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The paladins had sleepovers. Once a week. One would think that since they lived in the same place, there would be sleepovers every night, but no, the warriors decided that in order to keep it fun and exciting, they would only have one once a week.
Usually, they didn’t last long–Pidge can literally sleep anywhere as long as they had a blanket, Shiro is old, so his internal clock just kinda shuts him down after a certain point, and Hunk always decides to make big dinners for them on sleepover nights, which meant he got sleepy after eating.
That left Lance and Keith, who at some point in these sleepovers, started competing with each other to see who could stay awake the longest.
And these competitions would lead to long, late night conversations about a range of topics, usually personal–everyone knows that during the witching hours, something inside the brain just clicks and decides to tell your company your deepest and most private thoughts.
For Keith, it turned out to be very difficult to not tell Lance everything about himself and all his feelings. Admitting his attraction to the blue paladin was on the tip of his tongue every week and he would rather die than tell Lance how he felt. Still, his insides begged him to let these secrets out. He didn’t understand why this was so hard, and because of his constant need for control, the frustrating task put him in a bad mood, usually.
Clearly, Lance had no problem chatting about his entire life, and he could literally go on for hours about himself and the many many girls he liked in his time. This was severely annoying for two reasons: one, the message that Lance was not attracted to Keith was announced loud and clear at every mention of a new girl’s name, and two, it made Keith feel more like an alien in his own skin. He’d never experienced attraction in his life before, and as soon as he acknowledges it, he is constantly reminded of the fact that it was abnormal to like the same sex by Lance, the poster boy for heterosexuality.
On this particular night, a scheduled sleepover at Keith’s pod, nobody could make it except Lance, and despite complaints and a couple arguments between the two, Lance ended up hauling his pillow and blanket into Keith’s orderly room and crashing down on his bed as if it was his own.
Keith really needed some alone time to try and will his crush on Lance away, but he realized that he really couldn’t say no to him.
Of course he definitely tried to, but on the inside, his heart felt prickly and shivers continuously crawled over him at the mere thought of Lance spending the night, their conversations not confined or restricted to censored versions that he thought the team would be okay in hearing. Maybe tonight he could…maybe. He hadn’t planned to, but maybe Lance had finally run out of girls to talk about.
…
Of course not. Tonight, apparently, was Princess Allura night.
Keith timed it: 1.5 hours exclusively about the Princess. Sure, she was a good person, but they spent the better part of their day with her every single day. What more was there to talk about???
A lot, according to Lance, but Keith had not opened his bedroom doors to his fellow paladin to gossip about girls, and he was ready to either change the topic or kick him out of the room.
“Why are you talking about Allura so much?” He finally cut in, exhausted from hearing Lance pronounce the princess’s name over and over and over again.
Lance blinked, cut off mid-sentence. Shit, why was he upset? He never spoke up when he gushed over her at their other sleepovers.
“Dude, she’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen! And the only one on this ship.”
“Pidge is-”
“Pidge does NOT count. Period.”
Keith huffed and stood up from his desk chair and plopped down on the bed Lance was currently hogging.
“I don’t see why you have to be girl-crazy all the time.”
Lance sat up and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to figure out what that really meant. “What else am I gonna be crazy about? We’re in space with these big ugly aliens. I can’t exactly dream about the Galra.”
“All I’m saying is…why does it have to be just girls?” Keith nervously bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if Lance was too dense for this conversation. The fact that the blue paladin still wanted to have a sleepover when it was just the two of them was ridiculous enough, so he figured a ridiculous conversation wasn’t too much of a stretch. It was dangerous waters, however. Keith wasn’t one to make himself vulnerable in any situation, but curiosity encouraged him to see how far he could go. They were alone, so Keith felt more daring than usual.
Lance looked like he was trying to figure something out, but Keith was confident that he wouldn’t decode the real meaning.
“Okay well, if you’re referring to guys, there aren’t many options on this ship either.”
Okay. Not a bad segway. Lance wasn’t THAT stupid.
Keith leaned forward a bit, crossing his legs and tucking his hands under his thighs “Hunk?”
Lance rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Hunk needs someone that can chill him out when he gets all freaked out. Not my game.”
Keith shrugged, accidentally staring at Lance’s fidgeting hands. He had such long, slender fingers. His skin tone was such a warm, inviting color that the red paladin was tempted to reach out and touch it.
But of course he didn’t. That would be too far.
“W-what about Shiro?”
“Buddy, I’m not gonna go for my hero, he’s like twice my age. And don’t even bother suggesting Pidge, because again, they don’t count. They’ve seen more of me than any of my partners ever will.” Lance sniffed, stretching out and pulling up the sleeves of his long-sleeved Altean pajama shirt, waiting for more question Keith could deal out. “There’s nobody to date on this ship, that’s just it man.”
Oh, here it is. The opportunity. Keith’s heart was hammering at the mere idea of him speaking, but he did it anyways for a reason he could not understand.
“Well…what about…me?” His voice kind of wavered half way through, but he cleared his throat and kept a straight face as he waited for an answer.
Lance was looking at him kinda weird and he wished to all the gods that he could read minds at this moment.
He shifted uncomfortably amidst his mass of blankets, and Keith could immediately detect that this was going to go down a bad road. “Y-you know, it was just a joke, don’t take it so seriously.”
Lance looked up at him, shrugging softly.
“But you can hardly stand me.” He laughed it off uncomfortably, avoiding Keith’s eyes as much as possible. “If we’re being honest, I’m not even sure why we’re doing this.”
Oh god. Keith was expected to say something back, something along the lines of support, right? Friends do that, yeah?
“I….like you around. Most of the time.” He exhaled deeply and pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his thighs. Even though he didn’t really say anything revealing, his heart suddenly felt heavy and he didn’t feel mentally prepared for this. Maybe he had been too bold in going in this direction. His eyes downcast, his bangs fell down into his face even more than usual. He looked like a troubled teen getting reprimanded.
Lance must have noticed the change in his teammate’s demeanor, because he moved beside Keith on the bed and nudged him slightly, his tone a tad more gentle than before.
“You okay dude?” He asked, wondering what happened.
Keith’s skin prickled at the contact. At a time that would be 3am on Earth, Keith was tired and on-edge at the same time.
He just shrugged and placed his chin on his knees.
“Keith, buddy, what happened? After you asked if I would date you, you…”
Lance shut up real quick, and Keith squeezed his eyes shut. Fuck. His chest ached, and he wanted nothing more than to go back around 10 minutes and restart this conversation.
“Keith-”
“Alright, shut up man, I know it’s weird, you don’t have to tell me, I already know.” Keith cut him off for the second time today, his voice low but the sadness was laced in every word. He kept his face hidden in his knees, waiting for Lance to be weirded out and leave him in his misery.
Lance pursed his lips and let the room fall silent for a minute, being as quiet as he could for Keith.
“I’m still here, man.” He reached out and pulled at his arm, awkwardly trying to pull him into a hug. It was weird to see Keith like this, but it put a bad feeling in his stomach. He should never be sad like this. Lance only wanted to put a smile on his face, always, but usually his plan failed and it made him upset, but he could honestly say he tried. When Keith was happy, the whole team was happy.
“It’s okay.” He said quietly, putting his arms around him slowly.
Keith eventually gave in, letting Lance shift him into a hug. He wasn’t crying yet, but he almost was, however the welling tears went away when he fully processed that he was in Lance’s arms. It was warm and he allowed himself to enjoy the moment for a bit, shivering even more when Lance kinda rubbed his back.
Lance remembered his mom doing this to him whenever a girl rejected him when he was younger. It was a similar concept here, right? Except Keith wasn’t being rejected today.
“So, what about me?”
Keith blinked and pulled away, the moment gone even though he was mentally taking note of everything about this moment so he could remember it forever.
“What?” He rubbed his eyes, his brows furrowing at his teammate.
“Would you date me?” Lance asked, a small smile inevitably revealing itself.
Keith was reeling.
“This isn’t real.” He decided, chuckling and shaking his head.
Lance raised a dark eyebrow, not sure what that meant, but continuing anyways. He flashed a clean smile and held his arms out.
“C'mon, I’m not that bad, am I? Be honest. Would you date me?”
Now Keith was weirded out.
“Lance..” He mumbled quietly, not sure if he was being made fun of here. Keith always had his defenses up.
Lance was really good with impulse decisions. At least he thought so. But when someone wanted him, he immediately devoted all of himself to that person because, okay, he’ll be honest, not a lot of people wanted him or his big personality. And also Keith was really good looking, so that helped a lot.
With that in mind, he scooted close to the red fighter and grabbed the collar of his flannel shirt, unceremoniously smooshing their lips together and bringing all the knowledge he had from one make out session he had in 7th grade into this kiss.
Apparently it did some good, because he was rewarded with a small sound from Keith before he broke the kiss slowly.
Keith’s eyes were wide and a hand was over his mouth.
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Dude, I just fucking kissed you, how much more serious can I be?” He asked, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. That was okay, right? The tinge of red over Keith’s face told him it was good, at least.
Keith bit his lip, staring at Lance’s lips as a smile peeked from the corners of his mouth. Oh god, this was real, he was being serious, and Lance didn’t even reject him.
This was a dream, right?
This time Keith yanked Lance in for another sudden liplock, and briefly, he thought he was melting. They giggled in between kisses as Lance pulled Keith into his lap, hands caressing and exploring and interlocking with each other.
Keith’s mind couldn’t even process what was happening, honestly, but all he knew is that it was good. Really good.
Pidge was about to walk in Keith’s room, deciding to take a short break to see how the sleepover was going.
But what they saw when they cracked the door open left the engineer with a big grin on their face.
Maybe they could reschedule for another time.