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Keith doesn’t know how he got in this situation.
Scratch that, he definitely does. He got curious about Lance’s weird skin routine and dared ask him what was on his face and where did he get all these products from , anyway? They didn’t exactly have a walmart in space.
So, Keith and his big mouth ended up asking Lance about it. They were alone, anyway. The others were busy with one thing or another, and he figured a little conversation couldn’t hurt.
Lance has scoffed, and said, “Haven’t you ever had a face mask on before?” And he really should have just said said “yes, I have,” so Lance would drop the subject all together--but no, no, he just had to inquire further.
“No? What does it...do?” He lived in a desert in a small shack, beauty products weren’t on his to-buy list with the little money he had. They wouldn’t be on there anyway.
Lance had gasped dramatically, eyes wide as saucers in genuine upset. “Keith.” he said solemnly. “We need to fix this. Come with me.”
And before he could really conclude what Lance had decided on, he’d been dragged down the ship halls to Lance’s bedroom, the door locking in place behind him before he realized what was going on.
~
So here he was, sitting on Lance’s bed, products laying out in front of him, all with weird names and in colorful tall and short bottles, jars, and spray containers. He’s pretty sure half of these are cleaning products, but Lance isn’t here to confirm or deny that fact. He left to get “something important” but he never specified what. Maybe he’s teasing Keith to see if He’ll bleach or windex his face by accident, and take blackmail photos when he comes back.
Lance comes back into the room after leaving for a moment, hands full of two steaming cups of...something.
“What is that?” Keith asks, inching upward to see inside the cups. He’s suspicious of everything now. It probably isn’t even a drink, but some weird hot face oil or whatever Lance had been rambling about earlier.
Lance snorts. “Lemon tea?” He squints down at the cups. “Actually, I got it from Allura a while ago, only tastes like lemon tea. I don’t and don’t want to know what it’s actually made of.” He admits, smiling brightly after that, like it wasn't horrifying they were about to down some weird alien drink. “It’s good for your skin--you know, if it was actually lemon. I like to drink green tea while I do this stuff, but lemons’ the best we got in space, so we’ll put up with it, I guess!”
Keith’s still wary of what’s going down right now, But he’s not going to walk out on this spa night Lance seemed to have set up for them--it’s honestly the happiest he’s seen Lance in a long time since they came to space. Like, blubbering in excitement about his favorite things with stars in his eyes and consistent real smiling kind of happy.
So of course, Keith isn’t going to say no.
Lance settles down beside Keith on the bed, the table pulled close to them with products and bottles practically falling everywhere at this point. How did Lance even acquire all these things?
“I got these from Allura,” Lance says, as if reading his mind. “I still had a little bit when we got here--just some face cream I always like to carry around in case i needed it during class. But I ran out after a night.” He smiles towards Keith, picking up a bottle. “I’m going to use this on you, okay?”
The bottle was a spritz kind, short and black but opaque, so Keith couldn’t see the contents inside. He proceeds with caution. “...what is it?”
Lance spritzes some on his palm, giving him a dry look. “Keith, this stuff is all safe, okay? I’ve been using them for a while now. Trust me a bit here.”
They stare at each other for a few solid moments, before Keith nods. “Alright. Do your worst.”
The smile he receives from Lance in return sends his heart stuttering in his chest.
“Alright, so,” Lance starts, pulling the cap off. “Close your eyes. I’m just cleaning your face.” and as Keith does so, he feels the somewhat warm spray--which he’s pretty sure it just water and soap, because it sure smells like it--is being rubbed on his face. And then there’s soft hands rubbing the product around on his cheeks and forehead, and Keith tries to keep his heart stuttering to a minimum.
After he’s done, there’s a wet towel patting his face down, and suddenly Lance is playing with his Hair.
“Woah,” Keith says, pulling back, eyes open. “What are you doing?”
“Tying your hair back. And pinning it. Do you really want mask getting in that greasy hair of yours?”
“My hair isn’t greasy,” Keith sneers. “And fine. Fix it if you have to.”
“Good. I do.”
Keith’s happier when Lance is behind him, unable to see the blush on his face as blunt nails brush his scalp and part the hair, tugging it lightly back. He basks in the feeling, enjoying the light pull. He didn’t usually let people touch his hair, but he did like the feeling.
Shiro, he’d allow to comb and tie it up for him. On occasion. But Keith wasn’t used to it being like…this.
Shiro did it quickly, yet softly. Lance was… almost combing it with his fingers, carding through the strands an unnecessary amount of times, hands pulling it tight, but it didn’t hurt. It felt nice. He shivers.
Of course Lance felt that.
“Oh, You like your hair being played with, do you?” Lance comments, and Keith can hear the grin in his voice.
“Shut up, Lance.”
“Don’t get feisty. It’s cute.” Lance hums, putting some bobby pins in.
Keith doesn’t comment, and feels himself recoil into his shoulders. He wasn’t used to being so visible, hair not hanging down in his face. Even in training, he left it as it was, long and in the way.
“Wow, I can actually see your eyes now! To think you actually had any under that mop.” Lance says, laughing as he comes back to Keith’s front, a green jar in hand. “You don’t need to close your eyes for this one, since it’s the mask.”
They’re cross-legged on the bed, facing each other now. Lance opens the jar, and a weird smell passes through the room, kind of like fresh grass and… glue? Keith really doesn’t want to put that on his face.
“It’s kind of weird smelling, I guess,” Lance shrugs. “But the cool part is it’s altean mud! Like, the special beauty kind.” Lance’s smile is radiant as he talks. “So that means this stuff could do super cool things for our skin, like maybe even prevent wrinkles for like, the rest of our lives or something. Who even knows? I mean, Allura is like ten thousand, and look at her skin!”
That could also mean it could be very, very bad for our skin. Keith doesn’t say, but nods stiffly. “Great,” He huffs. He still really hates the smell. “Lay it on me.”
“You don’t need to look so scared.”
“I’m not. Just--preparing myself.”
“You’ll be okay, i’ve used it plenty of time,” He assures, waving a hand and smearing the grey mud onto Keith’s face. It was cold.
“Do you do this every night?” Keith asks, as he applies it. He shuffles awkwardly, trying to look anywhere but Lance’s eyes, which were intently focused on him. Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to this, after all.
“Nah, but since you were curious, I thought it’d be fun to try this with you.”
“Why?”
“So we could spend time together, of course! I always used to do this with Hunk back on earth, and we’d watch sappy chick flicks or whatever was on tv at the time.” Lance sighs dreamily. “I miss tv so much. Old Altean shows just aren’t the same.”
Keith raised an eyebrow. “So i’m just a replacement because Hunk couldn’t do this with you tonight?”
Lance gives him a look. “Will you stop? I wanted to hang out with you, not Hunk. I mean, yeah, Hunk’s my best friend, but we need to bond more, you and me. We’ve lived on this ship for months and I’ve hung out with you, what, once?”
“We had a bonding moment, and you denied it, but yeah.”
Lance rolls his eyes. “ANYWAY,” He says, exasperated. “We haven’t hung out enough. So yeah, we’re fixing that.”
As Lance finishes applying the mask, he wipes his hands on the rag and goes to apply his own, a little mirror in hand.
Keith has no idea what he looks like right now, but he feels stupid, like he just rubbed pudding all over his face. Or space goo. It doesn’t feel good, and from what he’s seeing go onto Lance’s face, it probably makes him look stupid.
But Lance is smiling, smearing the product onto his cheeks and checking in the mirror.
“You really like this stuff, don’t you?” Keith asks, openly staring at Lance.
“Huh?” Lance says, still rubbing product on.
“Beauty stuff. I don’t know. You just sort of--” he waves his hands in exaggeration toward his face. “--Light up when you do this stuff.”
“Oh,” Lance says airily, and smiles at him somewhat dimly, And Keith wonders what he said wrong. Lance looked lost in thought for a moment, before looking to see if his mask was evenly on his skin and putting the mirror down.
“My sister,” He starts. “She showed me all about this stuff before she went off to college, and I didn’t get it at first, or why I should be doing it--I thought it was silly. Girly stuff. But it became fun routine, and it reminded me of her when she wasn’t around. I guess it was a coping method for missing her.” He shrugs. “When I was at the garrison, it helped me with some of my homesickness, and now…I guess it helps. A bit.” He shrugs again, looking away and wiping his dirty hands on the towel. “It’s a way to pass the time, at least.”
There’s a heavy silence that floods the room--and really, it’s true silence. There’s no noise in space, other than the constant hum of the ship they’re in, but everything else? Pure nothingness.There was no birds chirping. There was no neighbours mowing the lawn, or the distant sound of trains and traffic. If awkward silences were bad on earth, they’d tenfold in comparison here.
“...You miss them a lot, don’t you?” Keith asks, slowly.
Lance smiles up at him, a little sadly. “Yeah. Everyday.” He says, and for once, he doesn’t tack on a funny one liner at the end of his sentence, or make a pun, or say anything in order to lighten the heavy mood. He just stares into the little window off the side of the bed into the vast openness of space, eyes distant.
“You’ll see them again, Lance.” Keith blurts.
“You don’t know that, Lance replies, voice terse as he closed his eyes tightly.
Keith grabs his hand, and when Lance looks at him, he searches his eyes.
“I do know. You will, Lance. If there’s anything I’ll promise you, it’s that I’ll get you home in one piece.” Lance blinks wordlessly, and Keith continues.
“I don’t have anything down there, but you do, and I’ll keep you safe until I can get you home. You will see your family again.”
It’s certainly something to fight for.
Keith hadn’t had family on earth--maybe that’s why he was so cold to everyone who did, when Pidge wanted to leave to save her brother and father, when Hunk wanted to go home. When Lance did too. They all had someone.
And he’d gotten mad at them for it, even though he shouldn’t have. The only reason he did so in the first place was because he probably felt more angry at them more so, than the fact they wanted to leave. He was selfish. Selfish and so painfully angry, because everyone had something to fight for. Something they wanted to leave for, somewhere else to be. A reason to make it home.
For Keith, he might as well have been fighting the galra in space, unknown to the rest of the world--Because he didn’t have that thing holding him to earth like everyone else did, and he didn’t even want it at the time. If he was given a bigger purpose here, he’d take it. And at the same time, he just lashed out at those who did have something to search for, to find, to protect.
But that was before.
Recently, he’s learning he does have that something. Maybe not on earth--but in this very ship. He had a family here; one he would die for in a heartbeat. He’d defend them with his life, and make sure they got home safe.All of them.
He’s still searching Lance’s watery eyes, waiting for confirmation to what he said.
Lance continues to stare at him blankly, the most quiet he’d ever been, and Keith narrows his eyes at him. Was he--
After a moment or two more, Lance’s shoulders shake, and he snorts, shaking his head.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Lance.”
“I’m sorry-- I’m not laughing at you or what you said!” He holds his hands up in surrender, a knowing look in his eye, because Keith can feel himself getting off the bed, ready for murder.
Ready to murder Lance.
“It’s just,” Lance points to Keith’s face, wobbly smile still present. “The mud mask. You’re talking really serious for someone wearing a bunch of gunk on their face, dude.”
“LANCE.”
Lance shakes his head, still smiling, and waving his hands desperately in front of his face for flimsy protection so Keith won’t punch him into the bed and leave. He’s laughing so hard there’s tears in his eyes, and Keith doesn’t understand just what’s so funny--
Oh.
He was trying to change the main focus, again. Trying to rile Keith up.
“Lance.” Keith says, strongly, as he sits back down on the bed. “Come here.”
Lance quirks a brow, and sits back down the way he was, cross-legged, but a little weary of Keith still, so he’s leaning away.
“What? I didn’t mean to laugh at you, I swear--”
“You don’t need to hide your feelings around me, okay?” He brushes a hand through his own hair again in frustration. The hair is half-falling out of the ponytail that lance did, and he’s regretting his nervous habits of messing with his hair. He knows he’s blushing, but he thanks God for the space mask on his skin that’s opaque enough to cover just about anything.
“I--I know that sounds weird to say, or whatever, but I just mean you don’t need to pretend you’re okay, okay? You can confide in me. It’s not like I’m going to make fun of you.” Keith frowns. “I know we fight a lot, but you can trust me.”
Lance shakes his head. “I know, Keith.” There’s a small smile there. “Thank you, by the way. Your words--” his smile goes sheepish. “They mean alot to me, okay? I’m just--” He sighs, cuts himself off. “I’ll talk about it one day. I promise.”
“Good,” Keith says. And after that, he choses to make the risky move of grabbing Lance’s hand again, squeezing it tight. Not letting go.
Lance only stares at their wrapped up hands before threading their fingers together instead of just clutching at palms, and looks back up to Keith, a worried gaze in his eyes that asks: “Is this okay?” and Keith only clutches his hand tighter, smiling at Lance.
Lance could talk about his feelings whenever he chose to, and Keith will be there waiting when he does. He won’t pressure him to talk about his family, or how he’s holding up. He’ll wait patiently.
Regardless of voltron--he wanted to be close with Lance. A support to him. As long as Lance knows He’ll be there for him--That’s the important part.
When he smiles at Lance, he feels a piece of the face mask fall off onto the bed. Both their eyes follow it down.
“...Let’s wash this stuff off our face now, Okay?” Keith says, grimacing. “It feels like my whole face is cracking in half.”
“Looks like it, too.” Lance agrees with a snort, pulling Keith up to drag him to the bathroom, the heavy air of their conversation dropped once again. “Oh, and you know, this is only the first step! After this, we have to use toner, and then apply night cream--”
Lance continues on about this and that product, which are all things Keith doesn’t know about. He doesn’t even know what half the words mean. But it’s sweet, and if what he needs from this right now is distraction, that’s the route Keith will go.
“You know what would pass the time greatly with masks, next time?” Keith asks.
Lance raises a brow. “What?”
“Painting our nails.” Keith smiles, wickedly.
Lance looked at him, eyes wide in surprise, before he guffaws out a laugh. “Keith Kogane, you did not bring nail polish to space.”
“Try me,” He replies with a grin, and they head to the bathroom.
The promise of “next time” still rings faintly in the air as they leave together.