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When Keith wakes up, it’s perfect.
It really is.
He’s not cramped in a pod-bed hollowed into the wall on a millennia-old ship that’s hurtling through the vast, infinite universe.
He’s not waking up in his day clothes, ready to go overexert himself first thing in the morning to prepare for when tyrannical alien military forces inevitably attack with the power of both ancient sorcery and state-of-the-art technology.
He’s not waking up to a blaring alarm, warning him that said alien military forces are currently attacking, and he needs to go pilot a gigantic spaceship and mind meld with four almost-strangers to form the universe’s only savior before he’s even brushed his teeth.
This time, waking up isn’t a condemnation.
This time, the day isn’t something he’s sentenced to live through while he’s too young to know what’s too much for him.
This time, when he wakes, he doesn’t need to know what time it is. His dreams were blissfully blank. Worry doesn’t line his brow the moment he remembers where he is. He can feel warmth on his shoulders from the sun. Earth’s sun.
And it takes him a minute to pull himself from the heavy cling of sleep that threatens to drag him back down, now that there’s no obligations tearing him from it, but he gets there.
He’s got a good motivator at least. The sooner he shakes off the exhaustion, the sooner he can set his eyes on his husband.
Because yeah, Lance looks a bit of a mess when he first wakes up, everyone does. But then he gets the sleep out of his eyes, sits up, and blinks away most of the lingering fatigue, like he’s doing now. His eyes get all bright and his features relax back into a resting smile. It gets fonder the second he lays eyes on Keith.
Keith’s seen that smile a million times, easy, but he’d give up every dollar to his name if it meant he could see it again. And, believe him, they pay you a pretty penny for saving the universe.
With a mumbled “c’mere,” he takes Lance’s wrist loosely in his and drags it over his waist. He can feel the grin against his shoulder as Lance follows him down, surprised when he doesn’t make some provoking comment about Keith’s immediate request to be pressed closer.
Lance picks up quick; the hold is still as sweet but a touch more firm, and excitement stirs in Keith’s chest because he knows what’s coming.
Lance does this typically every time they change sleeping positions; takes a deep inhale that makes his chest expand at the same time that he tightens his arms around Keith, and there’s just Lance surrounding him on all sides and Keith could feel that shit in his bone marrow, in the chambers in his heart, nestled deep beneath his sternum and clasping around every notch in his spine, thrumming deep and smooth in his veins. It’s sweet and it’s stupidly comforting and it makes him feel so…so…
…so loved.
And then, he lets it out on a sigh that settles them both and smooths it all over, and is there anything in this world that chases off every possible worry Keith could have better than this?
Of course, that’s when the cat decides to jump up on the bed, accompanied by the ting of the bell on her collar.
She sniffs at Keith’s hand, and meows at him impatiently when he opens his bleary eyes.
He makes to sit up, but the arms around his middle don’t let him go. He tries again, but Lance shakes his head and pulls him back.
“I gotta get up.”
“Do you have to?”
“Unless you want her to yell at us all morning, yeah.”
“Fine,” he groans, releasing Keith, “but I want it on record that I’m not happy about this.”
Keith sits up, rubs his eyes until they don’t hurt to open all the way, stretches, and gets out of bed. But, he turns to lean back down before he leaves.
“Hey,” he says, and Lance has barely opened his eyes when he’s being kissed, short (unfortunately) and sweet. “I’ll be back.”
“Mmkay,” says Lance, though he’s interrupted by a meow.
Keith turns to the cat where she’s pacing at his feet. “Alright, kid, let’s go.”
She’s at his heels as he walks down the hall and into the kitchen, meowing his ear off until he puts the bowls down for her.
He loves her, they both do very much, but it’s a difficult sentiment to maintain when she’s yelling so soon after they wake up and dragging him away from his bedroom and his Lance.
Speaking of which, Keith starts on coffee and sets out mugs, figuring he might as well bring some for Lance on his way back.
Rather, that’s the plan, until—
“Keith?”
Speak of the devil.
Lance peers out from down the hall, leaning on the doorway with half-lidded eyes.
“You coming back?”
Keith points to the coffee pot, and Lance makes a noncommittal sound.
“Later,” he says, reaching a grabby hand out into the stretch of hallway between them.
“So demanding today,” Keith teases.
“Well,” Lance steps out further and holds his left hand up, wiggling his ring finger. The gold band catches in the light. “You’re stuck with me. Now, get back over here.”
Keith’s halfway down the hall when Lance leaves the doorway, and he’s already under the covers again by the time Keith walks through the bedroom door.
This concept of going back to bed is a luxury Lance introduced Keith to the many wonders of once they’d moved in together. Keith was always instantly mobile in the mornings, up and ready to train, but has since been enlightened.
“Welcome back, gorgeous,” Lance murmurs as Keith climbs back into bed, eyes glinting with a familiar fondness.
Yeah, even as a taken man, Lance is a flirt. His target audience has been substantially narrowed down, but it’s just as effective.
Keith rolls his eyes as Lance settles down on his chest. “What am I gonna do with you?”
“Not get up again, if I have anything to say about it,” Lance says matter-of-factly, and they fall back into comfortable silence.
Keith lets his weight go, lets himself fully relax now that the nagging thought of an impending attack that normally made him tense and aware has been steadily kept at bay.
He looks down at Lance, no doubt sinking through the layers of consciousness with every breath as they lay there. The sight of it makes Keith realize that there’s no one in the universe happier than he is, here, with Lance, right now. His chest is tight with the realization; not uncomfortably so, just because of how much of it there is to feel.
His hand moves up and down Lance’s back, interrupted by the raised skin of his scar. The shape of it is meticulously memorized, Keith could draw it in his sleep, but he doesn’t trace over it this time, just meets it on every stroke.
He doesn’t like the scars that battles gave Lance, the ones that had appeared too young for him to deserve them. Regardless of that minor indignation, all of the marks on Lance’s skin are beautiful, and he’d think that regardless of if they were in love or not.
He’s made a habit out of mapping them out like constellations, especially when he can’t fall asleep and wants to occupy his mind.
He loves the beauty marks littered patternlessly across Lance’s face, the three on his collar that look like Orion’s Belt, the patchy birthmark behind his ear, the coin-sized scar below the knuckle of his right index finger, a faded line on his stomach from a surgery he’d had as a kid, the infamous burst that spans across his back.
In honesty, he used to hold resentment for those scars. He didn’t think they were bad or ugly or anything like that, but they were a constant reminder of Lance’s mortality. They threatened Keith with the potential of a loss, another loss, when he thought about it too long.
And that scar on his back.
That is…it’s something. It’s something.
He can see it from where he lays, where Lance rests on his chest, can trace over each line that juts from the central burst.
He doesn’t love that Lance has it.
There’s nothing wrong with it, and it doesn’t change a thing about him, but it’s still a reminder that Lance almost died. That he could have died before they ever had a chance to save the universe. That he could have died at seventeen, that first-year junior cadet spark of excitement and wonder still alight in his eye, even after it had faded from everyone else’s. That he could have died before he was done growing up.
And he didn’t die. Keith knows this.
But the scar is still there to remind them that he could’ve. So, so easily he could’ve.
So Keith takes his sweet, sweet time admiring him. He studies scars and birthmarks and marred patches and bruises and worry lines and laugh lines and creases and markings; anything and everything that he can appreciate, he does.
Lance has plenty of his own favorites, too; he likes combing his fingers through Keith’s hair, pressing kisses to the back of his neck when it’s pulled up, still calls it a mullet even now that it’s too long to be considered a mullet anymore. He likes braiding it when he’s bored and sticking flowers behind Keith’s ear whenever they go out on a walk.
He likes brushing his thumbs past the corners of Keith’s jaw after trailing his hands up from Keith’s collar to cup his face and kiss him. Every time, without fail.
Keith doesn’t have a quarter as many beauty marks that Lance does, just a few scars here and there. There’s the infamous one on his cheek that he’s glad the more vivid memories have faded from.
In its freshest days, it made his face unfamiliar; he was always worried it would draw unnecessary attention to itself, and therefore him. Its origin story isn’t exactly one he likes remembering whenever he looks in the mirror.
Still, every cheek kiss he’s given is pressed right where it tapers.
Keith is endlessly grateful to the universe that Lance was by his side. That he doesn’t have to tell his husband about everything that happened for him to understand, because Lance was there. Lance never has to ask about the too-painful things; he knew how they happened and he gets it better than anyone could.
Lance shifts, lifts his head and rests his chin on the arms he’s loosely folded on Keith’s chest. He looks at Keith with that curious stare of his, one that Keith tends to get a lot from him.
“You thinking?” he asks.
“Mhm.” Keith ruffles Lance’s curls, smiling at the way Lance’s eyes close until he takes his hand away.
“About my dashing good looks, I assume.”
“Yeah,” he says genuinely. “What gave me away?”
Lance’s expression shifts from playful to almost shy. Even after all this time, he’s never quite been able to anticipate when Keith’ll turn the tables on him. Switch from banter to blunt honesty at the drop of a hat, just to throw him off guard.
Surprisingly, it leaves Lance faltering where he’d usually be right there with him, at his level, firing back. But this time, he just lays back down with a bashful smile on his lips.
And oh, if they were still nosedive racing in the desert, young and headbutting at every turn and endlessly competitive, Keith would have given himself a mental point for rendering his motormouth of a teammate silent.
But they’ve grown up since then. They’ve come a long way since those reckless competitions and pointless spats.
Which is why Keith gives himself a mental point for rendering his motormouth of a husband silent.
Eventually, he takes inspiration from said husband and closes his eyes, giving into the lazy morning.
nel dolce incanto del mattino
in the sweet enchantment of the morning