Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everybody has a guilty pleasure and if they don’t, they’re lying. What's yours? Lance loves to ask it, in the loose moments when people start sharing because their guard is down. He learned early that his best friend, Hunk, has a secret stash of instant ramen, despite all of the lectures he was forced to endure about how “home cooked meals were medicine to the soul, Lance. Lay off the take out!”

It’s how he learned that Pidge, who came into the picture not too long after Hunk, has an addiction to raunchy reality TV. “ It’s the one thing I kept from girlhood,” they shrugged it off as Lance had gawked. As for him, he was a liar. “I’m a slut for a good party,” he’d spill naturally, and this was true. But it was not his guilty pleasure.  

LA was such a different place than Cuba, sometimes it was hard to believe he belonged to either. It hit harder when he was drunk, like right now. The music was thumping, mingling closely with the percussive beat of his heart. He’d found a pretty girl around here earlier but she had disappeared into the crowd and left Lance on his own. He didn’t really care, not when a waitress was floating with more shots of tequila, and the dance floor was so hot he felt that buzz of a true party. The collective turns into one, living, breathing entity, and you either fall into it, or you let it run you over. His hands were up so he wasn’t really alone, that’s what he told himself, as the bass shook in his bones and hundreds of bodies jumped along with him. LA was something new. 

The moment died as the DJ made his first hiccup of the night and played some lame line dancing song Lance did not know the choreo to. He stumbled over towards the kitchen only to find the host of the party standing and smiling, with Hunk, Pidge, and holy shit. Takashi Shirogane. 

“Buddy!” Hunk calls out to him warm as ever, probably a few drinks in himself, “come here!!”

It was like every drop of alcohol Lance had ingested had evaporated out of him and left him dreadfully sober. His heart, no longer rhythmic with the music, fell down to his feet. This was the Inspacewithshiro. The first youtuber to ever record in space and document the existence of alien life. What the hell was he doing at a content creator party???

“Allura, you’ve graced me with your presence once more,” He found himself grabbing her hand to kiss it lightly, succumbing to the only muscle memory available. She laughs and swats him away playfully, “Now, now, Lance. You’re still not smooth enough.” She gives that sly, knowing smile, it was all banter of course. Teasing the distant past where Lance had genuinely, and embarrassingly pursued the beauty guru and failed miserably. They were good friends now, even collabed a few times on their respective channels.

“You fall for this ass one day, Princess.” He winks, and pulls her in for a hug. He would usually take comfort in the grounding nature of her presence, and the near celestial scent of her hair, but then she was moving and Shiro. THE Shiro!! Was in front of him with a pleasant smile.

“You must be LoverboyLance,” he said, holding out his hand. The real one. Well. The one that was not a prosthetic. It takes everything in the boy not to die on the spot. Both from embarrassment but also from sheer excitement. Distantly behind him he could hear Hunk and Pidge snickering to themselves. A phone was probably recording all of this and he had half the mind to buck up and make something worth posting about later but, then again, it was Shiro . 

“Holy shit.” was the best he could come up with. Thankfully, the older, devastatingly handsome man just laughed, taking Lance’s hand in his and giving him a friendly handshake. 

“Shiro gets this treatment quite often” Allura notes, very knowingly, from the side. So much so, Lance- still hand in hand with his idol- whips around to face her. Just as he suspected, Hunk had his Iphone out and Pidge, damn them , had Canon focused on him. “You KNOW him?” He exclaims breathlessly, and Allura actually laughs. 

“Remember a few months ago when I told you I met this guy during my visit back home to London?” She tilted her head, looking elegant despite the red solo cup in her hand, “Well. Shiro was on a trip for vacation and we,” She looked up at the man with a glint in her eyes. 

“We’re dating,” Shiro says, more bubbly than Lance had ever heard him before. And Lance has watched all of Shiro's content. 

“HOLY SHIT!” He exclaims again, Pidge starts cackling and Hunk doubles over. 

“Oh man, Lance,” he says in between fits of laughter, “we knew you’d be shocked but,” the wheezing gets to Hunk before he can continue. Lance turns back to the man, “I am so sorry.” He grabs hold of his own face in utter shock.

“You are like. The reason I started making videos as a kid and I have been watching you since I was little and I’ve always thought you were so cool and I just- holy shit! You’re Takashi Shirogane! And you’re dating one of my best friends! What the fuck?” He holds his hands out, stopping Shiro from speaking, “I'M NOT MAD! I sound mad. Really I’m just shocked, I mean. You’re like my Idol, I look up to you. I can’t even believe that you- wow . I’m Lance. take out the Loverboy, that's from wehn I made the account in middle school. It’s McClain, actually, Lance McClain, I- can I get your autograph?  A picture? I’m so sorry, I think I’m still drunk I-” 

“Lance, oh my god.” Pidge interrupts. Allura and Hunk have all but collapsed on top of eachother from laughter, and Shiro looked…amused, “Shiro is coming to Vidcon with us. He’s a part of the group now, stop being such a kiss ass.”

“HOLY FUCK!” 

Still, Shiro was not his guilty pleasure. 

Lance had never really been a good sleeper. His Mama tells him all the time that he came out of the womb wide eyed and hungry. He supposed this was true. As a kid, when all his siblings went to sleep, he’d stay up and be illuminated by his screen, exploring the vastness of the web and finding creators who turned into his favorites. In hindsight, having unrestricted access to the internet at such a young age had probably done some detrimental damage to his development, but then again, he was funny and familiar with the platform he made a living off of, so really how bad could it be? 

The habit never died down really, even as the owner of a channel with  4.02 Million subscribers, his love for finding new creators (and his difficulty sleeping) grew daily. It’s how he found Shiro, of course, who hadn’t? But he’d found smaller creators too. 

The apartment was quiet as always, Hunk was an early sleeper. Lance was tired of staring at the wall, so he lit a candle and tugged a blanket over to his desk and gaming chair. It was late enough to finally indulge in what he’d wanted all night, after getting over the initial Shiro shock, of course. 

He scrolls through his private subscription list until he finds the channel he was looking for. He had stumbled upon it half asleep one night a few years ago, since then, there had only been three more uploads to join the six that make up the channel. The treat? Each video was around an hour to two hours long, something Lance would never do. The account was simply named “Keith” with a stunning photo of sand dunes as the banner and what might be a dog (or was it a wolf?) as the profile picture. While the account itself had about 2K subscribers, Lance had seen the creator’s videos reach up to half a million views. This was impressive of course, considering:

- Keith (lance assumed this was his name) never showed his face. Just his hands, on occasion 

- There were no ads, tags, or collabs with other channels 

- every video was simply named after the duration of time it depicts

- the editing was close to nonexistent 

Curling up into his blanket, Lance is pleased to see the little blue dot by the photo of the dog. A new video! May 14, 2025 - June 12, 2025 is settled on the dashboard along the other dates, the thumbnail shows another beautiful view of what appeared to be some beach in the distance. Lance smiled, his show was on.

The video opens just as abrupt as always, the guy records on what has to be some vintage cam recorder. He never really starts with an intro, but instead throws the viewer right into the middle of his life. “I’m in middle of nowhere Texas right now,” Keith says from behind the camera. And this is why Lance can never share his guilty pleasure. Because he knows that it will be skewed immediately. 

Was this mystery guy’s voice really, really , hot? Maybe! Was Lance only a fan of the channel for that reason? No! And so what if his heart fluttered while watching the man show his makeshift garden, and stick his fingers in the dirt to “feel if these guys are thirsty” (okay, and maybe he was.) But no, that was not the only reason he was a loyal subscriber, notification bell and all. 

Keith was like… a gem of the internet. Lance wasn’t sure why or how he’d ended up on Youtube in the first place, but he certainly won’t complain. It was just. For all of Lance's manufactured storylines and crafted challenges, Keith simply existed with a camera. He documented close to nothing, and yet Lance couldn’t look away. These videos, he knew them like the back of his hand. On late nights in Cuba, when his heart ached from loneliness and all he had was his siblings and a screen– “ Keith” and December 4, 2017 - February 15, 2018 were there for him. He was entranced with the amateur cinematography of it all. How Keith managed to capture his life in a way that wasn’t quite clumsy but it certainly wasn’t poised. It was rough, a little blurry at times, but altogether beautiful. Lance loved especially, when Keith would wander to a waterfall, or some quiet place in the desert. He could hear the man settle behind the camera, speaking in the video like he was on a call. He was awkward, there was no Youtuber voice, or sparkle. Just a man, the desert, the rustling of a blanket and the gravely hum to his voice as he explained, “these sand dunes stretch out for miles,” Lance finds himself dozing to the rounded vowels of Keith’s western accent, “you can’t begin t’see the half of it. They go on rollin,” 

Every so often, Keith would get a bit more talkative than usual and just go. Lance, half asleep in his chair listened with a slight smile as the man spoke about the best and worst dunes he’d seen, the treasured knife he’d lost to a thick tree trunk, the cold water in his little shack and how it made him want to poke into LA. Wait. Lance cracked an eye open, it was still the same view. Pale blue sky, no clouds, yellow sand carved by dramatic shadows. But Lance listened more intently, noting the hesitance in Keith’s voice. 

“I uh. I’m not good at this whole video making thing but, you guys? Folks? Seem to like it, and. I did get one of those things, the invites. To the convention, I thought, why not go see a bit of city life. Gets me out of this dust bowl, yeah? Tell me what y'all think. I’ll read the comments when I post this. S’there anyone who wants to meet me?” 

And maybe it was because it was near 3am and his heart was unguarded. Maybe it was because he felt he knew Keith on a personal level. Or maybe it was because he had gotten greedy, after meeting one idol and decided he deserved another favorite. But Lance scrolls down, types up a message and hits send before promptly slumping over on his desk, succumbing to exhaustion. 

June 14, 2025   3:04 am

Loverboylance (✓) : holy shit dude please come to la i want to see you like. now.

He doesn’t wake up to any of the notifications on his phone. Only stirring when Hunk bursts in, holding his own device up, “DUDE! Who the hell is Keith and why are you guys trending on twitter?”

Chapter Text

“Wait wait, this one is good,” Pidge clears their throat from their perch on the kitchen counter, phone in hand, reading aloud what has to be the thousandth twitter post this morning. “From @lovergirllacy:,” they snort, glancing at the poor Cuban, “‘lance caught being horny on main for some desert cowboy at 3am is both imperative and detrimental to the bi community. happy fucking pride ig.’ Jesus Lance! this might be my favorite controversy of yours yet.”

Lance pouts at his stack of pancakes, “are you done?” he pokes at the syrupy breakfast plate, stabbing little holes in it to keep from launching himself at his devil incarnate of a friend. At least Hunk had the decency to try bribery. After the initial assault of questions and cooing over this mystery man Lance “so desperately” wanted to see, Hunk hummed his way to the kitchen and nodded for his roommate to meet him there. 

Lance wanted to die. He wanted to crawl into a hole and never come back out because what was he thinking! He gave up on poking at his pancakes and settled for thunking his head on the table. This was horrible, everyone knew about his gem now. He’d seen it: the speculations and bursts of conversations. 

Who is Keith? (a thread) 1 of 9

And the multitudes of:

@whenisayvol

STOPPPP WHO IS KEITH AND WHY IS LANCE BEGGING TO SEE HIM IMASDFGHJKL

 

@whatthequiznak

Guys. We need to respect Lance's privacy as a human being…is what i would say if he didn't already chronically overshare. Collab coming soon gorgeous??

 

@takashishirogooner

okay. so ur telling me lance met THE takashi shirogane last night…but he's trending because of his public thirst for some guy??? goodBYE-

And even worse, there was nothing but radio silence on the other end. Not even so much as a like! So really, this was double embarrassing as Lance’s comment stood simultaneously spotlighted by the media and ignored by that stupid, stupid cowboy. 

Hunk settled in the chair in front of Lance while he lamented, “Dude. You’ve experienced much worse attention,” He provided thoughtfully, rubbing the arm Lance so wonderfully splayed across the table, taking up half the space. He only groaned in response, turning into himself. Hunk was right, of course, he always was. This was a drop in the water compared to the ocean of Lance’s digital footprint. There was the Allura incident, of course. The sex-shop paparazzi photos some fans had taken and posted, and the time he almost got canceled for “queer-bating." No, this certainly was not the worst thing he’d been through, but it still sucked. 

“It’s more funny than anything, really,” Pidge hopped down from their perch to sit at the table, knocking Lance’s hand aside, “you should be fine. It’s very on brand.” 

Lance groaned even louder, “on brand,” he whined, “maybe I didn’t want this to be marketed.” He huffs, standing to his feet. “I’ll be in my room. Nobody follow me,” He didn’t care if he was being dramatic. That was on brand too. 

How embarrassing, he thought as he fell back onto his bed, burying his face in the pillows. Just as the tendrils of sleep began to take him under, his phone buzzes:

New reply 

Keith has replied to your comment! Click here to read

“GUYS I LIED COME HERE OH FUCK”

Keith could not stop staring at his computer screen. 

8 thousand people subscribed to his channel. Overnight. Just how in the world did this happen? And his email, which he left open to see the comments from his regulars, had been blowing up with a surplus of news since seven in the morning. 8 thousand new subscribers and over a million views on his most recent video! He wasn’t even one for checking the statistics, it was just. He promised that he’d read the comments but now…

@lovergirllacy

please you have to come to vidcon now, lance demands it

 

@hippiedippie

wait no way my two favorite yts know each other. keith you have to go!!

 

@alteandreamz

Thank you to Lance for introducing us to the sexiest man on the internet. Who knew he had taste? 

Keith furrowed his brow, shifting in the rickety chair he regrets buying second-hand. It barely did anything to cushion his ass, let alone support his posture. Usually he would be out exploring, maybe with his bike. But today, he was just trying to figure out who the hell this Lance guy was, and what he had to do with the sudden influx of noise in Keith’s inbox. 

He scrolls until he finds the culprit, sure enough it was a channel by the name of ‘LoverboyLance’ that left a comment grossing a few hundred replies.

“Come to LA?” Keith murmured to himself as his eyes scanned the message, he clicked the user and was met with an impressive layout. Keith was not one for making an aesthetic home page, the more candid the better. This Lance on the other hand, he had some sort of system going. A blue banner was mingled with a multi media collage of group photos, stars, swirls, and the channel title strung together with ransom note letters. Below was a photo of who Keith could only assume was Lance, shirtless and smiling wide with his thumb up towards the camera. Behind him, a blue ocean meets the pale blue sky.

He was… pretty. 

Keith clicks on the top video available titled “We got kicked out of target (again)” and is met with Lance once more. Pretty and loud. Still, there was something addictive in the cadence of his voice and his personality. Keith couldn’t look away. 

He spent hours binging this stranger’s, Lance’s, account and finds himself pleased to have a connection to him. 4.2 million subscribers was more than Keith would ever dream of . Still, he could see how this man had them. He had videos dating back to 2019 and what looked to be a consistent upload schedule. The content was engaging, if not a bit silly, and Keith found himself smiling at his screen watching anything the man did. Especially the video where his trio of friends cooked and the tiny one’s mouth was covered with tape, the big one wore a blindfold, and Lance had on huge headphones. 

Before he knew it, hours had gone by and Keith was the least productive he had been in ages. Now though, the confusion was replaced by the shock of nerves and a morsel of excitement. This was big. LoverboyLance was not your average viewer, so just what the hell was he doing on Keith’s channel?

Keith finds the comment again.

June 14, 2025   3:04 am

@Loverboylance (✓) : holy shit dude please come to la i want to see you like. now.

 

He wants to see me?

Keith presses his lips into a thin line, leaning into his keyboard. He types a response, reads it back, then deletes it. 

It was going to be a long morning.

June 15, 2025    11:19 am

@Loverboylance: Do you always invite strangers to LA? 

Edit: See you there. 

“Lance, please stop screaming,” Allura frowns, laying her head on Shiro’s shoulder. Under normal circumstances, Lance would be internally freaking out over the fact that his Idol and the most beautiful woman in the world were cozied up on his couch. But there were much, much bigger things to lose it over. 

“Allura, be serious! He replied!” He shoved his phone in her face for emphasis, waving it around way too fast for anything to be read. Shiro laughed heartily, “Can I get some context on why you called this emergency meeting?” It was the first one he's ever attended.

Pidge, from their spot on the living room floor, snorts, “get in line Grandpa, we never know. Earlier he told us not to speak to him.” Hunk emerged with cups of lemonade for everyone, “this is true. What’s going on here buddy?”

Lance finds himself standing in front of the group like he was giving a presentation, he nods back at Hunk dutifully. “I’m sure you are all wondering why I’ve called you here today,” he rattles off, sobering up from his previous frenzy. “This is a very pivotal moment in my career, as well as my personal life, and depending on how it is dealt with will be the pique or death of both.” 

“Okay. So, you have actually lost it,” Pidge whistles low. Swatting at Hunk who shushes them. 

“Would you just tell us who this Keith even is?” Allura sported the vein that protrudes from her forehead whenever she’s pissed off, “Really Lance, we just want to understand.”

Solemnly, Lance nods, using the TV remote to pull up his beloved channel for his friends to see. “I’m about to change your life.” 

The room was. Entranced? Not that Lance was surprised, he had phenomenal taste of course. But even Pidge, known for berating literally any and everything, had this glint in their eye watching Keith explore some abandoned cave. 

Shiro, who looked amazing on Lance’s couch by the way, was surprisingly interested as well. He watched along with Allura, donning a little smile. 

“Okay. I think I get it now,” Hunk smiles at Lance, who had decided to sit in front of the screen with his knees to his chest, craning his neck up to rewatch a video he practically had memorized. “How did you even find this guy?”

“He came to me like a dream, Hunk.”

Lance fell backwards to splay his limbs out, staring up at the hands tracing initials carved into rocks, “It was way back in like, 2016. I watch him at like, any inconvenience.” 

“Well as creepy as that is...I like him!” Pidge purses their lips in surprise at Lance, “He’s got that cryptic ghost hunter vibe about him. I didn’t know that was your type, sparkles.” Lance rolled his eyes, holding a special finger up in their general direction. 

He looks to Allura, “C’mon, you’re perfect with this stuff. What the hell do I do?” Allura’s brows furrow thoughtfully, “Well, It seems as though your invitation, while very unprofessional, worked. So I guess it’s time to start preparing to see him at Vidcon!” She smiles and claps her hands together, “I have another project to support, I suppose!”

“OH god you’re right! I have to see him” Lance covers his face, rolling around on the ground.

“You told him you wanted to?” Shiro supplies unhelpfully, Hunk and Pidge just snicker in the corner as always. 

“Well yeah but what if like! What if he’s weird. What if he thinks I’m weird?? He probably already does, do you guys think he’s stalked my channel by now? Does he even know how the internet works?” Deciding the floor was no longer supportive, Lance takes to pacing. Keith still speaks softly on the TV behind him. “What do I even wear! And the fans, they’re going to be everywhere! What do you think they’re saying about us right now! And what do I wear? OH GOD GUYS! Meeting adjourned, I have work to do. I’ll be in my room.” He runs off abruptly for the second time that day, leaving everyone but Shiro amused and slightly annoyed.

“He does know Vidcon is in Anaheim this year, right,” Pidge snorts, breaking the static Lance left behind. 

@cowsonsaturn

lance getting a reply from that vision of a man WHEN IS IT MY TURN??

 

@bluebabyblue

“Edit: See you there.” K so when's the wedding.

             @lalalance

            @bluebabyblue RIGHT?? WHERE DOES THIS TWINK FIND PPL T-T

 

@treesneedhugstoo

Keith finally getting the recognition he deserves is soooo <33

 

@VidconOfficial 

We are officially 10 DAYS out from our 16th annual convention and things are heating up! Don’t miss the chance to see @LoverboyLance and @Keith meet for the first time! Link to purchase tickets can be found in our bio.

#Vidcon #10days