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The blankets rustle quietly as Lance tries to get comfortable on the cold floor of the castle. Pulling them tightly over his feet, he leans against the sharp steps lining the observatory room. In front of him, the dark spread of universe, dotted with simple pinpricks of light, stretches from corner to corner. If Lance holds his eyes open, the blackness seems to fill his whole sight; enveloping him in a second blanket of complete and utter void, empty space stretching for unfathomable distances as he hangs, weightless, infinite, never falling or staying still, an insignificant blip to an insignificant blip in the universe and perhaps even more insignificant than that.
Lance blinks, and after that millisecond of pause the universe becomes just a pretty view behind a thick transparent screen again.
Lance lets out a shaky huff of breath and jumps when he hears the door hiss behind him. Motionless, he waits for the person to announce themselves. The soft squeak of rubber soles gets closer; Lance expects the weight of Pidge, maybe Hunk, to settle and lean into him. Instead, there’s a phantom touch that makes Lance feel strangely empty as they sit some distance away.
“Stargazing?” Keith asks, not critically, not overly interested, yet not making small talk either. It’s a tone Lance can’t place- perhaps a little soft.
“Yeah. Sometimes,” Lance answers.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Sometimes,” Lance repeats.
Keith doesn’t ask anything else, just leans into the stairs as well and props up his elbows. Lance shoots him a look, but Keith has his eyes fixed on the window, almost pointedly not looking at Lance as if to say Look, I don’t want to bother you . Lance feels like he should ask Keith something as well, but what. There is nothing to ask. Lance just wants to look at the stars a little.
“I miss the stars,” Lance says instead, nearly regretting the words coming from his mouth.
Lance expect the sound of movement from Keith turning towards him, but in the deathly silence there are only the quiet sounds of breathing and lips parting as Keith says; “They’re right there.”
“The constellations, I mean. I used to be able to recognize so many on Earth, and they seemed so mythological , with all their stories and legends and uses. Now, I look at them, and I just see really far away lights.”
Keith hums, a vibration that travels through the empty space between them. It feels even further than before, as if Keith is alienated from the small bubble Lance has created around himself. “I get that. I miss the Ursa Major the most.”
“Any reason why?”
“No. I just like it. My dad-” Keith hesitates and Lance tenses up; Keith has never mentioned a father before, “-my dad, he used to point it out every night before I went to bed. I wouldn’t sleep until he did. Kids have weird rituals like that.”
“Sounds nice.”
They fall silent, and Lance focuses on relaxing again. Even this short conversation with Keith has him nervous, ready for that fight or flight feeling with the unpredictability of what Keith wants from him. Yet Lance doesn’t feel that usual (yet less unusual, lately) reflexive irritation towards Keith for ruining the calm he’d surrounded himself in; instead, it’s a surprising gratefulness for trying. Trying to make Lance feel a little better, in his own special way, sacrificing a story about someone that Keith obviously doesn’t like thinking about.
“You should invent your own, you know?”
Lance glances towards him abruptly, not having expected Keith to speak again. Keith had turned towards him at some point, like a sunflower to the sun, unnoticed, and their eyes meet for the first time. A jolt of electricity shoots down his spine and sets something alight.
“What?” Keith’s face is void, covered by that mask of careful consideration he wears in calm situations. Considering how they spend their lives, Lance doesn’t see that very often.
“Invent your own constellations. Look,” Keith shuffles back towards the window, and points at something, “that cluster, over there. It looks like a flower.”
Something about Keith deducing a flower from the stars and not a knife or a sword makes Lance let out an undignified snort. Keith jumps and for a moment that mask falls; Lance sees hurt in those sharp, dark eyes, hurt at trying and trying and being rejected.
“Sorry,” Lance says. Partly to fight down the guilt that bubbles in his stomach, partly because the distance between them still feels insurmountably empty, Lance shuffles over. Lance can feel the tension as he settles down next to Keith, their thighs brushing slightly and Keith half-pressed into the blanket around Lance. “Show me?”
Slowly, cautiously, Keith lifts his hand again, and Lance leans in to follow the path of his finger. He feels Keith shiver when Lance’s breath touches his skin, but doesn’t move. Yet the tension settles into something a little more comfortable, a gentle buzz. Lance’s eyes trail over the blackness, following the lines Keith’s finger traces diagonally between two rather bright stars, then in small little loops, back and forth around a cluster. “A flower,” Keith repeats.
“What else?”
“A bird.” Keith’s voice is deep and soft, as gentle as the blanket. Lance follows the lines Keith traces, leaning in a little more until they’re pressed chest to shoulder. It shouldn’t feel natural to do so, to be so close to one another, but for Lance is does. It feels like an inevitability , something that was bound to happen as soon as they gave in to one another. The logical progression of more than a year of furious battle and screaming war being hammered forcefully into something strong, sharp and burning; then slowly cooling as it lays there, resting peacefully, still a little warm, minutes from being unfinished.
Keith shows him an apple, a fox, a house, simple things, and Lance starts to see it himself, sight fading into something blurry as he tries to focus. Then, each time he blinks he loses them again until Keith, with his consistent ability, points them out. Keith shuffles closer as Lance notices his own constellations- knitting needles, or crossed swords, a hat-, and now Lance shivers in turn as hot breath fans out over the exposed skin around his neck. They lean together, searching in silence.
“Over there,” Lance points out, leaning forward a little. He feels like he’s playing eye-spy, but without a set thing to spot. “Doesn’t that look a little like a shield? With a coat of arms.”
“It does. Although I think it looks more like our bayards,” Keith replies in a hushed tone as he traces an alternative way around the stars.
Lance tilts his head a little, and their cheeks brush. Through the pondering silence, Lance hears Keith swallow audibly. He knows the feeling right now; it feels like they’re on the verge of something , just teetering on the edge; but should one of them really jump?
“Lance,” Keith brings out, sounding a little choked.
Lance glances at the slightly trembling finger still tracing out a shape between the stars. “Where?” He tries to distinguish the namesake weapon from the line of Keith’s gesture.
“Lance,” Keith says again, voice barely above a whisper.
The gentle buzz between them turns sharp as Lance realizes Keith is saying his name, not pointing out another object in the stars. The one small turn he has to make to face Keith feels like- it feels like a giant leap.
Lance breathes; Lance turns.
Their lips only brush at first, softly, gently, like one might hold a precious glass sculpture. Then Keith presses in, and Lance trails a hand to the nape of Keith’s neck and tangles his fingers into the rough hair there. Keith forgets to breathe and leans back suddenly with a gasp as if he’d been drowning, drowning in him. They look at each other, finally focused. Keith’s gaze is intense, unblinking.
The second kiss seals this unfinished thing, throwing it under cooling water and soothing away the burns. A final, finished creation, tempered by heat and flame to withstand the worst of storms, or to be the quiet eye in the midst of a tornado.
They fall asleep, eventually; curled together like two individual parts of one whole, at peace in the calm they’ve created.
Through the window, the stars continue to pass by.