Work Text:
Must Have Done Something Right
Technically it began like this.
“Ghost.”
“Seriously? Ghost is what you’re gonna go for, buddy?”
“I’m holding out for alien body-snatcher.”
“Pssh. At least my serial killer theory was believable,” Lance huffs in disdain.
Pidge retaliates with a swift kick to the shins because Pidge is tiny and full of rage.
“There could very well be life on other planets,” Hunk muses, “But I’m still saying the new neighbor’s a ghost.”
“I really don’t think he counts as ‘new’ anymore,” Pidge says around a jaw-breaking yawn, “He’s been here for two months.”
“Allegedly,” Lance mutters suspiciously, “I wonder where he hides the bodies.”
“The bodies he snatches, like an alien body-snatcher,” Pidge says decisively.
“But if he’s a ghost then he’s invisible. It’s why we never see him. We literally can’t see him. I think an alien would be pretty noticeable.”
“But a serial killer wouldn’t be!”
Pidge gives him a flat look, “Really?”
“Hey, you’ve seen the news. Serial killers all look really ordinary. Right until they serial-kill you!” he jumps at Pidge, going to grab her, and gets poked in the stomach for his efforts.
“Maybe he doesn’t even live here,” Hunk suggests.
“Why would you say that?” Lance wheezes around the bony finger jabbed in his diaphragm.
“Yeah, the movers unloaded all that crap two months ago,” Pidge points out.
“Maybe he only plans on living here part-time. Maybe he’s just an old guy who spends winters in Florida or something.”
“Hunk, my man,” Lance puts a consoling hand on his best friend’s shoulder, “That is an incredibly lame explanation.”
“Yeah, but it’s at least reasonable. Although I’m still holding out for a ghost.”
“Serial killer is still totally possible.”
“Pssh. Aliens. Definitely aliens.”
Hunk sighs and they all go back to staring out the front window.
…
Lance’s post-college plans hadn’t really included living with his two best friends in the right half of a duplex older than he was and working eight days a week (yes, he knows a week only has seven days, Pidge, it just feels like there’s an extra day) with eight to seventeen-year-old kids. But the Community Center job is kind of the best thing ever – it’s something different every day and he never has to sit still. Yeah he has to run after hordes of children but his actual job is finding fun stuff for them to do and that’s pretty damn cool. And the duplex…well, it’s a temperamental place on a good day, but Hunk says that’s part of it’s charm and Pidge says it’s a ‘work in progress’ (Lance sometimes worries that he’s going to wake up one day and his roommate will have modified their house into some kind of Transformers-esque battle-bot).
So yeah, life is pretty good.
And then there’s the mysterious neighbor.
The thing is, the past four years the other half of the duplex has been empty. Completely, totally, 100% vacant. And really, they like it that way. There’s a dumbwaiter (a remnant from before the duplex was, in fact, a duplex and was instead an obnoxious rich-person house) that runs through the wall separating the two units. Their first year in the house and their last year in college they’d found the dumbwaiter doors and realized they could casually trespass on the other half of the house. And since the other half of the house was permanently empty, that basically translated to Pidge using their non-existent neighbor’s basement as a robotics lab.
And then the unimaginable happened. The permanent ‘FOR SALE’ sign in the front yard disappeared.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” Pidge said, tone grave.
“It can’t be all that bad,” Hunk offered uncertainly.
“Who the hell is this guy?” Lance demanded.
And now, months later, they still have no idea.
Pidge moved her mad scientist lair into their own basement (Lance is pretty sure the ‘bot she’s working on is going to turn sentient any day now and every time he expresses his very real and valid concerns, Pidge, the mad scientist herself just gives him an evil grin and mutters, “we shall see” ominously). Hunk and Lance (okay, mostly Hunk, 100% Hunk, Lance was there purely for decorative and morally-supporting purposes) closed up the dumbwaiter, and they privately mourned the loss of the ‘FOR SALE’ sign. Well. Actually Lance accidentally ran over the ‘SOLD’ sign with his car because he was running late to work and not looking where he was going. He still contends it was part of the grieving process. Change is difficult and we all deal in our own ways. (“Yeah, by not checking our blind spots.” “Shut up, Pidge.”)
So there was the other half of the duplex. And their possibly-inhuman-serial-killing neighbor. Who may or may not even be there.
Life was pretty good.
…
It really begins like this.
“Rock paper scissors over who gets the mail.”
“Come on, Lance, just go get the mail.”
“Hunk, old buddy, old pal…”
“Lance. It’s your turn to get the mail.”
“It’s cold and dark outside! My Cuban ass was not meant for these glacial temperatures!”
“You grew up in Michigan.”
“Under great duress.”
From the living room comes a resounding crash and a string of vicious curses followed up with, “Just get the damn mail, Lance!”
“Pidge says you should get the mail.”
Lance groans theatrically and throws his hands in the air, “If I freeze to death, on your head be it.”
“You’re not going to freeze.”
“You don’t know that,” Lance huffs but is tugging his coat on as he steps out the front door. He’s still struggling with the coat actually – one of the sleeves is inside-out – as he slips and slides down the sidewalk, muttering darkly to himself in Spanish and trying not to shiver. Fuck, but it actually is cold outside. And it’s snowing. It’s just a Christmas card of a night and slush is definitely soaking into his converse (perhaps canvas was not the best choice of shoe-material).
The ‘mail box’ is actually a single unit for everyone on their street with little boxes for each house like a post office box but outside. Lance is hoping the little metal door isn’t frozen shut, trying to zip up his coat, and still sliding along on the icy sidewalk when suddenly, out of fucking nowhere, there’s another person, dressed all in black, turning away from the mailbox unit. Lance is almost right up on this guy – total stranger, dressed, again, in all black, completely creepy – when he looks up and sees him. It’s enough to startle an unfortunate yelp-jump combination out of Lance and a domino-esque collision that somehow ends with Lance on his ass in a snowdrift and a dull twack that was probably not him coming from somewhere above his head.
“What the fuck,” a new voice groans as Lance flails in the snow, not wanting to think about the bruises accumulating on his back as he struggles to bat the snow out of his eyes. He gets his vision clear just in time to see this random – really fucking attractive, dammit – creep rock back from the mailbox unit. “What the fuck?” Random Hot Dude says again, more aggressively.
Lance snorts, “Hey, you were…there, rude.”
“What the fuck” seems to be on permanent loop in Stranger Danger’s brain because he says it again.
“Hey, fight me, attractive stranger,” Lance spits as he scrambles to his feet.
“Are you stupid or stupid?” the new guy groans, and now that Lance is upright he has a better angle on the guy’s face and…
“Holy shit, you’re bleeding!”
“Yes.”
“Um, okay, sorry, ah, come on, I’ll, um, stick some gauze on that and we’ll go to the hospital.”
“I can…”
“Follow me and let me help you and maybe don’t sue me for accidentally denting your perfect, fuck, sorry, you’re very attractive, and bleeding! Bleeding attractive stranger I bludgeoned indirectly with a mailbox. Life is funny, huh?”
Attractive Stranger is staring at him but finally nods uncertainly like he’s not sure what Lance will do if he doesn’t respond in some way. Lance laughs uncomfortably.
Life sure is funny.
...
Keith. Attractive Stranger’s name is Keith and he needs five stitches. Lance stays with him at the hospital because that’s what neighbors do after they accidentally cause grievous bodily harm. Keith is even prettier in real light, although he’s got dark circles like a zombie and a mullet (“It’s not a mullet,” he says in the waiting room, “It’s what happens when I let my brother cut my hair,” Lance can’t help but ask, “Did you ask your brother to give you a mullet? Because that’s what happened, dude,” and Keith gives him this thousand-yard stare that has Lance shrugging uncomfortable and returning his attention to the paperwork on the clipboard the nurse handed him, “Any allergies?” “Human interaction.” “I don’t think that’s an actual option here, buddy.”). He’s twenty-five, like Lance and just moved in two months ago.
“You’re alien-ghost-serial-killer neighbor!” Lance yelps, and then quails, realizing he probably shouldn’t have shouted that in a hospital waiting room. Or anywhere public ever.
But Keith-the-attractive-neighbor-man is surprisingly cool about it. “How would I serial kill anyone if I was a ghost? Wouldn’t I be incorporeal?”
“People can totally die of fright. There have been studies.”
“Yeah, but I’m not very scary.”
“The all-black clothing, leather jacket and general air of anti-social mystery are all steps in the right direction. Although the mullet definitely decreases the fear factor.”
And that’s when Lance learns that Keith-the-attractive-stranger has the best laugh in the history of all laughs ever. It’s totally dorky and awkward and a little rusty and all-over-the-place like it hasn’t been used much, like a bike with the training wheels off for the first time.
It’s really cute.
Until Keith quickly re-remembers that he has a very bruised face and scrunching it up to giggle at Lance’s stupidity is actually super painful. It ends pretty quickly then. But it was nice while it lasted.
“Why do you think I’m an alien-ghost-serial-killer?”
“Oh, I just thought you were a serial killer.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, this was before I met you. You’re definitely too hot to be a successful serial killer. You’re too memorable. You’d be caught waaaay before you could really work up a rap sheet.”
“Okay...”
Lance decides to ignore his own complete and utter failure to resemble anything smooth at all and forges ahead valiantly. “My roommates thought you were an alien and a ghost respectively.”
“You’re the three people in the other half of my duplex.”
“Excuse you, but you are in the other half of our Garrison.”
“Garrison?”
“It was that or Space Palace.”
“Okay.”
They fall silent. Well, as silent as possible in an ER full of noisy people in varying degrees of suffering.
“Marital status?” Lance blurts like an idiot.
“What?”
“It’s, um, on the form.” And it is, and Lance is filling it out for Keith-the-attractive-neighbor-man because the guy’s very busy holding a wad of gauze to his bleeding face. Because Lance is a nice guy like that.
“Single,” Keith at least seems amused by Lance’s inability to be a person.
“Excellent,” Lance scribbles on the form, then pauses, “Unless you actually have a tragic backstory and I’m making light of, like, your anime-level struggle in the name of true love.”
“No.”
“No to what?”
“No I don’t have any history of diabetes, heart disease, or asthma, but also no, I’m not struggling in the name of true love.”
“Okay, cool.” Another pause. “What about glaucoma? They ask about that one too.”
…
They eventually see a person with actual medical experience and it’s actually someone Lance knows and he’s not sure if this is better or worse than the alternative.
“Lance, it’s a little late for one of your disasters,” Dr. Allura Altea says, kaleidoscope-colored eyes sparkling with mirth.
“You wound me, my lady,” he says dramatically, “I can manage to self-destruct at any time of day or night.”
“Far be it for me to underestimate your destructive powers.”
“Damn right, woman.”
She shakes her head ruefully, “Although this looks a little different than usual. Not one of the Community Center kids getting into trouble?”
Lance shakes his head, “Nah, we close at five on Saturdays, and no one’s gotten hospital-level hurt in a while. This is my neighbor Keith,” Keith gives her a little wave and Lance tries very hard not to find it adorable. He fails. “I accidentally ran into him and smashed his face on a mailbox.”
Allura gives him a look.
“I said accidentally!”
She shakes her head. “Only you, Lance.”
“Yeah, well, can you fix him?”
“You know I can.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
“Sometimes even literally.” She beams at her own joke and Lance beams back at her.
…
Allura is possibly the nicest person Lance knows. He met her at a house party when he was a freshman in college and she was first-year med student. He’d fallen off a roof (don’t ask) and dislocated his shoulder. She’d popped it back in its socket with only minimal tears and screaming (his tears, her screaming at him to hold still and let her work).
She’s definitely going to bring this up later. She’s sneaky like that.
…
“So that was…”
“If you say painless I’m shoving you into another snowdrift.”
“Okay, that’s fair. But you got a lollipop!”
“That you stole from pediatrics.”
“I’m a very good date.”
That startles another laugh out of Keith, which, coincidentally, fills Lance with a warm, fuzzy feeling typically only brought about by puppies, kittens, and heartwarming holiday films.
“I don’t know about that,” Keith muses, “I think you should prove it.”
“Oh I already proved it, I got you a lollipop and a sticker…and you totally just asked me out!”
Keith shoots him a mysterious smile and Lance makes an embarrassing high-pitched noise he absolutely will not admit to in later years.
“But…why?! I hit you in the face with a mailbox!”
“I was very charmed by your offering of both a lollipop and a sticker. It’s a sign of a good provider,” Keith says dryly, eyes sparkling mischievously and hey, they’re kind of a deep purple-blue color, a fairy-tale color. A color Lance was pretty sure couldn’t even be an eye color.
Lance makes another embarrassing sound in lieu of an eloquent response.
Keith raises an eyebrow. “You don’t have to say yes…?” and dammit, he sounds uncertain now.
“Yes! I mean, yes, I do have to say yes because I want to and here I am, saying yes.”
Keith gives him a Mona Lisa half-smile, “Eloquent.”
Lance snorts, “Jerk. How come you’re so smooth? You’re concussed, you asshole!”
“It’s part of my training. On my home planet.”
This time Lance is the one startled into laughing. “Oh, great, Pidge will love that.”
And then Keith is smiling again and they’re just both smiling in a hospital parking light and snow is still swirling down. The cold feels a lot more magical somehow now.
…
“Wait…you’re not seriously an alien, are you?”
“No, I work nights at the theatre downtown.”
“Oh, cool. Jury’s still out on the serial killer or the ghost theories, though, right?”
“If I decide to become a murderous psychopath or undead, you will be the first to know.”
“Awesome.”
…
It’s probably true love or something.