Archive of Our Own

Keith paused in front of the door, key in hand, to wave at the cat sitting in the window across the breezeway. She blinked her yellow eyes at him with the eloquent indifference her species spent millenia perfecting. He’d never gotten more of a response from her than that, but Keith didn’t mind. He waved every time anyways.

He struggled with the stiff lock for a second before he got the door open, calling, “Shiro?” as he stepped inside. His eyes fell of a familiar pair of ratty, sky-blue Converse beside the door.

Technically, this wasn’t his apartment. He lived in a tiny shoebox studio a seven-and-a-half minute walk away. But technically, this wasn’t Lance’s apartment either. Or Pidge’s. They all just had the spare keys Shiro copied for them, slightly illegally.

Keith kicked his Vans off next to the other shoes and dropped his backpack on the floor with a resounding thud. Shiro had a thing about wearing shoes in the house.

As he padded across the small living room toward the kitchen, he heard someone say, “Hey.” Shading his eyes against the glare of the sun, he could just barely make out someone sitting on the balcony. He didn’t really need to check who it was. If the shoes hadn’t already tipped him off, he would have recognized Lance’s voice.

“Hey.” Keith hesitated for a second before continuing on to the kitchen, grabbing one of the shitty beers Matt kept stocked in the fridge before walking back out to the balcony.

Lance glanced up at him as he slid the screen door open with a half-second smile. “Long week?”

Keith snorted and nodded at the can he was holding. “Could ask you the same thing.”

Lance wrinkled his nose, swirling the liquid around before taking a sip. “We gotta talk Matt into getting better beer.”

The old lawn chair creaked like a dolphin as Keith sat next to him. “I think he’d buy even shittier beer.”

“Can you get shittier than PBR?”

Keith frowned. “Keystone. It’s awful.”

Lance laughed a little at that, and Keith couldn’t help the way it brought a smile to his own lips. Lance’s moods were always infectious. It was irritating.

“Shiro’s at a study session for his bio kids,” Lance told him, pulling his head back to the present. “Midterm cramming. AKA group prayer.”

“Serves him right for TA-ing the hardest bio course the university offers.”

Lance flapped a hand. “It’s not the content that’s bad, it’s just Slav. He’s a monster.”

Keith glanced over at him. “You’d know.”

“Don’t remind me. That class was ten weeks of hell.”

The dramatic shudder he added to the end of his words made Keith laugh. They fell into a comfortable silence as they sipped their beers, and he snuck another sideways look at Lance. The late afternoon sun highlighted his profile, blue eyes turned gold in the light.

This was… nice. He hadn’t really seen Lance in a while; Keith would never in a million years say it out loud, but he missed him. Sure, it had taken him a while to think of Lance as anything but annoying, too excitable and extroverted for Keith to really tolerate, but after eight months of Keith’s brother and Lance’s best friend living together and forcing them into some vicarious acquaintanceship, they’d become friends. Good friends, even, which was still something he was trying to wrap his head around.

It hadn’t helped that the first time they’d met, Lance had introduced himself with the worst pickup line he’d ever heard.

It was Keith’s third visit to Shiro’s apartment, less than a week after he’d moved in. Maybe it was sort of childish to keep hanging out with his older brother, but whatever. Shiro was the best friend Keith had ever had, and the tiny, empty apartment he’d had to settle for after making a last-minute decision to transfer out of the dorms was too depressing to spend any real time in. Shiro’s new roommate, an undergrad like Keith, had made the generous offer to move out so they could live together, but Keith had turned him down. He wasn’t going to inconvenience someone else like that. It was his fault. Plus, living with his brother seemed like going a little far. Wasn’t the point of college to meet other people?

Besides, Shiro was always happy to let him come hang out in a real living room or cook in his actual, full-sized kitchen. So Keith wasn’t clinging to him or anything. He was just over to have a beer and eat Shiro’s food before the term started next week. For the third time in the last four days.

It was the second time Shiro’s roommate had been in while Keith was there, and the first time he’d had some friends over of his own. He was a big, friendly guy named Hunk who apparently cooked most of the food in Shiro’s fridge and never minded sharing. “I mean, the eating is good,” Hunk had said with a shrug when Keith asked if he really didn’t mind that he’d consumed a truly shocking amount of the homemade macaroni and cheese he’d found in the fridge, “but I really do it for the cooking, you know? It’s relaxing.”

Keith did not know. He’d once managed to turn spaghetti into something uncomfortably like Jello.

Hunk had waved at Keith with a wide smile as he came in this time, so Keith figured he really must be forgiven for the macaroni incident. He waved back, crooking a small smile of his own and hating how awkward it felt, but Hunk didn’t seem to notice. He’d actually opened his mouth to say something before he was distracted by a furious howl from the small girl beside him.

“Lance!”

The lanky guy in a NASA sweatshirt, sitting on Hunk’s other side, cackled as he tapped something on the controller in his hands. Keith couldn’t see the screen from where he was standing, but from the way the girl flung her controller aside and tried to lunge for him, she must have lost whatever game they were playing.

Hunk stuck an arm across her chest to hold her back. He didn’t seem surprised; he just sighed lightly, like this was something they’d done a hundred times before.

Shiro shook his head and looked down at Keith. “Wanna watch a movie in my room?” he asked, pitching his voice over the arguing.

“Yes.”

Shiro snorted. “There’s drinks in the fridge if you want. Although I’m not sure I should be condoning underage drinking…”

“Hey,” Keith protested, as he headed for the kitchen, “I’m twenty, not a kid.”

Shiro muttered something under his breath as he walked past him down the hall. Keith wisely chose to ignore it.

He fished around in the fridge for a beer. He didn’t realize there was someone standing beside him until he straightened, closed the door, and found himself face-to-face with the NASA logo. “Hey,” someone said, and Keith looked up into the face of Hunk’s friend-- what had the girl called him again? Whatever his name was, he was standing way too close, leaning in with a hand propped against the freezer door.

“Um. Hey.”

He leaned in another inch. “Did it hurt?”

“... What?” Keith asked, a little floored.

“I said, did it hurt?”

“What, when I fell from heaven?” Keith said sarcastically, a derisive comment on the tip of his tongue before the guy bowled over him.

“No, when you fell for me.”

Keith couldn’t help it; he laughed right in his face. He jerked back, a little startled.

“Seriously,” Keith said, stepping around him, “do people actually say that? That’s the worst, man.”

The guy stared at him for a second before his thin eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “Yeah? Well-- your face is the worst.”

Keith snorted again. “Wow, good one.”

“Like you’d know, you freakin’ robot.”

That one stung, a little. It was the echo of a kid in Keith’s sixth grade class, mocking him as he walked by on his way to sit under his favorite tree and eat his lunch alone like usual. He’d shut up pretty quick when Keith kicked him in the shin.

But this was Shiro’s apartment, and his roommate’s friend, and Keith wasn’t twelve anymore. He clenched his jaw for a second before muttering, “Whatever,” and turning away.

He didn’t see either of Hunk’s friends again for over a week, mostly because the term started and he was instantly swamped. “Seriously,” he complained to Shiro on the one night they were both relatively free, “who assigns readings for the first week?”

Shiro snorted. “You think that’s bad? The bio professor I’m working for this term is having them do group projects.”

Keith had shuddered at that.

He was walking back to his apartment on that Friday, though, when he saw someone waving at him from across the quad. It took him a second to recognize Hunk, and a quick glance around to confirm that yes, it was him being waved at, and another second to decide whether to wave back and keep walking or head over. Hunk had let him eat his amazing macaroni without even complaining, though, and Keith believed in fairness, so he pulled out his earbuds and started walking over.

He regretted it instantly as his eyes slid over to Hunk’s companions. It was the two from the other night at the apartment. The girl he recognized even from the back because of her coppery ponytail. The guy he recognized from the scowl directed his way.

There was no way he was gonna turn around and walk away now, though, so Keith kept going until he was standing next to them. “Hey, Hunk.”

“Keith!” Hunk shaded his eyes to look up at him. “Hey, man, how’s it going? Haven’t seen you all week.”

I didn’t realize we were friends was on the tip of Keith’s tongue, but thankfully, he bit it back. At best it sounded snappy, and at worst, pathetic. Instead, he replied, “Uh, yeah. I’ve been… busy.”

It was still a little lame, but Hunk didn’t seem to take any notice. He just nodded sympathetically. “I feel you, dude. First week is always the worst.”

The girl flicked the aluminum tab from her soda can at him. “Nah, midterms is the worst.”

“Nah,” Hunk’s other friend said, laying back in the grass, “finals is the worst.”

“Midterms is way worse than finals.”

“Finals are hell, gremlin, the fuck are you talking about?”

“Yeah, but then it’s over. Midterms are like, hell with more hell after it. Hell squared. At least with finals you can go into a fucking coma after they’re over.”

“Midterms are spread out, though, they’re more balanced--”

“Take a look at my schedule this year and tell me it’s balanced, asshole, I swear to crap--”

“I didn’t tell you to double major, did I!”

“Yes, you did--”

“I’m so sorry about them,” Hunk said to Keith, cutting through the rising squabble. “Guys, manners, please. We have guests.”

The guy snorted, sliding a pair of Ray Bans on. “Is that what you call him?”

Hunk shot him a flat look. “I know, it’s amazing, I actually have some socially adjusted friends.” Keith was still trying to process that-- was he Hunk’s friend after two conversations?-- when Hunk turned to him with a smile. “Keith, these are my best friends, Lance and Pidge.” He nodded at them in turn. “Guys, Keith. Shiro’s his brother.”

“Yeah, I saw you the other night,” the girl-- Pidge-- remembered, twisting to look up at him and hold out a hand. “Hi.”

Keith shook her hand. “Hey.”

As he let Pidge’s hand go, his gaze fell on Lance. He raised his sunglasses to give Keith a long, considering look. “We’ve met,” he said eventually, sliding his glasses back down. Hunk rolled his eyes and mouthed sorry at Keith.

A grin spread across Pidge’s face, and even from his angle, Keith could tell there was a wicked edge to it. “Ohh,” she said, all innocence and dawning realization, “is this that guy you were--”

Lance’s long limbs flailed for a second before he was lunging and slamming a hand over her mouth. “Nope! Totally different guy! It’s weird, it’s like I’ve met more than one guy this week, and that guy I was talking about was definitely not Keith here!”

Pidge’s “mmhm” was muffled. She locked eyes with Lance for a long second as some kind of silent conversation happened between them, and then Lance was settling back into his place and Pidge was wiping her mouth with a disgusted expression.

Hunk patted the grass beside him, and Keith, still a little distracted by the weird exchange between Pidge and Lance, sat down on autopilot. As soon as he did, he smacked himself. He was supposed to be heading back to his apartment for some frozen pizza and Netflix, not hanging out with his brother’s roommate. Whatever. He’d sit with them for a little while and then leave when it wouldn’t be awkward.

Of course, nothing he could do would be weirder than Pidge and Lance. Hunk must be a very patient person. No wonder he and Shiro got along.

“So what’s your major, Keith?” Hunk asked.

So much for slipping away without making a big deal out of it. “Astrophysics.”

“Ooh, rocket science!”

Keith huffed a laugh at his enthusiasm. “Uh, sorta. I’m more interested in the actual astronomy part. Like... celestial bodies, quantum physics, you know.”

Pidge leaned forward. “Ignore him. Hunk’s in Engineering, and sometimes he forgets that’s only one letter in STEM.”

“I mean, engineering is the coolest, though.”

“No, it’s not,” Pidge and Lance said in unison.

Keith watched them high-five. “I take it you two aren’t Engineering students then?”

“Nah. I’m doubling in math and and comp sci, and that loser--” Pidge jerked a thumb at Lance-- “is biology.”

“It’s because I’m a prime specimen,” Lance said, lowering his shades to bat his eyes at her. Pidge mimed vomiting.

“I can’t take you two anywhere,” Hunk said, shaking his head.

Lance clutched his chest. “How could you say that to me, your oldest and dearest friend?”

Pidge looked at him, askance. “Yo, I’m right here.”

“Hey, I know what we can do,” Lance says, clapping his hands. “We got a third party right here who can weigh in. Keith, my man, tell me all this--” he gestured like Vanna White to the full length of his body-- “isn’t some high-quality material.”

Keith couldn’t help himself. “Well, you definitely warrant study in a lab.”

There was a beat of dead silence before Pidge and Hunk howled. Lance’s jaw dropped as Pidge collapsed to the grass next to him.

“Oh my god,” Hunk wheezed, clutching Keith’s shoulder as he doubled over, “dude, that was brutal.”

Lance found his voice. “Yeah, no kidding! What did I ever do to you?”

“Hey, you asked,” Keith defended himself. It probably didn’t help that he was smiling at Hunk and Pidge’s overt joy.

Pointing an accusing finger at him, Lance hissed, “I do not have to take this from a guy with a mullet.”

Keith’s hands flew to his hair. “I don’t have a mullet.”

Lance scoffed, shoving his sunglasses back onto his nose. “Let’s get the group to weigh in on that, shall we?”

“Keith,” Pidge wheezed, struggling upright, “you’re my favorite person.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“You do have a mullet, though.”

“I don’t!”

Hunk patted him. “No shame in that, Billy Ray.”

Pidge only laughed harder as Keith groaned. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the flash of Lance’s grin.

Keith honestly still had no idea how it happened. When the sun started to go down, they’d all trooped back to Hunk and Shiro’s apartment. Keith had told himself as they walked that he still had an out if he wanted it, he could still always go hang out with Shiro instead of the noisy group of friends he’d somehow gotten stuck to, but when they got into the living room Lance called for a MarioKart tournament and it wasn’t like Keith was going to back down from that.

So they had spent hours cursing at each other and drinking their way through the crappy beer in the fridge, and Keith hadn’t even realized how much time had passed until Lance looked at the clock and groaned. “I gotta get back,” he said, pouting.

Pidge snorted. “Left the kiddos alone too long?”

Lance’s hand narrowly avoided smacking Keith in the nose as he threw his arms out. “Who knows what kind of trouble they’ve gotten into by now.” At Keith’s raised eyebrow, he’d explained, “I’m an RA.”

Keith hummed in understanding and glanced at the clock himself, cursing under his breath when he saw the time. “I should probably head out, too.”

“Well, I’m staying on the couch,” Pidge announced, throwing herself down.

Hunk poked her in the stomach. “Says who?”

“My best friend?” she suggested, fluttering her eyelashes at him in a very Lance expression. “Besides, Shiro’s gotta let me stay. I’m his best friend’s little sister. That practically makes us family.”

“Wait, wait,” Keith said, pausing on his way to the door as his brain caught up, “you’re Matt’s little sister?”

“The one and only.”

“It’s a small world after all,” Lance sang from the entryway, hopping on one foot as he slipped his blue sneakers on.

“Spare us,” Pidge deadpanned.

“Enjoy it, Pidgeon, you’re about to lose the present that is my presence.”

Her flat expression never wavered. “How will I cope.”

“Poorly, I know.”

Lance opened the door just as Keith straightened from where he’d been putting his shoes on, and there was an awkward second where they stared at each other before Lance cleared his throat and called to his friends, “See you guys later.”

Pidge flipped him off as Hunk waved. “Bye, dude! And hey, Keith, thanks for hanging out.”

“Uh, thank you,” Keith returned, a little surprised.

“Anytime, dude. Like, literally, anytime. It’s nice having a fourth person for MarioKart.”

“Especially a fourth person who can actually beat Lance’s cheating ass,” Pidge added.

Lance stuck his head back through the door. “I do not cheat!”

“You absolutely do, you screen-looker.”

“Listen, just because you don’t have the skills to watch more screens than just one…”

Hunk shot Keith a look as the fight rose. “It’s also nice having someone around who’s, y’know, sort of reasonable.”

“I’m being reasonable!” Lance argued.

“You are not, you dirty cheater. But Hunk’s right,” Pidge added before Lance could get farther than an outraged noise, “you should definitely hang out with us again, Keith.”

He shrugged a shoulder, giving her a crooked smile. “Yeah, sure. It was fun.”

And it was true, he reflected, as they said a last round of goodbyes and he and Lance headed out the door. It had been fun. He hadn’t really hung out with people outside of huge parties without some academic-related purpose in… a couple years, probably. Maybe since he started college. Which was kind of a depressing thought.

He’d never missed it-- he had Shiro if he got lonely, after all-- but he’d forgotten how nice it felt to be around friends, that casual kind of intimacy that balanced affection with teasing.

As he followed Lance down the stairs, he realized he was smiling to himself.

Once they hit the pavement, though, he noticed Lance was acting different than he had back in the apartment. He kept giving Keith these sidelong looks he probably meant to be subtle, opening his mouth like he was about to say something before snapping it shut again. It set Keith on edge as he waited.

When Lance finally did speak, though, he’d come to a stop on the pavement and thumbed a hedge-lined side path back onto campus. “I’m this way.”

“Oh, right.” Keith had slowed up when he did, and now they were just standing there on the sidewalk, looking at each other.

“So…” Lance said, sending Keith a slightly quizzical look. “See you later?”

“Yeah,” Keith said without thinking.

A smile spread across Lance’s face. It was different from his sharp grins and smirks, more… something. Keith couldn’t pin it down. It had the same brightness, though. “Cool.”

Keith quirked a smile of his own back and gave him a two-fingered wave as he turned.

He got a few paces before Lance called, “‘Night, Mullet!” after him.

He spun, but Lance had already vanished behind the bushes.

As he’d walked back that night, he’d found himself smiling again as he looked up at the stars.

The beer was starting to go warm. He wrinkled his nose at the skunky taste, a little absent. “Where are Pidge and Hunk, anyway?”

Lance’s lawn chair creaked as he shifted. “Hunk’s with Shay and the rest of the engineering crew. They’ve got a midterm tomorrow. I think Matt kidnapped Pidge for some enforced sibling bonding.”

Keith winced. “I hope they’ve got fire safety nearby.”

Lance grinned at him, bright smile turned blinding in the sun. “I said the same thing.”

“I’d say great minds think alike, but…”

“No need to put yourself down like that, Mullet.”

Keith tossed him a look. “Asshole.”

Lance grinned again, slow and lazy this time, and Keith couldn’t help the way his eyes dropped to his mouth, just for a second. Thankfully, Lance didn’t seem to notice.

Oh yeah, that had been a fun development.

Keith wasn’t sure when it started, but he’s painfully aware of the moment he realized he liked Lance a little bit more than “just friends,” and it was an embarrassingly long time ago.

He’d known Lance, Hunk and Pidge for almost two months by the time Halloween rolled around. In that time, he’d learned a lot about his new friends.

They had all been friends in high school, and it showed. Sometimes the three of them were almost spooky, like they were mentally linked or something. Lance in particular had an eerie tendency to finish the others’ thoughts.

There was a lot of stuff that was more subtle, though. Hunk and Keith had grabbed coffee for the others on their way to the library one day, and he didn’t even have to text them to ask for their orders. Keith met Lance in the science building once to walk over to Hunk’s apartment, and Lance took them a slightly longer route without even mentioning it just so they could pass by Pidge’s class right as it got out. She didn’t seem surprised to see them, either.

Keith had a lot of time to get to know them. They all came by Hunk and Shiro’s shared apartment pretty often. It sort of made sense. Lance and Pidge still lived in the dorms, and Keith’s tiny place wasn’t much better. Hunk and Shiro’s, or as it came to be known, The Apartment, was the only place that really felt like somewhere you could hang out.

So he spent a lot of time there, which meant a lot of time around Pidge, Lance and Hunk. Shiro’s other grad students friends, Matt and Allura, came by a lot too. Honestly, it was more exposure to people than Keith had really expected; he moved out of the dorms just to get away from this kind of stuff.

It felt different, though. On the rare nights when it was just him and Shiro, watching a movie or playing Halo, the apartment seemed too quiet.

So it started with him coming by to hang out with Shiro, but somewhere along the way, Pidge added him to their group chat on Facebook, and he got swept up in the general invitations for Nintendo battles and movie marathons. And sure, Keith was well aware he wasn’t any kind of social butterfly, but he was also honest enough with himself to admit that he preferred Pidge’s tech chatter and Lance’s loud jokes over the silence of his apartment.

Which was why he found his feet changing direction on a day in late October as he was headed home from class, taking him towards the apartment instead in response to a message from Lance.

It took Hunk a while to answer the door. “Hey, Keith! How’s it going, man?”

Keith shrugged, toeing his shoes off. “Can’t complain.”

“Well, that’s something I guess.”

Pidge yelled Hunk’s name from out on the balcony, and Hunk smiled apologetically, hooking a thumb towards her. “Sorry. We’re kind of in the middle of--”

“Hunk!”

“Okay, okay, geez!”

Keith followed Hunk out onto the balcony, where Lance and Pidge were sitting on the ground. Pidge was kneading something that looked like red playdough in her hands with a look of intense concentration. “I think it’s ready. Got the molds?”

“Yep, here.” Hunk sat down next to her and grabbed two plastic half-spheres off the ground, handing it over to her. “Think we should flatten this side while it’s still soft?”

Her scowl deepened. “I don’t know. It might tug on the sides…”

As Hunk nodded, hand on his chin, Keith sat in the free space next to Lance, who looked over at him with a quick grin. “Hey, dude.”

Keith returned fire with a crooked smile. “Hey. What are you guys doing?”

“Making Pokéballs.”

Keith blinked and shook his head. “Should have known.”

And really, he should have. If he learned nothing else about his new friends over the last two months, it was that they were really, really, really nerdy. He guessed he should have been tipped off by the Lord of the Rings posters on the walls, or the complete box set of Star Trek: The Original Series sitting next to the TV, but it wasn’t until Hunk and Lance perfectly quoted a scene from Star Wars to each other that it really sank in.

“We’re going as the trainers from the Indigo League,” Lance explained as they watched Pidge and Hunk carefully press the red playdough into the semi-sphere molds, “but we wanted to make our own Pokéballs.”

“What is that stuff?”

“Proto putty,” Pidge answered as Hunk delicately cut the excess putty off the tops of the molds. “It’s silicone and cornstarch.”

“And food coloring,” Hunk added, carefully setting the molds face-up.

Pidge grinned. “Give us a couple hours, gentlemen, and I think we’ll have ourselves nice set of balls.”

Hunk and Lance both snickered. Keith rolled his eyes. “Let’s hope,” Hunk said. “In the meantime, Lance, can you get the next batch going?”

“Sure thing.” Lance looked around for a second before his eyes landed on Keith. A smile spread across his face, bright and wicked, and Keith had just enough time to think, Oh no, before Lance was saying in a breathy voice, “Keith, could you please give me that cock?”

Keith stared at him in utter shock for a second before Pidge leaned over and punched Lance in the shoulder. “Caulk, with an L. Don’t you be gross.”

“But you just made a joke about balls,” Lance whined, rubbing his shoulder.

“Yeah, but when I make dick jokes, they’re clever and classy. You’re just nasty.”

“I am not!”

“You’re a nasty hoe, Lancelot, I’m sorry.”

Lance flipped her off before looking back at Keith. “Seriously, though, can you pass me that caulk?”

“Uh, sure,” Keith managed, handing the tube over. He didn’t know why he was so flustered; Matt made rude jokes constantly, and they never got much more than a short laugh or eye roll out of him. It must just have been because he wasn’t expecting it.

“So, Keith,” Hunk said, checking his watch, “are you coming to Allura’s Halloween party?”

“Oh. Um… Maybe. I haven’t really thought about it.” She’d invited him a week and a half ago, when he’d been sitting on the couch eating ice cream with Shiro straight out of the container as they’d all watched Jurassic Park, but he’d kind of forgotten about it. He’d gone to a couple college parties, and mostly they were just really loud and really hot, and he always ended up smelling like beer.

“You should come,” Lance said, squeezing a generous amount of clear caulk into the bowl in front of him. “Allura throws the best parties.”

Keith considered it for a second before shrugging. All his friends would be there, and it was almost his last year of college; what did he have to lose? “Sure.”

All three of them cheered, and Keith shook his head to disguise the grin on his face.

The party had been about what he was expecting, at first. As he walked up the sidewalk with Shiro, the music was blasting loud enough to make the windows rattle, and Keith braced himself.

Inside, it was still loud, but less packed than he expected. There were still a lot of people, but they could move around without having to push through one giant mass of humanity. Keith relaxed a tiny bit.

Allura swirled up to them in her Sailor Moon outfit, grinning brightly at Shiro’s Tuxedo Mask costume, and the two of them headed off to find Matt and get some drinks. Keith lingered for a second in the hallway, torn between trailing after them, before turning and heading the other way, towards the music. According to Pidge and Lance’s Snapchats, they were here somewhere.

The living room, it turned out, was huge. He’d noticed Allura’s house looked pretty big as Shiro parked across the street, but it was just striking him now that her family was actually legitimately rich.

He stood there at the top of the few steps leading down into the writhing crush of people dancing for a few seconds before he decided he really needed a drink.

He’d only gotten halfway down the hall before someone was grabbing his arm, and Keith whirled around to see Lance grinning back at him from under a red-and-white baseball cap. “Mullet!”

“Oh, hi.”

“Where’s your costume?”

Keith wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I don’t really do costumes.”

The look Lance gave him was so disappointed Keith was vaguely reminded of his third-grade teacher. “Dude, it’s Halloween. What’s even the point without costumes? Luckily for you, you’ve got the Halloween expert right here.”

“Where?”

“Cold, man. Come on.” Lance’s hand was around his wrist and tugging him down the hall before Keith could really register it. He fought the impulse to jerk away. Keith had never really liked being touched by strangers, but Lance wasn’t exactly a stranger, per se. Still, it wasn’t like he was Shiro; he couldn’t just yank Keith around whenever he felt like it.

A couple girls dressed like witches gave them a look as Lance dragged Keith towards the stairs, and that did it. Keith pulled out of Lance’s grip, fighting down the weird, flustered indecision. “I can walk by myself.”

Lance glanced back at him, eyes sharp. “Fine, geez.”

They were silent as Lance led him up the stairs and down the hall, turning into a bathroom as huge and fancy as the rest of the house. The music was muffled up here, just a distant throbbing of baselines through the floor, and something about the hush around them had Keith on edge. Lance turned towards him and reached, like he was about to put a hand on his shoulder, before he paused and gestured at the counter behind Keith instead. “Wait for a second. I’ll be right back.” He stepped through a side door; Keith could just make out a bedroom beyond in the dim lighting. Lance rustled around for a minute, out of sight, before he was back with something violently yellow in his hands. He shoved it at Keith. “Here, put this on.”

Keith held up the yellow hoodie. “Um, why?”

“Costume, doofus.” Lance paused where he was rummaging around in the drawers and looked at Keith for a second before rolling his eyes. “It’s a hoodie, Keith, not a snake. Chill.”

“I can see it’s a hoodie, Lance, I just don’t--”

“Why don’t you trust me?”

Keith stopped. For a long moment, he just stared at Lance, like he was being held in place by some gravitational force.

He’d never been good at reading people. To be honest, he usually didn’t try that hard; too many people had come and gone from Keith’s life for him to even want to put in the effort anymore. The one constant he’d ever had was Shiro. Keith had made his peace with that a long time ago. For whatever reason, in the grand, cosmic scheme of the universe, he was supposed to be alone. It was inevitable. Keeping people at arm’s reach was easier than getting hurt every time they left.

But here in the harsh lighting of Allura’s bathroom, distant music and laughter throbbing through the floorboards, the moment stretched into a kind of raw honesty and Keith could see, just for a second, a flicker of hurt in Lance’s blue eyes.

So he said, “I do trust you,” without even thinking, and it somehow didn’t feel like a lie.

Lance studied him for another second, face guarded, before his mouth quirked in a crooked smile. Wordlessly, he went back to rooting through the drawers, while Keith perched on the counter and tried to calm his racing thoughts.

Lance raised an eyebrow as he stood back up, a bag of grease crayons in his hand and a plastic disk and a makeup brush in the other. “Dude. Hoodie.”

“Oh, right.” Keith fumbled his motorcycle jacket off and pulled the hoodie on, zipping it up. It was a little long in the arms, but it was soft.

Lance smirked at the fabric bunched around Keith’s wrists. “Shorty.”

“I’m average.”

Lance’s smug little smile widened. “Hey, you said it, buddy.” He stepped between Keith’s legs, and, hello, suddenly Lance’s face was very close to Keith’s own. His knuckles whitened on the edge of the counter as Lance reached for his face. “Tilt your head down,” he instructed.

Keith did, trying to ignore the way his breath caught as Lance leaned in even further, eyes narrowing in concentration. Lance was too close-- way too close-- but the twist of Keith’s stomach wasn’t from discomfort. It felt more like nerves, like some kind of flustered anticipation that had his heart thudding a little harder against his ribs, had his gaze catching on the faint freckles across the bridge of Lance’s nose.

He was so distracted he didn’t notice Lance reaching in until something tapped him on the nose. He jerked a little. Lance shot him a look as he said, “Hold still, dummy,” and brought his hand up to cup Keith’s jaw.

Keith froze, not out of some kind of attempt to follow Lance’s instruction, but because his thoughts had just whited out, surrounding a sudden and bizarre desire to lean in and close the distance between them. He sat there on the bathroom counter, feeling the vibrations of the music through his fingers on the cold tile, staring at Lance’s face just inches from his own, and thought, Oh no.

Lance leaned back for a second to grab another face crayon, and Keith’s gaze followed him almost helplessly. He looked so different when he was concentrating, when all his jokes and laughter had been pushed aside. Keith wasn’t used to it. It seemed like it should have made Lance more exposed, pulled back some kind of curtain, but Keith felt like the vulnerable one, somehow, caught and displayed like a pinned butterfly.

He barely breathed the whole time Lance carefully traced shapes across his face and patted his cheeks down with powder, but finally Lance was stepping back and the moment popped like a soap bubble, and Keith sucked in a shaky breath. Lance didn’t seem to notice, though; he just grinned at Keith in a self-satisfied manner, shockingly similar to the cat in the window. “Lookin’ good, if I do say so myself.”

Keith turned to look in the mirror and blinked at the triangular black nose and the red circles Lance had placed on his cheeks. He frowned for a second before his eyes fell to the yellow hoodie, and then he was turning back to Lance with a glare. “Seriously?”

Lance held out a hand. “Come on, Pikachu! Let’s go make your debut.”

Keith groaned, but followed him down the hallway. Anything to get out of that bathroom and the weird moment. In front of him, Lance pulled a homemade rubber Pokéball out of his pocket and tossed it in the air, whistling something that sounded a lot like the Pokémon theme song.

Keith shook himself as they started back down the stairs, into the noise and the crowd. It didn’t mean anything. It was just a weird moment.

But then Lance was turning back to him with a grin, saying, “I choose you, Pikachu!” as he tossed the ball at Keith. He barely caught it in time to keep it from smacking him in the face. Lance cackled and went off down the hall to find their friends, and Keith trailed him after a second, turning the rubber ball over and over in his hands.

Lance had never asked for it back. It was still sitting on Keith’s desk, seven months later.

So that had been the first time. For a while, as October faded into a cold and gray November, Keith had tried to pretend it really didn’t mean anything. It must have just been a weird side effect of the night, the contrast of the loud party with the quiet bathroom. That was it.

But it happened again, a couple weeks later, after Keith had been having a really shitty week and he’d been heading up to the apartment to abuse Shiro’s Netflix account until his brain melted. As he’d cut through the back alley, he found Pidge and Lance sitting against the wall. Pidge was stirring something in a pot with a look of intense concentration on her face, but Lance grinned up at him. “Hey, dude.”

“Hey. What are you guys doing?”

Lance shrugged, tucking his chin down into the collar of his jacket. “Pidge had a bad week, so we’re making napalm.”

It took a second for Keith to process that. “Um. Okay.”

“You wanna get in on this?”

“... Yes.”

The afternoon had been cold as hell, sitting there in the gray alley under a cloudy sky, but every time Lance laughed or smiled as he chatted away with Pidge and Keith, it felt… not warmer, exactly, but Keith cared less. Lance’s easy joy was infectious, and Keith found himself smiling a lot more than he meant to, and when he left that night he felt better than any TV binge could have made him feel. Of course, lighting the asphalt on fire with homemade napalm had helped, too.

And it didn’t stop. As the weeks dragged by, Keith found himself looking forward to the times he would see Lance more and more, almost craving the kind of quiet contentment he found just by being in the room with him.

It didn’t make any sense, either, because Lance was still loud and annoying and his jokes were terrible, but Keith… didn’t hate it. He didn’t understand why he didn’t, but there it was.

Actually, there wasn’t much Keith did understand about the situation, so he did what he did best: stubbornly ignored it.

And it worked, too, for a while, until the night Allura threw a joint Christmas/post-finals party. It was the last time they were all going to see each other before break, and Keith was actually enjoying himself. There were fewer people there than usual, and Hunk had commandeered the kitchen to set up a cookie-decorating station. Keith had been having a pretty good time watching Pidge and Matt fling frosting and sprinkles at each other across the kitchen for the better part of the last hour, in a bizarre and festive type of guerilla warfare, but eventually he wandered off to find the bathroom.

He’d been standing there in the hall, leaning idly against the wall as he waited for the bathroom, when Lance had come by him. He’d found a free strand of tinsel somewhere in the depths of Allura’s massive house, and it was wrapped around his neck like a boa. His eyes lit up when he saw Keith, smile turning a little bit wicked as he pointed at something above Keith’s head. Keith looked up at the little bunches of bright green leaves hanging from the ceiling all down the hallway, and his mouth went dry.

“Mistletoe,” Lance said cheerfully, like it was no big deal, and Keith barely had time to register it before Lance was leaning in.

The soft brush of lips against his cheek couldn’t have lasted for more than a second, but Keith swore time stopped.

And then, in a swirl of tinsel, Lance was off again down the hallway, singing “Jingle Bell Rock” at the top of his lungs.

Keith stood there in the hallway for a long time, clutching his mug of cider and staring at the wall.

He’d finally cracked, after that, and as soon as he was sure everyone else had left for the holidays he was knocking at the door of the apartment. “I need to talk to you,” he blurted when Shiro finally answered.

“Uh, okay.” Shiro stifled a yawn as Keith shoved past him, brow creasing. “Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine, just--” Keith gestured helplessly. Shiro eyed him for a second before gently directing him to sit on the couch and making himself a cup of coffee. As he sipped it, the whole story burst out of Keith in disjointed bits and pieces. Shiro didn’t interrupt, he just listened, and by the time Keith ran out of steam he already felt better.

“So,” Shiro said after a second, “you like Lance.”

The anxiety crashed back down over him like a wave, and Keith buried his head in his hands. “Help.”

Shiro patted him on the shoulder. “There’s not really a lot I can do to help this, buddy. You could always tell him how you feel.”

Keith shot him a disbelieving look through his fingers.

“Worth a shot,” Shiro mumbled into his coffee cup.

“I can’t just tell him, Shiro. What if he laughs at me? Or hates me?”

“I don’t think Lance would do either of those.”

“Yeah, you don’t think.” Keith took a deep breath. “Look, it’s-- it’s not a big deal. I can handle it.”

It was Shiro’s turn to give him a look. “Keith, you just about broke my door down at nine A.M. on a Sunday. I think this might be a big deal.”

“No,” Keith said, straightening. “No, you’re right. There’s nothing to do; I just gotta… deal with this.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant.”

“Thanks, Shiro.”

“Keith, I really think--”

But Keith was already up and headed towards the kitchen, on his way to raid Shiro’s fridge and then spend the day playing video games and watching Netflix with his brother. He was just gonna push Lance out of his mind. It was the perfect plan-- thanks to winter break, he had a full month of isolation where he could get over his crush on Lance.

Unfortunately, he’d completely forgotten about social media.

It wasn’t like Keith avoided social media, he just didn’t think about it that much. He only ever really used it before this year to keep in touch with Shiro, or message his classmates for study groups or assignments.

Now, though, he was getting Snapchats and messages from his friends constantly. Pidge and Matt had apparently started some kind of competition to see who could sneak a worse-slash-more embarrassing picture of the other, which would have been a threat if they didn’t seem so proud of it. Keith lost count of how many ugly pictures of Pidge and Matt popped up on his phone over the weeks, invariably followed by the subject’s “nice.” In response, Allura started sending them back selfies where she mocked whatever dumb face had just been captured. It quickly caught on as a group joke, and then Hunk and Lance joined in, and Keith was right back at square one as he found himself staring at Lance’s face frozen in grotesque expressions on his phone.

The constant stream of conversations over the group message was worse, though, because Lance was chatty. Everyone else was there, of course, but Lance almost always replied as soon as someone sent a message. He started a lot of it, too, throwing out little anecdotes about his day and his family, or non sequiturs off some unknown trigger. Every time, Keith found himself wondering where Lance was, what he was doing, what kind of expression was on his face as he fired off a message. He didn’t even reply most of the time, but he couldn’t stop himself from picturing Lance with that crooked smile on his face, a gleam in his bright blue eyes.

So his plan totally backfired. If anything, his crush got even worse over the break. The first time he saw Lance, when everyone came over to the apartment before school started up again to watching movies and catch up, he was so wound up his hands were sweaty. It was stupid and gross and Keith hated it a lot, but somehow when Lance turned his blinding smile on him with an enthusiastic, “Hey, dude!” Keith forgot all about it.

“Still sure you can ‘deal with it?’” Shiro asked him later as Keith lay face down on his bed. He chuckled as Keith flipped him off.

It got better after break, though. Seeing Lance nearly every day was like conditioning-- it was easier to handle the way his stomach flipped when he was used to the feeling.

So by the time they were halfway through the term, Keith had gotten pretty darn good at ignoring his dumb crush. He barely noticed the stutter of his heart when he caught sight of Lance sitting on a bench as he was walking to class. It was a particularly warm and sunny day-- Pidge had sent the group a Snap that morning of her wearing sunglasses with the caption “god bless global warming”-- and Keith had taken the long way to his astronomy lecture, walking slow and savoring the feeling of the sun on his face. Lance had apparently had the same idea, because he was sitting in a bright patch of sunlight, focused on his Gameboy. He didn’t even notice Keith walking up until he dropped down on the bench next to him.

Lance jumped a little. “Jesus, dude, give me a heart attack.”

“Sorry.”

“I see that smile, you asshole.”

Keith just shrugged. “What are you up to? I thought you had class.”

Lance pulled a face. “It was cancelled. Didn’t check my email until I actually got there, though, so I figured I’d just chill instead of walking all the way back.”

“Isn’t your dorm, like, three minutes away?”

“That’s not the point, Keith.” Lance glanced down at his phone. “Don’t you have a class, though?”

Keith shrugged, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. The sun was heating up the black fabric of his sweatshirt, and everything felt very warm and lazy. “Yeah, but it’s just my astronomy lecture. Basic stuff.”

“The coolest stuff, though.”

He cracked an eye to peer at Lance. “You think?”

“Yeah, dude. If I wasn’t so-- if I didn’t hate math so much, I would have gone that route too, but…” Lance shuddered. “It’s the physics part of astrophysics that gets me.”

Keith studied him for a second. “You wanna come to my class?”

Lance blinked at him. “Seriously?”

“My professor’s pretty chill, and it’s a big lecture hall,” Keith said with a shrug. “It’s intro level stuff, though, I just needed the credit.”

Lance stood. “I don’t know if you’re trying to talk me into this or out of it, Mullet, but you offered me space and I intend to collect. Up, shortstack, let’s go.”

Keith scowled at him as he rose and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I am not short.”

“So small,” Lance cooed, patting him on the head. He cackled as Keith swatted his hand away.

Keith’s heart gave a painful squeeze as the sunlight caught Lance’s face, highlighting his profile as his head tipped back on a laugh. To distract himself, or maybe just hide the moment, he asked, “So how have your classes been?”

Lance instantly launched into some long-winded anecdote about his bio lab partner. Keith only half-listened as they walked. Lance didn’t really need him to listen, anyways. Instead, he enjoyed the sound of Lance’s voice and tilted his face up towards the sun. The air was still cold, but Keith could tell spring was coming.

Lance paused to take a deep breath and Keith tuned back in. “Anyways, we’re gonna do the project I suggested, but like, how did I get partnered with such an idiot?”

“Blind leading the blind there,” Keith agreed, grinning as Lance elbowed him.

“Yeah, yeah, Mullet.” Lance pulled open the door to the physics building, gesturing Keith in ahead of him. “If you’re so smart, how ‘bout you wow me with your space knowledge.”

“That’s kind of a big subject.”

“Ooh, and the ego gets bigger! Come on, Keithy boy, talk quantum physics to me.” Lance wiggled his eyebrows at him as Keith opened the door to the lecture hall. Keith rolled his eyes, trying to force down his smile.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“You know, the more you avoid this, the more convinced I am you actually don’t know anything about space.”

Keith picked a row about two-thirds of the way up in the lecture hall-- close enough to still be able to see the screen, far enough that none of Lance’s chatter would make it to the professor. Hopefully. “I know plenty about space, dumbass. My teaching would be lost on you.”

“What, because I’m stupid?”

Keith sighed as he sat, pulling out his notebook. “No.” It was the truth-- Lance wasn’t stupid. Sure, he was loud and annoying, and he overreacted to everything, and he never shut up, but he wasn’t stupid.

Lance looked at him for a second, a slow smile spreading across his face. “So it’s because you suck at teaching?”

“Why do I bother,” Keith grumbled.

Lance’s cackle was cut off by the professor starting class, and with one last glare, Keith settled back into the stiff lecture hall seat. He eyed Lance again as the lecture started. They were studying binary systems this week, apparently. Keith hadn’t bothered to check. The class was pretty basic stuff-- life and death of stars, fundamental forces, all that. Keith was already taking upper division courses in the same stuff, where the physics were way harder, but he needed this one for the credit. To be fair, it wasn’t the worst. Professor Coran was an interesting lecturer, and it was an easy grade for Keith.

Lance didn’t seem to care how basic the class was, though. He leaned forward in his seat as Coran talked about contact pairs and tidal forces, studying the screen intently. Keith found himself watching Lance more than paying attention to the actual lecture as the hour dragged on. It was probably creepy, but there was something about the intensity in those bright blue eyes as they flicked across the screen that took Keith’s breath away.

He only blinked himself back into awareness as Lance turned, tearing his eyes back to the screen and hoping he hadn’t just been caught staring. “Do you know?” Lance asked quietly, that familiar, teasing smile on his face.

All Keith could manage was a “what?”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Closest star to Earth, Neil Armstrong. Come on.”

“Come on,” Coran said at the front of the class, “someone must know this. Shout it out, what is it?”

Someone at the back of the room said it at the same time as Keith, but he didn’t see who; his eyes were locked on Lance’s. “Alpha Centauri.”

“Very good! Did everyone hear that? Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth at four-point-three light years away, and also a binary system. For our friends in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s one of the brightest visible stars…”

Lance huffed and nudged Keith with his shoulder. “Okay, so you know one thing about space.”

“I know lots of stuff about space,” Keith shot back.

The smile Lance shot him made something go loose and warm between his ribs. “We’ll see, starboy.” He turned back to the screen, propping his chin in his hand.

They didn’t talk again for the rest of the class. Lance was apparently enraptured by the lecture, but Keith didn’t hear a word of it. His eyes kept drifting back to Lance, and his brain was stuck on the image of the binary stars. Alpha Centauri: two celestial bodies locked in an eternal dance, so close to Earth, and still so impossibly far away.

Keith could relate.

After the lecture, Lance was practically bouncing on his feet as they walked outside. “That was so cool. I take it back, I take it all back, space is the best and I should have done it instead of biology.”

Keith snorted. “What about the math?”

Lance paused. “Okay, you’re right. I would have hated it. But dude, that was awesome.”

The warm feeling spread down to Keith’s fingertips in the face of Lance’s unrestrained joy. “Glad you liked it.”

“Dude. Like doesn’t begin to cover it.” Lance looked at his phone and winced. “Ah, shit. I gotta run to my next class. But hey, thanks for bringing me, man. That was seriously cool.”

“No worries,” Keith said, running a hand through his hair. “It was just, you know, my lecture. Whatever.”

Lance grinned, stepping away. “Yeah, yeah, play it off, Mullet. It was still cool.”

Keith shrugged. “Fine. You’re welcome.”

Waving, Lance started walking off. Keith watched him go, starting when Lance suddenly spun back around. “Hey,” he called, walking backwards, “you got something wrong, though. Alpha Centauri isn’t the closest star to Earth.”

Keith frowned. “What?”

There was laughter, warm and bright, in Lance’s voice as he pointed up and said, “It’s the sun, dingus!”

With one last wave, Lance turned and headed off into the crowds of college students hurrying between their classes. Keith stood there for a long minute, though, staring after him, as the afternoon sun warmed his face.

Things changed again after that. Ignoring his feelings for Lance had become routine, but now, Keith couldn’t stop thinking about it. Every time he saw Lance’s face or heard him laugh or even just got a text from him about something stupid, he wanted to say-- something. He didn’t even know what. “Hey, I like you?” Vague and juvenile. “I like -like you?” Even worse.

“You could just tell him you have feelings for him,” Shiro suggested one night, only half-listening to Keith groan into a pillow as he sat at the end of his bed, nose buried in a book.

“I can’t.”

Shiro looked up at that with a sympathetic smile. “Kinda seems like your only option, bud.”

The worst part was, Shiro was right. Ignoring it hadn’t worked, and he wasn’t even close to getting over it. Keith’s only options were to tell Lance, or run away to, like, Mexico or somewhere.

Naturally, he chose the only sensible option: he put it off.

It wasn’t a big deal, he told himself. He would just-- manage until summer vacation, and then tell Lance and vanish into the ether for the next three months. Cut and run. Keith had always been good at that.

That plan sorta went out the window, though, when during a group study session for finals Hunk asked him if he wanted to be the fourth roommate in a house with him, Pidge and Lance next year, and Keith said yes without even thinking. When he realized what he’d just done, he almost snapped his pencil in half. But Hunk and Pidge looked so excited, he couldn’t bring himself to take it back. He didn’t dare even look over at Lance, just put on the best smile he could in response to the friendly nudge of Lance’s shoulder.

“Aww, Keith likes us,” Lance teased.

You have no idea! Keith wanted to scream, but he ducked his head and focused on his textbook, reading the same line over and over while his friends snickered about his shy behavior.

Four and a half billion years of a terrestrial Earth, three and a half billion years of organic life, two million years of human evolution, and all of it seemed specifically designed to fuck Keith over in one big cosmic joke.

Because within the next week, it got even worse.

Allura was having another party, an end of finals celebration again, combined with a Spring Break kickoff. There were lots of people wearing summer-y clothes, which Keith didn’t understand-- it was still March-- and some guys had set up beer pong in the backyard. The whole thing was a lot louder and more wild than Allura’s parties usually were. Keith had retreated to the kitchen, where Pidge and Matt were concocting some kind of spiked Slurpees out of soda, vodka, and a container of liquid nitrogen. Wisely, most of the other party goers had fled the vicinity. The Holts’ maniacal laughter as they tossed frozen bananas onto the ground and watched them shatter probably had something to do with it.

It wasn’t just the atmosphere that was getting to Keith, though. He had walked into the living room earlier, looking for Lance-- Hunk wanted him on his team for beer pong, since Keith had declined-- and seen him leaning against a wall in the corner of the dimly-lit room, chatting with a girl. Keith recognized the look on his face, as he tossed his head back on a laugh. Lance was flirting with her.

Objectively, Keith guessed he couldn’t blame him. The girl was pretty, if you liked girls, which Keith, in fact, did not. It wasn’t even the first time he’d seen Lance flirting with someone.

But as he watched, the strobing lights dragging the moment out like a nightmare, the girl reached out and put her hand on Lance’s shoulder, and he realized it was the first time he’d seen anyone flirt back.

He turned away as Lance leaned in even closer to her, a sick feeling churning in his stomach.

“Oh, hey, man!” Hunk said as Keith stormed into the kitchen. “Did you find Lance?”

“He’s busy,” Keith snapped, grabbing a can of beer off the counter and cracking it open, chugging half of it in one go.

Hunk and Pidge exchanged looks. “Oookay,” Hunk said slowly. “Well, guess I’ll go find someone else, then. Um.” Hunk leaned over to pat him on the shoulder with his fingertips. “Take care, buddy.” With that, Hunk evacuated the kitchen.

Keith leaned against the counter and scowled at the tile floor. The buzz of the alcohol and the beat of the music threaded together with his pulse, a dark, pounding rhythm that wove through his veins and pooled in his head. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he didn’t even notice the frozen banana chips stacking up against his shoes until Pidge pulled herself onto the counter next to him.

“Hey, man.”

Keith blinked and looked up at her. Pidge’s lips were stained an eerie shade of red from all the frozen Fanta she’d been consuming. “Hi.”

“What’s up?”

The beer can let out a protesting ktunk as Keith’s grip tightened. “Nothing.”

Pidge eyed the new dent in his can. “Uh huh.”

Matt came up on his other side, eating some nauseatingly green slush with a spoon. “Your staring match with the floor suggests otherwise.”

“It’s nothing, okay?” The can in Keith’s hand was empty. He tossed it at the recycling bin in the corner and grabbed another one off the counter behind Matt.

As he tipped his head back, chugging down his new beer, he caught the Holts exchanging a look in his periphery. He swallowed too fast, ignoring the burn of the carbonation in his throat. “Look, I’m fine.”

“Listen, if you want to leave, I can walk you home,” Matt offered.

The sincerity behind it, the concern in the Holts’ eyes, had Keith’s stomach turning. He shook his head wordlessly. He didn’t need anyone’s pity, and he definitely didn’t want to be alone in his apartment right now. “No. I’m gonna-- go play beer pong, or something.”

“Hey, Keith, hold up--” Pidge started, but he’d already stalked across the kitchen and slipped through the crowd of people down the hallway.

Shiro was here somewhere. Keith would find him, and just… hang out until he was ready to go, and then they could go back to the apartment together and watch shitty TV and he wouldn’t have to keep replaying the moment in his head where Lance leaned down to the blonde girl in front of him, like he was about to kiss her. He could just-- pretend it all didn’t exist, for a night. For the next two weeks, until the term started again. He wasn’t going to think about Lance.

But the powers that be really hated him, because as he ducked around a corner behind a couple shirtless dudes covered in DayGlo body paint, he ran smack dab into none other than Lance himself.

“Oh, shit. Sorry, dude, my bad--”

Keith looked up at him, and the apologetic smile on Lance’s face seemed to freeze for a second, blue eyes dimming, before he was smiling again, so wide and bright Keith felt sick.

“Keith! Hey, man, perfect, uh, perfect timing. I’m gonna duck out with Nyma, so…” Lance gestured over his shoulder, and on cue, a dark arm wrapped around his neck. The blonde girl peered over Lance’s shoulder at Keith. “Would you mind telling Hunk so he’s not waiting for me?”

Everything seemed very far away, suddenly, like Keith had fallen down a well. The lights, the music, the crowd-- it all faded into a throbbing blur around him, until all he could focus on was Lance’s face, blue eyes shadowed and smile still rictus-wide and blinding.

With a monumental effort, Keith fought through the static in his brain and said, “Yeah, no problem.”

“Great!” Lance slapped him on the shoulder. Keith rocked with it, numb down to his fingers. “I’ll see you later, then, buddy.”

Keith’s last sight of Lance was the blonde girl tugging him towards the door, leaning up to whisper something into his ear and then trailing her lips down his neck.

Keith had no idea how he made it back down the hall, but suddenly he was stumbling back into the bright lights of the kitchen and Pidge and Matt were looking up at him in alarm.

“Keith?” one of them asked, but he ignored them and grabbed for the vodka sitting next to their Slurpee station, cracking it open and taking a long pull straight from the bottle. It was a terrible idea; he’d never been good at taking shots, and the liquid burned his throat and nose. He coughed a few times, eyes watering, and then took another swig.

A hand wrapped around the bottle and forced it down, and Keith scowled up into Matt’s face. “What?”

“What’s going on?” Matt asked. He must have stolen that soft-concern thing from Shiro. Or maybe all big brothers just came with it.

Keith opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Pidge cut in. “If you say ‘nothing’ again, I swear to crap I will launch Slurpee into your face.”

Keith’s throat worked for a second, trying to find the words to brush them off, but when he finally spoke all he could say was, “Lance left with some girl.”

“Oh,” Pidge said. “Oh. Fuck.”

Keith laughed, a little choked. “Yeah.”

Matt tugged at the bottle in his hand, and Keith yanked back, scowling at him. Holding his hands up soothingly, like Keith was some kind of horse, some wild animal, he said, “I’m gonna go find Shiro, okay? Just… maybe don’t drink anymore.”

Keith eyed him and took a rebellious swig. It made him cough again.

“I’ll stay with him,” he heard Pidge say as he tried to blink his watery eyes clear.

When he looked up, Matt was gone. He scowled at Pidge, standing next to him and doing a poor job of hiding the worry in her brown eyes. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I’m not saying you do, man. I just don’t wanna see you trash yourself over something dumb.”

“It’s not dumb,” Keith snapped, taking another drink. He was starting to feel it now, head swimming and limbs going heavy and numb.

“Fine, it’s not dumb, but forgive me for being a little pissed at whatever makes you upset enough to do this.”

Keith frowned. “You can’t be.”

“What?”

“You can’t be pissed. It’s Lance,” he explained, eyes dropping to the floor. It took him a second to focus on the thawing banana chips by his feet. “It’s Lance,” he said again, quieter.

“I can be pissed at Lance.”

Keith shook his head, and whoa, bad idea. He blinked hard, waiting for the room to stop spinning. “He’s your friend.”

Pidge’s voice was softer than he’d ever heard it when she replied. “You’re my friend too.”

Keith didn’t know what to say to that. He took another drink instead.

Time stretched and blurred and suddenly Shiro was in front of him, saying his name. Keith frowned up at him. “I’m okay.”

Shiro looked back at him, eyes steady and dark and worried, and said, “You are not.”

He was gentle, but it was a fact, cold and hard and unyielding, and Keith felt his lip wobble. “Takashi…”

Shiro pulled the vodka bottle out of Keith’s loose grip and wrapped a warm arm around his shoulders. Keith leaned against him gratefully. “Let’s go home, kiddo.”

He nodded, rubbing his nose against Shiro’s shirt. “Yes, please.”

A small hand gripped his, and Keith squeezed back without even having to check who it was. “Feel better,” Pidge said.

He cracked an eye open to look at her. She looked back, a worried wrinkle in her brow, and a wave of guilt crashed over him. He put that there. “I will,” he promised.

He kept his eyes on her small, crooked smile as Shiro guided him down the hall, back through the pulse of the crowd and out into the night.

The alcohol turned most of the walk home into one long, dark blur. Their footsteps echoing off the houses around them turned into a kind of rhythm that lulled Keith almost to sleep, and it was only Shiro shaking him every so often that kept him from falling asleep standing up.

At one point, though, as they were standing and waiting for a light to change, he tipped his head back and looked up at the stars, tiny, glittering, hard points of light, millions of miles over his head. A laugh bubbled out of his throat. It probably sounded crazy, because Shiro shook him a little. “Keith?”

Keith kept his eyes on the brightest star. It was flickering, white to red to blue to white again, dancing and shimmering like it was mocking him. “Alpha Centauri.”

“What?”

“Alpha Centauri,” Keith repeated, staring at the star. “Just a big, cosmic joke. Closest star to Earth, and we’ll still never get there.”

Shiro was silent for a second before he gently guided Keith forward again. “Come on.”

Keith dropped his head back down to focus on the pavement sliding by between his feet, blurred by the tears hanging in his eyes.

The next thing he knew, it was blindingly bright and his head was splitting open. Keith groaned, burying his face under the blanket and trying to ignore the way his stomach heaved at the movement.

“Well, nice to know you’re still alive,” came a dry voice.

Keith frowned at the blankets. “Shiro?”

“Yes?”

“Am I in your bed?”

“Yep.”

The memories of last night came slamming back into Keith’s mind like a runaway freight train and he groaned again. “Shiro, can I drown myself in your shower?”

“You may not. Want some water?”

Keith considered it for a second before sighing. “Yes.” He flipped the blankets down, squinting against the sunlight.

Shiro was sitting next to him in the bed, an open book face down in his lap. He handed Keith a bottle of water and some Advil from his bedside table. Keith sat up, ignoring the slow roll of his stomach, and swallowed them down with a few gulps of water before collapsing back onto the pillows.

Frowning down at him, Shiro asked, “How much of last night do you remember?”

“Enough.”

Shiro sighed and squeezed his shoulder gently. “I’m sorry, Keith.”

A miserable knot lodged itself in Keith’s throat. He huffed and shrugged instead, wordless, trying to blink away the prickle in his eyes. “I’m sorry too,” he managed after a minute. “That was… really stupid.”

Shiro studied him for a moment before a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Well, you’re paying for it now, aren’t you?”

Keith huffed again in what was supposed to be a laugh, but his breath caught and it ended up closer to a sob.

“Oh, Keith.”

The boundless sympathy in Shiro’s voice brought tears flooding back to Keith’s eyes, and this time, he couldn’t fight them down. Shiro pulled him into a hug, and Keith clung to him like a little kid, burying his face in Shiro’s chest. “I’m such an idiot,” he mumbled.

Shiro squeezed him a little tighter. “You’re not. You were upset.”

“It’s not just that. It’s-- it’s all of it. I wish I didn’t like him.” Keith squeezed his eyes shut. “I should never have been friends with him.”

“Is that really what you want?”

Keith thought about it. Every one of Lance’s smiles and laughs, every casual touch, all their bickering and teasing, everything Lance meant to him-- he wouldn’t give it up for anything. “No,” he admitted, voice cracking. “But this still sucks.”

Shiro brought a hand up to the back of his head. “I know, kiddo. I’m sorry.”

They sat like that for a long time before Keith was frowning into Shiro’s shirt. “Hey, Shiro?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“Bathroom,” Shiro said quickly, pushing him towards the door.

Keith stayed in Shiro’s room for most of the day, napping on and off and watching dumb TV shows with Shiro as he munched on some graham crackers and drank a can of ginger ale Shiro brought him. Seriously, who even stocked their house with graham crackers and ginger ale? Keith was pretty sure the list consisted only of his brother and little old ladies. Still, by late afternoon his stomach had settled enough that he ventured into the kitchen for some real food, so Shiro probably had the right idea. Keith had found he usually did. It was seriously annoying.

The TV was on, and when he peeked around the corner into the living room, he saw Hunk sitting there, next to just the very top of Pidge’s mop of coppery hair. He hesitated, not sure if they would want to see him, but Hunk must have had some sixth sense or something, because he turned and blinked at Keith. A wide smile spread across his face. “Hey, he lives!”

Pidge shot up next to him and whipped around to peer at Keith. “Wow, you look like crap.”

Keith shot her a flat look. “Gee, thanks.”

“How you feeling?”

“... Pretty crappy.”

She snorted.

“No offense, dude, but you do look pretty crappy.”

Keith sighed. “Thanks, Hunk.”

“Sorry, sorry. There’s some leftover frittata in the fridge if you want some.”

Keith tried his hardest to not actually sprint to the kitchen.

Pidge propped her arms on the back of the couch and rested her chin in her hands as she watched him shove his food into the microwave. “We were about to start a documentary on aliens. Wanna watch?”

His mouth was already open to say yes before Keith thought about it. Wherever Hunk and Pidge went, Lance wasn’t far behind, and he really, really, really didn’t want to see him today. Or ever again.

Hunk glanced at him as he hesitated, before saying, a little too casually, “It’ll just be us, so you can have the couch, if you want. Pidge can sit in the beanbag.”

“Yeah, since Lance is too busy being off with his new girlfr-- Ow! Hunk!”

The mention of Lance and what he was doing had Keith’s stomach lurching again, but he steeled himself and said, “Sure.” If Lance wasn’t going to be here, then Keith had nothing to hide from. He could just… sit on a couch and watch a movie with his friends. Yeah. Everything was fine.

He kept repeating it to himself as he pulled his frittata out of the microwave and walked back into the living room. Last night had been the one time he was going to let his dumb feelings get the better of him. Whoever Lance wanted to spend his time with, it didn’t matter to him. He had a life outside Lance, after all.

It helped that Hunk and Pidge beamed at him from either side as he sat down on the couch between them. They were his friends too. He wasn’t alone.

In fact, he spent a lot of time with Hunk and Pidge over the following weeks. He didn’t even see Lance until after spring break. According to Hunk, he was too busy spending all his free time with Nyma. It seemed to be a little bit of a sore point with Hunk and Pidge, although Keith couldn’t quite figure out why. Sure, Lance was ditching them a lot, but they didn’t seem the type to be jealous like that when their friend was so happy.

Keith, on the other hand, was absolutely jealous. He hated it. He’d never been jealous of anyone in his life, and now every single selfie of Lance and Nyma on Snapchat or Instagram made something black and ugly surge up in him, twisting around his insides and settling on the back of his tongue. It was horrible, and Keith felt horrible for it. He should be happy for Lance, too. Regardless of his feelings for Lance, they were still friends. Friends were supposed to support each other.

Still, Lance’s Facebook relationship status update, three days after the fateful party, had Keith honest-to-God sulking. His life was turning into some kind of badly written teen romance movie, and Keith hated those. He didn’t even get the weak satisfaction of a happy ending.

The worst part was how normal everything still felt on the much rarer occasions Lance actually did hang out with them. He still pulled his terrible jokes and bickered with Pidge, he got way too competitive at MarioKart, he was loud and bright and… Lance. And that was really the issue. Keith liked Lance for exactly who he was with a degree of severity bordering on terminal. Ironically, it was only in the moments when Lance was there, laughing and teasing and there, that Keith could forget about Nyma, forget that Lance wasn’t really his.

Even if it felt like it.

Even if he wanted it.

Ignoring his feelings was a lot harder now; Keith felt bruised and somehow fragile, teetering on a cliff edge, but he didn’t know what else to do. If he’d ever had a chance, it was gone now, and he knew better than to think the universe would give him a redo. He thought about just cutting and running, never talking to Lance again, never looking back-- but that sounded painful too. Actually, that sounded worse.

So Keith shut up and lived with it. He focused on his classes, and hanging out with Pidge and Hunk and Shiro, and he savored every moment Lance spent with them while swallowing his own guilt and misery. And maybe it was better that way. Maybe that’s how it was always supposed to be. Like Alpha Centauri-- so close, but forever out of reach.

Fingers snapped under Keith’s nose, and he startled back into awareness. Lance was giving him a bemused look. “You okay, man?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, shaking off his reverie. “Just-- lost in thought, I guess.”

“I’ll say. I said your name three times.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No big.” Lance studied him again. Keith looked away from those shrewd blue eyes, sipping at his beer. It was warm. “You sure you’re okay?” Lance asked as Keith wrinkled his nose.

He sounded more serious than Keith was used to, a note of genuine concern in his voice. “Uh, yeah,” Keith replied, a little hesitant. “Why?”

Lance opened his mouth, then seemed to change his mind. “Nothing.”

They sat there for another minute. Some guys in the apartment building next door were unloading cases of beer from their car, and Keith watched them idly, running his mind back over the last few weeks. Now that he was thinking about it, this was the first time he’d really seen Lance in a while.

Keith’s jaw tightened, and he washed the expression down with the last of his beer before Lance could notice. “Why aren’t you hanging out with Nyma?”

It came out a little harsher than he meant. When he glanced over at Lance, he was blinking back at Keith, like he’d been buried in his own thoughts. “What?”

Keith shrugged. “Just, you know. No one else is here. I figured you’d be with your girlfriend.” The word hung, bitter, on Keith’s tongue.

Lance’s brow creased, and he looked off over the rooftops for a long second. Keith was about to say something, apologize, maybe, when Lance said, “We broke up.”

It took him a long second of gaping like an idiot before Keith finally managed, “What?”

Lance sucked his teeth in a popping noise, nodding slowly. “Nyma and I broke up. Three days ago.”

Oh. Oh, shit. He was an idiot. “Fuck, Lance, I’m sorry.”

Lance shot him a look. “It’s not your fault, dude,” he said, but a wry little smile pulled at his lips.

“Well, yeah, but I shouldn’t have brought her up if you guys--”

“Actually,” Lance interrupted, “I broke up with her.”

Keith’s train of thought came to a screeching halt for the second time in a minute. “Oh.”

Nodding again, Lance looked down, focusing on the can he was turning in his fingers. “Yeah.”

Keith searched for something to say. He was no good at this type of stuff. If Shiro had been here, he probably would have come up with something comforting and conciliatory, putting a hand on Lance’s shoulder. Keith was torn between saying that blows or standing up and fucking cheering, and neither of those seemed quite appropriate.

Lance didn’t seem to notice his internal struggle, though, because he kept talking. “It didn’t seem fair, you know?” His eyes stayed on the can in his hands, spinning spinning spinning like a planet on its axis.

Keith finally found his voice. “Why not?”

Lance’s fingers paused and the can stopped spinning. For a second, the whole world was caught up in a dead silence before Lance took a deep breath and looked up at him. “Because I like someone else.”

And just like that, all of Keith’s rising hopes came crashing back to Earth. “Oh.”

He tried to keep the disappointment off his face and out of his voice, grappling with it for a long minute while his heart beat painfully in his chest. How many times was he going to hurt over Lance? He’d already had enough for a lifetime.

When he looked back up, Lance was staring at him expectantly, almost nervously. Keith blinked back. “What?”

“What do you mean, what? Kinda thought that might get a reaction.”

“Oh, right.” Keith steeled himself. “So, um, who do you like, then?”

Lance’s expression shifted to disbelief. “Who do I-- What?”

“What?”

“No, you what! I can’t believe…” Lance trailed off with a groan, burying his face in his hands. “I should always listen to Hunk and Pidge. I am such an idiot.”

“Lance, what are you talking about?”

Lance threw his hands up. “Keith, dude, are you being actually serious right now? My acting isn’t that good, is it?”

“Lance,” Keith started, and there was a bite to the words that he didn’t mean, but-- “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

They stayed like that for a second, locked in place, Keith glaring at Lance who gazed back at him with a look too knotted up to untangle. Eventually, though, Lance took another deep breath as he ran a hand through his hair, blowing it out slowly. “Okay,” he said softly, almost to himself, before looking straight into Keith’s eyes. “Keith, buddy, my man-- I really, really like you.”

Keith’s heart stopped in his chest before slamming into double time. “What?” he tried to say again, over the pounding in his ears, but it came out sort of whispery and breathless.

Lance laughed, sharp and nervous. “Yeah, I know. It’s… It doesn’t have to be, like, a thing, you know? I just thought I should tell you. First step to recovery is acceptance, right? So, yeah. Keith Kogane, I like you.”

Keith’s brain was officially done, clocked out, halfway to the moon, before one specific bit of that registered and everything slammed back into focus. “Recovery?”

“Well, yeah.” Lance finally broke eye contact, looking down at his long fingers, twisting together on the cracked arm of his lawn chair. “I know you probably, you know, don’t feel the same. So it’s not a big deal. I don’t expect anything, and I’ll get over it. Eventually. I just… I wanted to tell you.” His fingers stilled, face growing pensive and a little sad. “I think I needed to tell you,” he added, so quiet Keith barely caught it.

Keith had never been good at words. Shiro had joked about it for years as they grew up, soft and warm as he teased, and Keith had known he never meant it as a bad thing. It was just part of who he was. Keith was black-haired and five foot seven and bad at words. Shiro’s easy acceptance let him express the stuff he couldn’t say in other ways, a squeeze of the hand or a nudge to his shoulder, and Keith loved that about him. He really did. Shiro understood him even without words, and it let Keith breathe in a way he never knew he needed.

So he hoped beyond hope that Lance knew how much he meant it when he reached out and laid his hand on Lance’s knotted fingers, feeling them tremble. “I don’t want you to get over it. I like you, too.”

Lance’s head shot up so fast Keith was afraid he was going to get whiplash. He stared at Keith for a second before his eyes narrowed. “You’re joking.”

“... What the fuck, Lance, why would I be joking?”

Lance pointed at him wildly. “Because. There’s no way shit works out like this in real life! This is a set up or something! You just pity me!”

Keith gaped at him for a second before scowling. “I was trying to have a serious moment, Lance, jesus.”

“Your face is a serious moment!”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

“You don’t make sense!”

“Oh, for the love of--” Keith reached out and grabbed the front of Lance’s shirt, hauling him forwards and lunging to meet him. Their lips collided with a little too much force, and Keith wasn’t quite on-center, but Lance squeaked and froze underneath him. Keith lingered for a second to make his point, and maybe enjoying how soft Lance’s lips were, before pulling away. “Are you getting it now?”

Lance’s mouth gaped wordlessly, like a fish, before he finally said, “You kissed me.”

Keith could feel his face turning red. “Yep.”

“You like me.”

“How many times do I have to say it?” he grumbled, dropping his head into his hands. He couldn’t stand looking at Lance anymore. Fuck, no wonder he’d been so hell-bent on never telling Lance how he felt. This was so embarrassing.

He only got a moment to dwell on it, though, before long fingers were wrapping around his wrists and pulling his hands away. “Hey.”

Keith reluctantly met Lance’s eyes again. “What?”

There was a beat where Lance searched his face before he was smiling, slow and wide and bright as the sun. “You like me,” he repeated, wondering.

Keith’s breath caught as he nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

Lance laughed softly, a quiet huff, as he leaned in. This time, when they kissed, it was soft and lingering. Keith let his eyes slide shut, lost in the feeling of Lance’s lips, those long fingers cupping Keith’s jaw and thumbs brushing along his cheekbones. When they finally broke apart, Keith’s head was swimming. He leaned his forehead against Lance’s and took a second to breathe. Everything was so warm-- Lance’s hands on his face, the afternoon sun beating down on them, the disbelief in his mind melting away into pure awe.

Lance snorted quietly before kissing him again. Keith let him, lingered on it for a minute before pulling away. “What?”

“We’re dumb, dude. We could have been doing this all along.”

Keith hummed, pressing another quick kiss to the corner of Lance’s mouth. “Yeah, we are.”

“Hey!” someone yelled, and they turned to see Pidge and Hunk standing in the alley below the balcony. Hunk was beaming at them. Pidge was wrinkling her nose, although Keith could see her fighting her own smile even from thirty feet away. “You doofuses know the rules. The apartment is a PDA-free zone.”

Lance wrapped an arm around Keith’s shoulders and pulled him closer, ignoring his yelp of protest, and flipped her off with his free hand as he dropped loud, smacking kisses down Keith’s face. “Try and stop us, Pidgeot!”

Hunk wolf-whistled over Pidge’s noise of disgust, but Keith didn’t even care. He was too busy laughing as Lance nuzzled his cheek, grin brushing the corner of his mouth. “Think she’ll kill me for that?”

Keith pulled back enough to look at him, tracing the laugh lines at the corners of his bright blue eyes, the freckles across his nose, and shrugged. “Worth it.”

Lance’s grin softened, and he leaned in to rest their foreheads together again. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Keith closed his eyes, smiling. Down in the alley, Hunk and Pidge were arguing about exceptions to the PDA rule, and Lance chuckled as Hunk said something about her standing in the way of true love.

There was more to figure out, but for right then, Keith was content to listen to his friends argue as he basked in the sunlight. Lance had been right, all those weeks ago; it didn't matter how far Alpha Centauri was. The closest star was right there the whole time.