“Hey Keith.”

Keith, who is not a twelve year old child, easily ignores Lance’s dramatic flop forward, arms hooked over the back of the couch. He glances out of the corner of his eye and finds Lance already looking at him. He grins when he notices Keith looking. Keith rolls his eyes, not even bothering to try and tamp down his own smile.

“Keith,” Lance says again.

“Mm,” Keith responds.

Lance doesn’t say anything for a moment. Keith can hear his legs kicking. He’s so fucking — he’s so fucking. Ugh. Keith is going to — bite him, or something.

Lance hums, dark eyes tracing over the other people in the room. There’s something Keith can’t name in his expression, something sharp in those deep browns that Keith recognises; the look he gets when he lines up a perfect shot, when he stands grinning in the middle of the training room pointing his broadsword at Keith in challenge, when he leans in close, breaths heavy and teeth clamped lightly on the lobe of his ear. There’s amusement, there; mischief.

“Keith,” Lance says again, face schooled into something prim and serious — but his eyes don’t change. Keith hides a smile. “You need a boyfriend.”

Across the room, Shiro chokes. Pidge’s tablet clatters to the floor. Hunk’s jaw drops. Allura’s hand claps over her mouth. Coran, a notable outlier, watches them with a knowing smile.

Keith, suddenly, gets the game.

Like any of their planned missions, Keith plays along. He schools his face into something casual and unbothered, looking to the side with a shrug.

“Well, there’s this one guy I’m into.”

Some kind of deranged groaning noise eeks its way out of Shiro’s throat. Hunk appears to be praying for Lance’s soul. Keith is, suddenly, more amused than he’s ever been in his life.

“Oh?”

The corner of Lance’s mouth twitches. Keith’s hand matches it, struck with the urge to press his thumb to his cupid’s bow.

“Mhm. He’s cute, but…very dumb.”

A strangled garb of a sentence comes from Pidge. She reaches out like she wants to pinch Lance’s mouth with secondhand mortification. The twitching of Lance’s mouth gets faster.

“No way!” he exclaims, comically surprised look on his face. “What’s his name?”

Coran snorts. Keith looks over at him, unable to hold back his smirk any longer.

“…Lance.”

Lance gasps. So does the rest of the room.

“He’s got the same name as me?” He presses his hand to his chest, a ridiculous caricature, now, mouth dropped exaggeratedly wide. “Nice!”

“For fuck’s sake!” Hunk curses. Shiro wheezes and falls to the floor. He twitches a little. Something must be going around. Coran laughs out loud.

Keith grins, wide and ridiculous and showing his teeth. Lance meets his smile, equally as unrestrained, and this isn’t how they talked about doing this but it’s a thousand times more fun and a million times funnier.

Keith looks away, making eye contact with Allura and winking. She looks at him like he has four heads.

“Yeah,” Keith agrees. “He’s real cute. Curly hair, big brown eyes. One of those pretty boys.”

Lance scoffs. “Bet he’s ditzy, then.”

“Oh, a little. I love him, though. He makes me laugh.”

Lance does some dorky little half flip move, rolling over the back of the couch and landing with his head sprawled on Keith’s lap, grinning up at him.

“Does he?”

Keith hums, reaching down to run his fingers over Lance’s cheekbones, tracing the bump of his nose. “Yep.”

“Ugh. He sounds like the worst. You have garbage taste.”

“I dunno. I really, really love him.” He leans in close. His hair flips into Lance’s face, making his nose wrinkle. Keith laughs. “He makes me happy.”

“What the fuck is going on,” Shiro croaks.

Pidge nods frantically. “We’re in a mirror realm, we gotta be, something’s not —”

“You should date me instead,” Lance says. There’s a question in his eyes; a challenge.

They say, are we ready?

And Keith responds by brushing the hair out of his face, cupping his cheeks, and kissing him.

“About time,” Coran says.

Keith smiles, and kisses him harder.

———

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