Archive of Our Own

i've never been able to spot constellations, but today —

the Big Dipper, underneath my fingertips,

seven white dots in a maelstrom.

and i think to myself,

"out of a million stars in the sky,

and i found  you ."

.

He's been warned, of course, of the dangers of fire. Ashes lain to become embers. Embers stoked into leaping flames.

And flames strived on the existence of lesser things, its bright burn infusing air with smoke and smoke with tears. Water unable to keep the destruction from trickling away.

At 6:30 a.m., Lance witnesses a full dawn breaking through the seams of the sky. It isn't like Lance to wake up so early; out of the two he's the late one, a late bloomer never born late.

Shifting out of his bed, he slips into his day clothes without making a sound. For a morning in July, the room is cold, a chill reaching within the marrow of his bones without the help of the AC ventilating above the bed. The AC had never worked properly in his life, anyways.

Lance does not need to look past the bed to know why.

.

Lance has been folding paper airplanes ever since he was young.

He doesn't know where his interest for airplanes came from. Perhaps it was his burning desire to travel, to discover places no one on earth have ever been before. To touch somewhere untouched has always been his greatest wish, after all.

It's why the ocean is a second home to him. Underneath the water, another world surfaces, shrouded by mystery and caverns unexplored, home to fantastical creatures only described in children's picture books. The ocean is a part of reality, yet apart from reality just the same, and Lance would give up anything to escape what his day-to-day life entails in present. (Though, Lance considers, he wouldn't give up his good looks.)

Even in grade school he's known, airplanes are to sky and submarines are to the ocean. So what was the explanation behind his fascination for the clouds and stars, a wonder just as intense as his attachment to the oceans, Lance would never know.

On the edge of his bed now, Lance smooths over the piece of paper, hastily torn from a spiral notebook, left upon the bedside table. He half-expects the ink to blur and smudge between his fingertips, but only in his wishful imagination, a place where life was perfect and so was he, would the tears then fall.

Oh, how he hates Keith's handwriting. It's impossible to read, just like the person himself.

He grips the paper so hard until the black ink scribbles become even more indistinct, a product of a jumbled mind. His fingers move without hesitation nor guidance; he's done this several times before but it feels unfamiliar all of a sudden, a guitar in need of tuning, of notes gone flat. He creases the paper by biting it between his teeth, aligns the edges, folds the wings down, and lets it go.

The paper airplane drifts into the living room. Lance does not look back as he heads out, mind wiped to a clean slate, the only reminder left to trigger his memory a thin papercut on his lip.

.

"Photography?"

Lance fondles the camera bag carefully, looping the strap over and across his chest. "Yeah."

The particular camera resting against his waist is an antique by his family standards, who tended to keep items for as long as their useful life when possible. An old model no longer available in stores, with its slightly scratched lenses and scuffed edges, and the obsolete shutter speed dial.

Keith holds the palm of his hand to his lips, in deep thought. Then, a pregnant pause, accompanied by a puff of air: "I'm surprised."

"At me taking pictures?" Lance raises an eyebrow, a tic under his eye. "Are you doubting my ability to shoot photos? Look, I'll be completely honest here, out of us two, guess who's the better photographer—"

"No, at the camera. You're not one to use a device as outdated as this. Also, no offense, but you've probably never taken a picture with that in your life."

"No offense? How is that not offensive? And of course I've taken pictures with this camera; in fact, I've filled two whole photo albums with them."

Keith squints. "You replaced the film canister wrong before we left."

Lance throws his hands into the air in indignation."I'd like to see you try using this, pretty boy." And with that, he tosses the camera bag over.

"Fuck  this," Lance whispers, his throat suddenly parched as if covered in sand. A bitter liquid coats his mouth and tastes like burning acid.

He throws the camera onto the sofa and shoves his hands into his pockets as he heads towards the interconnected kitchen to his right, leaving behind the camera with its film canister perfectly placed, still etched with photos yet developed.

.

Afternoons meant hard-core studying and extracurriculars. It meant chats with girls and exchanging numbers, of basking in the glory of the sweltering summer heat, rolling in early from July to June.

It had never meant to be a full-blown therapy session.

Pidge's squinty face looms, a full moon on the screen. Lance shivers just a little bit at the intimidation, the intensity behind their focused gaze.

Just a mere two days after Lance had moved away, he'd turned on his laptop (or, rather, his cousin's old laptop he'd used for his studies) and found a peculiar blue speech bubble at the corner of his screen. Supposedly, as the blue speech bubble — Hunk, rather — had relayed to him, Keith had made sure to distribute Lance's Skype handle to everyone. ("Everyone" being limited to Pidge, Hunk and Shiro. Lance briefly wondered if his username had found itself in Allura's hands — but he quickly dismissed that idea. There's no way Keith would allow that to happen. (If Allura did have one in her possession, though, Lance hopes that she calls.) )

When Lance had asked Hunk the reasoning behind it, Hunk had said, in a perfect copy of Keith that would've left Keith ashamed, "Just in case anyone wanted to see his stupid face again."

So that's how Lance found himself in this situation. (Freeze-frame, record-scratch.) He would've wanted to ask Hunk (he'd tried, insistently, in the group chat), but he was away on some sort of competition. Pidge — Lance trusted Pidge's judgment but their words? Half the time at most. But Pidge, the only one who took up the offer, had put aside precious time in order to make this "therapy session" a reality, so it would've been not nice to not have come. And he supposed any suggestions would be better than having none at all.

"Sounds like you're troubled," Pidge says, mimicking a professional in both body language and tone color. Their eyebrows are drawn to a point, trying to look as serious as possible, and their fingers are clasped together in front of their chest.

"Troubled, of course I'm troubled." Lance points to the window behind him, radiating a warmth hard to compare. "Just think about it. I could be at the beach right now and meeting all sorts of cute girls and guys, but instead I'm stuck here in a gray-walled institution with a hacker pretending to be a therapist."

"Do you doubt my therapy skills?" Pidge asks. "If so, I can just go, I have a lot of hacking to do. You know what? Let's start with your computer — mm yes, just fantastic! An old model with numerous security flaws already —"

Lance taps his temple. "On second thought, let's not," he says in a cheery voice. If only he'd booked this session earlier, he could've done it while the dreary May showers were raining down with a temperament, such that he'd be stuck inside anyways. (Though Lance admits he does like sunshowers.) With a forlorn sigh at the beautiful day outside he's giving up, "Shall we continue?"

Pidge arches an eyebrow, but presses no more. They clear their throat. "How's university doing?"

Bullseye — partially, but bullseye nonetheless.

"All dandy and fine," Lance chirps, and almost cringes at how squeaky and fake his voice sounds. Except that Lance doesn't cringe, so he keeps his composure confident, steady.

But Lance could tell Pidge didn't believe an inch of it. "You know, Lance, that's what all stressed people say."

"Stressed? What, do I look stressed?" Lance laughs.

"No, Lance, you look as beautiful and handsome as ever. Your face is basking in a healthy glow, and those dark circles under your eyes — all part of the look, this year's fashion—"

Lance waves a noncommittal hand, as if he were brushing away breadcrumbs. "Ok, I get it."

Pidge looks smug. "Figures. Profs all well?"

"There's this one guy who's hella intimidating," Lance replies, with his fingers tapping an irregular rhythm and a pencil in his mouth, "but otherwise they're all fine."

"What about your part-time job? Any messups you're too embarrassed to talk about."

Face blanching, the pencil drops off the ledge of his lower lip. "Um, yeah, I'd rather not go into that area," Lance stresses, teeth grit. The tapping gets faster, faster still, and a lump lodges in his throat when Pidge pauses to think. Two minutes into the mock therapy session, and Lance's ready to back out with his tail between his legs. But inside, it's a whole different situation: his mind is yelling C'mon, c'mon, ask the question—

Pidge takes a sip of coffee and slides a bunch of papers around, shuffling them. "So, how have you been doing? With..."

His mind rejoices while Lance's stomach sinks lower, his heart waving a tattered white flag of surrender. Truth to be told, he did once have a passing feeling to tell Pidge about his... situation, but it'd been buried behind academic stress, behind work mishaps, behind anything conceivable as an excuse to cover up his fear of being exposed.

Plus, it's not as if it's a good thing.

"I... I have a confession to make..." His voice is rougher than usual, and sounds less like his and more like a stranger's, disassociated and unsynchronized with his mouth.

The way Pidge's eyebrows lift up seems like they're saying A confession? What is this, some fictional scenario? instead of a piqued concern. Or, maybe those brows, shot up to a point, reveals Pidge's subconscious disgust and disappointment at everything Lance doesn't want to say.

"Go on," Pidge urges, suddenly softer in volume. The subtle change in the atmosphere — a warfront of thunder and drums in Lance's own permeable bubble — sparks a ball of anxiety and rooted frustration deep within him, but Lance quells his nerves with a breath, and says it —

"We broke up."

No going back now.

He's known Pidge long enough to see their reaction to many, many things. Usually, it would play out in a fashion such as this: first, they would balk; second, their mouth would form a little "o" shape; and third, they would purse their lips together and analyze the direness of the situation. Only this time around, Pidge spits out their drink, coughing.

"I'm surprised you dropped your act of professionalism so early," Lance jokes, weak from the tight buzz in his chest, still murmuring an offhand anxious tune. "How much should I overcharge —"

"You what?"

Lance's first instinct is to cower; after all, Pidge is dreadfully scary when they're angry; intimidating, even. However, Pidge doesn't even give him a chance to cower, railing for what felt like centuries on what seemed to be "Whydidn'tyoutellmewhathappenedwhereishehowareyoufeeling?!" which Lance himself interpreted as "What the ****, Lance?"

Finally, there is a brusque silence when they recover, huffing heavily. Their features soften. "Sorry. Back to business. Can you tell me what happened?"

"I... I..." Lance is so startled he needs a moment to recover himself.

"If... if you don't want to talk about it, that's okay."

"No, I..." Lance breathes out a light laugh, one that Pidge tilts their head at in confusion. "I just... no one has really cared about me like this... not until I met you guys, that is." None of his friends before would attack with a full-blown diatribe out of concern of Lance's well-being.

Starting with Keith, he thinks to himself, then wracks his head to purge the thought.

Pidge shakes their head, muttering something. "You're such an idiot. An irritable, lovable idiot."

"Irritable? Come on, Pidge."

"Slightly," Pidge stresses slowly, as if teaching a word to kindergarteners, enunciating the syllables. "And didn't I say 'lovable'?"

They both laugh, and then Lance quiets. "We had an argument."

"Over what? Something petty, I presume?"

Lance would love to object, but Pidge had struck a chord. "Well, it started like that, and then suddenly — "

And now he's done it, gone so far that Lance doesn't even care. All the internal turmoil and pent-up anger that threatened to spill out, he let it go just like that, a snap of his finger. "He told me I was annoying. He called me useless, and then I just couldn't take it anymore. I launched right back and told... told him that this is why he has no friends, and that I wouldn't care if he'd just stay lonely all his life —"

He's aware he's rambling away like a drunk.

"He was really angry then. He was all like 'I think you'll be better off alone all your life too' and I was like, I was like..." Lance hiccups, brushing something wet from his eye. He can't stop now, not when he's already put his full trust into Pidge and certainly not when he's on a roll. He sinks into himself, beginning to wish he were invisible more by the minute. "I was like, 'Don't worry, I won't be lonely because I have my sisters and brothers with me, I have my dad and my mom —"

His throat shuts down completely. Choking, he sputters out the last bit, the terrible last bit he's been keeping bottled within him for who knows how long, " — and then I told him, you, you wouldn't understand because you don't have any parents."

When he finally runs out of steam, his vision blurred as if he's run a marathon, he uses the last of his energy to finish off with "And so there you go."

Lance looks up, not even aware he's been looking down the whole time. Maybe it's because he's scared of Pidge's reaction, after the ugly truth has been revealed.

Pidge stares.

Just outright stares.

Please, Tell me something.

The clock's ticking floats over from the kitchen, faintly keeping track of the long drawn-out silence.

Anything.

Pidge purses their lips, as if processing the information or choosing their words carefully, then says, "Thank you for telling me, Lance." Bites the inside of their cheek, as if suddenly not knowing how to help, or what words to say.

His shoulders unbunched, Lance heaves a sigh. It's as if something heavy was lifted off his shoulders, and he can breathe again, breathe in the sweet air and the cool scent of the air conditioner, working by a miracle of some sort. "No," he whispers, "thank you."

"For what?" but Pidge says this knowing what's to be said next, because there's a hint of a forced smile behind an even-more-hidden pained look. Lance knows this look so well it hurts.

"For listening."

.

Lance knows that expression Pidge had on their face, when they'd disconnected and Lance thrown back into his own life. He's seen it so many times, underneath a stone mask, a face that begs to be seen and yet hides itself in its own fear.

It's a look that Keith wears when in sympathy. Only a double take could reveal the underside of that expression: lips drawn down in one corner, eyebrows only minutely knotted, eyes seeing and yet strangely vacant. It's a face that screams, I'm helpless.

"And I thought you were good at being play-therapist," Lance mutters. The heat had swelled into the room, expanding in the form of a large, sweat-inducing bubble that touches its sticky pores every which where. Lance eases the window in the living room open with a grunt, letting in some fresh air, and wishes he could be outside again. It was welcoming, it was alluring, a warm presence that whispered, Come outside. Come outside and play.

And more than that Lance missed the ocean: blues so blue even tapestry made fit for a king couldn't even wish to emulate the exact shade and hue, so cold it chilled the sweat on your legs into crystal. Crashing onto the shore with its natural hum, like a heartbeat — inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

But no, Lance is sorry to say that he'll be in the hot mess of a kitchen and huddled around the rickety table missing an inch off one of its legs. He'll be trying one of Hunk's suggestions towards "anger management" and "emotion release" (and this time, no cooking involved, because that one time had made the mess of his kitchen into a hell of a kitchen) instead of dancing in ribbons of sunlight. No, Lance was the sort of guy who you could rely on to focus on one task and not be distracted.

So, Lance tries writing.

He grips the pen hard, thinks he might hear the telltale snap of plastic and see the brightly-colored chips rain down, but all he sees is knuckles white and ink black, trailing off and dripping where Lance had pressed the tip to paper, and held it there, unmoving. Afternoon sun, a thin intangible rectangle, slips, unnoticed, over the blank page at a snail's pace. Slipping, slipping. As if urging Lance's pen to move forward, to cough up words from its barrel. Slipping, like time, or soap in a bathtub.

The page stays blank.

The sun stays shining, forever urging Lance to crush the paper into a compressed ball and throw himself into the outdoors.

Lance heaves an almighty sigh. Then shouts a little.

Then stays completely still like a petrified mummy upon the sofa.

Then, picks up the blank sheet and starts folding.

At 8:46 in the evening, after doing some much-needed shopping to fill up the gaping hole that was once his refrigerator, Lance unlocks the door — then wished he hadn't.

"What are you doing here?" he sputters, dropping the groceries onto the floor.

Andrea kicks the apple towards her, and picks it up, examining the skin for bruises. "Is this how you say hello to your sister?" Placing the apple on the counter, she wanders into the living room, completely unaware.

Lance has barely a second to tell her to stop before she turns around, one eyebrow raised.

"I can explain..."

"I'd rather you not," she waves him off, brushing a few airplanes out of her way and sitting down. Lance hurries off to the kitchen, stuffing as many vegetables as the fridge can hold, before whipping up two cups of instant coffee and setting the cups onto the coffee table.

"How's university going?" she asks, stirring the coffee grounds with a spoon. She makes a face at it before taking a sip. "Really, how can you stand this."

"If you want more sugar, just ask," Lance whines.

"No, that's fine." Andrea only stares into the depths of the coffee harder.

"What are you, fortune-telling?" Lance scoffs.

"Perhaps," is her answer, her attention being drawn elsewhere. She looks around the room, at the careless marks scuffing the corner, of the comic books laid in a disorganized state beside the coffee table, of the even messier backdrop of paper airplanes every which way. Her eyes land back onto Lance's, and he automatically moves back into his seat, instinctively aware of the dire situation he's landed in.

"I leave for a month," she starts. Lance opens his mouth.

"— and now you're back!" Lance says drily, hoping to lighten up the mood. Or avert a crisis at the boss level of proportions.

"This was my apartment once, you know. And still is."

"I still do know," and it was true. The mere thought of it crosses Lance's mind every month or so. Which meant it never surfaced once until now. "So," and he wiggles his eyebrows. "How was your trip?"

As part of a scholarship award, Andrea had won nearly a month's trip to New York. Lucky her. Andrea taps her foot, apparently unamused by the twists and turns the conversation was tracing. "Great. I took a bunch of photos," she clips, and then heads for the plunge. Lance's brief anticipation wears out, replaced by a drop in his stomach. "What's the deal with all this?"

"These? You know," Lance says with some stiffness, "you know how much I love to make them." Suddenly wary, he begins to slowly stand up.

"I know that," Andrea returns. "But usually, you don't write on them —" she points at the exposed ink on the airplane she's holding up for demonstration, "unless..."

Her eyes sharpen, a camera suddenly zooming. Dammit, she's quick.

"How's Keith doing," she starts, just as Lance ducks behind the couch.

"Lance," Andrea says.

"Not hearing a thing," Lance shouts.

"La—"

"Nope. Unfortunately, Lance isn't here to take any messages right now. Please leave a message at the tone."

Andrea sighs, and peers over the top of the couch. Lance crouches ever further, down into the pit of shadows squirming under his palms. "Beep."

A poised hand plucks an airplane from wedged between the sofa cushions, and taps it onto Lance's head. "Is this for Keith?"

Lance swallows. "Was. Is. Might. I don't know!"

"You guys fell apart," Andrea guesses, not even sugarcoating it. When Lance doesn't make a noise, Andrea crosses her arms. The silence pretty much confirmed everything.

"Falling apart," Lance murmurs. That's exactly what happened. They'd fallen apart, and he's still picking up the broken pieces Keith has left behind. He lifts up his hand, hoping to feel something beneath the surface, but it's been cold and dead for a while now. Suddenly angry, he launches himself off the floor and whips around, hair disheveled. "This is none of your business, alright? What happened between us is what happened between us."

"I thought you could use a little help," Andrea replies, then, to prove her point, motions her hand over the dozens of paper airplanes spicing up the living room. Lance only gives out his reply by walking out of the room, in firm steps to show his frustration.

"Sorry," Andrea's voice comes wafting from the living room, seconds later. Too late for that now. Lance shuts the door of his room, and without missing a beat, buries his face into the covers.

A few minutes pass, and then he's disturbed by a knocking.

"Don't come in," Lance groans, a fist clutching the covers.

A short lapse of soundless time, the only sound from both their breathing, then, "Ok."

Lance flips himself back upright, then sits up. He drags the cord of his hoodie out of his mouth, and wipes it onto his sleeve. "Actually... come in."

There is a click, then Andrea steps into the room, quietly closing the door behind her. "I got you some apple slices," she says. Lance takes a slice, crunching it thoughtfully, then takes another, and another.

"You want to talk about it?"

Lance shakes his head. "Actually, I don't, thank you very much." He pauses to swallow. "But... I'm out of ideas, and I don't know what to do."

"You can tell me how you feel."

"Feel?" he almost chokes. "I feel absolutely miserable."

"No... tell me what you felt... felt before." 

"Before?"

"You know," Andrea says, twirling her sparse hair absentmindedly with a finger, "I've always wondered what falling in love felt like. Being in love feels like. Especially for those so-called soulmates —"

"I don't think he's my soulmate anymore," Lance admits, far more willingly than he'd assumed himself to do. When Andrea only stares mutedly, Lance explains, "He's... giving me nothing. Nothing at all. Lately, I —" and he presses a thumb to the ulnar artery, "— haven't been feeling anything."

It's worried Lance for weeks on end, the absence of a heartbeat. Usually it was this boundless energy, clock-like ticking, a low hum. Keith is always angry, and the pulses underneath Lance's skin was a sign of that: a never-ending spasm of a physical music. Sometimes, the energy would align with Lance's own heartbeat, and times like that were times when Lance felt like he could rule the world — take the sea by storm and control its massive waves, reflect the stars to say a distant hello.

"Maybe you can only feel your... connection when you're mutually in love," Andrea suggests, then closes her mouth.

Lance sinks into the bed just like how his heart had just sank a few inches deeper. "So this is what it feels like to be out of love?"

"I'm sorry. Pretend I didn't say anything. Just think. You don't have to try and describe it to me, just think about what it feels like."

"How is this going to help?" Lance asks stuffily. "This is only going to make me all sappy and lonely."

Andrea pokes at her brother's shoulder, nudging it in an almost playful manner. A rare occasion of sibling friendliness — or could it be maliciousness? "Just do it."

So Lance tells it the only way he can.

How Keith's like a melody strummed on the guitar, in F sharp minor, composed entirely of slow half-notes. Bar by bar, increasing into a tap-dance rhythm of fast-paced eighth notes, and fading into a finale with the consistency of a lullaby. How his eyes are galaxies, dotted with flakes of gold, stars in a distant valley. How his voice is a swaying of nonverbal cues, hints of hidden emotion weaved with the deep murkiness of an ocean.

Lance finds it funny that he's describing things just like Keith would.

"A sea full of stars," is what he says out loud. Or stars like the sea.

Andrea smiles sweetly — and by sweetly, like a devil. "You've got it bad."

.

The first letter Lance writes is scribbles.

It's black and black and black all over, static mess, a bedlam of crashing and opposing thoughts warring his mind, all pouring out of that 1.0 mm nib.

The second letter Lance writes is petty, full of harsh criticizing words Lance knows will not amount to anything in the end.

The third letter is folded into an airplane and stuck into his backpack, a struggle in creation.

.

"The thing is," Andrea says, "you've been writing... um, what exactly are you writing?"

"My feelings," Lance deadpans. Only that the taunting scribbles and the crumpled-up paper airplanes weren't a display of feelings more than a physical manifestation of his clouded, convoluted thoughts.

"Exactly. Now that you've let off some steam, try writing something. Anything. Any words that come to mind, about what you feel. Just like you've just described to me."

"What? No." Lance sticks out his tongue. "Oh yeah, 'Hey Keith, you know, you're like a sea, but like, with stars in it and all. You know, extra glittery.'"

"Needs a little work."

But it could work.

.

Three days later, Hunk calls him over the video chat, out of the blue.

"I've heard from Pidge... what happened, and all..." Hunk begins, and Lance nearly jumps out of his seat, pushing a stack of books off the small cramped table.

"I shouldn't have trusted them," Lance shouts, then mutters darkly, "When I see them again I'm gonna pummel them."

"Lance, are you really going to..."

"Oh yeah, I'm gonna! Then I'll give them a hug, so no hard feelings. Anyways, anything else you'd like me to know?"

Hunk shifts in his chair and fidgets. "Is it really okay to be talking about this?"

Lance huffs. "Seeing how the news is already out, I really couldn't care less. Actually, I do care, you know what? But go ahead, whatever."

"Have you tried to call him?"

"Keith?" At this, Lance laughs, bark-like. "He has a phone, yes, but he doesn't use it. Such a waste. I swear he only uses it for an alarm; the rest of the time he's got Airplane Mode turned on to preserve battery."

"Wow. But Keith's gotta have Skype, right? Since he passed your username around to us."

"He only knows my username because I was on Skype this one time and he laughed at how cheesy my handle was. If he had a Skype he'd barely come online. You know Keith."

"That's true," Hunk muses.

"Hey, Hunk..." Lance is a little afraid to ask, but it wouldn't do much harm then again, would it? "How's that mullet doing, anyways?"

"Keith? Same as always, I guess. He... looks a bit pale from pulling all those all-nighters, though."

"Sucks to be you," Lance crows, but inside he's feeling less than triumphant. All-nighters are horrible, and Lance hates missing his beauty sleep.

"You know might just work?" Hunk taps a fork against his lip. "Visiting him."

"Visiting him... that could work, I — wait WHAT?"

"My uncle's coming to Colorado — where you live — to see some of his friends. Then he and his friends are coming here to see me — or well, our family. You could hitch a ride with them, I just have to give him a call to see if it's all right."

"I... I don't know, Hunk..."

"Another university term is coming up, and by then you might not have the time," Hunk points out. "Do you want me to make the call or not?"

Lance thinks of all his failed attempts to write a letter, the heartache and the faint frustration of ending on a bad note curling in his chest. The guilt of not being able to properly apologize, that, too. 

He raises his head, and gives a stiff nod.

.

What feels like years of emptiness haunts his resolve as Lance packs the last of his bags, heading out into the choppy autumn wind.

Lance tells himself it's the stress of making a big decision, of putting a foot forward, but all he knows is the tightening of his chest rendering it hard to breathe, as if the slight dizzying smell of lingering cigarette fumes in the taxicab isn't bad enough. The FM radio is tuned to a station playing jazz music from the 20's tinnily squeaking through the speaker.

Sounds like something Keith would listen to, Lance thinks glumly.

"So, where are you going?" the driver asks. He probably detected the dismal atmosphere radiating from the boy in the back seat, who hasn't made a single sound since the taxicab began its journey.

"Baltimore," Lance whispers, as if only an afterthought, then coughs and repeats his destination clearly with faked confidence.  The only thing he's good at. "Sorry."

"Baltimore, huh," the driver says. "I have a niece living there. Nice place, it is."

Lance doesn't respond and looks down to his hands.

He remembers, then, how his heartline has stopped beating ever since Keith had left. His heartbeats representing Keith's current mood— anger, love, happiness, surprise— all of them gone, only a trace of a faint ringing in Lance's ears keeping pace with his own heart. Without its constant thrum deep inside, the world has gone from high-definition to lacking clarity, lacking the security of a reminder, telling him, it's okay, I'm here.

He presses a thumb to the middle of his left palm. Nothing.

Sighing, he unlatches his seatbelt as the airport terminal approaches his view, and as the first drops of rain dance upon the asphalt.

"And these stars, they're like droplets of water glistening with the waves."

The sudden rainshower befalling him does not feel as phantasmagorical as Keith described, now that he's not here with him anymore. Cold stars from a imperfect sky, thumbtacks in his skin, his own fingernails digging into his palm to steady himself, they all blur at the edges into a writhing mass of pain clenching around his neck with the bony grip of a vise.

Wiping his nose with his sleeve, Lance gives a gentle tug of his suitcase, and enters the terminal.

.

Hunk's uncle is waiting at a coffee shop, the nearest to the doors of the main terminal. Lance is trying not to laugh at the sight: Hunk's uncle looks like Hunk in fifteen years with stubble and longer hair. He's dressed in a jacket, probably anticipating the coldish weather sweeping without any warning over the land.

"Nice to meet you, Lance," the man says, shaking Lance's hand. Lance expects to hear "Hunk's told me about you" to follow, because that's how stories often went, but it would be silly to assume his life would play out like a story, with a "happily ever after" at the end.

"Nice to meet you too," Lance answers, and refrains from commenting on the similarities between the man and his nephew.

And then, after a couple of visits and the picking up of the other passengers, they head off, and it feels, ineffably, like coming back home.

.

There is something odd about seeing two white chairs and a small glass table sitting primly upon the balcony as if it's always belonged there. A mystic arrangement of flowers and vines curl around the banister, and an aluminum water can resting in the corner.

Lance remembers the woven chair that always had a splinter or two jabbing at accidentally exposed skin, the camellias his mother had taken special care of, and the cup of coffee he'd place, each night, on the softly sanded wood table with its distinct heart-shaped grooves. A wish ignites, a tug in his chest, that he could push the glass table over, stack the white chairs, sweep the plants away, in favor of the familiar scenery and furnishings, but that wish is dissipated as soon as it is created.

Simply put, Unit 2B wasn't his to stay anymore.

He briefly wonders if a paper airplane could be sent from the place he's standing at, 20 metres away from the corners of both balconies. Closing an eye firmly shut, Lance envisions the predicted trajectory of his airplane, and imagines launching it, high, high above—

The image fades away as Lance's breath catches half-inhale at the shadow of a man coming out of the double doors of the apartment, hidden by an umbrella's wing. Keith's apartment.

He'd know that mullet anywhere.

It's only one word, Lance thinks, convinces himself, it's only a name.

"K-Keith."

Keith whips around, a blur of black hair, his bookbag falling to his elbow.

He looks to be the same as Lance had seen him last, with dark hair coming down to his shoulders and those deep, smouldering eyes, hiding a breadth of an empyreal galaxy in the depths. But life changes, whether Lance likes it or not; Keith's hardened expression, a measurement of hostility bridging the divide between them, chokes a handhold on even Lance's best intentions.

He doesn't ask, What are you doing here, idiot? or Is this a hallucination or even I'd like to make up with you (the last one, Lance would've hoped, but knew it was futile.) In fact, Keith's face doesn't shift the slightest. Or, at least, he doesn't give any indication of surprise other than the whitening of his knuckles upon the strap of his bag.

"You... you have glasses now," is what Lance says, blurting out the first thing that he thinks of. I'm an idiot, he laments in his head. "Very chic and fancy," his next line goes, and by now he wants desperately to crawl into a hole, but then he'd have to dig the hole in the first place and that would take effort. So instead he smiles whole-heartedly as if nothing had happened, but clearly, erasing the past is tough,  as his face only shows a ghost of that smile and his heart gives only enough energy for half-heartedness.

"Are you done wasting my time?"

A part of Lance (he is abashedly aware that it's his heart, but he makes no effort to validate that fact) jolts up in the familiarity of it all; Keith's voice is still the same, one thing in Lance's life that remained an universal constant. But on the other hand Lance cannot help but retaliate—and bitterly so. "That's what you think of me, Keith?" His words hold no harsh premise, only a forlorn sadness: if Lance had a mirror handy with him he would have seen it, traces of pain etching onto his once-perfect facial features. "A waste of your time."

Keith does not say anything, which makes everything ten times worse.

And then, Keith does say something, and Lance takes it back: this was a hundred times worse than if he'd stayed silent.

"I wish I could just say, 'let's go back'." Keith slips his bookbag over his shoulder. "That we could go back, and forget about everything. But I'm not so sure we can do that."

Whatever hope Lance is holding wilts like a flower, extinguishes like a candle flame. "I'm... sorry," Keith says politely, as if Lance were only a classmate, a distant acquaintance.

A wave-like roar crashes in Lance's ears. He runs on legs faster than he'd known, on a limitless, raging energy he never knew he had, after Keith's retreating form, but it's unreachable even if he stretched out a hand. Lance stops, throat burning, vision swimming, and the lack of oxygen fed to his brain plunges him into a dark world of hazy shapes and colors. His hands, one over the other, does not feel anything underneath.

It's a sensation Lance could only describe as drowning in a midnight sea, surrounded by ink-black water tearing at his skin. A shudder of numbness and fatigue passes through his body, and he can't breathe; there is moisture under his eyes and he must be bleeding but he can't breathe.

The stars have taken Keith away from him, and they aren't giving him back.

.

"I keep on going too far," Lance confesses. His ego is like a house of cards: removed of the ace of spades at the bottom and everything tumbles. "And yes, I admit it: I'm fucking stupid sometimes." His voice cracks up. Everything, from guilt and pain and insecurities, comes rising in a froth Lance can't keep up with, but somehow, miraculously he forces them back down into the crevices. Exposing his heart like this, even to someone like Pidge (Lance knows he can trust Hunk), is an act of carelessness, and he's not ready to face the consequences.

"Wow, did you hear that?" Pidge pretends to be surprised. "Lance admits he can be stupid."

"You're forgetting the word sometimes," Lance emphasizes, through gritted teeth.

"But you're also sort of funny and charismatic, Lance," Hunk replies. "And you're smart a lot of the time; it's human nature to make mistakes." Pidge pops in to say, "Not to mention, you're always trying your best to be considerate."

"Trying isn't so much as actually succeeding," Lance grumbles.

"Succeeding isn't everything," Pidge begins, but falters, as if they know adding onto the list of rebuttals won't take the conversation anywhere meaningful. So they purse their lips and lean forward, all ears and no words.

"What should I say?" Lance's voice is acidic, rough-hewn around the edges. "I miss you? Please forgive me and come back?"

"Lance, Lance, Lance," Pidge chastises, breaking their rule of "just listen, don't speak", but each Lance grows softer than the former as Pidge dissolves back in quiet contemplation. Their eyes are hollow when they say, flatly, "I'm barely old enough to have any love advice; why're you asking me again?"

"It's not time for sarcasm," Lance groans quite like a wounded animal, rubbing the bags under his eyes. The effects of last night's drink must be getting to him, for his veins are filled with a sluggish buzzing, and nausea lines his every move like a stingy wasp looking for the perfect moment to strike. He's sure he'd only downed one shot full, but then again, where was the lie that maybe he'd forgotten about it all after disrupting his cognitive ability to think? It certainly was a possibility, getting drunk and having no memory of getting drunk at all. If Pidge knew about this, they'd probably say, "Suits you", before rambling about the dangers of alcohol on an overstressed university student with due dates tacked onto his body.

"Are you drunk? You look hungover."

Damn. "I... drank a little bit yesterday, but I don't really remember — "

"Lance, are you really drunk?" Hunk says, then louder, "Oh my gosh, I think he is. Are you sure you're okay there buddy? Did you drink enough water? Slept enough?"

"Sounds like something you would do," Pidge remarks, not at all concerned, then goes on to say, "you do know that excess amounts of alcohol can be fatally damaging to your system, particularly your liver? Liver cirrhosis —"

"Touché," Lance surrenders, two hands up and palms-out. "You got me, hip hip hooray, a point for "Pidge Gunderson". The score is 3-0 as Lance continues to be cleverly slaughtered by his opponent's sharp, witty tongue."

This earns Lance a momentary release of tension as Pidge elicits a snort. "I'm sorry," they say, "for not providing you with a proper diagnosis. Hang on." There is a beep, then a whirr of a printer awakening from a week-old sleep. Pidge readjusts their glasses in wait, hums a catchy tune while Lance rocks his chair impatiently for Pidge's answer.

"You know, you're also barely old enough to be giving me advice on alcohol," Lance says. Having skipped a grade, and having a birthday in the later months, this made Pidge at least two years younger at this point in time.

"Liver cirrhosis," Pidge repeats, as they reach a hand off-screen to collect the paper. "I have a PhD, trust me." They lift up the sheet, and in the dim lighting, Lance has to squint.

You've got to be kidding me, Lance's shoulders sag, but Pidge doesn't kid. Not when it matters.

.

The photos take time to develop, but still, Lance persists.

He's been to the film lab once in his life. It had been a little, forlorn thing, his camera. Discarded by the throes of time descending into the digital era, the sharp metal casing still held onto the last of its dignity. Bruised and battered, fading in the afternoon sun as it awaited its last moments, the end of its useful life. When Lance placed the camera onto the counter, it looked out of place, uncannily shadowed by an army of shiny silver capturing devices with their autofocus capabilities, mirrorless lenses, and constant aperture.

"Why, isn't this an old 'un," the woman behind the counter had mused.

"I'd like to know where I can get this developed," Lance said, quietly.

Now, unconsciously, he's tightening the nylon strip on the camera bag, pulling the plastic buckle up and down, like a zipper. As if it'll speed up the waiting time. Lance rubs his neck, the ticks of the second hand a caustic burn on his eyes, red and repetitive.

By now, he's stopped trying to feel again. There are no heartbeats when he presses his thumb to the heart-line on his palm besides his own, weak suggestion of one. No powerful rush of blood in his ears, eclipsing a red ocean out in the receding horizon. No jittery spasms of stress, no silent beats of a dreamless sleep, no burning thrums following flames of anger or passion. It worries Lance that Keith may be hiding behind his mask of "I'm fine"'s and "Just let me be"'s again. If it was one thing Lance both admired and utterly despised about Keith, it would be his cursed ability to maintain status quo, a calm facade of a face who used anger as a way to cope, biting in words with a nick of teeth on his lip as storm clouds cluttered his soul with an enshrouding, turbulent mess.

There's an ethereal universe within that black hole of yours, Keith, Lance thinks. If only you knew.

What he's waiting for finally is given to him, in a CD case that reflects the afternoon sun, diffracting the light into leaps and bounds of rainbow lines. Timeless moments, priceless in value, and all of them encapsulated in binary code sourced from a poly-carbonate disc. There's a degree of both ingenuity and insincerity in the whole scheme of things, as with everything.

Fiddling with the bike lock, Lance takes one last look at the storefront, a curious ticking ever present in the pits of his unconscious.

121 photos, and an idea made from a blank sheet of A4 paper.

Here's hoping it's enough.

.

This is my gift to you, Pidge had said, pretending to hand over the freshly printed piece of paper through the screen.

This doesn't help, Lance had replied, staring at the blank page with a mortifying unease building in his throat. This is your way of telling me, "I can't help you", and I can't do anything with this at all.

Yes you can, Pidge insisted. I can't help you, because you already know what to do.

On the sofa, a lone paper airplane sits, dominating the area around it with its peculiarity, its odd placement.

And now, the hotel room is torn with them, a few on the coffee table, some on the rug; one crushed into a ball beside the table leg, and a sheaf of white A4 printer paper laid across the floor.

Folding 1000 paper cranes is considered lucky. Lance wonders if 1000 paper airplanes would do the same.

He folds. He folds until paper cuts line his lower lip and thumbs, he folds until the skin on his fingerpads feels calloused and hard. He folds until he needs to dig his fingernails into his thigh in order to concentrate, when all he sees when he looks out the window is the color white. Airplane by airplane by airplane, and they have nowhere to go, as lost as himself.

Lance misses the balcony of his former apartment. He misses the clear view of the celestial skies, the midnight conversations, the passing silence like a summer wind tickling his cheek as waters rippled out from the edges of midnight, folded between stars of multitudinous domain. A vast ocean existing in the heavens, only visible to the ones who seek it.

Most of all, he misses the crisp air stinging his nose when his feet lightly tap the balcony floor, and the stretch of his arm backwards as another airplane takes flight, momentarily breaking the invisible barrier of the walls between them.

If this airplane can reach him, then everything will be worthwhile, Lance repeats, a never-ending loop of convincing without conviction. Please, for the love of god, let this reach him.

It's a silly hope, really, and there's nothing to gain from failure besides pain and gradual acceptance.

Lance can stand the pain.

.

"Aren't I glad I lived on the second floor," Lance talks to himself, as he looks up to the building he used to live in, ever present memories forcefully pounding against his skull. Resisting giving into the nostalgia, he brushes himself off, and then gets to work, swinging his backpack off of his shoulders and unzipping it.

A few of the airplanes were crushed, but Lance smooths the kinks out. They'll be all right.

The first time he'd sent an airplane over had been after an argument. It had been nighttime, a few minutes before Keith came out on his daily routine to watch the sun set, and Lance had let that airplane with the words "Lance vs Keith: 1 to 0" float over to the adjacent balcony, waiting on his own and hiding in the darkened corner. He remembers the frustrated shout, and the sight of the white airplane flying right back with the "0" amended to a "10".

Now, he takes out a paper airplane, one by one. 120 out of 121, he lets go, holding onto the tree branch as he watches each of them find their way onto the balcony before him.

.

He's walking back to Hunk's residence when he takes a wrong turn.

A brisk wind plays overhead, scuffing the tops of their heads as both of them take in each other's profile: one shocked, the other unamused.

"...Hey."

"Hey."

Keith looks uncomfortable, standing there with his hood over his head. In turn, Lance feels uncomfortable as well. All the things he'd wanted to say were suddenly tangled and lost in his head.

It's Keith who starts first. "Look Lance, I'm... sorry about last time. I — just — something happened and I was miserable, that's all."

So it's not just the lack of sleep that caused Keith to look so horrible? "What happened."

"Why should I tell you this?"

Lance's voice raises by a tick, and in an almost demanding, commandeering tone, says, "I don't know. Because I sort of care?"

"You don't have to care. Not anymore."

"Well I do! And I can't pretend I don't, can I?"

"You see? This is why we... never mind that, I'll tell you if it makes you happy," Keith says brusquely. He whips off his hood as if to prove a point, and even the wind scatters at this gesture, blowing back at both their heads. The sky grows overcast — or maybe it always had been — and in the impeding darkness of clouds shrouding light Keith answers, a strangled voice, "My aunt got fired. I've been juggling a few off-hand jobs ever since. Happy now?"

"Why didn't you message me, then, Keith," Lance asks, wringing his hands and shaking his head. He stops, and throws his hands back in frenetic indignation. "Did you even message the others? Do the others know? Didn't you think they'd be worried?" Didn't you think I would be worried? "You could've told me something!"

"Because I'd miss you!" Keith yells, sharp with a flinty undertone. The next words are of a broken, tormented language, cracking under the weight of a confession. "But missing you," he whispers, "is easier than pretending you're still here."

Lance has done a lifetime's worth of regretful things, and maybe more. There is no way on earth he'll be redeemed for these things, and yet here it is, a chance smack dab in front of his face, holding out a lifeline.

He suddenly thinks himself to be very selfish. Here he was, trying every single way to get Keith back, and yet he never stopped to consider maybe Keith didn't want to be back. "Soulmates" is only a term he's been using to cope with his weaknesses. Keith belonged to the stars, after all. Airplanes are to the sky as submarines are to the ocean. How had such simple logic escape his mind?

But some stupid part of Lance's mind tells him, Just this once. One more time.

"How?" He pounds at the other boy's chest with both his fists, and in his imagination bruises would be lining the flesh of his hand but the only wounds he carries with him is the burden of a restless heart and the hollow ache inside. "Just tell me, how..." can we make this work? 

Can he even forgive me now?

Keith stares blankly off in space, and it's like he's scrutinizing him, sizing him up in an intimidating way, even when he's not looking. Lance's throat tightens up, and although it's hard to speak he forces himself through—

"Look at me."

Keith looks. But the gaze holds empty air, glazed over, like Keith's living in some Other-time in Another-world. Or maybe, (Lance hasn't thought of this, had he?), this was an Other-Keith, from a distant world like Mars. A Martian. Didn't he hear Keith's speech about extraterrestrials that one time?

It's not called looking if you're not emotionally present. Is Lance himself even "here"? At this time, at this place? Something feels foreign about this encounter, and it's not the fact that he's no longer in Colorado but the sinking feeling, a warning flash in his chest, that tells him, you're doing it wrong.

And another, singing just give up, give up, I'm "— giving up," Lance breathes, letting the words slowly drift out into the open. His arms go slack, drop to his sides. Clenching his teeth, he wishes he could just give into the heat of his anger boiling over him at long last just like how he's given up. "I don't know why I'm chasing someone like you," but he says, "I'm sorry." "Think about all the pretty ladies I could be going after instead," but "You're right, I've gone too far." "It's not like I mean to, but it's your fault that this even started in the first place," but "It was my fault it ended up this way, anyways. See you." And then Lance turns, away and away; it's a defiant gesture, a white flag to the stars that Keith belonged to and Lance once wished to be.

See you—in hindsight this was also not a right way to end all this. There is no way on earth Lance would be able to come back. How funny, Lance cracks a grin, to himself, by his lonesome, I'm all endings and no beginnings, like always.

He does not hear the sound of his name, amidst the fogged-up pathway.

.

Or, he pretends not to, because if this were an ending, Lance would like it to be a clean one. Then, he could start over like all those times he's moved, from state to state, school to school.

He hears the distant pitter-patter of rain. No— not rain, but of footsteps coming his way. The chapped buildings on either side of him accelerate, as if the world's winding up a cassette tape, though Lance quickly comes to realize he's huffing, his cheeks red from speeding up. He's practically speed-walking down the lane, and at the shrill noise of a car horn from whereabouts unknown Lance treats it as some sort of otherworldly sign, and breaks into a sprint.

He's thankful for his swimming background to give him these legs. Like pistons, firing and firing incessantly.

"Lance!" The voice is dreadfully close, HD-surround-sound sort of close. Lance curses Keith for being a good runner, and for always being faster, one step ahead of him.

"Lance," Keith says, nudging the other boy. When Lance doesn't respond, he tries again, this time with more urgency. "Lance."

"What, sir?" Lance snaps, throwing Keith's hand off his shoulder. "What is it?"

Keith's next sentence is brash and goes through Lance's stomach like a knife, cleanly and leaving no residue. Or so Lance had had in mind, but what instead happened was Keith, grabbing him by the shoulders, breath hot against his chest, and looking. Actually looking, with intent and roiling intensity, and Lance is caught up in the waves again, holding his breath. It's sharper than cold, bitter words would ever be.

"I'm looking," Keith states, matter-of-factly. Like he'd run at breakneck speed just to tell Lance he was looking.

"Looking for what?" And at this point Lance is exasperated but that red-hot magma swirling underneath his feet and into himself  is still at bay, though he's sure that at any moment from now, he'd lose the fight.

"Something I didn't mean to lose," says Keith, and before Lance could interject, "Lance, you aren't the sort of person to just give up."

Lance raises his voice to object, but he's grappling at thin air. "It - it's time to give up," he finishes. A little lame to be stuttering, but if Keith's slightly-open jaw is anything of a reaction to go by then Lance's point has gotten across.

Then, just to make sure, Lance reaches into the never-ending void that is his backpack, and pulls out a paper airplane — its nose damaged, sunken into itself at its tip — and places it into Keith's hand. Places his own hands over Keith's, gives it a firm shake.

"Goodbye, Keith."

.

When Lance arrives back to Hunk's apartment, he's sweating.

"How'd it go?" Hunk's concerned — and rightfully so.

Lance gulps, holding up a paper airplane — airplane no. 121. "Wrong letter."

.

Dear Hi Mullet-head Keith,

I know you probably won't read this but

I hope you're happy

I hope you're happy (and I am being Serious TM ).

I just

Can we talk?

— Lance

P.S. I still kinda hate you.

P.P.S. I miss you, too.

P.P.P.S. Please reply.

.

The pier is filled with a stagnant air not even time can escape, a liminal space illuminated by a hazy firefly-like glow by the street-lamps lining the cobblestoned walkway. A moon hangs overhead, an ever-present watchman, a beacon like a lighthouse scanning the horizon. And oh, the stars are out, spilling over a dark chasm, glittering into the edge where sky meets water.

Where did the notion of stars being connected to fate even come from?, but Lance has his answer even without anyone telling him. Back in the days, sailors had depended on these stars to navigate, and really, that's what fate is: a navigating tool, useful when used correctly. Lance is not one of those people.

And the more Lance looks at the stars, the more the points connect, lines and lines drawn by an empyrean hand.

Constellations, Keith. Stars are connected.

And even though this lake wasn't the ocean, Lance knew it all connects, too. In the overlapping lake water, little crescents of white at the peaks, somewhere, somehow, it all links back to the ocean: ocean water becoming river water, river water flowing into the still circle of a lake, then a brook petering out, its last breaths air bubbles popping as the sky takes it all in and cries tears back into the sea.

And ocean water, separated from the sky above, becomes a mirror in order to touch the stars.

"The stars are out."

"I just said that," Lance murmurs, irked. It was his thought first, so why did Keith have to steal it —

Oh.

Keith.

Keith.

"Earth to Lance," Keith says, plopping down on the pier next to Lance. His feet dangles into the water, and he doesn't even complain when a couple of water drops sting his face as he does so. Lance wants to move so badly, but budging would make it seem like he was avoiding the situation. And Lance wasn't about to avoid the situation any longer. He's been skirting around the fire for much too long.

Lance shifts over. Only because he knows Keith isn't attuned to physical contact.

(He wants to hug him. Real bad.)

How does one even start a conversation? They'd usually start bickering with a fight, but Lance can't do that this time. This time, no matter what, he was going to make sure they left on a good note, at least. This was the stars giving him a chance.

Keith's doing something; Lance sees it out of the corner of his eye, white blurs everywhere. Each paper airplane flutters to the ground like busybody seagulls; he takes ten of them out of his bag until he emits a satisfied "found it".

"So, about this," Keith begins, and hands Lance a paper airplane — the paper airplane that may have ruined everything, or started everything anew. "My answer, at the bottom."

Everything is beginning again, Lance thinks, everything connects, after all. He remembers the first time they'd met, a dandelion-coloured day as bright as it was hot. He remembers the first time he'd sent a paper airplane Keith's way, and the last time, too — both on trigonometry notes — he can't help but notice the triangles and numbers on this one, too, on the wings. He remembers that one night stargazing, a slow-swelling indigo sky like the one above their heads right now, and how Venus was visible to the naked eye, just like the winking star deep in heaven's fabric eyeing them right at this moment.

The beginning was just that — two stars colliding. Two neighbors who, in the most unlikely of circumstances, happened to fall for each other.

The paper airplane hovers between them, truth wedged between the enclosed wings. It's the only thing separating their hands from reaching each other; it's so close.

Take the chance.

The paper airplane makes its way to Lance's hands, and Lance — takes it.

.

Sometimes, when there's no one to blame, Lance blames himself — or rather, the stars and fate and all that, before he gets to his own foolishness.

Sometimes, he blames Pidge.

For beneath Lance's scribbles is a blank stretching miles.

"Because you wanted to talk," is what Keith says, flatly.

"I - I want to talk," Lance says, his thumbs clutching at the paper as he speaks.

"I know that," Keith says, with a pointed look. As if to say, I can read, you know; I just said that, you know. "Except, don't we always end up screaming at each other when we try and do so?"

"You're always the one to scream first," Lance retorts.

"Says who?"

"See, you're screaming now!"

"I am not."

"Are too."

"For fuck's sake," Lance shouts. The paper crinkles under his grip. "Okay, let's start this again. Pretend we weren't screaming at each other, okay?"

"Alright. Truce it is. We... did come to talk."

"Alright." Faced with the danger of lapsing into silence, Lance grabs onto the next thought as fast as how a Venus flytrap would catch a bug. "I, and you — you and I, he corrects himself before Keith snatches the opportunity to, "had a 'falling out', so to speak." He accentuates this with two air-quotes formed by his fingers. "We might not be able to go back to the way it once was. But..." and then, Lance unzips his backpack to take out something — paper airplane no. 121. His last paper airplane, maybe forever the last one he'll give to Keith.

Keith's pupils dilate, just as the air around them compresses, grows thick.

"What's this, Lance?" and by the way his tone becomes strained, almost uncertain, Lance knows he's treading in dangerous ground.

"I took a picture of you, um, accidentally," Lance twiddles his fingers, "the day we first met, on the balcony. That really hot day, remember that? I was trying to capture a shot of a seagull flying ahead — really, it was this very cool seagull, because it had something shiny in its mouth, you know? And I wanted to take a selfie with that seagull in the backdrop, and I almost dropped the camera — that would've been real bad, man... But then," he sucks in a breath, "there you were."

Keith breathes. Deeply, as if he's in a competition on who could hold the most air in their lungs. "Why are you showing this to me, Lance?" He says this with a sliver of breath, close to a whisper, but there's a clear shaking to the sound. Either from withdrawn anger or from something else, Lance has no idea.

"Because I'm sorry. For everything. I-I never meant anything I said that night."

And now, Lance takes the liberty to laugh a little — not a full, out-right sort of laugh, but like one that escapes you like a breath of relief — it's like the sky's been cleared, the ocean is waving to him again and time springs forward from its momentary standstill. 

"This photo, it's a piece of the beginning. And I wanted to return it to you, in return of a favor."

"What sort of favor?" Keith says, the edges sharp. His muscles bunch underneath his t-shirt.

In reply, Lance reaches behind him, only for his hands to reappear with an object within. It's his worn-out camera, fit with a new film cannister and everything. "I wanted you to take a picture of us. Just for a moment. So —"

"So this is what all this meant?" Keith sounds hollow, his focus snapping from the photograph on the paper to the camera in Lance's hands. His eyes seem to register a distant horror. "The beginning, and the... end..."

"...is what I wanted you to do," Lance whispers. 

"You can't be serious." It turns out accusatory and hot, his disbelief.

"Oh, so I can't be serious for once?"

"Look, Lance, I'm sorry! — I'm sorry...too," Keith quiets, and holds his head in his palms. "You were an idiot —"

"I'm the idiot?" Lance squeaks.

"— and I was even stupider. You're not a waste of time, Lance, and that fight — I didn't... mean it," Keith finishes.

An urge to laugh bubbles in Lance's throat then; he doesn't know why but it must've been the sheer idiocy of the moment that sparked it. And as the adage goes, laughter is contagious, and before long they're both laughing for god knows what, surrounded by paper airplanes and water lapping at their toes. It's that sort of laughter that could even dispel the chill hanging in the air like a silent gloom.

"We're both idiots," Lance hiccups, stomach aching from laughing too hard, but he doesn't mind it at all.

"I missed this," Keith says, hitching a bit from remnant laughter. His face is red from exertion, and it truly looks like he's drunk, but every word that comes out of his mouth is true.

Lance sobers a little. "Me too." The wind's at their faces now, caressing the edges, and Lance feels it, every touch and sight and scent, of this exact frame of time — he reaches into the sky and for the first time, finally after such a long wait, his lost thing has been found.

"How... how are you..." Keith swallows. "Feeling?" he mumbles the rest of the sentence. Like he's testing the waters for the first time, all wobbly and uncertain. So unsure is his face that Lance doesn't quip that it might've been "Are you okay?" that Keith was trying to say, and so suddenly giddy and light Lance felt that something was changing, that he didn't even manage a coherent answer.

"I don't even know," Lance admits breathlessly. Maybe his head's still lost in the clouds after laughing so much.

"Too." Keith states, one solid word. He points at the airplane resting in Lance's lap.

It takes a long-drawn, head-tilting moment for Lance to understand what Keith meant, and two more moments for Lance to unfold the airplane again, skim over it, stopping at a single sentence: "I missed you, too."

"I missed you too," Keith says, in a way that was both nonchalant and full of emotion. "Some ways more than others."

Lance doesn't move; the universe swelled and swelled and the sky expanded until it was literally limitless.

"I failed one of my exams."

Oh, Lance thinks, or at least, he thinks he thinks, because he's not sure if his mind even registers anything at the moment. He's filling me in.

And more so, a spark of something catches in brilliant flame: Keith never talks about his feelings.

"My aunt doesn't have a job anymore. I study while on the job. We're struggling and I just — I just hate it all so much. Why can't the universe work for me like it does to everyone else? Why is it so unfair?"

Something caves in, chunks breaking off, sharp pieces nagging within Lance like glass. Suddenly things made more sense — lens fitting into place — Keith watching the stars, every night, thinking and thinking and thinking. Did he ask the stars questions? Pray to them, wish on shooting stars, hoping it'll all be okay?

Curse at them for not being there for him?

Lance says, "It's going to be okay." But he doesn't. He doesn't say anything, because then it would feel like stepping into a sacred, hallowed place that wasn't his to step into.

Instead, he takes out a piece of paper.

"Yell."

Keith snaps his head around, as if momentarily forgetting Lance was there.

"If it makes you feel better," Lance says. "Yell into this piece of paper. Then throw it away."

"Throw it away? Into the water? He's got this crazy, questioning look on his face, but mixed in is something like delight, a childhood giddiness that glows from his cheeks.

"Don't worry," Lance puts simply, "I'll catch it."

Keith nods and then shakes his head, as if he can't believe he's doing this. Then he shouts, scathing words dripping with pain and anger, a dozen other emotions, and a release of pure uncontainable relief. He yells all of this, then viciously folds the paper and jettisons that airplane out into the wild.

In the last sliver of sun, the airplane catches the rays and gives off a lucent yellow glow.

And just as Lance had promised, he winks at Keith before leaping into the water, dousing a flabbergasted Keith completely wet before holding up a hand high and trapping the airplane between two fingers.

"I didn't know you would actually jump in," Keith was saying when Lance wades his way back to shore, back to the protruding dock.

Lance flicks water onto Keith's face. "Says the impulsive one."

"Piss off," but Keith's covering his mouth with his hand, fighting off another bout of laughter.

"I don't want paper to be littering the lake," is Lance's explanation, but it was more than that. This was a technique Lance sometimes did to calm himself down, a secret technique that only he used. And now he'd shared it with someone, and suddenly he's not so sure how he felt about that.

"What are you going to do with that, anyways?" He's motioning to the piece of paper.

Lance hands it back to Keith, who, wary of another water attack, bristles slightly. "Write positive thoughts on it, I don't know."

"Goodness sakes, Lance, you're positively dripping. Scoot over." But he nods in acknowledgment, and clutches the paper tightly.

"Water is wet," Lance deadpans.

"Dry yourself," Keith says, and tugs his sweatshirt off. Lance balks, which Keith reacts with a raised eyebrow. "Did I mention that you're wet?"

Lance half-snatches, half-accepts the shirt. It smells like him. "You're wet too! And only because I caught that airplane of yours!"

"You brought that upon yourself! Next time I'll just throw a rock."

"You know," Lance adds hastily, still uncomfortable about letting this technique be known to someone other than himself, "I do this sometimes, too. The whole shouting-into-paper thing."

Keith's reply is pensive, but his features soften. "It's helpful." Keith nods curtly, to show that he really means what he says. But then, "Thanks for sharing," and this is also a curt answer but already, Lance feels a bit better.

Like he could fly, almost. Not just the airplane thing, but everything about today. It's like the wind's by his side, under his wings and propelling him farther and farther, to greater heights than before.

"Instead of that favor, Keith, how 'bout this." And Lance rests the camera into Keith's possession, and imitates the capturing of a shot with his fingers. "Now, right at this moment. Take a picture of both of us. No beginnings, no endings, no in-betweens. Just what we have now is enough."

Keith nods. For a second, something flits over his face, fighting for control, only for it to show a second later, a smile he's desperately trying to resist, tugging at the corners.

"Right now. I like the sound of it."

And, with a brief huff of a laugh, clicks the shutter.

.

It's quarter to midnight when the two realize how cold the water surrounding their feet had become. Shivering, both withdrew and lay their feet on the dock, one complaining, the other making a face that could only be described as disgust.

"Reminds me of that summer we went to the beach," Keith says, putting on a single sock he'd randomly dug out from the bottom of his carrying bag. "You caught a cold because you stayed in the water for too long."

"The only reason I caught a cold was because you were sick and passed it onto me!"

"Haven't you heard of summer colds? And what exactly were you doing that night anyways?"

Lance stops his quip ever so suddenly. "Trying to look at stars," he mumbles. "You always manage to make them sound so out of reach, with your silly figurative language and whatnot."

Keith snorts. "That was worth catching a cold?"

"Excuse me, you were the one who gave me it, remember that? Oh yeah, 'thank you very much for reminding me, Lance.'" Lance tilts his head up at the speckles of stars, connecting them in his mind's eye, and says, "...Why do you always describe things so... so detail-y?"

Keith glances up, too, and squints. "Detail...y?"

"Yeah. Like shooting stars and rain and ocean skies and such."

It was such a morbidly stupid question that Lance is sure, so sure, that Keith wouldn't answer it. But then, there it is — Keith opens his mouth — and here it is, an answer no one else would have given him, at times when it mattered.

"...oh," Keith falters, "that. I really don't know, only..." A half-smile crosses his face, just barely there, but existent behind a lock of hair. "It's easy to see the world as mundane and gray, isn't it?"

The skyline grows dark, framed on the cusp of a harmonious sunset.

"But it's hard to see the world as colorful."

And Keith turns, and the glance takes everything else down with it in its unmeasurable profoundness, as if they belonged to someone who's been star-kissed. Lance is breathless; his heart is humming an off-beat tune, a lull against the lapping waters.

"I still don't understand how you could've fallen in love with someone you desperately wanted to beat at every single argument you held. What sort of god-given miracle is this, Lance?"

Because you care when it matters.

Lance places two fingers on his wrist and traces the artery there. It responds, a thump, thump under his skin, two pairs of heartbeats like a binary star system, and as the tops of the buildings drown in the advancement of nighttime the city lights glint in Keith's obscure eyes and god, this is all I've ever wanted, really.

He just needed to know someone cared: even when he himself didn't, without prompting or any reason. He needed someone to tell him words, maybe not right words but good words, truthful words, words with feeling, words that showed that he mattered. 

"So, how about that offer?" And Lance does something so uncharacteristically Lance he's shaken himself: he upturns his palm and lets it hover in the gap between them. "More than anything, first and foremost, let's... can we be friends."

The moon hovers overtop their heads, waiting, waiting for an answer. 

"Give me some time," Keith says tentatively, yet in his eyes lay the very silver lining he's held onto for depths of time, a hopeful promise, a wavering promise. And even without saying anything more Lance feels it in Keith's steady, firm hand when the other boy takes Lance's hand and doesn't let go: that it's an overwhelming Yes.

With Keith sitting here on the pier, Lance has all the time he needs.

"Did you know, Keith," Lance starts, the stars glimmering all around him, within him, a show of lights tousled in his hair and gleaming in the deepest pools of his eyes. Setting off fiery sparks in his heart and the feverish heartbeats in his palms. Up above, a meteor shower none of them anticipated bursts the inky black with a dramatic entrance. Everything connects. "That time's only an illusion we created to be able to organize and describe an undefined phenomenon?"

"Illusion, huh." His reply is hitched; he's breathless, gazing off into somewhere high above — probably, at the majestic scenery, a gift from the heavens. But when Lance turns to face the quiet boy, Keith's facing him, wearing an expression that is as undefined, as infinite, as time itself. Lance feels his own breath hitch and his words come undone. "Tell me, Lance, what were you looking for that night?"

That night. That night on the balcony, swift wind pulling at his sleeves. He remembers reaching, reaching for something he couldn't touch, couldn't keep. I think I love you, but I don't think you love me back. Did he know that Keith was there, across the meter-gap between their units, of within reaching distance? Lance doesn't remember.

What he does remember and know, with all his heart, is that tonight he's found something even better, something that will last even when oceans dry up and the stars collapse.

But he tells him, "Something precious."

Keith's silent, but Lance is almost sure he hears humming. Then, "Did you find what you were looking for?"

The stargazing. Of late-night musings, of glaucus atlanticus and physalia physalis, of sea-born dragons and sea-bourne creatures. Of celestial waters and whales in the sky, paper airplanes stained with coffee and ink from Keith's fountain pen.

It's as if the universe planned this all along, because for once, Lance knows exactly what to say.

"See for yourself."

And Keith does, and Keith does not grin, has not in the entire time Lance has known him but there is definitely something beautifully wrong about his face as he watches the glow of words play out on his palm, sketched out with a shaky hand. The lake stills beneath them, just as much in bated breath as they are, streaks of sunfire rippling the otherwise static image in an array of raindrops as it reflects the heavens above.

This feeling, can you describe it?

"Stars and the sea and the sky. Look, Keith. The stars are falling into the water. Kinda pretty, aren't they?"

Keith murmurs something past Lance's ear.

"Blue fire," and he's smiling as he says this. "I feel like I've found it, too."

Lance laughs, with tinged cheeks and hands full of maybes and sorrys blossoming, like camellias, into thank yous. That feeling — he's been searching for it his whole life. And now, it surges up, this feeling so natural, it's like breathing —

A red sea.