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“It just… hurts, y’know?” Lance says, hugging a pillow to his chest, “Like, sometimes I’ll see something out of the corner of my eye, like a yellow star, and it just hits me that I haven’t seen my family in… however long we’ve been here, and they’re probably worried sick. Probably think I’m dead, and for all we know, I might be before I get to see them again.” His shoulder twitches next to Keith. “It’s the worst kind of reality check between all of psychic robot lions and an evil dictator older than pretty much of all human civilization.”
Keith just nods and hums softly. He can’t relate to Lance’s family troubles too much. He doesn’t really remember what it was like to have a family, but he remembers how he felt when Shiro, pretty much his only friend, left for Kerberos, and then later when the mission was declared failed due to “pilot error”.
That was about when he got kicked out of the Garrison for supposed discipline issues.
He can relate to the reality check, though. One might think they’d be completely desensitized to it all by now, but sometimes they’ll find something in the background that reminds them how utterly strange the big picture has become.
“And I’m sure my Mamá is keeping it together, but I know mis hermanitas will be upset. They were so excited that I was going to be a fighter pilot… even asked me if I was gonna go and ‘blow up aliens’.”
“...Um…”
“ And you know what, they were right, I do blow up aliens on at least a weekly basis, ” Lance says, a hysterical note in his voice. His breath hitches, “And my older brother isn’t going to have any help during the summers anymore when we need to help nuestro Padre keep the shop going and I just-” his chest heaves in a sob, “miss them so much.”
Freezing as Lance begins to cry, Keith sucks in a breath and tries to think about what he should really do. He’s, like, supposed to pat Lance’s shoulder maybe? Is that what friends do? He’s not really sure, not like he has much experience, and Shiro was always so accommodating of his unorthodox behavior back before Kerberos that Keith really isn’t sure what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
He and Lance have some sort of weird friendship going on, now that Lance has dropped his “rivalry” thing, so Keith is probably allowed to pat Lance on the shoulder. They are alone together in a mostly abandoned part of the castle that lets them watch space go by as Allura and Coran start charging up for the next wormhole jump.
So even if Keith fucks up this whole “friends” thing somehow, no one will see.
He just sort of… gently pats Lance’s shoulder.
Lance sniffles and looks over at Keith, rubbing his runny nose on his shirt sleeve before giving him an unimpressed glare, “Dude, what the quiznak was that?”
Keith blushes, “Uhh… a comforting… pat?”
“...Have you had friends before?”
“No?”
Lance groans, “Why are you so damn honest?”
“Well, I mean, I had one friend, but that was Shiro, and he never really made me feel weird for how I act.”
Lance perks up with interest, “Woah, you actually knew Shiro before this whole thing? What was he like?”
Keith rolls his eyes, “First of all, yes, how did you not realize that given how we actually know how to work together, and two, not all that different. I suppose he’s a little more jumpy now, considering…” he trails off, and Lance looks away.
“Yeah,” Lance says, “but he’s getting better.” He takes a deep breath, and his breathing begins to calm, “Has Coran shown you how far away Earth is?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s,” Lance swallows, “really far away.”
“Don’t think about it,” Keith says, wiggling a little closer to Lance’s body heat, “Try and put it out of your mind.”
“I can’t, though,” Lance says quietly, “I miss my family everyday.”
“It’s,” Keith gets the sudden urge to hug Lance, but he’s not sure if he should, “It’s okay. That’s normal.”
“Don’t you miss your family?”
Keith freezes, “No,” he says, “I don’t like to think about it.”
Lance immediately shoots up, leaving a gust of cold spaceship-air in his absence, “What? Really? Not that I’m judging, but… really?” he demands. “Have you seriously lived in that desert shack for your whole life??”
“No,” Keith says dryly, “Just some of it.”
“Jesus Christ,” Lance says, running a hand through his hair, “Come here.”
“What?”
“ Come here ,” Lance says again, stressing the words, “mostly because you obviously haven’t been hugged enough in your life, and we’ve gotta fix that.” He crosses his legs and holds his arms open.
Keith is hesitant. He’s not big on physical contact; it’s too overwhelming. But Lance obviously wants to hug him - or be hugged maybe - and Keith isn’t going to say no.
Plus, he… does kinda want a hug. He’s tired, it sounds nice, and Lance smells good anyways. They’ve had a long many cycles, now that the term “days” has become obsolete with no sun to orbit.
“Okay,” he says, scooting forward and leaning upwards on his knees.
Lance grabs him and crushes him to his chest, squeezing Keith a little too hard, but Keith can’t find it in him to complain. Lance is warm, anyways, and space is either frigid or burning, and it’s nice to have the in-between, especially when said in-between smells like Altean space-shampoo and is a human, too. They might not always have a lot in common, but at least they’re both human.
It’s nice now that Lance doesn’t hate him for a made-up reason. Keith wishes it could have happened sooner.
Lance pulls Keith a little closer, squeezes a little tighter, and at this point, Keith’s knees hurt so he takes what seems to be the most logical course of action and crawls into Lance’s lap. Lance freezes, like he wants to protest (Keith wouldn’t know why, this is more comfortable), but relaxes and buries his head in the crook of Keith’s shoulder.
“I’ll deny this if you ever bring it up again… but I kinda like your hair.”
Keith starts, jerking a little, “You what?”
“It’s nice… and soft and smells nice and... I’m really tired,” Lance mumbles into Keith’s shoulder, “‘m too tired to walk to my room, though.” He sighs slowly and yawns, “Can we just… just stay here? I don’t want to move.”
Keith considers it for a moment, “I could always carry you.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m warm and I don’t wanna move.”
“Lance, do you seriously want to sleep on the floor? It’ll be cold.”
Lance leans back from Keith to give him a hard look, “Just… just, shut up, Keith,” he says, wiggling out from under Keith and laying down on the cool floor, “And c’mere.” He pats the empty space next to him, “It’s cold.”
Keith scoots closer, “That’s what I just said,” he says, looking at Lance questioningly.
Lance heaves a heavy sigh through his nose and reaches up to grab Keith’s shoulders. Keith pulls back slightly, before relaxing and letting Lance bring him down next to him. He wraps an arm around Keith’s waist and pulls him closer, resting his head on the ground right up against Keith’s chest.
This is odd, but Keith takes it in stride.
“Relax, dude. I won’t bite,” Lance says sleepily. “I just… don’t wanna be alone right now.”
Keith nods, unsure of what to say, and wiggles an arm under his head to act as a shitty pillow and loops his other arm around Lance’s shoulders and pulls him close. It’s warmer that way.
Despite the unacknowledged tension in the air, they fall asleep like that.
***
Keith is sweaty when he wakes up, and he isn’t sure why for a few heartbeats. Then, he registers the body next to him and briefly panics until he realizes that Lance is still asleep as evidenced by his steady breathing and the way that his legs are tangled up with Keith’s and the fact that Lance has wiggled his way as close to Keith as possible.
They’re so close that Keith can already smell Lance’s terrible morning breath, but he figures that his doesn’t smell all that great either, so he can’t really talk.
Lance shifts minutely closer to him, and Keith just sighs and squishes Lance to him. The other paladin makes an odd, but happy, sleepy noise and relaxes against Keith’s body heat.
Keith wonders if it’s odd that he feels so comfortable.
He and Lance hadn’t been on the best of terms until recently, and as far as Keith knows, former “rivals” don’t fall asleep next to each other and wake up all warm and cuddly.
Then again, Keith isn’t one to know whether a situation is socially acceptable or not, so he just keeps to himself, and plus, he never hated Lance in the first place. Even if he could be annoying.
He is much less annoying like this, though, passed out and giving Keith an odd feeling in his stomach that he’d never felt before. Like this, Lance is all squishy and not grinning some weird kind of smirk.
He is kind of vulnerable like this.
Keith isn’t sure what to make of it.
Part of him wants to make sure Lance slept as long as possible, and the other part of him wants to wake him up. Keith also isn’t sure what to make of that, so he just inhales a deep breath and did his best to fall asleep again.
His arm really does make a shitty pillow, though.
He manages to doze off into a light sleep, though, and he doesn’t wake up until he feels Lance shift against him and groan softly. Lance leg tugs against Keith’s, pulling it closer towards him, and Keith is far too groggy to fully realize what the hitch in Lance’s breath means.
He feels Lance shift against him again and cracks open an eye, stretching out his arm and accidentally bopping Lance in the head with it.
Lance startles awake, eyes opening wide and locking onto Keith’s barely-awake ones. His legs twitch, and Lance looks down before looking up, and looking down again quickly. Keith watches with mild interest as Lance’s face darkens. He can almost feel the heat of it from here.
Immediately wiggling away from Keith, Lance makes a move to get up and walk away, but Keith whines sleepily and grabs his arm before he can get up, forcing Lance to sit down cross-legged.
When Lance gives him an alarmed look, Keith just mumbles, “Cold.”
Lance doesn’t relax, though, his leg bouncing, and Keith just sighs and pats Lance’s leg to get him to stop. It backfires, though, as Lance jolts and just disturbs him more.
Keith glares at Lance and pointedly drapes his upper body over Lance’s lap, using Lance’s thigh as a pillow because fuck it, he’s still tired, and Lance is the one who didn’t want to walk to their rooms last night so now he gets to put up with Keith’s wake up routine.
Which is more or less dozing off until he gets bored of it.
Lance is warm, though, but he still doesn’t relax, so Keith turns his head and looks up at Lance to try and get him to relax a little, geez.
But Lance just stiffens further in response to that, and Keith finally manages to put two and two together and realizes that Lance has stiffened in more ways than one.
His gaze snaps down to what he now sees as a very obvious erection.
Then, he just huffs a sigh and turns back around so he can go back to catnapping. He can not care less about Lance’s morning wood, honestly.
Lance splutters, “You can’t just… like… that’s way too casual. Keith, j… just what is wrong with you?” He tries to pull away, but Keith’s grip on his thigh keeps him from getting very far.
Keith groans. “Well, for starters, I’m fucking tired. Your leg is also comfortable,” he says dryly. “You were the one who insisted on sleeping on the goddamn floor, anyway.” He covers his eyes with an arm. “I could honestly not care less about your dick problems.”
“B...but… you’re just… ugh!” Lance throws his hands up, “At least, let me leave.”
“Why, so you can go jack off alone somewhere? No, fuck you, you robbed me of any decent sleep so now you get to suffer, too.”
“But, Keith,” Lance whines, “that’s not fair.”
Keith snorts and uncovers his eyes, “I told you, I don’t care. Make it go away if it’s such a problem.”
“I can’t just … do you not understand?”
“No,” Keith says, honestly.
“Well, I’d still really, really appreciate it if you’d get off me.” Lance crosses his arms and looks away from Keith.
“And I would’ve appreciated it if you’d let me go sleep in an actual bed last night. I guess no one gets to win here. I don’t see the problem anyway.”
“You are literally staring at it, Keith.”
“How’s that my problem? What am I supposed to do, touch it?”
“...” Lance shivers.
Keith looks at him with a little more interest, “Is that really what you want me to do?”
“U...um, n...no. I mean!” he amends at Keith’s eyeroll, “I wouldn’t say no , it’s just… like… you’re being so casual about it,” he squeaks, “You sh… shouldn’t feel like you have to… I should just leave…”
Keith sits up and leans his head against Lance’s shoulder, relaxing as he realizes that he can hear Lance’s heartbeat even without having his ear pressed to his skin. He trails his hand from Lance’s thigh to linger near his crotch, “Do you really want me to?” he breathes, sticking his tongue out just enough for Lance to feel the wet heat of his mouth.
Generally, he gets to fluster Lance in other ways, but Keith doesn’t mind trying something new once in a while.
“Keith…” Lance says, but he doesn’t continue, biting his lip. His leg jumps beneath Keith’s weight.
Keith is curious to see what he’ll be like in a few minutes. He also wants to feel more of the weird feeling in his stomach.
Ghosting his hand over the bulge in Lance’s sweatpants, Keith listens to Lance suck in his breath and shakily exhale. “‘Cause I’ll do it, Lance, you know I will.” He grins at the way Lance shivers, predatory like when he wins a fight. This is already interesting.
A fight of a different sort, he supposes.
He trails his fingers up to Lance’s waistband and slowly, teasingly pulls it down. At the same time, he also presses his lips to Lance’s collarbone, enjoying the way that Lance shudders when he does. He moves his lips up Lance’s neck to feel his heavy pulse while his hand wraps around Lance’s dick.
Lance jerks, “How the fuck do you know what you’re doing?” he asks, breathless, “It’s not fair. You… you don’t even know what a high-five is.”
Keith laughs against Lance’s throat, “Instinct, I guess.”
“Do not tell me that you have dick instinct because that’s probably the gayest shit I’ve ever-” Lance gets cut off by his own groan, which just makes Keith snicker more.
“It just makes sense, though, doesn’t it?” Keith whispers under Lance’s ear, “I know what I like to fantasize about, so I do it. And if you think that ‘dick instinct’ is gay, just wait.” He strokes Lance, “I mean, you’re pretty much a mess right now, with another guy jacking you off.” Keith licks his way back down to Lance’s collarbones, “ That’s gay.”
Lance groans and closes his eyes, which Keith decides that he doesn’t like.
“Eyes on me,” he orders, stopping his movement abruptly, and he can tell that Lance is wrestling with the decision of whether or not to obey because his eyebrows get all wrinkled, but he eventually acquiesces with a pathetic whine and opens his eyes.
Keith has moved since then, switching to all fours, and he loves the absolutely wrecked look that Lance is giving him. He wants to make Lance cry underneath him. He shifts his weight to one hand and uses the other to trail down Lance’s chest to grab his dick again, which is leaking precome by now. Keith leans over it, exhaling warm air and watching with amusement as both Lance and dick twitch.
“Do you want me to suck your dick, Lance?” he asks, looking up at Lance through his eyelashes.
Lance groans, looking away from Keith as his tongue darts out to lick his lips.
Keith frowns an retaliates by slowly licking the very tip, “Eyes on me,” he says again, and this time, Lance’s obedience is immediate. “Now,” he says, keeping his eyes on Lance, “do you want me to suck your dick?”
Lips pressing tightly together, Lance nods, seemingly at a loss for words.
“That’s not good enough. You need to tell me, Lance. What do you want me to do?” Keith licks a teasing stripe up the underside.
Lance jerks, “I…. fuck, don’t make me say that, man. Just… just…” he trails off, shifting under Keith’s grip..
“And you were the one all hopped up on my ‘dick instinct’,” Keith says, “Well, my dick instinct says that you ought to tell me, otherwise, maybe I’ll just leave you here and go take a nap in my bunk.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Are you really willing to take that chance?”
Lance groans again, “Fine,” he grouses, “Please suck my dick, Keith.”
“Wasn’t that easy?” Keith says, briefly sucking the tip into his mouth, “Now be a good boy and stay still for me, would you?” he asks, placing his hands on Lance’s hips and pressing down to keep Lance from thrusting forwards to chase the heat of his mouth. “Otherwise, I really will just leave you here to jack off sad and alone.”
“I don’t really like your tone,” Lance pants.
“I don’t like that you’re still talking,” Keith says flatly, before taking his sweet time to put Lance back into his mouth and look up up at him. He knows he’s blushing, hopes Lance will write it off as a sex thing, because he’s actually a little nervous about this. He can take control - has done it in the past without thinking, but it’s a little more personal this way.
But as he keeps getting told, he acts first and thinks later, and that’s probably why he has a dick in his mouth right now.
He’s alright with that, though.
It wasn’t a luxury to have Lance pinned beneath him - he does that all time, but it’s certainly a luxury to have Lance pinned down under him like this . This way, Keith gets to hear every whispered Spanish curse and a few English ones, and yeah, they’re still directed at him, but for an entirely new reason.
He hums low in his throat at the thought, and it’s only his hands on Lance’s hips that keeps him from choking.
Keith gives Lance an unimpressed look, and Lance at least has the grace to look embarrassed with himself, but he still doesn’t look away. Keith decides to be benevolent and rewards him with a particularly hard suck for listening to what he’s been told, and Lance whines in response. The sound sends a heady rush of power to Keith’s head, and he pushes Lance down flat on the ground beneath them, caging him under his body with his limbs.
Lance yelps from the sudden movement, hands rising to shakily rest tangled in Keith’s hair. He tugs hesitantly at the dark hair, but doesn’t make any other move to protest.
Lance’s legs are trembling under Keith, and all it takes for Keith to swallow him down in a particularly hard suck for him to come. Keith swallows without hesitation - with all the food goo, he’s kinda been desensitized. The hands in his hair pull hard enough to hurt, but Keith just hums. He wants Lance to pull harder.
That makes Lance yelp and shimmy away from Keith, muttering something about oversensitivity and tucking himself back into his pants. There’s a tick of silence and they share a heated look for a moment wherein Keith wipes his mouth with his sleeve before Lance all but pounces on him.
Blue would be proud, Keith dimly thinks, her paladin finally got laid.
“Holy shit,” is all Lance says before he squishes his lips to Keith’s. His hands fumble with the clasp of Keith’s too tight jeans (in more than one way), until Keith decides to be merciful and undoes them for him.
He can feel Lance grin against his lips in amateur victory before he ducks down to palm Keith through his underwear.
Keith’s breath hitches, but other than that and the slight tensing of his abdominals, he doesn’t give any other sign that he’s been affected, instead sighing and relaxing his muscles.
Lance frowns, obviously unhappy and getting a determined look in his eyes that either means he’s about to punch Keith in the stomach or try to suck out his soul through his dick like a Dick-Dementor. For a moment, it appears as though he’s chosen the former, but to Keith’s relief, he scoots down and pulls back Keith’s underwear to give a bold lick to the tip.
Keith manages not to laugh.
It’s honestly - by all accounts, he shouldn’t be laughing in this situation (he thinks, probably, yeah), but Lance just looks kinda cute with his tongue sticking out, licking Keith’s dick like it’s a lollipop or something.
Shit, he just thought that Lance is cute.
Lance, in true Lance fashion, manages to derail Keith’s train of thought when he decides to fuck it and bobs his head all the way down until the tip of Keith’s cock hits the back of his throat, and even then, he just narrows his eyes and swallows around him.
Keith groans and his head falls back. When he opens his eyes again, he sees Lance just barely keeping a shit-eating grin off his face. It doesn’t matter, though, Keith can see it in his eyes and can feel it in the way that Lance hollows his cheeks and makes Keith moan like a movie that most certainly requires parental supervision.
Lance pulls off of him and wraps a hand around the base of Keith’s cock, squeezing him and pressing his tongue to the underside.
One look at Lance’s blue eyes staring up at him with his cock in his mouth is all it takes for Keith to come, arching his back violently and shivering. The only sound he makes is a harsh exhale of his breath.
Keith blinks the aftershocks away from his vision and looks down at Lance, who’s currently licking the cum off his lips and wiping some off of his cheek.
Sitting up, Keith zips up his pants and pulls Lance to him, swiping at the remaining mess on his face with the sleeve of his jacket before kissing him gently. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says after.
“Maybe not, but I wanted to,” Lance says, shrugging despite the heat in his cheeks, “I mean, what’s a guy supposed to do? I don’t even have a dick anymore; you’ve killed it ‘cause it’s gone to heaven. Ghost dick,” Lance says solemnly, “ghost dick, Keith.”
Keith rolls his eyes, “Thanks, I guess.”
“No problem,” Lance says, standing up and offering his hand to Keith.
Keith takes it, and dusts off his pants before they both go their separate ways to their rooms. Even once out of eyesight and earshot, Keith still feels nervous, but in a good way. He raises a hand to his lips.
He really wouldn’t mind doing that again.
Well, minus the stiff shoulders from sleeping on the floor.