Fireworks [Klance AU]

Twenty

"Christen, would you mind if I had a friend over?" Keith asks as he shifts his legs.
"As long as your room is clean and as long as the kitchen is clean," Christen says.
"Okay, thank you," Keith says, trying not to smile. He pulls out his phone, and starts to text Lance.
"I'll go finish cleaning now," Keith says as he stands up. He walks towards the kitchen, and looks around to check what he needs to do. He looks at the few piles of clothes on the kitchen table, and looks to see who's is who's.
"Ray, can you come grab your clothes?" Keith shouts, hoping his foster sister is in the house.
He can hear her sigh, "Give me a minute." Keith grabs his and Ashton's pile, and makes his way to their room. Keith walks in, and Ashton is laying on his bed watching something on his phone.
"Here's your clothes," Keith says, and sets Ashton's pile on his bed. Keith goes to shove his clothes in his drawers, and Ashton gets up to do the same.
  After another ten or fifteen minutes of cleaning, Keith is done, and now waiting for Lance to show up.
  "Keith, honey, is Lance staying over?" Christen asks.
  "I don't think so," Keith says. He had placed himself on the couch in his living room, phone in hand and feet propped on the admen in front of the love seat.
  "Well, if he wants to, he can, I just need to know by dinner," Christen says. Keith nods to himself and continues to scroll through his phone until there is a knock at the door. After a few minutes, he gets a text asking for him to come down to the driveway.
  "I'll be right back," Keith says, standing up from the couch. He slips on his slides, then grabs a coat off the bench by the back door. He jogs across the house and to the front door. He quickly unlocks it and makes his way out. He jogs down the path to the drive way, and notices a nice Jeep wrangler pulling up behind Keith's Jeep Cherokee. It had some mud on it's tired, but seemed pretty cleaned up otherwise. Keith picks up the pace a bit, his breath evident against the cold air.
  "Lance?" Keith shouts as the door opens. Lance's Head pokes out from behind the door, and smiles.
  "Hey!" Lance says, a bit louder than normal.
  "How is your ear?" Keith asks as he approaches the Cuban boy.
  "It's alright. It was just a bubble of fluid that was built up from after surgery. The swelling has gone down in the other ear I've the last twenty-four hours," Lance states. Keith really loves how Lance's voice sounds. It was a little higher pitched, but that wasn't a bad thing.
  "Oh, my foster mom needs to know if you wanted to stay the night?" Keith asks.
  "Oh, well," Lance starts, "I need to ask my parents to make sure it's alright. They may be hesitant because of my ear."
  "It's fine if you can't. I just didn't know it was an option until she said something," Keith says. Lance nods, then Keith takes ahold of his sleeve and pulls him towards the wall way. The sound of gravel beneath their feet was all they could hear until the slap of Keith's slides was audible on the walkway. Lance had boots on, and there was a light clack on the cement after every slap. Keith let's go of Lance as they approach the steps, and Keith makes quick small steps up as Lance takes a few at a time. Keith holds the door open, and Lance walks in.
  Keith grabs his hand as they walk down the small hallway, careful to make sure Christen and Rae aren't around. Keith leads Lance back to his room, and opens the door.
  "Ashton is here, so just giving you a heads up," Keith says as they walk in. Keith let's go of his hand as Lance starts to look around the room.
  "Hey Lance," Ashton says from his desk.
  "Hey," Lance says.
  "Wow, you're voice is way different than what I was expecting," Ashton says, dropping his tablet pen as he turns.
  "Well, I can't say yours was expected either," Lance says and moves towards the bed with grey sheets.
  "Keith, can I sit down?" Lance asks, pointing to the bed.
  "Of course," Keith says and slips his shoes off by the foot of his bed. "I'll be right back. I'll go tell Christen you're here."
  Lance sits on the bed and leans back on his hands.
  "So, you two a thing?" Ashton asks. Lance's Head turns towards the junior.
  "What?" Lance asks.
  "Never mind, I'll just talk to Keith later," Ashton says, the sound of his pen hitting his tablet. Lance can feel his neck grow hot, but tries to calm himself down. Lance and Keith hadn't really talked about it since Lance admitted to liking Keith. They couldn't really find a good chance to talk about it, so they just didn't.
  Lance pulls out his phone and starts to text his mom. As he types, and can see the door opening.
  "Hey, Lance, want to come and meet Christen?" Keith asks. Lance can pick up some of what he's saying, but not all of it.
  "Hm?" Lance gums as he looks up from his phone.
  "Want to come meet Christen?" Keith repeats. Lance takes a moment, then nods. He stands up and sets his phone on Keith's bed. Keith waves him out, and he follows.
  Keith leads him to the kitchen and waits until Christen is done putting something in the oven before saying anything.
  "Christen, this is Lance," Keith says as she takes off her oven mitts.
  "Hey, it's nice to meet you," Christen says, a little caught off guard.
  "Nice to meet you too," Lance says. Christen quickly sticks out her hand, and Lance quickly takes it. They shake hands, then the questions start.
  "So, Lance, would you like to spend the night?" Christen starts.
  "Sorry, say again?" Lance asks, not picking up most of what she asked.
  "Would you like to spend the night?" she asks again.
  "Oh, I texted my mom to ask," Lance says. His voice is a bit quieter than normal, partially from nervousness and from the cotton in one ear.
  "Okay, well, you can stay for dinner, if you want. Keith normally takes his back to his room and was with Ashton," Christen says.
  "Oh, alright. Thank you, Ma'am," Lance says. Christen nods, and turns back to making dinner.
  "You can just use one of my shirts, but my pants might be too small for you," Keith says as he leads Lance back to his room.
  "I can just sleep in this, I don't mind," Lance says.
  "No, I should have asked ahead of time, and I didn't, so please don't sleep in those," Keith chuckles.
  "Alright," Lance says. They enter the room, and Ashton has already made his way to his bed.
  "Don't forget to do your homework, Ash," Keith says.
  "I won't. I'll do it Sunday," Ashton says. Keith drops on his bed face first, and sighs. Lance sits by his torso, then leans back, so cross backs with Keith.
  "So, what's for dinner?" Lance asks, his voice still a little shy.
  "I think it might be lasagna," Ashton says.
  "Oh, I've never had homemade lasagna," Lance says.
  "Really?" Keith asks, flipping his head around to attempt to look at Lance.
  "My mama tried to fix it once, but she over cooked it, so we didn't eat it," Lance says.
  "Well, my mom fixed really good lasagna," Ashton says.
  "Probably the best," Keith says. "Christen seriously fixes really good lasagna."
  "Then I'm looking forward to it," Lance says. He shifts on Keith's back, and is now on his stomach.
  "What do you want to do?" Keith asks.
  "I don't really know," Lance says, "Any ideas Ashton?"
  "Unless you guys want to watch anime or The Fosters, then nope," Ashton says.
  "Want to see Ash's cat?" Keith asks, just now remembering that Ashton had a cat that they keep in their basement.
  "Sure," Lance says.
  "Alright," Keith says, then tries to push himself up, but only pushes Lance down his legs. Keith slips out from under Lance and stands up.
  "Also, you can take your shoes off," Keith says, "leave whatever you need to in here." Lance nods and slips off his shoes, then takes off his jacket. Keith walks towards the door and waits for Lance.
  "Can you feed him for me?" Ashton asks.
  "Sure," Keith says as they leave the room. Keith leads Lance into the kitchen, and to the basement door. They walk down stairs, and turn the lights on. The sound of a cat sharpening its nails is evident through the silence.
  "His name is Thomas. He's basically a big fluff ball," Keith says and grabs a bag of food as they walk to the hidden corner of the basement. He starts to shake it to gain Thomas's attention. The cat slides around the wooden floor, finding it hard to gain traction on the wood. Keith grabs a bowl off the table, and fills it with food. He then sets it in front of the cat.
  "Hey, Lance, can I ask you something?" Keith asks as he pets the cat.
  "Yeah," Lance says and sits on a couch by a bookshelf.
  "What happened?" Keith asks, he head turning towards Lance.
  "I just got in a little fight. It's not a big deal," Lance says, bobbing his leg.
  "What was it about?" Keith asks as he grabs another bowl and a bottle of water.
  "Just some guy said some stuff I didn't like, ended up getting mouthy," Lance says, the last part referring to himself.
  "Who was it?" Keith asks, pouring the water into the bowl.
  "Some kid from the baseball team. I can't remover his name," Lance starts, "but, I have a question for you too."
  "Okay," Keith says, placing the water bottle back on the table.
  "What happened a few weeks ago with you running through the gym?" Lance asks.
  "Some guys called Ashton out to the football field. He thought it was the coach just wanting to talk to him about something," Keith starts, "I just followed to make sure he didn't need anything, but it wasn't the coach, that's all."
  "Ashton isn't straight, is he," Lance states.
  "Nope," Keith says, trusting Lance with this information.
  "Was it because of that?" Lance asks.
  "Yup," Keith says, and sits down next to Lance.
  "Can I ask you about something else?" Keith adds, his curiosity getting the better of him.
  "What about?" Lance asks.
  "What happened to make you go deaf in that one ear, before your genetic stuff," Keith says, trying to remember what Lance's family said.
  "Oh, that was just me  being stupid in seventh grade," Lance chuckles. "I was over at a friends for the Fourth of July, and they thought it would be funny to scare me, and that little idea was to put a firework right by my ear, and shoot it off."
  "Holy crap," Keith says, a little shocked.
  "Yeah," Lance chuckles, "Adam thought it would be funny to do that, but that was also before he knew I was going deaf, so I went fully deaf in that ear a bit earlier than the other." Keith rests his head on Lance's shoulder.
  "I could hear decently well up until the end of eighth grade, then I went legally deaf when I was a freshman," Lance states. Keith nods, and Lance can feel it on his shoulder.
  "You didn't have your first surgery around that time, right?" Keith asks.
  "Oh, no, that surgery wasn't for my deafness," Lance says, "I was a bit of a fighter between seventh grade and junior year."
  "What? Really?" Keith asks.
  "Yeah, I couldn't ever hear people, so they took advantage of that and used that against me, so I ended up starting to fight back. I kind of regret it now," Lance chuckles, "Wasn't worth almost not having any chance of hearing again in my right ear."
  "Well, no more fights while you're still here, okay?" Keith says and stands up.
  "Okay, I won't," Lance says, and follows Keith.
  "Good," Keith says, and grabs the cat. He holds Thomas up to Lance and Lance takes him, iffy on how to hold him.

-

(A/N: Here's what you guys were waiting for! Sorry for not updating sooner, but the fandom has kind of taken a toll on me since Friday...
I'm just gonna say that my account, here on wattpad, is a safe place for you guys. If you ever need anything, Voltron related or not, you can come to me. I'll listen to rants or do anything you guys need. My messages are always open. If you want an easier way to get ahold of me, I do have Instagram and Twitter, @ trier.pluto, so don't hesitate to contact me there either.
Okay, that's it for this chapter! The next one will continue around dinner, just a heads up.
-t)