"Have you tried on any suits yet?" Keith asked as he tapped away on his phone, his purple eyes glued firmly to the app he was on as he spoke to Lance.

Lance seemed to ignore the question as he stood in front of his mirror and held up his shirt to stare at the bruise forming from his encounter with Lotor. "It's so ugly!" He whined pathetically, a little pout forming on his lips.

Keith's eyebrows knitted together to form a little frown as he glanced away from his phone to look at Lance's back. His shirt still covered his kin from behind so Keith couldn't see whether or not Lance had any more bruising than what he had told Keith about. Hearing the fact that Lotor had kissed the scrawny guy a few feet away from Keith made his stomach twist in anger and annoyance. He didn't want someone so rotten to hurt Lance psychologically but Keith wasn't there to protect his boyfriend from any of it. He was more angry at himself for not keeping those bruises from forming on his skin than he was at Lotor kissing Lance.

He wanted to protect Lance in any way he could but he knew he was too weak to even try. He sighed quietly and turned his attention to his stomach and gently placed his fingers above the scar he had under his shirt. As long as he had to be cautious of this little thing, he wasn't going to be able to help anyone.

He ran his fingers along the edge of his smartphone and furrowed his brows a bit. This entire world just sucked, didn't it? Sometimes he wanted to meet this 'God' everyone spoke of and tell the big guy to go blow him because the 'God' created such a dark and shitty world where finding happiness was the hardest thing you could attempt to do. Keith rolled his head back and leaned against Lance's bed and let out a long sigh.

"You okay?" Lance asked, curiosity and concern filled his blue eyes to the brim as he dropped the front of his shirt to turn to look at Keith.

Keith shrugged slightly, "Eh."

Lance frowned before he walked over to kneel in front of Keith, "Use your words Keith, what's wrong?" He asked almost mockingly.

Even if they were dating, they wouldn't lose that weird playfulness. Keith rolled his eyes and shrugged once more, "I'm bored, okay?" Lies.

Lance twirled a piece of his hair between his index finger and thumb for a brief second before a lightbulb must've went off in his brain. "I got it Keith, let's make a cake!"

"Cake?" Keith scoffed bitterly, "Don't you have someone like a servant make that for you?" He asked in all seriousness.

Lance sat there in a stunned silence for a moment, his eyes full of confusion and his lips parted almost as if he were trying to form a word. Then, this goofy chuckle slipped through his parted lips and his cheeks turned red as he slapped his hand over his mouth, "Oh my god," Lance giggled. "I knew you were spoiled but I didn't know you were this bad! Do you even know how to turn on an oven?" Lance began to giggle even more, tears forming on the brims of his eyes as he struggled to keep it together.

Keith's face became hotter than hell itself as he stared at Lance with wide eyes. How hard could it be to turn on an oven? There was surely an off and on switch, right? So what if he's never had to directly make his own stuff before! Keith wrinkled his nose up in anger and crossed his arms, "Of course I know how to turn on an oven!" He shouted in embarrassment, his voice cracking ever so slightly.

Lance's lips curled into a sadistic grin as he continued with this terrible game he was playing, "How do you turn it on?" He asked smugly.

Keith was silent for a second, his heart thundering in his chest as he went into a panic. "The um..." He cleared his throat and looked away from Lance shyly, "The on switch?"

"Oh god," Lance fell onto his back and began to cry of laughter, "You're too far gone! I don't believe I'll ever be able to save you at this rate!" He squealed.

Keith frowned and crawled over to kneel above Lance as he glowered, "Shut up, dickhead!" He hissed and pinned Lance's arms above his head.

Lance continued to giggle away as tears rolled down his face. "I bet you like this dickhead's d-"

Before Lance could finish, a familiar voice interrupted him. "Oh wow, I was wondering what the loud noises were up here, now I know," Vincent stood in the doorway with a despondent look on his face while a younger woman stood close behind him with rosy cheeks. He waved his glass of lemonade towards the two teens on the floor in such a questionable position, "This is my brother, the power bottom."

Keith and Lance both stared at Vincent with theirs faces brighter than tomatoes. Then, they turned their gazes to one another and quickly looked away before they scrambled to get out of the position they were in. Keith really didn't mind it, in fact, he thought Lance looked a bit cute laying under him like that. Thinking about it made Keith remember the other day when he was trying to teach Lance how to kiss. He enjoyed the feeling of power he had felt in that moment being able to slide his hands around Lance's body, being able to feel that soft skin of his neck under his lips. It was exhilarating and Keith wanted to feel this all over again but in a different way.

The two boys sat on the floor with their heads bowed in shame as Vincent stared at them in disappointment. "Well, this is Elizabeth. She's a teacher from the school I work at and I was going to introduce you to her but I think we should give you both some privacy," he sighed before guiding the embarrassed woman away from the doorway.

"Great," Lance mumbled quietly, "now Vinny is going to think we were about to do it with my door open..." He placed his face into his hands and grumbled something else under his breath.

Keith shrugged slightly, "Just close and lock the door then," he stated.

Lance lifted his head and gave Keith a look of pure shock, "I would never do it in my house while everyone is here!" He exclaimed.

"Would you even know how to do it with a man I you had the chance to?"

Lance's ears turned bright red as he avoided eye contact with Keith. "W-Why would I know? I'm still exploring this whole thing y'know... it isn't like I'm automatically an expert on all things gay," he mumbled.

Keith gave the boy a sympathetic look, "That's fine, but maybe we should start trying to explore these things so you get used to it? I know this is all new and it'll take a while to get into dating another man but we can always try things as they come to your mind," Keith smiled reassuringly.

Lance glanced over at Keith making direct eye contact before he quickly looked away again, "O-Okay then did you um," His voice faltered for a moment before he looked over at the door, "did you want to try the thing we did last time?"

Keith's eyes widened as he realized Lance was asking passively to make out with him. You didn't have to ask this gay twice. He hobbled over to the door and shut it, seemingly forgetting about the cake they were going to make. Lance awkwardly allowed Keith to lay down on the bed before he knelt above him, uncertainty in his eyes.

In all honesty, seeing Lance kneeling above him with rosy cheeks and his eyes so shy, it made Keith's lips curl into an admiring smile. He liked this. "Alright, remember what we did last time?" Keith asked as he reached up to place his hands onto Lance's cheeks in order to make the boy make eye contact with him.

Lance nodded sheepishly and leaned down to kiss Keith but he stopped right above Keith's lips, "Do I just go straight in with tongue action or like?" Lance's hot breath tickled  Keith's lips making the smaller boy practically melt under him.

Keith was slightly frustrated as he glared up at Lance, "Don't call it tongue action ever again but just kiss me normally and trust me, we'll get into the groove of things."

"O-okay!"

They never really did quite get into the groove of things. Instead, the next five minutes consisted of Keith aggressively commanding Lance what to do as the boy fumbled about, neither knowing how to properly hold Keith's body under his nor knowing how to be a top at all. It was funny though, seeing Lance try so hard at something he wasn't at all good at and in the end they only kissed twice but were on the bed laughing with one another out of pure amusement.

"God, I fucking suck don't I?" Lance asked as he rolled out of the bed and began to help Keith up, careful of the stitches that were already almost healed.

Keith nodded and grabbed his cane, "Maybe you really are a power bottom?" He joked.

Lance gently placed his fist on the back of Keith's head jokingly, "Don't ever call me that again dipshit."

"Yeah yeah yeah, let's bake a cake already," Keith grumbled.

They made it downstairs and managed to find all the ingredients they had needed for the chocolate cake Keith was now so interested in making. Lance was a bit weird. He had this 'system' as he called it, where he needed to listen to music while he baked food for himself or his family while he sang along or danced along to it.

Keith tried to get into it as Lance taught him how to start the oven in order to preheat it. Keith watched Lance shake his hips to to the beat of Treasure. It was lame but while Keith leaned against the counter behind him and allowed his eyes to follow Lance's every step, he couldn't help but find himself tapping his foot to the beat and bobbing his head while a smile painted his face.

Lance was... he was amazing. He could make a smile appear on Keith's stern face easily without even trying. Just by simply using the mixer as a mic as he sang along to the chorus made Keith tilt his head back in laughter. This was a one of a kind feeling, wasn't it? His chest ached but not in a bad way. As he wiped tears from his cheeks he lifted his hand to his chest and felt the gentle beat of his heart inside of his body. This was fondness, affection, warmth. He felt as if his little crush had begun to evolve into something more than just admiration and fondness. It was verging on something even greater, wasn't it?

Lance carefully dabbed the chocolate covered mixing spoon onto Keith's nose coyly and smiled, "Smiling to yourself makes you look crazy," he snickered before turning the spoon back to himself and licked the chocolate off it without a second thought.

His face screwed up in disgust and he stuck his tongue out with a grossed out expression. Keith wiped the chocolate off his face with a little scowl before he gently punched Lance's shoulder. "Cringing at the taste of cake batter is something only a psycho would do."

Lance whined pathetically, "But it's so sweet!"

"It's chocolate what do you want?" Keith frowned.

Lance whimpered as he dropped the spoon into the sink and placed the cake into the oven. "I haven't had chocolate in so long I completely forgot how sweet it really was..."

'Well,' Keith thought to himself as he watched Lance grab a granola bar in defeat, 'you had to start somewhere if you want to begin your recovery.'

Well

Does Takashi Shirogane is gay??

I want to work Adam into the story as like a guest appearance like lotor's (RIP my boy) generals but I don't know what his character is like so oof gotta wait I suppose. I have an idea but I still want to wait until I see how he acts unless you guys are perfectly fine with me writing him as a serious type of guy because I feel like he's probably serious and stern?

Man, I don't know but you guys will probably be surprised what I do with his character.

How's it going? I hope you're all doing great, I really do ❤❤ I love all of y'all and I hope y'all are enjoying this so far but to be quite honest, I don't think this story will end for a while because I have so many loose ends to tie up first. My guess is around 86- 100 chapters in total before the end and even then I'll probably do bonus chapters for you guys like if you want extra scenes and whatnot, however, I have the end decided on and it'll be heartbreaking. This story will end in a time skip of them as adults and what the future had in store for them.

I personally feel like a final chapter, which will probably be short and sweet, set with the group as grown adults would be the best for this type of story but I am curious to know what y'all think about this. I'm still planning on doing a novel version of this with different changes in it of course and all of the mental/physical illnesses the characters have here will remain the same for their novel counterparts except for Keith and his novel version. Orion, Keith in this fanfic, will instead have cystic fibrosis. I have a lot of research to do on this but  felt that this was better than him having cancer, Since cancer is such an overused illness nowadays in stories.

Anyways, have a good night, okay?

-Anri

(PS. It hasn't been directly stated in this fanfic but can you guys take a guess at what year this takes place? The music is a big help if you've been paying attention because the year will definitely play a part in the final chapter ;) )