DANG am i tired from all the work and interviews i have attend lately (lies down deflated) Help

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When they park in the driveway at what he's told is his and Lance's house, he finds himself in utter disbelief. It looks like something directly out a home magazine, with the clean yard and stone walls and dark elegant colour schemes.

It's a two-storey too, and when Keith asks how did they manage to afford this, Lance says his uncle, a real estate agent, was more than happy to see one of his favourite nephews finally settling down with someone and decided to help them, which Lance admit was kind of embarrassing since his uncle even cried at their wedding day.

As Lance unlocks the door, Keith scans the neighbourhood again. He wonders if he knew any of the neighbours before his… accident. Wonders if any of the flowers were from them. He doesn't think so, but he woke up finding himself married to someone, so nothing will surprise him at this point.

"The kitchen's up ahead, and the living room's to the right." Lance says, walking towards some windows to draw the curtains back. Light shines on the interior and Keith is once again amazed at how good the furniture and decorations blend together. It's a vintage look mixed in with some modern pieces that actually work well. And at the far end of the hallway, where he can see the kitchen and the place's open space concept even more, he sees black granite tops and stainless steel appliances.

He lives here? Really?

"You're the one who decorated the place, by the way." Lance says, a smile on his face as he stands in front of Keith. "You just followed your instincts and this is the result. Pidge and Hunk are mighty jealous."

"Huh?" Pidge? Hunk?

Lance's face falls again. "Right. Um, they're our friends. Pidge is a famous vlogger slash computer engineer and Hunk runs a bakery up in the city." He has his hands in the pockets of his dark green jacket. "They're the ones who sent you some of those flowers."

"Oh."

"They're uh… kind of loud people, but they all really love you, y'know."

"...Okay."

Lance starts for the main door. "I'll go and get your stuff! If you want to lie down, the bedroom is the first door upstairs on the right." And then he's gone.

Keith looks around a little, noticing how there are pictures hung up all over the place. On the walls, the fireplace mantel, and on the tables. He goes up to the one closest to him, framed on the wall.

It's of him and Lance, seemingly at the beach, with Lance's arms around his shoulders and his lips puckered up, trying to give Keith a kiss on the cheek. He finds himself smiling at that picture, at the ridiculity of it. Especially at how he's laughing in the picture, trying to push Lance away.

There are more as he walks a bit further. He sees a group picture of roughly seven people, where him and Lance are in the center surrounded by a small person, a large man with kind eyes, Shiro, a man with a mustache, and a woman with long glorious white hair. They're all smiling and laughing, arms around each other and joy in their faces. It seems to be a birthday party, if the party hats, cake, and streamers mean anything.

Another picture besides it has more people that he doesn't know. Some of them look roughly familiar, and when he notices Lance in the picture that's when he realizes why. Everyone else in the photo is a family member and relative to the man, all of them having the same smiles and traits.

Something tugs at his chest.

He skims over the other pictures on the wall, seeing more of the people from the first photo and even more photos of him and Lance in various situations, from a skiing trip to a picnic at the park. Most of them are selfies, but there are a number others that were obviously taken by other people.

Reaching the fireplace mantel, he feels his chest grow cold at the first portrait frame.

He sees himself in a white tuxedo with black accents and a red tie, his hair groomed and slicked back while an aged woman wearing a pretty dress looks at him using blue eyes filled with so much warmth and compassion that he feels so undeserving of. His own face reflects the woman's emotions, though seemingly more evident than hers. He supposes he never learned how to hide his emotions properly in the past eight years.

The next picture is of him facing away from where the woman stood, looking at something from beyond the lenses. There's something strong in picture Keith's eyes that the living Keith can't quite decipher...

And on the center of the mantel, a frame larger than the rest sits as a landscape, the centerpiece of the exhibit. It depicts two men standing on an altar decorated in white, a priest in between them, and a crowd of people sitting on the seats, watching the ceremony.

Vaguely, Keith can see that it's him standing on the left on the altar.

His hands find the ring on his necklace, feeling the touch of the gold. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what this mantel is all about.

He realizes that he's not really breathing at the sight.

Looking at the other two pictures on the right of the mantel, he's not surprised to see that the picture directly beside the one of the altar is of Lance, also donning a white suit with a dark blue undershirt and a bowtie. His hair is groomed as well, and the smile on his face is aimed towards the picture that is the spotlight of the mantel—the one in the middle.

The last picture, the one at the far right, makes Keith smile, yet…

It's a mirror image of the picture of Keith with the woman, but now it's of Lance and Shiro, where Shiro has one hand on the brunet's shoulder and a proud smile on his face. Lance is grinning, wide and bright, his eyes shut together in blatant joy.

If Shiro is there with Lance, then… his guess was right. The woman that was in the picture with Keith is Lance's… mother.

Keith stands there by himself in front of the fireplace, feeling a mix of emotions that's dumbfounding him. All of this that he sees, from the refrigerator to the lighting fixtures and to the pictures hung everywhere… all of this, they don't exactly belong to him, do they?

They're the belongings of a Keith from a time he doesn't know, a Keith who is married and has a job, a Keith with a degree in his field of study, a Keith who actually has friends other than Shiro, and a Keith who belongs to a family so large, he would be surprised if he was able to remember all of them.

A Keith that feels so faraway, so distant.

A Keith that's a stranger.


The ring feels cold and foreign on his chest.


When Lance finds him there in the living room, carrying the bag with Keith's belongings and some of the flower baskets from the hospital, Keith notices that the other's eyes are reddish and puffy.

"Sorry I took so long." Lance laughs. "Mrs. Samson from next door caught me. There's almost no running from her when she wants to talk!"

Keith doubts that's what happened, but he doesn't ask.

The brunet, putting down the bag at the bottom of the staircase, notices what Keith has been looking at. His face flushes a little.

"Uh…" Lance starts. "That's… umm." He looks and sounds like a fifth grader who has to talk to his crush because he was dared by his friends. Cute.

Keith finds himself laughing a little. Mostly because of how amusing it is, seeing Lance gape like a fish out of water.

"Your mom is beautiful," he says. "I can see where you got your eyes from."

For a moment Lance looks startled. "Do you… remember her?"

Keith shakes his head. "No… It was just easy to figure out."

"Oh. I see."

Another silence. They stand there in awkwardness.

"Um, have you gone upstairs?" Lance asks.

Keith shakes his head again. He doesn't want to say he feels awkward in his own 'home'.

"Come on." Lance places the flower baskets on the dining room table and picks up Keith's duffel. "I'll show you around."

Lance starts up the stairs, and Keith follows him. It winds up to the second floor, opening to a landing that serves as second living room.

There's a TV here, attached to various gaming consoles that Keith does and doesn't recognize, and some beanbags for sitting. There are some magazines placed about, and a guitar on a stand in the corner. Keith wonders which among them plays.

Lance opens the room directly to their right, introducing him to the bedroom.

It's a little messy, but only because some clothes are haphazardly thrown around the floor. Other than that, it's pretty clean, especially with the white and beige colour scheme, accented by some other colours, and a lot of personal items here and there.

Lance places the bag at the foot of the king-sized bed.

Keith wonders if he's going to sleep here tonight with Lance.

...He'll figure that out when they get there.

Lance shows him the en suite, and the walk-in closet, and when they're done there, the brunet shows him his office—Keith has a goddamned office—which is laden with psychology books and papers of records and statistics. There's a computer on a desk in the center, and some seats, plus a long sofa by the side.

Lance is beside him throughout the entire tour as Keith takes his time inspecting everything, recognizing none of them but strangely knowing what they're for. There's a number of books in the shelves that attract his attention, but he decides to look at them later.

He feels something brush against his hand as he stares at one particularly thick book, and looks down to see Lance's fingers briefly touching his own. He looks at Lance's face, notices how hard the brunet's trying to look casual, and turns his head to look back at the books.

He lets their fingers touch a while longer.


Lance says he'll cook dinner for them today, and as they leave the second floor, Keith notices a room that Lance didn't show to him.

Curious, and with Lance all the way downstairs, Keith finds himself standing in front of the door. Slowly, he turns the doorknob.

It's locked.


That night, Lance tells him that Keith can sleep in the master, and that he can crash in the guest bedroom for a while.

Keith wants to say that he doesn't mind if Lance wants to sleep beside him, but the words don't come out of his mouth.

He can't fall asleep.


His next few days are quite… complicated. He takes sponge baths because of his cast, he notices that his eyesight is better now so he might not need glasses after all, he finds out that he was alone in his car when he lost control and crashed into a tree, he reads books that he's been told he's read before, he learns that he's a psychiatrist at the hospital he was admitted in (which explains why some of the doctors there wished him well), he goes to said hospital for his appointments with Shiro, and the pet cats that he and Lance have keeps him company while Lance is at work at the Balmera University

Lance apparently had left the cats with Hunk while Keith was hospitalized, and a day after he came home, he found himself affectionately attacked by a little munchkin with a red collar around her neck.

He's laughing as the cat with tiny feet climbs all over him, to the point where he needs Lance's help to get her off.

"Tron missed you." Lance laughs, hugging the restless cat in his arms. She's meowing and meowing, begging to be let go.

"Tron?"

"Yeah." Lance smirks. "And the maine coon is Vol."

Keith doesn't question their naming sense. Not yet anyways.


When the weekend comes, he's finally introduced to Pidge and Hunk. Or reintroduced, depending on the circumstances.

Pidge is a young woman with brown hair cut short and big round glasses, who immediately throws herself at him in loud tears, crying about how much he worried her when he was comatosed. Keith doesn't realize it from the pictures alone, but she's small in stature—almost like a little girl.

Hunk is big, with a smile that matches, and there are legitimate tears running down his cheeks as he carefully wraps his arms around Keith. His eyes are just as kind as the ones in the photos, and Keith feels like Hunk is that one silly mom friend everyone has. He even has some pastries he baked for Keith, which Keith finds are divine.

Needless to say they're jubilant to find that the flower baskets they gave him is being preserved.

Keith's kind of overwhelmed by all the attention he's getting from the two of them combined. He had expected this meeting to be awkward, but Pidge and Hunk make it impossible for it to be awkward. They would talk about what had happened while he was in the hospital, or things in a further past that Keith has no recollection of. Many times he finds himself looking at Lance for help, which Lance gladly provides by redirecting the conversation towards something else that could pique their interest.

By the end of the day, his cast is signed by two of the most cheerful people he now knows.


After dinner, he joins Lance on the sofa in the living room.

"Are they always like that?" he asks the brunet, referring to Pidge and Hunk. He fingers the little cat face drawn in green pen on his cast.

Lance only smirks. "Usually it's worse."

Keith groans, brows scrunched together at the thought of having to go through all of that again.

"Don't worry," Lance laughs. "You'll learn to love them."

Will I? Will I learn to love you?

Keith shakes his head. Tron the munchkin is rubbing against his legs, so he brings her up on his lap with one hand, petting her ear. "Do you have any movies we could watch tonight?"

Lance hums. "Well, there's this one movie that came out a year ago that you really loved."

"Ah, every fan's dream—to watch their favourite show again like it's their first time." He jests, a smirk on his face.

Lance looks at him and ruffles his hair, smiling. "I'll go get it then."

By the end of the movie—which he must admit, he actually really likes it a lot—Lance has his arm around Keith's shoulder, and Keith is leaning into Lance's chest, with Tron and Vol on their laps resting.

It feels so natural to be there in Lance's arms as they sleep.


There are good days and bad days.

There are days where Keith can look at the pictures in the hallways, on the tables, on the mantle and think, 'Oh, I'll remember soon. I'll get my memories back. These memories will be mine again.'

It's the few days he thinks he can cling onto hope.

Then there are the days where he doesn't want to leave the master bedroom's walk-in closet, because it's the only room in the house that doesn't have a picture. A picture that he doesn't remember. A scene that he can't recall. Touches and words that are lost to him, gone inside his mind.

Most of the time it happens while Lance is at work, and by the time he's home Keith would have gathered enough courage and strength to face him and the pictures and the unknown memories—but not today.

Today, Lance is home early. And he's still in the closet, with tears pouring out of his eyes, because all of those strange faces that he doesn't know, giving him—giving picture Keith—warm looks and kind eyes, it's all too much.

He's never imagined himself to be surrounded with that much compassion and affection. He's never thought that he'd even have a chance to taste it. And then one day he wakes up and people tell him that he's married to a kind and patient man, who has a large family that loves Keith like he has always been a part of them, with friends that love him just as much where they'll get worried when something happens to him, where he's the proud co-owner of a big house, and that he has a stable job.

It's just. He's so undeserving. He doesn't deserve any of this to just be given to him.

"Keith?" Lance's worried voice slips in through the closed door. Tron and Vol are meowing outside the door too, prohibited from entrance by Keith himself.

He doesn't answer Lance. He doesn't want to answer. But he knows that Lance knows he's in here, because the cats couldn't be any more obvious. The felines barely left him alone ever since they came back, especially Tron. Lance has probably already searched the rest of the house too. Keith heard him running earlier.

"Keith, baby?"

His breath hitches in his throat.

"I'm coming in. Okay?"

Keith only brings his knees closer to himself as the closet opens a crack, letting in some natural light from the sun outside to seep in. He doesn't dare move a muscle. He almost doesn't dare to breathe.

He doesn't see what kind of face Lance made when he saw him like this, but all he knows is that he's pulled into the other's chest for an embrace. Lance rocks him back and forth, shushing him and telling him that it's okay to let it all out, it's okay, it's okay.

Keith lets himself lean against Lance, lets his tears drop on Lance's shirt, lets the cats come in and curl around them, purring and meowing and bumping their noses against his toes to comfort.

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but when he wakes, he finds himself on the bed he's been struggling to sleep in for many nights now, with Lance on his right, holding onto his good hand tightly. Lance's other hand is caressing his hair, smoothing out the tangles and pulling gently at the strands.

He can see that Lance is also trying to be careful of his broken arm.

Keith stirs, alerting Lance that he's awake. Lance doesn't stop caressing his hair, but he does let go of Keith's hand to touch his cheek.

"Good morning, mullet head." Lance says, a hint of a smile in his voice. "We missed dinner, but if you're hungry I can cook something up real quick."

Keith blinks, rubbing one of his eyes. Did he really sleep for that long? Did Lance keep him company through it all? Did he really just spend his evening lying in bed with Keith, playing with his hair and holding onto his hand?

A warm feeling blossoms in Keith's chest, followed by something cold arising at the pit of his stomach.

Wait a second…

Keith makes a face, looking at Lance. "Did you just call me mullet head?"

Lance makes a face too, like a deer caught in headlights. He looks like there's something he wants to say, an explanation perhaps, but the words don't come out of his mouth.

Keith sighs. He moves himself closer to Lance. "Whatever. If you let me sleep a bit more, I'll let it slide. Then we can get some late dinner."

The brunet, astounded, grins and hugs Keith a little bit tighter with one arm.


The cast comes off. It's been four weeks and a couple of days. He's a little sad to see the green and yellow cats drawn by Pidge and Hunk go.

Shiro asks him how's life living with Lance. Keith says he doesn't know what to feel, because he can never lie to Shiro. Not ever.

Shiro only nods. He assigns Keith to physical therapy appointments and refers him to a doctor that can help him with his amnesia.

Lance is waiting for him outside, and when Keith waves at him with his healed arm, the grin that split Lance's face is blinding.

He's gathered up in a tight hug, no holds barred. Keith hugs him back, not as firm, but it's enough.

He still wears the ring around his neck.