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fool me once When Keith woke up he knew instantly that he wasn't in his bed. For one thing, there was another body sharing the bed quite comfortably with him and it was physically impossible for two people to comfortably share Keith's bed--though Lord knows he and Lance had tried. For another, the pillows smelt wrong, of lingering perfume and not fading laundry detergent. Also--and this was how Keith was sure that he wasn't in his own bed anymore, Toto--when he cracked one eye open he saw Barbie Pink and lace. Oh dear sweet God Keith was pretty sure that he was still in the Castle. He was also pretty sure that he was lying in Allura's bed, a suspicion that was confirmed when he carefully rolled over and saw that his bed partner was a) blond and b) female. 'Okay,' he thought. 'This is weird.' He took a quick peek under the blankets. 'At least I'm still wearing underwear.' Of course he didn't know if this was also true of Allura. He hadn't been able to see much more than hair and the soft swell of breasts beneath the blankets when he'd taken a peek and he was not going to take a closer look. Nanny was very good with a meat cleaver and he liked all of his bits and pieces right where they were. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to remember what he'd had to drink and if why the two beers with the tequila chasers had been enough to convince him to shack up with Allura for the night, he didn't have the requisite hangover. He also hoped that Lance didn't have any embarrassing pictures of last night--and he had to assume that last night had been the kind of night that would lead to embarrassing pictures. He was mildly worried that he didn't have any memory of last night. With any luck, though, he'd be able to sneak out and get back to his room before anybody--particularly Nanny--knew where he'd spent the night. Sheets rustled behind him and Keith knew that he'd waited too long. He wondered if he could pretend to be asleep, or feign ignorance. Or maybe he could run, run very, very fast; anything to get away from here before Allura started screaming blood murder and hitting the soft, unguarded bits of Keith's body. Of course he knew that any action he took now would be too late. Allura rolled over, draped an arm over Keith's waist. Keith tensed, prepared himself for pain and screaming. He wasn't ready for Allura to make a soft, contented noise and make herself more comfortable on Keith's chest. Keith opened his eyes, looked down at Allura's sleepy smile. "Morning sweetie," Allura said and she planted a slow, gentle, familiar kiss on his lips. "Sleep well?" "Um." Keith blinked his eyes and wondered yet again at what the hell was going on. "Allura?" "Yes?" Allura traced nonsense patterns on Keith's skin. "What are you doing?" "What d'you mean, darling?" "I mean, what are you doing." Keith was very proud of the way he kept his voice calm and how he managed to bite down on a yelp as Allura's hand started to move further and further down his body. "Well, I was thinking that since we don't have practice this morning that maybe we could have sex now. I'm ovulating, after all, and it is my duty to produce a heir." Allura grinned a particularly wicked little smile and arched an eyebrow. "I see." Keith's eyes were wild and his breathing was shallow and fast. "Um. Maybe later?" "Oh don't tell me you're too tired." Allura pouted and kissed Keith's chest. "I didn't think last night had worn you out that much." "Last night?" Keith squeaked. "Mmm hmm." Allura kissed Keith's stomach and her hand resumed its downward journey. It slid under the elastic band of his boxers and Keith yelped. "Oh boy." Keith pushed Allura away and jumped out of the bed, catching his feet in the blankets as he did so. He worked himself out of the tangle of bedding, stood up to the accompaniment of Allura's giggling. He looked down at Allura, noticed the gold ring on her left hand, looked at his own left hand (though he knew that nothing good could possibly come from doing so) and saw the matching gold ring that adorned his finger. "Oh boy." "Everything all right, Keith?" "Um." Keith looked at Allura's ring and back at his own a couple more times. "Um. I think. I think I'm going to go take a shower," he said. "Okay." Allura watched Keith back away, heading for the door leading out of her chambers and into the hall. "Sweetheart? Where are you going? The shower's that way." She raised one languid arm and pointed. "Right. That way." Keith gave Allura a strained smile and almost ran into the bathroom. The door slid silently closed and the soft click of the lock was surprisingly loud. Allura permitted herself a devilish smile and stretched out across the bed. She reached under her pillow and pulled out the walkie-talkie she had stashed the previous night. "Lance? It's Allura." "Hey. How's it going?" Lance's voice was full of static. "Well, he's in the shower right now, probably having a pretty impressive freak out." There was a crash and a strangled, shocked sound from the bathroom and Allura smiled. "I think he just found the pregnancy test." "Great. I'll see you at breakfast. This is going to be the best April Fools Day ever." Allura could hear the smile in Lance's voice and reflected, not for the first time, on just how luck she was that her crush on Lance had never amounted to anything. * Keith spent the rest of the morning trying to deal with a day that was quite rapidly turning out to be the worst day of his life. He'd thought that waking up in bed with Allura was bad; he'd been a naïve idiot. Having to get dressed with Allura watching him so casually had been more nerve-wracking than the escape from Doom. Eating breakfast with Allura sitting in his lap and discussing the baby names and nursery decorations with Lance had left him in a cold sweat and kept him looking over his shoulder for Nanny and her cleaver. And when he'd looked into Lance's eyes and seen nothing but friendship and goodwill, Keith had almost been convinced that this was real that he was, in fact, married to the Princess. That he had sex with her on a fairly regular basis and was in serious danger of becoming a father. But Keith was what his mother called a suspicious bastard. And he couldn't dismiss the memory of Lance beneath him. He knew that he'd been hit in the head often enough, his brain rattled about by the shock of an impact against Black's shields, that sometimes his memory became jumbled and things that happened years ago (or never at all) felt as real as if they'd occurred only yesterday, but this was different. Besides, the thought of sex with Allura--well, with any woman--left him cold and frightened. So this whatever couldn't possibly be real. Then again, Keith had been around the multiverse long enough to know that dimensional shifts were not jokes people once thought them to be. And on this planet of science and magic, the barriers between dimensions might just be thin enough that he could, in fact, be the unwitting victim of inter-dimensional travel. The mental image of this dimension's Keith trying to deal with his Lance was almost enough to make him smile. But the dimensional shift theory was really out there and Occam's razor was telling him that this was the least likely possibility. He needed a couple of hours to figure out what the hell was going on. So, while Allura was busy doing whatever it was that princesses do, Keith snuck off to the library and locked the door. He needed to see what other changes had occurred, to find some sort of documentation and the quickest way to do that would be to access the Cortex and do a quick search for marriage announcements, press coverage, certificates, whatever. He sat down before a terminal and logged into his account. The screen blinked to life and Keith was suddenly very glad that he was sitting down. His normal desktop picture of the beach outside his parent's house had been replaced with one of himself and Allura getting married. There were new folders in his directory and PostIts with messages from Allura--reminders for things he had no memory of, intimate messages of love, links leading to sites that had suggestions for ways to increase conception rates and one that had diagrams for sexual positions that made him blush and rethink his opinion of Allura as a sexual innocent. There had been one that had used bits of the body that Keith didn't know could be used quite like that. Keith let out a sigh and sat back. There was no way that this was a prank. Not even Lance could be this thorough--even Lance didn't now how to access his account and Lance knew almost everything about him. "Right. Dimensional shifting it is." He rubbed his forehead, wondered how in the hell he'd be able to get back to his own dimension, wondered what else was different. For starters, he'd have to figure out the day and year--temporal as well as spatial displacement wasn't unheard of, after all. He opened his calendar and suddenly everything clicked. April first. He checked the date again, connected to the G.G network, reset his calendar. The date didn't change. Keith began smile. Well. This changed everything. * In the middle of the day, Allura grabbed Lance by the back of his jacket and pulled him into the rec room. "We've got to talk," she growled. "Yes?" "There's something wrong here." She sat down, crossed her ankles, then stood again and glared at Lance. "Keith's not playing fair." "What do you mean?" "Well, for starters, he just pinched my ass and called me baby." Allura rubbed her ass and began to pace. "He's beginning to act like we're really married. He actually kissed me." Lance frowned. "Really? Well. That certainly wasn't part of the plan." He blew a piece of hair out of his eyes. "Look, if he keeps doing it I may have to take some drastic measures." Allura sat back down and sighed. "I mean, I do love Keith but--" "You love me? Well, that's always nice to hear." Keith wandered into the rec room and leaned against the back of the couch. He kissed the top of Allura's head and smiled at Lance. "Hello darling, Lance." "Keith?" Allura's voice held a slight warble and Keith had to fight to keep back his devilish grin. "What's wrong?" Keith jumped over the back of the couch and lay down, head in Allura's lap. "Oh, I know. Don't worry, Allura. I love you too." He threaded his fingers between Allura's and kissed the back of her hand and watched Lance's face out of the corner of his eye. "Listen, I know I was acting weird this morning and I was thinking that maybe I could make it up to you." "What do you mean?" There was true panic in Allura's eyes and Keith felt devilishly good. "Well, I was thinking, we both have some free time right now. So, why don't you head back to our bedroom, slip into something a little more comfortable and I'll head down the kitchen and steal us a bottle of champagne, maybe some strawberries." Keith rolled off the couch and stood. He drew Allura up after him, pulled her close to him. He almost felt sorry for using her like this. "We can give the whole baby-making thing another try. Or two or three. However many it takes." He put on his most serious face and filled his voice with mock-gravity. "It is our duty, after all, to produce an heir for Arus." "Keith I--" Allura looked about ready to spill the beans and Keith wasn't ready for the prank to end just yet. So he kissed her instead, deep and passionate and slow, with pliant lips and a gentle, seeking tongue. He felt her tense and then suddenly melt and now he did feel guilty about what he was doing, but it was little too late. And then Allura began to kiss him back and he suddenly had to update his belief-state yet again because Allura definitely knew what she was doing and he was shocked to find that he was beginning to get a little aroused. What they were doing no longer seemed like a game but was becoming dangerously real. He wondered if maybe he'd been wrong about girls and a little part of him was curious enough to want to continue this and find out. "Okay. That's quite enough." Lance's voice drifted through his mind, but Keith didn't pay too much attention being too caught up in this new experiment. Then Allura was suddenly being hustled out of the rec room and Keith was being slammed up against a wall and Lance's familiar mouth was against his. The slow arousal that had been building with Allura suddenly burst and it took everything Keith had to not respond to Lance's bruising insistence. He let Lance finish the kiss and when Lance pulled away, flushed and breathing heavily, bedroom eyes roving Keith's face, Keith smiled. "Lance, you know I can't do this. I'm a married man." He raised his left hand and wriggled his ring finger in Lance's face. "It was just a joke! Geez, Keith, I knew that you were adaptable but really!" Lance put his hands on his hips and scowled. "Come on, even you aren't that gullible." "I knew it. I knew it!" Keith laughed--crowed, really-- and punched Lance in the shoulder. "I knew this was a prank!" "You mean you--The kiss--You looked really intense. I think you were enjoying yourself." Lance's scowl was rapidly becoming a pout, and Keith was more or less helpless against Lance's pout. "Oh, Lance." Keith pulled Lance close and gave him a gentle kiss. "You know the only person I want is you. Although, if you pull another stunt like this on me again, I may have to reconsider." "Don't worry. Next year, I'm targeting Sven. He's not nearly so devious." "Now, I just have to ask. How'd you manage to get into my account on the Cortex?" "Pidge owed me a favor." Lance sat down and pulled Keith down with him. "I taught Hunk how to give a decent blow job." "What?" "Don't worry. We used bananas." Lance made a small face. "It took a while too. Hunk kept eating his." |