It's only 11:00, and Lance is already falling asleep. His head droops onto his desk, a sheet of paper sticking to the drool on his cheek. His eyes are half-lidded as he lets the world go blurry. Never again, he chants in his mind. No more playing Killbot Phantasm until midnight.
The bell lets out a shrill shriek, and Lance groans. A dull headache throbs on the sides of his cranium, but he grits his teeth and lifts his head up. His whole body is dead weight as he gets out of his seat and ambles to the door. Is this what being a zombie feels like?
"Man, you look like shit," Pidge states bluntly when Lance falls into his seat at lunch.
"Pidge, language!" Hunk chides, scandalized.
"Nope, she's right. I feel like it too." Lance grunts, face already pressed against the table.
"You, didn't stay up late playing video games again, did you?" Hunk pressures, lecturing creeping into his tone.
"Get off my back, mom," Lance mutters from between the gaps in his arms.
"Lance, you're in high school now. You can't fool around anymore."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Lance wills his vision to fade away as he squeezes his eyes shut. The clamor of conversations sinks under the fatigue that hugs him like a warm blanket. Slowly, he loosens his grip on his gnawing worries and lets himself be enveloped by the warmth as it claims him...
"Lance!" Pidge hisses in his ear.
"Whattttt?" He moans, rolling his head away.
"Someone's here to see you."
"What?" Lance straightens, rubbing the painful sting of exhaustion from his eyes.
Pidge points behind him. Lance whirls around, and there, seen through the door window on the precipice of entering, is Keith, eyes darting around as if unsure of where to land.
It was if someone had shot caffeine straight into Lance's bloodstream. He stumbles backwards out of his seat, nearly cracking his head open on the floor as he flails his arms to balance himself. "He must be here to return my jacket!" Slight panic flashes in his eyes as he dashes to the door.
Keith shrinks back as Lance bursts through the door, banging it shut behind him. Lance is outside, scrunching up his nose as the front of wind greets him, drenching every inch of his skin in numbness. He rubs circles on his arms and plasters a grin onto his face as he shifts his attention to Keith. "Hi again!" he wheezes as cheerfully as he can muster.
Keith rivets his eyes on him and Lance takes in his appearance. He's still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, jacket and all. His mop of hair is disheveled, and he's left a white crescent on top of his blue-tinged lips from biting down so hard.
Something is thrown in Lance's direction, shaking his attention. It bumps off of Lance, and he fumbles trying to catch it. He scans the object. It's his jacket.
"Sorry," Keith's voice came out silvery soft, almost quiet enough to be mistaken for a sigh.
Lance's eyebrows ascend. "What do you have to be sorry for?" He muses, subdued.
Keith's mouth opens wordlessly, then clamps shut. He shifts his weight in place as if to take a step forward. He's poised, hesitant. Lost. Lance recognizes the expression all too often in himself.
He breaks the space and the tension strung between them by moving to Keith's side. He cocks his head, catching Keith's unwavering gaze, and gives him a lopsided smile. "Hey, you were freezing and I wanted to help," he assures, "It's what friends would do."
Keith searches Lance's face, his deep twilight eyes in fixed contemplation. Lance observes how much shorter he is than him; Keith has to tilt his head up to meet Lance's eyes. Yet the intensity of his stare is piercing, and Lance realizes with a jolt why it is called eye contact.
"...friends?" Keith says it bleakly, with a touch of somber and smothered hope, as if he didn't believe Lance was telling the truth.
Lance nods once, firm and resolute. "Friends." He rolls his shoulders back and lets out a chuckle. "I mean, once you lend someone your jacket, you move past acquaintances, right?"
Keith flicks a stray lock of hair out of his face. His eyebrows bunch up and lips twitch downwards.
Lance mentally face-palms. Obviously Keith did not get the joke. Oh well.
He tosses the jacket back to Keith, who catches it, eyes widening. "Keep it!" Lance decides. "You need it more than I do."
Keith grips the sleeves in his fists, winding the rest of the jacket around his arms like a string around a yo-yo. He clasps the material close to his chest and glances back at Lance, who gives him a thumbs-up.
"Uh...ok! So, see you tomorrow, Keith! Bye!" Lance salutes a wave, backwards-walking to the door. He cracks it open, sneaks one more last glimpse of Keith, who's gingerly sliding his arms through the sleeves, and slips back inside.
Despite the frigidity of the weather, Lance's chest feels rather warm. As his skin begins to thaw upon entering the heated building, Lance thinks maybe he did something right for once in his life.
Or...maybe not. Lance feels like repeatedly pounding his head against the wall. At least it would be better than listening to his mother's tirade.
"Perdiste tu abrigo?! Sabías cuánto cuesta eso?! Qué voy a hacer contigo, hijo?!" His mother's shouts ring in his ears and feel like shrapnel.
"Mamá! I told you, ok?! Yesterday I thought I had just misplaced it, but I...checked the lost-and-found today and it wasn't there! I'm-Lo siento, ok?!" Lance retorts, cheeks flushing an angry red.
"Hijo... Money is tight, con todos sus hermanos y hermanas, I cannot afford to pay such expenses." She wearies, exasperated. "Debes ser más responsable."
"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Lance throws up his hands. He hates it whenever the word responsible is used. As if he didn't have enough pressure already. "Look, you don't have to spend anything, I'll buy myself a new coat this week."
His mother pinches the bridge of her nose. "You better."
Lance trudges up the stairs to his room, almost crashing into his younger brothers Alejandro and Caleb who dart past him, screaming and waving action figures at each other. When he finally reaches the landing, he slips into his room, kicks his backpack into a corner, and proceeds to flop onto his bed.
Rolling onto his back, he stares upwards at his ceiling. His room is painted true blue, and peeling video game posters hang crooked on his walls. A night sky of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars spread across his ceiling, and he fixates on the largest one, sighing.
What was he doing, really? Lying there, bleary-eyed, ignoring the mounting pile of homework in his backpack. Stuck in the same cycle of just living.
Qué voy a hacer contigo...What am I going to do with you?
Lance doesn't even know what to do with himself.
His eyes start to drift closed, and he lets it, welcomes the dark unconsciousness. He'll face reality when he wakes up. His thoughts start to drift, swirl and collapse upon themselves in supernovas and nervous cycles. He's already dreading facing reality, and the what ifs spiral even as he loses his grip on comprehending them.
As Lance's breaths become heavy and deep, voices rise and fall with his chest. He clings to them admidst the flurry, and his thoughts fade with the words imprinted into his mind.
Friends?
Friends.
A/N I only know limited Spanish, so sorry if I messed anything up.
