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She’s always a little more clumsy after afternoon practice, but every time she trips everyone generally ignores her flailing about the halls so it isn’t really anything. Until it is. Romelle stumbles in love on a noisy Friday when everyone is ready to go home and crash or go home and party to whoever’s offering. It’s fine, she never goes to any of them.
But maybe it’s how heavy her shoulders felt after the bulky shoulder pads or its how her feet are aching from skating circles around the rink checking teammates to the walls but she trips on air, yells when she hits her arm on an open locker and crashes on top of someone.
She groans, pushing her hair out of the way and looks down. And its Lance. No, no, no, it’s Lance McClain. The queen of the drama club, the one who’s rumoured to leave a string of broken hearts after each relationship, and she really doesn’t care about any of the popularity crap but if there were stats Lance is definitely on the top.
She scrambles away, mumbling apologies but it’s like she’s watching it all in slow-motion when Lance laughs at her, voice light. The hallway is quiet suddenly, the sun shines on Lance’s face, her long brown hair cascades down her back, her eyes are this kind of blue that’s dark and alluring. Romelle swears she sees a halo floating on her head.
Lance stands up first, brushes down her light blue skirt and holds out a hand to Romelle for her to take. Her nails are painted teal, glowing and glittering golden, and her hand is warm and firm, fires up the heat to her chest. Lance smiles at her, she looks amused,
“You alright?”
“…yeah.”
“Be careful next time,”
She winks at her, before she flutters away, disappearing in the crowd. Romelle shakes her head, still staring at where Lance walked off. She didn’t know what kind of perfume Lance used but it hangs in the air, citrus and sweet. She covers her face and groans,
“What the fuck-”
-
She’s fully content on ignoring her impromptu crush on Lance but her brother picks up on it real fast after she comes home in a bad mood and a warning to talk nothing about school whatsoever. Bandor shrugs at her, gives her the benefit of the doubt for two whole weeks before he steals her toast at breakfast and grins,
“Its Lance isn’t it-”
He chokes in laughter but then he literally chokes for air when she tries to strangle him in mortification. Her mother snaps at them to stop and catch the bus but her brother sticks his tongue out at her before he runs off that little shit.
It’s no better when she’s at hockey practice. Allura beams at her after she takes her helmet off, and Pidge is giving her these smirks that she’s scared she might understand. They’re on the benches, cooling down from the rigorous exercise on the ice. She’s chugging down water when Allura sidles up to her and pats her shoulders,
“Want me to help you with Lance?”
She chokes, coughs, thumps her chest, “Who?” she tries to say but it comes out more like a wheeze.
Pidge laughs at her, “Bandor of course!” He is dead when she comes home tonight.
Allura waves it away, crosses her legs, “Anyway, to the matter at hand. Romelle, you know I-”
“Yeah.”
It was kind of like a fairytale. Allura, the captain of the hockey team and Lance, the superstar of the drama club. That ended on a sad note last summer after they parted on peaceful terms though. Romelle isn’t going to touch any of that. She isn’t going to acknowledge anything about Lance ever, period.
“Romelle,” Allura sighs, “I just want to help you.”
She hates it when Allura used that earnest look on her, it always works. Pidge cuts her off though and she’s almost relieved by it. Almost.
“You gonna ask her out then?”
She scoffs, “She doesn’t even know I exist, why should I even try?”
Pidge has these sharp teeth that come out sometimes when she senses something juicy. She raised her eyebrows at Romelle, still grinning, “Why? I never took you for a coward Romelle Quanta.”
Allura frowns at her, “Pidge-” but Pidge interrupts her, leaning into Romelle, her glasses flashing, “I bet she’d say yes the moment you ask her.”
Which was absolute bull, but maybe that’s why she leans in too, “On what?”
“Hm?”
“Bet on what?”
“….a hundred bucks.”
It’s really nothing. There was absolutely no universe where Lance is romantically involved with her in any sense at all and it wouldn’t hurt to get some money out of it. So she shrugs, and she says, “Okay.”
Allura shakes her head at them, while Pidge crows about getting rich.
-
Lance says yes.
-
Romelle’s hands are still shaking when she gets off the bus, she staggers to her room and mumbles at her brother to not break his leg in the toilet. She flops on the bed and stares at the ceiling as everything replays in her head like a broken record.
There she is, faux casual, leaning and trying not to slip on the wall beside the drama clubs entrance, on the other side, Lance, blinking at her with those ridiculous eyelashes that make shadows on her cheeks. Romelle’s positive she’s wearing lip gloss, no mouth could look so damn pretty.
Lance is an inch taller than her because of the very nice heels she likes to wear, this one is white and complements the knee-length peach dress she has on. Romelle can’t stop staring.
She asks, stutters really, if Lance wanted to go to the cinemas with her this weekend. She remembers vividly how sweaty her palms were, how she swallows and swallows because it feels like she wants to vomit her heart out.
It’s quiet for a while before Lance steps closer to her. Leans down and peers into her eyes, searching, and apparently satisfied with what she finds there because she’s blushing a bit too and she brushes some of Romelles hair away from her face and says,
“I’d love to.”
Romelle breathes in, breathes out. Smashes her face in the pillow and screams-
-
It’s like she’s living in a dream, after that first date. She’s paying off Pidge weekly but she doesn’t think about it at all when she takes Lance hands in hers, when Lance leans in and compliments about her earrings, when Lance takes her face like its something precious and asks her if they could kiss.
She definitely doesn’t think about it when they’re in her room, her soft, soft lips on her and when she swipes her tongue, tastes her apple lip balm. She thinks this is the best kind of dream when they’re both laughing, after fooling around on the bed, lands on the carpeted floor with a shriek.
Romelle feels her heart trying to launch out of her chest again when she has Lance straddling her hips, licking her lips and asking her to stay still. Eyeshadow palette on her hand with a brush on the other. She feels hot breath fanning her cheeks as she carefully traces the eyeliner.
Lance calls her ‘Rom’ or ‘Dear’ or even ‘Baby’ but she says it like she loves how it flows out of her mouth, and Romelle had always been bitter ever since her father left their family but she thinks this is the first time ever that she gets to relax. Gets to revel in being this close to Lance, in getting to take care of someone she cares about so much. In getting to be in love.
-
Of course, it doesn’t last long.
It’s a Friday again, Romelle was waiting for Lance outside the drama club room, fidgeting and biting her lip. They were a couple, right? She sees the looks everyone gives her, she’s happy that Lance calls her 'girlfriend' to everyone, loves that everyone knows they’re together.
But she wants to ask Lance to the prom anyway. Because. Because well, she was going to ask Lance to go to the prom with her before the whole thing with Pidge’s bet had happened. It may be silly but she’d always been a bit reckless.
She doesn’t expect it at all, when she sees Lance bounding up to her, her heels clicking. She looks furious,
“You-” she spits it out, before she shakes her head, covering her face. Romelle feels her breath stuck in her throat when she sees the tears brimming in her eyes, “I-I thought you of all people would be-” and no, no, no- this isn’t how it was supposed to go.
Romelle was supposed to be on her knees, she was going to say something cheesy and show the ring she made for lance and ask her to go to the prom together not- not this; Lance sobbing at her, her hands shaking, her face a shade of hurt she doesn’t understand what could have caused it-
“I know about the fucking bet you took,” she hisses, her eyes are red. Her nails are crimson, like blood.
“Oh.” How was she surprised? Nothing good ever comes out when she tries. She does anyway, one last time.
“Lance, I- it was just-”
“Shut the fuck up- just- just shut up-”
And she feels this deep visceral pain inside her because she knows alright? She knows how Lance had always given everything in every relationship she ever went through and it was never easy for her when people would talk behind her back about how ‘easy’ she was or how ‘heartless’ she could be.
Lance has told her everything, had trusted it with her, with the knowledge that some of her relationships before hadn’t always been good, had ended so badly she never thought she could come back up again.
She knows whatever she tells Lance right now it’ll never mean anything. The damage is done. She says sorry, Lance shakes her head, and she walks away into the crowd.
When Romelle comes back to her bed that day, her hands won't stop shaking.
-
Five more days before the prom, three days in where she spent it in a haze. A silent, sedated kind of dream. She makes mistakes at practice, gets checked so many times Allura yells at her to get time out on the bench.
She’s still on the bench, staring on the floor when Allura sits next to her.
“Knew it was a bad idea.”
“Hm.”
“Romelle Quanta.”
She groans, its never a good sign when the captain used their full names on them. Allura pulls her shoulders, makes Romelle look at her.
“Are you really going to let her go? Just like that?”
She blinks, runs her fingers through her messy blond hair.
“I….”
Allura sighs, “The prom is tomorrow night, you still have time.”
-
She stares at the ceiling in her bedroom again. Remembers the sweet smell of oranges.
-
Romelle knows exactly what to do before tomorrow night so she heads to Lance’s ex-boyfriends' house and bangs on the garage door. When she gets no answer she bangs on it again.
“What the fuck, is making this racket here at this fucking time, I swear I’ll-”
He stops short when he sees her, breathing heavily, hair in disarray, bags under her eyes.
“Keith.”
“Romelle.”
“I need you to make me something.”
He shakes his head, already trying to close back the door, “No. Just because I'm in the art club, I'm not your smith or whatever you think you can make me do and especially not tonight, god Romelle what were you thinking-”
She’s adamant though, and also has a card up her sleeve, “I called Shiro already he’s coming here to help.”
“He knows about this?!”
Just as he says that a car drives past them before backing up to park. A man with grey hair comes out of it, smiling up at them. He might be the only one between the three of them that doesn't look like they just got out of bed.
“Hi Romelle, you said you wanted to make something for Lance?”
-
She resolutely ignores how awkward it was to spend time with two of the exes but she pulls through it. They nod in understanding when she tells them what happened, winces when she talks about the bet, hums when she says she wants to fix this if she could.
Keith sighs first, scratching his dark messy hair, “Alright then, I’m only doing this for Lance mind you but…suit up I guess.”
-
It’s the night of the prom.
Shiro drops her off Lance’s house but she takes a moment, to breathe for a bit, and not panic. His voice is reassuring, as she tells her to just be honest. She gets out of the car.
Allura told her she was going to go with Lance for the prom but not as a date, Romelle sees her at the door as she smiles up at her. When Lance comes out though, her heart stutters, taking in the deep blue dress, flowing down her waist, glittering dark stars at the edges. Her hair is braided on one side but its loose on the other, a flower pinned on the side. She looks so beautiful Romelle is about to combust.
“Romelle?”
That…wasn’t Lance that said that, but Lance is gaping at her in shock so that’s that.
“Hi, Hunk,” Romelle waves at Hunk who’s standing behind Lance, also shocked.
She takes a deep breath, here goes nothing.
“I know, I get too curious sometimes, so I can’t stop asking you about everything. But, you’ve always indulged me when I ask you about the plays you’ve loved so I figured, I could make one of them come true.”
She waves at herself, showing off the gleaming metal of her typical knight-in-shining-armour get up, except it wasn’t just a get up. It’s everything Lance had told her of what she imagined the prince in her plays would look like if they had more budget. Romelle takes off her helmet with a huff (it’s stuffier than her hockey helmet damn,) before she also takes out the sword strapped at her back and presses a button.
“It glows,” Lance gasps.
“Yeah,” Romelle tries to smile at her, while the glowing blue sword stays alight between them. She clears her throat again, “You always said it’d be cool if it was magical.” She looks at Lance, looks at the ground, “I’m not used to being this…..vulnerable. Maybe, that’s why I was so sure you’d say no. Because I didn’t want to hope for it to be besides that. But I- I mean, whenever I’m with you it’s so-” she chokes on a breath for a moment, her armour clanks when she thumps her chest, “You always make me feel vulnerable and I’ve never felt like that with anyone else. I- I think you made me better Lance, and I’m so sorry that I did that stupid bet but believe me when I tell you, everything that was between us had always been true. Especially for me.”
There was a silence where she could hear her blood rushing in her ears, the cold breeze in the night air, the wet grass at her feet.
Then Lance speaks up, her voice cracking,
“Can I have the sword?”
Romelle perks up and nods quickly, “Oh definitely, the straps are designed so that it wouldn’t pull on your dress and this armour is also in your size and-”
She’s interrupted when Lance kisses her hard on the lips. Romelle doesn’t mind, sighs in relief and kisses her back as they hold each other tight.
Shiro drives them to the prom and everyone stares at them when they dance together under the lowlights, but she doesn’t care. The music pulls them together and she kisses Lance’s cheeks, her brows, forehead, her cute nose. She giggles at Romelle and whispers love with her enchanting dark blue eyes.
Romelle feels like she’s floating on air, she smells oranges and she holds on tighter. Falls a little more in love.
-fin-