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“Seriously, dude,” Hunk says, lifting his drink in a solemn toast. “Legend.”
“I am what I am,” Lance says humbly.
After close to three years in space, Lance has become the Alteans’ unofficial favorite Paladin. Allura would never say as much, but Coran would, and has, and the collective reaction from the rest of them could be summed up as “yeah that’s fair.”
So when Keith’s twenty-first birthday began to creep closer, Lance wielded that favoritism like a blade, and somehow – and Pidge is very, very sorry they missed that conversation – managed to convince Allura that it was a crucial (”no, integral!”) coming-of-age ritual on Earth to go out in public and get unapologetically smashed with your friends.
Shiro looked so unimpressed with the rest of them when Allura docked at the nearest inhabited planet that Pidge couldn’t keep the stupid grin off their face.
Trying to change Lance’s mind once he’s dug in his heels about something is an exercise in frustration and futility. Trying to change his mind once he’s dug in his heels about something for Keith is even worse.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Keith says at that point. He still looks a little overwhelmed, like the idea that his friends would go to all this trouble is a foreign concept. Three drinks in, and he’s starting to loosen up a little, enough to say, “But it’s – thank you.”
Pidge busies themself with ordering another Coke – or what they’re calling Coke, anyway – from a passing waiter, so they won’t have to look at the sappy expression Lance is wearing.
Keith is better now than he was when they first fell into this war together. Sure of himself, of where he stands with the rest of them – less a wild, wounded creature biting at helping hands, and more a young man with healing scars and the strength to smile past them most days.
And just how much of that has to do with Lance, Pidge isn’t sure they can say for certain. They’ve been close ever since Keith returned from his stint with the Blade, training together and staying up on the observation deck after the rest of them went to bed. Maybe they’ve been close even before that, when Keith was struggling to find his feet as the Black Paladin and Lance was there for him to lean on.
“Aw, buddy,” Hunk says, reaching across the table to squeeze his shoulder. “What’s the point of having three best friends if they don’t take you out for your birthday?”
Keith grins, a little shy, mostly pleased, and that’s about when Lance says, “Okay, next order of business: drinking games.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Pigeon, we’re doing this right,” Lance says with haughty importance. “We’re doing everything. For science.”
Struggling to keep a straight face, Pidge says, “Explain.”
“Gladly.” Spreading his hands, Lance says, “This is going to be our baseline, okay? Keith is our guinea pig. By the time Hunk’s birthday rolls around, we’re going to be a streamlined machine. We’re going to be masters of the craft.”
“And by the time your birthday rolls around after that?” Keith puts in, raising an eyebrow.
“By that time, samurai, I’ll feel secure in leaving the reins in your capable hands,” Lance says, with one of those courtly bows they all had to learn for diplomatic parties. Then he looks up, goofy grin firmly in place, and says, “So drinking games.”
“I’m not drunk enough for that yet,” Hunk says quickly. “And you’re not even buzzed, dude, where are you putting all this?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older. Okay, Red, it’s all you. What game should we start with?”
Keith flounders for a moment, out of his depth. Then he says, “Truth or Dare?” in the manner of someone who has no idea what he’s suggesting, and Pidge chokes on their space Coke.
“I mean,” Hunk says, “I guess that counts?”
“What the birthday boy says goes,” Lance concedes, and maybe he’s trying to sound long-suffering but it doesn’t come across as anything other than fond. “We’re not allowed to cause a ruckus, though – on strict pain of being barred similar shenanigans in the future – so we’d better make it Truth or Truth. And since baby Pidge can’t drink, we’ll let them go first.”
“Heck you,” they say without heat. “Hunk, truth or truth.”
“That’s gonna get redundant really fast,” the engineer says. “Truth.”
“What’s your actual favorite movie? And don’t say The Princess Bride just because Lance thinks you love it as much as he does.”
“Wow. Uh, okay – it’s The Neverending Story. Sorry, Lance.”
“I thought I knew you!”
It continues in that vein for – longer than Pidge would have guessed at the beginning of the night. The older Paladins drink, but not enough to get ‘unapologetically smashed’ and the viscous purple liquid looks more like juice than hard liquor anyway. It’s tame, and it’s fun, and they sit there around a table and swap truths and tell stories, and it’s the most like normal Pidge has felt in a long time.
When Lance’s communicator pings, he sighs without checking it and says, “That’s our cue. One more truth before we leave – how about it, Keith?”
Keith’s face is faintly pink from too many cups of the sweet drink, his eyes deep and dark, and he looks at Lance the way he’s looked at him since they were nineteen years old.
“Blue,” he says, a nickname Pidge has only heard in passing.
Lance grins. “Go for it.”
“If I kissed you right now,” the Red Paladin says, with measured daring, “what would you do?”
Lance’s expression shifts into one of surprise, but honestly, he’s the only one. Pidge isn’t shocked. Neither is Hunk, hiding a grin behind the rim of his glass. Lance and Keith have been dancing around the idea for ages, gravitating closer and closer, until the next step either of them took would have to be this one.
Keith is open-faced and fearless, so far removed from the vicious lost boy he used to be, waiting for Lance’s reaction without fear of losing him, or being laughed at, or getting hurt.
It’s his birthday and he’s with his friends and he’s in love. This is just – where they are.
And Lance’s surprise melts into something sweet, something wondering, something pleased. He grins, and props his elbows on the table, and says, “The game’s called Truth, cowboy, not State the Obvious. On what planet in this universe would I not kiss you right back?”
And Keith may be a lot of things, but he’s still Keith. So when he all but lunges across the table to get his hands on the Blue Paladin, and tips over cups and plates to make a big mess and a bunch of noise as he goes, and embarrasses the quiznak out of Hunk and Pidge and the other nearby patrons at the bar who have a full view of the romantic scene suddenly happening in the middle of the room, that’s not surprising, either.
Annoying, maybe – but it’s his birthday, and he’s laughing, and Lance is laughing, too. So just this once, Pidge gives them a pass.