Archive of Our Own

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About 390,000 results (0.41 seconds) for Lance Charles McClain.

To be fair, Keith didn’t know what he expected. This is the first time ‘internet stalking’ someone, and god does he hate that term considering the internet is public domain, never mind the fact he hasn’t sunk low enough in his elongated life to ever become synonymous with a certain middle-aged white woman’s supernatural love interest who should've been in jail instead of a father. He at least hoped a quick search would result in better leads than a sea of different Lances with varying degrees of douchebaggery and shirtless pics.

Unfortunately, no luck, and no Lance McClain either. Not one that matches the boy he's so used to seeing.

Either Lance is the epitome of lucky, or has mastered the subtle art of erasing all traces of a human identity in the 21st century. Considering how impossible it is nowadays to survive in a world where everything about anybody is already transcribed on some database or another, can't have been an easy task. Keith isn’t naïve enough to believe it’s anything but the latter, despite whatever front Lance may put up. He’s not stupid enough to doubt Lance’s intelligence.

Here's what he knows about Lance: Lance laughs loud, is loud in general. He spits jokes that don't make sense to Keith at first that are begrudging pretty hilarious once Lance explains it to him. His face becomes a regular at the waffle house to the point his manager knows his favorite order (two waffles, hashbrowns, one slice of bacon with an herbal tea and a shot of expresso on the side) and calls him 'cutie' much to Lance's delight. The corners of his eyes crinkle when he laughs and he snorts when Keith gives in and tells him a shitty joke. Somehow within the span of a week, Lance has integrated himself into his life so completely it's as if he was always there.

Against his better judgement, Keith can't say he minds.

The problem is he's not sure if he's doing the right thing by letting him in. Most of his life, he's always been on guard, on the ready to protect himself, his family—what's left of it anyway. He promised himself not to let his walls down. Yet here he is, letting the cracks grow and sprawl through the weak spaces all for a boy he knows nothing about.

Among the growing list of reasons why the two of them are dangerous, here's the first: He can't let himself or anyone else he cares about get hurt again. Not because of his own recklessness.

If Keith can’t learn him through facts alone, then he’ll learn what it was like to live like him with the little information he’s received. Maybe that’s the key to knowing more about Lance, to understanding the paradox that makes up a person such as him. To understand the risks to contain any possible harm.

Keith types into the search bar: What is it like to drown?

Keith is leaned up against his motorbike when Lance’s pick-up truck rattles into parking space next to his. It doesn’t take long for Lance to step out in front of him, and Keith pushes the extra helmet into Lance’s chest and says, “We’re skipping.”

Standing there, eyes wide and seemingly unsure whether or not they should gawk at Keith or his bike, only misses a beat before the corners of his lips twist up and leaves Keith into a pile of disgusting mush. “I was about to ask if you wanted to skip—I didn’t realize you were beating me to it, man!” He holds the helmet in his hands, grinning ear to ear like he’s holding something more valuable than a piece of hardened plastic. “You do realize I can’t die from a booboo to the head, right? Still, it’s a pretty sweet gesture, but I’m more of a box of chocolates guy for first dates myself, just an f.y.i. for next time.”

“This isn’t a date,” Keith half-lies, because this technically is just two guys hanging out, even if they are attracted to each other. He just finds the way Lance’s face twists into an exaggerated look of hurt with matching squawking indignation hilarious. “And don’t get ahead of yourself just yet. Neither of us wanted to present a report on nothing tonight anyway.”

“Touché, if not slightly hurtful.” With exaggerated effort, Lance places the helmet on the top of his head with a pout that holds Keith’s gaze. “So, since you’re apparently going to be a bad influence on me, we better be do something fun and adrenaline-pumping or I’m out of here.”

“You just said that you were about to ask me to skip with you just now.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know that until I said it just now,” Lance grins, nudging shoulders with Keith as if that lame comeback ended the verbal sparring match. Out of his inability to care or because they’re wasting precious minutes of the night, he lets him. “And that’s how you do it.”

“You sure schooled me,” he deadpans. Keith rolls his eyes and shakes his head, ignoring the way his heart flutters at the sound of Lance’s smug little laugh that follows after. “Get on. We’re going places.”

“I’m going on that metal death trap?”

Lance has a habit of not filtering his emotions through his words or expressions. Everything about him seems to be all on his sleeve for the entire world to see. For someone like Keith, who has a habit of needing a little helping hand to figure out what someone’s feeling, it’s a refreshing change of pace.

And a fun one, too, depending on who you ask.

“Of course you are.” Keith smirks as he takes the time to sit on his bike. It’s impossible not to feel Lance’s eyes on him the entire time, his insides fluttery. “You asked for adrenaline-pumping and I’m handing it to you on a silver platter. Unless…

“Unless…?” Lance raises a brow.

“You’re scared,” Keith finishes, the words ending as sharp as his smile. “I get it if you’re worried if this is more piss-worthy than adrenaline-pumping.”

Lance pouts. “I’m not scared. If anything I’m pumped to get on this thing.” With the tip of his shoe, he pokes the motorbike and Keith bites down the urge to chastise him for it. “This thing is safe, right? Runs good? No problems I should be aware of by any chance?”

“Safe as life, Lance.”

“Ha-ha.”

Eyeing Keith and then the bike with suspicion, Lance places a hand on his chin, as if determining if it were about to jump out and bite him. It’s hard to tell if it’s silly an undead boy is scared of a motorcycle or heartbreaking in a second-hand embarrassment type of way. Lance has a knack for dancing between those lines often.

“Do I get to wrap my arms around you and scream without you judging me?”

Swallowing hard, Keith can’t ignore the jolt in the pit of his stomach at the idea and how much he wants to fulfill that want in Lance. He takes a seat on his bike, heart beating against his chest and palms sweating against his gloves, and finally offers, “Minimal judgment?”

“Now you got a deal.”

Swinging his legs from behind him, Keith holds his breath as Lance sits himself comfortably from behind. The new presence and knowledge that someone’s behind him has his heart beating against his chest, as if he’s some middle schooler receiving a hug from his crush for the first time. His breath catches when cool arms wrap around him, Lance’s cool breath skating across the shell of his ear and having his skin erupt into a betraying array of goosebumps.

He hates how easy it is to give himself away.

Lance teases in a sing-song voice again his ear, gleeful in the way Keith’s hands tighten over the handlebars, “I heard that, by the way.”

“You didn’t hear anything,” Keith lies. The heat prickling his face is all but betraying him, he knows that much. “Shut up.”

“Make me.”

“Alright.”

Keith tugs at the accelerator and the engine booms to life. The scream from Lance’s throat is a sound he’s going to hold over his head for a couple lifetimes, and he’ll revel in it then, but for now all he can focus on is the way his toned arms wrapped tightly around his torso, clinging from behind. Keith’s smiling wide enough his cheeks are starting to burn.

“I knew you were going to do that,” Lance mutters through his jacket, the words sending subtle vibrations through. In response, Keith revs the engine. There’s a squeak that has Keith snorting. “Not! Cool! I wasn’t ready yet!”

He doesn’t need to turn around to hear the smile in Lance’s voice. Warmth blooms throughout his body.

“Bet you still think I’m cool though,” Keith teases.

“Pleading the fifth, assmuncher.”

“Ready to go now?” Keith turns his head over his shoulder enough to see Lance’s eyes staring back at them, lit up like a firework. Any sense of fear drained from his system. The look in his eye causes a deep fire in the pit of his gut. “I can go slow.” 

“Don’t,” Lance answers with a shake of his head, his arms squeezing around Keith’s middle causing Keith to all but jump out of his skin. “I’m dead, not old. Fast or nothing.” 

Hard to argue with logic that sound. Keith revs the engine, pulls out of the parking lot, and welcomes the chilled air whipping across his face. Fast or nothing it is.

At first, he has no idea where they’re headed. He drives. Away from a class he’s taking to have a few credits under his same name in a different town, away from the life of made up stories and fake identities and locking the ugly parts of himself away. Hidden away behind the clouds, the sun begins to set and night brushes along his senses, draping over them like a comfort blanket. Under the night of Arus, the air tastes of magic and possibilities.

Riding his bike along the highway always felt more of a privilege than a right—a getaway over a necessity to get from one place to the next. Before Lance, before this town, his free time had consisted of repairing an abandoned bike from the depths of an open-mouthed, hungry compactor from the dump. A Shiro-approved hobby.

That first night the motorbike ran he knew what it meant to fall in love. Wind in his hair, heart jumping against his ribcage, hands tight around the handles and reaching speeds he could only reach under a full moon, he felt it: what it meant to live without care.

Except with Lance’s arms around him, alternating between screaming and laughing and whooping at the sharp turns Keith makes to passing a semi with the sole purpose of making Lance buzz in delight, he’s not sure it’s living without care. Because with every sharp turn, he’d have it calculated to make sure no other cars could run straight through, pinpointed the exact moment the roads were free to make sure it’d been safe, catch himself checking the speedometer if he lost less than an inch of grip on the handlebars from the sweat of his palms.

No, it isn’t lack of care. It’s something else entirely. Something without a name, or at least a name at the edge of being known.

Their first stop is a grocery store. He doesn’t realize how hungry he is until the smell of deli meats and cheeses from a mile away hits his nose. His stomach growls, and Lance's laugh radiates against his chest. This trip doesn’t even come close to the record ride of three hours and forty five minutes, and the first step off his bike results in jelly for bones. From the corner of his eye, Lance pops his back before grabbing a shopping cart and hopping on the back of it, it's easy to spot the major difference.

“You hungry? I’ll buy you whatever snacks or drinks or, uh, anything you want.” Keith’s already heading down the chips and dip aisle, avoiding the opportunity of staring. “Do vampires eat Cheeze-Its?”

“We’re trying to stay vegetarians, thanks for asking,” Lance replies with a wink. He pops a wheelie on the back of the shopping cart and mumbles something under his breath when he nearly knocks himself over into a bag of Lays. “I’m not hungry-hungry, but I could munch with you on our little picnic.” There’s an exaggerated brow wiggle to match the implication of the last word.

“This isn’t a date,” Keith repeats for what has to feel like the millionth time tonight. He looks at the rows upon rows of munch-worthy food. “I thought you guys don’t eat—or well, I guess drink— anything but blood.”

“Will the stereotypes ever end with you?” Lance feigns an expression of hurt almost as convincing as the time he swore the garlic in his sandwich Keith had made him wasn’t shriveling up the inside of his throat. It'd been an accident on Keith's part, but Lance had been adamant he was fine even with tears streaming down his face. Then, like most terrible actors do, he breaks. “My best friend, Hunk, he works as a nurse practitioner. Hooks it up good with the room temperature, slightly chilled blood in a bag, but I still like to eat brownies.”

“Wait, what?”

“It’s kind of like milk in a bag, but y’know, with blood. Blood in a bag.” Lance makes a piercing motion into an invisible bag. “I still drink it with a straw. Bendy or bust.”

“That’s not what I’m what-ing about,” Keith clarifies. “Hunk. He’s human and knows about your… condition?”

“Yeah, man. I’m not sure if he’s just human though. He’s pretty magical.”

Keith raises a disbelieving brow. “What does that even mean?”

“When you meet him, you’ll know,” Lance reassures without clarifying further, much to Keith’s frustration.

Then it hits him. That wasn’t an if Keith meets his friends, but a when. Lance fully intends to introduce Keith to his best friend, without question, and Keith doesn’t know how to feel. His stomach is tight and fluttery.

Does that mean he should introduce Lance to Shiro? He’s not sure if he’s ready for that yet.

“Your heart is beating so fast.” There’s a beat before Lance spins around, the smuggest smile known to man on his face. “Is somebody jealous?”

Instead of dignifying Lance with a response, Keith steals the cart out of his grasp and pushes forward and ignores the smug, cheery whistling from behind. He hates his stupid heart always giving him away.

Being around Lance makes even the dullest activities fun. Grocery shopping at eleven o’clock at night isn’t Keith’s idea of thrill-seeking, but with Lance, there’s an electric, buzzing energy in the air he finds himself infected with. It’s in his voice, the high pitch of his laugh, the bounce in his feet. The store’s empty except for the night owls, stoners, and the two of them moving through aisle to aisle like the rowdy young adults they’re supposed to be.

(“Hey, Keith, look,” Lance says through a fit of giggles, pointing at a cereal box with a cartoonish dog with the head filling up most of the cover, “It’s you!”

“Wow, it’s white Lance,” Keith deadpans when met with the covers of discounted Twilight DVDS. Robert Pattison’s dead inside eyes sparks an emotion between fucking hilarious and absolute pity. “You sure you don’t sparkle?”

“Excuse you, I simmer, then burn, then burst into flames. Get it right, Mullet.”)

The adventure’s cut short when the manager kicks them out for jousting with carts. Not so much jousting as much as the two of them colliding into each other cart first, but it’s as good as name as any for what they’re doing. They run and laugh as the manager yells. All the way to the motorbike, stomachs full, the glow of the crescent moon lighting up the highway back home.

This is the first time he's felt like this with another person. The first town to get him to feel alive again. The first boy to make his stomach flip from the echo of his laugh.

It’s the first time in years Keith’s felt his age.

Instead of going straight home, he makes a sharp right on the dirt path half a mile before the street meets his driveway.

The path’s familiar and man-made, mostly filled with dirt and shoved to the side rocks until trees narrow in on the path and they’re forced to abandon Keith’s bike parked against one of the larger trees. It’s going on foot, and this time, Keith’s legs feel somewhat steadier than they were before, but not by much.

It's darker than out on the road due to the cover of coastal Redwoods. Rays of moonlight shine through the leaves and branches, illuminating the surrounding fauna in a glow meant for fairytales and romantic escapades in the dead of night. Whether that's the reason Lance's elbows brush against his the more they walk or simply because he wants to be close to Keith is unclear, but there's no complaints anyway.

Lance talks about how he’s never been camping in the woods except for when he participated in protests surrounding Washington D.C. sometime during the eighties. How that camping trip had been a disaster sans the heavy rain and smores. He talks with his hands, and the way they brush against Keith’s has electricity travelling through his fingertips. Everything about him, from the sound of his voice or the way his eyes light up mentioning a friend he once had, is entrancing.

It’s easy for Keith to lose himself in Lance. If he could, he’d listen to him until his ears no longer worked.

“Oh, wow, I keep forgetting how close we are,” Lance’s voice cuts through the fog of his mind “That’s the—“

“Shh.” Keith nudges Lance gently in the ribs with his elbow, not missing the squirm from Lance either. “Almost there.” 

“And you said this wasn’t a date,” Lance says with a smug smile to match, but doesn’t pipe up the rest of the way besides sharing little anecdotes. Their shoulders brush more often now, a fact Keith’s not so secretly pleased about.

The last bit of distance is a steep climb. The two of them are at peak health, but that doesn't stop Lance from climbing to the top first and offering his hand to help Keith up the steep steps of the rocks.

"I can climb it myself," Keith says, despite the fact he’s already reaching the rest of the way for his hand. The tips of his ears burning from the fact he knows just how full of shit he is, and at how soft Lance’s hands are. "Just so you know."

Lance makes a noise between a grunt and a groan, his head thrown back in typical Lance dramatic fashion. His Adam’s apple bobs and Keith has to tear his gaze away. "You make being romantic so difficult, do you know that?"

"Was that supposed to be romantic?”

"The. Worst. Person."

Keith smirks and takes the lead the last of the way. He focuses on controlling his breaths, especially when Lance’s fingers lace through the spaces of Keith’s. If Lance is bothered by the sweat Keith’s sure is seeping through his gloves, he doesn’t say.

Moving the leaves with his free hand, he and Lance take a moment to stare out, and from the subtle squeeze of his hand, Keith’s sure Lance is as taken away with the view as he hoped he’d be.

Out in front of them, the waves of the Pacific ocean break along the beach, gentler under the influence of the moon. At the top edge of the cliff, with stars shining down on them without the threat of megacity’s light pollution to scare them off, and the seemingly endless darkness of the ocean meeting the dark night’s horizon, it’s easy to feel as if there’s an infinite out there. That these borders of this nowhere town are only a small part of what or who they could be.

Keith’s always loved the quiet of nature and the promise of the stars. Out here, he’s infinite.

“It’s called Top of the World,” Keith says into the air, to Lance. He hasn’t let go of his hand. “I like to come up here and just be sometimes. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I get you. We all need a place.” Lance sounds breathless, as if the air’s been stolen from his lungs. From the sound alone, it’s easy to picture the way the moonlight reflects the joy in his eyes. “It’s really beautiful, Keith.”

“And quiet,” Keith adds.

“You like the quiet?”

“Mhm.”

“Aw geez,” Lance gives a laugh more forced than genuine, “I must’ve been driving you nuts then.”

Keith’s eyes widen before shaking his head. “No, no. I like when you talk,” he says, the realization of which hits him after the words already left his mouth. He glances at Lance, notices the expectant look on his face and takes a breath before knocking a pebble off the edge of the cliff. “I just didn’t want to go home yet.”

“Oh.” A slow, warm smile blooms on his face before he rubs the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. Keith’s heart beats like a drum in his ears. “That’s, uh, cool too. I wasn’t willing to head back yet either.”

Without even realizing, Keith finds himself returning the smile.

They move to lean back against one of the trees to watch the moonlight play across the waves, their hands slipping from one another to get seated much to Keith’s disappointment. At first, they sit stiff, their arms pressed against each other in a way they both know they’re aware of but refuse to move or utter a single word against it. Eventually, Lance yawns, or pretends to, and leans into Keith who’s suffering through a mess of chills and warmth only being around someone you like can give.

“I miss the beach.” Lance kicks off a rock at the edge and listens to how it smacks against the Cliffside rocks until it lands on the sand with a soft thud. “Like, when the sun’s out and everything. It’s a different feeling than at night. I haven’t been out at the beach during the day for a long time.”

Not for the first time in his life, Keith realizes how much of an idiot he is.

"Oh fuck," Keith blurts out. He can feel Lance’s head move, can already see the mash of confused amusement within his eyes, and sighs with the knowledge he’s already weak to Lance’s questioning gazes. “I just realized now that the chances of bringing you here had a fifty-fifty shot of working out.”

Lance tilts his head to the side. It's equal amounts innocence and curiosity that has Keith growing weaker and weaker. “Oh,” he says the moment it clicks to him, but he doesn’t sound angry or upset. It doesn’t change the fact Keith’s stomach in knots either way.

“Now I reminded you of it,” Keith guesses without much sympathy to himself. He internally face palms his useless brain. “Great.”

“Hey, man. It’s hard to remind someone who knows they’re dead that they’re dead.” He turns his body to face Keith better, and when he finally meets Lance’s eyes, they’re soft and understanding. It’s unbearable. “It’s more of a you live with it kind of fact. Background noise at this point.”

If cringing didn’t feel so wrong, Keith’s sure he’d be the poster child right about now.

“I guess it’s a better time than any to tell someone how I turned.” Lance turns to face him with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s unclear who this brave face of his is supposed to be for: Keith or himself. “Well, died, I guess. If you want to be morbid about it.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Keith insists The last thing he wants is for Lance to feel pressure into talking about a traumatizing moment in his life, or the end of. “I’d get it if you don’t want to.”

Some people cannot hide their pain. It’s in the heavy step of their march along a never-ending road, the warble in their smile, the pain reflected in their eyes.

There’s skeletons in Keith’s closet he’d never let out. Ones that haunt him, ones that shaped him into who he is. If anyone is going to understand why some people would choose to hide their pain in silence, it’d be him.

Lance’s eyes soften first, the rest of his face following after frame by frame. As expressive as he is, sometimes expressions alone can’t give away what one is truly feeling. If only he knew what Lance was thinking, Keith could offer something more than the steady grip of his hand.

“When my family and I first immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba, it wasn’t by choice. We were fleeing before we could be torn apart, or worse. You have no idea how lucky we were to have as many of my family make it here.” There’s a distance in his eyes then. Keith refuses to think about how many weren’t as lucky. “I was just a baby, so I didn’t get the whole grand scale of it, you know? I don’t remember stepping a single foot in Cuba, nothing about it besides what my family would share, but that’s my home.

“We get settled here and it’s not easy at first, but eventually it gets better. Not great or anything, but better. My siblings and I decide to go to Miami for my brother Luis’ birthday, and it was cool. It was exciting. We rarely stepped foot out of the business district, so this was new.” Lance is smiling, but eerily still as he continues his story. There’s grief in his eyes. “That was the first time I’ve ever stepped foot on a Miami beach, y’know?”

“How was it?” Keith asks.

“Warm,” Lance answers with a certain softness in his voice. “There were so many people—my people who got to escape, too. We made our own little safe haven. I still stand by the fact there’s no better feeling than when you finally feel like you belong.”

There’s a pause afterwards, and Keith’s holding his breath without knowing why.

“We split up because cell phones weren’t a thing yet, but big crowds still were. The back up plan was to meet back at the car in the motel in case we got separated. I end up on South Beach Pier, and that’s when I realize I’m lost, alone, and there’s some guy following me.” His face hardens. The transition quick and bone chilling to witness from someone who’s as flippant as Lance pretends to be. “White hair. Pale, but not like you’d think. He looked like he was sick. Dead.

“I won’t bore you with the nitty gritty details, but I get cornered under the pier trying to get away from him, which, surprise, surprise, is a better place for a vampire to feed in. I had no clue what was happening either. I fought as hard as I could, but after a point of major blood loss, I couldn’t even keep myself standing.

“Then he left me there,” Lance finishes, words short and curt. “Just dumped my body, wiped his face with a handkerchief, and let me drown under the pier. Not really an easy death.”

It's a statement Keith knows needs no response.

"Do you know what it's like to feel powerless?"

“No,” Keith responds quietly. “I don't.”

“You can survive a vampire bite without turning, you know,” Lance continues. “All you have to do is surprise, surprise, not die before the bite heals. Also not drink any human blood after you die.“ A bitter laugh escapes him, his fists clenching and unclenching against the fabric of his jeans. “Guess who found that out about ten years after the fact.”

Keith’s heart is pounding in his ears, the blood racing through his veins. He’s never felt anger like this. Pure, untapped rage meant for a person he never met before in his life.

He has to breathe. This isn’t about him right now; it’s about Lance.

“I’m sorry, Lance.”

“Wait, what? Why are you sorry?” Lance whips his head towards him, blinking a few more times than normal. “You’re not the one who turned me.”

“No, but…” Keith pinches his brows in thought, making sure to choose his next words to accurately describe what message he wants to say. No chances of being misunderstood or taken the wrong way, not right now. “I’m hurting for you.” A beat. “If that makes sense?”

“It makes perfect sense, buddy,” Lance says, quiet. “This is why I wanted to tell you right now. I feel… comfy around you. If I didn’t want to be here with you, I’d tell you, because I trust you.”

Any other words Keith has die in his throat. No one’s ever said outright they trusted him before, and he wonders how the hell anyone else is able to deal with the overwhelming weight of this gift. This responsibility. He feels like a chosen one out of billions, to hold onto something as special as Lance’s trust. 

Keith can’t trace back the steps that led him here. Headfirst and chasing down a boy he’d only known for so long. Everything he’s ever heard about finding someone and connecting in such a way finally makes sense to him, as terrifying as a fact that may be.

A sniffle comes from his side. “Ugh, I’m making our hang out time into a total emo fest.” Lance’s laugh is strained and wet, and doesn’t really sit well with Keith. Their eyes lock, and the air between them fills with a thick tension invisible to anything but a sense of feeling, suffocating the two of them with what it might mean. “Thanks, Keith. For listening. I mean it.”

Part of Keith wants to console him with his own horror story. It pops up unexplainably, startling even Keith with the suddenness of it. He could tell him, about how he caused his own curse, how he has a wild animal underlying his every move and thought.

How easy it would be to make the two of them feel less alone if he gave a part of himself to Lance.

The words are stuck in his throat. Instead of confessing, he merely says, “I know you do.”

They sit in silence afterwards.

Keith’s always appreciated silence nature brings, craved it when the world was far too loud and wouldn't stop even when he dropped to his knees and begged. It picks at him now like an itchy scab. He’s already missing the sound of Lance’s voice, the scratchiness and utter joy in his laugh. Around them, the air is thick with heaviness, but it settles into something comforting, but nothing that matches the warmth of Lance.

The urge to hold his hand comes back swinging full-force.

A soft weight rests against his shoulder, before soft, wavy hair tickles the underside of Keith’s jaw. He stills, moves his eyes to match a picture to what he feels: Lance’s head resting against his shoulder, staring out at the darkness of the night where the ocean meets the night.

Keith’s never felt more of a coward than this moment.

Come the end of the night, Lance, as always, is a gentleman and offers to walk him home. Keith thinks about his bike lying out in the forest in the dead of night, but the prospect of spending even a couple more minutes with Lance outweighs the fact his bike could be torn apart by the jaws of a bear or the swiping hands of a yeti.

Besides, Keith can always go out and find it himself on his own time.

Even if he didn’t accept the offer, he still thinks Lance would make it a point to be sure Keith got to his door safe anyhow. The fact alone has the corners of his mouth twitching as Lance is in the middle of his explanation.

“You never know what could be lurking around at night,” Lance explains on the walk home. The longer they walk, the more Lance starts to act like himself. His feet are dragging along, kicking up dirt clouds behind them. “A night like this? With a handsome guy alone in the middle of the forest? Nuh-uh. They gotta get through me first.”

Puffing his chest out, pointing at his chest with emphasis, it’s easy to forget Lance is supposed to be deadly. There’s an aura about him that gives off the impression he’d apologize to an ant if it accidentally found its way at the bottom of his show. It’s impossible to picture Lance with the big smile and ridiculous body gestures to be angry, let alone ready to fight anyone.

Still, the sentiment’s cute. There’s no denying that.

“I think you keep forgetting we’re probably what’s lurking around in the night,” Keith replies. “Nothing’s more dangerous than—“

“A vampire and a werewolf taking a stroll under the moonlight?” Lance finishes with a smile.

“Youths looking for trouble.”

“Touché.” Lance walks straight along the line of an abandoned pine tree branch. Arms out to steady himself, he rests his hand on Keith’s shoulder despite the fact he looks anything but unbalanced. His hand’s cold through Keith’s t-shirt, but his face is getting hot anyway. “Except you’re forgetting that this is a monster hub. Probably something way more terrifying than us is already out there, waiting to make their mark.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“I am?”

Lance’s face brightens as he hops off the end of the branch. It’s almost impossible to break his heart.

“Yeah, there’s some white, straight republican truck drivers around here too,” says Keith. “They’re pretty terrifying and rampant.”

Key word being almost.

“Just wait until we stumble along Big Foot. You’ll be begging for some Lancey-Lance protection, and you know what? I’ll still give it to you, because I’m kind and forgiving.”

“Don’t forget humble.”

“Shh already with your negativity.”

Lance’s words start to sound like they’re underwater, but not to the fault of Keith’s. They’re long gone any branches or logs for Lance to be using him as support, but his chilled fingertips keep brushing against the nape of his neck. The goosebumps rising along his skin are impossible not to notice.

With about as much grace as any guy pulling the arm across the shoulder move, Lance carefully moves to drape his arm around him completely.

It’s hard to follow anything afterwards when all he can focus is on is Lance’s arm around his shoulder so casually they might as well have done this a million times before. How they’re practically the same height, if not for the fact Keith’s slouching shoulders ends up giving Lance half an inch—one inch tops—of leverage over him.

How Keith would normally hate that fact if it weren’t so easy to picture how well they’d fit together if he’d only say fuck it and took Lance’s stupidly endearing face and just—

“—Kiss me?”

“What?”

What the fuck. Can vampires read minds now too?!

“Man, where have you been? I asked if you were going to miss me,” Lance clarifies, but in a way that’s not simply information. There’s a knowing half-smile at the edge of his lips, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “What did you think I was saying?”

If he were purposefully trying to be a flirtatious asshole, he’d have given Keith an obnoxious wink or said an equally ridiculous pick up line to match right about now. He’s amused, but genuinely curious in a way that’s endearing. It’s infuriating because Keith can tell when he’s purposefully trying to get under his skin and when he simply does.

Lance one of those rare people who are sweet and hot without obsessing or ever realizing just how sweet and hot they are.

Who knows what kind of power Lance could have if he actually realized that fact instead of obviously overcompensating? Keith’s knees are weak enough, he refuses to entertain the alternate reality where he’s dragging himself from room to room following after Lance like a love-sick puppy. More than the percentage he allows himself to admit for now.

“Nothing,” Keith answers.

Lance sighs in disappointment, and the tone of his voice easily matches it once he announces, “Unfortunately, this is our last stop of the evening. I remember the tacky flamingos on the front yard from the other night.”

All Keith can think is, I don’t want you to go.

With a sigh, he turns his head to the objects in mention. They’re hideous, even in the dark, but Keith can’t bring himself to mock them despite the fact Lance isn’t wrong in their level of tackiness. And that’s coming from Keith, who’s entire sense of fashion is entirely based on clearance bins at Walmart and whatever’s not dirty on his bedroom floor.

They’re Shiro’s, and Shiro in a sense. Shiro’s ironic sense of humor and inability to resist the clearance bin from Target out on display in the form of embarrassing plastic figurines. The Shiro he sees less and less of the longer the years go by.

(“Here’s yours,” Shiro had said with the biggest grin on his face, before everything went to shit. handing him over a hot pink flamingo with a cowboy hat, boots, and matching belt buckle. “I thought this one looked like you. All he needs is the emo haircut.”)

Just because Shiro’s always away on a job or in a place Keith can’t quite reach doesn’t mean he has to spent the rest of his days, or nights, alone anymore.

“My brother isn’t home,” Keith blurts out, lacking any smoothness. He pauses, takes a quick breath, then tries to make it come out like he actually has a brain. “I mean, you don’t have to go home right away if you want. You can come hang out or something.”

Lance’s eyes bug out of his head. “I’m NOT hooking up with you right now!” He all but shouts, the words echoing from the emptiness of the forest and a heightened sense of hearing. “What kinda guy do you take me for?” He pauses. “Not that there’s anything wrong with hooking up or anything, but come on, Keith, we haven’t even—“

Now it’s his turn to widen his eyes. Except it doesn’t take him long to figure out how Lance got to that conclusion. The smirk growing on Keith’s face is effortless.

“I was going to ask if you wanted to watch a movie.” Talk about assumptions. Although, the dawning look of realization transfixing over Lance’s expression makes this one all the more hilarious and worth is. “But, no, go on. What were you going to say?”

“Nothing,” Lance squeaks. His hands are deep within the pockets of his jeans as if he was desperate to hide within them as well. “Nuh-uh. Let’s just forget about it. Watch that movie.”

For how much Lance was unintentionally driving him crazy, hearing him squeak so easy is enough to make up for the entire night.

“We haven’t even…?” Keith trails off, glancing over his shoulder with an air of unbridled glee as he unlocks the front door.

There’s a high-pitched whine escaping Lance. “Keith.”

Keith takes a step forward inside his house and watches Lance outside, flustered with a nervous smile.

“If you wanted to keep up the tally on what’s better, I’d say being able to go inside anywhere I want is a pretty good perk.” He leans against the doorframe, crosses his arms over his chest, and enjoys the way Lance’s eyes widen at the realization of where he’s going with this. “Sucks. Can’t come in?”

“Not if you don’t invite me in.” Lance pouts. “Jerk.”

“Say what you were going to say,” Keith insists. The corner of his mouth twitches up. “Then I might think about it.”

“This is extortion.”

“If you don’t like it, you can always go home.”

“Keeeith.”

“You’re the whiniest vampire I’ve ever met.”

“You’re teasing me.” 

There’s a flash of interest coming from Keith’s eyes. “And if I am?”

“Then you’re sending me very mixed signals right now,” Lance swallows hard. “And that’s not really nice.”

They’re separated by an invisible barrier neither of them can see, one that makes no difference to Keith either way. Keith and Lance, face to face, close enough to close a distance of their lips if Keith wanted to. It all leaves Keith with an impossible decision. 

This would be his last chance to stop this where it stands. Tell Lance to go home, that the two of them are a bad idea—unnatural. He may not be inviting Lance to spend the night with him specifically, not in the way Lance had assumed at least, but Keith is inviting him into something difficult and dangerous and something Keith hasn’t had in who knows how long.

Nothing that made him want to throw common sense out and fall off the edge of the world with only the knowledge Lance would be right there too. Truth be told, he’s never had anything like this.

“This isn’t a date,” Keith reiterates, his words slow and deliberate to make sure Lance hears him. “You know that right?”

“So you’ve said.”

“Don’t look so disappointed,” Keith replies. “When I take you on a date, it’s not going to be just hanging out at my house.”

“Wait…”

“Come on in, Lance.”

Lance hesitates for a moment before he steps inside. The heat between them only magnifies as soon as the door closes, and Keith expects Lance will say something more. About the date, about everything leading up to right now, but all he asks for is a glass of water and a tour of the house, so Keith gives him just that, satisfied with the knowledge he had Lance on the edge of his words and practically sweating.

There’s nothing special about his house. It’s a double story, a little big for a house with two people with neither of them hardly ever home. They move so often there’s still unpacked boxes labeled, ‘Books and Shit’, stacked in a corner of the living room. Keith only notices how bare everything is when Lance’s gaze travels from room to room from the pieces of furniture to the walls. Whatever he’s looking for, Keith can only hope he’s not too disappointed.

Even if Lance were, he’s sure he’d force himself not to care. Hopefully.

By the time they reach Keith’s room, it’s nearing one in the morning, but they still turn the playstation on anyway and search for something to watch. Lance hovers over Teen Wolf, the 1980 version, and laughs even when Keith playfully smacks the controller from his hands. They settle for a sitcom with low voices and a subtle type of humor, one Keith doesn’t know the name to, but doesn’t care to anyway. All his senses are honed in on Lance.

Then at some point of the night, because Keith’s the host and he’d been lectured about being a good host by Shiro after Keith had insulted one of his former bosses. Although, Shiro did give Keith a fist bump as soon as his boss had already driven off with his tires screeching against the pavement.

“Uh, I don’t know what you want to do about the bed situation.” And because Keith can’t help himself, a single corner of his lips twitch upwards and adds, “Because I know how you are about assumptions. Wouldn’t want you to freak out again.”

Keith’s starting to get used to the embarrassed noise that comes from Lance every time he pushes one of his buttons. Or the way Lance pretends to be upset when they both know he’s anything but. “Excuse you. I did not freak out. If you were in my shoes, you would’ve been equally caught off guard, too.”

“Maybe.” Keith can’t lie even if he wanted to, because this asshole would catch it in his heartbeat anyway. “But you squeaked.”

“But you didn’t want me to leave.”

Oh, he wasn’t supposed to turn it around on him. Shit.

“Yeah?” Keith quirks a brow. “Well you were the one who kept insisting it was a date.”

“But you admitted you wanted to ask me out on a date.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know that until I said it.”

“Oh, I did. I soooo did! You had to have liked me.” He’s smirking, his eyes trained on Keith as he walks towards his side of the bed. “I can tell when someone likes me, and I know when I’m gonna get rejected because it’s happened plenty of times. Your face didn’t read rejecting Lance.”

“Now you’re in denial.” Keith can’t look at his face anymore without giving it away, so he lays down in the bed and turns off the light and thanks god for the dark of the night. “I’m sleeping in my bed. You can go to the floor or the couch, up to you.”

“Hey, that’s no way to treat a guest!” God, Shiro’s going to either love Lance or hate Lance, and that all depends on whether he considers Lance an enemy in regards to who’s the best host or whether he wants a new partner in making Keith’s eyes roll out of his sockets. “You offered me the bed, you can’t do backsies. I’m not taking the couch. It hurts my back.”

“Fine, then stay here for all I care,” Keith mutters, though his stomach twists to remind him he does care.

“I am.” Lance sticks his tongue out like the child he is. He shuffles into the other side of the bed like he belongs there. “Jerkface.”

They sit in petty silence for all but five seconds before they both seem to realize what this means, because they both become eerily still and so does the air surrounding them.

Lance starts to giggle. It starts with a muffled sound, his lips sputtering to keep himself from busting out in a fit of laughter right now, then comes out one by one. Then beyond all reason, because it’s addicting to hear Lance giggling or the feeling’s infectious, Keith starts to laugh too. Pretending it’s not that funny to start, but by the middle his head is all but filled with air and dizziness.

He likes this boy. Too much. The truth of it has Keith’s nerves tingling.

The giggle fit wanes out, but the overwhelming energy surrounding them continues to bounce off the walls, off each other. Keith can still the glee within the edges of his smile, can see it reflected in Lance’s eyes. Keith wonders if he’s stepped into a dream.

“I want to kiss you,” Keith says without warning. “I thought I’d tell you.”

“Why don’t you?”

“You know why.”

“Oh, because you want to take me on a real date first.” Lance is grinning so wide Keith swears he sees a second dimple. “That’s really cute.”

“Shut up.”

“Never.”

Keith turns his head to look at Lance, and Lance does the same so that they’re mirroring each other. It’d be so easy to lean forward, brush his lips against Lance’s, give everything he has to him.

It should be terrifying, but the way his heart is beating reminds him of the open road and the wind singing against his ears.

“I like you,” Keith says. “And I don’t like how much I like you.”

“You like me?” Lance squeaks, then clears his throat. “Wait, what—why not? Intimidated to date someone as awesome and good looking as me?”

“Yeah,” he huffs in amusement. “That’s the reason.”

There’s a brief lull of silence between the two.

“I’m nervous,” Lance admits. “You make me nervous.”

Keith frowns. He makes sure he stays in Lance’s line of sight. “Why? How do I stop it?”

“It’s not something you could stop even if you tried to.” Lance chuckles with a shake of his head. “I’ve just… always wanted something like this with someone, and now that it’s here I’m nervous that I’m not ready for something like this.”

“Oh.” Keith presses his lips together. “Uh, should I move to the couch?”

“No, no, not like that. More along the lines I’m not sure if I’m emotionally… ready for this. Prepared,” he explains. “I really don’t want to mess this up.”

Any tension he had melts away in an instant.

“I don’t want to mess this up either,” Keith admits. It’s the most he’s opened up to Lance this entire night, and it’s only fair he’s honest at least with this. It’s strange, but not in a bad way. It’s like his eyes getting used to the brightness of the day after hiding in the dark. “Trust me.”

“Surprisingly enough, that actually makes me feel better. You know? Like we’re on the same page.”

“I knew it’d make you feel better.”

“Yeah?” Lance smiles softly. “How come?”

“Because my misery and annoyance brings you joy.”

“You’re such a negative Nancy, I hope you know that.” Lance emphasizes this with a playful roll of his eyes. “It’s impossible to be miserable during our first sleepover. It’s not allowed.”

“Sleepover?” Keith scoffs, but smiles anyhow. “What are you? Twelve?”

“Am I wrong?”

“No,” Keith answers begrudgingly.

“Is this your first sleepover, Keith?”

“Uh. Not really. Shiro and I both fell asleep on opposite couches after binging Stranger Things though. Unless that doesn’t count.”

From the look on Lance’s face, he’s pretty sure it doesn’t count.

“It doesn’t count.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

They find their way through another argument like before, going back and forth like a tennis match of going Ughs and Mullet. It’s addicting, but nothing more addicting than the way one of them will somehow turned a retort into a compliment. It leaves his entire body buzzing. Talking and flirting without really flirting all night.

Sometime during the night, they pass out. With Lance sleeping on his tummy with his arm draped across Keith’s chest and Keith holding his hand, focusing on the way his chest moves and how Lance’s chilled breath feels against the nape of his neck despite the fact he doesn’t need to breathe.

Light of the crescent moon hits him as he sleeps, and he’s never felt more at peace staring at the moon than right now. He doesn’t want this feeling to end.

This is a dream.

In this dream, there is a body of water, and in this body of water, there is a body. The water may not be still, but the body is.

In this dream, Keith pulls the body out of the ocean, the sea, the lake. It doesn't matter where, it only matters what. The water is warm but the body is cold and the dead stillness of it has Keith shivering, even though there's sweat sliding down his temple.

Drip,

           drip,

                         drip.

The droplets of water and tears and sweat stain the weeds and dirt below, and they shrivel up, dead in seconds. There’s a panic in his eyes, pupils blown wide and eyes unfocused, hands trembling. It's like he's watching from all points of view, from across the water, above two boys, one of whom is still, from his own eyes, from the dead eyes staring back at him.

He knows this body, the one with the dark waves for hair and constellation marks dotting the sides of his face, the ghost of a smile still on his gray lips. Because it's what he'd do awake, or because it's a dream and who knows what could happen, Keith brings his mouth to his mouth and breathes air into dead lungs.

In this dream, Keith dries him off with careful glides of his hands. Gentle not to break him. He’ll take him home, draw him a bath, bring him warm clothes, and make him comfortable. Bring him to life again.

This home is a heart, and this dead body is staining the carpet. It's dark underneath where he lies, and for a moment he thinks its water, but he's dried. It spreads through the house, onto the walls of empty picture frames and unpacked boxes, and Keith screams for someone who isn't home. His throat's raw and he's crying, clutching his face, because the dark stain keeps growing and growing until it's at his chest, filling the house with the scent of something rotted.

Until he’s drowning with it, until he can’t breathe, until he’s lying next to the body, nothing more than a pile of skin and bones waiting to rot into the earth with Keith in it.

In this dream, Keith falls in love with a ghost and knows it. In this dream, they're both haunted and dragged down to a waiting grave.

Luckily, this is just a dream.

This, however, is not one of them.

Keith wakes to choking on air. It takes a moment to realize there's nothing to drown in because outside there's no sign of the sun, only a dreary, overcast morning to greet them.

He's never felt more relieved.

He turns his head over slowly, because the rest of his body's pinned under something cold and surprisingly heavy. There's no vampire burning in his bed, which is a way to know that this day isn't the end of the fucking world. Instead there's a boy who has his nose pressed into the nape of Keith’s neck, mouth slacked open, arm draped across his bare chest as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Like this is something the two of them do—sleeping in Keith's bed.

Which considering the state of things, is something they do now.

No one can blame him if he does a double take, or even a triple take, at how beautiful someone like Lance can be in the early hours of the morning. How still his chest is, how his dark lashes brush across forgotten sun kisses and beauty marks dusted across his face. If Keith stares too long, the urge to press his fingers to find a pulse he already knows won’t exist builds to the point of restlessness, to the point where Keith needs to get out before he lets the righteous anger over the death of someone with so much life overwhelm him.

The faint smell of pancakes from below reaches his room. Shiro must’ve come home sometime after Keith fell asleep, which means Shiro didn’t get any. He’ll be sure to tell him to get his ass to bed after he eats some pancakes. There’s a pathetic gurgling noise in the pit of his stomach. At least that explains why he’s already this intense before noon.

The amount of effort Keith instills in himself to not disturb Lance from the peace of sleep is obvious. If Lance were awake and could see Keith's gritted teeth and wide eyes, careful to make sure he doesn't land with a crick in his neck, he's sure he'd have snorted. He manages to get out of the hold without waking him.

Keith's never had a chance to be gentle, but he thinks he’s doing a pretty decent job for his first time.

Each step the floorboards creak underneath his weight, the unfortunate side effects of old houses. The smell of burnt toast edges and pancakes fills the room, has Keith's stomach rumbling. It reminds him of early breakfast mornings with Shiro when they first moved in, where the floor was dusty and bare and their table was a cardboard box labeled ‘dishes and cups and crap’. Sunday morning cartoons playing as they sat and used red plastic cups as bowls for their cereal. It'd been simpler then, before Shiro had taken this new job. 

God, he's fucking missed Shiro. There's too much he has to catch him up on before Lance has the chance of dramatizing certain details.

Keith only hears the other two voices once he reaches the bottom of the stairs.

“Shiro, it’s important to look into this situation sooner rather than later,” a man with a familiar Australian accent whispers, although to Keith it's as if he's in the same room as him, like the first time they met back at that bar. What the hell was Coran doing here in his house? “This is all pointing to something very bad, and I say this from experience. Waiting around isn't going to solve anything.”

“We can all agree the situation is becoming difficult to keep under wraps for much longer, but I don't think it's something we should just dive into without a plan." Shiro's voice this time. There's a controlled edge to it, like the way his voice would turn when speaking to his superiors or Keith when he challenged him. Everything about this screams wrong. "It's too dangerous. Especially with Keith and...”

The words trail off into the air. Keith's heart jumps in his chest at the sound of his name, knowing he's caught. Was that supposed to be a sign to join them? He's unsure if he's even supposed to now what the hell is going on here. If he closes his eyes, he can picture Shiro standing behind the island counter, brows pinched together at the realization Keith's listening in. The dark bags underlining his eyes, the way the scar across his nose travels, his prosthetic scraping against marble. Nothing besides that image is clear.

“Shiro?” Coran prompts. "Is there something wrong?"

"What?" Shiro's voice sounds distant. It'd be easier to tell what he's feeling if it weren't for the damn wall blocking his face. “Right. Sorry, back to the conversation.”

His prosthetic taps the table three times in quick succession, then another three times one second apart. Keith's sole attention zeroes in on this conversation.

It's a code the two of them made when they were younger to let the other to remain unnoticed. Part of the many games of hide and seek Keith won out of skill and the trail of clues Shiro would leave behind without realizing. Now, it's purpose is to eavesdrop on conversations. Keith has no idea what the point of listening in on this conversation is, but he stills on the steps anyway—refusing to so much as twitch.

“As I was saying, the moment we move in, they’re going to realize their cover’s blown. I say we watch, gather information, and then make a plan of attack.”

They. Attack. An entity. Keith finds himself inching closer towards the archway to the kitchen, the conversation pulling him in like a siren's song. If Shiro's plan of action is to remain careful, whatever's happening on the outskirts of this town warrant a meticulous hand. Curiosity overwhelms him almost as much as the monster under his skin. 

Whatever they happen to be is dangerous enough for Shiro to have stepped in, to be these two strangers hired man. For as much as he warns Keith to not rush headfirst into danger, Shiro's the first to put himself in the line of fire. Sometimes Keith thinks he's addicted to being a hero without even realizing it. Or he no longer cares about his own sense of survival.

Keith prefers to believe the first option. 

“So you’re suggesting to remain sitting ducks while a growing force plans to attack the priestess?” Coran hisses through his teeth with enough vitriol that it carries towards the rest of the room. He can imagine his face turning as red as his hair, blue-green eyes turning into steel. The image alone has Keith’s pulse rising as his hand balls into a fist. “Do I need to remind you that we’ve already experienced enough murders here or should I send for someone to gather your things and remove you permanently from the—“

“Coran, enough. Please.” A woman’s voice this time, heavily accented with a blend of European accents impossible to pinpoint. It’s enough of an identifier to let Keith know he’s never met this woman before in all his time of staying in this town, and that alone has him itching to figure out what the hell she's doing here in his house. “Shiro’s right, and considering he has experience with... these sorts of things, I’ll follow his advice."

"We've experienced just as much, princess," Coran says. "We know the risks, which is why I am begging you to heed my advice. It's what your father wanted for you—to be safe above all else."

"Look around, Coran," the girl says, her voice wavering at the end. "Father's not here."  

Keith's chest coils tight. He doesn't need to see her face to understand what she means. Her voice alone holds an infinite sadness.

"We could use all the experience and allies we could muster, considering how big the threat is. Besides," the woman adds, "We’re angering unwanted ears.”

Keith’s entire face flushes hot at the fact he’s been made. Nothing about the two of them gave away that they could be supernatural, not with the steady beat of their hearts and how human their scent is. Whoever this is had caught him off guard, something Keith has no intention of allowing to happen again.

Two sets of footsteps make their way from the kitchen towards the front door, right in front of the staircase where Keith now stands. Arms tight across his chest, he makes sure he'll catch full view of them once they make their way for an exit. Coran walks through the archway first, offering a too-friendly nod Keith doesn’t return.

The woman walks after, power and elegance in each step she takes. Hair white it’s almost blinding, she doesn’t look much older than Keith, but her eyes hold the weight of years. When her gaze meets his, Keith can’t help but feel as if she knows everything about him, from the type of his blood pushing through his veins to the brand of cereal he keeps in the cupboard. It makes his skin feel too large for his body. 

“Keith,” she says. Knowing his name isn’t something that should send goose bumps along his body, but it does anyhow. Something about the way her mouth curves shows she’s amused by this. “Thank you for letting us into your home.”

This feels like a trap. Keith narrows his eyes.

"I didn't catch your name."

"Allura," she says. There's a moment she's staring right at him, before her gaze follows up the stairs and a knowing smirk forms. "It's been lovely to meet you both, but unfortunately we must be on our way. We'll keep in touch."

Everything is eerily silent besides the crunch of dirt and leaves under their feet, and the sound of four heartbeats desperate to mask the secrets they clutch to their chest.

Keith opens his mouth to speak, but Shiro cuts him off with a raise of his finger. He clamps his mouth shut, and follows the direction when he points at the door. The engine starts, but nobody speaks. Not even them. Only after their tires fade into the distance does Keith snap his head at Shiro.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Business," Shiro replies. It's no surprise where Keith gets his bluntness and inability to relay any snippet of details, and only realizes how annoying it is when it's done to him. "Nice to see you too, Keith. Missed you too, buddy. How's your week been?"

He's going to kill his brother. Literally.

"You're kidding, right?" Keith deadpans. "I listened in on one of the weirdest mornings of my life after you've been gone with work, and that's all you've got to say?"

"It'd be easier to explain if it was only us at home." Shiro doesn't even keep the amused tone out of his voice, and honest to god, Keith will murder him. Once his face is no longer on fire. "But I know you have stuff to do today."

And, well, crap.

"Crap. The game."

"Mhm." Shiro nods and takes a sip of fresh coffee from his Number One Bro mug. "The game."

"Are you staying here?"

"Yup," Shiro says with an accentuated pop. "I need a nap. And to figure out what I'm going to do."

"I'm guessing it's about the weird conversation that happened in the kitchen, right?"

Shiro, like the smug older brother he is, clasps his hand onto Keith's shoulder and pats it. His eyes are shining when he says, “You should take your vampire friend with you.”

At the top of the stairs stands Lance, hair a mess in one of Keith’s sweatshirts and sweats, sleep sunken in his eyes, and says, “Don't tell me I missed the welcoming committee. I just woke up.”

It's a start to a weird fucking day, that's for sure.

The strangeness of this morning follows him to the Arus community sports field. It has a certain edge to it that has Keith uneasy, like the heavy stone in the pit of your stomach when you hear a person's words replayed backwards or when a shadow tricks your eyes.

Everything about this morning was off-kilter. Shiro returning and being an imposed brunch party host with 'the gorgeous man' Coran and a white-haired woman he'd never seen before, despite the fact everything about her would stand out to anyone. That whatever dangerous situation is undergoing outside the border of this town, his brother's nose deep in the middle of it. It's guaranteed for an upcoming fuckfest.

And to think this morning started on a pretty high note.

Next to him, Lance is walking with his hands deep in the pockets of Keith's many black hoodies. It's different from Lance's usual blended style of old school and modern outfits. There's something oddly satisfying about seeing Lance in his clothes to the point where he wouldn't mind if his entire closet went empty, as long as he got to steal Lance's too. It's only fair.

"Hey." There's a light knock of his shoulders against Keith's to get him to turn his head. He furrows his brows to match the slight pout of his lips, making him look equal parts contemplative and cute. "It's still cool if I come, right? Like, I'm not being suffocating or clingy or anything like that, am I?"

Keith frowns. "I told you already you could come, Lance. Why would you ask if you're being suffocating?"

"I don't know. Probably because of the fact we've managed a pretty decent marathon in spending time together, and this is usually the part where people need a breather." Missing the irony, Lance takes a quick breath to recover how fast he got that sentence out. "You've been weird since we got up."

"Well, those people are stupid. I'm glad you've been here. You're the only thing that's actually making any sense to me," Keith says without a hint of remorse. The slow, warm smile blooming on Lance's face has him kicking himself to finish before his train of thought falls down a cliffside. "I've been thinking about that whole weird crap from this morning."

Lance is pretty caught up, for the most part. It wasn't his intention, but as soon as Keith managed to get out of ear shot from Shiro, he blurted everything to Lance. He's not sure if he got out everything, but to be fair, he had been pretty hot headed.

"Gotcha. I don't know if me being here is helping or if you need space, because either way, I'm good. I've got leftover ropa vieja in the fridge and if I'm not careful, someone who isn't me isn't going to feel like respecting the law of dibs." He glances at Keith with a security that has his throat going dry. "I want to make sure you're okay more than anything, so give me the word. Whatever the issue is, we'll deal with it."

Ninety nine percent of the time, his first instinct is to tell Lance to pack his bags and take himself back to his place—to deal with whatever this is alone. It'd been easier that way with everybody in his life, sans Shiro who'd somehow without fail get Keith to confess to whatever problem was going on at the time.

Against all he's ever done, his first instinct was to say, "Stay. You should stay."

"Great," Lance says with a smile. "Let me get my in case of sun outfit on. BRB. Five seconds, tops."

Lance leaves a gust of wind behind and steals an exasperated chuckle from Keith at the same time. He has a pretty decent talent of making Keith's mood better from his presence.

The grass is drying and crunching under his feet. There's a decent size of people here: The Arus Community College Lions and whoever they're supposed to scrimmage with today. In the sidelines there's coaches, girlfriends and boyfriends out to support whoever's on the field, and the occasional non-sports related jogger or two running laps around the track.

When he finds his way to the field, he gets a better glance of their opposing team. He'd almost forgotten he was playing today, let alone who they're playing again. One of them, a rejected H&M model with a face stuck in a puckered expression from an invisible lemon wedge in his mouth, with deep brown curls, stares at him with an intensity that Keith's outgrown from high-school. Asshole, like asshole men do, refuses to move out of Keith's way, knocking their shoulders together.

The anger radiating off of him is palpable; even the air tastes of bitterness and spite. Keith narrows his eyes and keeps walking forward. It's easy to remember he'll have a chance to show him out on the field instead of with his fists—Shiro would be proud of Keith for that one.

A breeze of ocean salt and mint hits his nose. Keith turns his head, and low and behold, there's Lance under a tree under ten minutes. Impressive.

Something in his stomach is loose and free-falling at the sight of him.

The problem is Keith’s feet feels too large for his body, and his helmet’s pressed against his skull so tight he’s more than aware of the blood rushing in his ears. If it weren’t for his gloves, he’s sure the lacrosse stick would be slipping through his hand. Nothing like this has ever happened to him before in his third month of community lacrosse matches, not even when he’d broken his leg for ten minutes when an overzealous goliath from the opposite team wanted revenge for Keith taking the final goal from him. This all points to the fact Lance is here.

Lance, who despite all appearances from the floppy purple sunhat, sunglasses, all the way to the multi-colored knitted blanket and matching umbrella, sat as if he were a blade of grass, as if he didn't stand out and belonged there. Although, to be fair, Lance isn’t the type of person who could manage keeping a low-profile in person. There’s a pull that forces people's attention to drag towards him without any hint of self-awareness.

Which explains how Keith’s already crossing the field towards him, even though it’s not an excuse to his horrible testament to self-control. Like he said, there's a pull. Plus Keith's weak. “I should've timed you, huh? A whole new outfit and everything.”

“Best believe it, bub. I even squeezed in a shower and air dried my hair, courtesy of mother nature.” Lance shoots an easy smile to him, one that has Keith’s knees going weak. “Appreciating the ‘fit?”

Keith can’t help the amused roll of his eyes, or the way his mouth curves into a grin. “’Fit? Who says that anymore?” There’s that light feeling in his chest again, one he can’t deny he’s beginning to grow used to with being around Lance. “’It's not supposed to be sunny today. Look up.” A beat. "But you look nice."

If Lance had blood pumping through him, Keith is sure he’d be blushing right now. The correlation between a bashful smile on Lance’s part and Keith lowering his voice is becoming increasingly more obvious. Maybe even more transparent than the fact Keith finds it cute.

“Thanks. You can never be too prepared for the sun, I've even got sunscreen. ” Lance shoots back, single dimple on full display. There’s a sudden urge for Keith to keep it there. “Also stop being a jerk when I’m showing support. I'm bringing it back.”

It’s annoying Lance manages to have this effect on him, to get under his skin like he belongs there, something Keith gives over because he can’t get enough of the thump-thump in his chest.

“One day you'll realize certain things shouldn't be revived." “But if anyone was going to bring dead slang back to life, it'd be you.”

“Details, details.” Lance waves his hand flippantly, and tilts his head up to flash a knowing smirk in Keith’s direction. “Are you going to play soon or are you going to keep flirting with me? I feel like you might be holding up the entire field.”

Keith opens his mouth to respond, but the sharp whirl of the whistle cuts through his ears and cuts him off before he can. When he looks at Lance again, he’s leaning back against his arms, satisfaction dripping off him without a single word. It’s as attractive as it’s infuriating.

There’s so much Keith could say in response. Instead, he settles for a soft smile for something he's been meaning to say all morning..

“Thanks. For, uh, coming out today, especially with how weird this morning was.” Keith says, the words awkward and stilted, obvious to anyone how uncommon moments like these come around for him. “I appreciate it.”

"Yeah, man." Lance’s eyes are warm, and they’re directed at Keith and Keith alone. "I'm here to help in whatever way you need."

"You don't have to. You know that right?"

“Go kick some rival college asses." Lance lifts two thumbs up, framing the ginormous grin taking over majority of his face. As if a cute gesture and a grin can make Keith ignore the fact he didn't acknowledge his question. “I’ll be right here cheering you on and looking good while doin’ it.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Keith teases before he turns on his heels, sneakers digging into the dirt before rushing to offense, and doesn’t miss Lance’s playful, “We both are,” from across the field. It doesn’t occur to Keith he’s smiling until the coach is foaming at the mouth and threatening to spit right onto Keith’s cheek.

Lacrosse isn’t the first choice of sports Keith would’ve picked, which makes even more sense once you factor in it hadn’t been much of a choice anyway. It had been a part of Shiro’s master grand plan of assimilation once they moved in, keep busy and become so intertwined into this town their faces were background images. Hence the college classes, the job at a sleepy twenty-four hour waffle house, the junior college sports games.

Coincidentally lacrosse had more of an effect than blending in. It’d given him a chance of freedom. To feel the animal inside and own it instead of it consuming him.

This is the truth: Keith loves the thrill of the game. If Shiro ever came to his games, Keith would’ve been able to taste that nervous energy from a mile away. For how much he loves Shiro, the rules and carefulness he exhibits only exacerbates this trapped feeling he has. Trapped with this curse, trapped to live in towns where he can never really show his full self, trapped to live a life not at one hundred percent. At least here on the field, he has a moment of freedom.

It reminds him of how he feels with Lance. There’s never been a person where he had to restrain himself or have a reason to hide a part of what makes him Keith, because Lance was like him in a way. Opposite in all the ways that doesn’t matter; similar in the only way it does.

Drizzle cools his heated skin. Keith breathes out steam, his cleats digging into the moist earth. His heartbeat drums in his ear.

The whistle blows and everyone runs wild.

Keith dodges an incoming person and bolts towards the ball. Dirt flies under his feet as he pushes against an opposite team player with enough restraint to make sure he lands on the ground rather than in. He cups the ball in the net of the lacrosse stick and bolts towards the goal. The corner of his mouth turns up as he swings the ball into the goal without a hitch.

The whistle’s like a siren, calling everyone back to the center of the field. Big guy with curly hair stares Keith down, like he’s already plotting just how he’s going to get revenge for the fact Keith scored against him. If Keith were a pettier person, he’d talk about going easy on him.

Lined up, Keith almost misses the whistle because Lance’s voice catches his attention: “That’s my guy right there! The one with the mullet! Keith’s my buddy!”

Keith takes a moment to look back at Lance, smiling in the droopy purple hat, and is so drawn in he’s thrown backwards by asshole for curls and lands with a haunting crack echoing through the field.

The field goes loud, then uncomfortably quiet as Keith and asshole for curls both writhe on the ground.

There’s something wrong with his shoulder. Any attempt at moving has his body screaming, despite the fact he can already feel the muscles in his shoulder, the skin surrounding the fractured bones, pulling themselves together in an attempt to heal itself. It’s difficult to keep a stable grip to the ground below, the wet earth now turned into pools of mud. All he can see is the gray gloom of the sky up ahead; all he can hear is the sounds of footsteps clomping through the mud.

“Keith,” Lance says, his worried face splicing through his vision without warning. His hair’s damp and in waves curling around his face, purple hat forgotten. “Are you okay? Can you sit up?”

Something about the fact that Lance cares about his wellbeing despite the fact they both know it’d take a lot more than a hard push to knock him down has Keith’s cheeks warming up. “I will be in a minute,” Keith mutters. “On a scale of one to ten, how much of a miracle would it be if I got up right now without a scratch?”

"Eleven," Lance replies. "As soon as you get up, everyone's going to start saying He is Risen and singing Hallelujia."

"Today's Saturday, Lance."

"Shut up. Oh my God, you're bleeding and—"

Lance trails off, and the sudden silence coming from his has Keith's stomach churning in an uncomfortable way. His throat feels wet, and in an attempt to see if the haze of clouds is pouring without him realizing it, he smells it. His mouth tastes of iron.

He's bleeding.

After a beat, Keith asks, “Lance?”

Silence.

Lance’s face is far too serious for the usual demeanor he holds himself with— his eyes focused in on something of Keith’s. Reflected in his eyes, Keith can see it: his clavicle fractures, piercing through the skin, water and blood mixing down and sliding down his chest.

“Focus on me. You have to get me out of here, do you understand? Say you're taking me to the hospital.” Keith grips his arm with enough force to snap him out of it. It’s not like Keith can’t fight him off, but it’s the fact of where they are. How making things bloody will do nothing but raise questions. “Lance."

"Huh? What?"

"No one can see me heal myself. And you can't start going blood crazy around everyone, so let's go."

"I can't."

"You can," Keith grits out. "You have to."

But Lance's eyes are hazy—distant and strained, like Keith can see the battle of need vs. want playing in his mind. Around the edges, the veins protrude, darkening to the point of black, bleeding into the white of his eyes. All he can do is stare into eyes of the boy who can save him or end him and he can't breathe.

His face is ashen and cracking. Pointed teeth like an animal's peek out of his mouth, hungry. Everything about him transforms from a goofy and kind boy into a monster. 

It becomes clear to Keith what it is he needed to understand about Lance. Not what it's like to drown—to know what first hand what it feels like to die. He's faced death a hundred times over, even now, staring down the empty dark eyes. 

Everything leading to this moment finally clicks in for someone like Keith who's never experienced this until now.

Do you know what it's like to feel powerless?

He does now.