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Tired, Lance shuffled back to his room from the training arena. He was still catching his breath, a small trickle of sweat slipped down the center of his back. He took a swig of his water bottle as his door electronically slid open for him. He collapsed onto his bed and picked up his tablet, fiddling around with it. He needed a distraction. He thought a tough workout would get his mind off… well, off everything. But it didn’t. A million things bounced through his head: Shiro acting weird, Lotor, Lotor and the Princess, the video he sent to his family, the fight against the Galra. Just, just everything. It was all too much. He started playing a game on his tablet, but after his character missed the same jump for the fifth time in a row he gave up. Lance let out a frustrated groan, throwing his tablet aside. His mind wouldn’t settle. He wanted to rest, but his mind wouldn’t stop racing. He needed to talk it all out. Talking was the only thing that felt natural to him. To let his emotions pour from the floodgates of his mouth. He picked back up his tablet from when he’d thrown it. It was late at the castle right now, everyone else was asleep. Lance knew because he’d gone around to everyone's quarters, looking for someone to train with, even Coran. But they were all asleep. Pidge had fallen asleep at their laptop, so Lance had led them back to their room before he’d went to go train. There was no one in the castle he could talk to.
But there was one person who might be up. God, Lance didn’t even know where in the universe he was right now. Did they even follow the same sleep cycle? He hadn’t even talked to him outside of their plans and dealings with The Blade. Lance felt bad actually, that they hadn’t talked much, which gave him even more motivation to hit the ‘call’ button on Keith’s contact page. Lance shuffled around on his bed until he was laying on his stomach, his tablet propped against his pillow. The dull ringing echoed around his room. Lance wriggled about on his bed, trying to get comfortable, but his sweaty t-shirt kept clinging to his body. He huffed and sat back on his knees, peeling his shirt over his head. The sound of the call connecting rang out in his otherwise silent room.
“Lance, what are yo—” Keith’s voice came through his tablet.
Lance, the shirt caught up around his ears, muffled, “One tick!” He wrestled with the fabric and gave it one final tug before launching to a corner of his room. He flopped back down, smiling. “Sorry about that. Did I wake you up?”
Keith looked like maybe he had been working out too, his cheeks were tinged a bit pink. Lance self consciously felt his own face, seeing if it was flushed, too.
“Yeah you did, what’s going on? Is something wrong?” Keith demanded, all business.
There was some shuffling, like Keith was moving. And when the image stopped shaking, it looked like he was laying on his side, propped up on his elbow.
Oh.
Oh okay, yeah maybe randomly calling Keith in the middle of the night wasn’t the best idea. He probably thought this was some distress call. Well, it kinda was. But not the kind Keith was thinking of.
“Lance?”
He shook his head, “Huh, oh no! Nothing wrong here! Just called to talk.” Keith’s face stared back at him, brows furrowed in confusion.
“You wanted… to talk.” His voice lilted at the end, making the statement sound more like a question. His lips skewed to one side in an unsure pucker.
Lance immediately felt ridiculous. What was he even doing? He should have just gone to bed. Why was he bothering Keith? It’s not like this was something they did… but Keith was his buddy, right? His friend? Lance at least thought they were friends, yet suddenly he wasn’t so sure.
“I-I’m sorry for waking you up. If you want to go back to sleep I get it. I’ll just uh—”
“It’s fine. I wasn’t really asleep yet,” Now that he knew this wasn’t an emergency call, Keith relaxed back into his bed, holding the tablet above his face. He looked up into the camera, hair spread on his pillow. “So what’s up?”
Lance finally released the payload of information crowding his head, “Too much, Kogane. My head feels like it’s going to explode with everything that’s going on! First off, Shiro is acting all kinds of wack! He’s not acting like himself at all, and he’s forgetting things, too. He yelled at me even though I was right. He’s even siding with Lotor, Keith! Oh and don’t get me started with Mr. ‘I’m totally chill now even though I ran an evil empire’! I do not trust him. He might’ve hacked his dad in two— but that doesn’t mean he has the right to make goo goo eyes at Allura! He’s such a creep!” Lance knew he wasn’t making much sense, but it felt so good to just. Let it all out. To explode.
As Lance went on and into detail about the happenings at the Castle, Keith just sat and listened calmly. Sometimes he’d hum in agreement about what Lance was saying, but most of the time he looked and listened. Making the right facial expressions at the right moments. It was weird, in a sense. Lance would’ve never used the word ‘agreeable’ to describe Keith, but there he was, calmly looking into the cam and agreeing with Lance. He was so used to Keith being angry, it never occurred to him that Keith could not be like that.
“... and I just miss them all so much, ya know? I mean it’s super awesome and all to be the defenders of the universe, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes it doesn’t seem fair that we suffer and struggle so much and we don’t even get to see our families at the end of the day.”
Lance paused then, he didn’t even remember consciously moving towards the topic of his family. He usually stays away from that around Keith for obvious reasons. Lance actually has a family to miss. Lance peaked back up at Keith, gauging his response. He was looking right back at Lance, his wide eyes filled with sadness. Oh God, thought Lance. Oh christ no. Fuck. But the more Lance stared back, he got the sense that Keith was sad for him. It was just the way his indigo eyes pinched in sympathy, the way his lips curled into a half-smile. Keith? Sympathetic? Who is this person and what have they done with the real Keith?
For the first time in awhile Keith spoke, “That’s kinda the bittersweet irony of it all. We work so hard to make sure the universe has safety and happiness, but at the expense of our own.” His voice was soft, contemplative. During the course of their call, Keith had change positions so his tablet was leaning sideways against the wall, capturing Keith laying sideways in bed. Half of his face was squished into his pillow and his hands were loosely clasped together near his chin. Cute.
“Since when did you get all wise?” Lance quipped. Sometimes talking about deep stuff in the middle of the night was too depressing.
Keith huffed a laugh, his lidded eyes squinching closed in amusement. “I’m just like this at night.” he replied. As if that wasn’t a completely wild response. His eyes didn’t reopen. He looked so peaceful.
“So this is Night-time Keith?”
“Mmhm.”
A stray hair swooped into Keith’s face. His nose scrunched up at the sensation and his lips parted slightly, blowing it away. And maybe because Lance was very tired and possibly because Night-time Lance didn’t have much of a filter, he responded, “I like Night-time Keith.”
Keith’s eyes opened wide and then narrowed, “Thanks? I think.”
“I didn’t mean I don’t like you during the day! I like you all the time! I mean, I— uh,” he sighed, “I just meant I’ve never seen this side of you before and it’s…” he paused, searching for the right word, “Nice.” He didn’t dare look back up a Keith, afraid if he made one wrong move Keith’s calm demeanor would dissolve. He didn’t want to break this precarious peace between them. Now that he knew Keith could be so… so... soft, he didn’t want Keith to return to being cold and hard. There was a few seconds of unbearable silence. Just as Lance was about to give in and look to see if he could read Keith’s face, he responded.
“I like Night-time Lance, too. Though he isn’t much different from Day-time Lance.”
“So you just like me?” Holy quiznack did I just ask that? Again with the no filter.
Keith colored significantly, but because Lance refused to look up, he couldn’t see that.
“You can be annoying sometimes, but yeah I guess I do.”
“Well distance does make the heart grow fonder.”
“Look who’s the wise one now.”
Lance smiled at the light tease, and was about to respond with a ‘I’ve always been wise beyond my years’ when Keith was overcome by a large yawn. Lance in turn yawned himself, his eyes beginning to water. “Looks like we could both get some sleep,” he said instead.
“Did you get it all out?”
“Huh?”
“Everything that was on your mind.” Keith mumbled back. His eyes had closed again and he visibly snuggled into his pillow. Lance felt his heart constrict in his chest.
“Yeah I think I did. Thanks for listening Keith.”
“‘Course. Anytime.”
“Goodnight, Keith”
“Goodnight, Lance.”
Lance had purged what was originally troubling him, but now something completely new had overtaken his mind. He decided he wasn’t going to call Keith and tell him about it.