Chapter Text
Friday’s are usually low-key for Keith. He has one class, one lab, and then he can basically go home or go straight to the coffeeshop for a short and easy shift. But, of course, today was the Hang Out day and he woke up in a sweat twenty minutes before his alarm went off, so a good annoying start. He rifled through his closet for his favorite outfit, asking both Shiro and Allura for advice, and his fingers jumped over his cracked phone screen every time he replied to Hunk’s texts.
It’s fine. It’s gonna be chill. Keith’s fine.
Except when he gets to lab and sees Lance’s barely-contained grin, he’s ready to burst out of his skull.
“So, hotshot,” Lance leers with a raised brow, putting his chin in a palm. “Lookin’ good.”
“Shut up, Lance,” Keith growls as he slides into the seat next to him. This only prompts Lance to giggle and nudge his shoulder. Keith swats his hand away before he can do it again.
“God, you’re so high-strung. You know you can breathe, right? Like, I’m pretty sure Hunk would prefer that,” Lance says, pulling his manual out of his backpack. “He would prefer that color on you, though. Can’t believe you didn’t ask me instead, I’m his best friend! I have special Hunk knowledge to enlighten you with.”
Keith pauses in his grumbling search for his own manual, silently dropping it onto the counter with a curious and narrowed look. But, he supposes he shouldn’t ask questions he already knows the answer to. “Did Allura tell you?” he asks in a flat, unimpressed tone, crossing his arms over his chest.
Lance flops his hand around in a noncommittal gesture, humming before tapping a finger to his temple. “I more or less looked over her shoulder. More of a breach of her privacy, not yours, but I can see why you’re looking at me like that. But my point still stands: Hunk. Knowledge.”
Keith rolls his eyes, looking up to the whiteboard at the front of the lab room for their tasks to complete for the day. Their professor hasn’t even arrived yet but half the class is here, passing around the attendance sheet. Keith takes it when another student passes it over, scribbling out his name and shoving it in Lance’s direction.
Lance guffaws and writes out his name, passes it to the next table. “Also that henley? God bless Allura.”
Keith grumbles and readjusts his grey henley self-consciously now that Lance pointed it out. “It was my first choice, anyway,” he says with no small amount of surliness.
“Sure it was,” Lance concedes sarcastically with a shrug. “But, I would’ve gone with a different flannel.”
Keith furrows his brows at him. “It’s a good flannel! I like the colors.”
“Yeah, and Hunk’s already seen you wear it!” Lance counters, looking him over and deciding not to argue his point further, smiling crookedly at him as he leans back in his chair, hands folded behind his head. “It works for you, though. Really works, if Hunk’s yapping about you in flannels is anything go by.”
All of Keith’s protests die on his tongue, cheeks flushing just a bit. Only a little. But he’s gotten pretty good at pretending he’s unaffected with Lance’s laser-sharp jibes. “Yeah, I’m sure he remembers all my flannels. Also, why do you have to make this about Hunk and I? It’s none of your business,” Keith grates, definitely a bit hypocritically. He remembers each of Hunk’s collared shirts, but mostly the one with cats on it. He has one with pineapples, too, that really caught the gold in his eyes. He swallows thickly to ignore that thought. “It’s just a party.”
Lance chuckles and rubs his hands together, clearly ignoring Keith’s warning. “Oh, damn, Keith, you don’t even know the half of it. I got sick of him talking about you, honestly, because like? It takes him fifteen minutes to get dressed in the morning, and he’s always asking me what kind of food you like, what books you read, and how am I supposed to know? You don’t read books and you have the worst taste in food,” Lance huffs out haughtily, shaking his head and generally acting like it’s such a trouble but his eyes are bright, his smile is ever-present, and Keith gets a feeling he’s doing it on purpose. “I mean, I don’t want to step all over your guys’ business, but… Hunk’s really annoying about you.”
Keith would laugh if he wasn’t suddenly blindsided. “Oh,” he murmurs with zero inflection, mouth in a hard line as he absorbs Lance’s bluntness, furrowing his brows. “Sorry not sorry. I think.”
Lance swings his head around to look at him, and after a moment he bursts out laughing, putting a hand on Keith’s shoulder and jostling him. “It’s okay, dude. It’s kind of nice. The last girl he was with he didn’t get like this over. Or anyone, really, since high school. Which was, like, so long ago,” he says, and hurriedly continues, the hand on his shoulder flying off to swerve around in the air. “So, it’s no problem. I’m glad, I’m really glad, even if he is a drama queen. The recipe books he’s read? Insane. I can’t stand to look at them anymore. All alphabetized and everything.”
Keith just glares at Lance as he backpedals and backpedals until his legs fall off and his mouth just keeps going like he was expecting Keith to be offended at his slip-up, if it could be called that. “Okay, Lance, I get it. It’s fine. Can we get to lab now?” he grits out with some heat, reaching for the computer mouse and starting up the simulation program.
“Lab? Yeah, totally, we’re absolutely going to do lab. We’re gonna do it so well, just—mess it up. Get it done. We got this,” he chuckles nervously, looking like he’s missed a bullet. He lets out a pent up breath of air in a whoosh and falls back in his chair. After a few moments of blessed silence, Lance asks, “So. You excited?”
Keith just turns his head to glare at him and Lance’s shoulders rise up to his ears. “Just wondering! You should be, is all. You better be.” He leans forward abruptly to raise a pointed brow in his direction, eyes steely and defensive.
“I am, thanks. Are you gonna go and tell him that, too?” Keith bites back, beginning their simulation parameters.
“No! That’s your business. I’m just… here for my dude. My dudes. My dude Hunk and… and you, too, I guess,” Lance tacks on awkwardly, spinning his pen between his fingers and around his thumb absently, aloof and casual even with his cheeks a bit redder. Keith’s eyes roll so far around he’s probably giving himself an extra headache.
“Thanks,” he replies flatly, but can't stop the corner of his mouth quirking up.
As the time gets closer to 4, Keith’s getting visibly more antsy, looking at his phone and the clock on the wall, but he powers through the lab with Lance. He doesn’t pester him much further, thankfully, but Keith knows he can tell the approaching time since Keith’s foot just won’t stop bouncing.
“Okay, dude, you seriously need to chill out,” Lance complains when Keith writes down the readings wrong and almost erases a hole into the paper. “We have fifteen minutes. Can you hold it together for fifteen minutes?”
“I am completely held together,” Keith growls, filtering through the graphs and observing the numbers with a deeply knitted brow, until all the numericals start blending together and looking like gibberish. He’s concentrating so hard. So much concentration.
Lance just scoffs, leaning sideways into his chair armrest. “It’s gonna be super fun, I promise. Hunk’s always got the good booze, Allura the beautiful ambiance, and Pidge and Matt are the wild cards,” he ponders, tone smooth and airy. “Honestly, I can’t believe you haven’t showed up before. I only asked like a million times. You recluse. You should bring Hobbs over.”
“I’m riding with you and Allura,” Keith reminds him, taking a steadying breath. This is why he doesn’t do things. And now doing things with his hardcore crush in attendance? He’s asking for the black sheep label. “Also he’s an asshole.”
“Hobbs is not,” Lance objects with a raspberry noise, clicking his pen repeatedly. Keith would comment on his sudden demotivation when he was just bugging Keith about it, but he decides he could do with a few less gray hairs.
“You wanna skip out of here early?” Lance suggests a minute later, touching the screen to move their advancing prototype around, looking much cooler than it did last week with the exception of the cheap Photoshopped flames going up the side—all Lance’s insistence. Keith thinks it looks stupid but also it brings some joy into lab he otherwise wouldn’t have.
“We have fifteen minutes,” he repeats back, but he can’t deny the brainflow was waning. Even his notes don’t make sense. Lance just laughs.
Well, to absolutely no surprise, Lance is a really good bullshitter. He shows Keith some vines that he had saved on Youtube on his phone, going off on the latest movies and celebrity drama that only he and Allura were interested in, showing him some Twitter threads to corroborate. Keith doesn’t complain one bit, and close to the end of lab he’s feeling significantly more lax, even explaining to Lance some of the dynamics of DnD player sheets, which he’s glad Lance finds some interest in. Keith’s been dying to run through a campaign as a Dungeon Master for seventy years but never found anyone to play except Pidge. Lance insists that Hunk would definitely be interested if he ever got around to asking him.
“All of you. Such nerds,” Lance gripes half-heartedly as he shoves his lab manual into his bag.
Keith tsks and shakes his head, doing the same with his own materials. “Says the one with a million mangas in his closet.”
Lance has the gall to look scandalized, a hand even coming up to clutch at his shirt, making Keith grin with complete self-satisfaction. “Okay, too far! You know some of those are Veronicas! And it’s not a million! I’m only the humble caretaker of those ancient tomes, you bastard.”
Keith just rolls his eyes and pushes his chair into Lance’s path to mess with him.
They find Allura in the common area with all the glass tiles, reading a textbook and looking like she was going to burn it with sheer will alone. Lance runs up to her and plants a heavy kiss on her forehead, hopping up into her lap right on top of the book, and instantly her grimace is gone, breaking out into loud rippling laughter.
“Lance! What’s going on?” she says as he wraps his arms around her tightly, one of her arms pinned by his backpack but Allura’s other arm comes up to guide Lance’s face away from hers, cheeks flushed pink.
“I missed you so longingly, my love,” Lance replies back in a lilting accent to match hers. “Also you just looked so mad reading that stupid book, I had to save you.”
“Well isn’t that just sweet of you,” Allura responds in a higher, flowery tone, shoving Lance’s long legs off her lap. “Hey, Keith. Did Lance save you, too?” she asks with a humorous curl to her mauve-painted lips. Lance takes the hint and slides off to stand on his own feet though not without helping Allura do the same. So gentlemanly. Keith would poke fun if it wasn’t actually adorable.
Lance just sneers and sticks his tongue out at Allura’s suggestion. “Ugh, Allura. Gross.”
“No way,” Keith replies in kind, shoving his hands deep into his jean pockets.
Allura just giggles delightedly. “Are we ready for a good time, then, boys?” she says as she reaches forward and curls an arm around Keith’s shoulders, the other pulling Lance into her side.
“Hell yeah, babe!” Lance crows, pumping his fist. “We’re gonna get Keith so sloshed he won’t even remember when he does karaoke.”
Despite himself, Keith finds his mouth forming a lopsided grin. “Yeah, right,” he dismisses.
“Oh, come now, Keith. You love Mr. Brightside,” Allura insists like she’s seen Keith belt it out on a bar stage or something. She jostles his shoulder for fun even though he adamantly shakes his head.
“No way, Allura, his go-to jam is Dancing Queen, duh,” Lance contends, leaning forward to wiggle his eyebrows at Keith as they walk down the corridor.
Keith bursts out a quick laugh at the absurdity. “I prefer Mr. Brightside. Yours is Dancing Queen.”
After a moment of Lance pouting, ready to object, Allura adds, “He’s got you there, darling. I’ve seen it,” she grimaces, giving Lance’s hair a pitying pat.
Lance concedes but not without taking one of Allura’s braids and poking her cheek with it. “Okay, that was one time. And I had, like, eight mojitos, so. Which you bought, my sweeting,” he puckers his lips. “But really, no frickin’ karaoke. We can’t have another noise complaint.”
“Oh, god, that’s right,” Allura adds, dropping her arms from Lance and Keith’s shoulders to push open the door. “You and Hunk were the root of that.”
“True facts,” Lance nudges Keith’s shoulder with a loose fist. “Too much Skyrim.”
“Makes sense,” Keith says, following the two of them out the door into the warm early evening air, walking in contented silence toward wherever Lance’s car is parked.
Lance pulls out his phone and even from over his shoulder Keith can see that it’s lit up with messages. “Also, totally forgot, there’s a tidbit I didn’t mention earlier about your big ol’ crush blowing up my phone asking what kind of fruit you like, Keith, because he’s totally doing that, so you wanna do a guy a favor and tell me if you prefer kiwis or mangoes?”
Keith lets out a sigh and shoves Lance aside, swearing he’s losing years off his life. Lance corrects his balance after swerving three chuckling steps, only to pull out his phone and wave it in Keith’s face. “Fine, mangoes! I like mangoes,” he practically hollers at him but Lance takes it good-naturedly, tapping away on his phone.
“I also told him you said hello. Because that’s cute,” Lance snickers, unlocking his shitty Honda ten paces away.
“Ugh,” Keith groans, but Lance’s nosiness reminds him to look at his phone from when it was buzzing in his pocket earlier.
Hunk ☼ [Today 4:34 PM]:
Hope you like lemonade B)
Underneath is a picture of a huge pitcher full of tangy yellow lemonade, and Keith can see chunks of lemon through the opaque plastic. Homemade, or at least mostly so. He quickly types back a response using a dozen eye and thumb-up emojis before sliding into the backseat of Lance’s car.
Allura bumps surprisingly decent British pop on their way to the apartment, and Keith unrolls his window to let the cool air wash over his skin. Lance bobs his head and laughs when Allura sings along, looking at his girlfriend fondly when she misses some words on the chorus. Keith smiles to himself at Allura’s rebuttal by getting into Lance’s face to sing the next lyrics. They’re good company.