A/N: it has been an entire month since I've updated this story. Whoops. Sorry guys. I've been very busy with my personal life and I haven't really had the time to write fanfiction. This was way overdue, but I promise that the next chapter is slowing coming your way as well.
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"No, you're not!"
"I am going!" Lance demanded, watching Keith's features fall to an ungrateful scowl. The boy tisked, clearly annoyed and trying not to blow up at the elder.
"Why?" the pale boy demanded bitterly, spitting venom through his teeth.
"Because—I am supposed to protect you!" Lance spat.
"You aren't my guard, so get off my ass!" Keith bared his teeth in a scowl towards his purple hippo, who was perched on his bed like a slender cat, and dropped his red backpack beside Lance dramatically. The Cuban boy instantly felt the weight fall under him and he tumbled towards the weight.
Lance sighed. "I don't want to fight, Mullet, but I can't leave you either."
Keith huffed. "Look, if I take you with me then James will just laugh at me."
If Lance could move the features of his face, he would have the most confused and downright horrified expression. "James?" he asked, more to himself than anyone else. There was no way in hell this was what he thought it was. "James Griffin?"
Keith looked up at Lance with etched mockery from where he was sitting on the floorboards and tying the laces of his red-and-white boots together. His jacket housed the same pattern as his boots and gave the hot-head a rather homey look. "Don't tell me you know him too," he said with a snort.
Lance and James weren't the best of friends, as the dark-skinned boy remembered. They got along alright, and Lance could remember James as the class' second best pilot. There was always this fondness he seemed to have for the caramel-haired boy. Perhaps it was because James was always stepping up Keith when he got cocky or ran out of line. Nonetheless, Lance never expected James to be a bully.
". . . I—"
Keith rolled his eyes, standing abruptly and turning to storm out the door. "Look, " he spat. "Just stop pretending you know me. You don't know me; nobody does."
His words where an arrow tinted with poison struck right to the center of Lance's heart. He was scared; scared to mess up, and above all: scared that he wouldn't help Keith. The petite boy was right. Lance didn't know him. Hell, they hardly even talked. Lance never gave him the chance to. All their relationship consisted of was an unrequited rivalry and misunderstanding.
And for Lance to truly say he knew Keith, they had to me more than each other's target on a dart board.
Keith stomped, hands clenched into fists, out the door, but before he could take a step out, his hippo spoke in a new tone that made him freeze in his place: a tone of softness and guilt."You're right."
The violet-eyed boy said nothing, indicating Lance to continue.
"I don't know you," he resumed. "We are practically strangers, and I happened to forget you aren't the same boy I know.
"But, it is because I don't know you that I want to help you. So, please, let me at least go to school with you."
Keith was a statue for many moments, the only thing resonating and telling the other that he was alive was his shallow breaths of frustration. He was pondering for longer than the smaller liked. Finally, Keith whipped around and pulled open the zipper on his backpack.
