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“Keith? Can I talk to you for a moment?”
Keith blinked down at the periwinkle hand wrapped around his bicep and tugging him to the side, then up to see the face of Acxa, looking uncertainly up at him with a pinched brow. He glanced toward the others, making their way back into their lions, before replying. “Um… about what?” he asked cautiously.
“Just, uh – just some things that I, ah, that I wanted to clear up?” She dropped her gaze so she no longer was looking him in the eyes. “Do you mind if we talk in private?”
“Uh, sure?” Acxa let out a breath and Keith let her start tugging him away, back into the reaches of the cave they’d all been gathered in.
“You coming, Keith?” Pidge called from the entrance.
Keith nodded and waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, just give me a minute.” Pidge nodded in return and ducked away.
Acxa waited for Keith to turn his attention back to her, and when he did, she was wringing her hands together nervously. “Listen, Keith,” she said. “I – I wanted to talk to you about what Ezor and Zethrid were saying back there.”
“Hm?”
“You know, about how I, uh – like, when they said I… fancied you?”
Oh. Immediately Keith felt blood rushing into his cheeks, their temperatures surely rising by about twenty degrees in all of two seconds. Unconsciously he took a step back as he stammered out, “Oh. That. Right, that – that thing. The, uh, the – with the – ”
“Keith?” Acxa said, tilting her head. “You okay? You look – ”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re gonna be sick.”
“No, no, I just – ” He lifted a shaking hand and swiped it across his forehead. “I just – I’m not really good with this, didn’t – didn’t expect to have to, uh – look, I – you’re – you’re a nice-looking person and all, and I, uh, I appreciate all you’ve done for me, and you – I mean, I – I – don’t take this personally, but – ”
Acxa shook her head. “Hang on, Keith, I think you misunder– ”
“Wait, no, let me – let me finish. I’m, uh – I’m… flattered? And all? But I don’t think we’re – I mean, we’re not – I wouldn’t exactly be compatible with you in, um, in that way…”
“Wouldn’t be – wait, you’re gay?” Acxa asked, eyes widening.
“Oh, you guys use the same terminology,” Keith said. “Huh. But, uh, no, not – not that. It’s, uh, I don’t – like, you could be a guy and I would be saying the same thing, it’s – it’s not about gender, it’s more of a, uh… none-of-the-above situation.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. Anyway, the, uh, the point is – I’m really sorry, I – I hadn’t known that you, uh, you felt that, and I don’t want to, uh, to hurt your feelings, I just – I mean, I like you as a person… I think… but, uh, yeah – no. It’s a no. I’m sorry. Are – are you okay?”
Acxa stared at Keith for a long moment, then, ever so slowly, a tiny smile crept onto her face. “By any chance is this your first time rejecting a girl?”
Keith frowned and took another step back before crossing his arms tightly across his chest. “What does it matter?” he asked, a hint of a growl in his voice.
“It doesn’t, I guess. Just, that was bad. Really bad.” Her smile widened. “I wish someone had been around to record that.”
Keith scowled. “Are you laughing at me?”
She shook her head. “No, no, don’t worry. Actually, it’s probably a good thing that you got this practice round in before you ever have to do it for real.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you probably should have just let me finish talking a moment ago. I was going to say, you know how Ezor kept saying I was ‘in love’ with you?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, she was kind of talking out of her ass.”
Keith blinked in confusion. “What?”
“I’m not really sure where she got the idea,” Acxa said slowly. “… Okay, well, that’s not entirely true, I can probably take a guess. She knows that I have a habit of, well, not killing you, so I suppose she interpreted that as me liking you.”
“Oh.”
Acxa sighed. “She was right, in a way. Not about the crush, that was all her story. But about – well, I did always… admire you, I guess.”
“You… admired me?” Keith repeated slowly.
“Well, yes.”
“Why?”
“Seriously?” Acxa asked, and when Keith said nothing, she continued, “For starters, there was that weblum. I – I really thought I was going to die in there, and you came along. You could so easily have left me there to die, you could so easily have turned on me at any moment, but… you didn’t.”
Keith shrugged, the redness of his cheeks, which had never quite faded away as they were talking, starting to darken again. “That’s not exactly something worth ‘admiring’ me for. Anyone else would have done the same.”
“No, that’s the thing. They wouldn’t have. Listen, Keith, I’ve spent years working under the Galra empire. Under Lotor. And things – things are different there. It’s hard to trust other people there. It’s always about winning, about gaining power. People want so badly to climb through the military ranks, to prove their strength, to be great. And if that means stabbing people in the back or leaving one of their own behind or turning a blind eye to decisions that may have been wrong, they’ll do it, and without hesitating in the least.”
“Victory or death,” Keith said softly.
“Right. It’s why I didn’t expect to get out of that weblum, you know? I had landed myself into that mess, no one was going to risk themselves to get me out of it. Lotor was fond of me, but he would have found a different general to work with. There are plenty of half-Galra out there who would leap at the chance to actually be in a position of respect.
“But you… you don’t work like that. I’ve seen you out in battle, Keith. You’re protective. You put yourself at risk without thinking twice about it. I saw you fighting at Kral Zera, and I saw the way you went after your black paladin friend when Haggar got to him. I’ve – I’ve never seen anything like it.” She sighed. “Ezor and Zethrid think that I have feelings for you because I don’t want to try to kill you. But that’s not it. I… respect you. I could never kill someone I respect. Could never want to hurt them. And I think I’m right in saying you’ve had the same approach to me?”
Keith nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have.”
Acxa smiled. “Good. Glad we’re on the same page.”
“So there’s nothing to the whole ‘you fancying me’ thing?”
“No,” Acxa said through a little laugh. “No, as a matter of fact, when you had said something about us not being ‘compatible’, my first thought was, ‘now how in the universe did he know about that’?”
“About…?”
“My preferences. Men aren’t really my thing.”
“Wait, really?”
“Yes, really. As a matter of fact, I – and just keep this between the two of us, mind you – I sort of had a secret thing for Ezor for quite a while.”
“You and – you and Ezor?”
Acxa shrugged. “Yeah, what can I say. She was always so… bubbly. I guess I liked that.”
“Oh. You like… bubbly.”
“Mm-hm. Guess that sort of puts you out of the running, doesn’t it?” She laughed at the affronted look on Keith’s face. “But yeah, lasted for a while. Ezor never knew, which I guess explains why she still thought me being interested in you that way was a possibility. Didn’t matter, really, she and Zethrid were always well on their way to being a couple. And I sort of ended up drifting away from the other two over, ah, differences in politics.”
Keith snorted. “That’s one way to phrase it.”
“Oh, hush. Anyway, I just – are we okay? The two of us? I want to make things better, I want to help in the fight back against the empire. And I want to be able to consider myself your ally. So the last thing I want is for anything to be strange between us.” She held out her hand and looked imploringly up at Keith. “So… allies?”
Keith smiled and firmly took her hand in his to shake. “Allies.”
“Hey!” a voice called. Keith and Acxa jumped, hands still intertwined as they whipped their heads around to the cave entrance, where Lance was leaning into view. “Allura says we’ve gotta start heading out pronto. Are you two lovebirds just about finished or what?”
Acxa glared, and Keith immediately tore his boot from his foot to hurl as hard as he could at Lance’s head. Lance just laughed and ducked out of the way. “Idiot,” Keith grunted. “He’s gonna be teasing me over this the whole way back to Earth, isn’t he.”
“So tell him there’s nothing going on between us.”
“He would never believe me.”
“Oh. Well, then, would you like me to stab him?”
Keith couldn’t help but laugh. “Be my guest. I would love you for it.”
Acxa rolled her eyes and gave him a light shove as she started out of the cave. Keith followed behind her, chuckling under his breath and stopping to retrieve his boot as they left.