Work Text:
What is he doing here?
Clear water coasts, foams up at the mossy pebbles. The bright, technicolor summer sky leaves no colors dull, and the world seems so real it's like a dream. His shirt sits on the rocks next to him to dry, although it was hardly wet the moment he stepped out of the water. Even the photographs on the small screen of his digital camera smell like heat.
It’s the smell of the beach, every summer beach around the world, home. But there's no sand underneath his fingertips, just pebbles. He misses the sand, but maybe he can like these Croatian beaches, too.
Lance hasn't seen much of Europe so far: The inside of an airport or two, a lot of roads, and the streets of Venice on a rainy day. And now, the pebbled beaches of Croatia, where the sun slowly melts away his regret over Venice and how great it could have been. There's not a lot of time to sulk when he has a species-rich environment to dive into and explore. And the Mediterranean is no Caribbean and no Great Barrier Reef, but Lance wouldn't have gone for a marine biology major if he didn't love every kind of ocean.
It's their first day at the beach in Croatia, and they're staying close to the town today, where lots of tourists are milling about in and out of the water. Still, striped fish and ctenophores and large gangly crabs inhabit the underwater, greet them as soon as they've put on their snorkeling gear. It's enough biodiversity to fill the afternoon at the lab, and Lance is smiling at the thought of discovering even more in his second turn. Until he lets his gaze drift over, where families have spread out their towels and beach toys, and kids are splashing and squealing in the shallow waters, and out there, swimming towards the open sea like he has somewhere to be, there's him. The way his hair curls around his neck is unfortunately unmistakeable, even if he's only seen it once before.
Venice had bid them farewell with a legit thunderstorm. They had already been waiting for the ferry to carry them over to Rovinj, but not five minutes out on the docks had the whole group soaked, and no ferry would set off with rumbling in the distance and the wind blowing gusts of rain over the city. Maybe if the day hadn't been chaotic and hectic and not at all as beautiful as Lance had envisioned it, and if they hadn't needed to catch the ferry to Croatia, he would have turned his face up to the open skies with a smile. But as it had been, he'd kept his eyes on the way ahead, on the glistening streets below his feet.
And then he had appeared out of the dark like some kind of thunder god. The clouds above the sea illuminated with lightning, blazing his face in sharp shadows. He'd been sopping wet, long hair plastered to his face, dwarfed by his backpack. And yet - and yet - he still looked like an apparition, like a deity, dark eyes like the storm itself, nose and lips and cheekbones carved from marble.
"Hey!"
Lance had called after the guy, perplexed by his appearance, familiar to him like a figure from an old dream. He turned around with pursed lips and furrowed eyebrows. Perfect, shiny lips and thick eyebrows. Maybe lightning had struck a grungy ad somewhere and brought a model to life.
"Where do you think you're going? That way there's only the ferries."
"Yeah? That's where I'm going."
His voice, rich and low, had stunned Lance, until his boots had vanished around the corner. He hadn't been on the next ferry with Lance and the group, so he'd assumed the guy had found another way. Or Lance had imagined him. Maybe gods didn’t need ferries.
But here, at the beach on the outskirts of Rovinj, the ridiculous thought strikes Lance that he had swum. There's something about people who know their way around water. Maybe it's a thing for Lance in particular, maybe it's a general rule, like how people are always hotter stepping out of a pool, with water droplets sliding down their frame and slick hair thrown over their shoulder. But hottest are those who dive in headfirst.
And this guy just has to take to the waves like a mermaid, slicing his way through the water as if he had a tail for legs. He's swimming back towards the shore, and it's not like Lance has anything to be jealous of when it comes to swimming, but he still has to avert his eyes. People from his half of the group are tugging on their snorkeling gear, so he grabs his shirt. Distracts himself. Lance doesn't need to test the hypothesis about people stepping out of water with this guy. He's been aware of the outcome of that test since he caught the first glimpse of his dark hair. And even though the guy substitutes a backpack and a shiny new DSLR for a personality, probably came to Europe to find himself and will leave nothing worthwhile behind, Lance is still going to dream of the cut of his jaw for his whole life. His sun-dry shirt is strangely stark from the saltwater, and he breathes in deeply as he tugs it over his head.
Someone shouts close by as his ears pull free. Disoriented, Lance looks over, and thunder guy is hasting into the water again. He doesn't even look ridiculous running in wet swim shoes. He makes it look good, like a hero in a fantasy movie on the way to save the kingdom, hair flying behind him. Everyone on the beach watches as he strides into the ocean and grabs an older tourist, heavyset and sunburn already settled on his shoulders, and goes eye to eye with him.
"What do you think you're doing?"
He's not shouting, but his voice still carries all the way over to Lance, low and dangerous. The tourist's words are unintelligible, stammering. There's something in his hand, large, beige and textured, and anger grips Lance's heart before he's fully understood what he's seeing. His teeth clench, and he takes a step closer. If this guy hadn't beaten him to it, he surely would've gone over there and given him a piece of his mind. He might still do it.
"Put it back."
"But-"
He doesn't need any more words to convince the tourist to put the penshell back. Because that's what it is, Lance is close enough now to see, has been walking closer without noticing, until he can see the glint in thunder guy's eyes, his eyebrows drawn in deep. No one would doubt he'd be able to kill a man with that look in his eyes, and his voice is similar, no room for disagreement.
"That one might be lost. But you'll remember to leave them where they belong in the future."
He makes his way back to the shore, and Lance is transfixed. There's no resentment anymore about the graceful way this man moves, about his Adonis body and his shiny hair, because he isn't the kind of person who destroys local environments unwittingly. He's the kind of person to hold others back from taking protected species out of their natural habitat, and that is probably the hottest thing about him so far.
Their eyes meet as someone calls Lance's name again. He can't move - because it might not be the first time he's seen these eyes, but it's the first time they're trained on him with such intensity. Before, even with the thunderstorm flaring in them, his eyes had been far-off, apathetic, like those of an absent god. Now, they glitter with the waves, and in his dark blue eyes, it's like the universe has decided to move all at once, called every star to arms and told them to care about something so small, so insignificant, like a penshell in the Adriatic sea.
"Lance!"
He can't look away. Something is passing between them, between the smile Lance is forcing onto his lips and the struck, blinking look on the guy's face. Is he going to come over there and talk to Lance?
"Lance, come on!"
Penshell guy looks away. Lance turns, spell broken. Someone from his group is already out in the water, and it's not like he has any reason not to join them. Thunder guy will still be there later, chilling on his beach towel with a novel, and Lance will go over and introduce himself, and find a real name to call him, because thunder guy doesn't cut it anymore. Lance smiles every time he sees a penshell underwater.
When Lance steps on the beach again, he's seen four more species of fish, collected two crabs, and dived for some sea cucumbers. But thunder guy - penshell guy - unfairly handsome environmentally conscious guy - isn't there anymore. Lance tells himself he's not disappointed, and that he doesn't remember the exact shade of his eyes.
-
It hasn’t even been a day, it hasn’t even been twelve hours, and yet it’s as if Lance has been looking for him for years. He never came back to the beach, not before Lance and his group had to leave, and he'd been distracted at the lab, distracted on the way back home, distracted while getting ready for going out. Rovinj is beautiful in the dark, too, heat lingering around houses that are colorful by day and still glowing by night. By the beach, a band is playing a small stage in an equally small festival. The others have dispersed already, drifting towards the alcohol or a bench or whatever else, and Lance makes his way over to the small crowd sway-dancing around the stage on his own.
He’s not here, but Lance can see him as if he was, turning around and smiling at him, taking Lance’s hand and weaving through the crowd with him, as if they had come there together, as if this was their holiday. It’s weird to think about someone like that when he doesn’t even know their name. But he can't help it, when it has been simmering since Venice, and it has him smiling and shivering in the mild Mediterranean night.
Someone bumps into him. Lance is so caught up in his fantasy that he doesn’t notice the stain on his shirt, the wetness sinking through to his skin, until the other person apologizes, and their voice is rich and low and unforgettable.
It’s him. His night sky eyes, widening in recognition, are as unmistakable as his hair. The guy repeats his apology, reaches for Lance's shirt before he's said anything. He doesn’t have a napkin or anything else to wipe the stain, but Lance doesn’t even care.
“What’s your name?” Lance asks, breathless, frantic - but he doesn't want to call him guy anymore.
He smiles, and lets Lance’s shirt go, where he hasn’t made much progress anyway. It’s a small smile, but it changes him, changes Lance’s perception of him, again, but he doesn’t know yet what exactly has shifted.
“Keith,” he says, “what’s yours?”
Keith and Lance wander away from the festival, towards the part of the beach where they can still hear the music faintly, but not so many lights interfere with the stars above. It’s time for the Pleiades - Keith knows more about the stars than about the ocean. Lance's heart beats double time at that, because nose turned to the sky, beach whispering at their feet, they're still far apart but so much closer than before.
“I would almost doubt you could swim over here in that thunderstorm.”
It's supposed to be silent, a thought, but Keith's eyes snap to him, confused.
“What?”
“Uh, from Venice? When you walked out of that alleyway all drenched and…”
He trails off at the confused look on Keith’s face. He knows he's not really making sense, and in all honesty, he's not sure if it was a joke or his imagination interfering with reality.
“What? I thought we met this morning at the beach.”
Keith's eyebrows are drawn together, and there's nothing about him that betrays insincerity. It's not a joke, but Lance wants to laugh. All this time, he'd been thinking they were on the same page, animosity turning into something like admiration, like fondness. But their meeting in Venice hadn't been that important to Keith at all. His stomach hollows. They really have nothing in common apart from this night.
“You know, when I was reprimanding that guy and you were… putting fish in buckets?”
Keith's voice is cautious. That night in Venice, Keith had been too aggravating to forget, like an annoying turning point in Lance’s life. Now, neither drenched by a violent thunderstorm, dark strands of hair clinging to his cheeks, nor wet and dripping, just in shorts, rising up from the ocean, he looks almost like a normal person. There’s still something about him, a glint in his eyes that Lance thinks might have lured him in anyway, but it’s blink-and-miss. Even if Keith doesn’t remember Lance as some vengeful apparition rising up from the rainy mists of Venice, he can swallow the bile for a conversation about the ocean. So, he smiles, and talks about the ocean.
“We were collecting specimen. To study later, in the lab, and to catalogue. I’m a marine biology student.”
Keith’s eyes light up. He doesn’t need to say anything for Lance to continue talking, he loves talking about his major. And Keith loves listening - still that glint in his eyes, a singular focus trained on Lance, and he preens under it.
“So, what about you? Why were you so dead-set on saving the penshell from that guy?”
Lance leans forward, curious, because Keith doesn’t seem like he has any background in marine biology, but there has to be something about the ocean important to him. Keith averts his eyes and crosses his arms.
“I just like saving things, I guess. Things that have no chance of protecting themselves from ignorant people.”
Keith meets his gaze tentatively, from behind his bangs. The night sky has nothing on him. The meteor shower tonight is happening in his gaze. I get it, Lance wants to say, me too - but he’s choked up, as if this already is too much to reveal, as if they’re speaking about something else than shells in the sea at a tourist beach. But Keith holds his gaze, and he doesn’t need to say the words aloud anymore.
Behind them, a particularly bright shooting star streaks the sky in brilliant white. Keith turns to it, and Lance watches as his profile changes, dipped in light and then shadow again. There’s a furrow in his brow when he faces Lance.
“Wait… I do remember you.”
Keith takes a pause, wets his lips. Lance stares.
“From Venice. You were there, in the rain, right? On the way to the ferries.”
Lance nods, and Keith’s face parts around a smile, the complete antithesis to how he had looked that day in the thunderstorm.
“Did you ask me if I swam over here earlier? Seriously?”
He’s laughing. It’s a beautiful sound but unchained, almost wild with a gravelly edge. Lance joins in, and their laughter rings out over the beach. His eyes water, and from behind the sheen of tears, the sky and the sea blend together, until there’s just them and the beach and the dark blue unknown beyond. Keith’s shoulder bumps against Lance’s. He’s still laughing, eyes squeezed shut, and something about him glows from the inside, ebbs and flows. And it’s easy, natural, rolling in like the tide. Keith is not a thunder god. He’s a shooting star blazing his way through the sky and Lance can’t help but stare in wonder and wish, wish, wish.
“I didn’t swim, Lance,” Keith says after he’s wiped the tears from his eyes. “I took the same ferry you did.”
“Really?”
“I remember you from the ferry, more than from the city. The sky after the thunderstorm just -”
Keith breaks off, bites his lip and looks down. But Lance knows what he was going to say: His mother always compared his eyes to the late afternoon sky after a heavy, cleansing storm, too. So maybe he’s not a thunderstorm or a shooting star for Keith. But he’s something, something to bite lips over and keep inside.
Lance smiles, and in a glimpse of fate, it’s like he can see the future, gleaming on the horizon between the sea and the sky. His heart beats with the truth of it, and the gently crashing waves, the falling stars above, agree with him.
Before they part, Keith takes his hand and shakes it. He doesn’t even look at him, mumbles his goodbye, and disappears around a corner. Lance crinkles the paper left in his hand when his fingers cramp. Back in his room, he smooths it and finds a hastily scrawled online name.
He’s sitting with his forehead pressed against the trembling windowpane of a bus again. That night still thrums in him. It’s a chilly sea breeze on a warm night and the waves crashing, a low voice, gentle fingertips, and the memory lulls him to sleep even with his heart thumping and aching. His phone vibrates, short, just once: kkogane is following you back now.
He’ll see the notification in the morning and think maybe there’s no other half for him, no missing piece. But maybe there’s someone who’ll meet him in the middle.