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ematlast · 1 year

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Stupid ice. Stupid cold. Stupid — winter. God. Lance is a delicate tropical flower. He needs sunlight, and heat. Not all this frosty shit. Snow, he thinks, is an active hazard to his health. An attempt on his life, even. In fact he would even go so far as to say —

You know you can say you’re an atheist all you want, but then you run over a thin puddle when you’re driving and you hydroplane and suddenly you briefly believe in higher powers?

Lance gets the same feeling, when he steps on a patch of ice in just the wrong way and feels his stomach bottom out. His furious internal monologue is cut off, replaced with the single thought of oh, I am not going to fare well in the frosty depths of hell, because he can feel himself falling, and his luck is so bad that he’s sure he’s going to brain himself on the frozen sidewalk and die.

But nanoseconds before his skull hits the concrete, as his eyes squeeze shut in acceptance of his impending doom, something stops him from meeting his untimely demise. His eyes fly open, ready to drink in the wonderful, wonderful world now that he has been given a second chance at life, only to lock onto the most beautiful face he has ever seen in his twenty two years of living.

“Oh, so that’s what divine beauty means,” he blurts, and immediately wishes the hot stranger had dropped him.

The hot stranger chuckles. “That’s certainly one I’ve never heard before.” He tightens his hands on Lance’s waist and pulls him upright. Logically, now that Lance is not horizontal, his blood should now be dispersing to reach the various parts of his body as it is meant to. Naturally, because if Lance is good at one thing it’s embarrassing himself beyond reason, it stays gathered at his cheeks.

“I — sorry,” he manages. “You’re just — wow. Thought I was going to die. So. Panicked.”

“No problem,” the stranger says. “Be careful, okay? It’s always ridiculously icy here. Heaven forbid one of us remembers to salt the goddamn entryways so clients don’t die on their way in.”

Before can formulate a response — one that may or may not involve Lance’s number and the extended offer to the nearest restaurant for dinner — the hot stranger winks at him and disappears into one of the nearby storefronts. Lance cranes his head up to read the icicle-covered sign for the building he walked into — Legendary Tattoos.

Huh.

———

“Aren’t you, like, deathly afraid of needles?” Hunk asks, squinting suspiciously at him.

Lance avoids his gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think tattoos are intriguing. I always have. And I have nothing against needles — I’m a tailor, for chrissake.”

“Lance, last year I had to physically drag you the entire fifteen minute walk to the doctor’s office for your flu shot.”

“That’s different! Medical shots — inject you with shit! It squidges me out!”

“And tattoos don’t inject you with anything? Like ink, for instance?”

Lance opens his mouth, and then closes it again.

Okay. Hunk’s got him there.

“It’s different,” Lance insists anyway, because he would would rather snort the powdered form of broken dreams than admit he’s getting a tattoo as an excuse to see a hot stranger again. That will give Hunk ammo to mock him for years, and Hunk already has enough ammo.

“Well, it’s not like I can stop you,” Hunk says, sighing loudly. “You’re at least going to do something small for your first, right? Something you can cover up if you decide you don’t like the look of it?”

Lance scoffs. “Duh. Just, like, a couple flowers or a wave or something. Maybe on my ankle.”

———

The receptionist at the tattoo parlour is also exceedingly gorgeous. Lance is starting to wonder if being beautiful beyond mortal comprehension is part of the job description for this particular establishment, or if maybe Lance just has a thing for men with sharp jawlines and tattoo sleeves.

“Keith is just finishing up his two o’clock, and then he’ll come over to consult with you, okay?” the receptionist, Shiro, says. He smiles encouragingly at Lance, wrongly interpreting his nervousness for trepidation. “No need to worry. Most people are a little anxious about their first time tattoos — Keith will put you at ease. He’s nothing if not incredibly talented, let me tell you.”

Lance doesn’t technically know that the handsome stranger who saved his life yesterday is the mysteriously talented Keith, per se. Honestly, Lance could be totally off. Maybe Keith doesn’t work at this tattoo parlour, and was just visiting a friend when he walked in yesterday. Hell, maybe he was just getting a tattoo himself, and Lance is about to permanently mark his body for no reason.

But, y’know. He has a feeling. And Lance trusts his feelings.

(Even if those feelings land him under a needle, poking in and out of his skin a thousand times a minute. Yeesh.)

“— make sure to keep it dry, and out of direct sunlight for a while. Even in the winter, okay? UV rays still have an effect, even when there’s snow on the ground.”

Following a middle aged woman who’s staring excitedly at her newly-inked forearm comes a decently tall man, maybe an inch or two shorter than Lance, with dark black hair held up in a knot at the crown of his skull, a sleeveless muscle shirt clinging to his chest and showing off heavily inked — and heavily muscled — arms. He holds what looks to be a care package in hands covered in fingerless gloves. The smile on his face is small, a barely-there quirk of his lips, but it sharpens his face into something quietly dangerous, like the stillest river just before a sharp drop down a waterfall the size of a skyscraper.

Lance swallows. The hot stranger — Keith, because Lance is sure of it now — is even hotter in person than in his vague memories, which is insane. God.

“Alright, Shiro, who’s next?”

“Small ankle tattoo, waiting for you here.”

Lance shivers when Keith’s gaze flits over the empty waiting room and eventually lands on him. His small smile turns sharper.

“Hey, aren’t you the guy I saved from an untimely icy death yesterday?”

Lance begs himself to at least try to be a non-mess. He manages a chuckle. “Yeah, that’d be me. I didn’t get to thank you, by the way. My name’s Lance.”

Lance reaches out his hand to shake.

“Keith.”

Keith’s hand is warm, even through the soft leather of his gloves. He keeps his hand gripped onto Lance’s past what’s normal, just an extra second or two, but long enough that Lance’s heartbeat starts to speed up.

Someone clears their throat. Lance startles a little, pulling away with a flush when he catches sight of Shiro’s slightly raised eyebrow.

“So,” Keith says, looking a little flushed himself. “This your first tattoo?”

“Uh, yeah. I’ve never wanted one before, but I decided I wanted one yesterday.”

Keith smirks. Lance decides that he is never going to speak again, because why the hell did he say that?

“Yesterday, huh?”

“Mhm,” Lance manages, because he’s made his bed and now he must lie in it, “just — decided. No reason.”

Keith chuckles. “Alright then, Lance. Come on back and I’ll sketch something up for ya.”

Lance doesn’t really have a clear picture of what he wants in his head (go figure, impulsiveness has consequences) so Keith asks him a couple of questions to figure it out.

“I really — I really don’t have any idea of what I want. Just something small and pretty.” He thinks back to what he was muttering to himself just before he fell and Keith caught him yesterday, and smiles slightly. “Maybe something tropical? Delicate?”

Keith lights up. “Oh, I’ve got something!”

Lance tries his best to avoid peering over Keith’s shoulder as he carefully sketches something out for a few minutes. He finally turns around, presenting Lance with a piece of paper showing a small drawing about the size of a quarter, of a pretty six-petaled flower that looks like a mix of a hibiscus and a daffodil.

“It’s perfect,” Lance says. Keith grins brightly.

“Great! I’m going to get this scanned onto a stencil and then we can get started, okay?”

Truthfully, Lance would have let Keith ink whatever the hell he wanted on Lance’s skin. Luckily the flower really is beautiful, something Lance can vaguely remember seeing in his Abuela’s garden but can’t quite place. It starts with a, maybe?

Keith comes back quickly, helping Lance settle properly and getting right to work.

“It’s coloured ink, so it’s going to hurt a little,” Keith warns as a loud buzzing begins to fill the room.

Lance grits his teeth and nods. He’s sure it can’t be that bad.

It takes a second for the pain to register when the needle presses into the thin skin of his ankle, but boy does it ever make itself known. Lance bites the inside of his cheek as hard as he can and starts quietly singing the periodic table song to himself to avoid cussing at the top of his lungs.

He can hear Keith’s quiet laughter over the sound of the machine, feel is gentle hands wrapped around Lance’s bare ankle.

It makes some of the pain fade away, which is embarrassing.

The tattoo is done far earlier than Lance expected. One second he’s trying to go over a current project of his in his head to keep himself distracted, and the next second Keith is patting his calf and telling him to take a look.

Lance does. What he sees nearly takes his breath away. It’s not like he was expecting it to be ugly, or anything, but he can’t help but be surprised with how much he likes the look of bright red and soft white ink on the brown of his skin. The flower is small and delicate and pretty. This tattoo may have just been an excuse to see Keith, but — Lance doesn’t think he’s felt so dolled-up and decorated before. Not in a long time, at least.

Lance is so distracted by the look of the ink on his skin that he barely hears the care instructions Keith spells out for him. Instead he rolls up the cuff of his jeans, knowing the broken skin is going to sting in the cold but unwilling to tuck the art away anyway. It takes Keith’s hand on the small of his back, guiding him out of the room, to zap him out of his stupor.

Shiro smiles brightly at them both when they make it back out to the front desk.

“How did it go?”

“Really well,” Lance says, shooting Keith a grateful little grin. “It’s — God, it’s gorgeous.”

“That’s great!” Shiro turns back to his computer, tapping out a few keys. “Small tattoo, coloured ink, custom designed…that’ll be seventy f —”

Keith coughs loudly. “Forty five dollars.”

Lance blinks. “Wait, really? That’s it?”

“Yeah, Keith,” Shiro says, looking pointedly at the artist. “That’s it?”

“It’s way smaller than I usually do,” Keith says, leaning over Shiro to press a couple buttons that Lance can’t see. “And, uh, Lance, your…skin takes ink really…well, so I had to use less of it. Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Just being fair.”

“Oh, okay,” Lance says, a little hesitant, but what does he know? He opens up his wallet, counting out three twenties. It may only be forty-five dollars for the tattoo, but whatever. Keith deserves way more than that, anyway.

He hands the money to Shiro, who works on printing him up a receipt and a paper copy of the care instructions.

“Here you go, Lance. We hope to see you again!”

Lance cuts a glance to Keith, who’s fiddling with a pen and doesn’t see it.

“I think you definitely will.”

———

The awe of the new tattoo doesn’t even wear off before Lance is calling to book another appointment. Hunk shakes his head the entire time Lance is on the phone.

“Dude,” he says, with no small amount of exasperation. “Just ask him out already so you don’t go broke.” (Lance cracked and spilled the whole truth almost immediately after he got back from the appointment. He was too excited to keep it to himself.)

“I’m trying, Hunk!”

“Are you? Because right now it looks like you’re avoiding the issue by making dumbass financial decisions and permanently marking your body instead of just using your words.”

“I’m — using my words. I’m just using them in an alternative format.”

“Uh huh.”

Lance scowls. “Just — shut up. I’ll ask him out after the next appointment, okay? And if he says no I’ll stop going.”

“Right. Sure.”

“I will!”

Lance does not ask him out on the next appointment. At the very least he shows up with an idea of what he wants tattooed, this time — accurate rulers, on the sides of both his pointer fingers, so his hand stitching is more accurate without having to use sewing tape. This time he can anticipate what’s coming, he expects the pain, so it’s a lot easier to deal with, which means he actually has the breath to chat with Keith instead of desperately trying to distract himself.

The tattoo doesn’t take long, and in fact finishes rather quickly, but he and Keith are so caught up in their conversation (read: argument) about what animal would be the most dangerous to share a room with (Keith is so dead wrong it’s not even funny — obviously the answer is a black mamba and not a fucking gorilla) that Shiro actually has to come and tell Keith that he’s almost late for his next client.

Understandably, it’s not Lance’s fault that he didn’t get Keith’s number. Keith was in a rush! Lance didn’t want to hold him up. He’d just have to wait until next time.

———

He does not ask Keith the next time. The next time, he gets a small tattoo of Cuba on the inside of his knee. He talks to Keith about his favourite parts of growing up on the beach all the way up to Keith’s break, and then Keith talks about growing up in the desert with his Pa as he enlists Lance’s help in getting coffee for him and the rest of the staff of the parlour.

Again, it’s not his fault. He was distracted! It’s too easy to forget that he keeps coming to the parlour for a reason when the reason starts being that he wants to hang out with Keith. In fact, he comes so often that he stops bothering to even get tattooed every time — partially because his bank account is begging him to stop, and partially because Keith always gets that wide, open smile of his when Lance stops by on his lunch break to bring Keith coffee and chill out for a bit as he cleans up his studio between clients.

That doesn’t mean he stops getting tatted all together, though. By the time all the snow has melted and the sun starts shining brightly again, Lance has so many random tattoos that his mother sits him down in concern and asks him if she needs to stage an intervention.

Honestly, she probably does. This is getting out of hand, and as much as it seems welcome, there’s only so many times Lance can stop by with a coffee or book an appointment before it’s ridiculous. He needs to man up and either ask Keith out or walk away, once and for all.

And he knows he can’t walk away.

Finally, exactly six months after he first fell — ha — for Keith, he makes up his mind. He’s going to book an appointment for the biggest tattoo he’s ever gotten — something giant and sprawling, spreading across his ribs. Something that will give him enough time to muster up the courage to look in Keith’s gorgeous indigo eyes and finally ask him to be Lance’s boyfriend.

“You want me to — total creative freedom? On a tattoo that size? Really?”

Keith’s mouth is hanging open, coffee cup held so loosely enough in his hands that Lance vaguely worries that it’s going to spill all over the pristine floors.

“Yes,” he says, trying to sound a lot more confident than he is. “I trust you, Keith. I want something big and colourful and pretty, and I want you to design it. Something that you think fits me. You’ve always been good at that.”

Keith’s mouth closes as he huffs out a laugh, eyes trained on his fingers fidgeting around the rim of the cup.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Keith.”

“Okay.” He nods to himself, adorably determined. “I’ll start working on it right away. I’ll text you when I have something designed, okay? I won’t let you down.”

Lance smiles softly, looking at the sure set to Keith’s mouth and the steeled confidence in his eyes.

“I know.”

———

The big day comes a couple weeks later. Keith texts him to let him know that he’s got a design good and ready, so Lance confirms the next day that he’s free, and then it’s set in stone — no backing out now. Keith is going to spend at least four hours inking Lance’s skin, and by the end of it, Lance is finally going to ask him out.

Honestly, Lance is less afraid of the unholy agony he knows this tattoo is going to bring, and more afraid of accidentally goofing up the carefully practiced confession he plans on making.

Keith greets him warmly when he finally makes it to the tattoo parlour, grinning at him and hugging him for what Lance hopes is just too long to be strictly platonic.

“You ready, Lance?”

Lance takes a deep breath. Funnily enough, some of his nerves have started to fade away, leaving him strangely excited.

He doesn’t know that Keith is going to say yes, obviously. But, y’know. He thinks he’s got a pretty good chance.

“As I’ll ever be. Lead the way, Kogane.”

They get started very quickly. Lance hops up on the chair as Keith gets some background music playing, settling back and shivering as his skin hits the cold plastic of the giant chair. Lance isn’t exactly unused to being half nude in this chair, but his skin feels like it’s made itself extra sensitive in preparation for the tattoo, enough so that the first touch from Keith makes him jump.

“Sorry,” Keith murmurs.

“‘S’ok.”

The initial swipe of the tattoo gun across the delicate skin of his ribs makes him wince in a way he hasn’t in a long time. Keith does his best to distract him with chatter, but there comes a point where Lance is too focused on gritting his teeth and swallowing down the pain to actually keep up with conversation. Keith doesn’t seem to mind, letting them sit in a comfortable silence and pressing a gentle hand to Lance’s skin every so often, just so Lance knows he’s there.

As the minutes flow by, Lance leans his head back, closing his eyes and trying to even out his breathing to match the pulsing of the needles. He lets the faint sound of the music Keith has played — a mix of songs and albums they’ve recommended to each other over the months — fill the empty spaces in the room, harmonize along to the buzz of the machine and Keith’s gentle humming as he carefully blocks in the lineart. He lets his mind focus on the near burning feeling of Keith’s hands on his torso, holding him steady, of the gentle puffs of warm air when he huffs his way through a part that’s a little more complicated.

When he finally opens his eyes again, he finds Keith’s eyes narrowed and tongue stuck out just slightly, glint of his silver piercing catching the fluorescent light of the studio. The sight of it makes Lance smile.

Just then, Keith moves the gun from the meatier part of Lance’s waist to the thin skin just under his pec, and Lance gasps out loud, clenching his fists to try and force himself still through the pain.

Keith rubs a soothing hand right over Lance’s belly, shushing him gently as he settles back down.

“Good boy,” he mutters as he moves from the painful area, half teasing.

Lance keens.

There’s not a single thing he can do to stop the sound. He didn’t even know he was capable of making it, to be honest. It escapes from his mouth without his permission, high and breathy, very nearly a moan.

Keith freezes.

Lance considers taking the tattoo gun from Keith’s hand and stabbing it straight through his eye.

“Oh my God,” Lance squeaks. He’s so mortified that he can’t even fully comprehend the magnitude of it. It makes him flush so intensely he’s a little worried he’ll pass out right there on the tattoo chair, red from his hairline to under his nipples.

Slowly, Keith starts back up again, carefully continuing to shade something right under Lance’s ribs. The music is still playing, and the buzz of the tattoo gun hasn’t gotten any quieter, but the room is so tense that it muffles the air and nearly swallows Lance whole.

He’s not sure what to do. Should he say something? Ignore it? Keith seems to be moving on. He should probably do that, follow Keith’s example and ignore it as graciously as possible.

Except ever so slowly, Keith’s free hand starts to stroke the soft skin on Lance’s belly. Hesitantly, at first, movement so minuscule that Lance is half-convinced he made it up.

But no — Keith’s gaze is trained firmly on the ink in front of him, tattoo gun held steady, as his free hand softly strokes Lance’s abdomen, touch so light that it makes his muscles twitch.

Lance’s breath starts to get shallower.

The tattoo gun starts to move up again, back into the tender area of his ribs. Lance winces again, ever so slightly, the pain skyrocketing again and stealing all his focus.

“Look at you,” Keith says, eyes still locked firmly on Lance’s ribs. “Holding so steady for me. Barely even moving. You’re really trying, huh?”

This time, Lance is able to choke down any reaction, but only barely.

“K—Keith?”

The smallest of smirks pulls at Keith’s lips.

“It’s getting real painful, but you’ve been as still as a statue. You’re doing real good, Lance. I’m proud of you.”

The barest of accent bleeds into his words. At this point Lance is so red that his entire torso feels like one giant heartbeat.

“Am I — am I really being good?”

God. Just saying that is so — fucking embarrassing, Jesus Christ. He’s going to have an aneurysm.

But Keith’s smirk only widens.

“So good, Lance. We’re almost done. You’ve been so good for me.”

Lance has to shove his fist in his mouth and bite down as hard as he can to keep himself quiet. He doesn’t know what game they’re playing, but Lance is already one point behind because of that humiliating — thing that escaped his throat earlier. He’s sure as shit not going to lose any worse.

“Please,” he begs, but he doesn’t even know what for. Please stop, my heart can’t take it? Please don’t stop? Please what? What is he begging for?

Please tell me how good I am as you press me into this very chair and rake your nails along my skin?

Jesus. He knows he’s been pining, but since when did he get this bad?

“Almost there,” Keith says, and it’s probably accidental that his thumb brushes against Lance’s nipple as he moves his hand for a better angle, but Lance feels his soul ascend anyway.

Descend, actually. Lance’s soul is not going up, not after he’s practically melted to putty in Keith’s hands.

He has no idea how much longer the tattoo takes. It could take anywhere between fifteen minutes and fifteen years, all Lance’s focus in desperately trying to cool himself down enough to function like a normal person. He just knows that one second Keith is leaned in close, and the next he’s pulling away, buzzing noise fading and music turning off, the only sound left is the frantic pounding of Lance’s heart.

“All done.” Keith gets a soft cloth and wipes off all the blood and ink, then reaches over to grab a decently large mirror. “Take a look.”

Lance almost doesn’t recognize himself. The man in the mirror moves when he does, has the same long limbs and brown eyes, but his torso cannot be the same as Lance’s. Although he just sat through the pain of it, Lance can scarcely believe that his own skin is decorated so beautifully, a quilt of bright colours spanning from the underside of his pec to the top of his hip. Wild roses curl around the curve of his waist, aster and apple blossoms dotting his side. Forget-me-nots bloom across his sternum. Pink camellias stretch from his navel to the waistband of his pants, and calla lily fold delicately around a cluster of freckles around his ribs. A silver needle pulls a thread of white clovers through all the flowers, drawing them together in a dress of beauty.

Lance is stunning. He is — breathtaking, with a meadow of flowers across his skin.

“You were breathtaking before the tattoo,” Keith says quietly. Lance snaps his gaze away from the mirror, staring at him with wide eyes.

“I’m — what?”

Keith’s ears are red, but he wears the same look of steely determination that he wore when Lance first asked for this tattoo.

“That’s — that’s what the lilies mean. Breathtaking. Beauty beyond comprehension.”

Lance heart starts to pound again, but it feels different this time. He swallows against the sudden dryness of his throat.

“Do the flowers all mean something?”

Keith nods.

“Show me.”

He doesn’t know where it comes from, the strength in his voice. But it’s there, suddenly, confidence from somewhere deep and vast that he did not know he could reach.

Keith steps forward again, standing beside where Lance sits up on the chair and locking eyes with him through the mirror. He reaches for Lance’s side, carefully brushing his fingers against the fresh ink.

It burns, the touch, and Lance revels in it.

“Apple blossoms mean preference. A choice, deliberance.” He drags his fingertips along the thread of white clovers. “Clovers mean ‘think of me’. Keep me in your mind, let the thought of me come into your dreams.” His pointer finger traces from the aster to the forget-me-nots to the camellias. “Loveliness, endless truth and respect, deep longing.” Finally, he wraps his hand around Lance’s waist, palm spreading over the bloom of wild roses. He grins wryly. “Wild roses speak of an equal affection of pleasure and pain.”

The barest of huffs leaves Lance’s lungs, soundless. “Is that something you planned beforehand?”

Keith’s chuckle is dark and rich and full of promise. “They were more of a last minute addition.”

God. He’s so — Lance is going to explode. His entire body feels like it’s on fire, like his blood is ablaze and burning out of his skin.

“Keith, if you don’t kiss me right now —”

Lance doesn’t get to finish. Before he can even blink Keith pushes him back against the chair, hand raking up his side — stinging Lance skin in a way that feels almost branding in its permanence — and settling on Lance’s cheek, cupping his face gently in a sharp contrast to the bruising press of his lips. He leaves Lance no room for air, for breath, or even for thought — Lance lungs burn as he forgoes oxygen in favour of drinking in Keith like it is the one thing that will keep him alive.

It feels like it will, like the pound of Keith’s heartbeat alongside his could keep him alive in the moment forever.

“I have wanted to do this since you got a tattoo just to see me,” Keith mumbles. “I wanted to kiss you, then. So badly I was dizzy with it.”

Lance pants, eyes half lidded, skin warmed to roasting by the heat coming off Keith in waves.

“You should have. I would have let you.”

“I’ll make up for it now.”

He does. They kiss for so long that Lance forgets the pain in his side, forgets where he is, forgets even his own name. All he can think about is the press of Keith’s body against his, the euphoria of finally holding and kissing the man he has dreamed of kissing for months.

It’s well worth the pain of the needles. And even the humiliation of melting to liquid in the heat of Keith’s hands — he thinks he might not mind feeling the burn of him for the rest of his life.

———

based on this post (slide 3)

#klance #omg i love this so much #this absolutely made my day #i wish i could read this again for the first time aaaaa

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