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Chapter Text

-{<Lance POV>}-

As soon as Lance hears his alarm blaring, he blinks his eyes open and sits up, stretching. Lance has always been a morning person, not one to lose beauty sleep over petty things like social media. His internal clock has been well established from years of an ever specific routine that he has no desire to break, especially not today.

Today, Lance was heading back to his school, Altea Prep, for his final year, his senior year. 

The thought makes Lance giddy as he flounders out of bed, rushing to get ready but his flurried excitement just ends up slowing him down. Soon enough, he’s gotten out of his pajamas and is on his way to the bathroom to have a quick shower and do his face routine before anyone else wakes up. 

When the steam from the shower begins to fog up the mirror, Lance gets in. All the tension leaves his shoulders the instant the scalding water hits his back. It doesn’t hurt, he’s used to it by now, so he wastes no time in grabbing his fruity scented shampoo and massaging it into his short brown hair. 

After his tedious process of showering, face routine, a tiny little bit of concealer (can’t go to school with any pimples, he’s had quite enough of puberty already thank you very much ), drying his hair briefly with a towel and admiring the way it puffs up like an angry kitten before combing it down and styling it. Then, it’s time to get dressed.

Now, if this was a civvies day, Lance would spend a lot longer in front of his closet, trying to figure out which fandom shirt he should pair with which pair of bleached or faded jeans. What could he say, he had a look, and he liked it.

This time though, he picked out a clean uniform shirt and slacks from the drawer that his mamá had ever so meticulously ironed for him. He would have done it himself but he was too jittery and his mamá was afraid that he’d catch his finger and burn himself. 

He slipped in front of the mirror that adorned his closet and methodically put on his tie. Years of practice had burned the movements into his muscle memory and he barely even registered that he’d completed it by the time he’d finished. After choosing out a cute pair of socks he’d gotten at a Video Game Convention, (they had little Mushrooms from Mario, what was he supposed to do? Not buy them? Impossible.), he made his way downstairs to collect the school supplies he’d set out the night before.

This time, Lance sported a blue and white polka-dotted backpack, a little juvenile for a high school senior but hey, Lance was mentally like 6 years old so he found it acceptable. Also, his mamá was worried that he’d never be able to find his bag again if it was plain black and he lost it at school. Plus, it was adorable so… yeah. 

Lance smiled at the little Funko Pop keychains he's attached to the keyring. Hunk had gotten him a Squirtle on his birthday during their sophomore year, which was his starter when he played the original Red and Blue games. All three of them held a competition together of who could finish their version first, Lance had Blue, Hunk had Yellow, and Pidge had Green. They hadn’t found anyone to play Red. Lance has suggested Pidge’s brother, Matt, but he was too busy with college applications to play with them, despite how much he wanted to. 

Stuffing his bag with his binders, pencil case, and drawing tablet, Lance zipped up his bag and went to the kitchen to pack his lunch. There wasn’t anything wrong with the cafeteria food, but Lance had always enjoyed the authentic taste of his mamá’s cooking, so he opted to pack leftovers instead of buying his lunch. Plus, as much as it pained him to admit, they weren’t the richest family in the world. With his parents having to raise four kids, most already in college, Lance could understand that they were short on money, which is why he practically jumped at the opportunity to apply for a scholarship at Altea Prep. 

His mamá was already in the kitchen slicing up fresh fruit while huevos Fritos were sizzling away on the stovetop.

“Buenos días, mamá!” [Good morning, Mom!] Lance called as soon as he entered the kitchen, leaning over beside his mamá  to give her a quick peck on the cheek.

“Hola, Hijo. ¿Ya empacaste tu bolso?” [Hello, son. Have you packed your bag yet?] she asked, as Lance went to the cupboard to get plates and cups for setting the table.

“¡Sí! Hice todas mis cosas Ayer para no tener que apresurarme hoy,” [Yes! I did all my things yesterday so I wouldn't have to rush today.] he said proudly and his mamá chuckled.

“Such a good boy, ve a despertar a tu Hermana Rachel, Ella necesita estar en el autobús pronto,” [Such a good boy, go wake up your sister Rachel, she needs to be on the bus soon] she said, going back to cutting up a juicy looking melon.

“Ugh, fine ,” Lance grumbled, ignoring how his mamá chuckled at his dramatics. He stomped up the stairs and braced himself in front of Rachels’ door before banging on it aggressively.

“ Lance, if I find out you woke me up before my alarm you’re dead!” came Rachel’s disgruntled voice from within her bedroom. Lance gulped and checked the clock in the hallway.

Three minutes to 7:00.

He was screwed.

-<To School...>-

Thankfully, his mamá had managed to get him away from Rachel’s wrath and out of the house unscathed, and he began the short trek down the street towards the Preparatory school.

As the alleyway started coming up, Lance swallowed and ducked his head, pretending that he wasn’t deliberately paying attention as he inspected his shoelaces. What an interesting shade of white, very… pure. 

Lance tried to hum a tune to himself as he crossed towards the schoolyard, pretending that his beating heart wasn’t increasing unsteadily as he approached their primary hangout. 

Usually, he’d have Hunk and Pidge next to him, as they could be intimidating in their own ways and their bus stop was a couple of blocks away. This time though, they’d messaged him earlier on Discord to tell him that a new stop opened up in front of the school, and they wouldn’t be able to walk with him anymore. Which means he was completely alone when he saw…

Him.

Keith Kogane.

Resident delinquent, and always itching for a fight, Keith had taken an… interest in him recently. Starting at the end of junior year when he’d catch the other boy staring at him or when he was “invited” to spend lunch with him by one of the other gang members. 

So far, Lance hadn’t been beaten up yet, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He steeled himself for a fight and walked briskly past the alleyway, only to have an arm reach out and tug him into the darkness where he came face to face with Keith.

The delinquent smiled, showing off sharp canines that were in no way human, Lance gulped. “Hi, Lance,” he crooned, his voice always lowered to a whisper when they spoke- er, when Keith spoke. Lance just kind of stood there, paralyzed in fear until he was dismissed. “Been a while, hasn’t it? How was your summer?”

Lance blinked a couple of times to reboot before he registered that Keith was expecting an answer this time. Well, it was a lot better without you in it, he thought. “Oh! I-it was uh, g-good, I guess?” he said. Well, more like squeaked. He couldn’t help it, Keith terrified him .

Keith raised a dark eyebrow, his eyes glinting, “You guess? ”

Not exactly knowing what to say to that, Lance nodded frantically. Thankfully, he was saved another painful interaction by the warning bell ringing, which startled Keith enough for Lance to wrench his sleeve out of his grip. No beat downs for him today, thank you!

“Well, this has been nice, but I’ve gotta skedaddle. Hasta la later, Keith!” Lance nervously babbled, not registering a solid half of the words he spewed out in his rush to get to school and get away from Keith.

As he booked it away from the alley, he thought he might have heard someone sigh deeply, and he felt eyes watching him the whole time he made his way over to the school.

-<To Class...>-

Lance sighed as he settled down in his homeroom seat. He’d been put in Professor Coran’s homeroom class for as long as he could remember. He wasn’t complaining though, the eccentric professor always kept him interested, not an easy feat with his ADHD and combined with the boring subject of History . Regardless, he really liked Coran, especially since he didn’t mind his student’s calling him Coran, because his last name (Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe) was a mouthful, and nobody was able to remember it. Coran didn’t seem to mind though, which Lance admired him for.

Almost immediately after he sat down, a paper airplane landed on his desk. Lance, already knowing who it was from due to the meticulous creases and specific model (modeled for traveling long distances, not speed), smiled and unfolded it carefully. Sure enough, it was a note from Hunk.

Lance glanced up at Coran before grabbing a blue pen and scribbling down a response on the back of the sheet. He folded it again, trying to match up Hunk’s design but he was always better with speed than distance so it came out a little bit more narrow. Then, stealing another quick glance, he precisely tossed the airplane in Hunk’s direction. He didn’t even need to look to throw it, his L.O.L. group didn’t call him The Sharpshooter for nothing.

Unfortunately, their paper message way was eventually caught and confiscated. Thankfully, Coran never read it out to the class, he was cool like that. Lance resorted to mouthing “I’ll tell you later” at Hunk before spinning back around and pulling out his notebook to catch up on the notes he missed. There weren’t any, but he liked to be sure.

When the bell finally rang, Lance ran over to Hunk so they could walk to their shared Chemistry class together and hopefully share a bench. That, and catch Pidge up on all the gossip she’d missed while she was in her advanced Math class.

-<To Class...>-

If Lance had ever done anything to upset some sort of all-powerful god, he was sorry okay? He didn’t mean it, he was probably just being stupid. 

Why the dramatics you ask? Well, the seating plan didn’t exactly go the way Lance had expected. It turns out, Hunk and Pidge had actually been moved to a higher level Chemistry class, once again, leaving Lance behind. Oh well. At least he’d see them at lunch, they’d checked their schedules to make sure they all had the same one. Somehow, they always synced up. Lance suspected Pidge had something to do with it, the little computer genius. Not that he was complaining, because to be perfectly clear, he absolutely was not.

Except for yes, he absolutely was, because their schedule change had landed him with Keith as a lab partner. 

Well, not really, except Keith kind of glared at anyone who wanted to pair up with Lance, (including Shay, who did not deserve that in any way, shape, or form), which kind of forced them together. Again, Lance had no idea what Keith’s deal with him was, and at this point, he was too afraid to ask.

As their teacher, Professor Druid droned on in his usual monotone voice, Lance felt eyes on him again. At first, he brushed it off, thinking that someone was zoning out and unconsciously staring at him (he couldn’t blame them, to be honest, he was starting to as well) but the staring never relented and Lance’s face started heating up slowly as he looked in the corner of his eye to see who was glaring at him so harshly. 

It was Keith because of course it was. Lance sighed inwardly and turned to face Keith. Raising an eyebrow in the universal gesture of “what?”

Keith, however, didn’t seem to get the memo and kept staring at him, Lance suppressed a shiver and grabbed a sticky note from his binder before scribbling a short message across it and slapping it onto the desk in front of Keith.

The delinquent blinked, surprised, and hesitantly picked up the note, as if he thought it would fade if he so much as touched it. Lance barely suppressed a scoff and turned back to the front. Pencil at the ready to take notes. 

A few moments later, the same sticky note Lance had sent Keith was returned to him, this time with a new message written in red ink.

Wow. Not ominous at all. Great going, Keith. 

Lance rolled his eyes and uncapped his blue pen again, which made the boy beside him perk up a bit. At this point, Lance had almost entirely given up on paying attention to what Professor Druid was rambling about, most likely some review or whatever. It didn’t matter, Lance could always get notes from somebody else if they weren’t still intimidated by Keith, that is.

He slid the sticky note back to Keith, his message reading: “So? I already told you my summer was great. End of discussion.”

When he slid the small paper over to Keith again, he was surprised to hear a small laugh. Quiet enough that the professor couldn’t hear it, but loud enough that Lance could.

Eventually, they settled into a rhythm. Lance, trying to keep track of notes and sticky notes while Keith simply just stared at him while he was writing. He was sure his ears had gone completely red by now, what was Keith’s deal?

That made Lance freeze. How did he…

He quickly scribbled down his question: “How do you know about Cuba???”

Keith turned to him and smirked. “I have my ways,” he whispered.

Lance would forever deny the shiver that ran down his spine at that. Hooooly mother of heck. Is Keith a stalker? IS KEITH STALKING ME???’

The delinquent chuckled at Lance’s shocked expression, “Relax, Lance. I heard you talking about it with your friends. What were their names? Paige and Hank?”

Lance felt his nose scrunch up, “No. It’s Pidge and Hunk! ” he hissed, standing up and shoving his stuff in his bag hurriedly when he heard the bell ring. As soon as he turned to leave he found Keith blocking his path, looking straight at him. Lance tried to move to the side, but Keith stepped with him. The smirk on Keith’s face grew as did Lance’s frustration. 

“Ugh! C’mon, man! If I get to the cafeteria late, they’ll be all out of pudding cups!” It was a weak excuse, Lance always brought his food from home and he never ate anything from the cafeteria, but it’s not like Keith knew that-

“Why do you care. You always bring a homemade lunch and share your snacks with your friends,” Keith retorted, seemingly getting closer as everyone had filed out. Leaving the two of them alone in the classroom. Oh boy, Lance did not like where this was going.

Bam! Suddenly all the air was rushed out of Lance as Keith wall-slammed him. It was super uncomfortable with his bag digging into his back, but Keith’s face, up close with his dark indigo eyes boring into his very soul was even worse.

Because dammit, had Keith always been this attractive? Lance couldn’t say he was into the whole wall-slamming thing because ow , but damn was he a slut for some good ol’ eye contact.

When the other boy spoke, his breath huffed over Lance’s lips, “Why are you lying to me, Lance? I thought we knew each other better than that.”

Lance scoffed, and pushed Keith back, surprised when the other boy went willingly. He probably wasn’t expecting it Lance reasoned. “Are you kidding me right now? You barely spoke to me during our third year, and during the second and first you didn’t even know I existed!”

Keith stepped forward again, “Of course I knew who you were, Lance. How could I not?”

Lance rolled his eyes, made a real show of it so Keith got the hint that he found that entire statement to be nothing but bull .

Keith, for whatever reason, looked distressed, “But, Lance I-“

“Noooope! No way! Not listening! I don’t believe a word you’re saying Mullet head!” Lance said, covering his ears.

The delinquent blinked, “...Mullet… head?”

Lance’s eyes began to widen as he realized what he just said, “UHHH, actually! Let’s play a fun little game, you let me leave and we’ll forget this entire interaction ever happened! Alright? Cool? Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, no douuuubt, no doubt, no doubt.” Lance babbled as he slung his legs over the bench and ran out of the classroom.

Ohmygod I can’t believe that just happened. 

-<To Lunch...>-

“You did what?!” Pidge cackled as she bit into a garlic knot that Lance’s mama had made for them to celebrate the first day back.

Lance grumbled, hitting his forehead against the table, “I called him Mullet head…” he mumbled.

Pidge, the gremlin, threw her head back again and laughed so hard that Hunk had to pat her on the back to prevent her from choking on her garlic knot. Allura just looked sorry for him (which was honestly worse than Pidge’s laughing) and Romelle was trying to contain her own giggles.

“That is… rather unfortunate, Lance,” Allura spoke carefully, her accent turning the ‘a’ in his name into an ‘o’ making his name sound like “Lonce” . He liked it, It made him feel fancy.

“I don’t know what to say, Lance. Maybe we shouldn’t have let you call him that so many times? You probably got too used to saying it about him,” Hunk tried to explain, which did nothing to soothe Lance’s anxiety. 

“ Ohmygod he’s going to kill me, Hunk! I’m too young to die!” 

Pidge rolled her eyes, having gained her composure again, “Relax, he probably doesn’t care. He’s got tons of other people saying way worse stuff about him all the time.”

Lance sobbed, “ Yeah! Then he beat them up! I’m doomed!”

Romelle’s eyes widened and she pointed behind her, “Uhh, Lance?”

He didn’t hear her, and continued babbling, “I may as well dig myself an early grave-“

Hunk interrupted him with a panicked expression, “Lance! Get down, he’s here!”

He squeaked and ducked under the table, reaching his hand up to grab a garlic knot quickly before shoving it back down again.

Keith was on the other side of the cafeteria, a couple of his henchmen were at his sides, sending sneers to anyone who stared for too long. Keith’s eyes scanned the room before they landed on Hunk, Pidge, Allura, Romelle, and Lance’s table. Then he started up a fast-paced march making a beeline for their table as his cronies scrambled to keep up with him, effectively weakening their tough demeanor. 

Eventually, Keith reached them, and Lance could see his expensive red sneakers from under the table. 

“Where’s Lance,” Keith asked- no, demanded. 

Lance quivered under the table, leaning into Hunks strong legs. “Why do you need to know?” sassed Pidge. Lance was very glad for his small friend, she could give anyone attitude and get away with it. 

“I’ll ask again,” Keith said, “Where. Is. Lance.”

“He could be anywhere, it isn’t our job to watch over him like a bunch of helicopter parents,” Romelle answered cooly. Lance scooched back until his back hit Hunk’s thighs. 

“W-we don’t know!” Hunk squealed, and Lance’s fists clenched at the thought of Keith harming him.

“Bullshit,” Keith’s voice was as sharp as a blade, “His stuff is right here, there are crumbs in his spot. Where. Is. He.”

Pidge squinted at him from behind her glasses, “What are your intentions with Lance?” 

“T-that’s none of your business,” hold on, did Keith just stutter?

Hunk chuckled, “Preeeetty sure, as his best friends, it is our business.”

Allura sighed, “Look. Just tell us what you want with Lance, and we’ll let you know where he is.”

Keith was silent for a moment before he whispered, “I just want to talk to him.” The pure honesty in his answer broke Lance. What could Keith possibly have to talk to Lance about?

His friends regarded each other for a moment before they nodded. “He’s in the washroom,” Pidge said, giving Lance a little kick which made him squeal a bit. 

Keith must have ordered his cronies to check the washrooms because Lance saw multiple shoes shuffle away. “Okay, now where is Lance really ?” he asked.

Hunk’s voice gave away his smile, “He’s under the table!”

Lance gave a small squawk in betrayal before he saw one of Keith’s knees touch the ground, then before he knew it, Keith himself was looking in at Lance, curled up with half a garlic knot in his hands and snuggled between Hunks shins. Keith stared at him for a bit before he let out a boisterous laugh, one that drew the attention of many lunch-goers. However, only Lance got to see his face when he did so, and it might have been more beautiful than the laughter itself.

Woah woah woah, where did that come from?!

As Keith’s laugh came to a close with a small chuckle, he held out a fingerless glove clad hand to Lance, “C’ mon, let’s get you out of there. The undersides of the tables are worse than their surfaces.” 

Lance eyed the hand warily before stuffing the rest of his knot into his mouth and taking it, letting Keith pull him up until he rested on the other’s chest.

eXcUsE mE?¿

What’s worse was when Lance tried to pull back he found two strong arms wrapped around his torso, effectively holding him in place, and then, Keith Kogane, king of eye contact strikes again. Pinning Lance to the spot with his uniquely coloured eyes. 

“UhHhh…” Lance trailed off as Keith made no moves to let go, instead he leaned impossibly closer to him, his eyes lidded.

“AhEM!” Pidge clears her throat from behind them, which causes Keith to (finally) let go. 

“Soooo… you wanted to talk to me?” Lance asks tentatively. 

Keith rubs his neck, holy crow, is he blushing? “Yeah, come with me?”

Lance looks back at Pidge and Hunk who both give him a thumbs up, then he turns to Allura and Romelle who wink at him, smirking fondly. 

What do I have to be worried about, these guys’ll protect me. 

So he turns to Keith and nods. Keith grins, and grabs his sleeve, dragging him out of the cafeteria and away from any prying eyes.

“What did you want to talk about?” Lance asks again, once they’re seated in the courtyard. 

Keith looks nervous for a second before it turns into sheer fire determination. “You called me Mullet head.”

Just like that, any thoughts of this being a normal and safe conversation for Lance flew right out the window, “O-ohmygod, I am so so SO sorry I called you that! I didn’t mean to, it just slipped out, honestly!”

“Lance, calm down!” Keith shouted, which definitely had the exact opposite of the effect Keith wanted as Lance’s blue eyes went wide in fear. He braced himself for a hit, and when he felt nothing he opened his eyes, surprised to find them squeezed shut. Keith sighed heavily, running his hand through his hair before looking back at Lance.

“I wanted to tell you it’s okay, and… if you want… you could call me that again.”

Lance blinked a couple of times in confusion before speaking slowly, making sure he didn't have the wrong idea, “You… want me to call you Mullet head?”

Keith nodded, eagerly, though that could just be Lance, “Yeah. It was the most comfortable I’ve seen you around me. Plus, it doesn’t really bother me, I’ve been called worse.”

He raised his eyebrows, “You actually want me to be comfortable around you?”

Lance could have sworn he saw a slight blush on Keith’s cheeks, though that could just be his imagination. “Yeah... I mean, we’re going to be partners now right? So we need to get along. If calling me Mullet head is the way to do it… then I’m willing to.”

“You’re willing to let me call you Mullet head? Oh my, how generous of you Kogane.” Lance couldn’t help the snark that escaped his mouth, and before he was about to apologize Keith burst into the same kind of laughter he had in the cafeteria. 

“See! You’re already making fun of me! This is great!” Keith cheered, giddy with laughter. If Lance was a weaker man he could say Keith almost looked… cute.

Nonetheless, he found himself smiling along with Keith, “Yeah, I think we could make a pretty good team.”

-<The Next Day... To Class...>-

Okay, remember what Lance said about him and Keith making a good team? Yeah… about that.

He was wrong.

Dead. Wrong.

“Keith! What the quiznak are you doing?!” Lance screeched as he saw the other boy place their beaker directly in the flames .

“I’m heating it up,” came the nonchalant reply from Keith. Ah, yes. How Lance loved this, on top of doing everything wrong, the tone in Keith’s voice made LANCE feel like he was the one who didn’t have it right in the first place.

“That is not heating it up! That’s boiling it to death!” Lance chastised, reaching for the tongs so that he could quickly pull the solution out of the blue flames. Jeez, who knew Keith could be such a pyromaniac. 

Keith’s arm came to wrap around Lance’s wrist, stopping him from grabbing the tongs. He’d been doing that a lot lately, the casual touching. Even in the hallways, when he was around the rest of his gang, he wouldn’t hesitate to call out to Lance and strike up a conversation. Today, it went a little something like this:

Lance was humming under his breath as he ordered all the books he would need for each upcoming class. He didn’t realize the Marmoran gang was walking down the halls, (Which honestly, how did that happen? Everyone practically fled the halls whenever they saw Keith and his entourage approaching. Weirdo’s), until Keith leaned heavily into the locker beside him, causing him to jump. 

“Keith! You scared me!” Lance whined, punching Keith in the arm, “Don’t do that, jeez.”

Keith chuckled, as he often did during Lance’s antics, “Sorry, sorry, but you should have been paying attention.” Lance rolled his eyes and continued sorting his books, taking out a blue dry erase marker to write out his reminders for the day. “What were you humming?”

His question knocked Lance off guard, and he paused to look at him, “Huh?”

Keith scratched his neck and shifted his position against the lockers, “The song you were humming, what was it?”

Lance blushed a little and put away the marker, “Oh… uhh, it’s just a song from a game I like…”

This seemed to pique Keith’s interest, “What game?” he asked.

Lance scoffed, “Only one of the best gaming franchises in all of history, Super Mario Bros. It’s the classic ‘Underground Theme’ that plays whenever you enter a specific pipe in or even at the start of a new level! It’s been around for a while and honestly, I think it might be one of the best songs from the games even though it’s so simple and doesn’t even have any lyrics- ohmygosh I’m rambling aren’t, ack, sorry about that. I tend to get carried away sometimes when I’m talking about things that interest me.

Keith chuckled softly, “‘S’okay, I don’t mind.”

“You bet your ass he doesn’t.”

Lance flinched at the new voice, and he whirled around to spy the unamused glare of Takashi Shirogane, the single-handedly most intimidating man he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting.

“Ugh, go away, Shiro. I’m trying to have a conversation over here.” Keith said, utterly unaffected by Takashi’s presence.

Lance, on the other hand, was wide-eyed and speechless. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, Keith groaned and turned Lance toward him. “Fuck off Shiro. You broke him, dammit. Lance, Lance are you okay?”

“F-fine,” Lance managed to stutter out after a while.

“Let’s go back to talking video games, okay?” Keith asked, and when Lance nodded slowly he continued, “What’s your favourite game?”

Without hesitation this time, Lance blurted out, “The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild.” When Keith raised an eyebrow at his response he stuttered out a continuation, “I-I mean, I’ve never actually gotten to play it. My friend Pidge has a Switch but she never lets me touch it and I've seen lots of Let’s Plays so I know what I’m doing but I’ve never had the chance to actually… play it myself.

“I’m kind of saving up to buy a Switch and Breath of the Wild, but it’ll probably be sometime in college when I’m finally able to get it, and that’s assuming I don’t accumulate a bunch of student debt,” he finished with a sad chuckle. 

The bell rings and Lance flinched, packing up his stuff and closing his locker hurriedly, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go to class now, I’ll see you in Chemistry, Keith!”

Lance shook off the flashback when he saw the mixture begin bubbling harshly. “ KEITH, GET THE BEAKER OFF OF THE BUNSEN BURNER!”

Keith rolled his eyes, “Oh, calm down. It’s not like it’s going to explo-”

The beaker exploded.

-<To Lunchtime Detention...>-

Thankfully, due to Lance’s perfect and incident-free record, they only got off with small Lunchtime detention where they’d be cleaning up the mess they made in Professor Druid’s class. Man, that guy was a prick. They’d almost died making the damn thing, what makes him think it’d be safer to clean it up ?

Lance sighed as he slid on his silicon gloves. With the hazardous waste disposal bin in one hand and a long pair of tongs in the other, he reached down to pick up multiple pieces of broken beaker glass. 

After a while he stood up, placing his hands on his hips and glaring at Keith who had his phone out for whatever reason. 

“Keith!” Lance yelled, startling Keith into dropping his phone with a blush. Lance stomped over until he was leaning over Keith, the other boy looking more and more timid with every second. “What are you doing? Why aren’t you helping me?”

While Keith fumbled for an excuse, Lance swiped his phone and held it away from him. He raised an eyebrow when Keith immediately jumped up at him and demanded that he gave it back with a heavy blush on his face. Lance made the mistake of glancing down at Keith’s phone screen to see his camera open. A couple of images from what looked like inside Prof Druid's lab, so Lance clicked on them.

“NO, Lance don’t-” he did. 

Wow did he regret that. 

While both boys were steadily getting warmer and warmer, Lance continued staring at the photos.

They were all of him. Well, more specifically, of him bent over at the waist, his ass in perfect view.

“I’M SORRY!” Keith was practically screaming now, but Lance wasn’t hearing him. Instead, going to the gallery and seeing… so. many. more. pictures.

Yes, they were all of his ass.

“...Keith,” Lance said in possibly the most exhausted and monotone voice possible, “What. The. Hell.”

“I am so sorry, I am so so sorry,” Keith said, hanging his head. Lance almost felt bad for him, except for the fact that he… well… yeah.

“Keith. You still haven’t answered me,” Lance said again, “What. The Hell. Is This?”

Keith looked up at him sheepishly, “Your ass?”

Lance closed his eyes and prayed to every deity that existed to give him a goddamn break for once. 

“Yes, Keith. I can see that. I am very familiar with my butt, thank you. My question is: why?! ”

Keith mumbled out an answer and Lance strained to hear him, “I’m sorry. You want to repeat that?”

The delinquent stared at him head-on before blushing and giving up, “Because it looks good…”

“It looks good.”

“Yes.”

“To be perfectly clear, this is still my butt we’re talking about.”

“...Yes.”

“You hesitated.”

“It’s embarrassing!”

“HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL? WHAT MAKES IT LOOK SO GOOD ANYWAY?”

“... It’s very round.”

“ Ohmygod.”

-<To Teamwork & Trust...>-

In the end, Lance forgave Keith as long as Keith deleted all the pictures he had. Which made Keith look very dejected for some reason. Plus, Keith revealed to him that he was Gay and that not many people actually knew about it. Which made Lance feel very special. The entire interaction went something like this:

“Hey, Lance. Wanna know a secret?” Keith asked out of the blue while they were both cleaning up the mess. Lance was ashamed to admit it, but he deliberately made sure his ass was facing away from Keith at all times. Just in case.

“Hm? What, do you have more pictures of my butt that I don’t know about?” Lance asked, chuckling. Keith did not chuckle along with him. “KEITH!” Lance shrieked, throwing the roll of paper towels at the other boy.

“No, nonononono, I don’t I promise!” Keith pleaded, causing Lance to sigh and sit down. 

“Fine, then. What is it?” Lance asked, mentally preparing for the worst, like if Keith killed someone or he was running from the cops-

“I’m Gay,” Keith said, looking up at Lance with a hopeful expression that was also relatively guarded.

Lance paused for a moment, confused, “That-that’s it?” he asked.

Keith’s expression changed into one of bewilderment, “What do you mean ‘that’s it’?”

Lance rolled his eyes, “I mean, c’ mon man, you had pictures of my butt. I had already assumed you were at least a little Gay.”

Keith chuckled and looked down before meeting Lance’s eyes again, “Thank you,” he said.

So that was that! All was forgiven.

Almost.

Chapter Text

-{<Keith POV>}-

Keith fucked up.

Keith royally fucked up.

What do you do when the love of your life that is also your totally platonic friend accidentally finds out you were taking pictures of their ass?

Well, according to Keith, you buy them a fucking Switch apparently.

Look, Keith doesn’t have many friends, okay? He also doesn’t have many Lance’s. So if he loses Lance’s friendship, then he’s going to cry.

So what does he do?

He buys the guy a Switch. Plus the new Zelda game he was rambling about, because he couldn’t have forgotten that.

Lance is so cute when he rambles- No. Focus.

Keith took a deep breath to collect himself before briskly walking over to Lance’s locker.

It wasn’t like things were weird with them. Surprisingly, they were the same as always.

That was the problem .

How the hell is Keith supposed to get Lance to date him if Lance keeps missing any and all innuendos in which Keith is telling him that he’s got a major lovesick crush on him?! HOW?!

So, as a kind of desperate attempt, Keith bought him the video game he really wanted. Which, he knew, was essentially pointless because he’d practically have to beg Lance to take it, the beautiful, selfless bastard. 

Okay, here goes nothing.

Keith leaned on the locker next to Lance, and the other boy turned to him. His face lit up a little, and it made his stupid heart flutter in his chest.

“Hey, Mullet! How’s your morning so far?” Lance asked with a bright smile.

I have literally never felt so blessed in my life.

“Good, good. I got you something,” Keith said, holding up the heavy bag that contained their soon to be topic of conversation.

Lance raised his eyebrow, suspicious, “Keith… if that’s a drug of some kind…”

Keith’s eyes widened, “No! No, nonononono. No drugs, I promise,” Dammit, I don’t even do that many drugs… I just smoke sometimes.

The other boy crossed his arms skeptically, making the fabric of his blue sweater strain against his lean biceps- No, bad Keith. Stop it. “Oh suuuuure, I believe you. Yep, one hundred percent.”

He resisted the urge to groan, why is Lance always so skeptical of him? He should probably mention that ever since he actually got to be Lance’s friend he gave up on doing anything illegal, lest he is arrested and never get to see Lance again. That would be a fate worse than jail.

“Whatever, I’m going to give it to you during Lunch,” Keith said, leaning away from the lockers, “I’ll send someone to come get you.”

“Oh great!” Lance groaned, “I can’t wait for your cronies to come to pick me up like I’m about to be beaten by the school bully. Hey, maybe they’ll even give me a pre-beating, help me warm up a little for what’s to come!”

Keith knew Lance was just joking, but the thought of anyone hurting him sent a flash of anger through him, as quickly as he left, he slammed back into the lockers landing a solid punch to them to make sure he had Lance’s full attention and knew he was dead serious. “If any of them so much as touch you, I’ll kill them.”

Lance nodded, wide (pretty) blue eyes darting around the hallway in fear that anyone had seen them. Keith snarled a little, he wanted people to see them. Lance was his dammit. They needed to know that he was off-limits. 

“O-okay? Uh, I’ll see you at lunch then… bye, Keith,” Lance said slowly, closing his locker and heading towards class, but Keith wasn’t letting him go that easily. He walked next to him, taking the books Lance was holding and carrying them under one arm while he sent glares to any lingering eyes that fell on the pair of them.

“Keith? What are you doing? Isn’t your class in the other direction?” Lance asked, genuinely curious. Keith was a little afraid to admit that he skipped every class except for the one he and Lance were in. It wasn’t like his parents cared. His mom was too busy and his dad had died a while ago. Plus, he was pretty sure they’d stopped sending her emails about his absence. That, or she blocked them.

“I’m walking you to class,” Keith replied bluntly. At this point, if Lance didn’t understand what he was trying to accomplish here, he could pretty much get away with any vaguely romantic gesture as long as Lance remained as dense as a brick.

Lance tilted his head and his nose scrunched up in that adorable way it did when he was confused, “Why? You don’t have to, gosh you’re acting like a doting boyfriend or something.”

Would that really be so bad? Me being your boyfriend? Keith wanted to say. “I know, I just want to,” he replied instead. Maybe one day… but not today.

The other boy nodded slowly, and adjusted the straps of his polka-dotted backpack, (which Keith was obsessed with because it brought out the blue of his eyes and made him look so cute- ), and continued walking next to Keith, side by side until he reached his class.

At this point, Keith had already accepted that he’d rather stand his ground in a stare-down between whatever Professor that Lance had for the first period then let him go right now. So, he stepped past him when Lance offered his hand for his books and sat down in a seat right next to Lance’s desk (he could tell because Lance always opted for the desk near the window and sometimes he’d leave little calculations and doodles on the desk). He set Lance’s books down and turned to the Cuban boy, who was currently standing with his mouth agape at the door. Keith cooed internally at his surprised expression ( so, so cute… ) and snickered a little. 

“Well? Aren’t you going to sit down, Lance?” Keith asked as if he was completely oblivious to the weight of his actions. Lance shut his open jaw with a click and walked into the room, his ears flushing with all the stares from his other classmates. Keith sent glares to as many as possible, except for Hunk, because he meant a lot to Lance. Also, Keith knew he was only confused (and probably concerned) and not trying to genuinely make fun of him.

Lance plopped down in his seat, scraping the chair forward so that he could sit up properly. His bag rested on the back of his chair. Keith thought it might be easy to just rest it on the desk that he was currently occupying, so he could pass him any materials he needed. Deciding it was a good idea, he picked up the bag and set it down on his desktop. 

“...Dude,” Lance started, adorably confused. “That’s my bag. Not yours. I don’t even know where yours would be...”

Keith shrugged, opting for his signature blunt way of saying things to make it as clear as possible, “I know. I thought I could pass you anything you needed for the lesson. Then you wouldn’t have to twist around in your seat all the time.”

Lance let a warm smile slip that nearly sent Keith into cardiac arrest, and at that moment the bell rang and Professor Coran walked in. 

Professor Coran was… interesting to say the least. He regarded Keith with an ‘I see we have a new student with us today!’ before acting like he’d been there all along. Keith decided that he liked him.

He also let Lance and Hunk pass notes via paper airplane, that or he genuinely didn’t notice. As the third plane from Hunk was sent back over, Keith let his curiosity get the best of him. He leaned over Lance’s shoulder, not concerned with the personal space issue (who gave Lance the right to smell so good, who??) and whispered, “What are you guys talking about?”

Lance flushed a little at the sudden proximity (adorable) and replied, “Uhhh… you, actually. We’re talking about you.”

Keith perked up a little and snagged the note Lance was about to write on, ignoring Lance’s whispered protest. He began to read their conversation so far. Lance’s words in blue pen, and Hunk’s in a dark yellow marker.

The rest had gotten cut off when Keith grabbed the paper, the final line of the ‘W’ dragged out over the page from when Keith grabbed it before Lance had been able to lift up his pen. Keith’s heart fluttered traitorously in his chest, cute, basically dating, for sure. He felt a blush take over his cheeks, though it was nothing compared to Lance’s.

“Give that back!” Lance whisper shouted, grabbing the paper from Keith’s hands. Keith let him take it willingly. 

“So…” Keith began, a bit nervous, but hoping Lance caught the hint, “Hunk thinks I’d be a good boyfriend?”  

Lance chuckled nervously, “Well, yeah I guess. Though, I don’t know why you would wanna date me! We’re friends, after all, that would be kinda weird.”

Keith wanted to slam his head on the desk and scream. No! It would not be weird!! I’m already in love with you!!! 

“...Not really,” Keith responded, enjoying the flush that came up on Lance’s cheeks. The other boy decided not to respond, and instead wrote the rest of his message back to Hunk. Keith generously ignored them and didn’t ask to see the paper again. He wondered what Hunk would have to say about their interaction… he wondered what Lance would have to say about it too…

As Keith zoned out, not paying any remote attention to Coran’s lecture, he found himself tuning in to the 24/7 Lance Channel which brought him the adorable sight of Lance’s tongue sticking out a little as he wrote down a new message for Hunk. His gorgeous eyes glowed with glee and he bit his lip to keep from giggling.

Keith’s never been that religious, but he felt his soul ascend to Heaven at the sight.

Lance is going to kill me one day, I swear.

-<To Lunch...>-

Shiro waited with Keith in the alley while Keith nervously paced back and forth. He’d sent Regris to go and collect Lance because they were on a first-name basis and Regris could be pretty friendly when he wanted to be. 

Next to him, Shiro drew the cigarette away from his mouth and blew the smoke into Keith’s face to get him to stop pacing, “Relax, Keith,” he said as Keith sputtered, “Lance will love the gift, you guys will get married and then you can tap that ass you’re so fond of.”

“Shiro!” Keith yelled, Shiro was like a brother to him but damn if that didn’t come with repercussions. Such as the merciless teasing about his crush.

“Just imagine it, you’re in gym class together, he’s all sweaty and disgusting but you’re into it because you’re a creep. Then he turns to you and smiles or some shit and you decide to deflower him right there on the spot,” Shiro teased with a devilish smirk.

Keith growled, “Oh yeah? Is that what happened with you and Adam-” he was cut off as Shiro rushed forward to cover his mouth.

“No! Shut up, he’s still in the car!” Shiro whisper-shouted, jerking a thumb back over to the silver Toyota Corolla where Adam could be spotted behind the wheel. 

Adam and Shiro had been dating ever since high school, Shiro had been head over heels and tried to intimidate Adam into thinking he was cool and Adam was having none of that shit. In the end, Adam was the one to ask Shiro on a date (because even after all that, apparently he still liked him) and they’d been inseparable ever since. 

The horn honked loudly, echoing through the empty parking lot, Adam rolled down the window and yelled out, “TAKASHI I’M LEAVING IN NEGATIVE SIX MINUTES, HURRY UP!”

Shiro swore under his breath and stomped out his cigarette. “See you, Keith. Good luck with the nerd!” he called as he ran off to join his boyfriend in the car. Keith could see Shiro try to give Adam a peck on the lips, but Adam held up his hand, having a strict ‘no smoke breath kisses’ rule. They pulled out of the parking lot, Adam casually waving to him and Shiro not-casually waving to him.

Someone cleared his throat from beside him, it was Regris. “McClain’s here, Keith. Need anything else?”

Keith scoffed, “Like you’d get it anyway? No, I’m done. See ya.”

Regris gave a lazy salute with two fingers and stalked out of the alley, Lance replacing him with an adorably nervous expression. Keith lit up at the sight of him, how was it possible for him to get any more charming? He even brought his lunch bag, the cutie.

“Hi, Lance,” Keith drawled, walking over to him. Lance swallowed heavily, and Keith’s eyes tracked the movement. Watching as his Adam’s Apple bobbed up and down.

“Hey, Mullet,” Lance answered, a slight quiver to his voice. Keith raised an eyebrow, usually, Lance wasn’t this nervous around him anymore, what happened?

“You okay, Lance?” Keith asked, stepped closer. He was happy to find that Lance didn’t step back like he used to.

Lance nodded quickly, “Yeah, this alley just gives me the creeps…” he mumbled.

“Really? I like it, it’s quiet,” he responded honestly.

The other boy scoffed, “Of course you like it, it fits your emo bad-boy aesthetic,” he snarked. Keith smiled, there’s the Lance I remember.   

“Of course,” he replied, short and sweet. Then, he reached out from behind him to pick up the package he showed Lance in the morning. “I got you something,” he said, taking a deep breath and holding out the package.

Lance raised his eyebrows and first took the package from Keith gingerly but soon staggered under the sudden weight. “What the heck, Keith! What’s in this thing?!”

Keith shrugged, “Open it and find out.”

Lance pouted, and Keith’s heart clenched, “Ugh, fine. ” He sifted through the tissue paper that Keith had bought specifically in a blue to match Lance’s backpack. When his hands grasped the bigger object in the bag, he pulled it out, gasping when he saw what it was.

“Keith! You-you got me a-?” he stuttered, unable to finish the sentence.

“I got you a Switch,” Keith answered for him, “That, and one other thing.” 

Lance’s eye blew wide open and he dug around in the bag again, pulling out the game case, “YOU GOT ME BREATH OF THE WILD TOO?!”

Keith chuckled, happy that Lance was happy, “Yeah, I did.”

He gaped at Keith, “But… wHY?! ”

Keith frowned a little, shuffling his feet, “Do you not like it…?”

“What? No, of course, I like it! I love it even, just… why did you get me this?” Lance asked, still in awe.

He chuckled at Lance’s expression, and the next thing he said slipped out of his mouth as if he’d said it a thousand times before, “Because I love you.”

Lance gasped and fumbled with the Switch and game, nearly dropping them in surprise, “Crap- what?”

Well, here goes nothing… “I got it for you because I’m in love with you, Lance. You were talking about wanting to get the new game but you didn’t have enough money for it, or for a Switch. I have a lot of money, and I don’t usually spend it on things like this, but it barely made a dent in my account. Even if it did it wouldn’t matter to me because I’d do anything for you,” he finished with a sunny smile.

The other boy still wasn’t speaking, causing Keith to fidget a little, “I’m… sorry. I can take it back if it’s too much… I already know you don’t feel the same way so there’s no pressure to like me back or anything.”

Lance finally shut his jaw and blushed, “Yeah… I’m sorry. I don’t really feel that way about you. Th-thank you for the gift. I’d like to keep it if you don’t mind-”

“Yes! You can keep it, please. I-I bought it for you so I want you to keep it,” Keith stuttered out, god was he weak for this boy.

“O-oh, well… thank you. I’m sorry again-”

Keith smiled slightly, “You don’t have to apologize, Lance. It’s not your fault. C-can I…” he trailed off, glancing to the other’s lips before looking back up. “Just a peck… I won’t do it if you don’t want me to I just… please. ”

Lance flushed redder, and he broke eye contact, “Ah... I’m not sure if… on the lips but um. Y-you can kiss my cheek if you want…?”

He nodded eagerly, just excited that he got to kiss Lance at all . His gut sank with the rejection, but it still didn’t change his feelings for the beautiful boy. He rushed forward, almost knocking into Lance, whispered out a quick ‘sorry’ before kissing one of his adorable flushed cheeks.

Keith heard the other boy give off a small squeaking sound before he pulled back and bit his lip. “T-thank you for understanding.”

Lance nodded softly, smiling a little, “It’s no problem, I guess. Would you still want to be friends?”

“If you wouldn’t mind it…” Keith answered hesitantly.

The other boy smiled fully this time, making Keith’s traitorous heart skip a beat, “Of course not!” Seriously, how dare he.

“Thank you…” he said, and a silence fell over the two of them. “So… do you want to go back to Lunch? I won’t blame you if you don’t want to stay here… it isn’t the most enticing place to eat in.”

Lance visibly relaxed, “Oh thank god, yes, please. Let’s head inside!”

Keith blanked, “...Let’s?” he repeated.

The other boy seemed to blush a bit, “Well, yeah! You’re still my friend, I thought it might be nice to introduce you to Hunk and Pidge. Officially, of course. Not Allura and Romelle have Student Council and Cheerleading practice. You can meet them another time though!”

He lit up and nodded eagerly, “Y-yeah, I’d like that.”

Keith exhaled heavily as Lance turned around to pack up his present. He was so relieved that Lance still wanted to be his friend, even after all of… that. What did he do to deserve this boy? Seriously, what.

As the two of them approached the cafeteria, Lance stopped by his locker to drop off the gift. “So…” Lance began awkwardly as Keith leaned against the locker as per usual. “How long have you been in love with me?”

Should I tell him the truth? Whatever, might as well. It’s not like it can get any worse. “From the moment I first saw you.”

Lance’s eyes widened, “That’s a bit… dramatic.”

Keith shrugged, “What can I say? You were very, very cute and I was very, very gay for you.”

The Cuban blushed and Keith soaked it up like sunshine, “T-thanks.”

“See?”

His brow scrunched, “See what?”

“Right now. You’re being cute right now.”

Lance opened his mouth and closed it, and then said: “How?!”

Keith shrugged, “Your blush. It’s adorable, and the way your nose scrunches up when you get frustrated or confused, that’s cute too.”

If Lance got any redder, he’d probably combust. It was a very pretty shade though, Keith wanted it made into paint and cover his entire room in it. “A-ah. Okay.”

“Your ass is also very cute,” Keith added, equally as blunt.

“OKAY! THANK YOU, THAT’S ENOUGH!’ Lance laughed nervously, and Keith smirked.

“What? You don’t want me to compliment you?” he asked, scared that Lance might actually refuse to let him give the beautiful boy compliments. Then Keith would have to write it all down in his journal again, just so he wouldn’t explode. Also Shiro. Shiro was going to have to put up with a lot more of Keith’s rants.

“I- uhh…” the other boy trailed off, and Keith immediately decided to take advantage of all the time he had before he wasn’t able to do it anymore.

“Your freckles are very pretty, they look like splatters of cinnamon and I want to count them all, your face when you rant looks super dorky and charming, your voice when you get scared or angry is high pitched and adorable, I think I could get lost in your eyes, my favourite colour is blue now which is entirely thanks to you. I think you could literally kick me in the balls and I’d thank you. I’ve never felt so in love with another human being, I’m pretty sure I was put on this Earth to love you and only you,” once Keith started, it all just came pouring out. He was getting seriously concerned for Lance, all the blood had rushed to his (handsome, dazzling, gorgeous) face. Keith might have to take him to the nurse at this rate.

I better get to cradle him in my arms again. Keith thought, remembering that day in junior P.E. class when he was spotting Lance on the ropes (and thoroughly enjoying the view, how did he get so lucky) when the boy fell right into his arms (seriously, HOW ). Lance later denied all interaction and Keith whined about it to Adam the whole night long (Shiro was asleep). The poor dude deserved an award, seriously, with all the shit he had to deal with daily.

Lance’s back connected with a thump against the locker and he slid down until he had his head resting between his thighs. Damn, I wish that were me- NO.

“Lance…?” Keith asked tentatively, “Are you... okay?”

The other boy mumbled something into his knees and Keith squat down in front of him in order to listen better. “I’m sorry, can you say that again?”

“I BELIEVE YOU!” Lance yelled, face still supporting a blush so intense it couldn’t have been healthy as he turned his head up to look at Keith. “I believe that you had a crush on me for four years, okay?! You didn’t have to say all of that! Gosh, my face feels really hot…”

“If it’s any consolation, It looks really hot as well,” Keith said, and probably deserved the smack Lance swiftly delivered to his arm.

“ Stooop, oh my god. You’re ruthless, Kogane, you know that? I’m done, okay? You’ve killed me. Are you happy now?!” he screeched, arms waving wildly.

“Just a second,” Keith said, grabbing one of Lance’s eccentric hands and fitting it tight against his own, not able to resist the urge to kiss the caramel-skinned knuckles as he placed a tiny peck to it, “Okay. Now I’m happy.” It was a miracle how Keith hadn’t been punched yet. Even he knew when he was pushing his luck, and at this point, he’d basically shoved it entirely off the edge of the cliff and gone back to find even more so he could shove that too.

“Jesus H. Christ, we need to set up some ground rules for this friendship, okay?”

Keith nodded, he would follow any rule as long as Lance was the one making them. Besides, rules were made to be broken, so he’d see how many of these he could break too. Unless he made Lance uncomfortable, then he’d be following them strictly. 

“Great. Regla número Uno : You are not allowed to compliment me.”

“Fine. Can I get in one more though?”

“Sure.”

“Your Spanish accent is really hot.”

Lance stood up fully now, “KEITH THAT IS ILLEGAL YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”

Keith stared Lance down as he counted off on his fingers, “Your body should be illegal. Your face should be illegal. Your smile should be illegal. Your eyes should be illegal. Your ass should be illegal-”

“STOP, I SAID ONE, ARE YOU ACTIVELY TRYING TO MURDER ME?!” the Cuban boy screamed.

“Nope, but your hips might be trying to murder me- ”

Lance cut him off, “RULE NUMBER TWO! No, no Spanish this time Keith, those are the consequences for your endless compliments. Put that pout away mister, you deserve this. Rule number two: You can’t buy me any more gifts for over twenty dollars.”

Keith scoffed, $20 was like five cents to him. He’d definitely be breaking that one.

“Rule number three- there are five rules by the way- Rule number three: You are limited to exactly two minutes of staring at my face during school hours.”

“Five,” Keith countered. He needed this, Lance didn’t understand.

 “Fine. Five, but that still counts for the whole day,” Lance agreed.

“Does zoning out count?”

“No.” Perfect. Now all he had to do was pretend he’d been zoning out to stare at Lance. 

“Rule number four,” Lance continued, content with Keith’s silence, “Keep any and all possible indications that you’re… in love with me away from Hunk and Pidge. Hunk may look like an adorable innocent teddy bear, but he is shameless and Pidge is well… Pidge. She’s a gremlin. She will make fun of us. Mostly me, but she’ll corner you later on and make fun of you too. So let’s try to put that off for as long as possible.”

“Got it,” Keith answered, despite being 100% sure he’d fuck that one up the second they walked into the cafeteria. Not everyone was a dense as Lance.

“Good, final rule: You are only allowed to ask me on a date on my Happy Days, which I keep a schedule of that I will not be sending you. Otherwise, I will reject you. My chance of saying yes will also vary based on how well you have been following the rules and how good a day it has been for me.”

Keith perked up. For once in his life, he was going to completely follow the rules. 

Probably.

-<To the Cafeteria...>-

Lunch with Hunk and Pidge is… awkward to say the least. They keep giving him looks like they know and Keith knows they know. How could he not? He’d basically snuggled Lance up to his chest in front of them and earlier today he carried his books to class and sat next to him while staring and passing things to him the entire time .

So yeah, that’s already one rule broken. Lance doesn’t seem to notice though, due to being denser than a Neutron Star (yes, he knew what that was. Keith wasn’t stupid, he just hated going to class).

“Sooo, Keith ,” Pidge began, in the short amount of time that he had gotten to know her, he’d already known this conversation wasn’t going to go in his favour, “How did you and Lance become… friends exactly?”

Keith swallowed a bite of garlic knot that Lance had given him, “We bonded over Chemistry.”

“Hah! I get it! Like element bonds, good one Keith!” Hunk laughed, holding out a hand for a high-five which Keith hesitantly returned. 

Pidge, however, was not so willing to accept this excuse (although technically it wasn’t a complete lie ), “Are you sure, because Lance told me it had something to do with the chat you guys had about a week ago.”

Lance scowled, “Well… yea, but we actually became friends in chemistry. Since we’re lab partners and all that. Which is your fault since you guys ditched me for Professor Slav,” he finished with an adorable pout.

“Oh, in that case, shouldn’t you be thanking us for letting you two become such good friends?” Pidge asked, smirking.

While Lance gaped, trying to think of a response, Hunk tried to console him, “We’re sorry buddy. If it makes you feel better, Professor Slav is really bad at staying on topic. He keeps going off about all these alternative realities whereby placing the beakers on the left side of the ingredients could involuntarily start World War Three.”

Lance, now thoroughly distracted started up a face-paced chat with Hunk about crazy alternate realities where Hunk would be a Moose and Lance would be a Deer. It was nearly impossible to follow so that left Keith with… Pidge.

The younger girl smirked evilly at him and stood up, a silent invitation to come with her. Keith obediently got up and followed. He wasn’t oblivious, he heard the rumors about her crazy hacking skills and he’d prefer not to be on the receiving end of them thank you very much.

She came to a stop in front of the vending machines in the hallway, away from prying eyes. “So Keith. You never got to answer us completely last Wednesday, so I’ll ask again. What are your intentions with Lance.”

Keith wasn’t proud of it, but he finally broke down, “I HAVE NEVER WANTED TO HOLD A HAND SO BADLY IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, PIDGE.”

Pidge, in her defense, looked shocked. “Really? Is that it?”

“...No,” Keith admitted, “I also want to take him on dates, and make him smile, and kiss his stupid freckles, and his stupid lips, and see him happy, and hear his laugh, and finally be able to call myself his boyfriend.”

Her eyes were blown wide, “Wow. Okay, so I wasn’t expecting any of that… I was kind of thinking you were just in this friendship to beat him up or something.”

Keith growled, “I would never hurt Lance, nor would I let anyone else hurt him.” 

Pidge held her hands up in surrender, “Yeah okay! I get it, you’re hopelessly in love with him,” after a bit of silence, she continued, “Just… what do you plan to do about it?”

He sighed, “I don’t know. He gave me a bunch of rules to follow, which I’ve probably broken already, about how much affection I’m allowed to show him. Things like no compliments, only allowed to stare at him for five minutes each day, no gifts over twenty dollars, I can’t look too in love around you guys, and I can’t ask him on dates unless he’s experiencing a ‘Happy Day’. He wouldn’t even give me his Happy Day calendar!”

She probably took pity on him because she said, “Okay, well I feel bad for you so I’ll tell you what. Do the best you can to follow these rules, I’ll pretend I don’t know about your crush, and I can give you the calendar for Lance’s Happy Days. How does that sound.”

Keith couldn’t contain his excitement, he grabbed Pidge and pulled her into a crushing hug, “Thank you, thank you, thank you . You have no idea how happy this has made me.”

Pidge gasped for air from within Keith’s iron grip, “I think might have some kind of idea…”

As soon as he let go, she took in a huge breath, impressive for her tiny lungs. “I don’t get it though, why are you helping me?” Keith asked.

She smiled at him, adjusting her glasses, “I think you could be good for Lance, he’s a huge romantic, and I’m pretty sure he’s like obsessed with finding his one true love or something. Maybe you two could help each other out! Besides, I’m starting to ship it. We could call you guys Klance .”

Keith furrowed his brows, “That’s it? Really, are you sure you aren't in this for anything else?”

Pidge’s eyes glinted behind her glasses, “Well… other than getting full teasing rights, I really do care about Lance. When I first started school here, I thought nobody would want to become friends with the know-it-all freshman, but Lance and Hunk were really nice to me, despite being sophomores. I owe them a lot, really. So I think getting him a boyfriend would be the least I could do to repay him.”

He smiled, staring down at the floor, “Yeah… he’s amazing isn’t he?”

“Oh wow, forget I said anything. I don’t care about Lance at all, I’m just in this to make fun of him. Keith? Are you listening to me? Dammit, Keith, snap out of it already! I changed my mind, I’m not helping you! HEY, PANINI HEAD, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!”

Keith was not listening to her. Instead, he was daydreaming about all the fantastic dates he and Lance could go on. 

I can’t wait to treat that boy right.

-<To Keith's House...>-

Pidge and Keith had exchanged numbers and Discords (which Keith had to make because he didn’t have an account). Once he had, Pidge added him to a group chat between her, Keith, Hunk, and Lance. 

Then Pidge sent him a calendar that was marked off with all of Lance’s ‘Happy Days’ . Keith thanked her multiple times and printed out the calendar, pinning it to the corkboard he reserved for conspiracy theories in his room. His mom would be home late again, so he invited Shiro and Adam to help him plan out how he was going to ask Lance out.

The three of them were sitting in various spots around Keith’s room. Keith, at the desk in front of the board, Adam on the bed, and Shiro collapsed in a black bean bag chair.

“I almost forgot how many band posters you had…” Shiro said.

Keith turned to him, red pen in hand, “Shut it. Okay, Lance’s Happy Days are mostly on weekends and holidays, but the ones on School Days are November 14th, February 15th, April 7th, May 22nd, and June 21st. There’s also July 28th, because that’s his birthday, but that’s during the summer.”

“So, basically what you’re saying is that you can’t ask Lance out for three whole months?” Adam asked.

He turned back to the calendar and studied it, noticing a single date he forgot to circle. “Nope, I could ask him out on September 24th as well.” 

Shiro sighed, “Keith, that’s still basically a month away.”

Keith sighed and clicked his pen, “I know, but if it’s what Lance wants…”

“You know he’s probably just playing hard to get, right?” Adam pointed out.

“Yeah, I know. It doesn’t matter though, I need to respect his rules in order to secure a date with him. If his next Happy Day is in September, then I have the right amount of time to plan and get closer to Lance.”

Adam sat up a little, “Why don’t you have a sleepover? Kids your age still have those, right?”

Keith scowled, “Adam, I am literally two years younger than you, shut the fuck up.”

“Rude. Takashi, come collect your child.”

Shiro snorted from the bean bag, “That is not my child. Besides, I actually think the sleepover idea is pretty nice. That way, you can play sleepover games like Seven Minutes in Heaven, or Spin the Bottle.”

“Ew, no. I was thinking more like video games. You just got him a switch, right?” Adam asked, and Keith nodded, “Then invite them over to try it out. You could play some multiplayer games together.”

“That’s… actually not a bad idea,” Keith mused.

“See? I told you. Now, what are your ideas for potential dates.”

Keith scratched his neck, “Well… I was thinking I could take him to a self-defense class?”

While Shiro nodded seriously Adam shook his head, sighing.

“Oh boy. If that’s all we’ve got to work with, this might take a while.”

“I’ll order pizza,” Shiro said, hopping out of the beanbag before stumbling gracelessly and falling onto the hardwood floor.

“Adam. How did Shiro get you to like him?” Keith asked, skeptically. 

“Well. He was very, very dorky, and I was very, very weak for that kind of stuff,” Adam replied honestly.

Shiro flipped them both off, his face still planted on the floor.

“Get up, Takashi. Or I’ll make a rule about no floor lips either.”

At that, Shiro sprang right up, “It’s okay, I’m alive, no need for that. Can I get a kiss now?”

Adam rolled his eyes and Keith gagged as their lips met.

I can’t wait to do that with Lance.

-<To the Alley...>-

As Keith settled down in the Marmora Gang hangout, he whipped out his phone and took a glance at the Discord chat he’d been added to. Nothing had been posted since that morning given that Lance, Hunk, and Pidge actually paid attention in class.

While he debated whether or not to send out an invitation for a sleepover right then and there, a couple of his fellow members came over to see what he was doing.

“Hey, Keith. Who’re you texting?” Vrek asked, looking over Keith’s shoulder. He quickly shoved Vrek out of the way and switched his screen to show his wallpaper. 

“Nobody,” Keith answered, waiting for Vrek to get lost. The Marmoran, however, was growing increasingly more and more curious.

“You sure? ‘Cause we’ve been seeing you smiling all happy and shit at your phone a lot lately. Is it possible that the ever stoic Keith Kogane has a cruuuuush ?”

Keith’s cheeks lit up, and he swore under his breath as more members of the Blade gathered around. “Let me see!” Ezor yelled, swiftly grabbing his phone. 

“Hey! Give that back, Ez!” he scowled, but Ezor just stuck her tongue out and scaled a tree, Zethrid sitting under it to guard her.   

“Hey, Kogane! What’s your password?!” Ezor yelled from the branches.

“Go fuck yourself!” Keith yelled back. There was silence for a moment before Ezor looked down again.

“Nope, that wasn’t it!” Narti signed below her to pass the phone to her, and Ezor did so while Keith grumbled. 

“Be careful with that! It’s expensive!” Ezor just laughed at him.

“Aww,” she cooed, “Poor baby. Don’t worry, if it breaks, you can always buy a new one!”

Keith growled, “IF IT BREAKS, YOU’RE DEAD!”

Narti held the phone back up to Ezor, having unlocked it. The rest of the members gathered around as Ezor slipped down from the tree, all eager to see their Leader get humiliated. Jackasses. 

“Hear ye, hear ye! Come one, come all! Witness our resident stone-cold bitchboy get what’s comin’ to him!” Ezor cheered. Then, she held the phone up to her eyes and cleared her throat, reading in a louder than needed voice, “On Thursday, September 7th, 2019, at 3:00 am Keith Kogane messaged someone named Punkass-Pidgeon over Discord saying the following: I am going to treat that boy so right, he’ll be begging me to be his boyfriend!”

The crowd was silent for a moment, but Keith wasn’t worried. They all knew he was gay, and a couple of them were too. He wasn’t going to let any obnoxious homophobes into the Blades, they got away with enough as is. Then, Ezor looked up and right at Keith.

“Wait… you actually want to date someone?” she asked, genuine.

Keith blushed and nodded, “Yeah. He’s really important to me, so I want to make sure he knows it.”

The Blades were silent for a moment before Ezor squealed, “ Awww, KEITH! I knew you had emotions inside you somewhere! Come here, we’re hugging now.”

He scowled and backed away, only to be shoved forward by a smirking Regris, “No, no, nope. Not doing that.”

“Come on! Bring it in Kogane!” Ilun yelled from somewhere in the crowd.

“We all know deep down you’re a big softy,” Regris, the traitor, said while he continued pushing. Keith tried to squirm away but eventually, two snake-like arms were wrapped around him as he was forced into a much-unwanted hug. 

Soon, so was everyone else. If Keith thought the phone would be the extent of his embarrassment, he was dead wrong. Suddenly, someone in a purple hoodie ran by, a notorious symbol on their back.

“Hey!” Keith yelled, catching the attention of the Blade and the stranger. “That’s our guy! Get him!”

Immediately, the group disbanded and chased after the man in the purple hoodie. Keith sighed as he forced himself to hang back as he realized Ezor still had his phone. He sat down on the cold pavement and waited for them to return, lingering warmth of the hug keeping a small smile on his face.

-<To Lunch...>- 

At Lunch, Keith walked with Lance to their now shared Lunch table. Ignoring how the Blade of Marmora wolf-whistled at him. He calmly flipped them off and sat down, deciding to get right to the point.

“Hey, would you guys be up for a sleepover at my house this weekend? My mom’s going to be home in case you’re worried about supervision.”

Hunk picked at his hot pocket, “Maybe… I’ll have to see. It takes my mom’s three consecutive business days to approve any hangout with friends, just ask Lance!”

The boy in question grinned, “Yep. Hunky bear was reaaallly shy at the start of Freshman year. So his parents were super protective of him. My mama was like that too, but I’m sure if Hunk and I mention that we’ll both be there, they won’t have a problem with it. Our parents are really good friends now.”

Pidge nodded, “Same goes for me whenever Hunk hosts study dates at his house because his room is always super tidy. My parents should be fine with it, they always like it when I make new friends,” she finished with a roll of her eyes. 

“Okay. You guys can come over anytime after school if you want. I’ll just be ordering pizza, but I can pick up any snacks you might want before you get there. I’ll text my address to the Discord group chat.”

They all nodded and returned to their lunches, but Lance grabbed his sleeve, staring into Keith’s eyes with his own gorgeous ocean blue ones, “Nothing over twenty dollars, right?”

Keith nodded, not when he was going to ask Lance out so soon, “Right. I’ll try my best.”

Lance fiddled with his (Keith’s) sleeve, “I could go with you if you wanted… you know, just to make sure.”

If Keith nodded any harder, his head would pop right off his neck, “Yes! Yeah, sure. Okay, I’ll drive you there.”

He offered a sunny smile that nearly blinded Keith and let go, Keith’s heart immediately aching for the touch once it disappeared. 

The rest of the Lunch went quickly, and Keith could only hope that the rest of the day went by just as fast. He couldn’t wait for Friday.”

-<To Keith's House...>-

Keith set his bag down on the floor of the foyer, “I’m home!” he yelled. Force of habit, his mom probably wasn’t home-

“Oh, Keith. There you are, welcome home, love.” Uhh, what.

Krolia stepped in from the den to greet Keith, who just stood there in shock. “I thought you’d be busy tonight?” he asked, and she smiled.

“I took some time off to spend more time with you, is that a crime? Why, were you planning to throw a party while I was gone?” she teased. 

Keith ran forward to give her a hug, “No, I’m just really happy to see you.”

She returned the hug and combed her fingers through his hair, “I’m happy to see you too, love.” When they broke away, she walked into the kitchen, “Anyway, I’ll still be here for the weekend as well, as I promised. Don’t forget, you’re scheduled for boxing at 6:30, so make sure you have all your stuff packed.”

He rolled his eyes and followed her, watching as she put a tab of coffee into the espresso machine, “Yeah, I will. Oh, mom?” 

She turned to him, raising a brow in an I’m listening gesture, so he continued, “I’ve invited a couple of friends over for a sleepover. Nothing rowdy, just about three of them, and they’re really polite so they won’t make a mess. We’re probably just going to watch movies and play games all night.”

Her smile was soft when she replied, “Of course, love. I’m proud of you. Anyone I know?”

Keith ducked his head, “Well… Lance is coming-” she cut him off with a gasp.

“ Lance? ” she asked in a devilish tone. “However did you manage that? You won’t make too much noise, will you? Oh, wait! Is this a date? Are you sure there are other people coming over?”

His face flushed violently and his voice cracked a little, “ Mom! ”

She laughed, “I’m just messing with you, love. I’m glad you finally managed to become Lance’s friend. Who knows? Maybe it could lead to more?”

Keith smiled and looked down at the shiny marble counter, “Yeah, I hope it does.”

Chapter Text

-{<Both POV>}-

“¡Lance! Tu amigo estará aquí pronto, ¿ya estás listo?”   [Lance! Your friend will be here soon, are you ready?] Lance’s mom yelled from downstairs.

“¡ Sí, mamá!”   [Yes, mom!] Lance yelled back, zipping up his overnight bag. He didn’t bother to put much effort into his outfit, just a pair of his favourite stretchy jeans that made his legs look good and a faded Pokémon t-shirt that made his slim muscles pop.

Okay, maybe he tried a little bit. Maybe he wanted to look good on purpose. Sue him.

Except don’t because he’s broke so that wouldn’t be nice.

As Lance came downstairs, the doorbell rang. Lance made direct eye contact with Veronica who wiggled her eyebrows before racing to answer the door while Lance scrambled after her.

“So Mr. Kogane, what are your intentions with my baby brother?” Veronica asked, before even completely getting the door open.

“To treat him right and become his boyfriend- wait, who are you?” Keith responded automatically, before pausing to actually think. Lance’s cheeks lit up at his response.

Veronica cooed, “Ooh~ I like this one. My name is Veronica Serrano McClain, nice to meet you officially Keith, Lance talks about you all the time-“

Lance slapped a hand over her mouth, ignoring her lick to his palm in lieu of talking to Keith, “Hey, Mullet head! I’ve got all my stuff packed and ready to go! Let me just say bye to my mamá , you can come inside if you want.”

Keith nodded and stepped into the hallway, Veronica closed the door behind him, now free from Lance’s grip and she yelled out, ignoring his wince, “¡Mamá, mamá! ¡Está aquí el novio de Lance!”  [Mom, mom! Lance's boyfriend is here!]

He hissed at her, “¡No es mi novio, Veronica!”  [He's not my boyfriend, Veronica!]

His mamá however, didn’t seem to care, “Hola , Keith, come right on in. Lance, ven a presentarme a tu amigo.”  [Hello, Keith, come right on in. Lance, come introduce me to your friend.]

Lance rolled his eyes and grabbed Keith’s hand, dragging him into the kitchen where his mamá was making dinner, “Mamá, él es Keith. Keith, this is my mamá . She’s the one making the garlic knots.” [Mom, this is Keith.]

His mamá smiled, “It’s a family recipe, nice to meet you, Keith. You can call me Rosa.”

“Okay, Ms. Serrano McClain,” Keith replied and Lance rolled his eyes again. His mamá however, chuckled. 

“We’ll get there eventually. Lance, ¿has empaquete la cartera?”  [Lance, are you all packed?]

“Sí, mamá,” he whined, “I’ve packed everything, I made a list just like you said. I even…” Lance switched to Spanish to avoid telling Keith, “Hasta empaqué mi maquillaje. ¿Podemos irnos ya?”   [Yes, mom... I even packed my makeup. Can we go now?]

“Yes, yes, don’t let me keep you, have a great time Hijo . Say hi to Hunk for me!” his mamá said, placing a sloppy kiss to his forehead. Lance squirmed out of her hold while Keith laughed silently. He nodded and picked up the old backpack he set on the stairs, swinging it over his shoulders and walking with Keith out the door.

“So, Keith. Where are we going to pick up snacks?” Lance asked as Keith walked over to a motorcycle that Lance hadn’t seen on the street before. He connected the dots and gasped overdramatically before Keith got to reply, “ Ohmygosh, you have a motorcycle ?!”

Keith smiled wide and nodded, taking an extra helmet out of the storage compartment under the seat, “Yep. Helps the whole bad boy shtick, don’t you think?” Lance smiled at that, and walked forward, his heart beating with anxiety and excitement. He’d never ridden on a motorcycle before…

Oh no, mamá’s going to kill me.

“This is your helmet,” Keith said, placing a black one in Lance’s hands. Then, he opened the storage again, “Here, pass me your bag, I’ll store it under the seat.”

Lance shucked his bag off and tossed it to Keith, who placed it in the compartment. Meanwhile, Lance attempted to put the helmet on.

Keith noticed his struggle and chuckled approaching him, “Here, let me?” Lance nodded and handed him the helmet, Keith stepped closer to him (closer than was probably necessary, jeez personal space much?) and placed the helmet firmly over Lance’s head until it fits snugly. Keith stayed for a while and eventually his eyebrows narrowed, causing Lance to snicker internally. He probably realized he can’t kiss me like this now. Sucks to suck, Keith- wait, why am I thinking about kissing him?!

Together, they headed over to the bike, Keith straddling it immediately, placing his helmet on while Lance hesitated.

“I think now’s probably a good time to mention,” Lance started, voice slightly muffled by the helmet, “That I’ve actually never ridden on a motorcycle before soooo…”

“Oh,” Keith said, short, sweet, and… surprised? Geez, who did Keith think Lance was? A motorcycle maniac? Never in a million years. “Okay, uh, just sit down behind me and put your arms around my waist.”

Lance complied, “Like this?” he asked, wrapping his arms around Keith’s waist snugly. Wow, those are muscles .

Keith paused for a while. “Keith?” Lance asked, only to be met with harsh coughing from the mulleted biker.

“Uh y-yeah. That’s ah, good,” he responded, and Lance could have sworn he noticed a bright red flush on Keith’s neck, contrasting with his dark helmet and a darker leather jacket. 

“ Keith~” Lance teased, trying not to laugh, “Is something the matter, papi?” WHAT AM I DOING??!!

If possible, Keith’s neck got even redder and his voice actually cracked when he spoke, “L-Lance!” He took a pause before he spoke again, his voice low and serious. “Please don’t tease me, Lance, you know how I feel about you. I don’t want to push anything on you, but all I can think of is kissing you right now.”

Would that really be so bad? Kissing me? Lance thought unconsciously. “Right, right. I’m sorry,” he apologized and loosened his grip. Keith didn’t reply, instead, revving the engine and pulling away from Lance’s house. They sat in silence for the entire ride, and Lance only spoke again when Keith threatened to pay for all the snacks they got, despite the amount being over $20.

-<To Keith's House...>-

Lance barely got the chance to marvel at the sheer size of Keith’s house because the other boy was quickly moving inside, carrying Lance’s bag and snacks with him. He had to run a little to catch up with the other boys brisk steps, barely managing to get his helmet off by himself. Keith rang the doorbell and opened the door, he showed Lance where he could put his shoes while Lance gaped at the fancy interior of his house, then the two of them were headed upstairs.

“I thought you said your mom would be here?” Lance asked while they were climbing the swirling staircase.

Keith nodded, “She is, she’s just working in the Den. I can introduce you guys later if you’d like?”

He smiled, “Of course! Now, let me show you how far I’ve gotten in Breath of the Wild…”

The two of them talked for a while, the incident with the motorcycle was long forgotten. While Lance was listening to Keith ramble about a band he liked, his gaze drifted over to land on a suspicious-looking white sheet that was covering a large board. Lance got up from the bed and walked over to it, no longer paying attention.

“Hey, Keith?” he started, waiting until Keith noticed he was being spoken to, “What’s this?”

Keith looked over and his eyes went wide, “T-that’s nothing, just a project for another class!”

Lance raised an eyebrow, “I thought you skipped all your classes?”

The other boy let out a nervous chuckle, “Doesn’t mean I don’t do the work! Why do you think I’m still in your grade?”

He shrugged, “Honestly? I kinda just thought your parents paid off the school.”

“That’s… fair I guess, but it’s not true. My mom doesn’t believe in shortcuts, and although I skip class a lot, I do all of the work anyway.” 

Lance hummed, “So, what class is it for?”

Keith flushed a little, “Uhh… History.”

He ignored the stuttering, “Oh, cool. Who do you have for History? I have Professor Coran, and he’s awesome!”

The other boy chuckled a little, “I know. I went to your class once, remember? Anyway, I think I have Professor Kythylian Mu.”

“Ohh! I know that guy! He’s super scary, but he and Coran are like BFF’s! Sometimes when he rambles he ends up telling us about all these crazy adventures the two of them went on like this one time where...” Lance launched into a rant about one of Coran’s stories while Keith internally sighed with relief. 

That was a little too close for comfort. Maybe we should move this to the basement.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door as his mom opened up. “Keith, a van just pulled into our driveway, I think your other friends are here. What were their names again? 1?”

Keith got up from where he’d been sitting on the bed, “Oh, Pidge and Hunk. Yeah, I’ll let them in.”

As he walked past her into the hallway, she turned to Lance. “My name is Krolia Kogane, you are… Lance, correct?”

He nodded, “Nice to meet you Ms. Kogane.” They shook hands and she winked at him.

“I actually do know the names of your friends, I just wanted to tease Keith a little bit,” she said with a smile. When Lance looked confused, she elaborated, “I’m sure you are well aware that my son has a crush on you, yes? Well, he called me at work once, awfully distressed saying that he ‘forgot the names of his crush's best friends.’ mentioning that he called them ‘Paige and Hank’  instead of Pidge and Hunk. Very amusing if you ask me.”

Lance laughed a little, “Oh, yeah. I remember that. I guess it’s easy to get confused when you don’t know them personally but I mean… they aren’t common names and he knows literally everything else about me. It was pretty funny though.”

She nodded, and then her gaze hardened a little, “Look, Lance. I know you're not inclined to accept my son’s affections for you and I certainly am not going to force you to. I think it was very kind for you to keep your friendship, though I just have to ask you to do something for me, okay?” she asked, and continued when Lance nodded, “Please be gentle with him. He hasn’t felt this strongly for… well… anyone before. As his mother, I just don’t want to see him hurt.”

He gaped for a bit and then nodded, “Yeah… yeah of course. I’d never hurt Keith, I wouldn’t lead him on either.”

Krolia smiled and placed a calloused hand on his shoulder, “You’re a good boy, Lance. I’m glad my son has found happiness with you.” She turned to leave, “It was nice meeting you.”

“Ah, you too Ms. Kogane!” Lance replied quickly, seeing Keith, Hunk, and Pidge chatting together while they made their way up the stairs.

“Okay, you can put your bags in here for now, but we’ll be setting up in the basement,” Keith said as they walked in.

“Aww, noo, I wanna see what cool stuff you have in your room!” Hunk whined. Eventually, his eyes darted over to the covered-up corkboard. “Hey what’s this-” 

Keith yanked his sleeve away and basically corralled everyone out of his room just as Hunk was about to remove the sheet and uncover Keith’s history project. Personally, Lance couldn’t see why it was such a big deal but whatever.

They made their way downstairs and the trio soon discovered that they would much rather be in the basement than Keith’s room. 

“Woah! This place is like teenager heaven!” Hunk said, moving to inspect the large flatscreen Keith had hooked up to all kinds of consoles. 

“Dude, even I don’t have this many video games, how’d you even get all this stuff?” Pidge asked while flipping through a couple. Her eyes widened and she held up a super rare copy of Air Raid for Lance to see. They both gaped at each other before Lance went over to see what other games Keith had.

“How’d you get all this stuff anyway?” Lance asked, blanching when he noticed all the Super Mario Bros games Keith had lined up. I can’t believe he literally let me explain the Underground Theme to him! Ohmygod I must have looked like an idiot!

“Oh… well… My mom isn’t around a lot, and she feels bad about it so she usually gets me a lot of video games so I can ‘keep myself occupied,’” he said, using air quotes. Then he walked over to kneel next to Lance and Pidge. “Some of these are in different languages too, from when she went on business trips. Look, this is a copy of Akane the Kunoichi from when she traveled to Italy for a meeting with Olkarion Tech . She gave me this a while ago before she knew I was…” he trailed off, nervously glancing at Pidge and Hunk. Lance gave him a thumbs up, realizing what he was about to say and Keith cleared his throat. “Before she knew I was Gay.”

“You’re Gay? Dude, that’s awesome! I’m Pan!” Hunk said, smiling brightly. Keith’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Really?” 

Pidge smirked, “Yeah. I mean, I already knew you were Gay, but just so you know, I’m Aro/Ace.”

Lance smiled. “And I’m Bi,” he said as nonchalantly as possible, meanwhile Keith’s head whipped around so fast that Hunk nearly shit himself.

“You’re BI??!!” he asked, and when Lance nodded he blurted out, “Then why aren’t we dating yet?!”

He felt his face flush as Pidge and Hunk laughed in the background, but Keith’s attention was focused on Lance and only Lance. “Uh… well… I haven’t developed feelings for you, right?” (lies. Lance thought Keith was adorable and couldn’t wait to be asked out by him) Plus, it wasn’t one of my Happy Days, so you can’t ask me out yet!” He paused for a bit, then asked, “Wait, I thought you knew? Why would I invite you to ask me out if I was straight?”

Keith lowered his gaze and pouted, “I thought you were too sweet to give me a proper rejection...” he mumbled.

“Aww, Keith. C’mere,” Lance cooed, wrapping the boy in a tight hug. Soon enough, they were joined by Hunk and Pidge. 

“Thank you… for, you know, accepting me and shit. It means a lot,” Keith said, and Lance beamed.

“No problem, dude! Now, let’s play some video games!” Lance cheered.

Pidge’s smile turned into an evil smirk, “I know, let’s play Mario Kart .”

Lance’s eyes lit up with determination, “Hell yeah! You’re going down, Mullet!”

Keith scoffed, “In your dreams, Lance.”

-<To the Sleepover...>-

After Keith had ordered a Pizza, they all sat down in his room to play some sleepover games. Most of which he didn’t understand. 

After a game called Never Have I Ever , Pidge broke out the big guns. “Hey, let’s play Truth or Dare. ” 

Hunk and Lance were reluctant to agree, but Keith was game. “Sure, why not,” he agreed.

After some whining from Lance, and some anxious complaining from Hunk, they finally agreed and Pidge smirked. 

“Alright, Lance. Truth or Dare,” she started.

Lance looked frightened for a moment, before hesitantly answering, “Truth.”

Her smirk grew, “Where did you get your new Zelda game?”

“Oh, uhh, that was Keith, actually. He gave me the game… and the console.”

“Woah, what?” Hunk blanched, “Dude, that’s so nice of you!”

Keith flushed a little, “It wasn’t a big deal-”

“No, man. It totally was, I was super thrilled to have gotten it, thank you,” Lance said, smiling softly, and Keith’s poor gay heart jumped for joy.

“It’s no… you’re welcome,” he answered instead. 

They sat in silence for a bit before Lance spoke up, “Okay, Hunk! Truth or Dare?”

Hunk thought about it for a while, “Truth,” he finally decided, and Pidge groaned. 

“ Booooring, ” she said, and Lance delivered a swift slap to her arm. 

“Okay, Hunky. What’s the deal with you and Shay, huh?”

Hunk blushed, and Keith picked up on it, “Oh, does Hunk have a crush on someone?”

Lance nodded, “Yup, her name is Shay, she wants to be a Geologist one day, and she’s the sweetest thing ever! Her and Hunk would be a dream couple if he would just man up and ask her out already!”

Keith stored that tidbit of information away, before asking, “Shay? As in, Shay Balmera? I’ve chatted with her a couple of times, she seems nice.”

Pidge scoffed, “Nice is an understatement. Shay, just like our beautiful Hunky over here, practically radiates sunshine. She’d be an actual Angel, if Angel’s were interested in Geodes and could bench press Me, Hunk, and Lance’s weight combined. ” 

He was impressed, “Wow. I mean, that’s no surprise for Lance, since he weighs about the same as a toothpick, but that’s still very impressive.”

“Hey!” Lance protested, “I totally have muscles!”

Oh, I don’t doubt that. “Uh-huh. Sure you do,” Keith teased.

“I’ll prove it! Look!” he yelled, pulling up his shirt.

Oh fuck. Abort. Abort. Abort. Keith.exe has stopped working.

Keith stared at Lance’s stomach with wide eyes and studied his lean tan muscles. His chest was lightly splattered with the same cinnamon-Esque freckles as his nose and cheeks, and he had a small birthmark at the jut of his hip bone. A couple of beauty spots and small moles decorated his chest too, reminding Keith of stars he could connect to constellations. He could feel himself getting steadily warmer the longer he stared, and all the competitiveness drained out of Lance’s body with a realization. 

“Ugh, great going, Lance. You broke Keith,” Pidge groaned and Lance pulled down his shirt.

“I didn’t mean too!” Lance yelled, a light blush on his cheeks as well.

Hunk crawled over to where Keith was staring unseeingly at Lance, “Keith? Buddy? You still in there?” he asked carefully.

Rebooting. Rebooting. Rebooting. Keith.exe is back online. Welcome back, Keith.

Keith blinked a few times before grabbing a pillow and screaming into it, causing the three other teens to flinch. 

“Keith?! Are you okay?” Lance asked, jumping up. Keith peered from around the pillow and then abruptly threw it at Lance.

“Asshole! Why do you have to look so hot, you’re supposed to be cute only !” he shouted, grabbing another pillow from the bed to chase after Lance. 

“Hey! That’s not my fault, and who are you to limit my attractiveness?!” Lance screeched back, grabbing the pillow that Keith tossed at him and meeting him halfway.

Soon enough, Hunk and Pidge joined in as well, until all four of them were lying in a laughing heap on Keith’s floor. They were interrupted when Krolia knocked on the door and entered.

“Hey, guys. I hope you’re having a good time. I’m just letting you know that I’m heading to bed now, I suggest you should as well if you don’t want to feel tired tomorrow.” 

They all nodded and said their respective goodnights, despite all knowing they wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

“There’s a bathroom downstairs to change if you need to, there’s also one up here and one in my room. I’m going to use that one, so you guys can take the others,” Keith said, leaving the decision of who goes where up to them. He then left to go to his bedroom, leaving the rest of the guests in the hallway.

“I’ll take the one downstairs,” Hunk offered.

Pidge nodded, “I’ve already been to the one up here, so I’ll take that one.”

Unknowingly, Lance agreed. Only realizing his issue later on. He hastily knocked on the door down the hallway that he saw Pidge disappear into, “Wait! Pidge, where am I supposed to change?”

“I don’t know? Figure it out! Why not just wait ‘till one of us leaves or something?!” she called from behind the door.

Lance pouted and stomped over into Keith’s room, making sure his unhappiness could be heard by Pidge from beyond the door. His footsteps quieted as he approached Keith’s room.

He’ll probably be done the soonest, right? I mean, he was in there before we decided where to go…

As Lance waited on Keith’s bed, his eyes were drawn to the same board that was covered with a sheet from earlier. Something told him that it wasn’t just a simple History project. Curiosity getting the better of him, he grasped a corner of the sheet and pulled it down, soaking up the content that was hidden beneath it.

Ah-hah! I knew it! This isn’t a History project, it’s a… what the heck is this thing?

Studying the board further, he saw a Calendar with dates that looked strikingly familiar, multiple sticky notes with many beaches, amusement parks, and restaurants listed on them, and an entire other sheet dedicated to small gift ideas and flower meanings.

“What…”

“ LANCE!”

Lance whipped around at the sound of his name, coming face-to-face with a very flustered Keith.

“It’s not what it looks like!” said a frantic Keith.

“Dude, I don’t even know what it’s supposed to look like!” Lance responded, looking back and forth between the two. “What the heck even is this thing?”

“It’s uh… a History project?” 

Lance shook his head, “Nuh-uh, nice try dude, but no history projects I’ve heard of need a list of upcoming movies in the Romantic Comedy genre. Explain, now.”

Keith gave him a meek look, which startled him a little at the prospect of the hardy delinquent looking so… scared. “Do I have to?”

He narrowed his eyebrows, “Yes.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “They’re date ideas. For you.”

Lance felt his eyes nearly bug out of his skull, “Me?!”

The delinquent swallowed audibly, “Yeah… ever since you mentioned that I wasn’t allowed to ask you on dates on anything but your Happy Days… I asked Pidge for a Calendar of them… and then planned out some options.”

“Keith! You can’t just- ugh, you- you can’t ask Pidge! That- that’s… CHEATING!” Lance sputtered.

“Is it? You never said I couldn’t ask them…” Keith replied sheepishly.

“Uhh, yes, I did. Rule number 4 stated that you had to keep all indications that you were in love with me away from Pidge and Hunk. Which includes asking for my Happy Day Calendar so you can ask me out!”

Keith scoffed, “Actually, she confronted me about it, so technically it’s not cheating. Plus, I’m pretty sure both of them have figured it out already anyway…”

Lance stopped for a moment, taking in Keith’s sheepish demeanor and then looking back to the board. The more he studied it, the more fine details he was able to make out. It was kind of… endearing how badly Keith wanted this to go well.

“Look, Lance, I-“ Keith started.

“Okay.”

“...What?”

Lance turned to him, smiling, “I said okay. I’ll go on a date with you, dork.”

He could have sworn he saw tears building up in Keith’s eyes. “Really?” the other boy asked.

“Yeah, even I have to admit, you are obscenely dedicated.” 

Keith smiled shakily, his eyes filled with adoration. “Only for you,” he replied, “Only ever for you.”

Lance blushed. “Sap…” he muttered, punching Keith in the shoulder. Keith barely flinched, which was unfair, but instead continued to look at Lance with a soft smile.

“Thank you,” he muttered.

The other boy looked puzzled and tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy. Damn it Kogane, stop being adorable! That’s my job!

“Why are you thanking me, I’m the one who should be thanking you. ” 

He shrugged, turning to the board, “I dunno, for still putting up with me after I rejected you and basically made sure you and I would never be together. Which, really didn’t make me look all that great, you probably thought that was a bit harsh…”

Keith shook his head, “I never expected anything from you, Lance. I was actually surprised you still wanted to be my friend even after all I said. Which is why I should be thanking you for giving me a second chance.”

“Yeah, but…” Lance took another glance at the board, soaking in all the fine details, really appreciating the dedication Keith put into each individual plan as if he expected to be rejected over and over. The thought broke Lance’s heart a bit, he knew as soon as he had established that rule he’d never be able to say no to the other boy. Especially if Keith looked at him with the adoration he was now. “You put so much thought into all of this… if I didn’t know the extent of how you felt about me,” he chuckled, “I’d think I was unworthy of all this effort.”

He smiled, wide and honest, “Heck, if this is what you’re willing to do to get me on a first date, imagine once we actually start dating! Oh, gosh, Valentine's day with you is going to be the best! And my birthday too… did you know the reason I have a Happy Day on February 15th is because of all the sales on chocolate the stores have? I’ve never had a boyfriend or girlfriend attend shopping with me before so it could be a super fun date idea-” he suddenly noticed how stock still the other boy was standing. “Keith? Are you okay? Was it something I said?” he said, nervously. 

Oh gosh, has he messed this up already? What if Keith doesn’t want to date him that long? What if Keith hates chocolate! What if Keith mysteriously disappears on a mission to Pluto’s moon and never returns but actually he just hi-tailed it away from Lance’s crazy post-Valentine's day plans and decided to live in the mountains of Iceland as a sheepherder? What if-

His internal monologue was cut off by Keith’s head shooting forward and pressing a bruising kiss to Lance’s lips. Lance struggled to breathe for a while until Keith re-gained awareness of the situation and pulled back, his Indigo eyes wide.

“Oh, fuck. Lance, I’m so sorry… I should have asked before I did that! It’s just, you were rambling and I was listening, because I love hearing you ramble and I love your voice in general, and you said you wanted to keep me around for Valentine's day, and you called me your boyfriend involuntarily and my mind kind of shut down for a bit, but I’m back!” he finished awkwardly, slightly out of breath, “... I don’t suppose I could kiss you again? Properly, this time?”

If Lance grinned any wider, his entire face would split open. Ew, gross. Let’s not think about that.

“Yeah! Yeah. Sorry, I’m just,” he took a deep breath and looked at Keith, “Nervous, I guess. That was kind of my first kiss, and I thought I scared you away with my rambling.”

Keith stepped closer, eyes impossibly soft, “I don’t think anything you do could scare me away.”

Lance blushed and rolled his eyes, “Yeah, right. What makes you so sure of that?”

He smirked, “That’s because you’re not scary.”

“Rude!” Lance gasped, “I can totally be scary! Just ask Hunk, he saw me while I was doing my face routine once and he almost smacked me with a towel!” 

“Mmmm.. no, that wouldn’t scare me.” 

“Uhh… I’m pretty sure it would, Mullet head.”  

“No, it wouldn’t. Wanna know why?” Keith asked, the smirk never wavering. 

“...why?” Lance asked, skeptically.

“Because you’re too cute to be scary!” the other boy said, smirk transforming into a smile as he booped Lance softly on the nose.

Lance pouted, “No….”

“Yesss….” Keith teased, wrapping his arms around the other boy’s waist.

“Shut up, Mullet head...”

“Okay, then can I kiss you instead?”

Lance pursed his lips into an exaggerated pout.“I guess ,” he sighed dramatically, closing his eyes and waiting for Keith to initiate the kiss.

He heard the other boy chuckle fondly from closed eyes before he felt chapped lips being pressed softly into his own. He melted slightly, enjoying the feeling of the contact. Keith’s lips were rough in some places, and soft in others, like he’d bitten the chapped skin off while he was nervous. Lance’s hands fluttered a bit, uncertain before he carefully placed one hand on Keith’s hip and another into the inky hair surrounding his nape. 

Wow, that is soft… Lance thought, gently petting Keith’s hair to avoid pulling on any knots or tangles and interrupting the kiss. He didn’t want it to end so soon, but he was running out of air.

He pulled back a little, inhaling to make up for lost breath. As he did so, Keith peppered his face with gentle little kisses, whispering sweet nothings as if Lance was a precious being he was afraid to let go of. 

Like the sticky note, he remembered fondly, afraid that if he touches it or let’s go, it’ll fade forever.

“I still can’t believe this isn’t a dream,” Keith whispered, pressing his lips to Lance’s cheeks repeatedly. As if he was trying to kiss all of the faint freckles that existed there. 

“And I still can’t believe Hunk and Pidge haven’t come barging in on us yet,” Lance muttered sardonically, leaning into Keith even more (as if they weren’t completely pressed together already).

“Cut us some slack, man. We didn’t want to interrupt you guys,” a muffled voice answered from Keith’s bedroom door, causing both boys to flinch back from each other’s embrace. Both missed the solid contact immediately but pursued anyway.

“Hunk… Pidge… are you guys behind the door?” Lance asked, tentatively.

There was a long pause before, “Noooo… ow, Pidge!”

“Damnit, Hunk! Ugh, Yes, we’re out here,” Pidge answered back, the other voice assumed to be Hunks. After their position was revealed, they came out from behind the door and entered Keith’s room.

“Sorry, Lance, we just didn’t want to interrupt you guys. You’re so cute together!” Hunk explained, Pidge scoffed at him.

“Speak for yourself, I was getting blackmail material,” she said, holding up her phone.

Keith’s eyes widened and he made to launch for her phone, but Lance put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back.

“Don’t bother, Keith. Just give in. She’s probably already made a dozen copies and saved it to external devices.”

The other boy pouted, and shot a look a Pidge but nodded anyway. “Now,” Lance continued, “If you would excuse me, I have to get into my pajamas.”

Pidge rolled her eyes, “Yeah, yeah, we all know that’s a code word for making out with Keith again.”  

Lance sputtered and Keith flushed, heavily, “I wasn’t- we weren’t- making out it was just a kiss!”

“Suuure, suuure. I believe you. Come on, Hunk. Let's set up our sleeping bags downstairs.”

“Have fun, use protection!” Hunk called, laughing as the two left the room again.

“...I do actually have to get changed though,” Lance said, rubbing his neck which felt uncomfortably hot.

Keith coughed into his fist, “You know… it’s actually warmer up here than it is downstairs. I actually wanna get some sleep tonight, would you be up for…” he trailed off, gathering his confidence, “Sleeping in here tonight?”

Lance blinked, processing, before he blushed all the way to his ears, “ KEITH, we just kissed?! What are you insinuating?!”

Keith looked confused and mildly alarmed, “Uhh, cuddling? What did you think?”

He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, “Oh thank everything, I thought you took Hunk’s comment about protection seriously.”

This time, it was Keith’s turn to blush, “ WHAT?”, he spoke, voice cracking and Lance winced, “No! No, I just- no. Sorry, nothing against you it’s just… I’m not that kind of guy… I don’t want to go there right now.”

“Right now?! ” Lance screeched.

“LET’S CHANGE THE SUBJECT,” Keith shouted desperately, “Don’t you still have to get changed? You do, here, use my bathroom and hurry up. I don’t Pidge and Hunk to get any... ideas .”

Lance flushed and nodded, scooping up his overnight bag and rushing into Keith’s bathroom. Once he locked the door (force of habit, being in a big house will do that), he looked at himself in the mirror. His lips were a little red from the kiss, and his blush extended all the way from the tips of his ears to the nape of his neck, it even ran down his chest a bit. He took a deep breath and sighed wistfully, before smiling to himself and squishing his cheeks.

I can’t wait to do that again.

Chapter Text

-{<Both~ POV>}-

Lance, as it turns out, is a very affectionate boyfriend.

Because that’s what they are now, boyfriends. 

The thought makes Keith smile softly as he walks to class. He’s been doing that lately, actually attending his classes. He won’t lie, it’s hilarious to see the eyes of his teachers' bug out of their skulls as he claims a random seat at the front. He can feel several pairs of eyes watching, several mouths whispering about him. Nobody ever asks for their seat back, he doesn’t think they have the courage to. Not that he minds, but still.

Lance has started walking him to class every day, just to make sure he attends. Sure, Keith can ask for a Bathroom break and then leave, but he doesn’t want to disappoint Lance, who dotes on him day and night and constantly nags at him asking ‘Did you do your homework?’ . His reward and retribution method works similarly to Adam’s, where Keith receives a hug or a kiss whenever he completes a task fully (or at least tries his best), and doesn’t get any affection when he fails to.

It’s sufficient to say it works perfectly, much as it does on Shiro.

Today, Keith is excited, because it’s September 20th, and Lance and he are about to go out on their first official date. He was lucky, Lance had lifted his Happy Day rule for him, and they decide to go tonight, due to them both finding out they had a quiz to study for on Tuesday. Despite already changing their relationship status and calling each other their boyfriend, they still haven’t gone on a proper date yet. Sure, there have been hangouts, and study periods, and sometimes they’ll hang out together at the small park down the street from Lance’s house, but those don’t count. At least, not to them. 

Keith can’t lie, he’s really excited to spoil Lance. Thankfully, the other boy has lifted the ‘Nothing over $20’ rule, so Keith can spend as much as he wants on him.

He smiles to himself, tuning out the lecture Ms. Dyak is serving. He already gets all his academic help from Adam, Shiro, and now Lance, Hunk, and Pidge. He doesn’t really need to pay attention. Plus, he’s already read the book she’s rambling about, East of Eden . It’s interesting but very long. He often gets committed to books and tends to hyperfocus and read through them entirely before he realizes that he’s done so. The rest of his class, it’s safe to say, has not finished the book, considering Dyak prefers to read it to them out loud like they’re in Kindergarten and not High School Seniors about to graduate and go to College.    

His phone buzzes, and he’s shocked for a moment before remembering Lance and Hunk have study hall today for History, so he whips out his phone to check his messages.

Lance 💙

---

 

okay niiiiiiiiggghhhhht babe~ 💕💗💖💘💞💖💗[10:51 PM]

 

Goodnight, Lance :) ❤️ [10:51 PM]

 

Today 8:47 AM

 

psssst, keith [8:47 AM]

 

Yeah? [8:48 AM]

 

oh wow that was fast [8:48 AM]  

okay, hunky and i r havin a lil debate [8:49 AM]

 

Okay? [8:49 AM]

 

and hes sayin that Super Mario Odyssey is the best Mario gaem of all time [8:49 AM]

*game [8:50 AM] 

 

And? [8:50 AM]

 

well…. pidge wont answer us so we need another video game conessurs opinion [8:50 AM]

is that how u spell conessurs??? [8:51 AM]

 

I am almost entirely certain it isn’t [8:51 AM]

Yeah, I just checked, it’s connoisseur [8:52 AM]

 

ok ok [8:52 AM]

but we still need that opinion babe [8:52 AM]

 

Well, first of all, I’d like to point out that I love how you capitalized the video game and nothing else [8:52 AM]

 

ty i am a gem [8:53 AM]

[8:53 AM]

I know [8:53 AM]

Secondly… [8:53 AM]

Hunk is wrong, the best Super Mario game is Super Mario Galaxy [8:53 AM]

 

uh WRONG [8:53 AM]

 

How is that wrong, you asked for my opinion? [8:54 AM]

 

yeh [8:54 AM]

and ur opinions is wrong [8:54]

 

*Opinion [8:54 AM]

 

stfu Mullet Head [8:55 AM]

fully capitalized cause thats how mean u r [8:55 AM]

 

Scary. [8:55 AM]

 

STFU [8:55 AM]

worst bf ever [8:56 AM]

can i refund u??? [8:56 AM]

 

Nope [8:56 AM]

 

dang [8:56 AM]

*dramatic sigh* well i guess i have no choice but to lov u forverv [8:56 AM]

*love *forever [8:57 AM]

 

Did you just type “dramatic sigh”? [8:57 AM]

 

yes i did [8:57 AM]

bc as mentioned befor [8:57 AM]

i am a gem ✨[8:58 AM]

 

Right… [8:58 AM]

[8:59 AM]

is that sarcasam i sense Mullet? [8:59 AM]

 

*Sarcasm [8:59 AM]

Yes, it is, but you’re still cute ❤️ [8:59 AM]

o wow ily [9:00 AM]

 

Getting back on topic… [9:00 AM]

What would your favourite Super Mario game be? If mine is so bad [9:00 AM]

 

o well thats a long story haha [9:01 AM]

 

I’ve got time [9:01 AM]

 

jskksjajkajs kEITH [9:01 AM]

U HAVE C L A S S [9:01 AM]

 

So? You’re more important [9:01 AM]

 

eye- [9:02 AM]

 

[9:02 AM]

okok fine get ready for a rant tho [9:02 AM]

This might take a while to type [9:02 AM]

 

That’s okay, I will wait for you [9:03 AM]

 

ksksjksjjsk bABE [9:03 AM]

ok here goes… [9:03 AM]

 

:) [9:03 AM]

 

okay, so my mama always gets me like a pretty good gift on my birdthay since we dont rlly go out any buy stuff on th regular  so one day she got me this game called Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and it was probably one of the best games ive ver played like,,, ever. The story was great, the grphic were rlly cute and i fell in love instantly. im p sure i play like every year haha. i just rlly like it cause it reminds me of my mama whenever i play it and gives me a real big sense of joy to see the characters again. Its lame haha but i rlly like it for that reason 😊 [9:06 AM]

o geez thats a lot of spelling mistakes lolol [9:06 AM]

 

Lance? [9:06 AM]

 

yeah??? [9:06 AM]

 

That was really sweet, thank you for telling me :) [9:07 AM]

 

oh yw!!! 😄😄 [9:07 AM]

o dang prof coran caught me… [9:08 AM]

ill see u later!!! PAY ATTENTION IN CLASS!! [9:08 AM]

 

Okay, bye Lance :) ❤️ [9:08 AM]

 

byeee!!!!! [9:09 AM]

[9:09 AM]

Keith smiled, reading over their conversation again. Pay attention in class, how can I when I could talk to you instead?

It’s safe to say that Keith is very hooked on this boy and no amount of rambling from Dyak can get him to pay attention to anything else.

I can’t wait for later…

-<To Lunch...>-

“Hey, Keith!” Lance called enthusiastically as soon as he saw the mullet-haired boy enter the lunchroom. His brooding boyfriend looked around for a bit in confusion before spotting Lance and visibly lighting up (cute), scurrying over to their table (also cute), before plopping himself down and lightly kissing Lance’s cheek (cute!!).

“Hi Lance, excited for later?” he asked eagerly. Lance beamed.

“You bet!” he passed Keith a garlic knot. 

Allura looked at the two of them in confusion, “What’s going on later?”

Pidge rolled her eyes, “These two lovebirds haven’t gone on an official date yet.”

Hunk’s eyes could have popped out of his skull, “WHAT?!” he yelled, causing Romelle to flinch from beside him and a few heads to turn their way. However, they all went back to their own business as soon as Keith glared at them. Geez, he’s like a guard dog!  

“I know, I know, it’s tragic. But I wanted today to end up on the Happy Day Calendar, so it can spend forever in my fondest memories,” Lance answered, slinging an arm around Keith’s shoulders and squeezing him against his side. The action made Keith smile and forget about all the eyes on them that lingered from earlier.

“I just hope everything goes well enough so it will be a happy memory…” Keith said, trailing off with a nervous tone of voice.

Lance smiled, “No worries, Babe. Every moment with you is a happy one.”

Keith's face erupted in a hot flush, and Romelle, Allura, and Hunk cooed as Lance placed a kiss to the tip of his nose. Pidge just gagged, the Gremlin, and went back to playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf on her customized 3DS.

The rest of Lunch passed quickly, as they quickly engaged themselves in the debate they’d started previously about which Mario game was the best. Pidge seemed adamant on any and all versions of Mario Kart while Lance and Hunk kept insisting their own games were far superior. Allura and Romelle were a bit lost, but Romelle caught on quickly, offering Smash Brothers which started up and entire other debate as to whether or not it should be included in the Mario Brother’s franchise. Keith didn’t get involved this time, instead choosing to admire fondly the passionate way Lance’s voice raised when he argued, how his eyes burned with a determined blue fire, and how his hand movements became even more wild and eccentric, so everyone was constantly dodging to avoid being hit by them. Though best of all, seeing his satisfied smirk when he’d finished his rant, eyes glinting in determination, a silent challenge for anyone to debate against him, was sweeter to Keith than the victory of the argument. 

Man, I really lucked out didn’t I?

-<To Keith's House... and Preparations...>-

“SHIRO! Where did you put my spare helmet?!” Keith yelled, frantically tearing apart the Garage as he looked for the aforementioned object. Keith had made plans that were time-sensitive so they couldn’t afford to miss the ‘open’ window, and the night was way too humid for walking there. 

Shiro, miraculously, heard him through the open kitchen window. “I DON’T KNOW, CHECK THE CLOSET!” Too bad his advice was less than helpful.

Keith groaned in annoyance and went back inside to check the closet… again. Opening the doors and doing a quick scan told him Yep, it’s still not here.

At this point, Keith would have gone to his mom for help, she’s always had a peculiar way of picking up the exact item Keith needed from the exact place he’d checked no less than twenty times in under five minutes. Which was infuriating at times, but now even more so because she wasn’t here and he needed that exact ability right this very second.

Groaning louder, to make his suffering apparent for all occupants of the household, Keith trudged back through the living room on his way to the Kitchen to interrogate Shiro further. He spotted Adam on the way in, deciding that asking him would probably be more efficient than going to Shiro this time since he was the more put together of the couple. He was resting on the black leather couch, typing quickly on his phone when Keith asked him. 

“Hey, Adam, have you seen my spare helmet anywhere?”

Adam paused, looking up, his brows scrunched a little, processing the question. He looked to Keith, “The motorcycle one, right?” Keith nodded, and Adam looked back to his phone, “Yeah, ‘Kashi took me out for a ride on his bike and we borrowed it, I put it back in your room, on top of the dresser.”

Keith cursed himself for missing it before, it would have saved him a lot of time. “Thanks, Adam!” he said, rushing out of the room to run up the stairs and grab the helmet from his dresser where it was sitting innocently as if it hadn’t just cost Keith over half an hour of wasted time. He quickly glanced at the corkboard he’d left uncovered- it had been ever since the sleepover- and quickly committed the highlighted address to memory as he grabbed his leather jacket and slung it over his shoulder, tucking the helmet into the crook of his arm.

He made his way downstairs, quickly grabbing his keys and pulling his Doc Martins onto his feet. He quickly gave himself a once over in the bathroom mirror, fixing his hair a little (even though it would get messed up during the drive anyway). He reached into the drawer and pulled out a random tube of chapstick and ran it over his lips a few times, rubbing them together afterward. It was then he realized that the tube he grabbed was not, in fact, chapstick, but instead lip tint that turned his lips a cherry red.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed, and he hurriedly slipped it out of his pocket to check the message.

Fuck.

Without another glance to the tint covering his lips, Keith sent a quick ‘omw’ to Lance before he slipped his phone back inside his pocket and left the bathroom. 

“I’m off!” he yelled, opening the door, the alarm system sounding off after it. 

“Be safe! Come home before Midnight!” Adam answered.

“USE PROTECTION!” Shiro yelled, appearing in the hallway that connected the Kitchen and the Stairway. Keith scowled and flipped him off, shutting the door on Shiro’s cackles. He strolled up to the motorcycle he parked at the curb, store the helmet under the seat, and started putting on his own. At that moment, the door burst open, a frantic looking Adam spilling out with Shiro close behind.

“KEITH!” Adam yelled, rushing towards him. Keith paused in alarm, looking around Adam for any signs of danger.

Adam finally reached him with a huff, “You forgot your wallet…” he said, holding out the folded black leather.

Keith flushed and took it, “Thank you, I would have been screwed if I forgot this.”

Shiro came to stand beside Adam, wanting to comment but paused for a bit, studying Keith. “Hold on…” he said, squinting, “Keith, are you wearing lipstick?”  

A heavy blush took over his face, “N-No! It’s uhh… lip tint, I thought it was chapstick and I didn’t have time to take it off.”

“Well… it looks nice on you,” Shiro commented, making Keith look up in surprise. Suddenly, Shiro sniffled obnoxiously, “Look at him Adam, he’s all grown up!”

Adam rolled his eyes fondly, but played along with his boyfriends' antics, “To think just yesterday he was ranting to us about the colour of Lance’s eyes.”

“They grow up so fast!” Shiro garbled, wiping a fake tear from his eye. 

Keith scowled, “Oh shut up.”

The two older boys smiled, gathering Keith into a tight hug, carefully avoiding knocking their chins against Keith’s hard helmet. “For real though, we’re proud of you kiddo,” Shiro said, knocking his fist against Keith’s shoulder.

When they pulled away, Keith finished buckling his helmet and smiled at them, “Thank you guys, really. I don’t think I would be here without your support.”

“Oh calm down, you’re going on a date, not getting an Oscar,” Shiro scoffed.

“Besides,” Adam added, “Give yourself some credit, it’s one thing to confess to your crush, but another thing to face rejection and still plan all this stuff. I think Lance is in for a real treat.”

He smiled softly to himself, “Yeah, I hope so.”

There was a bit of silence before Shiro was pushing him towards the bike, “Okay, moment over, you’re going to be late if you talk to us all night.”

Keith smiled, rolling his eyes, “Okay, okay.”

Turning the key, Keith revved the engine to warm it up, before looking back to Shiro and Adam. Though the loud engine rumbled, Keith was still able to make out the words Shiro told him.

“Go, be great.”

Keith smirked in determination and gave them a two-fingered salute before pulling away from the curb and into the street. Shiro and Adam watched him go for a bit before Adam turned back to him.

“So… house to ourselves…”

Shiro smirked, “Uh-huuuuhh…”

“Wanna have a Disney marathon?”

“Uh, yeah? But only if we start with Mulan. I’m in the mood for some Li Shang-shaped eye candy.”  

“Rude, I am right here.”

Shiro sighed, draping himself over his boyfriend, “Fine. I guess you’ll have to do.”

Adam dropped Shiro, “I’m locking you out.”

The other man scrambled to get up from the ground, racing forward as he saw Adam running towards the house, “ADAM, WAIT! NO, I’M SORRY! PLEASE?! ADAM!!”

-<To Lance's House...>-

It was a little bit past 5:00 when Lance heard a motorcycle pulling into his driveway. He ignored the buzz his phone made in the pocket of his high-waisted jeans and stood up, poking his head into the TV room where his mom was watching TV and folding laundry with the assistance of Veronica.

“Keith’s here, mamá. ¡Me voy, adiós!”   [Keith's here, Mom. I'm going, bye!] he called. His mamá stood up, placing the shirt she was folding and gathered him into a tight hug.

“Oooh, Lance. Mi bebé ha crecido tanto ahora. Sé bueno con él, ¿de acuerdo?”   [Oooh, Lance. My baby's grown so big now. Be nice to him, okay?]

“Sí, mamá. Bye, Vero!” [Yes, mom. Bye, Vero!]

“Have fuuuunnn!” Veronica drawled teasingly, holding the remote to unpause the TV.

A couple of knocks sounded on the door, and Lance’s head whirled around. “Okay, okay, I gotta go now,” he babbled, giving his mamá a quick kiss on the cheek. He raced to the door and opened it quickly to see Keith in all of his mulleted glory, fist raised halfway to knock again. It lowered when he saw who opened the door. 

“Hey, Lance. You look great. Ready to go?”

Lance nodded quickly, shouting a couple more goodbye’s to his family before stepping outside with Keith. They stood there for a bit, taking in each other’s appearances.

Keith’s soft-looking hair was tied up in a small ponytail at his nape, his black leather jacket made his tight-fitting, faded red Coca-Cola t-shirt look even better. His black skinny jeans were ripped stylishly, exposing creamy pale skin. A couple of pins pierced the collar of the jacket, and Lance smiled a little as he recognized the little Mothman pin he bought for Keith. His ears were pierced (a tidbit he hadn’t noticed before since Keith’s hair constantly covered his ears), the lobes now decorated with minimalistic black studs. There was also something else different about Keith’s facial area… though Lance couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Wow…” Keith sighed, making Lance flush a bit, “I know I said you looked great earlier but… that was a bit of an understatement. You look...”

He trailed off, taking a step forward into Lance’s space, which Lance allowed eagerly. 

“Gorgeous. You’re gorgeous.”

Lance covered his red face with his hands, “Stooooop, oh my God, you’re terrible.”

Keith grabbed one of his hands delicately and pecked him softly on the blushing cheek that was revealed. “I meant it.”

He giggled, feeling a bit drunk, “I know, you’re a cheese.”

His boyfriend- Boyfriend!!! (It still gives him jitters).- smiled softly at him and kisses the palm of his hand gently. It’s then that Lance realized what was different about Keith’s face. 

“Keith! Ohmigosh, are you wearing lipgloss?!”

The other boy flushed a bit, “No, it’s lip tint, I thought it was chapstick and I was in a hurry so I didn’t take it off. I hope it looks okay?”

Lance hardly hesitated as he pressed a bruising kiss to Keith’s cherry coloured lips. They were bitten soft, plush and warm from Keith’s body heat. A little chapped from the wind, but Lance looked past it. He felt Keith’s hands come up to cradle his face delicately, brushing the pads of his fingers over Lance’s cheekbones. He stroked soft lines across his jaw, making Lance shudder a bit at the mind-melting contact. He wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist, grabbing the back of his leather jacket. The cool material of Keith’s fingerless gloves brushed his cheeks, then Keith dug his fingers through Lance’s hair, massaging his scalp in a way that made Lance let out a small moan.

Keith pulled away instantly after that, eyes wide and face flushed. “What was that?” he asked, voice a little croaky and hushed.

This time, it was Lance’s turn to blush, “Uhhh…”

Suddenly, the porch lights started flickering madly, causing Keith to hold Lance close to him and go into a defensive stance. 

“Leave already ‘ya nasties!” Rachel yelled from inside, obviously the culprit behind the light show.

“Yup! Going!” Lance called back, grabbing Keith’s hand and pulling him towards the motorcycle. Keith passed Lance the helmet from under the seat and straddled the motorcycle. Lance got the helmet on himself this time- nice .- and sat behind Keith on the seat, scooching up until they were flush together, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s defined torso.

Keith turned the keys and the engine came to life with a loud rumble. “You ready?” Keith called, looking back a little. 

“Sure am, Mullet-head!” Lance replied, squeezing his middle for emphasis. At his response, Keith pulled out of the driveway, driving away from the small neighborhood.

“So, Keith!” Lance yelled to be heard over the engine, “Where are you taking us tonight?!”

Keith turned his head a little to respond, and Lance could see his white teeth smirking at him from beyond red lips.

“How do you feel about Mini-putt?!”

-<To The Date...>- 

Lance, apparently, was ecstatic about Mini-putt. As soon as Keith parked in front of the half indoor-half outdoor course, Lance was on his feet, shoving the spare helmet into Keith’s arms and taking off towards the well-lit building.

Keith barely had time to take the keys out of his bike and put away the helmets before he was racing after his eccentric boyfriend. “Lance! Slow down, the courses close at nine, we have plenty of time!”

These words did not stall Lance, however, they brought to attention the fact that Lance came here with another whole-ass being that he probably should stay close to so he didn’t get lost. He has enough grocery store incidents surrounding that subject, thanks.

Waiting patiently- except not really, every nerve in his body felt like it had been shocked by lightning, and instead of giving him muscle pain, weakness, stiffness, and temporary paralysis it made him feel energized and… whatever the exact opposite of all those symptoms was!- Lance leaned against the side of the building’s entrance so Keith could catch up. He was doing a cute 'lil jog across the parking lot, stopping occasionally to look both ways. 

Good on him, Lance just got a boyfriend, he’d be damned if he were to die anytime soon. He’d personally go up- actually make that down- to wherever Keith’s soul was being held and give his eternal soul torturer a piece of his mind! Most likely Satan, which was fine, Lance could take him, all he needed was a firetruck or something. Sorry, Keith. You’re cute! But still very much a criminal, probably. 

The bright neon lights of Mini-putting Planet Arus shone down on them, casting their silhouettes in various shades of blue and green. Keith came to stand in front of Lance, a little out of breath from chasing Lance across the parking lot but smiling nonetheless.

“Hey,” he said, breathless.

“Hi,” Lance replied, giggling a little. 

“Shall we go in?” Keith asked, holding out his arm which Lance took delicately with as much poise as he could possibly muster (not a lot, but let him dream).

“Why of course my good sir,” he responded, horribly mimicking a British accent. Keith covered his mouth to keep from laughing but Lance saw it in his eyes anyway. The way they crinkled slightly with mirth, the way his indigo eyes seemed to light up, the way he looked at Lance as though he could do no wrong as if he was the most precious being on the planet.

Oh, you poor naive fool… Lance thought as they walked in together. You are going to have your ass handed to you.

-<To Mini-putt...>-

Okay, so, as it turns out, Lance might have a reason for being so excited when they got here.

“Yeah! Another hole-in-one baby!” Lance cheered as his bright blue ball sunk into the small metal cup. He spun around, leaning slightly on his putter, “Hey, Keith! How many was that?”

Keith let out a sigh as if he held the burdens of the entire world on his shoulders, “That was six, Lance.”

“Aaaaannd, how many holes have we been to so far?” He asked, leaning forward a bit.

Keith wanted to cry, “Six.”

“WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-” Lance shouted, performing his awful victory dance. Remember when Keith had thought Lance was an amazing dancer? Yeah, neither did he. Lance danced like a twelve-year-old trying to imitate a Fortnite dance. Hiking up his knees and swaying left and right while he pumped his arms up and down his sides. It was probably the dorkiest shit he’d ever seen Lance do, and he’d seen Lance do a lot of dorky shit. However this time, he was not resisting the urge to coo at his boyfriends' antics, he was getting his ass handed to him, somehow that made things less cute.

Hating the world and his lousy golf skills, Keith marked down Lance’s score (doodling an unhappy face beside it, frowning and everything) and starts walking past him to the next hole. He ignores Lance’s indignant gasp as he sets his ball down and prepares to hit it in (if not close) to the hole. 

“Keith, that’s cheating!” Lance said, coming to stand next to him with a pout.

“Is it now,” Keith drawled, still focused on the hole.

“Uh-huh, and just for that…” Keith looked up in curiosity as Lance trailed off. Then Lance took the opportunity to pick up Keith’s red ball and chuck it into the man-made river that was flowing through parts of the course.

“LANCE, WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Lance just smirked at him, “Better go get it, Kogane. Lost balls are one hundred dollars each.”

Keith smacked his shoulder, “Asshole, no they aren’t. They’re one dollar each.”

“Mmmm, you sure? ‘Cause I swear I saw one hundred…”

Keith didn’t bother listening and instead grabbed Lance’s ball and chucked it in the river as well.

“Whoops,” he deadpanned.

“KEITH!” Lance screeched. “Now you have to get both of them back!”

“No way! If anything, you should get both of them back, you’re the one who started it in the first place!”

“Because you cheated!”

“Going first on a course isn’t cheating , Lance!”

“Yes it is, you get an advantage!”

“I thought you wanted to ‘study’-, ” Keith used every sarcastic cell in his body to say study, even adding air quotes with his fingers, “-the course before you hit the ball, I was going first to give you more time!”

“Hey! What’s with the- wait, you were?”

“YES!”

“Awww, babe!”

“Do not ‘babe’ me, go and get out balls!”

“You loooove me don’t you.”

“A decision I regret dearly.”

Lance gasped over-dramatically, “Rude!”

Keith rolled his eyes, “Uh-huh.” He pressed a quick kiss to Lance’s cheek (making the other boy preen) and grumpily stomped over to the river to collect their golf balls.

“Thaaaaaaanks baaabe!” Lance cooed from behind, which made Keith flip him off over his shoulder.

Where did they go… Keith found his ball fairly easily, the bright red sticking out dramatically from the rocks and moss. The blue one was a bit harder to find though.

Christ, if I didn’t hear the splash it made I would have never thought to check the river.

“By the way, I’m really enjoying the view from over here, babe!” Lance cat-called, shooting a flirty wink to him when he turned around unamused.

“Come over here and help me! I can’t find your ball!” 

“Yeah, right! If I go over there, you’re just going to push me in!”

Huh. That idea actually hadn’t occurred to Keith before, but it was appealing to him the more he thought about it.

“I promise not to as long as you start helping me right now,” he voiced instead, hoping Lance would help him because he seriously didn’t want to tell the employee he’d lost a ball.

Lance groaned for a while which made Keith smile because he knew the other boy was giving in, “Fine,” he said, standing up from where he was sitting on the green and trudging over.

“Thank you~,” Keith said, smiling still. He went back to looking for the ball, traveling further down the river and closer to the pond. Suddenly he saw a bright blue golf ball sticking out from the rocks. He bent over to pick it up. 

“Hey, Lance! I got your golf ball back-”

Suddenly, he felt a hard shove to the middle of his back. He lost his balance on the slippery rocks and fell into the stream face-first, getting his torso soaking wet. 

“WHAT THE FUCK!” he screamed as Lance laughed on the bank next to him, doubling over and holding his stomach.

“Ohmygod your face! That was priceless!”

“Come here you little shit-” Keith roared as he stumbled out of the river and raced after Lance. The other boy shrieked and sprinted away from him, laughing all the while.

“C’ mon, Lance! I just want a hug!” Keith called, holding his arms out as he gained on Lance.

“No way in Hell, Kogane!” Lance screeched, running out to the grassy field that surrounded the Mini-putting course. Suddenly, Keith tackled him rolling around on the grass and tickling any skin he could reach.

“Gotcha!” he cheered as Lance laughed, kicking around. Keith then set him down on the grass before standing up and swooping the still-laughing boy into his arms. He pressed a few kisses across Lance’s giggling face, making the other boy shriek in laughter (he couldn’t resist okay? He had the cutest boyfriend). Then, he slowly made his way over to the river, carrying Lance bridal-style. Lance had caught on to his plot at this point and tried desperately to squirm out of Keith’s sturdy grip while Keith’s smirk grew more and more evil by the second.

“Nonononono, Keith! Don’t you dare! I swear to God I will break up with you! I’ll do it, don’t test me! KEITH I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME!! OHMYGOD PLEASE DON’T DROP ME IN THERE, THESE ARE MY BEST JEANS! KEITH!! KEITH I’LL DO ANYTHING, PLEASE!”

“Anything?” Keith asked, that evil glint in his eyes glaring as he hovered Lance over the river.

“Yes! ANYTHING!” Lance pleaded desperately.

Keith brought him closer to his body, and for a second Lance thought he was safe and he relaxed.

Big. Mistake.

The other boy leaned down to whisper in Lance’s ear, his hot breath tickling the flushed skin.

“Then Perish.”

Then Lance was sent plummeting into the stream, making a big splash as he sputtered in betrayal and flailed to escape as soon as possible. He stood up, dripping wet as Keith cackled next to him. Lance kicked water at him before walking up to his boyfriend and punching him multiple times in the shoulder.

“KEITH! YOU! ASS! I’M! DEL-ET-ING! YOU!” Unsurprisingly, none of his feeble attacks made any difference as Keith continued laughing maniacally next to him. He decided to give it a rest and pout until Keith noticed and comforted him.

“Awww, you big baby, come here,” Keith said giggling as he held out his arms. Lance walked right into them sulking and wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist.

“I feel the need to tell you that I dislike you,” Lance said, his voice muffled in Keith’s shoulder.

“Uh-huh, I love you too, Lance,” Keith responded, pressing a fond kiss to the brunette’s hair. “Now c’ mon, let’s go finish this game, Sharpshooter,” he said, pulling out of the hug and grabbing Lance’s hand, dragging the other boy back towards the course. 

-<To The Resteraunt...>-

“Keith, you know I love you, right?”

“Yes, I know. I love you too.”

“Mhmm. So, why did you bring me here?”

They were standing at the mouth of the alleyway the Marmoran Gang visited frequently.

“For dinner?”

“Is that right.”

“...Yes?”

“Hm.”

Lance turned around and walked away.

“LANCE, WAIT!” Keith asked, scrambling to catch up to him.

Lance turned around, an unamused expression on his face, “Yes?”

“The restaurant is through there.”

“Huh?”

“The restaurant. I picked this alley because we can get there quicker if we go through it.”

“Uh-huh, and it has nothing to do with the fact that when I‘m scared I cling to anyone nearby right? ” 

Keith, visibly sweating nervously, answered, “Right.”

Lance squinted, “Sounds fake but okay.”

“C’ mon, please? They have really good milkshakes.”

Ah. Lance liked milkshakes.

“Fine. You’re paying though,” Lance agreed, taking Keith’s hand and walking back to the alley.

Keith smiled wide, pressing a kiss to Lance’s cheek, “I plan to, I wanted to spoil you tonight.”

“Ugh,” Lance gagged, “You’re too sweet, how’d I get stuck with you?”

“Wellllll there was a lot of begging on my part…”

“Oh yes, I remember that.”

“I remember buying you a Switch.”

“Ahh, you sure know the way to a man’s heart Kogane.”

They chuckled together as they walked through the alley towards the restaurant. When it came into view, Lance saw that it was a combination of a Diner and an Arcade. His eyes lit up as he recognized the neon sign.

“Hey, I know this place! Hunk, Pidge, and I came here all the time last year. I’m still trying to beat Pidge’s score on Centipede .”

Keith's eyes widened slightly, “They have Centipede here?”

Lance nodded, “Yeah, the owner of this place, Neil, likes to collect a lot of older games. I’ve heard he’s even got his own cow to make the milkshakes! They say her name is Kaltenecker…”

The dark-haired boys’ expression flattened, “Well… yeah. That’s the owners last name.”

Ah. So it was.

“Whatever, let’s go in already, I’m feeling peckish.”

Keith chuckled, “Where’d you learn that ?”

“From Allura, it sounded fancy and she was referring to food so I think it means like... hungry or something.”

“I don’t know why she hangs out with you guys, you’re embarrassing, honestly.”

Lance gasped in offense, pressing a hand to his chest, “ Excuse! I am a delight !”

The bell jingled over their heads as they walked into the Diner, still bickering half-heartedly. At some point in the alley, Keith had grabbed Lance’s hands, and they were still intertwined, swinging to and fro between them.

“I’ll order, you go find us a seat, yeah? What do you want?” Keith asked.

Lance squinted at the menu (even though he already knew what he was going to order), “Can I get a… Combo two with no sauce and a Dulce de Leche Milkshake.”

“Dulce de Leche, huh? Fancy,” Keith said with a teasing grin.

“Oh shut up, Mullet head,” Lance responded, smiling and punching his boyfriend softly in the arm. “I’m gonna go grab us a booth.”

Keith nodded and waited in line to grab their food and pay, then he made his way over to the table Lance had snagged (it wasn’t hard to spot the eccentric boy, he was waving his hands like mad over the walls of the booth). Setting down their trays, he slid into the opposite seat and unwrapped his burger.

They fluctuate between multiple conversations, talking about Slav’s famous alternative realities to betting on who could score higher in Pac Man. Though no matter what they talked about, both boys couldn’t resist the smiles on their faces, staying consistent throughout the entire date.

“You know what, Keith?” Lance asked as they were preparing to drive back to his house.

“What?” Keith replied, pausing from where he was buckling his helmet.

“I think I might just have to add today to my Happy Day Calendar.”

Keith’s smile rivaled the brightness of the many twinkling stars shining overhead.