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He has all the windows rolled down, the music blasting, and a nice, warm breeze sweeping through the car as he drives down the long, empty roads along the outskirts of town. It’s sweltering outside — just over 80 degrees — and Lance loves this kind of weather. It’s finally starting to feel like summer, despite the fact that it’s early May and the forecast unfortunately predicts a dip back to cooler temperatures later in the week.
But Lance is doing his best to enjoy it, nonetheless. The thing is, he’ll be graduating in a few weeks. He just took his last ever final exam — which was ridiculously hard, considering it was for a gen-ed — and all he has left to do are a couple of papers. Most of his professors have been cancelling class in lieu of giving them time to study and work on their finals, and Lance is battling a mix of excitement and premature nostalgia.
The fact that the last four years of his life have been spent here, at Altea University, is getting to him. All right?
But unlike Lance, Hunk and Pidge haven’t yet hit this specific brand of excitement and nostalgia. Pidge is too apathetic in general to care, busy with a big coding project for her CIS classes, and Hunk spends most of his time nowadays fretting over job applications and interviews.
Lance is a little spoiled on that front. He’s done internships for the same company for the past two years, and they already went ahead and let him know that he was hired. They even agreed to let him start working in August, so that he could truly enjoy the last real, job-free summer of his life.
So. Lance is nostalgic and driving along the roads he’s come to know and love in his time at college. And he’s thoroughly enjoying the warm day, turning his music up even louder as he fishes his sunglasses out of his glove compartment. They’re one of those cheap kinds, plastic and flimsy and handed out at a million different college events.
Lance pulls up at a stoplight — red, despite the fact that no cars are crossing from the other direction — and comes to a stop right next to a motorcycle. It’s only after the motorcyclist turns to look at him that Lance realizes he’s playing a pretty humiliating song.
There oughta be a law, get the Sherriff on the phone
Lord have mercy, how’d she even get them britches on?
With that honky tonk badonkadonk
Lance ignores the way he can feel his face growing warm. The dude is wearing one of those helmets with a clear visor, and Lance can see the amusement written across his face. As the song continues, Lance dances in his seat, widening his eyes dramatically at the biker.
“Now honey, you can’t blame her for what her mama gave her,” Lance sings. “It ain’t right to hate her, for working that moneymaker!” Here, he draws an exaggerated figure in the air, and the dude laughs. It isn’t loud enough to hear over his music, but Lance can see the way his lips part, the way his head tips back.
He revs his engine, still staring at Lance, and Lance pumps his breaks, making his Jeep bounce in place. When the light turns green, they share one last conspiratorial look, and then they’re shooting off.
The dude outstrips Lance easily, his motorcycle revving, and Lance honks several times in complaint. To his surprise, the stranger slows down enough for Lance to catch up again, and then they’re driving side by side.
It’s stupid. Lance knows this shit could happen anywhere, technically. But this feels like the kind of thing that would only happen at college, you know? Just two dudes, driving on an empty back road on a Sunday afternoon, momentarily bonding over the thrill of racing through a stoplight.
Lance keeps exchanging glances with the dude. He seems to be having as much fun as Lance, and they do the same thing the next time they come to a stoplight, revving their engines and then shooting through it. The motorcyclist wins again, obviously, but Lance accelerates in an attempt to catch up with him. The dude slows down, and then they’re side by side again. Lance wonders if he can hear Lance’s laughter over the wind and the music and the thundering of his heart.
Lance wouldn’t necessarily call this reckless driving. Like, it’s definitely not the safe, perfect driving that you’re taught at sixteen. They’ve both shot over the speed limit a few times, but it’s not like they’re weaving in and out of traffic, or trying to cut one another off to establish their victory. There aren’t even any other cars around, which surely would’ve prevented Lance from playing along like this.
But it’s just the two of them on wide, empty roads, and even though they’re being a little bit stupid, they’re not being a lotta bit stupid. It’s fine.
In fact, when something bad happens, it isn’t even either of their faults.
They’re at another stoplight. This road is full of ‘em, and it always depends on the luck of the draw whether you’ll get a string of greens or a boatload of reds. Any other day, Lance would’ve been irritated by the amount of red lights he’s been stopped by, but today, he doesn’t mind.
The dude plants his right foot on the ground, balancing himself now that he’s stopped, but he leans a bit toward Lance’s open window with the leverage. Lance sees him shout something, so he turns down his music.
“What?” Lance says.
“I said, what’s your name?” the dude calls. God, he really is unfairly attractive. Like, that seems obvious when dealing with a motorcyclist — at least, the concept is that they’re always hot dudes — but in reality, the only bikers Lance ever sees in real life are big, older dudes with white mustaches. Sometimes the occasional guy with his wife sitting on the back.
But, this guy? He looks like what you’re supposed to imagine when you think of a biker. Through the helmet, Lance can see that his face is framed by dark hair. No idea how long it is. But his eyes are equally dark and intense, and his mouth is drawn up in amusement. Not to mention his outfit. Leather pants — probably for motorcycle safety, but they double as a fashion statement — tall, leather boots, and a jacket that’s cropped. See, that must be for fashion over safety. His midriff is totally exposed, protected under nothing other than a t-shirt.
“I’m Lance!” Lance shouts. “And you?”
“Keith!” the dude says. “It’s nice to meet you! Do you—”
And that’s when it happens.
They’re on one of those kinds of roads where it’s two lanes on either side. Pretty high speeds — up in the 50s — but separated only by that double yellow line, not an actual median between the lanes. Pretty standard fare for these kinds of back roads, but terrifying to a new driver. At least, they were terrifying to Lance, when he was first learning to drive.
Anyway, adjacent to them, a car turns right. They have the green light, so it’s not a stop at the corner, look both ways, and turn on red kind of situation. They just slow down a little bit as they turn, but otherwise keep up the speed. It wouldn’t have been a problem normally, except that a deer jumps out from the side of the road as they’re turning, and the car immediately swerves to avoid it. And since they were already turning into the left-most lane, the only place they can swerve is onto the opposite side of the road — where Lance and his new pal Keith are stopped, still waiting for the light to turn.
The thing is, this all happens in an instant. Keith’s mouth is still partially open, parted from having just said his name and halfway through some other sentence. His eyes are still twinkling with amusement and the excitement that comes with making a new friend in an odd situation — straight college vibes, Lance swears, not to be found anywhere else — when it all happens. The car turns, swerves, and crashes into the side of Keith’s motorcycle.
Just like that, Keith is thrown from the motorcycle — holy shit — and he tumbles over the hood of Lance’s car, landing on the other side. The motorcycle smashes into Lance’s door. And the other car, having successfully avoided the deer but smacked into an innocent bystander instead, peels off in a panic.
“Keith!” Lance shouts, the terror finally catching up with him. He tries to open his door, but the mechanism is either broken or the motorcycle too heavy, pressed up against it, leaving Lance just jiggling his door handle furiously. Some of the sheer panic fades a little bit, allowing Lance to actually use his brain, and he puts his car in park before scrambling over the center console and bursting out the passenger side.
Keith is laying on the ground just beside Lance’s car. He seems dazed, but he’s still moving around.
“Dude,” Lance says, dropping to his knees beside him. He grips his arm, his eyes scanning over his body frantically, looking for any injuries. “Are you okay?”
Keith groans. He sits up a bit, extremely slow, and Lance helps him, keeping a hand behind his back to help him remain upright. Keith breathes a thanks.
“I think I’m good,” he says. “I’m pretty sure the car hit my motorcycle, not me. Are they here?”
Lance grunts. “Bastard drove off,” he admits. “Sorry, I — I should’ve looked at the license plate. Fuck. I was freaking out, I didn’t even think about it…”
“It’s okay,” Keith says. “Maybe the police will track him down. Shit, I hope insurance covers my bike.”
“I hope insurance covers your hospital bill,” Lance scoffs. “Seriously, you gotta get checked out. That didn’t look pretty.”
“It looked a little pretty. Before I got hit by a car,” Keith says.
Lance blinks at him. Stares. His eyebrows slowly furrow together, trying to connect the dots, and then — “Wait, are you talking about me? That was horrible.”
Keith shrugs, then grunts. “I don’t get any better at it, even when I’m not injured. Just so you’re aware.”
“You totally could’ve used, ‘Are you an angel?’ Like, right when I asked if you were okay.”
“Didn’t think of that.”
“Or you could’ve been like, ‘Worth it, since I got to talk to you.’”
“Didn’t think of that,” Keith repeats.
“To be clear, I would absolutely be flirting back if I wasn’t freaking out right now,” Lance says.
“Good to know,” Keith says. “Should we call 911 now?”
—
They do call 911. It doesn’t take them long to show up, but Lance and Keith sit on the edge of the road — Lance with an arm behind his back, propping him up — as they wait. Lance learns that Keith is a local, but that he’s taken classes part-time several times over the years. He works at the autoshop in town with his older brother, so they can probably get Lance’s car looked at. And he actually saw Lance, once before, but he’s not surprised that Lance doesn’t remember.
“Wait, what?” Lance blurts. “When?”
But at that moment, the police finally show up. Lance is dragged away for a statement, and paramedics surround Keith and help him limp to an ambulance, where they shine flashlights in his eyes and take his blood pressure and insist that they have to take him to the hospital, it’s protocol.
Lance, meanwhile, tells the police everything he remembers. It was a gray sedan. The license plate had yellow writing, he thinks. It’s probably damaged on the front left bumper, due to hitting a dude and a motorcycle. The police give Lance their non-emergency line, where he can ask for updates to see if they found the guy, and they also give him a number to call for insurance purposes.
And they they wrap it up and leave Lance behind. Keith, meanwhile, is loaded onto the ambulance, which the paramedics tell him he can’t get on.
“Sorry, family only,” they say.
“But—”
“Sorry, sir, we have to get to the hospital right away. He has a concussion, but the doctors should really check him out.”
Lance exchanges one last glance with Keith over their shoulders, and then the ambulance peels away, too, lights flashing but the alarms not blaring. So Lance huffs and shuffles back toward his car (and Keith’s motorcycle), both of which seem to be in bad shape.
Shit. He didn’t even get Keith’s number. And, now that he thinks about it, which autoshop does Keith work at? There’s, like, seven just by Lance’s apartment. They’re all over the place, and Lance knows this for a fact, because he always calls a bunch of them whenever his car has a problem, looking for the one with the shortest wait time.
“Fuck,” Lance mutters, pacing in front of his car. He thinks it’ll still drive, though he’ll have to climb in through the passenger side. But the thought of leaving Keith’s bike here leaves a bad taste in his mouth, so Lance calls a tow truck and waits for them to come and pick it up.
By then, nearly an hour has passed, and Lance is still torn up about the fact that he didn’t get Keith’s number.
Okay, admission time. Lance isn’t exactly bad in the dating apartment. Or, at least, the hooking up department. He meets people pretty frequently, but while hooking up is fun, it’s not what Lance is actually looking for.
He’s had a couple girlfriends in the past, but nothing really long term. For whatever reason, Lance has a hard time finding people he really clicks with on a deeper level. And he knows that he’s only known Keith for an hour at most — disregarding whatever secret meeting they’ve apparently had in the past — but Lance felt this… spark. As cheesy as it sounds.
Sure, it could be nothing. It could just be attraction. But what a hell of a meeting, right? Lance is a romantic, and he knows that having someone tumble over the hood of your car isn’t exactly swoon-worthy, but Lance can already imagine it — telling a new group of acquaintances, years from now, oh yeah, I knew he was the one when I hit him with my car. (Yeah, Lance likes to exaggerate certain aspects of his stories for comedic effect. So what?)
Anyway. It’s a Sunday afternoon. Lance is weeks away from graduating. He has one, last workless summer in this town he loves so much, and a dude just tumbled over his car and still looked beautiful despite that. Lance really doesn’t have anything better to do than track him down.
So, Lance heads to the local hospital — having crawled into his car from the opposite side — and he parks in the visitor’s section and makes his way inside. The waiting room is teeming with people. Old ladies sitting in the chairs, flipping through magazines with reading glasses perched on their noses. Some frat bro, holding a bloody wad of tissues over his face, slouching in a chair. A woman standing impatiently in a corner, checking her watch. Dads standing before a TV, arms crossed. A kid whining, tugging on his mom’s pants.
Lance bypasses them all, making his way to the counter.
“Hi there!” Lance says.
“Good afternoon,” says the girl behind the counter. She looks up from her computer. “How can I help you?”
“Right. I’m here to visit a friend of mine. He just came in a bit ago — a car hit him? His name is Keith.”
Someone comes up to stand in line behind Lance, which always makes him nervous. Now he feels like he’s gotta be quick. He spares a glance for the dude, then abruptly averts his eyes, feeling like it’s probably rude to stare. The dude had a metal arm, some sort of scar right across the middle of his face, and a shock of white hair at the front of his head. Obviously, his appearance is sick as fuck, but Lance would bet that this dude gets enough of strangers staring.
“Last name?” the girl says.
“What?”
“What’s the patient’s last name, sir?”
Lance wracks his brains. Keith definitely didn’t mention that, did he? Shit.
“Um. He was on a motorcycle. He was hit by a car?”
“I know that, sir,” the girl says. “But I need you to confirm the patient’s identity.” She’s staring at him suspiciously. Lance feels his armpits get slick. Great, now this is awkward and he’s holding up the line and she thinks he’s some creep who doesn’t even know Keith. Which — well, Lance would argue that their hour of acquaintanceship counts.
The man behind Lance coughs. “Kogane.”
Lance blinks. He glances at the dude again, and he’s grinning. Just a little bit.
“Kogane,” Lance says. Shot in the dark.
The woman hums. “And your relation to the patient?”
“What?”
“Family only,” she says.
What the fuck is up with this hospital? Is this standard? A dude gets a concussion and suddenly only his closest relatives can see how he’s doing?
“Fiancé,” Lance blurts. The man behind him stifles a laugh, disguising it as another cough, and the woman frowns.
“All right,” she says. “He’s in room 204. Second floor.”
“Thank you,” Lance says.
“I’m with him,” the dude behind Lance says. “I’m Keith’s brother.”
“Of course. Go right ahead, sir.”
Lance is blushing. Gaping. Keith’s brother joins Lance, and they leave the waiting room and head toward the elevator.
“I didn’t know Keith had a fiancé,” he says. “I’m Shiro.”
“Lance,” Lance says. “And we just met, actually.”
Shiro hums. “That was fast.”
“I hit him with my car,” Lance says, and Shiro gapes at him, his expression just barely starting to morph into rage. “I mean! Some random dude hit him first, but then he tumbled over my car, and I — oh, God. I called the police and we hung out while we waited for them. I paid for a tow for his bike. I — shit, please don’t kill me.”
Shiro snorts. “You’re fine,” he says. “I don’t know why you worded it like that, though.”
“Me neither,” Lance huffs. The elevator stops, releasing them on the second floor. “So, you work at the autoshop with Keith?”
“Keith works at the autoshop with me,” Shiro says. “I own it.”
“Cool, cool, cool,” Lance says.
They stop in front of room 204 just as a doctor’s coming out, holding a clipboard. “Ah, you must be the family!” he says. He’s propping the door open with his body, and Lance can see Keith inside the room, sitting at the end of a bed. He raises his eyebrows at Lance, clearly surprised to see him.
Shit. Is this weird? Is it weird to visit a guy in the hopsital that you’ve just met? It can’t be that weird, Lance reasons. Not if you were there with them when they were hit by a car. Obviously, Lance would be concerned about Keith’s wellbeing.
“Sure are,” Shiro says. “I’m the brother, he’s the fiancé.”
Keith’s eyebrows shoot up even higher. Lance ignores the fact that you could fry an egg on his face.
“Congratulations,” the doctor says to Lance absently. “Well, Keith seems to be doing all right! He’s got a concussion, some bruised ribs, and he needed three stitches on his hip. All in all, a pretty good outcome for being hit by a car.”
“That’s great news,” Shiro says.
“I’m going to finish up some paper work. We’ll keep Keith for another hour or so, just to make sure he’s good, and then he’ll be free to go. Any questions?”
“I think we’re good,” Shiro says. “Thank you.”
With that, the doctor bids them farewell and heads down the hall. Shiro and Lance step into the room.
“Shiro,” Keith says. “Lance.”
“Good, you actually know this guy,” Shiro says. Lance is pretty sure he’s joking, so he laughs. But he’s also a little bit scared of him, so his laugh is tinged with fear. Keith rolls his eyes, though, so Lance goes ahead and assumes it really is a joke.
“How could I not know my own fiancé?” Keith says, his gaze shifting to Lance.
“Sorry,” Lance blurts. “They were only letting in family.”
“And they let you in?” Keith says, turning his attention back to Shiro.
“I told them I was your brother.”
“Wait, you’re not?” Lance blurts. “But… Keith mentioned having a brother.”
Shiro shrugs. “We’re practically brothers,” he says. “Not by blood, though. Keith was a delinquent in high school. He worked for me at the time, but he was on the brink of getting sent to juvie. We cut a deal with the foster system, let him take one more stab at it, but live with me.”
“Shiro likes to get all my baggage out of the way before I actually date a guy,” Keith says through gritted teeth, glaring at Shiro.
“I thought it might’ve come up already, given the whole fiancé thing.”
“I hate you,” Keith grumbles, though he secretly looks kind of fond. “Sorry about him.”
Lance grins. “He helped me get in. I didn’t know your last name.”
“Oh, yeah,” Keith says.
“I also didn’t have your number, or know which autoshop you worked at. I was afraid I’d never find you again, so… Well, that’s why I’m here.”
“Right. Shit,” Keith mutters. “It’s the concussion.”
Shiro makes an uncertain sound. “Honestly, I think it might just be you.”
“Shut up, Shiro. Why are you even here?”
Shiro gasps. “Ungrateful!”
Lance can’t help grinning. He likes watching the two of them. It reminds him of being with his own siblings.
Anyway, they manage to exchange numbers, finally. Lance tells Keith the name of the company that towed his motorcycle, and he promises to text Keith. They agree to arrange a date once Keith’s concussion is gone, both of them ignoring Shiro’s amused looks. Lance only leaves when he gets a call from Hunk, frantically waving goodbye to Keith as he explains his predicament on the phone.
(“…No, I’m at the hospital… I’m fine! A guy got hit by a car and tumbled over my hood… No, I didn’t hit him, jeez!… What do you mean, ‘typical’?!”)
—
Waiting for Keith to feel better is agonizing. Lance is jittery with anticipation. It doesn’t help that they’ve texted a few times, where Keith has been equally (endearingly) awful at flirting. He has this dry sense of humor which really appeals to Lance. It’s definitely not the kind of humor that should have Lance giggling in his bed, rereading their texts late at night, but… Well. What can he say?
And, yeah, Lance knows that they’ll be going on a date pretty soon, and he’ll find out plenty about Keith then. But it’s the twenty-first century. In this day and age, it’s practically irresponsible to go on a date with someone without stalking them on social media first.
Lance finds Keith’s Twitter. He has less than a hundred followers and even less tweets than that. His last tweet was from several months ago. It says, Dropped a wrench on my foot in front of a customer. They laughed. I laughed too because I was embarrassed but my toenail is purple and I think it’s going to fall off send help.
His tweets are mostly random anecdotes like that one, most with huge chunks of time between them. There’s one from the beginning of the school year that catches Lance’s eye.
Not to sound gayer than usual but I think I just fell in love in a single night.
Lance raises his eyebrows. The tweet has one like — Shiro — which Lance is relieved about. Hopefully, Keith’s long-forgotten about this mystery guy.
Next, Lance finds his Instagram. It’s similarly sparse, with just as few followers, but endearing all the same. He doesn’t have any stories saved on his profile, which doesn’t surprise Lance. Keith doesn’t seem like an avid social media user kind of guy (which, obviously, Lance absolutely is).
The most recent post, depressingly enough, is Keith’s motorcycle. The caption is, Got a new decal. It’s literally just the motorcycle — the kind of picture that Lance would usually scroll past without even acknowledging — but somehow, because it’s Keith, it’s adorable.
Like, Lance doesn’t give a fuck about cars. He knows next to nothing about them and calls his sister whenever he so much as hits a pothole, needing her expert opinion on whether his car’s about to blow up or not. But, knowing that Keith really knows cars, and clearly really likes his motorcycle (rest in peace), makes Lance analyze the picture all the more closely.
The flames that Keith added to the bike should honestly be tacky, but they appear to be painted on, not stickers, which makes it cooler to Lance. Plus, after staring at the picture for long enough, Lance realizes that he can see Keith’s reflection in the silver of the bike. He’s distorted a bit, but he’s wearing that same leather and crop top combo, plus a pair of sunglasses perched on his head, pushing his hair back.
The next picture is one of Keith and Shiro. Shiro has his arm around Keith’s shoulders, a wide grin on his face. His prosthetic is held up, his metal fingers in a peace sign. Keith stands there with his arms crossed, a glare on his face. Somehow, he looks amused at the same time. Caption: Happy birthday Shiro.
Lance scrolls to the next picture and almost drops his phone. First of all, it’s the only post so far that has more than one picture in the post. And second, Keith looks so cute that Lance thinks he’s going to combust.
The first picture is of Keith, his face mushed up close to that of a huge dog’s. He’s grinning, the picture slightly blurry, and the dog has its mouth wide open in an unmistakable smile. Lance swipes, and the next picture is even blurrier, the dog turning its head toward Keith, who’s leaning away and laughing. In the last picture, the dog’s tongue is extended, making contact with Keith’s cheek. It’s the blurriest one yet, and Keith’s eyes are clenched shut. The caption reads, Kosmo. Apt.
There’s a knock at Lance’s door. Distracted, he calls, “Come in!”
Pidge barges in, climbing onto Lance’s bed without even asking. She rearranges Lance’s pillows, propping them up behind her, and then tugs Lance’s comforter over her legs.
“Make yourself at home,” Lance says.
“Done.”
“What’s up?” Lance says.
“Hunk and I want to get wine drunk and watch a scary movie,” Pidge says.
“Fun!”
“And maybe we can pick up something fun to eat too,” Pidge suggests. Then she grabs Lance’s wrist, turning his phone screen toward her. “Ugh, really, Lance?”
“What!”
“You’re already going on a date with him. Do you really need to stalk him, too?”
“What’s the problem with that?”
“HUNK,” Pidge hollers.
“WHAT?” Hunk yells back, from elsewhere in the apartment.
“C’MERE.”
They hear Hunk’s footsteps come up the stairs. It sounds like he opens Pidge’s door, first, before trying Lance’s door. “Woah, cuddle party without me?”
“That’s why we called you here,” Lance says.
“Not true,” Pidge says. “Tell Lance to stop stalking Keith online.”
Hunk groans. “Again, buddy?” he says, climbing onto the bed. Lance throws his now blanket-less legs over his lap.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lance says. “This is the first time I’ve looked him up.”
“Yeah, but you do this every time you have a date,” Pidge points out. “And it always turns out horrible.”
“What? No it doesn’t!”
“It does,” Hunk says, much more sympathetically. “You always get really excited about them, but then you’re more attached than they are. You’re already thinking about the second and third dates when you’re still on your first.”
“I don’t… That’s not…”
“I’m confiscating this,” Pidge says, snatching his phone.
“Hey!”
“Just for the night!” Pidge says. “We need your full, undivided attention. How many more movie nights will we get?”
Lance gapes, his chest twisting. “Hey,” he says. “We don’t talk about The End Of Days.”
Hunk squeezes Lance’s legs. “You know we’ll still hang out after we graduate, right?”
Lance huffs. “It won’t be the same, though,” he argues. “We won’t live together. We won’t be able to do things on a whim. We’ll have to plan them. Like, ahead of time. And we’ll have stupid jobs and we won’t live in the same house and—”
“Enough of that,” Pidge says, smacking a hand over his mouth. “Maybe it’ll be different, but it’ll be fun in a new way. Maybe it’ll feel more special, since we’ll have to plan it. Maybe we’ll go all out every time. Or maybe it’ll feel just the same as old times, despite everything that’s different.”
Lance pouts. “I know,” he mutters. “I’m just sad about it.”
“Let’s forget about feelings for a bit and get wine drunk,” Hunk suggests.
“The only feeling we’ll have is fear,” Pidge proclaims. “Seriously, what movie are we gonna watch?”
“Fine,” Lance says. “But I’m getting my own bottle.” He leaps out of bed, reaching for his keys, before thinking better of it. “And Hunk’s driving!”
Despite everything, Lance really does manage to forget his melancholy feelings and have fun. They pile onto the couch, limbs thrown over limbs (with a lot of complaining from Pidge), and they each drink from their own bottles, the opposite of sophistication. The movie is more horrible than horrifying, but it’s fun all the same and a few of the scares even get to them. But mostly, they talk over the movie, making fun of the character’s for making stupid choices, and they drink anytime one of them accurately predicts a scare that’s about to happen.
“We should’ve gotten more wine,” Hunk says. “I feel like we need a last celebration with Blackout Lance.”
Lance cringes. “God, no,” he says. “If we never see Blackout Lance again, it’ll be too soon.”
“Not true!” Pidge shouts. “I love that man! He’s my hero!”
Lance cringes, burying his face in Hunk’s shoulder. See, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge have been friends since their freshman year of college. They’ve been through a lot together. And, unfortunately, some of the things they’ve been through included Blackout Lance.
He’s a menace to society, honestly. It doesn’t happen too often, thank God. But every once in a while — maybe once or twice a year — Blackout Lance emerges. It’s usually because of a celebration, like Halloween or Lance’s birthday, and the next day is always a riot (for everyone else) and a nightmare (for Lance).
He becomes the center of attention. Like, more than usual. His friends swear he’s a charming blackout drunk, but the stories always make Lance cringe with embarrassment. Plus, there’s his signature trait.
Every single time, without fail, Blackout Lance disappears. No one knows why. No one knows how. But when Lance is blackout, he will always find a way to sneak off. Granted, he always finds his way back to his friends, usually to a chorus of cheers, they assure him, but because of his incredibly-hampered mental state, he can never explain to them where he disappeared to. And, of course, Lance never remembers where he went the next day, either. Sometimes, there’s a picture or two on his phone — never good enough proof to explain where he was, or what he was doing — but for the most part, it remains an eternal mystery.
Lance cackles, struggling against Hunk where he pins him down on the couch. Pidge is sitting on his chest, holding her bottle of wine threateningly above Lance. He’s said something along the lines of leaving Blackout Lance in college, never to be seen again, which Pidge took offense to.
“You take that back!” she snaps. “He deserves to live just as much as you do!”
Lance struggles, laughing so hard that tears escape from the corners of his eyes. It’s hard to breathe, and not because Pidge is sitting on him. She tips her bottle a little more, and Lance fears that she might actually start trying to dribble it into his mouth soon. The horror movie is forgotten completely, despite the relentless screaming and sharp music as the protagonists are chased through the woods.
Yeah. Lance is really, really going to miss this.
—
Keith lets Lance know that he’s starting to feel better. He predicts that he’ll be mostly, if not fully, better by Saturday, so they plan their date for then. They don’t decide exactly what they’re going to do, which is both relieving and anxiety-inducing. Lance likes that it frees them up for spontaneity, but he’s afraid that without having a plan, he’ll flounder trying to think of what to do and make a fool of himself.
In the meantime, he decides that he’ll finally go about getting his car fixed. He’s been putting it off, seeing as it still drives just fine, but he’s getting pretty tired of entering from the passenger side and climbing over the center console. He’s already accidentally honked on four separate occasions, one of his limbs knocking into the steering wheel, and the whole spectacle of it all is finally starting to embarrass him.
Part of him wants to ask Keith which autoshop he works at, just so he can have an excuse to see him again before their date, but that feels a little clingy and embarrassing, and Lance doesn’t feel like having to make himself presentable to run to a car shop anyway.
“I’m heading out!” he calls, thundering down the stairs.
“Let me know if you get food!” Pidge shouts from her room.
“Will do!” Lance says, and then he’s slamming the front door behind him and crawling into his car, hopefully for the last time. He ends up going to one of the autoshops along Main Street, parking out front before going inside, the tinkling bell announcing his presence.
There’s no one behind the counter and also no one in the waiting room. Lance decides to take that as a good sign — score, no line! — rather than a bad sign of there being no customers. He rings the bell at the counter, just in case they didn’t hear the front door, and pulls out his phone to wait.
And then, less than a minute later: “Fancy seeing you here.”
Lance gapes. “Shiro!” he says.
“Lance. Good to see you again.”
“Yeah, you too,” Lance says absently. “I had no idea this was your place.”
“Keith will be excited to see you,” Shiro says with a knowing smile. “What can I do for you?”
“My door is kind of crushed in,” Lance says. “From the car crash. It drives just fine, but I have to get in and out through the passenger side.”
Shiro nods. “Sounds like something we can fix, but I’ll have to see it. I can’t promise it’ll look pretty, but I think we can get the door to open okay.”
“That’s perfect,” Lance admits.
“Why don’t you grab your car and pull around to the garage? I’ll meet you there.”
So, Lance crawls into his car for the last last time, and he pulls into the empty spot in the garage. He crawls through his car once again, stumbling out the passenger side, where he realizes that he’s standing over a pair of legs.
Two hands grip the car that the upper-half of the legs’ body are under, and the rest of the person slides out, revealing Keith. He’s squinting, looking disgruntled, but his expression morphs into one of surprise — then, a tinge of embarrassment — as he realizes who’s standing over him.
“Oh. Lance. Hi,” Keith blurts. Lance… should probably move. He’s standing over Keith, literally, with a foot on either side of his hip. Lance holds out a hand, and Keith takes it, letting Lance drag him to his feet.
“Hi,” Lance says. “Sorry, Shiro told me to pull in here.”
Keith rolls his eyes. “We normally do that. He must’ve known I was working on this car.”
“And took into account that I’d have to get out from the passenger side,” Lance says, angling his thumb toward his car. Keith immediately circles it, whistling at the damage.
“Damn,” he says.
“I like to think that this is where your concussion happened,” Lance says, pointing to a particularly large dent. It’s too low for Keith’s head to actually have hit it, and Lance is pretty sure the smacking-his-head-on-the-ground is what concussed him anyway, but Keith laughs.
“You like to think that, huh?”
“Oh, yeah,” Lance says. “You know, something for you to remember me by until our date.”
“Right. Because the memory of that horrible song you were playing wasn’t reminder enough.”
Lance gasps, pressing a hand to his chest. “You take that back,” he says. “Honky tonk badonkadonk is a classic.”
“Yep. I’m turned off even hearing that combination of words.”
That surprises a laugh out of Lance, and he suddenly realizes how close they’re standing. He’s not sure who, or when, but one or both of them must’ve shuffled forward during the course of their conversation. If Lance moved his foot a little more, he could press it against the toes of Keith’s boot.
This close, Lance can tell that he’s a little bit taller. Just barely. Keith’s hair is pulled up into a bun, which is totally not something Lance thought he would’ve been into before he saw it on Keith. There’s a smudge of oil on Keith’s cheek, which, again, shouldn’t be so hot. He’s wearing a black muscle tank, and he’s glistening with sweat from working in the heat of the garage, but God dammit, if he isn’t the most attractive person Lance has ever seen…
“Whelp!” Shiro says, clapping his hands loudly. Lance and Keith jump apart. Lance hits his back on his rear view mirror, which immediately snaps off. Apparently, it was hanging on by a thread.
“Shit,” Lance says.
Keith winces. “That’ll be on the house,” he promises.
“Give me a few hours, and I’ll have this fixed up for you. You can wait here if you want, or I can call you when it’s done.”
The thought of waiting here is almost too appealing. Lance thinks he could easily pass the time watching Keith work, the muscles in his arms rippling as he pulled himself under cars, working with tools and getting sweatier and smearing more oil on himself…
God, yeah, not happening. Lance will combust. Plus, he knows himself. He’s talkative and distracting and he’s probably be the cause of it taking twice as long for Keith to complete any task.
“I’ll run a few errands!” Lance decides. He blurts it, just on the side of too loud, but Shiro just looks amused and Keith looks a little bit shy. Cute.
“Sounds good,” Shiro says, so Lance heads off to the shopping center nearby to waste his time. He browses a thrift shop, accidentally buying a few new items of clothes, then heads to a furniture store despite not needing any furniture at all. When Shiro eventually calls him, Lance stops at an ice cream shop, bringing a cone for both Shiro and Keith and eating his on the way.
Which, right, maybe not a good idea. Keith can hardly seem to get a word out. He holds his cone in a tight grip, and he hardly takes his eyes off Lance every time he goes for a lick. Shiro bites into his ice cream like a heathen, though Lance doesn’t comment, wanting to remain on his good side.
His car is fixed, most of the dents bumped back out and the door thankfully working again. Shiro even gave him an awesome discount — the my brother has a crush on you 30% off special! — and then Lance is ready to be on his way.
Before he goes, though, he stops by Keith and grabs his elbow. “Still good for Saturday?” he says.
“What? Oh! Yes, yeah. Yes.”
Lance grins. “Perfect. See you then.” And, before he loses his courage, he leans in and pecks Keith on the cheek. He walks off more confidently than he feels, waving jauntily over his shoulder, but in all actuality his knees are trembling and his face is bright pink.
He adjusts his mirror before he leaves, where he finds Shiro slapping Keith’s back heartily, cackling, Keith with his face buried in his hands, and his ice cream cone sitting upside down on the ground. Whoops.
—
“Wallet?”
“Check.”
“Phone?”
“Check.”
“Cologne?”
“Check.”
“Condoms?”
“Che— wait, condoms? Do you really think I should bring some?”
“I mean, you can never be too careful,” Pidge says.
“But you also don’t want to be presumptuous,” Hunk insists.
“He won’t know you were being presumptuous unless you end up having sex, in which case, he’ll be glad you were prepared,” Pidge corrects.
“I don’t think I want to have sex this soon,” Lance decides. “I’m really excited about this. I don’t wanna fuck it up.”
“You won’t be fucking anything up without condoms,” Pidge mutters.
“Not bringing them. Decided,” Lance says.
“Your charming and lovable personality?” Hunk says.
Lance grins. It’s just like Hunk to help pump him up before a date. He shoots him finger guns, grinning obnoxiously. “You know I always keep that thang on me.”
“You’re all set,” Pidge tells him. “Stop freaking out and go meet him. Otherwise you won’t be early enough and you’ll panic about potentially being late.”
“See? This is why I love you guys,” Lance says. “You know me better than I know myself.”
Lance leaves with pretty of time to spare, heading downtown. He and Keith agreed to meet in the parking garage — creepy place to meet, Lance is aware, but they don’t know what they’re doing yet and this place made sense. He assumes that he’d have beaten Keith here, being as early as he is, but then he notices a dude sitting on a motorcycle, scrolling on his phone.
Lance gets out of his car — through the driver-side door, hallelujah — and makes his way toward the biker. He recognizes that flame decal.
“Keith?”
Keith’s head jerks up. He shoves his phone into his pocket, jumps off the bike (and stumbles a bit), and then yanks his helmet off his head. He immediately runs a hand through his hair, nervous.
“Lance! Hi,” he says. “You’re early.”
“So are you,” Lance says. “And you rode your motorcycle here. Jeez.”
“My concussion’s gone,” Keith insists. “And Shiro fixed it for me. It’s good as new.”
“I wondered if you’d be nervous on it, now.”
Keith shrugs. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been in an accident. And it wasn’t even because of something I did, so.”
“Fair,” Lance says. “Ready?”
Keith nods. He hangs his helmet on his handlebar, apparently confident enough that no one will steal it, and they set off to walk down the streets.
Normally, this is the part of dates that Lance hates. There’s all this anticipation, all this build up, and when you finally get there, it’s so awkward. There’s all this small talk. Mention of what you do, what you want to do in the future, where you’re from, what you’re looking for in a relationship, what your last relationships have been like — it’s all so dreadfully boring and repetitive.
But with Keith, it’s totally different. For one thing, they’ve already gotten introductions out of the way. They’ve even knocked out a few of those questions. They’ve met on three separate occasions, and the fact that Keith was literally hit by a car kind of shattered any ice that might’ve ever been there. Plus, since they’ve texted quite a few times since they met, they already know each other pretty well.
Honestly, it feels more like a second or third date, if you ignore the first date jitters.
“My friend Hunk found a cat here,” Lance says, gesturing to an alley. “We tried to find her owner for months, but it turned out she was a stray. Except she’d lived with us for so long at that point that we couldn’t bear to get rid of her. I ended up adopting her.”
“I adopted my dog to spite Shiro.”
“What?”
“It was about a year after he’d taken me in. I was still grumpy and an asshole, and I was just waiting for the inevitable day when Shiro would kick me out, too. I said as much to him one day, and Shiro told me there was nothing I could do to make him kick me out. So I adopted a dog.”
Lance wheezes, grabbing a bench for balance. “You’re kidding,” he says.
“Nope,” Keith says. “He’s a husky, too. I bought the biggest kind I saw.”
“And how did Shiro react?”
“His eye got really twitchy. I thought he was going to tell me to return him for sure, but he let me keep him. Now he loves Kosmo as much as I do.”
They wander in and out of a bunch of little shops, antique stores and craft stores and stores full of knick-knacks. They make fun of the stupid stickers in one shop. Lance buys a little keychain that looks scarily similar to his cat, Blue. They get distracted by a stack of boardgames for nearly twenty minutes, sorting through them and reading the backs of them all, talking about what kind of games they like to play and which ones here sound fun.
Lance ends up buying one of those, too, and they make a promise to play it with each other sometime soon. They stop by a little brewery — a place Lance has never seen before, which Keith swears is known only by locals — for beer and music. They end up crowed around a tiny table in the back of the place, the stools so high that their feet don’t reach the ground, and Lance feels giddy and warm and excited for reasons completely unrelated to alcohol.
“Hey, Keith,” Lance says, eyeing him over the rim of his drink.
“Hey, Lance,” Keith echoes.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” Lance says. “Like, a lot, a lot.”
“Me too,” Keith says.
“Usually, I’m too nervous on dates to have any fun,” Lance admits. “I’m usually trying too hard to be funny. Or worrying about everything I’m saying, or if I’m being entertaining, or whatever. But… I’m just having a lot of fun,” Lance says.
Keith has this cute, shy little smile that he likes to employ. Lance has been noting some of Keith’s different smiles since he first met him. For example, there’s the smile that precedes and follows a laugh. It makes his eyes twinkle, and the way it lingers after he laughs makes it look like he’s waiting to break into laugher again.
Then there’s his cocky, smirky kind of smile. This one happens a lot when he makes a joke, or when he says something particularly snarky, also meant to make Lance laugh.
But there’s also this one. The one that looks like Keith isn’t controlling it at all. Like it snuck onto his face, belying Keith’s surprise. It’s a little embarrassed, a little shy. Lance wants to kiss that smile off his lips.
“Seriously, me too,” Keith agrees. He hides that smile by taking a sip of his beer. “I usually feel really awkward,” he admits. “And I think I usually come off as an asshole. Nerves,” he adds with a shrug. “But you’re really easy to be around.”
Lance gathers his courage and reaches under the table. His fingers bump into Keith’s knee, and Keith slides his fingers into Lance’s, just like he was hoping. Lance flushes, shooting Keith a secretive smile.
“I’m glad you got hit into my car,” Lance says. “You know. In a, ‘I’m glad we met,’ kind of way.”
Keith snorts, almost spilling his drink. “You know, I feel like I didn’t need to be flung into your car for us to have met.”
Lance raises his eyebrows. “I remember you mentioned us meeting once before,” Lance says. “Kind of crazy how I don’t remember that.” He’d tried to get Keith to tell him over text, but Keith had said something about the mystery of it all. When Lance had begged him, Keith had promised to tell him in person, claiming it was too long to type.
Keith grins. The cocky, smirky one. “All right,” he says. “Interrupt me if it starts to ring any bells.”
—
It was Shiro who’d insisted on going out for Keith’s birthday. Keith had never been much for celebrating. A habit left over from his years in foster care. For a long time, his birthday had simply acted as a reminder that he was in someone else’s care each and every year. Half the time, they didn’t even know it was Keith’s birthday, and he rarely opted to mention it.
Ever since he’d moved in with Shiro, though, they never failed to celebrate. But celebrating in a college town had a lot of drawbacks. For one thing, the bars were always crowded on the weekends. And on the weekend just before Halloween? Forget it.
So far, the night had consisted of Shiro dragging Keith from one bar to the next, telling Keith to wait at a table while he got them drinks, and Keith sitting alone anywhere from ten to thirty minutes as he waited for Shiro to return. Every drink just about managed to get Keith buzzed, and the long wait between drinks almost ensured that Keith lost it by the time he had another one in his hand.
To be honest, Keith is ready to go home. It’s almost midnight, which means Keith’s birthday is almost over anyway. He’d rather end the night on their couch at home, watching some sort of sitcom with cheap beers, instead of sitting at a table alone in a far too loud bar, waiting for Shiro to return with a drink much more expensive than it needs to be.
That’s exactly what Keith is doing when he meets him. The pretty boy.
He stumbles out of the crowd, looking hunted, and invites himself to the chair across from Keith. It takes him long enough to sit down that Keith gets a good look at his costume — clearly a student from Altea University. He’s wearing teeny-tiny orange shorts, an equally tiny crop top, and he has handcuffs dangling from his left wrist. He’s wearing white tennis shoes with knee-high black and white socks, and sprawled across the butt of his shorts is a single word: GUILTY.
“Hey,” the pretty boy says with a rakish grin, obviously wasted.
Keith immediately sits up straighter. “Hi,” he says.
“What are you doing all alone?” the pretty boy says, his eyebrows drawing down in obvious concern. “You’re way too gorgeous to be by yourself. Do you have a girlfriend?”
“I’m gay,” Keith says.
“Thank God,” says the pretty boy, slamming both hands on the table. “Boyfriend, then?”
“Nope,” Keith says. “I’m here with my brother. He’s getting us drinks.”
“Drinks!” the boy says. “Yeah, you def’nitely need a drink. I mentioned that you’re gorgeous, right? Like, ten outta ten. Is it okay that I’m sitting here?”
“Yes,” Keith says. He doesn’t know which question he’s answering. Both.
“Good,” the boy says. “And is it— s’it okay that I’m flirting with you? ‘Cause your eyes, dude, they’re like. They’re super pretty.”
Keith knows that this guy is gone. But he doesn’t care. It feels nice to be flirted with, okay? Even by a guy who probably can’t even see straight.
“Yeah,” Keith says. “That’s fine.”
“Where’s your costume, dude? It’s Halloween! I’m a prisoner,” he says, which is already obvious.
“I’m celebrating my birthday, actually.”
The pretty boy squeals. “For real?!” he says. Without waiting for Keith to answer, he jumps to his feet — swaying a bit — and grabs Keith’s hand, yanking him to his feet too. He’s not so sure that he trust the judgement of someone this drunk, but, well. He’s really, really pretty. So Keith lets him lead him away from his table.
“C’mon,” he says. “I got a hookup here. Watch this.” Their hands still intertwined, the pretty boy drags Keith through the crowd — cutting a bunch of people definitely in line for drinks — and leans up against the bar. The bartenders are both at the other side, but the pretty boy doesn’t seem to mind. He keeps half his attention on them, the other half on Keith.
“All my friends are at another bar right now,” he says to Keith conspiratorially.
“Yeah? So why are you here?”
The pretty boy grins. He looks mischievous, if you ignore his eyes, which are lidded. “I snuck away,” he says. “It’s my party trick. I’ll catch up with ‘em later, though. It’s hilarious.” And then he pulls out his phone. He has the camera open, but he’s unsteady enough that their faces are barely centered in the frame. “Smile!” he says. The picture he captures is blurry and mostly of himself, just half of Keith’s face caught within it.
“I can help you find them, if you need me to,” Keith says, once the boy puts his phone back away.
The boy leans into Keith, giggling. “That’s sweet,” he says. “I’ll be fine, though. You just worry about your birthday, birthday boy.” One of the bartenders finishes serving someone, and the boy immediately leans over the counter, waving his hand frantically. “‘Llura!” he shouts. “Allura!”
The bartender notices him. She’s gorgeous, dark skin and white hair, and she looks half-amused, half-exasperated seeing the boy. She makes her way toward them, ignoring the other customers jostling for her attention, and leans against the bar opposite them.
“I thought you were all going to Finnigans tonight,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over the music and clamor of the bar.
“We are!” the pretty boy shouts. “I snuck off.”
“So you’re black-out,” Allura concludes.
The pretty boy waves a hand. “Nah,” he says. “Totally not. I’ll remember this tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh,” says Allura. “Text me tomorrow, then. Prove it.”
“Consider it done,” the pretty boy slurs. “Listen, can you get me and my buddy a shot?” he says, wrapping an arm around Keith’s waist as dragging him into his side. “It’s his birthday!”
Allura glances at Keith, amused. “Your buddy, huh? What’s his name?”
“Uh, birthday boy, obviously,” the pretty boy says. He rolls his eyes at Keith, like, Can you believe her?
Allura pours them each a shot. She doesn’t ring them up. “These are on the house,” she says. “But go find Hunk after this, okay?”
“Yes, Mom,” he says. And then he turns to Keith, raising his shot. “To you,” he says, his hand now resting, warm and firm, on Keith’s hip. “To an amazing birthday and to me definitely remembering this. And to you agreeing to go on a date with me, say, next weekend?”
Keith laughs. Yeah, that’s definitely not going to happen. There’s no way in hell this pretty boy is going to remember that proposition. But he raises his glass anyway, tapping it against the boy’s. “Cheers,” he says.
They both take their shots, and the boy stacks them and places them back on the counter. Once again, he grabs Keith’s hand, and he leads them back to Keith’s table.
Keith takes his seat, but the boy remains standing, swaying over him. He grabs Keith’s face importantly — his hands are warm, and his eyes are intense, locking with Keith’s. “I have to go back to my friends now,” he says solemnly.
“They’re probably missing you,” Keith agrees.
“It was lovely to meet you, though,” the boy says. “Don’t forget about our date.”
“I won’t,” Keith says, laughing.
The boy grins. “Can I kiss you?”
Keith nods, blushing, buzzing from the shot. The boy leans in, and despite being wasted, he kisses with skill Keith isn’t used to, his lips hot and his tongue searching. It makes Keith feel heady, warm all over, his fingers tingling.
When the boy pulls away, he flicks a thumb over Keith’s bottom lip. “See ya later, birthday boy,” he says. Then he walks away, leaving the bar, seeming much more steady than he probably should be.
Shiro appears seconds later. “Who was that?”
Keith is still staring after him. The pretty boy reunites with a group of people — presumably his friends — who drag him into their group, laughing.
“I have no idea,” Keith admits. They stay out for another hour. Keith finally has fun.
—
By the time Keith has stopped talking, Lance is slouching in his seat, mortified. He has his hands over his face, covering his mouth and one of his eyes. He’s peeking at Keith through his fingers.
“Oh. My. God,” he says.
“You really don’t remember?” Keith says.
Lance groans. “I can’t believe you met Blackout Lance,” he says. “Curse him!”
“I don’t know,” Keith says, grinning into his drink. “I kind of liked him.”
“I kissed you?” Lance says, incredulous.
“It was a great kiss,” Keith assures him. “Honestly, I’ve kept my eye out for you ever since. I recognized you right away, when we raced that day. I was going to ask you if you remembered me.”
Lance finally leans forward again, accepting the embarrassing story for what it is. At least he charmed Keith, apparently, despite being as drunk as he was.
“I always sneak away from my friends when I blackout,” Lance explains. “We never know where I go or what I do. The last time I blacked was that weekend before Halloween…” he groans. “I thought you getting hit by a car in front of me was our fun, cute meeting story.”
“Hey, you drunkenly getting me a shot and convincing me to have a fun birthday is pretty fun, too.”
“We’ll have two stories, then,” Lance decides. “The one you remember, and the one I remember.”
He ends up pulling out his phone immediately after. Keith leans in, and Lance scrolls back to October, finding the one from October 23rd. And Just like Keith promised, there it is. A blurry picture, featuring mostly Lance in his slutty Halloween costume. And there, cut off but grinning, is unmistakably Keith.
Lance can still remember that Sunday after, when he’s realized that he couldn’t remember most of the night before, and he and his friends had retraced Lance’s night from their perspectives, all the way up until he’d disappeared. As was tradition, they’d turned to his phone — his texts, his snapchats, his camera roll — for any evidence of his drunken activities. The only evidence of him having been alive and doing things once separated from his friends had been this picture, and they’d scrutinized it thoroughly.
Hunk and Pidge had remembered finding him coming out of Ruby’s, the bar that Allura worked at, but they’d had no idea how long he’d been there, nor who the dude in Lance’s camera roll was. They’d assumed it was a stranger Lance had managed to convince to take a picture with him.
Lance sends the picture to the group chat he has with Hunk and Pidge with the caption, “this is keith.”
“WHAT?” Pidge responds.
Hunk’s reply comes in immediately after: “LMFAOOOOOOO.”
“ur fucking kidding me,” Pidge says. “MYSTERIOUS BAR GUY!!!!”
“apparently i kissed him,” Lance adds. And then: “keith says hi.”
He puts his phone away shortly after, ignoring the buzzes as Hunk and Pidge continue to scream in their group chat. He kisses Keith at the end of the date, too, determined to do better than Blackout Lance had.
And he and Keith agree to go on another date, and Lance promises not to forget, this time.
Graduation still looms, of course, but Lance finds that it’s not so intimidating anymore. Hunk and Pidge were right, after all. The future seems to be equally as exciting.