x-posted from AO3
GAME CHANGER
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Lance couldn't stand him.
One week in, and the whole school was suddenly loco for some Asian twink. He was 'polite,' he was 'considerate,' he could do jump shots, he did your calculus homework, he rode a real motorcycle, he once helped Mrs. Arroyo to her car after school— In a few days, someone could probably tell the whole school that his tears could cure cancer and nobody would even question it.
"Uh, no, Lance, people would definitely question that."
"Yeeah, and isn't that, like, a Chuck Norris joke?"
And Lance couldn't stand it. He also couldn't see how this new kid had the entire school wrapped around his little finger.
Keith Kogane. That was his name— just that. There wasn't much to take away from it. Nothing at all like Lance Christian Ruiz-Mendoza Castillo, which carried generations of history and political significance. Hell, even Vance Warner had a better ring, and the guy was nothing but a rich, white jock.
And speaking of Vance Warner…
How the hell did Keith manage to rub elbows with that guy? The guy was your classic case of homophobic whiteboi shithead. What, did the kid sell part of his soul? He must have, if even Kayla Parker bothered to smile his way during P. E.
"I thought you liked Kayla."
Lance scowled. "That's exactly my problem, Hunk. How does a random nobody get to see Kayla smile, when I've had to work three months for it?"
Hunk, his precious childhood friend whose current naïveté made him all the more precious, just shrugged and took a large bite of his sandwich. "Uh, maybe 'cause you threw up in her locker in eighth grade?"
"That aside," said the girl immediately to Hunk's left, "you can't honestly be in the mindset that a girl owes a guy her attention just because he 'works so hard' to get it."
Lance's eyebrows shot up. "Whoa, Pidge. That was not what I meant."
"Well, it sure sounded that way," said Pidge. The look she was giving him right now would send his mamá running for her talismans and yell at him about "mal de ojo," the evil eye.
Lance struggled to find the right way to apologize. "Sorry! It's just— It's Keith! I just can't stand him."
Pidge rolled her eyes. "So you've said all week."
She didn't say anything else after that, so Lance deemed it safe to consider the issue discussed, resolved, and dropped. Which was great, because there was another issue currently at hand that needed the same treatment — KEITH FUCKING KOGANE.
Call it what you want — obsession, jealousy, territorial aggression, whatever — but Lance was fucking on to something devastatingly real.
If the whole school was just oh so head over heels in love with this boy, then why was this fucker always sitting by himself in the cafeteria? Hmmm?
"Maybe he's shy."
"Probably. He hasn't been the one to initiate any conversations, right?"
"Yeah, Shay says he's nice but doesn't talk much."
"He probably realized that the entire school is populated by morons. I heard he's some kind of genius."
"Or," Lance interrupted his friends with a fist banging the table, making them jump. "He's plotting something big. " He pointed dramatically across the cafeteria while making sure that Hunk, who sat across from him, was hiding him in plain sight. "Look! He's talking to Nyma Chandra. She's the girl who won the blue ribbon in the science fair this year."
Pidge moaned miserably, dumping her face into her hands. "Don't remind me. I just had to get the flu that week." Hunk gave her back a consoling pat.
"Just look , will you?" Lance hissed, eyes already pinned on the way Nyma was saying something that actually made Keith crack a smile.
"I'd say it's Nyma who's doing the talking. Keith isn't really saying much."
"Yeah, he's just nodding his head and being…"
"Polite," Pidge finished.
Lance almost screamed. Could they not see the way the new kid was wooing everyone away? What was with everyone and their infatuation with this total stranger? It wasn't as if he was anything special or something. He was just a normal kid, with normal kid manners, and normal kid attitude—
Something in his head clicked, and Lance was picking up a sporkful of cafeteria spaghetti from some kid's tray behind him before he could stop himself.
"What are you doing?!" Pidge hissed, eyes getting real wide at the way he was bending back the spork and dripping sauce on his arm. She gave a little gasp. "You totally forgot this morning, didn't you?! That's why you've been off all day!"
Hunk tried to reason with him. "Dude, come on, don't do this. Lance, he hasn't done anything to you…"
That did it.
"Yes. He. HAS!"
His thumb let go. Everybody at the table watched the glob of red tomato sauce shoot past Hunk's shoulder and sail towards Keith.
And hit Nyma instead.
Poor Nyma was so startled, she screamed and tossed her tray of food into the air. It dropped to the floor in a messy splash, which made Jenna Callaway slip and fall, which made Darrell White lunge forward to catch her, forgetting about the can of soda in his hand and tossing it to the side…
To splash Coke all over the back of Keith Kogane's red and white jacket.
Lance felt the way blood drained from his face. "…Shit."
The entire cafeteria fell silent. Then, noise roared back into the vacuum. A chorus of "OHHHHHHHH "s and a collection of hooting laughter ripped the controlled chaos of the school lunchroom like it was wet tissue paper. In the midst of this chaos, Lance tossed the plastic spork under the table and wiped the sauce on his arm onto his jeans.
"Look at this! This is your fault," Pidge stage-whispered.
"No , it's not," Lance insisted through clenched teeth, watching Keith slowly stand up. Lance watched Keith flip off his jacket and toss it on the table. What the hell was he gonna do?
Keith went up to Nyma, a perfect look of concern on his face as he put a hand on the kid's shoulder and spoke to her. After a moment, Nyma nodded her head, and Keith stared at the red splatter of sauce on the back of Nyma's shirt.
Time slowed down. Lance felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck as he saw Keith's eyes trail along an invisible path in the air that weaved through three cafeteria tables and ended with—
Lance ducked his head, blood rushing in his ears as he hid behind Hunk. "Oh my god."
"He… calculated the trajectory of the sauce," Pidge whispered.
"Shut up," Lance hissed at her, "you're gonna give me away!"
He was interrupted by a sound like thunder and an angry, feral cry.
Lance learned two things that afternoon:
One, Keith Kogane was a ninja.
Two, Keith Kogane's "normal kid attitude" was the equivalent of a fucking time bomb.
The guy had actually leaped over a table to get to Lance faster, launching himself up by jumping off the bench. One moment he was in the air. In the next, he was crash-landing to the ground with Lance underneath.
As caught off guard as he was, his mamá didn't raise him to be no wuss. He was a fighter, and he knew how to defend himself.
Plus, the whole school was watching them, so…
"Yeeaaaah! Fuck 'im up, Keith!"
"Lance, man, you got this!"
"Somebody just FIGHT already!"
"Yeah! Fight! Fight!—"
"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"
Either through sheer luck or adrenaline-powered reflexes, Lance somehow managed to stop the fist aimed for his face. His hand burned like he'd just caught one of Mr. Brodsky's rockets. Lance caught the look in Keith's eyes and felt his stomach flip because whoa, this dude was crazy .
So he said so.
"What the hell are you doing, you psycho?!"
The look in Keith's eyes turned wild. "What the hell am I doing? What the hell are you doing?! You've been on my back all week, ever since I got here! You got some kind of problem with me? Quit chasing tail like a little bitch and get to my face!"
At that particular euphemism, Lance sputtered. "Ch-chasing tail—?! I'm not into you like that!"
Keith's wild look turned into a baffled glare. "What're you talking about?! I meant being petty behind my back!"
Lance grit his teeth. "Well, sorry for not understanding, Keith. Kinda hard when I'm hella gay and I've got such a huge dick in my face!"
Keith punched him. Hard.
"OOHHHHHH!"
"GET HIM BACK, LANCE!"
Pain flared on the side of his face. Lance could taste blood. If this were any other day, maybe that would've brought him back to reality, put him in check, and maybe realize just how out of control this whole thing had become. But the crowd was roaring in his ears like the blood pumping through his body, and Lance had had no brakes in his head since his mistake that morning.
So Lance pulled his chin down to the hand fisted in the front of his shirt, and bit it.
Keith wrenched his hand away with a pained shout. "Did— Did you just bite me?!"
"Oh, I can do a lot more than just bite!"
Taking advantage of the shock, Lance sat up and headbutted Keith in the chest, wrestling the other boy to the ground. Now he was the one on top, and Keith looked like a snarling beast caught in a snare trap. Hand clenched in a tight fist, Lance reeled back his arm.
A strong, familiar hold looped under Lance's arms and yanked him right off Keith. He kicked and writhed but couldn't break free. "Wha— Let me go!"
Who was this guy?! What right did this fucker have to think that he could dare pull him away from this fight—
It was Hunk.
"That's enough, Lance!"
Hunk looked and sounded angry, a rarity, which usually meant that Lance had fucked up somewhere.
"What were you thinking, Lance?!" Hunk's booming voice resounded loudly in his head. Lance felt the beginnings of a headache thudding against his skull. "You let this get way out of control!"
Lance shoved him away. "Are you kidding me?! What about the ninja wannabe over there? He leaped over the table to get at me!"
"None of this would have happened," Pidge shouted fiercely, "if you just learned to let things go!" She was kneeling next to Keith, helping him up with a gentle touch to his shoulder.
What was she doing? Lance let his anger spit bitter venom through his mouth. "Oh, so you're taking his side, now? You know what? Fine, take his side, then. You always thought he was great from day one anyway."
Pidge snapped her head up, and Lance saw a stormy look on her face usually reserved for the asshats that insisted she was a boy.
"There are no sides, Lance!" Pidge's eyes were getting watery, and Lance felt something like a sharp kick in his heart. "Why can't you get that through your head?!"
Lance didn't say anything. In his silence, he was growing aware to the murmurs and eyes of the students who'd crowded around them. When he saw a few phones out, dread started filling up his insides like a blast of water chugging into an empty tank.
Then he looked at Keith.
He was glaring at some spot in the ground, jaw tight around his face, his shoulders and chest heaving with short, shallow breaths. His hands were balled at his sides, and he refused to pick his head up even when Pidge spoke to him.
It was with numb shock that Lance found a sense of déjà vu in such an angry display. He recognized it, he knew what it was, which was exactly the reason why Lance was so confused.
Keith was angry at himself.
But why?
It was to this scene that the assistant principal and one of the school counselors arrived. The doors to the cafeteria burst open, the two adults storming in like EMT officers approaching an unconscious victim. Their hand walkies buzzed with static and frantic voices.
The assistant principal took one look at Lance, brows furrowed deeply and mouth in a thin, thin line. Lance felt his heart sink into his stomach. Oh, no. He knew what that look meant.
Then the assistant principal barked out orders to everyone standing dumbly around them. "I need all students to get back to their seats. This is ridiculous! We're holding an assembly immediately after lunch to talk about the vision of our school as a community and a family. This has been too good of a year for us to mess up now. I will not let anyone break down our school this way."
Finally, the assistant principal looked at him. "Lance, go with Mr. Altena. Keith, you're coming with me."
As the assistant principal led Keith out of the cafeteria, students trickled back to their seats. Lance watched numbly as his two best friends followed the other students and begin to relocate to another table.
He contemplated shouting an apology at their retreating backs, when a shadow came over him.
One of the school counselors, a foppish-looking man in his late fifties with a full head of hair and a handsome moustache, immediately offered his hand to Lance with a wry twist to his mouth.
"Didn't think I'd get to see you again this week, Lance."
Lance gave him a narrow-eyed stare. "Don't start, Coran."
Coran just laughed.
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"So, let me see if I got this."
By this point of the conversation, Lance was so slouched in his chair that the backrest of the chair dug into the back of his head. It wasn't a painful sensation, but it certainly was uncomfortable.
What was painful was the fact that he was sitting in a cramped office with the school's "Crisis Regulation and De-Escalation Counselor" for the second time this week, talking about his feelings for the second time this week, and having to listen to it being parroted back to him for the second time this week.
Did he mention that he was here for the second time this week?
"So this week, you've been noticing how many students were talking about Keith in an overtly positive manner. You also noticed that some of the students in particular, Kayla, whom you have tried to be friendly with, immediately opened up to Keith. And whenever you brought up the topic with your friends, you feel they haven't supported you or that they would take Keith's perspective on things. So, you feel as if he's taking your friends away from you, just like your spot on the Galaxy Garrison trip you mentioned earlier. Does this seem right?"
Lance had been counting the number of unsharpened pencils in the cup on Coran's desk when the question came. "Sure." He started counting again. Eleven… Twelve… Thirteen…
"Let's talk about the Galaxy Garrison trip. You really sounded quite angry when you told me…"
Lance knew, in the back of his head, that he was being as petty and selfish as a seventh grader throwing a full blown tantrum over creased Jordans. But that was in the back of his head. At the front and foremost part was everything that had transpired this past week: everything Lance felt the world had done him wrong, all the shit the universe heaped onto him since he was ten.
Kayla, he could forget about. He didn't even know her that well.
Pidge and Hunk? Well… when it came to Hunk, they would talk it over later, as always. Lance wasn't sure about Pidge, though. As much as he annoyed her, she'd never been as mad at him as she was today. Lance really didn't know what to do, but he knew it was gonna be okay. They were his best friends.
The real crusher was the trip. It wasn't just any trip. It was the trip: a seven-day, six night trip to Arizona's Black Mesa for fifteen students to the Galaxy Garrison's headquarters.
That trip was all he'd ever worked for. That trip was what kept him afloat. He needed to get on that trip. It was his one shot into being an astro-explorer. The Garrison recruited early, and everyone knew 18 was the last chance to get in if you wanted to be a fighter-pilot.
And then some mullet boy from the Eighties came and elbowed his way right onto the last spot on the trip.
"What was that?"
Lance shot up in his seat. "Nothing! I, uh, just. I like David Bowie. He's really cool."
Coran arched a brow. "Let's try to stay focused on what's going on with you, okay?
Lance sighed, sinking in his chair. He listened to half of what Coran was saying before his attention went back to the pencils. Holy shit, were there a lot of them. Twenty eight… Twenty nine… Thirty… Thirty-one… Thirty-one! There were thirty-one unsharpened pencils in the cup on Coran's desk.
…Why did Coran have so many unsharpened pencils on his desk? The guy used a blue fountain pen to write with, and Lance was pretty sure everything was logged onto a database online. What did he need all those pencils for?
"—seems to be the main trigger. Can you tell me what you were doing before the fight began?"
Lance scoffed, raising an arm and reaching out for one of the unsharpened pencils in Coran's cup. "Don't wanna," he muttered, twirling the pencil around his fingers.
"That's all right," said Coran, leaning back in his seat. "Take your time."
Lance thought his ears were broken. Did he hear correctly? Did Coran really say that to him right now? Take his time? FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS WEEK?!
Lance steeled himself with a lungful of air and a silent mantra of behave yourself, remember what Hunk told you. "Coran, no offense, but this is a waste of time! I already had a session with you two days ago! Why do we have to do this again?" The pencil in his fingers snapped. Lance froze. "Uh, sorry," he quickly said, putting the two broken halves on the desk. He snuck a peek at Coran's face.
It was as patient as it always was.
"You sound frustrated," Coran just said.
Lance groaned, slouching into the chair. "Oh my god."
"It's okay to be frustrated."
Lance rolled his eyes. He'd spoken with Coran for so long, he knew this whole counseling routine down cold. "I know it's okay to be frustrated. Okay? I know that. Next you're gonna ask if I think what I did was 'appropriate for an academic environment.' My answer to that is a flat out no, by the way. Then, you're gonna ask me what I could have done differently—"
Here, Coran was quick to jump in. "What could you have done differently?"
"Nothing! There's nothing I could have done differently because there's nothing I would have done differently!"
"You could have ignored him."
Lance clenched his jaw. "I'm not gonna sit on my ass and let eighth grade happen all over again! I fucked up once with Vance, and I am not letting it happen again!"
The office was awfully quiet after that. Lance could hear his own heart thudding in his ears, and heard the little sigh that escaped his counselor's mouth. Coran was frowning, the lines of his lips disappearing completely underneath his bushy moustache — the only hint that his patience was starting to wear down.
And Lance felt bad. Coran had been with him since day one, like "BSB" time — Before Series Began. He was someone Lance trusted in, could actually confide in— Hell, Lance loved the guy, he was great! He was always willing to listen to him, and wasn't afraid to verbally cuff him when he was out of line. So to see that patience wearing down, Lance felt… He felt like he'd failed, somewhere. And he knew where he'd gone wrong, he just didn't want to admit it. Because he didn't want to just give up and let things go. He wanted to fight, because this time he knew how. And he wasn't ever going to back down to anyone ever again.
High school hasn't been so bad, but middle school was hell, you know?
A sound like someone clearing their throat made him whirl around.
Shit, went Lance's head. It was the Principal.
He didn't look happy.
"I see that the crisis intervention counseling isn't working as well as we'd hoped. Perhaps a call home is in order."
With just those words, Lance saw his life flashing before his eyes.
Ohhhhh, no. Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck —
He was a dead, dead man.
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The Principal was a young, energetic man in his thirties named Matteo Alvarez. He was a cool guy when he wasn't pissed off. Going by that genius observation, if you took into consideration the fact that the man had to be Top Dog for a school swarming with kids from sixth grade all the way to twelfth grade, it meant that Principal Alvarez was a cool guy, like, 30% of the time.
Right then, though, Top Dog wasn't "pissed off", but he wasn't exactly cool in Lance's book, either. Because this giant fop of a man was the reason his big sister Constanza was sitting right next to him.
"All of that in one day?" Constanza asked once she was filled in with the day's events. Her voice was a loud boom in the small office, her thick Cuban accent rolling over each sound the way waves rolled together to make one rhythm. "Lance, mijo, did you forget to take the pills?"
CUE INTERNAL SCREAMING. Lance tried to avoid the topic.
"Mami, you speak Spanish, like, ninety-nine percent of the time, and you decide to say that in English?!"
Constanza clicked her tongue. "Callate mijo, te las tomaste o no?"
"You can't 'mijo' me and tell me to shut up in one breath!"
Constanza's eyes became daggers. "I 'mijo' you and tell you 'shut up' in anything! Te las tomaste o no?!"
Lance didn't say anything. Because, and to be perfectly honest here, he was afraid to.
"Lance!"
Lance swallowed. "Well, no, but—"
"Ay, mijo, no te puedo creer! Thinking, Lance, thinking! You have a good head, you have to be using it! Ay, dios mío, qué voy a hacer contigo?"
"Lo siento, mami."
"Lo siento?! Como que 'lo siento'?! Ay, solo espera hasta llegar a gabeto." Constanza tossed her thick, black hair over one shoulder and crossed her legs as she muttered to herself. "Telling me 'I'm sorry' after such a horrible things you have done. Che!"
Lance kept a wary eye on the way one of her feet bounced up and down. It was one of her anger ticks, like the tongue-clicking and hair-tossing thing she did. Lance was afraid the slipper on her foot would somehow fly right off and slap him in the face.
Just then, the door to the Principal's office opened.
"I'm so sorry I couldn't get here earlier," spoke a voice that was way too young to be a "dad" but had "dad" tones in each and every syllable. "I was lecturing when I got your call."
Curiosity peaked, Lance turned his head to see what the guy looked like.
And got an eyeful of crotch.
Lance whipped his head back around, digging his nails into knees and screaming internally because why dear god why — WHAT WERE THE CHANCES?!
"Is everything alright? What happened?" The man, on whom Lance would bet money was not a day older than twenty-five, looked from the Principal, to Lance, to Constanza, and then finally at Keith, who'd just settled in the last chair in the office when the man had finished looking at every other person in the room.
Keith was looking at the man the way Lance imagined you'd look at a peacock that escaped from its pen and was trying to steal your lunch. "What?"
The man narrowed his eyes sternly and crossed his arms. "What did you do?"
Lance watched something close to discomfort flicker on Keith's face. Three beats of silence passed. Then—
"I… I jumped the kid sitting over there and we fought."
The man exploded. "You what? You just got to this school! It's only been a week!"
Then, the man suddenly launched into a tirade in a language Lance could only describe as "anime in real life." It lasted for something like five minutes, during which Lance picked at the frayed string on the hem of his shirt until his sister slapped his hand away with a click of her tongue. Man, he never got to get away with anything.
Finally, when the man was done, Lance heard Keith speak in the smallest voice Lance could ever imagine.
"I'm sorry, Shiro."
Lance looked at Keith. Like, really looked at him. Somewhere in that school-swooning, friend-stealing, trip-spot-swiping asshole, there was a kid who once fought the world and lost. A kid like Lance.
He wanted to know that kid.
"Sorry?! Did you just forget what could happen if you—" The man stopped, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Then he sat back in his chair. "We'll talk about it at home." A pause. "And you're grounded for a week. With no biking privileges."
"…I know."
A few beats of silence settled uncomfortably in the room.
"Alright, then," the Principal sighed, "I guess I should inform you of the consequences of our school's district. In-school suspension is the requested punishment to fighting in all New York City public schools. Keith, because this is your first incident at this school and because I know you've been working very hard to get here, I will only be giving you one day's suspension."
It was Shiro who responded. "Understood. Thank you, sir."
Principal Alvarez sighed again, now turning to Lance. One look from the man's tired expression was all he needed to know where this was going.
Lance slouched in his seat. "Yeah, I know, one day's suspension, don't ever fight again, I got it."
"Lance," his sister whispered harshly as she pinched his arm.
"Ay! Hey!"
The Principal frowned. "I'm going to make it clear to you this time, that this is your last chance, Lance."
At that, Lance sat straighter. Because damn, coming from Mr. Alvarez, that was…
"Don't make me regret it."
Lance swallowed. He nodded.
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TRANSLATIONS:
Callate mijo, te las tomaste o no?
Shut up sweetie, did you take them [the pills] or not?
Te las tomaste o no?!"
Did you take them [the pills] or not?
Ay, no te puedo creer!
Oh, sweetie, I can't believe you!
Ay, dios mío, qué voy a hacer contigo?
Oh my god, what am I gonna do with you?
Lo siento, mami.
I'm sorry, "sis". "Mami" is a term of endearment reserved for women. Lance calls his sister "mami" because, to him, she is his "second mom."
Lo siento?! Como que 'lo siento'?! Ay, solo espera hasta llegar a gabeto.
I'm sorry?! What do you mean "I'm sorry"?! Oh, you just wait until we get home.
