Notes: Changing the rating to M, starting with this chapter. Skylar, thank you for all your comments! Skylar God, would've been very appropriate and I'm totally blushing about the best writer thing(so, not true.) LMFAO, thank you, that is a bit weird but if it's how you feel that's all good. Everyone else, thank you again, I love hearing what you think.

This chapter is kind of a setting up chapter, so I'm sorry there isn't much actual Keith/Lance. I'll make up for it.

Chapter Twelve

Sven hated mornings, he was not a morning person, yet he'd decided to turn his life over to the Garrison and become a soldier, so he was trying to work on being more of a morning person. It meant getting up early even when he didn't have to on the weekend. Keith being an habitual early riser was helpful as a roommate, his alarms would go off and prompt Sven to get up at the same time. Amelia working the morning shift at Lena's on weekends was helpful too, he'd promised her if she had to be up and awake, ready to pour coffee for people at 6 am Saturday and Sunday, that he'd been there to keep her company, while they both rather be in bed.

Sven tried not to picture being in bed with her.

He hadn't had a crush this bad on a girl since he'd been ten and had crush on twelve year old Olga Carlson from next door. He couldn't get it out of his system and he could never quite get the words out of his mouth to ask her out. Amelia was great to talk to, she was nice, she laughed at his dumb jokes, and she talked to him about anything and everything. Which was a problem, because she mentioned other guys. Guys she thought were cute, guys she had dated, guys her friends were dating. Sven was beginning to think he'd taking a bad turn and ended up in the friend zone and he wasn't sure if he could back himself out of it. He wanted to try asking her out anyway, he kept trying to toss it out there, but whenever he opened his mouth to do so, he'd say something else instead.

Today was Amelia's first time working the morning shift, and as Keith never came home from his date with Lance, Sven had set his own alarm and promptly slept through it. He woke a half an hour later, from a dream about her shouting at him for never showing up and this was why she could never date him because he would always fail to show up for their dates on time. He'd never falling out of the bed, trying to wake up from the shouting irate dream Amelia.

He walked into Lena's, and up to the counter, waiting behind a business woman who was bringing in coffee for her co-workers and had four other orders. He smiled at her, trying for the kind of smile he saw McClain always use that made the women and Keith all go goo-goo eyed. Amelia gave him an amused smile that made him feel like he must have failed spectacularly.

Finally he was at the counter. "Sorry, I'm late," he said. "I have no good excuse."

"I thought you said Keith would make sure you got up?"

"He never came home last night," Sven said.

Amelia's whole face lit up, she leaned forward on the counter, giving Sven a better view of her cleavage. Sven tried to remain a gentleman while still stealing a peek of it, he was young hot-blooded male under twenty years of age after all. "Really, he was out with Lance right? Oh, my God! He has to come in later, tell him he has to come in here if he gets home before my shift is over. I get out at one. It's going to take forever. But he stayed with Lance all night huh? They are so cute together, I see them in the hallways sometimes, their clothes always askew. Keith's always avoiding looking people in the eye, it's so cute how shy he is. Lance looks like he's preening, like a proud peacock. I think I'm in love with them as a couple, do you think that is weird?"

He thought that was weird, it was very weird, why were girls always so fascinated by Keith's love life. They never asked about his love life, if Amelia would just ask him who he was dating and he could say no one because he was hoping to ask out the most beautiful woman on campass and she'd ask who. He would then tell it her it was her of course, how could she not say yes. She would have to say yes, right? "No, no, that's not weird," he said to Amelia.

He heard someone step behind him in the line, so he quickly ordered a triple espresso, he was dead on his feet. She quickly made it for him and handed it over, he smiled his thanks as he handed over the money for it, plus a generous tip and he walked over to the usual table he and Keith sat at. Taking his seat where he could glance at her now and again, not too much, it wasn't like he stalked her. He just liked seeing her as much as possible, talking to her, maybe someday he'd manage to ask her out.

He frowned as he realized that Fargate Gaskill had walked up to the counter after the young man behind Sven had finished his order. He was leaning forward, blocking out Amelia's face from Sven's sight. What was going on, it looked more like they were talking than Fargate was ordering anything, Fargate kept leaning further into her space. Sven was thinking about getting up to make sure the creep wasn't harassing her when he saw Fargate take out his wallet and pay for a muffin.

Amelia then smiled at the next customer, looking radiant as always and Sven decided he'd just let his jealousy and temper get away with him because it'd been such a jerk at the counter, near Amelia.

~~.~~

Lance woke up his face buried in soft black hair that smelled like something fruity and sweet. He couldn't place the fruit, it was probably a bunch of things a shampoo company threw together in a pot and claimed kept hair silky and smooth. Lance couldn't disagree, Keith's hair was some of the softest and silkiest he'd ever run his fingers through. It was thick, black and Keith definitely spent time on it, and hated it when Lance messed it with for too long. Especially if they were making out in the supply closet at the Academy. Keith would yank Lance's hands away and complain about him messing up his hair and move them elsewhere; Lance didn't mind going elsewhere, he just also liked tugging on Keith's hair to make sure Keith's throat was bared, so Lance could mark it as his.

Lance inhaled the smell of he shampoo with the underlying Keith smell that couldn't be called anything else but Keith, he moved a bit to assess the situation. They were sitting, side by side, sidled into each other, his left leg was tangled with Keith's right leg, his arm was over Keith's shoulders and Keith's arm had snaked around his waist at some point. Lance wondered how it wasn't pins and needles on Keith, pinned between Lance's back and the couch cushions. Keith's head was on his shoulder and Lance had ended up on top of Keith's head.

Lance really wished they were on the couch, lying flat and naked, but he'd been royally cock blocked by the entire household, causing Keith to freeze up on him. Maybe showing Keith's incredibly hard abs off to Katie hadn't been the best plan - but damn his boyfriend was hot, how do you not brag about it now and again? Lance thought, idly. He'd gotten his hands on Keith again of course, they'd made out throughout most of the movie, but Keith had been still skittish, tensing every time Lance tried to take of clothing, or push below the belt.

He groaned just remembering the frustration and leaned his head back against the cushions, then he lifted his arms up, letting go of Keith, and stretched them over his head, stretching out his long frame, including his legs. Untangled from Keith he felt suddenly cold but he had no desire to move from the couch yet, it was still dark in the den. Meaning Katie had turned out the light when she'd walked by them. Which meant that they hadn't seen or heard her while making out - at least Lance hadn't and Keith hadn't said anything, so Lance guessed he hadn't either, and he grinned. He had to come up with a plan, to make sure he and Keith would be completely alone for at least a few hours before the weekend was over.

He was already running out of time.

~~.~~

Griffin tossed in his bed, his sleep uneasy since he fell into it an hour earlier. The bedding has fallen to the floor from his turning, the sheets are at his feet pushed and pushed toward the foot of the bed, twisting towards the floor. He woke with a start, his head pounding, his heart in his throat and his stomach churning, he flew to the bathroom and threw up the contents of a nights worth of beer and peanuts.

He splashed cold water on his face and stared into the mirror, he felt small in the face of the things he dreamed, but the dream was fading away, it was turning into things that made no sense in his bathroom, with the water running. It was the snakes, it was always the snakes. There were skulls and their was lions, always some kind lion. And blood, why was there always blood. Yet he always felt like Lance was fighting against it all, but it all scared him, it scared Griffin.

And now he was more scared because this time, Lance's face wasn't the only one he recognized. He'd seen another face and it'd been there all along. With Lance in the midst of all the things that fade from Griffin's memory and make it impossible to articulate why he knows Lance is a hero. There is another hero now, another man Griffin knows, another man there with Lance. By his side, was Keith Kogane.

Griffin splashed more cold water on his face, and shook his head. "Figures, he's there now don't it Griffin," he whispered, rolling his eyes and shaking his head at himself. Then he went back to his bed. He fell instantly asleep, a deep long and hard sleep. When he woke hours later, he forgot about the portents as happens to him at times, it became a nagging strange feeling in the back of his mind that he knew something he couldn't remember. Griffin never worried about those feelings, he knew eventually he'd have the dream again, then again. It would stick with him after a few more times, it always did.

Sometimes he wished it wouldn't. Time would tell what Griffin would wish this time.

~~.~~

Amelia opened the door to her dorm room and breathed a sigh of relief, her roommate was inside. She went over to her desk, sat down and pulled a disk out of her purse and looked at it. It was unmarked, it had no clue on its outside on what could be the contents within it. She didn't want to watch it, she hadn't wanted to take it, but Gaskill had given her no choice.

When she'd transferred to the Academy, she'd made it her first priority to ignore him, to avoid him, to make it clear to him that their prior relationship was not to be mentioned. It hadn't happened. She never knew him, she had nothing to do with him. She hated him, he was an ass and she had promised herself that Fargate Gaskill would never enter her life again as anything but another student at the Garrison Academy in her life. He'd seemed fine with her avoidance, he'd seemed fine with her ignoring him, he seemed find to hold up his nose and look down at her when they did cross paths or were in the same classes. He held his superiority over everyone he could, she was fine with letting him think he was superior to her.

But today there was he was, leaning over the counter, leering at her and telling her to watch the disk and then go see Stella. His snooty, bitchy, equally horrible girlfriend to find out what he wants. What he wants? Like she'd do anything for him?

But he says he wants something and that she doesn't want what is on the disk to go viral. Viral? On the Internet? Amelia's hand shakes as she picks up the disk and puts it into her laptop on her desk and she waits.

It's clear the girl on the bed is her, she hasn't changed much in two years, her hair is longer then than it is now but that is the only difference. It's her own damn bedroom, how had he done this? She goes numb watching it, watching him and her have sex for the first time. Watching him take her virginity, then it goes to the next time they slept together in her room. It records them three more times. Then they'd broken up, because he'd told everyone she was slut, he'd ran his mouth all over school and all the boys he was friends with knew things - and now she knew how they knew things. He'd shown them this.

But it got worse because it then they weren't in her bedroom anymore, they were Fargate's, when she'd gone there to get some her things and they'd fought, and he'd played her. She's bought it too at the time, hook line and sinker. He'd been her first, he'd played her so easily, but it showed him winking to the camera and saying slut. Then he'd talked her into letting him tie her up when they did and she'd let him, just wanting her boyfriend back and he had apologized and she'd been so stupid.

And he left her there. Tied up on his bed, for hours and she'd been found by his father. Who'd untied her and made her get dressed while he watched before dismissing her from the house. The part of the recording was the only portion where Fargate hadn't edited out his face, but then he popped up in his own dorm room and he laughed. Amelia jumped, seeing the more recent him right there on the screen. "Of course if this goes viral, me and dad will get edited out, just you looking like a slut stays in. Time to see Stella, her dorm room is on the first floor, right by the doors, number 111."

Amelia took the disk out, she broke it into a million pieces, then ran to the bathrooms to throw up. Then standing in front of the mirrors staring at her reflection, she didn't know what to do but to go see Stella, because how the hell could she let that go that get on the Internet?