Chapter Text
Two weeks into December should have been the time to breathe easy, where the only stress ought to have been in preparation for and during finals week. The flurry of books and exams, papers and projects, all crammed into the last week of the semester. Long hours of studying could finally turn into hours of caught up sleep, of eating full meals at a normal pace. Dishes piled haphazardly in the sink could be washed, laundry done, and, of course, packing up the car to drive home for the holidays.
But that was exactly Keith's problem: the holidays. He'd promised his mom he would drive the several hours it took to get there and stay a couple days for Christmas. He'd done it before and he'd do it again, gladly, if it hadn't been for one little thing -- his mom told him to bring his boyfriend.
He didn't have a boyfriend.
A couple years back, he'd come out to his parents as gay and his dad was far more supportive than Keith had ever dreamt. But his mom? His mom was...doubtful. He didn't understand it and his dad tried talking to him about it before, but the point remained: his mom didn't believe he was actually gay. Maybe it had something to do with how, after his parents divorced, Keith had gone to live with his dad and his mom felt left out. Maybe she just couldn't wrap her head around the idea, maybe she needed time. There were a gazillion possibilities and he only thought about them after he got mad.
In a fit of fury, he'd told her he was going steady with a guy from school and things were great; his relationship, his life, everything! He'd wanted to rub it in her face that he was gay and doing just fine! Better than fine!
Time had passed and he'd sort of forgot about his fake boyfriend until about an hour ago when his mom called. What was he going to do? He either needed to find a boyfriend or come clean to his mom and just feel the "I knew it" vibes that would surely radiate from her the entire time he was there.
No, that wasn't an option. He had to think of something else.
So he pulled out his phone and typed out something, thought about it, erased some words and retyped a few, and then sent it to two people. As soon as he hit send, however, he felt regret surge up from the depths of his stomach. His thumping heart didn't help any, either.
It was a stupid idea, but that only made sense because he was a stupid person. Stupid, stupid, stupid--
His phone chirped at him. Someone had responded.
Unfortunately, it was Allura with a solid, "No, sorry, I don't think I know anyone who could help! Maybe try Pidge?"
But he was way ahead of her. He'd already texted Pidge and he was really hoping she had a better answer. She was probably at work, though, so Keith went around trying to keep busy.
Lists were made, vacuuming was done, and he even got around to cleaning the inside of his shower. It was when he was in the middle of making dinner, staring at the tiles on the wall and wondering if he should get a haircut before or after his family visit, that the fateful chime of his phone sounded.
"Yeah, I know a guy," she wrote.
Keith hummed with impatience. Couldn't she have just figured he wanted more details?
"Great, can I have his number?" he typed back. Honestly, was it that hard to do?
"No."
Apparently so.
After a bunch of typing back and forth, Keith was left with a sort of empty, nervous feeling that started in his feet, for some reason, and a date. Well, not a date date, just an appointment kind of date. Ugh, even in his head it sounded stupid. A meeting time. There.
He would meet with this mystery person the next day in the park by Best Buy. It was where Pidge worked. She'd always been really into technology and picking apart computers. When they were younger, they would go find unfinished homes to sneak onto, just so she could peer into the walls and see how the wiring was laid out. That and play space pirates. Their echoes in those empty homes had always made everything feel more dramatic, exciting. They'd stomp down wooden staircases, crawl through open cabinetry, and have epic duels out on the windy, dirt-filled backyards, under dark clouds and the setting sun.
But the wiring always came first. She technically worked at the Geek Squad that was a part of the Best Buy, but it was only a temporary thing until she finished her degree. Keith could never quite remember what it was, but it sounded important. Then again, a master's degree in anything always sounded important. Maybe it was engineering -- but he could have sworn there were more words to it.
Regardless, he showed up the next day at three in the afternoon, holding a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, at the park she'd told him about. He was early. Pidge, however, was not, as she wrote in her text message.
"Sorry, running late for work. Can you meet him alone?"
Keith eyed the store from the wooden bench he'd just settled down on. If they sold binoculars there, they'd be some weird, hi-tech stuff. He narrowed his eyes just in case. If he didn't know Pidge any better, he'd have told himself it was a bit of a stretch, to think she'd set this all up only to spy on them from afar.
He was halfway done writing, "How am I supposed to meet him when I don't know what he looks like," when someone stopped walking right in front of him.
The guy was wearing real snazzy boat shoes and straight-cut jeans that were cuffed at the ankle. Keith looked up to find a striped shirt under a blazer-style jacket and then the face that put it all together. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't him.
"Hey there, you're Keith, right?" the guy said. He had a smile whiter than the snow they were expecting later that week. It was a smile Keith had seen before, but never directed at him.
"Uh, yeah," he replied.
"We take a class together, don't we? Your face looks familiar."
Keith nodded and gestured for him to sit down. "Modern Literature," he replied.
He wasn't sure who he'd been expecting, but it sure wasn't the guy who held up his Lit class almost every single time during class discussions, talking about everything other than the actual topic. Keith wasn't much of a talker during those classes, he was more interested in his science classes, but this guy was the reason their class never got out on time. Five, ten minutes over their intended class period and the only thing on Keith's mind was murder. It had been his last class of the day -- he just wanted to go home.
"You're the guy who doesn't like poetry!" the guy exclaimed.
Keith was blanking on his name. Something with an L. Louis? Lars? La-- "You're Lance, right?" he asked, hoping that if any deity in the world existed, it would hear his prayers and tell him he was right.
"Yup!" he said and gave another one of those smiles. He was always chatting up the girls in the class -- he even went so far as to compliment the teacher on her hair, though Keith was pretty sure that was only to get an extension on a paper. The point was, why was he there? Pidge had explained everything to him all proper, right?
"Did Pidge, uh, explain things?" Keith asked. He could feel his face heat up, but he was really hoping it was one of those times that didn't show. "About what I was asking for?"
"Oh, right, yeah dude, no worries," Lance said. "You're looking for a pretend boyfriend, right?"
God, it felt so...pitiful, hearing it said out loud like that. He wasn't starved for a relationship or anything, he just had something to prove.
"And you're fine with acting the part?" Keith asked. He hadn't even begun to start questioning if he, himself, was okay with acting the other part. With Lance.
"Yeah, I mean, I figured we could talk about it some more," Lance replied with a shrug.
It still didn't make any sense. Lance was okay with acting the part of a boyfriend for another boy. "Are you gay?" he blurted out. Well. That just happened.
Lance's eyebrows went way up. They looked a little too neat to be natural. "Bisexual, actually," he said. "But no worries, you set the rules!"
"Rules?" he said before it caught up to him. Oh. "Uh." He should have probably thought things out a little more. It sounded much worse than what he'd actually intended. "How about I explain the situation first?"
Lance nodded and Keith relaxed into a retelling of everything that had happened to land him in such hot water. It made him feel better, though, explaining everything. Made him seem a little less creepy, maybe. Hopefully.
In the end, Keith agreed to buy Lance Taco Bell every Wednesday of the next semester in return for everything playing a pretend boyfriend entailed. It felt a lot better than paying him with money (though he had offered), but not by much. He definitely wondered why Lance was so easy-going about the whole deal, but he felt it kind of rude to ask.
Instead he went, "What about your own family? Don't they want you back for Christmas?"
Lance just scratched at his chin and said, "Don't worry about it. I don't have any plans."
Hm. It wasn't really an answer, but they weren't close enough to where Keith could just push on through with more persistent questioning. Why didn't he have plans? Was there family drama? Did he not celebrate Christmas?
Not knowing what to say, Keith just nodded and fiddled with the plastic lid on his now-empty coffee cup. He kind of wished it were still at least a little bit of the way full -- he could always sip on it during the awkward pauses.
"Can I get your number?" Lance asked. "I might have some questions before the big day. Or night. Or, well, all of that."
Why was Keith's face getting all warm? There was absolutely no reason for his face to be heating up. It was December. The temperature was probably close to whatever zero meant. "Sure," he said and pulled out his phone. It was sleek silver thing that reacted a little too eager to his touch, encased in a striped red case.
Lance's was blue with a crack in one of the corners.
"Then I'll see you next week!" Lance said, bouncing off the bench. He laughed. "Taco Bell for a whole semester. Sweet."
But before Keith could reply with, "It's really not that big of a deal," because Taco Bell was cheap and also garbage, Lance was striding away on those ridiculously long legs of his. There was a little wave involved, but Keith chose to nod instead.
A whole week, huh? Yeah, an entire week to over-think things and regret all the decisions he'd ever made to land him in such a situation. Perfect.
~*~
The picking up of Lance McClain, as it was so typed in his phone, was a relatively easy thing. In theory. So Keith didn't understand why he was parked in the parking lot of one of the school dorms, slouched in his seat, listening to Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me." It was a good song and one of the few stations that would stay good during the whole four hours it would take to drive to his mom's house. It would change, naturally, but it just sort of fizzed out and then it was just solid rock music.
But he didn't understand why he was sitting there, focusing on the lyrics, while Lance was doing whatever it was that was taking him so long to get downstairs and in his car. He'd texted him half an hour ago when he was leaving. He'd given him a whole week's notice.
A small voice in his head was scratching at the possibility that Lance changed his mind and this was his way of canceling on him. But he chose to ignore that voice in favor of Billy Joel's more upbeat tone and wonder what 'white wall tires' could mean. He would have pulled out his phone to look it up, but he was afraid that if he did that, he'd also send Lance a stream of unpleasant, nagging texts.
He really didn't want to be that person. He'd been that person in high school; he sure hoped he wasn't still.
When Lance finally did stroll out of the double doors to the building -- and that's exactly what he did, stroll -- he was carrying two large duffel bags and a backpack. It was four hours away, not four weeks. And they were only staying for three days. Three.
"Holy mother of god," Keith said. He was incredibly glad he was still alone in his car.
After popping the trunk and grabbing the keys from the ignition (he'd locked himself out once and never again. Never. Again.), he hopped out to help rearrange some of his stuff to make room.
"You read my text right...right?" Keith asked. "It's only three days."
"Three days can mean a lot," Lance replied, swinging his first bag in. The second went in much more gently. His backpack he put in the backseat. "I like to be prepared."
"For what, an invasion of zombies?" Keith muttered.
Unfortunately, Lance heard. "Hey man, you never know. Doesn't have to be zombies. Could be aliens." He waggled his eyebrows.
Keith only rolled his eyes and got back in his seat. Lance was still pulling on his seatbelt by the time he pulled out of the parking spot.
"Is that what took you so long?" Keith ventured to ask. Hey, he hadn't sent the long stream of texts, but he wasn't about to just let it slide.
"Yeah, I was making sure I grabbed everything," Lance replied. He was staring out the window at the passing buildings. "Like I said, gotta be prepared."
"It's a house in the mountains," Keith replied. "Doesn't exactly scream dangerous."
"Having never been there, I couldn't take my chances," Lance shot back.
Keith sighed, deep and heavy. Whatever, they were in the car, on their way -- that's all that mattered.
It grew quiet as Keith navigated their way through the town, but picked up again once they hit the highway.
"Winter kind of bums me out," Lance said. "All the dead trees and frozen ground. I want summer! And the beach! Man, what I would give to go swimming just about now."
"Be my guest, there's a lake you can hike to near my mom's." It was probably frozen several inches thick, but why should that stop him?
"You know what I mean." Keith didn't have to be looking at him -- he could hear the scowl in Lance's voice.
"Hm, then you picked the wrong state to be in," Keith replied. "We, my friend, are land-locked."
"You can still go swimming, though," Lance pointed out. "And there's actually a lot more to do here than by a beach. But still, can't deny the wonderful feeling of stretching out and soaking up the sun."
Keith couldn't relate. He had skin that burned and blistered if he dared go out without sunscreen. He always had to carry around the smelly stuff, just in case it wore off. Higher elevations meant being closer to the flaming orb in the sky that turned his skin to a peeling, burning mess.
"Anyways, I've got a question," Lance said. "What are we going to tell your mom when we get there?"
Keith switched lanes -- there was a left lane for a reason, people. "What do you mean?"
"You know, if she asks us how we met," Lance said. "Just a basic story."
It was a question Keith had been thinking about the entire week. He just wasn't good with story-making. Meeting in a bar sounded kind of seedy, but would his mom believe something too picturesque?
"How about our friends hooked us up?" Keith offered. It was pretty much the truth.
"That's so boring!" Lance said, sitting up a little straighter. "Couldn't I have picked you up somewhere? Like, where do you work?"
"A Call Center."
"Oh. Never mind. I thought if you worked in a restaurant, I could have been enamored or something and just routinely had dinner every time you had a shift," Lance said.
"Kind of stalker-y," Keith pointed out.
"Not if you found it endearing!"
"But I don't."
"You could pretend. That's the whole point of this operation," Lance said, huffing. He slid down in his seat.
Keith rolled his eyes. He didn't understand what was so important about what should be a simple story. But Lance was doing him a huge favor, even if badly made fake Mexican food was part of the payment plan. "We...met at school," Keith said. "Freshmen orientation. But we didn't start dating right away, we just started out as friends."
He could feel Lance's eyes on him, but he remained focused on the road. Cars were slowing down, so either a cop was up front or they were hitting some traffic. He glanced down at the speedometer; it was legal.
"Not bad," Lance finally said. "Can I still be the one who asked you out?"
That time, Keith looked over. "Uh, sure?" he said.
Another glance at Lance -- he looked a little pleased, a small smile curled up on his face. It reminded Keith of a cat an old neighbor had owned; was a tawny brown, fluffy thing with big gold eyes and dark paws. He'd seen it in the window every time he left to go catch the bus for school.
Traffic picked up again and the radio started switching about an hour into their ride. Dark trees rolled by, though not very tall or thick. The road narrowed into two lanes, each in different directions. The curves around the mountainsides always used to make his dad nervous and they always knew when it got bad because their car would slow to a crawl.
"I've got another question," Lance said all of a sudden. He reached out to lower the volume.
"Shoot."
But Lance fidgeted with his fingers a bit before responding. "How far exactly do we go to prove we're in a relationship?" he asked. "Like, what's appropriate? Do we hug? Kiss?"
"Uh," Keith said. He kind of wished they'd discussed it earlier, when he wasn't driving past great big cliffs and around tight turns. "I'm down for whatever you are. I guess."
"Cool," Lance replied. "By the way, can we stop by somewhere eventually? I could kill for a coffee or some water."
Somewhere. Right.
"You couldn't have asked when we were driving past all those gas stations?" Keith asked.
"I wasn't thirsty then."
"I swear to god," Keith grumbled.
"Hey man, I didn't say right now. I just said it for when you, you know, see a good spot," Lance said. "Eventually."
Was he going to strangle him? Probably not. But throwing him off the mountain did seem rather tempting. If they weren't stuck behind a minivan that had absolutely no business being there, he might have actually done it.
Instead, he turned the music up again and continued driving to safer, less precipitous places. If he'd been driving with an actual boyfriend, maybe he wouldn't be having such a hollow, sour feeling in his stomach. Maybe he wouldn't be kicking his own ass for not making up an excuse to not go. A lot of maybes roamed around in his head, but nothing to make them settle, no tiny, wriggling bit of hope for a good time.
"There!"
Keith nearly flew out of his seat. "Jesus," he hissed.
"There's a stop coming up!" Lance said, pointing out his window at a sign that passed by.
"Any reason to shout it?" Keith asked. Luckily, he'd stayed in his lane. There was only a semi-truck in the other one. His heart was pounding and he'd definitely jerked the wheel. "Have you never ridden in a car before? Don't scare the driver. He is responsible for your safety."
"Sorry," Lance said, but Keith didn't believe an ounce of it. "But there's a gas station coming up with a McDonalds and I think a Subway."
"You hungry?" Keith asked.
"A little, but you said we'd be eating dinner at your mom's," Lance replied. "But I'm thirsty and these legs of mine could use some stretching."
Keith tried not to look at those legs of his.
As he was turning into the area where the buildings sat, all nestled together, he asked, "So what'll it be?"
"Hm, well," Lance said. "Let's try out the gas station first and if their drinks are expensive, we'll go through the drive-thru at McDonalds. Nothing beats that dollar menu."
Keith wanted to ask, then why bother with the gas station at all? He breathed in, breathed out. Whatever, Lance had his reasons. Keith didn't need to understand or ask about them.
He pulled the car into the parking lot, shifted into park, and went to unbuckle. Only he didn't get that far because suddenly Lance grabbed his face and kissed him. Not fully on the mouth, but enough.
"What the hell?!" Keith sputtered, pulling back. His face was on fire. His face was on fire and he didn't care, but he did, and he couldn't help it, but he wished he could.
"Yup, thought so," Lance replied.
For once, Keith couldn't form a response fast enough.
"We should practice kissing so that doesn't happen in front of your mom," Lance said.
"Okay, first off -- you should have just said that before you went all, all... And secondly, I probably wouldn't react that way if you'd warned me about it," Keith said. Both points were basically the same thing, but his brain was still a little fried. "Who just goes around kissing people like that?"
Lance scratched at his chin, looking a little sheepish. His shoulders tucked in a bit, like he wanted to make himself smaller. "Sorry," he said. It was a believable apology, that time. Hit all the right kinds of apologetic tones.
Keith only nodded, frowning out the windshield at the brown bricks that made up the gas station. He kind of wished real life had a little angel and devil to talk to on each shoulder. Maybe not the devil, he did plenty of things he regretted enough on his own, but the angel might've helped. At the very least, it could have told him if it was bad to feel kind of excited about kissing the boy sitting in his car. At the thought of more kissing.
Then again, most Bible-pushers said being gay was a sin, so maybe the angel would just berate him for that.
"Keith?"
He jerked back into their world. "Right," he said. "Practice. Um. Sure, but it'll probably be weird."
And it was weird. But also nice. It was a lot nicer when Lance actually kissed him full on the mouth, all soft and careful. And then he was gone again.
"Could you open your mouth a little?" Lance asked.
Keith's head was either still stuck a few seconds in the past or Lance hadn't waited for a response. The second kiss was even weirder, what with Lance's tongue sort of swiping past Keith's lips, but not full on pushing through like he'd seen in movies. He was kind of glad for that. French kissing always looked so uncomfortable.
"Not bad," Lance said the next time he pulled away. A half smile sort of snuck up on his face, and only later would Keith realize it was a sort of teasing expression. "You're a little stiff, but I don't think we'll have a problem convincing your mom we're in love." He ended with the last word in a sugar-coated, sing-song tone and a waggle of his eyebrows.
Once they'd stretched out a bit, stocked up on drinks and snacks, they were back on the road. Keith's mind, which had been left behind, came racing back when they got stuck behind an SUV with a trailer hitched to the back of it. He slowed down a bit, checked the lines and the other lane, switched, and then drove his foot into the gas pedal.
"Holy Tostitos, Batman," Lance hissed, holding onto the handle above the door.
Keith ignored him in favor of getting back in their lane, before the truck heading their way made it to the same spot they were.
"Could you slow down? Maybe?"
"Why?"
"Because I want to live? I've been wondering, do you always drive this fast?" Lance asked. He hadn't loosened his grip on the handle.
"It's not that fast."
"Dude, you are going like, ten or twenty over the speed limit, I am sure of it," Lance insisted.
The rolling of his eyes did not go unnoticed.
"Don't be blaming me if you get pulled over by a cop. Or we hit a patch of ice and go spiraling off road, only to hit a tree and die. Won't be my fault when you get blisters on your ass for landing yourself in hell because you killed lil' ol' me and--"
"Oh my god, shut up!" Keith shouted and added pressure to the brake pedal. "We aren't going to die! My driving skills are great -- better than great! Haven't had an accident in my entire driving career."
"Don't go jinxing yourself now."
"I am going to throw you out the car."
"Going 90 miles an hour?"
"Yes," Keith said and traded a grin with his obnoxious fake boyfriend.