Cereal Sweepstakes and Other Bad Ideas ft. Lance McClain - ruralfishingcat (2024)

It all began with Pidge, as disasters so frequently did in Lance’s experience. But hey, he was a college student; he was in the prime of his poor decision making, a feat that would soon garner actual consequences. He figured he’d relish in the last remnants of it, a metaphorical squeeze of the already depleted toothpaste in a desperate attempt to avoid being a responsible adult who replenished necessities. No, he was going to pluck every last fiber of childishness and proudly show it off like a well-earned medal. At least, until he turned twenty-two and was unceremoniously tossed into the post-college world with little more than an expensive piece of paper declaring him ‘maybe hire-able’ once he gathered at least ten years experience in a five year old field or something equally impossible. He wondered if it was too late to pursue a refund on his student loans, an egregious debt now forever tied to him, his future children, and their future children. God bless America.

Either way, he was still planning on blaming it all on Pidge, who was now only half-heartedly trying to cover her smile with her hand. “If you really think about it, with all the money you’ve spent on the cereal, you could probably have just bought a nice prize.”

“Shut up, Pidge,” Lance said through a mouthful of cereal. It was the worst combination of crunchy and soggy with bland flakes sticking to the roof of his mouth and making him feel like a dog inhaling peanut butter, but he wasn’t going to be deterred by mere texture alone. “It’s the principle of it.”

“You know,” Hunk said. “You don’t… need to eat all of the cereal. Like, I’m pretty sure that was never a requirement. You can just dig through the box like everyone does for the toy. You ate cereal as a child, right?”

“Of course I did!” Lance dropped his spoon on the table, ignoring the look Hunk sent him as the utensil rattled noisily. He picked up the bowl and slurped down the remaining milk. He licked his lips, feeling the onset of a milk mustache. Whatever, though; he would rock it like he did everything else. “And so I know that it doesn’t count if you don’t eat it all. Like I said: the principle. Digging for the prize is like, signing up for a marathon but just driving until you’re eighty percent of the way there and then getting out and jogging the rest while still repping the free t-shirt that wasn’t really free since you paid thirty bucks to sign up anyway.”

“That’s pretty specific,” Pidge said. “Have you done that before?”

Lance set down his bowl and picked up the spoon for the sole purpose of pointing it at Pidge. Minute drops of milk dripped onto the table, and Hunk shot him an even more exasperated look. “You. Shut up. You’ve ruined enough of my life as it is.”

She snorted. “It’s not my fault that you have no sense of self-preservation or shame.”

“You two are going to destroy this table, honestly,” Hunk said. He gently touched the corner closest to him as though apologizing for the brutish treatment Lance and Pidge forced onto it.

Pidge blinked, stilling her legs mid-swing. She was sat on the edge of the table, content with her optimal position for watching Lance devour bowl after bowl of cereal. Sweetly, she said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Me neither,” Lance chirped. There were small pools of milk and drowned cereal covering a two-foot radius around him. An empty box was upturned on the ground; tiny crumbs littering what had once been sparkling clean tiles. “Cereal me, bud.”

Hunk sighed and brought over the next box from the cupboard. Despite Hunk’s love for cooking, the trio rarely had much food in the apartment. It was a mixture of laziness when it came to grocery shopping—and just about everything else, but especially grocery shopping—and a disturbing lack of funds. Now, though, box after box of ‘Branflakes’—and seriously, it was the lamest name that cereal executives could have come up with, assuming that there were even hired positions called ‘cereal executive’—sat snug in the cupboards above, below, and to the left of the stove. Lance could thank years of birthday money for that, though he knew he would never hear the end of it from his friends. They had already chewed him out once for dropping over a hundred dollars on cereal, but it wasn’t his fault that it had been one of the more expensive brands that promised a fantastic mystery prize.

“This is the one,” Lance said with a surge of confidence. “I can feel it.”

“You said that about the last five boxes,” Pidge pointed out.

“Yeah, well, I’m bound to be right sooner or later,” he said.

“I hate to break it to you,” Hunk said, “but there’s a chance that none of these boxes have the prize. You’ve taken a statistics class before, right?”

“This is ridiculous,” Lance said. He ripped off the top of the cereal box and pulled the plastic wrapper open with enough ferocity to make Hunk flinch. “I came out to have a good time tonight, and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.”

“I don’t know how you can be having a good time after six bowls of that,” Pidge mused.

“The excitement of winning, my dear Pidge,” Lance said.

“You haven’t won yet,” Hunk said. “Plus you don’t even know what the prize is going to be! What if it’s like, a kazoo or something.”

“It said it was a mystery prize worth hundreds of dollars!” Lance reached for the milk that was sitting out on the table. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to leave it in the open and unrefrigerated, but he figured he’d be going through the rest of it in one sitting.

“Maybe it’s a really expensive kazoo!”

Lance poured a decently sized serving of cereal. He nearly flung the box to the floor out of surprise when a decorative envelope fell on top of the flakes. “Holy quiznak! I won!”

“Oh my God,” Hunk said. “I should have gotten the video camera prepared. This would have gone great with our Christmas letter.”

“Hunk, we don’t have a Christmas letter,” Pidge said, but she was hopping from her spot and leaning over Lance’s shoulder with renewed interest. “What is it?”

Lance tore the open the envelope, sliding out a thin coupon. “It’s… what the hell?”

Hunk took it from him and held it up. “It’s a voucher for a free session of skydiving. Oh God—Lance, please tell me you’re not going to do this. I don’t think my heart could take it.”

Lance snatched the coupon back and stared wearily at it. “Of course not, Hunk. Ugh, this is such a lame prize, though. I thought it was going to be like, a new phone!”

“What happened to Lancey-Lance the thrill seeker?”

“It’s different!” Lance said. He pushed the bowl away from himself; if there was no longer a reason for him to be shoveling pounds of cereal into his pained body, he was going to snatch the opportunity for digestive freedom. “There’s cool thrill-seeking things like—like flying the plane! Not jumping out of it.”

He dropped the coupon and let it flutter pathetically onto a dribble of milk. It soaked through one of the corners, forming a stain not unlike the one now on his bank account. There went a hundred and eleven dollars down the drain with only a stomach ache and a useless voucher to show. What a load of bull.

“So what,” Pidge said, “you’re just going to let it go to waste? After spending that much time and money on it? Wouldn’t that be even stupider than what you were already doing?”

“Pidge,” Hunk said. “Don’t egg him on—that’s what got us here in the first place. He doesn’t know when to quit!”

Lance snorted. “It’s fine, Hunk. I’m not going to let her annoying prodding goad me into taking the lesson or whatever. Eating cereal is one thing, and it’s fun. But skydiving? Don’t you have to be strapped to the instructor or whatever? I don’t want to be like, attached to some burly lumberjack dude who’s screaming instructions in my ears while we’re hurtling toward the ground. Now if it was some cute chick…”

“I don’t think lumberjacks are skydiving instructors,” Hunk said.

“Let’s look the place up,” Pidge said, procuring her laptop from what appeared to be thin air. “What’s it called?”

Lance squinted at the coupon. “Voltron Skydiving? That doesn’t even make sense! What kind of dumb name is that?”

Pidge typed for a few seconds before turning her screen to Lance.

It was a pitiful website that looked to be designed in the early 90s and never updated; it was only missing clipart and comic sans. Pidge had made her way onto the ‘About’ page, which held pictures of whom Lance assumed to be the owners. He nearly fell out of his chair when he saw the first picture.

“Oh my God,” he said in a whimper. “It’s the future Ms. McClain.”

A young, pretty woman was in the picture, her white hair tied up in a bun. She had shining, bright blue eyes and a fond smile. She donned a white skydiving suit with splashes of blue and pink and cradled a helmet under her arm.

“It looks like they founded the place in 1983,” Pidge said, adjusting her glasses from the glare of the laptop screen. “Guess it’s been around a while. Maybe this coupon is supposed to be a promotional thing to get their business back up?”

“It didn’t say what the prize was, though,” Hunk said, “so the only business they’d get would be from the winner. Not much of a promotion in that case.”

“Obviously, it’s fate,” Lance said, settling into a dreamy expression. Their children would have his dark blue eyes, her dark skin, and a mixture of their shared devilishly good looks. Not to mention his charm and humor and humility. “She and I were meant to meet.”

“You might have some competition,” Pidge said and pointed to the next photo. A tall, somewhat older man stood proudly in front of a plane. He had strikingly bright orange hair and a cartoonish mustache.

“Pshh, that guy?” Lance scoffed. “Like he has a chance with someone that beautiful. He’s got to be what, like forty or something? And who knows how long ago this site was updated!”

Pidge stared dully at him. “Because you have so much of a chance with her.”

“Glad to see you thinking with your mind, Pidge,” Lance said. He stretched out in his seat. “Man, I’m exhausted. Eating this much cereal really takes something out of you. I could go for a nap.”

“Uh, buddy, you know I love you and all, but if you don’t clean up your mess in the kitchen, I’m giving your bed to the squirrels,” Hunk said.

“Okay! Jeez,” Lance said with a huff and stood, cracking his back. “And we wouldn’t have squirrels camping outside our apartment if someone didn’t feed them all the time!”

Hunk looked distraught. “It’s not my fault they love my soufflé!”

“Squirrels shouldn’t even know what soufflé is! This isn’t Ratatouille, Hunk!” Lance scooped up the milk jug and headed toward the fridge. A few inches of liquid still sat at the bottom, though it was debatable whether or not it was a good idea to drink them after how long they spent in the tepid kitchen. He decided that it was a problem for Future-Lance, though, so he shut the door with a hum.

He had meant to go back and pick up the voucher, really, but his patience for cleaning was limited, and so as soon as the kitchen looked presentable, he left.

It wasn’t until weeks later that its presence came back into his awareness.

“Hey Lance!”

Lance’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker from the screen. “What, Pidge? I’m busy!”

He heard her footsteps get closer. “Seriously? Are you playing Mario Kart alone?”

“You said you didn’t want to play!”

“Yeah, but who plays that alone?” Pidge asked.

“Hunk was busy!” Lance said.

“And what, you don’t have any other friends you could ask?”

Lance paused the game and looked at her with an exasperated expression. “Do you have any other friends?”

She pursed her lips. “Okay, point proven.”

He shifted around, uncrossing his legs and lifting one, wrapping an arm around his knee. “So, what was so important that you had to interrupt me kicking Dry Bones’ ass?”

“Don’t lie, Lance,” Pidge said. “I can see from here that you’re in ninth place.”

“Maybe you need new glasses!”

“Maybe you need a new technique,” she said.

Hunk’s voice trailed out from his cracked open door: “Oooh, good one, Pidge!”

“Hunk!” Lance squawked; betrayal, utter betrayal. “Go back to your studying! Pidge—what do you want?”

“Your voucher,” she said and gestured toward the kitchen.

Lance furrowed his eyebrows. “My what?”

“The skydiving voucher you won after spending over a hundred dollars on cereal?”

“Right.” Lance frowned. His wallet still hadn’t completely recovered from the spree. “What about it?”

“It expires in a few days. Didn’t you want to use it?” Pidge asked.

“Not really,” Lance said. “You can take it if you want.”

“Wow,” Pidge said. “That’s a new one.”

“What is?” Lance’s attention waned as he unconsciously floated back toward his game. “I give you stuff all the time.”

“No, not that,” Pidge said. “Just, you know—you being scared.”

Lance bristled. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, scared of skydiving. I mean, it’s okay if you are. No shame in it, yeah?”

“Pidge, I hate you so much,” Lance said. He leapt to his feet and stalked into the kitchen. The slightly dampened voucher sat where he had left it, though its puddle of milk had either evaporated or been wiped up by Hunk. He read over the print quickly; it expired on the ninth. “What day is it?”

“Seventh,” Pidge called back. “Better call in quick!”

“What!” Lance's gaze darted toward the calendar, as though acknowledging its existence would grant him additional time. “But it’s already 8 PM! And I’ve got a paper due tomorrow!”

“Why were you playing games instead of writing it, then?”

“Now is not the time to question my life choices!” Lance snatched up the voucher and stuffed it in his pockets. He headed toward his room, knowing Pidge would only torment him further were he to stay in the common area. He flopped down on his bed and held up the voucher. There was a phone number printed on the bottom middle, staring back at Lance tauntingly. Were it possible, it would have been Pidge in number form: tiny, but mocking. He began reaching for his phone to schedule an appointment before deciding against it; the voucher promised a free session, after all, so Lance was probably able to walk in whenever during their open hours.

Besides; he had a paper to finish.

~

The door jingled as Lance strolled through. Behind the counter, a single employee, his dark mop of hair obscuring his facial features, stood bent over a magazine. He looked up at the noise and immediately started laughing.

Lance frowned. As he walked up to the counter, he spared a glance behind him, expecting to see some hilarious scene unfolding. All he saw was the front door closing with a squeak, however. “What?”

The employee tried to suppress a snicker and pointed vaguely in his direction. “Your pants.”

Lance looked down at his pants and back up. “What about them?”

“They’re ridiculous.”

“Hey!” Lance felt a spark of annoyance; wasn’t the customer always right? “They are not!”

“Yeah, they are.” The employee composed himself. “I get that we’re a skydiving business, but really? Parachute pants? Isn’t that a little 80s?”

“Aren’t mullets a little 80s?” Lance shot back. What a prick! “Whatever. I’m here for a lesson, I guess.”

The man nodded. “I’d ask if you’ve been here before, but judging by your outfit, that’s a hard no.”

Lance bristled. “Dude! What’s up with the attitude? I’m a paying customer!”

“Okay. That’ll be $185.”

Lance scratched the back of his neck and handed over the damned voucher.

The employee—Keith, according to the name tag pinned to his white shirt—raised an eyebrow, but took the coupon without question. Lance was secretly grateful after all the times others judged him for his less than favorable money situation. “You’ll have to sign this waiver and show me your ID so I know you’re at least eighteen.”

“Fine, fine,” Lance grumbled and wrestled his wallet out of his parachute pants. He slid his ID over and began filling out the form. ‘Risk of severe injury and death’, blah blah blah (that thought was terrifying, but he wasn’t backing out now). “You know, you really ought to work on your customer greeting. This is the kind of disrespect I’d expect from a Walmart.”

“Noted,” Keith said dryly.

“And maybe ease up on the frowning. You’re going to get some nasty wrinkles,” Lance said as he diligently initialed over and over. Maybe the roasts were a little excessive, but he had good material which needed to be shared with the world. Plus, Keith had totally started it. “Can’t have you making that ugly mug any uglier, right? If it’s even possible, I mean. Let’s not test that theory out; I want to sleep tonight. And don’t even get me started on those fingerless gloves, Gerard Way.” He slid over the consent form. “Finished.”

“Thank god for that. Also, you definitely can’t wear those pants,” Keith said. He took Lance’s form and filed it away before returning his ID. “We have some spares that meet regulation. I’ll go get your supplies. You can wait outside; I’ll be there to direct you to our plane.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lance said as Keith was walking to the back.

Keith stilled and turned, shooting him an annoyed look. “What now?”

Lance scowled. “You’re going to be my teacher?”

“Uh, yeah. What of it?”

“I want someone else,” Lance said. Preferably that beautiful girl he had seen on the website’s page, or at the very least someone who didn’t have the raw audacity to insult his fashion sense while spouting a mullet; talk about a hypocrite to the highest degree. “You know, someone not a total asshole.”

Keith—and who knew if his name tag was even telling the truth? Lance had established a mantra of ‘do-not-trust’ as soon as his impeccable style had been so cruelly slandered—crossed his arms and smirked. “There is no one else; I’m the only teacher.”

Lance felt his genius plans of meeting his future wife skid to a stop just close enough to tease his fingertips before they shot backward into the murky and inaccessible clutches of unforeseen circ*mstances. He reached out to them desperately. “Don’t lie! I checked your website. I know you’re hiding that pretty girl somewhere.”

Keith raised an eyebrow and stepped back to the front area. “Who, Allura? She’s one of the owners. She works remotely.”

Lance deflated. “Wait, what?”

“Remotely,” Keith said. “It means she works—”

“I know what it means!” Lance interrupted. “But why?”

“Because she wants to? And she can?” Keith leaned against the counter, wrists crossed over each other. A sly smile fell on his face. “Don’t tell me you came here just to see her.”

Lance flushed. “So what if I did? What’s it to you, Mullet?”

Keith laughed. “That’s a little pathetic, don’t you think?”

“Not as pathetic as your haircut!”

“She’s engaged, by the way,” Keith said, hooking a lock of his hair behind his ears. Maybe he was more bothered by the hair comment than he let on. Lance would have to file that away for later in level two of insults. Level one was petty, generic remarks that were more out of principle than accuracy. Level two was where things got personal.

Lance narrowed his eyes. “I don’t see a ring on your finger. You’re just trying to keep her to yourself!”

“I didn’t say she was engaged to me,” Keith said with a roll of his eyes.

“I want my money back.”

“Your cheap ass used a voucher.”

“I still want it back,” Lance insisted, because his pride had long ago slaughtered the part of his brain responsible for long term planning. He stretched out his hand and made the universal beckon for ‘hurry-the-hell-up’.

“Technically, it expired yesterday, you know. Really, I’m doing you a favor by even honoring it.” Keith gave a shameless grin.

“Oh my cheese, just give me my stupid paper back!”

“Sorry,” Keith said, sounding anything but. “You already gave it to me, though. It’s mine now.”

“This is so—!” Lance gripped his hair. “You know what? I want to talk to your manager.”

Keith barked out a laugh. “Really, dude? It’s come to that? What are you, a soccer mom in her 40s?”

“Yeah it’s come to that! I want them to know they made the mistake of employing an asshole!” Lance was grasping at straws at this point, but he really just wanted his now crumpled voucher back. It was a matter of pride; once it was in his possession, he would make a grand show of balling it up and tossing it in the store’s trashcan before double flipping Keith off and strutting out. But he needed to actually be holding the coupon to do so.

“All right, all right,” Keith said. He held his hands up placatingly, but the weight of the gesture was diminished by the wolfish smirk he wore. “Hold on.”

He stepped around the corner and into the back. Lance waited a few moments, briefly wondered if Keith was planning on actually returning with the manager, or if Lance had just provided him the perfect escape. Keith eventually did return, albeit alone.

Lance blinked. “Uh. Hey stupid, I asked for your manager.”

Keith pointed two thin fingers at his name tag and tapped it. “Hi, I’m the manager. What seems to be the problem?”

Lance groaned. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Nope,” Keith said. “So, are you going to take the lesson or not? I was in the middle of reading an article when you burst in here, and I’d like to get back to it if you’re just going to keep whining about your voucher.”

“Uh, excuse me! This is a business; shouldn’t you be happy to get customers? You know, the people who pay the bills and keep this place running and you as the manager for some godforsaken reason?”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Money’s not an issue around here. This is a family run business—Allura doesn’t need to keep it running but she does as a homage to her deceased parents.”

Great; now he felt like an asshole despite being completely and one hundred percent in the right. Lance sighed. “Fine. Whatever. Teach me how to jump out of a plane.”

Hunk was going to kill him.

If the drop didn’t first, or his mother when she found out that he was 14,000 feet in the air with little more than a flimsy jumpsuit and a parachute separating him from solid concrete. He had been on planes before, but there was a stark difference between comfortably flying with limited leg room being the greatest inconvenience versus standing in a plane that lacked complete doors. His knees buckled as he stared out into the vast, empty sky. The wind whipped around violently, creating a deafening roar in his head-phoned ears.

The weird, ginger forty year old—Coran, and he was just as odd as his name—was flying the plane, and had only just stopped rambling about his flying escapades from his younger days. And Lance thought he could talk; he had nothing on this guy. If nothing else, it had been a helpful distraction up until this point, where Keith was trying to actually coax him out of the plane.

He sent a quick glance to Keith. “Are you sure you’re certified for this? And that it’s safe?”

“Sorry!” Keith tapped his own headphones. “Can’t hear you!”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure you can’t.”

“You ready?”

Lance gulped and looked down again. He went cross-eyed and his stomach lurched.

“Don’t look down,” Keith chastised and put a hand on his shoulder. “It just makes it worse. Remember what I said: relax and breathe steady. I’ll be holding onto you, okay? I’ve done this thousands of times with no accidents—you’ll be fine.”

“Doesn’t that mean that you’re due for an accident!”

Keith shot him a look. “Have you ever taken a statistics class? Christ.”

“I just—I think maybe this is a bad idea?” Lance suggested. “I think it’s going to rain. We should have a rain check.”

“It’s sixty-five degrees out and cloudless,” Keith said smoothly. He hooked their suits together and wrapped his arms around Lance. “We’ll be fine.”

“You’re going to get us both killed!”

“Just shut up and trust me!”

So he didn’t die. And maybe it had been the slightest bit fun after he had been back on the ground for a few minutes. Still in their suits, they took a few minutes to collect themselves back inside the store.

Keith looked almost relaxed, as though he jumped out of planes every day—and, well, there was a chance he did, Lance supposed. “See? No problem.”

Lance shot him a glare, taking long breaths to calm his stomach. “Shut… up.”

“You know,” Keith started. “There’s probably time for one more jump…”

“Nope!” Lance said before willing his voice down to an age appropriate pitch. Screaming had taken something wicked out of his throat muscles. “I’m good. Got my money’s worth—voucher’s worth. Time to go home.”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Did you, uh. Want a picture? Coran always wants more of them for the wall.”

Lance blinked and followed Keith’s finger to a wall decorated in polaroids. A majority of them had Keith, standing dull and expression blank, while the customer looked either fearful, ecstatic, or a mixture of both. Some had the pretty girl, some Coran, and the others a mix between two different men, likely other employees.

“Uh, sure, I guess,” Lance said. May as well document the experience for proof and bragging rights later.

Keith nodded briskly. He turned toward the back and yelled, “Coran! Picture!”

Coran came running out, a grin wide on his face. “Oh, fantastic! Lance, was it?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Lance said. “Err, do I pose?”

“Just be yourself!” Coran said and wrangled with his camera. Lance was beginning to think the guy was a vampire because he didn’t look a day older than the picture from the website, and his polaroid camera must have been from the 80s. Not surprising that the only person willing to deal with Keith on a day-to-day basis wasn’t human.

Keith snorted. “Or don’t.”

Lance scowled and turned toward him. “You wanna go, Mullet?”

Keith leaned in, matching his stance. “And what if I do?”

“Perfect!” Coran praised as he snapped a shot. He stared at it for a moment. “A masterpiece, if I may say so myself.”

“Let me see!” Lance hurried over and peeked over. He frowned. “What? Are you kidding me?”

He and Keith were standing maybe an inch apart by the nose, staring sharply at each other. Lance was spouting a nasty glare, while Keith had chosen to wear his infamous smirk, somehow almost nearing a smile in this picture.

Lance groaned. “This just looks like we’re about to get into a heated rap battle during the 80s!”

Coran’s eyes glazed over. “Oh, why, that reminds me of my days as a youth in the UK.”

“Just take another picture, Coran,” Keith said. He sounded a little strangled.

“If you insist,” Coran said with a shrug. “May I suggest you two actually look at the camera this time?”

“Oh my god,” Lance muttered. He hoped the camera was so old it wouldn’t be able to pick up his blush.

“Say Durantonik!” Coran said.

Lance ignored the confusing comment—must have been some weird UK slang—and just offered a bright smile. Another two flashes.

“A masterpiece,” Coran repeated, even though the photos hadn’t even come out yet. He placed it down on the table. “One for the customer… and one for the wall!”

After handing the first polaroid to Lance, Coran nicked a thumbtack from the main counter and stuck the second photo on the wall with a pride that was unwavering. “Oh, Keith! You actually don’t look murderous in this one.”

Keith made a weird face and walked back around the counter. He threw his magazine open and practically stuck his nose in it. “If we’re finished.”

Lance stared at the picture in his hand. He was grinning himself—he had always found it easy to switch faces on a dime; it was necessary with multiple siblings and a mother who equated smiling with an admission of guilt. Keith wasn’t smiling, but his expression was far softer than it had been in the past photos pinned to the wall. Lance swallowed. “Uh, thanks Coran. I’m just—gonna head home now.”

“Wait, your pants!” Coran ran to the back and collected them. He presented them proudly to Lance as one would a newborn baby.

“Oh, yeah,” Lance said, curling his fingers around the clothes. “I’ll go change in the back real quick.”

Keith continued to ignore his existence while Lance went to change out of the skydiving suit and back into his regular clothes. In the bathroom, Lance stared at the two polaroids for a minute, side by side. He slipped them into his jacket pockets and walked back into the store front.

“Uh, guess I’m going now?” Keith still didn’t glance up.

“We hope to see you again!” Coran called as the front door now separating them swung loudly.

~

So maybe he didn’t tell Hunk about the skydiving for a week or so. It was more out of concern for his friend’s health than anything else, though; he knew Hunk had midterms coming up, and Lance didn’t want to scare or distract him into doing poorly. Which meant that as soon as Hunk came home on Friday, released an exhausted but relieved sigh, and announced that his midterms were officially finished, Lance blurted out, “I went skydiving with the lumberjack.”

Hunk scrambled up from his previously relaxed position on the couch, a stricken expression on his face. “Lance!”

“He wasn’t a lumberjack, though,” Lance powered through. “Or a cute chick. Or even a cute guy—god, his fashion sense. You know he insulted my parachute pants? You love those things, Hunk! He basically insulted your taste.”

“Ahh, the transitive property,” Pidge said, peeking her head from a pile of blankets on the recliner.

Lance paused in his retelling. “Wait—were you here the whole time? Did…did you sleep out here again?”

Blinking drowsily, she replied, “Was I here? Yes. Did I sleep?” She rubbed her eyes. “What time is it exactly?”

“I think you should head to bed, Pidge,” Hunk said, frowning. “It’s got to have been like, over thirty hours since you’ve slept.”

“I want to hear about the guy who had the gall to insult Lance, though,” Pidge said. She yawned and settled back into her pile, her watching eyes lidded but interested.

“Thank you, Pidge,” Lance said. “So get this, the dude has a mullet. And he still insults me!”

Pidge snorted. “Who still has a mullet these days?”

“Thank you, Pidge!” Lance flopped dramatically down on the couch next to Hunk. “So, after indirectly insulting Hunk, he refuses to give me my voucher back because it’s expired or something that was probably a lie. Apparently, the pretty girl works from home, so he was the only instructor there, and turns out he’s the manager, too! I don’t know how many people the guy had to kill to become manager, but it’s gotta be in the realm of like, at least sixty or something.”

“But… you still went skydiving after all that?” Pidge scrunched up her nose, looking perplexed by his logic.

“Well, duh,” Lance said easily. “He wouldn’t give me my voucher back so I could throw it away, so I had to use it to prevent him from keeping it. And you were the one telling me to go!”

“Didn’t he keep it anyway since you used it up?” Hunk asked. Lance ignored the painfully accurate logic.

She shrugged. “It was pretty obvious I was just trying to rile you up for not bringing me any ice cream from the store because you were so set on buying all those stupid Branflakes instead. Didn’t think you’d take the bait.”

“It’s like you don’t even know me,” Lance said.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Hunk moaned.

“Hey, I’m all fine!” Lance gestured at himself broadly. “No broken bones, no casualties.”

“Except your pride, apparently,” Pidge said. “Sounds like the guy was a real jerk.”

“He was,” Lance said, pleased by Pidge’s validation. While his interaction with Keith had been annoying, there was something off about it, something that left Lance feeling empty as soon as he had left the business. He figured complaining about Keith would fill the void so long as it meant he was allowed to mention Keith in conversation. Which was a little weird, admittedly, especially since it appeared to be working, but Lance wasn’t one to question successful methods. He was just glad that he finally had the opportunity to unleash his torrent of judgement on listening ears. This had all been held in far too long, judging by the fervency with which he explained it.

Lance continued: “He’s the kind of guy you expect to be working behind the scenes, not with the customers.”

“I think anyone who works in retail has learned to hate customers,” Pidge said. “It’s almost a rite of passage.”

“I’m with Pidge on that one,” Hunk said. “Even I can get nasty during overtime.”

“Impossible,” Lance said. “You’re a teddy bear, Hunk. And so what, I should just forgive the guy?”

“I didn’t say that,” Pidge said. “Just to cut him some slack while he’s at work; he might be way different in person. Or you’re right and he’s a total douche.”

“Or both,” Hunk suggested. “He could be a douche while working, and an even bigger douche in person.”

Lance thought for a moment before he gave a slow nod. “So, I’m gathering that you guys want me to hang out with him.”

“That’s literally not what I’m saying at all, but sure, go ahead, Lance,” Pidge said. “Woo the crap out of him.”

“Woo—I said hang out! Not date!”

“Tomato, tomahto,” she said and closed her eyes. After a second, she let out a small snore.

Lance and Hunk shared an exasperated look.

“’S your turn,” Lance said quickly and hopped up from the couch in preparation to book it.

“Aww, come on, Lance, I carried her back after her most recent fifteen hour coding session,” Hunk said. “And the night of her ice cream coma. We agreed you owe me for that last one.”

“Fine,” Lance said. He walked over to the recliner and bent down in front of it, poking Pidge’s face gently. “Pidge—wake up long enough to get on my back.”

“Mmm,” she mumbled.

Lance turned the other way and nudged her ribs with his elbow. Grumbling, she climbed onto his back and immediately fell back asleep. With a huff and a wrap of his hands around her thighs, Lance carried her to her bedroom. It was like crossing a battlefield, as usual, as he made his way to her bed. He trudged through piles of broken electronics, dog-eared novels, and forgotten papers with scrawled, illegible algorithms and scribbled out calculations. He grunted as he set her down tenderly on her bed, dragging a nearby blanket over to tug onto her. She wrinkled her nose and turned to face the wall, letting out a deep sigh.

“Night, Pidge,” he whispered, a fond look on his face. He made his way back out of her room without disturbing its contents too much—okay, he may have heard a crack when he stepped on something, but that also may have been his own body breaking.

Hunk was still lounging on the couch when Lance returned, his arms spread out over the top. “She still asleep?”

“I don’t think an earthquake would wake her at this point,” Lance said. He propped himself up against the side of the couch, staring back at her room with a grimace. “She’s gonna burn herself out at this rate.”

Hunk shrugged. “She’s graduating along with us; only a semester of this left, and then we can leave all nightersand energy-drink coffee mixtures behind.”

“Like she’s gonna stop with just a bachelor’s degree,” Lance pointed out. “Graduate school is basically a given. God, and she’s going to be even more difficult to reach. You know what Matt is like.”

“Yeah, but she’ll be living with us,” Hunk said.

“She’s living with us now, and I still see you twice as often,” Lance said. A new frown formed on his face. He jiggled his leg.

Hunk studied him. “You okay, bro?”

Lance sighed. He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Say, wanna play some Mario Kart?”

“Oh, you’re on,” Hunk said. “Now that I’m a midterms free man, I have all the time in the world to blue shell you.”

“No blue shells allowed!” Lance whined as he set up the Wii. “We have a written agreement about that!”

“Sorry,” Hunk said loftily. “You know I’m color blind and mistake the blue shells for the green ones.”

Lance rolled his eyes and took his place on the couch. “Yeah, sure.”

“Say,” Hunk said. Lance set the stage as Rainbow Road because he craved death, plus watch Hunk try to use blue shells when he couldn’t even keep himself on the map. Hunk groaned at the choice and shoved him lightly. Lance stuck out his tongue. “You aren’t actually going back to that skydiving place, right?”

“Of course not,” Lance said with a scoff and picked Luigi. For some reason, he didn’t want to take out the polaroid picture and show it off like he had planned. It suddenly felt private despite its counterpart sitting amongst dozens of near identical photos. The picture evidence was hidden in his bedside drawer, away from wandering eyes—his—or lingering thoughts—also his—and no one would ever find it, and that was the way it was supposed to be.End of story. Forever. “Keith was a total ass. Plus the lessons are like, almost $200 for a single session. I can’t afford that.”

“Okay, good,” Hunk said with a relieved sigh. He shifted on the couch and crossed his legs casually. “I was worried this was going to turn into one of your obsessions to get a date, like with Jenny Shaybon, or the other Jenny.”

“They weren’t obsessions!” Lance protested. Every Jenny he had met was just ridiculously, unfairly attractive.It had to be the name. “And I’m not trying to date him!”

“You were just talking about him a lot for someone who you dislike, but whatever you say, man,” Hunk said.

“Well, I’m saying that mullets are an automatic no in my book,” Lance announced firmly. “In the beginning God created good haircuts and the mullet. And the mullet was without form, and style; and darkness was upon the face of the Keith. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the attractive. And God said, Let there be haircuts: and there were haircuts. And God saw the haircuts, and they were good; and God divided the haircuts from the mullets.”

“Seriously? That’s what you’re using your Catholic knowledge for?”

“Well, what else am I supposed to use it for? I’ve read that passage more times than any one man should have to,” Lance said. “Hunk! I said no blue shells!”

“Whoops,” Hunk said.

Lance sighed and leaned back against the couch, waiting for his character to respawn. “Never got to ask. How’d your midterms go?”

“Hopefully okay,” Hunk said and let out a groan when he dropped down a place in game. “I’d been studying like crazy, especially for the biotech one. God, though. There was this one question, and I know for sure I got the first half right, because it just had me calculate the heat loss by convection and conduction for an uninsulated pipe, which, duh, easy. But then it asked about the pipe’s heat loss with insulation, and my mind took a dump and I totally divided the outer radius by the insulation’s radius instead of the other way around, so the final heat flow was all wrong.”

Lance was quiet.

“Lance?”

“I know what a radius is,” Lance admitted. “But like, ninety percent of what you just said flew right over my head.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it, Lance,” Hunk assured. “This is like, final semester stuff, I had to learn it, too.”

“It’s just.” Lance sighed and put down his controller. “You and Pidge are so smart. Sometimes I feel like whoever accepted me into this University made a huge mistake.”

Hunk dropped his controller, too, ignoring the complaint from his character who immediately rolled off the map again. “Buddy, any University should be honored to have you in its ranks. You bring so much more than intelligence.”

Lance swallowed and blinked back oncoming tears. “Thanks, Hunk.”

Hunk studied him. “You don’t believe me.”

Lance threw up a hand. “It’s just like, I’m a second semester Senior and I still feel like I know as much as an incoming Freshman. Am I even ready for a career in my field? Did I really just drop almost $40k on what’s going to be a total flop? How am I ever going to find a job that gets me out of debt before I’m fifty?”

“Lance,” Hunk said quietly. “You’re going to be fine. You got that scholarship, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, $10k,” Lance said. “Still leaves me with $30k to deal with. And you know, Mom still has to send Luis to college—I can’t just keep asking her for more help.”

Hunk shifted. “How’re your savings?”

“Almost non-existent at this point,” Lance said. The cereal contest certainly hadn’t done his bank account any favors. He was still eating Branflakes every other meal, and probably would be for another month or so. It was only slightly better than ramen, mostly for the fact that it didn’t contain over half of his daily recommended dose of sodium. On the other hand, the amount of fiber he was now ingesting on the regular was probably going to shut down an organ or two. “Did you ever think you’d be spending your childhood birthday money on education? It feels a little surreal.”

“Yeah,” Hunk said. “Would have asked for more if I had known.”

Lance snorted out a laugh. “I’m thinking of getting a job.”

“Right now?” Hunk frowned.

“Is there a better time?” Lance asked.

“I mean,” Hunk said. “Do you think it’d mess with your grades?”

“I don’t know,” Lance said. “C’s get degrees, right?”

“I don’t know if that’s the standard you should be striving for,” Hunk said.

“Maybe not,” Lance said. “Maybe I’ll become a stripper.” He slouched down on the sofa and lifted a leg straight into the air, shooting Hunk a pleased look. “I certainly have the flexibility for it.”

Hunk pushed Lance’s leg down gently. “Now let’s not do anything drastic yet.”

“You mean you don’t want to be my pimp?” Lance asked.

“I don’t think strippers have pimps,” Hunk said.

“That’s not a no I’m hearing,” Lance said. “I’ll file it away under potential solutions.”

“I still think you should wait on the job,” Hunk said. “Most places aren’t hiring until around April, anyway. And if you find a job at a coffee shop or something you’ll just have to leave in a few months when you find a job actually in your field. And since it’s already February, it’ll take like a few weeks to even find a job and get interviewed by them and hired, and then they have to train you, and by the end of it you’ll only make like, a month’s salary!”

“Okay, okay,” Lance said. “I get it, jeez.”

“I just don’t want you stretching yourself too thin, man,” Hunk said. The words ‘like Pidge’ went unsaid but not unthought.

Lance frowned. “I just hate having to be so passive about it. It’d be nice to have some control.”

“Maybe you could go ask that skydiving instructor for a job,” Hunk joked as he picked up his controller.

“Ha ha,” Lance said dully. He snatched his own controller back up and sent Hunk an unamused look. “I think I’d much rather be a stripper.”

~

Lance was a good friend and roommate—it was a fact of nature. He provided his friends daily entertainment of him singing in the shower, humbled their egos by kicking their asses in Mario Kart, and taught them all the Spanish curse words a single person could ever need. So, he wasn’t sure why he was being punished so severely for all he did.

“I just don’t trust you to go grocery shopping alone,” Hunk said. He stood in the doorway, blocking Lance’sattempted exit.

Lance gave a hurt look. “Hunk, buddy, you’ve known me for over a decade!”

“Yeah, and two weekends ago you came back with thirty-seven boxes of Branflakes and nothing on the list. It’s because I’ve known you for over a decade that I don’t trust you.”

“Fine,” Lance said. “But Pidge has to go, too.”

“What?” Pidge looked up from her tablet. “Why are you dragging me into this?”

“You forced me into the stupid skydiving session!”

She rolled her eyes. “I barely had to do anything. It wouldn’t have worked if you weren’t so obsessed with your image.”

“I refuse to take responsibility for any part in this,” Lance said lightly.

“Shocking,” Pidge teased, wriggling out of her blanket fort. She slipped her tablet into her backpack and stretched. “Let’s get this over with.”

As it turned out, Lance should have just let Hunk go shopping without him, because the world was a cruel, ruthless place. Five minutes into the trip, while arguing with Pidge over the best flavor of Pepsi, Lance spotted a familiar back.

“Oh no, not Keith.”

Hunk squinted. “Are you sure?”

“Who’s Keith?”

“Oh, I’d recognize that mullet anywhere,” Lance said with a sour confidence. “He’s that jerk skydiving instructor I had to deal with. Can you believe the dude’s a manager? Talk about low standards on the company’s part.”

“Oh, the guy you wouldn’t shut up about,” Pidge said. “Are you going to go talk to him?”

Lance took one step forward but faltered when he saw another man walk over. He was a few inches taller than Keith and had a patch of white in his bangs that he somehow pulled off. He had the kind of body Lance didn’t think actual people could achieve and a mechanical prosthetic replacing his right arm that came nowhere near diminishing his cool factor. Mystery man held up a box of pasta, pointed at it, and said something. Keith’s lips quirked up and he let out a laugh, it soon fading into soft chuckles.

Lance was befuddled. He didn’t think Keith knew how to smile without turning it into a smug smirk. And actual, non-condescending laughter? Was he officially in the Twilight Zone?

“Huh, looks like he’s got a boyfriend,” Pidge mused.

Lance sent her a glare. “I wasn’t going over to ask him out! And how’d Keith manage to pull a guy like that, anyway? He certainly didn’t reel Mr. Model in with his garbage personality, I can tell you guys that much. Maybe he’s incredible in the sack…”

“Dude,” Hunk said.

“You weren’t going over to ask him out but you’re wondering how he is in bed. Okay, Lance.”

“I’m just trying to make sense of this…this… insanity!” Lance gestured wildly toward Keith.

“Whoops,” Pidge said. “He just saw you do that.”

Lance went pale. “Oh, quiznak.”

Keith broke out of his smile, eyes wandering over Lance and settling into a flat expression. Lance felt somewhat insulted by the dramatic change in mood because honestly: anyone honored with the opportunity to look at him should have been beaming.

“Don’t look now,” Hunk whispered, “but he’s staring at you.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Hunk, I know. I’m looking straight at the dude. I’m going over there.”

“Lance!” Hunk sounded scandalized. “Pidge, stop him!”

Pidge didn’t look away from the ice cream aisle that she was perusing. “No, Lance. Stop. Don’t.”

Lance sent them a theatrical wink and sauntered over to Keith and his out-of-league boyfriend.

Keith made a disgruntled face, his shoulders dropping as though his day had just been irrevocably ruined. His boyfriend caught the change in stature and followed his gaze to Lance—

—who now felt incredibly awkward just approaching a stranger and near-stranger in the midst of a grocery store.

“Uh, hey.”

“Hey,” Keith said. He crossed his arms.

The boyfriend gave an easy smile. “Keith, who’s this?”

So his name was Keith. Lance supposed that was one point in his favor.

“Just a customer,” Keith said. He acted like each word was a stab to the gut. “He won that cereal sweepstake.”

“Oh!” The man looked unreasonably excited at the mention of a cereal sweepstake, but whatever got him off at night—with Keith—Lance supposed. “How did you like the lesson?”

Lance rubbed his neck. He suddenly felt weird about bad mouthing Keith in front of his boyfriend, even if that kind of had been his initial intent when walking over. “Uh, it was cool. Definitely not what I’m used to.”

Keith’s boyfriend nodded. “It can be a bit of a shock at first. Keith’s a good teacher, though.”

He ruffled Keith’s hair, drawing out a scowl from Keith, who swatted the offending hand away.

Wow; this was really awkward.

“Yeah,” Lance said weakly, praying for one of the three of them—preferably Keith, if he was being perfectly honest—to be struck down by indoor lightning to distract from the stilted conversation.

The man held out his hand. “I’m Shiro, the manager at Voltron Skydiving.”

Lance hesitantly shook his hand. “I’m Lance—wait a minute….”

His eyes shot to Keith, who sheepishly avoided eye contact.

“You liar!” Lance tore his hand from Shiro’s and pointed an accusing finger at Keith.

Shiro blinked. “I think I’m missing something.”

“You were just trying to save your ass!” Lance said, eyes narrowed. That single point he had graciously bestowed upon Keith from earlier was officially banished for eternity. “I knew no one would ever promote you to manager!”

Keith flung up his head and scowled. “Shiro wouldn’t have fired me! It didn’t matter.”

Shiro sent Keith an exasperated look. “Keith, were you calling yourself manager again?”

“…Maybe.” Keith crossed his arms. “It’s not my fault I’m the only one ever in the store. What do you want me to do? Call you and make you drive all the way over to deal with some idiotic customer?”

“Hey! It was a valid request!”

“I’m sorry,” Shiro said quickly. “Keith can be a bit of a hothead. What happened?”

“He insulted my pants,” Lance said solemnly.

Shiro stared at him. “Err, what?”

“My pants.”

“He was wearing parachute pants, Shiro!” Keith threw his hands up. “I’m only human.”

“I see…” Shiro failed to stop a laugh. “Well, you’re right about me not wanting you to call in that case. Lance, I’m sorry my brother made fun of your clothes.”

Lance crossed his arms defensively. “It’s whatever—wait. Brother?”

“Yeah,” Shiro said and sent Keith a fond smile. “He can be a handful, all right.”

“I’m right here,” Keith said dully. “And not twelve.”

“I knew it,” Lance whispered.

Keith frowned. “Knew what?”

“That you couldn’t score a guy like Shiro!” Why did he feel relief?

Keith blanched. “What the Hell? Why would I want to score my brother? What’s wrong with you?”

“Err, sorry to interrupt,” Hunk said, and God bless his nosy nature and inclination to intervene because Lance was stumbling. Hard. “I’m Hunk, hi there. Lance, I need your help. Pidge refuses to leave without at least three cartons of Rocky Road.”

Lance waved him off. “Then buy them for her.”

“Lance, you know she’s lactose intolerant!”

“Okay, okay,” Lance said with a sigh. He spared one last look to Keith. Despite the tension radiating from the short conversation, a part of Lance was reluctant to cut the interaction short. There was something alluring about talking to Keith, something excruciatingly frustrating but addictive nonetheless. Lance decided it was even better than ranting about the guy, if only because it offered him more substantiation.

Fortunately, Shiro unintentionally provided Lance an ‘in’. “Pidge? As in Katie Holt?”

“Uh, yeah,” Lance said, fighting back a spark of curiosity.

Pidge was a total homebody; Lance wasn’t sure if she even did leave the house, or if she managed to ace all her classes behind a screen. Maybe this grocery trip was the first time she had left the apartment this year. Lance wasn’t possessive of his friends, but he was also comfortably aware that the three of them were somewhat… lacking when it came to other friends. But apparently Pidge had been holding out on them—though if she had been holding Keith far, far away from Lance, then he couldn’t find it in himself to be upset.

Hunk pointed a finger at the frozen desserts’ aisle. “She’s right over there.”

Pidge came ambling over, her arms squeezed around four cartons of Rocky Road and her pale face almost covered from their height. Her gaze flickered between the four men, and she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Is this an intervention?”

“It should be,” Hunk muttered. “Seriously, Pidge; you’re going to go home and eat an entire carton straight away, then complain about it for the next three days before you start the process over again. Save us from the pain, please.”

“We’ll compromise,” Pidge said. “Two cartons.”

“Honestly! This is why neither of you should do the shopping.”

“I was forced,” Pidge pointed out. “You have no one to blame but yourselves.”

Lance shrugged. “I usually buy the ice cream and sneak it to her, anyway.”

“Dude! Betrayal,” Hunk said.

Pidge managed to give Lance a fist bump, her small hand peeking out from the carton’s side.

“Pidge,” Shiro said, and he suddenly sounded more like a balding, fifty year old father than the underwear model Lance had grown to expect of him. “I don’t think Matt would be very happy to hear about this.”

Pidge snorted. “I think Matt would be very pleased, in fact, and even eat a carton with me.”

“She’s got you there,” Lance said, wondering how Shiro knew Matt.

“Well, then I don’t think Matt would be very happy to hear that I knew about it and wasn’t happy.”

“Oh.” She faltered. “Yeah, probably not. Buzzkill, much?”

Shiro laughed. “Just looking out for you two. The amount of ice cream he consumes is ridiculous, too, and I have to deal with the aftermath in our apartment. It must run in the family.”

“So, uh,” Lance said. “You guys know each other?”

Keith rolled his eyes. “No, Shiro just managed to guess that she had a brother and his exact name.”

Lance shot him a glare before turning back to Pidge. “Why didn’t you say you knew Keith!”

She studied him over her ice cream. He hated how sharp and aware her eyes were, as though they knew the mechanics of his thought processes better than he himself did and weren’t afraid to take advantage of resulting knowledge. He felt exposed, like when he was eight and had a phase where he rejected all notions of pants and pants-like materials. “Dude, I have like, three Keiths in my astrophysics class alone. How was I supposed to know your Keith was one I knew?”

“He—He’s not my Keith!” Lance sputtered. “That’s it, I’m cutting you off. Put that ice cream back.”

She huffed and spun around, heading back toward the freezer section. “You guys are the worst.”

The ensuing silence was a new level of awkward. Hunk watched the exit with a saddened, longing stare; Keith held a disinterested grimace; Shiro coughed.

“Well,” Shiro finally said. “Small world, huh?”

It was somehow worse than silence.

Keith sighed. “Shiro, we should go. We’re supposed to meet Allura and Matt at seven.”

In their brief, combative time knowing each other, Lance had never been grateful for anything that came out of Keith’s mouth, but there was a first time for everything.

“Right,” Shiro said. He smiled and looked to Lance and Hunk. “Did you guys want to join us tonight? We’re going bowling.”

Keith made a noise that was an unholy combination of a groan and cry of protest.

Same, Lance thought. But his throat was thankfully desert dry and unable to invoke such a verbal agreement.

“Oh, uh,” Hunk said. He sneaked a look to Lance, who gave a distressed expression, even going as far as to mouth a vehement “Hell no.” Hunk smiled in apparent recognition of the subtle message. Lance relaxed at his understanding while Hunk faced Shiro. “Sure! We’d love to.”

Lance put a hand to his chest in disbelief and lurched backward. Where was his caring and loyal friend? Apparently, there were two fake friends here, not just one.

“Great!” Shiro said. He touched his pocket and frowned. “Hmm, looks like I left my phone home. Here, Keith can put in his number; he’ll text you the address.”

Keith shot him a dead look but put out a hand.

“Oh, would you look at that,” Hunk said, not even sparing so much as a blink toward his pockets. “I forgot my phone, too. You brought yours, though, right, Lance?”

“Right,” Lance said tersely. He pushed his phone into Keith’s hand. “Here you go, buddy.”

Keith curled his fingers around it and raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Lance snapped defensively.

“Your background,” Keith said. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips.

Lance snatched his phone back, swore under his breath, and tapped in his code to hide the screen with his apps. He handed the phone back. Keith silently input his number and returned the phone, sending Lance a curious look. Their hands brushed together. Lance suppressed a shudder and shoved the cell back into his pocket.

“We should get going,” Shiro said, either oblivious to the heavy tension or purposely ignoring it. “It was nice meeting you two. See you tonight!”

“Bye!” Hunk waved them off.

Lance turned and jabbed a finger to Hunk’s chest. “What was that!”

“What?” Hunk asked innocently.

“‘Would you look at that,’” Lance mimicked. “‘I forgot my phone, too.’ Bull! I see the outline of it in your pocket!”

Hunk shrugged. “My bad. Thought that was my wallet.”

Lance narrowed his eyes. “Whatever it is that you’re doing, I’m against it.”

Hunk laughed. “So, what’s your background, dude?”

Lance flushed. His fingers curled protectively around his pocketed phone. “Nothing.”

“Aww, come on,” Hunk said. “I thought we were best friends.”

“I thought so, too! But then you went and betrayed me like that! Why would you agree to go bowling with my arch nemesis?”

“Uh, I don’t think arch nemeses are a thing anymore,” Hunk said. “Or ever were. Plus Matt’s going to be there. You know Pidge misses spending time with him.”

Lance threw up his arms. “She could just, I don’t know, Skype him like a normal person? I don’t see why I have to suffer because of his busy schedule.”

“You guys realize the whole store can hear you, right?” Pidge wandered back toward them, now holding a family sized bag of Doritos. “Oh, they left.”

“Yeah, and Hunk here agreed to go bowling with them tonight!”

“Does that mean we can get another bag of these?”

~

“Okay, okay, Hunk,” Lance said. He held up two shirts, one short-sleeved and the other long-sleeved. He hadn’t checked the weather, but he figured it couldn’t be too cold. “This blue, or this blue?”

“Dude…”

“Okay,” Lance said with a frown as he studied the first shirt. Was that a tiny smudge he saw near the collar? He’d have to do laundry when he got back. “Yeah, I thought maybe neither of them went with these pants. What about that beige I have in the back of my closet—you know, the one I wore to—”

“No, not that,” Hunk said. He was lying upside on the couch, staring at Lance from where his head rested on the carpet. Even upside down he looked wholly unimpressed. “Just… why do you care so much about your outfit? We’re just going bowling with some friends. It’s not like, a date or anything.”

Lance made an affronted noise and settled a hand on his hip. “Excuse me for wanting to look decent. Not everything I do has an ulterior motive.”

“Okaaaaay,” Hunk said.

Lance went back to shuffling through his pile of clothes he had tossed on the sofa. There were still three shirts he hadn’t presented to Hunk; he was saving the best for last. “I just, you know, want to rub it in Keith’s face that I look better than him.”

“There it is,” Pidge said. Her eyes were trained on the television screen, a majority of her attention absorbed in the bad 90s movie she was replaying for the third time this week. “You sure you don’t just want to rub something else in his face?”

“Pidge!”

She snickered and ate another Dorito. “C’mon, he set that one up for me. Basically handed me the keys to the kingdom with it.”

“Stop hogging all the chips,” Lance said because he couldn’t think of a snappy retort. He abandoned his clothes in favor of snatching the new chip from her hands. He hummed and took a bite. “Did you go through half this bag already or something?”

“Maybe?” She shrugged. “I kind of stopped paying attention thirty minutes ago. I figured you were going to take forever to decide on an outfit as usual and we weren’t going to have time for dinner before we had to leave.”

“Excuse me,” Lance said, turning to look at the clock. “It’s only… oh quiznak, it’s already 6:45.”

Hunk groaned and clutched his stomach. “Dude, dinner.”

“I’m not hungry,” Lance said dismissively. Brushing his flavor dusted fingers on Pidge’s cheeks, he held up another shirt. Pidge gave a squawk of protest, rubbing her palm against the mark and glaring at him. “Yay? Nay?”

“Okay, well, I am,” Hunk said. He shifted into a regular sitting position on the couch and crossed his arms. “And my bowling skills are going to be suboptimal unless I get some grub in me.”

“We can stop on the way for pizza,” Pidge suggested. “Lance, go text Keith and ask if the others want any.”

“I’m a little busy here,” Lance said, gesturing toward his clothes.

“You’re the only one with his number,” Pidge said. “If you really want me to, I can text him with your phone.”

“Yeah, like I trust you to keep it PG after that earlier comment,” Lance said. “Why can’t you just text Matt?”

“He never responds to texts,” Pidge said. She looked a little annoyed by it. “Or calls, really.”

Lance sighed; as frustrating as Pidge could be at times, he was willing to do just about anything if it meant not having to see that hurt expression on her face. “Okay, fine. But you have to help me pick a shirt.”

She finally tore her gaze away from the television and scrutinized the pile of clothes next to her. Eventually, she pointed to one that was nearly hidden by a couch cushion. “Hmm. That one.”

Lance raised an eyebrow; he hadn’t even meant to grab that one, so dull and unexciting. It was a stark difference from his personality, far less enthusiastic and welcoming. Clothes didn’t make a man, but he prided himself in maintaining a well groomed and open appearance, and grey didn’t exactly scream friendly. “That one? Grey?”

“Yup.”

“Why?” Despite his questioning, he picked the shirt up gently and draped it over himself in consideration, pretending to wear it.

“Because,” she said smoothly. “It’s Keith’s favorite color.”

It was like a piano suddenly fell on his chest, air fleeing desperately from his lungs. Lance spluttered, throwing the shirt to the floor as though its mere touch had burned him. “What!”

Pidge raised her eyes to catch his. “Trust me on this. It’ll piss him off that you’re wearing his favorite color.”

“R—Right,” Lance said, stumbling over his words. He snatched the shirt back up and held it protectively to his chest. His heart thumped thunderously. “Good, piss him off, yeah, perfect. I’m… going to go change. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t forget to text Keith!” Pidge called from her spot. She went back to munching on Doritos.

Lance huffed and, in the safety of his locked room, buttoned up the grey shirt. Despite how dull it had initially seemed, it did match well with the rest of his outfit, and it didn’t look half bad. He rolled up the sleeves and took out his phone.

To Keith (6:49 PM): hey we’re getting pizza you guys want any?

From Keith (6:50 PM): sure

Lance rolled his eyes; what an answer that was. He could practically hear the unenthusiastic tone through the text.

To Keith (6:51 PM): okay??? toppings? size? number of pizzas?

From Keith (6:52 PM): just get double of what you were going to

“Fine,” Lance grumbled. Keith sent one more quick text of the address to the bowling alley. Lance pocketed his phone and headed back toward the common area. He cleared his throat and put his hands on his hips. “Okay guys, pizza and bowling time.”

They ended up arriving fifteen minutes late to the bowling alley, which Lance blamed on stopping for the food and not on himself, though Hunk pointedly announced that he felt otherwise. After shuffling awkwardly in the storefront for a minute, they noticed the others huddled in the far corner at the rightmost lane. Keith and Shiro were tying their shoes while Matt and Allura were already prepared to go.

Matt’s face lit up the second he spotted them. “Pidge!”

With a wide grin, she barreled into him and gave him a fierce hug. “Answer your phone once in a while, jerk!”

Lance smiled fondly, glad they had come for that reaction alone. From the little Lance knew about Pidge’s brother, he maintained weird hours both at work and frequently went days without human contact save for his housemates—not unlike Pidge herself; maybe it was hereditary like their shared ice cream obsession. In all of his time knowing Pidge, Lance had met Matt maybe once or twice, their contact consisting solely of sporadic visits during spontaneous downtime in his lucrative career.

Shiro stood up from his seat and offered them all a kind smile. “Hey everyone. Glad you three could make it. You guys already know Keith. And I’m guessing Matt. This is Allura. She’s the owner of Voltron Skydiving.”

Allura waved from her seat on the bench. “Hello, everyone.”

“I come bearing sustenance,” Hunk said, sliding four pizza boxes on the nearby table.

Shiro opened one of the boxes and made a pleased sound. “Oh, thanks for getting Keith’s favorite, guys.”

Lance furrowed his eyebrows. “But we—”

“Yeah, of course,” Hunk interrupted. Lance gave him an odd look, but stopped his sentence short. Lance had played it safe and ordered plain cheese and his favorite, jalapeños and olives, while paying no heed to whatever the quiznak Keith enjoyed. Apparently, Keith had good taste in at least one facet of his life, though. Lance supposed that even a broken clock was correct twice a day. “C’mon Lance, let's get our shoes.”

“Yeah,” Lance murmured. Before Lance could turn to head toward the counter, Keith looked up for the first time since their arrival and caught his gaze. Keith’s eyes flickered down to Lance’s shirt, and a deep, reddish blush slowly covered his cheeks and neck. He looked away quickly.

“Lance?”

“Right, shoes,” Lance said and followed Hunk. Once they were out of earshot, he grabbed Hunk’s arm eagerly. “Dude! Did you see that?”

Hunk barely looked at him. “See what?”

“Pidge was right,” Lance said with a snicker. He felt droves of pleased nerves buzz through his chest, surge through his lungs, and squeeze his stomach. Keith’s face had been a whirlwind of surprise and embarrassment, a picturesque response which was now permanently stamped in Lance’s mind like the photograph. “Keith was totally pissed off when he saw the shirt I’m wearing.”

“Yeah,” Hunk said wearily. “Totally.”

Lance flexed his arms behind his head and grinned. “I bet he’s pissed that I look better in the color than he does. Jealousy, thy name is Keith. Can’t blame the guy, though, have you seen me compared to him?”

Hunk sighed. “I put up with so much.”

“I know, right? Keith is so annoying,” Lance said, leaning against the counter and settled one elbow on it. He rested his cheek against his fist and gave a winning smile. “Hey there, beautiful. Is your name Strike? Because you’re a perfect ten.”

The girl behind the counter raised an unimpressed eyebrow and turned to Hunk. “Shoe sizes?”

“Nine and ten and a half men’s, five women’s,” Hunk answered. “Ignore him.”

“Oh, I will,” she muttered and handed them the shoes.

Hunk paid the bill, making up for the cost of the pizza that Lance had covered. Pidge had promised to pay for their next excursion, but Lance hardly worried about it. He knew none of them were very well off, so he didn’t mind covering either of them when someone fell short. As eager as he was to escape the confines of college and its restrictive financial state, a part of him was also nervous about the resulting ambiguity. It felt almost unnervingly concrete and permanent, the post-college world spanning more than seventy five percent of a lifetime. All that he knew was based in education and learning, the alternative so foreign and seemingly distant.

Shaking the worries from his mind, Lance sighed and they headed back to the group. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on. I look good as hell in this shirt.”

“Totally, dude,” Hunk said in support. “Keith seemed to really like it.”

Lance nearly stumbled over his next step. He shot Hunk an uneasy look. “You mean hate it?”

“Yeah, that,” Hunk said, offering Lance an innocent smile. “Oh look, we’re setting up the teams. So, is it us against you four?”

“That’s three against four!” Lance said. He dropped to the ground and started taking off his sneakers. He tossed the pair of fives to Pidge, who caught them without looking. Another point awarded to the theory of Pidge actually being a cyborg in disguise.

Keith smirked, a faint flush still visible on the edges of his cheek. “Afraid to lose?”

With his bowling shoes only half on and nowhere near tied, Lance scrambled to his feet and puffed out his chest. “Yeah, right! It should be you who’s afraid! But how are we supposed to add up the scores fairly when the teams are uneven?”

“That’s a good point,” Shiro mused. He tapped his chin. “Hmm. We could have someone on your team go twice?”

Lance pointed an accusing finger. “They’ll get bowling fatigue; you’re trying to make us lose.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Then what’s your idea?”

Lance faltered briefly. “Uh…” He perked back up. “Oh! We can just split into pairs of two, and then we can double the score for the odd person out.”

“I call Matt,” Pidge said.

Lance nodded fervently and began counting on his fingers. “Yeah, you can be with Matt, I can be with Allura—”

“Excuse me,” she broke in politely. “I’d like to pair with Shiro, if that’s all right.”

“Right…” Lance said, trying not to express his dejection. He had noticed the ring on her finger when they had first arrived, so he wasn’t too bothered by her dismissal. She was cute and had a nice accent, but Lance McClain was no home-wrecker. As long as Keith had been telling the truth and he wasn’t the one engaged to her, Lance wasn’t upset. Though he didn’t spot a ring on Shiro or Matt’s finger, either. Maybe she was just more comfortable with someone she knew? Lance certainly couldn’t blame her for that. “Well, okay. Pidge with Matt, Shiro and Allura, me and Hunk, and then Keith can be the loner.”

Keith crossed his arms but gave no protest.

“Actually,” Hunk said. He picked up a slice of pizza and took a generous bite from it, waving its floppy remains in Lance’s direction. “I don’t mind being the odd man out. You and Keith can be a team.”

Lance blinked, stunned by Hunk’s unexpected words; since when did he not want to be a duo? Lance gave an uneasy chuckle. “Wait, but buddy, we were gonna be a team!”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “I don’t want Lance dragging my score down.”

“Oh, you’re going to regret ever speaking those words, Mullet,” Lance said. He spun around and jabbed a finger to Keith’s chest, pressing hard. “You and me then, Team Blue.”

Keith scoffed and pushed back against Lance’s pointer finger. Lance hated how much resistance there suddenly was for his finger; did Keith wear a chest of armor under his shirt or something? Christ. “Team Red.”

“Blue!”

“Red!”

“Oh my God, you children,” Pidge said. She was already inputting Shiro and Allura’s team name—team SKY, according to Allura’s quiet request. It was somewhat cheesy, but he supposed it was fitting for their occupation, and ‘VOLTRON’ was too many characters.

The bowling alley was well known for its old technology and subsequent limit of a measly four characters input for names, which meant that a majority of the time Lance just opted for ‘ASS’ in true old-school arcade game tradition. Pidge was lucky enough to have ‘K-T’ as an option, while Hunk was blessed with a four letter name—or nickname, at least. Lance wondered what Keith used when he played solo. Maybe MLLT. Or UGLY. He snickered to himself. Heh, he’d have to save that one for later.

“Red is fewer letters to type,” Keith said.

“I came up with a name first,” Lance shot back stubbornly. Who cared if it was one letter more? Pidge was fast at typing, and she had all her fingers.

“Just be Team Purple,” Pidge said.

“Fine,” Lance said and crossed his arms; PRPL it was. “Let’s get this party started.”

~

“Really, Pidge? Team MEME?”

“Mad you didn’t think of it first?” She taunted, high-fiving Matt.

Lance narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Dude, tie your shoes,” Keith said, annoyed. “You’re going to trip.”

“Aww, you worried about me, babe?” Lance fashioned the sleaziest grin he could muster.

Keith pursed his lips. “It’s bad enough I have to be on your team. I’m not losing because you were too stupid to tie your laces.”

“Whatever,” Lance said and made a point to slowly double knot them. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Keith muttered. He cradled his bowling ball against his chest, his stupid fingerless gloves a strong contrast to the bright red of the ball. Who even wore fingerless gloves anymore if they weren’t a biker or a fourteen year old scene kid?

“I think our team should start because we have the youngest player,” Matt said.

“Dude,” Hunk said. “She’s nineteen.”

“Still the youngest,” Pidge pointed out with a grin.

“Yeah, but those are mercy rules,” Lance said. “Nineteen or nine, she’s going down. No age advantages and no playing nice. I think Hunk should go first since he’s repping a one man team.”

“That’s fine with me,” Shiro said. “Hunk, you ready?”

“I’ve got this,” Hunk said and stepped up to the lane. He scored a 7-10 split and knocked down the 10 on the second. Lance cheered, absentmindedly eating a slice of pizza or two. He got caught up in the game and didn’t realize it was his turn until Keith was jabbing his bony elbow into Lance’s gut.

“Oww!”

“It’s your turn,” Keith stressed.

Lance rubbed his side and sent Keith a glare. He stood up and stretched, flexing his fingers and picking up his ball: a pale, shiny blue one. “Okay, Mr. Grumpy-pants, why don’t you watch a master show you how it’s done.”

Matt wolf whistled.

Lance flustered. “Shut up, Matt!”

Lance walked up to the lane and eyed the pins. Sticking his tongue out in concentration, he swung and held his breath; it was a strike. He jumped. “Yes!” He turned around. “Beat that, Keith.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “We’re on the same team, Lance. And you can’t beat a strike.”

“Excuses,” Lance said giddily as he sat. Keith stood up and swung the ball easily, breaking the pins into a strike.

Keith looked over his shoulder, smirking. “Heh. Like that?”

“Beginner’s luck,” Lance insisted, but he was smiling. He offered a high-five on Keith’s return to his seat. Keith stared at him and blinked. Lance was struck with a feeling of patronizing sympathy; apparently the dude was so socially inept he had never been given a high-five before. What a sad, sad life indeed. Lance waggled his fingers expectantly. It seemed to knock Keith out of his daze, and he shyly returned the high five.

The game continued with Lance and Keith matching each others’ scores for every turn. Lance was stuck between frustration over Keith’s identical performance—was the dude doing it on purpose to piss off Lance? 'Cause it was working—and satisfaction with their chances of winning. Shiro and Allura were close, overtaking their score every now and then. If nothing else, though, Lance was not a quitter, and he refused to lose after goading Keith to such a degree. By the last round, Matt had abandoned caring about the game, more interested in the pizza and Hunk’s explanation of his current engineering course. Pidge’s attention was half on the game, half on Matt’s questions. Every now and then, she’d eagerly add in her own experiences and Matt would smile with unabashed pride.

“Come on, Mullet!” Lance called out. Keith’s score was the game’s determinant; if it was a strike, they won by default.

“Shut up,” Keith said, though his words held no heat. He lined up the shot, stared at the lane, and swung. It was a perfect strike. “Yeah!”

“Hell yeah!” Lance agreed. He sprung from his seat and wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist, lifting him from the ground and spinning them in a short circle. “We kicked their asses, man!”

Keith let out a breathy laugh, his hands firm and hot against Lance’s chest. “Y—Yeah.”

Lance first felt the muscles in his calves tense, and the sensation crawled slowly up the rest of his body—relentless, scalding. Hesitantly, he lowered Keith back to his feet and drew his arms back. Keith was still watching him with mirthful but otherwise unaffected eyes, and a small, warm smile. Lance quickly turned to Shiro. “Avenging fury of Blue Team, son!”

“Purple Team,” Keith corrected from a few feet away. Lance ignored it.

“Nice job you two,” Shiro said with no hints of bitterness or dishonesty. Lance wasn’t entirely sure how he could be so happy whilst also being a loser, but he wasn’t going to call Shiro out; he was a graceful winner.

Lance clapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly. “How about another round? Keith and I’ll try to go easy on you guys.”

“Sorry Lance,” Hunk said. “You know I’ve got a lab due tomorrow morning.”

Lance sighed. “Yeah, okay, buddy. I get it, you’re scared.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Are you always this insufferable when you manage to win something?”

“He has to be,” Pidge said. “Since it’s so rare.”

“Excuse me,” Lance said. “I did not consent to this roast.”

Shiro coughed to draw the others’ attention back. “Well, we should probably get going.”

“Fine, fine,” Lance said, relenting.

“Thanks for the invitation, Shiro,” Hunk said. “We should do this again when we’re all free.”

“Definitely,” Shiro said. “Glad you all could make it. We can try to make this a semi-regular event if everyone’s interested.”

“That sounds lovely,” Allura said. “It’s so rare we’re able to get everyone together.”

“We’re easy to schedule,” Pidge said. “We have no lives outside of school.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t sound so proud of that,” Hunk said.

Pidge shrugged. “It is what it is. Definitely beats working.”

“No kidding,” Lance said. “Hey, Mullet; how do you deal with working while in school?”

“I don’t,” Keith said simply.

“You what now?”

“I don’t,” Keith repeated. “I’m just working, not going to school.”

Lance whistled. “Graduated already? What an overachiever we’ve got here.”

“Lance…” Shiro said.

Keith waved him off. “Shiro, it’s fine. I never went.”

“Oh,” Lance said quietly. Pidge bit her lip and looked away.

Keith rolled his eyes. “It’s really not a big deal. You guys don’t have to act all awkward about it.”

“‘Kay,” Lance said, voice unintentionally soft. He rubbed his neck awkwardly. “So… rematch later?”

“I’m usually free on Sundays,” Allura added. “Voltron Skydiving is closed, then.”

“Awesome,” Hunk said. “We’re free too, for the most part.”

“We’ll keep in contact,” Shiro said. “Keith, Lance, you two have each other’s numbers, right?”

“Yes,” Keith muttered while Lance mutely nodded.

“We’ll use you two as messengers,” Shiro said with a small smile. “Did you three drive here?”

“Bussed,” Lance said with a sigh. “Hunk’s the only one with a car, and it’s at the mechanic’s. Busted taillight and the transmission fluid’s been leaking.”

“We can drop you guys off,” Matt suggested. “I drove here, but there’s space in the back.”

Shiro eyed the three and nodded slowly. “We only have space for two, though.” He turned to Keith. “Keith, you drove separately, didn’t you?”

Keith froze then slouched a bit. “…Yeah...”

“Shotgun!” Pidge yelled.

“What? No,” Hunk said. “You have to be in the parking lot to call shotgun.”

Pidge shrugged. “It’s my brother’s car, so my rules.”

“Fine,” Hunk said. “I guess it’s decided. See ya, Lance!”

“Wait, wait, what?” Lance watched as the others headed toward the exit. “C’mon, guys! We didn’t even get to rock paper scissors!”

“Let’s just go,” Keith said tersely.

Lance sighed. “Fine. But I’m calling shotgun.”

Keith laughed. “I don’t think that’ll work, but okay.”

Lance had spotted it a good twenty feet away, but dismissed it until they were four feet in front of it and hadn’t turned toward any cars. He stared dumbly at the motorcycle and back to Keith. The fingerless gloves—while still a fashion nightmare—suddenly made a lot more sense. “You’re insane if you think I’m getting anywhere near that…that death trap!”

“It’s just a bike,” Keith said. He sat down and held his helmet. “Do you want a ride back or not?”

Lance curled his fingers into fists; Hunk and Pidge owed him big time, and he was not going to let them forget. “If you go even a mile over the speed limit.”

“I took you skydiving,” Keith drawled. “I think you can handle a little motorcycle ride.”

“You didn’t take me skydiving!” Lance sputtered. “Stop making it sound like a date!”

Keith just patted the seat behind him. “Well?”

“Ugh,” Lance said and plopped down on the cool leather. “So, do I get a helmet or something?”

Keith sighed and handed his over. “Here. If it’ll get you to stop whining.”

“Uh, that’s yours, dude,” Lance said. While he wanted a helmet, he also wanted the person controlling the bike of death to be wearing a helmet.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to have a companion tonight,” Keith said. “So either wear it or shut up.”

“Fine,” Lance grumbled and slipped the helmet on. It was a little stuffy, and smelled faintly of sweat and leather. Lance wrinkled his nose. Hopefully the ride would get rid of the smell; it was making his chest feel weird. “I live at 1841 Third Street.”

“You’re going to have to hold on like you did when we jumped,” Keith said. “Helmet or no helmet.”

Lance hesitated before he slowly wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist. He scooted closer on the bike, pushing himself flush against the back of Keith’s jacket. “Um, like this?”

“That’s good,” Keith said softly. He revved up his bike and shot Lance a smirk. “You ready?”

Lance grimaced. “Just drive, Mullet.”

It took all of his willpower to not shriek when Keith sped off from the parking lot. Keith’s driving was incredible, swooping in between cars that offered only inches of space. Lance shut his eyes and inched closer. The wind was like a slap against his bare arms, making him wish he had brought his jacket. He normally wore it everywhere, but his current shirt didn’t work with a jacket.

“Is it always this freezing!” He had to yell to combat the loud whistling of the wind and roar of the engine.

Keith leaned his head back without turning his face. His voice sounded so distant. “It’s almost nine at the end of February; what did you expect?”

“To be in a heated bus or car! I feel like my arms are about to fall off!”

Keith was quiet. Lance let out an involuntary yelp as Keith swerved through three lanes of traffic to the rightmost one and exited the freeway.

“This isn’t my exit!” Lance shouted. “You want Third Street!” He tugged on Keith’s shirt when his protests went unheeded. “Keeeeeith!”

Keith screeched to a stop on an abandoned street. The street-lamps flickered on. Lance shakily unwrapped his arms and stared at Keith curiously. With a huff, Keith shouldered his jacket off and handed it to Lance.

“Here.”

“W—What?”

Keith turned in his seat and sent an annoyed look. “You said you were freezing, didn’t you? Take the jacket.”

“But…” Lance wrapped his arms around himself. “You’re only wearing a T-shirt.” The refusal didn’t seem sound enough, so he continued: “And is that a crop top jacket? Like that’s going to keep anyone warm.”

“Oh my God,” Keith muttered and rolled his eyes. He pushed the jacket against Lance again. “Just wear it. You’re shivering.”

“I am…” Lance hadn’t noticed, but there were goosebumps trailing along his forearms, which were shaking against the cold of the night. His teeth began chattering underneath the helmet.

Keith’s expression softened marginally. “Come on—you’re going to get sick.”

“F—Fine,” Lance said. He yanked Keith’s jacket on and took a deep breath as warmth flooded him. “Um, thanks.”

“Yeah,” Keith said faintly.

“Are you sure you won’t be cold…?” Lance trailed off.

Keith waved him off. “I’ve forgotten my jacket before; I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Lance said softly. His shivering slowed. “Thanks.”

“You already said that,” Keith said. There was a small, slight edge of amusem*nt in his voice.

“Right.” Lance wrapped his arms back around Keith’s waist. Keith tried to suppress a shiver at the contact, but Lance felt it immediately. “You are cold!”

“I’m fine,” Keith snapped. “We’ll be at your place in a few minutes and I’ll put the jacket back on there.”

Lance sighed. He leaned forward and rested his arms over Keith’s, curling his hands around the other’s wrists as wind protection.

“Lance?”

“Least I can do,” Lance murmured. “Now hurry up. It’s cold.”

Keith let out a short laugh, started up his motorcycle again, and then they were off. Like Keith had said, the ride was short: only another two minutes. Lance’s circulatory system thanked the jacket’s existence nevertheless, even if the sleeves were a little short on his lanky arms. Keith pulled up to a curb and killed the engine. Lance took off the helmet and shakily rose to his feet. He handed the helmet silently back to Keith, who cradled it under his armpit.

“Uh, thanks for the ride,” Lance said. “Oh! Here.”

He nearly tore the jacket off his limbs and shoved it toward Keith. Keith, who had begun shivering himself, put it on a little too eagerly. He flicked the collar up to hide his neck from the cold.

Lance hesitated. “Don’t tell anyone that I screamed.”

Keith’s laugh burst freely from his mouth, raw and bubbling as it spilled without a care. Lance gulped; it was reminiscent of the laugh in the grocery store earlier that day, a laugh so honest and intimate. Lance wondered how many people had been allowed to hear it up close. Was he the second? The third? Keith calmed down after a moment, chuckles fading from the bitterly cold air but remaining filed away in the crevices of Lance’s mind. “Only if you don’t tell Shiro that I didn’t wear my helmet; he’d never let me hear the end of it.”

“Deal,” Lance said.

Keith’s lips settled into a crooked smile, his left lip twitching an inch higher than his right. “Deal.”

“Err, see you next Sunday? Or whenever?”

Keith nodded and rested a hand on his bike’s handle. “I’ll text you the details when Shiro figures them out.”

“Cool,” Lance said. “I, uh. I’m going to go inside where it’s not negative forty degrees.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Negative forty, sure. G’night, Lance.”

“Goodnight,” Lance said softly and hurried toward the stairs. He was in the process of turning his key in the lock when his phone chimed. He fumbled with his pocket and pulled his cell out: one new notification.

From Keith (8:38 PM): next time remember a jacket

He bit back a smile.

To Keith (8:39 PM): next time remember a second helmet

He heard the roar of a motorcycle’s engine, and it slowly rumbled off into the distance until Lance could discernonly the chirps of crickets and the creaks of the old stairs. He closed the door.

~

Hunk and Pidge were sprawled out on the sofa when Lance closed the door behind him and locked it. Their eyes sprang to his presence immediately, wide and expectant, like parents waiting for their teenaged son or daughter to arrive home the moment curfew struck.

He sent them a weak glare, too cold and riled up from the motorcycle ride to muster a full-on scowl. His cheeks still felt the teeniest bit flushed from the steady wind attack, though the helmet had protected him for the most part. He slipped his sneakers off and left them in the hallway as he walked farther into the apartment. “Thanks for ditching me back there, guys.”

“You snooze, you lose,” Hunk said lightly. “Speaking of, what took you so long?”

Lance frowned and checked his phone: 8:40 PM, the extra minute due to him lingering outside to respond to Keith’s text. “What are you talking about? It’s only been like, fifteen minutes since I last saw you.”

“Yeah, but the bowling alley is only ten minutes away,” Pidge pointed out. Of course she knew that. More importantly, why were they timing him?

“So there was some traffic,” Lance said with a roll of his eyes.

It was the worst when they teamed up against him; there was Hunk with his perpetual nosiness—which came in handy when it wasn’t about Lance’s private life—and Pidge with her unreasonably excessive knowledge of mundane things, though the crux of their prying was undoubtedly their urge to tease Lance ruthlessly. That was allwell and normal, but it felt more invested this time around, and Lance couldn’t for the life of him figure out why, or what they were even looking to bring to light.

He collapsed onto one of the kitchen chairs and began unbuttoning his sleeves. Even after wearing Keith’s jacket earlier, his skin still felt cool to the touch. As much as he longed to go heat up a mug of hot chocolate, his body craved bed more than a warm beverage—ultimately, it was a close call, though. Maybe he’d grab one on the way out the door in the morning if he had the time or patience. It was best when Hunk made it, after all, but he was probably going to scrape every last second of sleep he could get as a biochemical engineering major. Lance definitely did not envy him.

“Traffic,” Pidge echoed, and Lance didn’t like her tone.

“Like it’s never taken you guys a few extra minutes to get home before. I didn’t realize that I had to document every minute of my life for you,” Lance said, annoyed. “Was I supposed to take a before and after picture, too?”

“It’s for the apartment scrapbook,” Hunk said sarcastically. “And what’s with the hair?”

Lance blinked cluelessly and patted his head for context. He drew his hand away with a grimace. It felt flat and listless, the opposite of what he strove for. At least it wasn’t as bad as a mullet. “Ugh. Helmet hair, I shoulda known. You know, I always thought I’d be officially free of that once I got my license.”

“Why were you wearing a helmet in the first—Oh. Oh no, Lance. No,” Hunk said in a ghastly tone. He looked pale at the realization, but Lance hardly felt sympathy for him.

After all, Lance had been offered few options for a means of arriving back at the apartment. Taking the bus again meant waiting an extra fifteen minutes for the next one in the loop to arrive, plus clambering over to the bus stop two blocks down, and walking home in the cold had never been an option in the first place; he wasn’t interested in hypothermia. While the motorcycle ride had been intimidating and cold, it still beat loitering around in the bowling alley alone while he waited for time to pass, especially with the knowledge that his friends were already back at the apartment, warm and content. Not to mention it was the teeniest bit fun once the lingering fear of disabling injury and fatal crashes finally began to fade into the back of his mind, overpowered by the sensation of thrill and adrenaline. Without question, Keith was a good driver, and that made it all the more bearable. Not that he would ever tell Keith that. He figured it wasn’t worth mentioning to Hunk or Pidge, either, lest word got around and Keith’s ego grew even more in size; as things were, it was in danger of bursting.

Lance held up his hands in defense. “You were the one who left me with him!”

“You rode on a motorcycle!” Hunk put a hand to his heart. “Skydiving, motorcycling. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore, McClain.”

“Oh, come off it, Garrett,” Lance shot back with a smile. “I wore a helmet, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t know Keith drove a motorcycle,” Pidge mused as she thumbed her tablet with little intent.

Lance wondered how much she actually knew about him, considering she hadn’t even realized he was the same Keith she already knew. To be fair, Lance hadn’t painted the best impression of him initially. She probably held a better opinion of him than what had come out of continuous complaints of a so-called mulleted manager, but then again, how many people had mullets nowadays? If Pidge did in fact know multiple people with mullets, Lance was going to force her to seriously reevaluate her priorities and relationships.

She stretched a bit and continued: “I just assumed those gloves were just leftover from his scene phase.”

“Right!” Lance said. “That was my first thought, too. Turns out they have an actual purpose beyond aesthetic. But for the record, they still look totally stupid. God, and that jacket he wears. It’s not even full length! It hardly reaches his ribs! It’s like he made an effort to choose the most out of style clothing. And did you see the fanny packs! I don’t even need to say more on that piece of work.”

“Maybe he wears them for practical purposes?” Hunk suggested. “Like, you could keep backup snacks in them—like granola bars and stuff.”

“Jackets that reach your hips and have pockets are practical,” Lance said. Like his. “Not fanny packs, something he wouldn’t even need if he had a real jacket! I don’t know why I even try….”

“Try what?” Pidge asked. She gave him a curious look. “And why do you care so much about what he wears, anyway? It’s not like it has any bearing on you or your outfit.”

“I don’t!” Lance insisted. “But it’s like, I put in all this effort…”

She raised an eyebrow. “You…you wanted him to dress up for you?”

“No!” Lance crossed his arms tightly. He could feel the rapid beat of his heart that rose from his chest. He spoke louder to drown it out, wash it away from existence: “I just meant that after all that I didn’t even have to dress up! I could have put on stained jeans paired with a ripped shirt and gone bowling and still looked eons better than him. I wasted my time and effort, ’s all.”

“Okay…” Pidge said. She looked down at her tablet, disgruntled. “I really don’t understand boys.”

“I think it’s just Lance,” Hunk said.

Lance scoffed and stood up from his chair. “No need to be jealous of my impeccable style. At least the jacket’s warm. Somehow.” He trailed off quietly: “You’d think it being cropped would mean otherwise…”

Hunk and Pidge shared a strong, weary glance, culminating in Pidge shaking her head vehemently and Hunk sighing in resignation. The two looked back to Lance.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t notice that,” Lance said as he fiddled with his right cuff. “And not even consider asking what it was all about.”

“It’s for the best,” Pidge agreed. “Not that we were going to tell you in the first place.”

“Really feeling the love here tonight,” Lance said. “You know, if I wanted to deal with this kind of attitude I would have just stayed with Keith.”

“So why didn’t you?” Pidge asked.

“What do you, that’s not—why would you say that!” Lance finally finished with.

Hunk shrugged. “You seemed to have fun hanging out with him tonight. But there’s nothing wrong with that!”

“I was just glad he didn’t mess up my score,” Lance insisted. “That doesn’t mean we’re friends now or whatever.”

“Well, try to at least tolerate him for the sake of the group,” Hunk said. “I was thinking of asking Shay to join us next time we do something like this.”

“Yeah, man,” Lance said with a sigh. There ensured that he’d never get to be on a team with Hunk. Man, he really needed to start looking for a date if bowling was going to be a weekly event. Then Keith could go back to being the loner like he probably wanted. Unless Keith got a date, also. That was too weird to think about, though, and it drew a lurch from Lance’s stomach—was he bothered at the thought of Keith snagging a date before him? Most likely—so he exiled that train of thought. “I’m sure she’d love to.”

Pidge chewed on her lip, looking unsure for a minute. “You heading to bed?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a class at eight tomorrow,” Lance said, grimacing. And that meant waking up at six-thirty if he wanted breakfast and a shower.

He had taken the GE class because it was his final semester in college, and he figured it was worth making space in his schedule for his last chance at taking an irrelevant but interesting class. The early timing had the potential to force him to start sleeping and waking at a more reasonable hour, but he was beginning to regret the choice now that he was actually in the business of waking up early rather than having it simply being a distant hypothetical. It was easy to get sucked into listening to Hunk’s stories or watching Pidge code, and then Bam! It was four in the morning again. Nothing wrong with that when he could sleep in until noon the next day, but he knew it wouldn’t always be like that—not when he had an actual job.

He sucked in a breath and tried to refocus on the conversation at hand. It was so easy to get lost in his mind. “You know, Pidge, you should consider—”

“Going to bed before midnight for once, I know,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good enough for me,” Lance said. “Night, Pidge, Hunk.”

The two sent back a chorus of goodnights and Lance ambled to his room. He flopped down on his bed and instinctively closed his eyes. There was a heavy ache that strained them despite the somewhat early hour. His limbs felt tired but loose, his arms slightly sore from the intensive bowling and shirt clinging that he partook in. He knew that his clothes would wrinkle if he didn’t change out of them, but he was content to laze on his bed as the minutes passed. Faintly, he heard Hunk moving around after some time, likely preparing to go to bed himself. The main lightin the common area shut off and Lance heard quiet, low conversation travel. Hopefully Hunk was telling Pidge to go to bed, because there was no way Lance was carrying her anywhere tonight. Bleary eyed, he rolled on his side and struggled to pull his phone out of his pocket. He clicked the home button and the screen flashed brightly at him. With a wince, he blinked thrice before his vision normalized. It was 11:49 PM. There was a faint, exhausted groan, and it took Lance a moment to realize it had come from him, lingering in the empty expanse of his room.

Dragging himself to his feet, he shuffled over to his closet and swung open the door. The door caught on the carpet—as it always did—and he had to pull it toward him with both hands. With too little care for how nice of a fabric the shirt was made out of, he slung it off himself and shucked it in the corner; he’d deal with it in the morning when he regained full control of his functioning. He unbuttoned his pants and wriggled out of them, throwing them in the same pile. He stepped into his pajamas, buttoned them up, and stared at the wall, unfocused, for a moment, blinking tiredly as he weighed his next move.

He sighed. He was too tired to be very enthusiastic about assembling his face mask, but he knew beauty waited for no one. If nothing else, it’d make him feel better in the morning to wake up with a smooth, near sparkling face. He made his way to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. From the looks of it, Hunk was already in bed or at least about to be, and Pidge was either asleep in her room, asleep in the common area, or so invested in her senior coding project that nothing Lance did in the bathroom would come remotely close to catching her attention. He worked diligently but slowly, brushing his teeth while he waited for the face mask to settle. Afterwards, he lathered it onto his face in a half asleep daze. Eventually satisfied with the state of his nightly task, he shut off the light and stumbled back to his room in the dark, catching his knee on the heater at one point and mouthing a less than appropriate string of words.

The light in his own room was still off, and it left a weirdly ominous feeling to everything in the vicinity. It was abnormally quiet in the small apartment; the television was off, lacking even its sporadic bursts of static that came and went through the night whether or not it was being used; he couldn’t hear the furious taps coming from Pidge’s fast fingers that persisted at nearly every hour of the day and night; there was no beeping from the kitchen to remind anyone that Hunk’s meals were ready. Even quiet was his phone, something not unusual so late at night, but another reminder of the uncomfortably somber atmosphere. Lance slowly climbed into his bed and under the sheets. He stared at the ceiling, too weary and hopeless to move enough to slip on his eye mask.

He watched his ceiling for far, far too long. Time seemed to blur together in a spiral of minutes and seconds and hours, until it stopped and stood frozen in space. Typing out an alarm for six-thirty, he noticed his phone revealing that it was already slightly past three in the morning; so much for turning in early for the chance at a good night’s sleep.

Lance eventually fell asleep, feeling very alone and the slightest bit cold.

~

His eyes felt bloodshot. He had lost his usual seat in class due to him arriving five minutes past eight—he needed caffeine, okay?—and wound up sitting right in front. Everyone knew that there weren’t assigned seats in college, but come on; past the second day, there was an unspoken rule that seats were officially determined and onlyinconsiderate walnuts broke that armistice.

Lance turned to briefly glare at the squatter who had stolen his seat before looking back at the board. He hated sitting in the front, because it made him simultaneously feel like a sycophant and as though he was volunteering to answer any and all question the professor threw at him, no holds barred. He thumbed his notebook to an empty page and took a sip of his coffee. Only a few more months; he could do this.

“So,” the professor started. “I want to pick up on what we talked about last Friday. But first, everyone take out a clean sheet of paper. We’re having a quiz.”

A few groans echoed in the room and Lance frowned, tearing out the paper. What a way to start the week.

By the end of class, his posture was drooping along with his eyes. After all, coffee was magical, but there was only so much it could do in lieu of an actual night’s worth of sleep. He debated just going home and sleeping the morning away, but since he was already on campus he may as well get some studying in. He was halfway to the closest on-campus coffee shop—he needed more fuel—when his phone buzzed.

From mullet (9:54 AM): Allura and Matt can’t make it so bowling’s off this weekend

Lance’s heart sank and he angrily pocketed his phone. Even though it was only Monday, the fun of a night bowling with friends had been a solid motivator for getting through the stress of the week.

So much for Sunday being a good day for planning, he thought bitterly.

A part of him wanted to text Keith back and just make backup plans for Sunday, but maybe that was a little weird and presumptuous to assume that Keith and Shiro wanted to hang out sans Allura and Matt. Lance ran a hand through his hair and inwardly groaned. Why was he so hung up on it? He probably needed more sleep; things got to him quicker and more intensely when he was sleep deprived. He wondered how Pidge did it.

He collapsed on a chair in the coffee shop and spread his work out before getting in line. If there was only one thing he had learned in college, it was to always snatch the first empty seat in a coffee shop, because it wouldn’t be there for long. There were maybe half a dozen people in front of him. Russells’ coffee near the English department was always busy, and it didn’t help that it was prime caffeine time. The only worse time was at one in the afternoon when everyone’s morning coffee had fully worn off.

To mullet (10:00 AM): boo u whor*

To the 3 musketeers (10:01 AM): no bowling sunday ))): tell shay sorry!

From the 3 musketeers (10:02 AM): aww it’s ok buddy we’ll have a movie night!

From the 3 musketeers (10:03 AM): Sorry for your loss, Lance

From the 3 musketeers (10:04 AM): [image sent]

To the 3 musketeers (10:04 AM): pidge did u really just send me loss.jpg what the quiznak

From the 3 musketeers (10:05 AM): ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

From mullet (10:05 AM): what the hell?

To mullet (10:06 AM): umm hello????

To mullet (10:06 AM): mean girls???

From mullet (10:07 AM): i have no idea what you’re talking about

To mullet (10:08 AM): !!!!!

From mullet (10:08 AM): ?????

To mullet (10:09 AM): BRB

Lance was in the process of shooting another text to the group chat when the barista cleared her throat. He looked up and saw that he was in the front of the line.

“Oh!” He sheepishly hid his phone. “Sorry, one medium latte to go, please.”

The girl grabbed a cup. “Name?”

“Lance,” he said. A beat. “But you can call me ‘yours’.”

She snorted a laugh. “Cute. Never heard that one before.”

He shrugged. “Always worth a shot.”

“If you say so,” she said. “That’ll be $3.65.”

Lance sighed and handed over a five. “I swear, the prices go up every time I come in.”

She gave a sympathetic smile and the change. “Yeah, I know. The upside is that I get paid more so that now I can actually afford the overpriced drinks. But then they up the prices again. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Lance chuckled. “Glad to see someone’s getting something out of it.”

She grinned and tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her pierced ear. The action looked vaguely familiar. “Here’s your receipt. Have a nice one, Lance.”

He gave her a nod. “You too, uh. Amber. Cute name; it has a nice spark to it.”

Amber rolled her eyes. “Oof, that was bad, but I liked it.”

He gave her his patented finger guns as he walked back to his table, feeling slightly better than before. Nothing flirting with a cute girl couldn’t solve. He sat down at his table and took his phone back out to finish the conversation he had begun.

To the 3 musketeers (10:14 AM): GUYS KEITH HAS NEVER SEEN MEAN GIRLS

From the 3 musketeers (10:15 AM): Are we supposed to be surprised by this?

To the 3 musketeers (10:15 AM): shut up pidge ur supposed to be in class

To the 3 musketeers (10:16 AM): POINT BEING we should all watch mean girls on sunday

From the 3 musketeers (10:17 AM): Oh, great. I get to be a fifth wheel. Yay.

To the 3 musketeers (10:17 AM): ???? what r u talking about lol

From the 3 musketeers (10:18 AM): Well, if Hunk invites Shay, and you invite Keith, I’ll just be sitting alone trying to enjoy the movie while you two flirt with your SOs

To the 3 musketeers (10:19 AM): pidge wtf????!!! KEITH AND I AREN’T DATING

“Medium latte for Lance!”

Lance stood and went to collect his drink, a scowl on his face from Pidge’s most recent text. He sat back down and hunched over his phone to type a reply.

From the 3 musketeers (10:20 AM): well it sounds good to me! i’ll text shay about it (:

From the 3 musketeers (10:20 AM): we could invite shiro too if it makes you feel better pidge?

To the 3 musketeers (10:21 AM): i never said i wouldn’t invite shiro!!!

From the 3 musketeers (10:21 AM): Yeah, Hunk, that’s a good idea

To mullet (10:22 AM): movie sunday night at 7 my place

From mullet (10:24 AM): …

From mullet (10:24 AM): um, okay

To mullet (10:25 AM): 1841 3rd street if u forgot

To mullet (10:25 AM): don’t be late!!!

To mullet (10:26 AM): oh and tell shiro he’s invited too lol

From mullet (10:34 AM): right.

Lance took a sip of his latte and sighed; sweet, sweet caffeine. He put down his phone and took out his pen. He had a midterm on Wednesday that he was less than prepared for, and that had to change if he wanted to keep his A- in the class. Right as he was about to start sketching out a basic study guide, his eyes noticed a scribble on the coffee cup. He picked it up to see a phone number scrawled in small, looped handwriting. With wide eyes, he shot a look toward the counter. Amber glanced over after a minute and offered a small, warm smile. He grinned back, his heart pounding.

To the 3 musketeers (10:38 AM): GUYS A CUTE BARISTA GAVE ME HER NUMBER

To the 3 musketeers (10:39 AM): do u guys think i should invite her to movie night??? is that too soon??

From the 3 musketeers (10:40 AM): that’s great buddy! you sure you want to have her meet everyone so early on though? not that she’s not allowed to!

To the 3 musketeers (10:41 AM): hmm good call hunk. i bet keith would ruin it by being his weird emo self lol

To the 3 musketeers (10:42 AM): i’ll just invite her to a date on friday and if things go well then maybe invite her to movie night

To the 3 musketeers (10:42 AM): i’ll have to text keith and tell him to act normal tho lol

From the 3 musketeers (10:43 AM): uh sounds good lance

To the 3 musketeers (10:44 AM): pidge u r suspiciously quiet >:///

From the 3 musketeers (10:46 AM): You said I was supposed to be in class, didn’t you?

Lance frowned. Pidge’s text was weirdly cold. Maybe she was learning something difficult in class that was frustrating her, so he figured he’d keep the group chat quiet for a bit. He opened his chat with just Hunk.

To hunky (10:47 AM): hey whats up with pidge lol

From hunky (10:48 AM): idk!! she’s probably just tired

From hunky (10:48 AM): you know she never sleeps enough

To hunky (10:49 AM): truuuu

From hunky (10:49 AM): so this barista???

To hunky (10:50 AM): AHHHH she’s so cute hunk omg and she laughed at my jokes <3

To hunky (10:51 AM): wait u aren’t in class r u?? come to the russells by the english department! i’m at a table in the back w/ all my stuff

From hunky (10:51 AM): omw

Lance halfheartedly skimmed through his notes and wrote down the first portion of a study guide. After about ten minutes, Hunk sat down at the table. He slid his backpack off and relaxed in the chair.

“Hey, Lance,” Hunk said.

Lance shot him a grin. “Hey! Okay, did you see the barista when you came in?”

Hunk held up his own drink. “The one named Amber?”

“Yeah, her!”

“She seems nice,” Hunk said.

Lance let out a smitten sigh. “She’s wonderful. I really hope things go well Friday so I can invite her to movie night. Movies are the perfect place for a date. You can do the whole slide an arm around her shoulder move.”

Hunk took out his laptop from his backpack. “Did you ask her out yet?”

“Well, no,” Lance said. “But I can’t text her while I’m still here! That’d be all weird. She gave me her number, though. So she’d probably only say no if she’s busy.”

“True,” Hunk said. He stared at his screen with a grimace. “Ugh. Wish this lab report would write itself.”

“Another one?” Lance said. “I thought you had one due today!”

“I did,” Hunk said. “Turned it in at nine thirty. Thankfully the Monday lab is only an hour. The Wednesday one is three hours—that’s the one that really kills me. At least they give the weekend for the lab report, though.”

“Gross,” Lance muttered and looked down at his own work. “Yeah, I’ve got a midterm Wednesday. I’m just hoping it was like the quiz we had today. If not, I’m screwed.”

“Well, we’ve got the weekend to look forward to,” Hunk said.

“Yeah we do!” Lance said. “Talk about a light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Amen,” Hunk said and started typing away.

Lance paused in his writing. “Oh.”

Hunk glanced over. “Oh?”

“I just realized,” Lance said. “I bet Pidge is bummed that she doesn’t get to see Matt this weekend.”

Hunk gnawed on his lip. “Oh, yeah, that might be it.”

Lance tapped his pen to his chin. “Maybe she’d feel better if she had a date Sunday night, too? I think Shiro is a little too old for her—how old is he again?”

“I don’t know,” Hunk admitted. “Didn’t he graduate around the time Matt started college or something?”

“Matt started college at sixteen, right?”

“Yeah, just like Pidge,” Hunk said. “Whole family of crazy smart people.”

“So Shiro would probably be like, twenty-one at the time? And Matt’s twenty-four now, so Shiro would be twenty-nine? Jeez, yeah, that’s way too old.”

“You could just ask Keith, you know,” Hunk said.

“Oh, right,” Lance said. “I forgot they were brothers. Either way, Shiro’s definitely too old for her. Do you think she’d go for Keith?”

Hunk raised an eyebrow. “Bro, what?”

“I don’t know! They knew each other already, right?” Lance fiddled with his phone. His chest felt constricted for some reason, like it couldn’t process enough air. He scratched at it aimlessly. “And Keith’s around our age, right?”

“You know the guy better than I do,” Hunk said. “Just ask him.”

Lance sighed. “Okay, okay.”

To mullet (11:10 AM): hey mullet face how old is shiro

To mullet (11:11 AM): and u?

From mullet (11:12 AM): weird question

From mullet (11:13 AM): did you want me to bring alcohol or something?

From mullet (11:14 AM): i saw your ID and you’re 21, i don’t see why you can’t just buy it yourself

“Oh my god,” Lance said with a groan. He slung his head back and sent Hunk a look. “This dude is such a pain. What’s with the third degree?”

“I mean, it is a little bit of a weird question,” Hunk said and shrugged.

To mullet (11:16 AM): lol no hunk and i were just wondering cause shiro’s already going grey :p

From mullet (11:17 AM): he’s 29

From mullet (11:18 AM): and i’m 22

From mullet (11:18 AM): happy?

To mullet (11:20 AM): :D

Lance gave a fist pump. “We were right! Shiro is twenty-nine. And Keith’s twenty-two. That’s close enough to nineteen, right?”

“I guess,” Hunk said. “But I don’t think they like each other like that.”

“They can learn to,” Lance said easily. “They both like sarcasm and making fun of me. It’s practically a match made in Heaven.”

“If that’s all it took, she’d have a lot of potential partners,” Hunk said. “I don’t think you should push her to date anyone. She seems happy being single.”

“I’d be doing the two of them a favor!” Lance insisted. “Then we could go on triple dates.”

“Wouldn’t Shiro be a seventh wheel in that case?”

“Oh, damn,” Lance said. “I forgot he was going to be at movie night, too. Well, he’s almost thirty. He can cope with being single, right?”

Hunk sighed. “Sure, Lance.”

“It’s a good idea,” Lance said with a nod. His chest burned and he looked down at his notes; they seemed to all blur together on the paper. He swallowed. “It’s a good idea. Just have to make Keith and Pidge realize it.”

~

The two worked diligently for a few hours until Hunk interrupted their study session to instill a mandatory lunch break around 1 PM. Lance had initially protested, half because he didn’t want to move now that he had spread out all his work—and there was no way he’d find another spot to sit this late in the day—and half because he wanted more coffee, but he relented when his own stomach growled. They packed up their belongings and headed out the coffee shop and back toward their apartment.

“All I’m saying,” Lance said as he slung his backpack on his other shoulder, “I probably had another half hour of work left in me, minimum.”

“I didn’t eat breakfast, bro,” Hunk said and held his stomach. “I’m starving.”

“You should have bought something at the coffee shop!” Lance said as the two walked down fourth street. They had opted to walk instead of taking the bus, as the closest bus stop was situated on the other side of campus and essentially the same distance as it was for them simply to travel by foot.

Hunk scoffed. “There’s no way I’m paying five dollars for a mediocre pastry. I could make a better croissant in my sleep than the ones they have the audacity to serve at that place. Maybe if I had a fanny pack I could have brought snacks…”

“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence,” Lance said. “You have a backpack for a reason. Keith is clearly corrupting you.”

“Whatever, dude,” Hunk said with a smile. “It just seems resourceful to me. Not as heavy or bulky as a backpack, you know?”

“Ugh. Teaming up against me,” Lance said. It was like the grocery store all over again with Hunk ‘forgetting’ to bring his phone, or Hunk and Pidge calling dibs on the space in Matt’s car, or the two of them badgering him for coming home five minutes late. Man, he needed new friends. “Next thing I know you’ll be growing your hair out into a mullet.”

“It’s not the worst look…” Hunk trailed off.

“Hunk!”

Hunk held up his hands and laughed. “I’m just kidding, Lance. If anything, though, your hair is closer to being a mullet than mine is.”

Lance touched his hair defensively; it didn’t reach the base of his neck yet, so he was still in the clear. Time to schedule a haircut. “How dare you insinuate that I have a mullet.”

“It’s not the worst quality to have,” Hunk said again. “I mean, you could have a rat tail.”

“Point taken,” Lance mused. He wondered what Keith would look like with a rat tail. He shuddered; not good. “Oh my God. Imagine a rat tail on a mullet.”

Hunk made a face. “I don’t want to.”

“Smart choice,” Lance said. “That image is going to be burned into my brain for the next century and a half. They’ll have to put it on my headstone as a homage to the pain I suffered through during life.”

“I wonder if you can buy a headstone shaped like a mullet,” Hunk said.

“Okay, okay, enough mullet talk,” Lance said. It was making it difficult for his mind to form any coherent thoughts or images that weren’t of Keith. In particular, the image of Keith standing in the cold night against his motorcycle—his collar flipped up and his hair mussed from the wind, flashing a small, secretive smile at Lance—had overstayed its welcome and needed to be promptly shown the door.

“Hey, you brought it up,” Hunk said, but acquiesced.

“God, I can’t wait until your car is fixed,” Lance said and grimaced. His legs ached a bit as he crossed the street. So maybe he sat on the couch and at his computer a little too frequently; life was short. At least he wasn’t as bad as Pidge, who practically had a mold of her body in the recliner cushion. “I’m so sick of walking and bussing everywhere.”

“You’re pampered,” Hunk said. “I swear, last year you were fine with taking the bus.”

“Because it was the only option!” Lance said. With all the weird people encountered on the bus, who actually liked taking it? Sure, it was good for the environment, but it was also crowded and stuffy and ran the risk of Lance winding up as a stabbing victim or something. “I hate getting all sweaty from walking. It’s not a good look on me, and the ladies don’t like it.”

“It’s like sixty-five degrees out?” Hunk said. He pulled out his phone to check the weather and presented it to Lance; it read a balmy sixty-eight. Lance pushed the device out of his viewpoint in response. “You were complaining about it being cold this morning when you left for class.”

“Okay, well, it was like, not even eight in the morning when I left,” Lance said. Not to mention his room had still been weirdly cold when he woke up. He had thought that being under the covers all night would have warmed him up enough to prevent him from shivering when he climbed out of bed in the morning, but maybe the AC was acting wonky again in his room or something. “Did they give you any updates?”

“Who, the mechanics? Yeah, another five or so days they said. Which is dumb, because last week they said it’d only take three days top, and it’s been almost two weeks now! They better be building me a brand new car at this rate,” Hunk said. “God, I so do not want to see the final price.”

“Oof, no kidding,” Lance said. “I wish I could chip in more.”

Hunk waved him off. “Dude, the fact that you gave me any money is more than enough, seriously.”

“If you say so,” Lance said. He liked to give Hunk gas money when possible, but a mechanic’s visit was definitely not on the list of excursions Lance could afford. As things were, he probably should be cutting down on the frequent coffee splurges that quietly added up. Maybe Amber would give him discounts in the future.

“I do miss driving, though, and just having a car in general. It made it so much easier to visit Shay.”

Lance nudged him. “You’ll see her on Sunday night, though, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hunk said, tone wistful. “I just miss being able to surprise her at her apartment during the week. But the buses never run past nine PM, and she works after class most days.”

“If only she lived closer,” Lance said. It was a twenty minute drive to Shay’s apartment from theirs, which wasn’t an unworkable distance, but a lot more inconvenient by bus, and far too time consuming by foot. Shay didn’t have a car, either, so having her drive to their apartment wasn’t much of an option.

“I wish,” Hunk said. “At some point it’d be nice to get an apartment with her.”

Lance’s blood went cold. He gave a nervous laugh that was cut short by his throat going dry. “But. We’re still living together when we graduate, right?”

Hunk shot him a confused look. “Of course, dude. Shay and I haven’t even discussed moving in. We’ve only been together for six months, and we want to be sure before we make that kind of next step. But I mean, it’s not like you and I are going to be living together for the rest of our lives.”

“Right,” Lance murmured. He calmed down slightly, trying to shoo away the insecurities that were beginning to fester. “Of course not.”

“Hey, weren’t you going to text Amber?”

“Oh, right!” Lance took out his phone. “Thanks for the reminder, buddy.”

To Amber<3 (1:15 PM): hey its the cutie from the coffee shop :p

To Amber<3 (1:15 PM): are you free this friday for me to treat you to lunch?

“A regular Casanova,” Lance said proudly as they reached their apartment. “So, lunch?”

Hunk walked up the stairs. “Well, I picked up some quinoa and squash when we were at the store yesterday, so I was thinking of making a little something out of that. But I think you should have some more cereal.”

Lance groaned. “Huuuuunk. Haven’t I suffered enough?”

“Not until the last box is gone,” Hunk said and unlocked the front door. “And I’m sick of Branflakes.”

The two kicked off their shoes and headed straight toward the kitchen. Hunk began opening the cabinets while Lance trudged to his now singular cereal cabinet and took out one of fourteen remaining boxes. Hunk and Pidge had been kind enough to have cereal for breakfast for a good week and a half before they simultaneously reached a breaking point. Apparently, ten days of Branflakes for breakfast was the universal limit, though Lance had been pushed past this ceiling—albeit the requirement being of his own fault. Lance grabbed a bowl and spoon and snagged the milk from the fridge. Grumbling all the way, he poured the cereal and milk and carried the bowl over to his seat. He took a spoonful and sighed loudly. At this rate, he was going to graduate before all the boxes of cereal were finished.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, dude,” Hunk said, not even sparing a glance in his direction. Ruthless.

Lance scoffed and swallowed. “Whatever. Why hasn’t Amber texted me back?”

“It’s been like, five minutes, chill,” Hunk said. He started up one of the burners and began prepping his food. “She’s probably still working or something.”

“I guess,” Lance said.

It had been a while since his last date, in part due to him trying to put a majority of his focus on his education, especially during his more difficult semesters. And on the other hand, well, the girls he had pursued hadn’t been the most receptive. His longest relationship had been in Freshman year with Nyma Ortzi for a painful year and a half of on-off drama that ultimately exploded in a flurry of resentment and avoidance after a confrontation started by him. He had told her he loved her somewhat early on in the relationship, after three or so months. She had said she wasn’t ready to say it back, which he obviously respected. They lasted another three months until his doubt began to really settle in. By ten months, he had cautiously asked her about it again, and she told him she needed a break to figure her feelings out. He had relented despite how much he loved her, and they were broken up for two months until she came back to him, saying that she was certain she loved him and wanted to fix things. They were together for another six months, but he worried for the entirety of it. She would say she loved him back, but never initiated the phrase herself, and it always came heavy from her mouth like a swig of expired milk.

He had been fed up, and confronted her about it, demanding to know if she really still loved him like she claimed. Her response had been so calculating and bitter that it had broken his heart, a bored “Come on, Lance, we both know I never actually loved you”. She started dating someone else soon after, and even now he had trouble looking in her direction when they happened to cross paths on campus. It had taken until his second semester of Junior year until he even considered dating anyone again. Nothing lasted more than a month or two before fizzling out, though, a mixture of disinterest on her part or insecurity on his. Guys were always an option, too, but there had been no one who caught his eye. Plus he didn’t really know any guys who were gay or bi, and it was always more nerve-racking approaching a guy and trying to determine his sexuality. Girls were usually safer, plus they were so pretty.

Either way, he had tried not to burden whoever he was dating with his insecurities, but eventually they manifested either through him withdrawing out of fear of getting hurt, or being too pushy and requesting excessive reassurance. And he knew it was a total turn off, and it was made even worse by the fact that he was aware of it while it happened, but his worries got the best of him regardless.

But Amber had initiated contact, and that was comforting. He just wished she would respond to his text already.

“I can hear you thinking, Lance,” Hunk said. His food sizzled in the pan while he added ingredients.

“Huh? Oh,” Lance said faintly. He swirled his cereal around with his spoon and grimaced. “I was just… thinking about Nyma.”

Hunk sighed and turned around. He sent Lance a sympathetic look. “Again? I thought you were over her.”

“I am,” Lance insisted, and he was. He definitely had no lingering romantic—or even positive—feelings for Nyma; at best, he resented her existence, and at worst, well. He’d rather chew through his own arm sans pain killers than go out on a single date with her. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t happened.”

“I never trusted her,” Hunk mumbled as he turned back to his stir fry.

Lance gave a small, sad smile. “I know, buddy.”

His phone blipped and he nearly spilled the cereal in his haste to check the notification. A new text flashed brightly over his background.

From Amber<3 (1:30 PM): Sounds good! 11:30? (:

To Amber<3 (1:31 PM): we can meet at marie’s patisserie on fifth

To Amber<3 (1:32 PM): and don’t forget to bring your cute smile

From Amber<3 (1:35 PM): ^^ See you then!

“I have a date!” Lance cried. He raised his fists in success. The McClain charm was working again. How long had it been since his last relationship or date? Months? A year? Long enough that his mind had been wandering to weird places after last night’s time at the bowling alley, that was for sure.

“Awesome, dude!” Hunk said. “So, Friday?”

“At eleven-thirty at Marie’s Patisserie,” Lance said. “Oh man, I can’t wait. I have to plan my outfit…. Should I bring her flowers? Do you think I need a haircut?”

“I think you should finish your cereal and calm down,” Hunk said. He plated his food and sat down next to Lance. “I think wait on the flowers; try to sneak in a question asking which ones are her favorite, then surprise her with them on the second date.”

Lance pointed his spoon at Hunk. “Oh, you’re good.”

Hunk grinned. “And your hair looks fine. Just wash it before Friday and you’ll be good to go.”

“What would I do without you, Hunk,” Lance said.

“Probably never eat anything but cereal again,” Hunk suggested.

“Probably,” Lance said and ate another spoonful of cereal. Thirteen and a half more boxes.

~

The week was slow to pass, more so than usual because of the upcoming lunch date on Friday. Lance didn’t want to seem desperate, but he was counting down the minutes. It didn’t help that his classes were boring and Amber hadn’t been working any of the times he managed to stop in at Russell’s coffee. As soon as Wednesday had passed and his midterm was finished, the rest of the week was smooth sailing, albeit more boring.

“And she has this pretty blonde hair,” Lance said. He sat at the kitchen table while Hunk made dinner Thursday night. “It’s cut in like, this adorable bob that frames her face so nicely.”

“Mmhmm,” Hunk said. “I saw her.”

“Yeah, but did you see her eyes?” Lance continued and sighed. He knew he had a dopey grin on his face, but Amber was just so cute. He tilted his head a bit, resting it more heavily on left fist. “They’re this blue-grey that I can’t get enough of.”

“I think you’re a little infatuated, Lance,” Pidge said. “You met her like, once?”

“Sometimes you just know!” Lance said defensively. Then again, he had said that about Allura, and she turned out to be engaged. Though he had only seen Allura’s picture when he began planning their wedding, and Amber was for sure not engaged, so he supposed it was different enough. He crossed his arms before remembering his earlier conversation with Hunk. “Hey, uh, is there anyone you’re interested in, Pidge?”

She gave him a perplexed look. “What? No. Did I give off the impression that there was?”

“Nah,” Lance said, going for a casual tone. “But you never know, we could do a triple date.”

Pidge offered a half smile. “I think I’m good.”

“What about Keith?”

She put her phone down, no longer amused. “Okay, what?”

“Keith,” Lance repeated and took a deep breath. “Y’know, mullet boy? He’s… kinda ...cute.” Cute.

“Then you date him,” Pidge said, wrinkling her nose. “And since when are you going around calling him cute? Or anything positive?”

“I’m just coming up with a laundry list of items!” Lance protested. Of all the words, why had he picked cute as the first one? “You can cull them in your own time.”

Pidge folded her hands and shifted in her seat to face him directly. “Okay. Give me the list.”

Lance’s stomach dropped. “I… what?”

“Oh, good lord,” Hunk said. He handed over two plates of food and returned to the counter for his own. With weary eyes, he watched the two and lingered by the sink. “I’m going to regret sitting down and eating here instead of running off to my room, aren’t I?”

Pidge twirled spaghetti onto her fork. “Probably. So, Lance. Hit me with the reasons. I’m waiting.”

“Uh…” Lance stared down at his pasta. Hunk sat down. “He’s good at bowling?”

Pidge chewed slowly. “Continue.”

“He knows how to skydive? And, uh. Drive a motorcycle,” Lance said, counting off on his fingers.

“That’s not enough,” Pidge said. Hunk sighed from his seat. “I need more reasons.”

“I guess his mullet isn’t the worst,” Lance relented. Pidge and Hunk shared a look. Lance scratched his temple, embarrassed by the intensity of their stares. He felt like he was on trial. “And he likes jalapeño and olive pizza, too, which is pretty cool, good taste. I guess he can be nice when he wants to? Oh, selfless, that’s the word, yeah. He’s pretty selfless. Uhm, h—he has a nice laugh. Especially because he almost never laughs, so you feel all special when you can get him to. Same thing with his smile.”

“Okay,” Pidge interjected. “That’s enough.”

Lance looked up, all trains of thought lost in an instance, like a burst balloon. “Huh?”

“You’ve convinced me,” she said lightly. “I’ll talk to him Sunday night and gauge his interest.”

“O—Oh, good!” Lance gripped his fork tightly and bit his lip. His heart was racing, and the sudden awareness of that made it pick up even more speed. “Yeah, triple dates here we come!”

Hunk grimaced. “God, you two.”

“What?” Lance asked.

Hunk shook his head. “Nope, I’m staying out of this matchmaking; I value my life.”

Lance shrugged. “If you say so. Will you still help me pick out an outfit for tomorrow?”

“‘Course, buddy,” Hunk said and smiled.

Lance finished his dinner in silence while Pidge and Hunk exchanged various stories about their classwork. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t more excited about Pidge pursuing Keith, especially considering he hadn’t thought she would actually go for it. He supposed they would be a good match, though the amount of teasing he’d have to endure when they teamed up would be horrendous. Even worse than Hunk and Pidge, likely. Still, a nagging feeling in the back of his mind fought back against the idea, urged him to make a joke and insist he was just kidding about it. He stayed quiet.

After cleaning up, Lance collected a pile of potential outfits from his room and laid them out on the coffee table. Pidge settled into her blanket pile and Hunk took a seat on the couch.

“Okay,” Lance said as he studied his choices. He found himself feeling still distracted about the idea of a triple date. Sunday was supposed to be their designated bowling night, and it would be cool to have a date night with just the six of them—not that he didn’t enjoy the company of Shiro, Allura, and Matt, but a date was a completely different setting and atmosphere. “I was thinking something blue, because it brings out my eyes, you know? And it might match hers, too.”

Hunk squinted at the shirts. “Hmm. What about this one?”

Lance picked up his familiar grey and blue three-quarter-length sleeved shirt. “It is a classic, and pretty casual. I’ll take it. I’ll probably just wear some jeans with it, then. I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard or anything.”

“Good call,” Hunk said. “And if things go well tomorrow, you have Sunday night if you really want to dress up.”

Lance nodded. “Okay, cool. That was way easier than I thought it would be. You guys up for some Mario Kart?”

“At least put your clothes away, dude,” Hunk said. “They’re all over the coffee table.”

“Fine, fine,” Lance said. He bundled up his clothes and trotted back toward his room. He hung the clothes up in his closet for once in his life—he knew it meant less time later needed to clean, but so rarely did he have the patience for it. He folded the chosen outfit and set it aside on the corner of his desk. On his way back to the living room, he caught the tail end of a conversation between Hunk and Pidge.

“I just don’t know if it’s worth it,” Hunk said lowly. “What if he gets hurt?”

“I’ll say something before that point,” Pidge said. “But he kind of brought it on himself.”

Hunk sighed. “I guess.”

“Whatcha guys talking about?” Lance asked as he entered the room.

“Lance!” Hunk said. “Uh, Matt’s working extra hours this weekend, which is why he can’t make bowling on Sunday. I was just worried it was too much overtime, but Pidge thinks it’s fine, so. She knows him best and all.”

“Ahh, bummer,” Lance said. “Least he’ll get paid extra. So, Mario Kart?”

“Oh, you’re on,” Hunk said.

They played a few rounds—each won by Pidge, to the shock of no one—until Lance gave up and dropped his controller. Pidge declared him a sore loser and insisted on another round.

“You and Hunk go,” Lance said, curling up against the arm of the couch and leaning on his arm. “I’m tired.”

“Excuses,” Pidge argued, but set the next stage.

Lance watched them quietly for a bit until he took out his phone and checked it. He wasn’t expecting any new messages, but it never hurt to look. He stared at his background for a long minute before opening his texts. Keith had never replied to the smiley face, and his last texts had felt snappier than usual, but Lance couldn’t figure out for the life of him why. Keith had said it was a weird question, but Lance didn’t think it had been insulting or anything.Maybe he was sensitive about his age, though, even if it seemed like an odd thing to be bothered by, especially while so young. But at the same time, it was somewhat of a natural end to the conversation. He couldn’t think of what he himself would have responded to a smile with, other than perhaps a smile of his own. Keith didn’t seem like much of an emoticon texter, though. His thumbs hovered over the message box; was it worth shooting a quick text to ensure that they were okay?

Instead, he scrolled back up and reread their conversation in hopes of deducing the reason behind Keith’s lack of response. Nothing in particular about it stood out to him, so he thumbed back to the most recent message. A “yo mullet” sat in his unsent box for two minutes as he mulled over the costs and benefits of sending it. Maybe he could ask how Keith felt about Pidge and segue into a conversation from there, but she had said she’d talk to him Sunday, and Lance didn’t want to ruin that for her.

Why was he overthinking so hard? He didn’t think he had ever spent so long deliberating over a potential text; even the texts to Amber had been almost second nature, his thumbs flying in practiced and assured movements.

He supposed he didn’t want Keith to hate him, even if their pseudo rivalry was kind of fun. Lance liked teasing others, and he didn’t mind being teased himself—at least when it was all in good fun like with Pidge and Hunk; Nyma’s teasing, on the other hand, had always cut deep, even if he had refused to admit it during their combative relationship—but with Keith sometimes it was difficult to ascertain whether or not there were good intentions behind the comments, or if Lance was blindly regarding insults as compliments. It was Keith’s tone, so dry and dead, like Pidge, but with her Lance knew when she was kidding and when she was actually in a poor mood. Was it odd that he wanted Keith to like him?

He sighed loudly and turned off his phone; it was just making him feel weirdly insecure. “Do you guys ever think about what we’re going to do after college?”

“Work?” Hunk said. “Hopefully get out of debt?”

“No, I know that,” Lance said. He rolled over on his side and waved his hands around. “But like, as people. Do you think we’re going to still be friends?”

“Lance, we couldn’t get rid of you if we tried,” Pidge said. She blushed a bit and lowered her controller. Her character cheered as it crossed the finish line. Hunk swore under his breath. “Not…not that we want to.”

“Aww, Pidgey,” Lance crooned. “I knew you cared deep down.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I do, doofus. You’ve been my friend for what, five years now? I think by now if I wanted to opt out of the Lance McClain experience, I would already be gone. What… brought all this on?”

Lance’s heart fluttered with affection. “We’re just going to graduate, y’know, and all go off our own ways.”

“Nope,” Hunk said, shaking his head. He tossed his controller, thoroughly defeated. “You’re not allowed to have a midlife crisis for another four years at least, or you’re going to make me have one.”

Lance chuckled. “I don’t think they’re like colds, Hunk, where you can just catch them, but noted. I’m holding you to that, though.”

“Cross my heart and hope to try,” Hunk said.

Pidge raised an eyebrow. “I think you mean ‘and hope to die’.”

Hunk scoffed. “Yeah, like I want that.”

“I don’t think you can just change idioms like that,” Pidge said. “But okay.”

“It’s a free country,” Hunk said. “And language evolves!”

“He’s got a point there, Pidge,” Lance said.

“Whatever,” Pidge said. “I still beat both of you.”

“Yeah, because of your preprogrammed hacks,” Lance said. “I swear we need to just buy a new Wii.”

“It’ll only deter her for a day or two until she inevitably hacks into the new one,” Hunk said sagely. Lance gave a grim nod.

“Such sore losers in this apartment,” Pidge said. “And liars. Plus there’s no way it would take me a whole day just to hack into the system, give me some credit here.”

“Well, I still beat you guys at bowling,” Lance said. “Which totally takes more skill.”

“Are you still riding that high?” Hunk asked.

“Until the day I die, Hunk."

“Well, it was fun winning and all,” Pidge said as she stood. “But I’ve got a lot of work to get done before morning. See you guys, later. Good luck with your date or whatever, Lance.”

He shot finger guns at her already retreating figure.

Hunk turned to Lance. “I’m just glad she ate an actual dinner tonight instead of more Doritos.”

“They’re good chips, Hunk,” Lance said. “You can’t fault her.”

“So, are you ready for your date tomorrow?”

“I hope so,” Lance said. He checked the clock; it was near eight. “Is it weird that I’m not that nervous? I mean, I kind of am, but. Ugh, I don’t know how to explain it.”

“That’s good, right?” Hunk asked. “It means you’re comfortable with her.”

“But. I don’t know her,” Lance said. Pidge had been right; he had only met her once, after all. Hell, he didn’t even know her last name. But then again, did he know Keith’s? Allura’s? At what point did you know enough about someone to make a proper decision of their character, or your feelings for them? Why was his head feeling so scattered and his emotions so fuzzy? “Does that change it? Am I supposed to be comfortable around someone I just met?”

“I don’t think you have to worry,” Hunk said. “You’re into her, she’s into you. It’s just lunch. It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “It’s just lunch. Think I’m going to head to my room for the night. Thanks for dinner, buddy.”

“I figured you deserved a brief break from cereal,” Hunk said.

“You’re a merciful God,” Lance said as he slid off the couch. “Night, Hunk.”

“Night, Lance.”

Lance entered his room and sat down at his desk. There was still some work spread out, urging his attention. Tomorrow was going to be somewhat of a day off, so he figured it was worth finishing an assignment or two. He spent his last few hours awake getting some homework out of the way. He crashed at ten and dreamt of sharp, grey eyes.

~

“Today’s the day!” Lance announced as he walked into the kitchen, his hands on his hips. “Hunk, buddy, can you let me borrow your car?”

“Lance, I just got it back yesterday!” Hunk said.

“I know, I know, but it’s like seventy degrees today,” Lance said. “I don’t want to be all sweaty during lunch!”

“What about I drop you off?” Hunk suggested. “I was going to stop by Shay’s, anyway.”

Lance grinned. “Perfect.”

Lance felt jittery the whole ride over, which oddly enough calmed him. It had been so weird to not feel nervous earlier, and regaining that normality helped.

“Chill, Lance,” Hunk said. Hunk, on the other hand, probably thought Lance was about to break down.

“I’m chill!” Lance insisted. “Just excited.”

“Are you planning on going anywhere after lunch?” Hunk asked. “Because I’ll probably still be at Shay’s, so you’ll have to walk or take the bus if she doesn’t have a car.”

“It’s fine,” Lance said. “It’d probably just be for ice cream if she doesn’t like any of the cakes at Marie’s or whatever. She said she has work at two, so the date can’t go on too long.”

“All right, well, good luck, dude!” Hunk said as he pulled into the patisserie’s parking lot.

“Thanks! Tell Shay hi for me,” Lance said. Hunk gave a wave and drove off.

Lance straightened his shirt and walked into the shop. He had arrived five minutes early, having wanted to snag a table for him and Amber before the business began to crowd. He slipped into a chair at one of the smaller tables and drummed his fingers on it. After three minutes—he was religiously, but covertly, watching his phone—Amber strolled in and looked around. She spotted him and sent him a wave and smile.

He waved back eagerly and stood as she approached him. She had the top layer of her hair pulled into a small ponytail; Lance hadn’t realized it was even long enough to do so. Maybe that meant Keith’s was long enough for a ponytail, too. It’d certainly be less of an eyesore than the mullet. Amber had on a jean jacket, which was a little dated, but she managed to make it look cute. If anything, he could be suave later and offer his own jacket, which would probably dwarf her and look adorably domestic. There was something about sharing jackets with whoever he was dating—not that he could fit into the girl’s clothing for the most part. It was the principle, more.

“Hey, Lance,” she said.

“Hey, Amber!” Was he supposed to hug her, or was that too forward? He wasn’t sure, so he pulled out a chair for her. “You look great. Did you know what you wanted?”

“Thanks, you look nice, too. I’ll just take a small tea and blueberry muffin,” Amber said and sat down. Her hand pressed down on his arm, stopping him before he could take a second step. “But, here. We’ll go dutch.”

She handed him a five, which he hesitantly took and crumpled in his palm. His plan had been to pay, but he also wasn’t averse to her chipping in.

Lance mustered a smile. “Got it. I’ll be right back.”

He fidgeted while in line, praying for it to go faster. Time wasn’t that big of a factor, but he felt bad making her wait alone. Thankfully, it didn’t take more than a few minutes before he was heading back to the table, food in hand.

“I’ll go grab the drinks in a second,” he explained, setting down two plates. “I ran out of hands.”

She smiled. “No problem, I’ll just so happen to have two myself. I’ll get the drinks.”

He picked at his croissant while he waited. Hunk was right; it did look pretty mediocre in comparison to what he could make, but Lance was hoping having something to eat would soothe his nerves. Amber returned with her tea and his coffee.

“Thanks,” Lance said and immediately took a sip of his coffee. He also immediately burned his tongue, which he did his best to hide. He should have bought something iced, but coffee just felt all that more comforting when hot.

“You burned your tongue, didn’t you,” Amber said with a slight smirk.

He blinked. “I… maybe. Was it that obvious?”

She blew on her tea and took a sip after a moment of deliberation. “I’ve worked at Russells long enough to know the face customers make when they try to hide the fact that they drank their coffee way too soon. It’s become a bit of a contest with my coworkers, actually, trying to catch as many people during a shift as possible.”

“How are you doing that?” He gestured at her drink, which he could see steaming from its cover. “Isn’t it just as hot as mine?”

“I’ve built up an immunity,” she said.

He made a face. “Tongue calluses. Gross.”

Amber laughed brightly. “When you put it that way, it does sound pretty gross.”

He flushed, just glad she hadn’t been weirded out by his comment. It had slipped out unconsciously, but it probably wasn’t the kind of thing someone wanted to hear on a first date. Or at all.

“So,” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m pretty good,” she said. “I’m glad it’s finally Friday. I had a huge exam yesterday, and today is my recovery day before it’s back to work all weekend.”

“I had the same on Wednesday,” Lance said with a nod. “What are you studying?”

“Political science with a minor in economics,” she said. “It’s been an adventure, for sure.”

“Oh wow,” Lance said. “Yeah, I can imagine. Are you a senior?”

“Junior,” she said. “I’m guessing you’re a senior?”

He nodded. “Majoring in Marine and Coastal Science.” He had wanted to go into Aerospace Science and Engineering, but its coursework had been daunting and he desperately needed his financial aid. Plus, his major in particular had the benefit of being related to the ocean. “I’m going for the Oceans and the Earth System one.”

“Whoa, that’s so cool!” Amber said. She took a bite of her muffin and thought for a second. “I hadn’t even realized that was a major here. That sounds so much more fun than mine. You think it’s too late to switch?”

“Probably, unless you want to stay an extra few years,” Lance said with a chuckle. “I’m just hoping I can actually find a job in the summer. I did some residency work at the Ocean Lab last semester, but they’re really only willing to employ or intern students. Once you’re in the real world, they stop caring.”

“Ahh, yeah,” Amber said. “I’m still a year out so I’m pretending that job hunting isn’t something that exists. Have you found anything related?”

“Not really,” Lance confessed. “I’m at the point where I might just have to take whatever I can get for the sake of employment.”

“That’s basically why I’m working at Russells,” Amber said. “I definitely don’t see a long term career in it.”

“Heh, I actually have this one friend who works as a skydiving instructor,” Lance said, thinking back on his and Hunk’s conversation about skydiving and stripping. Maybe he’d keep the stripping part to himself. “Maybe he could get me a job.”

“Skydiving?” Amber made an interested noise. “That sounds like it would be terrifying.”

“It was,” Lance said. Time to pull out the big guns—meaning, the bragging picture.

“You actually tried it out?” Amber asked.

“Of course!” Lance said. “Gotta try everything once, right? You want to see a picture of me after I jumped?”

She nodded. “Totally!”

He took out his phone and handed it over to her.

Amber cradled the cell in her hand and smiled. “You don’t look like you were terrified. You look happy here.”

“I was happy it was over,” Lance corrected.

She giggled. “Your friend doesn’t look too happy, though.”

“Yeah, that’s Keith for you,” Lance said with a dismissive wave of his hand. She handed him back the phone. “He just suffers from RBF. If anything, he was having fun when the picture was taken. Oh man, speaking of Keith, can you believe he’s never seen Mean Girls?”

“What?” Amber sipped her tea. “I thought that movie was like, a requirement for existence.”

“Right!” Lance said, smiling. He really liked Amber; she had a great sense of humor. “So, what do you do in your spare time when you aren’t brewing coffee or watching Mean Girls?”

“Hmm,” Amber said. “I mean, those two things do take up maybe ninety percent of my free time, but I guess I would say gardening or painting. I really like watercolors in particular.”

“Pretty and talented,” Lance said.

She gave him a small smile. “Flatterer. What about you?”

“I love swimming,” Lance said. While at school, he didn’t have as much of a chance to swim, but when he was home or on break he took advantage of the free time. He had definitely done so last semester while surrounded by water. “And beating my friends at video games. Actually, I went bowling recently and that was pretty cool. I haven’t done that since I was a kid.”

“I’m horrid at bowling,” Amber admitted. “It goes in the gutter if I’m like, lucky. Otherwise I’m stuck apologizing to the people on the next lane for having my ball roll into theirs.”

“Winning isn’t everything,” Lance offered. It totally was, but Amber didn’t need to know that. He could easily carry her to victory—unless they were against Keith, that was. Him and his stupid skill matching. “Even if it is fun.”

“Did you win last time?”

“I did,” Lance said. No harm in a little more bragging. “But we played in pairs. You know, it wasn’t skydiving, but Keith actually looked happy when we won.”

Amber nodded. “Is he good, too?”

“I guess,” Lance said. “We’re pretty evenly matched. He’s a bit of a show off, though.”

She laughed. “Good to know. I’ll keep that in mind if we ever bowl together.”

“So you’re working all weekend?” Lance asked. Maybe she wouldn’t be free for movie night.

“Unfortunately,” Amber said with a sigh. “I mean, money is nice, but I miss my weekends. Do you have any plans?”

“I’m showing Keith Mean Girls so he can join the 21st century with the rest of us,” Lance said. Was he mentioning Keith too often? He hadn’t even mentioned Hunk or Pidge once.

“How kind of you,” Amber said. She rested her chin on her hand and smiled. “So, he’s your best friend?”

“Oh,” Lance said. His chest clenched uneasily. Was he giving off that impression? “I mean, no. My best friend’s Hunk—he was in here earlier in the week. Tall guy, super cuddly and friendly.”

“Oh, my bad,” Amber said. “I don’t really remember, though, sorry. I see a lot of people every day. I’m pretty bad at faces, actually. Doesn’t help when regulars come in and expect me to know what they want to order.”

“Nah, totally reasonable,” Lance said. “Hunk and I were going to have movie night anyway, we just decided on that movie because of Keith.”

Amber nodded. “Ahh, gotcha.”

“I’d invite you,” Lance said. “But it sounds like you’re busy.”

“Yeah,” Amber said. “Thanks for the pseudo-invite, though.”

“Some other time,” Lance assured. “Though we’ll probably move back to bowling night. Some friends couldn’t join this weekend so we switched to a movie.”

“Sometimes my roommates and I will have a movie night Friday night if I get off early from work,” Amber said. “I don’t think that’s happening tonight, though.”

“Bummer,” Lance said. Friday night probably wasn’t viable for the group, either; he wasn’t sure when Keith and Shiro got off work. Though Voltron Skydiving did seem pretty quiet, at least it had been when Lance visited. Plus Keith had responded to texts pretty quickly for someone at work. “Yeah, since Keith’s work is closed on Sunday we plan for then.”

Quiznak. He needed to stop name dropping Keith—he wasn’t even a celebrity or anything! It wasn’t like using his name would make Lance seem cooler.

Amber nodded slowly. She was almost done with her muffin; Lance realized he hadn’t even touched his croissant after his initial pokes. “So, what are your favorite things?”

“Things?”

She gestured. “Like, color, animal, all that stuff. I want to get to know you better, you know?”

“Oh,” Lance said. He took a long swig of his coffee. It was finally cool enough for him to comfortably drink. “Uh. Well, my favorite color is blue, kind of like a blue grey. Keith’s favorite color is just grey, isn’t that weird? Like, at least add some real color to it. Uh. Anyway, I’d have to say sharks for animals, especially tiger sharks. They’re part of why I went for a Marine Science major. My favorite type of food are these garlic knots that my mom makes. You’ve got to try them if you haven’t before. Okay, your turn so this doesn’t turn into a monologue.”

“If you insist. I’d have to go with purple, ferrets, and wonton soup,” Amber said. “I don’t have any exciting reasons for the first two, but my family has wonton soup every Christmas—I have no idea how the tradition started, but it’s been going strong for as long as I can remember.”

“Interesting choices,” Lance said. “But I’m a fan of them. Do you own any ferrets?”

“I wish,” Amber said with a sigh. “I’m pretty sure they’re illegal here. I’m guessing you don’t own any sharks?”

Lance laughed. “I think if anyone was going to own a shark, it’d be Keith. Skydiving, motorcycles, and a pet shark; it’s the trifecta for a thrill seeker like him.”

He was doing it again.

Lance cleared his throat. “So—”

“Lance,” Amber interrupted.

“Uh, yeah?”

She gave an apologetic smile, hesitant but probing. “This has been a lot of fun, but, well, I don’t think we’re quite compatible as boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Lance said flatly. There were so many thoughts running through his head, but he didn’t know what to think. “That—that’s okay. Uh, I had fun, too. Maybe we could hang out as friends sometime if we’re both free?”

“Maybe,” Amber agreed. She stood up and collected her purse and her cup of tea. Everything was happening so fast and Lance could hardly focus on a single feeling. “I’m going to get going. I’ll see you later, Lance.”

“Bye, Amber,” Lance said quietly. He checked his phone; it was only 12:10, not even an hour out.

Grabbing his coffee and leaving his food, he headed home. It was seventy-three degrees and his forehead was damp with sweat by the time he arrived back. The apartment was empty and Lance went straight to his room and collapsed on his bed. He was asleep within minutes.

~

“Lance!” Hunk’s voice echoed against the apartment walls. “If you don’t hurry, I’m going to take your portion!”

Lance blinked into consciousness. His room was dark; how long had he napped? He must have been pretty exhausted to sleep most of the day away. He stood up, stretched, and wandered into the common area. Hunk was behind the counter alongside Shay, the two of them cooking. Lance was glad he felt comfortable around Shay, or he would have been embarrassed by his wrinkled clothing and the dried drool on his chin. He swiped at it faintly. Pidge was already at the kitchen table, having set it in preparation.

“Hey, Shay,” Lance said.

“Hello, Lance!” Shay said, smiling. She passed some vegetable over to Hunk and wiped her hands on her apron; it had rocks on it, which made Lance smile weakly. If he was remembering correctly, she was a geology major. “Hunk told me you had a date this afternoon.”

Lance took a few steps toward the couch and fell onto it, his face smushed into the armrest. He made a groan of affirmation. He felt bad, but not in the way he would have expected after a failed date. At least it had been the first date, and not the tenth or something. Then the rejection would have really stung.

“The date went that bad, huh.” Pidge’s voice was soft, apologetic.

Lance rolled onto his back and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. If he held long enough, he could see splotches of grey. “Ugh. I mean, it wasn’t even disastrous or anything. It’s not like she stormed out or yelled.”

“I’m sorry, buddy. Did she say why?” Hunk asked.

The unspoken question was there: she seemed into you; what did you do? And Lance couldn’t blame him. For the most part, Amber had been into him, and things probably would have worked out had Lance just altered his conversation choice. Sometimes his mouth moved too fast for his mind.

“No,” Lance said. “But I think I have a hunch.”

“Yeah?”

Lance sighed. Was it worth saying out loud and solidifying its existence in reality? “Yeah, but you guys have to tell me if I’m just going crazy, okay?”

“You are,” Pidge said. “But we’ll tell if you if you’re going crazier.”

“Right.” Lance stared up at the ceiling in hopes of it providing him confidence. He closed his eyes when it didn’t. “So we talked about a lot of stuff—school, hobbies, weekend plans, all that typical first date conversation. It was pretty fun, and she seemed like she was having a good time. But, uh, before even an hour she said she didn’t think we were compatible. I mean, I guess it’s nice she told me early on.”

“Oh, Lance, did you talk about other girls?” Hunk said, worried.

“No!” Lance said with a frown. “I’m not an asshole. God, it was worse.”

“How was it worse if she wasn’t angry?” Pidge asked.

“I don’t know,” Lance said. “It’s stupid. At least if she had been angry I would have felt like my theory had no weight and she was just being unreasonable.”

“What’s your theory?” Shay asked. She began setting food on the table.

Lance blinked and saw fuzzy images of grey eyes. Something clicked with a shrill, resounding snap that might have been his heart. He sat up and turned quickly to Pidge. “Pidge. They’re grey, aren’t they?”

She stared at him blankly. “What?”

“His eyes,” Lance stressed. “Is grey even his favorite color?”

Pidge pinkened and glanced down at her empty plate. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never asked.”

“I’m a little lost,” Shay said. “Pidge, what’s going on?”

Pidge sighed. “I was trying a little too hard to play matchmaker.”

“Oh my God,” Lance mumbled. He took out his phone and opened his pictures. His heart raced as his fingers moved nimbly, double tapping on the skydiving photo and zooming in on Keith’s profile, on his eyes. Sharp, dark grey. “You just wanted me to wear something that matched his eyes.”

“Yeah,” Pidge said softly. “Look, Lance, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. You just talked about him so much, I thought you’d realize sooner.”

“No, no,” Lance said. “I… that was my theory.”

“Okay,” Hunk said. He took a seat next to Shay. “You and Pidge are living in one reality while Shay and I are in this other, less informed one. Either of you want to share what you know with the class?”

Lance carried himself to the table and sat down. “I think I have a thing for Keith, and I think Amber caught on.”

“Oh my God,” Hunk muttered. “He says it out loud.”

Lance shot him a look, heavy and unamused. “Oh, so you’re saying everyone knew but me?”

“Uh, yeah,” Pidge said. “Pretty much.”

“Quiznak,” Lance said. He took a long sip of water; his throat had suddenly gone dry.

“You were kind of obvious,” Hunk said. “Like, getting dressed up to impress him? Picking a movie he hasn’t seen as an excuse to invite him to movie night? And you never talk about someone this much unless you’re crazy into them. Dude, you even wondered how he was ‘in the sack’ if I’m remembering correctly.”

“God, this is mortifying,” Lance said.

“Aww, don’t be embarrassed, Lance,” Shay said. “I think it’s kind of cute. You really like him, huh?”

“Yeah,” Lance said and sighed. “I think I really do. It’s just. He’s so cool? He rides a motorcycle, and he literally skydives as a job!”

“First rants about how annoying he is, and now about how cool he is? What’s next? Laundry lists about his positive qualities?” Pidge said.

“Okay, low blow, Pidge,” Lance said and his face felt so warm. He made a mental note to his brain to repress the entire laundry list conversation deep, deep inside. “You asked for one.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was going to involve how nice it felt to make the guy smile and laugh,” Pidge said. “You must spend a lot of time thinking about him.”

“Oh man,” Lance said. “You should have seen my date with Amber—this is what I meant. I must have mentioned Keith like, five or six times in the span of forty minutes. About his motorcycle, his job, his bowling abilities.”

Hunk cringed. “Bro…”

“I know!” Lance groaned. “She even asked if he was my best friend at one point, probably because of how much I brought him up. I may as well have been trying to sell Keith as a potential date to her. What was I thinking?”

“That Keith is ‘so cool’,” Pidge mimicked.

Lance slouched. “Well, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Ask him out?” Shay suggested.

“I can’t just do that!” Lance cried. “The guy can barely stand me!”

“Uh, you’re living in a different reality again, Lance,” Hunk said. “The dude gave you a ride home on his motorcycle; he could have just told you to stuff it and take the bus. Plus he totally tricked you into being on his team.”

“What!”

“Yeah, man,” Hunk said with a chuckle. “You have to admit, that was pretty funny.”

“You’re the one who tried to make us be a team!” Lance said.

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t have gone for it unless Keith pushed you,” Hunk said. “I didn’t think it was going to work, but Keith pulled through in the clutch there. It was some quick thinking on his part, gotta hand it to him.”

“Damn it,” Lance said. Et tu, Keith—and Hunk, and Pidge, and basically everyone. He only trusted Shay now. She was the only true ride or die.

“So,” Pidge said. “I’m assuming you don’t want me to date him, then.”

“No!” Lance covered his face with his hands. “I think I want to date him. This is such a mess.”

“Not really,” Hunk said. He passed the potatoes to Shay. “If I had to guess, I’d say that he likes you, too. Maybe test the waters during movie night? The rest of us will be there so it won’t be as intimidating. Plus if you really mess up you can say you feel sick and go hide in your room.”

Lance leaned back in his chair. “Test the waters. Like, how?”

“I’d say don’t name drop Amber six times,” Pidge said.

Lance glared at her. “This better not be your go to insult from now on.”

“Only time will tell,” Pidge said. “And how would I know? Hunk and Shay are probably better at this than I am.”

Shay hummed. “Tell him he looks nice, or that you’re glad to see him. Just make him feel really welcomed and wanted!”

“We’ll make sure you two sit next to each other,” Hunk said. “Don’t worry; you’ve got three wingpeople on your side.”

“I feel like I should be more worried about what you will do,” Lance said. He shoveled food into his mouth. He hadn’t realized it until he had taken his first few bites, but he was famished after having gone the full day with nothing more than coffee. Maybe he should have taken the croissant home with him, but by the end of the date he really hadn’t felt like eating.

“You really shouldn’t worry,” Hunk said. “We’ve been trying to set you guys up this whole time anyway.”

Mashed potatoes nearly fell from Lance’s mouth. “Excuse me?”

“I thought it was obvious?” Pidge said.

“Not to me!”

“Seriously, bro,” Hunk said. “Making you and Keith take each other’s numbers, pushing you guys to be on a team during bowling, calling dibs on car space so it’d just be you two left.”

“I thought you guys were just being assholes,” Lance said.

“I mean, in the process, kind of, yeah,” Pidge admitted. She frowned. “But it wasn’t intentional. I hope you weren’t too uncomfortable. We were just trying to help.”

Lance sighed. “I know. I’m not mad. All things considered, it did bring us closer to being friends. I just, want to feel like I have some control over the situation, you know?”

“Yeah,” Pidge said. “Sorry we didn’t run it past you.”

“It’s fine,” Lance said, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders. He hadn’t been able to pinpoint earlier why the whole situation had bothered him so much, but it was nice to have a sense of closure. “I probably would have hit on him the day we met had he not insulted my outfit. Next time just let me know you’re trying to set me up with someone, so I can actually make an effort.”

“You know,” Hunk started. “Shiro totally forced Keith into giving up his number at the grocery store, so maybe you weren’t the only one ranting about someone?”

Lance swallowed weakly. “Shiro could have just wanted Keith to make friends. He definitely doesn’t seem like the social type.”

“Maybe,” Hunk said. “Or maybe he wouldn’t shut up about a certain customer who seemed to have it out for mullets?”

Lance looked down at his plate. “Don’t get my hopes up,” he said softly.

He felt a warm hand on his shoulder and looked over.

Shay was smiling at him. “Lance, you need to have confidence. Now I don’t know this Keith, but if what Hunk and Pidge are saying is accurate, then it sounds like you two have both caught feelings.”

“I hope you’re right,” Lance said and took a breath. “So, do you guys think I should wear grey?”

Pidge groaned. “I cannot handle another outfit picking session, please spare me.”

“Fine,” Lance said and crossed his arms. “I’ll just wear my birthday suit and embarrass all of you.”

Hunk sighed. “The fact that that was your immediate go to solution, buddy. Just pick something casual, okay? It’s only a home movie night.”

“Okay, okay,” Lance acquiesced. “Um. I wanted to text him earlier, but I wasn’t sure what to say.”

Pidge’s face softened. “Man, you’ve got it bad, huh?”

Lance grimaced. “I guess.”

“I get what you mean,” Hunk said. He looked over at Shay and smiled. “When Shay and I weren’t official yet, I always wanted to text her just be with her on some level.”

Shay beamed and took his hand. “Likewise.”

“Tell him to bring popcorn,” Pidge said. “It’s contact, but you have a logical reason to initiate it, so it won’t seem weird.”

“You’re better at this than you think, Pidge,” Lance said and took out his phone.

“Wait!” Hunk said.

Lance frowned. “What?”

“Can I see your background picture?”

Lance groaned and rested an arm against the bridge of his nose. “I guess if I’ve already confessed all my other embarrassing secrets. Here. But you can’t make fun of me.”

Giddy, Hunk accepted the phone. “Aww, you never showed me this picture, Lance! You look so happy in it. And Keith looks… not not happy!”

“Wait, I want to see it, too,” Pidge said.

Lance lowered his arm. “I was going to. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

“You two are cute together,” Shay said.

Lance gave a tiny smile at that. “Thanks, Shay.”

“He actually looks not angry,” Pidge said. “And that was the first time you met him, right? That’s a pretty good sign.”

“I guess,” Lance said, gesturing for his phone. Hunk returned it. Lance flipped to his messages. “So, popcorn?”

“And candy,” Hunk added. “It’s not a real movie night without malt balls.”

To mr. grumpy pants (7:01 PM): pls bring popcorn and candy! (hunk requests malt balls)

“And now we wait,” Lance said. He tapped his fingers against the table, checked his phone, took a sip of water, checked his phone, mashed the mashed potatoes, and checked his phone again.

“Relax,” Pidge said. “He might not even have his phone on him.”

“He usually replies by now, okay?” Lance said.

“Maybe he’s eating dinner like us?”

“That’s fair,” Lance said. He checked one more time and gasped. “He left me on read! That jerk!”

“Maybe he’s thinking of a response?” Shay offered.

“Well, he should hurry up and think of it!” Lance said. He sat up in his chair. “Oh! I see the little dots going.”

“You’re making this so much more dramatic than it needs to be,” Pidge said.

“Hush,” Hunk said. “I’m loving this.”

“Is this guy typing a novel? Jesus."

“Maybe Shiro’s coaching him on how to respond,” Hunk said.

“How many ways are there even to respond to a request for food?” Pidge asked.

From mr. grumpy pants (7:06 PM): got it

Lance groaned loudly. “Really? Got it? That took him five minutes to think of and send?”

“Maybe he confessed his love for you, got too scared, and deleted it,” Hunk said.

“Not helping,” Lance shot back. “God, this was so much easier when I didn’t like him.”

“You mean when you were in denial?” Pidge asked.

“Semantics,” Lance said. “If this is what texting him is like now, that boy is going to kill me Sunday night.”

“Don’t worry, Lance,” Hunk said. “We’ll get you a mullet headstone.”

~

Waiting for Sunday night proved to be worse than waiting for Friday afternoon had been. This time around, Lance didn’t have any classes to kill time with, and Pidge and Hunk had been busy with their own work, leaving him to wallow in his uncertainties and doubts. And boy did he ever.

By six-ten on Sunday night, Lance was pacing the apartment like a madman.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this nervous,” Hunk commented. He and Pidge were finishing up dinner, which Lance himself had abandoned only a few minutes prior in favor of walking back and forth. “Not even when you were waiting for an answer on that scholarship.”

“That’s because I had faith in my abilities then!” Lance drew his hands from behind his back and shoved them in his hair. He ripped his hands out immediately and gasped. “Quiznak! I just showered, too.”

“Your hair looks fine,” Pidge said. “This… isn’t even a real date.”

“Should I clean up more? Wipe down the counters again?” Lance muttered, pushing his hands in his pockets. “They say you’re supposed to do a double tap, right?”

“That’s for when you’re killing zombies,” Hunk said and dunked his dishes in the sink, “not cleaning counters. Just, try to calm down, okay? I’m going to go pick up Shay. I’ll see you guys in a little bit.”

“See ya,” Lance said. He turned to Pidge. “Pidge.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I didn’t even say anything yet!”

She stood up and put her plate in the sink next to Hunk’s. “Yeah, but I already know that I don’t know the answer to whatever it is. Let’s just play some Mario Kart to calm you down, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay,” Lance said and flopped down on the couch.

It wasn’t until Hunk returned with Shay in tow that Lance realized the games had actually distracted him for over a half hour. He blinked and looked to Pidge, who was watching him knowingly.

“Thanks, Pidge,” he said.

She offered him a small smile and announced she was going to grab some extra blankets from the hall closet as he put away the console and controllers.

“So, Lance,” Shay said. “I’m excited to meet Keith and Shiro.”

“I’m sure they’ll love you,” Lance said, and it was a valid assumption, because everyone who met Shay loved her. He stood up and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Don’t be discouraged if Keith doesn’t say more than a word or two to you at first, though. It just takes him some time to open up.”

“He talks a lot to you,” Hunk pointed out. At Lance’s look, he held up his hands. “I’m just saying! When we went bowling like, eighty percent of what he said was to or about you.”

“Whatever,” Lance huffed, turning to hide his blush. “Do we have everything we need?”

“Now we do,” Pidge said as she dropped a pile of blankets on the couch. “It gets so cold at night here.”

“Seriously,” Lance said. He rubbed his shoulders on instinct, feeling the onset of a phantom shiver. “I swear it drops like ten degrees when I walk into my room after six.”

“Just cuddle up with Keith,” Hunk suggested. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

Lance moaned and covered his face. “Guys, stop!”

“Aww, he’s blushing,” Shay teased.

“Shay, not you too!”

She giggled. “Sorry, Lance. Should we put out some drinks?”

“Oh, right!” Hunk hurried to the fridge, opened it, and began stacking sodas on the counter. “Thanks, Shay. I almost forgot. Gotta have something to wash down all the salt and sugar with.”

“You mean washing it down with more sugar?” Pidge asked as she picked up a can of Cola and eyed the label. “Do we know what Keith and Shiro like?”

Everyone turned to Lance expectantly.

“Hey! Why would I know?” Lance said.

Pidge shrugged. “It was worth a shot. You managed to guess Keith’s favorite pizza toppings last time.”

“I wasn’t trying to guess them, though,” Lance said. “It was only a weird coincidence. Just put out whatever we have. They’re bound to like something.”

Pidge checked her watch. “It’s six fifty-five. They should be here any minute.”

“Ugh, I’m not ready,” Lance said. “Is it too late to cancel?”

“Oh my God, get a grip,” Pidge said. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down to her height. Her glasses flashed menacingly. “It’s just Keith. You’ll be fine.”

“O—Okay,” Lance said. “Thanks, Pidge.”

The doorbell rang and Lance gulped when no one so much as moved a muscle. “I guess I’ll answer the door.”

He wiped his sweaty—when did that happen?—hands on his pants and headed to the door. Maybe he was acting a tad melodramatic, but opening the door felt like opening the gates to Hell, or perhaps purgatory if he was fortunate and the night progressed somewhat smoothly.

“Hey,” Lance said, letting out a relieved breath when his voice didn’t crack. Those who claimed voice cracks vanished post puberty were dirty, filthy liars. “Come on in, guys.”

“Thanks,” Shiro said, holding the door open for Keith as they stepped onto the welcome mat.

Lance spun around and walked back to the couch, talking the whole way to ease his nerves. “Glad you guys could make it. I know it’s not bowling, but our movie nights are pretty awesome, if I say so myself. So, you guys haven’t met her yet, but this is Shay. She’s Hunk’s girlfriend. Shay, this is Shiro, and Keith.”

“Nice to meet you, Shay,” Shiro said and stuck out a hand.

“And you, too, Shiro,” Shay said as she shook hands with Shiro.

“Hey,” Keith said quietly, keeping both his arms at his sides.

Shay smiled at him, taking no offense toward the reserved introduction. “Hello, Keith.”

“Okay! Now that we’re all well acquainted.” Lance clapped his hands together. “I hope you brought snacks like I asked you to, Mullet.”

Keith held out the bag he was carrying. “Here.”

Lance happily accepted it and peeked inside. There were three bags of microwave popcorn, two containers of malt balls, a container of sour gummy worms, a container of hot tamales, and a large box of York Peppermint Patties. He held up the patties and smiled at Keith. “Oh, sweet! I haven’t had these in forever. These are my favorite, dude.”

“Same,” Keith said and gave a hesitant smile. Lance wanted to melt, and also travel back in time to when his thoughts were consumed with insulting Keith’s hair instead of vying for the chance to see him smile.

“Let’s get this popcorn in the microwave,” Lance said, setting the snacks on the counter for easy access. He unwrapped a bag of popcorn and pushed it into the microwave. “Take whatever drinks you like. We’ve got a few more in the fridge, but it’s just more Cola and Sprite.”

“Thanks, Lance,” Shiro said as he snagged a Sprite. He took a seat on the couch near one end.

“Keith, grab a bowl from the cabinet—no not that one! To the left,” Lance instructed. The others followed Shiro’s moves and shuffled into their spots, talking amongst each other. “Yeah, the blue ones and the green ones, four in total. Thanks.”

After all the bags were popped, Lance divided up the popcorn into the four bowls and handed them off to Keith, who passed them along wordlessly. Lance grabbed a Cola and stopped in front of the couch. “Hunk, move over, buddy.”

Hunk looked up with a faux innocent expression. He and Shay were cuddling on the left side of the couch, keeping enough room between them and Shiro to be respectful. It was only a few inches, though, and while Lance was aware he had a nice figure, he definitely needed more than a few inches to fit. “Sorry, Lance. I don’t think there’s any space left here. Looks like you’ll just have to sit on the floor.”

Lance glared at him. He had known this was coming—Hunk had flat out said earlier that he’d find a way to make certain Lance and Keith sat together—but in the heat of the moment, it left Lance with more anxiety than confidence. “Rude.” He plopped down in front of the couch with a huff, cradling his bowl of popcorn. “Now the coffee table’s in the way!”

“Fine, we’ll move it,” Hunk said. He stood up and shifted the table to the side, freeing the view. “There.”

Keith wandered over, his bag back in hand. “Here, Hunk. Lance said you wanted the malt balls.”

“Oh, yeah, thanks, man!” Hunk graciously took the containers and some of the patties. “Appreciate you bringing them.”

Keith tossed the hot tamales to Shiro and offered the gummy worms to Pidge. “Shiro said Matt told him these were your favorite.”

Pidge smiled from her recliner and nodded. “They are. Thanks, Keith.”

Keith took out the patties and crumpled up the now empty bag, setting it on the counter. He walked back to the others and paused, surveying the occupied seats as though additional space would be miraculously fabricated out of thin air.

“Sorry, Keith,” Shiro said. “We’re a little squished here on the couch. Maybe the others could get you a chair?”

“No, it’s fine,” Keith muttered and took a seat next to Lance. He dropped the box of candy and wrapped his arms around his legs, staring straight ahead.

Lance swallowed. “Okay, guys. Movie time! Shiro, I assume Keith already told you what we’re watching?”

“He didn’t,” Shiro said. “But that’s fine. I don’t mind surprises.”

“Well, it’s a classic,” Lance said. “Mean Girls.”

Shiro almost choked on his candy. “Wait—really? I’ve been trying to get Keith to watch that for a decade. I can’t believe you convinced him.”

“Let’s just start the movie,” Keith said, voice tight. He hunched in on himself further, and Lance felt a protective ache surge through his chest. God, he wanted to hold him.

“Right. Hunk? Remote?” Lance held out his palm and Hunk placed the remote on it. With a burst of likely short-lived confidence, Lance turned to grin at Keith. “Get ready to have your mind blown, Mullet.”

He turned the television on and maneuvered to Netflix and the film of choice. It began playing and Lance cracked his soda open, taking a long gulp. Relaxing against the back of the couch, he settled an arm on his raised knee. He’d seen the movie dozens of times, so it wouldn’t hurt to spend the duration of it studying Keith’s reactions instead. Keith was fiddling with the wrapper of a patty, eyes glued to it.

“Hey, man,” Lance said softly and nudged Keith’s shoulder. “You gotta actually watch the screen for the full effect of the movie.”

Keith shot him a quick glance. “Why am I not surprised you talk during movies?”

“It’s barely even started!” Lance insisted. “And don’t hog all the peppermint patties.”

Keith scooted the box over between them. As recompense, Lance positioned the popcorn bowl better within reach.

Lance unwrapped a patty and took a bite. “Do… you actually hate people talking during movies? Because I can be quiet if it bothers you.”

“Lance,” Keith hissed and eyed the couch. “At least whisper if you’re going to talk. You’ll bother the others.”

“Hunk and Pidge are used to it,” Lance said, but lowered his voice. “I shouldn’t be distracting you, though. Every part of this movie is gold.”

“If you say so,” Keith muttered. “And… no, I don’t mind talking.”

Lance made a valiant effort to watch Keith, but abandoned the endeavor ten minutes in to watch the movie instead; even the greatest of men were periodically bested by their vices. From what he had deduced, though, Keith was at the very least immersed in the storyline.

As the lunchroom scene was playing, Keith nudged him.

“Mm—Huh?” Lance lowered his hand from the popcorn bowl. “Sorry, am I hogging?”

“That’s you,” Keith whispered.

“What?”

“That guy,” Keith said and nodded at the screen. “The one talking about muffins or whatever. He’s striking out just like you did with Allura.”

“Oh my God,” Lance said, and he hated how his chest fluttered at the comparison; it was an insult, which his brain knew, but his heart was giddily fixated on the minute detail that, in the midst of constructing the connection, Keith had been thinking of him. “You asshole.”

Keith’s lips quirked up and he swiped some popcorn.

“So,” Lance said, not wanting the conversation to end there. Banter aside, he just enjoyed hearing Keith speak, especially when it was in the raspy, hushed tone that he had adopted with the intention of keeping distractions to a minimum. A small, wicked part of Lance wondered when else Keith used that voice. “Thoughts?”

“It’s still early in the movie,” Keith said, which, fair. But at the same time, Mean Girls was a masterpiece whose genius shone within the first five minutes. “But it’s not the worst thing I’ve watched.”

“Ehh, we’ll work on it,” Lance said. He shivered despite his jacket. “Ugh, stupid heater. Huuuuunk, part with one of your blankets, would you? I’m freezing down here.”

“Fine,” Hunk said, dumping one of the blankets on Lance’s head, and well, he would forgive Hunk for that only because he himself had already messed up his hair earlier.

Lance lowered his left leg and began draping the blanket over himself before looking to Keith. Here was an opening. “Oh, uh. Are you cold, too?”

Keith watched him for a moment and eventually shrugged. “Kind of.”

“Here,” Lance said. He pushed the food past Keith to his right side and settled back down, volunteering up a corner of the blanket. Keith took hold of it and scooted a tiny bit closer. Lance pressed a hand against Keith’s knee. “Hey, stretch out, or the blanket’s going to slip.”

Keith was still for a minute, but eventually lowered his legs to the floor, Lance’s hand going with them. Lance offered a smile that was far shakier than intended. There was a definite desire on his end to segue into cuddling, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to reach that goal, or if Keith even wanted to. It was only after feeling the jittery flex of Keith’s knee that Lance realized his hand was still rested precariously on it.

Lance almost jolted in his haste to pull back his hand. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Keith said quietly. “Um, did you want any more food? It’s kind of all on my side now.”

“I’m good,” Lance said and tried to relax, to loosen his tense shoulders; he was going to pull a muscle at this rate. He lowered his hand to the floor, feeling the rapid beat of his heart through his palm. Even the mere knowledge that Keith was only inches away was tantalizing. This boy was going to be the death of him.

~

“So,” Lance said as the credits rolled. “What did you think of it?”

Keith shrugged and leaned back against the foot of the couch. “It was okay. I do suddenly understand a lot of references people have made in the past.”

“I told you,” Lance said. “It’s a classic. A necessity to understanding our generation.”

“Sure,” Keith said dryly, but he was wearing a small smile.

Lance checked the time; it wasn’t even nine yet. “You guys up for another movie? Nothing too long, though, since most of us have class tomorrow. Ugh, my 8 AM.”

“I don’t know,” Hunk said. “If we start another movie it’ll end at like, ten-thirty and Shay has a 7 AM lab.”

Lance frowned; Hunk was right, but Lance didn’t want to let Keith leave just yet. Why hadn’t they started movie night an hour earlier to account for film length? It was hardly a movie night with only one movie. Not to mention that throughout the movie, Keith had scooted infinitesimally closer due to the continued decrease in temperature, just enough so that their thighs were centimeters from touching. And the optimistic part of Lance figured another hour and they would actually be pressed flush against each other. For once the broken AC had been on his side, only for time to rudely step in and fill in the briefly abandoned antagonist role.

“Yeah, that’s true. Guess we’ll wait until next time,” Lance said.

“I know a movie we could watch,” Keith said.

Lance perked up; if Mean Girls wasn’t a perfect 10/10 in Keith’s mind, Lance wanted to see what he did like.Maybe he was into weird foreign films, or sappy romantic comedies. Neither of those seemed much up his alley, though. “You do?”

Keith nodded. “It’s only half an hour, too.”

Shiro immediately sat up straight. “Keith, no.”

Keith grinned. “It’s on Netflix, too.”

“Keith, please,” Shiro begged. “I’ll pay for a new paint job on your bike.”

“Well, now we gotta watch it,” Lance said, only egged on by the raw horror laced in Shiro’s voice. He handed the remote to Keith. And maybe he lingered a bit so their fingers brushed together, sue him. “Sorry, Shiro.”

Shiro slumped in his seat. “What did I do to deserve this.”

“It’s not even that bad,” Keith insisted.

“It is when you’ve seen it over a dozen times,” Shiro said in a grumble. “I need to contact Netflix and ask them to take this movie down.”

Keith went into the search and clicked on Kung Fury.

“It doesn’t sound that bad,” Lance said. It sounded like a generic, maybe slightly dated, karate movie, which Lance probably should have expected, honestly. Keith’s gloves, albeit worn for motorcycle purposes, did somewhat resemble the kind of protection someone who practiced karate or boxing would adorn.

“Just wait,” Shiro said, and damn if that wasn’t ominous. Still, it was worth it based on Keith’s reaction alone.

Pidge laughed from her seat. “Oh, man. Is this what I think it is? Matt and I saw this one time when we were having a bad movie night. Lance, this is like, the karate equivalent of The Room.”

“Oh, hell yeah!” Lance said. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to watch it.

“Oh no,” Hunk said. He, on the other hand, hated The Room. Though that may have had something to do with the fact that Lance had the tendency to recite the movie line by line whenever they watched it, a request that was always initiated by him.

“What’s The Room?” Shay asked. Sweet, innocent Shay. Lance knew what movie they were starting with next time.

“You don’t want to know, honey,” Hunk said. “Trust me.”

“Shh, it’s starting,” Keith said. He relaxed in his seat slightly, kicking the remote aside and far from Shiro.

The movie was laughably awful in the best way possible, and half the time Lance had no idea what was happening. When Hitler came on screen practicing karate moves, Pidge laughed so hard she fell out of her recliner and spilled her remaining candy. Keith wore a permanent smile on his face while it played, and Lance was stuck watching the film with only one eye; he couldn’t look away from Keith. Unfortunately, Keith was so immersed in the film that he didn’t move so much as a millimeter closer. Lance tried his luck at being valorous and scooting closer himself, but after one half shift that began to catch Keith’s attention, he chickened out. And maybe he resented himself a bit for not being able to make a move, but he also didn’t want to ruin movie night by making Keith uncomfortable. It was so much easier when he was explicitly on a date.

“Well,” Shay said after the movie had finished. “That was… quite the adventure.”

Shiro was sprawled out with a pillow over his face. “I hate you, Keith.”

Keith chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. He turned to Lance. “So?”

“It was awesome,” Lance decided. Keith grinned.

“Yeah, but you have bad taste in everything, Lance, so how can we trust you?” Pidge asked. She snickered and made a quick dodge when he threw a popcorn kernel in her direction.

Lance shot her a look. “Clearly, since you’re my friend.”

“Ooooh, he got you good, Pidge,” Hunk said.

She tried to glare back, but it collapsed into a smile almost immediately. “Okay, well, two movies is my limit for tonight. I’ve got to get some coding in before tomorrow. It was good seeing everyone.”

Shiro stood up from his seat and stretched a bit. “Yeah, Keith and I should probably get going, too.”

“Wait!” Lance said. Everyone stopped to stare at him; he felt a bead of sweat ready to drip down his temple at a moment’s notice. Quick, brain; think of some logical and reasonable excuse to keep Keith here longer. “Err, I wanted to show Keith some comics I have that are kind of related to the movie."

Keith and Shiro shared a look and Shiro eventually shrugged. “Okay. Take ten minutes, then we should really head out.”

Keith nodded and stood up, the blanket falling to his feet. He offered a hand to Lance, who eagerly accepted the assistance and pulled himself to his feet. Lance only wished he had the confidence to continue holding Keith’s hand as they walked.

Lance led the two toward his room and inside, closing the door behind them. He flicked the desk lamp on and flopped down on the edge of bed. He suddenly felt weirdly self-conscious, as though he was being judged for every knick-knack and poster in his room.

“Uh, sorry about the mess,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Keith said as his fingers trailed over an old, cracked snow-globe that sat on Lance’s desk. Veronica had given it to him on his eighth birthday, a small enclosed version of Varadero Beach that sprinkled sand instead of snow. He had dropped it and cracked it open on the way to show and tell a year later but kept it anyway. Every time his family visited the beach again, he took a few grains of sand back to put in the snow-globe. So far, he had refilled maybe a fourth of it. “It’s homey.”

Keith stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, as though waiting for instructions. Lance patted the bed despite the fact that Keith was blatantly closer to the desk chair.

Lance shifted to lean against the headboard, his feet stretched out in front of him. “You can sit down.”

With stiff movements, Keith stepped over and sat down on the bed. “So, the comics?”

“Oh, right!” Lance leapt from the bed and toward his desk, rummaging through his drawers. He removed a thick stack of comic books and dropped them on the bed before resuming his prior position. “I didn’t know that you were into karate, but uh, I have some old Karate Kid comics. I mean, maybe you’re not into karate, just bad movies, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Keith’s eyes lit up and he lifted the issue on top. “No way! I haven’t seen these in years. I used to read them as a kid, but all of my issues except for one or two got lost in a move.”

“Oh, that sucks,” Lance said, relaxing a bit.

It had really just been a shot in the dark guess to convince Keith to stay just a little bit longer and to get to know him a bit better. He knew a good amount about Keith’s hobbies, but beyond pizza toppings and favorite candy, he wasn’t sure about likes and dislikes. He felt weirdly excited at the notion of learning the small quirks of Keith that were privy to only a select few, perhaps just one or two other people. Keith seemed like a pretty guarded person, so there was something special about being deemed significant enough to be invited into his life. And Pidge was right; Lance had it bad.

Keith shifted to sit cross legged and opened the comic in hand. His thumb rubbed at the wrinkled corner of the first page, smoothing out the creases absentmindedly. There was a soft, fond smile on his face which Lance quickly locked away to memory. “Do you have the full fifteen issues in the series?”

“Yeah,” Lance said with a nervous chuckle. “It’s kind of nerdy, but I was really into collecting comics as a kid.”

“No, dude, it’s awesome!” Keith said. “DC or Marvel?”

“Pshh, what kind of question is that?” Lance said. “Marvel all the way.”

“Please,” Keith said with a scoff. “Marvel is so overrated. Plus you obviously like DC enough to collect all theissues in the Karate Kid solo series.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Marvel destroys DC with their films.”

“Say what you’ve got to say to make yourself feel better,” Keith said, “but it’s the comics that matter.”

“Oh my God, you’re an elitist!” Lance said gleefully. “Quick, quiz me on obscure facts. Am I a true fan or a fake one?”

“I’m not an elitist!” Keith said, a frown sharpening his features. “I just don’t watch the movies.”

“Normally I’d say that makes you even more of an elitist, but you hadn’t seen Mean Girls,” Lance said. “So I’m going with the assumption that you just don’t watch movies very often.”

“I don’t,” Keith said. The factoid pleased Lance; it meant Keith had willingly watched a movie in his free time just because Lance asked him to. Maybe regular movie night wasn’t the best idea if Keith didn’t enjoy watching movies, though. Keith scooted until he was leaning against the wall. He squared his shoulders and Lance watched the muscles flex through the fabric of his jacket. Hnngh. “Not a huge fan of them. I’d rather read something, even if it’s half pictures.”

“Mmm,” Lance said, still partly distracted by Keith’s body. “Wait a minute, are you reading that whole thing?”

“Of course I am,” Keith said. “I’m not passing up this opportunity.”

“Well, don’t read it without me!” Lance dragged himself closer and, when at a loss for how to maneuver his body in a way that allowed him to actually read over Keith’s shoulder—which was touching the wall—he lifted his legs and rested them on top Keith’s lap.

Keith shot him a dull look and only just managed to lift the comic in time to avoid it being crumpled by Lance’smoving limbs. “Really, Lance?”

“I’m not just going to sit here while you read,” Lance said, pleading with his body to relax and not set his face on fire. Both of them were wearing jeans, so there was no actual contact of the skin, but just the sight of his legs sprawled out on Keith’s lap was both exhilarating and harrowing. As much as he liked Keith, though, waiting around while he read was far too reminiscent of when Lance was a kid and forced to sit and watch Marco and Luis play video games without him, due to them only owning two controllers and always winning at rock paper scissors. “And the plot isn’t going to make any sense if I start with a later issue!”

“Fine,” Keith said, and Lance was just glad he didn’t mention the fact that if Lance was so into collecting comics when younger, then he was bound to have dozens other in his desk drawers which he could read rather than invade Keith’s personal space and read over his shoulder. Keith moved the comic to the left slightly so Lance could see without straining his back. “If you take too long to read, I’m turning the page.”

“You know, these are mine,” Lance said, but just leaned over to begin reading. Keith was kind enough to give him an extra minute to catch up. Fortunately, they seemed to read at a similar speed, or maybe Keith was actually relying on visual cues to determine when to turn the page rather than mercilessly flipping. It wasn’t until halfway through the third issue that Keith went to turn the page a little too fast. Lance held out his hand to obstruct the move. “Wait a second, speed racer, I haven’t finished reading Val’s last speech bubble.”

His hand covered Keith’s at the bottom corner of the comic. Keith’s movements stilled, and they caught each other’s gaze. Lance suddenly found it very difficult to speak.

“Sorry,” Lance said, breathless, but didn’t pull his hand away.

“Don’t apologize,” Keith murmured.

They sat in stasis for a minute until Keith cleared his throat and Lance was knocked back into reality.

“Uh, did you finish the page?” Keith asked awkwardly.

“Yeah,” Lance said and tore his hand away even though he hadn’t spared a second glance at the panel. “Yeah.”

They continued reading in silence for another issue or two until Lance found himself getting sleepy. He leaned his head against the wall for support and forced himself to continue focusing on the text. Both text and image appeared a little blurry until he was opening and closing his eyes every other minute. Even with the light from his desk lamp, his body was was well aware of the fact that it was night and he was tired. His phone was digging into his hip a bit, and his neck felt stretched beyond comfort, but his body didn’t want to move. In an attempt to force himself up off the bed, he curled his legs, only succeeding in wrapping them more tightly around Keith’s lap, his heels burying themselves underneath Keith’s thigh.

“Keith, buddy, I’m gonna fall asleep,” he slurred, eyes closed. There was no response to his warning—maybe Lance was already asleep and only dreaming this whole scenario, a wistful fantasy of snuggling up with Keith with no ramifications—so he just sighed and tried to make himself more comfortable against the wall.

~

Lance felt his hip buzz. He groaned and fumbled around, removing his phone from his pocket. He blinked a few times and stared at the bright screen: 7:30 AM. His eyes bugged out; he had class in thirty minutes. In the throes of panic, he shot his head up and immediately groaned again. He cradled his throbbing neck, which he must have hurt from sleeping at a weird angle. At the realization, he began to gather his surroundings, and noticed he was still in day clothes. He wasn’t under covers, either, but instead huddled against the wall. Now that he registered it, his arm was still asleep, too.

Taking a moment to look around his room—why was his desk lamp on?—his eyes locked onto Keith, who was still sitting cross legged, now with his chin rested against his chest.

Lance sucked in a sharp breath. He drew his legs back and curled them underneath himself. Scooting closer, he shook Keith’s shoulder. “Keith, c’mon, man, wake up.”

Keith shuffled a little and after a minute blearily raised his head. He winced and his hand flew to his neck. “Christ, what did I do to my neck?”

“Slept weird,” Lance provided.

Keith blinked and glanced over, wearing an utterly perplexed expression. “I… We fell asleep?”

“Yeah, and I have class in thirty minutes so I really got to get ready,” Lance said. He knew Past-Lance was crying at the thought of willingly abandoning Keith while they were both in his room in bed, but Future-Lance would thank him for not ditching class when there was a high likelihood of a quiz. Granted, they had just taken a midterm the week before, but his teacher was cruel.

Keith frowned as the words registered. He looked still half asleep. “What time is it?”

“7:32,” Lance said and swung his legs over the side of his bed. And oww, they too had been asleep. Was this what waking up while old was like? Bummer.

Keith nearly jumped off the bed. “What! I’m an hour late for work, crap!”

“Oh, quiznak,” Lance said.

“I’ve never been late in my life!” Keith was looking around the room frantically, as though he could will his clothes or motorcycle into existence out of sheer pupil power. “Allura’s gonna kill me!”

“Okay, just calm down,” Lance said. He went to his closet and began rummaging through clothes. He tugged off his shirt and replaced it immediately with a clean one. He wanted to change pants and underwear, too, but not while there was an audience, even if it was Keith. There was a time and place for that, and it wasn’t while they were both frazzled and late. “Hunk’s got a car, and he doesn’t have class until nine-thirty. He won’t be happy that I’m waking him up this early, but he can drive you there no problem.”

There was no response.

Lance headed toward the bathroom. “I don’t know how well they’ll fit, but you can wear whatever you find in the closet. At least it’ll be clean.”

“It’s okay,” Keith said. Lance turned to look at him, curious. Keith was staring at his phone, shoulders relaxed. “Shiro texted me last night at eleven saying he’d take my shift and not to worry.”

“Oh, awesome!” Lance said. “So you got the day off?”

“Looks like,” Keith said, letting out a long breath. He ran his hand through his bangs. “God, another ten minutes of that and my hair would be as white as Shiro’s.”

Lance chuckled. “That’s nice and all, but I still have class and I really have to get ready.”

“Oh, right,” Keith said. “Sorry—you, yeah. I’d drive you but Shiro was my ride last night.”

“It’s fine,” Lance said. “Hey, you should come to class with me! I mean, unless you want to stay here or get a ride home from Hunk. That’s totally cool, too.”

Keith was quiet for a minute. “Why not? There’s nothing for me to do at my apartment.”

“Cool!” Lance’s heart fluttered. “Cool, yeah, okay. I still have to get ready, but.”

“Yeah,” Keith said. He turned away. “You, uh. You should wear that shirt from the bowling alley. It looked good.”

And that was the sound of Lance’s heart stopping. “O—Oh, I.”

“You don’t have to,” Keith mumbled and looked down. “Obviously.”

Lance swallowed and walked back to his closet; Keith’s eyes trailed him the whole way. Lance set down the boxers and jeans he had been carrying, removed his shirt, and put on the grey one, buttoning it quickly. Silently, he picked back up his clothes and headed back toward the bathroom. “There’s an extra toothbrush in the cabinet: the red one. You can use it.”

Lance closed the bathroom door and nearly flung his body against it. Holy quiznak, Keith had said the shirt looked good. Lance couldn’t stop grinning, which made it difficult to brush his teeth. He hurried, knowing the latest bus he could take while still being on time was the 7:45, and the bus stop was two blocks away. When he returned to his room, Keith was dressed in clean clothes—though still wearing his signature jacket and gloves—and shifting aimlessly on his feet, looking so dreadfully out of his element.

“Uh, bathroom’s free,” Lance said.

“Thanks,” Keith said quietly and sped out. And—and good lord he was wearing the shirt Lance had forgone in favor of the grey one. Lance did everything in his power to suppress a shiver, but it bested him. God, why did he find the idea of Keith not only wearing his clothes, but the same shirt he had only worn minutes prior, so hot?

Lance packed up his bag and slipped on his shoes while Keith was in the bathroom. Keith managed to get ready in record time—at least, record time to Lance—and they were out the door by 7:39.

“You’ll have to pay for bus fare,” Lance said apologetically. “Without a student ID they won’t let you on for free.”

“That’s fine,” Keith said. “I have cash on me.”

The two reached the stop right as the bus did. Lance flashed his ID and Keith handed over a few quarters. They stepped on and collapsed onto the seats.

“Thank the lord,” Lance said. “This bus only comes every fifteen minutes, so I would have been screwed if I missed it.”

“How long is your class?” Keith asked.

“Just under two hours,” Lance said. “But if there’s a quiz, it’s always in the first ten minutes. I actually almost missed one last week for coffee.”

“Ahh,” Keith said. “Uh, what’s the class about?”

“It’s a GE requirement,” Lance said. “I kinda just wanted an easy class for my last semester, though. It’s History of Latin America from the 1900s until now.”

“That sounds pretty interesting,” Keith said.

“It’s okay,” Lance said. “You don’t have to pretend.”

“No, really,” Keith said. He ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I’m just. Still half asleep. It really does sound cool, though, promise.”

Lance nodded and leaned his head against the bus seat. “Yeah, I usually need coffee to get through this class. But we’ll get to campus at 7:55, and it’s a five minute walk. How about this? I’ll treat you to coffee after my class as a thank you for tagging along.”

“Uhm, okay,” Keith said. He glanced down at his lap but Lance caught the edge of a smile.

“Yeah, I get a student discount, too,” Lance said.

“Yeah?”

Lance scratched his neck. “Okay, it’s like ten cents, but yeah.”

Keith laughed. “Wow, that’s some discount. You better be careful, or the coffee shop’s going to go out of business.”

“They’re not allowed to until I graduate,” Lance said. “Then they can do whatever the hell they want.”

“What time did we fall asleep?”

“I don’t know,” Lance said. “I just remember being awake and then, not.”

Keith sighed. “It’s weird. I’m not usually this tired.”

“Maybe you woke up a lot?” Lance suggested. “That makes me tired even if I sleep long.”

“I think I was cold,” Keith admitted. “That might have woken me up a few times.”

Lance winced. “Yeah, sorry. My room gets so cold at night. I think something’s wrong with the AC. Usually I just pile a whole bunch of blankets on.”

“Hmm.” Keith’s eyes closed.

“You didn’t have to come out here with me,” Lance said quietly. Seeing him so tired made Lance wish he had just insisted that Keith stay back and sleep in a bit, especially on his day off. “Take the bus back and go have a nap instead. You can take my keys, or just knock a whole bunch until Pidge snaps.”

“Lance, shut up,” Keith mumbled. He rested his head on Lance’s shoulder.

Lance shut up. Shaking with nerves, he wrapped his arm around Keith. Keith let out a sigh and inched closer. Lance himself was barely able to breathe, but somehow Keith managed to sneak in a few minutes of sleep before the bus jerked to a stop in front of campus.

“Last chance to bail,” Lance whispered. He wanted to brush a loose strand of hair behind Keith’s ear so badly.

“I’m good,” Keith said. He straightened and opened his eyes. “Power nap. Let’s go.”

Lance snorted and scooted off the seat. “Power nap? What are you, a cat? That was like, three minutes.”

Keith shrugged. “Three more minutes than you got.”

Lance pursed his lips. “Let’s just get to class.”

There was a quiz.

Lance suppressed a groan as he tore out another piece of paper. At the very least, he had gotten his seat back, far enough from the front row that he was safe from cold calling. Keith looked a little awkward and out of place again but paid attention for the majority of lecture. By the end, he did seem to be fading somewhat. He had progressed into slouching in the chair and resting his chin on his arms. Lance was pretty sure he himself only absorbed maybe thirty percent of the lecture.

As the professor dismissed them ten minutes early—a single, shining beacon of hope in an otherwise ruthless world of academia—Keith stood and stretched languidly.

“A cat,” Lance said. “I’m telling you.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Let’s just get coffee.”

“So there are a few coffee shops on campus,” Lance said as he finished packing up. “The closest one is near the English department. I’m guessing you’re not interested in a campus tour?”

“Not right now,” Keith said. “Maybe after coffee.”

“Fair enough,” Lance said. “So, what did you think?”

“It was interesting material,” Keith said. “I don’t think I could sit through lecture every day, though.”

“It’s only three times a week, but yeah,” Lance said with a sigh. “I feel that way myself, but here I am.”

“It’s neat,” Keith said after a minute. “You have a lot of motivation, and um, it’s admirable.”

“Oh, thanks,” Lance said. “Sometimes it feels like I just went to college because it was the expected next step.”

“Yeah,” Keith said. “I think a lot about that.”

“Sorry,” Lance said quickly.

Keith shook his head. “Maybe it would have been better for me to go to college and get a degree, but I can’t see myself being happy while doing it. It’s not the most conventional or well paying job, but I like what I do.”

“That’s what’s important,” Lance said. “Um, and I admire that.”

Keith smiled. “Do you have any other classes today?”

“Not until later,” Lance said. “It’s kind of inconvenient, but my next class isn’t until four. I usually just go home in between, unless I hate myself and decide to study for six hours.”

Keith wrinkled his nose. “How about you don’t do that today.”

“Yeah, I can get on board with that,” Lance said and chuckled.

“Were you planning to work?” Keith asked.

“Nah,” Lance said. “I just had a midterm last week. Plus I’m not going to make you sit around while I study.”

“I don’t mind,” Keith said with a shrug. “I’m kind of tailing you today. I don’t want to mess up your schedule.”

“I’d way rather talk to you,” Lance blurted out. He held in the cringe that yearned to follow.

Keith’s blush almost made it worth it. “Oh.”

“Yeah, um, here we are!” And thank god for that. Lance held open the door. “So, what do you want?”

“Just a coffee,” Keith said.

“Yeah, I know,” Lance said. “But like, a latte? Cappuccino?”

“Just a black coffee."

“Oh my god, of course,” Lance said. “Of course you drink black coffee.”

Keith tilted his head. “What does that mean?”

“You…you black-coffee-drinking-motorcycling-skydiving-instructor!” Lance said.

“…Yes?”

Lance moaned and covered his face. “God. You’re so cool. I hate it.”

Keith laughed. “Whatever you say, Lance.”

“Go find a table,” Lance said. “I’ll get your stupid coffee.”

He headed toward the register and got in line, trying with every fiber in his body to not turn around and watch Keith. Was this a date? Lance said it was his treat, but friends treated each other. He was probably overthinking it, as usual. He made his way to the front of the line and swallowed back a groan; Amber. Could she see Keith from this angle? Could she connect the dots and realize who he was? Could he please evaporate into a cloud of steam and escape the interaction unscathed?

She gave a hesitant smile. “Hi, Lance.”

“Hi, Amber,” he said and shifted his body to better block behind him. He didn’t know where Keith was sitting, but it was worth a shot. “Um, a medium latte and medium black coffee to go, please.”

She punched in the order. “$5.15. Uh, how are you?”

“Fine,” Lance said and quickly handed over the money. “And you?”

“I’m good,” she said.

“Awesome, that’s good, see you,” Lance said and left without a receipt. He walked stiffly to Keith and sat down.

Keith sent a concerned look. “Uh, are you okay? Were they out of coffee or something?”

Lance relaxed. “They’d be the worst coffee shop ever if they ran out of coffee at 10 AM.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Keith said with a laugh.

“I’m fine,” Lance promised. “I just saw someone I wasn’t expecting to, or really wanting to.”

“Oh,” Keith said. “Did you want to leave?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Lance said. “Unless you wanted that tour?”

“I’m good,” Keith said. “Coffee first, remember?”

“Right,” Lance said, smiling. “So, how did you find yourself liking black coffee?”

Keith shrugged. “It’s what was available. I guess I got used to it.”

“I like lattes best,” Lance said. “It’s the milk foam that sells it—you gotta try it.”

“Only if you try my drink,” Keith said.

“Ugh, fine,” Lance said. “But if I spit it out on you, it’s not my fault.”

“Noted,” Keith said. He made a face. “Maybe we should have eaten.”

“Oh, man, I forgot about breakfast,” Lance said with a sigh. “We’ll head back after coffee, okay? The food here isn’t great.”

“Medium latte and coffee for Lance!”

Lance grinned. “There’s our cue.”

~

“Just try a sip,” Keith urged, pushing his cup to Lance’s chest.

Lance grimaced. He drank a bit and handed it back. “Blegh. It’s so bitter. Here, try the foam.”

Keith sipped the drink and frowned. “It doesn’t taste like anything.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Lance said. “Since we’re on campus, you don’t need to pay for the ride back. I guess they just assume you’re a student.”

“Make sense,” Keith said. “You sure you don’t mind me eating your food?”

Lance waved him off. “It’s no problem. Mi casa es su casa. Plus we went shopping yesterday, so I can actually offer you something that isn’t Branflakes.”

Keith laughed. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Yeah, you know how much cereal I ate for that stupid voucher?” Lance said with a chuckle. He shook his head and sipped his drink. “I probably paid the session’s worth just buying the cereal.”

“God, why would you do that?” Keith said. “It’s so not worth it.”

“Well, thanks, I realize that now,” Lance said.

Keith bumped their shoulders together and gave a wry smile. “I can take you on another jump if you’d like, discounted. Allura’s cool about that.”

“Yeah, I think my non-existent desire to skydive has been more than satisfied,” Lance said. “Is the business really not to turn a profit?”

“Not really,” Keith said. “Obviously any income is nice, but it’s not about that. Allura’s parents left her a pretty big inheritance. I know she has another job on the side, and she more owns Voltron Skydiving than works at it. Her parents met in a skydiving class and created the business together in the 80s. They died a few years back, but she wanted to maintain it in their honor.”

“Wow,” Lance said. “That’s… heavy.”

“Yeah,” Keith said. “But they’d be proud of her.”

Lance smiled. “So how’d you meet Allura?”

“Through Shiro,” Keith said. “When Allura’s parents passed, she wanted to find someone to take over as management. She and Shiro had shared some classes in college. They stayed in touch, and he offered to help her. Obviously she was on board, especially with him being a Business major.”

“And you tagged along?” Lance teased.

Keith looked down. “I…I was eighteen when it happened. I found myself kind of lost and not knowing what to do with myself. There was a lot of pressure to follow in Shiro’s footsteps and attend college, but I just couldn’t do it. Allura was kind enough to offer me a job in the meantime. I guess it kind of became a more permanent thing, though.”

“Quiznak,” Lance said. He almost got whiplash from how quickly the explanation veered toward a tragic backstory of a comic book character. “I…I didn’t mean it like that, sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Keith said quietly. “I really like the job. I’m lucky I had a connection.”

“You’re really good at it, too,” Lance said. They boarded the bus. “It suits you.”

Keith smiled.

“So how’d you know Matt, then?”

“Also college,” Keith said. “He works elsewhere, but he and Shiro got an apartment together.”

“Man,” Lance said. He shifted to rest his cheek against the seat. “It’s crazy that we were only like, a person away from knowing each other, huh? If Matt was more available, maybe Pidge would have dragged Hunk and me along during one of your outings.”

Keith’s eyes were soft. “Maybe. We probably still would have gotten off on a bad foot.”

Lance laughed. “Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn’t have been wearing my parachute pants.”

“Those were honestly the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen a customer wearing,” Keith said.

“Pshh,” Lance said. He tugged on the Keith’s sleeve. “Like you know what fashion is, mister crop top jacket. Leave it to the professionals.”

“It’s a good windbreaker!” Keith argued.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lance said. His hand trailed toward Keith’s hair and tucked a strand behind his ear. “What’s your excuse for the mullet, then?”

Keith inhaled. “I… don’t like barbers.”

Lance snatched his hand back as soon as the situation sunk in. His body had seemed to move independently. He curled the offending hand underneath his other to bar it from ruining his life. “Right. Right, valid reason.”

The rest of the ride was silent. Lance only broke awkward tension by announcing their stop.

“It’s pretty warm for March,” Lance said.

“Yeah, good thing since you didn’t bring your jacket. Again,” Keith said.

“Hey! You asked me to wear this shirt! It doesn’t go with jackets,” Lance said.

Keith pinkened and didn’t say anything.

“So, do you live with Shiro and Matt?” Lance tried. He wasn’t capable of enduring another uncomfortable silence.

“Yeah,” Keith said. “I didn’t until last year. I lived with a roommate, but he flaked on me a day after renewing the lease. I had to take the loss and pay the month in full. There was no way I was going to be able to afford that indefinitely, and I wasn’t too keen on the idea of rooming with a stranger. Not that I’d have been able to find anyone; my landlord was a neat freak and didn’t have the best reviews.”

“Dang, your roommate was a total ass,” Lance said, opening the door for Keith. “At least it was only a month by month lease. This apartment is a year long commitment, mostly because it co-operates with the University. On the bright side, we have until late August to move out.”

“Are you going to live with Hunk and Pidge?” Keith asked. Lance directed him to the kitchen and insisted he sit down. “You don’t want me to help?”

“Nah, I’ve got this,” Lance said. “I hope you like spaghetti, 'cause that’s all I’m good at.”

“That sounds good, even if it’s a little early for pasta.”

Lance began rummaging through cabinets for ingredients and kitchenware. “But yeah, we’re all planning to live together again. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. Hunk says he and Shay want to wait to move in together, but I don’t know how long that’s going to stay true.”

“I want to try to move out by December,” Keith agreed. “I don’t think I can afford a place by myself, though. I’m just hoping for a better roommate.”

“I hear you,” Lance said. He filled a pot with water and placed it on the stove. Clenching the pot handles, he cleared his throat. “If all else fails, you can live with us.”

Keith’s mouth dropped open. “I… really?”

Lance shrugged. “Yeah, why not? We’re all friends.”

“We are?” Keith’s voice was so small.

Lance paused. Shoot, was he supposed to be backtracking right about now? “I mean. Aren’t we?”

Keith looked down. “I just… you guys hardly know me.”

“So we weren’t friends from birth,” Lance said. His nerves bubbled in tandem with the water. “That doesn’t mean there’s a three month waiting period or something.”

“Oh.” A small smile. “Thanks, Lance. That means a lot.”

“Buddy, you don’t have to thank me for being your friend,” Lance said. Even if he wanted so much more.

“I just, never really clicked with people, I guess,” Keith said. “Allura and Matt are only my friends because of Shiro.”

“Well, now you got friends all for yourself,” Lance said. “If there’s anything you should be thanking, it’s the cereal contest and our mutual Sunday afternoon shopping habits.”

Keith laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“But seriously,” Lance said. “If you need a place or roommates, just let us know by early May. That’s when we’ll be checking out apartments.”

“Yeah,” Keith said softly.

Lance finished up, humming as he cooked. He drained the pasta and mixed it with some sauce and spices. When he glanced up, Keith had already set the table.

“Whoa,” Lance said as he set down the food. “Didn’t know you knew where everything was.”

Keith shrugged. “I remembered from movie night when I opened the wrong cabinet. The silverware was just guessing.”

Lance opened the fridge and peered in. “Did you want anything to drink? We’ve still got some Sprite, and we’ve also got milk and OJ. And water, of course.”

“I’ll just have some water,” Keith said.

Lance filled a glass and handed it off to Keith before returning to the fridge for orange juice. He took a seat and looked up, feeling slightly intimidated. It was just lunch, he reminded himself. “Uh, dig in?”

Keith served himself. “Thanks for making lunch. At work I usually just have a sandwich or grab some fast food. Not exactly a nice home cooked meal.”

“I mean,” Lance said. “Spaghetti with sauce isn’t really, either.”

“I appreciate it either way,” Keith said. He glanced up with a nervous expression.

Lance offered a smile and began eating. It was quiet for the most part, save for a random comment here and there. By the end of the meal, he felt more confident and even goaded Keith into washing the dishes as restitution for Lance cooking.

“I would have done it even if you hadn’t made a big deal!” Keith said. He scrubbed a plate sullenly.

“Sure you would have,” Lance said. Perched on the kitchen island and wearing a fond smile, he watched Keith. Keith had taken off his gloves to clean, and Lance was enjoying the scarce opportunity to observe his bare hands.

Keith turned and flicked his fingers, splattering Lance with water and bubbles.

“Hey!” Lance cried. He hopped off the counter and pressed up against Keith, reaching around him for the sudsy water. Keith let out a small gasp, and Lance took advantage of the falter to flip a plate toward them and splash Keith’s front with water.

“Lance! This is your shirt!” Keith said, more gobsmacked than annoyed. He started laughing at the absurdity and jabbed Lance in the side.

“A small price to pay for revenge,” Lance said and squeezed Keith's hipbones in response, leaving damp handprints. So what if the shirt was never wearable again? Lance didn’t care one bit, not when he got to be this close to Keith, to feel the warmth of his back and laugh.

The door opened.

Their laughter dissolved instantly, and Lance froze, taking a quick step backward.

“Hey, Lance,” Hunk said, rounding the corner. “And… Keith?”

Keith gave a short, unsure wave. “Hi.”

Hunk scratched his head. “I thought you had work?”

“Shiro’s covering,” Lance said, feeling the need to defend the whole situation. “We fell asleep reading comics last night, and Shiro said he’d take today’s shift.”

“Huh,” Hunk said. “After I dropped Shay home, Shiro was already gone. I just assumed Keith left, too.”

“Well, here I am,” Keith said awkwardly.

“Nah, it’s no problem, man,” Hunk said. “You’re always welcome. You guys just eat?”

“Ahh, yeah,” Lance said. His neck still felt slick with sweat, as though he had been caught misbehaving. “We slept in and missed breakfast.”

“I told you not to take that 8 AM,” Hunk said. “It’s unnecessary torment.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why coffee exists,” Lance said. “You done for the day?”

“Nope, just stopping for lunch,” Hunk said. “Got another class at 2:30. Yours isn’t until four, right?”

“Yeah, Keith and I’ll probably just chill until then,” Lance said. “Maybe I’ll beat his ass at Mario Kart.”

Hunk snorted. “Lance, you can’t beat anyone at Mario Kart.”

“Hey!” Lance frowned and tugged on Keith’s sleeve. “C’mon, I don’t have to stand for this kind of abuse.”

“Then sit down!” Hunk hollered after them.

“I didn’t finish cleaning,” Keith protested.

“It’s fine,” Lance said as he opened his door. “I was mostly kidding about that. You really don’t have to.”

Keith made a face. “I didn’t get to grab my gloves.”

“Oh, sorry,” Lance said. “You can get them when Hunk leaves. It’ll ruin my dramatic exit if we go back now.”

Keith sighed and wiped his hands on his shirt.

“You know, you can change out of that now that it’s wet,” Lance said.

“You already lent me one shirt,” Keith said. “I don’t want to get another dirty.”

“It’s up to you,” Lance said. He sat at his desk and spun in the chair. “I was going to do laundry later, anyway.”

Keith bit his lip but eventually conceded and headed toward Lance’s closet. He shrugged off his jacket and let it fall to the ground. With a beat of hesitation, he lifted the shirt and tossed it as well. Lance’s mouth went dry; Keith was in impeccable shape. The muscles on his back curved just right, his broad shoulders hinting at strong collarbones. His arms looked like they could bench press Lance, who suppressed a whimper at the thought. God, if he didn’t already have a crush on Keith, he would after this display. Keith’s waist was trim and slightly leaner than Lance’s, as apparent from the slight sag of his jeans. When Keith leaned forward, Lance could just barely spot a thin stripe of underwear. Keith picked a shirt at random and tugged it on. He turned around and frowned.

“Is…Is this shirt off limits?” Keith said hesitantly.

Lance blinked. What were words, again? “I… What? No, no, it’s fine.”

“…Okay,” Keith said.

“You’re not going to wear your jacket?” Could Lance survive an entire afternoon with Keith and—not only the newfound knowledge but also the constant visual evidence of—his toned arms?

“You got it wet when you dragged me here,” Keith said shortly and sat on the bed.

“Oh,” Lance said. “My bad.”

Keith shrugged.

“Did you want to take a nap or something?” Lance said. “Um, I mean, if you even want to stay? Hunk could probably drive you back before his class.”

“I can head home if you’re busy,” Keith started.

Lance waved a desperate hand. “Me? Busy? Never! What’s a life? Not something I have!”

“Uh, okay,” Keith said, looking confused. Maybe Lance was laying it on a little thick. “It’s okay if I take a nap?”

“Of course,” Lance said. “It can even be longer than three minutes.”

Keith’s lips curled into a sardonic smile. “How gracious of you.”

“You can use covers, too, if you want,” Lance said after a moment of gathering courage. “It’s not as cold as last night, but…”

“Thanks,” Keith said softly. He climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over himself. “This, err, won’t stop you from working?”

“Hmm? Nah, you’re fine,” Lance said. As if work was even a viable option when Keith was in his bed. He’d probably spend the next few hours praising whatever deity had answered his prayers. “I wasn’t going to study, anyway.”

“If you’re sure,” Keith said. “Uh, what are you going to do, then?”

“I don’t know. Browse the Internet?”

Keith sat up and stayed quiet for a minute. “Did… you want to take a nap?”

Lance froze. “Huh?”

“It’s your bed,” Keith said, adopting a defensive tone. “And you said you were tired, too.”

“…Yeah, okay,” Lance said. He didn’t want to wrinkle his nice shirt, so he quickly changed into a t-shirt. God, he was going to have so much laundry. Keith scooted toward the wall to make room. “I’m setting an alarm this time.”

Keith nodded and faced the wall, content to end the conversation there.

Taking a deep breath, Lance turned the other way if only to curb his yearning to hold Keith.

~

Lance woke to a buzzing sound, the same one he had unwillingly grown to dread through conditioning over years of premature waking for educational purposes. He groaned and sat up. His mouth felt cottony, and albeit his body having woken up, his brain had yet to fully follow in its footsteps. He tapped his phone twice, silencing its alarm. With a yawn and a stretch, he shimmied out of bed.

“Yo, Keith,” Lance said. “Wakey wakey.”

Keith sat up and glanced over. The movements were too fluid and quick for someone who had awoken upon Lance’s words. “I’m awake.”

“Oh, did you wake up before the alarm?” Lance smoothed down the strands of hair that had tried to propel themselves off his head. Bed head was so not a good look on anyone, especially not when trying to impress someone. “You coulda just climbed over me or something. Didn’t mean to trap you.”

Keith shrugged and threw the covers off.

“So, you all better?” Lance asked as he packed up his textbook and notebook. He slid on his proverbial jacket. Now that he was out of bed and only wearing a t-shirt, he was a little chilly, and the new shirt didn’t clash with his jacket like the grey one did.

“Yeah, I feel human again,” Keith said.

“Sweet,” Lance said. “And you’re sure you want to join me for this class, too? It’s another two hours.”

“I don’t mind,” Keith said.

“Okay,” Lance said with a shrug. “It’s up to you.”

“So your class gets out at six?”

“Yeah,” Lance said. He swung on his backpack and glanced over his shoulder when his answer garnered no response. “Did you have a time conflict or something?”

“I’ll take you out to dinner,” Keith said.

Lance blinked. He had woken up, right? “Wait, what?”

“You made me lunch,” Keith argued, but his tone was more defensive than it was angry, a protective barricade around himself. There was a vulnerability to him, though, one that existed out of the mere fact that he had donned Lance’s clothes and was standing stiff in Lance’s room with crossed but hopeful arms. Guarded, but right in front of Lance and attainable. “And bought me coffee, and you’re letting me follow you around to class. I just… want to make it up to you.”

Lance sucked in a breath and gripped his backpack straps tighter. Be still, his beating heart. “Don’t feel like you owe me because of that.”

“I want to,” Keith said.

“Okay,” Lance said. “Okay, we’ll get dinner.”

Keith gave a small smile.

“Well, Hunk’s still in his afternoon class and Pidge doesn’t have a car, so we’ll either have to bus again or walk to my next class,” Lance said. “It’s like a twenty minute walk.”

“I’m fine with that,” Keith said.

“Guess we’re walking then! Uhh, are you going to leave your jacket here?”

“Oh,” Keith said and looked down. He shrugged as he thumbed the shirt he was borrowing. “I mean, I guess? I have to come back here for my clothes, anyway. I don’t want to carry them around to class and dinner.”

“Fair,” Lance said. He slipped on his shoes, still waiting for the telltale sign of him waking up from whatever surreal dream this was. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Keith said and followed Lance out the door.

The two were quiet for the time it took them to exit the apartment and start walking on the sidewalk. Surprisingly, Keith was the one to break the silence.

“So, why did you want to know how old I was so badly?”

Lance inhaled a desperate breath; if only he had the ability to fabricate instantaneous excuses that were as brilliant as his looks. “Err, it’s sort of a long story.”

Keith stared at him, unfazed. “We have twenty minutes.”

“Longer than twenty minute long,” Lance lied as he looked down to watch the movement of his feet instead of Keith’s disappointed face. It wasn’t a short story per se—certainly not in terms of his stream of consciousness that spanned from despising Keith, to wanting to be his friend, to thinking about him nonstop, to wanting to be with him—but also was nowhere near long enough to warrant a twenty minute explanation. Keith didn’t need to know that, though.

“I don’t see how,” Keith said. “But okay.”

Lance sighed. He knew his excuse was weak, but he couldn’t come up with anything better, especially not on such short notice. He didn’t like lying, either, but it felt like a necessary evil for the time being. Perhaps in the distant future he would work up the courage to say something, but their newfound friendship appeared so fragile and conditional that he wasn’t confident enough to rock the boat. Being friends with Keith was like being scorched by flames and then doused with cold water back to back; there was an underlying level of respect and camaraderie, but neither could deny the mutual competitiveness and pure energy that radiated off a small percentage of their interactions. Small, but not insignificant. There was a pull of want and need, a mixture that Lance improperly had credited to hatred early on, but there was something softer underneath, yet paradoxically overpowering. It was just this thick yearning that plagued Lance’s chest and lungs and heart whenever Keith was near.

It wasn’t love. Not yet. But it was something that kept him captivated in Keith’s orbit, so curious of everything left unsaid and undone, of the parts of Keith that Lance did not know and did not understand. Something that maybe could develop into love, given enough time.

And it helped that Keith was sharply attractive. The longer Lance was permitted the chance to gaze at Keith and study the shape of his body and face, the more prominent the attraction became. It was a dangerous game he was playing, shoving down his feelings to preserve a friendship that had hardly begun. But at the same time, being Keith’s friend was in no means a downgrade or consolation prize in Lance’s eyes. If all he ever had was a mutual friendship with Keith, he would be more than happy.

“Uh, is there something on my face?”

Lance blinked. He scanned Keith’s face for any blemishes or abnormalities and found none, unsurprisingly. “Huh?”

“You were staring at me,” Keith said quietly.

“Oh, sorry,” Lance said, his cheeks burning. He may as well stamp a tattoo that said ‘AGGRESSIVELY PINING’ on his face at this rate. His gaze seemed to be drawn to Keith no matter the setting or circ*mstances. “I was daydreaming, sorry. Guess my mind isn’t fully awake yet.”

“Do you fall asleep in class a lot?” An abrupt subject change, but abundantly welcomed by Lance.

“Nah, not really,” Lance said. “I have my 8 AM class three times a week, which sucks, but I make a point to go to bed early on the nights before. Plus coffee always helps as a pick me up. On Tuesday and Thursday my first class isn’t until 10 AM, so I have more time to sleep in. I mean, sometimes the lecture material is boring, but for the most part it’s pretty interesting in all of my classes. And I’m paying a lot to attend, so I may as well get my money’s worth instead of sleeping through my classes.”

“That’s a good point,” Keith said. “It was a pretty big shift for me to start waking up so early for Voltron Skydiving, but turns out being paid to do so is a great incentive.”

“You’ve got that right,” Lance said. “Hell, I’d get up at 4 AM if I got money out of it. You must wake up like, super early, huh? It was only 7:30 this morning but you said you were already an hour late for work.”

“Voltron Skydiving opens at 6:30, so I get up around 5:30 and leave the house a little before six, since I live about thirty minutes away,” Keith said. “It’s a bit annoying, but some jumps take a good chunk out of the day, and it’s easier to start earlier. Usually customers don’t come in until at least seven, anyway, so it’s mostly just me and Coran prepping and taking inventory for the first half hour.”

“I can’t believe you stay there all day,” Lance said. According to the sign out front, the store didn’t close until 4:30 in the afternoon. Maybe not all day, but a ten hour work day was nothing to sneeze at. “Isn’t that against like, labour laws?”

“Not if I’m getting breaks and paid,” Keith said. “There’s actually another employee whose shift begins around noon every day, which effectively cuts my workload in half. You were already gone by then, or you probably would have met him on the way out.”

“Oh?” Lance knew he had seen another face in a considerable amount of photos on the wall.

“Yeah, his name’s Rolo,” Keith said. “An old friend of Allura from even before she moved to the states. He mostly just goes out back and smokes weed, though. Not a big help.”

Lance snorted. It made sense why Rolo wasn’t invited to bowling nights in that case. Coran wasn’t, either, but maybe it was a little weird having your Uncle hang out with your friends. Kind of like having a chaperone while already in your twenties. “Wow. He sounds like a real winner.”

“He at least manages jumps or flying when asked, but yeah,” Keith said. “It’s definitely not his first instinct to look for work to do. He only works part time, anyway, so I just don’t factor his help in for the most part when I plan my schedule.”

So after all that, Keith really had been the only employee available at the time. Just not the manager—and Lance would lord that over him for the rest of their lives, so help him, crush or no crush. Lance continued his train of questions: “So, you had to get certified, right?”

“I started out with getting my A license,” Keith said. “Which has the minimum requirements: standard oral and written exams, at least twenty-five jumps, all that basic stuff. Since I was just eighteen at the time and needed to start working as soon as possible, it was the best option short-term. I have a D license now, which gives me permission to have a lot more leeway in terms of teaching and solo jumping. It’s the highest level license you can get, at least here in the states. Other countries have other licenses and standards.”

Lance nodded. “Does it take long?”

“To get the D license? Depends on the person, really,” Keith said. “A good chunk of it is getting in enough jumps, and that has more to do with motivation, time, and money. For the D license, it’s 500 jumps, which I got in about three months, I think.”

“Jesus,” Lance said. That wasn’t even the length of a semester for him.

“Not three months after I got my A license,” Keith explained. “I got the B and then the C, to keep up and make sure I could branch out and do more myself. It was about three months after I got my C that I got the D license.”

“That’s insane,” Lance said. “For me, one jump was more than enough for a lifetime.”

“I was impatient,” Keith said. “Didn’t want to wait around for a year or two with only a C license, and having a D license meant Shiro and Allura didn’t have to come by as often to coordinate jumps I wasn’t authorized to lead yet. It was five or so jumps a day, give or take depending on weather and customer frequency. Thanks to Allura and Coran, I basically had unlimited and free access to the equipment, which helped a lot. Then in addition to licenses, there are ratings, which is how you actually become an instructor. Licenses just let you jump on your own time, but ratings are what let you teach others. You can get the instructor rating in four different skydiving domains: accelerated free-fall, instructor-assisted deployment, static-line, and tandem, the last being what your voucher was for. They all require their own certification courses, unfortunately, and you can’t actually work to become a skydiving instructor until you have your D license and at least three years of experience.”

“Whoa,” Lance said. His mind was swimming in its attempt to try to keep up with all the information. He had never thought about how much time and effort went into certification—not that he ever had any reason to; he preferred a job he could perform on the ground—but it sounded like a ridiculous amount. At the same time, he was glad Keith had to go through so much training when a less experienced or capable person could have literally let them die. Though during the actual jump his body definitely went through the final stages of grief.

“It’s a long process,” Keith said.

“No kidding. So, wait, you just got your license last year?” Lance asked.

Keith nodded. “Yeah. I wish I could have gotten it sooner, but that was the year Allura got in contact with Shiro and by extension me, so it was the earliest opportunity I had. Back then Rolo was the one who did all the instructor work, because he already had the years of experience. He’s been working part time ever since I got certified, though, and I think he likes that better. Sometimes Allura or Coran would step in, too, because I was only allowed to coach at that point, and you need an instructor there at the same time.”

Wow. Albeit not attending college, Keith had essentially gone to his own type of school. He wondered if Keith saw it that way. “How many jumps have you done?”

Keith made a face. “In total? I haven’t really kept count since I stopped needing to. It’s got to be at least 4,000 by now, though.”

Lance whistled. “A professional, huh?”

Keith laughed. “It is my job, Lance.”

“Have you ever flown the plane?” Lance asked. It felt like Keith was being more open about himself than usual—or perhaps Lance was imaging it, but either way he wanted to squeeze in as many questions as possible during the duration of the walk.

“Well… you really need a separate license for that, which is a whole other can of worms when it comes to requirements,” Keith said. “And trust me, I’ve had enough courses for now. Maybe in the future. But uh, to answer your actual question. Coran let me fly a few times, but you should probably keep that information between us.”

“Got it,” Lance said, thrilled at the thought of having another inside secret with Keith, even if wasn’t the traditional kind of secret. “Just like you driving without a helmet?”

Keith smiled. “Yeah, just like that.”

~

Lance was actually awake enough to pay attention during class and take notes, no matter how much he’d rather stare at Keith. It was nice having him around, but it was probably better for Lance’s grades to not have such a tempting distraction daily. Once the professor dismissed the class, Lance turned to check on Keith.

“We still on for dinner?” Please.

“Of course,” Keith said. “Where did you want to go?”

“Hmm,” Lance said. What was romantic cuisine? Italian, he supposed, but they’d just had pasta for lunch. French, maybe, but he didn’t know of any French restaurants nearby. He didn’t want to take too long to answer, either, so he gave up trying to make it date-like and decided on his standard choice. “I could go for some Chinese food. That work?”

“Yeah, I know this place downtown that’s pretty good,” Keith said. “It’s on tenth street.”

“That’s like a five minute walk,” Lance said. “Thank god it hasn’t been raining as much.”

“I kind of like when it rains,” Keith said. They shuffled outside once the mass of students dissolved. “It’s calming.”

“Yeah, but it crowds the busses,” Lance said.

“Guess I don’t worry about that,” Keith said. He suddenly made a fist with his hand and grimaced. “Oh. I forgot my gloves.”

“Oh, did you need to go back and get them?”

“No, I really only need them for driving,” Keith said. “I’m just so used to wearing them that it feels a little weird without them. Too breezy.”

“Do you want my jacket?” Lance cringed. Think. Think before speaking. “You can put your hands in the pockets.”

Keith hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, man,” Lance said. He paused on the street and dropped his backpack. Avoiding eye contact was a given as he tugged off his jacket and handed it to Keith. “I stole your jacket last week, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Keith said softly. His fingers bunched up the fabric of the jacket. Keith slipped it on and shoved his hands in the pockets, smiling at the ground. “Thanks.”

Oh, quiznak. Keith looked so good in the jacket, as though he was carrying around an emblematic illustration of being Lance’s. The bottom hung slightly lower on Keith’s frame, but fit well enough that he wasn’t drowning in it. Lance sucked in a breath and put his backpack on.

“Good?” He asked weakly.

“Yeah,” Keith said. “Say, what’s your major?”

“Oh, Marine and Coastal Science,” Lance said with a grin. There was always a twinge of excitement that reverberated throughout him whenever he was given the chance to talk about the ocean. “There are actually a few options for what you can focus on.”

Lance continued detailing the pros and cons—but mostly pros—of the major during their walk.

Keith eventually cut him off: “I don’t want to interrupt, but we’re here.”

“Oh! Sorry, I was kind of rambling, huh?” Lance rubbed his neck.

“I didn’t mind,” Keith said as he opened the door for Lance. “It was nice. It makes me wish I knew more about the ocean, though. The most I can offer in terms of discussion are some facts I’ve read off Snapple caps that are probably wrong.”

Is this a date? Lance wanted to ask. Could it be? If I was a little braver?

“I’ll take you to the beach sometime,” Lance said instead. “When the weather’s better. I can either affirm or disprove all your knowledge.”

“It’ll probably be the latter,” Keith warned as they were seated. The waitress came over with water.

Lance skimmed the entrees, already poised to order his usual pork shu mei and mu shu chicken. “Hey, do you think we’ll be having another bowling night this weekend?”

“Probably,” Keith said. Lance did his best not to stare, but having Keith sitting across from him, sans gloves and wearing Lance’s jacket, was practically the visual equivalent of winning the lottery. “You looking to gloat again?”

“Of course,” Lance said. “We make a good team, you know?”

Keith smiled, only barely visible over his menu. “Yeah.”

“I have to know,” Lance said as he set down his menu. He sent Keith a side eye. “Were you purposely matching my score?”

Keith let out a surprised laugh. “I wasn’t, but I can see why you’d think that. Trust me, I was just as annoyed by it as you were.”

“Well, we’ll see this weekend,” Lance said. “Who the real bowling master is.”

“Okay,” Keith said. “But you can’t cry when you lose.”

Lance scoffed. “Those are some bold words to just throw around like they’re nothing. Do you perhaps want to make things interesting by adding a little wager?”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

“Whoever wins gets to ask a favor of the loser,” Lance decided, his heart racing. This was it; all he had to do was beat Keith at bowling, and then he could ask him for a date. And if Keith grimaced or flinched or otherwise conveyed a negative reaction, Lance could backpedal like a pro and turn it into a joke. Perfect. “And the loser has to abide by said request. Nothing illegal, of course. Or impossible. Also no more skydiving.”

“Those are a lot of ‘nots’,” Keith said. “But all right. I’m game.”

Lance held out his hand. Keith shook it firmly. Both wore matching hubris, and Lance did not—he did—want to know when else Keith exhibited such a filthy smirk. And wow did their hands fit together nicely. Like puzzle pieces.

So Lance had almost a week to polish his already impressive bowling abilities. But he didn’t exactly have time to bowl during the week, and during the weekend he risked wearing himself out and being susceptible to the ever looming ‘bowling fatigue’. That was okay, though. Maybe last time had been a lucky fluke for Keith, fueled by antagonistic power. Now that they were friends, maybe the skill was lost to the nether.

“Lance,” Keith said softly.

“Hmm?”

“…You’re still holding onto my hand,” Keith said and gave a tug as evidence.

“Oh!” Lance pulled back quickly, nearly spilling his glass of water in the process. “Sorry, I got lost in my head. Again.”

Keith made like he was going to say something, but the waitress intervened and asked if they were ready to order. By the time she left, Keith seemed unwilling to pick up where he left off.

“So… is Allura from the UK?” Lance asked. He remembered Keith mentioning something about her moving to the states, and figured he may as well keep the conversation going if Keith wasn’t going to.

“Originally, yeah, but she moved here after her parents died. Change of scenery, you know?”

“I knew I recognized that accent,” Lance said.

“I don’t know how she hasn’t lost it,” Keith said. “I guess she spends too much time with Coran.”

“Oh yeah, what’s with that guy? Half the things he talks about I don’t understand,” Lance said.

“He uses a lot of British slang,” Keith said. “I’ve worked with him for years and still haven’t learned all of it. He’s actually Allura’s Uncle and the last family she has left. No siblings or anything."

“Wow,” Lance said. He thought back to his own family. “I couldn’t imagine that. I have two sisters and two brothers myself.”

Keith played with his straw wrapper. “It is pretty lonely.”

Lance raised an eyebrow.

Keith caught his gaze, hesitant and strangely self-conscious. “I’m an only child.”

“Wait, but Shiro?” Lance was so lost. Had Keith and Shiro been messing with him at the supermarket? Oh god, were they actually dating but hadn’t mentioned it?

“His family adopted me,” Keith said. His straw wrapper was crumpled and in pieces by this point, but he kept tearing it into smaller and smaller sections. “We’re not blood related.”

“Oh,” Lance said shortly, letting his brain process the new information. “That’s cool. You guys get along really well.”

Keith relaxed a bit. “Yeah, he’s like a brother to me even without the whole adoption thing.”

Lance nodded. He was curious about Keith’s birth family now, but knew better than to question about it. Keith would tell him when—if—he was ready.

“So,” Keith said. “You have four siblings?”

“Yeah!” Lance said. “I’m the youngest. There are my older sisters, Veronica and Rachel, and my older brothers, Marco and Luis.”

Keith smiled. “Do they all talk as much as you?”

“Pshh, of course,” Lance said. “Who do you think I got it from? I’m sure they’d all talk your ear off, Veronica especially. She’s always liked the bad boy type.”

“Uhh,” Keith said with a laugh. “I don’t think I’d consider myself a bad boy.”

“It’s the black,” Lance said. “And the gloves, and motorcycle. It totally fits, trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Keith said.

“Yeah, I haven’t seen them since Christmas,” Lance said. “Sometimes we’ll have four way Skype calls, since Veronica and Marco don’t live at home anymore, but it’s not the same.”

“Yeah,” Keith said. “I’m lucky I get to see Shiro so often.”

“So he works from home?”

“Three days a week,” Keith said. “He mostly handles the business side of Voltron. The other days it’s just me and Coran until the afternoon. Allura comes in twice a week to check in on things and sometimes teach a lesson.”

“Wait,” Lance said. “But when you and Coran are both teaching a lesson, who flies the plane?”

“If it’s not afternoon, autopilot,” Keith said. “Rolo can either teach or fly the plane depending on what’s required, since he only has a C license, but Coran has a D one. But if it’s morning and there are more jumpers, then we just set the plane to automatic. Coran really loves flying, so he always takes the chance when he can. Matt helped program a lot of the mechanical aspects of the business. He’s kind of like our consultant, I guess, when time permits.”

“Has he skydived?” Lance asked.

“A few times, yeah,” Keith said. “He really hates it, though. Last time his parachute didn’t deploy and he had to use his spare. I think it freaked him out enough to not try again.”

“You said you never had an accident!” Lance cried.

“I haven’t,” Keith said. “He lived, didn’t he?”

“Oh my god,” Lance said. He covered his face with his hands. “My brain was right to flash my life before my eyes.”

Keith laughed. “You lived too, didn’t you?”

“Barely,” Lance insisted.

Keith shrugged. “Barely is still living.”

Their food arrived and the conversation slowly died down.

“Hunk should be there when we get back,” Lance said, filling his pancake. “He can probably drive you home.”

Keith nodded. “Yeah, thanks. Shiro covered my shift, so I didn’t want to make him come pick me up, too.”

“You shoulda brought your bike,” Lance teased.

“Because I was expecting to fall asleep and miss work,” Keith said dryly.

“Just a future tip,” Lance said. “You biking to bowling again?”

“I can’t see why not,” Keith said. “I’ll be sure to bring an extra helmet.”

Lance smiled. “You better, Mullet.”

Keith wound up paying the check—Lance contested, but Keith pointed out that the whole idea of treating involved covering the tab—and they headed back. The walk was relatively quiet, and Lance was pleased by their ability to share a comfortable silence. It was cold by then, but there was no way Lance was requesting his jacket back.

As soon as he opened his apartment’s front door, Lance called out: “Hunk, buddy! I need your car!”

“Yeah?”

Lance gestured toward Keith. “He needs to get home.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hunk said. “I’ll get my keys.”

“Guess this is where I say bye,” Lance said. “There’s not really a reason for me to tag along in the car.”

Keith smiled softly. “I’m going to go grab my things. Here.”

He handed the jacket back and headed toward Lance’s room. Lance took a deep breath and clutched the jacket close to his chest. Keith emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later, wearing his original outfit. He snagged his gloves from the counter and slipped them on.

“Feeling balanced again?” Lance asked.

“I don’t know,” Keith said. “Your jacket was a pretty good substitute.”

Lance bit his lip to lessen the grin spreading across his face.

“Ready to go?” Hunk asked as he rounded the hallway.

“Yeah,” Keith said. “Thanks for driving me.”

“Dude, of course,” Hunk said. “There’s no way I’m letting you walk this late.”

“It’s like, seven-thirty,” Keith said.

Hunk shook his head. “I don’t care. If it’s dark out, it’s late.”

Keith turned to Lance and gave a short wave. “See you, Lance. Thanks for letting me stay over.”

“Anytime!” Lance said. “Uh. See you Sunday?”

Keith gave a sharp nod, and then he was gone.

The second the door closed behind the two, Lance groaned and flopped down on the couch, his jacket strewn over him as comfort.

Hunk arrived back home a little less than thirty minutes later.

“Hunk, I need to suddenly become the best bowler in the universe,” Lance said. He was still clinging to his jacket.

“Uh, that’s kind of a tall order,” Hunk said, kicking off his shoes and heading toward the couch. “How about just improving your score by a few points?”

“You don’t understand,” Lance said. “I need to beat Keith this Sunday.”

“Weren’t you two going to be on a team again?” Hunk asked. “Or are you just looking to impress him?”

“I made a bet,” Lance said. “Loser has to do a favor winner asks, and I need to win so I can ask him on a date.”

“You could just ask him on a date now,” Hunk pointed out and sat down.

“If I thought that would work I would have done it by now!” Lance said. “This way I can play it off as a joke if I crash and burn.”

Hunk sighed. “If you say so. Hey, instead of getting better, you could just sabotage Keith by distracting him.”

“Oh my god, Hunk,” Lance said, aghast. “You’re a genius.”

“I know,” Hunk said. “You could wear that grey shirt again.”

Lance waved him off. “Nah, I think he’s immune to that now. He asked me to wear it earlier today.”

Hunk raised his eyebrows. “And you still don’t think he likes you.”

“I just want to be sure!” Lance said. “Dude, I don’t know what I’d do if I messed up his and my friendship. I really like him.”

“Okay,” Hunk said. “Use pet names?”

“I did last time as a joke,” Lance said. “He just got annoyed.”

“Hmm, he’s a tough cookie,” Hunk mused. “When Shay calls me babe I melt.”

“I guess I’ll just have to improvise,” Lance said, curling his fingers around his jacket’s hood. “Because there’s no way I’m letting him win this bet.”

~

It was Sunday night, and Lance still had no idea what tactics to employ to win, other than raw skill alone. He was quiet on the ride over, which prompted a good three “Are you okay?”s from Hunk. The four climbed out for the car and started for the entrance.

“I’m fine,” Lance murmured. “Just nervous.”

“It’ll be fine, Lance,” Shay promised. “Even if you don’t win!”

“Okay, but I have to,” Lance said.

The others were already at the alley, occupied in the same lane as before. Allura waved them over.

“Hey guys,” Hunk said. “I’d like you to meet Shay, my girlfriend.”

“Hey, man,” Lance said, tuning the others out. There was only one thing on his mind, and that was Keith.

Keith smiled and gestured next to him. “Saved you a seat.”

“Thanks,” Lance said. “I see you brought your helmet inside this time.”

“It’s yours, actually,” Keith said. “I mean, for you to borrow.”

“Oh,” Lance said softly. “Thanks.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Keith said. “Since you’re going to lose horribly tonight.”

Lance scoffed, a competitive fire igniting inside him. “We’ll see about that. I hope you’re ready to do me a favor.”

“Okay, Lance,” Keith said lightly.

“So, same teams as last time?” Pidge asked, staring at the input screen. At everyone’s nods she began adding teams. “Anyone want a different name? And no Lance, you can’t have team MEME.”

“Aww, I share my stuff with you,” Lance said. “I guess we’ll be team PRPL again.”

“Okay, everything’s set up,” Pidge said. “I’ll grab the shoes.”

“So,” Lance said as he looked to Keith. “Did you want to go first, or are you scared?”

“That makes no sense,” Keith said. “Unless… you’re scared?”

“I’m not scared! I’ll go first!”

He fidgeted until Pidge returned with shoes. Even though last game had been a matter or pride, the stakes seemed even higher now. Thank god he had gone bowling frequently as a kid. In general, he averaged a solid 140 per game. His and Keith’s combined score last game had been a respectable 300.

“Nervous?” Keith commented as he watched Lance struggle to put on his shoes.

“I’m not nervous,” Lance lied. “I’m just jittery because of how excited I am to beat you.”

Keith laughed and adjusted his gloves.

“You know,” Lance said. “I think you’re cheating by using gloves.”

“Am I now? You didn’t complain last time,” Keith said.

“Yeah, 'cause I didn’t think of it! But I bet that’s how you matched my score,” Lance said. His own hands were disturbingly sweaty at the moment. If he had to suffer, so did Keith. “No gloves, or the bet is off.”

“Fine, fine,” Keith said. He tugged off his gloves and set them beside him. “I’m blaming you if I forget them here, though.”

“So how are we starting it this time?” Matt asked. “Since we have an even amount of people now.”

“Dibs!” Lance called.

“Just let him have it,” Hunk said.

“That’s fine with me,” Allura said. The others nodded.

“Sweet,” Lance said. He stood up and took his ball. With a deep breath, he mentally repented for all of his past sins, and swung; it was a strike. A small smile formed on his face as he gave a shaky exhale. Off to a good start. Looking over his shoulder, he sent a co*cky grin toward Keith. “Your turn.”

Keith said nothing as he grabbed his own ball and walked to the lane. His swing was instantaneous, without even a second of regret, and made a strike. He sent Lance his own, unfairly attractive, smirk.

Lance grimaced and sat down. Okay, so Keith was score matching again. Or maybe he had gone bowling during the week himself and improved? Either way, Lance wasn’t going down without a fight. He also wished he hadn’t been so adamant about Keith losing the gloves, because it just meant another distraction, and they clearly hadn’t been carrying him like Lance had theorized.

The second round was another case of score matching, but the tie was broken on the third when Lance managed another strike and Keith finished with a spare. Lance felt no inclination to gloat for the time being, though, knowing the same could happen to him at any point, and what really mattered was the succeeding round. Fortunately, luck was on his side, and Lance was in the lead by a meager two points for the next few rounds.

He was starting to feel a little co*cky, even if the differences in score weren’t very significant. Their scores weren’t as impressive as last time, but were still respectable. Hunk and Shay were winning this time—apparently Shay was a phenomenal bowler—but Lance couldn’t find it in himself to care so long as he was one step ahead of Keith score-wise.

“You got this,” Hunk told him after Lance’s eighth round while Keith was stepping up to the lane.

Lance gave a quick nod. “I can already feel the victory, Hunk. And it feels so good.”

Then came the last round. Lance strolled up to the lane, confident in his success, and swung. Halfway down, it rolled into the gutter. Lance stared at his ball as it slid past every pin, stunned. He hadn’t had a gutter ball since he was fourteen. And he was sure he had aimed for straight down the middle. It was okay, though, he still had the second roll. Everyone was silent as he picked his ball back up and took a breath. Get it together, McClain.

Another gutter ball. He sucked in a sharp breath, his shoulders bristling.

“Dude,” Hunk said, breaking the silence. “Did you just throw on purpose?”

Lance spun around. “Of course not! Why would I do that!”

“Okay, let’s calm down,” Shiro said. “It’s just a game.”

Lance dropped to his seat. “Right.”

He aggressively avoided Keith’s gaze while Keith began his turn. At this point, he only had to hit a single pin to beat Lance’s score. A hollow sensation hung low in Lance’s stomach. Keith bowled a strike. Lance bit his lip to suppress the urge to cry for a rematch; it would only make him look even more pathetic.

“I’m going to go grab my shoes,” Lance mumbled, not caring if anyone heard him. He shot up from his seat and started toward the front counter. God, that had been his chance, and he had just squandered it. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Lance.”

He stopped immediately. “What, Keith.”

Lance knew he was being a sore loser, and he hated it, because he had been the one to initiate the bet in the first place. He had no ground to stand on when it came to his attitude.

“Uh, could you turn around at least?”

Lance sighed and turned.

Keith looked nervous, and Lance’s stomach dropped. The favor must have been seriously embarrassing or unfair for Keith to have been nervous even requesting it. Would he have to tattoo ‘loser’ on his forehead? Give up all his Karate Kid comics? Tell Keith his mullet actually looked decent?

“Look,” Lance started. He didn’t know where he was going with the sentence, but he knew he had to say something. Maybe he could still gather the courage. “I know what the wager was, and I know I’m the one who brought it all up, but could you just—”

“Will you go on a date with me?” Keith interrupted. His face went crimson.

“What!”

Keith’s throat stuttered. “That’s…that’s my favor. It can just be coffee, I promise. I know you have to agree, but I. Crap, this is manipulative, isn’t it? Crap, I knew I should have gone with the Karate Kid comics.”

“I…” Lance touched his hand to his throat, feeling for the hum of it. “A date? Like, an actual date?”

“…Yeah.”

Lance sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

Keith blinked. “Wait, really?”

“Oh my god, yes,” Lance said. His whole body fluttered with frantic, breathless energy. “A thousand times yes.”

A small, disbelieving smile formed on Keith’s face. “You’re not just messing with me?”

“No!” Lance said and grabbed Keith’s arms. Keith leaned in. “That’s—That’s what I wanted to ask you, oh my god, that’s the whole reason I made this stupid bet.”

“So you’re not actually that sore of a loser?” Keith teased.

“Oh, I totally am,” Lance said. “But that’s not the point. Jesus, I’m going to take you on the best date ever, okay? Like, a three part date. Ten part. Coffee is only the appetizer.”

Keith laughed, the blush on his face fading to light pink on his cheeks. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

“You better,” Lance agreed. “Can I—Can I hug you?”

Keith’s mouth dropped open an inch. “Y—Yeah.”

Lance pulled him into a tight hug, wrapping his arms around Keith’s back. He let out a pleased sigh, curling his head in the crook of Keith’s neck. It was more perfect a fit than their hands. “This is even better than I imagined it.”

“Likewise,” Keith said softly.

Lance drew back and smiled, reaching out to brush a lock of Keith’s hair behind his ear. “Hey, do you want to just ditch this place? We can have a pre-date right now.”

“A pre-date?”

“Yeah!” Lance said, excitement overwhelming his voice. “Like, I don’t know. I just want you to myself.”

“Yeah,” Keith said in a breathy voice. “Let me just—I need my helmet and my gloves.”

Lance nodded. “I’m going to return my shoes. I’ll meet you outside?”

“Sure,” Keith said, giving a quick smile before heading back toward the lane.

Lance exchanged his bowling shoes and stepped outside. The air was brisk but comforting, a sharp contrast to the near stuffy atmosphere of the bowling alley. Keith emerged a moment later, flashing a strong smile and handing Lance the spare helmet.

They drove for fifteen minutes, with Lance clinging to Keith the whole way, relishing in the way their bodies pressed together. Keith brought them to a stop near an empty field, an old, infrequently used baseball lot that Lance passed whenever he went to the grocery store. Lance lifted his helmet and watched the wind whip against the grass and the trees shake.

“I used to come here a lot as a kid,” Keith explained as he slid off his bike. “I was on a team for a while, but they kicked me off due to ‘behavioral issues’.”

Lance snorted. “Of course they did. It’s pretty here.”

Keith nodded and took Lance’s hand, pulling him toward the entrance. “It’s a good place for stargazing, too. After I was off the team, I’d come back here at night and just watch the sky.”

They rested on their backs, uncaring of the dampness that seeped through their jackets. Every step and breath felt floaty, as though Lance was still back in his room asleep. It would have made a wonderful dream, but it was an even better reality.

“Do you know any constellations?” Keith asked.

“Not really,” Lance said. “My brother Luis is way better at spotting them. I know the Big Dipper, though. It’s riiiight there.”

He took Keith’s finger and dragged it to a spot in the sky.

“See?” Lance said.

“Mmhmm,” Keith said. He turned his hand to take hold of Lance’s.

“Hand holding? Don’tcha think you’re moving a little fast?” Lance teased.

Keith stiffened and tried to pull back. “Sorry.”

“No, I was joking!” Lance said quickly.

“Okay,” Keith said. He took a breath and tugged their hands down to the grass in between them.

“It’s really not too fast,” Lance said, shifting onto his side to face Keith. “Heh, technically we’ve slept together already, huh?”

Keith blushed and pursed his lips. “You have some pretty low standards by that measure.”

“I do not!” Lance said. “I like you after all, don’t I?”

Keith turned on his side and watched Lance, smiling softly. “Do you now.”

“Yeah,” Lance said. With his free hand, he cupped Keith’s jaw. “A lot, actually. So much so that I’m willing to overlook the mullet.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Just kiss me already, Lance.”

“If you insist,” Lance said. He tried not to shake as he drew closer, bunching up their hands and trapping thembetween their chests inadvertently. Briefly, he memorized Keith’s face and the location of Keith’s mouth, and closed his eyes. Their lips touched, hesitantly. Keith exhaled swiftly and pressed forward. Lance felt a jolt of nervous pleasure simmer in his stomach. Keith’s lips were so hot against the chill of the night, almost burning him. Lance went to wriggle closer, but Keith rolled over and on top of him instead.

“Oh,” Lance said, breathless.

Keith pulled back and shot a nervous glance. “Is this okay?”

“More than okay,” Lance promised. His hands fell to Keith’s waist and he leaned up again.

Keith met him halfway, his kisses more confident now. Keith shoved a hand into Lance’s hair and pushed it backward. Lance tightened his grip and tilted his head. Their lips shifted together, Lance quickly capturing Keith’s bottom lip for his own. It felt so right and hot and overwhelming. Lance knew he could get lost in it if he wasn’t careful.

After relenting to his hormones for another few minutes, he eventually pulled back. Keith tried to follow.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“What?” Keith grunted.

“It’s Sunday night,” Lance said. “And you have work in the morning, at like six-thirty.”

Keith sighed and drew back, sitting on Lance’s lap. It took everything in Lance’s power to not flinch at the movement and to maintain a neutral expression. “Damn it, yeah.”

“I’m just being a gentleman,” Lance said. “Making sure you get home before curfew.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Because those kisses were so gentlemanly.”

Lance spluttered and Keith laughed, sliding off him.

“You’re right, though,” Keith said and checked his phone. “It’s already 8:30, and I still have to take you home.”

“This is only the pre-date, remember?” Lance said. He wanted so badly to pull Keith back onto his lap. “I’m going to wow you with the real date.”

Keith smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “So you better be ready next Sunday, ‘cause you’re going to need the whole day free.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” Keith said softly. He stood and offered a hand to Lance, who pulled himself to his feet. “Ready to head back? The others probably left the bowling alley already. I told them we were heading off early.”

“I’m good,” Lance said. He brushed some grass off his shirt. “The sooner I get home and sleep the sooner I can take you on that date.”

Keith’s expression was so soft as he smiled at Lance. “I look forward to it.”

A year and three months later

“Yeah, I’ll come by after work,” Keith said. His voice always took on a raspy tone through the line, which was the only redeeming factor of their phone conversations. In every other regard, it was infinitely better to converse face-to-face and get to see Keith’s changing expressions: the crinkle of his eyes and the crooked quirk of his lips. “You want me to pick up dinner for us?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Lance said as he wandered down the hall. He nudged open his door and darted inside before the resulting gap could close on him—he had been trapped between the door and hallway far too many a time. “Hunk and I went shopping earlier, and I got this rosemary bread that I want you to try.”

“Grocery shopping on a Saturday? Didn’t you call that blasphemy once?” Keith asked.

“Yeah, well,” Lance said. He had been the one to request the schedule change, actually. He wanted to make a special dinner tonight and use fresh ingredients, not week old ones. “It’s called character development.”

Keith laughed and Lance beamed.

“Sounds good,” Keith said. “I’ll see you at five, then. Love you.”

Lance smiled. “I love you, too.”

Lance dropped his phone and fell onto his bed, pinching his eyes shut. He really hoped he wasn’t about to irrevocably mess everything up.

He rolled on his back and splayed out on his covers, arms stretched in a long T. Staring up at the ceiling, he watched the static cracks until they seemed to dance before his eyes. There was an urge to jump up and put on some music or browse his phone or distract his racing mind with some stimulus. But even stronger was the urge to lay unmoving on his sheets, casted off in a protective stasis that barred him from the outside world and its inherent tendencies to invoke permanent consequences. It had been a while since he had felt this honestly nervous and unsure about the future, a steady drum of stomach flops and sweaty palms that were more Hunk’s specialty than his, though certainly not a requested state by either.

Shifting onto his side, he let his gaze wander to his desk. His snow globe was a third filled, now, sitting next to the infamous photo of him and Keith post skydive jump. Lance cracked a small smile at the familiar sight of it. It was probably the most iconic item in their relationship, and it did look far better framed and presented proudly on his desk than shamefully shoved in his bedside drawer. Now, his bedside table held a second photo of him and Keith on their one year anniversary, squeezed together in a too small bar booth with Lance nearly sitting on Keith’s lap. There had been two pictures taken that night, one with them actually conscious of the camera and smiling, and the other of the two of them talking quietly amongst themselves, warm and oblivious to Allura’s capture of the scene. That was the one Lance had chosen to frame.

Before long, it was nearing five and he was running out of time to mope around in his room lest he wanted to be caught doing so; Keith was going to arrive whether or not Lance was mentally prepared. Accompanied by a sigh, Lance heaved himself up off the bed and headed toward the kitchen.

“Hey, Lance,” Pidge greeted, glancing up from her spot on the couch when he offered no more than a mere grunt of affirmation in return. She had forgone her usual recliner spot in favor of stretching out languidly along two of the three cushions, a book in hand. “You… look nervous.”

“Keith’s coming over soon,” Lance said as explanation, because really, no further detail was needed.

“Seriously? You’ve been dating him for over a year, and you still get nervous around him?”

“It’s called the honeymoon phase, Pidge,” Lance said. “Y’know, where you feel all mushy inside whenever you see ‘em, and you always want to be around them?

“Yeah, but you were like that with him even before you two started dating,” Pidge said.

“So I’m an overachiever, nothing wrong with that,” Lance said. “Man, I really wish he didn’t have to work during the weekend.”

“It’s only a day,” Pidge said. “And it’s not like you wake up before noon when you don’t have to. You’ve been awake for what, five hours?”

“Seven hours, thank you very much. And even still,” Lance said. “That’s probably twice as many hours of sleep as you’ve gotten.”

“I plead the fifth,” Pidge said immediately, poking her nose back into her book.

Lance sat down on a stool and drummed his fingers against the marble counter, swung his legs back and forth, needing to release his nervous energy through some means; annoying Pidge it was. He knew that Hunk was over at Shay’s apartment again and had been since the morning, his visits longer and more frequent, a telltale sign that the two of them were testing the waters for a move in. Hunk hadn’t flat out mentioned anything about it, but to his defense neither had Lance or Pidge, content to let him announce the news on his own terms sans pressure. The timing was ideal, though, and so Lance had to silently thank Hunk for the unintentional help.

He cleared his throat, not wanting to get too lost in his thoughts again. “How’s your reading?”

“Excessive,” Pidge said. “But interesting. I’d tell you more but…”

“Nuh uh,” Lance said. He was done and done with school; it was a fact that never seemed to fully click, but was relieving nevertheless. Only $25k in loans left to repay, but perhaps it had all been worth it to grant him enough expertise in his field to land him an actually enjoyable—and relatively well paying—job. At the same time, the thought was weird that he spent only four years of his life training for something he would be doing for the rest of his career. And yet, it felt as though his second semester senior year worries were now so far away, so distant and murky; a now blip in his life that had nevertheless been so daunting at the time. Now, his new dilemma felt twice as intimidating, which was weird to think about. Maybe in the future he’d look back on it like he did school and deem it no longer fear-worthy. Time and perspective were weird like that.

Lance continued: “That ban is still well in effect. You’re not allowed to talk about things that’ll take me more than an hour to understand. Save it for Hunk or Matt.”

“Okay, okay,” Pidge said. “You’re missing out, though.”

“I’m sure I am,” Lance said dryly. “I don’t know how you still have the patience for years more of school. I think my brain would have exploded by now.”

She shrugged. “The material can be a bit over the top sometimes, but it’s worth it. Can you imagine the day when you see an article published by ‘Katie Holt’?”

“Pidge, you’re getting stars in your eyes,” Lance teased. “But I’ll be super proud of you, duh, we all will. I’ll get the balloons and champagne, and Hunk can bake you a cake shaped like a research journal.”

“Write my name in peanut butter frosting,” Pidge said, “and you’ve just won my heart.”

The doorbell rang and Lance jumped. His stomach briefly leapt to his throat before he managed to wrangle it back down and clear his throat. “Coming!”

Keith flashed a smile the second the door opened. “Hey, Lance.”

“Hey,” Lance said, unable to slow his own smile from forming. Keith’s smiles were less common than say Lance's own or Hunk’s—though definitely not nonexistent—and so knowing Lance’s mere presence could be the catalyst for one was extremely flattering and ego boosting. Even better was Keith’s laugh, though, a low chuckle that magnified every piece of him that Lance loved: his grey eyes, his expressive eyebrows, and his deep smile.

Keith took a step inside and kissed Lance on the cheek. He glanced over Lance’s shoulder and waved. “Hi, Pidge.”

“‘Sup?”

“More reading?” Keith slung his arm around Lance, who practically melted into the touch. God, he had missed Keith. Every time they were able to spend time together, it felt like coming home all over again.

“You know it,” Pidge said, shifting to lean over the back of the couch with her full weight, her book now abandoned next to her. She grinned. “Hey, you interested in hearing the gist of it?”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Lance said. “No stealing my boyfriend. Keith, babe, you’ll be here for hours trying to understand the material until you break down crying after she has to define a Franhopper line for the sixth time.”

“Fraunhofer line,” Pidge corrected. “And that sounds more like what happened to you last month.”

“Quiet, you,” Lance said. He leaned more into Keith and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

“Guess I’m taking a rain check on that explanation, Pidge,” Keith said with an easy smile. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said, returning her own smile. “I know Lance was looking forward to seeing you.”

Keith flushed a bit and ducked his head.

“Pidge!” Lance whined. “Don’t expose me like that!”

“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing,” Pidge insisted.

“Yeah, well, come on, Keith,” Lance said and guided him by the shoulder out of the room. He wanted some privacy for the conversation, anyway. As supportive as Pidge was when the topic was important, Lance figured it was information she could gain after.

Keith almost stumbled over his feet at the abrupt direction change. “So, that’s a no to dinner?”

“In a minute,” Lance said. He felt as though he was on a tightrope, only a slight breeze away from losing his cool, and maybe Keith, if he were really unlucky. Lance opened his door and took a step in. “So, um.”

“What’s going on?” Keith asked, following Lance into the room. After taking note of the anxious atmosphere, he closed the door behind him. There was a hint of concern leaking into his tone, like a warm blanket enshrouding Lance with comfort.

Lance chewed on the inside of his cheek. Here went nothing—and everything. He held his arms to his chest, wrapped around his torso. “Look, so I’ve been doing some thinking. We’ve been together for a while now, and you know my lease is up at the end of August. I know we held off last year since we had just gotten together, but uh. Do—Do you want to get a place together?”

Keith’s mouth fell into an ‘o’ shape. “Yes! Of course.”

Lance’s heavy exhale was likely in his top five exhales of his life, alongside classic legends such as just-lost-my-virginity-org*sm and I-shouldn’t-be-alive: skydiving edition.

“Of course,” Keith repeated and grabbed Lance’s hands. Keith coaxed them off Lance’s body and used them to pull the two close together. Keith pressed an eager kiss to his left cheek, then his left temple, and finally the middle of his forehead. “That sounds incredible, Lance.”

Lance grinned. His shoulders relaxed instantly and lost all their tension as his heart swelled with delight. The fear of Keith rejecting the offer had been skulking low in his mind for the past month and a half, and the worst part was not being able to talk to Keith about said worries without exposing himself. He hadn’t been expecting Keith to say no, but he also hadn’t been expecting him to say yes; Lance hadn’t known what to expect, his only other similarly long relationship having been a whirlwind disaster that came nowhere near the stage of moving in together. But there was a stability that connected him to Keith, a promise of reliability and safety.

Their year and three months together had simultaneously felt like the passing of a lifetime and of a millisecond. Lance still felt as crazy about him as the day they began dating, but from time to time his insecurities sneaked up behind him and questioned the sustainability of it all. Fortunately, Keith was patient—at least in that factor of his life. And each time he never thought it possible, but he fell in love with Keith more and more each day. They were good together—really good, in a way that Lance hadn’t thought he could ever possibly have, a way that he hadn’t even understood truly existed.

“I have a few places in mind that I’ve been researching, all of them pet friendly, of course, for when we adoptour ten cats,” Lance continued after realizing he had just been staring at Keith silently while sporting a dopey smile. A bit embarrassing, but Keith’s mirrored smile told him the feeling was mutual.

Keith snorted. “Like I’ve said before, you’re the officially designated litter box cleaner.”

“I plan on teaching them how to clean up their own poop,” Lance said. “Or use the toilet.”

“That sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen,” Keith said. He leaned in and kissed Lance gently. Pulling back, he watched Lance with adoring, grey eyes. “Hey. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Lance whispered. He cradled Keith’s jaw. “I swear you get more handsome every time I see you. Soon you’ll almost be to my level.”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “And then surpass you?”

Lance brushed him off with his free hand. “Nonsense, I get more handsome, too.”

Keith chuckled. “And more modest.”

“Naturally,” Lance said. He rested his forehead against Keith’s and closed his eyes. “Mmm. I can’t wait to have this every morning and night.”

“You big sap,” Keith whispered.

“Guilty,” Lance said and kissed him slowly. “Who could blame me, though? Getting to see your pretty face when I wake up, when I go to bed, when I show off all my kitties’ potty training.”

“I’ve always loved your optimism,” Keith said.

“I’ve always loved you,” Lance said with a fond smile. He never grew tired of watching Keith’s cheeks tint pink when he heard the word ‘love’. It had caused flushes of dark scarlet the first three dozen times, but even after a year still managed to provoke a light blush.

Keith let out a pleased sigh and wrapped his arms around Lance’s waist. “I’m so lucky to have you, Lance.”

Lance’s chest squeezed painfully and he held Keith in a tight embrace. “Not as lucky as I am. You know, I think winning that cereal contest was the best mistake I ever made.”

Keith tilted his head and spoke into Lance’s throat: “Yeah?”

Lance swayed on his feet and rocked the two of them back and forth, humming softly. Keith’s heart was a steady thrum against his chest, and Lance would memorize that sensation and take it everywhere with him, take it to his home—to their home. “Yeah, by far. I’ll have to thank Pidge. Maybe buy her a box of Branflakes.”