There's a saying Lance grew up with, one that he used to wish real hard was as real as they always said it'd be. It's the one teachers tell people like him all the time, if "people like him" means the type that ends up crying at least once every day at school. It's the one his mom said over and over, as a reminder that he's "fine, just the way you are." It's the one he grew up to hate, because he knows by now that that's all it's ever gonna be — words repeated endlessly, words that fill up space, words that fucking lie right to his face—
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!"
Oh, it pisses him off anytime he hears somebody saying that. It really pisses him off.
He never knew everyone else felt the same way.
.
.
.
.
.
"—always getting in trouble because other people are starting problems with him. When he first came, he was real nice and smiled a lot, but now all he does is scowl and put up with people picking fights with him for no reason. And I feel bad, man. I wanna do something, help him out a little. Lance, you with me?"
He's not really one to hit first, but Hunk sounds real into whatever this was. Lance wonders if he's got a bit of a crush. Probably, probably not. "Sure, buddy," he says, picking a french fry off Pidge's lunch tray. "Remind me who we're talking about again?"
Hunk's eyes are narrowed and his tone dubious. "You mean… You've never seen him?"
"Seen who?"
Pidge snorts. "That's rich. He's a guy wearing a dress. How do you miss something like that in our school?"
Lance chokes on a fry, but it's not because of the way Hunk is staring at him. It's because he thinks he sees a cockroach skittering on the floor of their school's cafeteria.
He's not wrong.
Lance stops eating the fries.
Burger King's probably got a million roaches, he thinks.
This is true, he tells himself, reaching for another fry.
"Really?" Hunk presses, leaning a little over the table, "C'mon, Lance, he— He sticks out like a sore thumb! N-Not that— Not that there's anything wrong with that, or—" Hunk's brow furrows. "He's just… out there, you know? Like, he's years ahead, or something."
Lance squirts ketchup from a tiny packet into one of the square grooves on the lunch tray. "Sounds like Mr. Edgy's trying too hard."
Hunk makes some kind of frustrated noise. "He's not edgy, he's— He's not edgy, Lance. He's not."
Lance sticks fry into the ketchup and drops it in his mouth. "Yeah. Okay."
He doesn't get why Hunk looks at him like he just said he'd slap somebody's grandma. So what if there's a guy running around in a dress? High school was a breeding ground for weirdos, dress or no dress. Everyone was weird in high school. Even he was weird, and he didn't get why. He didn't dress weird, he didn't act weird, he didn't talk weird. But he was still That Weird Kid; has been, since the third grade.
It was probably cause he still listened to alternative rock instead of whatever everyone else was milly-walking or hittin' the quan to. Or because he got lost in school in the third grade on the way to the bathroom because he got distracted looking at the bulletin boards and forgot he had to pee and pissed his pants. Or because he didn't read right and when his fifth grade teacher asked him to read something out loud, he didn't read "they built a great, big, huge factory" and read "they built a grape, big, hung, fuckery" instead. Or maybe it was because that one time he almost set his shirt on fire for leaning too close to the bunsen burner cause he was too busy looking to see if Pidge's whatchamacallit was gonna turn blue.
Yeah, it was probably the music.
"Whatever, so maybe he's not edgy. Explains why I haven't see him around. Doesn't stick out too much, I guess."
Hunk rolls his eyes. "Or you just never go to class."
Lance adopts a stern look. "Hey, I go to class. Just not Iverson's."
"You're gonna fail," says Pidge, scribbling in a ratty old notebook without looking up.
"I don't care, I'll still pass the AP test."
"I don't think Iverson's as lenient as Shirogane was. He might not let you take the test."
"Yeah? I'd like to see him try. Let's see what he says after my mom kicks his ass."
Pidge looks up from her notebook for the first time since they all sat down. "Lance, your mom's gonna kick your ass." She looks at her lunch tray and narrows her eyes at him. "Did you eat my fries?"
"They were getting cold," he defends, scooching away with a wary glance at how hard she was gripping her pencil. "And you were working on… Whatever that thing is."
"I was saving them for later!" Pidge groans and pulls her tray away from his reach. "Ugh, you're worse than Keith."
Who the fuck is Keith? he wants to ask. But he doesn't get around to saying much, because a guy suddenly plops down at Lance's table like it's no big deal. Which it's not, even if people might say otherwise.
The guy's got on a mile-long dead stare and is wearing a pinkish kind of shirt under a biker jacket. Wow, Lance thinks, Talk about a walking fashion disaster. What the hell kind of shirt was that guy wearing—an eighties' crewneck? He suddenly wants to ask this guy if he's into vintage fashion, because hel lo—he's even got a fucking mullet.
It looks nice, though; not gonna lie.
He's spent the entirety of the time the guy is here zoning out to Planet What Are You Wearing? that he misses the whole point of why this guy even came here in the first place. The only clue he's got is Hunk's big ol' grinning face and a book that wasn't on the table before, so Lance thinks it's gotta do with some kind of schoolwork. Which, to be honest, was boring.
He was gonna wipe out this boring-ass nobody out of his memory when the guy stands to leave. And that's when Lance does a double-take. Because this guy's not wearing a pinkish kind of eighties' crewneck under a biker jacket. That was a pinkish kind of dress under a biker jacket . He feels his brain fizzling as this new revelation jams into his conscious and wakes him the fuck up.
This dude's wearing a fucking dress. With a biker jacket. And—Lance ducks under the table for a hot sec—and combat boots.
What the fuck, he thinks, openly staring at Keith because this is the guy everybody's talking about? This guy? Well, no wonder he's got pisspoor attitude—he's probably got fuckboy dudebros harpin' on him 24/7.
Suddenly, Keith turns to look right at Lance. "You been staring at me this whole time," he says, his dead stare cracking with irritation. "You got a problem?"
He's so caught on how nice this guy looks—thick, even brows, piercing eyes, a slender face with high cheekbones—that his brain shorts out and jumps into a heaping pile of warm, steaming shit. "You're wearing a dress."
"Fuck you."
Lance immediately backs up. "Chill out, buddy. I wasn't—"
"Whatever," Keith says, and slings a hershel backpack—it's got blue and red flowers on it—over his shoulder and walks away.
Lance watches the guy's retreating back with a spiteful glare and ends up… staring at his legs. Daaaamn, son, he thinks, This boy's got legs for days. He stays on that line of thought for a moment, then wonders—
"That guy—he's in our class, right? Iverson's class?"
The table is silent; even the sound of Pidge's pencil has stopped. Hunk and Pidge fix frowns upon their faces and send him a 'idk what you're planning or thinking but please stop.'
Lance ignores them, because hahaha— it's too late. "Let me see that for a sec," he says, grabbing Pidge's notebook. He snatches it away right as he hears the sharp clack of her teeth mashing together in the air where his wrist would've been. She shoots him a look. "Lance, I need to finish my—"
"Thanks, Hunk," Lance interrupts Pidge, grabbing the pen in Hunk's shirt pocket and clicking the end. He rips out a blank page in Pidge's notebook—
"Hey!" Pidge cries, lunging forward, "I number my pages!"
—and hops up from his seat and slides all the way down the bench. "Aight, chill. You number your pages? Then stick a sheet of paper back in. Just let me have this one." He scribbles a star on the top of the pen to get the ink of the pen flowing just right before he starts jotting down a few words in the middle.
Pidge growls, fisting the material of her green Jansport backpack in her tiny hands and glowering.
"Lance, uh," Hunk makes some kind of thoughtful humming noise, "How should I phrase this? Oh, right. This is a bad, bad idea, and you're probably gonna end up with your own foot in your mouth."
"Yeah, just leave him alone!" Pidge adds, sounding a little more upset than she'd normally be. "You don't have to go around bothering every single person in school. This isn't middle school."
Lance pauses in his writing to give his friends an indignant look. "Okay, first of all? Rude. You don't even know what I'm about. Second of all, you don't even know what I'm about." With that, he turns back to the note he's got and signs it at the bottom, adding a little star before his name. Then, he clicks the pen again and tosses it to Hunk as he folds the sheet of paper in half. "Here, give this to Keith," he says, holding the folded note to Pidge.
Pidge scowls at him but snatches the note.
Ah, Pidge, always reliable no matter— "Don't read it!" He lunges for the note.
Pidge holds up her backpack between her and Lance and stares at the note. Her brows start to crease together, and slowly, her eyes widen. Hunk leans over the table to check it out.
"This is an invasion of privacy!" Lance hisses, grabbing Pidge's backpack away from her in an attempt to draw her attention off the note. It doesn't work.
Because his shithead friends are too busy snickering and grinning like it's lity city.
"Eyyy, this is a love note!" Hunk hollers, reaching over to ruffle his hair.
Lance yelps and ducks away. "Are you kidding me?! Not so loud!" He grabs an olive bomber jacket from the table and throws it over his head. "Jesus, what is wrong with you?!"
Pidge grins. "What, afraid people might actually think you're not that bad a person? Please, Lance—everyone figured that one out eons ago. Just because you dress and talk punk doesn't mean you are punk."
Lance scoffs and stutters. "I am so punk!" he shouts, then recoils and checks out the rest of the cafeteria from under his jacket. Nobody's looking their way.
Probably cause they're all used to this.
And also because he's so punk that they're scared. Ha.
Hunk plucks the note from Pidge's fingers and carefully tucks it into his shirt pocket. "I'll give it to Keith," he says, ignoring Pidge's petulant scowl as she crosses her arms. "I'll make sure he knows it's not a joke."
"What?" Lance frowns. "Why would he think it's a joke?"
"Really, Lance?" Pidge unfolds her arms to stick out a finger. "One, you were grilling him the whole time he was sitting here."
"I wasn't grilling him—"
"Two, he asked if you had a problem and you gave a stupid answer."
"I was distracted!"
"And three," Pidge snatches the note from Hunk's pocket and waves it open, "Do you really think Keith won't take what you wrote the wrong way after all that?"
Lance crosses his arms and looks at his handiwork. In sharp, messy letters, he'd written:
"yo keith
meet me behind the school after last pd
dont wuss out
⭐lance"
Pidge rolls her eyes. "He gets shit from people all the time. You think he's gonna read this and go—" Pidge flips her hair, clasps her hands together and bats her eyelashes "—Oh em gee! Someone's gonna confess to me!""Uh," Lance shrugs. "It looks just fine to me. I mean, what could go wrong?"
Lance and Hunk stare at her with blank faces.
Pidge scowls, folding her arms and getting red in the face. "I'm just saying," she grits out, "that you have a shit hand at writing love notes."
"Well, you coulda just said that, instead of doing all…" Lance waves his hand. "All of that."
Pidge just yanks her backpack and notebook from Lance. "Oh, shut it." She huffs, looping her arms through the straps of her backpack. "I'll see ya around, or whatever," she says before stomping away.
Lance follows her with his eyes, confusion creasing his brow and looking back and forth between Pidge's retreating back and the now-abandoned lunch tray she's been so hellbent on keeping away from him. Finally, he looks at Hunk. "What'd I do? I didn't do anything wrong!"
Hunk shrugs and says, "I 'unno."
Lance balks at that, then shrugs his shoulders as well. "Oh well, her loss. And I'm taking her fries." He grabs a handful of the fries, now cold, and shovels them into his mouth. "Girls are fucking weird, Hunk. She was just fine, wasn't she? Now she's all moody and whatever. Watch, I bet she's gonna ignore me for the rest of the day."
Suddenly, Lance freezes, because oh my god, ohmygod— "She's gonna ignore me for the rest of the day!" he all but screams, lunging across the table and grabbing Hunk by the front of his shirt. "She can't do that, Hunk! I'm freaking the fuck out!"
Hunk, too, freaks the fuck out. "What, what?!"
"She still has the note! I'll never get it back! What if she does something petty and gives it to Keith? What if her shitty attitudes makes him take it the wrong way like she said?! What if—" Lance makes a gasping wheeze "—What if she sticks it up in the hallway? My name's on that shit!"
Hunk starts gathering his things. "U-Uh, maybe we can catch her before she—"
Lance slams a fist on the table, eyes lighting up. "I got it! I'm gonna catch her before she gets to him!" He lets go of Hunk and nearly rips the arm off his olive bomber jacket as he frantically shoves his left fist through the arm hole. "Wish me luck!" he shouts as he runs off.
Then he abruptly stops, turns around, and runs back.
"Forgot this," he says, grabbing his bag, "And I'm taking the rest of the fries, too," he says, grabbing whatever was left so fast, the lunch tray falls to the floor. But he's got no time to pick up that shit — He's got a fucking life to save.
His.