They were fighting. At least, Lance thought they were. In reality, he had absolutely no idea what was going on.
There'd been a battle a few days ago, some celebratory party thing that went on afterwards, and Lance and Keith had headed out to escape the crowd (all the hot alien babes were huddled around Shiro, what the hell was Lance supposed to do about that?).
They'd sat on the empty front step things – Lance had no idea as to what they were referred to as, so he normally called them the front steps in lieu of not having any idea where someone was talking about due to no Altean ever having any names for anything ever!
So, yeah, they say on the front step things and … yeah, they just sat there in silence for a while until Keith finally heaved out the longest sigh Lance had ever heard and leaned his head onto Lances shoulder.
He may or may not have flipped out over that … ("What the literal fuck, dude?!") Yeah, he so flipped out over that.
Cue an onslaught of terms thrown around from the both of them. Even a simple memory of one of the exchanged had Lance cringing at the stupidity they'd been tossing back and forth (and that was before the punches were even thrown):
"Well, your mullet's stupid!"
"Got anything more creative than that, air for brains?"
"Well, sure, if you wanna play it that way. Mr. Nico di Angelo copycat."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means you lived under a rock for your entire life, you stupid little fu-"
Again, pure stupidity. And Lance wasn't one to call something he'd participated in stupid, it was against his morals as an egoist.
So, yeah, Lance knew he'd done fucked up.
How'd he know he'd done fucked up?
Because he, the great and powerful Wizard of Bitchassery, was looking back on all of it and deciding it was stupid.
He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly, careful not to hit the faded black eye he'd been stuck sporting the past few days, since Allura didn't allow any of the seriously-doubt-it's-science healing stuff to be used on both him and Keith.
Apparently a fistfight between Paladins wasn't a good enough reason for medical assistance. Who would've thunk it?
Lance threw himself back against the pillows that consumed over half his bed – most of which he'd been stealing from other 'guest rooms' in the ship.
If you could even call them guest rooms, because, once again, the Altean's never fucking named anything and that was so going to change if Lance had anything to say about it.
"Great," Lance grumbled, staring up at the whatever that made up his ceiling (Wood? Metal? Some kind of organic space shit that he'd yet to learn [and forget] about?). "How do I fix this?"
Well, to be honest, there really wasn't much to fix.
Lance and Keith had always been on bad terms – they were like the cat and dog of the team, the Tom and Jerry (not the same thing but sure as heck close enough for Lances peanut brain).
But at least they'd been able to speak to each other. Ever since that fight thing Keith wouldn't even look Lance in the eye. And that kind of sucked because Keith had pretty eyes and Lance had never really minded staring into them for a while.
Lance pulled the covers over his head with a groan. Okay, that was enough thinking for tonight, he could feel his head overheating.
He'd figure it out the next morning.
Lance most certainly did not figure it out the next morning, seeing as the first thing he did upon sight of Keith was jut his hip, point, and say: "Well look what the cat dragged in?"
Keith had looked him dead in the eye – and Lance felt his knees melt the tiniest bit – and said in return: "What? A Nico di Angelo copycat?"
Lance's jaw dropped. Keith waltzed passed him, the murder in his eyes fading the slightest bit as he closed Lances mouth.
Wrong move.
The blue Paladin was on him in a tick, clawing at Keith's face and spitting a single line of pure rage.
"! #+$%^&*()(*&^%$%^&*!"
It took a combination of Hunk, Shiro, and Coran to pull the two boys apart.
Surprisingly, at the end of it, Lance had taken the brute of the injuries. His black eye had once again been whacked with a closed fist and he'd taken an elbow to the nose. Said nose was also gushing blood at the moment.
Shiro quickly shoved Lance a napkin from the breakfast table to help him plug the flow.
Lance swiped it up and squeezed his nostrils shut, but not before taking one look at Keith, who was getting dragged away by Coran but for some odd reason would not look away from Lance, and spitting in his direction.
Once again, it took all of Hunk, Shiro, and Coran to atop the fight, though Lance was downright terrified at the idea of it taking all three of them to hold Keith back.
He scrambled back to his room and shut to door, memories of any and all murder-mystery shows he'd watched back on Earth flooding back to him.
He somehow fixed his nosebleed, cleaned up, then headed back to his bed to sleep the rest of the day away.
When Lance woke up, the lights in the hallways were out: signaling the artificial night the ship had set up for everyone to sleep.
Lances stomach rumbled and, with a few general mutters of obscenity, mostly aimed towards Keith and his absurdly perfect eyes, headed towards the kitchen for a midnight snack.
It didn't take him long; he'd lucked out and gotten the room closest to the kitchen, much to Hunk's dismay.
Lance sighed as he turned into the 'central hub of everything on the ship,' as Hunk put it.
It was times like these that he missed his abuelita and her perfect cooking; he had really started to get sick of green glop for food. Man, what he wouldn't give for one of the pepperoni slices he'd occasionally steal – and get whacked upside the head with a sandal for doing so – back at the shack.
He made his way over to the Altean equivalent of a fridge, yawning as he shuffled through the food.
Green blob of this, pink whirl of that, purple chunk o' – What. Was. That? Wait, never mind. Lance so didn't want to know.
After several ticks he finally found something appetizing and just kind of went with it.
Lance turned around, still humming happily to himself, and was met face-to-face with death.
"What the literal fuck, man!" he squealed, shielding his face with his hands in case Keith decided to go all ax murderer on him. "Are you, like, a feather? Try and make noise when you walk."
Keith raised an eyebrow. Lance squinted down at him between his fingers and scowled at the fact that the things the jerk was sporting was some faint, red claw marks and a slightly sore-looking jaw.
"Isn't that kind of against the point?" he asked.
"In battle, Mr. Feather Foot," Lance snapped, "Not on the ship."
"…'Feather Foot?'" Keith repeated slowly.
Lance eeped and backed up, holding his hands higher to shield himself. "Don't hit me, don't hit me, mios dios, please don't hit me, I've had enough of getting hit by you!"
He knew he was whining and whimpering like a wimp but Lance knew his perfect face couldn't take any more of Keith's beating's at this point.
Keith rolled his eyes, "I'm not going to hit you," he sighed.
"Even if I nag you?" Lance squeaked.
Keith glared, "Most likely if you nag me."
"Okay, okay, no nagging, stopping the nagging, shutting up with the nagging."
"How about shutting up in general?"
Lance looked him dead in the eye. "Not gonna happen and you know it."
Keith sighed, "At least I tried."
"Hey!" Lance yelled, "I'm offended at that!'
"Good," Keith huffed, "it was supposed to be offensive."
Lance rolled his eyes at that, crossing his arms and huffing, "I hate you, you know that?"
"I do," Keith mumbled, "You tell me daily."
"Because I hate you daily."
"Why? Can't you, I don't know, like me?"
"Because I just don't want to like you!" Lance hissed, "I don't like liking you! I like hating you!"
"Well, I'm fine with liking you," Keith grumbled.
"I'm pretty sure our definitions of 'like' are different," Lance said, "You see, mine is 'playing video games together and being each other's wingmen while trying to pick up dates.' You don't exactly do that."
Keith just kind of stared at him, "We don't have time for that kind of stuff."
"And that's why I hate you and you hate me."
"I don't hate you," Keith sighed out, rubbing the back of his neck. If Lance squinted a bit, he could make out the lightest blush on Keith's cheeks. "I honestly have no idea why you think that."
"Well, I want you to hate me," Lance sniffed, nose turning up at Keith. Said boy just shot him a blank look, "Makes things easier."
"How?"
"Just does."
"Again, how?"
"Again, it just does!"
"Look, I just -" Keith started, only to stop halfway through the sentence. A tick passed by. He leaned in, grabbing Lances shoulders and pulling him forwards until they were nose to nose.
"I want you to like me," he whispered, "I really, really want you to like me."
"I…," Lance started, too captivated by the eyes in front of him to actually form a sentence.
Yup, he was definitely drowning right now.
Using way more willpower than he'd initially expected, Lance tore his eyes away from Keith's. "I – I'd rather not."
"You," Keith grumbled, obviously irate, "You're just so stupid sometimes!"
"Yeah, well you're an idiot with a mullet that I'd just love to shave off, so watch you back, crap ass!" Lance seethed out the last few words, breaking away from his fellow Paladin and quickly making his way back to his room.
"You know," Keith called after him, his voice still shaking with anger and … Lance was too annoyed to pinpoint the other thing, to be honest. "I think you were right: our definitions of 'like' are different! Your like is platonic!"
Lance glanced back at Keith as he whirled around the doorframe, watching as yet another blush crept up the red Paladin's cheeks as he finished his statement:
"Mine's not."
Oh, there was no way in fucking hell Lance slept the rest of the night. No siree. Nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch. None.
All he did was stare up at the frame of his bed and think and think and blush-whimper-coverfacewithpillow and think.
Lance wasn't an idiot. Well, he was, but he wasn't stupid. Er, scratch that. Okay, so he knew what platonic was; he knew was not platonic was.
And he was not having an easy time at all accepting the fact that Keith's definition of like was not platonic.
Once again, Lance yanked the covers over his head, swearing to himself to confront Keith about it in the morning.
Again, that so didn't happen. You see, Keith kind of showed up at breakfast … Lance kind of didn't.
Yup. He was a total wimp, he'd admit it. But when Lance woke up, lying on the floor in a mess of blankets, because he'd somehow fallen off the bed but hadn't woken up, he couldn't help but of the way Keith did, well, Keith stuff.
The way he blew a strand of that stupid mullet out of his face, the way he'd send Pidge a random, half-smile whenever she made a fool of someone, the way he did that thing in the training room where he wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand and called for the machine to start the next training level – that last one was so hot and made the overly suppressed side of Lances bi-soul practically drool.
Lance just couldn't bring himself to say he was repulsed at the idea of a relationship with Keith, probably because he wasn't.
Keith might be hothead and a little too eager to jump into battle, but he was kind and loyal and always tried to help out and do his best.
Keith really wasn't a bad guy.
The only reason Lance hated him was because of his skills.
For Lance, who actually worked and tried really, really hard – just when people weren't looking –, to put in all this effort and time, only to get beaten out by a dude who probably just worked on natural talent alone when it came to piloting, was the most frustrating thing he could ever possible imagine and endure.
There was a reason Lance hated Keith: it was simply because Keith was naturally better than Lance. And, oh boy, did Lance despise the feeling he got whenever Keith beat him.
So for the jerkass to actually like him, and romantically at that, just shocked Lance.
It wasn't that Keith way gay, because Lance could've probably seen that from a mile away if he was paying close attention – he kind of had an eye for that stuff. In fact, Lance didn't mind that Keith was gay.
Lance was bi himself, he just tried to stick to flirting more with girls in the open (because you never know when a homophobe's gonna pop up), so he didn't care in the least.
It was just … Keith having romantic feelings for Lance felt a bit like a punch it the face.
It was almost as if you hated – hated, hated, hated – mint, but then this adorable little girl comes up and starts selling Thin-Mints, and only Thin-Mints, at your door.
It's like, you suddenly feel bad for hating them because they're all cute and affectionate but you still have reason to hate them.
It … It just twisted Lance up in knots.
No, not the butterfly kind – he'd actually prefer those – but more of the dreaded stones that buried themselves in Lances chest until they started to shake at the top, ready to tumble down and carry all his organs with him.
And by stones he meant boulders … and by boulders he meant mountains … and by mountains he meant chunks of rock the size of Earth collecting for an annual Dread Pebbles Reform Group meeting in the middle of Lances lungs.
They buried themselves deeper and deeper the more Lance thought of Keith liking him and Keith being better than him and just plain old Keith in general.
So imagine the physical pain Lance was in when he decided to hit the training room, only to find Keith, once again, doing that 'wipe sweat from forehead with the back of hand and call for next level to start' thing.
It had the Dread Pebbles Reform Group all tumbling down like his baby cousins after they tried to build a human fort but only ended up getting yelled at by Tia Nicte.
Lance gulped, watching Keith fight – oh lord, if anything could get Lance bushing it was seeing Keith train – until he finally beat the level. Keith looked up when he was done. He took in a few breaths as he absentmindedly scanned the room, his mouth dropping the slightest bit at the sight of Lance.
Said boy felt the Earth sized chunks in his chest burst, splattering his insides with debris as he turned on his heal and got the heck outta dodge.
Keith called out for him to wait, but Lance was out of there, speeding down the hall and plowing past Pidge as he went.
He had shitty luck. He had the shittiest version of shitty lucky that one could even get. How could luck even get this shitty?
They were on a ship – a giant, enormous, ship that was supposed to be big enough for Lance to hide from the stupid mullet that was Keith.
With a few embarrassed grumbles, Lance headed over to the lounge area – if that's what it was really called because, once more, Altean's never named anything! – and flopped onto the couch, groaning as he sunk into its pillows.
He stayed there for a while, keeping his eyes closed but never really drifting off into sleep.
Sometime later the door opened and Lance sat up, ready to greet whoever it was, only for his brain to hardwire itself into an infinite loop of 'nopenopenopenope' as he locked eyes with Keith.
Lance had vaulted over the side of the couch and sprinted into the next room by the time Keith even opened his mouth.
Lance was doing a sloppy hockey-stop as he tried to whirl around the next available door when Keith's words finally made it out, but Lance slammed the door before the sound could so much as reach his ears.
He went to hide near the control rooms, bumping into Shiro and starting up a conversation with him for a bit only for a door to yet again slide open as Keith stepped on in. By the time Shiro turned back from greeting Keith, a Lance shaped smoke cloud had been left behind where the lanky boy had once been.
The terrifying – and somewhat humorous – interactions continued throughout the rest of the day, leaving Lance exhausted, Keith aggravated, and everyone else confused.
So, of course, after twelve straight hours of throwing himself in the opposite direction of Keith, Lance finally, finally, manages to royally fuck himself up.
How so?
By literally walking straight into Keith as he turned a corner.
Lance blinked at the boy in front of him, watching in horror as the red Paladin's face morphed from confusion, to shock, to full blown 'fuck-you' anger.
Keith grabbed onto Lances collar and spun him around, mullet fluttering – 'he's beauty, he's grace' – as he slammed Lance into the wall – he'll punch you in the face.'
Lance glanced down at the fuming gerbil in front on his, "Doesn't the tall guy normally do this?" he asked casually.
The tightened grip on his jacket told him Keith wasn't amused. "What the hell was that?" Keith seethed.
"What?" Lance asked, looking anywhere but the boy in front of him. The Death Pebble Reform Group rumbled to life in his chest. He did his best to push them down, but it really wasn't doing much to help with the situation at hand.
Lance was screwed, totally, royally, utterly screwed. There was no way he was coming out of this unscathed, and, no, he wasn't talking physically.
"You know what I'm talking about, Lance," Keith growled, "You're avoiding me like the plague."
"You don't say," Lance mumbled. Keith tightened his grip on Lance's collar and Lance winced, "Okay, okay, the snark's gone, gone and done with."
"You're infuriating; you know that?" Keith hissed.
"Yeah, well you're the one that find's it attractive, so…" Oh boy, did regret come ever so fast. Lance flushed pink as soon as the words left his mouth. "Uh…"
"Yes," Keith grumbled, blushing hard, "I do find it attractive. Something wrong with that?"
"Well, not really, but –"
"But what?" Keith snapped, "Are you scared?" Lance down at the boy for a quick tick before turning away. He physically felt Keith wilt, "So that's it, you're scared. God, why's everyone always scared?"
"I'm not scared!" Lance protested, "It's just…"
"You're uncomfortable with me being gay?" Keith pushed. His eyebrows drew together until they resembled an angry goose mid-flight.
"I'm bi, dude," Lance deadpanned, "So, no, not uncomfortable."
Keith blinked, hands dropping from their grip in Lance's jacket. Lance slipped off to the side, wiping off the wrinkles in his collar. "Something wrong with that?" Lance asked. With a well-placed sneer, he straightened his jacket once more and stormed towards the hall.
This time, though, he didn't get ten steps into his temper tantrum, run away thing before Keith caught up to him, grabbing onto Lance's arm and tugging hard enough to make him stop.
Lance's stomach did twirls. Oh god, this was going straight down the path of his abuelita 's cheesy Telenovela's. "Do you need something?" he snapped, his entire face and neck burning.
Keith wasn't looking any better, "Wait, please," he mumbled. Lance felt the Dread Pebbles roar back to life, tumbleweeding down to his toes. "Look, I…"
Lance felt his mouth go dry. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. He wouldn't be able to hold out for much longer. His face was burning, his tongue felt like a lizard, dry and scale-y, and his internal AC had been turned up to full blast, blowing frigid air out his heart and through his veins.
"I'm sorry I said … all that stuff so suddenly," Keith continued. He moved his hand, giving Lance some more breathing room, but still clutched Lance's jacket sleeve. "I just, I had to get it out and … I'm sorry." He dropped his grip for good this time, arm swinging down to his side like a limp, dejected noodle.
Lance stared at him for a while, taking in his somewhat bashful expression and those purple, puppy dog eyes.
Something inside him, something that'd been wearing down the longer he'd spent on the ship, finally snapped; it was his tether, what kept him grounded and out of the air.
But it was gone now, and, technically, he wasn't even on the ground anymore, so, with little to no regrets, Lance let his lips turn up into the smile, the same smile his abuelita said was rare enough to be considered a gem.
"It's okay," he said, shrugging, "I'm fine with it. It's not like it was unwanted."
And, with that, he started for his room, leaving behind a shell shocked, slack jawed Keith.
Lance wasn't sure when he first figured out he was bi.
He'd always though girls were cute; he was raised to treat thing like royalty, and, even if it didn't show, Lance did. Sure, he had round-a-bout ways of doing what he did, but he still did it, and it made his family proud.
So that side of Lance, the girl-crazy, dopey ass side, was regular for him: he'd grown up with it, after all.
But the other side, the sheepish, quiet, not-so-boy-crazy side, wasn't regular.
Maybe it'd first popped up in the second grade, when his classmate, Juan, smiled and, for a split tick, Lance though it was even more brilliant, even more beautiful, than Maria's. And that was saying something, seeing as Maria had stayed the cutest girl in his grade until Freshmen year, where she then became the hottest (not like Lance would know, he'd transferred schools by then).
Or perhaps it'd been in sixth grade, when Lance found himself silently agreeing with the girls next to him as they giggled about how the student teacher in their class was really, really attractive.
Or, possibly, it could've been during the Garrison's orientation, when he fell like a total idiot and was caught by a random dude who rocked studs and a buzz-cut and, whew, was it getting hot in there or had it just been Lance?
Yeah, it'd probably just been Lance, now that he thought about it. It's not like being bi was utter hell, though. Lance got the bigger menu: the keys to the backyard.
Sure, it took a bit of convincing on his mom's part for his abuelita to stop condemning him to hell, and his dad had taken quite a bit to warm up to him after coming out, but Tia Nicte, the twins, and el diabla hermana had accepted him pretty fast, so he hadn't been totally disowned for a while.
Lance knew he'd lucked out with that, like, really, really lucked out, enough to make him think for a few ticks he didn't have the shittiest version of shitty luck possible. But he totally still did, considering his current situation.
He was stuck in an infinite loop with Keith. They kept circling and circling, like the moon around Earth. But Keith has sent out a probe that, while not unwelcomed, did make Lance kind of uncomfortable.
It was like the layers he'd thrown up over himself had been peeled away:
The self-confidence shoes? Gone.
The flirt-master pantsuit? Burned.
The humor's-my-shield hoodie? Sucked up into the void, most likely never to be seen again until he managed to conjure up a new barrier, and fast.
Keith had taken that stupid sword of his and stuck it under Lance's armor, popping it off with a simple jab that was still making its towards Lance's heart like a fat, demented walrus of confessions and feelings.
Again, like he'd told Keith before, Keith's words weren't unwelcomed by Lance. In fact, Lance didn't mind them one bit, even that fat walrus was alright, if only it'd get a move on so Lance could figure out where his feelings lay.
Because, you see, that was the biggest problem with Lance.
Even if he found that Garrison dude attractive, even if that foreign alien chick was hot as hell, even if Keith had outright started that he had feelings for Lance, Lance still didn't know how he truly felt about it all.
Lance was used to flings. Not like one night stands – mios dios, who the fuck would ever want to lay him. As the owner of his body, he had one things to say: bleh – because Lance wouldn't be a fucked up flirt if it was one night stands he was referring to.
No, Lance was used to 'pop in, talk, try and worm his way into their head, maybe make out a bit, pop out.'
He had absolutely no idea how to handle time, absolutely no idea; he didn't know to handle romantic relationships, he didn't know if people liked him until they said so, and he didn't know how long it'd be before he first started to realize he had mutual feelings for that person.
And, by the time he did, said person had always been gone.
So, maybe it was the fact that Lance hadn't had a full blown relationship before. Maybe it was because he didn't want to make his abuelita feel any more ashamed that her grandson was 'half gay.' Maybe it was simply because he was afraid of truly liking someone, boy or girl.
Maybe it was because Lance was simply clueless.
He was clueless when it came to flirting, he was clueless when it came to fighting – minus the gun, Lance always knew how to work a gun –, and he was clueless when it came to Keith.
Keith with those violet eyes that looked a little too much like galaxies for Lances liking.
Keith with the dopey smile that came around once in a blue moon.
Keith with that stupid hair that Lance couldn't help but want to cut, not because the mullet annoyed him, but because Lance had this subconscious urge just to touch it and test to see if it was really as soft as he thought it was.
Yet, for all the times Lance couldn't get Keith out of his head, he also couldn't get Keith into it.
At first it'd been because he didn't know if Keith was straight or not. The idea of confessing but getting turned down because of his sexuality frightened Lance to absolutely no end.
But now it was simply because Lance was confused. So, Keith liked him … but did he like Keith?
That was the big question: was he up for a relationship with Keith?
Lance sighed, staring up at his ceiling once again.
Yes.
Yes, he was.
He's back in the kitchen, making yet another 'midnight snack,' when he turns around and, once more, is faced with death.
Except, this time, death is looking timid and sheepish. "Hi."
"H-Hey," Lance breathed, eyes trained on Keith's. God, he could drown in those things. They were warm and dark and such a breathtaking shade of blue that Lance couldn't help but latch onto them, subconsciously or not.
They were completely and utterly mesmerizing, and they were staring at nothing but Lance.
The Dread Pebble Support Group popped back to life, rumbling all around Lance's chest until he finally, finally took a breath and diverted his attention elsewhere.
He was fine with this. He was okay with this. He wanted this, and he was sure of it.
With a deep breath in, Lance connected his gaze with Keith's once more, allowing himself to be sucked up into the galaxy that was Keith's eyes.
"I'm going to kiss you now," Keith whispered, grabbing onto Lances jacket in a way that sent goosebumps across the blue Paladin's skin.
Lance gave a dumb nod – "Cool" – and suddenly he was swept up, er, down, by the boy in front of him, lips crashing against Keith's in something Lance couldn't help but describe as heavenly.
So heavenly, in fact, that Lance couldn't do anything but stare down at the eyes in front of him, which still hadn't closed.
Lance would've shut his, but he was so engulfed in the blue that was Keith's irises that he couldn't look away.
His body may have warmed at the contact between them, but his mind was sparking at the simple sight of Keith.
After another tick or two the exchange became somewhat awkward, with the two of them simply staring at each other with their lips locked in something that was becoming more of a peck than a kiss.
So, somehow, Lance found a way to shut his eyes.
Spots the same violet as Keith's irises danced within the shadows that'd become his vision, and Lance couldn't help but think that, somehow, he really had begun to drown in them.
Lance wrapped his arms around Keith's waist, and pulled the boys lithe, yet somehow extremely muscular, body into his own. Keith responded by snaking his arms around Lances neck and tilting his head to deepen the kiss.
It was kind of weird that Lance had to bend to kiss Keith.
Like, sure, he'd kissed people shorter than him before, but Lance had at least four inches on Keith, not to mention the guy wasn't wearing those stupid shoes at the moment, leaving him a little more midget like than normal.
Lance wrapped his arms tighter, pulling Keith up because, god, what he wouldn't do to get their lips even closer – if possible – at this point.
Keith pulled away for air, gasping for a few ticks before he stretched onto his tip-toes – good lord that was hot – and Lance was lost once more.
They were kissing to the point of bruising at this point, mouths moving against each other in a perfect rhythm. There was a kind of buzz between their mouths, like static on a balloon, and Lance couldn't get enough of it.
Keith threaded his hands through Lances hair and bit Lances lip and – BOOM! – Lance was gone, knees jelly as he tried to stay upright.
He kind of failed at that, breaking away from Keith's mouth and sinking into the boy. Lance buried his head into Keith's shoulder, holding harder and harder onto him until Keith was sputtering for breath.
"C-Can't b-breathe."
Lance let go the slightest bit, wincing as he felt Keith's lungs heave in attempt to suck in air.
"Sorry," he said, though he so wasn't. In fact, he'd hug Keith even tighter if he could, though he'd probably break one of Keith's ribs trying.
Keith let out a noise that sounded like a mix of a purr and a grumble of annoyance.
"What?" Lance mumbled, nuzzling Keith's neck, "You're cute."
"D-Don't call me that," the said boy squeaked. Lance opened his eyes, smiling at the sight of Keith's ears turning pink. "I-I am not. Cute."
Lance pulled back and pecked Keith's lips as quick as possible. Keith whined and stretched upwards, trying to get another kiss.
Lance just laughed and stretched his neck out of the way.
Hey, it wasn't his fault the guy was short.
Keith's cheeks dusted rose and he ducked his head into Lances chest, grabbing onto Lances jacket and tugging at it in attempt to hide his face.
'Sure,' Lance thought, 'Totally not cute.'
They stayed that way for a while, just kind of holding each other, basking in one another's presence.
"You know," Lance finally said. Keith pulled back to stare up at him. "Apparently the reason humans try and squeeze things they think are cute –"
"I'm. Not. Cute."
"- is because they don't know how to stop their feelings and are just trying to kill the thing to make to try and make it stop."
Silence.
Keith buried his face in his hands and groaned. "I hate you."
Lance just laughed, tilting Keith's chin up and planting a soft kiss on his forehead. "What happened to liking me? Did ya stop?"
"No," he whispered, tugging Lance down once more; obviously planning to kiss him 'till morning, "Never."