Chapter Text
Some things, Lance supposes, have a way of coming back around. To chart it out on a graph: like a circle. Start at Point A, make your way all around the ghosts and make-out sessions and new apartments, and you end up right back at Point A.
Point A being the cafe, of course.
“... So, what you’re saying is…” Hunk turns his piece of paper he was scribbling on over to Lance, pushing it across the table. “Keith needs attention, to thrive like a plant, which he gets from us, by hanging out?”
Lance looks over the drawing. It’s… Kind of crude, to be honest, but also somehow cute? A stick-figure version of Keith is in the middle of the page, surrounded by poorly-drawn renditions of Lance, Hunk and Pidge, sending what looked like… Lightning bolts toward Keith, zig-zagging across the paper to the center.
“Aw, Hunk,” Lance says, “If this didn’t look vaguely like a kindergartener’s rendition of a bizarre cult ritual I’d consider keeping it. Look at Keith’s mullet!”
“Give me that.” Keith says, making a lunge for it. Lance holds it out of the way, shaking his head.
“Uh-uh. No floating papers in public, remember? You’re still invisible.”
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t quite a perfect circle. Keith hadn’t been here the last time he was here with Pidge and Hunk. But whatever, Lance had never said he was an artist and everyone knows only artists can draw perfect circles.
Keith huffs and flops back down into the chair that probably looks totally unoccupied to everyone else. Ha.
“Thanks,” Hunk replies, taking the drawing back from Lance. “The little zigzags represent our love and affection toward Keith.”
Lance peaks back over at the drawing. “So that’s why I have more lightning bolts zapping him? Aw, bro.”
“You know it, bro.”
“Bro…”
“Br--”
Pidge slams their hands onto the table, bringing them all back to reality. “Anyway. Why hasn’t Keith reappeared then, is the real question here. Right?”
“Could have something to do with time,” Hunk suggests, “When we first met Keith, we couldn’t see him--and even when we could, it was a gradual thing.”
“So he’s like… a battery that needs recharging.” Pidge says. Hunk shrugs.
“I mean, um. I can’t really think of a better metaphor.”
Keith makes an agitated noise. “And what if Nyma wasn’t even telling the truth about any of it? We don’t know this girl from anywhere.” he snaps, his words reaching absolutely no one except for Lance. Lance furrows his eyebrows.
“We don’t any other choice, do we? She seems to know better than any of us.”
Hunk and Pidge exchange glances.
“Yeah, well, you’re the ghost whisperer! Shouldn’t you know things like this?” Keith crosses his arms in front of his chest and glares. Lance mirrors him.
“And you’re the ghost!”
“I had amnesia.”
Lance opens his mouth to say something else, but Pidge cuts him off swiftly. “If you guys are going to argue, could you at least be a little more lowkey? People are starting to stare, Lance.”
Oh. It’s easy to forget when he’s already so used to Keith being visible. With a sigh, he sinks into his seat to avoid everyone’s gaze. They’d stop looking eventually.
“Sorry. Still not used to it.” He pops his neck, rolling his head from one side to the other. “Anyway, I guess time can only tell. Hopefully by the party he’ll be visible again.”
Hunk hums in agreement. “Yeah. I, for one, cannot wait for midterms to be over. This party will be a welcome end to it all.”
“You’re telling me,” Pidge nods, “I always wonder why you dropped out, Lance, but midterms make me consider it too.”
“I didn’t drop out because of midterms, Pidge.” Lance rolls his eyes, “And maybe if you had a cool job like me, you could drop out too.”
They make a face. “Pass.”
“Anyway.” Hunk interrupts, an obvious attempt to change the subject that’s not even being disguised. “It’s not really so much of a party as it is a gathering, right? There’s only like… Five of us…”
“Hunk, please. You’re underestimating my ability to throw a kick-ass party regardless of the amount of people there.” Lance smirks. “Even if two of the people are dead. That’s how you know it’s really good.”
“I don’t think ghosts in attendance is a measurement of how exciting a party is.” Pidge says. Before Lance can respond with anything even less witty, they open their laptop back up again. “And I’d like to have something good to celebrate at the party, like some A’s, so…”
Lance stands up abruptly, the chair nearly toppling over behind him.
“Say no more. You guys study away; me and Keith have epic party plans to make.”
Hunk waves. “Have fun, guys.”
“I mean, I’d say the same thing to you two but you’re both studying.” Lance shoots them both fingerguns. “So instead: kick some test-butt!”
Hunk returns the fingerguns as Pidge glances up from their laptop and grins.
“You know it.”
In retrospect, it really shouldn’t have been that surprising that Nyma found out where Lance lives. What was more surprising, was the fact that she had found out where he lived and made it there before they did.
She’s leaned up against the outside of the apartment door, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. Vacant, spaced out eyes come to life when she hears the footsteps approaching.
“Oh, took you guys long enough.” a grin crosses her face as she pulls her hand away, letting the blond hair fall back onto her shoulder. Lance blinks.
“How did you get here?” Keith asks, before Lance can even think of which question to ask her first as How-When-Why flit through his mind. Nyma shrugs.
“Probably the same way you got here. Walking? By bus? Unless you’re asking how I found this place,” she pauses, leaning forward toward Keith. “And for that, I’ll tell you that you can find out a lot of information, being invisible. Try it sometime.”
Keith furrows his eyebrows in confusion, but Nyma only moves out of the way of the door. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to interrupt whatever you two get up to in the confines of your own home.” she grins. “Just here to see if a rumor I heard was true.”
“Rumor?” Lance questions, fishing his apartment key out of his pocket. She nods.
“Just open the door.”
Lance could feel the unease rolling off of Keith in waves. He couldn’t necessarily blame him--how did she get his address?--but Nyma had been nothing but helpful and… Relatively straight-forward with them.
Also, ghosts weren’t like vampires. Right? They can’t come in unless invited in?
He unlocks the door and opens it, and immediately her face falls. He gestures for her to enter, but Nyma shakes her head.
“Okay, no. I’ve seen enough.” she pinches the bridge of her nose. “When I read that this was your first apartment, fresh out of college, I thought maybe you wouldn’t have any furniture, but…”
“Hey!” Lance says, crossing his arms in front of him. “I mean, it’s charming! It’s a bachelor pad! Keith, back me up.”
Keith looks away from him. “Cardboard isn’t a table, Lance.”
Lance gasps, scandalized and in utter disbelief. How dare he be ganged up on by two ghosts?
Nyma finally moves past him and into the living room. She scrunches her nose up, eyes moving across the limited space. “Are those the little tree thingies that people put in their cars?”
“It smells good!” he says, voice cracking as he follows her into his own apartment. Keith trails just behind him.
Nyma, apparently having seen enough, turns back toward him. “You can’t have a party here. You have a couch, a TV, and some cardboard.”
“You can cram like four people onto that couch!” Lance points out. “We’ve done it before.”
“It’s a loveseat.” she says, dryly, before moving back toward the door. “I mean, I can’t tell you what to do, but at least think about buying some more chairs.”
Lance stares at her, dejected. She stops for a moment, idling in the doorway.
“I mean, don’t look so put-out! It’s really not a cute look on you.” Nyma pauses, face shifting from concerned, to… Devious. “... I mean, I’m just trying to make a suggestion. How can you throw an awesome, epic party if no one has anywhere to sit?”
Lance’s eyes widen. Keith glances between him and Nyma, frown growing more and more.
“Anyway,” she continues, sending them both a wave before turning back around. “I’ll see you boys later, right?”
“I--Wait! You came by just to check on my furniture?” Lance questions. She blinks and shrugs.
“Something like that. Or maybe I was checking on something else, too.”
And with a final, coy smile, she’s gone. The door shuts behind her, and Lance turns back to stare at the couch.
There’s a stretched out moment of silence.
“... I mean, I guess she has a point.” Lance finally says, sighing sadly. “Goodbye, bachelor pad.”
“It doesn’t have to be made out of cardboard to be a bachelor pad.” Keith replies. “I don’t like the way she had to play you to make you figure it out, but it would be way better if there was more than one place to sit.”
Lance sends him the best puppy-dog eyes he can muster up. “Do you hate the car-freshener pine trees too?”
“... I think there are more efficient ways to make an apartment smell good.” he admits, carefully wording his sentence. Lance sighs and moves toward the couch, slumping down onto it.
“I was totally saving up for a Playstation VR, but I guess new furniture is cool too.”
Keith sits down next to him. “I don’t know what that is, but I doubt it’s more important than an actual coffee table.”
Lance sighs, propping his feet up onto the cardboard box in front of them for what might be the last time. “Man, does this mean I have to get rid of my mini-fridge?”
“I think the mini-fridge is fine.” he pauses. “You know, if you have some left over money maybe we can buy some posters.”
Lance looks at Keith, grin snaking across his face. “Aw, babe, you wanna turn this house into a home? And go furniture shopping with me? That’s so domestic,” he coos. Keith gives him a playful shove.
“Yeah, shopping in a Target is so romantic.” he rolls his eyes, but Lance’s eyebrows shoot up nearly into his hairline.
“You mean you’ve never had a department store date? Keith.” he reaches over to wrap his arm around Keith’s, giving him a deathly serious look. “That’s tragic.”
“Truly.” Keith replies, the words sarcastic but not mean-spirited. “Guess you’ll just have to show me the light tomorrow.”
Lance grins, then leans his head onto Keith’s shoulder, releasing the his arm. Keith clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“Lance. How did Nyma find your apartment?”
Lance frowns. “Ookay, sudden topic change. I don’t know. A better question is how did she find out I went to college?” he hums thoughtfully. “She must do a lot of information digging.”
Keith is silent. Lance nudges him, pulling away for a moment. “Hey, you alright?”
Keith blinks, frowning. “Yeah-- I, uh.” he blinks at Lance, running a hand through his hair and standing up. Lance sends him a concerned look, but Keith shakes his head.
“I just don’t trust her. I’m gonna go take a walk and clear my head.”
He leaves Lance staring at the door in confusion as he exits.
“So is this a date,” Keith starts, the next day as they browse through the store. 2PM on a weekday means that, thankfully, it’s mostly abandoned aside from a few workers walking around, “Or or a mandatory furniture shopping trip?”
“Obviously you aren’t open-minded enough if the two things have to be exclusive.” Lance grins. “I could go find you some fake flowers to make it more official, though.”
“And I couldn’t even carry them around,” Keith tacks on, as they pass by the bathroom decor section. Department store furniture may not be the highest quality, but hey, whatever got the job done. “Unless you really want to freak some workers out.”
Lance looks like he’s legitimately considering it, for a moment.
“That’s a joke, by the way. I’m not going to do that.”
Lance looks only slightly put-out.
“Do you think I could get away with buying only bean-bags? I could buy those extra large ones, and then Hunk could sit on one side and Pidge could sit on the other.” Lance asks, thoughtfully, as they finally reach the aisle they’re looking for.
(None of these chairs, Keith notes, look all that comfortable.)
“Probably not going to work for a table.” Keith replies, walking over to a lounge chair. “What about this thing? It looks pretty cheap and… Easy to bring back home.”
Lance follows his line of sight, moving to stand next to Keith. A display of oval lounge chairs in various colors sat on display, some of them looking… Really fuzzy. Pajama-pants levels of fuzzy.
“I like it.” Lance says, nodding his head in approval. “A step up from bean-bag, but not too classy that I’m paying over fifty dollars for it.”
“Please don’t buy the weird furry one.” Keith reaches down to run his fingers over it, pulling back with a disgusted face. “It’s kind of freaking me out.”
“I’m offended you even think I’d want to.” Lance says, shooting him a fake glare before picking up a box with a navy-blue normal fabric-covered chair printed on it. “Obviously, I am a man of higher class than that.”
“You put up car air-fresheners all over your house.”
Lance scoffs. “You’re saying that as if it’s a bad thing. Those things practically lasted forever, okay?”
“So you admit you can’t even smell them anymore.” Keith raises an eyebrow, grin on his face. “Finally. Let’s go buy normal air freshener.”
In the end, they ended up with two of the lounge chairs, one some-assembly-required coffee table that Lance was sure he’d end up spending five hours trying to put together, and a few candles that, tragically, didn’t smell like pine fresh woods.
(That was a little bit sad, but Lance would get used to it.)
He lazily pushes the cart as they make their way toward checkout, not in too much of a hurry. Lance had the day off, but the next few were all full-work days, and then there was the party after. A busy week for sure--not necessarily in a bad way--but still in a way that made him want to savor his day off.
An aisle catches Lance’s eye, and he comes to an abrupt stop. If Keith had been walking behind him instead of beside him, he probably would have ran straight into Lance. Instead, Lance reaches over to tap Keith’s shoulder excitedly.
“Keith,” he hisses, pointing in the direction of the aisle. It’s like a red and green explosion. “Keith, Christmas stuff.”
Keith blinks in confusion as Lance whips the cart around to make a beeline right for it. “It’s not even-- It’s not even Halloween yet!”
“Like stores even care about that anymore!” Lance scoffs as he pushes the cart through, looking around excitedly. “And you haven’t seen anything. This is only one aisle. Just wait until after Thanksgiving, when half the store turns into this.”
The aisle is messy and unorganized--an obvious indicator that it was still a work in progress that a ton of people had already trekked through. Eagerly, Lance shifts through the objects.
“Ooh, ornaments.” Lance beams, picking up a red glass ball and showing it to Keith. “We should get a tree! Real or fake?”
“Can we focus on at least getting to November before we start asking questions like that?” Keith says, but a smile playing at the corner of his lips betrays him. Lance smirks.
“Come on Keith, I see that smile. It is never too early to get into the holiday spirit.” he puts the ball back down and turns toward the other side of the aisle, eyes suddenly lighting up.
“No. Way.”
“What?”
Instead of answering him immediately, Lance turns away for a brief moment. He grabs an object from a spot on the shelf and bends down, obviously in an attempt to hide whatever he’s up to from Keith. Before Keith can move closer, though, Lance pops back up and grins at him smugly.
He has a headband on, candy-cane stripes decorating it all the way to the wire jutting out the top, curving down to just in front of Lance’s forehead. At the end, is some very poorly made fake mistletoe.
“Keith,” Lance starts, stretching his arms out to either side. The mistletoe sways with his movements. “I’m sure you know the rules.”
Lance can’t tell from Keith’s face, whether he’s going to bust out laughing or attempt to rip the headband off and throw it across the store. He does another quick glance to make sure nobody’s in the aisle, and makes a step toward Keith.
Keith doesn’t move, neither backward or forward, and doesn’t say anything either. The way the corners of his mouth are twitching upward, Lance has a feeling that if he opened his mouth he might laugh so hard he wouldn’t be able to control it. In retaliation, Lance puts on the most serious face he can muster while wearing a mistletoe headband and moves closer, wrapping his arms around Keith’s shoulders.
“Oh, look at that,” he says, casually, when their faces are just inches apart. “It’s very convenient mistletoe.”
Keith, finally able to stabilize himself enough to speak, lets out a small snort. “That’s-- Very convenient indeed.”
And then Lance closes the gap between them, pressing their lips together. It’s for sure a really strange sight to anyone else, a man wearing a mistletoe headband kissing thin air in the middle of a department store, but for once the universe agrees with him and nobody sees their little moment except for the two of them.
Keith can’t help that he’s smiling into the kiss, and finally when the mistletoe brushes against the top of his head he breaks it and swats at the fake plant, laughing.
“That’s terrible design,” he says, laughing as Lance jerks his head away so the mistletoe isn’t in Keith’s hair anymore. Lance pulls off the headband and looks at it seriously.
“I’m buying this.”
The days go by uneventfully, for once. The furniture gets put up, the car air-fresheners taken down, candles lit in their place.
(“Rest in peace,” Lance says as he lights the first candle, as if it’s being done in memory of the little trees that littered his home only a few hours ago. Keith rolls his eyes, but lights a candle next to it. Lance’s eyes practically sparkle.
“I knew you cared for them!”)
Lance struggles for hours with the table, until he finally calls Hunk, who gets it done in thirty minutes. Lance goes to work, Keith picks up his new hobby--retro video games emulated on his phone--and not much changes.
Including the fact that he’s still not visible.
When Lance comes home the day of the party, he sets a few grocery bags full of snacks down and flops onto the couch, practically crowding Keith off.
“Allura said she and Shiro would be over at 7,” he says, flopping his head onto Keith’s shoulder. “And Hunk and Pidge said 6:30. Ish. Who knows when Nyma will be here. But she knows where I live so I don’t have to worry about that? I guess?”
“Hello to you too,” Keith grunts.
“Standard greetings are overrated.” Lance replies, with a slight shrug. “Wanna help me get all this food ready?”
And after the chips are poured into a bowl and queso is being made, Pidge and Hunk are indeed the first ones to arrive at 6:25PM, which makes Lance’s estimate of 6:30ish pretty damn accurate. There are greetings, even to Keith, and despite all of the attention, he still feels--nothing. Exactly the same, still invisible.
(He’s wearing Lance’s blue hoodie, though, the oversized one he had tossed at Lance what seems like lifetimes ago, so everyone knows where he is. It’s a lot less embarassing now.)
Allura and Shiro are next, exactly 35 minutes later when they said they’d be. Lance doesn’t think he’s ever seen Allura late to work, not even once. It’s oddly fitting for her to not be late to a party, either.
And then, the only one who isn’t there is Nyma.
“So,” Lance starts, when everyone else is settled in the living room, “As you may have noticed, Keith is invisible again, which is okay because we’re learning some… Interesting stuff about how ghosts work. And we think it’s temporary. Probably.”
“Probably?” Keith questions out loud. Lance sends him a sheepish smile, and continues,
“And, anyway, besides coming to celebrate the end of midterms, we also wanted to introduce you to another ghost! That we met! That isn’t here right now?”
Everyone only blinks at him in confusion.
“Another ghost?” Allura questions, causing Shiro to nod, in agreement with her confusion.
“Keith never mentioned anything about knowing any other ghosts.”
Keith snorts. Yeah, because talking about Nyma was just his favorite thing to do.
“Yeah, well, you’re all going to get to meet her tonight!” Lance responds, brightly. “... If she ever shows up!”
And then, as if summoned, at exactly 7:08PM, Nyma enters the building.
The sound of her voice causes Lance and Keith to whip their head toward her, but everyone else doesn’t notice until she shuts the door behind her. “Can’t believe you were going to start without me.”
She sends Lance a serene smile, all but ignoring Keith as she makes her way toward the center of the room to stand next to him. Flicking a piece of hair over her shoulder, she looks at him expectantly.
“... Going to introduce me?” she finally asks, when Lance continues to stare at her. He opens his mouth, and then shuts it and turns back to the group.
“Uh, right-- Of course! Everyone, this is Nyma. Keith, can you--?”
Lance turns toward Keith, but Nyma is already there, taking the whiteboard from him. He doesn’t say anything, but watches her carefully as she picks up the board and sends him a wink.
Everyone watches, silently, as the whiteboard seemingly floats to the center of the room. Curly handwriting appears on it, letter by letter, before she flips it over and turns it out to face the group.
“Hi, everyone.”
Allura gasps.
“Oh, such pretty handwriting!” she says, leaning forward on the couch. Somehow, Allura being more amazed by the handwriting than an actual, physical ghost isn’t even surprising. Shiro lets out a shaky laugh next to her, and Hunk and Pidge both look varying shades of interested. Nyma gives a sweet smile to Allura, despite the fact that it can’t be seen.
She wipes away at her previous message and writes again:
“Thank you! ♥ Can I know everyone’s names?”
“Oh, of course!” Allura replies, brightly. “I’m Allura, and this is my fiancee Shiro. Ooh, can ghosts see other ghosts? If you know Keith, this is Keith’s older brother.” she gestures toward Shiro, and the smile on Nyma’s face doesn’t falter for a second.
Lance has a weird feeling that she already knew that information.
“You can call me Pidge,” Pidge says, from their spot by Hunk’s feet. Hunk speaks up next.
“And I’m Hunk.”
In the other lounge chair, across from Hunk and Pidge, Lance sees Keith narrow his eyes.
“And you know me and Keith.” Lance ends. Nyma turns the board back to herself again.
“Nice to meet you all. So… Where’s the party at? ;)”
And then, as easy as that, they all knew each other.
Introductions were easier than Lance had expected, considering Nyma had mostly taken care of the situation herself. It was obvious she had already had this all planned out--but that didn’t necessarily mean anything to Lance. It was her idea in the first place, of course she already knew exactly what she was after. With the way she went to talk to everyone right after, it was clear she was wasting no time in her goal.
But judging by the look on Keith’s face, he didn’t quite hold the same sentiment.
“Hey,” Lance says as he approaches Keith, who’s still sulking in the chair. “Pouting over the fact she has your whiteboard?”
“I’m not pouting,” Keith says, scowling up at Lance. “I don’t trust her, so I’m watching her.”
“You are pouting.” Lance shakes his head. “I know you don’t trust her, but think about how open she’s been. I mean, if she was going to hide something from us, I think it would have been maybe that whole thing about stalking her ex.”
“Unless she’s hiding something worse.” Keith points out. Lance sighs.
“I think you’re just mad about the whiteboard.”
“I have a phone I can use.”
“Well Shiro’s been glancing over here, so I hope that’s because you’re having a text conversation with him and not just because you’re ignoring him so you can sulk.” Lance says. As if on cue, Keith’s phone buzzes and Lance can see Shiro look over toward them.
“We are having a conversation.” Keith says, crossing his arms in front of himself. Lance rolls his eyes.
“Okay, well, I’m going to go turn on some music and then join their conversation with Nyma. You can sit here and pout and be suspicious, or you can come join in because I’m sure everyone’s curious about you.”
“And type out everything while you guys have a conversation where you’re talking nonstop?” he frowns. “I’ll pass.”
“Your loss.” Lance says, with a shrug, because if there’s one thing he’s learned about Keith spending all this time with him, it’s that he’s stubborn.
Keith looks back down to send Shiro a text back as Lance leaves, scowling to himself. At least no one else can see his face and come give him a lecture. Lance turns some music on, low enough that it doesn’t interrupt their conversation, and he hears Lance’s loud voice greet everyone as he enters their group conversation.
He’s just finishing up his response, hitting send when a feminine cough brings him out of his focus. He glances up and narrows his eyes as Nyma looks down at him, grin on her face.
“Eh-hem. I think I’m good now, for awhile at least--so if you wanted to learn how to be visible and invisible at will, here’s your chance.” she says, hands resting on her hips, cocked to one side. The whiteboard is laying abandoned on the couch, so she must have told them she was going somewhere. Everyone else stands in their circle near the kitchen, chatting.
“Tell me how it works, first,” he says, because he’s never been a particularly cautious person, but he’s not stupid either. She scrunches up her nose in thought.
“I mean, I can try, but it’s more something you have to feel. You kind of have to focus your energy across your whole body. I start from the bottom, and work my way to the top. It’s easier if you close your eyes.”
Keith raises an eyebrow. “And how do I know you’re not lying to me?”
She makes a tsking noise. “What would I even gain from lying to you? Fine. You want an example?”
Before he can answer, Nyma closes her eyes as her eyebrows furrow, mouth twitching downward. She definitely looks focused, for sure. Keith watches, patiently.
Finally, she opens up her eyes again and looks smug.
“You look the same to me,” Keith points out. Nyma frowns, looking more annoyed than anything.
“I know it might kill you--but oh wait, you’re already dead. Just trust me.”
“This better be how it works.” Keith says, sending her one last suspicious glare. She rolls her eyes.
“Believe it or not, I do have better things to do with my time than make fun of you.”
Deciding not to waste his breath with another remark toward her, Keith closes his eyes and tries to… Do whatever the hell focus your energy meant.
Surprisingly, it comes easy enough. He still didn’t have much of a clue what was happening, or how, but he could feel it working--from bottom, to top, just like she had said.
It’s kind of hard to keep focused, but he manages to do it anyway, until he’s at the very top of his head.
And then--
It’s done.
When he opens his eyes, Nyma looks pleased to the point of almost looking smug.
“Like a true natural.” she says, and then laughs. “But with a teacher like me, who wouldn’t be? If you wanna go back invisible, you just do the same thing. It takes a couple seconds though, and focus, so don’t think you can just blip in and out of existence in a pinch.” she warns. He raises an eyebrow.
“Personal experience?”
“None of your business, more like.” she says, but there’s no bite to her words. It’s just stated as a pure fact. Still, he narrows his eyes.
A quick glance to the rest of the group tells him that they’re preoccupied with each other again. Keith’s voice is low when he turns back to her and responds, “Pretty ironic coming from someone who hunted down someone else’s address.”
She smiles. “And that’s not the only thing I found out, Keith Shirogane. When you’re invisible, there’s no information or files anywhere that are off-limits.”
Keith freezes as she continues, “Including medical files, you know. Not that I needed those to put two and two together, given when you died, and h--”
“I died from smoke inhalation,” he interrupts. “I died saving my baby brother from a fire.”
Her face morphs from cocky and calculated, to something else entirely. “Keith, I’m not your enemy. I’m not a good person, by any standards, before or after I died, but I’m not out to make your post-life hell.” he opens his mouth to interrupt, but she continues, “My point in telling you all this, was to let you know that the information is out there. And something tells me that there’s a lot of people here who are important to you, that don’t know.”
Keith tongues the inside of his cheek. “And is it really relevant? Why bring it up now?”
She levels him with a serious look.
“I don’t know, Keith. Do you think it’s relevant? Some things are easier to hear from the source, and trust me when I say that I know, that even if you’ve been buried, the secrets that you kept aren’t always safe from being unearthed.”
That only brings up a million more questions for Keith--but he looks up at her, silent and serious, as she stares right back at him.
And then their moment is shattered. Keith knew it was going to happen soon--Shiro and Lance had both been glancing their way periodically, though Shiro was the only one who could tell if he was visible or not anyway.
“Keith!” he hears Shiro say, and then everyone else is turning their head. And there’s a lot of commotion, but Lance is there, hugging him, and Shiro is too, and then it’s practically a giant group hug. He can see Nyma, pulled into it unwillingly, and her own shocked face at being part of this already-established friend groups mass-hug.
And maybe, Keith thinks, just maybe she’s not completely in everything just for herself.
Nyma is the last to arrive and the first to leave, not too long after being swept up into the group-hug.
“I’ll see you all again, probably,” she says, and Keith doesn’t know whether he should be upset at the idea of seeing her again, or happy about it. “But I can’t keep up this form for too long, so I should probably get going!”
Lance opens the door for her as she leaves, and then moves back toward Keith. “Was it just me, or was she acting weird?”
“Like I’d know.” he replies, with a shrug. But he does know what Lance means.
Nobody else leaves, for a couple more hours, and Keith does his best to be sociable--at least for Shiro’s sake. But, finally, 11PM rolls around and Allura and Shiro leave too.
Pidge and Hunk debate spending the night again, but after the fiasco that was Harry Potter night, decide against it. Keith stares out the window as Lance says goodnight to them around 2AM, so spaced out that he doesn’t even notice Lance until he’s already sitting next to him, having scooted the other chair all the way across the room.
“Nyma wasn’t the only one being weird,” Lance says, jerking Keith out of his thoughts. He raises his eyebrows at Lance’s words, but doesn’t say anything else. Lance continues, “What did you two talk about, anyway?”
Keith is silent for a moment. “Nothing. She just showed me how to turn back and forth between invisible and not.”
Lance makes a thoughtful noise, like he’s not sure if he believes Keith or not, but doesn’t press the issue. Instead, he rests his head on the glass and focuses his attention out. Keith follows his gaze.
“Was the city this bright back when you lived?” Lance asks. Keith gives a small laugh.
“It was 30 years ago, not 200. It was still a big city, even in the 80s.”
Lance nods, humming. “Yeah, I figured. Can’t hurt to ask, though.”
“How’s your foot, by the way.”
Lance yawns. “I think it only hurt me for a few minutes the entire day. It’s amazing, how the human body heals itself. Naturally. No doctors needed.”
Keith scoffs. “Yeah, whatever. I’ll believe you though.”
Keith leans his own head against the glass, too, although his attention is now on Lance. Lance, who’s eyes reflect the city light, who’s visibly starting to doze off already, face smushed against the cold glass of a window in October.
He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t need to. The stretched out silence between them is more than comfortable: it’s right, and he thinks, watching Lance completely fall asleep in a cheap chair they had bought together less than a week ago--
That maybe, Nyma might be right.
He gets up and drapes a blanket over Lance, before moving him slightly away from the window. His head lolls back into a more comfortable position, and unconsciously, he snuggles deeper into the blanket with a little satisfied noise.
Keith kisses his forehead and turns off the living room lights, settling down onto the couch to text Shiro back.