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The first sign that something is rotten in the state of Lance-mark materializes in the middle of a spirited throwdown with Keith on the training deck. He’s just minding his own business, guard up and blocking Keith’s blows with— it must be said—breathtaking finesse, when all of a sudden, his brain draws his attention on a vitally important nugget of information: Keith has eyelashes.
This is not terribly out of the ordinary; as with other human beings, they frame his eyes, but at this moment it occurs to Lance that the ones that Keith possesses are unusually thick and luscious. Beautiful, like a girl’s—and he is stunned by that thought, because ‘beautiful’ is a word that he’s only ever used for two things: himself, and pretty girls who look as though they might be inclined to kiss him, or at least hold his hand.
He is also, it turns out, stunned when Keith’s fist slams into his face, owner of said fist having decided to take strategic advantage of Lance’s momentary distraction. There is the interesting sensation of his nose crumpling like a lettuce leaf, followed by a very artistic spray of blood, and while he’s lying flat on his back he can only think: What the hell just happened?
“Losing your touch, Reyes?” Keith taunts, from somewhere overhead. Lance squints up into the fluorescent glare from the ceiling lights, and tries to scoop his fragmented thoughts off of his brain-floor.
“Losing my touch?? Losing my touch—listen, pal, if you weren’t a dirty cheater you’d never even lay a hand on me!”
“What?” Keith bristles. “I didn’t cheat! How did I cheat? You’re a sore loser.”
This is technically true, but now that Lance is committed to the “cheater” line of argument, he’s honor-bound to escalate, come hell or high water.
“You did, you totally did! You—“ He lurches forward, having finally decided that this argument is better conducted sitting up, and promptly spews more blood across the training room’s floor.
“Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?” Pidge, having arrived at what appears to be a murder scene, kneels by Lance, who is choking on his own spit. The commotion has drawn the rest of the team in as well, though it’s not immediately clear whether this is out of concern for Lance, or because they want front-row seats to the Keith and Lance show.
The moment Lance manages to speak again, he gets right back on the argument horse. “Keith busted me in the face, but only because he cheated. He distracted me!”
“Distracted you?” Pidge repeats, puzzled. “How?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” says Keith.
“Playing dumb, are we?” Lance sputters. “That must be real easy for you since you're actually dumb! But you know what you did, so you know what? Fuck you! Fuck you right in your gorgeous fucking face!”
Lance does not register the awkward silence that follows this pronouncement. It’s only as he’s catching his breath that his brain finishes making sense of the word vomit which just exited his mouth, and becomes—in a word—horrorstruck.
Keith’s brow knits, an action way sexier than it has any right to be. Oh, shit!
“What?” says Keith, finally.
“What? I said hideous. Hideous face! Fuck—fuck you right in your hideous face!”
“That’s not what I heard,” Keith says, suspiciously.
“Then maybe you should get your ears checked at the SPACE DOCTOR!” Lance screeches. He is bordering on hysteria. Everyone is staring at him like he’s lost his mind. Which isn’t like a new thing, but usually they don’t look so concerned while they do so.
Blood is still pouring out of his busted nose like a faucet. Lance grabs his nose to try and stem the flow of blood, blows the world’s grossest raspberry in Keith’s general direction, then storms from the room, as though this might save the last shreds of his dignity.
“What’s got into him?” he hears Hunk say, just before the doors slide shut behind him. He resists the urge to run to the nearest wall and start banging his head against it, because for one thing it would probably make his nosebleed worse, and for another, they might hear him at it and start getting really worried.
“Fucking Keith, I swear to God,” Lance mutters, squeezing the bridge of his nose and tipping his head back to try and stop making a literal bloody mess.
(He very carefully avoids thinking about the many ways you can interpret that sentence, and which one he meant, exactly, because otherwise he might start screaming and never, ever stop.)
*
People are so unforgiving these days, Lance thinks. You make just one damn mistake, one tiny infinitesimally small fuckup and suddenly everyone thinks they’re qualified to give you life advice. Case in point: Pidge Kate Gunderson Holt, or whatever her name actually is these days.
“You know, Lance, you really need to get a grip,” she says one day, conversationally, as she hammers away at her console, her rapid-fire typing making a sound like a machine gun. Her laptop is hooked up to the console of the small exploration craft that Lance is dangling from, upside-down, his legs hooked around the aircraft’s wing. Among other things, this allows him to show off his ripped five-and-a-half pack and his incredible athletic prowess, so really, he’s having the time of his life.
Hunk is tossing alien peanuts at him, which he is deftly catching in his mouth, but at Pidge’s words he tumbles indignantly to the ground, almost breaking his neck in the process.
(A lone peanut bounces off his forehead.)
“Well, who asked you?” he demands, once he’s right-side-up again, massaging the back of his neck gingerly.
Pidge sighs, but doesn’t say a word. Which makes Lance kind of mad, because he joined Voltron to save the universe, not for this judgey bullshit, right?
“What do you mean, I need to get a grip? I have a grip, okay, the grippiest grip. I’m positively gripping.”
“Sure,” says Pidge, yawning.
“It’s Keith that needs to get a grip,” and he’s just hitting his stride now, because if there’s anything he’s good at in this world, besides, you know, everything, it’s talking shit about Keith. “Fucking Keith, okay. Let me tell you something about Keith. He thinks he’s so cool, with that stupid tiny jacket and his stupid tiny gloves that don’t even have any fingers... they don’t even keep him warm, what the hell are they for??”
“Looks?” Hunk suggests.
“Yeah, if the look you’re going for is ‘Space invader from an 80’s music video’.” Lance preens a little; in his opinion, as far as burns go, he’s really bringing the heat.
Then he glances at Pidge, who looks completely, utterly unimpressed, and deflates slightly. Before rallying again, because if he let himself get discouraged every time Pidge looked at him like he was stupid—hell, they’d never even have gotten Blue off the ground in the first place!
“Listen, all right? There can only be one hotshot pilot on a team, and that space is already filled by me. Moi. The one with the totally cool, not-lame jacket. So. This castle right here? It just ain't big enough for the both of us.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Hunk chimes in, doubtful, “it’s big enough for me and you guys are like half my size, no offense. But if you need some adjustments made, I could—”
“And,” Lance continues, steamrolling Hunk quite firmly, “if this castle is going to have a king, it will be me. Not Keith.”
“Orrrr you could both be kings!” Hunk offers, brightly.
“We already have a princess. Kings would just add unnecessary complexity,” says Pidge.
“Yeah—well—” Lance fumes. Like, whatever happened to teamwork, and solidarity? And to brotherhood—sisterhood—siblinghood? He throws up his hands in disgust. “You know what? I wouldn’t expect you guys to understand, anyway!”
Full of peanuts and self-righteous indignation, Lance gets to his feet and prepares to make a dramatic, huffy exit from the hangar bay. He slaps his palm on the access point at the door, stands back as the doors slide open, and then—
—walks right into Keith, who’s headed the other way.
Keith stumbles back, mumbling something that sounds like an apology. Then he looks up, and sees Lance. His slender mouth tightens; a little crease appears in his (soft—no!—kissable—NO!) brow.
Why, Lance thinks, feeling utterly deranged, in God’s name, does his hair fall into his eyes like that? Isn’t that, like, illegal or something? Then: Are there even cops in space? Maybe we’re the space cops.
(If so, can I arrest him?)
Then he realizes he is staring at Keith, mouth hanging open. He remembers to close his mouth, but by then it is too late, because Keith has noticed, too.
“What?”
“What what?” Lance snaps, red-faced.
“Why are you just standing there,” Keith says, and he sounds rather apprehensive. “Is there something on my face?”
Yeah, your really cute nose, Lance’s brain answers. Then: Oh my god, shut UP, shut your goddamn brain-mouth!
He reaches up with one trembling hand, pauses like he’s beseeching the heavens for strength, and then slaps himself across the face, as hard as he can.
Keith, who was clearly not expecting this, looks positively alarmed.
“Lance, what the—”
“You—you—” Lance takes a deep, shaky breath, and then bellows, “DID YOU KNOW YOU SMELL LIKE FLOWERS?!”
Then he sprints away. The doors close behind him, leaving nothing but his voice still echoing crazily around the hangar.
*
Watching this slow-motion train wreck from a distance, Pidge says, “Should we tell him?”
“Tell him what?” asks Hunk, blithely, popping another peanut into his mouth.
Keith, who is still standing by the doorway, seems to be sniffing his jacket with a look of deep concern.
“Do I smell like flowers?” he wonders, aloud.
Pidge lets out a long, low sigh. Maybe it would be wiser to just stay out of it altogether.
*
One sleepless week later, even Lance has to admit that his life has spiraled out of control. Because every night, in his fevered dreams, he sees himself with Keith—doing things to him—things that would make his beloved abuelita cry, or schedule an intervention with his pastor, or hey, maybe even both at the same time.
Yeah, now that he thinks about it, maybe that’s what he needs. Confession! Penitence for his sins. Three 'Hail Mary's and a good hard slap in the face. Or an exorcism. Or a lobotomy. At this point, frankly, he’d take anything, so long as it cleanses him of whatever it is that makes his breath stick horribly in his throat whenever he catches a glimpse of Keith’s smile—oh, that slight, tantalizing curl of the lips that makes Lance want to get down on his knees and beg God himself for forgiveness.
Since he is positive that no one can live like this, it stands to reason that he is, in fact, dying. He’d go through the trouble of writing a will, except he doesn’t trust anyone on the team to actually carry it out.
Which is too bad, because he’d at least like to leave his beloved jacket to someone. Anyone except Keith, that is, because the thought of Keith wearing his jacket, and the way that makes him feel, is just another sign that he desperately needs to go to church.
This all comes to a head, of course, during training, because during training is when all of their egos get stuffed into really big robots that they then crash together in spectacular, testosterone-loaded displays of manliness. Running on less than three hours of sleep, Lance’s brain feels sludgy and heavy; he white-knuckles Blue’s controls, narrowly missing an unceremonious crash into the side of a rocky overhang, and gives himself a violent little shake to try and stay focused.
“Okay, team, that was good. Let’s finish up with some routine maneuvers,” comes Shiro’s voice over the commlink. “Pidge and Hunk, you guys go left. Keith, Lance, to my right. We’ll—”
“Why do I have to be paired up with him?” Lance snaps. The proximity of his name to Keith’s seems to cross wires in his head, shocking to life the few neurons that haven’t expired from sleep deprivation. (Unfortunately—it must be said—all the neurons related to self-control atrophied years ago.)
Shiro barely misses a beat. “—Because I say so,” he says, calmly. "Now get moving.”
“Oh yeah, sure, whatever. Maybe like—I mean—fuck me, am I right?” Lance has the vaguest sense that he’s not being his usual eloquent self, but he has long since barreled past the point of giving a crap. “Whatever! The sooner we’re done with this, the sooner I can get me some dinner.”
“Sure. You could serve up some of that word soup you're cooking over in Blue,” says Keith, sounding exasperated.
“Okay, cool it, you two,” says Shiro, warningly. “Let’s just get this done, and we can talk about your attitudes later.”
‘Later’ turns out to mean ‘actually very soon’, because after fifteen minutes of crashing into each other, yelling, more yelling, and random explosions, Shiro finally calls it quits. Pidge and Hunk are excused from the briefing room while Shiro—well, he doesn’t raise his voice, exactly, but he makes it very clear to them just how disappointed he is with their, quote-unquote, “childish behavior”.
When the chewing-out is over, Shiro exits, the doors sliding shut behind him. Lance, who spent most of the lecture cringing away like a kicked puppy, finally opens his eyes.
Keith is standing very still, white-faced, fists clenched by his sides. He looks angry—probably because, Lance figures, he’s just been given the telling-off of a lifetime by the person he admires most in the universe.
This thought stabs Lance with a sick pang of jealousy, followed hot on its tail by ripe confusion. He doesn’t get long to wallow in that, though, because two seconds later Keith rounds on him like he’s finally snapped.
“You know, you’ve been really—really—screwed-up lately!” Keith yells, getting so close that he nearly headbutts Lance in the face. “What gives? Wasting everyone’s time like that—do you think being a paladin is some kind of joke?”
Too close, too damn close! Lance shrieks mentally. This close, he can smell Keith again—more like sweat than flowers, after a training session, but for some reason instead of being deterred by this, Lance finds it even more appealing. Fuck! He seizes Keith’s shoulders like a drowning man. “Stop, Keith, please, for the love of God,” he begs.
“Stop? You stop!” Keith snaps, shoving at him, but Lance doesn’t let go.
“I mean it,” Lance babbles, “you have to—if you don’t, I’m gonna—just—stop being so damn sexy, or I swear I’ll never get over you!”
One beat, two beats. Keith parses these words, and as he does, bewilderment washes over his face. He looks as though someone has plunged his arm up to the elbow in ice-cold water—shocked, confused, and uncomfortable.
“...Are you making fun of me?” he says.
“I really, really wish I was,” says Lance, fervently. His palms are clammy. “But I—I think—this time it’s me, I’m the joke!”
Keith looks at Lance’s hands on his shoulders, then back up at Lance. The backs of his ears have gone scarlet. All of a sudden he panics, flailing away without a shred of composure, but since Lance is holding onto him like his life depends on it, they fall together, and—
Keith’s body is hot and lithe under his; lean, but with muscle in just the right places, knocking the breath out of Lance in more ways than one. Somehow, Lance manages to wrench himself away from this, scrabbling across the floor like some kind of awkward crab in a spacesuit until his back hits the opposite wall and he’s forced to be still.
They stare at each other across the floor, each waiting for the other to speak. After what feels like a billion years, Keith goes first.
“You’re... actually serious right now,” he says, in a quiet, stunned voice.
Lance, who’s staring down at his hands in deep and penitent shame, can only nod mutely.
“That’s just...”
But what it is just, Lance never finds out, because Keith never finishes his sentence.
Eventually, Lance chances a glance back at Keith. He notes, with curiosity, the flush that stains Keith’s neck and throat; the color flooding his cheeks. He’s quite familiar with the way Keith looks when he’s angry, but this doesn’t really look like angry, it looks more like—
“Uh,” says Lance, mouth going dry. All the gears in his stupid angry head have ground to a halt. Keith is blushing, and it’s—he doesn’t want to think it but his brain goes there anyway because it doesn’t give a shit— adorable. Goddamn.
That one little syllable seems to shock Keith back to life.
“So...” he says, “you’re telling me that you’ve been acting crazy because... you...” Keith swallows; Lance is transfixed by the movement of his throat. “...want to... kiss me, or something?”
“No! God, no. Hahaha. Maybe? I mean—I’unno?” Lance thinks for a moment, then brightens. “...Do you think it will help? Maybe if I kiss you a lot I’ll become sane again, and everything will go back to normal!”
“I’m not sure it works like that,” Keith starts to say, but Lance puts up a hand to stop him.
“We won’t know until we try,” he says, more bravely than he feels. “So.” With the best shit-eating, intrepid-explorer grin he can muster, he asks, “You wanna?”
*
Later, Lance isn’t quite sure how it happened, or who moved first. All he remembers is: tossing his helmet aside and sending it clattering across the floor, neither of them giving it a second glance. Somewhere in the tangle of limbs Keith accidentally elbows him in the gut, and Lance slips and squashes the fingers on Keith’s left hand, making him yelp, but that doesn’t matter, none of it matters, because when he fits his mouth over Keith’s and Keith lets out a silent little oh of shock and wonder it feels right, feels better than right—as damn close to perfect as anything in this fucked-up world can get.
Like the first time he felt Blue’s voice inside his head and knew, beyond a doubt, that he could fly her; like the first time he bit back the pain, swallowed it all, and grinned up into Keith’s face to murmur, We are a good team.
If this is a sin, says a voice in Lance’s head, then may God rest your soul, because you’re a sinner through and through.
“I thought—I thought you hated me,” Keith mumbles, against his mouth.
He’s shaking, Lance realizes; this close, he can feel Keith’s every movement, can see the trembling of his eyelashes. He remembers suddenly: those eyelashes, those beautiful fucking eyelashes are where this all started. He kisses each of them in turn, lips grazing Keith’s eyelids, and moans, “I hate how hot you are. God, have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror? Like, how dare you, who do you think you are —”
Keith bursts into nervous laughter, and every breathless chuckle pierces Lance’s chest with a unique ache.
“You’re insane,” Keith tells him. “Completely mental. We should put you back in the healing cryopod, I think your brain is still scrambled from the explosion—”
“I’ll go if you come with me, there’s plenty of room,” says Lance. Keith punches him in the shoulder. Somehow they fall against each other’s mouths again, but this is an accident that Lance is happy to repeat. The kissing doesn’t seem to have lessened his desire to keep doing it, but now that they’ve gotten started, it hardly makes sense to stop—
*
As casually as she dares, Pidge leans against the doors of the briefing room, which she has taken the liberty of locking quite solidly.
Unless Hunk’s eyes have stopped working, he sees all of this, but for some, unknown reason, he does not take the hint.
“Sooo, can I go in there?” he asks. “I left some of my tools on the table, and I really wanted to get started on the engine repairs for pod number three.”
“Uhmmmm...” Pidge hums, and bites her lip. “No. Not really.” She steeples her fingers, and gives him a nervous grin over them. “Not right now.”
Hunk frowns. “Why not?”
Pidge searches for an answer, despairs for a moment, then finally throws up her hands in disgust.
“Think of it as an investment in your continued sanity,” she says, before herding him away from the doors. Running interference is a hassle, but hey—if she can collect from Lance later it’ll be worth it, ‘cause he’s gonna owe her big time for this one.