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A week into their second semester of junior year, Lance and Hunk are destroying their usual post-workout feast and Lance is snapping selfies to Shiro and Allura when Hunk elbows him so hard he almost coughs up a tater tot and says, "so, the new roommate, huh?"
Lance is probably going to die here, with half a potato down his throat, and he doesn’t even know what the hell Hunk is asking.
The new roommate in question is Keith Kogane, bad boy and mysterious loner of the Altea University Fine Arts department, and Lance’s sworn rival since freshman year. His roommate should have been Hunk, because they are soul-bonded blood brothers, but a paperwork mix-up put them in separate rooms when they returned from study abroad. Hunk got put with Pidge, major win, and Lance got stuck with the bane of his academic existence who, when Lance pointed and shouted, "Oh my god, it's you!" had the nerve to deny he knew who Lance was. As if he didn’t remember two years of intense rivalry – their department wasn’t nearly big enough for Keith not to remember Lance, damnit.
Hunk’s eyebrow wiggle means he thinks he knows something Lance doesn’t, though, and Lance has no idea what the guy wants from him – a yelp review? Honestly, it's hard to know how to rate his latest roommate experience when his scale of personal awfulness for the past two years has been "on a scale of Anakin Skywalker to Keith Kogane...". Especially since said disaster of a human being has been... not as terrible in close proximity as Lance expected. Apart from the whole 'not remembering their epic rivalry that was the talk of their entire Sophomore sculpting class' thing, Keith is a pretty cool dude. Easy to share space with, easy on the eyes, easy to convince that Lance should be their room DJ because Keith's musical taste isn’t so much bad as nonexistent. Keith has a motorcycle and a job off campus, and Lance is slowly realizing that most of the air of mystery surrounding him boils down to those two qualities. Under that, Keith is really just a philosophy nerd.
Despite the horror show junior year work is turning out to be, Lance has had a relatively easy first week, and it's messing with his head. Pleasant, but confusing. Confusing because it's pleasant?
Lance is even more unsure what to do with Hunk's question because, as his official best friend since they nearly died on their freshman orientation outing, Hunk’s been privy to every Keith-inspired rant since day one. When Keith brought him an orphaned coffee on Friday? Hunk was the one Lance texted to let him know he was promoting Keith from ‘the absolute worst’ to just ‘Keith’.
Once Lance has worked the half-masticated potato out of his esophagus, he half shrugs and gives Hunk a serious side-eye.
"Uh, what about the new roommate? he's still being -" he gestures in an everything good and bad about Keith Kogane sort of way, "Keith."
Hunk just gives another knowing smile, the kind Lance has repeatedly informed him makes him look like a dummy.
"Still want to punch him in the face?"
Truth be told, no. That urge has somewhat cooled since he’s actually met the guy, though Lance will still destroy him in their critiques this year. Still, Lance just half shrugs again and goes back to shoveling eggs into his mouth, careful to avoid Hunk's eyes. He has a reputation to uphold, after all.
"Yeah, sure, I mean he's still – Keith."
"Uh huh. 'Keith'," Hunk says. Lance can hear the air quotes, so he punches him in the shoulder.
So living with Keith isn’t a total disaster – is that a crime?
Living with Keith becomes a total disaster exactly four weeks and three days later, and Lance figures he should be thanking the universe that it took that long but mostly he's just full of cold fury. The problem arrives in the form of Keith coming back to the room late, which isn’t all that uncommon in itself – junior year is crunch time, and for studio art majors that means ungodly hours in the studio. What is uncommon is the boy who hovers awkwardly in the doorway talking with Keith. Lance is at his desk on the internet, and Keith manages to block most of his guest from sight. They’re talking so quietly Lance has to take out his earbuds to eavesdrop. Rude.
Three weeks of living together and Lance has deduced that, apart from their mutual friends Shiro and Allura (and she hardly counts because she’s their RA and everyone knows her), Keith doesn’t have friends. He doesn’t have people he walks to class with, or people he eats with, or anyone to go to parties with. It might look like Keith is aloof, but really he does almost nothing but work. There are only three places you’ll ever find him: the room, the studio, or the café. After three weeks of intense observation, Lance is pretty sure he's become the reigning expert on Keith Kogane. Hell, he was starting to consider himself Keith's best friend by default (not that he was going to tell Hunk that).
Which is what makes this kid such a cosmic upset. Lance doesn’t even recognize him from around campus – is he someone Keith met as a barista? A fellow motorcycle enthusiast? A serial killer targeting college students? How old is he, even?
At least one of the several questions Lance has barely even begun forming is answered when Keith murmurs, "Goodnight, I had a good time," and leans forward to give the guy a chase kiss.
Lance's brain promptly shorts out. He's still staring hollowly at the door, earphones conspicuously in his hands and not on his ears, when Keith gently closes it and turns.
"What?" He asks. There's a definite defensive hunch to his shoulders. Try as he might to respond, Lance is still working on picking his jaw off the floor. Keith does not have a good time with anyone!
When he doesn’t respond, Keith makes a disgusted sort of noise and flips off the light. Lance's laptop is too blinding for him to see anything else, but the sounds of clothes being stripped off trail across the room towards him. The arcane physics of arranging a Spartan dorm room for optimal feng shui and guest-hosting have put their desks back-to-back under Keith's bunk, so Lance can feel the breath of air as Keith moves by him in the dark. Bedsprings creak and shift above him, and Keith's voice floats down from above.
"I didn't peg you for a homophobe, dude."
"I'm-" Lance manages to croak out, "not a homophobe."
"Whatever, man."
Keith's bunk is silent for the rest of the night, but the feeling of wrong settling into Lance's stomach keeps him up well into the night. He's not a homophobe – he's practically the captain of the bisexual club, if his school only had a bisexual club! (He might send a 3am text to Hunk that, in the cruel light of day, reads: hhnk bru we should start the bizex club housssse).
But he can’t stop replaying that image of Keith leaning in to kiss whatever his name is, that soft smile on his face, his voice intimate and sweet as he murmured "I had a good time." He can’t stop replaying that moment, and wanting to punch the stupid little smirk off no-name's face.
Hatred isn’t a feeling Lance is used to – rivalry, maybe, arbitrary snap judgements about people he doesn’t know and who's fashion taste he dislikes, sure, but not this burning desire to erase that punk and make sure he never comes near this room again.
He stares into the darkness for a long time. He has a lot to think on. He definitely does not think about Keith sleeping above him, or his private smile, his lips, his hair – none of those things. Absolutely not.
"Oh my god, I think I'm a homophobe."
Maybe he and Hunk should stop talking over breakfast, but at least this time it’s Hunk who spits up his coffee. A night of scrolling unseeingly through his Tumblr dash and a triple-shot to keep him lucid through his 9am theory class have done exactly as much good as could be expected for Lance’s predicament, which means he's staring into the soupy remains of his huevos rancheros and thinking about the futility of mortal lifetimes instead of the research he needs to start after lunch.
There's a lot of coughing and sputtering beside him before Hunk manages to speak.
"Um, dude, I don't think you are? You sent me a text last night that I think was about starting a bisexual club?"
He fishes his phone out of his pocket and, sure enough, there is Lance's garbled text. Lance groans and chops a breakfast potato aggressively in half.
"I saw Keith kissing a boy last night," Lance admits, and whoo boy that sounds even worse out loud. Keith kissing a boy. Gross. The potato chunks are quickly becoming mash. "And I wanna punch his stupid face off."
"Um, Keith's or the boy's?"
"I don't know. Both. The boy. Keith. Does it matter?" Lance doesn’t even complain when Hunk swipes a potato off his plate to save it from the grinding annihilation Lance is delivering on the rest of its kind.
"Kinda, dude. You already wanted to punch Keith, I don't think him being gay has changed that."
"Of course him being gay doesn’t change how I think about him! That would be shitty. I just don’t like him kissing boys."
"Huh," Hunk says with his wow, I just figured something out voice. This is largely unhelpful to Lance, who has still not figured anything out. "Um, dude, I kinda think homophobia isn’t your problem. Maybe, like, the opposite?"
"What the hell does that even mean?"
"I think you should maybe talk to -"
"Shiro! You're a genius!" Lance shoots up from the table, swiping both his tray and Hunk's mostly demolished one. "Thanks, buddy! You're a real pal!"
Hunk’s shouting at him as he dumps both their trays in the tray drop on the way out. Whatever, dude, Lance flashes him a peace sign as jogs to his next class. Hunk’s right, Shiro will put his head on right.
Not for lack of trying, but he doesn’t manage to talk to Shiro for almost a week. Between Lance’s insanely long studios and Shiro’s schedule and him being a real adult who lives off campus, it's not until Friday when Lance finally tracks him down in the library at lunch. Thankfully, the nameless buttface that had the audacity to be kissed by Keith hasn’t come around again so Lance hasn’t had to challenge him to a duel. On the other hand, two different men have walked Keith home since that first night, and he's been keeping up a stony silence towards Lance that's slowly shredding his mental stability. Lance comes from a family of six children – he's never learned to deal with the silent treatment. He would rather Keith yell at him – not, of course, that he's done anything wrong – than this icy wall. So much for friends.
The last boy even waved at Lance; Lance had to wave back. It still gives him chills.
Unlike bomber jackets and cool hats, Lance doesn’t wear internal strife well. Hunk is taking a break from being his supportive best friend to go to class (traitor), so now Lance is curled up on a couch opposite Shiro and Pidge in the library and feeling absolutely not good about anything ever.
Needless to say, Lance is feeling a little fragile. It’s still maybe not a great idea to open their conversation with,
"Oh my god, I think I'm really a homophobe.”
Shiro, wise, fatherly Shiro who has nothing but sage wisdom always, sucks in a breath through his teeth and sits back heavily into the couch. Pidge drops a stack of books bigger than his head on the table between them and looks at Lance like he's grown four eyeballs. Has he? Maybe.
"This is – not good." Shiro says seriously, and Lance groans.
"I know, I know it makes me a terrible person, I just want to punch him so damn much."
Shiro frowns.
"Lance, this is unexpected. I – well." He stops, and frowns. "I'm not sure what to say, right now."
"I, for one, am very disappointed," Pidge says, because he doesn’t believe in pulling punches. Lance nods miserably, burying his head in his arm. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I know. I don't know. I'm not sure what's going on."
"Babe," Shiro says, putting his prosthetic hand placatingly on his boyfriend's knee, and Lance's heart shreds a little more.
Lance isn’t totally 100% on Shiro's past, but he knows he lost the arm in the navy and was honorably discharged young. He's at the school on a military scholarship for engineering, which is how he and Pidge met. He's only a year older than them in school, but three – maybe four? – years older because of the whole, y'know, navy past. The one thing Lance does know is that Shiro was out while he was in the navy and that can’t have been easy. In retrospect, telling his gay best friends and 2/3 of their school’s QSA leadership that he’s a homophobe was… not the best in a series of bad choices.
"No," Pidge snaps, massaging his temples and looking a moment away from ripping Lance's throat out, "this isn’t okay, Lance. Do you want to punch us?"
He gestures between himself and Shiro, which is a little hard when he's sitting pretty much in Shiro's lap, but he makes it work. Lance scrambles upright, eyes wide.
"No! No, absolutely no, you guys are like, my best friends! No!"
How could they think that? He loves these dudes like his brothers but more because they aren’t shitty and into sports.
"Right," Pidge says. "but you want to punch your roommate because he kisses guys?"
"No! I mean, yes? I want to punch the guys. Because they're kissing Keith."
Lance trails off, because Pidge is looking like he's thinking about sharp objects again and Shiro's got that...fatherly disappointed face on that just gets him every time. Damnit.
"Lance," Shiro says, "why don’t you come to the QSA meeting with us tonight? It’s been a while, and I think it might help.”
“And," Pidge adds, "we'll have plenty of help moving the body if you don’t cut this out."
Honestly, Lance thinks that's a perfectly reasonable threat.
The QSA meeting is, obviously, a blast. It has indeed been some time since Lance attended, not since he got back from study abroad, and he’s so proud of Pidge and Shiro for how much more orderly the group is now. He sees more people than he expected, and even recognizes most of them. Also Allura agrees that he can be captain of the bisexual club and should start making buttons immediately so, there’s that. This is revolution, people.
He feels Pidge and Shiro's eyes on him all night, but it’s cool, he’s comfortable, even when he has to pass during the 'sharing coming out stories' part of the evening. Hunk rolls up as the night is winding down with a million apologies (alas, the life of a TA with night labs) and helps them clean up the meeting room by eating the remains of the snacks while Lance and Shiro stack chairs.
"So, how'd it go?" Hunk asks with his signature encouraging tone.
"Terribly. We're going to dump his body in the river, we could use some muscle," Pidge says with dead calm, not looking up from his phone on the couch. Lance isn’t sure if he's playing Pokémon Go or hacking the faculty servers, but it's a confusion he's used to around Pidge. "You in?"
"Sorry, as Lance's official best friend I'm honor bound to not help you move his body."
Pidge makes a mock noise of offense and Shiro chuckles.
"Honestly, it went great. Lance?" Shiro asks, ever the diplomat.
"Great. Awesome. 100% love the queers, my dudes," Lance agrees, dragging the last pile of chairs into the corner where they live. He ignores Pidge's face palm. "I even got Allura to agree to join our bisexual club!"
"You're part of this club?" Pidge asks Hunk.
"I think," Shiro says, "that homophobia may not be the problem you're having with Keith."
Lance was hoping he wouldn’t mention that.
"Uh, yeah, that's what I told him," Hunk says, because he's a traitor. Shiro raises an eyebrow, but Hunk doesn’t elaborate.
"Maybe Keith just has terrible taste in men, and my impeccable people skills are picking up on how terrible they are," Lance suggests. That's probably it. He's cracked it.
"Yeah, maybe don’t share that particular theory with Keith," Pidge suggests.
And Lance was going to take his advice. He really was. Until he got back to the room.
There's no sock on the door, in Lance's defense, and with Miley Cyrus pumping through his earbuds, he can’t hear the frantic commotion in his room before he's got the door wide open and it's too late.
Neither Keith nor his latest boy – the one who waved, and who's on all fours over Keith on his lofted bunk – are clothed. Mostly this means Keith is hidden from view by the angle and the blanket he's pulled hurriedly between their bodies, but Lance is suddenly very knowledgeable about Boy #3's flushed ass and oh god there are balls help.
And we can’t stop, Miley sings in his ear, and we won’t stop.
If Keith could eviscerate him from afar, Lance has no doubt he’d be standing in a puddle of his own intestines. The polite, graceful thing for Lance to do now would be to cover his eyes and back the hell out of there, apologize and say he'll be staying over with Hunk tonight.
What he does instead is stand in the still-open doorway and demand,
"What the fuck?
The waving boy, who turns out to be called Terry and Lance really doesn’t care, clears out pretty quickly when Lance makes it clear that he isn’t going to leave and Keith makes it clear he plans on killing Lance tonight. He doesn’t even wait until Terry's pants are back on to start shouting at Lance, and if there's one thing Lance's whole opinionated family can agree on, it's that he never backs down from a fight.
"What is wrong with you?" Keith demands for maybe the fifth time this argument. Why do people keep asking Lance this?
"I thought you got over your – whatever." He gestures at Lance's everything. "You went to the QSA tonight!"
"A meeting you missed because you were here doing god knows what with Terry -" Lance isn’t so much galloping triumphantly over the moral high ground as he's scrabbling for it, but he's determined. This is his room; Terry didn’t have any right to be...doing things in it.
"You know full well what I was doing with Terry!" Keith shouts back, even though he blushes furiously and oh that's very interesting, Keith blushes with his whole body. Lance knows this, because Keith is still on his bed with only a blanket over his lap. It's very distracting, for all that Keith seems laser focused on kicking Lance's ass.
"Well maybe you shouldn’t be doing that!"
"Sex?!" Keith demands, and it's becoming increasingly harder for Lance to focus when he's arguing with Keith about sex while Keith is wearing absolutely nothing – oh god, focus. "You want me to never have sex again?"
"Not with Terry!"
That, for some reason, seems to catch Keith off guard for the first time in their argument.
"You... don’t want me to have sex... with Terry?" He narrows his eyes dangerously. "What the fuck does that even mean?"
"I don’t like him! He's a bad dude!" Lance's mind might have finally caught up and started blaring the abort, abort sirens, but his mouth is going too fast. Maybe don’t share that theory, Pidge had said; too late, it’s been shared. "I don't think you should see him anymore."
Keith's face does something complicated, and the mood changes. Lance feels the ice curtain falling behind Keith's eyes, and it – hurts? for some reason? Keith is icing him out again. Lance can feel him moving farther away, back to the silent treatment. Damnit. Looks like Lance fucked up again.
"If you don’t like him so much, don't date him."
And whoo boy does that strike Lance right through the heart. Keith is dating Terry? A boy toy he could write off as a phase, but dating means romance, means Terry's going to keep coming around, means Keith murmuring sweet things at the door -
"Well. Good. I. I won’t." Lance says scrubbing furiously at his suddenly not damp eye, because why have a dignified exit when he can just grab his backpack and stomp furiously out of the dorm?
At least he manages to slam the door behind him.
It's great having a tight, insular group of friends who know your every thought and concern and care deeply about your mental health, except when it isn’t.
Crashing with Hunk actually means crashing with Hunk and Pidge, except that Pidge is usually at Shiro's place off campus, but tonight it's a full house. Pidge grumbles about the hour when Lance knocks dejectedly at the door, despite the fact that he's still in his jeans and clearly intending to stay up on his laptop for a few more hours. Hunk just sighs and shifts over in his already too-small twin xl, because he knows Lance is a platonic cuddler. Shay knows about it, whatever.
Watching Shiro pretzel himself to fit into Pidge's bunk is just hilarious, but Lance doesn’t take as much pleasure in it as he usually does. He doesn’t take much pleasure in anything, even when Hunk spoons up to him and rests his chin on the top of Lance's head.
"I just don’t get it," Pidge says, "based on your browser history, I would have thought you'd be super down with two guys getting it on in your room."
"You check my browser history?!?"
"Uh, yeah, stop using safari, dude."
Lance tries to throw his pillow at Pidge, but Hunk just catches it and uses it to trap Lance's arms to his sides as he says,
"Yeah, guys, I don't think that's the problem here. Sorry, Lance, but I think they should you know you're -"
A gentle tap on the door interrupts him and Pidge shoots Lance some very accusing eyebrows as he goes to open the door.
"Allura!" he says, genuinely surprised. Sure enough, there's their RA, hair up for the night and in fluffy purple pajamas and still radiating regal grace. It's very unfair. She smiles gently and Lance can tell by the way her eyes sweep the room that, yup, she was looking for him. He doesn’t get up.
"I do apologize for the late hour, gentlemen," Allura says as Pidge very graciously waves her into Hunk's side of the room and tries unsuccessfully to kick his rats nest of cords and gadgets under his desk. "But I heard a commotion and I wanted to come make sure everything's alright with you and Keith, Lance."
No one asks how she found Lance here, two floors down from the floor she shares with Lance and Keith, or how she knew it was Lance and Keith fighting. She's probably psychic, and Lance isn’t the sneakiest. About, like, anything.
"We were just talking about that, actually!" Hunk says, and does his stupid abs-of-steel thing when Lance tries to elbow him in the stomach for being a dirty snitch. "Lance is being a huge dick to Keith's boyfriend because he's in-"
"Keith totally started it!" Lance shouts, because someone has to have his back. Even if it's himself.
"By having a boyfriend?" Pidge says, eyebrows raised incredulously.
"Boyfriends," Lance insists, emphasis on the plural.
"Lance," Allura says with her calm, RA voice, "I understand that it can be uncomfortable when... amorous activities are happening in your room. But you have to remember that it's Keith's room too, and he should be able to feel safe and respected in it. Possibly you need to have a calm, respectful conversation about ground rules?"
"How about this ground rule: no fuckboys," Lance grumbles, unhelpfully. Hunk thumps him with the pillow.
"Guess you can’t live there, then," Pidge mutters.
Allura makes her that's not funny face. Shiro just puts his head in his hands.
"I think I should maybe help moderate the conversation," she says.
"Um," Hunk says, "I actually think that might not be necessary. Guys, am I the only one who's figured out what's going on?"
"Look," Shiro says, not answering Hunk because no one knows what he's talking about, "there's going to be a party at my house tomorrow with most of the QSA. Come blow off some steam, sleep over if you need to, and hopefully by the end of the weekend you and Keith have cooled off enough that you can talk. And if that fails, then Allura or I will sit down with both of you and talk it through. Does that sound like a workable solution?"
Allura looks like she's doubting the weekend will be enough to fix anything, but she nods.
“Fine, dad,” Lance grumbles.
"I still think you guys are missing the point," Hunk mutters before they turn off the lights, but no one pays him any attention.
Lance and Hunk share a lot of things: beds, toothbrushes, work-out routines, porn recommendations, but there are two things they just can’t ever share, and those are: clothes and class notes. One, because they're in vastly different majors, and the other, because Lance would have to pass a swim test to wear Hunk's clothes. Also, yellow and green? Doesn’t do a lot for his skin tone. Which means, while he's managed to avoid going back to ground zero for almost twelve whole hours, if he wants to dress to impress for this party (and, let’s be honest, when does Lance not want to dress to impress?) he's gotta take the plunge.
Having a largely conflicting schedule with Keith does have its perks, such as: Lance knows 6pm on a Saturday means Keith will be safely at his barista job and almost a mile off campus.
Does that stop him slinking down the hallway humming the Mission Impossible song? Absolutely not.
Does that mean he does not expect a half-naked man in his room when he swipes it open? Absolutely yes.
For the second time in as many days, Lance stares at Terry and just demands, "what the fuck."
Terry, toweling his hair and sitting at Lance's desk in just his boxers, smirks.
"Sup?"
Lance closes the door to shield the world; Terry shouldn’t be inflicted on anyone else, ever.
"What are you doing here?!" he hisses, even if Keith is very clearly not there to overhear him. How is Terry back!? Keith must have called him back after Lance left, and judging by the freshly-showered and relaxed set to his shoulders – Lance's mind blanks out in fury.
"Keith went to work, you just missed him," Terry says nonchalantly, as if Lance wouldn’t know that about his own roommate. "He said I could take a shower before I left. Since, you know, we got pretty dirty."
Can Terry hear Lance's teeth grinding? Lance hopes so.
"Cool. You're showered. Now you can leave."
Terry slithers to his feet, still smirking.
"Sure, boss. Whatever you say."
He somehow manages to make putting his shirt on look like a strip tease, and Lance wants to murder him. Clearly a fuckboy, and not even a very cute one at that; bland square-ish face, bland blond hair, blandly buff. A 6 at best, maybe 8 from the shoulders down. Lance crosses his arms and leans back, feigning a casual stance.
How you do intimidate a fuckboy? Is it make yourself bigger, or wear bright colors, or make loud noises?
"If I'm the boss, how about you never come back here?"
"What's your problem, man?" Terry finally looks kinda pissed. "you can’t tell me you aren’t gayer than a fruit tree."
Which, wow, rude.
"Excuse you, I'm bisexual."
Terry scoffs, tugging on his boots. Ah, so this one’s a motorcycle junkie.
"Cool story, bro. Just back off, okay? Keith is mine."
"What?" Lance demands, spluttering. Guy sleeps over one night and he thinks Keith is his territory? Like some dog peeing on a fire hydrant?
"Keith isn’t a fire hydrant, you can’t just claim him!"
"You're fucking weird, dude. Why do you even care? Are you jealous?"
“No!” Lance says, because that’s clearly ridiculous. He’s angry, not jealous. How crazy would it be if he ended up crushing on his arch rival? That’s some college movie-level shit. What Terry lacks in personality, he makes up for in being a pig. His smirk as he takes in Lance’s face is slow, and evil.
"I bet you’re lying. I told Keith you had a little bitch crush on him, but he just wouldn’t listen. I was so right."
Which, no, he’s not, but he leans into Lance's space and wow, Lance hadn’t realized Terry had a few inches on him, especially in those ridiculous motorcycle boots.
"Wanna know a secret?” Terry whispers into Lance's ear. “He looks incredible on his knees.”
Lance is paralyzed. He simultaneously does and desperately does not want to hear this right now. Or ever.
"I don't usually go for the lame sleep-over thing, but I made an exception to tap that ass again."
Actually, Lance thinks as his fist makes satisfying contact with Terry's very close face, maybe he does think Keith's boyfriends are bad people.
Specifically Terry. Fuck that guy.
Lance shows up late to the party, still wearing the clothes he slept in, his right hand wrapped in gauze. The party is in full-swing, Nicki Minaj thumping through the floorboards and echoing down the street and drunken freshmen spilling onto the lawn of the house Shiro shares with three other uninteresting engineering majors. Lance cheerfully elbows his way through the living room/dance floor, waving at Allura and some new friends from the QSA with his bandaged hand.
Almost 15 years, give or take, of the educational system have failed to teach Lance how to throw a proper punch. The fact that Lance immediately dislocated his thumb on punching Terry's surprisingly hard face is, however, probably why he's still alive. Terry, it turns out, is much better at taking a punch than Lance is at dealing them out; he promptly picked Lance up by the front of his shirt, shoved him hard enough against Keith’s bunk that Lance's teeth clacked and he saw bright lights, and then apparently decided going to jail for beating such a weakling senseless wasn’t worth it. The vicious kick to his side as he stormed off put Lance down for a good half hour, but he’ll live. And he’ll have a wicked bruise.
Honestly it was all seriously pathetic, and Lance is very glad that the only one to witness his blubbering was the harried weekend nurse who reset his finger and assured him 'it's not broken, it's fine, Sanchez, just let it heal and don’t go punching anyone for a while'.
He finds Pidge in the kitchen, doing shots with Hunk (the fact that Pidge can keep up with Hunk is simultaneously impressive and terrifying). Pidge's face does several complicated things when he takes in Lance, and then Lance's unchanged clothes, and then Lance's hand.
"What did you do?" He demands. Shiro's voice floats in from the other room and then Shiro's squeezing his way past the crowd into the kitchen. He claps Lance’s shoulder as he squeezes past towards the drinks, but Lance yelps and he snatches his hand away like its burning.
"Are you okay?" Shiro demands. His horrified look is mirrored on Pidge and Hunk’s faces.
Lance grimaces and figures, two birds, one stone.
"I punched Keith's boyfriend."
Three cartoonishly surprised faces blink at him. The sound of liquid splashing snaps Pidge out of his paralysis first, and he snatches the vodka bottle out of Hunks numb hands where he was overfilling a shot glass. Hunk swears, trying to mop the spill up before it slops into his lap. Two hands grip Lance's shoulders harshly, and he whimpers, but the hands don’t let up.
"You did what?" Shiro demands voice cold.
"Not because he's gay! I swear, Shiro, ow!" He rubs his shoulder and glares a bit when Shiro releases him, but he guesses he deserves that a little. "It was totally justified; you should have heard how he was talking about Keith, he was being a total ass. I couldn’t let him talk about my roommate like that."
"Well. Huh," Shiro says, putting on hand on his hip and scratching at the back of his head with the other. "Lance. Huh. I'm confused, honestly."
"I'm not!" Hunk pipes up. "Guys, it's super obvious Lance is totally in love-"
"Shiro? Shiro, where did you go?" Lance's stomach drops right through his abdomen and knocks his knees on its way out, because the voice that floats through from the living room is the worst possible one he could hear in this context.
"Oh shit," Pidge hisses.
"He's here?!" Lance demands, even as Shiro shoves him behind Hunk. In retrospect, Lance should have expected this. The universe, clearly, is out to get him. Also, Shiro being Keith's only other friend that Lance can think of might suggest he'd be invited to this party. He'd kick himself if Terry hadn’t done it already.
"Of course he's here! Does he know?" Shiro hisses back.
"I don’t know, has he threatened to rip my limbs off yet?"
"He doesn’t know," Shiro agrees in a whisper, and then shouts back, "Just a sec, Keith! I'll be right out!"
Lance rubs his ear and glares balefully at Shiro as he grabs two full shot glasses and points at Lance with them. "I'll stall him. Don't let Allura know until we figure this out, and keep out of sight."
"Wow, I'm loving the party vibe, guys," Lance grouses. Pidge slaps him up the side of the head and steals his shot.
Hunk, because he's an angel, stays by Lance's side the whole party. Lance suspects Pidge does it because he's chosen to be amused by the constant train wreck that Lance's life has become. They're squashed onto the couch in the living room with a spare bottle cradled protectively to Lance's chest, feet up on the sagging fabric to save them from the stomping feet of dancers gyrating practically in their laps. Through occasional gaps in the legs, Lance keeps getting glimpses of Shiro talking to Keith, Keith checking his phone, Keith getting swarmed by some girls and Shiro untangling them gently.
"Jeez, dude, what did the bottle ever do to you?" Hunk asks, and Lance looks down to see that he's strangling the bottle. He surrenders it to Hunk without a fight.
"Sorry, dude, just got really angry for some reason."
Pidge has been texting Shiro all night because they're gross, and now he reports, "Looks like you got your way, Lance. Keith got dumped."
"What?" Lance demands, and Hunk yelps "Dude, leave the bottle alone!"
Lance has to squint and weave his head back and forth to peak through the crowd, but this time when he spots Shiro and Keith again, Shiro's got his hand on Keith's arm and Keith is looking up at him, eyes big and so trusting -
"Goddamn Shiro," Lance mutters, and then yelps as Pidge slaps the back of his head again. But now he's got Pidge's total attention. Which, really, is never a good sign for either people or firewalls.
"Lance, I think you have a problem."
"Fucking tell me about it," Lance says miserably.
"I don’t think it's really a problem," Hunk says, and Lance fist bumps him.
"No, seriously, I think it's time we did some experiments," Pidge insists.
"Experiments? I am waaay too wasted for math right now, dude," Lance says, though he's really only had a few shots and maybe a beer or two. Just enough to get dancey, or morose. He's been wavering on the border between the two all night, inertia and Hunk's warm mass the only thing keeping him tethered to the couch.
"No, like," Pidge goes back to tapping frantically at his phone, "just keep your eyes on Keith."
"Aye, aye," Lance agrees. Easiest command to follow ever. He sees Shiro and Keith's attention shift to Shiro’s phone, and then a leg gets in his way. When the path clears, Shiro is leaning into Keith's space, whispering something in his ear, body pressing into his like he's trying to make a private space for just the two of them in this overcrowded room, Keith's wide, innocent eyes so trusting, lips parted so invitingly -
Hunk's yelp brings Lance back to the present, where he finds he's clutching Hunk's arm to his chest fit to bruise.
"Oh my god mercy, mercy mercy mercy," Hunk is blubbering, and he squeaks when Lance lets him go. Lance shakes himself, but he can’t shake off the feeling of wanting to just – hurt Shiro.
"Oh my god," he and Pidge say at the same time.
"What is wrong with me?" He asks, betrayed by his own violent rage. Shiro is – Shiro! It's like wanting to punch his own dad – worse, because Shiro doesn’t have a porn 'stache and is the best person Lance knows.
"Trial one, complete," Pidge says, tapping away at his phone again. There are more trials? Lance groans. His whole life is a trial; he doesn’t need more at a party.
"Keep your eyes on Keith," Pidge commands again.
This time it's Allura who taps Keith on the shoulder, showing her own phone to Shiro – who has stepped back, thank you – and Keith. Keith's eyebrows raise almost into his mullet, but he lets Allura pull him into a hug, her greater height placing him pretty much perfectly boob-height, face burning -
"What a slut," Lance murmurs murderously, and then slaps a hand over his mouth.
"Dude," Hunk says, looking betrayed. "Not cool."
"Last trial," Pidge says, and both Hunk and Lance groan.
"Pidge, please, what are you even trying to prove?"
“That you're in love with Keith."
Lance forgets the difference between swallowing and breathing and ends up doubled up on the couch, Hunk slapping his back vigorously.
"T-that's," he finally chokes out, "ri-ri-diculous."
"No, dude," Hunk says, slapping one too many times for good measure, "I think he's right. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along."
"What?!" Lance and Pidge both demand, and Lance pokes him in the chest.
"You," he says with another poke, "are a terribly joker, stop it. This is dumb. I'm not gay for Keith."
"That's it," Pidge says, "Hunk. You're up."
"Do I have to?" Hunk whines, but Pidge just flicks across the room with his eyes and Hunk sighs, standing with a great heave. Lance tumbles into the space left, Pidge managing to stay perfectly perched on the arm rest. Lance watches in confusion as Hunk shoulders his way as politely as he can across the floor. It's pretty impressive, really. Apart from the over-enthusiastic ones who think he's trying to dance with them and try to climb him like a tree, most people get out of the way for almost 6 feet of Samoan bulk. The path he makes leaves Lance a perfect vantage to watch him lean down to Keith, murmur something in his ear that distinctly looks like shay and so, so sorry, and press a chaste kiss to Keith's cheek.
Lance doesn’t realize he's got his phone in his hand until he watches Hunk answer his own across the floor. Keith has a hand clapped over his mouth but it's doing nothing to hide his furious blush, and it reminds Lance of how he now knows just how far down that blush goes -
"Lance?" Hunk's garbled voice says over the phone pressed to Lance's ear.
"If you don't back up in five seconds, Urale, I will end you, slowly – oh god"
"You're, uh, breakin’ up, but you sound pretty scary, dude."
"Oh my god, Hunk. I'm in love with Keith."
"Mhmm. Hanging up now," Hunk says. Pidge just leans over and gives Lance a side-hug that Lance is too paralyzed to return. Holy cow.
Once he figures them out, Lance deals with his feelings in a very mature fashion. First, he drinks every shot and every fruity substance and every water Hunk hands to him. Then, he makes several new friends on the dance floor. Then he decides that what he really needs to do is throw an 'I'm Gay for Keith!' party. In his room. Right now. Guest list? Everyone at this party because Shiro just shut it down.
Pidge manages to talk most of his new guests and best friends out of attending by shouting at them all to go home, and Hunk loses the rest by picking Lance up and carrying him out the back door and halfway down the block with his hand over his mouth. Lance is feeling generous, so he lets the betrayal of a good time go. They lean on each other as they weave back across campus, humming snatches of Pitbull and J. Lo songs – Hunk is a pretty good rapper, when he cuts loose. Lance does all the Spanish.
"Wanna stay over?" Hunk asks as they make it back to the ground floor of their building. "Pidge stayed at Shiro's."
"Nah, buddy, it's all good," Lance slurs, adding about six more o's than 'good' usually has. "I'll be cool to my big gay crush."
"Please don’t call him that," Hunk groans, but lets Lance squirm out from under his arm. "And please, please call me if you need anything? I'll be up."
This is 100% a lie and they both know it – when Hunk is out, Hunk is out, and drinking means he's super out. But Lance just pats his arm and nods.
"Sure thing, man. Thanks."
The hallway alone is a bit of a challenge, the three flights of stairs a trick he barely pulls off and 10/10 would not recommend, but finally he's swiping into his room and so ready to hit the sack.
He forgot a crucial detail about his room, he realizes as the door swings open and Keith turns to glare at him over a box of tissues, and that's that Keith lives there too. A Keith who is currently sitting on the floor with only a dim lamp on, bathing the room in a warm purple glow, flushed and tear-stained and utterly adorable.
"Oh," Lance squeaks.
"Oh," Keith parrots, voice hard. He stands unsteadily when Lance closes the door, kicking the tissues away from their neat pile, and Lance realizes he thinks he's going to be mocked. Lance isn’t quite sure how to communicate that that is exactly the opposite of what he wants to do to Keith right now.
"Uh," he tries, still standing awkwardly by the door, "I didn’t see you leave the party. Are you – okay?"
Keith squints at him in the way that means he's wary, but not ready to shut down just yet.
"I, uh, I left early. Wasn’t really feeling it, you know."
"Yeah, buddy, I get that." Lance finally takes a step away from the door and shucks his coat. "Is, uh, everything – okay?"
He's really gotta find a better word than okay. He starts digging through his drawer to find his pajama shirt to hide his face, but he sees Keith shrug out of the corner of his eye.
"Terry dumped me," Keith says, and it comes out more miserable than Lance expected it to.
Ah. He's not really sure what to say to that, but Keith gets there first.
"You were right. He was an ass."
Lance giggles awkwardly, and then gets stuck in his shirt.
"Um," he says, mouth full of fabric. This fucking sucks. "Sorry, I guess. That's," he finds an arm hole, "lame. Nothing anyone could control, I guess."
Got it.
He emerges to find Keith sitting on the floor again, half facing him and staring moodily at an ugly, school-issue dresser. So Terry didn’t rat him out. Interesting. Keith doesn’t immediately take a swing at him when Lance hesitantly walks up to him, so he sits.
"Oh jeez," Lance mutters, rubbing his tailbone ruefully, "misjudged that height."
Keith snickers wetly beside him and the silence between them feels – comfortable. Companionable.
Something in Lance that's been twisted up since the first boy starts to unclench. As an experiment, Lance bumps Keith's shoulder with his own and only gets a bemused side-eye in return.
"Hey, buddy," he says, "you were too good for that tool anyways."
He meant to say it with the bravado that he says everything, 1 part confidence to 9 parts hysterical uncertainty at all times, but it comes out rawer and truer somehow. He looks away even as he feels Keith turn towards him, face burning.
"Thanks," Keith says quietly. Their shoulders are touching. Lance isn’t sure when that happened, but he's not going to argue. "Sorry I've been so -" he gestures meaninglessly, "boy crazy, these last few weeks. I know it's made things weird between us."
Whoo boy. Here they go.
"Nah, dude, I'm sorry. I've been such a dick to you since you started, you know, and," he sighs. He should have written this down. He meant to write this down. he just forgot the room he planned on writing this speech in was the same one he lived in with the object of his mind-boggling attraction. "My bad, man. It's not my business who you date," please date me, "but I shouldn’t have made you feel like you weren’t welcome in your own room. It's really not about the whole gay thing, it's – well, it's complicated, and I just learned some things about myself tonight that I think are sort of relevant, and I-"
Here goes. If he hasn’t had enough liquid courage already to get him through this confession, he never will. He brings his hand up to scratch the back of his neck, a terrible nervous tick he wishes he could kick – and then yelps when he jars his gauzed hand against the back of his head. Woops. Forgot about that.
"Dude, what happened to your hand?" Keith demands, and suddenly there are warm fingers pulling Lance's wrist away from his head. Keith is on his knees, holding Lance's forearm and looking horrified – Keith is almost holding his hand, abort abort.
"I, uh, um, well," he coughs and it does not buy him nearly enough time. "I, might, have, uh, punched – Terry?"
There's a beat.
"You what."
"Ow!" Keith's grip on his forearm is suddenly bruising, and is he twisting?! Lance snatches it back and awkwardly one-handed shuffles away on his backside. Not the most graceful of maneuvers, but Keith looks ready to kill at the moment.
"You. What."
"I punched Terry, but apparently I don’t know how to punch so I dislocated my thumb and he spared my life because I'm a weakling but I swear to god, Keith, it was because he was saying shit about you that wasn’t okay I swear man-"
He runs up against the post of one of their bunks with a thunk, and Keith is right there with him, towering over him on his knees. This shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but also Lance would really rather be anywhere else having any conversation but this one, please and thank you.
"What. stuff." Keith demands, and Lance blushes. Looks like the conversation just got worse.
"Not... good... stuff. About you. In bed. About how he only spent the night and pretended to date you to get in your pants Keith I swear to god please don’t kill me."
Maybe being a weakling is a survival tactic Lance should seriously consider cultivating, because the sight of him raising his wrapped hand in defense seems to cool Keith's murderous engine enough that he takes half a shuffle back and just demands, "Go. Now."
Lance doesn’t need to be told twice. His mouth might, because even as he sprints and fumbles at the door with the wrong hand, he's muttering shit like I'm so, so sorry and I swear, I swear it was for you and oh my god fucking door fucking open Jesus Christ-
He doesn’t even close the door behind him, just sprints for the stairs. Amazing, what fear does for your balance. Hunk doesn’t answer his door, as expected, so Lance passes out on the common room couch and fervently hopes Keith doesn’t come looking for him in the night.
There's an angel watching over him when he wakes. Or, as he swims back to full consciousness, Allura. Same thing, really.
"Lance," She says in her gentle voice, "I'm concerned about you."
He groans.
Allura takes him to breakfast at the dining hall. Despite been at the party last night, Allura looks refreshed and shiny and it sort of hurts Lance's eyes to look at her too long. She takes pity on him and waits until they have their full trays before she spears him with a gaze.
"Lance, I see you were in an... altercation last night." She gestures at Lance's wrapped hand. He laughs without much humor.
"If by altercation you mean 'punched Keith's boyfriend and broke them up', yeah, I was."
"What." Allura's gentle tone has turned suddenly steely, and when Lance looks up she's gripping her cutlery in a decidedly threatening way.
"Uh, you didn’t know."
"No, I did not." She sounds furious. "I had assumed you simply got drunk and did something foolish but harmless. I was going to talk to you about my concern that you were acting out, but this-"
She breaks off to rub her temples, and it looks like it helps about as much as when Pidge does it. So not at all.
"This is far more concerning, Lance. You've put me in a very uncomfortable position. You're a good friend, but Keith is well within his rights to report you to the school board."
"Has he," Lance asks, throat suddenly very dry, "has he – said anything? Asked for a transfer?"
"Not yet, but he might."
Lance's stomach drops. He always knew, in a sort of intellectual way, that Keith might not want to live with him anymore, but hearing Allura confirm it makes it so much more real of a threat. He slumps in his seat, pushing eggs around his plate. His head still hurts because tequila, but his appetite is gone.
"Allura, just, hear me out?" He peeks up at her and she still looks that combination of angry and concerned she does so well, but at least she's put down the cutlery, so he barrels on. "Yes, I punched Terry, but I realized last night it's not because he's gay, or because I'm uncomfortable with stuff happening in my room. It's because I'm crushing pretty hard on Keith myself."
Well, that went much better than last night, at least. Still, Allura's silent. Lance peeks again and she's still got concerned/angry on, but she's leaning further towards anger. Shit.
"Lance!" She hisses, "I'm glad you've come to terms with your feelings and realized you're not suffering from internalized homophobia but jealousy does not excuse this behavior! If you really care about Keith, you should support him in relationships that make him happy, even if they're not with you! At the very least, you should tell him how you feel in a way that doesn’t physically harm any party in this situation!"
She's been getting louder and louder throughout this speech, and by the end Lance is practically cowering under the table as she shouts down at him.
"Um, Allura," he squeaks, and she seems to realize the spectacle she's creating because she sits back down. The glare doesn’t abate, however. Lance slides back into his seat, because maybe he'll look better groveling if he's sitting in a chair like a real human.
"I know I should support him – that's why I punched that rat bastard."
Allura still looks skeptical, so he goes on.
"He was saying really bad things about Keith, about how he was only dating him for the sex. Allura, seriously, you would have punched him too if you heard him."
He looks imploringly at Allura. She looks like she wants to disagree, but she’s still got the butter knife in a death grip. Finally, she asks,
"Have you told Keith this?"
Lance sighs. That is not a memory he'd really like to relive.
"Yeah, I did. He... wasn’t happy?"
Allura makes a noncommittal noise.
"Just, let me talk to him. I'll do it today, I promise. Then if he wants a room transfer or to send me to jail or whatever, I won’t complain."
Allura gives him a long, hard look. Lance does his best to look harmless. He waves his gauzed hand – it's worked before.
Finally, she heaves a sigh.
"Alright, Lance. I'll trust you, but talk to him today. Now eat your breakfast, you look paler than Pidge."
“Yes, ma’am.”
It’s an uphill battle, but he follows his captain into the culinary fray.
Keith isn’t in their room when he gets back from breakfast, even though its Sunday morning and Lance knows he doesn’t have work. He considers going to the studios to look for him, but decides there are too many sharp, shiv-shaped objects in a sculpture studio to make that a safe choice. Instead, he spends the afternoon on Pidge's bed playing FIFA with Hunk, who is a monster and already looks completely refreshed from the night before.
Keith still isn’t in their room that evening, and Lance starts to get worried. It's not like Keith has anywhere else to go – Lance only gets his backstory in fragments, but he does know Keith doesn’t have a happy family home to return to. Still, Lance isn’t a nervous housewife, Keith doesn’t have to come home on time. It's driving him crazy, of course, but he will be chill about this. The internet has never failed to suck hours away from his life before, so he drags his laptop up to his bed and settles in.
When he realizes he's read three hilarious cat comics without cracking a smile, he gives up and calls Shiro.
"Lance?" Shiro sounds sleepy, and Lance realizes guiltily that it's almost midnight. "You okay?"
"Uh, yeah, man. Have you heard from Keith today?"
There's the sound of rustling and a noise that is 100% Pidge whining about being moved, and then Shiro's voice is stronger over the line. Lance can imagine him perched on the edge of his bed, poised and ready to rally the troops at any hour.
"He was here this afternoon, but he left around dinner time. Is he still not home?"
"Not yet," Lance admits, running a hand over his face, "but don't worry about it. I, uh, think he might have taken an extra shift at the cafe tonight. He should be home soon."
"Are you sure? I can swing by the café if you want."
"No, no, it's fine. Go to sleep, man, you have lab tomorrow morning."
"Okay, but let me know if anything changes. Seriously, any hour."
When Shiro says it, they both know he means it. Way to make Lance feel like a dick, but also, fuck Keith for making him worry.
"Yeah, got it. Will do. Night, dude."
"Keith."
"Yeah?"
"Have you talked to him yet?"
"No. I. No. not yet."
"Okay. Just, be gentle, okay? Keith spooks easily."
"Apologize and don’t piss him off, this time," Pidge says, tinny and far away. Of course he's been eavesdropping. Lance wants to complain that the rules for approaching stray cats don’t really apply to human conversations, but they mean well. And he needs all the help he can get.
"Yeah, okay. I'll try."
"Good luck, man."
Then there's nothing to do then but turn the lights off and watch the minutes flick by on Keith's old-fashioned digital red-numbered alarm clock. What a freak, who doesn’t set alarms on their phone these days? Lance watches 11:45 flash by, and then 12:00 and then 12:13.
He jolts awake when the door squeaks in that way it always does when someone tries to move it slowly, and there's Keith outlined in the light from the hallway. The clock face reads 2:24. He fell asleep. Huh.
Keith closes the door gently, squeaking it again, and steps into the dark room. The scent of motor oil and gasoline wafts into the room.
"Whu," Lance mumbles.
"I went for a drive," Keith says, voice quiet. Half awake, warm and dark and in a place that’s got Lance’s jacket on Keith’s desk and Keith’s socks in Lance’s open drawer, Lance feels like they’re in a bubble; a pocket of time that's soft and gentle and safe and smells of gasoline. Lance wants to stay here forever. He hopes Keith feels it too.
"All night?" Lance asks, voice matching Keith's quiet tone, and then, "how far did you get?"
"Next state," Keith admits. Buckles clink, the sound of Keith pulling off his boots, and then the rattle of a drawer. He keeps his pajamas in the bottom drawer, Lance knows. How had it taken him this long to realize, he wonders, that he's memorized the feel and shape of Keith's presence even in the dark? Why wasn’t I'm head over heels for this guy and want to watch him folding clothes and reading philosophy books and tearing his hair out over critiques and throwing all his focus into sculpting while he's in the studio forever Lance's first thought?
Because he's dumb, that's why. Officially the worst. He’s demoting himself.
"Wow," he says. He swings his legs over the side of the bed just so he can prop himself to look at Keith. The ambient glow of streetlights through the window is enough to illuminate the whole room, now that Lance's eyes have adjusted, and he watches the twist in Keith's bare torso as he pulls off his sweaty shirt and swaps it for a fresh one. He wets his lips. Now or never. This bubble won’t last forever, maybe not even to the end of this confession, but there's nothing like darkness to give him courage.
"Um. Keith. I have something to tell you. I, uh, ha. I. Shit." This is going really spectacularly poorly. He takes a deep breath. "I like you. A lot. Like, like. Dating, like. You. A lot."
He's gotta stop running his mouth, seriously. Keith freezes, hands at this belt, and Lance stops breathing for several frenzied heartbeats.
"Could you have maybe waited until I was done changing in front of you to say this?" Keith says, which is certainly better than fuck off or fuck off and die, which were high on Lance's list of expected responses. That relief alone pushes a semi-real sounding laugh out of him, even if he's still not breathing right.
"Sorry dude, bad timing on my part."
Don't spook him, Shiro had said. Lance isn’t really sure how to do that except keep his mouth shut and wait as Keith shucks off his pants and climbs into bed. Hey, Keith didn’t say he couldn’t watch.
When he's firmly under his own blankets and Lance can only see him as a lumpy profile several feet above him, Keith finally says,
"I know. Now. Shiro might have told me this afternoon."
"What?" Lance demands. Traitor! "I'm going to kill him."
"He told me," Keith says, dry as the desert, "so I didn’t kill you on sight. Allura also told me when I went to request a room change this afternoon. And Pidge told me last night, when I said I wanted to push you into the pool at the party – unrelated to punching Terry, I just wanted to push someone into the pool and you were being a dick. Terry also told me today. He says you might have a gnarly bruise, so, sorry about that."
Lance's jaw is firmly on the floor. Betrayal, from every side. Good thing he can still trust-
"And Hunk told me because he can’t keep a secret to save his life, and because he wanted me to give you a second chance because you're such a great guy."
"Wow."
"Yeah, it was a pretty moving speech."
There goes any sense of pride Lance might have had left. His back hits his bed with a faint whump.
"Fucking saboteurs, the lot of them. Well, I guess you know, so I'll just go die now."
Fabric rustles as Keith turns on his side, finally facing Lance. A tiny sliver of light outlines his cheek, the bridge of his nose, and even in shadow Lance can tell he's being watched.
"You can’t make your friends do everything for you, you know."
"What?" Lance throws up his arms in defeat. "I didn’t tell them to spill all my deep, dark secrets!"
He can practically feel Keith's eye roll in the dark.
"Is that all you were going to tell me?" Keith asks, voice cold.
"Um?" Lance tries to think back to his call with Shiro. Apologize and don't piss him off, Pidge had said. Ah.
"Right. I'm sorry, Keith. I was a huge dick, and I'm sorry I punched your boyfriend – well, I mean, I'm not sorry I punched Terry – seriously, that guy was a huge tool and you are 100% too good for him-"
Keith clears his throat meaningfully.
"Right, focus. I'm sorry I punched him because you cared about him. It just took me so long to figure out my own head, which I know isn’t an excuse, but I'm sorry I made you think I was upset that you're gay, when really I was just upset you aren’t gay for me, cause I'm like super gay for you. Super suuuper."
Phew. The weight is gone from Lance's shoulders. If there's anything 5 siblings can teach you, it's better out than in. He lets Keith take a minute to process all that.
"Super gay, huh?" Keith asks, finally, and Lance giggles. Maybe a little hysterically.
"Shut up, butt munch."
Lance almost thinks that’s it, that’s their peace. And it’s… not great. It’s not Keith launching himself into Lance’s bed and confessing his own undying attraction, but it’s something. It’s better, honestly, then he should have hoped for.
"Trial period,” Keith says suddenly.
Lance sits up, but Keith is lying down and fully in shadow again. Either his ears aren’t working, or Keith isn’t speaking English right.
"What?"
"You get a trial period. Dinner, tomorrow, don't take me to the dining hall."
"Dinner. Like, a date?" He laughs, because this is so Keith. "Normal people call it a 'date', not a 'trial period'."
"Do you want a chance or not, Sanchez?"
"Right, yes, absolutely.” Lance is grinning like an idiot and he doesn’t care. “Weirdo."
"Freak. Goodnight, Lance."
"Night, Keith."
Lance doesn’t get much sleep that night but lying there, staring into the galaxy of bumps and pits on the ceiling, listening to Keith's breath even out, he can’t help pressing his fingers to his bruise and thinking yeah, we’re okay.