WHERE: Vallo City WHEN: August 12th, 2022 (Backdated) WHAT: The guys hang out at the food festival and drink margaritas. WARNINGS: N/A STATUS: Complete
There was a good chance that when they got home, they were both going to need Pepto Bismol (or the magical equivalent) and that their significant others were both going to be smug about it, but at the moment? Neither Lance or Keith showed any indication of slowing down on hitting every single vendor that was at this food festival. Salie Coven had definitely put on a good show this year.
“Now I’m not calling it quits, but I need to take a break, man,” Keith groaned, as they neared the end of the first row of stalls. Okay, so maybe some indication of slowing down. But there was only so much his stomach could handle, before he could continue. “Let’s get something to drink instead.” A fair compromise in his opinion.
Kosmo, who had been teleporting between them and the other half of their quartet, sensed he was about to get a lot less leftovers with them and disappeared with a (slightly) judgmental head tilt.
Lance didn't know about Keith, but he fully intended on being a dramatic asshole later to Atreus when the sheer amount of food caught up to him. But for now he was content to run around the stalls with Keith and shove whatever they could find into their mouths. He'd heard rumors of hot wings that were guaranteed to be the hottest thing one ever had and he was keeping an eye out for them to challenge Keith.
But when Keith called a break Lance was thankful. Not that he wanted to quit either, but it seemed like a good moment to let at least the first layer of food settle.
"Regular drink or tipsy drink?" he asked and laughed a little as Kosmo blipped away. "I saw some lemonade not too far from here and then some fishbowl margarita thing by it."
"One of each and we share?" Keith asked, after very little deliberation. He has a rare weekend off and planned to enjoy it, drinks and all. "Not that I don't think we could drink both fishbowl drinks, but it's still daytime and we probably shouldn't be drunk this early." Or maybe they should be, as they eyed a couple that stumbled past them, two sheets to the wind and not a care in the world.
“On second thought, two fishbowls!” You only live once, right? Unless you were his husband and you got a well earned second chance.
As they stood in line for their drinks, he elbowed Lance and asked a question he had been sitting on for a few weeks now. “How’s it going with you and Atreus? You know, with his…Freya and stuff?” It wasn’t a question he had felt comfortable asking Atreus and he didn’t want to bombard Lance with it while he may have still been figuring it out for himself.
Lance narrowed his eyes at the suggestion they probably shouldn't be drunk since it was daytime. "It's five o'clock somewhere, Mullet," he countered with a laugh. "Besides, we can just make Atreus and Shiro piggyback us around the rest of the day if it hits too hard." He was probably doing that even if he wasn't day drunk off fishbowl margaritas.
"That's the spirit," was added when Keith relented and Lance happily joined him in the fishbowl line.
He was eyeing the menu with the elbow hit and brought his attention back to Keith. "Uhhh… good? Like as good as that whole thing can be?" He paused, shifted his weight as he thought it over. "She hasn't like tried to kill either one of them or anything so I think he's mostly taking that as progress? And she helped out with that whole - thing - with me for him so that was probably a good sign?" Okay so it was a lot of answers in the form of questions but the whole thing felt very much like a big question mark in general. They'd talked about it a lot but like most things it was one of those situations that was really only going to become clear with time.
"I don't know, it's stupidly complicated and there's a lot to unpack, but even with all the unknowns he's happy she's here." Now it was just a matter of if Vallo was going to be nice and give them the time to work though the mess of it all.
She had earned a lot of good will with Keith the second she had offered to try and heal Lance. He knew as messy as the history with her and Atreus was, he would be thankful for that much at least. But ultimately, Lance was right. It was a waiting game to see how things would turn out.
"We'll, I hope it goes well. He seems like he really cares about her and it feels the same for her. Maybe without the background of their world here, they can give it a real shot between them." It had been like the space whale for him and Kroalia. Without the threat of the Galra Empire, they had been able to spend two years becoming mother-son again. He hoped Vallo would be their space whale.
"How are you doing otherwise? The kids forgive you for going catatonic?" That had been a rough few days that Keith never wanted to repeat again.
"I hope so," he replied earnestly. "I know he's pretty fond of the time they got to spend together before everything happened, it'd be nice if they got a second chance to figure it out." It wasn't exactly a clean slate, Vallo - sure it wasn't their world, but Lance figured even if Freya and Atreus sorted themselves out it might be a long time for the same with Kratos. But whatever happened he more than anything just wanted Atreus to be happy with the outcome.
"Most of them were okay with the 'Vallo did a weird thing' excuse, a couple I had to do some groveling and bribing with," Lance answered. "There's two that took it pretty hard," and even if he knew it wasn't his fault he felt pretty guilty about it. Inadvertently adding to the kids' abandonment issues was still adding to it. "But they're coming around."
They were up next and Lance narrowed it down. "I think I'm gonna go with the tropical, you?"
This food festival was proving to be an exercise in restraint because Keith’s evolving sweet tooth - long gone were the days of just plain vanilla ice cream- had him eying the gummy beer margarita bowl. “That one,” he said, decisively, sending out a quick ‘sorry!’ to the ether for the handful he was going to become about halfway through that drink.
As they paid and then shifted off to the side to wait for their stupidly large drinks, Keith shifted back and forth on his heels as he said, "You know you’re always welcome to ask Kosmo to come along with you next time to see if you can cuddle them into forgiving you faster. Not that I don’t think Monty’s enough to make it happen, but just saying if you need back up…”
It was great seeing Lance step into a role that he was so utterly comfortable with. Long gone were their dumb Garrison days and it was great seeing his friend start to become the man that the future him promised to be. He wondered if his own changes were as obvious.
"I feel like I need to text Shiro and warn him of that choice," Lance teased Keith lightly over his drink choice.
He shifted his weight between feet as they waited. "Yeah? I feel like there's one kiddo though, Emil, that you might not get Kosmo back from," he warned with a little laugh.
Lance took his drink when his name was called and waited for Keith to do the same. "How's the cabin coming along?" It was still surreal some moments, to think about Keith and Shiro married and making a home for themselves, but he was nothing but happy for his friends.
"You're the one that always called my choices boring in the beginning. This is partly your fault, take responsibility like a man," Keith said, mock scowling as he reached over to grab his drink when he was called. He took a drink from the gummy drink and pulled a face at the sourness, before trying a second sip. The second sip went down a lot easier, as his taste buds adjusted.
Considering the question of the cabin, the modifications for the kitchen he was working on came to his mind's eye. "It's livable now, but I'm working on updating and modifying it. We're going to need a bigger kitchen than the one we have and I want to add a couple more bedrooms down the line." He thought about the future where Kipp and Kimmy were in their lives, where Lance and his brood came over all of the time. They definitely needed more rooms for that future.
But that was the future. Right now, they could move in that day if they wanted. "You should come check it out soon, give me another pair of eyes to tell me if it looks like shit."
"You'll need at least two more," Lance agreed with a knowing smile. "Unless you're making Kip and Kimmy share which as a child who shared with two others - don't." Personal space had been an unknown for the majority of his childhood.
Speaking of the surreal. Going from discussing war strategies to pointing out the number of bedrooms that would be needed for Keith and Shiro's future kids was a bit of a trip. Lance idly wondered if they'd get there back home too. He liked to think so. Keith and Shiro for sure, but it was a giant question mark when he thought about it if he himself would be able to crawl out of the hole of grief and anger he'd been in back home after everything to the extent he had here in Vallo. Would there be the same pull of his own future when talking about Keith's? Even if it was still small and fragile feeling here it was still there. A little spark taking hold and growing.
"I will be brutally honest in my assessment," he assured Keith as he took a long drink from his fishbowl. A joke because he knew damn well it was going to look great. "You think you guys will move out there soon?"
Moving had always been on the agenda, sooner rather than later. But they still hadn’t had the official talk yet because Keith knew how intense he could get. He knew that once he was committed to something, he was all in. He had proposed to Shiro after less than a year of dating. And yes, they had years of intense feelings toward each other before that to fall back on, but there was very little stopping Keith from going out and finding Kipp, who was suppose to make an appearance in their lives soon if his math was right and the context clues he had gotten from when their kids were here were properly deduced.
But he didn’t say all that. Not yet. Instead…
“Maybe? I don’t think we’re in any rush, but…it feels like it might be the right time soon. We’re all moving forward in our lives and it feels like that time’s coming soon.” He took a long sip of his drink out of the crazy straw he had been given, breaking the solemn mood of the conversation. “Anyway, jumping the gun. I still need to talk to Shiro about it and see if he’s up for it too. Why? You trying to get rid of us?”
Moving forward still sometimes felt like something other people were doing for Lance. Even if he knew he'd made some pretty big strides there over the past year, it was still hard not to look at where some of his friends were and feel like he was still behind. But he was happy with where he was and that was usually more than enough to push away the errant thoughts.
Lance just laughed a little at Keith's question and took a drink from his own fishbowl. "I mean… somedays?" He teased, the over exaggeration on the word made it clear he absolutely did not mean it. There was a shrug as he took another drink. "But it's not like we won't still see each other all the time, if you guys think I won't be over there bugging you at least every other day you're way off base," he added and gave Keith a grin.
Remembering the idea of installing a magical closet that Lance could have access to to visit, Keith was quick to say, “You better text us before you come over or I refuse to be held responsible by whatever you might see.” They were young and his husband was stupidly gorgeous. Of course there were going to be days where they refused to get dressed.
But his serious face dropped into a small smile. “You think you’d strike out on your own or maybe move in with a certain god friend of ours?” Maybe Lance wasn’t ready to think too much about moving forward, but there was no doubt that he and Atreus were a good match. And he was already over at Atreus’ more days than not, it wouldn’t be hard to see that leap.
"Oh I'll be texting," Lance assured. "I don't need to see what you and Shiro get up to when no one is around." They'd somehow managed to get through living in the same apartment without incident, Lance wasn't about to let one happen once they were in separate places.
Lance took another drink of his sugary alcoholic concoction at Keith's next question. He shrugged and casually threw out "I hadn't really thought about it." He had. Extensively. About how more and more of his stuff had migrated to the Sanctuary over the past six months, about how be home soon was typed more often than not lately before being changed to the more vague be there soon. How the Sanctuary had slowly started to feel like just that. Home. Instead of the place his boyfriend lived.
But then the flipside would sneak up and crash all those thoughts with what if that wasn't what Atreus wanted. With him, or with anyone.
So - I hadn't really thought about it seemed like a safer reply at the moment. And as a group of people passed them by with a mile high toasty cheese thing Lance glomped onto the distraction.
"I know we said we're taking a food break but we need to find out where to get that," he smoothly changed the subject with and pointed at the cheese heaps.
Keith was kind of oblivious sometimes, but he had gotten better at telling when something was up with his close friends. But he let Lance have his out. If he wasn't ready to talk about it, he wasn't ready to talk about it. Lance knew where to find him when he was.
So he let his gaze follow where Lance was pointing and nodded. Taking an obnoxiously loud sip of his drink, he bumped Lance on the arm with his and said, "Last one to figure out where that came from is deep cleaning the kitchen next!" And took off with a light jog after the group that had just passed them.