Chapter Text
“So, how exactly did you meet this dude?” Pidge asked gesturing at Lance with the half of a twizzler that wasn’t in her mouth.
“Online,” Lance said twirling the straw in his mostly empty slurpee around.
“Wow that’s not vague at all,” she frowned. “Where online? Like on Twitter? On Instagram? On Tumblr? Okcupid?”
“On Tumblr,” Lance said shaking his head at her. “We started messaging, then after a while we exchanged phone numbers and started texting.”
“And how long ago was this exactly?” Hunk asked from next to Pidge on the floor of her room.
Lance smiled at how parental his two best friends were sounding. “About a little over a year ago, dad ,” he added sarcastically. “You guys do know that I went through this entire line of questioning with my actual mom already right?”
“I know, I know,” Hunk said putting his hands up in defense. “But still, you can’t be too careful. So have you at least skyped with him? Do you have pictures of what he looks like? Do you know his full name?”
“Yes, yes, and Keith Kim,” Lance said counting off the answers on his fingers. Pidge and Hunk still did not look completely convinced. “ Guys , I didn’t invite some rando to come stay in my actual house with my actual family. I’ve been friends with this dude for over a year. We’re finally gonna meet in person. This is cool.”
“No, yeah totally it’s cool BUT have you considered the possibility that he might be—oh I don’t know— a catfishing middle aged murderous psychopath?” Pidge asked motioning around with a new twizzler.
“You sound like my mother.”
“Because it’s a thought that most people have when someone tells them that they’re meeting someone they’ve been talking to online.”
“Look,” Lance said readjusting himself on Pidge’s bed. “I had him Skype with me and meet my mom and they talked, and she sure made he was real and legit, and if he’d ever been here to New York, and if he needed anything for his stay here, so like it’s all kosher ok guys?”
“Ok well if your mom approves it then it must be ok,” Hunk said with satisfied nod.
Pidge paused. “Yeah you’re right,” she nodded as well. “If your mom is cool with this dude coming over he must be A) real, and B) nice.”
“He is both of those things.”
“Dope,” Pidge said clapping her hands together. “So, when do we get to meet him?”
“I was thinking we could all hang out on Tuesday? Is that cool for everyone?” Lance asked looking between them.
“That’s good for me,” Hunk agreed.
“Yeah, sounds good,” Pidge nodded. “So…” she looked at him knowingly. “How big of a crush do you have on this guy?”
“What!? I don't— we're just friends! I'm not— he doesn't— I never, look I don’t ok ,” Lance stuttered unconvincingly, evolving into an awkward half yell.
“Sure you don't,” Pidge smirked.
“I don't,” Lance said trying to sound more convincing. “Can't two good looking dudes be friends without it having to be gay?”
“So you think he's good looking?” Pidge grinned.
“ Objectively ,” Lance stressed. “I'm not blind, he is objectively good looking. I mean,” he pulled out his phone and pulled up their conversation and went into the details until he found a selfie that Keith had sent him a while back. “Look.” He showed his friends the picture and they both leaned in to look at the screen.
It was a slightly blurry picture, and not the most recent one that Keith had sent him, but it was Lance’s favorite. In the picture Keith was standing at the edge of a pond with the water behind him glowing iridescent shades of pinks and purples from the rising sun just tipping over the tops of the trees. His hair was pulled up in a loose ponytail and his headphones were hanging loosely on his jogging hoodie. Lance remembered waking up to that text sometime in the afternoon with a gloating text from Keith that said something about how he gets up and does healthy things while Lance sleeps his life away. Lance had sent back a picture of him comfortably tucked in bed at 1 in the afternoon.
“When's this picture from?” Hunk asked
“Like 3 months ago,” Lance said.
“How do you know he still looks like this?” Pidge said.
“Because I just told you I Skyped with him a few days ago,” Lance frowned. He pulled his phone back and dropped it on the bed next to him. “So do you guys believe me now?”
“No I don't believe you, I still think you have a crush on this guy,” Pidge said with a smirk.
“Oh my god,” Lace groaned.
“He's not ugly, you could do worse,” Hunk said sympathetically.
“ Guys .”
“Look, we're not judging you, he's cute,” Pidge said. Lance frowned at her. “Objectively.” His frown deepened. “Oh Lance just join me on the LGBT side of the world, it’s so much better here than—”
She was cut off by the sound of Lance getting several texts in a row. Quickly he picked up his phone from the bed and looked at the list of notifications on his lockscreen.
Keith: the plane just took off
Keith: no crying babies just yet
Keith: nope, I spoke too soon. Cue the crying baby [baby head emoji] [skull emoji]
Keith: it just occured to me that my phone is on airplane mode and you’re not getting any of these right now
Keith: sorry about the spam of texts you’re going to get when I land. [middle finger emoji]
Keith: I’ve landed. Terminal B. I gotta get my bag from baggage claim though.
“Oh shit he’s landed already, I gotta go,” Lance said hopping off Pidge’s bed and heading for the door. “I’ll see you guys later!” He could hear them call out goodbye as he raced down the short flight of stairs down to the first floor of Pidge’s house and out the front door.
Luckily, Pidge’s house was only a 5 minute drive to the airport and he was there in no time at all. It took him longer to navigate through the labyrinthine internal roads of the airport than actually drive to it. He pulled up in the arrivals gate in terminal B just as he felt his phone buzz with another text.
Keith: ok I /finally/ got my stuff. I’m heading over to the exit now. Seen you soon.
Those last three words made the knot in Lance’s stomach tighten even further. He was nervous, and he couldn’t even calm himself down. It was all so exciting and nerve racking at the same time.
Thirteen months of messaging and texting and skype calls and facetiming and finally they were actually going to meet face to face in person. Even thinking that was so surreal. He’d been friends with Keith online for so long, he’d basically become just a text message bubble in his mind. Yes he had a few pictures of him that Keith had sent him during their conversations, as he of course sent Keith some of himself in return. And yeah they’d Skyped a bunch of times and made dozens of facetime calls. So he knew what he looked like, and he could recognize him. But meeting in person? That’s so much different than a face on a screen.
Lance had that exact thought as the sliding doors to the airport opened and out walked a not extremely tall, slender, korean boy with messy longish hair, and a red pullover hoodie on. He was dragging a suitcase behind him in one hand, and in the other he was taking out his phone from his laptop carry on bag. Lance didn’t even need to think twice before he unbuckled, threw the door open, and hopped out of the car.
He definitely still looks like his picture
“Hey!” he called out waving his arms in the air, trying to get the boy’s attention. “Keith!”
He looked up from his phone, and glanced around nervously before his eyes found Lance. Instantly his face flooded with a mixture of relief and nerves as he stuffed his phone back into his pocket and headed over towards Lance.
Now watching his friend he’d only known through his phone actually walk towards him in real life, Lance felt a jolt of nervousness course through him as Keith got closer. “Hey!” Lance said excitedly as Keith walked over to him. “You’re here!”
“I’m here,” Keith repeated much quieter but with the same enthusiasm. He stopped just in front of Lance, his grip on his suitcase tight and his skin was flushed from nerves.
“You’re real!” Lance said putting his hands on Keith’s shoulders and giving him a small shake.
“I’m real,” Keith repeated again with a small laugh.
“Wow I’m so glad you’re finally here!” Lance said pulling Keith into a hug. One that he was clearly not expecting as he hit Lance’s chest with a thud and stayed stiff up until the last moment when Lance pulled back. “Come on, let’s get your stuff in the car.”
“Ok,” Keith nodded, pushing down the handle on his suitcase.
Lance walked him over to the trunk of his small, light blue, Ford Fiesta. Hearing honks from the other drivers behind him in the pickup lane, he quickly popped the trunk and lifted Keith’s suitcase and laptop bag inside. “I got this, you can go sit,” he said as he brought the lid down on the trunk. Keith nodded and walked around the compact car and slid into the passenger’s seat and waited for Lance to come back. Doing a light jog around the car as the honks grew louder and more impatient, Lance got into the driver's seat and turned the car back on and pulled out of the lane.
It was a few minutes of quiet driving and careful maneuvering out of the increasingly busy airport before he spoke up again. “I still can’t believe you’re actually here,” Lance said glancing at Keith in his passenger’s seat. He was sitting on his hands tucked underneath his thighs like he was afraid to touch anything. His whole body language read: nervous. “I’m really glad you are though.”
“I can’t believe I’m here either,” Keith said with a small smile. “I feel like we’ve been talking for so long but we’d never actually meet.”
“You know,” Lance continued, looking at his mirrors as he made a turn. “Even though you skyped with me a few days ago and you spoke with my mom and stuff, she’s still kind of half convinced that you’re an old dude who’s come to murder me.”
“My dads still kind of think that about you,” Keith said with a sheepish smile.
“Really?” Lance laughed.
“Yeah,” Keith nodded. “Actually,” he pulled out his right hand from underneath himself and took out his phone from his pocket, “I’m supposed to facetime them once I got here. I think they wanna make sure I’m actually alive and you’re actually you.”
“Fair enough,” Lance shrugged.
“Ok, I’m gonna call them right now,” Keith said unearthing his other hand from under himself and setting up the facetime call. Lance felt himself grow nervous as he heard the ringing noise of the call, and he forced himself to keep his eyes on the road. “Hi dad,” Keith said next to him after a few moments. “Yeah the flight was fine, only a little bit of turbulence but it didn’t bother me…only one screaming baby this time… uh it was like a weird vanilla wafer cookie thingy? I didn’t eat it. I had a coke that I had bought and a protein bar… yeah I’ll make sure to eat some real food…” Lance couldn’t help but laugh a bit at hearing his friend get parented. “Yeah he’s driving… sure— oh um Lance, my dads want to say hi,” Keith said pulling out one of his earbuds out of his ear to speak to him.
“Yeah sure,” Lance said. In his periphery he could see Keith unplug his headphones and stuff them into his hoodie pocket. Lance waited until he pulled up to a stop light to turn to Keith.
He had the phone screen facing him and on the facetime call, Lance could see two men; the one holding the phone at arm's length was a broad shouldered dark brown haired pale man with a scruffy beard, and the man next to him was a dark skinned thinner man with a shaved head and two faint facial scars going down his face. The both had an expression of excitement and nerves.
“Hello Keith's dads!” Lance said waving at the screen.
“Hello Lance,” the both said in unison.
“Thank you for inviting Keith to come stay with you,” said the dad holding the phone. “I know he was very excited and nervous to go to New York.”
“ Dad, ” Keith said exasperated closing his eyes in annoyance.
“It's ok, it's understandable,” Lance laughed. “I'm glad he came here though, I'm very excited to have him here. And I—” he was cut off by a horn honking behind him. “Oh damn,” he turned back to the road, just noticing that the light had turned green.
“Ok you saw him,” Keith said turning the phone back to him and plugging in the headphones back into the phone. Lance started driving, heading into the highway. “He's real and I'm fine… yes of course… no I know that I won't… everyday, yes I remember…” there was a longer pause and Lance glanced at Keith to see if he was still on the phone. Keith was still looking at the screen but his face was skewed up in a slight pout. Lance wasn't sure how he felt about that. Keith glanced quickly at Lance, and Lance quickly looked back at the road. The brief eye contact had made his palms grow sweaty and his heart beat faster. “Yeah he is… no… ok yeah, I'm hanging up now. Bye…” there was another brief pause and then a mumbled “yeahokIloveyoutoobye.”
He heard Keith sigh heavily and unplug his headphones from his phone and stuff them both in his hoodie pockets. Lance glanced between him and the road a few times before speaking.
“Your parents seem nice,” Lance said with a smile.
“They mean well,” Keith sighed. “Sorry about that. They can be… overprotective.”
“It's ok I know all about that,” Lance laughed. “No one over protects like a Cuban Mom. They have the market cornered.”
“She seemed nice though,” Keith said. “You know, over Skype.”
“She is, I love my mom. But like, she is the queen of overprotection.” Keith chuckled softly. “So,” he glanced at Keith, “are you hungry?”
“A little yeah,” Keith nodded.
“Great, because I’m gonna make sure you get that good good classic New York pizza like, right now,” Lance said, throwing on his turning signal and moving into the exit lane. “It’s a must have experience.”
“You do know we have pizza in Texas,” Keith said with a slight smirk, getting a bit more comfortable in the seat. “It’s not all just big steaks and mexican food.”
“Yeah but, like no,” Lance shook his head. “I’m sorry but no. I’ve had pizza outside of New York and it’s literally always a mistake.”
“I’ve had Chicago style pizza in Chicago,” Keith said. “That was good.”
“Miss me with that fake ass lasagna pizza,” Lance tisked. “No, no, you’re gonna get that true, big ass, thin crust, foldable, ooey gooey slice of true NYC pizza.”
“I’m sorry, did you say foldable?” Keith asked with a small laugh.
“Yeah,” Lance said incredulously. “You have to be able to fold the slice. That’s how you eat it. This is like, a New York law.”
“New York already seems like a wild place,” Keith said looking out the window as Lance pulled down a fairly busy block.
“A little bit yeah.”
Lance watch with baited breath as Keith lifted the slice up to his mouth and took a bite from the end. He was holding the large slice precariously on his fingertips of his left hand with his right gingerly holding the crust. Keith bit off a piece and then put down the slice on his paper plate so he could fan his mouth.
“It’s really hot,” Keith said trying to cool down his open mouth by waving his hand in front of it.
“Well yeah, they just took it out of the oven,” Lance laughed. “But like, isn’t it amazing?”
“It tastes good, I just can’t feel my mouth anymore,” Keith said finally able to chew.
“But like, do you love it?”
“Mhm,” Keith hummed taking another bit of the slice, with a little bit more care this time.
“I’ll just take that as a “yes this is the best pizza I’ve ever had and you’re an amazing friend for opening my eyes to the truth and I will never again doubt you, my guiding light,” Lance said.
“You sure got a whole lot from just “mhm”,” Keith said, talking around his food out of the side of his mouth.
“I can read between the lines,” Lance smirked, taking a bite of his own slice.
“My question is, why is it so big?” Keith asked holding the slice up to his head. “It’s bigger than my head.”
“Aren’t you used to things being big?” Lance asked, covering his mouth with his hand while he chewed. “Isn’t everything bigger in Texas?”
“Well yeah, like hats, hair, steaks, cars, religious buildings,” Keith nodded. “But pizza? Comparatively small.”
“That’s really—” Lance was cut off by the sound of his phone vibrating on the table. He looked at the caller id and saw his mother’s face with a flower emoji bracketed “Mami” written at the top. “Oh fuck I forgot to call her,” Lance whispered, wiping his hands before picking up the phone and quickly swiping to answer. “Hello?”
“What happened to I'll call you as soon as I get him from the airport mami? ” his mom said from the other end, repeating back his words from a few hours ago.
“I'm sorry,” Lance winced, knowing that that wasn't going to be the end.
“Coño pero how was I supposed to know you weren't actually picking up a murderer if you don't even keep in contact with me?”
“You're right, I'm sorry,” Lance said watching Keith take a slow bite of his pizza.
There was a long pause and a heavy sigh from his mom. “Where are you right now?”
“At Gino’s, I brought him here to get pizza,” Lance said folding and unfolding a napkin in his hand.
“Ok well come home when you're done,” she said. “Also bring me a bag of garlic knots. I love you.”
“I love you t— she hung up,” Lance said putting his phone in his pocket.
“Ooooooh you're in trouubblllleeeeee,” Keith teased, his mouth half full of pizza.
“Shut up,” Lance laughed, kicking him lightly under the table. “I'm not in trouble. Mostly.”
“Does she still think I'm a murderer planning to kill you and collect your eyes as a trophy?” Keith asked with a smirk.
“Ok, well no more Hannibal for you,” Lance said scrunching his face in disgust. “And yeah, kinda a little bit. No offense.”
“None taken,” Keith shrugged, taking a rather large bite of his pizza. “My dads were convinced you were actually part of a cult luring people into the big city to brainwash me for evil.”
“Oh damn, well there goes Thursday’s plans,” Lance said faking disappointment. “The jig is up I suppose.”
“Actually, plot twist, I'm here to brainwash you to join my cult,” Keith joked.
“Oh how the turn tables,” Lance laughed. Keith barked out an inelegant laugh, and had to quickly cover his mouth before he spit pizza out all over Lance. He slapped his left hand over his mouth and held in his laugh, while the other reached around blindly for a napkin. “Here you go, you dork,” Lance said handing him a napkin.
“Thanks,” Keith said a bit strained, his laughter having now morphed into coughing.
Lance's eyes swept across Keith's face, taking in his flushed cheeks, his laugh/cough tearing eyes, his hair that fell just slightly too long in his face. He was wiping his mouth and hand with a napkin, reaching for more to clean up the piece that fell out of his mouth when he first laughed. It wasn't like he was doing anything spectacular. This was just Lance’s friend, the person he'd spent the past year talking almost everyday to, who knew him and his humor almost too well, who just flew a couple hundred miles to visit him.
Oh shit he's cute
Lance dismissed the thought as soon as he had it. It was ridiculous. It wasn't like this was the first time he'd thought that. He wasn't blind. He knew Keith was good looking. Objectively. If you liked that sort of thing. If your sort of thing was a boy who giggled and didn't use emojis properly and sent you jogging selfies. Which, that wasn't Lance’s thing. No, not at all.
“You good?” Lance asked trying to think about anything else.
“Yeah, I think so,” Keith nodded, still sounding like he was on the verge of coughing.
“Ok finish up, I’m gonna go order some garlic knots to bring to my mom,” Lance said getting up from the table.
He was sort of relieved to have a reason to step away from Keith for a moment. Lance had been seesawing between nervous and excited for the past few weeks that now that Keith was actually there in front of him, he was having both emotions at the same time. Also it didn’t help that he could hear Pidge and Hunk’s words rattling around in his head, banging against an image of Keith’s face all flushed and smiling and—
“Hello? Your order is ready,” the big italian guy behind the counter said, waving a hand in front of Lance’s face to try to get his attention. He shook the bag of garlic knots in Lance’s face as his eyes came back into focus.
“Oh, thank you,” Lance said shaking his head and taking the bag. He walked back over to the table where Keith, who had finished eating, was playing on his phone. “Ready?”
“Mhm,” Keith said getting up, and collecting their trash onto one tray and walking it over to the garbage.
“Ok let’s go.” Lance motioned for Keith to follow him out, holding the bag tightly in his hand. He didn’t want to get in his own head so he forced himself to interact. “So it was good right?”
“Yeah it actually was,” Keith agreed, as they walked towards Lance’s car.
“This is one of my favorite places,” Lance said. “Me and my friends would come here alot when we were in high school. Like a lot a lot .”
“Like, a lot?” Keith repeated jokingly.
“Like, all the cooks knew us all by name at one point,” Lance said with a sheepish, but nostalgic smile. He walked up to the car and unlocked it and they both slid inside. “We spent so much of our money here on pizza and garlic knots. Actually once in senior year, we had to keep a fiscal diary and count how and where we spend our money for a few months. And let me just say, holy shit I spent a lot on pizza.”
“How much?” Keith said, sounding genuinely interested.
“It was in the hundreds I’ll say that,” Lance said turning on the car. “It was far more than any human person should have ever spent on pizza in a span of 3 months. I think even my teacher was concerned.”
“You bought an alarming amount of pizza,” Keith laughed. “How does one even manage that?”
“Well the trick is,” Lance began, making his voice sound proper and haughty, “to just never buy anything but pizza, and buy pizza everyday. And every so often? Buy it twice a day.”
“Twice a day!?” Keith asked incredulously. “Why!?”
“Hey I fully blame Pidge,” Lance said in his own defense. He began to pull out of the parking spot and drive down the street. “She likes pizza for breakfast and for dinner. A lot of times on the same day. She calls it a “snitch meal”.”
“Why?” Keith laughed.
“Because you “open at the close”,” Lance said. “Get it? Pizza at the beginning and pizza at the end. Like in Harry Potter.” He glanced over at Keith who looked thoroughly amused.
“I can’t tell if that’s crazy or genius.”
“I’d say crazy genius.”.
“Your friends sound cool,” Keith said with a brief nod.
“Yeah they are,” Lance smiled. “You'll meet them this week. They're gonna go with us to the Bronx Zoo on Tuesday.”
“Oh is this the zoo you were saying was the—”
“Best zoo in the world, yup,” Lance finished for him as he pulled into his block. “Ok we're almost here.” He maneuvered down the narrow two-way street until he reached his house at the end of the block. “Home sweet home,” he said pulling into the driveway.
“This is your house?” Keith asked looking out the windshield.
“Yeah…” Lance said suddenly insecure by the way Keith asked that. He glanced up at the house. It wasn't anything huge or spectacular, but it was home. It was a stand alone, brick house with sloping roofs and large bright windows. Sure there were bigger, nicer houses, but he liked it. But having Keith question it flipped his world on its ear.
Keith looked over at Lance and saw the insecurity on his face. “No no I didn't mean it like— I'm just surprised. It's so huge and nice, and we're in New York City. I was expecting an apartment. Like a small apartment.”
“Oh,” Lance felt all the tension leave his body. “No, I live in a house. With a backyard that has swingset and a deck and stuff. And my dad mows the law. It's all very suburban.”
“New York just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Keith mumbled to himself as he unbuckled and got out of the car.
“Did you think it's just apartments as far as the eye can see?” Lance asked with a small amused smile, grabbing the food bag and getting out of the car and walking around to the trunk. Keith just sort of shrugged yes. “We're more than just Manhattan you know. For example, this is Queens.” He gestured around in the air all around him as he popped the trunk open.
“Queens looks like suburbia.”
“Eh,” Lance shrugged pulling out the suitcase and dropping it on the driveway next to him. “Kinda.” He handed Keith his laptop case. “Come on,” he closed the trunk with one hand and grabbed the handle to the suitcase with the other.
They walked over to the front door, lifting the suitcase up the few steps to the landing. Lance swung around his keys on his fingers, trying to find his house key, but just as he was closing in on it, the door swung open. In the doorway stood his mom, a full head shorter than him but with the same face. Lance often thought about how much he looked like a darker, taller version of his mom. His brother used to joke about how their parents just made a copy their mom and put her in the taffy puller to make Lance.
“Oh, thanks mom,” Lance said stepping back to open the storm door. “I almost had my keys ready, though.”
“It's ok, I heard you parking,” his mom said. She tilted her head and looked over Lance’s shoulder at Keith behind him. “You must be Keith, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Yes, t–thank you for letting me come stay,” Keith nodded nervously. Lance glanced back at him; his face flushed a light pink and his stuff posture spelled anxious.
“Oh it's no problem at all,” she continued. “We're just glad to have you here. Leandro has been excited for weeks. And he—”
“Mom,” Lance interrupted before she could say anything embarrassing. “How about we go inside now?”
“Ok, ok,” she said taking a step aside to let them both in. Lance took a step in, walking into the house, and immediately regretted it as his mom descended on Keith. “So how was your flight? Was there any turbulence? You flew into LaGuardia right? That’s the much better airport than JFK, that place is a nightmare. A few years ago my husband and I were going on a vacation for our second honeymoon, and we were flying out of JFK and I swore to him I’d never step foot in that airport again, it was such a nightmare.”
“Mom.”
“Keith do you have any food allergies or preferences?” she continued walking Keith further into the house past Lance leading him through the entrance into the living room. “Is there anything you don’t like? I want to tell my husband so that he doesn’t cook that this week.”
“ Mom .”
“Oh and I’ve already set up the air mattress in Leandro’s room for you, but if you need any extra pillows or blankets be sure to let me know.”
“ Mom! ,” Lance said loud enough to get her attention.
“Yes?” she asked looking at him with a face that dared him to yell again.
“He just got here,” Lance said gesturing to Keith who had been patiently listening to his mom talk him, but who still looked clearly awkward. “Give him a moment to breathe.”
“Ok,” she said putting her hands up defensively. “I get it. Go put his bags up in your room and then— well, I guess you both already ate right? Then nevermind, just let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank mom,” Lance said pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I love you. Here are your garlic knots.”
“Yeah yeah,” she said, smiling through her frown taking the bag from his hand.
“Come on,” Lance motioned to Keith to follow him. He grabbed Keith’s suitcase with both hands and walked through the living room to the stairs and took them up two at a time, hearing Keith run up behind him. “Here, it’s that door at the end of the hallway.”
“This one? With the big parental advisory sticker on the outside?” Keith asked walking up to the last door on the left.
“Yeah… I thought I was being edgy and cool in like, 8th grade,” Lance shrugged putting the suitcase down to open the door. “Did you know shopping at Hot Topic, not that edgy.”
“No way,” Keith said dryly, a smirk playing at the sides of his mouth. “I don’t know why I’m pretending to judge you when I spent about 80% of my preteen and early teen years in Hot Topic and Spencers,” he said following Lance into his bedroom.
“What happened to the other 20%?” Lance asked dropping Keith’s suitcase next to his dresser against the wall.
“Well I had to go to school sometimes,” Keith shrugged. He looked around Lance’s bedroom.
It had been supernaturally cleaned over the past week to be, in Lance’s mother’s words, “habitable for humans”. Lance was actually curious to what Keith thought of it. This had been his room since he was about 13, and instead of changing with his interests as he grew older, if sort of just gained layers over the years.
The matte, navy wall paint held random patches of discolored wall where it’d held posters of different sizes for different periods of time judging by the level of discoloration. Currently he’d been in a sort of minimalism kick, so all the posters he’d had, had been paired down to a handful of Marvel posters that lined the one wall he’d limited himself to. His bed was pushed into the corner of the far wall next to the closet and his desk and bookshelves were the only remnants of his collection of fandom things, all the shelves storing books, and boxes, and figurines that he’d been collecting over the years. The air mattress that his mother placed in the room was leaning against the side wall under the window, blocking his keyboard that he kept against the wall.
“So?” Lance said dropping himself on his bed with a slight bounce. “What do you think?”
“It’s very… you,” Keith said.
“In a good way or…?”
“Yeah,” Keith nodded. “Although, I was expecting more mermaid stuff.”
“Oh my god,” Lance groaned, covering his face with his hands and throwing himself back on his bed. “It was a phase. I was little. Please let it go.”
“Where are the Little Mermaid bed sheets though?” Keith smirked putting down his laptop bag and walking over to inspect Lance’s white and blue sheets. “I feel robbed.”
“I hate you so much,” Lance mumbled through his hands covering his face. “I’m never telling you about any of my interests ever again.”
“Yeah, I follow your porn blog, I’ve seen your worst,” Keith grinned, dropping down to sit on the bed next to Lance, bouncing him slightly. “Which means I know for a fact that your mermaid thing goes way beyond Little Mermaid bed sheets.”
“That’s it, you’re blocked. I’m blocking you.”
“You can’t block the truth.”
“I hate you so much,” Lance mumbled, spreading apart his fingers and glaring at Keith through them.
“Says the guy who invited me to stay with him for a week,” Keith smirked. He looked down at Lance with knowing expression that was both goading him and victorious. Combined with the fact that he was leaning back on his hands and his hair was falling in his face in a way that Lance had to describe as “pretty” even though he was frantically searching his brain for another word, he had a thought that he knew everything was going to go downhill from there.
Maybe not so objectively