Chapter Text
When his older brother threw a party, Lance liked to hide upstairs and wonder who he could blame for everything wrong in his life. Was it his older brother, who, despite both living away at college now, still threw parties when visiting home for the holidays? His stupid high school friends that still came to these parties? His parents for going on a vacation and leaving the house empty? Pidge, his best friend, but also the one who abandoned him tonight so he was at home instead of at a haunted house? Himself, for being awkward and hiding in his bedroom like Gollum rather than just going downstairs and mingling? God, for setting all these situations in motion? Or…
His thoughts are interrupted by someone fumbling with his doorknob. He sits up from his laying position on his bed, rigid, hoping that he had locked the door even though he never did. The door slowly swung open and, if Lance listened hard enough, he could hear the Friday the 13th music playing in some distant recess of his mind. His worst nightmare stood in the doorway, wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a stupid coral polo shirt that didn’t even go with his complexion.
“Keith” Lance half-whispered, partially hoping that this was just a conjuring of his imagination. Lance loved his older brother, Anthony, very much. But this, this was unforgiveable. Anthony had grown up like every parents’ dream. Tall, but broad and strong. He could play any sport and was charming. He excelled at football, currently the quarterback of the nearby university. Lance was proud of his older brother, but having a popular brother had its drawbacks. These included having to listen to Anthony whine about having too many girls interested in him. It also included Keith.
Unlike Anthony, Keith was smaller, more compact, built for speed. They made a great pair on the field, particularly in football. Keith was extraordinary on his feet. He was fast, aggressive, and smart. In the open field, he could outrun almost any defender. What he lacked in height he made up in speed, jumping ability, and instinct.
Yet, Keith was not charismatic or nice like his brother. Oh no. He was actually quiet for one of the popular crowd. Brooding, is a word Lance had heard to describe him from the girls who followed him around. He walked around like caring about others was beneath him. Of course, that didn’t stop people from caring about him. Being gorgeous and athletic meant that little else mattered.
Not that Lance thought he was gorgeous.
The real issue wasn’t the attitude though. It was Lance. What his brother had received in the way of athleticism and charisma, Lance had gotten in awkwardness. Lance was an awkward person. He was very tall with legs and arms that made him seem like a baby giraffe for most of his teenage years. Very tall would be ok if you were coordinated, but sports were a pretty instant lost cause for him. He also won the genetic lottery of needing braces and having oily skin. But, all was not lost. Lance was cute even in his awkward stage. He was out of place in a small town, but he had friends, he was smart, people generally liked him, and he mostly flew under the radar. Pidge had been his best friend since childhood and patiently managed Lance’s insecurities and even liked his quirks. He had a great family and being known as Anthony’s younger brother helped.
And then there was Keith.
Keith couldn’t just let Lance fly under the radar. Anthony had first brought Keith over in the sixth grade and it had ended with Keith “accidentally” breaking one of Lance’s Lego sets and then smirking when Anthony wasn’t looking. From that moment on, it was like a shark with the scent of blood in the water. Nothing seemed to make Keith smile more than bullying Lance. Lance could not count how many times Keith had knocked his books out of his hands in the hallway. Does it ever get old? Lance thought one time as he kneeled to the ground and picked up his belongings again. Keith was particularly observant of Lance’s insecurities as well. He mocked his braces. He made fun of his height. He once asked if he could make fries from the grease on Lance’s face. Keith’s little football underlings had shrieked with laughter though Lance thought it was kind of gross that Keith would eat his face-grease fries. Keith had been a steady force in Lance’s life since that sixth-grade introduction-a dark force always just outside his periphery waiting to point out everything Lance hated about himself.
Anthony, a year older than Keith and Lance, had a blind spot when it came to Keith. The two boys had met during a Summer football camp. Keith was Korean, but had moved to their sleepy American town from Ontario. Anthony told Lance later that Keith had seemed shy and uncomfortable and, knowing how it felt to be different, Anthony had taken him under his wing. He had introduced Keith and Lance hoping they would be friends. Looking back, Lance could not believe that a shy, uncomfortable Keith ever existed. Maybe his brother got Keith mixed up with someone else and this was all some big, cosmic misunderstanding.
Now, Lance did consider himself lucky though. Though he worried about Keith’s stupid taunts, he watched enough anime to know how bullying could go down. Keith never got physical with him beyond occasionally knocking one of his books to the ground. Keith wasn’t even particularly good at bullying. His insults were embarrassing at times and no one else at their school joined in the bullying. Keith never did anything around Anthony. Lance had a great support group. He also had the knowledge that Keith was temporary. Lance would graduate soon and leave Keith and this small town in his life’s rear view mirror. Keith was just a fleeting irritation that ultimately would not matter. Lance knew he would just be a distant memory beyond (Lance secretly hoped) hearing about Keith burning out after high school. It wasn’t terrible to wish bad things on your #1 enemy, right?
In the years between sixth grade and graduating high school before the sweet release of moving to college, Keith had only really hurt him once.
Pidge played soccer and, like a good friend, Lance supported her while quietly wondering why he had to be surrounded by athletes. He was 16 and really just wanted to get home and curl up with some manga. The game had ended, he had given Pidge a high five and said hello to her parents and brother, all of whom were almost absurdly kind to Lance, and then walked under the bleachers. It was the fastest path to the parking lot. Staring at his phone, he almost hadn’t seen Keith standing under the bleachers, leaning against one of the pillars, head hanging and shoulders tense. He wore his letterman’s jacket, black with his last name in red lettering across the back. Keith had looked up and walked up to him with anger in his eyes that confused Lance. He had felt an unfamiliar tremor of fear spread across his body. Keith was usually an annoying bully, not a scary one.
Keith’s normally beautiful purple-blue eyes (were those even a natural color? Lance had thought once) were black holes in his face, teeth bared like Lance had only seen on the field before. He had grabbed Lance by the front of his shirt and Lance had thought, here it comes. Keith is finally going to be that bully and give me a bloody nose. But, what happened next cut deeper than any punch could have. He uttered a single word, that word, the F word (not that one, but the other one). Then, he stalked off like nothing had happened, leaving Lance struggling to breathe.
He hadn’t gone to school for the next two days. The word echoed in his head in Keith’s voice, low and dirty and ugly. On the third day, he had received a text from a phone number he had forgotten he had saved to his contacts years earlier while coordinating schedules with Anthony.
“come back to school im bored”
The text had twisted his stomach into knots all over again. Come back to school. It was Keith. Come back to school. I’m bored. Anger previously unknown to the easygoing Lance bubbled up. He had resigned himself to his fate to being Keith’s whipping boy until college. They had an equilibrium-Keith teased him, Lance took it, Keith got to have some fun, Lance didn’t get beaten up. Soon, Lance would be in college and none of this would matter. But, this. Come back to school. I’m bored. This made Lance angry. He had always thought that Keith was just kind of a dick in general and that he wasn’t the only one getting “Keithed.” But this was more personal. Why should Lance present himself to Keith just to be used for his amusement? Why did he deserve to be made fun of? Why did he have to like boys? It was a rare moment of self-doubt for Lance who had generally accepted himself by this point. He had felt tears well in his eyes again as he read the text over and over again with the word echoing in the back of his head. Come back to school. I’m bored.
And he had. What else could he do? Lance was great at swallowing his feelings and this was no different. When Keith had walked over to him, smiled, and stolen his Dr. Pepper, Lance’s face had remained stoic and unmoved. Nope. Just turn around and get back to work on Calculus homework.
Lance struggles to control his emotions now though, years later, now in college and far away from those high school hallways, looking at the flushed man standing in his doorway. Lance had been in college now for over a year and his life is, for all intents and purposes, pretty good. He had filled out a bit. His braces were gone. He had a careful, extensive skin care routine that left him with skin that, if he can quote his dermatologist here, was glowing. Though his brother was considered the people person, Lance discovered that, once away from his predestined role in a small town, he could be funny too. Though always a bit awkward, he was charismatic too. And it felt good to talk to people who were more open-minded, to see them laugh with him and not at him. People enjoyed being around him and Lance enjoyed people. He had also found his people. People who also owned all of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. People who understood him when he said Kaneki did nothing wrong.
Pidge had come with him, both interested in the engineering program which was nationally renowned at the university, and they had added to their ranks other friends like Hunk, the kind-hearted boy they met at the cafeteria and Rolo, the socially conscious boy who protested animal abuse and perhaps smoked a bit too much pot. Lance had his first kiss, simultaneously shy and desperate, on a porch outside a party. Things didn’t work out in the long run with that boy, but that was ok. There would be others or maybe just one other. Lance couldn’t decide if he wanted to date around or meet “the one” right now, but either way sounded like fun. Lance was starting to feel like a real boy, like he deserved happiness, that his interests were valid, that maybe he would meet someone special soon, that he was going to get an engineering degree and maybe design a cool plane of some sort, that he would…
“Naruto!”
Keith spoke just once and all the progress Lance had made in life crumbles before his eyes. Oh. And that. Keith caught him in the living room one time watching Naruto and promptly made it his new nickname. He can’t remember the last time Keith had actually said his name. The name is mildly annoying at 13, embarrassing in high school, and then a source of amusement against Keith with Lance’s college friends. Seriously, Keith couldn’t even come up with a better nickname to mock him with? What kind of lame high school bully? Pidge had leaned over the cafeteria table when Lance was telling the story and added in that Keith had raised the average IQ of Canada just by leaving it. Their table of new college friends had laughed and Lance felt a perverse thrill at Keith being the butt of the joke for once.
This support seems to matter very little as Lance watches the other boy leer around his room. Keith suddenly doubles over in laughter, snorting a bit, which should be obnoxious, but Lance hates the way Keith’s face lights up when he is laughing. It bordered on cute.
“You still play with LEGOS”
Sitting on Lance’s desk is a completed Millennium Falcon, a prized possession given the 100 dollar price tag and the fact that it had come from his grandparents. He wants to respond, to tell Keith to go fuck himself, but his newfound confidence is shot by this unexpected confrontation. He feels voiceless, tongue-tied in front of Keith.
Keith walked into the room and closed the door behind him. The click of the door made Lance swallow hard. The click sounded loud, louder than a door shutting should be.
“Why are you here”
“Your brother invited me”
“He didn’t invite you to my bedroom”
“ah come on Naruto, I’m bored”
Come back to school. I’m bored. Lance winced and got up, deciding to leave the room, possibly the house. There was a 24 hour Starbucks nearby and Lance could…
His thoughts are interrupted by Keith moving to his bookcases. There were really two types of books that Lance reads. School work-respectable textbooks and relevant other books. Then, embarrassing. His bookcases were mostly colorful manga volumes following his changing reading habits. Naruto and Bleach which turned into Full Metal Alchemist and D. Gray-man as Lance got older. Haikyuu!! and Ouran Host Club littered the bottom shelves.
“Oh god, Naruto, you never stop being a loser do you”
“Stop” Lance said, angry that Keith could not let this go even now that they are both adults.
“And what…what are you wearing?” Lance looks down at his floral t-shirt and white pants and sighs at the fact that he decided to wear this today.
“Says the person wearing a coral polo shirt” he rebuts, finding his voice again even then it was a lame comeback.
“And is that….nail polish?” His voice lifts at this question, staring at Lance’s dark red nails. Lance curses. Why red? Why not a more respectable or discreet color?
He summons his courage.
“I like it” He crosses his arms and stares the other boy down.
Keith surprisingly shrugs and lets it go, continuing his slow walk around the room. Lance notices how pale he is, thinking he looks thinner than high school.
“Can I borrow some socks?”
“What?”
“Someone spilled beer on my feet. I need some socks”
“No. No you can’t borrow socks. Stop”
“It’s cold. Do you want me to die Naruto? Do you want me to get cold feet and die?”
Keith had already began digging around in his drawer when suddenly he stopped. He froze for so long that Lance became concerned. He walked over to Keith and saw something that made him wish he was dead. Bright future? Coming into his own at college? General love of life and good friends? New Star Wars movie coming out soon? None of that mattered. Lance needed to be dead, right here, right now.
Keith pulled out the unmistakable pretty, frilly lump of lingerie that Lance had hidden deep in his drawers and deep in his subconscious.
“What….what…is this…” Keith’s face was unreadable, his voice low and harsh. Lance walked over to try to snatch it out of his hands. This seemed to shake Keith from his paralysis and he easily kept the lingerie out of Lance’s hands despite his long arms.
“Ok, I refuse to believe you actually have a girlfriend who would wear something like this for you so….”
Lance desperately reached for the lingerie again, a bright red flush spreading across his entire body. The shorter, athletic boy easily ducked him, striding across the room to lean against the wall, looking cooler than his polo shirt should allow.
“Do you jerk off in this? Are you that kind of pervert, Naruto?”
“No! No….I, I…” Lance desperately seeks to come up with an excuse while simultaneously cutting his losses. Ok, he only sees Keith every few months now. In fact, it had been closer to a year since the last time he saw him. Ok, so maybe Keith’s bullying will take on a different tone now. Ok, at least Lance’s college life was still safe. Pidge was the only one with connections to Lance’s hometown and had stuck by him through far worse than some lingerie. She had actually bought him the very nail polish he is wearing and the rest of his friends had complimented it.
Keith smirked. It was devastating.
“Do you wear it” His voice had gone even lower, eyes staring through Lance into his very soul.
“NO! I don’t, I never, I…”
While he stutters, Keith unwinds the lingerie to get a better look at it. Lance hears him gasp and then go very still. It’s really a pretty tacky piece of lingerie, one step sexier than what you will see on Halloween. It is pale blue-green color, mostly see-through, with a white ruffle at the bottom. Little ribbons make their way up the sides of the faux-corset top where another white ruffle fluffs where the cleavage should be. It’s not the actual item that freezes Keith though.
“You BOUGHT this? You really ended up buying this that day” Lance groans inwardly. Why did Keith remember that?
Lance suddenly feels cornered. The door is shut. He would have to pass Keith to reach it. Keith, who is now staring at the lingerie with a strange look in his eyes. His smugness melted into excitement and then finally into something that verges on predatory.
“Put it on”
The request is made without preamble and Lance isn’t sure he heard him correctly.
Keith closes the distance between them, standing in front of the taller boy and staring firmly even as Lance squirms and drops his eyes to the ground.
“Put it on”
Lance is almost giddy now, but not in the pleasant Christmas morning way. Whelp, things have officially gotten weird, he thinks, fighting the urge to laugh in Keith’s face.
He still feels speechless, reeling under the sudden change in atmosphere. Keith was eerily calm and he couldn’t even see the movements of his breathing. Keith was too close. Keith was looking at him.
“Lance”
Nothing could have made Lance snap to attention faster than hearing his name at that moment. Keith never called him by his actual name. It was always Naruto or some other lame insult. His name in the boy’s mouth now seemed both suggestive and commanding. Lance saw his own arm betray him, snaking out to grab the lingerie from Keith’s hands.
Keith smirked again and then walked over to the desk where Lance’s now seemingly unimportant Millennium Falcon lay. He sat down in the desk chair, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head.
“I’ll wait”