Keith got his first soul-tat when he was 13 years old.

He was being introduced to his newest foster family, and shook all of their hands. As soon as Keith's hand came into contact with Shiro's, they both felt the platonic soulmate tattoo forming. Shiro already had one, so he knew what was going on but Keith could do nothing but stare at the Gemini constellation on his left arm in wonder.

Well, Shiro's parents weren't just going to let him disappear into the system after that.

Soul-tats appeared when you touched the person you are meant to have the bond with. You could have met the person and spoken to them for a year, but if you managed to never touch the other person then you'd never be the wiser. There were stories of people fighting through a crowd only to discover a new soul-tat and an impossible task of finding out just who that was supposed to match.

Most people had two types of soulmates: romantic and platonic. And platonic soulmates were surprisingly common – often people would have 3-4 of those. Keith made it through high school with exactly one soulmate, and he didn't want any more. Soulmate Tattoos, or soul-tats, created a cohesive tattoo once you met all of your soulmates, so it was obvious that Keith hadn't met more than one. Shiro was all he needed, though – his adoptive brother was his best friend.

This mentality would be put to the test, however, when he moved away from home to attend college. Shiro was busy with his job and his recently-discovered romantic soulmate, and Keith knew exactly no one at his new school. He was given a scholarship to play soccer, so at least he would be forced out of his dorm room on a regular basis.

Lance loved football. He had been playing since he was in second grade, so he wasn't surprised to get a scholarship for college. It was only made better by the fact that Pidge and Hunk, two of his platonic soulmates, would be going to the same school as he was. He was even going to be rooming with Hunk, though he had to move in first because of practice.

His first practice with the entire team was the week before classes started, and that was where he met Keith. Coran, their eccentric coach with the bushiest mustache that Lance had ever seen, had them all pass a ball around a circle and introduce themselves.

"I'm Lance!" he told them all when he had his turn. "I'm majoring in theater and I like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain." He gave his laughing teammates a wink and kicked the ball over to the boy that he noticed hadn't said a word yet.

Keith blinked in surprise when the lanky boy sent the ball his way, but stopped it expertly in front of himself. "Um, I'm Keith. I'm majoring in astrophysics." He paused when he heard an impressed whistle sound through the crowd. "And, uh, my brother works for NASA." He never knew what to say about himself so he deflected the attention to Shiro and quickly sent the ball away across the circle of players.

Coran, however, saw through that and called him out before the next person could speak. "That's great, Keith, but you're supposed to tell us something about yourself – not your family."

Keith huffed out a breath. "Then, I guess I was the leading scorer on my team all 4 years of high school?" There were more murmurs at that, but Keith didn't care – he focused on his teammate with the ball and hoped that the bonding exercise would finish up already.

Lance missed the next introduction because he was staring at Keith. What a showoff. Lance knew that he had to beat him to the starting roster.

Lance's plan was put to a halt when the starting lineup was announced and he was a sub.

Keith let himself have a small grin when he saw that he was starting.

Both boys went to their phones immediately.

Lancelot: UGH
Lancelot: He's a starter
Lancelot: I'm just a sub
Pidgeot: The world is ending
Lancelot: I am demoting your soulmate status
Hunkules: I'll make us some comfort cookies – wanna help?
Lancelot: Hunk, my man, you know the way to my heart. See, Pidge? This is how it's done.
Pidgeot: Eh, you'll still share the cookies with me.
Hunkules: Come on over!

Lil Bro: I'm a starter!
Big Bro: Way to go! I knew you could do it.
Lil Bro: Thanks, Shiro.
Big Bro: So how do you like the team?
Lil Bro: It's a cool group. But there's one guy who seems to really not like me.
Big Bro: What did you do?
Lil Bro: Why do you assume I did something?
Big Bro: Keith, how long have I known you?
Lil Bro: But this time I really don't think I did anything…
Big Bro: Wanna talk?

As Keith was walking back from the dining hall and talking to Shiro, he passed the dorm kitchen and smelled something baking. Curious, he poked his head in the door. His teammate Lance was there with two people that he assumed were Lance's friends. There was a big guy and a small girl, and the big guy noticed Keith.

"Hey!" he greeted. "Want a cookie?"

Keith was surprised by the offer – he didn't even know the guy. "Uh, no thanks. I was just walking past and it smelled really good."

The guy's face lit up. "Thanks! If you change your mind, I'm in room 204."

Keith nodded. "Thanks," he replied, before leaving and closing the door behind him. Once he was gone, Lance rounded on his friend.

"What the heck? You can't go around offering cookies to my rival!"

Hunk looked at him, confused. "That was Keith? But he seemed so nice."

Lance just shook his head. "Yes that was Keith. And now he knows what room I'm in! Who knows what he'll do!"

Pidge scoffed at Lance. "My dude, from the precisely 15 seconds that I've seen Keith he really doesn't seem like he cares about this rivalry that you claim to have going with him. He complimented Hunk's baking and didn't even look at you."

Lance huffed and took a bite of cookie to avoid having to respond.

The day before their first game, the team played a scrimmage during practice. Lance was playing on the opposite team as Keith, and he hated to admit it but Keith was really good. Even watching from the sidelines didn't prepare him for what it would be like to play against the man.

The two teams were tied up at one goal apiece when Rolo, the keeper on Keith's team, launched the ball across the pitch and Keith went running after it. He went up for a header, but missed the ball and instead clashed heads with Lance who was doing the same thing.

They both fell to the ground and groaned. Keith gripped his head in his hands and laid curled up on his right side, seeing stars behind his eyelids. Lance simply laid prone on the ground, not even wanting to move to grip his head. Their teammates were talking, and Keith slowly became aware of what they were saying.

"I've never seen a soul-tat like that." "The two of them?" "Well, this is a first for me."

Wondering what they were talking about, Keith slowly opened his eyes. Ignoring the stabbing pain at the back of his head, he looked past the color on his arm to where the rest of the team was looking at the two of them.

Wait. Color?

Keith sat up quickly as his head swam and looked at the colorful tattoo that decorated his entire left arm from hand to shoulder. It was beautiful, but it confused Keith. Most soul-tats were smaller – this was an entire nebula of stars and cosmic dust. All he could do was stare at it in surprise before Lance swore and rolled over.

Looking up now, Lance could see that his teammates were talking about him. Wondering why, he tilted his head to ask Keith but paused when he saw that there was a colorful tattoo decorating the man's entire left arm.

Oh no.

Lance sat up quickly and didn't even pause to wonder if he was concussed before pulling off his shirt to look at his back. His platonic soul-tats were on his shoulders, so he had often wondered how they would be connected. He twisted as much as he could – which wasn't much but that was enough to confirm that he had a new soul-tat that connected his platonics and spanned his entire back. He looked back to Keith to ask what it looked like but the man was staring at Lance in shock. That was when Lance's brain caught up and realized that he had basically started stripping in the middle of the pitch during practice. Before he could make a bigger fool of himself, Coran stepped in.

"I think you boys both need to get inside and see the trainers for your heads."

Keith nodded mutely and stood, reaching a hand down to help Lance. The shirtless boy blinked in surprise but took it and they walked to the locker rooms in silence. They both sat down, not yet going to see the trainer.

"Can," Lance broke the silence. "Can we start over?" He didn't want to be in his soulmate's bad books, no matter what they had been like before their discovery.

Keith looked at him in surprise. "What?"

"Like this. Hi, I'm Lance. I'm a freshman majoring in theater and I'm 18 and two of my platonic soulmates are my best friends." Lance stuck out his hand, and Keith still didn't know what was going on but it seemed to matter to Lance so he shook it.

"Uh hi Lance, I'm Keith. I've only got one platonic soulmate and that's my brother, but I'm 18 and majoring in astrophysics."

"It looks like you'll be getting another platonic," Lance said, releasing Keith's hand and lightly touching a spot on his arm. "There's a blank space right here."

Keith had to twist his arm in an unnatural position to see it, but sure enough there was some of his natural skin color poking through the nebula on his tricep. "Huh."

Lance snorted. "That's all you have to say?"

Keith shrugged. "I never thought I'd even meet a romantic soulmate, so what's one more platonic."

Lance peered at Keith curiously at that, but didn't want to scare him away with any more personal questions. "Would you mind taking a picture of mine?" he asked instead. "I can't see it all since it's on my back."

Keith nodded and retrieved his phone from his locker. There was a text from Shiro – and Keith idly wondered how his brother would react when he heard the news as he opened up his camera. Lance still hadn't put a shirt on since he took it off on the pitch, so Keith snapped a quick picture and showed it to Lance.

Lance could feel his face light up. His soul-tat now covered his entire back from his neck to his shorts. It was a flower vine with calaveras and flowers that wove intricately together up and down his back and he could spot his platonic soul-tats at the top, beautifully included. Without pausing to think, he quickly texted the picture to himself and handed Keith his phone back.

"I just sent it to myself," he explained, suddenly realizing what that entailed. "So, uh, I guess you have my number now."

Keith could feel heat rising in his neck, so he just nodded and put his phone back before mumbling something about seeing the trainer and fleeing the scene. It turned out he didn't have a concussion, luckily enough since he had a game to play the following day. When he returned to the main room, the rest of the team was there and he nodded to his fellow starters that he would be alright and ready to go.

Back in his room, Keith collapsed on his bed and dug out his phone. He hadn't texted Shiro yet, and he couldn't put it off anymore.

Lil Bro: Apparently the guy on my team that hated me is my romantic soulmate.

Keith had just set his phone down and was contemplating just how much energy he wanted to put into getting changed out of his sweaty practice clothes when his phone rang.

"Yo."

"He's your what?" Shiro wasn't one to yell but Keith had to pull his phone away from his ear at the vehemence of his brother's reaction.

"Did you not read the text?"

"I read it, I'm just not sure I believe it."

Keith breathed a laugh. "Well, apparently we're Meant to Be. I now have a tattoo over my entire left arm and his back is completely covered."

"Ok, I want to hear everything."

Across campus, Lance walked into his room to see Hunk and Pidge sitting on the couch and betting on what the emergency was this time. Lance had sent them a text to meet him there after practice, and he appreciated that they were both there even if they didn't seem to believe that it was an actual emergency.

Lancelot: SOS MEET ME IN MY ROOM AFTER PRACTICE THIS IS NOT A DRILL

"I'm thinking that he got stuck on his homework."

"Nah, I bet that he just realized that we have a test next week." Pidge liked to act like she had neither faith nor cares for Lance but he knew better by now.

"No!" he exclaimed. "I got another soul-tat."

"I thought that you said that we were enough for you," Pidge pointed out.

"Well, us and your brother," Hunk amended, including Lance's other platonic soulmate.

Rather than try and explain, Lance just took off his shirt and spun around so that they could see his back. Two gasps were all that he heard, and Lance spun back around to face them.

"I've never seen anything so extensive," Pidge observed, scientific as always. "What could that mean?"

Lance shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. But you'll never guess who it is!"

"Keith," Pidge replied immediately. Hunk looked like he didn't want to say it out loud but agreed. Lance glared at them.

"He is basically the only thing that you've been talking about for the past couple weeks," Hunk said. "I'd be more surprised if it wasn't him."

Lance groaned and threw himself into his bed, face first. This left his back open for examination, though, and he could feel Pidge poking at the calaveras.

"How'd you two find out?" Hunk asked.

Lance sat up, excited to tell the story. He always loved a good story. "Well, we were in the middle of practice."

There wasn't much of a crowd at the game, but men's soccer wasn't the most popular sport at the university so no one expected one. Keith did see some familiar faces, though, and smiled when he waved to Shiro and Allura, Shiro's romantic soulmate. They waved back enthusiastically, and then Keith was in his zone. It was time to play.

Lance couldn't help but stare at Keith as he watched the match from the sideline. His soul-tat was stunning, and it was constantly drawing his eyes away from the ball to wherever his soulmate happened to be standing. It wasn't until the first half's stoppage time that Keith managed to break through the other team's defense and score. Their entire team was yelling, and Keith seemed surprised when they celebrated with him. Lance wondered what his high school team had been like that he hadn't expected his team to celebrate a goal with him.

In the second half, Lance's staring had to stop – he was sent in to the match partway through. He was nervous, but Keith caught his eye and grinned in welcome and Lance instantly felt his confidence return. He could even hear Hunk and Pidge yelling at him from the stands – he smiled for them.

The other team had scored so it was tied up with 5 min left when Keith got the ball in a breakaway. Lance followed – his long legs letting him catch up fairly quickly and he called for the ball when the defender fell behind and he had an opening. Rather than pass, Keith took a shot that rebounded off the keeper and Lance was lucky that the ball rolled right to him. He fired another shot and it sailed past the keeper into the back of the net.

Lance jumped up, and Keith couldn't help his swell of pride. He ran over to where his teammates were surrounding Lance and clapped him on the shoulder with a smile. Lance looked radiantly happy, and Keith hadn't even wanted a romantic soulmate coming into college but now he wouldn't want anyone else.

After the match, Keith was walking back towards campus with Shiro and Allura when he heard someone calling his name. He paused and spun to see Lance walking to meet them with his two friends on either side.

"Hey, I wanted to introduce you to my friends. This is Hunk and Pidge," Lance said, pointing to the big guy on his left and the smaller girl on his right respectively.

Keith nodded to both and returned the favor. "This is Shiro and Allura."

Once everyone had greeted each other, they all walked together towards campus. Lance walked next to Keith while Shiro and Allura struck up an easy conversation with Hunk and Pidge.

"Hey, I was wondering something," Lance began. He tried not to sound too awkward or defensive about it, but he really didn't know how Keith was going to take it. "Why didn't you pass me the ball on that breakaway? I had a clear shot and no one around me. Did you think I couldn't do it, or something?"

Keith blinked and shook his head quickly. "No, of course not! I'm… I'm just used to my team not really liking me or being that good so I had to take on most of the burden myself," he explained, looking away.

Lance took a moment to think about that, wondering even more what his high school team had been like, but before he could respond Shiro had pulled Keith into the other conversation.

"You two need to talk," he said, shoving Keith towards Pidge. Keith had no idea why, so he just turned to Pidge.

"Yo."

She nodded back. "Hey. I was just telling Shiro about how he really shouldn't just blindly believe everything NASA tells him."

Keith shook his head. "Good luck with that. I've been trying for years to get him to take us to Nevada so I can use his clearance to get into Area 51 and see what they're hiding but he insists it's nothing."

Pidge's face lit up. "It can't be nothing. They won't let anyone in – and whenever I hack into the satellites they're always moving huge crates all over. What could those be?"

Lance groaned and moved over to Shiro. "What have you done?" he asked mournfully, pointing towards where Pidge and Keith were chatting animatedly about aliens and conspiracies.

Shiro smiled. "Hey, I just wanted to give him someone else to talk about these things with – after 5 years it gets a little old."

Lance laughed and looked over in time to see Pidge and Keith fist bump as expressions of surprise came over their faces.

Keith had gotten his first soul-tat 5 years prior, and then his most recent came when his mind was more concerned about his head injury than anything going on with his skin. When he gave a fist bump to Pidge after they decided that they were going to steal Shiro's badge and run away to Nevada together, a tingling sensation danced across his left arm where the blank spot in his nebula was. Confused, he twisted his arm to see that it had been filled in with the constellation Hydra. Pidge was also examining her soul-tat and looked up with a wicked grin. He couldn't help but reciprocate.

"Nice."

The day after their first match was a Sunday, and coach gave them all the day off of practice. Pidge was in Hunk and Lance's room and the two of them were doing homework while Lance sat on the couch. He knew that he should be doing homework, but instead he messed with his phone – looking at the lock screen and then putting it down, opening it up only to close it right back.

"You can invite him over," Hunk said, looking over from his homework on his desk.

"I dunno – I don't want to make it weird," Lance protested, somewhat half-heartedly. He wouldn't mind having some time to get to talk with his romantic soulmate.

Pidge sighed from her post at Lance's desk. "This is why we can't have nice things, you toaster waffle. Just text your boyfriend. Or I'll hack into your phone and send it for you."

Lance balked. "He's not my boyfriend! I barely even know the guy."

"So invite him over so that you can get to know him." Hunk didn't even bother to look up this time.

When Lance still didn't move to send a text, Pidge got up and moved to grab his phone. This spurred Lance into action and he quickly unlocked his phone to send a message and ward off Pidge's threat.

Lance: Hey, what are you up to?
Star Boy: Nothing really.
Lance: Wanna hang with me and Hunk and Pidge?
Star Boy: Sure. Room 204, right?
Lance: Yup!

"He's coming over," Lance informed the duo, not looking up to see their smug looks.

"Excellent," Pidge responded. "I found a new website that I want to see if he's seen."

Lance shared a look with Hunk – they were both glad that Pidge had found someone else to talk about her conspiracies with.

As Keith walked to room 204, he wondered what would be expected of him. He knew that he needed to talk about the whole soulmate thing with Lance, but he wasn't sure when would be the time to do that. Shiro and Allura had immediately started dating, but Keith wasn't much of a people person so he didn't want to go that route. He wasn't sure whether Lance would even like him, much less want to potentially date him.

Before he could come to anything resembling a conclusion, he was knocking on the door and it flew open to reveal Pidge. Lance was standing in the background like Pidge beat him to the door and she pulled Keith over to her laptop.

"Have you seen this website?"

Keith looked at her screen and nodded. "Yeah – they're alright. They've got some good info on cryptids but their moon landing section is shit."

Pidge nodded sagely. "Good to know. Thanks!"

Keith smiled in reply before he was dragged to the couch by Lance. Lance had been grateful for the immediate distraction – he had never seen Keith with his hair down and Lance did not want to acknowledge the giddiness that sight inspired in him. Keith seemed surprised about being pulled over, so Lance started talking.

"Don't worry, I just don't want Pidge to steal all of your time here. Did you bring any homework or anything?"

Keith shook his head. "Nah, I'm done already."

Pidge looked over in shock. "Even with that Physics assignment from Hell? You walnut."

Keith blinked at her. "Uh, I'm allergic to walnuts?"

She nodded sagely, like this was important and valid information for the conversation. "I see. Lance, you've just been demoted. Keith is the toaster waffle, you're a walnut."

Lance sputtered, affronted. "What? How can you take away my status like that?" He wasn't even sure if there was a hierarchy, but Hunk shrugged at him so he just rolled with it. He looked over and Keith was just as confused but Pidge had gone back to her homework so they moved on.

They chatted about classes and favorite teams for a little bit – Keith only watched Premier League and was a huge Arsenal fan while Lance stuck to MLS and followed his Colorado Rapids religiously. Eventually, Pidge and Hunk left to pick up dinner and Keith took a deep breath.

"Hey, Lance. What are you expecting from this?" He gestured vaguely between the two of them, and thankfully Lance understood what he was trying to say.

"I dunno." Lance shrugged. "Did you have any expectations or anything?"

Keith shook his head. "No, I just… Like, you always hear stories about how couples go straight into dating and that's great for them but I don't think I'm ready for that. I mean, we're both freshmen and we barely know each other."

Lance nodded in understanding. He wouldn't have minded getting to date Keith, but he was a hopeless romantic at heart and didn't want to ruin his chances with the pretty boy that Fate had decided to match him up with.

"That's cool. We can start here and see where life takes us. Friends?" Lance stuck out his hand, and Keith smiled when he shook it.

"Friends."