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"So . . . I may have accidentally adopted five cats." Pidge admits half an hour into their first college party; they then proceed to adjust their glasses and take a meek sip from their can of Mountain Dew.
Hunk's own gulp of Sprite spews from his mouth in and act of disbelief. "Pidge! What the - how?"
Pidge shrugs as if what they just described is a mistake that any normal human can make. "It just sort of happened."
Lance's jaw hangs open in shock, and it takes him a while to form coherent words. "Oh my god, Pidge! Where are you going to keep them?"
"You know you're not allowed to have pets in the dorms, right?" Keith raises his eyebrows, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Of course I know that," Pidge scoffs, clearly insulted that Keith hinted at them being ignorant of the campus rules. "It just . . . didn't cross my mind while making the transaction."
"And at what time did you make said transaction?" Keith tilts his head to the side with an irritated expression that says he already knows the answer.
Pidge takes a long sip of their Mountain Dew before muttering, "3 am."
Another spit take from Hunk. "Pidge!"
". . . There's more."
Keith, Lance, and Hunk all look worriedly at Pidge, each wondering how much worse this could possibly get.
Pidge adjusts their glasses once again and swallows. "The kittens are getting dropped off tomorrow afternoon, during my chemistry presentation. Which means one of you has to go to the campus entrance and pick them up for me."
"No way." Hunk holds up his hands. "I am not smuggling illegal kittens into your dorm for you. And even if I wanted to, I'm working tomorrow afternoon."
Pidge looks expectantly at Lance and Keith, pleading for help with their eyes.
"Not happening." Keith snaps.
"I'll buy you each ten packages of ramen."
A pause.
"Fifteen," Keith says firmly, "because I have to do it with Lance."
Lance's jaw drops open to protest, but Pidge cuts him off.
"Deal."
The Next Day
"I cannot believe we're actually doing this." Lance paces back and forth in the guest parking lot, wringing his hands.
"Hey, just be thankful that I got us fifteen packs of ramen instead of ten." Keith says, his back resting against a nearby car and his forearms interlocked.
Lance narrows his eyes. If Keith lived inside a video game, leaning against something with crossed arms would be his idle animation. "I'm not going to be thankful for something I gained at my own expense," he snaps, continuing to pace.
Keith checks his watch and shakes his head. "They're ten minutes late."
Lance takes a deep breath and ups his walking speed.
"Dude, will you chill out?" Keith furrows his eyebrows at Lance. "Why are you freaking out over this?"
"Gee, Keith, I'm not quite sure, maybe because we could get expelled if we're caught?"
Keith rolls his eyes. "For a first offense? Not likely."
Lance swallows and shakes his head. "But what if we do? There's no way another college would accept me, and then it'd be impossible for me to get a job-"
"Lance."
"-and then my family would disown me for being a disgrace-"
"Lance."
"-and then I'd have to live on the streets and steal food from-"
Keith steps forward and grabs Lance by the shoulders, turning the latter to face him. "Hey. You're overthinking. It's going to be okay. Breathe."
Lance takes a few deep breaths, his face contorted with worry.
Keith's mouth forms a tight smile as he impersonates their local news reporter. "Earlier this morning two college students were arrested for attempting to smuggle five kittens into their best friend's dorm room."
That earns a laugh from Lance, and Keith smiles slightly.
A moment later, Lance's face turns serious. "Hold up. Did you just crack a joke?" Keith rolls his eyes, and Lance grins. "Shiro told me once that you only make jokes around people you like. I'm flattered."
Keith's smile falters - especially when he notices that his hands are still on Lance's shoulders. He takes the opportunity to shove Lance lightly and shake his head, casting his eyes towards the pavement. "Yeah right. You wish."
Their coversation is interrupted when a white SUV turns the corner and pulls into the lot, parking a few spaces away from where they stand.
"Seriously? A white van?" Keith scoffs, grateful for the distraction from Lance's earlier observation. "Could they have been any more suspicious?"
Lance shrugs as a man dressed head to toe in black hops out of the driver's seat and walks to the back of the SUV. "Is one of you Pidge?" he asks.
"Uh, we're Pidge's friends," Lance explains. "They had a presentation to do today, so they sent us to pick up the, er, packages."
While the guy nods and pops the trunk, Keith gives Lance a look that says, Seriously? Packages?
Lance shrugs exasperatedly, his brain overloaded with nerves.
The boys' attention is drawn to the van's trunk as a chorus of soft mews echoes from it.
Keith takes a step closer and peers into the back of the car, which reveals two large travel crates, each lined with soft bedding and containing small catnip toys; one cage contains three small orange kittens, while the other holds two. No matter how suspicious this man seems, the layout of the cages tells Keith that he genuinely cares about the wellbeing of these small animals.
Lance's face lights up at the sight of the cats, all of his nervous energy seeming to drain away in an instant. "Oh my gosh, they're so cute!"
Keith smiles at the childish look that has engulfed Lance's face. "Yeah," he murmers. "They really are."
The Kitten Dealer, as Keith has now labeled the man, raises a single eyebrow at him. Keith swallows nervously, regretting having said that outloud.
Lance, completely oblivious to this silent exchange, is now sticking his fingers through the bars of the cage in order to pet the closest kitten. "They're so fluffy," he whispers in awe.
"Have you never pet a cat before?" Keith asks, reverting to his sarcastic exterior. As if he'd ever let Lance know just what goes on inside his head.
Lance just shakes his head, unaffected by the snideness of Keith's words. "Do you have anything we can cover the cages with?" he asks The Kitten Dealer. "We're not exactly allowed to have pets on campus."
The mysterious man nods, rummaging through the trunk for a few moments before producing two black blankets. He begins to attach them to the cages with velcro. "Don't worry, these are thin enough that air can continuously flow through - they'll be able to breathe just fine."
Keith nods, appreciative of this man's unlikely affection towards these small creatures.
Once The Kitten Dealer has finished fastening the blankets, he lifts the cage containing three kittens and gently hands it off to Keith. "One for you," he then repeats the same process in order to transfer the second cage to Lance, "one for your boyfriend."
"Oh - we're not - he's-" Lance stutters, his ears flushing, but the man just winks at Keith before slamming the trunk and walking back to the driver's seat.
Lance turns to look at Keith; but before he can fully pivot, Keith turns to begin the long trek to Pidge's building, unwilling to look at Lance head on. A few moments later, Lance catches up to him, and the two stride side-by-side in silence.
For about ten seconds, that is. "Why'd he give you the one with three cats?" Lance questions with the same tone as a toddler asking why his brother was given more candy. "Does he think I'm weak or something? 'Cause I'm just as strong as you are, if not mo-"
"God, Lance, does it matter? Why does everything have to be a competition with you?" Keith snaps. Lance falls silent, and Keith internally curses himself for loosing his temper. Why does it seem to happen every time he's forced to spend time with Lance?
"You don't have to do that, you know." Lance says after a stretch of silence.
Keith looks over at him. "Do what?"
Lance levels his gaze right at Keith, and Keith has a hard time maintaining eye contact. "Y'know, that thing where you're purposely rude to people you care about in an attempt to push them away."
Any rebuttle that was forming in Keith's throat gets choked off before it can leave his mouth. He drops his gaze to the pavement and swallows hard. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay, I know you can't help it sometimes."
Keith looks up at Lance, and catches him in a rare candid moment. The bright sun causes his hair it to look more auburn than brown, and his freckles are vivid; his blue eyes stand out brilliantly against his Cuban skin.
Lance looks over and catches Keith staring. His mouth curves into the lopsided smile that Keith secretly loves. "What?"
"You just . . . nevermind." Keith mutters, diverting his eyes for what feels like the tenth time that afternoon. God, what is wrong with him? Why can't he just act like a rational adult and tell Lance how he really feels? "You're really good at knowing how my brain works." Keith finishes his sentence in a much different way than previously intended. "I think you know my mind better than I do."
"Is that so?" Lance's eyes have obtained a miscevious glint - one that Keith knows to avoid at all cost. "Pidge's presentation won't be over for another half hour. How about we play a game to pass the time?"
Keith shrugs. "Fine. What game?"
Lance cocks his head to the side. "Twenty questions."
Keith rolls his eyes. "Isn't that the game teenagers play on first dates in order to get to know each other?"
"Well, we are boyfriends, remember?"
Keith stumbles and almost drops the cage he's been carrying, but manages to right himself at the last second.
"Kidding, kidding!" Lance grins and wiggles his eyebrows, clearly amused by Keith's reaction.
Keith laughs somewhat mockingly. "You don't have to do that, you know."
Lance's smile turns confused. "Do what?"
"Y'know, that thing where you purposely flirt with me because I'm just that attractive and irresistible?"
Now Lance's smile dissipates completely, instead replaced by the blood flowing to his ears. "I wasn't - I didn't-"
"It's okay," Keith flashes his most mocking grin, "I know you can't help it sometimes."
And with that, the two boys arrive outside of Pidge's building.
Lance must have decided that he was going to ignore Keith's previous statement, because instead he gets straight to the point. "Okay, remember our cover story: we both started playing the French horn, and these are our instrament cases."
"I'm sorry - what?" Keith sputters, halting just outside the front doors. "I am not telling people that I play the Swedish horn."
"French ho-"
"Whatever! That's the best lie you could come up with?"
"Well I didn't exactly have any help." Lance shoots Keith a pointed look. "Any besides, it's the perfect excuse. It explains why the cases are so big, and it's one of the only instruments that no one is going to ask to see. Sure, everyone wants to look at your radical guitar, but does anyone care about your French horn? No. The answer is no."
Keith thinks this over for a few seconds. "That's . . . actually, that's kind of genius."
Lance winks at him. "Thanks, babe. Let's do this."
Keith blinks. "Um-"
And with that, Lance quite litteraly kicks open the building's glass door - the opposite of staying inconspicuous, if you ask Keith - and swaggers into the front lobby.
"Hiya Lance! Hey Keith!" The two boys are greeted by the bulding's RA, Katrina. "Here to visit Pidge, I assume?"
"Yup." Lance nods with a warm smile. "We're going to congratulate them on their chemistry presentation with a song on our new French horns!" He gestures excitedly towards the containers at his and Keith's sides.
Katrina's eyes light up. "Ooh! Can I hear it?"
Lance's shoulders slump in mock disappointment, never missing a beat. "Aw man, we totally would play it for you, but it's not completely finished yet and we only have ten minutes before Pidge gets back. Maybe another time, though!"
Lance grabs Keith's hand and begins fast walking in the direction of the elevators, but just before they're about to turn the corner, a loud meow emanates from Keith's cage.
Katrina frowns and looks around. "What was that?"
Keith pops his head back around the corner. "New text tone. You like?"
And with that Lance yanks him into the now opening elevator and rather calmly spams the "close door" button.
As soon as the metal doors seal shut, the boys place their cages on the ground and sag against the walls in relief. Lance lets go of Keith's hand, which causes it to feel abruptly cold.
"Dang. Why are you so good at lying?" Keith asks, now wondering how many times Lance has fooled him.
Lance puts his hands on his hips and looks off into the distance. "It's a gift." He then turns and playfully smacks Keith's shoulder with the back of his hand. "You're not so bad yourself, mister. That whole 'text tone' thing was amazingly fast thinking."
Keith mimicks Lance's previous pose. "What can I say? Born with it."
Lance laughs, and that alone makes Keith feel like he's done something great.
The elevator slows to a stop, and Keith and Lance pick up their respective cages in order to step out onto the fourth floor. They make their way through the halls to Pidge's room, and Lance uses a borrowed key to let them in.
Pidge's dorm room looks just like every other single on campus - the main hallway leads to a living room adorned with a couch, coffee table, and tv, and branching off from that is a bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom.
"Can we talk about how Katrina is the only person in the entire universe who would ask to hear our terrible German horn song?"
Lance chuckles as he places his kennel down in the middle of the room. "French horn, Keith."
"Whatever." Keith places his container next to Lance's. The two boys each grab one end of Pidge's coffee table, and move it closer to the wall to make space for the newly arrived guests. "Katrina is the only person who would ask to hear our awful song, no matter the horn's nationality."
Lance bursts out laughing, and Keith can't help but feel proud. Maybe there is some truth to what Shiro said.
Lance seems, once again, to have read Keith's mind. "Either you're really trying to impress these kittens, or there's something you're not telling me."
Keith flops down onto Pidge's couch and rests his head on his arms. "Shut up."
"That wasn't a no!"
Keith lets out an irritated breath and shakes his head. Lance loves to make jokes about coming out to each other, even though that was something they'd already done sophmore year of high school. Keith liked guys; Lance didn't care about the gender of the person he was dating - he had explained many, many times that to him, someone's gender mattered about as much as their shoe size.
The sound of metal jangling shakes Keith from his train of thought, and he sits up to see Lance kneeling on the ground, fumbling with the door of one of the cages.
"Don't you think we should wait for Pidge before we let five cats loose in their apartment?"
Lance looks up, pulling an innocent face as he maintains direct eye contact with Keith.
Click.
"Lance!"
Lance grins as the cage door swings open, and the cutest creature Keith has ever seen - other than Lance, that is, but Keith would rather die than express that thought - hesitantly peeks it's head out and sniffs the carpet.
Lance inhales excitedly as the orange ball of fur waddles out into Pidge's living room.
Keith takes this distraction as an opportunity to lean forward and close the cage door.
Lance pouts up at Keith, who crosses his arms in response. "One at a time."
Lance sets his jaw like he's about to argue, but then the kitten nudges its head against his knee, and all the tension drains from his face.
"Hi there!" Lance voice goes up an octave as he strokes the kitten's fur. It purrs at him, pressing its small forehead into the palm of his hand.
Keith bites his lip - a bad habit that always comes out when his brain is working itself into a frenzy. He had underestimated just how adorable these tiny creatures would be, and he had also underestimated just how adorable Lance would be while interacting with them.
"You wanna pet 'em?" Lance looks up at Keith expectantly.
Keith shrugs. "Animals tend not to really like me."
Lance waves his hand dismisively. "Oh, nonsense. Here." He reaches towards the cat, but stops halfway through the motion and looks up at Keith sheepishly. "I, uh, I don't really know how to pick it up."
Keith raises his eye brows, clearly amused. "You've seriously never held a cat before?"
Lance shakes his head. "My family only ever had dogs."
Keith nods, and pushes off from the couch in order to kneel before Lance and the kitten. He delicately scoops the small animal into his arms and motions for Lance to sit down on the couch with him. Lance obeys, and Keith places the small ball of fur between them.
Lance reaches out a hesitant hand, and gasps softly when the kitten sniffs him. "Is their nose supposed to be wet like that?" he asks. Keith just chuckles and nods.
Then, ever so slowly, the kitten stands up on wobbly legs and begins the journey from the cushion into Lance's lap.
"Aw, it likes you," Keith smiles slightly as Lance glances nervously at the small animal climbing into his lap.
However, this sweet moment is broken as the kitten starts to claw its way up under Lance's shirt.
Lance inhales sharply, each little paw probably feeling like five tiny stabs to the abdomen.
"Keith," he breaths, holding his arms away from his body like someone who's just spilled water all down their front. "Help. Help me. Keith."
"I - uh-" Keith robotically reaches up under Lance's shirt in order to detach the kitten from his chest. He tries not to think about how his entire face feels like a bad sunburn, or how smooth Lance's skin is, or how Lance seems to be holding his breath, his ears a vibrant red.
Keith succeeds in obtaining the small cat and places it on the ground; it waddles towards the coffee table, flicking its tail as it goes.
"Thank you." Lance lets out a breath and relaxes into the couch cushions, self-consciously adjusting his t-shirt and refusing to look Keith in the eye.
For a while, the two boys sit in awkward silence, watching the cat attempt to climb up onto the coffee table. Keith tries to distract himself from the fact that his hands were just up Lance's shirt, but he fails miserably. Lance must moisturize. It's not humanly possible for someone's skin to be that smooth.
"I can't believe something so small can be so complex," Lance mutters at length.
Keith's brow furrows as he's drawn from his train of thought. "What do you mean?"
Lance cocks his head to the side, seemingly trying to come up with a way to verbalize his thoughts. "I just mean, inside this tiny cat is a tiny heart and two tiny lungs and a thousand tiny veins carrying tiny blood cells to and from a tiny brain. I wonder what the world looks like from that perspective." He pauses. "I wish I could be as ignorant about the world as that cat."
A few seconds of silence pass before Lance looks up to find Keith's eyes boring into his.
Lance swallows. "What?"
Keith tilts his head slightly but keeps his eyes on Lance's face, as though Lance is a puzzle that he's trying to solve. "You're just . . . your mind is really unique, you know that?"
Silence.
Keith blinks and bites his lip. For a moment, he would swear that Lance's eyes flick down
to his mouth and back up again.
And then a high pitched battle shriek pierces the air, and Keith doesn't even have time to turn his head before the kitten leaps from the coffee table and lands on his back.
Now, one would think that a kitten is pretty light and harmless; however, take a moment to consider what it would feel like for one to leap at you - full force - and with it's claws outstretched. Imagine the fear that would course through you in that moment as your brain gives you a single order: get away.
But perhaps this is just Keith's justification as to why he yelps and pitches forward, pushing Lance down with him and landing chest-to-chest on the couch.
Oops.
Suddenly Keith is looking down into Lance's bold blue eyes, and Lance is staring up into Keith's deep brown ones.
"Hey," Lance says quietly, still managing to come off as confident despite his burning ears, "you look pretty cute from this angle."
Those vividly intricate freckles are just inches away from Keith's face, and he's powerless to stop his eyes from glancing at the ones sprinkled throughout Lance's lips.
"You're not so bad yourself," Keith mutters. However, as his brain is whirring, trying to decide whether to kiss Lance or pull away, a small, fluffy creature makes the decision for him.
The kitten hops from Keith's shoulder to the back of his head, and the unexpected weight causes Keith's head to dip, his lips pressing into Lance's with a muffled mmphh.
The kitten then leaps from Keith's head down to the floor, but neither boy uses this as an excuse to pull away.
They just kiss.
It's at this exact moment that Keith comes to a realization: this is something he's wanted to do for a long time.
By the time they formulate a rhythm, Keith's head is spinning from the surrealness of it all.
Lance's lips are so soft. At first Keith wonders what it would be like to drown in them, but then he realizes that perhaps he already has.
And then, just as everything does, the kiss comes to an end.
With the sound of a key unlocking the dorm room's door, to be exact.
Lance jolts upwards with a start, causing Keith to loose his balance and roll off of the couch with a yelp. He lands in his back with a thud and stares up at the ceiling, contemplating whether or not the last few minutes of his life actually happened. He then hears the dorm room door swinging open, and leans up on one elbow to see Pidge waltzing into the room, carrying bags of cat food stacked inside an abundance of litter boxes.
"Wiggity wiggity what's up, dude-bros," Pidge says in greeting, but they halt when a small orange kitten prances up to them and nudges its forehead against their ankle. "Awwww!" Pidge immediately sets their armful of cat supplies down on the coffee table and kneels down to pet the small creature. They smile, but when they look up at Lance and Keith, their brow furrows in confused ammusement. "Why is Keith on the floor? And why are your faces so flushed?" Pidge's calculating eyes flick between Keith and Lance, and the moment they make the connection is visible on their face. "Oh. My. God."
"We, er-"
"Did you guys make out? On my couch?" Pidge gasps and covers the kitten's eyes with their hands. "In front of my children?"
Keith stands up abruptly. "Welp, it's been great Pidge, but I really should go anywhere but here." And with that, he bolts out of the apartment and down the hall.
After watching Keith go, Pidge turns back to Lance and raises an amused eyebrow.
Lance just stands up, calmly walks out of the room, and closes the door behind him before breaking into a not-too-subtle happy dance.
Keith pokes his head around the corner at the end of the hall. “You’re such a dork,” he calls out, but he’s smiling.
Lance stops dancing only to scoff. “Oh please,” he calls back, grinning. “You like it.”