shining like the stars

25

When Keith left the flight bay, it was well past dinner time. He'd skipped the meal in part because Hunk and Pidge had been knee-deep in attempting to interpret the data that Pidge was pulling from the memory core and that meant that dinner was likely made by Coran. And while Altean-specific cuisine was unique in its primary flavor combinations, Keith was barely able to stomach it with a straight face on a regular day.

"Man, you missed it," Lance said. He was sitting on the floor in the bedroom, legs spread impressively and leaned forward between them, stretching out. Keith stopped short in the open door, and immediately cupped his hand over the lower part of his face, because he'd never seen Lance stretching out like this before. "I don't know what the hell it was that Coran made, but it tasted like motor oil."

"Sampled much motor oil?" Keith said as casually as he could manage, stepping around Lance and pulling his dirt-and-grime soaked shirt off as he did so. "That explains a lot."

"Yeah, it's a delicacy where I come from," Lance said, and rolled his eyes. "Where have you been?"

"Flight bay." Keith looked into the drawer that popped out of the wall into which all dirty clothes got dumped, before shoving his shirt inside. "I was working on a speeder."

"Cool, cool." Lance was still stretching out, his legs spread like he was doing the splits. Keith looked over at him and then back again, because he wasn't capable of dealing with that at the moment, he had no idea Lance was that flexible.

"So, um," Keith wasn't certain how to broach the subject. Shiro had agreed that he would let Keith talk to Lance first, and Shiro himself wasn't making any decisions yet either, which left Keith really nervous that despite his declarations he might still have to make a choice. He turned back to Lance, only to see now that Lance was typing something into the Altean-modified datapad Lance had stolen from Pidge. "...what are you doing?"

"Nothing," Lance said, typing furiously.

"That doesn't look like nothing to me," Keith said, shucking off his gloves and dumping them into the chute behind his shirt.

After another moment of furious typing, Lance looked up and made a face. "Hunk bet me twenty bucks that we couldn't have a conversation without fighting about something."

"We have conversations all the time!" Keith spread his hands. "We're talking right now!"

"I know, right?" Lance said. "I mean, it's not like you can help you're ... well, you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Keith said flatly.

Lance shrugged. "Well, you're ..." he gestured at Keith with one hand outstretched, and held that position for a moment, clearly processing. Keith was already irritated, and was about to actually say something very rude and ruin the conversation when Lance started turning noticeably pink.

"Why are you blushing?"

"I'm not blushing!" Lance yanked his hand back and covered his face with his free hand, which did very little to cover the warm red tones that had crept up Lance's face and into his hairline.

"You are blushing!" Keith said, and Lance let out a little embarrassed noise and dropped the datapad, covering his face now with both hands. "Why are you blushing?"

"I want whatever it is you've done to my brain to stop!" Lance said, and peeked between his fingers before blushing again and covering his face.

Keith was thoroughly lost, now. "What?"

"You're hot," Lance complained, still with his face (and eyes) covered. "You're covered in dirt and sweat and grime and you're really freaking attractive like that and it's unfair."