Chapter Text
[KEITH]
If there was anyone on this Earth who had the genuine spirit within them to smile before nine in the morning, well, they could fuck right off in Keith’s opinion.
It was a thought that occurred to him every day, Monday through Friday, promptly at 8:35 AM. Because every day, at 8:36 AM, his train pulled into the station, and it was fucking terrible. Don’t let anyone try to romanticize the experience for you – riding a train is not fun. There wasn’t a fantastical backdrop like he was going to fucking Hogwarts; there wasn't any rolling hills or lit up city, no mysterious strangers who would strike up a conversation with him. More often than not, it smelled like cheap fabric cleaner and the general musk of sweat mixed with coffee, or, on the weekends, alcohol. It wasn’t even that fast, but it was better than walking or biking in the bitter cold. The university paid for his transportation pass, too, so it was essentially free.
(And please, don’t start on about nothing in life is free – it’s much too early for that.)
On this particular morning of the ever-burning hellfire nightmare that was being twenty years old, it was Tuesday, 8:32 AM. November came in with no holds barred, the end of autumn hitting the Northeast bitterly, and the cold sting in his cheeks was not unlike a wintery slap to his goddamn face. Everything was cold, all the time – his cheeks were always flushed, his breath puffed in little clouds, his hands were stiff and he wondered, vaguely, if this is what it felt like to enter into rigor mortis?
Cryptic? Maybe.
It was 8:33 AM, cut him some fucking slack.
Keith held a coffee in his half-gloved hands like a lifeline, his last ditch attempt to grapple with his sanity before his 9:15 Dynamics of Particles and Waves lecture. Around him, people swarmed the station in droves. Some days he entertained the idea of them herding in like mindless sheep, other days it was schools of fish that swam right into the mouth of a beluga whale – all of them, lifeless, sucked into the black hole of their smartphones.
It was always so crowded. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t crowded. He supposed that was to be expected, a symptom of living in the city, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Indeed, he did his very best to look unapproachable at all times, not that such an act was far from how he generally held himself. This was simply more intentional. He needed a constant fuck-off zone of at least two feet on all sides.
No, that’s not just him being an edgelord, Shiro. Allow him to explain before you jump to conclusions, alright? Ass.
(Dully, he thought – wow, have I really been reduced to carrying out conversations with Shiro in my fucking head? Please, someone kill me. No, not you, Shiro. Anyone else.)
Anyway. About being touched. Hugs were okay, handshakes – no big deal. But being bumped, brushed up against, shoved, toes stepped on, jostled, those sorts of obnoxious, I-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-the-people-around-me touches? Those really tested his patience. And Keith? Not exactly known for his patience.
So when 8:36 AM rolled around, he wasted no time speaking to his internal-Shiro or trying to imagine sixteen different ways the ceiling might cave in. He booked it towards his preferred spot, a little wedge right near the front of the train car that probably wasn’t design for someone to really occupy, but it basically prevented anyone from getting near him and it was close to the doors so you bet your ass Keith squeezed into that space every single day, and that morning was no different.
Well, no different in that respect.
Beside his sectioned off spot in the train, there was a plane of plexiglass with a handle that wrapped around it designed to aid those with disabilities. The transparent wall made for a nice, literal barrier from the sometimes-inane conversation that carried over the riders, though the train was usually just pressed uncomfortably by the predictable, stuffy silence.
Through the glass pane, Keith could see the rest of the train and its riders, though he usually tried to pointedly ignore them – today it was not as easy.
The doors began closing in time with the same grating, robotic voice he heard every day, punctually at 8:37 AM, reminding the commuters to “be safe and oh also don’t forget to like the public transport system’s Facebook page, share us on Twitter, swipe right for us on Tinder,” so-on-and-so-forth, when an absolute mess of limbs and disgruntled noises, quickly followed by a string of apologies, shattered the usual peace of the beginning of Keith’s commute. A body, which could only aptly be described as flailing into the train, slammed into no fewer than three people and was furiously trying to make amends for its last-minute entrance.
Talk about a close fucking call, Keith thought wryly before turning away again. He still hadn’t replaced his broken headphones from their last and final time through the spin cycle, so he was without the respite of music to distract him and was resigned to studying his hands, the lid of his coffee cup, the curve of the metal.
It was, frankly, sort of boring. Boring was fine, though. Boring would help to psych himself for the oncoming lecture which was bound to be about six-thousand times worse, give or take.
His commute took about twenty minutes, maybe a little more, and on that particular day he made it about fifteen before his eyes began to wander. They drifted from benign face to benign face; to overly complicated satchels, a pair of horrendous salmon-colored shoes, and folded newspaper, tucked between the seats. It was all relatively normal, everyday things he’d spot on the train – that is, until his eyes fell upon someone, and with a start, he realized they were looking back at him.
It was the guy who had burst through the doors earlier, barely making the stop in time. It was Keith’s first time getting a proper look at him, and, well… thank god Keith could chalk his own flushed cheeks up to the cold.
The stranger’s complexion took on a warm shade of brown, even between the dull overhead lights, and the ends of his hair that stuck out beneath a gray beanie were just a few shades darker brown. He wore an army-green jacket with some gray and orange paneling, jeans, and fairly simple, if not well-cared for, gray sneakers. Over his shoulder, he wore a simple beige messenger bag that, judging by the sharp and uneven protrusions that poked into the fabric, seemed laden with books; a student, presumably. Brow furrowed, he seemed almost as surprised as Keith to be caught staring, and he promptly scrambled with the phone in his hands and stared bullets into the screen, fingers tapping away restlessly.
It didn’t take an astrophysics degree (like the one Keith was stubbornly trying to earn) to tell that the stranger was pretty. Annoyingly so, actually, because even as Keith looked away almost as quickly as the other boy, the bright blue of the stranger’s returning gaze had effectively burned itself into his retina, like the little spots that lingered in your vision after looking at the sun.
Yes. Annoying. That was a good word to describe the stranger, and with the thought of his pretty eyes effectively nipped in the bud, Keith went for a big swig of his coffee, and proceeded to make a horrible mistake.
He glanced sidelong through the plexiglass again, maybe/maybe-not in the direction of Annoying Stranger, only to find him looking back at him again.
The coffee he’d so-smartly decided to chug promptly began to choke him, and he coughed up scalding hot, bitter grounds, the grit of it scratching his throat. Keith made a quick mental note to buy a better coffee maker.
Christ, the headlines – he could see them already.
Local Gay Chokes on Coffee Grounds, Authorities Rule a Suicide from Own Social Awkwardness.
Can Eye-Contact Kill You? Awkward Twenty-Year Old Suffers Internal Burns, then Fucking Dies.
As if Keith didn’t hate mornings enough. This was just humiliating, because now, everyone was looking at him. Fucking stupid stranger with his stupid fucking face.
The universe took pity on him then, because just as he cleared his throat for the last time and narrowly avoided the clutches of death, the announcing, computerized voice declared it was his stop and he shuffled from the corner to the door, glaring at anyone and anything that dared to look his way.
Except the stranger. Definitely not him.
[LANCE]
The train really wasn’t that bad.
Veronica had been exaggerating, just like he thought. As McClains, they both were known to be slightly dramatic at times, and his experience that day told him that this was just another such instance.
Yes, it was cramped and there was always someone touching him as a result, but it didn’t really seem that dangerous. In fact, the whole experience was rather bland, but not unpleasant. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket occasionally, presumably his group text with Pidge and Hunk, but it was a little too early and his hands a little too frozen to bother responding right now. People watching was more his kind of thing, anyways, and what better place that this? There didn’t appear to be any knife-wielding muggers, ready to jump him at the drop of a hat, or white supremacists that would shake him down and demand he “go back to Mexico.” (As a Cuban who spent the past seven years entirely in upstate New York, that particular comment was both exceedingly common and incredibly annoying.)
Honestly, the majority of the people heading into the city seemed to be business people, about to start their day of work. There were a few others around his age, probably other students or just young professionals, and just a smattering of ancient travelers, grannies and curmudgeons so old they’ve probably been alive longer than the trains have been running. Lance held his breath every time the rails bumped or shook slightly, certain the next one was going to knock their pacemakers right out of rhythm.
After a particularly intense tunnel, and no responding deaths – geez, these grannies really know how to hang on, don’t they? – Lance tried to relax a little, releasing a slow exhale through his nose and adjusting his shoulder strap, gaze wandering again and –
Holy shit.
That – that right there, on the other end of the train car, was definitely Keith Kogane; Lance may not be good with names, but he would recognize that mullet anywhere.
Said Mullet was currently glowering at his hands, a severe grimace dipping twisting his lips and brow, the overall expression not unlike he was trying to communicate with his travel mug telepathically. Lance almost laughed, a mixture of surprise and amusement at the outright intensity of his face. What the hell could he be thinking about?
Also, and more importantly, who gave him the right to have such an outstanding glow up? The guy who had once been the short and broody upper classman at his high school, the guy who always one-upped Lance in everything, the guy who was the subject of endless fawning by the girls in his grade– had grown up into that?
Talk about injustice. Christ.
What Lance at least had at least beat in height were probably lost – they had to be the same height now, if not Keith gaining an inch or two. That fucker. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, he went and filled out his smaller frame, while Lance had grown only more gangly as the years went on – not that Lance was staring at him, because the way that leather jacket hugged his biceps was definitely not drawing his eye like a shiny, sexy magnet.
Nope. Nope nope nope.
His hair was stupid. That was the same. Lance definitely had better hair, hah, take that, Keith.
For all the good the internal victory had done for his ego, it was squashed humiliatingly when the dark-haired boy looked up from his corner of the train car and met his eye. Lance almost yelped. He didn’t, but it was a close call.
“Fuck,” he muttered instead, just loud enough to earn him a glare from one of the elderly – he was going to call this particular old woman Barbara in his head for the remainder of his ride, even if it was only thirty more minutes.
Fuck you, Barbara.
Reflexively, his hands grasped for his phone, all earlier desire to people-watch forgotten.
He wasn’t even really sure what he was saying, just typing away frantic thoughts of ‘Keith Kogane’ and ‘mullet’ and ‘train’ with a few expletives peppered in there, just to cover his bases. Once enough time passed that he felt he could justifiably sneak another glance, Lance tried to be a little subtler this time, turning his phone slightly in Keith’s direction and peeking up.
Again, with his scowl-so-intense-it-could-kill-lesser-men on, Keith was once again glaring holes into his coffee mug. There’s no way he didn’t notice Lance, right? Should Lance say something? Just an innocent ‘hi’ wouldn’t be a big deal, right?
Then again, they were practically rivals in high school, so he shouldn’t be surprised that Keith wouldn’t send him a friendly wave or say hello – he was probably more pissed to see him than anything. Lance was likely ruining his perfectly nice commute just by dredging up old memories, but, he couldn’t stop the burning questions that sizzled in the back of his throat. Predictably, Keith was just the right amount of ‘I don’t give a fuck’ that Lance had never seen him on any form of social media… not that he ever really looked or anything… but most people from high school had popped up in his Twitter feed or Facebook suggestions at some time or another. It would come as a shock to absolutely no one if Keith didn’t even have a Facebook; in fact, Lance would bet money that he didn’t.
Did Keith live here? Why did he move from New York? Where was he going, right now?
Just when the teeny-tiny bit of courage he had in him began to swell, determined to at least go say hi to the guy instead of mentally interrogate him – because that was a crazy person thing to do and Lance was not crazy, no sir – Keith took a big drink from his thermos and began to fucking hack.
When Lance had expected someone on the train to die, he had figured it would be one of these fossils-of-human-beings that were withering away to dust before his eyes, maybe Barbara, if he were to be so lucky – not his old rival from high school. Whatever Keith had been drinking clearly didn’t go down well, and he was soon red-faced and coughing so hard it looked like his lungs were about to come right out with it.
Bemused, Lance smiled at the sight, just a little. So much for the cool-loner-guy in the corner vibe when you’re wheezing on coffee or tea or whatever he was drinking.
It wasn’t until he’d fully gotten through his fit of coughs that Lance made a pointed effort to catch his eye this time, really trying to lean just-so into Keith’s periphery so he could maybe wave, give him a nice bro-nod, and be done with it.
Except Keith didn’t see him, didn’t even glance at him again. Didn’t notice Lance’s deflated expression when he bolted off the train, the slight pout taking over his expression when the boy dashed off into the crisp winter air.
The closing door, and Keith’s cold shoulder, left Lance with a bit of a chill.
So he was going to be that sort of asshole about it, huh? Well, fine then. Lance would ignore him, too, if that’s how he was going to be.
With only a mild amount of bitterness, Lance glanced at his watch. He still had another twenty minutes, and tried not to sigh; after some unfortunate subletting and leasing that had been awesomely fumbled by all parties involved, he ended up on the other side of the city, and now his commute was twice as long, and, if today was any indicator, had exactly 100% more mullet than it did before.
With all the admiratio – observation he’d been doing, Lance had failed to realize that a lot of people had actually gotten off at Keith’s stop, and his eyes scanned the confusing map on the opposite wall in an attempt to understand why… Ah, yes. It was the stop for the best school in the state, conveniently Ivy League. Of course Keith would be a student there, probably studying some absurdly difficult thing just to show everyone how much better he was than them.
And Lance? Well, thank god for scholarships, as he managed to get accepted to a decent private school just outside of the metropolitan area, a no-one’s-heard-of liberal arts college. Naturally.
Some things changed from high school, like Lance’s ever-growing list of failed dates and his performance in math. Some things, like Keith’s mullet, and Lance’s tendency to be underwhelming, didn’t.
Only a few minutes left of his commute, Lance remembered, oh, duh, he has headphones – why is he standing here drowning in his own incompetence when he could be listening to one of the fucking weird ass playlists Pidge made for him? They’ve got like 400 songs each, with The Avalanches, Ariana Grande and fucking K-Pop, Gorillaz, classic Pete Seeger for god knows what reason, and he was almost certain there was at least two Italian operas on there, somewhere. It was sort of a mess, but that’s also why he loved it.
…
So, about Lance’s plan – ignoring Keith?
Yeah, that went about as well as the Rosanne reboot. That is to say, it was fucked from the get-go and no one was really surprised when it failed.
See, the show’s cancellation wasn’t because of Rosanne Barr’s fantastic performance as an actress, it had more to do with – wait, wait, nevermind.
The point is, yes, Lance planned to ignore Keith, and it lasted an embarrassingly short amount of time he’s almost ashamed to admit it in the first place.
After having so nearly missed his train the previous day, Lance successfully pulled the opposite stunt the next morning – he was up before his alarm, ready and out the door to head make it to the Allegheny station at 8:00 AM on the dot. Of course, it was even fucking colder today, and now he had thirty minutes to kill with absolutely nothing to do but freeze to death.
Unintentionally, his eyes slipped closed. Maybe it was from the lingering sting of lost sleep, pricking at his bleary vision, or maybe it was just the general aridity of winter – whatever the cause, he breathed steadily and tried not to focus on the shitty weather or how nice Varadero must be this time of year. It’d been almost a decade since they moved to the States, and he still couldn’t help but think of their tiny island as home sometimes, especially in the colder months.
Man, the Northeast sucked.
Gloves had long since been a lost cause for him – he would wear a pair once and would end up losing them in class, at a café, in the bathroom – so he stopped wasting his money and just resorted to his pockets. Today, he buried his tingling fingers deep into the lining of his coat to chase his own body heat, grimacing at the threadbare texture. Lance really loved this jacket, but the fabric’s lifespan was clearly coming to its end. Maybe he could ask for a new one for Christmas. Sure, it might only be the first week of November, but it was never too early to start daydreaming about hot cocoa and warm blankets, right?
The platform grew increasingly loud as the crowds began to gather for the 8:35 boarding time, evidently a popular choice for commuters, and Lance subconsciously tightened his hold on his shoulder bag. This city was much safer than New York, but it was still a city, and he continued to ruminate on Veronica’s wary mention when he shared that he’d need to start commuting with the city trains – her cryptic warning about muggers and harassers still rang in the back of his head like church bells, or death knells. Really, it was the same sound, the meaning was a simple variant of context.
His lids fluttered open again at the thought, turned tense, and Lance willed himself into thinking about something that wouldn’t end with his anxiety through the metaphorical roof, and a bright scarf worn by the woman standing on the opposite side of the platform managed to do the trick. It was the color that caught his attention, a rich crimson color, and it lulled him back to his earlier comforting thoughts of the holidays: decorating the tree with his nieces and nephews; laughing over the really terrible Christmas movies that Pidge and Matt both loved; going over to the Garrett’s to bake cookies; helping his Mamá cook breakfasts or fix dinners, enough for a neighborhood rather than a family but that was just how the McClains did holidays and birthdays. Always big and loud and full of love.
With a fond smile tugging at the corner of his lips, Lance floated aboard his train with the crowds, and he managed to fold himself into a seat before he really thought to look around for –.
There he was, same place as yesterday, the same frustrated, unhappy look on his face, avoiding eye contact with everyone like the plague. Lance had been prepared for that, no sweat. He could ignore that annoying face all day if he had to, dark eyes and pink lips be damned.
What Lance was not prepared for, however, was for his mullet to be conspicuously absent, instead tied up into a – a ponytail?!
Oh, come on. Give me a fucking break!
Sincerely, his frail, bisexual heart couldn’t take such abuse this early, especially not when he was this cold. It was only Wednesday. He wanted to groan and sink into a puddle, but seeing as he had no immediate control over the liquescence of his skin and bones, Lance settled on looking out the window, studying the passing landscape in the weak morning light and punching down his every desire to look over, to see if Keith was maybe looking his way, if the weight of eyes on him was as real as it felt.
Lance was nothing if not stubborn, though, and managed to will away his urges. Keith had been the one to ignore him first, so really, all Lance was doing was honoring his desire to be the same loner he had been in high school.
Whatever. He could really use this added travel time to study, so he did just that, diving into his bag and fishing out his Organic Chemistry textbook.
Lance’s GPA: 1. Keith: 0.
And so, at least for a little while, that’s how things went.
Lance stopped noticing Keith as much. He wasn’t as hyperaware of the flash of leather in the corner of his eye every time they came to his Ivy-League-Golden-Boy stop, didn’t let his eyes linger for too long on the receding head of black hair whether it be up in a ponytail or down, blowing in the wintery winds. It was impossible not to glance his way each day when they first boarded, and for some silly reason every morning Lance would hopefully wait for the delayed recognition – that maybe Keith was really that fascinated with the lid of his travel cup, so much so that he had failed to notice Lance riding ten meters away from him for ten whole train rides.
Keith never looked at him, and once the doors closed, Lance would turn his music on and pull out the books or articles for whatever fresh hell his professors had prepared for him for the coming week.
It wasn’t lonely.
During the days, Lance was quite literally crowded by people. Winter was in full-swing, Thanksgiving now a week and a half away, holiday shopping and decorating and talks of travel plans flitted by him on campus, at the station, at the small grocer two blocks away from his newish studio apartment.
Hunk, Shay, Pidge, Matt and Allura were planning their usual Secret Santa for after the holidays, when they’d all come back to town with their families. It was getting harder to find time for them all to get together, so sometimes the gift exchange had to be delayed and some gifts even mailed while the absent member FaceTime’d in, but they tried to make it work and that was what mattered.
Life was – it was fine. Good, even. He and Hunk Facetimed almost daily, that girl in his differential equations class might actually be responding to his flirting, and his Mamá called him and texted him and asked about his travel and holiday plans frequently. Lance kept telling her he didn’t know about when he would come home just yet, and unfortunately, it was true. A train ticket to New York was only in the neighborhood of $60, but he needed to budget the time he spent out-of-town carefully, so he could maximize his time as a research assistant – a paid position that also looked good on a CV, thank you very much.
Keith was there, everyday. Tuesday through Friday. (Well, he might be there on Monday’s, too, but Lance’s only class of the day was much later so he didn’t board their 8:35 AM train.) His habits were as predictable as the train schedule itself – always occupied the same little cubby, never looked at anyone, never talked to anyone.
This was his new normal, and honestly, it could be a lot worse.
And yet, every morning in the two minutes between 8:35 and 8:37, he couldn’t help but think – it could be a lot better, too.
[KEITH]
The train still sucked.
Keith’s whole week usually sucked, actually – it was growing colder by the day, and there was snow set to hit sometime that weekend. There weren’t enough hours in the day to do his homework, try to maintain some sort of regular work-out routine, stay in touch with Shiro and Adam, and phone-in some kind of social life.
It sucked on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday, and you best believe it sucked on Friday, too.
But it never sucked so much as it did on Mondays.
Rewind to that first Tuesday, and the stranger was back the next morning, though he took a window seat across the aisle from where Keith stood consistently thereafter. Incidentally, such a spot provided Keith a much easier vantage point to sneak looks at his profile as he stared out the window or kept his nose in a textbook. Definitely a student.
Sometimes, the stranger took out his cell phone, but not often. He usually had headphones in and that was that. He never stopped to change the song or text or browse like everyone else.
…And, no, Keith was not being creepy about this. It was just ‘people-watching’ – that’s something that normal, sociable people do, right? He would swear he heard Shiro say something about it once, and everyone fucking loves Shiro, so Keith knew it couldn’t be that weird. (At least, that’s what he told himself.) It’s not like there was some law against looking at other people around you, and as far as he could tell, except for the very first time they met eyes, Keith wasn’t even sure if the guy even really noticed him on the train.
That wasn’t really a problem. Keith didn’t mind not being noticed, he was content to just stand to the side watching. (Again, not in a creepy way. He really can’t stress than enough.) It was just, simpler this way. Something to do, like watching the news in the morning, or listening to traffic updates on the radio; the stranger was interesting and it helped his ride in in the mornings pass by.
Keith had no issue with the Annoying Stranger, apparently, forgetting he existed. Indeed, it was practically part of his creed to be forgettable, to go unnoticed whenever possible.
Keith did have an issue, however, in how many other people seemed to notice his stranger on the train.
Every day, it got worse. There were girls that would point at him from across the aisle, giggling and trying to catch his eye, but, nope. He was always reading, or looking out the window, almost obstinately not paying the people around him any mind.
A significantly older man, at least Professor Smythe’s age, if not older, had gotten a bit handsy one day when he made a show of struggling to get up. Keith saw this particular man on the train at least twice a week, and the old, creepy fuck was definitely capable of getting up on his own, but it’s not like the stranger knew that. He was just trying to be nice when the guy asked for his help, which made the whole thing even harder to watch – a bony pair of hands lingering over the stranger’s arms and wrist, even brushing up against his thigh when he nearly ‘fell’ getting out of the aisle – it was more than enough to make Keith uncomfortable.
Early outside the station, on the second Tuesday, Keith had nearly broken his strict no-talking policy for two reasons.
One, who did the stranger think he was, just not showing up to their train the day before? After the weekend, and not seeing the stranger on Monday, either, Keith had actually started to worry. The guy just… just… he looked vulnerable, okay!? Students are easy targets in general for theft, or worse, and his stranger’s general breeziness didn’t do him any favors in terms of warding people off, not like Keith’s own outward hostility.
Two, and on a very related note, was the presence of some riders he’d seen for the first time the Monday of his stranger’s absence. They were two literal goons, because Keith had no better words to describe the men, mid- upper-twenties, wearing sweatshirts and low-riding pants, looking like they haven’t brushed their teeth or showered in the past month, and they were the ones who actually made him start to worry.
They stayed on the train longer than Keith the first day, and where they’d been generally quiet aside from an occasion comment on Monday, Tuesday was a whole different ball game. They continued to nod in his stranger’s direction, whispering back and forth between each other, basically staring at him from a few seats back. Keith did not like that, not at all, and he even considered staying on the train and missing his morning lecture, just to make sure nothing happened. Ugh, but that felt… invasive? Stalker-ish, and Keith wasn’t a creep or a stalker. And why did he care so much? The stranger seemed just as aloof to Keith’s presence as he did to everyone else.
So, no. That was weird and crossed too many lines.
Instead, as always, Keith kept his head low and focused on the warmth of his coffee in his hands, shuffling out the door and pushing the nagging into the back of his mind. It wasn’t easy, and more than once throughout the day, Keith found himself thinking about those tired, yet somehow sharp, blue eyes as they scanned the pages of a book, or the end of a pen stuck between white teeth, or, inevitably, the people who constantly leered at his stranger.
(Yes, it did occur to Keith that he was guilty of it too. At least he was… maybe subtle about it? He didn’t go up and actually touch the guy or anything like the old man, or point or clearly trying to grapple for his attention.)
To say he was relieved on the second Wednesday to see him on the train again, same time, same seat, unharmed, would be putting it mildly. It wasn’t all good news, as Fuck Boy One and Two were also back, but his stranger didn’t appear shaken or hurt so nothing must have happened.
Now, it was the third Wednesday, and Keith still hated mornings, and he definitely still hated the train, and he hated the upcoming holidays, too. Because, fuck no, he was not about to even wonder how the boy might be spending his holidays. Was he local? Did he travel? He would probably stop riding the train whenever his classes went on break. Would he start up again after? Did Keith want him to?
Shit, he was doing exactly what he set out not to do. Keith sighed and tried to pay attention to the class material, with some amount of success – there were midterms before the short break they were allowed for Thanksgiving, and he was not in the mood to get his ass kicked by Electricity & Magnetism right before a break.
Keith left the campus that day a little later than usual, six, rather than five, as he stayed in the library for an hour or so to study before his work-out. After a warm shower to help brace him for another frosty evening, Keith trudged his way to 30th Street and let out a few purposeful exhales, watching his breath play on the wind, the sidewalk backlit by the orange glow of streetlamps. It was pretty, and a few flakes of snow had begun to fall – nothing substantial, and it certainly wouldn’t stick, but it amounted for a pretty scene and he thought wistfully, distantly, about the dry heat of the Southwest, lacking in all of the North’s humidity and restless seasons, about his Dad, about the uncanny way ash fell from the sky much like snow on the evening he died.
His wandering thoughts carried him to the station without issue, keeping his hands buried in his pockets except to get out his transit pass at the station. Once there, on the platform, he rubbed at the scratching sleepiness of his eyes and looked around at the other post-rush hour commuters.
Holy fucking shit.
His stranger was standing less than two feet away, not having noticed him at all by the looks of it. Instead, he was intently reading something in the screen of his smartphone, brow furrowed and lips turned down.
This – this was Keith’s chance to say something. To potentially make every Tuesday through Friday unbearably awkward if he said the wrong thing, true, but he could finally at least put a name to that fucking face.
But how? There was the obvious option – Keith could just, you know… introduce himself and try to have a conversation like a normal person?
Haha. Good one.
The seconds drew to minutes, and never did the guy look up from his phone, like to even blink would be heretical.
Now, he was suddenly incredibly conscious of everything having to do with himself. God, it’s like his first date all over again, a flurry of inane questions popping into his head.
(My hairs up, is that bad? Or good? I remembered to put on deodorant, right? Is he busy, should I maybe not bother him? He’s not studying for once… but he looks kind of mad? Does he usually ride home this late? Why is he at my station, anyways? Also, what is it about those fucking eyes? They’re not just – not just pretty, but almost familiar?)
Not that Keith was one to ever think things through. Those were all well and good thoughts, but he was nothing if not abrupt and awkward, so of course their conversation would be just the same.
“You ride the 8:36 train. I know you.”
Real smooth, Kogane.
The boy flinched so suddenly he nearly dropped his phone, tossing it between his hands like it’d been coated in grease before managing to secure it with a loud snap. His eyes were wide, looking at Keith for what felt like the first time all over again, the blues depths vivid, catching the reflection beneath the station lights.
Don’t blush, don’t blush, don’t blush.
Keith blushed.
Stupid pale skin why now the fucking betrayal son of a –
“I… yeah. Me t-too.” The boy paused and cleared his throat, quickly tucking his phone into his jacket pocket. “I mean, I do – know you, that is. Of course I do! I was wondering if you had noticed it was me on the train. How, er, how have you been, man?”
Now it was Keith’s turn to go wide-eyed, almost wincing when the stranger sent him a disarming, nostalgic sort of smile.
Keith, ever the rhetorician, replied, “Wait, what? We know each other?”
The other boy rolled his eyes and smirked. “Uh, high school, of course! Lance and Keith, neck and neck! You have to… you have to remember.”
Pursing his lips, Keith wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure how to process this information. His brain was sort of preoccupied with the amused lilt to his tone when the stranger – when Lance – had said his name.
Lance looked positively stricken, and he laughed in a way that Keith perceived to be… bitter. “Oh my god. You don’t remember at all, do you? Of course not.”
“I… no…? I’m sorry,” Keith said sincerely, both of them boarding the train and gravitating towards where Lance typically sat, the evening making the train car much less crowded. Lance sat at his seat at the window, and instead of occupying the seat next to him – Keith preferred the idea of being able to make a quick escape, and sitting felt like some sort of social bonding thing that he couldn’t back out of. Standing meant an easy escape, so Keith grabbed one of the metal support bars and leaned against it.
To be quite honest, Keith was unsure of how to even hold this conversation now that it had started. It was basically already a fucking disaster, so he might as well just keep on going.
“I didn’t – I moved around a lot when I was younger, so I had a difficult time placing the names and faces from my different schools… Sorry.”
Lance, who had worn a tight smile up until the end, held Keith’s gaze for a long, posturing moment and sighed, the hardness of his expression softening slightly.
“No, it’s fine, I don’t really have a great memory either – can’t really fault you there. So, I’m Lance, I go to school at Vaherford outside the city. From New York – well, no, Cuba originally, but it’s been New York for a while.”
Keith picked at his gloves for something to do, to keep his eyes and hands busy. “So you went to… Garrison High, then?”
“Yup.” Lance popped the ‘p’ sound, sending a sideways glance to Keith that he just barely caught. “You were a grade ahead of me, but we shared a few classes and… yeah.”
Lance briefly pulled out his phone, frowning at the screen before locking it again. When his gaze returned Keith, he almost laughed – the guy’s expression was also just so bright and absurdly open. Who just goes around smiling at everyone like that? Wouldn’t his cheeks get tired? Just thinking about it made Keith tired.
“I guess I know you, so you can skip the introduction,” Lance stretched his arms out, patting the seat next to him. “Wanna sit? We’ve got, like, twenty minutes.”
Well, now that Lance had offered, it would be impolite not to accept, right?
So he awkwardly shuffled his bag into his lap and sat down, his whole right side buzzing with the not-touching-but-almost-touching space between them. Keith did not like people in his personal space, most of the time, but it didn’t usually make him feel like this.
After a few moments, Lance coughed. “Sooo… what are you studying?”
Much to Keith’s surprise, and subsequent relief, the conversation wasn’t all that awkward – at least, no more awkward than he was talking to just about anybody, to which the credit should entirely go to Lance and his ability to talk, and talk, and talk. In fact, it was often more of a monologue than a dialogue, but Keith didn’t mind. They went through the regular subjects – schools, studying, friends they stay in touch with – but it took exactly all of five minutes for Lance to begin recanting some of their… apparent… antics in high school, of which Keith had only the vaguest memories.
Each time Lance recounted something, like racing each other to school to get the perfect parking spot beneath the massive tree at the left-hand corner of the parking lot, or Lance setting track and field records only for Keith to subsequently destroy them, a little bit more started to come back to him.
(For the record, there was no race. Keith got to school exactly at 7:15 AM. If his preferred spot in the back left-corner was taken, he just parked somewhere else. He didn’t even know he set any records for the track & field team, let alone broke Lance’s records specifically. That particular activity was literally something he did because Shiro told him he should try to focus on working with a team. In retrospect, it was fair to say that definitely didn’t work out.)
For the life of him, he didn’t remember Lance as featuring in any of the memories, but he remembered there just being people, and in Keith’s mind, Lance had just been “people.”
Their stop – which was weird to say, because in the mornings, they always got off at different times – but their stop came in the middle of once of Lance’s stories. There was no way twenty minutes had passed, but, when the predictable mechanized voice notified him that they’d reached the Alleghany Station, encouraging him to start tagging his social media with #PAMTransitStories, he promptly fucked right off the train without skipping a beat.
Lance followed out after him, gesturing with his hands and laughing. “Wait, so you only went to graduation because Shiro bribed you?”
Shrugging, Keith began to walk towards the exit, but leaned against the wall to give Lance the chance to finish. “I really wanted that part for my bike. Shiro really wanted me to walk for the stupid diploma. It was a win-win, really.”
The tan-skinned boy laughed, some of his breath misting in the air, and Keith vaguely wanted to throw himself back on the tracks when he realized the action had completely drawn him to look at Lance’s lips.
Lips that were currently curved up, a lopsided smile fixed to his features.
Keith bit the inside of his cheek, forcing himself to pay attention. The other boy had stopped and let out a satisfied-sounding sigh, like he’d just walked out of a sauna instead of into the bitter night air.
At the bottom steps of the station, Keith began to naturally gravitate towards the route he would usually take to his apartment, unconsciously sticking around to see which way Lance might walk. Lance seemed to have the same sort of idea, but his feet drifted in the other direction.
“I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow, I guess?” Lance chuckled, scratching the back of his neck as he awkwardly turned away, looking out the street lamps and the light layer of snow that began to dust the top of cars and lamp posts and the mailbox at the end of the block. The city was never really dark, but this lighting was definitely not one Keith was used to seeing him in – they were both typically stuck beneath white-washed fluorescents that fizzled and popped occasionally.
Never like this, the chill bringing color to his, to Lance’s cheeks, the orange-tone of the lights making his skin almost glow against the bright flakes of snow that fell around them.
If Keith didn’t know better (which, he really, really didn’t; Keith was absolute shit at reading people,) but if he didn’t know better, he swore Lance sounded almost… excited? Maybe even hopeful?
“Yeah,” Keith answered automatically, managing not to cringe at how excited he sounded by the idea. “Same time as always.”
“Same time as always,” Lance repeated, grin widening before he spun away, marching off in the other direction.