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Everyone else can see it. It’s right there, staring at them, and there is nothing that drives Keith madder than when people comment on it.
It’s not like he doesn’t know that his clock is on the back of his neck. People have been pointing it out his whole life, asking in dumbfounded voices how he possibly reads it. He uses a mirror, you assholes. It’s not rocket science, and either way the back of the neck is not the weirdest place he’s ever seen a clock. He knew a girl in high school who had her clock on the bottom of her left foot. So his clock is not the weirdest to ever exist, and people really need to leave him alone. He doesn’t ask everyone else about their soulmate clocks, so why should he let them do it to him?
If he’s being honest, it’s part of the reason he lets his hair grow out. His clock is less noticeable when it’s partially obscured by a fringe of his hair, and suddenly, people stop pointing it out so eagerly. It’s almost like it’s an intrusion of privacy or something.
Keith can read his clock with his fingers, even backwards. He’s had a lot of practice, after all. The ridges of the clock are familiar after reading them his whole life and he can tell the time down to the second. He doesn’t check his clock often- sometimes just for the time, sometimes out of curiosity- but when he does, he is always reassured by the steady rhythm of the minute hand moving beneath his touch. He has heard that you’ll know when your clock stops, because you can feel the sudden cease of the second hand, even when you’re not paying attention to it. Keith doesn’t worry about not being able to see his clock, because he is sure that he’ll know when it stops.
He has a rude awakening one morning when the checks the line. 6:05. He freezes, his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. What? He got up at 7:00. It must be nearly 8:00 by now.
Then he realizes what he cannot feel. The second hand has stopped. His clock stopped at 6:05 and he didn’t even know it.
He checks his phone just to be sure, but he’s right. It definitely stopped. But he was asleep at that time this morning, and last night he came straight home after his last class, which ended at 5:15. There’s no way he could have met his soulmate in the last twelve hours, so then… oh, god. How long has his clock been stopped?
Keith tries to forget about it. If his clock has stopped ticking, then that means he’s already met his soulmate and there’s not point in panicking unnecessarily about it. He heads to work in the snow and keeps himself busy, running coffee cups back and forth across the café: anything to distract himself. But by the time he gets to the studio that evening, the back of his neck is irritated from being examined so many times. He just wants to know.
“I didn’t even notice, Shiro,” he exclaims. “I thought I would feel it.”
His paints lay untouched on the table, and he stares instead at the empty canvas before him. It’s a work in progress; pinned to the top is a sketched anatomy study from Monday evening’s life drawing class, one that he’s trying to reproduce with watercolors for an overdue assignment. He’s got to finish it soon, because he’s got other studio assignments piling up, but all he can think about is his clock. He rocks side to side on his stool, restless.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Keith,” Shiro replies without looking up from the clay between his hands. “Lots of people say different things about their clocks. Hey, have you heard from Hunk? I thought he was coming in tonight to finish his last print.”
Keith checks his phone, but he has no new messages. Wednesday nights are free time in the studio, and they’re not the only art students taking advantage of the extra hours, but the other students, Keith notices with a sour feeling in his stomach, are actually working on their pieces, while he sits restlessly, a wet paintbrush hanging limply in his hands. Is it rude to take solace in the fact that Hunk will also be behind on his work?
“He’s probably gonna be late,” Keith says. “What do you think I should do?”
“What do you mean? You fall in love.”
“I don’t know who they are!” Keith exclaims. His stool rolls to a stop, leaving him staring at his blank canvas. “And I don’t even know when I met them.”
“Well, when was the last time you looked at your clock?”
“I don’t know!” Keith groans. He glances sideways at Shiro. “I don’t check it that often. I thought I would feel it stop. At least you’ll never run into this problem.”
Shiro’s hands are covered in clay, but there’s a clock embedded in one of his palms, silently ticking away. He glances up from his craft for a second and smiles. “Keith, you’re worrying over nothing. The whole point of having a soulmate is that the universe works it out for you.”
That’s poetic, but it doesn’t satisfy Keith. He leaves his canvas barely touched in the studio and spends the rest of the night reading internet horror stories about people who never found their soulmates: people who were born without clocks or had clocks that never stopped ticking or just never figured out who their soulmates were, even after their clocks stopped ticking. He knows he’s being ridiculous, but the omen of a stopped clock keeps him up into the early hours of the morning, until he gets flooded with texts from Hunk and Shiro, each separately telling him to quit it and go to bed already.
Their friendship is tough love, but Keith appreciates it and goes to bed.
What he doesn’t appreciate is Pidge’s detailed analysis of the situation in the middle of their anthropology lecture the next morning. They’re packed into the middle seats of an enormous lecture hall, surrounded by dozing students. Keith usually skips this class, but his last test grade was miserable and he needs to make a decent attempt on the final if he wants to pass this semester.
Pidge nudges him in the middle of the lecture. “Maybe your clock is faulty,” she whispers. “I’ve read stories about people whose clocks aren’t synced up with real time and it throws off the whole soulmate mechanism-”
“Pidge,” Keith whispers, scribbling the professor’s words into his notebook as fast as he can, “I know you think anthropology is beneath you, but some of us need this class.”
“It’s not so much that I think cultural anthropology is beneath me, I just wish this school offered a lab section for physical-”
“Miss Holt, care to share with the class?”
The whole lecture hall suddenly comes to life, anticipating another smackdown between Pidge and the professor. Luckily, she was caught off-guard and she just shakes her head before switching to instant messaging.
I’m just saying, she writes. A lot of people have faulty clocks and they turn out to be just fine.
Not really reassuring!!! Keith types back.
“You know what I meant,” Pidge exclaims as soon as they flood out of the lecture hall. “It’s just interesting, isn’t it? What’s the point of having an embedded soulmate detector if it doesn’t work? Anyways, it’s totally possible that nothing’s wrong with your clock.”
“How is that possible?” Keith says, tugging his scarf on. He’s leading Pidge across campus on his way to work- not intentionally, mind you, but she’s one of those genius kids who finished high school like three years earlier and for some reason, all of her friends work at the same campus café (she’s there more than he is, honestly)- and as they trudge through the slushy remnants of last night’s snow, Pidge readjusts her glasses and shrugs.
“You could have met your soulmate and not realized it,” she says. “That happened to my parents. They sat next to each other on the bus and, apparently, that counts as meeting.”
As they enter the campus café, the bell on the door rings and warm air rushes over their faces. “Great,” Keith murmurs. “So it could be literally anyone.”
He has a bit before his shift starts, so he settles at a table in the back and opens Photoshop. The painting of his life drawing portrait is not going exactly as he planned, but he can still get some use out of the sketch by tracing and coloring it for his digital art class. Pidge orders something that contains what should be an illegal amount of espresso and sprints back to campus to get a good seat in the animation lab. The lunch rush hasn’t started yet so the café is quiet, and Keith manages to trace most of the sketch, only getting distracted a few times by Hunk and Allura, who argue behind the counter about which radio station to play. They finally settle on something vaguely holiday-ish, just as Keith checks his emails for the imminent grade warnings his professors must be sending him. Nothing yet, so that’s good. He refreshes his email again. Is he foolish in thinking that his soulmate’s name will suddenly appear in his inbox?
“Hey, Keith,” Hunk says, suddenly appearing at his shoulder. “Did you guys get in some studio time last night?”
“Well, Shiro did,” Keith says, leaning back in his chair. He glances up at Hunk. “Isn’t your textile design final due, like, really soon?”
“Uh, yeah, about that,” Hunk sighs. He rubs his forehead. “It’s fine, really. I mean, I’ll get it in before the end of the semester and- wait, what is that?”
He leans over Keith’s shoulder and points to the Photoshop window sitting open on the screen, half-obscured by Keith’s browser window. Keith closes his email, revealing the thin line-art of his life drawing portrait.
“It’s for class,” he says. “It’s just something I’m working on.”
“Uh, that’s a nude,” Hunk exclaims.
Keith glances up at him. “What? It’s art.”
“Uh, Keith, I know a nude when I see one-“
Something smashes on the floor. Keith and Hunk both jump, and suddenly Allura is at the table too, ignoring the shattered mug on the ground as she gawks at the computer screen.
“Oh, my god!” she exclaims. “Why do you have a naked portrait of Lance on your computer?”
“It’s a tasteful sketch!” Keith yells, slamming his laptop shut. “Wait, who is Lance?”
“You have a naked drawing of him open in Photoshop and you don’t even know his name?”
“It’s for class!” Keith exclaims. “It’s a drawing of a nude model, which is totally normal and I don’t understand why this is so disturbing.”
“Uhhhhhhhmmmmm,” Hunk says, his eyes widening.
Keith glances between them. “Wait, you know his name. Allura, how do you know his name? Do you know him?”
“You don’t?!” Hunk exclaims.
“Evidently, he does!” Allura sputters. “And either way, everyone knows Lance!”
“Okay, enough!” Keith exclaims, shoving his computer into his bag. “He’s just some guy that modeled for my drawing class, alright? Can I go to work now?”
Keith spends his shift at the café furiously wiping down tables. He spills more than one latte, but the look on his face must be truly terrifying, because no one complains. It’s not his fault he’s a bad mood. It’s the end of the semester and he waited until the last minute to start all of his final projects, and then his soulmate clock stopped without any obvious soulmate in sight, and now it turns out that the nude model from Monday’s class is someone that all of his friends actually know. He’s grateful when his shift finally ends and he rushes out of the café, eager to get home and just paint.
It’s not that simple, though. The implication hits him as soon as he sits down with his brushes. Life drawing class is on Monday nights at 6:00. Their model, that guy Lance or whatever (what a gay name), came in a little late, after the professor had started the lesson, and he was too busy winking at someone across the room to watch where he was going, and he bumped into Keith’s table, sending his pencils rolling onto the floor.
“Asshole,” Keith had muttered under his breath.
At least, he thought he said it under his breath. But the guy turned around and gave him the finger (while simultaneously sticking his tongue out like a child) before sauntering up to the center of the room and dropping his robe.
Oh, no.
Keith stares at the nude portrait taped to his canvas.
6:05.
Oh, no.
Shiro finds him in the studio on Friday morning up to his elbows in paint. Finished watercolors are scattered across the table to dry, and Keith is hard at work slathering a fresh canvas with gesso, determined to actually finish something by the end of the weekend.
“How long have you been here?” Shiro asks from the door.
Keith knows that he is there, knows that he has been there for a while, watching him lose himself in his work. He doesn’t respond. Shiro wanders into the studio eventually, setting his bag down at a clay-covered table opposite Keith’s, his usual spot, and waits until Keith is finally done with the gesso. Keith lets his brush fall onto the table and collapses back onto his stool, sighing.
“Is that due soon?” Shiro asks.
Keith watches the gesso dry. It doesn’t, at least not in the five seconds that he’s staring at it. “In two hours,” he says.
Shiro raises an eyebrow.
“I know,” Keith says. “I’ll turn everything else in on time.”
Shiro sits back in his chair and begins work on his own assignment. Keith doesn’t understand the first thing about pottery, but he watches with rapt interest: maybe because he doesn’t understand it, or maybe because he spent the entire night painting furiously in order to get certain things off his mind and now anything moving is slightly hypnotic.
“I thought you’d be here,” Shiro says without looking up. “I know you’ve had a lot on your mind with all this soulmate stuff.”
Ah, there it is.
Keith turns back to his canvas. “Right now, I’m just trying to forget about it.”
“Got it.”
His gaze wanders over his disastrous workspace. He knows those watercolors aren’t as good as they could be, but whatever, they’re done. His gaze settles on the portrait canvas he had thrown to the side on Wednesday, the life drawing sketch still pinned to the top. He wants to scrap the whole project and take an L on the assignment, but then he realizes something. Allura did say that everyone knows Lance.
Keith snatches up the sketch and shoves it at Shiro. “Do you know him?”
Shiro squints at the drawing. “Oh, yeah. Everyone knows Lance.”
Keith slaps it the table. “You saw me working on this earlier! Why didn’t you tell me I was painting a naked portrait of someone that everyone apparently knows?!”
“I thought you knew,” Shiro says. “Everyone knows Lance.”
Keith narrows his eyes. “So, uh, who is this Lance guy?”
“I can’t believe you don’t know him,” Shiro says. “You’ve probably seen him around campus. He’s in everything.”
“What do you mean?” Keith asks. “Like, in what exactly?”
“Well, he’s a music student,” Shiro says. “But he’s also involved in the theatre department, so if you’ve ever been to a show on campus, you’ve seen him.”
Shiro knows damn well that Keith doesn’t do anything except work, paint, and sleep.
“Uh-uh,” Keith says. He picks up the drawing and spins away from Shiro. “So, like… is he nice?”
Shiro glances up. “Are you writing his biography too?”
“This is for class,” Keith exclaims. He shoves the drawing out of sight. But he does feel a little weird about the nude portrait now that he knows that this is, like, a real person with a name. “And anyways…”
He trails off, then clears his throat. “I think he’s my soulmate.”
Shiro’s eyes widen. “You think Lance is your soulmate?”
“You don’t have to say it like that!”
“Sorry,” Shiro says. “But I thought you didn’t know him.”
“I met him when I drew this,” Keith says, picking up the drawing again. It is tasteful, although he has to admit now, the pose is a little… erotic. He can see why Allura was shocked. “That was Monday night. Our class started at 6:00. He ran into my table and knocked my stuff everywhere.”
Keith stares at the drawing. “I called him an asshole and he flipped me off.”
When he looks up, Shiro seems only mildly concerned. “There’s only one way to find out if he’s your soulmate,” he says.
“I’m not doing a man hunt across campus to look at his clock, you freak.”
“You don’t have to,” Shiro says, setting his clay down. “He’s hosting a Christmas party tonight, and you’re going.”
In Shiro’s defense, it’s not the worst idea ever. In fact, it seems like the perfect setup: how convenient that his (possible) soulmate is throwing a Christmas party on the very same day that Keith is desperate to just look at this fucker’s clock. In Keith’s defense, however, it’s also a terrible idea. He can’t remember the last time he went to a college party. What the hell do you do at parties? He spends the afternoon digging through his closet for his most festive outfit, and by the time they leave for the party, he’s finally got it: literally just a red sweater.
“This is stupid,” Keith mutters as soon as they reach the building. It’s late and he’s freezing and he can hear the music banging from the party as they climb the stairs to the apartment. “Can you just ask him if his clock is stopped?”
“No,” Shiro says, tucking his bottle of wine under his arm. “If he’s your soulmate, then you should be the one to ask him.”
“And if he’s not my soulmate?” Keith asks.
They reach the door. Music is bouncing from inside and Keith can hear people laughing, but Shiro still stops to knock on the door.
“If he’s not, then we’ll just forget about the whole thing,” he says. He nudges Keith with his elbow. “Come on, lighten up. It’s a party.”
Keith glances at him. “Did you bring a bottle of wine to a college party?”
“…shut up.”
Someone flings the door open and the crowd erupts with a cheer upon seeing Shiro. Keith is swept inside by the wave of people, and as he stumbles into the party, his eyes widen at the scene that has unfolded in the living room. The room is packed, but the people are hugging the walls, because some kind of performance is going down in the center of the room. Actually, Keith knows exactly what is going down, but he is so turned off by the idea that it takes Shiro aggressively pressing a beer into his hand for him to come to terms with it. A group of performers have taken the floor in matching Christmas sweaters. They sing, dance, and generally gyrate to the beat of an acapella version of “Soul Sister,” produced entirely by vocals, hands, and the occasional stomp on the ground.
“You’re kidding me,” Keith says.
Shiro grimaces. “I know how this looks.”
“They’re not even singing a Christmas song.”
“They’re enthusiastic,” Shiro says. “You know how music students are.”
“They’re fucking annoying,” Keith mutters.
A girl passing by glares at him.
“Sorry,” Keith says. He sucks down a mouthful of beer. “Forget this. Do you see him?”
It takes Keith a moment to realize that he’s pointing directly at the acapella performers. But shit, that’s definitely nude model guy, right there in the center, busting a move on the shag carpet. Keith stares at him. Lance is objectively attractive (yes, okay, he did look, like, what else is the point of doing a nude portrait) and he has kind of nice eyes, but God…
“This is worse than I thought,” Keith mutters.
“Just talk to him,” Shiro says. “After all, you might be destined to fall in love.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Keith says. He takes another sip of beer. “But I’m gonna need something stronger first.”
He scoots through a side door and emerges into what looks like a dining room (or at least what passes for a dining room in a college apartment), where two burly girls in sparkly holiday sweaters guard the bar. They mix Keith a freshly invented Christmas cocktail and, after tasting the copious amount of liquor they dumped into his cup, he salutes them and wanders through a narrow hallway into the kitchen. He walks right into Pidge, who is piling a plate high with Christmas cookies.
“Pidge,” Keith exclaims. God, he can taste vodka when he talks. “What are you doing here?”
Pidge nods at him as she stacks another cookie onto her plate. “Matt invited me.”
“Your brother brought you to a college party?”
“It’s a Christmas party, calm down.” She bites into something coated with powdered sugar. “Also, this is Matt’s apartment.”
Keith furrows his brow. “He’s roommates with Lance?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You know Lance, too?!”
“Yup.” She offers him her plate. “Want a cookie?”
Keith surveys the spread. “No, but can you pass me a cannoli?”
He doesn’t remember the last time he drank anything other than wine alone in his apartment. The mixed drink hits him a lot harder than he thought it would, and by the time the third acapella encore is over, Keith is sitting on the kitchen floor, leaning back against the cabinets as he watches Pidge reprogram Matt’s Echo speaker to respond only to her voice.
“Alexa,” Pidge calls. The speaker lights up. “Okay, you try now.”
“Alexa,” Keith slurs. The speaker lights up.
“Augh, damn it!” Pidge exclaims. She holds the speaker up to her face. “What am I doing wrong? There’s no way your voice is that similar to mine.”
Keith pushes his empty cup to the side and yawns. “I don’t know, but you fucked up somewhere…”
“Who fucked up?” someone exclaims, lurching into the doorway.
“Lance,” Pidge says without looking up. “Your robot is broken.”
“Hey, what are you doing to Alexa?!”
“Oh, my god,” Keith exclaims. In an instant, he’s on his feet. He’s not the most steady, but he’s still sober enough to recognize the person in the doorway, the one staring at him now, the one slowly recognizing him too, the one whose sketched ass is currently sitting in an open window on his computer.
“You,” Lance says, his eyes widening. “It’s you.”
He is not at all what Keith imagined. He’s clothed, for one. His sweater has some horrendous Christmas pattern on it, and that’s not even mentioning the Santa hat perched lazily on the top of his head. He’s taller than Keith remembers and- is he drinking a mini bottle of champagne?
“You’re different,” Keith says. He grabs onto the counter. “I mean, we’ve met, kind of, but you’re different than what was I expecting, like, in real life…”
“I’m not naked this time,” Lance says. He takes a sip from his mini champagne bottle. “Is that what you mean?”
Pidge looks up. “Wait, what?”
Lance dramatically sets the tiny bottle down on the counter. “Well, don’t worry, soulmate,” he exclaims, stepping fully into the kitchen. He stretches out his arms. “There’s more where that came from.”
“Wait, what?”
“Oh, my god,” Keith mutters, covering his face. He is both too drunk and too sober for this.
“Soulmates!?”
Lance kicks the speaker into the next room.
“My project!” Pidge cries, dashing out.
The minute she leaves, the kitchen falls quiet. Mariah Carey’s sweet Christmas notes are jamming in another room, but they are barely audible over the incredibly awkward silence in here as Lance and Keith stare at each other, both unsure of what to do next.
“So,” Keith says slowly. “What makes you think we’re soulmates?”
Lance picks up a cookie from the buffet on the counter. “Your clock is stopped at 6:05, right?”
Keith rubs the back of his neck (just to make sure). “Yeah, but-”
“Ha!” Lance exclaims, fist-pumping with the cookie. “I knew it! I could feel the energy in that room while you were drawing me. I knew my soulmate was in there. I mean, there were like twenty other people in that class so it was kind of a trial-and-error process, but I saw Shiro just now and he said that you were here looking for me, and I thought, of course!”
“I wouldn’t say I was looking for you,” Keith mutters.
“Really?” Lance asks, taking a bite of the cookie. “That’s definitely how he made it sound. I’m not blaming you, I mean- how could you resist? You’ve already seen the goods, after all. Hey, how’d my portrait turn out?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Keith exclaims. Oh, no, he can feel the alcohol surging in his veins. “I saw that performance out there.”
Lance frowns. “Wait, what about it? I’m a great singer!”
“You think anyone enjoys that acapella crap?”
“Hey, don’t make fun of my craft!”
Keith rolls his eyes and slides down against the cabinets until he plops down onto the floor again. He may be drunk, but he has not lost his astounding sense of perception. “This is not going well,” he mutters.
“Okay, so we may have gotten off to a bad start,” Lance says, finishing his cookie. He dusts the powdered sugar off his hands. “To be fair, you started it by calling me an asshole.”
“You bumped into my table!”
“But we can settle this once and for all,” Lance says. He unbuttons his pants. “Let’s see if we’re really soulmates.”
Keith briefly dissociates. “No, thank you,” he says.
“I’m just showing you my clock,” Lance exclaims, wiggling out of his jeans.
“Your what?”
“My CLOCK.”
“Oh, my god,” Keith groans.
“Pervert,” Lance mutters.
Keith is not the one stripping in the kitchen, but that’s neither here nor there. Well, it’s definitely here. Lance pulls his pants down just enough to reveal a) candy cane printed boxers and b) a clock on his left thigh that is, indeed, stopped at 6:05.
“See?” he exclaims, pointing at it. “Soulmates.”
“Soulmates,” Keith echoes from the floor as Lance shimmies back into his pants. “Great.”
“You don’t sound too satisfied,” Lance says, sliding down to sit next to Keith on the floor. “But there’s a way to solve that. Look up.”
Keith does tilt his head up and almost bops his nose on a bough of plastic mistletoe taped to the dishwasher that he is conveniently sitting beneath.
“It can’t hurt, right?” Lance says, grinning. “Let’s find out if we’re really soulmates.”
“We just did,” Keith says. “That was the whole point of you pulling down your pants.”
“Oh, come on,” Lance exclaims. “What’s a little Christmas kiss?”
What is a little Christmas kiss, Keith thinks, so fine, let’s find out, because he’s still a little drunker than he intended to be tonight and no matter what nonsense comes out of this guy’s mouth, Keith has to admit that hose lips look pretty kissable.
Fine,” he says, and he grabs Lance by his shirt collar and reels him in.
Lance tastes like peppermint. Maybe a little champagne, too. He doesn’t move at first, frozen beneath Keith’s touch, and Keith wonders, eyes closed, lips locked, if maybe this was a mistake. Maybe he was just being goaded. But then Lance melts beneath his fingers and he trails his hands up to cup Keith’s jaw, and soon Lance is kissing him back. Keith is definitely drunk, or maybe that will just be his excuse. But he can’t keep himself from humming a little bit as he revels in Lance’s warmth, at the way Lance presses him against the dishwasher and keeps kissing him until Keith finally lets ho.
He’s a little dazed at first. The heat in his cheeks is overriding his senses, and it takes a few seconds for him to catch Lance grinning at him.
“So, what do you think?” Lance exclaims. “We’re soulmates, right?”
Keith rubs the back of his neck, where his clock is permanently frozen. “Soulmates,” he echoes, his voice strangled. He clears his throat and blushes. “Uh, yeah, I’d say so.”