Under My Skin

Chapter 1

Lance threw his bayard to the ground behind him, the weapon shifting back into its dormant form as it bounced across the training deck.

"There, no weapons - now AT ME BRO!" he challenged, throwing his arms wide as his upper body leaned in closer to his rival.

At some point in their training sessions, he and Keith would usually stop sparring with each other and instead begin to actually fight. Lance didn't always know what prompted these slides into confrontation, sometimes it was as simple as bumping into one another. But this time he knew exactly what had caused their spat: Keith was being a dick.

Well, more than usual at least. Keith was generally a dick - it was, like, his default setting or something. But today was worse than usual.

Their Red Paladin had waltzed into the training room, all casual grace and fluid movements. He'd stepped up onto the mats, activating his bayard mid-stride, and spun the weapon around in his grip with a flourish; a stupid smug smirk planted on his stupid smug face. It instantly got under Lance's skin.

How could anyone be that smooth and yet so utterly ... UGHHH! There were no words to describe the way Keith made him feel. Just being in the other's proximity made Lance's blood boil in his veins. Keith thought he was such a badass, thought he was so smooth with his sword and his stupid emo hair. But Lance was just as smooth; it was just harder to showcase when he had to stand still and crouch to take a shot. All the while stupid Keith and his stupid sword would slide around gracefully, leaping and jumping and bouncing between targets, then taunting Lance.

"You gonna just stand there?" He'd say when Lance was in the zone. The distraction usually enough to cause him to miss a shot and the resulting taunt of "Oooo nice shot Sharpshooter" would throw him off for the rest of their practice.

Lance knew he shouldn't let Keith get under his skin like that, really, he did. But it was just so hard to let the comments go. Especially when he knew with absolute certainty that if their roles were reversed Lance could slice circles around that emo prick.

"Lance, you need to focus on the task at hand." Shiro had called out sternly from the other side of the mats.

Lance had let an orb zoom past his head, not even noticing it at all as the hovering round bot sailed by him and shot Keith in the foot. It was a mistake, honestly, it was, but he sorta-kinda-maybe didn't regret it.

"Keep your quiznaking head in the game, Lance!" Keith growled as he hobbled off the mats and therefore out of firing range of the bots. Lance couldn't really say anything back, not without earning a grade A scolding from Paladin Dad, so instead, he turned his back to the team and, fully facing Keith, stuck out his tongue.

"Real mature jackass," Keith sneered.

"Keith: language! Lance: leave him alone!" Shiro commanded with finality and Lance didn't argue with him, instead, he turned around and trotted back to the center of the mats. "Okay, everyone needs to focus, no distractions. Keith, stay on the bench and sit this one out -"

"WHAT??"

"- everyone else, get into formation."

They'd continued their training session for another whole hour, Keith grumpily sitting on the sidelines the entire time. He'd kept shouting out observations no one had asked for, particularly at Lance, and it was starting to drive the Blue Paladin batty.

Finally, Lance had lost his cool. After one of the round orbs sailed between his legs to shoot Pidge in the back, Keith had yelled at Lance from the bench about focusing on his surroundings and learning to actually aim. So Lance turned towards the benches and shot the space directly beside where Keith was seated, leaving a smouldering scorch mark on the otherwise pristine wall next to his stupid, arrogant head.