#teehee smth short and fluffy and sweet

[autisticlancemcclain]

Keith doesn’t leave his apartment a lot.

Despite all of Shiro’s urging, Keith tends to stay home. His apartment is really nice, once he gets over the occasional mouse and entirely broken heating. Plus, the water is mostly potable, so it’s all good.

Look. It’s $500 a month.

But, y’know. Every once in a while Keith actually can’t study over the sounds of his neighbours having extremely loud and largely disturbing sex — why on Earth would cheetos ever be mentioned in regards to anyone’s hole is something Keith wish remained a mystery to him — so he makes his way down to the campus library. It’s admittedly kind of nice down there. He’s currently sitting at a table that’s decently clean, and the wifi connection is certainly better than it is at home. He’s actually able to get some stuff done —

“Motherfucker!”

Keith jumps out of his skin as the hottie a couple seats in front of him slams his hands on the table. Hottie whips his head up, catching Keith’s eye. His hair is wildly curly, sticking up off his head so intensely that it almost defies gravity. His eyes are big and brown and a little crazed. His expression can only be described as ‘intense’, or perhaps ‘unstable’.

“You,” he snarls.

Keith points at himself with wide eyes.

“Have you ever heard of a mountain chicken,” Hottie says, still staring at Keith with the same crazed intensity.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Keith squeaks. Hottie may be one of the most attractive people he has ever seen, but Keith has learned his lesson about pretty people. They tend to be the most dangerous and likely to maim (looking at you, Allura).

Hottie stalks towards Keith’s table, deliberately placing his hands on the surface and leaning very, very close.

“Have you ever heard,” he says again, voice very low, “of a mountain chicken.”

“No,” Keith says, because he hasn’t and he’s a little (a lot) intimidated.

And attracted.

There’s admittedly a lot of attraction there.

Suddenly the crazed air shifts from Hottie’s face, but the intensity remains.

“Whaddaya think it looks like?”

He sounds almost curious. Almost.

Keith blinks. “Like a really big chicken?”

The crazed looks is back as soon as it left.

“That’s what I thought, but it’s this mother fucker!” Hottie yells, reaching over to grab his laptop and slam it in front of Keith. It’s open to a picture of a strange little frog.

Keith squints at the picture.

“…Huh,” he says, because that is strange, and he can kind of understand why Hottie is going a little nutty about it.

“Exactly,” Hottie says emphatically. “Fuckin’ taxonomists.”

Keith raises an amused eyebrow. “You sound like you have beef with taxonomists. I’ve never known anyone who has a personally problem with them before.”

“Okay, listen,” Hottie says, pulling out a chair and sitting down properly. “They’re really bad at their jobs. All of ‘em. Why are watermelons berries? No. That’s bullshit. And you know who’s fault it is? Taxonomists.”

Keith bursts out laughing. “I see,” he manages between wheezes.

Hottie sniffs. “I’m allowing your laughter because you’re stupid hot.”

“Are you.”

“Mhm. Also, because I couldn’t stop you if I wanted to. I’m about three seconds away from passing out.”

Hottie says it pleasantly, but not in the way that sounds like he’s joking, which sobers Keith up quickly.

“Wait, what —”

The words don’t even leave his mouth before Hottie’s eyes roll back into his head and his forehead smacks the table.

———

“Thank you, again,” the man says.

Keith shoots him a small smile. “It’s really not a problem.”

The man — who Keith has learnt is named Hunk, and is the best friend of the aforementioned Hottie, who’s name is apparently Lance — sighs. “It kind of is. He’s — I would like to say that this is not a regular occurrence. But he’s fuckin’ allergic to a proper sleep schedule. And peanuts. But the sleeping thing is a bigger issue. He’s given himself four concussions because he’s passed out mid-sentence and brained himself on a random surface hard enough to make an impact on his thick fucking skull.”

Hunk is clearly exasperated, and annoyed, but his words are so fond that Keith can’t help the smile that pulls across his face. He sounds just like Shiro, after Keith has managed to land himself squarely into one of his many Shenanigans. Loving and also five seconds away from throttling you.

It’s nice.

“You his brother?”

Hunk snorts, readjusting Lance’s floppy arm over his shoulder. Keith does the same, hefting him up — he’s surprisingly heavy for someone who’s about as thick as a toothbrush, but what does Keith know — and keeping on in the direction of the off-campus apartments. (The decently nice ones, that you can only afford with at least two roommates and a part-time job. Keith knows. He checked.)

“Nah, not really. I mean, I’m basically his brother in that he’s the annoyance who’s been latched on to my person for the last several years and who I love too much to murder, but you know. He has enough siblings without me thrown into the mix. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” Keith says. “You remind me of me and my brother, is all. He’s also the one who’s usually dragging my dumb ass to safety.”

Laughing, Hunk digs his key out of his pocket, opening up the door.

“I see.”

He struggles for a moment, trying to both keep Lance from falling — who is firmly unconscious, although Hunk has assured him that he’s not injured and it’s just been six days since he last slept and he’s just kind of Like This — and get the door open.

Keith isn’t sure how to help, so he just kind of stands there awkwardly, still holding half of Lance’s weight.

“Thank you,” Hunk says, once Lance has been transferred to his arms and he’s standing just inside the doors to their apartment complex. “I appreciate your help.”

“No problem.”

Keith forces himself to take a step back, shoving the random wistfulness deep down in his gut.

He’s not lonely. He’s not.

(He does kind of miss his brother, though. Ugh.)

“I’ll see you around, Keith.”

“Yeah. You, too.”

Keith stands there for a full ten seconds after Hunk turns around and heads down the hallway, and then he shakes himself, blushing, before speedwalking back to his own shitty apartment.

God, he needs a fucking hobby.

———

“What do you mean, I can’t get eight shots of espresso? It’s not like it’ll kill me. You need 76 shots to kill you. I checked.”

“Sir…it’s company policy. I’m not allowed to put more than eight shots in one cup. Sorry.”

“No, no, don’t apologise. It’s not your fault. Hm.” The man — who is he kidding, Keith recognised Lance as soon as he saw that poofy hair in the Starbucks line, as embarrassing as it is — rocks back on his heels, tapping a finger to his chin. “Can I order two drinks, with eight shots each?”

Jesus Christ.

The barista blinks at him. “I mean, I guess so. I think you’re going to die, but that’s not my problem, I guess.”

Lance laughs, and the sound is so bright and musical that it actually makes Keith sigh.

Like, out loud.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“That works! Let’s do that.”

“…If you’re sure. That’ll be $7.29.”

Lance pays, then heads over to the other end of the counter, humming as he waits. As soon as his eyes land on Keith, they narrow.

“Hey, wait a minute. I know you. Obviously. I would never forget a face so flawlessly beautiful. Why do I know you?”

Keith goes so red he can actually feel his heart pounding through the capillaries under his skin, which is humiliating.

“Um.”

Lance giggles, which makes the blush worse.

Oh, God, Keith is losing any and all game he possesses by the minute. Fuck, isn’t he usually good at this? He usually is! He’s usually a pretty decent flirt! What the fuck!

“Oh!” Lance says, snapping his fingers. “You’re the hot guy from the library! The one who called Hunk when I passed out! Keith, right?”

Keith can only nod. Holy shit, the force of those brown doe eyes at full intensity on his face is going to fry his brain.

He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. I’m Keith. You — obviously, you knew that.” Keith resists the urge to slam his head through the nearest wall.

Lance giggles again. Keith wonders if the fuckin’ sweat is actually dripping from his palms, or it just feels like it is.

Gross.

“You’re cute. You should take me on a date. I have class until five, room A112 in the biology building. Pick me up, and we’ll go to dinner?”

Keith can only nod. Frantically. So quickly his hair escapes from his ponytail and smacks him in the face.

“Great,” Lance says, grinning. He grabs Keith hand — Keith offers absolutely no resistance and only prays that his palms aren’t actually as disgusting as he thinks they are — and takes out a pen, scrawling down a number and then drawing a big heart around it.

Lord above, Lance is the cutest boy Keith has ever seen in his entire life. He’s going to explode.

“That’s my number,” Lance says, and he’s still holding onto Keith’s forearm.

His fingers are freezing, and that’s the only rational thought Keith’s brain manages to form.

“2 coffees with more caffeine than I’ve ever seen one person consume?” the barista calls. She looks at them warily.

“Coming!” Lance chirps, and Keith mourns the loss of those cold fingers on his skin as Lance steps over to grab his coffee.

(Well. ‘Coffee’.)

Lance skips to the doors, pausing to smile and wiggle his fingers in a wave. “I’ll see you after class, okay, Keith?”

“See you,” Keith says, and his voice cracks so many times that the barista winces on his behalf.

Lance grins wider, then disappears out the door.

“That was the most romcom shit I’ve ever seen,” the barista informs him bluntly, and Keith can only nod.

———

Keith is buzzing out of his skin, he thinks.

So he does what he always does when he’s feeling Big Boy Feelings™️.

He bothers his brother.

to: takashit

shiro oh my god it’s almost five his class is almost done what do i do.

to: takashit

what if he was joking? it didn’t seem like a joke. but what if?

to: takashit

fuck, what if i screw it up? what if i’m a lame loser who says lame loser things? oh my god i’m so nervous

to: takashit

OH MY GOD SHIRO WHAT IF I YARF

to: keith kardashian

KEITH MOTHERFUCKING YORAK KOGANE. SHUT THE FUCK UP. I AM BUSY.

to: takashit

🥺🥺🥺 worst brother ever

to: takashit

🥺🥺 you don’t love me. you don’t care about me or my anxiety 💔

Keith can actually hear his brother’s guilt complex acting up through the phone.

It’s hilarious.

to: keith kardashian

the worst part about that is i know you’re manipulating me.

to: takashit

😔 😔

to: takashit

⬆️ my face rn as i realise my brother whom i look up to and adore wishes he left me on the street corner where i was standing 😔😔😔

to: keith kardashian

i should have, you little motherfucker.

There’s a solid minute of angry typing before Shiro continues.

to: keith kardashian

fuck you. call me.

Keith does. Shiro picks up immediately.

“You are a rat bastard,” he growls.

Keith pretends to sniffle, fully fighting back a laugh.

“I just thought you promised to always be there for me,” he says, as pitifully as he can manage.

Shiro makes a vague screaming noise.

“Fuck! Fine. Fuck. Tell me why you’re nervous.”

“It’s a cute boy with a lot of confidence and social grace, Shiro! Fucking obviously I’m nervous!”

“Didn’t y’all meet because he yelled at you about taxonomists and then brained himself on a library table when he passed out from sleep deprivation?”

“…Yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound very socially graceful to me.”

“Okay, fair, but he asked me out this morning like it was the smoothest thing ever. I blushed so hard I thought my heart was going to explode. I swear to God my voice cracked at least twelve times.”

Shiro sniggers. “It does that all the time, so no big thing there.”

“Fuck off,” Keith says, scowling, because hey. Being the shithead is Keith’s job.

“Anyway, you big nerd,” Shiro continues, “you’re going to be fine. In five minutes this ridiculously confident cute boy is going to waltz out of class and then you two are going to go on what’s probably the cringiest date of all time, but he will be charmed by your earnest nature and geek tendencies, and then you’ll get married and adopt every dog in the world. Okay?”

Honestly, yeah. Okay. That did make him feel better.

But Keith is the younger brother, and as such is contractually obligated to be a pain in the ass, so.

“Yeah, yeah. At least I didn’t trip and, in a desperate attempt to not land face-first on the pavement, pants my future husband.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Shiro says venomously, as is par for the course when Keith brings up his and Adam’s disastrous first meeting.

Keith smirks to himself.

“My bad.”

“Ugh. You’re so annoying. Do you feel better now, you stupid dweeb?”

Keith started feeling better the second he started pestering Shiro, but he supposes he can be grateful for a change.

“Yeah. I guess your dorky pep talk helped. I can’t do any worse than you did, anyway.”

“I’m hanging up and blocking your number. Goodbye.”

Keith snickers as the call drops. It’s 4:59, and Lance still has another minute of class.

to: takashit

you didn’t say u love me :(((

to: takashit

u just hung up without any care in the world :((

to: takashit

i’m telling adam he’s my new favourite brother now

to: takashit

adam would never hang up without saying i love you

to: keith kardashian

oh my GOD

to: takashit

:(((((((((

to: keith kardashian

fine. fuck.

to: keith kardashian

i love you, you booger. tell me how your stupid date goes.

to: takashit

:D

Keith puts his phone away, grinning, and the second he does, the door to room A112 pushes open and students start spilling out. He waits, scanning everyone as they pass, but there’s no sign of Lance until the very last person walks out.

He beams when he sees Keith leaning on the wall.

“Keith! Hi!”

Keith grins back.

“Hi, Lance.”

“Ready to go on a date?” Lance says, strolling up and tangling his free hand in Keith’s, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

It might be.

“Yeah. I’m excited, really.”

“Awesome! Did you pick a place?”

Keith was a little stressed about that, to be real, because he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to pick somewhere or if Lance already had something picked.

The he remembered he had Hunk’s number “in case my dumbass best friend passed out in your vicinity again, because neither of us can afford an ambulance in this economy”, so he texted him in what could not be technically called a panic.

Maybe a light anxiety.

Hunk had sent back several laughing emojis, and then told him to take Lance for an ice cream dinner and then to the park on campus for him to get very excited about beetles.

“I figured I’d take you to Coran’s ice cream parlour,” Keith says. “You seem like an ice cream guy.”

Lance lights up, and then narrows his eyes in playful suspicion. “You asked Hunk, huh?”

Keith shrugs, cheeks warming. “I’ll be honest with you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the library incident, and you’re so pretty you kind of make my brain go mushy. I panicked.”

Shockingly, that makes Lance’s jaw drop. He’s quiet for several moments, before his ears go read and he looks away.

Holy shit. Did Keith make Lance all blushy?

“Point to Keith,” Lance says eventually.

Keith laughs, scratching the back of his neck with one hand. The other is still firmly clamped in Lance’s. “Didn’t know it was a competition.”

Lance winks. “Everything’s a competition with me.”

———

Ice cream is fun. Keith shouldn’t be eating it, not really, and there will be Consequences with his digestive system later, but he’s not afraid of hell and mint chip is delicious.

“You are eating frozen toothpaste.”

“I can only assume that you’ve never tried mint chip or you’ve never brushed your teeth, Lance, because mint chip does not taste like toothpaste. It’s delicious. Besides, you are having cotton candy. That’s essentially frozen blue food colouring! Besides, what flavour is cotton candy even supposed to be? Like, what does cotton candy taste like?”

Turns out that Keith had no reason to be nervous. He and Lance just… click. And, besides, Lance thinks Keith is funny when he’s not trying, which is excellent.

They go to the park, just as Hunk suggested, after they finish their ice cream. They spend the whole time just chatting, talking about nothing and everything, interspersed with Lance’s regular mini-lectures whenever he spots something particularly cool. Which is a lot of things, because Lance seems to be endlessly fascinated with the world at large.

It’s adorable. And also enlightening. Did you know one tree can be home to over 2.3 million life forms at one time? Keith didn’t. That’s dope as hell.

“…and oh, hey, an incipient hornet nest! Cool! Did you know wasp larvae can spin silk?”

Keith did not know that. He is also not fond of wasps, nor has he ever felt any sort of inclination to be near them. But he is becoming increasingly fond of Lance. Also, Lance seems to be some sort of animal whisperer. They’d been swarmed by yellowjackets outside of the ice cream parlour, but before Keith could even panic Lance had stood very still and said “no” in a firm, calm voice, and they all flew away immediately.

It did make Lance hotter, truly.

“I did not,” Keith says magnanimously, peering over Lance’s shoulder to look at the nest. Luckily, it’s empty. “That is pretty cool, though.”

Lance turns back to him and grins; a big, beaming smile that makes him glow.

God, he’s beautiful.

Keith can’t stop staring at him.

“You should kiss me,” Lance says bluntly, after a moment of them just softly looking at each other.

Keith blinks. “Okay.”

He lets go of Lance’s hand, reaching over to cup his face. He stays there for a moment, gently cradling Lance’s face in his arms, stroking his thumbs over sharp cheekbones, cataloguing the splash of freckles on his nose and the curve of his cupid’s bow.

Lance reaches up, after a few seconds, sliding careful fingers across the skin of Keith’s neck to tangle in his hair. He doesn’t pull, just — holds it, carefully.

“You going to kiss me now?”

Keith swallows. “I’m nervous. I don’t want to mess it up.”

Lance’s eyes flutter shut, and he sighs. “You don’t need to be. I want — I really want you to kiss me. I like you.”

“I like you too.”

“Okay.”

And that’s all it takes. The ‘okay’, breathy and quick and soft and maybe a little nervous, too, like for all his straightforward brazenness Lance is a little scared of messing this up as well.

He leans forward, faster than he thought he would, and presses his lips to Lance’s. The air is warm but Lance’s lips are still chilly from the ice cream, and his cheeks are hot beneath Keith’s hands, blushing. His lips curve into a smile that’s pressed firmly to Keith’s mirroring grin and he sighs again, a little, a happy sound, and tilts his head so their mouths fit together even better. And then his fingers are tracing little circles at the back of Keith’s neck and he makes a little humming noise on the back of his throat and Keith leans the tiniest little bit closer.

It’s good. It’s great.

It’s everything, really, and Keith doesn’t want it to end.

“You’re a good kisser,” Lance mumbles, not moving away even an inch.

“I like kissing you,” Keith says, pressing just as close.

Keith doesn’t remember why he was nervous.

———

to: keith kardashian

how did it go????

to: takashit

i beat your mess by a mile

to: keith kardashian

low bar, boogerbrain. also, shut up.

to: takashit

no :)

to: takashit

but it went REALLY well. we went for ice cream and then walked around the park for hours and then we kissed and he is so fucking cute, shiro. oh my god. seriously.

to: keith kardashian

good, kiddo. really. are y’all gonna go out again?

to: takashit

yeah

to: takashit

tomorrow night actually

to: keith kardashian

that’s awesome! i have a really good feeling about you guys.

to: takashit

…

to: takashit

me too :)