Chapter Text
Keith had been dealt a fair amount of bad hands in his life. His childhood had been anything but stable, he’d been anything but stable. He’d seen the inside of teachers and therapists offices more than he’d been inside somewhere he’d call home, he had fought and clawed his way through most years of his life, moving through foster systems as fast as his emotions moved through him, until Shiro had taken him in.
Things got better then, he learned to not let his temper control him, that the world wasn’t inherently evil, and that he didn't have to fix every situation with a fight or a punch, it had been years since violence had been his first thought towards something.
But he felt those years of constant work and self improvement leave him as he laid in his bed that morning, his alarm clock reading 8:02 AM as he found himself once again awoken by the inconsiderate idiot that lived above him. Moving into his own place had seemed like a great idea, and it was in most ways, not that he didn’t like living with Shiro, but eventually he had felt less like a looked after little brother and more like a freeloader, especially once Adam had moved in.
‘Some independence will be good for you, a place that's just yours’,
Shiro’s words echoed in his head, and he had agreed before knowing he’d be sharing the building with what was apparently an elephant on stilts that lived above him. He stared up at his ceiling, pretending that if he glared hard enough he could will it to collapse, sending the evil, evil person who lived above him down through the floors of the building. Alas, all it amounted to was more annoyance coursing through him as the noise got louder- a feat he thought was impossible.
It had started the week he moved in, like clockwork he’d be woken up to the sounds of heavy clunking through the thin floors of the apartment above him, at first he’d just assumed it was the usual culprit of repetitive, late night banging noises you’d expect to hear in an apartment complex of mostly young adults, but soon he had learnt it was something different, and had decided he’d much prefer the former explanation.
Sometimes it would be early morning, midday or late at night, but whatever time it was, once a day the loud thumping would start, and there was no indication of when it would stop. Loud footsteps moving around and around, rhythmically. Dancing, Keith had eventually realised much to his dismay, his upstairs neighbour was some kind of dance-loving nuisance, because of course whoever was living on the top floor would have the worst possible upstairs neighbours hobby.
Groaning, he decided he might as well get up, or rather the douchebag upstairs had decided he’d had enough sleep, either way laying here and muttering silent curses while looking up wasn’t getting him anywhere. Keith reluctantly pulled the covers off of himself as he picked up his phone, disabling the alarms he had hopefully set for a good few hours later and making his way to his bathroom.
His apartment wasn’t anything special, one bedroom, one bathroom, but it was his, and it was close enough to his college that he could ride there in about ten minutes, so he wanted to stay here, despite the disturbances. He liked it here he thought to himself as he picked up his toothbrush. He hadn’t decorated much, other than buying the bare essentials and the items Shiro had insisted on giving him (because apparently only owning one towel is unacceptable). The sound of the footsteps was quieter in this room at least, it was his bedroom that the dancing seemed to be right underneath, because of course the disruptive noise couldn't be in the kitchen or something, it had to be right above where he slept.
Spitting out his toothpaste Keith glanced down at his phone, opening a text from Pidge,
[6:02 AM] You still okay to give me a ride home after class?
Keith types back, Pidge had also been part of the reason he’d moved here, they were only about ten minutes from his place, they’d reached an agreement quite quickly, Keith gave them a ride home and Pidge didn’t tell Matt (who was basically a direct landline to Shiro) about his eating and sleeping habits, considering Pidge still wasn’t old enough to drive, yet was old enough to somehow attend their college. How such a genius was related to Matt, Keith still didn’t know, he looked back at his phone at the instant reply,
[8:11 AM] I’ve been doing it for a year already haven’t I?,
[8:12AM] Are pigs flying?
[8:12AM] Am I dreaming?
[8:15AM] What?
[8:16AM ] Keith Kogane is awake before 11am
[8:16AM] Should I call someone? An ambulance?
[8:18AM ] Ha ha.
[8:18AM] Trust me I don’t want to be up yet
[8:21AM] Ah
[8:21AM] Upstairs neighbour doing their neighbourly activities?
Keith sighed reading the message, he knew what would come, the ‘why don’t you just say something? Leave a note on their door like a normal person’ and Keith knew he should, but doing something like a ‘normal person’ was not his strong suit. He’d thought about it, but fell short on what to say that wouldn’t end in him insulting whoever his upstairs neighbour was. Through the now months of either sleepless nights, way too early mornings and interrupted mid-afternoon study sessions, Keith had built up quite an impressive grudge towards his upstairs neighbour, and was now unsure he could say anything civil and not something along the lines of I will break your legs if I have to if it will stop you dancing.
Keith sighed, opting to change the subject before Pidge went into her usual advice,
[8:23AM] I’ll pick you up at 12
Keith skulked around his flat, getting ready while periodically sending a glare upwards at any particularly loud footstep that echoed his way. He had to do something, usually he didn’t mind a bit of confrontation but he had no clue where to start now, especially as he’d let it go on for this long, it felt too awkward to go up there now and chew out whoever he was unfortunate enough to have living above him. Also, this person clearly wasn’t very considerate anyway, or they wouldn't be making this racket in the first place Keith decided, and arguing with someone who was most definitely already an asshole that he’d then have to risk starting a complaint war with was just not something he wanted right now.
He was interrupted from his thoughts as he sat on his couch from an even louder thump from above him, as he now began to hear whatever god awful song they’d been dancing to even louder. Keith made an incredulous noise of disbelief, had this fucker just turned their music up? It wasn’t even 9AM and there was pop music blaring from above him, followed by faster and louder thumping and Keith could not take it anymore. He stood up from where he had been sitting, moving to fly out of his door and up the stairs but then stopping, deciding that if he went up now it probably won’t end well, despite how much he didn’t care about being a saint in this moment, he knew Shiro would not be happy if he created an enemy, or even worse risked getting evicted.
He attempted to calm down, twitching as the noise from above caused the WiFi router on his wall to shake slightly, glaring at it until an idea hit him. Albeit a petty, and honestly rather pitiful idea, he pulled out his phone and opened his settings, navigating to the WiFi section and selecting his router, pressing change name and typing as fast as he could think,
‘APT203ShutTheFuckUp’
He pressed save changes and stood, a weird amount of adrenaline running through him considering he’d done the equivalent of writing an edgy insult on a school bathroom stall wall. They’d probably never even see it, or if they did probably just ignore it but in a weird way Keith had felt that he’d served some kind of justice, however small. Broadcasting to his apartment building that the person upstairs was loud, annoying and needed to shut up. He hadn't expressed it in the most eloquent way, but it wasn’t as if his neighbour had any decorum.
After having stood in place for a moment, Keith moved to grab his bag and leave, figuring staying at Pidges, or anywhere really, before his class started was better than being assaulted by Britney Spears blaring at him this early, locking his door and sending a screenshot of his new network name to Pidge,
[8:42AM] Image attached.
[8:42AM] I feel like you’ll appreciate this
[8:45AM] Image received.
[8:45AM] …
[8:46AM] Why are you like this
[8:47AM] It was this or I went up there and strangled someone
[8:48AM] Social norms: 1 Keith: 0
[8:50AM] Do you want to walk home today?
[8:54AM] Brilliant move Keith. Stunning and Brave.
[8:58AM] That’s more like it.
—
Lance turned his music off finally, panting slightly and feeling a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He didn’t dance in the morning much, but the rest of his day was filled with classes and lord knows he’d be too tired to do this after two back to back lectures. He sat down on his bed, picking up his phone checking the time, it was only a bit past 9AM. He didn’t enjoy waking up this early, but duty calls. Not that he had to dance everyday, it wasn’t even his major, just his minor class that he had taken, but with finals coming up and his schedule getting tighter, he found himself with less time to actually practice in the college's dance studio, as the full time dance students needed it.
It was a weird combination he’d supposed, physics and dance, but he wouldn’t change it for the world. As silly as it was, it made the homesickness a little bit easier to bare, remembering the times he and Veronica would dance to really anything whenever they could, getting their nieces and nephews involved, they gave their parents many performances as kids, he was still quite proud of their routine to ‘who let the dogs out’ which had been a desperate plea to his parents to let them get a dog (and it had worked, Andy Warhowl was a fine addition to the family).
Dancing made him feel like a kid again, made him feel closer to home and made him feel good about himself. So he wasn’t giving up on it any time soon. He did however have to move his dancing from the living room to his bedroom, Hunk was as supportive as a friend could be but even he had limits, Lance had learnt one morning where a whisk had been thrown at his head with devastating accuracy. They laid out some ground rules after that, mainly meaning Lance danced in his room when Hunk was out, or at least gave his roommate some kind of warning that the next hour would consist of some very loud Beyoncé and MGMT.
Being on the top floor, Lance had worried about his neighbour below, however it had been months now and he’d never seen anyone enter or leave the room below, and he’s yet to receive any kind of complaint about the noise, so he figured he was safe- any sane person would have left a passive aggressive note on their door by now surely.
Lance made his way to the kitchen where Hunk sat with Shay, she was around their apartment often, with finals coming up they took to studying together most days. Lance loved Shay, he really did, but there was something about being reminded that amidst all of the stress, exams and general college life Hunk had managed to find someone, and Lance hadn’t had more than a few awkward dates under his belt. They were sitting, giggling over something as bacon sizzled in a pan on the stove, forgotten in favour of staring into his girlfriend's eyes.
“Hunk buddy? That’s gonna burn”,
Lance says as he walks over.
“Ah, forgot about that,” Hunk said, his tone distracted as he made no effort to move from his girlfriend's presence.
“I’ll get it,” Lance says as he moves to the pan. It wasn’t that he was jealous of Hunk, he more just envied the fact his friend had seemingly found his soulmate here, Lance was a romantic at heart and couldn’t lie, he’d dreamed of college being the place he found ‘the one’. But with the year coming to an end and no one catching his eye (or rather, no one sparing a second glance his way), he was preparing for his life as a bachelor.
“Oh, what's the Wi-Fi password again?” He hears Shay ask from behind him, “new phone” She says, gesturing to the phone in her hand.
“Here” Hunk says, taking the phone from her, mid-sentence about something else as he scrolled through her phone before stopping suddenly.
“Um..” Shay says, a slight giggle in her voice, making Lance turn around.
“What?” Lance asks, wondering what has the two of them suddenly looking at the phone trying to suppress smiles
“Have you seen this?” Hunk said, handing the phone over to Lance.
“Seen what?” Lance said, taking the phone.
“What the fuck?” Lance says after a beat.
Hunk and Shay laughed finally, leaning into each other through giggles.
“Who does that? How do you even change the name?” Lance exclaims, his hands moving as he speaks, gesturing around annoyed.
“Someone who’s fed up” Hunk says, taking his phone back in fear of Lance's gestures getting more animated and his phone ending up across the room.
Lance paced as he continued rambling,
“No! Seriously! Who does this over knocking on the door and being polite? Now everyone here can see this person telling us to shut up”
“Us? This is on you buddy” Hunk supplies.
“You are quite loud sometimes, Lance” Shay supplies, mirroring Hunks tone.
Lance lets out a noise of frustration, picking up his own phone and staring at the ‘APT203ShutTheFuckUp’ shining up from his phone.
“Oh no. They’re not winning this” Lance says to himself, sitting beside Hunk.
“Or you could, I don't know, apologise like a normal person? You are pretty loud”
A hint of guilt does run through Lance, he figured he hadn’t been bothering anyone but clearly he was wrong, however the immature and plain rude way his neighbour had left a complaint overpowered any sense of feeling bad he had.
“Clearly whoever this person is” Lance said, nodding downwards as he says it, “Isn’t playing nice and neighbourly, how hard is it to say it nicely Hunk. God.” He continued, moving through his settings.
“Please don’t tell me you’re doing what I think you're doing” Hunk says sighing, looking over at Lance messing around in their WiFi settings, much to his horror.
“All is fair in love and war, Hunk” Lance says back.
“I don't think this is love or war related. Oh god- please dont start some kind of war, I live here too” Hunk said, more worried than amused now.
“Justice has to be served”.
“Okay, but you’re cleaning anything that someone throws or writes on our door after this”. Hunk says, standing up and turning the heat off on the pan.
“Oh trust me, I’ll be doing the writing when I figure out who the hell this person thinks they are, ruining the good name of Apartment 203” Lance says as he hits the enter key, smiling slightly proudly at himself,
‘APT???SayItToMyFace#203’.
Hunk read the name over Lance's shoulder and sighed, “Why couldn’t I have a peaceful roommate”.
“Hey! You’d be lost without my entertaining qualities”, Lance says back which earns him an unimpressed glance from Hunk.
“And also I do your laundry” Lance followed.
“I take back everything, best roommate ever” Hunk says back quickly, “But maybe the worst neighbour,” He continues.
“That title's reserved for our buddy downstairs,” Lance says back, glaring at the floor. Unreasonably annoyed over what was really a small, petty thing, but petty happened to be Lance’s speciality. The war between Lance and his mysterious-but-rude neighbour was on, he thought to himself, brainstorming better names for it as he headed to his room to get ready for class.