“You know I love you, right?”
Keith smiles. He doesn’t stop his hands from their constant brushes through his boyfriend’s hair, doesn’t shift or move. Lance stays where he is, too, full weight on Keith’s body, head pillowed on his chest, moving slightly with every breath.
“Yes,” Keith says. “I know.”
“Good.” Keith feels the rumble of Lance’s voice in his ribcage, the puffs of his breath on his bare skin. “‘Cause I tease you, a lot, so I wasn’t sure if you knew.”
“I do. I know.” He pauses as he runs his fingers over the shell of Lance’s ear, tracing the scar on his skull, before gently tapping his finger three times. For a while Lance simply breathes, sinking into Keith’s touch, then he shifts slightly, turning brown eyes up to meet Keith’s.
“How do you know, though? Like if you had to define it.”
Keith leans down slightly to press a kiss to his freckled nose, just to watch it wrinkle. It makes him grin. “I just do, Lance. You say my name like you love me.”
The answer doesn’t seem to placate Lance completely, but enough that he sighs, putting his head back down on Keith’s chest and reaching over blindly to pull their blankets up to his chin.
“Okay.”
Keith says nothing for a long while, humming to himself, enjoying the feeling of Lance’s soft skin under his hands, the weight of his body pressing him into the mattress. It’s a relief after a long day, a balm to his exhausted muscles and tired brain.
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
Keith tugs a strand of Lance’s hair in admonishment, not enough to hurt, but he grumbles anyway.
“Try again.”
“Maybe I don’t love the man who hurts me so,” Lance pouts, sticking out his bottom lip and rubbing his scalp like it actually hurts.
Keith rolls his eyes. Lance grins, then sighs.
“Just — someone said something, at training. Kind of huffed and said something about how annoying it was that we still don’t like each other.”
Keith snorts. “Well, you did shoot me.”
“I was justified! You were being irritating!” Lance shifts, moving to his belly so he can look at Keith properly, glaring. “And I put my bayard on stun! It barely hurt!”
Love of his life or not, Keith loves getting this man so riled up.
“Yeah, the giant bruise I have says otherwise.”
There is no giant bruise.
But messing with Lance is funny.
“You are not fucking bruised!”
Before Lance can get too enraged and start stripping him down to make sure, Keith laughs, giving up the game and grabbing Lance’s wrists. He pulls him forward so he loses his balance, arms around Keith’s neck, barely managing to catch himself before their heads smack together, face inches from Keith’s.
“You worry too much,” Keith whispers, nosing his way down Lance’s cheeks, peppering kisses as he goes. “I don’t give a shit what anyone else says. The whole point of keeping them in the dark is so that I can have you —” he bites Lance’s earlobe gently, pulling it slightly, making the Cuban’s breath hitch — “all to myself.”
“Still,” Lance tries to insist, but Keith can physically feel his resolve falling away, feel him melting into Keith’s touch. “It bothers me that people think I can do anything but love you. You’re — I dunno. You’re everything to me. You make me feel like I can keep going.”
Keith can’t help his smile, and he knows Lance feels it, pressed into the junction of his neck. He kisses slightly there, and Lance turns his head to give him access, slides his hands into Keith’s hair as he works a mark into dark skin.
“That’s gay,” Keith mumbles, as fondly as he can.
It takes a second for Lance to clock Keith’s words, too focused on the besotted sound of them, but he huffs when he does, shoving Keith away and glaring at him.
Keith bursts out laughing.
“You’re the worst,” Lance says, but soon he’s smiling, too. Keith leans in and kisses that smile, because he can and because he wants to.
“I know.”
“Jerk. I’m divorcing you.”
Keith hums, tugging him back down under the covers, wrapping him back into the position he was in earlier. “You won’t even let me marry you.”
“We are twenty years old,” Lance grumbles, but every time he says it he sounds less and less like he cares. “We’re not getting married at twenty years old.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Lance settles into the silence, breathing evening again, wandering hands going still.
“I love you too, by the way,” Keith murmurs, suddenly worried that Lance doesn’t know.
He feels Lance’s lips upturn, and smiles to match it.
He knows.
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