The Closet

They trapped me in here with you?!

The high pitched shriek that escaped him would have shattered glass, but he'd deny he'd done it to his last breath. It was a manly shriek of manliness and not terror.

The door didn't open.

He stared, breathlessly waiting and... nothing.

Keith was also staring, his head cocked to the side in confusion and he hit the pad again, getting the same response.

Lance reached out to stop him from hitting it a third time and started at the door with slowly narrowing eyes.

"It's not opening."

"Yea, I already tried twice, it mu-"

"PIDGE! PIDGE I KNOW YOU DID THIS!"

Lance was yelling, not releasing the grip he had on Keith even as he raised his other hand to start banging on the metal door. His heart was still sitting in his throat from his not terror, the slow growing realization that he was actually stuck in a room with Keith creeping in was not helping.

The only sound was his banging, the silence from the other side making him tremble.

There's no way the door suddenly just malfunctioned with him and Keith trapped inside. No way, this had Pidge written all over it in green bubbly font and he could already imagine their high pitched cackling, standing just outside the door as they messed with the control settings.

"PIDGE!"

Lance's voice cracked mid word and he turned to glare at Keith.

"They trapped me in here with you!"

Keith was staring at his wrist, dazed as he realized that Lance was holding his hand and he felt his earlier flush returning, but it was quickly washed away by the sudden annoyance as he glared up at Lance who was accusing him of something. He could hear it in his tone.

"It's not like I want to be stuck in here with you, Lance."

He pulled his wrist free and hit the door with it, frustration as it didn't budge making him growl lowly.
Lance gulped, even as he tried not to focus on the way that Keith was giving him a dark look.

"It's your fault I'm even in here with you."

Lance... couldn't really deny that, even if Keith had pulled them in here, he'd only done it after Lance had ran into him.

"You lied to Pidge in the first place! Don't put the blame for this on me!"

This was getting them nowhere, instead they were right back where they started. Worse even, now that the vents were their only way out.

"I'm getting out of here."

Keith turned and stormed back to the grate they'd left forgotten, his stomach a mess of heat and anger.

He was trapped with Lance, in what was essentially a closet, alone. He didn't know how he'd get out of this without killing the idiot.

The grate had to open, now. He wasn't going to hang around in here any longer then he had to. Especially not when Lance was just staring at him, the look on his face a tear between fear and anger.

Lance had no idea that running from Pidge would end up with him in an even worse situation than just confessing that he didn't do anything wrong and taking the punishment anyway.

"Do you think they're still out there?"

He called out as he made his way back to Keith, who had gotten the grate to move a few more inches from sheer desperation.

"I doubt they'd wait around for us to get out of here. They're probably just watching the cameras."

It made sense to Keith at least that Pidge would clearly take the easier route. They were always watching. He shuddered at the thought, but he doubted there were cameras in this room, they were probably focused on the hallway outside.

At least escaping through the vents was still the best idea, even if they didn't have an alternative one anymore.

"Lance, could you at least do something useful!"

Keith's arms were straining, but it seemed the grate was stuck, as it refused to budge another inch. Frowning down at it, he moved the metal piece to the side of the grate and attempted to wedge it in from the right to even out the movement. It might have just gotten jammed from the angle they were prying it in.

Lance was frowning at the door behind them, standing just out of Keith's reach, and fiddling with a cleaning rag. It seemed like he was a million miles away as he drifted through thoughts of being trapped with Keith and the image of the other's arms straining as he grasped the thin metal and began pulling at it again. He knew the red paladin spent most of his time on the training deck, but he didn't think he'd look like that.

He flushed, the thought making his cheeks burn and the tips of his ears go red. He didn't just think that. No way. He hadn't thought anything about Keith. Nope, his rival was just a hot headed emo kid with a horrible sense of fashion and he was pissed that he was trapped in here with him.

"I am doing something! I'm mapping the vents in my head. If we follow one to the right and then loop back around a few times, we could escape to our rooms, the hall isn't that far from here.

It's where he had been heading when he'd found out that Pidge had been hunting him and where he'd thought he'd find Shiro this late, but the other hadn't been there. When he'd ran into Keith, he'd figured that Shiro was probably still in the training deck.

One of the two was usually in there, if not both together.

The grate moved another few inches and Keith breathed out a sigh. At the rate this was going, they'd be here for days. He was already feeling the strain and though he hadn't been hungry a second ago, the thought of missing dinner had his stomach rumbling.

Frowning, he let go of their makeshift crowbar and raid the pouch at his hip for a snack bar he'd gotten off Coran. The other had offered them after finding Keith in the training room late at night more than a few times. Energy bars of some kind of weird pink plant, but at least it was better then the man's green goop.

Lance sniffed at the air, wrinkling his nose at the bitter smell and turned his head to watch Keith. The other was munching on something, the stringy pink thing reminding him of gum, but with a stranger look, like celery. He made a face, even as he felt his stomach complain. He wasn't hungry. He was not eating that, but he could feel the other paladin's eyes on him.

"What are you even eating, that's disgusting."

Keith, who'd held the bar out in offer, huffed.

"Coran says it's some kind of energy thing. Take it. You're stomach is growling, it's distracting."
"Keep that away from me, it smells like something died in here."

"It's not that bad, just take it."

"I'm not eating that. Keep your weird corpse snacks to yourself."

"Lance."

The blue paladin turned away and began shoving at the thin metal in Keith's place, not managing to budge it an inch. He frowned and tried again, straining against the metal until the sound of groaning came from the bar and it snapped in half, making him yelp as it clattered to the ground, leaving a jagged edge scraping against his metal chest plate.

"Shit."

"What the hell, Lance!"

"I didn't do anything!"