https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C76FbhyW4AErh_K.jpg

[also i fucking LOVE this song uwu the regular one is better but i added the slowed and reverb version so u can listen to it for longer while u read ahaha]

Dinner looked like it could have been made in a five-star restaurant and Keith's stomach growled loudly as he pulled up a chair next to Lance at the end of the table, eyeing the platters of food. There was a huge bowl of yellow rice mixed with peppers and peas, a platter of roasted chicken legs, and black bean salsa. The plates were passed around and Keith busied himself with stuffing his face, watching the interactions of the family around him. 

First, he was able to identify Rachel and Veronica, Lance's sister. Rachel's resemblance to Lance was uncanny (they were twins, after all), but she was a little more subdued than her brother, flicking her long, dark curls over her shoulder and leaning against her palm, smiling and joking around but never one to start a conversation point. Veronica, however- or, as everyone called her, Ronny- was as loud as Lance, her eyes bright and challenging as she teased her siblings. 

Marco, the second-oldest brother, looked a lot like Veronica and a taller, scruffier version of Lance, while Luis, the eldest, reminded Keith of Hunk in a way-- broad-shouldered with a deep laugh. His wife, Lisa, was quiet, but she seemed like she fit into the family well, telling off the two little ones when they got too rambunctious and passing plates around to make sure everyone got their share. 

Elena and Oscar, Lance's mother and uncle, both had that mischievous glint in their eyes that the children had and even they joined in on the banter every so often (or broke it up when Marco or Ronny got too heated). Several times, Keith noticed out of the corner of his eye that Elena was watching him, but whenever he turned to her, she was already looking away, acting as if nothing was amiss. Keith didn't mind the scrutiny-- he'd expected it, naturally, but Elena's dark eyes seemed all-knowing and he genuinely worried if she could read his mind. 

Still, something was missing. Lance's father was nowhere to be seen. Keith was beginning to worry that maybe he'd left the family (though he wondered how anyone could ever do that, he already felt so warm and welcome after just one meal with them) or that Lance's parents were divorced, though he'd thought that Lance would have mentioned that if it were the case at one point. He didn't ask, obviously, but it stuck with him throughout the meal. 

"So, Keith, what do you do?" Keith blinked to attention at the sound of Ronny's voice, noticing that most of the family's eyes were on him. 

He smiled, trying to exert confidence. "I work at a flower shop downtown, by the boardwalk."

Elena's eyes widened in recognition. "The Arboretum? I love that place. It always smells so nice in there."

Keith nodded proudly, "I started working there when I came here from college. I don't think I could work anywhere else, honestly."

"You moved here for college? From where?" Marco asked, leaning back in his chair precariously. 

"My family's from Texas," Keith answered, an image of his mom and dad flashing through his head. He pushed it away. Later. 

Marco let out a low whistle. "That's a trek. How often do you go back?"

"I usually go back for all of August before school starts and then on Christmas and spring break," Keith explained. Realizing that it sounded like he never really saw his family, he added, "But we Facetime every week for an hour, so it's not too bad."

"Why'd you come all the way out here, though?" Veronica asked, helping herself to another roll from the breadbasket, which was dwindling. 

Keith scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "The college here offered me a really good scholarship, but it's also nice to get out of Texas. I've known that I wanted to go somewhere kinda far away since I was in high school, but I wanted to be on the coast too. I surfed a lot growing up and I heard really good things about the beaches here."

"What are you gonna do when you get out of col-"

"That's enough, Marco," Elena interrupted, laughing a little. "Let the poor man eat." Marco grinned and the conversation picked up again, no awkward silence, no lull in the mood. Keith looked over at Lance and was surprised to see how sweet his expression was. 

"Do you think they like me?" Keith asked quietly, his voice masked by the Mcclain's rowdy chatter. 

Lance nodded, reaching down beneath the table and brushing his hand against Keith's. Their pinkies linked, knuckles grazing, before Keith slid his palm against Lance's and interlaced their fingers, out of sight from the rest of the family. Keith hid his blush by shoving more food in his mouth. 

After dinner, most of the family migrated into the living room to watch a movie, while a few stayed in the kitchen to clean up the dishes. 

"Elena," Keith asked as he brought his plate to the counter, "can I do anything to help?"

Lance's mother smiled warmly but shook her head. "No, but thank you for asking, sweetheart," she said, scrubbing at a large soup pot, soapy suds flowing over her hands. 

"Just let me know," Keith trailed off, turning to grab a few more platters from the table to bring to her anyways. 

"Lance?" Elena called and the brunette emerged from the living room, remote in hand. Elena tilted her head, gesturing for him to come closer, before speaking quickly in a low voice. It took Keith a second to realize that she wasn't speaking English. 

Lance looked down at the ground, shaking his head. Elena gave him a hard look. "Lance..." she began before saying something else.

"Ma," Lance protested, but Elena's eyes were set. 

"Por favor, mijo."

With a heavy sigh, Lance tossed the remote to Rachel and motioned for Keith to follow him, passing the living room as the Disney logo flashed on the screen of the TV and shoving his feet into his Adidas. Something had changed in Lance, but Keith slipped on his Doc's and headed outside after Lance. They were halfway down the driveway when Keith caught Lance's sleeve, but Lance didn't turn. 

"Hey," Keith said in a soft voice. "What's up? What's going on?"

Lance turned away and blinked hard. The sun had just finished setting and the sky was swathed in a velvety royal blue, lined at the horizon with peachy orange. It was a cloudless night. 

"Lance, talk to me," Keith pleaded quietly. 

There was a small silence.

"I have to show you something," Lance admitted finally, taking Keith's hand in his and leading him down the driveway and then up the street. Lance's neighborhood was sparse. It was, essentially, a long winding road that led up a gentle incline, lined on one side with trees, the other with houses spaced far apart. Behind the houses, there were more trees, and Keith could imagine Lance and his siblings running through the forest when they were younger, playing pretend and hide and seek and just being kids in the wilderness. 

Keith thought about his own childhood as they walked. His house in Texas was in a wide, open desert off of a gravel road, with nothing but cacti and small shrubs around it. There was a patio out back made of rust-colored tiles and an inground pool, which Keith would swim in as his father smoked cigarettes on a lawn chair and the family dog, Kosmo, would gnaw on rawhide bones. 

His mother, Krolia, would "garden" in a small mulch patch by the side of the house. She definitely didn't have a green thumb and killed every house plant she'd ever attempted to keep, but the garden was made up of patches of succulents, so she only had to water them every week or two and they didn't get very weedy. There was nothing like the look in Krolia's eyes when the succulents would flower-- long, bending stalks with bright pink and yellow blooms dripping off them. She'd sit in front of the plants, taking pictures of them with her father's old camera, winding back the film each time, and then hang up the pictures on the fridge with the dates and the names she'd given the succulents scrawled in neat Sharpie in the margins. 

Keith's dad, who everyone just called Tex, was a firefighter. He always smelled like smoke, either from his cigarettes or his work, and he had a low, gravelly voice that you could hear from anywhere in the house. He always had a cup of coffee and the paper in the morning, it was almost cliche, and he'd look at Keith over the top of his reading glasses and smile and ask him how he slept. 

Tex and Krolia were never too worried that Keith didn't have many friends, or, at least, they never acted like they were, but the moment Keith brought Shiro home, they loved him like he was their own son. Shiro had a rough family life-- his dad wasn't home very often and his mom had to work hard to support them, though she usually spent her time out with her friends or at bars than with Shiro. Takashi was 18 when Keith met him, but sometimes it felt like he was still just a kid.

Krolia used to try to explain to Keith when he and Shiro met that sometimes people have kids together when they're too young or too busy or too irresponsible and then they try to live their lives like normal, even though a whole new being is dependent on them. She said that that's what Shiro's parents did. They didn't know what having a child meant, so he just sat at home, alone, for a lot of his childhood. She said that that's why Shiro slept over so often, that's why she showed up for Shiro's basketball events, that's why she packed Keith an extra lunch most days just in case Shiro couldn't find anything at home to bring to school. 

Keith had been in a really rough place when he had met Shiro, and the bond that had formed from their connection over Keith's depression and Shiro's shitty home life was identical to that of biological brothers. Shiro's life always made Keith think about how lucky he was to have such good parents. 

He and Lance were nearing the top of the hill and Lance turned left, off the road, and onto a narrow gravel path that led into the forest. Keith felt a slight uneasiness sink into his bones. He'd never admit it, but if he was scared of anything, it would probably be dark forests at night. However, their walk was short and soon enough, they emerged from the trees into a spacious meadow with uncut grass reaching up to their knees. 

Lance hesitated at the edge of the clearing, then stepped forward. It took Keith's eyes a moment to spot it, but in the center of the meadow was a sapling, maybe 10 feet tall with small leaves. As they grew closer to it, Keith noticed that there was a small, rectangular headstone resting upright in the grass in front of it. 

Lance stopped in front of the headstone and knelt, head bowed. Keith slowly read the words inscribed across the stone. 

Carlos Benjamin Mcclain

Beloved husband, father, and friend

19XX - 20XX

Oh. 

Keith sat down beside Lance, rubbing his back soothingly. 

"My dad was a religious man," Lance started, staring hard at the ground. "He raised us to be good Christian children, to marry other good Christian children, and to have kids of our own before he died. That was all he asked of us. He was strict and he could be really mean sometimes, but I loved him." Lance's eyes grew shiny, welling up. 

"He had a drinking problem his whole life and he got mad whenever someone told him that he needed to stop. Mom never said anything and she told us not to either, we just stayed out of his way when he got like that. One day, he and I got in a really big fight and I ended up outing myself just to make him stop yelling at me. He left and we didn't hear from him for three days." The tears spilled over Lance's lashes and a small, choked sob escaped his lips. Keith held onto his hand, squeezing. It was all he could do. 

"It turned out that he passed out at the bar without his wallet and he'd been at the hospital. His liver had failed. He only had a day or two because it seemed like everything else had shut down too, nothing wanted to work and he was struggling just to stay alive. We all went to visit him but," Lance started sobbing, falling against Keith's chest. Keith pressed his lips to Lance's forehead, trying to soothe him the best he could.

"But, as soon as I got there, he said he didn't want to see me. He said that he didn't even recognize me," Lance sobbed. "He was dying and he disowned me." Keith couldn't help it as a lump formed in his chest, his eyes stinging with saltwater. 

"He died that night and I didn't even get say goodbye to him, Keith."

Keith held Lance closer, staring at the gravestone. This was the grave of the man who'd raised Lance, who'd gone to his Little League games, who'd pushed him on the swings, who had made Lance who he was today. 

You don't deserve his love if you can't love all of him, Mr. Mcclain, Keith thought selfishly as Lance sobbed into his shoulder. They held each other in front of the sapling until Lance had stopped crying and his breath had returned to normal. Keith's legs had fallen asleep, but he didn't mind. Lance's body was warm and the summer night had a light chill to it. 

Lance pulled back, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. "Sorry for snotting on your shirt," he mumbled in a stuffy voice. 

"It's ok," Keith laughed quietly before cupping Lance's face in his hands, lifting his chin. "Thank you for showing this to me. I'm so, so sorry Lance. But it wasn't your fault and I know that your dad loved you, even if you guys were fighting. I know he did." 

Lance sniffed and offered Keith a small, watery smile. "Okay."

"Let's get you home, love," Keith said, helping Lance up out of the grass and wrapping an arm around his waist as they walked away from the grave. Night had fallen and the orange light from the streetlights lit up the street on their way back to Lance's home in silence. 

At the driveway, Keith pulled out his phone from his pocket. "I should order an Uber real quick, I'll be right in," he told Lance, smiling. The brunette's face fell, crestfallen. 

"You're not staying the night?" The emptiness in Lance's voice almost made Keith drop his phone. 

"I wasn't going to, but of course I will if you want me to."

Lance's puppy-dog eyes were impossible to say no to. "Please?"

Keith kissed his cheek, putting his phone back in his pocket. "I wanted to see your room anyways."

...

ahhhh sorry this one was a bit longer than usual! i was considering writing a bit more and splitting it into two chapters but i'm getting tired and I have some more work to do haha,,, um anyways i hoped you liked this one! it took me a while to write it so i hope it paid off ((:

hmmm qotd what is ur favorittteeeeee breakfast food?

love u to the end of the universe<3