Chapter Text
Lance is late. This in itself is not unusual: he’s used to running on Lance Standard Time, and the world waits for him. He has, on occasion, been sarcastically declared “fashionably late, again” by professors and friends alike, and he always takes it as a compliment.
Today, though, he’s not too keen on the idea. It’s his early-morning cosmology class (“How is ten o’clock early?” Pidge had asked, with the incredulous tone of someone who takes advanced math at eight AM; “I’m a growing boy, I need my sleep,” Lance replied), and he is loath to miss it. It’s an elective, and one of the only classes he can take with Pidge and Hunk. Strangely enough, there’s not a lot of overlap between the schedules of brilliant young engineers and a guy who still hasn’t settled on a path in life because he couldn’t major in Awesome, so he’s got to appreciate what little he gets.
Also, there’s the problem of seating, Lance notes grimly and swerves around a corner as fast as he dares, messenger bag slapping against his hip. The three of them had figured that cosmology would be interesting but not exactly an academic blockbuster, and the school seemed to agree, if the size of the lecture hall was anything to go by. What neither party had counted on was Professor Coran’s TA, Shirogane: an absolute heartthrob who has gotten people to sit in on the class in unprecedented numbers. On some days, they line the walls.
Meaning, Lance needs to leg it.
At ten-fifteen, he skids to a halt outside the door and slips inside, lithe as a cat.
“Shit,” he mutters under his breath. Hunk spots him from the back row and waves. Lance figures his expression is supposed to be sympathetic, but it doesn’t really work when he’s sitting in such a prime location without a conveniently saved seat beside him. Pidge, on Hunk’s left, glances up and gives him a nod, eyes bleary behind their big round glasses.
He can’t see a single empty chair.
“Lance, hi!” Shirogane chirps; you wouldn’t think a guy that size could chirp, but somehow that’s exactly what he does.
“Hey,” Lance says. Shirogane is the kind of person who manages to remember everyone’s names and sport an amazing jawline at the same time, and Lance suspects that if you measured the angles of that jawline, you could find a way to mathematically prove that life isn’t fair.
“Don’t worry, we’ve barely gotten started. I’m just passing out these handouts. I’ll get to you in a minute, so you can go ahead and sit down over there!”
He points to a seat in the front row, and a colorful curse explodes in Lance’s mind. He was angling for a vacant chair near the middle that he spotted two seconds ago, but now that the stupid nice TA with his stupid sparkly smile has directed him, it’s not like he has a choice. Slouching, he makes his way toward the front and aims a death glare at Pidge, who is laughing. They know he hates sitting in the front, where it’s harder to doodle silly obscene things in his notebooks or check his phone under the table, and—
Ohhh no.
Lance is already nudging his way past people’s legs and apologizing under his breath when he sees it: in the seat next to his, there is someone with an all-too-familiar mullet that nearly makes him choke on rage.
As Lance finally makes it past the last person and drops his messenger bag on the floor, the guy turns to the side a little, and yup – it’s definitely him. Lance’s eyes narrow, sirens are going off in his head like in Kill Bill, and he just barely manages to stop himself from hissing, “YOU!”
The kid’s dark eyes linger on Lance for about two seconds before he turns them back toward the front of the hall, like he’s never seen Lance before in his life.
Seething, Lance sinks into his chair. This is going to be awful.
After taking his books out of his bag, he stares hard at Dr. Coran’s ginger moustache so that he’ll resist the urge to turn to the left and glare at the dark-haired mullet guy. The professor’s words are passing in one of Lance’s ears and rattling around uselessly in his head before slipping right out the other, but at least he’s a focal point.
He does his best to acknowledge Shirogane when he comes over to give him his handout, as promised, and then tries to pay attention to the lecture about black holes. Sure, maybe the main reason Lance took this class was so that he’d have an excuse to see his friends during the day, but when he’s not nudging Hunk and whispering something about the cute girl in the next row, he does actually enjoy Dr. Coran’s teaching. The guy’s a bit eccentric – no one has been able to figure out exactly where he’s from, or if Coran is his first or his last name – and the unofficial theory is that maybe the reason he knows so much about the origins of the universe is because he was there.
Not even the notion that his professor might be an alien is enough to cool Lance off, though. He can’t stand aloof holier-than-thou types who think they’re so much better than him – firstly, because no one is, thanks very much; and second, it’s just a shitty thing to do! – and as of last week, this guy really takes the cake.
So, what happened last week? Oh boy, Lance is getting mad just remembering. Their university had arranged a sporting event with one of the neighboring schools, the kind of thing that made Pidge groan in horror and fake a stomachache, and gave Hunk a real stomachache for days. Lance, though, was pumped. This was competition. This was battle. This was a chance to prove himself!
“Lance, nobody cares,” Pidge said, in an infuriatingly reasonable tone of voice. “It’s an amateur thing. Just for … fun.” They shuddered, incapable of understanding how the humiliating public spectacle of amateur sports could possibly equal fun in anyone’s mind.
“Yeah, but think of the girls, Pidge,” Lance replied, equally reasonable, and slung an arm around his friend’s small shoulders. “They will be there. Watching. Watching me.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and Pidge made a sound like “ugh” and shrugged him off.
“Whatever, dude, enjoy your sweatfest. I’ll be catching Pokémon with Hunk, just so you know what you’re missing.”
“Have fun!” Lance called, convinced that he would be the one having a better time.
Needless to say, he was wrong. Oh, things were just peachy at first: warming up on the football field, swinging his long limbs and running a slow circuit to scope out the surroundings and any particularly hot girls, excited at the chance to move his body, to score, to win. With Pidge and Hunk, the most competition he ever got was Mario Kart or nerdy card games, and they tended to, uh, kick his ass. But now? This was his moment.
Except when it turned out that it wasn’t. Lance dealt pretty well with competition when it was coming from the other team: a bar to measure himself against, a goal to strive for. He wasn’t as good at handling being outdone from within. Which he was, repeatedly. By whom? Why, mullet guy, of course!
Lance grits his teeth, sure that the hate waves he’s broadcasting must be palpable.
In the relay, each university had two teams. Both of theirs beat the other school, but the deceptively skinny kid in the red T-shirt and stupid too-long hair outran Lance on the last stretch. During the soccer match, they were on the same team, and not only did the guy score a goal: when Lance was in the perfect striking position, he sent him a pass that was so smoothly, deftly done it took even Lance by surprise, and he stumbled, botching the opportunity and losing them the point. When they played capture the flag, the mullet kid captured the first flag. And so on, ad infinitum.
It was annoying, frustrating even, and Lance swears to deny it to himself forever, but at one point he got so fed up that he was dangerously near tears. The guy was good, though – fine, great – and Lance is nothing if not a good sport. So he decided to swallow his pride, walk on over there, shake the guy’s hand and say, “I’m Lance, good game.” It was the decent thing to do, and Lance is a decent guy.
Red T-shirt was stretching a little, wiping sweat from his forehead with his arm, as Lance approached him. He was just about to say hello – puffed out his chest, extended his hand, first syllable halfway out of his mouth – when the guy straightened up and walked right past him like he was less than air.
Lance stood there, mouth hanging open, hand sticking out at an awkward angle, and watched him go.
What the hell was that? Had he gone invisible? Wasn’t it pretty obvious that he’d been trying to say something? Shocked and a little hurt, Lance managed to close his mouth before his jaw unhinged.
Then, just to pour salt in Lance’s wounds, he saw where Red T-shirt was going: straight over to a beautiful girl with dark skin and long silvery hair, who handed him a bottle of water, smiled, and touched his arm.
This, Lance thought, kills the man.
“Are you sure he just genuinely didn’t notice you?” Hunk groaned later, when Lance was letting off steam – which in his case meant hissing and wheezing like an actual tea kettle.
“How could he not have noticed me? I was RIGHT THERE!”
“I dunno. I think you’re taking this a bit personally.”
“It is personal! It’s a question of … of … of honor!”
“I am so glad I don’t understand sports,” Hunk said, and Pidge clapped him on the shoulder.
“I don’t think that’s how sports normally work, it’s just one of Lance’s weird ideas,” they assured Hunk, then turned their eyes on Lance. “In other news, I caught a Ninetales while you were getting your ass handed to you.”
So that’s the story, and it still makes Lance upset just thinking about it. The fact that the guy can’t even seem to remember ever laying eyes on him only confirms it: he is totally right about this, the dude is a complete jerk.
He can barely focus for the next ten minutes – he’s so mad at himself for coming late, for ending up next to Mullet Menace over here, for being unable to get angry at Shirogane who sealed his doom, even though he wants to, because the guy is just so damn nice. And most of all, he’s mad at what’s-his-name, ridiculously athletic, conceited show-off.
Something pokes him in the side, and he nearly leaps right out of his skin. (No, really: he can picture it happening, and the cool defensive battle pose he’d strike in his skeletal form.) It’s the butt end of a pencil, attached to a hand in a fingerless glove, which in turn is attached to Mullet Menace.
He wears fingerless gloves to class! If he wasn’t a douche before, he sure is now.
“Could you stop tapping your fingers like that? And, uh, jiggling your leg so it bangs on the table? It’s really distracting,” the guy whispers from behind his other douchey-fingerless-glove–clad hand.
“Maybe,” Lance says, a bit louder than he intended, “you should just mind your own damn bus—ooooh shit!”
He’s not sure what it was that made him throw out his arm – he was making a point, maybe? – but man, was it a mistake. Because Lance’s arm collides with mullet guy’s coffee cup, and spills it all over the entire world.
Okay, maybe not, but he drenches half the guy’s open textbook, and his handout, and part of his own leg. The cup was more or less fucking full! What’s the point of buying coffee if you’re not going to drink it? Lance wants to wail, but this one is entirely on him, and he knows that, and it only makes it worse.
The guy is staring down at his textbook, shell-shocked, like he isn’t quite sure what happened yet. Then he processes it, and levels a scathing glare at Lance.
Lance shrinks back in his chair, all his proverbial spines out, like a cornered porcupine.
“Is there a problem?” Dr. Coran asks, and damn it everyone’s noticed the commotion.
“Uh,” Lance says.
“A spillage incident,” says his neighbor, too calmly.
“Oh dear. Somebody help them clean that up, will you? Anyway, as I was saying, cosmic background radiation …”
A hand extends from behind them, bearing a pack of tissues. Mullet Menace – except Lance can’t call him that anymore, since he’s just proven he’s the menace, and can’t help feeling a little bit smug that he finally won at something – takes it, shakes one out, and starts dabbing at the ruined pages of his book.
“Are you okay, Keith?” the benefactor asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine. My textbook isn’t though,” the guy – Keith – adds, and that sure is a really deliberate stinkeye he is giving Lance right now.
Sulking, Lance slumps back over his own books. He ignores the rapidly cooling wet spot on his left thigh, and Keith doesn’t offer him a tissue. To his own dismay, he feels himself start to pout, but he is beyond caring. I fucked up, he thinks, in front of that guy, again, and he’s just sure that this is going to be a horrible day.
***
When class lets out, Lance is still in a foul mood. His friends aren’t helping.
“You know, if you just got up in the mornings, you’d be able to sit next to us,” Pidge says in that matter-of-fact way they have, that kind of makes Lance want to bang his head against a wall.
“I could start waking you up before I leave for my first class, but I love both you and myself enough not to try that,” Hunk muses, rubbing his wide chin.
“Guys, please, some sensitivity to my suffering here?”
“What, like looking stupid in front of an entire class of people is new to you? I believe in you, buddy. You’ll survive.” Pidge grins and claps him on the back. Lance sighs.
They exit into glaring sunlight; it’s early in the semester, and the air is still sweet with summer and its sounds. Singing birds and rustling trees and … a motorcycle engine?
It approaches from the distance, and the revving fades into a softer puttering noise as the driver nears the school building. Lance doesn’t know much about motorcycles, other than that they look cool, and this one – a sleek black bike with purple decals – might even be cooler than most.
“Nice ride,” he says, half to himself, but his friends hum in agreement.
The driver parks the bike, hops off, and removes their helmet. That’s when Lance nearly dies on the spot.
It’s a girl, a gorgeous girl at that, and when she shakes out her long silver hair (which is totally hot, by the way) it hits him: this is the girl, the one who was talking to Keith out on the sports field, and oh my god, she rides a motorcycle and this is so unfair.
“Who’s she?” Lance asks, and it doesn’t come out flirtatious and charming (or lecherous, as Pidge would say) the way it normally would, more like a muted hiss.
“What, you mean you don’t know?” Pidge raises their eyebrows.
Hunk laughs. “Wow, you can be pretty clueless sometimes, dude. That’s Allura. She’s like, an Instagram beauty queen or something, kind of a big deal.”
“She’s from England, and apparently really nice,” Pidge pipes up, as Allura and her amazing hair and motorcycle helmet disappear inside the building.
“How do you guys know all this?”
“The real question is, why didn’t you sound like you were trying to imitate a weirdly pervy anthropomorphic animal from an old cartoon when you asked about her?”
“Is that really how you think of me?” Lance shrieks, voice almost cracking.
“It’s what I think of your flirting skills,” Pidge says placidly, then gives him a pointed look.
“She knows Keith!” Lance exclaims. “Mullet Mena—I mean, that guy who’s full of himself!”
“The guy you spilled coffee all over?” Pidge asks, and Lance shoves them in the side with an expertly calibrated amount of force: enough to put them off balance without actually knocking them over.
“So what if they know each other? People have friends, it’s pretty normal,” Hunk shrugs. “Can we go grab something to eat now? There’s a whole hour left until lunch, I don’t think I can hold out ’til then.”
“I can’t believe this,” Lance says, shaking his head incredulously. “That guy’s insufferable, but he’s buddy-buddy with some internet famous British babe?”
“No one cares, Lance,” Pidge sighs, already following Hunk in the direction of a vending machine. “Seriously. I’m sorry he annoys you, but let it go.”
Hunk starts humming a predictable choice of Disney song, earning him a sharp little elbow in the ribs.
Lance pouts, wonders if maybe he is taking this too far. Except he’s not, another little voice in his head adds; Keith was a dick to him, and so what if he spilled coffee all over his stuff and nearly gave himself a first-degree burn on his thigh in the process? He has the right to feel offended! Right?
“By the way, Lance,” Hunk says, after he’s bought himself a bag of peanuts and offered them to everyone (Lance takes a couple; Pidge wrinkles up their nose a little bit and politely refuses). “How come you only ever drool over girls? I mean, I get that it might be a bit risky to start hitting on a random guy or whatever, but you talk about girls to us all the time. All I’m saying is,” he adds hastily, “I just want you to know that I’d be comfortable if you do. Want to talk about guys, I mean.”
“Huh? What brought this on?” Lance asks, raising an eyebrow. His friends have known he’s bi for almost as long as he has – in fact, maybe even longer than he has, if he’s honest with himself. It’s not something they really talk about, though. “Oh, and thanks, I guess.”
“It was Allura, and your impressively non-creepy reaction to her, I think,” Pidge fills in.
“More or less,” says Hunk, around a mouthful of peanuts. “Also that your lover boy act is getting kind of old.”
“You do act like the kind of straight guy who abuses the winky emoji,” Pidge says. “I wonder if you’d put a boyfriend through the same thing?”
“I most certainly would,” Lance asserts, stealing another peanut. “And to answer your question, do you know how easy it is to find pretty girls? Extremely, because they are soft and beautiful and take excellent care of their skin and hair and …”
“Okay, okay, we get it!”
“Fine! Pretty guys, though? A rarer breed.”
“Shiro,” they both say at once, and Lance opens and closes his mouth like a fish, because it is impossible to argue that Shirogane isn’t pretty.
“I said rarer, not extinct!”
“That guy you hate is pretty cute, too,” Hunk points out, scrunching up the empty bag and tossing it in the trash can.
“He certainly takes care of his hair,” Pidge adds, giggling.
“Okay, that,” Lance says loudly, “is where this conversation ends! Don’t you have another class or something?”
Pidge looks up, beaming. “After lunch I have robotics. We’re programming these little guys to pick things up and move them around on command, so it’s like they’re tiny robot butlers, and it’s adorable!”
“Right, there we go! Robots, awesome. So when’re you gonna get around to building a mecha, Pidge?”
“Oh, as soon as humanly possible, believe me.”
***
Lance is on his way back to the dorm, checking his messages as he walks, only to be reminded of why that is a bad idea when he trips on a rock on the sidewalk and his phone goes flying out of his hand.
“Aw, fuck,” he mutters, stumbling to regain his balance, then drops into a crouch to retrieve his still-glowing phone from where it landed in the bushes. Man, he can really throw even when he’s not trying; he has to walk around to the other side and stretch his hand in under the scratchy twigs to reach it. “I’m sorry, buddy,” he says to the phone (un-cracked and intact, thank god), under his breath; he’s lucky it’s kind of late and no one’s around to hear him.
Except, when he’s about to get back to his feet, someone is coming. And damn him if he doesn’t recognize that silhouette.
“Shit!” Lance whispers, clutching his phone to his chest. It’s Keith. He’s headed toward the dorms, too, and Lance can’t go out there now; it would be so awkward. The two of them are the only people here, and even if Keith managed to forget about him until today, even he probably remembers the guy who wrecked his shit with his own cup of coffee. Lance feels a twinge of guilt as he realizes that he never apologized for that.
So he sits there behind the bushes like a weirdo, trying not to breathe, as Keith walks by. He’s staring into his phone too, but manages to dodge the rock (Because I moved it for him, you’re welcome, Lance thinks) and comes into the glow of the streetlamp right next to Lance’s hiding spot.
The light casts his face into soft shadow, and reflects off his stupid hair that’s too long and sticks up a bit at the back and curls against his neck. All of a sudden, Lance remembers what his friends were saying earlier. That guy you hate is pretty cute too.
He feels his face get hot in the darkness, and he hopes Keith will just get a move on and walk faster so he can get out of here right now. Man, why did he have to drop his phone? “Millennials,” he mutters to himself, then chuckles a little at his own joke.
He thinks hard about staying hidden and willing Keith away before anyone else shows up and spots him sitting here like an idiot. He’s not that cute, he thinks, is he? He sneaks a glance at Keith’s figure, now starting to retreat into the distance, and is both grateful and disappointed that he’s too late catch another glimpse of his face. There’s no point in dwelling on this, after all.
Lance kicks himself mentally as he catches himself trying to recall Keith’s profile, the little he saw of it before boiling rage made him look away. Fine, he has a nice face, Lance supposes; it’s not like he’s bad-looking or anything, and aren’t athletic guys with obnoxious personalities usually handsome? Lance is, after all, except he’s obnoxious in a charming, endearing way. Keith, on the other hand …
Okay, he’s gone. You can stop thinking about him now! Lance bounces to his feet and resists the urge to start running back home; he feels a little jumpy all of a sudden and he’s not sure why. Maybe crouching in the bushes like a pervert does that to a guy.
“Not cute!” Lance repeats, just to affirm it, and sticks his phone into his pocket to avoid any further incidents. He can’t believe he never noticed Keith was actually in his cosmology class. Maybe because he sat at the front, like some kind of fucking nerd.
Lance shoves his hands in his pockets, and shivers a little in the cool evening breeze. From now on, he decides, he’s going to start waking up on time.