Chapter Text
Lance McClain's Monday morning started bright and early with the twenty-two minute walk from his fraternity house to the university ice rink for morning practice. The life of a student athlete, Lance would remark to himself, absolutely glorious.
But it was finals week; in one hundred and twenty hours he would be on a flight home to the sunshine and would sprawl himself out on a sandy beach. What could go wrong between now and then? All he had to do was not fail all of his exams, not get knocked out at his last hockey game before winter break and not get talked into day drinking with his frat brothers. Easy-peasy, quiznak-squeezy.
Right?
His alarm buzzed him awake at three-forty-five and Lance laid in bed for fifteen more minutes before hyping himself up to take on the week. He combed through his wavy brown hair with his fingers, allowing for what he called his 'model bedhead' which was code for 'I left my hairbrush in a different country and decided to wait until next semester to go home and get it instead of buying a new one.' His sister insisted on mailing him a new comb during one of their weekly FaceTime calls but Lance told her to save the money on shipping and just wait for him to fly home.
Lance ate his hearty breakfast sluggishly, still moving through molasses as he waited for his brain to turn on. Bacon avocado toast and a scrolling session, flipping through his phone waiting for the world to come to life in the early morning. When he finally decided he had rotted his brain with enough Twitter he wiped the crumbs off his hands and Lance threw on his puffer and began the trek to the rink with his hockey bag.
He felt relatively energized as his day began, the taste of winter break close enough to taste, and he only had to survive five more days before heading home to Cuba and relaxing in the sunshine. He dreamed about sitting on the beach with his family as the cold nipped at his nose during his walk through campus, too far north for the sky to even consider gifting him a glimpse of the sun.
Lance was the first of his team to arrive, most of the guys procrastinated the chilly winter walk and few had cars of their own, but he didn't mind, he enjoyed the quiet start to his morning in an empty rink. He threw his jacket in his locker along with his bag full of gear. He wore his favorite pajama pants, a hand-me-down from his eldest brother, and a grey Arusia State hoodie. He sat down on the bench below his locker and laced up his skates and grabbed his stick and a discarded puck from the floor of the locker room, not bothering with his helmet as he warmed up before practice officially commenced.
As Lance stepped out on the ice he saw a figure he didn't recognize, short and muscular, biceps pressing at the sleeves of his short-sleeved black tee. It was bizarre that someone was awake at this hour but he had seen stranger things during his two and a half years at college. The boy had long black hair that grazed his shoulders. A mullet, Lance though, a mullet in twenty-twenty-six. He laughed to himself and opened his mouth to project his voice across the rink, not that it took much effort in the echoey stadium.
"Mullet!" Lance shouted from the edge of the rink, using the most defining characteristic of the boy to hopefully get his attention. Considering they were the only two people on the ice, himself and 'Mullet,' Lance thought that maybe he would understand he was trying to get his attention. The boy glanced over his shoulder, initially ignoring Lance, so he tried again.
"Hey, Buddy, the rink is closed to the public for ASU practice!" Lance skated over towards the boy who was still lapping the rink, lazily dribbling a puck in front of him. He stopped when Lance approached him, a clearly annoyed look plastered across his face.
The black haired boy took one gloved hand in the other and ripped it off before reaching up to his ear and fishing in his dark curls for an AirPod. "What?" he asked flatly. Lance was mildly stunned by his indifference but held his ground nonetheless.
"Free skate isn't open until, like, noon, the rink is reserved for ASU practice right now." Lance said with what he thought was a significant enough amount of conviction.
The black haired boy shook his head, "Chill your jets," Lance cringed a little at his idiom of choice, "I'm new to the team. Keith Kogane." He said it as more of a statement than an invitation; Lance squinted skeptically at Keith.
"New to the team? You missed, like, all of pre-season and, like, six weeks worth of practice and games," Lance was confused but more than that, he was kind of, well, mad. He worked so hard during tryouts and poured himself into the sport for someone new to saunter into the rink earlier than him and announce their presence on the team he was hoping to lead to victory this season.
Keith opened his mouth to explain himself, but a loud voice interrupted him before any sound escaped his mouth, "McClain! I see you've met our new recruit."
Shiro.
A very loud Shiro on a very early morning.
Lance's ears rung as his coach's voice boomed through the empty bleachers surrounding the rink. The stadium did not offer any mercy to the headache Lance felt growing at the temples of his head. New kid, loud Shiro, no easy warm-up time by himself on the ice, all parts of a wonderful start to his day.
The two boys skated over to him, Keith still dribbling his puck softly between his stick while Lance held his in both of his hands, arms limp in front of his torso. "Lance, this is my nephew, Keith, he just transferred from GU." Lance pursed his lips, questioning if a familial bond may have been a factor in the decision to have him on the team.
"Garrison? Isn't that, like, enemy territory?" Lance deadpanned looking smugly content with the newfound information that he was teamed up with someone who was likely lesser than himself. Last year, ASU beat the Garrison undefeated in both scrimmages and games which ultimately led them to playoffs, but that's besides the point. If Keith was from GU, there was no way he would be challenging Lance for the spot of team captain.
Shiro crossed his arms and shrugged, "Maybe he was an enemy last season, but he's a Lion now. Keith is the best of the best and I have no doubt you two will come to be good friends." Their coach smiled, "We're short a player anyways, ever since Rolo got injured at our last game, we haven't been on our a-game. Keith just happened to be at the right place at the right time." Lance saw from the corner of his eye a glimpse of Keith's face which was expressing something between a smile and a grimace.
Weird.
Shiro turned around in the direction of the locker room and blew his whistle. A small and sleepy stampede of players in sweats and pajamas skated over to create a line in the center of the rink and waited to be addressed by their coach. Lance and Keith turned to follow the crowd but Shiro put a hand on each of their shoulders. "Lance, I want you looking out for Keith while he gets used to being on a team again. Make sure the other guys don't give him trouble." Keith threw Shiro a look that said So, what the hell was that? and skated off to join the other men waiting at the center line.
Shiro sighed and looked to Lance with a dull amount of hope in his eyes, "He'll come around." Shiro said, convincing himself more than anyone else.
Shiro could not have been more wrong about Lance and his blooming friendship with Keith Kogane.
Lance took charge at practice as he typically did as unofficial-captain, he organized the guys into smaller groups to run passing drills with obstacles. Lance tried to place Keith in a group with himself and two smaller guys to avoid Keith being intimidated. If he already didn't work well on a team, Lance didn't want to scare him off. But as Lance scanned through the guys, he realized Keith was the smallest player, standing tall at five foot five. Well fuck, Lance thought, There goes that plan, but Lance was determined and decided to take Keith one-on-one. To show leadership as Shiro would say.
"Hunk, you practice defense with Bandor and Lotor. You're with me, Mullet."
The players divided into their groups and Keith begrudgingly followed Lance to one end of the rink. “Have you taken a look at the game schedule?” Lance probed.
Keith shook his head and Lance’s face fell flat.
“Well, do that at some point. We have a game on Friday and Shiro is going to want to put you in, probably in second period.” Lance shook his head to stop rambling before he started. “What are you good at?”
Keith rolled his eyes from the left to the right, peering out his periphery as if he was being pranked and a hidden camera was planted in the stadium seating. “Hockey?”
Lance pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyed but mustering all of his patience to appease Shiro and not outcast his new teammate, “Okay, put it like this, are you offense or defense?”
Keith’s ears perked up a little at the sound of his position. “Offense.” Lance noted his enthusiasm and kept probing information out of Keith.
“Anything you’re bad at?”
“I’m good at offense.”
After much discussion about what Keith was good at, and not nearly enough about what he was bad at, Lance had assigned him to some drills like Poke and Sweeps, and Pivots to hopefully strengthen his defensive abilities. Keith was not happy and had sulked around for five minutes during water break but on the ice, he really was serious about playing, whether it was offense or defense. If you don't strengthen your weak spots, you’re nothing with only your strengths as Shiro would say.