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Soulmarks were amazing things. Soulmarks were horrendous things. Soulmarks were mystical, magical, all power things that not be stopped, could not be reasoned with, and could not be hidden, no matter how hard the bearer tried. Soulmarks were omnipotent and majestic. They were ethereal and timeless.
They were beautiful ... and they were terrifying.
Lance knew this firsthand.
His father had been a Clock, his timer ticking down to the very second when he locked eyes with Anna Espinoza. His world has literally stopped, the hands on his wrist unfurling into a long, thin band and snaking their way up to his left ring finger.
Anna, on the other hand, was Blind.
Upon her eighteenth birthday, she'd lost all concept of color. And for five years she saw nothing but grey, until a pair of blue eyes broke the monochrome world she'd grown used to, and a band of every color wrapped around her finger.
Lance's chances of being either Blind or a Clock were both slim, though.
He would be one of the lucky ones, he'd get a name and a symbol, or skin that mirrored his soulmates, or maybe, if he was lucky enough, a thread.
Soulmarks passed down to the first and second child, and as the third of five, he was just wild guess as to what it would be.
His older sister, Maria, was a Clock, just like dad.
Her eighteenth came, and a golden circle wound its way into her skin, the minute and hour hands following close behind.
It'd been three years since then, but her Clock only read 3:40; she had a while to go before she met 'the one.' Lance knew Maria was content with her Clock; she had things to do and degrees to earn, and a soulmate would just get in her way.
Lance's father was proud of the her, proud of the way she put herself before her soulmark. He'd often sit down and talk about his life before meeting Lance's mother when Lance was a kid, back when he would blabber on and on about marks.
He'd always finish with telling Lance to follow Maria's example: find yourself before you find your soulmate.
But Anna wasn't very happy about Maria's decision; she wanted Maria to be able to find love quickly.
It was a Blind kind of thing; they always rushed into love headfirst, traveling the world in desperation all just to find their soulmate. Some called it selfish, but Lance knew where the panic to find love came from.
His only brother, Jesus, was different from Maria and his dad; he was like Anna.
He was fast paced in his need to find love, to find his soulmate. He'd lost color the second he woke up on his birthday, and he'd been longing to find it again ever since.
It'd only been a year and a half, but Lance could see the toll it was taking on him. Dark eyes, longing looks, sagging shoulders: he was exhausted and desperate.
Lance just hoped it wasn't the same for him.
Lance sighed, stretching his upper body across the park's run down picnic table.
The brown paint was chipped, long curls peeling off, almost akin to the wax paper from Fruit Roll Ups. It left behind a lighter color wood, most of which was tinted green at the edges with mold.
There was an inch or two of dried dirt under the table itself, mixed in with sand a cigarette buds. In the early Spring and Winter it turned into a mud slushy, perfect for the homecoming small games he and his friends often participated in.
Lance dodged another prickly curl of paint as he stretched out even further, grabbing the other end of the table and pulling hard enough to put an inch or so of space between the bench and his butt.
He sighed a second time, dropping back down with a thump and flopping his arms around uselessly.
"I'm boooooored," he whined.
Keith, who was sitting next to him, flinched away at his flailing hands. He grumbled a few incomprehensible words, picking up Lances wrist and dropping it across his other arm, then turning back to his phone.
Lance squirmed in his seat. "I can't wait to meet her ... or him ... or them."
"It," Keith supplied, not looking up from his phone. "Just call it an it."
Lance gasped. "I am not calling my soulmate an it, you heathen!"
"Well it's technically not a person till you know you actually have one," Keith huffed.
"I am not markless," Lance protested, "you and me both know it."
"It's not a hundred percent until Saturday," Keith hummed, tapping out a few things on his screen. Lance kicked him under the table and he suppressed a yelp. With a hiss of pain he turned towards Lance, face set hard.
"What?"
"Be positive!" Lance hissed, "you're jinxing me!" He rapped his knuckles against the wood of the picnic table, then grabbed Keith's hand and smacked his knuckles down too.
Keith tore his limb away with a displeased grunt, turning back to his phone. Lance groaned and flopped back down onto the table. "You're no fun!" He proclaimed. "No fun at all." Keith was quiet.
Lance made a face.
"I said yoooouuuuu'rreeeee noooooo fuuuuuunnn."
Keith glanced up at him. "You don't say?"
Lance made a noise, banging his head on the table lightly. "What are you even doing?" He asked, face pressed into the wood, "you've been attached to that thing for hours. You barely ever use it and now it's your soulmate?" He hummed, reaching back across the table like a kid and lifting himself up again.
Keith looked at him in disdain. "You're being childish."
"I take pride in that."
Keith scoffed, going back to his phone. "I'm doing stuff."
Lance grinned back at him. "How suspicious ... Gimmie!"
"No," Keith snapped, not unkindly.
Lance reached over towards him, but Keith swatted his hands away without even looking up. "Come on!" Lance whined. "I wanna know what has the amazingly awesome Keith Kogane attracted to a cybernetic devise!"
"Do you even know what that means?"
Lance ignored him, because yes, Keith, he did know what that meant, before blindly grabbing for Keith's phone. Instead of a flat screen, he got the boys chin, which was jutting out in a scowl and moving as Keith talked.
"Let go."
"I will never let go," Lance gasped.
"I am not Jack and you are not Rose," Keith said. "So let go."
"Nope."
"Lance."
"Not gonna happen."
"Doesn't she drop him at one point anyways?" Keith pressed. "You're gonna have to let go at some point if you wanna be accurate."
A second passed. Then another, and another, before Lance groaned, dropping his hand. "You wound my pride," he grumbled.
"You wound yourself," Keith shot back.
"Whatever," Lance huffed, "I'll find out a different way." His face lit up, akin to a seven-year-old boy with a whoopee cushion. "Tell me," he said.
"Wha-?"
"Tell me. Tellmetellmetellmetellme-" He interrupted himself with a few harsh pokes to Keith's arm. " - Not gonna stop unless you do - tell me tellmetellme tellmetellme."
"Lance just sto-"
"Tellmetellmetellmetellme-"
Keith scowled. "You're being petty," he commented.
"- don't care - tellmetellmetellmetelme-"
"Okay, okay," Keith snapped, throwing his hand over Lances mouth. The boy shut up, his eyes narrowing into little slits as he mumbled ‘try me bitch' against Keith's palm. The said boy drew his hand back as quick as could, not wanting to get licked by Lance ... again.
Keith sighed, "Okay, so I've been talking to Takashi; he met his second soulmate."
Lance perked up. "Shiro did?" He asked. "Really? He and Matt found them? It's only been, what, six months since Matt's Clock started?"
Keith nodded. "Yeah, but they both wanted to keep it on the down low until she got comfortable. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone."
He sent Lance a pointed look.
Lance just whistled innocently. "Your fault you told."
"You conniving little bit-"
His phone chirped suddenly, interrupting what was supposed to be an oncoming slur of insults. Keith stared down at it, then look up at Lance.
They made eye contact, then Lance scooped it up and shoved it in his pocket, something Keith just rolled his eyes at.
"Whatever."
Lance grinned, looping an arm around Keith's shoulder and tugging him in for a quick hug. They'd only made contact for a second before Keith was ducking under his arm and wiping some nom existent dust off his shoulder.
"Anyways, tell Shiro and Matt I say hi! And that I'm happy for them all!"
"I can't do that unless you give me my phone back," Keith said.
Lance narrowed his eyes, "Oh really?"
Keith groaned. "Yes, really, you nitwit. Give it back."
"No."
"Yes."
"Fine," Lance said, "but on one condition."
Keith scowled. "No. No condition. Give."
Lance's face contorted, as if to say 'bitch please.' "Yes. Yes condition. No give."
"You're an idiot," Keith said.
"I'm majoring in astrophysics you imbecile," Lance tutted.
"You've been in school for a month and a half," Keith protested, "You're not majoring in anything. Now give. Me. My phone."
Lance pouted, reluctantly handing the device over. "Spoil sport."
Keith took his phone back, blowing a raspberry as he tugged it from Lance’s hands.
Lance glared, snatching his hand out to try and grab Keith’s tongue before it darted back in his mouth. Keith recoiled in disgust, tugging the muscle back between his teeth and wincing as the quick movement forced spit to fly on his upper lip.
“Ugh,” he groaned, wiping it off and shoving his phone in his pocket, “What’re you, twelve?”
“Two,” Lance corrected, a cheeky grin spread across his face.
Keith scoffed, making like he was ready to get up and just leave.
Lance knew it was an act, that Keith would just circle back around with a cocky grin on his face and a mutter of ‘sike’ as he headed back to his seat. It was something he’d done as long as Lance could remember.
Actually, if he did remember correctly, he got it from Shiro.
Keith actually didn’t get up, something that surprised Lance, and instead just slouched down, mirroring Lance’s behavior and putting on a pouty face.
Lance scowled. “You’re mocking me.”
“Wow, how could you tell?”
“Drop the sarcasm.”
“Never.”
“Drop it!”
“What am I, a dog?”
“You got the hairstyle for it.”
Keith whacked his arm and Lance laughed. Then he wacked Lance’s head and Lance didn’t laugh. “You’re so meeeeeaaaaan,” Lance whined.
“And you’re annoying, McClain, so shush.”
“Over my dead body.”
“I can arrange for that.”
Lance gasped, holding a hand to his heart. “Wow. That’s some extra salt you got there, today? What’d you do, take a bath in the new Morbid Humor bath bomb?” Keith wrinkled his nose up in disgust, and Lance laughed swatting at his arm.
“Come on, dude, aren't you excited?" He asked.
Keith looked at him as if he was insane. "Um, no?"
"Why not?" Lance shot up ramrod straight, turning to face his longtime friend, "Your birthdays tomorrow, dude! Tomorrow!"
"Don't remind me," Keith groaned.
"And my birthday's a week after!" Lance cheered. "We can celebrate our soulmates together! Maybe go on a double date or something."
Keith looked sick. "You're not gonna meet it right away, Lance."
"First of all," Lance said, ticking off one of his fingers, "not an it.”
Keith rolled his eyes at that.
Lance knew he'd never especially been pleased with the overall idea of having a soulmate, but he couldn't help but notice the closer and closer Keith got to his eighteenth birthday the more and more he resented his future partner.
As kids Keith had always talked about how soulmates were icky, but this was different. It was as if ... as if he was scared of his mark, of his perfect match and the connection they shared.
He shook his head.
"Second of all," Lance continued, clearing his throat and, hopefully, his mind, "it's likely that I'll meet my soulmate quickly. I won't be a Clock and I won't be Blind. So I'll be Cast, or be a Skin, like Hunk." His eyes lit up. "Or – or, or, or – I could be a Thread."
Keith froze.
"Wouldn't that be amazing," Lance gushed, "I'd know exactly who my soulmate was without ever having to look them or try to figure them out. I'll just follow my thread wherever it leads me and they'll be right there!"
Keith's head sank into his shoulders. "Threads aren't that cool," he said.
Lance hummed. "I guess. I mean, a Skin could be easier. You ask for your soulmates number or their full name and you're together." He laughed. "Hunk really did luck out with that."
Keith stayed quiet.
Lance furrowed his eyebrows together, leaning over and nudging Keith’s arm. “What, do you like Casts, better? I mean, I know Shiro’s one, but what help was a dove and the name ‘Allura’ in helping him and Matt find their third soulmate? I mean, come on, Matt’s Clock did all the work.”
Keith shook his head, “It’s not that, it’s just …”
“Just what?”
Keith sighed. “Sixty percent of Threads have an unrequited soulmate.”
Lance went silent. “Keith,” he started, “I’m sure you’re not -”
“But what if I am?” he interrupted. “Over half of Threads are Asian, not to mention most of them are orphans, since they come from Threads parents that had unrequited soulmates; those both point to me. If I add them together then my chances of being one, of not having someone who loves me back, are just over-”
“Stop!” Lance snapped, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Just stop, Keith, don’t think that way. You’ll be fine, there’s someone out there for you, alright. There’s going to be someone there.”
Keith nodded slowly, some of the worry fading from his eyes. “I know, Lance, I just, I can’t help but think …” he sucked in a ragged breath, “What if they don’t love me? What if I don't love them?”
“What?”
“What if I end up in love with someone else?" Keith clarified, “What if I end up loving someone who isn’t my soulmate?”
Lance laughed at that, but Keith stayed quiet, the distinctive breath of his usual chuckles gone with the wind.
Lance closed his mouth, swallowing hard. Oh. He dusted the waning thoughts off his shoulder before they could grow, and cleared his throat. Keith made eye contact with him, and he raised an eyebrow in attempt to look suave.
"Are you?" He asked.
Keith's eyes flickered everywhere, the grass, the local river, Lance's face, his feet. "Am I what?" he mumbled, wringing his hands together.
"In love with someone else?" Lance clarified
All movement between the two drew to a stop, the air halting, holding its breath.
Keith was staring down at the peeling paint of the picnic table, line of sight flickering from molding spot to molding spot. His lips drew together, puckering as if he'd eaten a lemon; it was something between a scowl and a look of determination, and Lance felt guilt rake its clammy through his stomach and his throat.
"You don't have to answer," he rushed, the worlds barely making it out of his mouth, "you don't have to tell me anything."
Keith shook his head. "I don't know, Lance. I ... I don't know." He hunched over the table, burying his head in his arms.
"What're you gonna do if it's not them?"
Keith tried to shake his head, but all he did was cause the table to rock back and forth, it's molded wood creaking like a grandmother’s back. Lance paused, waiting for Keith to collect himself. When he did, Lance spoke again.
"Well, then what're you gonna do if it is them?"
Keith's response was immediate: "I don't know."
"You said that already."
Keith kicked him.
Lance woke up at three AM the next day to an insistent banging on his dorm room window.
His eyes snapped open at the first thwack, his body following close behind after several more following in quick succession. He yanked his covers off, body freezing at the sudden blast of cold air.
He’d grabbed his roommate’s lacrosse stick within seconds, taking long, slow strides towards the window. The banging continued louder and harder, and Lance was just about to turn around and call the police when he heard a broke, garbled cry from outside.
“Lance, please, I need your help.”
In one quick movement, Lance shifted his grip to the end of the lacrosse stick and used it to brush aside the curtain. Outside, crouched half of a tree branch and half on the window sill, was Keith.
Lance swore and rushed to open the window, lending a hand to help Keith climb in.
The said boy muttered a quick thanks as he brushed a few flecks of dirt off his shoulder and took of his shoes, dunking them in the corner like Lance normally asked him to when he came in through the door.
He made his way towards Lance's bed without saying a word, sitting down and burying his head in his hands.
Lance frowned a bit, tossing the lacrosse stick back on his roommate’s bed and shuffling over to sit next to Keith. He barely ever acted like this; Keith had gotten over his brooding, 'pity me' phase after Lance had finally, and quite literally, knocked some sense into him in the ninth grade.
He'd gone from a silent, mess of an orphan shuffling around the hallways to a criptid obsessed fanboy that had the prettiest laugh Lance had ever heard.
“Hey,” Lance broke in, “Remember that one time when you broke Sendak’s nose senior year?”
Keith shrugged, “Yeah, so?”
“So, it was funny. His nose was crooked for the rest of the year. The freshman teased him for a whole semester ‘cause he looked like a chicken.”
Keith laughed a bit. “Yeah, it was kinda funny.”
“And Haggar tried to re-set it in the bathroom a few days after it was healed and broke it again.” Lance held back a snort.
Keith closed his eyes, a faint smiling spreading across his lips. “Oh my god,” he said, still quiet, but a bit louder than before; comfortable, open, it was what Lance wanted. “I remember that.
“She ran screaming down the hallway because she thought his skin was turning purple because of the blood loss,” Lance added, “And then the dean asked her if she was high and she told him she was at ground level.”
Lance grinned. “And he made her show him her stash but it was in the janitors closet and Zarkon was in there eating a weed filled Kit-Kat.” Keith laughed again. “They got in so much trouble,” Lance said, “it was amazing. Sendek got benched for swearing for an hour straight afterwards and Zarkon was stuck with a buddy for the rest of the year.”
Keith shook his head, “Wasn’t he paired with that one hippie kid? With the bald head and the rainbow teeth?”
Lance nodded, “He was. Hunk got pictures, I think the one where Hippie Dude hugged Zarkon was his wallpaper for a while.”
They traded stories for a little while longer, Lance recalling memory after memory about high school. He retold the basketball whipped cream story, the homecoming twerk off tall tale, the accidental prom porno fiasco, everything and anything that had Keith laughing like he always did.
It always made Lance feel whenever he made someone laugh, Keith especially, but after his last story he was quiet for a bit, and Keith was wilting down again, rubbing his ring finger like it was a worry stone or something.
"What do you think of soulmarks?" Keith asked suddenly, face still downturned.
Lance sucked in a breath and reached over, grabbing his face like he always did whenever Keith got into one of his slumps and tilting it up so he could look Keith in the eyes. Keith closed them almost immediately, his expression scrunching up in pain.
"Lance, please," he said, "don't try and comfort your way out of this. Just give me an honest answer."
"You already know what I'm going to say," Lance replied, "you don't need to ask me."
"Lance," Keith pressed, "I didn't come here for you to be difficult. I didn't almost break an arm hopping the fence around your building and I most definitely didn't nearly shatter my ankle falling out of tree next to your window three times in a row just for you to dance around the answers like you always do."
Lance huffed, rolling his eyes. "I only dance around them because no matter what I say, no matter how I say it or the words I use, you always turn them around against yourself and you force yourself to take them the wrong way."
He shifted, pulling Keith's face close enough that their noses were touching.
The first time he'd done it, Keith had flipped out, pushing him away and stuttering for a full minute before he got a full sentence out of his mouth. The second time Lance had pulled him close, he'd blushed and mumbled and muttered for a full minute.
The third time he'd leaned forwards, then away, then forwards again and again and again as if he was too indecisive to decide whether he wanted to be close or far or in between.
This time, though, it wasn't the first or the second or the third.
It was common between the two of them, something they did whenever either of them was down, something they'd lost track of and couldn't even count any more.
This time Lance was pulling Keith close and pleading for him to stop, for him to let it go, let himself go and stop attacking himself for reasons Lance could never find just.
"Please don't do that," Lance continued, "I hate it when you do that. You know what I mean, you always know what I mean. You don't have to change the message or the undertone of my words just because you don't trust yourself to interpret it correctly."
For the first time in what seemed like forever, Keith opened his eyes, irises swimming with violet flecks and black circles, swirling around like a nebula in the water. "I just need an answer, Lance, just give me an answer."
"Keith-"
"What do you think of soulmarks?" He asked again. "I don't care if I know the answer, I don't care if I think I know the answer or if I think I don't, I want you to tell me with your own words."
Lance paused. "Okay," he said, "Okay. I think soulmarks are amazing and terrifying and I'm going to follow mine to the ends of the earth once it shows up, no matter what happens."
Keith reached up, grabbing Lance's wrists and he yanking him even closer, their foreheads pressing against each other.
Keith's eyelashes brushed Lance's cheeks and Lance's breath fanned Keith's lips and it was almost horrifying how close they were.
"And what happens if someone is yours but you're not there's? What happens if somebody out there has you on their skin, what if they can't see color until they meet you, what if they feel what you feel?" Keith breathed in, slow and steady.
"What if they have a thread that's connected to you, but you don't have any part of them on you?"
Something twisted in Lance's gut, something horrible and dark. "Keith, no."
The said boy broke away from Lance and dug his palms into his eyes, pressing hard and sucking a breath in through his teeth. Lance felt water well up in the corners of his eyes. No. No no nonononono.
How could this happen? How could Keith of all people - funny, caring, weirdly optimistic in the oddest of times Keith - get stuck with an unrequited soulmate?
That was just so unfair.
After all he'd gone through, after the heartbreak he'd been through and the pain he'd experienced, Lance had thought maybe Keith would be happy, find a nice guy a little after his birthday and fall head over heels in love just like everyone else.
He hadn't put too much thought into it, it always hurt to think too much about it, but Lance had just hopes that Keith would ... wished that he would ... "I'm so sorry," Lance managed, voice choked up, "I'm so, so sorry. This is terrible, this is ... I can't even imagine how ..." he trailed off.
Keith shook his head. "It's not that. I'm not being theoretical. I'm asking you what you would do. You, Lance."
"Why me?"
Keith's face contorted into something beyond pain, something beyond anger and annoyance and frustration. He burst off Lance's bed, nearly knocking his head in Lance's chin on his way up.
"Because it's you!" He screamed.
His world slowed, no, it stopped.
It stopped in that very second because Lance knew. He knew before Keith even explained, he knew as something solid settled in his chest, crushing his lungs, he knew as the room spun like carousel, shifting and dipping and twirling as the realization hit him like a giant, metal space robot lion.
“What?” he wheezed out, voice quiet. He had to be wrong. He had to be hearing this wrong or thinking about this wrong or reading something wrong. He just – this couldn’t be the truth. It couldn’t be.
“You don’t understand, Lance,” Keith seethed, “It’s you. It’s always been you. It was you when you punched my lights out and it’s you now. It was always you! You and your stupid eyes and your stupid smile and your stupid skincare routine that makes you look like Shrek!”
He surged forwards, grabbing a fistful of Lance’s shirt in anger. The taller boy didn’t move, just let himself be yanked along for the ride as hot, fat tears spilled down Keith’s face.
“I’ve been thinking about this for years, wishing for this for years, so why does it hurt so much?!”
Lance opened his mouth, nothing but gibberish falling out as the words spilled from Keith’s lips.
The dam had broken, and years of repressed feelings came bursting forth off his tongue, rolling through the air and crowding it with the thick presence of emotions.
“You hit me freshman year and I fell for you,” Keith snapped.
“You made that stupid comment about aliens in the tenth grade and I fell for you. Junior year you asked me and everyone else to prom because you didn’t have a date and I knew you were just being friendly but I was so happy! I talked about it for days! And I fell for you even harder than before!”
His grip on Lance’s shirt tightened and tightened until he couldn’t grab it any harder, then he shoved Lance away and started pacing, feet working up a storm as Lance fell to the floor, still trying to process the entire situation.
His face was like a buffering screen, the organic version of Internet Explorer as he tried to keep up, tried to work through all this information that was quite literally being thrown in his face.
“I’ve loved you for years now,” Keith kept up, “Years, Lance, years! I’ve dreamed about you being the one, you being my soulmate.”
“I drew doodles of what your sign would be if I was a Cast,” he laughed out, bitter, “and I thought up scenarios where I revealed myself to you as a Skin and I planned out what would happen in my head if my Thread lead to you, but then that stupid study came out and now I can’t help but-”
His voice cracked. “It’s scientifically proven, Lance, I – you won’t love me. I’m a Thread and this whole thing is gonna be unrequited, it has to be, I’m not a lucky guy! Me existing alone wasn’t even supposed to happen!”
Lance said something that sounded a little like ‘blaarrghhh.’
“Markless people are supposed to be barren but my mom had me,” Keith said, still pacing, “and then out of only a few hundred kids across the fucking world I was some of the only few who never got a home, and how am I gonna be in that forty percent, Lance?”
He swiped at his tears.
“How am I gonna be the four in ten that get a happy life as a Thread? How am I gonna get you to love me when it’s so obvious that you never even fucking saw me as more than a friend?! Isn’t that a sign?”
He threw himself down on the floor in that overdramatic way of his, grabbing at his hair as the tears dried crusty streaks on his face.
“The week’s gonna pass and you’re gonna get some kind of mark and it’s not gonna be mine! I’m yours, Lance, I’ve been yours since the second I was born but you’re not gonna be mine, you’re never gonna be mine.”
Somehow, Lance finally caught up with all the information. He felt as if he’d just finished a military grade obstacle course; Keith’s words were the twenty-foot wall and he’d just finished scaling it, only to lose his balance and fall off the top.
He flicked his eyes towards Keith’s ring finger, the sure to sign that someone had found their soulmate.
With Clocks, the owner’s timer disappeared and wove a gold band around the base. With Blind people, it was rainbow and appeared along with a flood of color. With Cast’s it bore resemblance to their marking, and Skin’s had an inky, blotchy ring that appeared only when soulmates met in person. And Thread’s…
Lance gulped, only just noticing the faint, red line circling Keith’s ring finger, the slightest wisp of a thread branch off and swinging in a non-existent breeze. Only it’s barer, or whomever it was connected to, if that person was a Thread, could see it.
Most of the time it just appeared as a trick of the light. And that’s all Lance saw, the barest hint of Keith’s Thread.
If he squinted hard enough he could see it was pulled taunt, pointing in his direction.
“I’m your soulmate?” he asked slowly. “Me?”
Keith gave a dejected scream, just loud enough to make Lance wince. “How the hell do you think I got here?” he snapped. “I’ve been to your dorm twice; I don’t even know your room number. How the hell do you think I managed to find your window?”
He waved his hand around, shoving it in Lances face. “It’s connected to you, you idiot, I don’t give a fuck if you don’t see it – it’s connected to you! I’m not stupid! I know what that means”
“Yeah well so do I!” Lance screamed, finally losing it. He shot to his feet, sucking in quick breaths to try and still his heart. “You’re here shrieking at me about how I’m your soulmate and how I’m the perfect one for you and how you’ve had this – this thing for me for years before this! And then you’re telling me that I can’t love you and won’t ever love you before even getting my opinion on this!”
Keith stared at him, wide eyed and silent. The dejected look he wore was enough to make Lance calm down somewhat, and he let out a long sigh, grabbing at his head in hopes to clear his mind,
“Look, I know that the new info on Thread’s has been eating away at you. I know that you’re scared and you’re afraid, but don’t I get a say in this? I’m the one you’re connected to, I should be the one to decide if I’ll ever love you or not.”
“But you don’t get to decide,” Keith said, “no one ever gets to decide.”
"You're not even giving this a chance, Keith," Lance protested, reaching down and grabbing the boys hand. He laced their fingers, reveling in the skin to skin contact, in the warmth of another person. Keith flinched away slightly, then curled his fingers around the back of Lance's hand and squeezed tight.
Lance gave a slight tug, pulling the boy up with him.
"I know you're scared, I know that study hit you hard, I know you're preparing for the worst, but you have to think about this for a few seconds."
"I have thought about this, Lance," Keith broke in, "I've been thinking about this for so long that I can't even bear to even try to any longer."
He swallowed. "Look, I know you don't like me like this. I know you don’t want this to end well. But you know me, Keith, you knew me. You know I’d never do something to try and hurt you.”
“I know,” Keith said, “you’d never do something like that. You’re not that kind of person. But I just – you don’t have total control of these kinds of things. You never have and you never will. And sometimes people see the beauty in that but it’s just so scary to me.”
Lance nodded, quiet. Keith cleared his throat a few times, glancing between Lance and the floor and some other random things littering the room. “I, um, do you want to change the subject? I … I can’t think about this anymore. It’s gonna haunt me for the next few days, so…”
"Ok, so, um ...." Lance trailed off, racking his brain for something, anything that would make Keith feel more comfortable, make him feel better about this while situation. Lance wanted Keith to be positive about him, he wanted him to realize that Lance was alright with this. He actually liked the idea, the more he thought about it.
He'd never really gone deep into thought about his soulmate, not like this, at least.
He'd always expected them to be a stranger, for them to meet him and instantly fall in love. He'd thought that he'd meet them and that would be that. He never expected that hi soulmate would find him before he found them.
And he most certainly hadn't thought it'd be someone he already knew.
But he was slowing down now, he was actually thinking about it. And slowly falling for Keith sounded nice; being with Keith forever sounded nice.
Really, really nice.
He took a breath.
First, he had to make sure Keith was situated, that he understood what Lance was feeling.
This whole thing might have still been one sided, both in terms of soulmarks and overall feelings, but Lance knew for a fact that this wouldn't stay the same forever.
He'd always thought he wanted his soulmate to be like his friends, to be kind and daring and sorta standoffish. He wanted them to hate the cold but despise the heat, to love coffee with thirty pounds of sugar but not a single drop of cream, to only show their smile to him only.
The one where their lips spread past their teeth and the corners turned up in something sharp and deadly even if he was laughing about the slightest of things and the area under his eyes would crinkle up, but the corners of his eyes never did, they always stayed the same. And his eyes themselves would light up, crackling like lighting in a bottle, harsh and purple and downright deadly.
The smile he'd always wanted to see was his smile, Lance realized quite quickly, that smile: Keith's smile.
And it hit him harder than before that he wasn't freaking out, that he was accepting this calmly for some odd reason. He was perfectly fine with it being Keith, he was actually kind of happy it was Keith.
The said boy frowned, reaching out and poking Lance in the shoulder. "You've been quiet for a while," he said, "... do you want me to leave?"
"No!" Lance practically screamed. Keith flinched backwards, staring at Lance as if he'd grown a second head. Lance backtracked quickly. "Sorry, I just ... it's nice, you being here."
Keith went red, ducking his head back down into his arms and muttering an "oh" into his sleeves, voice muffled by the red material of his hoodie. "You sure you're not just saying that to keep me happy?" He asked.
Lance frowned.
God, he hadn't seen Keith like this in years. Keith, broken down, worry eating at his mind. Keith, shut off from the world, not taking no as an answer, not taking anything as an answer, just shutting down every option presented to him as if nothing could fix his problems.
Sometimes it infuriated Lance. Sometimes it made his blood boil because he was trying to help, trying to fix things, trying to make Keith few better, welcomed, loved. And sometimes it made Lance ... hollow.
Like he was watching a shell of a man refusing anything and everything and it hurt so much sometimes that he couldn't stand it; he'd never been able to stand it. He'd grab Shiro or Hunk or maybe even Pidge, even if they sucked at dealing with feelings in comparison to the first two.
But Lance couldn't do that now, wouldn't do that now, because Keith needed him - he needed him - no matter how hard either of them tried to convince themselves otherwise.
"What happened whenever you thought about this?" He asked suddenly.
Keith blinked. "What?"
"You said you thought about this all the time, me being your soulmate. How ... how'd you normally think it would go?"
“I … uh …”
“You don’t have to!” Lance said suddenly, “I don’t wanna push you and stuff. I just thought, you know start a positive topic, maybe?”
Keith shook his head. “No, no it’s ok. I was just a bit … surprised. Ok, so, uh …” He paused for a few seconds, collecting his thoughts and breath. And composing himself.
“Alright, so, uh, normally I imagine we get our marks at the same time or something. So, uh, it normally went the same for each scenario, Cast, Skin, Clock, you know, the works. I, um, I’d wake up and see mind and I’d run to your house or your dorm-”
“Like you did tonight?” Lance asked.
“Yeah, kinda. I didn’t almost break myself coming over, though, so … But, uh, I’d come over and you’re be waiting for me and you’d hold up your arm or whatever and show me your Mark and I’d show you mine and then I think fireworks went off in the background a few times…”
Lance held back a snort, and Keith reached over and smacked him. Hard. He probably deserved it.
Keith took another breath. "And we'd ... you know ..."
"Go at it?" Lance waggled his eyebrows.
Keith looked disgusted. "I was gonna say kiss."
"Oh."
Keith turned to look at him, their noses bumping. Somehow, they'd gotten close again, they always do, and now Lance was counting the stars in the galaxies of Keith's eyes. He leaned in, bumping his hand ever the slightest into Keith's.
"Oh."
And then his was closing his eyes, brushing his lips against Keith's in something soft and sweet. And he didn’t want it to stop.
Keith came over on Monday, climbing up through Lance's window like he'd done the night before. Lance, who wasn’t even fazed at the sudden thumps outside his dorm, was finishing yanking his shirt on when it opened up and Keith’s lower body appeared. Lance snorted. He’d obviously never climbed a tree before.
He watched in amusement as Keith’s upper body appeared. He was almost all the way in when his back leg got caught on the sill and he fall forwards, smacking face first into the ground with a thud.
He raised an eyebrow as Keith rolled over with a groan, trying to hold in his laughter. "You could've taken the stairs," he deadpanned, a slight giggle breaking his façade.
Keith sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head, sending Lance a dirty glare. It was like the eyes equivalent of flipping someone the bird. "My thread leads this way,” Keith explained, “If I tried to go the other way it'd get tangled and then it would take me ten minutes just running in circles to unwind it."
“Uh-huh.”
“'Sides," Keith mumbled, getting to his feet, "you kept it unlocked."
"Because I knew you'd be stupid enough to climb that tree again and crawl in like a cockroach," Lance commented, smiling all the while.
Keith rolled his eyes. "Lies. You’re just a romantic and wanted me to climb in like a cliché teen movie."
Lance snorted. "’Romeo, oh Romeo, what for art thou Romeo?’" he quoted.
"It's where for art thou, you dingus," Keith corrected, shuffling over and taking his spot on Lance's bed. He looked better than he did yesterday, the dark circles under his eyes were gone and he didn't look at tired, which was weird considering he probably only got, like, five hours of sleep tops.
“I forgot you were a Shakespeare buff,” Lance huffed, grabbing his laptop off his desk and throwing it like a Frisbee towards Keith. He caught it, per usual, already used to Lance’s scary inability to care for his things.
“Throw on what you want,” Lance said, striding over towards the mini fridge, “Your choice, it’s cheer Keith up day.”
Keith quirked an eyebrow, opening the laptop and typing in Lance’s crazy hard password. It involved his last name backwards, all the numbers in his birthday scrambled up, and an emoji. “Just a day?” he asked, opening up Netflix.
Lance scoffed, still neck deep in the freezer portion of the mini fridge. “Fine then,” he said. "Cheer Keith up week.” He withdrew from the cold abyss, holding two pints of frozen goodness.
“Raspberry or Reeses?” he asked, heading for other side of the room, where the plastic utensils were kept in a baggie hidden under his roommate’s desk. The real stuff was crazy expensive, and, for some odd reason, not many stores in the area carried any of the plastic versions.
The kids on his floor were notorious for breaking into other people’s dorms to steal a fork or two.
Lance glanced around, checking for anything suspicious before grabbing two spoons and restashing the bag.
“There where your roommate keeps his joints?” Keith asked. From what Lance could tell, he was pulling up Lance’s ‘to watch’ suggestions. Most of it was actually ‘suggested for Keith, considering the fact that the two shared an account and Keith paid Lance half the charge in cash monthly.
“Nah,” Lance said, heading over, “It’s just the spoons.” Keith made a confused noise, bending closer to the screen and squinting. The tiniest sliver of his tongue poked out, and Lance swore his heart skipped a beat.
“A-Anyways,” he stuttered, composing himself. “You gonna answer the question?”
“Hm?”
“Raspberry or Reeses?”
Keith scrolled through the listings, not looking up. “Reeses,” he answered.
“You’re supposed to say Raspberry, Keith,” Lance grumbled, taking his spot next to his soulmate – or at least who he hoped it was.
He honestly still had no idea, and Keith’s constant worrying wasn’t helping. Lance was still surprised the boy was even here, not moping around his apartment like a zombie lumbering around the streets in a post-apocalyptic world.
“Why?” Keith grabbed for his carton, swatting Lance’s hand away when he tried to give him the wrong one. Lance pouted; Keith blew him a raspberry in return. “’Cause you wanted mine?”
“No!” Lance snapped, “Cause you’re lactose intolerant. Do you need me to spell it out for you? Raspberry is sherbet, means no milk. Reeses is ice cream, means it has milk in it. Milk is lactose. Lactose fucks you up.”
Keith frowned, “You’re being kinda mean, you know.” Lance just stared at him. He stared back for a few seconds, before letting out a sigh. “Hey, had to try,” he shrugged, grabbing for the raspberry.
Lance grinned, happily swapping the cartons out.
Keith begrudgingly opened his, digging his spoon into the unnatural pink of his ‘sherbet’ and stuffing it in him mouth. “You know this means that you’re gonna have to give me the Reeses chunks as payment, right?”
Lance hummed around the food in his mouth. “Oh, I know. You’re gonna have to fight me for them.”
Keith grinned. “Bring it on.”
On Tuesday Lance took Keith to the arcade. And by the arcade he meant that one rec room in his dorm building that had a ping pong table, Pac-Man, and one of the original Pinball machine, not the stupid, crappy, digital versions.
The was TV in one corner, which perpetually had Legally Blond playing, and a few Gameboys thrown on a shelf alongside a signed copy of the third Twilight book.
Keith didn’t really want to go. He as comfortable in Lance’s dorm, not to mention the fact that he outright told Lance he didn’t feel like dealing with straight, white frat boys any time soon.
But Lance managed to convince him to go.
And by convince he meant he hoisted the smaller boy up over his shoulder and quite literally carried his through the dorm to the rec room, kicking and screaming and swearing like a sailor the entire way down.
Keith earned the respect of everyone at Lance’s dorm that day. Not because of the viscous words he spewed on his lil’ trip to the rec room but because of the wicked, shot-from-a-barrel-eques punch he sent towards Lance’s crotch once he was let down.
Lance screamed, Keith smiled, the whole shebang.
It wasn’t romantic or dorky or sweet, but Lance found it fun. Save for the whole punching the crotch part. Keith was scowling, but it wasn’t that angry scowl of his, the one he always wore before he socked someone’s lights out for saying something stupid.
No, it was the slightly peeved, almost pouting kind of scowl, the one he wore when he crossed his arms and tilted his chin narrowed his eyes.
And Lance knew whenever he saw it that he was screwed, that Keith was up to nothing good, that he was gonna do sometime evil and kinda funny if Lance wasn’t gonna be the victim.
Keith stuck his tongue out at Lance, who did what he always did, reached out to try and grab it. Keith nearly spat as he flinched away, a look of disgust on his face, per usual.
Lance felt a sudden wave of déjà vu wash over him, like he’d seen this before.
And he had, he thought, blankly, as wave after wave of thought slammed into him. He knew Keith. Knew the boy inside and out. Knew his quirks, his good points, knew he punched with his right and kicked with his left and had a crush on Mothman up until freshman year of high school.
You never realized how much you knew someone until you thought about it, until you thought about them, Lance realized.
He never knew how much he knew Keith.
He never knew how much he knew about Keith’s life and Keith’s eyes and Keith’s face, the different ways he smiled or frowned or pouted, his body language and the many poses he had.
Lance could read him like a first-grade book, like a recipe he’d memorized in hopes of being able to make it like his abuela. He knew Keith better than the back of his hand, probably better than Hunk and Pidge, who he’d know far, far longer.
He distinctly remembered paying more attention to Keith, he remembered all those times he committed scenes to memory, blazed faces into his mind in an effort of figuring the boy out. He’d assumed it’d been because of Keith’s … slippery nature, but perhaps it wasn’t.
Hell, it could have been Lance’s imagination whipping all this up, but … but it kind of felt like he’d always known Keith was his soulmate.
“Hey, dingus.”
Lance looked up at Keith’s oh so kind term of endearment. “Yes?”
He gestured to the pinball machine, “Ready for me to wreck you?
“Try me.”
"Does that say grow a therapist?"
"I don't know, it that Jesus hand soap?"
Lance blanched at that, turning to find Keith holding up a box, grinning wide with that wild, almost feral look in his eye. "To wash away your sins," he quoted, voice bordering a cackle.
Lance stifled a few laughs. "I can imagine the look on Dear Old Debrah's face when they pick it up." He screwed him nose onwards, pitching his voice high and nasally, "how dare you mock our lord and savior this way! Also, Jesus was white."
Keith laughed, even harder this time, setting the box down and grabbing a mini fart blaster.
They'd decided to head into town today, and as soon as the local candy came into sight Lance was dragging Keith through the doors by the scruff, practically foaming at the mouth upon sight of rows and rows of saltwater taffy.
Keith had just started yelling about cavity’s when Lance practically screamed, pivoting on his heel as he hollered about pirulin’s and pico dulche’s. Keith barely managed to compose himself before he was being dragged over towards the ‘foreign candy’ section of the shop.
Keith was surprised to find a few LOTTE items over there as well.
They ended up spending a good few minutes just mulling through the options there. Lance ended up sending a few Snapchats to his sister of him and piles and piles of what Keith guessed was famous Cuban candy behind him.
He’d titled it ‘jealous?’
Keith actually ended up picking out a few mocha Kit Kats and some Hello Panda to mail over to Shiro. It was pretty enjoyable, Lance talked for what seemed like hours about his childhood and his abuelos shack on the beach.
It was actually kind of nice.
After that they’re moved onto what Lance called the ‘wacky toys’ part of the shop, where they found the ‘grow a therapist’ and ‘prayer soap,’ along with a stray package of Mamba’s and a bag of watermelon sourpatch kids.
Keith had just finished looking at strawberry flavored pepper spray slash laser pointer when Lance finally realized what he’d dragged them into the store for.
“Hey Keith!” Lance shrieked from across the store – when did he get there again? - pointing at the junk food section of the taffy. He was currently holding an entire bucket labeled ‘funnel cake,’ complete with a cartoonish drawing.
“Look! Its three dollars for all the taffy I can fit in a bag!”
“You’re gonna kill yourself with all that,” Keith protested, but Lance was already grabbing two of each and shoving in into the plastic sack.
Keith stared in mute horror as Lance practically galloped around the store, grabbing as much taffy as he could and stuffing it into the tiny little plastic bag until it was full and he was all the way back on Keith’s side of the shop.
Keith looked like he was just about ready to grab the bag and chuck it out the window, especially since he was eyeing the full on layer of jalapeno popper taffy sitting at the bottom of it. Lance sent him his best puppy eyes.
“Let me buy them?” he asked, “Pleeeaaassseeee? We can share. It’ll be like bean boozled, except way better and Pidge won’t be there to break out into hives.”
Keith snorted, “That was so your fault.”
“Was not!”
“Was too.”
“Was no-”
“Ahem.”
Lance turned to the sight of an old lady, her skin slightly grey with age, hair pulled back into a messy bun. He was expecting a prudish kind of look on her face, but instead she was smiling, eyes twinkling with mirth.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “But are you two new soulmates? You look young, and we have soulmate based candy and chocolates in the back. They sell so fast that we can’t keep them out here. I thought you might be interested.”
Keith went red, face burning hotter than a thousand sons. Lance watched as his eyes flickered down towards his finger, likely looking at his thread. He followed it to Lance, who smiled as hard as he could, grabbing Keith’s hand and lacing their fingers together.
“Yeah, we are.”
Thursday Keith tumbled in in the early morning light, waking Lance with a jolt as he slammed the window open and practically flung himself inside the room.
He crossed the floor in a few quick steps and grabbed Lance by the collar, pulling him down the slightest into his lips and kissing him like he meant it.
Like Lance was breaking, like Keith was breaking, like it was the last second on Earth and this was the one thing he had let to do with this life, the one thing he would happily give his last seconds away to do.
And Lance was shushing him as their lips parted, wiping the tears spilling from Keith’s face as he shook his head over and over, still somehow managing to catch Lance’s mouth on his whenever they crossed before breaking away again and sobbing incoherent words.
“It’s not real,” he cried, “It can’t be you, you can’t be, why-”
Lance cut him off with another kiss, some soothing noises, a few pets all the way from the top of his head to the nape of his neck, a soft hand on his back, foreheads pressed together as he tried to relay his feelings, tried to show Keith that he was here, he would always be here, and no matter what happened Saturday he’d decided that he would stay, he would always stay because he needed to and he wanted to and if the universe didn’t see that then it was wrong.
And Keith was right.
Keith would always, without a doubt, be right.
Lance pulled him closer, kissing him harder, bruising his lips and pouring open his heart. Keith held onto him like a lifeline, one hand gripping tight on Lance’s shoulder, the other wrapped around Lance’s neck like a noose.
He pulled back, peppering kisses all over Lance’s face, gave each and every freckle a pick, kissing over his eyes and his temples and around his lips. He drew flowers with his mouth, staining Lance’s skin with ink and color as he moved.
“I’m here,” Lance said, and Keith kissed him once more, gathering Lance’s face in his hands and holding him long and hard, drawing out his breath as if he was sucking life from the both of them.
“I’m here.”
Friday came.
Keith didn’t come.
Lance stayed in bed most of the day, moping around, the covers pulled over his head as he contemplated his life. Essentially, he’d been ‘born’ for his soulmate. That’s what everyone told him. But he didn’t feel like that. He’d never felt like that.
He hadn’t been born for anyone else. His soulmate wasn’t depending on him and he wasn’t depending on his soulmate. He didn’t need Keith and Keith didn’t need him. Not like that, anyways, not like they’d die without each other, like they wouldn’t be able to survive on their own.
Keith was the prime example up that.
Long before his soulmark had appeared, long before his eighteenth and long, long before he met Lance, he was on his own.
He didn’t have anybody so he didn’t need anybody and he’d been fine with that.
And sure, he’d long since changed, but Lance didn’t want to be the thing holding Keith back. He didn’t want to be Keith’s crutch and he most certainly didn’t want to be the source of the reemergence of the negative part of his life.
Keith hadn’t changed much lately … but he also had.
He’d been quitter, more reserved, less of that spunky, punk ass kid Lance knew and loved. And maybe it was because he was getting older and maybe it was because of his doubts about his soulmark.
But Lance knew for a fact that Keith’s worry was his worry, and even though he’d been trying hard to stay positive, even though he was a thousand and ten percent sure he was Keith’s soulmate and they were made for each other - not because of each other – he still had his worries.
He groaned, rolling over a few times in attempt to get comfortable. It took him a few tries, but he eventually managed to get his head positioned just right and the covers pulled up juuust high enough and he was suddenly sleeping again, eyes closing as he drifted off in the middle of the day.
When he opened them, it wasn’t dark out. But it wasn’t light, either.
It was the in-between, when the sun hung low in the sky, painting the horizon red, and the stars hovered just above it, the blues and navy’s Lance had grown to love mixing and mingling, and a range of purples, from lavender to plum to magenta, law between them, between night and day, between dark and light and dusk and dawn and they hung there, close enough that they almost seemed to overlap, yet they still stayed as they were.
They held their own.
Red as red.
Blue and blue.
But they still shared. Still danced together and sang together, painting the world in a display of color.
He watched the stars in awe, sucking in a breath as they descended down in arcs, slashing across the sky and splitting it into a multitude of fractions, each line a white streak.
And he stood his ground as his world grew brighter, as a stripe of color descended upon his, filling his vision. He stood his ground as it got closer and closer. He stood his ground as it cooled the air around his and lit the light behind his eyes on fire.
And then it connected, and he was flying, falling as he stood still, wind whipping through his hair and around his clothes and through his very being.
This was what it was like to die.
This was what it was like to hope.
This was what it was like to love.
His eyes shot open and his arm shot up. His hand hovered in front of his face, blurry, out of focus, tan and bare of any sign. And then he saw it, tied in a neat bow around his ringer finger, trailing off into his floors hallway.
His breath came out strangles, and suddenly he was yanking his covers off, feet on the floor, barely enough time to yank on his hoodie before he tumbled out his door, down the stairs, bare feet padding across the lawn as he followed the line, red and blue and purple and white and everything and anything.
Every color. Any color. It changed every second, warm undertones, cold undertones. And it stretched, taunt yet loose, pulling him along as if he was a kite.
He followed it, down the dorm pathway, through the daisy’s Coran planted behind the apartments. He was heading for something. He didn’t know what. But he wanted to find it, he needed to find it, he was desperate and it hurt but he loved the feeling. It was warm and comforting, insistent.
Brave and kind and kinda pushy.
It reminded him of red bikes and bruised knuckles and lips stretched taunt in a smile that was too sharp to be kind, too soft to be mean, too breathtaking to be real.
He burst into the gardens, the ones built years ago, so old that half the cobblestones were missing and the posts for the ivy to grow were already knocked over onto the ground.
There were plants springing up everywhere, lily’s reaching up towards the moon, vines crawling up the sides of the railings on the handicap path. Colors spread everywhere, bursting out of the dark and highlighting the world around him.
And then violet eyes were raising themselves off the ground and connecting with his and his chest was expanding and expanding and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t air in or get air out, and the world was shifting in a soft of tunnel vision.
And he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face as he stepped forwards, the stone of the pathway cold against the arches of his feet.
“Lance,” Keith greeted, eyes sparkling with something foreign.
Lance felt something move in his chest, felt it click into place, felt the warmth flood through his body like a bath of sunshine on a cold day.
“Are you …?” Keith trailed off, words hanging in the air.
Lance could practically feel them smack into his chest, curling around his shoulders in a vice grip. And then there was that tugging sensation again, like a rope around his heart, yanking stiffly and gently. And then he was throwing his arms around Keith’s neck, holding him close as he buried his face in Keith’s shoulder, gripping him tight.
“Yeah,” he whispered, “Yeah.”
And it was perfect and beautiful and Lance didn’t want it to stop.
And he knew it never would.