Work Text:
Fresh from his victory with the Garrison campus’s Starbucks, Lance trotted towards the door to the dormitory lounge. Really, it shouldn’t be so hard to convince a barista to put that much espresso in your drink, even after the sugary abomination Hunk requested—which Lance fully intended on stealing a taste of the moment Hunk took the sacred and untouchable first sip. Like he couldn’t handle caffeine.
The door, however, presented a new challenge. Not only did he have two massive drinks in his hands, but the door had a knob instead of a handle, so it wasn’t like he could just lever it down and push it open—and shit, the door opened outward, too, didn’t it? He could set the drinks down, but they could get knocked over. Maybe if Hunk was already inside?
He leaned in, tilting his ear towards the door, to see if he could hear voices.
“Yeah, unfortunately I haven’t finished that one yet,” came the laughing, slightly chagrined tone that Lance knew so well. “Essays are the worst, man. I’ll probably knock it out this weekend.”
“Well, let me know if you need any help.” This voice, slightly less familiar but still recognizable, belonged to Naomi. Cute, but totally off the market after she had met May. Still awesome to hang out with, though. Lance lifted his foot back to kick.
”And say hi to your boyfriend for me!”
Teetering on one foot, Lance froze.
He couldn’t say for sure what he had expected to hear in reply from Hunk. Sputtered denial, perhaps, or confusion. But on the very, very bottom of that list was a fond laugh and an, “Okay, sure.”
Boyfriend. Boyfriend? She had definitely said boyfriend. Right?
Footsteps sounded softly on the floor, and Lance took advantage of the raised leg to take one giant step back, plastering an innocent grin on his face. As Naomi pushed open the door, Lance hoped he did a convincing job of looking like he was still walking forward.
“Oh, hey.” She beamed over at him, nose crinkling adorably underneath her freckles. She stepped aside, holding open the door for him. “See you two later!”
As she walked away, the door swinging shut behind her, Hunk turned to Lance and grinned. Any other time, Lance would have grinned back, basked in the sensation of Hunk’s sunny smile. But now, as he woodenly handed over the drink, he couldn’t do anything at all.
“Thanks, man. I owe you.” Seemingly oblivious to Lance’s inner turmoil, Hunk turned to settle back on the couch, sprawling across the cushions as he grabbed the remote. Lance stepped over to sit, very carefully, next to him.
“So, uh, what was she in here for?” he asked, trying to sound casual. At Hunk’s sharp look, however, he lifted his hands defensively. “Hey, I’m not trying to make a move! I swear, I’ve moved on. Just making conversation here.”
The snort from Hunk carried no small amount of skepticism, but for once, Lance didn’t protest. In fact, he barely even noticed. More important things were afoot.
“She just saw me and wanted to say hi. You know, like normal friends do, without incessant—and obnoxious—flirting.”
“First of all, I am not obnoxious. Second of all, why are you so convinced that I’m up to something?”
Hunk laughed, nudging a leg over, bumping Lance’s slightly. Lance vaguely realized that he was sitting further away from Hunk than he usually did, but he couldn’t bring himself to try and fix it.
“You’re always up to something, Lance.” Settling onto the couch, he passed over an open bag of popcorn. Lance halfheartedly took a handful.
“Well, what about you?”
Midway through reaching for the remote, Hunk glanced back over his shoulder, blinking guilelessly. “Huh?”
“Well, what are you up to? Have you been up to?” Lance waved his hand dismissively, trying to appear nonchalant. “Anything fun?”
Hunk just snorted. “Dude, when’s the last time we spent any time away from each other? Anything going on, you already know about.”
“Yeah, true.” Lance shifted, finally turning to throw his legs over Hunk’s lap, as per usual. “Guess I just figured I’d make sure. That you didn’t have anything to share.” He debated adding more, but couldn’t really think of anything, so instead held his breath.
“Nah, not really.” Hunk turned the lounge’s TV on, beginning the scroll through the movie selection.
Lance could only slump.
***
The amount of sleep you could lose over one stupid sentence turned out to be unreasonable and ridiculous. Lance found himself tossing and turning that night, glaring up at the ceiling, then burying his face in his pillow, kicking the covers off and burritoing himself up in a cocoon, all while Hunk slept peacefully on the bunk below him.
He knew Hunk was... well, whatever he was; not straight. That he was into guys, and Lance was pretty sure he’d heard him mention girls before, too. Batting for the same team had never really been Lance’s kind of thing, but Hunk treated it so naturally that it never seemed to be a big deal.
Until now.
Was Lance being a shitty friend, that he had such a problem with Hunk dating a guy? He didn’t consider himself homophobic, but the uncomfortable gnawing sensation in his gut grew worse with every passing second that Lance imagined Hunk... holding hands with some unnamed guy, kissing him somewhere secluded, looking over at him and his lips spreading in that grin—
But... he was still pretty sure that hearing Hunk was dating anyone—girl, boy, or otherwise—would still...
Still suck.
They were friends. Best friends. They had stayed up in the middle of the night as Hunk spilled his fears about space, went on and on about how he wanted this, so badly, but wasn’t sure he’d be able to bring himself to do it, and he’d never be able to forgive himself if his own cowardice was the thing that kept him from fulfilling his dream. Lance had grown the most serious he’d ever been in what had to be his entire life and sworn that he would be there with him, every step of the way, making sure that he got what he wanted.
And Hunk had held him, curled up on the bottom bunk, as Lance had sobbed into his chest the day he had gotten news of his grandfather’s death, not unexpected but still a horrible shock, listening to Lance alternatively hiccup and blubber about how close they had been, how he had taught Lance how to throw a baseball and told him about the constellations at night, how if you went a little further south from Cuba you would get a whole new sky, that he missed traveling that far, and that one day, he knew Lance would have a new sky all of his own.
In comparison to all of that, a boyfriend seemed an afterthought. Unless it was someone Hunk knew Lance wouldn’t like—
Oh, god, it couldn’t be Keith, could it?
No, no, that didn’t make sense. He could see no reason that Hunk and Keith would have ever met, since Keith’s awkward asocial thing wouldn’t mesh at all with Hunk’s genuine friendliness. Besides, Keith was always attached to that Shirogane guy, and most of those pilots stuck together, and the only pilot Hunk had ever shown much interest in was Lance. So that couldn’t be it.
Then... maybe it was just such an afterthought that Hunk had forgotten to tell Lance. While the idea had its merits—mainly, that the boyfriend would clearly pose no threat to Lance’s time with Hunk, not if he was that forgettable—he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. Not when Naomi had so clearly known.
Still, it was the thought he had to cling to in order to settle himself long enough to sleep.
***
“C’mon, man, I can smell the pepperoni on your breath.”
A massive hand pressed into the side of Lance’s face and shoved gently away, drawing a whine from its unfortunate victim.
“Well, pepperoni smells good. You should be grateful.”
Hunk just elbowed him. Not painfully, but firmly enough to get him away. With an annoyed noise, Lance flopped back onto the couch, huffing as he slumped over on Hunk. “What are you doing, anyway?”
“It’s just Instagram, man. Nothing you’d find interesting.”
Lance knew very well that it was “just” Instagram. That had been the entire point of trying to creep on his feed. “You don’t know that.”
Hunk shot him a sidelong look, fondness and exasperation mixed together, and Lance’s chest tightened. He had grown so used to that, to all of the little gestures and expressions that were just for him. Did Hunk look at his boyfriend that way? The thought left Lance’s mouth ashen. But, as big of a pushover as ever, Hunk turned his phone for Lance to see.
Lance took advantage of the opportunity to deftly snatch the phone away, immediately whirling and hunching over it to protect it from retrieval as he swiped through Hunk’s feed. Cool engineering projects that went completely over Lance’s head, robots doing dumb things, food posts (so many food posts), weird deer, a ton of hilarious memes Lance hadn’t seen yet, Lance’s own account, steampunk aesthetic awesomeness, beach scenery, and...
He blinked. He knew those beaches; those forests; those mossy mountains, rising from the fog; the elegant old buildings against a backdrop of rolling green.
Hunk managed to wrest back possession of his phone, mock-glaring, and it wasn’t like Lance was trying very hard to resist, not after that. He could feel homesickness welling up, just a little, and for a moment, he just wanted to curl up next to Hunk and close his eyes.
Instead, he forced himself to smile, eyebrows raised in what he hoped was a nonchalant question.
“Lots of Cuba pics on there, huh? That’s plenty interesting!”
“Y-yeah, well, you could have just asked. You don’t have to be an asshole about it.” Hunk shoved his phone into his pocket almost defensively, a tiny pout on his lips. The sight was almost too adorable for words.
Even if his clever plan to find a trace of Hunk’s mystery boyfriend had turned up nothing.
With a dramatic sigh, he flopped back onto the couch, and Hunk of course took his phone back out of his pocket within sixty seconds and started fiddling with it again. Lance scrolled idly through his Garrison-issued tablet, noting his homework assignments and filing them away to ignore later.
After the silence had settled to something more comfortable, he slowly angled the tablet back until he could just catch sight of Hunk’s face. He could just ask, he figured. That’s what a normal person would do: talk, or something.
He glanced up at the ceiling, doing his best to look nonchalant.
“You ever think about dating?”
Out of his peripheral vision, Lance could see Hunk’s finger go still.
“I’m pretty sure most everyone has at one point or another, man.”
Lance exhaled through his nose. “Well, I mean, here. At the Garrison. I know we’re really busy and stuff, but you don’t think it would be nice to have someone to... y’know, hang out with, talk to...” Well, he and Hunk already did that. “...Kiss and hug and other stuff.”
Hunk leaned back, tilting his head and glancing briefly over at Lance, and the genuinely considering expression in his eyes left a lump in Lance’s throat. For a moment, the certainty that he was about to get an answer struck him in the chest—and it actually, physically hurt.
“I mean, I guess, yeah. It would be nice. So short answer is of course I’ve thought about it.”
His eyes slid over to Lance’s again, and Lance quickly looked back down at his tablet, pretending for all the world that he wasn’t stupidly invested in this conversation.
“But there’s a lot to consider. I’d wanna find the right... person, for one. Because in general, I don’t like people like that, not enough to... be open and vulnerable like that around your average guy.”
He had said guy. Lance could feel every molecule in his body vibrating.
And then Hunk shrugged again, and Lance felt the tension melt, as if Hunk had brushed away a spiderweb. “But I haven’t really found anyone to do that with. Not where everything has worked out.”
Lance seized the dangling thread, swinging on it for as long as he could. “But there have been times where it almost has? Or might?”
Hunk shrugged a final time, going back to his phone, and the final thread snapped. “Not really.”
But Lance didn’t miss the way Hunk focused too intently on his phone, how his shoulders angled slightly away from Lance in a way that they hadn’t before.
What the hell had he said?
***
Lance was getting really tired of this sitting-in-awkward-silence thing.
The action itself hadn’t really changed. They had always done this, settled in their shared room, sometimes both on Hunk’s bottom bunk, sometimes with Lance on his top as he idly watched Hunk work at his desk. But that had been... friendly silence.
Lance had no idea what this was. Not unfriendly, not specifically, but there seemed to be a weight in the air that hovered like humidity, made it seem harder to breathe without really being real.
Maybe it was all in his head. Maybe he was imagining all of this. Maybe all Hunk was thinking about as he tinkered with that screwdriver, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, was how to get part A into slot B and—
Okay, bad analogy. Really bad analogy. That sent Lance’s mind immediately shooting off in an entirely different direction, one that he Could Not Allow with Hunk in the same room.
Or maybe Hunk hadn’t told Lance yet because he was trying to figure out how. How to bring it up. How to... how to tell Lance he had a boyfriend, so he didn’t need Lance anymore.
Boyfriend. Oh, god, that meant that they could request to room together—if the Garrison didn’t find out. And hadn’t Hunk called Lance the biggest blabbermouth the other day? A scene of opening his email to find that he had been assigned a new roommate for the next semester, of stepping out of the dorm and seeing Hunk lingering in the doorway of another room with someone else, grinning and making those doe-eyes, flashed in front of him, vivid and uncomfortably real.
No. Hunk would never do that. Lance determinedly shoved his nose back into his tablet, swiping furiously through Hunk’s Facebook feed. He posted a lot of shit—not nearly as much as Lance, but not everyone could be such a huge social butterfly—but Lance had just about reached the two week mark. Not a single sign of... anyone, really. Hunk talked a lot, a lot, about projects, classes, cute little inspirational and happy status updates, but most non-solo selfie pictures were either of him in groups—of which Lance was always a part, too—or just with Lance alone. A lot of double selfies with the two of them. He really liked the way his hair looked in that one, actually.
But no status updates that even seemed to hint at finding someone special, of having feelings for someone. Once again, most of the time they seemed to reference Lance instead, their awesome adventures that always seemed to go wrong in the weirdest way but that Lance loved anyway. Lance knew the feeling; his own feed looked the same. Lance checked the relationship status on Hunk’s profile—again—which stared back at him with stark black letters that read “Single,” right underneath “Interested in: Men, Women, Other, Everyone.”
Grunting softly as he closed out of the tab, he continued his scrolling into week three.
Somewhere around a month—a damn month—he heard Hunk make a soft grunting noise as he stood, then stretched. The back of Hunk’s shirt had ridden up, exposing a strip of dark brown skin, and Lance’s eyes seemed to hone in on it of their own volition, taking in the slight dip of Hunk’s spine—
Which quickly headed, again, in that direction that Lance Could Not Allow while around Hunk, and he quickly slammed the lid on any and all related thoughts.
Hunk headed for the door, and Lance immediately dropped his tablet, shimmying forward to drop off the top bunk. He executed a particularly awesome three point landing, made less so only because Hunk hadn’t finished turning soon enough to see him. When Lance stood, however, he grinned brightly over at Hunk.
“Where are we going?”
Hunk just blinked, a little bewildered. “I was headed to one of the workrooms. I don’t have all the parts I need here, so...”
He seemed honest, and Lance couldn’t ever remember Hunk lying to him before, but...
The “not really” from the other night still sat on his chest like a weight.
“Sounds cool. I haven’t seen much of it, so why not?”
Hunk continued to blink, still clearly taken a little aback. “I mean, I guess, but I don’t see why you’d want to come.” He headed out, and Lance nearly tripped over himself to follow. “It’s not really something you find interesting.”
“Well, maybe I would if it were explained to me by someone who was... passionate about this shit.” Even his own voice didn’t convince Lance.
“Uh huh.” Hunk’s voice approximated the dryness of the surrounding desert. “You’re being weird, man.”
Lance straightened, and though he knew the words were probably meant as a friendly jab, even the passing thought that Hunk might be trying to ditch him and have a secret rendezvous with some devastatingly attractive student, probably older, way too nice for anyone, just like Hunk deserved—it left him sick to his stomach. Maybe someone like Shiro. Of course Hunk would be able to land the guy they put on the recruitment posters. Someone tall and muscled and with a smile that could break hearts and mend them back together all in the same moment, talented and almost perfect.
Okay, maybe not quite good enough for Hunk, but about as close as he’d get. What the hell kind of friend was Lance, resenting him for that? Yeah, Lance couldn’t blame anyone if they dropped him like a hot potato after getting something like that, but he could still... hope that it wouldn’t happen.
“Am not!” he shot back in what was, he thought, a culmination of humor, an emphasis on the value he placed on their friendship, his concern that Hunk was keeping this from him, and a pleading request to be trusted, all wrapped up in the subtlety of a few words.
Hunk watched him out of the corner of his eye for a moment.
“You’re sticking to me like a fungus, dude. C’mon, I wanna get back before it gets dark.”
***
Lance watched, chewing the inside of his cheek, as Dune’s thumbs twiddled across the handheld. He wasn’t even looking at Lance anymore, had returned with a shocking, shocking disinterest, to the game.
“Sorry, I can’t help. I haven’t seen him around anyone else. Besides.” Dune frowned slightly, glancing up again, thumb darting over to presumably pause. “Do you really think that he would do something like that to you? That seems... really low. Maybe you misunderstood.”
Dune’s words tugged at Lance, fed the yearning. He desperately wanted to believe that this was the case. Dune—and everyone else Lance had held a variation of this conversation with over the past two weeks—seemed to think so. And really, Hunk didn’t strike Lance as the type of person to do this.
Hence the betrayal. Hence the gut-wrenching sensation of hearing those words. And that was why he couldn’t just let it go.
“Maybe,” he finally said, voice quiet.
Dune sighed. “Okay, I just... have you tried talking to him? Seriously, sit down with him and sort this out. I really, really don’t think it’s in character for him at all. He values your relationship a lot. You’re incredibly important to him. Just talk to him.”
Lance nearly opened his mouth to say, I already have, but Dune’s insistence, the memory of the same words exchanged between Dune and Danny and Si Fah and May and Patil without much variation, just left him sagging.
“Okay.”
Dune offered him a shy smile, and Lance tried to return it before turning and walking away.
Time to go to the source.
He had really wanted to avoid this, since the idea of talking to Naomi about something that Hunk had decided to share with her and not Lance left a knife in his gut. The action itself would, he was pretty sure, have it grow spikes, twist it, and then rip it out with a laugh as it licked the blade.
She was in the same mechanical engineering class as Hunk, so snagging her without drawing Hunk’s attention—especially when Lance had conveniently managed to end up close to where all of Hunk’s classes had let out over the past couple weeks—would be a challenge, but she had always been kind of unbelievably studious. After she had lingered behind to ask the professor a couple of questions and left the room, he slid into a casual step behind her.
“Hey, Naomi!”
She turned, a little dazed and unfocused for a moment, but when she spotted Lance, her smile lit up. “Oh, hey! A little late to pick up Hunk; I think you just missed him.”
Lance cleared his throat, quickening his step to catch up as she slowed to let him. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”
The grin faded slightly, giving way to a concerned crease between her eyebrows. “Is everything okay?”
“What? Yeah! Just had a quick question.” He fell into step beside her. She resumed her walk, though she continued to eye him sidelong.
“Okay, sure. I have another class, but if I can, I’ll answer it on the way?”
“Hope so.”
Lance fell silent for a few moments, trying to think of how to word this. If he came out and said it outright, she might evade, but then he could actually confront her about that. At the same time, he didn’t want a fight.
But he really needed to know.
He cleared his throat. “So, hey. The other day, I heard you... I mean, not that I was eavesdropping, but...” Lance let out a heavy sigh. “Okay. Just... who is Hunk’s boyfriend?”
In his peripheral vision, he saw her stutter to a halt, just for a moment. He stopped, too, even when she tried to continue, and she paused when she realized he had stopped following her.
“Lance?”
“You know.”
He didn’t want a fight, no, but he wasn’t going to let her reaction go.
“I know what? Lance, please, you’re not...” She laughed, but the sound landed false on his ears. Something in his chest clenched at the confirmation that something was very wrong.
“Not what? I’m not stupid, Naomi, and everyone seems to be tiptoeing around the fact that this exists, and that my best friend is dating someone and hasn’t told me. That’s the sort of thing you definitely tell your best friend. He’s lying to me about it—”
“He is not!” she interrupted, and the combination of indignation and what almost seemed to be fear caught him off-guard. He immediately leaned back a little, lowering his voice, trying to rearrange his features into a less pissed-off expression.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She swallowed, then took a deep breath. “I was making a joke. He doesn’t actually—he’s not—seeing anyone.” Her eyes flicked away, and her anxiety seemed to increase. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were listening.”
“If it was a joke, why would it have mattered if I was listening?” He crossed his arms and leaned back, giving her space, but as he watched, it didn’t seem to be him that was causing the upset. So what was she hiding?
“I shouldn’t have said anything. It was a mistake. Hunk would be upset if I—if I did, okay?” She swallowed again. “He’s my friend, too, and I don’t have the right to talk about... Just... please, forget it. Don’t ask anymore.” She turned away, beginning to walk again. Lance’s arms fell to his sides and he straightened, preparing to follow, a scowl on his face, but the look she shot him froze him in his tracks.
She didn’t look angry. All that he could see was uncertainty and guilt, and while he wanted to be angry, he just couldn’t manage to muster up the energy.
***
Lance couldn’t bring himself to walk with Hunk to class the next day, or the next, or the one after that. Days dragged into a week, then two weeks, just as the silence did every time they were around each other. Lance watched Hunk go from cheery as always, to subdued, to downright antsy, but...
What else could he say? The bitterness of betrayal sat in the pit of his stomach every time he even so much as looked at Hunk, and he couldn’t talk to him about things anymore. Not without thinking about it.
Or even look at him without thinking it, at this point, he thought from his curled up spot on the beanbag chair. Shoved into a corner, it gave him a view of Hunk’s profile from the desk, expression furrowed in concentration and concern. He seemed to be having a difficult time managing the delicate wiring of whatever contraption sat in front of him, fumbling and muttering his frustration under his breath, running anxious fingers through his hair. Lance had always found their size and steadiness a little distracting, but now, they didn’t seem to be steady at all.
Lance didn’t miss the way that Hunk glanced over in his direction occasionally, but every time, Lance made sure that he was staring intently at his tablet. With way more attention than Lance ever would have paid schoolwork, so he had no doubt Hunk knew it was bullshit, but right now he didn’t especially care.
He should say something. He knew he should. But he also didn’t know what he would do if he brought it up, again, and ended up getting shot down, again.
Hunk glanced over. Lance glanced down. Silence. Like a breath before the storm.
“C’mon, man!”
At Hunk’s sudden exclamation, Lance shot approximately a foot off of the beanbag chair. The tablet went flying, and he barely managed to clap his hands together around it midair to avoid cracking the screen again.
“Holy shit, Hunk, don’t—what—?!”
Hunk shoved his chair back from his desk and stood, leaving Lance gaping up at him as he strode over. The urgency was such that he pushed himself to his feet as well, setting the tablet to the side. “Hey, c’mon, big guy, what’s the matter?”
He finally caught a look at the expression on Hunk’s face, and a lump caught in his throat. It probably would have hurt less to have been stabbed in the gut; those big, gorgeous brown eyes widened even larger with concern, looking as if they might begin filling with tears at any moment, and might have even been shining suspiciously now. His expression twisted in one of fear and hurt, so out of place on Hunk’s face, which Lance was convinced had been built for wide, kind smiles. The wide shoulders hunched in on themselves, as if Lance were going to strike out at him for some unknown transgression.
Hunk stood like that for a moment, Lance standing a few feet away, and as they watched each other, Lance wondered if he were about to literally, physically crack.
“I don’t know!” Hunk burst out, and he lifted a hand to run it anxiously through his hair again. “I have no idea! I don’t—” Hunk swallowed, taking another step forward, and the sudden desire to reach out and hug him tightly and tell him it was going to be all right seized Lance, a constriction in his chest.
“Hey, hey, look, just talk,” Lance found himself babbling, his own concerns immediately fleeing, faced with the painful sight. “It’ll be okay. Just... just breathe, and we can work this out, all right?”
Hunk’s arms shot out, this time taking Lance’s shoulders, and though Lance could feel the tension in those big hands, what almost seemed to be a shaking, he was struck by how... gentle they seemed to be. How they handled him carefully, like he might break.
“Just tell me what I did, Lance!” Hunk finally burst out, face twisting, voice cracking. “Please, whatever it was, I know you’re mad, but you—” To Lance’s utter horror, he let out a sniff, which left Lance wondering if he were cracking. “You’re my best friend, and I can’t fix it unless you talk to me! Whatever it is, I swear, I’m sorry!”
“Fix... it?” Lance managed, dazed at the sudden turn of the tables. “You’re... sorry? For...”
“For whatever it was I did. I swear, it was probably an accident, I know I can be kind of a dumbass sometimes, but I promise I won’t be angry if you tell me. I can fix it. I promise.”
The words shook through Lance, reverberating down to his toes, and he could feel them sweeping away a month of built up resentment and anger. In their wake, they left an almost painful sensation of relief, as well as more than a little bit of guilt.
Hunk had no idea what was wrong. It hadn’t even occurred to Hunk that he had done something anger-worthy—which, given how blatantly obvious of a betrayal the entire boyfriend shit would have been, could only mean...
“You... don’t have a boyfriend,” he finally managed to say, sounding as dazed as he was beginning to feel.
“I...” Hunk’s anxiety took on another facet, shaded with confusion as well. “A what? No, of course not.”
Of course not. Of course not. Everything began to fall into place: Hunk had made it blatantly obvious that he couldn’t keep shit from Lance. Hunk could... never keep anything from anyone, really. Now that Lance caught himself viewing his suspicions in the stark light of hindsight, he felt... massively idiotic, really. Hunk was an open book.
The pieces continued to join, the picture beginning to take shape. The borders, mostly. He could still see some gaping holes in the middle, but those could wait.
“But...”
Maybe not.
Naomi had made a joke, but instead of telling Lance straight up what it had been, she had shut him down with extreme prejudice. She had told him that it wasn’t her place to tell. Had wanted to respect whatever it was that she was referencing. Whoever it was she was referencing. But really, who could it have been? Who could—or, rather, what could be so secret that Hunk couldn’t tell Lance?
Obviously it was something about Lance specifically. The holes in the middle began to fill, and he looked back up at Hunk, a blanket of epiphany settling over him. Not quickly, like a lightbulb might be, but a slow, dawning realization as his brain finally made the connection and the rest of himself struggled to catch up.
“But what?!” Hunk shook Lance, a little more firmly than was comfortable, but Lance barely noticed as his lips did their best to form words.
He blinked, once, then twice, then finally managed to croak them out.
“I’m the boyfriend.”
Hunk froze.
His response came after a few moments of taut silence, the two of them staring at each other, unmoving. “W-what did you say?”
Hanging out all the time, sprawled out over each other on the couch or bed, sidelong glances of fondness and exasperation, late night conversations about anything and everything...
Huge, distracting hands; a smile that could light up Lance’s entire week; the distracting path his thoughts tended to take around Hunk...
He blinked, slowly, then said, “Naomi. When she said to say hi to your boyfriend.” Lance swallowed, the realization leaving him with a strange and unpleasant combination of relief and uncertainty and guilt. “She meant me.”
Hunk had released Lance’s shoulders by now, the hands pulling back and staying lifted midair as he began to stammer. “I-I—that... I mean, she... you... it’s not... but... if...”
Naomi knew that Lance and Hunk weren’t dating; otherwise, she would have been strai—been open with Lance. She had concealed this to hide... what, how Hunk felt about Lance?
The thought sent a strange, terrifying jolt through his chest, made even worse as he reflected back on conversations over the past couple weeks. All he had to do was reframe them. As if he were asking not as a best friend, but a...
The last piece dropped into place with an almost audible click.
“Can you give me a minute?” Lance asked weakly, voice quiet and shaky, as he stepped back. He couldn’t ever remember such a riot of conflicting emotions warring inside of him, and he needed a deep breath—a couple of deep breaths—to sort them all out. Away from anyone, especially Hunk, because since thinking the word, the word he couldn’t bring himself to think again, Hunk’s presence left Lance feeling nauseous and fizzy and elated and dizzy, all at the same time.
Without waiting for a response, he turned and hurried out of their room, closing the door behind him.
***
Boyfriend.
Lance spun the word around in his thoughts, said it aloud a few times, tasted it on his tongue.
Being a boyfriend, not so weird. But having one?
He slumped back against the wall across from his door, sliding into a sitting position on the ground. Weird, yes, but good weird or bad weird?
He tried to push away all of his anxiety and uncertainty of the past month, to look at it objectively. Dating guys had never really been an interest of his. But Hunk wasn’t just any guy.
And in the back of his mind, he had to admit that the fact he was even considering it now meant much more than never having done so before.
He had dated casually in high school, but nothing more than walking each other to classes, holding hands, pecks on the cheek. It honestly took effort to remember their names; whatever emotional connection he could remember paled in comparison to what he and Hunk shared.
They already had that, then. They already spent time curled up together, sprawled on each other, bought each other meals. Hunk carried him piggyback when Lance didn’t feel like walking, and Lance caused diversions with ridiculous antics when Hunk began to look uncomfortable with attention. Everyone else apparently thought they were dating, after all.
He toyed with the idea of holding Hunk’s hand. Thought about how warm it would be, about how big and strong those fingers looked, and wondered what they would feel like laced through his own, curled around his hand. About his arms winding around Lance, pulling him close, about resting against his big frame, enveloped almost, safe and protected and content.
That, Lance thought, a slight heat rising to his cheeks, was a question that answered itself.
He moved along, because hugs and handholding did not a relationship make. The thought of kissing him was... a little unsettling, but he moved to the cheek, and the appeal grew. Even more when Hunk was doing the kissing on the cheek. And maybe he’d linger a little, press his forehead against Lance’s temple. They could try the hand holding thing, or maybe a hand around each other’s waists. Lance could lean into him, and then maybe their lips could wander, Hunk’s pressed to the corner of Lance’s mouth, then—
He inhaled sharply, covering his mouth as the heat rose in his cheeks. Entertaining these thoughts about his best friend seemed... almost a violation, in a way, but what if Hunk had already thought this sort of thing about Lance?
Lance tried to picture what that might entail: coming home, tugging Lance in for a kiss, flopping down on the bed or in the beanbag chair and pulling him against Hunk’s chest. Maybe some nuzzling, maybe some...
And then he thought about Hunk sitting at that desk, wanting that. Wanting Lance.
A million tiny frogs hopped up and down in his chest, peeping their demand to be heard and leaving his stomach all wobbly and jittery.
It was nice.
Lance pushed himself to his feet, suddenly rejuvenated. The heat hadn’t left his face, but it bothered him less as he slowly began to sink into his epiphany. He thought back to their long conversations together in the dark, pressed up against Hunk’s side, and the thought of a gentle, sweet kiss after any one of them didn’t seem out of place at all. He began to pace back and forth, thinking of the grins aimed in Lance’s direction, and how the thought of them ever being for anyone else left him nauseous and angry. The answer to that probably should have been something like, ‘well, as long as Hunk is happy,’ but his brain immediately shot that down with ‘well, why can’t I make him happy?’
Lance inhaled, stopping his pacing, facing the door back into their room. As if they had finally caught up now that he had stopped moving, the doubts crept up, latching onto his legs and rising like vines, trying to slowly wrap around him, smother him out of whatever he might be thinking. He could end up totally unable to do this. Things could go wrong and their friendship could completely implode. He still could be completely misunderstanding the situation, and have gotten himself worked up and massively crushing on Hunk, all for nothing.
Crush. The word left him nearly staggering, but... but it was true. Heat continued to creep to his face as he thought about Hunk tinkering with his gadgets, the glimpses of dark skin he had caught from underneath clothing, somehow even more tantalizing during a casual change. And... really, this wasn’t all entirely new.
Had he been into Hunk for a lot longer than he had realized?
It was starting to seem like it. So why the hell was he waiting any longer?
Striding forward, he grabbed the door handle, turned it, and shoved it open.
Hunk’s jump probably could have catapulted him up into Lance’s top bunk if he had aimed correctly, and as he caught his balance, he whirled, eyes wide. He still wasn’t crying, but the suspicious shininess had grown even more noticeable. Lance couldn’t have that.
“L-Lance!” he stammered, taking a step forward, then hesitating. “Are... are you mad at me? I’m sorry, man, I didn’t mean to make this weird. I won’t let it affect anything—really, she just meant it as a joke, nothing serious. It’s no big deal anyway—”
Barely paying attention to Hunk’s babbling, Lance strode forward until their chests nearly touched. Hunk stumbled backward, but Lance stood his ground, staring at him intently.
“Lance...?”
Lance took a deep breath, then tilted his chin up, locking eyes with Hunk.
“Will you kiss me?”
The words rang between them: Hunk probably in shock that Lance had even said it; Lance in shock that he had managed that kind of boldness. But really, what was the point in waiting?
“Uh... what?” Hunk sounded as if he were about to faint.
“Will you kiss me,” Lance restated, though less of a question this time. “I think I like you, too. And I’ve never kissed a guy before, and at first I thought it might be weird, but then when I thought of it being you it became less weird, so if we’re gonna try this...” He gesticulated wildly through the air. “...thing, anything, something, whatever it is, I gotta know if I can make it work.”
The silence dragged on as Hunk continued to stare, looking as if Lance had done something more akin to asking Hunk to stab him. Lance could feel his certainty, so sure in the wake of his instant decision and action, begin to deflate.
“I mean...” he began, finally sliding his eyes away. “If you want to. I guess you never really said you... that the one you liked was me. So I could be totally misreading this. Again. But I guess I thought you were dating someone this whole time and it really bugged me, and I figured it was just because I was your best friend and you hadn’t told me and I felt that kind of betrayal, you know? But then I really started to think about it and I realized that I—well, I don’t like the idea of anyone else dating you. Not just because I don’t want to share your time with them; I mean, I’m cool with you having other friends and all, but not a boyfriend. Or girlfriend. Because they aren’t me. Or I guess—shit, that sounds creepy—I mean, I want to be yours. I think. I think that’s what was bothering me, is what I’m trying to say, but I’ve never felt this way about a guy before or even really a girl, not like this, and I’m trying to say that I want to find out if I like you so I want to see if it feels like I do when you kiss me!” Lance finally finished, voice growing in pitch until it ended on a final, indignant note.
Silence, again, and Lance’s shoulders began to slump. Oh, god, he had been totally wrong. Naomi hadn’t meant Lance at all. He had just assumed, like a jackass, and then went and laid himself bare without even bothering to confirm, and really, that was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place, and he hadn’t learned anything, and he was suddenly realizing it was kind of hard to breathe—
“Okay.”
Lance nearly missed the word, so soft and uncertain, and it took him a moment to process.
“Okay?” he repeated, blinking up at Hunk, holding his breath. This time, he was damn well going to wait for a confirmation.
“Okay.” Hunk nodded, and though he still looked hesitant, he no longer looked like he might vomit. He tried for a shaky smile, and Lance returned it.
They smiled stupidly at each other for a moment, then Lance finally managed to kick himself into stepping forward. Hunk followed his lead, and they finally seemed to be in something resembling a proper range. Was it, though? Did he just lean in? Was this how it worked? What if it was too far? What if he missed?
“Should we, uh, sit down or something?” Lance turned, breaking the eye contact with no small amount of relief and nodding towards the bed.
“Oh—right, yeah, definitely.” Hunk nodded a little too quickly and stepped over to sit. Lance took a little more time, lowering himself gingerly onto Hunk’s bed with a sudden awareness of... well, the fact that it was Hunk’s bed.
He turned again to face Hunk, swallowing as he studied the face in front of him. Hunk’s wide, open face still had that familiar smile, but with a relatable twist of anxiety, and he figured that his probably looked pretty similar.
“So, uh...”
“Yeah.” Hunk cleared his throat, turning so that he was facing Lance fully. Lance twisted, legs still over the edge of the bed, but torso and head facing to his side. “Um. So we should probably...”
Lance nodded, but didn’t move, just in case Hunk wanted to first. After no action seemed to be forthcoming, he started to lean forward, and at almost exactly the same time, Hunk did, too.
Startled, he froze, and so did Hunk. Probably for the best; after all, wouldn’t it be a perfect end to this if they smacked their foreheads together? Lance swallowed, then began to lean in again, tilting his head just a little to the right. Hunk tilted in the same direction, then quickly corrected for the opposite just as Lance did the same, and they bobbed around confusedly for a moment before Lance let out an awkward little laugh.
“Fuck this,” he croaked, then reached out to grab Hunk’s jacket, tugging him in, and pressing their lips together.
Lance had never really noticed how full Hunk’s lips were before this. True, he had noticed that they were full, but not like this. And soft, too; were you supposed to be self-conscious of how yours were chapped at a time like this? He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, and had always thought that cliché was totally an exaggeration, but it wasn’t. The jumping in his chest had reached a crescendo, and as he closed his eyes, tilting his head to slot their lips together better, he suddenly became very aware of the warm presence in front of him.
Hunk’s arm slid around his waist, excruciatingly gentle, tugging him a little closer. Lance shifted, wondering how the heck this was supposed to work, with the fitting together of bodies and shit, and eventually tugged back, immediately beginning to draw his legs up onto the bed.
“Lance? I...”
Lance caught a glimpse of Hunk’s uncertain, worried eyes right before he pushed himself forward, settling sideways on Hunk’s lap, and kissed him again.
This one was firmer, more certain, because Lance had quickly come to terms with three things:
- His hesitation of kissing guys had been completely unfounded
- Kissing Hunk was nice, and
- He could have been kissing Hunk this entire time and had a hell of a lot to make up for.
He wound his arms around Hunk’s neck, burying nimble fingers in Hunk’s hair, soft and silky under his touch. He pressed up against Hunk, the solid warmth as Hunk pulled him close leaving him feeling safer than he ever could have imagined. He hummed softly into Hunk’s mouth, which he could feel curving into a smile.
When they finally pulled back again, Lance didn’t go far, and as he looked up, he imagined he could feel Hunk’s long eyelashes brushing his own cheek as he pressed their foreheads together.
“S-so?” Hunk breathed, and this time, the suspicious shining in his eyes seemed to be one of excitement instead of sadness. “How was it?”
Lance didn’t answer at first, instead pulling back to take this moment in. The hopeful cant of Hunk’s head, the slight muss of his hair, the crooked way his bandana set across his forehead. He wanted to remember all of it, every last detail, for the rest of forever.
“I think,” he finally said, voice low, almost shaking with anticipation and nervousness and excitement, “I would really, really like to kiss my boyfriend.”
Hunk inhaled sharply, and Lance watched his eyes widen with surprise, then hope. As he leaned forward, hesitant, asking, Lance nodded, mouth stretching into a grin.
As their lips touched again, both curved into smiles, all Lance found himself thinking was, I could get used to this.
***
“Hey, Hunk, do you have the notes for—oh, hi Lance.”
Lance cracked an eyelid open from where his head lay on Hunk’s lap, sort of intentionally getting in the way of Hunk doing his homework, but really just ending up as an armrest. “Hey, Naomi.”
Though he couldn’t quite tell from upside-down, she seemed to be lingering in the doorway to the lounge, an uncertain expression on her face. “Am I... interrupting something?”
“Not at all.” Lance settled back into his spot, closing his eyes again. Really, he wished he had figured out that this was a great way to procrastinate on his homework a long time ago. “Feel free to ask my boyfriend whateeever you’d like.”
With a satisfied smirk, he settled in closer.
“And you can say hi to me directly, this time.”