Chapter Text
It was an accident.
Lance would insist until the day he died that it had been an accident.
He'd just been minding his own business! It was the monthly McClain family dinner - involving all of his abuela's children and grandchildren, which meant quite a lot of people. Lance was lucky he had a gift for remembering names.
Everyone had been sat around the table, conversations and laughter filling the air. At the smaller children's table, somebody had just thrown potato at the wall. It happened often. Lance had been immersed in a debate with his brother, Marco (which country was going to win the World Cup?) when his abuela had popped the question.
No, not that question. The other one.
The, "Alejandro, when will you be getting a proper girlfriend?" Question.
It was inevitable, really, what with Luis's wedding in two weeks.
And, suddenly the entire table was staring at him. His siblings were divided between evil (Marco, Rachel) and sympathetic (Veronica, Luis.) The question had been asked at almost every single dinner since Lance had been fifteen, and he'd never been able to give the same name twice. He just didn't usually do very serious relationships. It wasn't that he couldn't be in a serious relationship. He just didn't want to be in one.
And his family struggled to understand that.
Lance stared back at the gathering of his family, a range of curious to judgemental. And maybe he did what he did next because he was a little sick of being judged. And a little sick of it always being 'girlfriend', even though he'd told them all he was bisexual any number of times.
Maybe that was why Lance blurted out. "I have a boyfriend, actually. We've been together for… three months."
"What?!" The first shout came from his twin sister. "And you didn't tell us?!" Rachel gasped.
"I- uh- he wasn't ready to be public about it. To anyone. So… yeah." Lance immediately regretted all his life decisions. How the hell could this hold up under scrutiny?
"How old is he?"
"What's his name?"
"How'd you meet?"
Lance swiveled between faces, trying to stammer out vague answers to the onslaught of questions.
"Calm down, everyone!" His mamá interrupted, then turned to him with a gentle look on her face. "Start small, Alejandro. Show us a photo?"
"Ah- I don't have many of him - he doesn't like cameras much - but I can probably find…" Lance trailed off, pulling out his phone, while attempting to ignore the eyes trained on him. He scrolled desperately through his camera roll, looking for any photos of someone his family wouldn't recognise. They knew Hunk, his best friend since childhood. His closer family had met Pidge, who had been Lance and Hunk's friend since the start of their first year at the Garrison University.
There really wasn't anybody else—
Except. A photo their group had taken last week at their movie night, where Pidge had done them the service of bringing their roommate: Keith Kogane. Lance's rival. Except he kept insisting he didn't even remember their class together in their first year!
But Lance had stalled too long already. What else was he supposed to do? Admit his lie? Never!
"Here, this was last week." He said, holding up the picture. Thankfully, he and Keith had been unwillingly sat next to each other on the small couch (courtesy of Hunk and their inability to say no to his friend-bonding exercises).
"Wait. Is that Keith Kogane?" Veronica asked in astonishment.
"Uh… maybe?" Lance winced. There had been a chance his sister wouldn't have recognised a random student a few years below her, but it wasn't a high one, apparently.
"Your self-proclaimed rival?" Veronica half-gasped, half-laughed.
"We- enemies-to-lovers can happen, you know!"
"So you love him?" Marco asked with a shit-eating grin.
"What?! No! What?" Lance spluttered, turning to his more reasonable sibling (Luis) for help.
Luis grinned. "You should bring him to the wedding."
"I- I wouldn't want to take the spotlight off of you—" Lance tried.
"Nonsense!" Lisa, Luis's fiancée, piped up. "We all want to meet him."
"And you couldn't take the spotlight off someone if you tried." Rachel added. Lance gasped in mock offense.
"Then it is decided!" Lance's abuela declared. "You bring him to the wedding, and we can make our judgement of this Keith."
Lance groaned, head falling into his hands.
Shit.
How the hell was he going to pull this off?
~
"Heeeeeey." Lance said, shooting some weak finger guns at Pidge when they opened the door.
"Lance? What do you want?" They replied, pushing their glasses up their nose and folding their arms.
"The thing is… I actually need to talk to Keith." Lance said.
Pidge burst out laughing.
"I'm serious!" He pouted slightly.
"Oh. Really? Damn, I thought it would take you at least another year to confess."
"Confess what?"
Pidge's eyebrows shot up. "Nevermind, actually. He's awake. Eating breakfast. He does have a knife, thought, so be careful."
"He always has a knife." Lance rolled his eyes and stepped past them into the room. It was as small as any of the other Garrison dorm rooms, with a small kitchenette and living area in the front two corners, and beds in the back two. A single door led off to the bathroom. Pidge's bed was above their desk, which was, as usual, littered with junk. Kogane's area was typically blank and boring, with simple red covers on his bed and a black desk pushed against the wall beside it.
Waste of space, really.
The demon himself was sunk into the ratty couch, watching some sort of motorbike show on the small TV, which had been amalgamated with all sorts of radars and sticks plugged into it. He was eating cereal, which didn't seem nearly appropriately evil enough.
"Kogane!" Lance said as he walked in. Pidge grumbled behind him and shut the door, then wandered into the bathroom.
"Lance?" Keith whipped around, still holding his cereal bowl.
"Hi!"
"What are you doing here?"
"I have a proposal. For you."
"You want to marry me?" Keith squinted at him.
"What?! No! Dios mio, no! That's not what that means in this context!" Lance protested.
"Jeez, didn't realise I was so repulsive."
"What? Urgh- never mind. Look, I need your help."
"With what?" Keith snapped.
"I accidentally told my entire family we're dating." Lance sighed.
"What the fuck? How do you that accidentally?!"
"They were pressuring me! I just pulled up the first photo I found!"
"Well, what the fuck do you want me to do about it?" Keith glared at him.
This was the part where Lance explained his Plan. It went roughly as follows: he and Keith pretend to be dating for two weeks. They go to the wedding. They fake a break-up and everyone leaves him alone. Ingenious! Flawless, really.
When he reiterated this to Keith, it turned out to not be so flawless, because the mullet-sporting emo started laughing.
Really? Why was everyone laughing at Lance this morning. Maybe he should go back to his room. Hunk would never laugh at him. Unless he deserved it. Which he never did, because Lance was amazing and practically perfect.
But apparently Keith couldn't see that. His loss. Lance didn't care about his opinion. At all. Why would he? The guy's hair was awful.
"Stop laughing!" He scowled.
"Seriously? You actually think I'd fake-date you? What would I even get out of it?"
"Kissing experience, since you've probably never had any." Lance shot back.
Keith's glare returned, "I've kissed people, dumbass. And I'm not helping you."
Of course he'd kissed people. They were nineteen, after all. It would be more shocking if he hadn't. And that wasn't what Lance should be thinking about, anyway!
"Ugh. Please?" He tried.
"Get out, McClain."
"Would it kill you to be nice to someone?!"
"Shut up, and get out."
Pidge emerged from the bathroom, and glanced between the two of them. They opened their mouth, then closed it again, focusing on the bowl of cereal in Keith's hands.
"Is that milk?" They demanded. "You're lactose intolerant, idiot!"
Lance slunk out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
He was done for.