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Lance bolted into the room, catapulted himself into the air and collapsed on their brand-new bed, sprawled out with a limb in every corner. They hadn’t got around to putting sheets on yet, unpacking everything else was higher on the list of priorities and it turned out that was a pretty long list. Moving in was not as simple as Lance had imagined. There were responsibilities like choosing a power company and an internet provider that he hated, buying toilet paper was something he got mad about, ‘Shiro, this literally feels like flushing money down the toilet, why is it so expensive, it’s butt paper Shiro’, and stacking his furniture in his dad’s trailer felt like a dangerous game of Tetris. But it was also even more exciting than he’d thought possible. As much as he hated all the stress about making the right choices, he loved that this was happening; moving in with Shiro, starting a life together and honestly, the opportunity to wake up every damn day to the man he loved was worth buying all the toilet paper in the world.
“We did it!” He cheered as he rolled over and kicked and punched at the air cheering madly like he was at one of his brothers’ football games. He pulled his legs to his chest and propelled himself onto his feet to bounce on the bed.
Shiro raced in after him, his feet slid on the wooden floor and he stumbled around boxes to come to the edge of the bed, laughing all the way.
“We did it!” Shiro echoed, Lance bounced off the bed and into Shiro’s arms, feeling a little sorry at Shiro’s slightly pained exhale. He wrapped his legs round his waist and draped his arms over his shoulders, rubbing their noses together.
“We’re adults now,” Lance grinned, “we have to be taken seriously. Suck it Pidge.”
“Never,” Shiro laughed, “adulthood is a lie, don’t fall for the trap.”
“Too late, we bought a vacuum, there’s no going back from vacuum purchasing,” Lance countered.
“Yeah, but we also cooked lunch in the toasted sandwich maker so I think it balances out,” Shiro argued.
“Is that what our lives are going to be, a constant balancing act between boring and dull adulthood and fun, wonderful immaturity?”
“Sounds like fun,” Shiro pressed a quick kiss to Lance’s lips and carefully dropped him back to his feet.
“Yeah,” Lance said softly, keeping his arms wrapped round Shiro’s neck and lifting himself on tiptoes to kiss him, long and deep and breathless. “Yeah it does.”
Unpacking reached the stage where they had the lounge looking pretty liveable, before they shoved the boxes they couldn’t bear to look at any more in the hallway. Lance’s mother had insisted on wrapping all the glasses, plates and mugs they had in newspaper, which was kind of her, but took forever to unwrap and now they had a newspaper explosion on the floor of the lounge. It also got shoved out into the hallway. They had quickly realized they forgot to buy a bin so, hallway was playing that role and the mess was future-Shiro-and-Lance’s problem. They grabbed cheese, crackers and wine (a very nutritious dinner), sat on the couch facing each other with feet entangled and watched Brooklyn-99 with such stellar commentary as;
“I’m still bitter that Andy Samberg thought of the ‘name of your sex tape’ joke before me because that’s gold. How am I supposed to top that in my own comedy career?” Lance said.
“Do you think if I was as stoic as Captain Holt Keith would respect me more?” Shiro mused.
“Can you make your pecs dance like Terry? Oh my god, how could you hide this talent from me!? How much time have you spent staring in the mirror trying to twitch your tits?” Lance asked, way too enthusiastic about pec dancing.
“Do you think Hunk bingo would work?” Shiro asked.
“Oh, for sure!” Lance laughed. “Keith bingo would be even better though, ‘stares sullenly into the distance and sips juice box’, it happens daily.”
Shiro was still laughing as he took a massive wedge of cheese, pressing it between two crackers and stuffed it into his mouth. Lance stared wide-eyed and clasped at his chest.
“I can’t believe you did that, Boyle would never do this to me,” Lance said faux-shocked, “how disrespectful, not only to me but the cheese!”
Shiro looked confused for a moment but when he caught on he rolled his eyes and cut another giant wedge. “We should get a dog.”
“I don’t think our landlord would be very happy. Also! Don’t try to change the subject I’m mad about you taking three times your fair share of camembert. That shit was three dollars, I want my dollar fifty worth of cheese.”
Before Shiro could counter that, or propose his well thought out argument about how they could get a dog and hide it from their landlord, there was a knock on the door, followed by a few more louder and aggressive knocks.
“Three guesses who that is,” said Shiro as he got up from the couch. When he opened the hallway door some of the newspaper fluttered in and Lance resisted the urge to hiss at it like it was some foul hell-demon.
“Hmm,” Lance followed Shiro up, “I know it’s risky, but I’m going to take all three guesses and say Pidge, Hunk, and Keith.”
“Do you want to lock that in?” Shiro asked, hand on the door handle, looking back at Lance with mirth dancing in his eyes. Lance nodded and he yanked the door open, three of their best friends standing in the doorway.
“I was going to say we should trash the place but it looks like you’ve already got that covered,” Pidge said by way of greeting, looking around Shiro at the chaotic mess of stuff in the hall behind them.
“Excuse you, moving is hard and apparently all of our so-called ‘friends’ were too busy to help us with any of it.” Lance teased.
“Thought you might want time alone to christen the place,” Pidge winked. Lance shuddered.
“Are you going to let us in or do we have to stand out here all night?” Keith asked.
“Of course! Come on in,” Shiro said, right as Lance asked them for the password. Shockingly enough Lance was ignored as they made their way inside and started exploring the place. Their friends were great, kind and compassionate people, with absolutely no sense of privacy.
Lance left them to it, letting Shiro take over the grand tour of all four rooms – bedroom, bathroom, lounge and kitchen – while he went and rummaged in the fridge (hoping that the fact that it wasn’t cold yet was a normal thing and not an issue to be worried about) for something he could feed them all.
Hunk found him there, pulling him into an excited hug and rambling about how amazing it was that he had taken this step and how proud he was of the both of them.
“Allura and Coran wanted me to make their apologies,” Hunk said, “they’re giving lectures at the Garrison tomorrow on the possibilities of wormhole travel and the physics of a new kind of laser weapon and they're going to be practicing their presentations until the last possible second. You know how it is.”
“And you and Pidge tore yourself away from that to throw us a house-warming party?” Lance hugged him tighter, “I’m touched.”
“It’s recorded,” Pidge said, “don’t get too sappy about it.”
Lance and Hunk pulled her into their group hug and despite her complaints, she came willingly, and even offered her congratulations to Lance for ‘manning up and taking the plunge’. When Lance responded that they had just moved in and not proposed marriage she made some cryptic comment about ‘not yet’.
When they moved to the lounge they found Keith and Shiro having a similar conversation, albeit with more arm punching and fist bumps than hugging. Keith and Lance high-fived, and Keith offered his services if they did want any help unpacking other stuff, which from Keith was as close to a declaration of his eternal love and devotion as you could get.
They arranged the couch cushions in a circle around the coffee table. Keith had brought a deck of cards and they were playing a terrible version of five-hundred where the bets were getting more and more ridiculous.
If he could, Lance would freeze time in this moment to hold onto it all. He’d capture the ease in Pidge’s posture as she quirked an eyebrow at them all over her cards. He’d bottle Hunk’s booming laugh that filled the space with life and all that was good in the world. He’d never forget the steady warmth of Shiro beside him, or the jabs to his ribs when he tried to peek at his cards. He was even fond of Keith’s proud smile as he won yet another round and told them all to suck it.
Lance looked around at his little chosen family and was amazed by how lucky he was, how much this all felt like a dream because how could life ever be this perfect? But it was real, and he was here, and this was home, and he couldn’t be happier.