Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keith was many things… Hot-headed. Moody. Impulsive. Very easily bored. Quiet. Or loud. Depending on if he was angry or content.

Anyway, the point is that there were many ways to describe Keith, none of which he thought were particularly impressive enough to land him a solid job. He found himself flubbing out half-truths and scrambling for words that would shed positive light onto his somewhat withdrawn and closed of persona.

“Lastly, why do you want this job?” The man Coran, with shocking orange hair and a twisty mustache to match, questioned. He narrowed his eyes, his squint calculating as if he could see straight through Keith and his lies half-truths.

“Uh- well, I want something to keep me busy this summer and I happen to like reading so…” Keith trailed off. To be completely honest, he didn’t want this job. Or any job. But, Shiro was forcing him to “go out and be social” like a “normal teenager” or whatever.

Speaking of which, this summer Keith had followed his older brother halfway across the country. Shiro was getting married in the hometown of his fiancé, Adam, at the end of the summer, so he brought Keith along for the wonderful ride of working out the wedding plans. It was either stay with Shiro all summer, or with their parents alone. So, Shiro it was. It’s not that their parents were bad people, they could just be a bit much without Shiro to play the mediator.

The small town was hot and humid and boring as all hell with a population probably barely above 2,000. The majority of locals include old people that had lived here their entire lives, the children that disappointed them, and their grandchildren who wanted more than anything to get out of the place when they came of age. Shiro was forcing him to get this job at the local bookstore in the hope that Keith would make friends or something. Coran, the owner, seemed nice enough, but Keith’s heart just wasn’t in it. He’d rather be back home with Shiro like every summer before this dreadful one.

“Well, that’s the last of my questions. Thanks for coming in, Keith, and I’ll call you to follow up on your interview.” Coran scooted out his chair and stood up, holding his hand out to shake Keith’s. Keith obliged, gripping tight and firm while flashing a forced smile.

“Thanks, Mr. Coran-”

“Please, just call me Coran!” He pulled back from the handshake and fiddled with the tips of his mustache while he gave Keith a bright, genuine grin. How was this guy so… enthusiastic?

  “O-okay. Thanks, Coran,” Keith nodded his head as he made his way out the office door, “I’ll talk to you soon, then.”

The orange-haired man gave one last nod and wave and Keith was out of there. Finally. He knew he couldn’t have gotten the position, though. His interview went awfully, and he didn’t have any references or experience to put on his application. What a bummer, Keith’s sarcastic thoughts rang out.

Telling Shiro the bad news kind of put a dent in Keith’s heart. No matter how much he teased the older guy, he did care about what he thought of him. He wanted to make him proud. But this just wasn’t a big deal to him, at least not like it seemed to be to Shiro.

“You didn’t get the job?” Shiro’s face twisted in confusion, “Wasn’t your interview, like, twenty minutes ago? It normally takes a couple days and a call at least to hear the news…”

“Well, not exactly…” Keith looked all over the living room of Shiro’s small apartment, anywhere but Shiro’s intense eyes. “I’m really bad at interviews though, so there’s no way I could’ve been hired from that.”

“Keith,” Shiro sighed as he placed a heavy hand on Keith’s shoulder to make him meet his gaze, “you need to have a little more confidence in yourself. It couldn’t have been that bad, let’s just wait and see.”

Keith huffed out his acknowledgment and dragged himself to his small room. In the corner sat a twin sized bed with a wooden desk nearby, pushed up against the wall under a square window. The unimpressive view barely peeked at the quiet street from a couple stories up. An empty closet lived off the side and Keith’s unpacked suitcase sat in front of it. He didn’t see the point in unpacking or getting comfortable in a place he’d be leaving in a couple months. As soon as their flight had hit the ground he already felt ready to turn around and leave.

Flopping onto his bed, Keith stared holes into the ceiling. Summer just began and he already felt boredom edging into his mind. And it’s not like this teeny town had anything to do to quench that thirst for something interesting to happen. He sighed; he had a feeling this summer was going to feel decades long rather than months.

~

A few days after his disaster interview, Keith got a call that made his jaw drop to the floor. He’d been sprawled across their kitchen counter – definitely not moping about his life – while Shiro made scrambled eggs. He’d been hired for the bookstore job. The shock didn’t last long, however, as Coran admitted Keith was the only applicant, therefore their only option, really.

Shiro was ecstatic for him, and he even got that ‘proud father look’ in his eyes, but Keith had merely rolled his eyes. It was just a job, how life changing could minimum wage really be?

~

Apparently quite life changing, Keith realized as he stood face to face with the employee who’d be training him. Not that there could be that much training for a job at a bookstore.

The boy who stood in front of him, flapping his hands around and blabbing with big, blue eyes, was the epitome of gorgeous. Keith wanted to connect and trace each freckle dotting his dark, sun-tanned skin. When said boy stopped talking to turn and lock eyes, Keith broke out of his reverie. He was looking at him expectantly and Keith mentally slapped himself for spacing out.

“Huh?”

“Does that mullet make you dumb or what?” Keith immediately retracted his previous statement about the beauty of this random dude and brushed the hair at the nape of his neck self-consciously. The guy rolled his eyes and didn’t give Keith enough time to be insulted. “I said, you can add your own book recommendations if you’d like.”

Keith’s eyes still stood slightly widened, confused. He glanced to the shelf that this guy was gesturing to and squinted at the notecards placed in front of books. One in particular caught his eye, messy handwriting scrawled in blue ink. He didn’t get time to read it thoroughly, though, because his trainer already moved onto the next order of things.

Keith followed him around the horseshoe-shaped desk at the center of the store to a small area behind the counter. His focus was hardly on the workings of the cash register, but rather the light brown hair that curled around this guy’s neck and in front of his eyes. The tan complexion that made his blue eyes pop. The dazzling grin he flashed every now and then as he laughed at his own jokes.

The boy asked him another question to which Keith nodded dumbly. Then, he looked at him strangely, head cocked to the side.

“You’re a funny guy,” was all he said, and he was off to the next order of business. “So, back here is the break room. You get like half an hour a day, depending on how many hours you’ve been working.”

He opened a door at the back of the store that lead to a small room. It was furnished with a round table and a few chairs, as well as a small kitchenette. A white fridge with a freezer on top sat to the right of the green counters with a sink in the center and a microwave off to the left. Keith’s gaze focused in on a few wooden cabinets crowded above and below the counter, and only after a small person cleared their throat did Keith’s attention snap to someone else in the room.

“Hey, Lance,” the short girl said with a curious hint to her voice, “who’s this?”

And, oh, Keith realized. He didn’t even know the mystery guy’s name. Lance. He should really pay more attention to the information he’s given.

“Hey, Pidge. This is…” Lance trailed off and looked at Keith, eyebrows raised.

“O-oh. I’m Keith,” he lamely explained. He pulled his lips into a thin, tight line when the two just stared at him. “I’m new,” he added as an afterthought.

“I figured as much,” Pidge laughed, but her smile turned into a devilish smirk, “You thinking what I am, Lance?”

Lance wore a smirk of his own and Keith grew slightly concerned. He felt like he was missing part of this conversation. Lance only nodded and Keith squinted his suspicion.

“Uhh, okay then.”

Pidge walked the couple steps separating them and placed a small hand on his shoulder. Because of the height difference and how close she was now, Pidge had to angle her head to look up into Keith’s eyes. Keith felt his face instinctually draw back a little to put space between them.

“My real name’s Katie, but everyone here calls me Pidge. You will too,” she stated simply. Her intense gaze bored into his eyes for a few seconds more before she took a step or two back. “I think we’re gonna be pretty good friends, Keith.” She sounded like she was tasting his name on her tongue to learn information about him. She was unnerving to say the least. “Well, my breaks over. See you later.”

Then she was out the door and soon enough the two boys were following suit.

“Well, I guess if you have any more questions, you can ask,” Lance placed his hands on his hips as he spoke, “Coran will have my ass if I didn’t help ya out anyway. You’re on register duty for now.”

Lance pointed towards the counter where a customer waited patiently. Keith glanced back to Lance, then rushed towards the task at hand. Hopefully the first day wouldn’t turn out too bad, especially considering he couldn’t repeat a word Lance had told him today.

~

His first day was hell.

Okay, it really wasn’t as bad as he made it out to be, but Keith didn’t have much patience dealing with annoying people.

It wasn’t necessarily the actual work or even customers, but his coworkers were intolerable. He didn’t feel safe from an attack anywhere he went. It wasn’t even physical attacks – which Keith could surely handle, mind you – he was being bombarded with- with teasing?

He wasn’t really sure, but everywhere he went it seemed like a joke sat mocking him around the corner.

It started somewhat small. And it felt like an inside joke he wasn’t in on. Or more that he was the inside joke.

The store had been at a really slow, quiet part of the day, and Lance leaped to where Keith was slouching over the counter with his chin in his hand. He hadn’t said anything at first, just leaned back against the counter edge and whistled idly. Keith hadn’t known Lance long, but he got the strong impression that he didn’t just stand around doing nothing for no reason. So, he was slightly concerned.

Lance leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.

“Hey, what does that-” Lance squinted and went up on his tip toes to get closer, “does that say gullible? On the ceiling up there?”

“I don’t know, Lance,” Keith had shrugged, not really listening. Lance bumped his shoulder with his own though and Keith glanced towards him with a bored look. “What,” he deadpanned.

“Someone wrote ‘gullible’ on the ceiling, look,” Lance rose his eyebrows and pointed up.

Keith’s face twisted, confused. “Huh?”

One look towards the blank ceiling and his eyes rolled to the back of his brain. Lance broke out in a fit of laughter while Keith just sighed tiredly and rubbed his fingers over his forehead. His ears winced at a higher pitched, softer giggle coming from behind a shelf, and Pidge revealed herself from behind a stack of books. The two clutched their stomachs and snickered behind their hands.

“Very funny, you guys,” Keith remarked.

The joke didn’t go farther than that, though, because a customer walked in and asked about a new selection that had just arrived.

However, there were more jokes in general. Still small, just barely irritating him and getting under his skin. When Keith went on his break, he couldn’t find anything he’d brought for the day.

He noticed that his phone had been snatched by a certain gremlin from his pocket and later found it taped to the front of the fridge. He noticed his jacket he’d shrugged off on a chair gone and later found it hanging from a stall in the bathroom. It was just those random, small jokes that were stoking the fire of Keith’s frustration. And soon, he felt that he wouldn’t have any self-control left to keep himself from strangling the duo.

Luckily, that was the extent of the damage for his first day. The customers had all been pretty chill and patient, even if he took a little longer than someone with experience at scanning books. His break – besides going on a scavenger hunt to find his personal items – had been a nice, quiet time for him to eat a bag of chips he bought out of a vending machine. The job was a pretty good gig, as far as minimum wage jobs went. Not that Keith had much experience.

Because the job was exactly up Keith’s alley, he felt disappointed that his employees turned out to be meddling assholes. He always had trouble making friends, and the little hope he’d masked and buried deep inside himself that he’d make a few friends here dissipated. He then masked and buried that crushed feeling and moved on with his life. There were more important things, afterall. Like restocking the overpriced flower pens at the check-out desk.

~

Day two wasn’t much of a thrill either. It was the weekend, so things got a little busier, which Keith liked because he was a little more occupied and distracted from Lance and Pidge’s weirdness.

Today when he walked into the store, he couldn’t find anything weird, but things just felt off. There was just an eeriness that hadn’t been there the day before. He quickly discovered why his fight or flight reflexes were going off like warning bells in his head.

He opened the break room to find at least twenty different printed pictures and memes of Nicholas cage littering the walls and chairs. His eyes widened a moment before he sighed and deduced this stunt belonged to Thing 1 and Thing 2. He shouldn’t have let his guard down that little bit, though, because when he opened the fridge he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Nicholas Cage’s face was plastered on every Tupperware, jug of milk, yogurt cup, everything. Keith shuddered. Seeing this guy’s face so many times was just… creepy.

  He put his lunch in the fridge and clocked in for the day. At opening the door leading back into the store, Pidge and Lance were waiting with crazed, glinting eyes. Keith wondered absentmindedly how Coran felt about the pranks.

These two are just really weird, Keith thought and sent them a flat look. He pushed past to head towards the register before he froze once again at the pictures covering every inch of counter space. They looked to be heavily taped on like a laminate, and Keith wondered how he’d missed them on his way in.

He shook his head and continued his journey. Upon opening the register to check everything was how and where it should be, thin strips of Nicholas Cage’s face eyed him from their places on top of the stacks of cash and coins. Keith flinched. He thought absentmindedly that this man would probably be appearing as a sleep paralysis demon or something tonight. Or at least become a guest star in his nightmares.

Pidge and Lance failed to contain their laughter from behind him.

With a short glance over his shoulder, Keith deadpanned. “How long did it take you guys to do all of this?”

That stopped their laughing.

“Only, like,” Lance mumbled, “a few hours.”

Pidge elbowed him in the ribs, earning a ‘yeep!’ from the tall, tan boy.

“It was worth it,” the short girl’s voice came, clipped and final.

Keith spared one final glance at them, and was about to go back to work when a screech followed by a crashing noise came from the storage room. The three coworkers shared a look and rushed back. When they slammed the door open, Coran stood with his arms across his chest and a slight frown below his luscious mustache. A box of books had been dropped on the floor and twenty or so were spread out around Coran.

“Uh oh,” Pidge whispered while Lance bit back a smile. That only earned him a pinch on his arm while Keith stood around with his mouth gaping open.

“What is this?” Coran stepped aside from the pile of boxes of new books all covered in the pictures that had been haunting Keith the whole morning so far. Pidge and Lance looked slightly confused until Coran sighed and pulled out some books from the boxes. The faces of two people looking longingly into each other’s eyes on the cover of some romance novel were replaced by Nicholas Cage’s face and Pidge had to cover her snort with a cough.

“Comedy?” Lance shrugged his shoulders with an innocent smile. Coran glared at him for a solid two seconds – the time in which the three workers grew very concerned for themselves and the state of their employment – before breaking into a huge grin.

“You guys are too easy. This guy is everywhere, though. I have to say, you’re very dedicated,” Coran shook his head with that smile that could only paint him as impressed. His expression suddenly turned gravely serious though when he added, “you’re cleaning this all up, though.”

Pidge and Lance nodded quick like bobbleheads while Keith bit back his own smile. I guess that’s how Coran feels about it. What an easy-going guy. Keith then wondered how the customers were responding to it. Later on he’d see a couple surprised, but many seemed completely unaffected, too caught up with themselves – or a good book. On that note, the three got back to work, not without a few more flinches and grimaces at finding the creepy actor/filmmaker in every inch of the store.

The stunt followed Keith like a ghost throughout the whole day.

When he retrieved his lunch from the fridge, a new picture of Nicholas Cage decorated his paper bag. When he started placing newly arrived books on a table at the front of the store, there were Nicholas Cage pictures falling out from between the pages. There was even a picture staring at him from the toilet seat in the bathroom for God’s sake!

All Keith saw, all day, was Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage. Nicholas freaking cage. Keith wondered in the back of his mind if he was being brainwashed to be in a cult for this guy. Or maybe brainwashed to hate him? Because that’s all Keith felt towards the actor anymore; frustration and anger and I hate seeing this face everywhere I go.

He couldn’t wait for his hours to end so he could crash onto his bed at the apartment and groan and complain to Shiro about how working and learning responsibility is the worst.

Keith also started to realize that with more time to plan, these pranks were probably going to become more elaborate and more tiring. He needed to stop it soon, but how does he approach something like that? What if they just made his work life a living hell – though, how could it get worse than this anyway?

~

It got slightly worse, slightly better.

The third day, Keith was completely exhausted from the day before. He’d stayed up late trying to figure out if he’d offended them or something. He’d talked Shiro through part of the issue – he was too embarrassed to admit he was now terrified of Nicholas Cage. Shiro only gave him the usual ‘dad’ type of advice, which wasn’t very helpful to the situation. So, Keith was really tired. And a little early for his shift.

He stood in front of the bookstore and glanced to the left to a shop next-door. A logo showing a steaming coffee mug was painted on the glass door with the name ‘Altea Café’ below. Keith sighed and walked through, the bell above him dinging and announcing his presence to the small shop.

He breathed in a deep, rich scent of warm coffee that both calmed him down and woke him up at the same time. He walked up to the counter, noticing the large assortment of deliciously looking baked goods to the right of the register. The shop was relatively empty, nobody in line but a few customers hanging out at little tables and sitting on spinning stools.

“What can I get you?” A woman with dark skin and long, silver hair asked. Her voice came with an accent that felt very welcoming and Keith glanced down at her name tag that said Allura.

Keith ordered a plain black coffee along with a ham and cheese croissant – he’d forgotten his lunch in favor of escaping one of Shiro’s ‘proud dad’ lecture. Well, ‘proud brother’, but Shiro always acted protective and responsible like a dad would.

The girl smiled, gathering up his order as Keith paid and waited at the pick-up side of the long counter. He glanced around his surroundings, noticing some dark hair peeking in through a window behind Allura as she made him his drink. The mystery person straightened and two dark eyes against tan skin peeked out over the edge. They locked onto Keith’s and the guy’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

Suddenly, the guy was coming out the door that led to the back area and wiping his hands on an apron as he walked around the counter up to Keith.

“Hi!” The man said with a bright, friendly smile and two hands on his hips. “Are you Keith?”

Keith stood in surprised silence until the guy backpedaled to explain.

“Oh, sorry,” he rubbed a hand on the back of his neck sheepishly, “that probably sounded creepy. I’m Hunk, a friend of Lance and Pidge’s. You’re Keith right? The new employee at Coran’s bookstore?”

Keith nodded dumbly with his mouth slightly agape. Hunk laughed and flashed another warm smile, snapping Keith out of his shock. Allura passed Keith’s drink across the counter to him and he followed Hunk when he gestured to a table a few feet away from them to sit down.

“Wait, hold on,” Keith blinked and raised an eyebrow, “you’re friends with them?”

Hunk seemed surprised at Keith’s incredulous tone, “Uh, yes? Why?”

“It’s just,” Keith glanced to the drink in his hands and shook his head slightly, “they’re kind of… mean? And weird.”

Hunk looked shocked then confused to hear such a thing, “Lance and Pidge?” His face relaxed slightly and he added, “the weird thing, understandable. But, mean?”

Keith twisted his face, “Yes?” Now he was confused. Who else would he be talking about?

Suddenly recognition passed through Hunk’s soft, warm features. “Oh, man. They’re not mean, it’s just their way of welcoming you to the work family.” At Keith’s unbelieving expression, Hunk continued. “They’re pranking you right? Something along those lines?” Keith only managed a nod and sipped at his hot beverage, “That’ll only last like, a week tops. They do it to all new employees, even did it to me at one point.”

“You worked at Coran’s bookstore too?”

Hunk laughed and shook his head, “No, but Coran manages this coffee shop, too. It’s connected to the bookstore, so I guess they counted me as a new employee of their own. Just let them play out their… weirdness, as you called it.”

Keith didn’t look too sure, but Hunk stood up to walk back to the kitchen area.

“My breaks almost over, but it was nice meeting you. Lance has told me a few interesting things.”

“Uh, sure. See ya, Hunk.”

Then the big guy was gone, and Keith sat quietly in his seat, thinking. He blinked. Once, twice, thrice. This town was just plain weird, including the people that lived in it. What kind of weird ass welcome is pranking?

Also, what was Lance telling Hunk behind his back? He barely knew him, what could he be gossiping about?

Chapter Text

Just like Hunk promised, the pranking stopped at the end of the week. That didn’t keep Keith from being pissed off about it though. They’d been growing more elaborate each passing day, which concerned Keith up until the day nothing happened. Speaking of which, he’d been paranoid that entire day thinking they were going to sneak up on him and attack. He’d never willingly confirm it to be true, but his paranoia – his fear – caused a particularly embarrassing scene to play out.

It started with Keith heading over to the Altea Café on his lunch break to pick up something to eat. After travelling back to the break room with his now usual order – the ham and cheese croissant he’d tried the day he met Hunk – something zoomed by in the corner of his eye that made him flinch and whip around, fists up and ready for a fight. Nothing had appeared, however, so he clutched his bag of food and trekked on between the bookshelves.

But he saw it again.

Saw a shadowy small figure weave between the stools scattered around for customers to sit on while they browsed the store. He heard the fluffy beast’s small feet tap tap tapping against the carpeted flooring. He felt it draw near his legs and…. And he screamed.

And it wasn’t a very manly macho scream.

Then, he’d heard his coworkers running from their places in the store and laughing at finding Keith and the reason for his scream. Lance revealed himself, tears of joy in his eyes, while Keith scrambled to gather the last of his dignity. He whipped himself around and glared daggers at the floor to find a fluffy cat sitting and waiting patiently at his feet. It looked up at him with wide, bored blue eyes and glanced away to lick at the fur on its paw.

“Are you scared of cats, dude?” Lance all but wheezed out as he clutched his stomach and wiped his fingers under his wet eyes. Keith looked down at his body language and realized he was kind of closing in on himself, appearing smaller than he was. He quickly relaxed and drew his stance tall to defend his honor.

“No, I thought it might be, like,” Keith cleared his throat when it came out dry and pathetic, “maybe a raccoon or something.” When Lance stared at him with amused, raised eyebrows, Keith added on panicky, “I don’t know! You never told me there was a cat living here!”

“Oh, she doesn’t live here. We feed her though,” Lance shrugged and pocketed his hands, “Pidge named her Kernel. Not really sure why – apparently it’s from some book she read – but I like to call her Pop instead.”

Pidge took the opportunity to appear at this time. She shoved Lance aside in favor of crouching down to pet ‘Kernel’ and rolled her eyes at the tall tan boy.

“I named her Colonel,” She explained as she looked up at Keith through her shaggy bangs, “Lance still thinks its spelled like a popcorn kernel. Hence, the nickname Pop.”

At that, Keith let out a snicker of his own, to which Lance glared right back at him.

“You thought of popcorn kernel before a military Colonel?” Keith raised his eyebrows and brought a hand up to his mouth to hide his laughter. “Did you think it was pronounced call-oh-nell?” Lance crossed his arms and looked away, chin high up and closed eyes.

“I don’t know, at least Kernel Pop isn’t boring.”

  Keith glanced down at Pidge and Colonel, who was purring so loud she sounded like Keith’s motorcycle back at home.

“Sorry my humor isn’t idiotic like yours, Lance,” Pidge stood up and swiped her hands on her thighs to dust any fur on her pants off.

Lance faked an offended gasp, his hand immediately going to his heart. “Excuse you! My humor is-”

“I don’t think you guys have much room to complain about each other’s humor,” Keith interrupted, “you literally played jokes on me for a whole week together.”

“Psh- Pidge could barely put her hatred for me away for five seconds that week,” Lance stated matter-of-factly.

“That was you, Lance!”

“You see, that’s not how I remember it.”

“Ugh! You’re so freaking annoying!” Pidge stomped like a child having a tantrum.

“Nope. I’m actually amazing.” Lance fluttered his eyelashes and flipped imaginary hair over his shoulder.

“Okay, then… I’m going back to work then,” Keith pushed past the both of them and glanced back to add, “you know, to do our jobs.”

  The two just laughed, like he’d made a joke. He gave them one last exasperated look and found his way back to the counter. He realized with a tired sigh he hadn’t even gotten to eat his lunch and his break was already over.

Was he selling books or babysitting two children?

~

Even after the pranks had stopped, Keith decided to just ignore Lance and Pidge the best he could. They didn’t really make an effort to talk to him other than tease and poke fun at him, so he concluded he was better off without them.

He still made regular visits to the Altea Café over his second week of work, and he felt he was growing closer with Hunk the few times they’d talked. He figured they wouldn’t become real good friends though, him being ‘besties’ with Lance and all.

After a couple days into his second week, Keith felt like he was being watched. He’d glance around the room and find Lance whipping his head away, pretending he hadn’t been staring. It was just plain weird. But weird is a word Keith seemed to associate with his two coworker gremlins a lot lately, so he shrugged it off as nothing too out of the ordinary.

That theory was cut short when Lance confronted Keith about his silence. He’d cornered him in the back of the store where he was stocking a shelf of cooking books while Pidge was up at the register handling a long line of customers. Well, it was long compared to the empty and quiet atmosphere that usually graced the store.

Anyway, Lance got Keith alone and confronted him. He didn’t look mad, per say, but he looked slightly upset or annoyed.

“Why are you ignoring us?” Lance demanded, though his voice was more firm than hot and fiery.

“Uh,” Keith spared him one glance, but continued shelving the cookbooks. “I’m not?” He tried, but it wasn’t convincing for either boy.

“You are too,” Lance folded his arms and leaned a shoulder against the shelf, “I want to know why you’re being rude.”

Keith scrunched his face and glared at Lance to spit out, “I’m being rude? You two are the ones who harassed me all of last week!”

Lance’s eyebrows softened a little as surprise took form on his face. “Harass you? We were just joking around, welcoming you to town!”

“Some welcome,” Keith scoffed and turned back to shelving. His box was empty now, though, so he easily lifted it onto one hip and continued into the storage room behind him with Lance on his heels.

“Look, you’re new and we wanted to see if you were chill. We didn’t want some hooligan invading our workplace and friend group.”

“You guys are the ones acting like ‘hooligans’. I was completely content to just mind my business,” Keith leaned against a metal wall and began unfolding the cardboard box, “you two were the ones to start whatever game you think this is. I don’t like being messed with so just… just leave me alone.”

Lance didn’t leave, just stood quietly as he gazed at the floor. Keith glanced every now and then at him, but mostly focused on the task at hand. When Lance didn’t look like he was going to leave the subject alone, Keith said flatly, “What now.”

Lance breathed in and sighed long and deep. He then mumbled something under his breath, Keith couldn’t quiet hear what he was saying.

“Huh?”

More mumbling.

“What are you saying?”

Still incoherent.

“Lance, I have no idea what you’re-”

“We’re sorry!” Lance gasped out, like it was painful to admit. “I’m sorry. It was my idea anyway, don’t blame Pidge. She’s a great kid.”

Keith stopped his unfolding and stared at Lance’s unreadable expression. He was wringing his hands out like rags and biting his lip nervously. Keith’s heart dropped to his stomach and he suddenly felt a little guilty and rude (like Lance had said he was being). Hunk had told him this was just their own way of welcoming him here, to their home. To their job. To this weird… friend group.

“O-oh,” was all Keith could stammer out. After another long minute of awkward silence, Lance turned around to leave.

“Sorry we made your first week awful or whatever,” Lance grumbled.

And then the heavy door was swinging shut and Keith was left alone with his cardboard box and his thoughts.

Maybe he’d been a tad oversensitive. And now he had to fix things so his workplace wasn’t absolute hell to come to everyday. Did he miss some social cues?

~

Keith waits a solid two minutes worrying about it till he makes a move. He tried to wait longer to give Lance time to cool off, but he’s too jittery and impatient.

Lance is currently talking to a customer whom Keith can’t see because his view is blocked by Lance’s big head. Pidge is still at the register, ringing up books and other items for people so he figures he’ll swing by to talk to her afterwards when it’s hopefully less busy. As he nears Lance he realizes the lanky guy probably isn’t as upset over the situation as he led Keith to believe. Going off how he is flirting with the bimbo blonde, Keith thinks he’s already over it.

He decides to confront him anyway, because apparently he likes to make things difficult for himself.

Keith clears his throat and taps Lance lightly on the shoulder before saying, “Can I talk to you, Lance?” Upon receiving a glare meant to kill him, Keith just grabs Lance gently by the elbow and leads him away from the confused girl.

“Dude, what the hell?” Lance throws his hands up in exasperation when they are secluded in the murder mystery isle, “I was chatting up a new lady friend.”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Keith says as he rolls his eyes. This guy is seriously flirting on the job? No wonder Keith was hired.

“Okay, talk,” Lance crosses his arms expectantly and Keith falters under the intense gaze.

“Uh, well,” Keith looks up to the ceiling then down at his feet, “I wanted to, I guess, accept your apology. And apologize myself… I kind of overreacted-”

“Damn right you did! It was just a couple pranks,” Lance sasses as his right arm drops to poke a finger into Keith’s chest.

“Hey now,” Keith furrows his brows, “I still was partly right. You guys took some of those ‘jokes’ a little too far. Just because you apologized doesn’t mean you should go back to being rude!”

“What?!” Lance’s mouth drops open, “I’m not being rude, you’re being rude! I’m just stating facts.”

“Ughhh,” Keith counts to five in his head as he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When they open, Lance is staring at him strangely.

“Listen, all I wanted to do was clear the air between us,” Keith takes a step back, ready to turn around and get back to work, “there’s no need to bitch about it.”

Keith says it teasingly – he hopes Lance will pick up on it – and saunters off. He smirks a little to himself when he hears Lance gasp and stomp closely behind him, rambling on about how annoying Keith is and how rude he is and how he’s just a tad too sensitive for his taste-

“Get back to work, Lance,” Pidge mutters as the two boys pass by the counter just as she rings up the last customer. She winks at Keith knowingly, to which he responds with a thankful smile. Lance only splutters about betrayal and continues his rant about how his friends are back-stabbing hoes.

Keith wonders idly if he’s one of those back-stabbing hoe friends of his now. He hopes so.

…

…

Okay, so he never thought he’d want to be referred to as a back-stabbing hoe, but here he is.

~

  After getting past their initial annoyance with each other, Keith would say that some type of friendship was blooming with Lance. He found he got along with Pidge really well – they both loved to annoy Lance and had a similar sense of humor – and everyday he came to work relieved he had people to talk to rather than sit in boredom.

He learned very quickly that Lance was one for dramatics. For example, he would jump up on tables because he “swore he saw a spider on the floor”. Keith always checked and there was always no spider. Pidge merely stood off to the side snickering while their customers looked very confused and very concerned. Keith didn’t blame them.

So, yeah. He felt closer to, at least a bit more understood, by his two coworkers. And they seemed to feel the same way, because on the last day of his second week of work, they invited him to a party.

If anyone knew Keith well – which not many people did – they would know he is not a fan of the party scene. They are much too loud, filled with drunken young adults who have nothing better to do with their time other than ignore their responsibilities and try to get laid. Keith also wasn’t a heavy drinker, so parties in general just weren’t very fun for him.

He made an exception for his new almost-friends.

He’d been sitting at a small booth in the Altea Café when there was a loud, rambunctious conversation going on over at the counter. When he glanced up he saw Lance gesturing wildly to a confused Allura and a smiling Hunk. Pidge walked up just a few minutes after – it was her turn to close up for the day – and joined the group.

Keith hadn’t really ever had a group of friends. Sure, he’d have one acquaintance here and there, but never a full group of people to hang out with at once. He wasn’t exactly easy to get along with, afterall. He looked at them for a few more seconds, then resumed drinking his coffee. He had been waiting for Shiro to pick him up since Keith didn’t have a car – or his motorcycle – here. Plus, although Coran’s bookstore was close to Shiro and Adam’s workplace, it was too far to walk – Keith was actually just too lazy – from the apartment.

Keith made a move to get up and leave when someone plopped down across from him in the booth. He sat back down to find none other than the tall, tan and lanky boy he knew oh so well.

“Lance,” Keith acknowledged with a grim smile.

The boy only stared back. He didn’t seem happy or mad about finding Keith, his expression was just blank and unreadable. What does he want??

“Do you… need something?” Keith looked over the boy’s shoulders to see Hunk and Allura with friendly smiles and Pidge next to them, snickering to herself.

“I was just wondering,” Lance cleared his throat and gestured behind him, “We were wondering if you wanted to come to a house party with us tonight.”

“Uhh,” Keith’s mind emptied all helpful thoughts and left him with nothing to say.

“Ugh,” Lance rolled his eyes, “Stop being socially constipated and just tag along with us. We won’t bite.” Keith raised an eyebrow and Lance added with a small smirk, “unless that’s what you-”

Pidge must’ve sensed Lance would screw this up - or at least saw Keith’s confusion from across the room – as she stepped in to convince him.

“Come to the party with us, Keith! It’s not like you have anything else to do, right?” She queried and leaned in towards him from the edge of the table to narrow her eyes and look him over.

“Uh, well,” Keith fumbled over his words, “My brother is picking me up soon, we were going to-”

“A party? Go ahead, Keith!” Shiro interrupted, suddenly standing behind him with his hands on the top of the booth. He cut off Keith’s pathetic excuse, shoving him into the opportunity to makes friends. Keith whipped his head around and glared at him, but Lance and Pidge seemed content with Shiro’s go ahead.

“I’m the brother,” Shiro went straight to business, shaking hands with the two teens. Keith mentally groaned in embarrassment as he said, “Take good care of my little bro, he’s quite a handful sometimes. Getting into trouble and all.”

Keith put his head in his heads and shook it back in forth as he mumbled an oh my god.

“Will do, sir!” Lance chirped with a wink, “We’ll have him back before sunrise.”

Shiro chuckled lowly and Keith removed his hands from his face to shove him away from the table. He glared at his brother, but Shiro only responded with a firm gaze that said ‘you’re going to hang out with this nice group of people and make friends’. Keith rolled his eyes and said goodbye to him.

When he turned back around, he noticed the café was empty besides the party group and Allura was just finishing up cleaning tables. Hunk walked out from the kitchen area through the door with a jacket and set of keys in hand and Pidge all but dragged Keith along with a vice grip as they followed the other three out the door. Hunk locked up the café and the group set off along the sidewalk.

“So, Keith,” Pidge looked up at him while they walked a few steps behind the others, “you ever been to a house party?”

“Nah.”

Lance’s ears apparently perked up at that answer and he whipped around with a shocked expression painting his tan skin.

“Never?!”

Keith shook his head ‘no’.

“Well,” Pidge smirked devilishly and Keith’s nerves flared up, “tonight you’ll experience it all.”

Lance slowed his pace to match with theirs and Keith found himself sandwiched between the short gremlin and the lanky beanpole.

“Yeah,” Lance used his fingers to tally a list off, “cheap beer, people drunk dancing, walking in on people fucki-”

“Ew, Lance!” Pidge covered her ears, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that last part. Nasty.”

“What? It’s not like it doesn’t happen,” Lance turned his attention to Keith, “And boy, does it happen a lot.”

Pidge grimaced and Keith shook his head.

“Gross,” they said in unison.

Chapter Text

Arriving at the party, Keith only wished he were back at home. It just wasn’t his scene at all.

Music blared through speakers, basically shaking the entire house, and he felt the bass move from the floor to his feet and all the way up to his head, where a headache would be forming soon.

Upon walking through the front door, Lance immediately sped to the kitchen where the drinks were. Hunk and Allura found the pool tables and started there and Keith found himself alone with Pidge. Now that he thought about it, Pidge didn’t really seem like much of a party person either.

“Hey, Pidge?” The short girl glanced at him while she led the way to the backyard, “You don’t strike me as someone who goes to parties much.”

Pidge snorted, “Yeah, I’m mostly here to keep an eye on the gang. That’s why I made you come along, you don’t seem like one either so I figured I could have some company to make fun of the drunk idiots.”
“Oh,” Keith smiled a little, feeling his nerves shrug off.

Pidge sent him a grin and dragged him over to two lawn chairs off to the side of the porch. There were relatively secluded and it was a lot quieter than the main dance floor area where drunk kids were grinding on each other and making out. Keith vaguely shuddered in disturbance.

The view from the chairs was pretty good considering they were on the outskirts of the actual party. They could see through the glass sliding doors onto the dance floor so they could poke fun at people’s stupid decisions and also keep an eye on the rest of the group.

“So,” Pidge said a paused for a bit, “whatcha think of the town so far?”

Keith mulled the question over. Flipped it around and upside down. Bit his bottom lip in thought and squinted his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” he decided on.

“I think it sucks ass,” Pidge laughed and Keith followed suit due to her bluntness.

Things were quiet for a few moments after that.

“You wanna get a beer?”

Keith nodded and they went back into the death trap of a house. To get to the kitchen they had to go through the dance floor area and Keith felt his patience slowly flying out the window. Too many sweaty bodies were bumping into him and he felt more than a couple hands grabbing at places they didn’t belong. When Keith stabbed his elbow into some guy’s nose after he felt a hand grab his ass he pretended he didn’t notice the ‘yelp’ he cried out. Drunk people were the worst.

Right before entering the kitchen, Keith saw Lance out of the corner of his eye. He was cozied up to a girl with short, dark hair and fair skin. She was cute, not Keith’s type personally. Though, that might have to do with her being a she.

Pidge cut through his thoughts with a sharp tug on his wrist and they were in the small, tiled kitchen. Two kegs were set up on the counter and there was a mystery punch on the dining table. Keith frowned at the bright, offending red liquid.

“Two beers,” Pidge handed a few bucks to the guy manning the kegs.

“You even old enough to be in high school?” he squinted at her as he leaned against the counter.

Pidge scoffed, “You old enough to mind your fucking business?” The guy glared and she only shook around her bills. He caved and snatched the money. Keith giggled behind her and felt a sharp elbow in his gut. It was worth it. Barely.

On their way back through the dance craze – Keith held both their drinks above the crowd while Pidge shoved them through – Keith glanced to see Lance now making out with the girl from earlier. He ignored the pang in his chest. Figures.

Back on the deck – on a bench now, because their previous chairs were now occupied – Keith sipped his drink and fiddled with the red plastic cup.

“Hey, Pidge?”

“Hey, what.”

“Is Lance planning to, like,” Keith grimaced at his words as they tumbled out in a word vomit, “hook up with that girl?”

Keith immediately regretted asking. It was a weird and random question to ask of someone you’ve barely known a couple weeks. Pidge smirked at Keith knowingly.

“Why do ya wanna know?”

“So I can tease him for being a hoe, obviously,” Keith defended a little too sharply. Pidge raised an eyebrow, then broke into a laugh.

“Yeah, okay,” she sipped at her drink and continued, “Lance wouldn’t take her home. Not with all of us around too.”

Keith hummed and they moved into general topics of conversation. Such as the blonde bimbo Lance had flirted with at the bookstore earlier in the week. She was twerking on some beefed-up dude and Keith had to swallow back the contents of his stomach threatening to spill out of his mouth.

“Do people have no shame?”

“Nah,” Pidge flipped her now empty cup on the table in front of her. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and Keith looked over her shoulder to glance at the time. It had barely been dusk when they left the café, but it was well past midnight. Keith had stayed out later than that before, but it felt weirder in a place he didn’t know very well.

Keith was lost in thought wondering how he was going to get back to the apartment since Shiro was probably sleeping and they had walked here from the café. He honestly didn’t really know where they were either, he’d just followed the others on the walk.

Keith jumped when a lazy tap was felt on his shoulder. He glanced up to see Hunk standing in front of them. “I came to get you guys to watch Lance. He drank a bunch of these jelly shots and he’s making an absolute fool of himself on the dancefloor.”

“That is nothing out of the ordinary, Hunk.”

“True, but Keith hasn’t seen it before,” Hunk turned to Keith.

“Should he really be left alone after taking lots of shots?” Keith questioned.

“He’s with Allura,” Hunk added and raised his eyebrows, “So? It’s quite the experience.”

Keith shrugged and they trudged back into the house, leaning against an empty wall. Hunk pointed out Lance in the middle of the haze of drunk teenagers where he was lazily swinging his hips around. It wasn’t the best dancing, but if he was as drunk as Hunk said he was, it was quite the miracle. His face was flushed pink and he closed his eyes tightly as he ran his hands down his chest.

Well, fuck me.

Keith gulped and he could feel Pidge snickering to the side – whether it was at Keith’s horrible way of hiding his attraction or at Lance’s bad dancing, he couldn’t be sure.

Lance took that moment to open his eyes and catch Keith staring, to which the dark-haired boy felt his own cheeks grow pink, though he’d barely had a drink or two over the past couple hours so why was his face flushed?

Lance patted Allura’s arm – Keith mentally slapped himself when he realized he’d been so focused on Lance he’d barely seen her – and pointed towards Keith’s spot with Pidge and Hunk. He grabbed her gently by the bicep and they made their way over to the wall.

“Like what ya see out there?” Lance slightly slurred and winked at Keith.

“Uhm,” Keith squeaked, “what?”

“Come on, come dance with me,” Lance let go of Allura to grab Keith’s upper arm and he paused. He squeezed the muscle there once, then twice, and widened his eyes in awe. “Damn you’re jacked.”

Keith choked on his spit.

“Go on, go show him how to dance, Lance,” Pidge snickered from behind.

Keith felt fear and nerves creep in on the edges and he glanced at Allura who gave him her usual warm smile. He looked to Hunk who shrugged sheepishly and the next thing Keith knew, Lance dragged him to the center of the sweaty, alcoholic, teens.

“Lance, I- I do not dance,” Keith blubbered out, but the tan teen wasn’t having any of it, “Seriously, Lance. I’m really bad at-”

“Shh, Keith,” Lance cut him off and rested long fingers gently on his hips. A low voice whispered close to his ear to be heard above the loud music, “just dance with me.”

“I don’t dance,” Keith hardly tried to push Lance away, “Why would you even want to dance with me? I thought you hated me.”

“Psh,” Lance closed his eyes and smiled dumbly, “I don’t hate you. You’re just my rival.”

“Why would we be rivals,” Keith stated flatly, “we work at a bookstore. That literally makes zero sense.” Keith idly wondered why he was trying to make sense of anything Lance was saying in the state he was in.

Lance merely shrugged and Keith stopped breathing as Lance started pulling him in closer. He came to his senses when he felt Lance’s hot breath against his neck and all but shoved himself away. This wasn’t helpful, though, as he just ended up pressed against another drunken body.

Keith huffed out impatiently and yanked Lance from the dance floor. Lance protested the act with needy whines, but Keith just dragged him up and out to the front door. He was thankful that the other three had seen them leave, so he didn’t have to go back inside to find them. Though he could’ve done without them seeing Keith get flustered over a drunken Lance.

They didn’t speak about what happened and started their walk down the street. Apparently, Hunk and Lance were roommates and lived in an apartment only a couple blocks away. Allura lived a block closer than that, and Pidge called her brother to pick her up. Keith was grateful when the shorter girl offered him a ride home as well. Turns out Shiro’s apartment was only a few minutes away from her house, anyway.

It was a long night, most of which had been enjoyable, for once. But dancing – or being forced to dance, rather, Keith just wasn’t a dancing guy, okay? – with Lance confused him.

Lance didn’t hate him, but they were rivals? What the hell did that even mean? Did he want to compete over employee of the month or something? Because Lance can have it. Keith would rather do the bare minimum than try to exceed expectations just for his picture to go on the wall of the break room. But even that theory went debunked when Keith remembered all the times Lance was off-task and not doing his job. The whole situation was just weird.

~

As much as Lance confused Keith and muddled up his thoughts the night before, today he acted as if nothing had happened. And honestly, Keith was good with that. He’d rather not confront the elephant in the room because awkward and uncomfortable was easy to avoid if Lance chose to do it too.

So, Keith decided he’d never speak of it again because there was simply no need. If Lance didn’t bring it up, neither would he. Things were fine and Keith’s mind settled at that thought. He didn’t miss the few glances Pidge sent him though. He decided to ignore those as well.

~

Keith’s third week of work started the same as usual. He picked up coffee and food from Altea Café, dropped his belongings off in the break room, and set up for the day at the register until he switched tasks after lunch.

“Excuse me?”

Keith lowered a book he was reading – recommended by Pidge – to find a girl with short, curled hair and bangs with a hand on her hip. With a raise of an eyebrow he marked his place in his book and set it aside.

“Hi, how can I help you,” Keith repeated the general greeting.

“I was wondering if you could help me find a romance book,” the girl blinked multiple times and gave a small smile.

“Romance novels are in isle four,” Keith pointed to the sign behind him.

“Well I wanted you to help me pick one out!” She pressed her hands together, her large purse clattering against her side in its spot around her elbow, and flaunted bright white teeth in a blinding grin.

“Oh,” Keith glanced around till he spotted Lance in one of the isles, “my coworker Lance could help you out, I’m kind of on register duty right now.” Keith pointed towards the tan boy, who vaguely glanced up at hearing his name. His jaw dropped and eyes widened when he saw the pretty girl talking to Keith of all people.

“I don’t know,” she pouted, “I thought we’d have more of the same tastes.”

“Romance isn’t really my forte,” Keith frowned, “Lance likes basically any romance novel, I’m sure he can help you.”

“Never mind, I’ll find something myself,” the girl sighed exasperatedly and flipped her hair over her shoulder. Then she whipped around and sauntered off towards the desired genre. Keith continued frowning to himself.

That was weird, he thought, but shrugged it off and picked his book up again only for it to be immediately slapped out of his hands onto the floor.

“Hey! What was that for?!”

“That babe was flirting with you!” Lance’s voice came and Keith turned to face him. His eyes narrowed at his poor book’s assaulter while Lance rambled on, “Are you blind??”

“She wasn’t flirting with me,” Keith snatched his book off the ground, “You’re the blind one. She was just asking about books. Because, you know, we work in a bookstore.”

“Why you?? I was only a few feet away, all tan and gorgeous and available,” Lance whispered more to himself than to Keith. Then he slapped a palm on his forehead and let out a groan, “you’re stupid, ya know that? She was totally coming on to you!”

“Even if she was – which she wasn’t –” Keith rolled his eyes and opened his book back up, “She’s not really my type.”

“Wh- not your type?!” Lance spluttered and came around the front of the counter to knock some sense into Keith. He grabbed his book a held it high in the air above him while Keith gave him a bored, yet annoyed, look. “Are hotties just ‘not your type’?”

“Women in general aren’t,” Keith said blankly.

Lance’s face dropped to something expressionless and his arm went limp, giving Keith the chance to take back his novel. “Thanks,” came his bored voice again, “I’m going on my break now.”

Keith missed the way a slight blush painted Lance’s cheeks as his words registered in his mind.

~

A few days later at the end of his shift, Keith was growing impatient at his place at the check-out desk. Lance’s break was supposed to end ten minutes ago, but the guy failed to show up at the register to switch tasks with Keith. His horrible punctuality got on Keith’s nerves and it was honestly a mystery to him how he managed to keep this job so long. Maybe Coran was just too nice to fire him. Or too desperate for workers.

Either way, Lance was kind of a sucky employee 90% of the time – Keith couldn’t deny that him being attractive often brought in a lot of their customers – and it seems like 7:22 pm on a Wednesday did not fall into the exceptional 10% category.

Keith glanced around the room for a sign of any customers, but the store proved to be empty. Pidge left around noon because it was one of their slow days and they didn’t need too many employees. So it was just him and Lance – or it was supposed to be, but seeing as the guy wasn’t where he should be, he might’ve left too.

Keith huffed and dragged himself over to the break room. He scrunched his face up when he heard slight music through the thin door and some soft mumbling singing along. Keith decided to just unsubtly shove the door open. He didn’t expect to find Lance with his phone set up on the kitchenette counter, and him doing weird dance moves as he recorded himself.

Upon finally noticing Keith, Lance went into a weird state of shock and the two kind of just stared at each other in the small screen of the phone.

“Uhh,” was all Keith was able to sputter out. That seemed to be enough to break Lance out of his daze as he turned around and began the rant of excuses.

“It is not what it looks like,” Lance waved his hands dramatically in front of his chest.

“I’m not exactly sure what this even looks like,” Keith said slowly.

He glanced over to Lance’s phone that had stopped the recording and was now playing it over on a loop. The music was louder and he could see that Lance had been doing some type of body roll dance. His gaze finally made its way back to Lance’s face, which was bright red with embarrassment now as he scrambled to grab his phone and pocket it before Keith could see the video again.

“I came to get you,” Keith decided to ignore the awkward situation and move onto the reason he was here in the first place, “your break ended ten minutes ago.”

“O-okay,” Lance mumbled, “I’ll be out in a second.”

Keith nodded, lips pulled into a tight line, and stood there rocking on his heels awkwardly.

“Well, okay then.”

Keith went back into the store and shut the door behind him. He looked up to find an older man waiting patiently at the counter with a couple books and a bag. Keith smiled apologetically and made his way over, pushing the awkward encounter to the back of his mind to focus on his job.

Chapter Text

If I thought that by saving the world I would feel redemption – feel that the empty hole in my heart was finally filled – then I was wrong. Because I only saved the world in wrong ways. I defeated evil people, but they were only misguided, and good on the inside. I hurt them and their families to gain advantage and that was wrong too. It felt like everything good I’d ever achieved was actually bad. Did that make me bad too?

I discovered early on that I wanted to help people. I had always wanted to help everybody I could, but I didn’t realize that I’d been neglecting the people who truly needed my help. The ones who needed a gateway out of the horrible lives they’d grown up in. The ones I’d been fighting and “defeating” were the ones who needed love and rehabilitation to grow and move on. To become good people.

My head pounds with the realization that I’ve been the bad guy all along. And now that my wife and kids have been killed because of my mistakes, there’s nothing I want more in the world than to –

  “Keith!” Lance’s voice broke through Keith’s laser focus, “What’s going on my guy?”

Keith glared up at Lance for interrupting his reading. He currently sat at a table in Altea Café, drinking coffee and eating a blueberry muffin – Hunk insisted he try a different baked good every day if he was going to be stopping by so often. He’d been engulfed in a new hero series that just came in at Coran’s Bookstore before Lance so rudely disrupted him.

“Lance,” Keith nodded acknowledgement and turned his head back down to continue the story. He hoped that the gesture would give off the vibe ‘don’t talk to me’, but Lance didn’t seem to get it.

“What’re you reading?” Lance plopped down in the chair across from him and even had the audacity to grab a bite of his muffin with a fork he’d grabbed on the way over. “I love Hunk’s muffins. He’s the best baker in the entire town, no doubt.”

Lance basically moaned as he ate the muffin and Keith frowned.

“That was mine you know, buy one yourself,” Keith set his book down and glared across the table. Lance continued to indulge in the baked treat. Keith’s voice came laced with sarcasm, “Or ignore me, thanks.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Lance said around a mouthful of food.

“Okay, ew.”

“Still not answering,” Lance sing-songed his words.

“It’s one of the new arrivals,” Keith said bluntly and tried to continue reading, but Lance snatched the book out of his grasp. “Are you just here to take all of my things? Good thing I finished my coffee already because you’d probably drink that up too.”

Lance rolled his eyes and ignored him, but he basically choked on the muffin he was eating when he saw the cover of the book. Keith slapped him on the back until the choking fit cleared.

“Are you reading manga?!” Lance sputtered out and laughed a little. “You so would, you’re a nerd!”

  “Wow, thanks,” Keith remarked sarcastically, once again. He snatched his book back, “Are you leaving me alone yet?”

“I bet you watch anime too, huh.” Lance smirked across from him and Keith rolled his eyes.

“So, what if I do?” Keith bit back, “It’s not like I care much about what you think of me and what I do.” Even though that’s a complete lie-

Keith wasn’t sure, but he swore Lance’s face flashed slight disappointed before his usual smirk graced his lips.

“Dork,” Lance weakly fought with, “By the way, that girl from the other day came looking for you again a while after you clocked out.” Lance said it nonchalantly, but Keith’s ears must be playing tricks on him because Lance sounded slightly… jealous?

“Who?”

“The girl with the bangs,” Lance pointed at his forehead and scoffed when Keith still looked confused, “the one who wanted your help finding romance novels?”

“Oh,” Keith shrugged, “and? I thought I told you I don’t like her.”

“Just thought you should know is all.” Keith looked at him, but Lance seemed intent on boring his gaze into the floor.

“Okay, then.”

He swiped a hand through his dark hair and pulled out his phone to glance at the time. A message from Shiro a few minutes ago said that he was almost at the café, so he started gathering his things to leave. He left the trash for Lance to dispose of since he’d eaten most of his meal anyway.

“You owe me a muffin,” Keith said and gave Lance a pointed look. Keith vaguely heard Lance whine his name in retaliation and huff out a breath of annoyance. He didn’t realize he’d been smiling to himself when he thought about the pout Lance probably was wearing as he complained. He probably looked cute, a voice said in the back of his mind, which he promptly ignored. He’s so annoying, the louder voices covered up.

~

After the party fiasco and losing-a-potentional-friend-scare, Keith figured he’d never want to be placed in a situation like that again. At least, not for a while. But this summer just seemed out to prove him wrong.

He found that the slow days at the bookstore where he didn’t have a shift, he was just really. Bored. The first couple days off were enjoyable; Keith hung out, alone, at Shiro’s apartment. He caught up on some new Netflix shows that had recently been released. He hung up a poster or two in his room. He even unpacked a few items – like his jacket and most worn shirts/pants – from his suitcase and hung them in the empty closet.

What had started as some chill downtime quickly morphed into boring, nothing-to-do, time. One day Keith noticed he’d just been laying on the couch after his series ended, staring at the ceiling for almost an hour. Just thinking about how he didn’t know what he should do with his free time now.

He tried, he really did, to find something to fill the time. He dove deeper into reading, wrote a couple book recommendations – anonymously, because he didn’t feel the need to attract Lance’s teasing to another part of his life –, went to the gym. He even tried cooking, which he’s absolutely awful at. Alas, he was bored out of his goddamn mind in this tiny godforsaken town.

Keith quickly realized without Hunk, Allura, Pidge, and even Lance, he would end up spending the whole freaking summer sulking – and melting, it was god freaking hot here – in his room.

However, he wasn’t quiet bored enough to swallow his pride and ask to hang out with them again. He was definitely getting to that point though, but it was only so far right now that he was in the considering stage. He thought back to the party and how much fun he had been having joking around with Pidge and Hunk. Before Lance made things weird, that is. But they’d seemed to fix things – or at least ignore things – so Keith pushed those thoughts away once again.

He could only hope that they would invite him out before he either lost his mind or asked them himself in a moment of weakness – or strength or courage? – whichever came first.

~

“Whatcha up to?” Shiro asked from behind Keith.

“Writing book recommendations,” Keith said flatly.

Keith shrugged and got back to work when Shiro gave him a surprised look. Which, okay, Keith definitely deserved because he’d not generally go over the top for a job like this, but he found he actually enjoyed it. Only after he noticed more people purchasing the book he wrote his first recommendation for did he really get into though. What could he say, he liked knowing people took his word to read a story.

He’d recently read a few different books he’d liked. One being the manga Lance caught him reading in the café, a couple were part of a series revolving a made up college sport and a bunch of traumatized kids growing through their past, and the last was a mystery murder book that had a character that reminded him of Shiro.

His small stack of notecards weren’t pretty by any means, but the blocky black words drew eyes without the need for flowers or other doodles gracing the paper. That’s what Lance’s notecards often looked like, anyway. They were the majority of the recommendations found in the romance isle, while Pidge’s were mostly secluded to books about technology, mystery, or other books that boggled the mind. Or tried to, at least – she was really smart, afterall.

Keith liked writing his opinions for others to read. He even started writing his name at the bottom like he was supposed to, even though it was probably already pretty obvious whose notecards were whose.

He arrived early to the bookstore to beat his coworkers and made quick work of placing his notecards in the right places. Lance and Pidge teased him for his serious attitude towards the recommendations no matter what, but he’d rather not be caught putting them up on the shelves. He had a reputation to uphold.

A collection of cursive, blue ink surrounded by drawings and squiggles caught his eye as he placed the card for his manga on the shelf. He smiled a little to himself when he caught Lance’s words suggesting a certain book Keith had be reading the other day. Nerd, the word rang in his mind. Dork.

  Lance had a goofy way of writing about the books he’d read. He was very enthusiastic and it made a lot of people interested in what he had to say – or what he’d written, in this case. He wrote similarly to how he approached life, and Keith admired that to an extent. The guy was bold and bright and sunny and that’s exactly what a lot of people looked for while reading. A world better than their own to escape to. A happy place.

Keith was finding that this little town he had tried so hard to dislike was growing on him. It wasn’t quite a happy place, but it wasn’t the hateful hell he’d drawn up in his mind at the beginning of the summer

~

“Oh, Keith,” Shiro’s voice came out watery and wobbly, “you look so handsome.”

“You sound like a grandmother,” Keith remarked sarcastically.

Him and Shiro stood in front of a tall mirror while at a tailor getting their tuxes fitted for the wedding. It was little over a month away and the ceremony plans were starting to pick up the pace. Aka, Shiro was becoming emotionally unstable.

“Can’t you just take a compliment,” Shiro’s huffed, obviously done with Keith’s attitude. Shiro’s own demeanor switched completely from proud to annoyed father in two seconds.

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith rolled his eyes, “thanks.”

“Okay, we’re going to need to take in a few inches from the sides of the pants, but the jacket seems to fit perfectly,” the tailor working with them said, “How does it feel, Keith?”

Keith stretched his arms out and rolled his shoulders back and around, testing out the fit and functionality. He shrugged, indifferent.

“Feels fine.”

“Alright, I’ll be right back. I’m going to write down some measurements.”

The two brothers were alone again, and Keith chanced a glance to his side at Shiro. The older man had a wobble to his lip while he fought back some tears. Keith sighed and clapped his brother on the back reassuringly.

“You deserve this, man,” Keith smiled when their gazes met in the mirror.

“Thanks, Keith,” Shiro smiled softly, “I appreciate you being here with me the whole summer. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to deal with this on my own.” Keith frowned.

“You’re not alone, you have Adam.”

“Well, of course I do,” Shiro sniffed and rolled his eyes, “but it means a lot to me to have my little brother here too. My best man.” Shiro smirked at the last bit and Keith let out a light, little laugh.

“Uhm,” Keith fiddled with his hands shyly, “Thanks for choosing me. It means a lot to be around too.”

“I don’t know who else I’d choose. You’re the only one I would ever consider,” Shiro said and Keith felt a prickle at his eyes. Damn Shiro and his stupid sentimental speeches. Shiro continued, “I know you didn’t really want to be here, but I hope you’re enjoying yourself more. Or at least warmed up to the place a little. You seem happier than at the start, anyway.”

“Yeah,” is all Keith managed to respond with. He didn’t really know what else to say. Thankfully, he didn’t have to as the tailor chose that time to return and let the brothers know they could take the suits off and everything was done. They scheduled the second (and hopefully final) fitting for a week away and left with dopey smiles on their faces.

Stupid Shiro being the greatest guy, let alone greatest older brother.

~

“You already ate,” Keith said flatly. She only stared with big, wide eyes back at him. “I’m not giving you more food, you’ll get fat.” More expectant, large eyes. Keith frowned. “We’ll run out of food and you’ll never get anything again!” Keith tried. Still no budge on the round, blue eyes. “Oh my god, fine,” he finally relented.

He turned around and made his way to the break room, a fluffy, grey cat following closely on his heels. She meowed her thanks and he rolled his eyes at the soft pattering of her little paws behind him.

Keith grabbed the bag of cat food and poured a handful into Colonel’s kitty bowl. He smiled softly while she dug in, but his sentiment was cut short when he was caught red-handed, bag still clutched to his chest.

“You! You’re the one overfeeding Colonel!”

Keith jumped and dropped the cat food in surprise. The pellets scattered to the breakroom floor as Keith whipped around, eyes wide. He found himself face to face with Lance pointing a finger at him and Pidge looking disappointed with her arms crossed against her chest. The three then gaped at the mess of cat food on the floor and Keith at least had the decency to look guilty.

“Oops?” He tried with a wary smile as rose his hands, palms up.

That only earned two more glares his way.

“She begs, okay?! How can you resist those cute, big, blue eyes?” Keith bit, exasperated. This wasn’t his fault, it’s Colonel’s!

The cat in question didn’t spare them a glance and continued on to eating the spilled food on the floor when she finished her given portion from her bowl. Her big, floofy tail swished back and forth slowly as the three stood around staring.

Keith breathed in deep and snatched the broom from a hook off the wall. He gently patted Colonel’s tush to scoot her out of the room then began angrily sweeping the food on the floor. Meanwhile, Pidge and Lance glanced at each other with concerned expressions and their eyebrows raised.

“Wait,” Keith paused and looked up at the two who were still just watching him clean up rather than offer to help, “who’s running the store if you two are in here?”

Pidge and Lance widened their eyes and finally scrambled out of the room with yips and ‘oops’ falling out of their mouths. Keith rolled his eyes and thought, idiots.

Chapter Text

Today was a normal day.

Today was supposed to be a normal day. It started normal, at least. Keith got up early enough that he needed coffee from the café. He clocked into work and talked to customers. He worked the register, took his lunch break, then switched to shelving books. He lounged around with Pidge and Lance when the store became empty and quiet. Here came the unusual part.

“Oh my motherfucking god,” Lance muttered under his breath.

Pidge and Keith glanced up, Pidge from her video game, and Keith from his phone. When Lance didn’t respond to their raised eyebrows, Pidge grumbled and said, “what?”

  Lance slowly raised his head from where he had been scrolling on his phone and stared into Pidge’s soul. It looked like his own soul had left his body. His eyes were wide and his was held a disbelieving, blank stare.

Pidge widened her own eyes and shook her head in a way of asking for an explanation. Lance looked back at his phone, looked at Keith, looked at Pidge, and finally turned his phone around so Pidge could see. The two were sitting on a small couch while Keith was on the floor in a beanbag chair, so he was at a bad angle to see what the fuss was over.

Pidge’s own mouth dropped as she grabbed for the phone to look closer. “Holy hell,” she muttered and adjusted her glasses. This caught Keith’s attention even more and he dropped his book on the ground to sit up straighter.

“What?” Pidge and Lance glanced at each other and back at Keith, eyes still wide in shock. “What is it?” Keith grumbled, a panicky edge making way into his voice.

“You’re…” Pidge cleared her throat, “you kind of went viral, Keith.”

“Excuse me?” Keith scoffed.

Lance and Pidge weren’t laughing.

“Remember the other day when you found me in the break room, um, dancing,” Lance spoke up, a pink tint gracing his tan cheeks. Keith nodded and he continued, “well, I posted the video anyway, because I thought it was funny, and it kind of got like a million likes.”

“What?” Keith scrunched his face up, “First of all, why would you even post that. Second, who would like that-why would that go viral.”

“According to the comments, people find you two ‘cute’,” Pidge said matter-of-factly, but snorting to herself, “idiots.”

Keith grabbed for the phone himself and watched the video he’d barely glimpsed all those days ago. It started out with Lance’s stupid little dance in time with the song, then in the background the break room door opened to reveal a confused Keith. Both Lance and Keith wore their bookstore uniforms – the choice of jeans or khakis paired with a red polo that showed off Coran’s logo – and they looked equally as confused and shocked at Lance being caught. For a few seconds they just stood, staring at each other, then the video cut off and restarted.

Keith looked at other icons on the screen and sure enough the video had earned just over 1 million likes. There were also a generous amount of comments, which Keith was kind of scared to click on. The caption at the bottom read ‘I’m never making a tiktok at work again’.

“Again, why would this go viral?” Keith looked up at Lance and Pidge, brows furrowed.

“Open the comments,” Pidge said and Keith looked at the button warily. He clicked anyhow and was bombarded with thirsty teens and laughing emojis. Upon Keith’s look of horror, Pidge laughed and said, “seems like you’re a favorite, Keithy.”

Oh my god, are they dating???

I ship lol

fake

THAT’S SO EMBARASSSING I SCREAMED JSFOJOWEFJ

He’s a brave one to try making a vid at work in the first place

I NEED the @ of the guy in the back!! Does anyone have it???

Two hot guys at one workplace?? I need this job asap

The way they both just froze in place eye-

Does that guy have a mullet jfojwoejfojwe its 2020 bro

The second hand embarrassment eek

Why do these types of videos get so popular, it’s literally just two cute guys doing nothing

This is obviously staged

Are u single

The brown-haired guy’s curly hair is everything I want in a guy omg he’s perfect

  Keith glanced back up at Lance and Pidge, spilling his opinions on the matter, “people on the internet are really blunt.”

“That’s what happens when you can hide behind a screen,” Lance huffed then turned to Keith, “that’s the most likes I’ve ever gotten before. So, thanks I guess, for interrupting my dance.”

“What even is this?” Keith questioned, to which Lance hummed in response. “This app, I mean. Why is the video so popular?”

“You- you’ve never heard of tik tok?” Lance’s mouth dropped in disbelief when Keith shook his head no. “Oh my god, you poor child.”

Keith gave Lance a bored look, but Pidge chimed in. “Oh, Keith. The world just wasn’t ready for you yet.”

The three looked at each other for a few seconds – whether it was in confusion or just not knowing what to do, Keith doesn’t know – before Lance clapped his hands on his thighs and stood up.

“I’m tiktok famous now,” Lance announced and Pidge groaned and rolled her eyes.

“It’s one video, don’t let it go to your head,” Pidge threatened, but it was useless since Lance was already grinning ear to ear and babbling about how he’d use his platform to promote his favorites skincare products.

Keith was still thoroughly confused about this whole tiktok and famous video thing when he gave Lance his phone back. Lance glanced at the comments himself and gasped dramatically.

“It’s not staged or fake! Thank you very much,” Lance’s jaw dropped and he flushed as he scrolled farther down, but ultimately decided to pocket his phone and not address whatever he’d read.

“The only people who liked that video are thirsty middle schoolers,” Pidge snorted and Lance launched at her to wrestle her into the couch. The shorter girl let out a yeep of protest and the two tackled and pinches and pulled hair. Keith stood off to the side, out of the way.

“Okay, I’m clocking out,” he announced when his phone buzzed the reminder that his shift was over. His announcement went ignored, however, because the two were treating each other like siblings fighting over the last slice of cake.

Tiktok, Keith thought and stored the name away for later. Maybe he’d check it out to see what all the hype was about. But, later. Because right now he was craving the strawberry cheesecake of Hunk’s he’d tried the other day. He hoped there were two slices left because he really wanted to get one for Shiro to try. It was mouthwatering deliciousness.

~

On his break the next day, Keith pulled up the Appstore on his phone and searched for Tiktok. He clicked on the first to pop up, the logo being a curly type of ‘T’ with blue and red lining the letter. He skimmed the description and some reviews briefly, but he didn’t have all that much time until he had to go back to setting up one of the new displays.

The app downloaded and installed and soon enough launching. On the page marked ‘For You’ he scrolled through a few videos, but didn’t really understand what he was looking at. None of the videos seemed to share much in common, besides they all were of teens, and they were really random. A couple were dancing videos like he’d seen Lance making, but the majority were the user talking back and forth to themselves.

Keith frowned and took a few moments to find the search bar. He typed in ‘Lance’, but he realized he didn’t even know his last name. Even if he did, that didn’t guarantee his username wouldn’t have been random words or numbers or something.

Keith sighed and glanced up at the clock. He only had five minutes left of his break and he didn’t even know where to start to find Lance’s account. With the decision to figure it out later, Keith exited the app and focused on finishing his shift.

~

“Are you Keef?”

Keith blinked. He looked up from the new book he’d started to see a little boy peeking over the counter on his tippy toes. Then it registered in his mind the small child must have a lisp of some sort.

“Yes,” Keith said slowly and came around the counter to squat in front of the boy. Now at eye level he asked, “What can I help you with?”

The boy grinned brightly to show off his lack of teeth. The two front ones were missing, which explained the lisp from earlier. “I read one of the comics you recommended and really liked it. Do you have more?”

“Uh,” Keith raised his eyebrows as he stood up and walked to a certain isle, “Over here I can show you some new ones we got.”

The boy bounced excitedly as they walked to the manga area. Keith selected a few different books that would be appropriate for the boy’s age, but similar to the kinds of genres Keith preferred. The boy’s smile only grew in size as Keith handed him the options which he snatched up and ran over to plop onto the couch a few feet away.

“Thanks!” He said as an afterthought. It took Keith a few moments and a nod to realize what’d just happened so he could walk back to the register.

Not ten minutes later, the same young boy along with a middle-aged women placed a piles of books onto the counter for check-out. As Keith scanned the items, a certain couple of covers caught his eye – the ones he’d chosen for the boy to read. Keith swallowed a lump in his throat when a weird feeling surged through his stomach.

“Your total is $32.35,” Keith tapped a few buttons on the register monitor and motioned for the lady to slide in her credit card. While they waited for it to complete the scan, Keith turned to the boy and said as he pointed to the most colorful cover, “I hope you enjoy the books. This one is my favorite so far.”

“Thanks, Keef!”

Keith smiled the friendliest smile he could muster for the kid and turned to the older women to finalize the payment. She gave him a knowing smile of her own and took the bag of books from the counter, “Thank you. Really.”

The boy flashed Keith one more toothy – or rather toothless – grin and skipped along after who was probably his mom. He was already rambling on about something new, his eyes bright and hands flying all over the place. He reminded Keith of Lance in a way, and that thought alone made Keith giggle a little to himself. Lance does act like a kid sometimes.

“What’re you laughing about, mullet?” Speak of the devil, “I bet it’s over how you’re a nerd who reads manga.” Lance smirked and Keith rolled his eyes.

“I don’t have a mullet,” is all he could come up with.

“Uh- yeah. You do,” Lance crossed his arms and leaned against the counter to get up close to Keith’s face and his personal bubble. Keith countered by pulling back to put space between them. “You didn’t deny that you’re a nerd, Keithy,” Lance added as his eyes gleamed with a certain competitive nature.

“Shouldn’t you be working, Lance?” Keith huffed out, bypassing the topic of conversation, “how have you managed to not get fired already?”

Lance stood up straighter and gestured his hands towards himself. “A hottie never reveals his secrets, Keith. You of all people should know that by now.”

Was he implying that he thinks I’m hot, Keith’s thoughts betrayed him and he felt a certain flush growing across his cheeks. Nah, I’m overthinking things. He must mean that he never explains himself to me. When he turned back to face Lance, however, the boy seemed equally perplexed by his own statement. His eyes were wide, a slight blush of his own gracing his flawless tan skin, and his mouth was clamped shut.

“Well, I guess you’re right,” Lance whipped around and sauntered to the storage room where they kept new arrivals, “let’s get back to work then.”

And the conversation was over.

What a weird guy, Keith thought absentmindedly. He shrugged the weirdness off and filed it away for a later date. He was here to make money not goof around. Though it often seemed like fooling around was higher on Pidge and Lance’s to-do list than actually working was.

~

Keith was quickly discovering that the majority of his days at the bookstore were just not normal. Which in a way meant the ‘normal’ days were actually the unusual ones. Anyway, today was particularly weird because both Pidge and Lance were gone. Keith wasn’t alone, though, because Coran was filling in.

Lance apparently was sick – Keith wasn’t sure if he believed this excuse yet, because Lance seemed like the kind of guy to ditch work and go party or something – while Pidge was at a fancy dinner with her parents and brother.

Although Coran is Keith’s boss and is friendly enough, the two have never talked much. Keith was definitely not a super star at socializing, so just the idea of having to make small talk when the store grew empty made him nervous. So far it’d been a somewhat busy day so there’d been no opportunity to ‘get to know each other’, but the day was coming to a close and people were becoming scarce.

“You’ve been doing really well, Keith,” Coran said while they shelved books side by side. The comment took Keith by surprise, as he wasn’t well suited to receiving compliments.

“Oh, uh,” Keith placed the last book he’d been holding on the shelf and reached to the back of his neck to sheepishly scratch at it, “thanks, Coran.”

“Of course, my boy. You know,” Coran turned towards Keith and twisted one side of his mustache between his fingers, “you get along surprisingly well with Pidge and Lance.”

“I do?” Keith scrunched up his face, remembering how he basically yelled at Lance after the week of ‘welcome’ pranks.

“Mhm,” Coran nodded with a smug smile, “they can be quite picky when it comes to their coworkers.” Coran’s eyes widened slightly and he added on to reassure, “They won’t be mean, but they give a mean silent treatment.”

“Okay, good to know?” Keith reached into the box to grab the last few books. Coran only nodded once more and they finished up their task.

Right as Keith was clocking out, Coran pulled him aside gently by the elbow and placed a book and a jacket in his hands. Keith merely gave him a startled look.

“These are some of Lance’s things he left the other day. Could you give them to Hunk in the café next door while I close up shop? There’s still a couple more things I’d like to finish before heading home.”

Keith’s eyes darted between the items and Coran while his mouth opened and closed like a fish. “No problem,” Keith settled with. Who was he to deny his boss of such a simple task? Keith wasn’t a people pleaser, but he’d look awfully rude to say no, especially after Coran only gave him compliments today.

Keith walked the short distance to Altea Café and swung the door open to the dark room. “Hello? Is anyone here? Hunk?” Keith whispered. It was really creepy looking.

“Hey, Keith,” Hunk clapped a hand on Keith’s shoulder from behind him and Keith all but jumped out of his skin. “Oh! Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya. What brings you by at this time?”

“I- I’m,” Keith cleared his throat as he gathered what was left of his dignity and held up Lance’s belongings, “Coran wanted me to give you Lance’s things. Since he’s sick and all.” Keith narrowed his eyes as he assessed Hunk’s reaction to that last part. He wanted to know if Lance told the truth or not, okay?? Hunk passed the test though, smiling in a supportive and knowing friend way.

“Yeah, it’s not bad though. Probably just a cold,” Hunk pushed lightly past Keith to make his way over to the counter, “If you wait a few minutes you could just bring those straight to our place and then I can make us dinner. I’ll give you a ride back after.”

“Oh, um. I guess so.”

“Great, just let me close up.”

~

“Nice place,” Keith remarked politely. Hunk led him through the front door into the kitchen/living room combined areas. He set his own things on the counter and gestured to their small couch stationed in front of a TV.

“Thanks,” Hunk turned pulled a pot out of a cupboard and towards the stove as he began what looked like cooking soup, “make yourself at home. Lance’s room is down the hall on the left. He’s probably sleeping, so you can just leave his stuff on the floor by his bed.”

Keith nodded and followed the directions he was given. On hopefully-Lance’s door, Keith saw a few signs and posters littering the wood. One that caught his eye specifically was a dorky ‘do not disturb’ sign in black, white, and red. And he calls me nerdy. Is he a teenager at his parents house?

  Keith lightly knocked and opened the door when nobody responded. The room was definitely bigger than Keith’s at Shiro’s apartment, but it was still pretty small. Lance’s bed with a body-shaped lump on top sat on the right side of the room against the wall with a nightstand next to it. Above the headboard was a large window decorated with blue curtains. To the left lived a wooden wardrobe and a desk with polaroids and other pictures above it.

Keith shook his head when he realized he was trespassing of some sort and focused on the task at hand. He walked into the room – it smelled like candles, like the ocean or something, not that Keith noticed that of course, duh – and towards the bed where the hopefully-Lance’s-body-lump was shuffling around. Keith’s tiptoeing did nothing to smother his footsteps when the floorboards creaked under his weight.

“Hunk?” Lance’s muffled voice mumbled tiredly when Keith reached his bedside. “Did you bring me soup?”

Keith froze, not knowing what to do. Should he reveal himself? He should’ve, because not two seconds later Lance was popping his head out of his cocoon and popping his eyes out of his head.

“Keith?!” Lance shrieked and pulled the covers over him like he was caught naked – he was fully clothed, by the way – and scooched towards the headboard of the bed. This only caused him to bonk his head on the wood which probably didn’t help with his sickness much.

Keith, without thinking, rushed in to help, “Holy shit, are you okay? That sounded like a bad hit,” Keith reached out to Lance’s head only to be slapped lightly away.

“What are you doing in my house!” Lance ignored his injury and huffed at Keith impatiently.

“Apartment,” Keith corrected, “Hunk brought me by to drop off some things Coran gave me and have dinner.” Lance’s face softened as he glanced at his jacket and book Keith was holding up in his hands. Something clicked in his brain because he was then snatching the items away from Keith as if he was going to give them a disease and crossing his arms with a pout.

“Is dinner ready?” Lance mumbled.

“Not quite,” Keith bit back a small smile. Lance was acting like such a child and it was very amusing. “Should be done soon, though.”

“Fine. You can go now, shoo shoo,” Lance grabbed Keith’s shoulders – when had he gotten close enough to do that? – and turned him around to scooch him out the door. It caused a quiet giggle to escape him, to which Lance scowled at, and Keith was back to walking down the hall to hang with Hunk.

~

“I think Britney has a little bit of a chance at beating Usian Bolt in a race,” Lance remarked while he nodded to himself.

“You better be joking because I’m pretty sure that’s impossible,” Keith said with a flat look. Lance shrugged and chewed on some noodles.

“All I’m saying is,” Lance said with his mouth full, “if she seduced him while they’re running she could probably get a head start or make him trip or something.”

“I’m preeetty sure that counts as cheating,” Hunk said matter-of-factly, “How’s the soup by the way?”

“It’s amazing, buddy,” Lance’s one-track mind immediately switched over to complimenting his best friend, “I’m feeling better already.”

Keith nodded his agreement, “I never knew chicken noodle soup could be this perfect.”

“Oh, stop,” Hunk smiled bashfully towards his bowl, “thanks, guys.”

“No problemo,” Lance smirked that snickered at his next comment, “how was work, Keith?”

“This is feeling awfully like a family dinner,” Keith said. Hunk laughed at that and Lance blushed for some reason. It must’ve been because he’s sick and the ongoing fever. Looking down at his soup he continued, “It was fine. Kind of weird with just Coran, though.”

“Coran’s a funny guy,” Lance said simply and that was that.

The trio finished up dinner with idle chatter and soon Keith was heading home. The car ride to Shiro’s was slightly awkward – not necessarily bad, just uncomfortably quiet. Hunk made polite small talk, but as they neared the apartment he turned more serious.

“Thanks for being a good guy to Lance,” Hunk tapped a random rhythm against the steering wheel, “I know he can be a bit to handle.”

Keith squinted out the window and thought, a bit? It was definitely an understatement, but Keith got the gist of Hunk’s point.

“Uhm, no worries,” Keith shrugged, “thanks for dinner. You really are a great cook, Lance is lucky to share a kitchen with you.”  

Hunk laughed at that with his big, friendly smile as he pulled into the apartment complex parking lot. Keith gave a wave and a ‘goodbye!’ to his new friend and headed up to bed with a small smile on his face.

Chapter Text

“Hi, Keith.”

With a short glance from his latest book – about a mind reader who becomes a detective – Keith spots Allura in all her glorious beauty smiling softly at him.

“Oh, hey. I thought you were working at the café today,” he bookmarked his page and gave her his full attention.

“Oh I am,” she reassured, “I’m on my break though and wanted to get a couple books. Any recommendations?”

Keith beamed at her easy trust in his opinions. Many people since he got this job had requested the same thing of him, but he considered Allura a friend. It meant more to him for a friend to value his opinions compared to a stranger.

“Well, what kind of books do you like-” he started, but was so rudely interrupted.

“Allura, you’re seriously asking Keith what to read?” Lance’s cocky tone rang out. Keith rolled his eyes and sent Allura a look that hopefully conveyed all of his annoyed feelings. Lance continued, oblivious, “He reads manga half the time-”

“Are you ever going to let that go?” Keith briefly interrupted.

Lance laughed like he was stupid to even ask that at all. He turned to Allura with a smirk, “You should be asking yours truly.” Lance gestured to himself with a smirk and Keith groaned.

Lance didn’t have a chance to show off his amazing selection of books because Pidge was joining full swing with secrets to spill.

“Like you have any room to talk, Lance,” Pidge grinned devilishly as Lance whipped around and frantically crisscrossed his hands in a sign of ‘no please don’t fucking spill the beans’. Pidge ignored him and turned to the eagerly awaiting Keith and Allura, her eyebrows raised and hands rubbing together like a maniac. “Lance reads more manga than any of us,” she finally reveals.

“What?!” Keith turns to Lance who looked petrified and frozen to his spot. “You’re always making fun of me when you read it too??” Keith’s face flushed admittedly a little red with anger or at least frustration. Lance only seemed to shrink in on himself while Allura giggled behind a perfectly manicured hand and Pidge sauntered away, her work here done.

“I can’t believe you Pidge!” Lance yelped after the shorter girl, then attempted to compose himself before turning back to the two others. “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Lance stated flatly, though nobody believed him.

“Yeah, right,” Keith crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, “just admit your ‘secret’ is out.”

“Well, it’s different anyway because my taste in manga is good,” Lance tilted his chin high to compensate for his faltering ego, “unlike yours, Keith.”

“Well, my break is almost over so I guess I’ll stop by again another time,” Allura announced.

“Sorry, Allura,” Keith sent her an apologetic smile, “Lance wastes a lot of people’s time.”

“Wh- no I don’t!” Lance spluttered out as Allura walked out the door and turned towards the café. “Stop making me look bad, Keith! If I got to pick books out for her today, we could’ve finally fallen in love.”

Keith choked on air.

“Pft- you think she’ll fall in love with you?? Over a few recommended books,” Keith deadpanned and Lance shrugged with a pout. “Good luck with that, then.”

~

The past week after Keith had dinner with Lance and Hunk had gone not too differently than the moment Lance’s ‘manga secret’ was exposed. Lance and Keith had fallen into a good balance between banter and teasing and all and Keith was kind of… happy?

Keith had a lot of ex-friends from his past that he’d lost because of his sense of humor. Nobody really seemed to understand that he was just joking. Until Lance, that is. And Pidge – she was really easy for Keith to get along with. Hunk was a different type of friend because he was softer, more sensitive. Not in a bad way by any means, but it meant instead of a banter friend he was more a supportive, understanding one.

Anyway, Lance and him found their way into a certain routine. They would goof off and tease each other when the store grew empty. Lance made it a point to act like whoever got more people asking for book recommendations was winning. Keith wasn’t sure exactly what they were winning, but he was sure it had something to do with Lance’s fixation on them being ‘rivals’. Keith also learned that Lance got really jealous(?) when pretty girls would ask Keith for help with things. Like with Allura. It’s not like Keith was actively trying to ‘snatch’ them up like Lance accused him of doing.

So yeah, things were good. But his peaceful obliviousness could only last so long before it was disrupted by the reminder of his weird internet fame.

“Oh. My. God,” a low, disbelieving voice whispered followed by a high-pitched squeal. Keith winced and willed himself not to cover his ears. Are they bleeding? My ears must be bleeding after that.

The whistle-pitched voice belonged to a curly haired blonde probably a couple years younger than himself. She continued her freak-out and rambled on, “You’re that kid! The kid from the videos?” Keith gave her a confused, slow nod, “you’re even cuter in person. What’s your tiktok? Everyone’s been trying to find you, but no such luck. And here you are in my grandparent’s town! I have the best luck, wow I amaze myself sometimes.”

Keith stood gaping, still confused on how to response, when the girl flipped personality. “Wait,” Keith’s eyes grew wide in question, “where’s Lance? He must work here too, right?”

“Uhm,” Keith finally cleared his throat and gathered his bearings, “his shift ended a while ago.”

“Pooey,” she pouted and Keith idly thought she looked like a kid with not enough presents on Christmas morning.

“Hold on. Did you say videos? As in plural?” Keith leaned slightly across the counter while she nodded vigorously, “Like, more than one.” More nodding. Then, she yanked out a phone tricked out in a bedazzled pink case and tapped furiously on the screen. Soon enough she was turning it towards him to take a look for himself.

“Here’s the first one,” she commented and Keith saw the dancing video he’d seen probably 4 times now. He nodded and she got the memo that he knew of this one so she moved on. “Here’s the second one he posted a couple days ago. You’re barely in it, but everyone went crazy over it.”

This new video took Keith by surprise. Not because it was suggestive or anything like the first one, but because it was the opposite. The words on the screen said ‘what the opening shift at a bookstore looks like’ and the video started off by Lance unlocking and opening the door and turning on lights. Then the clips shifted between wiping down counters and shelving books. At a clip of Lance setting up a display on a table from the front of the store, Keith appeared in the background for all of two seconds where he knelt on the floor tying his shoe. He had to squint and lean closer to even get a good look at himself. Honestly, he really only noticed because a red arrow edited into the video was pointing at him with ‘lol spotted’ written next to it.

The video replayed and this time she paused the video at Keith’s appearance. He got a better look and saw his face was pretty hidden by his dark bangs falling in front of his eyes. A slightly uncomfortable voice in the back of his mind wondered, how did all these people immediately recognize it was him again?

Keith almost forgot the girl was the one showing him the video when she cleared her throat loudly and his head snapped up to meet her eyes.

“Oh, sorry,” Keith forced the tiny blush making its way to his face to go away, “so why is this such a big deal?”

“Wh-” The girl did a double take and gave him wide eyes, “because. Two cute guys in a potential relationship? Why isn’t it a bigger deal should be your question.”

“We’re not-” Keith licked his lips and shook his head with a nervous laugh, “we’re just friends.” Keith forced the answer out, choosing to ignore the way friends sounded wrong when he connected it to Lance and him.

“That’s not what 1.3 million people think,” she said matter-of-factly and showed the phone yet again. Sure enough, there were 1.3 million likes and half as many comments. He also noticed this time around the caption said, ‘this idiot must be blind he didn’t even see me’. Right above the caption was what Keith assumed was his username, and he committed it to his memory – he wasn’t about to falsely confirm this girl’s suspicions of their ‘relationship’ by writing it down in front of her. Duh. It’s not like it was hard to remember anyway. “So, what’s your username? I’ll follow you.”

“I, uh. I don’t have an account.”

“What?! Well, make one, you’ll be famous in like 2 seconds. Though, you kind of already are…” Keith shrugged a ‘maybe’, but honestly didn’t even consider it. “Can I at least get a picture with you? Maybe I’ll go viral with your pretty face to help me climb to steps of tiktok celebs.”

Keith’s mind was working hyper-speed trying to make sense of anything this girl was saying, but she was talking all over the place. Also, why would she want my picture? And she called me pretty so bluntly. People are weird these days. Keith shrugged, not really knowing how to deny her. 1.3 million people already saw his face in some video(s) Lance posted, so who was he to turn away this random girl, too. Wow, Keith thought, this town is making me soft. And lazy. But that’s besides the point.

“Eep! Yay,” she clapped her hands excitedly a couple times and turned around to lean her back against the counter. She pulled up her camera app and Keith leaned his face in next to hers. She smiled her bright, white teeth with her eyes squeezed shut and he settled on a shy (no teeth) smile and a peace sign. “Thanks so much! Maybe I’ll see you before I split this tiny town.” She booped him on the nose, making him go cross-eyed.

Then she was running out the door with her squeals and Keith was left to ponder what the hell just happened. He pushed the interaction out of his mind, figuring it probably didn’t mean much. The internet didn’t seem to feel the same way.

~

As soon as Keith walked into the break room, Lance was pouncing on him. Okay, that was a weird way to word it. Point is, Lance was jumping all around and babbling incoherently while Keith stood with his usual confused, ‘wtf is happening anymore’, expression. He looked at Pidge for an explanation and she swooped in to save his life.

“You, my good friend, are breaking the internet as we speak,” Pidge showed him her phone to reveal the picture he’d taken with the crazy fangirl two days ago, “care to explain?”

“Uhh-”

“Dude! How are you so popular without even trying,” Lance groaned, finally mumbling some understandable words. His hands were clawed into his hair as he stared at oblivious (as always) Keith.

“I just took a picture with a customer…” Poor, innocent Keith tried. “Why do people care, again? We are two random people that they don’t even know,” Keith crossed his arms against his chest with a frown.

“Somehow they find you doofuses-” Pidge mimicked gagging, “-attractive.”

~

Keith had trouble focusing the entire day. He blanked on recommending things to people, fumbled with directions to isles, miscounted change a few times. He was relieved when he switched duties with Lance so he could lose himself in shelving books instead of doing math. He was so out of it because of the ‘rumors’ thing.

Keith couldn’t focus on anything except the way he felt when he thought of Lance as a friend. Besides, he should feel grateful to be anything more than a stranger to him, but he couldn’t help but want more. He tried to blame it on the unfamiliarity of actually having friends for once, but didn’t seem to feel this way when he thought of Hunk or Pidge or Allura calling him as such. He knew deep in the back of his mind he was falling, hard, but he just couldn’t deal with that right now.

For one, he didn’t even have a chance with Lance. The guy’s a dweeb, yes, but so far he’d only shown interest in girls. He got jealous when they talked to Keith and always voiced this to him.

Second of all, if he did have a chance he wouldn’t take it. He couldn’t. Not when Lance seemed to be the glue that held the friend group Keith had barely joined together. When they inevitably broke up – that is to assume they even got together – it would just be awkward and then he would lose the only good friends he’d made in a while.

Third, and last, of all, Keith was supposed to leave at the end of the summer. After Shiro and Adam got married, they were headed back to Keith and Shiro’s hometown where the two lovers had met and had their jobs. Their life. Not that Keith really had much to go back to, but he needed to return to school and set his sights on a career, and a tiny town wasn’t an ideal place to rise up ranks.

So alas, Keith smothered his feelings hoping they would die away painlessly. No such luck. Especially when Lance is always being cute. Okay, brain. Shut up.

He resolved he would deal with this problem in the comfort and isolation of his home in the dark at night, all by himself. No, he wasn’t going to rub one out to the thought of Lance. Get yo damn mind outta the gutter.

~

Keith stared at his phone. It stared back. He stared some more.

With a resigned sigh, he powered it on and opened the app he was looking for. He stared at the offending colors, narrowed his eyes in suspicion. He studied the loading page and thought, am I really fucking doing this? I’ve gone so low as to stalk him on social media.

He didn’t bother to watch any video on the home page and went straight – heh – to the search bar. This was a mission, afterall. He typed in the username that haunted and followed him around all day.

@loverboylance69

Keith wouldn’t admit to anyone that it made him giggle a little bit. He cleared his throat and shook his head. Focus. Mission. Go.

  Clicking on the first option led him to an account with a gorgeous Lance winking at him in the profile picture. Of course, Keith thought as he rolled his eyes. Lance had quite a few videos so Keith just started with the most recent one. Another dancing one, but it was more energetic and kid-ish than… well, suggestive.

Keith’s caught himself smiling fondly (!) at the video so he scrolled to the next one. It was just the second video Keith had appeared in, so he continued through since he already saw it before. Next was a ‘evening skincare routine’. Okay, that’s pretty damn cute, Keith thought. After Lance washed his face he put a face mask on – Keith thought it looked like guacamole spread on his face, but whatever floats your boat – and ended with a couple more products and moisturizer. Keith wasn’t familiar with most of the items used, since his ‘skincare routine’ consisted of bar soap.

Keith continued his stalking journey until he couldn’t scroll anymore. He scrunched his face up, confused. Is this stupid phone broken? He pressed the back arrow and realized he was at the bottom, all the way back to Lance’s first video. He hadn’t noticed how long he’d been wrapped up in the little work of Tiktok. He was even more surprised when the clock blinked brightly at him to say he’d been on his phone for almost an hour.

His thumb scrolled back to the top and he hesitated to press follow. Screw it, he won’t know it’s me, Keith thought at he jabbed the button. His request was not fulfilled and he was instead redirected to a page where he had to set up an account. Right, I’d foregone that part when I first downloaded it. He bit his bottom lip as he mulled it over, but in the end decided to hell with it.

  The process was done in just a few minutes since Keith skipped a profile picture, bio, and went with a randomized username. He wasn’t going to make videos or anything, so what was the point? It’s just to see if I pop up in anymore Lance videos, Keith lied to himself.

Tossing the distracting technology aside on his bed, he heaved a sigh and headed into the kitchen to find Shiro for dinner.

“Oh! I didn’t realize you were home,” Shiro jumped a little at Keith’s entrance and set down his drink to gesture towards the space next to him on the couch, “Come sit.”

Keith complied and sighed loudly when he did so. Shiro gave him a concerned and questioning expression to which Keith responded with, “I have issues.”

“Uhm, you’re going to have to elaborate, Keith.”

“Ughhh,” Keith slouched into the cushions until his butt was nearly on the floor, “I have friends.”

“I’m still going to need more to go on than that,” Shiro laughed a little, although concern edged into his voice. “Shouldn’t that be a good thing?

“Yeah, yes. It is,” Keith quickly assured, but frowned to himself as he turned his gaze to the floor. How do I word this to get advice without exposing myself? Keith scoured his mind, slowly and carefully forming the perfect combination of words, “It’s just… I don’t think I know how to be a good friend.”

Shiro was quiet for too long, so Keith glanced up at him from his noodle position. His older brother was giving him those soft eyes paired with a small smile and Keith’s heart just about burst. He hated when Shiro looked at him like a fragile kitten.

“Keith,” Shiro said softly, reassuringly, “nobody knows how to be a good friend. Just be yourself, that’s all that really counts.”

That’s not very helpful when being myself means I have feelings for a friend, Keith thought. He shook the voice away and stood up to give his brother a smile of his own.

“Okay,” he said as he pulled his lips into a thin line, “thanks, Shiro.”

Chapter Text

Lance is a weird guy. Does weird things. Things that often strike Keith as questionable. So, he was more than suspicious when said weird guy slides him a note across the counter right before he goes on his lunch break.

Secret Sleepover, Saturday @10:00pm,

Meet where you ate the best dinner of your life

Keith stares at the paper in his hand with a blank face. “Lance, what the hell is this-”

Lance shuts him up with a hand slapped over his mouth and a finger in his face shushing him. He then glances all around the store, deems it empty enough, and drags Keith to secluded area between isles. Keith licks his hand to free himself from Lance’s grasp.

“Hey- ew!” Lance’s hand is effectively yanked away. Keith is left smirking until Lance wears a devilish grin of his own, “jokes on you, you have no idea where these hands have been.” Keith frowns, but doesn’t get the opportunity to dwell on it any longer. “We’re having our monthly sleepover here at the shop this weekend,” Lance explains in a rushed whisper, “you, grumpy pants, are invited. You can’t tell Coran though, he doesn’t know we do this.”

“Uhm, can’t he see you on the security tapes or something?”

“Pft- those cameras are fake, doofus,” Lance shoots him a smile that makes Keith’s knees weak, “so you in or what?” And how can he say no to an invitation given to him by the one and only gorgeous boy that’s slightly succeeding at stealing Keith’s heart away.

“I’ll think about,” definitely, his mind corrects, “thanks. For inviting me.”

Lance’s smile grows and he gives him a nod goodbye. Keith is left wondering how all the decisions he’s made in his life have led to something as cheesy as a ‘secret sleepover’.

~

In the three days between receiving his invitation and the actual group get together, Keith notices Lance gradually going more insane. The guy is practically bouncing off the shelves at the end of their shifts and even Hunk seems to be getting slightly annoyed. Though Hunk was such a kind-hearted softie that his version of ‘annoyed’ was actually just concerned. Point is the handsome fella was just so excited for this sleepover thing. Keith didn’t understand the hype.

The addition of his Tiktok account blowing up only contributed to Lance’s psychotic behavior. It’s not that he’d gained millions of followers overnight, but he was getting more recognition which motivated him to increase video production. This meant his ‘internet fame work’ transferred into his actual work and he was driving his coworkers up the wall. It was a wonder to Keith that Coran never noticed how distracted his employees could be.

Which brings things to Lance’s current escapade of running between the café and bookstore to get shots of every employee while they’re closing up for the day. When Keith asked Lance why he didn’t just record Pidge and Keith first and then Hunk and Allura, he’d yelled – as he ran away – that he wanted the employees to be ‘mixed up in the order they appeared’ or something. Keith obviously didn’t understand and Pidge just told him not to try to understand anything Lance did because it was useless.

“Tell me something about you, just one thing in like three seconds,” Lance stated, leaving no room for rhyme or reason or an excuse for Keith to escape this random request. He glanced to the phone camera ready to record in front of him and Lance looked completely giddy so how could he say no anyway?

Keith must’ve looked too much like a deer in the headlights, because Lance quickly explained, “my followers wanted to see you more – God knows why-” he gave an eyeroll, rude, “so I thought I’d include the rest of the gang too.” Keith found it amusing how Lance talked as if he were a celebrity.

“Uhm, okay” Keith searched his brain for something interesting, but came up empty. He wasn’t interesting, that was the thing. “I don’t know,” he said exasperated and Lance frowned at him.

“Keith, my dude, my bro, my brother,” Lance placed a long hand on his shoulder and he had to force himself not to shudder or blush at the minimal contact, “relax, man.” Keith stared at him for a few more moments before Lance decided something for himself. “Wait, never mind. Just sit there. That’s all.”

“What?” he said with furrowed eyebrows and his bottom lip jutted out slightly.

“Just go with it,” Lance whispered while he nodded to himself.

Keith looked all around the break room with his scrunched-up face from where he stood next to the fridge. He felt mighty awkward just being filmed without saying anything. Though he would’ve been awkward even if he was talking so…

“Okay, that’s all,” Lance all but shoved Keith out of the way to grab a string cheese out of the fridge. Keith would’ve found it funny if he didn’t feel used for views. Hmph.

  Later, after Lance ran to the café and back once more, Keith eavesdropped on Lance’s ‘interview’ with Pidge. She babbled on for a few seconds about her tech and how Lance is a dork. He swore to her he’d cut that part out, but Keith saw on the editing page that he kept it.

Before Lance posted the final video, Keith glanced over his shoulder from where he sat on the beanbag chair in the mini lounge area. Lance appeared at the beginning doing a stupid dance move and the words ‘meet my coworkers’ stood in blocky letters above him on the screen. First up was Allura who smiled bashfully and basically sparkled on screen. She’s so photogenic, damn. I’d probably be in love if I wasn’t gay, Keith thought, which led to panicking that there’s no way Lance isn’t in love with her then, holy shit I’m losing at a game I haven’t even started-

His thought bubble burst when he saw himself shifting awkwardly on the screen. Except it wasn’t just that awkward silence Lance said he’d use. That jerk just wanted to see me squirm around in discomfort. What was heard, though, was Lance’s question and then Keith’s uneasiness on screen. Miles different from Allura’s clip in comparison.

Ignoring his own demise, Hunk showed up next. He was all friendly smiles mumbling excitedly about his cooking and gesturing to his special baked goods in the display behind him. The man exuded comfort and love.

Keith left to grab his stuff from the break room when he saw Pidge, since he already knew what she’d talked about. What he didn’t know was that leaving so soon meant he missed Lance’s little comment at the end about how much he loves his work family as he beamed brightly at the camera.

~

“Does Lance do, like, crack or something?” Keith whispered with a hand covering his mouth to Pidge who snickered in response. The two were marking and shelving some older books for the clearance section.

“He gets pretty wild leading up to this thing,” she agreed, “I cannot wait for you to see him in his glorious stupidity on the actual night.”

“It gets worse than this?” Keith raised his eyebrows almost into his hairline, “Anything I should know beforehand?”

Keith obviously didn’t have much experience around energetic extroverts. He didn’t have much experience having friends or hanging out with them at all, actually. He was honestly going with the flow on this and he wasn’t sure if he should be preparing to handle everything that was... Lance.

  “Well, the usual,” I don’t know what that would be, he thought, but she must be a psychic because her elaboration answered him perfectly, “a sleeping bag, snacks, toothbrush, toothpaste, whatever. And as far as Lance – just… play it cautious.”

“Uhm, okay way to sound dubious, Pidge,” Keith laughed along with the shorter girl as he stuck marked down price tags onto some fairytale series. “I’m all open for weird concepts and shit, but these books look really weird.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t try them if I were you,” Pidge glanced around her and leaned in to whisper lowly, “apparently it’s all, like, weird fantasy porn.” Keith basically choked on air. Pidge whacked him on the back and barked out a laugh when he recovered. “Oh my god, Keith I was kidding!”

  He sent her a glare as she placed the last book on the shelf. With no word, she turned around and stalked away so he followed her to the counter where Lance was flirting with some pretty girl.

“-and I was like, dude, my shoes cost $200 and you think I stole your wallet. Puh-lease, your money is the least of my worries,” Lance bragged on about a probably untrue adventure he ‘barely lived to tell the tale of’. The girl he was talking to laughed a little to loudly to be real and unsubtly placed her hand – with pointy claw-like nails – on his tan bicep. Keith swallowed back his distaste for the situation.

“Lance,” Pidge said firmly.

“Not now,” Lance replied without even a glance in her direction or a break in his smile, “ahem. As I was saying. I didn’t want to embarrass the guy so my only option-”

“Lance,” Pidge’s voice came through gritted teeth, edging on a little more than annoyed. Keith glanced between the two and thought idly that they ought to be the rivals, not himself and Lance.

At the urgency in her voice, Lance bid the flirty girl goodbye and turned to face the shorter sister-like girl. “What,” he seethed and Pidge smirked a little at the tone.

“Just wanted to know if ya got the drinks for tonight,” Pidge remarked with that mischievous gleam in her eye.

“You had to interrupt my flirting to ask that?!” Lance gasped and frowned as he stabbed a finger in her face accusingly, “you could have waited to ask, it’s not as urgent as you make it out to be.” Keith cleared his throat as if to ask, ‘what the hell is going on’ and Lance finally notices him standing off to the side behind the gremlin they call their friend. “Oh, Keith. Uhm, it’s nothing. You’ll find out tonight anyone. Go finish work.”

“Uhm, but-”

Lance walked around the counter and steered him away gently by the shoulders, “ah, ah, ah. No buts. Go on. Don’t even worry.”

Lance telling him not to worry made him worry even more.

~

When Keith told Shiro he was spending the night at Hunk and Lance’s place, Shiro was ecstatic. It was meant to be his cover story – conjured by Lance – as to not draw suspicion to Keith being out all night, but since Keith hardly hangs out with anyone, it brought a lot of attention to the situation. Not that Shiro was suspicious, but he was just hyper fixated on the fact that Keith was going out with friends. Willingly. In his free time.

  The plan was for Shiro to drop Keith off at the place he’d supposedly be staying the night and after his car drove away, Keith would hitch a ride with the two roommates uptown to the bookstore. Said plan went relatively smoothly, except for the part where Shiro took almost 5 whole minutes to say goodbye to Keith like a mother dropping their son off at college. Lance snickered about it and teased Keith the whole way to their destination while Hunk bit back a smile of his own. Traitor.

  Keith wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he accepted an invitation to a ‘secret sleepover’, but it certainly wasn’t this. He entered through the back door of the store following Lance and Hunk and in the mini lounge area of the shop was a pile of blankets with two sleeping bags already set up on top. A mountain of pillows were piled at the head of the makeshift bed with bags of a wide variety of snacks nearby. A mini projector set up on a shelf to project a movie selection screen on the opposite wall.

As he stared in awe, Pidge and Allura greeted the other two boys who reached into their large duffel bags they had strapped across their shoulders. Lance pulled out some mysterious looking drinks while Hunk supplied a box of pizza-hold up, he was hiding a whole damn pizza box in that bag?? Keith snapped out of his daze and offered his help in setting up what was left. The group shook their heads and told him not to worry so he was left to glance at the bed that had four bags laid out. From left to right the order was pink, green, yellow, and blue.

“Uhm,” Keith mumbled and fidgeted with the strap of his bag across his chest, “where should I put my sleeping bag?”

Pidge looked in his direction with that glinting smile while the others set up one of the display tables with the array of snacks. She sauntered over and took his red sleeping bag from him, foregoing a greeting and just rolling it out next to the blue one. When she turned to him she nodded towards the others, “C’mon, let’s get some food.” He nodded and plopped his overnight bag a few feet away from his to-be sleeping spot.

~

“There’s no way you were expelled from a school!”

The group was gathered in a circle on the blankets and pillows, just chattering before getting started with a movie. They’d been playing a simple game of ‘never have I ever’ and Keith ended up becoming the center of attention. He found he didn’t unlike it like he usually would, at least not when it came to this group of people.

Another reason he could be so relaxed in an atmosphere that would usually make him uneasy may have something to do with the ‘special drinks’ Lance brought along. It wasn’t any heavy alcohol, but after twenty minutes of this game, Keith realized he’d done a lot more things in his life than he’d realized. A lot more things that were interesting enough to be asked, at least. He was tipsy at most, though. Probably. Who knew anymore?

“No, no it’s true,” Keith exclaims with a laugh, “you can even ask my brother Shiro.”

“We know who Shiro is, Keith,” Allura giggles, but he has hardly a second to respond before Lance is blabbering his nonsense again. He’d probably drank the most of them all so far.

“But you’re Mr. Stick Up His Ass!” Keith pouted while the others laughed, “you’re the one always telling us to get back to work. How’d you get kicked out?”

“Uhm, I maybe kind of punched a kid…” Keith mumbled as he scratched the side of his face nervously, “a few different times…”

The group broke into a raucous round of laughter and Keith smiled a little to himself when he remembered he was the cause of it.

“That’s priceless,” Hunk snickered lowly as he wiped away tears of joy, “wouldn’t have pegged you as a fighter, Keith. Wonder what else you’re hiding from us, eh?” Hunk’s query was innocent enough, but Pidge gave him a knowing look to which Keith glanced away with a faint blush. Thankfully due to the low lighting, nobody really noticed except the gremlin herself.

“Okay, okay,” Pidge flapped her hands up and down to calm everybody down, “Never have I ever… made out with a stranger.”

Lance was the only one to take a sip.

“I’m not surprised,” Keith said with an eyeroll. Meanwhile, Lance choked on his drink and launched himself at Keith.

“What was that?!” he rubbed at Keith’s hair with a knuckle, effectively turning it into a knotted rat’s nest. “Say it again, Keith. I dare ya,” Lance giggled at himself while Keith easily pushed him to the side. “Hey!” then he smirked, “why don’t ya fight me, heh?”

“Because drunks are too easy to beat,” Keith said as he bit back a smile.

“Excuse you! I am not,” Lance moved to stand up but fell into Keith’s lap and had to roll onto his back to stare up at him. “I am not drunk, you’re drunk!”

  Keith pushed Lance’s fluffy bangs out of the way of his eyes and paired with an affectionate eyeroll he said quietly, “sure you’re not.”

Lance smiled up at him and the moment seemed to last certainly too long for a pair of platonic buddies so Keith rolled Lance off of his legs. The act earned him a round of laughter at least, but he glanced up to the others to find them all looking at the scene with confusion? No, more like realization of some sort. Pidge was grinning like an idiot.

“So, uhm,” Keith cleared his throat, “what movie were you guys thinking?”

That got them moving and everyone fell into discussion over their choices. While Pidge set up the horror movie Pet Cemetery. Keith was excited that his new friends shared the same taste in movies that he did. Though Hunk seemed very concerned with this choice.

Everything was going pretty damn smoothly Keith thought, though he had little experience to compare. They sat in their sleeping spots they’d set up at the beginning of the night which meant Keith ended up on the edge next to Lance. He’d been concerned he’d accidentally touch him and expose himself or something, but Lance and Hunk mostly coddled each other through the jump scares. At some point Lance commented on Keith’s lack of reaction to the scary bits, but Keith shrugged in response because how could he know why horror had seemingly no effect on him.

That is until certain gore parts came up.

The older man in the movie was cautiously looking around the house for the undead creature. He crept up the creaky stairs and peeked over the edge of the floor into the upstairs room. JAB! A close-up shot of his ankle showed a blade stabbing into the flesh and blood spurting out.

“AGH HOLY FUCK!” Keith’s soul nearly leaped out of his skin and the bowl of popcorn he’d been holding was thrown into the air – he’d been given the duty with the logic he would be immune to the scares, obviously that was useless. The four friends sitting in a row to his right all turned their attention to him, their eyes wide and eyebrows raised in surprise. Hunk loosened up on his grip at Lance, whose shocked look was quickly morphing into one of absolute glee.

Keith was unsure what he should do now, and feeling a little embarrassed his cheeks turned pink. He glanced around himself at the food now sitting on the floor while the guy on screen was murdered, but nobody’s interest was on the story anymore.

“So you can handle jump scares, but not a little blood?” Pidge finally broke the silence. Lance broke into a fit of giggles and Hunk and Allura smiled a little uneasily – they were probably still a little shaken from the movie.

“You call that a little blood?! Besides, I wasn’t expecting it!” Keith tried to defend himself, but Pidge only bit her lip to hide her own laugh. “When we saw that part on the trailer it looked different from now so it took me by surprise, okay?”

“Well, that’s the point of all the jump scares, but you didn’t seem bothered by those,” Hunk pointed out since Lance probably would’ve but he was preoccupied by trying to breathe through his wheezing. Keith let out a groan and covered his face with his hands which seemed to finally be enough to break Lance’s spell.

He placed a shaking hand on Keith’s upper back and his voice came laced with giggles, “It’s okay, Keith. Everyone’s scared of something. You’re just scared of blood instead of evil brought-back-to-life animals and people.” His voiced raised a pitch on the end of his sentence, hinting at his amusement.

“Can we just finish the movie?” Keith groaned again and the others laughed once more.

“Sure thing,” Allura’s voice came soft and supportive.

~

“People say that years ago a girl and two boys worked here in this store, just like us,” Pidge paused for dramatic effect before continuing her low, spooky whisper, “Except unlike fantastical me, this girl was MURDERED.”

  “Eep!” Hunk flinched and latched onto the nearest person who just happened to be Keith.

The flickering of a flashlight caused Pidge’s face to come and go in the dark of the store. Shadows appearing above her eyes and nose resembled a black and white clown while her wicked grin rivaled that of the Cheshire Cat. Hunk and Keith gripped each other like they were each other’s lifeline as shudders fell over their shoulders and down their backs. Allura sat with an amused smile and Lance laughed his ass off with zero sympathy.

“What,” Keith cleared his throat hating how it had come out raspy and fearful. He barely managed an audible, “how?”

“One day she was walking home after closing up, all alone, and saw a shady looking man lurking a block down. He stared right at her so she decided to high tail it back to the store and lock herself in. The next day, her coworkers found her corpse set-up on a display table.”

“Aw, that’s nasty,” Lance grimaced and Allura’s face mirrored his with a distasteful look of her own.

“That’s not even the weirdest part,” Pidge’s smirk fell and she turned dead serious, “when the police checked the camera feed, she was never seen reentering the shop or being killed or anything. At 2:32am, her body just appears on the table in the recording.”

“Wh- I thought you said the cameras are fake?!” Keith turned to Lance who shrugged with an innocent smile that was out of place in the middle of such a story.

“Now her soul haunts this store and at 2:32am every night she appears on the table she died on, just crying and groaning about the evil man who killed her. Legend says she’s only visible and touchable for five minutes, but she tries to kill any man who sets up displays like the ones she remembers dying on,” Pidge’s eyebrows raise into her hairline and she ends with a flick of her flashlight, “dun, dun, dun!”

Hunk hurriedly pulls out his phone and his voice shakes as he announces, “it’s 2:25 right now. Oh my god. Oh my god!”

“Hunk, buddy, you don’t even work in the bookstore,” Lance’s voice comes soft and assuring until he turns to face Keith, “Keith and I are the ones who should be worried.”

“Laaaance!” Hunk grabs onto Lance’s shoulders to shake him and shout in his face with scared eyes, “you can’t die, I can’t lose you!”

“Well then,” Allura gives them all a concerned look and rises from her spot in their circle, “I’m going to the bathroom real quick.”

“Be careful, Allura,” Hunk says seriously, “don’t let the bookstore girl get you.”

“I don’t think she’s got much to worry about,” Pidge remarks like the smartass she is.

The four sit in almost silence for a few moments with only the sound of Hunk’s concerned sniffles and glassy eyes disrupting the quiet. The room is dark and the perfect spooky setting, not to mention they’re still working off some of the leftover nerves from the horror movie. Hunk is the most affected member of the group, while Keith sits off to the side relatively unconcerned. Until he notices a suspicious movement across the room.

“What’s that?” Keith says lowly as he leans in towards Lance and Pidge. Hunk sticks his face to add on with the shakiest voice Keith’s ever heard, “is that the ghost girl?”

Before any of them have the chance to respond, the said ‘ghost girl’ moves towards the gang, her long white hair rolling down her back. She moves quickly and Keith apparently has lost his reaction time – probably due to his lack of reaction to scary things – because the others in the group move out of the way while he sits, frozen. The mysterious figure grabs him under his armpits to drag him away, and it would’ve gone somewhat that way if not for Keith’s sudden fit of giggles.

“Hehe! Stop, stop I can’t breathe!” Keith wheezes out and Pidge, Lance, and Hunk are in complete shock until they join his laughter. The ‘ghost girl’ drops him to pull off the lacy white sheet covering her face so she can breathe as her own laughter falls. Hunk sits confused and concerned all the same.

“Allura?” Hunk looks from the not-‘ghost girl’ to Pidge and Lance and hesitantly asks, “What’s going on?”

“We were trying to spook you and Keith, but apparently he’d ticklish,” Pidge barely barks out between wheezing. “Damn, we’re finding out all kinds of random shit tonight.”

Keith gives everyone a flat look and then shoves Lance slightly, “you guys are the worst.”

“Nah,” Lance gives him a crooked grin, “I think you like us.” Keith ignores the fluttering in his stomach at the mere sight of that smile and fights the blush creeping up his neck. He shoves Lance away once more for good measure and shakes his head at this stupid guy taking over his heart.

“So, just to be sure,” Hunk pokes his head in the moment, “the story wasn’t real? It was made up?” He only receives a sharp laugh from Pidge and grows more worried by the second, “Right? C’mon, guys?”

~

  Waking up before the sun rises was never a happy occurrence to Lance, but it was the small price to pay to host these rare sleepovers. This one in particular he didn’t even have to set an alarm – he was woken up faint giggling and a flash of light.

Placing one hand over his eyes so they could adjust, he felt an odd weight on his left side. His left arm was basically numb and in his confusion he discovered it was stuck under a body. This grasped Lance’s full attention and his whole body went rigid when he found himself wide awake and cuddling with Keith. Not only that, but he looked for the source of the initial giggling and found Pidge taking pictures, Hunk smiling apologetically, and Allura failing to hide the smile on her face behind her hand.

A blush ferociously bloomed across his cheeks and he looked back to Keith to reassure himself the boy was still asleep. He was. He was also clinging onto Lance’s side like a koala with his face buried in the crook of Lance’s neck. If Lance thought before that Keith’s hair was always messy, his bedhead was a sight to behold. It was the worst he’d ever seen, yet somehow it endeared Lance more than drive him away.

Lance tried to slowly pull himself out of Keith’s hold, but the guy only gripped tighter and sighed contentedly. Lance peeked back at the three traitors.

“Pidge, stop that,” Lance whispered with hardly any bite – he was still recovering from seeing Keith being cute so early in the morning – and shooed with his free hand to put her phone away. He then looked to Hunk with a pleading look, “A little help here?”

Hunk smiled his big, loving grin, and moved to spread the two apart. It wasn’t an easy task – Keith was surprisingly strong for how small he was in comparison to the best friends – but Keith granted Lance freedom when they switched him out for the biggest pillow they’d brought last night.

The group decided collectively to let Keith sleep in, especially since Lance was still looking like a ripe tomato when anyone spoke his name. Pidge grumbled about the decision because she hated cleaning and felt it unfair, but Lance bargained by agreeing he’d do a few of the annoying tasks they had to do for the work day.

Once the projector and food was cleaned up, the only thing left to do was clean up their sleeping pile. Keith finally had to be awake for this, since he’d gathered all their blankets and pillows into a cocoon of sorts so they couldn’t clean up without moving him.

“Keith,” Lance sing-songed as he poked his cheek. Keith squirmed a little and made a small noise that caused Lance’s stomach to fall to his feet. He cleared the pink tinging his cheeks and continued the challenge that was waking Keith up before 7 am, “Keeeith. Wake up, bud. Buddy. Sir. Keith.”

Soft whispers weren’t doing anything, and Keith hardly stirred when Lance raised his voice. Before Lance had a chance to move a gear higher, Pidge shoved him aside and jumped onto Keith.

“Wh- AhHH!” Keith’s tired voice sharply cried.

“Get. Your. Lazy. Ass. Up!” Pidge shook Keith with every word and the assaulted boy looked incredibly confused and dizzy.

“’M up, ‘m awake,” he pushed Pidge away with the strength of a butterfly and moved to rub at his eyes, “stop it, Pidge. Too loud.”

Pidge turned around with a grin and gave Lance a thumbs up. She obviously counted it a success, but Lance was convinced otherwise.

RIP Keith.

~

An annoying crick in his neck plagued Keith for the next half hour or so of cleaning up, but he otherwise slept amazingly last night. Usually he was a troubled sleeper in new places, so it was a weird experience to say the least.

While Allura and Pidge rolled sleeping bags near the back of the store, Hunk and Lance lugged supplies out to their cars. The store was inching towards opening time, so Keith was left to clean up anything missed and set-up for the day.

He noticed a piece of paper peeking out from under the register desk and figured it must be a forgotten napkin from their impromptu feast the night before. Upon yanking it from it’s hiding place, he instead jumped in his skin at the reminder of Hell Week.

In his hands he gripped a picture of Nicholas Cage, eyes wild and grin gleaming big and bright. We’ve come a long way since then, huh?

“Whatcha got there, Keith?” Lance’s voice grew in volume and Keith glanced behind him to find the boy walking towards him. When he saw the shock in Keith’s eyes, his movements slowed and he added, “Uh, everything okay.”

He seemed more fidgety than normal. Weird.

Keith lifted the paper towards Lance who smirked at the sight.

“That was a funny time,” he laughed a little too loudly and attracted Pidge’s attention. She wandered over to investigate the commotion and laughed at the picture too.

“Wait, so,” Keith frowned and Lance’s ears and brows perked up in question, “why Nicholas Cage anyway?”

Lance burst out laughing and Pidge shoved him aside. “It’s not that funny, doofus,” she rolled her eyes but Keith saw the hint of a smile ghosting her face too.

“Okay, well. First of all, Nicholas Cage is a meme. Not that you’d probably know, though. You didn’t even know what tiktok was—”

“I’ve seen memes of Nick Cage, Lance.”

“—Second of all,” Lance continued despite the interruption, “I was looking into the Croods 2 movie a while back for my niece and nephew and noticed Nick on the cast list. It reminded me of all the ironic pictures I’d seen of him, thus sparking our inspiration.”

Lance stood proud with his hands on his hips while Pidge muttered, “nerd.”

“Taking your loved ones out for a fun day is not nerdy, Pidge,” Lance chastised.

He then turned to Keith again, looking a little nervous for some reason. “I’m taking them to the premiere in December if you want to come with,” he then sputtered and quickly added, “Pidge Hunk and Allura are coming too, of course!”

“Uhm. I’m not going to be here in December,” Keith frowned slightly and found it odd that his good mood was smushed down so easily and by the discussion of his departure.

“Vacation?” Hunk wondered aloud. He’d been a few feet away packing some leftover food into containers, but wandered over to join the conversation.

“No, I’m only here for this summer,” Keith shook his head and furrowed his brow, now talking to himself more than the others, “I thought I mentioned that…”

“What?!” Pidge’s voice shrieked slightly, a very out of character thing for her to do. At least when talking about people leaving – she shrieked a lot at games or Lance being annoying.

“Yeah, I’m just here for my brother. I’m going back across the country after his wedding at the end of summer. This is his fiancé’s hometown.”

The three looked at him with blank – or pained? – expressions when Allura found her way back inside.

“I think we’re pretty much ready for the day,” she stated, but paused at seeing the quiet scene playing out.

“You’re leaving?” Lance whispered. He sounded kind of wrecked, Keith thought idly, but that couldn’t be right. The tone definitely didn’t suit the always-happy guy, but Keith didn’t have time to dwell on it.

“Good morning, good morning!” Coran’s cheery voice rang through the store, “Oh! I wasn’t expecting to see you two here. Morning as well, Allura and Hunk.”

Oblivious Coran broke up the odd interaction and the group headed to their stations for work to start, all with a somewhat down feeling casting over them.

Chapter Text

“Ugh, I’m going to barf.”

“Shush, keep tasting,” Shiro chided and shoved another forkful of cake into Keith’s mouth like a mother spoon feeding her baby.

“Can’t you just choose one? They all taste the same,” Keith groaned around the mouthful and clutched his stomach.

“I don’t know, this chocolate tastes richer than the previous one,” Adam uselessly added.

The three were tasting cake options for the wedding reception and it’d been 3 hours since Keith had eaten anything of greater substance than spongey sugar. Keith hadn’t seen much of Adam over the summer with the chaos of the wedding planning and Adam’s job, but he got out of his shift for the day to taste cakes with Shiro and Keith. He would be eating the cake at his wedding afterall, and neither exactly trusted Shiro to not choose 5 cakes instead of one.

“Traitor,” Keith glared, but he was all bark and no bite. “When can we go home?”

  “Soon, but first–” Shiro held up his fork giddily as the store attendant placed a slice of red velvet cake in front of him.

Keith sighed with his hands dragging down his face. Adam smiled at his discomfort and took a bite of his own from Shiro’s new slice.

~

After Keith’s wish was granted and they returned to Shiro’s apartment to fix dinner, he crashed onto his bed, his stomach full and bloated. He didn’t feel like eating dinner even if it’s all he’d asked for earlier. He felt like throwing up.

Adam came as well since he had the night off, but the past weeks he’d been staying with his family while they helped him get ready for the wedding.

Keith heard their laughter from the kitchen and could vividly imagine their smitten smiles. Mushy idiots. He put in earbuds and clicked on the TikTok app. The chaos of it would drown out their lovesick tones. He was happy for them of course, but sometimes it was too much. Just like one could get sick of being around loved ones, Keith often got sick being around people in love.

After swiping through a few boring videos on the home page, a new dancing video of Lance appeared. Keith felt his heart stutter and lurch and what’s that supposed to mean? The video was fairly popular – a couple hundred thousand likes or so – but Keith couldn’t figure out why. Sure, Lance was a great dancer, he’d learned that one of the first weeks he was here, and when Lance was drunk no less, but it still struck Keith as odd. He was even more surprised to find he was a topic of conversation in the comment section.

They’re so cute!! Literally made for each other <3 <3 <3

I think Lance is my bisexual awakening

What’s that guy’s @!!! In the back, please we need to know :’(

Omg the mullet guy is back ajofoweijf

When he snaps harder than most girls on here oop

That guy in the back helping the little boy is SO CUTE!!!

Keith frowned and went back to the video to rewatch it. Sure enough, he appeared in the background talking to the little boy from a while back. They disappeared to the manga section and reappeared right at the end of the video, Keith with a shy smile and the boy with a blinding one. Lance’s followers had endless opinions on the matter and Keith wondered once again why their lives were such a big deal to random people. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

There had to be at least 50 comments on this video alone asking for Keith to make an account. He recalls a conversation he had with Pidge and Lance the other day urging him to make one as well. And the girl who visited the bookstore and took a picture with him. He shrugged, what could go wrong?

He clicked onto his blank profile, with a randomized name and no picture. Username? Keith pursed his lips. Something funny or something simple? Keith decided he’s not very funny and picked the first thing that popped into his mind. Would Lance suspect it’s him? Keith shut his eyes and tried to remember how many followers Lance had acquired. It was a lot under Keith’s terms, so he most likely would never see Keith’s account pop up unless he commented on a video. Which he was not going to, obviously. So, he just went with the decision:

@mcmullet22

He decided against telling anyone in the comments – and telling Lance – about his newly made account because he was honestly kind of embarrassed to do so. He found the app a little dorky, just like he thought Lance was a little dorky, but when Lance was making a fool of himself he was just kind of… cute. Still dorky though.

~

Keith found out very quickly that knowing close to nothing about the app and technology in general could make many things go wrong.

Case in point:

During his break the day after creating his account, he was going through the effects, audios, and other video-making things. He wasn’t planning to make a video, his curiosity just took over. He wanted to know more about what Lance was spending so much time this summer doing.

Keith tossed his phone in the air a little when the devil himself burst into the break room. He grasped for it to be back in his hands and shoved it in his pocket to keep Lance from seeing anything.

“Keith, what the hell are you doing?” Lance looked out of breath, which Keith found a little humorous considering they work in a bookstore – what task could be that draining? Keith gave him his usual confused, blank look, choosing to hide his amusement. “Your break ended five minutes ago,” Lance offered.

Keith sighed and slid out the door between its frame and Lance standing in the way. Lance spared him a suspicious look before he burst into annoyed noises and rushed on after Keith.

Here Keith’s made two mistakes. One, he was on tiktok during work hours. He could’ve been caught by Pidge or worse, Lance. Wait, no. Pidge definitely would be worse. Especially when she inevitably found out he was trying to hide it. And well, he basically was caught by Lance, but he was oblivious so he hadn’t realized what Keith was up to.

His second mistake was being too flustered to put his phone away properly. He realized as much as he got situated stocking the shelves, so he pulled his phone out to turn it off. He saw a circular red button blinking on the screen while a bar at the top moved towards the right. Keith frowned. He pressed the round button and the bar stopped moving. Some random tutorial and explanation bubbles popped up, but he pressed where the arrows pointed before getting a chance to read them.

This new page that appeared had a little box with the accidental video, a place to write a caption, and more that Keith didn’t even want to think about looking into right now. He was supposed to be working, afterall. He decided to forego reading everything else and just tried to exit out. Suddenly he was back to the home page, no sign of the video. He shrugged, must’ve deleted itself then.

Keith’s last mistake was out of his hands. While he put his phone away and worked through the end of his shift, his accident of a video had been put out into the internet world. Lance’s followers and others who’d witnessed the viral video grabbed at the content with their grubby, desperate hands and shared it across platforms. To say Keith was shocked to find his account had thousands of followers after a day would be an understatement.

After his shift when he got back onto the app in the safety of his room, his phone was bombarded with notifications, comments, shares, etc. He checked his profile page, and there was the cursed video he thought he’d deleted. It’s safe to say I have a bad way with technology, Keith thought as he squinted at his phone. He checked the comments and felt overwhelmed.

OMG he made an account, finally!!

He looks confused he’s baby confirmed

Was this video on purpose?? Lol

I can’t believe Lance didn’t tell us he had an account!! We had to find it ourselves >:(

He figured there was no point in taking the video down since it’d probably already been shared in other places. Well, shit. I need to get my shit together.

~

Swallowing his stupid pride, Keith decided to go to Pidge of all people to ask for help. She may seem like the obvious option because of her knowledge with technology, but she could be very teasing, okay? She knew shit about everyone and Keith was more than nervous to admit to his embarrassing mistake. That’s how he found himself at her house, on her couch, while she typed furiously at a super high-tech looking laptop.

“So, yeah. Can you help?” Keith pleaded – this was so gross, he probably looked desperate, ugh – after explaining the situation.

Pidge stopped her typing and gave Keith a bored look, “I already know about the video, Keith.” The flat line her mouth was shaped into broke into a devilish grin and Keith had to suppress a shudder.

“What? How?”

“I will never reveal my secrets,” Pidge set the computer aside and looked right into his eyes, “I’ll help you, but when the time comes, you must grant me a favor as well.”

“Uhm,” Keith squinted suspiciously at her, but they were friends – right? – so he trusted she wouldn’t do anything to actually hurt him, “Okay, then.”

“Perfect. We can get started tomorrow, I’m busy with my side job right now.”

“And what would that be?”

“I will never reveal my secrets,” she repeated the line from earlier yet again. Keith felt in that moment glad that he was on the good side of her. Pidge shot him another winning grin and went back to her typing mission.

~

“You son of a bitch.”

Keith startled slightly as a familiar tan face popped into view through the holes in the bookshelf he was filling up. Lance had a couple inches on Keith, so he was crouching enough that his eyes were level with Keith’s through the crevice. Keith frowned and explained, “my mother is not a bitch, Lance.” Before he could ask what was going on, Lance brought a phone into view with Keith’s new TikTok account on display.

“What the hell is this?” Lance demanded.

“Um, TikTok?” Keith played stupid.

“No duh,” Lance splayed his arms all around and let out an exasperated sigh, “I mean, why didn’t you tell me you made one? An account?” Keith shrugged and Lance pouted, “they hate me.” Keith opened his mouth to respond, but Lance cut him off as he replaced his pout with a scowl. He reached through the hole and flicked Keith hard on the forehead.

“Ouch!” Keith reached a hand up to swat away Lance’s and touch the assaulted. With furrowed eyes and irritation rising inside, Keith reached out and flicked Lance’s nose, just as hard.

“Hey!”

A flick to his ear.

“You started it!”

A flick to Lance’s temple.

“So not the point right now!”

A flick to his eyebrow.

“Then why are you here, anyway?!”

An almost-flick to his cheek, but Lance grabbed Keith’s wrist – still through the shelf gap, each of them in different aisles – to stop him from getting any further. Keith didn’t struggle against the grasp, though he could’ve easily gotten out of the hold in 2 seconds flat.

“Tell your followers that I didn’t know you had an account. They’re all coming after me for not telling them about you,” Lance broke their locked gaze and glanced down and to the left. His next words came in that familiar grumble he spoke in when talking more to himself than anyone in particular, “Even though I still gave them occasional content featuring you. Thirsty hoes. Though I get it, really—”

“And I’m supposed to do something about it? I don’t even make videos.” Keith’s arm was starting to get tired holding it up and through the opening in such an awkward angle, but he didn’t want to let Lance’s grip go yet. It was warm. Comforting. Even if Lance ruined the moment with his whining.

“Yeah,” he huffed, “Yet you get thousands of likes over a video that’s 95% from inside your pocket!”

“Not my fault people don’t like stupid dances—"

“They’re not stupid!”

“Kind of stupid,” Pidge’s voice chimed in. Keith glanced down and around himself, but it was as if she were invisible.

“Pidge? You a ghost now?” Keith whispered unsurely.

“Pft- was that a joke? Did Keith fuckin’ make a joke?” Lance’s mood did a 180, but his snickering was cut short by the ‘yip!’ ripped from his throat when a low thump was heard through the shelves. “Ow, Pidge!”

Then Lance was shoved out of his view – Keith felt colder when the long fingers were ripped from his wrist – and some scooting and scraping noises were heard against the floor. Pidge popped into view, likely standing on one of the stools scattered around the store.

“Hey, loser. Fixed her up for ya,” Pidge smirked and slid Keith’s phone through the slot. He wondered if this is what it was like dealing drugs. He took his drug – technology could be addicting, so it wasn’t even too far off – and Pidge winked before hopping off her height enhancer.

“Thanks,” Keith remembered to choke out, though she was already gone. Lance appeared one last time.

“Remember Keith,” Lance’s face turned serious and Keith really thought for a second he was going to give out some grand advice. Instead, a smile ghosted his features and he repeated a cliché, overused saying, “With great power, comes great responsi— ouch! Pidge, go away!”

Keith stifled his laughter, but failed to hide his smile. Said smile half fell from his face when Pidge reminded him, “You owe me, Kogane. I own you!”

He felt he hadn’t dealt enough drugs, hadn’t gotten enough money, hadn’t made the quote. He felt indebted to some weird teenage bookstore employee mafia girl. He felt screwed. He was screwed because how did he not realize this before, what had his thought process been when he asked Pidge – Pidge who knew everything about everyone and their secrets – for a favor??

He was fucked. It was just a fact. Not that it was anything new.

~

Pidge did an amazing job setting up his account. For starters, he actually had a profile picture that flattered him. And it wasn’t cringy or anything. He wondered how she got that picture, however. It was a concerning, but he pushed past it.

There wasn’t much that was knew because before she finalized the look of his page, she’d gone over basic functions with him. It was pretty much a tutorial for the app, something that was provided to him had he not skipped over it all. He really needed to start paying more attention sometimes.

He was fairly certain he’d gotten the gist of it and even gathered up the courage to make a couple videos in his room at Shiro’s apartment. He didn’t post them of course, because that’s fucking terrifying when he now had 25,000 fucking people following him, but he saved them to his drafts and he’d like to think it was gaining the experience that really counted. Getting past the initial awkwardness and embarrassment of it all.

He wondered if Lance felt awkward or embarrassed making his first video.

He shook his head and remembered this was Lance he was thinking of. The same Lance that was so bold that he would dance with anyone in sight if he deemed them worthy. The Lance that shamelessly flirted with any girl that sauntered into the shop, bags in the crook of elbows and sunglasses atop their heads. The Lance that seemed to have his life so together, but just so carefree.

No. Lance wouldn’t have been awkward or embarrassed. He would’ve just been having fun.

“Keith, dinner!” Shiro called from the kitchen. He walked out to find their small dining table set with two bowls of spaghetti and meatballs. Keith lifted his eyebrows in a silent question to which Shiro scoffed, “I can cook noodles, Keith. I’m not that much of a disaster.”

“Well, I don’t know about that—” Keith started and Shiro hit him lightly upside the head.

Keith only laughed, and suddenly an idea popped into his head. He whipped out his phone and went to the app that made him nervous and confused and excited and embarrassed and awkward. With his phone set up against the salt and pepper shakers, Keith gathered up the last of his courage to make a video that he would be posting.

He sat in his chair and gestured for Shiro to do the same. The elder boy was frozen in shock and confusion, his hands placed firmly on the top of the back of his chair as Keith pressed record.

“Uh, what is—?” Shiro squinted in suspicion.

“Shiro,” Keith said blankly.

“Uh, what?” He repeated.

“What,” Keith started, his voice surprisingly even as he felt his hands slightly shaking with amusement, “do you call a fake noodle?”

“Keith, these noodles are very real,” Shiro frowned, the stupid idiot. Keith shot him a pointed look until Shiro rolled his eyes and played along. “What? What do you call a fake noodle?”

“An impasta,” Keith delivered with the most emotionless face he could muster. Shiro widened his eyes a bit, his eyebrows raised as he just stared at Keith, baffled. Keith’s blank face turned into a smug smile as he dug into his pile of noodles. Shiro leaned over his chair, as if it was holding him up, as if it was grounding him because Keith, his stoic little brother, just made a fucking noodle joke. He turned his head and looked into the camera with his bewildered expression still gracing his mature features.

Only then did Keith jolt a little and remember to stop recording, a slight fluster, or more embarrassment, showing in his eyes as he scrambled to stop the video and save it to post later. They were supposed to be eating dinner afterall.

Later that night he would post it with the friendliest caption he could write considering he was nabbing on his followers to be nice to Lance. He explained the boy hadn’t known about his account, it was actually not even supposed to be a thing, but the accidental video exploding made it a thing.

Even later he would check the comments to find thirsty people now going after Shiro, to Keith’s absolute horror. Others brought up the way Keith told the joke, saying his straight face the entire time made it even funnier, even if they claimed the joke was pretty stupid by itself. Keith thought the pun was clever and pouted a little at those comments. Hunk had assured him he thought the joke was funny, and Allura gave her support. Meanwhile, the two gremlins he despised – that was totally a lie, but he’d never admit it out loud sooner than he needed to – rolled on the floor laughing, not expecting to hear Keith tell a corny joke like that in their entire lifetime.

Even later than that, Keith would be sitting in his room, smiling to himself. To the support he was getting, even if he had no idea what he was doing. No idea what to do. He would smile about a video of Lance with a face mask on, lip syncing to a rap song with difficulty due to the tightness of the mask.

Dork.

Chapter Text

“You two don’t look much alike.”

“Really? I guess so, but I look a lot like our father, Keith looks like our mother.”

“Ah, makes sense. I guess the good looks runs in the family either way.”

A chuckle and then, “You flatter me, thank you.”

“So, you have any good stuff on Keith?”

“On Keith?”

“You know, baby pics. Embarrassing stories. Awkward love stories. The whole shebang.”

“Ah. Well, there was this one boy—"

“Hey, Shiro,” Keith said a little too harshly as he speed walked towards the register with a pink neck and ears. Lance and Shiro were talking about something behind his back and he wasn’t about to be embarrassed in front of a friend and by his own brother at that. Traitor, he thought and squinted as threateningly as possible at the guy.

Lance flinched significantly at Keith’s voice and whipped around with rosy cheeks that didn’t go unnoticed by Shiro. He eyed the boy curiously before turning to Keith, “Ready to go?”

Keith nodded and spared Lance one last glance before pushing past Shiro and grabbing the sleeve of his jacket to tug him along the way.

“Bye, Lance! Good talking to you,” Shiro yelled back just as the door closed. He turned to Keith to say, “You’re sure in a rush for an appointment that you, and I quote, ‘would rather smash your head with a shovel and eat raw potatoes’ than go to.”

Keith let go of the fabric, but they continued along the sidewalk. He glanced up at Shiro who wore a smug smile and grumbled out a lame excuse, “Can’t be worse than work.”

“Now, Keith. You don’t really believe that?” Shiro playfully bumped his shoulder with his own, “Dare I say you have fun with Lance and Pidge?”

“Oh, hey. There’s Adam. Let’s talk to Adam!” Keith swerved the topic of conversation unsubtly, though Shiro let it slide in favor of waving and shouting crazily to catch the attention of his fiancé who was waiting across the street in front of the reception building they’d be renting. The wedding was only a few weeks away and every day felt more filled with planning than the last. Keith’s parents would be coming to town in a week to help finalize things and Keith was nervous, to say the least, for them to meet his odd new group of friends.

Keith and Shiro crossed the street and joined Adam, who was gazing up at the tall place and taking in all of its glory.

The large building was a few blocks from the center of town, so it was closer to the outskirts where there were less businesses and excitement. It was quieter, perfect for the two fiancés who weren’t fond of crazy clubs or parties.

The building itself was one of the oldest around these parts – he thought he remembered Adam’s mom mentioning it was around even when she was a kid –, but had a quaint and picturesque vibe to it. One might say ‘vintage’, but Keith thought that sounded cheesy.

It lived on the corner end of one of the backstreets and the old brick was painted a light tan. In Keith’s opinion it looked quite classy for a small town, with the top edges of the roof in pretty curly patterns painted with a darker brown.

The trio knocked lightly on the large French doors at the entrance and let themselves in. The owner was expecting their arrival and Shiro had told him about their first visit with him only a few days before. Keith had been gone because of his shift, but got all the details about the kind old lady oh-so-excited for their big wedding day. She’d been extremely supportive of the two and hadn’t even batted an eye that there wasn’t a bride. Keith couldn’t wait to meet her.

Adam led the way through the large lobby brightened by natural sunlight from tall, gleaming windows. They weaved their way between round tables and cushy chairs into a small room to the far right of the open space. The makeshift office was decorated with a large desk, bookshelves built into the walls behind it, and a fancy velvet couch off to the left. The right wall was actually all windows, letting in the afternoon sun and giving a friendly warmth to the intimidating room. 

On the contrary, a small elderly lady sat in a large, black leather chair almost twice her size. Her dark gray hair was pulled into a loose, low bun and her dark eyes hid behind half-moon glasses attached around her neck by a beaded necklace. She smiled big, her eyes closing with the motion and gestured to the two red leather chairs sitting in from of the desk.

“Adam, Shiro, lovely to see you boys again,” she spoke with a smooth honey-like tone and just like that the woman made Keith feel right at home, even as strangers. “I believe you’re new,” she remarked as her gaze landed on him.

“Uh, hi,” Keith said awkwardly. He hated meeting new people because of his barely decent social skills. He lifted his hand between them and added, “Nice to meet you. I’m Keith.”

“Martha.”

She placed both of her hands on the top of the desk to use to stable herself as she slowly rose from her chair. She stood as tall as a short old woman could and with a sense of confidence that only came with old age and experience. Martha grasped Keith’s hand in both of her own with the smallest smile he’d seen today. It didn’t feel lesser than the others though, and Keith got that feeling of homeliness again.

When she let go and sat back down, Keith took his place on the soft couch while his brother and his friend took the chairs to get down to business.

~

“Keith you’re my savior,” Lance sighs and throws an arm around Keith’s shoulders.

Keith frowned.

“Just the other day you were calling me a bastard because—”

“Shh, shh, shh,” Lance held a finger to his own lips and closed his eyes. “I did no such thing,” he whispered in a floaty voice like he was trying to convince Keith he was dreaming or making things up.

The darker haired guy rolled his eyes.

They’re on the bookstore couch before opening time and Keith scrolls mindlessly through Instagram on his phone. The fact that Lance doesn’t remove his arm doesn’t go unnoticed by Keith, but he figures he should ignore it unless he wants to look like a tomato and embarrass himself. Stuck in his own thoughts, he hadn’t really noticed Lance’s unusual silence until golden boy himself broke it.

“Do you want to go to Lazy BJ’s tonight!” Lance blurts out loudly, and says it more as a sharp statement than a question. Keith sends him a questioning look, but Lance is pointedly avoiding eye contact.

“Uhm, like, for dinner?”

“No, for breakfast,” Lance rolls his eyes a little too hard and his words come a little too sarcastically. “Yes, for dinner, dumbass.”

He’s acting odd, that’s something Keith knows for sure. He’s only known Lance a little over a month, but he’s gotten used to reading his expressions. But, he looks… nervous? That couldn’t be right.

He must’ve taken too long to think it over and form a response because Lance suddenly becomes frantic to fix… something in his statement.

“WithHunkPidgeAndAllura of course,” he flubs out, ears tinging pink. His hands are flying around like they usually do when he’s excited – or nervous, I guess, Keith thinks – and oh, when did he take his arm off of me?

“Of course,” Keith repeats and squints his eyes. Lance holds his breath. “Sure, see ya then," Keith says decidedly because Lance obviously needs to figure something out for himself. Weirdo.

Besides, the store was opening in just a few minutes now. If he heard Pidge snickering behind a hand and teasing Lance about the previous encounter, he let it go unnoticed, writing it off as their usual banter. He didn’t know the half of it, though.

~

Keith allowed himself to be ushered through a tight isle past other families and friends eating dinner and all the way to the back corner of the building. The restaurant smelled of pizza and pasta and pie as the group filed into the booth in the order of Hunk, Pidge, Allura, Lance, and Keith. Quickly they got to talking in split up conversations as soon as they were seated.

Keith didn’t comment on the way Lance had ended up closer to Keith’s side as the conversation drawled on. Keith didn’t mind, and didn’t want to chance scaring Lance away by bringing it up. They were now thigh to thigh, arm to arm, and Keith felt the warmth radiating off Lance. He felt his excitement in the way he flapped his arms around and saw the way his eyes lit up. With his friends, he was truly in his element.

After a very thorough discussion about the effects shoes made out of banana peels would have on the environment and your skin, Keith let himself fall out of it in favor of coloring on the table. Okay – don’t worry, it was covered in a thin paper specifically for drawing. Though it was probably aimed towards kids, Keith didn’t care because he was content with his doodling. He would’ve preferred something other than crayons to use, but he’d make do because—

“What’re you drawing?” Lance’s curious tone whispered nearby and Keith felt a chin hooked over his shoulder. He allowed his eyes to briefly flick to his right, but focused back on his self-appointed task.

“Who,” Keith said plainly.

“Huh?”

“I’m drawing a who, not a ‘what’.”

Keith could feel Lance roll his eyes and had to bite back a smile. He couldn’t be exposing himself, afterall.

“Okay, smartass. Who are you drawing?” Lance amended and Keith took it as a victory, but still kept his smile a secret. With every word Lance spoke, Keith felt his tickling minty breath by his cheek and the movement of his jaw against his shoulder.

“Dabi. From My Hero—”

"Academia. I know,” Lance, the smug bastard, finished the sentence for him. Keith was still getting used to the idea that his dorky Lance watched anime and read manga. The idiot had kept it from him for so long it just seemed odd. There was still so much to learn about the boy, and Keith realized with a sad thought that he didn’t have the time to learn everything there was about Lance.

“You think too much,” Lance announced and poked Keith’s cheek with a finger. Keith scrunched his face, but didn’t have time to dwell because Lance had taken a pink crayon and was drawing pink highlights into Dabi’s spikey hair—

“Lance!” Keith yelped accusingly and scrambled to grab the offending pink crayon from an offending (cackling) Lance.

“Can you dweebs take it down a notch, you’re gonna get us kicked out of here,” Pidge said dryly.

The boys froze, arms tangled and clutching their crayons, to stare at Pidge. Lance scoffed and grinned, “as if BJ would ever kick us out. We’re like, his top customers.”

“Unless you’ve been coming here without me, top customer must not be a hard thing to achieve,” Keith stated and Lance shoved him over in their seat. “Ouch!”

“He has a point,” Allura said in her graceful accent, “we haven’t been here in way too long.”

“I guess we have been busy dealing with Keith,” Pidge squinted as Keith made a sound of protest.

“Not a bad thing, buddy,” Hunk assured him and reached over Lance to pat his shoulder.

“Lance certainly doesn’t think so—” Pidge started with a smirk, but never got to finish that thought because their food arrived. Except, it wasn’t food, it was heaven. Keith realized they’d never even ordered and how did I not realize that before (he was too caught up in Lance), but two well-used iron pans were placed on wooden paddles in front of them.

“Your cow pies,” a man with an apron and thick hair tied back announced. He wore a pleased smile and leaned against the edge of the table with his large, calloused hands.

“Hell yeah,” Lance and Pidge said at the same time, making Keith snort a little.

“Thanks, BJ. Nothing compares to these bad boys,” Hunk eyed the dessert, sending thankful glances to the man supposedly named ‘BJ’.

“No problem, but you guys need to visit more often. It’s getting a little too quiet in here.” Keith found that hard to believe when shortly after a couple kids screeched about lollipops and were heard even over the loud rock music playing throughout the large room.

“Will do, man,” Lance assured. BJ seemed satisfied with that answer and wiped his hands on his apron, sending the group a little wave to head back to the kitchen.

“Are. You. Ready.” Keith huffed a laugh at Pidge’s dramatics, but went along anyway.

“I. Am. Ready,” he mimicked.

"This, Keith, is only the most amazing food item in the entire town. Not even Hunk who, dare I say, is the greatest chef in town, has figured out a way to top it,” Lance gestured to the cow pies.

“Yet. I will figure out their secret recipe soon enough,” Hunk added, then elaborated, “this cow pie is filled with cookie dough, chocolatey goodness, and topped with a refreshing scoop of classic vanilla ice cream. Do you, Keith- Do you think you can handle it? Are you worthy?”

Keith was smiling wide and laughing as he nodded sharply. He glanced around as each member of the group picked up their spoons, ready to dig in, but waiting for Keith’s first bite.

And it was one hell of a first bite.

“Oh my gwadh,” Keith moaned. The cookie was like a soft toasty bite of heaven and the creamy vanilla cooled the fire on his tongue. Keith wasn’t normally super big on sweets, but damn was this amazing.

“Oh my god, Keith. This is a family restaurant. You can’t just go moaning like a food pornstar—”

The moment was ruined by Lance’s blunt statement as Keith choked on his blissful bite. Maybe he’d die and actually know what it was like to taste heaven.

“Lance, you can’t just say things like that!” Hunk’s voice came out horrified. Meanwhile, Allura had scooted out of her side of the booth to pound Keith on the back and help him not suffocate. Lance was too busy arguing with Hunk to help him out anyway, even though he’s the cause of it.

As the group settled in and Keith took another amazing bite, Pidge mumbled, “I knew Keith was a bottom.”

He was back to choking. Though, so was Lance. Hunk was flustered even though he shouldn’t be the one embarrassed and Allura was back out of her seat helping her friends not die.

“P- Pidge! You can’t say things like that either!” Hunk spluttered again.

“What?” Pidge made a face and waved her hand around like it was nothing. Everyone stared at her blankly and she explained, exasperated, “He can’t make noises like that and be a top! Or at the very least he's a sub... I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking! Don’t look at me like that Hunk—”

Now it was Pidge and Hunk bickering and Allura sighed tiredly because she probably dealt with this type of thing more times than Keith could imagine. He looked to his right and Lance was staring into space with a flush across his cheeks. Keith focused on his own body and felt the heat in his face, too.

He sighed and dug deeper into the cow pie. It was fucking good, and he was going to take advantage of the fact that half the group was too distracted to indulge in their heavenly cookie pie thing and eat as much as he could before they noticed.

~

“I can’t believe you ate a whole pie, they were to share, Keith!” Lance shook Keith around by the shoulders.

“I…” Keith started, and the group held their breath for his apology, “regret nothing. I just did what had to be done.”

They all sighed, done with his bullshit.

“I’d do the same, honestly,” Pidge punched his shoulder, “you’re a smart one, Kogane.”

“We’re totally coming back again, right? I need way more of those before I leave,” Keith mentioned idly, but the conversation came to a standstill at the reminder of his departure. He looked around at their grim faces. He understood why he, himself, was upset – he’d grown close to them afterall, they were funny people, they were kind, they accepted him, they were just… amazing – but he couldn’t understand why they were upset. Keith was just… Keith. They barely knew him. He didn’t know why they even wanted to know him.

“We should start coming at least once a week,” Allura switched the topic, and for that Keith was grateful. He didn’t want to get into the logistics of leaving. She continued, “maybe next time we’ll come earlier to get a pizza.”

“Fine by me,” Hunk agreed, “Tonight reminded me that I still need to master my cow pie recipe. I’ve tried replicating there’s, but nothing compares.”

“BJ is a master, maybe a witch.” Pidge scuffed her shoe along the pavement as they reached Hunk’s car. Everyone piled in, Hunk in the driver’s seat, Lance in shotgun, and Keith between the two girls in the back.

On the drive home, Keith felt a small head of hair rest on his upper arm. He glanced down to find Pidge falling asleep and he smiled fondly. Patted her head. He didn’t notice the way Lance looked at him through the side mirror. He didn’t notice the way Hunk frowned sadly at the interaction he saw through the rearview mirror. He didn’t notice Allura’s soft sigh, the crinkle of her eyes, even as she rested her own head on Keith’s other shoulder.

As much as he still felt like an outsider, Keith was going to damn miss his new friends. As much as he hated this stupidly tiny town, the random heat waves that scorched his skin and melted his brains, the pranks from that first week he’d started working… As much as he hated many things here, he was going to miss his new friends.

He didn’t want to leave because he was going to miss them.

He finally belonged somewhere enough that he was going to miss them.

Keith dozed off to the recent memory of cow pies and laughter.

He would miss them. A lot.

Chapter Text

The past few days, Keith hadn’t been acting like… Keith. Shiro was concerned to say the least. Though his younger brother was usually more introverted than most teenagers, he was sulking and acting angsty in addition to quiet. 

Currently he was spread out on their couch in the living room, blank expression on his face as he stared at the floor. A leg and arm hung off the side of the cushions and he looked very tired. Shiro took it upon himself to cheer him up; if it had something to do with the town, it would’ve been his fault, afterall. He walked over and swung Keith’s legs onto the floor to make room to sit. 

“Keith, what’s wrong?” 

“I’m… not sure,” Keith whispered. He slouched into the couch to rest his head on the top of the cushions and look up. His eyes squinted slightly as if all the answers he needed were on the bumpy ceiling. Shiro frowned. 

“I don’t think that’s true.” Shiro sighed and looked away from Keith, who seemed determined to avoid eye contact. He mimicked Keith’s position but rested his elbows on the back of the couch. He whispered softly in the friendliest way he could muster, “What’s got you so moody?” 

“I think I realized something,” Keith explained, as vague as ever, “something that I didn’t want to admit. Not yet, at least.” 

“Hm.” Shiro blindly reached for Keith’s dark hair and shook his hand through it, making it messier than it was before. Though it was often endearing, the guy had some mad bedhead. “Well, the hardest part is usually acknowledging those feelings. It’s okay to like who you like.” 

“Wait, what?” Keith spun around and out of his noodle position and swatted Shiro’s hand away. “I don’t- I wasn’t talking about a… a crush.”  

Shiro turned his head to face him, his eyebrows raised. “This isn’t about Lance?” 

“ What?!” Keith shrieked, a blush creeping up his neck and his eyes wide in exasperation. He sputtered, “I- I do not like Lance!” 

“Sure you don’t,” Shiro rolled his eyes, but let it slide to get to the bottom of things, “so, what’s bothering you then?” 

“I’m just,” Keith looked away, to the floor, and he visibly deflated from his defensive stance. “I didn’t think this town would be so… tolerable.” 

“You make my heart so full,” Shiro remarked with a quirk of a smile as he dramatically placed his hands on his chest. Keith punched his arm in retaliation leading to a short session of swatting arms at each other. Shiro grabbed Keith’s wrists and stuck his nose right in his face. “Admit it, you like it here. Your coworkers are your friends and you like them.” 

Keith huffed a breath out causing Shiro’s white tuft of bangs to fly crazily. He remained silent however, not denying or confirming Shiro’s theory. The elder brother let go of Keith’s wrists and stood up, facing away from him. 

“Either way, Keith, just figure you what you want and then take it.” Shiro glanced over his shoulder with a brotherly smile and said, “Just do whatever makes you happy.” 

~ 

After his talk with Shiro, Keith felt even more unsure than ever. Before, he’d been moping about having to leave, but hadn’t even considered the option of staying. Or at least, coming back. But after Shiro’s (somewhat confusing) advice, he didn’t even know if he knew what he wanted.  

Days around his new friends were especially difficult, because seeing them just reminded him of what he would lose by leaving. But besides them, what else was there here for him to stay? He was about to start a whole new life back home, his future was waiting. And who was he to ditch a future his parents were providing for a group of people he’d known merely a month and a half? 

Shiro thought he was helping by dropping his unsubtle hints and suggestions, but he was really helping dig Keith into a deeper hole of what the hell should I do? He was leaving pamphlets of the local colleges on his bed. He left tabs open on their shared laptop of a variety of jobs in the area. Keith was in a pickle. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, but he’d been sure (before moving here) that he’d figure it out back home. At college. Like he expected his whole high school life until now. Now everything was a blur of questions. 

~ 

“We should stop by tonight, they’ve got the best milkshakes in town,” Pidge told Keith. They were talking about the group hangout tonight and trying to decide whether to go to the diner or back to Lazy BJ’s for pizza and a pie.  

“That does sound tempting.” Keith rubbed his chin between his fingers as they walked down the Sci-Fi section. It was near the back of the store, close to the breakroom, and they were headed back to work after lunch. “I’d like to try out as many new things here as I can before I have to—” 

“BOO!” Lance shouted, jumping in front of them right at the end of the isle. Pidge flinches slightly, then sends him a glare. Meanwhile, Keith gives hardly any reaction. Lance does, though; he frowns and pouts. “Why don’t you ever get scared!” He whines. Keith would laugh, but it’d probably end with him being tackled to the floor and they’ve got work to do right now so he bites back his smile. 

“Stop that, Lance,” Pidge scolds, “That’s the third time today and you pout more every single time.” 

“That’s because you guys hardly give a reaction! How am I supposed to get good content when you guys barely bat an eye at my epic scares!”  

Ah, yes. Content. Today Lance decided he wanted to post of compilation of him jump-scaring everybody for a TikTok. The only person who really gave a funny reaction was Hunk; the poor guy jumps a foot high and pretends he knows how to do karate. Allura comes in at second best, usually making a surprised ‘eep!’ noise of some sort, then rolling her eyes at Lance’s gimmicks. Then, Pidge and Keith, like Lance sad, hardly bat an eye. Lance kept calling them psychopaths for it. 

“Maybe we hardly react because you’ve been ‘scaring’ us every time we turn a corner,” Pidge remarks dryly.  

“I- I have not!” Lance scoffs and yanks his phone from the shelf where he’d been filming. As he stomps off like a child throwing a tantrum, Keith and Pidge make eye contact and laugh a little. Lance could be hella annoying, but it was still entertaining. 

They continue their trek to the register desk as Keith mutters, “sometimes I think he needs a taste of his own medicine.” He meant it as a joke, but Pidge’s eyes gleam with evil intent. 

“I think I have an idea,” she says with that devilish smirk she seems to wear more often than not. 

“Uh oh.” 

~ 

“You know,” Shiro sing-songs his words, “the colleges here and at home have really similar start and end dates. Meaning the breaks are similar times, too.” 

Keith gives him an unimpressed stare, but Shiro is unaffected with his eyebrows raised into his hairline. 

“With all this summer work money, there will be plenty opportunity for plane tickets,” Shiro continues with his fatherly-brotherly smile. It grows when Keith continues his silence. He’s sitting at the dining table playing a single person card game while Shiro bakes something garlicy in the oven. He’s leaning over the kitchen counter and speaking to Keith, then waiting to gage his reaction. Speaking, then waiting for a reaction. Rinse, repeat. 

“Shiro, if this is your way of cheering me up, it’s kind of making me feel worse,” Keith bites. Shiro was ready for it, though, and shrugs it off like a champ. 

“I’m sure Hunk and Lance would be more than willing to let you room with them for a visit,” Shiro says as he turns to pull out bread from the oven. The tray clatters on the stove top as he sets it down and pulls the oven mitt from his hand. “Especially Lance,” Shiro adds and looks over his shoulder to wiggle his eyebrows at Keith. 

“You fucker—” 

“ Language, Keith. Mom and Dad may not be around, but it’s my duty as your brother to—” 

“You’re full of shit, Takashi,” Keith swipes his cards up and starts flinging them towards his brother. Shiro attempts to shield himself from the assault with his oven mitt, but fails miserably. 

“ Keith! I am your elder, you should be respecting me!” Shiro shouts and ducks behind the counter. He chances a peek over only to be hit with a card right between his brows, “ Agh ! Don’t take your mopey depressed ass out on me!” 

“ Language, Shiro,” Keith mimics with a wicked grin and he just knows Shiro’s rolling his eyes and scoffing. 

“You want this bread or not?” Shiro uses as a last resort to save himself. It works. 

Keith’s eyes widen slightly, and his card assault pauses. If his ears were like a wolf’s, they would’ve perked and flicked in interest, and his nose would’ve twitched to smell the lovely meal awaiting. 

“Fine,” he concedes, “you’re off the hook. For now.”  

After he eats his share of bread, Keith immediately pounces on Shiro. It was the most normal – at least normal as in his life back home – he’d felt all summer. Especially the past week of weirdness and confusion and questions. 

~ 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Hunk all but whimpers, poking his pointer fingers together. It was a habit Keith noticed the larger guy tended to when he was nervous. He had no reason to be nervous right now, at least that’s how Keith felt, because he only felt the adrenaline and excitement rushing through his veins. No hesitation whatsoever. He knew Pidge felt the same. 

“Don’t even worry, Hunk,” she assured him, her evil smirk on show, “aren’t you annoyed at him for scaring you a bajillion times yesterday? Don’t you want revenge?”  

“I’m a kind guy, I don’t do revenger,” he whimpered. 

“Then do it for us, Hunk,” Keith added, “Lance is always pranking people and never the prankee. Prank- ed? The person getting pranked – Things need to change a bit around here.” 

Hunk let out a long sigh, then shook his head up and down unsteadily.  

“Okay,” he huffed out, voice laced with nerves. 

“Great, now get out there, buddy,” Pidge patted him on the back and ushered him gently towards the register. Lance was laying across the counter, likely bored at the lack of customers around. It was the perfect opportunity. 

“I want to get every last bit of this captured forever,” Pidge whispers into Keith’s ear when he gestures to the phone recording in her hand. He has to whack his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. He can’t wait for Lance’s reaction, he’d never see it coming from this trio of all people. 

“Hey, Lance,” Hunk’s voice wavers as he appears in front of the tall, lanky boy at the counter. He holds a plate of round chocolates with paper sticks in them; their own makeshift cake pops. 

“Hunk!” Lance perks up at his best friends appearance, “What’s up, man?” 

Poor, oblivious Lance. 

“I, uhm,” Hunk stutters and come on, dude, you can do this.  

“Hey, you okay? You seem kind of nervous,” Lance asks. His brows are furrowed in concern and damn, that bastard and his close connection with Hunk’s emotions. Come on, Hunk. Just a little more.  

“Oh! Oh, I’m fine,” Hunk shrugs it off, “Just uhm… nervous for you to try my new recipe!” He blurts it out, and it’s not perfect, but it was a good cover and Lance seems to buy it. Hunk thrusts the plate towards him and Lance’s eyes gleam. His greatest weakness is Hunk’s cooking and baking, and the trio was using it to their advantage this time around. 

“Yesss,” Lance picks one up and inspects it. Savors it’s beauty with his eyes, ready to savor it’s taste with his tongue… He takes one big bite, eyes gleaming with excitement, until his face scrunches up into a sour expression. “Hunk, wat isth thes,” he blabs through a frowning mouthful of green and brown. 

Keith and Pidge fail to hold back their laughs and he feels like he’s about to piss his pants. Lance whips around and shoots daggers at them, Hunk behind him looking bashful and apologetic. Lance foregoes him, for now, and stomps up to the two rolling on the floor with tears in their eyes. Pidge still has her phone facing Lance, but the video is probably going to turn up blurry and shaky with the force of her laughter and trying to keep it from Lance’s grasp. 

“Wut itsh,” Lance starts, but remembers his mouthful of disgustingness. He grabs Keith’s hand to pull him to his feet and spits the wad of nastiness into his palm before he can gather his thoughts to stop him. 

“Ew, ick,” Keith frowns and holds back a gag as he stares at the mush. It smells bad, too. 

“Shut up, you’re not the one who tasted it!” Lance growls, “how could you fool me with Hunk, my best buddy, the innocent angel child, how could you fool me with his heavenly cooking!”  

“Pfft- you have to admit, it was pretty damn funny,” Pidge snickers as she stands up and then grimaces at the plop in Keith’s hand.  

“It’s not funny finding a chocolate covered brussel sprout in your mouth when you expect a ball of cake,” Lance mutters and pouts. Hunk wanders over, finally broken from his shock, and pats Lance on the back. 

“Sorry, man,” he clears his throat and avoids Lance’s blue stare, “they were preeetty convincing.” 

“Traitor.” 

“Whatever, you brought this upon yourself.” Keith walks over to the trash can and turns his hand over to drop the mushy candied vegetable into the can. It slowly slides off his palm and makes a gross ‘plop’ noise that he shivers at. Glad I didn’t eat it, at least.  

“Yeah, your jump scaring was really annoying,” Pidge agrees. 

“I never thought I’d be bested by the one who despises pranks.” Lance is trying to push Keith’s buttons, he knows it, but he’s about to fight back anyway. With his words, of course, because he would never punch Lance or anything… probably. He could be annoying, okay? They were friends, but he could be annoying and anyway—  

“You know, it wouldn’t have come to this if you—” 

“What’s this?” Allura’s smooth voice speaks softly. She’s over by the register where Hunk had abandoned the plate of brussels sprouts and she’s already got one between her long fingers. Everyone moves and speaks in slow motion after they spot her, but it’s not enough to keep her from the horror that comes next. 

Poor, unexpecting Allura gets her first taste of revenge. Revenge not meant for her. Her face scrunches and frowns and wrinkles in distaste when the awful creation meets her taste buds. Poor, Allura they all whisper. She sprints to a trashcan to deposit the nasty snack and they all turn towards each other with grimaces on their faces. 

~ 

“Have they considered out of state colleges?” 

“Huh?” 

Keith and Shiro are on their way to the business catering his and Adam’s wedding. The sun is blazing this afternoon, and Keith feels his skin inching closer to pink than tan, as usual. 

“You know, Lance and Hunk,” Shiro elaborates, “are they going to college at all? Would it be here, or would they consider a college close to you?” 

That’s another thing, Lance and Hunk were in their senior year of high school like Lance. Keith only recently learned that they moved out of their houses due to their large families. Lance’s great grandmother had left her home to Lance’s family after she passed, and it was going unused before the two boys brought up the idea of staying there. It was very close to both their families – they grew up in the same neighborhood together – and Lance’s parents agreed to the arrangement as long as they kept it from rotting away. Apparently Lance is a mama’s boy, so there’d been a lot of convincing on his end even though the uninhabited home was merely a block or two from the family house.  

On the other hand, Pidge was a year younger than the three boys, and Allura was going to be twenty this fall. The reasons they’d all become friends was still fuzzy to Keith, but he didn’t want to force himself into a group he didn’t even feel he deserved to be a part of anyway. 

“Why would they go to college across the country away from their families and home just to be at the same school as me,” Keith deadpanned. 

“Well, I don’t know!” Shiro got flustered so easily. Keith smiled a little, but realized in that sense they were very, very similar. Shiro continued, “you all seemed to click so easy, maybe they just wouldn’t want to let you go like that.” 

Keith faced forward and spotted the catering business just a few buildings away. He sighed and said, “Shiro, they barely know me. I barely know them. I won’t be hurt by them living their lives the way they would’ve if they hadn’t met me. I’ve come to terms with it, I’m fine with it.” 

“But Keith, I’ve never seen you so happy. So easily socializing, without me having to force you—” 

“You don’t force me!” 

“Keith,” Shiro stared blankly. Keith shrugged. “Either way, you guys have got something special. I just don’t want to see you lose it.” 

“Whatever. You can’t lose something you don’t have.” 

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Keith knew he had something special here, with the gang. He knew he’d be losing something. And he’d admitted that to himself, but admitting it out loud was a whole different thing. It wasn’t fair to expect new friends to drop everything for him or to expect him to drop everything for them. Keith didn’t think anyone expected him or the rest of the group to do that, anyway. Maybe Shiro, though. But he was a hopeless romantic with these things. Especially so close to his wedding, the guy was getting sappier than usual. 

Shiro frowned, but Keith was growing grumpy and the elder probably didn’t want to deal with Grumpy Keith while dealing with the caterers, so they turned ahead towards their mission. 

~ 

“As much as your prank pissed me off, it got me thinking.” Lance was lounging on the beanbag on the floor while Keith shelved books. He crunched on potato chips between words from a bag he bought from the vending machine in the break room. 

“Lance thinking? That’s never good,” he replied. 

“Shut up,” Lance grumbled, but turned all kinds of excited with his announcement, “what if… wait for it… wait for it—” 

“We don’t have all day, Lance—” 

“Shush, let me have my suspenseful fun!”  

Keith stared blankly at Lance when he didn’t continue and found he was now pouting. “Well?” 

“No, now I don’t feel like telling you,” he whined and crossed his arms to look away like a child. 

“Lance,” Keith sighed his name in annoyance, and turned back to continue shelving, “just get on with it.” 

“Fine, but now I’m not as excited.” 

“Lance,” Keith spoke in a warning tone. 

“Alright! Alright. Okay. What if… we started a pranking account!” 

Keith stopped his shelving and turned to face the maniac below him. “A what now?” 

“You know, an account dedicated to prank videos. On TikTok. Like a prank war. Like—” 

“ Got it, Lance. Why would we even make an account like that? Can’t you post prank videos on your account?” 

“Well, in theory, but my account’s got an aesthetic. You don’t mess with aesthetic, Keith.” 

“That’s stupid,” Keith says flatly, a frown gracing his face. Lance blubbers and scoffs and stands from his floor chair to point his finger in Keith’s face. 

“ You’re stupid!” Lance retorts lamely. Keith rolls his eyes. It’s an action he’s done too much lately. “Fine! I’ll ask Pidge to make it with me!” Lance crosses his arms and walks off with that cute pout on his lips. Keith slightly regrets chasing him away, but to see that pout he suddenly doesn’t regret anything in his life. 

He later regrets not stopping Lance from making the pranking account in general, because it causes a boat load of problems down the line. Keith hadn’t realized their brussels sprouts prank was the start of a war, but it was too late to take it back. Not that he would, but that was besides the point. Now there was nowhere Keith could be safe from the echoing laughter and devilish smirks and practical jokes and— 

Well, Keith was in for a wild ride. 

Chapter Text

Although Keith had regrets about starting their so-called prank war, he had to admit it turned into one of the funniest, albeit craziest, weeks of his life. He at least wasn’t bored, that was for sure. It seemed that Lance would be the one in trouble more often than not, his pranks always somehow backfiring. 

“Oh Keeeithh!!” Lance sang from outside the breakroom. They’d closed up for the night just a few minutes ago, and Keith was gathering his personal belongings while he waited for Shiro to show up and drive him home. Pidge hadn’t worked today because it was another slow day. 

“What now, Lance?”  

“I need your help with something really quick,” he yelled with a giggle. A suspicious giggle…  

Just the day before, Lance had declared the ‘prank war’, so of course Keith was on edge all day. Every corner he turned he made sure to check twice for any traps, which probably got him some odd looks from customers. He didn’t care, he wasn’t about to get pulled into something stupid by being caught off guard. Lance had been suspiciously nice all day though, so of course he was a little more than skeptical of his intentions right now. 

“No way, come in here first,” Keith bargained. He heard Lance’s faint groan through the wall and rolled his eyes. He really thinks I’d fall for something that easy?  

His phone dinged in his pocket; Shiro texting him that he was here already. Keith tried to text back that he was being held up by Lance’s antics, but the breakroom of course has terrible connection. His brother would have to play it patiently and – unknowingly – wait this attempted prank out with Keith. 

“Keith, c’mon, don’t be such a snoot,” Lance whines. 

“What the hell is a snoot?”  

“Don’t change the subject!” 

“Lance, if you’re standing outside the door with a fucking potato gun, I will drown you in mayonnaise.” 

“Eww! Keith, do you have any idea how my skin would break out if you did that?!” 

“Your skin is the least of my worries right now.” 

“Your skin is the least of my—” Lance begins with a bad imitation of Keith’s voice, but cuts himself off. “Shit—Shiro, wait!” 

Shiro?  

Keith glances up from the chair he was sitting at, scrolling on his phone, and sees Shiro wrapped in plastic. He fails to hide his snort of amusement. 

“ Agh! What the heck is this??” Shiro says as he swats and scrambles to get the offending material off his face and shoulders. It sounds staticky and his tuft of white hair at the front poofs up with purpose. 

“Pfft—sorry Shiro, I couldn’t text you to wait for me, bad reception,” Keith giggles at his brother while he idly waves his phone around. 

Lance stumbles into the room now, apologizing profusely to Shiro, who wears a tired smile. He was wearing a slightly fancy get-up – button up shirt with slacks – and his combed hair was all puffed up now. The plan was to pick Keith up from work, and the two would go out to dinner with Adam. They’d probably head to a more casual diner instead now. 

“I’m so sorry, Shiro! I did try to warn you, but it’s my fault. I was trying to prank Keith, he deserved it!” Lance babbles and rants while he helps Shiro pull the plastic off. From the looks of it, the plan was for Keith to walk through the break room doorway and through the plastic wrap that had been taped to it. Too bad Shiro fell victim to Lance’s awful sense of humor. It was kind of funny on Keith’s end, though. 

Keith stands and walks up to the two to say, “Ready, then?”  

Shiro rolls his eyes, “yeah, no thanks to you.” 

Keith grins and Shiro musses his hair in retaliation. Keith swats his hands away, oblivious to Lance’s fond looks at the brotherly interaction. Not that he was missing out on siblings in his life, though, having more than enough of his own. 

“Let’s go.” Keith pushes Shiro out of the room and over to the other end towards the entrance. “Nice try, Loser Boy Lance, but I’m not that easy,” Keith shouts across the store at a mopey Lance, who is still standing in the break room doorway. 

Right as Keith turns away, he freezes and realizes he’s exposed that he follows Lance on TikTok. He was sure Lance already knew that after his account was discovered by literally everyone, but it’s a different story to know the exact username he’s got to be able to turn it into a joke.

He glances back for a second to find Lance a little bit flustered and turns his horror into a smug smile. He salutes Lance with two fingers – which Lance has done a few times to him after leaving him in a stupid daze – and saunters out of the store.  

Later that night he finds that Lance posted the video anyway, and he laughs and teases Shiro about it for hours. He even shows Adam, who’d come back to the apartment with them, and he joins in on the fun, much to a Pouty Shiro’s distaste. 

~ 

Meow.  

Keith turns around like he’d been addressed by a person, and peers down at the fluffy ball of gray staring up at him with blue eyes.

“…Hello?”  

Meow. Meow.  

Keith squats down to pat the cat. He’d fed her more times than he could count, but she often left right after. He didn’t get much of a chance to pet her outright, and she’d already been fed today so that couldn’t be the reason for her appearance. After he’d been caught as the one overfeeding, he took an oath with Pidge and Lance that he’d never do it again. Colonel was fairly smart for an animal the size of Lance’s man purses, so she caught on that Keith wasn’t as weak as he’d been before. (He was still pretty weak, though). 

He gently strokes her fluffy head and scratches under her chin. He even gets the little thing to purr! Keith, The Cat Whisperer. He likes it. But maybe he isn’t as feline-telepathic as he thought because she’s suddenly up and sauntering away, her puff of a tail swooshing back and forth behind her.  

“Wait, come back!” He whispers and follows after. He glances at the time on his phone, and decides to take his break now. He tells Pidge as much and the short girl nods, but looks questioningly at who he’s following. 

He’s about two feet down the sidewalk, moving past Altea Café, when the bell rings again on Coran’s bookstore door. He doesn’t pay it much attention – he assumes it’s another customer – until Lance is skipping in stride beside him. 

“Hey, you,” the tan boy says with a nudge to his shoulder, “where you going for lunch?” 

“I’m not,” Keith replies with the slightest glance, before keeping his attention trained on the storm coated cat. 

“Huh?” 

Keith silently gestures ahead of himself. 

“Again, huh?” 

Keith rolls his eyes and finally turns towards Lance, glancing at Colonel every few seconds to keep track of her. “I’m following the cat. See where she goes.” Lance hums, so Keith continues, “you never thought about it before?” 

“Nah. I mean, we figured she wandered to other shops for more food.” Lance shrugs and gesture bumps Keith’s shoulder again. He realizes he doesn’t feel uncomfortable with Lance standing this close. He should though, right?? Thinking about how he’s not uncomfortable suddenly makes him a little too aware of his heart beating, his breathing, his long and quick strides as he walks. Before he can panic over the matter, Colonel turns to the right up ahead, and the boys hurry to follow after so as not to lose track of her.  

“So how is your prank account going?” Keith smirks, knowing that Lance’s first attack was very unsuccessful. At least against Keith. It was very successful against Shiro. Very funny too. 

“Shut up,” Lance grumbles as he shoves Keith’s head down, “you’re going to get something big coming at you, and you’ll regret making fun of me.” 

“That’s what she said,” Keith mutters under his breath. 

“Hm?” 

“Nothing. And sure, Lance,” Keith’s voice comes laced with sarcasm. “I’m starting to think I’m better than you at this pranking thing.” 

Colonel turns to the left now, down a neighborhood road that looks concerningly too abandoned for a pretty spoiled cat to be lurking around. They follow along anyway, even as the sidewalk dies out and turns to gravel and dirt. Lance notices as well, but merely twists his face rather than commenting on it. 

“No way, I’m the Prank Master,” Lance continues from before. He crosses his arms and tilts his chin to the sky, exuding his false confidence. Keith isn’t fooled and thinks he’s probably faltering with prank ideas since his first attempt failed. 

“I thought that was Pidge’s title.” 

“Eh, guess you’re right. The goblin would probably kill me if she heard me say that,” Lance scratches his chin and turns his attention back on Keith, “I’ll be waiting for your prank. Better be good because I’ll be expecting just about anything.” 

“Then maybe I’ll go with something so simple that you’d never expect that,” Keith counters. He turns his face forward again, and his heart lurches when he finds Colonel is out of sight. “Shit, where’d the furry damn thing go?” 

“Don’t say such things about Kernel!” Lance exclaims with a frown. 

“I meant it endearingly,” Keith assures. 

“How can calling a beautiful pet a ‘furry damn thing’ sound endearing?”  

“Whatever, we just gotta find her now, so shush .” 

“Cool your tits, she’s right over there in the—old… witch’s… yard,” Lance’s face falls as his words slow. Keith looks towards where Lance’s pointer finger was aimed and catches sight of a very old house. 

Tall stone walls with iron bars on the top wrapped around the yard of the two-story house with an iron gate nearly hidden, front and center. Curled all around the bars was a vine or ivy plant of some sort, with large, green leaves and coiled stems falling towards the ground. Through the gate Keith had to squint to decipher the stone pathway leading to the front door from the mossy lawn – it was overgrowing into the path.  

The large porch encased the faded, red front door while a smaller deck perched atop the roof on the second level. A porch swing decorated the bottom and squeaked eerily from the afternoon wind. The panels on the side of the house looked dated, with chipped and cracked off-white paint. The roof shingles weren’t in much better shape and were sun bleached from years of hot summers, giving them an ugly orange-yellow tint. Lastly, Keith took in the shape of the windows. The small glass panels were encased by wooden strips with 2x3 panels to each window. Some cracks ran through the occasional panel and were seemingly temporarily fixed by dark plastic stretched over and taped down. The vintage look of them reminded him of Keith’s day back in the place Adam and Shiro were using for the reception hall. Except this place looked abandoned and uninhabitable whereas the big hall had a charming, homey feel. 

“Creepy place,” Keith idly commented. 

Lance nodded and launched into some story while Keith continued to take in the old place. 

“As long as we can remember – that’s Hunk, Pidge and I – this place has been this local legend. Some say that the mean old lady who lives there is a witch, but we think she’s just a cranky elderly woman. She yells at kids who throw things onto her lawn and shoos away birds she thinks might poop on her house or nest in the chimney or some shit.” Lance explains it all with a low voice and exaggerated expressions. 

“I wonder why Kernel would be coming here, though?” Keith shrugs while Lance ponders aloud, “there’s a bajillion businesses in town that would feed her – including us, of course – so I wonder if she’s like a crazy cat lady who just doesn’t like people.” 

“Have you ever met her?” Keith asks with a frown. Lance shakes his head and he continues, “Have ya seen her before?” Another shake of the head. “Hm.” 

“Mysterious, ain’t it?”  

Keith hums his response and stares back at Colonel, who is sat in front of the prison-bar-like gate, almost as if beckoning them to come forth and investigate further. Her stare comes off as amused – but she’s a cat, they just really don’t have many expressions, Keith reasons to himself – then stands and flips around, slipping through the bars of the gate and swooshing her tail down the pathway. They turn and walk away when she paws at the front door. 

“How much time you think we got left on our break?”  

Lance furrows his brow, “Wait, we’re supposed to be on our breaks?” 

Keith cracks a smile and punches his arm, “Stupid! You just followed after me without thinking about your, I don’t know, job?” He decides to ignore the part when his heart skips a beat a little. 

Lance shrugs, but turns the accusation around on him, “You know, you talk a lot about this job like you actually care. But I remember your first day and you didn’t listen to a word I said!” 

“Pft- maybe you’re just bad at explaining and I got bored,” Keith bites his bottom lip to keep from grinning wider than he should for this tiny interaction. 

“Bitch,” Lance says without any bite to it and laughs that gorgeous laugh and Keith feels himself smiling wider without his consent.  

He really just can’t help it when it comes to Lance. 

~ 

“Psst. Pidge. Hey! Pidge,” Keith whisper-yells. 

She fixes him a blank stare and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “What.” 

He grins and motions her over to where he’s placed in front of the Men’s Bathroom of the bookstore. He’s got his phone set-up on the shelf in front of the door and he’s already recording. 

“Okay, ew. Why’re we here,” she says with a look of distaste. Which is reasonable, Keith supposes. 

“I’m—” 

Pop! Clank! “Eeyap!”  

Keith’s bright smile falls immediately and his eyes go wide. Pidge gives him a questioning look when a man emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later with an angry frown on his face. Lance comes out shortly after, barely containing his laughter. 

“Okay, can someone explain what’s going on?” Pidge whines. 

Lance is full on cackling now while Keith looks towards the ground trying to mask his disappointment (and embarrassment). 

“Th- there was,” Lance says between giggles, “those popping things u-under the toilet seat. A-and that guy sat on them, then boom!”  

Lance places a (not so) consoling hand on Keith’s shoulder, but it seems more like he’s using him for support so he doesn’t fall over from laughing. 

“Keith, was that your attempt at a prank,” Pidge says blandly. His silence is all the confirmation she needs and she cracks an evil smirk, “ oh my god.”  

“It’s not funny! How should I know some old guy would be the one to take a shit and not Lance,” Keith defends. He feels his face flushing with anger and embarrassment as he moves to take his phone away and delete the mistake of a video. Pidge is a little bit closer and quicker and grabs it before he gets a chance.  

“Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast, this is definitely going on the account.” 

“Wh- no!” Keith moves to stop her, but Lance comes in at this moment and holds him back with his elbows hooked under his armpits.  

“Not so fast, buddy,” Lance says as he holds on tighter. Pidge taps on the phone – probably sending the video to herself – leisurely even as Keith scrambles to escape Lance’s hold.  

When Lance’s sticks for limbs prove to be stronger than they look, Keith slumps in his hold and pouts, “that’s so embarrassing.” 

“Heh, serves you right when you try to prank the master,” Lance says cockily, serving up his brightest smirk to date. Pidge wipes it off easily with a sharp flick to his forehead, making him let go of Keith right as Pidge hands his phone back. 

“I hate you guys,” Keith mutters. 

~ 

“Hey, Pidge,” Keith nudges her as he asks, “you know everyone around here, right?” 

“Mhm.” She keeps her attention focused on her phone as they walk the short distance from the café to the bookstore. 

“Cool. Ya happen to know a photographer?” 

She fixes him a blank stare. “You’re kidding right?” Keith slowly shakes his head side to side so she rolls her eyes and gestures towards herself. “Tech wiz, right here in the flesh.” 

Keith’s eyes light up as he exclaims, “Really?! You free for Shiro’s wedding then?” 

“Shouldn’t they have booked one quite a long time ago?” She waits in front of the bookstore front doors as Keith opens it up for her. 

“Yeah, but the one they got just bailed for some family emergency,” he says with a frown. “You in, then? Please. They really need one quick.” 

“Fine,” she says with an annoyed sigh, but Keith knows she’s just putting up an act, “you owe me twice now.” 

“They’ll be paying you so no <3” 

“How the fuck did you say that out loud.” 

~ 

“Keith, have you seen my lunch?”  

Keith turns around to find Pidge staring up at him expectantly. He shrugs. “Didn’t see a lunch in the fridge besides Coran’s.” 

“Come help me find it,” Pidge gives him no time to respond and soon he’s being dragged along the carpet of the store to the break room. They make it to the fridge and peer inside and Keith realizes there’s surprisingly a lot of food in a fridge used by like 5 people. Only one bag of lunch, though. 

“See? Only Coran’s paper bag with his salami sandwich,” Keith points at the bag and Pidge gives him a look that questions why he knows that, “I was curious, okay?” 

She shakes her head and starts rummaging through the fridge, smiling when she finds her oh so prized possession. “Aha!” She turns at him with a grin and he gives her a look of horror. She’s holding a family sized jar of… of mayonnaise.  

“I hate mayo,” Keith scrunches up his nose while Pidge rolls her eyes. “You gonna make a sandwich, I hope?”  

She frowns, “no?” She wanders over to the break table and sits down to twist off the lid. Keith’s mouth almost tastes sour as he watches her pull a spoon from her pocket and devour a big blob of mayo. She spies him still watching her and lifts up her spoon to say with a mouthful, “want some?” 

Keith’s never shaken his head ‘no’ so vigorously. He barely manages not to throw up. 

Lance takes this moment to appear at the doorway. “Hey guys, what’s poppin—” He freezes, similar to Keith’s position, at Pidge’s so-called lunch. “Ehm, what is this?” 

“My lunch,” she says promptly. 

“I’m gonna be sick,” Keith groans and clutches his stomach as he gags. Lance doesn’t seem to be doing much better, but he inches forward to inspect a little closer up. 

“Have you finally gone full on insane?” Lance squints at her meal and then at her while she shakes her head and takes another big bite. Keith grimaces, but Lance just frowns. “Since when does mayo smell… sweet?” 

Keith gains courage from this question and steps right up the jar to take a big whiff of the yuckiness. But Lance is right – for once – because the ‘mayo’ smells sugary. It smells like— 

“Pudding,” Lance says. He’s scooped a blob out of the jar with his finger and tasted it to confirm it is definitely not mayo. Thank god. “This is pudding.” 

Pidge grins, “you found out quicker than I thought you two would.” 

Keith and Lance glance up at the each other, then whip their heads around the room as they search for a camera of some sort. They roll their eyes at the gremlin when they spot her phone set up on top of the microwave. 

“Well played, well played indeed,” Lance shakes his head at himself, as if he can’t believe he got fooled by such a simple trick. 

“I don’t like pudding either,” he states quite randomly, but he didn’t know what else to say. 

Lance gasps his dramatic gasp while Pidge gives him her disapproving look. “How are we friends with someone who doesn’t like pudding,” Lance says. Pidge nods in agreement. “Hunk is going to freak over this.” 

“Can’t argue with that, it’s quite disappointing, Keith,” she replies.  

Keith goes back to work after that, but not before being forced to taste pudding a few times “just to make sure you’re sure it was pudding you don’t like” as Lance put it. 

… 

He can now confirm – with two witnesses – that it was pudding he tasted and it was not enjoyable. 

~ 

“God, it is so fucking hot out today,” Keith complains. The sun is out and blazing and being next to water doesn’t even seem to be helping cool him down.  

“You better drown yourself in sunscreen if you don’t want to burn,” Pidge snidely remarks then mutters under her breath, “how the hell are you this pale??” 

Keith ignores the rude comments about his poor – soon to be damaged – skin and does as he’s told. He slips off his shirt and holds his hand out to Lance, who’s got the bottle of sunscreen they brought. They should’ve brought more than one bottle, but they’re all bad planners. Lance, however, doesn’t catch on to what Keith intended as he places his free hand in Keith’s outstretched one and mindlessly stares. It almost looks as if he’s forcing himself to keep his eyes away from Keith’s naked torso — 

“Lance,” Keith whispers. Lance jumps out of his weird daze, snapping his hand away while his cheeks already grow red – must be the sun, it’s damn hot out – and Keith waves his now free hand around so he can catch on to his request.  

Keith hates putting sunscreen on. It’s uncomfortable, often smells weird (unless you get the fancy expensive kind), and you just feel oily and gross afterwards. Plus, at least in Keith’s case, it hardly does it’s job anyway. He always gets a burn. 

When he reaches his back, he scrambles to cover himself with the disgusting oily stuff. Hunk sees his struggle and steps in with a short, “I got you, buddy.” Keith sighs in relief because he would be mortified to ask any of them to help him out. But an offer he would accept. Also, Hunk is probably the one who would make the gesture the least awkward. 

“Are you guys done yet, you take fooorevvverrrr,” Lance whines. Stupid Cuban doesn’t burn even without sunscreen. Keith told him just that one day, but Lance had replied with ‘that doesn’t keep me from damaging my skin and getting skin cancer, Keith. Even people who tan have to protect their skin from the sun’. Keith rolled his eyes at the memory. 

“Shut up and help me carry stuff across, then,” Pidge said as she tossed a couple bags and towels at him. Keith looked out at the spot they’d scoped and chose. 

Although there was a lake nearby, the others told him they came to the river because it was colder and less crowded. He already agreed with the latter, as there were only a few other families out even as noon was rolling around. Keith wore his red swimming trunks and ratty old flip flops that did nothing to keep his feet safe from the hot rocks leading down to the water. Above the river was a wide footbridge, with three cement support beams in and across the river to hold it up. The center beam, placed in an island of rocks and sand at the center of the river, was where the gang was headed to set up their stuff. 

The beams had a thick cement block with a thinner piece in the center, so it was a good place to sit if you could get up that high. Luckily, large boulders and tree stumps had been placed into a makeshift staircase. Unluckily, the way to get to the island was through a deep section of the river along a fallen tree trunk they used as a hand rail – though Lance was oddly balanced and used it as a bridge. Pidge couldn’t even help carry items across because the water came just above her belly button. 

Keith was glad he brought his flip flops because this part of the river was lined with slippery rocks on the bottom, and his bare feet obviously don’t have much grip. 

While they lay their towels in the sun on the cement block, Keith glances up to the inside of the bridge and notices all of the graffiti, one in particular catching his eye as he grins. “Hey, Lance,” he says and nudges the boy who is laying out a yellow ducky-patterned towel next to him. At his attention, he points towards the inner bridge wall and remarks slyly, “I didn’t know you did graffiti.” 

Lance looks confused for a second until he finds what Keith’s referring to and barks out a laugh. “I gotta say, that was actually pretty funny,” he laughs out, catching the attention of the others. 

“The hell’s so funny lovebi-” Pidge begins, but Hunk elbows her in the ribs to everyone’s surprise – Pidge is scary, okay?? Either way, the boys are too preoccupied with their joke and they’re oblivious to each other anyway. 

“I love tits,” Lance laughs out as Keith says at the same time, “Lance loves tits.” The group looks confused still so the two point towards the graffiti where, yes, the wall says I love tits.  

“How eloquent,” Allura deadpans.  

After laying out their towels, they hopped over to the other side of the river where two swings were tied to the bridge. One was a normal rope swing with a large knot tied near the bottom for grip and the second had rope laced through two holes in a wooden slab, making it more similar to a regular swing.  

“Woohoo!” Keith hears Lance yelling from his right side and barely glimpses his long body leaping into the water from the rope. He has even less time to react to the big splash of water cascading over his head when Pidge is pushing him in as well. The water is cold as hell, but it’s refreshing in comparison to the 100-degree weather. Just as Keith reaches the surface of the water, Lance is quickly coming down on top of him and dunking him under. Keith sends a lighthearted glare to the tan boy when he emerges with his dark bangs stuck covering his eyes. 

“Ha! You look silly,” Lance’s voice softens and suddenly he’s swiping the hair from his eyes and Keith’s heart is beating faster and Lance’s blue eyes match the water and he’s leaning in and— 

“Cowabunga!” Hunk does a canon ball into the deepest part of the river, causing little waves to push Keith and Lance from each other. 

—and it was silly of him to think Lance was going in for a kiss because, really Keith?? Really?? Stupid ass-  

The three boys come back to stand together and beckon the girls in. Pidge stands in the shallow part of the river with a skeptical look, but she also looks curious of the wooden swing. Allura sits on a large rock with sunglasses perched atop her pristine hair while she dangles her feet in the water.  

Keith watches as Pidge wades in and Lance makes no motion to splash or dunk her. At his questioning look, Lance shakes his head rapidly at Keith and oh, right. Pidge is pretty damn scary. She swims over to the wooden swing and turns her head back to the boys who immediately freeze. 

“Help me get on this,” she says and turns her attention back her task. When Keith arrives after Lance, he finds there’s a large rock underneath it, but the swing is still way too high up. Even Lance has trouble trying to get on it on his own. Keith hangs back with Allura while Lance and Hunk set up on either side of the swing in a lunge position so Pidge can use their thighs as boosts to hop up. 

“You and Lance seem cozier than usual,” Allura’s smooth voice comes with a slight smirk. Keith immediately has to force down his blush. 

“Is that so,” he manages, but he knows he’s too obvious and Allura is too smart. 

“Fine, don’t tell me anything.” 

“There’s nothing to tell.” And it’s true. Nothing’s happened between him and Lance, and he’s got no expectations that there will. If you have no expectations, you can’t be disappointed.  

She hums and places her chin in her palm, her elbow placed on her knee. “If you say so.” 

“They always like this?” He motions towards the rest of the group and she giggles. 

“Always this crazy?” He peeks towards her, and she’s sending him a fond smile. “You should know by now that they are.” 

“Hm,” he smirks himself, “you gonna get in on the action?” He watches her carefully as she discards her sunglasses from her head, folds them neatly, and places them next to her on her rock. 

“I suppose, but not until— Keith!” She cuts herself off as Keith suddenly scoops her from the rock – bride style – and tosses her into the deep end of the water. He laughs as she emerges from the water, faux angry expression gracing her perfect features and her previously elegant hair flattened against her head. “Not funny, Keith.”  

More laughter is heard from the rest of the gang, Lance’s being the most notable and loudest. She sends her glare to him in return. But once they lock eyes, Keith begins to worry. His suspicions are proven correct when the two start towards him, their movements slowed through the water. He tries to get away, but it’s no use when he’s laughing his butt off and he’s got two people after him. 

Pidge’s snickering is heard up high where she finally got seated on the swing while Hunk’s booming laughter is closer. Keith is caught by Allura next to their towels and Lance arrives shortly after to throw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and trudge off towards the water. Allura prances along behind them, enjoying the show. 

“No! Put me down!” Keith yells between his giggles, and he knows he’s got a big smile on his face. He can’t help it. He swats at Lance’s back – which by the way, he’s absolutely ripped, ugh those freaking back muscles are just *chefs kiss* - while he gasps out more excuses, “I’ll get you back for this, don’t do it, don’t— fuck! ” 

    Splash! He’s drenched once again. 

The next day at the café when they go in to order croissants, Keith would walk in with cherry red skin, while Lance – in all his golden glory since he only tans – would tease him about his sunburn. And when Allura comments that Keith’s face, ears, even his neck look a little too similar to a blush after Lance’s remarks, Keith only asks for an extra shot of espresso in his coffee because ‘today I really need it’.  

~ 

“Keeeith,” Lance whines as he lays himself across the check-out desk. 

“Lance, I’m trying to work here,” Keith says as he doesn’t even glance up from his book. 

“Reading is not working, even when you work at a bookstore.” Lance leaps across and snatches his book from his grasp. Déjà vu. He continues, “besides, there are literally zero customers around.” 

“And why are you bothering me then?” 

“Doesn’t it feel hot in here??” 

Keith takes a moment to notice the temperature of the store. He shook his head ‘no’ because it didn’t really feel any different to him than normal. Was this some sexual innuendo he didn’t understand??? Was Lance hitting on him??  

“Really?” Lance said skeptically, “Are you really sure?”  

“Uhm, yes?” Keith replied hesitantly. 

“ Ugh,” Lance whined some more as he draped in front of Keith, “Can you just check it? Pleeeassee.” 

“Will you stop moaning about it if I do?” Keith ignored the slight pink that came to Lance’s cheeks before he turned himself away. 

“No promises, but if you don’t then you won’t get your book back so—” 

“Fine, just stop bitching—” 

“ Keith!” Lance gasped dramatically and placed a hand across his forehead, “how dare you say such vulgar things! And to me of all people.” 

Keith shoved Lance away who giggled a little, but tried to cover it up with a cough. Dork.  

Lance led him to the air conditioning vent near the area he’d been shelving in, where he claimed it wasn’t working. Well, it definitely wasn’t blowing any air out of the slits, so Keith knelt down in front to take a closer look. Before he got a good chance, a clanking noise came from behind the metal vent cover, followed by a whirring sound. 

Huh, guess it started working up on its own—  

Keith’s eyes shut of their own accord when tiny sparkles are flown into his face. He scrunches up his eyes and frowns as the cold air blasts onto his skin. He then comes to the realization that he’s a stupid fucking idiot and he just got fucking pranked by an even stupider fucking idiot (*cough* Lance *cough*). 

After what seemed like 5 whole minutes, but was probably 20 seconds, the air shut off again. Without the loud sounds of the machine, Keith could hear giggling coming from his left and the tell-tale laughter of Lance from his right. He glared towards the tan boy first and with the angriest frown he could muster and marched towards him with his loudest stomps. 

“Gotcha good, huh?” Lance sputtered out between laughs, “Hey, Keith, you should join the Glitter Force, my niece loves that show!” 

Keith’s frown settled into a grin, which un settled Lance. Mullet boy reached up towards his face, dragged his hands across his eyelids and down his cheeks, and mussed Lance’s curly hair with the glittery substance.  

“Wh- hey! This will never come out and you know it!” Lance yelled as he tried to push Keith away. 

“That’s what she said,” Pidge snickered from the side, but the boys disregarded her in favor for each other’s attention. Keith wished it was meant in a more loving manner, but that really wasn’t the point right now. 

“Stop that, Keith! Take the loss and leave you fucking—” 

“If I have to be covered like a second-grade poster project, then so do you,” he grumbled as he got Lance into a headlock. He idly glanced at himself and saw that glitter was stuck to the entire front of his polo. He could feel it itching his cheeks and stuck in his hair like sparkly dandruff. Gross.  

“Well, jokes on you! My poster projects looked like this till 7 th grade!” Lance says exasperated and ignores Keith’s scoff. “Why didn’t you just move away once it started? You just sat there like a doofus!” 

“Well, that’s because—” Keith cut himself off because he honestly didn’t know how to come back from that. Lance had a good point – for once – and he suddenly felt even stupider. His shock at his own actions gave Lance the perfect opportunity to escape. Before Keith could continue his response, he saw Lance running away and he couldn’t just let him get away with this, so he chased after him. He didn’t even notice Pidge smirking knowingly. (And watching them through the screen of her recording phone). 

“Get your ass back here!” Keith shouted after him. He faltered at the sight of a middle-aged woman frowning and covering her young child’s ears. “I am so sorry, ma’am,” Keith hurriedly apologized then backed into the nearest isle to sprint to the back where he bumped into Lance. 

“Found ya,” Keith grinned. 

“Stop being so scary, ohmigod,” Lance spoke a little too loudly for Keith’s taste – he was running from an angry customer, afterall. He put his glittery finger to Lance’s lips and shushed him. Lance’s eyes widened and he whispered, “Please don’t kill me, it was just a prank!” Keith pushed away the side of his brain that was blushing at the feeling of Lance’s soft lips against the tip of his finger. 

“Shut up, or we’re gonna get in trouble,” Keith shushed him once again by placing both hands on his tan cheeks and squishing his face. Huh, cute.  

The two ended up just staring quietly at each other, obviously waiting for Keith to say something, but he realized he didn’t know what to say because, well. What is there to say?  

Also, when did they get so close? Keith could hear Lance’s breath stutter, could see the blush blooming across his cheeks, could feel that same blush heating his face under his hands. Keith bit back his giggle at the way Lance looked with his lips puckered like a fish. Hold up— whhyyy was Lance leaning forward. Or am I the one leaning forward? Keith couldn’t tell. He also didn’t give the slightest fuck right now. 

Just as their noses bonked together a little, Pidge’s voice rang out across the store speakers that they hardly ever used. It was a small place, so there wasn’t often a need, unless two employees were roughhousing and hiding in the secluded spots of the store— 

The two jumped apart at the intrusion, Keith scratching his neck awkwardly and Lance rubbing the glitter on his face off. 

“Annoying boys, I’m looking for two annoying boys. One pasty mulleted guy, the other the personification of dumb and oblivious,” Pidge deadpanned, and he heard Lance laugh at it. It sounded forced, but he was still grateful that it somewhat broke the awkward tension. Pidge continued, “If you’ve seen these two, or you are these two, please report to the check-out desk. I repeat, please report to me because I’m going to whoop your butts.” 

The boys looked at each other and shrugged, their faces still flushed with embarrassment. 

~ 

After trudging to Pidge’s requested location, Coran was waiting in front of her with a not-so-pleased expression. Keith gulped and saw Lance’s eyes widen. 

“Lance, Keith,” he spoke sternly, but Keith thought he saw the hint of a smile across his lips while he looked them up and down. Keith was still covered in glitter, and Lance’s hair and cheeks probably didn’t look any better. “I would like to know who is responsible for that,” Coran said as he cleared his throat and pointed in the direction of the air vent where the prank had taken place.  

Keith avoided eye contact while Lance spoke up, “It was just a little prank Coran, promise.” 

“So it was you, Lance?” 

Lance looked down and to the side. “Well, maybe,” he mumbled. Pidge covered up her unsubtle laugh with a cough. Coran glared at her and turned to Keith. Keith wanted the floor to swallow him whole. That’s what she said.

“Keith?” 

“Well, Lance asked me to fix the a/c unit,” he muttered and scuffed his shoe on the floor.  

“The vent isn’t the unit,” Coran interrupted. 

“I didn’t know that.” Keith elbowed Lance in his side when he started to giggle. “Anyway, I went to check it and the next thing I know, glitter was blasting through the vents.” He felt himself pouting. He hoped it would lessen his punishment. 

“Best. Prank. Ever!” Lance finally blurts out. At Coran’s unamused stare, he looked back to the floor. “I mean, uhm.” 

“Lance, you’re cleaning it up and paying for the repairs. Keith, you need to—” 

“Wha- I’m the victim here! I did nothing!” 

“Let me finish. Keith, you need to watch your language around the customers, especially children.” 

“Oh. Right, sorry.” 

“Good, get to it, then,” Coran nodded and as he walked off, Lance whispered (a little too loudly) to Keith. 

“I think I win the prank war, that was the best one yet and I don’t know how you can top it.” 

“Prank war?” Coran was back and standing behind Lance. Damn, he had definitely not left yet. 

“Uhm—” Lance began. 

“Yeah, that’s over. No more devastating pranks in my store, please.” 

Lance pouted, “dang it.” 

When Coran left for good, Pidge punched Lance in the arm for playing out such a disastrous prank. She only laughed at Keith’s sparkly look.  

Guess that ends the war, Keith thought. Although it was entertaining, especially when they work at a bookstore where the most exciting task you do all day is eat lunch, Keith was kind of relieved. He was definitely running out of prank ideas, and Lance and Pidge’s pranks would only be getting more and more elaborate. It reminded him of his first week here, how the teasing got more detailed every day of the week. 

Whatever the case, they came to the agreement to disagree on who won the war. Hunk had suggested they call it a tie since it ended before anyone backed out, but Lance, Keith, and Pidge all argued that they should’ve been the one to win. It would’ve been hard to tell anyone, what with everyone teaming up with different people each time. Allura didn’t really care who won, she was just glad it was over. She didn’t want to be mixed into that kind of chaos. 

So, the prank war was over. Or so they thought. Keith should honestly stop coming to any conclusion because the universe always proves him wrong. 

Not even a week later, the devilish bookstore employee trio exited and locked the store. Keith looked around curiously, seeing no sign of Shiro or his car although he’d texted just a few minutes ago announcing his arrival. Lance and Pidge were engaged in an intense conversation about their theories on the recent episode of some detective anime.  

“Hey, guys? Something feels weird about this,” Keith whispers to the other two, “Shiro told me he was here already, but.. he’s not?”

“Keith can you drive?” Pidge randomly asks.

“What- uhm, yes?”

“Why don’t you then, do you suck?” Lance squints at him and Keith resists making another ‘that’s what she said’ joke. He’s been doing it too much lately.

“No… I just prefer my motorcycle to a car,” he shrugs and explains.

Pidge’s eyebrows raise and she glances at Lance who just sputters with a red face. He coughs abruptly and changes the subject back to Keith’s original worries.

“Shiro probably just saw a teddy bear in a window and wanted a closer look. You’re way too paranoid after experiencing the awesome destruction of my amazing prank,” Lance brags like usual. Pidge frowns, though. 

“Hold on, Lance. Keith’s right-” 

“That’s a first-” 

“Shut up,” Keith says with a light punch to Lance’s arm. 

“-Well, uhm, so there’s like two creepy shadowy figures above us,” Pidge continues. 

Lance laughs until he realizes nobody else is. “Wait, what.” 

“What the fuck is that,” Keith snaps as a wonky shaped ball comes flying at him. He side steps right in time and it splatters with paint and glitter on the sidewalk next to him. Now it’s the others’ turns to freak out and soon they’re all dodging balloons full of mysterious substances. 

The door is of course still locked and Lance – idiot, seriously you dropped them in the dark at this moment?? – can’t find his keys to the store and they are just stuck outside to fend for themselves, but soon the attacks stop. 

They are still covered in paint and glue and glitter and only God knows what else. The dark figures disappear from the roof and are at their sides a few minutes later in the forms of Coran and Shiro. 

“How was that for payback?” Shiro asks smugly. 

“You fucking traitor!” Keith yells, but his brother only gives him a grin.  

“Now, now, Keith,” Coran butts in, “I thought I told you to watch your mouth around customers.” 

“He is hardly a customer to me now,” Pidge says and crosses her arms. She is probably the least drenched, but obviously the most annoyed. “I never even did any disastrous pranks!” 

“Maybe, but you definitely encouraged them,” Coran replies. 

Lance huffs out a sigh and is about to snap his own retort when he spots an unpopped balloon only a few feet behind the older men. He smirks and runs to grab it and soon everyone is running and dodging and ducking and it’s not so tense anymore. 

Keith only hopes this is truly the end of an era – the pranking era?? God help them all – no matter how much fun it was.

Chapter Text

7 days till the big day.  

Sunday  

Keith smiles to himself as Shiro pulls his car into the parking lot of the reception hall building; he just loves the style of the building and who wouldn’t be smiling anyway when their brother is getting married only a week from today? 

The building owner, Martha, informed them a few days ago that there were no other reservations in the week leading up to the big day so they were allowed to start decorating early on. Today was just for moving boxes, though, and now Keith found himself complaining a little bit. 

As he heaved a particularly heavy box of flower vases up the few stairs at the front doors and into the lobby area, a short movement caught his eye. Free of the extra weight, he turned to see Martha herself waiting patiently to speak to him. “Oh, hey.” 

“Hello. Keith, was it?” He nods so she continues, “would you mind helping me set up some of these tables?” 

“Not at all,” he replied with a shy smile. He felt a little awkward talking to a stranger of a completely different generation. Not to offend any old people, but he just doesn’t know how to act around them.

He found he didn’t mind the company and they quickly got to talking about Keith’s job, the books he’s read recently, etc etc. And at the end of the day when Shiro called him over to head home, he hoped he’d see her around once more before he left for college. 

Monday  

Keith sees bright worm shapes in his vision when Pidge’s camera flashes in his face. Before he can even complain, she’s taking another with an explanation that doesn’t sound the least apologetic, “you’re my test subject for Saturday. How do you think the lighting will be there?” 

Keith does his best to shove her away, but she’s surprisingly sturdy and strong for her small stature. “I don’t know! Can’t you just, like, guess?” 

She gives him a mock look of horror. “ Guess? You’re out of your goddamn mind. If I’m going to do a job, I’m going to do it right.” She makes a move to leave but pauses at Keith’s reply. 

“You do everything wrong working here,” he mumbles with a gesture towards the books and shelves around him. 

Before Pidge can beat him up for his sly comment, Lance appears, oblivious as ever. “What’s Saturday?” 

Now Pidge is shocked for real. “ The wedding??” Keith doesn’t see how that will help him come to his senses if he doesn’t know about the wedding. He tells Pidge just that and both Lance and Pidge roll their eyes at Keith. “We were all invited, Keith,” she deadpans. 

Keith remains silent with his brows furrowed and mouth slightly gaping while Lance rambles about his issues, “What?! I don’t have anything to wear yet! It’s already this weekend? Shit, shi,t shit! Mi Mami’s going to whoop my ass if I don’t find a suitable - ha - suit for the occasion… ”  

Keith spends the rest of Monday wondering how he missed something so crucial to his existence! Come on, how did he overlook that Shiro and Matt (Pidge’s brother ) are friends! Granted, Shiro only met Lance, Hunk, and Allura through Keith and Adam, but it was still odd to think he’d been left out from such information. In any case he guesses, at least he’s already well acquainted with Adam’s friends. Er- more family friends, he supposes. 

Turns out, Keith’s more oblivious than Lance in socializing, though he already knew that anyway. 

Tuesday  

Work. 

Wedding planning. 

Setting up decorations. 

Pick up suit?? 

Calm Shiro down (too excited) (too stressed). 

Call Adam (to calm Shiro down more) (worried about things going wrong). 

Sleep. 

Wednesday  

More work, planning, and decorations. 

Finding Lance a suit (meeting his Mami and panicking…). 

Calm Shiro down (again) (started crying from reminiscing with Keith). 

Sleep. 

Thursday  

No work. 

Finishing touches on wedding set-up. 

No panicking Shiro (too exhausted from wedding stuff to find energy to be a worry wart). 

Sleep. 

Friday  

Work. 

Relaxing before the big day. 

Going out for drinks and games and partying all night with a mixture of Shiro’s friends, Adam’s friends, and Keith’s friends for a makeshift bachelor party because there’s no bride so they were just merged together because why not and now he’s waking up hungover and- well, maybe that story is best told when Keith doesn’t have a pounding headache.

Saturday  

The big day. 

An annoying alarm blares in Pidge’s ear as she resists her body waking up of its own accord. She, of course, slams her palm a few times onto her nightstand to shut off the awful noise. She’s only allowed to drift back to sleep for a minute or two when she faintly hears her parents yelling up the stairs for her and Matt to “get their asses up and at it”. She just groans disdainfully.  

Peeking through her sleep-sealed eyes, she blurrily makes out 10:22 on her alarm clock and groans as she snatches her round glasses from the tiny table. Though nobody is around to see, she rolls her eyes and huffs as she yanks her sheets aside and stumbles out of bed towards her closet. Despite the huge event starting mid-afternoon, work waits for nobody (certainly not Pidge Gunderson) so she picks a pair of jeans and her work polo shirt and slips into them, record time. 

Slipping down the seemingly endless stairs, she overhears her father complaining about his projects from the past week. Upon arriving in the kitchen, her mother turns to her with a knowing smile and lifts up the pan she’s tending to on the stove. “Waffles?” 

Pidge is about to grumble about how she likes pancakes better, but Matt shoves past her yelling loudly, “yesss!! Thanks mom!” He kisses her cheek and Pidge continues to stand there like the zombie she feels like. He starts to pile toppings of a huge variety onto his waffle and soon turns around to face Pidge, looking too surprised to see her when he barreled past only two minutes ago. “Hey, Gremlin.” 

“Dweeb,” she bites back. 

~ 

(Discreetly) scrolling through TikTok on her phone, Pidge ignores her bookstore duties. But, come on, does Coran really expect her to get anything done with something 100x more important waiting after they close? (Sorry, Coran). It’s not like she’s the only one, anyway. Speaking of which… 

She glances up from her screen and over to the laughter coming from between two bookshelves. Lance is teasing Keith about his height and showing him how being tall allows him to put books on the top shelves without a ladder or a stool. Keith’s furious blushing and pout does nothing to hide his feelings, though Pidge is positive Lance is oblivious as always to that. 

Keith’s no better. 

Anyway, she’s kind of low on teasing material, so she pulls her phone up from the counter she’s standing at and takes a quick video and a couple pictures of the two love birds. It’s not stalking, okay? Well, no. It is stalking, in a way. But it’s for a good cause. Pidge, Hunk, and Allura will get a good laugh out of their embarrassment and the people (the boys’ fan base they somehow gathered over the summer – come on, are people that desperate and thirsty for these dorks?? Nobody has standards anymore!) will be happy for more “Klance” content, as they so enthusiastically named it.  

Before she can get caught in the act, Pidge slides her phone into her back pants pocket and makes her way over to tease the two a little. It’s entertainment on a boring day, okay?? 

~ 

Coran decided a while back that the store would close early today. Considering he was attending Shiro and Adam’s wedding as well, it makes sense. Him being the owner of Altea Café let Allura and Hunk loose early too. 

As everyone scattered to their own homes to get ready in their fancy get-up, Pidge couldn’t help but look forward to the night. Something was going to go down, whether it came naturally or upon Pidge’s nudging. Maybe she could even convince Matt and Allura to help. Hunk is kind of hopeless, he’s just too nice for his own good. Not that Pidge minds, of course, she loves his kindness the most. Not that she would ever admit that aloud. 

~ 

Pidge has to admit that Keith cleans up nicely. He wore a dark suit, all black and sleek and may even be wearing— eyeliner? He also had a dark red tie matching his pocket thingy (Pidge is not a fashion expert, ok. She has no fucking clue what those pocket hankies are called. Or are they just called hankies? Handkerchiefs? God, again, no fucking clue). 

Despite Pidge’s liking of Keith’s outfit, she personally thinks it is not enough reason for Lance to overreact in such a way that he knocks a table over. Seriously, he’s lucky the only glass on it was a vase of flowers, otherwise he’d be in more debt than he already is. (He’s still paying Coran back for the a/c incident, afterall). 

Keith’s reaction to Lance was no better. Lance wore a deep blue, almost black, suit with a pristinely white shirt and tie underneath. From a not-in-love-with-him point of view, the suit did fit Lance well, showing off the muscles he had, but Pidge still barely held back her gag of disgust. Ugh, romance. Could they just get on with it and stop dancing around each other?? They are literally blind. 

Let’s be real for a second though. Everyone obviously wants to hear about Pidge the most. Pidge wore a suit of her own, because dresses just sounded ridiculous and impractical. Besides, she looked pretty fucking sick in a suit. Better than Matt, that’s for sure (she’ll never let him live down the frilly suit and bowtie combo he wore to senior prom). 

As for the rest of their friends, Allura wore an elegant dress reaching just past her knees. It looked silky and smooth, and if there was a bride, there would be no spotlight left for her. Sorry, Allura’s gorgeous and everyone knows it. 

Hunk wore a- okay, sorry. Pidge loves Hunk, but this is just going to be too long and boring- again, she’s not fashion obsessed, and doesn’t even know how to describe clothes well, anyway! All the rest of the guys wore suits, how much more can a person describe in detail the different suits all the men in the room wore? 

Pidge pulls out her camera as more and more people arrive. She watches Keith carefully as he glances nervously between the great hall entrance and Lance, who is across the room talking to Hunk. Suddenly, Keith’s eyes widen and he rushes over to a woman with dark hair and pale skin linking arms with a tall, gruff looking man. Could these be the famous parentals?  

Pidge holds her camera up, the safety neck strap tickling against her skin, and peeks through the screen. She’s only 10 feet away or so, but she’d rather capture this moment candidly rather than alarm and embarrass them as they meet for what’s probably been the first time in a couple months. She zooms in and snaps the shots, Keith’s smile going from happy to sheepish to laughing as he hugs and cheek-kisses his mom. Pidge idly wonders the reason as to why they’ve only come to town today rather than earlier in the week to help prepare. She then supposes it's none of her business either way. 

She turns her camera to the far side of the room, across all the tables, where Lance is looking frozen in place as he watches Keith lead his parents over to him and Hunk. Pidge smirks to herself, the boyfriend meets the parents.  

She then frowns, they better fucking be together before Keith leaves. I’ve literally never seen Lance so hopelessly in love. Or, in crush?. Let’s not jump to conclusions, shall we? Even if it’s obvious to everyone.

She moves hesitantly closer to the group, on the outskirts of the room so as to stay somewhat hidden. She startles, however, when a soft hand is placed on her shoulder. 

“Pidge, what are you doing?” Allura. 

“Hey, I’m getting Lance’s reactions to meeting Keith’s parents,” she says with a laugh, “it’s kind of priceless.” Allura only nods and smiles and Pidge continues along her intended path with a follower behind. 

She snaps the shots as both Lance and Keith blush and Hunk tries to hold back a big smile. Could this be a… misunderstanding? Pidge smirks once again as Keith’s parents look at each other, and then their son, knowingly. Pidge needs to know more, so she drags Allura over by the wrist. 

“Keith, are these your sweet parents? Introduce us,” Pidge says with a smile she knows seems sweet, but Keith will recognize the glinting mischief in. 

“Uhm, sure,” he says nervously and fiddles with the hem of his suit jacket. He flaps a hand out to his mom and then dad and continues, “this is my mother and my dad. Mom, dad, this is Pidge and Allura.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Pidge says and Allura follows. They all shake hands and as Mrs. Kogane launches into a conversation with Allura about their dresses, Pidge has more time to take in their features. Keith’s mother is startlingly similar to Keith. Both have dark hair, smooth pale skin, grey almost-violet eyes, and a slim figure. Keith looks almost nothing like his father, on the other hand, and they don’t even seem to share much in common as far as their personality goes. Maybe their casualty, since his mother seems very formal.  

Lance looks like a nervous wreck. Ha, loser. Pidge can’t wait until he’s meeting them as Keith’s boyfriend, and she’s sad to say she will probably never see that sight (she will force them to tell her about it though).  

Not long after, people begin to take their seats and chatter among themselves more quietly. Both Matt and Keith disappear (presumably to talk to the grooms before the ceremony officially starts) and Pidge takes her place standing along the edges of the room. And she may or may not tear up a little at seeing all her friends and family joining together for this ceremony. Being so accepting. Ahem.  

She carefully records Adam and Shiro as they stand at the altar, Keith and Matt off to the sides behind them. They both present rings for their respected groom and Shiro and Adam each say some heartfelt words. They finally kiss (Pidge is impatient and wedding ceremonies can drag on, don’t even deny it). Everyone cheers. Yay! Happy ending. Ha. Not so quite. There’s still another couple that has yet to get together. 

People eat appetizers and cake and drink punch and maybe Pidge sneaks a glass of champagne, but honestly that’s a secret nobody else needs to know. Or at least a secret that Shiro, Adam, and her parents don’t need to know. She likes the way it bubbles on her tongue, okay?

She continues her photography and actually thoroughly enjoys it. Her favorite pictures to take are candids and wedding ceremonies are basically full of that. There’s staged pictures of course with the grooms or big groups, etc., but her favorites are when nobody is paying attention. It’s easier to capture their true feelings that way, and also more interesting in her opinion.

When the first dance comes around, she records Shiro and Adam up until the end of the song, then moves her attention onto Klance. Currently they are awkwardly (so awkward!) leaning against a wall off to the side. She can almost see the gears in Lance’s head as he works up the nerve to ask Keith to dance. It’s obvious really, and maybe a miracle has shot Keith in the head because it’s almost as if he isn’t oblivious and sees Lance’s struggle! Because now Keith is blushing harder than is humanly possible and Pidge’s mouth is gaping as he holds his hand out to Lance. Lance blushes as well and they finally walk out onto the dance floor as another slow song comes on. 

She focuses her camera on the two boys and can’t believe her eyes when throughout the song they move from at least a foot between each other to basically hugging! She turns to look around herself, but nobody else seems to be witnessing this once in a billion chance occurring right! in! front! of! her! eyes! Allura is giggling as she dances with Hunk and they are oblivious to the whole ordeal. Pidge is literally witnessing their romance finally click together and while she might not be particularly interested in romance for herself, she’s been rooting for these two to get it over with for literal months.

Pidge thanks the lord that she’s been recording the whole time because she’s positive nobody would believe this even happened. She then smirks to herself because honestly, she’s a psychic. She’s told Lance before, but she knew something would happen tonight and low and behold it has. 

An hour or two later, Shiro and Adam come over to the gang who have been sitting at their table chatting. Pidge doesn’t miss the pinky-holding going on underneath the table between Keith and Lance, but she decides to keep quiet so as to not break this thing before it truly sets off. She honestly can’t wait an entire summer again for them to stop flirting and get on with it! Anyway. Adam is embarrassing Shiro and his blushing face is almost as priceless as Adam’s story. 

“After I’d seen him a couple times on campus, I almost always caught him looking at me. Honestly, I thought he was a stalker or something at first when he started appearing more often, but he assured me our similar schedules were a coincidence.” 

Despite the teasing tone, Adam gives Shiro the most love-sickeningly-sweet smile Pidge has seen all night. Keith pipes up, “I’m disappointed Shiro never told me this. Seriously, I’m your brother! You’re supposed to let me blackmail you!” 

“What is the first thing he said to you, Adam?” Lance adds with a mischievous grin. 

“Yeah, he was probably a dork, huh?” Pidge smirks at Shiro’s horrified face. 

“Let’s see… I think it was something along the lines of ‘you- pretty- me, uh, math- I need help. Math help.’ Then that’s how I started tutoring him, anyway,” Adam recalls fondly, but his eyebrows suddenly furrow as he remembers, “he never even needed the help though, it’d been an excuse to hang out from the start.” 

“Adammm,” Shiro whines and covers his face with his hands, “it wasn’t that bad, was it?” 

“Wait, hold on,” Lance interrupts, “you guys got together because you started tutoring him for a subject he didn’t even need help in? This is like a movie! You guys really do be the main characters.” 

“I’m going to pretend I know what that means,” Shiro chimes in, visibly thankful for the distraction from his embarrassment. He stands and pulls Adam to his feet as well and rushes off after saying, “alright, time to talk to somebody else…” 

“You’re telling me the rest of the story later, Shiro!” Keith calls after him, and a couple people nearby send them questioning or amused looks, “I’ll bug you about this till you do!” 

“Hey, does Shiro have any stories about you, Keith?” Allura innocently questions. Keith’s eyes widen immediately and he pointedly avoids any and all eye contact. 

“That is something none of you should ever discover,” Keith answers. 

“Well, that answers everything we need to know, mullet,” Lance laughs and pokes at Keith’s reddening cheeks. Okay, Pidge has to admit they are a teensy bit cute together. Nauseatingly cute, but cute nonetheless. If they would just get together-  

~ 

At some point before the night ends, Pidge finds she’s lost track of a certain two boys. One moment they were sitting alone, talking quietly and giggling at one of those round tables while the rest of the group was dancing, (Pidge’s camera set aside in a safe place while enjoying a moment of the celebration too), and the next she glanced over and found them gone. She didn’t have much time to dwell on the fact, because Matt challenged her to a dance battle and really, she couldn’t look like a chicken and deny him when she would overwhelmingly be the winner, so she let it go and let herself have some stupid fun with friends.

Chapter Text

It’s Friday, the night before the wedding. The big day. 

Keith can admit he’s a little bit nervous. He can’t stop spacing out at work, stocking books in the wrong spots and messing up while writing labels. The weirdest part about it all is that he’s not even nervous about the wedding, or giving Shiro away, or anything like that.

No, he’s extremely nervous about the bachelor party that will be occurring tonight. Everyone will be drinking, including himself, and he’s terrified he’s going to make an absolute drunken fool of himself. Not that he’s required to drink, but he does want to. He’s still just scared about it. And very, very nervous.

Last time he saw Lance super drunk was at the party where they barely knew each other and Keith swears on his life the dude was flirting to all hell and back with him. And he had no fucking clue what to do. 

So, Keith nervously gets through the work day. Everything is set up for the wedding and all that’s really left to do is relax before heading out to their little party, which is the last thing Keith is capable of right now. He sits stiffly on the couch, probably the least relaxed person in the universe.

Finally the time comes for him to get his shit together. His hands shake as he buttons some dark jeans and he honestly can’t stand how embarrassingly nervous he is so he just says fuck it and does a little pregaming. It won’t be noticeable. Probably. He just needs a little something in his system to shake the nerves off, alright?

After a shot of Shiro’s disgustingly bitter Bacardi and drinking some really old cranberry juice he found in the back of the fridge as a chaser, Keith sets out for the restaurant they’re meeting up at. 

The sun is setting as he walks along the sidewalk, and he feels a nice buzz from the alcohol that’s beginning to hold off the air that’s turning colder. Though feeling more confident in himself, a bit of nerves still rack his brain as he walks into the pub where he can see some familiar faces at a table through the window. 

Keith comes up beside their table to find Hunk, Lance, Matt, Shiro, Adam, and some people he’s never met who he assumes are Adam’s friends from around town. He briefly wonders if he’s run into them in the bookstore before. 

As people greet him, he realizes he must be a lot later than he thought, because there’s only one place left to sit and guess who it’s next to? Lancey-Lance! Keith smiles and he’s positive nobody but himself knows that it’s coming from his self-congratulation on making the correct decision of taking that shot. Sitting next to Lance sober with the plans of the night sitting on his shoulders would not go over as well as he’d like.

Maybe it’s time to address the elephant in the room. Yeah, Keith likes Lance. Though he’s tried to deny it before, that is glaringly obvious to literally anybody ever. Except maybe Lance. Because the confident fucker has yet to make a move. And Keith thinks he likes him back. So what is he waiting for? Unless he got it wrong and he doesn’t like him back. That would be really unfortunate and also terrible and the worst news in the world and Keith is beginning to think that shot did a little more than he thought it would. He knows it’s been a while since he’s dranken hard alcohol, but it was just one shot. Or maybe two? He can’t remember now and he probably won’t ever because his thoughts are cut off by Lance pulling him into the conversation.

“You want a beer, Keith?” The beautiful Lance asks him. It’s such a simple question and yet Keith is enraptured. Shiro, not so much.

“Beer?! You guys are 18,” he exclaims. Adam slaps a hand over his mouth and casts a slightly worried glance towards the waiters that are just about 15 feet away from them. 

“Relax Shiro,” Adam reassures, “it’s just for tonight and we’ll all keep an eye on them. I know you didn’t wait til you were 21 for your first drink.” Adam’s pointed look into Shiro’s shocked eyes causes Keith to burst out laughing. Loudly.

“Adam!” Shiro exclaims, once again. But it’s too late; everyone at the table heard and they’re never going to let him hear the end of it. 

Keith is still laughing despite the rest of the group moving on to a new topic. There’s nearly tears in his eyes when Lance’s furrowed brow turns into a look of realization. He leans in close and whispers into his ear, “you’re not sober right now, are you?”

Keith giggles - giggles?!?!? - because of how Lance’s breath tickles his ear. He nods his head shyly and turns his eyes up to the other boy. Lance gives him a warm smile and hands him a beer. They clink glasses and drink on, ready to enjoy the night. 

Oddly enough, Keith is the most at ease he’s been all day, with Lance right by his side. He can’t imagine why he was so worried before.

~

Keith doesn’t know what time it is because they’re at the park and he can nearly see his breath in the air, but he’s not cold at all. He can’t remember when they managed to make it to the park. He also can’t remember where he and Lance got the pink feather boas that are hanging around their necks. Maybe when they were dancing earlier. 

HA! Keith had been dancing. That was a first. He definitely remembers Lance being very hot (as usual) and after a few too many drinks, he roped Keith into it as well. It’d been fun though. He’d been too drunk to worry about his terrible dancing. He’s not quite sure where they would be dancing in a small town like this. Maybe they were dancing while Shiro butchered his and Adam’s karaoke duet? He doesn’t have time to further wonder on that subject because Lance is pulling his attention towards him, as always.

“Keith,” he shouts, “let’s go on the swings!” He points, beer can in hand, towards the set of swings behind him and the two trip over themselves to race each other there.

“Shh,” Keith loudly shushes Lance even though the rest of the group is very riled up on the slides, “shhhhhh!!!”

Lance ignores him and they make it to the swings. 

“Don’t. Throw. Up,” Keith says very seriously, as he looks at Lance very seriously. 

Lance returns the seriousness with an, “okay.” And a nod.

They’re hardly swinging and doing more of a twisting back and forth in semi circles as Keith recalls the previous events of the night. They somehow made it here from somewhere they had been dancing. Last time Lance was drunk he’d been dancing. Well, he made Keith dance with him too, kind of. He’d been so irritable that night, because he’d been so jealous. He was so into Lance and Lance had been dancing with some girl. But it wasn’t his place to be upset. He should apologize for that.

“I should apologize for that,” Keith says, grabbing the chain of Lance’s swing and stopping him from spinning.

“Apologize for what?” Lance replies with big and curious eyes.

“For dancing!” Keith exclaims. 

“I liked your dancing,” Lance says softly. His eyebrows are all scrunched, voicing his confusion for him.

“No. No, no,” Keith shakes his head around and finally says, “from the party. The house party. I’m sorry I was so rude and you were dancing so hot and I was so mean.”

“I was hot?” Lance says, completely missing Keith’s point. But Keith’s drunk, and his brain can only attach to one topic at a time right now.

“Uhhh, yeah,” Keith says, emphasizing ‘yeah’ like you would say ‘duh’.

“You think I’m hot?” Lance asks again.

“Was that not clear?” Now Keith is the confused one, his own eyebrows scrunched as he looks towards his hands, as if they’ll give him the answers to all his problems. It’s now that he realizes he’s lost his beer can somewhere, so he stands to go look for it and promptly falls into the sand below.

“Keith!” Lance shouts, “are you okay!!!” He falls down with him, as if both of them falling will help the situation (it won’t). Keith nods, and Lance moves back to the conversation from before. “Keith, you’re like, really hot.” Well, maybe not the conversation from before.

Keith feels his cheeks go fire-red as his eyes open wide. He turns to look at Lance, who is already looking at him. 

“We should kiss,” Keith declares, “I’ve always wanted to kiss you.”

“Always?” Lance asks then says, “I want to kiss you every time I look at you.”

“Every time?” Keith asks. Lance nods. Lance glances to Keith’s lips. Lance is leaning in. 

There’s a thunking noise a few feet away and the two boys sit up. Looking over they find Hunk, beer can dropped on the ground, and hands up as if he’s surrendering to the police. 

“Sorry guys,” he says hurriedly, “didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll just… go now.” 

He runs off before either of them can get a word in.

Keith almost forgets what was happening until he feels a hand on his own. He turns to face Lance, who looks so hopeful and frankly adorable.

“Keith,” he says softly, “can I kiss you?”

Keith smiles and can’t help but laugh. “Yes, you idiot,” he replies. Before Lance can make the first move, Keith grabs Lance’s face with his free hand and pulls him in. Their lips touch, and it’s just a peck. They pull apart, look at each other once more, and suddenly they’re kissing again.

It’s slow, experimental. Lance’s lips are slightly chapped from the cold air, but his hair is so soft in Keith’s hands. Lance breaks the kiss and Keith feels cold ground on his back and he’s not even sure when they moved from their sitting positions, but he’s honestly not complaining.

“You’re so beautiful,” Lance whispers. He’s holding his weight above Keith, who is blushing from the compliment and feels like he’s going to die if he doesn’t kiss him again right now. So he does just that, kisses him again. Pulls him down and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him. 

He rolls them over. Kisses him. Grabs his waist. Kisses him. Kisses his neck all the way down. 

“I like you so much,” he whispers after one particular kiss, and feels Lance’s hands rake through his hair.

“I like you, too.”

~

Shiro doesn’t say anything when he opens Keith’s door to notify him about breakfast and he finds a certain brunette tangled in the sheets with his younger brother. 

(He does gossip about it with Adam, though).