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It would have been a quiet night on the castleship, if it had not been for the sheer annoyance looming over everyone’s heads. Nothing seemed to go anywhere for them, neither in their training nor in Pidge and Hunk’s attempt at fixing a particularly complicated code in the ship’s system. In a rather unsuccessful attempt at calming their nerves, Coran dragged them into a table setup for Monsters and Mana.
Their group had been putting everything toward a new villain Coran had introduced, but so far, they were failing miserably. Block, Hunk’s character, seemed to be no match to the wizard they were up against. Allura’s archer, Valayun, missed every single shot, and Shiro’s sword seemed to be doing more damage to himself than his opponent. Pidge’s dwarf, Meklavar, was furiously slashing at him with her axe and was about to do fatal damage as Pike, Lance’s embodiment, accidentally cut her off by teleporting to the wrong position on the battlefield, causing them both to crash. After a while of watching them in amusement, Coran chimed in.
“From the shadows emerges a striking figure, lured in by the sounds of your tomfoolery, joining your fight.” Coran pulled out a figurine, placing it near the entrance of the tomb the wizard had lured them into. “Would you like to introduce your character?” he asked, startling Keith.
Keith had been enraptured while watching the game unravel, occasionally throwing glances at Lance’s character sheet, trying to understand what was going on, having missed all previous sessions. Lance, who was sitting right next to him and had his arm casually draped over his shoulder, patted his knee encouragingly. Keith studied his character sheet, blinking slowly.
“I call him ‘Thunderstorm Darkness.’”
Lance snorted. “That’s the least creative name I’ve heard.”
“I think it’s a great name,” Shiro said.
“Shiro, you literally didn’t even try,” Pidge shot back.
“I just don’t understand why you’re so against letting me play as a paladin.”
“Can we please just continue?” Allura slammed her fists on the table. Keith quickly moved his character closer to the rest of the group.
“Seems like you could use some help?” Thunder smirked, preparing to join their battle.
“Don’t think you can just chime in and magically solve everything—” Pike started before the words were caught in his throat.
Even though he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, Keith had spent quite a bit of time designing his persona.
A barbarian emerged from behind a pile of rocks, white fur draped around his shoulders, horns twisting above his head, and wearing a shirt short enough to show some muscle. He carried a weapon almost as tall as him.
“Your character looks so cool! That’s not fair!” Lance threw up his hands, facing to the side to hide the blush creeping up on his face.
Pike faced away, very obviously trying to not get caught staring.
Meklavar huffed, moving the conversation to the new party member. “He certainly looks like trouble.”
“I think we should trust him,” Pike interjected, dodging a carelessly launched arrow fired by Valayun.
“And you know that how?”
“It’s my assassin sense. He’s not a threat.”
“I’m… not sure that’s a thing,” Block pointed out.
“It doesn’t matter! We haven’t made any progress in hours, so we need any help we can get!”
“I wouldn’t have needed any help if you hadn’t blocked my view in the final moment!” Meklavar shot back at him.
“Guys!” Shiro tried regaining order, but the fighting continued even more loudly with the entire party now clawing at each other’s throats.
Sneaking by them, Thunder feverishly tried getting a hit on the wizard. Pike yelled a warning his way but to no avail. Before he knew it, he was thrown against a wall with vigor. The wizard finally had enough of their shenanigans, sending a shockwave through the room. It propelled them in different directions and locked them into tiny individual cells. He let out a maniacal laugh. Thunder watched as Pike teleported next to him while the wizard was distracted by their enraged team members.
“See, I told you. You can’t brute force your way about this.” Pike sighed, leaning against the cold cell wall. Thunder relented, dropping down at his side.
“If there’s really no other option… I guess we’re just stuck here then?”
Keith didn’t mind too much, leaning against Lance and listening to the others’ bickering. It was nice to have some downtime with the team—Lance especially—but it was difficult to follow their enthusiasm when, half of the time, he had no idea what they were talking about. It felt like it wasn’t just the games he had missed on, like there was some barrier he couldn’t quite cross any longer, a joke he wasn’t in on, spoken at his expense. Lance reached for his hand under the table, and maybe it didn’t matter, maybe he could just make today count.
“You know what we haven't tried yet?” Lance moved his figurine closer to his.
“What?” Thunder leaned in a little closer, his breath hitching inches away from Pike's face. They studied each other’s face for a while, both seeming quite nervous.Thunder’s heart skipped a beat. He grinned back at him, making Pike crack up a smile.
“I think you’re gonna like this idea, if you’d do me the honor.”
Pike scooted a little closer and entangled their hands, resting his left hand on Thunder’s cheek.
“Hey, wizard, watch this!” he shouted with a triumphant grin on his face. The wizard’s head turned in their direction, and Pike wasted not a single moment. He wrapped his left hand around the back of Thunder’s head, grabbing at his hair and pulling him close. Their noses bumped against each other. Thunder internally chuckled about Pike’s impatience, getting pulled even closer. They had wanted this for far too long to keep waiting any longer.
When their lips finally met, a surge of electricity went through the room, running through their bodies like a spell being cast. If he could, he would have made them stay like this forever. After they parted, Thunder let a hand run through Pike’s hair and over his ears, tickling him softly.
The wizard turned to them slowly letting out an abhorrent screech. “How dare you!” he hollered. “That was my only weakness!” Only moments later, all that was left of him was a trail of ashes trickling across the stone floor. The door of their cells flew open.
“What just happened?” Pidge looked confused over the table.
Hunk thought for a bit before laughing. “When we were fighting the wizard, we were all getting into each other’s space and yelling at each other. I think the goal of this was to actually not do that for once.”
“I may have changed the plan for this session midway through, yes,“ Coran admitted.
“Kissing is the opposite of fighting, no?” Lance smirked, turning toward Keith again, whom he now felt like had earned himself an actual kiss in return, not just their characters. The room was dimly lit to make the game night cozier and the atmosphere more mysterious, yet Lance loved that, in the darkness, only he could make out the slight blush on Keith’s face. He leaned over and pressed a kiss on his cheek.
For a while, they listened to the team fighting Coran over how unfair this was and Coran yelling back that his only goal had been for them to work together.
“You didn’t even have to do this. We could have done it in other ways.” Keith smiled softly.
“Well, maybe I just wanted to,” Lance replied coyly.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Coran chirped, trying to wrap up the discussion. “Now, after you have cleared the world of this threat, there are a couple more side quests we could—”
“As cute as this was, I’m out.” Pidge shook her head, rising from her seat. “Nothing against you, Coran, but I’m going back to decoding.”
“But you haven’t even heard the villain’s tragic backstory yet!” Coran feverishly tried to corral them back to the table.
“Maybe another time, Coran.” Shiro rose from his seat looking over to Hunk. “I think it might be time to get dinner started.”
Hunk, who had been grinning at his friends, shot up as well, stumbling over his words to say goodbye before leaving with Shiro.
“But I prepared a special item for your victory.” Coran sank in his chair.
Allura sighed before smiling at him. “If you promise to help me with my repairs, I would gladly listen to you plan the next session.”
At the table, Lance leaned over, cupping Keith’s face with his palms, staring into his eyes. Keith bumped their foreheads together. It didn’t take long for them to break out in laughter again, until Keith leaned forward once more, pressing his lips against Lance’s.