Lance sticks his right arm out, wrist up. "I need you to cover this."

The guy behind the counter—his age, likely, though it's hard to tell through the haze of his hangover—levels him with a look. A look that clearly says that he is not in the mood to deal with whatever bullshit Lance can manage to cook up.

Then he goes back to looking at his phone.

Lance clears his throat, shaking his wrist in the guy's direction. "I need you to cover this," he repeats a little louder. "Please?"

He finally looks up, locking his phone and setting it down on the counter. He's Asian, and could easily be considered attractive if it wasn't for what he called his "hairstyle." The sweat bands on his wrists that were popular in middle school didn't help things either.

"Fine," he agrees, a hard edge to the word that Lance is too tired to take proper stock of. Maybe, it he hadn't spent the night before drinking and maybe, if he had eaten something before he had decided to march into the tattoo parlor closest to campus, he would have cared.

Lance nods, a single sharp jerk of his head downward, and waits. He's going to jump out of his skin if this takes any longer, nerves setting his teeth on edge, head pounding in time with his heart.

He waits for the guy behind the counter—he hasn't caught his name, yet, and Lance isn't going to ask just yet, not when it could crop up in general small talk while he's getting the mark on his wrist covered up—to say anything to him, to make a move toward the back, to ask Lance what he wants for a tattoo.

Instead, he pulls out a bandaid, opens it up, and before Lance can properly process what in the hell this guy is doing, places it directly over the mark on Lance's wrist.

"Done."

There's a curl to the guy's mouth that Lance is pretty sure means he's pleased.

"That's not what I meant."

The guy shrugs. "It's covered."

Lance narrows his eyes, taking a step back from the counter. He can't exactly argue with that logic, but sticking a band aid on it isn't what he meant.

"I'll be back." It's nearly too Terminator-esque for his tastes, but he means it. "And your mullet is horrific," he shouts over his shoulder.

He was eight when the characters showed up.

He had been brushing his teeth at the time, elbowing for room at the sink between two of his sisters. He was more focused on his teeth than his wrist at the time, as most people typically are.

Halana had noticed it first, eagle eyed and nosy as she was. She had smacked her hand against the mirror, mouth full of toothpaste, excited noises making their way to her lips.

Lance had scrunched up his nose and kept brushing, because Halana did things like that too often and it wasn't like he could understand her anyway.

But it had attracted Sophia's attention, and her eyes had affixed on Lance's wrist in the mirror. She had started screaming for their mother immediately, and it had scared Lance half to death because he thought something was wrong.

Instead, his mother had sat him down and explained to him the concept of soulmates and soulmarks and everything else that had gone with the territory.

It was an incredibly traumatizing time for eight year old Lance, made worse by the fact that he couldn't read his soulmark. They were character of some sort, and even then Lance wasn't much one for linguistics.

But it was, nevertheless, the name of his soulmate. He just couldn't read it. It wasn't English, certainly, which his mother and countless other told him meant that his soulmate, whomever they were, was unlikely from America.

He was never one for covering it up, instead going with the hope that no one would notice them instead. It was rare, he was told by the expert his mother had taken him to at the age of ten, to have a name in a completely different alphabet on his wrist. Rare, but not impossible.

By the time he was twelve, he had resolved to himself a handful of things: That he was going to work for NASA, that aliens were definitely out there somewhere and he was going to find them, and that he would likely never actually meet his soulmate. Which was okay, because he was a realist and he knew that the first two would take up all of his time.

Lance is far more clear headed than he was the day before when he walks into the tattoo parlor, bell jingling merrily above the door.

"I need a tattoo covered," Lance says. There's another guy behind the counter with the one from yesterday, also Asian but more imposing. The scar across the bridge of his nose, coupled with a patch of white hair, draws Lance's eyes immediately. "With ink, this time."

His current nemesis opens his mouth, likely to retort, when the other guy chides in warning, "Keith."

'Keith' deflates immediately, shoulder's slumping as he side eyes his co-worker for a moment before turning his attention back to Lance.

"Fine," he says shortly. "What kind of tattoo were you thinking of getting?"

Lance's mind sputters to a stop for a moment; he had been more than prepared to fight for this, too stubborn to go to another tattoo parlor because this one, specifically, was posing a challenge. There was very little Lance loved more than a challenge.

"Just put, like, a black bar? Or an equal symbol for marriage equality or some shit? I don't care."

"You don't care?" A beat. "You want me to cover a tattoo you already didn't want with something you don't care about?"

Keith, despite being so against giving him a tattoo in the first place, is up in arms about this. It surprises Lance for a moment before he realizes that anyone with a mullet has to have a skewed set of priorities.

"I just need it covered, dude."

"Done," he says, sitting back smugly while tossing the marker back under the counter.

Lance sputters for a moment, unbelieving. His mouth is wide open, and the voice in his head (Pidge calls it reason; it sounds more like Lance's mother) is telling him he's going to catch bugs with his mouth like that.

His jaw clicks shut abruptly, annoyance bubbling up in his chest. This guy is infuriating.

"I'll be back," Lance threatens, stepping away from the counter again, intent on leaving.

"Good," Keith snaps back. "Make an appointment."

A handful of business cards are thrown bodily in Lance's direction on his way out—Lance manages to catch most of them, far more than he'll ever need, and is out the door in a heartbeat.

He's almost back to this dorm by the time he looks at the business cards, all of them the same:

Voltron

Keith Kogane

Something in Lance stirs when he reads the name, but he assumes it's his stomach. Lunch seems so far away.

Later, he relates the whole story to Pidge and Hunk over soggy pizza slices and open textbooks, marker dried over his soulmark. The two of them are his best friends, and they understand his tenuous relationship with his soulmark—Hunk has one himself, though he's already found his other half, and Pidge never got one at all.

"Why do you keep going back to the same place?" Hunk asks, flipping back in his textbook to reread a passage he only half absorbed. "I mean, wouldn't it be easier if you didn't have to deal with Mullet Man?"

"This is Lance," Pidge says, shoving a slice of pizza in their mouth. "He's too stubborn to do anything else but stick with Plan A."

"I am not!" Lance objects immediately, slamming his text book shut. He remembers, a half second later, that he still needed it open to a specific page, and begins to skim through it again hastily.

"Lance, your plan B if you didn't get into college was to join the circus?" Hunk reminds. "I'm not saying that's extreme, but it was a little extreme."

Pidge, eyes wide with this new information, sets their pizza slice down and fixes all of their undivided attention on Lance. "The circus?"

"I'm a man of extremes, Pidge."

Hunk, spotting the devious gleam in Pidge's eyes, cuts in before the situation gets so far out of hand that there's no hope of salvaging it.

"Why do you want your mark covered up anyway? There's still a chance you could meet them, buddy." Hunk has tried this line of reasoning with his best friend before, and had doubled down on it when he met the girl whose name was on his wrist.

"What if I don't want to?"

"And by that, he means he still hasn't managed to translate the characters on his wrist, nor has bothered to try," Pidge jibes.

Lance can't argue with that, because what they've said is true. So he steers the conversation away again, saying, "I wanted to be a lion tamer. Maybe one of those people on the high wire?"

Pidge cackles, "You'd clearly be a clown!"

It's another week before Lance wanders through the door of Voltron, right on time for his appointment. The interior is empty, like is has been for each of his last visits, artwork decorating the walls and not a single customer to be found.

Keith is the only one behind the counter again, lower lip tucked up behind some of his teeth as he focuses on his phone.

He still hasn't looked up by the time Lance reaches the counter, so Lance does as most post-pubescent males do—he slams his hands down on the counter top and hopes for the funniest possible reaction.

Except, Keith doesn't jump. He just looks up from his phone, glaring at Lance like he's the anti-Christ or something.

Lance grins and holds his right arm out toward him, wrist up. Keith rolls his eyes, but locks his phone and puts it underneath the counter.

"What was it you finally decided on?" Lance had gone through and made the appointment over the phone after his conversation with Pidge and Hunk, more firm in his decision to cover up his soulmark than ever.

"Just put a bar over it," he says, dropping his arm to the counter. "Like, all the way around so it looks like a band and whatnot." It's not original. It's not artistic. But it's going to work for him.

Keith is, understandably, unimpressed.

"Do you even know what these mean?" he asks. Lance can't tell if it's out of derision or curiosity. "Or did you get them at some kind of frat party and regret your decision?"

"I wish." The words are out before Lance can think about them properly, but that's the problem with being him most of the time—he doesn't come equipped with a brain-to-mouth filter. "It's one of those soul-identifying marks or whatever," Lance says dismissively by way of explanation. "Kind of diminishes my chances with the ladies, if you know what I mean."

Keith fiddles with one of the sweatbands around his wrist—Lance has managed to keep his mouth shut about those, for now, but he can feel whatever good manners he has breaking down—before sliding a few papers across the counter.

"So. Just need you to print your name, date and sign where it says . . ."

Lance does as he's told, printing his name as nicely as he can ("You have the handwriting of a kindergartener," Pidge says in his head; maybe he should get that checked out—he's certain he's only supposed to have his own voice in his head, and Pidge being part of his voice of reason likely means nothing but trouble), and signs the papers with a flourish.

He pushes them back in Keith's direction when he's done, hands shoved into his pockets and balled into fists with his nerves. He can't actually believe that he's doing this—that he's getting his stupid soulmark covered up once and for all, he's never going to have to actually see it again, he's never going to have to think about it again.

Keith glances over the paperwork, fiddling with his sweatbands again, and all of Lance's willpower not to say anything about them breaks. "You know, those were popular in, like, middle school, right?"

"Do you have a problem with me?" Keith demands. "Because I don't actually have to give you a tattoo! I don't have to cover up your soulmark! I can let you wander around with it until you go somewhere else and stop bothering me!"

"Yikes," Lance says after his initial shock. "Someone didn't eat their wheaties this morning."

The frown Keith graces him could easily curdle milk.

He shucks the sweatbands off, throwing them to land beside the register. He doesn't break eye contact with Lance even once, bringing his hands back to the counter. "Better?"

There's a challenge there, and Lance isn't quite sure what all of that is about. He just made a comment and might have, maybe, purposely, escalated the situation.

"I mean, yeah, chill? I was just saying."

Lance's eyes catch on Keith's wrist, red and wrinkled from where the sweatband was.

"Lance McClain," he reads slowly. And then he laughs, short and dry. "Ha, that's my name! Funny."

Keith is staring at him like a deep caught in headlights, like he can't really believe what he's seeing.

Lance pulls a face at him. "There's seventeen people in this country with the same name, my man. Now can we get this covered, or . . .?"

"There's seventeen Lance McClain's in this country?" Keith repeats, almost like he can't really believe himself. He sounds strangled.

"Uh. I just said that? I'm sure one of them has your name and whatnot?" Lance is starting to feel more than a little jumpy, like his skin is going to dance off of his skeleton. "Like, is this going to be a problem? Because I can go elsewhere, I guess."

He doesn't really give Keith a chance to answer—he's already backing up and away from the counter, resolutely not looking at the other man, and his wrist is itching, burning like it hasn't in a long time, and why his lungs feel like they're going to blow?

Lance barely hears Keith before the door closes between them:

"That's Korean on your wrist!"

"How'd it go?"

Pidge is the only one in his dorm room—Hunk must be out somewhere with Shea, and Pidge never stays in their own room anyway.

"I, uh. Didn't get my tattoo."

Pidge looks up from where they're spread out on Hunk's bed, blankets piled up high around them. Lance can smell the open bag of Doritos from where he's standing, and he doesn't even want to question just how long Pidge has holed themselves

"What, did they run out of ink?" They snicker at their own joke as Lance shucks off his coat and kicks his shoes off.

"No."

"Did you chicken out?"

"No?" He doesn't count leaving because the guy who was going to cover his soulmark happens to have his name on his wrist as chickening out. Not entirely.

"The name on his wrist is the same as mine."

"The same as yours as in polyamory, or the same as yours as in literally your name?" And. Well. Pidge always catches onto things a little too quickly for Lance's melodrama to fully mature.

"The second one," Lance says. It isn't a big deal. Nope. Not at all. Not even remotely.

Pidge practically chokes on their spit before launching a textbook at Lance's head. "You're a goddamn idiot!"

He barely manages to dodge the offending object, slamming himself backward so hard his head knocks into the wall.

"What the heck, Pidgeon!"

"He has your name on his wrist!" Pidge's eyes are wide behind their wire framed glasses, and he's never seen them so crazed other than the time he threatened to pour cream soda all over their keyboard. "And you just? You left?"

"Yes?"

There's pause that feels like it stretches miles. It makes the hair on the back of Lance's neck prick up, and his palms begin to clam.

"Do you remember that day you woke up naked in the quad with lipstick and glitter smeared all over your face?"

He has uncomfortable flashbacks; he doesn't know, exactly, how he ended up there.

"Because, you know," Pidge rolls on, "I have the video of how you got there. And if you don't go back to the that tattoo parlor, I am going to upload it to every social media site and everyone will know your shame before you do."

Lance questions, for a moment, if Pidge is lying. And if they aren't lying, then could he possibly live with what is on the video? He doesn't remember anything from that specific night, but waking up buck ass naked in the quad with a pidgeon perched on his dick was bad enough.

It's better, probably, not to doubt Pidge.

Lance tucks his feet back into shoes and scoops his jacket up, and leaves Pidge to their own devices.

He passes Hunk on the way down the stairs. His best friend is beaming, steaming cup of coffee in his hand.

"Heya, buddy!" Hunk greets, effectively stopping Lance in his tracks.

"I need your advice," Lance blurts. It's exactly what he wasn't going to say, but Hunk has always been more than willing to listen to Lance's problems—he is, also, the one that was encouraging him not to go through with the tattoo.

"Oh, no. Is your tattoo already hurting you? Are you nauseous? Did you eat before you went in like you were supposed to? You can't take any ibuprofen yet I don't think—it's a blood thinner, y'know, and you don't want that to bleed anymore than it needs to but-"

"Hunk," Lance interrupts, "buddy. I didn't get the tattoo." He keeps on down the stairs, fully intent to be on his way.

Except, Hunk turns around and follows him back down the stairs, out into the chilly night outside of their dorm building.

"What happened?" There's no joke about running out of ink or breaking needles—that's Pidge's area, a hundred percent. With Hunk, it's always been genuine concern and gentle understanding.

"The guy I've been dealing with the whole time—the one with the mullet? I made fun of the sweatbands he wears over his wrists. So he took them off."

Hunk waits for the rest of the story patiently, even as they reach the quad and cross it. He's always had this way of making Lance talk, of causing Lance to divulge more information than he necessarily wants to just because he's Hunk.

"He, uh. Has my name on his wrist. But there's seventeen Lance McClain's in this country," Lance explains. The night is cloudy, cold, and the street lamps are giving off a yellow lighting that is doing terrible things to his complexion.

"Okay. So there's seventeen people—including you—that have that name. What do you think the chances are of walking into the same tattoo parlor where someone has that name on their wrist?"

And Hunk—Hunk could probably go into schooling for being a councilor, or something, if this whole engineering degree doesn't work out for him.

"You can't make me do math at a time like this, Hunk," Lance whines instead, leaning his head on his best friend's shoulder. "It's inhumane."

"They're infinitesimal, Lance. Less than one in a million."

"Is this the part where you tell me fate sent me into that tattoo parlor?"

"What do you think you are, some kind of Disney Princess?" Hunk jokes, elbow going into Lance's ribs.

Lance blows a raspberry at him rather inelegantly, relishing the childishness of the action.

"He also says that the characters on my wrist are Korean and, uh. I'm pretty sure he's Korean, Hunk." Lance perches himself up on the brick wall, heels digging into the mortar. Hunk sets his coffee down and hauls himself up beside him.

"I get that you've had these weird ideas about your soulmark—we've been friends since we were ten, dude, you can't deny it—but is this freaking you out because you might have actually found your soulmate, or is this freaking you out because they're a dude."

Lance snorts, snatching Hunk's coffee cup out of his hands. "You know I don't have a problem with that."

"With what?" Oh. Hunk wants him to admit it.

Out loud.

"With, uh." Lance rolls his shoulders, attempting to gesture dismissively. "The whole being a dude thing." He's never actually admitted his bisexuality to Hunk—he's always just kind of known.

Of course, walking into a bathroom to catch Lance making out with another dude their Junior Prom might have given him a pretty big hint.

Lance looks to his friend, waiting for the conversation to pick up.

"Now, while I'm glad we've had this heart to heart, it's really cold out here. So I'm going back inside, and you're going to Voltron."

He really needs new friends.

Lance strolls into Voltron again, hands shoved in his pockets. The florescent lights inside are nearly blinding after being out in the dark; he has to pause for a moment just inside the door to blink tears out of his eyes.

Keith is still sitting resolutely behind the counter, and Lance wonders again if they ever actually have customers of if there's some mysterious benefactor just paying the bills.

"Hey." Keith looks up at him for a moment before looking back down at his phone, acting like he hasn't seen him.

"It's. Uh. Come to my attention that I was a bit of a dick."

Keith keeps looking at his phone, shoulder's stiff as a board.

It's incredibly unnerving, and Lance—he isn't used to being in the wrong, to having to own up to his mistakes, to even openly admitting he's bisexual.

And to be faced down with this gorgeous tattoo artist, this guy who is in all probability his freaking soulmate, is compounding that.

He feels like he's going to die from a heart attack; he should have taken Pidge up on creating his last will and testament before he left.

"Like, I mean. A seriously huge dong. And it was definitely uncalled for. I just—of all the tattoo parlor's I could have walked into, and I picked the one with my soulmate working behind the counter. So, uh, whoop-de-doo. Also, about your sweaty wrist band things, I'm sorry I made fun of those. Like, I get people want to cover up their soulmarks and whatnot—I mean, that's why I was even here in the first place—and it was really . . . insensitive? Is that the word I'm looking for?

"Anyway, it was insensitive of me to ask you to cover up your name even though it's on my wrist. And for making fun of your questionable fashion choices—like, maybe thank me later for not making fun of your mullet out loud?-and. Uh. For like every other time I've been in here?"

He knows that Pidge would have wanted a video of this. It's more than enough blackmail material, and it's the first time Lance has had to actively apologize in years.

Keith finally looks up from his phone, face expressionless. He's not moved by Lance's apology at all.

"There's a diner about a block from here," Keith says in lieu of accepting Lance's heartfelt apology. "We could go get dinner?"

He's surprised, for a moment, that Keith would still want anything to do with him—considering how much of a dick he's been since the moment he walked into Voltron, he was expecting something quite different.

Lance clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. Yeah. Sure."

He's not sure what it will lead to, but something feels like it clicks in his core when he walks out of Voltron, side by side with Keith.

fin.

it just occurred to me that i never posted this here? it's over on my ao3, under jaegerjagues. ty.