#and ergo Ace's power = he has money

[oakwolves]

ahhh im so glad you noiticed all the small details

Oh the possibilities of an Ace-Lacey teamup…

Based on a convo with @hssprimefan

[malacodaus-blog]

Old Blood 

||@exmortum​|| AKA Happy Birthday Cae 

Prompt: 

Sat opposite her, between them on the cherrywood surface of his desk lay a duralumin case on its side, the locks still tightly in place. It had been there since she had entered his office, innocent despite the disastrous contents safely nestled in the plush lining. Leather encased fingers laced together, the heels of palms resting on the polished surface just a twitch or two away. The rest of him appeared as ever; composed, posture straight, but for the tilt of the head. Across the sable tinted lenses of his sunglasses flashed the lights held in generations' old crystal. Behind the shades, his gaze was intent upon her.

‘ Tell me, Ms. Sherawat. . . what would you do for the sake of loyalty ? No, ’ rumble interrupted the query, the smooth expression of calm undisturbed by the undercurrent of danger in freezing waters. ‘ What would you do for the sake of your life ? ’

The metal brief case lodged like a barrier between Jessica and Wesker. An enigmatic little mystery box posed as the center piece of his desk. She could guess the contents but only he could reveal the answer, for certain it was why he called her here. A golden evening glow bathed the desk and office in warm light. It glinted from the windows and kissed Jessica’s throat, a final farewell of the day. Wesker’s office proved to be what she expected, simple but decadent. A minimalistic statement of class and taste. Not hollow or for show; Crystal glasses, art pieces running in the millions, books smelling of warmed leather, polished wood. Wesker appreciated true quality, not money spent for the sake of itself. His clothes were designer for comfort, and durability, to put forth the best appearance. Wesker expected that everything in his vicinity preform to standard. Jessica has stepped from chaotic streets into this den of organized papers, composed into stacks for efficiency. She’d find such skilled artistry nowhere else.

His focus burned holes into her, his gaze nipping like frost bite. In a torrent ocean, a riptide, Jessica was placid. Legs crossed at the knee, the pointed red toe of her heel drawing calm circles. Her posture remained open and inviting, hands on either arm rest of her chair, expression gentle and softened, unchallenging, patient. To his question she hummed, head cocking in thought. A single auburn coil of hair brushed along the collar of her pea coat. Jessica braced her chin against her white silk gloved hand and then smiled, slight and wiry.

A half-dozen handlers had asked this exact question before him. They didn’t use the same words of course, but the gist, the intention, the heart of it, was there. It wasn’t the question that mattered. The words were but a facade meant to draw her attention, so she could stutter over them and reveal all the more of her hand. No, the question was a thin veil for something far more sinister. Life or death, loyalty or betrayal, the binary dichotomy of her career. This was the relationship of agent and handler. No it was quite obvious: Wesker was threatening her. Her comfort was that if he truly wanted her dead, she would be, there was an angle here. He was looking for something out of her. 

The answer he wanted, the correct answer, the ‘I’ll do anything, please don’t kill me’ and the ‘I’m loyal to the end.’ Were the wrong answers, not because they were lies but because they were not true. What a beautifully crafted catch-22 he presented her with. In the original story the logic was simple. Only the insane would fly bombing missions but an insane person cannot fly. If one applies for insanity to escape the missions however, they admit fear in the face of death, which is a hallmark of sanity. Ergo, to apply for insanity is to admit to being sane. Only the insane would work for Wesker but Wesker doesn’t want someone insane working for him. To try to leave, however, would be for Jessica to admit her sanity and yet to stay would be to admit her insanity. And if she was sane and if she was reasonable, the kinda person that would balk under pressure, then he’d have no more use for her because those were not the traits of a good agent. And then she’d be killed. So the obvious, easy answer —the lie— was the wrong answer. Because the sane feared death and the insane were not good agents. Jessica wondered why they had to play cat and mouse. She was content to work with him for now, it was Excella they both hated. The enemy of my enemy is not my enemy, after all.

Jessica inhaled, thin breath through her nose, eyes narrowed imperceptibly. Not a tick on the clock had passed in the ensuing silence of his query. Wesker sat across the desk as unmovable as a statue, man hewn from marble and spun gold. Jessica’s forefinger traced the line of her jaw, eyes running over his form. Broad shoulders, strong arms, hardened and tight jaw. Beneath those glasses were unseen eyes, the windows of the soul folded in shadow. At a glance he appeared as a man, but if she peeled away the layers— what would she find? 

All her handlers were the same. Men of importance and power, charged to keep her in line, no matter what. One liked to belittle and threaten her and another tries to seduce her, cruel or sweet words, all twisted to the same end. Control. Wesker controlled everything. He controlled Excella, he controlled TRICELL, and its employees, and the labs that developed the viruses. Hell, he probably even set the AC in the office. Strong, functionally immortal, intelligent, Albert Wesker was the perfect human being. His files from UMBRELLA said as much. What power he did not have he hungered for. It was in his DNa, his upbringing, nature and nurture intertwined to produce a ruthless man that will stop at nothing. He would not trip over Jessica, no, if she fell in his path he’d crush her beneath his boot heel and she was not afraid to admit she’d be helpless to stop him. All her other handlers she watched crash and fall, hoist by their own hubris. They underestimated her, doubted her skill, when they thought they were the seducer, she seduced them— not many knew to watch her mouth and her hands. 

Behind the glint of those sunglasses, molten gold in the light, Jessica saw no expression. Cold and unfeeling, his chuckle echoed in a hallow chest. If she took her fingers to his pulse would she hear a heartbeat? Or did the progenitor take that from him too. He knew of her four years in Umbrella, the last generation of agents produced from their programs— she supposed that made them somewhat related. Perhaps in an extended metaphor, she could consider herself an adopted younger sibling, or a niece. If he was the beloved golden boy then she was the black lamb, which marked two families she had estranged. 

There were other kids in the program with her. Nine others to be exact, some as young as ten and barely reaching her hip. A couple were boys older than her. They all shared one thing in common: they escaped Raccoon City before the missile hit. UMBRELLA scooped them up like prize fish at a Carnival game. There were more than them initially but Jessica suspected they weren’t up to standard and thus were terminated. They all had ‘strong’ genes. They were healthy and attractive kids, intelligent. Jessica’s parents were wealthy and talented — and bait for blackmail— so the scientists cooed that she was an excellent candidate. No, they weren’t as good as the originals —the fabled Wesker project— but in a pinch they’d do. But she recalled their first two weeks together, huddled scared in a common room of a white washed facility. The young ones were terrified, the smallest cried for her mother every night. The first day soldiers shaved their heads, dunked them into ice baths to scrub them raw, and scientists poked and prodded them with needles and instruments. For a time it was them, together. Then they identified something special in Jessica, or Captain Rodriguez did, as he said, not many sixteen year olds walked out of Raccoon City. The others were shuffled off and they handed her over to the Captain. They told him to break her, and so he did.

It’d been almost a decade but she remembered him like it was yesterday. He was a gangly man in his early-fifties, all hard muscle and scar. A black curled beard hid his face and he always wore an olive green cap over his ice blue eyes. Captain Rodriguez served for twenty-five years as a US Army ranger. He spent ten of those as an instructor. In military training there were pesky things called rules meant to insure recruits weren’t injured or killed. These annoyed the Captain, they prevented him from testing his trainees and helping them reach their full potential, in his eyes. That was what he told Jessica, at least. He had a year to produce a combat ready agent prepared for military operations, covert espionage, and UMBRELLA’s dirty work. They wanted a loyal, tough agent to carry on the legacy of UMBRELLA and its philosophy. She was to be the final testimony; the best of the best. To that end they tested her vitals at every turn and mapped out her DNA. All while Captain Rodriguez forced her to her limits.

Those same scientists and executives told her that power was in the gene pool. Humanity was a potential untapped, evolution had stagnated in the digital age with the touchy-feely attempts of modern medicine that ensured that everyone could survive and reproduce. Only those with good genes should have the right to spawn they said. Power could unify the human race, perfect it. UMBRELLA sought to cull the herd, a few lives lost here and there, nothing compared to the greater future ahead. That was how they justified Raccoon city. A few lives lost, an accident but a reasonable price for the research and data. For the betterment of mankind, the city burned. Jessica’s potential was excellent, a little more time and they could perfect her too. It will be interesting to see how she responds in real combat.

“No”, Rodriguez would growl, head ducked so his eyes were hid beneath his hat brim. “Its not the genes that make a soldier, but the spirit.”

Those old fools, he’d say, trapped in their labs. They couldn’t see pass the numbers on their data sheets. Only later did Jessica wonder if the reason the scientists were so interested in her was because they had nothing better to do. UMBRELLA was dying and their funding was drying up, might as well harass some teenagers. Rodriguez never tried to convince her of the bullshit the executives fed her, probably why she never swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The Captain told her two things: One, the mission comes first; Two, the enemy is the one trying to kill you.

“I am trained to put my feelings aside,” Jessica said, “And to complete the mission. Whatever it may be.”

The scientists of UMBRELLA had read Jessica’s genetic code and liked whatever they saw. They tried to use it to predict her future. If they had laid out a deck of tarot cards, they would have had more success. Jessica once dreamed of following her parent’s footsteps: she’d be an actress like her mom or an executive like dad. And if all those plans failed, she had Daddy’s money to fall back on. She believed in destiny, and perhaps that’s why she once thought Terragrigia and Raccoon City were inevitable, caught in the cogs of progress and evolution. That men like Albert Wesker exemplified the machine, unstoppable.

She could not see beyond those black shades, nor to the weathered hands under his gloves, or hear the heartbeat in his chest. Jessica did not know the full story of his birth and resurrection, only the hearsay of the rumor mill and what scraps she garnered from the enigmatic man. He was the ur example, everything the scientists wished she had been. The success story, the one that took his inheritance and ran. Quite the prodigal son, Albert Wesker. Then again, genetics and virus and all, he was still a man. It want the inhuman capacity of his muscle fibers or his super speed that impressed her, not even his intelligence, it was his spirit. Even if a scientist cloned him to the exact detail, they could not replicate him. Jessica cared not for his cause or his business, nor his desire for power. paths. For the first time in her life Jessica didn’t care who held her leash, only that he didn’t tug so hard. She’d come along. After all, now was a time for patience. If he needed to be stopped, someone with equal might would get in his way. It wasn’t the strong that survived --survival of the fittest did not mean survival of the strongest, but the one that could best suit its enviroment-- but those who adapted. 

Their genes could not predict their fate. Jessica was certain, nonetheless that they’d be dealt the hand they deserved. She was calm but she was not complacent, she had her own path to walk. Her parents didn’t decide it, UMBRELLA didn’t decide it, Rodriguez didn’t decide it, and Wesker didn’t decide it. That path did not cross over Wesker’s.  Because Jessica saw Raccoon City burn, watched the missile strike and felt the shockwave from miles away. Politics crushed buildings and shattered glass. It happened on Terragrigia too. Monsters ravaged the streets but the true demons sat in plush offices and debated the PR. She had come to terms with her mortality. Jessica once feared death, now she respected it. Her hands were blood stained and the damn spot would not wash out. She had no self-righteous vindication to hold her back, only the quiet apathy of a woman tired of all the games.

The only question is,” Jessica said, and here she leaned forward, arms bracing on her knees. The mask and the lies, the little petty quirks of an actress melted from her frame, she sat before him as raw as she’d ever been. Her eyes found the reflection in those sunglasses and looked beyond. Cold steel and burning gold, the slightest upturn of cocky smirk across painted red lips.

“What is it that you want me to do?”

[thesportssoundoff]

Everybody is winning except us

Joey

October 7th

Of all of the ways this could've gone, I'm really surprised I didn't figure this would be the EXACT way it would go.

You can't predict Khabib going feet first into a melee outnumbered like 5 to 1, you can't predict Conor McGregor having a "Greedo shot first" moment by actually throwing the first punch (although in his defense, as he scales the cage, someone else is scaling it and I would've assumed anybody from Khabib's corner is going to be after me or my team at that point), you can't predict riots or a full on culture/nationalistic war.

You can always predict chaos in MMA. You can always predict the WORST CASE SCENARIO in this sport.

If you think of all the positive aspects from just the fight alone, you could be here for a while. Conor McGregor took two years off of MMA, came back to fight the scariest dude and had an actually not half bad performance given the stylistic match up, the rust factor and his natural shortcomings as a fighter (quick twitch high reflex muscle memory guy with poor cardio). If anything he could have/should have been applauded for taking the risk and we'd all be asking how a run back goes with an additional six-ish months of training. For Khabib, he once again answered another litany of questions and for the most part aced the toughest test of his career. For the UFC, they put on a tremendous fight card without a hitch, made massive money and set themselves up for another run of successful fights for both guys including a rematch. Everything could've been positive.

But this is MMA. The Worst Case Scenario more often than not will rear its ugly head at the most inopportune time. There's no point in step by stepping anybody through the brawl. What's done is done, what happened happened and everybody and anybody has their opinions on it. We all gain nothing from replaying it over and over. It's more about how we leave this entire fiasco with perceived egg on the faces of everyone involved.

I feel like we have to begin with Khabib Nurmagomedov because at the end of the day, he's the guy here who took this entire joke to the next level. You can't go and fight dudes at the cageside area. That's basic common sense stuff. The problem is that this isn't the first time Khabib has been involved in utter tripe before and maybe this is just who he is. To me, nobody has had their public perception hurt the way he has over the past few weeks from the homeless guy push ups to the presser comments to the open work out fiasco. If "gotten to" is a deal then Khabib epitomized it this entire weekend. Even his brief press conference was a trainwreck as he went from contrition for his behavior to wondering why it was a big deal and dare I even say, attempting the tried and true Whataboutisms that ultimately lead down a road to nowhere. It takes great skill to talk for a minute and reveal you still don't quite get why you're going to be a in a world of trouble.

Now if you believe in the receipt then Conor McGregor's been way overdue for one. This is an act that's spiraled out of control since his KO of Jose Aldo (and perhaps maybe even a bit before that happened) with an eventual "Oh Shit" coming at some point. You don't continually win in shit situations of your own making before something eventually backfires on you (unless you're Jon Jones) and Conor's last two years have exposed the very worst of the act. The Andre Fili/Artem Lobov situation, the Bellator incident, bar fights, speeding tickets of a dangerous sort, the ENTIRE Mayweather-McGregor fight lead up, the bus incident and the presser that was basically a collection of "Too far!" material in an already "Too far!" situation. Conor's gone for it on 4th down a lot recently and every situation he's either scored or gotten a penalty bail out from the bad decision. Eventually those do catch up with you and here we are now. Again, the erosion of SBG; it's image as a gym full of average dudes accomplishing great MMA shit evolving into the world's biggest collection of fake McGregor's has to be mentioned. What do you do when King Midas' left hand turns everything to gold but his right hand turns everything to shit?

Of course we can also bundle up everybody else into one neat and tidy paragraph here; the UFC for being a business first and not a common sense machine second. The bus attack was part of the story in my opinion and couldn't be neglected BUT somebody with a hint of common sense should've said "tone it down" to Conor and Khabib about religion, this that or the other thing. Instead they played it fast and loose, like they did/do with DC vs Jones, without realizing that Jones vs Cormier was a really personal rivalry about two people who for the most part kept it at two people. Hell taking it one step further, we can say that the UFC should've told Conor to tone it down in 2016 or 2017 or 2018. This is what happens when a fighter gains power and becomes TOO big to say to no to. You get this. Conor should've been told "No!" faaaar sooner than this. How about SBG and Khabib's cohorts who seemed to want to interject their asses into this as much as the two fighters themselves. We can also turn a sarcastic thumbs up to the majority of the MMA media; the ones who bloviated "Conor's back!" as he poured out his presser best but not once stopped to ask if maybe this whole religion/nationalism/family feud was going a bit too far. The same ones who refer to last night as a disgrace (which it was) without stopping once along the way to ask if we were heading into this situation by virtue of nobody wondering if this was spiraling. The ones who are SO reliant on MMA (and ergo the UFC and ergo Conor) to do well that they, like the UFC, allowed anything to go in the pursuit of the traffic. Lastly and perhaps most painfully? Us as fans. When the things that sell are always the worst, the bar is always raised. As consumers we have the ability to dictate what we receive and if what works is the dirt worst? Well that's on us, no? If we ascribe to the "We fight in a cage, nothing is bad for the sport" mantra then we wear this. We may not have asked for THIS specifically but that's neither here nor there because we've asked fore more of the bad shit. We ASKED for this.

And ya know the sick part? Everybody wins here really if you think about it. Assuming Khabib isn't suspended for life and incapable of getting back into the United States? He'll have a Conor McGregor rivalry for years to live off of. The same goes for Conor who has mastered the "losing the fights where you have an out" approach. Vs Nate? Well that was on two weeks notice at 170 lbs! Vs Floyd? First fight in boxing! This one? Two year layoff vs the world's greatest wrestler! Once Dana White gets over his personal shame and disappointment? The business man is going to make him realize that he'll have general wealth for every generation he's ever going to have with a Khabib vs Conor rematch. The folks decrying this as shameful will playfully bite their nails and play the "Who knows what's gonna happen!" gimmick at every presser, every face off and every single day leading up to the rematch. Those who shout about how "passionate" these fanbases are will continue to do so while also saying "they're not ALL like that!" when confronted with every social media clip of fans brawling and fighting outside the venue. Even Dillon Danis, a less self aware Robert Drysdale who fashions himself as a bootleg Conor McGregor, has basically made himself into a household name now. Everybody wins because so long as consumers want it? Business ALWAYS wins. That's the nature of the game. It's MMA at its dirt worst and there's perhaps no other place MMA shines then when it's at their dirt worst. Be it boxing or MMA, business booms at the dirt worst level. This is seemingly where the sport actually wakes up and decides to perform.

There are basically just two losers here really. The first is the lightweight division which sure looks like it's careening towards yet another stripped champion. And potentially yet another interim champion. And potentially  yet another year of question or determining just what the hell is going with the most loaded weight class in sports with fighters stuck on a broken elevator that's going neither up nor down. We have the most blessed division in the history of this weird sport and right now we have a champion who's about to be suspended, a former champ who is probably going to chase "money fights" now and the real champion who seems one poorly timed stunt away from ripping everything on the lower half of his body. The world's most talented division is about to get its dick buried in the dirt again for no reason other than the guys at the top of the helm can't control themselves. The other loser? Those of us who cling to the hope that one day this sport won't be like this. At the end of the day, we need to stop assuming MMA's going to one day grow up and just resign ourselves to the knowledge that it is what it is. For those of us who believe this thing is going to clean itself up? Probably not happening. The idea that one day in the not too distant future fights will be able to sell on the basis of being great fights and we won't need to squeeze every bit of juice out of it by resorting to the dirt worst (be it DC referring to Jon Jones as a junkie, anything Colby Covington does or the latent ethnocentrism used to sell this feud) should be dead now. As much as we all want MMA to treat itself like a sport, what the people want---and seemingly what EVERYONE involved in this sport wants---is this. We built this sport on it and now we gotta own it. All sports have brawls/fracases but they're not the drawing point to drawing people in. We WANT this. We OWN this.

If you don't believe me, wait until Covington vs Woodley to confirm it all over again. Prepare yourself for the worst case scenario.

[ambivalentangst]

I’m Suffocating in This Head (Literally)

We all know Keith is a furry but who better to celebrate than his furry loving boyfriend, Lance? In honor of this knowledge and as my gift for @issacups for the @voltronsummergiftexchange I present a few words of klance, involving dragons and low hanging bars in bars. It was a pleasure creating for this event, and I hope my giftee enjoys! Thank you to @constellationrose for betaing!

Keith was not sure how Shiro had coerced him into playing furry for his dumb bar, but he was already putting on the stupid, clunky head of the costume with a resigned sigh, so there was no backing out now.

Black Lion Bar.

Keith made a mental note to tease Shiro about the name later. How? Truth be told there wasn’t anything wrong with it so he wasn’t sure, but he was gonna do it. Currently, he was sweltering under the heat of the suit he was in, fluffy mane spread around his face while he peered at the world through big, yellow eyes. For the love of God, he hoped that the world couldn’t stare back.

He stepped out of the staff bathroom that served as his dressing room, feeling just as ridiculous as he was sure he looked. The temperature difference between the poorly air-conditioned bathroom to the fan laden main area was startling, but not unwelcome. If it wasn’t Matt’s birthday, who had specifically requested that the mascot be out—the bastard, he had to know Shiro would blackmail Keith into doing it—he would’ve told Shiro to go fuck himself. It was far too late for that blessed course of action at the moment though, so he did nothing but throw his shoulders back and try to at least walk like it wasn’t completely ridiculous to be making cat ears a fashion statement.

Lance and Allura had told him before that his normal jacket and variety of fanny packs apparently weren’t cute either. Still, when Lance tripped on his way home after a night out he gushed every time over the Finding Nemo band-aids Keith kept on hand in them specifically for such occasions.

For as lithe and powerful as Lance was in the water, he was an absolute disaster on land. Keith was unswervingly convinced that he would’ve been a national title holder if the flu hadn’t seized him the day before he boarded his plane for the comp and Blaytz hadn’t let him go. It was still a sore subject, but on the bright side, he was the only one in his marine bioengineering class to ace the final.

Keith had brought him cup after cup of coffee—loaded with nauseating amounts of cream and sugar like Lance liked it—while he pored over his notes and books for hours on end. Lance was letting nothing else concerning water escape his grasp. That kind of bull-headed determination was part of the reason Keith loved him so damn much, and he tried to remember that when Lance cooed at the sight of him walking into the actual bar and took a burst of photos on his phone.

Keith tried to shove the camera down, but he was pretty sure Lance caught that too and didn’t relish the thought of what he could photoshop with the image of his angry, lion-ed self. “You are the worst,” he groused, to which Lance tousled the synthetic mane framing the apex of the suit. It only made Keith grouchier to feel that, and not his warm hands on his actual head.

“Yeah, but you’re adorable in that thing, and it gives you better hair!” Keith did his best not to show his amusement, but Lance’s teasing remarks about his hair were an ongoing joke between them. Keith had briefly gotten self-conscious over it, but the second Lance heard the buzz of a razor he knocked it from his hand like it was poison and pressed a thousand kisses all over Keith’s face. Keith hadn’t been too bothered by it since.

“The worst,” he reiterated.

Lance merely laughed and grabbed his paw. “Ceci, Emil, come look at Black!” he crowed. Keith braced himself, every muscle in his body going tense. He loved Lance’s family, which was just as loud and chaotic and beautiful as Lance himself, and secretly hoped he could one day be a part of it, even if only by marriage. He’d yet to tell Lance. Pidge said he had no balls. Keith pointed out that neither of them had money. She told him that it didn’t change the fact that he still had no balls. Two masses shot across the room in blurs of curly brown hair and flung themselves into Keith’s chest. If they’d been bullets, Keith would’ve been dead.

As it was, he just fell on his ass.

This appeared to utterly delight them. “Soft!” Ceci cried, petting Keith’s cheek fascinatedly. Emil had busied himself with the paws, which he shoved against his forehead to apparently check the assessment for himself. Keith would tell Lance to tell Veronica that they needed a thorough bath later. The suit had seen far too many boys in bro tanks come through the place, and though Shiro claimed to wash it, Keith knew that sort of horror wasn’t something easily cleansed by soap and water.

Emil giggled. “And warm. Like Keith’s warm!” he declared loudly, curling up on Black’s, ergo Keith’s, chest. Ceci rubbed his ears between her little fingers instead. Keith glared at Lance through the massive eyes of the suit. He hoped he got the message.

Lance grinned. “I may have let it slip that you were taking over for Black tonight since it’s a special occasion for Matt. Ceci, Emil, have you told him happy birthday yet? I’m sure he would love to hear your super special song.”

Two heads shot up, brown eyes gleaming with interest. “Matt!” they cried and rushed off Keith to go give Matt the worst, most purposefully off key and grating rendition of the birthday song to ever burden the world. Keith, stuck in an amalgamation of cheap, kinda itchy fabric, was feeling vindicated.

Lance offered his hand to Keith, who took it gratefully. “As excited as ever,” he told him while brushing dirt off the white belly of the costume. Lance smiled fondly, blue eyes melting as he stared off in the direction his niece and nephew had gone. Keith lived for when that expression was directed at him.

“Yeah, but it’s part of what makes them so fun to have around. They’re such kids, they’re the best.” He’d yet to let go of Keith’s hand—paw? The lack of distinction was frightening. He tugged him towards the main party with it. “Come on babe, they’re all excited to see you. Matt made a special request for Black to be here, you know.” Keith rolled his eyes. He could imagine how pleased Lance looked, lips spread deviously into the shit eating grin he wore far too often for comfort. He let him lead him regardless, smiling like an idiot behind his suit.

“Matt, Black’s out!” The boy turned, rainbow glasses balanced on the tip of his nose while Ceci and Emil hung off his arms. He mimicked Lance’s smirk faultlessly.

Matt rushed forward, one second by the tables with everyone else, and the next swamping Keith in a crushing hug. “Black! You’re as fluffy as ever.”

Keith snickered, and after wishing him happy birthday quickly, responded to his good-natured mocking with a very deliberate pat on the back. “Someone spilled Mike’s on this last weekend.” Matt’s expression twisted in revulsion. He’d had a bad experience with that his freshman year, and nobody let him live it down.

He pulled back, eyebrows furrowed with his displeasure. “You are the least chipper birthday mascot I’ve ever seen, and we hired a dragon for one of Pidge’s parties.”

Lance cut in with his cheerful opinion. “Dragons are cool!”

Matt shook his head. “I mean, yeah, but Pidge made him give her piggyback rides the entire afternoon, and it was raining.”

Lance frowned while one meticulously plucked brow arched. “Couldn’t you guys have just taken things inside?”

Another shake of Matt’s head. “She wanted it to be an adventure.”

Keith shuddered in sympathy, murmuring, “Pidge really has always been a demon.”

“My mom gave the dude a really good tip.”

Keith wondered how much he’d have to pester Shiro to get the same. The conversation likely would’ve continued��Lance liked dragons almost as much as sharks and was always hungry for details—but Hunk waved and Lance was far more interested in that. Keith watched him bound over. Lance was likely elated at the idea of sharing the recently gathered information with his best friend. His enthusiasm was endearing to Keith when he wasn’t harassing him about his current predicament.

If anybody asked later, and Shiro did with no small amount of mirth in his voice, he blamed the suit.

Lance, lithe, selectively observant Lance and the love of Keith’s life, ducked out of the way of the low hanging bar with ease. In his defense, Keith had been telling Shiro since he opened the place to fix it, and he was occupied trying not to trip over the tail nestled awkwardly over his ass.

Keith’s head slammed into it with a resounding thud, and he backpedaled while the world blurred for a few seconds.

Keith vaguely saw a shape wearing something green turn to face him with a lowly murmured oh fuck and then there were arms on his shoulders, steadying him while the green person came up and cupped his face in his hands. “Keith? Babe? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Keith blinked a few times and stared, saying with unwavering certainty, “Four.”

The person in green, who turned out to be Lance when his vision cleared, let out a sigh of what Keith hoped was relief. “He’s fine,” Lance announced, and Keith felt the hands on his shoulders let go of him. He stumbled a little, into Lance’s arms. “Probably,” he amended quickly. He didn’t remove the support again, and Keith allowed himself to sag onto a familiar broad shoulder.

“Keith, are you okay? Do you feel alright?” Lance fretted.

In the background Keith could hear someone, likely Veronica or Lance’s mom, shushing Ceci and Emil, who were very concerned for Black slash Keith. “Yeah, I’m good,” he told him, and mostly that felt true aside from a bit of lingering dizziness that Keith felt fading quickly. “Let’s just sit for a bit?”

Lance nodded, and Keith cursed the bulky head he wore not for the first time for prohibiting him from giving Lance a kiss to reassure him. “Sounds good.” He turned to face Allura, who had crept up on them fast with her hands planted on her hips. She dealt with dumb, vaguely injured boys a lot with her physical training thing for the school lacrosse team. Lance turned to her while helping Keith walk back to the break room. He felt like protesting that he’d just left it, but refrained.

“I’m gonna’ go with Keith and give him a breather. Tell everyone he’s fine and not to worry, he just needs some ice for a bit.”

She nodded as she scrutinized Keith through his hideous garments, and didn’t argue. “Of course. Feel better soon, Keith. Don’t try to power through it if you’re not alright. We don’t need you fainting on us again.” Specifically, she dealt with a dumb, vaguely injured Keith a lot with her physical training thing for the school lacrosse team.

Keith waved her off and allowed Lance to escort him out of public view, though not without some of his usual, token grumblings. “We could’ve sat outside. I didn’t even get to see your mom. Or my mom.” Their friend group and the accompanying relatives had gotten tangled up in one another throughout their college experience, with several instances of plus ones that families latched onto with vigor. The plus ones from before got official invites the next time, and the few friends originally tagging along turned into the seven of them going together everywhere. Families mingled, and it was with that that the kid-friendly celebration was scheduled for this afternoon, and then the seven of them had decided they were going to drive to the lake for something more, literally, intoxicating later that night.

Lance would be complaining of bug bites for days afterward, Keith was sure, but as his boyfriend settled him onto the couch gingerly he found that he didn’t care too much. “For someone who is as clumsy as you are outside of a pool, you’re being really gentle.”

Lance’s chest all but puffed out in pride. “Course. Anything for you, babe.” Keith did his best not to blush at the title. Lance used it casually and it didn’t really make Keith pause most of the time. Even so, on occasion, he remembered that woah, they were dating and Lance called him babe and it got him all flustered.

Lance had already lifted the head of the ensemble off, but when he went for the rest Keith shook his head. “It’s cold back here. Shiro has too many fans running,” he explained, and so the admittedly horrible get up stayed put. Lance hummed and rubbed his hand, something he did often because he almost always was craving contact, but it wasn’t always appropriate. Keith liked the feeling a lot, and not just because Lance was almost always warm. A comfortable silence fell while Lance stared him down and Keith ignored the pounding ache forming from his head. It wasn’t a surprise by any stretch of the imagination, but still annoying.

He frowned. “Can I still drink tonight?” Lance’s brow furrowed. Keith was genuinely concerned. There were few things better than kissing Lance on the beach while the sun went down, soft lips melding with his own perfectly to let Keith have a taste of Lance’s momentarily forgotten Summer Shandy.

“Shit, I don’t know. I’ll text Coran? This is definitely a weird enough situation for him to have expertise on.”

Keith laughed, ignoring the sizable lump rising smack dab in the middle of his forehead. “Sounds good.”

A few moments of quiet, again, and Lance giggled under his breath. “Hey, can I call your welt Yorak?”

Keith tensed. He hated Krolia for telling that story. “No.”

Another laugh from Lance and Keith found it hard to stay mad when that sound sent him up to cloud nine. He remembered the look Hunk and Pidge had shared a few weeks ago as Keith’s eyes dutifully followed Lance as he walked out of the room.

He’d become aware of their smug judgment, and heard Pidge’s resultant snort. “Whipped,” she’d said then. Keith almost wished he could deny it.

Lance pecked his cheek. “Kidding, kidding. I wouldn’t do that to you.” Regardless of the reassurance that he wouldn’t harass Keith any further about Krolia’s failures at naming him,

Lance continued to examine the swelling before he sat up with a start. “Oh! I forgot your ice. Be right back, babe.” Lance shot over to the freezer squeezed into the corner of the room, grabbing a Ziploc from on top of it and filling it up. It wasn’t the first time someone had gotten caught across the head at the place. Lance grabbed a few paper towels to wrap around it in order to dull the sheer shock of cold and brought it back to Keith.

He pressed it to his skin gratefully, smiling at Lance. “Thanks,” he told him and, after a moment of hesitation, tacked on, “love you.” Lance absolutely beamed, and sent butterflies in Keith’s stomach erupting. There was no holding back the flush that settled across his cheeks.

“I love you too,” Lance told him. Keith was too happy to be mad when Lance looked pointedly at the costume still adorning his form, sprawled across the ratty couch. “Even if you are a furry.”