Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sometimes, it feels like Lance and Keith are getting along better. 

They've gotten a lot more familiar with each other's strengths and styles.  They can predict each other's moves and ideas here and there, and when their teamwork is on, it's on .  Their rhythms are in sync.  They cover each other's backs, fill in each other's blanks.  Their banter is all smirks and challenging sass, pushing each other to move faster, hit harder.  To be better.  On their best days, they're a team that no other pair of paladins can surpass or defeat.  It's even begun to seep into their lives outside of training — high fives, nudges to shoulders, waggling eyebrows, exasperated laughter.  Eye contact across a room that can communicate everything from an eye roll to a smirk.

But the flip side is that their worst days have become almost unbearable.

Not just in the way that the same level of annoyance, when compared to the more pleasant times, can feel awfully exaggerated.  It's more than that; their bad days are just worse in general now.  When they're out of sync, it grates against them and their frustration is more heated.  Their snipes more brutal, more cutting, more personal.  Their sour moods longer lasting, bleeding into their ability to perform other tasks and interact with other teammates.

There's a tension between them.  Something that goes beyond their ordinary stress and anxiety.  An energy that fuels the connection between them, and them alone.  Something that's been growing stronger and pulling tighter.

Something that may be dangerously close to snapping.

"Well if you weren't always so fucking eager to run in and start swinging, without even thinking —"  Lance yells, ripping his helmet off as if his voice will be more effective on Keith with one less barrier between them.

"You're one to talk!"  Keith yells back, tearing his own helmet off as if his glare might be more effective as well.  "At least I'm focused on the objective.  You jump in if there's even the slightest chance you can show off —"

" Focused ?!  More like, you can't wait for an opportunity to take out your anger issues—"

"Better than being so desperate for glory that I'll get in the way of—"

" Cadets !  That's enough !"

Shiro's voice finally silences both of them, though the spark of their eye contact lasts a few beats longer, the hurt of hitting too sensitive a nerve lingering there with it.  Just before they turn away from each other, there may even be a hint of guilt.  Like they know they've taken it too far, and the regret is already sinking in.

This can't go on, Shiro thinks.  This is going to just keep falling downhill, until they say things they can't take back or forget.  But what can he do?

"Alright," he begins.  As usual.  "No one here is perfect.  We're not here to call each other out on our faults—"  Both of them look like they want to interrupt him.  "—We're here to bring out each other's strengths, and learn how they fit together with our own.  As a team ."

Keith breaks first.  "Lance clearly doesn't want to team up with me," he snaps.  Well, that didn't take long.  "Since he insists on doing everything himself—"

"Me?!"

And now they're back to snarling at each other.  Great.

"Yes, you —"

"That's rich coming from you, Mr. Lone Wolf.  You were literally about to just tear through all the targets alone with no strategy whatsoever—"

"Oh, because your strategies are so great—"

"They're better than nothing!"

Shiro sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.  The constructive approach just isn't working anymore with these two.

"You wanna be the leader , Lance?"

Oh geez.

"That's not even—"

"You wanna give the orders?  Be the hero?  Get the girl ?"

It's only a brief pause, but Shiro can see plain as day the flush that burns across Lance's face, twisted in embarrassed hurt and anger.  This is going exactly where Shiro feared it was.  He has to defuse this situation.  "Keith—"

"Oh yeah?  What do you want, hotshot?"  It might be too late.  The twist of Lance's face has become a hard sneer, and his voice is dripping with hot vitriol.  "Even Shiro wishes you would strategize more.  He fucking said it during your little vacation to Cryopodville after the Boz-four mission."  Keith is evidently stunned at this sudden turn of the conversation, his eyes wide and affronted, and even Shiro is a little startled at being brought into it.  "But you knew already, didn't you?  You don't care .  Even though you're a little Shiro-wannabe, always tryina make him proud—"

Shiro starts to move toward them.  "Lance, knock it off—"   He'll physically restrain one or both of them if he has to.

"—you still won't even try at it.  So what is it?  You so tired of losing people that you wanna just get lost ?"

Something horrible, maybe moreso than Shiro has ever seen, comes over Keith's face, and his fists are already clenched at his sides when Shiro moves to come between them.  " Cadets —"

" Paladins ."

Allura is suddenly there, behind him.

She looks less like a princess and more like a warrior general at this moment.  Hardened, merciless.  Like her very last shred of patience has already been worn entirely through.  Shiro doesn't know whether to be thankful for her help at handling this or a little worried for Lance and Keith, knowing how unforgiving Allura's retribution can be.

But then again, they probably deserve whatever's coming to them at this point.  Their bickering has become destructive, and he's wary of letting it do any more damage than it's already done.

Allura glances between the two boys, and then briefly to Shiro, her serious expression seeming to echo Shiro's sentiments.

"Come with me."

———

"This is the Reconciliation Chamber," Allura tells them, once they've all filed into the small room.

It's featureless and nearly empty, save for the two flat, white benches along either side.  The standard castle architecture is simplified along the walls and arches of the ceiling.  There are no windows, and no decorations; only the cool, blue lights of the standard wall panels.

"Alteans, too, have their differences, though typically only children need accommodations such as this in order to sort theirs out."  While Allura is clearly trying to remain diplomatic, there's a hard, stoney quality to her voice that betrays her frustration.  "The purpose of this room is to air one's grievances, and then leave them behind when you walk out.  When the main doors close, they will not open until your quintessences have somewhat realigned."

Both Keith and Lance immediately, unsurprisingly, rear back with hesitation.

"Noooo no no no no, nuh uh—" Lance waves his hands in emphatic rejection.

"No way," Keith says at the same time, already turning around toward the door.  "I'm not staying trapped in here with—"

"Keith," Shiro says as he blocks his path, crossing his arms with a warning in his furrowed brow.

"No," Lance insists.  "What the hell kind of solution is this?  The second you walk out that door Mr. ‘Self-Control’ over here is going to turn me into a punching bag!"

"You can't just keep us locked in here like a prison."

"We'll both starve to death before—"

"You will not leave here ," Allura commands, leaving no room for dissent, "until you have worked out the thorn in your paladin bond.  We do not have time for this kind of pointless, self-destructive foolishness.  So I expect you to fix this, and to fix it quickly.  The Galra will not wait for you."

Keith tenses.  "Then why lock us in here at all?  What if there's an attack?"

"Yeah," Lance says.  "Look, at least we agree that this is a stupid idea.  Isn't that good enough?"

"Shiro?"

And when Keith looks to Shiro for some kind of support, some kind of agreement that there might be a better way to handle it, Shiro almost wants to side with them.  But…

He remembers the way they looked at each other, barely five minutes ago on the training deck.

"…I'm with Allura on this."

"What?!"  They shriek in unison.

"You two have had plenty of chances to work this out yourselves.  Even if the Galra were to attack, at this very moment, you two are so volatile you'd be a liability on the battlefield, rather than an asset.  And don't even get me started on how impossible it would be to form Voltron."

At that, they both have the decency to look reasonably ashamed.

Allura sighs, and uncrosses her arms as she walks back toward the door.  Despite their complaints, neither Keith nor Lance tries to follow this time.  "If the two of you just talk to each other, and hear each other, you should be out of here in a matter of doboshes."

Lance scowls and makes a frustrated noise, but to his credit he is the first to make his way to one of the benches and flop down on it haphazardly.  "Whatever you say, Princess."

Keith crosses his arms, still with some petulance, but does appear resigned enough to stay where he is.

So Shiro joins Allura at the door.  Looking at the two of them, mutually upset, still practically radiating ire in the small, plain space, he can't help but feel like he's throwing them in some kind of brig.  They're both so stubborn — will they ever willingly understand each other?  Could this just make it worse?

If Allura is putting them in here, then she at least must have faith in them.  Shiro will, too.

"Just think of it this way," he tries.  "Whatever happens in here, stays in here.  So go ahead and get everything off your chest.  You might find out that you have more in common than just wanting to get out of here."

He just hopes they'll get there without killing each other first.

———

Lance wouldn't go so far as to call the room bleak, but he'd definitely call it boring.

Once left to their own devices, Lance had been determined to show Keith how much he'd fucked up by giving him the silent treatment.  And when Keith had realized how petulant Lance was going to be, he'd decided to be stubborn and petty and silent, too.

So, they sat.

And sat.

Lance had changed position.

And they sat some more.

And here he continues to sit, bored out of his fucking mind.

But he's never been very good at being bored.  It's been probably ten hours — or at least like, twenty minutes — time is an illusion, okay?  Whatever.  But the point is, there's nothing to do.  He's fidgety, and there's nothing to fidget with.  He can't even nap, because this whole thing with Keith, and Keith being right there, keeps him on edge.

The last straw is his stomach grumbling.

"That's it ," he pops off, standing up and giving in to the urge to pace.  "This is stupid.  This is so stupid.  You're stupid.  I could be in the kitchen right now, eating with Hunk.  What happens if one of us needs to pee or something?  This is stupid. "

He continues to complains loudly like that, enough that Keith finally breaks.  "Well maybe if you weren't so stubborn," he glowers at Lance, "we wouldn't be here to begin with."

"Oh my god," Lance scoffs.  "This is so— You're the stubborn one, you can't even—"

" You're the one who decided there was no point in trying to talk the instant we got in here—"

"That's because you —"  Lance pinches the bridge of his nose.  Fighting with Keith might be something to do, and in any other situation maybe he'd indulge.  But fighting with Keith is what got him in here in the first place; it's not gonna get them out.  "Okay.  You know what?  Fine," he relents.  "I've gotta be the one to rip off the bandaid, huh?  I get it.  I have to do everything around here."

"That's the biggest—" Keith starts.

"Shut up," Lance interrupts.  He's so done with this.  "I'm just gonna fucking say it, since you won't.  We're attracted to each other. "

Keith is stunned into silence for a second, his mouth half open in aborted protest.

Good.  Fine.  "So, we can go about this like reasonable—"

"That's ridiculous," Keith suddenly objects.

…Well, that was not the reaction Lance had hoped for.  "Dude."

"And nothing about you is reasonable."

"Are you fucking kidding?"  So the reasonable adults route is a no-go.

"Why the hell would I be attracted to you?"  Keith condescends, and Lance would almost be offended, except that Keith's expression is like that of a cornered animal — angry and terrified — and Lance knows he's right.

"I don't know, maybe you just have good taste in men?" Lance offers.  "Weird, since you have the worst taste in literally everything else—"

"Goddamnit Lance, that's not even what I— ugh."  Keith drops his face into his hands.  "This is so stupid."

"See?" Lance says.  "And you said I'm stubborn."

Keith looks to Lance again and asks, "What even makes you think that?" with a wild gesture of his hands.

Lance throws his own into the air in response.  "Uhh, I dunno!  Maybe the fact that every time we get close quarters in a spar the tension gets so thick even your fancy knife can't slice through it?"

"That's just—" Keith tries to rationalize, but Lance isn't finished.

"Or the fact that sometimes you look at me like I'm the only one in the room, and your eyes twitch around my face like— sometimes you look hungry —"

"Lance—"

"—and I know that, because I look at you like that too.  When you're all focused, or when you're happy—"

Keith stands up.  " Lance —"

"Are you seriously gonna keep denying it?"  Lance looks him in the eye, with as much challenge as ever.

But Keith is still stubborn, fists clenched at his sides.  "There's— There's nothing to admit to!  You're just imagining—"

"Bullshit!"  This is going nowhere, isn’t it?  How the hell can he get Keith to admit it?  He takes a step closer, and then another.

Keith grits his teeth.  "I— You're just… desperate, and—"

"I am not!"

Lance cages Keith against the wall.  Keith looks away.

And sure, Lance has never known anything in the universe that can make Keith Kogane do something he doesn't want to do.  But then again, he's never known anything that can keep Keith from something he wants, either.  And Lance knows Keith wants him.  "Last quintant or whatever, after that mission on the pink planet with the glass rain — when we met back up in the hangar and you saw me, you looked like you wanted to— to grab me, right there, kiss me, fuck me, I don't know—"

Keith's voice is choked.  " Lance ,"

"And I get it," Lance continues, "it's fucked up, we obviously shouldn't — and when it gets like that, my first reaction is to back off, too.  Sometimes I overdo it and say shit that's stupid, or mean, trying to pretend it's not there.  But— it is there, and we can't just keep ignoring it, clearly —

"It— It's not…" Keith stutters.

"It's not like that ?  No?"

Keith is silent, breathing hard, though Lance hasn't even touched him.  Lance leans over to try and look him in the eye, but Keith won't meet his gaze.

"Push me away, then," Lance says.

Keith scowls, teeth gritted.

Lance leans in, just a little.  "It's not like you can't," he reminds him.  "You kick my ass at hand-to-hand like, every day."

Keith opens his mouth, "I…" then grits it shut again.

Lance leans in just a little closer, til only a few breaths separate them.  "You could throw me across this stupid room if you wanted to.  Go ahead.  I won't even be mad."

Keith ducks his chin and pulls it even further toward his chest as Lance continues to lean in.  It's very obvious what Lance is about to do, but Keith just stays stock still, breathing erratically.  Not consenting, but not pushing Lance away either.

Lance pauses only a hair's breadth from Keith's lips.  He's still trying to get Keith to look him in the eye, but Keith seems resolute in avoiding any such thing.

Finally, Lance sighs and pulls back.  Goddamnit.  He can't kiss Keith like this.  He just feels like a bully.

"Ugh.  Fine, whatever," he says.  He can't keep the bitter dejectedness out of his voice, but he doesn't care.  "If you really don't want to, just…  Just forget I said anything," he tells Keith, making his way the few feet to the door.  "I'll just fuckin… God, this is gonna be so awkward."  He raises his fist and bangs on the door.  "Come on!  Let us out!  Shiro?  Allura?"  This can't really be a quintessence-dependent prison, can it?  No way.  They're probably just sitting out there twiddling their fucking thumbs.  "Come on , Jesus, there's gotta be something you can—"

But then, his shoulder is wrenched around and his upper back is pressed to the door as Keith leans in, taking Lance's face in his hands.

Keith kisses him.

Keith , who makes Lance feel like this —

so frustrated, tender concern and intimate camaraderie half-eclipsed by indignant anger, boiling with heat and want til it all spills over; his feelings are tripping over themselves, overlapping into contradicting words and actions that make no sense, even to himself—

Keith, who is always leaving Lance behind,

who is always helping Lance up,

always driving and pulling and teasing just enough at the idea that he might let Lance catch him—

Keith pulls back, putting a breath of space between them.  Lance's eyes open and Keith's are there, searching, anxious, like he's still afraid he might have walked into a trap.  Like there's even the slightest chance that Lance doesn't really want this.

God, he's a fucking idiot.

Lance surges forward — caught you, caught you, caught you, damn it, finally, FINALLY, give me, give me anything, give me everything — and tilts in to seize Keith's mouth with his own.

He's savage about it; eager, filthy, and unreserved.  There's no point in pretense, and he doesn't care about subtlety.  Neither have ever been his strong suit anyway.  He's already laid all his cards on the table, and if Keith is going to let him, he's going to rake as many chips in as he can fucking reach.  He grasps at Keith, unapologetically demanding, his restless hands finding first Keith's jaw, his nape, pulling him close, then clawing at his shirt, fisting in the fabric.

But the most satisfying thing — the thing that makes lightning shoot through his chest, down his spine, makes him moan — is the way Keith's touches reflect the same eagerness .  How the moment he lets go of that final shred of hesitation, his touches are just as aggressive as Lance's, just as possessive.  How his calloused palms flatten hot and heavy on Lance's sides and drag down.  How he grips Lance's hips, his fingertips pressing indents in the lean, smooth flesh.  Like Keith has burned to know Lance's body the same way Lance has ached to know his.  Like he wants to have every part of Lance that he can, to the deepest extent that Lance will allow.

And Lance wants to give him everything.

"I knew it," Lance breathes between Keith's lips.  "You were seriously trying to deny this? "

And it's a rhetorical question, so Lance doesn't particularly mind when Keith grabs him, pins him back against the wall, grumbles sandpaper-rough against his mouth, "Shut up," and kisses him again.

Keith's tongue slips into his mouth, and Lance's brain turns to static.

Lance clutches at Keith — he doesn't know exactly where his own hands are anymore, and he doesn't care — as their tongues slide hot and wet against each other.  He shudders.  They're making out.  Lance is making out with Keith .  He thinks a year ago he might have gagged, but now he is hungry .  He licks at Keith's teeth, sucks at his lips.  Curls his tongue until he feels the ridges of the roof of Keith's mouth.  Samples a taste of every part of Keith that can reasonably be called a kiss, and still wants more . 

He finally finds his hands at the hem of Keith's shirt, and with no hesitation he slips them underneath to trace the smooth curve of Keith's lower back.  The muscles there contract under his touch.

"Lance," Keith breathes warningly, hot and wet and right into Lance's mouth.

So Lance opens his eyes, taking in the lust reflected back at him.  "What?"

"If we…" Keith begins.  He seems uncertain, maybe unfamiliar with whatever he's trying to express.  "If we start this," he tries again, "I'm— You better tell me right now if you’re not serious."

God, he says that like he's still worried that Lance is suddenly going to change his mind.

"Keith," Lance says.  "Look:  The way I see it, we're well past the point of no return, that will-we-won't-we bullshit.  You want me, I want you.  I want you so bad ."  He punctuates this with a greedy, dragging caress up the skin of Keith's back, reveling in the gooseflesh he can see rising on Keith's arms.  "Not to sound needy, but if you don't follow through on whatever you start, after all this time and waiting and… and… frustration , I'm gonna fucking punch you."

Keith lets out a little breath of a laugh, and Lance feels the shape of Keith's smirk against his lips.  Fuck , it's unfair how such a small thing sets Lance's blood on fire.  "Fine," Keith says.  "But you'd better not complain later.  Or make fun of me," he tacks on, nosing his way around Lance's jaw with purpose.

Lance scoffs, trying to project an air of unaffectedness, "Tch, I'll say whatever I wa- haah !" and failing spectacularly as Keith's mouth opens against the soft, sensitive skin of his neck.

Thankfully, Keith is too occupied to comment on Lance's lack of composure.  He seems entirely focused on the kisses he lays along Lance's pulse, skipping right past shy pecks and into the hazy, wanton realm of wet tongue and teeth.  It feels — well, Lance has made out with plenty of people, okay?  Or like…at least one person.  Kinda.  But it wasn't like this .  Nobody's done this to him — licked and sucked at him like an oasis in the desert, laved their tongue over his skin until they must taste the salt of it — not like Keith does.  Keith does these things, and Lance feels like Keith wants to devour him.  Ruin him.  Claim him.  He leaves wet blotches behind that prickle under his hot breath in the cool air, and all Lance can do is extend his neck further, invite Keith to help himself to more, and struggle not to seem as overwhelmed as he is.

After all, it's just a little necking.  This is hardly anything, in the grand scheme of things.  Lance would be so embarrassed if Keith knew how his blood was rushing just from this.

"Hh— Jesus, man," Lance breathes raggedly, "you're gonna cover me in hickeys.  You want everyone to know we—"

Keith bites him.

"Ah—!"  Oh fuck, oh fuck , that hurts, but it's Keith, and he kind of likes that, and—

" Yes ," Keith says simply, decisively.

And Lance can't help it.  He lets out this noise, this… whimper , that's as utterly pathetic as it is irrevocable.

Because there's something so bizarre about how that turns him on.  The thought of the two of them loud, abrasively ostentatious about how they come together.  The slowest burn, but with a coalescence so bright it can't be ignored.  Being so obsessed with each other that they give up on holding back in any way, wearing their desperation on their sleeves.  Proudly showing that they're the only ones who can get under each other's skin like this.  Like—

"Goddamnit, Keith," Lance growls, raking his nails down the bare skin of Keith's back to avenge his own bruised skin.

Keith's gasp is so satisfying, and at the same time evokes more want than any other sound Lance has ever heard.  He takes advantage of Keith's momentary pause to lean down and capture his mouth in another hungry kiss, sloppy with haste and fervor.

"No complaining," Keith slurs out between kisses.

Lance bites Keith's lower lip, but much to his chagrin, Keith barely flinches.

They make out like that, with a passion bordering on violence, for some time.  Their hands wander, and the moment when Lance finally all-out grabs Keith's ass is practically a spiritual experience.  His touches now are overtly sexual, in a way he never thought he'd be with Keith.  On some level, he never thought he'd be like this with anyone — he's a romantic, prefers wining and dining to whatever this obscenely forward seduction is.  And after getting stuck in space, the pool of human-like options was so narrow he just figured it was unlikely that anyone would like him enough that seduction of any kind was on the table.

But as he squeezes the firm muscles of Keith's ass, feels them flex against his palms as he pulls Keith against him, feels the hard press of Keith's groin against his own — Keith's dick — he realizes something.

It was never about how it happened.  It was about who it happened with.

And judging by the way Keith follows Lance's pull, grinding his hips forward, pushing Lance harder into the door with a low moan, it is happening with Keith.

With Keith .

He knows the sensible thing to do would be to pause and reflect on whether or not he really wants this to go further.  On what counts as blowing off steam, and what might be too far, what he might regret.  He wants to say that sex with Keith is a crazy idea, that the only reason he's this wound up, for Keith , is because they've been pushing each other's buttons for what must be almost a year out here.  That the only reason he feels this way about Keith is because Keith is objectively beautiful, devastatingly fit, and Lance isn't fucking blind.

But it would all be a lie.

It's more than that.

He's known it's more than that for a while.  Since long before he blew up at Keith this morning —

"You so tired of losing people that you wanna just get lost?"

— he's known he wants to be close to Keith, and that he wants Keith to want to be close to him.  He's known; he's acknowledged his own wish that Keith valued their partnership as much as Lance does.  He's acknowledged that Keith's lack of value of his own life hurts him.  That Keith's lack of trust in him hurts him.  That losing Keith would shatter him.

So, yeah.  His feelings are a little more than physical, sue him.  It's not like he has to tell Keith any of that.

He just has to keep himself together long enough to get his pants off, so he doesn't nut in his jeans like the inexperienced loser he actually is.  It shouldn't be that hard, he thinks, but Keith slips a leg between his thighs and it gets hard very quickly.  Pun intended.

"Keith," he tries, but it comes out all soft and breathy, like a moan.  God, that's embarrassing.  " Keith ," he tries again, a little more solidly, but Keith seems to hear it no more than Lance's first attempt.  He finds Lance's earlobe and tugs it gently with his teeth, just as their hips roll together again.  A whole-body shudder consumes Lance.  "Damnit dude," he manages, "you're so… so… "

"…So what?" Keith eventually asks, and Lance can feel Keith's hot breath on the shell of his ear, the timbre of his voice rich, dark, dense with tension, right up against his skin.

"So… greedy ," Lance finally decides.  "Maybe I wanna mark you up, y’ever think of that?"  But even as he says this, he's giving Keith more room, shivering at the feeling of Keith's nose and lips brushing across his skin.

"Nobody's stopping you," Keith says.  God, Lance wants to bite that sassy mouth of his.

"Easy to say," he retorts, "When you're not the guy pinned to the wall."

Keith exhales a shaky breath, the only sign that he's as affected as Lance is.  "You talk so fucking much.  I wanna… I wanna make you scream ."

Another tremor wracks down Lance's body.  Fuck, Keith can feel that, can't he?  With the way they're pressed flush together, his deft fingers digging into Lance's hips.  Maybe he can even feel the way Lance's cock twitches.  The way he's gotten hard, just from a little bit of dry humping.  But what is he supposed to do?  That's practically dirty talk, and the fact that Keith is riled up enough to say shit like that, because of Lance …..

"Gonna have to try harder than that," Lance goads him.

Keith scoffs, and Lance would try to feel insulted by that somehow, except he's too busy feeling the friction, the hot intimacy of Keith's hips grinding flush against his own, the pleasure dripping down his spine, his abdomen, pooling in his groin.  The squeeze of Keith's palms on his hips becomes a grasping drag as Keith—

—drops to his knees.

Lance's jaw drops.  "Wh— What are you doing?!"

He's looking up at Lance, from right next to the tent of Lance's crotch, where his dick is hard.  Getting harder , with the inescapable realization that Keith's mouth is in close proximity.

"Trying harder," he says simply.

And with no further preamble, he pops the button on Lance's jeans and pulls them down, taking Lance's boxers with them.  "Ah—!"

Lance has never been exposed to this degree before, in any context like this.  Part of him is sort of disbelieving:  This can't be happening, right?  There's no way.  His first blow job is gonna be from Keith Kogane.  Keith is getting the closest view of his hard cock that anyone has ever had.  What if there's something weird about it that he's never noticed until now?  It would almost be appropriate, in a strange way, that Keith should see the most embarrassing parts of him, since he inexorably drags them out of Lance no matter how he tries to conceal them.  Maybe this is no different.

On the other hand — and the way Keith grips his ass and practically growls is making this hand increasingly dominant — Lance also kind of wants to fuck Keith's mouth .

That mouth that smirks at him, scowls at him.  That mouth that says things like, "I've got your back," but also, "You wanna give the orders?  Be the hero?  Get the girl? "

Keith takes the base of Lance's cock in one hand, opens that mouth, and licks a wet path all the way up the shaft.  He licks again, all around the head.  It's so wet, and so warm.  With every swipe, the contrast of the heat of Keith's mouth and the cool air brushing his sensitive skin makes him shudder.  Keith looks up at him with that shitty, smug look, like he's somehow winning even when he's on his damn knees, and Lance wants to punch him.

Lance will show him what he fucking wants.

He strokes through Keith's bangs — looks him in the eye, all heat and challenge — then finds that fucking mullet with his fingers and grips it tight.  Not enough to hurt, but enough to claim some semblance of control.

But Keith, that bastard, just smirks like he thinks Lance won't do anything with it.  Just licks at Lance's shaft again, with that smug smirk on his face.  Like he's daring Lance to do something.

So Lance really can't feel impolite about pulling Keith's face closer to his groin.  Keith opens his mouth wide and licks a fat, wet path around his base, then noses under and mouths at the front of his balls.  Lance's grip tightens; his breath stutters.  Keith plants a wet kiss right at the juncture of his shaft and balls, and his cock twitches, bouncing against Keith's cheek.  God, Lance could probably slap Keith's face with his dick right now, and Keith would just let him .  He's tempted to, but he wants something else instead.

Lance grabs his cock with his free hand, and drags Keith's mouth along backward toward the tip.  Keith follows like putty.  No one would ever believe this version of him exists, would they?  Just like no one would ever believe how Keith's mouth drops open at the slightest prodding of the head of Lance's dick against his lips.

But it does.  And boy, Lance wants to take this and run.

"Stick that filthy tongue of yours out, hotshot," He commands, with as much confidence as he can pretend to have.

Keith's mouth moves only to say, "Or what?"  As belligerent as ever.

But Lance can work with that.  Really, he wouldn't expect anything less from Keith.  He just tightens his hand in Keith's hair and yanks his head back a little.  Just enough for that mouth to fall open again.

"Or I won't be gentle," Lance answers, a smirk of his own on his face.

Keith smirks in return, and his tongue comes lolling out of his mouth.  Lance nearly loses it then and there, looking at Keith, ready to take his cock.

He shudders hard as he finally guides his member into Keith's mouth, resting it on his tongue, feeling the texture of it sliding along the underside of his glans.  And inside is so hot and wet — he could come just from this feeling, just knowing it's Keith's mouth — but he tries to play it cool, pushing his hips forward, pushing his cock inside, until he starts to feel Keith's mouth tense up and his head press back against the hand in his hair.  A hard breath blows out of his nose.  That must be his limit.

He keeps his cock there, teasing at the back of Keith's throat, just for a moment.  Then he pulls back with his hips, pulls his cock back along the velvety heat of Keith's tongue, and pushes back in again, keeping Keith's head steady.  Fuck, it feels good.  It feels amazing.  He's fucking Keith's mouth and it feels amazing .

He rolls his hips forward again, and again, mindful of where Keith's limit is.  He can feel wetness pooling in the floor of Keith's mouth, excess saliva; feel the stroke of Keith's tongue as it twitches against him.  He can even feel the pulsing contraction of Keith's throat as he tries to swallow.  Keith's eyebrows are furrowed in concentration as he relaxes his jaw further.  Lance can feel it, he can feel everything .

It's so fucking hot.  Fuck, if Lance had known it could be like this between them, he'd have bitten down his pride and confronted Keith about their mutual attraction months ago.

Heat is building in his groin, thick with rising tension.  It wouldn't take much more of this for him to come, he knows that.  But he doesn't wanna come yet.  He wants this to go on forever.

"God, you look good like this," he says, as saliva drips from Keith's lips around his cock.

In retaliation, when Lance drags his cock out again, Keith lets his teeth graze lightly along the underside.

"Ah!"  Lance gasps, curling in on himself.  His cock pulses traitorously.  No!  Bad cock!  Don't encourage Keith's saucy behavior!

By the time he's realized that his hand has loosened in Keith's hair, it's too late.  His hand smacks the door behind him with a thunk , his other following on the other side, both pinned by Keith's hands.  Keith leans his weight on them, and even when Lance tries, he can't muster up the presence of mind to break free.  Not when Keith distracts him by taking him faster, shallow and sloppy, uncontrolled, circling his tongue around for extra slide and driving Lance crazy .

"Ah, ah— fuck, Keith!"  He pulls at Keith's hands, but Keith keeps him pinned there, licking Lance's cock inside his mouth.

It's too good.  Keith looks up at him, a spark in those dark eyes, his hair all messed up and Lance's cock going in and out of his stretched mouth.  His cock is out of his pants, like he must have been touching it while sucking Lance's dick.  It's hard, flushed dark and red, uncut and twitching against his thigh.  He's getting off on this, too.

How much would it take to make Keith come?  Can Lance hold out until then?

Lance wants to see Keith orgasm.

He tries to slow Keith's rhythm, pacing his hips back and forth to ease the build up.  But Keith is relentless, slurping down his cock like he's got something to prove.

"God, Keith , hnnn—" he starts, but a low moan cuts out of him.  He tries again.  "Slow down you bastard, I'm gonna— ah —!"

With no warning, Keith pulls back, standing up and crowding against Lance again.  He leans in and kisses Lance, open-mouthed and hungry, like Lance's cock wasn't enough.  One of Lance's hands is freed then, and he feels Keith's hand on his own wet cock, and— oh—

Keith's cock slides against his own.

"How's this?"  Keith asks, as if he doesn't already know how the fuck it is.

Lance cries out, a tremor wracking all the way through him.  Keith's cock is touching his.  They're both hard, Lance is so slippery with Keith's saliva, and Keith's hand is keeping them aligned.  The heat of them, Keith's hand pumping them, Keith's tongue in Lance's mouth again, that same mouth that had just been on his cock—

The pleasure peaks.  Lance comes, hard, the tension releasing as he spurts in waves over Keith's hand.  The slide between them gets even slicker as he rides it out.  There are sparks behind his eyelids, and he's stopped kissing Keith because he's stopped doing everything except feeling this, this wild, pulsing pleasure, of coming for Keith Kogane.

As he starts to finally come down, he regains enough situational awareness to realize that Keith's face is tucked into his neck again.  Keith's hand is slow and jerky, and he's trembling — they both are.  Keith is riding out his own orgasm.  The continued stimulation makes him twitch painfully, but he's too enraptured by Keith's breathy groans of bliss to do anything about it.  He feels drunk on the feeling of Keith quivering in his arms, which evidently found their way around him at some point during his own orgasm.

Keith's hand falls away, and his body goes limp.  Lance can still feel Keith's aftershocks, the tired pulsing of his cock against Lance's.  And he can feel warm wetness; their cum, mixing, dripping between them.

They're both breathing hard, leaning against the door, and Keith's weight on him makes it even more difficult for Lance's shaky legs to hold him up.  Fuck it , he thinks, and starts to slide down.  Keith adjusts as they fall, until they're sitting in the puddle of their own fluids — listen, Lance just came harder than he ever has in his life , he can't be expected to care about that right now — Lance with his legs out and Keith facing him, his own legs bunched over Lance’s.

He hasn't bothered withdrawing from Lance's arms, and Lance hasn't let him go.

They catch their breath like that:  bodies folded together, heads tipped toward each other, cocks softening in the cool air.  Keith does this thing with his face against Lance's neck, like a nuzzle, and Lance strokes one of his hands up and down Keith's back.  It's almost like… a real, emotional embrace.

They're both quiet for a while.

Finally, Lance buries his own face in Keith's neck, and murmurs, "…Sorry."  He can feel Keith's eyebrows furrow against his skin.  "N- Not for this—!  This was awesome," he tries to clarify.  His voice feels loud in the quiet.  He makes an effort to tone it back, to sound as sincere as he feels.  "I mean, for earlier.  For what I said."

Keith sighs against him.  "Yeah, that was pretty shitty," he agrees.  "But… I'm sorry, too.  I didn't mean it.  I know you care about more than that, I was just… pissed off."

"Yeah, me too.  Like I said, backing off too far, you know?  I get… scared , of wanting more.  So I just…"

"…Sabotage the friendship yourself."

"….Yeah.."

Keith lets out a hmph of a chuckle.  "Doesn't look like it worked."

And, yeah.  What a tremendous backfire, Lance chuckles.  "Heh, no, guess not."

There's a comfortable pause.  Neither of them make any move to get up, or even get more comfortable.  Lance enjoys having Keith here, like this, far more than he ever wants to admit.  And a part of him is scared he'll never get the chance again.  So he cherishes this little moment, this calm, this reconciliation between the two of them.

"…Is that all, though?"  Keith asks quietly.

Huh?  "What do you mean?"  Lance asks.

"Well," Keith starts, with a note of hesitation, "this time it kind of seemed like… the stuff you were saying was mean, but it felt like you really meant it.  At least a little."

"Oh, uh…"  Shit.  Lance wasn't planning on addressing this if he didn't have to.  But then again, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, with things like this between them.  This atmosphere.  It feels… raw, and genuine.  "It… I guess it sort of was real.  Like, I guess I thought… Ugh, it's probably stupid."

"What?"  The inquiry comes quickly, like Keith really wants to hear the answer.

And Lance… he knows he's blushing, but he should probably say it.  "It just felt like… you didn't care, as much as I do.  About us."

" Us as in… the rest of the team?" Keith asks.  "Or us as in… you and me?"

Almost without meaning to, Lance tightens his arms around Keith, burying his face in Keith's shoulder.  Not that he could ever keep Keith from pulling away if he wanted to, but something in him must want to try, anyway.  He grits his teeth, but it doesn't prevent his words from pouring out.  "I don't know, dude!  You're just always… It always feels like one minute you could be with us and the next you could be gone, and you don't even think about how much that would destroy us.  It would destroy me ."

But instead of pulling away, Keith just tucks himself further against him.  He stays silent for a long moment, as if giving serious thought to Lance's feelings.  Then finally, he replies, "I'm sorry.  I just… see that there's something I can do, to protect everyone, and I just have to do it."

Yes, "I know," he tells him.  Keith has been like that for as long as Lance has known him.  He can't stand feeling useless in the face of injustice.  They have bleeding hearts in common, the two of them.  They just express it differently.  Lance exhales, stroking Keith's hair from crown to nape.  "I love that about you , and hate it."

"Hesitating can mean losing," Keith reiterates, as if trying to justify it.

But Lance isn't having it.  He pulls back to make eye contact, pinching his face into the most serious expression he can manage.  "But so can impulsiveness!" he says.  "Remember the Balmera?  Going in guns blazing and swords swinging isn't always the best strategy."

Keith sighs and looks away, the barest pout pulling at his mouth.  "You're right, I know.  You're right."

But now he looks so dejected.  Lance sighs right back at him.  "Look man," he says, "I don't wanna micromanage your fighting style.  Nobody does.  We don't have to argue.  I just want… for us to be on the same page, you know?"

Keith's eye contact this time is steady, like relief.  "Yeah," he says.

"Okay."

"Okay."

They maintain their connected gaze, warm, with a hard-won peace.  Keith bumps his forehead into Lance's, and Lance presses his nose into Keith's.

"…..So," Lance says, "what page are we on?"

Keith smirks, not smug or challenging, but like a shared secret. 

He leans in, and kisses Lance again.  This time is slower, sweeter than before.  A different kind of passion.  When Keith's tongue presses against Lance's now, instead of being hungry, it feels deep and meaningful.  It feels… perfect.

They kiss again, and again.  Lance pulls Keith closer, a little more into his lap, just to feel him near.  To bask in the intimacy of the new place they're both in.  Their exposed cocks brush together, and Keith gasps just a little, right into Lance's mouth.

Their making out is starting to get just a bit heated again, when suddenly—

The door opens, and Lance falls backward, with Keith still in his lap.

"Oh my god— " Shiro starts, at the same time as Allura gasps some Altean curse that Lance has never heard before.

Allura turns to face the wall, then thinks the better of it and just walks away, and Shiro scowls down at them.  Lance knows his neck is covered in bruises and bite marks, Keith's hair is even more messed up than usual, their clothes are all manner of disheveled, and there's a small but quite visible puddle on the floor.  They have obviously just been fucking around.  At least their junk is covered, tucked between them.

"Go clean up, cadets.  Meet back on the bridge for a stern rebuke in ten."

"What?!"  Lance yelps, scandalized, as Shiro starts to walk away.  "But we made up!  Isn't that what you wanted ?"

But Shiro obviously has no intention of responding.  Keith bursts out laughing, and Lance lets his head clunk back down onto the floor of the hallway.

"Whatever," he says.  "Totally worth it."