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“What did you want to talk about?” Lance said, closing the door behind them.
“So...”
“Yeah?” He moved to the bed, sitting on it. Keith was standing still next to a drawer right at the entrance of the bedroom.
“You know that... thing... you did earlier?”
“Pushing you against the wall seductively?” Lance wiggled his brows and laughed a bit, lighthearted. Keith didn’t react. “Sorry. Did it bother you?”
“No, no, not at all, I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, you know. I only did it 'cause I know we’re in a good place with our friendship and I felt free enough.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am. It’s all good.”
“Right.”
They stayed in a heavy, grey-coded silence which was weird enough considering the shiny sun and cloudless sky outside. Lance looked out of the window and his mind started to wander like a girl in a dress, listening to the birds sing and watching the breeze play with the trees’ bright green leaves like they were best friends teasing each other, thinking about how that breeze would feel on his skin and through his hair.
“But that’s not... what I wanted to talk about. I mean it is. It is about that. Just... not... that part?” Keith said and Lance was still on his own head when he answered:
“What’s up then?”
“I kinda liked that.”
And that’s what brought Lance back. His heart pounded a little faster and he felt the urge to blink harder to relieve the sudden rush of adrenaline and expectation on his body, but the years of school theater didn’t fail him now; he kept himself together and not even an outsider would be able to tell anything changed inside of him in that moment.
“Cool.” It’s all he said.
Keith balanced the weight of his body, replacing it from one foot to the other, crossing his arms defensively in front of his chest.
“There’s no euphemism for this. Look, it’s certainly been a long time since I had anything with anyone. Let it be friendly or romantically I’m— not the best on this and I can handle competitions, rivalry, training, but— the things... the things my body wants, my heart wants...” His hands moved around, gesticulating more to let go of the stress than to actually complement his words. “...those are the ones I don’t know how to act properly towards so when you did that earlier something sparkled on my mind and I wondered all day if the reason why I am scared of being emotionally involved with someone is because I’m not used to it.”
He let out a deep breath. Felt good to say it out loud.
“Alright. You’re opening up buddy, that’s good considering that you are... you.” Lance fondly smiled at him. “So what are you gonna do about it?”
“What?”
“How are you gonna work that out inside of you?”
Keith had the answer. It was right at the tip of his tongue after it had gone through the back of his mind and the deep end of his throat, consecutively. However, he didn’t exactly know how to say it. Keith has always been so direct it hurts, so honest he’s cruel, but in that moment— words were difficult.
“You remember that day we read Ari and Dante?” It’s how he decided to start.
“Yeah. Nice book. Melodramatic. Rushed ending. We still don’t know which one of us is Dante. What about it?”
“There’s this part where... where Dante asked to kiss Ari, right?”
“So he could be sure he liked boys and to find out if Ari did too. Right.”
“Yeah, so... I already know I do. Like boys, I mean.”
“Uhum.”
“But, like I said earlier, I don’t know why I don’t feel good about dating them.”
“Okay.”
“So I wanted you to kiss me.”
Lance’s knuckles got a tight grip around the white blanket underneath him, his Adam’s apple going up and down subconsciously a few times.
It’s all he’s been thinking about for the last years. Touching him, kissing him, just pulling him closer, feeling his heat. Showing his devotion on those perfect Cupid’s bow for hours. And it’s right there now, at the tips of his fingers. He’s just got to reach out and touch.
“Well, that was unexpected.” He lets out a little nervous laughter. “Let me get this right, you want me to kiss you so you can be sure you aren’t... broken inside or somethin'?”
“Basically, yeah. Makes sense?”
“Makes sense.” He got surprisingly quiet after that. Lance is the one who usually cheers those moments up and makes them lighter. But now it has to do with him and everything he does, so he’s paralyzed. Keith noticed that.
“Lance… we don’t have to if you don’t want it. It’s pretty obvious.”
“No, it’s fine, I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Nothing that really matters.”
“Okay.”
Lance glanced at him. Slowly, he got up of the bed and walked his way towards Keith, who as still standing next to the door with his arms crossed. He took each of his arms and wrapped them around his own waist, making Keith obligatorily relax. They were now the closest they had ever been, hip bones touching each other and the mismatch on their breathes being as loud as it could be, reminding both of them what was about to happen as if they didn’t already know.
“Tell me if you ever want to stop.” Keith nodded positively at him.
Keith stayed where Lance put him, so Lance let go of the boy’s arms and placed his hands on his soft, warm cheeks. For someone so cold inside, that was unexpected.
Lance could spend hours talking about the fever Keith left inside of him. Keith got him by the heart the first time he rejected him and Lance never got over it. In every single one of his multiple, insufficient, cryptic tries on letting him know how much he adored him, Lance fell deeper and rawer, just as much as he’s falling hostage to the violet eyes right in front of him right now.
He got even closer and brushed his lips against Keith’s, trying to get a little taste or trying to figure out if that moment was real, he didn’t know exactly why. It didn’t matter.
“May I?”
His voice was now profound and he wondered where that came from. Keith didn’t answer his question, pressing their lips together.
It was all fast and wet until Lance put his hands on the back of Keith’s neck, his tongue asking for access to his mouth. Keith then pulled back and softly pushed him away. Awkward.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
Lance didn’t know what to do with himself, so he just got back to the bed.
“The verdict?” Keith raised an eyebrow. “Did you feel anything?”
“No.”
“Oh, okay.”
Blue silence.
“I did.” Said Lance.
“Okay.”
Lance was down, thrown in the darkness of his own mind, on his knees asking for more from the devil.
“At least now we know who is Dante.”