Author's Note:
PLEASE DON'T SPOIL THE NEW SEASON FOR ME (explanation is after the chapter)
DDDD:
yeah so love yall please keep reading if you want tysm
~
Staring at his empty drink with equally empty eyes, he took a glance around the room and back at his own stool; there, Lance decided once and for all: he hated bars.
They were too mixed; mixed with people, mixed with noise, mixed with vision...
Ugh, talk about sensory overload.
The only reason he was here in the first place was because he couldn't find the courage to drive those extra eight miles to the city hospital.
To the room on the east side of the building.
To the place at the end of the hallway.
Sigh. He left his courage at the bottom of the ocean.
It wasn't like the trip wouldn't be worth it. Oh it would so be worth it.
Just to see Keith alive.
The colour returned to his lips.
The life back into his eyes.
The warmth back in his body, running down his arms and back up to his dimples.
Lance hugged his own arms.
"Are you gonna order?"
Lance looked up at a familiar blonde face.
"Nyma?"
///
"What, what are you doing here?"
She appeared calm, taking a seat to the bar stool next to him.
"This is a public place...isn't it?" She remarked, beer in hand.
"Yeah, but like...I haven't seen you in-"
"Eight weeks and two days...yeah. I got into an accident you know..."
Lance didn't really know how to respond to that. So he didn't.
"...I almost died. I was drunk, and I didn't see the stop sign..."
"Nyma you don't-"
"...I almost killed someone Lance."
He gulped. She continued.
"She's a mom." Nyma's voice was unbelievably steady, despite the waterfall erupting from her eyes.
"And you know what her son said to me?" she stared at nothing in particular, as they both simutaneously choked back sadness.
"He said that he didn't hate me. He said that he felt sorry for me." Nyma's voice finally crescended down in a spiral, as her sadness made a stamp on Lance's heart.
"Nyma, I-"
"I just wanna apologize Lance. I don't wanna live my life like this..." she sobbed as Lance brought her close to him.
"Like what?" he mumbled, barely talking over the muffled crying.
"Hurting people. This life...it's, worthless..."
"Don't say that..." his eyes kept on her.
"Life without love is a life that's been lost...Lance, I've been lost for a very long time."
///
Hospitals are really weird.
It's a whole lot of waiting, and watching, and more waiting.
Lance was pacing outside the elevator, trying to piece together a proper conversation in his head.
"Keith! Ah, too loud...Keith, ugh, no, that sounds weird..." Lance faced the wall and tried to envision a pale, Asian man just two inches shorter than him, staring back, probably judging him.
"Hey, man..."
The wall did not respond.
"I...." Lance sighed, "I'm way in over my head."
He turned and let his back slide down against the wall, sitting down on the patterned carpet. Resting his head back, he desparately wanted to keep calm, trying his best to ignore all the flashing sirens going off in his head.
"Lance? What are you doing here?"
///
He wasn't sure if it was his luck, or just plain coincidence, but Lance had been running into a lot of familiar faces recently. It was almost tiring, he couldn't put an act in front of them, he couldn't pretend to joke and laugh- they already knew who he was without the armour...
"Nothing."
Shiro stared back at him intently, finally breaking his stance to wrap his wide arms around the younger boy. Lance was taken back by the surprise affection, and he felt guilty for letting himself lean in.
"I meant..what are you doing here, in the middle of the hallway, when you should be with Keith and I..."
"I wasn't sure if I was welcome."
Shiro broke the hug to look at Lance directly, both pairs of eyes reflecting two different kinds of hurt.
"You saved his life..."
"...I just gave it back....I, I broke him." Lance hated crying in front of people, he especially hated how often it kept happening. He liked Shiro, and he wanted Shiro to like him back. But they were so past that already. How could Shiro look beyond everything he had done? Especially when Lance couldn't even think to look past it.
"Lance, I know you hurt him....But I already put fruit flies in your car as revenge...
"Wait that was you-"
"...The point is, you broke him. But you were also the one to put all the pieces back in the box. Now, you just have to put them together. So you can finally see the bigger picture."
Lance sniffed, staring at his shoes.
"Love; it's kind of like a puzzle- one that you never got to see the image for. You don't really know how the pieces are gonna connect, or if you're missing some, or even what it'll all look like in the end...but, you'll never really know unless you try."
Lance exhaled, letting one last tear hurry down his face.
Shiro smiled gently, "Besides, even if it doesn't work out between you two, there are plenty of fish in the sea..."
Lance laughed, he always hated that phrase, but it was somehow funny now.
"...But, I have faith. I mean, the ocean's pretty big...but, you two always find a way back to eachother."
Lance looked at him with wide eyes, "You're too nice to me."
"You make my brother happy."
"That's not true."
"But it is."
///
Keith was supposed to have left already. But thanks to his incredibly paranoid brother and his terrifyingly supportive parents, he was still here, getting final tests done.
He was able to get some work done though, over ten pages of his final that he'd put off for an entire semester- and things were going...smoothly. Even though he didn't have his laptop with him, and he hadn't handwritten an entire piece in a long time, and to be frank, it was a little...weird.
But, the feeling of words running through your veins, racing to your fingerprints and bleeding out in ink...
...there's nothing in the world that could give Keith the same adrenaline.
"Hey."
Except maybe him.
///
PLEASE DON'T SPOIL THE NEW SEASON FOR ME PLEASE I HAVEN'T SEEN IT I'M IN PAKI RIGHT NOW AND IT HASN'T BEEN RELEASED HERE OMG IM GONNA DIE I WANNA WATCH IT SM AAAAAAA
also tell me how you're doing !
and A L S O:
I wanted to ask for specific things I can do to improve my writing. This whole journey has given me so much more experience and really has made me much better at this, but I really wanna take it to the next level. So tell me what you like most about what I do, and what you think I need to work on :D thanks!!! yall rock :)
as always, keep breathing~
~Tan ♡