pineapple

"Don't," Lance said, and he put his fingers up against Keith's mouth. He smelled of pineapple and his fingers were sticky against Keith's lips; Keith wanted to suck on them, lick the sweet juice away. But they were only in a darkened niche in the Castle's halls and not in the privacy of a room with a locking door so Keith just cast confused eyes at Lance and bit the inside of his cheek to stem his rising lust.

"What?"

"Don't. Don't say it." Lance pressed harder against Keith's lips, and Keith tightened his grip on Lance's hip. They were very close together and Keith knew that if he moved just a little bit closer, closed off the space just a little bit more, he could give Lance a hand job and make it look like they were having a serious conversation. He'd done it before, in front of Coran and Allura no less, and had gotten away with it. But he didn't want a quickie in a darkened corner, and he didn't understand why Lance was shying away from him, as skittish as a young colt. It was just sex, and, okay, so maybe Keith had been randier than a goat in heat of late but, well, it was spring and he was always frisky in the spring.

It was just sex and he didn't understand why Lance was being so damn serious all of a sudden.

"Lance. How can I say it when I don't know what 'it' is?" And Keith thought that was a pretty good comeback and they could move on to the sex now. And then Keith could see if Lance actually tasted like pineapples, sweet and tart in a way that promised to remove the enamel off of his teeth. But Lance just looked at him, sadly, and slid out of Keith's embrace. He walked off down the hall and Keith stared at his back.

"Well," he muttered to himself. "That sucked."

"Lance didn't want me to give him a hand job," he said to Hunk the next day, and perhaps he should have waited until after Hunk was out from underneath the ground-car's chassis before announcing this fact. He was relatively certain that Hunk would have appreciated the delay, at any rate.

Hunk rolled out from beneath the ground-car nursing a large bump and sporting a very sour expression. "What?" he asked -- growled really -- as he sat up very slowly.

"Lance. Yesterday. When we were in the corridor. He didn't want me to give him a hand job." Keith turned an empty bucket over and sat down on it. "In fact, he ran away."

"Uh huh." Hunk blinked a couple of times, and his eyes began to focus again. "I take it you've done this before?"

"Yeah. Um." Keith narrowed his eyes, thinking back and, yes, Hunk had been around when they'd gotten each other off in public. "You remember that time you thought I was chewing Lance out for being reckless and you tried to stop it by pretending you had a message from Coran and Lance told you to butt out and mind your own business? That this was between him and me? Or that time we went to Pollux for Bandor's birthday and I spent most of the night sitting at our table? And Lance kept smirking? Asking me if I wanted ice?"

Hunk closed his eyes and grimaced. "Oh Jesus. That was not something I really needed to know Keith."

Keith shrugged. "Our sex life is active. And shameless. And Lance starts a lot of it, I'd just like to point out."

"Apparently." Hunk opened his eyes again. "Okay. Now, here's the really important question. Why the fuck are you telling me this shit? Do I look like I'm desperately interested in your sex life?"

Keith blinked. Opened his mouth. He'd never thought about this possibility. "Well. No. But. I mean. I can't really talk about this to anybody else. And you, you know, pay attention to things."

"Though thankfully not enough attention at times," Hunk muttered.

"Well, either way. I thought that maybe you'd, you know. Noticed something. Could maybe help me explain why Lance doesn't want to fuck me."

Hunk sighed. Looked at the spanner in his hand. Keith tensed his body, preparing to duck any flying tools aimed at his head. Hunk put it down instead and gingerly touched his bump. He opened his mouth, looked like he was about to say something -- some verbal equivalent of a thrown spanner -- then closed it. He sighed again and opened his mouth again and said, "Lance is afraid that you're going to say the 'L' word."

Keith blinked. "Lesbians? But. Why did he think I was going to bring up lesbians during sex?"

This time Hunk did throw the spanner at him.

Keith wasn't an idiot. No matter what anybody thought about him, no matter how stupid he tended to act, he wasn't an idiot. And, true, he did tend to make the same mistake over and over. And over. And over. But, given enough time, he did get the hint. And he knew that he had a crappy relationship history -- none had lasted beyond a year; most died around the six month mark. This was usually because around six months into a relationship, Keith got serious and found, to his continual surprise, that his partner wouldn't. He always said 'I love you' at around six months, and almost nobody said it back. Which invariably lead to uncomfortable dates and Keith sulking, a little, and the final, ultimate, end.

Actually, now that Keith thought about it, six months was just about where he and Lance were.

And now he thought he knew why Lance was so skittish, because Lance knew about his failed relationships. New about them in painful detail, actually, since Keith had often bitched about them -- first the girls, when he tried out heterosexuality and found he really wasn't suited to that whole deal, and then with the boys after a not-so-drunken encounter with Sven opened his eyes to the joys of homosexuality. Lance always knew that, at around six months in, he should start buying cheap booze and stocking up on hangover cures; Lance knew that six months was par for course; and Lance knew that death always came because Keith got serious and then got huffy when it turned out that he was getting serious all alone -- or became suffocating in his affection on those rare occasions when his partner said 'I love you' back.

But, this was with Lance. And Keith wasn't an idiot.

He thought Lance knew that.

"Why is he so afraid I'll say 'I love you'?" he asked Hunk a few days later, making sure that Hunk was nowhere near large metal objects that could easily be lobbed at his head.

"Are you still on about that?" Hunk put down his book and glared at Keith. "I know you're getting laid. I can hear you through the ventilation shaft."

"Yeah, but Lance is...distant." Keith picked up Hunk's book, read the title. "Oh. 'Lord of the Flies'."

"So? Talk to him." Hunk took the book back and buried his nose in it. "Stop trying to drag me into your sordid sexual deviances."

"What? The hand jobs?" Keith shrugged. "Well, I don't know if that's really deviant. Sometimes we play bondage games. And sometimes--"

"Enough!" Hunk put his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes tightly closed. "LA-LA-LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" he shouted.

Keith sighed. He poked Hunk, pulled away one of Hunk's hands. "Fine! I'll stop talking about sex."

Hunk stopped shouting and opened one eye cautiously. "Really? You promise?"

"Yeah. But." Keith sat down on the armrest of Hunk's chair. "You've got to help me. I mean. I really. I do love him. And. I don't want to screw this up. It feels." He shrugged, trying to articulate the complex emotions that swirled and tangled within him, created a violent whirlwind of things that could be explained only as being red and green and purple and heliotrope. How to voice the strands of wanting and needing and friendship and deep -- bedrock deep -- love that were woven so tightly together.

"It feels different this time," he said. "It feels real."

Hunk sighed. He pushed Keith off of his perch and glared down at him. "Talk. To. Him." He stood up and walked away.

Keith pushed himself up right. Brushed the dust off the back of his jacket.

Well.

That was probably as good advice as anything.

Keith cornered Lance in the hallway, again, and Lance smelled like pineapples. Again. It was terribly distracting, because now Keith couldn't remember why he'd cornered Lance, why he'd pushed Lance up against the corridor wall. He wanted to lick the sticky remnant of pineapple juice away from Lance's lips, to slide his hands down Lance's pants and taste the contrast of sweet juice and salty spunk. It took a supreme effort of will to not do just that and Keith wondered, briefly, if Lance had a secret pineapple stash somewhere, some hidden cache that he'd dip into and eat every time Keith wanted to have a semi-serious conversation.

"Keith," Lance said, softly, and his eyes were sad. "Don't do this."

"You're making me." Keith tightened his grip on Lance's hips. "You have to stop running."

"Then don't say anything that will make me run. Don't try and make this serious. It's just a game, okay? We're just having fun." Lance's arms slid around Keith's waist, held him tightly, and he belied his casual words. "We're just having fun."

"Yes. We are. But." Keith bit back 'I love you' and nuzzled the side of Lance's neck instead. "But I'm not playing around. This isn't a game. Not to me. Not to you."

"Yeah." Lance's sigh ruffled Keith's hair and he tilted his head back, stared up at the dark shadows on the ceiling. "I know."

"Good." Keith moved his hands, slid them under the hem of Lance's shirt. He splayed his fingers across the warm ridges of Lance's stomach, felt Lance's breath hitch. "That's all I wanted to say. That's all I wanted you to know."

Lance made a small noise -- of acknowledgement, perhaps -- and Keith smiled. Good. It felt...right to leave things at that. It felt right that this time all he had to do was mention, briefly, that he was in love and go on to the sex. Maybe it was because he'd known, all along, that he loved Lance and that Lance loved him -- Lance's willingness to get involved with him at all, knowing all that he did about Keith's romantic faults, proved that fact. Maybe it was because things felt different with Lance, like he didn't have to prove anything, didn't have to prove that he was serious or worthwhile or capable of love.

Maybe it was just Lance.

Either way, now that that was out of the way, it was time to play. Because Keith had been wanting to give Lance a hand job for weeks, now.

Keith kissed the side of Lance's neck, moved around, urged Lance's head down with soft kisses, captured Lance's lips. The pineapple was just as tart as he'd imagined and his lips puckered instinctively. He slid one of his hands down, worked the buttons of Lance's pants, the zipper, with the ease of familiarity. His hand found Lance's cock, ran lovingly, gently down the hard length, played with the smooth glide of skin over muscle. He moved his other hand around Lance, let it find the little bumps of Lance's spine, let his fingers dance up and down Lance's back like was playing a harp. Lance gasped into his mouth and his head fell back again, exposing the long column of his neck to Keith's lips. His fingers curled in, grabbed the cloth of Keith's uniform. Keith closed his eyes, rested his forehead against Lance's shoulder. With every breath he took in the heady smell of old leather, of the earthy musk of Lance's cologne, of the sweet twang of pineapple. He was hard, too, and he rubbed himself, gently, against Lance's leg.

Lance's hands released their grip, moved around, slid into his pants. Keith panted -- low, rough -- as Lance stroked him, teased him.

"Lance," he whispered. "Ah. I."

"Hai." Lance shuddered as he came, and the feeling of warmth and wetness on his hand triggered Keith's release.

Keith took slow, deep breaths. Kissed Lance one more time, took as much of the taste of pineapple as he could. He pulled his hand free of Lance's pants, licked his fingers clean, and the contrasting flavors were somehow nicer than he thought they'd be. Lance stared at him, still slightly flushed, and Keith smiled when he saw that there was no sadness lurking deep within Lance's eyes.

"Are we good?" he asked anyway. "Are you willing to do this with me?"

"Yeah." Lance pulled him closer, kissed him. He touched his forehead to Keith's, and his smile was relaxed. "Yeah. Let's give this a try."

"Oh Jesus. You two have rooms! Use them!" Hunk's voice was startling loud and Keith instinctively jerked away, turned his head just in time to be smacked by Hunk's book. Keith yelped and twitched away again, and the smack that had been targeted at Lance caught him as well. Hunk glared at the two of them, for a few, long moments and then turned away, stomping off down the corridor and muttering something that sounded like it was comparing them to a pair of dogs in heat.

Keith rubbed the spot where Hunk had hit him. "Ow."

"My hero." Lance brushed his lips across the imagined wound. "What set him off?"

"Oh I told him how you wouldn't let me give you a hand job the other day." Keith wrinkled his nose. "Apparently Hunk's quite the prude."

"Apparently." Lance zipped himself up. He looked at the stain on Keith's clothes. "I think you should change."

"Hmm?" Keith looked down and grimaced. "Yeah. Damn it. I got so worried about you acting all weird and distant that I forgot to restock on tissues."

Lance laughed and he captured Keith's hand, twined his fingers with Keith's. "Don't worry," he said, and his eyes, as he kissed the back of Keith's hand, were dark with promise. "I'm not going anywhere."

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