WHO: Lance & Keith WHEN: July 12, early morning WHERE: their bedroom at their apartment WHAT: Waking up with a case of the blackberries that leads to some talks about stuff learned during the last canon bump months ago. WARNINGS: Minor freak outs considering that human ears and eyes shouldn't look like animals ears and eyes.
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Keith lingered in that middle ground between sleep and awake, his nose scrunched up as he tried to figure out what’d tipped him into that middle ground to begin with. No alarm, so early. But there was a warmth in the room that spoke of sunlight, so not that early. The slight change in temperature couldn’t be the cause either. No, it was still at that pleasant level that inspired sleep, not disturbed it. So what…
Something fluttered against his cheek, soft and feathery and ah, yes, that’d be it. His nose wrinkled as he puffed out a breath to get whatever off his cheek, but it only made the tapping rhythm against his skin worse. He tilted his head away only to find that the weird tickling fluff was back as the boy curled up with him nestled in more. Groaning, he untangled an arm enough to reach up and card through Lance’s hair to try and tame whatever stray strands were bothering him.
“You need a haircut,” he muttered absently as his fingers pushed down at the offending cheek ticklers. That felt more solid than actual hair, but that didn’t make sense at all…
It probably wasn’t a shock that most of the dreams that a boy from Cuba had were set at the beach. Tang of salt in the air, just like his memories… that gentle breeze in his hair…
That breeze getting a little rougher than Lance’s dreamworld could logically explain meant that his brain had started to surface from beneath that reverie. Something was nudging. Someone? The words weren’t clear, but even Lance’s sleep-addled mind could tell it was Keith’s voice.
“Wuzzat?” was mumbled, even as Lance shifted his head away a little. Whatever Keith was doing didn’t feel right. And, really, if Lance stopped to think about it, it didn’t sound right either. Something about where the sound was coming from. He swatted at the offending hand.
A grunt of protest met the swat as Keith shook out his hand to lessen the sting. Not because of any pain of course, but more from the shock to his sleepy brain at getting rebuked in such a fashion. His eyes cracked open to blurredly glare at the other boy. Maybe more blurredly than he intended considering he must be more asleep than he thought if it was taking this long for his eyes to focus and… did everything look more warm tinged in the room?
Pushing that thought aside, his hand went in for a second assault, flicking his fingers against errant tufts of blurry hair. “Your hair’s being weird.”
Okay, that really didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a sharp sensation, but even a drowsy Lance knew that it should’ve just felt like the standard hair ruffle. This felt like Keith had flicked an ear. And, worse yet, Lance could swear his ear twitched in response. If he had ears atop his head, that is.
That steady fall of thought dominos made Lance shove himself up and backwards onto his knees. He held his hands out in front of him, then slowly started to lift them to his hairline. Something was off.
Again, his fingers met more resistance than they should’ve with just hair and that twitching happened, but any more thought on that matter was pushed aside by Lance’s quick movement. Lance moving away. Lance sitting up. With that, Keith jolted awake. Something wasn’t right if Lance was getting up that quickly.
And now that there was more distance between them, his eyes finally focused clearly on Lance’s face. Oddly muted, but even so his blue eyes standing out more brilliantly than usual. And then… His brow furrowed in confusion. That couldn’t be right… were those… they looked like ears, but more like ones you’d find on a cat or fox or, well, just not on Lance… “Lance… do you… are those…?”
Just as Keith was struggling to find the words, Lance lowered his hands on the top of his head. And, sure enough, his fingertips met with something furry and pointed. He pressed his palms down, feeling that there was some structure beneath that. Something that seemed to be rooted to his scalp. He was silent for a moment, as his eyes moved to meet Keith’s -- eyes that were wide and on the verge of panic.
Except what he was met with wasn’t exactly Keith’s usual searching look. If possible, Lance’s eyes widened more.
“Your eyes --”
Transfixed was probably too tame a word for what was going on, but Keith couldn’t think of a better one. Because he felt rooted to the spot, just watching Lance’s hands move the ears and they were definitely ears. Lance’s ears from the way they moved considering they acted more like the features on any of the aliens they’d met- actually, very similar to Olia’s really - than to some headband or whatever you’d find on Earth. The only thing that managed to snap him out of his stare was that growing look of panic on Lance’s face. Ok, yeah, this was all types of weird, but that panic needed to get diverted.
Except Lance seemed to be doing a good job at that himself, even as the partial sentence sent a spike of ice cold dread down his back. Sitting up, his fingers went to his eyes. “What…?” The skin around felt normal, but that didn’t really mean anything. Especially since… maybe that warm tone of the room wasn’t just the morning light being extra morningy. He searched Lance’s expression a second more before kicking the sheets off and sliding off the bed to go to the mirror in the corner of the room. He froze as soon as he caught his reflection though, eyes wide in shock at, well, those not being his eyes. At all. “What the…”
Keith’s panic-by-proxy was enough to distract Lance for a second, but his hands were still resting atop something foreign on his head. He wasted no time in scrambling off the bed and towards the mirror himself. While Keith was leaning in and inspecting his eyes, Lance squeaked around his side to take a look at…
“Ears? Cat ears?” It was half a cry of alarm, and odds were the Pokemon residing across the hall were awake now. Lance scooted closer, as if it would change what he was seeing if he viewed them from a different angle. The color of the fur matched his hair perfectly, but the inside was paler, which set the ears themselves out at a contrast. And totally make them the most prominent thing on his head. He prodded the inside of one and the response was a quick sneeze as the ear, clearly moving from instinct, twitched. It tickled. It tickled? It tickled.
Lance gave it a tug next. Nope, that was connected. He stared. There was nothing to do but stare.
Lance’s yelp pulled Keith out of his stare. Which really was for the best, considering that even though the golden, slit pupiled eyes staring back at him were definitely not his, they didn’t look as strange as they should in his face. Which caused his insides to twist in a way that he didn’t really like. Lance’s ears however, ok, those could just be weird. Definitely out of the ordinary. And, well, kind of cute actually…
Reaching out, his fingers threaded through Lance’s hair, searching for the base of where the ears met Lance’s scalp. “Or dog ears?” he offered. “Make me think of Olia.” Even if her fur color was a tad paler, right? Or were his eyes not reading the color right anymore? And maybe hers were more side facing than forward… His brow furrowed slightly. “How’s your hearing?”
Keith’s fingers made the ears twitch again. The sensation just too foreign to be comfortable, and the scenario itself feeling like maybe being compared to a dog or an alien that had canine features wasn’t helping. Lance’s brows knit tightly and his mouth gaped slightly as he stared at Keith through the reflection of the mirror.
“My hearing’s fine, thanks. Because I have these!” Each sentence was escalating in volume. “WHY DO I HAVE THESE?”
And, again, there was Keith’s reflection with those yellow, feline eyes. “WHY DO YOU HAVE THOSE?”
His hand dropped as Keith took a step back from the yelling. The very, very Lance yelling that had him scowling in return. “How should I know!” he countered with a wave of his arms. Which, really, it’s not like he had a clue of why this was happening. Or why it was happening and involving Lance. Really, if Lance hadn’t woken up with some random ears, he’d likely been panicking ever since he saw his eyes. Granted, maybe what was happening to him was separate than whatever was going on with Lance, but that’d be one hell of a coincidence, right? Lance waking up with new ears and him with new eyes had to be related. Right? He hoped they were related because otherwise…
His eyes avoiding the mirror, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, I just wanted to make sure considering…” He pressed his lips together in a tight line. “Everything… I don’t know, maybe it’s still the light in here, but everything looks like it’s stuck on a filter or something… I didn’t know if…” He waved a hand at Lance’s ears.
“Okay, first of all, I’m proud of you for the Instagram reference.” Lance’s voice was momentarily calmer. It didn’t last. “But this is not okay! I have work in a few hours!”
The portal. The portal was always doing weird stuff. Usually it went away, but what if it didn’t? And Keith…
Lance pivoted away from the mirror, so that he was facing Keith head-on. He placed his hands on either side of Keith’s face and then stared into those cat eyes. Although, if this was any other context… wouldn’t they be Galra eyes? Forgetting that he was locking Keith to the spot, Lance fell silent.
“I hear hats are great for hair mishaps,” Keith deadpanned at what looked to be renewed panicking. Except that instead of the continued shrieking, things got quiet and Lance had him held in place. With the boy so close again, he was having problems focusing again, his slit pupils widening and narrowing with each wave of panic. Because even if the other boy was fuzzy around the edges, the action was far too easy to read. Inspection. Close inspection. Which wasn’t anything new when it came to Lance. He had that habit, right? Leaning in too close to look at something for whatever reason. Usually he’d just ignore it, but the hands limiting his escape was new. Making it harder to just step back or to duck his head to hide his face with his hair.
And maybe if Lance had kept up with his theatrics, Keith could’ve ridden that annoyance to push the other boy away. Use that extra force it’d take the break the contact. But Lance was quiet. Lance was quiet and staring at him. His stomach twisted uncomfortably. What if Lance saw something he missed? It happened more than he wanted to admit, especially with certain details. What if these eyes matched up with something Lance had seen before that he hadn’t? What if his assumption about this being connected to Lance’s predicament was wrong.
Swallowing hard, he stayed frozen in place. “... Lance?” was all he managed to get out, his voice small and quiet.
The hat remark was mostly ignored, but only because Lance was focused on Keith’s face. He could swear this was even more familiar than just seeing Galra with feline eyes. There was a flitting memory that was trying to gel in his mind despite some residual sleepiness.
“It just looks…” Lance closed his eyes for a moment. It was easy to get lost in the panic and forget himself, but he realized belatedly that Keith seemed to be stressing out worse now. Lance lowered his hands. “Maybe I was just seeing things. This’ll go away, right? This has to go away.”
The grip dropping felt like both a good and bad thing. Even if the trapped feeling had been stoking that panic that he was trying to keep from spilling over full tilt, the touch had been a little comforting. Even so, as soon as it was gone, Keith ducked his head down and away from Lance.
“I know…” he said softly, to finish off Lance’s dangling sentence. Taking a deep breath, he nodded slowly. “If they’re connected, it’ll go away. Maybe there are other people too who’ve been affected like when I got all of Pidge’s brains stuffed in my head… It’s probably just some weird thing like that…” His head lifting, his eyes met the mirror again and his brow furrowed. “They… they could just be cat eyes… right?”
It wasn’t conscious thought, but Lance’s new ears flattened downward in submission. He forced himself to ease up, if not for his own sake, than for Keith’s. “Yeah, of course.”
Because it was easy to see where this was headed. Keith’s unknown parentage had been a source of clear frustration for some time. He looked nothing like he had Galra blood, but apparently he did. And if Lance had to be honest, there were moments when the other paladin got fired up that his eyes almost looked different. There were glimpses of that when they’d trained together. It was easy to pass off as nothing then, but this moment was bringing it all into perspective. Maybe it wasn’t just a trick of the eye.
Either way, it was clear that Keith was reaching for safety. And in that, Lance totally forgot his own predicament. Funny how that worked. It hurt to see Keith… hurting.
“You always struck me as kinda catty.”
Keith’s head bowed forward in exasperation before he turned and gave Lance his best ‘really?’ look. The intensity didn’t last long though, not even a few seconds, before his face softened. The comment was ridiculous and a horrible joke, but it got him out of his thoughts. Broke that focus and downward thought process. Which was just made easier too by the fact that those ears managed to add easily to the distraction. And he was grateful for it. His face closed off for a second. Especially since Lance didn’t even have the full picture.
He didn’t really talk with the other Paladins about the Galra thing. True there were off hand jokes and Hunk’s needling questions, but he’d mainly steered away from it. Partly because he wasn’t sure how well they could understand and partly because he didn’t know where to start himself. He didn’t need the rest of them reminding him how little he actually knew about that part of himself that was ‘new’ and something he ‘turned into’ to them, but had always just been there for him but unnamed. But it seemed like maybe he’d be getting better answers on that and, well… His eyes went back to the mirror. He could see the resemblance a bit better like this…
Making up his mind, he brushed past Lance, sifting through their stuff before he found his sketchbook. He flipped through the pages as he turned back to the other boy, filled with life studies of his friends and the pokemon, but also faces from memories, trying to capture what they looked like while the new flashes had been fresh. Stopping on a page with a larger portrait facing a page with smaller studies of a stoic Galra woman, he held it out to Lance as he puffed out a sigh. “I know we have to still need to figure out…” He gestured between Lance’s ears and his eyes. “But… in… in case these aren’t just me being catty and all…”
At least it looked like the little joke did something, but as Keith turned away, Lance was left feeling like maybe it was too late and not enough. He lingered back, watching for the time being as Keith clearly set about finding something. There was a small attempt to peer over, but it was all for nothing: the item in Keith’s hands was familiar. Lance knew the look of the sketchbook, even though it didn’t make much sense for it to enter this conversation.
Before Lance could ask, there was a page being displayed. Lance followed suit, his eyes lowering to the page to examine what Keith was trying to show him. His ears, still operating in tandem with whatever subconscious part of his brain had taken control, pricked upward and alert. The drawing was definitely a Galra woman, but the chin, eyes, brows -- they were all too familiar. Lance lifted his focus to Keith. Keith, who has those same features.
“Keith… who is this?” Lance asked. It seemed a stretch, but maybe Keith had just tried to patch together a mental image of what his mom may have looked like. Some sort of basis to file a gap in his memory.
Even as Keith felt like he was holding his breath while Lance inspected the drawings, he couldn’t help watching the other boy’s ears. Despite Lance’s freak out, they oddly suited him with how they moved around. Just as expressive as the rest of the boy…
Which, uh, wasn’t the point right now… He ducked his head, looking off to the side a bit in shame. Not because of who she was, but because, well, it’d been months of knowing… and even if Lance hadn’t pushed and had said to take his time for when he was ready, he still felt that bit of guilt that it’d taken this long.
“My mom,” he said softly, if a bit strained. “I… I wasn’t sure, but Shiro… his new memories, he said she comes back with me and that she’s really…” He nodded a few times. “Yeah… my mom…”
Of course she was. The thought had been on the edge of Lance’s mind the more he took in just how many similarities he could see, but he didn’t want to assume. Still, Lance glanced from paper to artist a few more times. His own brows lifted. That meant that Keith had seen her. Maybe met her? There was a whole slew of missing information, and Keith was the only one who could share it.
But more than that, Keith admitting that there was a future where he had found his mother, and they had reunited with the team… That sounded like good news. And that’s where Lance’s mind went. His face went from mild shock to grinning.
“Keith. Keith, you met her? You got to meet your mother?!” Because that could only be a good thing, right? Lance’s hands found their purchase on Keith’s shoulders this time.
The grin was infectious, even with the tumult of feelings going through Keith. But then that word held a different meaning for Lance, right? Most of the other Paladins actually. They had memories, faces to miss, people waiting back at home. He loved hearing Lance talk about his family because of that. So easy and warm, even if the words ached for both of them for different reasons. But it wasn’t that same angry, lonely, confused, sad maelstorm with just a dash of hope in it that’d rise up regarding the topic when Keith thought about family. His family.
He started with a nod, but it shifted into a shake. “Yes, no, it… it was a mission and she…” He shook his head, firmer this time. “I was supposed to extract her, but I didn’t know… but… but she knew me… and…” He shrugged. “She’s a spy. I… I couldn’t be sure if she wasn’t just… I don’t think the Blades would have had her if she’d backstab them like that, but…” His head bowed again. “That’s… that’s the last thing I remember… the end of the mission and her giving me back my blade and telling me she gave it to my dad…”
It felt like Keith was realizing it was a good thing, too, but then Lance watched the falter. And the slip into uncertainty. He let Keith try to sound it out. Honestly, it seemed like maybe this was the first time he’d tried. Beyond whatever Shiro knew from new memories, Lance had a strong guess that Keith… being Keith… didn’t tell a soul about any of this. It pulled at Lance’s heart to know there was all of this emotion corked up inside Keith. Whether that was the fault of not knowing which memory to trust, or Lance not being present enough…
Lance guessed maybe it didn’t change the result in the end.
He watched Keith fold up. Even that small bow of the head read like a withdrawal. And why not? By the sound of it, finding his mother seemed like it wasn’t intentional. He’d ended up in her path, and even then hadn’t known for sure if she was really his mother. Just a thing taken for granted by someone who grew up knowing his mother… his mother’s hugs… the sound of her voice and what it felt like to make her proud.
“It’s something, right? And if Shiro says she comes back with you, then that means there’s more.” Lance glanced at the sketch again, but, truthfully, it didn’t need his attention anymore. He stepped forward and tucked his arms beneath Keith’s until he reached fully around the other boy.
The sketchbook snapped closed as Lance moved forward, so that Keith could hold onto it easier as he leaned into the embrace and wrapped his arms around Lance. He could say more of course. But then the topic of his mother and that heritage had a lot to unpack, even if he didn’t toss in the added bonus of the Blades not necessarily being what he had wanted. But right now, this… this felt good. He still wasn’t certain of how he was supposed to do anything with his mother, but Lance was right. It was something. Especially considering…
“Shiro said I introduce all of you to her as my mom, so… so yeah…” He puffed out a breath as he rested his head into the side of Lance’s neck. “It’s something. I don’t know what, but it’s something…” Enough of a something that maybe he wouldn’t mind if this weirdness stuck around and he looked a little bit more like that side of his family.
Speaking of the weirdness… After basking in the moment for a bit, he tilted his head to the side to peer up where he knew the ears were, especially considering he could feel his hair maybe not agreeing full on with them. A sly smirk curling his lips, he couldn’t help himself. He lifted his head just enough to lightly and slowly blow against the nearest ear to see if it’d twitch around the same way as the barn cats’ ears when the same thing happened to them.
As Keith settled into the embrace, Lance frowned slightly. It sucked not knowing what actually happened, and he wasn’t even the one dealing with a family identity crisis. It had to be harder for Keith, trying to patch together his memories with what Shiro said. It probably answered less questions than it created. Then again, plenty about Keith had always felt like a mystery… realizing it was because Keith himself didn’t have the information was just part of getting close and understanding where that frustration came from. And for the longest time, Lance had riled him up on purpose. There was still some guilt over that, but stupid teenagers, right? Neither of them were the same kids who’d left Earth.
Lance’s frown evaporated as a rush of air hit his left side. The ear shuttered like a loose shutter in a storm, and Lance immediately tucked it under a hand as he scrunched up even more against Keith. “Stoppit! Come on, Keith -- these things are sensitive.”
The smirk turned smug as, yup, definitely like the barn cats’ ears. The impulse to keep teasing was strong, but, ok, Keith didn’t need to push Lance back to that previous panic. Especially when the paladin was being so supportive and now was doing that seemingly impossible thing of just collapsing all that body mass and long limbs into a far too tiny space. So, he wrapped his arms tighter around the boy and brushed his lips against the the hand protecting the ear in a form of apology.
“Yeah, yeah,” he murmured as he pat Lance’s back. “C’mon, let’s go get something to eat and see if anyone else has got something weird happening on the network. Maybe find a hat that those ears’ll be happy with.” He frowned. “And some sunglasses….”