"Duuude." Lance stumbled as someone jostled into him, nearly spilling his drink over Hunk's exasperated expression, "Just like, five more minutes!"
He grinned as the stereo hit a new level of earsplitting, and the crush of bodies around them cheered appreciatively.
Lance lived for this sort of thing: the energy, the laughter, the smell of alcohol and regret, the beat of the music that sounded vaguely like a transformer having sex with a trash compacter… Who said college wasn't a place to party?
"No, Lance," Hunk shook his head in exasperation and reached out to steady him, "You promised me we would only stay at this frat party for like, an hour max. It's been at least two!"
"But Hunk!" Lance protested as Hunk attempted to shoo him toward the door, "I've been flirting with this girl for like an hour, she's totally in to me! Just five more minutes... Pleeease?"
He swiftly unleashed his secret weapon and Hunk grimaced. Lance resisted the urge to grin in response, knowing there was no way Hunk would stand a chance against his infamous puppy eyes.
"Ugh…" Hunk rubbed at his temples, "Pidge said they'd kill us if you came to lab class hung over again. Remember last time when you almost drank our experiment?"
"It was only a small beaker." Lance rolled his eyes, winking when a cute girl glanced his way and giggled.
"It was 18 molar sulfuric acid!"
Lance stuck out his bottom lip and watched triumphantly as Hunk's expression wavered, "I can totally score a date this time, and then I'll owe you for life. Come on!"
Hunk sighed and pulled at his bandanna anxiously, "Fine. Five more minutes."
"Yes!" Lance jumped up, nearly spilling his drink on himself, "Be right back."
Half an hour later Hunk and Lance found themselves stumbling back to their dorm room. Well, Lance was stumbling. Hunk was half walking, half carrying him as he stumbled.
"Wow." Lance chuckled, pressing the tissue harder against his nose as the bleeding increased, "Rolo really does have a wickedright hook."
Hunk glanced down at him unamusedly as they climbed the stairs toward their floor, "Yeah I see that, why did you keep flirting with Nyma?"
"Hmm," Lance deliberated for a moment, "Because she's cute, and seemed into me?"
Hunk shook his head exasperatedly, "What are we going to do with you?"
Lance apparently thought this was hilarious, and a fresh wave of blood stained the tissue as he snorted, deeply concerning Hunk who kept muttering about getting his nose checked out.
Lance's amusement was short lived, however, as the door to their room swung open before them and Pidge stood on the threshold, arms crossed, expression disappointed.
"All I ask is that you don't get dunk on the nights we have early lab. All I ask!" They threw up their hands and ushered them into the room.
"Uhh Pidge?" Hunk arched an eyebrow as he dumped Lance unceremoniously onto his bed, "Not that I don't totally enjoy seeing your face at odd hours of the night, but how exactly did you get in here?"
"I copied your key card."
"Of course you did."
"Guys." Lance muttered with his face half obscured by his pillow, "I'm not that drunk."
Hunk grabbed a pencil off his desk and tossed it toward him, "Lance, catch."
The pencil bounced off his shoulder as his hand waved around halfheartedly in Hunk's general direction.
"Dude, you're pretty drunk." Pidge nudged him with their finger.
"Oh come on, I'm not…" Lance lifted his head off the pillow to retort, and quickly trailed off as he caught sight of a guy standing in the corner that he was sure hadn't been there five seconds prior, "Uhh, who's your friend?"
"Huh?" Pidge frowned and followed his gaze toward the corner of the room where the guy was casually leaning on Lance's desk, "Who?"
"Ummm, your friend." Lance sat up fully and pointed, "The attractive guy currently introducing his butt to my biology textbook."
"Uh, Lance, buddy?" Hunk gently placed a large hand over Lance's forehead, "there's no one there."
"Oh come on, he's right there!" Lance smacked Hunk's hand away and watched as the guy's eyes widened and he glanced around in confusion, as if he thought Lance was addressing another invisible person in the room, "The one with the red jacket and mullet."
"Okay and now the invisible man has a mullet." Hunk frowned, "You didn't take any drugs while we were at that party did you? Because I know we talked about this and we both agreed – "
"No, Hunk," Lance tried to stand, and sunk back on his butt when his legs didn't seem to want to work properly, "I'm not high, there's a guy sitting on my desk."
"Maybe you should just go to bed." Pidge patted his pillow invitingly, "Let us deal with Mullet Man, and you just sleep off the alcohol before you try to drink our experiment again, huh?"
Lance glanced toward the mysterious guy, who was now staring at him with a strange intensity and nodded slowly. Maybe he was just hallucinating… He had eaten a brownie at the party earlier, but he could've sworn Nyma told him they weren't laced.
Oh well, he would just sleep whatever it was off and deal with Pidge's disappointment in the morning. It's not like this was the first time his partying had interfered with their lab class.
Shooting the hallucination one last suspicious glance, Lance reluctantly sank back into his pillow, wondering how in the world his lumpy dorm mattress could feel this close to heaven on earth.
Hunk shook his head and gently pulled the covers up over his shoulders as Pidge knelt to fish their sleeping bag out from under the bed. They slept in Hunk and Lance's room more often than not lately since they and Hunk liked to stay up talking about physics throughout most of the night anyway.
"Night guys."
"Night Lance."
"Night weird guy sitting on my desk."
"Good night Lance." Pidge repeated.
The next morning the mysterious guy had gone, luckily, and Lance managed to stay awake long enough to keep himself from drinking any hazardous liquids; so all in all, he counted the night as a success. The only thing wrong was that he now couldn't quite seem to shake the feeling that he was being watched.
Every time he turned a corner or happened by an empty room the little hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up, and the itch in the back of his mind intensified.
If Pidge and Hunk noticed they never said anything. They didn't seem to feel anything out of the ordinary, so Lance did his best to shove his heebie-jeebies back into the dark corners of his mind from which they'd crawled.
He'd read somewhere that certain drugs could make you paranoid or something, and considering he'd been hallucinating the night before, he made a vow not to eat any more suspicious party food from then on.
Still, by noon the paranoia still hadn't left him, and he was starting to become abnormally fidgety. Hunk finally commented when Lance dropped his pencil for the fourth time in one lecture.
"Hey, are you alright?" Lance startled as Hunk laid a hand on his shoulder, "You seem really jumpy this morning."
"Yeah," Lance frowned, "I think that brownie Nyma gave me might have actually been laced with something."
Hunk frowned, "The effects should have worn off, like, last night."
"I mean, I'm sure it's fine." Lance shrugged, though inwardly his anxiety doubled, "It's just like paranoia and stuff."
Hunk looked doubtful, but reluctantly turned back to the lecture with a heavy sigh.
To expend some of the nervous energy, Lance drummed his fingers against the table in front of him, ignoring the dirty looks from everyone around them, and tried his best to listen to the professor, though this proved impossible as his mind - and eyes - began to wander.
He nearly fell out of his chair a few moments later as he caught sight of the invisible guy from the night before sitting nonchalantly in one of the empty seats several down from them.
"Dude. Hunk!" Lance whispered, tugging on Hunk's sleeve, "That guy's back."
"What guy." Hunk asked without looking up from his notes.
"The invisible guy!" Lance kept tugging, "From our room!"
Hunk glanced up with an uneasy frown and followed Lance's gaze. He watched as Hunk's eyes roved back and forth along the rows around them before turning back to him in concern, "I don't see anyone with a mullet, Lance."
Lance nearly smacked himself, "He's like four seats down from us wearing a red crop jacket. He's literally staring right at us!"
Hunk frowned, "Lance are you sure you're feeling okay? You didn't like hit your head or anything?"
Lance opened his mouth to retort when the invisible guy suddenly shook his head and pressed a finger to his lips. Lance's jaw snapped shut, and he frowned in surprise. Could he hear them?
"Lance? Are you still seeing him?"
Lance turned back to Hunk, who was eyeing him suspiciously and shrugged, trying to seem a lot less shaken than he really was, "My head feels kinda funny I guess."
Hunk bit his lip worriedly, "Look, this class ends in five minutes, and after that I'm bringing you back to our room. Don't argue, it's that or the hospital."
"Yeah, okay." Lance glanced back to the guy, who was still staring at them with the same strange intensity from the night before, and swallowed thickly. He was now more convinced than ever that he wasn't hallucinating. "That sounds like a good idea."
Despite his earlier decision, when the class finally let out Hunk tried to pressure Lance into seeing a doctor, but Lance just shook him off. "I think I'm just going to go back to the dorm and try to sleep a little. If I'm not better later I'll go see someone."
He nodded reluctantly, though his anxiety was still apparent on his face, so Lance begrudgingly allowed Hunk to escort him back to their room.
He hesitated in the doorway as Lance did his best to usher him out, "I'll come check on you later, please just go to sleep okay?"
"Yeah mom." Lance rolled his eyes, despite being secretly touched that Hunk would waste so much energy on him.
He plopped down on the bed in an attempt to make it seem like he was getting ready to sleep and shot Hunk an "I'm totally innocent please just leave now" smile as he shut the door behind him hesitantly.
When Hunk was finally gone Lance sighed in relief and turned to the mysterious mullet guy, who had followed them all the way from the lecture hall, glaring, "Do you need something?"
"So you can see me." The guy seemed surprised, even though Lance had literally pointed him out multiple times.
"Uh yeah, I can see you." Lance folded his arms, "Why can't my friends?"
The guy shifted awkwardly as though he were uncomfortable, and eventually settled for leaning against Lance's desk with his arms folded, as if he were the one in a strange situation.
"They can't see me because I'm a grim reaper."
"Yeah, okay. And I'm a mermaid." Lance flapped his arms around like he was swimming and the guy gave him a strange look.
"No seriously I'm a reaper," he hesitated, "like, of death… and stuff. My name's Keith."
"Pfft Keith? Keith the grim reaper?" Lance burst out laughing.
Keith grit his teeth, pulling out a small black notebook from his back pocket and shook it in front of his face as Lance snorted, "You might want to stop laughing, considering you're going to die."
A/N
So, as promised, I present to you my newest klance story! This one is loosely based off of an episode of the Twilight Zone, so we'll see how it goes ;)
Sorry if this chapter was sort of choppy, writing in Lance's pov is so weird… I'm getting the feel for it though, so hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon
As always feedback is greatly appreciated!
-MDL