Chapter Text
Lance’s heart thundered in his chest. Keith was… honestly, dangerously close.
A scar ran from Keith’s hairline towards his right ear, narrowly missing his eye. He was covered in soot and dirt. Lance wanted to reach out and clean him off. Inch by inch, made clean by him.
Keith heaved out breaths. His eyes darted from Lance to the city burning before them. They were safe in this cave though, Lance could feel it. His stomach felt warm. Keith. Safe. It’s all he wanted.
Lance grabbed Keith’s hand, causing him to whip his head firmly to Lance’s hand, then Lance. Keith’s eyes shone like daybreak at midnight– a miracle.
Keith was dangerously close but Lance pulled him even closer. He acted on his impulse, for once, imbued with the brash passion of the man he loved. Lance licked his thumb, and wiped away a smudge of soot on Keith’s cheek.
“Lance–?”
“Keith.” Lance just said his name. And even though it terrified him, he hoped Keith knew what it was Lance wasn’t saying.
For Lance, love came easy. He always found himself staring out windows, heat rushing to his cheeks, dreaming of someone. He fell in love about as easily as breathing.
“I got this for you,” Lance said, his tiny five-year-old hand wrapped delicately around a buttercup, extending toward his classmate.
Her name was Seleste. Her mom did her hair every morning, flowing ribbons tied tightly around her slicked-back ponytail. That style seemed to be her favorite.
Seleste looked up from where her hands were buried in the dirt. It was recess, and Seleste was never scared to get her hands dirty making mud pies. Her ponytail bobbed at the quick movement.
“Oh,” she said, looking at it inquisitively.
Lance cleared his throat, then said his next sentence like it was hot lava, like if they stayed with him longer he would burn up.
“Will you be my girlfriend?”
“Uh…” Seleste said. She reached for the flower. Lance didn’t release it when he should’ve, too busy holding on to Seleste’s gentle voice to realize.
She held the flower to her nose. Lance knew that the weeds didn’t really smell like anything, not like his mother’s flowerbed. But Seleste smiled like it had been the same.
“If I were your girlfriend, would you bring me more flowers?”
Lance nodded, a grin taking up half his face. “Of course!”
“Sure then,” she said. “I like flowers.” She tucked the buttercup into a pocket on her overalls.
Yeah, Lance was good at being in love. He made a wonderful boyfriend. It wasn’t that hard, actually. You get girls flowers, memorize at least three things they like and get them alternating gifts based on those things. You put your anniversary in your calendar and set a reminder. You say the right things.
Seleste and Lance were inseparable for a while. She liked flowers, bugs, and Capri-suns. Lance showed her every cool caterpillar he found on the playground, brought her clippings from his mother’s garden, and always gave her his juice pouch out of his lunch.
Seleste moved to the states when they were in third grade. They’d had a tearful goodbye, but made no promises to keep in touch.
Lance didn’t fall in love again until he met Jacqueline. She was his cousin’s neighbor. She had long hair that she curled every day, and long eyelashes. She was the only seventh grader who’s mom let her wear mascara.
“Hi,” Lance said, holding the football his cousin kicked into her yard. Jacqueline raised an eyebrow at him.
“I haven’t seen you before,” she mused. She looked at him through those long eyelashes.
“I– I’m Lance. My cousin–” Lance’s voice died in his throat.
“Jacqueline.” She paused, then continued, “...Your cousin?” she said, her voice lilting.
Lance quickly regained his composure, shifting the ball onto his hip, leaning in a way that hopefully came off as suave. “My cousin, Ernesto. He lives over there–” he pointed. “We lost our ball in your yard.”
Jacqueline smiled. “Well I can help with that. It’s right there.” she gestured to the ball in his hands.
Lance stared blankly at her, then at the ball. Finally, he chuckled. His hand came to rest against his neck. “I guess you did.”
Jacqueline laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
A moment of silence passed between them.
“This might be too, uh–” Lance’s stomach fluttered with nerves. “Too something. But uh–”
“You can have my number,” she interrupted. She smiled. She had braces. It ruined nothing about her.
Lance laughed, then handed her his phone out of his pocket. She entered her name as “Jacy <333”. He smiled, then excused himself to get back to his soccer game. She waved him away.
Jacqueline and him dated until the summer before freshman year. It was wildly annoying to have an extremely cute girlfriend who went to a different school. Most of his friends didn’t believe he actually knew the girl pictured in his lockscreen until they met her when they rode bikes to the beach, or when she came and sat at the counter of his family’s pizza shop while he helped out on weekends.
They worked fine. He memorized his three things (Makeup (it’s an art), Grey’s Anatomy (Less of an art), and flowers (everybody loves flowers).) He got her palettes, watched season upon season of hospital drama, and brought her tulips. Her favorite.
Their breakup was mostly amicable. It hurt, but he knew he’d be leaving for the Galaxy Garrison soon. It made sense. She didn’t want a boyfriend she never got to see.
As easy as Lance fell in love, Lance hated crushes.
They were wildly inconvenient. None of the fun of relationships, of having someone to show off, or someone to turn to. Just being weirdly obsessed with basically a stranger. He had had crushes, of course. Girl from math class, girl who worked the ice cream stand every summer, girl from his science class. And they sucked! He bought ice cream every day one summer and spent all the money he had saved from odd jobs during the school year, just to see her and never open his mouth or learn her name.
That being said, when Lance got to the Garrison, all he wanted was a girlfriend. Just someone to be in a relationship with.
That proved completely, and entirely fruitless.
For one, there was this jerk. His name was Keith, and he was a dick. And also an asshole.
Keith was attached to the hip to Takashi Shirogane, who was by far the coolest person at the Garrison. He was a real pilot, and essentially the face of the garrison. He was Lance’s hero. He wanted to be just like him.
Sure, Lance was admitted as cargo class, but Veronica said lots of people work up to fighter. He was determined to be one of them. He worked his ass off in all his classes, but the practical exams were way tougher. But he managed. Or, he would’ve managed if not for Keith.
Rumors of him punching some kid named James spread like wildfire. That day, Lance decided that he needed to be friends with this guy. James had totally cockblocked him like two days after school started while he was talking to a cute girl from his Engineering I class. He was all like “Hey don’t you wanna come hang out with me, I noticed you like outer space. I also like outer space. Wanna look at the stars?” Which is an approximation to what he actually said, but was infuriating nonetheless. Um, of course she loved outer space? They were in “learn to be an astronaut” school. Dickhead.
Anyway, Keith was his hero. Forget Shiro, Keith served what James had coming to him on a silver platter.
“I heard James didn’t get up for, like, three whole minutes,” whispered David.
Hunk shook his head. “I was there. He didn’t get knocked out, some teachers came and grabbed him—”
“Whatever dude. That guy is scary,” David said, picking up his lunch tray. “I’m gonna go catch up on some homework. See you dudes later.”
Lance watched David leave, then turned to his roommate and fast best friend, Hunk. “He got what was coming. I hate James,” he grumbled.
“I know, bud,” Hunk said, laughing.
Lance faked a blow to the heart, “Why do you tease me so? You know how he forsook me–”
“I don’t think ‘forsook’ is a word.”
Lance scoffed. “Uh! Is too! Forsook: past tense of forsake.”
“It just sounds ridiculous.”
“Lots of words are ridiculous, just–” Lance spotted Pidge walking past their table, on his way to the line for suspicious sloppy joe’s a la garrison.
“Oh hey, there’s Pidge! He’s smart, he’ll know,” Lance said.
“I don’t know about that, I don’t think he likes you very much–”
“Pidge!” Lance shouted. A couple people other than Pidge turned their heads and shot him looks. Pidge stared daggers. “C’mere!”
He rolled his eyes, dragging his feet to their table. “This better be class related, Lance.”
“Yeah, yeah. ‘Forsook’. Is it a word?”
Pidge sighed, deep and long. “Yes, past tense of forsake.”
“There!” Lance whooped, pointing a finger towards Hunk. “Eat butts!”
“Is that seriously what you called me over for?” Pidge asked.
“Yes,” Lance responded with no hesitation. “You can run along now if you want, but you’re welcome to sit with us.”
Pidge gritted his teeth. “I’ll pass,” then he walked away.
“I wonder what his problem is,” Hunk said.
“No clue. Anyway, back to my point: eat butts.”
“Eating,” Hunk said, shaking his head fondly.
Lance, satisfied, busied himself with the green beans in front of him. He knew he should eat his vegetables, but they were just so nasty.
Lance stabbed a couple beans. “What does Keith look like, anyway? I don’t think I have matched a face to a name yet.”
Hunk squinted behind him. “See for yourself, he’s behind you. The guy with the longish black hair.”
Lance shoved his green beans in his mouth and turned around, and found Keith pretty immediately.
Lance’s heart stopped. Wow. He nearly choked on his green beans.
“Holy shit,” he said. “That guy has got to be popular with the ladies.”