Stuck on the Road Trip

by GoldenMuffin

Summary:

The team plus Romelle, Shay, and Adam go on a road trip across the states. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Lance and Keith are forced to ride in the same car for hours on end. Maybe they can finally get over their fake rivalry, maybe not.

Notes:

This is my first Fan-fic so let me know if anythings wrong. :)
There will be more chapters soon!
If you have any ideas don’t be afraid to comment them!

Chapter 1: Pancakes and Betrayals

A road trip across the states. A trip that Allura and Shiro spent many sleepless nights fretting over. A break from the pressure of classes and jobs, a much needed stress reliever. The day had come, the day they finally leave. And Lance was practically buzzing with excitement.

Everyone was at Coran and Allura’s house, yawning and eating breakfast. The sweet smell of syrup and fresh pancakes filled the air of the kitchen. Hunk was slouched over the stove, wearing a yellow apron that was covered in stains. His tongue stuck out in concentration while he scraped pancake batter from a large bowl. Shay leaned over and wiped batter from his face, giggling, before returning to her own batter. She mixed together ingredients, supplying enough batter to feed the large group. Both Shay and Hunk worked in almost perfect harmony, only dropping a few bowls in the effort to feed the never ending pits of stomachs their friends had.

Pidge snatched a fresh plate of pancakes, cackling like she had stolen a pot of gold. She had to dodge Lance and Coran who both tried to swipe from her plate. In her oversized pajamas and after stealing a pint of syrup and a dozen fresh pancakes, she leapt over the couch and sat down in the middle. Sinking into the cushions before setting her plate down and viciously scarfing down the pancakes.

Hunk finally passed a plate into Lance’s impatient hands, and another plate to Coran. Lance took a seat at the dining table, taking the other syrup for himself. He watched in shock as Coran started to eat his pancakes plain.

“Not even butter?” Lance gasped, as if personally offended by Coran.

“Pancakes are already not a healthy option, adding syrups and other ingredients is terrible for your morning meal!” Coran yelped in defense, waving his fork around as he defended himself, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day you know!”

Lance’s jaw fell open in offense, but before he could argue back (he swore he had a good argument) Allura placed her plate on the table. Her plate was full of pancakes covered in chocolate syrup and strawberries. Allura took a seat next to Coran, her hair tied up in a bun from when she was sleeping.

“Allura!” Coran gasped, nearly falling out of his chair at the sight of such a sugary breakfast. Allura only chuckled, slowly eating at the chocolate covered pancakes. Romelle took a seat beside her and smiled in amusement at the toddler looking meal. She carried a plate of normal blueberry pancakes.

“Want any pancakes with your chocolate syrup strawberries?” Romelle snorted, covering her face with her hand as she tried not to laugh aloud. Allura’s face flushed red and she looked down at her plate in betrayal. After all, it did look like a plate full of chocolate syrup.

“Live your truth, Allura! The more syrup the better!” Pidge shouted from the couch, raising her syrup bottle in a mock toast. Allura copied her movement with her own syrup bottle, even making a fake clunk noise. The rest of the group couldn’t stop but roll their eyes at the syrup shenanigans that happened almost every breakfast they had together.

Shiro took a seat at the table beside Lance, carrying a plate of scrambled eggs rather than pancakes. Adam followed close behind with his plate of pancakes, this time with a completely normal amount of syrup. As strange as the group liked their pancakes it was almost impossible to see one of them eat something normal for once.

Keith sat down at the table on the other side of Lance. Lance couldn’t help but scoff at his rivals' close proximity, of course he had to sit there. Not to mention that Keith immediately grabbed Lance's syrup. It was Lance’s syrup, what made him think he could have any? Even if Hunk had bought it for everyone, Lance had rightfully claimed the bottle!

Lance reached over and snatched back his syrup right out of Keith’s hands. For a second Keith just sat there staring at his empty hands in surprise. Then his eyes narrowed and he glared at Lance, a small pout on his face. Lance couldn’t help but smirk in pride at his rival’s disappointment.

Keith tried to take the syrup back but Lance had a tight hold of the bottle. Both of them tugged back and forth on the bottle, each trying to take it from the other. Their faces screwed up in concentration and frustration.

“Lance! Keith!” Shiro grunted, massaging his temple with the hand that wasn’t holding his fork, “The syrup is for all of us, not just you.”

Keith let go of the bottle, crossing his arms over his chest. He huffed in defeat and glared down at his plain pancakes. Despite being yelled at by Shiro, Lance took that as a win. He smiled before finally pouring syrup onto his pancakes.

“Don’t worry,” Hunk chuckled, abandoning the stove to grab something from the fridge, “I bought extra just in case this happened.”

Keith muttered his thanks and took the syrup from Hunk. While he was drowning his pancakes in syrup Hunk and Shay abandoned cooking and took a seat at the table. Finally everyone was sitting at the table and enjoying the freshly made meal.

While Lance was eating something nudged his leg and whined. He looked down to see Keith’s dog, Kosmo, with the biggest puppy eyes he’d ever seen. Lance looked around to make sure nobody was looking and tore off a piece of his pancake. He sneakily tossed the piece to Kosmo. Kosmo caught the pancake and swallowed it without even chewing.

“Kosmo! You're supposed to chew food!” Lance gapped, abandoning secrecy and throwing his hands up in feigned surrender, “You raised a monster, Keith!”

Keith raised an eyebrow at Lance before turning to look at his dog. He took some of his own pancake and tossed it to Kosmo. Kosmo proceeded to swallow it whole yet again.

“I didn’t teach him that,” Keith shrugged, ruffling his dog's head fur, “Maybe he took lessons from Pidge.”

“Hey! I chew!” Pidge yelped from the couch, she leaned over and faced the group. Acting offended, she frowned at Keith.

“Yeah, I’m disappointed to admit that I’m with Keith on this one,” Lance snorted, smirking at the overdramatic expression of betrayal that flashed across Pidge’s face.

“Hunk, back me up!” Pidge whined, looking to Hunk for help.

Hunk merrily shrugged in defeat, chuckling at his friend's pointless argument. Pidge stuck her tongue out at Keith and accepted defeat. A small smile flashed onto Keith’s face before he returned to feeding his dog pancakes.

“Alright team, serious talk,” Shiro interrupted their shenanigans, although his expression wasn’t serious at all, “Who’s riding with who?”

Right, the road trip. Lance had nearly forgotten while enjoying the comfort of eating breakfast with his friends.

They had already decided who was driving. Lance would drive his truck with Keith’s bike strapped in the trunk. Hunk would drive his van, being the main carrier for luggage. Shiro would drive his car, and Allura would drive Pidge’s minivan since Pidge hated driving long distances.

“I can ride with Allura,” Romelle offered first, to which Allura nodded in agreement.

“Adam will ride with me,” Shiro added, which should’ve been obvious given they were married.

“I call Hunk!” Pidge shouted from the couch.

“I will also ride with Hunk,” Shay commented like the group already hadn’t deduced as such.

“That leaves Keith with Lance,” Shiro announced like it wasn’t the most absurd thing Lance had heard come from his mouth. Him? With Keith for hours on end, in a small truck? Absolutely not.

“What?” Lance gapped, standing up from his chair and whipping his head around to stare at Shiro.

“It makes sense,” Pidge added, her eyes sparkling with a glint of mischief that Lance didn’t miss, “Afterall, you are carrying his motorcycle.”

Lance stared at Pidge in betrayal, his mouth open. He was at a loss for words, he couldn’t even argue that logic. Afterall everyone knew Keith was protective over his bike. Top ten anime betrayals, Lance thought in defeat. He sat back down in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Now that that’s settled, once you are finished eating, start packing up the cars. We’ll be leaving in a few hours,” Shiro said, gaining back the group’s attention, “And thank you Coran for staying back and taking care of things here.”

“Ah, it’s nothing,” Coran smiled, he twisted at his mustache, “Compared to that one time I-”

“I still don’t get why we have to leave Rover, Kosmo, and the mice” Pidge interrupted Coran’s story before they were all stuck there for hours.

“It’ll be cramped enough with all of us and luggage that we don’t need to add two animals in the mix,” Shiro sighed, explaining for probably the tenth time this week, “We also don’t need to be stopping every hour for a puppy potty break, because your bird got tired of the car or because a mouse got out of the cage.”

Pidge grumbled under her breath but accepted their ultimate decision not to take the group's much loved pets. Coran would be in charge of dealing with the not-that-well-behaved animals while they were gone.

“Where is Rover anyway?” Lance asked, having not seen the bird at all that morning. Pidge shifted and pulled out a clicker from her pocket. She clicked the word come in Morse code, a smirk on her face. Lance only knew a little Morse code, but he could make out the word.

A few seconds later a gray pigeon flew into the living room. The bird landed roughly on Pidge’s head, ruffling her hair with its talons. The bird, Rover, tilted its head. Pidge gave the bird a seed, praising their response to the clicker.

“I can’t believe you taught him Morse code,” Lance snorted, leave it to Pidge to do something as absurd as that rather than just calling the bird’s name.

“I didn’t teach Rover Morse code, he only knows certain words,” Pidge snorted, she would be on the news if she somehow taught her pigeon to understand a whole alphabet.

“Rover’s still smarter than Keith’s dog,” Lance snorted, turning to look at Kosmo who currently had their tongue falling out of the side of their mouth, “I don’t even think he knows sit.”

“Kosmo is a very smart dog,” Keith growled in defense, pushing the dog’s tongue back into its mouth, “And he knows sit. He just… doesn’t like following instructions.”

Lance laughed aloud at that, patting Kosmo on the head. A rule breaking rebel dude having a rule breaking rebel dog, a match made in heaven. Lance smiled at the absurdity of the conversation.

While they argued over which pet was smarter, Adam and Shay had picked up everyone’s plates and silverware. Adam washed the dishes while Shay dried and put them up. Just another normal breakfast with the group.

—

Lance stood with his hands on his hips and eyes narrowed. He watched closely as Keith secured his motorcycle onto Lance’s truck bed. Annoyingly the bike was too long for the truck bed, so they would have to lead the tailgate down during their road trip.

“Why do we even have to bring your bike along?” Lance questioned, watching as Keith triple checked that his bike was secured.

“You never know when you’ll need a motorcycle,” Keith shrugged, jumping down from the tailgate and back onto the ground, “Plus I might get tired of riding with you and need a break.”

“Get tired of me?” Lance gasped in offense, walking over to Keith and poking his finger to his chest, “If anything I’ll get tired of you and kick you out.”

Keith leaned into Lance’s space with narrowed eyes. He opened his mouth to argue back but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. They both jumped away from each other and turned toward the source of the sound.

“Ready to head out?” Shiro asked, raising his eyebrows at the both of them. It was obvious they were trying to hide the fact they had been fighting yet again.

“Yup,” Keith answered at the same time Lance said “All good.” Lance sent a glare in his direction and Keith rolled his eyes in response. I can’t believe I’m going to be stuck in a car for hours with this moody guy.

“Good, once everyone’s done saying goodbye we’ll leave,” Shiro grunted, turning away and heading back to where the others were crowded around Coran.

Lance sent one last glare in Keith’s direction before walking over to the others. When he reached them Allura had just finished saying goodbye to her uncle. Pidge was currently telling Rover, who was attached to her via a harness and leash, to behave himself while she was gone.

Keith followed Lance, nearly falling over when Kosmo leapt onto him. He chuckled, regaining his balance before leaning over to scratch behind the dog's ears. Lance leaned over to hear what Keith was telling his dog.

“I’m going to leave for a few days, okay?” Keith whispered to his dog, holding Kosmo’s face still with both his hands, “I’ll be back, okay? Don’t worry, Coran will take care of you while I'm gone.”

Lance almost felt bad for the mullet head, he couldn’t remember the last time Keith had been separate from Kosmo. It made Lance miss Kaltenecker, his and Pidge’s cow they had somehow won at the state fair. He had left Kaltenecker at his family’s farm since Coran had no idea how to care for a cow, not to mention he didn’t have room for one. It was times like those when Lance wished he and Pidge had won an easier pet to care for.

“He only responds to his name or the clicker. Don’t leave him in the cage all day, but don’t let him out when you're sleeping because he will do something bad,” Lance turned his attention back to the group in time to catch the end of Pidge’s rambling. She was currently instructing Coran on exactly how to take care of Rover. Coran nodded along, scribbling notes down on a notepad.

“Pidge,” Shiro sighed, gently setting his hand down on her shoulder, “Coran can always call you if he has any trouble.”

Pidge accepted this, finally handing Coran Rover’s leash. She said goodbye one last time before following Hunk and Shay over to a yellow van. Allura and Romelle retreated to a green minivan, and Shiro and Adam got into a black car.

Lance waited impatiently while Keith tried to get his dog to follow commands. Kosmo had instead ignored Keith completely and walked in circles sniffing at the grass. Keith eventually gave up and grabbed his dog by the collar, handing Kosmo over to Coran.

After saying their goodbyes Lance and Keith walked back to the blue truck in silence. Lance started the truck while Keith settled into the passenger seat.

Lance’s truck, Blue as he liked to call her, had been with Lance ever since Allura lost a bet and had to buy everyone a car. Luckily they got to choose their car, within a reasonable price range of course. While Allura was all rich and fancy that didn’t mean she could go throwing her money around on a car her friends would barely even use. And when Lance saw Blue he knew she was the truck he needed. But that was a few years ago, and now Blue may or may not need a couple of maintenance here and there.

Shiro led the others out of Coran’s neighborhood and toward their destination. Lance quickly pulled up the directions on his phone before driving after the others.

“Finally!” Lance cheered, driving out of the neighborhood and following Shiro down a country road, “Ready to be stuck in a car for hours on end?”

Keith only snorted in response, not even looking in Lance’s direction. Instead he stared out of the window, elbow propped up on the door handle.

This is going to be an interesting road trip.

Chapter 2: A Race for Pickle Chips

Notes:

Keith POV this time around!

Keith had actually been excited for the road trip. Not once had he ever left Texas, but now he would get to travel to all the states. That was until Shiro said he would have to leave Kosmo behind. Okay, fine, Keith could handle leaving Kosmo behind, just barely. The final straw had been riding with Lance. The guy who made up some rivalry between them? The guy he always argued and competed with? He was supposed to be stuck in a car with Lance?

After breakfast, Shiro had pulled Keith aside to talk to him. Keith had tried to argue with his brother, but Shiro assured him that riding with Lance would fix the constant arguments they had. Keith, being unable to say no to Shiro, finally agreed to give riding with Lance a chance.

Now Keith was sitting in the passenger seat of Lance’s beloved truck, Blue. Keith tried to avoid conversation by starting out of the window. He should’ve known that with Lance avoiding conversation was impossible. They weren’t even twenty minutes in before Lance started talking again.

“Darn it,” Lance groaned, turning his blinker on, he turned in the complete opposite direction of where they needed to go.

“Where are we going?” Keith asked, finally taking his gaze off the window and looking at Lance.

“I may have forgotten to fill up the tank,” Lance laughed nervously, waving toward the truck’s gas gauge that was nearly at empty. Of course he forgot to get gas before they left!

“We’re going on a road trip how in the universe did you forget gas?” Keith asked, pressing his finger to his temple in frustration. Gas was one of the most important things needed for a road trip! Leave it to Lance to be the one person who could forget something like that.

Lance lifted his hands off the wheel in mock surrender, making the truck swerve a little. Keith grabbed on tightly to the car door and his seat belt when the truck swerved. When he turned to glare at Lance, he already had his hand back on the wheel. Lance was laughing, a mischievous smirk on his face.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face!” Lance snorted, stopping his laughing fit to instead tease Keith, “I’m not going to kill you, you know?”

Keith only grumbled to himself, looking back out the window so Lance couldn’t see the red creeping up his face. He didn’t trust Lance’s driving skills, sue him. Especially after Shiro got into that crash that he lost his arm in. I wouldn’t put it past Lance to get us into some stupid crash. With his luck Lance could look away from the road for one second and they’d be flipped over in the middle of a highway.

Lance turned into a gas station, parking his truck beside a tank. He twisted his car keys and pulled them out of the ignition, the truck turned off with a soft hum. Lance stepped out of the truck, leaving the door open while he paid for gas and filled the tank.

“Oh! Could you call Shiro and let him know we’re at the gas station?” Lance asked, leaning back into the car.

“Yeah, sure,” Keith snorted, rolling his eyes at Lance once more before digging his phone out of his backpack. He pulled up his contacts and dialed Shiro, holding his phone to his ear.

“Keith?” Shiro asked from the other line, “What’s up kiddo?”

“Just calling to let you know that Lance forgot to fill up his gas tank, so we stopped at a gas station,” Keith explained, sending a glare in Lance’s direction to which his rival just shrugged and resumed filling up his gas tank. Keith could hear the muffled voice of who he assumed to be Adam on the other line before Shiro answered.

“Alright, that’s fine. You know the way there?” Shiro asked, Keith couldn’t help but wish he was with Shiro and Adam instead of being stuck at a gas station with Lance.

“Yeah, we know the way,” Keith answered, double checking that the directions were still on Lance’s phone.

“Good,” Shiro replied, but before Keith could hang up he was talking again, “And Keith? Be nice to Lance, he was very kind to offer to take your bike.”

Shiro was right, Lance was kind enough to drive Keith’s bike around. But that wouldn’t stop Keith from snapping back when Lance started the fights. Afterall if Lance started the arguments it wasn't rude for Keith to defend himself.

“Bye, Shiro.”

“Bye, Keith.”

Keith hangs up and puts his phone back into his bag, grumbling to himself. Who was Shiro to tell Keith who he should and shouldn’t be nice to? Shiro didn’t understand how annoying Lance was!

Keith nearly hits his head on the car roof when a knock on his window makes him jump. He glares at Lance, who is currently trying to hold back his laughter, through the window. Lance opens the passenger door and mischievously smiles down at Keith. Oh great, what does he want now?

“I’m going in the gas station to grab some snacks,” Lance explained, pointing behind him at the store, “Want to come?”

“Fine,” Keith sighs, stepping out of the truck and closing the door, snickering at Lance’s growing smile. They walked toward the store, Keith following Lance. But when Lance reached the door he stopped, turning to look at Keith.

“First to checkout wins,” Lance said, opening the door and rushing into the store before Keith could reply. Keith blinked in surprise for a few seconds before it clicked, a competition.

Keith raced into the store and toward the cold drinks, he couldn’t let Lance win. He quickly grabbed some random energy drinks before turning to the snack aisle. Keith had never been one to care for food nutrition, so you could say the snacks he grabbed were less than healthy.

Keith and Lance made it to the checkout at the same time. There were two lines, both with several people waiting to pay for their products. With one shared look they both picked a separate line. Keith waited impatiently, trying not to drop his armful of items, he really should’ve got a basket. Lance was basically hoping on the balls of his feet, peering over the line to see what was taking them so long.

Keith’s line moved up first, and he couldn’t help but turn and stick his tongue out at Lance. Lance gasped and lifted his hand to flip Keith off but instead ended up almost dropping whatever strange snacks he held. Sadly, both lines continued to move at the same pace. They really were neck and neck.

Keith made it to the counter first, dropping everything he held in front of the cashier. The cashier was in no rush to scan his items, lazily putting them into a bag. Keith wanted to yell at them to hurry up when he realized Lance had finally reached the checkout.

Keith paid and nearly ripped the bag from the cashier’s hands. He proudly walked over to Lance, holding his bag like it was a trophy. Lance was just paying when Keith got there. Lance grumbled in defeat, grabbing his own bag and turning to Keith.

“You only won because of that old lady in my line!” Lance defended, a sore loser, walking backward through the store exit so he could still look at Keith, “Not to mention you just grabbed a bunch of random garbage!”

Lance didn’t spot the crack in the concrete, the back of his shoe got caught and he tripped. Lance nearly fell flat on his face but he caught his balance at the last second. Although, in order to catch his balance he had dropped his bag of snacks. Gas station products spilled out of the bag and onto concrete.

Keith couldn’t help the fit of laughter that escaped his mouth at the sight of Lance’s face and spilled groceries. Keith clutched his stomach with his free hand and squeezed his eyes closed, barely breathing through his laughter. The whole situation was hilarious, Lance challenging him to a shopping competition, then proceeding to trip because he was being a sore loser.

When Keith finally stopped laughing and opened his eyes he realized Lance was just staring at him. Lance seemed to come to the same conclusion because a look of realization flashed across his face. He straightened his back and pointed at Keith.

“You laughed!” Lance gasped, shaking his pointing finger accusingly.

Keith blinked in shock, a blush creeping onto his face. He looked away, frown returning to his face.

“I laugh all the time,” Keith grumbled, knowing all too well that wasn’t true. But what could he do? Lance almost falling was definitely worthy of a laugh or two.

Lance scoffed at that, crouching down to pick up his groceries. Keith stifled another laugh when the picture of Lance falling flashed into his head again. Keith caught the blush on Lance’s face, probably from the embarrassment of dropping his snacks.

—

Back in the truck they drove in silence. Well, for all of ten minutes. Keith could already tell that Lance was getting sick of the silence. Could he not handle just a few hours of not talking? Keith finally cracked, looking in Lance’s direction. He was already prepared for whatever horrible conversation starter Lance would come up with.

“So,” Lance started, taking the bait to start a conversation, “What kind of snacks did you get?”

And with that Keith realized he wasn’t even sure what snacks he got from the gas station. He was so caught up in winning the race that he had just grabbed anything that caught his attention.

“I was too busy winning the race that I’m not even sure,” Keith snorted, making sure to rub in the fact he had won. He leaned over and grabbed his grocery bag from the floor, taking out the snacks. He pulled out a bag of chips and squinted at the label.

“Lay’s, but spelt with a ‘Z’ instead, sour pickle flavor,” Keith read out loud, shrugging at the strange chip label. He opened the bag and tossed a chip into his mouth.

“There is no way you just ate that,” Lance choked out, his nose scrunched up in disgust at the smell alone.

“I paid for it so I might as well eat it,” Keith shrugged, eating another bite. The chips were definitely not Lay’s chips, Keith’s pretty sure they weren’t even potato chips but rather corn chips. But Keith didn’t mind, they were edible enough.

Keith pulled out the rest of his snacks, some normal, others were insanely off brand strange flavored items. Not really Keith’s favorite snacks but food nonetheless, Keith wasn’t a picky eater.

“We are going to have to stop at another gas station, because there is no way I’m letting you eat that stuff!” Lance groaned, sticking his tongue out in disgust at the array of strange snacks.

“It's fine, they're not that bad,” Keith assured, even though he wasn’t sure if half this stuff was even safe to consume. Most of the snacks didn’t even have expiration dates on them.

“No, it’s not fine!” Lance argued, glaring at Keith stubbornly, “I do not want you throwing up in my truck! I got Blue cleaned specifically for this trip!”

Keith sighed, giving up on the argument. Lance wasn't wrong, Keith didn’t even know if he could keep his breakfast down after those pickle chips. But he had paid for those snacks and he wasn’t about to let money go to waste. He’d just have to eat them when Lance wasn’t paying attention.

After an hour of silence Keith could tell Lance was already getting bored. Lance was humming to himself, tapping his fingers against the wheel as he drove. Slowly but surely this got on Keith’s nerves, he couldn’t handle another minute of his rival’s boredom. So Keith decided to start the conversation with the only thing he could think of.

“What did I win?” Keith asked, turning his head to glance at Lance. Finally, he stopped that tapping.

“Win?” Lance hummed, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“The gas station race?” Keith replied, crossing his arms and sinking back into his seat.

“One, that was not a fair race! And two, I don’t know, what do you want to win?” Lance questioned, still being sour after losing a competition he had a head start with.

Keith thought for a moment before responding, “The snacks you bought.”

Lance sputtered at that, rambling a few incoherent sentences that Keith couldn’t even attempt to understand. In the end Lance gave up and handed over his snacks like he was handing over his kingdom. Keith smirked, taking the bag and sifting through the different items Lance had bought. No surprise, it was actually on brand snacks and even a few healthy protein bars.

“How did you have time to pick out this stuff from the rest of the garbage?” Keith questioned, he barely had enough time to grab his snacks and he didn’t even read the packaging.

“With my keen eyesight I could easily find the specific brands I wanted,” Lance boasted, winking in Keith’s direction.

The ringing of Lance’s phone playing California Gurls interrupted whatever Keith was going to say. Lance picked up his phone and answered the call, putting it on speaker. Keith was still in shock that Lance’s ringtone was California Gurls of all things.

“Hey, Shiro,” Lance greeted, pulling Keith out of his shock to realize that it was Shiro on the phone.

“Hey, Lance,” Shiro replied on the other line, “What do you guys think about camping instead of getting a hotel?”

“Sounds good, what do you think Keith?” Lance answered, smiling wide at the thought of sleeping under the stars.

“Sure,” Keith sounded less enthusiastic than Lance, but really he was quite excited. Keith had always loved camping, he got to stargaze, sit around a campfire, what was not to love?

“Alright then, I’ll have Adam send you the new directions,” Shiro said, Lance humming in agreement before hanging up on him.

“Pull up the new directions, would you?” Lance more instructed then asked, tossing his phone toward Keith. Keith was shocked that his rival was comfortable with having Keith hold his phone, nevertheless dig through their text messages to find directions. Keith has never even let Shiro hold his phone, but maybe he's a bit protective over his phone. Maybe it was normal to let people go through your phones and Keith was overthinking it.

“Need the password?” Lance said, pulling Keith out of his own head and back to the matter at hand. Keith muttered a small ‘no’ when he got into Lance’s phone with one try at the password. Keith easily found Adam’s message and pulled up the directions before handing the phone back to Lance.

“Wha- When-” Lance stuttered, putting his phone down where he could see the directions, “How did you know my password?”

“It was your favorite number?” Keith raised an eyebrow like it was obvious why he got it immediately.

“You remember that?” Lance questioned, stunned by the fact that Keith would remember something as random as that. Keith shrugged and turned away, looking back out the window. Of course Keith remembered Lance’s favorite number, why wouldn’t he?

Keith was still contemplating why Lance thought he would forget his favorite number when they reached their destination. It was around 7:00pm when Lance drove into a long driveway. Lance pulled over and parked next to Hunk’s yellow van, pulling his keys out of the ignition.

“Ready to camp?” Lance chuckled, hoping out of the truck. Keith followed soon after, stretching his arms above his head to get rid of the cramped car feeling. Lance was doing the same, letting out a yawn before shutting his truck door. Lance turned around and walked over to where their friends were waiting, Keith following close behind.

It didn’t look like Keith was excited, but Keith was already impatiently awaiting the smores, campfires, and stargazing that was soon to occur.

Notes:

Yes, Keith, Lance was definitely blushing because he tripped and not at all because you laughed. In his defense, its totally normal to find your rival’s laugh cute.

And yes, Keith, it’s normal to remember your rival’s favorite number after one conversation where he mentioned it randomly. :]

Chapter 3: Reaching for the Constellations

Notes:

Lance POV! Woo camping!

Lance climbed into the back of Hunk’s van, bending over to reach for another tent. He let out an ‘ah-hah’ when his fingers grazed the single person tent. The camping gear was packed in the far corner which made it difficult to get everything. Luckily Lance was flexible enough to get the hard to reach things.

Lance swung the tent onto his shoulder. He turned around and carefully climbed through the rest of the luggage and back out of the van. He dropped the tent next to the other supplies. Letting out a dramatic sigh, Lance walked over to Hunk. Hunk was counting the tents and making sure they had gotten everything when Lance reached him. Lance sighed dramatically again before leaning onto his friend's shoulder, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead like a renaissance painting.

“Thanks, Lance,” Hunk chuckled, patting the shorter boy on the head.

“You’re lucky I was here, otherwise you would have to empty the whole van to get the stupid camping supplies!” Lance groaned, helping Hunk carry the tents over to their campsite.

Really, it wasn’t Hunk’s fault that the camping supplies were packed so far back. The group hadn’t planned on camping until further into their trip. But when Adam’s friend heard about them driving through Oklahoma he had offered them a place to camp for the night. That place to camp had been a plot of forestry the friend owned near the border between Texas and Oklahoma. It was a beautiful place though, so Lance couldn’t stay mad at the camping gear for long.

When they reached the campsite the others had already cleared enough room for the tents to go. At least they did something, Lance thought, rolling his eyes at his friends’ attempt at being helpful. They had chosen a spot in the wooded area. It was a small clearing surrounded by birch and aspen trees. They had cleared away the undergrowth and set stones for a campfire. Now the group was waiting near said campfire, chatting in the growing darkness of the evening.

“Your majesties,” Lance said dramatically, giving his friends a mock bow and waving toward the pile of tents, “We have brought you the best tents in all the land.”

“Thank you, Lance and Hunk,” Shiro chuckled, rolling his eyes at Lance’s act. Keith and Romelle were already digging through the tents and handing them out.

“I suppose we can allow the peasant a shelter for all of their hard work,” Keith walked over to Lance, shoving a tent into his awaiting hands. Lance gasped in offense, glaring at the smirk on Keith’s face. Lance sputtered a few incoherent words, frowning. Keith scoffed before turning and walking away. This left Lance fuming at the fact Keith had just called him a peasant.

Lance, grumbling to himself, walked over to a clear patch and set down his tent. He squatted down, balancing on the balls of his feet, and opened the blue bag containing his tent parts. Stupid Keith, stupid tents, stupid camping, Lance thought in annoyance. Once he had taken everything out of the blue bag he looked over his shoulder. His eyes landed on Keith who was already half way done setting up his red tent. Of course he’s almost done, it's like he’s competing with someone, Lance returned to his tent. Oh I bet he’s racing me, well I'll show him who's better, Lance smirked, I’m a master at putting up tents.

Then it clicked, the reality of Lance’s situation. He’s never put up a tent before. In fact, he’s barely camped before. The few times he had camped his father was there to put up the tent. Lance stared down at the pieces of his tent. Lance didn’t even know where to start, he didn't even know what pieces went together. Okay, don't panic, Lance took a deep breath, I'm sure there's instructions somewhere, right? Lance reached over and frantically dug through the bag, searching for instructions. It was empty. So maybe there aren't instructions, that's fine, just great, Lance picked at his fingernail, surely it can't be that hard to put up a tent? He huffed in determination, picking up a…whatever the piece was, and trying to put it together with…another piece. Lance cringed at his lack of knowledge about tents.

Lance tried to stick random pieces together with no luck for about ten minutes. He tried to ignore the footsteps behind him that grew closer, instead he focused on his…lack of a tent. The footsteps stopped and Lance felt the presence of someone beside him. He ignored them. Except the person cleared their throat, clearly asking for Lance’s attention. Lance finally turned his head to glare up at them. Keith stood beside him, his arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow raised in a question. Lance crossed his own arms and raised his eyebrow back at Keith, a pout on his face.

“Do you need help?” Keith snorted, waving his hand at the sad attempt at a tent.

“Nope,” Lance answered, returning back to sticking random pieces together, “Everythings great, perfect in fact, I've got it under control!”

“Alright,” Keith said, leaning his back against a birch tree, “If you say so.”

It only took another minute of failing at putting his tent together before Lance gave in. He sighed and looked up at Keith. Keith was still standing there, grinning devilishly at Lance’s struggle. After a pleading look from Lance, Keith sighed and pushed off the tree. He walked over and crouched down in front of Lance, taking a tent piece from his hands. Lance watched stubbornly as Keith put pieces together as if it was the hundredth time he’s done this before. Lance would randomly hand Keith pieces but other than that he felt pretty useless just sitting there as Keith built his tent.

Keith finished putting Lance’s tent up in a few minutes, taking a step back to marvel at his work. He smirked at Lance’s eye roll. Lance muttered a small ‘thanks’ before grabbing his sleeping bag and entering his tent. Lance set down his sleeping bag and put on some comfier clothes before exiting his tent again. He walked over to the campfire that several of his friends were currently sitting in a circle around. They had already gotten the fire started and Lance was the last one to show up.

“Finally! Took you long enough!” Pidge groaned when Lance sat down next to her and Hunk, “We can finally start making s’mores!”

Pidge grabbed a marshmallow from Shiro’s hand, sticking it on to the end of a marshmallow roasting stick. Lance had forgotten that they had brought the marshmallow roasting sticks, much better than an actual stick. He grabbed his own marshmallow and copied Pidge’s actions, sticking his marshmallow over the small flame. Keith looked like he's never roasted a marshmallow before, dropping his marshmallow once or twice before finally getting it onto the stick. He hesitantly held it over the fire. This made Lance smile.

“Have you ever roasted a marshmallow, Keith?” Lance teased, ignoring the disappointed sigh that escaped Shiro.

“Of course I have,” Keith snorted, still glancing uncertainly at his marshmallow.

“Oh yeah? I bet my s’more will be better than yours,” Lance challenged, staring at Keith who sat straight across from him and the fire.

“Well that's a stupid competition,” Keith grunted, staring right back at Lance.

“You're just saying that because you’d lose,” Lance sighed a-matter-of-factly, purposely pushing at Keith’s buttons.

“I would never lose at something that stupid,” Keith pushed back, daring Lance to argue with him.

Lance, of course, did argue with him, “Yeah, you would.”

“Would not,” Keith growled back.

“You could barely put your marshmallow on the stick,” Lance snapped back, ignoring the warning ‘Lance’ that came from Shiro.

“At least I can put up a tent on my own,” Keith fired back, his eyebrows pinched together in anger.

“I could put a tent up if I wanted to!” Lance argued, clenching his jaw in frustration.

“Keith-” Hunk butted in, but the both of them ignored him.

“It sure didn’t look like you could!” Keith interrupted Hunk.

“Lance-” Hunk tried again.

“Well maybe you should get your eyes checked,” Lance interrupted Hunk this time, “Because I've put up plenty of tents before.”

“Lance,” Hunk put his hand on his friend's shoulder this time.

“What, Hunk?” Lance groaned, trying not to snap at his friend, “Can’t you see i'm arguing with Keith?”

“Your marshmallow is burning,” Hunk sighed, pointing toward the fire.

Lance looked over at his marshmallow. But instead of a marshmallow it was a flaming, gooey mess. Lance yelped, pulling his marshmallow away from the fire and trying to blow it out. Once the flames were gone all that was left was a charred excuse of a marshmallow. Lance frowned in embarrassment. His embarrassment soon died out because he realized that Keith’s marshmallow was also on fire. Keith was staring sadly at his burnt marshmallow. Lance almost felt bad for him. That was until Pidge burst into laughter, followed closely by snickers from his other friends.

Lance and Keith didn’t speak for the rest of the s’more making. Awkwardly asking for new marshmallows. The group finished their s’mores, sharing random car ride stories with the others. Hunk said something about Pidge making him and Shay listen to her favorite podcast the whole ride there. Allura mentioned how Romelle sat on her knees in the car, to which Romelle argued that it was comfortable. Shiro mentioned how Adam had bought several bags of spicy chips for the road trip and yet proceeded to eat all of them in the first few hours. Lance was more focused on savoring the taste of his s’more.

Shiro was the first to stand up, picking up their s’more making supplies, “I’ll bring this stuff back to the car, then I’m heading to bed.”

Shiro turned and headed for the car, Adam standing up to follow his husband, “You all make sure to get enough sleep, we leave at 7:00 tomorrow.”

The others muttered their goodbyes and goodnights, along with a few groans of protest at the news they were leaving so early. Adam only sighed before following Shiro into their shared tent. The rest of them sat near the campfire for a little, randomly making small conversations. That's why when Romelle’s tent fell everyone screamed in surprise at the loud noise. Breaking up their small talk, Romelle groaned and tried to put her tent back up. Except Lance was sure a tent wasn't supposed to be as bent out of shape as hers was. In addition, Romelle’s tent looked embarrassingly old, having tons of sewn up patches.

The group watched Romelle put up her tent again, only for it to fall over from a gust of wind. Romelle groaned, kicking at her broken tent in frustration. She had a pout on her face as she thought about how to fix her issue.

“Welp, I’m not sharing a tent!” Pidge giggled, quickly grabbing her laptop and heading for her tent. Lance assumed she wasn’t going to sleep, probably doing some nerdy thing he wouldn’t understand. Pidge almost never slept. At night at least.

“I don’t think there's enough room in me and Shay’s tent, sorry Romelle,” Hunk apologized.

“Yeah, my tent is too small to share,” Lance came up with an excuse, well it wasn’t exactly a lie. Keith hummed in agreement. Everyone turned to look at Allura, since she was the only one who hadn't said an excuse yet.

“Oh, uh, you can sleep in my tent, Romelle,” Allura offered nervously, scratching the back of her neck. Romelle seemed to brighten up at that.

“I can?” Romelle asked, smiling in excitement.

“Uh, yeah, It will- uh,” Allura started, clearing her throat and returning to her calm composure, “It will be like a sleepover.”

“Yes!” Romelle agreed, beaming, “I brought some cards, you could teach me that card game you were talking about in the car!”

“Oh, sure,” Allura chuckled, smiling softly at the overly excited girl.

“What! No fair, I want to play a card game!” Lance gasped, putting his hand on his chest like Romelle had stabbed his heart.

“Too bad, it's a girl's sleepover,” Romelle giggled, wiggling her finger at Lance.

“Sorry, Lance. I can play cards with you another time,” Allura offered, sending him an apologetic smile. Romelle grabbed Allura’s wrist pulling her excitedly toward the large pink tent. Allura waved goodbye to the others before disappearing into the tent.

“I guess we should probably get to bed as well,” Hunk sighed, helping Shay to her feet, “Goodnight Lance, Goodnight Keith.”

Both of them muttered goodnight, watching Hunk and Shay retreat into their tent. And just like that Keith and Lance were alone. Lance laid down flat on the ground, staring through a break in the canopy above and at the starry sky. He looked at the familiar constellations, naming off the ones he could see. Not soon after, Lance heard Keith lay down beside him. They both watched the stars in silence until Lance couldn’t take it anymore.

“Do you like stargazing?” Lance asked, stifling the yawn that caught in his throat when he opened his mouth.

“Yeah,” Keith answered after a few seconds of silence, “I used to stargaze every night.”

“Do you know the constellations?” Lance wondered, he wasn’t surprised that Keith liked to stargaze. His dog’s name was Kosmo.

“No,” Keith replied, which surprised Lance, “I never learned them.”

“I could point out a few right now,” Lance snorted, turning his head to look at Keith, “I could teach you.”

“Sure,” Keith yawned, sending a side glance in Lance’s direction.

Lance grinned and turned back to look at the stars. He pointed out several constellations, telling Keith about them. He even went on to tell a few stories from when his older sister was teaching him about the stars. Keith listened, randomly humming in response to Lance’s stories. Lance talked for an hour, about constellations, about his family, about almost anything that came to his head. When he paused after a story about his twin sister falling out of a tree Lance realized Keith was snoring.

Lance sat up and looked down at Keith. Keith was asleep, his face relaxed and his breathing slow. In fact, this was the most relaxed Lance had ever seen his rival. Keith looked at peace, his hand under his head to act like a pillow and his lips parted as he snored. Lance couldn't help but realize how vulnerable Keith looked, with his stupid mullet falling into his face as he slept. Lance stared at Keith for far too long, because he nearly jumped out of his skin when Keith muttered something in his sleep. Keith shifted, reaching his hand out sleepily, and grabbing Lance’s wrist.

“Uhm, Keith?” Lance squeaked, blinking in surprise at his asleep rival. Keith stirred at his name, blinking his eyes open. When he woke up enough to realize he was holding Lance’s wrist he sat up immediately. Keith let go of Lance, his eyes wide and his face growing red by the second.

“Oh, sorry,” Keith apologized, rubbing his hands together nervously, “I must’ve fallen asleep.”

“Yeah, you’re fine,” Lance answered awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.

“And sorry I grabbed you,” Keith continued, staring hard at the grass below them, “I must’ve been reaching for Kosmo, I’m not used to sleeping without him.”

“Dude, you’re fine,” Lance felt his stomach twist when Keith mentioned Kosmo, he almost forgot that the two had never left each other's side, “But if you’re tired, we should go to bed.”

“Yeah,” Keith sighed, standing up and offering Lance a hand, “What time is it anyway?”

“Somewhere around 10:00, I think,” Lance shrugged, taking Keith’s hand and pulling him to his feet.

“Well, I’ll see you at 7:00 in the morning then,” Keith nodded, heading for his respective tent. Lance groaned at the mention of how early he had to wake up, waving goodbye to Keith before heading back to his own tent.

Lance entered his tent, zipping it closed behind him. He unrolled his sleeping bag, grabbing his sleeping mask from his backpack. He laid down, curling up in his warm sleeping bag, he hadn't even realized how cold it was outside. He laid there for a while, trying to sleep. But his thoughts kept returning to Keith of all people. How his rival looked so relaxed when he was sleeping. How he had just listened to Lance talk for an hour straight. How hurt he looked when he mentioned missing Kosmo. Maybe I could find a way for Keith to see Kosmo again on the trip?

That's how Lance fell asleep, thinking of ways to help his rival see his stupid dog again.

Notes:

Uhhh, I’m sure the marshmallows are fine.

Heheh, Romelle and Allura sharing a tent >:3

Wow Lance, you seem to really care for your rival, how strange.

Chapter 4: Cats out of the Bag

Notes:

Keith POV!

Keith only got a few hours of sleep before the sound of someone entering his tent woke him up. Keith narrowed his eyes at the dark figure that zipped open his tent. He lunged, tackling the figure and twisting their arms behind their back. He straddled the person, shoving their face into the earth beneath them.

“Gah! Let me go!” The person yelped in a strangely familiar voice. It took half-awake Keith a few seconds to recognize the person he currently had pinned to the floor.

“Lance!?” Keith asked, scrambling off his rival and letting Lance stand. Lance grumbled something about Keith being stupid before Keith could process everything that was happening. Lance had broken into Keith’s tent? Then Keith had tackled him? This was way too strange for waking up in the middle of the night after two hours of sleep.

“What are you doing up?” Keith whisper-yelled, waving his arms frantically.

“Something was scratching at my tent! And your tent just happened to be the closest,” Lance whisper-yelled back, pointing his finger at Keith accusingly.

“Something was scratching at your tent?” Keith raised an eyebrow in uncertainty.

“Yes!” Lance stressed, pointing in the direction of his tent, “It could be a coyote, or a bear! That's right, it’s probably a bear!”

“Calm down, it’s probably just a squirrel,” Keith sighed, marching toward Lance’s tent. Lance followed close behind him, jumping at any noise. Keith couldn’t help but roll his eyes at Lance. Has he never gone camping before? He didn’t know how to build a tent, and now he’s acting like a bear is out to get him!

They reached Lance’s tent, the entrance most likely still unzipped from Lance’s frantic escape. Keith held up his phone, turning on his flashlight and scanning the area around the tent. And, surprise, Keith didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. In fact, he didn't even hear any weird noises, except the ones from Lance. Lance frowned when Keith turned toward him and waved around at the empty area.

Lance opened his mouth to say something but a scratching noise cut him off. Lance shrieked in fear, jumping behind Keith. Except Keith also let out a, very manly, scream at the noise. Keith shakily held up his flashlight, facing it in the direction that the noise came from. The flashlight reflected onto two glowing eyes that peaked out from behind Lance’s tent. Keith and Lance screamed yet again, scaring the creature as well. The animal bolted into Lance’s tent leaving the two boys stunned.

“Well, it’s definitely not a bear,” Keith cleared his throat, prying Lance’s hands from his shoulder.

“Whatever it is, it's in my tent now!” Lance whisper-yelled, pointing at his tent furiously.

Keith let out a long sigh. He slowly tip-toed toward the tent entrance, Lance following close behind. Why am I helping Lance again? This is his problem not mine, Keith thought, If I die to whatever this thing is I'm haunting Lance forever. He opened the tent, shining his flashlight into the tent. His eye caught movement to the left of the tent so he flashed light on it. There, arching its back and hissing at the two of them, was a bobcat.

The bobcat hissed one final time before lunging at Keith. Lance yanked him out of the tent, closing the entrance and frantically zipping it closed. The claws of the wild bobcat stuck through the fabric but the both of them were safe. Keith collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavy, followed close by Lance slumping to the ground as well.

“Oklahoma has bobcats!?” Lance gasped, still shocked that they had trapped a bobcat in Lance’s tent.

“Apparently,” Keith grumbled, shivering at the yowls and hisses coming from the inside of the tent. See, this is what happens when you help Lance, Keith thought sourly. He had no idea what to do about their situation. They couldn't let the bobcat out because then it would attack them. But they couldn't leave the bobcat in the tent, Lance needed a place to sleep after all. So what now?

“What do we do?” Lance asked, sharing the same thoughts as Keith, he turned and looked at Keith questioningly, “We can’t let that thing out, it’s too dark!”

Lance had a point, but Keith was far too stubborn to ever admit that to Lance, “You’re just going to have to sleep somewhere else for the night.”

“Where?” Lance snorted, looking around like a new tent would pop up out of nowhere.

“Just-” Keith groaned, already hating the conclusion he had been brought to, “You’ll have to sleep in my tent.”

“Your tent?” Lance questioned, raising an eyebrow at Keith in confusion.

“Or you can sleep out here with the bobcat if you’d rather,” Keith grumbled, standing back up and walking toward his own tent. Keith would just have to be annoyed by Lance in the morning, his exhaustion was catching up and he was growing more and more tired by the minute.

“Hey!” Lance squeaked, scrambling after Keith, “Fine, I’ll stay in your tent.”

Keith stepped into his own tent, zipping the entrance closed after Lance stepped inside. Keith turned and flopped down into his sleeping bag, moving to the far right so Lance would have enough room to sleep. Lance laid down on his left, leaving the two of them in an awkward silence as they attempted to sleep. After a few minutes Keith could practically hear Lance shivering. He’d almost forgotten that his rival didn't have a sleeping bag, nonetheless a blanket.

Keith groaned, opening his eyes and turning to face Lance. Lance smiled back nervously, currently curled into a tight ball in an attempt to obtain warmth. Keith pressed his fingers to his temple, he had no patience for Lance when he was this tired.

“Let’s just share my sleeping bag,” Keith grumbled, he already regretted his decision but it was too late to go back now, “I won’t be able to sleep with all your shivering.”

Lance blinked at Keith in surprise, almost frozen at the suggestion of sharing a sleeping bag, “Oh, uh, ok.”

Keith luckily had one of the large sleeping bags, leaving enough room for a second person if need be. Lance slipped into the sleeping bag beside him. They both laid back to back, curled up in the warm sleeping bag. Keith could feel everytime Lance moved, even when he breathed. And if he listened close enough he could hear Lance’s heartbeat, or was that his own?

Lance fell asleep before Keith. Keith knew that because he could feel the slow breathing of his rival. But Keith had to admit that the soft breathing and the warmth seeping from Lance was comforting. Keith never really liked touching, or hugs, or most of any physical contact. Unless it was with Kosmo, of course. Yet somehow Lance’s back pressed against his own was comforting? Before Keith knew it Lance’s soft breathing lulled him to sleep. And it was probably one of the best sleeps he’s had in a while.

—

The sound of voices outside his tent woke Keith from his slumber. But he was far too comfortable to get up now. In fact, he was surrounded by warmth, in a calming way. So instead Keith ignored the voices outside and snuggled closer to the warmth. Except when he moved closer the warmth….mumbled?

Keith was suddenly thrown back into reality. Because the warmth was actually a sleeping Lance. A sleeping Lance that currently had his arms wrapped around Keith and a leg slung over his waist. Keith’s arms trapped between his and Lance’s chests due to Lance holding him impossibly close. Keith felt his face burning up at the realization of his situation. His face pressed into the crook of Lance’s neck and Lance’s chins resting on the top of his head.

Lance mumbled something sleepily and tightened his grip on Keith, pulling him slightly closer. Keith was frozen. His eyes wide and his face red and burning. How on Earth did we get into this situation? Keith silently cursed himself for letting Lance into his sleeping bag. How was I supposed to know this would happen? Keith was now getting uncomfortably warm, sweat trickling down his back. What am I supposed to do? Move, right? What would Lance think of this? Who am I kidding, Lance is my rival, he’ll be furious!

Why am I not furious?

Keith immediately pushed that thought away. Instead, he focused on the fact that someone was currently unzipping the entrance to his tent. Lance stirred at the noise, finally waking up. Keith held his breath when he felt Lance stiffen. Slowly, he tilted his head, looking up. Keith made eye contact with Lance, both frozen in fear? Shock? Who knows. What they did know was whoever was opening Keith’s tent was almost done and the two rivals were still tangled in a mass of limbs.

Lance let go of Keith and both quickly untangled themselves from the other. Practically jumping away from each other. Both had a matching blush across their cheeks and a look of pure shock, maybe even terror. The only thing breaking the awkward tension was the person finally entering the tent.

“Keith! Wake up sleepyhead! Hunk is makin-” Pidge stepped into the tent, her voice falling flat when she noticed Lance. Behind her round glasses her eyes were wide and calculating as she took in the scene. Keith could only imagine how it must’ve looked to her, Lance and Keith being in the same tent.

“Hey, Pidge!” Lance immediately started to explain the situation, letting out an awkward laugh, “Last night Keith scared a bobcat into my tent so I had to spend the night here.” Lance stood up, dusting off his pants like he had dirt on them. He had a large grin on his face, the grin Keith knew well, the one of fake confidence. It made Keith grunt, looking away and crossing his arms.

“You scared the bobcat, I tried to help you,” Keith grumbled, sending a glare in Lance’s direction before looking back at Pidge. The girl was still standing frozen in the entrance, except now a mischievous smirk replaced her shocked expression. Keith could only imagine what she was thinking.

“Uh-huh,” Pidge answered, Keith’s stomach dipped in fear at Pidge’s drawn out words, “Sure.”

“What do you mean, ‘sure’?” Keith questioned, his eyebrow raised in interrogation.

Pidge only giggled, turning on her heels and hoping out of the tent. “Hunk is making omelets for breakfast, don’t be late!” She called over her shoulder, scrambling away before Keith could catch her.

Keith and Lance shared a look of mutual fear. Both immediately stood up and raced after Pidge, still in their pajamas. Once they caught up with Pidge the others had all exited their tents and gathered around the campfire. Expect they were too late, Pidge had already reached Adam.

“Hey, Adam,” Pidge hummed, grinning wide and casting a glance at Keith and Lance, “Ever seen a bobcat?”

Keith felt his breath catch in his throat. Somehow he felt his cheeks get even hotter. He wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. Actually, he wished the bobcat had clawed him to death so he wouldn’t have to deal with this. Keith knew that look on Pidge all too well, it meant hours of teasing and embarrassment. And somehow Keith and Lance were doomed to it.

“I don’t believe I have, no,” Adam hummed back, turning to look down at Pidge, “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, you know,” Pidge acted innocent, “There’s one in Lance’s tent right now, supposedly.”

“What?” Adam gasped, turning his attention to Lance. Lance stood up straight, standing rigid at Keith’s side. He chuckled nervously.

Adam took a deep breath, setting down his mug of coffee on a tree trunk. He turned to Shiro, who was distracted by helping Hunk cook, and tapped his husband on their shoulder.

“Hun,” Adam started once he had Shiro’s attention, “Would you mind helping me with a cat problem?”

“A cat problem?” Shiro questioned, his face screwed up in confusion. To which Lance quickly explained the situation before Pidge could butt in and embarrass them more.

“So, you're telling me that there’s currently a bobcat in your tent?” Shiro confirmed once Lance had finished explaining things. Both Keith and Lance nodded.

Shiro let out a long sigh, pressing his index finger to his left temple. He calmed himself down before walking over to Lance’s blue tent. Arms crossed in disbelief. Shiro crouched down and started to unzip the entrance, only to be met with a loud hiss from inside. Lance squeaked and jumped behind Keith, who had jumped behind Adam, trying to hide from the angry bobcat. Shiro paused, shocked that there actually was a bobcat in the tent.

Shiro grabbed a stick that laid on the ground next to him before resuming. He finally opened the tent, pulling the flap away. He nearly fell over when the bobcat lunged out of the tent and in front of the group. The bobcat turned and hissed at the others, back arched and teeth bared. Shiro swung and poked his stick at the bobcat, trying to scare it away. He stood in front of Adam, blocking the bobcat from reaching anyone else. The bobcat decided that it wasn’t worth it to pick a fight with a man holding a stick, instead turning and fleeing into the woods. Leaving everyone stunned in silence.

The silence only lasted a second before Pidge’s loud laugh made everyone jump. She was clutching her stomach, leaning over as a fit of laughter took hold. Shiro and Adam followed soon after, snorting at the absurdity of the whole situation. Lance and Keith shared the same annoyed look. Angered by their friends’ laughter about their predicament. So all they had to do was wave a stick at the bobcat and it would’ve left, instead Keith and Lance had shared a tent for no reason. Keith couldn’t help the groan that escaped his throat. Slumping into a sitting position and covering his face with his hands.

“I can’t believe- I can’t-” Pidge tried to talk, wheezing out a few words between laughs, “There was actually a bobcat in your tent!” She finally stood up straight, wiping tears from her eyes. Still snickering, Pidge turned and jogged over to Hunk, probably to tell him about what had happened.

“It’s not very often a bobcat gets caught in a tent,” Shiro chuckled, patting Lance on his shoulder, “Guess you're just lucky, Lance.” Lance only groaned in response, Keith mirroring his groan. Shiro smiled softly at them before returning to his duty as Hunk’s cook assistant. Adam returned to sipping his coffee, leaving Lance and Leith to simmer in their embarrassment.

Keith was still processing everything that had happened in just the morning so far when Hunk finished breakfast. Hunk handed everyone their own omelette, fresh from a camping stovetop. Keith muttered his thanks and dug into the meal. The warm omelette reminded him of how warm Lance was that morning. It’s safe to say Keith nearly choked on his breakfast when that thought flickered into his head. He immediately pushed that thought away, disgusted that his brain would think something as stupid as that.

Keith would rather the world catch fire than live through the events of this morning again.

Or would he?

Notes:

The bobcat deserves more credit for forcing the ’rivals’ to share a sleeping bag >:]

G A S P, cuddles?!

Chapter 5: The Castle’s Cones

Notes:

Lance POV!

Sorry this update took longer, I had a lot of school exams >:[

It's shocking how easily even Hunk’s delicious omelettes can taste bad when someone named Pidge won’t leave you alone. At least that’s how Lance felt. He tried to ignore Pidge at first, but she never lessened the teasing. In fact, it had somehow gotten worse.

“So, you and Keith shared a tent together?” Pidge asked for the hundredth time, wiggling her eyebrows and leaning into Lance’s personal space. Lance groaned, he turned and flicked Pidge in the middle of her forehead. Pidge giggled, swatting his hand away and leaning impossibly closer. Except this time her eyes sparkled with a new question.

“Why did you wake him up instead of anyone else?” Pidge smirked, knowing well that she had Lance caught in her web.

Lance gaped, he stumbled over his words, trying to come up with an explanation. Why did I wake up Keith? Determined to prove Pidge wrong, he made up something.

“You’re a terrible person to wake up, and everyone else was doing couply-sleepovery-things!” Lance managed to say after minutes of mumbling.

Lance had never been more grateful for Shiro than the moment he interrupted Pidge’s response. Pidge closed her mouth and gave Lance a look of ‘we’ll continue this later’. Lance turned to look at Shiro. He hummed a small, ‘hmm?’ to signify he hadn't heard their question.

“We’re trying to decide who Pidge should ride with,” Shiro explained, sending a small smile in the short girl’s direction.

Pidge brightened up at this, a mischievous grin on her face, “I could ride with Lance.”

Lance jumped at that, knowing full well that Pidge would be teasing him the whole drive.

“There's, uh, not enough seats!” Lance offered, almost pulling at his hair to try and come up with an excuse.

“I’m sure Keith wouldn’t mind riding with someone else,” Pidge suggested, Lance could almost hear her malicious cackling.

“He actually can’t!” Lance yelped a little too fast, “Me and Keith have some important plans for the drive. Right, Keith?”

“We don-” Keith started to decline before Lance shoved his hand over Keith’s mouth. Lance chuckled nervously, making sure Keith couldn’t call his bluff. Keith glared at Lance, grumbling into his hand.

“Oh, okay,” Shiro raised his eyebrow at the two of them, letting out a sigh before continuing, “You can ride with Adam and me, Pidge.”

“Sure,” Pidge shrugged, “So long as we listen to my podcast.”

With that decision made, Lance realized he still had his hand over Keith’s mouth. He quickly pulled his hand away and followed the others. Everyone was packing up their tents and cleaning up any remnants that they had been there. Lance had Hunk help him take down his tent, too embarrassed to ask for Keith’s help again. He and Hunk carried them back to the yellow van. Lance had to squeeze back into the van in order to put them back where he had gotten them.

Once finished putting up the camping supplies, Lance finally walked over to his truck. He was surprised to find that Keith was already sitting in the truck. How long has he been sitting in a truck with no air conditioning? He’s probably melting alive at this point!

Lance twirled his keys around his index finger before unlocking the driver’s door. He sat down and put the keys into the ignition, immediately turning on the air conditioning to full blast.

“How long have you been waiting? It’s way too hot in here!” Lance snorted, shutting his door and fastening his seatbelt.

“Not long,” Keith hummed, although he definitely looked like he had been sweating bullets a moment before. If I hadn’t showed up soon Keith would’ve stubbornly died from the heat!

“I'll choose to believe you,” Lance said doubtfully, “Pull up the directions, would you?” Lance tossed his phone into Keith’s awaiting hands, putting Blue into reverse and backing out of the driveway. Keith pulled up the directions and handed Lance back his phone.

“To Arkansas!” Lance whooped, turning into a back country road. Lance followed closely behind Hunk’s yellow van.

An hour into the drive and Lance had almost forgotten that Keith was even in the truck. That was until Keith finally spoke over Lance’s music. Currently blasting some random pop song. Lance had to turn it down so he could make out what Keith was saying.

“How do you listen to this stuff?” Keith repeated, with a single glance Lance could tell he was annoyed for some reason.

Lance let out a dramatic gasp, placing a hand on his heart, “I can’t believe you would say such things!”

“It’s not bad, but it’s definitely not good,” Keith muttered, sending a challenging glance in Lance’s direction.

“Oh really?” Lance accepted the challenge, grabbing his phone and pulling up a music app, “Why don’t you choose something then?”

A few seconds of Keith taking forever to pick a song pass by. Finally House of Memories by Panic! At the Disco started to blast on the car speakers. Lance laughed aloud at the song choice. While it wasn’t a bad song, not even close actually, it was definitely the song Lance was expecting.

Keith, on the other hand, did not seem amused by Lance laughing at him. Which only made Lance laugh harder. Laughing so hard that he could barely see the road through his tears and wheezing. At one point Keith reached over and steadied the wheel, shocking Lance back to the present.

“Keith, you just have to face the truth,” Lance sighed dramatically, finally able to quit laughing, “My music is better than yours.”

“Mine is better,” Keith snapped, crossing his arms over her chest and looking out the window. Lance even noticed the cute, no, stupid frown on Keith’s face.

“What's wrong with 2000’s pop?” Lance quizzed, taking his phone back. He put his blinker on, and following the directions, took a right turn.

“What's wrong with Panic! At the Disco?” Keith shot back, never taking his gaze off the window.

Lance, unable to answer, pulled up another song on his phone. Clicking a random one. A random indie song started to resonate throughout the truck. Even Blue seemed to drive smoother to the music.

A few seconds into the song Lance nearly misses the soft sound of Keith humming to the tune. He couldn’t help the smirk that spread across his face. He found a song that he and Keith could agree on? That was unheard of.

“I should have known that you and Pidge would like the same music genre,” Lance snorted, pulling his truck to a stop at a red light.

“You don’t seem to hate it yourself,” Keith pointed out, smirking when Lance stumbled over his words at that. Lance took a deep breath before answering.

“It's still only second to 2000’s pop,” Lance grumbled, reaching over and turning the music louder. Luckily he had his indie music playlist on. Otherwise he would have to find new songs while driving.

Keith seemed to accept that. They both hummed and sang, mainly Lance, to the songs. It was rare to find something they both agreed on. Well, at least Lance thought it was. He’s only now realizing how little he knows about his mullet friend. Maybe they agree on more things? Maybe he’s the reason he and Keith argue so much? No, that’s not it.

California Gurls blasting from Blue’s speakers tugged Lance from his thoughts. Shiro was calling. Lance grabbed at his phone, clumsily answering the call.

“Shiro?” Lance greeted, connecting the call to his truck's speakers. A few moments later Shiro responded.

“Hey, Lance!” Shiro said form the other line, “We were planning on stopping at an ice cream place, sound good?”

“Oh, uh, sounds delicious to me. I’m always up for ice cream,” Lance chuckled, already excited for the cold dessert, “Keith?”

“Sure,” Keith snorted, rolling his eyes at Lance’s childish excitement. Lance sent a returning glare in his direction.

“Perfect! It’ll be next to the store we planned on meeting at,” Shiro explained, having Adam send the directions. Lance was about to say his goodbyes when another familiar voice passed through the call.

“Hey, Lance,” Pidge said from the other end, drawing out her ‘hey’ in a teasing manner, “And Keith.”

“Nope, see you later Pidgeon,” Lance growled, immediately hanging up on the mischievous girl. Keith blinked in surprise, raising a questioning eyebrow at Lance. He simply shrugged off the look, focusing on the directions instead.

—

It only took around ten minutes before they reached the small ice cream store's parking lot. Lance pulled Blue into a parking spot. Twisting the keys and putting his truck into park. He double checked the store name before opening his door. He got out of the truck, stretching his legs and back before locking the vehicle. Keith jumped out after him, already heading for the store.

“Hey!” Lance shouted after him, racing to catch back up with his rival, “Wait up!”

Before them was a small shop, sandwiched between two larger buildings. Glowing red letters spelling out ‘The Castle’s Cones’ above the iconic, red and white striped awning. A flickering open sign hanging from the glass door. Several circular tables with umbrellas sitting on the small porch in front of the shop.

Hunk spotted them first, waving at Lance and Keith. Their friends sat at one of the shaded tables, waiting. Lance waved back and sped up. He reached Hunk first, swinging his arm around his friend's side. Hunk immediately pulled him into a warm hug, chuckling.

“Hunk!” Lance squeaked at the sudden hug before returning to his dramatic self, “You wouldn’t believe what Keith did!”

“And that is?” Hunk questioned, already sighing at Lance’s emotional ploy.

“He insulted my 2000’s music!” Lance answered overdramatically, he couldn’t help the smirk that sprouted on his face. Keith, who had finally reached the group, huffed and rolled his eyes at Lance.

“Don’t worry, Lance, I love your music,” Hunk smiled, patting his friend’s shoulder reassuringly.

“You love everyone’s music,” Pidge pitched in, rolling her eyes. She sat with her back against Adam’s side, feet propped up on the table.

“Everyone has good music taste?” Hunk said nervously, trying to defend himself. That only resulted in everyone chuckling.

“Can we get ice cream now? I’m getting impatient,” Pidge groaned, swinging her feet off the table and standing up on her chair. Allura scolded her for standing on the chair.

“Okay, let’s get ice cream then,” Shiro agreed, standing up from his chair. He and Adam lead the charge. Or at least that's what Lance thought it looked like when all of his friends burst through the door. Almost salivating at the mouth for a scoop of ice cream. If Lance was a worker there he might’ve run at the sight of them.

Lance grabbed a cone, scooping up some fudge brownie and cookie dough ice cream. Topping it with rainbow sprinkles and a cherry. Pidge creates the tallest tower of mint chocolate chip ice cream scoops, topped with chocolate syrup. Hunk and Shiro get strawberry cheesecake ice cream, topped with whip cream. Adam gets a few scoops of vanilla topped with chocolate sprinkles. And Shay an ice cream cone full of chocolate and strawberry swirl.

Romelle is the worst at picking ice cream flavors. In the end she buys several ice cream cones filled with every flavor in the shop. They had to drag her away when she realized there were toppings. Both Keith and Allura agreed they would just eat whatever Romelle didn’t. One, because Keith didn’t care which ice cream flavor he ate. And two, because Allura thought it would be rude to not finish everything they bought. They knew Romelle would end up hating half the ice cream anyway.

The group sat down outside, reclaiming their table under the umbrella. Lance pulled a chair from another table and squeezed in between Keith and Hunk. Pidge was already half way through her mass amount of ice cream.

“Why do you even like mint ice cream?” Lance interrogated Pidge, sticking out his tongue in a fake gag.

“Because it’s the best?” Pidge snorts, sticking her tongue back out at Lance.

“Mint does not belong on ice cream!” Lance argued, licking at his own ice cream.

“You haven’t even tried it!” Pidge spat back, leaning forward in her chair to get up in Lance’s face.

“Not this again,” Shiro groaned, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“Shiro, do you think mint ice cream is good?” Lance turned on Shiro, waving his cone at the white haired man.

“Lance,” Shiro warned, refusing to involve himself in the dispute.

“What? It’s not my fault Pidge likes the most disgusting ice cream flavor,” Lance whines, angrily finishing his ice cream.

Romelle ends up, you guessed it, hating half of the ice cream flavors she bought. Surprisingly though, she had enough room in her stomach to eat around 12 full cones of ice cream. Romelle and Keith divided the rest between them, working together to finish the other 12 ice cream cones.

Lance was talking to Hunk and Shay. Moving his hands around to explain the scene of an intense story about his siblings fighting over ice cream. Hunk and Shay nodded along, seemingly interested in his story. Lance always appreciated that about his friends. They always listened to his long talks about his family or whatever he was feeling that day. But a certain rival’s snort beside him drew Lance’s focus away from the conversation. He turned to look at Keith, who seemed to be laughing at him?

“You have ice cream on your face,” Keith snorted, scrunching up his nose in an attempt to stifle his laugh. It’s safe to say that Lance was rightfully embarrassed.

“What! Where?” Lance gasped, attempting to wipe off the ice cream. After several failed attempts to wipe the ice cream off his face Lance gave up.

“Can't you just tell me where it is?” Lance pleaded, practically begging Keith.

“I tried, but you can’t understand simple instructions!” Keith argued, pointing accusingly at Lance.

“You’re bad at giving instructions!” Lance spat back, pointing his own finger at Keith. A pout on his face.

“Maybe I’ll just let you live with ice cream on your face. It makes you look stupid anyway,” Keith threatened, looking away from Lance and crossing his arms.

“You wouldn’t!” Lance gasped, thinking up a plot to get Keith to help him, “If you don’t help me, I’ll tell everyone that you would cuddle Kosmo in your sleep.”

That caught Keith’s attention, a blush spreading across his face. He put a finger over Lance’s lips in a shushing motion. Sending dagger-like glares at Lance.

“You-” Keith hissed, taking a deep breath before continuing, “Don’t you dare.”

Lance shoved his hand away, a smile spreading on his face, “Oh, but I would.”

Keith groaned, huffing a small ‘fine’. In one swift motion, Keith licked his finger before swiping it just under Lance’s left eye. Lance’s skin tinged from his touch. To which Lance blamed on the fact Keith had just swiped spit across his face. Keith wiped the ice cream off his finger and looked back at Lance expectantly. Lance was both stunned and disgusted.

“Gross! Did you just wipe spit on my face?” Lane yelped, promptly wiping the area with his hand.

“It got the ice cream off, didn’t it?” Keith feigned innocence, but the mischievous smirk on his face gave away his intentions.

“That’s disgusting!” Lance gasped, glaring at Keith, “Now I have mullet germs on my face, I hope they're not contagious.”

“Contagious?” Keith questioned, raising an eyebrow and leaning back against his chair.

“I might start growing a mullet,” Lance teased, fake gagging at the thought of having a mullet.

Keith growled at that, his eyebrows pinched together in annoyance. He stood from his chair and grabbed a fist full of Lance’s shirt. Lance was dragged up to his feet, a few inches taller than Keith. But that didn’t faze the shorter man who still glared just as furiously into Lance’s eyes.

“Why do you hate my hair so much?” Keith snarled, his jaws clenched and face scrunched up in irritation.

“It’s such an old hairstyle, very unattractive,” Lance snarled back, their faces inches apart and eyes glaring furiously at one another.

“Why do you care if I’m attractive?” Keith shot back, catching Lance off guard.

Scratch whatever Lance was grateful for Shiro doing earlier, this was the most grateful he’s ever been for Shiro. Shiro cleared his throat, making Keith and Lance jump away from each other. Immediately diffusing the situation and making the two boys look away embarrassingly. Lance chose to ignore the disappointment on Shiro’s face, one that had recently become a common expression, in favor of returning to his conversation with Hunk. Keith promptly returned to finishing the rest of his/Romelle’s ice cream cones.

The rest of the time at the ice cream shop Lance made a point of avoiding conversation with Keith. In all fairness Keith was avoiding Lance too. The rest of the group conversed and joked around like normal. Arguing over ice cream flavors and toppings, or chatting about random things they saw on the drive there. It felt like no time had passed after two hours of conversation. But the clock in the store told them otherwise.

“We should all get going if we want to make it to the hotel in time,” Shiro finally pointed out, ending the conversation by standing up from his seat. The rest of the group said their goodbyes before heading to their separate cars. Keith followed far behind Lance as they walked back to his truck. Lance attempted to ignore the tension, immediately turning up the indie music on the radio. He was determined to ignore Keith, who was his rival.

—

After maybe 30 minutes of driving in silence, Keith suddenly spoke. Lance nearly jumped out of his seat in surprise. Blue swerving a little. Having missed what Keith said he had to ask him to repeat it.

“Why did you say Pidge couldn’t ride with you?” Keith repeated, refusing to look in Lance’s direction and keeping his eyes on the horizon.

“I, uh- She-” Lance struggled to find an answer, he had not been expecting that question, “She was planning on teasing me about the bobcat the whole drive.”

“Oh,” Keith answered, seemingly done with the conversation already. But Lance was never one to be quiet.

“She reminds of my siblings, they would always tease me when I was scared of something,” Lance chuckled at the fond memories, it was always loving teases while also comforting him. When Keith looked at him weird he felt the need to clarify such, “Loving teasing, of course.”

“Hmm, I’m not used to that kind of teasing,” Keith hummed, reminding Lance that Keith had never really had siblings.

“Right, you didn’t have siblings, did you?” Lance questioned, trying to continue the conversation. It was rare when they had a conversation without arguing.

“Not really, Shiro’s the closest thing I have to one,” Keith answered, it took a few seconds for him to open up that little bit, “Most of the other kids in the foster homes weren’t the friendliest.”

Lance blinked in surprise, he knew Keith was adopted but it hadn’t crossed his mind that Keith used to live in foster homes. His stomach twisted in guilt, or pity? No, surely he wasn’t feeling bad for his rival. Wasn't he still supposed to be mad at him?

“It's good that Shiro’s such a great brother then, huh?” Lance offered, trying to cheer up Keith a little.

It seemed to work because a small smile appeared on Keith’s lips, “Yeah.”

“Honestly, I’m jealous, having Shiro as an older brother sounds amazing,” Lance adds, he had always looked up to Shiro. Who doesn’t look up to Shiro? The guy’s practically the greatest guy on earth.

“Oh, trust me, it’s worse than you would think,” Keith chuckled fondly, a soft expression on his face like he was thinking of a happy memory. Lance couldn’t contain the soft smile that took hold of his mouth.

“He never lets me do anything that could be slightly dangerous, not to mention he cared way more about my grades in school than I did,” Keith continued, lost in his memory to completely register that he was telling Lance these things.

Lance snorted at that, being reminded of his own brother, “My older brother was the exact same, always protective of me.”

“Must be an older brother thing, hmm?” Keith chuckled softly, leaning his forehead against the truck window. Lance chuckled back, focusing back on where he was driving.

Silence settled throughout the truck, the only sounds being the indie songs and the hum of Blue beneath them. But this time the silence was comfortable, nobody felt the pressure to talk. A new thing between the two of them. One Lance wouldn’t mind feeling again. I mean, everyone could be comfortable around their rivals sometimes? It was quite peaceful after all.

Maybe being around Keith wasn't that bad.

Notes:

What can I say, I love myself some Indie music, so why wouldn’t Keith and Lance love some?

Im with Pidge, I freaking love mint chocolate chip ice cream!!

:0 Are they, perhaps, getting along? No way.

Rahhh! The next chapters a long one so it’s taking a while!!

Chapter 6: Apologetic Garlic Knots

Notes:

Keith POV!

Sorry this update took so long, I have no excusing except I wasn’t in a writing mood ;-;

But I’m back and more chapters should be out sooner!!

Being around Lance was that bad.

Keith groaned, pressing his fingers to his left temple. He sat cross-legged in Blue’s passenger seat. In his hands was a phone with a bright blue phone case. On the screen was a map that marked all the food places within the next ten minutes of driving.

“Can't we just drive through a burger place?” Keith offered for the third time this argument.

“You have to eat something other than junk food and gas station snacks, Keith!” Lance argued, he pointed at Keith to emphasize his words.

The two had been arguing over where to eat dinner for about 30 minutes. 30 minutes of Lance declining any fast food place and Keith declining any extremely expensive restaurant. At this point they would never find something to agree on.

“Okay, what do you want then?” Keith snapped back, looking up from Lance’s phone to glare at the driver, “Since you’ve declined everything.”

“I don’t really care what we get,” Lance grumbled, turning left at a green light, “I just want something good.”

“Okay,” Keith took a deep breath, clicking on a map marker, “How about tacos?”

“Hmm,” Lance thought for a little before responding, “I’m not feeling tacos.”

Keith let out a long groan, dragging his hand across his face, “You clearly care about what we get! So give me something to work with, Lance!”

“Fine!” Lance gave in, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in thought, “I want to eat inside somewhere, no fast food, and no Mexican food today.”

After finally having some sort of guidelines to go off of, Keith looked through the available restaurants. He found one restaurant about six minutes away and figured it would be the one place both could agree on.

“How about this Italian restaurant?” Keith asked, handing Lance his phone back.

One Lance looked at the phone, his eyes brightened, “Yes! Perfect!”

“Finally!” Keith sighed dramatically, taking Lance’s phone and setting up the directions, “I’m never deciding on somewhere to eat with you again.”

“Oh, come on, I wasn’t even that picky,” Lance grumbled, rolling his eyes at Keith’s dramatic response.

“You are the pickiest person I’ve ever met!” Keith glaring accusingly, his eyebrows pinched together, “And we’re friends with rich people, a chef, and Romelle.”

Lance gaped in shock, a few sounds of offense slipped from his open jaw, “I am not!”

“Are too,” Keith spat back, if anything being pickier than Romelle was an accomplishment. Their friend would buy almost everything in a restaurant then proceed to take one bite of everything and only have one dish they even liked.

“Am not!” Lance fought back. Keith prepared himself for a long drive full of ‘am not’s and ‘are too’s.

—

Keith stepped out of Blue, gently shutting the truck door. He let out a yawn, stretching his arms above his head to shake out the cramped car feeling. He walked around the back of the truck when Lance shouted “Hurry up, mullet!”

Keith caught up to Lance and they both walked through the parking lot toward a single restaurant. The Italian restaurant had classic, red, brick walls with white stone columns on either side of the entrance. Keith reached the dark wooden doors first. A bell jingled to signal their arrival.

Keith didn’t bother to hold the door open for Lance, letting it go as soon as he was inside. The door swung back and hit Lance square in the nose.

“Ow!” Lance whined, rubbing at his nose and pushing the door open, “Why didn’t you hold the door? Were you never taught manners?”

“I hold the door for people who don’t tease my hairstyle every time we hold a conversation,” Keith snorted, trying to hold back his laughter from the stupid look on Lance’s face. Lance just gaped at him with the most offended look.

“It’s not my fault your mullet is way out of style!” Lance spat back, glaring at Keith, “You should cut it or something!”

Before Keith could argue back, someone tapped on his shoulder. “Would you like a table?” A lady asked from behind him. She wore her hair in a loose bun, her blue work outfit matching with her exhausted blue eyes. With one look at Lance, Keith could tell what his rival was thinking.

“Oh! Well yes we would, m’lady!” Lance answered smoothly, stepping in between Keith and the worker before giving her a small bow.

Unamused, the employee simply nodded and turned around. Signaling them to follow, she led them to a small booth in the corner of the restaurant. In the back of the restaurant the area was more dimly lit rather than the bright lights at the front. Keith sat down at the table, watching Lance slide into the other side.

“I’ll be your waiter, Kira,” the lady started, handing both of them menus, “Can I get you started with some drinks?”

“Well, Kira, what’s your favorite drink? Any recommendations?” Lance questioned, smirking at the waitress who just wanted to do her job.

“I’d have to say a glass of Amarone is always a good choice,” Kira stated with no emotion, almost as if this was a conversation she already had thousands of times before.

“Oh, really?” Lance hummed, looking at his menu to try and find the drink she was talking about. Keith looked for it as well out of curiosity, only to find it was by far the most expensive beverage on the list.

“She’s clearly trying to get you to buy the most expensive thing here,” Keith pointed out, raising a challenging eyebrow in Lance’s direction.

“How would you know? Maybe she just has expensive taste!” Lance argued, leaning forward to glare better at Keith.

“No, she’s just tired of your voice,” Keith growled, both boys now completely ignoring the sleep-deprived waitress. Kira cleared her throat to call their attention.

“So, what will it be?” She sighed, staring down at Lance with a bored expression. She wasn’t even attempting to keep up her I-definitely-love-my-job facade.

“Oh, uh,” Lance stumbled over his words before coming to his senses and turning to face the waitress, “I'm not in the mood for an alcoholic drink, so I’ll take a strawberry lemonade.”

“Unsweet tea,” Keith responded when the waitress turned to him. She nodded, then excused herself, leaving to get their drinks. Keith turned back to glare at Lance across the table.

“Not in the mood for alcohol?” Keith snorted, raising an eyebrow at Lance, “Aren’t you underage?”

Lance gasped, “Nobody here needs to know that!” Lance kicked Keith’s shin under the table. Smirking when Keith yelped.

Keith kicked Lance back. Which ended in a kicking war between the two of them. Littering their legs with bruises each time the toe of a shoe met the other's shin. Keith and Lance’s eyes locked on one another’s. Both glaring hard at the other while simultaneously attempting not to show weakness when one of the kicks actually sting.

Lance is really bad at not showing when a kick hurts. Keith catches each time his nose scrunches up and his jaw clenches. Using that, Keith is able to kick the same bruise repeatedly. When Kira returns, carrying their drinks, Keith takes his chance. He kicks with all his strength left, directly into Lance’s most sensitive bruise. Lance yelps, hitting his knee on the table as he jerks his leg away. Groaning in pain, he reaches down and rubs the sensitive bruise, jaw clenched and eyes shut.

The waitress barely raises an eyebrow at the two of them. Almost as if this was a daily inconvenience. She sets down their drinks, explains she’ll be back in a few minutes, then disappears into the kitchen again. Neither acknowledged Kira. Instead, Keith was keeled over laughing at Lance who was still clutching his shin in pain.

“What the cheese was that for?” Lance finally grumbled, wincing when he let go of his leg to point at Keith, “Why’d you kick so hard?”

“You're the one that started it,” Keith pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in the booth. Lance frowned, his eyebrows pinching together in offense.

Keith looked down at his menu only to realize that he had never really ordered for himself. Shiro usually ordered for him, Keith would just tell his older brother what he wanted. In fact, the most Keith had ever talked to a waitress is when ordering a drink. And that’s usually two words for him. And now he wasn’t sure if he should get something new or eat the same thing he usually gets. There’s way too many dishes on this menu. How do people usually order? I just say the dish I want, right?

While Keith was internally panicking, Kira returned from the kitchen. She held a notebook and pen, clearing her throat to call the boys’ attention. “Are you ready to order?” She looked at Keith first, as if expecting him to lead.

Keith opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. He quickly scanned the menu once again, unable to come to a decision. In fact, he had completely forgotten what he usually gets at Italian places. He sat silently, trying to think up something, trying to talk. How does Shiro do this? How does anyone do this? Why’s she looking at me like that? Keith’s facial expression looked almost constipated, well in Lance’s opinion. He was stiff, arms crossed and brow furrowed as if he was lost in thought.

Lance finally stepped in, his voice pulling Keith from his thoughts. “He’ll take spaghetti and meatballs,” Lance answered smoothly, somehow knowing exactly what Keith wanted, “And I’ll have some Tortellini.”

Kira hummed in acknowledgment, scribbling their order down in her notepad before leaving for the kitchen again. Leaving Keith to blink at Lance in shock.

“How did you know what I wanted?” Keith finally stumbled out, still confused on how Lance had pretty much read his mind.

“You get the same thing every time we go to an Italian place, so I just assumed that’s what you wanted again,” Lance shrugged, he didn’t seem to understand how strange it was that he memorized what meal Keith liked to eat, “Did you want something else?”

“Oh, uh, no. That’s what I wanted,” Keith cleared his throat, looking away from Lance, “Thanks for, uh, ordering.”

“Of course, buddy,” Lance smirked, taking pride in Keith’s gratitude, “Have to keep my rival fed!”

Keith snorted, rolling his eyes at his rival. Keith couldn’t help but smile a little. Something about Lance knowing what meal he wanted and understanding that he wasn’t able to order for himself just made Keith happy. That’s a normal thing for rivals, surely? Keith decides to ignore that factor, choosing to relax in the warm gratitude he had for Lance in that moment. Keith usually tries to blend in with others, to be unnoticed in a crowd. It’s unusual when someone remembers something about him. Something as small as what he likes to eat. Unusual but not uncomfortable. In fact, Keith wouldn’t mind getting used to people remembering little details about him if it meant scenarios like this would happen.

After a few minutes, Kira returned with their food. Much faster than usual restaurants, though the restaurant was rather empty compared to the Italian restaurants closer to home. She set down Keith’s spaghetti and Lance’s Tortellini. “Anything else?” She questioned, when both shook their heads she turned and left.

Keith finally took a sip from his unsweet tea, spinning his fork in his spaghetti. He cut a piece of his meatball, taking a bite into both noodle and meatball. It had to have been the best tasting spaghetti that Keith had ever tasted. His mouth immediately salivated at the layers of flavor. He couldn’t help himself from taking several more large bites. Lance seemed to think his meal was just as tasty, shoving almost half of it into his mouth.

“This spaghetti is delicious,” Keith mumbled between bites, glancing challengingly at Lance.

“I’m afraid my Tortellini is better,” Lance rose up to the challenge, taking another bit as if to emphasize his point.

“Not possible,” Keith stated simply, “My spaghetti is definitely better.”

“Oh really?” Lance raised an eyebrow, leaning forward and, in one swift movement, scooping up a bite of Keith’s spaghetti. Keith let out a noise of surprise, watching as Lance shoved the jute into his mouth. The mischievous smirk disappeared from Lance’s face once he bit into the spaghetti. Replaced by shock, then a hum of satisfaction.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Keith got to smirk this time, leaning forward to gauge Lance’s reaction to the spaghetti.

“Nope, just average,” Lance lied, pausing for a moment before giving in, “Okay, fine, it tastes delicious. But my tortellini is still better!”

This time Keith leaned forward, taking a bite of Lance’s tortellini. Keith had never had tortellini before, and he was pleasantly surprised. Cheesy tortellini might not be the best meal for Keith’s stomach, but a few bites wouldn’t hurt. Especially when it tasted this good. Each flavor complimented the other, it was almost enough to compete with Hunk’s cooking. And that is an accomplishment on its own.

“Mmm,” Keith hummed, savoring his one bite, “Yours isn’t bad either.”

Without another word, but a silent agreement, both shared each other's dishes. Each reaching over the table to randomly steal bites from the other’s plate. Too entranced by the flavors of the meals to make much conversation. Not that the conversation between rivals would be anything but arguments anyway. It wasn’t until they had almost finished eating did Keith realize the lack of the most important food in and Italian restaurant.

“Lance,” Keith interrupted their eating frenzy, waiting for a ‘huh’ from Lance before continuing, “Why haven’t you ordered garlic knots? Isn’t that your favorite food?”

“Oh, yeah!” Lance gasped, dropping his fork with a clang once he realized the absence of his favorite food. If they're eating in an Italian restaurant it would be a sin to not get garlic knots! Lance waved over the waitress, immediately asking for a large basket of garlic knots. Kira agreed and left to grab it.

“I can’t believe I almost forgot about them!” Lance said, looking back at Keith in an overdramatic shock. He acted as if he had forgotten about a holiday, or someone’s birthday, rather than a few garlic knots. Keith couldn’t help the snort of laughter. His rival’s overdramatic self was simply too hilarious not to laugh at.

“Don’t laugh at my pain!” Lance gasped, frowning at Keith and crossing his arms, “Without the truly beautiful taste of garlic knots I could die at any moment!” That made Keith roll his eyes, smirking at Lance’s betrayed expression.

Kira came back with a fresh basket of garlic knots. She placed the warm bread in the center of the table before taking her leave. Even Keith’s mouth salivated at the smell of the garlic knots. The smell of fresh garlic and warm bread wafted through the air. Both of the boys made eye contact, a single thought shared between them.

Barely half a second later both boys were leaned over the table and grabbing for garlic knots. It was a war. Lance stole a garlic knot from Keith’s grasp, piling it onto his growing stack. Keith growled, grabbed the last garlic knot and shielded his plate from Lance. Both of them had a pile of garlic bread on their plates, daring the other to try and take any.

Keith took on the challenge. He reached for Lance’s pile of garlic knots. Lance yelped in surprise, pulling his plate away. Keith tried again. This time Lance shoved three whole garlic knots into his mouth, ensuring Keith wouldn’t get them. Keith blinked. Lance looked like a chipmunk with all three garlic knots in his mouth. He tried to speak only to be muffled by bread.

“You look like a chipmunk,” Keith snorted, leaning back and smirking teasingly at Lance, “Storing the garlic knots for later?”

“Hm- omph-” Lance tried to reply, except every word was muffled. He struggled for a little before he was finally able to chew and swallow the three garlic knots. “I wasn’t storing them! I was keeping my garlic knots safe from your gross hands!” Lance finally replied, waggling a finger at Keith accusingly.

Keith growled, his smirk replaced with a frown and his eyebrows pinched together. “Your hands are the gross ones!” He spat, glaring down Lance.

“I bet you don’t even wash those gloves even though you wear them everyday!” Lance spat back, leveling Keith with an equally enraged glare. Lance pointed at Keith’s fingerless gloves.

“I bet you don’t even wash your hands!” Keith snarled, slamming his hands on the table. Lance copied him, slamming his own hands on the table and leaning toward Keith. Both boys' faces were mere inches away as they snarled in each other's faces.

“Excuse me,” The voice of the waitress pulled Lance and Keith from their argument. Keith looked at Kira, grimacing at the look on her face. Kira looked like a disappointed mother. Her eyebrows furrowed, eyes exhausted, frown on her face, and that key disappointed shake of her head. Keith bit his tongue, knowing well what was about to come. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” The waitress finally said, placing a check on the table, “Please pay for your food then follow me to the exit.”

Lance grabbed the check and pen, pausing for a moment. “Could we split the…” The rest of the words died in Lance’s mouth when Kira snapped her head around to glare at him. Keith took the check from Lance’s hands and paid for the meal himself. Handing it back to Kira.

Kira took the check. Waving toward the exit, she led both of them out of the restaurant. Once they were out the door, Kira turned around and disappeared into the restaurant. Leaving Lance and Keith to awkwardly walk to the truck. Embarrassed by the fact they had just been kicked out of a restaurant.

They rode in silence for a while after that.

—

Keith was staring out the side window, elbow propped against his knee as he curled up in the passenger seat. Staring out the window was pretty much all Keith did. Especially after him and his rival had a fight.

Keith didn’t mind staying silent, in fact he preferred not to talk. So it wasn’t not talking that made Keith as uncomfortable as he was. No. It was Lance not talking, not even making a noise, that made him uncomfortable. Lance always talked. If he wasn’t talking he was at least humming! But now he was silent. The silence on the other side of the truck created a hole in Keith’s stomach.

He’s never silent, something has to be wrong. Was it getting kicked from the restaurant? Is he upset? It was just a small argument, surely he’s not mad? Is he? Keith got lost in his thoughts. Why should I care? Shouldn’t I be happy that his annoying voice isn’t constantly nagging me? Why is this making me feel bad!?

Then it clicked. Keith enjoyed Lance’s constant nagging. In fact he liked listening to Lance’s complaints and stories about his family. Something he swore was a toxic trait of Lance’s was actually a comforting trait. And now that comfort that the trait gave Keith was gone. And Lance was still quite.

It was with this realization did Keith finally look away from the window. He turned his head to carefully glance at Lance. Lance stared at the road, his gaze didn’t wonder. The taller boy worried his lip, eyebrows pinched in thought or maybe anger? His fingers tapped against the steering wheel. It was obvious that the silence was getting to him as well. Keith thought about saying something first, but just as they reached the twenty minute mark of silence, Lance couldn’t take it anymore.

“Who does that waitress think she is?” Lance finally spoke, glancing at Keith expectantly, “We weren’t even fighting that much!” Keith nearly let out a sigh of relief at Lance’s complaint. He’s not mad, toward me at least.

“We were pretty loud,” Keith shrugged, focused on not showing how relieved he was that Lance was talking again.

“Maybe you were loud,” Lance snorts, putting a hand on his heart in a mock pledge, “I swear I didn’t yell, not once!”

“You sure did,” Keith argued, rolling his eyes at his overdramatic rival.

“Even if I did, we weren’t hurting anyone!” Lance complained, missing the point completely, “And yet she still threw us out!”

“I hate to say it, but I do agree with you on that,” Keith considered the fact, and really they weren’t being loud or distracting enough to warrant being kicked out. Or at least he thought so.

“Exactly!” Lance said, smiling at the fact he got his rival to agree with him, “That restaurant is full of stuck-ups.”

“They had good food though,” Keith stated, simply to argue with Lance for the sake of arguing.

“That- They-” Lance tried to argue, but the words died in his mouth and he gave up, “Yeah, they really did.”

After half a second of silence, simply because Keith couldn’t think of a response, Lance continued. “The garlic knots were so good,” He groaned, “I hadn’t had garlic knots for a while, and those are a close second to my mother’s homemade ones.”

Keith’s stomach twisted. Lance really had appreciated the garlic knots, in fact Keith had never seen him get as happy as he did over food. And the restaurant reminding him of his mother’s cooking was the final plunge of the sword in Keith’s gut. Surely it wasn’t his fault that they got kicked from the restaurant? Maybe he had yelled a little. Maybe it was a little his fault that Lance’s garlic knot feast had to be cut short. But why should he feel bad about it? Lance yelled too, he started the whole argument. Hadn’t he? And yet Keith felt guilty.

Keith licked his lips, glancing from Lance to the window and back. He took a deep breath, and gave in. He exhaled, mumbling a soft “Sorry.” Hoping Lance wouldn’t hear it.

Lance being Lance, and also the fact they were a foot away from each other, definitely heard it. He turned his attention to Keith, tilting his head curiously. “For what?” He snorted, confused on why his rival of all people was apologizing to him.

“Getting us kicked out,” Keith grumbled, already regretting his apology. He awkwardly turned to the window, hopping Lance would just ignore it.

Yet, Lance being Lance again did not ignore it. “Is Keith apologizing right now?” Lance teased, nudging Keith with his elbow. Keith didn’t respond, rather curling farther into himself. Lance seemed to notice this.

“Well, there’s no need to apologize for something that was both of our faults,” Lance stated, much softer than his original teasing, “Besides, they had terrible customer service!”

That got a chuckle out of Keith. He loosened up and the silence that followed was more comfortable than before. Then Lance talked again, “But just because we’re apologizing now, I’m also sorry I got us kicked out,” he smiled toward Keith.

Keith blinked at Lance in shock. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine both of them would be apologizing to each other, especially over getting kicked out of a restaurant. It seems Lance had come to the same conclusion because he started laughing. Through his snorts Keith could make out, “Wow, who’d have thought I would ever say something like that!”

“Which part? Apologizing in general? Or the getting kicked out part?” Keith teased, crossing his arms and raise his eyebrow at his rival.

“Getting kicked out! I’ll have you know I apologize all the time!” Lance gaped, he acted offended by Keith’s tease.

“Really?” Keith questioned, “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say the word ‘sorry’.”

Lance gasped, but he didn’t fight back. Instead the both of them burst into a fit of snorts and giggles. Lance even playfully punched Keith’s shoulder, trying to focus on the road through his laughter. Eventually they stopped laughing, returning to a comfortable silence.

In fact, Keith felt lighter, almost happier around Lance in the moment. Which was strange considering they are rivals. Keith no longer felt guilty for the restaurant ordeal, instead he thought it was funny looking back. Not to mention that Lance also seemed more relaxed now. This time Keith looked out the window not to avoid Lance but simply to watch cars drive alongside them.

An hour or so passed and the sun started to set behind the horizon. Small stars twinkled through the clouds and the truck’s headlight flickered on. Keith’s eyes started to droop, and he let out a small yawn. Lance was humming to a song on the radio, tapping his fingers to the beat. And teamed with the soft rumbling of Blue, Keith begun to feel drowsy.

Keith fell asleep like that. Head propped up on his hand against the passenger window, curled up in his seat. Lance humming to some pop song and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. And the soft drone of the truck as it drove toward the setting sun.

Keith had never fallen asleep in a car before.

Notes:

Was that actually a reason to be kicked out of a restaurant? I have no idea because I’ve never been kicked out of a restaurant, but oh well.

Aww Keith likes it when Lance blabs, normal rival activities :]

Chapter 7: Hearts in Hyper Drive

Notes:

Lance POV!

They arrived at the hotel not long after the sun had disappeared from the sky. Lance pulled into the parking lot, clicking his tongue while he looked for a parking spot. It was only after turning off his truck did he look over at Keith.

Keith was asleep. His knees curled up to his chest and his arms draped across his torso. He leaned heavily on the door to the passenger side. Lance couldn’t help but think about how stupid he looked with his face smashed against the truck’s window. And as if sensing the situation, California Gurls blasted over Lance’s phone.

Lance jumped at the sudden noise, his eyes widening. He scrambled for his phone, dropping it twice. Eventually he grabbed it and turned off the ringer, looking back at Keith. He almost sighed in relief when Keith didn’t wake from the loud ringtone.

Not wanting to wake Keith just yet, Lance quietly got out of the truck. He made sure Keith stayed asleep before answering his phone. It was Shiro who had called, no doubt to ask where they were. Lance called back.

“Lance?” Shiro’s voice sounded through the phone.

“Hey, Shiro!” Lance answered, praying Keith couldn’t hear him from in the car.

“Are you both at the Hotel yet?” Shiro questioned.

“Yup! Just got here,” Lance answered, twirling his keys in his spare hand.

“Oh, good!” Shiro answered, “We’ve already paid for the rooms so you just need to get the keys.”

“Sounds good! I’ll wake up Keith and we’ll head in,” Lance explained.

“Wake up Keith?” Shiro questioned, his voice sounded almost shocked at Lance’s words.

“Yeah, Mr. Mullet fell asleep on the drive here,” Lance snorted, he meant to be teasing but he sounded more fond. Wait, fond? No, that can’t be right.

“Keith has never slept in a car. In fact, he usually doesn’t fall asleep until midnight at the least.” Shiro answered, he sounded stunned, as if he didn’t believe what Lance was telling him.

Lance went silent for a few seconds. Never slept in a car? Well he was definitely out cold now. Never slept before midnight? He fell asleep before sunset! Now it was Lance’s turn to not believe the other. “Are you sure? Because he’s been asleep since before sunset, and not even my ringtone woke him.”

“I’m sure. That kid has never done that before,” Shiro confirmed, letting out a sigh, “Either he was exhausted or…”

“Or, what?” Lance pushed, leaning back against Blue.

“Or he feels comfortable with you.”

Lance froze. Shiro’s words echoed in his head. Comfortable with me? His rival? The guy who argues with him everyday? Me? Lance rubbed his temple with his free hand. That’s not possible. But is it? Don’t I feel a little comfortable around him too? No, Keith must have been exhausted. We did barely get any sleep at the camp. Yeah, that’s it.

“Lance?” Shiro’s voice hummed on the other end of the phone, pulling Lance out of his head.

“Oh, uh, yeah!” Lance chuckled awkwardly, “He must’ve been tired. Because of the whole bobcat thing, y’know?”

“Lance.”

“The bobcat thing really did make us stay up late. Not a lot of sleep time.”

“Lance.”

“Not to mention getting ice cream, and the restaurant thing!”

“Lance!” Shiro finally yelled over the phone, making Lance go silent. He let out a long groan before continuing. “Lance, just- just be nice to Keith, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lance mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Thank you. See you both in the morning, bye Lance.”

“Bye.” Lance hung up, turning his phone off and sliding it into his pocket. He sighed before turning and opening the truck door. Keith was still fast asleep, and this time Lance couldn’t help but stare.

Keith looked peaceful, his face relaxed and without the usual scowl he always wore. It reminded him of when they were stargazing, Keith had fallen asleep then as well. That makes two times Keith has fallen asleep before me, Lance thought. Come to think of it, Lance always fell asleep before Keith. In fact, every time the group had a sleepover Keith slept last or not at all. That doesn’t really mean anything, maybe he just loves pulling all-nighters. Yet there Keith was, definitely not pulling an all-nighter.

Rather, Keith was so deep in sleep that not even California Gurls blasting over Lance’s phone woke him. Lance wondered if anything would wake up Keith. Keith who never slept before midnight. Keith who never slept in cars. Keith who was…snoring in Lance’s truck?

Lance blinked in shock. Listening to the soft snores that came from his rival. They were quite cute. Wait, no, that’s not right. They were embarrassing. Yeah, that’s it. It almost sounded like a kitten purring. A small rumble that slid from Keith’s slightly parted lips each time he breathed out. Lance couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face. He couldn’t help the small sting in his chest. It wasn’t his fault that Keith basically purred when he slept! And it definitely wasn’t cute!

Lance was pulled from his thoughts when Keith shifted in his sleep. His breath hitched before he relaxed back against the door and returned to his snoring. Except this time his hair fell over his face, covering his eyes. Lance gulped. He wanted to brush Keith’s stupid mullet out of his face, but that would be weird. Wouldn’t it? Who brushes their rival’s hair out of their face? Isn’t that considered flirting? Isn’t that what the love interests do in rom-coms? What am I thinking, just wake up Keith and go into the hotel weirdo, Lance cursed to himself. Except he looks so peaceful. When does he ever get to sleep like this? Surely he must’ve been extremely tired to fall asleep this early? Shouldn’t I let him sleep a little longer?

Lance let out a long sigh. Leaning back in his seat and pressing a finger to his temple. What an annoyance Keith was. Even in his sleep he never made things easy for Lance. Lance looked back at his rival. Keith was still curled up, knees to his face and arms curled around him. Sleeping in a ball didn’t help Lance’s theory that Keith slept like a cat.

Lance groaned and finally made the decision to wake up Keith. Afterall, it would feel better to sleep in a bed than in a car. He gently put a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“Keith, buddy, we’re here,” Lance spoke quietly, like he was trying not to scare the boy. He barely shook Keith before his rival snapped awake. His snoring stopped and his breath hitched. Keith shot up, sitting up and snapping his head toward Lance.

“Whoa, Keith, it’s just me,” Lance spoke a little louder, surprised at Keith’s sudden movements. Keith blinked a few times, his eyes wide as he took in the situation. Eventually it seemed to click. Keith groaned and leaned back against the door, covering his face in his hands.

“What do you want?” Keith grumbled, trying to fall back asleep.

“Dude! Don’t go back to sleep just yet, we need to get into the hotel first!” Lance yelped, grabbing Keith’s shoulder again. Keith sat up, slower this time, and rubbed his eyes. He looked at Lance for a moment before he spoke again.

“Lance?” Keith grumbled, tilting his head slightly, “What- where?”

“You fell asleep,” Lance explained, letting go of his shoulder and leaning back in his seat, “We just got to the hotel.”

“I fell asleep?” Keith shook his head, stretching his legs out, “No, that can’t be true.”

“Unless you died and suddenly came back to life, you were definitely asleep,” Lance snorted, rolling his eyes at his rival’s disbelief.

“No, you don’t understand. I don’t sleep in cars, never have,” Keith snapped, rubbing his temple and worrying his lip like he does when thinking.

“Well, that’s a rough thing to do on a road trip. I for one am glad you got over that, maybe you’ll be less grumpy now,” Lance teased, trying to ignore Shiro’s voice that slithered into his head. He feels comfortable with you.

Keith muttered something under his breath but Lance was already getting out of the truck. He slammed the door closed behind him, walking around to the truck bed. He grabbed two bags that were tied to the truck. A dark blue backpack and a red duffel bag. He swung both over his shoulders, walking over to Keith.

“Shiro said he already paid for the room, all we need to do is get the keys,” Lance yawned, tossing Keith the red duffel bag. Keith caught it with a glare to Lance before leading the way toward the hotel

The hotel was nothing special. Just the normal rectangle shape with around 5 levels of rooms. A large glowing sign sat over the entrance, labeling the hotel as ‘Hyper Drive Hotel’. Lance snorted at the name, while they might’ve been driving he sure wasn’t hyper. The door jingled when they entered. At the center desk an older lady typed away at a computer. She looked up at the sound of the door, waving the two boys over.

“Do you boys have a room scheduled?” She asked, her voice sounded old and bored as if she’s said this thousands of times. She had short cut redish hair and darker skin. On her work uniform sat a badge that stated her name as ‘Merla’.

“Yes we do, Merla!” Lance hummed, he showed her a screenshot on his phone. It was a picture that Shiro had sent him that explained the rooms they paid for and when. Except Merla’s face scrunched up upon seeing the picture.

“We only have one room open for tonight,” she stated, straight to the point, no room for discussion.

“What?” Keith and Lance sputtered at the same time, gaping at the women in front of them.

“Someone came in earlier and bought one of your scheduled rooms, said they didn’t want to sleep in a room that had a bedtime. Whatever that meant,” Merla explained, sighing as if she expected the argument.

“Bedtime? Who?” Then it clicked, Lance let out a groan before continuing, “Pidge! She took our room! That gremlin!”

While Lance cursed out Pidge, Merla grabbed the keys to their single room and handed them to Keith. Keith took the keys. He grabbed Lance by his backpack, tugging him toward the room labeled on the key. Lance protested, grumbling about how unfair it was before he gave in and stumbled after Keith. The room was on the third level at the end of the hallway, Keith unlocked the door and walked in Lance close behind.

Lance nearly sighed in relief when he saw the two queen sized beds in the room. Scratch that, he did sigh in relief. In fact he was so relieved that he threw himself onto the nearest bed and groaned into the fluffy blanket. At least Pidge left them with two beds so they only had to share a room and not a sleeping surface. He would still definitely chew her out tomorrow. But that was tomorrow, right now he just wanted to sleep.

“Gross, you're not even going to shower before?” Keith snorted, still standing by the door. He had his arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow raised at Lance.

“When have you ever cared about hygiene, Mullet?” Lance groaned, rolling off the bed and slumping on the ground. He aimlessly dug through his backpack for a change of clothes.

“When I smelled your awful stench after a day in your truck,” Keith teased back, dropping his duffel bag atop the other bed. He also dug through the bag for clothes.

“You take that back! Blue smells wonderful!” Lance gasped, he bundled up clothes in his arms and walked over to the bathroom.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you lost your sense of smell after living with Pidge and Hunk for years,” Keith shot back, Lance only stuck out his tongue before closing the bathroom door behind him.

The bathroom was small, just enough for a toilet, sink and shower. Lance turned on the shower to the hottest setting. Humming to himself he set down a bunch of different skin products near the sink along with shampoo and conditioner. He was going to enjoy his shower, especially after that night out in tents.

—

Lance stepped out of the bathroom. He wore a loose long-sleeve shirt and soft blue pants. He had on his normal face mask that he usually put on after a shower.

“Lance! You were in there for an hour! How long does a shower take?” Keith stomped over, grumbling he shoved Lance out of the way and went into the bathroom.

“Beauty takes time, Keith!” Lance shouted after him, scoffing. He flopped down onto his bed, hearing the shower turn on. He nearly fell asleep right there, the bed was unfairly comfortable with its soft blankets and fluffy pillows. Instead he grabbed the remote and turned on the small TV that sat at the end of their beds. He was still scrolling through the channels when Keith got out of the shower.

Lance froze. Keith wore a red tank top and shorts. He was still drying his hair with a towel, ruffling his mullet. He glanced at Lance and then the TV, raising an eyebrow. “Looking for something to watch? Are you not tired?” He questioned, snapping Lance back from wherever he disappeared to.

“I can’t possibly fall asleep without watching something first,” Lance gasped overdramatically, waving his hands at the TV to emphasize his point. Keith just shrugged, walking over and laying down on his own bed with a grunt. “So, what are we watching then?” He asked, crossing his arms behind his head.

“Hmm, Mean Girls?” Lance suggested, frowning when Keith snorted.

“Nope.”

“Cinderella?”

“Absolutely not.”

“What does an emo like you watch then?” Lance groaned, turning to look at Keith.

Keith thought for a moment before answering, “Action, Sci-fi, and cheesy romance movies.”

“Really?” Lance questioned, shocked that those genres were practically Lance’s favorite. How did his rival, the mysterious stoic mullet man, like cheesy romance and sci-fi? Immediately Lance knew what to watch. He flicked through the channels before he came across a cheesy romance movie called ‘Hearts and Stars’.

Keith gave no protest when Lance clicked on it and settled in for the movie. It was about two astronomers that got locked in a cabin in the woods and fell in love over their shared interest in stars. Keith and Lance would randomly comment on the cheesy moments or the incorrect speed at which the two characters fell in love. They even pointed out a few times the movie got star facts wrong. A relaxed back and forth, some chuckles and short responses but no real conversation until the couple found a dog in the basement of the cabin.

“Looks a bit like Kosmo,” Keith commented, pointing at the wolf-like dog on the screen.

“Actually, I’ve been curious, how did you get Kosmo?” Lance asked curiously, turning his attention to Keith. Keith went silent for a moment, as if debating whether to tell Lance or not, before letting out a long sigh.

“We found him behind a dumpster, his owners just left him there,” Keith murmured, clenching his hands and looking away from Lance.

“We?” Lance pushed, leaning forward in his bed.

“Me and my mom,” Keith growled, he turned and finally looked at Lance.

“Your mom?” Lance questioned. Keith never spoke about his parents, up until this point Lance figured Keith just spawned out of nowhere. The only family Keith ever spoke of was Shiro, and Kosmo of course, and he wasn’t even blood related. The look of pain, or was it frustration, on Keith’s face only furthered Lance’s suspicions about his parents.

“Yes, my mom, we were on a walk and found Kosmo eating pizza behind a restaurant,” Keith mumbled, ignoring Lance’s obvious question about his mother. Lance chose to not push it, seeing as Keith was sensitive about family stuff.

“Sure sounds like Kosmo, that beast eats anything he can get his jaws on,” Lance snorted, trying to lighten up the mood. Even if he liked to push Leith’s buttons he knew there were some lines you just don’t cross.

“I can’t argue with that,” Keith chuckled, relaxing from his stiff position, “What about you and Pidge’s cow? What was their name?”

“Kaltenecker, we won her at the state fair,” Lance chuckled, remembering the panic he and Pidge went through when they accidently won a whole cow.

“Kaltenecker? That’s a weird name,” Keith snorted, both boys focused on their conversation and completely forgetting about the movie.

“We didn’t name her, the farmer did. Pidge just thought it was funny so we kept it,” Lance shrugged.

“How’d you even win a cow at a state fair?”

“Funny story, actually. Pidge found a way to cheat at some ring tossing game so we were trying to get the new video game prize. Turns out her cheating worked a bit too well and we won the big prize, Kaltenecker.”

“They had a cow as a prize for a ring toss game?”

“Trust me, me and Pidge were just as shocked when they gave us the lead to a whole dairy cow. We practically freaked out over what to do. We lived in an apartment then, what were we going to do with a cow?”

“You took a cow back to your apartment?”

“No! No, we just moved into Hunk’s place. It took a lot of panicked begging and promises to do chores around the place before he let us move in. If he didn’t have that little house with a small plot of farmland I don’t know what we would’ve done with Kaltenecker.”

“So you got a free place to live out of a cow?”

“Pretty much, not only did my girl give us a free place to live but also fresh milk for our late night milkshake cravings!”

Keith laughed at that, it was a small chuckle but Lance was still surprised whenever he even slightly laughed. Lance smiled and let out a laugh of his own. The credits rolling across the TV screen is what finally pulled them out of their conversation. The movie ended while they were talking.

“Aw, no! We missed the ending!” Lance groaned, slightly sad that he probably missed a cheesy ending

“That’s enough cheesy romance for today anyway,” Keith grunted, getting out of his bed and flicking off the lights to the room. Lance grumbled something about being a buzzkill before turning off the TV. Keith laid back in his bed, pulling the covers over himself. Lance did the same, still complaining about going to bed.

“Good night, Keith,” Lance said, a habit from telling Pidge and Hunk good night everyday, before turning off his bedside lamp.

“Night, Lance,” Keith responded, but Lance was too tired to be surprised. Keith’s lamp flickered off and the room was enveloped in darkness. Lance fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. This time Keith didn’t fall asleep before him. Yet one thought followed Lance into his sleep.

Keith feels comfortable with me?

Notes:

I think Shiro’s onto something…

You should brush his hair out of his face Lance, it’s not weird, nope, definitely not flirting either, Nuh uh.

Yall I just love talking about their pets, guilty as charged.

Chapter 8: Sleeping With Blades

Notes:

Keith POV!

Sorry this chapter took so long y'all >:[

Cold. Hot. Dark. Bright.

A figure walked toward the horizon under a pitch black sky with white speckles of stars that seemed to melt into the background. The desert sand under Keith’s feet swallowed him up to his knees. He claws and digs desperately at the sand to no avail. The figure continued to walk away, as if unfazed by Keith’s pleas to turn around.

Keith can’t hear his voice over the whistling of the wind. He can’t feel the wind but he knows it's there, stealing his voice away. He shivers, overcome by the intense cold of the night. His fingers numb and frozen as he continues to claw at the sand. Yet the figure walks until it starts to melt into the dark sky. When it turns around the familiar face, that Keith only remembers from old photos, stares back at him. It melts into the sky, leaving two floating purple eyes. His Mom’s eyes.

Not a second later Keith falls through the sand. His vision spins and shifts until he’s standing in front of a wooden cabin. He falls to his knees. In the doorway stands a man with his back turned to Keith. Before Keith can call to him, the house bursts into an overwhelmingly bright light. The light shifts into large red flames that lap at the wooden building.

Keith tries to warn the man in the doorway, but no sound exits his jaws. His throat is cracked and dry, closing in on itself. Sweat streams down his back, overcome by an intense heat. Keith tries to warn the man again only to crumble to the ground. He watches the flames grow and grow until the whole home is a ball of flames and smoke. The man finally turns his head to stare back at Keith. When it turns around the familiar face, one Keith remembers distinctly as the only person nice to him in his younger years, stares back at him. The flames consume the man until all that’s left is his soft, toothy grin. His Dad’s smile.

Then the house explodes into an inferno of bright light and debris. The bright light leaves Keith temporarily blind. When his vision returns, Keith wishes it hadn’t.

Warm. Dim. Safe.

Keith looks up to see a familiar face staring down at him. The room is dim, a perfect balance of light and dark. Keith feels warm, almost safe, as if wrapped in a blanket. In front of him was an outstretched metallic arm. Shiro’s prosthetic arm. His brother by bonds not blood.

When Keith reached to take the outstretched arm his hand went through it as if it was simply an illusion. When he looked up Shiro’s usual gentle expression was replaced with furrowed eyebrows and a pained smile. His arm faded and he clutched at his shoulder, keeling over. Keith reached over only for his hand to press against glass. He turned frantic, pounding desperately on the glass. His brother simply lay there in silent agony, unreachable.

Eight figures fade into the room, standing behind Shiro. Keith stares helplessly, pressing his fists against the glass in hopes to reach them. Each figure wears the same disgusted expression upon a face all too familiar to Keith. Faces of each person who changed his life. The faces of a family he made from nothing. The faces of a family who always stuck with him through thick and thin. A family made from bonds. Coran, Allura, Romelle, Adam, Hunk, Shay, Pidge, and Lance.

“Why do you push us away? The more you push the more we distance ourselves.” They all speak in unison, “Everyone you’ve loved has left, why wouldn’t we do the same? Be grateful we stayed at all.”

Keith sobbed and wailed but no sounds could be heard. The figures grew farther and farther. He pounded harder and harder on the glass, ignoring the sting of his fists. He stared helplessly, trying to fight against the glass that kept him from everyone he loved.

“Keith?”

Keith jolts awake, the nightmare being whisked away after that single word. His eyes fly open, wide and pupils dilated. Out of muscle memory, Keith sits up and wraps his fingers around the hidden blade beneath his pillow. A few seconds later he has his blade hovering an inch from the speaker's neck. Why do you push us away?

It wasn’t until soft fingers gently pressed against his wrist did the fog lift. Keith found that the speaker, the person he held a knife to, was Lance. Lance gently tapped at Keith’s wrist, his eyes wide in panic but face soft in pity. Keith took another second to process this, the hand holding his blade started to shake. When Lance carefully tugged the blade from Keith’s sweaty grasp he didn’t fight back. Lance looked like he was talking but Keith couldn’t hear anything over the loud beating of his heart. His breath rasped through his throat as he gasped for air. The more you push the more we distance ourselves.

Lance leans forward, diverting Keith’s attention to him and away from the pounding in his head. Lance gently takes Keith’s shaking hand, holding it in his own hand and rubbing circles with his thumb. Keith’s heart slows and quiets down, allowing him to finally hear Lance. Be grateful we stayed at all.

“Keith, buddy, deep breaths,” His voice sounds shaky and worried yet comforting. Keith follows his instructions, taking a deep breath. He stares hard at their intertwined hands, calming his breathing. Once he had gained control of his breathing, Keith realized how badly he was shaking. He realized his watery eyes and tear streaked cheeks. Everyone you loved has left, why wouldn’t we do the same?

Keith pulls his hand away from Lance. He turns away from the worried look on his rival's face. His knees curled up to his chest, he hugged his legs close, blocking his face from Lance’s view. Keith bites down hard on his tongue when snippets of his nightmare start to return. His heart beat picks up again but he doesn’t look back at Lance. “Sorry for waking you, Lance. I’m fine, you can go back to bed,” Keith says through clenched teeth, trying not to cry anymore.

“Sorry Mullet, but you're terrible at lying,” Lance answers softly, shifting in the bed to sit up beside Keith. He gently places a hand on his rival's shoulder.

Keith jerks away from Lance’s hand, twisting his body so he faces away from his rival. “Drop it, Lance. I’m fine,” Keith warns through his clenched teeth, staring hard at the floor. Everyone else has left, what makes Shiro any different? What makes Lance, my literal rival, any different? A voice nags at Keith’s mind, whispering cruel reminders. He shivers at the thoughts, curling tighter into himself.

“I won’t pressure you for details on the… dream,” Lance starts, his voice gentle and cautious, “But I’m not going to ignore this.”

Keith continues to stare at the floor. Even as Lance shifts on the bed to sit next to him, almost in eyesight. He sits a few inches away from Keith’s side. Lance lifts his hand to set it on Keith’s shoulder only to pause, sigh, and fold it back in his lap.

“Keith, you're safe, okay?” Lance speaks even softer, trying to urge Keith to look at him, “I’m here, but it’s okay to be scared right now.”

Keith shudders at his words, tears springing to the corners of his eyes. Lance is here now but for how long? Keith bites at his lip as his mind feeds him destructive thoughts. Yet the gentle, caring tone of Lance’s voice and his promise of safety wiggles its way through Keith’s tough walls. His shoulders fall and he slowly turns to look up at his rival. Keith’s face wet with tears and his eyebrows pinched together in fear, Lance's own eyebrows mirroring his.

“You were there,” Keith chokes out, his voice croaky and frightened making Lance lean closer to actually hear him. Lance tilts his head slightly, urging Keith to continue. Keith sniffs before speaking again, “The whole group was. And- you all- you all left.”

Fresh tears sting Keith’s eyes, forcing him to look away from Lance and star at his own hands. Keith hiccups and sniffs, his muscles tense and fingers plucking at his nails. Lance scoots closer, his shoulder now gently pressing against Keith’s. He questioningly reaches out a hand, holding it above Keith’s own as if waiting for permission.

When Keith doesn’t move Lance gently grabs a hold of his hands. He draws circles with his thumb over the palm of Keith’s hands in a calming motion. This relaxes Keith enough so that he can look back at Lance.

This time, Lance speaks, “Left? We would never just leave.” Lance speaks sternly, his eyes boring into Keith’s with full hearted honesty. Something inside of Keith uncurls itself, his walls slowly being chipped away. These simple words meant enough to Keith. Hot tears flooded from his eyes and he attempted to wipe them away and cover his sobs. Lance frowned softly, his own heart twisting in pain at the sight of Keith crying. He shifted closer, pressing his side against Keith’s as a sense of confirmation that he was here and wasn’t going to leave.

“You're stuck with us, Mullet. I’m never leaving, that I can promise you.” Lance reassures, offering a weak chuckle to try and calm Keith from his state of panic. Keith takes in a sharp breath, his walls crumbling down with each of Lance’s reassuring words. Keith almost tells Lance about his parents right there, but that’s something he’s not ready to tell even Shiro yet. Instead he withholds the part of his dream about his parents, leaving Lance to think of his nightmare as some freak fear that his friends will leave him.

“I couldn’t- I couldn’t do anything. You all just… left.” Keith continues, squeezing his eyes closed when the words from his nightmare echo in his head. Lance can tell he’s holding back other parts of the nightmare, yet he doesn’t prod further. Instead, Lance presses closer against Keith’s side, offering him a comforting smile.

“I’m here now, I never left.” Lance answers, knowing exactly what to say. Lance has comforted many of his friends after their nightmares, seeing as he lives with Hunk and Pidge. So Lance is well versed in the ways of comforting panicked people. Even if Keith is his rival, he’s still a friend, one he would never leave to deal with a nightmare alone.

Keith stares up at Lance, only now noticing that the lamp had been turned on earlier. He can see the soft outline of Lance’s smile and his gentle eyes. Keith can’t help it when Lance’s words sink in and more tears slip from his eyes.

Keith’s eyes widen slightly when a soft fingertip brushes across his cheek. Lance gently wipes away Keith’s tears, his soft touch sending tingles across Keith’s cheek. Keith sniffs, shuddering and leaning slightly against Lance’s side.

Lance hesitates for a moment before letting go of Keith’s hand. Instead he carefully wraps his arm around Keith’s shoulder, gently tugging him into a hug. Keith gives in and leans into Lance’s arms. His body is stiff and hesitant before he finally relaxes into Lance’s embrace. He rests his forehead on Lance’s shoulder, still sniffing as he attempts to stop sobbing. Tears fall from his cheeks and onto Lance’s shoulder yet he doesn’t seem to mind.

A few moments pass before Lance moves again. He doesn’t pull away from the hug, but rather shifts on the bed. Lance softly pulls Keith tighter into his arms before laying down. Keith doesn’t fight it when they lay down in each other's arms. Instead he presses his face into Lance’s shoulder, sniffling.

A few more moments pass. With Keith sniffling and crying silently, face pressed against Lance’s shoulder and Lance humming a soft melody as he holds Keith in his arms. Eventually Keith can feel his exhaustion returning. Yet, instead of being afraid of his nightmare returning, Lance’s embrace offers a warm safety from his panicked thoughts. Keith’s eyes droop and, slowly but surely, he falls into a dreamless sleep.

—

Keith woke to the soft buzzing of his phone. It was mid-morning, later than he should’ve been sleeping. He could tell it was his phone due to the fact it was on silent and not blasting California Gurls.

Keith stirred awake, grumbling in annoyance at the constant buzzing of his phone. In response the arms wrapped around him pulled Keith closer. That’s when Keith realized he was cuddled up to Lance, again. Lance had his arms wrapped around Keith, holding him close as he slept. Yet now Keith was awake, and he was now hyper aware of how his back was pressed against Lance’s chest. How their legs were lazily intertwined and how Lance’s face was nuzzled into Keith’s hair.

Keith froze, his skin running hot and his face going red as he slowly came to realize their position. Lance was cuddling Keith, again, in the span of two days. Not to mention, this time Lance was spooning Keith.

Carefully, but with urgent speed, Keith slipped out of Lance’s arms and off the bed. He froze and went silent as Lance mumbled something in his sleep. Lance didn’t wake, instead shifting until he was practically taking up the whole bed. Keith couldn’t help but roll his eyes, snickering at Lance’s bed hogging. But the buzzing of his phone pulled him back into reality.

Keith snatched his phone from the bedside table, answering the call and putting it up to his ear.

“Keith!” Shiro’s voice could be heard on the other line, anxious and angry, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry Shiro, I was asleep,” Keith yawns, glancing sideways at Lance’s sleeping figure.

“Asleep?” Shiro questioned, “It’s almost 11:00 in the afternoon!”

Keith blinked in shock at his words, he had never slept that late before. “Oh, we, uh, stayed up late,” Keith felt the lie slip through his mouth without a second thought.

“Okay…” Shiro sounded uncertain but he didn’t push further, “Well, you missed breakfast and we were supposed to leave earlier.”

“Oh, sorry, I can wake up Lance but it’s no telling how long his morning routine is,” Keith grumbled, rolling his eyes but also worried that the group would be mad they haven’t stuck to the schedule.

Shiro chuckled softly before speaking again, his voice already less agitated, “Don’t worry about it, we’ve decided to spend another night here. Romelle found some hot springs for us to go later in the afternoon.”

Keith nodded along, pacing the hotel room, “Sounds good, I’ll wake Lance. Just text me when and where the hot springs are.”

“Alright,” Shiro hums, a second passes and Keith’s phone buzzes in his hand with a new message, “I’ll see you later then.”

“Bye, Shiro.”

“Bye, Keith.”

Keith hung up before pulling up Shiro’s text and reading over it. The text included the directions to a ‘Hot Springs National Park’ and the meet up time being 4:00pm. It was only an hour away, meaning they had 3 hours to get up and ready. Hopefully that would be enough time for Lance.

The only issue now was: Lance is still asleep. Which wouldn’t be an issue if he wasn’t asleep in Keith’s bed.

Keith took a deep breath. He mentally prepared himself to deal with the embarrassment of Lance cuddling with him, again. Then, in one swift movement, Keith grabbed a pillow and threw it in Lance’s face.

“Holy crow!” Lance yelps once the pillow smacks against his face at a surprisingly strong force. He scrambles up to a sitting position, hands on his hips and glaring at Keith. Keith smirks, crossing his arms and glaring back. “Have you gone crazy? What was that for?”

“It’s almost 12:00,” Keith responds, rolling his eyes and walking toward his bag. He digs around, looking for his toothbrush.

“Almost 12:00?” Lance repeats, scrambling out of Keith’s bed and rushing toward his bag. Probably assuming that the rest of their friends had already hit the road as scheduled.

Keith enjoyed watching Lance scramble for a moment before he spoke again, “Shiro called. He said we’re staying in Arkansas for another night; Romelle wants to go to a hot spring in four hours.”

“Oh- thank the stars,” Lance dramatically flopped backwards onto his own bed, limbs sprawled out over the covers. “Why didn’t you start with that?” Lance groaned, lifting his head slightly to glare at Keith with a pout on his face.

“I wanted you to know how I felt when I woke up to Shiro calling me at 11:00 pm,” Keith teased back, grabbing his toothbrush and walking toward the bathroom.

“Hey! I call the bathroom first!” Lance yelped after Keith, scrambling off his bed and grabbing his own toothbrush from his bag.

“Nope, I'll go first. Your morning routine will take two hours at the least,” Keith argued, turning on his heels to glare up at Lance.

“It does not take that long,” Lance gasped in offense, pouting and glaring down at Keith, “I’m shocked you even have a morning routine. I assumed you just jumped out of bed and went on with your day.”

“I’m going first,” Keith argued again, twisting around and stomping into the bathroom. Lance let out a defeated groan before retreating back to his bed. Leaving Keith alone in the bathroom to brush his teeth and get dressed for the day.

While Keith was brushing his teeth he noticed something was off about his appearance. He leaned forward and stared into the mirror in front of him. That’s when he noticed, for the first time since he was a child, Keith didn’t have eyebags under his eyes.

Keith poked and prodded under his eye, stunned at the lack of his normal dark circle. In fact his skin looked better as a result of finally getting sleep. And to think, all it took was Lance being there. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, Keith shoved it down deep. He shook his head to rid of those dangerous thoughts, focusing on getting ready before Lance got impatient. Except one thought echoed in the back of his mind, one he couldn’t quite silence.

Is Lance the reason I slept better?

Notes:

Uhhh sorry for emotionally scaring Keith? Don’t worry Lance will help him get through it… maybe.

More cuddles because I'm a sucker for cuddles.

Chapter 9: Rules, Eating, and Driving (R.E.D.)

Notes:

Lance POV!

Its been awhile, I know :0

But I’m back and this chapter’s a bit longer!

Lance groaned impatiently, sprawled out on his bed and glaring up at the ceiling. He was still waking up despite the heart attack Keith gave him earlier. The sound of the running sink and the shuffles of Keith getting ready in the bathroom worked to wake Lance and fuel his anger. First, Keith woke him up by practically giving Lance a concussion via a pillow. Secondly, he failed to tell Lance that they weren’t technically late until after he panicked about it. And thirdly, he stole the bathroom!

Lance finally stopped his mopping when he noticed the muffled tune of California Gurls. He lazily rolled over and reached over the side of the bed to dig into his bag. After a few minutes of trying not to fall off the bed, he eventually tugged his phone loose from the depths of his bag. With a small huff of accomplishment, Lance rolled back onto his bed and answered the call.

“Lance!” Hunk practically shouted from the other line. Lance almost dropped his phone, scrambling as he pressed it back to his ear with a wince.

“Hey, big man,” Lance answers with a slight chuckle, sitting up straight in his bed.

“Dude, I thought you died or something! We’ve been trying to get a hold of you and Keith for actual hours,” Hunk rambles, obvious concern laced with relief for his friends.

“We’re fine, Hunk. Just slept in, sorry buddy,” Lance snorts, rubbing the back of his neck in guilt for making the group worry.

“Slept in? You missed breakfast, man! You never miss breakfast,” Hunk pointed out, interrogating Lance like missing breakfast was a crime. It might as well be. Lance can’t remember the last time he’s missed breakfast with Hunk. They’ve practically made it tradition now, it’s how they catch up.

“I would never miss breakfast on purpose. I promise we really did sleep in,” Lance answers, feeling guilty for missing such a sacred meal time.

“Okay… but what made you sleep in? You have enough alarms that it’s nearly impossible to sleep through them,” Hunk prys, still sounding suspicious of Lance’s excuse.

When Lance opens his mouth to respond his brain finally decides to wake up. Like the opening of a dam, the events of last night flood his mind. Lance waking up to Keith’s whimpers and shuffling as he suffered a particularly rough nightmare. His gut still twists in pity when he remembers Keith’s panic and tear stained eyes. Not to mention it took a while before Lance could convince Keith to talk about it. But one thought in particular shined in the front of his mind. We fell asleep cuddling again.

Lance yelped at the realization, muttering a few incoherent words into the call before finally regaining his composure. Well, the small bit of composure he could regain. His face flushing red at the memory of falling asleep cuddled with Keith again. Lance knew that if he didn’t end the call he’d accidentally spill everything to Hunk.

“Sorry, Hunk! I need to get ready for the… uh hot springs thingy! Call you soon!” Lance stumbled out, his voice a higher pitch as he scrambled to hang up the phone. Hunk’s surprised opposition to his excuse was cut off when Lance clumsy muttered a ‘goodbye’ and hung up.

Lance dropped his phone onto the bed. He sighed in relief and attempted to compose himself but was cut short by the bathroom door opening. Keith stepped into the room, dressed and mullet freshly brushed. Lance can’t help but reprimand himself for even noticing the difference in Keith’s mullet of all things.

“The bathroom’s all yours,” Keith mutters, waving toward the bathroom. Lance smiles wide at that. He grabs his bag and slips out of his bed and toward the open bathroom.

“Don’t take forever! I want to eat before heading out!” Keith calls over his shoulder just as Lance shuts the door.

Lance simply rolls his eyes at Keith’s continued reminders of their limited time. It’s not like Lance takes that long. He sets down his bag and stares in the mirror. Staring back at him is a barely recognizable messy case of bed head. His brown hair tangled and pushed in several different directions as if he just went on a roller coaster 60 mph.

As Lance works to get his hair under control, and fixing a few areas where he swears he can feel breakouts forming, he can’t help but get lost in thought. Particularly about the events of last night.

When Lance woke to Keith’s panicked whimpers he immediately acted on muscle memory. Lance has grown up helping siblings through nightmares, he even started helping Pidge and Hunk when they moved in together. So it hadn’t been a surprise when Lance was able to identify the panic and help Keith so easily.

That was until Keith pressed a knife to his throat. Leave it to him to sleep with knives. Lance quickly stored that fact in his memory, he’d be sure to tease Keith about it later. Regardless, it had definitely startled Lance when Keith’s reaction practically put his life on the line. He had made a shot in the dark when he gently took the knife from Keith. Good thing he was the sharpshooter because his shot landed. In hindsight, that was dangerous, but Lance had been too focused on calming Keith.

Calming Keith. Lance backtracked on those words, watching his eyes widen in the mirror before him. He had never thought Keith, of all people, would need his help through a nightmare. Before last night, Lance had never truly seen Keith vulnerable. Sure, Keith had fallen asleep before him but it didn’t seem as vulnerable as witnessing Keith panicking over a nightmare. Not to mention, Keith had a nightmare about the group leaving him, something Lance never thought Keith would care about.

Staring into the reflection that stared back at him, Lance felt something click in his head. Him and Keith shared the fear of losing loved ones. Yet they expressed this fear so opposite from each other that Lance had never even considered it. Lance, the glue that holds everyone together, the one who latches so desperately onto anyone he cares for. And Keith, the guy who seemed to pull away when anyone showed care, who Lance now understands is terrified of losing who he cares for. And for some reason Lance found himself wondering more about Keith. Why am I paying so much attention to his vulnerabilities?

“Lance! Hurry up!” Lance is pulled from his thoughts when Keith yells impatiently. He quickly changes, scrambling when he realizes he’s just been staring in the mirror the whole time. And as he reached for the doorknob, Lance decided on two things. One, avoid the topic of last night at all costs (mainly because he was still panicking over the fact he literally spooned Keith). And two, dedicate himself to slowly cracking open Keith’s emo outer shell (in order to tease him, definitely not because he cared about his rival or something).

—

”We only have an hour to eat now, thanks to your unnecessarily long morning routine,” Keith complains, clearly annoyed. They walk down the hall, Keith tossing Lance the keys to their hotel room.

“Oh calm down, it takes time to look this good!” Lance scoffed, motioning towards his brushed hair and clear skin. He catches the keys with ease, spinning them on his finger as they step into the elevator. Keith presses the button for the ground floor before leaning back against the elevator wall. Lance stood near him, spinning the hotel keys on his finger and watching the floor number decrease.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open once they’ve hit the ground floor. Surprisingly no conversation was held between them. Lance and Keith walked in silence toward the Cafe that was connected to the hotel, a place they agreed to eat at due to its convenient distance.

They didn’t speak until they had sat down at a table and taken their orders. Well that’s when Lance grew nervous of the silence. He sighed dramatically and laid his head on the table, arms stretched forward into Keith’s area of the table. When Keith raised a questioning eyebrow Lance pulled his arms back in favor of pouting.

“I can’t believe we missed breakfast! Of all the meals!” Lance groaned dramatically. Keith simply rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at the practically deflated Lance before him.

“It’s not that terrible to miss breakfast, lunch is more important anyway,” Keith shrugged, clearly oblivious to how much Lance cared about breakfast.

“You take that back! Breakfast is way more important!” Lance gasped in feigned outrage, sitting up in his seat and glaring at Keith.

“How? I’m not even hungry in the morning,” Keith snorted, taking a sip of his unsweet tea.

“Breakfast is the starting fuel for the day! How would I even survive to lunch if I didn’t have nutrition?” Lance argued, frowning and leaning forward to poke at Keith.

“I was only sleeping, how would all my dinner ‘fuel’ have drained? Lunch is way more important because I’ve actually done something beforehand,” Keith argued back, swatting away Lance’s finger.

“Sleeping takes energy too, you know! Plus, breakfast foods are arguably better,” Lance says, leaning back into his seat and waving his hands dramatically.

“The only breakfast I can stomach is Hunk and Shay’s pancakes,” Keith argues back, rolling his eyes at Lance’s dramatic hand gestures.

“While I can’t argue that Hunk and Shay’s pancakes are the best, I can argue that virtually every breakfast food is close second!” Lance answers. Their argument is put on hold when the waiter returns with their food. They set down a lunch sandwich in front of Keith and a steaming chicken soup in front of Lance. Lance thanks the waiter as they leave, immediately digging into his soup despite the fact it’s practically boiling. And it surprises nobody when he burns his tongue.

“It’s still hot,” Keith grunts before taking a bite of his sandwich. Lance drops his spoon and quickly takes a sip of his ice water, glaring at Keith.

“Obviously, drop out,” Lance snaps, frowning and blowing on his next spoonful of soup.

“Well it sure took you awhile to figure that out,” Keith grumbled through clenched teeth, bristling at the drop out comment.

“Says the man who has a mullet that’s years out of style,” Lance puts his spoon down to fully focus on arguing with his rival.

“Claims the guy who loves breakfast but slept through it anyway,” Keith spits back, his eyebrows pinching together in irritation.

“I was- you-” Lance freezes and his voice dies out for a moment. I was helping you with your nightmare. He leans back and crosses his arms. Lance almost broke the first rule already. He almost mentioned last night. He quickly came up with a new retort, a smirk returning to his face. “Says the man who can’t even order for himself.”

Keith’s face then is something Lance will never forget. His eyebrows pinched together and face slightly red with anger and embarrassment. His jaw working and eyes sharp with shock as he tries to come up with a response. Eventually he gives up, his eyes darting away from Lance and staring hard at the table. “Shut up, it’s not my fault I just freeze when they ask,” A muttered whisper that stabs Lance in the gut. He hadn’t meant it like that.

“Oh. No, dude. I didn’t-” Lance tries to backtrack, his smirk disappearing as he leans forward to try and fix his mistake.

“Just eat your soup, Lance. We need to leave soon,” Keith grumbles, cutting off Lance and returning to eating his sandwich. Lance sighs in defeat, picking at his soup and slowly finishing it up. Now the silence is full of tension. Lance really hadn’t meant to hurt Keith. But he’s my rival, that’s what I’m supposed to do. His thoughts nag him but the guilt in his stomach is something he can’t ignore no matter the rivalry. That was a low blow and Lance was set on fixing it.

Lance pays for the meal before Keith can, tipping the waiter well. They continue to walk in tension filled silence to the front desk. There, with some sweet talking (courtesy of Lance, obviously) they are able to extend their stay for a night. Lance thanks them extensively before heading back to the hotel room with Keith close behind.

It's when they are in the elevator Lance decides to set his ‘insult gone to far’ right. Afterall, Keith can’t escape an apology if he’s trapped in an elevator, right?

“I didn’t- I don’t mind ordering for you… just so you know,” Lance finally stumbles out a sad excuse of an apology after pressing the third floor button. Keith raises an eyebrow at him but doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, Lance simmers in guilt and confusion for a second before Keith finally decides to give him mercy.

“Was that an apology?” Keith teases gently, but his voice doesn’t seem to hold any malice. And when Lance looks back at him a small barely visible smirk is on the face of the usually stoic Keith.

“Hey! I tried,” Lance scoffed, gasping in feigned offense but he couldn’t help the small chuckle. Keith seemed to smirk wider at that, his shoulders shaking slightly in a stifled chuckle of his own. Lance couldn’t help but smile at that.

“Yeah, sure,” Keith rolls his eyes and they both sit in comfortable silence as the elevator number hits floor two. “Thank you,” Keith whispers after a few moments, Lance barely able to hear him, “I don’t do it on purpose, you know.”

Lance looks back, slightly surprised by the vulnerability in Keith’s voice when admitting such a small thing. His stomach twists slightly in more guilt. Lance knew Keith didn’t freeze on purpose. Lane knows that his response is freeze or snap. So he tells him that.

“I know, I’m sorry for teasing about that,” Lance whispers back, staring down at the elevator floor as he speaks. But he doesn’t miss it when Keith seems surprised at his response. And he definitely doesn’t miss the small smile on his rival's face, one of relief.

Now the silence that follows is comfortable. One of silent questions but loud appreciation for understanding.

—

“We should take Red.”

Lance stands up from where he is crouched after tying his boots. He spins to face Keith with a look of confusion. “Your motorcycle?” He repeats, obviously missing the point of why take a motorcycle instead of his reliable truck.

“It’s only an hour drive, it’ll save on gas in comparison to taking your truck,” Keith answers a-matter-of-factly, shrugging as he throws a bag full of hiking supplies over his shoulder. And by hiking supplies they mean: snacks, bottled water, and Keith’s specially picked pocket knives and multi-tools.

Lance finds himself unable to argue that, but he does not trust Keith to drive them there on a motorcycle. “Isn’t two people on a motorcycle dangerous, or something,” Lance points out, still stubborn on his decision.

“I’ve driven with others before, it’s safe,” Keith reasons, he turns to face Lance.

“Well, I don’t have those motorcycle-safety-stuffs,” Lance huffs, waving his hand around to emphasize the lack of proper motorcycle gear.

“I have an extra helmet, knee guards, and jacket. They’re all in the back of your truck,” Keith reassures, stepping out of the hotel room while still facing Lance.

“No offense mullet, but I’ve never ridden a motorcycle and I don’t entirely trust your driving skills,” Lance chuckles nervously, stepping out into the hallway and locking the hotel room.

“I’ll drive safe, trust me,” Keith sighs, leading the way back to the elevator with the hiking backpack still slung over his shoulder, “Besides, you need a break from driving. Let me drive for once.”

Lance can’t argue that. As much as he loves his truck, Blue, he does need a break from driving. “Awh, I wasn’t aware your small, empty, cold heart had the ability to do nice things,” Lance teased, playfully elbowing Keith before stepping into the elevator.

Keith just rolled his eyes, leaning against the wall of the elevator. “So is that a yes?” He chuckled softly, raising an eyebrow at Lance.

“Maybe, let me see how safe this motorcycle gear is first,” Lance answered, still nervous to ride on a motorcycle. Afterall, he wasn’t keen on leaving his life in Keith’s hands.

They eventually made it too Blue, Lance opening up the tailgate so Keith could access his motorcycle. With help from Lance, Keith carefully set up the ramp and pushed Red out of Blue’s truck bed. The kickstand clicking into place as he parks it nearby. A minute later he dug out two helmets, knee guards, and specially designed jackets.

“Here, put those on, see if they fit,” Keith tossed Lance the visually dustier jacket and knee guards. Lance scoffed at his command before clipping the knee guards into place and slipping on the jacket. He was slightly surprised by how well they fit with barely any adjustments necessary. When he focused back on Keith he realized the ramp had been put up and his truck’s tailgate already shut. Keith was wearing a matching red jacket and had two red helmets resting on the motorcycle beside him.

“So,” Lance sighs, walking over to stare wearily at the motorcycle, “How does this work.”

Keith lifts a helmet and walks over to Lance. Before Lance can react he’s already slipped the helmet onto his head. Lance blinks in surprise but doesn’t fight back as Keith adjusts the helmet before clipping it on tight and stepping back. Then he puts on his own helmet and clips it into place. “There, can you hear me?” Keith speaks but instead of hearing it aloud his voice cracks through a communication system in the helmet. Lance gapes in surprise before quickly gathering himself again.

“Yeah, yeah, loud and clear,” Lance answers through the helmet, smiling wide at the excitement of talking through helmets. Is this what pilots feel like?

Keith merely nods, pulling Lance from his thoughts. He suddenly crouches down and tugs on Lance’s knee guards. He tests that they're in the proper place before tightening them a tad more. Lance simply watches in surprise at how serious Keith is about the safety of his gear. I guess he’s worried after Shiro’s accident. Once that thought slips into Lance’s mind he suddenly realizes how much that makes sense. And not to mention how much safer it makes him feel knowing that even Keith, the rebel emo, is worried about motorcycle safety.

Eventually Keith returns to his motorcycle, giving it a once over before turning to Lance. “I want you to get on first and then scoot back when I go to get on, understand?” Keith instructs, hand on the handle of the motorcycle as he leads Lance toward the bike. “The kickstand is up and I’ll keep it balanced. I just want you to swing your leg over, scoot back, and keep your feet on the footrests,” Keith instructs, patting the seat and pointing to the passenger footrests.

Lance takes in a deep breath before following through. He swings his leg over the bike before carefully scooting back to make room for Keith. Keith easily tosses his leg over and sits down in front of Lance, steadying the motorcycle. Lance puts his feet on the footrests and awkwardly chuckles at their closeness.

“You’re going to have to lean forward and hold my waist, Lance,” Keith’s voice cracked over the helmet, teasing yet gentle. Lance chuckled awkwardly again, glad Keith couldn’t see the deep flush on his face from their proximity. He carefully leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist. Stop acting like it’s a big deal, you literally spooned him last night. Lance flushes more at his thought, coughing slightly in surprise. Keith doesn’t seem to care as he kicks up the kickstand and turns on the motorcycle.

Lance feels the engine rumbling but he can barely hear the muffled roar through his helmet. He watches closely as Keith looks over the dials on the bike and adjusts a few things before clipping his phone to the bike and setting up the GPS. Lance finds himself rather warm in his close proximity with Keith and the hot engine of the bike. But even with the comfortable warmth, his stomach is frozen in icy fear of riding a motorcycle for the first time.

“Are you ready, Lance?” Keith’s voice interrupts his turmoil of panicked thoughts, it’s surprisingly soft. Lance only lets out what sounds like a squeak of fear in response. Keith takes that as a yes, slowly releasing the clutch as he glides at a steady pace through the parking lot.

When leaving the parking lot the motorcycle speeds up and the roar of the engine can be heard better through the helmets. Lance tightens his arms around Keith’s waist as he speeds up, letting out a small yelp of surprise. Keith’s chuckles can be heard over the helmet as he follows the GPS directions.

It takes awhile for Lance to rope in his panic and finally tear his eyes away from their glued position on Keith’s back. He slowly turns his head to glance over at the buildings they pass. He can’t help but smile at the exhilaration of finally riding a motorcycle. He keeps his arms wrapped tightly around Keith but relaxes a bit once he realizes they haven’t crashed yet.

“How is it?” Keith suddenly asks after a few minutes of driving through the town streets.

“It’s amazing- I mean okay, yeah, it’s cool I guess,” Lance coughs out, turning to stare into the back of Keith’s helmet. They speed up as they merge onto a highway, forcing Lance to take deep breaths to keep down his anxiety.

“Cool? For your first time, that’s it?” Keith snickers back, checking the GPS again before continuing on the highway.

“I mean, it’s pretty cool…” Lance answers stubbornly, trying to seem less excited and panicked than he actually is. But Keith isn’t stupid and can tell easily that Lance is beaming with excitement.

“Well good, because we still have 40 minutes to go,” Keith snorts, speeding up slightly to pass a slow RV. For the next 20 minutes towns and forests pass by with very little interesting differences. Yet Lance seems very entertained watching them whisk by, smiling wide.

Eventually the motorcycle slows down, they take an exit onto a back road through forests and campsites. Lance randomly points out things he spots throughout the ride, entertaining Keith enough that he barely notices the time pass by. It doesn’t take long until they’re pulling up to the destination ten minutes early.

“We’re early,” Keith points out as they cruise into a parking lot near a visitor center. Although they quickly spot Pidge’s green mini van parked nearby, meaning Allure and Romelle were already there. Keith parks next to them, making sure to park in the middle of the parking spot so no car tries to park there as well. Keith turns off the bike and lets it sit for a minute before pushing out the kickstand and swinging off the bike. He holds onto it to keep it steady as he motions for Lance to get off. Lance, albeit clumsily, slides off the bike and stands on his shaky legs.

“We made it!” Lance gasps dramatically, taking a deep breath in order to still his shaking legs. Keith just rolls his eyes as he pockets the motorcycle keys and unties the hiking bag from the back. Lance unclips his helmet and slides it off, setting it down on the bike. He takes off the rest of his gear, stretching out his arms and legs to get out the kinks in his muscles from being on a motorcycle for an hour. He turns back to Keith, taking the backpack from him so he can get out of his own gear.

“How long do you think until the others get here?” Lance questions. Keith unclips his helmet and slides it off. He shakes his mullet out, running a hand through it to ensure it wasn't terribly messed up by the helmet. Lance is so focused on his slightly messed up hair that he doesn’t realize Keith is talking until he glares hard and frowns. Lance quickly collects himself and pulls his eyes away from Keith’s hair and back to his face.

“Hm? What?” Lance questions again, finally focused.

“Shiro, Adam, and Pidge will be here soon, Allura and Romelle are already here, and I assume Hunk and Shay won’t be long after,” Keith repeats, storing their gear in the motorcycle storage and securely clipping their helmets to the bike handles. Lance nods in agreement before the voices of their friends interrupt.

Lance swings the hiking bag over his shoulder and starts to walk toward the voices. Keith follows and they meet up with Allura and Romelle near the visitors center. Lance still buzzing from the exhilaration of the ride there, smiling wide and full of energy. He took a seat on a bench next to Allura, immediately starting a conversation over the drive there and how well Allura and Romelle slept last night. But even through this conversation Lance couldn’t help but glance at Keith. Returned to his normal mysterious quiet self, standing near and watching for the others. And with each mention of last night Lance was reminded of the rules he set for himself that morning. He smiled slightly at the memory, eyes sparking in determination.

I will crack open his shell, whatever it takes.

Notes:

Strange that you what to learn more about your rivals vulnerable side, Lance. It’s definitely for teasing purposes and not because you care, nooo.

Listen, breakfast may be important but I’m agreeing with Keith on that one :/

I don’t know squat about motorcycles so I had to research a bit, still didn’t do too good but I tried pfft.

Chapter 10: Is a Hot Springs Actually Hot?

Notes:

Keith POV!

It doesn’t take long until the others show up. Hunk and Shay get there a few moments after Keith and Lance had arrived. Hunk immediately envelopes Lance in a tight hug, followed by a conversation about how stressed Hunk was when Lance didn’t answer the phone and something about breakfast? Keith wasn’t sure. He was too distracted by Shiro’s car pulling into the parking lot that he didn’t pay attention to their loud conversation.

Keith shuffled on his feet, watching as Shiro, Adam, and Pidge got out of the car and walked over. He tensed, preparing himself for the scolding Keith just knew Shiro was about to give him. Except, Keith was confused to see that Shiro looked more concerned than irritated. Pidge ran over to Lance and Hunk, joining in on the loud conversation. Adam gave Keith a knowing look, patting him on the shoulder as he walked past in an almost ‘good luck’ manner before intermingling with the others. But Shiro only walked up to Keith, leading them a few feet away from the others.

“Are you feeling okay, Keith?” Shiro spoke once they put enough distance between them and the group. He leaned forward and pressed the back of his hand to Keith’s forehead, face screwed up in concern.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine,” Keith answered, swatting Shiro’s hand away. Keith squinted his eyes in confusion, why is Shiro acting like I'm sick? Shiro didn’t let off, holding Keith by the shoulder and scanning over him like he was looking for a visible injury of sorts. “Shiro, I’m fine. What makes you think I’m not?” Keith repeats, crossing his arms over his chest. He had expected a scolding, maybe an argument, not Shiro fretting over him.

“You’ve been more tired than usual. The last time you slept this much was when you were sick and refused to tell anyone,” Shiro answers, he gives up on checking Keith for obvious signs of illness, taking a step back. He still looks concerned but it’s obvious his usual older-brother attitude is returning.

“I’m not sick, Shiro,” Keith grumbles when he’s reminded of the time he got so sick Shiro had to babysit him. Shiro seems to relax slightly at his words, sighing.

“So you really did just sleep in? There’s nothing going on?” Shiro questions, still unsure that Keith’s not sick. After learning Keith usually ignores his limitations, either illness or injury, Shiro’s become a bit protective of his little brother.

“I’m fine, Shiro. We just stayed up late, honestly,” Keith felt bad for lying to Shiro. They may have not stayed up late but Keith wasn’t ready to talk about his nightmares with Shiro (not to mention he’d have to talk about cuddling Lance if they got on the topic).

“Okay. You tell me if you do start to feel sick though, alright? I don’t want a repeat of last year,” Shiro sighed, accepting Keith’s answer. Keith frowned at the mention of his last year sickness again, glaring up at Shiro. Shiro only chuckled, his normal demeanor returning as he ruffled Keith’s hair and walked back over to the others.

Keith followed after him, staying on the outskirts of the clumped together group. Hunk, Lance, and Pidge were engaged in their normal ‘yell-off’ as Keith liked to call it. But just as Keith was enjoying not being involved in the loud conversation, Lance had to ruin it.

“Keith, my buddy, tell Hunk here how safe I was on your motorcycle. He’s been stressing over safety this whole time!” Lance groans, walking over and throwing an arm over Keith’s shoulder. Keith raises an eyebrow, practically holding up Lance’s whole body weight now.

“It’s not that I don’t trust your driving skills, Keith. I just didn’t think motorcycles were a two person thing,” Hunk sighs, he seems genuinely worried about the safety of his friends, something Keith’s still getting used to recognizing. While Keith may be terrible at reassuring people, he excels at talking about his motorcycle.

“Red’s a motorcycle built to carry two passengers, and I’ve driven Shiro around on her before. I had extra safety gear for Lance too, I wouldn’t have drove this far if he wasn’t safe,” Keith explains, he’s always enjoyed explaining the safety of motorcycles. While they may be more dangerous than a normal car they are definitely safer than made out to be.

Hunk seemed to relax at his words, letting out an audible sigh of relief. “If Shiro’s comfortable riding on it, then I trust that you drive safely.”

“See, Hunk? Keith is the safest motorcycle driver out there, no need to be stressing,” Lance adds, finally letting go of Keith and leaning on Hunk instead. Hunk chuckles and rolls his eyes but their conversation is brought to a halt when Shiro speaks.

“Alright, I have a map of the trails here. We’re going to start on Dead Chief Trail, take a short cut, and continue on the hot spring mountain trail for a while, understood?” Sounds of confirmation are heard from the group before Shiro turns and heads for a trail with the map in hand. They step onto a path leading into the mountain forestry, carrying a few bags of hiking supplies.

The Dead Chief Trail is a sometimes steep path leading through the mountain forestry. Several bumps, rocks, or large tree roots cover the path sporadically. The group mostly manages to keep look underfoot, only Lance had managed to trip thus far.

Trees and shrubs of various sizes only allow for trickles of the evening light between their leaves. Allura claimed most of the trees were ‘variations of oak trees’ when Romelle inquired about them. Romelle immediately gets distracted and starts pointing out other plants and questioning Allura about them. Allura struggles to keep up with the onslaught of questions, luckily Pidge jumps in a few times to help. Particularly when Romelle reaches down to pick a plant and Pidge scrambles over to stop her from touching the obviously poisonous flora.

“Have you never heard of Poison Ivy before?” Pidge groans, dragging Romelle away from the cluster of low growing leaves. Pidge is visibly growing more annoyed with Romelle’s constant stream of flora questions and her oblivious curiosity. Allura steps in before Pidge gets too annoyed, warning Romelle to follow the known saying: “Leaves of three, let them be.”

It doesn’t take much longer for Pidge to get annoyed answering Romelle’s questions, leaving Allura alone to deal with Romelle like that of a tour guide to a toddler. Pidge speeds up to the middle of the group where Lance, Keith, Hunk, and Shay clump together in casual conversation. Seeing this as an opportunity to be the annoyance rather than the annoyed, she clears her throat and walks beside Lance.

“So, how was the hotel room? Up to our sharpshooter’s standards?” Pidge asked, her glasses shining in an almost mischievous glint that you see in shows. Lance turns on her, glaring as he points a finger down at Pidge accusingly.

“You took my hotel room!” Lance accused, jabbing at her shoulder angrily. Pidge only cackled in response, swatting his hand away.

“I wanted a room to myself, I’m sure Keith didn’t mind sharing,” Pidge shrugged, feigning innocence, but the smirk on her face gave away her true intentions. Keith turned toward them at the sound of his name, eyebrow raised as he hadn’t really been listening until then.

“I didn’t mind sharing what?” Keith asked, slowing down to match the pace of Pidge and Lance.

“Nothing!” Lance chuckled, glaring down at Pidge, “Just ignore her.”

Despite his efforts to change the subject, Pidge was set on her ways. “I was just apologizing to Lance for taking his hotel room. I’m sure you didn’t mind sharing a room, yeah?” She pushed on, smiling wide and turning to face Keith.

“Oh- I guess not- the room was a double anyway,” Keith stumbled out, caught off guard by the mention of them sharing a hotel room. Keith couldn’t stop the small flush of embarrassment when he realized despite it being a double they had only used one bed. He prayed Pidge wasn’t some secret mind reader.

“See, I was nice enough to take the single and leave you two the double,” Pidge snickered, turning back to Lance and sticking her tongue out mischievously. Lance frowned, poking her in the side.

“You’re lucky you left the double. Because if you had left the single, you’d have a single day left,” Lance grumbled, poking at Pidge’s side again. Keith snorted at Lance’s sad excuse of a pun and Pidge rolled her eyes while swatting his hand away.

“I’m sure you wouldn't have minded sharing a single. The bed is far bigger than a sleeping bag,” Pidge smirked mischievously, hinting back to the first night on their trip. Both Keith and Lance turned red in embarrassment. Lance gasped out a few incoherent words, struggling to find a response. Keith only crossed his arms and stared at the ground, biting his tongue as he remembered the events of that night.

Luckily, Lance’s ability to be oblivious of his surroundings and Hunk’s interest for a plant saved the two from the embarrassing conversation. Lance was walking backwards and facing Pidge when he ran straight into Hunk’s side. Lance would’ve pushed Hunk over if he wasn’t already used to Lance running into him. He caught Lance by the shoulder, stopping his friend from stumbling face first into the dirt.

“Whoa, careful Lance,” Hunk warned, steadying Lance who chuckled an apology.

“What were you looking at?” Pidge asked Hunk, stepping forward to look. She was already distracted from their earlier conversation and Keith couldn’t appreciate the distraction more. Keith also stepped forward, leaning around Pidge to look.

“This is wild garlic, it’s pretty common but I’ve never seen a cluster this big,” Hunk answered, pointing at what looked to be a large clump of… grass?

“That’s garlic?” Lance questions, leaning down to inspect the ‘grass’ closer. It’s obvious both Lance and Keith are confused.

“I know it looks like grass, but those are just the leaves. Wild garlic has long pointed leaves, and it usually grows in shaded areas like this. Go ahead and smell it, that’s the easiest way to tell,” Hunk explains, smiling and running his hand through the cluster of wild garlic. He plucks a small amount, crushing the leaf up in his hand. Lance and Pidge both lean down to sniff at the plant.

“Well that’s definitely garlic, that scent is unmistakable,” Lance hums in surprise. Pidge pinches a bit of the crushed up leaves and inspects it.

“If we weren’t in a national park I’d pluck some and use it in a recipe I’ve been wanting to try. Oh well, I’ll just have to stick with store bought garlic,” Hunk sighs, straightening back up and continuing on their hike. Shiro and Adam are a bit ahead of the group now, Allura and Romelle still lagging behind as they stop at every new thing.

“A new recipe?” Lance says, his interest piqued. He lazily drapes an arm over Hunk’s shoulders, leaning on him as they walk. Keith walks alongside them, even he is interested in any new recipes Hunk has in mind.

“It’s a surprise, a twist to an Italian dish I’ve been working on,” Hunk explains, smiling wide as he talks about the surprise dish he’s been working on.

“Man, that sounds delicious right now. I’ll take any of your cooking, I think I’m having withdrawals already,” Lance groans dramatically, leaning more against Hunk as if not eating Hunk’s cooking was slowly killing him. Keith can’t help but roll his eyes, gaining a chuckle from Shay.

“Oh! I packed a bunch of travel cooking supplies in advance, just in case Hunk ever wanted to cook spontaneously. We could have a cookout tomorrow,” Shay offers, dodging another low hanging tree branch as she walks beside Hunk. Lance and Hunk smile wide immediately at her idea, even Keith doesn’t have a frown on his face for a moment.

“Shay, you rock-talking genius!” Lance exclaims, stepping away from Hunk to pat her on the back. Keith rolls his eyes at the nickname. The origin of the nickname is a story Lance has told many times to the group. When Lance first met Shay they had gone caving, and after kicking a rock, Lance quickly learned that Shay believed the inanimate object had emotions. Since then Lance always joked about how Shay had the ability to ‘Communicate with the rock souls!’

“That’s a great idea!” Hunk agrees, smiling wide at the prospect of cooking for his friends again even without a traditional kitchen. Shay matches his smile, a small flush on her face at the compliments.

“It’s a plan then! Tomorrow, no later, we will feast upon another meal made by the big man and the rock-talker,” Lance announces loudly and dramatically as if declaring a royal feast of sorts.

“A feast crafted perfectly to fit our majesty’s exquisite taste buds,” Hunk rises up to the dramatic act, bowing to Lance.

“Yes, yes. Or else your precious majesty will join the heavens from a lack of proper meals,” Lance answered, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead as if he was being painted in a renaissance painting. He then tapped a garlic leaf on both of Hunks shoulders as if he was knighting him.

Hunk and Lance then burst out into laughter, playfully punching each other's shoulders. Shay and Keith exchanged a glance before snickering softly at the other two’s dramatic act. It used to be annoying when Lance acted dramatically, but now it was strangely comedic to Keith. Something he refused to unpack in the moment seeing as they were in the middle of the woods. Instead he focused back into their conversation about dinner.

The group eventually made it to the short cut and onto the hot springs mountain trail. It was a much easier trail to traverse, having mostly level paths and many scenic views from the top of the mountain. Trees still grew around them, blocking out most of the evening sun, but the underbrush was more cleared out around scenic areas for easy access to the views. Despite the scenic views and easier path, Lance was way more excited about the fact the hot springs were only a few turns away.

The group had paused their hike, resting at an area with a beautiful view of the forest surrounding the mountain. It had taken a few minutes for Allura and Romelle to catch up. Keith was properly surprised to see that Allura wasn’t even slightly annoyed by the constant onslaught of curious questions from Romelle throughout the whole hike up. From the amount of questions Romelle asked just on this one hike, Keith could only imagine what riding in a car with her for hours must be like. He shuttered slightly at the thought, maybe riding with Lance wasn’t that bad. He immediately regretted that thought when he was nearly toppled over by Lance throwing his arm over Keith’s shoulders.

“Hey, mullet, how fast can you run?” Lance asked unprompted, but Keith immediately recognized the competitive look in his eyes. Keith’s own eyes narrowed and he pinched his eyebrows together, easily rising to the challenge.

“Faster than you, and I don’t trip over my feet,” Keith challenged, teasing Lance over the many times he tripped over his own feet. Lance scoffed, pulling his arm away from Keith and turning toward the hiking path.

“Race you to the hot springs then, Samurai!” And just like that, Lance lunged forward and ran down the hiking trail.

Keith stood for a moment in surprise before quickly accepting the challenge. He scrambled after Lance, racing down the path. Both leaving behind the others who were no doubt rolling their eyes.

Keith sped after Lance, soon catching up and racing hard on the taller boys' heels. Lance’s long legs gave him a larger stride, an unfair advantage as Keith liked to think. They stumbled and raced through the forested path, dodging trees and occasionally other hikers.

“Cant keep up, mullet?” Lance shouted over his shoulder, breathing hard as he attempted to run faster. Keith growled under his breath, fuming at Lance’s constant teases despite the fact he needed his breath to run. Keith pushed himself harder, practically running side by side with Lance now.

They were almost to the hot springs, and Keith swore he was in the lead, when it happened. A tree root jutted out around a corner, the one root Keith was too distracted to notice. But notice it he did, after the front of his shoe caught on it of course.

Keith was thrown off balance with a yelp. His foot caught on the root and he fell straight into Lance. His shoulder jammed hard into Lance’s back and caused both of them to stumble to the ground in a series of yelps and groans. Keith landed hard on top of Lance as he fell face first into the dirt path, effectively pinning him. Luckily Lance didn’t hit his face, his hands outstretched to catch him at the last moment. Keith wasn’t so lucky, his nose slamming straight into Lance’s shoulder.

When the others finally caught up to the two of them, they were a crumbled mass on the ground. Lance’s face was shoved into the dirt, Keith using his head as an elbow rest so he could hold his nose in discomfort. Keith was still slumped over Lance’s torso, making it difficult for Lance to move.

“Get off me, Keith!” Lance grumbles, lifting his head and trying to sit up. Keith grumbled before clumsily pushing off of Lance and rising to his feet. Lance followed soon after, standing up and brushing dirt off his clothes with a frown.

“Are you guys okay?” Hunk questioned while Pidge and Allura cackled at the sight. Lance was mostly unscathed except for a few scrapes on his knees and palms. Keith still rubbed at his nose but the throbbing sensation eventually eased up.

“We’re fine,” Keith grunts, brushing off dirt from his own clothes.

“No thanks to you,” Lance scoffs, turning to glare at Keith accusingly. Keith crosses his arms defensively, already frowning.

“What even happened?” Shiro questioned, stepping forward to assess the two just to ensure they weren’t hiding injuries.

“Mullet here, tackled me unfairly,” Lance accused dramatically, glaring at Keith who glared back with equal competitiveness.

“I did not tackle you! I just tripped on a tree and you happened to be beside me,” Keith argued, stepping closer angrily. His eyebrows pinched together as they fell back into their normal arguments.

“I think you meant ‘in front of me’ because I was definitely winning that race until you sabotaged me,” Lance snapped back, smirking proudly like he had already been awarded a trophy for winning that race.

"You were not, I was ahead," Keith fired back.

Lance frowned, his eyes narrowing as he stepped closer and poked a finger accusingly at Keith's chest. He opened his mouth, no doubt to continue their argument, but was interrupted by Romelle's squeal of excitement.

"Look! The hot springs!" Romelle squealed, grabbing onto Allura's wrist and dragging her around the corner. Keith and Lance share a glance before giving up on the argument and racing after the two girls.

Once they round the corner they're met with the warm steam of the springs. Several rocky pools of steaming hot water sit along the path. The forest opens up into a clearing where the pools sit, the sun gleaming down through the now thin canopy of leaves. Romelle has already reached one of the pools, still holding onto Allura's wrist as she leans over the water.

"Hey, Keith," Lance says, elbowing Keith in the side to get his attention, "Bet I can stay in the hot springs longer than you."

"That's dumb," Keith scoffs, glancing between Lance's mischievous smirk and the obviously steaming pools of water.

"Scared of some warm water?" Lance teases, purposefully pushing at Keith's buttons to get him to agree. It works of course.

"You're on, McClain," Keith answer, eyes narrowing competitively. Keith and Lance both turn to make a run for the hot springs. But their bet is short lived.

Shiro grabs onto the collars of both of their shirts, keeping them from lunging for the steaming water. Keith and Lance look like two kittens held by the scruff as they're dragged away from the dangerously hot pools of water.

"Don't get in the water; there's a reason it's called a 'hot' springs," Shiro sighs in disappointment, frowning down at the two boys. Both Keith and Lance frown, looking away from Shiro in embarrassment. They simultaneously mutter something along the lines of 'I wasn't actually going to do it'. Shiro only rolls his eyes before letting go of their shirts.

"You too, Romelle! Careful around the water," Shiro shouts over to Romelle who is still leaning dangerously close to the steaming pool of water. It takes Allura tugging her away by the wrist for her to finally keep a safe distance from the hot springs.

The rest of the group stands around the hot springs, staring in awe at the steaming pools of water. The sun shines perfectly on the water and creates an almost elegant atmosphere. The hot steam in the air slightly fogging up Pidge and Adam's glasses as they step a little closer.

Pidge crouches down beside the pool of water, "How hot is the water?" she inquires. Romelle joins her by the water, crouching down beside Pidge. She also gazes curiously at the practically boiling water.

Before either of them can attempt to test how truly hot the water is, Adam stops them. Adam grabs both of the overly curious girls by the collars of their shirts. And identically to Shiro, he drags them away like a mother cat with her kittens. Both Pidge and Romelle share the same embarrassment as Keith and Lance. The group of them stare at the ground like they've been scolded by their parents.

"We should move on from the hot springs, lest anyone actually touch the water," Adam advises, sharing a knowing look with Shiro. Shiro chuckles in agreement, gently herding the others away from the springs and further down the trail.

The group travels away from the hot springs and back into the forest, following the winding dirt trail back down the mountain. They've returned to their normal positions: Adam and Shiro taking the lead, Lance and Hunk behind them with Shay and Keith lagging just slightly behind, Pidge and Allura in the rear as they try to keep Romelle from getting lost or distracted.

Keith usually finds himself walking besides Shay when he's not around Shiro and Adam. Keith didn't mind being around Shay. She always held a calm and gentle attitude, one that Keith felt drawn to when he wanted to get away from Lance's loud jokes or Pidge's constant nerd blabs. Keith and Shay had a mutual understanding, they would simply walk in gentle silence and yet they understood every unspoken word. As if they held whole therapy sessions just by understanding that neither felt the need to speak.

But that comfortable silence was short lived when Lance began to slow down. Lance slowed down to match the pace of Keith and Shay, fanning his face dramatically with his hand.

"It's so hot!" Lance complains, wafting his shirt. Keith tilts his head to glance back at Lance, raising an eyebrow at his obvious statement. His eyes flick up to the beads of sweat gathering on Lance's brow. Keith absentmindedly wipes his own forehead, realizing that he's just as sweaty as Lance.

"Did a 'hot springs' sound like it was going to be cold?" Keith snorts sarcastically, rolling his eyes as Lance continues to fan his face over-dramatically. Lance ignores Keith's jab, instead he shrugs off the green jacket he always wears.

Keith catches himself staring as Lance pulls off his jacket and ties it around his waist. And, obviously, underneath his green jacket was a long sleeve shirt. Keith scoffed silently, of course he was wearing a long sleeve shirt and a jacket on our hike to a hot springs. Lance rolled up his sleeves only slightly, smiling as it allowed him to cool off a little.

"Is there a reason you are wearing a long sleeve shirt on a hike?" Keith questions, gesturing towards the obvious reason Lance was sweating that much.

Lance opens and shuts his mouth, almost as if he had accidentally almost said something he didn't want Keith to hear. But he quickly regained his composure and flashed his normal wide smile at Keith. "I've withstood hotter days than this in long sleeves," Lance answers proudly.

Keith only rolls his eyes, deciding not to argue with Lance on this topic. After all, Keith would rather return to silence with Shay than listen to Lance boast about how he can 'handle the heat'. But when Keith turns to where Shay should be he finds nobody. Shay has already moved up to walk beside Hunk, chatting and laughing with him as they walk. Effectively leaving Keith stuck beside Lance on the dirt trail. Keith gapes in betrayal at the sight of being left to deal with Lance. Lance doesn't notice, already telling Keith the stories of how hot it was by the beach at home. Keith has no choice but to listen as they walk.

Keith is too focused keeping up with Lance's unorganized rant that he almost runs into Hunk. Keith almost loses his balance as he suddenly halts so as to not run into the taller boy. Shiro, Adam, Hunk, and Shay are all stopped on the trail, turned to stare into the forest. Lance's rant dies down when he notices they've all stopped. "Why'd we stop?" Lance asks, leaning around Hunk to stare into the direction they're looking.

"Do you hear that?" Shiro points down at a bush beside the path. The leaves shake slightly as if something is moving in the large brush.

"What is it?" Lance questions, still standing halfway behind Hunk. The bush rustles more and, acting on muscle memory, Keith steps to the front of the group. He stands between them and the bush, automatically pulling out his pocketknife and pointing it at the noise.

The creature finally steps out of the bush and into the dirt path in front of Keith. Staring up at the group in fear is an… opossum.

Keith relaxes his stance, staring at the opossum in surprise. The opossum quickly turns and races back into the forest underbrush, leaving Keith and the group. A few seconds pass of shocked silence before Lance and Pidge burst into laughter.

"What are you laughing about?" Keith grunts, turning to frown at Lance and Pidge. Lance is leaning heavily on Hunk as he laughs, but he eventually pauses to tease Keith.

"You just pulled a knife on a opossum," Lance snickered, gesturing toward the pocketknife still clenched in Keith's hand. Keith turned red in embarrassment, putting his knife away and crossing his arms defensively.

"It could've been dangerous. It could've been a skunk or another bobcat," Keith argued in defense, staring at the ground in embarrassment. The whole group was laughing at Keith now, even Shay couldn't help but snicker.

"Oh, you're right. How dare I laugh at such a heroic act. Thank you, Keith, for scaring off the hot spring's greatest warrior," Lance answered sarcastically, smirking mischievously at Keith. Keith only grumbles angrily, glaring hard at Lance. Shiro gently pats Keith on the shoulder, still chuckling softly at the whole ordeal.

"I think everyone's just as on edge. We're all probably sweaty and tired from the hike," Shiro says, attempting to smooth Keith's ruffled feathers before another fight breaks out between him and Lance. Groans of agreement ripple throughout the group at his words. "We're almost to the end of the trail, it's not much farther down," Shiro explains before turning to lead the way down the trail again.

Eventually the group makes it to the end of the trail, stepping out of the forest and back into a cleared area. The whole group practically sighs with relief, collapsing onto a nearby bench. They all take a few minutes to gather themselves before walking to their designated vehicles.

The drive back to the hotel is uneventful. Keith can tell that Lance is too exhausted to actually pay attention to the sunset while riding a motorcycle. But Keith stares at the sunset anyway, taking note of it. Maybe I'll take Lance for a sunset motorcycle ride when he's less tired, he thinks before catching himself. Why would he want to take Lance for a motorcycle ride? Why would Lance even be interested in seeing a sunset with Keith anyway? What a strange thought.

But as they drive back to the hotel, Keith watches the sun cast beautiful streaks of color in the clouds. And he can't help when a small part of him hopes silently that next time: Lance will be more interested in seeing the sunset.

But a next time is wishful thinking.

Notes:

Last chapter focused on Arkansas!

Yes- a hot springs is actually hot- crazy right?