Chapter Text
Lance hadn't really known what to do when things settled down on earth.
For the for while it all felt like a dream, something too out of touch to be real. Something temporary. It took months for Lance to recognise that this was real, this was permanent. This was... it. All there was.
After the initial conversations with everyone once they got home about how their initial reuniting went Lance realised they had nothing to talk about.
In a strange way Lance felt like he knew everything about these people. He had lived with them for years, fought along their sides and would sacrifice his life for them without hesitation.
Somehow it felt like it never even happened. He never even knew them. He never knew the people he saw in photos online. Atleast, not anymore.
In its own weird way their was one exception to the rule; Keith.
Keith hadn't given his phone number but instead received everyone else's and was told to call.
He didn't.
As Lance was getting the news from everyone about what it was like coming home he had waited for an unknown number to send him something signed off with Keith's name, but it never came.
Lance didn't know if he loved Keith for that or not.
It was rude and Lance hated how easily Keith let him go. He despised it.
But it also meant he never got that realisation that he never knew Keith, or atleast 'Earth Keith' like he did everyone else. There was never a point where he felt tainted.
Lance would admittedly be going nuts thinking about Keith and the lack of calls if it wasn't for social media.
Lance hadn't heard a single word from Keith in a year and Keith didn't even have his own social media for Lance to get regular updates on however, he did appear (likely involuntarily) in other people's photos from time to time.
Lance had found three.
All on different accounts, all of which had been committed to memory and visited more times than Lance would like to admit.
The first time Lance saw Keith, five months after they all went their separate ways Lance did a double take. It was on Matts instagram - a photo taken in the booth of some kind of bar with drinks all over the table. Matt was mainly taking a selfie with another person Lance didn't recognise, a completely uninteresting photo at first glance. However behind Matt on the edge of the photo was Keith; a little blurry, partially turned away and completely unaware a photo is even being taken.
Lance studied the photo like the bible.
Keith's hair was partially tied back in some sort of messy half up which his bangs had fallen out of. His lips were slightly parted - perhaps he had been talking as the photo was taken. Lance wondered what about. Lances eyes traces Keith's jawline in the photo, sharp despite the slight blur of movement and softly lit.
It was lit by the light coming from a phone screen in Keith's hand that he was looking at.
Lance deducted by the way the phone was angled that he was likely looking at something on somebody else's phone or only looking at his phone to show someone else something.
Lance decided to hope it was someone else's phone.
Although it wasn't something he ever actively decided, something in Lance had convinced him that Keith had immediately thrown out his phone after they all split it up - tossed it in the dumpster on some high street and kept walking.
Why else would he not call?
But here he was, in a dim red-orange light with a phone in his hand, sat next to Matt and lips slightly parted about to speak to someone else.
Why was he not speaking to Lance?
Lance probably became the number one viewer of Matts instagram, zooming in to Keith in this photo and studying the way his bangs fell slightly into his eyes, the half empty drink in front of him sat alongside an already finished one.
That photo only got peace two months later when Matt posted on his Instagram story which Lance had subconsciously become a consistent viewer of.
It was a series of photos someone other than Matt had taken on his phone. One was a selfie of the culprits - people Lance had seen on Matts feed a few times but didn't know. He had stalked their accounts in hopes of seeing Keith in the background of a photo with no prevail, so paid little attention to them.
The second photo was taken from the other peoples perspective and he recognised Keith immedietly. The photo was mainly focused on Pidge who was drinking something with a straw and throwing up a peace sign while sat on the side of a road at night. He noticed Keith sat next to her, hand held up to cover his face from the flash of the phone. He had a bottle in his hand tucked into a paper bag. He was wearing black jeans as he always had, although his usual jacket Lance had grown accustomed to was now an oversized leather bomber jacket with some patches on it. All of them where to covered by Pidge for Lance to recognise.
Lance wished Keith's face wasn't covered in the photo, although he was still recognisable by his hair.
That photo disappeared off Matts story two hours later, and the first photo of Keith in the background was also gone.
Pidges instagram never showed Keith - not a single elbow or flick of hair peaking into her photos despite Lance having an indication they had gone out together multiple times.
After that Keith didn't even make an appearance on Matts instagram. Lance would see how many people Matt was out with from group photos or videos on his story, even counting how many drinks they had in front of them or how many chairs seemed to be at their table.
Either Keith was really good at hiding or he was no longer going out with them. He hadn't been spotted for months.
That was until Hunk forwarding him a story of some Garrison students coming out of a bar into the street only lite up by street lamps in which Lance immedietly recognised Keith sat on the sidewalk with a cup of coffee next to him and a cigarette in hand. He wasn't looking at the camera - probably trying to ignore the drunk university students. Lance clicked onto the persons profile and scrolled through their photos to figure out which bar they were probably at. He was unable to pinpoint the exact one but figured out which town they where in.
As crazy as it sounds, Lance thought about that town anytime his mind wandered.
Had Keith just been passing through? Is that where he lived now? Why that one?
Hunk had done some talks at the Garrison after they came back and some of the kids had taken a liking to him - insisting that they became mutuals on instagram after. All that Lance could get out of Hunk was that this was someone's home town they were visiting between terms.
Keith had been in Nebraska originally, based off Matt and Pidges locations. Keith was now around the North West of Washington.
Seemingly alone.
It made Lance feel a little better knowing Keith's location and that it was far from everyone else. Nowhere near Pidge or Matt or Hunk or even Shiro.
It made him feel like his own little world Lance could daydream up without a crushing reality.
It made him feel like Keith wasn't specifically avoiding him but just doing his usual 'lone wolf Keith' thing. It felt right. It felt like a Keith that he kind of knew.
And it could've stayed that way if Lance hadn't ruined it.