#I know there’s those actual pressing machine thingies but I just use an old manual lmaoo

[darkmacademia]

How do you keep your flowers so well preserved

I actually don’t know! I don’t do anything special, I just press them for a few weeks between some pages of some books, then store them between a Manila folder. I’m sure there’s a special way to preserve them better but it seems to be working for me 👀 🌸

[amillionsmiles]

your hair was long when we first met (Pidge/Lance)

Summary: Pidge’s hair grows with the seasons. So do Lance’s feelings. A/N: feelings are hard, kids. written while listening to “No Promises” on repeat so that kind of explains the last scene, I guess. Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

[Read and review over on Ao3] or continue under the cut.

FALL

*

Lance takes a sip of his coffee and immediately regrets it, the liquid scalding his tongue.  His fault—his mug is programmed to alert him of the temperature of its contents, but sometimes he gets too lazy to look at the status bar and decides to risk it the good old fashioned way instead.

The door of the break room opens and Amara enters, blouse perfectly pressed as always.

“Hey,” she greets.

“Hi, Amara.” Lance lifts his mug in acknowledgement.

Amara moves toward the coffee machine, starting it up with a steady whir.  Over the noise, she congratulates: “Good job on bringing in the top numbers again this month.”

Lance smiles, one shoulder pulling higher than the other as he shrugs.  “What can I say? I’m competitive.” He remembers the Garrison, waiting for sim score postings with bated breath.  The very first time he and Keith raced in their Lions, neck and neck.

“You’re going out with us tonight, right? We’re having a mixer with the tech team.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Lance winks, and it feels good, to be on top of his game again, to receive Amara’s answering smile and see her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

Somebody else enters the break room.

“Oh, good, Lance, you’re here.”

Pidge.

He stands a little straighter.  Over Pidge’s shoulder, Amara wiggles her fingers in goodbye, slipping out through the door.  

“What’s up?”

Pidge walks toward him, a data pad clutched in her hands.  “I need a second opinion.  We just had one of our technical writers redo the user manual, but I still want to make sure that it’s not too, you know, science jargon-y.  And you’ve always been good at picking out that stuff…”  She sets the tablet on the counter, swiping to bring up the file; Lance twists to his side, leaning over her shoulder to get a look.  It’s muscle memory, this position—they might as well be poring over battle plans or a holographic projection of a planet.

His eyes swim at some of the paragraphs.  Oh, god, what am I getting myself into— “I could take a look at it over the weekend,” he offers.

Pidge blinks up at him.  “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, no big deal.  Just send me a copy.”    

“Already done.” Pidge brightens, typing in his work email, the data transmitted with a satisfying swish, and it’s comfortable, like this.  Friends who trust each other’s opinions, coworkers who pick each other’s brains.  Teammates.

Lance glances down at the lid of his mug, tries for nonchalant.  “Hey, are you going to the mixer thingy tonight?”

“At Jolie’s?” Jolie’s, the bar just a few blocks away from their work, with the atmospheric blue glass lights and the karaoke stage for when you’re too many drinks in and feel like serenading the whole world with your feelings.  Sales team already has bets going on who will be the first to drunkenly volunteer; currently, the majority favors Jeremy.

“Yeah.”

Pidge considers.  “Probably.  Are you?”

“You know me. Like I could turn down a party,” says Lance, nudging her.

She cracks a smile.  “I’ll see you tonight, then.  And thanks for looking over the manual, seriously.  I owe you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I need somebody’s account hacked.”

“I don’t do that anymore, Lance!” Pidge protests, punching his arm.  Before he can react, she’s by the exit.  He has half a mind to feign injury, if only to prolong their interaction for a few more seconds.

Instead, Lance raises his mug to his lips, taking a long sip.    

His arm throbs.  The coffee slides down his throat: still warm.

*

“Lance! You’re late!”

“Fashionably, I hope,” says Lance, shrugging out of his jacket as he follows Amara toward the bar.  The lights cast everyone in a dark red glow, and for a second he’s back in Red’s cockpit, weaving through space.  His coworkers spin toward him and away like dizzy stars.

Amara leaves his side, drawn by the noise coming from the pool table in the back corner.  Lance orders a glass of scotch, then looks down the bar to see Pidge perched on a stool, dragging her index finger absentmindedly around the sugar-encrusted rim of her drink.  Lemon Drop. Sweet with a dose of sour—classic Pidge.

“So, you come here often?”

She looks up, features relaxing when she recognizes him.  “I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to show.”

“That boring without me, huh.”

“Actually, no, it’s been pretty entertaining.  You missed Eric getting frisky on the dance floor.”

“Aw, man, seriously?” Lance mourns.  “Please tell me you got a recording.”

“Obviously.” Pidge shoots him one of her secretive little smirks.  “I can’t pass up prime blackmail material.”

“So you haven’t left behind your old ways after all.”

“I like having a lot of information at my fingertips,” Pidge justifies, and Lance thinks of the files she’d kept on their team, categorizing strengths and weaknesses.  When he’d first found out, he’d felt a little betrayed; it hurt to think that someone close to him could pick him apart like that, lay him bare on a page.  But he’d come to learn that it was Pidge’s way of caring: a constellation of data points that she drew close to herself, as comfort.  They existed in the flesh, but also as facts and figures—indisputable, something nobody could take away.

Over on the karaoke stage, Jeremy has finally taken the microphone, launching into some ballad from ages ago: I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you—

Lance bumps Pidge’s shoulder.  “I challenge you to a duet.”

She scoffs.  “Please, I’m way too sober.”

“We can fix that.”

Pidge finishes her drink, turning toward him. When she meets his gaze, her eyes are bright with challenge, and Lance lets himself tip a little closer to her gravity.  The pieces will fall where they may.

*

Three hours later finds him standing on the curb, waving his goodbyes.  A warm pleasantness sits in his chest, muscles relaxed.

“I had fun today.”

Lance turns, startled to find Pidge taller than usual.  A glance downwards reveals that she’s wearing a pair of black pumps; it’s the first time he’s noticed them this whole night, and the thought does something funny to his stomach.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Pidge shifts from foot to foot.  Lance resists the urge to smile, already anticipating the next nervous stream of words: “I mean, I like everyone, obviously, I wouldn’t be here otherwise, but you know me, it takes a lot of time for me to really get comfortable and open up and… it was just easier, with you around.”

Don’t read into it, Lance.

“How’d you get here?” he deflects.

“Took the rail link.”

“Yeah, you should probably call a ride to get back instead.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Pidge grumbles, reaching for the clasp of her purse, and Lance remembers the first time they got drunk together.  It’d been after a diplomatic banquet on some planet with two moons. Gathered in the Castle’s lounge, passing around a bottle that was leagues better than nunvill, Hunk had teased Pidge about being the only one of them that had yet to reach drinking age, which set off another argument about laws in space until Pidge said, “Who’s gonna arrest me, the space police?” and grabbed the flask from Lance’s hand.  Which was how Lance learned that, while he and Shiro got affectionate and Keith got contemplative (Hunk, too, but in a more incessantly questioning kind of way), drunk Pidge became grumpy and then sleepy.

The car pulls up.  Lance opens the door for Pidge, watching her slide into the backseat.  “Text me when you’re home safe, I’ll see you on Monday—”

“Lance.” Pidge’s voice is quiet, the barest trace of vulnerability underneath; and that’s bad, because the last time Pidge was vulnerable around him, Lance fucked everything up.  “I want… I want you to see my place.”

He shouldn’t. Bad idea. But Lance has another weakness to add to Pidge’s ongoing list, after all these years: pent-up regret and zero resistance to a certain pair of beseeching brown eyes.

“Okay,” he says, and gets in the car.

*

Pidge is half-asleep when they finally arrive at her apartment building.  Lance leaves the car door open behind him for her to squeeze out of, turning his attention toward trying to guess which of the windows above them is hers.

“Fuck.”

He whirls around.  “Pi—Katie,” he catches himself at the last second, “are you okay?”  

Pidge balances on her left foot, heels clutched in one hand, the other one rubbing her right ankle.  “I’m fine, I just—what are you doing?”

“Come on, I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”

“Lance, the door isn’t that far, and there’s an elevator once we get inside—”

“Are you really going to turn down a free piggyback ride?”

“All right, fine,” Pidge sighs, sliding her arms around his neck.  Lance hooks his arms under her legs, rising slowly to adjust to the weight.  Nobody bats an eye at them when they enter the lobby.  In the elevator, Pidge reaches over his shoulder to press the button for her floor, and her hair brushes against the side of his face, giving him a whiff of her shampoo.  Coconut.

Several minutes later, he stands in the middle of her living room.  Pidge is dozing off again, breath puffing warmly against his neck, and Lance keeps the moment to himself, soaking in his surroundings.  Half-assembled 3D puzzle on the coffee table, a fuzzy blanket thrown over the arm of the couch.  Over in the kitchenette, magnets from the local planetarium adorn the fridge.

Gingerly, Lance navigates through the darkness.  With his foot, he nudges the bedroom door open, the mattress squeaking gently when he sits down on its edge.  He deposits Pidge as slowly as he can, careful not to crush her when he leans back—she makes a soft noise as she untangles from him, stretching out on the bed.  And it’s like one of those tragic Greek myths; he’s Orpheus, unable to stop himself from looking over his shoulder.

Pidge is curled away from him, toward the wall.  Her hair has grown well past her shoulders, now; Lance wonders if she plans on letting it reach mid-back.

His job is done here.  He’s seen whatever it is Pidge wanted him to see.  Turning around, Lance starts to leave.

A tug on the back of his shirt stops him.        

“Wait.”

Pidge might as well have turned an ice cannon on him, for what it does to his body.  Lance swallows.  “I have to go.”

“I know,” Pidge says, and he can hear her body dragging across the sheets, curving toward him.  “Thanks for bringing me home,” she mumbles, words laced with sleep.  “I had fun today.”

“You said that earlier already.”

“That’s not… I meant…” She makes an impatient noise, expelling air through her nose.  Lance can’t help snorting in return; even when drunk, Pidge’s mind moves too fast to pin down.

“I was nervous about tonight,” Pidge finally confesses.  “I was worried things might be weird.”

“Oh.”

“But hanging out with you was… normal.  So I guess that means I must be over it.”

“Over it,” Lance echoes.

“Yeah.”  She sounds relaxed.  Happy, even—like a weight has been lifted.

Lance should be happy, too.

“Whatever it was between us, I don’t care anymore, I just—I just want us to be friends.”

There’s a spot of chipped paint on the wall across from them, right below the light switch.  Indistinguishable to most other people, especially with the room as dark as it is right now, but Lance has always had a marksman’s eye.  He should have seen this coming, probably.  And he can do this: bite the bullet, keep the truth lodged in his chest, no exit wound.

“Yeah,” he says softly, proud of the steadiness of his voice.  “Me, too.” 

*     

“Oh, hey, Allura—ha!” In the split second that Lance spared to glance over his shoulder, Pidge swept his legs out from under him, knocking him flat on his rear.

“Hey!” Lance protested.  “Misdirection! Dirty move!”

“Oldest trick in the book,” said Pidge, beaming smugly.  She pointed her staff at his chest.  “You lose.”

“All right, fine.” Lance dropped his own staff in a gesture of surrender, showing his palms.  He held a hand out.  “Help me up?”

She rolled her eyes but reached down to wrap her fingers around his, grip firm.

Too easy.

Lance tugged.

Down went Pidge, a crash of limbs.  Her elbow caught his side and Lance cursed, wheezing: “Ow, fuck, my ribs—”

“Language,” mocked Pidge.

“Who are you to talk about language, you’ve got the dirtiest mouth out of all of us—”  But that thought cut short, because said mouth was now hovering only a few inches away from his.

In hindsight, perhaps this hadn’t been the greatest idea.

“Lance?” Some of Pidge’s hair had come free of her ponytail, curling in wispy clouds around her face.  She’d decided not to cut it and it hung midway down her back, now.  Lance was prone to tugging it on occasion, just to bother her.  (“Why don’t you ever do that to Allura?” “Because Allura would kill me.” “What, and you think I wouldn’t?” “‘Course not, you’d miss me too much.”)

He swallowed.  What were those lines from Legally Blonde?  “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy.”  That was what this was, probably.  Despite his better judgment, he reached up, tucking one of the loose strands behind Pidge’s ear.  Something had been knocked out of him, in his fall—he took a breath but it didn’t quite fill his lungs.

“Right here.”

Here, in the slowly shrinking space between them—and then their mouths were touching, Pidge’s lips soft and slightly chapped against his, and this wasn’t a moment he’d dreamt of but his hands moved of their own accord, found the tie in her hair and pulled it free, gently, tresses spilling through the gaps between his fingers, Pidge pushing down on him until it felt like he’d sink straight through the floor—

Oh, god.  They were on the floor. Of the training room. Where anyone could walk in—

“Pidge, wait.” Lance broke away, even more winded than before.  “What are we doing?”

She blinked at him.  Color was rising to her cheeks, but her voice remained remarkably level as she said: “I thought it was pretty obvious.”

“No, I meant,” he propped himself up on an elbow, gesturing between them with a finger, “this.”

Pidge sat back on her heels. Wary.  “I like you, Lance.”

It should have been a no-brainer, after what had just occurred between them, but Lance still felt as if he’d been clobbered over the head.  It must have seeped into his expression, because Pidge scowled.

“You don’t have to look so surprised.  Objectively, you’re not… you’re not bad-looking, and you get me differently from the others, and you make me laugh, so really, out of everyone on the ship—”

And there were the words he’d been dreading.

“Don’t say that.”

“Say what?” Pidge frowned.

“You said: ‘Out of everyone on the ship.’  That’s settling. That’s talking like we’re never going to get back to Earth.”

Pidge’s eyes widened.  “Lance, that’s not what I mean.”

“Think about it.  We’ve been up here for what, four years?  Spending time with the same company day in and day out, it might just be—” He made a halfhearted motion with his hand.  “Cabin pressure?  Stir craziness?  Things get a little weird but that doesn’t—that doesn’t make me the one.”

“What makes you so sure you aren’t?” Pidge’s voice had gone dangerously quiet.

“I just—” He didn’t know why he was sabotaging himself like this.  He’d been chasing a relationship for so long, it felt, and now here it was, literally in his lap.  But the words came anyway: “What about all the places you haven’t been yet, and all the people you haven’t met?  I don’t want that to get forfeited for… me.”

“Lance.” Pidge’s fingers dug into the cloth of his shirt, just above his heart. “It doesn’t have to be this whole future planned out.  What about right now?”  Her eyes bore into his.  “Right here?”

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe people could have more than one love, over a lifetime.  If anything, Lance believed in an abundance of affection.  But something had shifted, and he didn’t know how to tell Pidge that he couldn’t talk about a here and now without wanting the promise of a future, and the yearning split him in two, because if— when —they got back to Earth, they’d probably be going after different things.  A sadness overtook him, for something he hadn’t even lost yet.

Pidge mistook his silence for disagreement.

“You could just tell me, you know,” she said lowly.  “If you don’t feel the same.”

And with that, she stood up.  Her weight lifted from his chest.

He didn’t breathe any easier.

Long-range fighting had always been Lance’s strength, and he understood it better, now.  It messed you up so much more when you could see the hurt you inflicted up close.  He could fix this—a few words and they’d be back on track, the misunderstanding smoothed over—but maybe it was for the best, to quit while they were ahead.  To manage the hurt while they were still Lance and Pidge and not Lance-and-Pidge.  They were going to get back to Earth, eventually, and she would go to her mom and he would find his way back to Varadero so didn’t it make sense, to not make any promises?

He didn’t want to be responsible for holding anyone back.

The training room doors slid shut.