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Lance would like to make something very, very, very, very, very, very clear.
If he had known Keith Kogane, the hottest guy in their grade, was Officer Takashi Shirogane's kid, he would have absolutely made better decisions.
Which was unfortunate, considering he had spent nearly a year now making these bad decisions repeatedly.
Not once.
Not twice.
Not the embarrassingly high number of times they'd somehow ended up tangled in Lance's tiny dorm sheets pretending they were "just studying."
Which, in hindsight, should have been his first red flag.
Getting with Keith Kogane -- the hottest guy in his grade -- was a terrible decision in itself. He was quiet when every other cadet was loud and boisterous; quietly confident, dare Lance say even a bit arrogant, when everyone was insecure around Officer Shirogane, and annoyingly, annoyingly attractive.
Lance had noticed all of this.
Lance had ignored all of this.
That was the start of his bad decisions.
"I'm not his kid." Keith groaned, his patience gone after Lance brought it up for the 100th time.
The two of them were curled together in Lance's narrow dorm bed, the old frame creaking every time they shifted their body weight. Keith was comfortable, stretched out on his back, one arm tucked loosely behind his head.
Lance was far from comfortable, cross-legged beside him, hands flailing dramatically as he spiraled.
"He adopted you. He's your legal guardian."
"He's barely, what, ten years older than me? I don't exactly call him 'dad.'"
"Okay, fine, not son. Brother. Random kid he cares for. Whatever it is -- it doesn't matter! You should've told me sooner!"
Keith rolled his eyes. "Was that really, really going to change anything?"
"Yes!" Lance's face burned with a lie.
"Really?" Keith deadpanned.
Lance looked down at his lip, avoiding his boyfriend's piercing gaze. Because, okay, yeah, maybe he was exaggerating.
Maybe if he had known Keith was related to the most intimidating officers that walked this facility, he would have hesitated. Would have put more thought into his actions.
Maybe.
But he probably still would have asked him out.
Which was a deeply inconvenient realization for the argument he was currently in.
Still, he tried to recover. "If I had known, I would've tried to avoid you!"
Keith raised a challenging eyebrow. "Would you?"
Lance hesitated, then folded. "...No."
"Exactly."
"You still should've told me!"
"When should I have told you, Lance? When I was sucking your --"
"Anytime!" Lance interrupted. "Preferably before we got to that point! Just so I could mentally prepare myself for my eventual downfall."
"Your eventual downfall." Keith deadpanned.
"Yes. Yes! Don't you see what's going to happen? The second, the absolute second, I say something stupid and accidentally hurt your feelings, he will fail me."
"He will not."
"He will expel me!"
"He cannot."
"He will destroy my life!"
Keith stared as his boyfriend's breathing slowly got less intense. "I think we should take some deep breaths."
Lance smacked him with a pillow. "You should've told me sooner."
"You've said that a million times."
"It's true! You told me last week, you asshole. We've been hooking up and dating all year, and you just told me now that your official legal guardian is the man who runs this school!" For emphasis, Lance gestured towards the ceiling, as if Shiro himself might descend from it.
"I didn't think it was relevant."
"Not relevant?!" Lance's voice cracked.
Keith just smirked, lazy and unbothered. "I think you'll be okay, sweetheart. He doesn't know that we're dating."
Lance froze. "He doesn't?"
"I don't exactly announce to them when I hook up with their students."
"Don't say it like that."
"Still applies."
"So they have no idea I --" Lance caught himself, frowning. "Wait, 'they'?"
Keith raised an eyebrow. "Shiro and Adam?"
"Who the fuck is Adam?"
"You're kidding, right?"
"No?" Lance gestured wildly, already having a bad feeling. "Who? Who's Adam?"
"Adam is Shiro's fiancé," Keith said slowly, as if Lance were the stupid one. "They got engaged over winter break. Everybody knew. How did you not know this?"
"Who the fuck is Adam? I've never heard of a Mr. Adam at this school."
"Lieutenant Adam Wrona? Seriously, do you not pay attention?"
Lance didn't even hear that last comment because his entire brain short-circuited.
This was it.
"I'm a dead man."
"You are not a --"
"Keith. Keith. Baby. Amor. My love. Sweetheart." Lance began rambling again. "Are you telling me that your two...parent-brother-whatever's...are Shirogane and Wrona?"
"What's the big --"
"Oh god."
This was a nightmare on so many levels. Shirogane wasn't just an instructor; he was one of the highest-ranked officers at the Garrison. He was the officer. The one everyone respected. The one every cadet admired. The youngest man to get to space. His face was plastered on posters, on the TV, on the covers of books. He was a household name.
And the worst part? He was somehow strict without being cruel, approachable without sacrificing an ounce of authority, intimidating without even trying. He smiled at cadets, greeted them in hallways, stayed late to answer questions...the entire Garrison practically revolved around him.
And Wrona? Wrona was the complete, exact, polar opposite.
He didn't smile. Lance is sure he's never even seen the man's mouth twitch in amusement. The man was terrifying. He never shouted. He never verbally berated cadets like other instructors. He wasn't cruel. He was just completely, utterly terrifying, able to command an entire rowdy classroom with a single piercing look. The clear-cut boundaries were ironed out; he was the instructor. They were the students.
End of discussion.
And just last week, Lance found out Keith -- his boyfriend -- was the adopted son/little brother of both of them. The two most incredibly competent military officers capable of making Lance feel like an ant trapped in a kid's magnifying glass.
He could imagine the series of tragedies that could be dumped on his lap.
He and Keith have an argument.
He tells Officer Shirogane and Lieutenant Wrona.
Suddenly, Lance's simulator scores drop.
Suddenly, his grades get worse.
His room inspections become daily. His request to keep Hunk as his roommate gets rejected.
Suddenly, he wakes up one morning on a completely different planet across the galaxy.
"None of that is going to happen." Keith soothed, rubbing Lance's arm lovingly. "They don't know, okay? I won't tell them if you don't want me to."
"What do you tell them when you're with me?"
Keith shrugged. "I tell them I'm studying?"
"With me?!" Lance's voice cracked.
"Who cares?!"
"I care! Don't even mention me! They should not know I exist!"
"Lance, do you know how often we're together? They probably think you're my bestest friend by now."
"Oh god."
"You need to calm down."
"They know I exist?!"
Keith exhaled, long and slow, pinching the bridge of his nose in the same way Lance had noticed Shirogane do before.
That made him feel infinitely worse.
"Yes, Lance, they know you exist."
"I have to disappear."
"No."
"I'll fake my death."
"No."
"I'll fake your death."
"How romantic."
Lance groaned long and loud before flopping suddenly onto his stomach, burying his face into Keith's neck and shoulder, all survival instincts abandoned.
"They're going to kill me." He groaned, muffled into Keith's shoulder.
"They're not scary."
"...you live in denial."
______
By Monday, Lance managed to convince himself that he'd been overreacting. Mostly because of Keith. He had bought Lance coffee, stolen Lance's hoodie, kissed him goodbye...basically acted like a normal boyfriend. Which was nice -- except it made it difficult for Lance to remember Keith was supposed to be the problem. Keith was the reason he was actively planning his own funeral.
Still. If Shirogane and Wrona didn't know, if Keith didn't tell them anything, then he was safe.
Right?
Right?!
By the time his last class rolled around, he told himself he was being ridiculous. Shirogane and Wrona had no idea. They weren't omniscient. They couldn't track him. They had no way of possibly knowing Lance had spent his Saturday making out with their little brother instead of studying for this week's test.
Everything was fine.
Until Lieutenant Wrona began his lecture.
This entire year Lance was able to focus, take diligent notes, and act like a star student. But since last week? Since his stupid boyfriend dropped the atomic bomb on his lap?
He hasn't been able to focus.
He barely heard a word of the Lieutenant. He wondered distantly if Wrona suspected anything. Then, he wondered if Keith called him "Wrona" at home. That felt weird. Lance would never call his own brother "McClain."
But then, did that mean Keith just called them "Adam" and "Shiro"? No. No, that was so weird. That was even weirder, calling your teachers by their first name. Though, to him, they weren't just teachers.
Did Keith ever slip up? Did he have moments at school where he called them by their first name, like accidentally calling your teacher "mom"?
Were they domestic? Lance couldn't imagine Officer Shirogane and Lieutenant Wrona being domestic. He couldn't imagine them watching TV together -- did military officers even watch TV? Did they play video games? Keith loved video games. Did they ever play with him?
Did they have family dinners, like how Lance and his family did? Did they sit at a round table and eat homecooked food like a terrifying military family? Who did the cooking? Was it Shirogane? Was it Wrona? Did they take turns?
He was so lost in his own head he barely noticed that the "notes" he was taking weren't notes at all -- he'd been writing for the past five minutes with the eraser of his pencil, completely preoccupied with his own thoughts.
So preoccupied, in fact, that he didn't notice Lieutenant Wrona's footsteps that had been pacing the entire room stopped suddenly at his desk -- not until a shadow fell over his page and Lance's heart nearly stopped beating.
He didn't even have time to look up before a hand reached down, fingers gently plucking the pencil from Lance's grasp. Without even breaking the lecture, Wrona rotated the pencil one hundred and eight degrees, seamlessly placing it back into Lance's waiting palm with the graphite pointed toward the paper.
Without breaking the lecture -- without even so much as a comment -- he kept walking.
Lance, however, remained frozen in horror, staring at the pencil for the rest of the lecture.
_____
"THEY KNOW."
Keith just stared, unimpressed. He was sitting cross-legged on his own dorm bed, a textbook open in his lap, a cold cup of coffee on the floor.
"How was your class?"
"THEY KNOW." Lance's voice came out much higher than usual.
"I don't think they --"
"They know."
"Lance."
"They. Know."
"What happened?"
Lance exhaled slowly, trying to control himself. "Lieutenant Wrona."
"Yes?"
"He fixed my pencil."
Keith stared.
Lance gestured wildly. "Just -- fixed my pencil! Without saying anything! Just silent, suffocating psychological warfare! It was an intimidation factor! A message! A warning."
Keith continued to stare at him for a long moment before slowly closing his textbook.
"Is that all?"
Lance looked personally offended. "Is that all? Keith -- they know!"
"I didn't tell them --"
"You didn't have to! They're intuitive! They know!"
"Lance, don't you think he was just trying to be nice?"
"Nice?!" Lance still sounded like someone was trying to strangle him.
"Yes, Lance. Nice."
"Lieutenant Wrona?"
"Yes."
"The man who's smiled maybe, what, three times in the history of the universe?"
Keith sighed. "Lance."
"I'm serious!"
"Sweetheart, he just fixed your pencil."
"Yes. Psychologically destroying me in the process."
"But does it sound like he was trying to ruin your life?"
Lance opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, trying to find a rebuttal that fueled his anxiety. "...maybe he's playing the long game."
"Trust me, he's not patient. He burns eggs all the time because he's not patient and just cooks them on high."
Something about that, such a tiny detail, soothed Lance. He leaned forward, resting his forehead on his boyfriend's shoulder.
"...really?"
Keith patted the back of his head. "Really."
"Okay. Maybe they're not actively trying to destroy my life."
"Maybe."
Lance stood up straight, pointing a threatening finger in Keith's face.
"I'm still not making eye contact with them."
"Okay."
"Or speaking to them first."
"Fine."
"Or even breathing in their general direction."
"Lance."
"It's a reasonable compromise!"
"You're impossible."
Lance opened his mouth to argue. Nothing came out. Instead, he flopped back down to lean against Keith.
Which, unfortunately, was becoming a pattern.