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“Lance, where are we going?”
Grinning, Lance threw Keith a mischievous grin and responded cryptically, “A magical place, babe. A magical place.”
Keith let Lance pull him by the hand for a little longer before exhaling a resigned laugh and falling in stride next to his boyfriend. His chest tightened as Lance intertwined their fingers and gave Keith’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Watching the way Lance’s eyes crinkled with excitement and joy, Keith couldn’t help but feel excited too. A magical place, huh?
Over the sounds of gunfire and revving engines, Keith yelled, “Remind me again how this is magical?”
Lance just laughed and bounced up and down excitedly next to Keith. “Oh c’mon cariño, it’ll be fun, I promise. Trust me, you’re in good hands.”
Still doubtful, Keith raised an eyebrow and scanned the room some more. Aside from the disgruntled parents, they were the oldest people there by a good ten years. Keith realized he hadn’t been to an arcade in ages and even then he had never really enjoyed spending tons of money on games that were basically rigged.
“If you say so…”
“I know so.”
“Hasta la later, Keith!” Lance cried as he landed a final clean headshot on Keith’s avatar.
“BLUE VICTORY!” the game cried as it panned over Lance’s character doing a little triumphant dance.
“Goddammit!” Keith huffed as he lowered his gun and looked accusingly at the screen that boldly declared, “RED DEFEAT!” He turned to Lance who was trying to stifled his giggles and grumbled, “Would you stop laughing already?”
“I… I’m sorry. It’s just—pft—I didn’t expect you to be so bad at this,” Lance said through his hand. “You were shooting at anything that moved. Has anyone ever told you that you should be a Stormtrooper?” Keith lightly smacked Lance on the head with the gun, but it only made him laugh harder.
Still sulking, Keith put the gun back in the holster and said, “I already told you I wasn’t good at these shooting games. I don’t know why you insisted on going to this one first.”
Lance stopped laughing for a moment and rested his head on Keith’s shoulder. “Aw don’t be mad. I just wanted to show off my mad skills in front of my boyfriend. Are you impressed now?”
Keith ducked his head to hide his blush and muttered, “No…”
Lance brushed his nose against Keith’s neck, making the latter shiver. “Hmm, someone’s a sore loser.” Keith was about to retort when Lance wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist and said, “What you need is a confidence booster. And I know just the game.”
“KEITH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Lance screamed as he tightened his grip on Keith’s waist.
“Just shut up and trust me!” Keith yelled back as he drifted into the narrow space between two other motorcycles as they made the turn, before speeding up and charging up the ramp.
Burying his face into Keith’s shoulder, Lance continued to scream, “Holy fucking shit!”
Keith rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help chuckling. “Would you stop that? It’s just a game. You’re not in any real danger.”
“Hey, the shaky effects are very realistic. So excuse me if—WHOA! KEITH!” Lance yelled as he was rudely interrupted by another one of Keith’s sharp turns. They were nearing the finish line now and there was only one more motorcycle in front of them.
“Hang on, partner,” Keith teased as he accelerated into the final turn, barely avoiding the traffic cones that lined the inner edge of the track, and passed the other cycle to cross the finish line.
“WINNER: RED!”
“Woohoo!!” Lance cheered as the game took them on a victory lap. “That’s my boyfriend for you!”
A wide grin spread over Keith’s face and when he turned towards Lance, he saw a similar stupid smile plastered on his face, too.
“Weren’t you just screeching in my ear about how we were going to die a minute ago?”
Scoffing, Lance said, “I had complete and utter faith in you.” Keith snorted in response and was about to open his mouth to argue when Lance silenced him with a hesitant, but gentle kiss. When he pulled back after a moment, Lance, eyes hooded and full of affection, murmured, “I always do.”
Keith felt all the blood in his body rise to his face and started to pull Lance into another kiss, cursing under his breath. “You’re not allowed to say shit like that in public, you dickwad.”
“Careful, Keith, there are children here.”
“Do you wanna go make some more of them?”
“KEITH!"
“A little to the left… A little more… A litt—“
Keith briefly paused moving the joystick to throw Lance an exasperated look. “Could you shut up for once in your life and let me focus?”
Lance squeezed the red cat plushie in his hands tighter. “I’m just nervous okay? I want us to have matching ones,” Lance whined with a small pout.
Keith felt a surge of renewed determination, but hid it by lightly kicking Lance and replying, “Like I said, you need to trust me more. You've done enough backseat driving for one day.”
Lance made a motion of zipping his lips and watched as Keith refocused on the task at hand and moved the joystick with careful precision. He gradually aligned the claw exactly over the blue cat plushie’s face and pressed the button to lower the claw.
When it made contact, Lance pressed his whole face against the glass in anticipation. “You got it, babe!! You got it!!”
Keith’s tongue started to poke out of his mouth in concentration as he moved the plushie as gently as he could to the opening. It started to slip during the journey, which practically made Lance have an aneurysm, but just as it was about to fall the claw completed its journey and the small cat fell straight into the hole.
“Hell yeah!” Keith shouted ecstatically, fists in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
Lance scrambled to grab the stuffed animal out of the machine and gave it a fierce hug. “Look at these lil’ beans. They’re so damn cute. I want to knit them tiny sweaters.” Lance smushed his face further into their winnings while Keith looked on in amusement.
“Having fun there?”
Lance looked up and gave Keith a confused look. “Is that even a question? Of course I am.” He beamed. “And you are too, aren’t you?”
Keith rubbed the back of his neck, face turning a light shade of pink. “I always have fun when I’m with you,” he said quietly.
Lance’s smile fell off his face in shock, but it quickly came back, softer this time. “Me too, buddy.” He took a step closer to Keith and pushed their foreheads together. “Me too.”
“Man, I’m beat,” Lance said as he stretched his arms over his head, raising his new red cat plushie with them. Looking up at his hands, he laughed and nudged Keith with his elbow. “Look, it’s like The Lion King! AAAAAAHHHHH ZAAAABAAHHNNYAAAAA!!”
While Lance was belting out the lyrics rather poorly, Keith rolled his eyes but a smile slowly crept onto his face. Lance was practically spinning in circles at this point and Keith couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of him.
“Quit it!” Keith cried, covering his eyes. “You’re so embarrassing.”
Lance paused his movements and sidled up next to Keith, “But you loooooooveeee it.”
“Maybe.”
Lance smirked. “You’re such a terrible liar. But that’s alright. Good old Red tells me all I need to know, isn’t that right girl?” Lance asked his new toy. He put her up to his ear and nodded fervently. “She says you’re full of shit and that you love me more than you loved My Chemical Romance back in mid— OW!” Lance rubbed the spot on his arm that Keith had hit with his blue cat stuffed animal.
“Do you ever stop talking?” Keith asked playfully.
“No, but I know you love that about me too,” Lance teased back as he began sauntering away.
Keith stared at Lance for a moment, drinking in his goofy grin, his shaking hips, and the way his hair stuck to his forehead from the sweat. He was glowing, and not just from the flashing red and blue lights of the arcade. Maybe this place really was magical.
“Hey, Lance,” Keith called.
“Yeah?” he replied, turning to face Keith again.
“I love you,” he blurted before he could lose his nerve.
Lance seemingly short-circuited for a moment, only capable of staring at Keith incredulously, but he suddenly snapped to attention and roughly dragged Keith into one of the photo booths.
Keith barely had time to register what was happening before Lance crashed their lips together. It was a hunger that Keith had never experienced in his life, but he felt himself sinking into it faster and faster as Lance’s fingers entangled themselves in his hair.
As their kiss gradually slowed, Lance said between tiny kisses, “I love you, too.” He rubbed one of his thumbs against Keith’s cheek and sighed contentedly. “Told you this place was magical.”
Keith remembered having that thought just a few moments earlier, but he’d admit that over his dead body. He briefly broke their kiss and shrugged. “It’s alright.”
Lance groaned. “Why do you have to be like this?”
Keith kissed him again and murmured, “Because you love me like this.”
Chuckling, Lance said, “Well, I can’t argue with that.” Turning away from Keith he seemed to realize where they were for a moment and grinned. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“This photo booth probably works for the government and just recorded our hot make-out session?”
Lance gave Keith his most judgmental look. “No, tonto. We should take a photo!”
“Oh, right. That too.”
“Come here, you big dork,” Lance said, draping his arm around Keith’s shoulders while pressing the buttons on the screen in front of them. “So we’ll have something to commemorate today with!”
As the camera started to count down, Keith thought to himself that even without the photo, he’d never forget this day for the rest of his life.
Click.