Lance sat with his chin in his hand, elbow on the table, and watched Shiro very desperately try to ignore him. There was a pale pink flush to Shiro's face, it looked like he might even be sweating ever so slightly. Lance tilted his head, brow furrowed, as he tried to determine what, exactly, was wrong with their leader. As he was staring at Shiro, Shiro raised his head and caught Lance's eye, then actually fully blushed, his gaze darting away like he was scalded by the action.
"What do you think's wrong with him?" Lance wondered aloud when he was in the training room with Keith. Keith was actually using the training room for its intended purpose, working through a few sets of vaguely martial arts moves while attempting to ignore Lance sitting on his heels on the edge of the mat. "I mean, space flu is a distinct possibility here."
"I think you're over-thinking it," Keith said, finally stopping long enough to swipe his hand across his forehead to clear his bangs away. He shot Lance an irritated look. "Now either get on this mat and practice with me, or go away. "
But he wasn't over-thinking it. Shiro didn't act this way around Pidge or Hunk, or even to the same extent around Coran or Allura. Keith, though — the tips of his ears sometimes went red around Keith, and he seemed to find a constant reason to be touching Keith when they stood close. It would be a hand on his shoulder, or settled on his waist, or lightly touching the small of Keith's back as they leaned over one of the display consoles in the ready room. Lance's chest tightened with jealousy at the casual way Shiro trailed his fingers up Keith's back as he stood just slightly ahead of Shiro, both of them listening intently to Allura speak.
Shiro didn't do any of that with him.
No, he just refused to meet Lance's eye and blushed like a schoolgirl whenever Lance caught him out at it, because that wasn't weird or unsettling at all.
"Man," Hunk said, as Lance laid on his back on Hunk's bed and complained about How Weird Shiro Was Acting, Hunk, Isn't This Really Weird, "why don't you just talk to Shiro?"
Lance flailed himself upright, one hand on his chest, affronted. As if that idea hadn't occurred to him at least fifteen times and he always fucking lost his nerve first.
So.
There was this great big whole nebulous 'talking to Shiro' thing, which Lance was pretty certain was a No Go because not only did he not have the guts or fortitude to just approach Shiro and ask What The Actual Fuck Is Going On, Fearless Leader, and Why Are You Looking At Me Like You're A Dog In Heat; and then there was doing exactly what he had been doing, which was annoying the remainder of his teammates to death and living in his bunk with his hand down his pants and thinking about how cute it was that Shiro's blushes always started at his ears.
Wait, wait, wait.
Lance flung himself upright in a flurry of sheets, knocking his favorite eye mask askew as he stared into the teal-lit dimness of his room in the middle of the ship's night-cycle. Shiro had been avoiding him for almost a week, now — Hunk had rolled his eyes and called Lance delusional, because Shiro still ate with them and trained with them but Lance had been paying attention. Shiro always seemed to put the largest distance between himself and Lance. There was absolutely no reason for him to be doing this, unless....
"Holy shit," Lance said, and pulled his eye mask completely off, letting it drop into the mess of his covers. "Shiro's in heat. "
#
Lance hadn't presented.
It wasn't unusual for his family to present late, if they presented at all — his uncle hadn't presented as an alpha until he was almost twenty years old and already in a relationship; and really, both of his parents were betas so the chances were low that he would even present in the first place. Lance had never let it bother him, his best friend was a beta, most of his classmates were betas, most of the general population were betas, that was just the way things were. And, well, life had gotten a whole lot more complicated recently what with this whole 'flung a few galaxies away, busy saving the universe from certain destruction' thing, so he really hadn't even thought about it lately.
