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He wakes up two and a half hours early, and can’t get back to sleep.
He knew this would happen - new job nerves, new commute panic, no sleep. He’s actually fairly proud of himself for getting the three hours he did get, even if it doesn’t help much now.
So Keith goes for a run. And showers. Makes breakfast and then lunch and leftovers he’ll eat for dinner that night. He has gym tonight, but for once he doesn’t have to worry about the rush-hour traffic on the subway, so he packs his bag and picks out his clothes and still has an hour to burn. One hour, where he starts to worry about the day and if this was really a good idea at all.
Don’t get him wrong - he’s unbelievably grateful for the opportunity Shiro is giving him. Work for a few months as a clerk, wash some towels, fill some water bottles, run some errands. Stick around the gym during the day, make some extra cash, and the guys there will take notice and let him help with classes. A paying job doing what Keith already does. What wouldn’t he like about that?
It’s just...the first day. Keith knows he isn’t the easiest to get along with, and while Shiro was supportive enough - give them time, when they see how hard you work and how passionate you are, they’ll come around - Keith knew there would probably be some issues.
But it’s a job, that isn’t washing dishes or delivering pizza. He’d blown through his saving the first couple of months in his tiny Brooklyn apartment, so he knew it was time to buck up and find a way to make ends meet. This might only be part time, but it was the most consistently scheduled job Keith could get a hold of, and he’s honestly, really thankful.
He’s just also...unsure. As far as he’s concerned, it’s called being realistic, but he knows what look Shiro would give him and he knows said look says pessimist.
One hour stuck in his head, and then he heads out of his apartment towards the subway stop, catching the C towards Soho. He has his bag, complete with uniform, extra clothes, stuff for lunch and his newest purchase - a secondhand East of Eden he’d picked up at Strand last time he was in Manhattan. He’s not very far into it, but his commute is just about forty five minutes long, so he figures he can chip through a bit every day.
It’s not the first time he’s taken this route either - but at this time? Yes. It’s why he leaves a little early, why he’s checking for how many people get on at his stop, how the train feels and how fast it is. It all fits into what he planned, so when the doors open and he steps inside, he finds a seat near the door and pulls out his book.
The other commuters are pretty normal as far as NYC subwayers go. Some parents and their kids, a couple of hobos, a businessman or two who probably slept through their alarm, and a couple of students in the corner. Boring, uneventful, and perfect commuting partners as far as Keith’s concerned. He doesn’t even need to bring his headphones, which he prefers, so he can instead keep an ear to his surroundings.
The closer into the city they get, the busier it gets. Seats fill up pretty quickly, and Keith finds himself letting out a soft sigh of relief that he lives further out so he doesn’t have to worry. He watches the different people step on and off the train - more students, more families, more odds and ends of the New York Experience. Keith’s eyes wander, still trying to take in the city life and come to terms with how much it differs from his small suburb outside of Philly, when he something pulls his gaze out the window.
It’s the color that grabs him first, a bright blue - almost glowing - windbreaker that looks like it belongs in the 90s more than on a real life person. The guy wearing the jacket jumps down the last few stairs of the subway entrance, catching the ground and taking off in a sprint across the small lobby in front of the turnstiles. It sinks in, a bit late, that he’s trying to make this train, and Keith looks around to see if anyone else has noticed, if anyone’s going to hold the door.
But of course, it’s New York. No one notices, or if they do, they don’t care.
Keith looks back just as the man vaults over the turnstile, his headphones bouncing against his collarbone as he weaves in and out of the people waiting for the next train. He’s in jean shorts with his socks pulled up his calves, a backwards snapback, and is definitely going to miss the train.
Except - by some miraculous turn of fate - he does, sliding right in between the already closing doors with wide eyes and a bright grin. He’s a little out of breath, but doesn’t seem nearly frazzled enough by the encounter, stepping further on down the train and then settles to lean against the door across the train from where Keith is sitting.
The whole event takes maybe ten seconds, max, and no one else in the train car seems to pay it much attention. Even the guy in question, who is very casually scrolling through his phone. Keith notices, then, the dull thumping of a beat coming from his headphones and realizes that he’s one of those people, before he sighs and tries to turn back to his book.
But his attention is shot, by the low murmur of voices on the train to the steady beat of some kind of techno crap from the guy’s headphones. There’s still another fifteen minutes before his stop, too, so Keith has to force himself through the last couple of pages before he gives up and decides to people watch - his eyes, of course, falling primarily on the turnstile jumper and watching him as he taps his hands against his thighs to the music. Why he doesn’t just put his headphones on his ears, Keith doesn’t understand. It’s not like anyone on the train wants to hear his music, and it doesn’t get any better either.
Headphones Asshole gets off the stop before Keith’s - a fact he probably shouldn’t remember, but he does - stepping off the subway and taking the stairs two at a time. He has to be a local, judging from his ease of doing just about everything that Keith is still somewhat unsure about, but Keith passes it off as a stray subway interaction and starts to gather his things for his own stop.
Not too bad, as far as first days go.
---------
All in all, the job is fine.
He arrives a bit early that first day. Has time to formally meet the rest of the staff and see, officially, the back workings of the studio. Shiro is in the midst of teaching a morning class, so he doesn’t have time to give Keith more than a wave before he’s being led back to the staffer’s room. Orientation goes by quickly, common sense with a few house rules to boot. Keith has been to the gym enough to know how things generally go, and Allura seems to like that, speeding through rules and jobs and data points he will have memorized by the end of the week.
She sets him out to work as soon as the tour is over, and the day goes on; he picks up towels, wipes down equipment, runs a few errands and organizes the front desk. It’s mind-numbing, in a way, but Keith doesn’t mind. There’s plenty for him to keep his hands busy, and Shiro even asks him to come over and hold the bag during one of his private coaching lessons.
It helps, that Shiro has been bringing him here since he moved to the city. Introduced him to Allura, who at the time had only been the owner’s daughter, stand-in manager and personal trainer, ex-MMA fighter turned businesswoman after her dad fell sick. Now, she’s all that and Shiro’s girlfriend, Keith’s boss, and self-adopted older sister. Without much to do during his first few months in the city, Keith spent most of his free time at the gym, waiting for Shiro and stepping in on classes with open spots. He’s no Shiro, definitely no Allura, but he’s picked up his fair share of tips and tricks and is known well enough by the regulars.
Allura must have liked him, he guesses. She wouldn’t have hired him otherwise. I don’t have much to give you. she confessed when Shiro mentioned the idea to her, when Keith had done everything in his power short of getting on the ground and begging her to give him a chance. But you can put in a few hours every day- cleaning and laundry and office-work. It won’t be fun, but you’ll be here, and if you pick up on enough, there might be more openings in the future.
But that’s further in the future than Keith wants to think about. For now, he sets a schedule. Up at 6:30 to run. Back by 7:30. Shower, cook, eat, and be out the door by 9:35. Catch the train in, be at the gym by 10:30. Clock in at 11, clock out at 4. After that, it’s either enough time to get back for his pizza delivery gig, or he can spend time with a bag.
It’s an easy schedule, but most importantly it’s a schedule at all, which Keith has been desperate for since he moved to the city. He has somewhere to be during the day, and something to work his daily habits around. Something he can do, while he spends the rest of his time figuring out where he wants to be, what it is he wants at all.
And then, of course, there’s the commute.
When the trains are running on schedule, the to and from work is pretty simple. The group of people vary, shifting depending on the day and the time. A few are only Tuesdays and Thursdays, others sprinkled throughout. There is one mother and three students he sees just about every trek he’s made.
And, of course, him.
Keith doesn’t mean to notice - but he’s found it’s nearly impossible not to people-watch when he’s commuting. People-watch, and collect. Information, facts, little details that mean nothing but he sees and can’t forget. Like the mother, whose little girl is always tucked away in her carriage. She’s clean, put-together, and seems to be going to a job that allows her to have her daughter around. The students all live together in Brooklyn, college age, and have decided it’s either safer or more convenient to head into the city together.
And then there’s Headphones, who lives in Brooklyn but closer to the city - who gets on a couple of stops after Keith does and gets off at some point after Keith does (except for that first day, and Keith hates that he always ends up back on that, that he can’t stop himself from thinking about that). His windbreaker is a pretty consistent piece of wardrobe, and that along with his headphones and backpack means he stands out like a sore thumb no matter the state of the train car.
His music also remains fairly constant, whenever he ends up close enough to Keith in the car for him to hear it. Techno, rap, hip hop - it’s all fast moving and turned up too loudly, so much that Keith wonders why he even bothers with headphones at all. And he taps - his leg bouncing when he sits, his hands tapping to the beat when he stands. He’ll mouth along to the words from time to time, eyes on the advertisements along the top of the car or off down the aisle.
It’s a week before they make eye contact, and Keith spends the rest of the day wondering if he came across as some weirdo or if the guy even remembers him. It’s another few days until he hears his voice, chattering away on his cell for a few moments before reception was lost. He speaks Spanish is the first thing that comes to Keith’s mind, the second being why were you trying to listen.
Two and a half weeks in, they meet eyes again on the way home - Keith, tired from the day and the training session Shiro put him through, is apparently not putting enough effort into hiding the fact he’s staring. Thankfully, nothing bad comes from it. They’re nearing Heaphones’ stop anyway, and when Keith blinks and realizes they’re watching each other, Headphones smiles.
Easy. Simple. Warm. Keith blinks again, too shocked to react normally, and the subway slows to a stop and Heaphones is up, holding onto the bar to keep himself upright, before he waves over to Keith as he exits the train.
That night, Keith has a hard time sleeping, and instead spends his time staring up at the popcorn ceiling of his tiny, cheap Brooklyn apartment when the thought comes to him.
You don’t even know his name.
---------
It just gets worse after that, and Keith has no one to blame but himself.
His schedule doesn’t change - he still gets up to run, still heads to work at the same time, still spends his day at the gym, still heads home at night, still gets up to do the whole thing over again. Weeks, months go by, and this is all the same.
Seeing Heaphones on the train stays the same, too.
He sees him with a couple of friends - a bigger one named Hunk, a smaller one named Pidge - and listens to him talking on his cell every now and then. He stills wears that stupid windbreaker, or - once it starts getting cooler - jeans and a large green jacket. He still has his headphones around his neck, still plays music too loud, still bounces.
Some things do change, though.
The variations are slight, but noticeable - one day he doesn’t have his headphones, and he seems nervous, out of place. Another, it’s classical music filtering through the air around them, not something fast or upbeat. He gets sick, at some point, and is wearing twenty layers all on top of each other and looks more pathetic than Keith thought possible, and then doesn’t make the train the next day (Keith’s not worried, that’d be silly, he doesn’t even know the guy).
Embarrassingly enough, Keith is very aware of the massive amount of knowledge he’s started to collect on Heaphones. But it also bothers Keith, in a weird way, what he still doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where he works, doesn’t know where he goes, doesn’t know what he likes or dislikes or what his name even is.
He also doesn’t know if he’s imagining something in the way he sometimes looks up and sees Heaphones looking back at him. When their eyes catch, and Keith gets another one of those smiles and sometimes a wave, he doesn’t know if it’s just Heaphones being friendly, or something else. Doesn’t know if he’s imagining the way Heaphones looks around when he steps onto the train every day, like he’s looking for something, or someone. Doesn’t know, too, if it’s a coincidence or something else that, when he and Heaphones catch each other’s eyes when he’s looking around the train, Headphones seems to relax.
It’s a couple more months - a total of four, almost five - before Heaphones sits down next to him, completely and totally unprompted, and Keith’s heart stops.
The train isn’t crowded, but there aren’t too many seats left either. He steps on through the door right next to where Keith is sitting, and after surveying the car, drops into the spot next to him with an audible sigh, his hands in the pockets of that awful, stupid blue windbreaker.
Keith tenses, but doesn’t move - there are a few inches of space between them, and while his heart would probably appreciate the space, he can’t bring himself to increase it, so instead he focuses very heavily on the last couple of chapters of his book. Which is difficult, by normal standards, and made even more so now that he can hear the music - classical again today - that much louder.
They make it a few stops before the knee bouncing starts, and Keith has to fight the urge to reach out and set his hand on his knee to stop it. He manages to without the urge, but apparently makes the fact he isn’t reading obvious enough, because Heaphones decides to speak up.
“What’re you reading today?”
“Huh?”
Smooth, Keith. Really smooth. Heaphones’ eyebrows shoot up his forehead as he points to the book. “What are you reading? I noticed it’s different. You started it last week, right?”
He noticed.
“Uh, yeah.” Keith closes the book, so that the cover is facing up. End of Watch looks up at them, a school of x-rayed fish splattered across the cover. He needs to say something, it’s getting awkward, and Heaphones seems to be waiting for a response. “I couldn’t put it down.” And then he looks up, and Heaphones is smiling, and Keith’s chest swells. “Do you want to read it?”
There’s a pause, where they both kind of blink as if neither of them had thought the question would come up.
“Uh...don’t you want to finish it first?”
Nice, Keith.
“I mean, I’ll be done with it by tomorrow. I could give it to you then?”
The smile he gets then is different than what he’s seen before. Brighter, almost, excited. It’s blinding but it’s also comforting, and he realizes intanstly that he wants to see it again. And again. And-
“Alright. Same time, same place, tomorrow. It’s a date.”
And then Headphones stands, getting off on a different stop today, and gives Keith a short salute as he waits for the door to open and steps back off into the city. Keith sits there, eyes blown open, as the doors slide back closed again. It’s another moment or two before his heart starts beating again, before he breathes, and when finally turns and looks back down at the book in his hands, it sets in.
A Date.
---------
He knows that’s not what it is. He knows that’s not what he meant. But that doesn’t stop the two words from moving any less around the inside of his head through the rest of that day. He knocks over a case of water bottles, bumps into a door, Allura asks if he’s getting sick, Shiro gives him that look, but it’s fine. He’s fine.
He goes home early. Shiro stops him outside.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Why?” He tucks his jacket a little more around himself, uncomfortable under all the attention he’d been getting.
Shiro frowns. “I don’t know. You seem...distracted.”
He shrugs. “I’ve got some stuff going on. It’s fine.”
“Good stuff, I hope?” His smile is soft, small, and kind. For half a second, Keith feels himself wishing he could see the guy on the subway’s smile instead.
He pauses, his face feels hot, and then he steps around Shiro down the sidewalk. “I’m fine, I promise. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Shiro doesn’t follow him, and Keith is appreciative for it, because the last thing he wants to do is explain to Shiro that he has a massive crush on an obnoxious asshole who won’t even wear his headphones when he’s listening to music.
His commute home feels off, and he can’t tell if it’s the time of day or the tension in his gut, but whatever it is he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like how he can’t help but look around for the windbreaker, or look up at every slightly musical tone of voice.
He doesn’t seem him on the way home, and he doesn’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse, because those forty five minutes drag. But he does make it; off the subway and down the street and up to his apartment, before realizes one very important thing.
He’s not giving him End of Watch.
Rather than his normal schedule, which would have him home a few hours later that night and would prompt him to go grocery shopping and perhaps due laundry of his own, Keith goes immediately to the stacks of books by his bed. They’re nothing huge or impressive, just three stacks of about ten or so books each. Things he’s picked up on sale, things he brought with him to the city. He wishes he’d brought more, now that he’s staring at it, because there’s no way he can pick something out of this to give to him.
Lending books is a big deal. Keith’s life changed because of a book Shiro gave him back in middle school, and now that he was going to lend a book to Heaphones, he has to pick it with care. What if he doesn’t like the book he gives him? How does he know what kind of books he’ll like? Keith tears through his stacks, spreading them out across the floor around him and staring down at the covers like they’ll say something to help.
He can’t give him his favorite, that would be too weirdly intimate. But he also can’t give him one he doesn’t like. That’d just a waste of time. It can’t be his most read because what if he doesn’t get it back, but all the newest ones he owns are ones he hasn’t read yet, so he can’t chance not getting those back either.
He doesn’t have time to stop by another bookstore, he’s already wasted that chance in coming home first, so he’s limited by what’s in front of him. He has to decide. It’s not a big deal anyway, he’s sure the guy on the subway isn’t thinking this much about it. He just needs to pick one. Just pick one.
It takes him all night.
---------
That next morning, Heaphones doesn’t show.
Keith may be unnecessarily excited about the next morning, and maybe his excitement is the reason he’s too ready to get out of the apartment. Why he cuts his run short to go home and shower, spends twice as long picking out an outfit, tries and decides against any kind of packaging or wrapping or anything else that in the end would be completely nonessential and kind of ridiculous.
So he scraps the wrapping idea and sets the book in his bag, packs and repacks and eventually settles on the best way to carry and hold and have everything he needs. He doesn’t know why he’s so worried - the interaction will probably take a couple of minutes, maybe a little more.
But still, Keith walks to the stop with excitement bubbling up in his chest. Finds his seat by one of the doors and settles, with plenty of room next to him for someone to sit. He holds his bag in his lap and he watches the door.
It’s dumb, he knows it is, but there’s something about being able to share this with someone he’s never really met - but someone who has smiled at him like the way Headphones does - that Keith...kind of likes. Shiro and Allura have been talking to him about making more friends, going out, breaking routine. Maybe now is his chance.
He’s jumping ahead, he knows, and he’ll stop himself once the train ride is over. He’ll pass on the book, and then they’ll go back to sitting across the car from each other. Maybe they’ll wave. Maybe they’ll talk. Maybe…
But he doesn’t show.
Keith waits as the train pulls into the stop. Waits as the doors open and people fill in and out. Even as the warning comes over the speaker and the warning starts, he still waits.
And then the train pulls away, and continues on to the next stop, and Keith doesn’t really know what to do.
So he goes to work. Goes through the motions. Tries not to think about how disappointed and embarrassed he feels. When his shift is over and he meets Shiro to train, he can tell Shiro is watching him. That Shiro knows. But instead of asking, he bends his knees a little, holds the bag steady and nods.
Keith trains harder that night than he has in weeks. By the end of it, even Shiro is out of breath, but it’s still not enough to quiet Keith’s thoughts. Shiro opens his mouth to talk about it, once they’re done and packing up, and Keith bolts.
“Sorry, gotta catch the train.”
He goes home and swallows back the slightest amount of hope that he’d see him, keeping his head down and wishing more than anything he had giant headphones to wear under his hoodie.
The next day is the same.
In fact, almost a week goes by without the slightest glimpse of an obnoxiously blue windbreaker or large green jacket. Keith’s routine stays the same, but any of that excitement, any of that interest in his commute, falls away. He starts wearing headphones, little earbuds he picks up at the gym. Finds some old CD’s tucked away in his stuff he managed to bring with him.
He doesn’t take the book out of his bag.
---------
There’s construction on a subway line.
That’s the only explanation he can think of as to why there are suddenly ten times as many commuters on his train as normal. Usually, he’s one of the first on and the car’s fairly empty. Today, there is barely room to stand at his stop, and they’re not even in the city.
It is a holiday, so that could be part of the reason, but from what he’s heard from Shiro and Allura, the tourists are usually only a problem in Manhattan. His subway train from Brooklyn shouldn’t be this packed.
Still, Keith has to squeeze through the crowd near the door, moving down through the aisle to find a handrail. He turns the music up a little louder and zones out, ignoring how with each lurch of the train he’s bumped into by another stranger.
That’s one thing he’s still not used to about New York - how close you end up to people you will never know. How, even when you try, you can’t really escape the proximity to everyone else. Keith resettles his feet at the next stop, shifts around depending on where the people were trying to get off or on the train.
He’s gotten better at forgetting what happened; he doesn’t check the train stops every time he gets close, doesn’t scan the platform just in case. Maybe he should have, maybe he should have kept it going, because if he had still been checking he wouldn’t be so surprised to find himself picking up on the briefest flash of blue out of the corner of his eyes, glancing over just to see the same cap too, down at the opposite end of the car.
Oh shit.
Keith jerks his eyes away from the other end of the car, hoping that maybe he didn’t see him. Maybe the car is too packed and he’s too busy and maybe, hopefully, he didn’t notice. As long as he keeps his eyes away from that end of the train, Keith will be fine. It’s only...well, the majority of the ride is still left, but he can make it.
He makes it a stop, and then another, and then for whatever reason there’s a mass movement of people both on and off the train and keith is pushed further inward, further towards him. Thankfully, the panic of having to see him has Keith ignoring how happy it makes him that he’s okay, that he’s not dead (yes, okay, so he had the thought and then the following realization he’d have never known if that was the case - leave him alone). The panic also takes up too much room to allow for the anger, the bitterness, the fact he was stood up on their….what, Keith? What were you stood up on?
Keith shakes his head, trying to get rid of the thoughts, but in doing so he ends up looking directly over to where the other is to find him staring back.
Oh fuck.
Heaphones’ eyes are wide, in recognition or realization or something else, and Keith immediately looks away. Except that he can’t hold that for long, and ends up turning back to see the blue windbreaker moving towards him, slowly trying to maneuver between the crowds of people, and Keith...well. He panics.
There’s nowhere for him to go. Nowhere for him to escape. He doesn’t want to talk to him, more out of fear of his own actions than anything, but if he takes too long Headphones is going to make it over and then he’ll have to interact. He’ll have to talk to him. He’ll have too many opportunities to let it out just how he felt. Too many opportunities to completely and totally make a fool of himself.
By some grace of God, the train comes to a stop, and Keith - without taking a moment to even know where it is he’s going - steps right on out of the train and onto the platform, making a beeline for the stairs to the street level.
His headphones are still in, and his head is down, and he has to push by a few people and nearly loses his bag, but he makes it, and that’s what matters. Out of the train and up the stairs and right on out onto the street - away from the windbreaker with headphones who most certainly did not look like he was thankful, and excited, and happy to see Keith. Not at all.
“Hey!”
Except Keith’s luck isn’t that good, and right as he turns he’s faced with an achingly familiar expression. A blue windbreaker, wide eyes, jostled headphones, and out of breath. Except this time, he’s not jumping turnstiles to make a train - instead, apparently, he’s leaving a train to catch up to him.
Keith is confused, enough so that he just stands there as the other leans over on his knees, needing a couple of seconds to gulp down air before he stands and holds out...a book?
The cover reads Emma by Jane Austen.
Oh no.
“Four things, actually.” He says between breaths, leaning over again and then standing, stretching a little, clearly still out of breath and apparently out of shape. “One- my aunt. She lives...in Jersey. Got sick. I had to leave. I didn’t mean to ditch you, I promise. She’s fine, it’s better now, but that’s why I was- yeah.” He’s talking fast, almost like he’s a little panicked himself, and Keith feels like he’s relaxing a little the more he hears, his eyebrow lifting slightly as Heaphones holds out his free hand in a peace sign. “Second-” And then he’s holding out the book again with his other hand. “You dropped this back there. It looks more important? I don’t know. I thought you’d want it back.”
Keith reaches out to take it from him, grabbing hold of the worn paperback book and trying to tug it out of his hand, but he comes to find that Heaphones isn’t letting go of it. Confused, Keith gives him a look, and gets a grin in return.
“Third, my name is Lance. And fourth,” Lance doesn’t leave room for a pause, doesn’t let Keith even react, “let me take you to dinner. As an apology for the whole...yeah.”
That is when he finally lets go, and Keith is left looking like he’s holding the book out to Lance instead, taken off-guard and needing a moment to kind of. Process. He looks at Lance, then down to his book, knowing that the longer he stands there the weirder it gets.
His name is Lance.
He takes a breath.
“This was for you, actually.” Keith manages to say, holding the copy back out to Lance. Lance looks confused, staring down at the book then back up to Keith. Keith shrugs. “The book exchange?”
Lance doesn’t quite seem to understand what he means, but he reaches back out for the book anyway, giving Keith the chance to be the one to hold tight to it and recreate the stalemate.
“And-” Keith smiles, though it’s a bit more like a smirk. He’s not sure where the confidence is coming from, but there’s something warm in his chest as his name is Lance, his name is Lance, he just ran after you out of the subway car and his name is Lance echoes around inside his head. “Did you just ask me out on a date?” Lance’s eyes go wide again, a red tint flashing across his cheeks. Keith, a bit blindsided by how cute the image is, speaks up again. “Because if so- the answer’s yes.”
It sets in a second later what he’s done, what he’s said, and that he’s still holding onto his torn copy of Emma. He lets go of the book, and Lance glances down at the cover and then back up to Keith before nodding.
“Okay. Okay sweet.”
“Sweet?”
“Yeah! Sweet! I was really freaking out about this, you know? When I got the call about my tía I was so freaked because I know we just agreed on the whole meeting thing and I didn’t want you to think I just ditched or died or something and I really thought about how this would go down? If that’s not weird?” Lance is tripping over his words, seeming to breathe and talk all at the same time. It’s kind of amazing, really, and Keith stands there and listens. It’s all he can really do. “And uh-”
Keith finds himself laughing, shaking his head as they both simultaneously move to walk back down the stairs towards the subway turnstiles, both of them still needing to go back to their actual stop. To their lives. As if their whole worlds hadn’t just shifted slightly.
“My name’s Keith.”
Lance nods, turning the book over in his hands to read the back, his eyebrows shooting up when he looks back over to him. “Really? Emma?”
There’s a half-second where Keith feels insecure - the thoughts that had kept him awake not that long ago bubbling up to the surface. But that half-second is soon followed by another, one that takes in the fact that Lance has asked him out on a date, and agreed to it, and he is...excited? Nervous? Worried?
They step up to the yellow line of the platform together, and Lance turns the book over in his hand again. His headphones are still playing, some beat to some hip-hop song he only recognizes because he’s heard the same beat, distant, from across a train car.
Something good, I hope?
Keith looks at the book, then back to Lance.
“You want me to take it back?”
“Nope!” Lance tucks the book into the large, stretched out pocket of his windbreaker, giving Keith a kind of proud, confident look. “I’d just never seen you read it before. But it’s got to be good.”
He blinks. “How do you know I haven’t-”
“Because I’ve seen you reading for like, month now. You never brought out this one. I’d remember.” Lance shrugs.
There’s something that coils in Keith’s chest as he gives Lance a confused, slightly alarmed look. “Have you been watching me?”
Lance looks at him, a bit confused himself, before he shrugs. “Yeah. Everyone people-watches on the subway. You’re not from here, are you?”
Keith bristles, and Lance laughs lightly as the next car comes to a stop and they wait for the people to pour out, and something about it all has Keith relaxing again. Something about the train they move to step into, the way he looks for a seat, grabs hold of the handrail. He feels...comfortable. Like this is all something he’s familiar with. Like this is something he could be familiar with.
Lance leans against the door as it closes, pulls the book back out of his pocket to open and start reading the first page, and Keith feels himself start to smile.
Yeah. Definitely something he can get used to.