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Lance felt it just as he was bending over the starting block. The instant his eyes landed on a guy in a red jacket in the stands Lance’s vision pulsed red and his heart contracted painfully, making it hard to breathe and ruining his sight.
One of two things was happening right now, either Lance was having a heart attack on of the biggest days of his life, or he had just laid eyes on his Soulmate.
He was a red speck through Lance’s wet eyes and goggles, but Lance’s could make out enough features to fill in the blanks. Choppy black hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones and a pointed chin, that was all Lance managed to get before the whistle blew.
Disoriented, Lance fell into the water rather than jumping and and spluttered to get his breathing in check before he twisted himself face-up, grabbed onto the edge of the pool, pressed his feet against the wall and launched into a backstroke. He kicked his feet in the water like a boat motor, pushing himself to surpass Casablancas from Spain and Fujiwara from Japan.
In between moving his right arm back and opening his mouth to gasp for more air to keep himself and his burning throat going, Lance spotted him again in the lower stands where the American Olympians and their families sat holding up the flag and cheering on his team. He saw another feature, a long neck and thick brows and Lance's heart thudded again. It pounded so hard Lance swallowed water in his last gasp and sank below, Casablancas passing him.
In space of what felt like hours and what might have actuallu been instances, Lance heard his coach screaming, his entire team losing and his entire country booing him. He was supposed to be what finished their game, he was the fastest swimmer, the one who went in last to be the Go Big of their Go Big or Go Home. Here he was, sinking in the pool, air trapped in his cheeks and burning his brain and tightening his face and throat with the pressure and desperation to breathe while his heart rammed itself against his ribs.
He knew this feeling, he'd heard about it from people who missed their Soulmates by minutes because they didn't jump the second their Timers told them to. If he didn't get out of this pool and find the red speck now, he would lose him forever and that pounding and tightening in his chest was the snooze function of his countdown alarm, it had already gone off but it had two more chances to ring him out of bed and to his goal.
Lance had two options now, swim as hard and as fast as he could and hope for a Bronze, or get out and find the red speck before he was gone for good.
He thought of his mother's hope, his little brothers faces and his sister's crossed fingers in those stands, he thought of the other Olympians and their families holding the flag and his team on the other end of the pool, already seeing themselves as losers. He could imagine all their faces in varying expressions but he had no idea what his Soulmate even looked like.
Lance felt split down the middle, one half being tugged in the direction of the pool ahead of him and the other to the left to the stands. He had worked his entire life to get here, to swim, to win, to make his family proud and hang his medals in the living room, but he had always looked at his timer his entire life every few minutes and sighed in frustration, waiting for it to go down faster so he'd finally meet the One.
But this wasn't about just him now, it was about so many others and Lance wanted to scream at how torn he felt.
Closing his eyes, he made his decision and left his sinking heart at the bottom of the pool.
When Lance's feet touched the bottom of the pool and he used all the strength in his legs to push and propel himself high up and back into the game, kicking his legs fast enough to create instant aches in his calves and curving his back so he'd go higher out of the water and further across the pool with each backward swing of his arm, gasping in air in even breaths that sparked a fit of hiccups.
Lance felt his heart thud again as he glimpsed himself passing Antoniadis from Greece, it was the second snooze alarm, the last chance he'd get at getting out and finding him. Instant misery sprouted in his midsection and it spread out to different corners of his body, almost making his arms drop limp in the water.
He was still in the stands, Lance assured himself. He was in the stands and once he got out he would run as fast as slippery feet would take him and he'd latch onto that red jacket til the cows come home.
Inhaling another breath to mask his worried sob, Lance pushed harder, his burning legs already feeling like lead as they splashed hard to propel him forward.
Get the bronze then get your soulmate. Get the bronze, get your soulmate, looped through his head, egging him on.
With one last gasp, Lance fell back and pressed his hand against the wall then spun in his spot and pushed against the wall as hard as he could, his arms cutting through the water like paddles at an immense speed that even confused his mind, merging his manta of Bronze, soulmate. Bronze then get boyfriend into Bronze boyfriend, bronze boyfriend, bronze boyfriend.
With one last kick, Lance's outstretched hand hit the wall hard enough to snap back his hand in awkward angle at the wrist, he may not have heard the pop of his joint through the cap and sloshing water but he felt it.
He didn't stick around long enough to check the other swimmers or his score, Lance climbed out of the pool and sped past his teammates, lousily slapping his hand against theirs in a flimsy high-five as he rushed back and towards the stands.
An interviewer popped out of nowhere and Lance groaned internally. He had no story prepared and he honestly didn't care if he missed them out on the bronze, he needed to find that red speck!
"Lance McClain! How do you feel about your performance today?"
"I'm not all that happy with it, I feel like I could have done my best and next time I will try my best to help my team rank higher than they have," Lance said with all the shame he could muster right now, but let's be honest, all he wanted to do was shove her microphone in her mouth before she could ask another question and zip on out of there. The red speck awaits!
"Oh, but didn't you know? You won the silver!"
"I am sure I could have -- what?"
"You won the silver," the interviewer repeated, her big fake smile aimed at him with somewhat hostile eyes. Lance did not like that look, it reminded him of his passive-aggressive Chemistry teacher in high school who acted like every question was a stupid question that didn't deserve a real answer. He hated that bitch, and her resemblance to this lady was not helping Lance's urge to mow her down and sprint over her right now.
His head whipped left to right, from the woman to the results board. "Silver? Are you sure?"
There on the board, in big block white letters, was 1 | UK followed by 2 | USA.
It felt like a champagne cork had just popped off inside him, letting all his bottled up emotions loose as he jumped up and down and flailed his arms above his head in a little victory dance. "Woohoo! I got us the silver, baby! I could have flunked the whole race, but I didn't! I got the silver, and I did it just in time!"
His teammates finally caught up with him, covering him with a towel, surrounding him with loud pats on his wet back and several hands ruffling his hair, spiking it up in different directions, and dancing with the flag. Lance's swollen heart finally deflated as relief and disbelief filled his chest like soothing steam. They had gotten the silver and next time they would get the --
"BRONZE!" Lance shouted suddenly, standing up straight so upruptly that the back of his head knocked into his teammate Rennes's nose. "I forgot my bronze boyfriend!"
"Your what?" the interviewer asked.
Lance waved them off as he ran to the stands. "Later!"
On his way to the middle of the stands, Lance had slipped a total of five times and that was not because he was as slippery as an udon noodle, it was the main reason why he was a swimmer and not a runner or a gymnast or anything to do with the ground and normal gravity. In water, he was as graceful as a fucking swan, on land? Not so much. He more like did swan-dives to eat dirt while he was strolling along, minding his business, or just warming up. God, he hated warming up by running laps around the pool, he almost always fell in.
Lance came to a gliding stop at the very front and scanned the seats in the Team USA section for the red jacket. He spotted it.
"Gotcha!" Lance announced triumphantly, jogging up the middle steps. "Come to Lance, baby!"
But once he reached the USA section, with each passing seat, and no matter how hard he stretched his neck, Lance couldn't find his red speck or any of the defining features he caught from the pool. No one with choppy black hair, a pointed chin and strange dark eyes was wearing a bright jacket, at least not the firetruck red he now had seared on the inside of his brain, just the flag red.
Cold worry pooled at the bottom of his gut as he slowly walked up the steps, desperately looking as he scratched at his wrist. "Where are you?"
Bench by bench, step by step, the entire sectiond passed and there was now sign of his soulmate save for a few empty spots in the third row down. The one wearing the red jacket now was a girl with long tawny hair pushed back by a white headband.
"Hey, whose jacket is that?" Lance asked her.
The girl frowned as she checked the sleeve. "I don't know, my brother's friend's friend left it and I figured I'd wear it before anyone sat on it."
Lance swallowed, hope still filling his head. "Do you know his name, the friend of a friend?"
"Sorry, no. I've never seen or met him before today," she said.
"Can you give me your brother's friend's number so I can ask about his friend?"
She frowned at him. "I don't have his number."
Lance held back a growl of frustration. "Does your brother? Where is he?"
"He left early with his friends to eat in town. He'll be hanging around tomorrow, he's one of the crew."
Lance deflated, already dead tired. "Guess I'll try then."
"Why so interested?" She asked curiously.
"It's just…it's just the guy that was sitting here was my Soulmate," Lance told her, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, playing with the spiked ends of his hair. "I saw him just as I went into the water."
Her eyes grew wide. "You missed him."
"Yeah. Think I can still find him?"
"Sorry, dude, but you miss them once the universe throws them at you and after that it makes sure you never cross paths again," she said bluntly.
Lance's aching legs dropped out from under him. He hadn't done what he insisted on, he wanted to at least get a bronze then get his new boyfriend, but he pushed his luck with both and got silver instead of bronze but missed his soulmate rather than catching up with him.
She tapped his shoulder. "Shouldn't be going to get your medals now?"
Lance sighed heavily. He had gotten a silver, he had swum faster and harder than he had in his life, he should be over the moon in his excitement but…
"I missed him to get high rank and I don't even feel that great about it," he said quietly. "I feel so empty now, like the backs of my organs fell out."
She regarded him sadly and took off the jacket. "Here, if it's any consolation, he'll recognize his jacket tomorrow and come ask for it, that way you can still meet."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah?" she agreed, her eyes shut as she smiled.
"I'm Lance," he said, taking the jacket with one hand and extending the other.
She shook it. "I know, and I'm Katie, but everyone calls me Pidge."
"Do I want to know how you got your nickname?"
"You don't."
Nodding, Lance slipped on the jacket and rushed straight down to the podiums with the rest of his team.
He didn't get bronze and a boyfriend but he got silver and will get a soulmate.
The awarding ceremony passed, they played the British national anthem, and they turned in for the night. Lance slept hugging that jacket. It smelled like motor oil and leather.
The next day, he wandered around in the red jacket and all it did was get him mistaken for a member of Team Spain. He wandered further and further but no one came up to ask about, no one that made his heart clench with anticipation and readiness.
Lance stopped by the Olympian village one last time before they had to head to the airport and pulled back the sleeve of the red jacket to check his Timer. It was a full set of zeroes now. There was no reset, no five more minutes, no second chance to have his big moment.
He had missed his chance, but he had gotten a silver.
It wasn't worth it.
Four Years Later, Japan
They were heading to Japan for Lance’s second Olympics in a plane packed with all the other Olympians, new and old, for Team USA. Lance and his team, Wilson, Rennes and Kinross, were packed into the very front with tennis, track and volleyball, so Lance had barely gotten more than a glimpse at the others at the far back in the less popular sports like fencing, boxing, weight-lifting and beach volley. Which is coincidentally when Lance’s attention was directed. This year his buddy Hunk was in for weight-lifting, an Australian immigrant named Allura was captain of the volleyball team and Shiro, a guy Lance had only caught glimpses at, heard a lot about, but never spoken to, was in for either boxing or hand-to-hand.
With a sigh, Lance slouched back in his seat and closed his eyes. The trip from California to Japan couldn’t be over any sooner.
“You don’t look excited or worried,” Hunk said once they reached the Olympian village, carrying only what they had above their seats in the plane, which for Hunk was his laptop, and for Lance was a book bag badly packed with an assortment of comforting things like his telescope, his copy of The Little Prince, a giant bag of sour gummy worms and the red jacket. His soulmate’s red jacket.
Lance stuck a hand in his bag and ran his thumb over the leathery material. It had gotten too small for him to wear two years ago. Swimming stretched his body upwards and outwards so he had to get an entirely new wardrobe and give all his stuff to his brother. All but the red jacket.
It didn’t have a name or an address on the inside, which made it all more clear that Lance had blown his chance for good.
“I’m being level-headed,” Lance said, kicking at leaves on the ground as they trudged forward to their rooms. “If I get too confident I might fuck up, if I get too scared I also might fuck up. Better to just be all easy-breezy lemon-squeezy.”
Hunk raised an eyebrow at him. “You? Level-headed? Did I fall into an alternate universe?”
Lance weakly punched Hunk’s shoulder, instantly ticked. “Hey! I can be serious if I want to be!”
“How serious?”
“As Sirius Black.”
Fighting back a smile, Hunk uttered a disbelieving, “Uh-huh.”
Lance felt his ears turning red. “Shut up!”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, you did!” Lance pointed accusingly. “That tone says a lot of things.”
Hunk waved him off as he turned to head to his section of the village. “Keep reaching, Lance.”
“I’ll keep reaching — for the gold!”
“You do that.”
Lance will do that, he’s got nothing else to reach for.
Sticking his hands in his pockets, Lance strolled to the house he shared with his team. The second his foot touched the first step, he heard a voice that made his entire body shudder like a plucked harp string. He didn’t recognize it but it did something to him, filled his stomach with anxious squirming worms.
He stretched his neck over the corner of his house and caught who must have been Shiro walking across the street, bumping shoulders with a shorter, slimmer and paler boy. Lance had watched enough anime to know that they were speaking to each other in Japanese.
Instead of his eyes being glued to Shiro’s broad back, Lance’s eyes were dragged to his smaller friend like needles to a magnet as his voice struck him in the chest every time he spoke.
Lance crept further out and his behind a ficus tree, peeking through the leaves at Shiro’s friend, squinting hard to get a good look in the dim moonlight.
Shiro’s friend turned to face him and Lance saw his choppy bangs and felt himself choke.
It was him.
While Lance got over his shock, Shiro and his soulmate had vanished out of sight and he had no idea which way they went. Lance ran out to the spot he last saw them in and checked in between every nearby house for any sign of them walking in the distance before he went around looking into windows.
Nothing, he found nothing.
He had slipped through his fingers again.
Lance went through every possible theory the next few days as he stalked the Olympic village in between the last minute practices. He could barely find others from Team USA let alone Shiro to interrogate him. His most likely theory was that his soulmate was a Japanese cousin of Shiro’s who stopped by to visit him in Brazil and that was when Lance saw him in the stands. Now Shiro’s cousin was making day trips to see him here locally because Lance couldn’t find him anywhere.
He went as far as nagging Hunk to get him the names and faces of EVERYONE in Team Japan just so he could squint at each one and figure out which could be his red speck.
“You sure it’s a guy?” Hunk asked him as they stood by the pool. Lance was doing his stretches and trying to calm his heartbeat. They were due in the water in ten minutes. “Like, no offense, but a lot of the guys here look like girls from the back.”
“His voice was deeper than mine, so I’m pretty sure he’s a dude, Hunk.”
Hunk leaned against the wall of the doorway. “Just saying, you could be going about this all wrong. It could not even be him.”
“I felt him, Hunk.”
“You could be projecting,” Hunk suggested. “You didn’t even see the guy’s face last time and it’s been four years, you could have just spotted the first guy with sort of the same hair and latched onto him.”
Lance got up and grabbed onto his elbows as he stretched his arms back. “Can’t let me have a little of hope, can you?”
“I’m just saying…”
“Nope! Nope! Nope, nope, nope, that’s enough from you for today!” Lance shoved his cap on his head and headed out to stand behind Wilson. “Wish me luck.”
“Don’t drown,” was Hunk’s version of a good luck cheer.
Lance got into position behind Wilson and waited for the whistle.
The whistle blew and Kinross dove in first. Lance moved one foot closer to the pool. Once again, Kinross was beat on the way back by Whittemore from the UK. Rennes jumped in the second Kinross touched the wall and Lance moved another foot closer, the anticipation bubbling in his gut reaching a boiling point.
Before he set his goggles on his eyes, Lance looked around just once more to check for Team USA in the stands, holding up a giant flag. That was when he spotted Shiro, sitting on his left were two people with tawny hair, one he recognized as the girl who gave him the red jacket, and on his right was a slim guy with his hair in a small ponytail and thick uneven bangs.
Wilson hit the water with a splash that snapped Lance out of it. He stuck his goggles on readied himself by the edge, trying to sneak as many glances as possible.
Lance’s heart punched the inside of his ribs as he relived the last time he was in this very same position. Bent over, his hands reaching out for the edge of the pool, his legs rearing to jump and catapult him into the water, his vision faintly fogged up by his goggles as he tried to get a good look at where his soulmate was.
If he was reliving this, then he would be gone again the second Lance left the water.
He had to go for at least the silver again this time and he couldn’t afford any more distractions that would wake him up in a cold sweat months from now, out of nightmares that featured him drowning in the pool as he reached out for the vague image of his soulmate, or ones of him caught in the middle of a 1500 m pool where on one end was the man in the red jacket and on the other was a gold medal.
Now was literally the worst time to weigh his options and have his focus scattered.
Wilson came back right after Morozov from Russia and Lance launched himself into the water and straight into butterfly, covering as much distance as he could with each move up to breathe.
Silver then soulmate, silver then soulmate was this time’s mantra, powering him through the water as fast as possible just so he could get out in time to find him or at least get a good enough look at his face to find him.
He hit the wall, spun around and shot back, forgetting to breath in some jumps.
Silver, soulmate, silver, soulmate. Silver soulmate.
Lance hit the wall with a wrist-jostling slam and then banged his head on it hard. Head ringing, he instantly climbed out. He barely got to hear what his teammates had to say, he didn’t want to know how he did. He wanted to find him.
In his haste, Lance slipped past the reporter and landed hard on his ass near the stands. The jolt of pain shot up his tailbone and shut his eyes into a tight squeeze. When he opened them again, he had lost sight of where he had last seen his soulmate.
Lance was about to climb up the steps to the USA section to search when Hunk grabbed him around the waist and hoisted him away.
“Put me down!”
“Dude, you banged your head pretty bad, you need to lie down.”
Lance kicked uselessly. “I need to go up there! He’s up there!”
“For God’s sake, Lance, he’s not here. You missed your chance four years ago and you need to accept that!”
At Hunk’s words, Lance went limp in his arms, his back slouched, his chin on his chest and his feet on their heels, making him harder to carry but easy to drag.
“Lance —”
“Shut up.”
“If it makes you feel any better…” Hunk turned him around to show him the results board.
USA’s Men’s 1500 m relay had gotten the gold.
“Gold,” Lance said, barely enough volume or emotion in his voice. “I got the gold.”
“Yes, you did, and it’s amazing! You went through the water like a missile!”
“Yay,” Lance said weakly.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I don’t know, I just…” Lance stretched his neck to look back at the stands. The spot he could have sworn he saw Shiro and the tawny-haired siblings in was now empty. “I just thought I was going to get him this time.”
“Did you see who he was with?”
“Shiro.”
“Why don’t you go ask Shiro then?”
“I can barely find Shiro!”
“We’ll find him together, okay? I’ll go ask the volleyball captain if she has his number then we can track him down and ask him.”
“What if I still can’t find him? You know what they say about missing your countdown. If you miss your soulmate then the universe will do everything to make sure you keep missing each other forever. I can’t go on like this forever.”
“Dude, you never even met him. You’ve dated people before that weren’t your soulmate.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t happy! I’ve waited my entire life for this, Hunk.”
“You’ve waited your entire life for a gold medal too.”
“And I’ve got that but I don’t have him.”
Hunk sighed and set Lance back on his feet. “Calm down, okay? You get awarded in the ceremony, they play the national anthem and we go find Shiro.”
“Okay.”
They couldn’t find Shiro. He had just won his boxing match against Vasquez from Mexico and disappeared with his medal.
Lance’s own medal hung heavily around his neck as he and Hunk lazily roamed the building. They were going to spend the rest of their time here attending other people’s competitions.
“What’s on today for us?” Lance asked Hunk.
Hunk, who had gotten a bronze in weight-lifting, pulled the schedule out on his phone. “Today’s fencing.”
“Fencing,” Lance snorted. “That’s not a sport.”
“Wrong, as usual,” Hunk mocked. “Wanna go watch?”
“Who’s the US up against?”
“Canada.”
“Pfft, not only is it not a sport it’s also against Canada, which is barely a real country.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means it’s going to be hilarious when we beat Canada’s ass at this excuse for a sport,” Lance joked. “Let’s go watch fencing.”
Hunk shook his head and followed him into the room to sit in the stands.
Apparently, Lance had no idea what fencing was. It was people in beekeeper masks with swords and shit, not runners hopping over dividers. There were no actual fences in the matter. It was like a very European version of Kendo.
He also couldn’t tell which was USA and which was Canada but the shorter of the two guys had his full attention, he moved with such ferocity and grace, like this fight was personal rather than a competition. Lance found himself watching him with all of his attention, not even noticing that he was on the edge of his feet as the taller opponent backed him up to the edge of their square.
With an immense feat of strength, Lance’s favorite rebounded with a furious shout and attacked with excellent speed and anticipation. With one last strike, he backed his opponent out of the square and a buzzer sounded the end of the game.
Lance stood up to whoop and applaud, edging away from Hunk who tried to pull him back down.
The cheer got caught in Lance’s throat when the referee came up to hold up the winner’s hand and he took off his mask, shaking his thick, sweaty bangs out of his eyes.
Their eyes met from across the room and the winner the referee announced as Keith Kogane gaped in Lance’s direction.
Hunk made a few useless grabs for Lance. “Lance, Lance, buddy, what are you doing? You can’t — you can’t go down there!”
Lance didn’t care. He had to get down there now.
He vaulted over the bar and landed in a crouch on the ground that buzzed pain up his legs and joints, but it didn’t matter. He had to get there as fast as he could before Keith could disappear again.
Keith walked towards him, taking off his gloves, dumping his sword and mask and chest plate. “It’s you,” he said disbelievingly. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
Lance had now idea how to respond, his heart was beating to loud for him to hear his own voice as he stuttered out an answer in a daze. His lungs were swelling to a size too big for his ribs, his heart was beat the same way it did the first time Lance saw him four years ago, with a harsh contracting squeeze like it was being pierced through with an arrow.
Keith stepped off the square and they both moved into jogs. Keith’s sweaty hair slipped out of its ponytail and blew behind him in his run, Lance’s medal did the same, slipping around his neck to fly behind him like an awfully heavy cape.
They met with a slam of a hug. Lance clung onto Keith for dear life, grabbing handfuls of his uniform and heaving loudly into his neck, like he had just run a mile. “I found you. I found you,” he breathed heavily. “I thought I lost you for good.”
“I wasn’t sure which one of you it was,” Keith said in his ear. “Which one out of your whole team or which one out of all the swimmers in that pool that day. I tried tracking down most of them to get a better look but it didn’t work.”
“I still have your jacket,” Lance said abruptly. “It doesn’t fit anymore, but I can’t sleep without it.”
“Wait, Pidge gave you my jacket? She didn’t tell me that!”
“And no one told me you were on Team USA. How did we not find each other before then?”
“The Timers are weird that way,” Keith answered. “It told me I was looking at my soulmate but didn’t bother didn’t me which one it was.”
Lance pulled back to finally get a good and clear look at the face he’s been trying to imagine for years. Keith had big pretty eyes, a narrow jaw, a small yet full mouth and ears that stuck out slightly under his hair. He was beautiful. “Dude, that was literally the worst time and place for our countdown to end.”
“It really was,” Keith agreed, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, his eyes darting up and down Lance’s face, memorizing him. “I can’t believe this.”
“I can’t either, I can’t even tell you what I’m feeling right now,” Lance laughed tiredly, carefully stroking the hair out of Keith’s eyes. “How do you feel?”
“Shocked, mostly. I mean, I’m pretty sure I did just win the gold and find my soulmate in the same second.” Keith backed up a bit and looked around, the spectators were watching them with a very quiet intensity. “This isn’t a dream, right?”
High on the relief and the win, Lance felt brave enough to put his hand on Keith’s face and tilt it up so their noses were close to touching. “Let’s find out.”
Keith’s eyes slid shut and Lance closed the gap between them with a tentative kiss.
“As sweet as this is,” said a new voice. “You might want to continue this after Keith gets his medal.”
Shiro stood to their left with Keith’s coach and the referee, his arms crossed, his mouth quirked in an amused smile. “Hi, I’m the best friend, you must be the swimmer soulmate Keith’s been trying to pick out for ages now.”
Still dazed, Lance blinked at him a few times and offered Shiro the hand that wasn’t gripping Keith’s arm, just to make sure he didn’t vanish the second he looked back at him. “Uh, hi, I’m Lance McClain.”
“Lance,” Keith said slowly, like he was testing out how the name felt on his tongue. “I’m Keith.”
Lance focused back on Keith and they laughed awkwardly. Lance moved his hand off Keith’s arm and Keith moved to hold it just long enough to squeeze. “I have to go get cleaned up for the awards.”
“How will I find you later?” Lance tightened his hold on Keith’s hand. “What if I can’t find you again.”
Keith looked at him meaningfully, like he was silently considering how to answer him. He put a hand on the back of Lance’s head and kissed him hard once. “We know each other now, it’ll be hard to disappear that way.”
“Come to the ceremony,” Shiro suggested. “He can sit with me and the Holts.”
Lance jumped, the joy rushing back to replace the fear. “For real?”
“For real, now let him go shower,” Shiro told him, unclasping Lance’s hand from Keith’s.
By the time the Olympics were wrapping up, the news of the two soulmates who met during a fencing match blew up all over the Internet. Pictures and grainy gifs of their first meeting, first hug and kiss were all over Twitter and Tumblr. Entire articles had been written about either the inappropriate way they conducted themselves or about how much of a fairytale it was that they both won the gold in their fields and found each other.
When someone tweeted Lance to ask for details, Lance linked them to an interview that they were ambushed into doing where they relayed how they missed each other the first time, the second time and then found each other by chance and that fueled the fairytale aspect into flat out epic romance.
To Lance’s greatest amusement and Keith’s embarrassment, Tumblr even made up a couple name for them to go with the cute fan art: Klance.
“Can you believe this yet?” Lance asked Keith as they walked out along the closing ceremony, each one of them holding a giant flag with one hand against one shoulder. “I still can’t.”
Keith, his hair back in a ponytail, in his red leather jacket that now stopped at his waist, his gold medal on his chest, reached out to punch his shoulder lightly. “I can.”
“That’s because you have no imagination,” Lance taunted, sticking out his tongue.
“You just asked if I could believe it, I said yes, what does that have to do with imagination.”
“Dude, cool your jets, I’m joking.”
“It was a very bad joke then.”
Lance reached out and took Keith’s free hand. “Nonsense, I’m the funniest guy in the room at any given time.”
“Then people must be laughing at you rather than laughing with you.”
“Aww, baby, don’t be that way,” Lance joked, pouting.
Keith moved closer to slam his shoulder against Lance’s, trying to hide his smile. “Shut up!”
They released each other’s hands to wave as they rejoined the ceremony, cameras flashed in every direction, people cheered, Lance’s team, Hunk, Shiro and Allura made kissy faces at them and Lance couldn’t bother being annoyed.
This was the happiest he’d ever been.
As the teams and winners said their goodbyes to the other medalists and took pictures, Lance and Keith became the most popular requests for pictures. It was after they had taken group photos with three separate US teams, gymnastics, volleyball and women’s swimming, did they notice that they barely had any together.
“Take a bunch, I wanna get as many options to delete as I can,” Lance said, shoving his phone in Hunk’s hands. “You know, because sometimes I close my eyes or look I’m about to sneeze?”
Hunk shooed him. “I’ll take a dozen, now get in position already.”
Giving him a thumbs-up, Lance ran over to Keith and lifted him off his feet with one swoop, spinning them around. He was a lot heavier than he looked.
Keith banged on his back. “Alright, that’s enough.”
“Let me enjoy manhandling my small boyfriend.”
“I am two inches shorter than you!” Keith objected, already heated. “And put me down!”
Lance hoisted Keith further up on his shoulder with a light toss as he straightened his legs. “What are you gonna do? Whip me with your rapier?”
He felt Keith taking off his hairband and knew what was coming. He quickly set him down, stopping him in his tracks with his hairband stretched across his fingers, ready to sting the back of Lance’s neck.
“You little shit,” Lance laughed nervously. “You were really going to sting me.”
Keith smirked at him. “I told you to put me down.”
“Guys, can you take the damn picture already?” Hunk begged.
“Alright, alright, come here, babe.”
“Babe?”
“You don’t like that?”
Keith considered it quickly. “It’s okay, just wasn’t expecting it.”
“Aww, c’mere,” Lance cooed, which got him a light smack upside the head and a quick peck on the cheek.
They stood side by side, an arm around each other’s shoulders and raised their medals, Lance grinning from ear to ear, Keith smiling shyly. Once Hunk snapped the picture, Lance moved the arm around Keith’s shoulders to his neck and pulled him closer. “You ready to be stuck with me and the stench of pool chlorine for the rest of your life?”
“Only if put up with me using you for martial arts practice and playing my music very loud at odd hours.”
At this point, Lance would be down with Keith walking on the ceiling and his head spinning 360 degrees, he was that happy to have him.
“I love you,” Lance blurted. “I know we just met this week and all but I’ve technically been aching for you for like my whole life and since the last Olympics.”
Keith bit his lower lip, a blush creeping up on his cheeks. “I love you too, I think.”
“More than your gold medal?”
“I wouldn’t go that far…”
Lance shoved him lightly. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve hit the jackpot.”
“You did break a new swimming record.”
“I meant you, dumbass.” Lance poked Keith’s chest then ran his hand over the red jacket. “I was in it to win it, and what I won was you.”
“If you were any sappier you’d be a maple tree,” Keith deadpanned, still smiling.
Lance kissed him, smothering a laugh against his lips. Later that day, Hunk posted the pictures on Twitter and they made their way onto several articles, but the one with them holding up their medals and kissing reached almost iconic status.
Keith later changed his profile picture to his fat red cat Zuko inspecting his fencing trophies and his Twitter bio to Keith Kogane, two-time Olympic gold medalist fencer & Martial Arts instructor, TX, USA. Better half to @Lance_McClain.
In turn, Lance's profile picture was his Russian Blue cat Katara wearing his gold medal and his Twitter bio was Lance, competitive swimmer and Human Torpedo. The best medal I ever won was @KeithKogane.