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three weeks after keith’s drains come out, when he’s finally regained some of his energy, lance is back to his usual self. he’s noisy at dinner, flirts shamelessly with keith during training (which keith can’t even do for another two weeks, he just has to sit and watch), and goes on and on about his favourite classical musician for hours without a break.
(“god damn musical genius,” lance says to keith over cups of warm milk and something that pretty closely resembles honey. “can play, like, twenty different instruments. i used to want to be just like her when i was little.”
keith nods and smiles along because he loves listening to lance when he talks about something he’s excited or passionate about, especially music. lance is smart as all hell, and it especially shows when he talks about music.)
the best part, keith thinks, is by the end of the day when lance has tired himself out and is too sleepy to do anything but lie with his head in keith’s lap as keith plays with his hair. it’s gentle and intimate, and keith wouldn’t trade these moments for anything in the entire universe.
on this particular day, as they’re sitting in the observatory with lance’s head on keith’s shoulder, long after the castle lights have gone out, keith thinks he and lance must be on the exact same wavelength. then lance opens his mouth and keith is proved very, very wrong.
“we should get lights for our room,” lance says.
keith blinks. “what?”
“you know,” and lance sits up; keith immediately misses the warmth from his shoulder. “those colourful lights everyone puts up in the winter, for the holidays? we should get some, for our room.”
“why?” keith asks, because he really doesn’t get the appeal of putting up strings of colourful lights indoors. he knows people do it back on earth - fairy lights, or something - but it was never something keith wanted to do. they’d look strange in his room, where his only belongings before were his knives and binders (and then just his knives). but now it’s their room, lance’s belongings filling in the spaces keith’s had missed and making the bedroom feel like home, and he supposes that maybe they’d look alright.
lance breathes in and sighs, but it’s not heavy. “i always wanted to back home, but they wouldn’t let us at the garrison,” he says. “also, um, i thought you’d look really good in them.”
“in the lights?”
lance doesn’t look at him, bites his lip, nods.
“oh, my god, you’re so soft,” keith snorts, affectionate.
lance shoves his shoulder gently. “shut up. do you want the lights, or not?”
“i’m happy with anything you want,” keith says. then, “where would be even get any?”
lance stands up and stretches, cracking his back. keith almost winces, except now he wants to crack his back, but he doesn’t, because then he’ll want to crack his knuckles and his neck, and that’s just a whole lot of 'nope’ right now. “i’m pretty sure i saw something similar when i was helping coran go through some storage,” lance says. “also, i forgot to lock the storage unit when we were in there earlier, so we could definitely go get them now.”
keith laughs and accepts the hand lance offers to pull him up. “god, you planned this, didn’t you?”
“you know, as much as i’d like to say i did, no,” lance says. “i was just really tired and didn’t feel like taking five seconds to lock it up. we’re on a super futuristic castle spaceship; shouldn’t everything be able to lock on its own, anyway?”
fingers tangled together, keith lets lance lead him out of the observatory and through the halls towards one of the castle’s many storage units. they remind keith of storage closets, but with a lot more space and less of a dingy atmosphere. when they reach the unit in question, lance slides the door open manually (which, really? keith gets lance’s frustration with the units not being self-locking, now) and the lights inside immediately rise to life.
lance lets go of keith’s hand and rips open the flaps of one of the boxes to his left. they look like cardboard, but more white than brown, and when keith opens a box of his own he finds the texture isn’t unlike soft plastic. he digs through the box, not entirely sure what he’s looking for because ‘similar’ can mean a lot of different things, coming from lance.
“got anything?” lance asks.
keith shakes his head, bangs falling into his face. he blows a puff of air that sends the hair up, but then it returns to its previous place in his eyes. “nothing,” he says.
after they both search through several more boxes, keith, easily tired even four weeks after surgery, folds the flaps of a box and sits on top. he sighs, brushes his hair out of his face and behind his ears.
lance looks up at keith’s sigh, looking equally as tired (it’s late; keith doesn’t know why they didn’t go to bed right after dinner). his gaze softens when it falls on keith. “do you need a ponytail?”
keith furrows his brows in a pout, sighs again through his nose. “yeah,” he says.
months ago, keith would have recoiled at just the idea of putting his hair up; it reminded him too much of being younger, when his hair nearly reached his waist and his face still hadn’t lost its baby fat. now, he feels more confident with it up, more masculine.
lance passes keith one of the hair ties he keeps on his wrist (why? keith doesn’t know; it’s not like lance’s hair is long enough to put up). when keith takes it and pulls his hair finally out of his eyes, he thinks back to the first time he did it like this, on the training deck over a year ago, how lance had called him handsome and the way keith’s heart had seemed to swell in his chest.
when keith drops his hands from his hair, lance grins at him and says, “i love your hair like that,” then leans forward and presses a kiss to the tip of keith’s nose.
“lights, remember?” keith says, wrinkling up his nose.
lance leaves keith sitting on the box and starts rummaging through another. keith watches his boyfriend with an amused half-smile on his face.
after a minute, lance stands back up, a tangle of black wiring and colourful plastic chunks in his arms. “i found them!” lance exclaims, huge smile on his face.
keith’s aforementioned half-smile transforms into a full one and he hops off the box to help lance carry the rest of the lights. lance passes him a bunch, but the two are connected in several places, so it’s a bit of an awkward walk.
“did you lock the unit?” keith asks when they’re halfway back to their bedroom.
lance just shrugs.
it takes several minutes to untangle all of the lights (maybe even half an hour, but it’s too late to be sure, and time has always been weird for keith), but once they get everything sorted they’re left with three full strands of lights. eventually they’re able to remember how to hook things up to the castle using their combined knowledge from listening to pidge and hunk go on about how that works on several occasions.
when everything’s hooked up, keith sits down on the floor with his back against the bed and sighs. “i’m so tired.”
“me too,” lance says, and then loops a strand of lights around keith’s shoulders.
keith blinks up at him, too tired to comprehend the lights on his shoulders and chest immediately. “when you said i’d look good in the lights,” he says, “i didn’t know you meant like this.”
lance snorts. “i didn’t,” he says. “that was kind of spontaneous.”
keith stands up and fumbles with the string of lights, then tosses the ends over lance’s shoulders and tugs him closer. “there,” he says. “now we both look good.”
against keith’s forehead, lance laughs. “i always look good.”
keith hums, “yeah, you do.”
lance wraps the lights around them a few more times, then keith, nearly asleep on his feet, tugs them both so that they’re sitting on the floor near the bed. keith gets situated on the floor between lance’s outstretched legs, then leans forward with his hands on his knees and kisses lance on the mouth.
lance places his hands gently over top of keith’s and leans forward as well, so that they can meet in the middle. it’s soft and innocent, and warmth bubbles in keith’s chest. this is it, this is where he wants to spend the rest of his life; this is home.
he tells lance this then, pulling away just enough so that their lips are no longer touching but their foreheads are still pressed together. keith nudges his nose against lance’s.
“i love you,” lance says.
“you should brush your teeth,” responds keith, a tingling warmth spreading out from his chest to engulf his entire body at the words. lance snorts, and then keith adds, “but, yeah, i love you too.”
untangling themselves from the lights proves difficult, but they manage. then keith ducks into the bathroom to brush his teeth while lance changes into his pyjamas. keith doesn’t need to change, really, just takes off his pants and slips into a different compression shirt than what he was wearing earlier.
when keith emerges from the bathroom, he finds lance standing on the bed in his blue pyjama pants and one of keith’s larger shirts, reaching up to hang the lights along the wall. “you didn’t have to do that by yourself,” keith says as he makes his way over to the bed. “i would’ve helped.”
lance just smiles down at him and hops off. “yeah, but you’re tired.” he ruffles keith’s hair in the way keith says he doesn’t like but kind of does, and then makes his way to the bathroom to brush his own teeth and wash his face.
keith crawls underneath the covers of the bed and presses up against the wall. it’s comfortable, and feels safe, especially when lance comes back and tucks himself in close to keith’s side.
“good night,” lance whispers, and keith wraps his arms around his waist and rests his chin on lance’s shoulder, nose pressed against his neck.
“sweet dreams.”