Archive of Our Own

The day Allura had bestowed upon them the knowledge that the castle had a pool hadn’t gone quite to plan, but the day Coran mentioned a sauna the entire team’s lives had changed for the better. The very moment he told them where it was, everyone rushed off to try it out except for Keith, who lingered awkwardly behind. He had to wait weeks before any of them were out of it long enough for him to sneak in and try it himself, pleasantly alone and without the anxiety that came along with being half-dressed in a room the size of a closet with other people.

That was what he was doing now, sprawled out across the bench with his hair pulled back into a messy ponytail so it wouldn’t cling to the back of his neck. He was comfortable, he was calm, and he was contemplative. He’d been fitting into his role as a leader better this past month, or so he liked to think, and now that the stress had worn off it was finally time to start laying down decisive plans for their future as a team. Now that the new threat of Prince Lotor was looming over them, Keith figured he’d better prepare for the worst.

He bristled upon hearing the doors open, his eyes flickering upward and immediately narrowing into a glare as he watched Lance stroll absentmindedly into the sauna. For a long moment, he was left wondering if Lance had even noticed that he was already in there, but his unspoken question was quickly answered when Lance purposely seated himself as far away from Keith as could be maneuvered in the small sauna space.

Then, against all odds, silence followed. There was no obnoxious greeting, no disruptive muttering of Lance talking to himself, no irritating repetitive noises as Lance fidgeted on the spot. It was blissfully and utterly silent, just as it had been when Keith had been relaxing alone in the heat. It was surreal, at this point he just associated Lance with noise, with a headache that would grate on his nerves for hours even after they’d separated. This was… odd.

Keith leaned back against the wall behind him, huffing to blow his hair out of his eyes so he could properly study Lance from across the room. The blue paladin looked distracted, but not in the usual impatient adrenaline rush way where he was distracted energetically by his surroundings, but rather a pensive pouting way where he was distracted by whatever was going on inside his mind.

Hell, if Pidge was around, Keith had no doubt that they’d be comparing Lance’s scowl to one of Keith’s own. How curious.

Meanwhile, Lance was pretty sure that the fates were out to kill him. He was playing it cool (as was the Lance McClain way), but death was on the horizon and growing nearer every time he felt Keith rake those stupid beady little eyes over his body. God, was he really so socially inept that he genuinely thought he was being discreet in any way or at all? Or did he know that Lance knew and just didn’t care?

Things had been... strange since Shiro’s disappearance. Watching Keith step up to fill their previous leader’s shoes, seeing the way he slowly grew more confident as the weeks flew by, it was eye-opening in a lot of ways. Okay, well, more accurately it was eye-opening in two ways.

The first of said ways struck Lance immediately after learning that Keith was the backup black paladin of choice, a deep-rooted jealousy had clouded his thoughts as he wondered what the hell Keith had to offer the team that he didn’t . He voiced this concern loudly, and constantly, ranting to all of the other paladins about how he’d been looked over until they finally reached their limit and snapped at him to do something worth looking at rather than complain about it. He’d been in the training room just as much as Keith ever since, hardly sleeping in his efforts to be better than who he was before Shiro went missing, and more importantly; better than Keith .

It gave him a strange sense of nostalgia for the Garrison days, when he’d stopped at nothing to prove he was on the same level as Keith. It was fun. It was familiar. Until it wasn’t.

The second realization settled much later, once Keith had stopped floundering about like an antisocial fish out of water and had started to adapt to his new position. It didn’t happen overnight, but rather over the course of many smaller realizations. You know, casual things, like ‘wow, Keith is such a demanding asshole when he gives orders, I bet he’d be dominant as all hell in bed’ and then eventually ‘oh shit, I think I want Keith to be dominant in bed with me ’. Needless to say, Lance did not voice these concerns to anyone, keeping them on strict lockdown until further notice.

Turns out, Lance had a thing for guys that knew what the fuck they were doing. And though he had to tell himself that Keith had to be faking this newfound confidence for his own ego’s sake, the other half of him was disgustingly into it every time Keith would throw an order his way or praise him for doing a good job as second in command. It was… admittedly, not how Lance ‘I Love Girls More Than I Love Air’ McClain, self-proclaimed female fanatic, had expected things to go. I mean, sure, the jealousy was still there and that familiarity was great, but this whole new layer of attraction had blindsided him a little bit.

It wasn’t like he’d never thought about being with a guy before, he’d come from an accepting background and with the amount of loving siblings and cousins he had there was bound to be some different sexualities mixed in with the bunch. He loved them all the same, he’d educated himself and listened to them, trying to be the best ally he could be. So, he’d considered it. Love’s love and all that; he’d always told himself that if he met the right guy he wasn’t going to let gender play a deciding role in who he ended up with. But Keith wasn’t the right guy, in fact, Lance was pretty sure that this hot-headed mouthbreather mullet-having shithead was the picture perfect definition of the wrong guy.

Yet, the attraction persisted. He started actively trying to check out or hit on other guys while they were out on diplomatic missions. Which was enlightening and all, turns out not limiting his options was a lot more fun and the whole being attracted to multiple genders was looking more and more like something he should be giving more attention than passive indifference, but it wasn’t a solution. None of them got under his skin the way that Keith did.

And so, with great reluctance and a scowl that hadn’t faded since, Lance had admitted just this week that what he felt for Keith was undoubtedly a 100% legitimate crush .

Of course his immediate plan was to avoid Keith as much and as long as possible in hopes that it would fade, but that was proving difficult when they were practically partners now that they were leader and second in command. Keith was constantly seeking Lance out to talk about business things, which was totally unfair. And now, during one of the few moments he was confident he’d managed to sneak away on his own without being followed, Keith decided to retaliate twice as brutally by appearing out of nowhere wearing nothing but a pair of swim shorts.

That wasn’t even mentioning his fucking hair, which should definitely be classified as attempted murder in Lance’s opinion and no one else could convince him otherwise. Who in their right mind gave Keith permission to tie his hair back? To look so suggestively flushed and sweaty, tiny baby hairs clinging to his pale neck? Lance couldn’t even bear to look at him, instead staring angrily off into space, disgusted that anyone so atrocious in terms of personality could look so undeniably hot .

Fuck you, Keith Kogane. Both in the angry way and the sexy way.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Lance snapped finally, his hands balled into frustrated fists at his sides, blunt nails digging into his palms. He whipped his head in Keith’s direction, sneering at the other boy despite the less-than-intimidating way his hair had fallen in his eyes. “What do you want ?”

Ten minutes had passed since Lance had entered the sauna, Keith was aware of this because he’d been growingly steadily more worried with every passing second. It was so unlike his teammate to be this uncharacteristically quiet, not even glancing in Keith’s direction or making a single passive comment. It was almost like being in an enclosed space with a stranger rather than Lance, and shockingly, Keith realized that that was even less desirable. At least Lance was familiar, annoying and loyal to his core, this unsteady ground had sent Keith’s previous calm state crumbling.

He wasn’t sure how to help it, what to do to make Lance snap out of the trance he was in. The more he thought about it the more certain he was that he did, in fact, want to help. He wanted to walk over there and properly comfort Lance through whatever he was struggling with, assure his best rival/friend that whatever was bothering him wasn’t nearly as bad as he clearly thought it was.

Except, well, Keith was Keith; he could count every single time he’d successfully comforted someone else on one hand. Contrary to popular belief, that wasn’t due to lack of compassion, he always wanted to comfort these people… he just didn’t know how. So more often than not, he leaves it to the professionals, the social butterflies that comforting comes to like an instinct. He leaves it to people like Lance, namely.

So what in the ever-loving fuck was he meant to do when Lance was the one so clearly troubled?

Apparently, sit there staring at him like a blind man seeing for the first time until he got called out on it with a snarl so harsh it caused him to jump back to reality so fast his head reeled. Keith blinked rapidly, staring wide-eyed back at the seemingly furious Lance across from him and cursing himself for doing the exact opposite of what he’d wanted to do. He’d made things worse, not better. Go figure.

“What do you want?” Keith replied in a tone equally as menacing, ignoring the sour taste that accompanied each word because the words coming out of his mouth were so very far from how he’d intended them to be. The question in of itself could have been a great start to a helpful conversation, but the way he’d mangled them had turned them into a challenge, a mockery of Lance.

“You’re such a dick.” Lance scoffed, turning to stare pointedly in the opposite direction. Keith sat there gaping at him, his mind racing to catch up to the exchange that had just taken place and wondering what he’d done to lead to this confusing clusterfuck of a relationship. All he’d ever done was mind his own business, Lance had been the one to introduce this strange dynamic between them. Were they friends? Enemies? Rivals? Keith still wasn’t sure, he just reciprocated anything Lance wanted to be on that particular day. So far it was working, or at least it seemed like it was, he couldn’t actually tell.

More silence followed, but thankfully this silence wasn’t quite the same. For starters, Lance wasn’t perfectly still: he changed his sitting position approximately three times per minute. He was back to his usual fidgeting self, stretching out like a cat in the sun only to curl up like a hedgehog moments later. It made no sense to Keith, who was perfectly content to sit exactly how he’d settled when he first sat down, but it was relieving to see some familiarity between them again.

So they were going to play the enemies game today, he could work with that. He wasn’t particularly annoyed by Lance just yet, but now that Lance was starting to resemble Lance again it was really only a matter of time before he did something obnoxious to help with that. They’d bicker for a while, maybe throw a punch or a shove, and then angrily stomp off in different directions. Routine.

Keith waited patiently for Lance to make the first move, allowing his eyes to fall shut so he seemed passive rather than poised and ready to go. It would probably be something tasteless and stupid, a shallow insult to Keith’s appearance, probably about his mullet or his height. If Lance was feeling particularly angry and needed someone to take it out on, he might even make a snide indirect comment about Keith’s leadership skills or his rusty people skills. This was all stuff that Keith could handle, could thrive with considering how used to it he was by now.

What he couldn’t handle, was the fake-casual whistle that Lance started up about thirty seconds later. It just… kept going. This wasn’t angry, this was awkward. This was Lance being weird and uneasy around him for no reason and it was making Keith tense.

“Shut-up.” He grumbled under his breath, almost instinctively at this point. Lance went immediately silent, another curious clue in the roundabout game they were playing tonight, because Lance absolutely never listened to that request regardless of who was asking it of him. Keith looked up at him hesitantly, a single eyebrow quirking when his eyes immediately locked onto azure blue ones that had been staring directly at him already.

“Wanna play a game?” Lance blurted, his tone suspiciously void of emotion, practically unreadable. It didn’t sound like a challenge necessarily, he just seemed genuinely intrigued and hopeful. Keith bit his tongue, wondering what motive Lance could possibly have to work toward with this. He was suspicious and beyond hesitant, so he stalled.

“Is it the ‘ Quiet Game ’ where we both shut the fuck up and see who lasts the longest?” Keith asked, plastering a shit-eating grin onto his face in hopes of annoying Lance back into familiar territory. Lance just stared though, the faintest hint of a smile even beginning to tug at the corners of his lips. Keith was definitely losing it now, maybe the heat was getting to him.

“No.” Lance deadpanned in answer, so serious that it was more than a little bit off-putting. Why did he seem so invested in something he’d called a game? Was this some sort of challenge in disguise? Was Keith about to let his ass get kicked without even putting up a fight? No way.

He leaned forward, ready to hear what Lance had to say about it. The blue paladin lit up now that he was certain he had Keith’s full attention, something that could almost be mistaken as a blush tracing his dimpled cheeks. Weird. “It’s like playing ‘ Chicken’ , except I call it ‘ Roasted Chicken ’ because we’re gonna see which one of us will last the longest as we crank the temperature up. First to tap out has to do any chores the other person asks him to, for a whole month.”

To emphasize his point, Lance leaned closer to Keith’s side of the door and lifted his hand to hover threateningly in front of the thermostat, fingers wiggling ominously. Keith scoffed at the direct threat to the comfortable environment he’d found for himself. If he’d wanted to sweat half to death and be uncomfortable, he could have stayed on the training deck for another hour or two.

“What is wrong with you?” Keith chuckled in response, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. Lance stared at him for a long moment, then began to pout petulantly. He looked away, trying to feign indifference, but by now Keith had picked up on how much these small things mattered to an attention-craving idiot like Lance.

It was stupid, probably the last thing Keith wanted to spend his downtime doing, but as a leader he was trying to practice doing things for the benefit of others rather than himself. If that meant playing this pointless game with Lance until his childish competitive streak was satisfied, then so be it. Besides, he was bound to win, so being able to pass a few of his responsibilities off to Lance and brag about his superiority might have played a small role in his decision. “Fine, I’ll bite.”

“Yeah?” Lance responded immediately, perking up like a puppy that’d been praised. Keith told himself that that reaction was annoying more-so than it was endearing.

“You gotta clean Red and everything, you hear me?” He stated flatly, making sure there’d be no wiggle room if Lance were to try and get out of this after losing. That was usually how these things went, Lance would march up to him with all the confidence in the world to instigate a challenge, and then he’d get his ass kicked and backtrack faster than his long legs could carry him.

Keith found himself feeling oddly excited for it this time around, which was what led him to the realization that it’d been awhile since they’d fooled around like this. It seemed like even longer than it actually was, considering how quickly Lance had been growing more and more distant as the weeks passed since Shiro left. While everyone else seemed to be recovering from the loss right about now, Lance only seemed to be acting weirder.

God, he almost missed the idiot, despite the fact they’d been seeing more of each other than ever before. What was wrong with him?

“That’s if you win.” Lance responded in an chipper singsong voice, swinging his legs over the edge of the bench he was sitting on to the best of his capability, considering they were way too long to be able to properly hang in the air. “If I win, you’re hand-washing all of my clothes.”

“We… have a mechanical magic washer?” Keith questioned, furrowing his eyebrows together deeply. Of all the things Lance could request, that one seemed a little redundant. It almost seemed like he’d come up with it on the spot, which made no sense at all, because what other reasoning would he have for challenging Keith like this if he didn’t have a set motive here?

Lance was panicking. The panicking had started the moment he’d allowed the silence to get to him and words had started stumbling from his mouth on their own accord. All because he couldn’t stand sitting there for a full fucking minute without having Keith’s attention on him, couldn’t stand to be without an obvious distraction because that made it oh so much harder to keep from blatantly staring at his fellow teammate.

A game. What kind of childish unattractive suggestion was that? Way to appeal to your not-crush, Lance, make yourself out to be a total ten year old. That might have flown a couple months ago when things were more mutual rivals than one-sided love interest between you two, but this was just pathetic. You flirt outrageously with women and come on way too strong, but when it’s a guy you can’t even mutter a line for the life of you.

Needless to say, Lance’s thoughts were his own worst enemy in that moment. With his rational thinking on a vacation, he just kept blurting dumb things, things that made no sense in a way that Keith would surely pick up on and begin to question. Wash his clothes?! Why would he even ask for something like that?! It was probably the easiest chore to do, not something worth passing off onto someone else when you had your choice of anything at all. He needed an excuse, fast .

“Yeah, but hand-washing cleans better and doesn’t leave them so wrinkly.” Lance rambled, knowing full well that he’d never hand-washed a garment in his entire eighteen years of existence. He also knew that Keith knew this, considering they’d often run into each other in the castle’s laundry room at odd hours of the night. This was because Lance was a terrible procrastinator and put off laundry until hours before he’d need something to wear the next day, while Keith was an insomniac that probably washed his clean clothes ten times over just for something to do to pass the time during the night.

Lance inhaled deeply, puffing his cheeks out. “Plus, you have to raid Allura’s closet and wear the closest thing to a maid’s outfit you can find while you do it!”

Immediately following the outburst, Lance became acutely aware of the fact that he’d just dug his own grave and neatly tucked himself into it. If asking for laundry had been suspicious with questionable motives, asking to see Keith in a dress had to be next level. He could only hope that Keith interpreted it as a weird macho thing, that he’d requested it because he thought it’d be degrading rather than super fucking hot .

Lance held his breath as he tentatively allowed his gaze to drift in Keith’s general direction, his heart racing as he prepared for the outraged reaction that would no doubt garner. When he finally forced himself to properly turn his head to look at Keith, he was surprised to find that the other boy simply looked puzzled more than angry. His lips were pursed, eyes narrowed as if he was putting deep thought into the situation.

That was the absolute last thing Lance wanted him to be doing. He needed a distraction and he needed it fast. “And you have to wear heels too!”

Admittedly, not his smartest attempt at changing the subject, but it did work at pulling Keith out of his own thoughts. He looked up suddenly, meeting Lance’s nervous gaze directly. His expression was unreadable for a few painful seconds, before a familiar smug grin stretched lazily across his lips.

“I’m not going to lose, so keep making ridiculous claims all you want.” Keith dismissed, waving his hand through the air. Lance resisted the urge to drop his jaw in shock, knowing that Keith had just agreed to dressing up in a conventionally sexy outfit for him, even if it was conditional and indirect. He’d expected one hell of a fight on that, not this passive indifference.

He hadn’t even entertained the idea that Keith might have agreed to his impulsive demands. Now that grave he’d dug felt ten feet deeper because what the hell was he going to do if he actually won this ?!

There may not have been a jawdrop involved, but Lance definitely stared in a state of shock. Right up until Keith reached his foot out across the space between them to nudge it into Lance’s ankle, causing the taller boy to jolt back to attention. Keith seemed to be acting casual enough for the both of them, which was weird to say the least. “Do you have any idea how many extra chores the black paladin has to do? You’re about to learn all about it, buddy.”

Lance forced himself to regulate his breathing, leaning back against the wall behind him for support as he tried to relax into the familiarity of a friendly competition. He could do this, all he had to do was lose, he just had to purposely tap out early on to ensure that there was no way he could win and have his demands met. He could do that, right?

He couldn’t do that. Keith was outright smirking at him now, his gaze dark and heated, so smug and confident that it made Lance’s blood boil even hotter. He wasn’t going to let this jerk win, it’d go to his head and he’d never hear the end of it.

“Ha, keep telling yourself that.” Lance replied sharply, reaching over to Keith’s side of the sauna where the thermostat was. He cranked it a couple notches higher, swallowing harshly before falling back into his seat. “I haven’t even broken a sweat yet.”

“That’s a lie and I know it’s a lie because I’ve been staring at your drenched face for fifteen minutes now.” Keith argued, the bite behind his words making it clear that he was getting quite into the idea of competing as usual. Lance wasn’t sure how to break it to him that they weren’t at all on the same page, that the sweat no doubt pouring off of his face had more to do with the nervous butterflies in his stomach than the heat around them. He decided that Keith didn’t need to know any of that, it’d probably only go to his head as well. Crush or no crush, Lance wasn’t about to stroke that inflated ego of his.

Thus, they fell into their usual routine as if nothing was out of the ordinary, as if their dynamic hadn’t been totally different and constantly changing the past two months. The heat helped, the more unbearable it grew the more irritated they felt, the more they needed someone to take it out on. And, as was tradition for them, they were each other’s preferred punching bags.

“Higher, I can handle it.” Lance grit out nearly fifteen minutes later, hands curled into tight fists at his sides. While he was bunched up and tense, knees brought up onto the bench and hugged to his chest, Keith was the opposite. If anything, he seemed to grow more comfortable as the heat rose, unfurling from his unapproachable slouch into a proper stretched-out lounging position. He looked like a cat basking in the sun. It was infuriating .

Keith sat up as per Lance’s request though, shaking his bangs out of his eyes and reaching for the thermostat. He cranked it upward accordingly, yawning almost as if he was bored. Lance’s eyes narrowed into an outright glare, though the harshness quickly faded from his expression as he watched Keith tug the elastic out of his hair.

It wasn’t the most graceful of actions, and his hair was a little too damp with sweat at this point to fall perfectly around his shoulders like some cheesy movie scene, but between the flex of muscles and the concentrated pout on Keith’s lips… it was enough to make Lance bury his head in his hands and stifle an outright whine. Why was the world so cruel to him? What had he done wrong?

“Just admit it, you’re in over your head and you know you have no chance of winning this.” Lance paused, spreading his fingers to peek curiously between them. Keith had pulled his hair back up now, and was in the middle of looking incredibly pleased with himself as he scrutinized Lance.

Was this it then? Had Keith noticed the fact Lance was blatantly checking him out?

Of course, that was giving Keith too much credit, almost as if he was a person capable of picking up on social cues. Instead, Lance watched as Keith pointed in his direction, sticking his tongue out like they might have back in the very beginning of this rivalry-friendship. “That’s why you’re acting weird right now, isn’t it? You know you messed up and you can’t figure out a way to get out of this without making an idiot of yourself.”

Oh, it is on .

Logically, Lance was aware that Keith had only jumped to that conclusion because with the context he’d been given it made the most sense, that up until recently that might have been the best way to explain Lance’s odd behavior. But the fact of the matter was that until he’d said that, Lance wasn’t actually all that invested in the challenge, was far more invested in Keith. That smugness and refusal to consider failure was just the wake-up call Lance needed to put his heart eyes on hold and remember what had drawn him to Keith in the first place.

Annoyance.

He could already feel his confidence returning to him the more he allowed himself to be driven by his irritation, rather than his infatuation. Life was just so much easier when he hated Keith in earnest, rather than hated him with a side of loving him so unconditionally it hurt. He didn’t have to second guess himself or the things he said, could actually manage some decent one-liners without stuttering them out or overthinking it just before.

“You’re awfully certain of that, huh? Overconfidence is a killer, Keith, you’d better consider every outcome here.” Lance purred, pointing toward the thermostat again in a silent demand. Keith’s eyes widened. It was borderline sweltering heat already, similar to sitting in a dark car with the windows up on the hottest day of the summer. Truth be told, he was more than a little bit uncomfortable now, but his competitive streak had been called upon, so compete he shall.

“Lance, I lived in the desert for months, I really don’t think this is a fair comp-”

“Crank the heat higher, Kogane.” Lance all but snarled, glaring over at Keith. Denying his request would be considered refusing to go any further, thus an automatic lose. Lance quirked an eyebrow, daring Keith to give up so early on. He would see this through, he was far too invested now to care about what winning actually meant for him, he just knew that he had to win in order for Keith to lose. Anything was a sacrifice worth making for that.

Keith realized this of course, had played these sorts of games with Lance enough times to know how they worked. He reached for the thermostat again, frowning all the while.

“There.” Keith huffed, lying down along the length of the bench. He folded his arms, resting his head atop them. His skin felt hot to the touch and sticky, uncomfortably damp and humid all over. He’d been almost expecting Lance to realize his mistake this time around and back out, but he should have known better than that. Whether he’d been acting more sullen lately or not, this was still the same Lance he knew and tolerated. Not once in the history of all his bad decisions had Lance admitted to them being such, he’d see anything through if it meant coddling his pride. “Happy?”

“Considering you’re finally starting to look uncomfortable, I’m overjoyed.” Lance replied, stretching out across his bench as well. While Keith had opted to lay on his stomach, Lance had rolled over onto his back and sent his long limbs sprawling over the edge toward the floor. It was almost comical, but Keith was determined to save his energy, which meant no smiling.

A few minutes passed before Lance let out a long, deep sigh. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead into a makeshift quiff of sorts. He turned his head, staring over at Keith with an unimpressed scowl. “I think you’re cheating.”

“I literally just said that it wasn’t fair because-”

“That ice cold cavern in your chest where your heart should be is helping you stay cool, just admit it.” He sighed out, dramatically throwing his arm over his eyes. Keith sighed as well, but less for the dramatics and more out of genuine exhaustion that was present whenever he dealt with Lance for extended periods of time.

“I hate you so much.” Keith stated bluntly, swiping the back of his hand across his forehead and pulling a face at the perspiration it came away with. It was hot, uncomfortable, and now Lance was acting like his usual jerk self again. Keith had no idea why he’d thought for even a second that he missed this, that he was better off being close to Lance rather than far, far apart. This was practically torture.

Torture comparable to… the torture that was watching Lance’s face fall into something insecure and unfamiliar the moment those words left Keith’s lips. He looked so hurt, like he wasn’t even trying to filter his natural reaction, or maybe he couldn’t. Keith mentally cursed himself, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Maybe ‘hate’ was too harsh of a word… they’d been apart for a while, maybe he should ease into their former rivalry with a little more caution. He still wasn’t sure why Lance had distanced himself in the first place.

Then, as quickly as the frown had appeared, Lance wiped it away in an instant and flashed his teeth in a broad smirk. He sat up, stretching his arms high above his head and glaring at Keith all the while.

“Hate me harder, baby , I can take it.” Lance whispered, the words oozing over-exaggerated seduction that confused Keith even further. What was with all these mixed signals?! What the hell was Lance trying to play at?! Was getting in his head and psyching him out his intention?!

Whatever the reasoning behind the mind games, i was obnoxious. It was obnoxious to the exact degree that Keith was re-convinced that he had no reason to be feeling bad for this idiot of all people.

“You know why it feels so familiar to me being in here with you of all people?” Keith growled slowly, inhaling deeply as it grew more difficult to take a full breath in the hot temperature. He felt groggy and overtired already, his every movement protested by his entire body. Still, he lifted his hand to point accusatively at Lance.

“Because you’ve spent endless nights fantasizing about my half-naked body?” Lance questioned almost absentmindedly, wiggling his eyebrows. Keith scoffed, feeling an odd mix between gravely offended and ashamed that Lance would even suggest something like that.

It wasn’t like they had a lot of options in their lives right now, Keith’s poor gay self had to choose between someone he saw as a brother, someone he saw as a weird uncle, someone who was very much straight and taken, and then his self-proclaimed idiot rival Lance. Fantasy fuel was hard to come by these days, alright? He’d had some low moments where he thought that maybe, maybe if Lance had lost his tongue in a battle and was no longer capable of spewing bullshit nonstop, there could be some underlying potential there.

To put it bluntly, when his personality was taken out of the mix, Lance was downright hot. Not in a ‘there are only four potential mates on this ship and you’re the closest thing to tolerable there is’ way, but in an overwhelming ‘I noticed you first thing out of the hundreds of cadets that attended our Garrison orientation all those months ago’ way. Of course, the initial attraction had dissipated fairly quickly when Keith actually heard Lance speak for the first time, and Keith had since sworn himself to utter secrecy about his first impression. Lance never, ever needed to know any of this, his ego would grow to something intolerable.

But now that they were stuck together and he was forced to look at someone so unfairly beautiful all the time... it was hard to pretend he didn’t notice it.

Besides, the whole point of fantasies was that they could be whatever he wanted them to, he could just tweak a few things in Lance’s personality and then he was set.

Not that Lance could possibly know any of that, he’d yet to even figure out that Keith was gay. He was just pointing fingers blindly in an attempt to annoy Keith, trying to say the most unbelievable and disgusting things he could think of to rile up the red paladin. Whether it was intentional or not, the arrow still hit a very soft spot in Keith’s armor and he found himself blushing like an idiot no matter how he tried to hide it.

Damn it, now was not the time to think about any of this. It’s not like he actually wanted Lance in reality, he wasn’t a goddamn masochist, but between the heat and the close quarters and the lack of clothing it was hard to reason with himself to think about anything else.

“No.” Keith snapped, sounding particularly vicious. He was annoyed with himself and more than willing to take it out on the brat in front of him for pouring salt into one of his festering wounds. “Because every time I’ve ever imagined what Hell might be like, the defining features have been this excruciating heat and the nails-on-a-chalkboard sensation of listening to your voice.”

“I don’t even have to use my imagination to picture Hell when I spend half my days standing next to satan’s spawn himself!” Lance screeched in response, clearly picking up on the shift in the atmosphere as Keith grew properly angry. Even if it was directed at himself, the emotion was hard to miss once it was present.

“You’re a plague on my existence!” Keith yelled back, standing to tower over Lance’s slouched form. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, heart racing in his chest. Lance didn’t rise to the occasion, simply leaned forward and fluttered his eyelashes up at Keith in the most irritating way.

“If I was drinking a glass of water and stumbled across you on fire, I would take a sip and then pour the water onto the ground just out of your reach.” Lance hissed, reaching out to shove Keith back a step. It was a brutal push really, Keith was fairly certain he’d bruise afterward and even Lance looked a little apologetic for his own carelessness, but the residual ache of the contact wasn’t what lingered in Keith’s mind.

It was the feel of it, Lance’s long fingers spread out across his chest, his skin burning impossibly hotter under the attention. It was so long since anyone had been close enough to him in any state of undress to actually touch him. Even with clothes on, the most attention he received was the occasional pat on the back or brush of hands.

If Lance’s hands had settled just a little bit higher, they might have brushed over his nipples, or a little bit lower and they’d be bordering on the downward dip between his hips.

Keith huffed to cover the mortifying squeak that nearly left his lips, looking down at his feet in an attempt to hide his face from view behind his bangs.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was so not going to allow himself to be into this, to show genuine interest in actual, real Lance McClain. Fantasy Lance was excusable, didn’t even have to bear a single resemblance, but this was on an entirely different plane of pathetic. Was he really so touch-starved that a hot temperature and a lack of clothes was all it took to make someone like Lance look like someone that he’d be into ?

He tuned back into reality just in time to watch as real Lance lifted a single eyebrow so high that it was almost concerning, making it blatantly clear that he’d picked up on Keith’s weird reaction.

“Then I would just move to slurp it up!” Keith blurted hurriedly, rushing to get a reply out as quickly as possible after delaying so long. Of course, not thinking whatsoever resulted in a very stupid response, one that left Lance blinking dumbly at him as he processed it. Keith groaned aloud despite himself, falling back onto his respective bench and burying his face into his knees.

Lance wasn’t entirely sure how to process the state that Keith had regressed into throughout the course of their conversation. Of course, he’d expected at least a little bit of tension after so long apart, but he’d never once seen Keith like this . He seemed so far from his usual composure. Where normally he had his every emotion on lockdown, now his entire being seemed to be a jumbled mix of how he was feeling. It was hard to decipher, but also relieving. Keith seemed less like an unapproachable robot and more like a person for once.

Messy was a good look on him. It did very little to stop the treacherous pitter-patter of Lance’s heart.

“One: people on fire can’t move, you would be like half burnt to a crisp already in this scenario.” Lance argued, though even he was aware of how much closer he sounded to amused than annoyed. He tucked down the second of the two fingers he’d been holding up, taking a staggering deep breath. “Two: I want you to never say the words ‘slurp it up’ to me in any context ever again.”

As he finished speaking, the dim lights overhead began to flicker. Lance glanced up curiously, just in time to watch as they went out completely. The room was instantly engulfed in total darkness and he was met with the uncomfortable realization that this was exactly what food felt like when it was put into the oven. The temperature was scorching and he couldn’t see a damn thing.

“What did Lance just do?” Keith questioned from his side of the sauna, his voice an unimpressed grumble. The offended gasp that was instinctively torn from Lance’s throat sounded immediately, his urge to defend himself too strong to ignore.

“I’m sitting right here!”

“Sorry, force of habit.” Keith excused himself, sounding almost genuine. Lance wasn’t about to believe that excuse though, so he shifted to the edge of his seat and tried to ignore the way his body protested any movement in such heat. Then, he kicked as hard as he could in the general direction Keith had been when the lights went out. His toes met with a fleshy surface first try. “Ow!”

“You deserved that!” Lance screeched, lifting his chin high in the air stubbornly and refusing to apologize whatsoever. In fact, he was waiting on Keith to apologize, but he quickly realized that might be a long wait as shuffling started to sound on the opposite side of the small room. Keith must have been fumbling for the thermostat or the door.

“Go to hell.” He growled back at Lance, his emotions effectively hidden again now that Lance couldn’t read his face for clues. Pouting, the blue paladin sunk down until his chin was tucked against his chest, the majority of his body hanging over the edge of the seat he was on.

“Need I remind you? I’m already there.” He mumbled, trying to hide the hurt in his voice that Keith had been the first one to make that comparison. Here he was on cloud nine, basking in the attention of his crush, and then Keith had gone and told him his voice was like hearing nails on a chalkboard and this quality time was his own personal definition of hell. What an asshole Keith was, Lance had no idea what he saw in him now that the lights were off (that was a total lie, but the beauty of telling lies to yourself was no one else could possibly call you out on your bullshit).

“Whatever, guess we have to cut this challenge short.” Keith sighed, though if Lance wasn’t mistaken there was definitely a hint of relief behind his words. Lance narrowed his eyes determinedly, wishing more than anything that he could have some form of night vision that would allow him to see what Keith looked like in that moment. Was he relieved because he thought he was going to lose? Or… was he relieved because he was really that annoyed by Lance that he was dying for an excuse to leave?

Lance frowned, bringing both of his hands up to sweep his hair back, finding that his bangs were completely soaked now and stayed plastered to his scalp even after his hands had moved away. He shifted, scowling at the way the fabric of his shorts had started to cling to his legs. This was so not worth it, he couldn’t even be upset that Keith wanted out of here as quickly as possible. Way to win over your crush, Lance, just fucking torture the shit out of him in an enclosed, dark, hot space.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Lance muttered dismissively, getting to his feet with intentions of following after Keith the moment the door opened and light was visible again. Only he didn’t get to, as the room stayed pitch black for another minute while the sound of shuffling where Keith stood grew more and more frantic. He almost had to wonder if Keith had simply decided to claw his way straight through the wall or something, when the other paladin finally started to mumble under his breath to himself.

“The door isn’t opening, it must be powered by electricity. The whole castle must be lights out and experiencing some kind of issue for it to just quit like-”

“Hm?” Lance hummed loudly and purposefully, pacing over to stand behind Keith. He only knew this was where he was standing because he accidentally walked a little too close and crashed into the other in the darkness, had steadied himself by grabbing onto Keith’s shoulder and hip. This earned him an elbow to the ribs, the breath leaving his lungs in one harsh puff of air.

“The door isn’t fucking opening, do you need me to spell it out for you?!” Keith roared in response, lurching away from Lance like he’d been shot by the simple touch of the other. Lance’s smile faltered, insecurity tracing his every thought as he cautiously took a stumbling step backward. That was real anger there, not playful in any way at all. Geesh, Keith was really pissed that he had to stay in here with him, huh? He’d probably rather be literally anywhere else. Fuck, Lance really must be an intolerable little shit, this was Keith’s nightmare fuel, no doubt.

That realization fucking stung . It wasn’t like he’d never thought it before, but that was back when they had a rivalry going on, not whatever the hell was happening to Lance these days. He’d distanced himself on purpose because he wasn’t ready to face this, wasn’t sure he could take being treated like such a dispensable annoyance now that he didn’t see Keith as the same whatsoever.

He’d been right. The ache that erupted through his chest hurt unlike anything he’d felt before, eyes starting to sting with unshed tears. He wasn’t about to let Keith know this though, so he defaulted to the most familiar emotion he could find. Defences up and the element of surprise on his side, Lance threw his hands up to Keith’s back again and shoved him. It wasn’t as harsh as his last one, but it was instigative, it would lead to more if Keith rose to the challenge.

“No, I just need you to speak in a tone above a slurred drunken mumble! Can you do that for me?!”

“The day I do something for you will be the day that I die!” Keith snapped back immediately, whirling around before Lance had even had time to react and pull his hands back to his side. Keith grabbed his arm and tugged downward so suddenly that it caught Lance off balance, his clammy feet slipping against the tiled floor and sending him crashing down against it.

“Well, as luck would have it, I’m about ready to kill you!” Lance yelled up at the other boy, throwing his entire body toward where he knew Keith was standing. He collided with Keith’s knees full-force, ignoring the ache that resulted in his shoulder and instead basking in the glory that was the following thud as Keith toppled to the floor. He grinned, jumping on top of the other, knees digging into his chest and hands coming up to tug at his stupidly long hair.

If Keith would rather be anywhere else than here, Lance would just have to force himself to feel the same. His delusional crush was officially a thing of the past, this asshole didn’t deserve any affection from anyone.

Keith decided the moment the lights flickered off, that he would rather be literally anywhere else than where he was right now. The tension had been weird but manageable even with his iffy social skills, the heat had been borderline intolerable but his stubbornness had been persistent, the attraction that eventually started to bleed over into arousal was mortifying and should have been the last straw, but the promise that they’d go their separate ways soon was enough to make him persevere. Keith knew, the very moment the lights flickered, that the universe was out to get him again.

The door was an automatic sliding door, like all of the others in the castle. If the power was down for everything else, the doors were on that list. Still, he jumped to his feet and immediately scrambled over to try and open it with brute force alone. He tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling, begging fate to have mercy on him. He was soaked with sweat, his heart was staging a full-fledged mutiny against him, and on top of all that there was an entirely different heat that’d been pooling in his lower abdomen no matter how he tried to ward it off. Stupid touch-starved idiot, a boy touches you for half a second and you’re gonna spend the next month fighting off boners every time he looks at you.

Realizing that the door wasn’t working but not quite ready to admit as much to Lance, he’d looked over his shoulder back at the other boy. His body felt too heavy for his legs, the temptation to just collapse growing stronger with each wave of warmth that circulated around the room. He swayed slightly when his gaze fell on Lance, but he told himself weakness in his knees was solely due to the heat exhaustion and not the hot boy he was staring at.

He watched as Lance sprawled himself out, spreading his legs in a way that could have been interpreted as suggestive in a different atmosphere. Then, he lifted his arms, taking a deep breath as he raked his fingers through his hair. Keith’s teeth sunk into his bottom lip, the pain a poor distraction from the attraction screaming at him as he watched the way Lance’s hair stayed the way he’d brushed it back, leaving those heavily-lidded deep blue eyes on perfect display as he… as he blinked blearily into the darkness.

Right, normal not-alien people probably couldn’t see shit right now. Thanks, Galra DNA, giving Keith extra chances to check out cute boys without being noticed since day one. Not at all creepy or anything.

And okay, after that he’d plastered himself in the door and started outright scratching at it like an animal because he needed out of here. He was getting hard , just from looking at Lance slick with sweat and half-naked. He would never, ever be able to live this down if anyone found out. He’d make Lance so uncomfortable, their already tumultuous relationship would be on the rocks permanently. He couldn’t risk that when they needed to work together, there was too much at stake for any of this to be happening.

Except it was happening anyway, happened even more-so when Lance fucking crept up behind him while he was having a breakdown and put hands on him again. Even if it was only to steady himself so he wouldn’t fall over, even if his hip and his shoulder weren’t necessarily the most suggestive places they could have landed, Keith’s immediate reaction was to freak out. He didn’t want Lance anywhere near him, anywhere near capable of piecing together what was going on with him right now. In that one way, the darkness of the room was a blessing.

Though, even when he couldn’t see an inch in front of himself, Lance still had this uncanny ability to pick up on exactly what people wanted from him so he could give them the exact opposite. So as Keith flipped out in hopes of putting space between them, Lance immediately retaliated by getting so much closer that he was literally sat on top of Keith’s chest and pulling at his hair in a way that was probably supposed to be painful (in a bad way).

“Get off of me!” Keith all but screamed, thrashing about violently beneath the other boy in hopes of trying to buck him off before he shifted any lower. Wouldn’t that just be hilarious? Lance just sitting right on his lap? No, it wouldn’t be. Keith was pretty sure he wouldn’t make it out of this room alive if that happened, he’d either die at the hands of one very disgusted Lance or the throes of never ending embarrassment. Either way, Lance finding out that Keith was sporting a semi right now? Certain death, no doubt about that.

He threw his hands up, grabbing onto Lance’s hips and trying to ignore the connotations of what he was doing as he rolled them so he was on top instead. This was, he could hold himself up at a respective distance, make sure there was at least a foot of distance between the length of their bodies even as they fought. It was a foolproof plan, the exception being that one fool that never followed plans to save his soul.

Keith didn’t even have time to settle or throw a punch after changing positions before long legs had wrapped around his torso, like some sort of strangely sexual boa constrictor. He coughed, thankful that they’d fallen just high enough over his hips to keep from his secret being exposed. He would fight to death to avoid that happening. Best case scenario? He’d knock Lance unconscious until help arrived then tell them Lance passed out from the heat.

It was actually violent after that, a fury of nails and fists and teeth as they wrestled with each other. Even in the beginning, they hadn’t been quite this rough with each other, at least not without Shiro stepping in to tear them apart. Keith knew his own reasoning, that he was doing what he had to, but he couldn’t help but wonder what Lance’s problem was that warranted being so vicious about it. Was the heat really getting to him that much?

At some point during their scuffle, which Keith had miraculously managed to survive through without giving himself away, Lance had planted his feet against Keith’s stomach and then kicked with all the force he could manage. Needless to say, Keith was sent flying across the floor to the other side of the room. He propped himself up on his elbows, braced to defend himself from another attack, when he spotted Lance still on the other side of the room in a similar position. Oh, that’s right, he can’t see a goddamn thing right now.

Keith sat up as quietly as possible, taking a few seconds to catch his breath. His head felt foggy and all the touchy-touchy fighting and rolling around together had only worsened his state. His skin burned and he wasn’t even sure anymore if it was from the temperature of the room or the memory of all the places Lance’s hands had been on him. He tilted his head back, cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling as loud as he could. “Allura! Pidge! Hunk!”

“Coran!” Lance yelled immediately after, probably because he just couldn’t stand being the only silent one in a room. That or he just had to have the last word. Keith glared at him.

“Shiro! Can you hear us from the void of existence?!” He yelled, his tone very-clearly meant to mock Lance. This earned him the show of watching Lance blindly kick in his direction, coming nowhere close to where Keith was actually sat. Lance’s foot then hit a bench instead, the following exaggerated yowl of pain so signature Lance that Keith felt a fondness in his chest. He smiled despite himself, rolling his eyes.

When, inevitably, no one responded, Keith sagged down against the wall in defeat. “That’s it, we’re screwed. We’re going to die here.”

“Whose fault is that?” Lance grumbled back at him, crossing his arms over his chest. Immediately afterward, he pulled his hands away to scowl at them, presumably disgusted by how sweaty they were.

“Yours!” Keith yelled, wishing he had something on him to chuck at Lance. An idea struck him and he tugged the elastic from his hair, considering the ponytail had ended up messy and half-undone during their fight anyway. He sat up straighter, concentrating as he stretched it out and prepared to send it flying directly into Lance’s dumb face. “You were the one that turned the thermostat into a fucking challenge and kept asking me to crank it up!”

“You were the dumbass that actually did it!” Lance hollered back at him, just barely managing to get the words out before the elastic soared directly into his cheek. He recoiled immediately in shock, cupping his cheek as if totally lost as to what had hit him. Belatedly, he seemed to realize and reacted about as well as Keith had hoped for him to. He threw his hands out and shrugged, shaking his head at Keith. “Um, ow?!”

“You started it!” Keith responded snappily, turning his cheek to stare at the wall.

“You started it!”

“You-” Keith realized that he was playing into a winnerless fight early on for once, clearing his throat instead and resolving to save his breath. He had to think critically here, they were very much at risk of something terrible if they weren’t found by someone soon. Now was the time to think like a leader, not like a rival or a lovestruck fool. “Look, we should be trying to save as much energy as possible if we want to last any amount of time.”

He turned to Lance, watching patiently to see if he would be mature about this or try and continue their fight. Lance seemed contemplative about this as well, even reaching up to scratch at his chin.

“We should probably take our clothes off, too.” Lance said casually, almost as if it was common knowledge and nothing more. Keith paled considerably, immediately bringing his knees up and pressing them together, closing his legs as tightly as possible and ignoring the discomfort this brought him. He was so hard now that it hurt, every movement that wasn’t an attempt to relieve himself feeling ten times more difficult. He wasn’t used to getting hot and bothered in any sort of public setting, until now he’d always had to work himself up in private to get anywhere close to this point.

Picking up on the silence in the room, Lance looked around curiously. “In the name of survivalism and all that, nothing else.”

“You’re right.” Keith sighed in defeat, knowing what he had to do but dreading it all the same. They were in the dark on opposite sides of the room, it’d be okay. Lance couldn’t even see him. Keith would be able to see him , though. Oh god. If sitting in a room half-naked with Lance got him this worked up, how the hell was he going to last when they were fully-naked? Was surviving really worth that? Death didn’t seem like such a bad alternative really, at least then he’d never have to-

“I was joking ! Put your dick back in your shorts or I swear on everything that is holy I will rip it off!” Lance screeched suddenly, like his mind had only just now caught up to what Keith had said. It was only after Lance had said this that Keith clued into what an outrageous request that was, that the only logical answer was that it’d been a joke all along. Right. Of course. He knew that.

“I’d love to see you try!” He shouted angrily, trying to make up for the flaming blush in his cheeks.

“You’re into some weird shit, buddy!” Lance yelled right back, his voice crack the only thing to give away that maybe there was more to his reaction than just the tone of his voice. Keith looked in his direction again, furrowing his eyebrows together when he saw the state Lance was in. He definitely didn’t look angry like his voice had suggested, he looked nearly as flustered as Keith felt.

He was sat there with his lanky limbs sprawled out across the floor as much as possible, as if trying to leech any cold from the tiles. His hair was a mess sticking up in every direction, his tan skin glistening with a sheen of sweat, and he was mouthing things to himself. Not mumbling aloud like he normally would have, but his lips were moving as if to form words though no audible noise came out. Keith had never wished more in his life that he could read lips. Lance looked so frantic and messy, like he was carrying out an internal debate of high importance.

Thus, Keith expected something really insightful when Lance finally spoke. His expectations didn’t line up with reality whatsoever. “This sucks .”

“You suck.” Keith hissed out, sneering over at Lance for letting him down so terribly. He’d been expecting a breakthrough there, a discussion about something important, like why their relationship had been so estranged lately. He may not always pick up on social cues, might need an actual nudge compared to everyone else when it came to deciphering nonverbal communication forms, but he wasn’t completely socially illiterate. He could tell that Lance was… uncomfortable around him. He wanted to know what he’d done wrong and correct himself, he didn’t have a lot of friends to begin with and couldn’t risk losing one now.

“I suck, huh?” Lance spoke suddenly, his voice back to that sickeningly smooth as honey tone that he reserved solely for flirting or teasing. Keith all but groaned, all too aware of what direction this was about to take. He’d heard the line a million times or more since growing closer to Lance and all, just never in such an ironically painful moment. “Only if you ask nicely, babe .”

Right, this was Lance, of course he couldn’t just leave it at the one-liner and had to add a pet name as well. It was his life mission to torture everyone around him to the highest degree. Judging by the wave of arousal and selfish hope that washed over him following that, that torture method was highly effective.

Oh, how he wanted to give Lance a taste of his own medicine and shut him up. He’d never actually tried before, the moment teasing or anything remotely flirty happened Keith was out of his familiar territory and immediately reverted to angry and defensive. He’d never been quite so far gone before though, so desperate to evade the teasing that he’d give anything to make sure he could. The absolute last thing he needed was to get so worked up that he came in his pants untouched or something, he needed Lance to screw off and fast.

And that’s exactly the thought process that led him to opening his big, dumb mouth and saying the words that he’d surely come to regret with his entire being. He knew this, even as he started to speak, but much like watching a trainwreck occur, he was incapable of preventing or stopping anything when it was this far gone.

“Oh, Lance , please put your mouth on me.” Keith requested, in what was very much not a moan, merely a sarcastic interpretation of one. He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head and bracing himself against the wall. He waited, watching as Lance’s face flickered between what could have been interest and annoyance or the seven stages of grief. Keith wasn’t sure.

Insecurity began to eat at him the more he was left to reconsider that terrible uncharacteristic joke, his heart racing in his chest. “Heh, like that?”

Lance did like that. In fact, Lance liked that so much, that he had summoned upon every ounce of willpower he had not to move a muscle in reaction. The temptation to immediately close the distance between them and take Keith up on that sarcastic offer was criminal. And even if that didn’t end up happening, he had to keep his mouth firmly shut lest he say something along the lines of ‘please fuck me, I will do your chores for a year’ in response.

Remember when he said that his crush was a thing of the past a few minutes ago? Thinking that his crush was a thing of the past was officially a thing of the past. His crush was still very much there, very much overwhelming in its nature. In fact, if he was allowing himself to speak right now, he’d probably also be begging Keith to marry him.

“Very funny.” Lance managed to get out finally, his voice sounding wobbly and nervous even to his own ears. If Keith didn’t know before, he definitely knew now. Lance was head over heels, puppy love so strong he felt like howling at the moon, his heart racing like it was preparing to run in the olympics, butterflies comparable to birds of prey in his stomach, lovesick so strong that not a doctor would be willing to save him.

He was fucked, in short.

Hell if he’d ever admit that, though. “Was that supposed to be your sexy-time voice? You sound like Kaltenecker.”

Lance lied through his teeth, praying that it sounded at least a little bit believable and he wasn’t making a total fool out of himself. The truth was, Keith sounded more like a pornstar than a cow, and that knowledge was absolutely not something Lance was planning on taking advantage of in any future fantasies of his. Of course not, pfft. It wasn’t like it was already playing on repeat in his mind or anything like that. He definitely wasn’t starting to feel an entirely new kind of heat burning underneath his skin rather than in the air around him.

“It was a joke , Lance.” Keith snapped, sounding particularly cold and distant. That was that, then. Keith’s impulsive and short-lived decision to actually tease Lance back had died rather early on. As much as Lance would miss it, that was probably for the best. He was vulnerable after all, it was one thing knowing that Keith would never like him back and would always treat him terribly at times, but knowing what Keith would hypothetically sound like in bed was just Lance cruelty. “I don’t actually sound like that, ever.”

“Who’s to say that’s not just because no one ever wants to have sexy-time with you?” Lance responded bitterly, totally not pouting because Keith had just gone right ahead and killed his fantasy before he’d even had a chance to embrace it. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t realistic that Keith sounded like that all the time in bed, it was probably more than a little bit exaggerated. Still, it wasn’t like he’d ever get close enough to know any better, he could have lived out the rest of his life believing in that beautiful lie.

“Drop the act, everyone on the team knows you have about as much experience as a rock.” Keith deadpanned, his voice so monotone it was almost robotic.

“Is that how low your standards for potential mates are? You’re familiar with the sexual experience level of rocks?” Lance responded easily, a shit-eating grin plastered to his face because he was finally starting to feel comfortable again. This was them, this was easy. It was incredibly nice to fall back into their usual back and forth banter, it came so much more naturally to Lance than flirting with Keith ever would.

“I’m willing to bet that even a rock would be a better lover than you.” Keith grumbled in response, though he didn’t sound as into it as usual. Lance squinted into the darkness in hopes of trying to see something, anything at all. He couldn’t, but he got his explanation in the form of a long yawn just a few short seconds later. The heat must have been really getting to Keith now. “I’m going to sweat to death at this rate.”

“Mm.” Lance hummed in acknowledgement, stretching his arms high above his head when his limbs started to feel too heavy again.

“My shorts are soaked through.” Keith complained again, the whine in his voice pretty cute. Lance smirked to himself, lying back on the floor and staring toward the ceiling smugly.

“Sorry, my bad.” Lance whispered with pretend guilt, gasping quietly. “Sometimes I underestimate my power over people.”

“You are so disgusting.” Keith grunted in response, though he didn’t sound nearly as angry or as irritated as Lance had been hoping for. Okay, so they didn’t exactly have the energy to fight like usual right now, fine. He’d just have to find another way to make things feel more casual between them and lighten the mood.

“You could just take them off.” Yes, Lance, asking your crush to strip is the number one recommended way to break the ice.

There was a painstakingly long pause then, while Keith presumably processed the suggestion. Lance wasn’t really sure what to make of that. He still wasn’t sure what to think of the fact that Keith had almost listened to him and undressed earlier when it was a joke, so it’d be weird regardless of how he replied now. Good job, Lance, you’ve only made things even more awkward and tense.

“... You’re not gonna rip my dick off?” Keith asked finally, sounding overly cautious. That was fair, Lance couldn’t really blame him for that. If Lance was still planning some sort of attack, it made sense that Keith wouldn’t want to be completely naked and vulnerable to it. This was a trust exercise. A bonding moment, if you would.

“I may have overreacted before.” Lance explained meekly, scratching at the back of his neck where his hair was flattened to his skin. “We’re in the dark, on opposite sides of the room, I don’t think we need to worry too much. Just, stay on your side.”

“... Are you taking yours off too?”

“Uh, no?” Lance scoffed, even going so far as to break out into forced laughter. He had no idea what answer Keith was hoping for there, but by default he assumed that it’d be the one that meant seeing the least amount of Lance’s body that he could. Apparently, he assumed wrong about that, given the offended huff that followed.

“Don’t ask me to do it if you wouldn’t!” Keith insisted in obvious outrage, throwing Lance for a complete blank. Oh. Keith had wanted him to get naked? Right here? Only a few feet away from him, who would also be naked? Right, okay, sure, why the hell not? Not like anything else that’d happened since he set foot into this room had made any sense.

“Fine, let’s both do it on the count of three and promise to never speak of this again? Okay?” Lance asked, his pulse positively thrumming in his veins. Did this count as a base? Getting naked with someone else had to count as like, halfway to first or something, right? He was about to lose his halfway to first base-ginity with Keith. Sweet. No pressure. It’s not like Keith can even see him.

Keith couldn’t see him, but only because he’d decided to rub at his eyes so harshly that he was seeing stars and refused to stop. This was definitely an invasion of privacy, Lance didn’t even know that he could see in the dark and he wasn’t comfortable bringing up the topic of his Galra heritage unless it was a life or death situation. And he really wanted to take his shorts off, he was so hard at this point that the feeling of the more-or-less plastic mesh inner material of swim trunks was agonizing.

So, he resolved to just… not look at Lance.

Ever.

Again.

Initially because he didn’t want to see anything he hadn’t been given permission to see, but also because he would never be able to look Lance in the eye knowing that this had happened between them. He’d been naked around other guys before, that wasn’t a new concept necessarily, but that was from a mutual desire and agreement to. Not because circumstances forced the intimacy upon them. And of course it had to be Lance, Lance who would make an impossibly big deal of it if the lights came back on suddenly and he got so much as a glimpse at Keith’s naked body.

He could already hear the exaggerated gagging noises and all the gibberish Lance would spit out that translated directly to his own personal form of ‘no-homo’. That was just the type of person that Lance was (unlike Keith’s ideal fantasy version of Lance, who was very much a yes-homo kind of guy).

“Whatever. I’m only doing this because I don’t want to die with you being the last person I spoke to.”

“One, two, three.” Lance began the countdown so suddenly that Keith had to scramble to lift his hips and undo the drawstring at the front of his shorts, barely managing to start tugging them down his thighs as he heard Lance’s shorts land somewhere close to him on the floor. He grimaced, kicking his own the rest of the way off. This is it then, they’re very much naked together, despite all of Keith’s better judgment.

Now they just had to bask in the mutual awkwardness, wait for help to come, and not speak again until days later once the humiliation had finally faded. That would be- “Hey, Keith?”

“... What?”

“Two bros chillin’ in a sauna, five feet apart ‘cause they’re not gay.” Lance sung proudly, his awe-worthy singing voice doing little to make up for the fact that that had to be the single-most worst thing Lance could have said in that moment. How dense was this boy? Here Keith was, sitting there with his hard cock leaking against his stomach just from Lance’s voice and flirting alone, and he really hadn’t clued in at all to the fact that Keith was the tiniest bit out of it each and every time a line was dropped? Keith was gay! He was the gayest kind of gay! It wasn’t that hard to see if you actually pulled your head out of your own ass enough to register the people around you!

“Lance, you idiot, I am gay.” Keith spat, officially coming out for the first time in his life. He’d never had a need to before now, most people just caught on whenever he used male pronouns when talking about his future partners or spent just a little bit too long ogling other guys. Lance was just a special, unique kind of dense.

The silence that followed was deafening. Keith’s insecurities came bubbling back to the surface, the reasoning behind why he’d never made a big deal out of his sexuality suddenly much clearer now that he was facing the fear firsthand. Memories of all the people who’d caught on to his sexuality even before he had and how they’d treated him for it in the heart of accepting and loving Texas circled his mind tauntingly.

What if Lance reacted like one of them? Sure, he didn’t seem like that kind of asshole, but how was Keith supposed to know? He was terrible at picking up obvious social cues, being a homophobe wasn’t exactly something someone announced about themselves until the heat of the moment.

Despite his earlier promise, Keith tentatively looked up through his lashes. He kept his gaze focused determinedly on Lance’s face only, determined to be a decent person. Lance didn’t look angry or threatening, he looked shocked and confused more than anything else. Though, maybe that was because he’d expected better of Keith, and he’d yet to process the information enough to react to it beyond the initial-

“Oh.” Lance blurted dumbly, finally sharing his grand response to such an important and vulnerable piece of information. Keith’s jaw dropped, leaving him dumbly gaping at Lance in disbelief. That was it? Even outrage would have been better than that, this passive indifference was a piss off. He wanted an earnest reaction, negative or positive. He narrowed his eyes angrily, waiting to see how Lance would try to skirt around the subject. Typical. “For how long?”

“You’re joking, right?” Keith scoffed, shaking his head. This was ludicrous, if Lance was really that bothered by it then he should just say it. This roundabout indirect way of pretending to be nice wasn’t going to fly with Keith. “Oh, I don’t know, I guess I just decided to like dudes last week. Sorry I didn’t update you yet, I was hoping to christen the decision by getting my ass fucked into oblivion first.”

Now it was Lance’s turn to gape, and god was it ever satisfying. He couldn’t actually see Keith, but he stared in the direction his voice was coming from with eyes as wide as saucers. He’d never heard that type of language come from Keith’s mouth, Keith was fairly certain he’d never get a chance to again, but the shock value of it all was positively priceless. Serves you right, douchebag.

“Sweet.” Lance gasped finally, clearly struggling to recover his composure. Keith groaned, annoyed that Lance was still trying to keep up the act. What a coward he was, couldn’t even admit to how much he was judging Keith. “That’s cool.”

“Don’t do that.” Keith bit out, gritting his teeth together. He’d just have to address it directly then, save them the hassle of avoiding the subject later. He knew that Lance had some sort of personal problem with this and he wanted Lance to know that he knew from the start. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you until now.”

“What? What am I doing wrong?” Lance squeaked, looking admittedly terrified at being called out. Keith rolled his eyes.

“You’re treating me differently because I’m gay.” He stated matter-of-factly, shoving his chin into the air proudly. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not ‘that gay guy Keith’, I’m still the exact same Keith I was before and you can make fun of me just the same. Nothing’s changed.”

“I could argue otherwise.” Lance mumbled under his breath, “I think everything’s changed.”

Keith wasn’t sure if he’d been meant to hear that or not, but it confirmed his suspicions either way. He tried to ignore that this was the most painful it’d ever been to be proven right. Sure, he and Lance had bickered and fought the majority of their relationship, but never about the things that mattered. They didn’t tear each other down by the fundamental parts of who they were, they were mutually respectful of each other even when fighting tooth and nail.

“If you try to pull some homophobic bullshit on me right now, I can’t promise I won’t strangle you to death.” Keith threatened, though it sounded less menacing than he’d intended it to. He was having a strange amount of difficulty hiding his emotions right now, especially considering his face couldn’t even give it away in this dark. He’d never struggled so much to bottle things up before, his arousal fading away to make room for a deep-rooted ache.

He’d thought Lance was better than that, that’s all.

Keith lowered his head, frowning as he tried to shake the sadness off of himself. Crying was definitely worse than having an erection when locked in a room with someone. The latter would result in polite pretend ignorance, whereas crying would almost always be addressed directly. He did not need Lance being fake kind to him and questioning why he was upset, offering comfort like he actually cared at all about him.

Lance had a shot. Lance had a chance. Lance hadn’t caught feelings for his assholish straight rival, he’d caught feelings for his assholish gay rival. Oh, how convenient that was.

The moment Keith told him this, the hopes he’d been squashing down for months started to tear their way through the dam he’d propped them behind. His heart was soaring insistently, demanding that he at least try when things were all pointing in the right direction. He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t, he had to at least see where Keith stood now.

And if the answer was a no, then so be it. Lance had already admitted to himself subconsciously that he wouldn’t be getting over this infatuation on his own, maybe rejection was what he needed. Normally, when he had a crush he didn’t hesitate to put himself out there, so rejection happened early on if it was going to (it almost always was, not a lot of people saw his affections as something valuable). This was the first time he’d ever hesitated, had ever seen it through and waited. He felt more attached than ever before, weak at the thought of Keith turning him down, but he needed to give it a try.

Right, think smooth thoughts Lance, right now he thinks you’re a homophobic straight guy so what’s the quickest way to disperse that fear?

“What if I try to pull some homosexual bullshit on you right now?”

“What?” Keith responded, sounding about as shocked as a man that just found out they were pregnant with an alien baby (Lance knew this because he’d met such a man a couple weeks ago on a mission). He waited patiently, fumbling with his hands and fidgeting nervously as he waited for the official verdict from Keith. He listened carefully for any sign of what to expect, but Keith was even more difficult to read than usual when you couldn’t see his expression. “I am not some inanimate object for you to broadcast your touch-starved desperation for physical attention onto just because I’m here and readily available to you. You know that, right?”

“Big words, Keith. Uh, yes, I know all of that.” Lance chuckled awkwardly, running a hand through his hair and worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. That was new. Keith’s response wasn’t an explicit yes, or an explicit no. It was just conversational, like he was actually willing to consider the idea. Maybe that was the difference between hitting on people you knew and strangers you’d never see again, these people had a little bit more tact when it came to letting you down.

Still, he didn’t want Keith to feel obligated to say anything just because they were friends, that’d be terrible of him. He decided to backtrack accordingly. “Look, we don’t have to do anything, I’m just offering. It’d pass the time, but don’t feel like you have to-”

“It’d make things a thousand times hotter than they already are.” Keith stated contemplatively, his voice not giving away a single emotion he was feeling. Lance sat up straighter, his heart positively pounding in his chest. If Keith was purposely drawing this out and stringing him along for the fun of it, their friendship was officially cancelled. They didn’t do shit like that to each other, their fighting was always superficial, and if emotions got involved beyond anger they were always quick to backtrack or apologize.

“That’s the goal, is it not?” Lance questioned weakly, sounding incredibly sheepish. He couldn’t believe that he’d suggested this, even though ‘homosexual bullshit’ encompassed a rather wide spectrum of possible things. Even if it only led to them kissing or something, that was a whole new world that Lance was in no way prepared for. But, oh, how he wanted it.

“Not that kind of hot.” Keith reiterated, a hint of amusement detectable in his voice now. Lance relaxed slightly, though his posture was still really uncomfortable. Despite the dark, he didn’t really feel comfortable just ‘letting it all hang out’ so to speak, so since shedding his shorts he’d been awkwardly turning his lower half in the opposite direction from his front, knees brought up to cover his lap from Keith’s line of view.

“I’m not just broadcasting desperation onto you, either.” Lance added as an afterthought, taking a deep breath. He felt overly energetic in more ways than one, his nerves and the small space all contributing to one terribly jumpy, fidgety, and rambly Lance. His filter was suffering tenfold for it, words stumbling past his lips that he’d never approve of. He gulped, cracking his knuckles all at once. “It’s not like I’ve never thought about it.”

“Thought about what , Lance?” Keith urged, making it painstakingly clear that he needed Lance to actually come out and say it. As if that wasn’t incriminating enough, as if Lance wasn’t already swamped with the sensation that he’d said far too much. It was too late now though, he realized. He’d already climbed his way out to the end of the branch that was bound to snap, either way he was going to fall, it didn’t matter whether someone caught him or not. “Now is not the time to be annoyingly vague, where is your usual blunt self?”

“I think I’m bi.” Lance blurted, inhaling deeply and puffing his chest out. He told himself to hold that breath for at least ten seconds to allow himself to think before he said anything else, but he’d never been particularly good at following orders from anyone. So, on the exhale he let out only two seconds later, he rattled through words so quickly that they seemed to slur together. “This isn’t a convenient revelation just because I’m naked in a room with a guy interested in guys, before you assume. I’ve been thinking this for a while. Like, a long while.”

“So... what you’re saying is that you’ve thought about being with a guy before?” Keith asked, pressing him even further because that was just the type of ruthless guy that he was. Lance shifted nervously, rubbing his legs together, reasoning with himself that out of all the times in his life he’d thoughtlessly flirted with people and admitted personal information to them, this had to be the one that he could fuck up the worst. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t -

“You.” Lance blurted, digging his nails into his palms. Okay, that wasn’t the end of the world, he could brush that off as some strange slip of the tongue, it didn’t have to be a criminating confession if he just backtracked fast. “You’re the guy. Well, not the only guy, I’m no saint or anything. You’re like the most recurring one though, I think you gave me my unofficial gay awakening the first time you kicked my ass in hand-to-hand combat on the training deck. I nearly came in my pants when you pinned me to the ground.”

Lance, you fucking suck at backtracking once you’re already set on track, what an inconvenient moment to forget that.

Alright, so Keith may have been totally wrong about where Lance’s thoughts were at, that wasn’t exactly anything new. What was new, however, was this stuttery and bashful version of Lance that he’d never had the pleasure of meeting before. He was so considerate, so eager to please, so very desperate for approval. It was all of Keith’s favorite traits that were present in his usual personality, but amplified. He didn’t expect Lance to always be like this from here on out, the moment he grew secure in his footing he’d surely return to his usual obnoxious self, but Keith was starting to see that as more of a perk than a downfall.

He had it damn bad, didn’t he? If there had been any doubt to begin with about how he wanted to respond to Lance’s invitation, the more they spoke following it the more certain Keith was that there was nothing he’d rather do with Lance in that moment more than homosexual bullshit.

“Of course you did.” Keith sighed out, though the corners of his lips were twitching insistently with the need to curl into a smile. “Is that what you fantasize about? Me kicking your ass?”

“Buddy, when it comes to fantasies, anything you wanna do to my ass is fair game.” Lance chuckled nervously, Keith catching the movement out of the corner of his eye just in time to look up as Lance shot a pair of shaky finger guns in his direction. Only Lance would still do that when under the impression that the other person couldn’t even see it.

“Oh, really? In that case, I’m going to shove my entire boot-” Keith started to joke, not even managing to get the playful tease all the way out before he was rendered speechless. He’d made a mistake. He forgot what he was looking at until Lance suddenly shifted to sit up and listen to him better, exposing a lot more of himself to view than had been available previously. Keith blinked dumbly, choking on his own tongue.

“Again, you’re into weird shit.” Lance said dismissively, but now he was smiling too. Keith didn’t respond. Keith didn’t feel capable of responding, he was pretty sure if he so much as parted his lips he’d be sat there with his mouth fucking watering like a dog to a bone.

He’d always known Lance was hot, naturally, that was just one of the many facts of life. What he hadn’t known was that Lance was even hotter without clothes on. That should have been a given, but the shock was still present because who the hell is allowed to look that good ? That’s gotta be illegal or something.

Lance’s thighs looked smooth and inviting, splayed wide on either side of him. Keith wanted nothing more than to crawl forward and settle between them, leave a trail of possessive marks climbing up those long legs toward-

And okay, maybe Keith wasn’t sat there thinking about legs, not really, but he could simultaneously appreciate them as he thought about how fucking badly he wanted that cock in his mouth. Keith had never been attracted to a dick before in his life, but there was a first for everything apparently. All he knew was that he needed to taste it, needed to run his hands over it, appreciate the fact that he’d somehow managed to make Lance so very hard that he almost looked worse off than Keith.

In this dazed state of dick-appreciation that Keith would later deny vehemently once Lance was informed of the fact Keith had cat-like night vision eyes, he totally forgot that he was meant to be responding and taking part in a conversation. Lance had started to shift nervously, tapping his fingertips against the floor beside him. “I’m not kinkshaming though, just providing commentary.”

“So…” Keith trailed off, falling onto his hands and knees and quietly clambering toward where Lance was sitting. He came to a stop kneeling next to him, reaching out curiously and settling a hand on Lance’s thigh. The reaction was instant, Lance jolting upright in surprise and whipping his head in Keith’s direction. He probably wasn’t aware of this, but this left their faces a mere inch or two apart, lips at risk of brushing together if Keith all but pouted. Their breath began to mingle and realization dawned across Lance’s face belatedly, cheeks darkening in a blush.

Keith began to move his hand, rubbing Lance’s thigh up and down, working slow circles over his smooth skin. “You’re down for whatever?”

“Always.” Lance gasped, his hips bucking on their own accord. Keith clicked his tongue, sliding his hand further down the boy’s leg and closer to his knee. The reaction was immediate, Lance’s eager to please state resulting in him rushing to rethink. “I’ll, uh, let you know if you do anything I’m not comfortable with though.”

“Good.” Keith paused, hand settled in the dip between Lance’s leg and his crotch, cupping his inner thigh protectively. He watched closely, picked up on the shiver that wracked Lance’s frame at the approval, his cock pulsing against Keith’s knuckles. Oh, isn’t that just precious?

Keith leaned closer, kissing along Lance’s jaw toward his ear. Lance positively preened under the attention, leaning his head to the side to provide easier access but slouching his entire body closer to Keith’s in search of support. Keith clamped his teeth down on Lance’s earlobe, earning a short yelp of surprise. He pulled back, nuzzling into Lance’s hair just beside his temple. “Good boy.”

“Ah, touch me?” Lance whimpered, rubbing his thighs together and forcing Keith’s hand further into his lap even before receiving an answer. Keith chuckled fondly, deciding to simply give him what he was asking for. After all, he was in a similar worked up state and he really didn’t have it in him to tease right now.

Keith rested his head against Lance’s shoulder, panting heavily into the defined dip of the other boy’s collarbone. Eyes narrowed in concentration, he carefully wrapped his hand around the base of Lance’s erection, unbothered when a punched-out gasp sounded above him. He bit his lip, bringing his hand back up and swiping his tongue across it as an afterthought. He brought it back down while Lance’s hips were still blindly canting upward, chasing after his touch, and surprised him by stroking down the length of his cock without any pre-warning.

Lance moaned above him, beginning to shake against him. His hand shot to Keith’s thigh, nails digging into the flesh for something to grip onto as he started to thrust up into Keith’s fist in earnest. He turned his head, burying his face into Keith’s hair. “Holy crow.”

“Don’t ever say that to me in a sexual context again.” Keith snickered, struggling to keep from breaking out into outright laughter. Lance nodded hurriedly into his hair, gasping on each upstroke of Keith’s hand, fingertips carefully tracing around the head of his cock. Never in his life had Keith been so very proud of himself, Lance had been reduced to a non-verbal mess of desperation in thirty seconds flat.

He nudged the other boy away so he could sit up straighter and turn to face him, crashing their lips together rather clumsily. Lance didn’t complain, in fact, Lance stepped up to the challenge eagerly and met his pace just as hurriedly. They sucked and nipped at each other’s lips before eventually Keith grew tired of their competitive nature, taking over the kiss. He smiled against Lance’s lips just as he rubbed the flat of his thumb straight across the head of Lance’s cock, where it was leaking pre-cum like a faucet and beyond over-sensitive. Lance cried out, the noise muffled by Keith’s own mouth, his jaw going slack just long enough for Keith to slip his tongue into his mouth.

Lance was so much easier to deal with when all you had to do was squeeze your hand to get him to do exactly what you wanted. Keith was definitely going to utilize that information for future reference.

Keith dominated the kiss easily when Lance was so obviously distracted, picking up the pace of his hand whenever Lance’s attention would wander. More than once now that hand that was gripping onto Keith’s thigh for dear life and started to wander, creeping dangerously close to Keith’s own dick. That wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, except he was fairly certain he’d cum the moment Lance touched him. It’d been so long since anyone had touched him like that, even a few weeks since he’d had the spare time and the relaxation to touch himself, he was unfairly worked up already. He’d forgotten how much he liked this, being the center of someone’s undivided attention, having them at his mercy for better or for worse. Luckily, he wasn’t having any trouble at all falling back into his usual role.

Eventually, they had to break the kiss off to use their attention for more important things, like rocking each other’s respective worlds. Keith’s pace had increased to the point that he was properly jerking Lance off now rather than just lazily stroking him, his fist running over Lance’s cock in short, fast movements. Ever the giver, Lance had taken it upon himself to meet each of Keith’s strokes halfway, fucking up into his hand in equally as desperate quick movements.

The room around them was silent save for the both of them panting heavily as they spiralled closer to their climaxes at an alarming rate.

Keith slowly lifted his head from Lance’s shoulder again, staring adoringly at Lance’s concentrated expression. His lips were pursed and his eyebrows furrowed together, beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. He looked adorable and Keith couldn’t think to acknowledge that in any other way than surging forward to kiss his cheek. Lance’s expression faltered after that, replaced by a smile so wide that his eyes started to crinkle at the corners. “This is the longest you’ve been quiet since the moment I met you.”

“Mm.” Lance hummed in agreement, ducking his head to cover Keith’s neck in featherlight teasing kisses of his own. Keith whined, struggling to keep up with the pace he’d set.

“I feel like I’ve uncovered the secrets of the universe right now.” Keith continued, though occasionally his words were interrupted by a whimper or a pause as he struggled under the direct attention Lance was giving him. He shifted, his free hand dropping to rub clumsily over his length, clumsy in comparison to the purposeful movements of his other hand over Lance. “Come on? Cat got your tongue? You’ve really got nothing to say?”

“I’ve never… before.” Lance grit out between his teeth, grunting as he continued to flex his hips each time he’d thrust back up into Keith’s hand. Keith processed that information rather slowly with Lance’s mouth on his neck, but as soon as he did he jerked backward in shock. The petulant drawn-out whine that left Lance’s lips the moment Keith’s hand left him was comical.

“Really?” Keith asked, turning to stare scrutinizingly at Lance.

“You said you knew! You said I was as inexperienced as a rock!” Lance hissed, failing to seem all that intimidating when he was trying and failing to tug one of Keith’s hands back to his lap with all the strength in both of his arms.

“I was teasing you!” Keith reminded him, tugging his hand free of Lance’s to cup the other boy’s face, signaling that he actually wanted to talk about this. “You’ve never even gone this far with a guy?”

“I’ve never gone this far with anyone .” Lance grumbled under his breath, looking unreasonably huffy about this.

“You’re kidding.” Keith deadpanned, genuinely surprised by this information. Lance was on the defense though, so naturally he interpreted it as sarcasm and responded by jerking his elbow into Keith’s ribs. He grunted in pain, grabbing Lance’s arm before it had time to retreat and hauling them both to their feet at once. He dragged Lance over to one of the benches from early, letting go of his arm only to settle his hands on either side of that tan chest, shoving backward with enough force to send Lance toppling down onto the bench with his legs spread. “Just because I pity you, I’m gonna show you something that’ll blow your mind.”

Lance wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret that, but he stayed obediently where Keith had positioned him, even as the red paladin’s hands lingered on his chest and then pinched one of his nipples. Lance keened, throwing his head back and spreading his legs further, choking on his own breath as Keith continued to toy with his nipples. After such a positive reaction, he was using both hands now, rolling the nubs between his fingers until they were just as hard and sensitive as every other part of Lance’s body felt.

Then, and only then, did Keith decide to lean over Lance’s body and replace his hands with his mouth.

“Getting a little bit cocky now, aren’t you?” Lance coughed out, trying to hide the whiny noises of approval that were bound to topple out as Keith licked and sucked marks all over his chest, intermittently circling back to pay attention to his nipples. The sound of Lance’s voice seemed to bring him back to the moment though, a hand settling on Lance’s thigh again and bracing it where it’d naturally fallen so he had no hope of closing his legs again.

“That’s the plan, babe .” Keith answered, his voice sounding distinctly further away. Lance was a little too worked up and a little too out of it to realize why this was until the answer quite literally hit him full force, Keith’s breath against his inner thigh akin to fire when everything was already so hot. Then, in an instant, teeth were involved as Keith nipped at the flesh of his upper leg. He sucked and lapped over the same spot afterward, until the threat of a hickey being left mere inches from Lance’s cock was a very real possibility.

His legs jumped with the need to close, shaking under the force of the pleasure and the desire to have Keith’s mouth somewhere else so close. He arched his back, hand coming down to grip at Keith’s hair and weave his fingers through it. His hand curled into a fist, pulling Keith closer each time he’d try to back away. It got to the point that there was no use fighting Lance’s grabby hands and instead Keith caved all at once, shifting to purse his lips over the head of Lance’s cock tauntingly.

Lance’s breath caught in his throat, all of his concentration immediately focused on keeping his hips from jerking upward in search of more friction. Keith was well-aware of how he was testing his self-control, even going so far as to start smirking with Lance’s cock resting against his lips. Then, when Lance’s grip tightened in his hair again to borderline painful, he responded by slipping his tongue past his lips in a little teasing kitten lick to Lance’s tip.

“ Fuuuuck .” Lance groaned, tugging at Keith’s hair with abandon. He couldn’t help it, he was already so far gone and Keith’s sudden smugness was doing little to help that. If that was how good it felt already, when Keith was just trying to play with him and tease him, how was he supposed to survive the actual thing? He was going to come in ten seconds flat.

“Right?” Keith prompted, pulling away to speak despite Lance’s unintelligible protests. Lance didn’t acknowledge the question, knowing that Keith was only trying to confirm he’d been right. Of course he was right, he had every damn reason to be this cocky about his skills when it was already this good, Lance wasn’t about to tell him that though.

“You’ve done this before?” Lance asked instead, leaning back against the wall behind himself for support as Keith leaned closer to him again. Keith hummed thoughtfully, this time properly lapping the broad flat of his tongue over Lance’s tip, causing his cock to twitch with interest despite the fact he wasn’t getting any actual relief.

“Isn’t this a signature stage in every delinquent’s life?” Keith questioned, emphasizing his point by finally wrapping his lips around the cock in front of him and sinking slowly down the length of it. Lance gasped like the air had been punched out of his lungs, doubling over and pushing Keith to take more of him. He expected some kind of backlash for that, he was being a bit too over-eager and pushy this being his first time and all, but Keith merely pulled off to catch his breath and then immediately took Lance even deeper into the back of his throat.

Keith picked up a steady pace of this, up and down, going down on Lance until the head of his cock was hitting his throat each time. His hands were absentmindedly running over any expanse of Lance’s body that he could reach, over his stomach and thighs and anywhere he could get them. Lance groaned, hips twitching with the desire to fuck into the wet warmth surrounding his cock.

“No?” Lance tried, truthfully uncertain whether it was or not, but too lost in sensation to bother putting much thought into what he said. Keith pulled back again, a sheen of saliva beginning to appear across his chin. He worked his hand over Lance as he caught his breath, panting deeply with his eyes trained on the needy expression Lance was wearing. God, he’d wanted this for so long, even if he’d been denying it with everything he had.

“Oh, my bad.” He chuckled, sounding noticeably husky after overworking his throat. “Guess I’m an overachiever. It’s not like anyone’s ever complained.”

“I am so far from complaining right now.” Lance assured him, hitching his legs over Keith’s shoulders when they started to ache. Heat was pooling through his abdomen, his heart racing and cock twitching constantly against Keith’s tongue. “I’m close.”

“Yeah.” Keith acknowledged breathlessly, sounding so indifferent that it was almost laughable. Was he even listening? Was he just going to power through it when Lance came unexpectedly and shot his load directly down his throat?

“Wow, what an elaborate response to my-” Lance started to say, voice dripping with sarcasm, when suddenly the lights flickered on above them. He froze, hips stilling and eyes widening as he registered the scene playing out between his thighs. Keith’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, jaw slack and sloppy as he moved his mouth over Lance. Given that he hadn’t seen him until now, Lance didn’t immediately notice that anything was out of the ordinary, assumed that maybe Keith always kept his eyes closed and eyebrows drawn together like that when he was sucking people off.

It clicked a second or two later, as Keith began to tremble between his legs, low throaty noises tumbling past his lips each time he’d sink down all the way again. He pulled off unexpectedly a moment later, throwing his head back and gasping like a drowning man having come up for air.

“Ah, f-fuck! Lance !” He cried out, nails digging into Lance’s thighs for purchase. Lance didn’t even care as Keith scratched over his skin, marking it up considerably, grit his teeth through the pain and focused on the totally blissed out expression the other boy was wearing and the noises he was making. God, Keith hadn’t been faking it or exaggerating earlier, he really sounded like that when he came. Lance already knew that he wanted to make Keith sound like this as much as he possibly could, was already thinking of ways he could work him up so far past the point of desperation that these noises were all he was capable of making.

He waited patiently as Keith worked through his orgasm, watching closely and finally picking up on the fact that Keith had a hand between his own legs as well. He’d been getting off to sucking cock, what kind of wet dream come true was this?

Lance leaned forward, brushing Keith’s hair back from his face even though his hands shook as he did so when he felt so very worked up. He wanted to be able to see Keith’s face right now, really save this moment to memory. He looked so beautifully debauched, sinful and seductive in a way that was like something straight out of a porno. Not a cheap one either, the kind you had to pay good money for, had to get a subscription and everything.

“Did you just?” Lance asked, smirking childishly and quirking an eyebrow. Keith wouldn’t look him in the eye, resting his cheek against Lance’s thigh and staring determinedly toward the floor.

“Maybe.”

“Have you been touching yourself this whole time?”

“Maybe.” Keith drawled again, turning to press a kiss to the mark he’d left on Lance’s thigh. Lance hissed out in a mixture of pain and arousal, suddenly reminded of himself now that Keith’s impending pleasure wasn’t serving as a distraction. He reached out, raking his fingers through Keith’s hair, tugging him closer to his lap.

Keith listened, propping himself up over Lance’s cock and beginning to pay all his attention to the head of it, swirling his tongue around it and taking it into his mouth only to press it to his cheek. He flicked his tongue across the over-sensitive leaking tip until it was borderline painful, Lance’s vision swimming.

“It’s literally unfair how good you are at this.” Lance managed weakly, hips arching upward. Keith took the hint for once, sinking further down onto him until his nose was nestled in the short, trimmed hairs at the base of Lance’s cock. He pulled back off with a sloppy wet noise, eyes lidded as he raked them over Lance’s body.

“Your turn? You gonna come for me? Show me just how good I’m making you feel?” Keith growled, the hand at the base of Lance’s cock drifting lower, tracing the slickness of saliva over Lance’s balls and then… his entrance. He yelped at the unexpected touch, pupils blown out with lust.

“Keith!” He cried out desperately, feeling himself dissolving into the pleading and begging mess that he’d always expected himself to be in situations like this one. It was bound to happen eventually, he could never keep his mouth shut for long before words would start tumbling past. “Want it. Want your fingers inside of me, now. Please? Stretch me open, I wanna feel you. I need it, Keith, please, I-”

“Shh, it’s okay, I’ve got you.” Keith assured him, sounding surprisingly genuine and not at all judgmental of Lance for rambling. He lifted his hand and brought it to Lance’s lips, lifting his eyebrows rather expectantly. Lance rushed to please him, sucking three fingers past his lips and sucking on them, getting them nice and slick with saliva.

Keith only ended up using one, carefully tracing it around Lance’s entrance and leaving Lance to whine impatiently. It was only one finger, surely it didn’t warrant this much lead-up? How much could it possibly hurt him?

It didn’t hurt, but when Keith finally eased it inside past the tight ring of muscle, Lance wasn’t granted the instant orgasm or satisfactory feeling he’d been promised by every gay porn he’d ever watched. He was met with… uncomfortableness.

“Everything you’ve ever fantasized about and more?” Keith snickered under his breath, leaning forward to nuzzle against Lance’s thigh. He worked his finger in and out a couple times, the uncomfortableness starting to ebb away. It still wasn’t exactly pleasurable though, nothing in comparison to Keith’s mouth on him. What was all the hype about here?

“Not really, it’s kind of awk-” Lance cut himself off with a lascivious moan that surprised even himself, so blatantly sexual that it was almost embarrassing even in their current context. Keith grinned knowingly, pressing experimentally into the same spot and watching the way Lance reacted, more pre-cum beading at the tip of his cock as he shook with pleasure.

“You are so lucky, the first guy I fooled around with didn’t even know what a prostate was, let alone how to find one.” Keith chuckled, his voice oddly conversational considering Lance couldn’t fucking speak a word. He was paralyzed there with wide-eyes and a leaking cock, experiencing an entirely different sensation from anything he’d ever tried. Even when Keith started hitting the right spot it was a little off the first couple times, pleasurable but still slightly unsettling with how unfamiliar it was, but then it started getting real good real fast. Too fast almost, Lance felt like he was hurtling blindly through all of the pleasure he was suddenly swamped with.

And Keith, the bastard that he was, simply sat there grinning. Then, at the peak of what probably could have been an oncoming orgasm from Keith’s fingers alone, that mullethead surged forward and took Lance’s cock back into his mouth all the way in one languid movement.

“I’m so gay, I’ve greatly underestimated how gay I am.” Lance stuttered, writhing in the spot as he struggled to decide whether he wanted to fuck into Keith’s mouth or grind back against the fingers stretching him out. He ended up compromising between the two, rocking against Keith back and forth, fucking himself down onto Keith’s fingers and then thrusting up into his mouth. “I’m not gonna last, like, at all.”

Keith pulled back, jerking him off with one hand while the other drove home into his prostate with each thrust inward. Keith opened his mouth, tongue lolling out in one purely seductive suggestion. There was no other way to interpret that than what it was.

“Go on, make a mess of me.” Keith growled, making it sound more like a demand than an offer, not that Lance was complaining. In fact, Lance’s eagerness to please and desire for praise override his mind and he threw himself into giving Keith what he wanted the moment he asked for it. He fell over the edge and crashed into his orgasm unexpectedly almost the moment Keith requested it, streaks of white landing across Keith’s face. A small amount of it actually ended up in his mouth, the rest landing on his cheekbones or the band of his nose, or suggestively across his upper lip.

Lance shook with the force of his orgasm, hands scrambling for purchase in Keith’s hair as he bucked helplessly into Keith’s fist. He moaned wantonly, pitch going embarrassingly high when he started to come down from his high only to have Keith take him back into his mouth. Lance whimpered and whined in protest vehemently for the first few seconds, trying to shove Keith away as he was sucked clean, but Keith simply grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the bench. Then, indifferently, he continued working his mouth over Lance’s spent cock even as it started to soften.

Keith stood then, licking his lips in a way that had Lance wondering if it was possible to get hard again so soon. He leaned back, watching attentively as Keith stretched his arms high above his head, turning as he did so so Lance could watch all of the muscles in his back flex with the movement. Lance couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight, ending up leaning forward and reaching out in a mesmerized state to settle his hands on Keith’s hips.

The red paladin tensed at this, though he relaxed slightly when he looked down and saw the familiar hands holding him. He reached down and settled his own hands over Lance’s, threading their fingers together and moving with Lance as their hands ran over Keith’s body appreciatively. His sides, his stomach, his hips, even the downward dip of a ‘v’ between his legs before Keith put a stop to it. He looked over his shoulder at Lance, quirking an eyebrow.

Lance grinned goofily up at him, lost in a world of disbelief that this had really happened, that he was allowed to touch Keith like this and see Keith like this now. It all felt too good to be true, intimate in a way Lance realized he was outrageously privileged to have.

“So pretty.” Lance commented, answering Keith’s unspoken question. The reaction was immediate, Keith’s cheeks turning the most lovely shade of pink as he looked determinedly in the opposite direction again. He tried very hard to look mad, but the fondness was overwhelmingly obvious now. Lance loved it, loved being able to see right through him.

“You ever call me pretty when I have clothes on, I’ll stab you.” Keith grumbled under his breath, pushing his hair back from his face. Lance blinked, unrolling the elastic that had been shot at him earlier from his wrist, deciding that he couldn’t really use it as ammo against Keith when he least expected it now. He reached around Keith and held it out to him in the center of his palm, leaning forward to kiss the center of his back.

“Duly noted.” Lance commented, hands dropping around Keith’s stomach to hug him closer the moment Keith had taken the elastic. He wanted nothing more than to hang off of the other and bask in the post-sex glow he had going on, properly cuddle with him and start adjusting to the new dynamic of their relationship, but he felt absolutely disgusting. He felt like twenty thousand layers of sweat had dried on his body, that wasn’t even talking about the other stuff drying on his body now, like some sort of bodily-fluid cocoon. “I need a ten hour long shower.”

“You ever shower with someone else before?” Keith answered, turning around to look at him.

“What do you think? I just confessed to how inexperienced I am, do you really think I-”

“Wanna try it?” Keith interjected, eyes sparkling with mirth. Lance didn’t even hesitate.

“Yes.”

“So eager.” Keith mused, his tone soft and loving in ways Lance had never really expected to hear it. As Keith backed away, looking around for his shorts, Lance felt the immediate need to close the distance between them again and keep Keith close. He shifted to the edge of the bench, reaching out to grab onto Keith’s wrist and tug him insistently back.

Surprisingly, Keith listened. He turned back with a fond shake of his head, stumbling closer as hurriedly as his legs could carry him and standing between Lance’s. Lance smiled up at him, dimples surely showing as Keith cupped his cheeks on either side of his face, squishing them up playfully. Keith leaned over him, bringing their lips together in a chaste kiss. He pulled back and rested their foreheads together, eyes heavily lidded and a tired yawn fighting its way up his throat. “I have the strangest feeling that I’m contributing to the making of a monster right now.”

“Oh?” Lance hummed curiously, fluttering his eyelashes innocently.  An idea occurred to him in that moment, a terrible, terrible idea that should never be embraced. The opportunity for the worst joke he’d ever get to tell, a relationship deal-breaker test like no other. If Keith still wanted him after his weak self-control inevitably failed and he said it, then this had to be real.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but that face is telling me I don’t want to find out.” Keith trailed off cautiously, eyeing Lance who had started to grin maniacally.

“If I’m a monster…” Lance trailed off, smirking devilishly, “does that mean you have ‘ Monster’s Ink ’ all over your face right now?”

The outraged screech that followed was worth it, Lance burst into giggles while Keith jolted away from him with disgust written across his every feature. He reached up, swiping the back of his hand blindly over his face.

“Invitation receded. I don’t want to see you ever again.” He groaned, thankfully sounding more amused than angry. He turned and bent over, giving Lance a full view of his ass as he snatched up his shorts. Oh yeah, Lance, you were spot on about this one thing, you are the gayest gay to ever gay.

What he didn’t expect was for Keith to actually shove his shorts on and then immediately proceed to march out of the room, not even risking another look in Lance’s direction even though he was smiling the entire time he walked away. That was probably fair, it had been a terrible joke.

“Keith! Wait!” He laughed to himself, tumbling forward to grab his own shorts and shove them on as quickly as possible. He was still tying them as he ran barefoot out of the sauna, jogging straight past where he’d left his towel in his rush to catch up to Keith. He did, but only because Keith was waiting for him outside the showers.

Lance marched right up to him with every intention of giving him some form of lecture for not waiting for him, but his words died on his tongue as he watched Keith casually drop his shorts again. Lance blinked dumbly, following the lead and doing the same. He watched as Keith turned on the water, eyes glued to expanse of pale, unmarked skin that had been exposed to him. If Keith got away with marking up his beautiful skin that he worked so hard to take care of, then Lance was damn well going to do the same. The hickey war was on, Keith wouldn’t even be able to leave his room without a winter jacket and pants on to cover up.

Lance followed after him into the shower the moment Keith turned around and curled a finger in a come hither gesture, his feet moving forward on their own accord as if Keith had casted a spell over him. He settled under the stream of water standing behind Keith, hyper-aware of the fact Keith’s ass was mere inches away from his lap. He looked away before he could think about it long enough to get worked up all over again though, wrapping his arms around Keith’s stomach and pulling him closer. He rested his chin atop the shorter boy’s head, watching as Keith scrubbed himself down with soap. “So I wasn’t too bad or anything? I didn’t really do much for you.”

“You did plenty, trust me.” Keith scoffed, reaching back to offer a comforting pat to Lance’s hip. When Lance continued to frown with uncertainty, Keith seemed to sense it. He turned around, looping his arms around Lance’s neck and pulling him in for a quick kiss. He pulled back, eyes soft and warm with adoration, looking so calm and enamored that it was overwhelming. Not nearly as overwhelming as the words that left Keith’s mouth, though. “Maybe next time I’ll ride you.”

“Y-Yeah?” Lance spluttered, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat.

“I said maybe ,” Keith reminded him with a wink, turning away again, “maybe if you’re a really good boy.”