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Lance sat upright in bed and ran a hand over his face. He had been dreaming again. Teal flakes of face mask came off in pieces on his hand and he soon stumbled to the attached bathroom to wash it off.
He had been dreaming about Keith Kogane, the Red Paladin, who slept just one room away. There was nothing but a wall between them. And for all that he acted like he hated Keith’s guts, he was bordering on mildly obsessed. Screw that! There was nothing “bordering on” or “mild” about how Lance felt. He was going crazy. When he called Keith mullet head, he was thinking about what it would be like to run his fingers through the soft locks. When he told him he was slow in training, he was really just hoping he would get a view when Keith got sweaty enough to take off his shirt. So now, after he’d washed away the remnants of the mask and had pulled on a pair of loose shorts and a gray shirt, he rushed over to Allura’s room where she would no doubt be awake.
“Come in, Lance,” Allura called from inside her room. Nail polish and makeup were scattered amongst pots and pans and Bunsen burners.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
“No, neither can you,”
“True,”
“We having a sleepover?” she asked, shoving aside a pillow to make room for him.
“Yeah, can I borrow one of your mint jasmine masks?”
“Sure, they’re in the bathroom cabinet,”
“I know,”
Lance came here at least one night every week to have what they liked to call a sleepover. It had been a while since his little crush on her had turned into his massive attraction to Keith. He’d explained everything and now, they had their sleepovers where they talked about boys, girls, crushes, home, and anything else that came to mind.
Lance slathered the mask on quickly and plopped himself onto her huge bed.
“Nails tonight?” she asked, picking up the bottle of bright blue he favored.
“I guess,” he mumbled, stretching out his hand. She delicately held his hand in her palm and flicked on strokes of blue color.
“What’s on your mind, Lance?
“The usual,” Lance explained, waving a hand in the air.
It had been six months of agonizing desire. It had just been a normal day like any other when they’d landed on a nearby planet. It had been a simple on and off mission to pick up some space rubble that had crash landed into one of the town gardens and help them replant.
One of the aliens had been talking to Keith and Lance was ready to go and yell at him to come back and help out. Until something the alien said made Keith blush. He ducked his head down and smiled a small smile, his cheeks lighting up with a distinctive rosy color. Lance had frozen until Allura had smacked him across the head and given him a knowing look. That night’s sleepover had been a long one with lots of chocolate and foot massages.
“I don’t know what to do, Lura,” Lance sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“You could always make a love potion,” she said after a brief moment of pause.
“What?” he hissed, whipping his head up to look at her with bulging eyes, “Are you crazy?
“Of course not, on the contrary, I am quite the genius,” she explained, pushing herself up off the bed and began her walk to her makeshift science lab where she and Pidge worked most days.
"I said, you could always make a love potion,” Allura clarified, beginning to mix and stir and heat various liquids.
“Yeah, I heard you, I’m just confused and worried, rightfully so, too! Why would I make a love potion?”
“It’ll give you a week of requited love. Plus, if he harbors even the smallest amount of attraction, the potion will pick up on that and the week may turn out to be something longer, perhaps even something more permanent,”
“So you’re saying if he doesn’t like me, I get a week, but if he does like me, I might get more?”
“Precisely,” Allura exclaimed, allowing a low flame to burn beneath a glass vial of red liquid.
“So, that’s it, you’re just gonna make it for me?”
“Oh no, Lance, I still need your aid in procuring some of the essentials. I need a piece of genetic material from the both of you,”
“Do you want me to chop his hair off or something?” Lance hissed.
“Just a strand, now go on, I have work to do,”
As Lance worked his way through the palace and back to his and Keith’s rooms, gathering the courage to take Keith’s hair for a magic love potion, Allura fluttered about her work station in that surprisingly feminine way of hers. Her limbs glowed under the starlight shining in from the windows. She had traded out the sheer pink nightgown for a pair of dark gray shorts with pink polka dots and a pale green crop top. She glided on dancer’s legs around the room. Because this was her purpose, this was how she clicked perfectly. As much as she wanted to be the delicate princess, she couldn’t. As much as she wanted to be the relentless warrior heir to the Altean throne, she couldn’t. All she could do was this. This was what made sense. Helping her friends. Concocting potions in her laboratory.
Pidge silently entered the dance. Where Allura brought long sweeping strokes, gliding on lithe long legs, Pidge brought jerky twists and turns, frantic and hurried on quick legs with knobby knees. Pidge wore a giant white shirt that fell past their knees and their green knee socks matched the color of the alien face that sat at the center of the shirt. Pidge slid across the floor, silently ushering fingers to connect around the circumference of glass tubes. Careful steps and careful beats played out in their heads. Allura was precise and cautious with her ballerina elegance and poise. Her head played a figure eight of carefully constructed woodwind. Pidge was slippery and frantic with their childlike stature and inferior size. Their head played the harsh and unforgiving tune of temper and pandemonium, complete with crashing drums, ear shattering bass, and furious lyrics. And yet the rhythm joined into something beautifully cohesive.
Lance could barely breathe for fear that Keith would hear him, would jump away. Keith got easily frightened…which was cute, but that was beside the point. Lance just needed to pray on his own grave that Keith wouldn’t wake up. And so began Lance’s dance. His was a mixture of his usually flexible and elastic moves molded by the electric keyboard into a frantic sense of fluidity. An aura of panic hung in the air and rightfully so. The steady thump of a clock ticking coincided with the sound of a merry yet menacing bell. Everything was white noise, clouding around his thoughts like a slinky. His mind felt like a yo-yo on a sugar high, like a helium balloon ready to blow.
He slunk in, quiet even with the heavy breath of the white noise in his ears and plucked a hair from Keith’s head.
He could feel Keith’s breath on his face.
He could feel his heart ready to thump out of his chest.
“Bonding moment,” Keith mumbled in his sleep, a small smile tugging at his lips and winning.
Lance stumbled back, trying and failing to get up, his spine slamming into the wall. Keith grumbled, moving his hand to his face and turning over. Still asleep. Thank god.
And then he ran like hell.
Lance didn’t even need to worry about giving a piece of his hair. In his fit of panicked running, he’d torn more than his fair share of hairs out of his head, careful not to lose Keith’s.
He was not repeating tonight.
He handed the hairs to Allura. She now wore a white lab coat loosely over her crop top and short combo. Pidge was wearing one of her fuzzy black cardigans. The sleeves flopped over their tiny hands.
“It is done,” Allura cried, shaking her fists in the air and cackling in triumph.
“Too much,” Pidge whispered, placing a cardigan sleeve on Allura’s shoulder.