#hunk...........please get him away from the cafeteria

[arbiteriii]

↳ @goofbcll liked the thing for a starter

The android did possess some level of curiosity. And it’s just as well-- for if he hadn’t any, he might never have met Hunk.

At any rate, he had eventually taken to wandering this strange and foreign place which served as Hunk’s home (possibly??? That is, hadn’t heard the human use that term yet, but one might readily assume--) and stumbled upon an area in the residential quarters that had him at odds with the place: the cafeteria.

He stared at a series of dispensers, and then at what appeared to be their controls. He knew there would be little harm done by pressing any of the buttons in this room. After all, he knew a kitchen when he saw one and knew doubly that nothing would blow up. That was the only reason why he’d be so inclined as to hit the switch that stood out to him most. If he had been more dubious about its purpose, he would have laid off.

He first heard the chirp of confirmation sounded from speakers somewhere above, and then a wet splortch below. Looking to the source of that second sound, the android could make out what he might only want to describe as ‘a thick green substance’. At any rate, he found it revolting.

Little else stirred in the vast and empty cafeteria room. The only thing there was a lost android glaring menacingly at a pile of green goo on the floor.

[quirkless-accident]

{father figure/ oh, you havent heard?/ Student danny}

danny gains ice power. Aka the day he got freezing sick

Full disclosure i only remember what vaguely happens. The danny phantom wiki hasn't steered me wrong yet

----------

Aizawa raised an eyebrow as Danny sneezed again. It was starting to get colder outside, so maybe it was seasonal allergies. Danny had already gone to see Recovery Girl yesterday, and he was fine, except for the odd body temperature, but that was normal for him. He's always ran cold, as far as Aizawa's concerned.

Aizawa made a mental note to talk to him about it. And the blue wisps that wouldn't stop coming out of his mouth.

--------

Danny was having a rough time. His powers were acting up, and he couldn't see anybody about them. It wasn't a normal quirk. nobody knew how to fix what was wrong with him because he was one out of two halfas in all of existence. Because of course he fucking was.

So instead of acting like his powers were the thing that was wrong, he pretended to be sick. It's not like it was hard. With how shitty he actually felt, and the coldness that crept up his spine and settled in his bones, it was easy to get Recovery Girl to excuse him until he was better.

He knew Aizawa was worried, but soon he wouldn't need to. His body would bounce back, just like it always did when weird ghost shit happened.

Right?

--------

Aizawa noticed it almost right away. The trail of frost that Danny was leaving behind, and the food in the cafeteria he barely touched turning into a hunk of ice as he left. He didn't know what was going on, but it was obviously something ghost related. Which meant it probably wasn't a normal illness. He made a note to ask Danny about it at the end of the day.

---------

Danny was going to fist fight the universe.

He knows that ghosts won't follow his schedule and leave him alone when he's at school learning how to kick their asses better, but it's still very annoying when the ground breaks open beneath their feat and a giant plant ghost breaks through.

And of course none of his classmates can really do anything, because on top of being a powerhouse with plants, he also has the normal powers of a ghost. Danny was virtually the only one who could touch him, and he had to do it without his classmates finding out his secret. The only one who knew was Aizawa, and he planned on keeping it that way.

Everything has been harder today though. He's incredibly cold despite the warmer temperature of the class and outside. He doesn't understand why. And he's been keenly aware of his skin slowly turning blue, and the icicles coming off of his elbows that he's been desperately breaking off before anybody could see. This is something ghost related. Nobody here at U.A. could help him.

The ghost is monologuing. Danny finds as annoying as he finds it useful as he dives forward, ectoblasts at the ready. He starts blasting vines and large roots that are shooting out to attack him and his classmates, but the plant man-Undergrowth, was it?-is regenerating too quickly.

Danny lines up a blast to his beaked face when something grabs his ankles and drags him down, slamming him into the ground. It creates a crater that Kirishima is quickly trying to pull him out of. But just as they get back to their feet, Danny feels an itch in his nose, and the whole world fades to black.

-------

Shouta knows the pressing feeling of a migraine more than the normal person. He's had plenty of them from overusing his quirk or the occasional concussion. His experience with them is the only thing keeping him from opening his eyes right as he wakes up. He goes through his mental checklist, and is pleased to find that the only thing that really hurts is his head.

He groans as he covers his eyes with his hand before opening them, trying in a vain attempt to put off the inevitable. Eventually he adjusts enough and takes his hand away, scrubbing lightly at his face. He is met with a dim room with a heavy, earthy smell, and a shivering half-ghost sitting next to him. He goes to shake him awake, trying not to be too concerned about the blue tone the boy's skin has taken. When his hand gets close, however, a quick layer of thin frost covers his fingertips. He pulls his hand back and wraps it in the end of his capture scarf before shaking the boy awake.

Danny is apparently not a morning person. It takes at least two more tries to get him to finally open his eyes, and some gentle nudging to get him to sit up. He sneezes, and a series of blue wisps escape his mouth.

"I was going to talk to you about that," Aizawa says, keeping his voice low to not upset his headache. "Is it a ghost thing?"

Danny nods. He looks absolutely miserable. "Yeah, but I have no idea what it is, or how to control it. I don't know if I'll be any help against Undergrowth when I'm so sick."

Aizawa takes in a deep breath to calm his nerves, and he's please to find that Danny does the same. Though the shaking in his hands don't stop, he suspects it's from Danny being cold more than his anxiety.

"If we can make it to my parent's house we'd be able to get all of the ghost hunting equipment we would need," Danny says.

"Time to see if all of this stealth training I've been showing you finally pays off," Aizawa replies dryly as he slowly gets to his feet. He helps Danny to his before they look around, feeling around the wall.

It's got the texture of a leaf and the durability of drywall, which Danny uses to their advantage by heating up his hands and burning the plant away without outright blasting it. He takes a second to try and warm the rest of him up. When he's done he's still cold, but he is less blue.

Danny hovers in the air for a brief moment before looking back at Aizawa. It's a mi of worry and determination, one the boy has been an expert in making since day one. Aizawa gives him an encouraging nod and they leap from the pod they were being held in.

Everything around them is covered in thick vines taller than All Might and twice as broad. The usual training grounds of Ground Beta were nowhere to be seen. Instead there were a bunch of other pods around. Danny makes a break for one of them, only to be stopped by vines latching onto him and pulling him back. Aizawa tries to move forward, but his legs are quickly secured. The ground rumbles again, and Undergrowth comes back out.

"There's no use in fighting it," Undergrowth brags as Danny and Aizawa struggle to escape. "The growth is stronger than any meat creature."

"Why can't I get out of these?" Danny barks in frustration. He pulls again, and Aizawa winces at how the vines dig into his skin more. He can see the blue coming back as Danny gets more and more frustrated, only interrupted by Undergrowth's speech.

"This is exactly what nature intended all along. Mankind is merely a temporary weed in the garden of life. A weed, that can be removed," he smiled triumphantly. Then, with a wave of his hand, the surrounding pods open up, and Aizawa's heart jumps into his throats.

Sitting inside of the pods are his students.

They're all in various stages of being tied up by vines, and all of their eyes glowed an unearthly pink.

"What did you do to them?" Aizawa snarled. Undergrowth just laughed.

"My mind vines have taken effect," he said. "I'm going to use them and every other god-forsaken hero to destroy this city! For too long human progress has been prioritized over the nurture of the very earth you all walk on! Tearing it up by its roots and burning it to the ground! I will no longer sit idly by and watch it happen."

The speech is punctuated by a sneeze coming from Danny. When Aizawa looks over, the vines holding him back are encased in ice. There's icicles coming from his nose and he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else.

Danny doesn't waste the opportunity his shitty allergies give him though. He quickly gives one big tug, and the vines break apart. he wastes no time in freeing Aizawa while Undergrowth yells in frustration, unable to catch the halfa. Aizawa is careful to only let Danny grab his uniform and not his whole arm as he dodges the plants with a fluidity that's learned only from experience.

"Take us high!" Shouta tells him. Danny immediately adjusts their course. First rule of fighting someone who needs the ground? Get to the sky.

Just as he had hoped, once they were high enough, the vines were unable to reach them. Aizawa could feel his breaths coming in more labored from the thinner air, though Danny seemed perfectly fine. In fact, it looked like he was thriving.

That is, until they looks down.

The city of Musatafu was completely covered, just as U.A. had been. There were pods opening and brainwashed heroes roaming the streets. Aizawa felt a cold, tingling sensation down his spine as he looked down.

"We have to go to the Ghost Zone," Danny tells him over the wind. "I have a friend there who might be able to explain what's going on with me. And on out way out we'll be able to get some ghost hunting equipment."

Aizawa nods in agreement, doing his best to ignore his captured colleagues as they come closer and closer to the ground.

---------------

Sneaking into the Fenton household wasn't hard, even with ghost powers that would usually trip every alarm. It seems, however, that Undergrowth took care of that problem.

They don't start having problems until they reach the bottom of the basement.

Shouta Aizawa has never seen the thing that killed his student, but now it's looming over him, casting the room in a harsh, eerie lighting. He briefly wonders what it's like to have lived just over the thing that murdered you. It's probably not good for his mental health.

And standing in front of the portal are the Fenton parents.

Aizawa scowls, and is surprised to find something other than stubborn determination on his student's face. In fact, staring at his parents with their large guns and scowling mind controlled faces, he looks absolutely terrified.

"You ready, kid?" He asks, placing a hand on his shoulder. It seems to snap Danny out of it enough for him to gulp in some air and nod.

And once everything here is all said and done, Aizawa is going to murder the Fenton parents with a law suit so big they'll be paying it off when they're dead. Because Shouta knows for a fact that it's not the portal that Danny is terrified of.

Without much fanfare, their blasters are pointed towards himself and Danny, who on nothing but instinct throws up a green barrier between them and his parents. The blast dissolves into nothing. Danny grips Aizawa's uniform and pulls him behind him before going into a sprint.

While a very real threat, without their own thoughts in their heads, their moves are slow and sluggish. Danny is easily able to use the shield as a battering ram, running through his parents and into the Ghost Zone, dragging Aizawa along with him.

----------

Ice powers.

That's the ghost bullshit that Danny was going through. And conveniently, it was their way of taking down Undergrowth.

He sat in while Frostbite explained the behavior of cores to him and Danny. But something still didn't make sense. He knew Danny had been electrocuted, and cores had something to do with death. So why did Danny have ice powers?

When he asked, he received two very different looks. Frostbite looked almost sad, and maybe a little concerned, while Danny looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes. It was only then that Aizawa realized his question was in bad taste. When he tried to apologize, though, Danny waved him off.

"It's fine to ask questions, Sensei," he said, though he still looked uncomfortable. "Clockwork mentioned once that cores are related to how we died but not-not the physical part. Since cores are essentially ghost hearts, their powers come from whatever your emotional state was when you died."

"What...What does ice mean, then?" He asked softly.

"It's...Different for everybody," Danny answers eventually. "But for me I was...I couldn't move. I was uh, frozen with fear," he grimaces at his wording, but it made perfect sense to Aizawa. He's been in too many situations where it's fight, flight, or freeze. And Danny was only fourteen, with his whole life ahead of him. It only makes sense that he had been terrified with the concept of dying.

He wasn't good at being an emotional anchor. Not like Mic or Midnight. But everything always seemed to be an exception when Danny was involved. He could tell by the kid's stilted body language that he was tired and unsure of what to do. So Aizawa, without really thinking, opened his arms. Not even a second went by before they were full of his the kid.

Maybe he should book him some sessions with Hounddog.

----------

After some quick training and strong foundation for the basics of his new ice quirk, they quickly found their way back to Musatafu. According to Frostbite, when Undergrowth is defeated, everything and everyone will go back to normal.

As a gift to Aizawa for not being a complete dick to Danny, they played around with his capture scarf. Now, if he every caught a ghost in it, including Danny, they wouldn't be able to phase through. It was a step in the direction of trust that Aizawa didn't plan on messing up anytime soon. This was a lot of power for his student to give to him. It was also just another glaring reminder that every other adult completely and utterly failed him.

Danny was also no longer shivering and encasing anything he touched in ice, so Aizawa was safely being carried through the skies by his students. If anybody asked, they would get immediate detention.

Soon enough, they made it back to U.A. Every bone in Aizawa's body was screaming to be stealthy, but Undergrowth wasn't going to come out of his hiding spot if they were. So instead, Danny played around with his newfound ice powers and started freezing the stems and roots of the pods where his classmates were.

Undergrowth was quick to show up at that point, screeching about how they were never going to get away with defeating him. It was a song and dance both had heard more than enough times. Danny turned to Aizawa, a look of confident determination on his face.

"You got everything handled topside?" He asked. Aizawa nodded, gripping his new and improved capture scarf. Danny gave him a lopsided grin, before giving him a two-fingered salute and disappearing into the ground.

Undergrowth was fast. Definitely one of the faster villains he's faced, which is impressive considering Undergrowth's size. But Aizawa was slim and nimble and used all of that to his advantage. multiple vines chased after him, and Aizawa, with only a vague sense of what he was doing, tangled them all up easily enough. All he had to do was stall.

He just needed to buy time for his kid.

------------

Danny has had nightmares where he turns intangible and falls through the ground, but none of them are like real life.

The only light source is him and his powers, which isn't necessarily a big issue. It's better than his dreams. But now, he's got a mission. Find the base of the roots and destroy it. It should be easy enough since all of the roots have secured themselves deep in the earth. All he has to do is follow them to the base.

it thankfully doesn't take him long to get there, and when he does he doesn't waste any time. His classmates are in danger. His sister too, probably. And Aizawa...The one adult who's ever treated him with any kind of respect it out there risking his life for the second time that year for his students. The man needs a break.

Still, he couldn't help the warm fondness he felt whenever he interacted with Aizawa. It was...Nice to just be recognized. To be seen. It's more than his real parents have ever done with him.

Danny shook the thought from his head as he willed his ice to come, willing it to spread from the base to the rest of the roots and up Undergrowth's stem. Aizawa would never think of him like his kid. He needed to stop being so attached. He was only going to get hurt again.

Danny grit his teeth as he pushed forward. His hands were starting to get so cold they burned. Was this how Todoroki felt?

Eventually it was completely covered, and Danny wasted no time in sending a large ectoblast its way. The roots shattered as much as they could in the compacted earth around them. It was bright and cold and warm all at the same time. As the roots were still crumpling, Danny made his way tot eh surface.

Undergrowth was a lot smaller now, wailing in pain as he clawed at the ground. Danny had no words for the ghost, no witty come back or a promise to kick his ass again the next time he pulled shit like this. He was completely silent as he sucked the ghost into his thermos and clipped it to his belt.

Around him all of the plants and vines were deteriorating quickly to the point where it could almost be disintegration. The only thing showing that anything at all had happened was the shriveled up plants and confused hero students wandering around the streets as the brainwashing left their systems. Aizawa was helping Uraraka as she threw up, rubbing small circles on her back. He looked up at Danny, an exasperated, tired hint of a smile on his face.

Danny gave him a thumbs up.

[themultifandomgal]

Temptation Pt1

Temptation Masterlist

Hopper Bay, Alaska, 1962. I have been on my own now for about 30 years, and not only am I bored, but I'm also extremely lonely. The most interaction I have had is when I was in Tennessee a few years after I had turned. I smelt blood and found a bear attacking a young man. I killed the bear, the blood from the human not really appealing to me, but before I could help the man, I smelt Vampires who were probably more skilled than I was so I left. I ended up on top of a mountain watching a girl and guy going over to the man who had been attacked, they carried him away, this is when I realised that these vampires couldn't smell me, but maybe I was too far away.

I take a deep breath as I am about to enter Hopper Bay High School, maybe this time I'll graduate school.  I walk into reception where I'm met with a young lady

"Hello, my name is Katherine Bailey, I'm new"

"Of course" the woman smiles at me and opens a draw, I can hear every last thing, another reason why I had been on my own all those years. The woman hands me a piece of paper "this is your class schedule, Marie" the woman calls. A girl pops up next to me bright eyed and peppy "this is Katherine, please escort her to Mr Philps's class"

"Sure thing Mrs Jones" the girl Marie turns to face me "lets go" Marie takes my arm in hers and we head off to whatever class Mr Philps is "so why did you move schools?" Marie asks me

"Errm, personal reasons"

"What do your parents do?"

"They're dead" I dead pan say

"Oh, I'm sorry. Who do you live with?" damn it, I didn't really think this through

"Errm my foster parents"

"Oh cool" thankfully the walk to class isn't long.

On entry to the glass I'm greeted by a tall slender man with glasses

"Good morning Marie, who have you got with you"

"This is Katherine, she's new. Would you like me to sit with her today" please say no please say no please say no I plead in my head. I hear someone snicker and that's when it hits me, there's a vampire in this room

"She can sit by Edward thank you Marie" Marie huffs "Edward can you please raise your hand so Miss Bailey can find you" I scan the room until I see a guy with his hand raised in the air. As I walk closer to him it hits me that he's the vampire, but instead of red eyes he has amber eyes. Maybe he's got contacts in. I sit down next to him

"Hi I'm Kat" he doesn't respond, he just looks at me confused "I'm new, well you obviously got that" I chuckle but he stays silent. Ok maybe if you just get through today without them finding out what you are you can stay here until people wonder why you haven't aged.

After a few classes it's time for lunch. I walk into the cafeteria with a lunch tray in my hands, looking around to decide where to sit. As I do my eyes catch those of Edwards, he looks at me confused, I then realise that the people he's sat with are also all vampires, their eyes all the same colour, huh? Edward looks at me confuse I'm just about to walk over to an empty table when Marie steps in front of me

"Hi" she bubbly says

"Err hi"

"Come sit with me and my friends"

"I'm more of a loner, but thanks" I turn my attention back on to the mysterious group, one guy looking at me, he's huge! I see Edward smirk then say something to the guys who's looking at me. I try to listen in, but Marie starts talking which distracts me

"I wouldn't bother, they are the Cullens, Emmett and Edward are the only single ones and even though Emmett is a hunk, no one here is good enough for him"

"Yeah thanks for the advice" I brush passed Marie and go to a table with no one on it. I go to take a bite of my sandwich when I see a group of people sitting in front of me. I look up and see Edward with his friends "err hi?" I frown

"Katherine, this is my family" Edward says. I can feel eyes on me from people around us "I know what you are" I almost choke on my food

"w-what?" I stutter

"You're one of us, a vampire" a girl with short hair says to me

"Oh erm yeah.. wait what?" I start to feel scared, but then a wave of calmness washes over me

"Can we go somewhere privet to talk" Edward asks. I look around still seeing eyes on me. I nod my head and get up, following Edward and his family... oh god I'm about to die aren't I?

[paladin-shenanigans]

It’s pretty obvious that all of the paladins + Allura speak different languages. So I was wonder what it would be like that their s/o speaks their language but struggles with the English language. (I like the concept of how people say that Keith is Korean) S/o tries to converse with the other paladins in English. (I hope I explained this clearly >_

ah yes, i definitely love this headcanon idea!!! i swear y'all are super duper creative and it gives me so many things to try and work through whenever i have writer's block... 🥺 also just a heads up for this one, i only wrote for shiro, keith, and lance, because from what i know hunk and pidge don't really speak other languages despite coming from diverse cultural backgrounds. if any of you guys have any information on either of these characters concerning the topic of this request please do feel free to let me know!!

shiro

☆ i headcanon that he was born and raised on the west coast, but he definitely spoke japanese growing up and is still pretty much fluent. he only really needs these skills when conversing with members of other bases over seas, since he finds there aren't many other native japanese speakers at the US garrison base

☆ however when he found his s/o, someone who was also fluent in japanese, he was actually kind of excited! he doesn't have a ton of opportunities to speak the language he grew up speaking, so this was perfect for him!

☆ as someone who taught at the garrison, he has a natural teacher's touch, and is more than happy to help his s/o better their english skills. whenever they speak to him in english, he kind of lets any grammatical errors slip, because he's kind like that, but sometimes he likes to make charts of verb and noun endings and conjugations just to help them out a bit <3

☆ okay but imagine him getting completely caught off guard by watching his s/o argue with another student during a cafeteria incident and it kind of??? made him fall even more in love with them??? they always came off as shy to him but seeing them stand their ground and converse in a language they sometimes still struggle with was INCREDIBLE to him. helpful space dad is also a proud space dad

lance

☆ he grew up speaking both spanish and english at the same time. his whole family are native spanish speakers who grew to be fluent in english over time, but he and his siblings were the first generation in his family to learn both languages at once

☆ it was funny for lance meeting his fellow spanish speaking s/o, since sometimes he tends to slip into spanish on accident when speaking with a teacher or friend. but when he's with his s/o he doesn't have to worry, maybe the other way around, but he knows they can still understand him and talk with him when he speaks in english

☆ he's kind of...an absentminded teacher tbh. he so desperately wants to help his s/o become more confident with their english skills, but he tends to completely gravitate towards new topics, all in spanish as well.

☆ he's always impressed by his s/o's writing, though. he's fluent in english, but he always has trouble focusing on writing essays, so whenever he reads the papers his s/o wants him to proofread before turning in for a class, he completely loses focus and just. he BEAMS at their ability to write so fluidly. he sometimes jokes about how they may not actually need his help after all!

keith

☆ he'd...probably struggle most in this kind of situation tbh. his father taught him both korean and japanese growing up, but over time he kind of just stuck with english. his language skills didn't completely drain away, however, and now it's just easier for him to understand those languages than it is for him to speak it

☆ so he and his s/o are kind of in the same boat together, which makes him feel a lot more relaxed. like the two of them can learn together. it makes him feel a lot less lonely.

☆ he can understand what they say if they speak in japanese or korean, and he hopes they can understand his responses in english, since he's shy and a bit insecure about his japanese and korean skills. one time the two of them were talking about something that happened during a mission and it completely derailed into a conversation about flying squirrels. keith has never laughed so hard in his entire life.

☆ but yes, like i said, this gives lil grumpy boy something that he can relate to! which takes a lot of weight off of his shoulders! he can often be a bit nitpicky about grammar but as long as his s/o is learning he is happy as can be.

[sukirichi]

jujutsu kaisen characters as students in high school: (non-canon AU)

featuring: itadori yuuji, fushiguro megumi, gojo satoru, getou suguru, & ryoumen sukuna notes: some parts include you as their friend, or even their high school love! (this is unedited/ not proofread)

masterlist ! requests are open 

𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐈 𝐘𝐔𝐔𝐉𝐈

he’s not the brightest bulb, but he makes up for it through hardwork and enthusiasm

yuuji is literally that classmate everyone is just friends with

the type who waves with a smile, saying “good morning!” the moment he walks through that door

with that being said, since he’s everyone’s friend, i headcannon that yuuji doesn’t really have a best friend because he’s so open and available to everyone it’s hard to have just a one on one conversation with him

not to say he’s always surrounded by a crowd that you can’t get near him, but everyone likes talking to yuuji

he just fits in so well and understands people 

kind of like how he easily clicked with junpei (please, i miss him, i still can’t believe that he’s...you know...)

whether it’s the guys raving to him about sports

or girls shyly talking about their crush on class or about that new shojo manga

yuuji is open to anything and everyone. this boy wears his heart on his sleeve and he’s honestly such a precious boy, please be kind to him <3

the type of student that gets called to answer in class but isn’t shy to admit he doesn’t know the answer while rubbing the back of his neck

he does pay attention tho

i think it’s canon that yuuji is a dedicated man, like from that time he just watched movies straight and kept his cursed energy controlled so the cursed corpse would stop hitting him

overall, yuuji is a very hard working student! 

he wouldn’t get over the top grades, but he’s really proud of himself (and he should be!)

also that one kid in class that is surprisingly good in sports despite his lanky figure and laid back persona, because all the other sports-craved people are always flexing or challenging other captains 

but plot twist, this boy is ripped and very, beautifully kept in trim

yeah he’s not really into club activities that much

not because he hates them, but he’s just not that into it. he’s more than glad to join in whatever activities though and enjoys them, but if asked what he’d like to do, it wouldn’t be that first thing that came to mind

in conclusion: itadori yuuji is the class sunflower that lights up everyone’s day  🌻

yuuji’s role: the hard worker! 

𝐅𝐔𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐎 𝐌𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐌𝐈

hands down, megumi is THAT student

if you’re volunteering in the library, you can sure as hell guarantee you’ll see megumi there

he doesn’t like studying in class because it’s too noisy, so if he’s in school, you’ll always see his name in the library logs

he’s that kid that aces all exams

the type to scowl when he sees a 96% mark because he’s expecting a perfect mark

okay before you come at me, i’m not saying megumi is that annoying smart kid in class that goes, “Oh, I’m so dumb, just a 96?”

no he’s more frustrated at himself because he knows he studied hard and lost sleep over it. he’s just wondering where he went wrong. he has literal note cards and customize flash cards on an app on his phone, waking up every four am and probably taking supplement classes after regular school hours

i headcannon that megumi is someone who always wants to do his best and actually goes through lengths to prove his worth

maybe it stems from having the need to show who he really is and what he’s capable of

but yeah i can totally see him doing that

also that cute student that keeps visiting the cafe every saturday morning, wearing a black hoodie and headphones tucked in, his pretty hands nestling over a book

he looks like a gamer but honestly i don’t think he’s got time for that lmao

would also be that guy people find hard to approach because of his quiet and reserved self

he’s pretty intimidating too

definitely sits beside the window at the back of the class. you can’t fight me on that

just because he’s smart and loves studying, it doesn’t mean he’ll sit on the front row and raise his hand every damn second

the teachers will encourage him to participate in class a little bit more, especially after seeing he’s awkward during group activities, but megumi just really prefers to do things by himself

i also headcannon him eating in the cafeteria like everyone else instead of having his alone time during a rooftop? like idk i can’t picture megumi completely isolating himself like that

he blends in well in a way that you know he’s just like everyone else; a human

but he also stands out in the manner that he’s a lot more introverted and reserved compared to everyone else

surprisingly good during sports and relay games

100% reliable

the type to stay up at midnight to finish a group project, sighing because his groupmates doesn’t care as much as he does, but turns it in anyway the next day

he’d be annoyed at them, but he doesn’t really like confrontation so he doesn’t out them to the teacher like that

but he’s also not someone who lets people walk over him, so he’ll simply say something about his groupmates becoming more responsible and to be serious for once as a “warning”

and yeah, he may be closed off, but once you get really close with him (even better if you have similar interests) you’ll find there’s a lot more to him than what you’ve originally seen and he’s actually a pretty great friend and supportive classmate

would teach you instead of just letting you copy his work or snap pictures of his notes

ugh he’s so responsible and morally right and that’s so attractive help

in conclusion: fushiguro megumi is the hidden gem  💎

megumi’s role: the intellectual outsider!

𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔

man...i don’t know how to start this

i’ve said this about megumi, but gojo is also that student

no, in fact, he’s THE student

everyone loves him. literally everyone

the teachers? smitten

his classmates? in love

the school guard? calls him by his first name

the cleaning lady? turns into a star with the way she lightens up when he’s there

the cafeteria staff? yeah free food because he’s gojo satoru

gojo is what i like to call the “one who has it all” because....well, he kind of does

he’s really smart and talented, which comes as a surprise to everyone in the first day of school when he nearly gets kicked out for falling asleep in class

only for everyone to be shocked that he knows the answer already and the teacher is only discussing chapter 1 lmao

yeah he’d be that kid who always sleeps in class

or is playing games on his phone behind an open textbook

he literally doesn’t listen to what the teacher is saying at all - or at least that’s what he wants you to think

man is a god at multitasking and his seatmate would snicker because he’s crushing his enemies at a phone game, but then gojo coolly corrects the teacher about history or something

he’s pretty laid back tbh

but when he’s got everyone’s attention on him? ofc he’d show off

basketball meats are wild. even students from neighbouring schools would visit just to see gojo play - and he’s not even an official member! the coach just asked him to replace a sick player but boy won that champion shot

omg BASKETBALL PLAYER GOJO I CAN’T

but he pretty much excels at everything

except cooking class, gosh, don’t ever bring this man anywhere near a fire. that’s probably the only thing that really got him to detention this time because he always somehow talks himself out of getting that red card with his words and charm

also that kid that would receive lots of confession letters, chocolates, and random gifts in his shoe lockers

he knows he’s handsome and he’s not shy about it. in fact, he’s shameless when it comes to his allure on people

but he also doesn’t really date anyone (it’s canon this man won’t stay loyal to a single woman lmao)

if he and megumi were classmates, they’d be sort of rivals

megumi would always come on top of class, but gojo is just a breath away from the former’s perfect marks. if it only weren’t for megumi’s squeaky clean record and reputation - whereas satoru’s is TAINTED as heck - and the fact that gojo doesn’t really study as much as gumi, then yeah he’d also be top of the class if he wanted to

on a much more serious note,,,gojo acts like nothing really bothers him and he’s simply that effortless

but i feel like he grew up with tutors from a very young age and that’s how his natural intelligence was just further improved and increased with that type of environment in his childhood

and unlike megumi, i don’t think gojo would really have a set goal in mind on who he wants to be or what he wants to do in the future

he’d just be enjoying the moment <3

in conclusion: gojo satoru is the effortless god!

satoru’s role: the lazy king everyone is envious of 

𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔

the playboy

you can’t argue with me on this one

he just is, i feel it deep in my SOUL he just is

moment he walks in, all classy and suave aura and all, you can honestly smell and taste the amount of confidence that drips from him

probably came from a well-off family

probably the mayor’s kid lmao and he’s been used to the attention ever since he was young

much like megumi, he’s not really the type to show off his intelligence

and similar to gojo, people are surprised he’s actually got them brain cells just because everyone is more focused on his appearance first

like who would expect this tall hunk beautiful beast of a man with long hair and piercings actually liked classic novels and could effortlessly recite sonatas and poems in different languages

yeah i headcannon that getou is an intellectual, cultured man

ofc having long hair and piercings isn’t allowed in his school, but because he’s geto and the school knows about his family’s influence, they just let it slide

probably comes late to school too

he eats in the cafeteria, but you don’t really see him indulge much. some days, he’ll have his own fancy bento box prepared by a family chef, but geto is actually pretty simple and humble that he also buys packed bread or canned coffee 

takes the library volunteer by surprise when he drops by one friday after class to borrow an old classic novel that even your professors had a hard time analysing

but geto’s like, “oh this? yeah i last read it when i was thirteen, thought i’d read it again”

IDK WHY but I can see him as sort of breaking the rules when it comes to the school uniform

top three buttons of his shirt open when he’s feeling hot or something

doesn’t really keep his tie that tight too

but overall, geto is a composed and well-put together guy

i just can’t picture him slacking when it comes to his appearance, he’s too fancy and pretty for that

he’s also similar to megumi in a way people find it hard to approach them, but most definitely, geto also receives confessions often 

i can see him dating someone after being interested in someone in school and actually being serious with them unlike gojo

then they would be “that” couple that’re just so couple goals

not the type that goes overboard with pda and pulls off the angry face emoji when they hear someone talking about them and they’re like, “NO HE’S MINE”

okay that’s cringe but i legit witnessed that way too many times in high school yall cant blame me lmao

but they’d be more like the chill laid back couple that supports each other in everything and you can just tell they have a happy, healthy relationship

(oh to be getou’s girlfriend in high school and his first love and all his firsts)

in conclusion: getou suguru is the unpredictable!

getou’s role is: that one classmate you really admire but he’s so far out your league but he’s genuinely a good guy anyway so you’re happy for him no matter what <3

𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀

okay okay hear me out but...the stoner

i really can’t see him any other way guyssss

and if you’re his classmate, you most likely wouldn’t see him that much either

dude is like 2-3 years older than everyone in class and he doesn’t give a shit about it

he’ll come like...once a week, if he’s in the mood enough

teachers don’t even bother scolding him for his tattoos anymore because there’s rumours going around he’s the son of a yakuza leader or that he’s a gangster who sells organs or some creepy dark stuff

ofc he doesn’t do that

he just does drugs and gets drunk at most

sukuna doesn’t really have that much friends either. yeah he parties with people and often gets high with some older kids, but he doesn’t genuinely enjoy their companies either

would totally come to school with his uniform unironed

red-eyed from his high and naps at the back of the class, making the teacher soften their voice in fear of waking him up

also doesn’t have a pen or paper

i mean...he doesn’t even bring a bag

fails the exams all the time, making him repeat year by year, and he’s even known for beating his senpai up for something stupid and sending the guy to a hospital where he stays for two weeks

but on the other hand

he’s also freakishly attractive and surprisingly easy to talk to

you probably bumped into him one time and you profusely apologize, but then he notices something about, something odd like, “did you just cut your hair?”

“uhm yes...you noticed?”

sukuna shrugs lazily, “noticed something was different, but whatever. it looks good on you though.”

he’s just soooo nonchalant most of the time, it’s hard to believe he’s actually pretty violent

but yeah this man has anger issues i’m sorry

but with that speaking, i actually don’t see sukuna as a bully with like a gang of his “followers” or that type of jazz

he’s more like the kid that hides under the bleachers or gets high in a storage room while everyone else is occupied with school festivals

it’s a shock he even came, but sukuna just says “free food is always a gift” but ofc it’s not free food...he just steals from the stalls

now here comes the fun part

so now that we know sukuna pretty much is a hopeless case...suddenly, he isn’t? maybe he meets you, the class volunteer who goes out of their way to visit his shabby apartment just to hand him his class work that he’s missed out on

he obviously disses you at first and ignores you, telling you to get lost

but somehow your kindness and persistence has him breaking

now he starts coming to school often, carrying a pack of gum or mint pops because he smells like weed and he’s slightly conscious of himself

this is supposed to be just them being students in high school, but i could honestly sukuna changing colors once he just gets a better grasp of what would be good for him

or maybe something finally interests him and gives answers to his silent questions

i feel like he’s such a troubled kid and just lacks proper care and attention, but once you become his friend and show him you don’t have bad intentions, he’s actually a loyal and decent guy

and when you two finally get close, you eventually gain enough courage to tutor him. sukuna is actually pretty smart too, he just doesn’t like studying, but when you compliment him, oh man, he melts

“yeah, you actually got that right! i told you you could do this!”

tsk,” he scoffs, “that’s all kindergarten shit.”

“if it is, then why haven’t you graduated?”

“shut the fuck up.”

although he sneers, you and sukuna have gotten close enough that you know both of you don’t mean anything bad behind those words and it’s all light hearted teasing

oh and when you ask him to take a picture with you for “high school memories?”

sukuna is disgusted

“get that thing away from my face - did you just take my photo?”

“yeah, you look pretty cute here! i’m so printing this and putting this in my album.”

sukuna is about to scold you even more, but the thought of you putting your photo together - even when he’s frowning in the picture - in something as sentimental as a photo book really has him softening up

would even try - keyword is try - to study more just so you’d stop frowning when you see his paper covered in red marks all over again

and he’d even try cutting down on his weed for the sake of his “health”

ofc he won’t suddenly - or ever, even - become the amazing student megumi is

he’ll still get into trouble because he’s impulsive and has poor coping skills, also he’s not good with words or dealing with his emotions

but on his good days, he’s a pretty funny guy

it just takes a lot to see that side of him, but it’s worth the time and patience

also i was expecting to write funny scenarios or imagines of stoner! sukuna because he’s too high to even hold a proper conversation sometimes but all i got is him saying weird words like “snail trap” or something when you ask him how his day is

would also have that garbled little laugh when he’s so out of it

sukuna will try to be better though, you just need to be patient him

but my GOSH when he finally graduates

he’s going to hide that little smile because deep down, he’s also pretty proud of himself and how far he’s come <3

lol now this makes me want to writer a high school au lololol

in conclusion: yeah he’s the stoner with a good heart 

which is so not canon...this shouldn’t even be a headcanon we know ryoumen sukuna is PURE EVIL but oh well maybe when I’m down from my sukuna high I’ll write him a lot more canonically

[izlaria]

Someone you like (part 4)

This is the fourth chapter of my “Someone you like” inspired fic. It’s also available on AO3 in case you prefer that platform. Please hit me up to talk about Plance!

Summary: In the days following their arrival on Earth, Pidge finds that conflicting feelings don't just disappear because there are more people around. On the contrary, with the approach of the final battle, they seem to get worse.

FYI, we’re still on Pidge pining hour.

18 and 16 years old

Life was not easy when you were a soldier fighting against an evil, intergalactic empire, but Pidge had found a sort of balance to it all. Now that they were back on Earth and she knew her family was relatively safe, much of the sorrow she’d carried had dissolved into hopefulness.

Much, but not all.

Pidge leaned her head against the wall, hugging the papers to her chest. Being on the Garrison made it easier for her to ignore her erratic heartbeats, because she could just avoid Lance most of the time, but it also sent her into overdrive when she accidentally met him in the hallways. She could usually depend on her mother to be there – Pidge was grounded, after all –, but there were times when not even Colleen could protect her.

She wanted to talk to Lance, of course. He was one of her best friends and no crush could ever change that, but it took a lot out of Pidge to hear him drone on about Allura and all the places he wanted to show her on Earth.

Maybe her evasiveness wasn’t the most mature of Pidge’s choices, but she was tired and lovesick and feeling neglected. She would have to be excused a little pettiness.

“Do you want to tell me why I just saw you ignore Lance?” Matt raised his brows at her, an expression that Pidge herself often mimicked and that was especially irritating to be the target of. He was standing off to the side of her station, gloves still on.

Pidge pushed away from the wall, feeling flustered. She hadn’t realized her brother had witnessed the scene.

“Did I ignore Lance?” Pidge opted to feign innocence. “I was so lost in thought I didn’t really see him there. Or you.” This last bit she said with a touch of hostility.

Matt crossed his arms and hummed, sounding disbelieving. “You always were the worst liar out of the two of us, Pidge.”

She shouldered past Matt with a glare. There was a lot of work to do until the Atlas was completed and the last thing she needed were distractions like her feelings for Lance or a fight with her brother.

“When did you land on Earth, anyway?” Pidge put the papers down on her table and moved to one of the computer screens, where she’d left a new code running. It was an improved version of her and Matt’s previous software for predicting Galra presence. “I could use your eyes on this.”

Matt stood at her back, looking over her shoulder at the lines that lit up the computer.

“This is interesting…” He squinted down at Pidge. “Don’t think for a second that a new challenge will make me forget what I just saw.”

She took advantage of Matt’s positioning to elbow him in the gut.

Truthfully, Pidge knew her brother wouldn’t tease her too much about her circumstances. Matt was caring and even protective when it came to her well-being, so he would never rat her out to Lance or any of the others, even if he disagreed with her actions.

Despite that, she struggled with being vulnerable around him.

Pidge didn’t want to think about it, but the years they’d spent apart had certainly affected their relationship. Before going to space, Matt was more than her brother, he had been her closest friend. But now she had Hunk, Lance, and even Keith and Allura. If she needed guidance, Coran and Shiro were only a call away.

She would always be close to Matt, but he was no longer the only person whose company she valued.

“We should finish this up before mom comes around,” Pidge said, trying to refocus. “She comes to collect me at the end of the day.” She rolled her eyes.

“That still going on?” Matt chuckled as he pulled a chair over to her station. He scanned the reports she had just brought in.

“I can’t even go out to eat with the team. We’ve had to meet in the cafeteria, of all places.”

“I’m just glad the cooking staff changed since I was a student.” Matt wrinkled his nose. “That was just nasty.”

“Except for the burgers.” And here Pidge smiled, suddenly reminded of all the times Hunk and Lance had dragged her to lunch and how they always ended up making a mess of their table.

“On Mondays, that’s right!” Matt glanced at her and Pidge couldn’t quite read the look in his eyes. “Until when are you grounded, anyway?”

“Let’s see, I was fifteen when I was whisked into space, so…” She pretended to do the calculations. “Until my twenty-first birthday, unless dad intervenes.”

Matt snorted. “Good luck with that. He doesn’t really have any weight with mom right now. She’s still upset about the whole being-pronounced-dead thing.”

Pidge groaned, burying her face into her hands. “I’ll be going to war in a month, but I still have no freedom here.” She raised her eyes to look at him. “Can’t you talk to mom?”

“And risk my newfound position as the favorite? You’re on your own, kiddo.” He continued to stare down at the papers for a moment, before turning to face her properly. “You know why she’s doing this, right? You spent three years MIA. We thought you were dead.” He exhaled forcefully. “I thought you were dead.”

Pidge didn’t really know how to respond. Since her arrival on Earth, she’d had versions of this conversation with several people, but her brother had always stood back and given her a little space. He probably knew better than most how overwhelming such a welcome could be. “I am sorry, Matt.”

He gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Turnaround is fair play, I guess.”

“Stop.” Pidge put a hand on his arm. She worked her jaw, trying to figure out what to say. “I never wanted you to find out how that felt.”

Matt nodded once, swallowing hard. Pidge could tell that he was putting his emotions back in check.

“I’m proud of what you’ve done, Katie. Mom might act like you’re still a kid, but I was out there before you came along.” It reminded Pidge that, though he hadn’t been present for her battles, Matt had seen his own share of horrors. “Voltron turned the tide, in no small part because of you.”

“Thank you.” She tried to blink away the tears. Matt smiled and brought his hands up to cup her face.

“My little sister is a badass, so I don’t want to see you hiding behind corners because of some stupid boy.” When she tried to protest, he just squished her cheeks. “Who does not deserve you, by the way.”

Pidge couldn’t help but laugh. She could always count on Matt to make her smile through her tears.

“I thought you liked Lance,” she said once Matt had let go of her face. He grimaced.

“He’s eighteen and a flirt.” Her brother didn’t even try to go back to work, he merely kicked his legs up onto a workbench and crossed his arms. “I would feel better about Keith, even.”

“You say that because Shiro would be just as bad of a protective older brother as you.” She pushed at his chair, making Matt almost lose his balance.

“You would never be alone unchaperoned, it would be great,” he confirmed, still pulling himself back into position.

“You realize that I’m technically nineteen?” She aimed a sharp look at him.

“You realize you look twelve?” Matt shot back, looking unbearably satisfied with himself. This time Pidge had no mercy for him; she sent his chair rolling down the aisle and Matt with it.

“Honestly, you have nothing to worry about.” She wrapped an arm around her middle. “Lance is so enamored with Allura that I could yell in his ear that I like him and the goofball would think I meant it platonically.”

Matt wheeled himself back to her. “Then he’s a fool.”

“You’re just saying that,” Pidge scoffed. “You were just as bad as him when meeting Allura.”

“Look, Allura is beautiful, that’s true, but it doesn’t diminish your qualities.” He put a hand on her shoulder, leaning in close so that their voices didn’t echo in the empty laboratory. “You are funny and witty and smarter than anyone in this damn complex. Don’t you dare compare yourself to Allura.”

Pidge dragged her chair until she was resting against Matt’s shoulder.

“It’s sort of inevitable. She’s the one he likes and I have to accept it.” She looked at the computer, where lines of code kept appearing and disappearing. “It’s just hard to be near him. I feel like I’ll do something and everyone will… know.”

“You spent almost a year pretending to be someone else, I think your acting skills are a little better than that.”

“Didn’t you criticize my lying just a few minutes ago?” she deadpanned.

“Well…” Matt gave her a cheeky grin. “I’ve known you your entire life, so I’m a Katie Holt expert.”

“Of course,” she drawled out, rolling her eyes.

Pidge felt her brother put an arm over her shoulder, squeezing her to his side.

“You’re perfect, okay?” he murmured into her hair. “Don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise.”

She closed her eyes and let herself fall into his embrace. It was something she had missed, even now that the team was back on Earth. Everything had changed since the Kerberos mission and, while a lot of it was good, Pidge couldn’t deny that she wished Matt would stay with them more often.

“Okay.” Her voice trembled, but Matt didn’t mention it, choosing to tighten his hold on her.

“Knock, knock! Anyone in here?” As soon as the voice sounded, Pidge scrambled to hide her face. She got up and pretended to check a different monitor, turning her back to the door. She heard Lance approach their station. “Oh, hey, guys!” Then, seeming to notice the mood of the room. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, man.” Matt was the first to recover. Pidge felt him move, probably trying to keep Lance from getting any closer. “We were just discussing some Holt secret coding.” She almost snickered at this, despite the heartbeat that still hammered in her ears. It was the sort of thing that only a non-techie would believe.

“And I thought us McClains were bad with our ropa vieja recipe.” She chanced a look over her shoulder to catch Lance’s smile. He was always at his brightest when talking about his family.

“You needed something, Lance?” Matt was being a bit more brusque than normal, but his expression was thankfully still amenable. Pidge would have hit him if he just started being a jerk to Lance.

“Not really,” the other boy responded. He looked around Matt to smile at Pidge. “I was just hoping to catch up with Pidge before your mother comes around.” He shuddered. “Let me tell you, that’s a scary lady. She could almost beat mami with that I’m-not-mad-just-disappointed face.”

“You tell me?” Matt sighed. “That’s one thing I don’t look forward to when touching down at the Garrison.”

“You wanted to talk to me?” Pidge interrupted before they could keep going. Putting two of the friendliest people she knew in the same room was only a good idea if she had the patience for a long conversation. Which she didn’t.

“Ah, are you done ignoring me, Pidgeon?” Lance cocked his hip to one side, looking too sure of himself for his own good.

“I’m working, Lance, something you should be doing as well.” She pretended to fix her glasses, if only to have something to do.

The boy waved a dismissive hand at her. “I’m done for the day and I know for a fact that you’re just working on pet projects until Colleen comes to get you.” When he tried to lean down towards her, Matt moved to stand between them. Lance hesitated, before letting the strange behavior go. “Matt can keep your mom busy if she shows up, right?”

It was difficult to say no to Lance. He was jovial and charming, in particular when he wasn’t actually trying to impress anyone.

“Can you, Matt?” Pidge found herself asking. Her brother frowned at her with uncertainty.

“If that’s what you want, Pidge,” he yielded, when she didn’t back down.

“Let’s go before you get me in trouble, McClain.” Pidge gave a long-suffering sigh and moved past the two boys, who were saying their goodbyes.

Lance caught up to her at the door, opening it with an exaggerated bow.

She walked briskly down the hallway, but Lance had the advantage of his height. For every two, quick steps Pidge took, he only had to take one long stride.

“In a rush to get away?” There was laughter in his voice.

“You’ve seen how mom gets,” she replied, peaking around corners as they moved. “If she doesn’t know where I am for more than five minutes, she seems to think I’ll jump into a ship and disappear for another four years.”

“As if I had it any better.” He gestured to a hallway Pidge knew led to the analytics department. “I’m just lucky Veronica is the only one in my family with clearance to come into the Garrison.”

Pidge snorted. “I should sic my mom on you and Hunk, to make things even.”

Though she’d spent so much of their time on Earth making up excuses not to see Lance, the conversation between them flowed naturally. He had an easy-going energy that calmed Pidge’s more tense nature. While they were in the castle-ship, he had been able to soothe the worst of her worries, until Pidge could actually have fun, despite the fears that troubled her mind.

She didn’t know what would have become of her in this war, if Lance hadn’t been there.

“On the subject of your family…” Lance sent her an anxious look. “Is everything really alright with your brother?”

Pidge could tell he was actually worried, which sent a wave of affection and pain through her chest. She struggled to keep her expression blank.

“We were just talking about the war.” She allowed apprehension to seep into her tone. “I know he has a role to perform out there, but I wish he could stay longer.”

Lance twisted his mouth to the side, an unhappy expression he often adopted when trying to look empathetic. “What has Matt said about it?”

“He misses home, but he can’t really ignore what’s going on with the rebel forces.” Pidge rubbed at her temple. “If we are actually able to end the war, then things might be different, but for now…” she trailed off.

Communications from all around the universe told them Voltron wasn’t the only force preparing for battle. There were a lot of moving parts to consider, especially with the still unknown variable of whose influence had been affecting the Altean colony.

“I know what you mean. After this is all over, I think I’ll take a long vacation to just enjoy good, old Earth.”

This surprised Pidge, startling her from her previous line of thought.

“What, is the Tailor going to retire?” She knocked Lance lightly on the arm, trying for a playful mood.

“No,” he objected. He bent at the waist to look her in the eye and winked. “You know I can’t deny the rest of the universe the beauty of my presence.”

Pidge pushed his face away. It was easy to pretend to be annoyed at Lance when he insisted on acting like this. He was most dangerous when he was genuine. “Be real, man.”

“I am!” He laughed as he stood upright. “It’s just… We’ve been off-planet for so long, I kinda want some time to spend with my family, maybe travel around. I’ve only ever been to Cuba and the US, can you believe it? I’ve seen more of space than of my own planet.”

“Yeah, me too.” Pidge frowned. She hadn’t thought about the situation in these terms before. “I’ve been to Italy and England, but that’s it.”

“We should come up with a plan, get the others in on it.” Lance shot her a smile.

They had walked all the way to the MFE taxiway and Pidge focused her attention on the aircraft that Ryan Kinkade maneuvered across from them. She didn’t want to think of Lance’s warmth so close to her, nor of the future he described.

It didn’t matter how long she avoided him, Lance always found a way back into her life and into her heart. This awareness was painful, when Pidge knew he would never look at her as more than a best friend or a younger sister.

She felt something hit her cheek and looked up at the sky. Dark clouds gathered over them and soon there was another drop.

“Oh, it’s raining,” Pidge commented offhandedly. By her side, Lance let out a laugh. He sounded so joyful that she couldn’t stop herself from staring.

Lance had opened his arms and raised his face to the rain. It reminded her of something he had said months ago, about the aspects of Earth he missed while in space. She was once again struck by how attracted she was to Lance: his cheerfulness, his stupid humor, the curve of his Adam’s apple and the way his uniform clung to him in the rain.

“I really missed this!” he exclaimed mid-laugh.

Pidge stood still, admiring his delight even as her hands closed to fists at her sides. “Yeah,” she breathed out, “me too.”

--

After they left the mall, there was still some time for Allura to kill before her date and it was decided that she, Romelle and Pidge would stop to grab something to eat. Rizavi and Ina had previous plans, but they encouraged the girls to have some fun together, leaving unsaid that it might be their last chance to do so.

“I cannot emphasize how thankful I am, Pidge.” Allura reached across the table to grab her hand. She and Romelle had insisted on going into a coffeeshop that had recently reopened; the design was minimalist but cozy, a step-up from anything else they’d seen outside downtown.

“And I’ve said it a hundred times already, princess, I don’t mind.” Pidge let her hand go slack in Allura’s, trying not to snap at her friend. While she appreciated the gratitude, the constant touching was starting to grate on her nerves.

“You do mind,” Allura contested, with the kind of serious but diplomatic tone she used when arguing with Garrison officers. “I could see your hesitance when the vendor first offered the trade. None would have denied your right to keep the item.”

Allura pulled back into herself as she spoke. It was strange to see her uncomfortable, since the princess usually kept either a tranquil or a powerful front in the face of adversity. Free from her touch, Pidge suddenly felt bad for not responding more fervently to Allura’s efforts towards a closer bond. In the castle-ship, she had pretended they were simply too different and, on Earth, too busy.

The truth was much less dignified: Allura had seemed like an unapproachable ideal, made solid only to remind Pidge of all that she could not be. She was prim and beautiful and feminine. Once upon a time, before the complexities of her multiple identities, Katie had aspired to this image, to some degree.

“You’re more important to me than a video game.” Pidge tried to be casual with the way she said this, but the knowing glint that shone in Allura’s eyes told her it was unsuccessful. “I’ll have plenty of time to find it again after the war is over.”

“Perhaps you could teach me these games once we are back.” Allura smiled at her, the picture of earnestness. “I was always curious about the time you and the other paladins dedicated to them.”

“It can be pretty frustrating,” Pidge warned, thinking of the hours she’d wasted with Hunk and Lance just to get past some particularly difficult levels.

“I have noticed that you scream a lot while playing,” the other commented thoughtfully, “but that appears to be part of the bonding experience.”

“You can say that again.” She scoffed.

“Why would I say it again?” Allura tilted her head to the side in confusion and Pidge had to disguise her laughter.

“I’m just agreeing with you.” She sometimes forgot that the Alteans weren’t completely used to Earth culture. In the Castle of Lions, the paladins were the ones to adhere to new patterns. Now, Allura and Coran had to slowly learn their customs, like with this date.

“I suppose we did have something similar in Altea,” Allura mused. “Activities like the maze we had in the Castle were quite popular among the youth.” She leaned over the table to speak in a lower voice. “The element of danger was a point of interest, though I couldn’t quite comprehend why.”

“That’s a lie and you know it!” Pidge pointed accusingly at Allura. “You’re almost as bad as Keith with throwing yourself into dangerous situations.”

“Am not!” It was always funny to rile her up like this. Allura was so calm and collected that getting her to sound immature was a reward in itself. The other shook her head and settled back into her seat, straightening her posture. “Oh, I know what you are doing.”

Pidge continued to grin at her. “What am I doing?”

The princess narrowed her eyes at Pidge, but her mouth struggled with a smile. “You and Lance have such a way of getting me to lose my cool.” She tapped a rhythm on the table. “I must admit it is endearing.”

There it was again, the shock of warmth and sadness that had troubled Pidge the entire day. She loved Allura and was even happy for her, but her heart was conflicted by the news of her new-found interest in Lance.

It just seemed so sudden, Pidge hadn’t had the opportunity to prepare herself. Or maybe those two had grown closer in the Garrison, while she tried her best not to see them, and this was simply the outcome of her bad choices.

Pidge was saved from responding by the arrival of Romelle, her arms full of napkins.

“What a bargain!” She proclaimed as the packages fell from her hands and bounced across the tabletop. “They have agreed to serve us their best delicacies in trade of Pidge’s autographs, a video of her endorsement and an appearance once every phoeb for the next five moons!” The blonde beamed down at them. “On that regard, what is an endorsement?”

Allura and Pidge shared a dismayed look over the piles of napkins.

“Surely they do not expect Pidge to autograph all of these.” Allura gave Romelle an hesitant smile, as if her politeness could change the answer they all knew was coming.

Romelle blinked at them. “The cook assured me it was an amazing deal.”

Pidge pinched the bridge of her nose, calling on any patience she could muster. She had nothing against Romelle and the Altean was nice and cheerful most of the time, but her naivete when dealing with human conventions never failed to amaze.

“Oh dear,” Allura fretted. “I should go deal with that.”

“Think you can convince them to give us food without getting me stuck here for the near future?” Pidge teased, to disguise her vexation.

Her friend slid off the booth. “I have reasoned with beings from several galaxies, I cannot fathom a Terran entrepreneur will be more stubborn than certain members of the coalition.” Allura straightened her spine and clasped her hands over her stomach, looking every bit the princess she was. The determination in her expression made Pidge smile.

“I can autograph one pile of napkins and I agree to do a video endorsement, but I’m not changing back into costume.” She turned to look at Romelle, who seemed to be accompanying the conversation with good-humored confusion. There was something almost sly about the look in her eyes. “I’m going into space tomorrow, how was I supposed to come back? Besides, I’m grounded. If mom found out we were finished shopping, she’d already be here to drag me home.”

“I might have been swayed by the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen,” the other admitted in a manner that could pass for sheepish. She eyed the napkins, before picking up a package. “I suppose these are a little excessive.”

Allura sighed. “I will be right back.”

They watched the princess move towards the front of the coffeeshop, where the human owner was talking to another set of customers. Romelle sat down where Allura had previously been.

“Alone at last.” She clapped her hands together and faced Pidge with a seriousness that contrasted with her usual vibrancy.

Pidge narrowed her eyes at Romelle. “I knew you were plotting something.”

The blonde shrugged. “I wanted to talk to you privately and I didn’t think we would get the chance in the Garrison.” She glanced back to where Allura stood waiting for the other customers to leave. “The owner was a darling, but he was a tremendous flirt, so Allura won’t be here any time soon.”

“Do I even have to sign anything?” Pidge rested her chin on her hand.

“He wants a picture with you and the princess and an autograph to hang on the wall, but that’s it.” Romelle winked at her.

“So what do you want?” Pidge tapped a finger against her cheek. She didn’t mean to sound so suspicious, but the girl’s orchestrations made the situation feel a little like a trap.

“To thank you.” The emotion in her voice sounded almost like pity. “For your sacrifice today.”

Pidge groaned. “I already told Allura that the video game wasn’t that much of a loss.”

“I am not talking about the game.” There was a moment of silence, during which Pidge kept very still. “I saw your reaction when we told you about the date. It was only then that I realized: you like pointy chin.”

“What makes you think that?” She raised a brow at Romelle, doing her best to appear natural.

“It makes sense.” Romelle looked up at the sparse decorations that adorned the coffeeshop, her expression pensive. “He’s the one you spend the most time with, after Hunk. I didn’t think you were interested in romance, given your almost complete lack of sentimentality,” and here she made a face at Pidge, “but I suppose we’re all dealing with high emotions right now.”

Pidge didn’t know how to reply. So far, Matt was the only one who had realized her crush on Lance and he’d been thankfully quiet since. The whole day left her feeling off-center, especially with what Romelle now wanted her to confess. Pidge didn’t want to talk about her feelings. She wanted to take her bayard and carve the jealousy and affection and misery right out of her chest.

Romelle took her silence as a sign to go on. “Look, I know we are not close, but you can talk to me.” The expression on her face was so eager that Pidge didn’t immediately protest. “You are… not kind. Not always, at least, but genuine.” Romelle hurried through her words. “Which is more than can be said about others I’ve met since arriving on Earth. And I can see how much you care for Allura, though you hide it beneath your sarcasm and reluctance.”

“Has anyone on Earth given you trouble?” Pidge chose to focus on the subject that was easier to approach. Romelle clearly knew what she was doing, because the blonde gave her a very annoyed look. “The team and I have tried to shield you from the politics of having non-humans around, but it’s not always possible.”

“I grew up worshipping a man who turned out to be harvesting quintessence from the bodies of my family and friends,” Romelle stated coolly. “I can handle the Terrans.”

“Well, this thing has to go both ways.” Pidge leaned back against the booth to gesture forcefully in the other’s direction. “If you want me to talk to you, then you need to talk to me.”

Romelle seemed to consider this, her eyes narrowed. “Fair enough.” She glanced quickly over her shoulder, then leaned forward. “I know we both want what’s best for Allura, but I hope you will be happy, too.”

Her eagerness brought a small smile to Pidge’s lips, even as her chest constricted with the acknowledgement of her feelings.

There were many things in the universe that she valued more than romance: her family, her intellect and ability to continue learning, and now her friends. Pidge would do anything to keep them safe and content, regardless of how she felt about Lance. She would eventually get over him, of this Pidge was sure.

She loved Lance, but she loved herself more.

“I don’t need a boy to be happy, Romelle. I just want this war to be over.”

The blonde nodded at her response. “You have already done so much for me by going against Lotor.” She sighed. “You will always have my loyalty for that.”

Pidge took a moment to study her. Romelle could be energetic and joyful, but she had also suffered more loss than Pidge could really comprehend. She had never believed Matt and her father were dead, even on the early days of the Garrison’s declaration. Hope had moved her forward, but Romelle hadn’t had that privilege.

“Have I ever told you how I became a paladin?” she asked, much to Romelle’s surprise.

“I don’t believe so, no.” The other furrowed her brows in puzzlement. “Are you changing the subject again?”

“I was just thinking that we have more in common than you know.” Pidge lowered her eyes to the tabletop, tracing a series of scratches with the tip of her fingers. “You have met my brother Matt, haven’t you?”

Allura approached as she said this, a tray of food balanced on her hand. “Oh, has Romelle heard of your search for Matt?”

Pidge stood up to help Allura place the coffee without spilling it and grinned at her friend’s enthusiasm. “I was just about to tell her.”

The princess sat down next to Romelle and put her hands to her chest in a show of sympathy. “It is a lovely story, please go on.”

With a laugh, she did.

[moon-baby-tsuki]

Stars - Pidge x reader Part 1

☆ Pidge x Reader Part 1 ☆

☆ Warnings ☆ Pidge is called a he and this is based before events of season one

☆ Reader Pronouns ☆ Gender Neutral (They/ Them)

Tell if you have any feedback it always helps 

Please enjoy :D

••••••••••••••

The one thing I always wanted to do was to go to space... And now I get a chance to. I finally got in the galaxy Garrison it is a dream come true. Or I thought.

The first day and I'm lost. Great... I see a tall, large, tan skin teenager a little bit away from me.

"Um... Excuse me? Can you help me get to my class?" I say in a small voice. I cringe at how shy I sound. He gives me a big smile and nods.

"Sure, can I see your time table?" He puts out a hand I place the piece of paper in his huge hand.

"Oh. I was about to go to that class. You can just follow me" he states still smiling.

"Names Hunk" he hands me back my time table.

"Y/N" he starts to walk in the direction of the class and I follow, walking a bit faster so I can catch up.

"You're new I'm guessing"  he says after a minute of walking.

"Yep, I always wanted to explore the galaxy around us. So now I'm here, at the great galaxy Garrison." I said the last part in a fake voice doing jazz hands to go with. He let out a chuckle then stopped in front of a door that said 'chemistry'.

"Ok we're here" he says pushing the door, holding it open for both of you.

"Thanks" I respond before walking in and sitting down in an empty seat near the front. I watch Hunk sit down with a skinner boy that was a light tan. Hunk said something to him and he looks at me. He sends me a smirk and a wink. I blush slightly looking back to the board as the teacher walks in.

The class was slow but what I expected, I wrote notes and listened to what the teacher was saying. I asked the teacher where my next class was an went to my next class off. Next class was the same, the teacher droned on, I listened and took notes.

The bell rang out in the school, people hustling and bustling through the Hallways to the cafeteria to get their food before all the good stuff is gone. I walk into the cafeteria line up and get my food. I stand in the sea of people and tables looking for a place to sit I was about to give up when I hear my name.

"Hey! Y/N! Come here!" I look to see the boy from my class before saying my name, he was sitting with Hunk plus another smaller boy who was holding the bridge of his nose a book in the other hand.

"Shut up Lance. I am trying to read" the smaller boy says in a pissed voice. He looks up and we lock eyes for a second. I smile and start to walk over, once I get over to the table without dropping my food or bumping into someone I sit down.

"Ok, guys this is Y/N, Y/N this is Lance and Pidge."

"Hey sweet cheeks" I go red at the nickname and look away for a second.

"Hello, don't mind Lance. He flirts with anything with a heartbeat" Pidge says pushing up his glasses. I giggle at his comment, I watch as lance goes red in the face and try to splutter out a response.

"Pidge! Don't embarrass me in front of a hotty" Lance whisper shouts, his face getting a darker red by the second.

"Sorry, just stating facts." Pidge let a small chuckle.  I looked down at my food poking it with my fork. "What brings you to the galaxy Garrison (Y/N)?" Pidge asks I look up from my food.

"Yeah, I was wondering the same thing." Lance says after. I look at the ceiling and let out a sigh, then look back at the trio in front of me.

"I wanted to explore space it was always my dream. My grandfather and my father went to space I wanted to follow in their footsteps." I look at Pidge, he looks lost in thought for a second.

"I know how you feel..." He says in a low whisper, I scan Pidge's downcast eyes and almost see the sadness in his eyes. Lance and hunk don't seem to hear or see it.

The trio and I talk during the break/ lunch and get to know each other, sadly our chat is cut short by the bell ringing. The boys look at my timetable, I have my next double classes with Pidge. Yay!  Pidge and I say goodbye to the other boys and walk to class making small talk on the way. We get to class and sit down at a table at the back near one of the windows. The view was of the desert behind the school. It is so big and empty.

"Do you know what dorm you're in yet?" Pidge asks looking at me, his voice pulling me out of my thought's.

"Not yet" I say back, the teacher walks in and we both look at the front.

It was almost the end of the class when a lady walks in. The teacher and the lady talk for a moment when the lady turns to the class.

"(Y/F/N) could you please come with me I want to show you to your dorm?" she says this with a smile scanning the class. I stand up, grab my bag and send a small wave to Pidge, he waves back as I leave. The walk with the woman was silent but not awkward. she starts to slow then stops in front of a door.

"Here you go sweetheart, this is your dorm. Your belongings are next to your bed. One side of the room is for you and one if your roommate. You can have a look then you should go to the second break. If you have any questions come to the office and ask for me" she smiles, gives me a keycard for the door and walks away. I unlock the door and walk into the room the door gently closes behind me. The room is bigger than I thought it would be. There are two beds on opposite sides of the room. Next to each bed was a small chest of drawers. There is also a desk on either side of the room. I see another door that is opposite the door I walked in. I open it and it has three more doors on each wall of the smaller room. This is a lot of doors. I open the door to my left and it is an empty walk-in wardrobe. I close the door and open the next door. The next room is a bathroom, looks pretty normal. I close the bathroom door and the last door, another walk-in wardrobe. Oh, there is one for me and one for my roommate makes sense.  This is a pretty cool room. I walk back to the main room thinking about what my side will look like once my stuff is unpacked.

I should go to break, tell the boys I have my dorm. I pick my backpack off the floor and walk to the cafeteria. I'm starting to get the hang of this place but it is really big. I finally get to the cafeteria and see Hunk, Lance and Pidge talking to each other at a table. I turn and walk over.

This year is going to be fun.

[makorragal-312]

Void (Part Seven)

And we’re back! Also, I officially launched my Ao3 account, so you’re welcome to read Void on there as well (username is the same, however I’m not good with links right now so you might have to find it manually until I can. *sweat drop*) But anyway, enjoy the chapter!

“What are you scared of?”

“Everything.”

Lance sat up again, a feeling of uneasiness washing over him. He looked down at his hands, clasping them together as he tried to put his words together. He knew he could be honest with Keith and tell him what he was feeling, especially considering he’s been the most transparent with him for the last couple of weeks before now. But he knew that if he said too much at this moment, he might push him away. And for some reason, the thought of that made him feel small. A feeling he NEVER wanted to experience again.

“It’s just…I shouldn’t be feeling this way, y’know? I shouldn’t be feeling this conflicted. I mean, come on! I’ve had feelings for Allura for the longest time, you know that. But for all that time, she always brushed that aside, never taking me seriously. Honestly, there were some points that I just thought I should just give up, wipe my hands clean, and focus on…other things.” Lance tightened the grip on his hands.

“But then, she started to notice me a-and acknowledge my feelings. And she actually said yes! I asked her out and she actually said yes! This is the part where I should be happy, right? I should be smiling from ear to ear and screaming from rooftops. And then, I don’t know what happened, man. The minute my mom opened that door and Allura walked in, I was just…petrified.”

“Lance.” Keith started. Lance raised his head and looked at his leader’s eyes. They didn’t hold any pity, thankfully, but they did hold concern and some other emotion he couldn’t quite pinpoint. He smiled sadly.

“Completely, utterly petrified. It’s like, I was so ready to sweep her off her feet and kiss her at the end like in the movies. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t even deliver! I wanted to do it so badly, and I know that I keep on saying it but I did! But when I tried, it just felt…wrong.”

Keith raised his eyebrows in shock.

“Wrong?”

“Yeah, like. You know how you’re watching a baseball game and the player hits a home run and you somehow end up catching the ball? But then you see the little kid next to you looking at it like it’s their whole world so you decide to give it to them instead because at the end of the day you’re both happy? You caught it, but the kid gets to keep it. You’re not gonna lose sleep over it as long as you know you made someone else’s day and you feel good about it. THAT’S how I felt. I got Allura, she wanted to kiss me and I walked away because I WANTED TO. I know I did the right thing by not kissing her half-heartedly s-so why can’t I- WHY CAN’T I JUST GO TO SLEEP??!!” Lance wailed, clutching his hair as tears began to spill down his cheeks.

He heard Keith getting up from his stool and walking towards him, but at this point he didn’t really care. He couldn’t take these feelings of confusion anymore. He wanted nothing more but to take them and throw them to the nearest star system. But he couldn’t, not while it meant that there was a chance he would lose something important to him. Suddenly, he heard the sound of footsteps stop.

“I know why you can’t sleep.”

He felt fingers grip his chin as felt his head get turned upwards. He saw those purple eyes again, looking at him with the same emotions from before, only this time the emotion he couldn’t make out was making its presence more known in his gaze. Lance was blindsided and didn’t have time to react before Keith leaned in closer to him and opened his mouth.

“Because you’re thinking about me.”

Lance’s eyes sprung open as he gasped for air. He felt his hands clutching the blankets on top of him, making him throw them to the side as he quickly sat up. His eyes scanned the area, trying to find some familiarity. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was indeed in his Garrison bedroom, no threat in sight. He allowed himself to breathe a much-needed inhale and somewhat able to release a shaky exhale. He felt beads of sweat forming on his head as he continued to catch his breathe. What the hell was that about? He wiped some of the sweat off of his forehead, surprised to find the droplets even though he knew of their presence earlier.

After a few minutes, he was eventually able to calm down, but that didn’t stop the red paladin from feeling the intense whiplash from his dream. How can a dream be real and not real at the same time? Everything at the start of the dream he knew was real. He remembered taking his aspirin. He remembered talking to Keith. He remembered admitting to Keith how afraid he was of everything with Allura and him freaking out, which pretty much made the aspirin he took earlier pointless considering he felt a slight ache in his head. But what played out towards the end of the dream was something that definitely didn’t happen, because anyone would remember something as intense as that. No normal person could forget about someone walking up to them, turning their face to them and looking at them as if they had something to prove.

Because you’re thinking about me.

Keith’s words caused a searing heat all over Lance’s body. He could feel it from his aching head to his shaking hands. He could remember the look in his eyes, looking at him as if he was the most important person in the world. He looked at him like he wanted him to be okay. Like he wanted him to be his. He remembered how before he woke up Keith was leaning into him. Almost like he was going to do what he couldn’t. Guilt forced its way back onto Lance’s shoulders, though it wasn’t as heavy as before.

“I need to cool off.” Lance spoke softly, getting up and heading to his bathroom for a much-needed, arctic shower.

_______________________________________________________________________

“Well, look who the love dove dropped in.” Pidge quipped with a smirk on her face.

“Ha ha, very funny.” Lance replied sarcastically as he sat at the table. After showering and getting ready, he had debated on what to do for the remainder of the day considering they weren’t under Honerva’s threat at the moment. He thought about going to Shiro and asking for advice, but he was already as busy as is and he didn’t want to add on to any stress he had. He couldn’t go to Veronica because she would just tease him and he was NOT in the mood for it…at all. For a second, he thought about finding Keith, but once he felt the heat in his body again he pushed out of his head, refusing to take TWO cold showers on the same day. Amidst that thought, he remembered that he owed Hunk details about the date, so he decided to just do that. Hence where he was now, in the Garrison cafeteria, sitting next to Pidge, who was working on some calibrations on her laptop and across from Hunk, who was looking through some of his family recipes.

“Soooo, how did things go?” Hunk asked eagerly. Lance shrugged, trying not to make a big deal of things.

“It was good. Got no complaints.” he replied, attempting to put up a smile. Unfortunately, that response wasn’t good enough for the table.

���Just good?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do that made it ‘just good?'” Pidge teased, making Hunk snicker in response. Lance looked between the both of them, wondering why this wasn’t the end of it.

“Nothing. It was good. We went to my family’s house, had a delicious dinner, went to a nearby park and talked for a bit, and we came back and I dropped her off at her room. That’s all.” the red paladin recounted, trying his best to hide his frustration. Hunk and Pidge let out a unanimous “hmm,” indicating they were satisfied with the answer. Lance breathed out through his nose in relief, the frustration from earlier fading. He saw a recipe card for coconut cake laying out in front of him, and pulled it towards him. He couldn’t help but to notice the small yellow drawings splayed around the card. The contents were surrounded by yellow coconuts, smiling suns and yellow swirls. He was so entranced by them that he took him a minute to notice Hunk and Pidge staring at him.

“What?” Hunk and Pidge looked at each other, smirks growing on their faces before they turned back to them.

“Well?” Pidge said, laying her arm on Lance’s shoulder. The boy in question tried to hide his annoyance as he furrowed his freshly trimmed brows. Please don’t ask what I think you’re gonna ask.

“Well what?” Lance responded with gritted teeth.

“Did you kiss her?”

Fuck…

“Does it really matter, guys?” Lance responded, slowly getting more and more agitated. Hunk crossed his arms in fake stern yet firm intrigue.

“Uh, yeah. It’s your first date with Allura and we want to know EVERYTHING. So did you guys kiss or not?” Lance sighed hard, running his hand through his hair in frustration.

“No.”

“WHAT?! Why not?!” Hunk wailed. The red paladin pinched the bridge of his nose as he explained.

“Because, Hunk, it was only our first date. Yes, I’ve been in love with Allura for what seems like forever but I don’t want to do something that scares her off, y’know? Besides, does anyone even kiss on the first date anymore?” Lance shook his head, trying to get back on topic. “The point is, I’m just going with the flow. I just…wasn’t ready.” Lance lied, though it wasn’t a total lie. He wasn’t ready to kiss Allura, but there was no way in hell he was going to tell them that it was because of their freaking leader. He felt Pidge remove her arm from her shoulder as she crossed her arms, tilting her head in thought. Hunk did the same.

“Yeah, that makes sense. I get you, dude. But good job, though.” Hunk responded reassuringly, sending Lance his big signature smile.

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” Lance exhaled, smiling back. He was glad that Hunk was backing up a bit. He was always the type of guy who never wanted to cross boundaries, something that Lance was immensely grateful for at the moment.

“Yeah, I get it, too. I just naturally assumed that you would go for it because of Lotor.” Pidge stated flatly. Once again, annoyance and frustration rushed through Lance’s body.

“Pidge. C’mon-” the paladin started. The green paladin raised her hands in surrender.

“I’m just saying. She and Lotor were getting pretty close to each other back in the Castle of Lions. They were literally side by side 24/7.” she pointed out. Hunk nodded his head in agreement.

“Yeah. Who knows, maybe if he wasn’t, you know, some crazy prince stealing the quintessence of other Alteans, he probably would’ve been her boyfriend by now.” Hunk said jokingly, making Pidge giggle in response while Lance was getting more and more agitated. It’s bad enough he had to pretty much lie to his friends about why he decided not to kiss Allura, it’s a whole other thing that now he needed to deal with hearing about Allura being with Lotor. And just when he had felt that every insecurity that he felt when Lotor was around pretty much vanished when Allura started noticing him. Lance clasped his hands together tightly.

“Okay. I think I see your point, guys.” Lance spoke lowly, his teeth gritted. But his statement was simply ignored as Hunk and Pidge continued.

“Did you see the way that Allura was looking at him? I’m telling you, man, I saw some sparks flying!”

“How could she not? With his long flowy hair and his princely charms?”

“Just imagine them working on stuff together and then out of nowhere they just start dancing around the room like in the movies?” Pidge cackled.

3…

“And then he just starts twirling her and then holds her above his head like in that one cheesy dance movie?”

2…

“And then Lotor looks deep into her eyes and says ‘Allura, my sweet princess, will you become my Altean dancing queen?”

“‘Oh Lotor, my gorgeous bad boy prince! I became your queen the moment I laid my eyes on you!’ and then they both lean in and-“

1…

Lance stood up quickly from his seat, slamming his hands hard against the table, making Pidge and Hunk turn their heads at him in shock. He was visibly shaking, head down as his eyes were trained onto the table. He just couldn’t take it anymore. Every bad thought and insecurity he had been able to somewhat move past since readjusting to Earth, and it just came back in full force as if he had gotten sucker punched. He felt like he was back on the Castle of Lions, being ignored and brushed aside be everyone, his warnings and himself being forgotten.

Allura walking past him.

Pidge and Hunk ignoring him.

Shiro looking down on him.

Keith abandoning him.

Lance felt himself starting to walk away from his friends. He wouldn’t allow himself to hear this any longer. He knew they didn’t mean to tease him or bring Lotor back up to him, but that’s what it felt like. Lotor and Allura had always been somewhat of a sore spot for him. Something he tried to push to the back of his head to focus on everything else. But it’s like every time he tries to forget, it always comes back to bite him. And how could it not. Lotor was everything that he wasn’t. Of course, Allura would want him. Hell, if he hadn’t gone crazy and was still around, he wouldn’t have hesitated to kiss her the way that he did.

“Lance? What’s gotten into you?” he heard Pidge shout behind him.

“Yeah, man? You good? D-did we say something wrong?” Hunk asked worriedly. Lance stopped as he approached the doorway. He turned his head towards them, giving them a tired smile.

“No. You said everything right.”

[otterknowbynow]

Will Break for Food

Hunk and Lance go on a post-curfew kitchen excursion that leads to some eating and some thinking and some talking. 

also on ao3

It’s a terrible idea, sneaking into the kitchens. Cadets aren’t allowed to just have free access to the food stores, let alone industrial-size appliances, which -- if Lance is honest with himself -- feels reasonable, considering the caliber of kids he’s met here already. Platt and Harper would have a field day, and he’s not sure much of anything would survive if Griffin stopped flexing long enough to try to light a stove. Hunk would at least -- probably -- know what he was doing, but it’s still a terrible idea. 

“What if we get caught? I’m not getting chewed out by Iverson just because you wanted to make a sandwich!” 

“Sandwiches are obviously not on the menu for the homesick and decent-meal-deprived,” Hunk says dismissively. 

“Well, then what are we making?” He can’t resist asking. The answer won’t make a difference, he’s decided. It shouldn’t make a difference. It doesn’t matter that asking made Hunk’s entire face light up. He’s not breaking the fundamental rule of being a decent cadet his third week. He’s not doing it. That’s one way to guarantee he’ll never be a fighter pilot -- he’ll be stuck in cargo for life. But he won’t pretend he’s not curious, and he’s even more curious when Hunk ducks under his bed and pulls out a plastic container, the lid of which he whips off with a flourish. 

“We’re making ramen!” His expression is positively giddy; Lance can hardly stand it.

“Ramen? That’s your brilliant idea for a meal that’s better than what they throw us in the mess?” 

“Real ramen, Lance, not with those mysterious flavor powders you get in the little plastic-wrapped blocks.” Lance looks in the tupperware and has to admit this looks a lot more complicated than the packets he generally associates with the word. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t happening. 

“I’m not sneaking out after curfew, breaking into the kitchen of all places, and risking being yelled at, suspended, thrown off the waitlist for fighter track --” 

“--Now, come on, they wouldn’t do that.” Hunk interrupts, his face softening. “Is that what you’re worried about?” 

“I’m not worried,” Lance says, sarcasm creeping into his voice and settling in like a cat jumping into a familiar lap. “I’m being realistic. They’re not just gonna say, ‘oh, good job boys, that’s some choice ramen!’” 

“You don’t technically know that; my culinary skills are incredible.” 

“According to who exactly?” 

“Well, my mom, at least.” Hunk grabs the back of his neck self-consciously. “But, the point stands! She has excellent taste.” 

“Hunk --” Lance starts again, but Hunk cuts him off. 

“Please?” he asks, his eyes going wide. Lance suddenly finds himself unable to meet them, and looks down instead, ignoring the swooping feeling in his stomach. Maybe he’s hungrier than he thought he was. 

“I just don’t think we should be breaking rules when we’ve just gotten here,” he mumbles at the floor.

“Lance, I miss cooking. I miss my family. I miss home.” The pleading in his voice cuts straight into his heart, and Lance feels his resolve break all at once.

“Fine,” he says, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “But only because I just realized I’m starving. And if we get caught, I’m telling Iverson you hypnotized me.” It doesn’t even feel like a lie. 

--

“I can’t believe they don’t bother locking the doors,” Lance whispers, following Hunk through as the entrance slides open. The doors lead to easily the largest kitchen he’s ever seen, and his family’s kitchen back home is no slouch, full of butcher-block counters and a massive farmhouse table. There’s a lot less wood in here -- everything is gleaming stainless steel -- which makes it feel remarkably cold. Lance is suddenly glad this plan involves soup. 

“What? Of course they lock them,” Hunk says incredulously. “Why did you think I brought this?” He holds up something that looks a lot like a graphing calculator. 

“Uh...because you’re a nerd?” Lance offers, raising his eyebrows.

“No --” Hunk stops suddenly and frowns. “I mean, well, yes, technically, but the kind of nerd that knows how to make a door...unlocked.”  

"How long have you been planning this?" 

"Since like last Thursday," he says, shrugging.

"Hang on --" Lance holds up a hand, feeling his eyebrows stretch up to his hairline. "-- you've been homesick enough to consider midnight kitchen escapades for a week already? Hunk, that was after like...two weeks of being away from home!" 

"I know," Hunk says, his shoulders slumping a little. "Seems like it doesn't take that much, I just...love my family, y'know?"

Lance swallows a sarcastic "that's one way of putting it, I guess," and lets the breath he'd taken in for it come out as a sigh. 

"I do know," he says instead, the sarcasm cat apparently leaving him to embarrass himself. He's looking at the floor again -- tiles this time, as opposed to the carpet in their dorm room. "My family's close, too -- emotionally, I mean. I miss the fields, too, and the animals...deserts are cool, and all, I guess, but nothing normal grows here." He clamps his mouth shut, his lips together extra tight to keep the words from escaping any more. He did not sneak out after curfew with a kid he's known less than a month to get made fun of for talking about feelings. 

"It only took me a week before I cried the first time," Hunk says quietly, and Lance looks up at him, surprised. This time he doesn’t even think of a sarcastic response; the sincerity is too jarring.

“Huh?” It’s all he can muster, but it’s enough that Hunk goes on. 

“It’s not being away from them a week, like, obviously I’ve been away from my family for a week before, but it’s just -- thinking about all of it. Like, how home will always be home, but how it also never really will be again.” He shrugs, and Lance nods absently, but a moment later what Hunk’s just said hits him and he breathes in sharply. 

“Oh, wow, I hadn’t thought about it that way,” he says, suddenly very aware of his heartbeat, which seems a bit too quick for standing still in the middle of a dark kitchen, even with the adrenaline of rule-breaking and risk. It never really will be again. Of course the farm is still home, to an extent, and his avuela’s little house in Varadero is still home, to an extent, but the main thing that’s always defined home for him is wherever his family is. When his older siblings went off to visit Dad in the summers and he was left behind with Mama, it never felt quite like home until they were back. When the others moved out and Marco and Luis started their own families, it was weird, but they were still nearby, and they came over more evenings than they didn’t. If he thinks about it, the weirdest was definitely when Veronica left and was suddenly missing from Shabbat dinners, except when she was home on breaks. That’s him now, he realizes. No wonder he was willing to break into the kitchens with Hunk on a Friday night. 

“Lance, buddy, you okay?” Hunk’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts, and he nods, probably a few times too many. 

“I’m good, I’m good,” he says, still nodding a bit. “Let’s -- let’s make some ramen.” Hunk grins at him and moves to put the container he brought from their room on the enormous stainless steel island in the middle of the room. 

“Alright, now I know we can’t do a stock from scratch, but the stock cubes my mom gets are the best, and I slipped a few into my bag before I left home -- you never know when you’ll need a burst of flavor, right? Especially with cafeteria food. They’re chicken; don’t worry. All the rest of this okay for you?” He’s moving rapidly, setting out different smaller containers that were inside the one big one he brought. There’s a tupperware of tiny foil-wrapped cubes, a couple packages of noodles, and a bag of paper-thin, pink-tinged flakes of some kind. Lance isn’t sure what those last things are, but there’s a hechsher on the corner of the bag, so he shrugs. 

“Sure.” 

“Excellent,” Hunk says. “Hey -- can you check the fridge and see what they have in the way of veggies? We’re gonna have to improvise a bit.”

“You don’t think they’ll notice if we take all the onions?” Lance asks, feeling the panic rise a bit in him again. 

“We’re not going to take all of them,” Hunk says reassuringly, pulling a cutting board and a knife from the counter next to the sink and bringing them over to the island where he seems to be setting up a prep station. “Just, like, one. See if there are any green onions or carrots or -- you know, whatever looks good.” Lance shakes his head and moves to the line of big industrial fridges, bracing himself for the noise of the seal releasing when he moves the lever on the first one to open it. Any noise the fridge makes is completely overshadowed by a series of incredibly loud clanging sounds from behind him, though, and he whips around to see Hunk holding a giant stock pot and looking a bit sheepish. 

“It was on the bottom,” he says apologetically.

“Shit, Hunk, we don’t need the entire building to know we’re in here!” Lance remembers to keep his voice to a whisper, but it’s a close thing. He holds up a hand so Hunk won’t move and listens carefully, but all he can hear is the hum of the fridges and his own breathing, which has sped up to what strikes him as a totally unnecessary rate. He forces it to slow down and lowers his hand slowly.

“Sorry,” Hunk mouths at him silently, and starts to move toward the stove. Lance takes a deep breath and turns back to the fridge, hoping there’s something there that makes this worth the trouble. 

--

Twenty minutes later, they’ve managed to assemble what smells -- to Lance at least -- like an absolutely delicious soup. His stomach is growling loudly enough that he’s pretty sure it may wake some of the instructors on its own, never mind the avalanche of pots earlier or Hunk ripping open the noodles now. 

“Grab us a couple bowls?” Hunk says, dropping the noodles into the pot gently and grabbing the paddle he’s been using to stir them in. Lance nods and scans the back wall to try to figure out where the dishes must be. He’s settled on a likely-seeming alcove when he hears someone laugh loudly and freezes. 

“Did you --” he starts, and Hunk nods emphatically, eyes wide, his arm still stirring the pot automatically, though he seems to have forgotten that’s what he’s doing. Lance gulps. Now that he’s listening more carefully, he can hear the murmur of voices from somewhere nearby. He moves softly toward the door back to the hallway, ears as alert as they’ve ever been. There’s a sudden burst of laughter again, shared between at least two people. It’s cut off suddenly by a loud shushing sound, and the voices are near enough now that Lance can make out what they’re saying. 

“Do you want Iverson to catch us? God, Griff.” Oh, man, Lance thinks, if James Griffin is really out there, now would be a chance to get in good with him, convince him he’s a worthwhile guy to get to know. He wishes he weren’t so tired and so hungry -- he probably doesn’t have the brainpower right now to manage anything nearing cool, considering sarcasm has thoroughly abandoned him already. 

“Come on, what’s he going to do? Kick us out? Hate to break it to you, but I’ve got the top GPA in this place. They’re not gonna touch me.” That’s Griffin’s voice, alright. Lance raises his eyebrows and turns to look at Hunk, who has put the paddle down and turned the heat off on the stove, wiping his hands on a towel he has tucked into his belt. Hunk frowns, shakes his head slightly, as if to say “not worth it.” Lance turns back to the door and sighs, realizing as he does that he’s been holding his breath for what must’ve been nearly a minute, listening. 

“Hey, what’s that smell?” That’s Harper, Lance is sure, which means it’s probably all three of them, getting up to some midnight trio shenanigans. Weirdly, he doesn’t envy them nearly as much as he would have a week ago, before he got to know Hunk, and certainly before they broke into the kitchen in the middle of the night to make ramen, which, he realizes now, is exactly what Harper’s smelling. He bites back a yelp at this realization and sets his jaw. Hopefully they’ll all just...move on. 

“I don’t know, Harp, Kogane’s grandma’s house?” And yep, there she is. Platt's presence also confirmed. 

“What? You know Kogane doesn’t know his grandma.” All three of them dissolve into snickers at that, and Lance blanches. Keith Kogane might be arrogant and snobby as hell, but he doesn't deserve that. He's glad on a certain level, though, that they seem to have dropped the idea of investigating. Their laughter and voices fade away as they continue down the hall toward the cadets' quarters, and Lance feels his heart rate start to return to normal. Hunk, behind him, clears his throat, and Lance turns around. 

"You know, I really don't understand why you even try to hang out with them," Hunk says softly. 

"What, you think I'm not good enough for them?" he hears his own voice snap angrily before he can stop himself. So much for late-night lack of filters being maybe a good thing. Now Hunk is telling him he doesn't deserve to be respected and looked up to like those three? He can feel his eyes burning and tells himself it's because he's tired. "Like, I know I'm not --"

"What? No." Hunk looks absolutely baffled. "Good enough for Griffin? For Griffin?" He seems to have forgotten they're breaking at least four different rules and curfew, his voice rising. "Lance, that's the most absurd thing I've ever heard you say, and you manage to pack them in, buddy." This is the first time Lance has heard anything like bitterness in Hunk's voice, and it throws him. 

"What do you mean?" he asks, the anger draining out of him. 

"I mean," Hunk says, deliberately, crossing the room so they're standing eye to eye and lowering his voice again. "They're not worth it. Like, sure, they're popular, and they’ve got top marks, or whatever, but they're assholes. You want to be an asshole? Is that what you want? Because getting in good with assholes is how you turn into an asshole." 

Hunk's right, of course. They are assholes, all three of them, but the relative kindness of a person has never really been part of his criteria. His survival strategy has been the same since he was thrown into a new country as a ten-year-old with nothing going for him but decent swimming skills and a tourist industry English vocabulary. 

“Maybe I already am an asshole,” he says, more sincerely than he means to.

“I mean, sometimes!” Hunk says, throwing his hands wide. “We all are, sometimes, but that’s no reason to just lean into it.” 

“You’re never an asshole,” he says sullenly, back to staring at the floor.

“I’m -- that’s not true, but we don’t have to get into that right now.”

“I just want people to like me,” he mutters, still not looking up. He can feel tears pricking the back of his eyes, and it’s easier if he doesn’t have to see Hunk’s face. It’s such a simple want, after all, and yet one he's had to work so hard to try to fulfill. Join team sports, crack the jokes, keep an air of detached irony at all times, and maybe -- just maybe -- people will fold him in as one of the cool kids, not notice that he’s dragging behind in class. He's starting to think that's not the same thing as liking him, though.

“Maybe try listening to people who aren’t assholes, then?” He looks up to see Hunk smiling ruefully at him. 

“That's a thought," Lance admits, and his vision blurs. He blinks rapidly. He will not cry in the mess kitchen at one in the morning. He will not -- before he can finish the thought a second time, Hunk closes the distance between them and hugs him, really hugs him, not like the perfunctory hugs he gives to his tias when they're in for a visit over the high holidays. He breathes in sharply and feels his whole body tense, startled, and Hunk lets go of him immediately. 

"Sorry," he says, hunching his shoulders a bit. "I didn't mean to --"

"No, that's okay," Lance says, a bit surprised that it is, actually. He laughs, which is kind of a relief since he much prefers it to crying. "I'm just not, uh, used to it. You should warn me when you're going off-script like that." 

"You're not used to hugs? Or not used to hugs from me? Because I totally get not wanting to hug a stranger -- not that we're strangers, but you know, you've only known me a couple weeks, might be weird, you know --" Hunk trails off helplessly, his hand gripping the back of his neck, eyes looking somewhere over Lance’s shoulder. 

“Uh, in general,” Lance says, and it’s his turn to hunch his shoulders, sticking his hands in his pockets for lack of a better place to put them. “My mom’s the only hugger in my family, really, and I haven’t seen her in awhile, so.” He doesn’t mean for that to come out nearly as bitterly as it does. He winces, looks back at Hunk to see him standing with his arms open. 

“Buddy, if you need one -- oof.” Hugs are nice, he realizes, when they’re not being demanded by relatives you hardly see, whose primary purpose in visiting seems to be to comment about how tall you’ve grown, “and yet still so skinny! Are you feeding him enough, Marlinda?” Oh, thinking about his mom right now is not a good call if he wants to keep the tears from coming back, he realizes, and steps back out of Hunk’s arms, dashing the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes before Hunk can say anything about it. 

“So how about that ramen?” He manages casual as a tone, which is not bad, all things considered. 

“Oh, yeah! Bowls?” Hunk walks back over to the pot and Lance meets him there with two bowls from the back alcove. They’re a bit shallow, in that weird shape of cafeteria bowls everywhere that’s somehow not great for cereal and soup or for pasta, but they’ll get the job done. Hunk ladles noodles and broth into both, with some onion and a bit of wilted spinach they were pretty sure no one would miss. He tops each bowl with half an egg he boiled earlier and offers one to Lance, who looks down at it and frowns. 

“Uh, Hunk? How are we supposed to eat this? I’m pretty sure the caf doesn’t have chopsticks.” 

“Oh, it doesn’t,” Hunk says lightly. “But I do.” He goes back to the container on the counter and pulls out two pairs, handing one to Lance.

“Wow, you are a nerd,” he says, laughing. There’s nowhere to eat but the floor, and Lance is suddenly glad for all the cleaning details cadets get put on, since it’s probably been bleached in the last six hours or so. The two of them settle with their backs against the counter, and for a couple of minutes the kitchen is silent apart from the slurping of noodles and the clinking of chopsticks against bowls. 

The ramen is cool enough by now that Lance can eat it quickly, and it’s absolutely bananas how delicious it is. He guesses he shouldn’t be surprised that packages don’t measure up to the real thing, but the real thing isn’t usually an option.  

“Wow, Hunk,” he says when he can stop to take a breath. “This is something else.” 

“It’s taking you on a journey, huh,” Hunk says, nodding. “Best food does.” 

“A journey to deliciousville,” he says. “To tasty town, to flavor planet --” 

“-- Alright, buddy, I get it.” He’s laughing now, a little bit, but Lance needs to be sure he understands. 

“I don’t know if you do? But if I keep trying to explain, that’s going to keep me from eating it, and that is...Unacceptable.” He looks over at Hunk as he goes back to his bowl to see his roommate smiling down at his own food, his whole face almost glowing with pride. “I mean that,” he adds quietly. “This is, like, really good.” 

“Thanks.” 

It’s gone in minutes, and the empty bowls make him feel almost wistful, but he realizes as he carries them over to the sink to wash them that he’s also horrendously thirsty. 

“Hey, Hunk --” He turns, only to see there’s already a glass of water being offered to him. “Oh, thanks.” Hunk nods, drinking his own water before they both move to clean up. The good news is Hunk at least has been assigned enough cleaning details that he’s mercilessly efficient. It seems like it comes with the territory of having an often-turbulent stomach. Although if he’s used to food like this, Lance thinks, it makes a bit more sense that the commissary stuff doesn’t exactly treat him right. 

--

“I can’t believe you have a homemade mac and cheese recipe and you didn’t go with that for this whole stunt,” Lance whispers, trying to keep from laughing as they sneak back toward their quarters. Hunk’s container is full of leftover ramen now, and Lance is just hoping it’ll fit in their mini-fridge without a problem. 

“I mean, would you have been nearly as impressed if I’d made something that simple?” Hunk asks him with a grin, nudging their door open with his shoulder. 

“Honestly? I’m a simple man, Hunk,” He grabs Hunks shoulder and throws his other arm wide gesturing at their room as a whole. “Show me a big bowl of carbs and cheese, and I’m happy.” 

“We can always make it next Friday,” Hunk says, shrugging. Lance laughs and shakes his head, dropping his arm. 

“Right, sure, we’re definitely doing this again.” The sarcasm cat is back, thankfully, and he can’t resist adding -- “because we didn’t come close enough to giving us both full-blown panic attacks already.” 

But despite his claims, it becomes something of a ritual before long, to the point where Lance will come back from service on Friday night, change into jeans instead of pajamas, and read comics for maybe five minutes before Hunk looks over at him. 

“Still homesick?” He asks, every time, without fail. 

“I mean, kind of,” Lance says, frowning. “Not like, really homesick, I’m not a baby about it or anything.” 

But Hunk gives him that look, eyes wide, pointedly hopeful, and he knows that even if he wanted to say no, he’s not entirely sure he could. And every time he sees it he sighs, puts down whatever issue he’s reading. 

“If Iverson catches us, I’m blaming you.” 

[mysweetserpent]

Slithering His Way Out Pt 4

A/N: hi here is part four you’ve all been wanting. lmk about part 5 if you guys are still even interested..

Part One.  Part Two.  Part Three 

Part Five

Sweet Pea and Y/N walked out to the parking lot leaving Jughead and Fangs to clean up the ghoulie. The walk to Y/N’s jeep was silent. That old ’07 white jeep that held so many memories. She was walking a slow pace with Sweet Pea following behind her. His hands were shoved in to his leather jacket trying to wipe the sweat off of them. He hadn’t been this nervous since he first asked her out 2 years ago. Y/N wasn’t nervous as much as she was scared. She was scared that Sweet Pea was only going to break her heart again. Just because he fought because of her didn’t mean anything had changed.

Y/N sat on the front of her jeep while Sweet Pea leaned against it with his back towards her. Sweet Pea was looking at the ground while she was looking at the lovely Southside high in front of her. “This hunk of junk.” Sweet Pea said with a chuckle referring to the Jeep. “Hey, leave my baby alone. She might be a hunk of junk but she is mine.”  Y/N chuckled when a few memories surfaced in her head. “Besides we spent too many hours fixing it up for you to call it a hunk of junk.” While still looking at the ground, Sweet Pea shook his head. “That’s how I know it is junk.” After his words, they both slightly smiled remembering all those late nights spent bonding over this white jeep. 

Silence fell upon them once again. They both took a deep breath but let silence consume them. It was almost like they were both scared to say something else and make the other mad. But Sweet Pea couldn’t stand here without saying at least sorry. He had been imagining this moment ever since he let her walk out that door. “I’m sorry.” Y/N’s eyes snapped over to the back of Sweet Pea’s head once those words slipped out of his mouth and to her ears. She honestly wasn’t expecting that, but she also wasn’t sure exactly what he was apologizing for. Not wanting to push too much too quick, she decided on just questioning what just happened. “What just happened back there?” Her eyes fell to her hands as she began to fidget with them waiting for his response. “I just lost my temper.” Sweet Pea said with a shrug. But Y/N only rolled her eyes, not believing it for one second. 

“We might not have talked in a month, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know when you are bullshitting me. And as much as everyone wants to say that the old Sweet Pea is back, I can see through the front you are putting on.” Taking a deep breath, Y/N quickly realized that she was prying to much and with her still believing that her prying was the reason they broke up, she quickly apologized. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.” Still looking away from her, Sweet Pea scrunched his eyebrows. His Y/N would never apologize for trying to get through to him. That made him slowly realize how much he hurt her. Sweet Pea squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. 

“Do you remember the day you came back to school? First period when I stormed out of class?” Y/N nodded her head with a soft “yes”. Sweet Pea took a deep breath trying not to get mad again. “That ghoulie was sitting behind you. And I know this probably makes no sense, but he was part of this ongoing threat to you, if I didn’t follow through with something I got dragged in to.” He was definitely right that it didn’t make any sense to Y/N. Her silence was his queue of that. So he turned to face her opening his eyes. “And when I stormed out of the cafeteria today, Fangs and I were talking about you and how you smiled for the first time today. Of course I said something to make myself feel better about it and he called me out on it. When I made eye contact with you and you couldn’t even hold it, it just broke my heart. And when I reached the hallway seeing that ghoulie, my anger and frustration over everything that has happened in the past month just took over and I went at him.” 

Y/N was beginning to understand the situation that happened today but one name stuck out in her mind that was said, “What did Penny Peabody have to do with it all?” Sweet Pea couldn’t help but cringe at the name. Looking back at the school and then to the girl who still had his heart, he decided they could’t continue to have this conversation here. “She has everything to do with it. And as much as I want to continue this conversation, we can’t do it here.” The seriousness in his voice is what registered first in Y/N’s head. “Get in.” She said as she hopped off her the front of her jeep making her way to the drivers seat. “You sure you want to skip? It can wait.” Sweet Pea questioned. Ignoring his question, she unlocked the passenger door when she got in her jeep. “Let’s go. You have a lot of explaining to do.” More like a lot of slithering his way out. 

Out of instinct, Y/N drove to “their place”. To everyone else, it was just the quarry but to them it was where all their first (expect for the sex of course) happened. From their first feelings confession to first date to first kiss, it all happened here. “I’m sorry. This was just the first place I thought of.” She apologized not wanting to make Sweet Pea feel uncomfortable, but she hadn’t seen the light smile on his face when he realized where they were. To him, it was almost like a confirmation that she hadn’t let go of their history. Maybe she hadn’t moved on and it put some hope in him.

Y/N pulled in to her usual spot and placed the car in park. “Did you want to get out and walk or just sit here?” She questioned him as she took her keys out of the ignition. Sweet Pea shook his head no quickly. “We need to stay in here. I don’t know who else is here and I don’t need anyone else hearing.” He looked around the best he could making sure no one was here that he could see. Y/N’s eyebrows scrunched. “Sweet Pea. What the hell is going?” She began to worry because with all the craziness that had been happening in Riverdale lately, she could only assume the worst. Sweet Pea watched her face fill with worry and concern, instantly feeling bad. “I was dealing drugs. For Penny Peabody.”

He immediately closed his eyes not wanting to see Y/N’s reaction to what he had just told her, but that didn’t stop him from hearing a loud gasp. Guilt instantly filled in his stomach while questions instantly filled in her head. “Why did you have any business with Penny Peabody? Why didn’t you tell me? Please tell me they weren’t in your trailer while I was there.” She had so many more questions but these were the ones that came out first. They both took a deep breath trying to prepare themselves for whatever was about to happen here. Sweet Pea picked up his head to look at Y/N. He was ready to tell her everything. 

“When FP was in jail, Jughead went to Penny Peabody. To make a long story short, once FP found out what Jughead was dealing drugs to repay Penny, FP took over. But around Christmas, when the loads started to get bigger and he needed more hands, FP pulled me and Tall Boy in to it. It was only here and there so it was no big deal at first.” Sweet Pea stopped to take a breath. Spilling all this information and watching Y/N’s face change at every new detail was making that pit in his stomach worse. He reached up to push that infamous curl out of his eyes and made eye contact with Y/N. “But then it turned in to all the time which meant we stared barely seeing each other even though you spent most nights at my house. And of course, I was sworn as a serpent that I couldn’t tell you anything. So when you started to notice I was keeping things from you which I was, I went to FP and told him I couldn’t do it anymore. It was beginning to ruin the singe thing I care about.”

Y/N’s eyes began to tear up. Not only at the fact that Sweet Pea had being going through all of this by himself or that he was lying to her but the fact that everyone had been lying to her. Every person who she spent countless nights talking to about her and Sweet Pea’s problems and every person who had been helping her through this break up knew the truth. Once Sweet Pea noticed the tears, he turned his head to look out the front windshield. “So I started to miss a few runs here and there trying to lower your suspicions and because I was exhausted.” Sweet Pea’s own eyes started to fill with tears due to his own hurt and knowing she was hurt so much more than he was right now. He turned back face Y/N who was now completely crying. 

“That night before we broke up, that long talk, that night of love, I meant everything single thing I said to you Y/N. Every promise, every expectation I was suppose to meet up to, every single hope I gave you, I meant it all.” He reached his hand out grabbing Y/N’s off her lap. “I was ready to get back to where we were. So when you fell asleep, I called Fp and told him I was out. He understood and said that he would find another serpent. But what I found out the next morning changed everything.” Sweet Pea let go of Y/N’s hand reaching up to his own face to wipe his tears. The only emotion he was feeling now was anger.

“After you left, Fp came by. When he went on a run that night, Penny Peabody questioned why I wasn’t there. Fp told her that I was out, so she showed him a video of me dealing.” Y/N’s mouth dropped open in shock. She brought her hands to her face and wiped the tears out of her eyes. Looking at Sweet Pea, she could see that his hands were red fists and his nostrils were flared. “Apparently the “customers” had built some type of trust in me and wanted me at future deals. Penny wasn’t going to let me out. And you know me, I am no scared of a little jail time so she threatened the only thing I care about.” Sweet Pea took a deep breath trying to calm his anger. “You, Y/N. She threatened you.” 

Y/N instantly felt numb. With all this information, the one thing she wasn’t expecting to hear was that she was being threatened. But with all the information, everything was starting to click. All her questions were being answered, but one. Why everyone insisted on lying to her when everyone saw how much pain she was in? Before she could form the words and speak Sweet Pea continued. “So I had to pull away from you. I had to protect you. All those things I said that night, I’m so sorry for. All those hurt feeling, I’m so sorry. Most of all I’m sorry for making you think that I didn’t love you as much as you loved me.” As much as Y/N appreciated the apologies she was getting, she was still numb and another questioned he didn’t answer she had. 

“Is Penny Peabody still coming after me?” Y/n asked not even acknowledging Sweet Pea’s apologies. “No.” Sweet Pea quickly assured her. “Penny Peabody is no longer in town nor a serpent.”  Confusion filled Y/N one again. A part of her was telling herself not to ask how about the other part wanted to know every single truth. And if Penny Peabody wasn’t a problem anymore why was Sweet Pea still staying away from her? Why were they hiding in her Jeep and the quarry? 

“Jughead came to us younger serpents a week after you moved in with them, right before Christmas. He was already growing tired of watching his dad dealing drugs but now it wasn’t only affecting him. And hearing you cry every night was finally enough for him.” Y/N couldn’t help but stiffen at his words. She didn’t want him to know that she had been having such a hard time with their break up. Sweet Pea saw her body language immediately. “Don’t worry. You weren’t the only one who couldn’t sleep well. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve had a good nights sleep since the night before we broke up. And that says a lot because we barely slept.” He smirked after referring to their last night together. 

Y/N blushed at his words, but knew how he felt. She brought her hand to his shoulder hitting it slightly. “Perv.” Sweet Pea just shrugged. “That night was the last good thing I had to remember for this past month so if that makes me a perv so fine but only for you.” Guilt started to fill Y/N once again and immediately changed the subject. “What did Jughead say when he came to you guys?”

Sweet Pea sighed at the seriousness of the situation again. “He wanted Penny gone, not a serpent any more. And there really is only one way to do that.” Y/N knew that one way and cringed. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking the unspoken. “You cut off her serpent tattoo?” Opening her eyes, Sweet Pea shrugged his shoulders again. “Well technically I just held her down. Jughead did all the carving himself.” He said trying to make light of it.

“Sweet Pea.” Y/N said in her scolding voice obviously not finding any humor. But it set Sweet Pea off. “What did you want me to do Y/n? Sit back and let someone else handle it? Was I suppose to let someone think it’s okay to threaten you?” His voice was raised causing Y/N to look away from him and out the front windshield. Sweet Pea watched as she reacted to his anger. He sighed loudly. “I had to do it so that you were safe.” As gentle as Sweet Pea could ever be, he reached over to place his fingers on Y/N’s chin making her look at him. Allowing him to, she looked at him and saw the tears in his eyes. 

“I couldn’t, I can’t and I won’t have anything happen to you babygirl.” In that moment, all of the anger and hurt and bitterness melted away. She watched as Sweet Pea allowed a few tears to roll down his cheeks. Grabbing his hand, she removed it from her chin causing Sweet Pea to panic a little. But it was only for Y/N to intertwine their fingers. Making eye contact, Y/N also had tears in her eyes. “I’m here Pea. I’m right here.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m okay. No one has hurt me.” 

Sweet Pea let out a sarcastic chuckle. “If only that were true Y/N.” Whether either one of them wanted to admit it right now, the one person who could hurt her the most had. Sweet Pea broke the eye contact and removed his hand from hers. Y/N could have whined at the loss of contact and warmth she had been craving for. She knew what he meant and that he was right. She also knew that she had a hell of a lot more questions to be answered.  “Sweet Pea.”

“Yeah?” He answered.��

“What the hell took you so long to come to me?”

Don’t you mean what the hell took me so long to slither my way out Y/N?  Sweet Pea thought to himself. 

taglist: @deanilostmyshoe @Abbigail-583 @janepetersonxxx @lalalindsay25631888@jolomez @love-is-the-fear-of-loss @lynnskata @nadderlover @sweetpeassouthside@Lucywishstories @chipster-21 @sweetpeaiscomingforu @jojokoko0717 @Itsmikayblr  @castingtheshadow @book-reader-diaries @sarcasm-n-insomnia @cookies186 @strawvberrymilktae @baileyboo22

[starlight-matrix]

Cold

@vldangstbang Behold, my 2019 Voltron: Legendary Defender Angst Bang fic!

Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Violence, Major Character Death

There is a scene toward the end of the fic that may be very triggering for some audiences, so please be very careful! There is a marker labeled “First Ending” and if you might be triggered by some extreme violence, please just stop there. I’ll put an explanation of the scene at the very end of the post for anyone who is curious and wants to know without reading the actual content. Stay safe!

The first time Lance meets Keith, he gets punched in the face.

It’s his own fault, really. Everyone knows not to approach Keith Kogane when he’s pissed off. Lance decides to approach Keith when he’s in the middle of a fight, which is, in hindsight, a fucking stupid decision. Some time after the fact, however, he finds he doesn’t regret it.

The first time Lance meets Keith, he gets punched in the face.

It’s his own fault, really. Everyone knows not to approach Keith Kogane when he’s pissed off. Lance decides to approach Keith when he’s in the middle of a fight, which is, in hindsight, a fucking stupid decision. 

(Some time after the fact, however, he finds he doesn’t regret it.)

He makes the dumbass decision halfway through the second semester of eighth grade, when he really should be in the library studying for final exams instead of in the school courtyard, flirting with Nyma Johnson while Pidge and Hunk laugh at him from a bench ten feet away. It’s blessedly beautiful out, just enough clouds for it to not be sweltering, but still few enough for the sun to shine down and brighten up the grey of the school.

Lance is in the middle of a slowly ebbing conversation when a sudden ruckus from the other end of the courtyard catches his attention. Loud shouting and sounds of a scuffle are audible in the distance and Lance excuses himself to see what the fuss is about. By the time he reaches the source of the noise, a crowd has gathered, students cheering on two teens pushing and shoving at each other like fighters in the center of a ring.

Lance immediately recognizes one of them as Keith Kogane. How could he not, when the guy’s practically the school prodigy? It takes him another few moments to recognize the smaller kid as a sixth grader who rides his bus and is generally quite obnoxious.

And, of course, Lance’s first instinct is to attempt to dispel the fight. On his own. A fight between Keith Kogane and someone who very obviously does not regret pissing him off.

As previously said: a fucking stupid decision.

“Hey, guys, I know you’re both mad but if Iverson catches you fighting you’ll probably get in-”

Before Lance can finish his sentence, Keith’s violet gaze is turned on him, and pain blossoms in his cheek as he gets caught up in a fight he really shouldn’t have had anything to do with. Hunk and Pidge are shouting in the distance as Lance stumbles backward from the force of the hit, his mouth tasting of iron and aching terribly when he lifts his hand to the swollen area. He glances at Keith and immediately wishes he hadn’t. The guy looks absolutely livid.

More shouting ensues and Lance tunes it all out, returning to Hunk and Pidge and letting his two friends fuss over him. The crowd suddenly disperses and Iverson’s voice cuts through the chaos in the courtyard screaming ‘Kogane’ at the top of his lungs. Lance looks past Hunk inspecting his cheek to see Iverson grabbing Keith by the arm, shouting at him about the school rules and how many infractions he already has.

Iverson stops his lecture to drag Keith back into the building, and for a split second, Keith’s gaze meets Lance’s once again. This time, Keith almost looks apologetic.

News of Keith’s expulsion is the first thing he hears at school the next morning, and Lance doesn’t see Keith again, nor does he expect to. Rumors about the raven-haired prodigy spread and quickly fade away. People stop talking about him as if they’re both terrified and vaguely awed by him. Keith disappears from everyone’s list of conversation starters, and Lance can’t help but wonder if there was anyone in their school who actually knew him beyond his reputation.

Lance is undeniably excited for his first day of high school. He has his favorite sandwich tucked away in his bag, he’s wearing his favorite outfit, he’s sitting on the bus next to his favorite friend. Lance doesn’t think the start of his day could possibly get any better.

He also doesn’t think the start of his day could get any worse, which is a mistake on his part.

The first thing Lance notices as he’s stepping off the bus is Keith’s form in the parking lot, next to a bright red bmx bike with chipped paint and a fraying seat. His hair is longer, though not by much, and Lance grudgingly admits that the mullet doesn’t look terrible on him. Keith is taller too - again, not by much - and Lance offhandedly wonders if anything else about him has changed.

(The angry curse Keith spits out when someone bumps into him doesn’t encourage that particular train of thought.)

“Lance? What’re you glaring at?” Hunk asks.

“Keith Kogane.” Lance replies, the distaste spilling out before he can pretend it’s not there.

Hunk follows his line of sight and quirks his brow. “Isn’t that the guy who punched you last year?” He says dismissively. Lance shoots him an incredulous look. “Hey, man, you got in the middle of that fight all on your own, even though you knew his reputation. That hit was just a side effect.”

“I kept biting my cheek for a week because it was all swollen!”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should learn not to butt into people’s business.”

“Says you, Mister I’m-Going-To-Pry-Into-Your-Love-Life-Until-I-Ruin-Your-Chances-At-Romance!”

“Again, totally your fault,” Hunk counters matter-of-factly. “You’re the one who blatantly insulted Rolo in front of Nyma when he just so happened to be her best friend.”

Lance frowns and crosses his arms over his chest indignantly, knowing Hunk is right. Of course Hunk is right. Hunk is always right. “Yeah, well, you’re not the one who got punched in the face for trying to keep a sixth grader from getting pummeled. Or who got slapped by the girl you like.”

Following Hunk through the front doors of the school, Lance watches Keith fade into the crowd of students and instead turns his attention toward a familiar length of blonde hair. Nyma is standing only ten or so feet away, right next to Rolo, smiling her perfect smile and laughing her perfect laugh. Lance pointedly doesn’t acknowledge their linked hands, or the way Rolo leans over to kiss Nyma on the cheek. Hunk makes a noise of understanding and leads him further down the hall.

Pidge is leaning against a pillar where the hall opens up into the cafeteria, scrolling through her phone and glaring down at whatever she’s looking at. When Lance and Hunk call out to her, she tucks her phone into her pocket and waves back with a half-smile, grey bags under her eyes.

“God Pidge, did you even sleep last night? You look like hell.” Lance says.

Pidge frowns. “Gee, thanks Mr. Casanova. You sure know how to make a girl feel beautiful,” She deadpans, shoving Lance with her shoulder. “And no, I didn’t. I was up late playing Overwatch with Matt.”

The three of them maneuver through the hall and plop down at an empty table in the cafeteria to compare their schedules, chatting about Overwatch and Pidge’s brother, Matt. Lance and Pidge both silently mourn the fact they don’t have any classes together. He and Hunk have three of the same classes though, which is a good thing. They continue their conversation about video games until Pidge brings up a sore (not really) subject.

“Hey, did you guys know Keith goes here too? I saw him walk by right before you guys showed up.”

Lance groans in loathing, and Hunk answers for him. “Yeah, we saw him when we got off the bus. Lance isn’t too happy about it, but it’s not like we have to hang out with him or anything.”

“But he goes here! Which means we could end up in the same classes!” Lance complains. “If I have to relive the trauma of being punched in the face by him every day, I’ll be miserable!”

“Stop being so dramatic, you big pissbaby. It’s your fault he hit you anyway, you’re the one who butted into his fight.” Pidge points out. 

“I have the worst friends! Neither of you are supporting my perspective on this!”

“That’s because your perspective is flawed.”

Lance shoots Pidge and Hunk equal looks of ‘I-Can’t-Believe-I-Trusted-You’ and they both firmly ignore him. Before he can make a bigger show of pouting, the bell rings overhead, and the three of them are standing to find their respective classes. Pidge grumbles incoherently as she heads off to the gym and Lance wishes her the best of luck, hoping and praying none of the staff will give her any trouble concerning the locker rooms. He and Hunk split ways in the hall between the science and mathematics buildings, Lance not quite appreciating the fact that he has maths class first thing in the morning. Can’t be worse than having P.E. first, though, he thinks.

His immediate thought when he walks through the door of his new maths class is “Oh God, it actually can be worse,” because there in the middle row, looking ridiculously content sitting in a maths classroom, is Keith Kogane, eyes distant as he stares at the whiteboard at the front of the room. Lance notes that he has earbuds in, and silently hopes Keith gets busted by the teacher. Moving to take a seat as far away from Keith as possible, Lance looks up at the whiteboard and scowls at the sloppily-drawn seating chart in one corner.

His morning only seems to get worse when Lance walks up to the seating chart and realizes he has to sit right next to Keith. Apparently there isn’t anyone with an “L” surname in this class.

Glaring at the whiteboard for far longer than is strictly necessary, Lance turns and maneuvers through the rows of desks and drops his bag onto the one to Keith’s right with a loud thump that makes the raven-haired boy jump, much to Lance’s amusement. Keith shoots him a glare and folds his arms over the table, resting his head on them with a sigh. Lance’s victory smirk melts to a frown. Did Keith not remember him? There wasn’t even a hint of recognition in that glare; what if Keith simply didn’t know him? Lance huffs and sits down, admittedly disappointed.

A couple minutes later, the second bell rings to announce the end of the passing period, and the teacher stands from her desk to introduce herself. Lance turns to see if Keith is paying attention (he’s wearing earbuds, so clearly he’s the type who doesn’t care about class, Lance thinks) and realizes that his earbuds aren’t actually earbuds; they’re simply aux cords plugged into hearing aids in both of Keith’s ears.

Lance wonders how he never previously noticed Keith wore hearing aids.

He also wonders how the whole ‘aux cord turns hearing aids into earbuds’ thing works, but that question is dissipated by Keith catching him staring and raising an eyebrow. Lance quickly looks away and focuses his gaze on the teacher, who starts to explain the class rubric. Lance can feel Keith’s eyes on him for another few seconds, but he doesn’t look back, and when he glances at Keith again in the middle of class, he’s dutifully taking notes as if nothing had happened.

Lance tunes out most of first period, simply due to the fact that the teacher handed out a syllabus at the start of class that specifies everything she’s saying to them in perfect detail, word for word, so it’s pretty redundant to listen to her say it all over again. Lance finds himself watching Keith out of the corner of his eye. As soon as the teacher had started talking nearly half an hour ago, he’d produced a couple of barrettes from nowhere and pinned his hair back so it wouldn’t fall in front of his hearing aids, and Lance can’t stop his brain from telling him it’s cute.

The entire time the teacher drones on about classroom etiquette, Keith is jotting down everything she says in his notebook, writing so fast Lance can hear his pencil scraping over the page, and a subtle glance at Keith’s notebook tells him it’s likely that Keith is the only person who will ever be able to actually read his notes. It’s weird for Lance to see Keith so focused and peaceful - the only emotion he’s ever seen on the guy is anger; intense, furious anger.

But here, in a maths class of all places, Keith looks strangely calm. There’s no hint of frustration in his face and his eyes only ever leave the front of the room when he’s pausing to take notes.

The bell is ringing before Lance even notices the time flying by, and he quickly looks away from Keith in an attempt to keep his absent staring a secret. He listens to Keith shuffle about beside him as they both put away their things, and when Lance looks up again, Keith is across the room and walking out the door. Lance waits a good long moment before following, meeting Hunk in the hallway outside and making no mention of Keith as he’s swept up in conversation.

He doesn’t see Keith again that day. When Lance gets home that night and his mother asks how his first day of high school was, his response is: “It was a very enlightening experience.”

Lance continues to silently observe Keith throughout first period maths. He doesn’t get to do so as fervently as he had the first day of school, since after the introductions of the first day, they’re immediately thrown into actual classwork and assignments. Lance doesn’t enjoy maths - he doesn’t hate it, of course; he understands the practical nature of everything and doesn’t have enough of an issue with the content to really dislike it at all - but he finds himself actually looking forward to it every day, simply because of all the things he notices about Keith.

He learns that all of Keith’s notebooks are space-themed, with planets and nebulas on the fronts of each one. He learns that Keith’s favorite pencil is a red mechanical one with rubber grips; he once watched Keith miss a good two minutes of the lecture in favor of rooting through his bag in search of said pencil when there were two other, perfectly usable pencils already on his desk. He learns that Keith takes his hearing aids out when the class gets too loud during work time.

Lance watches Keith out of the corner of his eye whenever the teacher pauses her chatter, and Keith never catches him staring, always absorbed in the lecture with tunnel-vision focus Lance is somewhat jealous of. The constant observation causes him to have a little more homework to do after school, but he can’t bring himself to break the habit. He’s too curious about Keith, about how this ragged teen who once showed such livid anger manages to look so soft.

A month has passed since the start of high school when Lance speaks to Keith for the first time.

He’s walking out of his American History classroom during lunch, having forgotten his jacket on the back of his chair earlier in the day and gone back to fetch it. The classroom is in a short hall that is almost impossible to find without some kind of help unless you’ve been there before, and Lance’s heart jumps into his throat when he trips over a pair of legs sticking out from next to a trash can in the walkway. He catches himself and turns to find Keith sitting on the floor up against the ugly brown brick wall, knees now pulled to his chest as he stares back at Lance.

“Keith?!” Lance says, visibly surprised. Keith’s brow furrows. “What are you doing here?!”

“Um...eating lunch?” Keith deadpans, gesturing to the sandwich in his hands.

“Yeah, but why are you eating lunch way out here? Wouldn’t it be better to eat in the cafeteria? This hallway isn’t even indoors, you’ve gotta be freezing your ass off.”

Keith simply shrugs. “Cafeteria’s too crowded. And noisy..”

Lance nods in understanding, even though he can’t really relate to Keith’s point. He’s always felt a little at home in chaos - it’s simply a side effect of growing up in a busy household.

“You sit next to me in maths, right?” Keith asks. Lance nods. “And you’re the kid I punched last year too, aren’t you?”

Lance is shocked to hear him say that, and it must show on his face, because Keith shrinks a little smaller and turns his violet eyes to the floor, and Lance can’t help but notice the pink flush that reaches up to the tips of his ears.

“I’m sorry about that, by the way. I didn’t mean to hit you, especially not as hard as I did. I thought you were one of that kid’s friends, joining the fight to back him up. I acted on reflex.”

“Oh.” Is all Lance can say, and after a few seconds of silence, he pulls his jacket on against the cold and takes a seat on the cement next to Keith, far enough away so they aren't touching but close enough that he won’t have to talk too loud to be heard. 

“Why were you fighting him, anyway? He was a sixth grader, what did he do to piss you off so bad?” He asks.

Keith looks up at him and then away, as if pondering his answer. “...he stole something that was really important to me. And then threatened to give it to the Principal and get me expelled.”

“Whoa...wait, what the heck did you have that could get you expelled??”

Again, Keith hesitates, and Lance finds a pair of violet eyes on him once again, studying him, as if Keith is trying to gauge whether or not he can trust Lance with whatever the answer is. Lance can’t blame him for it. After the fight last year, it’s a totally plausible theory that Lance would take Keith’s answer as blackmail to get him in trouble- revenge for getting punched in the face.

“...a knife,” Keith says after a long moment. “It used to belong to my parents. That kid stole it out of my bag during P.E. and threatened to take it to Iverson so I’d get expelled from the school. That wasn’t the actual reason I got expelled though, ironically enough.”

Lance doesn’t say anything, obviously waiting for an explanation, and Keith’s face tilts up into a smile that makes Lance think his assumption that Keith was just a rude fuck is very wrong.

“I punched Iverson in the face.”

“You punched Iverson?!” Lance blurts, grinning from ear to ear. “Dude! That guy was an asshole! Man, sucks that you got expelled for it though, with how rude he was to all his students.”

“Yeah. He was going off about how I was supposed to be a good example, spewing shit about how I’m a prodigy or whatever and shouldn’t be getting into fights and ruining my image. Made it seem like my image being ruined somehow ruined the school’s image too,” Keith explains. “They weren’t going to even suspend me for the knife thing, but then Iverson said it was stupid that I cared so much about a gift from two people I never even got to meet. And I fucking decked him.”

“And that’s why you got expelled. For decking Iverson.”

Keith nods, and Lance is in awe. He can’t say he wouldn’t expect such a thing from Keith - after all, he is known for being prone to fighting - but to punch Iverson, the meanest adult Lance has ever laid eyes on, is something he considers to be incredibly admirable despite the fact he definitely doesn’t condone violence. Keith seems to loosen up a little at the fact that he’s smiling, which Lance watches with keen eyes; the way his knees drift farther from his chest, the way his head lifts up from where his shoulders were stooped low.

Lance’s cell phone vibrates in his pocket, startling them both, and he pulls it out to find a couple texts from Pidge asking him where he is. He’d completely forgotten about his normal lunch plans in the unexpected conversation with Keith. He texts her back saying he’ll be right there.

“My friends are waiting for me, so I gotta go,” Lance says, standing and brushing dirt off the back of his jeans. “If you want, you can come eat with us. We eat in the courtyard, so it’s not loud. And it’ll just be me, Hunk, and Pidge. They’re both nice, I’m sure they’d like you.”

Keith looks at him with wide eyes, and Lance offhandedly realizes that this is the first time he’s ever actually spoken to Keith. He also remembers the fact that Keith did, in fact, punch him in the face last year, and while he knows Hunk and Pidge don’t hold a grudge over that, Keith doesn’t. Lance almost expects Keith to decline his offer and never talk to him again.

But then Keith smiles, a small, soft smile, and gathers his things. “Sure, I’d like that.”

Keith easily becomes a natural part of their group. He’s awkward that first day, not knowing how to act or what to say, but he quickly warms up to Hunk and Pidge, and after about two weeks it’s hard to imagine what their group would be like without Keith.

Lance doesn’t stop his observations. His eyes are constantly on Keith, taking in everything about him. He learns that Keith loves everything there is to love about space and its infinite possibilities. He learns that Keith is a good artist, and prefers drawing nature and space to anything else, but can still do amazingly realistic portraits. He learns that Keith has lived with his current foster family since he was twelve, and that this is the longest he’s stayed in one place in his entire life.

He learns that Keith was born with good hearing, but a degenerative disease caused his ears to slowly become less functional, and now he can’t hear anything without hearing aids. He learns that said degenerative disease could one day cause Keith to be completely deaf.

With Keith opening up to them and showing his true colors more and more, Lance comes to see that he really isn’t a violent person at all. When they hear stories of Keith’s fights from his point of view, they learn that most of the time, the other person was goading him or did something cruel that most definitely deserved a good hit. They learn that Keith sometimes has trouble controlling his emotions, and that when he gets angry or upset, it almost always ends badly. They learn that Keith doesn’t feel guilty for any of his outbursts, save one: the one with Lance.

That in itself is gives Lance goosebumps, and when Keith first tells them, he swears they’re both red in the face. Keith says he feels guilty for hitting Lance when he was just trying to help.

Of course, Lance forgives him - he already has, in his mind at least. Keith starts to adjust his old routes through the school so he can join the group on their way to class, suddenly appearing at Lance’s side from seemingly nowhere so they can walk to lunch together. And because he’s with their group most of the time, he gets halfway through the school year without a single fight.

The first time Lance learns anything substantial about Keith’s home life, he doesn’t even realize it.

It’s raining out - not the gentle, peaceful kind of rain, but the kind of rain that makes your skin ache and soaks you to the bone. The four of them made the regrettable decision to walk to the arcade instead of riding the bus straight home after school, and they spend a good twenty minutes racing through the downpour before they finally make it to Pidge’s house. 

Colleen Holt offers to dry everyone’s clothes and make them all hot chocolate, and offers to drive Lance, Hunk, and Keith home afterwards. Keith gently denies a ride home, even though Colleen insists that cycling home in the rain is a terrible idea, but then the storm slows into a sprinkle, so she stops pushing. Lance and Hunk have spent enough nights in the Holt household to have clothes there, and Pidge offers up some of her brother’s old clothes for Keith to wear.

Lance is mostly dry, snug and warm in a pair of blue lion-themed pajamas Pidge says are tacky when Colleen hands him some black plaid pants and a bulky maroon sweater that looks like it’s from the early 80s to give to Keith. He finds Keith in the upstairs bathroom, and when he pushes open the door that isn’t all the way closed, he catches Keith with his shirt halfway off, his back exposed and showcasing several colorful bruises painted along his spine.

Lance expects Keith to hide himself, and he’s right, as Keith whirls around and turns toward him, back now hidden against the wall. Lance turns his gaze to the floor and sets the stack of clothes on the bathroom counter. “Uh, Colleen wanted me to bring these to you...sorry for not asking if I could come in, that was bad manners. I’m just gonna…go. Now.” 

With that, Lance retreats out the door and pulls it shut, pointedly avoiding Keith’s gaze. However, the image of Keith’s violet eyes wide in shock stays in his head long after he’s back downstairs.

They don’t talk about that incident at all that night. Keith comes into the living room with his hair curtaining his face and takes a seat on the floor in front of the couch, right in front of where Lance is sitting cross-legged next to Hunk. He counts this as him being forgiven, and when their clothes are done drying and Colleen is piling everyone into the Holt family stationwagon, Lance’s eyes stay on Keith’s form until the car is too far away for him to see that mop of black hair.

Over the next few weeks, Lance’s gaze is on Keith more than ever before, and he starts to see ticks in his friend that he’d not quite seen for what they were previously. He catches on to the way Keith sits, arms tucked close to his body, back slightly hunched, as if he’s trying to occupy as little space as possible. He watches the way Keith is always hyper aware of his surroundings, how his gaze lingers on anyone who walks by their lunch spot, how he flinches whenever someone is too loud or when someone gets too close. How he never sits with his back to anyone, always sitting against a wall or tree or in a spot where he can see the entire courtyard.

Lance notices how he’s never seen Keith without his signature red hoodie on, sleeves all the way down and black fingerless gloves covering his hands. He notices how Keith’s hair is always left to curl around his neck and most of his face. He doesn’t have the same P.E. class as Keith, but according to Hunk, who does, Keith never changes into his uniform in front of others.

While Lance has no concrete evidence to back up his theory that Keith is being abused at home, the pieces of Keith’s behavior that suggest it are overwhelming.

One day, after at least two weeks of theorizing, Lance finds himself on the complete wrong side of town from where his house is. He’d taken a few wrong turns walking home from the arcade he was at with Pidge and Hunk - from whom he’d turned down rides, since Hunk and his mom weren’t going straight home and his house is further away than the Holts’ - and is suddenly in a neighborhood he’s never actually been in before except for on the school bus, and even then, he’s always so engrossed in conversing with Hunk he never really notices the scenery change.

The houses here are small, tiny, even, and all of them are in varying states of disrepair: yards of dead grass full of weeds and litter. Lance can’t help but feel rather uncomfortable in such an environment, and he’s on the verge of calling his mom to come pick him up when shouting from one of the houses catches his attention. 

It’s incredibly noisy, even though it’s at least two houses down from where Lance is standing. He can make out that the argument is centered around money, though he can’t tell what the two sides are, or distinguish between who’s yelling what. But then the shouting increases to full screeching and a door is thrown open with a crash that makes him think the door might have actually been broken, and a short frame stumbles out, a fist from inside the doorway connecting with their face and then pulling the door shut again.

It isn’t until the person is out in the yard that Lance recognizes them. It’s Keith, and the fact that his theory is suddenly being proven true makes his heart wrench in his chest.

Lance waits until Keith is collapsing onto the curb before he walks another two house’s distance so he’s at the edge of Keith’s brown lawn. Keith looks up and sees him before he can speak, and the look of pure shock mirrors the expression he was wearing that day so long ago when Lance caught him by surprise in Pidge’s bathroom. It’s a bookend, he thinks to himself; a moment in the beginning of a realization that happens later on, exactly the same.

“Lance?” Keith says, words quiet and stunned-sounding. 

Lance nods with an awkward half-smile and twiddles his thumbs in front of him, taking a few more small steps toward Keith. “Hey.”

As he steps closer, Lance can see Keith’s condition more clearly in the fading light. The street lamps flicker on just as he stops about two feet away from his friend, and suddenly he sees the way Keith’s ear is split open, blood trailing down the side of Keith’s face.

“God, Keith.” He says, taking a seat next to Keith on the curb, glancing back at the house with an ache in his stomach. 

Lance pulls his sleeve over his hand and inches toward the wound. Keith starts, leaning away, and Lance pauses. Their gazes meet and Lance feels his stomach sinking further when he can only interpret the expression on Keith’s face as fear. But then Keith’s features soften, and he lets Lance use his sleeve to wipe off the blood trailing down the side of his face. There’s only the sound of their own breathing and a dog barking somewhere in the distance, and Lance barely registers that he now has Keith’s blood all over the sleeve of his favorite jacket.

When the blood is mostly gone or dried onto skin, Lance carefully dislodges Keith’s hearing aid from his ear. It’s broken, a long crack going down the entirety of the speaker and exposing the wires within. Lance gives it to Keith, who looks down at it with a quiet huff. 

“This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it.” Lance says, more a statement than a question.

“...no,” Keith says. “But it is the first time he’s broken one of my hearing aids. Usually he avoids hitting near them, since they’re so expensive.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone? You could get him arrested. A guardian shouldn’t act like that.” 

“I know. I only live with him because he’s the only person in the area who could take me when I got kicked out of my previous foster home a while ago,” Keith explains, curling his fist around the hearing aid and pulling his knees to his chest. “And...there are a couple of reasons why I haven’t told anyone. Mostly because I don’t want to have to leave this neighborhood.”

Lance waits for Keith to continue, and he does.

“When I was younger, I had a foster brother. His name was Takashi Shirogane but everyone called him Shiro. We lived here together. We were really close, or...so I thought, at least.”

A car drives by, casting stark shadows against Keith’s face. Keith’s eyes dart to the ground, to Lance, to some point in the distance. But Lance can’t bring himself to look away.

“When he turned eighteen, he got kicked out and disappeared. I thought he would come back for me, even just to visit, but...he never did. But I don’t think he would just leave and never come back, you know? So I chose to stay here in case he ever comes back. He won’t be able to find me if I get sent to some other house in some other town.”

“Keith-”

“That’s not the only reason, though,” Keith interrupts him. “I was planning on running away, when I first started high school. He started treating me worse because he thinks I’m more of man now, since I’m older, so I should be able to take it. But then you spoke to me that one day, in the hall. And you invited me to sit with you and Pidge and Hunk, and you didn’t make it a one-time thing, either. You let me keep coming back, day after day.” 

Keith leans into Lance, and Lance lets him. “Did you know that you guys are the only friends I’ve ever had in my whole life, aside from Shiro?” 

“No, I didn’t know that.” Lance whispers. 

Keith doesn’t seem to have anything else to say, and Lance doesn’t know what else he can say, so they sit there in silence until Lance’s mom calls, demanding to know where he is. He explains that he got lost and that he stumbled across a friend’s house, and that he really doesn’t know where the hell he is. Keith supplies his home address and Lance’s mom says she’s on her way there. Silence falls once again when Lance hangs up.

“I should go back inside before your mom gets here.” Keith says after a moment.

“Keith, are you kidding?” Lance gapes. “You shouldn’t go back in there, period!”

“It’ll only be worse if I stay out overnight. And I don’t want to be a burden, not on you or your family or anyone else. I’ll be fine, Lance.”

Lance wants to argue that Keith’s definition of the word ‘fine’ has to be drastically skewed for it to apply right now, but he has a feeling it’ll only cause problems, so he says nothing. Keith stands, and Lance does the same, and before Lance can do so much as wipe the minuscule pieces of gravel off his jeans, Keith is hugging him and burying his face in the crook of his neck, carefully aiming his wounded ear away from Lance’s jacket to avoid getting any more blood on it. 

It’s Lance’s turn to be surprised - he’s never seen Keith hug anyone. Physical touch has been a slow thing for Keith. Pidge had to teach him what a fist-bump was. Yet, here he is, arms wrapped around Lance’s torso, fingers clinging to the fabric of his jacket as if Keith doesn’t want to leave him after all.

But then Keith is pulling away, and he says a quiet “seeya” before disappearing inside his house.

Lance almost expects the yelling to pick up again, but it doesn’t, and only a few minutes pass before he hears his mom’s voice  calling for him from her car a house over. He climbs into the passenger seat and apologizes for not having called earlier, and he vaguely explains that he got so caught up in talking to Keith that he didn’t notice the time passing by. It isn’t a lie - Lance doubts he’d ever be capable of lying to his mom - but it isn’t the whole truth, and while he wants to tell someone about what’s happening to Keith, it’s not his truth to tell.

And so he keeps it in, only half-listening as his mother recounts her day and blatantly ignoring his siblings as they start rambling about the chaos of life when he gets home. He sits through dinner without adding much to the conversation, and if anyone notices, they don’t say anything about it. His older sister gives him a dirty look when he misses her question about whether he’ll be bringing Pidge and Hunk over anytime soon, and he slips into his room before she can complain.

When Lance gets to school the next day, he pretends not to notice the lie in Keith’s story that the now-missing hearing aid fell out and got stepped on the day before.

A week later, Keith comes to school with a black eye and cut lip and a wrist that twitches whenever he tries to use it - the only injuries Lance has ever noticed outright, though he wonders if maybe he only noticed because he knows - and Lance decides he has to do something, whether Keith wants him to or not. 

Lance calls Pidge and Hunk over to his house that weekend under the pretense of a dinner with his family. It starts out just like any normal dinner with them over: Hunk helps cook dinner and chats avidly with Lance’s mom in the kitchen, Pidge beats Lance’s brothers at Mario Kart and effectively distracts them from bugging everyone else, and all of Lance’s siblings talk at a mile a minute to get ‘embarrassing school stories’ about Lance from both his friends. 

After dinner, Lance swiftly ushers Pidge and Hunk up to his bedroom and blocks the door with his desk chair to make up for his door not having a lock, placing both hands on his hips and turning to his friends with what he hopes is a serious expression that doesn’t betray the worry he feels for Keith. 

“Okay, why are you looking at us like that? You look like you’re about to scold us or something.” Pidge inquires, crossing her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow at Lance.

Lance lets the serious expression slide off his face and takes a seat in his desk chair against the door. “Um, so last week I found out where Keith lives by accident, and I kinda found out his foster dad is abusing him, and technically he never asked me not to say anything and he came to class the other day all injured and I honestly can’t ignore it now that I know, so. I want to do something, but I don’t really know what I should do, and you guys are smart so I thought you could tell me.”

“Whoa, that sounds like some pretty heavy stuff.” Hunk says, concern riddling his features.

Pidge nods and rests her chin in one hand, focusing on something across from her with pinched eyes. “We should definitely tell someone. But we shouldn’t involve the police right away, it might be too much for Keith. We should take it slow, subtle.” 

“Yeah, okay.” Lance agrees. “So who should we tell?”

“Your parents. They’re probably the best people for this. They’ll be understanding.” 

“Don’t you think Keith would be overwhelmed by my family, though?”

“Oh, definitely. You just have to be there to help him out when it gets too intense.”

Lance takes a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do this then.”

One week later, Lance has a plan. 

His entire family ends up involved in it somehow, and Lance is grateful to have such a large family: it means he has a lot of support. Pidge and Hunk were eager to help - and their parents all agreed to help as well - and Lance has to admit that the two of them came up with most of the plan themselves. Lance just provided the most crucial part. An endgame.

The endgame? Getting Keith into a safe space: Lance’s home. 

Now, they just have to convince Keith to go along with it, without him actually knowing the plan.

Lance does his best to act like there’s nothing out of the ordinary. He doesn’t want Keith to be suspicious of anything, or worse- think Lance doesn’t like him now that he knows the truth.

He waves at Keith when he gets off the bus with Hunk. He groans when Keith reminds him they have a maths test in about fifteen minutes. He listens intently as Pidge rambles about how Matt’s supposed to be coming home next month, and that he’ll be bringing his college roommate.

When Hunk and Pidge split off to go to their own homerooms, Lance turns to Keith and begs for a run-down of the formulas they need to know for their test. He hasn’t studied; he was too caught up in planning to even remember. But he knows Keith studied. And even if he hadn’t, he knows Keith is too good at maths to not know. So he begs Keith for help. And, like the good friend he is, Keith does.

They spend the precious few minutes before the start of homeroom running through all the material they’d learned the past month, and by the time the bell rings, Lance feels at least a little bit prepared for the test.

(He still fails, which he doesn’t find out for another week, but he tried, and that’s what matters anyway, right?)

It isn’t until lunch period that their plan really goes into action.

“Hey, so my brother’s birthday is today,” Lance starts - and it isn’t a lie. “and my family’s got plans to bake him a cake and set up for like, his birthday party and whatnot. He’ll be at work until like seven pm, so my mom said I could invite you guys to come help with the setup.”

“Well, you know I’m coming. My moms already told me your mama invited them to do all the food prep.” Hunk answers immediately.

“I’ll call my mom and let her know. It’s not like I have plans or anything.” Pidge says.

They all look to Keith at exactly the same time, and for a split second, Lance is worried Keith will suspect the entire conversation is scripted (which it is), but he just looks awkward and nervous.

“You won’t be a burden if you decide you join us, y’know.” Lance says.

It must be like Lance was reading Keith’s thoughts, because Keith’s ears turn pink, and he shifts a little in his chair. Pidge and Hunk nod and hum in assent to Lance’s statement, and Keith looks to be considering his options: he can accept, and hang out with his friends in their home environment for the first time since that rainy day that feels so long ago, or he can decline, which would ruin Lance’s plan completely, however unintentional.

And either Keith is finally starting to truly warm up to them, or Lance is just plain lucky, because Keith smiles - a rare, toothy, beautiful smile - and says, “Sure. Why not?”

Lance beams in return, can see Hunk and Pidge beaming as well, half out of relief their plan is working and half out of pure happiness, because Keith is coming with them, and while it isn’t a big deal, really, Lance suspects all three of them see it as some kind of milestone.

With that part of their plan sorted, normal conversation resumes, and when the bell rings, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge share a thumbs up between each other the moment Keith’s back is turned. He doesn’t seem to suspect a thing, and Lance is grateful, because the entire plan hinges on Keith staying oblivious and not getting angry at Lance for concocting the plan in the first place.

Lance tries not to think about what’ll happen once Keith inevitably realizes he’s been betrayed.

After school ends, Lance calls his mom to come pick the four of them up, because Hunk is the only one who could actually ride home with him on the bus. She’s expecting his call. True to script, he asks if she can come get them, and she asks if it’s just going to be Hunk and Pidge. Lance feels himself smiling when he says “No, Keith’s gonna be coming too. I know you wanted to meet him.” and he can imagine she’s smiling, too, because aside from Hunk and Pidge, she was the first to accept Lance’s plan, and had dove headfirst into helping with the preparations.

They chatter rather aimlessly while they wait for Lance’s mom, everyone but Keith a little bit on edge with the secrets they’re keeping, and Lance is grateful it only takes her about five minutes to arrive (he suspects she may have already been in her car, ready to go, when he called).

“You must be Keith!” She says as they all pile into the car. “Lance has been chattering on about you for a while now, I almost thought he’d abandoned Hunk and Pidge completely!” 

Lance sputters, can feel his face growing red, can feel Hunk and Pidge’s eyes on him. He turns to look out the window, because he doesn’t want to see the knowing looks they’re surely giving him. And he doesn’t want to even imagine what kind of expression Keith has.

“I bet he just badmouths Keith for being better than him at everything.” Pidge says snidely.

“Hey!” Lance squawks, because he has absolutely been doing that, but no one needs to know. Especially not Keith himself. “He’s not better than me at everything! And I don’t badmouth!”

Lance can see his mother side-eyeing him, eyebrows raised. He knows she can see straight through his horrible attempt at saving himself from embarrassment. Which is pointless, because he’s already embarrassed. And, because she’s Maria McClain, he watches her smirk and roll her eyes as she turns her gaze back on the road and continues talking like nothing’s happened.

“So, how was school, then? Anything noteworthy happen?” She asks, perfectly mundane. “How did you do on that test you forgot to study for?”

Keith is chuckling in the backseat, Lance knows it, and he shoots the guy a look that he hopes conveys how utterly betrayed he feels. “Hey, I’ve been busy! Doing...stuff.” Right, because that wasn’t at all ominous. Keith just raises an eyebrow. “And besides, Keith helped me study! This morning. Before the test. That counts!” 

He doesn't sound at all convincing, but everyone is entertained to some degree, and while Lance kind of wants to point out how they’re all entertained at his expense, it’s nice to see a smile on their faces. With all the planning they’ve been doing and the nature of the situation at hand, it’s been a few days since Lance has seen Hunk’s eyes crinkle around the edges or heard Pidge’s full belly chortle. And Keith...well, he’s chuckling, and that’s something Lance recognizes as rare.

The ride from Alternia High School to the McClain residence is spent in constant chatter. Lance steers the conversation away from himself and his mistakes, and they get talking about cakes and party decorations and what kind of music should be played and oh yeah, Andi doesn’t even like cake, so what on Earth are they gonna do now? By the time they pull up to the quaint grey and white house Lance has known all his life, Hunk and Maria have narrowed down a list of four food choices to prepare in place of cake, and Pidge is playing space trivia with Keith in the back.

Toni and Camilla’s matching Frozen bikes are toppled over on opposite sides of the front lawn and on a normal day Lance would have been wondering who was watching them if they weren’t in the car with his mother, their full-time babysitter. But this isn’t a normal day. 

“Alright kids, let’s get to work!” Maria says, turning to wink at everyone before climbing out of the car, waving her hands in an encouraging gesture Lance immediately interprets as “hurry up.” His friends also grasp the message and soon they’re all clambering up the steps onto the front porch of the McClain residence. Maria kicks a basketball out of the way of the door and opens it with one hand while texting with the other, and, once inside, is nearly bowled over by small children.

“Tio Hunk, tio Hunk!” Toni and Camilla, their words overlapping as they interrupt each other and compete over who can manage to get to Hunk first. 

Hunk, to his credit, has mastered the role of ‘doting uncle’ and scoops them both up at the same time, one in each arm, and lets them throw their arms around his neck and pepper his cheeks with kisses. Pidge snickers into her hand, and Lance can see Keith trying not to laugh, too.

Lance puts on a fake pout and crosses his arms over his chest. “Hey hey hey, since when is Hunk the favorite uncle?”

“Since always!” Camilla says with a smile, giggling even more when Lance scowls.

“Oh, come on,” Pidge pats him on the back. “You can pout and complain over being abandoned later. We have a birthday party to set up, remember?”

Nodding, Lance lets Pidge wrap one hand around his arm and her other around Keith’s, and pull them both after Maria, who has disappeared into the kitchen. There are three other adults in the kitchen already - Lance’s father, who appears to be rummaging through kitchen drawers; and Hunk’s moms, who are greeting Maria with kisses on the cheek and both seem to be holding an assortment of dishware. His sister Melissa is standing on a step-stool in the living room, holding a roll of red paper streamers and looking incredibly bored. Half the roll is already taped up on the wall and Lance wonders why the hell she isn’t taping the rest of it up instead of standing there.

“Did you find any tape yet, dad?” She calls across the room, sounding annoyed.

“Not yet, just be patient! Why do we have so much junk in these drawers?!” John McClain calls back, sounding equally as annoyed..

Ah, that makes sense.

“You should have told me we needed tape earlier, I could’ve grabbed some on my way home!” Maria says. Lance watches her cross her arms and frown disappointedly at his father.

It’s quite funny, actually, how easily she can throw even her own husband into instant regret.

“I didn’t know we were out of tape in the whole house! I could have sworn we had more in one of these drawers, but we have so much random crud in them that even if we do have more, I don’t think I’d be able to find any if I looked around for ten thousand years!”

“Still, I think tape is a pretty important thing for a birthday party, don’t you agree?”

“Are they fighting?” Pidge asks quietly, leaning close to Lance’s ear, as if trying to be discreet. “I thought it was impossible for your parents to fight.”

Lance laughs a little to himself. “Oh, trust me, they fight sometimes, and this is not it.”

John and Maria are still bickering over the obvious importance of tape in any kind of situation that involves decorating, and Hunk bypasses all of it to offer his personal tape roll to Melissa, who looks like she’s about ready to keel over from holding her arm up so long. She smiles gratefully and continues hanging the length of streamers, carefully climbing down the step ladder to move it a few feet over before climbing back up to curl and hang more. It looks amazing, Lance thinks.

“Tio Lance, whos’ that?” Camilla says, tugging on Lance’s sleeve and pointing at Keith. 

“That’s Keith,” Lance answers with a smile. “He’s my friend, like Hunk and Pidge. And I think,” Lance leans in close to Camilla’s ear, Toni leaning in to eavesdrop. “He could use some hugs.”

Toni and Camilla nod very seriously, turning toward Keith with a synchronized rhythm that could actually be considered quite creepy, like they’re the twins from The Shining or some shit. Keith, who has clearly been watching the conversation - most likely because it was about him - has a very quizzical expression on his face and Lance puts on his best evil grin as he watches Toni and Camilla practically barrel into Keith’s legs, wrapping their arms around him as best they can.

Pidge full-out belly laughs at how completely out of his league Keith looks, hands hovering above Camilla and Toni’s heads like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to hug them back, but then they’re giggling and he smiles, genuinely smiles, and his gloved hands rest on their shoulders as they rub their noses on his calves. Lance doesn’t mention that they might be wiping off actual snot.

“You’re tio Keith now!” Toni tells Keith, clearly not willing to accept rejection. “Come help us with our project! It’s the most important project of the whole party, mama said!”

“The most important? What is it?” Keith questions.

“Decorations! The plate ones!” Camilla yells in Keith’s ear. “We have to make ‘em ‘cause mama  said a party has to have plate pictures! The best ones!” 

“From the best artists, mama said!” Toni agrees, beaming.

“Wow,” Keith says, crouching to Toni and Camilla’s height. “That really is the most important.”

That feedback seems to be the final building block in Toni and Camilla’s easy love of Keith, since as soon as they hear him reiterating how important their job is, they each grab one of his arms and almost make him fall over in their haste to drag him over to what Lance assumes is their designated “decorating area” in a corner of the living room. They spout out questions on if Keith is a good artist and what kinds of things he can draw, and Lance finds himself simply waving the three of them off when Keith looks back at him and Pidge, as if asking what to do.

“Do you think we should save him? I doubt they’re gonna give him back unless you go tell them he has a different job to do.” Pidge asks.

“Nah,” Lance says. “This’ll keep him busy so we can talk to mama and the others.”

“Fair enough.”

While Keith is occupied with drawing on the paper plates Toni and Camilla hand him - turns out he’s a really good artist, who knew? - Lance drifts from person to person in the most natural ways he can, making sure everyone knows what’s going on with Keith. He takes Melissa’s place hanging the streamers when she complains about her arm being sore. He relieves his father of the search for tape by telling him Hunk had some, because apparently no one had done that yet. He hunts down and cleans some dishes Lily and Sunny Garrett needed but couldn’t find.

He, Hunk and Pidge drift past each other while helping prepare and trade information, some of it useful - like Pidge’s discovery that Andi will be home an hour early because of an unexpected hour change due to the time of year - and some of it not - like Hunk’s unnecessary comment on how Lance keeps glancing at Keith and is eventually gonna give them away. Which actually is helpful, now that he thinks about it, but the smirk and eyebrow wiggle Hunk gives him really isn’t.

When the brunt of the preparations are done, Lance breaks away from setting the table to grab the paper plate decorations Toni, Camilla, and Keith were meant to be making. He finds his niece and nephew practically laying on top of Keith, whose face is almost obscured by carpet as he valiantly tries to continue drawing what looks to be Camilla in a princess dress while the two kids are bouncing up and down on his back, clearly having gotten bored with coloring.

Or maybe less bored with coloring, and more intrigued by Keith. Lance doesn’t know which.

Keith looks up when Lance approaches, and Lance effortlessly scoops Toni off Keith’s back. Toni protests with an obnoxious whine but doesn’t make any attempts to get up when Lance sits cross-legged on the carpet and plops the boy down in his lap. Camilla stops bouncing and Lance is pretty sure he hears Keith heave a sigh of relief, but he doesn’t mention it.

“How are the decorations going, kids?” He asks, ruffling Toni’s hair. 

“Uber good!” “Good!” Toni and Camilla say, their sentences overlapping. “Keith is uber good at drawing! Just like us!” Camilla continues. 

“Uber good? Where did you learn that?” Lance questions.

“Lourdes!” 

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Is Lourdes your other sister?” Keith asks, eyes still on his paper plate drawing. “You’ve never talked about her before, just Melissa.”

“Yeah, she’s the middle sister. Melissa’s the oldest, then Andi, Lourdes, me, and then these two little pains in the butt.” Lance explains, ignoring Toni and Camilla’s whining about being insulted.

“So you’re technically the baby of the family, then.”

Keith still doesn’t look up from his drawing, but Lance can see the corners of his mouth quirk up and knows he’s smirking, as if this were some funny joke. Which it isn’t. Toni and Camilla laugh at it anyway, and Lance frowns. “Maybe! But that doesn’t mean I’m any less mature!”

“Oh right, as if Lance and mature even belong in the same sentence.” Says a new voice.

Lance turns to find Lourdes standing right above him, holding two huge paper grocery bags and looking like she’d just rolled out of bed despite it being early evening. One of the perks of college, Lance supposes- everyone’s too Done and Tired to care about appearances anymore. 

“Okay, first of all, rude,” Lance snaps, scowling up at his sister with his hands on his hips. “And also, what the actual heck do you have in those bags?”

“Four lemon curd cheesecakes, a box of those vegan pumpkin cookies Melissa likes, and about six rolls of tape. Mom texted me to get some stuff because apparently she completely forgot that Andi doesn’t like cake and needed an emergency backup. Lucky I wasn’t home yet.” Lourdes replies, ignoring his scowl. Her eyes land on Keith and she raises an eyebrow. “Who’s he?”

Lance stops scowling and Keith finally looks up from his drawing, confused and maybe a little bit sheepish. Lance opens his mouth to answer, but Toni and Camilla beat him to the punch.

“He’s Keith!” “He’s Lance’s friend!” “He helped us with our pictures!” “Yeah, he’s uber good!” The two of them talk over each other, as always, but their explanation (if it can even be called that) gets across well enough. Lourdes smiles at Keith and Keith tentatively smiles back, grunting in discomfort as Camilla flips positions on his back to gesture wildly at his drawing. “He’s drawing me as a princess!” She says, beaming from ear to ear like it’s the best news in the whole world.

“Whoa, that’s pretty cool!” Lourdes sets the paper bags to the side and crouches down next to Lance and Toni, peeking at Keith’s drawing and whistling. “And it is uber good, just like you said.”

“Yeah, uber good!” Toni parrots. 

Keith mumbles out a “thank you” and watches Lourdes ruffle both Toni and Camilla’s hair before standing back up again to take the paper bags to the kitchen. Lance watches her go. In any other situation, he would’ve expected her to tease him- because yeah, he’d talked about Keith a lot, even before he’d involved his entire family in his plan. He’s still kind of surprised she didn’t tease him, even a little bit, but the smarter part of him knows it’s because she doesn’t want to make it obvious that everyone in Lance’s family knows who Keith is, even if it wouldn’t be that strange.

“Lance! We need to get the desserts set up, come help get this cheesecake on the table.” Maria yells as she makes her way over to them. “Toni, Camilla, go ahead and put your decorations up.” 

Toni and Camilla scramble to gather all the paper plates strewn about the living room floor. Keith helps them and lets the two kids drag him to the dining room table, showcasing where to put the paper plate art and chattering on about how “the angle has to be perfect” or something similar. Maria reaches Lance’s side and walks with him toward the kitchen where the cheesecakes are.

“It looks like he’s opening up. That’s a good thing.” She says, smiling warmly at the three. Lance knows she’s talking about Keith, and his own gaze falls on the boy. He nods. 

“Have you figured out how you’re going to explain this all to him?” 

“Not yet.”

Lance can feel his mama’s gaze on him, and he just keeps watching Keith. He watches him struggle to get one of the half-bent paper plates to stay neatly upright against a bowl of oranges, watches Toni and Camilla watch him, waiting, watches them applaud when he moves away and the plate doesn’t topple over. Then one of them bumps the table and causes it to fall, and they both start apologizing profusely while Keith looks on like he’s waiting for death’s sweet release.

“You’ve been brave with this plan, mijo.” Maria says, tucking an arm around Lance’s middle. “You know Keith might not react well. He’s probably going to be hurt, if he’s as guarded and private as you tell me. But I think it’s good that you’re here for him. Sounds like he needs it.”

Lance rests his chin on her head. “Yeah, I know he does. I just hope he doesn’t hate me after.”

Andi hadn’t been included in any of the plans for helping Keith, since it was all meant to overlap with a Super-Secret-Birthday-Bash Andi couldn’t know about, so the shocked expression on his face when he comes home to a horde of people screaming “happy birthday” at him in varying volumes is entirely genuine. He leaps about a foot in the air and the (empty) plastic cup he’d been holding goes flying across the entryway, almost hitting Sunny Garrett in her smiling face.

“The fuck?!” He yells, half-glaring at everyone.

“Language, mijo!” Maria yells back, though she’s still smiling from ear to ear. She pulls him down to her height and presses a kiss to his cheek. “It’s your birthday! Your surprise birthday party!

Andi makes a face like he’s constipated and then tilts his head, eyebrows going upward in a yeah-that-makes-sense fashion. “I feel like I should have expected this.”

“Well, it’s good that you didn’t, it would have ruined the surprise. Now come on, we got you cheesecake.” Maria pats him on the back and leads him out of the entryway, toward the kitchen. As she passes by where Lance is standing with Hunk and Pidge, she nods to Keith - still stuck in a Toni-Camilla sandwich - then winks and keeps moving. Andi notices the exchange and shoots Lance a confused look. Lance just shrugs. He’ll have to explain everything later.

For now, he has a message to pass on: it’s time to make Keith Kogane a McClain.

(Or, well, get him used to the McClains. Saying they’re gonna make him a McClain is weird. Like he’s gonna marry into the family or something, which is definitely not what’s happening here.)

(Later, Lance sees that Keith does become a McClain, as wholly as if he’d been born one.)

Dinner is a whirlwind of energy, with the ever-so-embarrassing Happy Birthday song ritual that has Andi’s ears turning red and food being passed around and everyone talking at once with at least four separate conversations going on at any given minute. Everyone’s eager to talk to Keith, and if it were anyone else’s birthday Lance would probably feel terrible for his friend taking the spotlight, but it’s Andi, and one glance at his brother confirms that Andi’s most likely grateful to have the attention on someone else so he can eat his cheesecake in the rare, temporary peace.

Keith is introduced, a little belatedly, to everyone at the party and they all take their turns making conversation with him, asking about his art and how classes are going and if Lance is just as annoying at school as he is at home. Lily and Sunny ask him for an opinion on the pizza they’d all had for dinner, and when he expresses his gratitude, they start on about whether or not he likes cooking or baking. Turns out, he’s never actually baked anything in his life, and the only thing he knows how to cook on his own is mac & cheese. The women look personally offended.

They promise to teach him how to cook at least a few basic dishes sometime, and Lance smiles to himself at the barely-there grin on Keith’s face when Sunny ruffles his hair.

Lance gets roped into a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos by Toni and Camilla, and he loses every round because he’s too distracted, watching Lourdes and Keith where they’re sitting on the floor across the living room. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but by the time the game is over, Keith is bright red and Lourdes is cackling like a Disney villain. Which she is. Lance swears.

Melissa gathers Toni and Camilla and bids everyone goodbye over the sounds of their protests. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning, calm down.” She says, when Camilla starts crying.

“But tio Keith won’t be here tomorrow!”

Lance thinks it’s adorable how attached to Keith the two had become over the course of the evening. Camilla continues to sob and Toni looks like he’s on the edge of crying too, and Melissa sighs, probably bone tired. Lance moves to try and calm them, but then Keith is crouching low to hug the both of them, still looking totally out of his element but perhaps a little less terrified.

“Hey, I’ll come back and visit sometime, okay?” He says. Toni and Camilla nod. “I promise.”

The two siblings cling to Keith a little longer before pulling back and hurrying to their mama, sobs replaced by little baby sniffles. They all wave until the door is closed behind them. 

“So, who’s up for some MarioKart?” Pidge suggests, raising an eyebrow..

“Oh hell yeah! I’m gonna whoop your butt, Holt!” Lourdes easily accepts the challenge.

Pidge, Lourdes, Lance, Keith, and Hunk all end up crowded on the living room couch, trading off controllers whenever one person loses. Both Lance and Lourdes’ legs are in Hunk’s lap, and every once in a while he makes a face at their feet, though he makes no move to push them off. Pidge is sitting with her neck up against Lourdes’ side and the rest of her body flopping over the armrest like a limp noodle, and Keith is squished into the space between Lance and the other end of the couch, hands leaning on the armrest to avoid getting bumped by Lance’s elbows.

It’s mundane, and familiar, and comfortable, and Keith looks so relaxed, and Lance prays that it means his plan is working. He prays that Keith will understand, once everything is explained. He prays that Keith won’t hate him and run away and refuse help like he did before.

He prays that, no matter whether this fantastical plan succeeds or fails, Keith will be safe.

Lance’s nerves get the better of him, and he gets no higher than seventh place on any round. Pidge and Lourdes wipe the floor with all of them, expectedly, stealing first place from each other over and over until they’ve got about the same amount of wins. Keith does surprisingly well for a MarioKart beginner and Lance finds himself watching Keith more than he’s playing the game. 

Thoughts swim in his head of the worst possible outcome of the night, where Keith calls him a traitor, storms out of the house, and refuses to talk to Lance ever again. He imagines what he’ll say, what he’ll do, what expression will be on his face. He imagines what would happen if Keith just… went with it. If he easily accepted that Lance just wanted to help, and chose to stay. That’s the outcome Lance wants, and he’s more than a little bit terrified of the other possibilities.

He wants Keith to let him help, wants Keith to be safe, wants Keith to be happy. 

Lance’s hasn’t been in the game for several rounds now, and he only half-notices Pidge’s eighth win of the night. He’s staring at Keith’s fourth place ranking when Maria calls for them all to come into the kitchen for cocoa. There’s a lot of shuffling and stumbling and Lourdes almost falls on her face, but they all make it into the kitchen laughing and smiling from ear to ear.

He and Keith are the last ones into the kitchen, and he watches his mama gently tap Keith on the shoulder and usher him back out of the room, handing him a mug of cocoa on the way. And oh fuck, here we go. Lance holds his cup but doesn’t drink. He tunes out the MarioKart character stat debate going on beside him, is too busy watching his mom and Keith. He knows what they must be talking about- knows she must be explaining their plans to Keith. It’s nerve-wracking.

Lance knows the exact moment Keith realizes that everyone who was at that party, aside from Andi, is 100% aware of everything going on in Keith’s life. He knows because Keith’s head snaps around and sharp eyes land on him- glaring, cutting holes in his skull, full of hurt and anger.

This is what Lance was scared of.

Keith turns away, and Lance feels his stomach plummeting into the ground. Does Keith hate him now? What’s he thinking, of course Keith hates him now. How could he have thought everything would work out just fine? They’re not in a damn fairytale- this is real life, with Lance’s real friend, whose secrets he’s spilled to practically everyone he knows. Lance knows his intentions were good, but does that really outweigh the fact that he’s meddling in Keith’s life? They haven’t even been friends for that long. A couple months at most. Lance has no right to tell Keith what to do.

No more than two minutes into Lance’s staring-off-into-space-silent-guilt-parade and movement snaps him out of his thoughts, and Lance watches Keith storm around the living room, collecting his things. No one is talking about MarioKart now. Everyone is watching Keith.

“Keith, mijo, at least let me drive you home. It’s late.” Maria asks, her face full of concern.

Keith shakes his head, avoiding eye contact, and yanks his shoes on. He looks back at Lance and Lance feels like he might crumble under that gaze, because Keith is fucking pissed.

The front door opens and Keith leaves, closing the door behind him, and without really thinking, Lance races after him. He’s wearing socks and cargo shorts and it’s past dark in late autumn, and he’s freezing the second he walks out the door. “Keith!” He yells, his feet already sore from running on cold pavement. “Keith, wait!” Keith is fast, and he doesn’t slow down.

Lance catches up and has to stop himself from grabbing at Keith’s arm, because the last thing he wants right now is for Keith to react on impulse and get them in another bad situation.

“Keith, please listen to me! I just wanted to help-”

“Help?!”

Keith whirls around and Lance takes a stumbling step back. Keith is glaring at him, expression clear even in the dim street lighting. He looks small, somehow, his shoulders hunched in and his arms pulled close, hands balled into fists at his sides that Lance can’t help but stare at. 

“Do you really think spilling my private life to everyone you know is gonna help?! What if they tell the police?! What do you think is gonna happen?!”  

“He’s abusing you, Keith!” Lance says, trying not to shout. “What if we can get him arrested?”

“And what if you do?! Lance, the whole reason I haven’t told anyone about this is because when social services finds out, they’re gonna relocate me. Another family, another town- that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid! I finally made friends, I don’t want to leave. But you know what? It doesn’t matter now, because clearly the friends I made don’t care about my fucking privacy.”

Keith’s words sting, like little needles stabbing into his skull, and Lance says nothing. Keith looks angry, and hurt, and there are tears in the corners of his eyes that twinkle in the lamplight. What can Lance say to him? After all that? Keith’s right. Lance fucked up. There’s nothing else to it.

Lance watches Keith turn around and leave. He stands there on the pavement until Keith’s form disappears around a corner and then he stands there a little longer, because he’s… in shock. 

This is what he was afraid of. This was the worst case scenario.

Finally, when Lance’s socked feet are numb and his whole body is shivering, he turns his back on where Keith’s gone and walks back up to the house, where Maria, Lourdes, Hunk, and Pidge are all waiting just inside the door, the same expression of concern mirrored across their faces.

“He left.” Lance says. “I- I fucked up. Really bad.” 

“Oh, mijo, this isn’t your fault. You did what you thought was right.” Maria says, pulling him into her arms. “Sometimes, when we do something out of love, it backfires. That isn’t our fault.”

“I don’t think Keith’s had a lot of love in his life. Maybe he just doesn’t understand.” Hunk adds.

Lance nods against his mama’s shoulder, and she pets his hair for a bit. Once they all discover how freezing cold Lance is, they gather around to smother him with blankets from the couch and Maria makes another round of cocoa for everyone. Conversation is slow and strained, and Lance tries to tune out most of it, but every time he slips into feeling absolutely miserable about hurting Keith, Hunk or Pidge or Lourdes says something funny that has him giggling despite it all.

When the cocoa is gone Maria finally ushers everyone to bed, and Lance ends up in his room with Pidge and Hunk shoved in next to him on the bottom bunk. 

“What should we do now?” Lance asks into the dark, Pidge’s hair tickling his cheek.

Hunk, already half asleep, mumbles into his shoulder. “Just give him space. He’ll come ‘round.”

Keith does not come ‘round. At least, not very quickly.

When Lance and Hunk get of the bus on Monday morning, Keith doesn’t wave at them from his bike, doesn’t follow them to where Pidge always waits, doesn’t walk with Lance to maths. 

Keith doesn’t give Lance so much as a side-eye during class, and Lance says nothing. 

It’s like they’ve gone back to the first weeks of school, when Keith was just “that kid who punched me that one time” and Lance was “the one who got in the way.” Keith doesn’t walk with them to their classes, doesn’t sit with them at lunch, doesn’t share his notes with Lance or argue about the probability of aliens with Pidge or let Hunk fuss over his hair like a surrogate mother.

And Lance says nothing. Keith has every right to avoid him- to avoid all of them. Lance feels bad that he’s ruined Pidge and Hunk’s friendship with Keith too, just by getting them involved. But he does his best to stay positive, to not let what happened with Keith drag him down too much.

(He lies. It eats away at him as he tries to sleep, and no matter how many times Hunk or Pidge or his mama try to tell him it’ll all work out, Lance can’t seem to figure out how it possibly could.)

Around a week and a half passes before Keith approaches them again, and when he does, he has another black eye over the one that had finally started to heal, a gash on his eyebrow, and a thick ring of bruises around his throat that have Lance’s stomach churning. When he looks Keith in the eye his heart sinks too, because Keith’s expression isn’t angry, or hurt, just… tired. 

“Dude, you look like you’ve lost a Kaiju battle or something.” Pidge blurts out. 

Lance blanks, because what the fuck, Pidge?! But then he hears Keith actually laugh- not quite a happy laugh, more the awkward kind of laugh, the kind of laugh you laugh when it feels like the world’s falling to pieces around and you have to laugh because if you don’t you’ll just start crying.

“Yeah, well,” Keith says, his voice cracked and raw. “It definitely feels that way.”

Pidge snorts, and Hunk sighs, and Lance stares at Keith. He should say something. But what? Apologize? He already has, and Keith didn’t take it too well. Should he explain himself? He thinks that might make Keith even angrier- it would sound like Lance thinks Keith is weak and helpless.

But Keith doesn’t want to talk about the failed “rescue mission” half-disguised as Andi’s birthday party. Keith doesn’t mention it at all, just asks, “Can I sit with you guys?”

No one answers. Pidge and Hunk are clearly waiting for Lance to make the call, and Lance appreciates the gesture, even though he doesn’t think it’s earned. Keith waits, not mentioning the fight they had or how Lance betrayed him or even anything more about his wounds. Keith waits, watching Lance watch him, and Lance thinks that Keith’s question never needed to be asked.

“Of course you can.”

For the first time in what feels like an eternity, they’re all together, joking and laughing and poking fun at each other, just like friends should. Keith is smiling, and laughing, and Lance is happy. 

When they all get out of class at the end of the day, Keith is waiting for them in the main hallway. He seems nervous, more nervous than he had at lunch, but he debates with Pidge the logic or not-logic of a comic series they apparently both read and Lance decides not to mention it. Hunk joins in on their debate once he has a better picture of the context and Lance listens with a laugh, not really understanding any of it but enjoying the ridiculous things they use to justify their side.

They all say hi to Mrs. Holt and wave dramatically at Pidge as their stationwagon pulls out of the parking lot, and Keith falls behind as Lance and Hunk make for their bus. Hunk goes on ahead with a playful nudge at both of them and Lance pauses, watches Keith, tries not fidget.

Keith looks at him and his expression is sad, almost desperate. “Lance, I’m really sorry about the other night. You didn’t deserve to get yelled at. You were just trying to help me, and I didn’t want to admit I needed help. I just- I’m not used to people being nice to me. It caught me off guard, still does, and I think I didn’t know how to cope with your family treating me like I’m… one of them. So I picked the first excuse I could to get mad and I treated you like actual shit. I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, you had every reason to get mad-” Lance starts.

“No, I really didn’t!” Keith interrupts him, quietly catching himself with a whispered apology. “You wanted to help me, and you did what you thought would help. You told people you trusted and I got mad at you for it. That’s not fair. It’s not fair for me to reject you when you’re just trying to be a good friend. I think I understand what that means now, y’know. Being someone’s friend.”

Lance finds himself smiling, because this is what he wanted Keith to understand- that he has friends, people who love him and care about him and want him to be safe. He wanted Keith to understand that he has people who want to help him. People that will help him, if he asks.

“Keith,” Lance says, holding a hand out for Keith to take, if he wants. “Wanna come to my house tonight? You did promise you’d visit Toni and Camilla again sometime.”

Keith stares at him for a moment, and Lance wonders if maybe he should have said more, if he should explain more of his process or how much his family loves Keith or apologize again, even though Keith doesn’t seem to think he’s at fault. He wonders if this is too forward, asking him to come over again like it’s not big deal. He wonders if Keith will say yes after all that’s happened.

Keith smiles, shy and small and real. He takes Lance’s hand, and says, “Yes, please.”

That night, when Lance and Keith are snuggled up in blankets on different bunks in Lance’s bed, Lance explains to Keith every aspect of his plans to get Keith into a safer place.

Keith listens, doesn’t say anything until Lance is finished. A heavy silence hangs between them.

“How many people were involved?” He asks.

Lance counts on his fingers. “Well, my whole family, aside from like, Toni and Camilla. And Andi, since we couldn’t tell him about the party. Hunk’s moms, Hunk and Pidge, Pidge’s parents- we had backup plans in case you’d rather stay with Pidge or Hunk than me. So… ten people?”

That heavy silence falls again, and Lance finds himself fidgeting, anxious and impatient. He picks at hanging threads from the mattress above him, fiddles with the hem of his blanket, and waits.

Finally, a reply. “That’s a lot of people.”

“Yeah.”

“That means I’m important to you, doesn’t it?”

Lance blanks, for a second, then smiles from ear to ear, because yes, Keith finally gets it. “Hell yeah you’re important to me, dude! You’re one of my best friends now! That makes you a VIP.”

Lance hears Keith’s soft, raspy laugh echo in the darkness of the room. “Sweet.”

Just like how Keith became a part of Lance’s little friend group in no time at all, Keith becomes a part of the McClain family pretty much within the span of a single night. 

No one so much as bats and eyelash when Keith joins them at the breakfast table the morning after his first night staying over, and in the week since, he’s had personalized allergy-free lunches made for him by Maria, had an hour long Nicolas Sparks debate with Andi, and had his makeup done by Melissa, Lourdes, and Toni and Camilla, all on separate occasions. 

(And yes, Lance forced his mama to take pictures on each of those separate occasions.)

Maria drives them to and from school, picking up Hunk along the way most days. She takes him and Keith out to buy coats and new jeans, because Keith didn’t bring a whole lot with him when he left home and he doesn’t actually have a good winter coat, which is sacrilege in her eyes. 

Lance offers up his own bedroom to share with Keith, and at first he’s nervous. He’s always had a hard time sleeping with others in the room, because he’s a restless sleeper. He moves around a lot. He makes noise. Growing up, Andi constantly complained about being kept up by Lance shaking the bed, until finally Melissa moved out and Lourdes offered to share with him. 

Keith? Keith does not complain. Keith sleeps like a rock. It usually takes Lance a good while to fall asleep, even with his earbuds in playing ocean songs and all possible light blocked out by an eye mask. Keith, however, simply lays down and passes out, and does not move until he wakes.

It’s almost like we were meant to be, Lance thinks. The sentiment makes him giggle.

Everyone adores Keith, dotes on him and teases him and treats him like he’s been a part of the household from the very beginning. Lance can’t help but wish that Keith never has to leave.

(Lance worries. He worries so much. When they turn onto the main hall in school one day and Keith’s foster dad is standing there, talking to a teacher, and Keith looks so pale and small and scared, Lance grabs his arm and guides him to another exit, Hunk doing his best to calm Keith and Pidge watching behind them like a hawk watching for a potential predator. Keith stays home from then on and Maria lets him. And Lance worries. How long, exactly, can all of this last?)

“Is Toni gonna die?” 

Lance looks at Camilla and resists the urge to smile, because despite the nature of her question, she doesn’t seem even the slightest bit concerned for her brother’s well-being. 

“No, Camilla, he just has the flu. He’s not gonna die.” He says, patting her on the back.

Camilla turns and glares at him for making her stumble and Lance has to hide his smile behind a hand. She finishes off the braid she’s doing in Keith’s hair and turns to Lance, holding it out in his direction with the most begrudging expression a five-year-old can have. She’s Melissa’s kid, that’s for damn sure. Lance takes the end of the braid and ties off the elastic for her.

“All done! Look, look, look!” Camilla says with sudden enthusiasm, shoving a plastic play mirror into Keith’s hands so he can see the masterpiece that is his new hairdo.

Camilla has spent a good fifteen or twenty minutes twisting three smaller braids into one gigantic plait that’s about as wide as Keith’s head, with bumps at different angles and crooked chunks of braid and little hairs that didn’t quite fit into the plaits sticking out every which way. It looks terrible, Lance thinks, but in the cute, learning-curve kind of way that can only really be achieved when you have a five-year-old who has only ever done the hair of dolls decide to give you a makeover.

Lance fully expects Keith’s face to contort into something that portrays how much Camilla might need to practice, but Keith just smiles, turning the mirror this way and that to get a view of every angle he possibly can. He’s beaming, and Camilla is beaming, and Lance fucking giggles.

How can a guy who didn’t know what a fist bump was a few months ago, be so good with kids?!

“It’s amazing, Camilla,” Keith says, handing her back the mirror and feeling along the plaits with his fingers. “I love it. Thank you.”

Camilla squeals and throws her arms around Keith, probably dislodging part of the braid as she jumps up and down in her excitement. Keith has spent long enough in the McClain house to be very much used to Toni and Camilla’s boundless energy, and he just laughs, a soft, comfortable laugh, gently patting the braid back into place (still crooked, but a little better) when Camilla stills.

The three of them are all bundled up in late-autumn-early-winter-weather clothes, sat outside on the front walk to avoid contracting the flu from Toni and getting sick themselves. Lance is sat on the steps of the porch with his jacket pulled up as far as it’ll get on around his neck, while Keith and Camilla are on the walkway with a few blankets between their butts and freezing concrete.

It’s been ten days since Keith started staying at the McClain house, three days since he stopped attending school, and Lance feels an ache in his stomach, like their luck is going to run out soon.

An unfamiliar car pulls into the driveway.

At first, Lance eyes the car with vacant curiosity. Their house is at the dead-end of a street and it isn’t uncommon for their driveway to be used as a turn-around for lost drivers. 

One glance in Keith’s direction and Lance instantly knows that something is very, very wrong.

Keith looks scared. His face is ashen, eyes blown wide, hands gripping the blanket beneath him like a lifeline even as he scoots in front of Camilla almost on instinct. Lance is on his feet and moving toward them before the car door can open. And when it does, all hell breaks loose.

“Where the fuck have you been?!” The man shouts, in a voice Lance barely recognizes from that night so long ago. “You fucking ran off for an entire week, you think you have the right?!” 

Lance doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, it’s like a horror movie is happening in front of him. The man shoots out a hand and grabs at Keith’s hair like a murderous villain, lifting him off the ground and dragging him a good few feet forward, as if Keith weighed nothing at all. 

“Get off, asshole!” Keith shouts, kicking at the man and shoving at his hand, trying to dislodge the fingers tangled in his hair. “Fucking let go!” 

Without thinking, Lance lunges for Keith and pushes at the man’s hands, shouting for him to let the fuck go and fuck off, what right does he have to treat Keith like this? Camilla is wailing and Keith is swearing and Lance is shouting and the man is yelling at Keith for being a brat and disobeying curfew, what a fucking idiot, how dare he. If there was a neighborhood watch, surely someone would have called the cops by now, with all the noise they’re making.

Lance takes an elbow to the face and stumbles, falling on his ass and catching himself with one hand that he’ll definitely be picking rocks out of with tweezers later. Keith is screaming his name and then screaming curses at the world. Keith’s foster dad kicks the feet out from under him and Lance watches Keith get manhandled, kicking and scratching and biting, toward the man’s car.

Lance climbs back onto his feet and a door opens, but not a car door- the front door of the house is thrown open, and Lance doesn’t think he’s ever been so grateful to see his dad’s face. 

John McClain, Captain of Lions Beach Police Station, walks out like the eye of a storm, calm and collected. He lifts one hand out at Lance as a cue to stay right where he is and Lance does stay. He hears Camilla’s cries soften and turns to find his mother in the doorway, one arm cradling a coughing Toni and the other holding Camilla close, both kids’ faces pressed up against her and shielded from the drama. When she catches Lance’s gaze, she smiles, small but reassuring.

“Let him go and put your hands up!” John demands, loud and stern.

Keith’s foster father pauses, but only to glare at John as if he were the scum of the Earth. “Why the hell should I listen to you? You kidnap my kid and then think you can order me around?!”

John pulls out his badge, and the man suddenly looks very, very scared. He drops Keith instantly.

Keith scrambles to his feet and runs for the house, grabbing at Maria’s sleeve as soon as he’s near. Lance picks up Camilla so Maria has a free arm to hug Keith. He can feel Keith shaking, can hear his heavy breathing, but his eyes refuse to leave his dad and the scene before them.

“John Doe, you are under arrest for trespassing and assault. You have the right to remain silent.” John pins the man up against his own car and handcuffs him. There’s a police siren in the distance. “If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you…”

A police car pulls up to the driveway just as John is finished, and out climbs two officers Lance vaguely recognizes, probably from some potluck or another. The two new officers take over and Keith’s foster father disappears into the police car. A minute later, an ambulance pulls up.

“Lance, mijo, take Toni for me, okay?” 

Lance sets Camilla down and takes Toni, who is fast asleep despite the chaos. Maria kisses all three of them on the head before wrapping both arms around Keith and starting down the steps. 

“I called Melissa and Lourdes, they’ll be home soon as they can be. I need you to stay here for a little while, okay? Take care of Toni and Camilla?” Maria says, her smile strained.

‘Why can’t we go with you?’ Lance wants to ask. But he knows why. There’s no telling how long it will take to sort out everything that’s just happened, no telling what will happen to Keith or if they’ll get in trouble for harboring a runaway or- or- Lance shoves aside thoughts of Keith’s foster dad getting off scot-free and Keith having to go back to him. His parents will never let that happen. 

So Lance just nods, tries his best to smile, and stays. Keith peeks out around Maria as they walk toward the ambulance and Lance doesn’t know what to say. So he says nothing, just watches as his parents disappear down the road, and prays that Keith will be with them when they return.

Lance takes Toni back to bed in the living room and Camilla helps him lock up every window and door in the house. He makes it into a game and manages to win a bit of laughter from her, which he counts as a feat. But as soon as they’ve settled in the living room next to a sleeping Toni, she releases all her questions on him in rapid succession. Where did nana and papa go? Why did the big truck take Keith away? Who was that man? Why was he being so mean to Keith?

Lance hugs her close and tries to explain. “You know how the bad guys in movies can be really mean to the heroes, and at the end the heroes beat the bad guys in a fight?” Camilla nods. “Well, that man that hurt Keith was a bad guy. Papa’s at the police station to make sure than man gets in trouble for being mean, and nana’s at the hospital to make sure Keith’s okay. That’s where the big truck took him- it’s an ambulance, they come rescue people who are hurt and heal them.”

Camilla nods, taking his cobbled-together explanation as fact. “When will tio Keith come home?” 

Lance gives her a shaky smile. “Soon.”

Half an hour after the first responders have come and gone, Lourdes gets home, and Lance tells her everything their mama didn’t have time to mention. Camilla is fast asleep and when Lourdes pulls Lance into her arms, he cries, because he’s worried. He lets out all the emotions he’s been holding back, because he couldn’t bear to cry in front of Camilla and make her more scared.

John calls not long after Lourdes gets home to say that Keith’s foster father is in holding and that the specifics of the arrest will be handled by other officers, and that he’s heading to the hospital to check on Maria and Keith. John tells them not to worry, that everything is going to work out.

(Lance still worries, but he forces himself not to focus on it, because John McClain is not a liar)

Melissa gets home after the call, Andi gets home an hour after that, and they wait together in the living room, huddled like wolf pups waiting for their mother to return with food for the winter. Toni and Camilla wake up and demand movie time, and three episodes of Tangled: The Series later, they’re asleep again, along with Lourdes and Andi, who are both exhausted from their days.

Lance is exhausted too, body and soul, but he can’t find it in himself to sleep. His mind is going a mile a minute with thoughts of Keith and their parents and restraining orders and relocations and what if Lance could track down Keith’s brother? His fingers fidget with whatever they touch and Lance fights the urge to text Hunk or Pidge for help, because he’s not sure if he should share yet. What kind of rules are there in sharing this kind of thing? Would he get in trouble for telling them?

“I can hear you overthinking from all the way over here, Lancey-Lance.” Melissa says, using an old nickname that he hasn’t heard from her in years. “Do I have to ask what’s on your mind?”

Lance looks around Lourdes and Camilla’s sleeping forms between them, locks onto Melissa’s calm gaze, so much like their mama’s. “I just… I can’t stop thinking about what’ll happen to Keith. What if mama and dad get in trouble for letting him stay here? What if social services take him to some other family in some other town and I never get to see him anymore?”

“Lance, Keith ran away from a man who was abusing him. I don’t think mama and dad could get in trouble for protecting him even if dad wasn’t a police Captain. They’ll fight for Keith if they have to, you know that. And besides, they have a little trick up their sleeve they haven’t told you yet.”

Lance narrows his eyes at her. “What kind of trick?”

Five and a half hours. Keith’s ER checkup takes five and a half hours. Lourdes is awake again and doing homework in the dining room, Melissa is heating late-night leftover fried rice, and Andi is still passed out in the living room with Toni and Camilla. Lance is sat across the table from his sister, trying to focus on his own homework, but he has to keep reading the same sentences over and over again because his brain is too distracted to comprehend the material.

Lights stream through cracks in the dining room curtains and there’s the sound of an engine, of car doors opening and closing, of footsteps on the stone walkway and hushed voices outside.

Lance is on his feet in seconds and heading for the front door, Lourdes at his heels. He hears her talking to Andi, probably trying to wake him up, hears Toni and Camilla’s still-sleepy voices, but he doesn’t wait. He pulls the door open and there are his parents, coming up the steps.

Keith is wedged between them, a duffel bag in his arms. He’s smiling.

Everything in Lance wants to throw himself at Keith and squeeze his brains out in a hug, but he has no idea how injured Keith might be, so instead he throws himself at his mama and reaches an arm carefully around Keith to pull him closer. Keith comes willingly and Lance feels fingers in his jacket, holding tight. It doesn’t take long for everyone else who’s awake to join the hug.

“I’m fine, really.” Keith says in Lance’s ear, answering the question he hasn’t even asked yet.

Lance deflates, tension flowing out of him. Keith is okay. Keith is home. The hug huddle starts to disperse and Lance is shoved aside by Camilla, who tackles Keith ‘round the middle and sobs into his coat. Maria pulls Lance closer and kisses him on the cheek, hands in his hair, and Lance leans into her with a smile even as his eyes stay on Keith and Camilla. Keith drops the duffel bag onto the porch and kneels to Camilla’s height, hugging her back. She sobs a bit more and everyone starts to gravitate back into the house, but Lance stays, watching.

“That scary man came and hurt you and then the hospital people took you away-” Camilla says between hiccups, one hand wiping tears while the other clings to Keith’s jacket with an iron grip. “And Lance said you would be home soon but then it was a really long time and I missed you!”

Keith smiles, and Lance swears there are tears in his eyes. “I missed you too. All of you.”

No one asks for a full story from John and Maria McClain until Camilla has been detached from Keith’s torso and put to sleep again, Melissa having made the decision to simply stay the night rather than try and drive home. Toni is balled up in one of the armchairs and Camilla is splayed across the fold-out couch in the living room, dead to the world despite her earlier energy.

Andi is half-asleep and groggy but he lets Lourdes pull him into the dining room and sit him down to hear the news of the night. Lance sits with his chair right up next to Keith’s, their shoulders up against each other, the steam from their cups of tea mixing, their fingers just a few inches apart.

“So, there’s a little something we didn’t tell everyone while we were making plans for the party, simply because we weren’t sure how it would work out if needed. But,” Maria explains. “when we were thinking of ways to truly help Keith, Melissa suggested we apply to be emergency foster parents. That would mean if a foster child nearby was displaced, they would be brought here, Keith included. And your father was able to find out that there are no other such families nearby.”

“Which means that when Keith was taken into social service custody, he was automatically put into your custody after the hospital cleared him, right?” Lourdes asks, beaming.

Maria nods, and Lance wants to cry, because his parents are amazing, so beautifully amazing.

“As foster parents, we will only have custody of Keith until a family chooses to adopt him. And you guys seem to enjoy having him around so we talked to social services about how we could go about adopting Keith to be a part of our family, permanently.” John starts, expression smug as he drags out his sentences. Lance and his siblings are hanging onto every word. “Of course, we asked Keith first if he would like to stay, and, well, you wanna tell them what you said, Keith?”

All eyes lock onto Keith and he shrinks under their gazes at first, clearly exhausted and ready to sleep and perhaps still adjusting to having siblings, but then he smiles, brighter than Lance has ever seen him smile, and Lance’s entire body seems to heat up. “I said yes.”

Lourdes starts to cheer and Andi whacks her upside the head, reminding her that there are kids asleep in the next room over. Lance wraps his arms around Keith and Lourdes is pouncing onto them just seconds later. Keith melts into their hug and Lance couldn’t possibly be happier.

If someone had told fourteen-year-old Lance that he’d end up with Keith Kogane as a brother in under a year, he never would’ve believed them, but right now? Being with Keith just feels right.

✿ First Ending, Fin. ✿

“What the fuck do you mean, we missed Keith’s birthday?!” Pidge yells, enraged. “You mean his birthday was like, a week after we became friends, and he never told us?! Dude!”

“He said he’s never celebrated his birthday before, since he doesn’t actually know his real one. I think he just… didn’t think it mattered? I mean, this is Keith we’re talking about.” Lance says.

Lance, Pidge, and Hunk are sat at a corner table in the obnoxiously busy cafeteria, their normal spot being damp and freezing with early December rain. There’s less than a week before winter break starts and the three of them are despairing over the fact they’ve missed Keith’s birthday.

“Well, maybe we can still do something? It might be a little late, but it’s better than nothing.” Hunk says. Lance nods. “Besides, he’s a McClain now. And the McClains are great at parties.”

Lance snorts a laugh, because that’s something Keith learned very quickly- there have been two more birthday parties since Andi’s, and both had hours upon hours of loving setup behind them. The McClain family goes big or goes home. Hunk knows that, has been a part of that mindset for as long as either he or Lance can remember, and he chuckles too, leaving Pidge to roll her eyes. 

Someone’s yelling in the distance and Pidge shoots a glare down the hall in the direction of it. “I forgot to tell you guys, Matt’s bringing his college roommate home for Christmas break.”

“Oh, I remember you mentioning it.” Lance says, sucking down the last of his Capri Sun.

“Yeah, well, apparently Matt cried over the phone because his roommate doesn’t have a family to spend the break with, so mom told him to invite the guy to spend the holidays with us.” There’s more yelling and Pidge frowns. “I’ve only heard stories about him so far, but he seems cool.”

“What’s he like?” 

“He’s in the same major as Matt, so he’s an astrophysics nerd. Matt has a total crush on him so I know he’s buff as shit and he has this cool scar over his nose, and he’s Japanese, so I’m pretty sure Matt’s used anime puns. Apparently he talks in his sleep.” Pidge pauses, clearly thinking up more tidbits. “His name’s Takashi but Matt says everyone in their classes calls him Shiro-”

“Wait, Shiro? Like Takashi Shirogane?” Lance blurts out. He remembers the name.

Pidge tilts her head at him. “Yeah, do you know-”

A high-pitched scream cuts through their conversation and everyone whips around to look at the origin of the sound. It’s a young girl Lance recognizes from his English class, Rom or Roxy or Ro or something similar. But Lance’s eyes don’t stay on her for long. Because there’s a gun.

(If you had told eighth-grade-Lance-McClain that his first thought, when caught in one of the most terrifying situations he could have possibly imagined, would be “what would Keith do?” …)

What would Keith do.

Lance knows Keith. Lance knows Keith. Knows how determined he is, knows how protective he is, knows how strong he is and how quick he is to take action, knows how many fights he’s been in- knows he came out on top in every single one, despite whatever consequences followed.

Lance knows if Keith were here, and he hopes to God Keith isn’t, that he would charge the kid holding a gun and firing on people Lance has known most of his life.

Lance can’t charge the kid holding a gun. He’ll die if he charges the kid holding a gun. He doesn’t want to die to the kid holding a gun. So he searches for the next best thing and instantly his eyes land on Romelle, the girl who screamed whose name he suddenly remembers clear as day.

She’s crumpled and crying and only a few feet away, and Lance drops to the ground, doesn’t let his eyes leave hers as she watches him come closer and closer until his hand touches hers.

She looks up at Lance and Lance smiles a shaky smile, fumbles for reassuring words. 

She looks up at him and starts wailing.

Lance looks up, at the shadow behind him, and there’s the gun, inches away from his temple.

Keith can’t breathe.

He sits on Lance’s bunk, huddled in a corner, staring at nothing. His eyes are rubbed raw and he can’t bear to move from his spot, can’t bear to leave the room, can’t bear to see Lance’s family - his family, now. It hurts too much to see the tear lines on their cheeks, the bags under their eyes.

So he stays on the bed, curled in Lance’s jacket that still has faded bloodstains on the sleeve.

❀ Second Ending, Fin. ❀

For those who scrolled down to get that content warning- there’s a school shooting scene at the end of the fic. I’ve not experienced a school shooting or any kind of shooting, but I’m sure it’s absolutely harrowing, so I don’t want anyone who might be sensitive to that content to be hurt. Please be careful!

[squirrel-moose-winchester]

Chapter 11

Title: Falling for the Holidays

Pairing: Dean x Reader AU

Word Count: 1856

Summary: With October ending and the holidays underway, that only meant one thing for Dean Winchester. It meant returning to his childhood home and spending time with his family. It meant listening to his parents, especially his mom, ramble on and on about when he was going to find himself a nice girl, bring her home for the holidays, and then eventually get married and have children.  However, Dean wasn’t ready for that sort of commitment, so in order to get his family off his back, he comes up with an elaborate scheme! But like the saying goes, “sometimes lies become truths.”

Warnings: Angsty-ish, One bad word (I think).

A/N: I said I wasn’t going to take forever to write the next chapter and I feel like it took me twice as long this time. Ugh. I hope you all forgive me. Thank you for being patient and thank you for showing my series some attention and love. It means a lot to me! Happy Reading! Please let me know what you think! I do adore the feedbacks, even if it’s a gif, emoji, or one word. Thanks again! xx

Series Masterlist

Dean watched her disappear through the crowds. Jo was about to chase after you, but Cass stopped her, reminding the petite blonde how you needed space when you were upset. Disturbing you would only make matters worse, unless it was Dean. But that was no longer an option, since the person she was currently furious with was Dean.

Without relaying a word back to his friends, Dean walked off, exiting the cafeteria. Cass, Jo, and Meg, just watched, not knowing what to do.

Sharing similar characteristics as you, Dean needed time to cool off. Usually, you were the designated Dean-Control person, but that wasn’t an option. The two people who needed each other was the two people who couldn’t be around each other. It was all… very complicated. Before you came along, Dean was a pretty private man. Cass was his only constant friend (his best friend.) But when you came along, Jo started to hang out with them, Benny and Garth came around often, and there were other’s who would stop Dean to say hello through the halls or in the library. Dean was an introvert at best.

“Fuck. This is gonna be some mess, isn’t it?” Jo asked aloud.

“Unfortunately,” Cass sighed, not wanting to think about the repercussions of the feud.

Dean went through the rest of his classes like a zombie, listening to what his professors were saying but not fully grasping it. He just jotted down notes he thought might be important, but didn’t bother to absorb the information like he usually did.

You on the other hand, used your fury to type down word for word everything your professor spoke, even his terrible jokes. You had no idea what he was saying, but your fingers had no time to rest. You needed to focus your pent up energy on something otherwise you’d lose it.

When classes were over, Dean dragged his way to his truck, sitting there for a while, wondering if you were going show up. Dean sat up straight when he saw you walking down the campus, but instantly slumped back into his seat when he noticed a black sports car pull up in front of you. The driver’s side window was open and Dean’s fists clenched around the steering wheel when he noticed who it was.

“Ketch,” he growled, intensely staring.

When his eyes averted back to you, both your eyes suddenly met. You were a little shocked and so was Dean, but you could see the pain in his expression even from yards away. Brushing the feelings away, you hopped into the car.

“Hello, beautiful. How was your classes?” Ketch asked.

“It was boring as usual,” you told him, glancing back in time to see Dean race out of the parking lot.

You felt a little guilty because you knew your words had hurt, but so did his. But you knew Dean better than that and you knew he didn’t mean what he said, but still… he didn’t deserve your understanding. He stepped over the line and now he had to pay the consequences however, the look he gave you when you said you never wanted to see or talk to him again made your stomach sink. Regret washed all over him and you knew then that he was sorry, but you couldn’t bring yourself to face him head on, at least not in a room full of people. You couldn’t let them see you cry.

“Everything alright? You seem a little distracted,” Ketch brought you out of your thoughts.

“Uh, yeah,” you sent him a weak smile, “just a rough day.”

“Oh. Well, if you want to go home, I can drop you off. I don’t mind a raincheck. You don’t have to go out with me if you’re not up for it.”

“No, it’s fine. A distraction from my distraction could be just what I need. I’m glad you called, I really am,” you assured him.

“Okay, great. Are you hungry?” You could tell he was trying to change the subject and lighten up the mood, much to your relief.

“Starved,” was you reply.

Ketch brought you to a quaint little restaurant. It was practically a hole in the wall. You’ve been there once with Dean, but neither of you liked what was served on the menu, claiming it was “too healthy,” but you didn’t want to offend Ketch, so you went along with it.

“Have you ever eaten here before?” He asked, as the he lead you to a table next to the window.

“I’ve been here once, when it first opened. Dean and I came here to try it out,” you explained.

“Dean? Was he an old boyfriend?” Ketch wondered.

“O-oh. Um, Dean is my…” you didn’t even have to finish the sentence. Ketch was more than capable to put two and two together.

“Oh. Your best friend. The one you told me about. I see. So his name is Dean.”

“Yeah. I mean… we’re friends and I figured I could trust you.” You looked at him with hesitant eyes, reluctant to believe that maybe it was a bad idea.

“Yes. Of course. You can trust me. I’m not here to judge anyone,” Ketch replied. A sense of relief washed over you. There weren’t many people you opened up to, so knowing Ketch was someone you could trust made everything a lot lighter.

“Thank you, Ketch. It makes me so relieved to know I can count on you.”

“Always,” he smiled with soft brown eyes showing his sincerity.

Dean raced back to his apartment, coming to a slow stop when he finally cooled down. He cursed himself for being an idiot, assuming that you had called Ketch to pick you up instead of catching a ride with him, but he couldn’t blame you. He had ditched you that morning and during lunch he insulted you. Everything was his fault. Karma was a bitch.

“Dammit!” Dean shouted in his truck, banging on the steering wheel, his chest heaving with frustration.

A knock on his window made him jump, distracting him from his current thoughts. “Dean?”

“L-Lisa?” He stared at her with confusion. “What—” Dean opened the door, stepping out of his truck when he realized it that she wouldn’t be able to hear him clearly. “What are you doing here?” He questioned, his eyes catching Ben in the car parked a few spaces behind her.

“We wanted to come see you,” she admitted.

“Doesn’t Ben have school or something?”

“Oh! Yes he does, but he’s in preschool, so he’ll be fine,” Lisa explained.

“Oh. I see.” Dean didn’t say it out loud, but he thought that it was a little extreme that she’d take Ben out of school just to visit him, especially since he’d be back home for Christmas in a at the end of the instruction week.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking. Why, right?” When Dean didn’t reply, she took that as her cue to speak again. “Can we just go inside and talk about it? Ben and I are freezing.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. Let’s go—”

“Mom! I’m hungry!” Ben screamed, his voice muffled by the car window.

“Looks like the kid has spoken. Why don’t you both hope into the truck and we go get something to eat?” Dean suggested.

“That sounds amazing,” Lisa smiled, skipping over to Ben.

With everyone in the truck, Ben sandwiched between his mom and Dean, they sped off into the center of town. School had just ended, so the traffic was pretty heavy. “Oh. c’mon. I hate the afterschool rush,” Dean grumbled.

You were about to take a bite out of your salad when you happened to look out the window. It was hard to miss the red Ford truck passing through with not only Dean in the hunk of metal, but Ben and Lisa as well.

A loud clank echoed through the restaurant as your fork crashed onto the ceramic plate.

“Y/N? Everything alright?” Ketch, along with everyone else in the restaurant, stared at you with concern, a few patrons glaring at you with irritation. “Y/N.” Only when Ketch placed his hand over yours did you snap back to reality.

“What? Uh… sorry. I – I thought I saw something,” you faked a chuckle.

“What was it?” Ketch asked, turning around to take a glimpse out the window behind him.

“It… it was nothing. Sorry. I guess my mind was playing tricks on me. I must be really hungry,” you joked.

The rest of the evening, you were a little – or a lot – out if. Ketch had to steer you around many times, and had to yank you back from walking into traffic.

“Y/N, what in god’s name is going on in that head of yours?” He snapped, grabbing you by the arms and looking you into the eyes. You could tell that he was worried, so you weren’t offended by his scolding.

“Sorry. I think I’m just a little tired. It was a long weekend and a rough day at school.”

“Hey. It’s okay. How about I just take you home, hm?” You nodded your head in a response, allowing him to take your hand and lead the way back to his car.

Rounding a corner, you and Ketch came to an abrupt stop, almost running into a group of people.

“Oh, pardon u—” Ketch didn’t finish, flinching. “Li—B—umm, Dennis?” Ketch stammered.

“Dea-Dennis?” Your attention drew to Ketch. Who the hell was Dennis? You had heard that name before… Quickly averting your attention back to the group in your path, you stared at them. “Dean? Lisa?”

“Y/N?” Lisa seemed to be surprised as well. There was a flicker in her eyes when they barely landed on Ketch that had you thinking, perhaps, they new each other. “U-um, hi,” Lisa was able to pull her self back together quickly, a big smile adorning her lips. “Who’s your friend?”

“Uh, Lisa, Dean, Ben, this is Ketch,” you introduced.

“Dean? I think we’ve met. Didn’t you say your name was Dennis?” Ketch announced, his head tilting a tad.

“Wait, you two have met before?” Lisa chimed in.

“Lisa, do you know Ketch?” You added to the conversation, directing your question at the brunette.

“Funny story…” Dean chuckled, scratching the back of his neck, as he figured out a plausible explanation.

Everything was in disarray and everyone was talking all at the same time, holding multiple conversations that quickly started to make no sense. When you finally took control and stopped the madness, you all noticed that Ben was missing.

“Where’s Ben?” Lisa asked, snapping her head side to side in search for her four-year old son. “Ben?!”

Panic shot threw all of you. “It’ll be easier with we split up,” Dean advised, looking over at you, standing directly in front of him.

“Agreed,” Ketch responded.  

It took less than a second for you and Dean to pull your eyes away from each other when you noticed that Ketch and Lisa were gone. It was a little weird, but it wasn’t the time to think about that. The priority was Ben.

Say Something Nice Here!

Falling for the Holidays Tags: @hannahindie @pinknerdpanda @winchesterprincessbride@amanda-teaches @dancingalone21 @a-winchester-fairytale @dolphincliffs @oneshoeshort @brewsthespirit-blog @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @atc74 @natasha-baggins@heavymetalhauswife @linki-locks11 @spnwoman @veevm @chameleah86 @kdcollinsauthor @claitynroberts @roonyxx@rainflowermoon @ladylaylo @closetspngirl @mirandaaustin93 @salt-n-burn-em-all @flamencodiva @fangirlanotherjust @tabbyjane@shamelesslydean @couldabeenamermaid @alexwinchester23 @algud @gracefultrenchcoat494 @prettyinplaid94 @shhhs3cret @cookiechipdough @justkending

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Happy Holidays @zenzenzence !! I was your Secret Santa for @voltronsecretsanta2k18 ! I hope you’ll like this <3

Rating: G

Summary: After the War is over, everyone has moved on with their life, found a job helping the Universe maintain its newfound peace. Pidge works as a scientist on Earth with her family and loves her job more than anything, but there is just one little thing missing.

Tags: Friends to Lovers, Post-canon, Canon Divergence, Spoiler Free, No Warnings Apply.

The cafeteria was almost empty. It was late at night but Pidge had lost the notion of time experimenting with some new crystals the Alteans had brought during their last visit to Earth. She sighed, moving the spoon aimlessly in the now cold bowl of soup. Things were simpler now that the War was over, they weren’t threatened by some new Galra at any given moment, they weren’t constantly fighting or running, but they were also lonelier. Everyone was doing their best to make sure peace was maintained everywhere. Allura, Romelle and Coran traveled around the Galaxies offering their help when needed, sometimes joined by Krolia and her Blades. Hunk had moved to Balmera, to work as an ambassador and be with his girlfriend Shay. He visited quite often but it was not the same. As for Keith, Lance and Shiro, they were living the dream of their life, working as pilots for the now intergalactic Galaxy Garrison. Which left her on Earth with her family. She was a scientist, and she loved her job more than anything, but sometimes, just sometimes, she thought back to when it was just the seven of them in the Castle of Lions, running away from Zarkon, discovering new alien civilizations and technologies. It was scary, true, but there were also the laughs, the friendships, the bond that only sharing such an intense experience can create.

“See? We are safely back! Told you that bringing an alien with us was the best way to be sure not to be abducted,” a loud boisterous voice interrupted her musings.

“Ugh, you made this joke at least two hundred times in the past months. Shiro, please, end my misery and kill me, or take him away from me. I don’t want to see him for at least one year now!” Another voice replied.

Shiro. The name made a spark of something light and warm crackle in her chest. She turned and saw the three pilots walking slowly along the corridor, still in their armors, with tired expressions, ruffled hair and their helmets in their hands.

“Keithy boy, you wound me. I thought we were pals! Buddies?” The first voice replied.

Lance.

They were back.

She didn’t realize she was running towards the door, until she collapsed face first into the glass it was made of with a thump.

“Pidge? Oh my god, is that you?” Lance said peeking from the other side. “You are taller!”

“Seriously, Lance? You haven’t seen her in ages and the thing you go with is ‘you are taller’?” Keith teased and moved to open the door to help her. When she confirmed she was okay, her attention returned to the three of them.

“Hey!” She said awkwardly, trying to tame the embarrassment of her entrance. “How are you guys? How was the mission?”

“We are fine, thank you Pidge, it’s good to see you!” Shiro replied, opening his arms for a hug. She happily went and let the contact linger before turning to offer the same greeting to the others. She had just been thinking about how much she had missed them.

“Now I’d better go and separate these two before they give me another headache with their bickering,” Shiro continued. “Seriously, how could I think it was a good idea to choose them for the same team.”

Pidge chuckled. “Don’t even try that, Shiro, I know you love them.”

“Yeah, I really do…” Shiro said, squeezing both Keith and Lance with his arms as they squeaked. “But after eight long months alone with them, I need a vacation. Or ten. Keith, let’s go, come on. Say hi.”

“And don’t forget our date tomorrow, Keithy,” Lance called with a wink as the two began to walk away, waving at them.

Keith groaned but nodded and gave him a thumbs up before turning away.

“You two are exactly the same,” Pidge commented, shaking her head.

Lance smiled fondly. “You don’t change a winning team. And he is a very good friend, I know he doesn’t mean it when he says that he wants to kill me... Probably.” He shrugged. “By the way, what are you doing here? My sense of time might be a bit fuzzy right now but isn’t it a bit late to be at work?

“I got caught up finishing an experiment, I was just eating something at the cafeteria before I go home.” Then, more hushed, she added. “But I’m glad I got to see you.”

She blushed, looking away and hoping he didn’t hear.

“CAFETERIA! What a magic word!” He raised his hands, eyes so wide and shining he looked right out of a comic book. “Oh yes, please, Earth food!”

With a relieved breath, Pidge laughed at his antics. “Don’t you want to have a shower? Or go home?”

“Yes but, REAL FOOD,” Lance replied.

“Ok, fine, come, you can use my card.”

“You are a real angel, Pidge.”

“Yes, yes, whatever.”

They went back to Pidge’s table and Lance jumped from one foot to the other, looking at the admittedly not so small selection the place offered, the Garrison had an amazing cafeteria when compared to other workplaces. Pidge couldn’t help but smile to herself despite knowing she would regret giving him free access to her meal card as she threw away the forgotten soup and waited for him to order.

He came back carrying three full trays of food. Pasta, sandwiches, salad, fries and at least three different cakes. Pidge gave him a pointed look, raising an eyebrow to which he retorted, almost looking offended, “Eight months, Pidge. Don’t you remember how awful the food goo was?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

He rubbed his hands and began to stuff his mouth with the content of the first tray, asking between mouthfuls if Pidge wanted to taste anything.

At first, she refused, too amused by the content expression he was wearing while savoring each dish, then she remembered she was technically paying for all of that and joined in.

“So, anything interesting happened while I was away?” Lance asked, laying back on his chair and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, signaling he wasn’t asking about work or politics.

Pidge huffed. “Not really… I mean, Hunk will probably ask Shay to marry him before the end of the year but it was kind of expected… Other than that, I don’t really know much about the others. The last time Allura visited, it was only to ask us to run some tests on these crystals they found.”

She looked away, trying not to flinch at the mention of Allura’s name. It was probably the one he was most interested in hearing but it never stopped stinging a bit.

“Oh, yeah, we met them at a Marmoran base a couple of quintants ago, Coran was so excited about those.” He leaned on his hand over the table to meet her eyes. “What about you?”

“Me? Well, there’s not much to say, I’m a workaholic, I don’t really have time to go out.”

“And you tell me that I haven’t changed a bit,” Lance shook his head with a small smile on his lips. “Well then, to pay you back for this dinner, I will take you out before I leave for my next mission. You need to take breaks sometimes, it’s important for your skin. And your health in general, of course.”

“Hm… Okay?” She replied, not completely sure this was a good idea. But she knew how stubborn Lance was and there was no way she could avoid something he had set his mind to.

“Good!” He commented, louder than was necessary in the little space between them, he was probably starting to feel the exhaustion for the mission. “I am busy tomorrow but we can go the day after? I know just the perfect place!”

“Oh, right. Your date with Keith… Is there something I don’t know? Did you finally stop running after Allura like a smitten puppy?” She said with a smirk.

“What?? I haven’t been hitting on Allura since… Come on, that was just plain rude. But for your information, no there’s nothing you don’t know, my ‘date’” - he accentuated the word making air quotes with his fingers - “is just a little tradition we have, meet for dinner the day after the mission to talk about what went wrong and what we can improve. It’s for team building, and because our view on things is basically the opposite, so we can compensate one another, like pieces of an engine.”

“Wow that’s… Incredibly mature of you,” Pidge commented before she could think about what she was implying with her surprised tone. “Sorry, I… Didn’t mean it like that.”

Lance just shrugged. “No, it’s okay. I get it. But we have all come a long way since we were four lost kids and a Shiro thrown out into Space, right?”

“Yeah, we have.”

She was lost in her thoughts for a quiet moment, the wave of nostalgia hitting her for the second time that night, until she spotted something over Lance’s last tray that brought her back to the present, especially because she was completely sure it wasn’t in the cafeteria’s selection.

“Are those peanut butter cookies??”

Lance’s eyes widened as he scratched the back of his neck. “Hm… Yeah… They were in the menu and…”

“No, they were not! I would know, I come here every day.”

“You’re right. You are always too smart to me,” he said with an odd tone Pidge couldn’t quite decipher. “I found them at a Space Mall, you can have them, if you want.”

“Thank you!” She grabbed the packet and took one of the biscuits, smiling gratefully. “They are so good!”

“I’m glad you like them,” he smiled. “I’d better go now, thank you for keeping me company and for, you know,” he motioned for the now empty trays.

“Anytime. That’s what friends are for, stealing food from them while remembering the good old times,” she laughed, munching on another cookie.

“Yeah… Good night, Pidgey.”

***

***

Pidge, most definitely, didn’t spend the entire day trying to decide what to wear for her evening with Lance. They were just friends and her appearance didn’t matter, especially considering he had known her since she was pretending to be a Garrison student, dressed as a boy with messed and awfully-cut hair and Matt’s glasses. There was no way he would make a fuss about it now. Still, she didn’t remember another time in which the two of them had gone out alone together on purpose. That was the only reason why she was a little on edge, it would have been the same with Keith, or Romelle.

It was also true that, especially after the Meme Kingdom incident - meaning, that one time just after the end of the War when Matt and Lance accidentally discovered their mutual passion for vines and everything related and fell platonically in love with one another - they had gotten incredibly closer, more than she was with the others, except for Matt and Hunk, of course. So she had absolutely no reason to be nervous.

Taking a deep breath, she looked at her reflection in the mirror for the hundredth time. Her hair was still short but the cut was a lot more defined than it used to and her glasses were now the correct size. She was wearing light jeans and a nice green shirt with leaves embroidered around the neck. It was warm outside, so she only carried a light white jacket over her shoulders for good measure. Nothing too fancy but not too sloppy either.

When the bell rang, she petted her dog, checking everything was in order one last time before going out.

“Hey!” Lance greeted with a warm smile.

“Hi.”

“So, I wanted to borrow my mother’s car? Because it would have been more comfortable and all but… She said she didn’t trust me with it. I am one of Earth’s best pilots, my job is quite literally to drive things, yet she didn’t trust me with her car.” He complained, sounding like he still didn’t believe it. “Anyway, since I couldn’t take the car, I had to come up with something last minute and” - he moved to the side, revealing the hoverbike parked behind him - “I borrowed this. My friend assured me it’s perfectly safe.”

“By ‘your friend’ you mean Keith? Because I’m not sure I would trust him when it comes to safety.”

Lance ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, we can walk and go somewhere else, it’s just… I really wanted to show you this place and I didn’t know where to find another car in such a short time.” He looked so unsure, Pidge almost regretted complaining.

“It’s okay, I trust you to be careful and not kill me. We both know Matt would never forgive you if you do,” she smirked, making him chuckle.

“True, he would probably skin me alive or something. But thank you for your trust. Let’s go?”

Pidge nodded, following him to the bike and sitting with her hands securely to his side. ��Ready whenever you are.”

Lance threaded his way among the traffic, driving smoothly and with ease and soon they reached their destination. When he stopped, Pidge jumped down with a big grin plastered on her face from the adrenaline of the speed, which only grew bigger when she took notice of the place they were in front of.

“What is this?” She asked in awe.

Lance put their helmets back in the small trunk of the bike and returned her smile. “It’s new. It opened just before I left for the mission so I couldn’t tell you before but I was sure you would like it.”

“Yes, I love it! Let’s go, I want to see the rest. Let me buy you a drink.”

“Okay, sure,” Lance chuckled as she sprinted towards the door. There was a sign above it, reading The Steampunk Coffee, lit in a green light and surrounded by pieces of engines, wheels and cogs that swirled when she opened.

“This is so amazing,” she could feel her cheeks warm and her eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Wait until you see the tables!” Lance yelled.

And he was right. They sat at a corner and ordered two very colorful drinks with names like Geoffrey Bernard, or Joshua Gideon, or whatever, she could barely read, rapt as she was. The table was a large glass plate with all different kinds of tools glued to the bottom, from writing utensils, to watches, to lamps, to a mechanical keyboard.

“I’m glad you like it,” Lance smiled, and in the dim light of the shop, it looked so soft Pidge’s heart skipped a beat. She had known she had feelings for him for a very long time already, from when they still where the Paladins of Voltron running around the Universe, and she had come to accept it and mastered the art of hide and ignore to almost perfection.

Key-word being almost.

She sipped idly at her drink trying to search her brain for anything to start a conversation with and coming up empty-handed.

“So, what are you working on, right now? Except for the crystal?” The voice reached her like it was coming from under-water but the words felt like a lifeline. Work, that was something she could talk about for ages. Safe, easy, harmless.

So she did. Delved into all the details of her new project and asked him about the mission, how it was going with the team, which new planets they had visited. A known territory. Something they had shared for many years and they were both still passionate about. From there, the conversation flew to the most disparate topics without a hitch. Smooth, comfortable, interesting. She didn’t notice how fast the time was passing until the bartender signaled they were about to close.

When she said goodbye and closed the door to her home, Pidge slumped down on the floor, her traitorous brain working a mile a minute with different scenarios, all equally unattainable. It made her unable to focus, or find the will to walk to her bedroom and try to sleep. That night, everything had been perfect but nothing had changed, they were still friends, Lance still didn’t return her feelings and come the following day, she would have to fall back on her usual routine of hide, ignore, accept.

***

***

***

***

Logically, Pidge knew she was acting childishly. Avoid talking to Lance wasn’t a solution she could use in the long term. Not only because it was weird for their friends but because she didn’t want to lose him. She just needed more time, to forget how warm and happy she had felt after their ‘date’, stop her heart from fluttering in her chest just at the thought of him.

Maybe their new mission was the perfect opportunity. He would be away for weeks, or months, and she would get to see Hunk, the only person who knew about the whole… thing. So that when they would come back, she could act normally around him again.

She walked to the hangar without really thinking, letting her feet carry her along the familiar path. She had said goodbye to her father and brother there all those years ago and, after the War, she had said goodbye to so many people, so many times from that same place. She thought about what Keith said, about going with them. It was true the Garrison treated the five of them differently, considering the part they had played in saving the Universe, so they would probably agree, but she had a job to do. She wouldn’t let missing her friends or anything else get in the way of that. The experiments they were running on Earth were just as important as any space mission and even if they were gradually teaching other people to deal with Altean technology and crystals, everyone still relied on her father and her when it came to important decisions or risky operations.

So she wished good luck, promised to give Hunk a hug for them all and asked to call when they could. Then, she left them to finish their packing and went back to the cafeteria. It almost felt like a deja-vu. She sat at the table she had shared with Lance the previous week, her finger grazing the smooth surface and a small smile playing on her lips.

It was going to be okay.

“Don’t you think there is something missing?”

Pidge froze, recognizing the voice.

“What are you doing here?” She asked and slowly raised her head in time to see Lance scratch the back of his neck with his hand, looking sheepish.

“I kinda wanted to see Hunk? And between Keith and Matt and… You know, I didn’t get to spend much time with my family? Plus, I’ve never asked for a vacation since the end of the War and… Shiro said this mission is easy so they won’t probably need me.”

Pidge raised a suspicious eyebrow. “You hate it when you feel like Shiro and Keith treat you as the third wheel in the team, what are you hiding?”

“I… Ugh, fine. I hated leaving things hanging between us like that. I know we are just friends and everything, but I thought… Did I do something wrong? Didn’t you enjoy yourself at the Steampunk Coffee? Because I don’t even know how I got the courage to ask you out that day? It was the atmosphere, you were buying me food and we were laughing so I just… Didn’t think much and did it? But then at Matt’s you wouldn’t even look at me and I just” - he shut his mouth abruptly and shook his head - “Sorry, this is probably stupid. I must have read the situation completely wrong. I’ll go home now. I’m really sorry, it must have been wishful thinking, I’m so stupid.”

He turned, starting to walk away before Pidge could even blink. She was struggling quite a lot to process everything he had just said but there wasn’t time for that now.

“Please, stop!” She called and before she could second-guess herself, she took his hand in her own. “You didn’t do anything wrong, it was perfect. I was the one who didn’t want to be delusional.” She looked intently at her shoes to avoid eye-contact.

“Delusional? Why would you be-”, he stopped, probably as realization hit him. Pidge dared a side glance to see his expression and the way he was beaming was blinding.

“Yeah,” she confirmed, just to be sure.

His grip on her hand tightened. “Really? You like me too? What, how, when… Why?”

He looked so insecure but hopeful, she couldn’t help her mind from conjuring the word adorable. She laughed, taking a step closer. “Since forever, I think. How can I not?”

“We are such disasters. I thought you liked Keith! He told me it wasn’t true but...”

“And I thought you liked Allura!” She retorted, before the meaning of his words really registered. “Wait, Keith? Why Keith?”

“You go on for hours talking about your cryptids and you even planned to go on a trip together once!”

“Yes, because we are very good friends and you all don’t like talking about that stuff so we leave you out of it. Unlike you and Matt,” she added the last part a bit sarcastically, offering a playful smirk.

Lance chuckled. “Yeah, you are right.” He tapped his finger lightly over the back of her hand, his smile becoming tentative and shy. “So... Would you like to go on a proper date with me?”

She took another step, pressing her head to his chest. “How is that even a question,” she said into his shirt and when he laughed in response, the sound reverberated through his chest, sounding so free, unhindered, it made her feel impulsive for the second time that day, and probably even in her life. She looked up at him with all the affection she had never let her eyes show, years of longing, hoping, hiding.

“Yes, me too,” he whispered, before brushing his lips first over her forehead then her nose.

And there’s that saying that things come in threes, right? So it was no wonder that Pidge’s brain decided to shut down once again that day, letting her make another impulsive decision as she shifted her weight to the tips of her toes. Lance’s eyes widened considerably when he realized what she was about to do but he made no move to stop it. If anything, he pressed closer.

The taste, the warmth of his skin and his scent enveloped her and, in that moment, she knew that even if she had had to wait for ten, or even twenty years more, it would have still been worth it.

[tenaciousarcadeexpert]

Criminal Minds- The Good Ol’ Days

Tagging: @marvelfanlife​​​, @itsmeedee​​​, @cynbx​​​, @jaqren​​​, @gabriellewritermua​​​, @princesswagger15​​​, @screaminginbi​​​, @tleighstone12​​​, @cosmicmelaninflower​​​

After a mini hiatus, your girl is back with a new chapter of The Good Ol Days. Thanks to @princesswagger15​ ​for helping out and looking after the fic while I’m out. Enjoy the new chapter.

Chapter 8-Clueless

    As Hotch wakes up the next morning, he groans as he sits up to hear Matt shuffling around like he was looking for something.

“Hey Matt.” Hotch says as he gets out of his bed, looking for clothes for the day.

“Oh hey man, how’d you sleep?” Matt asked as he continued looking for whatever he was missing.

“Uhh, pretty good i guess. Um Matt, what are you looking for?” Hotch said walking over to his closet to get his towel.

“Oh i’m looking for the novel i had to read for English. Do you see it on your table maybe?”

“Uhhhh, is it this it?” Hotch holds up a book titled The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

“Oh goodness you are a lifesaver man. Thanks!” Matt said as he shoved the book in his backpack.

“No problem. I’ll see you later!”

“Cool, see ya!”

As Hotch walked out his dorm, he walked down the hallway to see Derek who was just leaving his dorm to head to the cafeteria, Hotch jogged up to to Derek to catch up with him.

“Hey Derek, what’s going on?”

“Oh hey man, nothing much. I was just heading to the cafeteria to get a coffee since my class doesn’t start for another hour and a half.”

“Mind if I accompany you? I might just grab a muffin before my next class.” “Sure.”

 The two men walked into the cafeteria, where Derek makes himself a cup of coffee while Hotch looks for a nice place to sit. He took out his notebook from his bag and turned through pages while Derek returns and hands him a cup of coffee.

“Thanks.” “Don’t mention it.” He sat across as he looks down at the piles of papers and a large textbook surrounding his friend’s work area as he continues to write on his notebook.

“Damn Hotch.”

“What?”

Derek makes a wave gesture with both of his hands, pointing out the large piles of paper surrounding his friend.

“I mean damn Hotch. Don’t you get tired sometimes?”

Hotch paused for a moment, thinking about the question. He stared deeply onto his notes before looking back at Derek and shrugging his shoulders. “Sometimes, I do. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know………..from the looks of it, you’re so stressed out all the time, you barely smile, we literally had to beg you to come to a party just to let lose for the night.”

“I uh, guess I had a lot on my plate. I never really thought about like that.”

“Well, is there something you want to share?”

“I don’t know man, i don’t think you’d believe me.”

“Really?” Derek raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”

“Well, when we got back from Rossi’s cabin, i felt like, i don’t know, we’re missing something.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, maybe someone on the team is hiding something from the rest of us. I don’t know, i just have this really weird feeling you know?”

“Hiding something?” Derek looked at Hotch in aghast. “What makes you think that any one of us could be keeping a secret?”

“Like i said, i have this gut feeling. I just think that something is wrong.”

“Hmmm. Suppose that you’re right, and that one of us is hiding something, who do you think it could be?”

“I don’t know, but i get weird vibes from Ashley.”

“Why her? She seems pretty…...well.”

“She’s just so……..quiet. Like i know people who are quiet, but she’s suspiciously quiet.”

“I think it’s a bit too soon to point fingers at anyone, especially Ashley.”

“Yeah, i guess you’re right. I still have that feeling though.”

“Maybe you’re just a little shaken up about the new info we got on our professor.” Derek picked up and took a sip of his cup of coffee. “I know I was.”

‘Yeah, but i don’t think he did anything bad.”

“Never said that he was bad.”

“I know, but nothing seems to be off about him. Only thing i can piece from him is that, he’s just mysterious as hell.”

“Yeah, he really is.”

                                  -------------------------------------------------

“Okay, I’ll see you guys later.” JJ waved as she exits out of the classroom and into the main hallways, heading towards the library when she overhears Meadows as she chats with her fellow peers.

“I don’t know how you put up with her! I mean, don’t you think she’s a bit weird?”

“Who, Garcia?” The mention of Garcia’s name prompted JJ to walk over as she overhears their conversation.

“Yeah, why hang out with her? What’s so special about her?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing is special about her. Other than the fact she dresses like some rainbow threw up in her closet. I think that girl needs professional help.”

“She sure as hell does.” Meadows and her friends laugh as they continue to tease about Garcia. “I wonder if she’ll get a hunky hunk.”

“Haha! Hell no! If any man has any common sense, he’ll never waste his time with someone like that!”

“What about that Luke Alvez guy? I could by the way that he looked at her that he seemed interested in her. I even heard that she slept in his dorm the night after the party.”

“Probably felt bad for her, but he should’ve left her on the streets where she belongs.”

“Well if you hate her so much, why spend time with her?”

“Because, as dumb as she is, I need her.”

“For?” One of her friends raise an eyebrow.

“So I can get closer to her other friends.” “Her other friends? What about them?”

“It’s a very complicated situation that you all wouldn’t understand.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh I see, it’s cause she’s friends with that Simmons dude.”

“Partly, yes. But much more is at play here.”

“Well what is it?” Both of Meadows’s friends grab a hold of her hands as they beg her into telling more. “Please Mary, please tell us.”

“Sadly, I can’t say. Just know it’s something big.”

Both ladies sigh to their dismay. “Fine. Just how long are you gonna play nice to sweet little Penelope?”

“Don’t worry, she will soon be trash.”

“Poor little Penelope.” The girls all laughed. “To think that she wants to befriend us? Man, I feel so sorry for her.”

“Like hell I’d actually want to be friends with her. She’s a complete skank, I feel sorry for the people who gave birth to her.” The two continue to laugh, only to feel someone grabbing her arm as she turns around to see JJ staring daggers at her.

“I can’t believe you, you little bitch!”

“Excuse me?”

“I overheard your little conversation and all I can say is how dare you, insulting Garcia like that.”

“Oh please, don’t act like you’ve never wanted to say it! You’ve just been too much of a coward to say it!”

“A coward? Garcia is a good, good person, and unlike you, I don’t talk shit about people that have been nothing but kind behind their backs. So which one of us is the coward here?”

“She’s a goddamn skank, you little coward. It’s not like you’ll ever do anything about it!”

“You know what, you’re not even worth the breath. All i have to say to you is you better stay the hell away from Garcia, and me if you want to keep that ‘pretty’ little face of yours in tact.” “Oooo.” Meadows cooed as she and her friends snicker. “Oh Jennifer, I’d like to see you try.”

“Oh honey, I won’t try, i will.” JJ said as she stormed off. She heard Meadows and her friends laugh as she leaves but was too angry to bother fighting her. Still, the thought that Meadows, someone who spoils a sweet friend like Garcia, was a backstabbing pain. She knew she’d have to tell Garcia, but she just didn’t know if she could actually do it. She watched as Garcia walks up to Meadows, hugging her and sighs. If only she knew.

                    --------------------------------------------------------------------

 Somewhere at the boys locker, where no one was around lay a couple making out behind the lockers.

“How much time do you have?” Matt muttered as he kisses Kristy. “About six minutes.” “Damn, not enough time.” The two continue to make out.

“Maybe we can continue this later?” She murmured. “I can’t be late for class.”

“What if…..we’re both late for class?” He continues to nip down on her neck. “Hmm.” She moaned. “Tempting, but no can do. My professor is a bit of a dick. ”

“Hmmm, what a shame. But maybe we can finish this later?”

She nods. “Absolutely.” A few minutes later, Matt and Kristy hastily redress as they quickly exit the boys locker room without anyone noticing. “You mind if I at least escort you to your class?” “Of course.” The two kiss and were about to walk to Kristy’s next class when they were suddenly stopped by Barnes.

“Mrs. Barnes.” Matt stammered.

“Mr. Simmons.”

Matt then turned to Kristy as she slightly nodded. “I guess I’ll uh…...see you later then.” “Okay, see you.” She smiled back at him before walking away, avoiding eye contact with Barnes. Barnes then looked back at the young man. “Is she your………” “Yes.” “I see.” “W-what can I do for you, ma’am?”

“You mind if we stop by at my office?” He felt his heartbeat rising and his palms sweating. “Am I in-” “No mr, you’re not in trouble. I just have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.” “Uh I-” “Don’t worry, this won’t be long, I promise.” “Oh okay.” He reluctantly nods as he and Barnes walk to her office together.

                  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

A few minutes later, Derek had just left his class, high fiving several people passing by after receiving a A- on an exam. Just as he continues walking, he stopped and noticed a familiar face exiting out from Barnes’s office. Curious, he peeked beside a corner as he looks out from a distance. “What the-” He squinted his eyes, trying to get a better look, only to widen them as he recognized the young, tall brunette man standing besides Barnes. “Matt?”

 “Derek? What’s going on bro?”

“Jesus Luke, I didn’t see you there.”

“Haha, I’m like a ninja. But whatcha doin’?”

“Just looking over……….there?” Luke looked over at Derek’s direction, where he sees Matt standing outside as Barnes exits her office.

“Is that?”

“Yep.”

“What do you think they’re talking about?” The two guys continue to lean over as they try to get a better view of Matt and Barnes talking.

“Well based on our last conversation with the Bitch, I would assume he was just expelled, but I would think he’d look sadder. Maybe even crying.”

“I don’t see any tears, nor sadness.”

“Same here, but he does look hella uncomfortable.” Just then, they see Barnes pat their friend on the shoulder before the two part ways.

“Did she ju-”

“Oh FuCK nO!” They huddle to the side as Matt walks past them, unaware that they were watching him.

“Do you think we should tell the group or give him a chance to tell us himself?” Derek asked.

“I’d say we let him tell us what’s going on. I mean, we don’t know what they were talking about. And you?”

“I mean i guess we can give him a chance, but if he doesn’t tell, i'll do it myself.” Luke then notice Derek’s palms shaking as they form into fists.

“You seem like you’re doubting him.”

“Well i mean we did just see Bitch Barnes pat him on the back. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“A little, but we don’t know what’s really going on. We can’t make any rash assumptions about it, not yet.”

“Okay, whatever you say.”

“Okay.” The two were silent before Luke pats him on the back. “Anyway……………..wanna get something to eat?”

“Yeah, i’m starving.”

                        ===============================

Elsewhere, Courtney was all by herself in the art studio, when she hears a set of footsteps approach her. “Who’s there?”

“The Boogyman!”

“Uh…..” Just then, she sees Garcia in a red dress with hearts on it approach her. “Oh, it’s just you Garcia.”

“Haha who else would it be?” She then attempts to hug her roommate only for her to take a step back. “Aw, what’s wrong sweetie, don’t like hugs?” “No, I do. I’m just covered in paint.” Courtney they shows her her arms covered in paint. “I’d hate to mess up your dress.”

“Oh please, I’m always a coloring board anyways!”

“I-uh!” She gasped as Garcia hugs her. She then looks at her friend’s brightly colored easel. “Ooo, what are you painting?”

“Just a lovely mountainside, we’re supposed to work on landscapes. But I don’t know if this painting is decent enough for me to get an A.”

“Oh Courtney…….” She cupped her cheeks. “I think it looks beautiful, just like you!”

“Oh uh, thank you!” The two hug again as Courtney noticed a small white box on the table that Garcia previously placed. “Garcia, what’s that?”

“Oh that…..” She then lift the box up. “I figured that you might be hungry, so I got you this.” She opened the box, revealing food.

“You got me a burger and fries? And………..cheesecake?”

“Yeah! It’s the least I could do for you!”

“Oh, thank you.”

                                   -------------------------------------

A few hours later, Elle and Kate were walking from a the parking lot to the student union building, which was a long walk away from them. They then decide to take a small shortcut before nighttime falls.

“I saw the way that guy was looking at you back in the store.” Elle said as Kate blushed.

“Who Marcus?” She shook her head. “Not my type.”

“What!? I thought you two would look amazing together!”

She chuckled. “Please…..us? Together?! Come on Elle.”

“Alright, suuureeee.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Whatever, it’s not like I didn’t see you oogling at the guy from the froyo stand.”

“What? Oh hell no! Not him!”

“Okay.” She gives her a wry smile. “ I hope you got his name and number, at least.”

“No i didn't.”

“Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.” She smirked, only for Elle to give her a gentle nudge on the arm. The two laugh as they continue to walk, though along the way, they suddenly notice a dark gray car driving slowly behind them. It didn’t bother them at first, till they notice that the car slowing down to match their speed.

“Uhhhhh Elle?” “Yeah? What’s up?”

“Uhhh I that car behind us has been following us for a while now.”

“Dammit, I know that car.” The two girls gasp as they realize that the car continues to drive behind them.

“Elle, what should we-” “Run, run as fast as you can and don’t stop!” The two girls nod and speedwalk before running as fast as they can when the car starts to speed up.

“It’s not stopping!” Kate shouts. “Don’t look back, just keep running!” They hear the car’s engine speed up until the car is right next to them.

“RUN FASTER KATE!”

“I’M TRYING I DON’T THINK I CAN RUN ANYMORE!” Kate says.

“DON’T SAY THAT CALLAHAN, we’re gonna make it, I promise. We just need to keep running.” Elle grabs Kate’s hand and they run faster. Eventually, they find the back of the student union, where they see a group of students outside skateboarding.

“We’re almost there! We can make it! Almost…..” The two emerge from the pathway as they run past a group students, pushing the doors open as they slam it shut before collapsing to the ground. They then looked back as they see the car stopped and drive away.

“Phew…...that was close.” “Too close.” Elle sigh as they catch their breaths. As they both sat down against the door and recover, the group they ran into outside come in and looking for them.

“Jesus man.” Elle gasped as she was startled by the group’s unexpected appearance.

“What the hell was that for out there?” One of the boys ask.

“ "Ummm we are so sorry, but there was a bit of a complicated situation tonight." Kate awkwardly

“Wait wait, what type of situation? Are you two okay?” One of the girls ask.

“Yea yea, we’re fine. Just had a rough day, that’s all.”

“Wait a second, are your names Elle and Kate?” The same girl asks.

“Uhhhhhhhhh, yea. I’m Elle and this is Kate. What about us?”

“Guys, don’t you remember me?”

“W-wait a minute…..Marissa? Reid’s girl?” Kate snapped her fingers.

“Yeah! What happened? Yall scared the shit out of us!”

“Oh it’s a long story, you would not believe what just happened to us.”

“Okay, well would you guys like to come with us? We were just about to go get some food and go to the river in the forest for a few hours. You can talk about what happened then.”

“Oh yes please, we’d love to join you guys.” “Definitely.” Marissa and her friends then help the two of them get up as they go get something to eat. Elle and Kate were nothing but relieved as they follow them. Let’s just hope that the mysterious car doesn’t bother them again.

                                        -----------------------------------

 Elsewhere, Reid had just left the library after an hour of studying and was on his way back to the dorm when he heard something coming from Rossi’s classroom. As he looks up from one of his books, he sees a tall figure walk out of Rossi’s office.

“Who’s there?” The person didn’t say anything, but ran out as soon as he saw Reid.

“HEY COME BACK!” Reid says as he runs after the person, though he was not a fast runner compared to the guy, he kept chasing throughout the hallway, hoping to outrun him as he wondered why he was in Rossi’s classroom in the first place. Eventually, he’d catch up to him, once he followed him to the girl’s dorm, where he leaped up and tackled him.

“Got you.” He pinned the guy to the ground as he pulled the ski mask off, only to gasp as he saw who it was. “Kyle Hodges?”

“Uhhhh nope, you have mistaken for someone else.”

“What the hell were you doing at Professor Rossi’s office?” Before Kyle could answer, he suddenly shoved Reid up and sprinted, long before Reid could follow him. Several girls, including Tara and Emily exit out from their dorms as they wonder what the fuss was about. Seeing Reid get up from the floor, both Tara and Emily run over to their friend.

“Reid, what the hell just happened?!” Tara screamed.

“K-Kyle, I saw him.” He continues to breath heavily. “I-I saw him at Rossi’s classroom.”

“What! When?!” Emily says walking towards them.

“Like five minutes ago, when I just got back from the library.”

“Well why was he in his classroom?”

“I don’t know, but something feels wrong here okay! I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay i know this will sound crazy but, maybe we can take him to Rossi’s classroom until he gets in tomorrow morning and tell him what happened.” Tara suggest.

“And what if he refused to comply?” Reid asks.

“We’ll make him. We just need to tell the others.” Emily reassured him.

“Okay.” “Now come on, I think you, my friend, should head back to the boys’ dormitory.” “I know, night ladies.” The two girls waved as Reid leaves them, walking back into Emily’s dorm as they close the door.

“So….where were we?” Tara then wrapped her arms around Emily’s waist as the two smile before kissing again. As they make out, an unknown person stops by at the dorm and drops a yellow envelope besides the door.

                                  ----------------------------------------------------

Elsewhere, Garcia was in her dorm working on a project when she suddenly gets an new message. She goes to her email to see the message, only to see that there was nothing but a link and the sender is listed as “anonymous”. Curious, she saw the door close and took a deep breath, clicking the link. Suddenly, the screen turned blank, whom Garcia clicked around, wondering how to see the message.

“What the-” Suddenly the screen turn into static as she squints her eyes to see several words pop out amidst the static.

“BE…….CAREFUL……….WHO……..YOU……….TRUST……..EARS…AND…….EYES……..EVERYWHERE…...ONE……..FALSE…..MOVE…..AND THEY’LL COME AFTER YOU………….ALL OF YOU”

Garcia suddenly gasped as the screen pops up to see photos of herself and the rest of the gang spread out, with their faces marked red. She shudder and whimpered as she continues to read the message.

“THEY…….KNOW…...YOUR…….EVERY…...MOVE…….YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS…..WATCH OUT.” The message suddenly vanished as the screen continues to static before blacking out. A few seconds later, the laptop screen was back to normal, prompting Garcia to shut the laptop closed, disturbed by the message. Who sent her the message? Who was “they” that they should look out for? And what does she and her friends have that the mysterious person wants? So many questions and yet so little answers, though there was something she knew from this puzzling message: She and her friends are being targeted by an unknown assailant.

 *We apologize for the long chapter but there’s just so much stuff that sets up for future chapters. Big stuff are coming your way

[camphalfgalra]

Out of the Woods // Chapter 10 – Piece of My Heart

Pairing: Keith/Pidge Rating: M Chapters:10/? Summary: Keith and Pidge's lunch is interrupted by a familiar face, and shenanigans ensue. Bandor also tries to convince Pidge of certain ideas that she has already been thinking of. Meanwhile, bets are placed all around by the entire hospital staff on what gender Pidge's baby is. Chaos ensues.[x]

(Preview under cut)

“I’m sorry I have to go so soon,” Pidge smiled apologetically at Keith, who was pouting like a child. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I told you that it was going to be rough to actually get through lunch together.”

“You didn’t say it was going to be this rough,” he replied, still pouting.

“That’s what she said,” Ezor murmured, taking a bite of her sandwich.

Hunk promptly choked on his drink, the rest of the table looking at him in concern.

“Are you okay?” Pidge inquired, raising a brow.

“Fine!” Hunk choked out, coughing harshly. “Just...please go check on Bandor, okay? Say hi to him for me before they discharge him.”

“Okay,” she shrugged. Turning around to face Keith, her face brightened up with a warm smile.

“I’ll see you later today, okay?”

“Fine,” he sighed, smiling slightly when she flashed him a peace sign. “Say hi to Bandor for me.”

“Will do!”

Once she was out of the cafeteria, the entire table burst out laughing, startling the other tables around them. Keith, however, was the only one who wasn’t laughing

“That was not funny, Ezor.”

“You’re right,” she sighed before smirking widely, “it was downright hilarious!”

“That was something I did not need to hear,” Hunk mumbled, hiding his face between his hands. “How do you even know this stuff?!”

“Oh grow up,” Zethrid snorted, “You’re a surgeon. I’m sure you’ve heard worse things that what she said.”

“Yeah, but not about Pidge!” Hunk whined. “I mean, why would you even insinuate that that’s what she likes?!”

“If you’re so embarrassed about it, why did you bring it up once again?” Acxa asked, inspecting her drink carefully.

“Because it’s weird! That’s my coworker, man!”

“Your coworker said the most absurd things when we dealt with that patient who used porn as pain management for his headaches and heart attacks,” Acxa replied flatly. “If I can recall correctly, there was a porn video going one and we commented that one of the positions couldn’t have been comfortable. Then she said that it wasn’t.”

“I...You’re joking, right?”

“No, she’s not,” Ezor snorted. “Even Shiro laughed when she said it later.”

“You guys are disgusting,” Keith announced, sinking in his chair. “Talking about her like that. Shut your mouths, you filthy animals.”

“We’re not the ones who actually did it with her,” Ezor reminded him.

“Then don’t talk about it! You have no idea–”

“But you do,” Ezor egged on, her lips curling up into a smirk. “Come on, Keith. What does she like?”

“We are not talking about this,” Keith replied, looking away from the table. “Besides, it’s not like any one of you guys is going to end up with her.”

“I don’t know, man,” Zethrid winced, “I mean, it looks like Acxa and Pidge might have a chance.”

Acxa’s eyes widened. “Hello? No, I would never!”

“She’s too invested in Veronica to have time for her,” Keith said dryly. “Right, Acxa?”

“Yes–wait, no!”

Read the rest on AO3

[kallura-icedcoffee]

poppy: body/role swap

A flower that blooms in the desert

Plance x Kallura Week 2018

A/N: Hi, I’m late to everything :) Also this fic is a continuation of sorts of this drabble. If you don’t want to read it, long story short, Allura needs to work on her quintessence wielding.

Mix & Match: There’s a little bit of you in everything I do

The first time Keith and Allura had swapped quintessence, so to speak, it was more than they had bargained for and they ended up seeing each other’s entire lives through each other’s eyes. It was a lot, it was overwhelming and it should have been a one time thing, but now they couldn’t help themselves. The addiction of feeling each other so intimately was real and they often stole themselves away to engage in this practice of cycling their life force into one another with Allura as the conduit.  

Except this last time.

“It’s MY console!”

“It’s OUR console!”

“You helped get it for me! Me! Not you!

“I crawled into that damn fountain and nearly got arrested by mall police! That baby is as good as mine as it is yours!”

“That was a gift! You don’t try and take a gift you gave to someone else!”

“Ugh, can you guys please settle this?!”

Pidge and Lance had stormed into Allura’s room at the Garrison, completely ignoring the part where Keith and Allura were sitting on her bed, hands held in a meditative state.

“I’m the one who wanted the video game in the first place! It should stay with me!

“But you wouldn’t even have it without me!”

The two paladins continued to squabble over custody rights, and the fighting got louder and louder, and Allura’s eye twitched and her mouth curled into a scowl as parts of herself and parts of Keith were flowing in and out of her body and they wouldn’t shut up about this goddamn game and finally…

She just…

Snapped.

“ENOUGH!” Allura screamed and in the process, a burst of energy rippled from her epicenter and moved outward, knocking Keith back and sending Lance and Pidge into a wall before they slumped over onto the floor.

“What was that?!” Lance blinked as he came to.

“A reminder not to piss Allura off.” Pidge held a hand to her chest trying to catch her breath.

“I’m so sorry, is everyone all right?!” Allura looked over them with concern.

“We’re ok. I think.” Keith’s thoughts felt jumbled and he himself felt disoriented.

They dusted themselves off and nothing seemed immediately out of place so they chalked it up to just a random experience, an “Allura is doing her weird magic stuff again” and went to bed without giving it a second thought.

When Lance woke up the next morning he didn’t think he felt any different. Breakfast went normally and it wasn’t until he spotted Pidge in the hallway that he sensed something was off but couldn’t figure out why.

He had never seen her wear makeup since he’d known her, but here she was dolled up, hair styled and surrounded by a group of young cadets. She was chatting away, laughing, being playful.

“Scott was it?” She smiled while autographing a slip of paper before sticking a lipstick kiss on it.

Lance’s brow arched.

“I can’t believe we know THE green paladin of Voltron! Can we get a selfie?” The boy asked and the others nodded in agreement.

Pidge stood, nestled in her little harem and smiled at the camera being held out, hands formed into finger guns. There was something about this that seemed awfully familiar and the entire scene had Lance seething. First of all how dare she look this gorgeous so early in the morning and second, how come she never giggled and slapped his arm like that while telling him how funny he was? He stormed over and snatched her away just as they finished up the photo session.

“Ow! Chill much?”

“What are you doing?!”

“Making friends.”

“Flirting! You were flirting and frankly you should be ashamed of yourself, do you even know those boys?”

“No, but who cares, they know me.”

She took a compact out of her pocket and began checking her lipgloss. It wasn’t until she stared at her reflection that she seemed to snap out of her…whatever it was that had come over her.

“What am I doing?” She looked up at him.

“You tell me lovergirl!” He placed his hands on his hips.

Their conversation was interrupted by Pidge’s father, who approached them with clipboard in hand.

“Lance, Katie.”

“Hi dad.”

“Did you forget you promised to help us brainstorm options for creating a cloaking mechanism for the Atlas?

“Do a what for the what?” Pidge looked at him utterly confused.

“A cloaking mechanism for the Atlas” Lance repeated. “Realistically you have a few options. We could use optical camouflage or reduce temperatures of the outer surface of the ship to lessen electromagnetic emissions.”

Sam and Pidge stared at him, mouths agape. Sam’s glasses slid down his nose.

“What?” Lance shrugged.

“Lance you can barely remember what you had for breakfast, how the hell do you know about cloaking techniques?” Pidge asked incredulously.

Lance went to answer except, he wasn’t quite sure. It had sort of just rolled off his tongue naturally.

“Something’s wrong” Pidge blurted out.

“Very” Lance agreed.

Meanwhile Shiro and Hunk were sitting in the dining hall with Keith, gawking as they watched him eat. Not only had Keith come to breakfast with his hair neatly gelled and brushed back, but he was currently sitting with impeccable posture while cutting his pancakes into perfect identical pieces. A napkin was unfolded in his lap and after he took each bite he’d sip his juice delicately, never slurping, that was bad manners.

“Keith…”

“Yes Takashi?”

Shiro and Hunk glanced at each other before he continued.

“Is everything ok?”

“It’s splendid, why do you ask?” He smiled.

Another flicker of eye contact between the captain and yellow paladin.

“Nothing. You just seem…different” Hunk chimed in.

“Well I feel fine. Although…”

They both leaned in.

“Yes?” Shiro urged.

“It’s silly.”

“Just tell us.”

“Well,” Keith placed his fork and knife down on the table, “I’ve been feeling a little self conscious this morning. I woke up and I just thought…well my ears are just so ugly.”

Tears welled up in his eyes.

“Wait what?” Hunk nearly did a double take.

“They’re just so round!” Keith erupted into a blubbering fit, snatching the napkin to hide his face. “How will Allura ever love me with ears like this?”

He blew his nose into the napkin with a loud exaggerated honk.

Shiro’s face perked up while Hunk was still dumbfounded.

“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘how will Allura ever love you’?”

Keith realized what he’d just said and his face turned fifty shades of pink before he quickly got up from the table.

“E-excuse me, I have things to attend to!”

Shiro and Hunk watched him run out, not sure what the hell had just happened but pleased that they now had blackmail on the black paladin.

Keith darted out into the hallway when he nearly collided with Pidge and Lance.

“Keith! Thank god we found you. Are you feeling, y’know, ok?”

“Honestly? I just had a rather humiliating exchange in the cafeteria that I would rather not discuss, but yeah I’m not ok. I know it sounds crazy but I don’t feel like myself.”

“Oh my god us too!” Pidge grabbed him by the arms.

“Are you wearing mascara?” Keith sniffled as he dabbed his nose with the cloth.

Pidge quickly let go of him with a glare before quickly changing the subject.

“You guys don’t think this had anything to do with that incident last night do you? When Allura got all mad and did that little blasty thing?” She tapped her finger to her chin.

“The shockwave of concentrated quintessence caused by the princess’ momentary emotional outburst could be what’s causing the current abnormalities and changes in personality traits that we’re currently experiencing” Lance said nonchalantly.

Keith and Pidge blinked at him silently.

“What?” Lance looked at them, puzzled.

“Let’s find Allura. Now!” Keith shook his head and marched off with the other two in tow.

After asking around they finally found Allura in an empty hanger. She was climbing on top of a hover bike that clearly did not belong to her.

“Thank goodness we’ve been looking all over for y-”

“Are you stealing that?” Pidge pointed to the cruiser the princess was currently perched on.

Allura sat up on the bike. She had her hair down, some of it obscuring half her face. Her cadet jacket was off and tied around her waist, revealing the white fitted tank top she had on underneath.

“I’m not stealing it, I’m just taking it for a little spin.” The normal lilt in her voice was gone, replaced by a deeper tone dripping with attitude.

“Princess taking things that don’t belong to you is wrong.” Keith’s brow furrowed.

Allura scoffed and rolled her eyes before leaning over on the handle bars and narrowing her eyes at Keith.

“So then you don’t wanna ride?” She bit her lip.

“I’d love to” Keith blurted out, stumbling toward her before Lance grabbed him by the collar.

“Allura that blast you hit us with last might has us all messed up, you’ve got to fix this!” Lance pleaded.

The princess pondered his words. She had felt off all morning, and irritated, and every time she saw James Griffin she wanted to deck him in his chiseled jaw.

“Perhaps you have a point. Keith and I were in the midst of exchanging our quintessence when you interrupted. I may have accidentally exchanged all our quintessence.”

“Well can you put everything back?” Pidge asked.

“I’m sure I could…but I’m gonna go for that ride first.” Allura smirked starting up the bike.

“Are you serious?!” Lance yelped.

“Very. Coming?” She winked at Keith who was looking at her, utterly smitten.

“Yes!” He pushed Lance and Pidge aside and slid on behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle, holding her tight.

Lance and Pidge watched in dismay as they took off into the desert leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.

“So what do we do until they come back?” He pouted.

“Lay low I guess…” Pidge shrugged.

There was an awkward silence, before Lance spoke up again.

“You weren’t really hitting on those guys earlier were you?”

“Worried?” Pidge gave him a knowing grin.

“No! I’m just curious is all.”

Pidge giggled and patted his shoulder.

“You have nothing to worry about. My relationship with those guys is purely planetonic” she assured him before walking away.

Lance sighed with relief before his face twisted into a perplexed state.

“Wait a second, THAT’S NOT EVEN A REAL WORD!”

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