Chapter Text
Day 10
8 July, 2016
2:14 PM
When the moving van rolled up onto your street, stopping in front of that house that’s been on sale since you moved here, you could feel the dread preparing itself in advance for what you knew was coming.
Then your mother called you down to bring over the cookies.
This was what haunted Lance Sanchez’s nightmares. Hunk could laugh all he wanted, but that experience had been traumatizing! It had led to the past ten months of Lance’s torture and continued trauma.
Lance was lamenting his existence. And expressing this lament to Hunk. Because Hunk was totally at fault.
Funky Hunky (Hunk Garrett)
(2:14) I can’t believe you’re finding enjoyment in my suffering.
(2:15) YOU’RE A TRAITOR TO THIS FRIENDSHIP
(2:17) Even after I made you those butterscotch cookies?
(2:17) And let you eat *all of them*?
(2:18) You know you love me
(2:19) Sometimes I wonder.
(2:20) CRUEL HUNK.
(2:20) CRUEL.
“Lance!” The head Sanchez (which was most definitely not Lance’s father) called up, interrupting their very important conversation. “Go get Keith for dinner!”
Lance groaned. He buried his face into his pillow, contemplated suffocating himself, and proceeded to roll until he hit the floor.
The most notable about Maria Sanchez was her voice. It was loud, it was clear, and it had the strange ability to cut through even the thickest of walls. For a woman with seven children, it really shouldn’t be surprising.
Lance dragged himself with a thump down the rickety stairs, nearly tripping on the last step.
“Lance, hurry!” Maria huffed, giving him a look from the kitchen, her arm furiously stirring whatever was in the pot. (She never let anyone in the kitchen; every meal was supposed to be a surprise.)
Her son took his time, pulling open the screen door.
The backyard was a maze that he had to pick through, skirting around the old swing, jumping over Alexis’ mud pit and narrowly avoiding landing in the flowerbed. Their little picket fence was low enough that Lance’s long legs swung over it with ease and from there he was home-free.
Unlike their disaster, Keith’s place was spotless; a little plot of grass with not much more than a half-dead flowerbed and a potted cactus that Lance had affectionately named Maximus Alexander Nicholas Andy Reagan Fightmaster von de la Prickles the Third. Or Prickles, for short. Lance gave a little hello to Prickles as he opened the back door.
“HEY HOTSHOT!” Lance’s voice echoed throughout the empty house. When no one answered immediately, Lance fully entered the sparse living room with a huff. “HEY—”
“I heard you the first time, idiot.” Keith came down the stairs, black mullet dripping. He must’ve just gotten out of the shower. Lance huffed again, crossing his arms to show Keith just how upset he was.
“Dinner time.” Keith rolled his eyes, but didn’t need to answer as the two made their way back out the back door.
This was a usual routine for them. When Keith had moved next door a little over a year ago, it hadn’t taken very long for Lance’s mom to find out that he lived alone. She had been appalled at his cooking skills (even Lance was appalled, and he wasn’t the best cook either) and from then on Keith had essentially been forced into having dinner with the Sanchez family every night. When spring cleaning came, they had to clean two houses. Yet, they weren’t allowed to spread out into Keith’s place, even though he had an extra bedroom.
Maria smiled brightly as the two arrived, her hands holding a large plate of… chicken. Lance was 99% sure that was chicken. He loved his mom’s food, but sometimes he wasn’t completely sure what he was eating.
“Good! Go wash up boys.” She ushered them to the kitchen sink, despite her hands being full, and the two fought over the soap briefly.
The moment the last of the food was set on the dining table, chaos erupted in the Sanchez household. Lance and Keith leapt for seats just as small feet pounded down the stairs.
Alexis waddled into the room, oblivious to his squabbling siblings behind him. Maria lifted him up into his own special chair, pushing the five-year-old’s curly black hair out of his face. Her attempt didn’t work very well.
Rafael and Heidi snipped at each other, though really that wasn’t anything new. Rafael, being the older one (two years Lance’s junior), pushed his sister aside before claiming the chair at the end of the table. He grinned smugly at Heidi, who stuck her tongue out at him before claiming the seat between Keith and Lance. The moment she sat she straightened her posture, combing her long brown hair out of her face with careful movements. Rafael rolled his eyes.
The last to enter the room was Daniel, who sat by his wife with Alexis, with Emilie at his heels as always. She hid her face behind wide-framed glasses and short black hair, but sat across from Lance with a tiny smile. Keith stared at her from the corner of his eye; Emilie looked more like she was his sister rather than Lance’s, but he’d never felt comfortable enough to ask.
As Daniel said grace, the house went silent—with the exception of Raggedy-Anne’s squawking—for a brief moment before once more chaos broke loose. With their required thirty seconds of near silence now complete, the table erupted in conversation. Heidi immediately struck up a loud conversation with Emilie; Lance was telling Rafael something that caused the boy to bend over in laughter; Maria and Daniel were keeping a quiet conversation to themselves while simultaneously talking to Alexis, who was already making a mess of his food.
Keith kept quiet, as he usually did at the dinner table, preferring to watch the family interact rather than actually participate.
He didn’t get much chance to get his food—it was a battle for the last piece of anything around here—when the doorbell rang.
Maria ushered her children back into their seats as she got up.
The kids went silent as they craned their necks, trying to see who was at the door. Maria’s back was just visible, and they watched her hands fly up.
“Welcome home, welcome home!” Maria returned, her face lit up and her laugh wrinkles all the more prominent, and her arms full of a small child with chubby fingers and thick brown hair.
Dinner was forgotten, and everyone but Keith and Alexis leaped out of their seats to greet the couple that followed Maria inside.
A young woman, her dark hair in ringlets and her eyes the same dark blue color as Lance’s, pulled the younger children into a large hug, swinging them around as they giggled. The man behind her, with his brown hair and droopy green eyes, stood behind her with an awkward smile. At least, until Maria and Daniel greeted him with a hug and a squeeze of the shoulders, respectively.
“Why don’t you visit more often, mija?” Maria huffed, finally looking at her eldest daughter. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have made more food.”
“There’s no need mamá, we already ate.” The newcomer smiled—she had Maria’s smile, like all the children did—though her expression faltered as she peered around her family, seeing Keith still sitting at the table. Keith stood, feeling out of place as she maneuvered her way to him. “Hello,” her smile got wider, “I’m Lora Rodriguez. Are you Lance’s friend?”
Lance answered for him. “No, that’s Keith. He’s our neighbor.”
“Mom makes him come over for dinner.” Rafael piped in, everyone slowly gravitating back to the dining room.
Lora smiled at him, not missing a beat. “Well it’s very nice to meet you, Keith.” She turned back to the man that had come in with her. He now held the small child in his arms. “That’s my daughter Katerine and my husband Julio.” She turned back with a mischievous grin, winking. “But we all just call him Steve.”
Keith gave them a small sort-of smile that was definitely awkward. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
The Sanchez family continued to make a fuss over the new arrivals as they all sat back down for dinner. Keith stayed quiet, content to fade back into the background as they returned to their meal. Two chairs had been pulled up for Lora and Steve, and they squeezed themselves into the already crowded table, two plates already filling up for them.
Keith liked Lance’s family, even if Lance himself was an annoyance more often than not. Not only were they neighbors, but they were in the same high school, with the same set of friends, and in many of the same classes. Lance was funny on his good days, but there was only so much Keith could handle. Particularly when he came barging into Keith’s house at two in the morning because he wanted to know Keith’s score on the latest test. (How he had gotten Keith’s house key was still a mystery Keith was trying to figure out.)
Of course, it was summer now, which frankly made Lance much more bearable. It seemed with summer Lance’s stupid obsession over this “rivalry” dissipated for a while, and he became someone more enjoyable to hang out with.
Keith watched Maria tease her husband for something or another, wrinkles from many years of laughter creasing her face. Dimples made little pockmarks in her rosy cheeks, and Keith had the passing thought that he could watch her laugh for the rest of his life.
There weren’t any leftovers for dinner—there usually weren’t, unless Lance and the kids had snacked beforehand—and Keith figured now it was time to make his exit. Everyone was enraptured in some conversation and Keith could see clearly that he had no reason to be here anymore.
Red was probably waiting for her dinner—the tabby made a point of shredding Keith’s clothes if he forgot.
He had just about made his escape, (the back door was even open) when Maria clapped her hands, face lighting up in realization. She whirled on Keith, who shut the back door as discreetly as he could. He didn’t think it worked very well, but Maria ignored that in favor of letting everyone know her brilliant idea.
“Of course! Keith, do you have a suit?”
Keith blinked once, twice. A suit?
“Um, no?”
Maria clicked her tongue disapprovingly, physically pulling him back into the house. “That’s no good! What will you wear for the wedding?”
Keith stared up at her, wide-eyed in utter confusion. Somewhere behind him, Lance snickered. “Wedding?”
The older woman gave him a strange look. “Luis is getting married on the eighteenth.”
“Luis is my older brother.” Lance explained, finally deciding to stop laughing and to start being helpful. “Mamá, Keith’s never met Luis.”
Maria paused for a brief moment in surprise before laughing, bringing a hand to her face in slight embarrassment. “Oh, perdóname, Keith. You are here so often I think of you as another son.” Keith couldn’t help the way his stomach flipped at her words, or the flush that crept up his neck at her laugh. When was the last time someone had called him their son? He couldn’t remember.
“An honorary Sanchez already,” Rafael quipped, though it seemed to be directed more towards his mother than to Keith.
Lance rolled his eyes, shoving his brother in the shoulder. Rafael laughed. “My mom takes in everyone. Hunk’s been her honorary son since he brought cookies the first time he came over.”
Lance’s words did little to weigh down the lightness in his chest, so Keith ignored him.
“Keith’s coming to the wedding, right?” Heidi piped up. Her mother beamed.
“Of course! Now go get ready for bed. Lance, you and Keith have dish duty tonight.” Lance’s amused face dropped.
“What?!” Keith wasn’t quite as vocal as Lance, but he could agree there. Apparently, once Maria called him her son he was eligible for chores. Starting off with dish duty.
“Have fun~!” Rafael snickered as the rest of the kids escaped upstairs before they could get dragged into anything themselves.
Maria took Lora and her family upstairs to sort them into bedrooms, and Daniel disappeared into the living room with Alexis in his arms.
Lance sighed in defeat. “How come I have to get stuck with dish duty…” He grumbled, though already he was starting to gather the plates on the table.
Keith helped him, though he was still trying to figure out how he ended up doing chores. Of course, Maria was feeding him so he couldn’t complain. Anything was better than cup noodles and old pizza after a while.
Lance and Keith made a silent agreement—Lance washes, Keith dries. The funny thing was as much as he complained, the brunette got things he didn’t like done quickly, and he did it well. When there was a calculus test, Lance refused to study, cramming the night before. Yet, he somehow managed to scrape by with B’s and even a few A’s in the class.
It seemed the same thing applied to chores; while he grumbled the whole way through it, Lance cleaned dishes efficiently. Keith didn’t even have to hand any back for missed spots. Of course, this could also just be due to an accumulation of experience over the years.
“So… a wedding.” Keith mentally congratulated himself for his eloquent choice of a conversation starter.
“Yup.” Lance replied.
That was successful. Keith gave up trying to fix the somewhat awkward atmosphere. If Lance didn’t want to be friends with him, so be it.
They continued the routine in silence. Wash, pass, dry, repeat. When Lance spoke up again, Keith jumped. Not that he would admit to spacing out while washing dishes.
“My brother’s getting married to his high school sweetheart. She grew up in a small town in Kansas before she moved here, and they’re kind of…” Lance waved a hand covered in suds around in a vague attempt to get his point across. The gesture was unclear, but Keith understood what he meant. “So neither side knew about their relationship until a couple of years ago. The wedding’s a big deal for my parents.”
“I… see.” Keith didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never been to a wedding before. “I’ve never been to a wedding.”
“Oh.”
Lance handed Keith the last dish to dry just as Maria returned downstairs, Rafael, Heidi, and Emilie at her heels. Lance gave his siblings a dirty glare, at which Rafael grinned, Emelie ducked her head, and Heidi stuck her tongue out.
“Lance, you need to invite Hunk over.” Maria said in that way of hers that somehow sounded like both a plea and a demand.
Lance rolled his eyes as he pulled his phone out.
Funky Hunky (Hunk Garrett)
(7:18) Hunk
(7:18) Hunk there’s a wedding
(7:19) Will there be food?
(7:19) DUDE it’s a WEDDING
(7:20) I just had to make sure
(7:20) because, you know, the last wedding I went to
(7:20) Hunk I don’t need to know
(7:21) Anyways it’s Luis’s wedding, on the 18th
Pidgeotto (Pidge Holt)
(7:22) Wait, a wedding?
(7:22) How come we’re not invited?
(7:23) wtf what
Team Dad (Shiro)
(7:23) Lance it’s not nice to invite only Hunk
(7:23) Especially when the rest of us are right here
(7:24) What
(7:25) How was I supposed to know that?
Team Alluring Mom (Allura Altea)
(7:26) Don’t listen to Shiro, Lance. You couldn’t have known.
(7:27) Even though he’s right.
(7:28) WHY ARE YOU ALL GANGING UP ON ME
Lance grumbled furiously to himself, Keith watching with a raised eyebrow as he tapped furiously on his phone.
He stopped briefly, looking up at his mother, who was staring back with an expectant gaze. “Hunk wants to know if he can bring some friends to the wedding.”
Maria raised both eyebrows skeptically, knowing her son, but didn’t comment. “How many?”
Lance’s face scrunched up in concentration, counting off silently on his fingers. “Uh, three—no, maybe four.”
Maria smiled—no, beamed—and Keith felt his chest warm. “Of course. Just be sure to introduce them, yes?”
Lance nodded, once again distracted.
Wedding Crashers
Members: Lance Sanchez, McMullet (Keith Gyeong), Funky Hunky (Hunk Garrett), Pidgeotto (Pidge Holt), Team Dad (Shiro), Team Alluring Mom (Allura Altea)
(7:31) Lance Sanchez: You’re all invited
(7:31) Lance Sanchez: Happy?
(7:32) Team Dad (Shiro): Very. :)
Keith glanced at his phone as it lit up. Why Wedding Crashers…?
A picture of Red in the mess of his phone background reminded him of dinner. And it was way past Red’s dinnertime. Keith winced. No doubt the feline had already raided his closet by now.
“Um, thank you for the food, Mrs. Sanchez, but I’m afraid I have to get going.” Keith gave an awkward smile, wiping his hands on his pants and grabbing his phone as he slowly inched back towards the back door.
Maria frowned. “Will you not stay the night? We have to buy your suit tomorrow.”
“Er, well, I need to feed my cat, and I live right next door anyways, so—”
“You have a cat?!” Heidi interrupted, grinning. “Can we feed it?” She turned to her mom with a grin. “Mamá, can we feed Keith’s cat?”
Maria smiled. “I don’t see why not. Where do you keep the cat food?” Keith blinked.
“…The pantry.” Heidi needed no further invitation and grabbed Emelie by the hand, the two of them racing out the back door before their mom could change her mind.
“Now there’s no problem, yes?”
Keith floundered. “Well, I, uh, need something to sleep in, and my toothbrush, so…”
Maria’s smile became even brighter, and Keith knew he had lost. “There’s no problem then! Lance has extra PJs you can borrow, and we have an extra toothbrush. I’ll go ahead and put it in the bathroom for you!” Keith resigned to his fate. “Lance, pull out the cot. Rafael, get the extra blankets. Keith will stay in your room.”
Maria left the room, likely looking for her husband and her youngest child, and Keith gave Lance a bewildered, if not exasperated, look.
Lance laughed. “Don’t argue with my mom. She always gets what she wants, one way or another.”
Keith sighed.
“C’mon, we’ll show you our room.” Rafael and Lance pulled him upstairs and down the hall. They pointed out the master bedroom on the left, the bathroom at one end of the hall, and the girls’ room on the right. Alexis had his own room next to the girls, and Rafael and Lance were in the room at the other end of the hall.
The room had two very distinct sides.
There were two twin beds, one with a Star Wars comforter that Keith could guess was likely Lance’s. His walls were covered in posters of the universe and a variety of terrible movies—everything from Con Air to Sharknado—and littered throughout the posters were photographs and sticky notes, taped on the corners and little holes in the poster-wallpaper. Rafael’s side was remarkably cleaner, with a small section of photographs (unlike Lance’s, these were in frames) and a corkboard covered in notes and witty little pictures printed from the Internet.
“Guess which one’s Lance.” Rafael muttered drily, no doubt noticing Keith examining the room. Keith snorted, at which Lance gave them an exaggeratedly hurt look, pushing himself and Keith into the room.
“Go get the extra blankets, Rafa.” Lance snipped, and the younger of the two rolled his eyes as he left the room.
Keith watched, somewhat awkwardly, as Lance pulled out a mattress from under his bed, lugging it through a mess of clothes to the middle of the room. Rafael returned just a minute or two later, and the two of them had the bed made up quickly.
Lance straightened up with a grin. “There!” Rafael flopped onto his blue comforters, letting out a long sigh. Their peace was short-lived, as Lora came in with her daughter squirming in her arms.
“Can you boys watch Kate for me? I have to make a run to the store with mom.” She didn’t wait for an answer, dumping the one-year-old in Keith’s arms before racing back out of the room. Keith watched her go, arms full of the child that tugged at his hair and gurgled in delight.
Lance laughed, cooing at Kate, who squealed in delight. She reached for Lance’s face, which was remarkably close to hers, but he straightened up before she could reach him, her hand grasping at nothing. Rafael rolled off his bed, pulling himself to his feet and taking the baby from Keith’s arms. He sat back on the mattress that was Keith’s makeshift bed, setting the little girl in his lap.
Rafael bounced her on his lap, causing Kate to laugh, and Keith took a hesitant seat on the mattress by Rafael, Lance plopping down on his brother’s other side. As soon as he did an old beagle lumbered in, making its way directly to Lance and plopping itself right atop his feet.
“Hello, Blue,” Lance grinned, belying the dry tone of his voice. He wiggled his feet underneath the dog, though the beast refused to move. Not that Lance seemed to mind.
“Blue?” Keith asked, looking at Lance incredulously. “And you make fun of me for calling my cat Red?”
Lance pouted. Bottom lip out, petulant gaze, and all. “I named her when I was four! Blue is a perfectly acceptable name for a four-year-old, not a teenager.” He retorted, and Keith rolled his eyes.
Rafael interrupted with a strangled noise escaping from his throat, and the other two gave him a strange look. Rafael looked between the two of them with a bloodless face.
“So, uh… Who wants to change the diaper?”
Day 10
8 July, 2016
9:49 PM
Keith fell back against the mattress, utterly exhausted. He was wearing one of Lance’s old T-shirts, with a faded logo belonging to some sports team or another, and a pair of red sweats—which was probably about the only red thing Lance owned. It all smelled like Lance, and Keith found himself struggling to keep his mind from going in weird directions.
Because seriously, how in the universe did he end up at Lance’s house, in Lance’s clothes, with Lance? Blue lumbered over to Keith, heaving himself up onto the mattress. The dog lay right across Keith’s stomach, and the teen grunted at the unexpected weight. He didn’t move the old beagle, though, despite finding a sudden shortness of breath. Because, really, it was kind of pathetic. Blue was so old, Keith was half-expecting him to drop dead at any moment, and he looked every bit his age.
Keith lifted his head to stare at the furbag sprawled across his torso. Blue looked back at him with sad-looking droopy eyes. He really was pathetic. Keith let his head fall back against the sheets.
Lance came in not long after, pausing in the doorway. Keith lifted his head again to see the owner of the aforementioned pathetic dog silently laughing, bent over with one arm wrapped around his stomach and the other trying to mask the silent laughter.
“Lance.” Keith grunted. “Get your mutt off me.”
Lance continued to laugh for several moments longer before actually obliging.
His face was rosy and his eyes were bright when he came over to look down at Keith, a lopsided grin on his face. Keith noted absently that, when one really stopped to look at Lance’s smile, there was a small dimple in the right corner of his mouth. Keith felt the inexplicable urge to reach out and touch it.
He didn’t quite work up the courage to do so as Lance ducked his head, reaching down to lift up Blue, who had lifted his head to watch. Lance lifted up Blue with only a little difficulty, carrying him over to his own bed. The beagle was complete dead weight, not even squirming in the process.
“Your dog is pathetic.” Keith felt the need to make sure Lance was aware of this. Lance looked back at him, a hand to his chest and a look of betrayal on his face. Keith rolled his eyes.
“Don’t say that! She can hear you, you know!”
“Your dog’s a boy.” Another fact Keith was sure Lance needed to know.
Lance huffed, turning away with his nose held high. “Blue is Trans, okay? Don’t hurt her feelings with your heteronormativity.” Keith rolled his eyes, a smile crawling up his face as he turned back to the ceiling. Leave it to Lance to believe his dog was Trans.
Keith stared up at the ceiling, blinking once, twice. “Lance,” he said, still blinking to be sure he wasn’t seeing things. “Are those glow in the dark stars?”
He could hear Lance huff. “There are moons and comets up there too.”
Keith sat up, incredulity coloring both his face and his voice. “Why do you have glow in the dark stars on your ceiling?”
“Rafael used to be scared of the dark. She tried using a nightlight, but it kept me up so I’d take it out. This was her Great Compromise.” Keith snorted, looking at Lance, who had a flush creeping up the back of his neck.
Lance refused to look at him, sitting on the floor before his bed and playing with Blue’s floppy ears. Keith rolled his eyes after another minute of this.
“Lance.” Lance didn’t answer and Keith huffed at him. “Lance.” Keith rolled onto his stomach, twisting his body so his feet hung off one side and his head faced the Cuban teen before him. “Lance, are you sulking?”
Lance twisted around to face him at last. His face was still a little red, but his eyes were still bright and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “I am not.” He insisted, and Keith gave him a skeptical look, but he didn’t push it.
Keith blinked, struggling to keep from yawning. It really wasn’t that late, but for some reason he was starting to feel drowsy. It might have something to do with the sudden chaotic change in venue, and the panic that cemented the thought that Keith did not want to have children.
Lance was back to lazily petting Blue, one hand on the dog’s stomach and the other propping him up on the floor. There was something—a birthmark or a scar, Keith couldn’t tell—on the underside of Lance’s wrist, and Keith spent several minutes twisting his head around to get a better look at it without physically moving from his admittedly comfortable position. When that failed to produce any results, Keith sighed inwardly. He was comfortable, but his curiosity outvoted his comfort, and he shifted himself as he reached out.
His hand grabbed onto Lance’s wrist, and Keith’s eyes widened as within seconds Lance had leaped up, smacking Keith’s hand away. Keith sat up, a searing comment on the tip of his tongue, only for it to die before passing his lips as he caught sight of Lance’s face.
He was pale, the blood having drained from his face, and his eyes were wide with a terror that Keith had never seen before. Fearless, confident Lance stared at him with a stricken look that created a heavy stone in the pit of Keith’s stomach and tightened his chest with a cold, dark emotion he couldn’t name.
“…Lance?” Keith breathed, his voice barely audible, trying not to look as he felt. Confused, worried… scared. Had he done something wrong? Did Lance really hate him that much? Keith tried not to think of it, but his mind went into overdrive, his heart hammered in his chest, and his hands felt icy. Bright lights and the thundering rain roared in his ears and blinded his eyes. Keith blinked them away, storing them back in the abyss of his memory.
The two of them stared at each other, unmoving, both trying to sort through their muddled thoughts when the door opened. Rafael stood there, two pillows in his hands. He looked between the two of them, his expression starting to creep into realization.
“…I brought some extra pillows.” He said, quietly, as if he was afraid to break the suffocating silence. Lance relaxed when his brother spoke, offering a shaky smile.
“Thanks. I was afraid I’d have to give up mine.” He joked, but his voice was weak, and his heart wasn’t in it. Keith never wanted to hear Lance speak like that again, with a fake cheer that was so obvious it was painful.
“Lance.” Keith spoke again, more assuredly, and Lance flinched at the noise. Keith made fists in the sheets in an attempt to bring warmth back into his fingers.
Lance didn’t look at Keith when he spoke, and it made the coldness in his chest hurt more. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Rafael looked between the two of them before settling his gaze on his brother. “I think Keith deserves to know.” Lance pressed his lips together, staring at his poster-covered wall. “If you don’t tell him, I will. He deserves to know.” Lance didn’t answer, and his younger brother sighed before turning to Keith. “Lance has… He has a fear of being touched. It’s not just you. He reacts that way when any of us touch him.” Rafael kept a calm expression, but even he had an expression that told Keith that it hurt him just as much.
“It’s called haptophobia.” Lance cut in, his voice strangled with something that Keith understood much more than he’d like to.
Never feeling good enough, like something’s wrong with you but you don’t know how to fix it. It sounded so wrong coming from Lance. Lance was supposed to be annoying and obnoxious and self-confident and loud and popular and everything Keith was not. And Keith didn’t know what to do about it.
He watched Lance climb into his bed, curling on his side with his back facing the rest of the world like a last-ditch defensive maneuver, Blue curling up with him. Lance draped an arm over his dog, and when the lights went off and Rafael drifted off and the glow in the dark stars and moons and comets lit up the room, Keith stared up at the ceiling. He tried to pretend that he couldn’t see Lance’s shoulders shaking, that he couldn’t hear the shaky breathing muffled by dog fur, that he couldn’t feel Lance’s tears falling down his own face.