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Them meeting was an accident. It wasn’t something that the universe had planned ahead of time, or something their respective friends had forced into happening. No. They meet on accident, and maybe that’s better for them. A man that wants to believe in the good in people, and a man that can’t; they meet, and the universe breathes a heavy sigh. Why didn’t we think of this sooner.
*****
The art class is loud and obnoxiously full, to the extent that Keith isn’t even sure if it’s worth finding a seat, because he doubts he’ll be sitting there for long. Finally, the teacher walks in, and the class settles their excitement to listen to her explain everything, wanting to soak up any and all information they are given.
“This is an art class that has no sure theme. We have drawing and painting, photography, ceramics, which means that you are all going to be sharing this room and the adjoining room with 50 people for a full semester.” She pauses to glance at the twenty something people in the room and lets a smile cross briefly over her lips before continuing. “You are going to want a guideline to follow for your assignments, but I’m not giving you one. Art is an abstract concept and it should be taught as such. Have fun. Show me what you’re made of when you don’t have to follow rules.”
When she finishes talking, the class instantly erupts into noise once again, and Keith watches as the adjoining door opens and more students flood just as other leave. He feels an uncomfortable curl of his stomach when too many bump into him or when some try to make idle conversation. He’s very overwhelmed, and it makes his fists clench in his lap. A tall man comes and sits next to him, with chalk pastels and sheet of paper already laid out and ready to be used.
“Do you know what I hate most about art? Oil pastels. I hate them. They make everything smudged and ugly and just not what the final product is supposed to look like. Chalk pastels, however, are my shit. These things are what make art that much more enjoyable.” Keith watches as the man starts making strokes on the paper with a blue that matches his sweater. His brain focuses on that instead of the blue veins stark on his hand or the carefully taken care of his cuticles.
“Watercolor paint, do you hate that too?” Keith inquires quietly, trying to put more distance between them, but not wanting to be closer to the person standing beside him either. Keith himself has never found any interest in painting; his hands shake too often. Him and his cameras have an understanding that him and any writing or drawing utensil do not.
“We have a love hate relationship most times. Usually if I don’t mess up with the amount of water or paint then we’re chill, but I usually mess up, so we’re usually not chill. Hunk, my best friend, thinks that I’m overreacting. I’m not.” The man then informs Keith on the very intricate past of his relationship with watercolor paints. It’s long and terribly hard to keep up with, what with him switching between stories like his brain is going so fast his mouth can barely keep up. It’s interesting though. He’s interesting.
“-but anyway watercolor is cool because it turns things into a more tame color. I don’t mind using them.” He pauses briefly and looks down at Keith’s lap, where his hands are resting open instead of in the fists they were at the beginning of this class, and then continues. “My name’s Lance by the way. I wear blue a lot and my room is overly messy and I turn in assignments late. And you are?” Keith’s lips quirk up against his will when the man - Lance - describes himself.
“Keith. I wear red a lot and my room is always clean and I always turn in assignments on time.” Lance smiles smally.
“You’re a photographer aren’t you?” He questions.
“Yeah?” It comes out more a question than a statement. He doesn’t know how Lance knew, doesn’t remember having a sign on his forehead that labeled him “photographer”.
“I say photographer because most artists are messy and it doesn’t bother them, but your room is clean. You like order, so you like taking pictures.” Keith doesn’t know how to feel about this complete stranger somehow able to unwind the intricacy of his mind when they’ve only been talking for half an hour. He doesn’t like it, but he also doesn’t mind it.
They sit, and though Lance has a one sided conversation when Keith shuts down from the overstimulation of having too many people around him and in his space, he doesn’t seem to take offense to it. He’s interesting like that.
*****
Keith is sitting with his back against the wall, reading a book when Lance comes over and sits next to him quietly. The sudden disturbance makes Keith look up, and he catches the small whiff of cinnamon on Lance’s clothes, which means he’d just been hanging out with Hunk. He hums in greeting before looking back down at his book.
“I think that my latest project is going to turn out really bad and I don’t know if I want to start over or just finish it and say the hell with it.” Lance confesses after they’ve sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Keith had felt Lance’s eyes scanning his profile before he’d spoken, and it’d made something flutter deep inside his heart. He puts his bookmark in between the pages he was on and sets it down to give Lance his full attention.
“It’s not even that it’s a bad drawing or anything like that, but I think it just looks so horrible and it really bothers me because it’s such a minimalistic thing!” His voice raises toward the end of his sentence so that his distress is clearly communicated, so Keith moves closer to him, offering his arm and a pen. It’s something that Keith had found relaxed Lance a few months back, him being able to doodle and not feel the pressure of making it look as best as possible.
“If you think it’s going to turn out bad then start on something else, but keep the other one. You’re just stuck in the place you usually get stuck in when you stress yourself out. I bet it looks fine and I bet you’re going to make it look amazing.” The complement rolls easily off his tongue and into the open air without much hesitance. He’s been able to do that a lot easier than before, but only with Lance. He’s the only one, and that unwelcome thought makes Keith lungs constrict in panic.
Lance is drawing a complicated flower on the base of Keith’s wrist and it makes his lips pull up into a smile despite the panic. They’re always flowers when it comes to Lance. He uses them in everything he does, and usually doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Keith can count on one hand how many times the doodles on his arms haven’t been of flowers. His brow furrows in concentration suddenly.
“Isn’t your birthday coming up soon?” The question is whispered and Keith doesn’t know what suddenly made him so quiet when they’re sitting on the outskirts of the quads noise.
“January 5th, why?” He asks it at the same level Lance did and laughs quietly when the furrowed brow returns. He’s turning 19 this year, and it makes him anxious to think that he’s somehow lived another year on his own without his mom and brother stepping in. His lungs constrict the tiniest bit more.
“Are you doing anything special?” He finishes the flower and moves an inch or two above it to start another. Keith thinks about last year, of how when he turned eighteen all he did was get shitfaced alone and run his motorcycle into the ground. The repairs for that cost him an entire year’s worth of his salary and the disappointed looks from Shiro. He knows he’s going to do the same this year, just without the motorcycle wreck.
“Probably not. I’ve always liked to keep it small,” he admits briefly. Really what he means is every group home he’d been in was too crowded to remember birthdays and every foster family he’d had had only cared about him when they got their monthly check from the state. Nobody cared truly, and he didn’t see why he had to start.
“I think that we should do something. It can just be you and I or we can have Hunk and Pidge tag along too.” The vine that started at the base of the rose twists around his forearm and stops when it connects with the middle of his arm and bicep. Keith hums in thought while he taps a small beat with his fingers on his thigh.
“Maybe. We’ll see. You’ve got a week to get me something though.” Lance hums in agreement when he puts the finishing touches on the rose and smiles widely when what Keith has said finally connects with his thought process.
“I already know what I’m getting you.” Keith scoffs and shoves Lance away. He laughs joyously and pulls Keith back into his side, and Keith doesn’t object or try to move away. Resting his head on Lance’s shoulder, he reopens his book with one hand and lets Lance continue doodling on his left arm.
*****
January 5th finally rolls around and Keith can feel the pit of anxiety fill in his stomach as soon as he wakes up. His left arm is pulsing quietly from the tattoo he’d gotten yesterday night. It’s the rose that Lance had drawn and that Keith had mentioned that he quite liked only for Lance to have traced it in a fine point sharpie. The tattoo artist had asked him who had done it, impressed with the skill and detail that had gone into a three minute drawing. Keith pulls himself out of bed and into the shower, dreading going to his classes.
Lance shows up to class with his finished project and a basket. Keith already knew what the final draft looked like, so he bypasses that and goes straight to zeroing in on the basket. It is a simple wooden one that has been painted red (Keith rolls his eyes at that) covered at the top with a bandana.
“Do you ever realize that people are only suspicious when you have a covered basket? Like do they really think I can hide something in this thing? No. I hope they know that I only want to die on Tuesdays and today is Thursday,” he jokes while sliding into the seat beside Keith. That’s a lie, Keith notes passingly. Lance always jokes about dying; a coping mechanism he’d developed in middle school.
“I think that they are just suspicious of you with a red basket. Maybe they think you’re off to see grandma in the woods,” he muses. The basket is red, Lance’s sweater is a pastel brown that goes well with his skin tone. Keith snaps a quick photo of him on his digital camera, and Lance pulls a face at being photographed unexpectedly.
“First of all your jokes aren’t funny, and second of all they both got eaten in that fairy tale what the fuck, and lastly let me see that picture because that’s rude and uncalled for. I got you a birthday present, Keith. How dare you take a photo of me.” Lance makes a grab for Keith’s camera, but Keith scoots it away and fixes a bored stare at Lance. They have a game about this, and Keith is currently fifteen points ahead. Lance is bitter that he knows he won’t win.
“I didn’t say you had to get me a present, McClain. And stop being dramatic, you like being photographed as much as Narcissus liked to stare at his reflection.” He deadpans and gives Lance an expectant look.
“I’m offended by that reference. Here. Have your gift, you dick.” He scoots the basket over to Keith’s side of the table, making a big thing into a very small thing.
Keith unties the ends of the bandana from the sides of the basket and lifts it up to uncover what’s inside. He feels his heart get caught in his throat when he sees what Lance has given him. The first thing is a polaroid camera in pastel blue that Keith feels himself smile at it softly. The second is a small canvas painting of them together, sitting curled up together on his couch. Hunk had taken the photo and proudly claimed that he now had photographic evidence of Lance actually having a heart. Keith feels the anxious feeling in his stomach twist into something knew, something that has nothing to relate to his birthday. I love him. I love this idiot.
“I was stuck on the painting for a while, but then this guy I know said that I overthink things and stress myself out and gave me wise advice to start on something new.” Keith laughs lightly at the idea of Lance wanting to tell him what he was planning that day last week but not being able to. He tucks the canvas back into the basket and lays the bandana back into place. I love him.
“Lance McClain, you are an amazing human being and I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he whispers into the air between them, putting himself closer than they already were. I love him. I love him. I love him.
“You can thank me later by coming over to my apartment and watching the Star Wars trilogy with me.” Lance’s smile is so wide that Keith questions if his cheeks ever get tired from smiling so much.
“Just the two of us right?” He asks, and the question tastes funny on his tongue. He’s asked this before, whether Hunk and Pidge were going with them for some outing or some movie or any other idea Lance had spontaneously come up with on the spot. This time though, it’s almost like he’s asking if Lance was going to draw a line between them, one that Keith is sure he wants to cross.
“Um, duh? You’re the only other person I want to nerd out with about Star Wars.” Keith scoffs but smiles when Lance lets out an indignant gasp, asking when he’s ever nerded out about it with anybody but Keith himself.
“Whatever, Lance. I’m not with you 24/7. How would I possibly know if you would betray our nerd bond and cheat on me with someone else?” The question hides something more and Lance can sense it.
“If I ever break our nerd bond just kill me right then and there. I give you permission to just end me for ruining something that special to us.” It’s dramatic and verging on the point of unnecessary, but Keith appreciates it nonetheless. I love him. I love him. I love him.
His history class runs longer than he thought it would, meaning he gets out of it at 2 p.m. rather than 1 p.m. like he usually does. He’d been texting Lance running commentary on the debate that had sparked between two of his classmates, so Lance knows why Keith is running late. It makes the shaking in his hands lessen, knowing that Lance won’t think he was actively trying to not show up.
When Keith knocks on Lance’s apartment door he nearly has a heart attack when Chester runs out of the small opening of it. He should be used to it, what with Chester always trying to bolt when the door is open, but it still scares him the slightest bit every time. It also doesn’t help that he’s the blackest of cats, and seeing something like that fly out of an opening is horrifying in it’s own right.
“Do you think that if somebody finally steals him, he’ll get the hint?” Lance asks when he stops staring at the spot where his black cat darted off from. Keith laughs and shrugs at the thought.
“He’s only gone long enough to starting missing you, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about in that department,” he informs him knowingly. Chester is a dick most of the time just because he likes to see how far he can push Lance’s buttons until he pisses him off. Usually it’s until his socks start to build a home somewhere that isn’t his sock drawer.
“Whatever, he’ll come back in an hour or two once Mrs. Olsen has stopped spoiling him,” he says, and closes the door but opens the window that leads out to the fire escape.
They have a routine when they watch movies over at Lance’s. It’s been the routine since day one, and has never changed because it’s never had to. Keith is already leading the way into Lance’s room when he hears the scuff of socks against the hardwood floor, meaning that Lance has tripped again in the same place he always trips.
His room is clean for once but he suspects it’s because Lance was looking for the pair of his favorite paint stained joggers, and he’s found them evidently from where they lie on the bed. Lance flicks them an impatient look and it makes Keith tilt his head slightly in question.
“I found them under my bed, but when I went to get up I knocked my head against the bed spring so they’ve betrayed my trust,” Lance explains after he’s thrown himself onto the left side of the bed. The way Lance has his room setup with his bed against the wall that has the door on it and his tv sitting in front of it on his dresser, so the first thing you see when you walk in is his tv. Lance doesn’t like having a view of the door.
“Whatever you say,” Keith responds, picking them up and setting them on the dresser. He crawls onto the left side of the bed and rearranges the pillows how he likes them. The first movie is already queued up, so all Lance does is press play.
They get through the first three movies before Keith feels the tell-tale signs of the uncomfortable coldness that always starts at his feet and works it’s way up. He pushes himself deeper into the bed, trying to get the message to his brain that he isn’t actually supposed to be cold. This catches Lance’s attention, and he raises an eyebrow in question. Keith pulls his sweatshirt tighter around his body in response.
“Have you ever thought about carrying around your own space heater?” Lance questions while getting up off the duvet so that Keith can cover himself with it. He crawls under it after and tucks himself against Keith. This is normal. This is what they do. Keith gets too cold and Lance is basically a human furnace so he lets Keith steal his warmth. It just so happens to be a day after Keith gets a tattoo and he knocks against it just right, making it hurt enough that Keith sucks in a breath.
“Oh jeez, fuck are you alright?” Lance practically throws himself off the bed to give Keith space and the situation is almost laughable. Keith nods and tugs off his sweatshirt to put the tattoo on display.
It’s still swollen from yesterday, but the redness has very nearly vanished completely. Lance walks back to bed and crawls back onto it using his knees. He hovers his hand over the tattoo, over the permanent version of the flower he had drawn on Keith, and looks at Keith for permission to touch. Once he has nodded, Lance lets his fingertips touch the very edges of the tattoo and traces it.
“You got it tattooed?” He asks in awe, like the idea of Keith liking his artwork is a new concept. Keith just nods in response and smiles tentatively when Lance starts to grin. “Hey, Keith?” He whispers.
“Yeah?” Keith whispers back.
“I think that I love you,” he admits. He says it like it’s a fact, something that nobody can try to dispute. Keith feels his heart start to race, and he wants to tug his arm back, tell him that he shouldn’t love him because he’ll just ruin it. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t because he can’t.
“I think that I love you, too.” He breathes slowly, almost like he’s waiting for Lance to take it back, to laugh at him and say that he was kidding. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t because he can’t.
Lance intertwines his hand with Keith’s and puts himself closer. He lowers his head and Keith moves his up. They rest their foreheads against one another and just breathe the same air for a few beats. Their noses brush and their lips connect and it’s everything and it’s nothing all at once.
It’s everything that Keith has realized he’s wanted for the past six months, and it’s nothing because he knows that he can continue doing this. He can do this tomorrow, he can do it next week, he can do it four months from now. It’s everything and it’s nothing all at once. They break apart to catch their breath.
“I love you,” Lance says breathlessly. He says it and it makes Keith’s head spin.
“I love you,” Keith answers. He says it and it makes his heart speed up.