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“Oh, thank you so much,” the woman says, clutching a sachet with cinnamon, dragon’s blood, and cypress to her chest. Keith nods his head absently, writing instructions on a slip of paper for her to take home. “How long will the effects last?”
“As long as you only keep it on you when you’re specifically using your magic, it should last a while -- I know you want to strengthen your magic, but you’ll wear yourself out if you try to do it too much too quickly. No more than two hours at a time, okay?” Keith underlines this part of the instructions twice, just so she won’t forget. “I know you’re in school, so I want you to take care not to overdo it.”
“I won’t,” she promises, taking the piece of paper and folding it carefully into her purse. “I’ve just got so many projects right now, and I don’t want any of them to suffer because of the others--”
“I get it,” Keith tells her, smiling slightly. “My boyfriend’s in the same boat.”
She makes a face, tucking some of her wispy blonde hair behind her ears. Her eyes have dark purplish shadows beneath them. “I hope he’s doing better than I am. Anyways, thank you. I’ll probably be back in a few weeks.” She lays her money down on the counter and weaves her way through the shop, making her way outside. The bell above the door chimes gently, and the hanging plants sway gently from the breeze that flows around the shop.
Keith carefully waits until the bell stops ringing and then makes his way to the back of the shop, into his office, where Lance is slumped over the desk with a dozen books spread out in front of him. A huge red and white cat is laying on top of the keyboard of the laptop shunted off to the side, her tail flicking back and forth. They both appear to be asleep.
Keith approaches as quietly as he can, tilting his head so he can see what Lance was working on -- some sort of paper on philosophies of magic, which is enough for Keith to immediately avert his eyes. Lance still isn’t quite sure what he’d like to do, so he’s taken a broad swath of subjects for his first year at school, but it’s had the adverse effect of making him stretch himself in all different directions, and he’s been exhausted for the last two weeks. Keith has taken to mixing acai berries in green tea to give him enough stamina to stay awake while he studies at night, as well as giving him his own amber necklace to replace with one that burned up all those months ago.
Lance has assured him that as soon as midterms are done, things will go back to normal, but Keith still worries; he doesn’t wake Lance up as he moves around the room, hoping that he’ll at least get a little bit of rest here despite the awkward angle of his neck, and despite the fact that Red’s tail keeps flicking across his face.
He goes back to the front of the shop after he fails to gingerly wedge a leather jacket underneath Lance’s head, deciding instead to drape it over his shoulders and pray that Lance won’t suffer permanent neck pain because of his inability to wake his sleeping boyfriend from the first solid sleep he’s probably gotten in three days.
Up front, he tinkers with a few cursed items that have been left for him to work on, not really devoting a lot of his attention to them. He’s too distracted by other things -- Lance, mainly, but also various chores he’s been putting off, like finally adding protective spells to his garden for the approaching winter, and the dinner he’d promised to attend with Allura that he still needs to procure a suit for. He’s idly spinning a stick of birch between his fingertips when his phone rings -- his cell phone, not the shop.
“Hey, Hunk,” Keith says, using the stick to nudge the silver teaspoon he was supposed to be working on away from him as it starts to twist itself into bizarre shapes. “What’s up?”
“Lance is with you, right?” Hunk asks, sounding worried. “I can’t get ahold of him.”
“He’s sleeping,” Keith says, glancing at the door that leads to the office and hoping that’s still true.
“Thank goodness,” Hunk says, sighing. He makes a huffing noise that sounds strangely familiar to Red when she’s grumpy. “He’s been nonstop for so long now I thought he forgot what sleep was.”
“He really wants to do well at this school,” Keith says, making a face as the spoon starts to spin around in circles, knocking into books and herbs he has lying on the counter. “You know how he gets.”
“Yeah,” Hunk agrees, resignation in his voice. “I kinda wish we were going to the same school so I could keep a better eye on him, but from past experience, he should make it through midterms and then crash for a week.”
“Looking forward to it,” Keith says, and he’s only joking a little. Lance is starting to look as tired and drawn out as he had towards the end of the curse that had been placed on him in the spring, and that’s worrying enough that Keith is considering doing unethical things like sewing lavender into his clothing so he sleeps more and turning off all of his alarms on his phone so he won’t wake up.
“Okay, well, I’ve got to get back to my own studying. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t in a coma in the library or something,” Hunk says. He’s also probably only joking a little. “You guys wanna hang with me and Shay next weekend? We’re thinking about doing a hay bale ride since the harvest festival is happening.”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Keith says, smiling. They say goodbye, and Keith pulls away the phone from his ear just as a gust of warm air blows over it, making him jump in place and yelp. “What the fuck,” he shouts, and turns to find Lance grinning at him. “Lance, what are you doing?”
“I got like an hour and a half of sleep so now I’m good to go for the next twelve hours at least,” Lance says confidently. “I’m bursting with energy. And also messing with you is really fun because your nose scrunches up and it’s cute.”
“I’m going to hex you,” Keith says, but he makes sure he straightens his face out before he says it. Lance winks and stretches himself, hands reaching high into the air. A floating light charm bumps against his fist and gently floats away while Keith tries to keep from staring at the warm skin exposed below his shirt. He drags his gaze back up to Lance’s face and gives him a stern look. “You really should go take a real nap. In a bed.”
“I’m fine,” Lance says flippantly, waving a hand. “Totally rested. I bet I could beat you in a race around the building right now.”
“How about a cup of tea and we don’t do that,” Keith suggests wryly. “Honestly, you’re worse than Shiro was during grad school.” He opens a cabinet behind the counter, pulling out two glittery mugs that Lance had bought for the shop a few months ago.
“You can’t fool me,” Lance tells Keith, snorting. “I’ve met Shiro multiple times now, he obviously came out of the womb mature and responsible. I bet he’s gotten a perfect eight hours of sleep his whole life.”
“Absolutely,” Keith says, thinking of the multiple times he’d wandered into the kitchen at two in the morning to find Shiro systematically pulling all of the food out of the fridge and setting it on the counter while an empty pot filled with uncooked pasta and no water burned on the stove. “He’s always been like that.”
He makes them cups of tea while Lance talks about the dream he’d had where an enormous pen had chased him around a white room until he’d realized it was writing the perfect thesis statement for his paper, which he’d promptly forgotten upon waking up. Keith slides the mug into Lance’s hands midsentence, and he stops talking and immediately takes a sip, sighing. “Thank you, babe,” Lance says, exhaling with his eyes closed.
“You’re welcome,” Keith says quietly. He reaches out and smooths a finger over Lance’s cheek where there’s a crease -- possibly the edge of a piece of paper, or a book. It somehow connects two freckles on his face perfectly. “You’re a mess,” he says, meaning it to be an admonishment but sounding more fond than anything.
“Aren’t you glad to be stuck with me?” Lance asks cheekily, fluttering his lashes. He takes another sip of tea, scalding his tongue and sticking it out with a soft curse.
Yes, Keith thinks, but he doesn’t have to say it out loud -- Lance already knows. It’s honestly one of the best parts of having a soul bond, because it’s still hard sometimes for him to say the words out loud, even though they seem to be easy for Lance. “I’m resigned to it,” he says out loud.
Lance blows over the tea, his breath fogging the air as he cools it off with a hint of cold air, using his elemental magic. Using cold air is one of his favorite things to do when Keith least expects it, like when they’re cuddling on the couch and Keith is almost asleep and isn’t prepared for an icy kiss on the back of his neck. Keith watches him warily now, but Lance seems intent on his tea, taking a more measured sip this time.
“How much more of the paper do you have?” Keith asks. There’s a clatter on the counter, the silver spoon straightening itself back out only to start to ooze a black, viscous liquid. Keith quickly moves the books and various herbs on the counter out of the way, making a face.
“Like three more pages,” Lance says, sighing miserably. He rubs at one of his eyes with the heel of his palm, his brow furrowing. “I don’t know enough words to fill up three pages, Keith. It’s beyond me. I’m going to fail my first year over lack of words.” The words are flippant, but Keith can hear real frustration behind them, the exhaustion that's been etched into the lines of his face seeping through even though he's smiling slightly.
Keith hums thoughtfully, grabbing a glass cover rimmed in copper and slamming it over the top of the spoon, which goes still immediately. “What if when you finish the paper, we go for a ride out to the garden?”
Lance gives him a look, one eyebrow raised. “Trying to bribe me would work better if it wasn’t something we do every week anyways, Keith.”
“I’ll let you drive,” Keith says, watching with satisfaction as Lance slowly brightens, eyes almost glowing with excitement. He sets the cup of tea down on the counter immediately, the liquid sloshing wildly.
“Are you serious?” Lance asks, reaching out to grab Keith’s shoulders. The exhaustion is all but invisible now, drowned out by the tentative joy in his face. “You’d let me? Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Keith says shrugging like it’s no big deal. Except it is a big deal, and they both know it. Keith’s motorcycle had been his mother’s once, and other than Allura riding it once during an emergency, he’s been the only person who’s driven it since she’d died. It was hard, obviously, to think about giving control of something so precious to someone else -- but this was Lance, who was so deeply embedded in his heart that Keith could sometimes feel him even when they were far apart. There was no one he trusted more with something so important.
“But,” he adds, “Only after the paper’s complete.”
“You’re killing me,” Lance says mournfully, but there's a familiar determination in his expression now. He dutifully kisses Keith’s cheek and makes his way back into the office, taking his tea with him. Keith watches him, an absent smile on his face, then turns back to the spoon.
“Let’s try this again,” he says, and lifts the cover.
.
“I changed my mind,” Lance says, looking sick. He’s perched on the motorcycle by himself, helmet already on but with the motorcycle turned off. Keith looks up from where he’s putting Lance’s backpack into the motorcycle’s bag of holding, brow furrowed. “I need to go study some more anyways, just let me--”
“Lance, you’ll be fine,” Keith says firmly, leaning up behind Lance and settling his hands over Lance’s on the handlebars. “Now, where’s the throttle?”
“At least give me a hard question,” Lance grumbles, but he obligingly twists his right wrist.
“Brake? Gear shift? Hand brake?” Keith asks, watching as Lance indicates all of them in rapid succession. “Congratulations, you passed my midterm.”
“Thanks,” Lance says wryly. “But seriously, I can’t do this.”
“Start it up,” Keith tells him firmly, standing back. Lance hesitates, still looking unsure, but when Keith doesn’t move any closer, he straightens up and lifts his right leg, kicking down on the starter and looking relieved when the engine starts up. “Rev it,” Keith tells him, since the motorcycle is in neutral. Lance does, and looks momentarily thrilled at the purring sound it makes underneath him, his usual excitement returning.
Keith easily straddles the bike, wrapping his arms around Lance’s waist. Lance startles, his shoulders going stiff at the sudden contact, the way the bike shifts beneath them. Keith rests his head on his shoulder, hands splaying flat across his chest, as close as he can be without actually melting into Lance.
“You can do it,” Keith says, suffusing their bond with his trust and belief. “Shift into first.”
Lance takes a breath that Keith can feel with his whole body, then lifts his foot and shifts gears. The motorcycle jerks forward a little and Lance yelps, but Keith encouragingly leans forward, pushing Lance to rev the throttle.
And then they’re off, slowly at first, a little uneven, but they pick up pace steadily. Lance shifts into second, and then third gear, and their pace smooths out and turns fluid. They’re used to leaning with each other by now, used to each other’s bodies and movements, and with Keith pressed up against him, guiding his movements, Lance is turning and shifting as if he’s been doing it for years. Lance’s shoulders shake, and Keith hears him laughing over the sound of the wind and the engine.
Lance takes a winding, curvy route to the garden, clearly enjoying himself finally. It’s been something Keith has missed, the last few weeks -- the few moments they’ve managed to be together in between all of Lance’s studying, Lance has been anxious and frantic in turns, curled in on himself while he reads from two books at a time or feverishly dictates notes to a self-writing pen. It had been startling for Keith, who was used to Lance being cheerful and calm most of the time, had left him off balance and a little anxious himself.
Keith holds on now and closes his eyes, basking in the feeling of Lance’s happiness and the sun beaming down on their heads. When the motorcycle pulls to a stop, he opens his eyes to see the garden, starting to wind its way down for the season, less lush than usual but still teeming with life. The trees in the back of the lot are starting to turn colors, shifting into reds and golds.
“I can’t believe I did that,” Lance says giddily, pulling his helmet off. He turns to look at Keith, his eyes sparkling, his smile almost splitting his face. “That was incredible!”
“Told you you could handle it,” Keith says, taking his own helmet off. He’s unprepared for Lance to twist in place, cupping his cheek with one hand and pressing a warm, lingering kiss on his mouth. He melts into it instantly, his own hand coming up to fist in the material of Lance’s shirt, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. Lance tastes of green tea and something vaguely minty, like chewing gum -- Keith finds himself chasing the taste as Lance leans back a little, his grin too wide for them to keep kissing properly.
“Thank you,” Lance says softly, eyes warm. “I hope you know I’m going to be bugging you to do that for the rest of our lives.”
“We could just get you your own motorcycle,” Keith suggests, sliding off of the back of the motorcycle and stretching a little. Lance makes a soft tsking noise, standing up himself.
“I like riding together,” he says, smoothing a hand over the leather seat of the motorcycle. Keith’s stomach does somersaults at the tone of his voice, the quiet contentment -- it’s something else that’s been missing lately, that warm feeling of knowing that Lance was happy with him, was just as invested in the bond as they’d been at the start. Lance’s focus had been elsewhere, lately.
He realizes all of a sudden that he’s been more unhappy than he’d realized without the attention and affection Lance usually gave to him, without the constant kisses and phone calls and evenings spent sprawled on a bed or couch or even Keith’s office chair, just spending time together. Today’s the first day Keith has seen Lance in person all week, and that’s only because he managed to convince Lance that studying at the shop would be easier without the distractions of the library.
I can’t be jealous of a school, Keith tells himself. But he thinks maybe he is. Lance is always in motion, always pushing forward, and Keith is firmly entrenched where he is, embedded in his shop and his life, the same life he’d always had and always wanted -- he wonders sometimes how long Lance will linger with him. He wonders if all that’s holding them together is a bond that neither of them chose to have in the first place. They’re such different people, to the point that their paths might never have crossed without that curse being cast -- Keith thinks that they might never have met in any other universe.
He smothers the thought before it can affect the bond, not wanting Lance to detect his suddenly negative feelings.
Lance raises an eyebrow at him, looking up at the garden. “Did we come here to do something, or is this just both of us ignoring our work?”
“I can start on some of the protective spells,” Keith tells him, even though truthfully his only thoughts had been of getting Lance away from schoolwork.
They walk around the garden, Lance helping once Keith teaches him how the spells work. They won’t keep the winter out entirely, but they’ll keep his garden from dying out completely in the cold weather -- he can rely somewhat on the indoor plants he keeps at the shop, but he won’t make it the whole winter without supplemental resources. The spells they use create a barrier of sorts, turning the air above the garden into a sort of pseudo-greenhouse, until by the time they’re done, they’re both sweating.
Lance flicks a bead of sweat off of his forehead and sighs, leaning his hands against the rickety fence. “Not my favorite way to work up a sweat, but.”
“Lance,” Keith says, giving him a quelling look. Lance grins unrepentantly at him, making Keith sigh. He pulls a rag from his bag, handing it to Lance. “Here. You look like a mess.”
“You say the nicest things,” Lance tells him cheerfully, taking the rag and carefully patting his face dry. He closes his eyes briefly, lashes fluttering darkly against his cheeks, tilting his head up to the sunlight. He still looks tired, but there’s a quiet happiness in his expression that soothes Keith.
He leans close to Lance and presses a kiss to the side of his temple. Lance doesn’t open his eyes, just hums a little and moves closer, his brow smoothing. Keith kisses him again, this time on his cheek, and Lance sighs, his mouth curving into a smile.
“You’re trying to make me forget you just called me a mess,” Lance says, faintly accusing. Keith shakes his head even though Lance can’t see it, his nose brushing Lance’s hair. His pulse beats steady and warm in his chest, in his throat.
“Being a mess doesn’t mean you’re not still pretty,” he murmurs, because it’s true -- Lance always looks pretty, or handsome, or cute. Sometimes he’s a deadly combination of all three. Keith leans in again and this time kisses the corner of Lance’s smile as it widens. Lance snorts softly, his left eye cracking open to stare at Keith.
“You’re so bad at this,” he says fondly, turning to kiss Keith properly. He still tastes of green tea, warm and familiar and soft; his hand touches the edge of Keith’s jaw, smooths along his neck. Warmth blooms and lingers in Keith’s stomach, embers igniting under a gentle breeze. Lance makes a soft noise into Keith’s mouth, a word or a sigh.
When the kiss ends, they don’t move apart right away, instead lingering in each other’s orbit. Keith opens his eyes, unaware that he’d closed them until now, to see Lance staring back at him, eyes bluer than morning glories. Silence stretches out between them, comfortable and calm, the wind sifting through their hair as they just breathe together. Keith doesn't know how long they stay like that, pressed close and quiet, but the moment comes to an abrupt end when Lance shifts.
He speaks, and his lips brush Keith’s. “I’ve gotta get back to studying,” he whispers, and all of the warmth in Keith’s stomach shrivels into ashes.
“Of course,” Keith murmurs, taking a step back. He has the strangest urge to rub his mouth.
Lance clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth impatiently, gently tugging at Keith’s shoulder. His brow is furrowed, and Keith knows he can sense the unhappiness roiling deep in Keith's gut. “Thank you for bringing me out here,” Lance says softly, setting a finger under Keith's chin and tipping his face up gently.. His mouth pulls upwards into a self-deprecating smile. “I needed a break. Sometimes I’m bad at taking care of myself.”
Keith cracks a smile back at him. “I’ve noticed.”
Lance’s lower lip pushes out into a pout, but he lets his hand trail down Keith’s arm until their hands brush, until they can intertwine their fingers. “Luckily,” Lance says, pulling Keith along with him and back through the garden, “I’ve got a boyfriend who takes care of me.”
They pass through trellises of hanging vines, past huge hydrangeas and long rows of birch trees. They walk under the enormous oak tree, its looming branches sheltering them from the afternoon sun, and Keith’s eyes catch on a set of initials carved into the front of it, only a month and a half old -- KK & LM.
He has a sudden flash of memory from that night, as vivid as if he were living it all over again: Lance’s hands on his waist, his chin hooked over his shoulder as Keith carefully carves the knife through the wood -- his own hands on Lance’s, guiding him through the movements -- Lance’s fingertips touching the exposed white of the tree, tracing the letters of his name -- Lance’s mouth on his own, the taste of salt, the flash of tears in the twilight -- Lance laughing and telling him for the first time that he loved him.
Just like that, his tension dissipates, dissolving into nothingness. An uneasy weight lifts off his chest, loosening a chokehold around his heart that he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. He feels abruptly silly, being jealous of a school that will have Lance’s attention for only a few years -- he’s going to have Lance forever, for as long as Lance will have him back, and he can make space in his life for anything while that’s true. He exhales slowly, tipping his head back and making a face at the sky.
Lance glances at him, a question in his eyes, but Keith shakes his head, and tightens his grip on Lance’s hand. “Let’s get you back to your books,” he says, smiling. Lance makes a noise, either a laugh or a sigh, and his fingers curl around Keith’s.
The ride home, Lance takes the long way around again.
.
Keith sits at his desk at home and touches his fingers to the leaf of a tulip that sits in a pot; it curls around his finger, the petals shifting open and closed. Behind him, Red sprawls on his bed, her purring a bassline that matches his idle thoughts.
He hasn’t seen or heard from Lance for four days, ever since their day in the garden. It’s been making all of his worried and restless feelings swell up again, no matter how hard he tries to repress them. He tries to remind himself that once, he hadn’t needed to be around people all the time -- that once, he’d treasured his solitude. That he didn’t need to be around Lance all the time just because they were bonded.
He tells himself these things, but he still feels himself sulking. The tulip shudders in his grasp and he pulls away, rubbing his hands over his eyes.
Above his head, light charms float around, bouncing gently off of levitating plant pots and each other; they cast strange shadows on the walls and floor as he makes his way across the room and towards his bed, throwing himself across it with a muffled noise. Exhaustion seeps from him -- he doesn’t know if it’s because of his mood, or if he’s just tired from a long day of work. A dozen walk ins today have left him feeling drained and irritable, unused to dealing with so many strangers all at once. He contemplates trying to find a stone or potion to help, but he can’t seem to lift himself back up.
Something rustles to his right; then, a small pointed foot digs into his shoulder, followed by another. Red climbs onto his back, her small paws kneading, a purr caught deep in her throat. His familiar settles herself down in the middle of his back, her warmth bleeding through his shirt and into his skin.
His mind settles a little. It’s hard to sulk with a cat sleeping contentedly on your back.
He must drift off -- when he opens his eyes again, night has fallen properly, and the only sources of light in the room are the charms above. Red makes a chirping noise above him, standing up, and he thinks at first she’s what woke him up, but then there’s a sharp thudding noise.
Keith sits up in bed, Red gracefully settling at his side. When he glances at her, her round golden eyes are fixed upon the window. Keith stares with her, and then jolts when a rock flies up and hits the window, bouncing back into the darkness.
There’s only one person who would throw rocks at his window in the middle of the night. Keith’s heart lodges into his throat and lingers, an unconscious smile flitting across his mouth.
When he looks out of the window, however, the smile falls immediately from his face. Lance is halfway up a tree just outside his window, his back turned to Keith as he clings with fingertips to the bark. His foot slips once, twice, but he somehow doesn’t fall, finally finding purchase on a limb. Keith flings the window open and leans out, a scowl spreading across his face as Lance turns his head at an awkward angle to look at him.
“What are you doing? ” Keith hisses through his teeth. Around them, the neighborhood is silent, except for a lawn sprinkler that’s running just across the street. Cricket chirping fills the air, and the moon allows a bright slice of light to fall against the side of the house, illuminating half of Lance’s face when he flashes a grin.
“My last midterm got moved up to this afternoon, and I’m done with all of them now. Lucky, huh?” There’s something about the way he says it that has Keith’s brow furrowing, his fingers digging into the wooden ledge incredulously.
“Did you use your luck magic to change the date of your exam?”
Lance’s eyes glint in the darkness, mischievous. “You know I don’t have that much control over it, Keith.” He moves up another few feet, finally stopping to sit on a branch only a little bit lower than Keith’s window.
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing right now,” Keith says pointedly. He shivers a little as the chill from the outside finally seeps into his room, raising goosebumps on his bare arms. Lance is bundled in a large sweater, the sleeves slipping down over his fingertips as he leans forward.
“I’m sneaking into my boyfriend’s room,” Lance says, almost patiently. He carefully stands up on the limb, reaching out and putting his hands on the windowsill, just next to Keith’s. “Is that not obvious?”
“You can just use the front door,” Keith says, exasperated. “Shiro won’t mind.”
“I’m trying to be romantic,” Lance says, almost petulantly. “Help me up?”
It takes a bit of doing, but they manage to pull Lance up and throw the window, although Lance hits his knee on the frame and Keith manages to smack his head on the window itself doing so. They both wince as they settle on the floor of Keith’s room, rubbing the bruised parts of their bodies.
“Are you okay?” Lance asks, leaning forward and running his fingertips gingerly over Keith’s hair. “If you have some water in here, I can help the swelling.”
“It’s fine,” Keith says, reaching out and grabbing Lance’s wrist. “Lance, what are you doing here?”
Lance’s face looks strangely sharp in the dim lighting of the room, almost unfamiliar. Overhead, the glowing light charms cast shifting golden light down on them. Keith is suddenly reminded of the first dream he’d ever had about Lance, the first night after he’d met him -- Lance sitting on the counter at the shop, all of the light charms floating around his head as if drawn in by the brightness of his smile.
His smile tonight is soft and quiet rather than bright, but it’s still a smile. “I missed you,” Lance says. His hand twists in Keith’s grasp and reaches out, his fingertips carefully touching Keith’s cheek. “I don’t know, I just needed to see you again.”
“I missed you too,” Keith says, because he had. He’d been sulking in bed just minutes ago. But he feels strangely as if he has to thread this conversation carefully, as if Lance is a precious glass figure he has to handle gently. “I know you were busy.”
Lance makes a soft noise, a tired sound. Outside, the wind echoes him, a cold breeze drifting through the open window and wrapping around Keith, who shivers. Lance tugs his hand out of Keith’s grasp and smooths both of them down Keith’s shoulders, rubbing away some of the chill, his touch leaving trails of heat. He glances at the window and flicks his wrist, and it closes with a soft thudding noise.
Keith leans into his touch, a sigh falling out of his mouth as he starts to warm. Lance’s hands are warm from the sweater, but Keith thinks it’s more the fact that they’re Lance’s that has him heating up from the inside out.
“It’s so strange,” Lance says, thumbs smoothing along the crook of Keith’s elbow. “I kept trying to focus on studying but all I wanted was to be with you.” He voice is apologetic when he adds, “That’s why I didn’t call.”
“I understand, Lance,” Keith says, stomach twisting a little. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.”
“I know that,” Lance replies quickly, his grip tightening. “I know that, I promise.” Keith’s shoulders settle a little at how firm his voice is. “It’s weird for me, though. Needing someone so much.”
“The bond is still young,” Keith tells him. He gives into the urge he’s had since Lance touched him to lean forward, and buries his face against Lance’s shoulder, rubbing his cheek over the soft woven material of the sweater. “It won’t be so intense all the time.”
Lance wraps his arms around Keith, breathing in deeply. Keith does the same, inhaling peppermint and sandalwood -- Lance’s favorite gum and favorite cologne. “I don’t mind it,” Lance murmurs into his hair. “Because it’s you.”
Keith feels his face go hot all over, and tucks his face more deeply into Lance’s neck to hide it. “Lance,” he says, feeling embarrassed. Lance laughs and clings a little tighter. Everything that’s been unsettled and unhappy calms inside of Keith, soothed by the feeling of being surrounded by the person he loves.
Lance’s hand curls into the hair at the base of Keith’s neck, gently stroking. “I know you were upset, though. I was kind of -- I basically disappeared for a while. And that was…hard, after the summer.”
The summer -- it looms in his memory like a golden dream, hazy and warm and so perfect it almost doesn’t feel real. They’d spent almost every day of the summer together, even if it was just for a few moments -- they’d just been so desperate to know each other, to fill the spaces between them with stories and memories they hadn’t known they needed until they met. Going from that to almost no contact for days at a time was jarring, a shift Keith hadn’t realized would impact him so greatly.
Still.
Keith takes a deep breath, lifting his head to look Lance in the eye. “I’m glad you’re going to the school you want to go to,” Keith says quietly. “I am. I can deal with the busy schedule and the studying because I’ve -- I’ve got you forever.” It’s almost painful to say it out loud -- he means it, more than anything, but he’s never had to say anything like this before, and he worries he might choke on the words. They come out intact, even though his voice wavers embarrassingly, and linger in the space between them.
Lance stares at him; in the darkness, it’s hard to tell, but Keith thinks he’s blushing. Lance ducks his head, wets his lips and says, “You’re supposed to be bad at this.”
Keith’s laughter spills out of him before he can stop it, maybe louder than it should be when they’re not alone in the house, but Lance stops it for him by covering his mouth with his own, swallowing the sound. Keith feels himself melt in his arms, bracing himself against Lance’s chest with his hands. It’s the first time he’s been kissed in days and he’s dizzy with the sensation, floating with it -- they’ve shared a hundred kisses, maybe a thousand, but it always feels like the first time, like the most important kiss, and this one especially does. It feels like a promise, as real and binding as any magic he’s ever done -- it feels like more than magic.
When they pull apart minutes or hours later, any remaining chill has left. Keith is burning up, an ember fanned into a flickering flame, and Lance is panting softly against his mouth. Keith almost wants to laugh again, just to see if Lance will kiss him quiet. He wonders what time it is, if Shiro is asleep. He wonders if Lance is going to sneak back out of his window.
As if he’s reading Keith’s mind, Lance says, “Can I stay here tonight?” He sound strangely, painfully shy, which is unfamiliar to Keith.
Keith’s throat is too dry to speak right away, so he nods instead. After a moment, he clears his throat and says, “I’ve got pajamas.”
“You sleep in huge shirts, not pajamas,” Lance says. He sounds like he’s smiling, even though it’s too dark by now to see properly. They lean apart for the first time in a while, and Keith tries not to shiver too obviously as the warmth built between them dissipates. Lance lifts his head and looks around the room with open interest. It’s not the first time he’s been in Keith’s room, but it’s the first time in the dark, and things are always different then. Shadows and lights and feelings change in the dark.
They stand up, stretching limbs that have started to buzz with sleep, a yawn creeping out of Lance’s mouth. Keith goes to find clothes for them to wear as Lance absently reaches up and gently touches a light charm as it floats by, tilting unsteadily on an unknown axis. It glows brighter under his touch and dims again as he lets it go. I’m like that light charm, Keith thinks, and then flushes red at his own thought.
Changing into sleep clothes is a strangely quiet affair -- they don’t turn the lights on, as if afraid to break a spell that’s fallen over them. Keith puts on a giant t-shirt, his usual sleepwear just like Lance had said, and glances out of the corner of his eyes at Lance pulling sweatpants on; the ankles are a little short, which makes Lance grin at him and wiggle his toes.
“Are you sure it’s okay?” Lance whispers. His eyes flash bright blue as he glances at the closed door. Everything is quiet downstairs and has been for a while -- Shiro has early mornings just like Keith does, but Shiro actually goes to bed early. There’s very little chance of him waking up before sunrise. Lance still looks hesitant, despite all of this being his own idea. There’s a reason Keith is the impulsive one in their relationship -- Lance secondguesses his bad decisions all the time, whereas Keith usually embraces them.
“It’s fine,” Keith says, rolling his eyes and crawling into bed. Red, who had been sleeping at the foot of the bed, makes an irritated noise, standing up and turning in place to glare at him, but she settles back down again quickly enough. Lance hesitates for just a moment longer, then slides into bed with him, settling under the sheets.
It’s the first time Keith has slept with another person since he was a child sharing a sleeping bag with Shiro, and it’s a vastly different experience. The sheets are still cool to the touch, and Lance quickly presses himself close to Keith, close enough that Keith is certain he can feel Lance’s pulse pounding through their clothes against his back. Lance’s face settles into the hair at the nape of Keith’s neck as his arm settles over his middle, his hand tucking up close to his heart. All around him, the scent of mint and sandalwood lingers. He wonders if it will stay in his bed after Lance is gone in the morning.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” Lance whispers. Keith can feel his lips moving against the back of his neck, and thinks suddenly of the first kiss Lance had ever given him, all those months ago when they’d faced Haggar. Then, Lance’s lips on the back of his neck had been startling, an awakening neither of them had been prepared for. This is something familiar, soothing. He thinks he could fall asleep to it for the rest of his life.
“You’re actually speaking out loud,” Keith replies wryly. Lance huffs a laugh, and his cold nose rubs against Keith’s neck. “Rest, Lance. You’ve been going for weeks now.”
“Don’t let me sleep too late, okay?” Lance says, although half of the words are muffled through a yawn. “I want to -- make breakfast together, okay?” He already sounds half-asleep.
“We can do whatever you want,” Keith promises. His own hand comes up to touch Lance’s, twining their fingers together. For a while, everything is quiet, long enough that Keith thinks Lance has fallen asleep, but then the hand resting on his chest twitches.
Lance murmurs, “Hey, Keith?”
Keith turns his head a little, looking back at Lance. His own eyes are heavy with sleep, his voice slurred. “Mm?”
“I love you,” Lance says, smiling, and then kisses Keith’s cheek softly. Keith’s stomach flutters at how easily the words fall from his lips; he wonders if he should reply, even though Lance already knows how he feels, but Lance’s eyes are already sliding shut, his mouth parting on a sigh. “Goodnight,” Lance says, his voice so quiet Keith almost doesn’t understand him.
“Night,” Keith says, his heart lingering in his throat. He squirms until he’s securely pressed against Lance, tucked in the protective circle of his body, and closes his own eyes. He falls asleep to dreams of waking up and falling asleep again and again, just like this -- held in Lance’s arms, safe and warm and loved.