It was another two days before the Queen finally contacted them. It was mid-afternoon and Keith hadn't been on the bridge, so by the time he got there he'd missed the beginning of her and Allura's conversation. Whatever it was it didn't seem to have gone well, because Keith could already see the line of tension in Allura's shoulders as she glared at the holographic screen where Queen Shirun's 10x magnified face scowled right back down at her.

"I'm just saying we don't need you," Shirun's deep voice sounded thinner over the connection, but it didn't detract from the power of her intimidation. "We've been doing this for ten thousand years and we have a system and we have plans."

"And I'm saying we could help you," Allura was gritting out in return. "I don't know if you're aware, but Voltron is a weapon so powerful Zarkon is directing almost all of his attention on preventing us from using it on him! If we just strategize I'm sure we could coordinate -"

"Strategize what, a plan to use you as bait to distract one man while all the rest of the Galra in the universe keep doing their jobs? I don't care what kind of super weapon you have, it's still just one sword, and one you don't even know how to wield at that. Maybe if the real paladins had been around to keep swinging that sword for ten thousand years straight it might have made a difference, but that's not the reality. While you had the luxury of napping through the last ten millennia the rest of us have all been fighting, and as far as I'm concerned you've caused me nothing but trouble."

Allura's face glowed with the kind of rage Keith had only seen her point at Zarkon himself, fists shaking at her sides. "It was hardly a nap, and if you were doing so well on your own then why are there more Galra than there have ever been?! Voltron can take out entire Galra battleships in a single stroke of its sword and you think of us as nothing more than a useless toy to be stepped over?"

"And if you're so gorram good at it, why did you just waste an entire month trying to contact the R.A. to join us? You don't have any plans or any clue what's been going on around you in the rest of the universe, and blindly swinging around that weapon of yours is going to get someone killed. I don't care what the rest of UAGRA wants or has to do with you. I don't want you coming anywhere near Elpis again, do you understand me? After your little escapade, the Galra are watching me so hard I won't even be able to leave my own palace for the next decafeeb, and by then I'll be dead and my shitty daughter will be in charge anyway! I don't care how badly Zarkon wants that thing, I don't see any conceivable way you could possibly use it to rid the entire universe of Galra unless you can be in about a million places at once!"

"Don't you think I already know how helpless I am?!"

Allura's shout seemed to surprise everyone, including herself. And as she recollected herself, suddenly something Keith hadn't seen before was obvious - she and Shirun were exactly the same. Born into the middle of a hopeless war they have no chance of winning, but carrying too much responsibility to have any choice but to fight. To keep fighting a useless endless war they knew they couldn't really do anything about, but have to keep trying anyway. Because it's the only way there will ever be any hope. "Look," she began again, more calmly. "I am very aware of our limitations, and that is why I came to join a greater union. I do not know about what the universe is anymore under Galra control for so long, but I cannot simply lay down and go into hiding like my father wished of us. That is why I wished to get into contact with UAGRA - to learn what it is I can do to help, so that we know where this one sword can be pointed to actually do some good."

Shirun stared at contemplatively for a moment, begrudging respect on her face. "It doesn't matter anyway," she shrugged after a few long seconds of heavy silence. "Like I said, the Galra have all eyes on me for right now, so my hands are tied. I'm not the person you'll be in contact with to get information from now on anyway, I'm just calling to give you their contact information personally since when I transfer you over to them it'll be a one-way line. UAGRA has everything they need to get in touch with you, and there are three other heads besides me you can eventually talk to if anyone comes up with an idea."

Allura blinked in surprised, shoulders losing their tension. "Yes, but… We really can't be expected to leave Concordia in its current state, can we? We made things more difficult for you, and the Galra infestation…"

Shirun cut her off with a tired roll of her eyes. "Kill Zarkon and we'll talk, but for now just leave my own people to me. Anyway, the reason it took so long to get in contact is because we could only just now get a hold of our agent, which was vital since he has more information on the Galra than pretty much anyone outside of our actual Galran defectors. He's the number one person you'll be in contact with to coordinate attacks, since he's the only one with enough understanding of their routes and tactics."

"If he's so hard to contact, will we be able to get a hold of him when we need to?"

"Not my problem," Shirun dismissed. "All I know is that I'm handing you off to the deep cover mole we have working for the Galra, so he's usually with them." She nodded towards Allura. "Til we meet again, Your Highness."

"Until then, Your Majesty," Allura curtseyed back respectively, but Keith hardly saw or heard it, something in the queen's word setting off a trigger in his brain. Usually with the Galra, huh. Wait… it couldn't be… He was just being paranoid, right? There was no way this deep cover agent who planted the flag in the Galran prison system could possibly be…

Keith didn't notice his own scowl in favor of his brain going into overdrive, reeling too fast in too many directions with memories flashing through his mind like disjointed puzzle pieces in a whirlwind. A flashing sharp-toothed grin, a red shell cracking. Yellow-green gas diffusing in swirls, and a startled voice yelling at him to watch out and there way just no fucking way -

The screen in front of them flashed off and on again, Queen Shirun gone and replaced with a travesty that had Keith's hand fisting reflexively around his knife. "Hello~" Veret Everett greeted with a cheerful shark-toothed smile and a wiggle of his fingers, and before he knew he was going to do it Keith's arm was moving and he was throwing his unsheathed knife at the screen like it could penetrate time and space to stab Veret in the face instead of clanging uselessly off the bridge window behind the holo-projection that it had instead sailed harmlessly through.

Granted at this same moment Shiro could be heard muttering, "Oh what the sweet fuck," Keith would later upon reflection be embarrassed that it was instead his action that had gained the attention of the entire room.

But as for right now he was far too taken with his rage to even consider that, pointing at the grey-faced figure on the screen and shouting, "This motherfucker STABBED me!"

"You tried to stab me first! " Veret defended back hotly, one thin silver eye twitching. "Some bitch comes flying out of nowhere and tries to put a knife in me of course I'm gonna fight back, I'm not gonna let some little psycho slit my throat because he MIGHT be of use to the R.A.!" His voice was raised higher than Keith had ever heard it, but instead of making him sound any kind of intimidating Veret just sounded like a teenager spazzing out.

"Oh, and I was supposed to NOT try and kill you?!"

"You were SUPPOSED to stay in the fracking boiler room, you useless twunt! Do you even have any idea what you've put me through?! All the work I go to, ALL the things I do for you, and the only thing you had to do was stay in the gorram boiler room! You were in a closet instead of a real prison cell, the RA were on their way to get you, and I even fucking left you your weapons in the NEXT ROOM OVER! I could not have made this ANY EASIER for you, if you would have just held! Fugging! Still! But no, instead you break out, try to kill me, and let's not forget set off a BOMB in an underground base! I'm still disappointed both of you didn't DIE!"

"I'm still disappointed I didn't get to kill you myself! " Keith hissed back. "We were attacked by Galra, drugged, and woke up chained to a pole, who the fuck would NOT try to escape that?! At what point, motherfucker, at WHAT POINT was I supposed to figure out that I wasn't about to be culled by the Galra at any moment?"

"The point where you woke up alive and uninjured because I saved your dumb boyfriend from being SHOT IN THE FACE! Which, YOU'RE WELCOME for the drugs then, huh?! HUH?!"

"Oh, yeah, thank you for the KNIFE in my shoulder! Thank you so much for the laser bullet that went straight through my torso!"

"Hey, I tried to STOP you from getting shot, you ungrateful little -" Veret cut himself off with snarl that he muted into a snort, squeezing his eyes closed and rubbing at his forehead for a moment until his two left eyes stopped violently twitching. He released his breath slowly, swiping his hand off of his forehead like he was brushing away the anger with the gesture, and when he opened his eyes he was once again smiling and declaring with forced cheer that he managed to work into outright smugness, "You know what? It doesn't matter. Obviously, you're just too low-class to be able to appreciate my kindness. I have been nothing but helpful to you, barring a brief loss of temper, and I will continue to be nothing but helpful, because I am just that generous and heroic of a person."

"HEROIC?!" Keith did not screech because Lance was wrong and Keith's voice did not and could not go that high, "GENEROUS?!"

Shiro sighed somewhere off to Keith's left, and he glanced over in time to see him pinching the bridge of his nose. "Alright, we're not gonna get anywhere like this." He looked up towards Hunk, who must have arrived in the room sometime while Keith was distracted. "Hunk, do you mind?"

"Sure, I got this," Hunk agreed easily, approaching Keith with a firm hand landing on his shoulder and gently turning Keith around to push him towards the door. "Come on buddy, let's go find something for you to punch."

"Hoho!" Veret grinned cockily. "Yes, do send him off for a nap while we adults take care of business~"

Unwilling to let Veret have the last word but equally unwilling to let Veret see him be physically picked up and carried off by Hunk which would in fact happen if he resisted right now, Keith could tossed out behind him a fierce, "Don't think this is over! I'll see you again and I WILL kill you!"

"Looking forward to it!"

Hunk pushed at his back more forcefully, steering Keith out of the room before he could do his own reputation anymore damage.

Keith let himself be led into the hallway, seething now in silence as his mind reeled. Fuck fuck fucking mother FUCK, this could not be reality, this could not be his life . How as the universe so unfair as to make every single step, every single action Keith took on Elpis the EXACT wrong thing? Drugged and stabbed and shot and exploded by someone who was supposed to be on the same side as him, what kind of sick fucking joke was fate playing on him here?! Like everything hadn't already been futile enough, and now it was even his own fault he and Lance had even been in any danger at ALL?! No. No way, this couldn't be real, Veret could NOT be part of the RA, it was too fucking much! He couldn't take this. His head was gonna spin off his body and fly across the room to splatter his brains across the wall, that's how fast his mind was reeling.

"Oh, thank god," Hunk was heard mumbling behind him, before he brightening his voice to shout out a cheerful greeting of, "Hey, Lance! You should come here and take your boyfriend off my hands before he stabs something!"

"I can't stab anything," Keith fumed, "I threw my knife across the room. "

"Oh, you're resourceful I'm sure you'd find something, " Hunk assured him with a jovial pat on the back before he turned to bail. "I leave this to you Lance, good luck! We believe in you!"

"Why are you saying that like you're sending me off to my death?" was the concerned mumble that could be heard from Lance before he turned bemused eyes to Keith. "Uh, you okay sweetie?"

"Don't call me that," Keith snapped insincerely. "I'm a gay man, not a god damned six-year-old girl."

Lance held up his hands defensively. "Sorry, uh, no disrespect meant here, good sir. Just trying to figure out what's got your panties all bunched up."

Fuck. Nope. Not doing this, Keith was not going to tell Lance about how much of a fucking useless idiot he was and who may or may not be a traitor because then he'd have to apologize for getting Lance's legs blown up unnecessarily by breaking them out when they were already going to be rescued, and you know what Keith was NOT prepared to deal with right now? All of that. Any of this. Nope. Fuck it. "Nothing! Ask someone else! Shut the fuck up! I'm going to the training deck!"

One thin eyebrow raised, Lance stepped out of Keith's way to follow behind him as he stormed off down the hallway again. Not looking particularly offended by Keith's outburst, he just easily responded, "Sure sure, I'll join you," like Keith telling him to shut up and fuck off was not concerning to him in the least bit.

It wasn't his casualness that gave Keith pause, though. Well, it was, but not his apparent dismissal of Keith's anger as non-problematic. No, what stopped him was the easy way Lance announced that he'd join Keith in the training deck, like going back into combat after what happened was just that natural, even when the group training for the entire week had been very intentionally teamwork oriented and Lance had, as of so far… not picked up a weapon since he'd killed six men.

Keith turned around slowly, mind finally finding focus again enough to repeat dumbly, "Uh. Join me? Are you… gonna be alright going back into battle again?"

"Sure sure," Lance dismissed with nonchalance that was visibly forced. "Not like I can avoid it if the Galra attack anyway, right? Might as well get back into the swing of things; see if my mad reflexes have improved any since the last time we faced off the old Gladiator together."

Well, Keith was hardly going to be the person to discourage this, even worried as he was. It would be fine; Lance had been blown up practically their first day in space and had never shown any fear in battle despite it, how much more of a difference could it make to have… you know. Felt a man die under your hands? Keith did not know, because there was something legitimately miswired in his brain, whereas Lance was fairly normal. You know, in a purely psychological sense.

"Well," he supposed, "better now versus a robot than later on versus real men, right?"

Lance let a hint of his dubiousness peek out through the cracks of his smile. "Heh, no kidding."

In the end, it was true that Lance could handle it. Keith set the training program one level lower than he normally did, but that was less about underestimating Lance than it was because Keith didn't want a legitimate challenge right now as much as something he could beat the shit out of, and together… well, they'd always had pretty good teamwork, to be honest. Their fighting styles really were compatible with each other, and Keith was keeping Lance and where he was in mind a lot more successfully than he was usually prone to do. He was still working on the whole 'having back-up' idea, okay? Even if Lance's hands shook just the tiniest bit when they stepped in there in the end, they did better than when they'd tried to two-on-one the Gladiator a month ago, and Keith was allowed to be proud of both of them.

It did make him wonder what he'd missed though, and just how many hours Lance had spent crouched alone on the training deck or random rooftops practicing his aim. Well… they were back to trying to spend all of their time together instead of avoiding each other. From then on, Keith would be around to know this shit. For now, he could at least try and take a slow whack at this whole 'Lance has self-esteem issues Keith has not been helping with' situation, and his only idea so far was 'increase the sincere compliments?'

"You really are getting to be amazing at this," Keith panted as they stretched out one more time as a post-workout cool down. "I wasn't afraid I was gonna be shot in the back like, the entire time."

Lance laughed, hard enough that combined with his body's exhaustion he had to double over and prop himself up by planting his hands on his own knees to keep from falling over. "You are just never gonna figure out how not to be awkward, are you?" Which, what had Keith even said? "Thank god you're cute."

Keith shifted from one foot to the other, and now he was the one who was self-conscious. "I - it was- I was just trying to… You're a really good shot?"

Lance laughed again, patting Keith on the back with one hard slap. "Adorable," he repeated decisively. "I love how hard you try." Well what was he supposed to be doing, not trying? Ugh. Lance was so weird.

"Anyway, thanks, I needed this too," Lance's smile seemed sincere, if tired. "I'll admit I was a little nervous about that nasty case of the shakes I came down with for a minute. I didn't really want my first time back against the Gladiator to be with everyone else around to see me panicking." He shrugged. "But actually, as long as we only face drones instead of real life soldiers for a while, it turns out I should be fine." Lance assured Keith, looking him in the eye with something that seemed just a little bit like pleading. "I don't want anyone worrying about whether or not I can take the shot when it counts, I'm not… scarred for life or anything."

That was, they both knew, a lie. Well, not the flaking out at a critical moment thing, that Keith had faith wasn't gonna happen. But there was no way in hell what happened in those sewers wasn't going to leave behind some emotional baggage for both of them. But that was just… Something they would have to get used to. Something they'd need to adapt to. This was war, and nightmares were the new normal for every one of them.

That said, Keith could see why Lance wanted to play this off.

"I know," Keith promised, instead of reminding him that neither one of them would ever actually be okay again. "I have faith in you, remember?"

Lance sputtered and flushed red, covering his face with his hand and crying "D-dude, you gotta stop saying shit like that!"

It was Keith's turn to laugh.

"And that's pretty much where we left off," Shiro finished in his strongest Captain Voice. "Allura and I agreed there was no point in trying to make a decision about this with just the two of us. So as it stands, we can give Veret access into our network to send us all the information he gets on the Galra as he acquires it, but only if we actually agree to working together. The R.A. is basically a complete unknown to us, and trying to cooperate with them could honestly result in us being sold out to Zarkon very easily. All things told, it's a matter of whether or not we decide to trust Veret for now, because he's our only way in to talk with anyone from UAGRA. But he's also, you know, " he paused. "Not someone I'd be inclined to hand my wallet to, much less trust with our lives."

There was a general murmur of dissatisfaction among the other paladins. Hunk was the first to offer an opinion.

"So… that's it? We just did a month of work to get in contact with someone and now that we have we're just… talking about it?"

Pidge's raised eyebrow was sharp, "What, you just trust that guy that easily? If he can send us information, no matter how secure our system is, there's still a way for the other side to get in and steal information from us, even outright tamper with the castle itself! If he can plant a flag in the Galra computer system when that has an unpassable DNA lock that's supposed to keep out anyone who isn't their damned species, he can definitely put an invisible tracker on us. Could tell anyone where we are and what we're doing at any time!"

"Well, yeah," Hunk conceded, "but how bad could that be? Zarkon obviously already knows where we are all the time anyway, and we never even figured out why."

"How fun does a repeat of the possessed castle adventure sound to you? It could be bad."

"Could be!" Hunk shrugged. "Everything in life is made of 'could be's, man."

Allura cut in with a tone that left no room for argument. "What might go wrong isn't even the issue at hand," she said. "The fact is, this can all be boiled down to one simple question. We have exactly one person whom we can contact to enlist UAGRA's help on anything, so how likely is it that that one line in will use our cooperation against us? If we reject this offer, there is no other resistance we can turn to for support. We would have to continue building allies one planet at a time."

The room was tense and uncomfortable, and Shiro sighed before anyone else could offer a complaint.

"Well, if the question is whether or not to trust Veret, this isn't that hard." He turned, to Keith's surprise, straight to him. "Keith. You've spent more time with him than any one of us; if anyone's in a place to judge his character it's you."

"Uh," Keith was startled enough to take a step backwards. "Wait, seriously? Um, you did hear what I shouted as I was dragged from the room, right? Are you really sure I'm the right person to ask here?"

To his astonishment, the entire room looked like they generally agreed with Shiro on this one, even though no one should ever trust Keith's opinion on anything, much less people he's actively vowed to kill. But Shiro just shrugged a bit, offering, "Yeah, but you've calmed down now. Whether or not you still hate him isn't a factor; I trust your judgement Keith. If you say it's not worth the risk we'll walk away."

He frantically looked around the room, waiting for someone to say that was ridiculous. Instead Coran was twirling his moustache and cheerfully agreeing.

"No better way to see a man's true face than on the battlefield, eh? You said you fought him, and surely that must have given you a fair stock of who he really is."

Oh, jesus christ, they were actually all leaving this on Keith. That was… fuck, he couldn't just make a snap decision based on his instincts on this, he had to actually consider the situation seriously, no matter how much it made his brain hurt to even think about Veret Everett.

Keith had been there to hear Queen Shirun and Allura's conversation. If there was any way for them to ever set foot on Elpis again, it would be through the RA and the RA only. Which meant that if they turned this down because Veret was too big of a risk… they'd never be able to do anything for the Geruda. That thought alone made it worth the gamble, in Keith's opinion. Hunk was right about the Galra finding them all the time anyway and Keith would tear entire solar systems apart in the name of getting the Galra out of Concordia. Still, it wasn't just Keith's life at stake here…

Okay, let's think about this from the beginning. The first time they met, Veret made a direct effort to annoy every single one of them. Without any evidence that they were connected to Voltron at the time, Keith could safely assume this was just how he acted with everyone he met. Veret went out of his way to be repulsive, which… was actually kind of perfect for a double agent, wasn't it? Since it was hardly possible to make himself completely free of suspicion without just being a full-blooded Galra, the natural impulse was obvious. Make himself SO suspicious, so clearly self-serving and two-faced, that everyone assumed they knew what he was thinking - that he was only out for himself. Keith had certainly fallen for it, hadn't he? Who the hell would suspect that this douchebag was working to help the revolution, of all things?

What else did Keith know? The obvious - warning Keith that he was about to be shot was an impulse Veret hadn't planned, which meant he genuinely didn't mean for Keith to die. Or… that could have been part of his plan, too. All of this could be. They'd only had two paladins captured before, but if they let Keith and Lance escape and lead Veret right to the castle and inside their computer system to wreak whatever havoc he pleased, like Pidge said, then they were already falling into the trap even as they spoke.

No… Keith's paranoia said that made sense, but there was something off about it. That video call just now was the most genuine emotion Keith had seen out of Veret so far and it had been anger. Not even at being attacked, but for Keith leaving the boiler room in the first place and screwing up his plan…

There. That was the key. Okay, he was onto something now - what else did Keith know here?

The two fights they had, one where Veret was annoyed he had to fight at all and the other pissed off at Keith for appearing out of nowhere with a comb knife and fucking everything up. The same conclusion could be taken: his plans weren't going a hundred percent the way he wanted. Then there was singling Keith out as being the easiest to read on the first day and getting him alone to pry him for information over dinner… Except no. Keith had been able to read Veret that day before either one of them had even spoken: that wasn't an interrogation. It was a game.

Keith didn't know if he was angry or disappointed, but with that he knew he'd nailed it.

"It's probably true that he has no desire to help the Galra," he offered slowly, "but that's not the same as being trustworthy. That guy definitely thinks of this whole war as a game. He's not out to help anyone or make himself a profit or anything easy like that, he…" Keith's eyes narrowed, but he looked straight at Shiro, more certain with every word he spoke. "He's playing a game to prove how clever he is. That guy's just in this to feel superior and laugh at being able to trick everyone around him."

No one looked particularly pleased by his assessment, but it was Lance who groaned loudly and rolled his eyes so hard his shoulders slumped and entire head tipped backwards to stare at the ceiling like he was beseeching the gods for strength.

"UGGGHHHH! Great, so now we have to keep dealing with this guy for like, months and years?! I was so excited at the idea of never seeing him again, you have no idea!"

Fortunately, Keith was not the only one who seemed to be confused by Lance's leap in logic. He felt like they hadn't actually come to a conclusion yet, how did we get there…?

"Uh, Lance," it was Hunk who voiced the question. "I feel like him thinking this is all a game makes him… you know, not good to trust? You can give up on a game halfway, no one dies for a game they're playing. He could just decide he's playing for the Galra after all the second things get dicey, right?"

"Well," Pidge came in with a hesitant point. "I don't know about that. I mean, I know when I play a video game I always set the difficulty to Hard, right? Trying to overthrow a ten thousand year old empire sounds like Chaos Mode to me, and no real gamer would just suddenly quit because it didn't look like they could win. You either turn that loss around or make sure you go out with all the assholes on the other team cursing your name."

"Exactly," Lance drawled, annoyed. "Keith said it himself - that guy's out to prove how smart he is. People like that are all the same - proud to the point of narcissism. Anyone smug enough to join the losing side of a war just to show off how brilliant he is is definitely proud enough to die to prove he's outsmarted a planetfull of Galra. Probably has a whole bunch of proof saved of all the things he's ever done to fuck someone over just for someone to find and see how great he is. "

That seemed like a really valid assessment, actually. Huh… Lance had taken like, no time at all to figure out Veret once Keith had said that, had he? Was he really that much better at reading people than Keith? Or… Hm…

Shiro was speaking again, his we're-done-talking voice in full effect.

"Well, that sounds like it settled it. We'll open up the line so Veret can send us all the information on the Galra he's acquired, unless someone still objects."

...Or was it because he was also that same proud type of person…

"Even if he does betray us, we might as least use him to get into contact with someone more important in UAGRA before that point." Allura of course, was more decisive on accident than any of them ever were on purpose. "Pidge, do as he asks. I want to know everything about the Galra Everett knows before we make our next move."

Keith was once again distracted, more disjointed pieces falling into place. The… same type of person? No way. There were a few similarities on the surface, but that wasn't the same as being the same type of person as Veret. That was almost offensive to even suggest, wasn't it? Veret was shallow and manipulative, probably thought of himself as some tragic hero fighting against oppression when he was really just bored and an asshole. Lance was obviously completely different on every level.

Except... If that was true, what the hell was still bothering Keith so much? What was it about Veret that reminded Keith of Lance except it made Keith hate him instead of being attracted… It wasn't just that overachieving pride and overt flirtiness, there was something else, something like, like being two sides of the same coin or something, like the annoying person Lance pretend to be when he first met anyone Veret actually WAS, all the time, deep down in his ugly little black heart.

Like… No, Keith knew what it was. They really WERE the same type of person, but also not at all. It was as if there was someone who could have turned out to be Lance, except you took out all of the love and warmth and kindness he had ever experienced in his entire life to leave only that insecure need to prove himself to the universe. Two people cut from the same print of fabric only for one of them to turn out into someone amazing and complex and caring and the other into… a douchebag fucksquid.

Keith did not like the feeling that settled over him at that realization. Even with that settled, didn't the fact that he was dating someone that similar to Veret still mean…

"Lance!" Keith called, realizing that everyone had finished the conversation while he was freaking out a little bit there and nearly all of them had already left the room. "Lance, say something sweet," he demanded.

Lance turned around to raise a quizzical eyebrow at Keith, fumbling, "Uh, sweet?" He paused, considering and obviously still confused. "Uh, Pidge's birthday is in a couple weeks and me and Hunk are trying to figure out how to make a cake for her, is that - or wait that's kind of literal, you probably didn't mean food sweet, huh?"

Yup. Still a genuinely good person, no reason to feel like he was dating Veret at all whatsoever. Keith felt his shoulders drop in relief. "No," he assured Lance. "That's good, I got what I needed."

Lance looked even more puzzled. "Uh… glad to help?"

It had been long enough that the greenhouse was really taking off, and Hunk had enlisted Keith to help. Keith had tried to protest under the argument that he couldn't even keep a cactus alive, but Hunk had assured him that these were alien plants and, to be honest, Hunk didn't know anything about gardening either. And hell, as long as he wasn't the only person flailing around uselessly that was good enough for Keith. Can't screw up what no one is getting right in the first place, after all.

"I already labeled all of these, you just gotta plant the seeds and then put the right tags in the dirt next the row you just planted." Hunk explained, with an absent sweep of his hand towards the open soil. "I'm gonna look at what's already started growing and pretty much randomly guess at their health. Tell me if you see anything..." he narrowed his eyes. "You know. Weird."

"Roger that," Keith agreed, deciding it was best not to worry about how likely this 'weird' was. Hunk had made his job easy for him - all the seeds he'd been buying or collecting in Concordia he had sealed into individual little jars, the labels for each he was supposed to just stick straight into the ground considering that they were written on little sheets of stiff plastic rattling around with the seeds, instead of paper or just writing straight on the jars.

Honestly, the planting part had never been the problem anyway. Plants wanted to grow, getting them to start wasn't hard. It was just keeping them alive after that that was the tricky part, as far as Keith was concerned. But just sticking seeds in the ground was kind of relaxing. Didn't even really have to think about what he was doing.

Keith's mind wandered in the same general direction it always did lately, not that he noticed. He zoned out, thinking about Lance, because things were finally back to normal between them and Keith was back at that stupid stage where just thinking about his boyfriend gave him butterflies in his stomach because Keith was lame and Lance's smile was made of distilled pop music and pure sunshine. He was also thinking about what Shiro had said the other day. Did he really believe that the two of them getting together had been inevitable? It didn't really make sense. The two of them could barely stand each other when they first got to space, and they'd only started dating by accident. What would have even happened if Lance hadn't phrased it like that when he asked Keith to hang out with him? How long would it have taken Keith to figure out how kind and warm and patient he could be if he hadn't gotten curious and started actively seeking out Lance's good points?

He wondered… did Shiro not even mean them getting close was inevitable, just that they'd end up having sex? Because Keith had to admit they did seem to be um… quite compatible in that regard, but that didn't mean anything would have ever happened from a little mutual attraction. It definitely didn't mean either one of them would ever develop any real feelings for the other, much less the weirdly intense relationship they'd ended up falling into.

Inevitability… Keith didn't know about that. He couldn't even understand why Lance wanted to date him right now in this reality, much less one where Keith didn't let him touch his butt all the time. Why the hell did Lance like him, anyway? Not that Keith doubted Lance's very vocal affections, but… Seriously. Why, though? He was such a fucking trainwreck.

Lance praised him for being a badass paladin and for always working so hard, but one of those things everyone else was catching up on and the other could easily translate to 'workaholic with no time for fun' if Lance wasn't in a good mood. He talked like he wanted to take care of Keith and thought all of his social awkwardness was adorable, but that seemed to Keith like the sort of thing the novelty could wear off of soon, and then what would be left? They barely even had anything in common and the only reason it was so easy to spend this much time together was because the war wasn't going well enough for everyone to be busy all the time, so what about when that changed? Would they even find the time or a reason to spend time with each other? The closest thing they had to a hobby in common was their habit of challenging each other to stupid dares to get overly competitive about, and as much fun as it was, it didn't seem like the sort of thing a relationship could be sustained on.

God, he was already doing it again. Keith just couldn't let himself be happy for five minutes without finding ten thousand reasons it could blow up in his face, could he? If his relationship was actually going well of course he had to make up future problems to worry about instead. Stupid paranoid anxiety, he was going to need to get better at fighting off his own negativity. Just telling himself to stop being so pessimistic was obviously not enough to make his brain stop doing dumb things, and much as he tried not to he really was worried about the future. Before he realized he was going to do it, Keith was opening his mouth to speak to Hunk, whom he of course knew to be his boyfriend's best friend and therefore the person to stupidly ask:

"Hey, uh… Does Lance like. Ever talk about me?"

Hunk craned his head around to look at Keith slowly, eyebrows shot all the way up to his hairline and jaw open like he could not believe that question had just come out of Keith's mouth. As Keith was about to ask what the fuck the problem was, Hunk burst out in peals of laughter so raucous he barely breathed through it, doubled over and clutching at his shaking belly.

"Does he -" he wheezed out between laughs, "Does Lance ever talk about you?!" Hunk bellowed, eyes watering as he descended into another fit of laughter.

"That's, uh… probably a yes then," Keith decided as he watched his friend roll on the ground.

"That," Hunk chuckled, finally sitting upright again as his laughter subsided. "Is more like, there has never been a point in my and Lance's entire friendship when he has NOT talked about you, dude."

Keith flushed. "That… Okay I know for a fact you two have been friends longer than you've known me, so."

"Oh, you think I am exaggerating, but I am not, sir." Hunk assured him, serious even through his humor. "Me and Lance met in the Garrison, remember? And guess who he also met year one?"

Keith was vaguely aware that he and Lance had been classmates, but his general impression of the other boy had pretty much been 'moron who expects life to go his way just because he's good looking,' which was uh… obviously not favorable enough to have learned his name for.

"We didn't really meet though, I don't think? I mean both of us were there, but that's not the same as like, interacting."

Hunk's laugh this time reminded Keith of Santa Claus. "Yeah, that did not stop him from talking about you. At any point. Ever. Seriously."

"...I dropped out after like, a year and a half."

"Yeah," Hunk agreed. "And a year after that Lance was looking at our class grades and spoke the words, 'Hasta la later, Keith,' which I remember because I spent a full half a minute trying to figure out what that meant."

Huh. Well, Lance uh… did seem to have that weird inferiority complex he'd projected onto Keith, but he had really thought that that had happened when they'd gotten to space…

"Lance has always talked about you, and I can tell you alllll about alllll the things he's said the entire time." Hunk reiterated, amusement turning into recalled exasperation. "First it was all, 'Damn did you see that Keith guy in the simulator today? That was amazing!' which went to 'Oh my god what a jerk how are his grades always at the top of the class but he never speaks to anyone like he's better than all of us or something who does he think he is,' except then when you got kicked out then he switched to 'I can't believe that idiot Iverson expelled someone with that much talent,' which went back down to 'Why are they still comparing my grades to Keith when he's been gone for six months?'"

Keith winced at that. "Eugh. The teachers didn't really do that, did they?"

Hunk's shoulders lifted in a 'don't know what to tell you' sort of gesture. "It did work to motivate him, to be fair." Well that was gross, but it at least explained why Lance hadn't just forgotten about him outright like Keith had for him. "Buuut it does not explain why he was able to correctly identify the back of your head from 600 yards away when you blew your way into the Garrison Hospital to rescue Shiro. That's really on on Lance, right there."

Keith blinked. "Wait, he what now? Is THAT why you guys showed up out of nowhere? Because I gotta be honest, it barely even made sense for me to be there with no proof Shiro had really come back; you guys breaking in too kind of confused the shit out of me."

"Because Lance ran off after you is why, mainly," Hunk confirmed. "ANYWAY, yeah, so that was a thing, the whole school-driven 'I'll be better than he ever was' stage went all the way up until that point where we hit 'let's follow someone who's pretty much a stranger into a government facility because I'm crazy' thing that got us all here in the first place, at which point he immediately went to 'Oh my god, I can't believe I'm stuck in space with goddamned Keith of all people,' which is… like, you followed him, dude. And then once again he did not stop, and started back up with the 'I swear to god he's not better than me' stuff."

Hunk paused, but only to take in a deep preparatory breath of air. "And then this is where things get fun, because here we get 'Shiro says I have to stop fighting with Keith so much since we're stuck as a team like this,' and 'how am I supposed to get along with someone with absolutely no personality whatsoever,'" Okay, that one stung a little. "Which went on to turn around into 'You know I'm starting to think he's less douchey than he is awkward,' which is the point where he starts to, you know, do a complete 180 to go on to a whooollle mess of 'So I was hanging out with Keith today and he said the funniest thing,' and 'That reminds me of something me and Keith did,' which naturally devolved into 'Have you ever noticed how huge his eyes are,' and 'I made Keith laugh again today and it was the best sound I ever heard.'"

Keith was sure he was blushing now. "Uhm… Oh," he offered intelligently. Must have been around the time they started dating, from the sound of it.

Hunk did not appear fazed in the least bit, even sort of rolling his eyes. "Oh, yes. And you can see how that turned into all the 'Oh my god Keith is the cutest thing I've ever seen,' and 'He's so amazing at everything I can't believe he lets me make out with his face,' which barring a couple of brief interludes of 'Oh god I'm dumb he'll never forgive me's pretty much brings us to where we are today," Hunk finished unenthusiastically. "So yes, Keith, Lance talks about you. It's more a question of if you wanna know what he said two years ago or two hours ago, because there has been... a LOT in between."

Geez, when Hunk put it all together like that it kind of sounded like Lance was... obsessed with him or something. That… should probably make him feel more creeped out than warm and gooey inside, but. You know, Keith was a freak and all.

"Two hours," was what he said instead. "What did he have to say two hours ago, then?"

Hunk blinked at Keith like he had only just remembered he was actually talking to a real person and not complaining into the void. Then he snorted a laugh that turned into an easy smile, shaking his head.

"You two are just as useless as each other," he mused with obvious entertainment. "Well today's rant was all about how he's worried because he can tell you're still mad from talking to Veret because your nose hasn't stopped twitching all day, to quote, 'like Bugs Bunny on a cocaine burn out.'"

"W-what?" Keith reeled back a bit, "What about my nose?"

"It twitches when you're mad, bro," Hunk said apologetically, one eyebrow raised in a manner that easily communicated 'I'm not gonna acknowledge it out loud but you need to know you're adorable.' "When he said it I thought he meant your nostrils flared, but then I watched for it and you do like, a full on Bewitched wiggle. I've never seen anything like it."

Keith felt his nose move, and became instantly self-conscious enough to want to slap a hand over his face to cover it. God damn it, how long had that been a thing?! "Great. Awesome, thanks." he said stiffly.

"Just telling it like it is, my friend," Hunk said, easy like a hammock strung up on the beach. "Hope whatever nonsense you were worried about has been cleared up now."

"Pretty much," Keith promised. "Sounds like we're both half-insane, so me and Lance will, uh… probably be fine." Either way this conversation certainly made that 'inevitability' idea sound a lot more plausible.

"I fucking hope so, because I would really rather put up with the 'Keith is perfect and sexy' forever than 'Oh my god can you believe that bitch had the nerve not to look at me today' kind of stuff my life would devolve into if you guys broke up for real."

Keith paused to think about that one. ...Yup, sounded like the kind of thing that Lance would say after getting dumped. Mainly because not looking at Lance for three days straight was the kind of thing Keith was likely to do if he were dumped. "God, we'd be a disaster as exes, huh?"

"Yes," Hunk agreed wholeheartedly. "But you two are kind of disasters as people? So, it's really to be expected."

Keith couldn't have argued with that one if he'd wanted to, and they, uh… pretty much went back to gardening after that. Just as Keith was digging into a jar of seeds, only to notice they were labeled 'paopu,' Hunk was mumbling over his shoulder: "Now I swear these were green before…"

Keith glanced over at the plants Hunk was inspecting, spindly and pale. "Not enough sunlight," he assessed. "That's what my fern looked like before it died, you should transplant those to an area with more light."

Hunk turned around to look at Keith. Keith looked back at Hunk. And then, like they were playing hot potato and Keith had just lost, Hunk tossed the gardening spade to Keith and rocketed to his feet to declare, "You officially know more than me, you're in charge of the greenhouse now!"

"W-what?!" Keith panicked, juggling the tool in his own hands like it would burn him if he held it too long. "How did that happen?! I just said I killed everything I ever owned!"

"Which means you know what not to do!" Hunk said like it was the answer to the universe. "And besides, between trying to reverse engineer the Lions and figure out how to make food out of the kitchen, I've got a lot of shit to do, where you kind of wander in circles all day like a bored housecat. It makes perfect sense!"

Keith realized with horror that he had absolutely no argument to counter that. "But- I don't… I'm not doing this by myself, damn it!"

"And I'll still help out! Sometimes!" Hunk assured, still obviously retreating.

God damn it, did Keith just get ditched with the entirety of greenhouse responsibilities?! How the f- he was out of Texas, he was supposed to be done farming forever! He looked around at the greenhouse, a little helplessly. Well, it was just gardening, right? Keith could totally deal with plants.

Fine. So he was head gardener now. As long as he never had to milk a damned cow again.

It was late into the night, and Keith couldn't sleep. Not because anything was wrong, in fact it was probably the opposite. When he was in a good place was naturally the perfect time for his brain to throw a nightmare about being lost in the cold endless void of empty space a him. You know, shake things up and make sure he wasn't going soft. Thanks, brain. You don't suck at all.

So, whatever. Keith got out of bed, wrapped himself in something warm for the cold sweat he'd woken up in, and wandered off out of his room to clear his mind. He'd ended up under one of the castle's windows, which were less actual windows than just projections of whatever was going on directly outside of eight feet of Altean metal wall. The effect was the same either way; it was about atmosphere more than anything anyway.

Keith thought he had probably sat under this particular window before, and it wasn't until after he'd already planted himself on a thick windowsill-like ledge that he had mind to wonder if that might be the same window he and Lance had first kissed under. If it wasn't this one, there were only about three others it could have been instead, so it wasn't really hard to imagine it might be. Either way, whether he'd been here before or not, it was a relaxing enough place to plant himself with the baliset.

Yes, the baliset. As in the space banjo which they had not sold, but probably because no one had known it was even FOR sale, what with Keith constantly plucking at it in his boredom during every one of his shifts manning the shop. He had grown rather fond of the ridiculous thing as a result. The reason it didn't get left behind when they all abandoned their shop in Concordia was because it had already been in Keith's closet at the time instead, because it was his now. Keith owned and played the space banjo. That's how ridiculous his life was.

Ignoring the fact that Keith's ridiculous cowboy lifestyle was and remained entirely his own fault, he was still feeling pretty relaxed. He'd been teaching himself one of the few songs he knew the words to and had pretty much figured out the chords and rhythm, enough so that figuring out what note he needed to play next and how was second nature, instead of anything he needed to think about. Not that he was actually any good or didn't miss notes or even that the baliset version sounded a whole lot like the original accompaniment, but. Not like he was trying to entertain an audience anyway, he just liked having something to do with his hands when he had to sit still.

"...Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land and boil the sea; you can't take the sky from me… "

"Oh, COME on!" A voice startled Keith so thoroughly that he suddenly found himself brandishing the banjo like a baseball bat out of instinct, an absurd twang echoing loudly through the small room when his fingers slapped the strings against the banjo's neck with his grip. When his head whipped around, it was of course only Lance, leaning casually against the doorframe and looking like he'd been there for a while. "You figured out that stupid banjo and now you can even sing, too? That just isn't even fair anymore, how are you always good at everything?"

Keith instantly relaxed, lowering the baliset out of attack stance and setting it to the side because he was now too embarrassed to still be holding it. "I'm... really not. I think you're just biased in my favor because of the liking me thing. I promise in real life you're uh… way better at singing than me."

Lance's eyebrows rose like he hadn't expected that, wandering into the room properly to stand nearer to where Keith was still sitting. "Me? I don't even know why you'd think that, I mostly sing to annoy people."

Keith could only chuckle at that, raising a pointed eyebrow at Lance with an earnest, "Lance, you sang to me for about twenty seconds before I decided I needed to suck your dick."

His face flushed red before his jaw had even dropped open, and Lance looked away to awkwardly scratch at his chin with an embarrassed, "Uhhh, that is… certainly another way to look at those events, I guess!"

Keith just laughed again, and Lance finally joined him sitting, both of them with their backs to the long window.

"So," Lance started up conversationally after a long enough time had passed. "Is that coat just yours now, or is there still hope I might get it back someday?" He asked, reaching out the few inches between them to tug at the long green sleeve of his own jacket around Keith's wrist.

Oops, Keith had totally forgotten about that. "You can have it back," he said instead of in any way indicating he was embarrassed to be caught like this. "I just had to wash it and figured I'd tease you by making sure it smelled like me before I returned it." This was not true. Keith had not thought that far ahead, but he would rather turn the flirting back on Lance than come anywhere near admitting he was wearing it to comfort himself.

"Oh come on," Lance laughed. "That's just being mean, I already think about you too much as it is!"

"Well, good, that's obviously the idea," Keith grinned, and Lance laughed and bumped his shoulder against Keith's to playfully jostle him to the side.

After they'd both stopped grinning but before they quite had time to fall into another silence, Keith asked, "So, what are you doing out of bed this late, anyway? You have a nightmare, too?"

Lance's smile didn't even pretend not to be exhausted.

"Heh, yeah I guess I'm not hard to read, huh." He sighed towards the ceiling, admitting with a rueful twist to the corner of his mouth, "This time the war dreams and the homesickness dreams combined, and so I got to murder my whole family! That's fun, I might never sleep again or whatever, that's cool."

Keith sat upright to look at Lance. "Jesus, that's way worse than mine. Are you okay?"

Lance shrugged, one long lift of his shoulders before he let them drop like lead weights. "It's fine, I'll barely remember it by tomorrow anyway. I just need to keep my mind off it so the details don't stick in my brain." He looked over at Keith. "What was yours?"

"Oh," Keith dismissed, leaning back against the window again. "Just the normal one, where I'm free-floating alone in the endless void of space until I starve to death."

"Well that's terrible," Lance responded. "That's a new idea I hadn't thought to have nightmares about yet."

"Really?" Keith asked, a touch of surprise in his voice. "I have it all the time. Space is terrifying. You're just like… alone, no matter where you go."

"I'm never alone in my nightmares," Lance admitted. "It's not a real nightmare if I don't watch at least one person I love die in front me, after all." Keith finally thought to scoot over until they were pressed shoulder to shoulder, sharing warmth. Lance's voice was soft, and a little bit broken as he continued, "I'm just… never good enough to save anyone, not even in my own imagination."

Keith heart seized in his chest, hating that Lance could think so lowly of himself. "More like only in your imagination," he turned his hand until it was resting on top of Lance's. "You're much more reliable than you give yourself credit for, Lance. Like, you do know you're amazing, right? I mean, legitimately extraordinary as a person."

The look on Lance's face was less dubious than practically accusing Keith outright of being patronizing. "I think I'm legitimately the least extraordinary out of all of us, but someone has to pilot Blue."

"Jesus Christ, shut the fuck up!" Oh god damn it, how was this even worse than Keith thought it was? God Lance, how are you and your self-esteem so stupid? "Do you seriously not realize how amazing you are? I mean, I knew the boasting was to cover up insecurities but I didn't think it was ALL show! You're supposed to know you belong with all the rest of us forming Voltron at the very least, you're not... You're not average, and you're not replaceable."

Lance looked taken aback, and Keith realized he maybe might have started this out with something other than 'shut the fuck up.' Well… maybe if he kept talking he could fix this. Keith was competent and could bring peace of mind to his boyfriend. He hoped.

"Lance… okay to start out with, you know that Blue was in that cave for literally ten thousand years? Do you have any idea how many people must have touched that cave wall before you did? I was in that stupid place like, a hundred times and I'm also a paladin of Voltron, but nothing happened until YOU were there! Ten thousand years, Lance!"

"Uh…" Lance looked uncomfortable. "I guess that's a good point, but. I dunno, me being bros with Blue hasn't stopped me from sucking yet."

Useless son of a- How was his brain even like this?! Keith was mad AT Lance on behalf of Lance, and therefore had nothing to lash out at except to try to convey… not even his feelings, actually. Reality. Keith was trying to convey reality to Lance.

He took in a deep breath because Keith was the type of person to yell when he was passionate about something and now was not a good time to shout compliments into Lance's face. So, in a calm but firm tone, Keith began. "Lance… the very first thing you did when you got INTO Blue was save the Earth from a Galra battlecruiser, before we even got out into space or knew what the hell a Galra battlecruiser WAS! You can claim it was Blue, but I know better than anyone these Lions may be wily enough to move on their own from time to time, but they do not aim their own weapons in a fight. You got into an alien weapon and, before anyone knew what was going on, saved our entire home planet from being taken over by Galra. By yourself. Just you. I was there to see it and everything."

Lance's face was a new shade of red not previously known to mankind before. "Well…. Hunk and the rest of you guys all did nearly the same thing…"

"Yeah right, like Hunk would have even had enough confidence to be let into his own Lion if he hadn't seen you do it all first," Keith argued back immediately. "And even if we set aside all of that, put aside every single thing you've ever done in your Lion with the excuse that it was somehow Blue's fault you're completely fearless and quick-thinking in the heat of battle," he pushed on in case Lance had any more excuses. "Then I can still prove you're amazing because we were three days into space and had gone on one barely-successful mission before you pushed Coran, a virtual stranger, out of the way of an EXPLOSION. Because you keep exploding. It's a thing you do. Very irritating."

"A-anyone would have -"

"Anyone else would have only thought to shout 'Look out,' Lance! Not throw their body in front of a bomb, and not wake up out of a coma in the middle of battle and immediately think, 'Oh, I better shoot that guy,'" Keith said, voice heavy with exasperation. "I have literally no idea why you don't understand how incredible you are. THAT'S what annoys everyone when you do something stupid. Not because we expect it, but because we all know you're better than your own moronic mistakes."

He seemed to have, for the first time in history, rendered Lance completely speechless. Keith was kind of proud of himself for that, especially when Lance went on to stutter, "You… seriously mean all this, don't you…"

"Yeah, Lance." Keith finally offered him a little smile. "You didn't really think I had bad enough taste to want to date anyone I didn't at least consider my equal, did you?"

Red faced and now studiously looking anywhere but Keith's eyes, Lance chuckled, "Heh, and here I thought you liked me 'cause I can make you laugh."

"I like you 'cause you're sweet and supportive and make me laugh, yeah," Keith agreed, intentionally pressing his body closer to Lance's. "But I wanna fuck you 'cause you're a total badass."

The sound Lance made was not unlike a distressed teakettle, and when Keith noticed they were pressed close enough to hear Lance's heartbeat speeding up, he didn't try to fight the laugh. Lance ended up joining him after only a moment, and while Keith wasn't sure which one of them actually wound their fingers together to hold hands, the moment was pretty close to perfect either way.

"You know…" Keith started up casually a long minute after they'd calmed down. "I was talking to Hunk earlier today."

Lance was leaning his weight against Keith's shoulder and Keith was doing pretty much the same, keeping each other upright. "Oh yeah?"

"Mm-hmm," Keith confirmed with a hum. "And sometime before he ran off and ditched me with all greenhouse management responsibilities ever for the rest of time…"

Lance snorted. "Yeah, that sounds like a thing he'd do."

Keith ignored that with a smile and a tiny laugh. "...We were talking, and when you came up he sort of implied you might be… obsessed with me. A little bit."

"UHHhhhhMMM. Obsession is a bit strong of a word," Lance defended. "Maybe uh, enamoured, or infatuated…"

"...For the last two years straight."

Lance's gaze didn't waver from the ceiling. " Interested. Interested is a good uh… way to put it."

Keith laughed again, fingers curling tighter around Lance's. In a lower voice that he hoped was sweet, or at least a little flirtatious, he continued, "And when I thought about it, the idea actually made me pretty happy."

Lance's eyebrows twitched in a passing furrow of confusion, and he finally turned to look at Keith with the baffled question, "You WANT me to be obsessed with you?"

Keith directed at Lance his most radiant smile. "Yeah," he confirmed, then couldn't help but drop his own eyes to the floor for a second to admit, "It made me feel less ridiculous for having you on my mind like… Every single waking moment? It feels like?"

"Ha?" Lance's voice was thin and strained, but eventually turned into a laugh at the end. "Does that mean it's okay to admit that 'obsession' was actually a pretty good way to put it?" It was a self-deprecating sort of tone he was using, but oddly still warm and the eyes on Keith were affectionate. "Like, sometimes I have a thought that makes even me step back and go 'Okay Lance that was really creepy that is not how healthy relationships work,' but I also like, can't stop it? You make me feel things I've never felt before with anyone else, and uh… you know, not all of them are always... good. I'm kind of a little crazy."

"Oh, yeah?" Keith prompted. "You can't just leave it like that man, what kind of creepy thoughts? Murder me while we're having sex creepy?"

Lance's head whipped around so fast Keith actually heard the crack in his neck. "What?! God, no! What the hell, Keith?!"

"Well there you go, if it's not worse than that I bet I can handle it," Keith assured him with a teasing grin of his own. "See, you're already less crazy than you thought you were."

"And every time I think I know how crazy you are you outdo yourself." Lance looked a bit like he was appealing the Lord for strength again. "Nope, nothing murderous I promise, just… SUPER possessive and jealous. Like, unreasonably so. And I don't even just mean of how close you and Shiro are, like, you can be talking to ANY of our friends and I'm like, 'Bitch I'm supposed to be the only one who can see you smile like that; how dare Pidge say something funny,'" He explained.

"It started off as just wanting to make you happy, but then it kind of blows up sometimes and I like… wanna monopolize you, and be the only thing that makes you happy. I want to be the first person you think of when you're sad and need cheering up, the first person you talk to when you're excited about good news, and the first and last thing you think about every day when you're in bed. It makes me feel like one of those controlling, asshole boyfriends who needs to know what you're doing every second of the day even though I swear to god I WANNA give you space. I might not actually be capable of giving people space. I'm very clingy by nature. Just being in the same room as you turns up every one of my emotions by like, tenfold, which was true even before I knew I wanted you to smile at me." He made a muted explosion-y sort of gesture by curling in and then spreading out his fingers, most likely trying to convey his sanity with the move.

Keith could relate to the gesture, in the sort of the way that he felt like his insides were exploding right now. But in a good way. Like, exploding into glitter or something. Which was also probably kind of messed up? Why did he WANT Lance to be insane because of him? Keith was such a trainwreck.

For the first time, it felt like Lance was really his, that was why. Knowing that Lance liked him and thought he was beautiful was different from knowing Lance was a little bit obsessed with him, and the knowledge that Lance had had Keith on his mind for years before they'd even started dating made him feel like… like he could actually keep Lance. Like if they tried hard enough, they wouldn't have to break up at any point ever . Keith… hadn't actually had that kind of faith in the two of them before this. Keith also had no idea how to convey his feelings using words, unfortunately, and was feeling too many things at once to be able to know where to even start articulating them.

"I get jealous of Hunk."

Lance blinked. "...Seriously?"

Keith nodded rapidly. "He... he knows you better than I do. He's known you for longer, can tell what you're thinking when I can't, and you two hang out together like every day. You're so comfortable around each other you just randomly use his body as furniture and I never even know what to SAY to you. Sometimes I'll see you two laughing together and I'll get this urge to like… the only way I can put it is 'I wanna steal that man from him,' which doesn't even make sense? Because I'm the boyfriend and he's the best friend and that idea only actually works if it's like, the other way around? I don't know. I just…"

He shrugged, but when the action was finished Keith's shoulders remained hunched in on themselves. "You can actually relate to people and make friends easily. I feel like I'm in a whole different world than you just watching. I just feel sometimes…I dunno. Like I'm some ghost no one can even see, much less relate to." He bit his lip, able to feel how red his face was and unwilling to meet Lance's eye for his last words. "You make me… I pine for you. We can be in a room with our own friends all having fun and I'll still want to sneak off and be alone with you, even when I don't even have anything to say. I just… want all your attention on me. I guess."

There was a long silence where Keith could hear his own heartbeat but generally refused to look at Lance yet. He heard as slowly, Lance began to laugh, rich and true and beautiful as he reported to Keith, "And you've had that the whole damned time, anyway!"

Keith didn't really need to look over to join Lance in the laugh, quietly embarrassed but also completely and unfightably happy. "So, if we're both too jealous and possessive, does that even out or totally screw us over?"

"As long as we keep the crazy things we think inside and don't try to control each other it probably evens out? I hope?" Lance sounded almost comically uncertain, and they shared one last giggle before falling into a comfortable quiet.

Keith would never understand how everything could always be so easy when he was with Lance, from laughing to crying to getting angry to getting horny. He knew what Lance meant by that feeling everything tenfold comment, but Keith found he wasn't really scared of that idea anymore. The frustration may multiply but so did everything good, too, and Keith… well, Keith kind of wanted to feel this warm and comfortable all the time. Wanted to keep feeling this crazy about Lance, no matter how dumb it made them both act when things went wrong.

Aaaannnnd Keith really didn't wanna go back to his empty room and lie down in his bed again, because there he'd be alone and free for whatever cold nightmare he could dream up to come slither into his head. Keith was tired of being alone. He was tired of being alone and the only thing he'd really wanted for ages was to spend time with Lance doing nothing, and at this point Keith was done staring at his cake because he was pretty sure he could have a bite without the whole damned thing disappearing.

"Come spend the night in my room," Keith invited, only realizing how sudden it was at Lance's surprised face. "I - uh, not as a proposition or anything," Keith backpedaled when he heard his own wording. "I just… if we both had nightmares there's no good reason for us to try and sleep alone, is all."

Lance's smile was the kind that could make entire planets move and Keith's heart stop in his chest. "Well I mean, it's not like I was gonna turn you down if that was what you meant…"

Keith laughed again, and this time it was his turn to knock his shoulder against Lance's in a reprimanding little shove. "You're the worst," Keith smiled, voice heavy with affection.

"Always have been," Lance assured him, smiling handsomely like some asshole who didn't know what that warm expression did to twist up Keith's insides. And then, with a final-sounding sigh, he picked up Keith's left hand and looked him in the eye. "Come on, Kitten." Lance stood up, taking Keith with him by the hand. "Let's go to bed."

Keith noticed how much warmer his room felt just from having the lights on after a nightmare, but also figured it could just be having a second person in there with him that had changed the atmosphere so much. Lance had been in Keith's room a hundred times before and showed it, strolling in to casually throw himself onto Keith's bed before Keith himself had even stepped inside. He, of course, then proceeded to make himself so comfortable that Lance was sprawled out over the entirety of the bed spread-eagle like a beached starfish and loudly sighing.

"AAHhhhh, perfect! So, I'll take the bed, and uh, should I throw you a pillow or will you be fine just right there on the floor? Maybe make yourself a little laundry nest, could be nice."

A laugh bubbled its way out of Keith's throat before he could even think to scold Lance. "Yeah, we'll see how that goes, jackass," his voice was obviously thick with affection, even as his smirk was filled with mischief. Keith did not so much lay down as throw his body onto Lance's with all of his weight, a strangled "HOOF!" of Lance's breath punched out of him when Keith landed on his chest.

"Oh look," Keith grinned down at Lance, who was wiggling to try and dislodge Keith's elbow from his side. "I think I found a pretty good place to sleep right here. This should make a good pillow, as long as it stops squirming so much."

"Why are you so heavy?" Lance's laugh was breathless, and Keith pinned down his wiggling by sliding one of his knees to press down between Lance's legs to settle against his crotch.

"Because I'm trying to be," Keith admitted, still intentionally pressing his weight down to try and bother Lance as much as possible with his presence.

It was his thigh against Lance's junk that elicited the squeak out of him, and suddenly, before Keith even knew quite what was happening, he found himself lifted in the air, one of Lance's long legs pushing up against his stomach to kick him off the bed.

Lance shot up to look when Keith hit the floor, a panicked, "Oh my god, you weren't supposed to fall off the bed entirely! Are you okay?!"

Keith blinked at the ceiling for a moment, dazed. And then he too, sat up, looking at Lance with a bewildered "Did you just lift my entire body weight with one leg?

Lance sort of shrugged back. "Legs are stronger than arms anyway? I mean, I can hold my body weight up with one leg just by hopping, and like, I do that all the time."

Well that's not how logic really worked, if one leg couldn't support your weight how would you even walk? Oh wait. Or was that Lance's point? Keith didn't typically give enough thought to human legs to really know what to think here, but he was still kind of impressed either way.

"Here, come up here and I'll show you," Lance said with a beckoning wiggle of his hand, lying down on his back on the bed again with one of his legs bent towards his chest to raise his foot in the air. "Gimme your hand."

Having no idea what Lance was thinking, Keith figured he'd roll with this. Lance took both of his hands, left in right, so that they were still facing each other while he directed Keith, "Uhhhh this will probably work easiest if I have you crawl over me again."

Oh boy, or maybe Keith did know what Lance was thinking, he just didn't particularly understand why Lance was planting one bare foot steady on Keith's stomach as he hovered over him. As he'd feared, when Lance extended his leg Keith went up with it, instinctively curling his legs up behind him to keep his weight centered as Lance lifted him into the air with one foot, their linked hands an anchor for Keith to push against to help hold himself upright.

Lance grinned from below him, "See? Not even hard."

Actually now that Keith was actually in the air, something about this did seem kind of normal about it, and he recalled with a hint of surprise, "Oh yeah, I think I've seen people do this in movies, huh?"

"Yeah probably," Lance agreed, bringing up his other leg to hold Keith up with a steadier hold using both feet lower near Keith's waist. "Buuut to be honest I've only ever done this when I was playing airplane with my little nephew, I'm a little impressed this still works with someone over three feet tall."

Keith just laughed, this being far from the first children's game Lance had pulled him into and he hardly expected it to be the last.

"Okay, now tip forward," Lance said next. "I wanna see if we can kiss like this, Spider-Man style."

Keith's brow furrowed. "Isn't that supposed to be upside-down though? This is just sort of… midair."

"Shut up and get your mouth down here."

With a last snort of laughter Keith complied, leaning down to press his lips to Lance's before he overbalanced and broke off to fall onto the bed. They were both laughing though, half breathless from it and rolling on Keith's bedsheets like children.

They were lying on the bed facing each other, and Lance had reached around to wind his fingers into Keith's hair and pull him in for a kiss before they'd even completely stopped giggling. Keith was not ashamed to admit he melted into it, drank up the affection and relaxed into the bed, finally at ease after such a long, long day.

Their kiss was deep but languid, Lance gently sucking on his tongue and occasionally nipping Keith's bottom lip as Keith tried to remember to breathe through his nose so as not to sigh directly into Lance's mouth. They kissed for what felt like ages, gradually shifting towards each other until their bodies were nearly pressed against one another while Lance's hand played with the hair at the nape of Keith's neck, one of the many sensitive places on his touch-starved body. The playful mood had wound down enough that Lance's touch had gone from feeling soft to electric, every movement of his long fingers scratching against Keith's scalp sending fresh shivers down his spine.

Oh… maybe he was getting a little too comfortable, actually. Keith was starting to get more excited than sleepy already just from finally having Lance so close to him, and he really had meant for them to just be going to bed. Reluctantly, he broke their kiss, separating just enough to mumble, "We should probably go to sleep."

Lance let him break off of his lips but didn't allow Keith to go far, immediately kissing from the corner of his mouth to his cheek to his ear, a low "Mm, probably," rumbling out before he gently bit at the lobe of Keith's ear.

Keith either hissed or gasped, he wasn't quite sure, but he knew he felt his back arch out just the tiniest bit towards Lance, who was soon rising up to lean over Keith's body for better access to his left ear and exposed neck. They were still both lying down but Lance had shifted enough to not be lying on his own arm anymore, second hand now free to plant on Keith's hip where his thumb could flirt with the thin line of skin between Keith's shirt and decreasingly comfortable pants. Keith wasn't totally cognizant of rolling onto his back but he ended up there anyway, one hand planting on the back of Lance's neck while he let his other wander up and down the expanse of Lance's shoulders and back.

Too nice… Lance's lips were softly sucking a hickey below Keith's ear, a place so weak Keith had to bite his own lip to bar any noise more embarrassing than a deep hum from escaping. Keith's knees were weak, his spine was jelly, he thought his hands might be trembling already as well, and if he let this go on for much longer he knew he was going to get hard. The blood already rushed all over his body and had definitely reached to stain his face in a blush by then. He really needed to get a handle on this before it found its southerly destination or he might end up having to try and fall asleep with his boyfriend in his bed and a hard-on at the same time.

"So, uh, the way I see it," Keith started, pausing to sigh at Lance's fingers dipping below the line of his pants to toy with Keith's hip bone. "There are two things we could do right now…"

Lance didn't look up, but made an interested noise against Keith's neck. "Hm?"

Keith shivered. "Well, we could… kiss for a few more minutes and then go to sleep..."

"That sounds boring," Lance assessed in a breathy husk in between running his tongue to dip into Keith's collarbone while he slid his knee in between Keith's thighs.

Keith swallowed, heart pounding and not quite able to believe he was about to suggest this. "Or… you could let me up long enough to get to my closet, where I have a jar of oil I know is safe to use as... " If he chose not to finish this sentence would Lance see where he was going with this? Eh, better to be direct. "...As lube?"

Lance froze above him, even his breath halted against Keith's neck."OhhhOOHh," Lance squeaked, audibly gulping, and Keith watched as Lance's face turned red before his eyes. "There are uh… a lot of things we could do with… some of that."

"Mm-hm," Keith agreed in a hum, glad Lance wasn't even trying to look him in the eye right now. "And there's one thing in particular we could use it for that I might be… you know. Eager to try out."

Lance shuddered and squeaked again, adorably nervous. "Oh yeah… that one thing we have not done yet. That we would need lube for. You… do you really wanna… tonight?"

Keith's face burned even hotter. "I'm the one who brought it up!" A pause, eyes swerving up to lock with Lance's again. "Did… do you want to? Are you uh… ready? To - to do that with me?"

"To fuck you? Oh God, yeah," Lance blurted out, causing them to both immediately turn their heads away from each other to break eye contact while their faces mutually combusted. "I - mean uh… shit. I mean I'd love to make you come any way you'd let me! ...Wait that's kind of -"

Keith was already laughing, because this whole thing was ridiculous. He pushed Lance off of him enough to sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed because he was pretty sure it was safe to go grab the oil now. But just as he was standing up Lance's hands were suddenly on him, hooking in Keith's pants and underwear both and causing Keith to stumble as he tried to stay up and his shorts tried to stay down. When he hopped out of them both to hit the floor both he and Lance were laughing again, Lance pulling Keith's underwear free from the pants they'd been tangled in and raising them up like a trophy with a victorious "WHOOP!"

Feeling a bit silly in just his tee shirt and Lance's jacket with his dick hanging out, Keith started by stripping down so he was at least completely naked, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Lance's eyes stayed trained on him as he undressed.

Then, before he went over to fetch what they needed from the closet, whipped over to Lance so fast he had no time to react when Keith grabbed his own pajama pants by the ankles and yanked the fabric, tugging Lance's pants off and bowling his surprised boyfriend onto his back to be dragged halfway off the bed all in one fell swoop.

"HA!" Keith raising the garment like a banner. "NOW who's got the pants, huh?"

They both paused and, simultaneously deciding what Keith had just said was hilarious, both of them started laughing again. Keith was, at this point, beginning to think he'd never laughed so much in such a short time before, and fondly thought that that was just what happened when he spent time alone with Lance. Keith could forget about all the things in life that were frustrating and stupid and just… actually enjoy the moment he was living in. He was also pretty sure he'd never laughed while naked before in his life, so… that was a new and unexpected perk to being alone with Lance too, he supposed.

While Keith was opening the closet, he could hear Lance behind him taking off his own shirt, and as he fished out the jar Lance reacted over his shoulder. "Holy crow that's a big god damned jar! Where did you get an entire pickle jar full of lube?!"

Keith slid the container out, which was indeed the size of a pickle jar, but one of those smaller sliced sandwich pickle jars you can keep on any shelf of the fridge so. Lance was totally exaggerating. Also Keith hadn't actually known what size he was buying as much as he'd just slapped down cash and booked it as soon as the salesman handed him anything. "We were just in Concordia of all places for nearly a month, Lance. I don't know how you DIDN'T find any lube. There were two sex shops in the district we worked in alone."

He didn't so much pick up the jar as sort of slide it along the floor with his foot until it hit the bed frame, crawling back up to meet Lance again on the bed. Lance pulled Keith into his lap before Keith had even realized he didn't know what to do next.

Keith was completely naked but Lance was still in his boxers so that Keith's semi wasn't pressed right against his skin. Which was good, because now that Keith had plans for tonight, he'd need to avoid too much direct stimulation to his cock to get where he wanted. Somewhere into the new kiss, Lance had started to get hard himself. Keith could feel it from where he was sitting on the damned thing and his head was already reeling with way too many obscene ideas that he didn't even know where to begin. And Lance's hot kiss and gentle hands on Keith's bare skin were really not making it easy to think right now.

Shit, Keith was already way too turned on, maybe he was too sensitive to hold out for as long as he'd need to. Fuck, but he wanted this so bad, he didn't want to come a second before Lance's cock was inside of him, and if he got too wound up he'd never be able to hold on until he could wring out a prostate orgasm. He'd just straight-up come untouched the last time Lance had fingered him he'd been so excited, and if that happened again it'd be all over before the real fun even began…

Actually, wait. Would this plan even work at all? Lance hadn't exactly been hard to get off himself so far, would they both just finish the second they got Lance inside of him?

Lance was already hard underneath him now, basically just from a distracted kiss and having Keith naked in his lap. Keith found himself breaking off the kiss, cradling the back of Lance's head in one hand as he murmured the question, "So, uh, Lance…"

Lance chased the retreat by attaching his lips to Keith's neck. "Hm?"

Keith bit his lip, trying not to squirm girlishly at the gentle attentions. "How many times do you think you can come in one night?"

Lance froze. "Uhhh… How long of a night are we talking?"

"Well," Keith tried to rephrase the question. "I guess what I wanna know is, uh. If I blew you, you'd have enough time to get hard again while we finger me open?"

Lance detached himself enough for his jaw to drop open, strained whimper escaping from his throat. When he looked at Keith again his face was red, and his voice started off way too high pitched to be normal when he answered, "I have a feeling I could definitely pull that off, yeah."

"Oh good," Keith grinned, shimmying off his lap.

This way he'd get Lance's hands off of him long enough to cool down and recollect his head, you know, so it wasn't a waste of time making sure Lance would last in bed because Keith lost it too soon instead. He slid down on between Lance's legs, running his hands over the smooth and now largely hairless skin until he had Lance's hard calves under his palms. And oh, how Keith did love when he could turn the tables like this and have Lance the one shivering and staring wide-eyed at his touch, as helpless with confused arousal as he always made Keith.

He tore his gaze away from Lance's face to look back down at the long limbs under his hands, red splotches painting the outsides of both of his legs in uneven patterns that in some places scrawled all the way to his inner thighs. Keith pressed his lips to the closest patch of red, kissing one of the burns on Lance's knees with something like gentle reverence.

"H-hey," Lance's voice was shaking, and Keith glanced up to see a mixture of excitement and trepidation coloring his features. "You really don't uh… have to do that."

Keith moved up to kiss another burn higher on Lance's left leg. "Yeah, I do." He answered simply. Another kiss, closer to red marks on the insides of his thigh, and this one had Lance trembling just a little bit under his touch. "If I don't you'll probably get self-conscious and start thinking something ridiculous, like that the scars make you less sexy than before instead of more ."

"...I'm beginning to think you might have a high opinion of me," Lance practically whimpered, eyes wide and glued directly on Keith's.

Keith just smirked against his leg. "I was wondering when you'd catch on to that." He turned his lips to Lance's skin again.

He kissed his way further up Lance's leg, lips trailing all the way to his inner thighs while Keith made his slow way to Lance's groin. Lance reacted more and more to every touch, shaking and squeaking in a way Keith was starting to think he could really get used to… up until the point where Lance barked out a surprised, "Wa-HAHA!" accompanied by his knee jerking up to slam into Keith's chin.

Keith reeled back, clutching at his insulted face. "What the hell, Lance!"

"I'm sorry!" Lance scrambled forward, tilting Keith's jaw up to check for signs of a bruise. "It just really tickled, I didn't mean to kick you!"

"Twice!" Keith complained. "For the second time today! It's been like ten minutes!"

"It tickled!" Lance defended again, louder.

Keith glared at him. Then, decisively, lunged forward to attack, fanning his fingers into Lance's lower belly and wiggling them mercilessly.

"AhahaHAHA! You ba-HA-astard! HA AHAHAHA'll kill you!"

Just as Keith was starting to enjoy having Lance pinned under him and at his mercy… if not an entirely sexy way, Lance managed to waylay him back. A well-aimed poke to Keith's ribs had him jolting and flailing himself, giving Lance enough leeway to sit up and ensure a proper two-person tickle fight. Keith won, because Lance, as it turned out, was way more god damned ticklish than him; a fact he planned to store away for future use.

But for right then, Lance was loudly yelping the words "Uncle! Uncle, oh god, I give up!" and Keith was collapsing onto his chest to join him in a fit of infectious laughter. Lance's hands wrapped around his back while their giggles subsided, holding Keith's body close to his. Lance's voice was happy, words light with affection as he cursed Keith, "You're the fucking worst."

Keith levered himself up to look at Lance, not quite getting up enough to break Lance's loose hold around his back. "So, what do I win for getting you to say 'uncle'?"

Lance let go anyway, apparently for the purpose of flopping back onto the sheets dramatically with his arms curled above his head in the sheets declaring, "Why, I only have my body to offer you! Please kind sir, do be gentle with me!"

Keith hummed, making a great show of thinking about it. "Nah," he finally decided with a smirk. "That doesn't sound like as much fun as what I already have planned."

He watched as Lance's eyes flashed with interest at the remark, and then watched as they widened with shock and arousal as Keith reached between them to grab at Lance's half-hard cock through his underwear. "You probably wouldn't like gentle anyway," Keith promised as he slithered down Lance's torso, left hand still squeezing Lance's cock possessively through his descent.

He could feel it filling and hardening under his hand, and couldn't keep the satisfied smirk off his face even if he'd wanted to hide it. He was feeling too good right now, the perfect mixture of turned-on and playful and… whatever that weird gooey internal warmth Lance always gave him was, that feeling that sometimes felt like it could swell to take up his whole body. It wasn't like that right then, though, more like the gentle simmer of a campfire, the perfect almost-ignorable background noise for his excitement.

Keith kept on squeezing Lance's cock, not bothering with any kind of stroking until it was all the way hard under his hand, the soft flesh growing tangibly firmer under his palm second by second. He didn't need to see what he was doing though and kept his eyes trained on Lance's face the entire time. Only when he'd gotten Lance all the way hard did he break direct eye contact to slip Lance out of the fabric confines of his boxers.

Lance shivered and drew in a sharp breath, which he held as Keith's fingers wrapped around his stiff naked cock. Hm, it was still too dry to really stroke him off instead of just sort of playing with the loose skin, but at the same time Keith wasn't planning on giving Lance a handjob anyway so it would only matter for the next few seconds. That of course, being when Keith finally descended onto Lance's dick, slipping the round head of his cock into his mouth.

Ah right, the taste is actually kind of strong, isn't it? Keith… did not mind. It was a pretty sexy taste, if not specifically pleasant, the sort of taste and feeling that could really only be from going down on someone's dick. Only Lance's head was in his mouth so far but it felt like it was filling up the whole space anyway, and when he started to move his tongue to swirl around the soft tip of Lance's cock, his boyfriend let out the breath he'd been holding in a long shudder that made Keith's ego float.

But the goal this time was less playing around than straight-up getting Lance to come, so Keith didn't spare any time with teasing. He remembered from last time that the thing that had driven Lance craziest was when Keith had been bobbing his head, so he was already working more of the hardness into his mouth to take Lance in as deep as he could. Not all at once, just sucking a little bit more of Lance's cock in a bit at a time while tonguing the length of it, trying to figure out how to take in deep breaths through his nose when his body misguidedly tried to inform him there was too much dick in his throat.

"Fuckfuckfuck, Keith," was the only coherent response Lance had managed so far, already shaking with the effort of restraining himself from thrusting up into Keith's mouth.

One hand clenched into the sheets while the other landed almost accidentally on Keith's head, which Keith considered a pretty good opportunity to pull off and mutter, "It's fine if you pull my hair or whatever."

Lance whimpered, fingers winding through Keith's bangs to hold them out of his face, which he was actually grateful for since a few strands of hair kept trying to catch between his lips while he was fitting them around the base of Lance's cock. He couldn't really fit Lance's cock in his mouth far enough to hit the base at all, so while he was here Keith took the opportunity to mouth up and down the side of the shaft in short pulses of suction, licking at Lance's cock all the way down to his pubic hair.

Not as much fun, he decided, moving back to the head to slurp it into his mouth. Keith much preferred stuffing his mouth full of as much dick as he could hope to fit, both for the sensory satisfaction and because he could feel Lance's fingers tighten in his hair from how good it felt. It was technically uncomfortable in a you're-gagging-get-that-out-of-there kind of way, but Keith had more than enough experience ignoring his body telling him he was doing something stupid and had already started up on sucking on the hard flesh in his mouth, fingers of his left hand wrapping around what he inevitably couldn't fit in there.

He could, he discovered, continue the suction even while he started to move his head up and down, although it was a bit of a strain on his jaw to do so. It was worth it because the moment he started to bob his head Lance swore and twisted his fingers harshly in Keith's hair, the sharp tug against his scalp pulling a moan out of Keith. The moan of course reverberated straight through the cock in his mouth, and so for a second they pretty much both stopped to whimper pathetically.

Well, Keith supposed. If Lance felt good he might as well go with it, right? Keith continued moaning, not because he was particularly inclined to do so right now, but because he was trying to make Lance go insane and every little thing helped. He was starting to get a rhythm in sinking down on Lance's cock, just about figured out how to keep sucking and squirming his tongue while he ducked down. Not that he could keep it up for long, it was too hard to breathe through his nose when he was technically gagging and Keith had to pull back so that just the head was filling his mouth because potentially throwing up on someone's dick was super duper unsexy.

He gave his jaw a rest by tonguing at the vein just under the head of Lance's cock, using his left hand to stroke and squeeze at the rest of the spit-slicked shaft. He dipped the tip of his tongue into the slit on top, the dual reaction of Lance swearing and precome flavoring his tongue making Keith moan again for real.

He was just about prepared to start going down on Lance properly again, spurred on by the precome that told him he was already getting Lance close. Then Keith remembered there was lube literally two feet away from where they were sitting, and figured hey, there's a good chance that might help with the whole choking issue, huh?

He reluctantly detached himself from his boyfriend's dick, sitting up and wiping the excess spit from where it was spilling down his jaw. Lance whimpered again from the loss this time, and Keith just patted his thigh and crawled up closer to Lance's end of the bed to reach over him and dip his fingers into jar of oil on the floor next to him.

"Oh," Lance's voice was breathless and high with interest, watching as Keith stroked the oil deliberately over his cock. He was sort of sitting on Lance's side now instead of in front of him, and he wasn't sure what if any difference the new angle made but he was sure the lube sure changed this. The taste of the oil was too strong and not nearly as sexy as the taste of Lance's raw dick, but it made it so slick that his cock just glided over Keith's tongue and into his mouth like it was nothing.

"Oh sweet fuck," Lance swore as Keith sucked him back into his mouth, and oh yeah, Keith could already tell he was getting Lance deeper than he had been before just because now his lips were actually meeting the fingers he had wrapped around the base of his cock. Keith dove straight back into bobbing his head like before, coming as close as he could to smirking with a mouth full of dick when Lance's hand landed back on the top of his head with a throaty rumble of, "Oh god, Kitten, so good, that's so fuckin' good."

There was an odd sort of pride that came with the praise, even though Keith was never really the type who needed a lot of validation. This was something different, probably because being good at this benefitted Lance instead of himself? He wasn't sure but he knew he loved it, and when Lance's hand pressed down on his head to force Keith to stay down at his deepest for just a half a second longer the only way he could think to communicate 'you should keep doing that' was a squeeze to the base of his cock and a short whiny moan that wasn't one hundred percent intentional.

The motion of bobbing his head, it turned out, was made easier with oil as well. He wasn't gagging quite as much when he had the deepest part of his throat filled up now, and was probably able to move his head faster because of it. But better still was that Lance had apparently caught on to his cue, because he applied pressure to the top of Keith's head to help keep his head down a little longer than Keith could manage by himself, throat too resistant to having Lance's cock shoved in all the way down to the pubes, which was a feat Keith was now just barely pulling off.

Holy shit did he have Lance's entire dick in his mouth right now? He genuinely had not thought he'd be able to fit it all, but if Keith wasn't succeeding he was damn close to it, and okay, this was another one of those things that it was really hard to explain why he was proud of himself for. Other than, he supposed, that he wanted to be good at making Lance feel good, and judging from the way Lance was shaking at the hips and praising Keith like he didn't even know he was still talking, it was looking like Keith was indeed something of a skilled lover. Thank god, he couldn't have Lance showing him up all the time in bed or he'd never hear the end of it.

Keith actually kind of giggled around Lance's dick for a second, an odd snort of laughter through his nose. Haha, yeah right, like there was any point in lying in his own head. Even on the unlikely event Lance would make fun of him for this, Keith wouldn't care about the mocking nearly as much as he hated the idea of failing to give back every bit as much of the warmth and pleasure Lance was always giving him. Lance was incredibly generous with his affection and support, and had so far proved to be, you know uh… pretty generous in bed as well, and if Keith couldn't figure out the emotional stuff yet, the least he could do was show Lance how much he cared about him in a tangible, physical way. You know. Through orgasms.

Keith was snapped out of his train of thoughts when an unexpected hand began softly pawing at his ass, not having realized Lance was now able to reach him from where he was sitting… or, uh… crouched and sort of half-laying across Lance's lap? Either way there was a hand on his ass now, first just rubbing admiringly over the skin before Lance was bold enough to give him a little squeeze. Keith hummed in approval, shaking his hips a little bit in a manner he liked to think was encouraging, and stopped the jaw-straining bobbing of his head to take a deep breath and sink down as far onto Lance's cock as he could work himself.

When Keith's lips hit the very base of Lance's cock, Lance's hands both fisted, one in Keith's hair and one squeezing his ass. Keith definitely moaned that time, long and too loud and vibrating around the entirety of Lance's rather sizable dick. He stayed down there that time, concentrating his efforts on just sucking as hard as he could while Lance's hand wandered and teased it's way to Keith's asscrack to press his fingers into Keith's perineum.

Oooookay fuck that was good, that felt like, really really good. Ohhhh, Lance and his stupid fingers, Keith was way too weak to those hands, man. He let himself moan unabashedly, a sound Lance joined to meet with his own until they were both filling the room with pathetic noises of pleasure.

Lance was moving his fingers, prodding at the sensitive skin all around Keith's rim without directly making contact with the muscle itself. The tease was probably better than if he'd been touching Keith more directly anyway, and he found that the sounds he was making had devolved into something like muffled whining, only barely remembering to suck on the hard length in his mouth almost as an afterthought. But Lance was shaking all over now and barely restraining himself from thrusting up or pushing down on Keith's head with the hand still resting in his hair, and getting Lance to come had become less of a prelude for other things and more a personal mission at this point. Keith redoubled his efforts with the decision that his jaw had had quite enough of a rest at that point.

He'd just about gotten the hang of the deep breathing through his nose thing so that it was hardly much more effort to breathe with his throat all jammed up with dick like this. That said, Keith could devote himself to his task entirely, figuring out the right rhythm to bob his head and suck forceful pulses at the same time, an act which resulted in the lewdest, wettest, most full-porno sounds Keith had ever heard in his life. Holy shit he had thought those guys had been like, making extra slurpy noises on purpose to sound hot for the camera, but no that's just the real sound of a very enthusiastic blowjob. Go figure, porn was actually accurate about one single thing.

Lance's hand got distracted from Keith's rim to just squeeze himself a palmful of ass, doubling over a little to hunch above Keith as he desperately warned, "Keith, Kitten, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna come like, REALLY fuckin' soon, you gotta. You gotta…"

Keith hummed in understanding, because Lance was right in assuming Keith did not want to find out what happened when someone shot jizz directly down the back of your throat and was a little fearful it'd involve choking. Not really wanting come on his face or hands for the rest of the night either, he pulled back enough so that it was mostly only the head of Lance's cock left in his mouth, wrapping his hand around the rest to start jerking Lance off in fast, oil-smooth strokes. It only took a few long seconds of this before Lance was heaving out a telling breath of punched-out air and Keith's mouth was filled up with pulse after pulse of sticky warmth, swallowing it quickly because he figured it'd be easier than trying to figure out where to spit it out. Lance drained out with it, spine liquefying as he swore out more soft, nonsensical praise, the hand on Keith's head now petting his hair in a gesture Keith didn't assume to be intentional.

"Oh my god, how did you get even better at that what the fuck, man…" Lance rambled as Keith finally pulled off and sat up, wiping his face with the back of one hand.

"I'm very motivated," Keith grinned back with a little waggle of his eyebrows, trying to lick the last of the taste of jizz out of his mouth.

Lance's apparent answer was to swoop forward to gather Keith up in his arms in a hug, which seemed less for the purpose of hugging Keith and more so Lance could then dive into the sheets with Keith still in his hold to land him with his back to the mattress and a hundred eighty-odd pounds of boyfriend on top. The kiss, of course, was less surprising, even if it made Keith wonder if Lance was doing it on purpose because he wanted to taste himself in Keith's mouth. It was hard to care either way, because the kiss was slow and gentle so as not to aggravate Keith's sore jaw, and kissing Lance had only been like, one of Keith's favorite things for a good three months now.

He was still not disappointed when Lance broke off from his lips though, as they were quite generally a little abused right now. And it's not like Lance went anywhere far, just moved to kiss Keith's cheeks and forehead and jaw, skipping over his neck for once to plant one right in the dip of Keith's collarbone. Keith was content to let him do as he pleased, wiggling enough to reach the pillow above him and yank it under his neck to get comfortable, since he'd probably be here for a while yet.

A good long while, judging from the pace Lance was currently going. He'd barely moved on from kissing Keith's collarbone, still peppering languid kisses down his clavicle and licking at Keith's not particularly sensitive nipples. Upon Keith's lack of an interesting response, he moved on to continue south, kissing and mouthing his way down to Keith's navel and the soft stretch of belly underneath.

The attentions were unlike any sensation Keith previously knew. The kisses were so soft and scattered they were hardly that arousing, and yet Keith found himself damn near quivering at the touch of Lance's lips on his skin. It was so easy to focus on the light touches, not because the actual physical sensation was intense but because the feelings were. He could feel Lance's affection and adoration in every touch, and it was that that was eliciting the electric shivers of pleasure in the wake of every kiss.

He felt like Lance had already been kissing him for hours, so thorough was Lance in his attentions. Technically, the touches were only barely sexual in nature, but that certainly didn't wind up mattering to Keith. Probably because he'd already been ten kinds of hot and bothered to begin with, but the fire in his gut was only being flamed by the heat of every kiss, and when Lance's southern journey skipped right over his groin to nip and lick at Keith's thighs, Keith realized Lance really did intend to draw this out for god knew how long and he found himself whimpering.

"Lance," he pleaded, "come on, Lance I can't last all night, you've gotta start getting me ready."

Lance just hummed like Keith had said something of only mild interest, running his hands up and down the length of Keith's thigh admiringly. "Yeah, but we've got time before I'll be able to get hard again, anyway," he answered nonchalantly, sticking his face between Keith's legs and kissing at his hip. "You're the one who was so eager to suck my soul out through my dick, sweetie. Now that've already come once I have all kinds of patience to spare." Keith made another pathetic impatient, whimpering noise, and he could feel Lance's smile against his skin before he moved on to kiss the other hip. "Just relax for once and let me take care of you for a while."

Why did he keep saying things like that? If Keith really was uptight, how on earth was torturing him with an eternity of slowly covering Keith's skin in hickeys supposed to help him relax? He wasn't melting right now, he was exploding. Fire everywhere, disaster and ruin. Lance was such a dick.

Lance had joined his hands with his mouth to travel the length of Keith's legs, admiring, "How do you taste so good when your skin's not even soft?" Another kiss to Keith's calf. "You're so much hairier than I imagined you'd be and I don't even mind."

"Yeah, we're both dudes, Lance," Keith complained logically while his boyfriend sucked on his anklebone. "We're both only going to continue getting hairier from here."

"True." Lance finally paused, looking genuinely thoughtful for a second. "Unless I'm right about no more hair growing on all that burned skin, in which case I'm totally gonna start shaving my legs to even that shit out."

"No," Keith said instantly, deciding that if Lance was gonna stay down there then he was just gonna shimmy down to meet him. "Don't do that, the mess of scars and hair sounds like it'll be hot."

Lance laughed, accepting the foot Keith slung over his shoulder to drag him down for a kiss. "Well if you like body hair I'm sure I'll be able to provide; all the parts of me that aren't Cuban are Irish. When my dad wears a swimsuit he looks like Bigfoot took a daytrip to the beach."

It was Keith's turn to laugh, letting his leg slide down the outside of Lance's arm to settle closer down to his waist. Lance was grinning down at him adoringly, and in a voice dropped low like he was sharing a secret, told Keith, "Did I ever tell you you have a really sexy laugh?"

Quite reflexively, Keith laughed again. "Oh yeah?"

"Mm-hm," Lance confirmed. "You've got this deep husky voice, and when you laugh it's all low and raspy and it drives me crazy."

Keith glowed with the familiar Lance-induced warmth, another indulgent giggle bubbling out of his chest at the compliment. "Everything drives you crazy, Lance. Me drinking water with my hair in a ponytail makes you horny."

"You're super hot!" Lance defended. "You made it impossible NOT to stare at your throat, it's like, super erotic." He leaned down to bite another small nip into the very neck he was apparently so tortured by, and Keith's chest shook with a silent giggle as he pushed his boyfriend off of his throat.

"Vampire pervert," Keith grinned. "Don't you have anything more useful you can be doing with that mouth right about now?"

"Abso-god damned-loutely," Lance agreed, backpedaling down in Keith's loose leg hold to put his face level with Keith's crotch. "Many, many better things to do."

Keith shivered, watching with intent interest as Lance's lips slowly descended to kiss the head of his dick. The shudder that tore its way through Keith was… excessive, really, and he was slamming his hand into Lance's forehead to push him off with a fumbled, "W-wait, bad idea! You shouldn't touch that!"

Lance sat up to look at him in pure bafflement. "I shouldn't touch your dick? ...During sex?"

Ah, geeze, why did Keith always have to friggin embarrass himself like this? "I…" he tried to find the explanation he needed, words failing. "Well I mean, uh… If you start touching there, I won't want you to stop, you know? And if we finish me that way we won't be able to, uh… Do the other things we had planned."

It was Lance's turn to blush, lips curving into an understanding 'o.' "I can work with that," was what he eventually decided, and before Keith had time to think about it or possibly protest he was grabbing one of his thighs and shoving it up towards his chest, leaving Lance plenty of room to plant a kiss on Keith's perineum instead.

Keith bit a gasp into his lip, shivering with anticipation as Lance's mouth descended to lick a line from his sac down to Keith's asshole, already twitching in want. As he had presumed, Lance was devoting lavish attention to Keith's rim, licking and tonguing at the still-tense muscle for ages and ages until Keith's leg gave up its attempt to stay midair to land his foot on Lance's shoulder. He wasn't sure what the correlation was there on that being when Lance's tongue finally stopped sloppily licking at him and finally pushed inside, squirming past Keith's rim in a slimy wiggle.

Lance and Keith both made pleased noises at around the same moment, Lance because he was a pervert and Keith because… well, because Lance was inside of him, and it felt awesome . Lance being inside of his ass was kind of the goal of the entire night here, and so the slow tease of being rimmed; licked open and sucked out and tongue-fucked, was all at once too much and not nearly enough.

It was certainly enough for Keith to be distracted by, to the point where the slick glide of a long finger slipping inside his ready hole after a few minutes was a complete surprise. He hadn't been making much more noise than some heavy breathing when it was just Lance's tongue, but Keith couldn't keep in his whine when he felt the prodding of that first curious finger, a sensation both intensely pleasurable and kind of awkward at the same time.

More awkward than Keith had expected, actually. He wasn't sure why, since it's not like he wasn't still all kinds of turned on at every touch of Lance's fingers on his skin. But there was something about this that was… different than last time Keith had asked Lance to finger him, and not just that he wasn't as ridiculous-close to coming this time. Was it because this was just a prelude to their real goal of the night? Was Keith like… nervous to go all the way?

As absurd as the idea seemed when he'd been waiting and actively fantasizing about this for freaking months now, Keith couldn't deny the knowledge that most of the shaking in his limbs right now was not from arousal. Lance still only had one oily finger inside slowly working Keith open to stretch out his rim, and the pleasure just wasn't enough to distract him from his own reeling thoughts, especially when the only sound in the room was the wet squelch of lube and his own heavy breathing.

What if… what if they were jumping into this too fast? What if it didn't go well and the whole thing was just a miserable exercise in trying? What if… it changed something between them, like starting to have any sex in the first place had? What if tomorrow everyone looked at Keith and would just be able to see it on him, to tell what the two of them did tonight? Which, if they DID fuck up then he could like end up limping tomorrow and then of COURSE they'd all know…

Oh god, or what if the only thing it changed was Keith, letting himself fall deeper and deeper into this only for Lance to feel nothing and once again to leave Keith alone , always and eternally alone.

"L-Lance," Keith was saying, voice embarrassingly thin. "Lance it's too quiet in here, the silence is driving me friggin' insane."

Lance's hand paused. "Uhhh… I'm sorry?"

"Don't apologize, just…" Oh god, if he asked Lance to talk he'd probably come up with some really dirty shit to say and this was nooooottt a good time for that, it'd just be weird instead of hot since Keith was secretly kind of freaking out. "Could you…" his face flushed in embarrassment, and he turned his head into the bedsheets to quietly request, "like, sing for me or something? I just need… something to focus on."

From the corner of his eye he watched as Lance turned a matching shade of red to his own, another "UhhhmMM," squeaking out of him. "S-sing? Like, sing what?"

"I don't care, anything! I just need something to listen to other then… LUBE SQUELCHING."

A strained noise, "UM, yeah, I can, uh see why that…" He coughed, cutting himself off. "Okay, uh… Destapa el chaimpaigne," he started in an awkward, off-key sort of squawk. "Apaga les luches - oh shit, I don't know the words to this one."

Keith didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry at this point. "Lance…"

"No, I got this! What do I know by heart, there's uh… You kill me a little bit when you don't answer the phone - oh shit that's not sexy, that song's depressing as hell."

"Anything, Lance! Any song! You can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for all I care, just pick one!"

Lance reeled back like he was offended, except for the part where he didn't actually go anywhere because he still had his middle finger shoved up Keith's hoo-ha. "Oh my God, Keith, I'm not singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while I fingerbang you, that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard of in my life! There are ten thousand songs about sex, Keith, we can do better than Twinkle Twinkle Little fuckin' Star!"

Laugh, Keith decided. This was way more hilarious than it was sad, and Keith was definitely laughing at this point. Lance made an awed little sound like "Whoa," when the chuckling started, reporting, "Holy shit I can like, feel you laughing around my finger."

"Yeah?" Keith grinned. "Think of how nice it'll feel when you make me laugh with your cock inside me instead."

It was Lance's turn to shiver, eyes blown wide. He leaned forward enough to steal Keith's lips in another kiss, curling the finger he had inside of Keith at the same time until Keith was breaking off the kiss with a soft moan.

"I know that it's late and I really must leave you alone... " Lance's voice was stronger this time, low and soft as he crooned the first verse right against Keith's lips. "But you're good to hold and I feel such a long way from home… "

Keith shivered, melting immediately into Lance's hand as it gently teased at Keith's insides. "There we go," he sighed, some of the nervous tension finally easing out of him. Not all of it, but… Lance was easy to focus on. His touch was gentle and the one finger didn't hurt at all yet, felt less weird and more natural inside of him by the second.

Plus, the longer Lance sang, the more confident he got in it and the easier it was for Keith to lose himself in his voice, whispered honey-sweet into Keith's ear like promises. Which meant that when Lance's fingertip finally brushed against his prostate Keith was far enough away from his body for it to come as a complete surprise.

The gasp tore through his body startled even Lance, who lost a note in his song when Keith clenched involuntarily around him. When he resumed again, he used the pause as an excuse to slip a second slick finger into Keith's very ready body, which put up only the most minor of resistances at the new stretch. " ...Please let me stay, and don't send me away, oh no, no…"

Lance's fingers, Keith decided, were certainly longer than his own, but also felt like they were actually probably thinner than his, now that he's had a good feel for both. He liked these ones either way, they were gentle and dexterous and carefully prodded around to test where exactly Keith's prostate was without hitting it too often or too hard and overstimulating him. There was after all, a certain stinging and do-I-need-to-pee? kind of pressure that came with that particular spot, a problem that would be far overwhelmed by pleasure after time but for right now, well… Yeah, gentle was good.

"Hold me now my heart is aching… " Somewhere in his melting into the bedsheets it occurred to Keith that this song seemed kind of familiar, come to think of it... "And until the dawn is breaking, love me tonight… "

Wait a minute. Keith's brow furrowed and he opened his eyes to see the side of his face where he was hovering close to Keith. "Something is burning inside… "

"Is that -" Keith interrupted shortly.

"Something that can't be denied…"

"Are you singing Tom Jones at me?"

Lance blinked, drawing back enough to be able to look Keith in the eye. "Yeah, what's wrong with that? Mr. Tom Jones, I'll have you know, has been a great seducer of many for generations!"

"How many generations? Is that guy still alive ?"

"'Is he still' - my God, the lack of respect here! Do you have any ideas how many panties that man has had thrown at him?"

"...No, and I don't want to?"

"Blasphemy! How do you continually prove how bad your taste is, I swear it's just to test me." Lance clicked his tongue like a schoolteacher, and Keith let a fresh giggle snort out of him.

"My dating you should be the first indication of my tastes," Keith flirted back with a helpless little grin, reaching up to grab one of Lance's shoulders and yank him back down for a kiss.

Lance sunk cheerfully into the kiss, sucking for a few indulgent moments on Keith's tongue before letting Keith break this kiss with a surprised gasp when Lance wiggled the two fingers he had in Keith's ass like he was trying to tickle him from the inside.

Oh, those fingers… How could Lance be so good with his hands? How was i so easy for him to reduce Keith to a puddle with just the simplest of touches? He was so weak.

"I can't let you out of my sight Darling, love me tonight..." Lance picked up again softly, which did nothing in the way of helping Keith not be a puddle of horny goo. Well, okay, liquefying Keith WAS sort of the point of this since they were trying to get him loose enough to take Lance's admittedly substantial cock. Still, it was… weird for Keith, being this… relaxed? Loose? Quivery? ... Vulnerable ?

But odder still was the fact that it wasn't a BAD kind of vulnerable. Keith may have been totally defenselessly exposed but Lance was right there. His voice was there singing to Keith and his naked body right there close enough to warm Keith's skin and his fingers were right there rubbing curiously but deliberately over his prostate, and as long as all of those things kept being true then Keith didn't mind how exposed and defenceless he was. Because Lance was just as naked as he was right now, both figuratively and, uh. You know. Literally, they were both naked, also.

"Ready for three," Keith directed after only a few more moments of indulging in the feel of Lance's thin elegant fingers. "Doesn't hurt at all, I can take more."

Lance hummed in understanding. "Anything my darling wishes," he agreed with cheerful softness, easing his ring finger in with the first two in short time. "Here in my arms you belong… How can this feeling be wrong..?"

The stretch of Lance's third finger stung a bit, but only in that good way Keith already liked to begin with. The fact that it was Lance's fingers this time instead of his own was more than sexy enough to keep Keith from finding the pain to be truly uncomfortable, and when Keith had the guts to open his eyes Lance's handsome face was hovering inches above his own and carefully watching Keith to see how he reacted to every curious twitch and slide of long fingers.

"Darling be kind because I'm out of my mind over you… "

Everything had gone far past awkward and nerve-wracking to start feeling really, really good. Good to the point where Keith was biting his lip to keep himself from moaning, half out of shyness and half because he didn't want to drown out the honey-sweet sound of Lance's voice still singing softly in his ear. The stretch was so good and Lance's hands were one of the sexiest parts about him and he wasn't even being shy about lovingly stroking and flickering his fingertips over Keith's prostate, and soon he was such a pathetic shaking mess Keith was starting to fear he'd come before they could get Lance's cock anywhere near inside of him, and Keith needed to feel that tonight so so badly.

"Four," he demanded this time, keeping his eyes pinched shut and realizing the arm he'd had around Lance's neck had falled down to cover his own face in unconscious embarrassment. "Give me another finger Lance, need you to open me up fast."

Lance paused at that, hesitant. "Uh… that seems… like overkill. Will four of my fingers even fit in you?"

Keith moved his forearm from where it was laying across his eyes to sit up a bit and shoot a raised eyebrow at his boyfriend. "I don't know how big you THINK your dick is, Lance, but I'm definitely gonna need all four before we're gonna get that thing to fit inside me."

He had the fortune to watch Lance's face light up in a blush, glancing down to his own re-awakening erection as if to confirm Keith's implication. "O-oh. Um, yeah I'll uh… take care of everything, okay. Gotcha."

It was that fourth finger that finally did actually hurt, not that Keith would dare to admit as much. The point was to get the part where it hurt out of the way NOW so he could be loose and open enough to really enjoy Lance being properly inside him right away as soon as they were joined. Look, Keith had been REALLY looking forward to this, okay? He fucking carried a pickle jar full of lube all the way back from the city to his bedroom where many many people in between saw, and he'd done it for THIS god damn it. He'd put himself through that embarrassment because sex with Lance was just that high priority in Keith's life.

And Lance was so, so good to Keith. Touched him with such care and reverence, taking every motion slow and gentle like Keith was something fragile and valuable, like he was trying to commit everything about Keith's body to memory all in one night when they really had all the time in the world.

"Baby now the pain is stronger…I can't wait a moment longer. Love me tonight…"

Even with the too-wide stretch of all four of Lance's thin fingers the pain was nowhere near matching how good Keith felt right now. Plus it wasn't just the physical sensations that felt so amazing Keith also just wasn't used to being in this kind of good mood - didn't know how to handle being this close to someone, in every sense of the word. It was…

"Let me love you baby, let me love you baby, let me love you tonight…"

Keith gasped as Lance's fingers stayed in deep to flicker against his prostate, a ruthless attack that had his back arching and hips twitching. Oh, okay, he was… he was gonna come soon. It was time.

"Lance," he crowed out, not even embarrassed by his own broken voice. "Lance, stop, I need you to stop."

Lance froze immediately, eyes wide with panic. "Did I - are you okay?!"

Keith wanted to laugh again. Maybe did. "I'm fine," he promised with a watery smile, putting one hand on Lance's shoulder to help pull himself into sitting. "I'm just already ready for you, didn't want you to make me come yet."

Lance blinked wide and burst out into a blush again, a truly adorable expression. "Oh, uh - really? Like… right now, ready?"

Okay, now Keith really DID laugh. He pushed Lance by the shoulders to tip him back until he was sitting down, too, before going even further to climb straight into Lance's lap. Ah, excellent, Keith didn't have any idea how long they'd spent with Lance's fingers in there but it had been enough for a hard cock to be the greeting Keith found pressing against his backside as he settled onto his boyfriend's thighs with a grin. "What else would I mean?"

"I don't know I'm just nervous," Lance admitted with a short laugh of his own, wrapping his arms low around Keith's waist and pressing their foreheads together. "I've fantasized about this moment like, twenty million times but in my imagination I was always all suave and shit, I still never figured out how to deal with the reality of you actually liking me back."

Keith's smile was actively hurting his cheeks at this point. "I dunno, I think maybe the fact that we're both nervous is what's making this moment… perfect?" Oh god that sounded corny. "Or at least, the way I wanted it," he amended sheepishly.

There was a certain look in Lance's eye that let Keith know he was about to be kissed senseless, an awestruck sort of want before Lance would inevitably surge forth to take Keith's lips. It was easy to relax into the kiss the same way it was easy to relax in Lance's arms, and Keith didn't bother breaking off from it as he reached behind his own body to take a steadying hold of Lance's erection.

He'd meant what he'd said to Lance. The fact that neither of them were actually confident right now was what made it easy to guide the head of Lance's cock to set it against his rim, which Keith could already feel loose and twitching from Lance's enthusiastic fingers. Lance squeezed Keith's hips and sucked on his tongue, and when he felt the warm shiver run down his spine from Lance's mouth through his he sunk down.

The kiss, naturally, was broken by both of them gasping at once, as the head of Lance's cock pushed through Keith's rim to fit easily inside, though no more of his cock was able to yet follow through to chase inside the narrow space. But the head was warm and spongy-soft and alive and Lance , and Keith was eager to sink down further to force a few more centimeters - or maybe inches it was hard to judge how much there was left when Lance' dick was so unnecessarily large like it was (1) - inside until he was sitting halfway onto Lance's cock and already had to stop just to breathe.

"Shit, you feel so amazing already." Lance rubbed soothing circles into his lower back, helping steady Keith's half-squatting kneel until he was ready to try and take the last stretch. "Doing okay, Kitten?"

Rather than annoying him like it would have weeks ago, the nickname only endeared Keith with a swell of affection for its familiarity. Better than if his boyfriend had settled on 'baby,' he decided with a smile. Keith could deal with being a kitten if he was Lance's kitten. "I'm fine," he assured. The pain, he noted with interest, was a different type than when he'd used his variety of cheap plastic and silicone toys. Lance's cock was somehow soft all over while being rock hard at the same time, and when he wiggled his hips he easily sunk down a few more centimetres to take in more. "Its feels… good."

That was actually kind of a total understatement. Keith didn't just feel good, he felt hornier than he'd ever been in his life, and warmer than he'd ever been in so many different ways he was a little worried he might just burst into flames. But like… pink ones that tickled instead of burned. Tingly pink flames. Okay he was starting to sound delirious again but to be fair it's not like any of Keith's blood was in his brain right now.

Lance leaned up to plant a kiss on Keith's nose, higher than Lance for once because Keith was sitting on his thighs. "Take a deep breath?"

Without really thinking about it Keith complied, drawing in a slow breath through his nose and holding it for a few long seconds. When he did finally exhale it was also when Lance tightened the grip he had on Keith's hips, using it to yank Keith downward onto his cock at the same moment Keith's body relaxed out the air in his lungs.

A little squeak of shock chirped out of Keith as he bottomed out, and when he opened his eyes again Lance was offering him a shaky smile inches from his own face.

There was something about that smile that made Keith viscerally aware he wasn't alone. It was a fact that should be a given, obviously, but… Keith wasn't used to not being alone yet. And right now Keith was horny and vulnerable and wonderfully stuffed full and he wasn't alone, and he'd just… he'd never…

Felt so completely and utterly connected with someone.

Lance wasn't just close to Keith right now, the way they'd tangled together a hundred times before. Lance was actually INSIDE of Keith, their bodies joined in a more mind-blowingly intimate connection than he'd ever even imagined. He could feel Lance, feel how hot he was and could even feel his heartbeat, not just pressed against his chest but throbbing inside him at the same time and jesus it was all too much. There were honestly no words to describe it, this bizarre feeling of searing-hot unity.

"Shit," Lance gasped against Keith's throat. "Shit shit shit, I've never… I've never done it without a condom before, you feel fucking INCREDIBLE." Hands running greedily up and down Keith's back. "I think I can feel your fucking heartbeat."

Keith couldn't help it - he laughed. "Yeah," he sighed back, one hand wrapping around the back of Lance's head to wind fingers into short curls of hair. "Yeah, me too. You feel really… I really lo- like how close you feel. All the way inside of my body close."

Lance shivered, which Keith could tell because he felt how both of their bodies shook from it. "I definitely get that. To be honest I don't think I've even been all the way inside anyone like this, girls…" he broke off into a laugh. "There's never been enough room before."

It was Keith's turn to feel a shudder, which surely Lance could feel when it reached the base of his spine and made Keith twitch inside. "Yeah, you're… really fucking deep," he agreed in a breathy rasp, lips curling in a small smile.

They took a moment to just sort of giggle stupidly at each other, and Keith spread his thighs a little to settle more comfortably in Lance's lap. Even the slight shift of Lance's cock moving inside of him while he sat made one or possibly both of them whimper, the sensation not even really pleasurable as much as straight-up mind blowingly intense.

It was still the kind of intense that had Keith dizzy from how close he was to coming. He was so relaxed and so wound up at the same time, sexy and terrified and confident and completely un-self-aware all at the same time because Keith had somehow forgotten how many conflicting things he could feel at once when Lance put his hands on him.

Lance kissed him again, slow and sweet and adoring. And when he moved it was just as gentle, just the slightest roll of his hips under Keith's. Keith only just barely managed to bite back his whimper to hold the kiss, the hands looped around Lance's neck winding unconsciously tighter to keep their bodies pressed close while he shuddered helplessly under the onslaught of sensation.

He didn't even have time to get his bearings, because Lance didn't stop moving, little shifts of his hips that moved his cock where it sat inside Keith until it was once again putting pressure right on Keith's prostate, a tiny change and the slightest touch against that spot and Keith had supernovae exploding inside from his eyelids to his toes. He didn't know how loud he screamed, but he hardly had mind to consider it when he was spilling a mess of thin clear precome out of his cock like a fountain as the rest of his body throbbed violently around Lance's erection.

"Whuh?" Lance intoned curiously as Keith collapsed forward to bury his face in Lance's collarbone, pretty sure he was still coming even a full fifteen seconds later. "What the f- is that - was that - did you just come?!"

Keith panted into his boyfriend's bare skin. "Mm-hm," he confirmed, swallowing thickly as his limbs shook. "Y-yeah, gimme a second."

"What did we suck my dick for if YOU were gonna come in two seconds, Keith?! You're sexy and feel amazing but I'm still ROCK fucking hard right now…"

Keith just giggled into his collarbone, still nowhere near down from his high. "It's fine, we don't have to stop. Prostate-only orgasms are like, an ENTIRELY different thing." He wiggled, rubbing his own still-hard cock against Lance's stomach meaningfully. "As long as I don't come from here I can keep going pretty much all night."

"Jesus quiznak," Lance swore helplessly, the arousal thick in his voice. "What in god's name am I supposed to do with you, Keith?"

Keith found enough of his spine again to sit upright even through the still-ongoing thrum of pleasure, smirking at his stunned boyfriend. "Fuck me, obviously."

He saw Lance's eyes blow wide, pupils dilating before his vision narrowed on Keith with a flash of desire. And it's a good thing they never moved from the bed because suddenly Keith found himself on his back, Lance pinning him to the sheets in one smooth flip. The sudden kiss wasn't even as distracting as the movement of Lance's cock inside him, which didn't halt with the change of positions but continued rocking into him in a slight but steady grind.

Keith broke off the seal of their lips with a moan, and Lance just moved on to latch his mouth to Keith's neck instead. It wasn't a proper fucking yet, just enough movement for both of them to feel good without really actually pulling out. They were both still content with Lance's cock buried deep like this, Keith not quite loose enough yet for any more vigorous action anyway since he'd been so impatient to get Lance inside to spread him wide open all delicious like this. He wasn't even hitting Keith's prostate anymore from this angle, but it still felt so ridiculously good Keith wasn't even impatient to divert him.

For right now he was completely surrounded by Lance, in his arms and under his mouth and full of his cock and it was all so warm Keith felt like he wanted this moment to go on forever. The pressure was so intense and Lance's cock was so hot and so firm and taking up so much of Keith's insides it was hard to feel anything but that thick weight moving wonderfully inside him, even with so many other things going on.

Keith's ankles wrapped around Lance's lower back, hooking together in a lazy hold while Lance slowly rocked into him, kissing and biting at whatever part of Keith's skin he could get under his lips. He kept that same unhurried pace even as his movements started to plunge deeper, pulling out a few short inches before sliding easily back into Keith's greedy embrace, throbbing as it tried to swallow Lance up whole.

"Fuck, Keith," Lance sounded awed again, hands sliding eagerly over sweaty pale flesh. "You're the best thing I've ever felt. Best thing that's ever happened to me, I don't know how..."

He didn't finish the thought, but Keith felt like he had the general gist of it. Knew exactly what Lance was talking about, in fact, because he was feeling pretty similar things himself, and even more than that when Lance said that ridiculous line about Keith being the best thing that ever happened to him Keith, for the first time, actually believed he meant it.

Ah… he needed to return it. Needed Lance to know how he felt, but he'd gone from coming his brains out to being slowly screwed into oblivion and he'd never been good with articulating his feelings into words to begin with. So instead all Keith managed was "Me too," a desperate and thin-voiced cry that went muffled into Lance's shoulder anyway. "Dunno what I did to -" a hard grind inside that had Keith's toes curling. "... To deserve this."

Lance kissed him again, stole Keith's lips to plunge his tongue inside and massage it lovingly against Keith's own. Keith shuddered a deep happy sigh through his nose and curled his arms around Lance's shoulders even tighter, lifting his legs higher up Lance's back in useless attempt to somehow get closer. While that was hardly possible the move certainly had its own impact, a burst of starshatter behind his eyelids as Lance once again ended up right on his prostate.

Keith moaned into Lance's mouth, nearly biting both of their tongues. Lance did break the kiss then but it was only so he could smirk down deviously at Keith, and the next time the head of his cock brushed against that spot Keith knew it was deliberate. And even though the pace didn't change from his slow deep pushes Keith was already reduced to quivering, every precise press aimed right at his weak spot with relentlessness.

"Ah - ahn, oh Lance," Keith heard himself sighing helplessly, and decided instantly he didn't care enough to be embarrassed. "There, there, that's it right there, so good…"

Lance chuckled again, but more breathless and delirious like he couldn't believe his real life was happening to him than if he were making fun of Keith. "Jesus, you're so responsive to everything ," He kissed Keith's neck again, but immediately turned it into a bite as he hissed out a barely-audible, "Makes me wanna see if I can turn your screams into sobbing, you know?"

Keith gasped, so low it was silent as Lance finally started to fuck him faster, speed increasing bit by bit like he couldn't help himself. And Keith couldn't help the whimper, because instead of just feeling his prostate he was feeling his own entire body right now, lit up with a buzz of adrenaline or endorphins or whatever it was that fired up when you were being fucked so well you couldn't even form words anymore.

Another flood of overwhelming… overwhelmingness as Keith suddenly realized he was coming again, a pressure and release that built up all at once and went on for ages after, only seeming to grow more intense as Lance continued to fuck him straight through it. Somehow he could feel his orgasm even in his dick even though it wasn't actually what was coming or being touched right now, a strange but sexy feeling that made him want to grab his own cock and ignore it to be fucked forever at the same time.

"Fuck, did you already come again already?" Lance panted in awe. "We just started, how are you even DOING this?"

Heh - he said that like he wasn't the one currently pounding against Keith's prostate with the relentless aim of a sniper. Yeah, how was KEITH doing this, he asked. The laugh actually did end up bubbling out of Keith's throat at that, although it didn't last long as another surprise orgasm followed the first like he'd never stopped coming in the first place. In fact, he was pretty sure he hadn't. Just came twice straight through.

Keith was shaking and yowling again, he noticed after a few long moments of floating outside his own brain. Not that becoming aware of reality again involved anything loosely resembling the end of his orgasm, because even toned down in intensity the waves of pleasure at no point stopped rolling over Keith for a few long minutes after, and he rode it out the same way he was riding Lance right now - with his head thrown back into the sheets and his ankles digging into Lance's back.

God, he loved everything about this. Not constant orgasms, obviously, but how close he and Lance were right now. It was like all the fun of masturbating and all the comfort of cuddling with his boyfriend at the same time and then amplified by ten, and Keith was pretty sure after tonight it'd be impossible for any of their friends to get him and Lance out of bed pretty much ever again. Every one of his senses was filled on overdrive, Lance's sweat so close and so strong he couldn't just smell it but even taste it through the leftover spunk in his mouth. Lance's voice was dropped low and breathing desperate pleasured grunts right into his ear, and when Keith had enough mind left in him to open his eyes and focus all he could see was sweaty tan skin and blue eyes looking straight at him like Keith was the only thing in the world right now.

Oh god, and his cock . It was so big and so deep inside Keith and so warm and so alive, pushing in hard and constant and wonderful, Keith could feel every inch of it sliding against his insides as they greedily throbbed around Lance and tried to pull him back inside. His weight was pressing into Keith now, pushing his leg up against his chest to keep that perfect angle he was fucking into Keith with until his ended up with his calf slung over Lance's shoulder. When it was too impractical to kiss at Keith's neck and collarbone anymore Lance turned his head to kiss Keith's knee instead, as if any moment he didn't have his mouth on Keith's skin was a moment wasted.

"God you're so pretty," Lance mumbled against the inside of Keith's leg. "Wish I could show you your face right now, all cute and sweaty and red and - you just really look like you're enjoying it. So soft for me." His eyes flickered down to Keith's leaking prick, gazing at it hungrily for a short moment before continuing down to stare at Keith's rim where it was stretched open wide around his cock, watching himself fuck Keith in slow strokes. Mindful of this fact, Keith arched his back to work his ass up in lewd rolls of hips to swallow Lance's cock more theatrically, and with a slight twist that put pressure on one side of his passage as it dragged against his slick insides.

Lance shuddered above him, and Keith bit his lip to hide his smirk. "Fuck, Kitten, you're gonna kill me like this and I swear I'll fuckin' thank you for it." A stutter in the jerk of his hips, and Keith liked how it felt. "And you feel even better than I even imagined, so gorgeous and perfect taking my cock."

Even though it was the kind of thing Lance had generally said before, Lance's words still made Keith heat up in embarrassment so fast and so hot he heard himself whining for it. "Lance," he whimpered piteously, staring up at his boyfriend with glassy unfocused eyes. "C'mon, please."

Keith himself wasn't sure what he was pleading for but it made Lance chuckle breathlessly, a shaking he felt vibrate from Lance's chest down through Keith's to go straight to his spine. "I've got you, sweetie, Just relax and let me take care of you, eh?"

He WAS relaxed, as much as he could be when his entire body was tight as a wind-up toy with a stuck key. But his mind was cloudy and incapable of doing anything other than experience the moment, gasping into every thrust and shaking in Lance's arms.

And then the wind-up toy popped and Keith was coming again with a shout, the pressure against his prostate once again hurling him into another surprise orgasm as he dissolved into the mattress with an ear-rending scream.

Gradually though, he noticed a tick of strain in one of his hips from being pressed up almost to his chest with all of Lance's weight on it. Keith tried to ignore it, because come on, he was getting dicked good right now and a little bit of pain was nowhere near worth stopping for. Except that once he noticed it, it became impossible to UNnotice, and suddenly not only was he not coming anymore but Keith didn't think he was gonna get back to that Nice Place again until they fixed this.

"Mn, Lance, wait," Keith bit out, grabbing a handful of chocolate hair to tug at it and call his lover's attention.

Lance stopped moving but didn't pull out, just sat deep to blink down at Keith in confusion. "Keith?"

Mm. Still felt nice just sitting there, though. "Get off me, my leg's cramping up."

Lance, quite unnecessarily, launched himself backwards off of Keith, scrambling backwards to stutter out "Fuck, did I hurt you?!"

Keith let a breathless little snicker as he sat up, leaning forward to plant a reassuring kiss to Lance's nose. "I'm fine, I just gotta turn over to give my hip a break."

Hm, what was the best way to do this now… Trying to support himself on his knees would be too much effort right now and just laying on his stomach sounded like it wouldn't be that much better for his hip. He ended up deciding the bed was a good enough height from the ground that he could kneel on the floor and lay himself flat over the sheets whole torso splayed down to pin his own cock nicely between himself and the sheets.

"Alright, this is good," he announced to Lance, tossing his head backwards to nod to the empty space behind himself meaningfully. "Put it back in."

Lance burst out laughing, which Keith was currently too gooey-relaxed to mind in the least bit even though he knew it was his own expense again. Whatever, Lance's laugh was gorgeous and he was already swinging himself off the bed to mount Keith, planting affectionate kisses all over the small of his back.

Keith sighed happily and wiggled his hips, delighted by the idea of Lance's eyes trained on the slight shake of his ass, and even more pleased when Lance proved that he had indeed been watching when he landed a light playful smack on Keith's left cheek. Keith's giggle was broken off into moan when Lance was suddenly lining up and pushing the head of his cock back against Keith's twitching rim again, pushing all the way in in one easy glide that reduced them both to shaky moans.

Ooh… When he had his legs closed like this instead of all spread open around Lance's hips his cock felt even bigger, and without the distraction of all of the rest of Lance's body Keith's attention was now focused solely on that wonderful fleshy intrusion. Lance settled his hands on Keith's hips, thumbs digging into the soft meat of Keith's ass as he started in on another slow grind, pushing in deep to fill up every bit of Keith's scorching insides before pulling out all nearly all the way to the head again on every perfectly-timed shove.

"Ooohohooooo hhhhh ~" Keith moaned directly into his bedsheets, rubbing his forehead into the mattress mindlessly as he popped his hips up to rock back against Lance's thrusts. Lance's aim was as ever perfect, hitting Keith's prostate straight-on with every movement, brushing his head against it both on the slide in and and withdrawal of every increasingly vigorous strike. And since he was pulling out far enough to put pressure on Keith's sensitive rim and then going deep enough to choke Keith on his dick, that meant every single inch of every thrust was filled with mind-shattering intensity, ever changing sources of pleasure being hit over and over again in a relentless cycle of ecstasy.

A constant stream of noise was pouring out of Keith and straight into the bed sheets, which were already getting tangled up just from the little jolts of Keith's naked body sliding against them with the increasingly powerful movements from Lance pounding into him. He was fucking Keith faster and harder now like he couldn't help himself, his own fountain of praise pouring unchecked from his lips.

"Keith, Keith, kitten, you're so good," Lance's voice was deep and breathy and mindless, and Keith loved every word of it. "So tight, can't believe it, so pretty and so sweet for me." The grip on one of Keith's hips changed, Lance squeezing himself a handful of Keith's ass and holding onto it in a way Keith hoped left finger-shaped marks on his skin tomorrow. "And your ass is so perfect, could watch you fuck yourself on my cock like this forever."

Oh, was that a thing he was doing? Yes, Keith realized, he was indeed rocking his hips back eagerly, slamming his ass back against Lance's hips in a hedonistic attempt to get more, more, more. More of Lance's body, more of Lance's words, more of all of it and all of him, until Keith was drowning in it all with nothing left of himself but mindless gasps of pleasure.

"Stared at you for so long, still can't believe I'm really inside you." He leaned forward, draping himself over Keith's back til he was laying on him chest to spine where he could reach the nape of his neck for another wet messy kiss. But Lance also leaned forward so he could wrap one hand around Keith's jaw, pulling his face up and out of the bed sheets where he could softly demand, "C'mon, Keith, talk to me, sweetheart. Wanna hear how much you like it."

Keith was currently unable to articulate how much he liked it, because Keith was coming again and only capable of an animalistic howl of ecstasy while his body convulsed joyously under Lance's. Lance had this way of hitting his prostate on every strike no matter now much either of them were wiggling around, and the endless abuse of that spot had once again surprised him with a totally unannounced orgasm that tingled all the way down his spine to his toes.

"Fuck, did you just come again?" Lance moaned into his nape. "I can feel it every time you do that, you're throbbing around me right now."

"Laaance," Keith keened in a way he'd be humiliated by if he had half a brain right now. He wouldn't have even been able to tell you what he was whining for , considering this moment was somewhere around everything he'd ever hoped and dreamed for.

And Keith meant that seriously - before he'd had access to internet porn the only examples of gay sex Keith had ever seen had been in movies or jokes on T.V., and therefore had inclined him to believe for a few early years that you could only do it from behind. So pretty much all of Keith's fantasies for a long time had involved being on his knees or bent over something, you know, sort of like exactly the position he was in right now. And even once he's realized more creative options exist this had still been his favorite to think about, something about it made him feel dirty and debauched and just sexy, in the rawest filthiest sense possible and he loved it.

And as often as he'd dreamed of being fucked by Lance like this, the reality was so much better. A little grosser, and a little more painful than in his imagination, but the sting was almost necessary since it only contrasted with all the good feelings to make everything that much more intense. Even the little things like Lance's breath on his neck and warm solid weight on his back making Keith feel so small was all almost more than Keith could handle. Every little thing he could hear and smell and feel somehow made everything seem so real when it was so nice it should have been like a dream, and Keith felt like he could go crazy from it all.

And then, just as Keith felt something building up like another cresting wave of ecstasy ready to crash, suddenly Lance wasn't moving anymore. Like, at ALL. He just stopped dead with a muffled curse, still seated all the way inside Keith where both of them were currently throbbing needily.

"Nng, Lance.." Keith tried, craning his head around to look him in the eye. "C'mon, why'd you stop? Felt so good, need you to keep fucking me…"

Lance shuddered and whimpered, pressing his forehead in between Keith's shoulder blades. "I'm sorry, I just." A short breath of laughter. "Trying not to come."

Oh, well that made sense, Keith guessed. Ah, but at the same time, would that really be a bad thing? Keith would love for this to go on forever of course, but as soon as Lance had stopped Keith had become aware of his own erection pressed between his belly and the bedsheets, calling for attention and aching with the need for release. Going all night sounded like a nice idea, but finally blowing his load and passing out into a sex coma to finally give that sore hip Lance was currently grabbing onto a rest sounded pretty fucking appealing, too.

Not to mention he'd get to see Lance coming all that much sooner. So far he'd only gotten to see it once, all the other times he'd been facing the wrong direction or too busy concentrating on sucking his brains out. That one time on the couch his wrecked face had been so beautiful, all open-mouthed gasps as he tried to keep his eyes open to stare at Keith the entire time…

Yeah, okay, Keith officially had Plans for the next five minutes of their lives.

"Mn, when you do finish," Keith panted, licking his lips and craning his head around to look at Lance and pretend he wasn't still slightly rocking backwards into him in an unconscious attempt to get more dick. "I don't mind if you come inside, since I'm already a mess."

"What the fuck, Keith" Lance whined, looking visibly and hilariously distressed. "I just said I was trying NOT to come, you can't say shit like that!"

Keith snickered, sitting up to push Lance off his back. Lance went easily if with slight confusion, letting Keith get up and then further allowing him to manhandle him to flip him over so that Lance was the one lying on the bed now.

Oh yeah, this had been a good idea, Keith grinned as he climbed back onto Lance's lap. Look at this, miles of tan skin and sweaty muscles and an expression like Keith was the most awe-inspiring thing he'd ever seen; god was Keith's man ever sense in wasting such a perfect view, Keith smirked to himself as he lowered himself back down onto his boyfriend's cock. "My turn~" he purred out as playfully as he could when he was still half-way to wrecked himself, making a show of wrapping his own fingers delicately around his cock to finally start stroking himself off.

"Oh my fucking lord," Lance gasped as Keith finally bottomed out, starting up the slow roll of his hips immediately. It took a few long moments for Keith to find the right angle to go back to hitting his prostate again and when he did find it staying there involved leaning back to brace himself on one of Lance's thighs with the free hand that wasn't currently wrapped around his own dick. But oh was the extra effort worth it, because everything was all lining up perfectly to combine into a volcano of bliss that set a buzz running from his navel down to his toes, until he was literally shaking just from how good it felt."Fuck, kitten, if you keep this up I'm not gonna be able to hold it!"

"Good," Keith moaned, rolling his hips even harder to drive Lance's cock against his sweet spot. "I can't either, wanna see your face when you come." He wasn't able to keep his voice from cracking when he said it but that didn't lessen the impact, because he felt Lance's shiver all the way inside him. Perfect… god, everything was perfect. His ass was stuffed full and his cock was leaking and throbbing under his hand, his balls had tightened up and his head was swimming and this was gonna be the best fucking orgasm of his life.

The exact moment Keith let his eyes fall closed Lance startled him with a sudden surge of movement, not just bucking his hips up into Keith but swooping forward to sit back upright again where he could plant his hands on Keith's waist. And then they were face to face again, and Keith couldn't help the giggle that snorted out of his nose.

"We ended up right back where we started," Keith observed with a grin, letting Lance knock his hand away from his own cock for him to take over squeezing it.

As he was looping his arms around Lance's neck his boyfriend pouted adorably, and absolutely in no way stopped rutting up his hips to fuck Keith's ass with something close to desperation while he said, "I couldn't get my hands on you from down there."

Keith just snickered and pulled Lance forward for a kiss, biting his thin lower lip teasingly. And then, because he was so so ready to let loose and lose himself in the ride, Keith closed his eyes and relaxed, letting Lance take over the pace they were moving and the pressure around his neglected cock.

His hips were moving automatically by now, tight rocks to help Lance reach his prostate from just the right angle. Other than that Keith really didn't need to have anything remotely close to a coherent thought in his head, and as such was quite content just lean into Lance's body and scream, letting the pleasure take over all of his senses with abandon.

Keith's entire body was shaking, thrumming with electricity that set every nerve on fire. Not just shaking even, but going beyond that practically into convulsing, his body jerking wildly at the response of every hard strike against his prostate, completely unable to handle the sensations it was overloaded with. If Keith noticed he certainly didn't care, finally lost entirely to the heat of sex and capable only of sinking into it. Even Lance's presence was only a figure at the back of his mind while Keith's universe narrowed down to awareness of only his pelvis, from his straining cock inside his urethra and down through his sac only to spread upwards to every single millimeter of his ass from where Lance sat inside him.

And then, something broke through the dizzying fog of lust. Lance's voice was slowly entering his awareness, words filtering delayed into Keith's ears. "Keith, Keith, baby, so good for me, so sweet and so pretty," he was gasping mindlessly. "Tu cuerpo es increíble, te lo juro, quiero estar aquí para siempre ." He was shaking same as Keith, the rhythm of his cock going wild as he chased completion inside Keith. " Yes yes yes , there you go that's it, just a little more honey-"

God, Lance was so cute. Completely mindlessly wrecked, and instead of animalistic grunts and whiny repetitions of the sentiment 'fuck yeah' like most guys he was still sweet-talking Keith like he was trying to coax him out of his panties at the debutante ball. Did he even remember Keith didn't speak enough Spanish to understand half of what he was saying?

It was just so ridiculously Lance of him that it was actually funny, and soon Keith broke out into a full-blown fit of laughter that shook both of their bodies. And when Lance swore Keith's name loudly and buried his face in his collarbone while he trembled and came, Keith thought that that was a pretty damned fine way to end their night.

He was still seated all the way inside Keith, and still rocking his hips up even as Keith felt his cock throb and the pressure of a hot spill of come fill up his insides. And he kept his hand on Keith's dick the whole time too, so after only a few encouraging seconds of pleading on Keith's end there was enough stimulation on his prostate while Lance softened up that Keith was able to find his release too, which rendered him somewhere around catatonic.

God, he loved this. He loved how this felt, he loved having sex , he loved...

Keith howled louder than he probably ever had in his life, paralyzed from the waist down as waves of the most intense pleasure imaginable washed over his body over and over like a crashing tide. If his string of prostate orgasms had been mind-blowing than this straight up blacked him out for a few seconds, every nerve in his body lighting up until the sensation teetered on the edge of painful, his frazzled brain too overloaded with bliss to even know how to process the sensations anymore.

Even with the unearthly load of come splashing between their bodies Keith's orgasm didn't stop, still wracking his entire body with tremors so powerful he felt like his bones had turned to chocolate and started to melt. There were stars behind his eyes and supernovas in his veins, his organs were liquid candy and no matter how many long seconds of Lance petting his hair passed all of it just kept on and on going forever, probably until Keith died from it all.

Lance collapsed backwards, arms still wrapped around Keith's shoulders but letting his cock slip free of Keith's bereft embrace. He felt his ass contracting, leaving a terribly empty feeling that was thankfully overshadowed by the fact that Keith kind of STILL hadn't stopped coming yet. Not that there was anything left in his own flaccid cock, but just because his entire being was still throbbing with the same fierce and magnificent ecstasy as the moment he'd spilled.

"Holy fucking crow," Lance panted into Keith's hair, spread out so they were both lying on the bed in a sweaty pile. "If that's what our first time was like, I don't even think I've been DOING sex right before this."

Keith giggled, because even with his body still humming with passion his mind was slowly drifting back to the general vicinity of his head. Sort of. Lance sure was comfortable to lay on, huh? "That'll teach you to do it with people that aren't me, huh?"

Lance laughed, kissing the top of Keith's head. "I didn't even know I was gonna MEET you, Keith!"

"That's your own fault," Keith mumbled into Lance's chest. "Should have known to wait for me."

Which is how they both ended up giggling for the next few minutes, soft nonsensical snickers that jiggled both of them against each other in between lazy kisses, all while Keith was still throbbing pleasantly.

Eventually, Lance had to ruin it. "We gotta clean up before we fall asleep," he mumbled regretfully, soft fingertips running down Keith's spine in a slow meander. "I don't know if you have any idea how much Keith-iness came out of you, but both of us and the bed are all pretty much ruined right now. Like, cemented-to-the-sheets ruined."

"Mmmnot yet," Keith sleepily replied, wiggling to settle more heavily on top of Lance in a lazy effort to pin him down to keep him from leaving. "Still coming."

Lance's hand stilled on his back, lifting his head up to look down at Keith. "It's been like ten minutes!"

"Yeahhhh," he sighed dreamily, wondering how Lance had failed to notice he had never stopped actively trembling since they laid down. "S'the good stuff."

Lance's head flopped back onto the bed. "I can't even, with you." His voice was light and baffled.

Apparently having reached the end of his own afterglow, Lance ended up fidgeting under Keith in short time. "Kitten, honey, I don't want you to think I don't one hundred percent super love naked cuddling with you, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to ignore how gross we are when I can feel you like, drying onto my body from all our jizz, and there's… SO MUCH lube, Keith. Lube everywhere."

To spite Keith's valiant efforts to keep him right where he was, Lance was sitting up and he was sliding down his chest to fall into the… okay yeah, disgustingly damp mattress.

Keith groaned when Lance's feet hit the floor, sighing a mournful "Come on Kitten, get up," as he offered Keith a hand. "The sheets can change themselves but we gotta be the ones to walk to the shower for the rest."

He ended up accepting Lance's hand pulling him to his own feet, and in turn Lance accepted it when Keith immediately failed the use of his watery knees and toppled to lean his weight onto his boyfriend.

They fumbled over to the shower, which Keith was reluctant to admit did feel really fucking awesome right now on his still-very sensitive skin. Warm water tingling against his body while Lance soaped them both down, still carrying Keith's weight while he basked in an afterglow that seemed beautifully endless.

As they stumbled back into bed, Keith found himself feeling ridiculously regretful of having cleaned up so thoroughly. He hadn't noticed it much at the time, but the loss of Lance's come inside him made him feel oddly empty inside, and maybe it would have been nice to keep carrying a tiny bit of Lance inside him while they slept. Too late now, and settling into cool fresh sheets with Lance's warm naked body was still pretty much the closest thing to heavenly Keith had ever felt.

It was hardly a surprise they were both asleep in seconds.

When Keith woke up, it was at the same time he usually did in the mornings. Exhaustion and willpower weren't enough to fight his natural body clock, and so two hours before he needed to be anywhere or do anything he was blinking awake, body ready to begin his day well before his brain was.

But what wasn't normal was waking up to someone else there in bed with him.

Keith… had never slept next to anyone before. Not for longer than a quick nap, and never within breathing distance of someone for an entire night.

They weren't even cuddling and barely touching. They had their legs tangled together down at the foot and one of Lance's arms was pinned under Keith's weight, but Keith still was laying on the very edge of the mattress otherwise, like they had started out spooning until Keith got overheated and tried to roll away from the warm body smothering him. Yeah, definitely not used to sharing a bed yet.

Hardly surprising considering Keith's life until now. Sharing a bed with someone required trust on level's he'd never experienced before. To sleep next to someone was to let them see you at your most vulnerable, to give another person total access to your body while you had no awareness of the outside world and that had always been a kind of terrifying idea. But… beyond being nice, with Lance it just felt natural. Even though Keith's very being was against the idea of being touched while he was asleep, somehow he'd gotten more rest in less hours than he had in months.

Not that he intended to like, get up or anything. What was he gonna do, leave Lance by himself while he snuck off to go train? Not even Keith was that much of a freak.

He turned around to face Lance, then scooted even closer because the jerk had insisted on getting them clean before bed and so wasn't in proper smelling range like Keith liked him. Why did he have to have the one dude in the world who was fastidious about hygiene when Keith wanted him to be gross, it wasn't fair. What was the point of even liking guys if you didn't like how they smelled when they were sweaty, right?

Fortunately, they'd slept long enough for Lance to no longer be soap-scented, prolonged closeness of their bodies under the blanket having been enough for Lance to sweat through it. So when Keith buried his nose into his favorite nook in Lance's collarbone and took a deep breath he got a lungfull of natural boyfriend musk, dizzyingly perfect.

The breath came out in a long sigh that came with a shiver down Keith's spine, and when he scooted close enough to settle with their bodies pressed together the feel of naked skin on naked skin was even better than soaking in Lance's scent was.

There was something… strangely unique about it. They'd cuddled together dozens of times because they were both secretly needy, but never naked, and Keith had never imagined it'd make that much of a difference. But there was something about this that was so much more intimate than when they had clothes between them, like… like Keith could feel both of their heartbeats at once and with his entire body.

Like even though they were as close as physically possible without being inside of each other.. again, instead of feeling smothered Keith just wanted to be impossibly closer still.

He held his breath for a moment, and then tried to time out the release to match Lance's. After a few seconds Keith had synced up their breathing until their chests were rising and falling at the same gentle rhythm. He couldn't synchronize their heartbeats too, but somehow Keith thought that was even better. They both still had their own individual pace and flow, but with a little effort they could match themselves to each other in all the ways that mattered.

Yeah, Keith decided as Lance snorted sleepily and flopped his right arm low around Keith's waist. It was official. Lance had now lost all sleeping-by-himself privileges for the rest of forever - Keith was NOT going back to laying in this bed alone. He didn't even wanna get up right NOW, he couldn't imagine coming back here tonight and trying to fall asleep without Lance. He'd had too many nightmares until now, and if Keith was gonna wake up in a cold sweat he wanted a warm body there to hold him until he fell back asleep.

And… he wanted to be the warm body that held Lance through his nightmares.

There were still a lot of things they had to talk about. Hell, there were still a lot of arguments they needed to fight out, and Keith would probably indeed end up spending more than a few nights by himself because of them, knowing the two of them.

But… he understood how it worked now. Relationships weren't supposed to be magical and worry-free, they were a commitment that took work to maintain. But let's face it. Keith had never shied away from hard work or gave up just because the thing he wanted was difficult on the side of impossible. Anything worth doing at all was worth putting effort into, and Lance… Lance was worth so much . Lance was worth everything Keith could give and more.

Plus hey, let's face it; Keith didn't even WANT it to be easy. Perfect would be boring anyway.

The End

(1.) Not that Keith would ever ever at any point let Lance know he was well-endowed. Working on his boyfriend's self-esteem was one thing, but if Lance knew he was hung of all things he'd be annoying about it until the end of TIME.