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. . .
Lance knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he has never felt more
sure.It’s a wild, unabashed, almost reckless kind of certainty. It’s pins and needles all over his body. It’s a bright, ardent flame spitting sparks in the pit of his gut. It’s the lazy coil of Keith’s arm around his waist, and the tangled mess of limbs beneath the bedsheets. It’s the morning sun that bathes their bed in warmth, and catches flecks of glossy starlight in Keith’s half-mast eyes. It’s the gravelly little “morning” he breathes against his nape, and the gentle brush of lips that follows shortly after. It’s the puddle of saliva drying on the pillowcase, and the utter disaster of Keith’s bedhead, and the way he rolls out of bed, gorgeous and shirtless, and the lift of his brow when he catches Lance staring, and the way he asks, “What?”“Nothin’,” says Lance, feeling lovesick and foolish. “Just you.”It’s the adorable face that Keith makes in response — half smirk, half nose scrunch — before
heading into the bathroom. It’s the way Lance gets to call that
his.It’s a small velvet box, tucked away, hidden, in the bottom drawer of his dresser. And it’s —
yeah. It’s
all
of that.
Lance is so, so
sure.
The smell of coffee, and the sound of sizzling eggs fills their happy little kitchen like the gentle lilt of a love song.It’s Keith’s favorite time of day, when their wispy white curtains flutter in the morning breeze, and the world just beyond them is bright and new and waiting. When his smile goes lopsided and hopelessly endeared as he watches Lance flit from the refrigerator to the stovetop in his fuzzy blue slippers, humming all the while. When he gets to slink his way over to his sleep- rumpled boyfriend, push him up against the kitchen counter, slip a hand beneath the thin fabric of his t-shirt, and kiss the garbled protests right out of his mouth as he tries, in vain, to make sure their breakfast doesn’t burn.But today is different.
Today
feels
different.Probably because there’s no smitten smiling, or quiet humming, or stolen kisses. Keith just sits at the kitchen table, slumping over his coffee as Lance goes on and on about the aquarium, and how it won’t be too crowded on a weekday, and how they have season passes that shouldn’t go to waste, and, apparently, there’s some kind of new seahorse exhibit that’s supposed to be really cool. And Keith knows he should be listening, responding — or, better yet,
agreeing
— but
all he can do is stare into his mug and think about how the honeyed bronze color is the same shade as Lance’s complexion when he visits home in the summer. All sun-kissed, and warm, and so, so
sweet.“ — do you think, babe?”
“Hmm?” says Keith.Lance chuckles, light and airy, as he scrapes some scrambled eggs onto their plates, but something in the curve of his smile flickers out of place. “You sure you’re awake over there?” he asks.Keith grunts quietly, and downs the rest of his coffee in one huge gulp.
They wander from exhibit to exhibit, hand in hand.Lance marvels at a colorful school of guppies as they dart around like fireflies, and makes silly, round-cheeked faces at the pufferfish, and giggles with unbridled delight when a tiny harbor seal howls and waddles its way into its watery home. Keith manages to grin at that, at least — seemingly more endeared by his boyfriend’s reaction than the adorable seal pup itself.They even pay a visit to the seahorses, and watch as their tails loop around willowy strands of kelp, swaying in the water’s gentle undertow.“Some types of seahorses mate for life, y’know,” Lance says innocently, out of nowhere.“Oh,” mutters Keith, going alarmingly stiff and pink in the face. “Um.
Neat.”Lance frowns.One of the seahorses unfurls its tail, and drifts away into a small mossy cave near the back of the tank, sinking into the darkness.Same, buddy, Lance thinks a bit grimly.
Same.
“Brings back memories, huh?”Lance nudges him with his shoulder, and wonders if he sounds as helpless as he feels.In the eerie, deep-sea glow of the exhibit, Keith’s face goes softly blue as he watches a line of stingrays skim past his gaze. They emerge from the depths of their murky tank, flashing their beady little eyes, close enough to rub their long, flat bellies against the glass.A shiver grips Lance’s spine. They’re creepy as hell, he thinks, but Keith has always liked them best, for some strange reason.He tries again with a firm squeeze of his hand —
I’m here. I’m right here for you.
— and Keith glances down at their intertwined fingers before he looks up to find Lance’s smile. Or, maybe, only what’s left of it. A small, delicate curve urges the corner of Lance’s mouth toward his eyes, but it doesn’t quite reach, falling short at his dimples.“Remember our first date?” Lance tries for a third time.Keith moves, then, just a subtle crinkle in his brow, caught somewhere between amusement and confusion. “We went to the movies for our first date,” he says. “That one with the superhero who was… an ant or whatever.”“Oh, no, no, no, no —” Lance huffs incredulously. “— that was definitely
not
our first date.”“What do you mean? I asked you in the car on our way there if it was a date, and you said
yes.”
“But that was
before
you had to go and lean your pretty little mullet head on my shoulder, and make me so nervous that I spilled soda all over my pants like a
spaz.”A laugh — an adorable, wheezy, honest-to-god
Keith
laugh — falls off his lips, fills the dark little room, and Lance is so pleased by the sound that he just stands there, grinning like a dope, marveling at the way Keith’s eyes glitter in the clear blue light.
There he is, his mind whispers fondly.“That still counts as a date,” Keith tells him at last.“Nope, sorry,” Lance counters with a shake of his head. “Date was cancelled the second I went and died of embarrassment.”A soft, and just slightly overwhelmed smile still lingers around Keith’s face, and Lance thinks he’d very much like to kiss it, like maybe it’ll keep it there, or press it into place forever, but then Keith wiggles his fingers where they’re laced between Lance’s, and says, “I thought it was cute.”
Lance snorts, tossing a withering glance toward the glass tank. “Yeah, well, you also think
stingrays
are cute, so your judgement is clearly flawed, you weirdo.”“I called you the very next day to invite you here, didn’t I?”
“That’s called
pity, babe.”“I couldn’t wait to see you again.”“See me make an
idiot
of myself again, probably,” Lance corrects. “I bet you thought I was gonna fall face-first into the shark tank or something.”Keith shrugs. “A risk I was willing to take.”“Well,” says Lance, relenting just a bit, feeling his cheeks prickle with warmth. “I’m really glad you did.”Then the moment cracks, shatters like it’s made of glass, and Lance can’t figure out why. But he sees it — and
feels
it — when that blue glow dims around them, making Keith’s expression go flat, and his smile disappear, and his eyes dart to the side, the floor, the tank of stingrays, the laces of Lance’s shoes, the —“Yeah,” Keith says, nearly chokes, as he unravels their fingers, “me, too.”I’m here, I’m right here for you, Lance’s mind chants again, only this time he wants to scream it until his throat is raw, or his lungs burst, or the soul-consuming ache in his chest goes away for good. But Keith’s hand keeps slipping, and then he’s stepping away, moving on to the next exhibit without Lance in tow.I’m so sure, Keith, he thinks.Lance buries his dejected hand into his pocket, feeling the smooth velvet sitting at the bottom.
But are you?
The horizon bleeds every shade of red, and orange, and pink, and paints it across the harbor’s rippling canvas. A seagull cries distantly overhead. Water laps up against the wooden legs of the dock, not quite close enough to splash the bottoms of their feet as they dangle over the edge, but close enough to hear over the sound of their silence.Everything
is loud over the sound of their silence.Keith is staring out into the distance, and Lance should think he looks offensively handsome like this, right here, with the splay of evening sun on his face, dousing his skin gold, setting the specks of violet in his eyes all aglow. And he does. Of
course
he does. But there’s also an emptiness in his sunlit gaze, and a crease in his brow that tells Lance how deeply he’s lost himself in thought. That same lifeless expression that’s been turning his stomach upside down all day long.And Lance is usually much better at figuring it out — at figuring
Keith
out — but the weight of that tiny box in his pocket is starting to bear down, turning his brain to sludge, and whipping his
heart into a manic frenzy. All he knows is that he can’t take much more of this. He can’t survive another maddening
second
of —“Keith?”It’s no louder than a whisper, but, somehow, it makes Keith turn his head.“I —” Lance licks his lips, struggles to catch a proper breath. “Um. I’m gonna say something — kinda crazy. Maybe not
too
crazy.
Hopefully
not too crazy, I mean —”He looks down at the water just below his feet, seals his eyes shut, and focuses on the soothing sound of those slow-rocking waves.“It’s just… Look, I know it’s not realistic to think that everything’s
always
gonna go according to plan, but this is like — I mean, let’s face it. Something’s
off. We’ve had better days, y’know? And, okay, maybe it was something I said — or
did
— and maybe it’s bad timing to be bringing this up right now, but I —”“Sweetheart,” says Keith, and it’s so earnest —
so fucking tender
— that Lance stops mid- sentence, glances up, and finds:Keith, eyes wide, heart overflowing, and a small black box in the palm of his hand.
“Lance,” Keith breathes. “Will you marry me?”And Lance’s jaw falls open like a loose hinge.“What — are you —” he splutters. “— no!”The glow vanishes from Keith’s eyes. “No?”“No, no!” Lance squawks again, slapping a hand to his flushed face. “Not
no, I mean —
wait
—”So Keith waits as Lance fumbles to reach into his pocket, fingers suddenly clumsy with shock, and manages to reveal his own little jewelry box, nearly identical to Keith’s.“Keith Kogane,” he says, slowly lifting the top of the box, “how
very
dare you.”The white gold engagement band sparkles brilliantly beneath the sunset, right in front of Keith’s
fluttering eyelids. “What?” he rasps, dazed.“The one time you decide to be a romantic sap,” Lance goes on. “Literally the one time, and it's when you're stealing my proposal.”“So you —”“Oh my god,
yes.”Lance feels something tug at his heartstrings one by one — relief, he assumes.
love, he decides. — and then laughter spills out of their lips at the exact same time. They reach for each other until Lance’s fingers thread through thick locks of hair, and Keith’s palms are settled firm against the small of Lance’s back, and their foreheads are pressed together, and they’re grinning in each other’s faces, lungs heaving and noses nuzzling.“You were nervous,” Lance says softly, realization washing over him, warmer than the late afternoon sun on his skin.And he can hear Keith’s breath tremble as he replies, “Not anymore.”
“Gonna give me an answer, then?”“I asked you first.”“You’re so
annoying
—”He’s cut off by a unexpected, open-mouthed kiss, and Lance has half a mind to nag Keith about how
rude
it is to interrupt a guy when he’s in the middle of proposing, but, instead, he’s melting —
drowning
— in Keith’s arms, and gathering fistfuls of hair like it’s the only thing keeping him from tumbling off the edge of the dock.When they part, Lance’s breath stutters, and Keith smiles at him with red, pouty lips.“Well,” prompts Lance, miraculously finding his voice, “are you gonna let me see the dumb thing or what?”Keith opens the lid of his box to unveil a sleek titanium ring, and Lance’s eyes immediately flood with tears, which he adamantly blames on the salty breeze in between sniffles, and so Keith wipes his cheeks dry with the pad of his thumb.It fits perfectly on Lance’s finger.
So does Keith’s.“Yes,” they say in unison; so breathless, and so, so
sure.