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“I’m just saying-”
“You’re always ‘ just saying’, and the answer is always no , Lance” Keith’s laughter fills the hallway, causing Lance’s smile to brighten, “Your ideas are never reasonable.”
“Okay, okay,” he stops in front of the door to the lounge, grabbing Keith by the shoulders and pulling him closer. “But if I just push really hard, maybe she’ll just go, zoom, woosh, y’know?”
Lance’s arms move down Keith’s arms as he talks until he’s holding the other boys hands loosely in his own. His smile is wide as Keith moves closer without hesitation, a small laugh falling from his lips at Lance’s antics.
“Sure,” Keith speaks around soft giggles, squeezing Lance’s hands softly before stepping back and moving towards the door, “but Red is already the fastest lion.”
“But!” Lance stumbles as they enter, noticing Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro sprawled across the couches on the other side of the room, “Uh. I bet I can make her go even faster. I just gotta push!”
There’s a shift in Lance’s tone at the sight of their team -- a slight aggression taking over the otherwise playful conversation.
“Lance?” The expression that meets him is full of confusion until Keith looks across the room and locks eyes with Shiro. He can see the minute change in the tenseness of Keith’s shoulders, and the quick steps he takes towards the team (and away from Lance). “That’s not how it works.”
It’s a conscious effort for Lance to not flinch at Keith’s own intonation. Instead, he steps forward to follow Keith completely in the room, his arms crossed over his chest to not reach out.
Eight months of this and it’s only gotten more difficult. See, about nine months ago, Lance had some sort of epiphany when it came to his feelings towards Keith. And instead of just sitting with those pent up emotions and pushing them aside like he had planned to do, he went ahead and spilled them all the first moment he saw Keith again.
Albeit awkward, the surprise confession was well received, and luckily the rest of the team wasn’t there. They decided to keep it to themselves for a little while. Considering just how much of their lives is intertwined with the entire team, they wanted to explore this new relationship on their own first and make sure it was something certain before sharing it.
And then it became sort of a game. Starting a secret relationship was a collective choice, but continuing it to see how long it’d take the team to figure it out on their own was a Lance choice.
It was funny at first. Their arguments became more banter than actual disagreements, yet the entire team continued to assume they were at each other’s throats.
Lance knows they’re not. He is fully aware that every sharp word, every sly smirk, every heavy handed push, and everything in between is anything but malicious.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss the softer side of things. He liked the game at first, but that was five months ago. Now it’s gotten exhausting, keeping Keith so far away from him.
He keeps meaning to talk to Keith about it; about just coming out to the team about it all. But as soon as they’re alone again he… Well he gets distracted. Too happy and excited to be himself around his boyfriend and not hide behind a mask of pretend hatred.
Lance has also been trying to ease the idea into the team’s mind, but they still think that he and Keith hate one another, and they continue to play up their banter to look like arguments, which really doesn’t help.
“They’re at it again.” Like now, with Hunk worryingly whispering to Shiro across the room. Well, whispering may be a stretch considering how loud the words feel to Lance.
Without making it too obvious, he tries to step closer to them, while continuing the so-called ‘argument’ with Keith, just so he can overhear theirs as well.
“Mm?” Lance watches as Shiro glances over to Hunk, who’s trying not to make his own staring toward Lance noticeable. “Oh, Keith and-”
“Yeah,” Hunk cuts off, “They’re fighting again.”
He’s trying to make his voice quieter, but Lance can still hear them, of course. He shifts his gaze from his clearly-staring teammates to his boyfriend, who is just standing off to the side with his arms crossed and a tiny pout on his lips, which may look angry to outsiders but is endearing and cute as all hell to Lance.
“The controls never need to be slammed on that aggressively.” Keith continues, while Lance closes the distance between them again. He tries to make it look like a part of the act or whatever, but he doesn’t care too much. Lance just wants to be near him, really. “Red isn’t going to go any faster if you just hit her.”
An idea crosses Lance’s mind in that moment, and all he wants to do is grab at the tail end of Keith’s braid that sits wrapped around his shoulder, and give it a light tug. So he does, smirking softly as he speaks, “whatever you say, Mullet.”
“It’s not a mullet.” Despite his tone, there’s a spark in the violet of Keith’s eyes that tells Lance he’s about as serious as Lance is. He doesn’t even flinch at the touch, instead taking a step closer, invading Lance’s space even more. On the outside it may look hostile, but it’s luckily quite the opposite.
“Oh, come on!” Pidge chimes in from across the room. More so addressing the pair ‘fighting’ than Hunk or Shiro. “Can’t we go even a single day without all this nonsense.”
Easily, Lance nearly laughs, As soon as you clue into what the ‘nonsense’ truly is.
Somehow the team still thinks their arguments are as serious as they used to be (if they ever were serious), but they never are. Even the people on the planets they visit may think it’s serious, if Lance really thought about it.
Looking at Keith, Lance can see just how tired he is of the hiding as well. The tension in his shoulders build whenever they’re playing this game, pulling them closer to his ears until the moment Lance’s hand falls from his hair to his bicep. With the single touch, all the tension bleeds out from him, and the difference is evident to Lance, but probably not as obvious to their friends across the room.
It’s apparent that they’re both tired of the ‘secret’ in their secret relationship.
And there’s a strong possibility they can change that today, actually.
“You wanna kiss me so bad right now, it makes you angry, huh?”
The room delves into silence quickly. Scarily quick, if Lance is honest. It takes a lot out of him not to laugh, especially when the situation sinks in for Keith and his eyes grow wide.
There was a moment where Lance thought he might have been quiet enough that it would stay in the small space between them, that the rest of the room hadn’t heard him and he’d have to try for another day.
“Lance, what the fuck?” And then the moment settles. And it’s obvious that they all heard him. Very clearly at that.
Lance can see Pidge standing on top of the couch now, and Hunk’s very worried expression is fairly evident even from where Lance stands, but he refuses to back down. He grips Keith’s arm a little tighter, reassuring more than anything, in hopes that maybe he’ll understand where Lance is going with this all.
Keith’s smile is playful, but he isn’t facing their friends so only Lance can see it. There’s no longer any tension holding either of them back, and it’s almost funny how easily they sink back into their typical dynamic. The one when they’re alone; the one that’s natural and unforced, and them. “Disgusting, Lance.”
“Lance, you can’t just say that to people,” Hunk sounds distressed from his place on the couch, and Lance nearly cackles at the reprimand.
In retrospect, that would seem a tad too forward if he were flirting, even for himself. But that’s if he were flirting with a stranger. Not his boyfriend. And the team has no idea what that’s like, really.
But they’re about to learn.
Lance easily ignores the others in the room, focusing solely on Keith and his soft smile. “Disgusting?” He clicks his tongue once before his grin takes over his face, and he can feel the little crinkles at his eyes as he pulls Keith even closer. “That’s not what you said when-”
“Nope! Lance, what are you-” Shiro’s loud voice drowns out Lance’s sentence, but the flush that fills out across Keith’s face shows Lance that he heard him. He lets out a soft laugh, but otherwise ignores the approaching Shiro.
“Lance, seriously?” Keith’s hands find their way to Lance’s waist, and from the corner of his eye, Lance can see the immediate and abrupt halt in Shiro’s stalking. It’s nearly comical, and Lance would laugh if he weren’t so focused on Keith, Keith, Keith.
Lance brings his other hand up to Keith’s face, pinching the skin of his cheek softly. “You’re so cute when you’re flustered, I couldn’t help myself.”
“Well, maybe you’re right.”
“What the hell is happening?” Pidge’s squeak of a voice has Lance breaking into a soft laughter, but it’s not enough to break him from the moment completely.
“Mmm.” Shifting even closer, Lance holds Keith’s face between his palms and pulls him in, ignoring yet another sharp breath and loud crashing noise to his left. “About?”
“I do want to kiss you so bad it makes me angry.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” They’re impossibly close at this point, and Lance is half surprised Shiro hasn’t rushed over and pulled them apart. Either they’re all too shocked to do anything, or they’re finally cluing into the truth of the situation -- Lance really doesn’t care what it is; he’s having fun regardless.
“So what’s stopping you?”
There’s a cute little hum that passes from Keith’s lips before he pushes forward and presses the sound to Lance’s own mouth. It kind of tickles, which has Lance giggling into the kiss for a moment before they both pull apart, smiling (Lance assumes disgustingly ) at one another.
It’s a magnetic pull that has them kissing again, Lance’s hands slipping past Keith’s cheeks and digging into his hair. He can feel Keith’s own hands wrapping tightly around his waist as they continue to share chaste kisses, all in front of their teammates -- their closest friends.
If it wasn’t obvious before, Lance sure as hell hopes it’s clear to them now.
There’s a brief moment of stillness as the two pull apart. They don’t move far, one of Lance’s arms settling across Keith’s shoulders, the other sliding down his arm as he shifts slightly to face their crowd. Keith’s own arms stay wrapped around Lance’s waist as best they can. It takes another long moment for them to break eye contact, Lance finding it personally very difficult to look away from Keith’s cute little smile that wrinkles his nose.
When he does finally manage to look away from the vibrant violet that consumes most of his thoughts, it’s to set his sights on near chaos.
Pidge is still standing on the couch, jaw near the ground, and hands ruffling up their own hair as they gape at the two. Hunk, having tried to stand and walk over probably, has fallen back on the couch, sunk low and with wide eyes as he, too, stares at them.
Shiro, on the other hand, is more than halfway between the two sets of people, closer to Lance than he’d particularly like at the moment. It looks as if someone had hit a pause button on the man. His legs were midstep, with his metal arm reaching out towards them, as if he could physically pry them apart, or if he touched them they’d disappear -- Lance wasn’t sure which Shiro was going for at that point, what with the gobsmacked expression that met his own.
“Did we break him?” Lance can’t help but mutter, glancing back to Keith to see how he was feeling about the looks they were met with.
“Oh my gods.” Hunk was the first of the three to speak, sitting up and then standing up, so quickly he nearly fell right back over.
“Gods? Multiple?” Lance heard Keith say behind him, as he himself locked eyes with an absolutely bewildered Hunk.
“Yes!” The answer was a near scream, the large man rushing toward them fast enough to have Lance take a step backward, “Because there has to be more than one if this is real!”
“Well, buddy,” Lance had to pause and gape as Hunk nearly bulldozed over Shiro to get to them, “it’s real.”
And then the room exploded. Hunk pulled them both quickly into a hug, and the other two were quick to run over, all three of their friends talking over one another.
“Is this a prank?”
“For how long?”
“How?”
“When?”
“ What?”
The last was Shiro, apparently still bewildered by the situation, if Lance had to guess. Which made things more real, and actually had Lance settling into his stance, into the situation.
Because the team knew.
They knew.
Keith and him no longer had to hide their relationship. Their friends knew, they didn’t seem upset, or angry, and he could hold Keith close without hesitation.
Sure, they had a lot of questions to answer, but looking at the bright, shy smile on Keith’s lips, Lance couldn’t say he regretted the idea.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Keith’s low voice mumbled, just loud enough that the chatter from the other three (still spouting out questions) couldn’t hear him, “and no, that wasn’t the smartest way around this.”
“I think it worked well, though.”
Violet eyes met his own, Keith’s already soft expression somehow melting even more.
“Yeah,” their lips met again, causing more noise to erupt around them, “it worked out.”
And sure, they had a lot of discussion ahead of them, and explaining to do, but Lance was happy.
Because, if he were truly honest, Lance was falling in love.
“What is going on here?”
Oh shit, they forgot about Allura.
“What the quiznack-” And Coran.
Well, just more explaining to get through. Good thing they were just getting started.