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"I've gotta say, this was a much better idea than attending prom."
The words slipped from his lips before Lance had a chance to remember his filter and Keith's steps faltered momentarily before he continued to lead the way up the path they'd been on for the past few minutes. Lance thanked whoever was watching out for him that Keith hadn't turned around as he would have surely seen his flushed cheeks. Not even the excuse of walking the slight incline of the trail could explain the pink tint he knew his cheeks and neck had acquired.
When Lance had pictured his senior prom night as a child, he had imagined being dressed to the nines; hair and makeup done perfectly, the picture of masculine elegance. He would be escorting Allura through a crowd of his peers to dance in the center of the floor until the end of the night, when they would be crowned prom royalty and then he would live his life happily ever after, the end. He had even expressed this dream to Allura, who had been on board with the whole thing for quite some time. They had even planned what their acceptance speech would say in the event of their inevitable win.
That was the dream until Keith Kogane sauntered into his history class at the start of the school year and completely flipped his life upside down.
Lance had been enamored by the mysterious boy from the first moment he laid eyes on him, but had quickly found that Keith had no plans to make friends or even speak to anyone unless called upon by a teacher. It had taken a conveniently assigned partner project for Lance to finally get Keith to acknowledge him, and the two began a tentative acquaintanceship. Lance had managed to introduced Keith to his friends, and while he did accept the occasional invitation to sit with them at lunch, he tended to keep to himself outside of working with Lance on their shared history project in the beginning.
At first the hesitancy and closed off attitude Keith displayed had been mildly infuriating to Lance, but as the weeks went by and they spent more time working together Keith eventually started to open up. He had explained to Lance one evening about two months after they first met that transferring from a military academy to a public high school had been a bit of a culture shock. Lance had a sense that there was much more to his closed off personality than a simple transfer, but he let it slide because he was finally getting to know something else about Keith other than his favorite color was black (to which he had countered that black wasn’t a color, and the subsequent argument that ensued had ended with Keith begrudgingly admitting that his favorite color as actually red. Small victories).
Their first semester ended with the A- they received on their project as the cherry on top of their newly solidified friendship. It also came with the realization that Lance had developed some more than friendly feelings for Keith, and had no idea what to do about them.
Flash forward four months (and an alarming amount of concealed gay panic later) to the current situation in which Keith had cornered Lance half an hour into prom and asked if he wanted to ditch and go somewhere with him. There had only been a moment of hesitation on Lance’s part before they were climbing on Keith’s motorbike and speeding away from prom toward the woods on the east side of town. Keith’s voice cut through Lance’s distracted train of thought and he stumbled on a small tree root.
“Not too much farther and we’ll be there.”
“Yeah cool, cool. Uh, where is it we’re going again?” Keith let out a huffed laugh and turned his head to watch Lance catch up, pointing up over the hill they were climbing as if that would answer his question.
As the boys crested the hill, a crumbling structure came into view and Lance gaped for a moment before remembering himself and snapping his mouth shut.
“What is this place?”
“It was a church about fifty years ago, but it shut down when the other side of the city started to become more developed and people decided that the structure was too old to support large gatherings,” Keith’s voice was much closer now, having stopped next to Lance when they came within a few feet of the entrance to the ruins. Most of the windows were broken but the few that still held their stained-glass panes shone brightly in the waning sunset, casting a gorgeous glow into the exposed chapel.
“How did you find this place? I’ve lived here for almost my whole life and I had no idea this place even existed!”
“I like to find places to be alone. It’s something I've done since I was a kid. When I first moved here, I was in kind of a rough place so I wanted somewhere that I could get away to for a while and I eventually found this place. When I’m here I don’t have to pretend to be anything but myself, and I can forget everything else going on for a few minutes when the real world gets to be too heavy.” Keith quietly cleared his throat when he finished talking and noticed Lance staring at him with a strange look in his eyes.
“Will you show me around?” The question comes unbidden from Lance and once again he cursed his lack of a filter, but Keith surprised him by grabbing his hand and tugging him forward toward the entrance. The insides of the ruins are lit up just enough that they could make their way through the chapel and up to the second floor. Keith sat down against the wall, staring up at Lance until he settled next to him and took in their surroundings. Most of the roof was gone from this part of the building, giving them an open view of the sky as the stars began to show.
“So, how exactly did you think your prom night would go?”
“What?” Keith let out a low laugh at the startled look Lance gave him, tipping his head back against the old stone wall to stare into the sky as he replied.
“You said earlier that this was a, quote, ‘much better idea than attending prom’. So, I was wondering how you thought your prom night would go?”
Lance let out the breath he’d been holding and ponders the question for a moment, looking out over the ruined church. His first instinct was to joke his way out of answering, but the heavy feeling in his chest stopped him from doing so.
“To be honest, I used to have this whole elaborate plan for how I wanted my senior prom to play out. I had thought for a long time that it would go just the way I had planned, with Allura and I winning prom king and queen and my friends and I all partying together. I had the speech already written and everything, you know.”
“Of course you did. So, what happened then? How come your grand plan never came to fruition?”
“I met you.”
There’s a beat of silence, and Lance swears he could hear a pin drop. Every part of him wants to turn and look at Keith, but the fear of his reaction keeps his eyes trained on the sky. He feels more than hears Keith take a breath in, preparing to speak, and the words spill out into the quiet of the ruins.
“I met you and it’s like I can’t imagine my life going the way I used to plan for. You walked into my life and all I've wanted to do since then is scrap my plans and follow you wherever you’ll lead me. It scares the hell out of me, Keith, because I’ve never felt like this about anyone or anything in my life, but somehow it makes sense because it’s you.” Lance snapped his mouth shut and closed his eyes because oh my god I just said all of that out loud what the fuck is happening-
Keith’s lips pressing firmly to his own stop the panicked thoughts racing through his mind and holy shit Keith was kissing him! Lance slid one hand around the back of Keith’s neck, tangling his fingers into the long hairs there as he sank into the kiss. Keith’s hand grasped at Lance’s hip, pulling him closer until they finally had to part for air. Lance rested his forehead against Keith’s, both of them breathing heavily for a moment as the adrenaline rushed through their bodies. Lance let out a quiet laugh, scratching his nails lightly on Keith’s scalp causing him to let out a stifled groan.
“So... you like me, huh?” Keith whispered, leaning back just enough to look into Lance’s eyes. Lance blushed from his ears down to his chest, a smile stretched across his lips despite the teasing remark. When he didn’t reply, Keith ducked down to kiss him once more, whispering against his lips,
“I like you too, in case it wasn’t clear.” Lance rolled his eyes and pulled Keith in, wrapping his arms around the shorter boy’s neck and laughing.
“Best senior prom. Ever.”