Chapter Text
"Keith."
"No." Pidge rolls her eyes.
"Keith, c'mon wake up." "No," he mumbles again, shoving his face deeper into his arm.
It's the end of the school day, students packing their bags up and pouring out the door, slamming lockers and running to the parking lot, ready to leave their personal hell. Keith, however, hadn't moved because he had fallen asleep as soon as class started and didn't care enough to move for he was far too comfortable. "If he doesn't wake up tell him we're leaving him behind." Keith grumbled at hearing Lance's voice. He really wasn't in the mood to deal with that idiot, especially since he' just woken up from his nap. Nonetheless, Keith finally stood up, scowling at him while he jammed the papers that were on his desk into his bag and threw it over his back to rest on his shoulder. Hunk and Pidge grabbed their own bags off the floor and started walking out the classroom, chatting about astrophysics while Keith stared daggers at Lance's back, silently willing him to turn around. "I can feel you staring at me. Mullet." Lance looked over his shoulders, his eyes narrowing. "What are you planning?"
*Flashback "What are you planning?" Lance had his own cheek in his hand and his other hand curled into his hair, eyes flat and bored as Keith sat on the floor beneath him. Keith was really struggling to articulate his thoughts. He wanted Lance to know how he felt about him. He wanted Lance to feel the same. He wanted Lance to know how badly he wanted to take his hands in his and rub his soft hair. But what would he say? Lance couldn't possibly feel the same... 'he has everything I don't' Keith thought to himself. 'A family, good looks, charm, friendliness... he's just too perfect.' "I just-" he starts before stopping when he looks at Lance, a blush creeping onto his nose. "You mean a lot to me is all," he says and fidgets with his hoodie strings, blush intensifying. "And I want you to know that I'm here for you even when you don't want me to." He touches the two plastic casings of the strings together before pulling them apart and doing it again. "A-and if you ever want to, like, I don't know, hang out or talk or whatever, I'm fine with it." Lance just stares at him, stunned, before a small smile softens his face as he realizes what Keith was trying to say. Lance sinks to the floor in front of his friend and gently laces his fingers through Keith's. Keith's whole face is on fire as Lance's thumb traces little patterns into his wrist while Lance is talking. "Keith, I can tell your trying to tell me something else but you're just too afraid to say it. You don't have to be- Hey, look at me." Lance grabs Keith's chin and slowly lifts Keith's face to his, forcing the smaller boy to make eye contact with him. "You don't have to be afraid to tell me, okay? I know what you're trying to say. The feeling is mutual, Keithy boy. I like you too." Lance lets go of their hands to place them both on the sides of Keith's face and presses his lips to Keith's forehead. *
Keith looks away, embarrassed by his memory, before mentally applauding himself in getting Lance's attention. Now he had the opportunity to show him who's boss. Believe it or not, Keith is way competitive and was always initiating fights and arguments with the Cuban boy just to get a rile out of him. Keith considered it very amusing.
"Your death. Which reminds me, what was it again you said to that girl yesterday?" He placed a finger on his lips, pretending to be thinking. "What was it..." he trailed off, smirking at Lance's obviously annoyed expression. "Something on the lines of... let's see.. Is there a gaping wound in your side or are you just happy to see me? Right?" Keith snickers at Lance's fiery eyes and pats his shoulder. "Seriously, man. What is wrong with you?"
Lance brushes the hand off. "At least I didn't sleep through the entire class and droll over my desk like a slob."
Keith's eyes narrow when he's opened his mouth to say something, but is cut off when Pidge stops walking suddenly, causing Keith to walk right into her.
When she glares up at Keith, his own glare is waiting for her and when he hears Lance giggle the corners of his mouth pull down even further. "Yes?" He crosses his arms.
"I said," she huffs out, still glaring, "do you and Lance want to come to my house with Hunk and study for the test tomorrow? Matt and Shiro are already there, so he can give you a ride home when we're done."
Shiro and Matt had started their relationship about three years ago and even though Shiro was Keith's brother, he practically lived at the Holt's house with Matt. Matt was always saying how much he would rather have his own apartment, but Shiro knew his boyfriend enjoyed living with his family so he never asked about moving. "We'll leave when he's ready," Shiro told Keith when he first asked about it.
"Yeah, sure, I don't care. Just try not to stop walking out of nowhere like that." He uncrossed his arms and continued forward towards the door so he could get to his car and eat the fruit snacks he has stashed under his passenger seat. The rest followed him as he drove down the winding road and past all the snow dusted hills and dead trees until they were each pulling up to the Holt residence and parking their cars in the extended driveway.
In the home
They were all lounging around Pidge's living room, textbooks in laps, random songs playing from a radio stationed it the corner on top of a cluttered desk when Shiro walks in carrying some goldfish packs in his hands. "Are you guys studying?" He hands out each of them a goldfish pack while occasionally peeking into their textbooks. Pidge nods her head, ripping the snack open, and shoveling a handful of fish into her mouth as she points to something in Hunk's book. "That's times ten."
"Ohhhhhhh, okay, thanks. No wonder it looked so weird." Hunk erased his answer and flops onto the floor. "This is aids, guys. We've been here for an hour and I haven't learned anything."
"It's okay, dude, neither have I." Lance says, tossing his book aside. He's seated on the sofa next to Keith who's decided to glower at his textbook, not knowing what the heck it was trying to teach him. "Do you think our brains rot away when we die?"
Everyone looks at Lance. 'That came out of nowhere' Keith thinks to himself, still glowering, before deciding to ignore him. Keith's frown gets even deeper when everyone, including Shiro who had seated himself next to Pidge, starts arguing on the "fundamentals of the brain",as they called it, their voices slowly raising to ridiculous volumes.
"That makes no sense! It doesn't just stay alive in your head!"
"Okay, but they don't cut open your head and take it out!"
Keith groans into his hands and throws his head back on the couch just as Lance swings his legs onto Keith's lap and says, "Either way, when I go I want everything in my brain to be stored in a giant ship."
Keith's face takes on a disgusted look as he shoves his legs off. "The amount of information in your brain can be stored in a paper airplane."
Pidge lets out a chuckle as Shiro's shoulders shake in a silent laugh, his head hung. Lance's eye twitches as he shoves his face close to his Keith's. "Oh yeah?" he says. "Well the amount of information in your brain...." he trails off, not knowing what to say.
"Yeah?" Keith scoffs, glaring.
"Well, it's less than mine!" He crosses his arms, a satisfied smile on his lips. Keith scrunches his eyebrows and his mouth slightly hangs open, taking on a look of confusion.
"Oooohhhhhh, good one Lance!" Hunk raises his fist in the air as he smiles brightly at his best friend.
Keith's eye twitches as he thinks how stupid Lance is while he just smiles back at Hunk and swings his legs back onto Keith's lap. Keith doesn't move them again, but instead rolls his eyes and buries his nose deep into his text book and attempts to block out the chatter from the rest of his friends. He has a test to pass.