Things have always been weird between us. [There's some truth to that. Keith knows that a big generalization like that doesn't really spell it out, but they've always had things to work through. The problem is that he knows he's not the best at it. He's never big on blaming himself for everything, because the level of feeling involved in that guilt is ... hard. So, half the time he avoids, he doesn't deal, he just wanders, just as he did following his expulsion from the Garrison.

When he looks across the room at Lance, he remembers the simplicity of their first kiss. It had been simple. So had been their first date. Anything beyond that had started hitting the territory of uncertainty, and being Keith, he's not one to ask when he steps into something like that. Him avoiding dealing with it and acting as if everything was normal? That made sense.

It still does.]

I know that's not what you're saying. [Keith almost adds, "I'm bad at this." But that goes without saying.] But it got weird because I wasn't ready. I know that now. [And with it, he had tried to make a habit out of them being Keith and Lance, paladins who were dating. It could be as simple as that.

The problem is, having it voiced that it wasn't that simple jerks him out of his hopes for that, because it's making everything clearer. It's ... putting it out there. No one can just feed the elephant now and ignore it otherwise.]