Chapter Text
Let the nightery be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be be.
***
There are moments in every person’s life that shake the very core of their existence until they are left with only the crumbling foundations of a once immovable truth.
Sometimes these moments come with explosions, with flames that engulf and consume and destroy. They come with seismic rifts opening to magma underneath, they come with the ground under your very feet collapsing as you struggle to make sense of immutable fact that your life has been forever altered. Sometimes these moments come in a ten-thousand-year-old sentient war ship that portals you into the middle of an intergalactic war. Other times they come with vigor and bravado, loudly proclaiming “The name’s Lance”.
Other times these moments come with nothing but the ebb and flow of a tide, gently pulling you with all the vigor of a sigh, until you realize your lungs are filled with water, and everything is different. They build slowly, unfolding to reveal castles created by the fabric of time. Sometimes moments like these come with a warm blue glow painting sun kissed skin. Sometimes they come with soft smiles and a simple greeting of “Hey man”. In these moments, the water began to seep into Keith’s lungs.
By the time he finally realized he was drowning, he welcomed it with open arms, burning lungs, and an aching heart.
***
Like so many things seemed to, it started – and ended – with Lance. For Keith, discerning exactly where it started was like discerning where the desert sands become the burning skies. The moments blending together into a single frame of umber and burnt sienna that carries on forever.
A forever that hung like a whispered promise to lonely hearts.
***
Biting wind crashed into Keith’s face his hair flying back and striking him in the face. Shiro was alive. He was alive and Keith had rescued him. ‘Holy shit’ was truly the only coherent thought passing through his mind. He fought to gain control as the bike suddenly swerved, violently pitching left with the drastic increase in weight. Keith couldn’t bring himself to be truly aggravated with the trio that randomly appeared to aid his rescue mission, though he wasn’t above biting retorts to the particularly loud member of the group.
***
The boy – Lance as he had introduced himself – looked so familiar, which makes sense with his insistence that they were rivals of some sort. The sound of his voice left a feeling in Keith’s gut he couldn’t quite place, its name latched to the tip of his tongue, refusing to materialize in his brain. He couldn’t bring himself to care about that though, in this moment, nothing mattered except getting Shiro to safety and finding out what had happened to him in the year after the Kerberos mission.
They continued to hurtle further and further into the Sonoran Desert, Keith urged his hoverbike over the cliff’s edge, the screams of his fellow compatriots were drowned out by the rapid-fire beating of his heart as adrenaline coursed through his veins and the deafening desert winds racing past.
The hoverbike screeched to a halt, all except Keith tumbling off onto the sandy floor that retained its warmth even as the temperature continued to drop. They had managed to evade the Garrison and Government forces by the time they arrived at Keith’s shack. Despite that, all of them – barring Shiro who still hadn’t regained consciousness – were on edge, expecting more soldiers to appear at any given moment.
Keith and Lance hauled Shiro into the shack and lay him on the bed, unsure of what to do next. Keith was honestly expecting Lance and the other two, to just leave but they all seemed to be hellbent on staying. The big guy – Hunk, as Keith would learn in the morning – had already collapsed on the couch and began softly snoring. The small one – Pidge – had tucked himself (or herself? He wasn’t quite sure) away in a small corner beyond the couch, his breathing evening out as he fell into slumber. Lance had moved to find a place to settle for the night though he seemed far more wary that the other two had, a strong contrast to all his earlier behavior, Keith noted.
***
I was yours
before I knew,
and you have always
been mine too.
***
All Keith can remember is a soft gasp, the sound of rushing water, and the way his heart seemed to let out a Sigh of relief. He can remember the feeling of something else too – in hindsight the feeling was akin to destiny though the word never sat right on his tongue.
Dineia, the Alteans would have called it, the sudden and overwhelming sensation that some force was pulling you along an unwavering path, laid out by nothing more and nothing less than fortuity.
Keith had always despised the idea of fate, of pre-determination, always reveling in the absolute freedom of being. Many times, it seemed to be the only thing he had any semblance of control over.
And if indeed there was something or someone controlling the course of life his life, he wanted to have some strong words with them. Even he did not fully comprehend why he was so unsettled by destiny – the same idea that gave so many others peace. The word always left an acrid, bitter taste in his mouth.
And yet, when a tall, loud-mouthed, blue-eyed, self-proclaimed ‘rival’ of his, showed up out of nowhere to help him save Shiro. When he was revealed to be the missing puzzle piece in the mysteries that had enamored Keith for the past year, he had to wonder if perhaps there was some guiding hand in all of this.
Perhaps that it why he seemed to be so utterly enamored with Lance. Why Lance was the only one able to draw every emotion out of Keith, each one more intense than the last. Perhaps that is why Keith’s heart drummed melodies of the sweetest melancholy whenever that soft blush decorated Lance’s cheeks, whenever his face was alight with an ear-to-ear grin, or whenever his head was thrown back as he broke out into peals of unabashed laugher. Perhaps that was why he was set on a cosmic collision course, plummeting towards Lance at a speed that made even time stop to breathe a sigh of relief.
***
“We are a good team”
It was so soft Keith thought he imagined it. Barely a whisper floating off Lance’s lips. Hushed words for only Keith, who hung on to his every word as if they contained the secrets of the universe.
In that moment, Lance and Keith were the only people in the world, clinging tightly to one another, an anchor to souls lost in the vast expanse of the universe.
In a way, nothing had really changed, but in a much realer sense, everything had changed.
While no one was watching, a foundation was being built.