Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

. . .

now.

When Lance thinks back on it—like, really lets himself deep-dive into the ancient archives of what has been, up until now, the sad, low-budget version of the life he always imagined he’d live—everything always seems to lead him right back to the same place: here.

Here is his abuela’s renowned coffee shop in the heart of Manhattan, where Lance is fairly certain he used to spend more time than his actual childhood house in Brooklyn. And here, on these very marbled countertops, is where a younger Lance once sat, with scraped knees and missing teeth, while his abuela taught him everything she knows. He’d watch in absolute wonder as she kneaded pastry dough with her dextrous hands, and ground coffee beans into a fine dust, and drizzled dashes of piloncillo syrup over honeyed milk and frothy foam like it was a work of art.

Just a little bit of syrup and honey, niño, she used to tell him, auburn hair peppered with grey and always curled into wild ringlets around her face. Then, accentuated by a lipsticked kiss to the tip of his nose: That’s all you need to make it extra sweet.      

Here, Lance thinks, is home.

It’s just that he never thought he’d be returning to it so soon, and least of all like this—a disappointment. A failure. A grad school drop-out. Pathetic.

No one has actually come out and said it yet, in those exact words, but sometimes Lance swears he can read it between the lines of his siblings’ texts when they say things like my office is looking for interns, can hear a distant strain of it in his mother’s worried voice whenever she calls to say you’re not eating enough, you used to call more, are you taking your meds?

“I wanna take over the café,” Lance had told her that day over the phone, and the line had gone very quiet. Too quiet. “Mama? You there? I said I wanna—”

“Yes, sweetheart, I heard you.”

“So, can I?”

She had sighed, then, static in his ear. 

“I just wish you’d go a little easier on yourself, Lance.”

But when he had listened to her say it, when the words translated inside his brain, he heard it as I don’t think you can handle it. 

“Look.” He remembers squeezing the phone so hard his hands shook. “Lita’s retiring, and who knows what’ll happen to the place if we sell it. I can’t just sit around here anymore, Mama, I’m going nuts. I want—” A distraction, a purpose, a way to make you all proud of me again, something, anything, please, please. “—to come home.”

So Lance does, and he’s never felt more like that wonderstruck little boy than he does back here, in this city, in this moment. If the café had been the start of everything before, then maybe it’ll be the start of everything again. Lance can hope, at least. He has to. Because it might just be the only thing he has left to lose. 

Now, standing here, in the café he can officially call his, Lance hears the dainty jingle of the bell as the door is thrust open in a grand rush. And, spinning soundly on his heel, he very nearly shrieks at the sight.

“Did someone order a new pastry chef?” booms a voice.

“Hunk!” he does, in fact, shriek.

Lance is suddenly being charged at, and then scooped up by two very large, bone-crushing arms. The nostalgia rams into him just as bodily when he tucks his face into his best friend’s neck and realizes, quite sappily, that he still smells the same; that sweetly specific combination of cinnamon and shortbread.    

“Never leave me again,” snivels Hunk.

“I won’t let go, Jack,” Lance whispers breathlessly in reply. 

They part just enough for Hunk to give a low, appreciative whistle, but even then he keeps an arm slung around Lance’s shoulder. “Whoa,” he says, gaze roaming the room. “Get a load of this place.”

Lance, preening under the praise, says, “She cleans up pretty nice, huh?” 

“Your abuela’s gonna love it, Lance.”

“She better. Only took me three all-nighters and, like, five separate trips to Ikea to get things back in shape, but, hey, look—” He motions to the buttery yellow wall across from them, still glossy and waiting to dry. “—no more chipped paint. And these floorboards?” Then, in demonstration, a foot stomp. “Not a squeak to be heard, m’dude—oh! And check out this lovely lady.” 

Lance all but prances behind the counter, where he’s cozying right up to a brand new, ultra-shiny espresso machine. “Digitally-controlled boilers, sleek multi-function display, state-of-the-art gravimetric technology to weigh the shots in real time—god. Tell me this isn’t, like, the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen.” 

“Should I give you two a moment?” asks Hunk.

“It’s about to get steamy in here, Hunk,” Lance says, with a downright salacious curl of his lip. “Real steamy.”

“Oh, jeez, I almost forgot.” From his bag, Hunk brandishes a large bottle of champagne, a curly blue bow wrapped around the neck. “Just a little congratulatory libation for the new business owner.”

“Aw, buddy,” Lance croons, touched. 

“Shay insisted.”

“So how are you and the future missus doing, by the way?” he asks. 

“Awesome. Like, really awesome,” Hunk sighs, like he’s a lovesick freshman all over again, scurrying back to the dorm to talk Lance’s ear off about that cute girl in his Art History class, pillow clutched to his chest with glee. He prattles on, endlessly thrilled, “You gotta come see the new apartment, Lance, you won’t believe it. We’ll have you over for dinner this week, okay? It’s got a real, actual fireplace, and if you squint, you can almost see Central Park from the bedroom window.” 

“‘Course you can, you big spender!”

A brief, comfortable silence settles over them.

And then, softly:

“You look good, man,” Hunk tells him, eyes crinkled fond at the corners. “Really. You do.”

Lance is wearing his least favorite jeans, and a paint-splattered NYU t-shirt, neckline stretched and drooping off his left shoulder from years of overuse. So when those words sink in, warm and honest, Lance—wearing his ugliest clothes, and a smile he can actually feel in his gut for the first time in months—believes him.

“Thanks, buddy,” he says. “I feel good. New and improved, y’know?” He adds, with quiet, vow-like resolve, “I’m gonna get things right this time.”

It’s followed by a very loud, very wet sniffle.

“Hunk,” warns Lance.

“You know I can’t help it—”

“No—don’t—dude, if you start crying, then I’ll start crying, okay, just—oh, c’mon—”

Once again, Lance is engulfed in a mighty hug, and Hunk’s voice is blubbering right in his ear, “There he is! That’s my guy!”

He wobbles as his feet touch solid ground again, disoriented but happy.

“Hey, let’s head to that new place next door and celebrate with some real drinks,” offers Hunk. “My treat.”   

If not for the muted thump of a grooving bass line rattling the walls, intermingled with the faint rumblings of rowdy barroom prattle, Lance probably would’ve mistaken the venue next door for an abandoned warehouse of some sort. The entire storefront is windowless, painted black from roof to concrete, and eerily enigmatic at a glance. Not even the entrance seems particularly inviting—just a single, dungeon-style door, camouflaged in the gloom like a portal into some creepy, alien netherworld. Above it hangs a glowing neon sign that reads Luxite, with the x stylized as a pair of crossed blades.

Lance takes the place in, remembering it at eight years old, back when it used to be a laundromat with bright tiled floors and plastic furniture. His abuela would so often gift him with a fistful of quarters from the tip jar—something sweetly secretive in the slant of her grin—so that he, Rachel, and Marco could treat themselves to gumballs and candy bracelets from the coin dispensers next door. At fourteen, Lance remembers an afternoon spent slouching in one of those stiff plastic benches, staring at someone’s laundry spin in dizzying circles to match the dizziness in his head as he tried to figure out why his friend Jackson had kissed him that day after swim team practice, and why he had liked it so much. There’s a padlock and a ‘for rent’ sign on the laundromat’s door the following year, and every year after that—until this one, apparently. The realization tweaks oddly and suddenly in Lance’s chest. It makes him feel like he’s been gone longer than he actually has. Makes him feel a bit like a stranger in his own skin.

Despite Luxite’s unassuming exterior, the place turns out to be a real hidden gem. Several industrial-looking lamp fixtures dangle from the ceiling, casting strange shadows and a glare of enchanting amber light against the brick walls. At the far end of the room, surrounded by tables and leather-upholstered lounge seats, there’s a lowered stage where a live band is jamming out to what sounds like an above-average rendition of some Silversun Pickups song. The main floor is considerably packed with gaggles of lively guests as they holler and laugh and clink their glasses together, and so Lance and Hunk make their way over to the bar. Three ladies are working behind the sleek granite counter, each of them weaving so fluidly with and around one another that their movements appear almost synchronized, like a graceful and intimately well-oiled machine.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” greets the bartender closest to them. Her silver-toned hair is piled high into a stylish bun, loose strands of it falling against her highlighted cheekbones. A dark, dewy complexion. Glittery but tasteful eyeshadow. Knee-high stiletto boots. “My name’s Allura. Welcome to Luxite.”

“Hi,” says Hunk.

“Why, hello,” comes Lance’s low, amorous purr.

Allura smiles primly. “What can I get started for you?” she asks.     

“Two whiskey gingers would be—”

“Hold up,” Lance cuts in, eyes narrowing as he jabs an accusing finger across the bar. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

A sigh brushes past the bartender’s lips, the sound of it lost amongst the music, but still visible in the slump of her shoulders. She looks tragically unamused, and rightfully so, if the lecherous stares from all the other half-drunk patrons seated at the bar are any indication. “No,” she says firmly through her teeth. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

“Huh,” Lance breathes, a bit incredulous, because there is something unnervingly familiar about this girl. He squints even harder at her scowling face, trying to piece things together as blindly as stumbling through the dark, until—“Yeah, guess you must be right,” he relents. “I’d never let someone as gorgeous as you get away.”

Her glare flickers over to Hunk, brows raised as if demanding an explanation.

With a spurt of awkward laughter, Hunk gives Lance’s back a sympathetic pat, and says, “Uh, y’see, my pal Lance has had kind of a rough year.”

“I’m fine!” squawks Lance, defensive. He swivels around in his barstool with an indignant huff, but he can still feel Hunk’s palm on his spine, how it sears through the fabric of his shirt, stinging in the worst way, like pity. “Look, okay, things were rough for, like, maybe five months. Six, tops. But that’s—whatever, y’know? All of that's in the past. Now I’m fine. Fantastic, even! Like, this is by far the best I’ve ever—”

The moment that follows stills like the eye of a storm, suspended midair, while everything else flurries around him at a maddening pace. The band ends their song. The guitar’s final cry ricochets off the walls. The crowd cheers, claps, bangs their empty beer glasses on the tables with fervor. And Lance is adrift somewhere in the dead center of it all. His gaze combs over the commotion, molasses-slow, until he comes across a lone silhouette near the entrance, blurred by shadow and leaning against the exposed brick, clapping along in polite appreciation.

Lance is hallucinating. Yes, that’s it. He decides it for himself, right then and there, as if thinking it hard enough will simply make it so, or clear away the image before him as if it were a pesky cobweb clinging to his brain. He blinks, so aggressively that his lids ache with the effort. But then the silhouette turns its head toward a faint patch of overhead light, and everything is revealed all at once: the sharp cut of a jawline, a pair of softly bowed lips, a flickering glint of star-bright eyes.    

And that—that’s all it takes for Lance’s stomach to take a violent plummet to his knees. One dreadful, startling, gut-wrenching spark of realization before his heart is throbbing in his ears, and his fingers are white-knuckling around nothing, and his entire universe snaps back into motion with a brutal lurch that almost knocks him readily to the floor because—

“Fucking shit,” Lance rasps eloquently.

At his side, Hunk perks up. “Huh?”

But Lance is already jerking himself back around with more force than necessary, face gone pale and panicked, practically screeching, “Well, that’s enough fun for one night, don’tcha think!” He lunges for his drink without warning, and guzzles the whole thing down in three thick gulps. Then he takes care of Hunk’s untouched glass in the same fashion, gagging on the painful burn of it, eyes watering profusely.

“Dude…” mutters Hunk, like he’s both greatly disturbed and deeply impressed.

“Mm. Tasty. Delicious,” Lance grunts, still struggling not to vomit as he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “We’ll go ahead and close the tab now, thanks—”

Hunk is grabbing his arm, grip bruising with concern. “What’s gotten into you, man?”    

Lance flips the hood of his jacket over his head, hiding his flustered face, and then grumbles under his breath. 

“Uh, sorry, didn’t catch that,” says Hunk.

“Keithishere.”

“Lance. Seriously. I can’t even hear you when you mumble like—”

“Keith. Is. Here.”

The outburst garners a few curious head turns from nearby patrons, which doesn’t seem to aggravate Lance nearly as much as Hunk’s loud, horrified gasp does. Even Allura is wearing a look of wide-eyed shock, fingertips pressed to her lips in an attempt to mask the way her jaw drops open quite unbecomingly. 

“Oh,” she murmurs, like something awful has just dawned on her. “You’re that Lance.”

His first instinct is to splutter, vaguely insulted. “That Lance? That Lance? What's that supposed to—” But then, something clicks. His furrowed expression unfurls into sheer bewilderment. “—wait, you know Keith?”

“He’s my boss,” she tells him solemnly.

“He runs this place?!”

“With his brother, yes.”

Lance switches gears so urgently that it nearly gives him whiplash. He rounds on Hunk like a beast on the hunt, eyes frighteningly wide and refusing to blink. “Of all the bars you could’ve dragged me to—”

“I had no idea, dude, honest!” Hunk babbles away, hands raised in a very willing surrender. “I heard about Shiro opening his new place somewhere close by, but I didn’t think it’d be, like…” he cringes. “…this close.” 

“Okay,” Lance grits out, striving to remain calm while his belly flips and flops in all sorts of weird ways. “Okay, okay. We—We just gotta find a way out before he sees us, right? Easy-peasy.” He throws his gaze to Allura, imploring and slightly frantic. “Hey, crazy question, but you wouldn’t happen to know of any super-secret back doors around here, would you? Maybe like a nice, inconspicuous air duct we can quickly shimmy our way through or…?”

Her brow quirks suspiciously. “The back door is in the kitchen, and for employees only,” she informs them. 

“Right, right. For sure. Makes sense,” Lance is saying agreeably, all the way up until Allura turns her back to resume her work, at which point he’s smacking a handful of bills onto the counter, and seizing Hunk by the arm, muttering fiercely, “Hunk, we are busting outta that kitchen door, pronto.”

“But—” Hunk stumbles as he’s hauled off his stool, and further into the room. “—she just said it’s for employees only.”

“We are employees,” argues Lance, and then, going off his friend’s puzzled glare, “Of a different establishment, whatever, but that’s on her for not clarifying the fine print.”

“Lance, buddy, you know I’m only saying this out of love, but this plan seems a little...”

“Dammit, I’ve lost visual,” Lance hisses, eyes scouring the main entrance where Keith is now, alarmingly, nowhere to be found. “Regroup! Regroup!”

Another merciless tug to Hunk’s arm sends them both diving, tumbling, and then crawling across the floor. And it’s this drastic maneuver—the one that has them crouching behind the nearest dining table like a pair of rollicking idiots—that finally wears Hunk’s saint-like patience too thin. Down here, on his knees, he turns to Lance with a piercing glower.

“So if Keith is gone,” he grunts, “then remind me why we can’t just—oh, I dunno—use the front door?”   

“‘Cause it’s way too risky,” Lance snipes back at once. “I mean, he could literally be anywhere right now. Lurking around dark corners, suspended from the ceiling, spiderman-style. Dude’s stealthier than a friggin’ assassin, man, seriously, it’s creepy as hell.”

“Are you hearing yourself right now? Are you actually hearing the crazy?”

“It’s not my fault. He’s not even supposed to be here.”

“But you can’t just avoid him forever,” counters Hunk. “Especially now that he’s your work neighbor.”

“God,” Lance tosses his head back, cursing the heavens, “of all the bars!”

Hunk cuts the histrionics short by lifting a very stern finger, letting the tip of it hover threateningly right in front of Lance’s nose. “Now you listen to me, young man—”

“Don’t dad voice me in the middle of a breakout mission!”

“You can either roll around on the floor and cause a scene, or you can just hike up your big boy pants and walk out of here like a normal person. I, for one, will be using the front door, and you are more than welcome to join me.”

After a brief moment of deliberation, Lance pulls a face at him. “Okay, but define normal—”

“I’ll meet you outside in ten,” sighs Hunk.

“No, no, wait—” Lance tries towing him back, grappling at the sleeve of his jacket, but to no avail. So, instead, he sneers at his retreating back, “—traitor!” 

Only then does he realize he’s on his feet again, in plain sight—and is also being viciously judged by the group of people directly to his left, who just so happen to be the occupants of the table he’d just been huddled beneath. They gawk at him, and Lance gawks back, until he spots their cluttered tabletop, and is instantly struck with inspiration.

“Evening, folks, don’t mind me.” He begins collecting as many empty glasses as he can reach. “Just stopping by to take these back into the kitchen.”

Then, while his hands are sufficiently full of dirtied glassware, he wheels himself around just as someone is walking past. They collide so hard, and Lance is startled so bad, that he yelps, and the glasses go shattering around his feet with an ear-splitting smash. 

He stands there, stock-still amidst the wreckage, shoulders high around his ears like a spooked cat, and when he finally looks up it’s right into Keith’s dazzling, terror-stricken eyes.

Keith, made flesh. Right here. Real and breathtaking. Looking like every honey-warm fantasy and haunting nightmare wrapped up into one.

Keith, gone numb with shock, gives a murmured, “Lance,” and the soft, windless sound of it lands squarely in Lance’s chest, crater-sized and full-force, because for all the countless ways he’s heard Keith whisper his name, never before has it ever been such agony. It ignites a blaze of conflicting urges: of wanting to keep it there forever, of wanting to purge it from his veins like a toxin. Of wanting to reach for him, bones aching for it, and of wanting to recoil, for fear that a single touch may open the flood gates of something long sealed shut. Of something bruised and battered and beautiful. 

“You,” says Keith, heartbreakingly quiet. “You—”

Lance breathes it in, holds it in his lungs, a man starved. His body sings for it. He trembles, blood pounding in his ear like a war drum, with want and warnings all.

Keith, he’s dying to say, to let it spill from his lips until he remembers the taste of it. Keith, Keith, Keith— 

But the moment is abruptly severed with the first crunch of a fallen footstep over broken glass. A large hand comes down on Keith’s shoulder as Shiro approaches from behind. His gaze lowers to the floor, taking in the mess, then back up. He does not smile.

“Acxa,” he calls toward the bar, where one of the three bartenders—the dark-haired one—is snapping to attention. “Would you mind giving me a hand?” he asks, and the young woman steps out from behind the bar, probably in pursuit of cleaning supplies.

Then, to his brother, he goes, “Keith, there’s some paperwork in the office I need you to look over.”

“What,” mumbles Keith, like he’s only half-listening. His eyes, liquid and black, are still trained on Lance. 

“The office. Now, please. I’ll be right behind you.”

Shiro’s tone is kept well-mannered and composed, but still leaves no room for protest. Keith idles in place for longer than he should have the right to, until the steady press of Shiro’s hand is ushering him away and out of sight, with all the strong-armed insistence of a lion protecting its cub.

Lance, as if stirring from a trance, peeks up to find Shiro towering over him in all his hulking, god-like glory, and—yeah, okay, this guy’s just as terrifyingly ripped as Lance remembers. He shrinks back on instinct, guilt and shame wreaking havoc in his gut.

“Um,” Lance mutters, voice shallow. “Hey. Sorry about the glasses. I can—I can pay you back, if you—”

Shiro steps forward, silencing him with a hand to his shoulder, and Lance almost gasps for how it feels like a weight bearing down. There isn’t a single line on this man’s face, Lance notices, that isn’t drawn as taut as a wire.

“Welcome back, Lance,” says Shiro, with a hint of something long-suffering in the way his mouth twitches.

And that’s all he leaves Lance with before he’s moving past him, before time resumes, before Lance finally—finally—releases the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding until now.

Welcome back, indeed.       

When they get back to his place, Hunk—bless his beautiful soul—decides to whip up a giant batch of pasta carbonara. They eat it by the heaping bowlful, cross-legged on the kitchen floor, drinking the champagne from earlier out of plastic flutes left over from Hunk and Shay’s engagement party.

“He didn’t answer any of my calls, y’know. Like, after it happened. Is that some grade-A bullshit or what? Zero. Zilch. Not a one,” Lance is going on, just as he has been for the past hour. Bringing it up again tastes like copper in his mouth. The blood of an old scar. “He just walked out like it was nothing, and he… he just walked out.”   

Hunk is watching him with those big, watery puppy-dog eyes of his. It’s terrible. Lance pointedly avoids his gaze, and then gets so caught up in his own sulking that he accidentally drinks the remainder of the champagne bottle by himself.

Later, when Lance is doubled over and dry-heaving within an inch of his life, he catches the sound of Hunk’s hushed tone as he most likely explains to his fiancée why there’s a sad, blubbering boy slumped over their toilet bowl. The bathroom door is sealed shut between them, distorting the syllables of his words, but Lance is sure it sounds something like: ran into Keith tonight… not in a very good place right now…

Which, honestly, only makes his urge to gag even greater.

Then the door clicks open, and Hunk’s head pokes inside, saying, “Shay’s gonna make up the couch for you, ‘kay, buddy?”

“M’sorry,” mumbles Lance.   

“Don’t worry about it,” Hunk assures him. “Happens to the best of us.”   

Lance manages about half of a weary grin before he’s launching his face into the bowl again.

“Oh, boy.” Hunk shudders at the sight, holding his breath to suppress the reflex of his own sympathy gag. He takes a seat on the edge of the bathtub, nudges Lance’s side with a bottle of water. “Time to hydrate.” 

Now emptied, Lance resurfaces. There’s sweat on his brow, and spit drying at the corner of his mouth, but he accepts Hunk’s offering with a resigned sigh. The water bottle stays cradled in his lap as he leans back against the toilet, fingers curling around it, trying to keep the world from spinning out completely.

“It was real, wasn’t it?” he asks at once. His voice is a quiet, raspy thing, scraping up the sides of his burning throat like gravel. “Me and him, we—tell me I’m not just making it all up. We loved each other real good, right? Didn’t we?”      

“You gotta make sure you drink, Lance.”

He glares, eyes half-lidded and miserable. “I thought I was better. I—” A breath. Slow and weighted in his lungs. “—I’m supposed to be getting better.”

“Tomorrow’ll be better,” Hunk promises. “You’ll see.”

Tomorrow is anything but better.

Tomorrow, to put it crudely, is a verifiable shit-storm, and it begins with Lance being bludgeoned awake by what feels like a sledgehammer chipping away at his skull. Close behind is the all-too-recognizable sting of regret in the back of his throat, where not even a strangled gulp of his own sour-tasting saliva goes down smooth. It’s been a while, he thinks, since he’s done this. Since he’s given in, and just let himself ache. Maybe it’ll keep this time. Maybe if he lays here long enough, a sad sack of bones tarnishing the sophistication of Hunk and Shay’s fancy new couch, he’ll get beaten to a pulp by the throbbing pain of his poor decisions, and, eventually, forget all about— 

From somewhere in the room, Lance’s phone starts crying for attention. 

Half-volume, at most, but still. It manages to sound like someone shoved a goddamn foghorn inside his ear canal. Groaning, his hand flops over the edge of the couch, scrabbling around for the ringing device. He finally finds it face-down on the hardwood with a sizable crack zig-zagging across the protective glass. Perfect.

Without thinking, he answers the call. “What.”

His sister’s laughter crackles through the speakers. “Wow,” she says. “First day on the job, and you’re already that stressed out?”

“I’m not—” Lance stops dead, panic spiking through him in one piercing jolt. “—fuck.” 

Rachel humors him with an unconvinced hum, which means absolutely nothing to Lance while he fights to disentangle himself from the blanket, already staggering into the bathroom by the time he hears her say, “Right, sure you’re not.”

A hideous, frazzled, washed-out zombie version of Lance stares back at him in the mirror. His clothes from yesterday are wrinkled beyond repair, and, after investigating with a quick sniff, just as rank as he suspected they’d be. And his hair is—nope. He’s not even gonna go there. It’s too disastrous to even consider damage control. Lance switches to speaker mode, and splashes a few frenzied handfuls of water on his face. 

“Seriously, though, mom and I want to come by and see the shop today,” Rachel is going on. “Maybe grab a quick bite to eat while we’re there.”

Lance makes a gurgling noise—very disgruntled, perhaps pained—into the phone because, dear sweet god, just the vague mention of food has his stomach convulsing with horrific aftershocks. “No,” he hisses at his tossing gut, bent over at the waist, “do not—”

“No? Is today a bad time?”

“No, no!” Lance half-yells, gritting his teeth until the urge to heave subsides, and then stumbles back into the living room. “I mean, no… problem. No problem.” He spots his work apron over by the front door, neatly folded, right next to his shoes. “Just come over—whenever.”

Rachel’s confusion is deafening in the silence. “…Okay?” she mutters, after a while.

By now, Lance has made it outside, squinting into the sunlight and power-walking the entire four blocks to the nearest subway station. “Uh, well, actually—make that ten minutes. Or how ‘bout twenty? Yeah, twenty’s good,” he says, straining to keep his breath even, though he has a sinking suspicion that Rachel can hear him huffing, anyway. “Like, gimme a sec to, uh—”

He’s about halfway down the station steps when a passing train comes whooshing down the tracks, roaring like a beast.

“Wait,” says Rachel, catching on. “Are you on the subway right now—”

“Can’t hear you, okay, love you, bye!” Lance shouts, and then immediately hangs up.

He narrowly avoids elbowing a poor, unsuspecting busker in his haste to board the very next north-bound train he sees. People ghost through the aisles, and they’re all faceless to him, passing by like wind off the sides of the passenger car, insignificant, never-ending. Lance loves and hates the gentle turbulence of the ride because, on one hand, there’s something about the rails’ comforting bump and rattle that somehow puts his thrashing stomach at ease. But then there’s the other hand: his thoughts, how the train jostles them around like this but violent, sending them swerving down all the wrong lanes, stirring all sorts of unwanted things up to the surface. Things that aren’t supposed to matter anymore.

Things like—

The train screeches to such a harrowing halt that Lance, struggling to balance on his weak, wobbly knees, face-plants spectacularly on the floor. 

So, arriving disheveled, sweaty, and grumpy, Lance storms into the café. Fortunately, there’s nobody around to be frightened off by his blustery entrance except for Hunk, who does appear to be stifling a wince behind the two hefty bags of all-purpose flour in his grasp.

“Gee, thanks for the wake-up call, amigo,” grumbles Lance, shouldering Hunk aside on his way behind the counter. The flour almost slips to the floor.

“I, uh,” says Hunk, readjusting his grip, “thought you might want a couple extra hours of sleep.”

“Yeah, well, you thought wrong.” Still scowling, Lance battles with the strings of his apron until it hangs askew on his body, punctuating his completion of the task with a very halfhearted ta-da gesture. “So. What’s the sitch? What’d I miss?”

“Well, I wiped down the tables, mopped the floors, restocked the fridge, and I was just about to get started on a fresh batch of vanilla tarts.”

“No customers yet?”

“We’ve only been open for ten minutes, Lance.”

“Oh,” he grunts, eyes blinking. “Right. Cool. Uh, then I guess I’ll go take care of the—”

“Hey, hang on a sec.”

Lance doesn’t make it very far before Hunk is reeling him back. He glances down at where Hunk’s fingers have trapped his wrist, then up again, brow beginning to furrow. 

Hunk lowers his voice to a whisper—which is ridiculous, seeing as they’re alone—and asks, very gravely, “You sure you’re up for today?” 

Now Lance definitely looks irritated. And mystified, like Hunk has just spoken in tongues. “It’s our grand freakin’ opening,” he says, each word enunciated sharply. “Of course I’m up for it.”

“Okay, but it’s just… last night?” Hunk ventures cautiously. “You seemed pretty, y’know—” Here, his whisper becomes even softer. “—sad.” 

Embarrassment sweeps up the back of Lance’s neck, eyes startling with something like stung pride, or a strange sense of betrayal towards Hunk for bringing it up when Lance much prefers to keep last night’s memories under the heel of his shoe where they belong, buried and forgotten about. So, bristling, he snaps out, “‘Cause I was drunk out of my ever-loving mind, dude,” and even as Hunk flinches at the ferocity in his tone, Lance doesn’t let up. “Everyone’s sad when they’re drunk.”

“Listen, I’m only saying this ‘cause I’m a little worried, is all.”

“Then why don’t you just stick to minding your own business for once!”

The sound of the door swinging open, the hanging bell tinkling joyfully, is what interrupts them.

Immediately followed by his mother hollering so loud it travels the whole length of the room: “Lance! Sweetheart!”   

Lance manages to sneak out a few colorful expletives under his breath, before calling back, “Hey, Mama.” He jerks himself free from Hunk’s iron grip, sensing something vaguely wounded in the look his friend gives him as he swivels away. “Hey, Rach.”

Then, carried by a plume of crisp morning breeze and Chanel No.5, Lance’s mother comes waltzing through the café in a smartly tailored pant suit with pinstripes. “Well, isn’t this old place a sight for sore eyes. The pictures you sent don’t do it any justice,” she says brightly, her heels a ruthless click-clack against the newly redone floor. “Lance, honey, you look positively god-awful.”

She wrenches him down into a hug, and Lance mumbles into her lapel, “Nice to see you, too, Mama.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. M,” says Hunk, as he receives a vigorous hug of his own, “I’ll take good care of him, promise,” which is met with a round of affectionate, motherly coos.

Rachel marches over next, coming out of nowhere, grin smug and tight-lipped. Forgoing an embrace, she simply squishes Lance’s face between her palms instead, and peers deep into his bloodshot eyes. “I cannot believe you’re drunk right now,” she tells him, keeping her volume low. 

“Hungover, actually, but so kind of you to notice,” Lance deadpans. It earns him a tiny smack to both cheeks, more sympathetic than mean. “Want anything?”

“Ooh, nonfat latte, please.”

“Mama, coffee?”

“Make it a decaf, sweetheart, with just a splash of cream.” She pivots back to Hunk, leaning in to say, “I’m trying to cut back, you know, for the stress. One cup a day, that’s what they recommend, and any more than that is—” Her phone begins beeping inside her handbag, and the noise transforms her, overly-doting mother to steel-faced executive in one second flat. She abruptly excuses herself to the other end of the café as she answers the call, probably to verbally obliterate some poor, well-meaning office assistant who failed to meet a deadline in time.

Lance gets started on the drinks, warming up the espresso machine, and adjusting the brew head in place with practiced ease. Rachel, leaning up against the counter, watches fondly. 

“Aw, look at you,” she says. “Back in your natural habitat.”

“Yeah, could hardly even recognize myself without the coffee stains and steam burns.”

She laughs, a light, wistful tune.

“Sure brings back memories, huh?” she comments.   

Lance responds with a noncommittal grunt, keeping his head down as the espresso machine moans, and sends billows of sweet-smelling steam curling up to the ceiling. 

then.

“If you’re not even gonna pretend to be wiping those countertops, then you might as well go talk to him already.”

The groan of the espresso machine whirring to life is what finally manages to shake Lance out of his reverie. His eyes blink through the rose-colored haze, and then wander down to the rag dangling limp and useless in his hand as it drips liquid sanitizer all over his tattered converse sneakers. Him, Rachel had said, in a furtive, eyebrow-waggling sort of manner that leads Lance to believe she can only be referring to the delicious morsel of eye-candy at table three, who had shuffled into the café no more than ten minutes ago, and already has Lance shirking his clean-up duties in favor of ogling—and blatantly, at that, if someone as notoriously daffy as his sister is able to pick up on it.

“I’m thinking about it,” Lance admits.

Rachel rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “Quit thinking and just do it before he catches you drooling all over yourself.”   

But there doesn’t appear to be any danger of that actually happening, Lance notes. The guy at table three has his undivided attention buried in a spiral-bound journal of some kind, shoulder and back muscles gently flexing beneath his red-checkered flannel as he curls himself over the pages. Thick, choppy bangs fall loose around his face, obscuring his profile like a veil of ink-black curtains, until he’s reaching up to absently tuck those strands behind his ear, allowing Lance a glimpse of sinfully long lashes fanning out against a chiseled cheekbone, and—

Oh, yeah. Lance definitely needs to put the moves on this hottie, like, yesterday. 

He spins around so abruptly that his sneakers squeak against the wet tile. “Mystery Man got a name?”

Rachel peeks at the sharpie’d scrawl on the cup she’s just finished topping off. “Keith,” she reads aloud.

“Order?”

“Regular cappuccino with soy milk, light foam.”

Lance pulls a wince, and mutters an unfortunate ‘yikes’ under his breath.

“Ooh, you know what you should do?” Rachel trills giddily. “You should write your number on his cup like they do in all the rom-coms. That would be so adorable. Do that.”   

“And risk having him toss it on his way out the door?” he blows a raspberry, short and dismissive. “Nuh-uh. Rookie mistake. This one calls for some good, old-fashioned razzle-dazzle, baby.” Then, with a theatrical flourish, Lance flings the rag over his shoulder, appraises his reflection in the espresso machine’s chromed exterior, and snatches the cup right out of Rachel’s grasp.

“I’m goin’ in,” he announces, standing tall with puffed-chest bravado.    

“Godspeed, cadet.”

He offers a firm salute in response before swinging his legs over the counter, and crossing the floor. His stride is leisurely, giving himself plenty of time to work his smile into pearly-white perfection, to run a hand through his hair and tousle it just so. Because Lance already knows how to play this game like a seasoned champ. He practically wrote the goddamn rulebook. He knows exactly how to sweet-talk even the stuffiest of Upper East Side businessmen into buying an extra shot in their morning Americano. Knows exactly how to make flocks of NYU girls swoon with the power of a well-timed wink. He’s got this, he’s got this, he’s got—

“I’ve got a regular soy cappuccino with light foam for Keith,” says Lance, at his grandest and most affable as he sets the cardboard cup on table three’s polished surface.

“Yeah,” comes the guy’s mumbled reply. He spares not even the slightest of cursory glances, and then returns to scribbling away in his notebook, unaffected. “Thanks.” 

Lance loiters by the table, looking expectant. 

More silence. More scribbling.

Time to crank up the charm, Lance thinks, determination thrilling in his veins. Apparently this guy has a natural aversion to the concept of basic social cues, but not even this plot twist is twisty enough to derail Lance’s efforts. Consider this challenge accepted. 

So, remarkably undeterred, he eases his winning grin into more of a lazily-tilted smirk. Sets his jaw. Clears his throat. Game face: on. “Y’know you could’ve just ordered a latte, right?” he chimes in coolly. 

It takes a delayed moment for the comment to fully land, but, eventually, Keith’s fingers stall, pen hovering idly over the page as if he’s just hit a particularly annoying snag in his train of thought. And when Keith finally looks up properly this time, Lance is struck across the face by a slap of perplexed, glittery-eyed beauty. Flecks of something so vibrantly celestial that it has his brain spitting sparks like a fuse gone completely haywire. His smirk flinches out of place. His heart skips a beat, trips over itself and lands with a perilous ker-plunk against his ribs. This guy is just as gorgeous in detail as he’d been from afar.    

Oh, fuck—

“What?” Keith deadpans, and the stark sound of it swings Lance back to reality.   

“I mean,” he recovers quickly, swallowing through it, rocking back on his heels, “not trying to be a snob or anything, but I am the guy who makes the coffee around here, so I feel like it’s partly my responsibility to let you in on a little-known secret of the trade. Cappuccinos and lattes? Basically the same thing. Big difference is the foam, which you, apparently, don’t even like, but. Still. I get where you’re coming from, y’know? Cappuccino sounds classier, more mature. Lattes are kinda like the unofficial basic bitch drink of the twenty-first century, thanks to Starbucks and all their artificial diabetes-in-a-cup nonsense. And you don’t exactly strike me as a basic kinda guy, with the whole 80’s thrift store vibe you got going on—and don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan, but it does make me think you’ve got a little something special going on behind that pretty face of yours. Y’know. In a good way.”    

Keith blinks those exquisite eyes at him, in an exaggerated slowness. “So is this just… a normal thing you do with all your customers?” he drawls.

“It’s a slow night,” Lance shrugs. “Gotta keep entertained somehow.”

“And psychoanalyzing a random person’s coffee order does the trick?”

A soft laugh huffs past Lance’s lips. “Well, between you and me,” he says, low and deliberate, “it might just be an excuse to get to know you.” 

The weight of Keith’s scrutiny is enormously crushing as it roves over him from head to toe, so much so that Lance feels like he may buckle under its long, heavy drag. “You don’t know the first thing about me,” Keith points out bluntly. 

“Then let’s change that.” Keith’s brow leaps up with intrigue. Emboldened, Lance goes on, “My shift’s over soon, and there’s supposed to be some live music here tonight. Maybe you’d wanna stick around and check it out with me?” 

For a split, mortifying second, he thinks Keith is going to bust out laughing at him, the way his brow keeps inching higher and higher, followed by a funny little tremor of his mouth. Just the mere possibility of that wipes the smile clean off Lance’s expression, has his stomach roiling with dread, has him clumsily backtracking over his words.

“Or not! Or—maybe music’s not your thing? That’s cool, too. That’s—yeah. It’s probably gonna be super lame, anyway. A total snooze-fest. Uh, how about we—”

A boisterous voice rings through the café, and both of them turn to look. 

“Aha!” chirps Lance’s abuela, her grin infectiously warm and bright as she approaches the pair. “Now this strapping young man must be Keith.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. It’s the first time Lance sees him smile—really smile, more pronounced, more obvious where his lips are pushing a pair of dimples into his cheeks—and he finds it, quite frankly, disgustingly attractive. Keith, oblivious to the crisis that Lance now seems to be enduring on the sidelines, extends a hand toward the woman. “And you must be Estela. Thanks for having me.”   

Positively bubbling with delight, she clasps his hand between both of hers, and gives it a zealous shake. “Ay, dios mío, and he has manners. Can you believe it?” she gushes. “I hope my grandson isn’t over here giving you a hard time.” 

“He’s trying to,” Keith replies, almost instantaneously, casting Lance another up-and-down sweep of his gaze, which—much to Lance’s sudden embarrassment—Estela notices.

“Well, I hate to interrupt, but I’m going to need him back behind the counter,” and her eyes narrow admonishingly when they take a sharp swerve to her grandson. “To finish all the cleaning that should’ve been done hours ago.”

Lance splutters inelegantly, “But my shift’s almost over! Make Rachel do it!”

“This boy will not be any less handsome or any less available by the time you finish all your work, niño.”

“Wha—Lita!”

“Vamos, vamos.” She thrusts that godforsaken rag into Lance’s hands, despite his stammering protests. Pivoting back to Keith, tone immediately softening, she tells him, “Keith, cariño, you go ahead and start setting up whenever you’re ready,” and then heads for the kitchen.

Setting up? Lance wants to babble out, and almost does, until he composes himself long enough to spot Keith standing and reaching for a black guitar case by his feet. It’s covered in stickers, and various band logos, and has definitely been sitting right fucking there this entire time. Lance’s mouth goes slack with dumb surprise. Maybe he would’ve noticed it sooner if he hadn’t been so hopelessly hung up on this guy’s stupidly proportionate face. Or his lips. Or the stardust sprinkled in his gaze. Or—

When Lance looks up again, he finds that Keith’s eyes still haven’t left him, and so he snaps his gaping mouth shut at once.

“Wait for me after the show,” Keith tells him. It’s not a question. It’s confident and outrageously sexy. “I mean, as long as you think you can handle it. Might be too lame for you.”

“Hah,” Lance barks out miserably. “Ha-ha, that’s… wow. Okay.” A chagrinned sigh. “I fucked up, huh?” 

“A little bit, yeah,” Keith says, amused.

“But, um—I’d love to hang out after. If the offer still stands?”

“It does,” says Keith. “See you later, then—” He pauses, brow scrunching. “—Rachel?”

Lance promptly startles, looking down at his chest where an embossed name tag is pinned quite crookedly to his syrup-stained apron. “Oh,” he blurts. “Right. Yeah, no, that’s—it’s my sister’s. We’re twins, so it’s just, like, this really dumb joke we do sometimes. Swapping names.”     

Keith nods slowly. “So yours is…?” 

“She’s wearing it. Probably. Unless she lost it already, which actually wouldn’t surprise—”

“I’m asking for your name.”

“Oh,” Lance blurts again, practically shouts it across the whole goddamn room. His restless fingers wring into the sanitizing rag, and his cheeks throb with excruciating heat when he realizes that Keith’s lips are beginning to flutter at the corners. “It’s Lance. I’m Lance. My name’s Lance.”

Say it one more time, you absolute friggin’ moron, he chides himself harshly.   

But Keith is just grinning at him, a subtle gleam of canine, and repeats, “Lance,” like it’s precious and poetic, like he’s savoring the taste of it on his tongue, and can’t bear to let it go.

And, in hindsight, Lance honestly doesn’t know how he survives it.

Just like he doesn’t know how he survives an entire hour of Keith making eyes at him from the corner of the room, where he’s perched on a wooden stool, lips brushing the mic. Doesn’t know how he keeps from crumbling to ash when he hears that gorgeously heart-wrenching rendition of Annie’s Song, or when that raw, husky baritone hits his ears like an oncoming freight train. And he really, truly, sincerely doesn’t know what kind of gracious cosmic deity he needs to sign his entire life over to now that he finds himself here, sometime later, in the murky, half-lit alleyway behind the café.

Keith kisses the same way he plays music—passionately, shamelessly, intensely—like it’s flowing out of him with every resounding chord and caressing thumb. And Lance is swept up in the harmony of it all, clinging to Keith and letting himself be kissed in all the deep, soul-shaking ways that Keith wants to kiss him. His apron lays in a forgotten heap on the ground, abandoned along with Lance’s inhibitions the very moment Keith decided to crowd him against the brick, and make a thoroughly beautiful mess of him, because how could Lance not lose track of himself in the middle of this—this, so much, everything—the dizzying pressure, the slide of their mouths, the taste of Keith’s ridiculous coffee order on his supple lips.

When Keith drags Lance’s bottom lip between his teeth, Lance whines into it, feeling desperate and greedy. He wants more. He wants more. And he wants it so bad that he forgets why he shouldn’t. Right now, the only thing taking up space in his head is the thundering of his own heart. The wild adrenaline jumping high and dangerous in his chest.

Keith pulls back after a while, and tips their foreheads together. His breath is coming quick and staccato against Lance’s skin, warming the already humid air around them, while his fingers are still furiously gripping the collar of Lance’s shirt. Here, in the darkness, he looks otherworldly as he looms over Lance like a shadow.

“Hey, look, I don’t know if—” Keith gasps into the silence, eyes black as oil slicks and shining with something almost vulnerable. Lance moves the hair away from Keith’s face to see them better. “—My place isn’t too far.”

Despite the cryptic, unreadable line that Keith forces his mouth into, Lance knows what he means. He knows an invitation when he hears one, and he knows a bad idea when he hears one, too. This kind of sounds like both. He knows it. He does. He knows—

“I’m in,” Lance says.

His place, as it turns out, really isn’t too far. A cozy one-bedroom east of Midtown on 62nd, right above a small Italian deli and a nail salon. Keith doesn’t bother fumbling for a light switch when they plow their way inside. He just shuts his door one-handed, following the milky path of moonlight painted across the floorboards as it shines in from the north-facing window, and Lance toddles along blindly, attached at the mouth. There’s a beige futon in the center of the room, opposite a television set on what appears to be an upended crate. Dozens upon dozens of cardboard boxes filled with vinyl records are stacked against the wall. A cherry red Gibson Firebird on display in the corner. A half-full bookshelf. Lance takes it all in, peripherally, in the span of about ten seconds, before Keith herds him to the bedroom and shoves him onto the bed.

“Hey, uh, before we get into this—just to be totally transparent here,” Lance somehow manages to garble while Keith is otherwise preoccupied with straddling his lap, hips rocking slow, “I’m not really looking for anything serious right now.”      

Keith gives him a look like he thinks Lance might be a raging idiot, but continues yanking his shirt over his head, anyway.

“Not—not that I’m not a serious guy or anything,” Lance keeps rambling, fast and flustered. “I mean, me and monogamy are usually a guaranteed two-for-one deal, but I’m—” Keith pushes him flat against the mattress, sucks hard on the underside of his jaw. “—leaving at the end of the summer for grad school, y’know? So the next few months are basically just borrowed time for me, which is, like—ahh… not the strongest foundation for kicking off a new relationship or whatever, and—”

With a wet pop, Keith withdraws his mouth. It’s all spit-shiny and plump as he stares down at Lance, a palm pressed to the center of his chest, keeping him pinned. “Do you always talk this much in bed?” 

“I talk this much everywhere, dude.”

“Mm.” A flirty little half-smile suddenly blooms on Keith’s swollen lips. “Cute.” 

“Feel free to shut me up whenever you want, though,” says Lance, taking Keith by the waist. “Extreme measures are most definitely encouraged.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a couple ideas,” Keith assures him, and then swoops down to swallow the sweet melody of Lance’s laughter.

Lance wakes up bright and early the following morning to thin beams of sunlight spilling over the sheets like watercolor, and a warm, solid weight breathing against his back. He stretches out along the mattress, long and luxurious, with a tiny hum, only to discover that his entire body aches in that satisfyingly tender, best-sex-of-his-life sort of way.

And then he remembers.

And then he thinks: god-fucking-dammit.

Because, oh, last night happened. Last night happened—two? three times?—and there’s not an inch of him that isn’t still tingling from the sense-memory of it; all the delicate places where Keith left marks, and sucked kisses, and traced reverent paths with his tongue, teeth, calloused fingertips, and—god, Lance can feel himself transcending to a whole new plane of existence just thinking about it. About Keith. About how effortlessly Lance fell into his orbit, and fit against him like he belonged there, and nowhere else. 

It seems downright inexcusable, in Lance’s humble opinion, that a near-perfect stranger should be allowed to wreck him like this. To rock his world so astronomically that he sees it differently now, after Keith. Like, what’s that about? Is he supposed to just ignore this seismic shift in his universe, put a muzzle on his feelings, and chalk it all up to some fatal flaw in the system?      

Thing is, Lance knows what he felt, and he knows, without doubt, there’s absolutely nothing flawed about it. Keith’s touch had been real and electric, filling him, burning through flesh and bone. The two of them had moved together, breathed together, like they already knew each other’s rhythms by heart. A lit match to Lance’s kerosene. And when Lance had felt himself start to shiver out of his own skin, Keith had brought him back with a kiss to his mouth, a palm to his pink-stained cheek, whispering through the breathlessness: you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, I’ve got you. Lance had never been more connected, more insatiable, more utterly turned on. 

Which leads him to wonder—has fate actually been cruel enough to bless him with the glorious gift of sexual nirvana the summer before he’s moving out of town, probably for good?

He reiterates, aloud this time: “God-fucking-dammit.”  

Then, as if awakened by Lance’s whispered lament, the weight behind him gives a satisfied snuffle, nosing closer at the knobs of his spine. Lance sighs at the contact, feeling preposterously gooey inside as he reaches an arm back, and, huh. That’s odd. Keith is squirmier than he remembers. Also—furrier?           

When Lance rolls over to investigate, he suddenly finds himself nose-to-snout with what has to be the most gargantuan Siberian husky he’s ever seen. Striking tufts of black and white fur, a pair of jewel-blue eyes, all curled up on Keith’s human bed like he owns the damn thing.   

“Uh,” says Lance, sitting up, blinking and bewildered. “H-Hey there…”

Tilting its head, fluffy tail swishing to and fro, the dog gives an excited, “Arr-ooo!” and then licks a wet, fat stripe all the way up the side of Lance’s face. Lance yelps with unbridled laughter, hooking his fingers behind the animal’s pointy ears and scratching away with gusto.

“Aw yeah, you’re just a big ‘ol softie, aren’t you? Isn’t that right, gorgeous?”

The dog preens, and mewls, and practically tries to clamber its way into Lance’s lap like an eager puppy, despite its size. Its massive tongue is dangling out the side of its mouth, completely blissed out under Lance’s enthusiastic pampering, just as Keith’s exasperated voice calls out from the doorway, startling them both.

“Kosmo,” he orders with a sharp snap of his fingers, “off.”

With one final nuzzle to Lance’s chest, the dog—Kosmo, Lance figures—perks up, leaps off the bed, and scampers obediently out of the room, paws pitter-pattering on the floor. 

“Sorry about that,” Keith says, after a beat. “He gets really… snuggly.”

“Nah, it’s cool. I’m kinda into it.” Lance swipes a hand over his cheek, cleaning off the residual dog drool, and adds, “Even the slobbering, weirdly enough.”      

A fond smile hesitates around Keith’s lips. “You sleep okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, definitely. Like a rock.”

As they spend a quiet, timid moment studying each other from across the room, Lance realizes he’s never seen Keith in broad daylight before right now. And the sight is stunning, of course. It pours over him in pale slants, exposing all his soft edges and smoothing out the hard ones until he’s hazy and golden. His hair has been secured into a loose knot against the back of his neck, like he did it on an uncaring whim, and he’s dressed comfortably in grey sweatpants, a navy t-shirt that Lance will bet smells like fresh cotton. He looks so unbearably warm and homey and—huggable.

Keith is the first to glance away. He narrows a flustered little frown down at the ceramic mug cradled between his palms, and Lance is kind of glad to see he isn’t the only one feeling overwhelmed by this freaky, indisputable chemistry between them. 

“I, um. Don’t know what you usually like for breakfast,” Keith begins, “so I just made you some coffee.”

Lance openly gawks at Keith as he strides forward, light-footed, as to not disturb the contents of the mug, like he’s some kind of sensible gentleman with actual, thoughtful consideration for Lance’s morning habits. The scoundrel.   

But then Lance is ducking his head to hide the blush painted across his face, trying to play it cool with a cheeky remark. “Making a homemade brew for the resident coffee connoisseur himself, huh? Bold move, my guy.”

He means it as a joke, of course, but when he chances another peek to gauge Keith’s reaction, he finds Keith sitting on the edge of the bed, brow knitted with utmost seriousness. “If you don’t like it, I can get you something—”

“Keith,” sputters Lance, along with an incredulous snicker. He takes the mug into his hands, holds it protectively to his chest. “Oh my god, man, I was kidding. You don’t have to—I’m not actually that much of an asshole, I swear. Your coffee is really fine. Seriously.”   

The look of pure relief on Keith’s face is priceless. The way it makes his shoulders sag, and his gaze go all soft and sincere. Lance wants to yank him back into this bed. Wants to yank him down, and climb on top of him, and shower him in the sweetest kisses, immediately.

And that’s when Keith says, all of a sudden, “Do you wanna go out with me sometime?”

A mouthful of searing hot coffee shoots directly down Lance’s windpipe on a startled inhale, and he attempts to soldier through it as gracefully as possible, knowing full well that Keith’s crazy-attentive eyes are still drinking him in like a tall glass of water, slowly and decadently. Which would be fine—probably even a little hot—if Lance weren’t currently flaunting the world’s most egregious case of bedhead, and, y’know, trying not to choke to death.

“Huh?” Lance eventually croaks, feverish all the way to the tips of his ears.

“You, me.” The corner of Keith’s mouth wiggles knowingly. “Drinks, music.”

Lance chuffs out a breezy little laugh, praying that the upwards pitch of it isn’t too shrill or too noticeable. “Kinda sounds like a date or something,” he points out awkwardly.

“Because maybe it is a date,” says Keith. And then, while flashing a devastating smirk, “Or something.”

“Keith—” Lance mutters, expression folding with genuine regret. There’s an ugly, bitter lump throbbing at the base of his throat that hurts like hell, and it takes him more than a couple tries before he’s able to swallow around it. “—Look. It’s not… that I don’t want to. ‘Cause, trust me, I really, really want to. But it’s just—I’m leaving at the end of the—” 

“I know,” Keith is quick to interrupt. “But I’m not talking about the end of the summer right now, Lance. I’m talking about tomorrow night. One night. Come out with me.”

He’s looking at Lance the way someone might throw their eyes into the bright, unending horizon. Brimming with promise. A lit cinder of hope in his bottomless gaze.

Well. It’s not like Lance ever really stood much of a chance, anyway.   

Getting through his shift the next day is pure, unadulterated, self-inflicted torture. It’s made worse by the fact that the café happens to be especially busy that afternoon, forcing Lance to concentrate on a variety of things that aren’t exclusively Keith-centric. And it’s made even worse than that by Lance being foolish enough to spill the beans to Rachel about his plans for the evening. He all but shouts it in her face, really; unprompted, palms splayed on the countertop, looking all of fifteen years old and giddy. And, naturally, Rachel then takes it upon herself to be doubly insufferable whenever she catches him glancing longingly at the clock, or grinning off into space, deep in the throes of a particularly swoon-worthy daydream—which is more often than he cares to admit.

So, yeah, maybe he has a tiny bit of a crush.

A tiny, all-consuming, catastrophic, textbook-definition crush. 

Lance should’ve seen this coming a mile away. Should’ve recognized the blinking red signs, that telltale whiff of trouble from the very moment Keith had him against the wall, or in his bed, for god’s sake. Because Lance just isn’t built for that casual hit-it-and-quit-it routine, no matter how much he winks and flirts and talks big talk. Never has been. He’s into hand-holding, and sleepy cuddles, and stay-in movie nights, and bringing home flowers just because. And upon analyzing the evidence—Keith’s gentle touches, his unexpected affinity for mid-coital eye contact, him being due to pick Lance up in a matter of minutes for their very first, official, no-sex-required date—it seems like Keith might be into all those things, too.       

In layman’s terms: Lance is so doomed.

Where had Keith been hiding himself four years ago, when Lance was a bright-eyed, big-hearted NYU freshman, mangling himself into knots over sweet smiles and pretty faces, who never seemed to stay interested for more than a night? When he was practically pining for long-term commitment, and not three short months away from starting a brand new life? Why couldn’t they’ve scheduled this fateful run-in back then? That would’ve been more convenient. Ideal, even. Not to mention all the internal conflict and suffering it would’ve spared him.

But Lance’s silly little heart just doesn’t get the memo, so when the clock strikes seven, and not a second past, he’s wrestling out of his apron, and rounding the counter with all the fluttering unrest of a caged bird.

“Well, ladies, it’s been a real blast,” he says, already making a hasty beeline for the front door, “but I got things to do, places to be, people to—”

He’s no more than ten paces away before his abuela slides into view, blocking his escape path, hands planted on her shapely hips. “What on earth could possibly be more important than giving your dear abuela a proper goodbye, hm?” she wonders, playfully accusing. 

“Lance has a date,” Rachel singsongs from behind the counter, letting a few extra teasing syllables slip into the last word, just to be particularly obnoxious. 

“A date!” Estela’s eyes come to life like flickering headlights. “With who?”

“Regular cappuccino with soy milk, light foam.”

“His name’s Keith!” Lance wails over his shoulder, sounding a bit riled, and probably looking it to match, which has his sister cackling. 

“Ah, the guitar player,” recalls Estela. “I saw the way he was looking at you, niño.” She leans in, almost conspiratorial, to straighten the buttons running down the front of his shirt. “That boy was smitten.”

“So’s Lance, apparently,” Rachel sniggers. 

“It’s just one lousy date, okay?” he huffs an indignant snort. “It’s not like we’re—” Together? An item? Meant to be? Lance doesn’t like any of the options his mind tries to mock him with. He pouts, feeling immaturely resentful, and swats his abuela’s fussing fingers away from his shirt. “—y’know. It’s whatever. We’re keeping things casual.”

Rachel eyeballs him dubiously. “Have you ever done anything casual, like, honestly ever, in your entire life?”

Lance whirls around, fully prepared to snark, when his phone dings cheerily in his pocket. He scrambles for it, ignoring the knowing glances shared between his two family members and the sudden fizzing in his belly.

“It’s Keith,” he absolutely does not squeak. “I gotta go.”

“Can’t wait for the wedding!” Rachel calls after him, in lieu of a farewell.    

Estela catches him by the shoulder on his way out the door, and wheels him around to smack a noisy kiss against his cheek, thumbing away the deep scarlet lipstick smudge she left behind in the same motion. “Remember to have fun tonight, my sweet boy,” she tells him. 

Outside, the streets have been doused in all sorts of radiant hues from the setting sun’s glow, pinks and reds and golds clinging to the air like a fine mist. Keith, as his text dictated, is waiting right in front of the café, motorcycle parked curbside while he leans up against the nearby lamppost, hands stuffed into the pockets of his fitted jeans. Dark, dreamy, and painfully good-looking, no effort expended, as if he just tripped off the front page of Rolling Stone magazine or something. He lights up when he sees Lance coming down the stoop, like Lance is the only thing worth looking at in the whole goddamn city.

“Oh my god.” Lance saunters forward, awed. The warmth in Keith’s dusk-colored gaze has him tethered, a fishhook to the ribs, toting him along helplessly. “C’mon, seriously? It’s like I’m in every Nicholas Sparks movie ever right now. Quick—sweep me off my feet and say something romantic.”   

Keith removes his hands and yanks Lance in the rest of the way, palms flat on the small of his back, breath hot on the shell of his ear. “Something romantic,” he purrs, so velvety and divine that Lance feels it tapering down the length of his spine like a full-bodied shiver.

“Aaaand… swoon,” he sighs dramatically, lashes fluttering for emphasis. “Heart eyes, heart eyes. Cue the adorable date montage.”

“You ever ridden one of these before?” Keith asks, and then swings a deliciously muscled leg over his shiny gunmetal motorcycle like it’s nothing.

“You talking about yourself or the bike?” Lance lifts a suggestive brow. “Because…”

A spare helmet smacks him right in the gut, but he manages to catch it with a startled ‘oof’ before it can hit the pavement.

“Easy, tiger,” smirks Keith. 

It’s upon finally mounting the bike, arms locked around Keith’s middle, that he feels it: how he bends to the shape of Keith’s spine, melts into him so seamlessly like his body has found a new home here, right against Keith’s back where their heartbeats can thrum in sync. Lance can’t even hope to explain the swell of emotion that overtakes him, or the strange rush of familiarity that settles in his bones, a tonic for his constant restlessness.

“Hang on tight,” warns Keith, pulling on the clutch with a trigger-happy grip. “I like to go fast.” 

As the bike rumbles beneath them, Lance presses his face into Keith’s sturdy shoulder blade, smelling soap and leather and something intoxicatingly Keith, and he says, loud enough to be heard over the roar of the engine, “Good to know.”   

So, so doomed.            

The bar that Keith takes them to is all the way in Greenwich Village, although Lance doesn’t mind the extra travel time if it means he gets to keep his arms around Keith like this. He likes the city lights blurring past them as they ride, and how Keith throws his head back, giving his face to the brisk summer breeze with abandon. He likes feeling the vibrations of a chuckle where his chest is flush to Keith’s back with every hairpin maneuver that sends them weaving through the sea of honking taxi cabs. He likes—this.

A strong waft of smoke and spilled liquor envelopes Lance like a cloud when they walk inside. The place is dingy and poorly lit, save for a few flickering candles on tabletops, and a lone spotlight aimed at a three-person band as they play some music in the far corner. A classic downtown dive bar, it would seem. Keith moves confidently through the room, blending in impeccably with the grittier, edgier clientele tucked away in the shadows, whereas Lance feels a bit misplaced in his work shirt and simple jeans.

“Keith! Hey!” a voice calls out from afar, and Lance doesn’t miss the adorable way Keith perks up at the sound of it. A smile parts his lips, and twinkles behind his eyes.

Then a man comes loping through the crowd, arms outstretched. Upon first glance, he’s terribly intimidating—with his broad shoulders, and rock-hard chest, and considerable height, for starters—but the grin on his face is undeniably pleasant and pristine, the kind meant for photographs.

“Well, look who decided to drag himself down to this neck of the woods for a change,” the man says. Keith laughs, and then the two of them share a hearty embrace. Those impressive biceps could very well snap Keith in half like a twig, Lance thinks, and Keith is no frail flower himself. 

“Shiro, this is Lance,” Keith says once they part. “Lance, this is my brother, Shiro. He owns the bar.”

Shiro’s picture-perfect smile turns to Lance. “Real nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Lance beams. They shake. God, even this guy’s hands are all muscle. “Sweet place you got here, man.”

At that, Keith snorts violently into his palm. Shiro’s face freezes, but his lips, on the other hand, look like they want to rupture at the seams with a grimace, and are just barely containing themselves. “Did Keith tell you to say that?” he asks carefully.

“Uh—” sputters Lance, desperately glancing between the two brothers. “—no?” 

Keith, still snickering under his breath, says, “Shiro thinks this place is a dump,” by way of explanation.

“Not my terminology,” says Shiro, reprimanding Keith with a sidelong glance. Then, politely, back to Lance, “It could stand some improvements. But I’m sure you two didn’t come all the way down here to listen to me complain. Come on over to the bar, and we’ll get you some drinks.”

For a seedy hole-in-the-wall joint, they sure are well-stocked, Lance observes, eyes grazing the shelves of alcohol that extend all the way to the ceiling. No sooner do they take their seats than two brimming pints of craft beer are placed in front of them, delivered by a stunning young woman with silver-toned hair. Thanks, Allura, is what Shiro whispers to her before she’s gliding away in her high-heeled boots to tend to the other customers.

An enthusiastic round of applause breaks out, prompting Lance to swivel in his stool toward the sound of fading music. Off in the distance, he sees the band beginning to pack up their equipment for the night, and, right next to him, he sees Keith looking on with rapt fixation. With something almost sullen, and hard to decipher under the dim lights. 

Lance nudges him, light and inoffensive. “How come you’re not over there blowing the roof off this joint tonight, rockstar?” he wonders, and Keith flinches back to the present. 

“Keith’s more than welcome to play here whenever he wants,” says Shiro. His brow flattens sternly, which is strikingly at odds with the otherwise wholesome tone of his voice. “He knows that.”

It’s a warning, the dark look that Keith very clearly directs at his brother. It hangs between them for a beat too long, unrelenting, like crossfire in some private, invisible war zone. “This place is for real musicians,” Keith eventually protests.

“Okay.” Lance blinks. “So?”

“So all my original material is shit.”

Shiro suddenly heaves a sigh, weary and weighted, as if he’s heard this all before, maybe even hundreds of times—and his exasperated frown, how he skulks off to the other end of the bar, confirms it. Lance watches him go, and then turns back to Keith, saying, “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you’re probably the only one who believes that.” 

Keith shrugs it off stiffly, wrapping a hand around his cold glass, but making no effort to lift it. “There’s nothing else to believe when I haven’t written anything halfway decent in years.”

Try as he may, Lance can’t seem to stop his nose from scrunching unattractively at that little nugget of information. It’s—baffling, to say the least. Because he still remembers Keith’s performance the other night, in greater detail than he probably should, and every soulful note and masterful pluck of guitar strings had been… transformative. Not a single gaze in the whole café could stray from Keith, sitting there, hunching over his guitar, living, breathing, and bleeding the music as it stripped him down to something so bewitchingly intimate, and Lance—

He laughs, dumbfounded.

Which is embarrassing, really, because he doesn’t even mean to. And he doesn’t even realize it until Keith starts glaring daggers in his direction, looking a bit miffed. 

“Sorry, I’m—” Lance pauses for so long he forgets his words. His head shakes, reconfiguring. “—Like, okay, I know my opinion on music stuff doesn’t exactly amount to much, but—that? That’s your definition of being a real musician? Whether or not you’re the friggin’… Shakespeare of songwriting?”

Keith doesn’t reply, just holds himself very still.

“I heard you play the other night, and it was—I mean, I really felt you play, dude. I could feel how much you love it. It was, like, basically oozing out of you.”   

“Ew,” Keith mutters dryly.

But Lance keeps going. “You’re a musician, Keith. It’s what you’re meant to do, it’s your thing. And it’s... I dunno, it’s just so cool that you actually have a thing.” 

When Keith still doesn’t budge, eyes blank like he’s out of commission, Lance gets the awful notion that maybe he’s overstepped. Gone and said too much like the perpetual loudmouth he is, and now Keith is finally sick of it, and—

“So what’s your thing, then?” he hears Keith ask, a subtle segue.

The laugh that it startles out of Lance is worse than before. It’s always worse when he’s faking it, when it’s so brittle and wry that it barely makes it past his lips at all. He takes his glass, and taps it against Keith’s with a commiserating little clink. 

“I’ll keep you posted.”

It doesn’t take Lance very long to decide that he likes spending time with Keith. He likes that he’s actually a lot more engaging than his aloof, surface-level appearance might lead someone to believe, once he allows himself to open up. He likes that Keith is a surprisingly intent listener, and lets Lance rattle off tangents about his family, and his friends, and all his ridiculous theories about the haunted subway station on the corner of 6th and 42nd. He likes the cute, wheezy sound of Keith’s laugh when he cracks an unrehearsed joke that he’s ninety-percent sure didn’t land well, but Keith seems to find it amusing, anyway. He likes Keith’s lopsided smiles, and his smoldering eyes, and their quick-paced banter, and the way their legs keep brushing under the countertop when they lean in to hear each other better. He likes—this.

He likes Keith.

And to such an absurd degree that, even after they finish their drinks and trudge outside into the warm summer air, he doesn’t want the night to end. “So what’s next?” he finds himself itching to ask, hopeful, tangling their fingers together as they stroll down the block to where Keith’s bike is parked.     

“Maybe you can tell me,” says Keith, with one of those grins that’s been making Lance’s stomach swoop all night long. “I just showed you one of my favorite spots in the city. Now I wanna see one of yours.”

Which is how they end up at Bethesda Fountain, sitting side by side on the basin’s ledge, overlooking the water as it shimmers under the glow of street lamps like it’s made of magic.

“Lita—uh, my abuela—she used to take me and my siblings here all the time when we were little,” Lance explains, letting the toe of his sneaker idly skim the calm surface. “It was our tradition, I guess, to toss a penny in, and make a wish. And that angel up there?” He points toward the bronze sculpture perched from above, and says, “She told us it was put there to bless the water, so that all our wishes would stay safe forever. Pretty cheesy stuff, I know, but—”

Before he can finish, Keith is already holding out his palm, offering two copper coins. “Can’t disrespect tradition,” he says in response to Lance’s astonished stare.

Plink-plink, go the pennies as they break the water’s surface, one by one, sinking to the bottom with the rest of Lance’s childhood wishes. In the moments that follow, everything stands perfectly still, like the entire universe is holding its breath, waiting for the mystical powers-that-be to work their supposed wonder.

Then, while turning to Keith, Lance speaks into the stretching silence, “So, you think it’ll come true?”

Keith is looking at him—his mouth, more specifically, like he’d been planning on answering, but then gets hopelessly sidetracked by Lance’s lips, impossibly pink and inches from his own.

“I’m about to find out,” whispers Keith, and Lance’s heart double-beats, rapid with realization, as Keith gradually leans into his space. Head tilting. Neck extending.

“Keith,” Lance gasps, effectively blocking the kiss at the last second. He shifts his face away, so that Keith’s nose bumps into his flushed cheek. “I… I’m not gonna let you kiss me.”   

“No?” Keith breathes, satin-smooth, the heat of it burning Lance’s skin like a candle’s flickering flame. “Why’s that?”

Lance snaps his eyes shut at once. “‘Cause if you kiss me right now,” he gets out, voice cracking in the middle, “I don’t think I’m ever gonna want you to stop.”

There they stay for an undeterminable amount of time, with the inevitable weight of that hanging over them, aching and bittersweet, as though they’re two star-crossed lovers unwilling to accept their fate. The cruelty and unfairness of it; of having met too late, and fallen too soon. It claws at Lance’s rib cage, makes him question how much more of this he can take, how much longer he can keep up this air of faulty resolve, except Keith allows him little time to wonder before he’s slowly retreating.    

When Lance’s lids flitter open again, tentatively, he finds himself paralyzed by the sight in front of him. Keith’s eyes, darker, fiercer, more leonine than they’ve ever been before, like he wants to drown Lance. Like he wants to wreck him to ruin, then make him whole again. Lance is certain he’s never been watched so severely in his life.    

Then a hand is pressed to Lance’s jaw, cups the jutting shape of it so tenderly, as if it were made of porcelain. Keith’s thumb follows suit, grazing the shape of Lance’s lips, lingering on a smear of silver lamplight caught around his cupid’s bow, and there’s something longing behind that simple touch. Something hesitant, and carefully leashed. Something that sends Lance’s pulse into a rabid frenzy. 

“Yeah,” says Keith, rough and resigned. He places a chaste kiss to Lance’s forehead, murmuring against his brow, “Me, too.”

In a flash, he’s pulling away again, and Lance hears himself whimper pathetically at the loss, clipped off behind the clamp of his teeth. Keith gives him a soft-eyed smile, almost apologetic in the way it sits crooked on his face, and—

It breaks something in Lance, seeing Keith look at him like that. It comes crashing down, fills him with light, and it breaks him.

“Fucking hell,” he growls, like a dam bursting, and then drags Keith into a full, open-mouthed kiss.   

now.

It’s some bizarre, twisted joke of the universe, Lance is now starting to realize, that no matter how much things have changed—or which way the planet spins or the stars align—there will always be constants and patterns and recurring themes, fixed like a compass arrow pointing due north. 

Sitting at the basin’s edge of Bethesda Fountain, coin pinched tightly between his fingers, is a pretty good example of this.

His ex-boyfriend, apparently, is another.

Because history has a real hilarious way of repeating itself like that.

And it isn’t fair, Lance thinks, feeling petulant for the way it makes him want to pout like a child. It isn’t fair that, even after tiptoeing around the cracks so carefully, just the slightest tumble—those eyes, up close, dark and burning like midnight flames—can shatter him so irrevocably. It isn’t fair that all those painstaking months spent licking his wounds still didn’t seem to get all the blood out, even though Lance did everything he was supposed to do. He sobbed himself dry, he threw shit at the walls, he sent long-winded voicemails, and then hated himself for it the next day. In between, he tried laughing the loudest, and smiling the brightest, but he couldn’t, and it just isn’t fair, it isn’t, it isn’t. 

It isn’t fair that, even after all this time, Keith still gets to ruin his life.

But the fact of the matter is this: Lance hasn’t been able to shake Keith out of his brain since their unfortunate reunion at the bar, and he didn’t come all the way back here just to wander down the same dead-end paths, retracing his footsteps, over and over, until the ground gives and swallows him whole.

He came here to turn his life around, to find that special something it’s been missing.

Something extraordinary.   

Lance stares down at the coin in his grasp, twirls it between his fingers.

Please, oh, please let him find it this time. 

The penny goes soaring through the air, and then plops into the water with a resounding—

“Arr-ooo!”

He whirls around to see a giant bundle of black and white fur galloping toward him at top speed, leaving him no time to react before he’s being tackled, nearly toppling backwards into the water.

Then a voice cries out, deep and commanding: “Kosmo!”

Sadly, there’s no time to react to that, either.

Keith comes bounding down the trail, all windswept and sweat-sheened in his jogging clothes, headphones dangling loose around his neck. “Kosmo, you can’t just—”

The exact moment he notices Lance is painfully obvious. He skids to a stop, muscles freezing, eyes widening.

“Hi,” croaks Lance.

Keith’s chest heaves a solid three times before he’s able to respond. “Hi,” he breathes.

“Hi,” Lance says again. We already did that part, genius. “Um—”

“Sorry about…” mumbles Keith, nodding down at where Kosmo is currently sniffing and pawing at Lance’s jeans. “He doesn’t usually—”

“I know,” Lance blurts, because he’s stupid. He immediately corrects it to, “It’s fine.” And then, because he’s exceptionally stupid, he adds, “At least there’s no glassware to break this time, right?” 

Something flashes across Keith’s features, quick as a spark, then flees. Whatever it was, it had looked unpleasant and complicated, and not even close to resembling amusement. 

Lance’s face burns brighter than a wildfire.

And just when he starts to think this blundering exchange can’t get any more tragic, Keith has to go and ask, “So, how are you?”

“I’m—fabulous.” God. What the hell. Lance has never used that word before in his life. “And busy. Super busy. With the coffee shop. Which is mine now. In case you didn’t know.”

Keith considers this with a frown. “I thought you’d still be at school.”

“Well, I thought you’d still be on the other side of the friggin’ country, so surprise, looks like we both got it wrong.”   

In the ensuing silence, Keith’s expression does something else, just as horrible and vague as before. It makes Lance want to scream. Keith’s eyes have always had a way of revealing all his secrets, too candid for his own good, and Lance could always read it off him like a book, but now—

Maybe I’m just out of practice, Lance thinks, a little bitter, a little bewildered.

“Guess I should—” he begins muttering, at the exact same time Keith opens his mouth to go, “So, do you—”

They blink dumbly at each other.

“Sorry,” they both say, then, still in unison. 

God, what a disaster.

“Um,” Lance forces out quickly, as to not prolong this torture more than necessary, “I just—I should probably go.”

“Right,” says Keith, equally as quick. “Let’s go, Kosmo.”

But the dog just cowers behind Lance’s legs, ears folded downward as he whines like a pup, and doesn’t move. Lance coughs awkwardly into his fist. 

Keith snaps his fingers, frustrated. “Kosmo. Come,” he orders again, and, mournfully, the dog obeys, trotting over to his master’s side without so much as another whimper.

Lance is standing, brushing off the seat of his pants when he hears, “Lance.”

It cuts straight through him, a devastating swipe of a blade.

“You, um,” Keith, holding himself rigid, is saying. Trying to say. His gaze is steady, but guarded. “You can come by the bar, anytime. If you want.”

“I know,” says Lance, still reeling, somehow.

With that, Keith makes to leave, Kosmo in tow. And as Lance watches him fade into the sunlit backdrop of Central Park, he’s struck, suddenly, by the strangest sense of déjà vu. Of themes recurring. Of history, once again, repeating.