A, You're Adorable (Klance) [DISCONTINUED]

Eighteen: R is for Roses

//important announcement at the end

Roses are red, and Keith's jacket is, too, but violets are violet, not heccing blue.

It had taken one birthday for Keith to become integrated into the squad past the point of practical, generic gifting (a hair tie collection, lint roller, and Red's fingerless gloves). The need for sentimentality had completely screwed Lance over for this first Christmas, when he would be expected to meet even higher standards. That was obvious, though. No hippos could save him now.

"Nice bow," Keith remarked as he killed Lance with his snail-paced prying and peeling. Geez, man, no one actually reused the stuff.

"Quick, before it's Christmas Eve again."

Rip. "I'm getting to it."

"Oh, Shiro, it's beautiful! You shouldn't have. I got something for you, too."

Lance tugged at the carpet. "Even Allura's done."

The moment came, but he refused to look up until Keith laughed. "Did you ask someone how to write this? 'Shèngdàn jié kuàilè.'"

"You know it, bro. Grace from Math said it differently, though. Uh... 'sing dan fai lok', or something," Lance flipped the cover of the book on top of the first page and began paging through to show it off. "I know scrapbooks are stupid, but I thought it'd be cool for senior year, and all."

"Right. Grace is Cantonese," Keith shuffled over to lean against Lance. "It's perfect."

Yeah, of course it was perfect. It was common knowledge that Keith preferred spiral-bound scrapbooks over cover-bound ones. He was a sucker for kitschy but low-key aesthetic lined paper, too. With the power of Pidge and her ridiculous assortment of watercolor pens, washi tape, and whatnot, anything in the book would look great, from their group deer-filter selfie to an in-formation dab with Space Dad. Ah, memories.

"Look, man," Pidge propped her glasses on her desk, "the difference between you and Juan is the difference between displacement and distance."

"Juan is almost always greater than me and the first people recognize when they think of Latinos?"

She scoffed. "Greater than you? He has no taste in memes! No, idiot, it's like a vector versus a scalar. You both have magnitude, but you're the only one who has direction. That's what matters. Quit worrying. He's not going to apply to the Garrison; I can tell. He doesn't have the drive. You're gonna get in."

Whatever Lance's doubts, Keith's amused smile smacked them away like flies with the heel of his mother's shoe.

Shiro came down from his chair. "I should really ask someone to fix that stupid clock for me. Don't worry about what the Garrison says about their acceptance maximums. If you've got the potential, they'll be tripping over themselves to let you in."

"But what if I don't?"

"Lance," the teacher put a hand on his shoulder, "I know for a fact that you do. You're a lot like I was. Don't worry about it."

There was enough clutter and action in the living room to distract the adults from noticing Lance leading Keith out to the patio and into the night, and then right back into the kitchen, because their shoes were by the front door, and it was frigid outside. Common sense, who?

"Here's the letter," Miguel announced in the stereotypical Latina aunt rising tone. "C'mon, Lancey Lance, open it up!"

"His hands are shaking," Alé chided. "Don't give him the letter opener; he'll stab himself. I'll do it."

Ricardo looked up from his DS to acknowledge that, despite Maria's whining, he was not moving his legs off the couch. She jumped up and sat on him. "From the Garrison? What does it say? Read it! ¡Lé-e-la, lé-e-la!"

"Congratulations," Keith fingered at his sweater. "I should've gotten you roses or something. People do that, don't they?"

"Roses for what?" he inquired halfheartedly.

Dark eyes, like Maria's or Shiro's, reflected lights beautifully. Keith's eye sparkle game was anime level. "Maria told me when I was walking her to her friend's place."

"It doesn't matter. We'll celebrate for both of us in February."

"My statistical odds are-"

Lance groaned. "Shut up, Matt. I don't care. You're gonna make it."

"I'm just saying, if I don't, I refuse to let you worry about me, or even us."

His fingers were warm as they traced the side of Lance's face, which burned just like Keith's passion for conspiracies and always having the better grades of the two of them. "I told you Eomma would love having you over."

Lance chuckled. "Right as usual, samurai."

And they kissed.

As Hunk had observed, the fuego of kissing was never as high as the first time, but it was still nice. Nah, man, they all just liked saying "fuego". It was still a bit flustering, even after all these times.

"What does a girl have to do to get a cookie?" Pidge grumbled. "Make out somewhere else. There are children in the other room, not to mention your parents."

"My mom put the cookies on the highest shelf of the cabinet above the fridge," Keith noted.

Pidge had already grabbed a stool and reached for the stars. "Ugh! Curse these short arms. There's a reason why we don't put stuff on that shelf. Lance, get over here."

"I could-"

"Don't sass me, Sasuke. You're not that much taller than me."

Matt quit geeking out with Allura long enough to catch them before Lance could open the cabinet. They couldn't bribe him this time; cookies were absolutely for later. Mrs. Holt must have had something of his hostage. Did he really still care that much about his old glasses case? Just because it had a nice sticker on it; really? ("He protec, he attac, but most importantly, he just wants his Hinata sticker bac," Pidge muttered.)

There was enough in the kitchen to extend Pidge's Plan B to every guest, so Matt returned to the action. "Would anyone like hot cocoa or chocolate?"

Three mugs of water, and six of milk; marshmallows introduced into two water and five milk servings. The power of guesstimated increments of pouring, stirring, and dumping was the only thing keeping Lance's chocolate warm. It would be delivered in degrees of respect, though it was dubious that Mrs. Holt would be the first to take a sip: Mrs. Holt, Sra. McClain and Maria, Shiro, Matt, Alé, Shay, Ricardo, Pidge, and finally Lance.

"One hour to cookie time," Keith tipped Lance's mug to steal a sip.

//see my profile for the announcement; it's long, but I need y'all to see it