I’m so sorry this is so late, I absolutely just lost track of time. This is a Valentine’s Day gift for @loverboy-lancemcclain for @voltronvalentinesexchange. A Punk!Lance Klance au. It’s not the best, but I do hope you like it.
If it had happened over time, maybe it would have been okay. But no, Lance had chosen to ruin Keith’s entire life in just one night. Keith was given no warning, besides scattered comments and complaints here and there about the Garrison’s strict rules regarding dress code.
So when Lance decided that it was time for his punk aesthetic to make a comeback, Keith was unprepared, absolutely screwed, and his life was over. He had always seen Lance as attractive, but going punk? Keith’s gay heart couldn’t take it.
The first thing Keith noticed was the most obvious difference. The tank top Lance sported now showed off his arms and torso perfectly. He also began wearing jewelry, that Keith could swear cost more then the shack he lived in back in the desert when put together. The only part of his getup that actually did come over time was the tattoos, which were beautifully intricate designs that suited Lance’s dark skin beautifully.
But the worst part, the part Keith would never, ever learn to handle, was the tongue ring. Of course, the tongue ring wasn’t new, the piercing was something Lance had done since before his days at the Garrison, but he had always just worn a placeholder, a clear and flat tongue ring. But now, Lance had decided to swap it out with a colorful ball. Unsurprisingly, the color he picked was blue, which still fit perfectly with his blue lion color scheme. And when Lance began to play with his tongue ring, messing with it idly when he wasn’t paying attention to it, it basically killed Keith. He could almost swear Lance was doing it on purpose.
Lance most definitely was doing it on purpose. There was no way he didn’t notice Keith staring at him when he did it, with the way Keith’s face could turn as red as a tomato. Especially since he would continue to do it while making constant direct eye contact with Keith. When Keith would get too flustered and turn away, he knew he would see hints of a smirk on Lance’s face, if he were to look back. Keith knew for a fact that Lance was just messing with him.
When Hunk and Pidge revealed that they had done the math to figure out the date on earth, they made sure to tell the group. Keith almost considered using the upcoming holiday to ask Lance out. As it turned out, it was February 12th, just two days before the holiday of love and Hallmark, Valentine’s Day. So Keith was considering using the day as a chance to profess his love for his fellow paladin. The keyword being considering. One thing stood in the way of Keith’s idea; social anxiety. He had no idea how to talk to people, and didn’t want to test his luck by trying to get with Lance. Chances are, he would only have one chance, and Keith way too awkward to do it right. Spending a year living off alone in the desert will do that to you. Granted, Keith was socially awkward long before, but it definitely did not help his people skills.
For a while, he thought maybe he could do it with help from someone else, but then he considered his options. Hunk would probably have good advice, but Keith didn’t know if he could trust him not to tell Lance, they did seem to be extremely close, and Keith wouldn’t be surprised if his loyalties lied solely with Lance. Pidge would probably have terrible advice, and hold the information of his crush over his head for the rest of his life. Though, she probably already knew, knowing her. There were a multitude of reasons to not ask Shiro, their leader was always busy and would probably be rather indifferent to the whole situation, and could tend to be just as much of a mess as Keith was. Coran would be happy to give Keith advice and help, and he would definitely love to help court Lance, his definitely-not-favorite paladin. But Coran’s wacky plans wouldn’t suit Lance very well. Allura was completely out of the question. So no. He wasn’t going to be asking Lance out anytime soon. He would have to suffer in silence.
Two days went by rather quickly, and now the holiday had come up. Lance, still retaining his old personality, of course decided to give everyone cheap Valentines with dumb pick up lines on them. Keith would have pretended to be annoyed and joked around with him about it, if not for the fact that Lance gave everyone a Valentine- everyone except for Keith. And Keith was fueled with rage over it.
He hasn’t actually seen Lance yet in the day, just his gifts to the others. This made it very easy for Keith to pretend to be indifferent and ignore the event. But Keith was so mad, he was going to hunt Lance down and demand an explanation. But when he asked each person if they had seen him, they all said they hadn’t.
So instead, Keith wasted his whole day, as in, valuable training time, searching the castle for Lance, checking every spot he had ever seen Lance in before. And he still didn’t find him. So he went around and asked everyone once more.
And finally, finally, Hunk knew where Lance was.
....
In one of the storage rooms, apparently? Keith couldn't fathom any reason why that would be where Lance chose to be, but he had no choice but to believe it, if he wanted to get to confront him.
Keith walked in the room, words of anger on his tongue, but froze the moment he saw Lance’s smile and the poster in his hands.
‘Happy Valentines Day, Will you go out with me?’
Keith completely stopped in his tracks. This had to be some kind of joke, Lance was just messing with him. Or it had been Allura he was waiting for. But Lance didn't immediately shoo him out or anything, it seemed that he wanted Keith there.
Keith tried to stutter out some words, but ultimately failed, and mostly just gaped at Lance.
Lance was a bit put off by the lack of response from Keith and couldn't help but fear that Keith just wasn't interested the same way Lance was.
“So, um...”
Keith didn’t know what to do, but he needed to respond. Finally he decided to stop worrying and over thinking and just follow his instincts.
He leaned forward, and kissed him.
It didn’t start off great, Keith was a bit overeager and rushed the kiss, and his lack of practice certainly showed. But the kiss improved drastically once Lance got over his surprise and kissed back.
Despite his previous troubles, Keith couldn't help but feel that this had been a perfect Valentine’s day. Nothing could ever put him in a better mood than finally getting together with Lance.
Though, finally getting to play with that tongue ring certainly helped.
