“Good morning paladins!” Allura clapped her hands in the empty room, the sound echoing uncomfortably and overly loud for the sleep induced paladins. Pidge made a face, “And why are we up earlier than usual?” She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, hearing Keith call bullshit on the excuse Allura hasn’t even verbalized.
“Well, Coran and I found an old gadget we used to play with. When I say we, I mean Coran supervising me playing with other children.”
“Ah yes, the princess as a child was very energetic. I can still remember her pulling at my pants telling me she’d like to play with the-”
“And the point is?” A grumpy Keith demanded.
“So, what this does is that it exchanges bodies temporarily. It only lasts a few hours, and I think this will help in bonding. All you need to do is sit down, one pair at a time, each person will put one of the two helmets on, I’ll flick this switch, and the machine will use some of your quintessence to change your bodies.”
Hunk audibly whined, “I don’t wanna share my body, that’s weird.” Followed by the whole team saying things related to it.
“Oh shush. With this you’ll know your teammate’s limits of their body. How much they can eat, or how flexible they are. Small things like these can be very important when in battle or coming up with a quick plan. We have to know each other like the palm of our hand.”
“Oh! Also, Pidge you can skip this if you’d like. Incase you’re uncomfortable, we also have an odd number of people too.”
“Gladly, thanks Coran.”
“Coran, my man. That was not cool, why are we supposed to do this but she gets to just skip.” Lance rolled his eyes, plopping to the floor, signaling Allura he’d like to go first and just get this done with. Taking an angry bite out of his granola bar (at least the alien equivalent of one).
“She’s the only girl teammate that fights with us out there, of course she’d be uncomfortable… or it's just Pidge being Pidge and she’s lazy.” Hunk shrugged, leaning on the wall.
“Grow up a little, and stop fucking eating Lance.” Keith snarled, sitting next to Lance. Lance almost choked when he heard that, now he felt bad for eating a granola bar. But he couldn’t help it, his stomach hurt from the constant hunger, unsatisfied with the gallons of water Lance gave it to substitute the greasy caloric food.
“Keith, watch your language.” Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose, leaning on the wall alongside Hunk.
“I’m sorry.” Lance quickly shoved the wrapper in his jacket’s pocket, slamming on the helmet. Keith instantly felt guilty at how raw and genuinely sad Lance sounded, but he ignored it, letting it pool low in his gut before slipping on his own helmet.
Allura flipped the switch, the machine giving a soft whirl before taking some of the boys’ quintessence, Lance closed his eyes and pinched his lips, wringing his fingers nervously. They both flopped to the ground unconscious. Shiro was already checking up on both of them, lightly slapping Lance’s cheek.
“Oh god what happened.”
“Jesus, you gave me a scare.”
“How’s Lance doing?”
“Shit I banged my head.” Lance rubbed his eyes, rubbing his head, shooting up as he felt thick dark locks in between his pale fingers.
“Holy FUCK it worked. Where’s the mirror Allura had Coran bring earlier in the morning?” Hunk pointed behind Lance, which he turned around and gasped at the sight.
Lance wasn’t gonna lie, Keith was attractive, hot as hell. Nice white skin, thick dark hair, absolutely stunning purple eyes. And Lance just wanted to be like him, to be.. to be attractive. That’s the only reason why Lance stuck to his skin care routine.
And it did make him feel better about himself, boosted his confidence on his face and his skin. The next problem was his weight. Lance had always been a skinny kid, lanky, but a healthy weight for his age and height. Although some complications started at 14, where he was hitting puberty and his hormones were an absolute mess.
Lance was diagnosed with depression a couple months after turning 15, followed by anorexia nervosa a couple months later. The farthest iit got was when you could see his ribs slightly when he was standing, when he stretched you could see every single one and count them fair and square.
Although it got that bad in space, the pressure of being a paladin triggered it. But it never got to the point where his skin fit wrong with his body, the thigh gap itself being bigger than one of his thighs.
But he did lose some hair, more than his hair snapping when he brushed it in the shower because of his curls. He did feel light headed, pass out sometimes, and feel completely exhausted. But he could never bring himself to eat more than 2 meals, he’d always chug water, and workout.
Because he wanted to be attractive.
Lance always looked up to Keith, absolutely stunning to the point where he had Lance McClain slobbering all over his feet. How he idolized him and saw how nice his body was. And Lance could now feel it, he could feel how Keith’s body would carry the weight and evenly distribute fat and muscle.
But the best part of all would be the lack of hunger. It didn’t feel like his stomach was trying to digest itself, or nagging him and sending painful twinges of pain every once in a while. He felt free. Quite literally, reborn.
And Lance started crying, not even caring for the small group of people staring at his back. He quickly wiped the tears with the red sleeves of Kei- his jacket.
“Sooo, how will we make this work? Do we call you by your appearances or..?”
“It’s gonna be the same as before.”
“I don’t think a few hours will be enough for me to get accustomed to it.”
“It won’t be necessary, I’ll be at the training room same as usual.”
“Keith, be careful with my body.”
“Same to you pretty boy.” Lance blushed, his skin was now a pale white, and anyone could see the obvious rosy spots in his cheek. Keith’s eyes widened in surprise, but he acted like he didn’t see it.
“I’ll take good care of if alright. A whole skin routine coming right up.” And both boys exited the room, leaving the alteans to do the same thing with Shiro and Hunk.
-------------
Keith noted 3 things down the second he was in Lance’s body.
1. Holy shit did he feel like he could conquer the world, Lance was taller than he saw him like
2. Pain, his stomach hurt like a bitch
3. He felt lighter, skinnier
Keith crossed his arms, leaning into the wall before jumping up in alarm as he felt his fingers feel his ribs slightly, he almost pulled up his shirt before remembering everybody in the room with him. He zoned out for most of the small chit chat, announcing he’ll go train. He walked out the metal doors with Lance alongside him, and Keith decided he’ll take a slight detour to his room.
“Hey, weren’t you going to train?”
“Yeah, I just wanna check something out in my room.” Keith heard Lance audibly gulp, noticing his hands shaking before he crossed arms, keeping them both tucked in and out of view.
“Alright.”
They changed directions, Lance going to what Keith assumed was to his room and Keith to his own. The doors opened with a soft whoosh, locking behind him once he was inside. Keith sighed taking off Lance’s- his?? Jacket, plopping it into the bed.
Now to actually get to business.
Keith headed to his mirror, gulping before raising his shirt he stared in awe at the miles of tan golden skin, a small smile adorning his face, skin over the stomach tight and soft defined abs on it. He shyly brushed his hand on them before recoiling slightly, deciding to go up a little further.
The smile was wiped from his face as he saw ribs poking out unhealthily, he let go of the shirt, feeling the material slide softly down his stomach. A frown set upon his face as he looked at his skinny wrist, Keith felt his thighs before letting the pants pool at his ankles. Nothing he hasn’t seen in the changing rooms.
Strong, toned thighs came into view, not enough fat for Keith to consider healthy or normal, and he noticed that Lance shaved. Fucking years, months, who keeps count, and he just know noticed Lance shaves. Lance is not joking around with his skincare routine.
Because once Keith finished examining Lance’s body he realized how soft and supple his skin was. Sure, he was toned and had a fair amount of muscle, but his skin somehow still felt soft, not hard like rock unlike Shiro’s arms. Alright this is weird, Keith decided. But he kept trying to reassure himself, telling himself Lance probably was examining his dick or something. He did ask if he had an alien dick some time after Keith said he was half galra.
He went to Lance’s room, being greeted by Lance with a facemask and his usual blue altean robe, only this time it hung a little loose by his smaller frame, but a little tight by the chest due to more muscle than usual.
“Yeah?”
“Oh, uhm. Can you give me your armor? I wanna go train, also a change of clothes for when I go to sleep so I won’t have to bother you anymore.”
“Oh yeah of course, come in if you want to. I’ll get the stuff real quick.”
Keith stepped in the room taking in the homely look, ignoring the absolute mess of skin products on Lance’s floor and nightstand.
“Where’d you get all this stuff?”
“Huh? Oooohh, space mall! They were selling earth-like stuff, and it was fairly cheap so you know Loverboy had to take on that chance.”
“I see..” Keith zoned out, staring at the picture of Lance’s extensive family.
“Here you go!” Lance plopped an overly large t-shirt in Keith’s arms accompanied by a small basket with the black skin tight suit and armor pieces. And Keith noticed Lance had washed off the face mask.
“Thank you Lance. I actually wanted to talk to you about something, I noticed that you, well your body-”
“Haha I don’t know what you’re talking about Keith, you’re supposed to be training right?” Lance pushed Keith out of his room, laughing nervously and glancing around quickly.
“Just take care of my body and don’t eat too much dumb stuff ok? Ok, thanks.” And the doors closed right in front of Keith.
---------------
Keith lunged at the bot, swords clanging loudly as he basically growled, overpowering him before slashing it, moving on to the others. He didn’t notice when the doors opened quietly, and didn’t notice Lance walking in, sitting patiently. And once Keith finished he was once again aware of his surroundings.
“Lance? What’re you doing here?”
“I have a question.” Lance stood up, offering Keith the small towel and his water pouch with a small smile.
“Shoot.” Keith quickly opened the pouch, drinking it greedily.
“Do you care about what you eat?”
Keith gave him a strange concerned look. And Lance looked even more anxious then he already was, face paling considerably.
“Like, I mean, anything you’d like me to- to stay away from or-”
“Lance.”
“Y-yeah?”
“C’mon, let's sit down. It's better not to do this standing.” Lance nodded as he felt Keith wrap an arm around him.
“I don’t know how to really say this, or just ask about it. But, Lance, do you- do you have an eating disorder?”
Keith saw how the color left Lance’s face, and he could feel his heart swell as his theory was confirmed solely by the way Lance silently reacted. Lance quickly recoiled backwards, bumping his head on the wall.
“Hey, hey. It's okay, you can be honest with me.”
Keith grabbed Lance’s hand carefully, pulling him towards him before embracing his friend, head tucked safely in his chest. Lance’s body trembled, and Keith felt his chest dampen with what he assumed was tears and snot.
“Yeah, yeah I guess. I’ve always watched over what I eat. It's been there for so long I guess I just never noticed.”
“You’re gonna be fine, everything’s gonna turn out just fine.”