Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.

Lance is convinced he’s ready for anything as he rolls his cart down the dorm’s co-ed hallway. People coming the other way bustle past him to return empty carts. Boisterous chatter comes from the rooms that have their doors open, sights of new first-years unpacking within them, getting set up for the school year ahead. As he sees them hugging their families goodbye, Lance feels a pang in his chest for his own, even though he gave them all long, tight hugs before he’d gotten into his car four hours ago. It ebbs away as he rolls up to a door with a number that matches his key and his own name written on a blue cat-shaped sticker, and courage rolls through Lance like never before. He’s been looking forward to university all summer, and he’s here now and ready. He can take on anything.

He slips the key into the keyhole, giving a glance to the other name on the door before he turns it. His roommate is someone named Rolo? Lance shrugs to himself, and steps inside.

And the first thing he sees is two people violently making out on the futon.

With minimal clothing.

Lance screams bloody murder at the image — he’s got innocent eyes, after all — and the two people nearly jump into the air at the noise, splitting apart. Confusion morphs on their faces when they see Lance. There’s a guy, tall and slender with bleached white hair that looks almost metallic covering one eye more than the other, and a girl with long blond pigtails and a great deal of shimmery eyeshadow. Their lips are swollen and Lance feels like he’s walked into a teenage drama by accident.

The girl groans. “Rolo, I thought you said we weren’t going to be interrupted. You have a roommate?”

Lance feels heat crawling up his cheeks at the implication of the words ‘weren’t going to be interrupted’. Maybe he’s spent too much time this summer with his little niblings, but he’s still well on family-mode. The guy, Rolo — holy crow, his roommate, shrugs.

“I forgot,” he says in something that might be an Australian accent, squinting at Lance. “Hey, roommate.”

“Hi,” Lance says, and tries not to stare at his abs. Or at the girl’s smooth legs. He carefully shifts his gaze to the ceiling. He can hear his heartbeat wildly pulsing in his ears.

Rolo gestures towards a bare mattress in the corner that the girl’s picking up her clothes from and getting dressed.

“That’s yours. This half,” — now he points towards his own wrinkled bedding covered in a lot of unpacked boxes and the respective space around it — “is mine.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Lance says even though he’s not sure what kind of gratitude he owes. Thanks for not making out on my bed at least?

“See you later, babe,” the girl says, swooping up to peck his cheek.

She slips past Lance and out the door, shutting it behind her. Rolo pulls on a shirt. It’s quiet now, with the door locked. Lance slowly pulls his cart over to his side of the room and starts to pull out his stuff.

So. Awkward.

Which is weird, because Lance is usually good at making things not awkward. He loves meeting new people! But now there’s this weight in the air and Lance kinda feels like it’s his fault.

“So, uh, sorry for uh, you know, screaming,” Lance says, focused on getting his fitted bedsheet onto the mattress. “I didn’t mean to make such a fuss. It’s totally cool, you can have your friends in here and stuff. I don’t mind. And if you need me to leave ever, you know, just say the word, man.”

He tries to keep his voice nonchalant, as if he’s had so many other roommates who’ve had girlfriends over before. (Which honestly doesn’t make sense since he’s never lived anywhere other than home for the last eighteen years, but Rolo doesn’t have to know that.)

Lance finishes the last corner of his bedsheet and turns to make finger guns at Rolo.

But he falters, because Rolo isn’t even listening. His head is lowered as he texts someone on his phone. Lance feels a new burn of embarrassment, and he drops his hands. Rolo snorts in amusement at something on his phone, then he looks up, maybe catching the motion in his peripheral vision or something.

“Uh, sorry, mate. You said something?”

Before Lance can stumble through his whole thing again, there’s a knock from the door.

“Come in!” Rolo hoots.

But instead of the front door opening, the bathroom door on the left side does. Having forgotten that this dorm building had bathrooms connecting two rooms, Lance balks as people walk in from there. Correction, one dark-skinned girl with sparkles in her hair walks in, and she pulls in the other person behind her. A new guy.

If his disgruntled expression is anything to go by, it’s against his will. Lance’s eyes scan over him, taking in a mop of dark hair that’s way too long to not be called a mullet, a black ACDC t-shirt that loosely fits over his torso, and a clenched jaw full of quiet repressed irritation, like a groundhog pulled out of its home without permission.

“Hello!” the girl sings brightly at Lance and Rolo, a British lilt in her words. “I’m Allura, your RA! You guys must be Rolo and Lance. This is Keith, your suitemate.”

Lance waves and gives a friendly grin, but when Keith does nothing but stare at the ground, he lets his hand drop. Tough crowd.

“Anyway,” Allura continues with all the pep in her voice as she claps her hands together, “Roommate and suitemate rule agreements are due to me by the end of this week, but since you two are checked in now and since Keith doesn’t have a roommate, I figured we could start some socializing by doing the suitemate agreement early. Get it out of the way, bond, you know.”

She thrusts a paper and pen towards Keith, who glares at her in a way that makes Lance think they’re familiar with one another. She smiles sweetly, waving to the boys as she backs out through the bathroom. “Really take the time to talk to each other to establish some ground rules about the shared space!”

“I prefer to piss in peace, mates, so knock first,” Rolo says without hesitation. And then as an afterthought, muses, “And don’t use my towel, or my soaps. That stuff’s expensive.”

He sounds so much like Rachel that Lance gets physical chills. But it’s a rule Lance is perfectly fine with, having his own things for his hygiene, including skin care. He opens his mouth to voice his agreement.

But Keith clicks the ballpoint pen with no emotion or secondary glance at Lance and presumably scribbles it all down. “Fine by me. Guess we’re done.”

Well, that’s rude. Doesn’t he want to check with Lance, too? Lance stares as Keith folds the paper up and starts to head back. What, that’s it? Nothing else? He had a feeling Allura wanted them to take their time, not finish the entire thing under a minute.

“Wait!” Lance pipes up.

Keith pauses, turns to look at him. Lance feels a little jarred when he sees nothing friendly in the suitemate’s eyes, and then foolish.

“I — um,” Lance says, like the genius he is. He scrambles to find something to say. “Do you have any rules?”

Keith’s eyes darken. “Yeah. Don’t bother me this semester. Or ever.”

A silence sweeps through the room. Lance only realizes he’s waiting for a punchline when it doesn’t come. Keith turns to leave.

Before Lance can decide to feel offended about it, the corner of his fitted bedsheet decides to slip off the mattress on its own, and slingshots with a noisy twang into the air, like something out of a cartoon.

Lance yelps as his bedsheet floats down and flops on Keith. Keith shouts and throws it off.

Then he directs his glare to Lance and something in the air shifts, as if permanently determining their status as Not Friends.

Embarrassment floods through Lance. “I didn’t — it wasn’t me! Sorry!”

With a disbelieving glare, Keith leaves, slamming the door shut after him, and Rolo, who has only just been watching with disinterest this entire time, cracks up like he’s never laughed before in his life.

He wipes a tear from his eye after a whole minute. “Don’t bother him starting now.”

2.

Classes start, and despite the hot summer humidity that sweeps over their campus, Lance falls into a good rhythm of things. He keeps in touch with his best friend Hunk through video calls on the weekends, and doesn’t have to ever use his headphones because Rolo is scarcely in the room.

Nothing bad happens until Saturday.

“If you didn’t get accepted into culinary school, we would have made the best roommates,” Lance says to Hunk that afternoon as he rummages through his suitcase.

“Tell me about it,” Hunk groans from Lance’s laptop, his hand on his cheek as he twirls a pencil in his other hand. His eyes start to water. “My roommates are intense, I’m homesick, and honestly I miss you a lot.”

“Aw, dude. I miss you too.” At Hunk’s sniff, Lance’s smile drops away. “Hunk, dude, just say the word and I’ll be there.”

“You’d have to get on a plane!”

Lance puts on a brave face. “So?”

“You hate small spaces.”

“Not if there’s other people on the plane with me.”

Hunk jabs his finger at the screen. “Stay where you are, you sweet, sweet boy. I’m fine.”

Lance bites his lower lip. Then, he concedes, lowering his gaze to his suitcase and swallows away at the beginning of a lump in his throat. It’s weird, being apart from friends you’ve known most your life. Lots of people grow distant, but Hunk is his person. His platonic soulmate, if soulmates are even real. And Lance doesn’t want to grow distant.

Distractedly he finally finds what he’s looking for from his suitcase and whips it up into view of his laptop camera so Hunk can see too: a bright blue pair of beach shorts. “Ah ha! Found it!”

“Aaaand now I’ve got to ask, what are those?”

“New shorts to grace my butt with,” Lance explains. “It’s so hot that I’m going to take a shower and put these on.”

Hunk snorts. “Sure, keep bragging about the weather down there! I’m going to need a coat next week, according to the app on my phone. It’s wacky.”

“No, listen, you get New York, and I get Florida,” Lance says, making a face. “Who’s really losing here?”

“This winter when my butt freezes off, I’ll let you know.”

“You do that,” snickers Lance, but then pauses when Hunk glances down at his open homework in front of him, a slight frown passing over his face. They kind of have a habit of calling each other even if they’re surrounded by other things, completely in a mess, so the homework lying out isn’t unusual, but… Lance eyes his best friend carefully. “Uh-oh. I know that look.”

“What look? I’m not looking. There’s no look,” Hunk says, eyes wide as he glances up.

“Something’s definitely stressing you out. I’m getting stressed-out vibes.”

They engage in an impromptu staring contest, and after a minute of dramatic eyebrow raising and unbreaking eye contact, Hunk accidentally blinks and deflates, sinking back in his desk chair with a groan, slapping his hands to his face.

“Ah! Okay. Fine. Full disclosure, I just have this assignment to do that’s due tonight.”

“Oh, is that all? Then we can just chat later, dude.”

Hunk looks disgruntled at the suggestion. “But I value our time together!”

If Lance knows his best friend, it’s that Hunk is the furthest thing from a procrastinator. He’s actually allergic to putting things off, in fact. But he’s also way nice; so Lance does what he needs to do. He holds up his shorts.

“Oh, what’s that?” he asks, then answers himself with nothing less than dramatic flair. “My shorts are calling me! They’re saying, ‘take a shower, Lancey-Lance! We can’t wait to be Lancey-Pants!’”

Hunk stares at him. “You’re changing the topic.”

“Seriously Hunk, go work on your thing.”

“But… I don’t want to brush you off.”

“You could never brush me off. Go. Shoo. Shoo.”

A hesitant, but relieved smile spreads across Hunk’s face. “Okay. Okay, then. You’re the best, Lance. Did I ever tell you that?”

They wave goodbye and the call ends. Lance sets his shorts and a t-shirt on his bed, gathers the rest of his things and gets into the shower, shutting the bathroom door behind him. As he stands under the showerhead and blissfully massages his scalp with his coconut-scented shampoo, he hears rock music playing from through the wall and pauses at the sound for a moment. Then he shrugs and continues washing, thinking of random things, like what the pH of the water here is compared to home, or why finished buildings aren’t called buildones.

Look, he has a lot of thoughts to think. It’s not an easy job.

Fifteen minutes later, steam fogging up the mirrors, Lance slips his underwear on and is drying his hair when he tries to open the bathroom door to get to his tank-top and awesome shorts he’s laid out on his bed.

But something weird happens, and the door doesn’t open.

Blinking the water out of his eyes, Lance lets his towel rest on his shoulders and he turns the knob again. The door remains closed.

Is it… jammed?

Something’s stopping it from opening, but when Lance checks all four edges, with additional speculation over the three bronze hinges on which the wooden door rests, he can’t make out anything out of the ordinary. It’s a door that opens inwards to the bathroom, not inwards to the dorm room. And if there’s nothing blocking it and there’s no lock, why isn’t it opening?

The answer hits him as he remembers something about water. When he and his siblings were younger, they would visit their abuela in the summer. And the doors of her house would always get heavier throughout the humid weather, some not even shutting at all because of the moisture changing the doors’ angle, placing it slightly off frame.

Is the same thing happening right now? It’s hot and humid from the steam and it’s already a hot day out anyway, so… Lance winces as he tugs on the door handle. It feels like it’s stuck in quicksand, totally sealing him in.

He can hear his abuela’s words in his head. Water makes wood expand.

His chest feels as if something’s pressing down on it as he steps back, thinking rapidly. Rolo’s not in the room to help pry open the door from the other side. Lance’s phone is on his desk, so he can’t call anyone.

Lance rubs his towel over his head, partially to continue drying his hair, but also partially to not look at the suddenly-constricting walls of the bathroom. It’s too early to say that he’s stuck, right? It’s way too early to call it. But… a couple minutes pass.

With hope that the humidity of the bathroom has gone down a little by now, Lance takes a deep breath, turns the knob, and pulls.

The door does not budge. He breathes carefully. Panicking won’t help him. He waits a couple more minutes, then tries again.

It remains closed.

Lance lets out a pained noise from his throat as he shoves at his door with his shoulder, pushing and pulling and trying to get the closed door to move even slightly. He uses both hands. He yanks at the knob until his palms turn red and his fingers begin to show signs of blistering. There’s no hope, and even though it hasn’t been that long, Lance is really starting to freak out, stuck in the small bathroom.

He needs help.

Lance whips around, remembering the music he’d heard from the other room. Keith’s room.

There’s two doors in this bathroom, connecting the two rooms to form their suite. But the other door always remains shut. There’s never been a time where it was open after the day Allura dragged Keith into their room.

Don’t bother me, Keith said a few weeks ago, but the walls are too close. Lance can’t stay trapped in this bathroom any longer.

Heart pounding, Lance walks over to the other door, his hand ready to turn the doorknob, then thinks better of it, and raises a fist to knock. He doesn’t want to try opening it himself. Because if somehow the second door is also jammed, Lance is pretty sure he won’t be able to work oxygen into his lungs anymore.

“Keith?” Lance knocks loudly. Urgently. Waits a second, then knocks again. When he hears the music lower, he calls out, “It’s Lance, your suitemate? Can you… open your door?”

There’s a pause.

For a moment, Lance genuinely fears that the guy won’t do anything. But then footsteps get closer, and then, thankfully, the knob turns and the door opens slightly, revealing the messy-haired guy on the other side.

Lance’s air passages open.

“Oh, thank god,” he breathes out as the cooler air hits him.

Lance hasn’t seen Keith around since that first day, not even in the hallway or for floor events that Allura sets up just for the residents to get to know each other. And just as he did the first day, Keith wears a standoffish expression.

Well, not quite. The tips of Keith’s ears turn pink and he looks pointedly away, and Lance realizes that he’s only in his underwear and this must be very weird.

Lance wraps his towel around his shoulders, but he’s too relieved to be embarrassed.

“Hi,” he says. “Sorry. I just took a shower.”

“Congratulations?”

“No, listen — the door back to my room jammed and my roommate isn’t here so I can’t get back in!”

Keith blinks slowly, his eyes darting from Lance to the stuck-shut door across the bathroom behind him.

“And I thought, ‘hey, maybe it’s because of the humidity’, you know? Like, wood expands if it absorbs moisture and I did just take a hot shower and all, so I thought I’d ask if you could leave your door open for a bit to fan out the steam? Maybe that’ll help my door… shrink?”

Lance’s brain does flips as he speaks. He was too scrambled before, but now that he’s got a clear mind, this might actually solve the problem. Open Keith’s door. Let some of the humidity disperse. See if Lance’s door opens then.

Keith narrows his eyes into something hard and sharp. Slipping past Lance, he strides over to Lance’s door and tries to open it. It refuses. He tries again, harder. Nothing.

“It’s stuck,” Keith observes, and Lance resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“Yup, stuck.”

Keith must have heard the sarcasm in Lance’s tone, because he snaps his glance up to him then. His eyes are so effortlessly scary that Lance takes a step back out of surprise — and his foot catches on the bottom of the shower area and he tumbles backwards with a high-pitched scream, arms flailing out. His stomach swoops in the way it does whenever he’s about to be wiped out by his tornado-level clumsiness.

But before he can slam into the tiled floor beneath him, there’s an arm that catches him and a sharp intake of breath from his rescuer.

Keith. Scary Keith has caught him, Lance registers in the back of his brain somewhere as his senses spin around for purchase.

For a moment, their heads are way too close. Lance’s arms are clutched around Keith’s neck, and when he realizes this, he clumsily tries to scramble out of the awkward dip. He can feel the press of Keith’s cool hand on his back and suddenly, his heart’s beating way too fast. Flustered, Lance rights himself.

He is in his underwear, for crying out loud.

With half his face hidden as he looks away, Keith mutters, “We can keep the door open for a little bit,” and retreats back to his room.

Lance lets out a shaky exhale, feeling tingles for his tailbone’s narrow save. He lingers in the bathroom because he’s in his underwear, holy crow, but even with just the door open, he feels so much better than before. The bathroom seems regular-sized again, and all because Lance can see through the open door to Keith’s dresser and closet.

After a few minutes when Lance tries his room’s door again, it grunts and pops open.

Lance makes a sound of surprise, then he laughs and calls through the bathroom. “Keith, it opens! Thanks a ton, dude!”

There’s a clatter of some pencils on the floor, like Keith forgot Lance was there. Still, he’s glad he doesn’t have to say thank you to Keith’s face, since those dark eyes are kind of intimidating, and also, ahem, Lance is in his underwear. Making a mental note to be careful with the door in the future, Lance slips back to his room, finally able to grace his butt with his bright blue shorts.

3.

Lance doesn’t expect to see Keith again as soon as he does.

After all, the guy has developed something of a reputation of being the only one in their hall who a.) is paying extra to not have a roommate, b.) doesn’t participate in open-door nights, and c.) talks to no one. A couple days ago Lance overheard some girls from a few doors away gossiping in low voices (“I asked Keith out to breakfast but he turned me down without even thinking about it!” “Seriously? I asked him how his day was and he glared at me!”). Even Rolo knows about Keith’s antisocial behavior, and he spends most of his time at his girlfriend’s place.

After the whole bathroom debacle, Lance naturally figures he’s only going to see Keith again at the end of the semester, when everybody goes back home for the holidays. Or maybe never.

But oddly enough, it’s just the following Friday night that Lance spots him, on an ordinary trip to the laundry room.

Lance doesn’t know exactly why he notices Keith first, Allura second. Maybe it’s because of the entire falling-into-the-guy’s-arms-almost-naked thing. For some reason, his heart rate kicks up. But thankfully, they don’t seem to notice him.

“I’m telling you, Keith. This isn’t healthy,” Allura’s saying.

“Wow,” Keith responds, his voice loaded with sarcasm. “You never told me you were majoring in Judging People.”

“Oh, please.”

Lance shuffles over to his washing machine and starts to unload his wet clothes from it. It’s a good thing that the laundry room is pretty empty tonight — the dryers are all available. But that also means that Allura and Keith’s voices, quiet as they are, carry over to his ears.

“This is the time of your life when you go out and stuff, Keith,” Lance hears Allura say. “You loosen up, make friends.”

“I’m not interested in making friends.”

“Well, you can’t live your life shut in a hole, not ever letting anyone in!”

“As opposed to going into a house full of drunken strangers and pretending to like them? No thanks.”

Lance finishes unloading, then walks over to the dryers, closer to Keith and Allura. He’s careful not to make eye-contact as he bends down to one of the lower dryers to load it. It’s just going to be weird if they do — although Lance could probably talk his way out of the situation. A bright smile, a light laugh, and then a quick path to the exit. He’s pretty good at navigating around people, usually. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but for the most part, Lance considers himself a people person. He’s a friendly guy. So if anything does happen, he’ll be ready for anything.

“Oh, it’s you,” Keith says, suddenly right next to him, and Lance jerks up in surprise.

Except he forgets the door of the upper dryer is open, and conks the back of his head on it. Pain shoots through Lance’s skull all at once, sending a wave of nausea through him. There’s an agonized cry, and Lance processes that it’s his own voice a split second too late.

“Whoa!” Allura’s voice shouts. “Lance, are you okay?”

“He hit his head.”

From out of the corner of his eye, Lance can see a fingerless gloved hand hesitantly reaching out, but he’s also seeing spots, so it might just be made up.

“I can see that,” he hears Allura sass, and then break off in a gasp. “Oh. Oh, no.”

What? Lance wants to ask, but he can’t even work his neck to turn his head properly. The floor’s spinning below him. Everything feels too sensitive, too dizzy. He feels himself falling into something sturdy, hands coming up to grab him around the waist, but it feels too awkward for a hug. His knees are on the ground. When did he sink to his knees?

And then, Lance feels it: something trickling down behind his ear.

Oh. He’s bleeding.

From the sound of her voice, that’s what Allura’s seen. “I’m going up to the front desk for first aid. Keith, stay with him.”

A sputtered, panicked sound. “But he’s your resident!”

“And he’s your suitemate. What’s your point?” snaps Allura, and there’s the sound of a door opening as she leaves. “Keep him awake until I get back!”

Is it really that bad? Lance screws his eyes shut, his skull pounding all over. The surface he’s resting on moves, almost as if nudging him.

“Hey. Hey, don’t fall asleep,” someone’s telling him. Keith, Lance reminds himself. Keith’s the one holding him.

Lance opens his eyes and lifts up his head from where it’s leaning into Keith and meets a pair of deep, dark eyes. The same scary eyes that had made him nearly fall into the shower last week. But now… they’re not that scary. Scared, maybe. And the fact that Keith would be scared for him is actually… kind of sweet.

Thoughtlessly, he murmurs, “Hey. You’re not so scary after all.”

“What?”

Lance is in a literal daze. “You caught me again.”

Keith blinks, eyebrows furrowing. “Do you have a habit of falling?”

“S’not up to me,” Lance complains, because it really isn’t. “I’m just clumsy. Horribly, horribly clumsy.”

Lance clutches onto the front of Keith’s sweatshirt as his head pounds and a wave of nausea follows. He really hopes he doesn’t puke.

“You…,” There’s a frown in Keith’s voice. “Don’t fall asleep on me.”

“I… wouldn’t? You’re not my pillow.”

“Your eyes are closed. Open them.”

Lance hears the panic, feels his own. He hopes he doesn’t die from this. Could he really die? He doesn’t want to go. He peels his eyes open, tears blurring his vision.

“Hey, whoa, hey,” Keith says now, sounding freaked out but for an entirely different reason. “Don’t cry. Are you… you’re okay. You’re okay.”

Lance wonders if Keith is disturbed when people cry. When he was little, on the rare occasions that his oldest sibling Luis would cry, all the other siblings would run around trying to cheer him up.

With the memory in mind, Lance breathes through his nose, the dizziness and confusion slowly ebbing away. He blinks away at his tears before they spill out. Keith’s arms around him relax a fraction. Lance meets his eyes.

“Thanks, Keith. You’re like, my superhero.”

For some reason, Keith’s eyes widen at that and his cheeks darken.

The silence is broken by the sound of a door opening with a bang and Allura’s voice shouting from afar. “Campus firefighter emergency people are here!”

And sure enough, a couple people dressed in firefighter suits are jogging through the laundry room ahead of her, aid kits in their hands. As they reach them, Lance feels Keith letting go of him. The firefighters patch up his bleeding head and make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. They give him water, an ice pack, and some ibuprofen, and after receiving a stern warning to be more careful about unassumingly dangerous dryer doors even though he was the victim here, he’s allowed to leave. As a sympathetic Allura walks him back to his dorm, Lance can’t help but notice that Keith’s made himself scarce.

And he tries not to notice how he misses the sensation of being held.

4.

Embarrassing.

A couple weeks have passed, but still every time that Keith passes through Lance’s thoughts, it’s embarrassing. How is it possible that he’s this dysfunctional? And how is it that it always happens when Keith’s around?

At least the party is a good distraction.

Music softly pumps through the speakers around whatever frat house this is, colorful star lights twirling on the ceiling from a projector. People are dancing, singing, and there’s a chaotically large group of people playing Twister in the living room. Lance’s stomach hurts from laughing as he talks to someone he doesn’t know the name of. They don’t know his name, either. There’s nothing like meeting new nice people in a place full of music and drinks and food and games. They’re literal stress-free environments. It’s just… fun. Even if the house is crowded, for some reason to Lance it’s not at all suffocating. The surrounding noise is a comfort.

That is, until he sees a certain black-haired boy with a scowl on his face standing near the doorway. Lance nearly drops his punch.

“Keith!” one of the cool-looking upperclassmen exclaims from where he’s standing by the Twister pile. “You made it!”

Lance watches as the upperclassman — who has amazing eyeliner, by the way — goes to greet Keith with a warm hug. Keith seems less antisocial than normal as he hugs back, though he does have the stance of a runner ready to bolt. Unsurprisingly, Allura appears through the door a moment later, chatting with a blond girl with purple highlights by her side.

“Wow, a freshman is friends with Shiro?” the person Lance was talking to asks. “Kinda baller.”

“Who’s Shiro?” Lance asks before he can think better of it.

The person swivels their head towards Lance, a chortle behind their lips. Whatever they see on Lance’s face, however, makes them stop. “Wait — you’re not joking?” they ask. “Who’s Shiro? Really?”

Lance sips his punch carefully. “Yeah, I’m new.”

“New, or just living under a rock?” The person, who was so friendly and nice two minutes ago while complimenting Lance’s foundation, now looks him up and down with a slight frown. “So you’re not here because Shiro or one of his friends invited you?”

“Kinda thought this was an open-door kind of party,” Lance says, his mouth speaking before his brain can send him warnings that no, this doesn’t feel like it’s going in the right direction.

What’s behind the person’s eyes isn’t exactly hostile, but it’s just subtle and cold enough to make Lance feel small.

“I have to go,” the person says, and moves away.

Lance doesn’t really get it — this really is an open-door party, so it’s not like he isn’t allowed to be here — but tries to shake it off as he goes to get more punch.

When he walks back to where he was standing before, he stops in mid-step when he hears the same person from before talking to a couple other people. None of them have noticed him.

“—yeah, brown hair, tall, blue eyes? I was just talking to him.”

“He’s so cute,” one of the people is saying. “Like, seriously my type.”

“I bet you could get his number, easy,” the person replies with a laugh that isn’t very nice.

Lance stops breathing. Feels itchy.

“He’s really desperate for friends, I can just tell. He wasn’t even invited, he just showed up.”

A pause that seems to stretch on for much too long.

“Ew, who does that?”

The small group has broken out into laughter and they’re already on another topic, but Lance is backtracking, backpedaling, back-whatever, because he needs to get away.

The noise of the party has become muted to his ears as he weaves through the crowd to get to the bathroom. His mind is a whirling mess of the sound of strangers making fun of him. Behind the shock of hurt, anger simmers.

He gets it, he does. He’s weird for coming to this party by himself, but Hunk isn’t with him. Lance loves parties, and Hunk isn’t with him, so what’s wrong in going by himself? Nothing! There’s nothing wrong with that!

Except it stings. He’s really desperate.

Unexpectedly, something lodges in his throat. No. Lance pushes down a busy hallway to a bathroom, because he’s not going to have a meltdown out here. He can handle anything, so the sad little pity party he wants to throw himself can wait until he has some privacy.

Except the bathroom door swings open just as Lance reaches it, and out of nowhere Keith’s stepping out of it, looking bored.

Lance isn’t sure how it happens, but he trips over his own feet.

The punch sloshes out of the cup in his hand.

Keith’s eyes widen at the last moment.

And it’s too late. Lance shoots a hand out and unwittingly grabs Keith’s shoulder to catch his own balance, but the damage has been done. Punch drenches the front of Keith’s latest rock band t-shirt, and they both look down in silent shock at the mess that’s on its way to dribbling down his jeans to the floor.

“No stains on the carpet!” someone hollers behind them, and Lance and Keith both look up at the same time. Another upperclassman stands before them, looking at Keith’s punch-stained clothes. He points back to the bathroom. “Get back onto tiled territory, you monsters!”

“Wait—,” Keith starts, but then the upperclassman’s hands are on Lance’s back, pushing them both in. Lance squeaks as they almost fall again, but Keith grabs him, keeping him upright. Wow. Lance’s center of gravity is useless. “Adam!”

The guy named Adam looks so different from any other upperclassman, his eyes sharp and disapproving, completely no-nonsense.

“We’ve already got punch stains in other parts of the house and it’s frankly way too expensive to get out. You both need to wash off before you think you can parade around the house dripping like that. No arguing, Keith.”

“I don’t have spare clothes!” Keith argues, outraged.

“I’ll get Shrio to give you something from his closet,” Adam says without missing a beat. He points at Lance. “You need any spare clothes?”

Lance numbly looks down at himself, but the only place that the punch has spilled on him is his hand. The cup is still half crushed in his palm. He shakes his head. The door closes after another one of Adam’s stern, ‘stay right here and don’t even think about leaving or you’re paying for the steam cleaning’, leaving the two of them in the bathroom. The party noise comes through the door and walls, but it’s considerably muffled, and it feels like silence.

Keith groans in annoyance, looking down at his clothes, and that somehow brings Lance out of his stupor.

“Why does stuff always happen whenever you’re around?” Keith asks Lance sharply.

Lance sputters. “That should be my line!”

“If I remember right, you spilled your drink on me!”

“Not on purpose!”

“Does that make a difference?”

Lance feels hotness in his cheeks. “Yes! You don’t yell at a person when it’s an accident!”

“Oh yeah? Well when a person keeps on bothering you, I think a little yelling is appropriate!”

Keith’s eyebrows are furrowed, eyes hard and sharp, just like they were the first time they were both in a bathroom together. Lance wants to keep fighting, wants to keep shouting, but his hand is covered in punch. But Keith’s the one drenched in punch, so even if he won whatever argument they’re having, it would feel like a hollow victory. Sheepish, Lance tosses the cup in the trash and turns on the water to wash his hands.

“This is what I get for listening to Allura,” Lance hears Keith mutter behind him. He’s turning around in confusion when he sees Keith’s taken off his shirt, and his jeans are halfway down his thighs.

Lance spins back around in alarm, only to see Keith clearly in the reflection, so he looks down instead. He starts to dry his hands on the towel hanging beneath the sink like it’s the most interesting towel in the world. But then Keith makes a noise of discomfort, and Lance looks up to see Keith touching his side, where the punch bled through and it’s sticky and purple.

Lance pulls the towel off the holder and turns on the water again to soak a corner of it.

“Hang on, you can fix it like this,” Lance says, and reaches out to clean off Keith’s side with the wet towel. The sticky punch residue comes off easily, and after Lance finishes, he uses the dry side of the towel to pat Keith’s side. He tries not to notice the definition of the guy’s abs, above his briefs.

Then he pauses. What is he doing?

Lance backs away, heart pounding as he awkwardly offers the towel to Keith. With a hesitant hand, Keith takes it and moves away to clean himself. Lance settles down on the side of the tub, its wide rim perfect to sit on.

Then Lance blanches, thinking of something. “Um, that Adam guy isn’t going to be mad we stained a towel, is he?”

“Who cares.”

“Right,” Lance breathes out. Most kids his age really don’t care about stuff like that. “Sorry, by the way. I didn’t mean to spill punch on you.” He takes a deep breath. “And sorry for last time. And the time before that.”

Lance half-expects Keith to yell at him again. When it doesn’t happen, he feels almost disappointed, because maybe to be yelled at would be better than the pseudo-silence that follows. Even with the party still going in the background, it feels quiet in the bathroom. And the quiet means he’s alone.

But Lance can’t go back to the party. He feels like a bruised peach, and going back out there right now might completely squish him. He brings his knees to his chest as he stares blankly at the tiles halfway up the wall in front of him.

Keith clears his throat too loudly. “Hey, are you —?”

There’s a knock at the door, and Keith goes to open it. Noise filters through, someone slips inside, and then the party becomes muffled again with the door closing.

“Hey, Keith,” a new voice says. “Adam told me what happened. I grabbed some of my smaller stuff—oh.”

Lance looks up at the same time that Shiro seems to notice him. Shiro’s eyes dart from Lance to Keith, to Keith’s underwear. When Shiro’s eyebrows raise and nearly disappear into his hairline, Keith rolls his eyes.

“Oh, shut up. I’m not like you and Adam.”

Lance feels his body burn in embarrassment when he understands the implication. He coughs and stares at the ground.

“No, it’s just that you never change in front of anyone,” Shiro protests. “What else am I supposed to think?”

“That I was doused in your gross punch?” Keith shoots back. He grabs the clothes from Shiro’s hands. “That’s Lance, my suitemate. We’re acquainted. It’s fine.”

Shiro blinks at that, stilling for a fraction of a second at something in Keith’s tone, perhaps, then looks back at Lance with new, considering eyes, and a soft smile. “Nice to meet you, Lance. I’m Shiro, Keith’s older brother.”

Oh. “Nice to meet you,” Lance says, and rises to his feet to shake Shiro’s extended hand. “Sorry I spilled punch all over your brother.”

Shiro grins so wide Lance can see all of his teeth, basically. “Please continue spilling punch on him. We all know he deserves it.”

“Hey,” Keith glowers, but with warmth, like how one would speak to someone who drives them crazy but they love anyway. Lance smiles. He knows that feeling.

“So, Lance,” Shiro says, somehow sounding charismatic and mischievous at the same time as Keith slips into the clean clothes. “What are you majoring in?”

“Oh, uh, chemistry,” Lance says, surprised by the sudden question. “What about yo—”

“Keith is in cinematography,” Shiro interrupts. “That’s pretty neat, right?”

Lance nods slowly, thinking it over. It is cool. He’d never asked — not that they’d ever had a normal conversation before. Rolo was undecided, so Lance assumed a lot of other freshmen were, too.

“Shiro,” Keith growls, fully dressed now. “Get out.”

“This is my house, you know.”

“Frat house. Big difference. This is also the bathroom. So leave.”

“You could be a part of it if you wanted to,” Shiro says to Keith, and something about his tone suggests that it isn’t the first time he’s made the offer. “The youngsters say it’s the coolest frat there is.”

Lance stares, and feels his lips twitching at the word youngsters. Somehow it makes Shiro sound like a tired old dad rather than a college fourth-year.

“No thanks,” Keith says. “But thanks for the clothes. I’ll wash and give them back tomorrow. It’s getting late.”

“I should get back, too,” Lance says awkwardly. He hopes the people laughing at his expense out there are gone by now.

“It was great meeting you, Lance,” Shiro says, and smiles at him in a way that makes Lance think that Shiro thinks that he and Keith are better friends than they are. They’re not even friends, though. Keith said it himself — they’re Acquaintances.

Well, hey. Maybe it’s better than being Not Friends.

They slip out of the bathroom — not together, not really. There’s a gap between them as Lance keeps his eye on the back of Keith’s head as he makes his way through the house, through the party, and through the front door. Out on the porch, the cool air of a summer night touches Lance’s skin. He’s about to pull out his earbuds and listen to music on the walk back to his dorm, but then he realizes that since he and Keith live literally right next to each other, they’ll be walking through campus like this, with a gap, the entire way through.

And yeah, no. Lance can’t have that.

“So!” he says, sliding up alongside Keith as they walk down the street, past other frat houses. “A film major! That’s super cool. It suits you.”

“Thanks for your approval.” Keith’s voice is rich with sarcasm.

Lance winces. “No, I meant — it’s cool. You look cool. I think you’re really, really… cool.” He wants to mentally facepalm. What is he saying? Sure, Keith has mesmerizing eyes and hidden-away muscles under his shirts. Is that really all it takes for Lance to start fawning over a person? Because he doesn’t want to sound desperate, he adds, “Not as cool as me, though. I’m sure you know all about my suave and grace.”

Keith snorts. It’s a far cry from a laugh, but it gives Lance a sensation of pride nevertheless.

“I don’t think anyone can match your level,” Keith says. It’s not mean, though, the way he says it.

As they come out of the residential area and more of campus starts to come into view, the lack of trees canopy above them reveals the stars against the deep blue sky. Sounds of traffic echo from far away. Crickets chirp from the bushes. As they pass a tree, Keith stops in his tracks, and Lance looks back at him. Keith’s staring at the tree.

“Oh, why’d we stop?”

Keith pulls out his phone. “Just need to take a picture.”

Lance watches as Keith focuses on snapping a picture of something that just looks like tree bark. But then Keith steps back, looking at his phone, and for the first time, Lance sees him almost smile.

“What?” Lance asks, curiosity getting to him. He peers at Keith’s phone. “Oh.”

There, against the bark of the tree, is an ethereal-looking beetle. Somehow Keith captured it in the perfect lighting, and with its glossy back, it almost looks as if it’s made of gold.

“That’s beautiful,” Lance breathes.

Keith shrugs, looking embarrassed. “Just thought the beetle looked cool. Cryptid-like.”

“I didn’t even see the beetle,” Lance replies, genuinely impressed when he looks back at the tree. If he focuses he can see the beetle now, tiny and not very ethereal at all. For Keith to be able to see the world and capture it in a medium so effortlessly… Lance has never been a great artist but if he said he didn’t feel slightly envious he would be lying. “You’re so talented. Wow.”

Keith is quiet as Lance stares at the little beetle on the bark, making its way back from wherever it came from. When he pulls his gaze away, he sees that Keith’s eyes are on him. Lance feels his stomach drop, like he’s on a roller coaster ride right before the plunge. Why is Keith looking at him like that?

Keith clears his throat. Looks away sharply. “How, um, how’s your head doing, by the way?”

“My head?” Lance raises his hand to the scab that’s mostly healed on the back of his head. “Doesn’t even hurt anymore. Uh, thank you for that, by the way. And for helping me when I got stuck in the bathroom.”

“It was nothing. Seriously.”

“Still, you know? Thanks. I should say thank you. And sorry for always bothering you. I know you don’t… I mean, that was your one rule,” Lance says, glad that it’s nighttime. If they were having this conversation in the daylight, he’s sure it would be a lot worse to be this honest. “I’m sorry I keep breaking it.”

Keith shrugs. “You don’t seem to do the things you do on purpose.”

“I absolutely do not do the things I do on purpose,” Lance agrees forcefully. “I promise I wasn’t this clumsy in high school, though.”

“Really?” Keith gives him a sideways glance. “I’m having trouble picturing it.”

“I wasn’t! Seriously! But,” Lance adds before he can stop himself, “weren’t you looking for a way to leave from the start?”

Keith frowns. Lance immediately feels like he’s overstepped. He shouldn’t have said anything.

“Or not. Sorry. Maybe you were having a great time,” he says.

“Allura and her girlfriend wanted me to check it out. And it’s Shiro’s frat house, so… yeah,” Keith mumbles, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts before pulling them out uncomfortably and crossing his arms instead. “Wasn’t really my scene. Too people-y. I would have rather been taking pictures out here. Or setting up cameras in the woods.”

“Not creepy at all,” Lance says slowly.

“You never know what kind of creatures exist out there,” Keith says defensively, but there’s a twinkle in his eyes as he speaks that Lance doesn’t miss. “They’re worth the effort to check out.”

“Okay, okay, no judgment. That’s neat. Hey, next time someone tells you to participate in some people-y thing, just tell them you’re extremely late for an insect photo shoot. No one will want to bother you then.”

Keith smiles for real, and Lance’s heart flutters in his ribcage. “No one except you. But you’d find a way to have an insect-related emergency.”

“I wouldn’t! I’m okay with bugs. I think.”

Keith’s still smiling. “You think.”

“I’m… I think butterflies are neat.”

Keith laughs, and turns his head away, mumbling something that sounds a lot like “cute”, and that’s enough to distract Lance from being offended that he’s getting laughed at.

They make it back to the dorms just as it begins to rain, but all the way back, not once does Lance’s heart stop fluttering in its ribcage.

5.

Okay, so here’s the thing.

Lance wants to find an excuse to bother Keith.

And all week long, he gets the weirdest ideas. When he’s in the shower and realizes he’s seriously running low on his coconut-scented shampoo, his heart surges at the thought of asking Keith for extra. When he’s alone in his dorm but can hear Keith in his dorm, playing rock music, his heart’s tempted by the idea of pretending to get stuck in the bathroom. It’s only when Lance’s heart leaps into his throat at the sight of someone with Keith-like mullet hair in the middle of his chemistry lab that he’s forced to come to terms with the truth.

“Hunk, I think I like someone.”

Hunk’s eyes flash like the reflection of the knife he’s holding to chop a large carrot. From what Lance can see from his laptop screen, Hunk’s in a kitchen and he’s making dinner for himself.

But the food is forgotten now, as Hunk squeals. “Tell. Me. Everything.”

Lance laughs nervously, glad Rolo’s out of the room again, and tells Hunk everything. His heart can’t stop swelling as he thinks about Keith's smile and Keith’s laugh and the way Keith’s eyes need a second to find what they’re looking for whenever he turns his head. And how he’s nice, under that grumpy exterior.

Hunk gasps. Points his knife with purpose at Lance. “You like him.”

“That’s what I just said!”

“Yeah, but it’s got you all,” Hunk wiggles the tip of his knife in the air, like that’s supposed to mean something. Then he drops his arm and looks at Lance with a wide grin. “You know?”

Lance gulps. He does know. He loves being around people in general, but doesn’t usually crush on anyone this hard. This is new. This is exciting.

“What should I do?”

Hunk, who has never once given Lance bad advice during the time that they’ve known each other, says something particularly horrifying.

“Ask him out.”

Lance’s heart leaps at the idea. His heart rate kicks up. “You think I should?”

Hunk laughs. “I think you want to. Or am I wrong?”

Lance feels like his face is hotter than whatever stew Hunk’s making. No, Hunk’s not wrong.

Yes, he wants to.

Lance plans it out over the next few days. He doesn’t see Keith, but he goes over the words in his head. I like you. Do you want to go on a date with me? Maybe it’s too forward, but Lance never really does anything halfway. Besides, there’s something just so magical about crushes. He finds people attractive all the time, but deep feelings like this one — where he likes them for more than just their face and he can’t stop thinking about them and his stomach feels golden and weightless — come so rarely to him that he just wants to take the plunge. And even if Keith says no, he’ll recover. He’s Lance McClain, and he’s ready for anything.

So he waits until their next encounter, hoping to catch him during a laundry run, or in the dining hall, or the hallways. They have completely different classes because of their majors, but Lance still finds himself scanning the streets of campus more than usual, just in case. Days become weeks, but there’s never any Keith, and if it weren’t for the fact that he hears it when Keith uses the shower, Lance would have thought he imagined the guy.

Finally, after the fifth time having Hunk urge him on, Lance decides to just go and find Keith directly himself. They’re suitemates, after all.

He saunters through the bathroom, prepared to knock on the door, his stomach in knots, his heart hopeful. Then he hears voices coming from the other side, and stops.

“— I get that you hate people, Keith, but that’s not —”

“Oh, you get it? Great. So stop pestering me about it!”

“Goodness gracious, you are so difficult to deal with.”

“And yet you love me.”

“For some reason.”

Lance drops his hand, slowly wondering if he’s misread the entire situation. Are Keith and Allura…? No. No, because Allura has a girlfriend, Lance reminds himself.

But maybe now isn’t the best time.

Even thinking so, Lance wonders what Keith’s room looks like. He hasn’t actually been inside, even after almost an entire semester. He doesn’t even know that much about Keith, other than the fact that he likes taking pictures of bugs, like the one crawling up the wall to Lance’s left.

Lance stops. Sees the six-legged cockroach less than a foot away from him, on the bathroom wall. A full-body shudder rolls through him, and he lets out a cold shriek.

The bug stops and Lance bolts backwards into the sink, the corner jabbing into his back painfully. He lets out a closed-mouth squeak, his eyes not leaving the insect even when Keith’s door opens a crack.

Lance’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Lance?” There’s something stressed in the way Keith says his name, almost as if he’s worried.

Lance swallows because his throat’s gone dry.

“Lance?”

Finally, he finds his voice. “I’m fine, sorry! I’m okay. I…”

The door opens completely, and Keith sweeps his eyes over Lance, and then over the bathroom. Wordlessly, Lance points a finger at the bug in explanation, and Keith follows it and inhales deeply.

“Oh. Wow. That’s a big roach.”

Behind him, Allura makes a humming sound, like she deals with her residents’ insect problems all the time. Unflinchingly, she says, “I’ll release it out the window. Can I have some toilet paper?”

Lance weakly steps away, feeling foolish that he screamed so loud. With Keith and Allura’s nonchalance, he feels like he overreacted. When Allura’s gone with the bug, Keith contemplates Lance curiously.

“Lance? You’re okay. It’s gone now.”

“Thanks,” Lance mutters, and looks down. The small of his back hurts from ramming it into the sink. He rubs it mindlessly as his face begins to heat up. Keith is here now, once again right in front of him.

But then he sees the beginnings of a smirk on Keith’s mouth, and his defenses kick up.

“You spoke it into existence. You said I’d have a bug-related emergency,” he protests before Keith can get a word out. “You practically cursed me.”

The amusement falls from Keith’s face slightly and he looks like a kicked puppy at the notion. “I wouldn’t curse you.”

“Oh.” Thrown by the lack of argument, Lance blinks. “Well, uh. Sorry for… you know.”

Keith shrugs. “S’okay. I’m impressed how strong your lungs are.”

“Not everybody’s first instinct is to take a picture,” Lance teases back, and is delighted when Keith smiles bashfully. And then his heart kicks him and he opens his mouth to ask him the Question.

But then Allura walks back in. “Now that that’s done, Lance, please talk some sense into Keith. He’s incorrigible.”

Keith groans. “Please don’t.”

“What are we talking about?” Lance asks.

“Keith’s tendency to shut himself in his room and just work on his projects. No going out to nightclubs. No drinking with friends. No partying, unless I ambush him! People in our hall are starting to talk, and there’s really so much that I can do to squash the rumors that you’re a mean, scary jerk. I mean, if we hadn’t gone to the same high school, I’d be thinking the same thing!”

Keith rolls his eyes, and Allura raises her eyebrows offensively. They seem to have a silent argument, but then they both look at Lance, and it becomes clear that he’s supposed to pick a side here.

And honestly, there’s not really much for him to say. Lance has four siblings, and they’re all so different from each other.

“Well, in my personal, humble experience,” he starts sagely, “A person isn’t wrong just for not wanting the same things as someone else.”

Something in Keith’s brows loosens and he stares at Lance thoughtfully. Allura inhales, then lets out a sigh.

“You’re right. Some people just can’t be bothered,” she says, but it’s with a light tone, and she laughs when Keith pretends to punch her in the arm.

Wait.

Something dawns on Lance at Allura’s words, and he zones out. Can’t be bothered. Doesn’t like people.

If that’s all true… there’s no way asking him out would be appreciated, right? It might even be unwelcome.

Lance’s mind thinks back to Shiro’s open-door frat party. The words of those people return to him from the depths of his mind, coiling around his neck.

I bet you could get his number, easy. He’s really desperate, I can just tell.

Easy.

Desperate.

Lance forces air through his lungs. He can’t… he can’t ask Keith out. Being ready for anything isn’t the same as being shameless, and he needs to stop.

He might have had a good moment with Keith on the walk back from the party, but that doesn’t mean anything. That doesn’t mean he and Keith are friends. That doesn’t mean that Keith’s rule to keep people away from him isn’t valid anymore. And Lance isn’t a creep who can’t respect people’s boundaries. He’s a lot of things, apparently, but he’s at least not that.

Distantly, Lance is aware of the way Allura waves and leaves Keith’s room. Distantly he hears the click of the lock sliding into place. Distantly he hears Keith walking back into the bathroom, but it isn’t until there’s a finger brushing against his chin, lifting his head, that he comes back to the present.

“Lance?” Keith’s gaze on him is searching. His eyes drop to Lance’s waist, where Lance’s arm winds behind to the sore spot on his back. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

They’re close. Keith’s lips are such a cute shade of pink. Lance feels himself flush at the sudden thought, and he shakes his head rapidly.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. Okay, just… let me know.”

There’s a pause between them, as if they’re each waiting for the other to say something else. But that’s ridiculous, because Lance understands now. Keith doesn’t like people. He doesn’t like being bothered all the time. And a bother is all Lance has been this entire semester. They’ve just become Acquaintances, maybe even Barely Friends. He can’t ruin that.

With a forced smile, he parts with a goodbye back to his room, and even though Lance’s heart has sunk somewhere deep and dark, he tells himself that it’s good that he came to his senses earlier rather than later.

1.

It’s weird, because after Lance decides he’s going to get over Keith, Keith starts showing up everywhere. In the laundry room (“Don’t bump your head this time,” Keith says in a way so warm it should be illegal), in the dining hall (Lance feels a tiny nudge on his elbow in friendly greeting when Keith passes him by the salad bar), and in the hallway of their dorms (Keith’s “Hey, Lance” gives Lance a shock every time they see each other).

It’s not good for Lance’s heart. Really, it’s not. And even though he has plenty of other friends from his classes, no one makes him feel so happy like Keith does. It’s a last-ditch effort when he decides to go to a club with Rolo and his girlfriend Nyma on a Friday night.

They’re all getting into Rolo’s car when Lance spots Keith walking along the sidewalk adjacent to the parking lot that night. Keith meets his eye before Lance can pretend not to have seen him, and smiles softly. Lance smiles back, feeling off-kilter.

“Who’s that guy?” Nyma asks curiously when Lance somehow gets into the car without feeling in his knees.

“Keith,” Rolo says. “The suitemate I told you about.”

“Oh. Wait, that Keith?” Nyma asks. “Rolo, you told me he doesn’t like talking to anyone.”

“He doesn’t,” Rolo replies. “He’s grumpy. Ask anyone in our hall.”

“But he just — with Lance, he just smiled like, whoa, you know? Like he’s kind of hot.”

“Maybe he’s just sweet on Lance, then,” Rolo jokes.

Lance’s stomach twists. “He’s a nice guy. He helped me out a few times that I, uh, bothered him.”

Plus, they’re all wearing makeup to go out tonight, so there’s that. A little smile is nothing. It means nothing.

The club is packed, just how Lance likes it. EDM blasts through the speakers. The DJ mixes up the beats, increases the speed, makes the bass boom until it’s in everyone’s bones and not dancing is simply not an option.

Bodies press around Lance as he dances, and he loses track of Rolo and Nyma. He finds a girl to dance with, someone who looks as if she’s walked right out of a photoshoot. Her makeup is a mesmerizing artful mix of green and violet and indigo, glitter around her eyes and high cheekbones. Lance tries to ask for her name over the music, but when she leans forward to say it, it gets lost, and Lance can only tell that it must have a couple syllables but has no idea of anything else. She must realize the same thing, because she goes back to dancing, pulling him along until they’re both laughing.

A few songs later, Lance and the girl have found themselves against a pillar, in the corner of the club. There’s not as many people in the corner as there is on the main dance floor, and he’s sure that if they wanted to exchange names now, they could. But neither of them talk, Lance too busy catching his breath, and the girl is too busy moving closer to him until her lips are on his.

At first it’s nice. Surprising, but nice. And Lance wants to kiss back, but as he does, shame prickles into him. He really is desperate to be doing this with someone he doesn’t even know. The realization makes him feel ill.

This girl must sense something, because she pulls away.

“Sorry. Did I go too far?”

Lance blinks dizzily, but even as he inhales, he feels a panic build. The nightclub suddenly feels crowded, and even though the music is loud, all Lance can hear is his own heart, going bam-bam-bam-bam, unrelenting even though he knows, logically, he’s fine. It’s not like he’s trapped in the bathroom.

And yet, as the walls move in on him, it’s just like the time he was trapped in the bathroom.

His clothes suddenly itch. His makeup feels too heavy.

He needs to get out.

Making a lame excuse, Lance pulls away from the confused girl, aiming for the exit. He feels too small. He feels too weak.

For the first time in his life, being surrounded by people brings him no comfort.

Lance has no time to recover when he steps out into the cold fresh air of the night, because Rolo and Nyma burst out right after him, shouting at each other.

“This is exactly the problem! You’re the one who says ‘let’s be real’, then I say something real, and you act like I’ve slapped your mother!” Nyma snaps.

“You just wanted to say something hurtful,” Rolo snarls back.

“You were hitting on another girl!”

“So you admit it?’

“You were hitting on her!”

“I wasn’t! You just think every single compliment to someone else is an attack on you —”

Lance follows after them, feeling out-of-body as they all get into Rolo’s car. Neither of them acknowledge him once and Lance wonders dimly if they would have left without him if he hadn’t been outside at the same time they were. He listens to them argue the entire way back to the dorms, only to realize he hasn’t been processing any of it.

Time seems to smear by. There’s a quiet spell when Nyma leaves and Rolo crashes in bed. Lance takes a hot shower without thinking about anything. When he comes out, there’s loud arguing in the room again.

Nyma is sitting on Lance’s bed, pointing a finger at Rolo who sits on his own, cursing him for something that apparently happened a while ago.

“Oh,” Lance hears himself say.

“Sorry, Lance,” Rolo says, and for a moment Lance thinks he’s going to ask Nyma to get off his bed for him. But instead, he says, “Can you step out of the room for a bit? Nyma and I clearly have some stuff to work through.”

Lance checks the time on his phone. It’s almost 2 AM.

“Sure,” Lance says, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not like sleep is something I need tonight.”

The sarcasm clearly goes over both Rolo and Nyma’s heads, because they go right back to arguing. But with their volume, it’s not like Lance can sleep even if Nyma wasn’t on his bed. With no other choice, he finishes toweling his hair and steps outside into the hallway in his pajama pants and t-shirt. He closes the door after him and sinks down on the floor against the opposite wall. He can still hear Rolo and Nyma pretty clearly despite the muffle the door offers, but otherwise, the hallway is quiet, devoid of people.

Lance scrolls through his phone for a while, not looking at anything. He pulls up a knee to lean his head on sometime after that. Rolo and Nyma’s shouting is still going strong, and Lance has to check his phone every five minutes to make sure he’s not, like, stuck in a time loop. He closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but it’s pretty futile without having his blanket wrapped around him.

It’s pretty futile when his mind feels too empty to even feel sleepy.

It’s nearly an hour later when a door finally opens with an impassioned motion, and Lance lifts his head in hopes that it’s perhaps Nyma storming out. But no.

It’s Keith, from a door down. With messy, bed-ruffled hair, the guy steps out with an annoyed look on his face that instantly clears out when he sees Lance.

Lance isn’t ready for this.

“Hi,” he says when Keith keeps looking at him with puzzlement.

“I can’t sleep with all that,” Keith says bluntly, and jabs a finger towards Rolo and Nyma’s yelling. “I thought for a minute that it was you, but… it didn’t sound like you. But I guess you’re out here.”

“Oh, sorry,” Lance says, as if he’s responsible. “Yeah, Rolo’s having an argument with his girlfriend, and I got kicked out.”

Keith stares at him for a beat. Frowns. “Wait, they kicked you out of your own room?”

“Yeah?”

Keith stares at the door in disbelief, as if he can just see through it to Rolo and Nyma. Then he looks back at Lance incredulously.

“You have… the worst luck.”

Out of nowhere, Lance bursts into laughter. Bad luck. That’s one way to say it. Tears come to his eyes, and Lance is horrified that not all of them are from the laughter.

“It’s okay. I’m sure they’ll tire themselves out and I can get my bed back.”

Keith seems to consider this. Then he says, “Want some company while you wait?”

“Sure.”

The word leaves Lance faster than anything, and when Keith closes his door behind him and comes over to sit next to him, Lance realizes he just made Keith leave his bed. If this isn’t the definition of being bothersome, then what is?

But the will to protest, to tell Keith to not worry about him and just go back dies in Lance’s throat, because he really doesn’t want Keith to leave. He feels weird and empty, as if something important fell out of his chest when he was at that club, but he knows he doesn’t want Keith to go.

The wall in front of Lance swirls.

“Um.” And now Keith’s seen it. “Lance?”

His voice is soft. Lance ducks his head. Crap. He’s held himself together for this long, but suddenly he’s breaking.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Hey, hey,” Keith’s saying in a low voice, and in the next moment he’s kneeling in front of him. His eyes are fixed on Lance, focusing on him like it’s his job. Maybe it’s not real, though. His face is too blurry for Lance to make out, after all. Lance drops his gaze. “Hey, don’t cry. Don’t cry, sweet.”

Lance feels his sanity leaving him. What did Keith just call him? But before he can ask, Keith’s mumbling it again.

“Sweet. Hey. Hey, it’s okay. Look at me.”

Lance is too confused to cry now, honestly. His last remaining tears slip out, and Keith wipes them with his thumbs. He’s cupping Lance’s face, studying it carefully as if ready to catch anything that breaks to put it back together.

Lance must be dreaming. The Keith he knows doesn’t like people bothering him, so why is this Keith still here?

“I’m sorry,” he manages to murmur.

Keith shakes his head, completely confused. “For what?”

“For this?” Lance tries to gesture at his face, but his hands sort of flop around in the air. He chokes out a laugh. “I keep getting in your face.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I keep inconveniencing you.”

“Not entirely,” Keith says, but Lance isn’t listening.

“I know you just want to be left alone. And the worst part is that I like bumping into you,” he says, and feels the beginning of his heart pouring itself out. "At first it was because I naturally just want people to like me, you know? But then you kept helping me, and somehow I kept wanting to see you more, but then hearing Allura say that you don’t even like people made me realize I was like, bothering you? And maybe I bother people in general? Just, like, maybe it’s who I am?”

“Lance.” Keith’s hands haven’t left the sides of Lance’s face. His gaze is smoldering, like he’s determined to get something out himself. “Lance, listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Y-yeah,” Lance mumbles, embarrassed of this whole conversation and the fact that his face is squished between Keith’s hands.

“I don’t… I don’t do well with… people. Even when they’re quiet, it’s too loud. But I like… I like when you bother me.”

Lance’s heart rolls over in surprise.

“At first,” Keith explains, his brow furrowed in great concentration, “I didn’t really think much of it. But you weren’t completely awful at the party, when we were walking back.”

Oh. In a small voice, Lance says, “Not completely awful is what I aspire for every day.”

Keith laughs, and it sounds like music to Lance’s ears. “And… I like you.”

Lance is sure Keith can feel his cheeks burn. “Like as a friend?”

Keith’s cheeks are pink. He looks at Lance like he’s never seen anyone like him before.

“Yeah,” he says. “And…”

“And?” Lance whispers hopefully.

Keith visibly swallows, his mouth opening and closing. Slowly, Lance places his hands over Keith’s and takes a deep breath.

The words from before, the mean ones, try to slink into his mind, but this time Lance doesn’t even bat an eyelash. They diminish, crumbling to dust. Maybe he still can’t handle being in closed spaces all by himself, but he is not those things.

He’s Lance freaking McClain, and he’s strong the way he is. He’s ready for this, and for whatever comes after he’ll put on his brave face and deal with it.

“For what it’s worth, I like you more than just a friend, Keith.”

Keith’s face is flushed. His eyes, however, are dazzling. “Me too.”

Lance ogles him. “You too?”

“Can I kiss you?” Keith asks quietly. “Or would that make you feel uncomfortable?”

“You can definitely kiss me,” Lance finds himself saying with a laugh. The offer delights him, and there’s not a single doubt in his mind. It’s Keith. “I’d really, really like that—”

Soft lips land on his. Keith’s fingers weave into Lance’s hair. He wants to sing or cry, except either of those things would probably cause concern, so he focuses on trying not to laugh into Keith’s mouth.

When they part, Lance feels giddy, as if he just breathed all the oxygen from an open field. When Keith’s half-lidded eyes move up to meet his gaze, Lance’s heart nearly pounds out of his chest.

“Hi,” he blurts happily.

Keith hides his face, but Lance catches the full-faced blush. “Hi.”

Muffled shouting that they both apparently forgot about continues behind them.

Lance snorts, and Keith follows in his own laughter.

That night Keith shows Lance his room — adorably, there are books and posters about cryptids everywhere — and they watch a movie, because Rolo and Nyma shouting is impossible to sleep through. Lance doesn’t mind too much, though. Being awake means they get to kiss some more.

And Lance melts every time Keith calls him sweet.

(The next morning, Rolo walks into Keith’s room to apologize to Lance or something, and comically falls over himself when he sees them making out. With class, in Lance’s opinion.

“Fair’s fair,” Rolo croaks weakly from the floor.)