#FWB KLANCE???

[alohaasaloevera]

I MAKE THE RULES NOW. LANCE IS OVERLY AFFECTIONATE AND WILL OFTEN ACCIDENTLY CROSS THE LINE WHEN HE IS IN A FWB-TYPE-OF-RELATIONSHIP WITH KEITH?!!!?1

Lance softly peppering kisses all over Keith while Keith is literally paralyzed because he’s so flustered??

Keith literally shutting down when Lance wraps an arm around his waist???

Lance putting Keith in his lap while they watch a movie????

Making ten-times as much innuendos when sparring together?????

Lance brushing and braiding Keith’s hair??????

THAT’S CANON-TYPICAL BEHAVIOR TO ME!!!

[autisticlancemcclain]

Keith clenches the flower crown in his hand, breathing heavy. The delicate petals of the not-daises crumple and crush in his fists, blue pollen smearing on the leather of his gloves. Half of the crown sits perfect, intact, unblemished and unbroken. The other half is miserable and unfixable, destroyed by something bigger than itself. He stares at it, hard, at what it is and what it represents, until his eyes sting from the dryness and begin to blur.

“Lance, I —” His voice comes out raspy, crinkled as the flowers. He swallows. “I’m never really going to — to love you. You know that, right?”

Lance’s quiet humming never stops, never hesitates. He continues to carefully poke the not-daisies onto their stem-string, building another crown, a new one, just as beautiful. “I know.”

Keith frowns. “You…know?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why do you…” He glances down at the crushed flowers again. Suddenly he wants to straighten them, desperately, fix their bleeding creases, their crumpled pieces. He tries, a little. He takes a broad petal from the biggest of the delicate flowers and smooths it against his thumb, again and again, trying to fix the brokenness. The crease disappears, but the petal lays flat against his skin; translucent, soaked with its own oils, bending to the shape of the pad of his thumb. It droops when he peels it off, worse than before. He feels something gentle touch on his head, a barely-there weight around the crown of his skull, and he smells something floral, aside from the flowers, like shampoo. Lance settles again beside him, second flower crown gone from his hands, now searching for a long enough not-daisy stem to start a new one. There’s a lump in Keith’s throat.

“Then why do this? Why —” He sweeps his hand out, broadly, gesturing the the not-daisy field before them, gesturing to the picnic blanket and the basket of food, gesturing to the castle in the distance, to the room they’ve shared more often than not lately, to their lions, to them, to them, to them. “Why do you hang out —” his voice cracks on the term, the blasé-ness of it, the fib, the hiding from the truth, the softer word to replace the truth — “with me like this? Why do you spend so much of your time with me? Alone? Why do we do what we —” He stops for a moment, finding himself short of breath suddenly, more feeling than the situation calls for crashing down on him at once, crushing his windpipe, making it hard for him to breathe, harder to speak. “Why do you stay with me like this, if you know?”

“Well, because I love you.”

He does not hesitate to say it. He does not swallow harshly as if the words are acid in his throat, as if they are too heavy to be spoken aloud. He says it easily, steadily, wondrously, as if it’s painless. As if Keith had said it first, and he’s simply responding. As if it’s something he says often. As if the words were not hard to find, were already heavy on his tongue, as if it was easier to say them then to lock them behind his teeth, choke them down. Maybe they are, for him.

Lance picks his head up from where it was hunched over the not-daisies, tying off the chain and lifting it, resting the crown gently on his own head. Coronating himself, with soft flowers, with the strength of a thousand men. He flicks his gaze to Keith, then, brown eyes wide and soft and glassy, slightly, shimmering in the orange sunlight, dark despite it, heavy and light alike. His expression is open, earnest. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

Keith doesn’t understand him. He knows Lance, knows how things eat at him, how small rejections build and build from the centre of his chest down his spine and wrap around each of his nerves, lighting him up inside. He’s seen how the doubt shapes his words, reshapes his sentences, clouds his thoughts. He’s seen how Lance pulls away from people before they can pull away from him. He’s seen the same ache in the Blue-turned-Red Paladin that he has, the same black hole in his own chest; the pain of the one left behind.

How is it so easy, then, for him, to say — it?

Keith holds his gaze, heart pounding, breathing short and shallow, as long as he can, as long as he can bear. He is the one to look away, in the end, and Lance soon after, looking for yet another long-stemmed daisy. It is only then that Keith realises that his second crown is crushed, too, in his other hand, stained with oil.

“Reason enough,” he echoes.

Lance hums affirmatively, absentmindedly lifting his legs and placing them on top of Keith’s, casual. Keith can’t tell if the move is deliberate or not, if Lance is genuinely oblivious to the intent of Keith’s sentiment or if he’s choosing to ignore it.

Either way it doesn’t matter. Lance slowly works his way through a good chunk of the flowers surrounding them, cheekily ordering Keith around the field, instructing him on what flowers to pick, how many, how often. Lance claims he just doesn’t want to move, but Keith is sure he just likes bossing him around. He organizes them in small piles by size as Keith gathers them, favouring the wider and fluffier ones, working with his tongue out in concentration as he carefully makes one, two, three, four, five more crowns than the two he’s already made, not including the two Keith destroyed. (Those were carefully scooped up from where Keith had discarded them, placed gently in the bottom of the picnic basket. Lance hadn’t said anything nor had he made any particular face, except that there was determination in his eyes as he held the crumpled flowers, defiance, almost, as he lovingly placed them among their used dishware and leftovers.)

Once he finishes the last knot — one crown for each team member, plus one to hang on Shiro’s doorknob — he swings his legs off Keith’s lap, sighing as he gets to his feet. Keith sees a sliver of brown skin as he stretches, a flash of his hip as his shirt lifts with his raised hands. It is the same temptation it always is, although it makes Keith more nauseous than usual.

“C’mon, you lump,” Lance says, holding out a hand. “I call dibs on not carrying anything back to the castle.”

Keith stares at his offered hand for a moment. He gets the same feeling in his belly that he used to get before walking into his final exams. Like he is being tested, like he is unprepared, like he is going to fail.

He stands on his own, quickly busying himself with gathering up their blanket and basket.

He follows just behind Lance as they walk through the field, back to the castle. They take their time — no one else will be back yet — and Lance stops every three seconds to coo at a beetle, take a picture of a plant, draw a heart in the dirt. Keith finds himself smiling without permission, struggling to school his face when he realises.

Keith has never met someone who is so unapologetically himself. He knows Lance has struggles, knows he doubts himself more than anyone on the team, probably. But so much of him is just a blatant adoration for the world around him; an obsession with the stars, an affinity for speed, an ataraxia in water, a blatant delight for any critter. He loves so much so often he bleeds with it. Keith has no idea how he survives, how he protects himself. It terrifies him. How is he supposed to protect Lance if Lance refuses to wear any armour? If he flays himself open and trusts everything and anyone? It’s as if he hasn’t yet learned to be wary, even though he has been hurt. Keith cannot fathom how he’s like this, how he’s survived like this.

Later, that night, he lies awake and counts Lance’s breaths as he thinks.

This wasn’t meant to last.

He doesn’t mean that they’re doomed to fail. They are, probably, the same way most things are (his mouth twitches on reflex as he hears Lance calling him emo in his head), but he hadn’t meant to start anything, with Lance. He doesn’t think Lance meant to start with him, either. He certainly never anticipated Lance, head pillowed on Keith’s chest, drool gathering on his ribcage, leg flopped over his and hand twitching in his face and hair. He never anticipated hearing his name muttered in Lance’s sleep, or watching him shoot up from a nightmare, wide-eyed and terrified, only to relax immediately back into sleep when he sees that it’s Keith who’s holding him. He never anticipated his own hands combing through Lance’s hair, his squeezing of Lance’s feet in between his thighs to keep them warm, his boots at the end of the bed, gloves on the nightstand. He never anticipated the way the smell of Lance’s shampoo would help him breathe again when he shoots straight up in terror and forgets where he is. He never anticipated the softness, the quiet smiles, the feel of his nails on his back, the press of his lips to his neck, the taste of his sweat on his skin, the breathiness of his hitched throat in his ear.

It started with a fight.

Of course it did, really. Why they were alone in the training room, Keith cannot recall, and why they turned to sparring with each other rather than staying at separate corners of the room he is at a loss. (Well, he does know. He knows he watched the litheness of Lance’s body as he bent and and contorted it and felt the swoop of his belly at his smug grin every time he landed a shot. He knows he watched sweat bead up on his forehead and drip down his face, burning a trail down his long neck. He knows he watched Lance bend over to set up shots, stretch, anything. He knows all that. But he thought he had restraint.)

He knows at one point they were snarling at each other, arguing over who had cost them a match with the gladiator, and then he knows that Lance had brazenly challenged him to a fight, and Keith had laughed in his face. He knows that they lunged at each other. He knows that he intended to give it to the smug asshole who had refused to leave him the fuck alone for even one fucking second since they got stuck in space. He knows he had Lance pinned to the ground, because Lance may insist that they’re neck and neck but Keith sure as shit had the upper hand in hand to hand.

What he doesn’t know is who kissed who. He doesn’t know who bit whose lip or who gasped or who shoved whose hand under whose shirt. He doesn’t know. He knows it escalated, he knows he felt fucking drunk on the taste of Lance’s skin, knows he felt like devouring every sound that came from that smart fucking mouth. He knows they didn’t even bother moving from the training mat on the floor.

He does know that he was the one who knocked on Lance’s door first, the next day. But when they fell into bed again Lance was the one who was prepped and ready, who opened the door within half a second and yanked him in by the collar, smirking.

Lance shifts slightly, muttering something as he turns his head. Keith freezes, barely daring to breathe lest he wake him up, waiting until after Lance has settled again, after he’s gone heavy on Keith’s chest.

In the beginning he’d convinced himself it was physical. Lance is objectively fucking hot, anyone with eyes can see that, and it’s not like Keith has any other fucking options here. But tonight, after everyone had split off after dinner and they’d landed in Keith’s room, again (is it really even Keith’s room, anymore? Lance’s hand is keyed to the lock. His products line the bathroom counter. His clothes are intermixed among Keith’s. He can’t remember the last time either of them had been in Lance’s room, let alone Lance by himself), as they always do. They’d gotten ready for bed without even talking, slipping in pyjamas and brushing teeth and running through a ninety four step skincare routine. They’d laid next to each other on the bed, Keith working through a random novel he found in the library and Lance breezing through some kind of math game on his tablet, before Lance had sighed some time before midnight, kissed him gently on the mouth, whispered “I don’t feel like doing anything tonight,” and then flopped on top of Keith’s person, wiggling until he was comfortable, passing out as soon as he was.

Keith’s hand curls around the curve of Lance’s shoulder.

Physical, physical, physical, he chants to himself. You have ruined every single person you have ever loved.

Lance groans slightly again, clicking his jaw.

“Keith,” he murmurs, accent heavy in his sleep. His lips twitch up in a smile.

Keith’s stomach turns.

———

next

based on this post

[mothmanavenue]

i just wanna keep calling your name until you come back home

[iybms]

"i thought about it."

preview, fwb au

[klanceficsthatmakemeripmyhairout]

Hi! I’m trying to find a klance fic that I read a long time ago. It was an au where Lance played basketball and went to college and Keith was some rich people’s adopted son who wanted to be a mechanic. The college with the basketball team was called Altea College I think. Shiro and Allura were together. It was definitely a long fic, probably around 100,000 words. It was explicit. At some point Lance is consoling Keith and he says “Sometimes the way we feel just doesn’t line up. But it doesn’t mean you’re not enough.” I remember because I wrote it down lol

Could you help me find it? I’m desperate 😭😭😭

hello my lovely!! there’s no way that this is not the fic LMAOOOO i filtered for rich keith (voltron) and basketball and there it was lol i will be adding this to my to read list ENJOY!!

follow my lead by klancekorner

rating: mature

published: 2017-07-12

completed: 2018-01-15

word count: 117,792

chapters as of october 19, 2023: [14/14]

summary: [ Becoming “hook-up buddies” with Lance Sanchez was just supposed to be a small, insignificant fraction of Keith’s life. But of course, things don’t work out that way at all.

aka a Friends w/ Benefits AU that nobody asked for where Lance wears sleeveless hoodies, plays basketball in abandoned parking lots, and follows his dreams, and Keith comes from a high class, reputable family who never let him have any dreams of his own. They go home with each other and don't expect it to matter until it totally does.

Keith POV and Lance POV ]

[kickis-conan-king]

I’m taking a page out of @autisticlancemcclain’s book here lol. Whatever gets chosen I’ll post a snippet of it if that sounds interesting to anyone!! Please just help me gain the motivation to write lol every time I open a document I just stare at the last thing I wrote and can think of no new words lol.

[acidcitypoets]

fever dreams // by cigarettelarry on ao3

Keith and Lance don’t get along. They start sleeping together anyways.

// "Doing it just to spite you, babe.” //

college-au feat. rivals-with-benefits and falling in love while falling apart. 18+. chapter one posted now - read here 

[thetolkiengeek]

15 for the grumpy affectionate starters? :)

(klance friends with benefits to boyfriends with benefits. and it kinda got...carried away? whoops? mild angst but with a very mushy ending, because it’s me.)

“Hi, I’ve been subtly hinting that I want your attention all day and you haven’t noticed once and now I’m pissed.”

“Hmm?” Keith looked up from his book to see a rather irate Lance doing his best to glare daggers at him.

“I said,” Lance enunciated very clearly, “you’ve been ignoring me, and it’s pissing me off.”

Keith scoffed, doing his best to return to his book. It wasn’t his fault that Lance didn’t know how to deal with not being the center of attention for once. “I thought you wanted me to ignore you. Wasn’t that part of the arrangement?”

Lance groaned and flopped back onto the couch, tossing an errant arm over his face, mumbling incoherently into his his skin.

Keith sighed and closed his book and put it down next to him, resigned to the fact that he’d get no peace until Lance had decided he would. 

“Friends with benefits, that’s what you said. None of that, and I quote, ‘mushy boyfriend stuff.’ You don’t get to be pissed at me for not paying attention to you.”

“But I want you to!”

This time Keith fixed Lance with dagger-like eyes. “Again, this is not a relationship. You said so.”

Truth be told, Keith had been paying attention. Too much, in fact, which is why he’d decided that today, he wouldn’t. Just to prove to himself that this...thing that was going on between him and Lance didn’t consist of real feelings on his part. Because Keith having real feelings meant that they’d have to stop.

So he’d resolved to train without lingering eyes, to fly without any unnecessary competitions-a.k.a.-flirting, to finally read the only fucking book on this goddamn castle-ship. It happened to be Pride and Prejudice, which Hunk’d had in one of the many pockets on his cargo pants for some unknown reason. Safe to say, Keith hadn’t gotten very far until he got distracted by Lance’s own pair of fine eyes.

“And besides,” Keith said, getting heated, “even if it were a relationship, which it is not, as you have stipulated many times, I wouldn’t be looking at you longingly every single second!”

The silence that rang out allowed the echoes of Keith’s words to come bouncing back to him, and Lance’s silence only made the fear grow stronger that he’d given too much of his own heart away.

“I...”

“Lance, just--” Keith sighed. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Lance sat bolt upright. “What?”

“I can’t do this with you anymore. Friends with benefits, or whatever it is. It’s not working for me.”

Keith pushed up from the couch, grabbing his book before trying to walk away. But a tug on his arm stopped him, Lance’s gentle fingers gripping his wrist.

“Can I....can I ask what changed?” Lance’s eyes peered up at Keith’s, and Keith could see the same tears threatening to fall down his own face shimmering in Lance’s eyes. In a smaller voice, Lance asked, “Was it me?”

“Of course it was you,” Keith said quietly, intensely. “You made it impossible not to lo--not to care about you.”

“Keith...”

“It’s okay, Lance. I broke the rules, I’ll suffer the consequences.”

Lance’s grip tightened on Keith’s wrist as Keith tried to walk away.

“Lance, just...just let me go.” Tears were streaming relentlessly down his face now.

“No.”

“Lance.”

“No, I won’t let you go.”

“Lance, please.”

“Nope, not gonna happen.”

“Lance, you’re making this so much harder than it needs to be. Just let me go.”

Lance shook his head. “No, because I love you too.”

The castle could have gone careening into a wormhole at that very moment, and Keith wouldn’t have been any the wiser, because to him, time had just stopped.

“You...I’m sorry, what?”

“I love you, too.”

Lance said those words like they were the simplest things in the world, not something fundamentally earth-shattering. 

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes, Keith. God! I love you!”

“You--you do?”

And suddenly, Keith was tugged off-balance---though admittedly that wasn’t very hard to do considering the metaphorical rug being pulled out from under him---and he went tumbling into Lance’s lap on the couch, eager hands bringing his face up to Lance’s, even more eager lips pressing up against his until Keith started to kiss back.

The sensation was so familiar but so, so new, with smiles threatening to break across their faces.

“You love me?”

“Yes,” Lance said, pressing a soft kiss to Keith’s lips. “You love me?”

“Yes,” Keith said. And he found that the words were easy.

“Good,” Lance said, wrapping his arms around Keith to pull him more securely into his lap. “Now, pay attention to me. I’m your boyfriend now, so you have to.”

A grin tugged at the corner of Keith’s mouth. “Oh do I now?”

“Mm-hmm,” Lance said primly. “That’s the rule.”

“Hmm, I don’t think that’s how it works.” Keith reached behind him to pick up his discarded book, holding it up behind Lance’s head and continuing to read. 

Lance tried to snap the book out of Keith’s hands, but Keith was well-prepared for it. 

“I don’t think so. Let me read--I just got to the good part.”

“Keith!”

Keith just laughed, and Lance buried his face in his neck. 

“I love you.”

Keith felt the vibration of the words against his skin, and his body lit up like a live wire.

He tossed the book behind him and pulled Lance’s face up to meet his. “And I love you.”

It was safe to say that Lance felt thoroughly paid attention to.

---

Send me a Grumpy Affectionate Starter prompt

[thathopelessromantic]

Crossing Lines

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Rating: Mature (implied sexual content + mild language) Pairing: Lance/Keith Note: The comeback no one expected with a series I thought was finished in 2018 and a fic I started in 2019 finally finished lol

There’s a nagging worry in the back of his head that this is not normal friends-with-benefits behavior, but it is easily drowned out by Lance’s sleepy smile when he shifts again to face Keith. He hides another wide yawn in his shoulder.

“Those kids wore you out, clearly.” Keith observes, trying to fight back his own yawn.

Lance smiles fondly. “It was fun to see them, to go back and be with everyone for a while. But I’m really glad you were here when I got home.”

AO3: (X) Part 1 of the series: (X)

Keith looks away from his computer as his phone buzzes against his leg. Pidge sits across the room at her desk, muttering to herself as she readjusts the device’s calibration – again. Their project was supposed to be at least 80 percent theoretical, but Keith knew the moment he was paired with Pidge that option was thrown out the window.

He flips his phone over just as it vibrates again. There’s a text from Shiro, asking him for the third time about a shirt Shiro insists Keith stole and Keith insists Shiro just lost, and a snapchat from Lance. Dismissing the text notification, he opens snapchat.

Most of the picture is just of a bright blue sky above him, but Lance’s face peeks out from the bottom, at an extremely unflattering angle. The selfie is taken at chest level while Lance looks down at the camera. His hair is pushed under a backwards baseball cap with frayed stitching along the edge and there is, what appears to be, a sparkly butterfly sticker on his cheek. Above his head it reads:

don’t blow up my apartment while im gone, mullet. i live there.

Shaking his head, he taps away the message. Pidge still appears absorbed in her tinkering and doesn’t notice as he takes a blurry picture of her.

we’re not that irresponsible

It only takes a few seconds for Lance to reply, no longer bothering with pictures and just texting back.

HA! but seriously, hunk’s been sending me worried messages all weekend

…Hunk had seemed particularly anxious the last time Keith emerged from Pidge’s room for a drink.

hm…like an hour ago pidge thought she had gotten the laser to work for real and did seem a little maniacal…

Lance replies with a supremely unimpressed expression, made, of course, all the more effective by the butterfly sticker. Keith snorts, but also half-heartedly wonders how easily he could get away with saving a screenshot of the selfie. He just saved one last night, of Lance cuddling with his parent’s dog ruined only slightly by the caption insinuating the dog had better breath than Keith, but he brushed it off with a lie about trying to lock his phone and taking the screenshot accidentally. He’s not sure if Lance believed him then, but he definitely wouldn’t believe it two times in a row.

Pidge loudly clears her throat across the room. Startled, Keith dismisses the message, and nearly drops his phone in the process. When he looks up, Pidge is looking at him over the rim of her glasses, with one brow raised.

“…Yes?”

“How’s that report coming, Keith?”

He glances back at his computer, at the three and a half pages he had finished of their ten-page report. “Fine.”

“Hm.” Pidge looks away, jotting down some other measurements on a pad besides her. “And how’s your boyfriend?”

“He’s not my-” Keith starts before he gives up with a heavy sigh. It’s a waste of breath with her. “Lance thinks we’re going to blow up the apartment. Well I guess actually Hunk does, and he turned to Lance for help.”

Pidge rolls her eyes, muttering something under her breath about worry-warts and ridiculous roommates. Keith smiles at the, somehow, simultaneously exasperated but fond tone she uses and turns back to his computer, tucking his phone under his leg again. But it takes a while to focus on anything other than blue eyes and familiar, silly banter.

It’s nearly three and a half hours later, though it hardly feels like it, when Hunk knocks at the door, tempting them out of the room and their work-stupors with the promise of pizza, the heady aroma already spilling out from the kitchen. They settle in the living room, Pidge and Hunk on the couch with Keith on the floor in front of them, legs stretched out under the coffee table. Pidge is still complaining around mouthfuls of burning cheese that they were almost done, if Hunk had just waited a little while longer, but Hunk turns on the sci-fi series they’ve been watching together and within ten minutes into the episode her complaints have turned into an analysis of how the character’s spacesuits work.

Keith relaxes against the couch as their familiar chatter falls around him. He’s a little lost in what is happening in the show, they’re further than he’s been able to get on his own, but it’s nice to share it with them anyways, especially with the way Hunk laughs triumphantly when he guesses the ridiculous plot twist twenty minutes early and Pidge keeps comparing the characters to people they know with frightening accuracy.

It only takes them an episode and a half to completely demolish the pizza, but when the third one starts up in the queue, no one bothers to reach for the remote. Full of good food and only half-paying attention to the show, Keith can feel himself being lulled to sleep right there on the living room floor. He fights against the urge as much as he can, but the last thing he remembers is the upbeat opening starting for the next episode, and then suddenly the episode is ending as he jerks awake, knocking his knee on the underside of the table, hard.

After his unfortunate waking, he extracts himself from under the table, gathering up dirty plates, despite Hunk’s protest, and taking them into the kitchen – the moving helps wake him up, even if his knee still hurts like a bitch. The stove clock reads 7:03. He slips through the living room as another episode is starting and goes to their bathroom.

As he’s washing his hands, his phone buzzes with another text. He opens the text as he exits the room. It’s a picture from Adam, Shiro’s fiancé, of Shiro sitting on the floor of what Keith is pretty sure is their laundry room, head buried in his hands. There’s a very dusty pile of something next to him.

The text says: we found his shirt.

Keith leaves the text conversation, trying not to laugh. Considering all the trouble Shiro gave him, Keith feels like he should be at least mildly annoyed by this instead of amused.

He turns the doorknob to the room in front of him and swings it open before he even realizes what he’s doing. He freezes, looking in at Lance’s dark, empty room. Distracted, he had apparently been moving through the apartment on autopilot – straight to Lance’s room. Feeling like he’s breaking some kind of unspoken rule, he takes a few steps in. Lance’s bed is still a mess of blankets and pillows, and there’s piles of books and discarded shoes covering his floor. He’s only been gone a few days, but his absence feels so prominent, especially like this, Keith can’t help but feel like something is wrong.

He’s texting Lance before he can think better of it.

when are you coming back again?

Lance’s response is almost instantaneous.

why? missing me that much already, mullet?

Yes, Keith’s head or heart, or maybe both, shout.

no just wondering how much longer we get to enjoy this peace and quiet he says instead.

whatever, asshole …….tomorrow night

Keith silently but firmly tells himself to stop being so damn happy about this news as he slips his phone back into his pocket. He takes one last look at Lance’s room before stepping back out into the hall and pulling the door closed behind him.

He just barely manages to fight the telling smile off his face before he gets back to the living room.

 Keith crashes at their apartment for the night, on the couch. Hunk and Pidge both try to convince him that he could take Lance’s bed and Lance wouldn’t care, but Keith is fairly certain he wouldn’t get much sleep if he was in Lance’s room – even if he would be alone – and insists the couch is fine. He wakes up once around 5 or 6 in the morning as Hunk is getting ready for his opening shift at a local diner but otherwise sleeps well until about 10:30. He wanders into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee before going to roust Pidge. He doesn’t mind mornings much, but he learned very soon into their friendship that Pidge is very firmly a “night owl,” and has no interest in trying to deny her nature. She’s lying upside down on her bed when he gets to her room, and somehow managed to kick all of her blankets off of the bed, except one, which looks dangerously close to suffocating her.

He stands in the doorway for a moment, just staring at her. “How do you even manage this?”

“Mmphf.” Sleeping Pidge replies, very firmly.

“Right.” Keith pauses. “I’ll come back when the coffee’s done, actually.”

With a little extra time, Keith hops in the shower. As soon as he opens the bottle of shampoo, he recognizes the familiar, fresh scent as Lance’s soap. He’s a little surprised Lance left his favorite soap behind, even if he was just going to his family home for a few days. He also isn’t sure what to do, looking around the shower space for other soap. There’s plenty, and surely none of them would care either way if he used a little soap but…

Is he totally over thinking this? Absolutely.

Does that realization help him make a decision about which soap to use? Absolutely not.

What feels like ages, but is hopefully only a few minutes, passes before he finally convinces himself to stop being ridiculous and just use the damn shampoo. He just grabbed Lance’s first, it was a coincidence and if Pidge noticed later…well, she would just have to accept that.

…Right.

He washes up quickly after wasting who knows how long second-guessing his soap choices and leaves the bathroom to the smell of coffee slowly starting to fill the apartment.

He has to break the nonexistent, unspoken rule his brain has built up in his mind a second time, and trespasses across Lance’s room to find some spare clothes he’s left behind for overnight stays. He pulls on some clean boxers and his jeans from yesterday, but after he’s pulled the worn Altea University shirt over his head, he realizes its Lance shirt, not his. There’s a small hole starting in the bottom hem and the white letters are fading and cracked from excessive wear. It was folded in his drawers, so Keith is like…ninety percent certain it’s clean, but it still smells like Lance’s cologne. Or maybe it’s his lotion or laundry soap or bodywash, but between whatever lingering scent Lance has left on his clothes and the smell of his shampoo still obvious in Keith’s damp hair, he suddenly feels overwhelmed.

He hates how much he hates that Lance is gone.

It’s just a couple of days. Why is he such a disaster? They’re friends. When was the last time he missed Hunk or Pidge this much when they were gone? Even with their friends with benefits arrangement, what made Lance that special to him?

Actually, that was a can of worms he wasn’t really prepared to open just yet.

Keith makes a hasty retreat – a calm, completely normal walk out of one room to another if anyone asks – back to the kitchen for coffee. He pours a generous amount for both Pidge and himself, before he returns to Pidge’s room to finally wake her. He’s not exactly eager to spend another full day working on this project, but he wants to get it done, and he officially really needs the distraction.

It takes another hour, even with the promise of coffee, to pull Pidge out of bed, and she insists on showering “to feel like a real person” before they can get back to work on their project.

Keith has gotten as far as turning his laptop back on and opening their report, rereading the last few paragraphs to remember where he left off, when Pidge returns to her room in some leggings and a baggy t-shirt Keith is pretty sure belongs to either Lance or Matt.

“How about food first?” she suggests.

It’s not exactly the distraction he was looking for, but he shuts his laptop anyways, pushing it off his lap before she even finishes her sentence.

 Sal’s is a small 24-hour diner just outside of Altea's central campus that makes it a popular place for both students and professors. Sunday morning, it is practically bursting at the seams, but it’s got good food for reasonable prices and Hunk, Lance, and Pidge had become regulars even before Hunk got a job in the kitchen. Within a few months of becoming friends, Keith had been invited along enough times that the waitstaff began to recognize him too.

Their wait for a table is reasonable, all things considered, and then Keith and Pidge have only been at the table for maybe three minutes before their waitress, Flora, drops drinks off at the table with a promise to be back for their orders in just a minute. Her long, red pony tail swings wildly behind her as she flits around the small space.

They hadn’t ordered anything, but Flora had been there for a long time and was used to their group stopping in, especially on weekend mornings when Hunk was working. But sitting on the table in front of them is two coffee mugs, and a tall glass of apple juice.

Keith and Pidge both stare at it for a moment, before looking to each other. Keith has a feeling the juice is making him feel a whole lot more…things than it is Pidge.

“I guess she just assumed?” Pidge finally says after a moment and goes back to the menu, as if she hadn’t memorized it within the first three months of their visits.

Keith pulls out his phone and takes a picture of the juice, sending it to Lance with a text:

from flora

Lance’s response comes in a few minutes later, interspersed with at least a dozen crying emojis.

i cant believe u traitors went to sal’s w/o me. tell flora i love her and one of u better drink that. we don’t let apple juice go to waste in this house

i am not telling her that. but i will drink the juice for u

Flora comes back to the table before Lance’s next reply comes in. “Just your usual’s today?”

Pidge hums and haws over the decision a few times, like she does every time they come, before agreeing to her usual order. Though she asks for fresh fruit as well today, just to mix it up.

He can feel his phone buzz against his leg almost the entire time Pidge is ordering. And again a few more times as he confirms that he would like his usual order as well. “But, Lance isn’t with us today so…nothing for him.” Keith adds awkwardly at the end.

Flora blinks at him a few times, surprised, before she snaps her fingers as if suddenly remembering something. “Right. I remember Hunk mentioning one of his roommates was out of town for a few days. Sorry guys, I’m just so used to your trio, or just you and him,” she says to Keith, thankfully not seeing the way Pidge wiggles her eyebrows and makes kissy-faces at him for the aside. “I’ll take that juice back for you.”

“Oh no, that’s fine.” Keith says, moving the glass closer to him. “It’s already poured, we’ll drink it.”

Flora arches a brow, but doesn’t argue with him. She promises their food will be out shortly and leaves the table.

“I can’t believe Lance didn’t request you deliver any messages to her for him, or insist we eat his chocolate chip pancakes in his honor too.” Pidge says once she’s gone.

Keith pulls out his phone, flipping it around to show Pidge the twelve messages he got while they were ordering. “Oh, I’m sure he did somewhere in there.”

 It’s hard to get back to work on a full stomach, but they power through it. Their shared determination to not have to worry about the project after today deters the usual urge to distract each other. Still, progress is slow, and they’re still working when Hunk comes home from work and peeks in to check on them. They pass on lunch when Hunk asks after his shower, and give non-committal answers to his questions about dinner plans.

Keith is entirely unaware of time and date and hell maybe even location by the time he drags himself through the conclusion but he is bordering on ecstatic when he finally saves the document for the last time and looks up from the computer only for Pidge to look up from her own work and meet his eye a few seconds later.

“Done?”

He nods, and she gives an excited “whoop!” stumbling off her desk chair to throw herself on the bed besides him. “So I just need to add in my input and double-check the details match up, right?”

He nods again, and she immediately scrolls to the top of the document to start reading. “Oh!” she jumps up again, grabbing her laptop from the desk and the notebook she was working in besides it. “Do you want to double check the equations and make sure the experiment outline matches the order you have everything in the paper?”

He is relatively confident in Pidge’s work, but he agrees, nonetheless, and the two settle against each other in the twin bed to finish their work.

 Keith isn’t sure when he dozes off, he doesn’t even really remember falling asleep, but when he wakes up, it’s dark in Pidge’s room. Both of their computers are on her desk and he’s alone in her bed. He sits up, half-heartedly feeling around the blankets for his phone to check the time.

“C’mon Mullet, you really had to move right then?”

Keith about jumps out of his skin at the unexpected voice, though he’d vehemently deny it if asked. Lance is sitting backwards in Pidge’s desk chair, pushed close to the door. He lowers his phone, smirking at Keith’s startled expression.

“I guess the deer-in-the-headlights look is fun too, but I was really going to enjoy lording the drooling-all-over-Pidge’s-sheets picture over you.” Lance teases.

Keith’s heart brain is doing some kind of stupid, fluttery thing over the boy across the room that he is pointedly ignoring.

“Shut up.” Keith mutters, even as he hastily wipes at his mouth. There’s nothing there. Asshole. He pushes himself off the bed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Lance presses a hand to his chest in fake offense. “Really? You sleep through my grand return and when you finally bother to wake up, that’s how you greet me?”

Keith crosses the room, folding his arms over his chest and summoning the most unimpressed expression he can muster. “You know what I meant.”

Lance doesn’t seem deterred by the new height difference between them, or Keith’s attitude, crossing his arms over the back of the chair and batting his eyelashes up at him cheekily. He’s wearing the same baseball hat from the picture he sent Keith yesterday, but he’s got it on in the right direction this time, making him look minorly less like a douchebag. The baggy zip-up, which may very well be Hunk’s, over a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and sweatpants isn’t really helping though.

“When did you get back?” Keith askes instead of commenting on his poor outfit choices.

Lance shrugs. “A little after five. Pidge said you started to doze off around four.” He adds before Keith can ask. “Hunk made stir fry for dinner.”

Taking that to mean Lance was actually sent here to wake him up for dinner, rather than simply coming to terrorize him because he was bored, Keith steps around him to leave. A moment later Lance stumbles off the chair after him, complaining all the way.

“Hey,” Lance calls after him.

Keith is already rolling his eyes as he turns around, assuming Lance has a few more jabs he wants to get out before they get to the kitchen, so he is wholly unprepared for Lance to hook a finger in the collar of his shirt and pull him close.

“Is this my shirt?”

It takes all of his self-control not to fly away from Lance’s hold, though the heat rising rapidly to his cheeks is probably giving away his embarrassment all the same. “Maybe? I just grabbed something from your drawers after my shower this morning.”

Lance has a look in his eyes that Keith recognizes as usually meaning something dangerous is in store for him. He leans in closer, stopping just before the bill of his hat brushes the top of Keith’s head. “Did you use my shampoo too?”

“I think you’re a little too obsessed with your things for someone wearing someone else’s hoodie.”

“Well I think you missed me while I was gone.”

Keith isn’t entirely sure who moves first, but one second they’re staring each other down daring the other to give in and the next he’s shoved Lance’s baseball cap off his head, burying his fingers in Lance’s messy hair while Lance’s hands have dropped to his waist, pulling him close with a bruising grip. Their kiss is uncoordinated and messy. Keith is ninety percent certain he was not the only one missing someone a stupid amount this weekend. His back hits the wall, and he faintly registers Pidge yelling something about her room from the other side of the apartment.

Lance rucks up his shirt, warm hands brushing over his sides, and Keith is dangerously close to wrapping his legs around his hips and saying fuck dinner.

They finally break apart for air and Lance laughs against his throat, the sensation sending shivers down his back. “I knew you missed me.”

“And what?” Keith asks breathlessly. “You were ambivalent about it all? I don’t think so. Not kissing like that.”

Lance pulls back to look at him with a surprisingly soft look. “I just wanted to hear you admit it,” he teases.

Normally, Keith would have a comeback for that, probably, but now he’s distracted as he runs his fingers through Lance’s bangs. “You have blue hair.”

Just the tips of his hair that are dyed, actually, not his whole head, he’s still surprised by the change. It seems a little silly, but it still looks good on him.

Lance, not one to be deterred by much, winks at him, striking a pose. “Hot, right? Rachel did it.”

“Yeah, it looks good.”

That does give Lance pause and he blinks at Keith and his easy admission a few times. “Er, well…we should probably go eat now. If just to reassure Pidge we aren’t defiling her room.”

 Dinner is great, as usual when Hunk cooks, and they sit in the living room with another show on in the background, but they fill most of the time talking about Lance’s trip and gossip in their department that Keith is somehow always unaware of.

It is well after eleven before conversation begins to fade and they start to disperse around the apartment. Keith is, maybe a little, embarrassed about it, but he doesn’t bother to hide his intentions to stay with Lance rather than going back to his own apartment now that the project is done. For once, Pidge and Hunk leave them be with minimal suggestive looks.

Considering the brief tryst in the hallway earlier, Keith isn’t entirely sure what to expect when they finally retire to Lance’s room, but Lance doesn’t seem to be in a particular rush to do anything. Keith shimmies out of his jeans and drops into bed while Lance puts on some kind of moisturizer. He strips down to his boxers after and Keith can see new, blue markings up and down his arms before Lance turns the light off. Predictably, a moment later there’s a crash and Lance swears. Keith leans over to turn on the lamp next to the bed. Lance is leaning against the footboard, rubbing his shin.

“What did you knock over this time?”

Lance sticks out his tongue. “Don’t worry about it. Move over.” He says. He doesn’t wait before he climbs over the end of the bed and flops down, half on top of Keith.

“I would have moved if you let me,” Keith says into his shoulder.

Lance hums in consideration before he shifts on the mattress. Keith lets him maneuver him around the bed, mostly curious as to what he’s doing, until they end up on their sides, legs tangled together and arms around each other. Lance’s head is pressed against his chest, and his hands are, conveniently, on his ass.

“Lance-”

“Shh,” Lance interrupts immediately. “I had to go a whole weekend without even being able to see this ass, give me a moment to enjoy it.”

Keith laughs despite himself, rolling his eyes. “You are ridiculous.”

Lance wiggles against him, sighing contently. “You like it.”

“Whatever.”

Absentmindedly, Keith runs a hand against Lance’s back, trailing nonsense patterns against his warm skin. Eventually, he looks down, just to make sure Lance hasn’t actually fallen asleep like that, and sees the blue drawings on his arm again.

“What is all over you?”

Lance lets go of him to roll onto his back and show off his arms. “After Rachel dyed my hair, Nadia and Sylvio wanted to match, but Lisa, their mom, wasn’t really thrilled with the idea, so we found these tattoo markers at the dollar store and they were washable, so we went kind of crazy.” Lance shifts so his side is up where the black outline of a shark tattooed into his waist is now black and blue. “They also colored in my tattoo.”

“Did you draw these?”

“Haha,” Lance elbows him in the side half-heartedly. “I drew the rocket ship on my wrist, and the constellations on my shoulder, if they’re still there, are from Veronica, but everything else is from Nadia and Sylvio. Oh, and Luis,” Lance points to a…something near his elbow.

“A flower?” Keith guesses.

Lance snorts. “A lion, according to him.”

“Not the most artistically inclined I’m assuming?”

Lance shakes his head. “Not at all. Nadia’s pretty good though,” he turns over his arm to show off a dog on his forearm. “That’s pretty damn good for a seven-year-old drawing on a moving canvas with dollar-store markers.”

They just spent the last few hours talking about this weekend with Hunk and Pidge in the living room, but Keith can’t help but ask more questions about his family and what they did over the weekend. He brushes Lance’s hair out of his face, and Lance settles deeper into his arms, waving his hands in the air as he talks about the piñata he had to fill for the party by himself, that was bigger than the birthday boy, and the balloon mishaps that had his mother ready to call the whole thing off more than once.

There’s a nagging worry in the back of his head that this is not normal friends-with-benefits behavior, but it is easily drowned out by Lance’s sleepy smile when he shifts again to face Keith.

“Did you guys have fun this weekend?”

Keith shrugs one shoulder. “As much fun as you can have the weekend before a Kolivan deadline.”

Lance grimaces sympathetically. “You finished everything though, right?”

“I think so. We were just checking each other’s work before I fell asleep. If there was more to do, I doubt Pidge would have let me sleep for long.”

Lance hides a wide yawn in his shoulder. “That’s good,” he tries to say, only to break off half-way through into another yawn.

“Those kids wore you out, clearly.” Keith observes, trying to fight back his own yawn.

Lance smiles fondly. “It was fun to see them, to go back and be with everyone for a while. But I’m really glad you were here when I got home.”

The admittance is so quiet in the still room, and almost immediately drowned out by the way Keith’s pulse races, blood roaring in his ears.

Lance had closed his eyes, but he opens them again and looks up at him curiously. Keith knows he has to be able to hear the erratic beating of his heart. He wonders if Lance is even remotely aware of how many lines they’ve crossed in the period of their relationship, if he thinks at all about how little like fuck-buddies they behave when they spend nights wrapped in each other’s arms saying soft things and doing nothing else and if it affects him at all or if this is just how he is casually intimate with everyone. And he wonders why he hates that idea so much.

“Can I kiss you?” Keith asks. It’s usually Lance’s question, but for once, Keith can’t help but ask, ignoring, for now, how overwhelmed he is.

Surprisingly, Lance is quiet, and just nods his agreement, watching Keith with wide eyes.

The kiss now is nothing like the ones they shared before dinner, slow and gentle where the others were rushed and near-frantic. Keith wraps both arms around Lance’s waist, and Lance cradles his face with one hand, threading his other hand through Keith’s hair.

“Good night,” Keith whispers against his lips as they break apart feeling like he’s doing something unbelievably stupid even as the words come.

Lance presses one more quick, closed-mouth kiss against his lips. “Good night.”

Keith flips off the bedside table lamp, dousing them in darkness.

He isn’t sure how long they lay in the dark before Lance finally relaxes and falls asleep, but it feels like at least another hour before Keith admits to himself, he can’t sleep yet and carefully extracts himself from the bed. Lance makes a quiet noise of displeasure in his sleep, but easily stretches out, taking up the empty space and doesn’t wake up.

Keith goes out into the hallway, thinking he’ll just go to the living room and calm down but a light shines through the crack of Pidge’s closed door and he finds himself drawn there instead. He knocks once and Pidge opens the door immediately, looking around the hall almost alarmed.

“Keith? What’s wrong? It’s almost four in the morn-”

“Pidge, I think I love him.” Keith interrupts. “I think I’m in love.”

[klanceficarchive-blog]

“No- just… no. That was not you telling me anything,” Lance shrieks, jumping to his feet and pacing in front of the couch. “That was you trying to- trying to fucking s-seduce me!” He stops pacing and points an accusing finger in Keith’s face.

“Oh? Did it work?” Keith asks, mock-curious.

“YES!” Lance shouts, and then freezes as if shocked by his own admission. Keith is equally shocked. “I mean- n-NO. Duh.” Lance crosses his arms and looks away, and now he’s obviously lying.

---

Keith and Lance have sex. Lance freaks out a bit, and later they have more sex. The team finds out, Lance gets angry, and then they have sex. You noticing a pattern? Oh. Also, they catch feelings.

[alohaasaloevera]

Au where Lance works a normal 9 to 5 (or as a nurse???) as a single dad and Keith is a mechanic at an auto shop??

It’s either a rivals-ish mutual pining slow burn 7-15 chapters 60k+ fic or a friends with benefits type of situation also mutual pining slow burn 7-15 chapters 60k+ fic.

Basically Lance moves into this new neighborhood to get away from the past (which is mainly his child’s mother and some other toxic people/environments (not his family or Hunk though)), and is immediately known as the hot, single dad who recently moved to the neighborhood, before he meets Pidge, a former child prodigy now genius software engineer. Pidge and Lance form a close bond with each other and Hunk even meets up with them a few times!!!!

Lance also hears about the young, hot mechanic down the street, and that’s kinda where their rivalry starts (along with other events).

In the mutual pining rivals au they keep getting put in situations where they have to compete, and then they become rivals, but they’re also hopelessly pining over each other and adore the other a lot. Cue Lance’s child accidentally calling Keith “Daddy” and everyone freaking out.

In the fwb au Lance grows a pair and pins Keith to a wall before making out with him almost immediately (like in the first few chapters), which also leads to mutual pining. They’re still “rivals”, though. Rivals who secretly make out and cuddle with each other, but that’s not important (it really is).

YOO???? I MIGHT’VE MADE A BANGER AU???

[autisticlancemcclain]

part one

———

They’re not careless.

But they’re not careful, either.

They’ve never bothered discussing whether or not they’re trying to be discreet. It was always just the natural way they went about things. Their friends already have so much to worry about, so much to reckon with. It’s a waste of their limited time to sit them down and announce to them that they’re — what, sleeping together?

This is what Keith tells himself.

He sees the hurt in Lance’s eyes, when he flinches away from his touch. He knows it’s worse still because he is an instigator, because he is so fucking incapable of keeping his hands to himself. His palm will find the small of Lance’s back like a magnet to steel, his shoulder will soften itself so Lance can rest his head. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, half the time, doesn’t notice the way he seeks out Lance’s hand or crowds too close to him until he catches someone’s eye, watching them, and springs apart, flings Lance’s away from him like he’s been burned.

I love you.

Isn’t that reason enough?

In the morning Keith wakes up sweltering. In the back of his mind, as it always does, burns the skin-crawling feeling of being watched. There’s no one in the bedroom and he knows it, but shame runs down his spine anyway. Suddenly the blankets twisting his and Lance’s legs together are binding, and the press of their sweat-slick skin tigger is revolting, sticky. The nausea that churns lowly in his belly at all times bubbles infinitely more aggressively than usual, and Keith knows if he doesn’t extract himself immediately he’ll explode; chunks of him will hit the walls and his blood will paint the tile floor. He inches under his skin, bile coats the back of his throat, heart pounding so fast it’s a him.

A low, quiet quiet groaning noise startled the hell out of him. He looks over and Lance is shifting, sliding his arms out from under the pillow and turning slightly, so he’s facing Keith instead of the wall, hands curled into his chest and under his chin.

There’s a pillow crease steamed across his cheek, and his face is smushed by the pillow, forcing his lips to pucker.

Keith smiles.

The roaring in his head quiets somewhat. Without thinking he reaches out his hand, fingertips tracing the creased skin of Lance’s cheek so lightly he hardly touches with anything more than his callouses. His skin is warm to the touch, but not overly so.

Keith lets out a long, hard breath. His heart rate slows. He traces the pucker of Lance’s lip, feeling the curve of his cupid’s bow, noting the tiny scars from where Lance picks the skin when he’s bored or nervous.

Slowly, as if a string is pulling them together, Keith leans down. Somewhere between his pillow and Lance’s his eyes close, and the press of their lips is that much softer.

It should be gross. They both have morning breath, and minutes ago the thought of their bare skin touching made Keith want to throw up, but now the press of Lance’s chapped lips to his is addicting and calming and electrifying.

“Mmf.”

Lance stirs, groggy and half awake, but it’s — this is not the first time he’s woken to Keith’s closeness.

It takes him a few seconds to boot up, for his brain to catch up with the way his hands are already sliding up the back of Keith’s neck, tangling in his hair. Keith knows he’s awake when he feels the flutter of Lance’s absurdly long eyelashes against his cheekbones, when his mouth stretches into a grin too wide to kiss properly.

“Hi,” he mumbles happily. He keeps one hand on the base of Keith’s skull, letting the other one slide coyly down the curve of his shoulder, the dip of his chest, the line of hair under his navel, resting cheekily on the top of his waistband. Every brush of his fingers washes away the burn shame still lingering. “You’re touchy this morning.”

Keith hums. He presses his lips to the corner of Lance’s mouth, to his cheek, to his jaw, down his neck. His stubble must be too light on Lance’s skin because he laughs, airy, smacking his palm on Keith’s scapula. Keith snickers, rubbing his cheek harder along his neck just to make him shriek, revelling in the way Lance wraps his legs around his hips to try and flip him but can’t, the way he shoves and pinches but lets up the second Keith starts to suck a bruise on his collarbone.

He’s so easy.

“Keith,” Lance whines, but it’s breathy and Keith wants to swallow to sound. “Keith, we’re disgusting. Your breath stinks and if I don’t shower I’m going to hurt somebody. Probably you. Do you want me to hurt you?”

Keith reaches up, pressing Lance’s fingers deeper into the flesh of his shoulder, and lets his silence speak for him.

Lance snorts, and Keith knows he has him because he melts visibly. “You dog.”

The hand in Keith’s hair starts to move, combing through the tangled strands, scratching gently at his scalp. Keith doesn’t let up, but he softens in kind, letting his lips on Lance’s skin morph into something softer, more chaste.

“We can screw in the shower?” he offers, voice hopeful. “That’s a good compromise.”

It is a good compromise, but Keith is feeling bold (i love you isn’t that reason enough it’s physical you have ruined everyone you ever loved it’s physical it’s physical it’s physical), so he sets out to guarantee Lance will bend.

He pulls away from Lance’s neck, just slightly, and looks up from under his lashes, widening his eyes just so.

And watched with great pleasure as Lance crumbles.

He shoves Keith’s face away, red-cheeked and huffy, throwing off the covers and stomping to the ensuite. He grumbles all the way there, much of it too low for Keith to hear but much more of it loud and pointed and intentional (Keith knows what zorra means, thanks.)

“I want to actually shower,” Lance says sternly, water droplets flicking off his wagging finger and landing on Keith’s nose.

Keith nods sagely. “We will.”

“In decent time, Akira.”

“Of course.”

“I have stuff to do today.”

“Me too.”

“Minimal shenanigans.”

“Minute.”

The shower lasts well over an hour.

“Wipe the smirk off your face,” Lance demands, but his lips are twitching, too,

Keith grabs him by the waist and dips him, laughing, kissing him soundly and wholly and he wonders what the fuck is his problem. He wonders why he has to be so goddamn resistant to things, why he works himself up so bad, why any of that shit matters. Why can’t he have this? Why can’t he have — one good thing, the one; why can’t he have Lance’s gun-calloused palms on his cheeks and smile pressed to his and deep dark brown eyes warm and pretty and happy and pointed at him? Why can’t he have that? Why can’t things be good and simple, why can’t this be something he can fall into?

I love you.

Isn’t that reason enough?

He’s not careless. He can’t afford to be.

But he’s — loosened. His guard is down. They get dressed and ready for the day and Keith follows Lance out their door and he’s laughing, and his hand is curled around the curve of his waist, and they smell of the same shampoo.

“Does it amuse you to make me late for things, you jackass — oh! Hunk!”

Keith inhales sharp and short. He yanks his hand away like it hurts to keep it there for a second longer, stumbling backwards.

“Hey, guys.”

Something tight and painful coils in his stomach, and his blood turns to lead. Hunk’s expression is carefully, carefully pleasant; soft, even, as he returns Lance’s hug and greeting.

But the pinprick at the back of his neck is back. The shame, hot, crawls down his spine, blooms heavy in the hollow of his chest.

“I’m gonna go — train,” he chokes out, hyperaware of the bruise on Lance’s neck, of the cobweb in the corner of his room, the braid in Keith’s hair; hyperaware of Hunk’s eye on them.

“Aw,” Lance pouts. “You sure?”

Keith can’t manage a verbal response. His throat has closed, aching, dry, desolate. He barely manages a nod.

“We’ll see you at dinner?” Hunk asks, only there’s no request in his voice, and Keith doesn’t miss how his body has curved, slightly; just barely nudging Lance behind him, as if he is to be protected, as if he is to be protected from Keith.

I love you.

You have ruined everything you have ever loved.

Isn’t that reason enough?

Physical, physical, physical.

Keith turns and flees.

[iybms]

It was, he justifies, practically a life or death situation. It's entirely understandable that in the face of the mission stakes, he threw his whole self into it. Really into it. For the sake of believability, that's all. Life or death. Yeah.

And now, whenever death does find him, he'll go down knowing exactly what Keith's lips feel like against his; what Keith's tongue tastes like; the grip of Keith's hands on his body; the hardness of Keith's hips when Lance presses against them. Never in a million years did he think he'd ever know such things, but now he's never going to be able to un-know them. Hell, he can almost still feel the heat of Keith's hand through the fabric of these shitty uniform pants.

He almost wishes he could un-know it all, because then maybe he could forget how much he liked it.

Maybe he could even convince himself that he doesn't sort of want to do it again.

rating: E (Explicit) pairing: keith/lance words: 30,060 tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Near Death Experiences, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Friends With Benefits, canonverse, Getting Together, Kissing, Frottage, Showers, Blow Jobs, First Time, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, brief misunderstanding, Happy Ending, Vers klance, Demisexual Keith (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Illustrations

This work contains adult content, and nsfw art. If you are under the age of consent, I strongly recommend that you reconsider reading this fic.

read on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38889444

sfw illustrations (and spoilers) under the cut.

[yeeiguess]

The friends-with-benefits-turned-lovers trope is cool and all but also why can’t there be anything where they just... stay friends with benefits. Nothing more. Like that’s the whole point ?

[kickis-conan-king]

I’m writing a klance fic rn and it’s like. It’s both fwbs to lovers and it’s secret relationship and it’s super fluffy and it’s also a little slow burn and I feel like I am straight channeling some early klance fandom with this shit I’m having so much fun.

[acidcitypoets]

finally getting ready to post my first klance fic now that no one cares about klance anymore