keith wouldn’t be a nerd in a high school AU. he’d be that one quiet kid with okay grades and not many friends that is still cool to the others, because he seems mysterious and he talks back to the teachers and he’s athletic even if he’s bad at team sports.

his self perception is totally different. high school is a difficult time and he’s a little lost, doesn’t know how to really make friends. he has some people he hangs out with, people to text for the homework, people to do group projects with, people that choose him for teams

in PE even though they know he’s shit at team play, he’s just fast. but not really any /friends/. no one he’d spill all his secrets to. and he doesn’t know how his grades are as good as they are. some of them are effortless. some of them, bad even though he tried.

and then there’s the teacher he keeps arguing with, who still always gives him an A for whatever reason.
keith just wishes things would make sense, or at least he’d have someone to talk to about all his confusion, how lost he is.

lance is kind of in between the popular crowd and the theater kids. he and his friend group are like the nice popular kids, the ones that get along with anyone. he still has a dramatic streak, and it sometimes gets a little mean. he wishes his grades were better,

and that people realized he’s a great pick for teams in PE even if he gets distracted a lot.

lance thinks keith’s mysterious shtick is an act. he kind of dislikes him for it, the way he shuts himself off, the way he sits in the back with his arms crossed and still gets As.

keith doesn’t notice lance as an individual so much as in details in his day - that unique laugh in the cafeteria, the hand that picked up his pen for him, the tousled hair trying to catch the ball before him.

he doesn’t notice him, until -

until idk, someone motivate me to write the rest this has been sitting here since my high school AU tweet