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“Stoop touching your face.” Keith whined, nudging Lance.
Hunk was not a stranger to his friends’ antics.
Lance glared at him. “Fuck off.”
This was new, though.
Hunk could not figure out why these two were acting so weird. They’d just gotten back from an overall typical mission. They went in, chatted up the royals into joining the coalition, and returned to the castle.
The Sironians did offer some sort of “relaxation treatment,” but the team had long learned their lesson on accepting weird spa days from aliens, so they all declined. It was nothing out of the ordinary, really.
Or it wouldn’t have been, were Keith not glaring knives at Lance for scratching his nose.
He nudged him again. “I’m serious, you’ll get acne.”
Pidge laughed at that. “Since when do you care about proper skin maintenance?”
They both looked at each other.
Keith turned to Pidge with a smile. “Since I’ve been spending so much time with Lance!” he said, putting an arm around his shoulder. “He’s been rubbing off some well-needed habits onto me.”
“Though, he seems to be forgetting them himself,” he added with a glare.
Lance scoffed.
“You know what? I think I need more of his infinite wisdom for something, actually—” Keith grabbed Lance by his hoodie and pulled him into the hall. The team stared at them curiously.
Hunk could not for the life of him figure out what was up with them, especially Lance. He’d been acting notably more irritable, less chatty, less jokey. Later that day, he even bailed on their Friday food testing. Lance loved those.
Hunk went to all his favorite spots in the castle, but it almost seemed like he was purposely avoiding him. In the end, Hunk decided to wallow on the couch. Whatever. It’s a wallowing couch now.
“Hunk!” Keith smiled, sitting across from him.
“Keith, hey,” Hunk tried a smile. "You have any idea where Lance might be right now? I feel like I haven’t seen him all day.”
His smile faltered a bit. “Uh, yeah, I think he’s in the training room right now.”
“Cool.” Hunk paused. “Keith?”
“Yeah?”
“Is he doing okay?”
Keith tensed.
“I know you’re not really the mushy-conversation-stuff type, but you’ve been hanging out more, so you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?” Hunk hoped he didn’t sound as anxious as he felt.
Keith grabbed both his shoulders determinedly. Oh my god, this was it. Lance hated him. Did he do something? He had no idea what to expect from a look like that.
“I’ve been going through Galra puberty stuff.” Keith blurted.
Hunk blinked. Well, it was definitely not that.
“Yeah, it’s like super freaky. I’ve been really embarrassed about it, and it’s kind of? Contagious?”
Hunk paled. “What?”
“No! I mean—not like contagious contagious. Lance is fine! We’ve just been spending so much time together that all my broody emo persona’s rubbing off through…osmosis.” he said
“…Osmosis.” Hunk repeated blankly.
“Osmosis.” Keith affirmed “It’s totally a thing. Don’t worry about it; he should be back to normal in, like, a few days at most.”
Hunk just stared.
“Well,” Keith clapped, “lovely chat. I think I have to go throw some knives and stuff.” He rushed to his room. Leaving Hunk with a whole different set of questions.
———
Shiro could tell when Keith was acting off. He clearly had something on his mind, and so, Shiro decided to go to the place he spent his time at the most.
The training room.
To his surprise, he found Lance there.
He smiled, “Hey, I wasn’t expecting to find you here. You’re usually with Hunk around this time.”
“Right, well, we don’t know when our next battle is going to be.” Lance replied, slashing a robot. “I need to stay in form.”
Shiro laughed. “You know you sounded exactly like Keith just now?”
Lance tensed for a moment but kept attacking. “Yeah, well, maybe I should listen to him. We’ve been hanging out more, anyway.”
Shiro grinned. “Really, now?”
Lance groaned, pausing the simulator. “Do not make a big deal about this.”
“No, no,” Shiro raised his hands. “I’m just glad to see the two of you getting along, that’s all.”
He gave Lance a knowing smile. “I know Keith’s been wanting to.” He added, “Get along with you, that is.”
Lance glared at him, wide-eyed. Not the response he was hoping for. “You should not be saying stuff like that to people.” He started grabbing his stuff.
“Um—”
Lance turned to him. “Especially not to me!” With that, he stormed off.
Shiro furrowed his eyebrows. “Good talk?”
———
Allura is not a gossip, okay? She’s not. But she is responsible for this team. So what if that responsibility came with knowing everything she could about the paladins’ personal lives? It was her royal duty.
That said, she’s also not blind.
Lance was spending all his time in the training room, and she’d caught Keith leaving Blue’s hangar multiple times now.
She may not be especially familiar with Earth’s mating customs, but she’d borrowed some of Keith’s romcoms; she knew what this meant.
Honestly! She just wanted to let them know they could confide in her. And that she could confide in the rest of the team about it if they so wished. It would strengthen their bond. Probably.
She knocked on Lance’s door, making note of the comically loud hushing that followed before he rushed to open it.
“Allura! Something wrong?” Lance asked.
“Hello, Lance,” Allura gave a soft smile. “Nothing’s wrong. I was just wondering if you had anything you’d like to talk to me about.”
Lance furrowed his eyebrows. “Uh, not particularly?”
She put both his hands within hers and gave him a serious look. “Lance, as my teammate, I would trust you with my life, and I hope you’d feel the same for me, so just—anything going on in that human brain of yours.”
He stared at her blankly.
“…Anything?” She pressed.
Lance tilted his head.
Allura sighed. “Lance, did you and Keith hook up at Sironia? Please, I must know; it’s killing me.”
Okay, so she’s a bit of a gossip; sue her.
“No!” Lance flushed. “No, no, no, no! It’s—It’s not like that!” He hushed, taking his hands back.
Allura grinned, so they were trying to keep it a secret. “Okay, so he’s definitely not in your room right now?“ She said, looking over his shoulder.
“Definitely not.” He straightened. “And certainly not for—that.” He crossed his arms.
“Mmhmm,” she hummed. “I guess the hour-long sessions about his ‘iridescent purple eyes’ definitely didn’t happen either.”
“I don’t talk about his—” he argued, giving a curious look behind him, “…do I?” he asked, almost smugly. Huh.
Allura clasped her hands. “Look, you know you have my full support. Always. You guys are the only family I have right now, so I like knowing what’s up with you.” She shrugged. “I won’t push you into sharing something if you’re not comfortable. But if you ever are, I’m here for you, whatever it is. Preferably before Pidge.”
Lance smiled. “I can assure you, princess, it’s nothing like that. But thank you,” he added, “it means a lot.”
She winked. “That goes for you too, Keith!” She added in a louder voice.
“…Thanks, Allura.” Totally-Not-Keith responded after a few seconds.
Lance snorted before closing the door.
———
Yeah, so, Lance and Keith switched bodies. Pidge knew this. “But Pidge!” You yell, “You’re a scientist; shouldn’t you give them the benefit of the doubt—” No. They switched bodies.
Keith wouldn’t moisturize if he was being held at gunpoint.
Pidge didn’t know why they were hiding it from the team, but they also didn’t particularly care.
“Hey, Lance?”
“—Yes?”
“—Yeah?”
For two days.
Pidge did not care for two whole days. Now, it was getting annoying.
Keith and Lance turned at each other.
“Lance.” Pidge repeated, tiredly looking at Keith.
“Sorry, thought you…” Keith’s voice got quieter. “...said my name”
“Right,” they sighed. “Well, Lance, can you pass our weird equivalent of salt?”
“Um, yeah.” And so he did.
It was the little things, you know? Over and over.
“Well, uh, Keith and I are gonna go train and stuff now, so—“ Lance grabbed Keith by the wrist, and they left the dining room.
Honestly, who were they trying to fool?
Pidge sighed. “Okay, this is getting ridiculous; do they think we don’t know?” They looked at the team for reassurance.
Allura tilted her head. “What, that they’re dating?”
“No, that they—no!” Pidge raised their hands, flabbergasted. “That they switched bodies!”
Shiro had the audacity to laugh. “Alright, Pidge, realistically, that feels like more of a stretch than them hooking up in secret.”
“Uh, ok, Shiro, realistically we’re on a spaceship with shapeshifting aliens, so.”
Shiro opened his mouth as if to argue but closed it again before nodding, “Point taken.”
“Look, of course they have the hots for each other, you know that, we all know that, they—“ Pidge waved dramatically at the door the two exited from. “Don’t know that.”
Hunk raised his hands calmly. “Guys, they’re not dating. I talked to Keith; he’s going through some—“ he made a weird motion with his hands—“changes, if you know what I mean? Lance is helping him out.”
“Uh, no! No!” Pidge spluttered, “They switched bodies; come on, they’re not even trying to hide it!”
Allura shook her head.
“Alright,” they grabbed a pen. “You wanna bet on it?”
———
It wasn’t even a day before Pidge found them making out in the supply closet. Damn it.
Pidge’s eyes narrowed. “You guys switched back, I assume?”
Both looked surprised at that.
Keith was very adamantly staring at the ceiling.
Lance straightened his shirt. “By that you mean…?”
“Bodies.” Pidge said blankly. “You switched bodies the past two days.”
Lance winced. “Hypothetically speaking, who would you say brought you further into the conclusion that—“
“You were both atrociously unsubtle to the point I found it insulting.”
“Right.”
Pidge sighed. “Do me a favor and give it, like, a week before you tell Allura.”
“Wait, did Allura—“
Pidge shut the door.