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Lance stares at Keith, unblinking.
Keith stares back, face blank but eyebrows tilted in a way that indicates he’s feeling slightly out of place in the conversation; not yet confused but getting there.
Lance takes a deep breath, sticks his pinky in his ear and twists it around as if cleaning out the wax.
“Dude!” Keith protests, “That’s gross.” His nose wrinkles in disgust but Lance just ignores him, flicking his findings away, all while boring holes into Keith with his eyes.
“What do you mean I’m not the best sex you’ve ever had?” Lance is decidedly put out about this fact. He has had sex with many people, especially in the past three years (college has been good to him) and has very frequently been told he’s the best sex they’ve ever had.
Even if they were saying it just to shut him up.
Besides isn’t lying to your partner about this type of thing common courtesy? Aren’t you supposed to tell them it’s amazing, that they’re amazing?
So how dare Keith tell him that he’s not?
Especially since this is the best sex Lance has ever had.
“I mean you’re not.” Keith says, still not quite following the conversation, unsure why this is a problem, maybe Lance’s ego’s been bruised? That thing is the size of Jupiter.
“Who is it?” Lance demands, getting up in Keith’s face, determination radiating from his every pore.
Keith tries to back up a little but Lance is unrelenting, “Who is what?”
“The best sex you’ve ever had. Who is it?”
Keith blinks, definitely his ego then.
“Shiro. But if it makes you feel better you’re the second best sex I’ve ever had?” It comes out as a question because despite narrowing the issue to Lance’s oversized ego, Keith is still slightly bewildered as to why this is a big thing.
“SECOND BEST?” If possible, Lance is more put out by this, “And how did you even manage to bang Shiro? Shiro has that whole I-don’t-date-my-friends rule.”
Lance is very familiar with this rule. He’s asked Shiro out 22 times in the last three years and been rejected exactly 23 times (there was this one time Shiro shot him down before Lance could even open his mouth and ask).
He’s warned Allura about this rule but she’s determined to get into Shiro’s pants (mission name: Peeling Space Daddy’s Banana). Allura has a pie chart, blue prints, and codenames for literally everything and everyone.
(She gets the only cool one: Mission Control. Whereas everyone else has to deal with their less than stellar nicknames. Lance’s is Zenon because of that one time when they got drunk and watched old Disney movies. He’s tried to petition this twice. Allura has threatened worse nicknames. He has learned to love and accept Zenon even if his friends sometimes reference him as “The 21st Century Girl.”)
(Allura’s kind of scary.)
Shiro knows nothing about this, of course.
“Uh, it was freshman year? We kind of just had sex sometimes? It wasn’t anything serious.” Keith (code name: Billy Ray-due to the mullet) kind of looks off-put by that last part but Lance doesn’t notice. Instead, he sighs, he supposes if he had to lose to someone, he’s glad it was Shiro (code name: Space Daddy).
(Pidge-badly codenamed Pidgey for obvious reasons-refused to call Shiro this for the longest time, “Allura it doesn’t even make sense he’s not a daddy! He’s not even old enough to fit the daddy stereotype and he isn’t even well off!” But then Allura got some dirt on them and now Pidge has reluctantly been brought over to the dark side.)
“Besides,” Keith continues, “It stopped before sophomore year even began.”
Lance blinks, brought back into reality by Keith’s words, “What? Why?”
Keith blows his fringe out of his face and now it’s his turn to sigh, “We were talking about how you kept asking him out and I kind of joked about how I wouldn’t mind if you romanced me and I guess he took it to mean that I liked you? But I kind of meant I wouldn’t mind if someone-Shiro-would send me flowers and ask me out on cheesy dates.” It’s hard to admit, even now, and he’s blushing as he lets Lance in on his secret.
Lance bursts out laughing.
“Wow you managed to ruin both our chances with Shiro in one fell swoop, way to go, Keith.”
Keith frowns at the way Lance is doubled up in bed guffawing so hard that he’s wheezing and moves to go, hurt by Lance’s reaction, “If you’re going to be like that, I’m leaving.”
“No! Er, I mean, no, I’m sorry, please stay.” Lance looks panicked, one hand thrown out against Keith’s chest. Keith focuses in on it because his chest is bare and Lances hand is surprisingly warm.
Usually Lance has cold hands.
When Lance follows Keith’s line of sight, he blushes a deep red and rips it away as if placing his hand on Keith’s chest to keep him from leaving is a huge crime, as if they hadn’t just had sex, as if they weren’t both naked right now.
As if he was doing something wrong.
As if Lance didn’t have feelings for Keith.
But Keith doesn’t voice what he’s thinking, which is how much he would love to take Lance’s hand back, replace it on his chest while Keith leans forward and-he cuts his inner monologue off. Instead he settles back against the headboard and says, “Is it my turn to ask you a question now?”
Lance is looking down and rubbing at the back of his neck, the way he does when he’s nervous or embarrassed or slightly conflicted and the boy looks up at Keith when he’s asked the question, Keith catches surprise in his eyes before he nods his head in the affirmative, “Yeah. Go ahead.”
“How did we get here? Why did you ask me to have sex with you?” It’s a question that he’s shoved in the back of his mind because Keith didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to wonder why him when Lance’s hands were all over his body. He’d just wanted to forget that Lance caring about him wasn’t a reality, that Lance was just using him to vent out his feelings.
But he was curious.
Lance had wanted to have sex with Shiro and had actually had it with both Pidge and Hunk (Pidge had been questioning a lot of thing and Lance offered his assistance should Pidge need it and Hunk did it on a dare) but not Keith, never Keith. Why not Keith?
It’s a question that drove him crazy at night because although freshman year, Shiro had misunderstood Keith’s massive crush on him for a crush on Lance, it didn’t take long for that fake crush to become a real thing.
Lance is blinking at him, eyes wide, and mouth open, “Um. Well. You see-” He swallows a few times as if his throat is dry and then he violently throws himself back against the pillows.
Keith stifles a curse at the sudden movement, having jumped and banged his head against the headboard.
“Sorry.” Lance replies, then lets out a breath, “I didn’t think you’d say yes you know.”
“What?” Keith asks, still preoccupied with the back of his poor head, “I-What?”
“I didn’t think you’d actually have sex with me,” Lance repeats and it’s like a knife lodges itself into Keith’s chest because what did he expect? A love confession? From Lance? Lance who has a bunch of flings? Lance who hasn’t committed to anyone since that one attempt freshman year? Lance who’s known around campus as the ‘He’s got it guy,’ a play on the Kings of Leon song lyric (‘You want it/She’s got it’) that was playing at a shitty party (also freshman year but after the commitment failure) when he was caught having sex three times with at least three different people throughout the night.
(Lance’s excuse was “The party was so bad there was nothing else to do and Pidge wouldn’t let me leave!”)
(The party had been thrown by a professor’s kid and Pidge had wanted access to some classified information which they could only do from a professor’s computer.)
(The details were fuzzy, Keith had had a lot of alcohol and Shiro had been wearing a muscle shirt.)
(Lance wasn’t the only one who’d scored that night.)
Keith’s brain seemed to have short-circuited because he blurted out, “Why would you think I wouldn’t want to have sex with you? And since when has that stopped you from trying to having sex before? And why would you ask me if you didn’t think I’d say yes?”
Lance looked almost constipated, “I thought you hated me! I didn’t think you’d say yes if I propositioned you! It was like a joke! Like a ha-ha let’s have sex kind of joke!”
Keith did not get the joke but the knife had twisted and now ice was slowly crawling through his heart, “I see.”
Lance hadn’t noticed Keith’s closed-off expression, he’d merely continued on, “Plus, you see, my friend, I sometimes have masochistic tendencies and if you have had a really bad day and your crush is wearing his hair up in a ponytail-which he never does and I don’t know why you don’t because you look super hot in a ponytail?-and add a little bit of liquid courage, well then you go and proposition said crush who you’re pretty sure hates you anyway expecting him to say no so you can go on your merry way and pretend to go home with someone attractive enough to hopefully make him a little jealous since he doesn’t know you’re not about to have raunchy sex with them and hey maybe that’s the reason he hates you but you’ve got to try-”
There was a lot happening here and Keith couldn’t process it all, heck was Lance even processing what he was saying or was it all spilling out?
The boy is ranting, his arms are being thrown every which way as he continues on his tirade, and Keith feels a small pit of warmth pool where the ice had been, a smile slowly stretching over his features. He’s definitely saving the pretending-to-go-home-with-someone part for later because it confuses him but that doesn’t matter right now because right now he’s zeroed in on the most important part of Lance’s speech.
He takes a few moments to collect himself and build up some courage before he tunes back into Lance who is now on some story from a few months ago and wonders if he’ll ever stop to breathe.
“-when all I wanted to do was hit your lips with my lips but I ended up hitting you with my fist instead. Honestly I’m so sorry it’s all Pidge’s fault anyway they’re the one who got that stupid idea stuck in my head about just confessing my feelmpf-”
“So,” Keith smirks, pulling back from the kiss “You like me huh?”
He’s got all of his weight on his forearms now and he’s practically straddling a Lance who is blushing and stuttering and unable to get out a single syllable and eventually the boy just gives up to nod mutely.
Keith grins, “In case, if it wasn’t obvious with my-what did you call it? Hitting my lips with yours?” Lance lets out an embarrassed groan but Keith ignores him and continues, “I like you too.”
“Really?” Lance manages to squeak out.
And Keith has to laugh because he’s so in love with this dork, “Yes really.”
The smile Lance gives Keith is enough to make his heart skip at least three beats. Lance is so beautiful in that moment (although Keith would sooner spork his eyeballs out than tell the other boy that).
“Sooo,” Lance begins, “Does this mean we can have some more of that second best sex you’ve ever had?”
Keith snorts. He’s in love with a dork, “Yeah I guess.”
Lance’s grin somehow manages to widen even more, “Great because it was hands down the best sex I’ve ever had. We really must thank Shiro for taking you under his wing for what was it? A whole year?”
Now it’s Keith’s turn to blush, “Like, eight months.”
“Eight months! I bet he was a wise and dutiful teacher.”
Lance is basically singing at this point and Keith thumps him over the head with a pillow, blush raging, “Shut up.”
From there it turns into a pillow fight that transitions into a wrestling match that eventually becomes sex because two hormone ridden boys who’ve been in love with each other for over a year wrestling while naked can only lead to this conclusion.
Unless of course something catastrophic happens like aliens invading or Lance’s mom calling or god forbid his grandmother calling or Hunk setting himself on fire again (the last three things, Keith knows to have happened to Lance while he was with previous partners, the first is just an irrational fear of his).
But none of that happens so they continue to have some more of that second best sex.
-
When Shiro opens the door to his apartment the day after Keith disappeared for the night he’s very disappointed to find a guy with bouquet of flowers that can only be from Lance. He really thought Lance was done with asking him out and besides, when Keith hadn’t come home until 9 am this morning, Shiro had assumed he’d finally gotten somewhere with Lance.
Sighing, Shiro takes the flowers from the poor delivery boy struggling under their weight, because it really is a big vase, a lot bigger than Lance’s usual.
He places them on the kitchen counter before flicking open the card to see what cheesy pick up line Lance has written this time only to find that the flowers aren’t for him after all.
Grinning he sets the card back where he found it and calls out to Keith that there’s something for him in the kitchen before making a hasty exit.
Grumbling, and still half asleep, Keith walks into the kitchen, scratching the side of his face where his stubble is bothering him before pausing as his eyes land on what has to be the biggest bouquet offered at the flower shop.
His eyes widen because surely these flowers aren’t meant for him?
But what else could Shiro be talking about?
Slowly he flips open the card and blushes.
They’re definitely for him.
Groaning, he buries his head in his hands and prays to every god he can think of that Shiro didn’t read it.
-
Keith,
I’ve decided that we’ll need to keep practicing this whole sex thing if I ever have a chance at beating out Shiro for that number one spot.
Obviously this includes me romancing you.
Wear something decent and be ready by 8. We’ve got reservations.
Lance
P.S. Wear your hair in a ponytail.