Work Text:
And the Stars Light Up the Night
“Kidnapping, yes or no?”
“Get out of our room, Pidge.”
“Not until I get a final answer on the kidnapping question.”
Lance groans and buries his face even deeper in his pillow. Keith, left to deal with the intruder, rolls over and points a dead-eyed stare in her general direction. “What.”
She huffs, “Are you two slow or something?”
“This early in the morning? Yes,” Lance grumbles from the depths of his pillow.
Keith vaguely pats him on the shoulder. “Kidnapping in general, like, as a criminal activity or one kidnapping in particular?”
“Us, your beloved friends and pseudo-family kidnapping the two of you and dragging you to Vegas at a random and not at all specified time this summer.”
“No,” Keith says flatly.
Pidge actually looks a little put out at this. “But if we don’t spring it on you you’ll just think too much and get all weird and panicky about it and drive us nuts.”
“Fair,” Keith says evenly over Lance’s inarticulate noises of protest, “But Shiro needs to put in for leave at the hospital so he can come with us.”
Pidge makes a face, “You’re scheduling your impulsive Vegas trip? Lame.”
“I want Shiro to be there.”
Pidge hums thoughtfully and Keith closes his eyes again, assuming the matter is settled and she will leave. Keith is wrong. A few seconds later a still-very-present Pidge is reaching over Lance to poke Keith in the shoulder.
“Hey, hey Keith.”
“What?” Keith growls.
“Kidnapping Shiro, yes or no.”
“No,” Keith says emphatically as Lance shouts, “Oh my god, why are you still here?!”
…
Chores are always a little competitive in the Kogane/McClain-Sanchez house. For one thing, turning everything into a competition is the only way to ensure everything gets done. And for another, they’re both stubborn and competitive enough that their drive to do things first and best forces them to split household duties fairly evenly.
So Lance dumping a pile of clean laundry onto the couch being directly followed by Keith skidding into the room, lifting him bodily out of the way and immediately beginning to fold socks, while weird, is still a normal amount of weird. Lance, realizing he’s been beaten out for folding duty, grabs the plastic laundry basket and tries to catch freshly folded socks in it as Keith throws them his way.
“We should really develop a points system for this,” Keith says, tossing a pair of neon blue socks Lance’s way “Also, I think Hunk and Pidge are sneaking their laundry into ours again,” he holds up a lime green ankle sock, “This isn’t ours.”
“Let the cats play with it,” Lance says with a shrug.
Keith pitches it over to where the kittens are wrestling on the floor. They immediately abandon each other in favor of the new sock.
“Pidge is gonna be pissed Laz and Ruby destroyed her sock,” Lance observes clinically as the not-so-little-anymore kittens go at their new toy with surprising ferocity.
“She shouldn’t have left it in our laundry,” Keith points out philosophically, tossing a folded shirt like a Frisbee. Lance catches it in the basket with the ease of long practice.
“True.” A pause as Lance settles the shirt in the basket, “What’re you thinking about?”
“What do you mean?” Keith furrows his brow and freethrows three sock-bundles in rapid succession. They land in the basket one-two-three, in a neat cluster.
“You’ve been brooding.”
“Have not.”
“Have so. And those socks don’t match.”
‘They used to. I got paint on one of them.”
“On the whole sock?”
“It was a bad day.”
Lance decides not to ask more questions about what kind of bad day produces a sock that color. “So. What’s up, Broody McSadFace?”
“First, that’s a terrible nickname. Just awful. You aren’t allowed to name anything else ever again,” Keith laughs when he catches Lance sticking his tongue out at him like a kindergartener, “and second, I haven’t been brooding. Or sad. Just thinking.”
“About Shiro’s book?” Lance’s face immediately falls into lines of sympathy, the ‘I’m listening’ face he wears whenever anyone, and Keith means anyone – random strangers on street corners included – looks the least bit down.
“No, nothing like that,” Keith hurries to reassure him, “Just trying to figure out scheduling.”
“For Vegas?”
“Mmmhmm,” Keith Frisbees a pair of jeans into the basket, “Figuring out when everyone’s free.”
“What? You don’t have all of our schedules listed in color-coded pen in one of your planners?” Lance jokes, his eyes suddenly widening on the last syllable, “Wait, you totally do, don’t you? Let me see! I wanna know what color I am!”
Keith frowns at him and throws a shirt at his face, “I do not. And you’re blue.”
Lance laughs around the shirt snagged on his nose and mouth, “Knew it.”
Keith rolls his eyes at him haughtily, “You have no proof.”
“Oh but I’ll find it and you’ll regret this conversation.”
“Whatever. I’m trying to figure out when everyone’s free for a Vegas trip this summer. I have to tell Shiro ahead of time so he can get leave from the hospital.”
“Well, Pidge and Hunk are pretty easy. Pidge is an independent contractor, she sets her own hours, and Hunk’s job at the university ends when the spring semester ends and doesn’t pick up until mid-June,” Lance offers, “And Allura’s in the same boat as Shiro.”
Keith grins, “Literally, soon.” Shiro had been talking about quitting his job in the city and moving upstate for years and he’d finally made concrete plans to quit and move to Allura’s hospital after his book came out in July. Keith was really excited. In a very low-key Keith way.
Lance grins right back, “Yep,” he agrees easily, “So it’s actually pretty easy to sort out. Your last show of the season closes mid-May and you don’t have to be at the theater for summer workshops until mid-June, so there’s a window there.”
“What about you?” Keith asks, moving on to sheets, making corners meet with military precision, “Summer’s kids’ camp season.”
Lance shrugs, “There’s a couple of slow weeks at the end of the school year when the kids are all busy and there’s not a lot to do. I bet Coran would give me the time off. Hell, he’d probably watch the cats too.”
Coran is unquestionably in love with their cats. Somehow, once the kittens were grown enough to leave their mama, it was Coran who adopted Mama Kitty. She now spends her days lounging on the haphazard piles of paperwork in his office and listening to him tell her tall tales of his worldwide adventures in his ‘reckless and carefree youth’. Despite his questionable sanity, he is definitely good with animals.
Keith blinks at him, “So that’s settled. We’re all free end of May/beginning of June and Coran can watch the cats.”
Lance’s brain is just white noise right now. “Uh. Yeah. I think so.” They’ve always been very careful about planning this whole thing, always calling it ‘the Vegas trip’ not ‘that time Lance and Keith are definitely going to elope’. Like they’re afraid of spooking each other. Or themselves.
They never got engagement rings. Their skittishness around the ‘getting married’ subject prevented it, but out of their refusal to actually talk about it grew a series of inside jokes exclusively about rings. There was a week where they kept bringing each other increasingly outlandish ring pop flavors. Their teeth stayed permanently stained rainbow colors as they ate their way through all the major ring pop types periodically pausing to chase the sweetness and artificial flavors on each other’s tongues. And another week Keith, finding one of those old coin-operated machines at the mall that dispensed plastic trinkets, used all the spare change in his coat pockets to buy a series of child-sized plastic rings with various cartoon insects on them and left them all arranged on Lance’s desk with zero explanation when he knew Lance would be out of his office. And then Lance developed an obsession with mood rings and things devolved from there.
They didn’t stop the ring-related weirdness until Pidge started loudly narrating ‘the mating habits of the rare Klance in the wild’ every time they walked in the room.
(But Lance still wears his favorite of the bug rings on his pinky when he’s at work and whenever a kid asks why he’ll say “You know that song at Christmas time? About the twelve days of Christmas? Well, my true love gave me fifteen bug rings instead of five golden ones. I think I got the better deal,” and often the kid agrees.)
Keith wears one of the mood rings strung on the same chain he put his mom’s college ring on around his neck. No one asks about it and he doesn’t go out of his way to tell people about it, he likes it that way.
“So yeah, end of May, beginning of June,” Lance coughs, “Sounds good.”
Keith nods tightly, swallowing as he looks down at his hands folding the last pillowcase. A smile plays at the edges of his lips. “Sounds good.”
He throws the last pillowcase into the basket and Lance says: “Race you to put these away,” and they’re off running.
…
The morning dawns pink and gold and cheerful. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming. It’s a lovely day.
Keith and Lance both jolt awake when Pidge leaps onto their bed and starts jumping, “Wake up, losers, we’re going to Vegas!”
“What. The. Fuck. Pidge?” Lance snarls.
Pidge just keeps jumping like a jackrabbit on crack. “Vegas, Vegas, Vegas.”
Keith takes the path of least resistance and just rolls out of bed and onto the floor, where he lies very still and hopes whatever is happening ends soon.
“You guys planned this, I hope you’re prepared to suffer the consequences,” Shiro says from the doorway, “Hi Keith, I see you’re on the floor again.”
“The floor is my only friend. It understands me,” Keith grumbles.
Lance throws a pillow at him, “What am I then?”
“Hmm,” Keith hums, grabbing the pillow and curling around it, “Acceptable.”
Lance squawks in indignation and struggles to sit up without crashing into the still-bouncing Pidge.
“Hey guys,” Hunk joins Shiro at the doorway, “I made breakfast downstairs. You might want to get down there now, before Matt and Allura finish off the pancakes.”
That’s enough to get Lance off the bed. He manages to get around Pidge and roll off Keith’s side of the bed so he can grab his boyfriend and sort-of fiancée by the back of his shirt and drag him to his feet. “Come on, babe, pancake time. We’ll talk about this ‘acceptable’ nonsense later.”
Keith grumbles and yawns but lets Lance lead him out of the room, their friends following behind.
…
Hunk’s pancakes are pretty awesome. He must be in a good mood today because he makes a ‘special’ for each other them, their favorite flavors – blueberry banana for Lance, dark chocolate chip for Pidge, rainbow sprinkles for Matt, plain with fresh strawberries on top for Shiro, cinnamon apple for Allura, oreo cookie crunch for himself and cranberry oatmeal for Keith. The pancakes are gone within minutes until all that’s left are Shiro and Allura politely asking to try each other’s while Pidge and Matt steal off each other’s plates and Keith and Lance make fun of each other’s pancakes while simultaneously trying to steal bits of them.
Hunk’s pancakes are left untouched. No one messes with Hunk’s food. The last to do so was the victim of the Great Food War of 2012, which is still not spoken of to this day. (“2012’s real apocalypse” Pidge is fond of whispering ominously whenever anyone brings it up, which, unsurprisingly, is a real deterrent to actually talking about it.)
Shiro volunteers to do the dishes afterward because Keith and Lance’s competitive approach to household chores actively stresses him out. Meanwhile, everyone else disperse to collect their various bits of luggage for their transcontinental trip.
(When Shiro sees Keith’s duffle bag he raises an eyebrow and says “Really? You haven’t bought new luggage? It’s been twelve years.” Keith just snorts in response, “You say that like it was new the first time you saw it.” Lance is pretty sure that there is not a single scrap of original material left on that duffle – it’s just one giant patch job at this point.)
They load into Hunk’s car and head for the airport before Shiro can offer to buy Keith new luggage and Keith can get defensive about the sanctity of his precious duffle bag. Pretty much everyone is relieved at that.
…
“Babe,” Lance says when they get off the plane, “There are slot machines in the airport.”
Keith, who has a tight grip on Pidge’s backpack to keep her from running off to try her luck (“They’re machines! They call to me, Keith!”) gives him a very unimpressed look and Lance laughs, bright and carefree.
…
“Hey, Keith,” Lance says when they’re waiting in line to check in to their hotel. He slides an arm around his boyfriend’s waist and hooks his chin over his shoulder, whispering in his ear, “We’re in Vegas, baby.”
Lance can feel Keith’s laugh against his arm, “How long have you been waiting to say that line?”
“A very long time,” Lance admits, pulling him close and holding on tight while Keith laughs low in his chest.
…
Lance realizes with a start that even after two and a half years together he has never really seen Keith in the desert before. There’s something different about him here, something new about how he moves. Or maybe not new, maybe old, maybe very old. There’s a fluidity to Keith here, a feral, cat-like slinking to his steps. His shadow skulks along at his feet as the light fades from the sky that night, the sunset outlining his skin in red and orange and gold.
He’s standing on their hotel room’s balcony. Keith’s arms are draped over the railing and he’s not doing anything, just watching as the sun retreats from the sky. But the stillness is deceptive; Lance thinks as he approaches, it’s not real. It’s motion that’s just waiting for the moment to break.
Lance is strangely hesitant to touch this Keith, to break the spell the wide-open desert sky has cast on him. (Is it just Lance or does the sky seems bigger here, hungrier, the blue vaster and more distant than ever before?)
But Keith’s soft “Come here,” has him moving forward, standing beside him, not quite touching, unsure if he wants to interrupt whatever moment Keith’s having here. Keith shoots him a look out of the corner of his eye and as he’s blinking away, reaches out and takes Lance’s wrist and pulls him over so they’re flush against each other, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking out at the city below and the sky above, hemorrhaging light in every direction. Keith’s hand slides down Lance’s arm, his skin a paper rasp against Lance’s own until he’s tangling their fingers together and pulling the knotted mess of their hands up to his chest, hooking his elbow over Lance’s forearm as he does so, pulling them even closer. He’s still not looking at Lance.
“Do you ever think about limerence?” Keith asks, apparently out of the blue.
“Uh, no,” Lance says, not sure what to make of this pensive, wild Keith who pulls him close while looking far away. “Mostly cuz I don’t know what that is.”
A small smile tugs at the corner of Keith’s mouth. Lance traces his features with his eyes – the straight nose, sharp features, dark lashes, expressive mouth. Lance can’t tell if there is humor to the smile or not.
“It’s a term used to describe infatuation. Obsessive love. You know, like middle-school crush stuff, only it happens to adults too. It’s always temporary and typically really intense and often not reciprocated. And I always wonder about my mom, you know. Why my dad didn’t stay and why she still cared after all those years, even when he’d never done anything for either of us. And I see Shiro’s dad and I’m pretty sure there’s always gonna be a part of him that’s in love with my mom. And I wonder if maybe there was something messed-up in her head, something that made her chase after impossible things. Made it impossible for her to just stay. And maybe she gave whatever it was to me. Like, we aren’t able to love people right or something,” he sighs and pulls, if anything, closer, and Lance’s heart is in his throat listening to him speak, “I’m scared,” Keith admits, the barest whisper, “I’m scared I’m going to be her someday.”
“Oh, baby,” Lance sighs. He almost never calls Keith ‘baby’, it’s always ‘babe’ or ‘Keith’ or ‘hey you’. They’re casual like that. And Keith hates feeling like he’s being talked down to. But Keith is looking so lost and helpless and Lance’s heart feels like it’s expanding inside his chest, outside his chest, something in him reaching out and enveloping the two of them in whatever it is. He wrestles his hand away from Keith’s, which has gone stiff, like rigor mortis, and wraps both arms around his favorite feral desert child. He kisses Keith’s temple and runs a hand up and down his spine. He can feel the moment when Keith relaxes, muscles turning liquid under Lance’s touch and allows himself to be cuddled close.
“You’re not your mom, got that? You’re Keith. You’re weird and stubborn and addicted to Charles Dickens and you have Opinions about highlighter colors and you like folding socks and if I leave you alone in a park for five minutes you’ve climbed a tree like a freaking squirrel. You act all mean and tough and you’ve been arrested three times – probably for really dumb or hilarious reasons – but you’re a total sucker when I ask you for help with anything. Hey, remember the first month we were dating? When I thought you were breaking up with me?” Keith nods against his chest, “You stood in the snow and threw a bouncy-ball at my window until I listened to you. And you know what, that was crazy and you totally deserved that cold you caught a week later, but god, I loved you so much, even then.”
“Limerence,” Keith mutters into his shoulder.
“Nah, I was way too pissed at your for infatuation. I was mad and hurt and confused and you were just there being so you. Seeing you again felt like coming home.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, love doesn’t make sense, so suck it,” Lance laughs, “It doesn’t have to. It’s love. It’s an actual natural disaster.”
Keith chuckles against his shoulder.
“Hey, Keith. Did you know there was an Emperor of Germany once, who had basically the world’s worst marriage, just awful. He and the Empress were married for over sixty years and they fought every single day of that time. When they were too pissed to speak to each other they sent messengers back and forth, even if they were in the same room. But this one time, the Empress was really sick and the emperor was really, really worried about her. When some guy, an ambassador or something, asked why the king was so worried about this woman he hated, the king’s aide basically said ‘you try fighting with the same woman every day for fifty years – you’d miss it too if you thought you were losing her’. So even if we totally fuck up marriage we’d probably still miss each other if one of us died.”
Keith snorts, “That is probably the least-inspirational Inspirational Story I’ve ever heard.”
“Well yeah, but it worked.”
And now Keith’s laughing and they’re laughing together, shaking like leaves in the orange-yellow sunset light.
“Hey, Keith.”
“What?”
“The empress outlived the emperor by only nine months. Turns out she really did miss him.”
“Still not feeling all that inspired.”
“Yeah, but I bet you’re feeling really lucky you decided to marry me instead of some crazy emperor.”
“There is that.”
They’re going to be just fine.
…
They go to a casino that night mostly because Pidge and Matt beg them and based on past history Matt will probably end up at one anyway through some bizarre law of the universe that says Matt must always end up in the most high-risk situation possible in any given scenario. And if there are no high-risk situations at hand he will find them.
This decision, however well-intentioned in terms of sparing Matt, reignites an ongoing debate between the brothers the rest of the group had hitherto been unaware of.
“No poker, Keith,” Shiro says, almost casually, as soon as it’s been decided that they will all be joining the Holts on their casino adventure.
Keith laughs, “I can play a few games; I’m not twelve.”
“No, when you were twelve, you were hustling pool. No poker.”
“But I like poker.”
“No, you’re good at poker, there’s a difference.”
“I don’t count cards.”
“Yes you do.”
“Not on purpose.”
Shiro sighs, “You didn’t know the actual rules to poker until you were seventeen!”
Keith huffs, “Just because Mom taught me alternative rules – ”
“Mom taught you how to cheat in every card game known to man without actually remembering to tell you it was cheating.”
Having reached a conversational stalemate they just kind of stare at each other until Lance cuts in “Craps, how about craps? Nice, safe, totally cheating-proof, skill-less craps.”
That seems to be enough to satisfy Shiro and mollify Keith. At least until they get out of Shiro’s earshot and Keith whispers in Lance’s ear, “Wait until he’s three martinis in, then we’ll team up and destroy the competition.”
Lance laughs, but he’s actually kind of hoping Keith’s right. He wants to see Shiro and Keith play poker, despite the fact that he’s pretty sure poker is meant to be played solo and therefore any ‘teaming up’ is probably against the rules.
True to form, Pidge the machine-whisperer strikes again – she wins big at one slot machine after another until security starts eyeing her thoughtfully and she cuts herself off and moves on to something else. Matt’s luck seesaws up an down as the night progresses and ultimately breaks even despite huge wins and catastrophic loses earlier in the evening. He ends up winning just enough to pay everyone’s bar tab. Lance eyes him thoughtfully after that and Matt just smiles slyly.
Allura and Hunk play lots of games for very low stakes and seem to have more fun than the people betting real money. Shiro follows them around, sipping martinis and looking like James Bond while not actually betting anything. He does blow on Allura’s dice several times (and that is not a euphemism despite Lance’s many significant looks at both of them) for luck. She wins every time he does.
Lance and Keith mess around with a couple different games, Keith keeping a steady eye on Shiro’s martini consumption and sampling whatever strange new cocktail Lance pushes his way.
“Try this, babe, it’s pretty good.”
“You’re lucky I trust you completely,” Keith says as he takes a sip of something bright orange and makes a face, “What is that?”
“It’s a mix-tory,” Lance puns and cracks up at his own joke. He has perhaps also been sampling half the drink menu.
Keith makes a face but kisses him anyway because Keith gets progressively more physically affectionate with every drink he consumes. Keith tastes like citrus and alcohol and something sweet.
Finally Shiro has apparently hit the prime martini quota and Keith springs into action. Lance is actually impressed with how quickly Keith cons his brother into working the poker tables with him. And work them they do, it’s like watching a movie about Vegas hustlers, except Lance knows that he’s the random casino-goer who gets to go home with one of the con men at the end of the scene. Awkward, anti-social Keith and gentle, respectful Shiro are transformed into charming, quick-talking men of action with razor smiles and sharp eyes. Lance isn’t sure how but somehow their suits actually look more expensive. It must be the way they move in them, sleek and predatory but hugely appealing.
Lance keeps his eyes on Keith and tries not to think too hard about how unbearably hot he is.
After a few hours and a few carefully managed wins and a few big wins and one or two precisely staged losses, the brothers saunter away from the poker tables far richer than their fellow players think they are and share a look of mutual pride and satisfaction.
“That is how I learned to play cards,” Keith says simply when he gets over to Lance.
Lance tries not to stare at him too much. “It’s so…hot.”
Keith smiles the razor-edged smile from the poker tables, “Really?”
Lance nods helplessly as Keith gets even closer, until they’re lined up, fit together perfectly but not quite touching.
“Really?” Keith asks again, barely even breathing the words. Lance can feel the heat radiating off his skin.
“That’s it, we’re going back upstairs,” Lance decides, and grabs a laughing Keith by the hand, pulling him along behind him.
There’s no one else in the elevator – they definitely miss their floor at least once. It’s just too much fun backing each other against the walls and making out like teenagers.
…
Shiro glowers at Keith over mimosas at the breakfast table, “You conned me into playing poker last night.”
Keith hums happily as he digs into his waffles, “You won a lot of money.”
“It was fascinating to watch,” Allura throws in absently, reaching across the table for the orange juice, apparently not noticing when Shiro turns slightly pink.
“You had fun,” Keith says, poking his brother in the shoulder, “Admit it, you had fun.”
Shiro sighs, “I did.”
Keith grins.
“But we’re not doing it again.”
“Well not here,” Keith concedes, “Winning that much two nights in a row would be suspicious.”
Shiro looks like he wants to argue but just doesn’t have the heart.
…
They spend the day wandering between tourist traps and bars and shows – they didn’t buy any tickets in advance but pretty much every bar has a small stage and a performer of some kind. They see magic tricks and awkward stand-up comics and a guy who bills himself as ‘Fat Elvis’ and sounds like the King come back to life. They day-drink unashamedly and have to keep Matt from buying a counterfeit Rolex more than once (“You think he’d learn his lesson” “But they looked so real, Pidge!”) and by the time the sun is setting they’re mostly sober but slightly buzzed and tumbling back into their hotel.
They don’t go back to the casino, instead ordering an obscene amount of room service and playing silly games on the floor of Allura and Pidge’s room. They all fall asleep at some point without going back to their rooms and Keith lies awake watching Lance doze in the Vegas light and thinks of another night like this one. He falls asleep with a smile on his face.
…
The next day is much like the previous, but slower and with less drinking. They explore the city at their leisure and keep Matt from buying pirated DVDs and knockoff Prada and Keith and Shiro reminisce about the New York of twelve years ago, when Keith was fifteen and the city was something new.
The sun is going down and their friends are walking ahead of them, chattering about something or nothing and Lance and Keith are walking hand in hand behind them.
“Hey,” Keith says, swinging their clasped hands between them, “You wanna get married before dinner?”
And Lance laughs, “Sure.”
They’d filed the legal paperwork before leaving, carefully not talking about what they were filling out. All they had left to do was the ceremony. And a lifetime of joint tax returns and driving each other slowly crazy and probably being pretty happy together all things considered.
“Hey guys,” Lance yells at their friends’ backs, “We’re gonna find a classy-ish place to hitched before dinner if that’s okay with you.”
“Also waffles. I stand by my waffles request,” Keith says.
“Also waffles,” Lance repeats, “We’re doing breakfast for dinner after the wedding thing.”
…
“Hey, kiddo,” Shiro says at the chapel while Pidge is negotiating the fee like a pawnbroker and Lance is just trying to pay the guy for the use of his space, “Here,” he drops something small and metallic into Keith’s open palm. It’s his dog tags.
“Shiro…” Keith begins.
“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. There’s your something borrowed.”
Keith stares at him for a long moment.
Shiro clears his throat uncomfortably and Keith is reminded that this man, despite being his big brother, despite seeming superhuman, is actually just a guy trying his best. “I’m –” he clears his throat again, blinking rapidly, “I’m really proud of you, kid.”
“Seriously? This is basically the least impressive wedding ever.”
“Shut up and let me have a proud brother moment, okay?” Shiro hugs him and Keith laughs, patting him awkwardly on the back.
“Thanks, Shiro.”
“Hey,” Matt pokes him in the shoulder uncertainly, “I hate to interrupt the moment or anything, but Pidge wanted you to have this, and she’s busy, so…”
Shiro lets Keith go and he turns to see Matt holding out a battered rubber bouncy-ball. “She found this in the yard after the snow melted the first year you guys got together and she kept it. Something about how annoying it was when lovesick morons threw things at each other’s windows? Anyway, she forgot about it; then she found it in her desk the other day and figured you should have it back. So there’s your something old.”
Keith grins and takes the bouncy-ball back, tucking it into his jacket pocket. “Thanks, Matt.”
“Do you have anything blue?” Shiro asks skeptically, but his eyes widen when Keith pulls the chain with their mom’s college ring out from under his shirt. The stone is deep blue.
“I think I’m good.”
“Is that a mood ring?”
Keith grins and goes to tuck the chain away but rethinks it, leaving it and its mismatched rings out with Shiro’s borrowed dog tags. “Inside joke. But I think it’s new enough to count.”
…
The chapel manager guy taken care of, Lance turns back to his friends, sucking in a shaky breath. “So that’s happening.”
“Not yet it isn’t,” Allura declares.
“Yeah, something old, new, borrowed, blue, dude,” Pidge says, “Also, you know you’re probably just gonna have to repeat this wedding stuff later with your family, right?”
Lance rolls his eyes, “Yeah, but by then we’ll be married. The pressure will be off.”
“Your funeral,” Pidge mutters.
“So I think we’ll take care of borrowed and blue all at once,” Allura declares, taking off one of her blue crystal earrings. When Lance flinches she rolls her eyes, “Relax, it’s a clip-on.” She attaches it to his ear as gently as possible and kissing him on the cheek when she’s done. “We’re proud of you, Lance. You’ve come a long way since you fell off that roof freshman year.”
Lance laughs ruefully and hugs her, “Thanks, ‘Lura.”
She pats his back and releases him to Hunk and Pidge. Hunk, to Lance’s utter shock unties his bandana.
“Dude, what are you doing.”
“Something, old, man,” he folds it up and hands it over, “Put it in your pocket or something.”
“Thanks, dude,” Lance is actually tearing up now, shit, “I guess I’ve got two ‘borroweds’,” he grins.
“And now, here’s your really weird and lame bug-ring,” Pidge holds out one of the plastic bug rings “Because you two are super weird and totally made for each other. And that’s your something new. Hope you’re happy.”
He totally is.
…
The actual ceremony is a bit of a blur. Just some guy (not dressed like Elvis because that was Keith’s One Rule about a Vegas wedding – no Elvis ministers) saying some words and them saying some word-like things back at him. Nothing much, really.
But then they’re kissing and their friends are cheering and Pidge is yelling “Hey, minister guy, help us take a selfie!” And half their wedding photos are kind of blurry and most of them are crammed full of people but they all look really, really happy so that’s okay.
It turns out they actually bought rings (real ones) for each other for the actual wedding so they don’t have to keep wearing kiddie toys. (Although Lance is definitely still going to save all those plastic bug rings and Keith is keeping the mood ring on the chain with his mom’s college ring). Their rings don’t match but that’s okay. They’re both titanium alloy and durable. Lance’s is highly polished and shiny, Keith’s is matte and textured so it won’t reflect light in the booth. They’ll probably get them engraved someday.
They don’t go to Waffle House, but they find a family-owned diner that serves breakfast twenty-four hours a day and they all pile into a booth laughing and giddy and order mountains of eggs and bacon and fried chicken and waffles. It’s late enough at night that they’re the only customers and the jukebox is on low. They eat their fill and don’t drink anything stronger than coffee but they’re still riding high on life. Pidge sweet-talks the elderly jukebox and coaxes out a tune they can dance to and with the waitress’s permission, they push a bunch of tables out of the way and make their own dance floor.
Keith and Lance slow-dance and Pidge and Matt try to remember the steps to the Cupid Shuffle but get lost halfway through and start doing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ instead. Hunk is trying to coach them through it but keeps giving up, laughing every time they miss the rhythm again. Keith and Lance are lost, just spinning lazily on their improvised dance floor and learning the feel of the rings on their hands.
Quietly, in the background, Allura settles beside Shiro as he watches his brother, his new brother-in-law, and their friends.
“He’s okay now, you know. He’s just fine,” she says, resting a hand on his arm.
He starts and looks at her with a soft smile, “Yeah, he is. I worry about him, though. He’s been my responsibility for so long… it’s hard to let go.”
“I know,” she squeezes his arm, “I know.”
Shiro smiles softly to himself, “It was an excuse, you know. Sometimes. I’d think about going for something and think ‘no, I need to not be selfish, I need to look out for my brother, I need to look out for Keith’ and I wouldn’t have to take a chance because the decision was already made. I was always half his dad, half his brother. Because our mom was…herself and his real dad was gone. I raised him. In a lot of ways he was my kid, not my brother. And letting go of that,” he sighs, “It’s hard. It’s hard when your kid grows up.”
Allura smiles softly, “I know.”
Shiro lays a hand on top of hers and watches his brother dance. Keith and Lance are close, resting their foreheads against each other and grinning. They’re so happy.
Shiro squeezes Allura’s hand gently and turns to her, “Would you like to dance?”
“I would love to.”
And they’re joining the others on the dance floor, spinning into a bastardized version of a waltz and laughing with their friends.
Keith runs his thumb over his new ring, “Hey.”
“Hey,” Lance says right back at him.
“You happy?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
Lance hums happily. “If I told you I love you right now, would you say it back?”
“What if I said it first?”
“Then I’d totally Han-Solo you. Revenge for all those times you did it to me.”
“Hmm,” Keith says laughingly, “So I guess we’ll just have to rely on subtext for this one.”
“I guess so.”
They stare at each other for a long moment, each willing the other to cave first.
Predictably, they break at the same time.
“I love you.”
Their responses are also in snyc.
“I know.”
They laugh their way into the next song.