Work Text:
𓂃 ོ☼𓂃
"Lance? Can you stop?!"
"No."
The sun is setting with gold and amber hues peeking over the horizon of the desert. The heat is scorching today. An Arizona summer. One that has them both on the edge of a breakdown before they can even think about taking a quick sip of water.
"Lance, I'm serious," Keith stresses, pissed beyond belief.
Lance isn't looking in his direction; he's just storming up the stairs of his shack with pent up, relentless anger.
"Don't storm off! Listen to—"
"Why. Should. I. Listen." Lance speaks with smoky anger when he turns around, back hitting the wall of the front of his shack. Their shack. Their home. Their livelihood, which Keith just ironically wants to throw it all away for Space—the one star-filled galaxy that constantly tried to kill them again, and again, and again? It's all too much for Lance to take in. "TO YOU?!"
Emotions are as high as a kite, and at the forefront of their mind—a painful reminder on multiple fronts that the world strides onwards and time ebbs and flows—as the desert sun induces sweat beneath the pores of their skin amongst painful memories of their time in war.
But man, does Lance need to fucking listen to him before storming off at the words: Do you ever miss space, Lance?
Keith is just as scathing, just as sore, and just as tired, and hope-ridden, and hot as he usually is. It's dreadfully honest, and sickeningly hot, and it pisses Lance off to no end. He steps over the two-step porch and approaches Lance like a stray cat who's ready to claw his face off.
"Listen."
"No."
Oh, Lance knows how to get real under the skin with him; he is testing Keith's patience fucking big time.
Patiently, Keith takes a very deep breath. He even attempts to see his point of view.
Alright, fine, he gets it. Space didn't treat either of them amazing. He knows. He's well fucking aware. He can understand why Lance would be adverse to the idea. Those marks on the heights of his cheeks are physical proof of what was sacrified in order to save their reality.
He does. He gets it. Well and truly, he gets his perspective.
Empathy. Patience yields focus. Fine.
He opens his mouth.
"La—"
"Shut it."
Nevermind. He's agitated, tested with the way Lance is just outright refusing to hear him out.
Lance shakes his head, crosses his arms, and leers at him gravely.
Keith takes a step forward, fists clenching. The porch boards creaking loud enough to irritate the both of them like nails on a chalkboard. His patience is weary, thin, and a fragile thing—much like Lance's sanity in this moment.
"Lance!"
"God, just," Scoffing, Lance looks at him with a deep glare, as if Keith is the dirt on the ground he walks all over. "Go run away like you always do and leave me fucking behind again." He then decides to cut him deep with a wound he's been waiting to rip open for a very long time, like it is a brilliant idea in its own right: "Go off on your own… Mr. Lone Wolf."
It was not a brilliant idea.
A gasp of air and a brutal slam resounds on the wall next to the front door.
The two of them don't know how they got here.
But Keith has Lance's white tank top sleeves in his gloved hands, seething in a desperate plea for Lance to use his common sense to hear him out; not to provoke him like a wild animal being pushed to the brink of sanity.
Lance grips his hands around the collared blue shirt Keith is wearing. Lance's shirt, by the way. Keith's wearing it because he didn't have fresh laundry and Lance brought over a bunch of his clothes when they decided to begin renovating the shack. Because they were starting fresh at his shack.
A new life. A fun project between two… friends. Two best friends. Two men ready to fight like cats and dogs in the dry, desert heat.
"Can you listen to me for FIVE minutes?!"
Keith is shaking, fists clenched over his tank top sleeves. He lets go, but not without thrusting them back at Lance like his tank top is the problem; not him and his foul attitude.
Squinting, Lance catches himself staring at his fangs protruding over his teeth.
"…Why would I?" Salty and over it, Lance lets go of his shirt with a deep level of frustrated acceptance. Unfortunately, his shirt looks nice on Keith. Complimentary. Blue is his colour.
It pisses him off even more in the Arizona heat.
"Speak. You're just gonna leave again. You always do." Lance scoffs (again) and whispers his disappointment, "Whatever, Keith."
There's a riled-up growl that leaves Keith, which is… doing something for Lance. If anything else, it confuses him.
He takes a quaint note of the way Keith tries to speak; muttering syllables that don't meet the edge of a word, frustration and anger lingering on the tip of Keith's tongue. He takes a deep breath—several, actually—composes himself, before meeting his ecliptic blue gaze once more.
"What is it gonna take for you to understand that I'm not leaving?!" Keith yells, with burning exasperation.
The words hit Lance's insecurities like a blade cutting through his heart, ripping them to uncomfortable shreds in seconds. His eyes widen a tad. He doesn't believe him. He can't believe him. He's set this precedent of leaving. He… What the fuck. Lance doesn't understand, he doesn't.
No. That can't be right.
"Then, why would you bring up space?"
Keith urgently testifies, "It was just a question, Lance."
"But I know you, Keith," Lance counters quickly, tears prickling the back of his eyes. He's eyeing off the dark braid of hair he did for him this morning on his freshly washed hair. "You speak with intention, idiot."
"But—"
"There's a reason you would've asked me that. Don't you dare question my intelligence, Keith."
He's got a point, but what Keith states next shakes him to his core: "I want to go to space."
Lance scoffs, "Typical—"
"With you."
Lance lets go of his collar, confliction spreading all over his features. His brows draw in, and a bead of sweat trickles down his temple. He drops his hands to his sides, sniffing the heat in the air and latches his gaze on to the darkened violets of his eyes. Flicking to his lips for less than half a second, he meets him halfway. "With…? What does that mean, Keith."
Anxiety flushes through Keith's skin like rippling goosebumps lacing all over his muscles on the inside. Sick to his stomach, he begs the question.
"Do you really wanna know?"
Lance doesn't know. For thirty seconds, he looks down towards the wood on the porch, and mourns their roommate lifestyle before they even had a chance to make a proper home together. Crossing his arms over his chest, his palms shake over his elbows, and he sighs.
"Make it quick," Lance sighs with disappointment. "Please. Get it over with."
Keith proceeds with haste, "Kolivan & Krolia called me the other night."
"Yeah?"
"They want me to lead the reorganisation of the blades for they can represent the Coalition from the Galra side on a broader scale." Keith explains diligently. The intensity of the gaze doesn't waver from Lance, although his voice quivers a touch beneath the direct tone.
Tears flicker over his waterline at an alarming rate. Lance can feel the fresh cracks of heartbreak. "Uh huh."
"I said I'm not doing it without you," Keith concludes.
Lance's heart begins a steady jog as the truth settles into an understanding. His lifts his chin, dimming blues to intense obsidians, and shifts with tension in his shoulders.
Quickly, Keith elaborates, also shuffling awkwardly with nerves. "…I-It doesn't have to be anytime soon, hell, it could be a year or two from now, Lance. They won't do it without me, but I'm not doing it without you. I just, I-I can't do it. I don't want to lead..."
The loudest sound is the creak of the porch shifting under his foot, and the gasp that leaves Lance's lips when Keith's nerve-ridden hand meets the brush of his shoulder. "…Not without my space ranger partner."
Shock embellishes Lance's features. It takes a minute before his face crinkles like paper into a sharp fracture for an emotion ripped from the very depths of his chest. A tear streams, then several.
That's when Keith gives in: he breaks, sniffling into the air and wiping his marred cheek before the tears can seep over too.
"I don't wanna leave without you, stupid," Keith admits, raw with fragmented emotion. "I wanna leave with you, a-and here can be our home together. This shack, this stinking hot farm, and that shitty mattress—"
Lance stammers out a laugh, swallowing hot tears along the way.
"—I wanna build a life with you, and spread Allura's message across the universe."
Lance takes a step forward.
"We can do whatever you want," Keith negotiates in a rush of anxiety. "There's still so much work to do, but it doesn't have to be a fight everytime. We can—Oof!"
Pulled into a hug, Keith presses Lance into the front wall of his shack, and chuckles from Lance turns into a glimmer of laughter, tears streaming silently down his cheeks. His throat is parched, and thus, his voice cracks along the way. Keith wraps his arms around his waist, while Lance pulls him in, strong with intent and arms over his neck.
"We can reform it?"
Keith blushes, a little embarrassed by the question. Still, he persists with honesty.
"Whatever you want, sharpshooter."
Shakily, Lance admits quietly into Keith's (Lance's) shirt, "I-I always hated the victory or death spiel. It sucks."
Keith snickers into his shoulder, just as emotional, his frown slowly morphing into a smile that peaks like the beginnings of sunrise. God, he's so happy.
"I do, too. So, is that a yes?"
"Maaaaaybe."
"Maybe?" Keith asks patiently, hope rising in his chest.
Lance pulls back, locking his gaze to his with flutter in his chest. Again, his eyes catch to lips for a fraction of a second, and he smiles when he lifts back to Keith's award-winning grin, who's aptly paying attention to his every move.
"Can we talk about it over dinner soon?" Lance asks in a murmur, thoroughly relieved. "When it cools down, and when we're not about to melt into the porch, or the walls?"
Keith nods, and Lance sighs with relief.
"Dude, I thought you were gonna break this off. Don't do that to me."
To that, Keith brows crinkle in. Simply adorable. "Break it off?"
"Us," Lance confirms with the look of relief. He then blushes at his own implication. Stammers. Short circuits. Pupils dilate. "L-Like, our agreement…?" He then strides into the house, ripping open the front door with a huff and a blush, and refuses to look his way, to the astonishment of Keith. "Whatever you wanna call it. I'm turning the fan on, it's waytoohotoutside, bye."
The door slams behind him and Keith stills in shock. He calls after him: "Wait. What are we, then?"
No response. Only the distant slamming of a door inside the shack.
"Lance…?"
Nothing.
Keith jogs after him into the house, slamming the front door (gently; he can't afford to buy another door yet) behind him. From the outside of the shack, the only noises is the rays of sun sizzling into the dirt, and the sounds of two men arguing fragrantly on the cusp of something new.
Like dusk settling into the dawn of a new day.
"Lance, can you stop?!"
"Nope!"
𓂃 ོ☼𓂃