Archive of Our Own

Lance had a problem.

Albeit, Lance usually tended to have problems. Mainly self-imposed, but he ignored that small detail. Besides, this problem was entirely not his fault. Nope. It was all Keith's fault. With his cobalt eyes, and his soft hair (or at least Lance imagined it was soft), and his lean figure, and his toned muscles, and the way sweat trailed down his jaw and neck when he trained, and-

Right, anyways.

Problem.

All Keith's fault.

What's the problem, you ask? Lance, you see, had somehow - against all odds - developed a massive crush on his rival. It had started back when he and Keith took down Sendak and had only grown since then. He was getting scared it wasn't even just a crush anymore...and he was absolutely sure that he was the last person Keith would return these feelings for. With all the squabbling they did, it was a wonder they hadn't actually gotten into any serious arguments so far. Lance told himself that was a good sign. A ray of light, instead of a tentative silver lining on a giant storm cloud...Anyways, the fact remained that Lance could do nothing about his current predicament. He couldn't tell the others. They couldn't keep secrets. Well, some of them could, but someone always found out eventually. "Someone" being an overly-inquisitive kid with access to too much technology and way too much free time in between missions. And, he most definitely could not tell Keith. But if he didn't tell anyone he was going to explode. He was so used to being open about how he felt about someone that he could barely stand having to hide his feelings for Keith.

He needed some sort of outlet. This was becoming unbearable. And then, after weeks of agonizing, he got an idea. He'd said something to himself in Spanish when Pidge had asked what he'd just said.

"You mean...the lions didn't translate it for you?" he'd asked.

"No. I suppose they've only gathered information on English from Earth, since that's all we five usually speak," Pidge explained. "Or maybe they think Spanish is just an extension of the usual language we speak - English - and don't think it needs to be translated. I'm sure once they pick up enough of it they'll start translating it but who knows how long that's going to ta- Why do you have that look on your face that says you're up to no good?"

Lance didn't answer that. He explained briefly that what he'd said basically meant the adult version of "Gosh fudging darn!" Pidge threw some pliers at him, since they hated it when the others did the whole over-censoring around them, especially considering that they themself had the mouth of a sailor. He'd gracefully dodged the projectile, and then ran off down the hall. If the lions really weren't translating Spanish...then he'd just found the best possible outlet for his pent up feelings. He had to find Keith ASAP and test it out.

Of course Keith was in the first place he looked. The training deck. He was here 90% of the time. Possibly more. Lance had unintentionally been training more recently just to spend time with the red paladin. Keith was just finishing off a level 5 training sequence when Lance walked in. He looked up at Lance once he'd caught his breath.

"Lance? You've been coming by more often. Finally taking things seriously?"

Lance shrugged at the casual teasing he'd grown used to. He'd long since learned Keith didn't put any venom into it.

"Figured you could use a head start on me, that's all."

"Please," Keith scoffed, "I could kick your ass any day."

"Me gustaría eso."

"What?" Keith said, confused.

Lance could've jumped for joy. The lions really weren't translating what he said in Spanish.

"I said 'yeah right, mullet head,'" he lied.

"Hey, you leave my mullet out of this."

"Ah, eres lindo. I'll leave your mullet out of it once it stops being all mullido."

"What does that even mean?" Keith asked, hand reaching up to touch his mullet defensively.

"All you have to know is that it was an insult."

"Yeah, I figured," Keith said. Ouch. Sure, Keith thinking Lance had insulted him instead of flirted with him was the intended effect, but Lance still didn't like hearing the other's negative feedback. "Just get out your bayard and let's train. Betcha won't last a minute."

"Tu me das demasiado crédito, amorcito," he grumbled as he stepped forward, summoning his bayard to his hand and preparing for a beating from the AI program.

-- V --

This sort of thing went on for weeks. Every time they talked, Lance said something to Keith in Spanish. A compliment, a term of endearment, something outright flirtatious. No one knew what he was saying. Sometimes Lance would throw in a fake translation - saying they were insults instead - just to throw them off his trail. Usually, though, he'd leave it up to Keith's imagination. Lance knew he was digging his own grave here. Knew he was just making Keith angrier at him. But, seriously, what else was he supposed to do? Tell him? Nope. Out of the question. He wasn't stupid. He'd rather keep up their usual annoying banter than have Keith get awkward around him, or avoid him. So, as far as he was concerned, things were going as good as they could be. Then he almost ruined everything during a training session.

Keith and Lance had still been training more often recently, and Keith had finally asked Lance to fight against him instead of the training simulator. He'd said something about it being more realistic and unpredictable to fight another person, but Lance was too giddy to listen all that closely. He felt happy and somewhat honored that Keith felt like he was good enough to fight against. Much as he usually disliked to admit it, Keith was better than him at some things, and one of those things was definitely hand-to-hand fighting. He agreed, and they warmed up before jumping right into it.

To his credit, Lance lasted a lot longer than he thought he would. But Keith still beat him, pinning him down, his fist an inch away from Lance's nose. They were so close he could count the freckles on Keith's cheeks if they sat there long enough. He started to get a bit self-conscious. Lance was about to say something witty or maybe another Spanish pick up line to cover his nerves, but Keith spoke first.

"You left your left side wide open, amorcito."

Lance froze, eyes wide. For a split second, fear washed over him. He thought his cover was blown. That Keith somehow knew Spanish and had been messing with him this whole time and he was about to tell him to never get near him again-

Then he almost immediately realized that that was ridiculous, and Keith was probably only repeating what Lance had been saying thinking it meant something different. But still, Keith calling Lance "amorcito" was enough to make Lance heart beat a bit faster in his chest. A blush spread across his face. He kept thinking about what it would be like to hear Keith call him that in earnest. To know what it means. And to mean it. And suddenly the fluttering in his chest was replaced with an ache. He knew that it would never happen. Keith would never feel that way about him. He got a bitter taste in his mouth. Keith got a weird look on his face and his eyebrows scrunched together.

"What the heck? Why are you blushing?"

"Why are you calling me 'amorcito'?" Lance fired back.

"You said it means 'idiot'! What, is it actually some sort of horrible cuss word or something?"

"I...get off me-"

"Dude, chill out-"

"I said get off!" Lance yelled pushing Keith off of him and scrambling out from under him. He stood up, and Keith quickly followed him.

"What the hell is up with you?"

"Nothing! Just...don't call me that again, got it?"

"You call me that all the time!"

Lance bit his lip. How the hell was he supposed to get out of this one?

"Okay, fine, sorry. I won't call you it again. Now if you'll excuse me I need my beauty sleep. Later."

He brushed past Keith before the other had the chance to respond, rushing out the doors and back to his room. Once he was there he flopped onto his bed and groaned into his pillow. Welp. That was a fuck-up if ever he'd seen one. He'd lost his cool and let his emotions get away with him, which was supposed to be Keith's thing. Hopefully Keith would just brush it off as Lance having a bad day...Lance was definitely having one now. He kept thinking about what it would be like if Keith liked him too. It hurt to think about, since he was sure Keith didn't feel the same, especially not after tonight. He finally dragged himself up and to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Maybe some sleep would help him feel better.

-- V --

Keith had had enough.

Sure, he and Lance didn't get along 100% of the time, but he'd thought that they'd been really hitting it off lately. They'd been talking more. Hanging out. Even training more together. He'd caught himself thinking that Lance was a bit taller then when they'd first met. His jaw a bit sharper. Shoulders a bit broader. He had recently gotten close enough to notice a small patch of gray in his blue eyes. And he'd noticed how those eyes seemed to follow him sometimes. At first he'd though nothing of it, until every time they did he'd feel a brief flutter in his chest...He thought things had been getting better. Now they seemed to be getting worse and worse.

It'd started off innocently enough. He and Lance had exchanged banter as usual. Lance had thrown out something in Spanish, and even though Keith didn't understand Spanish he'd gone along with it pretty well. Then it started happening more often. At first it'd been kinda funny, then it got irritating because Lance would almost never tell him what he was saying, then it just got...weird. It's not like there was ever any malice in what Lance said. He had no doubt about that. But what had happened in the training room had been getting to him.

It had been such a good session. True, Lance wasn't as good a partner as the training simulator overall, but he figured he'd enjoy sparring with him more. He had been right. It was a lot more fun, and Lance had thrown in some moves that the training simulator wouldn't have, keeping Keith on his toes. Of course he'd won in the end, since Lance still had a bad habit of leaving one of his sides a bit open on some of his kicks, but it had them both smiling. He'd tried using one of the words Lance used so often, but it had backfired. He had no clue why Lance had acted that way. Honestly, what did that word really mean? He was pretty sure Lance had lied by this point, but why? Was anything he was saying what he (sometimes) said it was? He wanted answers. Nothing was adding up. So he went to the one person who may be able to help.

"Hey, Pidge, you got a sec?"

"Yeah. I just finished what I was working on actually. What's up?"

Keith briefly explained what had just happened.

"I was wondering if you could built me something that will translate Spanish."

"Hm..." Pidge hummed, deep in thought, "I don't know Spanish. And we don't have access to any Spanish dictionary or databases. But..."

"But?"

"But, I may have an idea. I could make a device that would focus your lion's language processing unit on Spanish. It would still translate languages it already knows, but instead of constantly processing every language it hears for new words as if it's trying to learn it for the first time, it will focus that function solely on Spanish. Specifically Lance speaking Spanish, if I add in a voice recognition function and-"

"Okay, got it, thanks Pidge!" he said taking his leave before they could suck him into one of their technology rants.

"Be back in an hour!" Pidge called after him.

-- V --

"Alright, hold your hand out."

Keith did as Pidge said and they snapped on a small black band around his wrist.

"This is it. I've already synced it up with your lion, so it should start working right away. It may not translate every word right away, but once it hears enough it should work fine. Probably within a day or two given how often he talks to you," they said, glancing up at him with this weird twinkle in their eye. "You'll know when it's processing something Lance is saying. I put in a little red LED that will blink twice when the voice recognition kicks in. Also, it's not perfect so when it does start translating you may hear a bit of a delay or overlay in the words being spoken, but the translation itself should be sound enough."

"You're a lifesaver. How the hell did you do all this in an hour?"

"Never underestimate a nerd on a mission, dude."

"Fair enough. Wait, what's the mission?"

"Top secret."

He knew better than to pry. He thanked them again, then went on his way. He didn't think he'd have a chance to test it out today, but tomorrow...he hurried to his room, both anxious and eager to see what he'd discover the next day.

-- V --

Lance did as he usually did when faced with an overly awkward situation that involved Keith, and acted as if the incident from yesterday had never happened. Thankfully, Keith seemed to give him a break and do the same. They were all eating breakfast and they had fallen right back into their old banter. Lance had teased him a few times already, throwing in a few Spanish "insults" while he was at it. Keith didn't pout like he normally did when Lance did it though. He just raised an eyebrow and kept eating. He wondered if that was a good sign. Not pouting couldn't be a bad sign, could it? Either way, at least Keith wasn't acting awkward around him after that.

In fact, Keith seemed to just be....around, more than usual today. He seemed to always be in the vicinity. In his peripheral vision. If Lance didn't know any better he'd think Keith was following him. Keith even approached him to have another training session later in the day. Okay, something was definitely...off. Lance couldn't put his finger on it. It wasn't so much a malicious feeling as a suspicious one. In the end, he shrugged it off and trained away with Keith.

-- V --

"You throw in some pretty weird moves, sometimes, you know that? Are they even moves? They're more like awkward scrambles, honestly," Keith teased as they both sat back against the cool glass walls of the training deck, sipping some water Coran had brought them.

Lance pouted and said, "Yeah, well, tus ojos son beautiful."

Keith almost spat out his drink. He managed to keep his cool. He knew that had been the translator. It had started translating smaller words - the, it, for, and - hours ago, but until now, nothing major. But why was Lance saying the word "beautiful" to him? Was the translator working right? He decided to test it.

"Hm? What?" he said, pretending not to have heard him.

"I said, tus eyes son beautiful, jerk."

Keith felt like he had stepped through a wormhole into an alternate dimension. So the translator had finally started translating properly. But what the hell? If he didn't know any better he'd think Lance was saying his eyes were beautiful, but that....that couldn't be it...no way. The darn wristband had to be malfunctioning or something. He'd have to take it to Pidge later and see what's up.

-- V --

He didn't get to see Pidge until later the next day - Allura had him, Lance, and Shiro on a supply run - and by then it was everything he could do to not show a reaction to the things Lance was saying. To keep pretending he was clueless. Lance always said everything as if he was dishing out an insult, but his words were anything but.

"I want to run my hands through your hair."

"Hey, watch where you're landing, handsome."

"Back home, we call people like you cute idiot."

"I wish I could tell you how I feel."

He kept telling himself it had to be busted. No. Completely malfunctioning. Or maybe he was dreaming. Or someone had swapped out Lance with some weird clone that kept flirting with Keith in Spanish. This was space! Stranger things had happened! Either way, he was convinced this couldn't be what Lance was really saying. He wouldn't allow himself to get his hopes up like that.

Once he was back on the castleship, he stormed straight to Pidge's makeshift research station and unclasped the wristband. He practically shoved it under the other's nose.

"It's broken."

"Did you break it?"

"No, it's just...it's not translating things right."

"And you know this because....?"

"It just isn't!" Keith snapped, blush finally spreading unbidden across his face. "No way."

"Okay, chill dude, I'll check it out for you real quick."

Pidge snatched it from Keith's hand and connected it to their laptop, typing away for a solid minute or so before unplugging it.

"Nope. It should be working fine. Has it been glitching out?"

"No..."

"Then everything you're hearing is properly translated. Why? What's he saying? Is it bad?"

"I...no. Not bad."

Keith sort of just wandered out after that, absentmindedly putting the band back on his wrist. He was still reeling from knowing that what Lance was saying was...really what he was saying. But why say it in Spanish? Why not just tell him? Did he like him? Or did he not? Was this some new way to mess with him? If it was it was a low blow. He didn't think Lance would mess with someone's feelings like that. At least, he really, really hoped not. But if it wasn't that then...just why was he doing this? Why the strange roundabout way of flirting? Was it even flirting if he wasn't being honest with Keith about it? In fact, why keep your flirting a secret from the one you're flirting with!? Just what was it?

And then it clicked.

Lance wanted to flirt with him.

But he didn't want Keith to know.

He remembered something Lance had said on the supply run.

"I wish I could tell you how I feel."

Keith cursed under his breath, snapping back to reality.

"That idiot."

-- V --

Keith stormed toward's Lance's room with purpose, managing to put on a neutral expression before sliding the door open without knocking and leaning against the frame. He was greeted by Lance, shirt raised half way and jaw slightly open in surprise. He counted to three - getting a chance to appreciate that Lance was definitely filling out more from all their training sessions - before the other screeched and pulled his shirt down. Keith felt a bit bad. Lance had this weird thing about people seeing his chest. He knew that. He should've been more considerate, but he'd let his current annoyance get a hold of him. He tried to reign it in, with little success, so he decided to keep things short.

"Dude!" he said indignantly, "Ever heard of knocking? I could've been nak-"

"Wanna train?" Keith said.

"Uh....sure?"

"Cool. See you there."

He didn't wait for Lance to change, striding brusquely to the training deck and waiting for him there.

"Hey," Lance greeted as he walked in, looking at Keith apprehensively. "Anyone ever told you if you keep making a face it'll get stuck that way?"

Keith automatically relaxed his face, only now realizing he'd been scowling slightly.

"I'm not making a face."

"Well not now, but just before you wer-"

"Can we just get started already?" he quipped.

"Okay, geez, what's got your boxers in a bunch?" Lance grumbled, but still joined him at the center of the room.

Without waiting, Keith rushed in, throwing a punch aimed at Lance's face.

"Whoa, watch the merchandise!" he screamed as he dodged, and kept dodging as Keith kept pressuring him. "Okay seriously - whoa! - Did I do something to tick you off? I mean - oof - more than usual. Not that I'm - shit! - not usually an absolute delight, but you seem-"

Keith landed a kick to Lance's right leg, toppling him. He hit the ground with a satisfying thud, limbs sprawling outwards.

"-angry," he wheezed, as he tried to get back his breath. Before he could recover, Keith pinned Lance down holding down his wrists above his head and placing a knee beside him and on his chest. They stayed like that for a few seconds, panting a bit, staring at each other.

"God, kiss me."

Oh. My God. That's it. Keith had had enough.

"In English, please."

"I said 'Get off, jerk.'"

"Wrong answer," he grumbled before leaning down, closing the distance between them until their lips were pressed together. He didn't have to have his eyes open to know that Lance's had gone wide. He pulled back sooner than he wanted to. He had guessed right. Lance's eyes were wide in shock, his lips still slightly parted. He blinked a few times. Keith didn't know what was going to happen next. It had him on edge. Then Lance spoke.

"Kiss me again."

So he did.

Keith didn't know how long they were there on the training room floor. Long enough for his arms to get sore. Long enough for Lance to slowly lean upwards until he was sitting up and Keith was in his lap. Long enough for his hair to get messed up at some point. Long enough for there to be more than one kiss. Long enough for the kisses to flow from short to long, gentle to needy, fast and awkward to slow and smooth. Long enough for all of this but never actually long enough at all.

Eventually, they pulled apart, lips and cheeks tinted red.

"So...either my cover is blown and I'm an idiot, or that came out of nowhere and I am still an idiot."

"It's good that you're finally self-aware of your idiocy," Keith scoffed. "And yeah, your cover's blown."

"Since when do you know Spanish?"

"I don't."

"Wha-"

"Pidge helped," he explained briefly, holding up his wrist to show the flashing light of the translation band. "As you've said, you were being an idiot. I was getting fed up with it, and anxious, so-"

"Wait, why were you anxious?" Lance asked incredulously. "If anyone was anxious it was me."

"...I was anxious because a certain idiot who I liked and who I thought liked me was suddenly acting like a complete jackass. Now let me finish-"

"Y...You like me?"

"No, Lance, I just go around making out with everyone I train with."

"Since when!?"

"Don't know, exactly."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I could say the same damn thing to you!" Keith shouted, separating himself and standing up. "And at least I didn't come up with some ridiculous, self-centered idea to both simultaneously flirt with and push away the guy I liked! Who even does that? Imagine the mixed signals I was getting! Why didn't you just tell me? Did you think I hated you or something?"

Lance stood up too, slowly and tentatively. He looked smaller than Keith remembered. He was avoiding eye contact, and looking like he wanted to crawl away and hide in one of the cryogenic healing pods for the next thousand years.

"No, not hate, I just-"

"Then what!"

"I...I'm sorry. I know it was stupid, especially now. I should've told you, but I...you gotta understand I..."

"You. What."

"...I didn't think you'd ever like me back. Not in a million years."

Keith didn't know what to say to that. He'd thought his growing crush on Lance would be easy to pick up on. Just like he'd picked up on Lance's feelings for him. But he could hear the certainty in Lance's voice. His tension and aggravation finally started to flow out of him.

"Why wouldn't I like you back?" he asked, finally stepping closer.

"Lots of reasons," Lance joked tentatively, also stepping forward.

"True. But I'm not exactly perfect either."

He waited for Lance to elaborate.

"I...wasn't sure if you'd be, ah, attracted to me. Since I'm trans."

"I know you are...Why would that be an issue?"

"It's not that I wanted to doubt you or anything it's just...it's been an issue before. With other people. Even when I thought it wouldn't be. So that sort of thing just kind of-"

"Sticks with you. Yeah," Keith said. He couldn't know exactly what Lance was feeling, but he'd experienced something close enough to know that that sort of experience always left a "what if" in you mind, even about people closest to you. Sometimes especially about people close to you.

"Yeah. That. And I didn't want to but I kept overthinking shit and not wanting to get my hopes up, like, I know I've got this whole tall, dark, and handsome thing going for me but I'm really not as confident as my flawless and unparalleled acting skills may lead some to believe and honestly it's all-"

"Lance?"

"Yes."

"Breathe."

Lance suddenly realized he'd said all of that rather quickly, and all in one go, and his lungs were burning. He sucked in a breath, held it for a sec, then let it all go.

"Thanks."

Keith took one more step towards Lance, so that he was close enough to reach out and take his hand.

"I'm sorry for exploding at you."

"It's alright. You had every right to be ticked off. You're right, I should've just told you."

"True, but still, I didn't handle it very well. I'm sorry for not seeing things from your point of view sooner. It's just...I've never even briefly thought that you being trans was any sort of issue. So it never occurred to me that you may think that I could think it was. Y'know?"

"You have no idea how relieved hearing you say that made me feel," Lance said honestly.

"I'm glad."

"So...we're good?"

"Hmmmm," Keith said, pretending to mull it over. "Kiss me again, and I'll call it even."

Lance just smirked, already leaning in.

"You drive a hard bargain."

-- V --

"So," Lance said as they walked back to their rooms, "I never heard how you were suddenly fluent in Spanish."

"Oh yeah, sorry, it's almost like something kept interrupting me."

"Yikes, okay, deserved that one. But no, seriously, how did you know what I was saying?"

Keith held up his hand, fingers laced with Lance's, to show the small black band around his wrist.

"This thing. It's a translator that's synced with my lion and focused on figuring out Spanish...or something like that. Pidge's explanation was more complicated."

"Pidge made it?"

"Who else? I went to them after the, ah, training incident the other day. I told them what happened, and they whipped this up in like, an hour. Tops. Said they'd made it their mission or something."

"...how much exactly did you tell Pidge?"

"Hm? Oh, just that you'd stormed out after I called you amorcito, even though you call me that all the ti-"

"Oh no."

"What?"

"This is bad. This is very bad."

"What? What's bad?"

"We've gotta leave the castleship. It's not safe."

"Lance, your drama is showing."

"Keith, Pidge is Canadian. They speak French."

"And?"

"And love in Spanish means love, and it's the same in-"

"Okay, I'm gonna file away the fact that you just said "love" to me twice to process at a later date, and pause you real quick," Keith said, unclasping the band from his wrist. "I need to take this band off. I can't tell what you're trying to explain since it's still on. Okay, go."

"Like I was saying, in Spanish, amor means love. In French, it's really similar. Amour. They probably knew what I was up to as soon as you told them what happened."

"Oh. I still don't see how that's a problem."

"This is Pidge we're talking about. The whole castleship probably knows by now and they're just waiting to sink their claws in."

"You're overreacting."

"One time I liked this girl in ninth grade and my sister found out right before I was gonna ask her on a date, and by the time I got home from school my tias had all gathered at my place and were lying in wait with my mom for a full interrogation."

"Oh, come on, the team wouldn't do tha-"

"Ho. Ly. Crow," they both heard, and turned simultaneously to look down the hall, where Hunk was standing at an intersection, staring at their still-linked hands. "Pidge was right! I've gotta tell the others they'll all want to know it worked out. Congrats you two!"

Lance raised an eyebrow at Keith as Hunk ran off with the news.

"...This doesn't prove anything."

"Tu sabes."

"In English, please."

"I said 'kiss me again.'"

"Nice try."