, which any normal human being would hope to indulge in from time to time. Platonic. Platonic appreciation.)

“That’s what we should talk about!” Lance slams his hands on the table, dislodging a pile of abandoned half-papers along with Keith’s ponderings. “Who we had crushes on!”

(That’s another thing he’s had enough of: Lance’s goddamn mind-reading. Because really, who the fuck is so perceptive they can listen to your thoughts?)

“I rejected you, dumbass,” Pidge shoots back, fantastically oblivious to Keith’s dilemma. He forces a chuckle, reminiscing on this unfortunate event.

“Yeah, you told us boys were disgusting.”

Pidge raises an eyebrow, evidently recalling their many ‘incidents’ – the most recent and memorable of which involving Lance attempting to swallow an entire panini, failing and proceeding to eject it across the dining hall. “Well, I wasn’t wrong.”

The table is quiet for a record ten seconds before Pidge speaks again. “Anyway, Lance – how was Keith’s premature emo phase related to crushes? Like, at all?”

“That’s a minor detail,” Lance dismisses airily, waving his hands in the air. The stupor of calculus evacuates Keith’s mind: a millisecond too late to query, he catches a shifty gaze and crimson on his cheeks. What? “We all know I’ve been Romeo since day one. Besides, you guys need to live a little. We’ve only got a month left in this dump! Time to spill some secrets!”

“Romeo. Really? Did you even read the goddamn play?” Pidge raises an eyebrow.

“No, you’re right.” Lance takes a moment to reconsider. “Who am I then, Don Juan?”

“Not an impenetrable vault, at any rate. You’ve a voice like a foghorn and the ego to match: I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in the galaxy knew about your love life.”

“I.e. lack of one,” Hunk mumbles from his caffeine haze. Lance claps a hand to his chest in mock outrage as they continue. “You’ve been lusting after your physics teacher since tenth grade.”

“Well, ex-cuse me,” Lance says, scandalised. “Dr Shirogane is not just my physics teacher, nuh-uh, no way. He's my soulmate. The love of my life, fire of my loins – “

“Ew.”

“Miss Allura’s going to fuck you up if you lay one finger on Shiro.”

Lance – evidently unaffected by the image of a livid and terrifying vice-principal – isn’t done. “We’re going to get married and have a million babies – “

“You’d better put that on hold until you finish those equations.” Keith stabs his textbook with a pencil, tackling his envy by shutting Lance up. “If you want to stand any chance of not flunking space school, you’d better get your assignment in on time. Pretty sure you’re not going to win your true love with tardy physics worksheets.”

Lance straightens up and fixes him with that oh-so-irritating grin. “Pssh. Lighten up a little, Mullet Man! If I fail all my finals, our resident tech can hack me into Harvard. Besides,” he winks, “I’m a taken man.”

“That would be a negative, Captain Kirk,” Pidge replies, not lifting their eyes from the phone screen. They tap a key and it explodes into a blinking binary mess. “Anyway, in regards to bad hairstyles, I don’t think you’re one to talk. When was the last time you had a trim?”

Lance buries a hand in the soft fuzz at the nape of his neck and grimaces. “You’re right. Well, at least I don’t look like an instructor in some 80s fitness video.”

“Uh, excuse me, missed the memo,” Hunk interrupts, waving his hands. “Is nobody going to comment on how he said he’s a taken man?”

“Nah, I figured that much was obvious,” Pidge deadpans, looking directly at Keith with a smirk.

Keith, oblivious as ever, doesn’t notice. He’s too busy pointedly not looking at the line of Lance’s shoulders, perfectly honed from years on the swim team. Or the chestnut mop that he so achingly wants to ruffle, because, well – damn.

And also, what the hell. A taken man? Not that he thought he had any chance in the first place, but having his dreams dashed first period wasn’t something he’d factored into his day plan.

Nevertheless, the wink Lance offers as he notices Keith staring – ok, so maybe the ‘not looking’ wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped – seems a little bittersweet. “Like what you see?”

Keith narrows his eyes. “Say whatever you have to say to boost your self-esteem, dumbass. Doesn’t change the fact that your homework is due next period.”

“Eloquent insult, mom.” Lance glues his eyes to the worksheet for all of 0.2 seconds and looks vaguely like he’s facing a firing squad. “Holy crow.”

“Exactly.” Keith shakes his head. “Get moving.”

Silence falls over the desk as Lance gets stuck into the equations, and Keith allows a tiny smile to quirk the corner of his mouth. Despite all his procrastination techniques – carefully mix n’ matched since the first essay he’d ever had to write – Lance was a hell of a hard worker: there were no doubts over impending flying colours, nor college acceptance letters to come. Without Keith’s natural affinity for astrology, Pidge’s computing genius or Hunk’s skills in the garage, Lance had built himself up from the ground: two practice problems for Keith’s every one, an ecstatic grin at a passing grade. A patchwork mess of swim medals, mechanics courses and all-nighters stitched under golden skin. Snarling ambition, fighting tooth and nail to the top of every class.

A procrastinator, a party animal, a hopeless flirt and airhead. Keith has never met anyone so contradictory, nor downright intriguing. He has also never met someone so easy to fall for.

Again – if this even is a crush, which he will deny to the end of his days – he’s not sure when it happened. Unexpectedness seems to play a key role in his life: dragged, unsuspecting from the recesses of his mind, shoved unhandily into blinding light. Perhaps it was the first midnight call, panicking over a standardized test announced the day before its occurrence. Perhaps it was a study date, called secret-agent style and accompanied by an eating competition so intense Keith could barely breathe. Perhaps it was the group outings, the swim meets, the texted memes and a sense of belonging so intrinsic Keith wonders how he ever survived alone.

(Not alone, never alone. Over the past three years he’s come to realise this. Hunk, with his golden-boy demeanour and self-righteous benevolence; Pidge, a fierce companion with a calculator mind and humour that cut diamonds. Lance, oh, Lance, the epitome of perseverance and a conundrum in human skin.)

(A group of misfits, tied together in a way that neither grates nor satisfies. For the first time in his life, Keith wants more: he wants the road trips, the polaroids, the foreign object sensation sluiced from his skin. He wants the ability to sink his lips into Lance’s, eternalise this golden glow, make physical the euphoria that swells out from his chest and into the air.)

The romantic in Keith – buried deep yet kicking up a storm – would say it was their reunion: a whirlwind of emotion in his chest, Lance kicking a scruffy football down a golden road. Sitting in this library with graduation digging claws into his shoulders, Keith doesn’t give a damn. He has a month to confess before halls hush and acceptance letters thud onto desks: a month out of three years, spent biting his knuckles and crumpling confessions and sewing himself into this group of people. A month before this splinters apart, due to long distance, or college, or fickle, fickle fate.

Absurdly, the not enough sensation snaps at his heels. Dignity – and thirteen years of wanting to punch teachers, tear up homework, be done with this hellish holding cell – chase it away.

“Keith, you’ve spaced out, man,” Hunk announces, slapping him gaily on the back and ignoring the winded wheezing that follows. At Keith’s glare, he grins. “Lance isn’t the only one with homework due next period.”

“You’re all each other’s parents, I swear to god.” Pidge is still engrossed in their phone, oblivious to Keith’s internal monologue and the grumbling of Sendak. “Hey, did you know that ‘astronaut’ literally translates to ‘star sailor’?”

“Neil Armstrong is Sailor Moon confirmed,” Lance shoots back, up to his ears in Newton’s laws. “I always had a hunch. Also, why the fuck aren’t you studying?”

Laughing guiltily, Keith buries himself in titrations again. Despite his best efforts to vanquish it, uncertainty chatters in the corner of his brain. It’s there as Pidge bids adieu, heading off to advanced calculus: it’s there in Hunk’s text from his girlfriend, Shay, and the smile it brings to his face as he packs up his things. It’s there in the finality of this ceremony, the knowledge that the well runs dry after one more month: no matter how much he kicks and screams for the present to stay, it slips from his fingers like a wraith, an evaded tackle, kitchen-roll rocketships and childhood eternal.

(Most of all, it’s there in Lance leaning across the table with his galaxy eyes, asking so do you have a crush Keith and who’s the lucky guy? It’s there in the bitten-back response, the millisecond sadness that reflects in both their eyes. It’s there in the stilted silence as he tackles his worksheet, the fragments of a relationship chewed apart by time.)

(Where it isn’t is the stars on his horizon. Elementary-school Keith, ditching mornings after stargazing all night. Middle-school Keith, determined never to rip his eyes from the sky. Graduating Keith, sick of school with his life goals so close he can feel it, the hole in his heart expanding to fit the universe in its place.)

(Yet it’s in that all-too-familiar numbness unfurling in his chest. High-School Library Keith, swamped in trepidation. Wondering if he’ll ever escape.)

v.

“Lance,” Keith says slowly, clinging for dear life onto the fire escape handrail. “Remind me why the hell I agreed to do this?”

“We’re graduating tomorrow, man,” Lance’s voice echoes from somewhere above him. “It’s our last chance! Don’t tell me you haven’t wanted to hijack the roof before. This is every high schooler’s dream.”

“If everyone’s dream is to get chucked the fuck out!” Keith hollers in response, feeling for the outline of the steps with his feet and regretting every single life choice that has led to this moment. “On our last day! We’re gonna get excluded! All those years in this shithole for nothing!”

“We will if you keep yelling, dumbass.” Lance swoops down the steps so his face is suddenly far too close to Keith’s: the latter jerks hurriedly away and damn near falls off the landing. He twists his face into a scowl at Lance’s snickering and stumbles blindly up the last remaining steps, responding unconsciously to the challenge in his friend-come-idiot’s tone.

“We can come up here any day. There are stairs inside the school – people who aren’t fucking book-eaters eat lunch on the roof. Nobody sneaks up here past midnight.”

“Aw, where’s your sense of adventure?”

The moonlight paints the school roof, artistically decorated with a rumpled blanket and what seems to be a laptop. Keith squints his eyes to decipher the obnoxiously luminescent display, then fixes Lance with an incredulous stare.

“You did not. You did not drag me out of bed at two am, the night before our graduation, to have me trespass on the school roof and watch Legendary Defender.”

“Oh, don’t think you’re the only one who has the pleasure.” Lance winks in response to Keith’s unimpressed glare. “Hunk and Pidge are on the way. We’re makin’ this a thing – our little leaving party!”

“What, before the one with all the booze tomorrow,” Keith deadpans.

Lance fixes him with finger guns and a signature smirk. “What can I say? I’ve got class.”

Keith sighs, a drawn-out exasperated whine that has become a staple of their every interaction, yet sinks on to the blanket anyway. “Come on then,” he grumbles, fighting fondness with every ounce of his willpower and refusing to break eye-contact. “Since I’m here.”

“Yessss!” Lance bounds over to plonk himself next to the laptop, all gangly legs and million-watt smiles, and Keith looks away to swallow the lump in his throat. “We can start while we wait for the others!”

The familiar theme tune fills the air, tinny through the laptop speakers yet comforting all the same. Keith feels himself transported to afternoons before the TV, clutching figurines and enthralled by the opening. It’s a peculiar, out-of-body sort of experience: as if he’s his six-year-old self in a teenager’s skin, starlight dancing in his eyes.

He shivers inadvertently and Lance slings an arm round his shoulders. Breath hitches in his throat; he waits desperately for the arm to be removed, but no such thing occurs. As the opening plays out and the screen pans down onto Altea, warmth makes its home in his bones.

Yeah, Keith thinks despite himself as Lance laughs at some outdated pun, swimming in the warmth of emotion unfamiliar. I could get used to this.

***

They make it half an episode in before the arguing starts, then another half until they realise that Hunk and Pidge – contrary to all promises, the backstabbing serpents – seem to have abandoned them to their roof.

“Aw, man,” Lance moans theatrically, somehow failing to sound disappointed. “They can’t decide which of us is captain: guess it’s up to me. Keith, I’m gonna have to let you down gently.”

“Relax, headass.” Keith sends him a calculated smirk. “We both know who the real leader is here, and it sure as hell isn’t the guy who organised a Legendary Defender party as homage to elementary school.”

“Legendary Defender is a work of art, man!” Lance declares, but his gaze drops a little in uncertainty. He scratches the back of his neck, voice suddenly far too small. “You are enjoying it, right?”

“Of course I am, dude. I haven’t watched this in years.” Keith glances at the screen, allowing his lips to quirk in a tiny smile. “I’d forgotten how blatantly gay those characters were. And I’ve never quite realised the atrocity of the art style.”

“Ooh, look who’s a connoisseur,” Lance snickers, every ounce of confidence miraculously restored. He tilts his head upwards to take in the stars. “It was a pioneer show of its time, though. Gay characters and unprecedented animation techniques – not a bad thing to be obsessed with.”

“No,” Keith agrees absent-mindedly, mind racing with action sequences and nostalgia-drenched memories. “It isn’t.”

In an unspoken agreement, they play the next episode and curl into themselves, blankets soft on goose-bumped skin. If Lance is just that little bit too close for Keith to maintain a healthy breathing rate, neither of them mention it. If the ominous clanking of the fire escape bids them creep just that little bit closer to one another, they don’t dwell on that either.

In a way, it’s almost therapeutic. Many times over the years Lance has apologised for his absence: Keith has always assuaged his fears, shielding his own bitterness whilst reassuring its cause. Deep down, he knows this, but it’s still hard to accept. This simple scene – moonlight, a childhood TV show and shared blankets – stills his inner whirlpool: halts not only his past, but his mounting fears for the present.

Nevertheless, the cool breeze is calming. Perhaps, finally, he can leave this behind: cease to care about the circumstances.

Lance clears his throat. “We should hear back from Harvard tomorrow.”

(And there it is: that final chain link trapping Keith to planet Earth, shackles around his wrists, the saboteur chink in his spacesuit. Everything halting his astral realm ascent, unaffected by the ebb and flow of human nature. Raw honesty digging into him, the chafe of close-knit relationships. Awkwardness in the vein of interaction. Keith is still what he was in kindergarten: a lone wolf thrust into a pack.)

(Except somehow, over the years, the beast has lost its fangs. What once stung of alienation spins treacherous belonging in his heart. A golden face, full of fear and hope and ambition and humanity; emotion, that tricky entity that slips through Keith’s fingers to fasten itself in Lance’s. Galaxy eyes shine bright with vitality Keith has never been able to mimic: over the course of their years together, he’s wondered if Lance is a black hole. Ravenous. Chewing the matter from Keith’s chest to feed his own hunger, starvation for life itself.)

Caught up in bleeding catharsis, his supernova sternum, Keith doesn’t trust himself to do anything but smile. The grin on his cheeks is a grimacing caricature, painted so thickly he can’t see through it himself: judging by the look on Lance’s face, this affliction isn’t contagious. Keith doesn’t care. Never has he been consumed with such a desire to rip the doubt from someone’s face, strip the worry from the eyes of this black hole. This galaxy. This human, this friend.

Yet Keith, for all his poetry thoughts, has never been good with words.

“You’ll get in. You’ve worked so hard. You’ll be accepted.”

Lance’s face breaks like a thunderclap, pensiveness into relief, and Keith’s heart avalanches at the thought of the power he holds in his throat: the prospect of happiness in a simple sentence, the notion that somewhere along the line, Lance decided Keith mattered enough to care, and oh god is he alive in that feeling.

“I’ve always been jealous of you, you know. You’re always the best at everything.” Evidently Lance will never stop breaking Keith’s heart: he’s counted three incidents already this evening, and the cadence of this weary voice might break him right in two. “You’d run the fastest, you’d get the highest scores. Sometimes it didn’t even seem like you were trying, and I was so envious with your ability just to not care, you know? Like I would try so hard and never reach up to it. I think that was maybe part of the reason mom decided to put me to a different school: I was overworking myself in elementary. Though we needed to move anyway, so I’m not sure.”

Keith wants to laugh, wants to cry, feel injustice flood his brain. Instead, he opts for a tangled reply.

“I’ve never felt better than any of you.” His voice is stilted, goddammit: he’s never been good at this feelings shit, but in the moonlight he's laid bare. “You least of all. I just kind of felt like I was too small for my skin, and the only way to grow into it was to outgrow the Earth itself and just run right up into space. School was the only way I could do that, but I fucking hated it. There wasn’t a single day I didn’t want to leave.”

Raw honesty rends the silence awkward. Keith’s lungs are too big for his chest.

“You never told me who you had a crush on,” he says stupidly, dumb with confessions battering his throat. If he’s blurting out everything on this last night, may as well go the whole hog.

Lance laughing is a sound he’s never had enough of, from playground games to sitting starcrossed on this goddamn high school roof: he drinks it in like a dying man. Yet this laugh is bitter, holds no trace of the boy he knows. “Jeez, Keith,” comes the rueful reply. “For someone graduating tomorrow, you’re actually really not that smart.”

And Keith’s mouth falls open to protest, and it’s there for only a millisecond, the rivalry-come-friendship and the library arguments and the loss, before the look in Lance’s eyes stops him dead and the only words that exits his lips is ‘oh.’ And then ‘me?’

And then ‘really?’

And then whatever Lance deigned to say next is lost in Keith’s lunge, in the smashing of their lips together and the collision of the stars.

(So tonight is the night Keith learns how he kisses. Fast, starving, eyes scrunched closed as if the world will spin on its axis and wrench his best friend from his grasp. It is also the night he learns what Lance kisses like: slowly, messily, an expert to his rookie but matching every ounce of hunger; laughing breath and incredulous eyes, sparkling every time Keith pulls away. It is the night that Hunk and Pidges’ triumphant yelling reaches his ears and he learns how to blush, how to deny wolf whistling, how to always check the fire escape when your meddling classmates don’t turn up to parties: he learns of belonging burnishing his skin, catapulting laughter from his lungs. The night before graduation, and Keith has never been so eager to stay.)

(Yet what he learns most is the spilling of warmth in his stomach, the building of matter in his chest. Calloused hands, finally holding his. Then the following morning, he learns of mutual acceptance letters and the feeling of flight: the launching of graduation caps and kitchen-roll rocketships, an era yet to come.)

Keith isn’t entirely sure how he got here. But there’s no longer a hole in his chest and no trace of foreign object under his skin, so he’s pretty sure that whatever course this spaceship’s on – whatever bumps, whatever cosmic interference is shaping his world – it’s set to turn out fine.

(And if it doesn’t, hey, he thinks contently as he sits on the rooftop, trading insults and kisses alike. My co-pilot’s by my side.)

vi.

“Hey, Lance,” Keith asks, scuffling his feet in the backyard with numbness swimming in his chest, cardboard clasped within his hands. “Did you really love Katie?”

“I think so,” comes the reply, laden with gap-toothed wisdom and directed at the dirt. Even so, the words dislodge something bigger than this scenario, burrowing into his soul. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, yin to reluctant yang. “But don’t worry, Keith. You’ll always be my best friend.”

Elementary-school Keith – in-depth knowledge of the solar-system Keith, no words to describe his chest vortex Keith, intrinsic knowledge of a saga to come Keith – snatches up Lance’s rocketship and grins.

“Better watch out, McClain. I’ll hold you to it.”