Why Lance had ever let Pidge talk him into such a stupid summer job, he would never know. The demon-child was persuasive. Riding shopping carts down the hill on B Street? Pidge. Starting a rumor about the dead girl who haunted the boy's locker room? Pidge. Hammering frozen hotdogs into the student body president's front lawn so that they would thaw overnight and rip in half when you tried to pull them out? Pidge. It always came back to Pidge.
Now, standing in front of the trucks and trailers, the dismantled rides and folded up food stalls for the Carnival of Lions with his duffle bag slung over one shoulder and a sleeping bag on the other, Lance was really starting to regret getting tangled up in another one of her schemes.
"I've made a huge mistake," he said.
"Aw, don't say that, man," Hunk complained at his side, sounding genuinely nervous. "I already feel like I'm gonna throw up."
"Nobody's throwing up," Pidge said. "It's just for the summer. And it'll be fun."
She grabbed both their wrists and stomped into the maze of scattered bits of carnival. Lance stumbled over the cracks in the parking lot asphalt as Pidge pulled him swiftly along. It was weird seeing the carnival in pieces. Just a few days ago, everything had been up and operational—all the rides and the games and the booths where you could buy deep-fried literally anything. Now the whole place was flat and packed onto the backs of trucks and trailers. Pidge's proposal to spend their summer working for the funfair, traveling with it up and down the California coast, had sounded cool at the time when it was all set up and glowing, when she'd come running over with job applications for the three of them, the lights of the Gravitron reflected in her glasses.
Now it seemed more than a little depressing.
"You know what? I've changed my mind," Lance said, trying to pull his wrist free from Pidge's grasp. "I don't really want 'carny' on my resume."
Pidge doubled down, her grip turning into a freaking tourniquet.
"Ow!"
"You can't back out now," she said. "If you back out, that means Hunk will back out, and then I'll be alone."
"Wait, is backing out an option?" Hunk asked.
Sighing, Pidge came to a stop between a couple of semitrailers. Her eyes flicked to her feet, and she pursed her lips into a frown. "It's our last summer," she said softly. "I really want to spend it with you guys."
The three of them went quiet. They'd just graduated from San Diego High School, like, just graduated. Four days ago, they'd walked at a big ceremony while "Pomp and Circumstance" played and Hunk had tripped and Lance had nearly peed himself laughing and Pidge had given her valedictorian speech and the door on that phase of their lives had closed in a very permanent way. Hunk and Pidge—their next doors were already open, just waiting for them to walk through come autumn. Pidge had Stanford. Hunk the California Institute of Technology. Lance…well, Lance couldn't even see his door. If there was one.
"Please?" Pidge said.
Lance drew in a deep breath and let it out slow. "Fine."
Pidge whooped, throwing her arms in the air and pumping her fists, then taking off like a rocket through the parking lot. Lance glanced at Hunk.
"You don't have to list the job as 'carny,'" Hunk said. "I think 'fairground technician' has a nice ring to it?"
Lance couldn't help but laugh. He clapped Hunk on the shoulder and smiled. "You're right, buddy. You're absolutely right."
They pulled the straps for their duffels and sleeping bags higher up their shoulders and followed Pidge's trail. She was easy to spot once they got out from between the semitrailers, standing at the back of a line that led into one of those temporary offices like they have on construction sites. The line was comprised mostly of other teenagers also there to work the summer before returning to school or going off to college.
Or moving back in with his parents, in Lance's case.
"What kind of job assignments do you think we'll get?" Pidge said as they stepped into line behind her. "Do you think they'll need engineers? Or do they already have people for that? They probably have people. But what if they don't? Do you think we could get promoted to engineers? I'd way rather do that than flip burgers or dunk hotdogs or whatever. Do they have hotdogs here?"
Lance just let her ramble, tucking his hands into his pockets and making a determined inspection of the weeds growing out of the cracks at his feet. The line moved up. He stared at the asphalt instead. The line moved up. He rubbed the toe of his sneaker over a stain on the carpet of the first of the stairs to the office. The line moved up. Air conditioning spilled out the open front door and grabbed his attention, but it was too dark inside and too sunny outside for him to see much of anything in the office.
He tried not to draw a comparison between that rectangular black hole and his vision of his future.
"Lance?"
He jolted to attention and found Pidge looking up at him expectantly.
"Huh?"
"I said, 'what do you want to do?'" she repeated.
"What, like, at the carnival?"
She nodded.
Lance shrugged. "Whatever I can classify as 'fairground technician.'"
A pair of girls ahead of them snorted, so he sent them a scowl. They didn't react, though, because someone inside waved them forward and they stepped into the office. Lance and Pidge and Hunk took their places at the front of the line, and Lance stuck his head through the door, blinking as his eyes adjusted.
It was a decent space, kind of old and kind of musty, but otherwise in pretty good shape. There were a bunch of filing cabinets lining the walls—well, strapped to the walls, like, literally attached with ratchet straps—and a couple of desks that didn't have anything on them other than paper and pens. The legs of the desks were drilled to the floor, probably so they wouldn't slide around while the office was hooked up to a truck going seventy down the freeway.
Lance was about to make a joke about getting crushed by one of the filing cabinets while joyriding in the office, when the girls who had snorted at him finished at the first desk and moved on to the second—revealing the most beautiful girl Lance had ever seen in his entire existence.
She put her hand in the air, smiled, and said, "Come in, please."
Pidge and Hunk went inside. Lance just melted.
"Lance?"
An eyebrow raised, Hunk looked back at him from in front of the desk, so Lance hopped to and swept inside. He tried to look suave, but stumbled over a bump in the carpet. The girl behind the desk chuckled, but Lance didn't care because even her laugh was beautiful.
"Welcome to the Carnival of Lions," she said, smiling at each of them in turn. "May I take your papers, please?"
She had on one of the carnival uniforms—a pink and white striped shirt—with a nametag that said "Allura." Lance was too busy blushing at her to fork over his papers, so Pidge had to grab them out of his hands.
"What are all your names?" she asked as she checked their papers to make sure everything was filled out correctly—social security, tax info, boring employment stuff.
"I'm Pidge," Pidge replied. "And this is Hunk and Lance."
Allura smiled again, and Lance's heart pinched.
"A pleasure to meet you," she said. "My name is Allura. We're quite excited to welcome you on board."
"On board what?" Lance asked. "Is there a ship or something?"
Allura laughed. "On board the team. Summer is our busiest season. We always need new faces to assist us."
Lance just nodded dumbly, avoiding the knowing look Pidge gave him out of the corner of her eye.
"It looks like everything is in order," Allura said and tucked their papers into a pile on the desk. "If you'll step just over there, Shiro will give you your bunk assignments, nametags, and uniforms. Lovely to meet you."
"Pleasure's all mine," Lance replied with a grin, so Pidge rolled her eyes and grabbed his wrist to drag him away.
Some attractive, intimidating, punk-looking guy with two-tone hair was seated behind the next desk. Scar across his nose, muscles like a friggin' Greek statue. The smile he gave them was surprisingly friendly, as was the greeting that came out of his mouth. The tone of his voice was warm like honey.
"Hey," he said. "I'm Shiro. Welcome to the team. I'm the staff manager, so if you need anything, I'm the guy to ask. What are your names?"
"Pidge—well, Katie," Pidge replied, her gaze turning to the rows of premade nametags Shiro had on the desk in front of him. "Mine probably says Katie."
Shiro scanned the rows and found a "Katie" and passed it to Pidge. "We can get a new one made up for you, but hold onto that for now." He smiled, then looked to Lance.
"Lance," he said, and Shiro passed him a nametag.
"Hunk." And the same thing again.
"What size shirts do you want?" Shiro asked, gesturing over his shoulder to a bunch of boxes full of t-shirts that were pushed up against the wall.
The three of them exchanged expressions before they answered.
"Uh—extra-small, probably," Pidge said.
"Medium," Lance replied.
"As big as you've got," said Hunk.
Shiro rolled backwards in his chair and spent a hot second fishing a set of t-shirts for each of them from the boxes. When he turned around, he had a stack of green-and-white stripe, a stack of yellow-and-white stripe, and a stack of blue-and-white red-and-white mixed.
"The sizes are a little wonky, sorry," he said. "You're supposed to get one in every color, but since you're some of the last ones, this is what we've got." He passed the piles over and Hunk immediately unfolded one of the yellow and white t-shirts to hold up against his chest to check the size. Shiro turned to a list on the desk next to the nametags. "Looks like the three of you are rooming together. Trailer six." They each received a set of keys. "Go ahead and drop your stuff off, but don't get too settled. We'll be departing in the next half an hour." A smile, a gesture to a door out the other side of the office, and, "Welcome on board."
"Bunch of flight attendants…" Lance grumbled, following Pidge and Hunk as they left the office and stepped into the sun.
All the trailers for living in were parked on the far side of the lot, and most of them were already hooked up to trucks and ready to go. They found trailer six easy enough—close to the end of the row, close enough that Lance could see the water in the bay sparkling across the road.
"Remind me why I let you convince me leaving southern California was a good idea?" he said to Pidge as she fiddled with the keys in the ratty screen door.
"Shut up already," she replied. "You've got your nametag. They own your soul for the summer."
The key turned in the lock and she let out a triumphant hiss, squirreling through the actual door with just as much trouble. Inside, the trailer matched the office note for note. Old, the look and smell of the 70s, but decently cared for. A set of bunk beds built into the wall sat next to the bathroom at one end. At the other, a couch with storage up above. Between, a kitchenette and a restaurant-style booth table. The whole thing was dark and murderously hot.
"Where's the third bed?" Hunk asked as he stood in the doorway.
Pidge scrambled over and dumped her stuff on the table, then proceeded with a demonstration like she was a used trailer salesperson.
"There are all kinds of hidden beds," she said. "This model is made to sleep seven. One on each bunk." She pushed the table down flush with the seats on the booth and folded the seat backs into the gap. "Two here." She went to the couch and pulled it flat. "Two here." Then she stood on the couch and somehow managed to unhook the front of the storage cabinet to lay that down flat as well so that it hung in the air. "One here. Though this doesn't look structurally stable, so we probably shouldn't put any weight on it."
Hunk looked at Lance, his eyes wide. Lance made an incredulous face back at him. The space was tight with three people, let alone seven.
"You should take the couch-bed, Hunk," Pidge said as she latched the storage cabinet back into place. "That has the most room, and that way we can still use the table. I'll take the bottom bunk, since there isn't a ladder and I'm too short to climb up there."
Lance scowled at her. "What, so I have to?"
In response, Pidge measured his legs from hip to heel by spreading her arms and silently comparing the length to her body. Lance put his hand in her face and shoved her away, moving deeper into the trailer to toss his duffel, sleeping bag, and t-shirts onto his assigned bed.
"Fine, I'll sleep on the top bunk."
"Not my fault you're Jessica Rabbit," Pidge replied.
"That was one Halloween, Pidge."
Pidge started singing "Why Don't You Do Right?" while putting the table back together like she was performing a strip-tease. Thankfully, Lance was rescued by Hunk when he tried to go into the bathroom to check it out and couldn't quite fit through the door and ended up squishing Pidge in the process.
"What is this? A bathroom for ants?" he said, slipping through the door and standing in the tiny space with his shoulders scrunched around his ears.
"It's Pidge-sized," Lance replied. Pidge stuck her tongue out at him, so he returned in kind.
"You guys, I don't think I can shower in here," Hunk continued. "I can barely move my arms. What if I can't shower anywhere? Will I just have to go the whole summer without showering? I can't live that kind of life, man!"
"Relax, Hunk. I'm sure there's a hose somewhere," Lance replied.
He went to laugh, looking Hunk's direction, but the expression on Hunk's face was one of actual, bona fide horror.
"Oh, jeeze, man, sorry. I was just kidding. That Shiro guy has to shower somewhere, right? I bet he'll let you borrow his."
"He probably bathes in the blood of his enemies," Pidge said. She climbed into her bunk and settled her duffel into the corner, then wiggled around like she was trying to find the most comfortable spot. It didn't look like there was one. "Why is it so hot in here?"
"Open up the windows," Lance said, poking his head into her bunk. "Let some air in."
He yanked back the crap curtain that hung over the window and found a face practically pressed up against the screen staring in at them. Pidge and Lance screamed. Hunk screamed by extension. The window creeper just laughed. A couple of jovial tears even rolled down his cheeks and into his orange mustache.
"Welcome, campers!" he shouted, his voice loud even through the shut window. "Sorry to startle you. Just making the rounds to introduce myself."
Hesitantly, Pidge slid the window open. "Do you want us to come out there?"
"No, no, that's all right. You stay cozy. I'm Coran. Your boss." He said "boss" weird, like he wasn't actually, and winked after, which didn't help. "Lance, Hunk, and Katie in there, correct—oh, hang on. I only count two."
Hunk squeezed out of the bathroom and bent over to wave at Coran from outside the bunk.
"Ah, there's three. Well, lovely to make your acquaintance. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other." He winked again, then disappeared.
Lance pressed up against the screen to see where he went, but the guy was gone-zo. "Is that dude really our boss?"
"If he's actually Coran, yeah," Pidge replied. "Coran's the name of the guy who runs the place. The carnival used to belong to his brother, Alfor, and they operated it together until Alfor died. Allura—the girl from before—she's Alfor's daughter. She'll probably take over once she turns eighteen."
Lance liked the sound of that. "Ooh, a business lady. Very nice."
"How do you know all this?" Hunk asked.
"I did my research," Pidge said and shoved Lance out of the way so she could escape the bunk. "I wasn't just going to sign us up to work for some rando carnival willy-nilly without knowing anything about the chumps who run it."
"Wow," Hunk replied. "Do you think you can talk them into moving us into a trailer with a bigger bathroom?"
"I know about them, Hunk. I don't actually know them."
"Could you try?"
Pidge gave him a flat look and opened her mouth to respond, but someone knocked on the door. All three of them glanced at each other, then Hunk pointed to himself and raised his eyebrows.
"Well, I'm not gonna get it," Lance replied. "You guys are blocking me in."
Delicately, like there was a possibility he might break through the floor—which in all fairness, given the trailer's age, there probably was—Hunk squeaked over to the door and pulled it open.
"Oh, hey, Allura."
"Allura?"
Lance sat up and knocked his head on the top bunk. Pidge laughed, so he shot her a scowl, grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her into the bunk while he climbed out. She cursed, swiping at him, but missing as Lance hurried over to the door and put on his best charming smile.
"Hey," he said.
"Hello." She smiled. "I'm glad to see the three of you have settled in."
"Oh, we've settled," Lance replied. "The trailer is great."
Hunk opened his mouth to contradict him, but Lance gave him a "be cool, man" expression, so he didn't say anything. Allura continued.
"Everyone is all checked in, and we're ready to make our way to Crescent City. I just wanted to check—none of you are the ones who have commercial driver's licenses. Is that correct?"
"No, we don't," Lance answered. "Did you need us to get them? I'll study for the test."
Allura laughed, and jeeze if that still wasn't the prettiest sound in the world. "No, that's quite all right. We have enough drivers, I just wanted to make sure none of you would be towing your own trailer."
"Ah, better put Keith on this one, princess," Coran said, materializing behind her with a clipboard. Lance was glad Pidge had told them Coran was Allura's uncle, otherwise the pet name would have been weirder than it already was. "Number six has got the hitch that's been a touch testy. I haven't had time to replace it."
"It's like fifteen hours to Crescent City," Pidge said, poking her head between Hunk and Lance.
"Exactly!" Coran replied. "Which is why you're getting our best driver."
He gave them a wink that sent shivers down Lance's spine.
"Go ahead," Coran said, waving at them to go back inside. "Put on your t-shirts! Secure your duffels! It's time to rock and roll!"
Allura smiled and nodded at them before leaving with Coran. The trio shut the door and switched into their new t-shirts, which were surprisingly comfortable and fit pretty well, all things considered. Then Pidge and Hunk tucked their bags and stuff into the storage area, but Lance figured it wouldn't really matter and left his shoved into the corner on the top bunk.
"Are we driving straight through?" Lance asked as they left the trailer.
"Probably," Pidge replied. "It's what? Like six forty-five now? We can probably get to Crescent City by ten."
"It'll be more like midnight," someone said, and the three of them looked to the bed of the truck attached to their trailer where some guy in a red staff t-shirt was securing a bunch of folding chairs. "If we're lucky."
He was striking—in that dark and broody kind of way, black hair and eyebrows over dusky eyes. Had that air of I'm-a-bad-boy-don't-talk-to-me about him which simultaneously intrigued and annoyed Lance.
"Jeeze, what is this place? The beautiful people parade?" he muttered under his breath.
"Are you Keith?" Hunk asked.
"Yup."
He didn't say anything else, just swung down from the truck bed and walked toward the cab. When none of the rest of them moved, he raised his eyebrows and gestured at the car.
"Let's go?"
"Shotgun!" Pidge yelled and made a dash for the front seat, but Lance grabbed the back of her shirt again and held her in place.
"Not so fast, little sister. If I have to sleep on the top bunk, I should at least get to ride shotgun."
"That's not how shotgun works," Pidge hissed, trying to pry him off.
"There aren't rules to shotgun."
"Yes there are!"
"It's a made up game!"
"Every game is made up!"
"Look, will you just get in the truck already?" Keith shouted, halfway in now, his head sticking up above the roof.
Pidge and Lance stopped bickering, and Lance was distracted just enough for Pidge to wriggle free, but not to beat him to the front passenger seat door. He outmatched her handily and climbed into the cab, shutting and locking the door behind him before she even had a chance to scramble in.
"It's your nasty Jack Skellington legs," Pidge complained as she begrudgingly got into the backseat.
"One Halloween, Pidge!"
"You wore that costume two years in a row, actually," Hunk put in. Lance just glared at him. Hunk quietly got into the cab and buckled his seatbelt.
"Are you gonna be like this for the whole drive?" Keith asked.
Lance looked at him and, for whatever reason, the irritated expression on the guy's face made him blush.
"No promises," Pidge said and flicked Lance's ear over the shoulder of his seat.
"Ow, hey!"
Keith sighed and started the engine. Again, Lance blushed.
The truck at the other end of the line of trailers started to pull out of the parking lot, and pretty soon it was their turn to go. Keith put the vehicle into drive and followed the others in a goofy caravan of trailers until they got to the freeway. Then he punched the gas and pulled ahead of the rest.
"Do you guys hear that?" Pidge asked.
"Hear what?" Lance looked back at her in the rearview.
"I don't know—it's like a weird clapping sound, but metal on metal. Oh my god." She sat straight up in her seat and turned her entire body around to look out the window. "Lance, did you lock the trailer doors behind you?"
Lance went pale. Hunk quietly gasped. Keith grit his teeth and grumbled, "You've gotta be kidding me."
Praying he had, but knowing he hadn't, Lance rolled down his window and stuck his head out to look back at the trailer. Sure enough, the screen door was wide open and slapping against the corrugated metal side. The regular door was open too, exposing the innards of the trailer to the wind.
"I may have forgotten," he said.
Just as the words left his mouth, the screen door was ripped from its hinges and went flying into traffic behind them. Several cars swerved and a lot more honked and Keith swore, nearly overcorrecting to dodge a sedan that sped up alongside them just to flip the bird.
"What was that? What's happening?" Hunk groaned, then lurched and covered his mouth as Keith swung into the exit lane to get off the freeway. "I thought you were the best driver!"
"The door was blown free!" Pidge cried, poking her own head out her window.
"Yeah, I know," Keith snapped. He went flying down the exit ramp and took a right at the light, pulling into a gas station almost immediately. The truck and trailer screeched to a halt and Keith put his hand palm up in the air. "Keys," he said.
"I left mine in the trailer…" Lance said softly.
Pidge grimaced. "So did I."
Hunk did not reply because he was too busy opening his car door to go running for the gas station holding his hand over his mouth looking ready to hurl. Keith practically kicked his door open and got out, stomping around the truck to get to the trailer.
"Admittedly, not the best of first impressions," Pidge said.
"You think?"
"I'll go help him look for the keys," she said and slid out of the cab. "You should make sure Hunk's all right. And buy something so that it's okay for him to use the bathroom."
"On it."
Anything to get away from Keith.
Lance hopped out of the truck and hurried into the gas station. "You see a big Samoan guy come through here?" he asked the cashier.
"Went into the bathroom," she replied. "Customers only."
Lance gave her a thumbs up. "No worries. I came in for treats." And Dramamine, if they had it. He wove through the aisles to get back to the bathroom and knocked on the door. "Hunk? You all right, buddy?"
Hunk's groan echoed off the bathroom walls in reply.
"Yeah, figures. I'll get you a Sprite or something, sound good?"
A vaguely affirmative groan.
"Cool."
Lance went back to the aisles and lazily browsed. He could feel the cashier's eyes on him, but tried not to mind. He did find some Dramamine in the little pharmacy section and got a Sprite out of the fridge. Hunk still hadn't emerged from the bathroom, though, so Lance stood in the candy aisle and just sort of stared at it all, watching the door fly off the trailer in his mind's eye over and over again. He grabbed a big bag of Twizzlers and went to the checkout. Hunk appeared as the cashier was counting Lance's change.
"All good?" he asked as Hunk came up to claim the Sprite.
Hunk nodded. "Thanks for the drink."
"No problemo. Let's go."
Together they left the gas station and jogged across the parking lot to the truck and trailer where Keith and Pidge were already seated and waiting. Lance climbed into the cab and held the bag of Twizzlers out to Keith.
"Hey, man. Sorry about the door."
Keith stared at the candy, then at Lance. "What is that?"
"Apology candy," Lance replied.
"Twizzlers?"
"I don't know. You just seemed like a Twizzlers kind of guy."
"Why? Because my shirt's red?"
Lance opened his mouth to say how stupid that was, drew in a breath, then realized that that was why he'd picked them out. His expression turned into a scowl. "Do you want the candy or not?"
"Are they pull-apart?"
"Yeah, duh. Who likes regular Twizzlers?" He slapped the bag into Keith's chest and let go so they fell into his lap.
"What did you get me?" Pidge asked, sitting up in the backseat.
"No treats for goblins."
Keith must have seen her raise her fingers to flick Lance's ear again in the rearview mirror because he literally hurled the bag of Twizzlers at her and shouted, "We can share! We can share! Christ, would you leave him alone?" The Twizzlers smacked Pidge in the face and she let out a squawk of surprise, but seemed happy with the result regardless, opening the bag and getting her grubby mitts on a piece right away.
Lance looked Keith's way as he turned the key in the ignition, and when Keith looked back Lance offered a smile. Keith gave just a slight flicker of one in return.
Then they got back on the road.
Two hours later, the truck hit traffic going into LA. The caravan had long since disbanded, trucks and trailers and everything scattered at various points along the freeway. Not that it mattered much, since they'd lost the caravan in the first place after the incident with the door. Lance settled back in his seat, mentally preparing for the constant stop-and-go, and the drive might have been tolerable—were it not for Keith's horrible taste in music.
"What even is this?" Lance asked.
"Thelonious Monk," Keith replied.
"Thehoonimus-what-now?"
"Thelonious. Monk."
"Sounds pretentious."
"He's the second most-recorded jazz composer of all time."
"Jeeze. I'd hate to hear the third."
Keith glared at him. Lance put up his hands and shrugged, then reached for the radio in an attempt to switch the source, but Keith slapped his hand away.
"Ow!"
"Driver picks the music," Keith replied.
Hunk sat up in the back, much perkier now that his stomach had chilled out. "No offense, man, like, I can appreciate what jazz did for music and all, but this is objectively terrible to listen to."
"Was his piano out of tune?" Pidge contributed.
"It's called dissonance."
"It's called 'it sucks,'" Lance said, successfully switching from the CD to the radio. The cab was treated to a brief flash of "Havana" before Keith switched it back to what literally could have been an elephant walking across a keyboard for all Lance knew.
"Come on, man," he complained. "The song of my people!"
"Just made yourselves right at home, haven't you?" Keith said through his teeth. "It's like riding with a bunch of children."
"Would you wike a Twizzwer, Uncle Keef?" Pidge asked, fishing one out of the bag and sticking it in his face.
"Oh my god, I will drive this truck off the road."
"But you're the best driver," Hunk said.
Keith flashed a glare into the rearview. "Would you knock it off with that?"
"How old even are you?" Lance asked.
Keith glanced at him. "What?"
"How old are you? You said driving with us was like driving with children, so I want to know. How old are you?"
"Nineteen," Keith replied, but he wasn't happy about it.
"I'll be nineteen in July."
"Good for you."
"Pidge just turned eighteen in April, and Hunk did way back in January. You know what that means? We're all old enough to vote."
"So?"
"So we're gonna vote on the music."
"Driver picks the music."
"This is America," Lance replied. "An alleged democracy. And—well—if the government's not going to honor democracy in Washington, damn it, we'll honor it in this truck. Right, Hunk?"
Hunk put his hand over his heart. "Right!"
"Okay, then, all in favor of switching to the radio?"
Lance, Pidge, and Hunk all raised their hands. Keith clenched his jaw.
"I think the ayes have it, gentlemen. Radio it is."
He switched off the jazz, but by then "Havana" was long gone. The station was playing commercials, so Lance browsed around until he found one broadcasting classic rock.
"Is this an okay compromise for you, old man?" he asked Keith.
Keith did not respond, but he didn't try to put the jazz back on, so Lance figured it was a win and settled back to watch the city slowly pass by.
He'd never been further north than Los Angeles, and even then he'd only visited the city a handful of times to see family. His cousins still lived in Echo Park. Other than that, Lance hadn't really been anywhere. His family had moved to LA when he was six, so he couldn't really remember Cuba, then to San Diego when he was eight, so he couldn't even really remember LA. His parents had put him into kindergarten rather than first grade after the move, which was the reason he'd ended up in the same grade as Pidge and Hunk. They'd been all over. Pidge to Europe with her parents and brother. Hunk to Australia and New Zealand and Costa Rica and Mexico. Maybe that was part of the reason Lance had agreed to Pidge's carnival proposal. Paid travel. To him, even Northern California seemed like another world altogether.
He sat up as they crawled out of LA traffic and beyond the city, drawing in a deep breath. The furthest he'd ever been. And going further still. Like seven hundred miles further.
"How long have you been working for the carnival?" he asked Keith, sparing him only a glance. "Since you graduated?"
"I didn't graduate," Keith replied.
Cringing, Lance regretted asking, but Keith actually didn't seem too bothered. Since breaking out of the stop-and-go traffic, he'd loosened up a little. More than likely the guy just liked to go fast. No doubt replacing his ear-hurting jazz with listenable music had also helped.
"I've been with the carnival since I was sixteen," he said, carefully switching into a lane to overtake another car. Impressive, given the weight their truck was hauling. "They kicked me out of school. Shiro got me a job."
"Do you like it?"
"Yeah."
That seemed to be all he had to say on the subject for the moment. Lance went quiet, trying to imagine being a real and proper carny. Three years was a long time—especially when those years came between sixteen and nineteen. Had he spent all that time just trawling up and down California setting up rides and hauling trailers and sleeping in a top bunk and showering in a shower made for children?
"I'm from Sacramento," Keith said, surprising Lance by speaking of his own accord. "The Carnival of Lions is based out of there, so I've been familiar with it since I was a kid."
"Oh."
Lance glanced into the backseat to see if Pidge or Hunk had any input for the conversation since he really didn't know what else to say. Both of them were asleep. Which left Lance basically alone with a guy he had royally pissed off at least two times in the last three hours. Suddenly, he became agonizingly uncomfortable and unconsciously shifted his weight closer to the door and the window. The view was interesting, at least.
For his part, Keith seemed perfectly fine with the silence.
The next thing Lance knew he was waking up as the truck came to a stop, and he wasn't sure, but he could have sworn he heard a few notes of jazz as Keith put the thing in park and took the keys out of the ignition. Pidge and Hunk stirred in the backseat as well.
"Rest stop," Keith said. "Pee or do whatever. You've got half an hour."
He got out of the car and walked across the parking lot of the gas station they'd arrived at to a Sonic where Shiro and a bunch of other people in carnival t-shirts were sitting around an outside table eating tater tots and slushes. When had they caught up to them?
"Where are we?" Pidge asked groggily, rubbing her eyes.
"I fell asleep," Lance replied.
"Man, am I hungry," Hunk said.
"My phone's giving me weather for Hayward," Pidge said. "Looks like we're pretty close to San Francisco."
"Already?"
She shrugged. "I need a bathroom and a cheeseburger, stat."
"I'll walk over," Hunk said, carefully preparing himself to exit the vehicle. "I need to stretch my legs. You want anything Lance?"
"Whatever you're getting and a blue slush."
"What kind of blue?"
"What do you mean what kind?"
"They have like seven different kinds of blue slushes."
"I don't care. Just blue. You know that flavor that's just, like, blue? That's what I want."
"Roger. Blue flavor slush, plus meal. Cheeseburger for Pidge." He gingerly slid out of the truck and stretched on the asphalt before following Keith's trail. "On it."
Lance and Pidge both lingered in the truck for a second, still waking up. He couldn't believe there were already halfway through the drive. Sleeping made it go so fast. Hayward, or wherever they were, had a totally different vibe from San Diego, he could already tell. It even smelled different. Lance eyeballed the bumpy yellow hills across the street. Pidge leaned forward to stick her face between Lance's headrest and the side of the car.
"So, Keith's cute," she said.
"Hadn't noticed," Lance lied.
"Did you guys have a heart-to-heart?"
He turned around to glare at her. "I fell asleep right after you did."
Pidge just grinned. "Okay."
"Didn't you say you had to pee?"
"Don't you?"
Now that she'd brought attention to it, he did. Like, really bad. Lance got out of the car and headed for the gas station convenience store. Pidge followed, chuckling to herself. They went to the bathroom and returned just in time to trade Hunk who had come back with all the food. He went into the store as Pidge hauled herself up onto the side of the truck bed and sat down to eat her cheeseburger.
"Thanks for coming with me, Lance," she said and smiled briefly down at him before fixing her gaze on those bumpy hills. "I'm really gonna miss you. Like a lot."
He clapped a hand on the ankle of one of her dangling legs. "We've got the whole summer ahead of us, Pidge," he said with a grin, giving her leg a shake. But after that, who knew when they would see each other again? Lance let go. "I'm gonna miss you, too."
They ate for a bit in silence until Hunk reappeared. Keith stayed over at the Sonic until the last of the half hour he'd allotted was gone and he came back and ordered them all off the side of the truck so he could fill it up at one of the pumps. Then they all piled back into the car and started off, Lance sipping on the remnants of his requested blue slush.
"How much longer?" he asked as Keith restarted the car, and—just as he'd suspected—jazz came out of the speakers. It was different from before, a sultry female voice singing along with the music.
"Seven hours," Keith replied.
"Why didn't you put this on to begin with?" Hunk asked, buckling in. "This sounds pretty good."
As if his purpose in life was to be spiteful, Keith hit the button for the radio. His little trick backfired on him, though, when "Havana" was playing again and Lance let out an excited cry of, "Ooo!" and cranked up the volume. Whatever anyone else might have been about to say was lost under Camila Cabello—and Lance singing along.
Lance was glued to the window for the rest of the drive. Everything was so pretty—especially going over San Francisco Bay. Loved a good bay, Lance. He fell asleep a few more times as the sun set and the night wore on. Sitting in a car for upwards of fifteen hours was surprisingly exhausting. He went out like a light somewhere around Eureka and didn't wake up again until they reached Crescent City. The clock said twelve oh six.
"Are we here?" he asked.
Keith, ever a man of brevity, responded, "Yup."
He'd even backed up their trailer in line with the others.
Keith collected his CDs from the player and the glovebox, reaching over Lance to get them. Then he got out of the truck and left without saying another word. Lance watched him walk away under the floodlights that illuminated the Carnival of Lions' Crescent City fairgrounds.
"We should find out which trailer is his and egg it," Pidge said.
"Not tonight, though, right?" Hunk asked with a yawn. "I just want to sleep in a bed…wait."
Pidge laughed. "If you think you can fit in the bottom bunk, I'll trade you."
They disembarked the truck and left it behind, heading up the steps to their now-screen-door-less trailer. Pidge did the honors of unlocking it, and what they found inside was a mess.
The entire contents of Lance's duffel bag were strewn across the floor.
"Oops," Pidge said.
"What happened? Did a raccoon get in?" Hunk asked, gingerly stepping around some scattered toiletries.
"Um…not exactly," Pidge replied. "When we were looking for the keys after the door ripped off, I opened your bag to look for your copies…and I looks like I forgot to zip it shut."
So the motion of the trailer had upended the bag and sent everything flying, then rolling around for who-knows-how-long since they'd been on the road. The lid to his shampoo bottle had come off, spilling onto Lance's extra t-shirts, which were also all over the floor.
"Great," he grumbled.
"Sorry," Pidge grimaced.
Shaking his head with a sigh, Lance bent to collect his stuff. "That's okay. I lost us a screen door. This is nothing."
Hunk called dibs on the bathroom and brushed his teeth before falling asleep immediately on the pullout couch outside of his sleeping bag. Lance was still rinsing his shirts off in the kitchenette sink, so Pidge went next. When she came out she paused in the bathroom doorway to give Lance a smile.
"It'll get better, I promise."
Lance just nodded as she climbed into her bunk and snuggled into her sleeping bag. It took him half an hour to get the shampoo out of his clothes and get the clothes hung up to dry, and another forty-five minutes beyond that to figure out how to execute his nightly skincare routine in the pint-sized bathroom. By the time he emerged, Pidge and Hunk had entered Stage Three sleep. Quiet as he could, Lance scrambled into the top bunk—nearly impossible without any footholds—and rolled onto his back.
He'd left the damn light on.
Grumbling, he climbed down, hit the switch, and climbed back up, not as mindful of Pidge this time and using her mattress as a booster.
Then, in the dark by himself, staring at the ceiling of the trailer, he suddenly realized that this was the first day of the rest of his summer. That at the end of that summer, Pidge and Hunk would leave to go to college. That he was eight hundred and fifty miles away from his family. That he didn't have anything in his future to look forward to—not school, not a job, just an endless black nothing.
Lance bit his lip, his nose crinkling, but he was determined not to cry. He let his breath out slow. Then sighed.
"I've made a huge mistake."
Author's Note: Hi, hi, hi. I've opened the can of worms that is me writing a Voltron fic and, try as I did to shut it back up, this AU wriggled out before I could stop it.
If you like, leave me a comment! I LIVE for comments. Seriously.
Also, the rating is likely to change to M in the future, just to provide y'all with fair warning.