Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Act I: The Fan

September 6th, 2024

“Bi awareness week is coming soon, we should do some events.”

Lance lifts his head up, hunched over the assigned reading he definitely did not finish.

“Yeah,” Pidge perks up. “What did you have in mind?”

He has an hour to read thirty pages, which would be doable if he could actually focus on the text. He can’t help it; when throwing parties is the topic, how can he simply ignore the conversation around him?

Besides, the reading is boring anyway. 

He carelessly shuts the textbook and throws it back into his bag.

“Yeah, madam president,” Lance smirks at the girl, “what did you have in mind?”

Allura, now a senior, is the head of their university’s LGBTQIA+ club for her second year in a row. The first time she ran, she crushed the competition so hard nobody dared to run against her again. Of course, there were no hard feelings, at least Lance doesn’t think so since he’s never heard anyone talk shit about Allura.

That probably wouldn’t end well for them if they tried.

Allura raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Don’t you have homework to finish?”

Lance groans dramatically, shuddering. “Spare me, it’s so boring.”

“Wow,” Pidge comments and throws him a pointed look. “Third week of your second year and you’ve already stopped trying. What happened to acing all your classes this semester?”

Lance internally sighs. Unfortunately, he has, in fact, made such a declaration right in front of his friends not too long ago. He even planned on seeing it through, initially.

He pouts, trying his best at making puppy eyes at Pidge. “Statistics was way more interesting when I was watching an Indian guy explain it on YouTube.”

Taking astronomy as a minor seemed like a great idea at first, but ever since his sophomore year began, he started strongly reconsidering the decision. It’s not like it’s going to be super useful in his future; Lance’s dream job (currently) is a marine biologist, so, naturally, he chose biology as his major. His dream job as a child was to become a space explorer, but as he grew up, he got a huge reality check, so he decided to stick with a more down-to-earth job, literally.

Still, he chose to minor in astronomy on the side, just as a tribute to his childhood dream, and also maybe out of an ongoing obsession with space.

Doing both biology and astronomy at the same time is exhausting, especially since Lance absolutely sucks at physics.

“Is that how you plan on acing all of your classes?” Pidge asks. “Having someone dumb them down for you?”

“Hey! We go to a prestigious college, you know,” he argues. “Our classes are way harder than at other schools.”

Pidge snorts. “Debatable.” 

Lance opens his mouth to throw them a snarky comment, but Allura is faster. “Enough! You,” she glares at Pidge first, “stop picking on him. And you,” she moves her thunderous gaze over to Lance before he gets a chance to shoot Pidge a victorious smirk, “have some reading to do.”

Noticing the change in the mood, Romelle pauses whatever lecture she was watching and takes off her headphones. “Why are you guys yelling?”

Allura’s face immediately brightens as she looks over to her vice-president. “Oh, it’s nothing. Carry on.”

Romelle measures Lance and Pidge both suspiciously, but obeys, going back to taking notes from her video.

Lance sighs, giving up and about to reach back for his homework, when he notices his phone’s screen lightning up with a notification from tumblr.

“Kosmo just posted!” Lance exclaims, excited.

Pidge rolls their eyes and groans. 

“Zip it, midget,” he glares at them. “You have no respect for art.”

“No,” Pidge huffs. “I have no respect for anyone who doesn’t include pronouns in their bio.”

“He’s got pronouns!” Lance opens the artist’s blog and shoves his phone into Pidge’s face. “See? Right here!”

The young genius squints, suddenly assaulted with the screen’s highest level of brightness. A familiar dark-themed profile is reflected in their glasses, and Lance watches as Pidge’s eyes scan over the text he’s seen at least a zillion times.

kosmo

he/they

“Yeah, on tumblr,” they snort. “Why not insta? Coward.”

Count on Pidge to be as radical as ever.

“Because his insta is fully anonymous,” Lance defends. “He’s not a coward, he just doesn’t wanna put anything personal on it.”

It’s true. Ever since Lance stumbled upon the artist, he has managed to find little-to-no details about their life. Name? Unknown. Age? A mystery. Gender? Classified. Kosmo is an incredibly private person, adamant on keeping their identity hidden. His instagram bio only includes the sentence: “i draw sometimes”. No nickname, no pronouns, no nationality, nothing. Not even a link to his lovely patreon which could probably be earning him a lot more money if he shared it with all of his three hundred and forty-two thousand instagram followers.

But, apparently, Kosmo prefers to keep his NSFW art separate, which, hey, Lance won’t complain about. After all, he is one of the original fans who have been eagerly following marmoraart since their early days in the business.

Kosmo, who at the time was only known as marmoraart, gained many loyal followers after drawing an insane amount of fanart for a very niche foreign webnovel. Their fandom was small, so there weren’t many people contributing to creating any fanwork, but marmoraart was clearly as obsessed with the webnovel as Lance was, as they posted new art every week, including a few fancomics.

Several years later the webnovel got popular enough to get an official English translation and Kosmo was asked to draw art and design covers for the publisher. The covers were so stunning their art went viral and suddenly marmoraart became a household name among instagram fanartists.

Becoming popular meant people started getting interested in the artist behind the art. Who were they? What did they do in their spare time? How old were they? Were they a college student or a working adult?

At that point, marmoraart had never shared anything about their personal life before, so most of those messages and comments got ignored. But then, Kosmo found themselves the subject of a controversy as his less safe for work patreon exclusives got reposted on pinterest, which immediately got him even more followers, and more people nagging him to at least reveal his age.

After a few months, marmoraart must have finally become too fed up with the constant harassment, and decided to respond to a rather nasty inbox message on tumblr.

Lance can’t recall the exact contents of that ask, but he remembers getting pissed off on behalf of the artist. The words forever stuck in his memory are the answer marmoraart so kindly provided.

marmoraart answered:

kosmo, 19, he/they and no i won’t suck your dick

Kosmo clearly didn’t care what people thought of him, or what completely bizarre assumptions they made, but Lance cared. More than once he took to twitter (R.I.P.) to defend his favourite fanartist’s honour.

Someone pointed out that if Kosmo was 19 at the time, then he must’ve started his blog at either 15 or 16, to which Lance, and an army of his mutuals, defended them by pointing out they only started posting NSFW art recently, and none of it was even explicit! Sure, he drew erotica or suggestive poses, but never anything hardcore. Moreover, his patreon tier clearly stated what sort of content it contained.

Lance swore the people were only hating on him just to hate. 

The debate ended when Kosmo snapped and posted a very detailed, fully-rendered fanart of the main character from the webnovel that made him famous in nothing but lingerie, a ball gag and fluffy handcuffs.

There was a simple description under the picture, reading: i’m gay .

Marmoraart lost a lot of followers after that post. Whoever decided he was cancelled never spoke of him again, but his patreon definitely grew so, hey, that’s a win. From that moment marmoraart started answering more asks, even occasionally posting snippets from their personal life and interacting with their followers—only on tumblr, though. His instagram was a place to promote his art, his tumblr was a place he expressed himself.

So, yeah, Lance has experience defending Kosmo and will absolutely defend him from Pidge as well. The gremlin must have realised this as they merely sigh and go back to their textbook. He smirks in victory and looks back to his screen.

He scrolls down to the newest post and gasps.

It’s a drawing of a boy resting his chin on a thick book, wearing a bored expression. His hair is tousled and some strands stick to his forehead. There are a few pencils and a smartphone laying on his desk, but the background is empty. The lines are a navy blue, adding a softer touch to the artist’s usually edgy style and making the boy’s eyes sparkle. 

The description below spells out three simple words in marmoraart’s signature style of brevity:

oc i guess .

The thing is, that boy looks exactly like Lance.

It’s subtle enough that at first he believes he’s delusional, having spent too many hours fantasising about the artist that he’s finally gone insane. The high cheekbones, the straight nose, the brow ridge, and the sharp jawline could all be a coincidence; they’re a common enough male character design, he supposes. But his exact skin tone, his current hairstyle and his blue eyes paint a perfect portrait of Lance in his idol’s artstyle.

Pidge always says: one is an accident, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern.

Lance must have gone mad.

“Guys,” he says, getting his friends’ attention. “Am I crazy or does this kinda look like me?”

He turns his phone around to show Pidge and Allura. They glance at the picture, squinting their eyes.

“You’re crazy,” Pidge immediately declares, huffing and going back to whatever they were doing on their laptop.

“I’m not sure,” Allura hesitates, scrutinising the picture. “I suppose, it does look a little too generic to tell, but I can see where you’re coming from.”

The gremlin of Lance’s nightmares lays a hand on the senior. “It’s fine, Allura, you don’t need to sugarcoat it, he’s officially mad.”

“No one asked you,” Lance grunts.

“Actually, you asked me,” they sneer.

Romelle groans, throwing her headphones on the table. “Seriously, people, what is it with you today? I can’t focus.”

Allura exhales heavily, massaging her temples. “Alright, could we please get back to the bi awareness day? We have less than two weeks to organise something.”

Lance frowns. “I thought we were doing bi awareness week? Why is it suddenly only a day?”

Not that this affects him personally, in any way. Lance may be part of the queer club according to the members list, but in reality he’s more of an honorary member. The society welcomes cishets very warmly, and Lance is proud to call himself an ally.

“At this rate, I’ll be happy with bi awareness hour,” Allura answers sourly. “Now, everybody, focus .”

Lance can’t exactly say his first semester of sophomore year is all that bad. Luck was on his side while signing up for classes as all his prerequisites and chosen optionals fit perfectly into a beautiful schedule bound to get the organisation girlies on cloud nine. Lance’s favourite thing about it though? He has no classes on Mondays. It gets even more fabulous—his only Tuesday class got cancelled last minute, so here he is, sitting in his planetary science lecture, feeling more rested than ever after a four-day weekend and ready to learn something.

Apparently, not everybody is as eager for studying as Lance. He notices one of his classmates, a boy with a nasty mullet, and an even nastier, brooding expression, walking into the lecture theatre and taking a seat in the third row, right next to the wall, just before the class is about to start. The guy has several chains hanging off his ripped jeans, clad in combat boots, a black Bring Me The Horizon t-shirt and—are those fingerless gloves? His red leather jacket is the single burst of colour in the entire outfit, and Lance is immediately reminded of the late 2000s emo aesthetic; this guy would’ve been famous on tumblr in 2014.

The classmate suddenly turns his head and glares right at him.

“What?”

Lance flinches, flushing. “Nothing.” He quickly looks away, trying his hardest to pretend he wasn’t just staring at a total stranger. Just as he awkwardly clears his throat, salvation comes in the form of his lecturer announcing the class was starting. Thank God, now he can pretend this never happened and ignore the guy for the rest of the semester.

Lance cannot ignore this guy for the rest of the semester, he realises and immediately regrets picking planetary science as an elective. Don’t get him wrong, the curriculum seems very interesting! He can’t wait to learn about nebular theory, his inner space nerd was absolutely thrilled upon finding out the class was offered for astronomy minors.

However, Lance is one dramatic son of a bitch (and he’s mature enough to admit that, thank you very much), so he considers dropping this phenomenal class just because he’s going to need to face some potential humiliation very soon. Unfortunately, the withdrawal deadline passed last week, so Lance cannot just quit without getting a penalty, which would most likely get reflected on his academic records.

Wonderful, he’s doomed.

Swallowing a heavy sigh, Lance gets up from his seat and puts on his best smile, striding over to his new project partner, who he’s going to be working with for the next two months. Random assignment for group projects should be illegal, he decides. He’s going to convince Allura to incorporate that as a law once she becomes America’s youngest president in history. Initially, he thought she’d be the first female president, but that spot is about to be taken by Kamala in a few months.

Wait, no, Allura’s on a student visa, she can’t be president, can she? What if she got a citizenship or a green card, would she be allowed to run for office then? Is the country ready for an immigrant president? Is that even legal? Lance never considered it before, but now that the thought entered his mind, he begins to wonder. What a curious topic. He’s not a law student, he doesn’t even know any law students, so it’s hard to say; he’ll need to google that later.

His legs have long reached their destination, crossing the narrow room in record speed, but Lance’s head must have stayed at his previous seat, and he finds himself once again silently staring at the guy in front of him. Before his thoughts manage to catch up, it’s already too late.

His classmate makes a face of someone who just sucked on a lemon, or even worse—of someone who just had a lemon forcibly shoved right into his mouth. “Did a picture of the Sun fry your neurons? Hate to break it to you but you’ll be seeing a lot more than that in this class.”

Glancing over the cover of their textbook, depicting a very detailed image of the Solar System, Lance’s brain comes back online instantly.

“Excuse you, my neurons are perfectly fine! Flawless even! Your neurons are the ones with a problem!”

The guy’s expression sours even more; it’s actually quite impressive, Lance didn’t think it was possible.

“Great comeback, I hope you’re more familiar with planets than you are with the English vocabulary,” he retorts. Just as Lance is about to answer in outrage, he adds: “I need an A for this project, so either pull it together or don’t bother me.”

Lance huffs, annoyed. What a dickhead, honestly!

“What was your name again?”

Lance is gonna have a B.F.

Calm thyself, Lancelot. Thou shall quench thy thirst for blood and search for thine inner peace.

He takes a breath, clenching his fists.

“Lance. McClain,” he answers through gritted teeth.

The guy gives him an odd look Lance cannot entirely decipher.

“Keith Kogane.”

Keith Kogane. Lance naturally knew the name already; he memorised it the second his professor assigned them together for the project, which happened exactly four minutes ago. Four minutes aren’t long enough to forget someone’s name, Keith. Unless, of course, the asshole never bothered to learn it in the first place.

This is going to be a very long semester, Lance thinks as he sits down next to his new partner and takes out his textbook.

Lance finishes his classes at four and goes home straight after, not even stopping at the campus Starbucks for an iced caramel latte, oh no, sir, not today. He rushes back to the apartment he shares with Hunk and immediately starts on his homework for planetary science.

Here’s the thing—Lance McClain is a massive procrastinator, happily living his life by saying that everything you can do today, you should do tomorrow.

He knows that’s not the actual saying, Allura, hush.

Anyways.

Lance likes to believe he performs very well under pressure, and his best work comes from the tightest deadlines, which is totally the reason why he always leaves any work for last minute and definitely not because he’s too lazy to do it while there’s still plenty of time. Nuh-uh, definitely not.

Unfortunately, his glorious routine has been disrupted by a perfectionist madman with a mullet down his neck and a stick up his ass. Such horrible creatures naturally will not be named, because, you know what they say—speak of the devil and he shall appear. His luck today has been horrible, and Lance doesn’t want to tempt fate. Still, this irritable jinx who’s entered his life and stuck around like a fungus will absolutely give him hell if Lance so much as sneezes the wrong way. Hence, Lance outright refuses to give him the satisfaction of proving the guy right and eagerly accepts the challenge.

He will be the ideal student, will not miss a single lecture, and his homework will be so polished even the professor will be impressed. He who shall not be named will be bowing to him and spewing apologies soon enough, that’s right. Lance grins smugly at the mental image of a certain someone getting befittingly humbled.

It’s the start of the semester and the very beginning of the course, so there isn’t too much to memorise yet, and nothing too complicated, at least compared to what they’ll be covering in November. His project partner seems to be a bit of a control freak as he absolutely refused to give Lance his number, simply telling him to show up at the library on Saturday at noon. Lance asked him what he should do if there was an emergency and he couldn’t make it anymore, to which Gerard Way wannabe gave him the stink eye and declared to ‘use his brain and email him.’ And if Lance would encounter any trouble finding his student email , he could always DM him on Canvas. Freaking Canvas .

Jesus Christ on a motorbike.

Is this guy like that with everybody or is he being a pain in the ass on purpose? Lance was a bit tempted to ask Pidge to install a trojan on the fungus’ laptop, but deep down he knows that would affect his own grade as well, so he just needs to hold out for six more weeks and he can get his revenge. Unless, of course, the guy decides to change his entire personality and suddenly become a decent human being, in which case Lance will gladly agree to bury the hatchet and not screw the menace over right before exam period.

With the brilliant plan in mind, he dedicates the rest of his afternoon to finishing his assigned reading and preparing for their first meeting this weekend. Feeling fired up, Lance completes everything within three hours, just in time for Pidge to finish their own evening classes and log onto Discord. Lance happily accepts their Steam invite to play Phasmophobia together.

“Give me five,” he says as soon as his mic connects, “I’m gonna grab dinner.”

“Sure,” Pidge answers easily while changing the settings of their lobby. Once Lance comes back with his freshly microwaved leftover lasagna (thank you, Hunk), he notices the difficulty’s already set to ‘Custom’ and the chosen map is Camp Woodwind. That could only mean one thing.

“We’re levelling up today?”

Pidge chuckles. “Bet.”

Lance doesn’t need to check the game details to know they’ll be playing on no evidence, which basically means Pidge will identify the ghost based on vibes only and Lance will get carried. At least they’ll get twelve times as much XP as normally.

They chat as the game loads up. Phasmophobia is a fairly new indie horror game, offering both multi- and singleplayer, but Lance is way too chicken to play it alone. There aren’t many jumpscares, but the environmental artists made sure to give their players a pretty decent survival horror experience. The main point of the game is figuring out what type of ghost is haunting the place based on evidence and clues they leave behind. Except, Pidge’s favourite game mode is no evidence, which means they’ll randomly say the ghost is a phantom, and Lance will be convinced they’re hacking once it turns out they’re right.

“It’s one of the easiest ghosts, Lance!” Pidge argues after correctly identifying it once again. “It’s barely visible and doesn’t show up in photos, that’s literally written in the journal!”

“How can you remember all that?” The amount of information in the ghost hunter’s journal always gives Lance a headache just reading through it, and Pidge somehow managed to memorise it all, and only a month after installing the game on top of that. The little gremlin truly is a genius.

“It all comes with practice,” Pidge explains, loading another game.

As soon as they enter the map, the camp gate closes and Lance instantly gets hunted by a creepy toddler crawling straight to him.

“It’s a demon,” he declares, sighing. The creepy animation of being slaughtered in the afterlife doesn’t phase him anymore; the minus fifty per cent of lost XP as a penalty for dying is a much bigger tragedy.

“We’re playing on zero sanity,” Pidge points out.

Lance groans. “Of course we are.”

Sanity levels tell the player how likely it is for a ghost to start hunting them; usually a ghost won’t start hunting until the sanity drops under fifty. However, a demon can hunt at any sanity—Lance has learnt this the hard way. This is pretty much where his Phasmophobia knowledge begins and ends. He makes himself comfortable in his incredible, ergonomic chair, noticing his screen turn grey and grabs his phone. The brief hunt seems to be over.

“I’m pretty sure it’s a banshee,” Pidge says as her character comes back to the van to get some equipment. “It threw itself at you and ignored me completely. I’m gonna get a parabolic mic and listen for a bit.”

“Mhm,” Lance hums in acknowledgement. He’s only partially paying attention, scrolling through his feed. He’s dead now, so there isn’t much he can contribute to the game. “Be careful.”

Pidge snorts. “I’m always careful.”

Lance doesn’t grace that with a response, as all of his focus gets automatically redirected upon spotting a very special notification. Kosmo posted on patreon.

His fingers click on the alert with the hand speed of a progamer. The app instantly opens on Kosmo’s profile, showing the latest post. It’s only available to subscribers paying for at least the second-highest tier, which, of course, includes Lance, who has been paying for marmoraart’s most expensive subscription since the day they started a patreon.

His eyes go wide as he clicks on the picture. It’s a sketch with the same navy blue lines as the previous post, this one also clearly depicts the same character Kosmo posted on his tumblr. The description reads:

can’t get him out of my head #oc

Pidge’s victorious shout rings out through his headset as the screen changes to show their post-game summary, proving the ghost was indeed a banshee. His friend is about to start another game as Lance suddenly announces he needs to go, throwing a quick apology while closing the game and logging off Discord. He doesn’t even bother shutting down his laptop as he collapses onto the bed, still in a daze.

He gapes at the sketch. Even without the colours it still so obviously resembles him, but this time there’s a very specific detail he cannot overlook, a detail revealing that he might not be, in fact, going crazy.

Kosmo’s OC is wearing the exact same outfit Lance wore to school today.

Chapter Text

Lance once again wishes to sacrifice a virgin to the gods of academia for granting him this fantastic schedule. Not having any morning classes on Thursdays until now meant he could stay up late to either game, watch Netflix, or doom scroll instead of sleeping. Yet, today it simply means Lance can spend the night lying in bed and overthinking while staring at two pieces of digital art drawn by his idol, which inexplicably look exactly like him. A million thoughts kept him up most of the night, and despite not waking up until eleven, Lance still feels exhausted.

His cell biology seminar passes all too quickly, and Lance realises he spaced out for most of it. Luckily, his deskmate is kind enough to let him take a picture of his own notes without much judgement.

“Rough night?” He guesses.

Lance merely chuckles awkwardly. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Thanking the guy—Ryan, he learns—for saving his butt, Lance heads over to the campus food court where Pidge and Allura said they’ll be enjoying some tasty bowls from Panda Express. Lance will gladly join them.

He orders his own food and takes a seat next to his friends. Romelle, usually glued to Allura’s side, is mysteriously missing, so Lance guesses she must be busy with work. She completed a yoga instructor course last semester for extra credits and now she gets to reap the rewards as her new part-time job at the university fitness centre is going to help the girl pay off her student loans.

Well, truth be told they all will probably be in enormous debts for years to come, but it’s a start. Actually, scratch that—not all of them. Allura’s parents are loaded, so she won’t have to worry about that, and Pidge is currently enjoying a full-ride as a young prodigy who skipped two grades and is still way smarter than their classmates. Meanwhile, Lance is just your average Joe who still has a few years to go before he even needs to worry about earning money. If all else fails, he’s got a plan to start posting on FeetFinder.

He’s silently enjoying a box of Beijing beef with chow mein as Pidge decides to speak up.

“Alright, spill.”

Lance pauses, sneaking a suspicious glance in their direction. Allura, who was just glaring at a student who dared to wear a red MAGA hat on campus, also stops eating and raises a curious eyebrow.

“Huh?” He says, eloquently.

“Something is clearly up with you and the fact you haven’t shared it yet is actually a bit disturbing.” Pidge frowns, measuring him. Their own food is mostly gone and the young genius is slurping on an iced americano. Lance wonders how Pidge’s poor stomach fares after experiencing the explosive combination of honey walnut shrimp, fried rice, and black coffee. Probably an inevitably explosive diarrhoea will soon follow—with a mix like that an eruption is truly imminent. He quickly calculates if he can stall for long enough until the second coming of Vesuvius. “You randomly hung up on me last night and now you’re way too quiet. You’re not an alien impersonating my friend, are you?”

Lance grins, grasping his golden ticket. “Aw, Pidgie-poo, you called me your friend.”

Pidge immediately scowls and Lance’s smile widens. Distraction successful, mission accomplished.

Allura swiftly interjects. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

Lance groans internally. Target got away, mission failed.

Damn you, Allura, for being too perceptive. Unfortunately, this was a veteran not as easy to trick as the rookie to his right. Better to wave the white flag now, before she decides to violate the Geneva Convention. He sighs. 

“Fine, you got me.” He pushes away the chow mein, losing appetite, and takes out the accursed device. He doesn’t even need to open the app, as the phone instantly unlocks right on the screenshot he took last night. Naturally, he needed extra proof in case the post was taken down, but no such thing happened. Still, having evidence of his mania right in his own gallery only drags him down deeper into the abyss. There’s no escaping it, really, his obsession is affecting his daily life, and once his eyes land on the screenshot, he forgets what he was about to say.

“Lance?” Allura prompts, nudging his shin with her foot under the table.

Pidge isn’t as patient and understanding, simply stealing the smartphone right out of his hand.

“Hey!”

Their devilish grin quickly turns into a look of bewilderment.

“Wow.” Pidge whistles teasingly. “You’ve got a stalker.”

“Give me that!” Lance reaches for the device, but the little menace merely laughs and throws it to Allura, who catches it gracefully and flashes him an apologetic smile before looking down at the screenshot. Her eyes widen.

“Lance…” She pauses, and Lance finally stops struggling, admitting defeat. At least that saved him the trouble of putting this mess into words; he wouldn’t even know how to begin. “Is that…Is that supposed to be you?”

Lance sighs. A loud thump sounds as his forehead hits the table; his subconsciousness tries to remind him not to touch such a dirty surface with his face, especially not with the fragile T-zone, but it’s futile. His mind has been conquered, all sense and reason having vacated the premises, as sanity evacuated in a hurry. Will his friends allow for this complete descent into lunacy? What will happen to him now?

“It looks like me, doesn’t it?” He answers, without raising his head.

Allura hums, scrutinising the sketch. “It’s clearly the same person from the last one, but…I’m not sure. It could be a coincidence.”

Pidge stops giggling and smacks him on the back. “I can’t believe you ditched me for this. Gotta be a new low.”

Lance moans, loudly. He’s pretty sure the sound attracts some unwanted attention from the nearby tables, but fortunately no one points it out. All of a sudden, he’s glad his head is resting against the wooden surface and he can’t see any odd looks thrown his way, some of which would certainly include his friends’ sympathetic expressions. Well, Allura’s at least—Pidge is more likely to still be secretly laughing at him.

He remains hidden like an ostrich with its head in the sand—almost literally, how ironic—until his friends are done with their lunch and decide to leave. Lance refuses to remain here alone, he’s not sure how much more humiliation he can handle in a single day. He gets up along with them and carries on with his lectures, ignoring the impending calamity of his thoughts and the red imprint on his forehead.

Saturday comes all too soon.

Lance frowns, has anyone ever said such words? Well, technically, he didn’t say that out loud, he just thought about it; still, he wants to slap himself for ever being disappointed at finally reaching the blessed end of the week. Especially now that he’s a sophomore and has a lot more studying to do than he did during his freshman year.

Ah, freshman year, what a time that was. He had the pleasure of meeting all of his friends for the first time. Hunk was his assigned roommate in the dorm, and they immediately hit it off. Then, Hunk got partnered up with Pidge for a group project in one of his Spring classes and, naturally, they were the only two members of their team to put in any effort. Lance cringes at the memory—he remembers very well how exhausted they both were. That project lasted almost the entire semester and by the end of it Pidge was basically their third roommate. They aced it, of course, but only because they’re both geniuses; the two of them had to carry out the work assigned to six people.

Pidge and Hunk spent almost all the semester joint at the hip, but Lance surprisingly didn’t feel excluded. Pidge somehow managed to talk two straight guys into joining an LGBTQ+ club, because why not, apparently allies were welcome too. That’s how they befriended Allura and Romelle, and that’s also how Hunk met his girlfriend, Shay.

In the end, it all worked out great. Lance got to hang out with his new besties while the genius duo was forced to pull all-nighter every other day for half the semester because of random group assignment, so. Yeah. Definitely not jealous.

Anyway, speaking of group projects.

Lance enters the library and realises he has no idea where Keith might be. The building is pretty big, and he hasn’t familiarised himself with it all that well during his first year, since he always preferred to do group study dates in cafes or one of the small campus parks—there is one in particular he favours, a lovely piece of greenery with a turtle pond by the bioscience centre. Despite its appeal, not many students hang around there, which is honestly quite surprising. The turtles are so cute, it mystifies Lance why the place isn’t more popular. Still, he won’t complain; the less people know about it the better. Besides the fact it would start losing most of its charm once it becomes overcrowded, the mob would definitely frighten the poor turtles, so, naturally, he tends to enjoy it while he can.

Lance wanders around the library for a bit, before giving up. The building is mostly empty on an early-semester Saturday morning, but it’s still too hard to find his classmate. Chances are he booked a private study room for them, in which case there is no way Lance will spot him if he just walks around aimlessly. Resigned, he exits the library and decides to wait for Keith at the entrance. That would be the most logical thing to do, right?

The weather is still fairly warm for mid-September, but Lance gets a little chilly standing in the shade, so he walks a bit further away from the library, to sit at one of the outdoor tables. He patiently waits, staring at the entrance to the building for all of three minutes, until he pulls out his phone to pass the time.

There is no denying it—Keith is late. Lance has to fight himself to keep the pleased grin off his face. He didn’t even need to try particularly hard to prove that pompous jerk he wasn’t going to be a liability on this, not when Lance’s fantastic project partner is—he checks the time—currently already twenty-three minutes late. He happily continues scrolling through his TikTok feed and ends up forwarding a few videos to his friends. Pidge replies immediately.

pirrational: arent u supposed to be studying

me: my partner is late

me: can you imagine he gave me shit and now he ditches lol

pirrational: lmaoooo

pirrational: did you text him?

me: dont have his nubmer

pirrational: wut 

pirrational: why tf not

pirrational: how r u supposd to meet up then????

me: thats what i said !!!!!

me: he just said to email him lmaoo can you believe

pirrational: ?

pirrational: well have you

me: have i what lol

pirrational: checked your email ?

Lance’s heart almost stops and he doesn’t even reply to Pidge before opening his Outlook app with the speed of light. He turned off the notifications for his student email for the summer break since there was a bunch of spam there and Lance needed time to detox after his first year of university. He still has around fifty-six emails to go through that he just keeps postponing, and since he’s avoiding that app altogether, he keeps forgetting to turn his email notifications back on. Shit, shit, shit.

As expected, there are several new email threads awaiting in his inbox. That’s right—whole email threads .

He’s screwed.

The first one was sent at seven in the morning, letting him know Keith was there early to study, and which room Lance could find him in. The second one was a follow-up asking if he received the first one.

The third one was a new thread, sent just before noon, assuming he didn’t get the first two emails and repeating everything again.

The fourth one was from 12:06, berating him for being late and kindly requesting a response.

The fifth one was another new thread, cursing him out for wasting Keith’s time.

The last, sixth one, sent at 12:45, was just a question mark.

Finally, on top of all that, his most recent emails are from Canvas, notifying him of new messages in his inbox.

The worst part of this entire thing? Keith was right; Lance really did mess up.

He types a response while running back into the library, almost bumping into someone. Muttering a quick apology, he starts in the direction where he believes Keith to be. Again, he’s not very familiar with this building.

After receiving one too many odd looks for running around like a madman, Lance gives up and asks a librarian for directions. She kindly explains how to find that specific study space and Lance almost bows in thanks. He goes straight to the staircase, hopping over three steps at the time, until he reaches the third floor, completely out of breath.

He wanders around between different tables, finally spotting a black-haired figure hunched over a desk. He’d recognise that mullet anywhere, even if it’s currently up in a man bun. Keith is wearing an oversized hoodie and grey sweatpants, clearly going for a cosy outfit on a weekend. Seeing as he’s apparently been here since seven, Lance briefly wonders if the guy even slept; he doesn’t look like he did.

Keith has his headphones on and doesn’t notice Lance approaching until he takes a seat right across from him. He looks up, narrowing his eyes at whoever disturbed his peace, but as soon as he recognises Lance, his expression turns unreadable.

He takes his headphones off and Lance can faintly hear lo-fi tunes coming out of them. He hides his surprise, a little ashamed to admit he was expecting Keith to be more of an MCR fan or something. Well, to be fair, the guy was wearing a Bring Me The Horizon t-shirt last time they saw each other, so, really, Lance can’t be blamed for that one.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Lance’s mouth runs dry. His breathing still hasn’t returned to normal after all that running around, and he’s pretty sure his cheeks are flaming red—either from the exercise, or embarrassment, or both. 

“I’m so sorry,” he starts, “I sent you an email—”

“ You sent me an email?”

Judging by Keith’s tone, he’s really close to losing it, but still somehow manages not to explode and carefully keeps his voice low. Lance guesses it’s probably because he doesn’t want to shout in a library; the guy seems actually quite considerate, surprisingly.

Perhaps Lance misjudged him.

“I told you to pull it together or get out of my way, but it looks like you’re hellbent on sabotaging this project.”

Or perhaps not. He’s still a total jerk.

Lance huffs. “I told you, I’m sorry! I wasn’t late on purpose, I was actually on time, waiting for you at the entrance.”

Keith’s eyes narrow. “Being late is one thing, completely ignoring all my messages is another.”

Lance opens his mouth to reply, but comes short. Yeah, fine, he scoffs, that’s on him, he can’t talk his way out of this one. Still…

“I said I was sorry,” he mutters, crossing his arms and looking away. “You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

His classmate doesn’t answer and Lance waits a moment, before sneaking a peek at him. Keith must have been staring, because he quickly averts his gaze, sighing.

“Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”

Lance bites his tongue and decides to be an adult about this, since, ya know, he technically is an adult. Despite a rocky start, there’s still a chance, albeit a small one, that they might finish this project without further incidents.

It seems Keith didn’t waste any time while Lance wasn’t here and already began planning things out on his own. Lance is also a little miffed about that, although, to be fair, he was late.

The topic of their work is planetary geology; they are to prepare a twenty-minute presentation on geological features of a specific planet or moon—at least those are the general guidelines from their professor. Lance and Keith got assigned Mars and they’ll be presenting in late October, which is actually a lot of time to prepare, but his partner is certainly not relaxed about it. Does he not realise they have almost six weeks left? Still, Lance refuses to point that out; God knows what sort of infernal glare will Keith shoot him this time.

Come to think of it, it’s probably best for Lance not to say anything at all to avoid further angering his classmate. From what he gathered during their lectures together, Keith always sits alone, never talks to anybody, and the only time he ever opens his mouth is to say a brief ‘here’ during roll-call.

He’s certainly a character, Lance thinks bitterly, wondering how he got unlucky enough to be paired up with this guy.

Is that a sort of hazing ritual for every college student to have to do a project with a horrible group or partner at least once during their university years? He guesses Pidge and Hunk lucked out after all, since at least they had each other. Lance is alone in dealing with this douchebag. He side-eyes Keith again, his gaze lingering on the perpetual frown the guy wears like a persona. Would it kill him to relax?

Just because Lance was late once doesn’t mean he’s a totally lost cause, they’re still going to nail this presentation, he’s sure of it. Why, you ask? It’s not simple overconfidence, oh no, Lance’s undeniable skill in presenting comes from an unlimited amount of inner resources of charisma. Presentations are the one thing he’s never feared failing, in fact, he aced almost all of them.

One time back in high school his history teacher asked him a question about the information on one of his slides. She was the type of a sneaky teacher that liked to call you out on only pretending you know what you’re talking about, except Lance really did know what he was talking about and ended up talking her ear off while giving an answer that completely exhausted the topic, going on a full-on rant summarising everything he’s learnt from a three-hour video essay he watched the night before. The teacher was listening to him so intently neither of them noticed the passage of time, and the thing that ended up finally interrupting Lance’s verbal diarrhoea was the bell. He got full marks, of course, but he was still a little disappointed, since he didn’t actually get to finish his presentation. The second-to-last slide had a funny GIF on it and Lance planned on telling a historical joke, but he never got to say it in the end.

It happened four years ago, yet he’s still salty about that.

Anyway, that’s how he knows they’re going to do great on this. Lance won’t disappoint Keith, even if he procrastinates until the day before and ends up cramming all night. Of course, Keith clearly doesn’t share his optimism. Why does he have to be so damn negative about everything? Lance briefly wonders if he was born with that stick up his ass or if he just decided to wear it as a fashion accessory. Bold choice, in Lance’s humble opinion, but Keith is evidently full of those. The mullet? Lance almost scowls. He doesn’t know who decided that atrocious hairstyle was trendy again but they deserve jail. More people suffer from mullets than from thinking they look good in orange.

Fortunately, Keith has his hair up today, and Lance realises that does make him look a lot different. It could be the comfy clothes as well—a huge change from the emo, bad boy fit. He seems much more natural, more approachable, more like a regular person, which Lance supposes isn’t a bad look on him at all. Pretty much the only thing Keith has going for him is that he’s slightly attractive, Lance reluctantly admits. The hot ones always have to be assholes, don’t they? Why do girls always go for red flags, anyway? Lance is equally handsome, no wait, way more handsome than this douche and he’s as green as a forest! He won’t say it out loud, but he is a little envious. Keith’s detachment makes it seem like he is fully unaware of the power his face, his entire persona, really, can have on people. 

He can definitely make an impression. Is it really possible that they haven’t run into each other at all during freshman year? Really, not even once? Lance doesn’t think he’d forget a face like Keith’s, but they’re in the same division, and Lance knows there aren’t that many astronomy students. Maybe Keith’s from a different department? Lance suddenly realises he has no idea what his partner’s major is.

Does he actually care though? It doesn’t really matter in the end, Lance is just being nosy. If he asked, Keith would definitely shoot him down with another silent glare. How would Lance even explain his curiosity? Technically, the knowledge could be useful in dividing their tasks on the project. Yeah, that’s right, there must be areas Keith is more interested in. But, just because he’s more interested in one topic than another doesn’t mean he chose that as his major, dammit. For Lance, this whole astronomy thing is just a hobby anyway.

Well, no, that’s not entirely true; he’s just keeping his options open. His first choice for a master’s is marine biology, but he’s also considering biotechnology or astrobiology. See, the thing is, working for NASA would be a dream come true, but getting a job there is ridiculously hard, and if it doesn’t work out he’s most likely to get stuck as an R&D scientist or dedicating his life to academia, and neither of those sound very exciting to him. He’d much rather work with animals, or at least for animals at an NGO or something.

Maybe Keith is aiming at a future at academia, is that why he studies so hard?

Keith suddenly groans and looks up at him, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

Lance blinks. “What?”

Keith’s eyes narrow. “You’re staring.”

Lance blushes, realising he’s been caught and scratches his nape awkwardly. “Sorry, I was just wondering…Did we have any classes together last year?”

His classmate’s current look is the perfect impression of what TikTok has dubbed ‘the Gen Z stare.’ Keith has clearly mastered it. Or, perhaps, he’s a complete social recluse and doesn’t even realise he’s the personification of one of their generation’s stereotypes. Or, maybe, he used to work in customer service.

“I wouldn’t forget such an annoying person.”

Or, he’s just a jerk.

Lance splutters. “You’re the annoying one! You’re—”

He gulps. Getting called ‘annoying’ hit a little too close to home. Lance isn’t oblivious, he knows people have described him as such behind his back, and often to his face. When you’re met with the same insult over and over, you start realising that there could be some truth to it, maybe just a little bit.

Keith keeps staring at him, waiting for him to finish. “Yeah?”

Lance huffs. “You should probably take a shower. You stink.”

It’s a lie, he doesn’t. The awful, sweaty stench in the library certainly isn’t coming from Keith, but the guy’s eyes widen ever so slightly and his nostrils move, barely noticeably, to covertly sniff himself. There’s something in his pupils, some sort of dawning realisation that almost shakes him enough to lose that god-forsaken poker face of his.

Lance’s guilt isn’t enough to quench the feeling of satisfaction at finally managing to leave a scratch in that tough exterior.

“Let’s get back to work,” Keith says and that’s the end of it, but his cheeks, Lance notices, are a bit flushed in embarrassment, so he takes the win and tries not to act too smug about it.

It’s already four in the afternoon and Lance has not had lunch yet. Frankly, he isn’t exactly strict with his meals, he actually used to forget about food quite often, but after living with Hunk for a year he grew a little spoiled. His incredible roommate not only reminds Lance about regular meals, but is also kind enough to usually cook for both of them.

The point is, Lance’s stomach has already gurgled twice, quite loudly at that, and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore it. Focusing on his work becomes more difficult with every minute as his brain is currently too occupied trying to figure out what he’s got the biggest appetite for.

The only thing stopping him from taking a break is that he doesn’t want to further piss off his project partner. Keith, who’s clearly in the zone and hasn’t made a sound in over an hour, doesn’t seem particularly concerned about basic physiological needs. He said he’s been here since early morning—has he eaten?

Lance is about to finally break the silence and ask if they should take a break, but before he gets a chance to open his mouth, his stomach, once again, speaks for him.

Keith sighs and looks up. “We’re done for today.”

Lance startles. “Wait, really?” Honestly, he didn’t expect Keith to declare the session over until the library closed, or one of them collapsed.

Keith hesitates for a brief moment, but his shoulders sink as if in surrender. “Just go get your food,” he mutters in the end.

Lance initially wanted to ask Keith, just out of politeness, because his mama raised him right, if he wanted anything from the cafeteria, but after reading the room, Lance acknowledges the dismissal and packs his bag. He’s clearly not wanted here.

“I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

Keith mumbles an answer under his breath, but Lance doesn’t ask him to repeat himself and exits the building.

Leaving the library, and all of its drama far behind, brings Lance back to his previous dilemma—what is he gonna have for lunch? He’s a little too hungry to be picky, but right now everything looks appetising. Ultimately, he stops at Chipotle for a burrito bowl and gets a salad and tacos to go.

He realises he just spent way too much money on take-out, but after the day he’s had, Lance decides he deserves it. You gotta treat yourself every once in a while.

Entering his apartment he immediately heads over to the couch and drops down on it like a corpse. Unpacking his take-out bag, he lays the food out of the coffee table and groans as he has to get up again to grab some soda from the fridge. He usually goes for something on the healthier side, but today he’s too mentally exhausted to care. He’ll just do a full pampering session tomorrow; he knows Allura will be down for a skincare night, they’ve not had one since the semester started.

Sitting back down on the sofa, this time with a bottle of Fanta in hand, he turns the TV on, ready to corrupt his brain with whatever cheesy romcom Netflix recommends him. Actually, does he have it in him to hate-watch something right now? Maybe it would be better to watch something he’ll actually enjoy, a timeless classic, like Legally Blonde, or The Devil Wears Prada.

What Netflix actually recommends is Crazy Rich Asians, which sounds awfully trashy, but apparently has Michelle Yeoh in it, so it can’t be that bad. Lance gives it a chance.

Two hours later his shirt is covered in salsa and his face is covered in tears while he adds another five star review to his Letterboxd. 

Ok, what now? He doesn’t feel like watching anything else, that film completely broke him, nothing else will live up to his expectations now, at least not this evening. He needs to find something else to do.

After quickly cleaning up the empty take-out boxes, changing his messy shirt, and washing his face, Lance debates between doom scrolling and gaming, and instantly frowns. How are those two his only options?

How sad could his life be; a Saturday night and he, a college student, has no plans—truly tragic. He’s about to message Hunk to ask when he’s coming back home and if he wants to play It Takes Two later (they only got to the second boss fight but the game is honestly incredible and Lance can’t wait to continue it), but then he remembers his roommate’s social life is way better than his own as Hunk is currently on a date. Meaning, he likely won’t be coming home tonight, or will be back very late.

Lance can’t be mad though—he’s very happy for his best friend, especially when Shay is such a great girl. He’s only a little envious; just a bit.

He sighs, and starts up Steam, scrolling through his games. He’s not really feeling like solo queueing for a multiplayer; tonight he wants to destress not raise his blood pressure. In the end, he picks a game he’s already finished, but could never get bored with. An eerie music sounds from his headphones as the screen of his poor laptop in desperate need of an upgrade notifies him that the game is still in development and he’s about to play an early access version. Lance is aware, he must have seen that message over a hundred times during summer break.

Hades II was the reason he almost failed his calculus final last year. It’s more than just a typical roguelite; it’s got a beautiful soundtrack, compelling plot, and it’s a great take on Greek mythology, which Lance, who grew up reading Percy Jackson, truly appreciates. After the game was released, Lance spent most of his time clearing different Underworld regions and thirsting after 2D characters instead of studying. If it wasn’t for Pidge’s last-minute intense tutoring, he definitely would have failed. It was just really unlucky for the early access launch to drop right before exam season, but what could he do? Several months later Lance is still obsessed.

“Damn,” he curses under his breath as he gets killed by Chronos. He was so close!

Before jumping straight into another run, Lance directs Melinoë—the main character, Princess of the Underworld—to go chat with Moros and Nemesis, who are both romance options. He’s already maxed out both of their relationship bars, but since the game isn’t finished, their storylines haven’t progressed far yet.

See, in the first game, Lance went the polyamorous route and romanced both Thanatos, Death Incarnate, and Megaera, the First of the Furies. He just couldn’t choose between them! Than and Zagreus—the hero from the first game—just had amazing chemistry, and their soulmate-like storyline just made the inner romantic in Lance scream. Meg, on the other hand, was a completely selfish choice as she was exactly Lance’s type. Besides the fact her character design was incredibly hot, she was also powerful, independent, brutally honest, absolutely capable of kicking the protagonist’s butt, and just a little mean. All in all, she was Lance’s ideal woman.

He’s pretty sure the polyamorous route will be once again available in the sequel, at least he hopes so, because he’s doomed if he has to choose between Retribution and Doom. Heh, get it? Because Moros is Doom Incarnate? Lance chuckles at his own joke. He’s hilarious.

He ends up playing for far longer than he initially planned and curses when he sees the time. He takes a quick shower and jumps into bed, putting his phone on charge, but just before he locks the screen he notices a certain notification from a few hours ago—Kosmo posted on tumblr.

Lance is immediately more awake as he taps, almost fearfully, on the notification. He’s not sure what he’s expecting; another drawing of himself? Could it be? Just as Pidge says; once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern, and this would be the third time. Is this going to be the evidence he desperately needs to prove to his friends he’s not deranged?

Uneasy, he watches as the app loads marmoraart’s profile and the newest post. Lance clicks on it and…

It’s a work in progress of a fanart Kosmo reveals they’ve been drawing. It’s of a character from the very same webnovel that got Kosmo famous. He still occasionally posts fanarts from it, whether to keep the hype up, or simply because he doesn’t want to lose the followers they gained because of it. Or, maybe Kosmo is just still as ridiculously obsessed with that book as Lance is. Sometimes he even teams up with the publishers for more official or promotional art for the series, but this doesn’t seem to be one of those times.

Lance lets out a shaky breath. He feels a little disappointed, which is evidence proving the opposite of what he needed—he’s gone completely insane.

Chapter Text

Time goes by slowly after that. Lance’s workload gets larger with each passing day and he finds himself far busier than during freshman year. His classes are a lot harder, that’s for sure, and the homework is also far more challenging. He signed up for technical writing for STEM this semester to hopefully have an easier time with his paper, but the course itself is hard enough, forget it helping with anything else.

Lance groans, staring at his laptop screen. How on earth do you calculate a t-test?

Seriously, isn’t that supposed to be covered in biostatistics? He’s taking that class next semester, why is he expected to know how to do that now?

He wants to rage quit and drop out. Huffing, he slams down his laptop screen and collapses face first onto his bed. Why is university so hard?

Lance knows he has only himself to blame. Really, he could have picked an easier major but, no, he simply had to go to a prestigious STEM school and pick biology and astronomy both. Back in high school, when he was applying for colleges, he had no idea biology students had it so hard, he always thought it was a subject way easier than chemistry or physics. Honestly, Lance hates physics with a passion—and don’t get him wrong; he thinks it’s super interesting, but ask him to calculate anything and he’ll tell you he’d rather boil in magma.

He’s not being dramatic, certainly not, no, ma’am. Lance can memorise all the laws, formulas and so on, but—hell, if he has to actually solve any equations he’s moving to Tibet and becoming a monk.

Even after choosing biology he cannot escape those diabolical formulas. Lord, help him.

Helplessly groaning once again, he rolls onto his side and decides to go down the instagram rabbit hole. Nothing can save him now.

The first post on his feed is, surprisingly, from a very familiar account. Lance’s mood is immediately improved; marmoraart has posted.

Looks like he’s finally done with that WIP he teased a few weeks ago; the description reveals the artist has been very busy and is currently mostly working on commissions only. Now, Lance has a feeling he knows exactly what’s up with that; Kosmo must be a college student, like himself. Firstly, the age checks out, and yeah, Lance knows not everyone gets a degree at the same time and there isn’t a designated age to do it, but the vast majority, if they decide to go to college, usually start right after high school. According to Lance’s calculations, Kosmo should be twenty-one now.

Well, more or less. Lance doesn’t know when exactly they were born, but they said they were nineteen two years ago, and that post was from September, so unless Kosmo’s birthday is later in the year and he was actually nineteen going on twenty, then he should be twenty-one now. Naturally, there’s always the possibility of Kosmo’s birthday being in fall or early winter, in which case he would be twenty-two.

Of course, they could also be forty-seven or seventeen because no one actually knows anything about them. Still, Lance chooses to believe his idol did not lie about their age, and it has nothing to do with the fact Lance himself is twenty, because that’s an entirely irrelevant piece of information that has nothing to do with marmoraart whatsoever.

Wait, what was he on about? Ah, right—Kosmo being a college student. Well, the artist is busy just as school is getting busier, and he posts way more during summer breaks or the holiday season. Take last year for example—the second exam period hit, his tumblr looked completely abandoned. Meanwhile, just before spring break started, Kosmo opened his commissions again. Lance remembers that spring break well, since he had nothing to do. Pidge and Hunk were both busy and he didn’t want to go home either, since his aunt and her ferociously Republican, Trump-supporting husband were staying there for the week. None of his other siblings planned visiting during that time either, so Lance would have to deal with his bullshit by himself.

The one thing he hates about his university is having spring break so late. If Rachel or any of his high school friends didn’t have classes during that time, it would have been a different story. Lance missed his parents a lot and really regretted not seeing them because of something so seemingly trivial. He couldn’t tell his mother that his uncle was the reason he avoided coming home, so he lied and said he was too busy with school. In reality, Lance spent the whole week reading fanfiction.

He was incredibly grateful Kosmo seemed more active during that time too; his favourite artist’s posts truly lifted his spirits.

Lance smiles, admiring the most recent fanart but his expression instantly freezes. Wait.

His school’s spring break is kind of an anomaly, and it just so happened Kosmo’s was at the same time?

No, no, no. It’s not even certain they live on the same continent, but going to the same school? Is it actually possible they’ve run into each other before? Is the OC from marmoraart’s sketches actually based on Lance?

If, if , they really attend the same college then there’s no doubt about it—the person in the drawings has to be him. That thought alone opens Pandora’s box; does this mean they’re classmates? For which class? Are they in the same department? The same major? Is Kosmo an upperclassman of his? Or are they also a sophomore and took a gap year?

Lab report abandoned, Lance dedicates the rest of his evening to speculations.

Bi awareness day finally comes and the club gets to reap the benefits after all of their hard work these past couple of weeks. They had no idea what to organise and Allura was set on an original event since it’s her final year as club president, so naturally they decided to go all out.

The LGBTQIA+ society is a fairly prominent one within the student body, even though not all of their members identify as queer, instead choosing to join the ranks as allies, Lance and Hunk included. The club, led by one of the most popular girls on campus, can boast its exceptional reputation for throwing the best parties. Naturally, when the queer club organises an event, everybody and their mother wants to be there—bar the homophobes, they’re not invited.

Their bi awareness day celebration is no exception with dozens of students flocking to get a taste of the delicious, free food prepared by Hunk, attend the special classes of stress-relieving yoga run by Romelle, or sing some songs by well-known bisexual musicians on their live karaoke—as long as they manage to take the microphone away from professor Smythe, that is.

There is a lot of other stuff going on too, but most people just form cliques and start making new friends, or gossiping. A lot of them showed up just to try and get Allura’s attention; Lance notices her busy posing for yet another selfie with a person he’s never seen before while simultaneously giving an interview for the college newspaper—a true queen bee.

Pidge found their circle of computer geeks and they’re all currently discussing best queer video games. Lance hears one of them mention The Sims and he’s suddenly struck by the need to play the game of his childhood. It’s been a while since he touched The Sims; the last time he played he created a gay merman and got the Grim Reaper pregnant.

“Are you wearing makeup?”

Lance shrieks as his soul nearly leaves his body. He turns around to see Pidge standing right behind him. “Jesus Christ, where did you spawn from?”

He looks back towards the nerd nation, almost expecting a clone of his friend to still be sitting there.

Pidge follows his line of sight. “They started discussing Stardew Valley, so I left to avoid spoilers,” the little gremlin explains, shrugging. Then, their eyes narrow. “Let’s get back on track though. You’re definitely wearing makeup.”

Lance avoids eye contact and tries to sound nonchalant. “What, are straight guys not allowed to wear makeup? Be a little more progressive, Pidgie.”

Pidge gawks, eyeballs enormous through their glasses and jaw almost on the ground. They make a sound reminiscent of a mongoose, clearly too offended to function properly. Telling Pidge to be more open-minded? Genius. Lance should’ve thought of it sooner.

Still, they are absolutely correct and Lance is not at all ashamed to be seen in public with just a tiny bit of eye pencil, and less than a tiny bit of foundation. Lance grew up with two older sisters, of course he’s worn makeup before. Veronica and Rachel forced it on him more times than he can count and it never bothered him if people saw it; what bothered him was the cosmetics themselves—they made his skin itch. Even just for skincare, Lance has always had to use hypoallergenic products because of his sensitive skin type.

So, no, of course he’s not ashamed to be called out for wearing makeup, but it’s Pidge who asked, and Pidge is awfully nosy. Immediately, they would ask why he suddenly decided to wear makeup and Lance can’t lie to save his life, so they would get the real reason out of him sooner or later. And they would bully him for it for the rest of his miserable existence.

It’s quite silly, really. Horribly so, even. But, Lance can’t get the idea of Kosmo going to the same school out of his head. So, just in case his favourite artist decided to drop by to see what the university’s most awesome club came up with, Lance needed to make sure he looked extra nice since they might run into each other. After all, chances of a gay artist coming to a bi awareness day event at their campus are pretty high; birds of a feather flock together and all that jazz.

What if Kosmo is struggling with inspiration? If so, then Lance, as his muse, has the responsibility of showing his best side for the poor artist, so he can start drawing again. Yes, it’s all out of genuine desire to help and pure selflessness, naturally. After all, if he keeps this god-forsaken foundation on his face any longer he’s risking an acne breakout and that would be the true tragedy here. Lance is willing to sacrifice so much for his idol, he really hopes Kosmo is somewhere in this crowd.

Oh no, what if he actually gets a breakout and Kosmo sees him in class later with pimples all over his cheeks? Oh god, did he make a mistake putting the makeup on? Should he wash it off? Has Kosmo seen him yet?

He looks around again.

“Are you looking for someone?” Pidge guesses.

“No,” Lance denies. “Shut up.”

Pidge squints. “You’re trying to impress someone,” they assume, absurdly. “Who is it? Nowadays the only person you talk about is that guy from planetary science.” Their eyes widen, undoubtedly coming to yet another ridiculous conclusion. “Don’t tell me—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Lance warns, throwing them a nasty look. Pidge merely snickers, but fortunately drops the subject and doesn’t tease him any further. 

Yet again scouting around, Lance realises everyone’s busy with their own thing, and nobody is looking at him. Come to think of it, why does he care so much about what someone he doesn’t even know thinks of him? He’s always cared about his appearance but it was rarely out of insecurity; he’s always been pretty confident in his looks, he’s hot and he knows it, so why is he making so much effort for some random classmate?

But it’s not just any random classmate, is it? No, it’s Kosmo, his idol. Realistically speaking, any fan would want to look their best in front of their favourite celebrity, right?

Suddenly, a flash of a memory enters his mind. It was ages ago, when he was still a young child, maybe even a toddler. He was walking down the streets of Varadero with his mother and they ran into her favourite musician. He can’t remember the guy’s name, or even his face, it was some little-known star, a relic of his parents’ generation. He remembers, though, the look on his mother’s face; how she blushed and stumbled over her words as she asked for an autograph. She was completely starstruck, but didn’t seem self-conscious, despite her lack of makeup, windblown updo, and the old dress she only wore for cleaning the house or going to the supermarket.

To this day, she talks fondly of that encounter, she never mentions the state she was in, or how she wishes she could have looked. She only feels happy that she got to meet her favourite star and get his autograph, she never considers how he could have viewed her.

Is that because that’s simply his mother’s personality? Was it different for her since she was already married, having met the love of her life and not looking for other options?

Wait, why would her being married have anything to do with it? Lance is single and ready to mingle, but Kosmo isn’t a girl and Lance is straight. This is simply an idol and fan relationship, purely based on Lance’s admiration of Kosmo’s art.

His head starts hurting, so he decides to drop the subject for now.

Thursdays aren’t the worst of Lance’s weekdays, but they definitely make the top three. Almost four hours of labs is enough to drive even the biggest nerd to an early grave. Ninety minutes of cell biology he can survive, but it’s always followed by a two-hour organic chemistry I lab that the professor always drags out. Lance gets it, there’s a lot of material to go through and, sure, they’re lucky nobody else is using the lab directly after them, so they shouldn’t complain about getting extra time. But, honestly, he’s a college student, alright?! He’s got a life!

Not everyone at their university is so obsessed with grades they do nothing else besides studying. Lance glances to the side, watching Keith frown at his textbook as he massages his temples.

Not everyone, just a few cases.

To be honest, Lance is pretty exhausted. Since his class ran over time again, he didn’t have a proper meal, instead grabbing a snack at the vending machine and sprinting straight to the library. Sure, he could’ve let Keith know he’d be a little late and go get actual dinner, but Lance didn’t want the guy to get mad at him again. Since they’re going to be stuck together for three more weeks, he wants to get along with his project partner, at least a little.

If this was high school, he’s not sure he would’ve been able to simply try and move on from someone being an absolute jerk to him like that, especially when it’s a classmate who’s treating him like an idiot. Lance would probably throw a fit, antagonise them, and put all his energy into proving he’s better than them. But, he’s not a high schooler anymore, he’s a university student, a legal adult, and he decided it’s time to mature.

So, he decided to try with Keith—actually try. His classmate might be a total asshole, but that doesn’t mean Lance has to be one as well. Keith’s venom will not poison Lance, he’s going to stay just as kind and cheerful as he is at heart, no matter how much Keith gets under his skin.

It’s hard at first, of course it will be, and Lance almost snapped several times already. His blood boils with unrestrained desire to demolish the walls Keith put up. Lance can’t explain it; he barely knows the guy, but he craves to affect Keith the same way he’s affecting Lance. He wants Keith to react, to show some real, human emotion every once in a while.

So far, the only time Lance managed to put a little dent in those thick walls was when Lance told him he was stinky. Yeah, he’s not very proud of that one—it was mean, and not true, and he let his own anger get the best of him. Which is totally not an excuse! He wants Keith to smile when he does something goofy or says something funny. Maybe it’s partially his own guilt that’s making him so obsessed with the idea of making the boy next to him laugh, though frankly, Lance isn’t sure if Keith is even capable of laughing. He probably thinks smiling would damage his emo reputation.

Still, Lance needs Keith’s attention on him, that’s certain. Messing with him would be fun if the guy didn’t get hostile so quickly, so Lance gave up on that idea. Now, he wants positive reactions only, not the classic eye roll or an occasional scoff.

Lance sighs internally. Trying to befriend Keith might be harder than getting a job at NASA. Actually, Lance considers this, statistically speaking, that might not be too far off—how many people work at NASA again? Seventeen thousand? Compared to that, how many friends does Keith have?

Lance bites back a smile—alright, that was mean. He should go back to his work before his partner scolds him again.

Before he gets the chance to get properly engrossed in reading about geological processes on Mars, a group of students enter the room and claim the table next to theirs. They’re quiet, fortunately, only whispering between themselves about making a quizlet for their upcoming test. Keith pays them no mind, but Lance’s gaze lingers for a second.

He recognises one of the boys from his gen ed class and cannot stop his brain from making a ridiculous assumption.

Is that him? Lance immediately wonders, narrowing his eyes. He tries to inconspicuously sneak another peek at the classmate, thinking, hoping, that something in his behaviour will reveal him as the object of Lance’s recent obsession. He keeps glancing to the side, studying the student’s features, his hair, his style. He doesn’t know much about Kosmo, but two things are certain—they’re an artist and they’re gay.

Lance stares at the guy intently, but no matter where he looks, or how much of the group’s quiet conversation he overhears, his gaydar isn’t going off. Now, Lance doesn’t want to make any assumptions, but he has to consider every possibility. Maybe the classmate’s not out of the closet?

Lance watches the guy’s hand as he writes something down in his notebook. Unfortunately, he sits too far away to see the handwriting. Is it neat? Artsy? To be honest, he’s not exactly getting an art freak vibe either; if anything, the guy seems more like a jock. Maybe his real-life persona is the opposite of his online identity?

Or maybe that’s just not him.

“What are you doing?”

Lance almost jumps out of his seat. Luckily, the person who caught him staring was just Keith.

His partner raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

Scratch that, that’s even worse—Keith is going to get mad again, or worse, he’ll make fun of Lance.

Lance panics. “What day is it?” He asks, ignoring Keith’s own question.

His project partner is momentarily thrown aback and blinks. “Uh,” he glances at his screen. “It’s October 3rd?”

Lance grins cheekily, and instantly forgets about his dilemma.

Got you Kogane, he thinks, feeling like the cat that got the cream. Acting all dark and broody but you’re secretly a Mean Girls fan, aren’t you?

Keith just blinks at him again with that irritating poker face of his and Lance groans. No calling out emos today; apparently, he celebrated too early. “You really are hopeless.”

“Just get back to work,” Keith mumbles, breaking eye contact.

Detecting no animosity yet, Lance takes it as permission to keep talking.

“You always study so hard, your grades must be great,” he says, trying to make small talk. “Though, it’s not the easiest school to get into, so I guess everyone is really smart,” he adds, but Keith keeps ignoring him. “So, we already established we had no classes together last year and I was wondering—what’s your major?”

Keith finally looks up at him. His face reveals nothing besides the usual exasperation, but his eyes convey exhaustion Lance never noticed before. Has it always been there? Are Keith’s Thursdays as tiring as Lance’s, or is he simply that drained from constant studying?

Did Lance’s company genuinely wore him out so much he doesn’t even have the energy to glare any longer?

“Astrophysics,” Keith finally answers and Lance is almost surprised he managed to get any information out of him. It elates him for some reason, being able to learn anything new about his elusive classmate.

Deciding to push his luck, Lance probes further. “That’s cool! Really hard subject, what made you choose it?”

Keith stares at him. Once again, Lance attempts to read him, hoping this time he might get some more insight into what’s going on in that head hidden under a dark, unruly mop. Keith’s lashes are long, covering the irises as he squints. Lance can see the bags under his eyes, the only imperfection on his otherwise unblemished face. Keith seems to be searching for something in Lance’s own expression, an answer to a question he didn’t bother asking, or simply didn’t wish to voice. His lower lip twitches, as if he was biting on it from the inside. Is it a nervous habit? A tic? Is Keith uncomfortable?

“My dad’s an astrophysicist,” he reveals in the end and Lance grins, but before he gets a chance to open his mouth again to keep the conversation going, Keith quickly shuts it down. “Now shut up, and focus.”

Satisfied, Lance happily obliges.

He’s having a parasocial relationship with marmoraart, Lance decides and that only slightly freaks him out, because that’s not the main issue here.

Ever since bi awareness week, Lance has been obsessively (even more obsessively than his usual) checking Kosmo’s socials to see if there have been any new posts about him, something specifically linking back to the event, but there was nothing.

Even if Kosmo does go to the same university, Lance likely overestimated the odds of them showing up, and even if they did, Lance has finally accepted his chances of running into them were abysmally slim. He’s pretty sure Kosmo isn’t a part of the queer club; Lance knows everybody there and there are only three other people in it who read that webnovel which made marmoraart a household name. Two of them are lesbians and dating each other, and the third is Hunk, and Hunk only read it last year because Lance forced him to.

Lance was hoping Kosmo would show up at their bi event, but he knows not everybody is into extracurricular activities, and not all queer kids are out of the closet—and even if they were, they might not want to advertise it. Tensions have been especially bad lately with the presidential election coming up next month.

So, assuming they’re classmates, Lance might never figure out Kosmo’s identity, no matter how hard he tries, how desperately he searches, how many people he interrogates.

Which brings him to the current dilemma—one that is actually worth contemplating and doesn’t instantly mark him as deranged. A real, palpable crisis.

Lance thinks he has a crush on Kosmo. Actually, no—he knows he has a crush on Kosmo, which is the true problem here. Because Kosmo isn’t a girl, and Lance spent his whole life thinking he was straight.

Rolling onto his side while he lies underneath his weighted blanket, Lance contemplates this. He knows he likes girls; he’s dated girls before, kissed them, had sex with them, masturbated while thinking about them…Yeah, girls are awesome, he’s definitely into them. He never thought about boys the same way, the thought simply never crossed his mind. What would kissing guys feel like? Would it be the same as with women? He’d probably smell cologne and perspiration instead of some more delicate perfume and hair conditioner, and he would likely feel the stubble on their chins, possibly wouldn’t taste the cherry chapstick. Would that turn him on or off?

Lance isn’t sure; he thinks he can imagine it, but he can’t decide if it’s something he’d be into. Should he test it out by watching gay porn, or do an “Am I bisexual?” quiz?

He rolls onto his other side and looks at the Star Wars poster on his wall. Princess Leia was his childhood crush, and he also thought Padmé was one of the prettiest girls he’s seen on screen. But now that he thinks about it, the character he was always the most obsessed with was Anakin. Lance always thought it was simply the typical attraction towards the protagonist, and once Ani became Lord Vader, Lance couldn’t help but pity him. In episode three, with long hair, dark robes, and powerful aura, Anakin Skywalker was his favourite, and he couldn’t help being drawn to him. Lance doesn’t even remember how many nights he spent watching Anakin edits and tribute videos on YouTube. Just remembering it makes him want to watch another one.

Thinking about it now he’s certain—he was definitely attracted to a male character, which doesn’t immediately make him bi, but if given the chance…Yup, Lance decides without needing to think about it; he’d absolutely sleep with Anakin Skywalker, without a doubt.

What would being bisexual mean? Would anything change in his life? Dating guys would be an option, but how do you know which guys are gay? Before, Lance considered his gaydar flawless, but now that he would actually need it to determine who to flirt with and who to stay away from, he’s not so sure he’d be able to anymore.

One thing at a time, should he come out to his family? His sister is a lesbian and his parents were supportive when she came out, but would they react the same when it’s him—a boy? Their youngest son? What are their opinions on bisexuality, would they think it’s just a phase?

And what if it is just a phase? What if this whole sexual identity crisis was born out of sheer curiosity, expectations, and the pure idea of dating men? What if reality is different? After all, his entire hypothesis is based on his feelings towards a fictional character and a parasocial relationship with a faceless artist.

He rolls over again and ends up on his back, staring at the ceiling. The apartment is quiet, Hunk once again sleeping over at Shay’s and his next-door neighbours are oddly silent tonight. The room is peaceful, almost as if the universe decided to give Lance a break and let him figure this out calmly.

He watches as the ceiling fan slowly spins with a silent hum, almost like a white noise machine. He closes his eyes—it makes thinking easier.

Lance is definitely feeling bicurious; should he talk about this with his friends from the club? How would they react? He’s a member but he joined as an ally—what if they think he’s getting imposter syndrome and just trying to fit in? Would they be correct to assume so? He so adamantly claimed his own heterosexuality before, what if they hate him if he decides he’s not bi?

But, even so, they are still his friends; Allura would definitely understand, and she is bisexual, so she could certainly help him figure it out. Even if it turns out he’s just straight, they wouldn’t just toss him aside, they have many things in common. Hunk was his friend before either of them joined the club and Hunk’s girlfriend is too much of a sweetheart to ever be mean to anybody. Romelle would likely forget about the whole situation a week later and Pidge…Pidge would probably tease him a little but eventually let it go. They’re really sensitive about this stuff, and they can get really hostile sometimes, but they would never hurt a friend.

Yeah, he shares a lot of interests, but also personality traits with his friends from the club, so of course they wouldn’t kick him out just because he’s having a little sexuality crisis. Their similarities are what drew him to them in the first place. Birds of a feather…

Right, Lance thought Kosmo would show up because he’d want to be with people he has something in common with, right? But Lance is drawn to the club too, and organising bi awareness day was a project he cared about more than some other members of the club—why would he care so much if it wasn’t personal?

Lance exhales deeply and grabs his phone to google some definitions of bisexuality. His phone, which was put in sleep mode about an hour ago, hasn’t vibrated with any new notifications, but Lance, as addicted to being chronically online as he is, still slides his finger to glance over what he could have possibly missed within the past seventy-eight minutes he’s been offline.

Joy, fear, and anticipation drown him as soon as he notices marmoraart added a new post. His finger presses on the screen before Lance’s brain can register it.

He stares at the drawing for several long moments, not understanding what he’s seeing. It’s exactly what he wished for, exactly what he wanted and waited for—it’s him, right there. Yet, it’s not the setting he expected.

It’s not his flawless complexion, freshly styled hair and best outfit from bi awareness day. In fact, it takes him a second to realise the drawing he’s looking at is a fanart, but the longer he stares, the more he’s certain.

Lance remembers this moment, and that’s not how it happened at all—he didn’t turn around to look, they were across from each other. In the picture, though, two people are drawn over movie frames which became a meme template. The first frame is a close-up on Lance’s face, while the second portrays him sitting in front, turning back to look at the classmate behind him.

On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was. Reads the text over the first image.

It’s October 3rd. Says the text over the second one depicting Lance as Aaron looking back at a genderbent Cady Heron.

Lance stares, and stares, and stares, seeing and understanding but incapable of actually comprehending. Unable to fathom the knowledge, to accept the truth. Because his first problem isn’t solved yet, and this is simply another can of worms he has no idea what to do with.

Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, he sees the description beneath the post:

crush pulled a mean girls reference but i gay panicked and pretended not to get it

Lance gulps.

He locks the screen, without even remembering to take a screenshot first. He’s convinced this is some sort of fever dream, the universe’s cruel joke.

He tosses his phone aside and stares at the ceiling, listening to the quiet hum of the spinning fan.

“Wow,” Lance whispers, sighing. “My idol’s a tsundere.”

Chapter Text

Act II: The Idol

October 4th, 2024

The alarm doesn’t need to ring, the sound of the vibrations is enough to wake him up, even after only getting less than two hours of rest. He knew junior year would be hard, the piles of homework he needs to do every week keep getting larger and larger as they get further into the semester.

Wiping sleep from his eyes, Keith gets out of bed. He’s lucky enough to get a single bedroom in his dorm this year, though he’s pretty sure Shiro had something to do with it. When Keith asked him about it, he denied it and suspiciously avoided eye contact. He already told the man, multiple times, that he doesn’t wish to be anyone’s charity case, but Shiro is simply relentless in that regard.

Keith takes a quick shower and grabs a spare energy drink before leaving for his morning classes. Fridays aren’t usually bad, he only has a differential equations lecture for his math core and then a recitation for electromagnetism II at four. In between those, he has enough time to complete his assignments for the following week, or catch up with some assigned reading. This time, though, he has to finish the homework for his afternoon class, since he spent most of the evening wasting time.

He simply couldn’t help it; it plagued him, corrupted his mind, struck his very soul. Without getting the image out of his head and onto paper, he couldn’t focus on his work. So, instead of studying like a good student, Keith dedicated precious time to redrawing a Mean Girls scene, because of someone.

He still can’t believe out of all of his classmates Keith just had to be paired with Lance. Couldn’t the universe just let him admire the boy from afar and get over it without ever speaking to him? At first, it was just the general vibe Lance gave off that Keith found slightly infuriating—he was always happy, enthusiastic, easy-going and openly chatting to anyone who gave him the smallest bit of attention. He was the complete opposite of Keith, and Keith couldn’t stand it.

The worst part of it was that the guy was attractive; tall, with sun-kissed skin, and a confident gait, he drew eyes to himself. Then, Keith caught a glimpse of his irises, the hue of Rigel, Orion’s brightest star, and he couldn’t get the guy to stop haunting him. In the end, Keith decided to draw him and posted the picture on his tumblr, introducing him as an OC. Sure, he knew it was wrong, genuinely fucked-up, but it helped; letting go of his thoughts and sharing them on his blog has always been therapeutic to Keith, that time being no exception. It was brief—just momentary relief he wished he could’ve gotten drunk on.

So, he thought he finally got rid of that irritating infection, until the virus himself appeared right in front of him and introduced himself as Keith’s new project partner. Screw all of this, why must fate taunt him so?

Hence, a few weeks later the virus caused another infection, which developed into a disease. And now, because all gods apparently hate him, Keith has a crush. One might wonder how it happened; which series of unfortunate events led to such a horrifying outcome? Keith isn’t sure what was going on in his head, or inside his stone heart for that matter, he just knows that it caused an avalanche to come down the highest peak of his previously perfectly bearable existence and made a complete mess, burying every tiniest shred of prudence in its path.

He’s exaggerating; it’s not actually that bad. He isn’t in love with the guy or anything—it’s just a stupid crush caused by a few chemical reactions in his brain. Feeling his heart rate quicken whenever Lance looks at him is just a temporary rush of dopamine, and that annoying twist in his stomach whenever Lance decides to invade his personal space for no reason is little more than some norepinephrine entering the ring, ready to knock the lights out of him. It’s the same neurotransmitter behind his fight-or-flight response, and Keith never wanted to back down from a fight before—but the second he gets those annoying butterflies in his stomach, he wants to hide away and vomit.

It’s unbearable, it’s ridiculous, it’s pathetic—but most importantly, it’s really fucking distracting.

Keith did not work his ass off all of high school, and especially in his senior year, only to screw it all up now. He got into a really good college on a very, very good scholarship and he’ll be damned if his grades slip and he ends up losing it because of some boy.

Lance isn’t even a bad student; regrettably, Keith admits, he produces some fairly decent work once he manages to actually focus on it. The issue is the effect he has on Keith. Lance isn’t the only one who has trouble focusing on his studies—Keith suffers from the same problem, except the root of Keith’s condition is Lance himself.

Hence, like a true addict, he chooses to indulge in the poison of ephemeral freedom and keeps his obnoxious crime going. The case might technically be open, but it’s not like the felon is exactly at large—who would look for the culprit when nobody’s aware the law has been broken? Keith will slowly get over his dilemma, and hopefully forget about this entire fiasco borne out of temporary lack of judgement, and Lance will forever remain unaware of Keith’s extracurricular activities.

He feels a bit bad, awful even, but all artists need to draw inspiration from somewhere. Lance is simply a Mephistophelian afflatus, compelling Keith to commit his features to memory and recreate them later by hand, taunting him from the screen of his iPad until Keith succumbs to the temptation and publishes his work, sharing it with the entire world to learn the face of his devilish muse, and condemning himself for eternal damnation simultaneously.

Drawing is Keith’s salvation, his stylus serving like a springboard sending him far away from reality, responsibility, and all of his problems; helping him forget whatever worries his mind desperately obsesses over. Being able to finally get Lance’s dreadful cult classic reference out of his head is exactly what he needed to be able to mentally participate in his lecture. He has to make as many notes as possible, so he can ace next week’s quiz on homogeneous vs nonhomogeneous equations without having to worry about cramming everything the night before.

Downing that Monster before class started was an excellent decision because otherwise Keith is almost certain he’d pass out halfway through. Frankly, he has no idea how he manages to get through the entire two-hour-long punishment for simply needing education to get a job, earn money, and survive as a human being relying on physiological needs like food and water.

To whichever miserable fucker came up with the schedule of a college junior, Keith sincerely hopes their pillow is always warm and sweaty. Also, any person that had a hand in creating the American education system should be unable to ever fully rid their mattress of bed bugs.

He initially had a harsher sentence in mind, but he’s actively working on being a little less cynical. It’ll be a long process, but every journey needs to start somewhere.

In between lectures, as he initially planned, Keith finishes his electromagnetism homework. He’s glad he managed to get a head start on it last night, because otherwise there’s no way he would’ve been able to do all of it in those mere few hours. Once again, he curses the Princes of Hell responsible for his curriculum.

It’s almost four p.m. and he’s too tired to function. Just one more class and he gets to get back to his dorm and grab a nap. After that, he needs to work on a paper for quantum mechanics on the double-slit experiment, and start thinking of a topic for his final paper for computational astrophysics.

He buys another energy drink at the campus 7-Eleven and finishes it just before the TA shuts the door and starts the class.

Keith is close to losing it, he is seriously going to have a (completely reasonable) crashout. This whole situation is driving him insane and he can’t even be certain what it is that he did wrong, yet he cannot shake the feeling that this is all somehow his fault.

Lance has been avoiding him. It’s been two weeks since they were able to hold a proper conversation, and Keith has no clue what he fuck is going on through his partner’s head. They have less than a week until their presentation and Lance can’t even look in Keith’s general direction.

Thankfully, his idiot of a classmate still somehow managed to finish all of his own work and send Keith the notes. The problem is they will still need to present everything in front of the class, and Lance is refusing to meet Keith one-on-one, face-to-face.

It’s fine when they’re in class, as long as Keith can ignore Lance’s incessant fidgeting. They guy is, all of a sudden, ridiculously uncomfortable in his presence and does everything to avoid speaking to him. Whenever Keith pushes him for an answer, he just avoids eye contact, stumbles over an excuse and awakens some hidden superpower of breaking the sound barrier; all he leaves behind in his haste to get away is dust, and a very confused Keith.

A really unwelcome, uninvited thought enters his mind so abruptly he nearly walks straight into another student in their rush to leave the classroom. Keith changes direction to get away from the crowd and to take a minute to breathe.

It’s irrational to assume so, he reasons. How would Lance know?

Did he figure it out somehow; is that why he’s been avoiding Keith? In all fairness, Keith hasn’t been exactly careful, anybody could have learnt by now if they paid attention. So far, he hasn’t had anyone approach him about it, so Keith assumed they either didn’t know or didn’t care.

Clearly, Lance cares. Keith feels white hot, steaming anger boil inside him. So, that’s how it is? He takes another breath, leaning against the wall of an empty hallway. The air he breathes out tastes like ash.

Out of all people, why did Lance have to guess it?

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. So what if Lance knows? If he dares to tell anybody Keith will beat him to a pulp, or worse—he’ll tell Shiro.

Takashi Shirogane, as creepily muscular and huge as he seems, in reality acts more like a puppy; the golden retriever energy is something both he and Lance have in common. In any other circumstances, Shiro wouldn’t hurt a fly, but there is one exception that can make the man go absolutely berserk. 

A chill almost runs through Keith’s spine at whatever the older man will do once he finds out.

Normally, Keith isn’t vicious enough to let the hound off his leash at any small inconvenience, but if there is one thing in this world Shiro absolutely despises it’s homophobia.

If Lance really learnt Keith’s gay and now refuses to face him then they’re going to have a problem—but only until the presentation is done. After that, Keith won’t ever need to talk to the fucker again.

Because, indeed, as the Fates would have it, he is crushing on a homophobic asshole. Keith almost chuckles at the irony.

Of course, there can also be another reason why Lance is avoiding him and Keith shudders at the idea because, well, the second possibility isn’t Lance’s fault—it’s Keith’s, which means Keith can’t be mad at him and needs to find another way to vent his anger.

The only person he can be angry with is himself.

He thought they were really doing better, at least it seemed like Lance started trying to get along with him. But Keith, being a useless homosexual, had to ruin everything by being attracted to the first boy that tried to get close to him. Moreover, he’s apparently been so obvious about it that Lance, as oblivious as he looks, somehow realised it and ran away.

Keith kicks a small stone as he walks down the road next to the turtle pond. He hears a familiar laughter coming from the side and, without thinking, raises his head to take a look.

A sardonic smile sneaks its way onto his face. It seems the Fates have served him yet another platter of mockery, heavily spiced with irony; Keith decides to indulge them and takes a bite.

In a few short steps he crosses the grass and stands right behind Lance who, blissfully unaware of Keith’s presence, keeps on yapping to his friends about things Keith really doesn’t give a fuck about.

“Lance.”

“Shit!” Lance shrieks, jumping in his seat. The goosebumps visibly rise on the back of his neck and he turns around to face Keith. His eyes look nervous as his whole figure, basking in sunlight just moments before, is suddenly entirely covered by Keith’s own shadow. “Hey! What are you doing here?”

Keith gets straight to the point; if he’s to be the subject of some higher power’s amusement then he sees no reason for prolonging this humiliation. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

One of Lance’s friends stops aggressively typing on their laptop and looks up with interest. Fucking fantastic, Keith knows he’s about to become the main conversation topic as soon as he leaves.

“What?” Lance’s voice reaches a pitch high enough to rival professional opera singers. “No way, man.” He chuckles nervously and Keith’s eyes follow the movement of his Adam’s apple as it bounces when Lance swallows. “Do you, ah…” He clears his throat and Keith watches the motion again. “Would you like to take a seat?”

He points to the dirty grass by his side and Keith scrunches his nose at the idea of putting his clean clothes anywhere near that.

“No thanks, I don’t plan on staying long,” he answers and pins Lance down with a glare. “I just decided to remind you we have a project due next week, so if you could stop ghosting me that would be great.”

Lance’s friend snorts and Keith’s glare immediately finds a new target, but they seem undeterred. In fact, the brown-haired student holds his gaze while raising a challenging eyebrow; Keith can almost imagine them munching on metaphorical popcorn.

The slight twitch in the corner of their lips betrays their apparent delight at his misfortune; or maybe they’re just a drama addict who loves chaos.

Keith relents, the little maniac isn’t the reason why here’s here. His gaze moves back to Lance.

“I’m sorry,” Lance starts, “I’ve just been super busy—”

“You’re free now,” the brown-haired student interrupts. “You’re Keith, right?” They suddenly address him and Keith realises he’s not going to be the main topic of conversation—he already was their main topic. Past tense.

He nods, and the student grins. “I’m Pidge, and that’s Romelle.” They point to a girl who’s been sitting quietly so far. She waves a hand, saying a friendly ‘hello.’

Keith’s mouth twists in a way he knows doesn’t even resemble a smile. “Hi.”

“Anyway,” Pidge continues, “Lance isn’t doing anything important right now.” Lance lets out an indignant squeak, but is promptly ignored. “So, if you’re free then you can steal him.”

Keith blinks at them. “Uh,” he grunts. “I appreciate the betrayal, but I got a class in twenty.” He turns back to Lance. “Give me your phone.”

“Huh?”

Keith holds out his hand and raises an eyebrow impatiently. He wasn’t lying, he has less than twenty minutes to make it across campus, and he was planning to grab a Monster on the way. He has no time to be dealing with Lance’s bullshit.

Looking as if his soul entered some sort of a daze, and blushing like an idiot, Lance hands over his unlocked smartphone. Keith swiftly snatches it away and adds a new contact. Then, he presses the call button and hangs up as soon as he feels his own device vibrate in his pocket.

“Here,” he gives the phone back to his befuddled partner. “My number. It’ll see you at the library on Saturday at ten,” he declares, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t be late.”

Lance gulps, staring at him, his cheeks still flaming red. “Sure.” His voice cracks. “See you Saturday.”

Keith doesn’t say anything else and walks away.

“Bye, Keith!” He hears Pidge yell behind him.

“It was nice meeting you!” Romelle adds.

He clenches his fists as their snickering reaches his ears. This is the reason why Keith doesn’t have any friends; people are obnoxiously fake and he cannot stand them. They’ll smile at him when he’s around and then laugh behind his back. Sure, there’s a chance they were just teasing Lance, but god knows what he told them about Keith.

Did he really figure out that Keith has a crush on him? Did he share it with his friends? Are they laughing because they took the scene as a pathetic attempt at flirting?

Keith exhales, trying to calm down. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. It’s not like he’s ever going to meet Lance’s friends again. As for Lance himself, he just needs to hold out until the end of the semester, as hopefully they will share no classes after this.

Walking into the store to get another energy drink, Keith ignores how shitty his life has become, and tunes out all thoughts that do not focus on hydrodynamics. Jesus fuck, coding labs are awful, and after that he gets a break during which he needs to finish a commission, and then it’s straight to his quantum mechanics recitation.

Keith really hates Thursdays.

Even with the weekend starting, Keith’s routine doesn’t change. He gets up and takes a shower, making sure to use extra deodorant—he doesn’t want a certain someone telling him he stinks, again.

After that, he packs his bag and heads straight for the library; he has no time to waste.

Studying might be extremely boring and Keith isn’t particularly interested in his major, but the tediousness of this bothersome activity more or less quenches his thirst for normality. At the very least, he has something to occupy his mind, something that takes enough of his time that Keith can’t fit anything else into his schedule.

If he had too much time on his hands, he’d probably spend most of it just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking how miserable he is. Alas, he’s too busy to truly immerse himself in feelings of self-hatred, he needs to maintain good grades for his scholarship after all.

The library gets a lot busier the closer they get to exam season, so Keith makes sure to come extra early. He sets his usual classic Monster Energy on the desk and takes out his macbook, getting himself comfortable and texting Lance to let him know what part of the library he’s at.

He starts up the laptop and puts his hair up, so it doesn’t bother him while he’s hunched over the desk in a human representation of a pocket knife; he knows his back will be killing him later but, hey, you have to die of something.

Keith puts his headphones on and opens Spotify. Usually, he puts something chill to concentrate, something not too distracting, but since he’s been feeling particularly shitty lately, he decides to make himself feel even worse and plays Sleep Token.

Losing himself in the melody, he gets in the zone trying to absorb all the knowledge he possibly can as he catches up on his assigned readings.

Just as he’s about to finish the last chapter, he notices someone take a seat in the chair across from him. He raises his eyes and takes his headphones off.

“Right on time,” Keith says, glancing at the clock on his screen.

“I’m early,” Lance defends, mumbling under his breath.

True, but barely. He has two minutes to spare, which is still better than being late, Keith supposes, but it still leaves him with an ache inside his chest. After the fiasco of their first meeting, Lance made sure to show up at least twenty minutes early every time, except for today. Is he seriously that adamant on avoiding Keith? Is Keith’s company seriously that uncomfortable for him that he cannot bear to spend even a few more minutes in his nearest vicinity?

Sighing, Keith decides not to dwell on it too much. He already knows this temporary partnership is exactly that—temporary. After Wednesday, they will never need to talk to each other again and while a part of him finds that hard to accept, he does everything in his power to silence that wayward piece of his heart, he locks it in the basement and throws away the key. He doesn’t want anyone knowing.

Lance knows, Keith reminds himself. Of course, Lance has already figured out at least a part of the story, but he isn’t sure exactly how much his classmate learnt so far. Is it only that Keith is gay, or does he also know about his pathetic, unrequited crush? If it’s the first one, Keith can live with that. He can simply mold his unwanted attraction into proper enmity and antagonise the guy, but if it’s the second one…

If it’s the second one the only thing left for him is to carry his head high in the face of this humiliation and accept the shame served to him.

“Let’s get to work,” he declares and hears no objection.

They get through it smoothly, as if they’ve practised it a hundred times already. Lance has clearly revised the material in his spare time and Keith is slightly impressed how much work his partner has actually put into their presentation. He has to admit, Lance is not at all the slacker Keith initially took him for.

They manage to recite all of their notes from memory for the third time in a row and Lance grins as he stops the timer. It reads just slightly under eighteen minutes, leaving two full minutes for questions, just as they planned.

“Hell yes, we did it!” Lance exclaims, his face lightly flushed as his smile stretches widely. Those eyes the colour of Rigel zero in on Keith as Lance raises a hand up for a high five. “We are a good team,” he adds cheekily.

Keith feels his heartbeat quicken and he gulps, staring first at Lance’s face, then at his palm in the air. The fingers are long and stretched out eagerly. The skin seems smooth and delicate at first glance, but as Keith looks closer, he can see the calluses on his pads, right beneath his joints; clearly Lance is no stranger to physical labour.

Keith must have been hesitating a bit too long; as soon as he’s about to raise his own hand and touch Lance’s, Lance awkwardly laughs and lowers his arm.

“Uh, right, sorry,” Lance mutters and hastily packs his bag. He can’t fit the laptop inside smoothly, so he simply gives up and decides to carry it under his arm in lieu of staying in the room any longer.

He’s embarrassed, Keith can tell. A part of him wants to clear the air, to explain that it’s alright, maybe even raise that hand up and initiate? But a different part of him worries that the moment passed, that Lance was so excited about how good of a team they made, he forgot who his teammate was.

Keith opens his mouth to reply, to tell him not to apologise, but the words die on his tongue as he watches Lance’s back disappear behind the door to their private study room. He bites the inside of his cheek and slumps into the chair.

Massaging his temples, he opens a new tab in his browser.

How to get over a crush, he types and presses enter.

On Wednesday, he wakes up at dawn. Last night, he deliberately went to bed early, washed his hair, and ate dinner like a regular human being.

Keith opens his eyes and all he feels is numbness.

He doesn’t need to check the time; he can see the sun hasn’t yet fully risen, and he can hear a bird’s morning song begin. Nature is waking up, preparing to welcome another morning, bracing itself for another day of witnessing the ugliness of mankind, whilst enjoying the tranquillity and freedom of sunrise, scarce of humans.

Keith is one of those humans.

He gets out of bed and decides to go on a morning run, to harass his privilege as a member of the reigning species on this planet, to enjoy this glorious equilibrium of daylight and solitude.

The hallways of his dorm are empty, isolated from the slowly awakening nature, sheltered by its thick walls and sleep-deprived inhabitants. Normally, Keith would be one of them, catching the bare minimum of rest he would be able to get after passing out at his desk, but not today.

Today, he thinks, staring straight into the blinding ball of plasma, today he just wants to run.

Keith sprints down the wide pathway leading to the mostly full parking lot. He speeds up as the road turns slightly uphill and Pink’s So What! reaches the chorus. It has been scientifically proven that music can affect human behaviour, causing changes in moods, and has the power of galvanising people. And Keith has no trouble using that to his advantage, since it seems to work terrifyingly well on him, which is why he’s listening to an upbeat, highly motivating song. It also is a great song for running.

Keith’s not trying to explain or justify himself for listening to Pink, he can listen to whatever he wants; what pisses him off is the annoying stereotype saying all gay guys listen to Pink, which is really fucking irritating, because so what if they do?

Literally, Keith thinks as he runs even faster at another repeat of the chorus, so what?

He shuts down his brain, pushing away everything that has followed him down this path all the way from his bedroom; all the shame, all the regret, the guilt, the sorrow, the nostalgia. He’s here now, in the present, far away from everything he left behind, everything that’s still haunting him, refusing to stop clinging to his body like slimy tentacles.

The loneliness of the isolation—Keith chose that himself. It’s better that way, to stay away from people, to focus entirely on his goal, he’s not here to make friends, he’s here to get a damn fucking degree.

His legs ache, begging him to stop as his lungs struggle to keep up. He managed to take in a tiny amount of air through his nostrils, but it doesn’t feel as if any oxygen made it down to his chest. He moves his shoulders faster, trying to stay with the rhythm, to keep up the tempo, to escape the past.

Keith finally comes to a half, bending in half as he gasps for air the moment the song ends. He struggles to calm down, the scorching heat inside him spreading down his veins. It hits him like alcohol, an intoxicating sensation setting his skin on fire, freeing him from various worries and anxieties that hold him down, making sure he stays anchored to the bottom of the sea, drowning. He can finally swim up to the surface and breathe, liberated from the shackles, however temporarily.

Finally managing to gain back the control he continues his run, his mind set onto what’s important. He comes back to his dorm, showers, and packs his textbooks and the laptop—he won’t screw this up, he studied way too hard.

Several long hours pass with Keith entirely focused on revising for the presentation; he even considered not going to his eight a.m. quantum mechanics I class, but decided two extra hours of study time aren’t worth having to beg one of his classmates for their notes later. He’s currently on his third energy drink of the day and a nearly unbearable headache attempts to crush his skull into pieces. Tempted to simply crumble under the pressure, Keith groans. 

“You okay?” Lance asks, raising his head as his eyes scan Keith’s face with a furrowed brow. His own expression, which was the perfect picture of ease and composure just moments ago, now appears concerned.

Keith clears his throat, closing his laptop. “Yeah,” he answers and gets up from the floor as he notices students from the previous lecture start leaving the classroom. “Let’s head in,” he states resolutely and walks inside without waiting for an answer.

They arrived early, wanting to make sure their presentation was working before class started. Keith insisted, naturally, and Lance didn’t seem to mind sitting on the hallway floor for twenty extra minutes before they would even be allowed into the classroom.

Lance’s behaviour is truly strange sometimes, Keith thinks, as they go over their notes one more time. First, he fights fire with fire, then he acts like he wants to be Keith’s friend, then he starts avoiding him out of the blue, and now he goes along with whatever ridiculous demand Keith makes; although—in his completely unbiased opinion—arriving half an hour early is completely reasonable in this situation.

Lance, inexplicably unable to meet Keith’s eye these days, suddenly obeys his every order. Any desire to argue, criticise, or even have a conversation has entirely disappeared, which is definitely strange considering Keith’s current hypotheses on Lance’s recent odd behaviour.

In the end, he decides it’s not important and matters little, especially in their current predicament. First and foremost, they need to get through this presentation, and if after their partnership is over Lance still continues to ignore him then so be it—Keith isn’t here to make friends anyway.

The classroom slowly fills out with students. Keith puts away his notes, feeling as if staring at them for even a second longer will cause him to start vomiting the words onto the professor’s desk.

Lance still seems completely relaxed, chatting to their teacher, talking the poor woman’s ear off. Keith doesn’t know how he does it, but for once he’s grateful for his project partner; despite having an exceptional talent for raising Keith’s blood pressure, he is surprisingly good at easing the atmosphere. Keith hates to admit it, but Lance’s repose is a little contagious.

All of a sudden, he can’t wait for class to start—he wants to get this over with. He knows he’s revised the material enough times to memorise every single sentence, word, and even comma, from his notes and he’s confident he can ace this. Still, he hates being in the spotlight.

Lance obviously has no such quandary as he energetically waves his arms around while going on a rant about Olympus Mons.

“How interesting is it that we named the Solar System’s largest volcano after Mount Olympus? I always wondered—why a volcano specifically? I mean, obviously the notion of naming literally anything out there after prominent figures from Roman mythology is consistent throughout history, literature, and science, but it’s still kind of ominous, isn’t it?” Lance continues, seemingly without needing to breathe in between sentences, “Mars was the god of war, so it makes sense the whole planet was named after him seeing all of the accumulation of low-viscosity lava and iron oxide—makes the whole place red like blood, you know?

“But, it’s also really fascinating how this whole thing began a string of social stereotypes, which is even a larger scope and all because of nomenclature!” Lance exclaims, clearly in his element. “John Gray got everyone saying ‘men are from Mars’ purely based on his knowledge of Roman mythology and assumptions regarding gender roles, while it had nothing to do with astronomy or planetary science! Let me tell you, little Lance was devastated when he found that one out.”

Finally taking a breath, Lance throws a look over his shoulder, catching eye contact with Keith, and smirks. “Though, maybe he was onto something—Keith is definitely from Mars.”

What the fuck is he on about?

Deciding to ignore his partner’s ridiculous theories, Keith focuses on taking slow, steady breaths as soon as the professor gives them the floor. He takes a big sip from his water bottle and swallows heavily, making sure all of the uncertainty gets drowned down his oesophagus along with the liquid. Let all doubt get dissolved by the acid in his stomach.

“It’s showtime,” he hears Lance whisper to himself.

As planned, Lance starts with a general introduction and Keith quickly takes over to discuss volcanism, including Tharsis, and the already mentioned by his partner Olympus Mons.

“It’s actually three times larger than Mount Everest,” Lance cuts in as planned, changing the slide to show the comparison between the two. He points onto the board, as the light from the projector paints his face in a red hue, making his skin glow. Lance squints, momentarily blinded, but doesn’t let it disrupt his flow. He grins at Keith as his teeth seem to glitter in the light, and Keith’s throat suddenly runs dry.

He opens his mouth, but no words come out, suddenly too focused on the specimen in front of him. Keith wants to draw him again, precisely like this, in light of the projector that, while blending his barely visible freckles with the rest of his complexion, somehow accentuates the little mole on his neck.

Lance blinks, raising an eyebrow and Keith swiftly clears his throat, carrying on about the most recent volcanic activity on the Red Planet.

As soon as Lance finishes the summary, the professor smiles and starts clapping. The rest of the class quickly follows her, although less enthusiastically. Apparently, she loved it.

Keith’s brain is hazy; he’s not entirely sure how he makes it back to his seat. It went perfectly, bar Keith’s little stumble which he managed to conceal well enough for no one to pay too much attention to. As soon as he sits down his body starts functioning on autopilot; he takes out his textbook and macbook, opening a google docs file with his planetary science notes.

Lance sits down next to him, yet none of them utter a single word. Keith tries to focus on the next pair’s presentation, paying just enough attention to register their topic is Jupiter. Instead of taking notes, his mind seems far more interested in a different task, playing a certain memory on repeat, as if it decided to torture him with an infinitely looped, albeit short voicemail. 

We are a good team.

The rest of the class passes similarly, with Keith stuck in a drunken haze clouding his sanity. He succumbs to his routine, acting entirely on muscle memory to take notes and make it out of the room and back to his dorm. He faintly recalls throwing a look Lance’s way, but his ill-fated object of affection ignored him entirely.

It doesn’t matter, Keith isn’t one to chase after someone. If Lance isn’t interested, he will happily suffer from afar; he will get over it eventually—preferably sooner rather than later, but dating isn’t exactly high on Keith’s current list of priorities.

He drops his laptop bag on the floor and throws himself onto the bed, huffing. He considers taking a short nap, but the amount of caffeine in his body prevents his woeful scheme from coming to fruition; what a hopeless existence, he can’t even indulge in a friends with benefits relationship with death—that bastard demands commitment.

He inhales his own body odour, which has by now drenched the pillow in waves of sweat. He should do the laundry; when was the last time he did his laundry? Keith sighs, getting back up and grabbing the overflowing basket, along with his iPad and headphones. Since he can’t sleep, might as well be productive.

The laundry room is in the basement of his building. During lunchtime on a Wednesday, it isn’t very busy, which is really lucky, considering his hall’s laundry room is certainly not equipped with enough machines for the amount of students living here, that’s for certain. He finds an empty washer and throws all of his dirty clothes inside along with a Tide Pod.

Spotting another empty washer Keith intends to use it to wash his sheets, and instantly realises he forgot to bring them. Groaning, he makes another trip back upstairs and carries the comforter and pillow down, hating his life more and more with every step he takes.

Once he returns, he notices a group of friends has come to do laundry together, and all of the previously empty washers are now taken.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath and takes a seat on the bench, arms full of dirty sheets.

Screw this, he drops the sheets on the ground and digs out the iPad, stylus, and headphones from his tote to kill time.

Today is going great.

A few hours later, once he finally manages to wash and dry everything and even finishes a short fancomic to post later on his patreon, he comes back upstairs only to bump into a very familiar face right in front of his room.

“Oh, shoot, let me help you with that,” Shiro says, grabbing most of Keith’s laundry out of his hands, freeing him just enough to be able to scan his card on the door, without dropping anything.

“Thanks,” he answers, kicking the door open and throwing his tote onto the bare mattress.

Shiro follows him inside and neatly puts the basket and comforter down, looking around the room and grimacing as he spots the empty cans of Monster.

“I’ll spare you the scolding today,” he comments and before Keith can retort, Shiro grins. “Happy birthday.”

Keith rolls his eyes and occupies himself with putting his laundry away. “That’s today?”

Shiro looks unimpressed. “Come on, you’re not going to celebrate?”

“I don’t have time,” Keith tells him. “I have a paper due Friday.”

It’s true, unfortunately, and Keith already planned to spend the evening finishing it. He has more than a half of it left to write, and with the Mars presentation worth thirty per cent of his grade on the line,  he couldn’t properly focus on the essay, so most of it might need to be entirely rewritten.

The older man throws him a look. “You know, twenty-one is a big number.”

“Twenty-two,” Keith corrects.

“Are you still on that?”

Keith knows exactly what Shiro means—there’s been a little misunderstanding regarding his age. Keith’s biological father was Korean and, for whatever reason, taught him to calculate his age in the old Korean system, meaning Keith spent most of his life thinking he was a year older than he really was. It wasn’t cleared out until years later, but at that point he already got used to it. Besides, this little misunderstanding is the reason he got sent to school a year early, and he hates disclosing he’s a year younger than his classmates—people tend to assume he skipped a grade or something and Keith’s not that smart.

Naturally, Shiro, who has seen Keith’s records, would know everything.

“Why? Do you wanna carbon date me or something?”

Actually, Keith doesn’t give a shit, but whatever gets him out of this conversation is a welcome excuse.

Shiro, that weasel, catches on immediately.

“Okay,” he relents, sitting down at Keith’s desk. “I’m taking you out for drinks, and that’s non-negotiable, so when are you free?”

Keith takes a moment to think; to be honest, he’d rather not go out on the weekend since he absolutely despises crowds. Most of the days he starts classes at eight or nine, but he’s up at six even on a Saturday, so it really doesn’t matter. The morning after will be a bitch, but it’s not like Keith’s exactly well-rested on a regular Tuesday either.

Next week he’ll be busy with his computational astrophysics assignment—he has to write a program exploring floating-point error accumulation in Python and Keith fucking hates Python. Honestly, he shouldn’t complain—he should be grateful the lecturer isn’t making them learn C++, that would be his villain origin story.

Knowing this will take every bit of his spare time and sanity, Keith finally answers: “Two weeks from now.”

“Wednesday the sixth?” Shiro frowns, his expression bittersweet. “Let’s hope we’ll have one more thing to celebrate then.”

On Tuesday, he wakes up in a cold sweat. Gasping for breath, Keith opens his eyes, desperately grasping for a tiniest hint, the smallest piece of a puzzle capable of telling him what nightmarish thing awoke him from his slumber so violently. Alas, regardless of how hard he tries, he cannot remember what he dreamt about.

Shiro said nightmares are a common symptom of PTSD; Keith refuses to accept he could suffer from such a condition, partially because he doesn’t have time to deal with it, and partially because he doesn’t want to accept he might have yet another skeleton to add to his already overflowing closet.

The worst part is, Shiro might be right–at the very least it would explain the insomnia. Keith’s trouble with sleeping began a few years ago, when he would wake up in the middle of the night, haunted by terrors of his imagination, and at the same time ones heavily inspired by reality. When he couldn’t sleep, he would draw until both his wrists were too numb to move any longer.

Nowadays, he mostly stays up late to study and exhausts himself just enough to be able to pass out in an almost comfortable position, getting a few hours of rest here and there. He isn’t bothered by the lack of sleep though, his body seems to have acclimated to the enfeebling routine.

He went through the day as he normally would, with a few exceptions. After fulfilling his civic duty, he went to bed early, refusing to check the news or social media—he didn’t want to think about it.

Checking the time again, the clock reads 11:58. The day refuses to end fast enough, as if aiming to entrap Keith in the endless horror of November 5th.

Remember, remember the fifth of November.

He has watched V for Vendetta with his parents years ago, and at the time he was a child, unable to comprehend its meaning. Now, as an adult, the chilling nursery rhyme haunts him, reminding him of the dreadful reality that could still come true, whispering that his already miserable existence could still evolve into an actual horror story.

Why the fuck did they have to chose November 5th of all dates?

He went to bed early, hoping to wake up in a new world. But, the truth is, he’s terrified of the world he could be waking up in.

Clinking his glass with Shiro’s, Keith effortlessly downs the tequila as it leaves a pleasant burn down his throat. Regardless of what his drinking buddy might think, it’s not Keith’s first taste of alcohol—his dad is a firm believer that a man’s duty is to teach his son how to handle liquor. Keith knows exactly how to drink.

The bar is a shithole, which is exactly what he needed; the only other patrons besides them are a junkie wiping white powder from under her nose, and an elderly biker sitting by the bar. Nobody pays them any mind.

“You know, therapy is really—”

“Shut up, Shiro.”

“Okay.”

He grits his teeth as Shiro pours another round. Keith has expected this outcome, he prepared for it, and yet…A few drops of tequila run down his chin and Keith wipes his mouth with a napkin. He clenches his teeth, his parents must be thrilled.

They were planning on celebrating, Keith thinks bitterly, knowing his own problem isn’t the biggest issue here.

“What are you gonna do?”

Shiro knows precisely what he’s referring to. Looking up at him from under his eyelashes, the corners of the man’s lips slightly lift over the rim of his shot glass.

“Actually, about that.”

Shiro casts a discrete glance around the bar, and slowly pulls out a ring hanging on a chain around his neck.

“We got engaged.”

“Holy shit.” Keith gasps. “Congratulations.”

Shiro and his partner Adam have been together for years; they’re clearly made for each other. Keith has seen the way Shiro looks at Adam, and the way Adam smiles whenever Shiro enters the room. The threads of their destinies must have been woven together, their souls complimenting each other in a way Keith has never witnessed before. The love he’s seen between the two men solidified his confidence in his own sexuality, making him believe there is still a place for him in this world, and hopefully someone to share that place with.

Truly, Keith couldn’t be happier for them, except…

“So,” he starts again. “What are you gonna do?” Because right now, despite having one more reason to celebrate, they also have one more reason to mourn.

The smile freezes on Shiro’s lips as he quickly hides the ring back underneath his shirt.

“We don’t know.”

No one does.

Tomorrow will be another day, and then the next one, and the next, and the next. Life will continue on, as it tends to do. People will keep living, growing, aging, dying. The amount of the less fortunate will continue to grow as well, and Keith’s fate seems to have become intermingled with them.

Time will fly by, the same as today flew by. He didn’t even register what was happening outside of his lectures, and even during class he barely paid attention. Keith can’t even remember if he saw Lance in planetary science—did he skip?

It doesn’t matter, nothing matters anymore except for getting his degree and finding a job. He needs to learn how to live in this wretched world, and surviving day by day is the only day to do it.

Downing another glass, Keith’s mind finally shuts down, and he enters the euphoric state of unbridled numbness, where even worries of returning home are dismissed into the far corners of the galaxy settled inside his skull, currently containing the massive black hole absorbing all wayward thoughts and luring in all reason. Like this, he doesn’t care where he is or what he’s doing, like this nothing matters.

Keith drinks.

With finals approaching fast, Keith’s schedule has become even busier. Lance is still avoiding him, for whatever reason, but Keith’s not complaining, he doesn’t need any distractions right now. Despite his odd behaviour, Lance somehow managed not to screw up their presentation and they ended up getting an A on it. So, Keith’s satisfied, there’s no need for their partnership to continue, especially if Lance is hellbent on pretending they never met.

He pays little attention to what’s happening on campus, too engrossed in studying to notice anything out of the ordinary. After so many years, he’s grown to accept life as it comes. When the universe decides to throw him another obstacle, he simply overcomes it; no point in crying about it, he’s learnt before that crying won’t change anything.

Finals fly by, but Keith isn’t any less busy during the break. Shiro and Adam invite him to spend Christmas with them, but he politely declines. He wants to give the newly engaged couple some space, as this might be the last holiday season for a while which they get to spend so freely.

Keith isn’t an idiot, he might not have been paying too much attention to his surroundings these past two months, but that doesn’t mean he’s ignorant to what’s happening. His tumblr inbox is rarely empty, but recently it’s been exploding with even more new messages. Frankly, he hasn’t really looked at it, fully aware of what he’s going to find there and not feeling like answering any of those questions. Instead, he focuses on catching up with commissions, and posting on his patreon. After all, that is his main source of income.

By the end of December, he grows restless. He’s eternally grateful to have been graced with ambidexterity, otherwise one of his hands would have fallen off from clutching the stylus already. Years upon years of practice enabled Keith to master the art of drawing with either of his hands identically. It’s impossible to tell which of his drawings have been made with which hand, which is incredibly useful in times like these.

He feels like he needs to do something else, take a break from it all. He tries a change of scenery and starts drawing at a local cafe instead. He orders a hot chocolate and finds a good seat in the corner, away from other customers. Enjoying the scalding drink in an adorable Christmas mug, he makes himself comfortable in the plush chair.

He really needed to get out of his room, the atmosphere here is completely different, a lot more pleasant and definitely refreshing. Keith relaxes, grabbing the stylus again and looks down at his open Procreate app.

This doesn’t help. He downs the rest of the hot chocolate in one go and aggressively marches out of the shop and back into his dorm. He wants to throw his iPad out the window.

As if his prayers have been heard, his phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.

The message is a personal invitation to a New Year’s Eve party from someone named Pidge. Keith quickly googles the address and it’s, surprisingly, not a frat house. He searches his memory, suspecting the person has the wrong number, but then, he remembers.

That’s right, Pidge was Lance’s friend, weren’t they? The short, nosy one, who sold him out for shits and giggles?

The message couldn’t have come at a better time, this is exactly what he needs right now, a chance to get away from campus, away from work and studying, and simply act like an actual human being for a change. This is what Shiro wants for him, he would be so proud if Keith decided to socialise for once. A break like that could be good for him. Besides, he hasn’t celebrated New Year’s with other people for a while.

But, there is an issue with this plan, he realises as soon as the initial euphoria passes and rationality knocks on his door again. Keith only met Pidge once, and how did they even get his number? Well, obviously, Lance must have shared it, so why isn’t Lance the one to invite Keith? Does he not want him there?

Of course, Lance has been avoiding him for months, and hasn’t spoken a word to him after their project was done. Pidge is Lance’s friend, so Keith wouldn’t want to make it uncomfortable between them.

His stomach starts hurting a bit and the first thought that pops into his mind is that he must be really nervous about this for some reason. The second thought is that he forgot to ask the barista for an alternative milk. Damn lactose intolerance, now he has to physically suffer on top of already feeling like shit.

Internally sighing, Keith thanks Pidge for the invite, but says he already has plans—a blatant lie. He doesn’t save their number.

Chapter Text

The new year starts horribly, in Keith’s honest opinion. First, there’s a massive earthquake in Tibet, then Southern California experiences destructive wildfires, and then the inauguration ceremony of their new president happens. Disaster after disaster.

They’re going into the third week of January and Keith’s already done with this bullshit.

As if all the natural catastrophes weren’t enough, his academic year seems to be spelling even more trouble. As soon as classes begin, he gets an email from his academic advisor, inviting him into their office. Great, that’s exactly what he needed, like he wasn’t busy enough already.

Sitting across the desk from the professor, he crosses his arms.

“What do you want?”

Shiro smiles at him in that irritating way that tells Keith the man knows exactly how annoying he’s being, and he’s enjoying every minute of it.

“We need to talk about your grades,” Shiro starts, his mouse clicking as he browses over some files. His eyes barely skim over the text reflecting in his reading glasses.

“Bullshit,” Keith immediately calls him out, “my grades are great.”

“They are, which is why they stand out so much on your academic record,” Shiro throws him a pointed look.

Keith raises an eyebrow. “I’m not following.”

Shiro sighs, taking off his glasses, and Keith has a feeling he only does so for dramatic effect, the bastard. “What I mean is, you need to add some extracurricular activities here. Your grades are good, fantastic even, but we had a faculty meeting last week and some professors aren’t exactly impressed with you.” Shiro makes a face as if he bit on a lemon. “They think anyone would have been able to maintain a 4.0 GPA if they didn’t participate in any school events, or joined any clubs.”

Keith frowns. “What are you getting at?”

Shiro wipes his glasses, looking him straight in the eye. “I’m saying that if you don’t become more engaged in life on campus, your scholarship might be in danger.”

Keith pauses for a second, because there is simply no way he heard that right. He knows he must be gulping like a fish out of water as he feels his lower lip tremble. This can’t be happening; it must be a cruel joke.

“But that’s bullshit! My scholarship is academic, it’s got nothing to do with being part of some lame-ass fucking club,” he splutters, feeling the familiar sensation of white-hot fury boiling inside his chest, entering his arteries, spreading through his veins, and stewing inside his capillaries until the tips of his fingers shake with reinless rage. Keith clenches his fists.

“Why do they even care—all those dumb student organisations are just poor excuses for underage day drinking and pathetic pretexts of fulfilling some childish need to feel important,” he argues, raising his voice and hearing it echo in the confinement of Shiro’s tiny office. “None of it has anything to do with academia, so forgive me for questioning why the fuck I should care about joining one.”

Despite being faced with Keith’s sudden outburst, his advisor keeps his innate composure, almost as if he expected a temper tantrum. He likely did; logically, anyone would have, because this truly is the biggest fucking piece of hogwash Keith’s heard in years.

“Technically, your scholarship is merit-based, meaning that, yes, your grades are the most important, but you need to remember many other students here are also able to maintain a 4.0 GPA,” Shiro answers, slumping into his seat, as if the rest of his energy has left him. “In those situations, it becomes a question of who stands out the most.”

Keith snorts. “So you want me to participate in some stupid rat race, is that it?”

“All I’m saying is that you need to be careful,” he explains, looking at Keith with tired eyes. Suddenly, Shiro seems far older than he really is. “I’m going behind my colleagues’ backs by telling you this—they want to see you show some initiative, be a role model.” He sighs again and Keith has a feeling this time it’s not just for dramatic effect. “Look, I’m not telling you to run for student council or join a varsity team; you just need something, anything, to add to your academic record, so that the school sees you’re trying to give back to the community, that you’re making the most out of the opportunity you’ve been given.”

Feeling his throat run dry, Keith swallows, yet his voice still sounds hoarse. “So you want me to prove I’m a good investment?”

Shiro’s eyes turn pleading. “I’m just trying to look out for you, Keith.”

Keith doesn’t say another word. Throwing Shiro a dirty look, because he needs to take his anger out on someone, he walks out of the office and slams the door behind him. The loud bang reverberates through the empty hallway and Keith takes several heavy breaths. Desperately wishing he could just scream, or at least punch something, he settles for hitting his head against the wall; the pain soothes him only a little bit.

“Fuck,” he curses quietly.

His spring timetable is somehow even worse than the fall one. Yesterday, he spent over twelve hours on campus, with only three classes; fortunately, today is looking much better in comparison. Entering his introductory numerical methods lecture theatre, Keith makes sure to find a spot somewhere in the back. He knows things are only going to get worse down the road, so it’s best to find a seat out of the professor’s direct line of sight—not that he plans on sleeping during this class, but Keith knows Wednesdays are about to become recovery days after Tuesdays, so he better not tempt fate, and stay on the down-low. He doesn’t want to make a bad first impression by clearly having woken up on the wrong side of the bed.

Keith has never finished classes as late as eight p.m. before, and last night he was so exhausted he barely remembered to set up his alarm before passing out. By some miracle, he slept through the whole night, and woke up just in time to make it to his morning lectures early enough to be able to choose a seat.

He’s just setting up his laptop when he notices someone take a seat right next to him, despite half the classroom still being empty. Turning his head to the side to glare at whoever has the audacity to invade his personal space like that, Keith is surprised to recognise the intruder.

“Hi Keith,” Pidge greets with a grin. “Long time no see.”

A very long time, indeed; they only met once, months before. He honestly finds it a little strange that Lance’s friend is acting so familiar with him.

“Hey,” Keith answers hesitantly.

They raise an eyebrow in amusement. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna force you into small talk.”

Keith sighs in relief. “Thank god.”

Pidge chuckles. “You don’t look like someone who talks a lot, and I prefer to focus on the lecture, so I think you’ll be the perfect deskmate.”

A smile creeps onto Keith’s face before he can hide it. “Yeah, sure.” He clears his throat lightly. “But I’m not gonna let you copy my answers.”

“Ha!” Pidge snickers. “Likewise.”

To Keith’s surprise, Pidge doesn’t say anything else besides a quick ‘see you tomorrow’ on their way out as the class ends. Right, they have another numerical methods lecture tomorrow morning, has Keith mentioned he hates his new schedule?

Fortunately, the universe demands balance, so Keith’s life isn’t entirely shit. Today, for instance, before he can call it a day and get started on his homework, he only has one more lecture—namely statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, the single class from his spring curriculum he hasn’t attended yet. It’s just ninety minutes long and Keith is really hoping that the entire time will be spent on introductions and discussing the study guide; it’s only eleven and he’s already seriously exhausted.

The life of a college junior isn’t easy, especially when said junior has to maintain a perfect GPA and doesn’t have time to find a job—not that he currently needs one, his patreon brings sufficient monthly income to pay for all the campus fees, rent, and tuition. Of course, there’s no way he would be able to afford tuition without his scholarship, which covers the majority of it. He’d need to apply for a student loan or financial aid and that’s going to be a pain in the ass leaving him in major debt for years to come.

There’s also the extra money he gets from commissions, but that takes care of any additional expenses, like food, or Keith’s energy drink addiction. Fuck, he really can’t afford to lose that scholarship.

The problem is, he seriously doesn’t have time for extracurriculars right now, never mind his utter reluctance to join any club. Could he simply sign up for something and just never show up to any sessions? Would he get away with that?

It’s not like he can tell Shiro about his actual extracurricular activity. It’s not that he’s ashamed of it, to be honest Shiro would likely be proud of him for monetising his skills and building a decent fanbase, but the problem is Keith has never told anyone about his online alter ego. Nobody knows Keith is the one behind marmoraart, and he’d like to keep it that way.

Besides, confessing to Shiro isn’t enough to convince all of his other professors. He can’t exactly admit he draws spicy gay fanarts for money and expect the school to applaud him for it; not really the ‘role model’ material they were looking for.

Keith groans and ties his hair into a low ponytail, suddenly overheating despite the chilly January air. After finally managing to find an entrance to the hallway his lecture theatre is supposedly in, he follows a group of students who look as tired as he feels and, by some miracle, ends up in his statistical mechanics and thermodynamics class.

His free afternoon is spent like all his other spare time—doing homework and drawing. Seeing as the semester barely started and he doesn’t have much to do just yet, Keith finishes everything early and actually manages to go to bed at a normal hour, like a functioning human being. He tells his body not to get used to this, lest it becomes spoiled and demands an end to his destructive routine that usually labels Keith as both an early bird and a night owl.

Today, however, he feels wondrous. He forgoes the morning Monster and actually eats breakfast before heading straight to the numerical methods lecture. He arrives early, making sure that anyone who might have missed yesterday’s class isn’t committing the horrible atrocity of daring to steal his perfect seat. Fortunately, at the beginning of the semester, nobody seems to be rushing to class at ten a.m. on a Thursday. Keith almost pities the poor souls that weren’t ready to say goodbye to the winter break just yet and allowed the holiday spirit to overstay their welcome. Still, he finds them brave to show up to class at all in that state.

Keith hears a groan behind him, followed by the distinctive sound of a can opening. He glances back only to witness one of his classmates chug a massive Red Bull. Taking a closer look at her face, it seems like she either slept in her makeup or hasn’t slept at all. Shining through her haggard appearance is the obvious baby fat on her cheeks, oddly juxtaposed with heavy bronzer and a cigarette smell so strong Keith can detect it from several rows ahead. He’s suddenly reminded how young they all are, especially when some of his classmates are still in sophomore year. He pities them even more; they have no idea how much worse it’s going to get.

A bag is dropped on the table right next to him and Keith looks up startled only to witness what looks like the personification of the fourth horseman of the apocalypse collapse onto the terribly uncomfortable bench. Their head hits the table with a loud thud.

Keith needs to really focus his senses to make out the distorted murmur coming from under the bush of copper-coloured hair. “Don’t ask.” 

Keith wasn’t going to.

Some sort of a hybrid between a moan and a huff follows and Keith is about to glare at the specimen ruining his perfectly fine morning, but the next sentence coming from their mouth freezes him on the spot: “I’m gonna kill Lance.”

He forgets all about maintaining his carefully crafted persona of indifference as his interest is piqued. “Oh?”

Pidge turns to look him straight in the eye. 

“He was beefing with some keyboard warriors on twitter—sorry, X,” they correct themselves sarcastically, “and losing so badly that he decided to pull me into that drama and I wasted the whole night arguing with a guy my father’s age who’s, in the end, still as much of a brainwashed bigot as he was eight hours ago.”

“Huh,” Keith comments, a little disappointed; he got his hopes up thinking it was something more interesting. Dirt on Lance would be great, though he’s not exactly sure how he could use it, seeing as he hasn’t spoken to the guy in months, and is unlikely to ever speak to him again.

Professor Ryner turns the projector on as she slowly prepares to start the lecture. Keith unlocks his iPad and opens the app for handwritten notes. Sometimes his wrist is too sore after drawing all night to write down everything the teacher says, but the blessing of ambidexterity is truly incredible and has saved him many times. For some classes, especially from his math and physics core, he much prefers handwritten notes, so the ability is absolutely essential for him.

As soon as Keith starts writing today’s subject, Pidge turns their head to his side.

“That’s one fancy pen you got,” they comment. “Thought you used a laptop yesterday?”

Keith shrugs noncommittally. “Don’t really need it for this class, and the textbook’s heavy enough on its own.”

According to the study guide, they’ll only be programming in MATLAB, and Keith has already downloaded the app on his tablet, so there’s no need for him to drag a computer around.

Pidge looks at him again, but this time there’s a weird, inquisitive spark in their pupils, and Keith isn’t sure he likes it.

“Let’s have lunch after this,” they state as if it’s an imperial decree rather than a friendly offer. Keith’s mood instantly sours.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Come on, Keith,” Pidge insists. “What, are you so busy you can’t spare me an hour?” Their tone turns mocking and Keith is honestly feeling like cursing someone. Is he seriously not allowed one pleasant day, not a single peaceful morning? “You know, it’s a shame you couldn’t hang out on New Year’s Eve—it was really fun.”

Keith knows Pidge is guilt-tripping him, and he hates that it’s working.

“I told you I had plans already.”

“Really, what plans?” Pidge scoffs. “Were you attending the convention of the broken, the beaten, and the damned?”

Keith isn’t fazed. “Roasting me by exposing yourself for knowing those lyrics is a real sacrifice, you know.”

“I admit, I had a phase in high school,” Pidge confesses, raising their hands in defeat. “Doesn’t look like you ever grew out of yours, though.”

The professor tells everyone to quiet down as class is about to start, but Keith isn’t going to let his underclassman get the last word.

“Sorry,” he whispers without remorse, glaring at his deskmate. “I can’t have lunch with you, I need to do my eyeliner and cry under the shower.”

Pidge merely laughs.

The rest of the week passes excruciatingly slowly and painfully with Keith doing absolutely nothing interesting. Following his routine like a mantra always puts him under some sort of a wicked spell he cannot manage to break until someone or something else breaks it for him. Last semester, he had Lance to do that; every Wednesday during planetary science Keith had a chance of tasting ordinary college life by pretending not to steal glances over to his classmate. Then, he also had their weekend library study dates to either sit in comfortable silence or exaggerate his annoyance with his former project partner’s antics.

It’s only the second week of classes, meaning Keith hasn’t yet entered the zombie stage and still somewhat cares about his appearance. Let Pidge drag him once again for dressing like he escaped from a millennial’s 2008 myspace profile picture—he’ll have the rest of the semester to show up to class in his pyjamas after being too tired to do the laundry.

Thursday morning seems to begin wonderfully as the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and Keith’s head is pounding. It feels like the god of thunder himself decided to repeatedly slam his hammer against Keith’s frontal lobe to test its durability. At first, he thinks it’s a side effect of energy drink overdose, but he soon realises it’s one of those days.

Entering the lecture theatre Keith immediately learns just how bad today is going to be. The artificial lighting’s nearly criminal brightness makes him squint as he finds the way to his seat while the ceiling lamps’ constant buzz seems to be drilling a hole straight into his skull. Keith wants to scratch at his skin, suddenly too itchy underneath the leather jacket; he craves to bite at his nails until the cuticles start bleeding; he wishes to cover his ears and hide in a silent, dark cave until this petrifying, obnoxious feeling passes.

There is no calm before the storm; there is only the storm and the destruction it brings with its violent tides and lethal waves, its ruinous winds and drowning torrents. It’s too loud, too overwhelming, impossible to escape, creating an unending battle for survival just to stay afloat, before inevitably pulling you straight into the abyss.

Keith wishes he could drown already—at least the abyss will be dark and silent.

He flinches as someone sits down next to him, yet fortunately, his numerical methods deskmate seems to be in a similarly feeble state, so neither of them is particularly keen on torturing the other. He does his best to focus the scarce resources of his attention on the professor currently explaining root-finding for nonlinear equations.

His senses gradually adapt to the raging storm, as his arms grow numb from clutching the sails. Keith’s consciousness is graciously returned to him, even though his headache still remains. Yet, this sailor is resilient, and keeps his course despite the winds and currents being against him.

During the class, he catches Pidge glancing over to his notes several times. At first, he doesn’t think much of it, assuming his deskmate isn’t paying attention and wants to compare what they’ve both written, but he soon realises the content of his notes isn’t what Pidge seems interested in. Upon closer inspection, his classmate is closely observing Keith’s hand and the way it holds the stylus. Each time he unconsciously twirls the pen around his knuckles, Pidge’s eyes follow it like a hawk.

Pidge’s interest isn’t exactly uncanny; many of his classmates before have snuck glances at his notes, so Keith doesn’t find this behaviour all that peculiar. What is truly out of the ordinary is the odd shadow of a mischievous smile dancing across Pidge’s mouth every time Keith catches them staring.

A seed of doubt plants itself inside his heart. As soon as the lecture ends, his deskmate’s movements turn deliberately slow, as if this harbinger of calamity relished in prolonging the nerve-wracking suspense preceding the inevitable misfortune they would momentarily unleash.

“So,” Pidge starts in a teasing tone as Keith prepares for battle. They put their laptop back in the bag and shrug while glancing at him from the side. “I noticed you haven’t posted any sketches of me on your tumblr. Was I not infuriating enough for you?”

Keith freezes.

Pidge smirks. “Let’s have lunch.”

In the end, Pidge is relentless enough to convince even the most stubborn of mortals, namely Keith. Mere moments later, he finds himself dragged to a godless zone he once swore never to visit—the campus food court. Haunted by memories of his high school cafeteria, Keith is reluctant to enter this anarchic jungle, but is pleasantly surprised to find college students can clearly behave better than he expected.

Still, if he wasn’t currently being blackmailed, he would never have come here.

Finding a table proves just as challenging as Keith expected, though his captor seems experienced in their trade. Pidge effortlessly manoeuvers between other lost souls and leads them straight to an empty corner, simultaneously keeping an eye on their hostage, making sure he doesn’t escape.

“Come on,” Pidge says, sitting down with a grin as they point to the chair across from them. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Keith wishes he could make himself comfortable but between the wooden seat, nasty-looking take-out, and a vicious sprite, trying to relax even a single tendon is a hopeless, pointless endeavour.

“What do you want,” he phrases like a question, but they both know it’s an order.

“What do I want?” Pidge raises an eyebrow. “I wanted to have lunch with you; I’d say mission accomplished.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Keith sneers. “You’re blackmailing me to have lunch? Really?”

Pidge seems genuinely surprised at that, eyes going wide. They clear their throat, scratching their head. “Well, I didn’t mean to blackmail you, so uhm…Sorry about that.” They blush, sending him another smile, but this one seems far more innocent than the others. “I actually think you’re pretty talented, so it can’t really be blackmail material when it’s something so cool, you know.” Keith stays on guard, but the hostility begins to subside. “I just wanted to be your friend.”

And just like that, Pidge has him wrapped around their little finger. Keith sighs deeply as all the remaining apprehension evaporates along with the winter breeze.

“Look, I promise I’m not a stalker,” Pidge insists, their voice nearly imploring. “A friend of mine is a massive fan of yours, so I’ve seen a lot of your art—like, a lot.” Their face twists as if reminded of some traumatising event and Keith realises what they’re probably referring to.

So, his classmate has seen the smut he published online. Great, now Keith feels his own cheeks flush as he’s overcome with the sudden need to look away.

He really hopes Pidge has only seen drawings on his tumblr, and not the highest tier patreon ones—not that he ever draws any hardcore stuff, but still, erotica is erotica.

“After seeing that fancy Apple Pencil of yours and your handwriting, it was pretty obvious,” Pidge explains, taking a sip of their soda. “I mean, it had to be someone from campus that knew Lance, so that pretty much narrowed it down enough.”

Keith gulps, still not meeting their eyes. “Right.”

Pidge shrugs, digging into their lunch. “After that, figuring out you were Kosmo was pretty easy.”

Kosmo.

That’s right, it’s the name Keith chose for himself, isn’t it? He’s used to people addressing him online as such, but hearing it in person, out loud…It hits differently.

His companion suddenly looks up sharply. “Oh, right! Your bio says you use he/they pronouns, is that only online, or in person too?”

A few months ago, Keith honestly wouldn’t give a fuck about his own pronouns, but things have changed—a lot. “You can use whatever you want, just not in public, please.”

Pidge stiffens a little but still smiles, albeit a little uncomfortably. “No problem.”

And just like that, the cat is out of the bag. Only a week ago, Keith was thinking how he never wants anyone to know about his online activities, how he wishes not even those closest to him would ever learn about his art. He’s always planned on keeping this a secret, to never reveal that part of himself to anybody, but he’s also clearly underestimated his own bad luck. Who would’ve thought Pidge knew someone who followed him and recognised Lance from his art?

Keith’s blood runs cold. Hold on, does that mean Lance knows there’s some weirdo out there posting drawings of him?

The brief awkwardness in the air dissipates in a blink as Keith’s new acquaintance seemingly moves on without delay, twisting their mouth into a lopsided, toothy grin.

“Anyway,” Pidge continues, “I think you’re really cool and Lance totally screwed things up with you, so I don’t want you to think of me as Lance’s friend,” they declare, slamming a hand onto the table to make a point, but their nose quickly scrunches as if facing some vexing dilemma. “Wait, that sounded wrong—I am Lance’s friend, but I don’t want you to think of me just as ‘Lance’s friend’ because for you I wanna be ‘Keith’s friend’ instead.”

Keith nods, just a little lost. “Right.” To be honest, he’s only been partially listening, his mind too preoccupied with a much more serious issue, but he needs to focus on the present, there’s no use contemplating what-ifs. From what he’s observed so far, Lance is a massive blabbermouth, so if he knew about the drawings, the whole department would be talking about it by now. As soon as Keith’s back in his dorm, he’ll delete them all from his socials.

He calms down a little; he overreacted, there’s no reason to panic. He focuses entirely on what Pidge is saying.

“And I also get that you probably don’t want anyone to know about your art,” his classmate adds and Keith flinches, but fortunately it’s not noticeable enough for Pidge to point it out, “so I just wanted to tell you I’m gonna keep it to myself. Your secret’s safe with me.”

The tension around them thickens the air so palpably he wonders how Pidge manages to keep a casual tone. Pins and needles dig into his forearms as goosebumps rise all over his skin.

“And if after all of this you don’t wanna have lunch with me ever again that’s cool too, or if you want to swap seats, or if you want me to swap seats, that’s fine,” they assert in a voice full of certainty, trying to convince Keith to accept an unbelievable idea. “I mean, it would really suck, but I’m not some vindictive asshole, so you can be sure no matter what happens I’m not gonna out you to anyone.”

Something touches at his heart; it’s a foreign feeling, or perhaps one he simply hasn’t experienced in a while, which is why he doesn’t recognise it at first. It’s warm, yet it doesn’t make the goosebumps go away, and it makes his eyeballs sting for some inexplicable reason. It spreads through his body with a ridiculous speed, giving him tingles and causing shortness of breath, however, oddly enough, it’s not exactly unpleasant.

Motherfucker. Keith’s going soft.

“Fine, we can have lunch together,” he answers, after coughing lightly to cover up the corners of his lips rising dangerously. “Occasionally,” he adds quickly.

“Hell yeah!” Pidge exclaims, throwing a fist into the air as if they were a cartoon character. Keith’s struggle to stop his smile suddenly gets a lot harder.

Pidge blinks at him with wide eyes and for a moment Keith fears he’s been discovered and his reputation is ruined, but then the evil mastermind looks down and focuses their entire attention on devouring their food so thoroughly as if the action could prevent manifesting the concept of entropy acceleration.

The not-exactly-unpleasant (but certainly unwelcome) feeling Keith was just gushing over a minute ago vaporises at once, leaving nothing but a hollow memory in its wake.

He can never have nice things—he’s not allowed, the universe won’t let him. Because life fucking sucks and Keith is a prisoner of his own existence, forbidden from dreaming, prohibited from indulging, banned from ever tasting true freedom.

Bile rises up his throat and he wishes he could choke on it. 

“What?” Keith asks curtly.

“Nothing.”

He throws them a deadpan look; if they want to lie and pretend they can do so elsewhere, Keith is no fool—he can see they’re hiding something.

Pidge gulps. “Well, I didn’t wanna bring it up today, because I didn’t want to put too much pressure on you but since you’re insisting.”

He knew it, the face of someone keeping secrets is one he’s intimately familiar with; he sees it every time he looks into a mirror. Keith will get to the bottom of this.

Pidge puts their chopsticks down and takes another sip of their drink, which Keith suspects to be empty by now, but he still waits patiently, the ferocity of his glare aimed straight across the narrow table.

Knowing they cannot prolong this any more, Pidge finally puts the can down and takes a deep breath, bracing for impact. “There’s this trip in late April and it’s totally optional and only three days, and not a lot of people are going because it’s kind of far and also right before exams, so professor Smythe opened it to students who aren’t in this class too, so—”

“Pidge?” he interrupts, stopping the machine gun before it ricochets.

“Yeah?” Pidge gulps with a red face that seemingly doesn’t require oxygen after this brief wordy avalanche.

Keith raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Get to the point.”

Pidge puts their hands in prayer, making what Keith can only describe as their best attempt at the infamous expression known as puppy dog eyes. “Will you please go with me? Please, please, please—”

At least it appears their ulterior motive seems to be fairly innocent. Keith briefly closes his eyes and counts to five; patience yields focus. “Where is it?”

“So, I know it’s a bit far, but I promise it’s not that expensive because professor Smythe somehow talked the school into partially funding—”

“Pidge.”

His classmate flushes. “Salem,” they answer in a small voice and Keith thinks he must have heard that wrong.

“Salem, Massachusetts?”

“I know, I know, but I’m taking this social history class and we’re mainly covering the colonial era and I really want to write my final paper on the witch trials and none of my other friends will go with me.”

Their other friends. Other friends. Right, because Pidge has spontaneously adapted to considering Keith their friend as soon as he didn’t reject the idea. For some people, it really is that simple.

He’s not going to act pathetic and get overwhelmed because of the pure concept of friendship, of having a friend; he hasn’t stooped so low yet, hasn’t allowed the abyss to take him completely, hasn’t drowned in that ocean of loneliness—he’s still barely swimming in it.

Pidge must notice his hesitation, as they quickly follow up with their, objectively subpar, persuasion efforts: “I know you’re into this stuff, I saw a Mothman fanart on your insta.”

Keith takes a big bite of his weirdly shaped burrito and makes sure to chew particularly slowly, not only to buy some additional time to think about his answer, but also to satiate his sadistic need of making Pidge suffer just a little longer.

After swallowing, he considers taking one more bite, out of pure spite, but watching Pidge squirm as their eyes grow more and more anxious, Keith decides to take pity on the poor sophomore.

“How much does it cost to go to Salem, Massachusetts?” He finally asks.

Pidge frowns, still fidgeting. “Stop saying it like that.”

With his cheeks stuffed and mouth stretched around the massive burrito, Keith’s glare is likely not as effective as usual, but it must be menacing enough for his classmate, who’s playing the dangerous game of trying to talk a social recluse into a school trip.

“Two hundred.”

Keith feels his eyebrows rise; that’s way less than what he expected to be honest, it cannot possibly cover the entire trip. He quickly swallows the food and questions further.

“What about flights?”

“All covered,” Pidge answers with more enthusiasm, apparently sensing some hope that Keith might actually agree. “Flights, hotel, museum tickets—everything. Coran—I mean, professor Smythe—got the department to cover part of it, as long as we get enough people to sign up, but we’re still missing a few.”

Realistically speaking, two hundred dollars for a three-day trip to Salem is a pretty decent price, amazing even. And, unfortunately, Pidge is correct and Keith is a total nerd when it comes to anything supernatural, extraterrestrial, or cryptozoological—truth be told, he’s always wanted to go to Salem.

If he does a few more commissions over spring break, he’ll be able to pay for the trip without financially draining himself. Travelling will also mean less time to study for finals, but in the worst-case scenario he can always pull a few extra all-nighters. He’ll sleep when he’s dead.

“Alright,” he decides. “Sign me up.”

It’s the beginning of February and Keith once again finds himself in his advisor’s small office. He hasn’t spoken to Shiro, or at least hasn’t actually spoken to Shiro since blowing up at him a couple of weeks ago. He doesn’t know how to apologise, but the professor seems unconcerned with such things, simply accepting Keith’s presence as the olive branch it is.

Keith really appreciates him for that.

Shiro offers him a cup of chai, which seems to be Adam’s latest obsession; Keith politely accepts it.

They sit in comfortable silence for a while, simply enjoying the taste of the scorching liquid on their tongues. Shiro’s reading glasses get fogged up and he takes them off.

“So,” his mentor begins carefully. “How are you?”

Keith smiles. “Not bad. How’s Adam?”

“Not bad,” Shiro parrots, also smiling. “I heard you made a friend.”

Keith shrugs; after dealing with Shiro for over two years he’s grown used to the other man’s nosiness. He’s also learnt just how much their faculty enjoys gossiping about students—professor Ryner must have snitched.

“Are you gonna tease me about it?”

“No.” Shiro shakes his head. “I don’t want you to get shy and run away.”

Keith snorts, rolling his eyes, but his smile remains. “I’m not a horse, Shiro.”

Shiro laughs lightly. “I noticed,” he pauses and takes a longer sip of his chai and Keith tenses, recognising it as his advisor preparing to breach a harder topic. “Keith.”

Keith gulps. “Yeah?”

“I know you’re very busy with classes, but have you checked the news recently?”

Silence falls in the room as Shiro’s words echo inside Keith’s head; this isn’t where he expected this conversation going, and it’s not where he wanted this conversation to go at all.

“Yeah,” he answers, his throat suddenly feeling too dry, so he takes another sip before continuing. “Nothing good there, though.”

“Nope,” Shiro agrees, putting down his now empty cup. “I’m worried about you, Keith.”

“Why?” Keith challenges. “I can take care of myself.”

The professor’s eyes narrow. “But you shouldn’t have to.”

Keith glances down into the swirling liquid inside his mug; the surface is unsteady as his hands keep shaking while holding the cup. He’s glad he cannot see his own reflection in it, the universe is kind enough to spare him the sight. He knows what he looks like—a walking, talking pride flag on a good day. Keith was raised in Texas, he’s no stranger to any slurs. He also knows exactly who they’re coming after next, once they’re done purging the country from people who dared not to be born cisgender.

The drink is hot, yet Keith’s fingers are freezing.

He’s read all about it, people on tumblr spammed his inbox as soon as it was announced—Executive Order 14168, issued to supposedly protect women from gender ideology extremism. Their amazing president is so remarkably benevolent, defending women like that.

Keith’s going to be sick.

He hates this, he hates it here, and he knows it’s only the beginning. He can guess what’s coming next, how his already miserable life is only going to get worse, and he can’t do shit about it.

It’s like a protracted trip up the stairs to the gallows, like carrying your own cross up the mountain knowing you’ll get crucified as soon as you reach the top. Yet, regardless, you must carry on with your burden, you must see it through to the end, because there’s no escaping this hell, there is nowhere you could run to without risking exposing yourself to even more danger if they catch you.

“Maybe you should just take Adam and fuck off to Japan,” Keith suggests half-heartedly, dragging the attention away from himself.

“Maybe.” Shiro chuckles. “It wouldn’t be perfect, and we wouldn’t be able to be open about being together, but I think both of us would feel safer,” he pauses, staring off into the distance. His eyebrows are furrowed and his nose slightly scrunches, stretching the scar across his face wider. Shiro’s eyes grow distant, foggy, as if he’s contemplating something, stressing over some conundrum unknown to Keith. “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it.”

Keith’s only reply is a quiet hum of acknowledgement. It doesn’t seem Shiro is expecting much more from him at the moment, and Keith isn’t particularly keen on commenting further either. What could he possibly even say to that?

Keith looks away, staring at the carpeted floor of his advisor’s office. It’s a deep, dark purple, and surprisingly clean, which is quite uncommon to find in school offices, but Shiro is remarkably tidy, probably vacuuming it every other day. Keith was planning to occupy himself with counting the crumbs on the carpet, but alas, the floor really is spotless. He clutches the mug tighter.

Shiro, being just as perceptive as he is orderly, immediately notices his unease; he smiles.

“Wouldn’t you miss me?”

“No,” Keith lies through his teeth. “Not if I knew you were happy.”

The professor frowns, his voice turning somber. “But we wouldn’t be happy.”

Keith, still avoiding eye contact, answers truthfully this time. “No, you wouldn’t be.”

Of course Shiro thought about going back to Japan, with how the situation is developing, Keith cannot blame him. And that’s the worst part of it—Keith knows he cannot blame him.

Shiro and Adam, the only two people left in Keith’s life, might be gone soon, moving half across the world, settling in a completely different timezone, unable to talk at normal hours, needing to schedule calls in advance—that is if they even decide to keep in touch with him.

And why would they? They’d probably be exhausted after working all day and would only want to spend the evenings together, especially after having to hide their relationship in public. Why on earth would they spend the afternoon on FaceTime with some random student professor Shirogane decided to mentor?

Keith cannot blame them, and they wouldn’t be the first ones either. Everyone always leaves.

First his biological mother, taken from the world before he even got a chance to glance at her face. Then, his father, perished in a fire so long ago Keith has forgotten the sound of his voice. And then there was…

Keith bites the inside of his cheek, refusing to cry, especially in front of Shiro. Everyone leaves in the end, whether by choice or taken against their will, sooner or later they will be gone, and Keith is powerless to stop it.

He won’t make Shiro feel guilty about it, nor will he make this about himself, not when this man he began seeing as an older brother already has so much on his plate. Keith won’t add his own problems to it.

He clenches his jaw and exhales deeply. They both need to stop overthinking; Shiro’s at work and Keith’s at school, they need to get back on track. Besides, they could use a distraction.

“So,” Keith says in the indifferent tone he’s mastered over the years, “about those extracurriculars.”