Chapter Text
"I want to go to Kerberos."
It was, admittedly, one of the most random sentences Lance had ever said, which was probably why Hunk looked up as quickly as he did. Lance said a lot of things, he whined about a lot and complained and joked around like it was his mission on earth. However, it was very rare that Lance said he wanted something. From years of friendship, Hunk knew Lance was the guy who asked for forgiveness, rather than permission, and had too much pride to directly ask for anything for himself.
"Let's go out tonight! Have some fun!" rather than "I want get out of here."
"So, here's the deal," rather than "I want to speak with you."
"What? Yeah no, I'm busy, totally buried tonight," rather than "I want to be left alone."
Lance didn't say what he wanted, not directly. Not unless it was important.
"I want to see my mom again."
"I want to come wish you good luck on the exam."
"I want to go to Kerberos."
Before Hunk could make a comment about it, namely the unlikelihood that he would be traveling in space anytime soon, Lance reached into his bag and pulled out a crumpled flyer. He probably ripped it right off of the old antique bulletin board near the commissary.
Students will be carefully selected and tested for the opportunity to fly out to Kerberos for scientific research. Only one student may be selected. Application and Testing will commence during the third trimester, June 21XX.
There was more on the page, statistics and requirements and more details, but it was legit. The flyer was printed on standard Garrison announcement paper, the document signed by the Dean and board of directors. The chance to go to Kerberos. Hunk took a moment to think, then clapped his hand on Lance’s back, smiling.
“Well, I’m rooting for ya, buddy.” He said earnestly, and Lance beamed like that was all he needed in the world.
------
Takashi Shirogane was the kind of guy who stopped in the hallway when someone tripped and dropped their books, he was kind of person who gave up his free time to help others. It was just part of his nature. He loved helping people and he was good at bringing out the best in them.
He noticed one student in the very back of the library, hunched over a number of books and crumpled papers. He looked to be on the verge of either crying or pulling out all of his hair. Shiro walked over to him before he could really think about it.
“Hey, you okay?” He asked, and the boy jumped. Now that he was close, Shiro recognized him from the classes he got to sit in on and observe. “Lance,” He said, a little belated, but it was more to confirm that he got the name right. Lance nodded, but didn’t say anything, maybe Shiro had really scared him? “I’m Taka-”
“Takashi Shirogane, youngest graduate at the Garrison- uh, yeah, I know.” Lance blurted out, but back pedalled in the middle of the sentence like he realized a mistake.
Shiro glanced down at the table and instantly recognized the flyer he had seen around the building. “Are you trying to go to Kerberos?” It was a genuine question, since he hadn’t seen many students show any interest. Lance flinched.
“Um, I was thinking about it. I mean- I-I definitely could.. I just,” He stumbled over his words. “Grades aren’t the best, you know? So it’s probably a no-go.” He laughed it off, but Shiro could see that Lance was disappointed. He picked up the announcement and looked it over.
Shiro remembered being offered the chance to pilot that mission, since he worked closely with Professor Holt and had been classmates with his son, Matt. However, Shiro had declined in favor of continuing his studies. It was just a sample collection mission after all, and Shiro knew he could be of more use by teaching future cadets instead. He set the paper down back onto the table and tried to catch Lance’s eye.
“I could help you, if you’d like? If it’s grades you’re having trouble with, I can tutor you.” He offered. He was looking for an independent project anyway, and helping a student with a long term goal seemed perfect. Lance blinked up at him owlishly.
“Really? Like, no joke? You’ll actually help me?” There was so much hope in his eyes, Shiro couldn’t have backed out and said no if he wanted to.
“Yeah, let’s get you to Kerberos.”
-------
The first tutoring sessions did not go well. Lance was too loud, over confident and hardly focused on the material Shiro was giving up his free time to teach. It was frustrating. Not to mention Lance would often try to weasel in his own questions about Shiro’s career instead, displaying some really obvious hero worship.
“Lance, come on, focus. Are you not getting it?” Shiro tried to see where Lance was in his notes, but his paper was blank.
“Of course I’ve got this!” Lance argued petulantly, then leaned back with a cocky smirk. “Anyone who has a chance of going to Kerberos knows this. They’ve got to.” He shrugged and turned his head back down. Shiro blinked.
Technically, yes, anyone who was preparing for space travel needed to understand the fundamentals of Digital Networking and biological sciences. That was a given with any space program. But the way Lance worded it sounded wrong. Shiro didn't call him out on it, instead just repeated the question. Lance nodded, but his pen didn’t move.
Five minutes passed and Lance didn't write a single word on the paper, Shiro noticed, his suspicion just growing more and more with every second that ticked by. He vaguely wondered if Lance was just trying to waste his time on purpose, though Shiro knew Lance well enough from the lectures he sat in on that Lance, for all his chattering and harmless jokes, wasn't that malicious. Shiro turned his head a bit to get a better look at Lance’s face.
He looked like he might pass out, just like he had in the library.
“Lance,” the boy jumped as if Shiro had smacked his hand on the table. Instantly, the confusion and frustration fell away and confidence replaced them. It was a confidence Shiro suddenly recognized as completely fake. “It’s okay if you don’t understand this. It’s a difficult chapter.” He said calmly, and watched as Lance’s confidence wavered.
“It’s not that difficult. Any idiot in space knows this.” Lance said, looking down. “Anyone with a chance should know this.” Shiro then wondered if Lance was just repeating what someone else had told him.
The professors here weren’t the kindest, Shiro knew this from experience, so it wasn’t hard to imagine some of them discouraging Lance from even trying to go to Kerberos. Maybe that was why Lance was trying to pretend he wasn't confused.
Without giving Lance any time to argue, Shiro snatched the paper from the table and crumpled it up, before walking over to the waste bin and dropping it in.
“Wha- Wait a minute!” Lance looked panicked. He probably thought Shiro was ending their session early and breaking off the arrangement all together. Instead, Shiro brought his chair closer and sat down, pulling clean papers out of Lance’s bag.
“It’s okay to be confused.” Lance snapped his mouth shut, then opened it again like he was going to argue. Shiro didn’t let him. “That’s what I’m here for.” He smiled, soft and patient. Lance didn’t try to say anything. “But you’ve got to let me know what you’re having trouble with, so I can help and you can learn it. Besides, gotta know this to get to Kerberos, right?” Dumbly, Lance nodded, eyes wide, like he hadn’t expected Shiro to stay. Shiro pushed that thought away for now. “So, what part of this are you confused about?” Lance quickly looked back at his textbook a little ways away from them.
“Um, all of the above?” He said and Shiro nodded, then clapped Lance on the shoulder and pulled the textbook closer.
“Then let's start from the beginning. I know you’ve got this, you just need to familiarize yourself with the basics first.” Lance flushed and immediately fumbled to get his pen in hand before Shiro began. He was pretty sure he knew how to help Lance learn this, he just needed a different approach.
-------
Lance skidded down the hallway near the east sector of the Garrison, nearly running down two students because he was running late for his usual session with Shiro. Although he had a perfectly good reason this time! He needed to stay back with his last Professor to talk about the upcoming tests. The mock-tests would be available and Lance wanted to know if he could get a couple extra to get in more practice. And it might have taken a little begging, but Lance now had a stack of tests under his arm and the begrudging respect of his physics Professor. So it wasn’t so bad.
He paused just outside of the room when he heard voices through the thin metal door. Shiro’s was there and he recognized the other voice immediately. It was Keith Kogane, that asshole from his class who just loved showing him up at every turn.
"Come on, Shiro." Keith groaned, obviously frustrated..
Lance immediately stiffened as his head filled with worst case scenarios. Was Keith there to tell Shiro about that one time Lance accidentally hit a kid in the face during simulation training? Or that one time when he fell on his face in the canteen and everyone laughed at him? There were, unfortunately, a lot of stories that Keith could discourage Shiro from teaching him with.
He pressed his ear to the door, trying to hear better. If Keith was talking to Shiro, it wasn't anything good, he was sure.
"I have a student coming in, Keith." Shiro sounded tired, like Keith had been there for a while before Lance showed up. He heard Keith sigh.
"Well, he's not here now. So, can you help me or not?" Help? What in the world could Keith need help with unless he... unless...
Lance stood up, and stormed into the room.
"No. Nope. No no no no, no you don't." He said, and stomped over to where Keith and Shiro were to wedge himself between them. "Nuh-uh, he was mine first, Kogane, get your own tutor! Leave him alone!" Lance has to resist the urge to cling to Shiro's arm possessively because dammit he was Lance's tutor! Keith looked confused, and a little annoyed, while Shiro's eyes widened in surprise. "I don't care how impressive you are. I asked Shiro first, so he's mine and you can stuff it. He's too good a person to ditch me and I need him more." Lance conveniently missed Shiro's embarrassed flush. Keith just rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.
"Why would I care about Shiro tutoring you?" He deadpanned, and then smirked. "Besides, like you said, I don't need a tutor, unlike you." Lance absolutely bristled at Keith's demeaning tone.
"Alright, listen here, Mullet-" But Keith didn't spare him another second. He just looked past Lance, much to the other boy's frustration, to talk to Shiro.
"Look, the showing is in a month. That's enough time to think on it, I'll talk to you later." Then Keith turned and walked out the door, leaving a fuming Lance and an exasperated Shiro.
"What the hell is that guy's problem?" Lance was agitated, that was for sure, but Shiro could also sense a sort of fear in his body language. He put a hand on Lance's shoulder to get his attention.
"Keith wasn't trying to get me to tutor him." Lance looked up at him, confused, so Shiro continued to explain. "There's a hovercycle showing coming into the next town over next month. Keith wanted to sneak out to go and wanted me to help him." He finished and Lance's eyes widened.
"Oh.. okay. So... I was completely off the ball on that one?" Shiro chuckled and nodded.
"Yeah, 'fraid so. But don't worry, I'm still yours." Shiro gave him a firm squeeze on the shoulder, before sitting down to look at the papers Lance had dropped onto the table. And if Lance was a little more red in the face, neither mentioned it.
-------
While Shiro corrected another one of Lance’s mission proposal, Lance was dicking around in his chair, leaning back on the rear legs while trying to balance a pen on his nose. Shiro had tried to get him to sit still, but to no effect. Lance wasn't the type to sit still, unless he was in test or getting yelled at. After the sixth attempt, Shiro gave up trying and let Lance do as he pleased.
"This is actually really eloquent. I'm surprised, but you still need to work on your sentence structure." He said, marking another odd-sounding sentence with his pen. Lance made a squawking noise from his seat.
"Hey! It's hard! Be lucky there are sentences at all!" He whined, but Shiro knew that Lance took all of this more seriously than he let on and all these corrections would be dealt with as soon as the paper was given back. The chair squeaked when Lance leaned back again.
"How many pens do you think I can fit- oh shit!" The following squeal was deafening. Lance completely wiped out, the chair finally giving in and toppling to the ground, leaving Lance to suddenly drop backwards. Both his legs and pen shot up in the air while the rest of him crashed to the floor.
And Shiro really couldn't help it. He laughed, and laughed and kept laughing because holy shit the noise Lance just made was hysterical. He had to lean forward a bit when his stomach started to cramp, tears pricking his eyes.
Lance remained on the floor, face absolutely scarlet in embarrassment, and maybe something else because he'd never heard Shiro laugh so openly.
Lance decided in that moment that completely falling on his ass in front of his idol was kind of worth it.
--------
Lance was the kind of person who wasn't afraid to look, Shiro discovered. Lance had no shame watching a pretty girl pass by or staring someone down from across the room. If Lance was being scolded by a professor, he didn't look down and break eye contact, he stared right at them while he was being chewed out. Lance would stare and ogle and willingly admit to it when called out, all with a shrug or an easy smile.
Absolutely no shame at all.
However, Shiro had never thought Lance would stare at him.
They were back in their study room, books and data pads thrown across the table top, papers with red marks and loopy handwriting littered everywhere. It hadn't been very long since they had started, maybe half an hour, so Lance’s lack of focus was immediately noted. Shiro let out a long breath through his nose and looked up, ready to scold Lance for staring off into space or playing with his pen again, but the words died out. Lance wasn't in his own head, not off in some daydream like he sometimes found himself. No, Lance was staring at Shiro like he was the strangest thing he'd ever seen. Shiro felt his ears heat up and cleared his throat. Lance didn't stop staring.
"What?" He asked. Maybe he had something on his face? It was pretty early, so perhaps Shiro had sleep marks he hadn't noticed? Lance tilted his head like the question confused him.
"My grandmother would hate your hair." He said simply, setting another scrutinizing look on Shiro's hair. The older man straightened instinctively, holding down the urge to run a nervous hand through the longer strands. Did it look silly? Was it really so bad that Lance needed to point it out?
True, his hair style wasn't exactly Garrison regulation, and he'd been scolded repeatedly for not getting a more 'appropriate' style now that he was older, but Shiro didn't think it was that bad. Then again, he wasn't all that caught up with the latest trends, so maybe-
He was pulled out of his own head when Lance started speaking, high pitched and raspy in what Shiro could only assume was a piss-poor imitation of his grandmother. "Dios mio! Your hair is too long! Too uneven! Did your mother not teach you better?" Lance reached forward and flicked at Shiro's bangs with his pen. "Too long," he tapped the back of Shiro's neck, "too short! Such a handsome face wasted!" Lance continued to lament in his grandmother's voice, thoroughly enjoying his own performance while Shiro tried to process the backhanded compliment. He wondered if Lance had me at to call him handsome, wondered if he meant it, but then Lance kept going on about his hair.
Shiro looked down and reached up a hand to run over his head, a bit self-conscious at the judgmental topic of conversation. Maybe it was time for a haircut. He had been growing his hair out for a while, but change could be good. He looked up when he felt a tap on his forehead. Lance was smiling at him, apparently done with his impersonation.
"It suits you, though." he said, his eyes genuine. "I like it." There wasn't a hint of mockery in his voice and Shiro wasn't quite so sure his flush was entirely from embarrassment anymore.
-----
In all honesty, Lance knew he was not the first in the running to go to Kerberos. In fact, if Keith wanted to, he could just say the words and all of Lance's work would be for nothing. As much as he was loathed to admit it, Keith was just that good. He was the best pilot in his Garrison class, probably the best out of all of the Garrison after Shiro.
Luckily, Keith had absolutely no interest in going into space any time soon. After Lance had asked him maybe one too many times, Keith had stated plainly that he wasn’t going to waste his time taking notes in a cramped ship when he could stay here and do something. That had definitely shut Lance up about it. Still, the fact that Keith could change his mind at any moment made Lance work harder.
Keith dropped by his and Shiro's study sessions from time to time, either wanting a quiet place to be or just wanting to talk to Shiro for a while. It annoyed Lance, most of the time, but Keith really wasn't that much of an asshole, so he could deal.
It had almost been a month, and the more Shiro denied Keith any help, the more grouchy he got. It reminded Lance of when his mother wouldn't give his little brother dessert back home and he would stomp around the house for hours. He felt bad for the guy, because he knew that Keith wouldn't be able to sneak out without any help. He was too headstrong, he'd go running through the hallway and right into patrols if he went without knowing the patrols schedule and without some help. (Not that Lance was talking from experience, no sir.)
They were sitting next to each other at the table, Lance working through more problems he answered incorrectly on the practice test and Keith with his head on his crossed arms, just barely falling asleep, while Shiro was outside the room, speaking to a professor on Lance's progress. Not because they were interested, but because they were still trying to figure out why Shiro was still bothering. Lance didn't bother listening. Instead, he tapped Keith on the shoulder, making the other growl.
“What?” Keith moaned, and Lance snorted into his hand.
“11 and 2.” He said, and Keith snapped his head up.
“What the fuck are you talking about.” He obviously wasn’t in a good mood, but Lance ignored that for now.
“The patrols. You wanted to see the hovercycles this weekend, right? The patrols change their shift at 11 at night and 2 in the morning. That give you about a 30 minute window each.” And if Lance had this memorized from the few times he went clubbing with Hunk, nobody had to know. Keith blinked at him, processing the fact that Lance was actually helping him, then nodded. The door hissed as Shiro walked in, but he paused when he saw Lance and Keith speaking…. and not trying to kill each other.
“Why do I feel like I’ve just made a mistake walking back in here.” Lance straightened up, feigning innocence, complete with puppy dog eyes and a quivering bottom lip. Keith just pretended to be confused, so Shiro shook his head with a fond smile and sat down.
Keith made it to the showcase and back without an issue. They ahd totally been in the clear until Lance opened his bif mouth and bragged about how much Keith owed him now. Yeah, they got busted and Shiro gave them both a lecture, but never ratted them out to Iverson, mostly due to Lance’s begging and persuasion, so it was cool.
Everything went on without incident for the next few weeks. Lance continued to come to lessons when he wasn’t in class. Hunk worried about him when he spent all night studying and missed breakfast, but he had an agreement with Shiro. "Lance wasn’t to be worked too hard" had been the consensus. That had involved a very embarrassing conversation between the three of them that Lance wanted to erase from his memory.
Sure, Lance still goofed off during class and flirted half-heartedly with girls, bragged about how he was able to get THE Takashi Shirogane to mentor him. And Shiro still sat in on lectures and kept up his independent studies. Lance was still Lance and Shiro was still Shiro. The only difference was how their sessions started to be filled with more personal discussions than academic.
“What’s your family like?” Shiro usually didn’t start their heart to hearts, but whenever he did, it was never that intimate. Lance perked up anyway at the chance to talk about his family, and Shiro’s patient smile just set him off.
He talked about his parents. His father was the co-owner of a pawnshop while his mother was a seamstress who worked at a bridal store. His aunt wasn’t married and pretty much helped raise him and his two older siblings. They were both well out of college, his older brother David had married a Garrison technician named Maire and his older sister Amelia had gotten engaged right before Lance left for school. Then he talked about his grandparents and how they always came over for the holidays with mountains of presents and his abuela would bring enough food to feed an army. He had a younger brother and sister, Max and Rosie, who Lance got stuck taking care of most of the time when he was younger, but he loved them so much that he would take a bullet for them each.
It was nice hearing Lance open up about his home life, Shiro realized, as Lance went on to talk about the time he broke his arm because Max had thrown Rosie’s favorite stuffed shark up in a tree and Lance had to climb up and go get it.
“I mean- it sucked, I had to be in a cast for three months and got yelled at by my mom for hours, but Rosie got her shark back and that made it totally worth it.” Lance had obviously forgotten that he was supposed to be reviewing the blueprints for a standard ship's engine.
And should Shiro probably have stopped Lance there? Yes, but did he? No, He didn't. He just leant forward with his elbows on the table and listened.
"Oh! And when I said I wanted to go to the Garrison? Everyone flipped out! My mom nearly had a heart attack and Max fell out of his chair! It was hysterical." He laughed to himself, before suddenly sobering, a plaintive look coming over his face. "After some convincing, my whole family pitched in for me to come here. My dad took an extra job, Amelia and her fiancé offered me a part-time job working at their restaurant. We gave up an entire family vacation! Even little Rosie gave up her piggy bank. I felt so bad, but..." Lance looked up, like he was trying to blink back tears that hadn't shown up yet. "But they all wanted me to come to this place and do great things and now that I'm finally here... I finally know how I'm gonna do that." There was so much passion in his voice, so much raw love for his family and determination for his goal. Vaguely, Shiro thought he suddenly knew something about Lance that know one else did, something that was special.
"Is that why you jumped at the chance to fly to Kerberos?" He asked quietly, but he expected he knew the answer already. Lance nodded- and shook his head a moment after.
"Yeah, it' some of the major reasons- probably the biggest. I mean, Kerberos? Flying there like a professional pilot? An explorer? That's definitely something I wanna do to make my family proud- make their sacrifices worth it. At the same time...." he trailed off, then looked at Shiro directly. "I wanna do this for myself, you know? Prove to myself and everyone else that I can." Shiro nodded his head, understanding completely. He thought the conversation was over after that, but then Lance kept going.
“And… I’m really happy you stayed with me for all this.” Lance said earnestly, eyes sparkling. “I never could have gotten this far without you.” At some point Shiro stopped breathing, but Lance didn’t seem to notice, he just kept smiling like Shiro was the greatest thing in creation.
------
One would think that on a military grade institution, there would be much better security. Millions of dollars in funding the organization to train future space explorers and pilots, they could surely pay for some substantial locks and security measures. Everyone believed this to be true, except those who actually attended. Lance always found extreme pleasure in disproving that belief, repeatedly.
Everyone knew about the main simulation hall used to examine students as though they were on a real mission, Lance had waited years to finally make it to the point where he could participate. However, there was also the simulation training room. It was bigger than a suburban home, with a dozen and a half smaller simulation pods lined up in rows. These were used to prepare individual students for how a simulator worked, mainly to see if they could handle the graphics and the actual visual of being in space. They really weren't that fantastic, they visually simulated flight and had all the different buttons and levers of an actual ship, but they couldn't move around as much or actually give you the feeling of being up there in space.
Lance liked sneaking in anyway.
It was embarrassingly easy, in his opinion. No patrols came around this area at night right after dinner, and the locking system was so poor that it could be picked with a hairpin, which really sucked because the lock's keypad was digital.
It was well after dinner hour, most students in their barracks and professors having their own free time for a while, the perfect time for Lance to snag some solo flight practice. He had slipped into one of the pods further in the back, and revved it to life with a quick wire job under the central panel. The screens and stat pads lit up without an issue, labeling 'coordinates' and 'status reports' of the ship's condition. Lance sat down, got a hold on the stick, and started it up.
It was an admittedly easy simulator, at first, you had to work your way up levels, and Lance was able to fly around with ease, the screens giving him a view of the desert that surrounded the compound. All open plains and the occasional rock that he could swerve around. Within ten minutes, he was bumping up the levels.
And, okay, Lance wasn't the best flyer. He was decent, of course, and could handle a ship with relative ease, but it would be a miracle if he ever made it to Fighter Pilot class next year. From what all his professors and advisors had said, Lance was destined to be a cargo pilot working in the Garrison ship yard, if he even graduated. Hearing that day in and day out... It stung, more than Lance was willing to admit. Sure, he wasn't like Keith, who could fly backwards with his eyes closed and hand tied behind him, but he tried and he could learn quickly. He hadn't come here just to be predestined for last place.
Lance shook his head, trying to dislodge his train of thought, and focused back on the simulator. He needed the practice, especially since he was getting into the more difficult levels, more rocks and obstacles blocking his path.
Suddenly, another pod came into view on his screen, which…was weird. It was no secret that the professors liked to pull a joke on first year students, switching the program so the students were locked in the same simulation, trying to fly around each other like some kind of Battle Royale. Lance remembered immediately crashing into a fellow classmate, but that had been two year ago, when he didn't even know how to hit the brakes. He was 18 now, and had a lot more experience under his belt. He pulled up and backpedalled from the aircraft, giving it enough room to maneuver.
"Shouldn't students like you be in bed?" A voice blared over the comlink above his head. Lance (never) shrieked and nearly leapt out of the pod, his hold on the steering suddenly failing.
"Shiro!?" He called back, though he wasn't sure if he could be heard. A slight laugh answered him easily enough.
"Seriously, Lance, you could get in serious trouble." He was trying to sound responsible, but Lance could hear a smile.
"And who's gonna rat me out?" He challenged, getting back into the controls. Shiro didn't answer. "Shiro.. Are you.. Are you in a pod right now?"
"Don't you get time during the day to practice in these things?" Shiro asked by way of a response, but the pod looped around Lance's own with ease, and he had his answer.
"I spend all that time studying with you!" Lance pulled up on the stick to avoid colliding with a boulder poking out of the earth. Shiro flew carefully above him. There was along silence as they flew around each other, Shior pulling off impressive moves and Lance struggling to imitate them.
Then the level of the simulator went from 6 to about 80, in Lance's opinion.
"Shiro?! What the hell! I haven't gotten to this point yet in training! The Fighter Pilots haven't even gotten here!" He yelled, barely missing an ice pilar that formed suddenly. The screens showed some sort of frozen planet, one with crumbling ice walls that you had to dodge and pray not to get crushed by. Shiro laughed over the audio.
"Then you better kick it into gear, Lance! Kerberos isn't like the desert." Lance hesitated at the name. If he couldn't make it in this level of the simulator, would he be denied the chance to go up? Shiro's voice cut through again. "You're not giving up, are you?" And all hesitation melted away as Lance got a grip on the control stick, pushing the simulated ship forward.
"Not a chance, old man." Shiro scoffed, feigning dramatic offense.
"Old man? Oh, it is on!"
Lance had never laughed and had so much fun in a simulator- hell at the Garrison, in his life.
------
Keith and Lance were once again hanging around together before Shiro got back from a meeting with professors. It wasn’t even like Lance was gonna study with Shiro that day, but Hunk had a supplementary class now and Lance was already so used to hanging around the study room with Keith and Shiro that he came here on instinct.
The room was quiet for a while, neither boy saying anything while Keith played with his dagger and Lance doodled on scrap paper.
“So, do you like Shiro?” The ninja bear Lance was drawing suddenly had an ugly dark line slice it in half when he choked.
“What? What kind of question is that?” Lance asked, his tone shaky and his cheeks pink. Keith shrugged, but he did look curious.
“I’m just asking if you like Shiro.” He said, and Lance cleared his throat.
"I'm pretty sure everyone has a crush on Shiro, Iverson has a crush on Shiro." He tried joking, hoping to distract Keith from asking him that question again. Keith turned a little green
"Dude! I didn't need to hear that!” He gagged a bit, but quickly composed himself. Lance tried to deviate the attention from himself.
“What about you? Do you have a crush on him?" Lance gasped dramatically, "Are you just trying to get me out fo they way?!" Keith shrugged, then shook his head.
"No, you idiot. When I was 13, yeah, I had a crush, but he's like a brother to me- and you're not answering the question." Lance looked down at his lap, his ears burning
"Like I said, everyone has a crush on Shiro. S'not gonna make a difference."
"Having a crush is different to really liking him though.” Keith pointed out with a frown. “So do you?" He set Lance with a glare, but he was pretty sure it was supposed to be a look of reassurance. Lance and come to realize that Keith often meant well, but he had the emotional capacity of a mop on fire, so any display of affection or friendliness usually came across as anger. Lance didn’t answer, he just went back to his drawings, complaining about how Keith messed it up. Keith didn’t look impressed.
"You're an idiot."