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This was so unfair.
Lance was sat on the toilet looking down with absolute misery at his pants and the dark red stain smeared in them that was bringing a tight ache to his chest. Trying desperately to disassociate from the situation he stood up, kicking his pants and pyjama bottoms to the corner of the bathroom and got in the shower, turning up the spray to the hottest setting.
“For fucks sake,” he mumbled through gritted teeth, letting his forehead bang against the shower wall. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he then said for good measure. After a moment of spraying the shower head directly onto his tummy to ease the stubborn pain there, Lance wrapped a towel tightly around himself and stumbled back to his room.
Before changing into new clothes he opened his desk drawer, fumbling through it carelessly. Slight panic eased up his throat as he continued searching, pulling things out to dump on the floor in his haste. Finally, at the very back, he found one lonesome and ancient sanitary pad. Lance breathed heavily, calming himself down.
It had been ages since his body had betrayed him like this, and he had forgotten just how wretched it made him feel. After sorting himself out, he put on his softest t-shirt and some clean pyjama bottoms and buried himself back into his bed.
He had intended just to go back to sleep, even though it was well into the mid-morning, but a glance at his phone showed some new texts.
good morning lance
The first one was sent at 6am. Lance did not envy Keith’s Starbucks job in the slightest.
i finish work at 1 today shall i bring you a coffee?
Lance knew Keith now, and knew this just meant he wanted to come round but needed a reason. But also it might have been because Keith had coffee on the mind 24/7.
Lance stared at the messages. He was going to have to make a horrible little trip down to the nearest shop for some essentials, and he really didn’t want to leave the flat today. Keith, to his credit, had been overwhelmingly chill regarding everything that Lance was, but he was a little worried this might be too much for the other boy.
Biting his lip hard enough to hurt, he quickly typed out a text to Keith, pressing send and then throwing his phone to the carpet and pulling the duvet over his head. When in doubt, sleep to avoid your own thoughts.
-
It was a knocking on the door that woke Lance, who had been in and out of sleep for the past couple of hours. He pulled himself out of bed, throwing on an old and baggy hoodie just in case it wasn’t Keith, and lumbered to the door.
“Hey,” Lance sighed with relief when he saw it was Keith. He hadn’t checked his phone to see if Keith had replied, so to see him at all was reassuring.
“Hi, Lance,” said Keith, not smiling much, with concern in his eyebrows. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, spectacular,” groaned Lance, sarcastically, turning to heave his poor body back to his room. “This is exactly what I wanted to happen.”
Keith followed him quietly into his room.
“Thank you,” said Lance, turning to him suddenly. “For coming.”
“I wanted to come here anyway,” said Keith, softly. “Now sit down, I have some things.”
Lance then noticed the blue plastic bag in his hands. “Oh, right.” He sat down on the bed, really wishing this whole situation wasn’t happening.
“Okay,” started Keith, all business, rustling his hand in the bag and placing items on Lance’s bedside table. “I have these that you asked for, I wasn’t sure which were best so I got a, er, selection,” he said with a gesture to the six different packets of sanitary products that he had stacked up neatly. “I got some painkillers, some chocolate, and, oh, more chocolate and also a fun drink.” He finished talking, putting the bright blue bottle of drink next to all the other items with a small flourish.
Lance felt warm all over, maybe even a little tearful. “Keith-”
“And if you want to be alone I’ll go, and if you don’t we can lie in bed and watch some stupid shit on Netflix.”
“Keith,” said Lance again. “Fuck, you’re so nice.” He dropped his head into his hands and scrubbed at his face.
A soft weight dropped onto the mattress beside him.
“Do you want a hug?”
Lance nodded a little pitifully, before letting himself fall sideways into Keith’s solid form. Keith wound his arms around Lance, pulling him close. Lance let himself just enjoy the reassuring presence for a moment, almost successfully ignoring the discomfort from his own body.
“Sorry,” mumbled Lance meekly.
“Don’t be,” replied Keith, his voice very soft. He pressed a kiss to the side of Lance’s head, and everything felt kind of okay.
-
Lance blinked his eyes open, his arm was draped across nothing. He rolled onto his back to look around for his human, noticing him immediately as he was sat cross legged at the foot of the bed.
“Good morning,” said Keith, his low, croaky voice always made Lance just a little flustered.
“Wait, what? Morning?” Lance panicked, sitting up.
“I’m joking,” said Keith with a crooked smirk. “It’s like 4pm.”
Keith was looking especially lovely, Lance realised. He had one of Lance’s big hoodies on over his boxers and a sketchpad open on his knee, and the late afternoon light was casting a soft warmth onto the angles of his face. Lance subtly (read: not subtly at all) reached for his phone to take a sneaky picture.
“You’re such a little pervert.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Lance, chucking his phone to the side. “What are you drawing?”
“None of your business.”
“Are you drawing me? While I sleep?” asked Lance in mock aghast.
“No.”
“And you call me the pervert!” Lance tried to lean forward to take a look, but Keith snapped the sketchbook shut. “This is very suspicious,” said Lance, now leaning more into Keith’s space.
Keith carefully plopped the sketchbook on the floor, safely out of Lance’s reach, before leaning forward and gently pushing Lance back onto the mattress.
“Don’t think you can distract me-” Lance started to say before Keith kissed him and distracted him.
-
“You don’t have to do this,” said Lance, earnestly.
“I want to,” was Keith’s short reply.
“Okay,” said Lance with a heavy sigh. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’m sure I’ll be just fine.”
“This has added a whole new exciting element,” said Pidge, perched on the bed next to Hunk, the other two boys sat on the floor in front of them. “They’re both so smugly confident, but they’ve never even seen each other play.” Hunk hummed in agreement.
“Just press okay, Lance,” said Keith, with only the smallest of smirks.
Lance did as he was told and the screen loaded to show the track that they had spent a good 10 minutes agreeing on. There was a tense silence as the countdown started, before the race started and Lance, Pidge and Hunk resumed their traditional shouts and screams at the screen. Keith was suspiciously quiet and calm as he completely eliminated Lance and the cpu characters, sliding into first with an ease that, honestly, turned Lance on a little bit.
“Woah, Keith! ” shrieked Pidge, an utter look of delight on their face.
“This is outrageous,” said Lance, slumping back against the bed frame, turning to bury his face into Hunk’s knee. “I refuse to accept that I am the worst at MarioKart in this household.”
“Accept it, bitch,” said Pidge, reaching out a fist to Keith, who, after a second of consideration, bumped his own fist against it.
“It’s okay Lance,” placated Hunk, patting his head gently. “You beat me sometimes.”
Lance mumbled something unintelligible, pulling the controller back to him from where he had hurled it to the ground dramatically.
“Best of three,” he stated more than asked, pressing the next race button.
-
“Are you still mad at me?”
“Yes.”
“I made you a tea.”
Lance looked up at this. He had been sitting on his bed, while Keith had supposedly gone to get water, pretending to be annoyed.
“Okay, you’re forgiven,” said Lance quickly, making grabby hands for the mug. Keith huffed out a small laugh, passing Lance the mug carefully before coming to sit on the bed next to him.
“I’m sorry that I’m better at MarioKart than you,” said Keith softly, a small smirk on his face betraying his blatant lies.
“I’m just having an off day.”
“Of course.”
Lance sipped his tea.
“Is this...raspberry?”
“Yeah, I stole some of Shiro’s,” said Keith. “He won’t notice, he has too much tea.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“Me or the tea?” teased Keith.
“Fuck off,” mumbled Lance, before muttering a little, “both”.
Lance sipped his tea, humming happily as the warm liquid made its way through his body.
“Do you think it’s bad that we’ve basically spent the whole day in bed?” asked Lance.
“No.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
-
The next day was better, but Lance had a dopey stiffness to his limbs from not moving all day and sleeping intermittently through the night.
“Go for a run,” suggested Keith.
Lance looked at him with a look somewhere between aghast and disgust. “No, thank you.”
“...A walk?” he now said, a little hesitantly.
“Okay, but a gentle one.”
“A gentle walk?”
“Yes, exactly.”
So ten minutes later they were bundling themselves up against the chilly air, Lance taking a satisfied joy from sorting out Keith’s scarf, tucking it around his neck and pressing a noisy kiss to his cheek.
“Adorable,” he declared, looking at the other boy in his dark coat zipped all the way up and his cheeks a little pink from the compliment. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing Keith’s hand to pull him out the door.
There was a small park nearby with a pond that was usually spotted with ducks, but they had clearly all tucked themselves away to stay warm. The two boys walked gently through the frosted grass that crunched under their feet, hands swinging between them. It painted an idyllic scene, and Lance could almost ignore that his nose was probably going to fall off from the cold.
Along the path a little there was a small kiosk that in the summer sold ice creams, but now had a little sign with the words Hot Coffee £2 swinging out the front. Lance turned to see Keith’s coffee senses on full alert, and tugged him over.
“Two coffees, please,” said Lance, digging in his pocket for some change. After receiving their takeaway cups, Lance handed one to Keith.
“You didn’t have to-”
“Obviously I didn’t have to,” said Lance with a small roll of his eyes. “I like to do things for you, that’s what’s happening here.”
“Thank you,” mumbled Keith softly, cradling the cup in both hands.
“Besides,” said Lance, with a shrug, “you’ve been so nice to me, and patient, and understanding, I don’t think I could ever repay you for that.”
“Don’t be silly-”
“Keith,” Lance cut him off again. “Let’s go sit,” he said, heading over to a bench by the pond. Keith followed, and they sat down next to each other, arms pressed together to preserve heat, or maybe just because.
“I know it’s different, and maybe weird sometimes,” started Lance, fingertips tracing the design on the paper cup in his hands. “And it might be hard and even weirder in the future. Not that I’m saying we have to think about the future,” said Lance quickly, backpedaling a little frantically. “We don’t have to like, commit to anything, you’re not stuck with me, is what I’m saying.” Lance forced a laugh, pulling his mouth into a weird grimace.
“Lance,” said Keith, then paused. “I am really enjoying...all of this.” Keith gestured between them. “I like hanging out with you, and I like you. I don’t think it’s weird, any of it, I like pretty much everything about you.”
“That’s pretty gay,” whispered Lance, trying very hard not to cry now.
Keith grinned a proper grin. “Yeah, it is. I know I’m not very good at talking, but I want you to know that I will listen to anything you want to say, and if you don’t want to talk about anything that’s fine too.”
Lance nodded. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Likewise, for you, obviously. I’ll always listen to you, too.”
Keith smiled, and reached out to tangle his fingers back with Lance’s. They sat quietly, watching the few ducks that braved the almost frozen pond navigate their way between reeds.
There was more to say, on both parts, but this was enough for now.
“Is this what adult relationships are like?” asked Lance, his small laugh was equally relieved as it was amused. “Talking and listening to each other?”
“I think so.”
“Huh, who’d have thought.”
The ducks were quacking indignantly now, clearly fed up of all this icy business.
“Just now, when you said you like pretty much everything about me,” said Lance, determined to end the conversation with their usual ease of being. “What did you mean by that? What don’t you like about me?”
“You snore.”
“I do not-” Lance scoffed.
“You snore so loudly.”
“Keith-!”
“I was honestly alarmed when I first heard it, I thought you were dying.”
“Keith, stop, no-”
“I imagine it’s a bit like how dinosaurs snored.”
“Keeeith!”