Okay but please imagine Keith’s reaction to seeing Lance after he’s finally spent some time at the beach again? In his natural element, bronzed like a literal god, burnished from the sun? freckles like constellations?? Lance with wavy, curly salt water-hair, eyes soft and relaxed.
+ Keith meeting back up with the paladins after too long away with the blade. 👀
He loves space of course, but even after his time in the quantum abyss, he’s still not used to the way all warmth & body heat was constantly leached away. Despite his memories of cursing his time in the relentless summer heat of the shack, he’s found himself beginning to miss the hot scorch of the desert sun against his skin.
The blade gave Keith a rare opportunity for downtime that somehow happenes to align with an impromptu holiday/break that Allura has planned for the paladins on a sunny, earth-like planet filled with tropical islands, flora & fauna.
To Keith’s surprise, Lance was the one to call and invite him to join them; sunshine already infused in his voice at the idea of seeing a beach again.
For Keith, the mere thought of getting to see Lance in his natural element? He wouldn’t miss it for anything.
He promises to Lance on the spot (he would promise Lance all the moons and stars if he could) to meet him there later in the day.
When he gets there, everyone has already been enjoying the sun & surf for hours. Pidge is sunburned and squinting at the glare against her datapad, glasses reflecting at a sleeping hunk whose legs have been covered by a crude sand castle. He’s spooning a large collection of fruits that look strangely similar to the ones Keith remembers from earth.
Shiro and Coran seem to be playing a complicated Altean beach game that Keith intends to avoid; Allura lays out on the sand, the mice resting in the shadow of her hair.
Keith thinks someone might have called out a greeting to him, but he can’t be sure, because the second he sees Lance? All thougts leave him, head empty.
It’s too soon to blame the redness in his cheeks on the sun, but he can feel how hot his face has gotten anyway.
Lance is sitting in the sand, waves lapping his ankles. His hair is wild & curling behind his ears from the salt water breeze.
The sight of him alone is enough to warm the cold ache Keith has been feeling.
Sand sticks to the bronzed slope of his back, glittering like flecks of gold, effervescent in the bright sun for Keith’s eyes to follow.
His shoulders are broad and already tanned and freckled where Keith knows his own would be red and sore.
His eyes sweep over the scar on Lances back, and the ones on his arms and sides that Keith wasn’t there to protect him from.
But here? With the blue of the ocean to rival his eyes? Lance looks untouchable.
Looks like a god, burning bright and warm and full of life, and when he turns around at the sound of Keith’s name being called out, Keith’s breath catches in his throat because this sight?
This is one he got to see in the quantum abyss. It was one of the visions into his future that he held onto like a lifeline, like a treasure.
The image of Lance’s smile, a true joyful smile, playing behind Keith’s eyelids and keeping him sane on the worst of those nights spent stranded in space.
Lance, eyes dancing bright and smile brighter as his wide mouth forms Keith’s name on a joyful laugh and he hops up to throw his arms around Keith in a hug that feels like /home/ in a way Keith hadn’t known before Lance.
For one delirious moment, the déjà vu is so strong that he’s afraid he and Krolia never made it back at all. That they were still stuck out there in the cold emptiness of the abyss. The way the vision blends with the Lance he has in front of him makes Keith want to hold on tight and never let go.
Especially when Lance leans back and their eyes meet and lock, electric.
Keith still hasn’t even said a word, but Lance only smiles brighter and knocks their foreheads together.
Says, “hey samurai, it’s been too long”
One traitorous hand drifts up against Keith’s will to trace the new freckles dotting Lance’s cheeks, which flush the lightest pink at the attention or maybe the intensity of Keith’s gaze as he floats into Lance’s orbit, pulled to him like the moon to the sun.
Lance’s leans into the hand Keith cups against his cheek, and finally, finally their lips meet; Keith’s cold and chapped and Lance’s, warm and soft, tasting of the ocean.
When he has to pull back to catch his breath, he finally murmurs back a warm and gravely, “hey sharp shooter,” lips pulled up into a crooked grin and eyes tracking the way Lance melts into him at the nickname like always.
They stay like that for a while, catching up on what they’ve both been up to when Lance says offhand, “hey where’s Kosmo?”
Before Keith can answer, they’re both knocked into the surf by 200 pounds of excited space wolf.
Keith wants to be mad, but the way Lance pops up from the water sputtering makes him grin through the hair plastered to his forehead.
Lance takes one look at Keith, waist deep and fully clothed down to the fingerless gloves, mullet drenched, and bursts out laughing at the sight
and Keith can’t even be mad. He pretends to be, crossing his arms and ‘sulking’. He tries to blow his bangs up and out of his eyes before he remembers it won’t work and that sends Lance into tears. Keith sits back watches Lance laugh for a minute, committing the sight to memory.
He’s gonna get revenge on Lance for laughing, but first he needs to level the playing field.
Lance’s laughter slowly winds down as he watches Kosmo run off to greet the other paladins, laughing again when the wolf shakes water all over Allura and Hunk.
While Lance was distracted, Keith had taken his shirt and gloves off, tossing them back onto dry sand and adding his soaked jeans to the pile for good measure.
Keith was slicking his hair back from his face when Lance turned back toward him and froze at the sight, suspiciously quiet.
// …tbc? transferring twitter treads. original thread here!
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