Everything is going to fail, he thinks to himself, unhelpfully. He doesn’t have time to correct himself because he has time for nothing. He barely has time to breathe. People will be coming in less that two hours, and he’s only just begun decorating; at this rate people will arrive and everything will look barren and horrible and boring and of course no one will say it to his face but he can hear how muttered conversations will go on the way home, how everyone will think he’s —

The front doorknob rattles. Lance gasps, a great, heaving breath forcing its way in and out of his lungs, realizing for the first time his hands are trembling too much to hang the tinsel correctly.

“Lance?” calls a voice, familiar and soft and raspy from years of cigarette smoke. “You in the kitchen?”

Lance finds himself frozen in place. His mind has gone completely blank, and he’s become a statue; thoughtless, still, unblinking, unable to process. As if someone has hooked him up to a remote and pressed pause.

Quiet sounds of boots unlacing echo the empty apartment, followed by socked footsteps. Keith appears round the bend of the front hallway, eyebrows knit together in concern, lips pursed.

“…Lance.”

“Everything is falling apart,” Lance blurts. He twitches suddenly, stiff muscles spasming, and the sudden movement rocks the rickety footstool under him. Quick hands flit out to grip his arms before he falls, steadying him on the ground with a soft, “Woah, dude.”

For several moments the only sound is the synched billowing of their breathing. Keith’s hands slide down his biceps to rest on his elbows, squeezing gently. Slowly, dragging through molasses, Lance’s heart begins to slow.

“You’re freaking out,” Keith says. “There is no need to freak out. Take a breather.”

“I don’t have time for any of this,” Lance says, heartbeat picking up again. “I barely finished the last of the food fifteen minutes ago, decorations aren’t out yet, there’s flour all over my clothes and my face is a mess and I haven’t washed my hair —”

Darting out faster than Lance can track, Keith’s hands come to rest on Lance’s cheeks, thumbs brushing under his eyes — rough, warm, startling. Lance stares at him with wide eyes. Keith smiles back, quickly, widely, crookedly; breathtaking. His hair is twisted back neatly, thick and gorgeous, and festive red sparkles line his eyes. Pretty red stones glitter in his ears to match. The gold bands of his thumb rings are cool against Lance’s cheeks, and the chain he got from his mother rests delicately over black knit fabric. The high-cut neckline of his sweater compliments his frame nicely. His jeans are the only pair he has without rips — a pair Lance forced him to get last time they were shopping together.

The air punches right out of Lance’s lungs, and the last of his worries with it. Keith tucks a curl behind his ear, lingering.

“Go shower and get dressed,” he urges, indigo eyes dark and imploring. “Let me help.”

“Okay,” Lance breathes. He doesn’t move.

Keith smiles. He pulls Lance’s face down at the same time that he stands up on his tiptoes, eyes fluttering shut. Their lips press together softly, one, two, three, and then he pulls away.

Lance makes a noise in the back of his throat. His fingers come up to brush the swell of his lip. “What was that for?”

Keith’s eyes flick up at the doorway. Amusement dances across his expression.

Mistletoe, green and white and fragrant, hangs delicately from the door frame.

“Oh,” says Lance, flushing. He remembers, abruptly, the stepladder and falling into Keith’s arms. He becomes hyperaware of the bareness of the rest of the apartment, hardly lived in one month.

“Lance,” Keith says again, noticing the shift in his expression. He slides a hand down and pats his hip. “Go, you walking mess of anxiety. I got this. Get fixed up. Everything will be fine.”

Lance closes his eyes, exhaling shakily, and nods. It’s too late, now. Whether or not things get finished is irrelevant — he can’t very well host a Christmas party in sweatpants and his grossest, most threadbare hoodie. Whatever Keith can manage while he showers will have to be enough.

He rushes off to his room, tearing off his clothes the second the door locks behind him, practically throwing himself under the stream without bothering to wait for it to heat. He rushes through his routine faster than he maybe ever has in his life, toweling off so roughly the first two layers of his skin go with it, and buzzing around his closet like a horde of wasps on a field of decaying grapes.

There is Nothing to wear. Because of course there isn’t. The outfit he’d picked last night suddenly seems inadequate, and most of his other stuff is still boxed up, so he doesn’t even have the time to go digging. Eventually he just throws on what he’d planned and tells himself to get over it.

Forty-five minutes have passed, by the time he steps out of his bedroom, and the state of his apartment makes him gasp.

String lights are hung delicately along the walls and wrapped around his small tree. Ornaments and decorations sit artistically on every surface, as if each placement was deliberated and perfected. Paper snowflakes, even, that Lance had made in a fit of procrastination to avoid work weeks ago, are hung from the ceiling. Keith stands on the same footstool Lance tumbled from earlier, hanging a few more.

“Keith,” Lance chokes out. “Oh my God.”

His friend shoots him a grin. “What, surprised? I told you I’d handle it. Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do.” Lance swallows as the words come out on reflex, heavier than he’d ever usually let them. “I just.” He looks pointedly away from where Keith stretches his arms above him, thin paper held delicately between his thick fingers, sweater raising to show a strip of pale skin. “I appreciate it, is all. Turns out you do have some taste, Mullet.”

“Asshole,” Keith huffs.

But he’s smiling.

They spend the next twenty minutes in comfortable silence, putting up the last of the decorations and plating up the last of the food. Lance doesn’t need to say, I should have asked for help from the beginning. Doesn’t need to say, I’ve missed being close to everyone, being a real adult is hard, finally finishing school and growing into a new phase of adulthood, away from all the people I’ve grown up with, is hard. I had to prove I’m handling it. Doesn’t bother admitting, I couldn’t have done it on my own. Thank you for knowing me enough to come even if I couldn’t ask.

Keith brushes his hand on the small of his back as he walks by. Lance smiles, shy and pleased, and sinks into the comfort of Keith knowing, of Keith knowing him; of the proof of their familiarity despite all the new changes. He sighs, long and silent and heavy, something settling in his bones.

When the doorbell rings, and the rest of his friends start pouring in, he’s ready for them.

———

Hours later his giggly and red-cheeked and a little bit tipsy. Pidge brought bottles of liquor and Allura brought novelty shot glasses, and the rest of that story wrote itself. Lance lost count somewhere between Hunk slicing up the honeyed ham he brought and Shiro busting out the Twister. Cheesy Christmas songs have been looping for hours on Veronica’s CD player, and the air smells of plátanos a sweet-smelling incense Adam pulled out, and Lance is drunk on more than just the booze.

“The place looks great!” shouts Shiro, not particularly because it’s loud in here. He looks pretty red-cheeked, too, glass of wine tucked protectively to his chest. Adam watched him in amusement, arms half-raised in preparation for his clumsiness.

“Keith helped,” Lance admits, just as loud. Their shouted conversation draws teasing glances from the rest of their friends, but for once Lance isn’t self-conscious of the stares on him.

They’re drunk. It’s Christmas. Who cares?

“Speaking of, where is Keith?”

Lance frowns. He blinks some of the dizziness out of his eyes — he truly needs to stop walking around, there was way more rum in that daiquiri than he thought, typical Matt — and scans the crowd of people shoved into his tiny apartment. He would recognize that mullet anywhere and from any angle, and it is not currently among the masses.

“Hm,” he says out loud, and wobbles off.

The first place he checks is his bedroom. It’s locked, but he knows Keith can pick a lock and also has no qualms about picking the lock for Lance’s bedroom, because he was raised by wolves. He’s not in there, though, so Lance pivots to checking the bathroom — occupied by Kinkade and Rizavi who are busy sucking face — and the weird little linen closet tucked in a random alcove, which is empty. Keith is, strangely, nowhere to be found, but he couldn’t’ve just — left, right? He would have said goodbye.

Lance pouts. He hopes he would have, because Lance’s emotions are Compromised right now, okay, and if he gets sad he’s going to get sad for real. And Keith leaving just like that will, indeed, make him sad as shit.

“I need t’clear my head,” he mumbles to himself. He pushes through the tight circle Allura, Pidge, and Veronica have formed — he does not want to know, it might be actual witchcraft knowing them — to make his way to Hunk, tugging on his sleeve to pull his attention away from Shay.

“‘M gonna go get air.”

“Don’t die,” Hunks says. Lance nods, moving to stumble away, but Hunk grabs his sleeve and tugs him back. “No, wait, drink this, buddy. Else you’re going to walk into a wall and we’re going to end up in the ER on Christmas again.”

Lance dutifully chugs the three separate glasses of water Hunk hands him, realizing suddenly that he’s parched. By the end of them and also a banana Hunk has him eat, his head has miraculously stopped spinning.

“Hunk,” he says in total seriousness, “I love you. Deeply. From the bottom of my soul.”

Hunk rolls his eyes fondly and presses a kiss to the top of Lance’s head. “I know, you doofus. Begone.”

Lance snickers and heeds his command. As he closes the apartment door behind him, shutting out the noise with it, he breathes a huge sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized how overwhelmed he’d been getting, as much as he’d been having fun.

He understands, immediately, where Keith has gone. He huffs a smile.

“Goober,” he says around a smile, and jogs to the stairwell.

———

A sobering seven flights later, he pushes open the door to the roof, panting breaths turning to steam in the frosty air.

“You are elusive, you fucker.”

Keith looks over his shoulder, smiling in that quick way he does. “And you’re tipsy.”

“Nuh uh! Hunk made me drink water!”

“Right, and that undoes the six shots you took when Pidge dared you.”

“Obviously.”

Keith laughs, a little, and Lance preens like he’s won the whole lottery. Keith most definitely notices. Lance can’t bring himself to care.

“C’mon, let’s sit somewhere not so close to the edge. Knowing your shit luck you’ll go careening over the edge and I’ll have to jump after your dumb ass.”

Ignoring how that makes his heart pound, Lance shoots back, “That wouldn’t solve anything, stupid, we’d just both be dead.”

“A very Merry Christmas to us both, then.”

Keith finally finds a spot on the ground that’s mostly clear of snow and only a little wet. He plops himself down. Lance grimaces, looking down at his expensive and shimmery black slacks before sitting down beside him.

“You good?” Lance asks after a moment.

Keith lets out a breath. “Yeah, it was just getting to be a lot in there.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re basically a cat in human form. Surprised you didn’t bite anyone on your way out.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Make me.”

Keith looks over, eyebrows raised. A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth.

“That was very transparent, you know.”

Lance shrugs, not bothering to hide his own smile.

“Hey, you’re the one who kissed me. Not my fault I’m thinking about it.”

“You think I kissed you to shut you up?”

“A little.”

Keith holds his gaze, challenging. Lance crosses his eyes. Keith snorts, punching him in the shoulder.

Heh. Success.

“I didn’t kiss you to shut you up, you goober. I kissed you because I wanted to.”

“…Did you maybe want to again?”

Now it’s Keith’s turn for his smile to turn shy, for a slight flush to rise on his cheeks. Lance’s own cheeks hurt from grinning.

“No mistletoe up here. Not sure I have an excuse this time.”

“Aha, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Lance digs in his pockets until he finds the little sprig, plucked from when he and Hunk were caught under the doorway sometime after shot number five. He holds it up between them.

Keith’s smile grows. “You really are a genuine actual goober.”

“You seem to like it,” Lance says cheekily.

“It’s fine, I guess. If I had to live with it.”

“Mhm.” Keith’s hand has snaked its way around Lance’s neck. Lance’s own hands are planted firmly on the ground between them, keeping him balanced as he leans closer, closer, closer. “Is that the case.”

“Yeah,” Keith breathes, and then he doesn’t bother with anything else, closing the distance between them. “Merry Christmas.”

Lance sighs into his mouth, tilting his head as their mouths move, as Keith’s long eyelashes tickle his cheek. Merry Christmas, indeed.

———

Constantly.

He always has. Even at the Garrison, Lance can remember him just staring. Endlessly. Like he was looking right through you, or like he was staring straight into your soul. Sometimes both at once. He’d never spoken one word to Lance before they went to space, but Lance remembers that stare with complete clarity. (Probably because he was on the other end of it more than he’s willing to admit, with all his attempts to get Keith’s attention.)

The staring doesn’t stop when they get to space. It doesn’t stop when they accept their roles as teammates, when Keith finally starts participating in their (totally justified!) rivalry, when they begrudgingly decide that maybe they can peel back on the arguing, a little. When they realise how well they work together. When they start working together on purpose, and some of those stares come with a small smile, a quirk of the lips, really, that brightens indigo eyes and shows the tiniest peek of crooked incisors. (When tragedy strikes, and the stare is blank. After tragedy, when the stare only gets blanker, and they don’t talk about what happens next but when Lance comes into his room after days of no response, sits with him quietly, brushes the tangles out of his hair and reminds him there are still reasons for him to get up. When they really become a team, just the two of them, red and black and the leader and his right hand.)

When the stares only gets softer and softer, and when Lance is the subject of them more and more frequently.

“What?” Lance snaps one day, frustrated and embarrassed and tired of being the only one that Keith looks at so closely. “What are you even looking at? You’re always staring at me, man, like you’re trying to fuckin’ read my soul, or something. It’s weird.”

Lance feels bad as soon as he says it. It’s defensive and mean and he tenses, preparing for Keith’s upcoming scowl, the argument.

But it doesn’t come.

Instead Keith smiles. Not one of his quick ones, a barely-there quirk of the lips, but a real grin, wide enough to make his eyes squint and face brighten. The fondness bleeds from him; Lance couldn’t miss it if he was the densest person alive.

Slowly, like he’s given Lance time to back away, he reaches foreword and tucks Lance’s hair behind his ears, even though it’s too short for that and doesn’t do anything, even though it’s clearly all about the gesture, an excuse to touch Lance gently.

Lance’s breath stutters on his inhale. Keith doesn’t pull away, resting his hand on the side of Lance’s cheek, not quite cupping it but not quite not cupping it, either.

“God, I’m so lucky,” Keith murmurs, almost too quiet for Lance to hear. (But no. Not impossible. Keith could’ve said it at one decibel and Lance would have strained himself to injury trying to hear it.)

“What?” Lance asks hoarsely, well aware his face is flaming.

Keith only smiles wider. “How could I not stare at you?” he asks, like Lance isn’t losing his whole mind.

Lance clears his throat. Then again, and again. And a fourth and fifth time for good measure because what the fuck.

“Keith, what — what’s going on —”

“I am so lucky,” Keith repeats, firmer this time. He has the same stupid look on his face, like he cannot help but he besotted with Lance, somehow. He opens his mouth again and Lance knows that if he has to hear whatever mushy thing Keith has cooked up then he is going to melt into a puddle of flaming goo. Lance shoots out and slaps his hand over Keith’s mouth.

“Stop speaking,” he orders, face flaming. “Explain what the hell has gotten into you.”

“Those are opposite instructions,” Keith says, muffled, because he is a jerk. His eyes are sparkling in amusement.

“I am going to whoop your ass, Kogane.”

“Fine, fine.” He pulls Lance’s hand off his face and then links it in his, holding them in his lap. He rubs his thumb over Lance’s knuckles as he speaks. “You remember the mall food court? Two days ago?”

Lance tilts his head. “Yeah?” He doesn’t know what the hell that has to do with anything. They had a supply run a couple days ago, loading up on cleaning mods and food supplies and million other things, and he and Keith had stopped for lunch at the food court slash restaurant.

“You, uh, you remember that waiter?”

Lance frowns, trying to picture a waiter. All he can really remember is how Keith had laughed so hard at one of his jokes that soda had spewed out of his nose. He feels bad, but he can’t picture their waiter at all.

“No?”

Keith scowls. It’s such a stark difference from his sappy look before that it’s startling. “That weirdo, stuck up shithead who wouldn’t leave you alone. He called you pretty boy three separate times.”

Vaguely, Lance remembers some light flirting as the waiter set down the cheque. He can’t even picture the guy’s face.

“I mean, not really. I get called pretty boy a lot.”

He hadn’t meant it as a joke, but it makes Keith laugh. He looks relieved, like he’s been worrying about Lance and the waiter.

Like he’d been jealous.

The sappy look is back on his face. “Just made me think, is all.”

Lance’s throat is dry again. The air is charged, and Keith is staring again, eyes tracing every inch of Lance’s face.

Something is going to change tonight. He can feel it.

“Think about what?”

He’s leaned closer without realising. Keith smiles, noticing, and his hand comes back up to Lance’s cheek. This time he cups it blatantly, running the edge of a calloused thumb over Lance’s cheekbones.

“How lucky I am,” he murmurs, repeating his sentiment from earlier, “that we’ve got such a pretty boy on our team. On my team.”

Lance face flames. His first instinct is to deny it, vehemently, to ask Keith what the hell his deal is. Something ugly rears in his head, something hurt — how dare Keith make fun of him like that. How dare he mess with Lance about something he’s sensitive about.

But there’s not an ounce of meanness on Keith’s face. He’s looking at Lance in a way that can only be reverent, like Lance is the only person on the castle, the only person ever.

He remembers all of a sudden that Keith is the most honest person he knows. Keith, who can’t lie if he tries, who’s emotions are written all over his face all the time, who’s easy to rile up because he wears his heart on his sleeve, who puts every ounce of effort he has into everything he does. Who fights this war even though it’s hard for him because he loves everyone so much.

Lance blinks, and is more surprised than he should be to find his face wet. Keith’s face creases a little in concern, and he gently wipes the tears from Lance’s cheek.

“What’s wrong?”

Lance laughs wetly, more incredulous than anything.

“Mullet, if you don’t kiss me right this fucking second —”

Keith laughs. He doesn’t hesitate a second more, leaning in and pressing his lips to Lance’s, gently at first, then like he can’t get enough.

His eyes are closed, as he kisses.

“Surprise,” Keith says simply. He grins when Lance huffs indignantly, right on schedule.

“Why? Just tell me! I need to prepare! What if I’m underdressed? What if —”

“I promise you’re not underdressed.”

“That’s what you think, but you’d wear jeans to a ball!”

Keith laughs, bumping his shoulders lightly with Lance’s. “I’ve never seen anyone dress up to go wear we’re going. Besides, we’ve only got one outfit. It’s not like you’ve got much else to change in to.”

Lance opens his mouth to argue, but closes it, tilting his head. “Okay, that’s fair,” he concedes. “I still think you should tell me.”

“I think you like to be surprised.”

“…Fuck you.”

Keith laughs, and Lance shoves him, but he’s smiling.

“Smug bastard.”

The tease and bicker all the way to Black, not even pausing to make their way up the ramp. Keith feels Black roll her hypothetical eyes.

“I still think I should be informed,” Lance says once Keith gets settled.

“I think you should stop asking.”

“…Make me.”

Keith inhales sharply, looking up at Lance from his position in the pilot’s chair. Lance is smirking at him, brown eyes narrowed and dangerous. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and what he’s trying to get.

“Well, Mullet?” Lance asks quietly. Smugly. “You want me to shut up? Make me.”

Keith flicks his gaze down to Lance’s lips. They look soft, a little shiny. A little glossy, really. He wonders where the hell Lance got lip gloss in space. He wants to lick it off his lips so badly the need almost bowls him over. God, fuck, Keith wants to press Lance to the wall right here and now and fucking ravish him, devour him, bite his neck and nip his ears and just fucking press his lips to every part of his deliciously smooth skin —

Keith shakes himself. He is trying to be a gentleman, here. He’s trying to romance Lance. That’s the least he deserves; a night to relax and laugh and have fun. Lance deserves a plush bed and low-light candles and flower petals and tender, tender time, not something desperate and rushed in a cockpit.

(He also, frankly, deserves to be fucked so hard that the only thing he knows how to scream is Keith’s name. He’s a brat, and he knows exactly what he’s doing when he crawls over Keith’s lap during family movie night “to get the snacks, sorry, don’t mind me.” But that will come, all in good time. Keith wants to enchant Lance, dammit, and by God he will.)

Keith resolutely turns back to the dashboard. “No,” he says loudly. Loud enough to give himself away, judging on Lance’s muffled giggles. “Stop that. I need to focus, Lance, Jesus.”

Keith doesn’t need to face Lance to know he’s grinning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fearless Leader.”

Keith shakes his head, although now he’s grinning too. Lance only ever calls him that when he thinks he’s won an argument.

Lance is usually right.

Lance calls him that a lot.

“We’re about to land,” Keith says, changing the subject. The charged atmosphere changes immediately, and Lance surges forward excitedly to the window, taking everything in with wide eyes.

It’s a large, sprawling set of buildings set on a boardwalk on a touristy beach planet, which Keith knew Lance would love. The cheesy flashing neon lights are clearly visible, lighting up Lance’s face in red and blue. Keith can’t help the besotted sigh that spills from his lips. Lance is just — he’s breathtaking, in every situation, in every setting. Always.

Lance flashes a grin at him when he feels him staring.

“You gonna check me out all night, or are we gonna go do something fun?”

“Both, if you’ll let me.”

Lance freezes, a little. His ears burn.

“Stop trying to fluster me,” he scolds.

Keith shrugs, helpless. “I wasn’t trying to.”

Lance flaps a hand at him, squawking a little. “That’s worse!”

Keith huffs a laugh, stepping towards Lance and tangling their hands together.

“That’s just how I feel,” he says, pressing a fleeting kiss to his warm cheek. He feels more than sees Lance’s eyes roll, but Lance pulls him closer anyway.

“Alright, alright, take me to our mysterious location now, Romeo.”

Keith hums, tugging him out of Black’s door and towards the biggest building.

“Sure thing, Juliet.”

———