Chapter 3
(Lance’s POV)
Keith.
The name of the man that had been on Lance’s mind since they just a few hours ago.
His looks were unfair. Angular features framed by dark bangs that only made his cheeks look higher and his jawline look sharper; pouty lips and almond-shaped eyes that looked dark and intriguing; eyes that made Lance get goosebumps whenever they were focused on him for a long period of time.
There was barely a height difference between them, if anything, Lance thought he was taller. But making sure of that would imply getting closer to Keith and, in that case, Lance couldn’t promise his hands would behave. From their first meeting, Lance already knew Keith was on the stronger and defined-muscles side, but seeing him without a t-shirt on when he came back from covering Allura’s shift threw the tan boy for a loop.
Lance had always had a thing for tattoos, so that just got added to the list of ‘hot things about Keith’. Not to mention the pierced nipples that would have had Lance’s knees going weak if he hadn’t been sitting down. In brief, Lance immediately fell for the guy, which didn’t go unnoticed by Allura considering the knowing looks she kept giving Lance.
Talking about Allura…
“I can’t believe you kissed him” commented Lance while looking at his reflection in the full-length mirror in his hotel room.
He and Allura, who was currently getting her makeup done in Lance’s bathroom, were getting ready for a friend’s birthday party. Lance chose a pair of black skinny jeans and a button-down shirt with light orange vertical stripes. He undid the first two buttons, so it looked more casual, and tucked the shirt into his jeans.
"I was trying to prove a point" said Allura from the bathroom.
"Which was…"
"You’d be shocked" she giggled and peaked her head into the bedroom. "He's totally your type"
"Yeah I noticed, thank you very much" Lance ran a hand through his hair, messing his curls a little so they weren't too stiff. "He's like all the things I like in a guy put together" he sighed “. A present send from above”
Allura leaned onto the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked at Lance, a smirk on her face. "He also has a tongue piercing, by the way. Did you notice?"
"Oh, fuck me" groaned Lance and turned to look at his friend "How am I supposed to think about anything else now?"
Allura shrugged and giggled. "Can I tell you something else or are you going to melt into a puddle?"
Lance sat on the edge of his bed and raised his eyebrows. "Shoot"
"He was totally checking you out" she said before disappearing back into the bathroom.
"When?!" he jumped back to his feet and followed her, standing behind her while she leaned towards the bathroom mirror to blend the purple eyeshadow on her lids.
"What do you mean when?" she giggled. "All the time. But especially when you came back from the pool"
Did Keith really find him attractive too? Lance decided he needed to pay more attention to that.
"Are you sure you're not reading too much into this?" Lance wasn't used to subtle interactions. Yeah, he flirted all the time, but he made it painfully obvious. Even if he was good at reading people, knowing if someone was uncomfortable with just a glance, Allura had always been better at reading people's intentions.
"Don't trust my instinct if you don't want to" she shrugged.
"What if he's straight?"
Allura placed down her blending brush and turned around, resting her lower back against the sink as she looked at Lance. "When have you seen a straight dude rocking a mullet?"
"That's a good point"
"A really good point" Allura smiled. "How does it look?" she asked while closing her eyes for a second so Lance could see the eyeshadow look she had been working on.
"I'm loving the color. Are you gonna add winged eyeliner?"
"I was thinking about lashes. Should I do both?"
"Hell yeah" Lance smiled and did a little turn in front of her to show his outfit. "Do you approve?"
"Yep" she nodded. "I'd add a golden chain"
Lance left the bathroom so he could find some accessories to go with his outfit. While he was still looking through one of his drawers, Allura left the bathroom and sat on his bed while looking at her phone.
"Oh by the way, I got his Instagram handle if you're interested"
Lance left everything he was doing to sat down next to her and peak at her phone. On the screen there was the profile of the tattoo studio Keith worked at, with photos and some videos of the different designs he and his coworkers produced.
They scrolled down and managed to find some of Keith's original work, his own account tagged in the photos. Lance took Allura's phone and visited the profile, which was a professional account in which he only posted his work and some sketches. The boy was really talented, no one could question it.
Allura started following him right away and while she finished getting ready, Lance scrolled through Keith's profile. He found a picture of Keith and his coworkers hugging each other and smiling brightly at the camera. 'We're back from Christmas's break!' read the caption. In that exact moment, Lance decided he really liked Keith's smile. Perhaps he should try something to see it live.
"Are you ready or do you need more time to drool all over my phone?" teased Allura from where she stood in front of Lance.
"I'm ready" he said shaking his head in amusement. He got up from the bed and grabbed his phone and wallet before walking out of the bedroom with Allura. They were about to leave the hall when Lance stopped walking and looked in the direction of the restaurant and dining area. "Shouldn't we say goodbye?"
Allura smirked at him. "Do you want to say goodbye, or do you want to see Keith?" she teased.
"I don't know what I can't want both" he giggled ". I also want him to see me dressed with some effort put into it" Together they walked into the dining room, greeting some of the guests on their way there.
They spotted Katie, Matt and the rest sitting on a table near the buffet area but before they could start walking towards them, a voice stopped them:
"Oh woah, look at you two ready to enjoy your night off" a chuckle followed that sweet voice, immediately causing Allura to tense up next to Lance.
They turned around to see Romelle smiling at them. The way Allura held onto Lance's arm as if her life depended on it didn't go unnoticed by the tan boy.
"Yeah" he chuckled. "We're going to a birthday party"
"Oh that sounds fun! Loving the outfit, by the way" she added in Allura's direction.
"T-Thank you" stammered Allura. The truth was her outfit was stunning. Dark purple crop top tied in at her back and white high waisted jeans that matched the silver strands of hair cascading over her shoulders and back. She was radiant.
"What about the makeup, though?" asked Lance with a smirk. "I helped choosing the colors" he said proudly.
Romelle took a step closer so she could take a better look. Lance had to hold back chuckled when he noticed how Allura started blushing. "It looks awesome! You two make a great team helping each other to get ready"
"We could help you sometime if you need to" offered Lance, his lips meeting in a tight line when Allura's hold got even tighter, nails digging into his skin as a way to beg him to shut up.
"Sure, I'd love that" Romelle nodded with a smile. "Well, I don't want to keep you guys here. Enjoy your night" she gently squeezed Allura's shoulder before walking away. Once they were alone again, Lance let out the laughter he had been holding back.
Lance placed the back of his hand on Allura's forehead. "Hmn… Nope, you're fine. With how red you look I thought you were running a fever"
Allura hit his arm and frowned. "Shut up"
"It's adorable how badly you gay-panic whenever she's near. When she took a step closer I thought you'd faint" laughed Lance.
"I thought I'd faint" she pouted. "Can we say goodbye and leave already? I need a drink"
"Sure thing, princess"
They finally arrived at the table their friends were at. "Enjoy your dinner" said Lance smiling, ruffling Katie's hair a little when he got to her side.
"Thank you" answered Shiro happily.
"Are you going somewhere?" asked Matt after noticing the way Lance and Allura were dressed.
"We are heading to a party" answered her. "Remember Rolo?" Allura earned a nod from Matt and Katie. "It's his birthday, he invited us over to his place"
Matt raised both eyebrows, giving them a funny look. "Don't have too much fun" he giggled and his sister joined him.
Lance rolled his eyes. He already knew what his friends were thinking about. Allura and him had known Rolo and his girlfriend Nyma for a while and they all partied together multiple times. One of those times they might have gotten a little high and some questionable choices were made… like Lance getting a dick piercing and a hand poke tattoo on one of his butt cheeks saying 'bite here' in a cute font.
"For my own good and my bank account's sake, we won't" chuckled Lance.
"Yeah, I don't want you whining for another two weeks, thank you" sighed Allura, remembering how much Lance complained during the healing process.
Lance noticed how lost Keith, Shiro and Adam looked with their conversation and shook his head at them. "You don't want to know, believe me" he offered a soft smile and his heart almost skipped a beat when Keith smiled back.
"We aren't that old, Lance" said Shiro with a fond smile. "We've also done stupid things while partying"
Adam nodded in agreement. "One time, Takashi was so drunk he started dancing on top of a table" the anecdote made Shiro's face flush.
"That's sweet" said Allura while wrapping an arm around Lance's waist. "But that's the kind of stuff this guy over here does while being sober" she giggled.
Lance couldn't argue with that, so he just shrugged. "I'm a little reckless when I drink, that's all" His phone buzzed in his pocket and after fishing it out Lance saw a text from Rolo asking if they were already on their way. "Duty is calling"
"Have fun and be safe" said Shiro sweetly.
"Will do!" Allura nodded and intertwined her arm with Lance's. "Enjoy your night" she said and waved at them before they walked away.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
(Keith’s POV)
Keith had always struggled to fall asleep in rooms that weren’t his own. Something about being in his own space helped him feel safe and relax enough to fall asleep. That uneasy feeling that kept him awake was barely there whenever he had someone there with him, but after how excited he acted in front of everyone after getting a hotel room for himself, he didn’t want to make a fool of himself by asking one of his friends for company. He wasn’t a little kid anymore. He could deal with this.
He spent a couple hours just checking his phone while lying in bed, answering some DMs asking about when was he taking appointments again at the studio. He also stumbled upon Allura’s profile and followed her back from his personal account, hoping she wouldn’t find it weird.
Keith found himself smiling at how cute and tidy her feed looked. She had a lot of pictures that looked professionally taken as well as multiple selfies with what Keith assumed were friends and family. He was drawn to the ones featuring Lance.
Pictures at the beach, at restaurants, doing silly poses in the middle of the street and even vacation pictures. Lance was a constant presence in Allura’s Instagram, reflecting how close the two of them were. Without thinking too much about it, Keith kept scrolling down. Eventually he reached pictures from last summer, when Allura and Lance were actually dating. It would had been hard to tell, just by the number of pictures Allura kept posting with him, that they broke up. The only difference was that they stopped kissing while taking selfies.
Keith felt his chest warming up with affection just by seeing how wholesome was the friendship those two had.
After stalking the shit out of Allura’s old pictures, he scrolled back up to the more recent ones. He stopped at a really cool picture of Allura wearing roller-skates and pretending to step on the camera, the photo taken almost from ground level.
‘This has to be my favorite photoshoot so far! Swipe right to see the rest❤️’ read the caption. And so Keith did.
There were more pictures of Allura skating around, the jacket that hung off her shoulders giving off the sensation of movement and speed. Other pictures focused exclusively on her makeup, bright colors and glitter decorating her face as she smiled at the camera.
The last picture was definitely Keith’s favorite: the behind the scenes of that first picture taken from a low angle. Lance was star-fishing on the ground while holding a professional camera right next to his face. Thinking about the situation made Keith chuckle as he scrolled down a little to read the comments left on the post.
@sharpshooter: you can step on my face again anytime you want✨
That single comment just screamed ‘Lance’ to him, so Keith being the weak man he was, pressed the username to visit his profile.
And wow.
If he thought the pictures in Allura’s profile were beautiful and professional, Lance’s were out of this world. Pictures of beautiful landscapes, animals, people from all ages and places as well as some intricated self-portraits filled Lance’s feed. He was really good at it and the way he took care of the smallest details showed this was one of his passions.
So bad I found out about his hobby by stalking his best friend.
Keith made the mental note to ask Lance about what he liked to do in his free time as soon as he had the chance. He scrolled some more, finding some pictures of Lance with the Holt’s and smiling sweetly at how happy they all looked.
Picture after picture, comment after comment, Keith started feeling tired and finally he was able to get some sleep. Without any responsibilities waiting for him the next day, he could peacefully sleep in. But it didn’t happen. He woke up around 7:30, after approximately five hours of sleep, and he wasn’t able to drift off again; so he decided to get up and take a quick shower before starting the day.
He got dressed with short jeans that ended right above his knee and a black band tee with matching black trainers. He gathered his hair in a ponytail so the humidity in the air wouldn’t mess too much with it. After the help of some bobby pins to keep the shorter strands of hair in place, he was ready to leave his room. Without anywhere else to go, Keith decided to visit the hotel’s restaurant to have breakfast and wait for his friends to wake up. He was waiting in line at the buffet area when someone touched his shoulder.
“Good morning” said Allura before yawning.
“Morning” he poured himself a cup of black coffee and handed Allura a cup, assuming she would need one too with how tired she looked. It wasn’t terrible but compared to all the energy she had the previous day the change was quite notorious.
“Thank you so much” she sighed and took a sip of her cup right after filling it.
“How was the party?” asked Keith as the followed the line towards the baked goods and toasted slices of bread.
“Oh it was great” the girl smiled softly and grabbed a tray to start filling it with the pastries in front of them. It looked like too much food for only one person, but Keith didn’t comment on it. “We had a lot of fun but we—” she yawned “Sorry. We’re exhausted”.
“I can tell” Keith giggled softly. “But hey, it’s a reasonable price to pay if you had a good time” he grabbed one of the puff pastries in front of him and placed it on his own tray. “How is Lance holding up?”
“He passed out in the taxi and I had to drag him to bed. So I bet he is holding up better than I am” she rolled her eyes though a fond smile grew on her face.
“He’s lucky to have you” Allura looked surprised by the statement, so Keith decided to elaborate. “I mean… It’s obvious how much you care for each other. It’s kind of cute” he scratched the back of his neck, feeling a little awkward saying that stuff to someone he just met.
“I guess you’re right” she smiled sweetly. “He’s great, you’d have time to see it by yourself” Allura winked at him before walking away from the line once she had everything she needed. Not knowing what to do, Keith followed her and together they sat at a table near the center of the room.Keith saw Allura check her phone and smile at the screen. “Is this you?” she asked, making the device face Keith to show him the notification saying @kxgane started following her on Instagram.
“Yeah. It’s my personal account, I hope you don’t mi—”
He was interrupted by a groan behind him. He turned around in time to see Lance dragging his feet over the tiled floor until he flopped down on the chair next to Keith and Allura.
“Good morning to you too, sleeping beauty” teased Allura before taking a sip of her coffee. Lance let his head fall onto the table in front of him in response. “Still thinking that playing drinking games with Rolo was a good idea?”
Lance lifted his head only to roll his eyes at her. “It was a good idea. Having work today is what’s killing me” he complained and leaned back properly onto his chair.
Lance was wearing the same clothes than Allura, a blue polo tucked in some khaki bermuda pants, so he assumed it was the hotel’s uniform for their workers. His undereyes looked heavy and his curls were plastered to his scalp, not even half as fluffy as they were the previous day. He didn’t look bad, just tired. Or that was Keith’s biased brain thought.
“Try listening to me next time” sighed Allura while pushing her tray closer to Lance. His blue eyes light up at the sight of the baked goods presented to him.
“God, I love you” he groaned and immediately stuffed his mouth with a croissant.
“Just Allura is fine” she winked at him and stood up while he flipped her off. “Coffee?”
Lance nodded eagerly, cheeks full, and the girl went back to the buffet line to get her friend a cup; leaving the boys alone. After swallowing, Lance looked at the boy sitting next to him.
“I look more put together on a daily basis. I swear”
Keith smiled and nodded. “I’ll have to believe you. If I were you I’d probably still be in bed”
“Ugh I wish. But I need to look after kids” Lance pouted and Keith felt the urge to kiss that expression out of his beautiful face.
“I didn’t take you for a married guy”
Lance frowned. Keith thought his joke attempt had been way too bad and was about to clarify he was kidding when Lance laughed out loud. “Sorry, I’m still waking up” he giggled. “But no, no marriage, no kids of my own. Today I have a pottery workshop with some of the kids that stay here while their parents are out doing stuff”
“So you’re a babysitter?”
“Babysitter, total clown, little girls’ crush… you can call it however you want”
Keith nodded slowly, bringing his cup up to his lips to take another sip. This was his chance.
You can do it. Ask him.
“Uh… is pottery one of your hobbies?”
“Oh hell no” Lance laughed, running a hand through his hair. “The key is being one lesson ahead of the kids. I can make really cool ashtrays, though. It’s one of my many talents”
Almost there. Second try.
“What are the others?”
Lance gave him a funny look, just like the ones he had been getting from Allura. He didn’t like it. It fell as if they knew something Keith ignored. “I like roller-skating” said Lance after a moment. Okay, not what Keith was waiting for but at least it was useful information for future reference. “I usually do it with Allura so we can take cool pictures and videos of each other”
Yes!
“Sounds really cool. Are you into photography?”
Lance’s eyes got as bright as when he was presented food to take care of his hungover. “I am really into it” he chuckled. “I spend pretty much all of my free time stuck to a camera or editing photos. I can show you some of my pictures some time if you’re interested”
“Sure!” Okay, tone it down. “Whenever you are free without pottery duties to attend” he chuckled awkwardly. Keith relaxed a little when Lance smiled at him.
“I’d love to. Plus, you still gotta tell me about your job at the tattoo parlor. It’s mad interesting” Lance glanced at the time on his phone and sighed. “Yay! Nothing better than screaming kids to help my body metabolize alcohol faster” he whined and got up after dragging his chair backwards. “When Allura comes back, tell her I’m took her coffee since apparently she was too busy going to Colombia to brew mine, jeez”
Keith laughed softly as he watched the tan boy walk away, sipping from what once was Allura’s cup as he left the towards the hall. He was too busy looking at him walk away and sighing like an idiot to notice: 1) Lance already knew stuff about him, 2)Allura had moved to a different table by herself instead of going to grab Lance’s coffee and she had been staring at them the whole time and 3) Lance’s ass looked incredibly tight in those pants.
Who are we trying to fool? Of course Keith noticed that third thing.