Disclaimer: I do not own VLD.

Chill

"Hey." Lance didn't look up at the greeting. Intense, he sat on the couch, fingers working away at a knot made of small, squishy pipes Coran had fished out of his bedroom. Coran had made it sound like it was a children's puzzle, but Lance had taken it to fidget with anyway. He'd unhook the pipes and loosen the tight knots fixed around the rainbow coloured mess in his hands before holding them calmly in his brown palms waiting for them to magically knot themselves up again.

Lance's eyes never left the toy as Keith took the seat next to him. The common room was quiet and empty. Their team members were off doing something productive, Lance assumed, but he continued to sit with only his thoughts for company. His fingers worked away at the puzzle while his mind buzzed simply by having Keith in the room.

Frustratingly perfect Keith.

Keith leaned into the sofa and threw a hand over the back of the cushion that Lance was sitting on. Keith didn't do much besides sit there, his breathing soft and unobtrusive. Lance eventually sat up, pressing back into couch until his neck ghosted the edge of Keith's arm. When Keith didn't flinch away, Lance relaxed back on the arm fully, his weight bending Keith's arm so that it fell around his shoulders.

They had taken to doing this with one another at an increasing frequency. When there was nothing pressing, they would always find each other. For a long time, it was because of Lance's attempts to antagonize Keith. It wasn't until a particularly explosive fight that he realized that he had been feeding the cycle too much; that their brief moments of playful banter did not outweigh the pointed jokes and sharp jabs. He had made Keith think that their rivalry was angry and revenge-driven instead of what it really was: jealous, attention seeking, and endlessly lonely. His subsequent apology to Keith yielded something more than the friendship he'd been expecting.

Keith's arm tensed in a cool stretch before he dragged the limb back to himself and Lance along with it. Lance followed obediently, his head coming to rest against Keith's neck while Keith's cheeks pressed against Lance's brown hair. They stayed in that position for a bit. Keith thumbed Lance's shoulder while Lance's hands remained busy with the toy.

It was so comfortable, just sitting together like this, but it hadn't always been. At Shiro's behest to bond years ago, Lance and Keith had forced themselves to spend time together, and now their bodies naturally sought each other. Lance would find Keith at meals and sit with him; Keith would drift over to Lance's side at debriefing and during training. It was something more magnetic and routine than either of them could have anticipated.

Keith took a deep breath, his chest rising up to brush Lance's chin before settling down again. Lance took his eyes off the toy and watched Keith clench and unclench his free hand. It looked so empty just sitting there in Keith's lap.

In some ways, Keith was more fidgety than Lance. He was always itching to do something, to be somewhere, to act. Keith had always been an active person, even at the Garrison. It was what had made him so adored by their teachers (when he wasn't fighting or breaking protocol, of course); it was something that made Lance adore him too.

Lance nudged at Keith's fingers with the puzzle toy.

"Want to give it a try?"

"I'm good. You just play with it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Just try, hmm?" He guided Keith's fingers around the toy and let Keith do the rest. Keith fell into the routine easily, twisting the tubes and working hard to unravel them. Every so often, Lance would reach over and help Keith work out the tighter knots that required two hands. Once the first knot gave away, Keith let out a relieved sigh, and Lance chuckled under his breath. They continued working on the toy together until only a handful of pipes and tubes sat in Keith's hand. "Nice work, samurai," teased Lance, and they watched together as the tubes of the toy reformed and twisted themselves into a new knot.

"Where did you-"

"Coran," said Lance simply.

"Ah, I see." Keith relaxed against Lance. Some of the tenseness in Keith's posture had dissipated. Keith's right hand began to turn the toy in an effort to examine it when he asked in a conversational tone, "How are you feeling?"

"Oh, we're gonna talk about feelings now?" said Lance, his tone half-playful. Whenever he talked to Keith, Lance found it difficult to calm down. His mind wanted to relax, but his body always prepared itself for action when it came to his fellow paladin. Lance never knew exactly what type of action his body wanted either; just something. Besides, he and Keith had never done 'feelings' before. Whenever they got close to actual discussions - the ones that were deeps, meaningful, and threatening to the quiet bit of peace they had - Lance brushed it off, and Keith stumbled for words. As a pair, it was a bit disastrous, and Hukn always told Lance that it was hard to watch them together now; almost harder than it had been to watch them when they were first starting out as Paladins of Voltron.

Still, they'd made leaps and bounds from where they once were. Now, Lance and Keith could be at each other's throats for entirely unantagonistic reasons. Now, they could cuddle up on the lounge sofas and simply soak in each other's warmth.

But feelings, openly communicated feelings, were something new. To acknowledge what they were doing, what they even were, was uncharted and frightening.

And here Keith was -frustrating, annoying, beautiful Keith- trying to bridge that gap.

"Yeah? Is it a problem?"

"Depends," shot back Lance. "How are you feeling?"

"Kind of sleepy," admitted Keith. He sounded sleepy too. It was absolutely adorable. "I've never really felt like that in the middle of the day."

Lance couldn't stop himself from cooing. "Oh my gosh, you're like a cat. Did you like to sleep in the sun too?"

"It's nice and comfortable when you're not in the middle of a desert," argued Keith, and Lance just shook his head with a chuckle. With his ear pressed closer to Keith's chest, Lance could hear Keith's heart beat rapidly beneath his shirt. It was kind of nice to know that even the cool and brooding Keith Kogane could be nervous too.

"This is nice and comfortable," said Lance. He felt very bold somehow. The privacy and safe quiet of the lounge made Lance feel more empowered. Like he had less to lose.

"Hey, Lance?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I tell you something?"

Lance paused, feeling something tense fill up the silence. Trying to break it, he turned in Keith's arms and looked up at him innocently. "Do you have to pee?"

Keith gave him a disgusted look, and Lance laughed into Keith's jacket. "No, Lance."

"Sorry, what is it?"

Keith sighed and tilted his head so that it rested on the back of the lounge sofa. "I was going to tell you that I like you, but I guess that's off the table."

Lance grew stiff and tried to get up, but Keith's arm around his shoulders held him back with dead weight. "Wha-"

"Yeah. Too bad, really." Lance tilted his head up and could see the corner of Keith's mouth curled upwards in a hidden smile. The sick jerk was getting a kick out of it! "I was looking forward to doing this more often without having to dance around it, but I guess-"

"Whoa, hey now." Lance struggled until Keith let him go, his smile so soft and telling. Lance pulled away completely. With his face warm, Lance gazed at Keith with wide, incredulous eyes. "That can't be right."

"Why not?"

"You like me?" Lance's hand swiped down his face as if he could erase the heat in his cheeks. "And you're talking to me about it before I even bring it up?"

Keith's expression shifted from bemused to apologetic. "You do have a tendency to pretend like things aren't happening even when they are. I just assumed that I'd have to take the initiative."

"I do not! What do you-"

"Need I remind of our bonding moment again?"

At Keith's pointed look, Lance's face crumpled, and he pitched forward, groaning into Keith's chest with warm cheeks. "I cannot believe you could subject me to this when you like me."

"It's because I like you that I'm doing this," insisted Keith, adjusting his posture with a quiet laugh so he could hold Lance better. "You think I should have just bought you flowers at the next alien market we stopped by and told you that I liked you then?"

"That would have been more romantic!" Lance wrapped his arms around Keith's waist. "You've cheated me out of a perfectly romantic confession is what you did!"

"I can just take it back and redo it," said Keith, squeezing Lance into a tight hug and not meaning a word of it.

"No take backs," Lance said, tilting his head up a fraction and pressing his lips to the edge of Keith's jaw. "I like you too, so you can't take it back now. This is mutual now. The contract is sealed."

Lance felt Keith's laugh. "I should hope so. We've been doing things like this for a while now. It's getting harder to convince Shiro that we're not dating."

"Well, we're not dating. Technically."

"Technically, yes. But if I'm in love with you and you're in love with me, then maybe we should."

"Being in love with me sounds nice," said Lance instead, getting more comfortable in Keith's embrace. Keith rubbed at Lance's arm in slow, soothing movements. "You should say it more often."

"Maybe I will."

"Fine, then maybe I'll say the same thing."

"That you love yourself?"

"No! I-" Lance risked another look at Keith and was greeted with Keith's half-lidded eyes, sleep mere minutes away from taking him. Lance cuddled up close to Keith, thinking about all the times they had done this, thinking of all the times they might do it in the future. Colour filled his cheeks at the giddy prospect of being about to be so close to Keith. "No, that I love you."

"Damn, you're right," murmured Keith, resting his head on top of Lance's again, his warmth and contentment radiating from him.

"What about?" asked Lance.

"I love you," answered Keith, a smile in his voice. "That does sound nice."