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The thing about being in love is that no matter what you say in the middle of the day after you saw them walk past by, laughing at some dumb joke their friend made, you do not hate them. Dislike, maybe; even despise would be a better word, although Lance prefered to not throw these around like he did in seventh grade when his siblings first started to leave home and not come back. Not that was an excuse, but he learned to live with the baggage of past mistakes and lost friendships. Everyone makes mistakes, his mama said once, and he will be dommed if he lets thirteen years old him destroy who he could be; who he is, even. Lance is better than that. He knows it.
Which is why he can admit he does not hate Keith.
You see, Keith is not somebody you can just hate. If you do, there must be something seriously wrong with you; hating that guy would be like hating on a puppy, which is never okay and you should be ashamed of yourself. That does not mean he will ever tell anyone that, of course not. He is content with making everyone think he and Keith cannot go along if it means he gets to hide his feelings forever.
(He can’t, not really; everyone around him, including his older brother, knows how bad he has it for that guy. Everyone excluding Keith, of course. And thank gods for that.)
To be fair, liking someone like Kogane isn’t bad. Frustrating, sometimes exhausting, but not bad . Because Keith isn’t bad. He is far from that, actually, and it would take a dead to not notice it. Everything about Keith is golden. A cute smile Lance would like to see more often – he would like to make him smile like that, actually, but that’s just a detail; sharp wit and sarcastic nature. Lance suspects Keith doesn’t even know how smart he is; it’s like seeing someone look for glasses when they are wearing them on their head.
Keith would, without a doubt, look cute with glasses on. He always looks cute, in Lance’s totally unbiased, straight opinion. Both are lies.
“Lance,” there was a voice next to him, and fuck. He completely forgot he was in the middle of a school hall, with his friends and – well. With Keith. “you okay, buddy?” asked Hunk. Of course he did; nothing could unnoticed when it came to Hunk. Pidge likes to call Lance The Mother, but in reality, it’s Hunk. It’s scary how sometimes he doesn’t even have to say what’s wrong. Hunk just knows.
He smiles, nonethless, because he is okay, and because they are three minutes away from their last period and there is no freaking way Lance is going to spend a Friday sulking over a perfect boy who is out of his reach. Things might not be the way he wants them to be but he can make the best out of whatever he has. He is okay.
(Keith laughs at something Pidge said. There is a faint shade of blush creeping on his cheeks and he might or might have not made the tiniest voice of distress that Lance shouldn’t find adorable, but does anyway; then Keith gets up and offers to pick them up at six because he has no classes and it’s such a small gesture, but Lance loves every inch of it. He feels like melting, leaving his body, stopping breathing. He feels like holding Keith’s hand and telling him nice things. Fuck. Maybe he isn’t okay.)
“Are we talking about the fair?” he asks instead, shutting his locker. He looks at Pidge, not at Keith, and it should send any kind of message to anyone, but somehow it does. And somehow, Keith picks it. Lance wonders if he is ever going to respond.
“You are not going anywhere.” Keith says and everyone rolls their eyes. They know it’s not true; Lance always goes, because he wants to and because they want him to go, too. It’s not right without him; not fun. Not nice the way it should be.
“Cut it out, Mullet. I have girls to flirt with.”
“Would be nice if they flirted back, wouldn’t it?” and, well, that is a low bow and they both know it. Not that Lance cares; true, not every girl or boy or anyone who identifies differently flirts back, but that’s how life is. You won’t be interested in everyone and everyone won’t be interested in you. Although when it came to him, it’s usually the second one.
“You don’t need to worry your little Mullet head. I’m bringing my A game tonight. Even you will be swept off your feet!” he sang, voice unsually high. Keith didn’t notice; if he did, he was too busy arching his eyebrows in the most annoyed way to comment on that. Lance just wiggled his.
(Later, when they are on their own, Hunk puts a ressuring hand on top of his head and lets Lance whine. “Why did I say it, Hunk? Why?” “It’s okay, buddy. It’s a Lance thing to say.” “Great, now we using my name as an adjective for dumb things? You wound me, man.”)
“Yes, we are talking about the fair, Lance. Keith will pick us up.” Pidge chims in, no doubt both amused. Or annoyed. Or both; it’s hard to tell, sometimes. Lance is certain Pidge themselves don’t know their own emotions that well.
“Oh, right. You mentioned it in the groupchat. Allura is supposed to have her own seat with face paintings, yes?”
“Yes,” Keith starts but he is cut off when the bell rings. No one needs to hear the rest, though. Keith is predictable like that.
“Keith, buddy, my man. One day you will find yourself a friendship like Allura and I have. Then you will understand, not everything has to be romantic.”
“First he has to find someone to befriend him.” Pidge adds and they stick a hand for a high five before Lance can make an OOOO sound. Even Hunk snickers.
Keith just scoffs.
They are in Keith’s car and Lance has to admit, this boy is a shit driver. Lightly said.
“You know, Mullet.” he starts but Keith is already ignoring him. It’s something he has gotten used to; not only with his crush, but also people around him. He tries to not let it get to him. After all, he tells himself, you too sometimes have enough of some people. It’s okay. It’s natural.
It’s harder to say “it’s okay” when it comes to Keith, though.
He decides to continue, anyway. “It would be much, much better if you actually, like. Tried to not get us into a car accident?”
Keith laughs at that, eyes still on the road, one hand flipping him off. Lance wasn’t going to dwell on this moment – at least that’s what he tried to tell himself. Pidge was already giving him looks.
“No car accidents.” Hunk adds and he seems to be barely holding up. Lance pats his hand, a gesture of comfort he learned to cherish through the years; Keith looked at them with narrowed eyebrows, obviously guilty.
“You okay, Hunk?” he asks and Lance shouldn’t be praising him in his head for doing the bare minimum. But he is gonna do it anyway - smile a little and look at the back of Keith’s head when he slows down a bit, not wanting to turn his friends into vomiting wrecks. Lance has learned that despite being an asshole, Keith isn’t an asshole at all.
“We will be there soon.” he whispers to Hunk and bathes in the way his best friend seems to relax at that. He loves making Hunk feel better; he loves making everyone feel better, of course, but there is this special feeling after he earns a smile from his best friend. Maybe he just likes to know the best person on this world is doing okay.
They drive and Lance gets lost in his own head. He thinks of his friends; he does that a lot, actually. He likes thinking of them. Likes to rememeber Allura’s perfumes so he can get them on sale; likes to watch over Pidge and drop bottles of water into their backpack; likes to pet Hunk’s head and press kisses all over his face.
Likes to look at Keith’s back and wonder how would it feel to lean on it.
Thinking of his friends makes him feel like he belongs and Lance likes this feeling more than he has ever liked anything in his whole life, even Keith.
He has to cut out this sappy shit before Allura sees him with Lance Look On and decides it’s a new neme for another week.
They get to the fair and Pidge jumps out of the car, looking like they saw God themselves – or maybe ground. With Keith driving it could be both. Lance walks out after them, holding the door for Hunk to do the same, and he looks at his surrondings. Altean’s fair is one of the biggest treats for a child; when he and Hunk were younger, their mothers used to motivate them with promises of trips and playing. That’s how they met Pidge – when they were thirteen years old, they tried to break into rollercoaster’s system to scare Matt. It ended up a big mess, with a couple of screaming teenagers stuck in the air, but life is a big mess too, and Pidge was never bothered by this failure. They tried again next year, smarter and more advanced in fair technology, just for fun, or knowledge, of the feeling of accomplishment you get when something particularly hard goes the way you wanted it to.
This time, though, he and Hunk were there to help them.
(Matt got stuck in the air, at the end, but not alone; he was with Shiro and Keith and some random, old lady who seemed really angry at the idea bunch of nerdy teenagers ruined the ride of her life just to prove they can. That’s why I’ve never had kids , she said. Bite us in the ass, Pidge replied under breath. Lance was howling with laughter for the rest of the evening.)
“You guys,” he starts but Pidge already cut him off, darting forward and laughing hysterically. There he was, Matt, in his grace and beauty. Lance had to admit, he used to look up to Matt; maybe even more than Shiro. There was just something wonderful about someone who can take down Pidge in a fight without having to take an advantage of the height difference. Lance is yet to master it.
He looks at Keith and sees a fond look on his face, strange softness he is not used to seeing so openly. He thinks Keith doesn’t want them to see it but maybe, just maybe, Lance doesn’t look close enough sometimes. Maybe he is really content with the image of Keith he has in his head – beautiful, but distant. Totally and completely out of his reach.
God. He is so fucking gay.
Matt says hi and high fives them all and they go ahead, somehow towering over people there. He tells Hunk that surprisingly, these kids keep getting smaller and smaller each year; Hunk just laughs and points at Pidge from behind their back.
“I saw that.” they say, although they didn’t and they all know it – it’s just a matter of guess or miss, and Pidge is really fucking good at it, especially when it’s Lance they are guessing against. He could get offended if it wasn’t for the fact they always team against Keith together. That makes them partners, and partners don’t get angry at each other for knowing one another. Lance grins and looks at his friend with a mischevious glint in his eyes that, in Keith’s very humble opinion, makes him look even more idiotic.
“You just don’t know how to appreciate art.” Lance tells him dismissively and Keith rolls his eyes but he doesn’t seem bothered or annoyed. It’s all in good humor, even if not everyone around them realizes that.
“Did he just call himself art?” comes Matt’s voice in the background.
“Did he lie though?” asks Hunk and Lance throws him a grin over his shoulder. He feels light, like a child who just got their promised toy, or airless ball. Both sound equally stupid in his head. He voices his concern loud.
Pidge throws popcorn at him and mutters something about dumb boys being dumb. Matt doesn’t even comment but he does look thoughtful so Lance forgives him.
“But child getting a toy is a symbol of happiness,” Keith starts. He looks really into it and Lance giggles at the eyebrow scrunch he sees. Around them people get louder and closer; they are close to the heart of the fair. He bounces on his feet. “While an airless ball seems more of like…… a metaphor for someone whose dog got stolen and they had to run five streets to catch the thief?”
“That’s oddily specific. Keith, got any stories to share?” Lance asks and Keith just grins at him, hand waving in the air. He looks beautiful in the evening sunlight, hair wild and face calm but then, Lance thinks, when does he not? Fuck attractive people and their tricks.
“Maybe some other time.” Keith tells him and Lance thinks of it as a promise; as something to hold onto when he can’t sleep at night, or worse, when he feels like sleeping in the middle of the day. He can’t help collecting little pieces of what Keith said to him and putting them away in a box with “to giggle at later” written at the top.
That’s gay , he tells himself. You know it , his gayness replies.
He doesn’t notice a soft smile curiving on Keith’s lips. He never really does.
Despite spending best years of his life at the fair, Lance never really gets over how wonderful it is. For him, it seems like growing up just means finding new benefits of current entertainments; like that scary house where they can hide their backpacks because never really opens the boxes inside of it. Their loss, though. Hunk once found five dollars there. And a pack of gum. And cigarettes, which they didn’t take, of course. They were only eleven at that time.
The magic of the fair comes from people who attend it, at least that’s what Lance thinks. He likes looking at the crowd here and noticing how different everyone in it is. How different are their ways of having fun. He looks at them and sees children getting excited of little things like pink baloons and walking fairies; sees adults who instead of brooding in the corner embrace an inner child by splashing in the water and drinking juice boxes; he sees his friends who are already standing in the quees long enough to tire an overexcited child and he thinks to himself: it would be nice to make them all laugh like this someday, too. He wants to make people happy because them feeling happy makes him happy, too. It’s one big happyception.
“Hey, noodle head!” Pidge shouts at him and start running. Lance doesn’t need anything else, just sprints after them, already laughing. Pidge is small and can hide everywhere but Lance is faster; he gets to them before they manage to dodge.
“Hey, squirell.”
“What kind of an insult is that? Squirells are cool.”
“You think that because you are one.” he tells them. They sit together, shoulders touching, and watch the rest of their friends disappear into a crowd, each one looking mildly terrified. “Should we help them?”
“Nah,” Pidge answers and hides their face away from sun. “They are hilarious like that.”
Lance just laughs, throwing a hand over his friend’s shoulder, still feeling light, bubbly, happy.
“Let’s find Allura instead. I want to have a shark mouth.” he says and gets up to leave but Pidge grabs his hand and whispers Look in the most gremlin voice he has ever heard.
(“What’s even a gremlin voice?” Hunk will ask later and Keith will just grin and try to do copy it, failing. They will laugh and Pidge will pout and Lance will think that maybe, he doesn’t have to make everyone happy. Maybe he can just make his friends happy and get the feeling back from the sight of their laughing faces.)
He squints his eyes, tries to stand on his toes. He sees it, of course, but he isn’t sure if his brain isn’t getting overheated. “Is that….. Keith? Trying to win a plushie?”
Pidge nods and they both launch forward, not close enough to make Keith notice them but also not too far away.
“He looks determined.” Pidge gasps and really, it shouldn’t be shocking that Keith sets his foot on winning a goddamn plushie in some shooting fair contest, but it is, somehow. He was never big on these games; has always claimed he is beyond them. So what has changed now?
“He looks ready .” Lance answers. They watch; watch Keith drop another coin onto owner’s hand purse his lips like a little child. Watch him reload the gun and, unsurprisingly, fail again. It’s pitiful to see , Lance decides, but also kind of entertaining; mighty Keith Kogane unable to ace something. He must be furious inside.
“I will get Hunk and Matt.” Pidge says and the scramble to their feet without making a goddamn noise. It’s like they were born to be a gremlin. “You stay here and make sure he doesn’t punch the owner to get whichever plushie he wants.”
“Sure.” Lance says but he doesn’t really register whatever words Pidge said. He is too focused on watching Keith shot on by one and still fail. He must have spent around ten dollars already and Lance is getting sick of seeing that pouty face. He gets up.
“Hey mullet.” he says and walks closer, putting his chin to rest on Keith’s arm. It feels nice; like lying in bed after a very, very long day. Very peaceful. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing, idiot?” Keith bits back and Christ, he sounds irritated. Like he is ready to steal that fucking plushie or something. Lance can see it happening in two minutes and twenty seconds. “Go away, I’m busy.”
“I can see.” he barks a laugh but doesn’t move. He scans the stall to find whatever could get Keith’s pant in twisties like that and finds nothing. Nothing . He glances at Keith’s hand, curled into a fist and giggles. He looks like a child demanding his plushie after parents took it away from them. Lance remembers it happening to him in his childhood, from when he wouldn’t stop bouncing on his feet after his mom told him to. It makes him smile, like all memories that include his mom do. He loves her; loves all his family, but there is this special thing to his mom, that warmth and safety. He thinks it’s home; her smile and baked blessings are what home is made of.
Lance shakes the feeling of and looks at the stall again, searching, not giving up. Keith is an idiot, he knows, but he has his reasons to give in. There has to be something, anything, that means the world to him – and probably not much to anyone else. Keith is special like that.
He squints his eyes. And he sees it.
Big, grey and absolutely adorable hippo. It’s hidden somewhere behind a zebra or two but it’s there . He is surprised Keith noticed it out of all plushies stuffed together in a small stall but doesn’t ask. Maybe he was looking for it, hopefully, just like Lance a few seconds ago. Maybe he was already prepared to win it before they even got here. Doesn’t matter; Keith wants that hippo and Lance will get it to him, even if he has to spend a few hours here, or talk the guy into giving it for free. He reaches his hand out for the toy gun.
“You are an amateur.” he tells him and drops a dollar onto owner’s hand. The man looks like he is tired of them standing there, wasting his time but then again, he has nothing better to do. Lance grids his teeth; if there is anything he dislikes, it’s to feel understimated and overlooked.
He grabs the gun from Keith’s palm and points at the hippo. “This one, right?”
“What are you…..”
“Move.” he says and stands in a position.
Now, Lance is not a professional shooter, but he has an aim and he knows it. He used to train archery in middle school because his mom wanted all her children to pick a sport. He looks at the spinning wheel he is supposed to hit and remembers all these times he had to hit smaller, faster objects. He laughs to himself and already imagines Keith holding up a big hippo, face flushed and smile grateful. He likes that image, likes it a lot and he wants to see it in real life so bad he grabs the gun and holds it up. Lance aims and shoots, trusting his arms to know what to do.
He hits all of them.
Keith’s gasp comes from his right, shocked and impressed – at least that’s what Lance takes it for. He turns and winks, putting the thing down; then he looks at the man and says, “The hippo one, please.” Keith gasps again.
Lance takes the plushie, feeling a bit of heat coming to his cheek, but keeping a stern face. He doesn’t want to let Keith see how much his reaction will matter.
“Here you go, mullet.” he says and throws it to the boy. “All yours. No need to go bankrupt.”
Keith looks at the plushie in his hands and stays silent for a bit, lips pursed together and eyebrows scrunched. That rises a weird feeling in Lance’s stomach and he wonders if maybe it would be better if he let Keith win it himself, if maybe Keith didn’t want it from Lance, maybe he’d like it from someone else, maybe –
But then Keith smiles and it’s just as earnest as Lance’s imagination said it would be; hell, it’s even better. Keith looks at him with a smile so big it could light up the whole world and if Lance wasn’t feeling so dumbfounded, maybe he’d say it does light up his. Instead he just stares awkwardly, hands clenched into fists, lips twingling. He wants , goddamnit. He wants to make Keith smile like that for the rest of their lives. Maybe longer.
“Thanks Lance.” Keith says and his voice doesn’t help Lance at all. It feels like the world is about to melt in a big puddle of nothing; Lance feels an immeasurable amount of heat spreading through his body, slowly tearing him apart, making his way through each cell, each inch. He feels on fire and he wonders if it shows; if Keith can see how badly he affects him.
He shrughs, though, and coughs and looks at his feet. Keith is dangerous when he is cute, he has noticed. “You are welcome, buddy. No big deal.”
They walk a bit and there is a crowd getting close so Lance tries to shake off the feeling in his gut. He can’t no matter how hard he tries. Just like he can’t stop glancing at Keith who walks with a big hippo under his arm, looking happier and more content than he ever had. It makes him want to do stupid things like win thousand of these plushies.
Keith is dangerous no matter what.
“Thank you again.” Keith says and Lance wants to punch him because goddamnit Keith, stop being so cute. He doesn’t nor he does say it loud but the other boy is actually blushing right now and Lance thinks he might faint.
“It’s no problem, Keithy boy, you know I will always be there to he–“
Keith cuts him off with a kiss. Or, a peck; it lasts two seconds but it happened and Lance minds freezes. He stands there, in the middle of the fair, with a boy he has liked for God knows how long, fingers touching the spot on his lips Keith’s lips have touched – and he freezes. His world stops. There is no sound, no feelings other than sweet, sweet warmth spreading across him again, not burning, but putting him under a blanket. He thinks if heaven was a feeling, this is how it would feel like.
The world comes back to life when leans in and presses his lips against Keith’s.