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Grocery shopping, an activity that every human being did a couple times a month to sustain themselves and their lifestyle. True, it was a bore and an annoyance, but Lance quite liked the prospect of shopping with his boyfriend. Keith always managed to make the trip more entertaining, be it by keeping him company or by trying to fight yet another person in the parking lot.
With Keith, grocery shopping was downright enjoyable, something Lance looked forward to doing every time the need arose.
Except, Lance thought, glaring furiously at his boyfriend over the dangerously high stack of food items in his arms, except for when he gets like this.
“God, you are such a piece of shit.”
Keith smirked, leaning on a nearby shelf stocked to the edges with various junk food brands like the smug asshole he was. “That’s rude, Lance. You always get mad at me when I talk to people like that.
Lance sighed heavily, shooting what felt like the hundredth glare in his boyfriend’s direction. “Yeah,” he growled, “because most of the time those people don’t deserve it.”
Raising his hand in defense, Keith gave Lance his best shit-eating grin, shrugging and spinning around to survey the selection of chip brands to his left.
Yes, his hand, singular. Though Keith used his lack of a left arm as an excuse to get out of helping with things (such as right now), it was hard for Lance to fault him for it. After hearing about the traumatic experience the other had gone through when he was a kid and the months after he lost the limb, it was near impossible for Lance to get frustrated with Keith and his one-armed antics, especially because most of the time they were damn hilarious.
Only in certain instances, when Lance’s exasperation rose to almost unforeseeable heights, did he get fed up with his boyfriend. It took Keith doing something especially frustrating, especially snarky, and especially drawn out for Lance to get upset.
And yet here he was, gaping at his boyfriend while simultaneously repressing the urge to take the other’s prosthetic and beat him with it. Seriously, what the hell was up with Keith today, had he always been this sassy and Lance just hadn’t realized it? Had he truly started dating a demon without even knowing about it?
The pile in his arms lurched dangerously to the side, drawing Lance from his thoughts as he quickly struggled to maintain the stack’s balance. He squawked, barely keeping the topmost box from plummeting to the ground in what would have been a very messy, very dramatic mess.
With the crisis (barely) averted, Lance kicked his boyfriend in the shin to gain his attention, probably with more aggression than necessary, but at this point he was too frustrated to care. “Hey Keith, can you give me a hand with these?”
“Uh, no. I only have one.”
Groaning loudly, Lance shot a glare as his boyfriend over the stack of food items in his arms. “Dude, seriously. That was bad, even for you.”
Keith smirked, making a face that would have Lance laughing his guts out if it hadn’t been directed at himself. “Shut up, it was good.”
Raising his eyebrows, Lance made to pat Keith consolingly on the shoulder before realizing he had absolutely zero free hands to do so with. Instead, he managed a light tap to his boyfriend’s leg with his foot, quickly putting it down before he tipped over and suffocated under a mass of foodstuffs. “Uh, no, it really wasn’t.”
Tuning out whatever sarcastic remark Keith had uttered in response, Lance flicked his eyes up, trying to remember just what exactly he needed to get. Bread, check. Turkey, check. Milk, got it, and… oh yeah!
Lance’s eyes lit up as he recalled wanting to bake cookies for his mom, dead set on proving to her that he would and could take care of himself without an adult around, thank you very much.
“Keith,” Lance called, waiting until he had his boyfriend’s seemingly inch-long attention span. “Could you go grab some eggs from the produce isle?”
Keith shrugged, fiddling with his prosthetic in that odd but strangely adorable habit of his as he nodded and glanced upwards, examining the overhead signs for directions to the proper isle.
“Yeah, sure.” He wandered off, but not before looking over his shoulder with yet another cat-like grin. “But you might want to get a basket for all that, kinda seems like you’re having trouble carrying it. It’d be a real shame if it fell.”
Cheeky little shit. Lance huffed, lamenting over his full hands so he couldn’t flip the other off. No matter, let Keith have his fun today. Rest assured Lance would pay him back tenfold with just as much sass on a later date, he just wasn’t sure how yet.
Mind slowly filling with thoughts of sweet revenge, Lance turned back to shopping, perusing the isles in search of essential food items he needed for the next week or so. And if he stopped by the front to grab a basket while he was doing so, that was none of Keith’s business.
Roughly ten minutes passed before Lance placed the last item he needed in the basket, frustration over Keith’s random, snarky behavior already dwindling. It’s not like it mattered all that much, nothing had fallen and Lance had honestly needed a basket anyways.
And it wasn’t like Keith wasn’t being helpful, see? There he was now, strolling through the shelves towards Lance carrying a carton of—
Lance squinted. Wait a second…
In Keith’s arms, rather than a monochrome, cardboard carton of eggs that Lance had so lovingly asked him to fetch, was a colorful bag of sour fucking gummy worms.
Lance face-palmed, and he was pretty sure the force he used could have given someone a concussion.
“Keith,” Lance groaned, expression exuding an air of ‘are you fucking kidding me’ while the said man met his gaze with a deadpan stare. “Are you serious?”
In response, Keith merely blinked, tucking the damned bag of candy under his arm to brush his hair from his face. “I couldn’t find the eggs.”
Frustration skyrocketing, Lance stared dubiously at his boyfriend for a few, uninterrupted seconds before jolting, using his unoccupied hand to gesture aggressively at the space behind Keith. “I just watched you walk over here from the produce isle!”
Keith shifted and turned his head, staring over his shoulder with a bland expression. “Oh, guess I didn’t see them.”
Rather than point out the fact that he could see the eggs from right fucking there, Lance sucked in a breath, all but forcing his temper not to boil out of control (as it was so close to doing). He was the better man after all, and the better man did not continue arguments, no matter how badly one might wish to.
Instead, Lance shot a frustrated glare at his boyfriend and shoved the basket into his arms, pushing past the other as he made a b-line for the eggs. As he stormed towards the produce isle, Lance refused to let himself feel bad over how Keith had struggled to keep the basket’s contents from spilling; the guy may only have one arm but he was still an asshole.
Snatching a carton of eggs from the shelf and shoving them roughly into Keith’s unsteady arms, Lance strode towards the checkout area, doing his absolute best not to react to his boyfriend’s muttered, snarky remark of, “You probably just broke them all, genius.”
Forcing a semi-pleasant expression onto his face, Lance greeted the cashier, responding to her questioning “did you find everything alright” with a terse, “yes ma’am,” more than eager to purchase the food and get the hell out of there before he actually punched Keith. The girl nodded and fortunately didn’t push further conversation, scanning the food items from the basket his boyfriend had carried over with the air of one who had done it a thousand times before.
Relatively calmed by the methodical, dull progression of the items into grocery bags and the monotonous beep over the scanner as it registered the items’ bar codes, Lance’s mood began to brighten ever so slightly at the prospect of being able to leave the store and get his nightmare of a boyfriend away before he could wreak more havoc on his mental state. Three more items… two more… one—
“Keith,” Lance growled, eyes flashing as he snatched the multicolored, cheap plastic bag from the conveyor belt. “No.”
Jutting out his lip with an expression Lance knew to be one hundred percent acting, Keith pouted sullenly, and Lance would almost have been impressed with his acting if his agitation levels didn’t currently rival that of the volcano that had destroyed Pompeii. “Please? It’s only three bucks.”
Lance scowled, refusing to be swayed by Keith’s wide, slightly watery (was he serious), eyes. “I’m not buying them for you, so stop.”
“But—“
“No.”
For a brief moment, Lance felt a surge of victory rush through his veins, having successfully faced off and won against Keith and his uncannily good sulk. Unfortunately, the feeling didn’t last, and honestly, Lance should have known better. He should have seen it coming. After all, what does one expect when their boyfriend is a conniving, sassy, and scheming excuse of a human being?
Keith’s eyes narrowed as he angled his head away from the curious gaze of the cashier, ominously mouthing out a slow, ‘Is that how you wanna play it?’
Lance’s stomach plummeted. “Don’t.” he hissed through clenched teeth, fists balling at his sides.
But Keith was no longer listening.
Turning once again so that the cashier now had an eyeful of his pitiful expression, Keith made direct eye contact with Lance, somehow managing to exude smugness only seen by Lance while simultaneously pulling off a downright broken-hearted expression.
“It’s just that,” he began, “I haven’t had anything sweet in so long. The medication I’m on to prevent infection in my arm would react bad with any glucose I might ingest, so I haven’t been allowed to eat any sugar.”
Ah, the ace up his sleeve. Keith hadn’t even tried to be subtle, nope. Right off the bat, he had played his trump card; the prosthetic limb.
Lance was so fucking done.
Narrowing his eyes, Lance did his very best to channel his inner cyborg powers and shoot lasers out of his eyes, but alas was unsuccessful, most likely because he wasn’t a cyborg. He longed to pick up the candy and hurl it across the store, screaming, “That’s bullshit and you know it” as he did so. But he didn’t, because Lance was a civilized being who, no matter how agitated, did not. Throw. Food.
His frustration must have shown in his expression, causing the corner of Keith’s mouth to twitch wickedly.
Keith glanced furtively at the cashier, meeting her gaze for less than a second before glancing back to Lance, making the eye contact with her seem both accidental and embarrassed. But Lance knew it for what it was: a pity move, done only to garner sympathy and support. Asshole.
“Thankfully, the risk of my arm getting infected drastically went down so I was allowed to stop taking the meds for a bit, but the doctor said I may soon need to start them up again. This…” He trailed off, eyes glazing over with a wistful look. “This may be the only chance I have to eat something sugary for a while.”
That absolute fucker. Lance’s eyes widened in outrage, stamping down the urge to chuck the bag of gummy worms in the other’s face. Keith had him cornered, and he knew it, too.
If, after that truly tear-jerking speech, Lance still refused to buy him the gummy worms, he would be portrayed as a heartless monster, a terrible boyfriend through and through. If he tried to make Keith pay for it, he’d be seen as stingy and as equally heartless as if he had refused to buy them in the first place, because after all, who makes a guy lacking a left arm pay for things?
So essentially, he had only two options. Buy the bag of gummy worms for the black-haired demon, or sacrifice his carefully constructed reputation as a good human being.
Sighing with all the exasperation of a thousand disappointed middle-aged parents, Lance turned to Keith, just on the brink of saying the words that the other wanted to hear, the words that would earn him a fat, sugary bag of gummy worms. But right before he could admit defeat, something stopped him.
If asked later on, Lance wouldn’t be able to say just exactly it was that prevented him from giving in. It could have been the evil glint in Keith’s eyes, or it could have been the expression promising years of smug superiority over this small victory. Most likely, it was a mix of both that prevented Lance from buying the candy, but no matter. Enough was enough, and Lance was thoroughly and completely done.
“No.” Immediately, he became the target of two questioning gazes, one laced with confusion while the other, the cashier’s, bordered on severe disappointment while her eyes screamed to call him a heartless bastard.
Keith’s brow furrowed, upset at his victory being so close but seized from his grasp the moment before he could obtain it. But before he could object, Lance plowed on, not even remotely willing to give his boyfriend the chance to spin another bullshit sob story. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, for you to eat sugar, I mean.”
“But I stopped—“
"Taking your medication, I know. But you only got off the pills recently.” Lance grinned triumphantly in his mind, taking immense pleasure in how the tables seemed to have turned. Go on, say I’m lying.
When Keith, save for the daggers he was currently shooting at him with his eyes, didn’t so much as twitch, Lance took it as his cue to continue on. “Come on Keith, you know how these things work. You only stopped taking your meds a couple days ago, and there could definitely be traces of it still in your body.”
Lance glanced away and blinked rapidly, hoping that his role as Bush #2 in the seventh-grade play would help him see this through. But just in case, he sent a quick, silent prayer to the god of acting to help him make this as convincing as possible.
Hoping to space and back that he wasn’t laying it on too thick, Lance forced all the emotion he could muster into his voice, immensely pleased to find it come out a bit shaky. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Keith. I—“ he paused for dramatic effect, blinking away a slight sheen of tears he had forced into his eyes only god knows how. “I care about you too much to let that happen.”
The cashier gasped, making a soft sound as her hand flew up to grasp at her heart. Lance barely managed to repress a smile. Hook, line, and sinker.
Gently grasping the bag of gummy worms, Lance lifted it from the conveyor belt before handing it over to Keith, disguising a rather forceful punch to the arm as a comforting pat. “I’m not willing to risk it, Keith. Please,” he locked eyes with the other, not even so much as blinking as he very slowly spoke the next words. “I couldn’t bear to see you hurt anymore.”
And just like that, it was over. In his mind’s eye, Lance stood in the middle of a boxing ring, waving at the surrounding, screaming crowd as he loomed over a fallen Keith, still clutching weakly at a bag of dirty gummy worms. While in his head, he would have gladly punted that wretched thing to hell, Lance simply settled for giving Keith a light shove in the direction of the candy isle, mouth turned down sadly while his eyes dared his boyfriend to challenge him.
And though he didn’t challenge him, what he did was pretty damn close. Dropping the pitiful façade the instant Lance placed the bag of candy in his hand, Keith clicked his tongue, snorting as he glared murderously at the other. “Oh screw you, Lance. I had that one in the bag.”
Lance was too wrapped up in his victory to even be the slightest bit mad. “You’re just upset I won’t get your damn candy.”
“I would have my damn candy by now if you hadn’t said anything!”
Lance shrugged and gave his boyfriend another little push, ignoring Keith’s glare in favor of whipping out his debit card to hand to the rather confused cashier. “Well that’s what you get for being a snarky little shit. I told you I wouldn’t buy them for you.”
Keith took a few steps in the direction of the candy isle before stopping, turning his head to look back at Lance with a blank expression. Lance frowned. “No.” He took a couple more steps before stopping once again, turning to look at the other with the same, apathetic gaze. “I said no, Keith. Go put them back.”
Keith scowled before finally disappearing into the candy isle, leaving Lance to finish making his purchase, all the while wondering how he’d gotten stuck dating a three-year-old. He accepted his card back from the cashier, ignoring her expression of severe confusion as he walked the few feet to the bagging area where his food items were.
Catching sight of Keith as he skulked back towards the checkout area, Lance grabbed the grocery bags and loaded them into a basket, striding towards the sliding doors with a pleased, if not slightly smug stride. Confident that his boyfriend was trailing behind him, Lance didn’t feel the need to look back, instead focusing his thoughts on his highly irregular errand run.
Though it hadn’t exactly been the nicest grocery store trip he’d endured, it was definitely the most interesting. And of course, his victory over that manipulative excuse of a boyfriend had indeed made it the tiniest bit enjoyable.
Warm sunlight beat down upon Lance’s face as he exited the store, coming to a stop beside the road as he scanned the parking lot for his car. Finally, he could go home, and Lance couldn’t wait to—
An ear-splitting screech rang through the air, drawing the attention of everyone in a twenty-foot radius towards the entrance to the store. Lance jumped and fumbled with the basket, cursing viciously as he spun around, and ready to scream at whoever had almost made him drop his groceries.
Behind him, wearing the guiltiest expression mankind had ever seen, was Keith, his flesh arm wrapped suspiciously around his stomach while beads of sweat formed just below his hairline. He stared back at Lance, meeting the other’s gaze with comically widened eyes as his eyebrows formed surprised and nervous arches on his forehead.
Upon seeing Lance's searching gaze lower towards his gut area, Keith hunched further in on himself, causing Lance’s brow to furrow deeply in suspicion. He leaned closer to get a better look, narrowing his eyes and nearly dropping his grocery again, but was at this point too invested in his boyfriend’s guilty expression to care.
Just below the area of his stomach Keith was grabbing, Lance could just make out a plastic, brightly colored wrapper, barely visible from beneath the thick hem of the other’s jacket.
Lance squinted, staring at the wrapper for a full five seconds while sirens wailed, people gawked, and the store attendants amassed.
Wait.
“Dammit, Keith!”