#what the fuck do you mean these textbooks are a hundred and fucking seventy dollars and you're having a '''sale''' for 20pc off

[incineraryperiphery]

browsing routledge's website makes me so angry

[justheretobreakthings]

Welcome to the Family - Chapter 7

(Previous Chapter)

Word Count: 2,408 (Total Word Count: 17,418) Read on AO3

Story Summary: Lance had been excited about his family taking in a foster kid, eager to get to meet his brand new little brother or sister, who would surely adore and idolize their super cool Big Brother Lance. What he got instead was a sullen, quiet, temperamental teenage housemate with a criminal record and a disastrous haircut.

Lance missed elementary school. Back in those days, the first day of the school year was fun. Not just because he and his classmates were not yet jaded toward the concept of school, but because the day was actually designed that way. The learning didn’t start until day two at the earliest; the first day was dedicated to icebreakers and exploring the classroom and the teacher pulling out every trick in the book to convince the students that this year was going to be this much fun every single day.

Now, though, the only way the first day of classes differed from the rest was that teachers took longer to take attendance and passed out the class syllabus before diving into textbook reading and PowerPoint presentations. Which meant that Lance had jumped straight from the relaxation of summer vacation to hours of biology, sociology, and the first half of his American literature class before the bell mercifully put it on pause for a half-hour lunch break.

“Lance,” Pidge cut him off in the middle of his groaning as he stood behind her in the cafeteria line. “For fuck’s sake, can’t we go one school year where you don’t do this?”

“No,” Lance said. “Pidge, I’m tiiiiiired.” He slumped down and rested his forehead on Pidge’s shoulder. “How many days left in the school year?”

“A hundred seventy-nine and a half,” Pidge answered, shrugging him off of her shoulder. “Get used to it.”

Lance groaned as he grabbed a tray and started down the serving line. At least the school served burgers and tater tots on the first day. They were fairly crappy burgers and tots, sure, but compared to many of the other cafeteria offerings throughout the year, they were pretty high up on his list of favorite school meals. “They could at least do a better job of, like, easing us in to school life,” he said as he picked up a paper-wrapped cheeseburger. “Maybe have a naptime for the first week, or start the first day at noon.”

“If it were up to you, every day of school would last half an hour and consist of four meal breaks.”

“Which is exactly why I should be in charge,” Lance said. He picked out a bottle of lemonade from the drink cooler and paused their conversation to let the cafeteria lady at the register punch in his purchases and give him the go-ahead. Once that was finished, he stood on tiptoes to look back at the rest of the line. “You seen Keith? He came out of class the same time we did, right?”

“Think so, yeah,” Pidge said. Her eyes were scanning the tables set up throughout the rest of the cafeteria. They always sat with Hunk, and he was always the first to the table, since he brought his lunch from home and didn’t have to wait in line with everyone else. One of the perks of his family owning a restaurant. “We could just sit down and wait for - oh, hey!” She nudged Lance with her elbow. “Looks like he’s already with Hunk!”

She pointed, and Lance looked to see Keith seated at a table, his back to them but his mullet unmistakeable. Hunk was sitting across from him, his meal spread out before him, and looked to be deep in conversation with Keith. “How the hell did he beat us here?” Lance asked. “Could swear we left the classroom before he did.”

“I dunno, maybe he walks faster?” Pidge said with a shrug, already starting toward the table. “Come on, my legs are tired.”

“Your legs are always tired,” Lance grunted, following after her.

Pidge reached the table first, sliding onto the bench next to Hunk and immediately turning her gaze to the contents of his lunch. “No,” Hunk said firmly to her as Lance settled in across from them.

“What?” Pidge looked up at him. “I didn’t even - ”

“You were about to ask for one of my cookies. I already told you this morning, no.”

“You have two of them!” Pidge whined. “You don’t need two cookies! You’re being selfish!”

“Isn’t… that a cookie?” Keith asked softly, pointing to Pidge’s tray.

“Ugh, yeah,” Pidge sighed, glaring down at the shortbread cookie in a little paper dish in the corner of her tray. “But it’s a shitty cafeteria cookie. Hunk gets homemade cookies.”

Hunk unwrapped the plastic wrap on one of the aforementioned cookies and popped a bite into his mouth. “If you want homemade cookies, make some at home.”

Pidge made a swipe for the cookie in Hunk’s hand, but Hunk easily avoided it, leaning back and taking another bite, topping it all off with exaggerated chewing sounds. Lance laughed and returned his attention to his own food. As he unwrapped his burger, he couldn’t help but notice that his was the only tray on this side of the table. He turned toward Keith with a raised brow. Keith had set his stack of books and supplies on the table in front of him, but there was no lunch in sight. Frowning, Lance tapped the table in front of Keith. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up with you?”

Keith just blinked at him.

Lance gestured to the small stack of books as he took a bite and asked through a mouthful of cheeseburger, “You planning on eating your notebooks or something?”

Keith wrinkled his brow. “What?”

“Why didn’t you get your lunch?”

“Oh.” Keith shrugged. “I’m saving mine for later.”

Lance swallowed and tilted his head. “Dude, what are you talking about? They’re not going to save your food for later; we only get the one lunch break.”

Keith huffed out a breath. “I didn’t mean later today, I meant I’m going to save my lunches for when I’m really hungry.”

The tone of his voice suggested that he thought this was blatantly obvious, but Lance was only growing more confused with every answer Keith gave. “Uh, dude, you lost me. School lunches aren’t exactly a rare commodity that you gotta ration out.”

Keith rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Look, your mom wrote out a check for my lunch account when we came in on Friday.” Lance nodded slowly. “The check was for a hundred dollars. A cafeteria lunch here costs two-fifty. That’s forty lunches.”

“Yeah…?”

“And with a hundred and eighty days in the school year, that’s about one lunch a week. I don’t know if I’ll be here the whole year, but just in case, I’m going to save them for when I actually need them. It’s pretty basic math, Lance.”

It took Lance a moment to realize his mouth had fallen open in his surprise. The rest of the table had gone quiet too, Pidge and Hunk staring at Keith just as openly, just as taken aback. A few seconds passed, during which Keith’s face fell to a confused frown at their reactions, before Lance found his voice again and said, “Uh, Keith, you - you do know that’s not a check for the whole school year, right?” Keith just stared at him. “It’s, um, it’s for the first couple of months, and then once your account’s running low, Mamá will just write a new check to refill it. You don’t need to save your meals.”

Keith blinked before his eyes darted over toward Pidge and Hunk as if looking for confirmation. Hunk nodded, and Keith’s shoulders slumped sheepishly as he let out a quiet, “Oh.”

“You didn’t seriously think Mamá was only letting you have one lunch a week, did you?” Lance said. When Keith didn’t reply, Lance let out a little indignant squeak. “Oh my god, you did! What the fuck, what kind of person do you think my mother is?!”

Keith’s brows slanted downward into a scowl. “It wasn’t an insult to your mother or anything, I just - ”

“You just were going to skip lunch four days a week? What the hell, dude?”

“Lance,” Hunk said, a hint of warning in his voice. “Let it go, it’s a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, but who misunderstands lunch money that badly? How the hell is this a new concept to you?!”

“It’s not a ‘new concept’ I - I - ” With a growl, Keith shot to his feet, pushing back the bench he and Lance were sitting on with a loud squeak that turned a few heads from the next table over; Lance had to grab onto the edge of the table to keep from being thrown from his fine. “I’m getting my damn lunch,” Keith muttered before turning away and stomping off.

Silence rang over the table as the three remaining sat staring at Keith’s retreating back, then Lance spun back around to the others. “Okay, that was weird, right? You can’t tell me that wasn’t weird.”

“Well, it was, uh… yeah, weird,” Hunk sighed. “Still, did you need to go off on him like that?”

“I didn’t go off on him, I just - I didn’t like what he was implying about Mamá, that’s all. Like, geez, I know he’s not crazy about living with us, I’m over it, but at least give us some credit! She feeds us like a grandma on Thanksgiving. Why the hell would he think he’s not allowed to have lunch?”

“I mean, like I said, seemed like just a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, but - Pidge, would you cool it with that slurping?!” he snapped.

Pidge, who had been loudly sipping her milk, lowered the carton, face pensive. “I wasn’t slurping,” she said. “I was thinking.”

“Think with a straw like the rest of us.”

“Thinking about what, Pidge?” Hunk asked as Pidge stuck her tongue out at Lance.

“Just, well…” She tapped her finger against her tray. “You know, there’s probably a - ” She stopped, straightening suddenly and whipping around in her seat, as a scrunched-up straw wrapper fell from her hair and onto the table. “You ass!” she called, and Lance leaned around to see the face of Pidge’s brother, grinning at her from two tables down and waggling his fingers in a wave, his other hand holding at the ready, what looked to be a crumpled bit of napkin already loaded into the end.

“I’m just saying hi!” Matt called back.

Pidge scowled and scooped up the wrapper. “You even think about doing that again and that straw’s going right up your - ”

“Pidge, there’s teachers,” Hunk said, nudging her.

Pidge slumped, her scowl deepening, and with a laugh Matt got up from his table and moved to theirs. “By the way, my dear pigeon,” he said as he slid onto their bench. “My Switch seems to have vanished from my backpack this morning. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Not a thing,” Pidge answered with a shrug.

“No kidding. So if I were to check your bag right now - ?”

“I’d sue you for searching without a warrant,” Pidge replied. “Besides, no video games at school, Matthew. Stop setting a bad example for me.”

“Hey, Matt,” Hunk said, reaching over to tap his arm. “There a date set for the first club meeting yet?”

“Got physics with Mr. Slav tomorrow, we’ll sort it out then,” Matt said. “Ooh, yeah, speaking of, guess this means you gotta be extra nice to me now, huh, Pidge? Don’t wanna piss off the president and get kicked out of the club.”

Pidge scoffed. “Like I’m not gonna program the robots to turn on you at the first sign you’re abusing your power. Oh, by the by, was talking to Ina in chemistry, she said she’s about convinced one of her friends to join, so we’ve got another underclassman for the team.”

“Which friend?” Hunk asked.

“James. And if we can get Lance on board - ”

“Absolutely not,” said Lance. “Also, just so you know, having James on board is making me even less likely to wanna join than ever.”

“Still pissed he ratted on you for cheating on that test last year?” Pidge asked with a raised brow.

“For the last time, I wasn’t cheating, I was just noticing his weird penmanship.”

“Uh-huh. Well, we’ve still got a chance with convincing Keith, I guess.”

“Oh, he that new foster brother of yours?” Matt asked. Lance nodded. “Cool. He around? I’d love to meet him. Ooh, you know, Shiro would probably be real interested too. Want me to - ”

“I wouldn’t try being too social with him,” Lance said. “He’s in a mood.”

“Correction: Lance put him in a mood,” said Pidge.

“Come on, all I did was ask - ” Lance cut himself off with a small jump in his seat as a tray slammed down onto the table next to him. He turned to see Keith sliding back into his seat, glowering down at his burger as he unwrapped it. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “Look who’s back.”

Matt grinned and leaned across the table toward Keith. “Hey,” he said. “So you’re Keith, huh?”

Keith glanced up, his eyes narrowed at him. “Yeah…” he said slowly. “What about it?”

“Just asking. Good to put a face to the name. I’m Matt, Pidge’s superior prequel.”

“Um,” Keith said, raising a brow.

“Pidge ever mention me yet?”

“I never mention you to anyone,” Pidge said. “I only tell people about things that are actually interesting.”

“You suck,” Matt said, ruffling her hair. “Don’t let her gremlin exterior fool you, Keith, she’s a teeny tiny little teddy bear under all that snark.” Keith said nothing, just stared at him. “Well, it was nice to meet you, man.”

“... Yeah,” said Keith.

“Real fireball, this guy is, huh?” Matt said, snatching two of Pidge’s tater tots before hopping up and heading back to his table.

Pidge huffed and slid the rest of her tater tots closer to herself. “He’s the worst,” she said, “But you learn to tune him out.” Even in the insults, a hint of fondness could be heard weaving through.

Hunk laughed lightly. “Makes you count yourself lucky you got stuck with Lance here as a brother instead, huh, Keith?”

Keith’s eyes darted Lance’s way before he softly muttered, “Uh-huh,” and returned his attention to his burger.

With an ‘I tried’ shrug toward Lance, Hunk went back to his own lunch, and Lance watched as Keith ate, his glare never wavering. Didn’t look like his mood would be dissipating any time soon.

Lance sighed as he resumed eating his own burger. Seemed he had a semester of very long lunches to look forward to.