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“Lance?” Keith stops outside his door, still toweling his hair dry and stares at the figure slouched in the hall.
Lance startles at the sound of his voice, blinking at Keith blearily.
Keith glances up and down the hall, a furrow between his eyebrows.
“What are you doing outside my door in the middle of the night?”
Lance frowns and runs a hand over his face. He seems terribly small like this, quiet and reserved, knees pulled to his chest and head down.
“Thought you were asleep,” he mumbles, voice thick and rough. He must have been half asleep.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Keith pulls the towel down off his head, draping it over his shoulders. Lance’s head hits the wall and he stares up at the ceiling with a sigh. He looks exhausted. The slope of his shoulders is heavy and sad and there are dark shadows under his eyes. He looks older than Keith has ever seen him.
The strangest part though is that Lance is wearing his jacket with the hood up. In all the time they’ve been in space together Keith has never seen Lance with the hood up. It makes him look strangely vulnerable.
“Needed company,” he admits softly.
Keith lifts an eyebrow. “So you sat down outside my door instead of going to see Hunk?”
Lance shrugs, rubbing at grainy eyes. “Wasn’t sure I wanted company.”
Keith frowns. He’s never seen Lance like this. He’s listless and depressed, like he doesn’t have the energy to stand. For someone like Lance who always seems to be climbing the walls with energy, the silence and reservation is unnerving.
Keith takes a cautious step forward and carefully sits down next to Lance.
“Do...you want to talk about it?” he ventures, awkward and unsure.
A wan smile plays across Lance’s mouth. “I’d love to,” he says, head tilting to look at Keith, tension around his eyes. “I just don’t know what’s wrong. ” And his voice catches on that and breaks.
“Oh.” Keith searches Lance’s eyes. “Does that- happen a lot?”
“What, me not knowing anything?”
Keith’s expression darkens into a fierce scowl and he bristles. “That’s not what I meant,” he snaps and Lance’s hand falls across his, patting it comfortingly as he closes his eyes slowly, bone tired.
“I know,” he says softly. “I know.” He squeezes Keith’s hand. “I’m sorry. Habit.” He takes a deep breath, pulling his hand away and Keith slowly relaxes again, silence falling between them.
“Do you want to come inside?”
Lance makes a face, one eyebrow lifting curiously.
“You’d be more comfortable than sitting out here.” Keith’s shoulders begin to tense the longer Lance stares at him. “You said you needed company. We could watch a movie or something, I don’t know.” He crosses his arms, twisting on the ends of the towel. He catches his lip between his teeth, worrying at it.
“Okay.”
Keith perks up. “Yeah?”
Lance nods and Keith stands, drawing Lance up with him as he goes, inviting him into the room.
He leaves the lights off, studying Lance briefly as the door hisses shut behind them.
“Do you think you’ll be alright?” he asks.
“Do I have much of a choice?” Lance responds, voice lilting, another smile on his face that fails to touch his eyes. Keith doesn’t smile back and Lance’s posture sags. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Probably.” He forces more false cheer into his voice again. He can’t help it. It’s what he does. “And if not I’ll always fake it.”
Keith’s eyes do that thing where they stare at Lance like they’re analyzing him, looking for cracks, probing at his shields for weaknesses. Lance knows he’ll find them. He always does.
“Do you do that a lot?” he asks softly, genuinely curious.
Lance looks away, oddly ashamed. No one's ever called him on it before.
“Yes,” he admits, blaming the dark for his sudden honesty. It has a way of doing that.
“Why?”
Lance lets out his breath in a rush, dragging a hand almost painfully through his hair, knocking the hood back off his head.
“I don’t know Keith, I just do okay? I don’t do vulnerable with people. I don’t like it when they know how upset I am about something because inevitably I wind up belittled for whatever the fuck it is. People expect me to be happy so I am.”
“You mean you pretend to be,” Keith says gently and Lance flushes hot with shame.
“Yes.” He chews on the inside of his cheek. “I just-“ He huffs, shoulders sagging. “I’ve just done it for so long I don’t know that I know how to stop.”
Keith forehead wrinkles. “Why me? Why my room and not any of the others?”
“Yours is closer.”
“Liar.”
Lance scowls. “I already told you, you were the least likely to catch me.”
A small smile pulls at the corner of Keith’s mouth but his eyes are unbearably sad. “Still lying,” he says gently.
Lance bares his teeth, his shoulders lifting to his ears as he stuffs his hands in his pockets.
“How the hell do you know that,” he seethes.
Keith smiles wider and stares at Lance as if debating whether or not to tell him. He sighs, tossing his towel onto the desk chair.
“Your nose wrinkles when you lie. Right here.” He points the bridge of his own nose. “There’s tension around your mouth and your eyes and a furrow forms between your brows. It’s subtle but it’s there.” He sits down on the bed, beginning to shuffle through his tablet. “You touch your hair or rub the back of your neck too.”
Lance’s posture drops as his mouth goes slack.
“How do you…?”
Keith shrugs, self-conscious and won’t look at him, swiping through the tablet without really paying attention.
“I just- I notice things. About people. I’m not good at reading people and when I found out about micro-expressions I thought maybe it would make interacting with people easier, would make them easier to understand.” He scratches a nail along the edge of the tablet, shifting his weight on the bed.
“Did it?” Lance ventures when Keith has been quiet too long.
He shrugs. “I guess. But it made me realize just how often people lie.” He looks up at Lance. “And how much they don’t like when you call them on it.” He drops his head again. “People like to keep their secrets. Some with good reason. Part of me wishes I’d never learned to read micro-expressions. It’s just made everything harder in a lot of ways.”
Lance chews on his lip and stares at Keith. His heart kicks hard with adrenaline as he considers what to do.
“I chose you because part of me really didn’t want to get caught,” he says softly, “that was true.”
Keith glances up at him from under his eyebrows. “But it wasn’t all of it.”
Lance bites the inside of his cheek again. “Part of me was hoping you’d be awake.”
Keith frowns. “Why?”
Lance’s breath shallows. “I don’t-“ He doesn’t know why he’s so scared. “I don’t want to screw this up,” he whispers and Keith’s eyebrows lift at the obvious distress in his voice.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I know but- God, I’m not good at this.” Lance drags another hand through his hair, tears collecting in his eyes.
Keith stands and crosses the bit of space between them.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says again and Lance lifts his eyes to look at Keith.
“You already know,” he says thickly, cheeks coloring with mortification.
Keith smooths down the mess Lance has made of his hair.
“But you haven’t consented to telling me,” he murmurs, eyes following the movement of his hand in Lance’s hair. “What you want and what you’re comfortable sharing count for something Lance.” He smiles apologetically. “I didn’t mean to take that control out of your hands.” His eyes are dark and soft and understanding and Lance’s chest warms.
His knuckles brush down Lance’s cheek as he pulls his hand away. “I like you too.” He steps out of Lance’s space and back to the bed, picking up the tablet.
“You want to watch in here or would you prefer the common room?” he asks, idly flipping through movies.
“Here’s fine,” Lance says after a moment, kicking off his shoes and Keith looks up.
“Are you sure?”
Lance forces himself to meet Keith’s gaze and nods.
“Yes.”
Whatever Keith sees on his face seems to satisfy him because he nods and scoots back on the bed until he’s sitting against the wall, shoving his pillows into the corner to make a small nest for them.
Lance hesitates but crawls in after him, letting Keith pull back the blanket also he can slide under.
“Feet are cold,” Lance grouses as they bump into one another trying to settle down.
“You can always leave,” Keith offers, setting the tablet in his lap. Lance makes a noncommittal grunt and slides further down on the bed, leaning into Keith’s shoulder.
“‘m already comfy,” he grumbles and Keith does his best to smother a smile.
“Then shut up,” he scolds, pressing play.
A few minutes in Keith’s arm has gone to sleep where Lance is laying on it, the atmosphere quiet and intimate.
He shifts, trying to make himself more comfortable and Lance grumbles, half asleep.
“Sorry,” Keith apologizes. “Arm’s asleep.” He managed to free his arm, draping it across Lance’s shoulders instead. “This okay?”
Lance makes a noise, already snuggling closer, his head resting on Keith’s chest and Keith has to smother another smile. His arms slowly settles more firmly against Lance, fingers reaching up to play with the ends of his hair once the feeling in them comes back. Neither of them are watching the movie anymore.
“Goodnight Lance,” he whispers.
The only answer he receives is the slow, warm breaths of Lance’s breathing across his chest and he has to hide another smile, this time choosing to press it to Lance’s hair.
“Sleep well.”