Chapter Text
Keith has been to countless schools and a myriad of homes throughout his life, the result of being an orphan deemed "troublesome" by the age of four. Sitting in the yellow taxi cab, watching the vast desert landscape of California transform into a quaint, colorful city, small restaurants and shops taking the place of sand and trees, he thinks to himself that this one won't be any different. He may be across the country breathing hot, arid air in replace of the chilling air of Vermont, he may be 20 now, and older and wiser (at least he thinks) than every other time he started a new life, but he knows it will all be the same. Different place, different people, different fights, same feelings, same struggles, same loneliness.
Keith has forgotten how long he's been in the taxi cab, the monotony of the desert putting him in a trance. He would have sat there like that forever had the taxi cab driver not starting speaking.
"Already buddy, your stops coming up on the right. The ol' University-yah know, my Pappy went there back in the day. Was the smartest man in the family he was, still is. I bet your'e smarter though, all of them technologies you kids have access to these days, you could probably figure out how to work a goddamned alien spaceship with that google."
Keith snapped out of it and momentarily considered asking the old man what he had just said but he was becoming increasingly aware of the unpleasantness of the taxi cab. It stunk like cigarettes and whatever else a twenty year old cab that's driven hundreds, maybe thousands of people, smells like. Had this old guy been talking to him the whole time? Why did he call Keith his buddy? Eh, maybe he was just being nice. The second the cab pulled up at the entrance of the school, Keith jumped out of the back door, and started grabbing his bags from the already popped trunk. He quickly returned to the front window, handed the man the exorbitant cab fee in cash and reluctantly shook the old man's outstretched hand. Even if it had only been a few hours, and with a horribly mustached, smelly cab driver with an antiquated stereo system that only played country music and recordings of BINGO tournaments, Keith had appreciated being treated like a friend to this stranger. But reality kicks in and once again Keith was alone, standing in front of a new school and trying intensely not to be intimidated by the prospects that lay ahead. This was his last chance of being anything close to happy.
Keith grabbed his bags and began the struggle of finding and getting to his dorm. The University had sent him an email with his dorm building and room number, which he printed out and shoved somewhere, but where? After walking another 15 minutes towards the center of campus, Keith dropped all of his bags on the grass and plopped down on top of them, sweat dripping down his neck and in a multitude of other places. He muttered to himself about the stupid California sun and his stupid red leather jacket that he had insisted on wearing everywhere, and the overwhelming amount of black clothing that he also wore religiously. He reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone and when the screen lit up there were no texts, no calls, no contact of any sort from the few people that he did speak to. He pulled up the email with his dorm information and had no idea where to begin looking for it. He decided just to lay down on his bags and close his eyes, not caring that he was sprawled out in the middle of the mall that surrounded the campus’ central library.
He began to drift off when he heard a loud slap followed by a girl yelling, spitting words at a mile a minute. Probably some dumb ass getting told off by his girlfriend. Out of curiosity Keith peeked from under neath his bangs that hid most of his eyes, and locked on to the scene. Yep, just as he predicted, a pretty blonde girl was now stomping off in the opposite direction of some jerk who’s leaning up against a tree about 15 feet away. He’s yelling back about he didn’t mean it like that and other bullshit.
Keith didn’t realize he had been staring more intently at the scene then he had thought. He was now sitting up and watching as this kid got totally rejected from a beautiful girl, and then proceeded to embarrass himself further by spouting out insincere apologies. His face must have shown his obvious disgust for the jerk lord because the kid was now standing in front of him and speaking.
“ Uhh, sorry if that disturbed you from whatever it is you’re doing here, on the ground, in the middle of the mall…Umm, it wasn’t as bad as it looked, I promise. I just came over cus you looked kind of pissed, actually you look more pissed than her.” The jerk-kid-douche-loser chuckles to himself and smirks at Keith waiting for a response. Not being able to stand silence for more than ten seconds, the rejectee also points out that Keith "was kind of being rude by staring so he really should be the one apologizing."
By this point Keith is entirely absent from the conversation, lost in the weird situation that he has put himself into. He finally gets a good look at the kid and realizes that he doesn’t look like a typical ladies man, jerk type. In fact he looks kind of dorky, average at best. He is the definition of lanky. Keith figured he had to be at least 6,2 maybe 6,3 and his body was fairly thin, but not entirely scrawny. He had dark olive skin, short hazel hair and deep blue eyes and he wore jeans, a Star Wars t-shirt and vans that had some kind of tropical pattern on them. Keith realized he had probably been spacing out again and tried to remember what the guy just said to him.
“Ehhm, I didn’t realize you we’re talking to me. I guess you saw me watching you get rejected by that girl.” The mystery kid’s jaw dropped at Keith’s blunt response.
“Ouch! Blunt. Much. But I guess you could say that’s what happened, even though I’m pretty sure she was just scared to go out with someone as cool as me.” He gestures to himself and Keith fails to hold back a scoff.
“ It looked like you were just being a jerk to me.” Keith bluntly points out again.
“Man, you’re really not one to hold back opinions. Noted. Being totally honest, I was going out on a limb talking to her again after I set her shirt on fire in chemistry lab last semester and she obviously hasn’t recovered so I was half expecting the slap. I’m Lance by the way, and you are?”
“Keith” Keith decided he would play along with the conversation instead of ignore Lance like he usually would. He didn’t really want to know this kid’s whole life story but he decided he could at least be nice enough to get him to help find his dorm.
“Well, Keith, I normally wouldn’t help random guys with mullets that call me out on my romance techniques, however, I might make an exception for you. You got a shit ton of bags.”
Keith processed if he should be offended or grateful by that statement and went with the latter. Might as well milk this kid for his help.
“Actually, yeah, maybe you could help me find my dorm?”
Lance looked at Keith intensely for a second. “You look kind of old to be a freshman.”
“Oh, I’m actually a sophomore, but I transferred schools so I don’t know where anything is.”
Lance immediately grabbed two of Keith’s bags. “ Mmmkay so what dorm are you in? We gotta get going cause this campus is huge and Hunk’s waiting for me to go to the cafeteria.”
“Um the building is called the...Nebula building? Who or what is a Hunk?”
“Hey, that’s my dorm!” Lance quickly turned on the balls of his feet and began walking, more like jogging to the left of the mall.
Keith grabbed the rest of his bags and hurried to catch up with Lance. The few extra inches of height Lance had on Keith made it difficult to keep up with him, despite Keith’s athleticism.
Lance looked behind his shoulder to see if Keith had followed him and at the same time Keith looked up, making awkward eye contact with him that lasted a fraction of a second too long for either of their comforts.
“Hunk is my roommate. We’ve known each other since high school. He’s pretty much opposite from me in every way except for that we both love pizza, and we’re both planning on going to the Galaxy Garrison together.”
Keith is trying to keep up with Lance as he practically glides up a flight of stairs, taking two at a time. Competitiveness taking over, he decides he doesn’t want the string bean to beat him so he speeds up, leading by one stair. He realizes what Lance just said.
“Wait, y-y-you are in the space program?”
Lance looks slightly offended, “Yeah, I just said that. Are you?”
Keith nods. Lance mumbles out an “cool”. Both boys are silent for a minute until they find themselves standing in front of a large modern building that says Nebula on the front. Lance swipes a card at the door and it clicks open. He holds the door with his foot while Keith squishes through the entrance with his bags.
“Dude, think you brought enough shit? Don’t tell me these are all filled with black t’shirts?” Lance says as he smirks, his blue eyes gazing at Keith’s almost entirely black ensemble from dirty black converse up to the collar of one of his many black band shirts.
Keith finds himself blushing, something he doesn’t think he’s ever done in his whole life.
“Shut up. It’s mostly just towels and blankets and stuff.” Lance revels in Keith’s reaction, deciding he is already his new favorite person to mess with.
“Well, what room number are you?”
“511”
“Wow, you’re on my floor too. I’m in 527. I guess it’s cause we’re in the same program.”
Again, Lance bounds down the hall without warning and Keith follows. They reach the elevator and get on. Lance starts talking to another guy on the elevator and introduces him to Keith as another floor mate. When the other guy gets off Lance leans over to Keith and tells him not to go in that guy’s dorm unless he wants to smell like pot for a week straight. Keith would have been more off put about the comment had he not noticed how uncomfortably close Lance was to him in this cramped elevator. Does this kid have any personal space boundaries? Keith almost felt inclined to push Lance away, they just met like 20 minutes ago, and he was sweaty and hot. The ding of the elevator saved him from making an ass of himself on the first day of school, well so far.
Without fail, Lance once again bounds out of the elevator and down the hall. Keith battles with the elevator door as it repeatedly tries to close on him while he gets the bags out.
“Keith, Your room is right here!” Lance yells down the hallway.
Keith fishes for his key card and swipes it in the door. It clicks and he enters the empty room.
Lance and Keith throw the bags onto the floor beside the bed and Lance reaches his arms over his head, stretching out his back over dramatically.
“Man that was tiring. I should charge you for my services.” He smirks again at Keith and elbows him in the shoulder.
Keith just shoots him a glare for elbowing him and then his face changes to a softer state.
“Yeah, sorry about all the bags I guess…Oh and thanks for helping and showing me around.”
Lance just shrugs and mumbles out a “no problem”
The conversation is interrupted when a voices erupt from the hall. Lance pops his head out the door and sees Hunk and his other friend Pidge fighting over some kind of device.
“Oh, hey I better go break them up, Pidge gets pretty feisty when Hunk takes his-their things. Wouldn’t want him to get beat up before the first day of classes.” Lance runs out of the dorm room towards the bickering students and grabs the device only to run down the hall with it yelling “It’s mine now!!!”
Keith sighs and plops onto the bed, disregarding the bags that are sprawled all over the room. At least he is finally alone now. He falls asleep on the empty mattress for what seemed like only seconds until a pillow is thrown at his face. He tosses the pillow off, face turning red with aggravation and he sees Lance leaning against the doorway with the same smug face he seems to always have. Before Keith can say anything, Lance interrupts-
“Come on, you can sleep later, don’t you want to meet Hunk? Oh and Pidge? They’re in my dorm.” Lance grabs Keith’s wrist and drags him out of the room, completely oblivious to Keith’s increasingly obvious annoyance.
As Lance charges down the hallway, Keith’s wrist tight in his grip, Keith wonders what he did to deserve this kind of torture. Lance on the other hand tosses around two trains of thought. One, what other ways can he bug the living crap out of Keith. He was getting kind of bored messing with the same people over and over. Not that putting his special hot sauce in Hunk's food and watching him flail around the room really ever gets old, but Keith and his emo hair are practically asking for some quality pranking. The other train of thought confuses Lance more so than the first. Why is Keith making him so damn nervous? No one makes Lance lose his "cool", but his hands are practically turning to butter around Keith's wrist. Lance shakes the thought when him and Keith reach the opened door to his dorm. He's probably just still shaken up about actually getting slapped in the face by a girl (which was surprisingly the first time it happened) and Keith, his new classmate and competition, being there to witness Lance's stupidity.