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The gladiator bot was a formidable adversary; as the levels rose from one to three to four, Keith found himself increasingly challenged. Altean technology was really impressive to mimic human (alien?) movements so accurately.
“Start training level four!”
Keith had taken to training in the dead of night. Sure, he wasn’t exactly the most intelligent to train alone after the Galran crystal incident, but he needed to get better, stronger, more reliable.
With a clang, the gladiator dropped to the floor. Parry, strike, dodge, swing. Focus on moving according to instinct.
He was doing pretty well, almost done, so close to finishing off the bot --
“End training sequence!!”
Of all people, did it have to be him .
(Keith would’ve preferred someone else for more reasons than one, including the flush rising onto his cheeks that was totally not from exhaustion.)
“Lance, please leave. I’m busy.”
The teen in question simply grinned. Leave it to Lance to harass Keith at any time, popping up from around corners and barging in on training sessions. This was also part of the reason Keith trained in the space equivalent of midnight; Lance claimed he needed his “beauty sleep” or something, so he wasn’t often found up in the middle of the night.
“What? I can’t really hear you, could you speak up,” he mocked, trying to coerce a reaction from Keith.
Well, fortunate that Lance’s presence could be considered nonexistent when Keith was laser-focused on training.
“Start training level four, additional commands authorized only by the Red Paladin.” Keith held his sword up for authentication, which would certainly be helpful when Lance would try to interrupt a second time.
When the training room was finished scanning his bayard, Lance was still talking. His tendency to keep blabbering even when his audience wasn’t listening was both impressive and extremely idiotic. Especially now.
Lance yelped when the gladiator dropped down from the ceiling next to him. “What the heck, Keith!? Are you trying to get me killed?” He scrambled to the far side of the training room, aiming to avoid any injury.
It wasn’t like Keith was intentionally doing this, but he briefly entertained the idea of using the gladiator against Lance as a punitive measure. Then he (wisely) decided against it, since it was the middle of the night and Lance didn’t even have his bayard on him.
“Keith, stop that! Also, since when did the castle have that function? That’s not fair!!”
It was easy to ignore Lance; just focus. Duck, swing, block, stab. Tune out the screeching voice wailing in the background…
Okay, maybe it wasn’t so simple.
Keith finished off the gladiator robot with a flashy dodge-parry-slash, then turned to Lance, growing increasingly frustrated. “Okay, why aren’t you just leaving? What do you want!?”
“Finally,” Lance muttered under his breath, so quietly Keith almost didn’t catch it. He did hear it though, and promptly narrowed his eyes at the other Paladin.
Tired and somewhat annoyed, Keith made his way over to where Lance had set up camp and plopped down beside him.
“Alright, spit it out. You wouldn’t be still sitting here if this wasn’t important.” Keith’s anger had faded a little since he was able to finish the level four bot and it was about time to stop for the night. And he was always willing to help Lance with homesickness, vulnerability, whatever -- Lance basically only came to Keith when things were particularly tough, although Keith considered them equals, not rivals -- even if he’d never admit it.
(He’d also considered spilling some of his own issues to Lance, but those problems manifested themselves in the form of an infatuation with a certain lanky, Cuban teen currently sitting next to him.)
Lance hesitated at Keith’s bluntness, like he didn’t expect Keith to so willingly listen to him. That would be the case, but Lance had walked in and Keith could tell that today wasn’t a normal day, something was off, it wasn’t just complain-o-clock, this was serious heart-to-heart conversation time. That, and the fact that it was nearly 3 AM UTC - 7:00.
“Uh, yeah…” The Blue Paladin muttered. “I didn’t really mean to interrupt your training, but you’re the only one up and…”
Keith nodded, letting Lance continue. Something about the way Lance seemed a little guilty made him suspicious, but he didn’t show it.
Unfortunately, spending so much time as a team and in a mind-linked robot did things to people: it made Lance able to at least pick up on how Keith was feeling much, much more acutely than a normal human being, and vice versa. And it wasn’t like Keith spent any more time observing Lance than he did the others. Not at all.
Scowling at him, Lance admitted, “Okay, it’s not only because you’re the only one up; Pidge is still up because they never, ever sleep, but I don’t want to get tasered to death and…” he trailed off.
“And…?”
Lance turned away, hanging his head. Was that a blush creeping down Lance’s neck, or was it just hopeful thinking?
“Um…”
Keith stared at Lance. Usually it didn’t take this long for Lance’s feelings to spill out uncontrollably, and emotional Lance was easier to deal with than stubborn Lance.
“It’s embarrassing…”
Slightly irked, Keith sighed. “Lance.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not going to judge you, you know. We’re equals, teammates, heck, we’re friends by now. Unless it’s something like, ‘I had a scene phase in sixth grade,’ I’m not going to mock you for it. I know it’s got to be something important, so just. Talk.”
Sighing, Lance finally turned back to face Keith, his face an impressive shade of red. “Okay. I’m gonna -- I’m gonna say it.”
Keith gave Lance a look like he was staring into a figurative camera, something that’d happen right then if they were on a reality TV show.
Lance started slowly: “Uh, so like, we’ve been teammates for like, almost two years. And we’re like… friends-ish, I think. And, recently, I’ve been noticing things about you that I haven’t noticed before, and I find it really-- really endearing , for some reason, like when you laugh, you throw your head back and it’s really?? Cute? And when you finish training, you wipe sweat off your forehead and for some reason that’s really hot and… stuff.”
Frustrated, he threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know!! You’re always willing to listen to me ramble on and on about my family or my insecurities when I really need it, and you don’t even need to say anything, because your presence is somehow comforting? And the way you’re nice to everyone, and you act like a brother to Pidge and sit next to Hunk and break things when he you needs to, and you train with Allura and Shiro and help them when things are kinda bad. Even though you don’t like crowds, you always stick around for the native inhabitants of planet-whatever and play around with them and I think that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life?” Lance almost hesitated, cheeks turning an almost dangerous shade of crimson.
“Anyways, I think I really, really, like you, like, like you or something, and I was talking to Pidge before, and they said that I should just ‘man up and tell him,’ or something, and so I came here before I lost the nerve and… yeah.”
Sometime during Lance’s grand confession, he’d started to ramble, and Keith was just trying to absorb all of this… information (probably word vomit) coming from Lance’s mouth a mile a minute.
Wait, what? Confession!?
“Please say something, or else I think I will spontaneously combust,” Lance pleaded. The flush on his cheeks was spectacularly visible even through his darker complexion. Now Keith could feel his face starting to heat up, because how could Lance, of all people, possibly have a crush on him??
“Was that…”
Lance managed a remarkably threatening frown through his bright red blush. “What? Was that what?”
It seemed Keith had lost his voice, because he couldn’t quite form any words, and settled for dropping his face into his hands and muttering a, “Was it sincere.”
“You…” Lance’s face fell in shock. “I spill my heart to you, babble about how amazing you are for two whole minutes, and you ask if it was sincere. Of course it is, are you stupid!?”
And an uncontrollable warmth spreads through Keith’s gut and bubbles up into his chest, because, holy quiznak. Lance likes him.
Lance, the guy Keith’s been pining over for months, the frequent topic of his late night rants to Shiro, the stupid idiot who manages to cheer Keith up whenever he’s down, the hero whose brilliant ideas have saved several operations and even planets, the boy who doesn’t see how incredible he is in everything he does.
“Lance,” Keith exhaled almost reverently. He finally lifted his head to look at Lance, who looked one step away from bursting into flames.
“What,” he replied eloquently.
Well, Keith was never one for words. He gently cupped the back of Lance’s head and brought their lips together for a chaste kiss. It lasted only a moment, but it felt like everything.
“I think I like you, too.”
“...you think?! ”
Keith snickered. Even two years later, it was still funny to fall back to his original response to Lance’s confession.
“No, you idiot. I love you.”