Chapter Text
Keith was sitting on his bed reading a book when he heard a knock on the window. He looked up and nearly had a coronary, but his only outward reaction was a blink.
Outside the window, kneeling on the roof of the porch, was Lance. Grinning and holding up a bag of chocolate mini donuts.
Setting his book aside, Keith opened the window and asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Thought you could use some company,” Lance replied, sitting down cross-legged and tearing open the bag. “Here. Donut?”
Keith took it and stuffed it in his mouth. Dinner had been hours ago, and he hadn’t felt like eating much at the time. Now he was hungry enough to eat the whole bag of donuts, but he hadn’t wanted to go back downstairs to get something to eat.
Only once he’d finished chewing and swallowed did he ask, “How did you get up here?”
“It was tough, but I figured it out- I climbed up on the fence, then that little shed over there.” Lance pointed down below. “Then I pulled myself up from there.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Those swim team muscles, though.” Lance flexed one arm; the results weren’t very impressive. He was stronger than he looked, but… he looked like a beanpole, so that wasn’t saying much.
Keith snorted and fished another donut out of the bag. “Are you going to come inside?” he asked.
“Nah,” Lance replied, his mouth full. “I’ve got mud on my shoes.”
“Right.” If Keith’s parents saw mud on the carpet, they’d probably figure out he’d had someone over. Or worse, they’d think he’d snuck out. Better to play it safe.
“What are you grounded for, anyway?” Lance wanted to know.
“D in English Composition.”
“And here I thought you wanted the D,” Lance replied. He said it so casually it took Keith a second to catch his drift. He punched Lance’s arm through the window, but that just made him laugh.
“Asshole,” Keith said.
“You know you love me,” Lance replied, making a heart with his hands. Keith swatted them down, but Lance just laughed again. Keith squelched the urge to lean forward and kiss him.
The thing was that, while Lance knew Keith was gay as hell, he had no idea that Keith had a crush on him- and Keith did his damn best to keep it that way. He’d been doing it for over a year now, and while he’d thought about telling Lance over a dozen times, he always decided against it. He wanted Lance to know, but he also didn’t want anything to change between them. He liked this. He liked Lance sitting outside his window with a bag of donuts, joking around to try and cheer him up. Better to just wait and hope the crush would go away on its own.
But the fact that Lance was just naturally affectionate didn’t help at all. Take the making-a-heart-with-his-hands thing, for example; he did that a lot. And he tended to throw his arms around people’s shoulders and give them a sort of one-armed hug. And he had no problem with sitting really close to other people.
And Keith probably should have asked him to stop with the half-flirting, but he hadn’t because he liked it. He liked it when Lance slung an arm around his shoulders, or when he was sitting so close Keith could feel the heat from his thigh. He liked it when Lance made a heart at him, even if he was just joking.
He felt pathetic, because the gestures weren’t meant the way he wished they were, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask Lance to stop. He had no doubt that Lance would do it without question. But telling him to stop would be like taking a pair of scissors and cutting off a lifeline. It would be so easy to do, and impossible to take back. So, he didn’t. The scissors stayed right there on the table. There were way too many things on the table.
Lance popped another donut into his mouth, and the movement drew Keith out of his thoughts. “How long are you in for?” Lance asked. His mouth was still full.
“Until my grade’s back up.”
“That sucks. How long do you think that’s going to be?”
Keith shrugged. “I don’t know. Depends on whether I can get extra credit.”
“You could ask to copy Pidge’s homework,” Lance suggested. “That oughta bring your grade up pretty fast.”
“Yeah, until I get caught,” Keith replied, although copying Pidge’s homework wouldn’t help. The homework wasn’t the problem. But Lance didn’t know that. Lance didn’t know a lot of things. “I’d take a fifty over a zero and a trip to detention.”
Lance put his head back against the wall, tapping a donut against his chin. “You could…”
A sound from somewhere nearby in the house made both of them freeze. Keith half turned, listening. There were footsteps on the stairs. He’d learned to recognize footsteps, and these belonged to his dad.
“Hide,” he hissed to Lance.
“Where?” Lance asked, his voice rising in pitch.
“Just- get out of view of the window! And don’t make a sound!”
Lance scrambled to the side and put his back to the wall outside the window. A beat later he reached out and grabbed the donut bag, pulling it over into his lap. Keith saw him quickly grab one and stuff it into his mouth. At least Lance made his priorities clear.
Keith yanked his chair out from his desk and opened a notebook at random, then grabbed a textbook and flipped it open. He could only hope his dad wouldn’t notice him doing calculus homework from a chemistry book.
His dad knocked on the door.
“Hang on,” Keith said, getting to his feet, but his dad was already opening the door and stepping into the room. “What is it?”
“I want to talk to you about your grades again,” he said, taking a seat in the chair next to the door. “Sit down.”
Keith obeyed. “It’s not like they’ve changed in the last few hours.”
“But I want to know why they got so bad in the first place.”
So would I, Keith thought, but swallowed the words before he could say them. Instead he remained silent.
His dad asked, “Have you been doing your homework?”
“Yeah,” Keith replied.
“Have you been turning it in?”
“Yes.” What kind of idiot would do his homework and not turn it in? Lance, Keith’s mind immediately provided. Lance did it all the time. But Keith didn’t- he turned his homework in. And he got good grades back.
“What about the tests?” his dad continued.
Keith winced, and he noticed it. “Have you been taking the tests?”
“Of course I’ve been taking the tests,” he said, irritated.
His dad’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t yell at me. If you’ve been taking the tests, why have you been doing so badly? Have you been studying?”
I’m not yelling. “Yeah,” Keith replied, although admittedly he hadn’t studied all that much. Not that studying would have helped. English was his worst subject- he had trouble making sense of all the metaphors, and symbolism, and basically anything that wasn’t outright stated. No amount of studying could fix that. “I just- I have trouble with… with some of the stuff.”
“Have you tried going to tutoring?”
Tutoring? Lance would never let me hear the end of it. “No,” he admitted. “It wouldn’t help. I just can’t do some of it. I’ve tried, and I can’t.”
“So you’re telling me you’re not smart enough.”
I never said that. Keith took deep, even breaths, struggling to keep his responses from slipping out. But you know what? Maybe not. Maybe I’m just not smart enough.
“No,” he said slowly. “I just…”
His dad sighed, interrupting him. “Keith, I just don’t understand. You got such good grades when you were younger. What happened?”
Keith kept his mouth shut. There was no right answer. This happened a lot- he reached a point in the conversation where there was no right answer. Anything he said would just dig him deeper. Staying silent was almost as bad, but it was the best course of action.
There was a long, long silence. Keith kept his eyes downcast, but he knew his dad was studying him, looking disappointed. Like Keith was doing this on purpose to let him down. “Would you like me or your mom to email your teacher?” he asked. “Get you some extra help?”
“No,” Keith said. God, no.
“Then what? How can I help you? What can I do?”
I don’t want your goddamn help. I want you to go away. Keith kept silent, but he knew that his expression had morphed into a scowl, no doubt giving his thoughts away. He had a good poker face most of the time, but around his dad, that careful control just vanished.
His dad sighed. “You know, I put up with so much shit. I put up with so much shit from you. I’ve done everything I can for you. Your mother and I have been doing our best for you, and you’re just throwing it away because you’re just lazy.”
Keith couldn’t form a coherent response. Not even in his head. His brain felt full of static. He kept his eyes down.
After a moment, his dad finally got up and left, leaving the door open. Keith got up and shut it. Then he locked it. His dad wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, but locking it was a comfort, a barrier between in here and out there.
Keith sat down on his bed and swallowed hard, taking deep breaths to try to calm down.
“…Keith?”
He whirled around. Lance sat outside on the roof, wide-eyed.
He had forgotten to shut the goddamn window.
They were both silent. Lance seemed to be speechless, for once, and Keith was too embarrassed to look at him. He couldn’t believe he’d let Lance hear him getting chewed out like that.
Lance searched for something to say. “Well,” he hazarded, “that sucked.”
“No kidding.” Keith kept his eyes down.
There was a pause. Lance poked his head through the window. “I still like you,” he said, trying for a smile and attempting to catch Keith’s gaze.
Keith shut his eyes. “Lance- just don’t. Stop it. You’ve gotta quit with the- the…” He gestured vaguely. “This. The flirting. It’s getting really old.”
Lance blinked, and if Keith had been looking he would have seen the look in his eyes: a combination of hurt and confusion and shame. “Oh,” Lance said. “Sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t realize it bothered you.”
“Well, it does,” Keith told him bitterly, glaring at the floor. “So just stop, all right? I’m sick of it.”
“All right,” Lance agreed. After a moment he asked, “…Should I leave?”
“Yeah,” Keith replied. “You probably better.”
Lance hesitated for a second, looking like he wanted to say something. But then he seemed to decide against it. He shuffled away and climbed down off the roof, taking the donut bag with him. Keith shut the window and pulled the blinds before he was even out of sight.
Then he sat at his desk and put his face in his hands. “Stupid,” he muttered, fighting tears. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
What kind of idiot would cut his own lifeline?