Hoping For Any More
Over the course of the next several weeks, Keith slowly slipped into a new rhythm. He figured out that the Garretts' shop was one of the best places to spend a Friday evening, and made it a point to go there each week. Hunk's presence always lifted his mood somehow. He could have sword the kid was made of actual sunshine.
He found out that Pidge came over rather often, since their brother had a certain "friend" over rather often, and in their words, there was no way they "could focus on chemistry work while Matt was smushing face his girlfriend less than fifteen feet away." However, Keith had suspicions that wasn't the only reason Pidge liked to come over, and made sure to do his work downstairs every time they did.
He got to know Lance better, got to know how his eyes lit up whenever he talked about something he was interested in, got to know that he had a beautiful voice. He also got to know that he'd been chasing Allura for the past several months and didn't seem like he was giving up any time soon.
This, for some strange reason, brought an odd little feeling, but he brushed it off as feeling bad for the kid. After all, Allura never returned any of his infatuations. That had to be pretty tough, right?
Possibly the biggest thing he got to know was that the "club" that Shiro ran was the aforementioned "Voltron." Lance was a part of it, hence the talk of a red paladin and his absence on Fridays. Shiro often dropped subtle hints that he should come to a meeting and try it out sometime, but Keith didn't take up on his offers until about a month and a half in.
That was when he found himself standing outside of Shiro's classroom, hand hovering over the door handle as he debated whether or not to swing the door open. It would be so easy to turn around and go back to the library so that he could do his homework and have less for the weekend. He could walk away and Shiro would be none the wiser.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he pushed the handle down, opening the door and stepping into the room silently. Instantly, all eyes were on him and he bit his lip, head ducking down.
"Keith!" Shiro grinned. "Are you joining us this week?"
No, I just wanted to know if we were able to use the printer, Keith wanted to say, but a hum of agreement escaped instead.
"Take any seat you want, we were just about to get started," Shiro said. By this time, nearly everyone had turned back to their previous conversation. Keith glanced around the room, seeing who was there.
Pidge and Corey sat talking with Hunk while Allura chatted animatedly with a girl he didn't recognize. Lance looked like he had been a part of their conversation, but presently, he waved Keith over to where he was sitting.
"So you finally took me up on that red paladin offer, huh?" lance grinned when Keith sat down. Keith dismissed him with a roll of his eyes.
"I don't even know what this is all about," he muttered. "I thought I'd see." Lance nodded.
"'Course," he shrugged. "It's not for everyone. Not all can handle the chaos that goes on in this room." He grinned toward the end, and Keith gathered that lance was rather fond of whatever chaos that had gone down.
"All right, guys," Shiro finally said. "How're we starting off this week?" The girl that had been talking with Allura raised her hand.
"Can we do the high-low-buffalo thing?" she asked. "It was kinda fun last week." Shiro nodded.
"Sure thing, Romelle. Wanna start us off?" Romelle nodded, thinking for a moment.
"Okay, um, my high was probably finally finishing that essay, my low was accidentally tearing a page in one of my books and my buffalo..." she trailed off here, unsure of what to continue with. "Oh! My brother spilled a bottle of Tabasco sauce on our cat on Tuesday. The poor guy's still red."
The rest of the group shared little stories in similar fashion, all finishing up by telling of an amusing incident. Then, the game finally came around to Keith.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his mind didn’t quite seem to get the message.
“Um, I-I j’st, um,” he stammered, voice barely above a whisper. The rest of the group looked on silently with patient gazes.
“I d- I don’t ha-have an-n-nything,” he finally forced out, hands shaking as he gripped the sides of the chair that he sat in. He was fine just a moment ago, what happened? He peered up cautiously and met Shiro’s eye across the circle. Shiro simply nodded.
“That’s fine,” he said reassuringly and gave a small smile. From there it was casual conversation, people sharing incidents from throughout the week, asking Shiro for advice, chatting amongst themselves. Keith observed from the outside.
Maybe twenty minutes in, Keith felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, eyes meeting Lance’s.
“You okay, man?” Lance asked. “You look like you need to take a breather. Wanna step outside for a moment?” Keith nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Lance leaned over to whisper something to Shiro, then stood when Shiro nodded, taking Keith’s wrist and pulling him outside.
Keith led himself be led out to the football/soccer field and onto the bleachers, where he and Lance sat. He felt Lance pull his hand away from where Keith hadn’t realised he’d dug his nails into his arm.
“You’re seriously tense, man,” Lance said. “What’s wrong?” Keith shrugged, his gaze on the grass below. Lance didn’t pry after that, something that Keith was insanely grateful for.
“Hey,” Lance said after a few minutes of silence. “Let’s play soccer.” Keith glanced at him, one eyebrow arched up.
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious!” Lance grinned. “C’mon, I’ll get a ball.” With that, he dashed off, returning moments later with an orange and green soccer ball. He tugged his jacket off, tossing onto the bleachers where Keith sat.
Hesitantly, Keith shed his own hoodie, folding it and placing it beside him before standing up and heading over to where Lance was. He stood for a moment, thinking that Lance would kick the ball over, but the smirk on the Cuban’s face told him otherwise.
“You’ve got to get it from me,” Lance said. “It’s no fun otherwise.” Keith thought over this for a moment, then ran at Lance. The taller boy yelped, doing some fancy footwork at the last moment to get the ball away.
“I didn’t say charge me like a bull!” Lance cried. Keith laughed.
“Whatever works.” He rushed forward again, trying to keep up with everything that Lance was doing but he was just so fast. Somehow Lance made kicking a ball around look like some sort of dance. He ended up kicking Lance in the shins and snagging the thing while Lance tried not to fall over.
“That’s not how you play soccer!” Lance laughed, running at Keith.
“Good thing there’s no referee,” Keith smirked, sprinting as fast as he could in the opposite direction. The taller boy gave chase.
Lance might have had the footwork, but Keith was quicker, which took away out his need for it. If Lance couldn’t catch up, he couldn’t reach the ball. This game of cat and mouse lasted for about five minutes before Lance doubled over, hand on his knees, struggling to get a breath in.
“How are you so fast?!” he gasped, flopping onto the grass. “You’re so short and scrawny! Where does that speed come from?” Keith rolled his eyes.
“It’s called being light on your feet,” he said. “I don’t have to carry six feet of human body with me when I run.” Lance huffed, still sprawled out on the ground.
“Next time you need a book from the top shelf of the library, don’t ask me,” he huffed. “Since you seem to hate me and my tallness so much.” Keith shook his head, lips curling into a grin. He tucked the ball underneath his arm and walked over to where Lance was laying.
“Get up, drama queen,” he muttered, nudging Lance with his foot. Lance lifted a hand into the air.
“Help me.” Rolling his eyes once more, Keith grabbed Lance’s hand, pulling him to his feet. The moment he was upright, however, he knocked the ball from Keith’s grasp and immediately ran several metres away, knocking it back and forth between his feet.
“That was low,” Keith said. Lance shrugged, giving him a grin.
“Whatever works.”
▂▃▅▇█▇▅▃▂
"How are your pick up lines coming?" Rosa teased as she washed the night's dishes with Lance, who simply shook his head in response, a smile playing on his lips.
"I'm like eighty percent sure that the guy flirted back once," Lance informed. His mother glanced up.
"Really?" she asked.
"Don't act so surprised!" Lance said. "I happen to be a very good looking guy with even better pick-up lines, so yeah." Rosa smiled.
"So, when are we meeting your boyfriend?" Lance nearly short-circuited.
"Mama, he's not my boyfriend!" he cried. "I mean, I would love it if he was, but to be honest, I don't really think that I'm his type. Like, he probably wants some cute skater guy or maybe even someone like Hunk, if he's even into guys." Rosa halted her son's rambling, putting a soapy hand over Lance's.
"You really like this guy, don't you?" she smiled. Lance took a deep breath.
"I- I think so," he admitted. "Like, yeah, he's cute and all, but he's just really nice. But he's always so quiet. I wanna be there for him and help him break out of his shell. I've only known him for what, two weeks? And there's already a huge part of me that just wants to help him and be there for him. You know?"
Rosa smiled at her son fondly.
"You are getting to be so grown up, you know that?" she said, toweling off her hands. She stood up on her toes to kiss Lance on the forehead. "Even if he doesn't want to be with you, he'll still know what an amazing friend you are, mijo." Lance couldn't hold a smile of his own off of his face.
"Thanks, Mama."
▂▃▅▇█▇▅▃▂
Keith sat at his desk, sketching while Corey sat across the room, typing away on her laptop. He'd caught her glancing over several times, though he had no idea why. Finally, she stood walking over to his desk.
She placed a slip of paper firmly on the corner and went back to her spot. Keith turned it over, confused.
"What is this?" he asked. Corey smirked.
"It's Lance's number," she said. "You guys seem like you're becoming friends, so I thought you should have at least someone to talk to instead of scrolling through Tumblr all weekend long." Keith blinked.
"Oh, um, thanks." Corey gave a shrug and then turned back to her screen. Keith slipped his phone out of his back pocket and typed the number in, starting a new conversation.
9:03
k.kogane: Hi, is this Lance?
9:05
blue-boi: whos this
k.kogane: It's Keith
k.kogane: Corey gave me your number
k.kogane: Is that okay?
blue-boi: eyyyy keith!
blue-boi: yeah thats cool
k.kogane: Are you sure?
blue-boi: yeah dwbi
k.kogane: DWBI?
blue-boi: dont worry bout it
k.kogane: Oh.
blue-boi: whatre you doing?
k.kogane: Just drawing, you?
blue-boi: watching mulan
k.kogane: What are you, five?
blue-boi: yea im five
blue-boi: five heads taller than you s h o r t i e
blue-boi has sent an image file: takethat.png
k.kogane: Are those shark pajamas?
blue-boi: shUT UP
blue-boi: MY LITTLE BRO GOT THOSE FOR ME
blue-boi: THEYRE BEAUTIFUL
k.kogane: Calm down.
blue-boi: how can i calm down after you just disgraced my entire existence
blue-boi: i will now die a broken man
k.kogane: You’re terrible.
blue-boi has sent an image file: unoreversecard.jpeg
k.kogane: Oh my god you’re such an idiot.
blue-boi has sent an image file: unoreversecard.jpeg
k.kogane: Stop.
blue-boi has sent an image file: howboutidoanyway.png
k.kogane: I will block you.
blue-boi: that fast???
blue-boi: dang boii
blue-boi: it usually takes at least 3 days
k.kogane: That long?
blue-boi: ive been wounded
blue-boi: smh keef i though we were friends
k.kogane: Say whatever you gotta say to make yourself feel better.
blue-boi: thats it
blue-boi: i refuse to talk to such an uncouth
blue-boi: uncultured
blue-boi: RUDE PERSON
blue-boi: im gonna just sit here and watch my disney movie
blue-boi: and hug my shark pillow pet tm
blue-boi: because no one loves me
blue-boi: //dramatic sigh
k.kogane: You didn’t have to add that last part.
k.kogane: I could hear you sigh all the way from Shiro’s place.
blue-boi: oh gosh diddly freaking darn it
blue-boi: Isabella just woke up
blue-boi: gotta run my man
blue-boi: cya
k.kogane: Bye, Lance.
Keith glanced at the time. Nine fifty. He hadn’t even noticed when Corey climbed into her bunk. Stretching in his chair, he shut off his phone and went to change into his red t-shirt and old basketball shorts before slipping under his covers.
Pretty good friends, Corey had said. Keith wouldn't be lying if he said he would have like to be more. It had been a month and a half. That was a reasonable stretch of time over which to develop a crush, right? It wasn't like he was trying to pull some "love at first sight" thing.
And besides, it wasn't like in seventh grade where Keith just liked the guy's style. It wasn't even close to his freshman year, when he just went along with it because at least someone was willing to show him affection.
This time, he really liked the guy in question. He was sweet and funny and seemed to genuinely care about him. Maybe one day Keith would have the courage to ask him out. He shook his head at the thought.
He tried to picture himself dressed in something nice, maybe that dark red button-up that he had from three homes ago, some jeans that didn't have any tears. How was he even supposed to ask someone out? Did people really bring flowers or was that just a movie thing? Was he supposed to just ask? Give a card? Write a note?
Keith buried his face in his pillow, trying to force the thoughts out of his mind. Lance was probably straight as a telephone pole. He'd seen plenty of straight guys get all flirty just to get a kick out of it.
He'd just have to wait and see.