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Lance shook his head disapprovingly at the condition of Keith’s wings; at least half of the feathers weren’t in their proper state, all tousled and unsharp.
Lance’s hands itched with a desire to go over there and smooth over those feathers. He caught himself from moving just in time by clamping down on that desire hard and killing it on the spot. What the heck was that? But that specific train of thought didn’t die and fade away. It only got stronger as Lance caught another glimpse of his friend.
It was then and there that Lance had a massive internal battle with himself.
No no no he absolutely would not do what he desperately desired to do, that was weird and would only make the situation more awkward, and it was way too risky to ruin the tender trust that had somehow grown between them, and it had already taken so long to reach such a point, why risk losing it all when Lance was so close, so close to--nevermind that, Keith was his friend , god, when had Keith become his friend? How long had it been since they last referred to one another as rivals? An eternity ago, they had just been classmates at the same flight school. Where had all that time gone?
But surely they were close enough to do bro stuff like this. Peer grooming was completely normal social activity. For normal people. For bros. Lance and Keith were bros, right?
Right.
“Heeeeeeey, Keithy boy,” Lance began, with a smile that was as wide and annoying as possible. It was bait designed for Keith and Keith only. “I just happened to notice that your wings are in an entirely unacceptable state. Would you, perhaps, need the assistance of a wing-care master like me?”
Silence.
Oh no, did I go too far? , Lance wondered.
“Are you offering to groom my wings?” Keith asked.
More silence.
Lance hoped that his momentary state of inner turmoil would not show through to his carefully blank facial expression. He could totally keep his cheerful mask on, just this once. He desperately hoped that Keith didn’t notice how warm and red his face must have been, or how his heartbeat started speeding up. Or how the tiniest tinges of sweat were probably beading up on his forehead in a manner reminiscent of nervous anime characters.
The two boys stared at each other for a long time, and the awkward silence between them continued stretching on and on and on until it was almost unbearable.
“You. You…” Keith stammered, face flushing.
Lance frowned and slapped a hand over his face in exasperation, though Keith was pretty sure he saw the faint traces of a blush flicker over his friend’s rich skin.
“Hey, I’m just being nice and offering you my company!” Lance exclaimed from behind his hand. “I didn’t have to just offer to spend maybe an hour of my life with you when I could totally be outside flying and perfecting my tricks to show to the ladies-”
“Alright alright, I get it!” Keith yelled. And here they were again, tense and ready to bicker.
Lance’s eyes widened a little and he slowly removed his hand so that his face was fully visible. Maybe if he was as unguarded as possible, Keith would instinctively find it in himself to trust Lance.
Meanwhile, Keith was also slowly heating up. And yes, he had been right. Lance was blushing. Huh. His embarrassment was so obvious it was hard to ignore. Even Keith, as socially oblivious as he was, could notice how Lance’s body language had changed from being open and welcoming to something a little more closed off and shy: he was hunched over, wings pressed firmly against his back, making him appear much smaller than usual.
At the thought of Lance’s wings, Keith blushed even further.
What Lance had just offered… it was awkward to think about and even more awkward to consider. He wasn’t actually considering it, was he? Oh, but he was. Of course he was. When had Keith ever been able to refuse anything asked of him by Lance, even if Lance was technically the one offering to help him? Keith knew that it wasn’t a smart idea to accept. The budding attraction inside of him had been carefully suppressed for so long he was afraid that even a tiny crack in his demeanor would mean losing it all. In fact, the smart thing to do would be to close himself off, distance himself from Lance and his friendliness and company, and wait until he could totally control himself and his feelings again.
But then Keith looked over at Lance again and realized just how shy and sweet he looked, in such stark contrast from his usually confident, open air… and it was all over.
Keith was just a selfish, hopeless fool.
Just as Lance was.
“Yes.”
“What?” Lance asked, startled out of his silence.
“Yes,” Keith repeated, “you can groom my wings.”
Silence again. Keith cursed at himself internally for elongating the awkwardness. Too bad he didn't have that same calming effect on people Lance had. It was completely unfair that Lance had the ability to turn any awkward moment comfortable and Keith was just stuck being Keith.
Only about a minute later did Lance respond.
“O-oh. So you're fine with-”
“Just hurry up before I change my mind,” Keith snapped and then cringed at his harshness.
Lance looked at him with comically wide eyes, blinked once, then visibly relaxed. He stood up straighter and allowed his own wings to loosen a little until they were hovering behind his back, mottled dark brown and blue blending in with the shadows of the room.
They were both in Keith’s hut still, and the only light source came from the canopy skylight and convertible window. By the edge of the room was Keith’s nest where he slept, covered in various fabrics and blankets he had collected over the years. He supposed that he could start moving instead of forcing Lance to continue standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, because that would be a jerk move. And he wasn’t sure if he could stand his own silence any longer either.
Don’t make this weird, don’t make this weird.
Keith stepped over to his blanket pile, sat down with his face away from Lance, and stretched out his wings.
“Come here,” he said, patting a spot on his nest behind him with a hand.
Lance obliged even more slowly if it was possible.
Once both teens had seated themselves comfortably in the mess of blankets, there was silence. Again. Keith groaned.
“It’s okay! You don’t have to be all shy about this, you’re only making it weirder,” he eventually growled.
He still couldn’t bear turning around and facing Lance, not when his face felt about as red as his pinions.
“Okay, okay,” Lance said a little sheepishly.
Then, before he could allow himself to hesitate any further, he gently placed a hand on the underside of Keith’s left wing for support, and used his other hand to begin preening through the feathers.
It was a tedious process. Preening usually was, but Lance didn’t typically mind. He was the king of self-care, therefore he was also the king of wing-care. He didn’t spend hours of his afternoons carefully ensuring each of his own feathers was perfectly groomed for nothing. He didn’t spend days and weeks searching for the perfect beauty products, both for his skin and his feathers for nothing. Who knew that his treasure trove of experience would come in handy for a moment like this?
Lance found himself staring a bit too harshly at the red feather in between his fingers. He had slowed down when his thoughts overwhelmed him, and he quickly sped back up again in order to avoid any unnecessary suspicion from his friend.
But the thing was… Keith’s wings were really pretty.
Oh, way to go Lance, Lance thought to himself, you only upped the weirdness this time and it is entirely your fault.
And yet he couldn’t help but admit that it was true. For one thing, Keith’s wings were a solid raven color -- the same as his hair, actually -- that gradually faded to mottled brilliant crimson and black at the bottom and tips. Keith’s wings were also sleek and the feathers sharp. Lance quietly noted to himself that Keith’s wings reflected his personality, in a great show of irony that wasn’t even irony because it was so obvious. Yet, despite his harsh outward appearance, Keith was, in reality, a lot more sweet than he seemed. So, too, were his feathers. Even the outer pinions, which looked like tufted versions of knives from his collection, were actually smooth and the edges gentle. At one point, Lance caught himself tracing over one specific such feather for a good twenty seconds.
Each section that he finished admittedly looked much better than the slightly unruly-looking ungroomed feathers. If the feathers hadn’t been beautiful before, they certainly were now.
Lance began humming to himself as he worked; it was really an excuse to fill the silence with something, anything. Keith didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he relaxed even further, and the tenseness in his back and shoulders slowly dissipated with Lance’s gentle touches. He concentrated as he combed the dirt from a particularly damaged feather out, then smoothed over it again just to be sure. He gradually worked his way from the primaries to the secondaries, then to the coverts.
Time ticked by slowly. A few moments after finishing the back of Keith’s left wing, he scooted around to face the other boy and start on the underside.
What he was totally not prepared for when he slid his fingers under the feathers was Keith to sigh so quietly and contentedly. It did funny things to Lance’s insides. And by ‘funny things’, Lance meant ‘do flips and some other pretty impressive acrobatics’.
Meanwhile Keith’s stomach had probably liquified itself from nerves. Except his nerves themselves were gradually liquifying. Lance was turning his wing into a relaxed pile of feathers. Now, all Keith wanted to do was lie down and let Lance continue working while he himself took a nap… or something. He felt very sleepy all of a sudden. Who knew peer-to-peer grooming felt so nice?
Lance took another moment to note to himself that the feathers on the underside of his wings were even softer. Internally, Keith is even softer, Lance mentally yelled. Lance was seriously about two seconds away from gushing, he thought it was so cute. The symbolism that could be derived from the character of Keith’s wings was so downright astonishing that Lance might as well have become a literary genius in that very moment.
There was a brief pause as Lance finished combing through those feathers and shifted to do the other wing. Keith couldn’t help the second sigh he released when he felt the other teen stroking along the feathered bone. The black-haired boy took a few moments to stretch out his freshly-groomed left wing and smiled in satisfaction at how much nicer it felt to move. He imagined that this is what having a full-body massage felt like, if he had ever gotten a massage. He felt boneless.
“You wanna admit that I’m good at this yet or what?” Lance whispered, ruining the moment.
Keith frowned even though Lance could not see it and compromised for the loss by lightly whacking Lance’s leg with his wing.
“Hey!”
“Shut up and continue.”
Keith somehow knew that Lance had won and was smirking anyway. Screw him.
Still, Keith couldn’t help when he began to lean forward until his torso was resting on his upright knees and his right wing had practically melted under Lance’s touch. This was so unfair. He was about to fall asleep and become completely vulnerable to whatever evil tricks Lance had up his sleeve -- from Keith’s own experience, he knew that Lance usually had the ability to do a variety of very evil things when one’s back was turned -- and that if he did fall asleep, he should expect to wake up to a facefull of ink pen doodles. But Lance didn’t do anything. He just kept right on grooming, while Keith almost fell asleep and caught himself nearly dozing off a few times.
The room was still dim from the lack of much light filtering in, and Lance tried very hard to not stare at Keith’s back because that was weird, and instead flickered his gaze around to look at Keith’s possessions. He had only been in his hut a few times, and only recently as well. It had taken the two of them that long to build up enough trust to begin letting each other in their rooms. Not that there was much to look at in Keith’s room. It was a rather small hut, with probably only enough space for four people to lie down. There was the colorful blanket nest and a few random possessions scattered here and there, but that was basically it. Over by the other side of the circular room was a desk with some paper and writing utensils. Above the desk on the wall was what looked like a very extensive conspiracy theory board. Lance noted that he would have to make fun of his friend for it later. Even farther away lay some clothes, Keith’s purple-tinted metal knife he was so obsessed with, his signature jacket, and his discarded boots.
Lance knew that he had long finished with grooming Keith’s wings and that he was more or less just mindlessly running his hands through the soft feathers at this point. But that was it. He wanted to continue stroking through the feathers. How could they be so soft and smooth when Keith rarely took the time to take care of his wings like Lance did, especially when he flew so frequently and so fast?
That was when Lance noticed that Keith had been fluffing up, and now his wings were twice as poofy as usual. He couldn’t help bursting into a fit of giggles like an immature twelve year old.
“What?!” Keith demanded, whipping around and nearly slapping Lance in the face with his wing.
Lance took a deep breath, looked at his friend, then started laughing uncontrollably again.
“What am I doing wrong? Stop it!” Keith shrieked and made a halfhearted attempt at tackling Lance, who only kept on laughing, the absolute idiot.
“You’re all fluffy!” Lance yelled and swatted Keith’s attacks away.
“Am not!”
“You so are! Look at you, you look like a freshly molted pubescent fledgling-”
“Fuck you!”
“Whoa whoa, language!”
Except none of it was really serious. Keith was practically on top of Lance, himself laughing as he swatted at the other teen, wings flailing around wildly in an attempt to maintain his balance.
“You haven’t truly wrestled with someone until you’ve had as many siblings as me,” Lance said, smirking as finally gained the advantage and shoved Keith to the side.
Then he executed a perfect dive roll onto the other, where he proceeded with the only logical following course of action, which was to tickle Keith. And to Lance’s genuine surprise, Keith was ticklish. Lucky him. His smirk increased in evilness by a factor of at least four.
“Stop tha--!” Keith was cut off with an intense wave of tickles which left him yelling.
The dark recesses of Lance’s mind noted that Keith had a really nice laugh, and that Keith should totally laugh more- even though his laugh was hypnotizing in a way which could potentially have dire consequences, like making Lance’s heart stop completely.
Eventually they tired out, and Lance simply laid on top of Keith, waiting for his breathing and his frantic heartbeat to slow. His own wings were spread out on either side of him, acting almost like a barrier or a blanket for the two of them. Keith was strangely silent.
Then Lance felt a hand gingerly prodding at his wing.
“You should let me return the favor,” Keith whispered, and wow, Lance was totally not prepared for how quiet and low his voice got.
He tried to respond in the most normal way possible: with cockiness and his usual arrogance.
“Pfff what? No way. You have absolutely no experience at all in luxury wing care,” Lance forced out a scoff, though it was shakier than usual. He continued, “If I let you groom my wings you’d probably only ruin them.”
Keith frowned. The crease between his brows deepened.
“Well excuse me for trying to be polite. What kind of person spends an hour on their beauty routine each day anyway?”
“Clearly the type of person I am, which is an awesome one.”
“Did you do something special today?” Keith said, leaning upwards to carefully scrutinize Lance’s feathers. “You smell like pineapples.”
“I smell like pineapples because my spa routine involved using some new pineapple scented preening oil that I got down at the market a few days ago. If you had any sense of self-amelioration you would be asking me if I could use some on you.”
“And have me smelling like pineapples? No thank you.”
Lance put a hand to his chest in mock offense.
“Here I am, offering you my awesome pineapple-scented wing-care services, and here you are, blatantly refusing them. Now who’s being the impolite one?” He joked, and sent Keith a winning smile.
Keith returned it with the scoff and the glare he reserved for Lance and Lance only.
It was easy for them to fall into their usual routine of banter and argument. It made it easier for Lance to forget that he was still hovering awkwardly on top of Keith, like the situation wasn’t as innocent as it actually was. No matter how much he longed and ached for it to be otherwise.
And there it was again. He found himself gazing helplessly at Keith, who had the audacity to not even care about beauty techniques and was still breathtakingly pretty in a way that totally should have been illegal. Lance found himself wondering about how Keith could be so powerful. How he managed to effortlessly have such dark hair and smooth skin and high cheekbones and dark, dark eyes that drew weak-hearted people like Lance in and captured them and held them forever, like a particularly powerful tornado or a black hole, or, or...
The two teens were close, too close. And oh god, in their position, if the situation had been different…
Lance ripped himself off of the raven-haired boy who was slowly winding his way into Lance’s heart without even realizing it. A flood of thoughts filled and quickly overwhelmed his mind. Those thoughts included everything from wow, is Keith really pretty or what to huh, it’s really nice being close to Keith to oh, I guess I kind of like him , and it was that last thought that echoed louder than all the others that then made everything else screech to a dead halt.
“O-okay,” he stammered and he hated how Keith had the power to scramble his thoughts so easily, “I think you’re all set so, I should leave. I mean, uh. If you want me to.”
The dreaded silence was back.
Lance could feel Keith’s harsh gaze burning into his back. He knew that he was curling his wings around himself protectively, knew that it was only showing his unease, knew that Keith probably wouldn’t fare very well with his reaction because even Keith wasn’t dense enough to realize what Lance was trying to do, and even Keith who was as iron-willed as he was had enough of a heart to feel hurt.
“Lance?”
His stomach was doing more acrobatic flips. At this rate it could join a world-class circus. Don’t say my name like that , Lance wanted to yell, you don’t know what it does. What it’s like.
“Is everything alri-” Keith cut himself off, cleared his throat, and tried again, in an even quieter voice, “Are you okay?”
No, no I’m not, because I just had an epiphany, and it wasn’t even the good kind of epiphany.
Lance squeezed his eyes shut to try to block out his reality. It did not work. All he could see was flashes of a smile, dark eyes, dark feathers laced with a red that matched Keith’s fiery personality-
He really needed to stop. And maybe gain some greater control over his thoughts, that would help. Also, it would be nice if he could turn off the poetic literary genius portion of his brain.
And then of course Keith had to go and approach him, and then he had to go and tentatively brush his fingers through Lance’s feathers, as if Lance hadn’t just been trying to suppress wild daydreams about the action or anything.
“You don’t have to feel embarrassed that someone who sucks at grooming as much as me is willing to help you,” Keith chuckled.
Lance wanted to scream. How the hell can someone be this dense?
“I promise I won’t mess up your wings. Or at least I won’t mess them up to the point of losing their pineapple scent, as weird as it is.”
Lance felt Keith gently coaxing him to lower his wings so the feathers would be easier to reach and preen, and he felt himself lower his defenses almost involuntarily, and he felt Keith’s presence like a warmth behind him, and he felt his own urge to just relax into Keith’s touches like he had always wanted but could never have.
Screw Keith for being so persuasive.
Lance had no way of knowing that secretly, Keith, too, was burning up on the inside. Lance was right, even he was willing to admit. He had absolutely zero skill in grooming wings. Even if he wasn’t actually being productive by smoothing out the feathers, at least it gave him an excuse to touch them. Also, Keith was beginning to notice that his touches did indeed have an effect on Lance, and that made himself even more warm. He was sort of flattered that Lance would trust him like this, the strategic and battle-oriented part of his mind thought. To turn your back on someone and offer the most delicate, vulnerable part of your body for them to touch, was something truly intimate. Had any avian misplaced their trust, they could easily become crippled for life.
Keith allowed himself to close his eyes and play with the soft, warm feathers. His burning face didn’t stop him from blurting out the first thought that came to his mind, which, because of his trash luck, just so happened to be, “you have really nice wings.”
And now both Lance and Keith wanted to die.
After a long expanse of time in which the two teens tried to regain control of their fleeting thoughts, Lance tried to change the topic again. By then Keith had long since given up on successfully grooming Lance’s wings.
“Are you sure you don’t want pineapple-scented feathers?” He asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
Keith fixed him with a look that could burn through metal.
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Alright, fine, have it your way.”
Lance’s own nervousness at the intimacy of the situation gradually dissipated as time went by, and now he could fully appreciate the hominess of Keith’s hut, and the friendly atmosphere that had developed. He liked being around Keith. He liked spending time with Keith. He liked Keith . This time, the thoughts came a little more easily.
“Why am I so tired?” Keith mumbled, suddenly quieter than before.
“Maybe because you don’t ever sleep like a normal person? Seriously, how many hours of sleep do you get a night?” Lance said.
“Enough.”
“That obviously can’t be true,” Lance pressed, gesturing vaguely at Keith’s face as a whole. “I mean, look at those bags under your eyes!”
Keith closed his eyes and huffed.
“If anything it should be your fault for making me sleepy. You were the one that offered to groom my wings!”
Lance was never going to get that image out of his mind, was he?
“You’re so weak. The tiniest amount of contact with another living person and you’re already out of energy,” he teased.
Keith's only response was to push weakly at Lance with a wing.
“Hey hey hey! You’re messing up your feathers. Don’t forget I just spent like an hour fixing them up.”
“Of course. How could I ever forget,” Keith whispered, already letting himself fall into the warm embrace of sleep and unconsciousness.
Lance didn’t respond, but Keith wouldn’t have heard it if he did, because he was asleep within seconds.
Just then the full severity of the situation hit him full force in the chest, and he nearly fell over from the metaphorical impact. Keith had just lights-outed on him. Literally on him. His head had dropped onto Lance’s shoulder, his raven hair tickling Lance’s chin, and he was no longer moving save for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. One of his wings was thrown over his eyes, and the other was half folded, pressed against Lance’s arm.
Heat began to rush to Lance’s face before he’d even formed a coherent thought.
Keith had the freaking nerve to act all alluring like that and then fall asleep on him. Lance wasn’t sure his weak heart could handle the cuteness. He was probably going to combust.
The two were leaning up against the side of the bed-nest comfortably, and Lance found it easy to adjust their position so that his own wings were wrapped almost protectively around his sleeping friend. Now that he was the only one awake, he allowed himself the luxury of looking at Keith, truly, without having the threat of being seen. Keith’s furrowed brows had relaxed somewhat, and his short, dark lashes cast shadows on his cheeks. The rest of his face was obscured by one wing, which, despite Keith’s attempts at denial, had fluffed up. It was already warm and the extra layer of puffed-up feathers only served to spread that warmth, which made Lance’s mind fuzzy.
He looked around the room one last time before succumbing to the allure of cuddling.
Screw my afternoon plans, he thought to himself, it can’t hurt getting some more beauty sleep.