lance alvarez (powpowpow) wrote in valloic, @ 2022-08-10 11:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, voltron: takashi shirogane, ₴ inactive: lance alvarez |
It was a little strange to think he'd just celebrated his second birthday in Vallo, but he had few complaints. Sure he missed his family more on days like that, but his family in Vallo had more than made it a good day. Even if, much like last year, Vallo had seemed determined to run him through the emotional wringer beforehand.
It was a few days later though, back from his and Atreus' little jaunt into the woods and the calm morning was perfect to introduce Shiro to paddleboarding. Before the day got too hot and the water picked up with any wind. Kosmo had noped out almost immediately, but in hindsight it wasn't the worst thing since Monty had insisted on tagging along and that left Shiro without an animal to test his balance.
He'd gone over the basics before they got too far from shore and then settled into quiet as they worked their way onto the water further. Lance would usually go pretty far out himself, but with Shiro being new to it all he slowed after not too long and with a practiced ease sunk down to sit on his board as well before he leaned back to reach in the bag secured to his board and offered Shiro a water bottle.
"It gets easier the more you do it," he assured Shiro. Which, well, was like most things really. "But you're doing really good for your first time out," he added with a grin as he dug out a water for himself.
Shiro wasn't the world's strongest swimmer, but he wasn't bad. His experience with the ocean was limited, but he was in top shape and he moved on the board with strength, if not speed. His primary concern was not losing track of Lance. And not getting dunked so hard he swallowed a bunch of saltwater. So far, so good.
He followed Lance's lead now, sitting on the board and taking the offered water. "Good to know. You're a decent teacher. I thought for sure you'd be non-stop teasing me about moving like an old man by now." Taking a swig of water, he smiled and glanced out over the water. It was one hell of a view and the sun felt good on his skin. His arm glinted a little too brightly, but he was used to ignoring that these days. If Kosmo decided to find his way back to them, it would act as a beacon at least.
"When did you learn to do this?" Shiro asked. "When you were a kid?"
"I'm saving that for when you can't get off the couch," Lance did tease with a grin shot towards Shiro.
Lance rolled his shoulders and then settled into a little stillness, gaze following Shiro's out over the water. "A few years before I took off for the Garrison?" he replied, half a question as he did the math quickly in his head. "One of my older cousins taught me." Was added and he took a quick sip of water.
"It was nice, even back then, sometimes things got really loud and chaotic but out on the water with just your board all that sort of slipped away." Vallo was a different sort of loud and chaotic and one that Lance usually loved, but when his own thoughts got too noisy and too hard to settle this was a nice reprieve.
"Yeah," Shiro smiled. "I get it. I usually turned to the hoverbikes for that, but this makes sense too." The water lapped gentled at his legs and he took another swig of water before reaching over to tuck the bottle back into the bag. "It's too bad the Garrison wasn't near a body of water."
Of course, where the Garrison was plated a part in Keith being in his life, so he couldn't exactly think badly off it. But he imagined it would've been nice to have this, back when the guys were young and especially high strung, butting heads in training. He smirked and glanced sideways at Lance.
"You and Keith could've used this to chill out. Or just find a new way to harass each other."
"Oh we would have absolutely turned it into the most competitive sport ever," Lance replied with a laugh. But that would have required Keith giving him the time of day back in their Garrison years.
Lance's legs swung lightly in the water. "We would be better with it now?" A pause, a grin. "Maybe." Honestly lately it depended on the day. But as a whole they were generally less turn everything into a competition as they had been in their younger years. It was nice. "At first at least, but then he'd fall in at one point and I wouldn't be able to resist comparing him to a drowned cat though and that would be it." He looked back to Shiro with a you can't even tell me I'm wrong look on his face.
Lance dropped his hands a little bit behind him and leaned back into them, letting his head tip upward to the sky a little. "Sometimes I get a little -" a brief pause as he tried to find the right word. "Disconnected feeling? I guess?" He shrugged a little.
"After everything with Honverva, watching - feeling," because that was the crux of it wasn't it. Lance had given them the rundown of his memory update when it happened but he'd always been so careful to tiptoe around the emotions surrounding it. That they had all felt it, it hadn't just been witnessed but felt on some cosmic level that had irrevocably changed all of them. "Her destroy - everything. All of existence. How quickly it was all just… gone. Sometimes I get in my head about that. Coming out here helps though," he braved a look at Shiro beside him. "And I know you got some stuff you probably get in your head about too so I wanted to share this with you."
Going fast on the bikes had its own merit of course. Taking on one of the sims in the Castle and beating the crap out of things you didn't have to worry had feelings also had its merits. But Lance always thought there was something to the quiet of the water like this too. Forced your own mind into quietness to match it.
Shiro's soft laugh faded at the direction of Lance's words. It made perfect sense of course. Lance had as much bagged as he did. And carrying it was a heavy burden if you didn't find ways to cope. Sometimes, he let Lance's enthusiastic outer shell work its mojo and he forgot exactly how much tragedy Lance had experienced at home. He didn't forget how much he'd grown though. It was evident even now, floating on surfboards in the ocean.
"I appreciate you bringing me in on this. I can see why it's been good for you. And you're right." Shiro blew out a breath and ran his fingertips through the water around them. "I get stuck in my own head too. Not that I'm glad you do, but it's good to be reminded. That we're not alone, even if our paths occasionally diverged."
His expression stayed serious and contemplative as he glanced over at Lance. "You know you can talk to me anytime, right?"
Occasionally diverged was a good way of putting it. And at the words Lance couldn't help his thoughts from drifting to the period when the Shiro they had hadn't really been Shiro. That nagging feeling of something being wrong that he should have listened to more. And now, in Vallo, it still felt a little weird to know more than Keith and Shiro did. To have lived through more back home and carry that with him. The opposite he supposed was true though. Shiro and Keith had settled, figured their stuff out and were very much planning a future here while Lance sometimes still felt like he was playing catch up on the becoming a functioning adult thing.
But Shiro was right. They weren't alone. Barring Vallo being a complete dick, the four of them had each other and Lance honestly wasn't sure how he would have gotten through the past year and a bit without that.
He nodded a little. "I know, Shiro," he replied. "You're easily one of the best people to talk to," he added with a soft smile. And honestly he had no idea where Shiro got the sheer level of patience he had some days. "And I know I'm bad sometimes at the whole - owning up to when I'm not okay about shit," he shrugged. "But I'm working on it."
Shiro smiled wider, eyes crinkling. As much as he knew he was sometimes a killjoy with a cheesy sense of humor, he took comfort in being someone his friends could rely on. It was as important to him as being someone kind. Some honorable. Someone Keith deserved to stand by his side.
"Hey, it wasn't that long ago that I would've been shocked to get anything out of you besides finger guns and some half-baked line about always being fan-freaking-tastic," he joked, adding his own finger guns on for good measure. "You've come a long way, Lance. And I know it wasn't an easy journey. I'm really proud of you. Proud to call you one of my closest friends, too."
Lance gave an exaggerated look of shock as Shiro flashed him finger guns. "And me without my camera??" he exclaimed dramatically and laughed.
The rest of it though, well that kind of took Lance a little by surprise. Which he was sure was probably clear on his face. "Jesus, warn a guy first, Shiro," he said lightly, ducking his head as he was sure he was a little flushed.
"Um - thank you?" he said as he looked back up and smiled warmly. "That means a lot - from you," he added. He paused, laughed softly. "Dude I had your picture on my wall, back in Cuba," he said, almost sheepishly. But it was still surreal somehow, going from that to where they were now. "And now you're one of my best friends, freaking crazy."
Shiro tended to forget he was ever anything but another pilot to Lance and the other paladins. The Garrison felt like three lifetimes ago. But it made him smirk, picturing a small, wiry ball of energy looking forward to flight school with a Shiro's Garrison promotional poster on his wall.
"I'm glad you've got better pictures of me now. One's where I'm not being forced to pose with the instructions 'look more inspiring'," he joked. "I'm even more glad we could've stuck you on your own posters at home, once we got things up and running again." The last Shiro knew of home, they'd been recovering and rebuilding from near total annihilation. But this place was too soothing for such thoughts. He turned his gaze back out to the water around them.
"Sometimes I think about starting up a flight school," Shiro admitted. "But the limitations on how far we can go feels like it would be an exercise in self-torture."
Lance shrugged. "I mean you still kind of do even when you're making goofy faces at the camera?" he replied with a soft laugh. Shiro was just one of those people.
"I practiced that face in the mirror for way too long," he admitted with a smirk. "I made Allura take like - a hundred, at least, practice shots before we had the official pictures taken," he added with a small smile. It was easier, now, to talk about her. To go back to those little moments of vague normalcy they'd carved out for themselves in the middle of everything.
Lance skimmed a hand over the water. "You could still fly around Vallo?" he offered. But he knew it felt small in comparison to how far they'd all gotten to explore before. "I think you'd be good at it though, the school part. If you ever think you could be happy with just teaching people to fly around where we can, they'd be lucky to have you doing that."
“I look inspiring when I’m being goofy? I’ll keep that in mind,” Shiro laughed. He used to kind of hate pictures, because there was so much effort put into not looking as sick, not letting anyone see any cracks in the surface before he reached his goal of getting to space. He was glad those days were long gone. Shaking off the thought, he smiled dopily at the image of Lance posing for posters.
“I bet Allura enjoyed that,” he said, sincerely. Anything remotely to do with Allura was a dangerous subject, but it still felt nice to picture her happy and doing something silly. He dropped his gaze away. “Anyway, maybe I’ll teach when I’m ready to slow down. Until then, I’ve got too much on my plate for that kind of thing.” A sliver of melancholy was worming its way into Shiro’s thoughts – of pieces of their lives they lost and could never get back – so he gave Lance a distracting little shove.
“Speaking of teaching. Let’s get back to it,” Shiro demanded. “I’m starting to feel that need to get out of my own head.”
Lance easily kept his balance with the shove and shot Shiro and offended look that had no heat behind it, especially as he started to laugh. "Wow, rude."
He nodded toward a little inlet not too far off. "We can head that way, let Monty run around for a bit before heading back," he suggested. It was a route he took often and knew it wouldn't have anything too much for Shiro to tackle on his first time out.
He held his hand out to take Shiro's bottle and set both of them back into the bag before getting back up to his feet on his board. "Alright, back to finding zen," he said and gave Shiro a grin.