Lance is in the middle of his nightly moisturizing routine when his phone buzzes, rattling against the stark-white surface of his bathroom countertop. It can't be a message from Pidge, given the fact that she passed out a few hours ago after a 36-hour study session for one of her computer science midterms, and Hunk texting him would be fairly strange given the fact that he's sitting about 15 feet away in their shared dorm room.

Also, it's one in the morning.

He's understandably curious to see what the notification's about, but some sacred rituals should never be interrupted, and Lance's skincare regimen – for better or for worse – is one of them. He spares a glance at his phone before recapping a black LUSH pot and checking his face one last time in the mirror, satisfied. Taking proper care of his skin is important, and Lance fully intends to appear a twenty-something even when he's deep into his forties.

Grabbing his phone, he flicks a thumb across the lockscreen and reads:

Keith (1:17 AM) Is the sock-on-the-doorknob thing something that actually happens?

There's a moment of bewildered silence as Lance stares down blankly at the glowing screen of his phone, mostly because a) Keith is texting him, and b)Keith is texting him.

Keith and Lance aren't friends. In fact, they're barely acquaintances; they only even exchanged numbers because of a group project a few weeks prior in their shared thermal physics course. Even more interesting is that Keith had texted him a question. He clearly expects Lance to respond, which is more interaction than he's used to from the guy.

Lance (1:24 AM) Definitely

Lance (1:24 AM) Also

Lance (1:25 AM) Why are you asking me?

It's a fair question, he thinks. Keith has never seemed like the type of person who interacts with others of his own volition - he's pretty standoffish on the best of days, and his glares could clear rooms on the worst - but this is a priceless opportunity for him to chat up the brooding student. And besides, Lance is only human. Keith is stupidly hot and unfairly intelligent, even if his personality leaves a lot to be desired. There's no way he's about to skip out on a texting conversation, especially when Keith was the one to instigate it.

He steps out of the bathroom and unceremoniously flops down on his bed before a new message lights up his phone, and he tries not to seem too eager as he reads it.

Keith (1:28 AM) I've seen you flirt with everyone who makes eye contact with you

Keith (1:28 AM) So I figured that even if you didn't have personal experience with it maybe you had some advice

Lance (1:30 AM) Holy shit, ouch

Lance (1:31 AM) My bruised ego aside, did you really get sexiled?

Keith (1:32 AM) Sexiled?

Lance (1:33 AM) Exiled because your roommate's doing the do?

Keith (1:36 AM) ... yes

Lance manages not to laugh aloud at the mental image of Keith sulking outside of his own dorm room while sex noises echo from within, but he does grin widely before considering the best way to rescue the damsel in distress.

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration given the fact that Keith definitely isn't a damsel, but he does need to be rescued, and Sir Lancealot is more than eager to swoop in.

"Hunk," Lance drawls, rolling onto his back and holding his phone above his head as he stares at their text conversation. "Would you mind if I invited someone over to hang out for a bit? He got kicked out of his dorm room because his roommate's getting freaky with some girl."

Hunk looks up at him, a pencil caught in between his teeth. "Poor guy. I've got to finish up these notes so I'm fine with it as long as you guys don't mind staying relatively quiet."

"Will do," Lance responds, looking up at his phone as he types out a rapid response.

Lance (1:38 AM) You can come hang out at my dorm if you want?

Lance (1:39 AM) No pressure or anything, but it's probably better than hanging out in the common room alone

Maybe it's a little too forward of him to invite Keith over, but Lance is smart enough to identify and respond to a distress beacon when he sees one. Obviously Keith needs something to do, or else he wouldn't have texted a random classmate out of the blue, and Lance is such a charitable person, and all. (So what if his real motives are a little selfish – who can afford to be altruistic while in college?)

Keith (1:40 AM) You sure?

Lance (1:42 AM) Yeah it's no problem

Lance (1:43 AM) You're rooming in Altea too, right? I'm room 187

Keith doesn't text him again, presumably because he's walking through the halls of their dorm building, but Lance still stares up intently at his phone for any kind of response. When it's clear that no response is forthcoming, he switches apps to scroll idly through his Facebook feed. His sister has posted a few pictures of her new puppy, and he's reading some of the comments underneath it when his hand slips and his stupid phone smacks directly onto his stupid face. He manages to do a remarkable job of ignoring Hunk's snort of amusement while he presses a finger tenderly to the impact zone.

When a knock finally comes, he jerks out of bed before glancing subtly over at Hunk to see if he'd noticed how eager Lance was to greet their guest. When it's clear his roommate is thoroughly engrossed in his homework, Lance hopes the slight swelling of his lip from the phone-dropping-on-his-face incident isn't too noticeable as he pulls open their heavy door.

"Hey," he says, quickly glancing over Keith's features as he steps inside. The first thing Lance notices is how tired he looks; his hair is disheveled and there are dark smudges under his eyes. The exhaustion plain upon his features does nothing to quell the reminder that Keith is attractive, though, and Lance feels a twinge of pity at how obviously Keith is in need of a good night's rest.

"Thanks for letting me come over," responds Keith, voice tight, like everything else about him right now. Lance wouldn't call himself a master at reading body language, but he doesn't have to be to parse the tense line of Keith's shoulders and the stiffness of his movements. He knows Keith's irritation isn't directed at him, though, so it's easy enough to shrug it off and do what he can to ease the tension.

"No problem." He waves a hand around before pausing to introduce his own roommate. "This is Hunk, the best roommate in the world. He has yet to violate the bro code and kick me out in order to bang his beautiful girlfriend, which is more than I can say for you and your charming roommate."

Keith scowls at that, but his shoulders loosen just a smidgen, so Lance counts it as a personal victory.

"I'm Keith," he says to Hunk after a moment, and Hunk wiggles his fingers in response.

"It's nice to meet you, Keith," he says before regretfully holding up a stack of papers. "I'd love to chill with you guys, but responsibility calls."

Keith offers him a sympathetic wince - none of them are strangers to the realm of dull busywork. The room is quiet for just a beat too long, and Lance realizes he's probably staring. He jerks his gaze away from the tempting curve of Keith's lips.

Not in time for Hunk to have missed it, though, because now he's looking carefully between the two of them, and Lance bites the inside of his cheek as he sees those sharp eyes reading far deeper into the situation than need be. His intuition is usually spot-on, and Lance hopes he'll avoid bringing up his crush on Keith, preferably until said crush has vacated their dorm room.

When they'd first been assigned to the group project, Lance had been a little intimidated by the scowling classmate who had immediately started their conversation off with a bitten out, "I am not going to do all the work for this thing, so you better pull your own weight."

But displeasure had looked good on him, and Lance had gulped and agreed to do his fair share for the assignment. (And he totally did. The A had been almost as satisfying as the rare, genuine smile Keith had flashed at him before they'd bumped fists with a shared, "Nice job.")

He'd wanted to see more of that side of Keith – less of the abrupt, antisocial thing he seemed to have going on that appealed to some of the giggling girls in their shared classes, and more of the satisfied, grinning Keith that looked at Lance with the kind of acknowledgement he's been starving to obtain for years.

Now, though, he's looking at Lance with a mixture of exasperation and relief, and it's different than he was expecting – but in a good way. It's late enough at night that their interactions don't feel as forced as they would during the day. Lance doesn't need to start a trite conversation; he already knows how Keith's doing, how his night's going.

"Sorry I don't have anything elaborate planned to entertain you with," Lance starts a bit awkwardly, but Keith just shrugs and pulls out his desk's chair to sit on.

"It's fine," Keith says. He still seems stiff, but Lance is willing to accept any form of response as a positive sign, and he moves to sit down cross-legged on his bed.

Conscious of Hunk's studying, Lance keeps his voice down respectfully as he grins and drawls, "How are you handling the torture of Professor Zarkon's syllabus? I heard about a third of students have dropped the course already."

The conversation quickly devolves into murmuring – well, more like bemoaning quietly - the struggles of trying to thrive educationally as engineering undergrads. They end up engrossed in stories, swapping various accounts of their lives. Their words melt into an easy back and forth, flowing organically in a way that Lance hasn't experienced since he met Hunk way back.

Time flies as Keith shares stories about his college experience. He recalls a story about a horrible lab partner that almost blew up their entire lab once after an experiment gone wrong, and in turn, Lance regales him with a tale of that one time in a philosophy class (even engineering students have to suffer through humanities elective courses) when his professor had insisted that the Big Bang had happened just before an angry earthquake (or God, he's open to interpretation) had shaken their entire building.

Hunk bids them both a goodnight somewhere around 3 AM, collapsing onto his bed without bothering to do more than toss his book and notes haphazardly onto the ground. Lance doesn't blame him - textbook chapter assignments can be brutal, and his best friend totally deserves the rest.

"It's getting pretty late," Lance says offhandedly, pretending not to notice that the sun's about to rise and he has class in less than five hours. He's going to regret it in the morning, but from where he's sitting right now, it's worth the sleep deprivation.

Keith's lips tug downward into a frown at Lance's words. "Yeah, I didn't realize. Hopefully my room's cleared out by now." He's sitting backwards, arms draped over the back of the chair that's pressing against his chest, and the amusement that was shining in his eyes during their conversation fades. Lance realizes it's because he's about to leave.

It's Lance who's frowning, now.

"You can stay the night," he blurts out, but the odd lilt of his voice makes the words come out like a question. "I – uh, it'd probably be a pain to walk all the way across the dorm right now, yeah? And we have a sleeping bag for whenever Pidge goes on horrible study benders and doesn't want to crawl back to her car and drive home, so you wouldn't just have to crash on the floor..."

Lance is lucky that Keith doesn't bring up his horrible habit of rambling when he's nervous. It really isn't such a weird thing to say – Keith probably assumed Lance was about to kick him out and was doing him the favor of bailing before it got too awkward, but he invited the guy over, it's the least he can do to offer him a place to sleep since he's pretty much kept him up all night. (And it is so not the time for innuendos, he thinks to himself.)

"Are you sure?" There's a weird glint in Keith's eyes, but it doesn't seem hostile. If anything, it's mostly surprise and… a bit of hesitance, if Lance would have to wager a guess.

"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't," he assures him. His genuine grin seems to put Keith at ease.

They settle in quickly after Lance withdraws the sleeping bag from its perch in his and Hunk's shared closet and a trip to the bathroom for some extra touch-up skincare love. He then snuggles down into the comfort of his bed as Keith stretches out on the floor next to his bunk.

"Goodnight!" he chirps into the darkness, feeling almost giddy with the success of their shared evening. He knows he's probably getting ahead of himself – they've only hung out for a few hours without the looming presence of educational projects hanging above their heads, but Lance can't help but be satisfied with how the night's gone. Befriending Keith has been something of a goal of his for awhile, and there's no way tonight hasn't counted toward that.

"Night," Keith says. "Thanks again."

Lance is pretty sure he falls asleep grinning.

This quickly becomes a common occurrence - as it turns out, Keith's roommate is some kind of nymphomaniac, and he texts Lance a few times a week with snarky remarks about horrible undergrads with insatiable sexual appetites.

The best part of it all is that Keith is hilarious. He's one of the only people that can keep up with Lance – besides Pidge, but Lance is pretty sure that if you cut her, she'd bleed witty remarks – and his responses are always filled with a dry sort of sarcasm that has Lance laughing aloud whenever he reads his texts.

He also gets along with Hunk whenever he's crashing at their dorm room, which is Lance's most important prerequisite for making new friends. If someone doesn't – an absolutely unfathomable concept to Lance – then there's no way he's going to bother pursuing the relationship.

They binge-watch the first few seasons of X-Files at Keith's request – "We're stopping after season 8, though, there's no point without Mulder" – and Lance spends an entire week convincing Keith that sewing and knitting are cool hobbies, dammit, before the nerd finally eases off the teasing, showing up one day with a plastic bag full of black and red yarn and a request for a scarf.

All things considered, Lance is incredibly thankful that Keith shot him that first text, or else he would've missed out on a pretty awesome friendship. Of course, his attraction to Keith has only amplified with the time they've spent together, but he's been toeing the line between flirty and casual friendship with him and doesn't particularly want to upset the balance, with how well things have been going between them lately.

Keith (9:06 PM) I just walked through the room to grab my laptop while they were in the middle of fucking how did this become my life

Lance (9:08 PM) Kinky

Lance (9:08 PM) I'm guessing that means you're on your way

Keith (9:10 PM) While the temptation of doing homework to the sounds of moans and gasps is almost overwhelming, yeah

Keith levels him with a tired, vexed look when he opens the door.

"I don't even remember what my own bed feels like," he complains as he slips inside the small room, and Lance hisses quietly in sympathy. He couldn't imagine being forced out of his room as often as Keith has been in a single semester.

"Hunk's out studying, and I have a paper due at midnight so it'll probably be a quiet night. Sorry about that."

"No problem," Keith says, already settling in at Hunk's unused desk and perching his own computer on the flat surface.

Lance spends the next few hours squinting angrily at his laptop screen as he attempts to hammer out an essay that will convince his professor that he really does have a lot of knowledge pertaining to black holes. When he's finally hashed out the dregs of a shoddy conclusion for the paper, he stifles a yawn with a fist.

"I can't believe we have to pay actual money to be subjected to the torture of the college curriculum," Lance sighs as he double-checks the site to ensure his submission has gone through. It never hurts to be just a teensy bit paranoid.

Keith lets out an agreeing noise, but doesn't look up from his own computer. He's been pretty quiet the entire time, and Lance would feel bad about neglecting him - talk about bad manners for a host - except it's far too late and his brain is too exhausted to do much about it, anyway.

"Want to play some games? I could use a break." Lance rolls his shoulders, but it's not enough to ease the tension in his back from hunching over his laptop for several hours. He stretches out until his back cracks loudly, and hopes Keith didn't hear his quiet groan of satisfaction. "I think I earned it!"

When Keith doesn't respond to his question, though, Lance tips his head toward him. "Keith?"

"Sorry, what?" Keith shakes his head minutely as if snapping out of a trance, and Lance attributes it to the typical exhaustion that comes along with working on schoolwork for too many consecutive hours. His face is flushed, and Lance wonders if the temperature of the room is too hot – it doesn't feel too warm to him, but maybe Keith is sensitive to that kind of stuff?

"How do you feel about Smash Bros?" he asks with a grin, already pushing his chair out and stepping away from his desk to power up the Wii U resting below his TV. As an afterthought, he turns the thermostat on while he's still standing.

"Yeah, sounds good. I finished up my work a little while ago, so I'm free."

They end up making a sort-of fort of blankets and pillows – "Sorry, Hunk's pillows, but you're going to a good cause" – until the carpet in front of the TV is covered. He settles into the pile of blankets, pleased to find it as comfortable as it looks, and hands Keith a controller. "Let's play."

Lance quickly learns two things. The first is that Keith is incredibly competitive when it comes to videogames. This isn't entirely surprising, given that he's seen firsthand how focused Keith can get whenever their TA tosses up a Kahoot quiz on the projector during discussion classes.

The second thing Lance learns, which actually floors him, is that Keith is also, inexplicably, intolerably bad at videogames.

"How are you even real?" Lance gapes, staring at the TV screen displaying Donkey Kong victoriously taking 1st place in the last Smash round.

Keith had managed to fall to his death for two of his three lives in the last match-up alone.

"Maybe you should… not pick Charizard and charge your way off the map every time?" He truly intends the advice to be a genuine attempt at helping, but with how Keith is glaring at him, he's pretty confident that it is not being taken that way.

"Shut up," Keith snarls, waving his Wii controller about in a way that makes Lance glad there's a modicum of distance between them. "Do you have any other games to play? This one sucks."

"Uh, I think we have Mario Kart lying around somewhere?" But if Keith's as bad at Mario Kart as he is at Smash, maybe it's a bad idea to break it out.

"Find it." Keith's using his competitive voice, which is equal parts arousing and terrifying. It also brooks no argument, and Lance surges to his feet to dig for the game.

Approximately three minutes later, Lance watches in abject horror as Keith drives directly into a blue shell and falls off the racetrack.

"You have played these games before, right?" Lance hazards at his own risk. "How are you so bad at them?"

"My brother showed me no mercy as a kid," Keith grits out, and Lance genuinely fears for the safety of his controller as Keith grips the plastic too tightly. "I don't think I've won a game against him in ten years."

Holy shit, Keith is a lost cause. Still, he has this intense focus about him that indicates he's not about to give up, and so Lance bites down on his lips to hide the smile threatening to unfurl across his face.

"Best 3 out of 5?" he asks, pleased when the amusement he's feeling doesn't leak into his tone.

Lance barely manages to suppress a shiver at the intense glance Keith shoots him. Fuck, he's hot. "You're on."

When he wakes, it's to the uncomfortable, tell-tale tingling of his arm falling asleep. The rest of his body feels surprisingly pleasant - there's a nice smell surrounding his senses, and he's warm and cozy despite the fact that he's sitting upright instead of snuggled deeply in his bed. He's seriously tempted to sink back into the realm of sleep, except his arm is swiftly sliding into the pins-and-needles phase. Scrunching his nose up in discomfort, he moves to retract his arm from whatever hell is currently causing it to feel like death.

Except his arm is almost - stuck, for lack of a better word. It doesn't dislodge easily, and he blames his sluggish consciousness on drowsiness when it takes all too long to click that his arm isn't free yet because there's a heavy weight draped over it, keeping it confined.

A heavy, living weight, if the steady rise and fall of breathing he feels is anything to go by.

Lance's eyes fly open at the realization, and his vision is immediately obscured by a mess of dark hair. Keith's head is resting against his shoulder, face relaxed in sleep, and Lance's arm is pinned between his bed frame and the heat of Keith's torso.

"Uh," he says aloud, his brain short-circuiting thanks to the endearing-as-fuck image of Keith cuddling up against him.

Their legs are a tangled mess of limbs overlapping one another, and he's struck by the fact that they're both still wearing jeans. He thinks hard for a moment, finally recalling how they'd stayed up late racing one another in Mario Kart until sheer exhaustion must have overtaken them both.

The glow of the TV screen informs Lance that the both of them had finished their race in last place. He shoots a sleepy glare at Princess Peach, who won first, before realizing how ridiculous he must look.

Besides, Princess Peach certainly doesn't have one of the hottest guys on campus currently sleeping against her, so obviously Lance is the real winner here.

He's torn between being embarrassed about waking up in such a position and wanting this moment to never pass, but the only thing worse than tearing himself away from a sleeping Keith would be explaining to a wide-awake Keith how exactly he woke up cuddling Lance. So, with a resigned sigh, he tries to shift Keith's head as carefully as possible away from his shoulder. Extracting himself proves more difficult than first imagined, though, because Keith makes an unhappy noise deep in his throat the moment Lance tips his head back against the bed frame, and he shifts forward to nuzzle into Lance's neck. Holy shit, Lance thinks, because who knew Keith was so… affectionate?

His cheeks burn, and he's positive that any moment the loud thud of his heart is going to wake Keith up with its intense thumping, which further solidifies his motivation to detach himself from this apparent cuddle monster as quickly as possible. It takes awhile with how paranoid he is about waking Keith up, but Lance finally manages to carefully slip out of Keith's embrace, and he takes a deep breath to try and gather his bearings.

So.

Keith is an unconscious cuddler. And now that he's thinking about it, Lance has had the best sleep he's had in what feels like a decade, even though they fell asleep propped up against the hard, unforgiving wood of his bed's frame.

This is getting dangerous. They've only hung out a few times and have just tentatively entered the realm of friends. He'd be lying to himself if he said the thought of waking up against the warm, comfortable weight of Keith's body didn't sound appealing as fuck, but there's the slight issue of whether or not that's something that Keith would want.

The first order of business is waking Keith up and praying to any and every deity out there that he won't be mortified about falling asleep on Lance.

"Hey," he says, shaking Keith's shoulder gently. He pointedly averts his gaze from where the collar of Keith's shirt is tugged to the side, exposing the pale skin of his collarbone. It's almost too tempting for Lance to bear, but he's sufficiently distracted because when Keith wakes, it's with a jolt, and Lance rears back just in time to avoid smashing skulls with him.

"Sorry," Keith says once he realizes he almost headbutted Lance in what surely would have been a painful collision. He runs a hand through his mussed-up hair, although the combing of his fingers seems to do more damage than anything. Lance certainly isn't about to be the one to bring it up,though; his tousled hair may be ridiculous, but he's still too groggy from waking up to do anything but appreciate it right now.

"I'm going to go to the dining hall to grab some breakfast," he says, rocking back on his heels and into a standing position. He has no intention of doing such a thing – it's probably closer to lunchtime than breakfast, anyway – but it gives him something to do that isn't thinking about Keith looking debauched and exhausted under completely different circumstances, and he needs to vacate the premises immediately.

Keith says around a yawn, "Thanks for letting me stay over," like he always does, and Lance is thankful that he's not the only one whose thoughts work at a snail's pace when he's first waking up. Otherwise, this would be really awkward right about now.

"No problem."

Except that's a lie, too, because Lance doesn't think he's ever had a bigger problem in his entire life, and it's all Keith's fault for being adorable and falling asleep on him.

He slips a hoodie from the closet over his head and leaves with a loud, "Hope to see you later!"

Lance hopes this whole lying thing doesn't become a habit.

The next time Keith shoots him an exasperated text – which never fails to irk Lance because somebody's getting laid and it isn't him – Lance finds himself uncharacteristically nervous. He's not about to turn down Keith's request to hang out or anything, but his thoughts are filled with the memory of the warm press of Keith's body against his own and the soft, even rise and fall of his chest.

It's not the sort of thing that friends are supposed to think about each other, and he's all too aware of that pressing fact.

Keith hasn't said a single thing about how they definitely fell asleep together, although Lance knows he's smart enough to put the pieces together. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise – they're both pretending it never happened, which would be fine with Lance if he could just stop thinking about Keith sleeping with him.

He invites Keith over like he always does, but after sending the text, he can't stop fidgeting. His knee bounces rapidly as he tries to casually peruse the internet while waiting for Keith to trek down to his dorm room, and he can't stop chewing on his lower lip.

They have a test in their thermal science course on Friday, and with a sigh Lance reasons that they should probably make use of their time together to study a bit. He's digging through one of the drawers of his desk to find the textbook for the class when Keith's telltale knock sounds at the door, and Lance almost jumps at the noise.

Once the typical greetings are out of the way, Lance hefts their heavy course text onto his desk. Hunk's out for the night, staying at his upperclassman girlfriend's apartment, which means that the dorm room is about to become overrun by their collective notes about particle physics.

Studying takes precedence, and Lance's nerves finally subside as they fall into the rhythm of preparing for their upcoming exam. The class is early the next morning, so staying up too late will probably be more detrimental than helpful, and Keith's alarm goes off at midnight, signalling the end to their cram session.

"My brain is mush," Lance declares, shoving himself away from his desk. "How are you feeling about the test?"

Keith lets out an incoherent groan, and Lance privately agrees.

They set about packing their things up, and Lance makes his way toward the bathroom to wash and moisturize his face. He spends the entire time feeling like he's hiding away in the tiny room, which is ridiculous, but by the time he comes out and sits on his own bed he sees Keith unrolling the sleeping bag across the floor, and that feels even worse than hiding did.

Lance has avoided asking about it all night, mostly because he's pretty sure it's weird to ask your friend if they'd be interested in cuddling in the same bed. His mind seems to have other thoughts, though, because he hears himself say, "Uh, Keith," just as Keith wiggles into his sleeping bag.

"Hm?"

"If you want," he says, and his voice is thick and gummy like something's caught in his throat, so he clears it. "If you want, you can sleep on my bed. Like how we fell asleep the other day? Except not on the floor this time."

The following silence in the minuscule, 200-square-feet of his dorm room is deafening.

"It was a dumb idea," Lance says loudly, trying to drown out the anxiety he's feeling through effort of sheer will. He tries to wave a hand nonchalantly to wave away his stupid words, but it probably looks more like he's flailing his arm in a frantic, jerky way. "Sorry. I just thought it'd be easier than sleeping on the ground. Forget I said anything."

"No," Keith says so softly that Lance almost misses it. "Uh. That. That would be nice."

Lance is pretty sure he's gone into shock, even as Keith hesitantly gets up from the ground and moves onto Lance's small dorm bed. The mattress dips as Keith settles in next to him, and Lance is 90% sure his face is burning so fiercely that he could probably start a small fire with it.

It's probably one of the most awkward things he's ever had to sit - well, lie - through. Keith's body is rigid alongside his own, and he's fairly confident that they're both just lying there, staring wide-eyed at the same ceiling. Something has to change, or else Keith is probably going to block his number and pretend that Lance doesn't exist anymore after tonight.

"Um - " Lance starts, just as Keith mutters, "Ugh," and it's enough to startle him into silence.

Keith's voice sounds gruff. "Stop freaking out. Let's just sleep, I'm tired." And then he's wrapping his arms around Lance's middle, and Lance barely manages to stifle the strangled noise threatening to burst out of his throat.

It feels like they lie there for hours, wide awake and not talking, and he's hypersensitive to every brush of Keith's body against his own as well as both of their quiet, too-measured breaths. Lance isn't entirely sure how he manages to fall asleep, what with the strange tension thrumming through his body and the fact that Keith is consciously, willingly spooning him, but eventually he drifts off, muscles lax with exhaustion and the warmth radiating off of the other student.

"Alright," Pidge says, and her sigh is so loud that it echoes throughout the wide space of the library. "Tell me your goddamn secrets."

"What are you talking about?" Lance mutters. His eyes stay glued to the textbook in front of him, as though staring down at the pages blankly will help transmit the knowledge directly into his brain. Hell, at this point, he hopes it does. The words are blurring on the pages, and he's not entirely sure he can even look at the equation for calculating dynamic friction ever again without wanting to burst into tears.

A slender finger pokes its way into his field of view, and then presses against the thin skin beneath his eyes.

"You have no bags under your eyes," Pidge says, and the sharp edge of her nail bites into the thin membrane of his flesh almost spitefully. "You're an astrophysics major. These are two incongruous ideas, and I want to know how you're managing it. Is it those face creams you're always raving about?"

And, okay, that's enough to catch his interest. Pidge is finally interested in learning about the wonders of moisturizers and cleansers? "Pidge," Lance says. His voice cracks on the single syllable of her name. She does him the favor of not mentioning it, which means she must be in a good mood; he's been victim to her mocking reminders of the horrible puberty he went through many years ago for way too long. "I'm honored that you would come to me in your time of need."

She scoffs, but her lips are tilted up in an exasperated smile. "If it'll make me stop looking like a raccoon, I'm in."

Studying falls to the wayside as Lance scrambles for his phone and educates her in the way of facial skin products.

(He doesn't mention to Pidge that part of the reason - shit, who does he think he's kidding - most of the reason he's sleeping so well lately involves the chronic snuggler that's been sleeping in bed with him more often than not these days. They don't sell that at Sephora, and she'd never let him live it down.)

Keith (7:39 PM) WHO IS THIS GUY

Keith (7:40 PM) HOW CAN ONE MAN POSSIBLY HAVE SO MUCH SEX

Lance (7:41 PM) Maybe he's an incubus

Keith (7:42 PM) Or he's under the impression that he can get a degree in having sex

Lance (7:44 PM) Have we been in the wrong major this whole time!?

Keith (7:46 PM) It's probably for the best that you don't try to swap

Keith (7:46 PM) I'm not sure you could handle failing all of your classes

Lance (7:48 PM) I was going to invite you over

Lance (7:49 PM) But now you can just suffer

Keith (7:51 PM) Too late I'm already walking over

Lance (7:52 PM) I'm not home, please leave a message after the beep

Keith (7:58 PM) You fucking punk let me in

Lance (8:00 PM) Sorry who is this

Lance (8:03 PM) STOP KNOCKING I SAID I WASN'T HOME

Keith (8:03 PM) How would you know I'm knocking if you're not there?

Lance (8:04 PM) fuck

Keith (8:05 PM) Open the door

Keith (8:06 PM) I even brought you some burn cream

Keith (8:06 PM) As a peace offering

Keith (8:08 PM) Wait no let me back in

The thing is, they have a good arrangement. A great arrangement, even. Despite Hunk leaving condoms in conspicuous locations with endearing little notes that read things like, Make sure to stay safe! and Seriously, Lance, I'm happy for you but don't get an STD, and Lance having almost no money left in his bank account after buying Pidge a few different face products to soothe her poor, neglected skin, he's pretty satisfied with how things have turned out.

Everything's going great – Lance has seen people bemoan the lack of willing participants available for no-strings-attached cuddling, so the fact that he's managed to wrangle one should be fucking incredible, and most of the time itis.

But, at the end of the day – or the start of it, as is the case here – he's still eighteen years old, and he's not immune to the demands of his body.

"Sorry," he mutters to Keith, and it takes every fiber of his being to prevent his hips from pressing further into the warm, pliable body he's curled around.

Waking up hard is definitely not an abnormal occurrence - it's something he's grown quite familiar with for the past handful of years, being a teenaged boy and all that. He is not, however, used to waking up with morning wood and someone else lying in his bed. It feels strikingly intimate, and under any other circumstance Lance is sure he'd be purring with elation if presented with the opportunity to curl up in a warm bed with someone and figure out all of the creative ways to rid himself of his pressing problem.

But instead he's spooning Keith, who is not his boyfriend or his lover or anything other than a friend, and Lance is reasonably confident that you're not supposed to hump your friends when you wake up horny as hell in the morning.

He is not handling this well. There's an awkward heartbeat where Lance is positive he's about to spontaneously combust, his muscles are wound so tight, but it passes and all that remains is the hot flush that's high on his cheeks and the sweat breaking out over his entire body.

He's not sure that he's ever been as embarrassed as he is now - it's one thing to wake up with morning wood pressing against your cuddle buddy's ass after a great night of sex (not that he really has any personal experience in that department, but it's the principle of the matter), but it's something else to wake up hard and aching for a bedmate that is, for all intents and purposes, completely platonic and not into you.

"Look, you're a science major too and know this shit is basic biology," he starts, but his words are cut off by a loud noise. It takes a moment to realize that it's coming from Keith, who's laughing. It's a deep, full-bodied laugh, his shoulders shaking in amusement, and Lance is both dumbfounded and still achingly hard at the pleasant sound.

"Calm down," Keith says, and his voice is amused and still rough with sleep. How the hell is Lance supposed to calm down after hearing something like that? "It happens."

"You're not - offended?"

"It's like you said," Keith says, and then he's turning to face Lance and that's almost worse than the alluring dip of his spine and the curve of his ass, because Keith always looks so vulnerable and full of trust when he's just waking up, and it always sends a sharp pain of something piercing through Lance's chest. "It's just biology. Anyway, it's not like you were thinking about me or anything, so no hard feelings, right?"

Then he's laughing again.

Somehow, against all odds, he manages to squeak out some kind of affirmative response before hiding his face in his pillow.

Lance is screwed.

"I'm screwed," Lance groans to Hunk as he watches Pidge and Keith chatter on with increasingly alarming fervor about Roswell being a coverup. To his dismay, Keith then whips out his goddamn phone, presumably to show Pidge some questionable evidence to support his claims.

"As long as you're staying safe and using condoms," Hunk says offhandedly, which elicits another groan.

"Not in the sexy way, Hunk. Are you even watching this right now?"

"Do you mean ourfriends? Who are currently talking about things they enjoy?"

"Why aren't you on my side?" he whines. "They're unstoppable together. I'm pretty sure they're planning a trip to Nevada over spring break to try and break into Area 51." Normally, Lance would be elated to see Pidge make new friends. Usually, she's so swamped with schoolwork that she doesn't have time for leisurely socialization, but conspiring with Keith of all people has him a little wary and concerned.

She's a downright menace with the right encouragement, and Keith is doing absolutely nothing to staunch her ridiculous alien theories. If Lance is hearing correctly, they're even building off of each other's ideas. Oh, god. Introducing Keith to Pidge was a horrible mistake.

His eye-rolling must have been loud enough for the two of them to hear, because they both turn to him at the same time with matching furrows in their brows.

"Your major focuses on space, Lance. Why are you so skeptical about aliens crash-landing on Earth?" Keith asks the question like Lance is the insane one for not believing that Roswell was an alien-related incident.

"Look, I want to believe in aliens as much as the next guy, but this is a slippery slope. This week you're trying to convince me that aliens exist, but what's it going to be next week? Demons? Cryptids?"

"Well, now that you mention it," Keith starts, and Lance shoots a pleading look at Hunk, who comes to his rescue.

"Pidge, your dad works for NASA," Hunk interrupts. "I'm pretty sure he would've told you if there was any identifiable alien life." Lance could just about kiss him.

Pidge scoffs. "He always tells me that most of the work he does is confidential, actually. And the last time I cracked the password on his laptop, the files were too encrypted for me to figure out before he got back home."

"It's suspicious," Keith chips in, and the affectionate look that Pidge shoots him positively slays Lance. All of his friends are goddamn conspiracy theorists, and now that they're hanging out together, there's no way he's going to be able to avoid being dragged along with them to humor their ridiculous schemes.

Despite how ridiculous Keith gets about his conspiracies, there's something about how focused he gets whenever he talks about things he cares about, and Lance doesn't realize he's been caught staring until Hunk lays a comforting hand on his shoulder and says, "Okay, I can see it. You're definitely screwed."

Lance (2:15 PM) There is a wicked bruise on my hip

Keith (2:24 PM) And you're telling me this why?

Lance (2:25 PM) Dude

Lance (2:26 PM) Do you seriously not remember last night

Keith (2:28 PM) I plead the fifth

Lance (2:30 PM) Oh man, storytime

Lance (2:33 PM) So I'm doing my thing, resting peacefully to get my beauty sleep (not strictly necessary because I'm already so flawless)

Keith (2:35 PM) STOP

Lance (2:36 PM) When my sleep is rudely interrupted by my cuddle buddy, who KICKS ME IN HIS GODDAMN SLEEP

Keith (2:38 PM) Never happened

Lance (2:39 PM) You literally opened your eyes when I cried out in pain and said "whoops" in the most sarcastic voice I've ever heard

Keith (2:43 PM) Hahaha ok I remember that

Lance (2:45 PM) I hate you

Lance (2:47 PM) Btw Pidge wants to show you something, come to the common room when you get the chance

It's not until Lance wakes up in the middle of the night to the ringtone he's assigned Keith's phone number - something loud and obnoxious to wake him up if he's fallen asleep in instances just like this - that things change.

With a tired groan, Lance squints at the too-bright screen of his phone in the darkness.

Keith (3:21 AM) He comes home at three in the fucking morning and kicks me out of my OWN ROOM so he can fuck a girl

Keith (3:23 AM) I'm going to file a request to change rooms as soon as the office opens

He jolts up from his bed, startled into wakefulness from the blunt words. If Keith moves dorms - and gets to room with someone who doesn't have sex every waking moment of the day, as well as many of the sleeping ones - then there's no reason for Keith to continue sending him funny, whining texts. There's no reason for Lance to invite Keith over to sleep in his bed, for Keith to wrap his arms around Lance's body, to stay at Lance's most nights of the week.

And that's just unacceptable, because even if Lance is struggling to deal with some non-platonic feelings thanks to their platonic cuddling arrangement, he doesn't want it to end.

Lance (3:26 AM) You okay?

Lance (3:27 AM) I'm up if you want to come over

Lance pointedly does not send the draft sitting in the text box of his conversation with Keith that reads, You don't have to change rooms, you can just stay here.

Keith (3:26 AM) On my way

The knock at the door comes quicker than expected, like Keith was already on his way to Lance's dorm before Lance had even shot him a response. He supposes it makes sense. Still, he shoots a nervous glance at the blanketed form of Hunk on his own bed. His roommate and best friend has been an absolute angel about Keith coming over, and the last thing Lance wants to do is be an asshole who wakes him up in the middle of the night.

Their dorm is a mess right now. It's almost finals week, and neither Lance nor Hunk has time to pick up when they're so busy cramming for their respective tests. Lance taps his phone to turn on its flashlight before navigating the cluttered space and making it to the doorway.

Keith is tense and angry when he opens the door, and Lance steps aside to allow him in. He presses a single finger to his own lips to indicate the fact that Hunk's asleep.

"I hate him," Keith hisses quietly, jerking a hand through his hair in an agitated manner.

Lance bites the inside of his cheek, trying diligently to ignore how disheveled Keith looks, how easy it would be to loosen the tight knot of his shoulders with a well-placed hand, a soft, reassuring kiss...

He snaps out of it and nods in agreement - Keith's roommate is, undoubtedly, a complete asshole - before grabbing Keith's hand and tugging him toward the bed.

It's more forward than he's ever been, but it's the middle of the night and Lance wants to go back to sleep almost as badly as he wants Keith to calm down.

"We'll deal with it tomorrow," he whispers. "Just come sleep for now."

He's almost tired enough to miss the way that Keith averts his gaze and his cheeks redden, but the glow of his phone's flashlight picks up on the flush. Lance wonders what he's embarrassed about, but pushes it to the back of his mind; it's something to think about in the morning.

"Try not to snore tonight, okay?" Keith whispers, and it's a good sign because if Keith is slinging barbs at him then he must be feeling a little better than he had when he first walked in. Lance can feel his breath ghosting against the back of his neck as he speaks, and he clenches his teeth before exhaling a bit too loudly through his nostrils.

"I never snore," he mutters petulantly, grateful for the cover of darkness surrounding them.

They don't have class tomorrow, and Lance falls asleep almost instantly, one arm wrapped over the subtle curve of Keith's hip and the soft sound of Keith's chuckle lulling him into unconsciousness.

It's a Saturday, and Lance has never been more thankful to see the flash of his clock reading 11:38 AM than he is now. Sleeping in has become a rare luxury in the face of upper div physics courses, and he relishes his comfortable bed (thank god for foam mattress toppers, or else the standard dorm room mattress would've killed his back ages ago) and the clingy form of Keith pressing against his back.

He shuffles around until he's facing him – and his messy hair, which is sticking up in odd angles. Lance can't help the fond smile that turns up his lips at the sight. As much as he'd like to lounge around in bed for the rest of the morning, he's not sure what Keith has planned for the day; he shoots a glance toward Hunk's bed and sees it rumpled but empty. He vaguely recalls something about his roommate going out for coffee with Shay, and sends him some positive vibes before turning his attention to the sleepy Keith in front of him.

"Good morning, sunshine," he croons loudly enough to rouse his cuddle partner.

"Mmph," Keith says into their shared pillow. Lance is by no means a morning person, but Keith puts him to shame every damn time with his unwillingness to actually wake up.

"Keeeeith," he tries, stretching out the syllable of his name almost teasingly. He's not really in any hurry to get out of bed - he never is when Keith's lying there with him; but since it's a weekend, if he's lucky, Keith doesn't have much to do and they can grab his Wii controllers, play some Smash, and laze around in bed. The first thing to do is wake up Sleeping Beauty, though, and that's never an easy task.

Lance is about to poke him in the side when Keith picks his head up and glares at him with lidded, bleary eyes. He's shocked into stillness as one of Keith's hands comes forward and tangles itself in the short, thick mop of Lance's hair. It happens almost in slow motion: Keith cranes his neck enough so that he's invading Lance's personal space and then sleepily, almost lazily presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"Shut up and go back to bed," he mutters, scrunching his eyes tight as he slams his head back into the feathery down of Lance's pillow.

Lance stares at him, speechless, until Keith's head shoots back up from the pillow and he looks back with wide eyes.

"Shit," Keith says eloquently, and then: "I didn't mean to do that."

"You just kissed me." He's sure he sounds absolutely disbelieving, but – Keith. Kissed him. It was a chaste, quick press of lips, and all of a sudden it sounds too ridiculous, even to Lance's own mind. His subconscious has to be playing some kind of trick on him, and any moment now he'll wake up and have nothing but the phantom sensation of Keith's slightly chapped lips ghosting across his skin.

He's woken up before with a boner pressing up against Keith's ass, for god's sake, and the guy still didn't take a hint. There's no way he feels like that about Lance, right?

Right?

But they keep staring at one another, and Lance's dream doesn't dissolve as the air becomes thick with unresolved tension.

Okay, so, maybe it isn't a dream. But if it's not, then who the hell did Keith think he was kissing? Fuck, Lance is starting to panic, and his mind races a mile a minute when he's panicked.

"I had a dream we were - together, and it was really realistic, shit, I woke up and thought it was real. I'm sorry, is this going to make things awkward now? Fuck – "

Keith is rambling, and Lance has never heard him ramble before. He's concise with his words, never wasting time with fluff and flowery language. But if Keith's rambling, then it means he's nervous. Maybe as nervous as Lance is, right now.

"That was," Lance says slowly, and his words are a sharp contrast to the hummingbird-rapid fluttering of his heart, "the worst kiss ever. I'm going to need you to make it up to me. Immediately."

It's easy to see how blown wide Keith's pupils are from this close. Lance could probably even count each individual eyelash surrounding the peculiar purple-blue of his irises if he wasn't so distracted by the way Keith's quiet exhales are brushing his face.

He's obviously flustered, and Lance can't help but preen at the thought that he's the reason for it, like Keith can't decide whether or not he should bolt like a frightened deer or lunge forward and claim his lips for his own.

After an indeterminable amount of time that feels like a goddamn lifetime, Keith finally moves forward and cautiously, tentatively presses his lips to Lance's own. His frame is taut, like he's holding back, but the kiss is soft and gentle. Lance can feel the unspoken question:Is this okay?

The truth is that this is the most okay thing Lance has ever experienced in his life, and he communicates that with the enthusiastic way he kisses Keith back. He tilts his head to slot his lips against Keith's more comfortably, even daring to run the tip of his tongue over the seam of his lips. When Keith's lips part, it's like the floodgates have been opened. Lance presses onwards, encouraged by the positive response.

They stay like that for awhile, tangled up in one another, and Lance makes a small noise of protest when Keith finally pulls away to gasp for air.

"I've wanted to do that for awhile," Keith admits, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth, and it's so completely endearing that Lance can't help but want to kiss him senseless – except, now he's allowed to, and so he does.

"Your bed is so uncomfortable," Lance whines as he sprawls out over it. "Why didn't you invest in a good mattress topper like I did? How do you even sleep on this horrible thing?"

"Sorry we don't all live such a glamorous life," Keith says flatly, but Lance knows he's probably smirking at his boyfriend's melodrama. "And you'll notice that I haven't been sleeping on it, genius."

He gasps, but doesn't make any effort to move. "It all makes sense now! You've been using me for my luxury mattress and four-hundred thread count sheets."

"You're not a bad cuddler, either," he agrees lightly, going through his dresser and grabbing a clean shirt to slip on over his bared chest.

Keith typically prefers to tease Lance instead of actually doing things as sweet as complimenting him, so whenever he deigns to say things like that, it always manages to catch Lance completely off-guard.

"Ugh," Lance moans, throwing an arm over his eyes. "You're so cute. It's disgusting."

Usually, they spend the night in Lance's bed, but Hunk's hosting a cram session in their room and requested that Keith and Lance take their cuddling elsewhere for the evening. So they're lounging about in Keith's room for once while Lance complains in between peeks at Keith's freshly-showered body. Now that his chest is covered, though, there's no point in ogling – hence the theatrical arm shielding his vision.

Keith finally comes over, nudging Lance's lax limbs to the side to make room for himself, and Lance shamelessly slips his hands underneath Keith's shirt to splay his fingers across his boyfriend's back.

"Wait," Lance says - well, gasps - as he's hit with a bout of inspiration. He shoots off the bed with none of the lethargy previously displayed, and Keith watches in bemusement as he strides quickly across the length of the dorm room.

This is the best idea he's had in ages, he thinks as he tugs off one of his socks and moves to open the door.

"Payback," he smirks, slipping the sock over the handle of Keith's door, and when he turns back around, he's greeted with the sight of his boyfriend's face split open into a wide grin.

It's too tempting of a sight for him to not book it back to the too-small bed as Keith's chuckles fill the small room.