Chapter Text
Lance is absolutely livid as he slams the ratty door to his ratty apartment shut, locking it behind him before he makes his way down the equally ratty stairs leading to the concrete ground of his apartment complex.
Stupid Keith, he huffs, stuffing his hands in his very warm trench coat. It’s Keith’s fault they’re even in this mess, Lance concludes for the nth time that morning, not at all his own fault.
Stupid, annoying, arrogant, perfect, Keith.
Trudging down the thinly snow-covered footpath, Lance allows himself to flash back to what landed them with this consequence.
It was a shitty rainy day at their university, Lance still seethes at the fact they both picked the same university, and it was obvious the gloomy weather was affecting the student body. Lack of sunlight did that to anyone. Besides the fact it was clearly a depressing atmosphere outside the university windows, it didn’t stop the rivals Keith and Lance from throwing insults back and forth at each other in the cafeteria.
They sat parallel from each other at a table, bickering like an old married couple who never agreed on anything – even the brand of toilet paper they buy. Now it wasn’t their choice they had this seating arrangement every lunch break (it kind of was, and Lance shouldn’t be complaining because watching Keith eat is fascinating).
Keith and Lance had mutual friends of Shiro and Pidge, Keith couldn’t really call Hunk a friend of sorts given the fact he rarely hung out with the big guy but nevertheless he had to admit he was a nice person, and Shiro and Pidge sat together at lunch, dragging the two unwilling rivals with them.
The fight started like every fight started; one of the two would be minding their own business and the other would toss a comment their way. This time Keith was seething in his seat, still worked up over an offhanded line Lance threw at him a few minutes prior as he aggressively shovelled food into his mouth with the disposable chopsticks that came with the small meal.
“You might as well snap those chopsticks in half with the amount of force you’re using to hold them, Kogane,” Lance started. Shiro gave an exasperated sigh and Pidge mumbled: “here they go again.”
“Please, McClain, you don’t even have enough grip strength to splinter these – and they’re made of cottonwood,” Keith snapped back.
“I have enough strength to flip you on your dainty ballerina ass!” (And sometimes Lance would like to, in different context of course.)
“Try it then.”
With the challenge in mind, Lance rounds the table and grips Keith’s collar, easily picking him up from the bench, then throws him onto the tiled cafeteria floor. Lance smirks at the shocked expression Keith has on his features before he finds himself tackled to the ground with Keith straddling his hips. As a reflex, he flails his arm out and lands a punch square on Keith’s nose. Keith reels back, hand on his nose, and Lance has a look of triumph on his face.
When Keith removes his hand, there’s blood trickling down his chin and dripping onto his once pristine shirt. Keith ignores the shouts from his friend as he reels his fist back and lets it connect with Lance’s cheek, hard.
Lance dazedly watches Keith wind his arm back for another punch, this one surely aimed for his eye, then the figure of Shiro appearing behind the angered Korean and pulling him off of Lance. The taller male shakes his head to banish the blurry filter over his mind. He vaguely notices Pidge’s presence next to him helping him up as he watches Hunk press a clump of tissues to Keith’s nostrils.
“What was that for?!” Lance spits, glaring daggers at Keith.
“You punched me in the nose, you dick!” Keith returns the daggers tenfold, jerking away from Hunk’s tissues to try and rush at Lance again, fresh blood dripping down his chin. Shiro tightens his grip on Keith’s shoulders to stop him.
After that, Lance remembers their friends helping them both to the infirmary, where he spent half an hour holding an ice pack to his cheek and watching one of the nurses check if Keith’s nose was broken. Lance would have been laughing if he actually did break Keith’s nose (but he knows he was relieved when the nurse announced it wasn’t broken).
And now they both had to come in one weekend to help Professor Allura grade some tests.
He throws himself back into the present, nearly a week after the fight. Lance turns a corner and feels his face relax into something of affection as he sees Keith at the bus stop, most likely also on his way to the university. Lance frowns because he certainly shouldn’t be feeling like a school girl in love when he sees Keith, but it happens all the time and he’s not sure if he should just get used to it already. He starts to approach and either Keith hasn’t noticed his presence yet, or he was ignoring him. Lance is about to shout at him, somehow angry Keith didn’t notice him, until he’s close enough to see Keith’s state.
The shorter male is shivering, hands under his upper arms to keep them warm, eyes drooping and breaths coming out in hot puffs. He’s dressed like the world is freezing over – a thick coat, a sweater, a beanie, and a scarf. Lance can’t help feeling concerned. And his mouth is running before he can stop it.
“You look like shit.”
This startles Keith, eyes opening and head snapping towards the voice. He half-heartedly glares when he realises it’s Lance and turns his head away from him.
“Thanks,” Keith grumbles, sarcasm oozing off the one word. Lance huffs and steps closer, tilting his head and bending down in front of Keith to inspect him. Yup, he’s definitely paler than usual (it’s not like Lance has stared at Keith enough to know what his healthy glow was). Lance doesn’t stop himself from reaching forward to press a hand to Keith’s forehead.
“Are you alright? You’re as pale as the snow around us and burning up,” Lance frowns then lets his hand retreat when Keith flinches away.
“I’m fine,” Keith grounds out, “and your hand is cold as shit so can you not touch me?”
Lance rolls his eyes because Keith’s being pissier than usual and all because of cold hands. He knows he should leave Keith alone, but he’s Lance and his job is to annoy the hell out of Keith.
“You sure?” Keith growls at this and opens his mouth to speak, but gets interrupted by a sneeze erupting from him. Two sneezes. Three sneezes. At least Keith covers his mouth and nose, Lance thinks. Keith rights himself before having an attempt two at speaking.
“It’s just a cold, shut up,” Keith grumbles and brings his shoulders up, squishing his head down so he can bury his red nose into his scarf.
It’s silent for a little while and Keith thinks Lance has gotten the message and shut his mouth. Of course, he’s wrong, as always when it comes to Lance ever obeying him.
“Whatever you say, Rudolph,” Lance teases, poking fun at his rose-tinted nose. Lance revels in the way Keith’s cheeks flush even more, and not from the cold. Keith groans.
//
They’re finally in Professor Allura’s classroom, sitting at one of the desks sharing an answer sheet while they mark piles and piles of test sheets her classes the past week took.
Lance had been trying to rile up Keith the entire time, not getting a single snarky remark thrown back at him. He shouldn’t be getting irritated over this but he is and he doesn’t like it.
He’s teased him about the fact he’s still wearing a coat indoors, only earning an exasperated look from the shorter male. He pulled at his beanie, but Keith only paused to pull it back in place. He even slid the answer sheet closer to his side, expecting Keith to snarl and get pissed at him only to have Keith opt to shuffle closer to him.
He tried to start a contest to see who could finish correcting the most tests the fastest. Keith stared at him before going back to scribbling on tests at his own pace.
Lance sighed, realising this was only boring because he couldn’t fish a reaction out of the Korean sitting next to him. Unbeknown to him Keith wasn’t tolerating Lance at all so he could get this over with quicker and go home and lie down in his nice bed to sleep.
All of a sudden Lance felt the nice warmth of Keith disappear beside him and he turned to see what had happened.
Keith was up and out of his chair, silently making his way over to Professor Allura’s desk. Lance paid attention to how Keith held his hands near his chest, gripping them together, and how he seems to shiver even if they were indoors. He also noticed Keith swayed where he stood.
After they chatted a little bit, Professor Allura nodded her head looking a little worried. Keith started making his way to the door and Lance turned his attention back to the tests. Whatever, he thought, he was probably going to take a piss.
He was about to mark an answer wrong before he heard a thump and shot his head up. There Keith was, lying perfectly still only three or four steps from the classroom door.
“Keith!” Lance finds himself vaulting over the desk to get to the male quicker. Professor Allura is up and out of her desk chair in a matter of seconds too, jogging over to the two on the floor in her ballet flats.
Lance shuffles Keith into his arms so he’s cradling him against his chest, watching as Keith’s head lolls to the side. The professor places her own forehead to Keith’s, and Lance catches himself thinking I wish I was doing that.
“He’s burning up, most likely a high fever,” Professor Allura concludes, nibbling on her bottom lip while she thinks.
And Keith is burning up, Lance can feel it; like he’s holding a massive Keith-shaped hot water bottle.
“Lance, can you get him to the infirmary?” Lance nods, hooking one of his arms under Keith’s knees and the other under Keith’s torso. He hoists him up, the added weight making him readjust his balance.
“I’ve got him,” he says, then making his way to the door.
“Wait, Lance, the only nurse on duty is most likely having lunch right about now,” Professor Allura starts, “if she’s not there I need you to lie him down and strip him of anything that would be making him too hot.”
As soon as Lance heard the word ‘strip’ he flushed. He had to undress Keith. He doesn’t think he can commit to that… challenge.
“Um…”
“Lance I meant to take off his coat and other things, I didn’t mean strip him bare,” Professor Allura says, seeing the way he had looked at the male and then at her incredulously.
“Right! I knew that,” Lance turned quickly and made his way down the halls with haste.
//
When he got to the infirmary he struggled to get the door open but as soon as he gained access to the room he rushed to a bed and slowly laid the Korean down on it, brushing strands of ebony hair damp with sweat from his forehead.
“God, Keith, you’re such a pain in the ass,” he mumbled, not wasting time to peel the multiple layers of clothing Keith had donned to keep himself warm. Just a cold, his ass.
Lance rests a hand on the underside of Keith’s chin to assess his temperature. The taller male whistles and pulls his hand away.
“You’re hotter than Jennifer Lopez, bud,” Lance says, and Jennifer Lopez is pretty hot.
Lance messily folds Keith’s other garments of clothing then sits on the edge of the bed, making sure not to rock the mattress too much as he does so. He studies his rival’s face, flushed and shining from sweat. Lance remembers something his mother would do for him when he was sick, and he gets up to find a rag.
He finds a towel next to the sink in the infirmary, wets it, then makes his way back to Keith.
This time, when he gets on the bed, he kneels so he can lean in closer to the Korean. When he begins dabbing the towel to wipe off sweat, Lance notices that he’s close enough to see how long Keith’s dark eyelashes are and finds that he is indeed staring. He wonders how Keith’s ebony orbs would look up close.
Probably really pretty, he hears a voice in the back of his mind say and no matter how much he wants to deny it, he can’t deny that it did come from his own mind. Lance internally groans because he’s a massive raging bisexual.
He hears the door open and jerks away from the shorter and attractive male.
Professor Allura hurries in, a nurse following in after her. She, the nurse, immediately swings into action. She jogs to one of the mini fridges and takes out one of the ice packs. Lance and Professor Allura watch her as she wraps it in a towel and hands it to Lance before disappearing into another room, claiming to go get a thermometer and also commanding Lance to place the cold compress at the back of Keith’s neck.
After she’s gone Lance turns to the unconscious male and places the ice pack under Keith’s neck, as instructed. Lance brushes some more locks of hair from Keith’s forehead before retreating back to an arm’s length away.
Watching the steady rise and fall of Keith’s chest, Lance feels the faint feelings of love blossom even more.
//
TBC