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Lance hadn’t even been aware they could have storms in space. He glanced over at Keith’s face, brow furrowed. “Okay but don’t the Lions have like….shielding? They’re giant sentient magical metal cats. Shielding against magnetic storms is definitely something the Alteans thought of.”
Keith raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you want to risk it with a giant hole in Scarlet’s side?”
“.....no.”
“Exactly. So here it is.”
Lance sighed as Keith turned back to his gauntlet computer. He studied his face as he worked, the intense focus evident in his narrowed eyes and the way his mouth moved through silent Galran muttering as he worked. Lance couldn’t make out the words, but it was mesmerizing all the same. The way Keith’s lips formed the harsh zs and ks, hissed out the th and s, and pressed together on the ms all pulled him in closer, made Lance want to feel them against his skin, kiss the words--
Oh no.
This was not the time, brain. He’d thought he was over this stupid crush. Keith had barely been back for a phoeb, he was still adjusting to being the Black Paladin again, still dealing with the fallout of everything that had led them here, to this world full of important parts to fix the Castle, so there was no way Lance was adding another complication to Keith’s already full plate.
“Lance?”
Lance snapped back to the present to find purple eyes boring into his own. “Yes?” he squeaked.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing! What are you doing?”
Keith’s eyes narrowed in what Lance was really hoping was not suspicion. “Tracking the mag-storm. I was hoping to find some sort of gap in the winds we could get through, but no luck. We’re probably gonna be stuck here until it’s done.”
“Since when are you the space weatherperson?”
“Since I studied it at the Garrison?”
“Wait, really?”
“Yes,” Keith rolled his eyes, “Space weather is actually how I figured out they were lying about the Kerberos Mission.”
Lance blinked at that admission for a moment before a grin slowly spread across his face. “Nerd.”
“I’m a pilot, it was required.”
“And you found it fu-un!”
“Come to think of it, wasn’t it required for you too? As a pilot?”
Lance waved the teasing accusation in Keith’s voice away. “Yeah but I didn’t take it second semester like a nerd and then slept through most of it and midway through we ended up here, so.”
“If it was like...a bio storm or something I have the distinct feeling you’d be nerding out a whole hell of a lot more.”
“And I own that fact.”
“Mhm.”
They settled into silence, Keith glancing between his gauntlet and the sky. Lance was pretending he wasn’t staring at Keith’s eyes. In the twilight they reflected the stars, twin galaxies--
Aaaaand he was getting sappy again. Time to focus on something else. “Hey, Keith? The Garrison definitely didn’t teach you how to track space weather with Altean tech, but you’re doing that like you’ve been doing it for years.”
“I mean, I was based off a hidden base that relied on tracking the weather around a blue supergiant being sucked into two black holes to be able to navigate in and out for three decaphoebs.”
“Oh right. Yeah I guess that would be useful.”
Keith’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Kozur taught me a few things. Here, you wanna learn? The controls in our armor are super similar to the ones on Morakiulide and if I bounce a signal from Scarlet’s scanners it’s almost as powerful.”
“Sure? It’ll at least be something to do while we’re stuck here.”
“Until that Imperial ship finds us.”
“Well, yeah. But I'm pretty sure they landed in a flaming heap somewhere very far from here. We'll be fiiiiine."