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It’s at a celebration for the planet Filurmygia that he sees it. The guitar.
They’d found several instruments in their travels. They’d taken up quite a collection of them actually, adding to the round of Altean instruments in the castle as they were either entranced by new sounds or found achingly nostalgic ones. They’d all had different exposures to music before coming to space, and only Shiro really knew any kind of music theory, so they just tried to find their way through the noise as best they could. They’d even started getting good at it, at listening to each other and listening to themselves and fitting together like puzzle pieces. It made everything better, whether they knew how to play their instruments or not.
And then he saw the guitar.
The others weren’t guitars. The others were all sorts of things, but they were never Earth things and they certainly weren’t guitars. Sometimes they were operated through a biology completely out of reach. Sometimes, their biology was enough to let them technically play, but the instruments were tuned to notes they couldn’t hear, or to scales which sound discordant and wrong. Sometimes the instrument makes nice sounds and they can technically operate it, but it requires such an interstellar understanding of movement and pattern that they can’t quite grasp it anyway. And sometimes the instrument just doesn’t end up being anyone’s thing.
But this one is, because it’s a guitar.
And Lance loves it at first sight, because how could he not? It’s a guitar, and it’s in the grasp of an alien who is using it very differently to how he would, but it is still unmistakeable to him. In its shape and material and notes. It calls sweetly to him. He can feel it under his fingers and the vibrations as it plays to his mind.
He notices when Shiro shifts, and decides not to move. He is going to keep staring at the guitar and keep to himself his visions, his need. They’re his, and he doesn’t them to be seen, to draw attention to them, to have to ask. But Shiro shifts, and Lance can’t help the way his stomach tightens with how badly he wants Shiro to see what he sees, to confirm it and lead him toward it. Then Shiro looks at him, and asks:
“Lance, is that a guitar?”
Or maybe it wasn’t a question. Maybe it was more of a: “Lance, that’s a guitar! ” But it doesn’t matter, because either way Lance is looking back at Shiro now and they’re staring into each others’ eyes and Lance feels like he’s going to cry as he nods–-jerkily, quickly, but nodding, confirming. And the others are looking too, now, and then they all scramble over each other to get to the band, because no one is immune to the familiarity, and now Lance is less than a foot away from it and he can see just how much it resembles his instrument.
He’s brought back to its stunned musician by Shiro nudging him sharply.
“Oh–uh, me?” Shiro nods at him firmly. “Okay then. Um, hi!” He can see the flight-or-fight response kicking in with the Filurmygian. They may be helping the planet, but they’re still strangers. Five strangers, who practically ran battle formations to push through the crowd over here. Lance rushes through the rest before the spirit of performance leaves his audience entirely. “We’re not from around here–-obviously-–but this”–-pointing to the guitar-–“is awfully similar to something we have on our home planet. Could you point us somewhere that would sell one to us?”
“More than one,” Pidge pipes up, “I want to learn.”
Keith turns to them, frowning. “We can always share. Let him find out where the shop is.”
Then Hunk turns to Keith. “I mean, me and Lance already know how to play, so it makes sense to get two. Or three, I guess, if Pidge is going to learn from us.”
“We don’t need three,” Shiro says, “Two maximum, one for teacher, one for student. And that’s if we don’t just get one for all of us.”
“Shiro," Lance pleads, "Can’t we just find the shop first?” Not that Lance is planning on letting them walk away with less than two. Shiro won’t be able to say no once they’re there, anyway.
“We should be clear on what we’re getting, Lance. I want to play, too, but I don’t think we should go overboard.”
“Come on, it’s a guitar . We should get as many as we want!”
“Excuse me,” interrupts the Filurmygian, “but I can point you to where I got this one, and they’re really very reasonably priced…”
In the end they get three guitars. Shiro took one look at Lance’s face at the display and handed him the first directly.
Keith watches Lance tune each guitar by ear. Shiro had always needed a tuner, but watching the concentration on Lance’s face, and the way he lets each note ring out and settle as he seems to search for something within it–-it doesn’t seem like he needs one. He plays with Hunk sometimes, and sometimes the familiar sounds are enough to make the rest of them abandon the alien implements and just listen. Or Shiro will pick up the third guitar and join in with them. Or Pidge will, as they learn. Or they attack the rest of the collection with new fervor, figuring out how to mix the old music with the new.
Most of the time, though, Lance plays on his own, because he plays all the time: on the bridge, during team meetings, when they’re all just hanging out-–even when they’re already playing music together, the guitar keeps going when the rest of them pause. He doesn’t always have it with him, but when he does (and he often does), he’s bound to play.
Not that Keith minds it. It’s distracting, sometimes, and he agrees with Allura that it shouldn’t be at any sort of formal meeting, but it’s nicer than Lance’s old habit of drumming his fingers on the table. And also-–Lance is good . He’s really really good. Hunk and Shiro can strum, but Lance grooves . He jumps, he plucks, he gets down on his own rhythms while plucking out a melody to melt them all into the floor. And all of Keith’s favorite music on Earth featured heavy guitars and legendary solos, but everything he’s ever heard pales in comparison to watching Lance go at it live, especially when he has free run with it. Top 10 guitar solos in history: whatever the fuck Lance does during jam sessions. So when Keith hears him one afternoon as he’s on his way to the kitchen, his feet pivot, carrying him towards the common area instead.
Lance is playing strong, in his band of one. He seems to be completely wrapped up in the music, and when Keith enters the waves of it wash over him, pulling him down into the depths of it. And Lance, who drowned him, now breaks his concentration briefly to nod at him, smiling. Their eyes meet, and then Lance goes right back into it, not looking at Keith again. It’s enough, Keith thinks, to have been acknowledged at all, because as much as Lance has been playing for himself, they both know he’s playing partially for Keith now.
Keith watches his expressions as they re-emerge, starting small and self-conscious and then relaxing and expanding again. Lance’s face twitches with every note, as though in his mind he’s singing them out. It’s almost ridiculous, not at all the image of an aloof rockstar. But it’s also so much more intimate, displaying a true connection: every sound the instrument makes is coming from Lance, like he owns it, manifesting as instantly as he thinks it. So different from anyone else Keith has seen, who might be able to connect sound to mind and then produce it but for whom there is always a gap between idea and ability, who might have to simplify in order to keep going, who might know a few songs well but be lost in moving to another one. Those were players. Lance is a musician .
Keith himself has a hard time getting over his inhibitions and showing the fullness of his appreciation, but when Lance finally stops, he makes himself clap and smile and even cheer a little, softly, trying to communicate everything he thinks might be weird to say. “That was really good, Lance,” is probably much better to say than “I want to smash my head into a wall, pull out my heart and leave it at your feet,” even if the second feels much more true.
“Thanks, man,” says Lance, because Keith did in fact say the normal thing. He shakes out his hands and arms, stretching them and breathing deeply. It’s only then, seeing his hands close up and in slower motion for once, that Keith notices something.
“What happened to your fingers?” he blurts out, canceling out the decision he made earlier to be normal. He can’t help it, though-–Lance’s fingers, once so proudly maintained, are now torn and bleeding, not a lot, but noticeably nonetheless. He winces; they look painful, and Lance had been playing through that.
Lance also winces as he looks down at his hands, rubbing the blood away. “Yeah, that’s kind of a side effect, unfortunately,” he says, as he pinches a finger to stop the flow. “I used to have better callouses, and I’m starting to get them back now, but it takes a while and until then I kind of just have to deal with this.”
Keith still frowns. “Why do you play so long if it hurts like that?”
Lance shrugs. “I love playing. I mean, Shiro plays, wouldn’t you know about it from him going through the same thing?”
“No,” Keith says, shaking his head. “Shiro learned before I met him, and he never played like you did. I mean, not as long or complicated. I guess it makes sense, though.”
They’re quiet for a moment. Lance is still putting his hands back in working order, and Keith can only stare at him, unsure what to do. Finally, he says, “Can I see them? Your hands?” Lance shoots him an unreadable look–-Keith thinks he might refuse and starts working on an apology-–but then he holds out his right hand, and Keith slides over on the couch to take it.
He’s seen Lance’s hands before, of course, and even held them once, but this is the first time he’s studied them. They’re covered in callouses, actually. From training, from his Lion’s controls, from his sword, from his guns. With one hand occupied holding Lance's, Keith brings the other to his mouth and pulls off the glove with his teeth, comparing the testament of similar experience. Bitter memories, beaten into the skin for the sake of survival. The body’s fight against its own petty injuries as they try not to get blown up, or keep others from the same. A war fought inside and out.
Then he looks at the tips of Lance’s fingers, where the worn-through skin has clotted over new flushed callouses. And these are different ones, bearing witness to the same spectacle Keith walked in on: Lance exposing himself, over and over again. For beauty, and expression. For passion. Proof of pleasure, hard won but important.
Keith can’t help but be happy for him.
When Keith finally looks back at him, Lance’s ears have turned red and he’s studiously looking at the floor. Keith releases his hand and Lance catches his eyes sheepishly as he rubs it. Keith smiles, softer than before.
“Lance, do you think you could teach me?”
Lance beams at him.