Stars // klance AU

Paint Me Like One of Your French Paladins

It was a new kind of relief that swept over Keith when he heard Hunk's exasperated "Lance, please stop!" echo through the stairwell. He had accompanied Shiro that morning to help carry coffee for everyone. Lance had been back for about a day, but he had spent that first day in his dorm trying his best to calm his worried mother and convince her that he was fine. Keith had been worried that Lance had somehow bribed the doctors to let him out early, but seeing him in the flesh using a table as a stage cleared those concerns in an instant.

That is when Keith noticed Lance was not playing the saxophone, but rather a plastic recorder in a translucent blue. He was playing the mitchirineko march on loop, dangling his feet from the edge of the table as he swayed to the beat of the song. Coran and Allura seemed pleased with the choice of song, but Hunk did not share their opinion.

"Do you only know how to play songs on loop?" Keith directed the question to Lance as soon as he touched the bottom of the staircase. Shiro stepped to the side, walking over to one of the tables at the center to put down the cups of coffee.

Lance shot Keith a glare, taking his question as a personal offence. He stopped playing just to be able to jump off the table and immediately broke into an off key solo of My Heart Will Go On. Either he had not played it before, or he was hitting the wrong notes just to irritate Keith. Either way, Keith was cringing badly as Lance approached him, increasing the volume of the terrible sound. He moved dramatically around Keith, serenading him with the torturous song in spite. He reached the chorus the third time around, hitting a high note so off key that Keith had to rip the recorder from his grasp to stop him from breaking his eardrums.

"That was horrible," Keith deadpanned, holding the recorder behind him, out of Lance's reach.

"From one to The Roommate, how bad was it?" Lance grinned.

Shiro turned towards them, "Are you talking about me?"

Keith shook his head, "Never compare that... noise to The Room."

"What is that?" Shiro asked, joining the conversation now that they had his attention.

"You too?" Keith pushed his hair back in disbelief. "Has anybody in this room ACTUALLY watched The Room?"

Shiro and Allura exchanged a look, but both shook their head. Hunk and Coran also seemed lost in the current subject. Keith felt like he was speaking a foreign language among his peers.

"I've never heard of it," Coran shrugged. "Is it like that one movie that you're not supposed to talk about? What was it-"

"Fight Club," Hunk answered.

Keith slammed his hand on the closest table. "Rule one about Fight Club, You don't talk about Fight Club... ever!"

"You just talked about it," Lance smirked.

Keith groaned, twirling the recorder in his hand. "I honestly can't believe you guys."

"Well... how about we watch it all together?" Allura suggested.

Coran agreed, "club bonding exercise!"

Keith sighed, "This is a bad idea."

Lance walked up to him, throwing an arm around the shorter man's shoulders. "Don't be such a Debbie downer, Keithy-boy. Just stream the movie."

It did not take much convincing to get Keith to set up one of their laptops to stream the movie. They had moved to the commons of Hunk and Lance's dorm building, where Hunk helped Keith plug in the computer to the TV, so it would be easier for the whole group to watch.

All six of them tried to pile into one couch, resulting with Keith and Lance on the ground and Coran perched on one of the arm rests while the other three comfortably lounged on the piece of furniture. As payback for leaving them on the cold floor, Lance stole all the cushions and piled them along with a Star Wars blanket he had gathered from his room. It was comfortable enough for him and Keith to lay on and still be able to watch the movie, so there were no more complaints for the rest of the afternoon.

In the midst of all the cringing and groaning, Keith turned to face Lance. The sun-kissed man held a hand to his mouth, holding back laughter as he watched the movie. He noticed Keith's eyes on him and looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

Looking as uninterested as he could, Keith recited the scene from memory. "You're scaring me," he paused for a moment, waiting for the actress to stand up. "You are lying, I never hit you... you are TEARING ME APART, LISA!" Lance couldn't handle it anymore and broke into a fit of chuckles. "Why are you so hysterical!? Do you understand why?... Do you?" Keith looked at Lance again, watching the man wheeze in silent laughter. He just rolled his eyes, but he couldn't help but smile as well. There was just something terribly endearing about Lance choking on his own laughter because of something that was not even that funny in the first place.

Keith buried his face in the storm trooper print, focusing on the sound of Lance's erratic laughter dying out and the sharp scent of his detergent on the blanket. He never felt more like home until that moment.