Chapter Text
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair that she could do that to him and walk away as if it were nothing, as if she hadn’t just torn up his heart into a thousand tiny pieces. And it wasn’t fair that, weeks later (weeks? had it been a month already? he couldn’t quite tell), he was still picking up the pieces when she passed him by on the hallway with her arm interlocked with someone else’s.
The worst part was that he still hadn’t figured out what he had done wrong. Things had seemed fine—fine enough—not long before she pulled him out of a class to tell him that they should break up. He sometimes thought that none of this would’ve happened if he hadn’t seen her first text and fished his phone out of his backpack to check if everything was okay—which, of course, wasn’t true, because she would have met with him for lunch and broken his heart either way.
And now there was nothing for him to do other than sulk in that feeling, over and over again.
“Lance. Lance?” Someone jostled his shoulder. “I think he’s dead.”
“Oh my god, he’s not dead. Lance? You okay, buddy? Please just say something.”
“I wish I was dead,” Lance mumbled, his face buried in his pillow.
“See? Not dead. Now show us your face, champ.”
Lance didn’t move. Someone else moved by his feet, shifting the mattress under their weights.
“I really don’t want to be a bother but could you at least move a little so I can plug my laptop?” He opened up a small space of bed next to the wall. The weights shifted again. He felt Pidge nestling into the gap, her feet poking at his side. “Thank you.” She cleared her throat. He could hear her fast and repetitive typing. “Can I...uh...ask what happened?”
Lance wanted to scream. He could still see her smile as she had passed him by earlier. “Nyma,” he said, simply, flipping up to meet Pidge’s eyes. Her expression didn’t falter.
“Oh.” She waited.
“It seems like she has a new boyfriend,” Hunk explained.
“ Oh . Shit. I’m sorry, Lance.”
He closed his eyes. He had promised himself he wouldn’t cry. “No, you’re not. You warned me that this would happen.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry. I know how much you liked her.”
“Not enough, apparently.”
“Lance,” Hunk reprimanded. “Stop that. It was not your fault.”
“She told me she didn’t want a relationship when we met.”
“Well, it seems like she didn’t tell that to the new guy.”
“Pidge!”
“What?”
“Can we please,” Lance sat up and pulled his legs to his chest, “stop talking about this?” He could feel Hunk studying him from the other bed. He probably didn’t look very well. His head hanged between his knees. “God, I just wish we weren’t staying here. This week is gonna suck.”
As if right on cue, someone from the neighboring rooms walked by their door while blasting obnoxiously loud music. He listened as the volume gradually faded away then disappeared when the person left the dorm. That was supposed to be him—happy and having fun, not sulking in a badly lit dorm room.
“I’m sorry our plans didn’t work out, bud. Maybe next year.” Hunk smiled.
Lance nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.”
He raised his eyes to watch the door. There was another commotion outside—someone was sprinting down the hallway while rolling a very loud suitcase and yelling at someone on the other side of a phone. They were late to the airport.
“I’m just...” he sighed, throwing his head back, “it’s not like I’m getting another shot a college. I’m not going to be eighteen ever again, and this,” he gestured to himself and the messy room, “is how I’m spending it.”
The sound of typing gradually slowed down. Pidge bit the inside of her cheek. Lance could almost see the gears turning in her head.
“I know it’s not the same, but—I can’t believe I’m actually about to suggest this—if you want to be dumb and reckless, there’s a party later tonight.” She immediately looked like she regretted having opened her mouth, but it was too late. Lance’s eyes were fixed on her. “At those weird woods after the soccer field,” she added.
Hunk frowned at her. “How do you know that?”
“There is one every year before break.” He continued to frown. “Matt,” she added, which was more than enough explanation.
They turned to look at Lance. His scowl had begun to subside. “A party could be nice.”
“There he is!” Hunk reached over to pat him on his shoulder. Lance laughed faintly. “All you need is a little fresh air and you’ll be good as new.”
“Yeah, I’m sure all that alcohol and sweat suspended in the air are great for your lungs,” Pidge murmured.
Lance kicked her. She kicked him back without looking up from her screen. “I take it you will not be joining us.”
“As much as I’d absolutely love to, this code isn’t writing itself.”
“Pidge,” Hunk flipped up his phone and looked worriedly at the screen, “it’s a quarter to six.”
“I am aware.”
“It’s actually 5:48,” Lance chimed. Pidge kicked him again.
“Go change your clothes, loverboy. You look like you dressed yourself with your eyes closed.”
“I would normally take great offense to that but I did actually get dressed in the dark today,” he got up and started to ruffle through his clothes, “so the joke’s on you.”
“Our lightbulb went out,” Hunk explained.
“And here I was thinking that the gloominess was part of the ambiance.”
Lance threw a shirt at her. “Don’t you have a code to write, your little gremlin?”
“I can multitask.”
He threw pants at her. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
Walking the distance that Pidge had described as “after the soccer field”, Lance regretted his choice of shoes. He had put on his nicest pair of white sneakers—and the exact reason why they were nice was because he barely ever wore them, meaning they were very stiff and the back kept digging up at his ankles every step he took. He also realized that they were soon to stop being so nice, considering the “woods” had been trampled by thousands of feet for at least the past couple decades and the ground that may have one day have been grass was now a compacted dirt mess.
Still, and in spite of the trail of sweat that ran down his back under his jacket, he was the most excited he had been in a while. He felt ecstatic, happy, awake , like there was an electrical current flowing through his body. Lance was a riot in small groups, sure, but crowds were where he really thrived. He liked people, he liked the energy and, in all honesty, he enjoyed the attention.
Neither he nor Hunk fully knew what to expect. They had been to a few parties during their first semester, but never something of this scope—mostly weekend gatherings at the engineering building, and Lance had once or twice accompanied Nyma to a sorority party. He was pretty sure he had seen more people at the cafeteria during lunch than in any party he had been to so far. This one was not like that.
They had heard the music first. Loud and electronic, the bass sounds traveling up their feet from the ground before they had seen any sign of anything. Then, the cars. Two long lines parallel parked on each side of the nameless street that crossed campus at first, and an improvised parking lot up on the curb and into the grass after. The chatter had come last, and it was the most unbelievable part. There were no discernible sounds to it—just a constant buzz, a long hum like a single syllable stretched out to infinity. It would get drowned by the music for a few minutes until it burst when the song came to an end, only to get smothered again. And now, standing right before the sea of people that produced it, Lance was hypnotized.
Hunk tapped his shoulder and leaned in closer to his ear. “I’m going to try and find us some drinks. Sit tight.”
Lance nodded, but his brain had barely processed anything other than “drinks”. He looked around. It was hard to believe that many people went to his school and even harder to believe he could recognize several of them. Just at the edge of the crowd, he could see at least three guys from his dorm, two of his classmates, and an IT major who was a friend of Pidge’s. He caught himself searching the crowd for Nyma even though he knew he wouldn’t find her there—she and the new boyfriend ought to already be hours into their flight to the Bahamas.
They had stopped right by one of the improvised sound systems—one of the prettiest cars Lance had ever seen connected by a variety of colorful cables to a giant stereo—and the music pounded in Lance’s head to the point he could mistake it for his own thoughts. He felt jittery, wanted to walk away and further into the crowd, but he couldn’t until Hunk came back. Above the uproar, someone laughed behind him. Lance turned almost too fast, tripping on his feet, his heart beating on his throat to the familiar sound. But when his eyes met the girl’s, his face burned in shame. Get it together, Lance . She’s not here . He smiled. Aside from the laugh, there weren’t many similarities—the girl was what Lance could only describe as “petite”, an oversized button-down shirt hanging off her shoulders almost carelessly, and her short hair was dyed an absurd shade of pink. She was...very pretty.
The girl continued to laugh, directing a blinding smile at Lance while at it, and seemed to not so subtly point him out to the group of friends that danced alongside her. He couldn’t quite tell what that meant—the chances of her having found him goofy and charming were about the same as finding him weird and awkward. Hoping it to be the former, Lance took his hand off his pocket, rehearsing a wave and debating whether a wink was taking it too far, when Hunk reappeared from the crowd, dodging people around him as to keep the two cups in his hands from spilling. He passed one of them to Lance.
“Cheers,” Hunk said, bumping the cups together, and waited for Lance to take the first sip.
Having learned better from other experiences, Lance took a big swig without sniffing the drink first. It burned on its way down, worsening his sweating more or less immediately, and he could not say what it was with any level of certainty. Seeing he had not been poisoned, Hunk tried a little from his own cup. His face contorted in a way Lance didn’t think he had ever seen him do.
“What in the hell is this?”
Lemon - scented Pine-sol , Lance thought. Maybe pure gasoline . Whatever it was, it was very effective. Lance already felt a bit buzzed, which was impressive even for a lightweight like him. “Liquid courage,” he answered.
“We both know you don’t need that.”
“Well,” Lance took another swig, even bigger than before, “it can’t hurt.”
“That’s....” Hunk eyed the content of his cup with suspicion like he hadn’t been the one to fill it, “debatable.”
“It gets better as you drink it. Or less bad, I don’t know.” Now that he had drunk most of the cup, Lance actually thought it wasn’t that bad, but that might’ve been the alcohol itself speaking.
“Okay, how are we feeling?”
Tipsy , but that was not was Hunk was asking. “Good,” he lied. A giant knot had formed somewhere between his stomach and his throat.
“Seen anyone cute yet?”
Lance couldn’t find the pink-haired girl anymore. “No,” he lied again. “But I haven’t really looked around yet.”
“What say we get yourself a refill and do that on our way there? I think it’s impossible you don’t find a single attractive person in this midst.”
He nodded; his earlier enthusiasm mostly replaced by burning liquor. He remembered Hunk had only come there to try and cheer him up and smiled. “Lead the way.”
He reckoned that after another one of those cups, he’d be feeling as good as new.
Hunk walked into the crowd, the music from the car slowly fading out to be replaced by the same song just slightly off time, and Lance followed. Looking in retrospect, it would have been better if he had stopped at cup two, but that’s not what happened—once his mouth had gotten used to the taste, he had little incentive to stop drinking. If you want to be dumb and reckless , Pidge suggested, from inside his head. Maybe he should call her to say thanks.
“The guy with the jeans is cute,” he said. His voice was hoarse from speaking up over the music and slurred from general drunkenness.
Hunk turned to look. “Really? With that hair?”
Lance shrugged. “It’s not the worst.”
In fact, the ponytail had been what first caught his attention, and, much like the yellow concoction he had been refilling his cup with, it was only growing on him over time. Also, it was starting to get very late and Lance had done nothing but make up excuses the entire night, which had started to annoy him. He had vehemently turned down at least four people—including a guy from his dorm which he had had a crush on when he first arrived—and he had tried to convince himself it hadn’t been simply based on the fact that they weren’t Nyma, but that was lying to himself.
There wasn’t anything in particular about jeans-ponytail guy that made Lance believe things would go any differently with him, but at the same time, there was. There was the fact that it was already three in the morning and Lance’s legs were tired and his once pristine shoes were covered by a fine layer of red dirt, and the fact that Jeans-Ponytail was alone and drinking actual beer from an actual bottle instead of disinfectant from a plastic cup and had the kind of body posture of someone who is attempting to perform amusement and failing miserably. Lance desperately wanted him to be the one, if only for the night.
“Can you hold my cup?” he asked Hunk. “Wait, actually, don’t. I need it.” He grasped his empty cup with both hands to keep himself from fidgeting and took a deep breath. “How do I look?”
“Do you want nice or honest?”
Lance thought for a second. “Honest.”
“You’re a little bit sweaty.”
“Oh god. Okay, give me nice.”
“You look amazing, bud. Very handsome.” Hunk gave him two thumbs up—he had lost his cup about an hour ago and hadn’t cared enough to get a new one.
“Here I go, I guess.”
Lance had started walking before he had fully processed that he was doing it. He had already made halfway through to the guy when his brain caught up and started worrying—maybe there was a reason why he was alone, maybe he wasn’t alone and was just waiting for a friend, maybe he had a boyfriend or a girlfriend and Lance was about to willingly put himself up for rejection. Lance rubbed his sweaty palm against his thigh. The alcohol in his body had long stopped being useful to become a terrible nuisance and he was scared that he would trip over his words so much that nothing but gibberish would come out of his mouth.
“Well, what’s a good looking guy like you doing alone at this time of night?” was the first thing he could come up with, and although he had done much worse before this still wasn’t great. But then he heard something that sounded like a chuckle and the guy turned around and smiled and oh my fucking god.
“Kogane?” That was it, he was never drinking again.
Keith Kogane frowned. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”
“Have we...? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” He did not look like he was kidding. Lance gestured at himself. “Lance. Lance McClain, from High School.”
“I’m sorry, I...Not ringing any bells.”
Lance stared. Could he be mistaken? Absolutely not. Sure, he had finally grown his last few inches to stand slightly above Lance and his voice had gotten deeper and he had tied his hair back but Lance would know that face anywhere. Wow. He would never forgive himself for thinking Keith Kogane was hot, even for just a few moments.
“You can’t be serious. We were like rivals? Keith and Lance, neck and neck?”
Keith shook his head. If he had initially found Lance charming, this was now long gone. He had transitioned to thinking Lance wasn’t very mentally stable.
“You must have me confus—”
“This can’t be real. You, me, and Hunk—Hunk! Hunk will tell you.” Lance turned around. Hunk wasn’t standing in the place he was five minutes ago or anywhere Lance could see. “This has to be a joke.”
He was starting to feel sick and maybe it was visible on his face because Keith was staring worriedly at him.
“You are Keith Kogane, right?”
“Yes.”
“And who am I?”
“Well, Lance McClain, but you’re the one who told me that.”
Lance’s phone started ringing. He put a finger up to signal to Keith that their conversation wasn’t over. “Yes?”
“Oh my god, where have you been?” Pidge asked. “You know what? I don’t care. Are you with Hunk? I’ve got good news.”
“I, uh, lost Hunk.”
“What do you mean you lost Hunk?” she hissed. The rest of the Holts must have been asleep.
“I mean I lost Hunk, okay? I left him to talk to this guy and—”
“A guy, huh? Nice .”
“Not nice, actually, because he’s—” Lance turned around. Keith had disappeared. “Fucking hell. Have you tried calling Hunk? I can’t—can you please just tell me the news?”
“Oh, yeah. Do you remember Shiro?”
“Hot professor?”
“Lance, that’s gross .” She sighed. “How drunk are you?”
“Not very much but a nice amount.” As if summoned, his sickness intensified. His five cups were not making very good friends with this emotional whiplash. Lance decided to start walking to distract himself and look for Hunk. Two birds, one stone, yada yada .
“So, yeah, I messaged Shiro after I came home. He and Allura (please don’t be gross) are leaving tomorrow to spend the week at her parent’s old lake house. And—drumrolls please—”
“Pidge, I—”
“We’re invited.”
Lance halted. “What?”
“You heard me. You wanted spring break; I’ve gotten you spring break. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“This is not real.”
“I am many things but a liar is not one of them, Lance McClain. Now stop freaking out and go pack your bags, I’m picking you two at nine thirty tomorrow.”
The line went silent.
Lance put his phone back in his pocket and threw up on the ground.